Expense Priority

[missbabyL]

K..so ive posted before that im $10,000 in debt and i got all your tips on how to get out of it! thanks by the way.

here's my next question. sure we all have to save for retirement, and those of us that live on your own, pay for rent and gas and food but what gets priority when your income is limited?

if you had X amount of dollars, what percentage of X would you use to pay for these following items of priority if they were your non negotiable expenses? (by non-negotiable i mean- food is negotiable, cable and cell phone IS negotiable. ie: i dont have cable and i traded in my cell for a pager)

rent
RRSP (thats retirement savings in canada)
car- maintenance (like a belt that is starting to crack), oil changes etc
visa
mastercard (owe third most)
line of credit (owe the most)
one more mastercard (owe second most)

[missbabyL]

I mean that these are alll things that HAVE to get paid on a monthly basis.

thanks guys!

[pisces2473]

If you don't pay rent, you're gonna get evicted! So pay that first...then the car, unless you have reliable public transportation near you. As for the other things...I'm not sure...

[midtwenty]

You have to pay rent, or you live on the street. You have to have some money for food or you go hungry. Outside of that, you get rid of EVERYTHING that is non-essential. That means: cell phone (subjective, since you may have a long commute or something; even so, cut your bill as much as possible), cable, internet service, new clothes, eating out...EVERYTHING that isn't required to meet your basic needs of shelter and food. Have some money in savings for emergencies, but you DO NOT TOUCH IT. Then you pour every dime you can get your hands on into paying off that debt. Your A-#1 top priority is paying off that debt!!! I cannot stress that enough. Right now, you cannot afford luxuries like cable tv and dinner out every Friday night. When your debt is eliminated, you can think about allowing yourself some of those luxuries again, but even then you can't go hog-wild or you'll end up right back where you started. Once your debt is taken care of, then you need to turn your attention to building your savings and planning for retirement. You can't build a future when you're in the hole.

The word of the day is: conservative. Pretend every dime is your last and spend it the right way. It will suck. I won't even try to snow you on that. It's gonna suck bad until you get out from under the debt. But it will be SO worth it.

[coll214]

Rent is first and foremost, car if you have no other way to get around if that fails, and then pay off the credit as much as possible. Are they all at the same rate? if they are i'd start by concentrating on the one you owe the least, the quicker you get rid of it the more you'll feel you've accomplished something. I'd pay as much as possible on that one, and the minimums on the rest. Once you've paid that one off, concentrate on the second, and so forth. If the rates are different, concentrate on highest card first... And for now, put just a little for the retirement, you'll be able to concentrate on that better once you're debt is gone...