I need help

[Gus]

I am a 17 year old guy who loves money but don't know how to balance it! I need to put my responsibilities first but I don't know how to do it.
I have:
$400.00/3 months Car Insurance
$50.00/month Phone Bill
$40.00/month Piano
$30.00/month subscriptions and such.
I get $6.25 and hour for my job and I get paid every 2 weeks.

I NEED SERIOUS HELP SO I DON'T END UP WITH DEPT BY THE TIME I AM 20!
Got any advice?

[FrugalIII]

My suggestions would be:
1. Stay away from credit cards, use cash or debit card
2. Get the Quicken program and start using it. That has helped me tremendously for the last 12 years.
3. Save as much as you possibly can (10% rule at a minimum)

[gackle]

How many hours/week do you work?

[Gus]

...

it varies some times I get 20 hours for on week and then it gets up to 30 hours IF IM LUCKY!

[Ima saver]

Make sure you put away $67 every pay period for your insurance payment.

[Coleroo]

How many hours do you work? Full time?

IF you work 40 hrs per week, at your rate, I would estimate you are probably bringing home roughly $380 every two weeks? Thats $760 per month.

Your expenses break down comes to roughly $254 a month. What is happening to the other $500??

I am 24 and have been working since I was 14. I didnt start saving until I was 22. If i had to do it all over again at your age I would throw ALL i could towards savings! You will jumpstart your life tremendously if you can do that! I would suggest doing a 1/3 approach - 1/3 of your income to bills, 1/3 to spendable money (cuz whats the fun of being a teenager if you dont get to spend at least some money?!) and then 1/3 to savings. If you can handle a smaller amount of spending money, do so and send the rest to savings. What you have right now going for you is TIME. TIME is your best friend when it comes to saving and you need to get in the habit right NOW. Please dont wait until later. I could kick myself in the butt over and over when I think of alllllllll the money I let slip through my fingers - thousands and thousands of dollars that I blew on clothes that I no longer wear, electronics that are now broken and god knows what else. I didnt keep a bit of it.. not one little cent - all I have to show for it is the memory of working so hard during a time when I should have been enjoying my teen years (after school sports, extracurricular stuff, etc).

Also, you will not appreciate this till you get older - but right now you have less responsibility than you ever will as grown person. The older you get, the more bills & responsibility you will take on, and the less freedom you will have with your money. There may even come a time when you WANT desparately to save, but you do not have the freedom to do so because of car payments, mortgage, insurance, child care, diapers, food bills, etc. You have that FREEDOM now to save.... do so!!!

Oh and do NOT get into using credit. If I could go back to when I was 18 and receiving my first credit card (which I was soooooo proud to get then) I would slap myself - Im sick of the credit card trap now. Once you get yourself into using debt you become trapped. DONT let it happen to you!

[Coleroo]

sorry the other post came in as I was typing up my response - i see now you only work 20 hrs per week... that cuts your monthly in half to about 380. That still leaves you with over 100 bucks a month in free money. You can still save with that!

[Coleroo]

Also... can you cut back on your phone bill any? Perhaps join under your parents (my phone only costs 9.99 a month under my parents family plan). Granted Im not a heavy user (200-300 mins a month) but it works for me!

Have you shopped around for car insurance? I know teen boys are usually very expensive so 1600 a year already sounds cheap, but you still may be able to shave a little off of that as well.

[disneysteve]

$30.00/month subscriptions and such.

Can you explain what this consists of?

[Gus]

......

Ok I just got my first paycheck because I just started this new job. And I only worked 12.44 hours for the 2 weeks. I got 67.00 what do you think i should split this up and possibly still have some spending money on like gas and such? I do beleave I am going to get rid of my subscriptions for now. Like Movie & Game mags, stuff like that. So yea I think I am going to have to say goodbye to my lovely subscriptions. My phone bill is like 50.00 because I talk and txt 2 much. I have unlimited txt: 20.00 per month and phone itself 10.00/month and the extra minutes I need for myself an extra 20.00 so yea.... I can't really live without those things so. Also I kinda owe the back 30.00 for overdrawing a lil bit.... (IM A BAAAAD BOY!!!) so yea what can I do????? OOOOH YEA! I am also going away for the week of july 2 sooo spending money??? LOL I AM IN SUCH A DILEMA! My parents said they shopped around for car insurance but...

