| General Financial Advice Needed |
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Mich
New Poster
Cash: $ 0.45
Posts: 2
Joined: 26 May 2011
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| General Financial Advice Needed |
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I'm getting ready to potentially rent an apartment with a friend. For the last 9 months I've been living with my step brother, paying $300 a month for a room and trying to put away the rest. The situation is not ideal though, him and his wife have a young child that screams constantly and keeps me up at night. Not to mention moving there has made my commute to work about 15 minutes longer, making my total driving 1 hour each way now.
Currently I'm 27, I have about 2k worth of debt, 12k in savings, and my current bills are:
Rent: $300
Car Insurance: $160
Cell Phone: $100
Groceries: $100
Gas: $120
The place I'm considering moving to, would cut my commute to 30 minutes as well as the mileage. After looking around we're expecting to pay around $800-$900 for rent. Utilities is unknown at this point. I have no plans for cable T.V., just internet. So around $400-$450 before utilities. I take home about $1540 per month at my job with health and dental.
I am however looking to switch jobs as I'm not happy with my pay or lack of raises in the last 3 years. Based on my current earnings, I'm just wondering if this is a wise choice financially. I do think I'll be happier living in the city, and the place we'd be moving to is actually a nice cultural area.
If I add everything up, it looks like with my current job I'd be spending 1/2 my monthly income on Bills, then another $180 for Food and Gas. Doing a rough estimate, I'd guess about $620 each month leftover. My car insurance should continue to drop, so that will help a little.
Just looking for general advice on my current situation. Whether I'd be stretching myself too much. Any help is appreciated!
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Thu May 26, 2011 1:30 pm |
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kecook09
New Member
Cash: $ 1.05
Posts: 5
Joined: 24 May 2011
Location: Syracuse, NY
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I noticed that you said you're paying $100 for a cell phone. This seems pretty expensive to me. Is it a smart phone with a data plan? If that is the case, you may want to consider not getting internet access at your new apartment, as you would be paying for it twice (phone and apartment). Additionally, you should figure that utilities will cost anywhere from 100-200 per month depending on where you live and what you use. You should be ok though given what you earn. My wife and I lived in an apartment for a year that was $700/month, and the only income we had was her substitute teaching pay which was $85/day, and very very unreliable. We made it work for a year and actually saved money. We didn't have "cable" as most know it. What we did is we called the cable company and told them we wanted the most basic package they had, essentially local stations and PBS. This got us 12 channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS and a few others) for $5/month. You read that right, 12 channels for $5. The only issue is, if you're a sports fan, no ESPN (which as of a few years ago, meant no Monday Night Football). I think you can make this work. Good luck to you.
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Thu May 26, 2011 2:28 pm |
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oldguy
Senior Member
Cash: $ 751.85
Posts: 3656
Joined: 21 May 2006
Location: arizona
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Sounds like a good move, as Coaster says, write your agreement on a note and sign it, who paid the security deposit, how much, and so on. You'll be surprised how memory fades in 2 or 3 yrs, if your roommate has to move away, you'll have to remember who owes who for the deposit.
And it's rough living with relatives as you get into adulthood - so even w/o the screaming baby, moving out would be the right thing to do.
Why not use some of your savings to clear your cc loans? You're probably paying 12% to borrow $2000 and getting only 1% back in a savings account, so you are losing 11% on the $2000.
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Thu May 26, 2011 5:26 pm |
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Mich
New Poster
Cash: $ 0.45
Posts: 2
Joined: 26 May 2011
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Thanks for the replies!
I know the $100 cell phone is an unnecessary expense. I use it a lot though, and might have a hard time giving it up. I've considered giving it up before, but can never bring myself to do it. I've got the $10 Netflix streaming plan and I'm good with Torrents, so I should be ok without Cable 
I will definitely have some sort of agreement draw up. The last time I moved in a place, our Landlord had all (3) of us sign the lease and were equally responsible for our part of the total rent as well as the deposit. I'm hoping this will be the same way, but I'll have to wait and see.
I definitely want to clear out my CC loan. I should mention that this is a charge-off unfortunately (long story), so I need to call a collector and work out some sort of negotiation. The damage has been done at this point, but it is something I want to take care of.
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Sun May 29, 2011 2:53 pm |
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