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I'm 24 years old, 2 years and a few months out of school with a mountain of student debt (most is not in my name, but it's there and needs to be paid), ok salary at a good job. Thanks to my student loan payments I break about even on a monthly basis. Recently I lost my whole emergency fund and I feel like I'm treading water right now. I have very little in the bank, so I'm basically starting from scratch. I have a fairly good credit score and pay all my bills/CCs on time in full.
Because of this recent financial disaster I had to endure, I'm starting to take a greater interest in micromanaging my personal finances. I've set up my profile and budgeting on mint.com and I'm excited to start closely scrutinizing my spending habits.
What sort of books/advice/websites are out there for someone in my position? I want to learn how to sensibly and realistically be aggressive with paying off my car/student loans while starting to build my own finances. Now is the time that I want to start setting the framework that will let me be well off when I'm in my 40's (hopefully the student loans will be paid off by then!).
EDIT ADD: Notice I didn't post this in the Frugal Living forum. I'm certainly interested in living more frugally, but I don't want to hear 829304328543942340 people tell me I'm wasting money by not growing my own organic garden or that I should be living in an RV.
Some good books I've read -- Jane Bryant Quinns Making the Most of Your Money. If you get hold of an older copy, the numbers are too small, but the advice is sound. Jane Bryant Quinn
The Wealthy Barber. Easy to read and understand -- really just a blueprint of what you need to do and set up.
And The Tightwad Gazette. Amy Dacyczyn does a lot of things that I wouldn't do (And a lot that I do) but she's creative as hell, and she has some really great mind set thinking in it. I'm rereading this now, and it's giving me the jumpstart to get back into some black belt frugality.
And when you want to get into the nuts and bolts of investing, Motley Fool and Morningstar are both good places to start to learn. And remember to take the quiz on how much risk you can handle in investing. I can't imagine as a young person you couldn't just jam everything into aggressive growth stocks, but if you can't sleep at night over that....it's not for you.
1st step is to get your emergency fund fully funded again.
I'm 31 and have been living with this type of mindset since I started working. It's really paid off and I'm now on step 6. Step 5 I skipped over as I'm single without kids.
I didn't even know about that program when I started saving, but it's a good blue print. I haven't signed up for the program or paid any money into it, I just think it's a good game plan. Good luck to you!
1st step is to get your emergency fund fully funded again.
Dave Ramsey seems to have a good blueprint, but $1000 in emergency funds just seems way too little for me. I just got cleaned out to the tune of $5k thanks to this financial episode. My student loan debts are pretty large and will take many years to repay. I simply wouldn't be comfortable having only $1k in the bank for all those years . . .
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