New Beginnings
Back when I was about to start college, I got my first credit card. I remember the feeling. It felt so powerful having what I interpreted as money in my hand. My credit limit; a whopping $1000. Up until that point in my life, I had never encountered having such an amount. I had mostly worked 10-15 hours max at my part time job at the movie theater ($6.75 per hour) so having that credit card really made me feel empowered.
I was a smart kid at the time, but I definitely didn’t understand the concept of debt and how it could impact my life. I was fortunate enough to get an academic scholarship to study electrical engineering, but that did not stop meme from getting every single student loan that was offered to me. If $1000 made me feel powerful, imagine how I felt when I was taking almost $10000 per year in student loans!
Now, a good portion of that money went to covering books, food and housing, but how do you stop an 18-21 year old from splurging on concerts, nice tech and the latest and greatest phone. Suffice it to say, but pretty soon, I was graduating with $30k in school debt, and $4k in credit card debt. It was around this time I started to think that maybe continuing on like this would not result in a nice financial future.
How do I start budgeting?
- Figure out how much you make
- Figure out how much you need to live
- Figure out how much is leftover
I had just started my first job that required me to move all the way across the country to Bloomington Indiana. The job came with a relocation bonus which covered the majority of the relocation but I still had to worry about my school debt and credit card debt which I was only paying interest at the time.
Luckily, a new coworker of mine mentioned that his uncle dealt in Financial advising and he recommended that I visit his website which at the time was called; iwasbrokenowimnot.com
I thought this was great because it felt like I was starting at the same point that his uncle once did, broke.