My Money Life: Meet Alex

Hey, I'm Alex. As Pete's newest employee, I have the unique opportunity of sharing my financial journey with all of you. My hope is there are many of you out there in the same stage of life as me, or at least facing the same situations. By sharing my experiences, struggles, and decisions hopefully you can get a different perspective on your financial life. My commitment to you is to be candid and honest, I won't be sugarcoating anything. I'll be taking you through the financial decisions I will have to make, the different options available to me, my thoughts and decision, and how it ended up. An example of this would be buying a car, which as you'll see below is coming up soon, should I buy cheap, lease, or finance it? Then, after I decide, how has it affected me?

To get started, I've gone through and listed some of my essential stats and obligations for you. This is my starting point after graduating college just six weeks ago. A year from now we'll be able to look back and see what kind of progress has been made, and I hope you'll share your financial progress with me as well.

Stats and figures

- Student Loans $29,500

- Current Savings $3,400

- Current Checking Account $350

Net worth $25,750

Current Goals

1. Pay my student loans in 3 years

2. Don't have to take out a loan for car

Here are a couple other things which will affect my financial life. I'm living at home, most likely until the end of the year, to help me save up and pay off my student loans (and because my mom is an A+ cook). This will help me save on not only rent and some utilities, but on food costs. I will most likely have to buy a car within the next three months. Until then my parents are generously letting me borrow a family car. The office where I work is just a five minute drive from home, which will be great to keep my transportation costs low. I will be responsible for all gas expenses and some oil changes for the car as well. Thanks to Obamacare I won't have to pay health insurance until I turn 26 or get married. I will be saving for retirement immediately, allocating 10% to my 401k plan.

I'll be back every other Thursday with updates on my financial life, stay tuned!