Advice on budget, financial..

[Starry436]

Hi everyone. I'm looking for some advice on things we could be doing to better ourselves financially. My fiance and I live together, we're 22, and this is currently our budget:

Rent: 800
Utilities: 215
Water: 80 (due every 2 mo.)
Car Pmyt: 350
Car Ins: 190
Total: $1635
Gas: $320 for 2 vehicles
Food: $45/week = $180. Then one big grocery/supplies trip a month = $250. Total = $430
Misc: $300 (Est. on high end)
Overall Total: $2,685.00

That is all we have. No credit cards or any other loans other than I do have student loans but they aren't in repayment for another 2 years - about $9k in so far. I am a student working part time, and my fiance works full time. Our monthly income after taxes is approx. $3,920.00. Out of the $1,235 left over, we've been saving about $300-$400. My fiance has a 401k, I do not. Our current savings is about $7,000. We recently just took on paying our own car insurance and believe we may have the deductibles set to low? They are set at $250 for both of our vehicles for collision and comprehensive - we may raise this to $500 as we feel we could pay that out of pocket if needed.

What advice do you have on making ourselves better financially stable? We were looking at paying as much extra as possible on the one car we still owe on in order to get it gone.

Thanks

[bjl584]

Definitely pay off the car. How much is the loan? What type of car is it? How many more years do you have on the loan?

Beware of the student loans, as interest is probably accruing on them. You may want to start paying on them now.

You should both start Roth Ira's and begin contributing to them. Especially you since you don't have a 401K.

I'd say that you need to double your cash holdings to $14000. That will make your emergency fund fully funded.

For the rest, I'd look at ways to trim expenses. The grocery bill seems high for instance.

[disneysteve]

Out of the $1,235 left over, we've been saving about $300-$400.

And where is the other $800-900 going?

[Starry436]

^It's going nowhere ...just sitting in our accounts. I agree that the grocery bill seems high, but we've tried cutting there and it doesn't seem to help much. We usually treat ourselves to one nice meal on the weekends and that mainly makes up the $45/week. Then the grocery/supplies bill is when we stock up on everything we need to get us through. My fiance is working sometimes 7 days a week, so he packs his lunches mostly. Then we also have 3 pets to buy for.

We actually just bought the car. We were planning to pay double the payment in order to eliminate it faster. We originally wanted to do 48 months, but ended up doing 72 in case of a really tight situation. We knew we were going to pay double the payment either way. My fiance had no credit, and I had 1 thing on mine this is our first and last new car. No, we absolutely didn't need it but we wanted it as the one nice luxury thing we have right now and we spent a lot of time thinking before we jumped the gun on it..sounds crazy, but we want to be stable while still being able to enjoy life with some of the things we want.

Only one of my student loans is accruing interest, and it is only for $1,750 I believe.

I'd like to see if paying $700 month of the car sounds feasible, or sounds drowning..from a far it looks like we can do it and still be ok.

[YLTL_Dan]

No offense to you, but at 22 years old and still in college accuring loans, you don't deserve luxuries such as a new car... having that kind of attitude now will make you broke your whole life. That being said, I did the same thing when I graduated from college . Before I knew it, I was $50k in debt.

I'd be leary of combining finances until you guys are married. You can continue saving money in your separate accounts with the goal of paying off the debt when you're married, but I'd wait until then to combine.

Also, raising your deductible to $500 is a good idea since you have sufficient savings to cover it. I have mine jacked up to $1,000 and calculated it would pay for itself in 2-3 years as long as I had no claims (which it already has).

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Yes the $700 a month sounds doable. When are you getting married? I would definite start saving in a Roth IRA for each of you.

Is the car in both people's names? I worry about not being married as well. It can go so wrong so fast. I did just as stupid, and so did so many of my friends. Combining finances before marriage. Sigh.

[woodie96]

I'm guessing that the interest on the car loan is higher than the interest that is accruing on the SLs, so that is the route I would go also.
Your savings at 7K looks good as is, so I would concentrate on the car and then the SL.