OOOH and seeing what my parents have to go through like credit soo bad they had to file bankrupsy I hope I never do get into credit!

[Coleroo]

Ok I just got my first paycheck because I just started this new job. And I only worked 12.44 hours for the 2 weeks. I got 67.00 what do you think i should split this up and possibly still have some spending money on like gas and such? I do beleave I am going to get rid of my subscriptions for now. Like Movie & Game mags, stuff like that. So yea I think I am going to have to say goodbye to my lovely subscriptions. My phone bill is like 50.00 because I talk and txt 2 much. I have unlimited txt: 20.00 per month and phone itself 10.00/month and the extra minutes I need for myself an extra 20.00 so yea.... I can't really live without those things so. Also I kinda owe the back 30.00 for overdrawing a lil bit.... (IM A BAAAAD BOY!!!) so yea what can I do????? OOOOH YEA! I am also going away for the week of july 2 sooo spending money??? LOL I AM IN SUCH A DILEMA! My parents said they shopped around for car insurance but...

OOOH and seeing what my parents have to go through like credit soo bad they had to file bankrupsy I hope I never do get into credit!

I think you have too many bills for your current age and income - you're already in a form of debt by having so many responsibilities and not enough money to pay for it. Either you need to work more hours or give up the other things (piano, all subscriptions, and the phone). Sometimes a dollar will only stretch so far.

I would also recommend going to the library and picking up books on basic budgeting, and get some DVD's about personal finance. The "Standard Deviants" group has a great dvd for young people (do a google for it or look it up on netflix if you know someone with a subscription).

[disneysteve]

I only worked 12.44 hours for the 2 weeks. I got 67.00

I do beleave I am going to get rid of my subscriptions for now. Like Movie & Game mags, stuff like that.

My phone bill is like 50.00 because I talk and txt 2 much. I have unlimited txt: 20.00 per month and phone itself 10.00/month and the extra minutes I need for myself an extra 20.00 so yea.... I can't really live without those things

You can't really live without unlimited texting?!? You need to get real. I'm 42 years old and earn a 6-figure income and have never sent a text message in my life. Believe it or not, texting is not a necessity of life. Stop doing it now. Call you cell phone provider and turn off your texting service. You don't need it and, more importantly, you can't afford it.

$30/month for magazine subscriptions is insane on your limited income. You need to cut those out too.

You listed about $254 in montly expenses. For 2 weeks, you earned $67. At that rate, you'd be short by about $90/month. Hopefully, your income will be higher on a regular basis. But bottom line is you really need to cut your spending and/or increase your income.

By the way, I think it is terrific that you care about this at your age! Now is the time to form good habits and learn to live below your means and save for the future. Unfortunately, it sounds like your parents didn't set a very good example for you to learn from. Just hang out here, ask lots of questions, read lots of advice and learn from those who have gone through the same thing. We were all there at one time or another.

[Gus]

....

OK 30.00 in expences are no longer! I have that taken care of it....

[LuxLiving]

Read here & at youneedabudget.com. You can do a zero based budget on a scrap of paper until you get some ahead. For now, with expenses coming up you need to listen to Ima and put that $67 back for the bill you KNOW is coming up.

Thirds is always great - PAST (bills), PRESENT (current living expenses) and FUTURE (savings).

Some do a 10/10/20/60 plan.

10% tithe
10% savings
20% bills/debts
60% current living

(But anymore 10% isn't enough for savings as there is a need for retirement savings as well.) Play around with the percentages.

You are in the right place!

[boefixepa]

Hang in there, you will figure it out. My parents also set a poor example for me and it took me until I was almost 30 to figure out I had to do things differently....so you are way ahead of the game!!

If you can't get more hours at your current job, look at picking up a second job over the summer. With two part time jobs you should be able to stash some money away for when school kicks back in and you can only work one job. This is what I did and it really helped.

Other then that it looks like you are starting to figure things out.