I need financial advice please I’m 21 my husband is 23. He’s works I’m in college and I don’t work. My dad died when I was 19. He left me an inheritance which I used to buy/pay off my house and car. So I’m debt free in those areas and my husband is a plumber so he owed nothing since he didn’t go to college. Well I’m in college so far I have $8,000 in student loans (will obviously get higher I have around 2 years left) we have no savings account at all because we have been impulsive spenders and want to stop. His job offers all benefits BESIDES a 401k plan. So we have no money saved for retirement which we want. We have a bad habit of spending but after a long talk last night we don’t want to be this way we want to be debt free and have savings.

Ok so here is what I got so far. He makes $20/hr right now. After taxes are taken out at minimum his check is $640/week. So minimum $2,560/month... He usually works overtime but I’m gonna go with the minimum. All bills combined (utilities, groceries, gas, health/home/car insurance etc) is $1,722/month that also includes pet food, some fun money etc. So at minimum we still have $838 left at the end of the month. We usually blow it 🤦🏻‍♀️ But we don’t want to live that way anymore.

OKAY. So here are our goals:

• Pay off credit card ($200)

• Pay off medical bills ($500)

• Pay off student loans ($8,000 but this is growing I have 2 years left of college)

So in debt we owe $8,700 so far ...

then we want to ...

• Open ROTH IRA start investing money for future (his company offers no 401k plan so I guess this is our next bet bet?)

• Save 3 month minimum emergency fund Incase of job loss (we want to have around $7,500 in savings)

So our question, we are getting our tax return (last years was only around $1,200 I guess this year will be the same) where should that go? Where should I start? Should we start tackling the smaller bills first? Putting money into savings? Start paying student loans? How much should we put into our IRA? I should also add my husband is a plumber and when he takes his next test his boss guaranteed him a $10/hr raise. Which he will be eligible to take next year. Idk if that matters so next year we will have more to be able to help pay this all off.

Our goal is to be completely debt free in at the least 3 years and have minimum 3 month of emergency fund saved up. After that he wants to open a plumbing company so that’s why we want to start now so when we take a loan out for that we will have no other debt. Is this possible to pay it all off on his salary by 3 years? I will also be working as soon as I’m done with college so 2 years. In which order should we pay all these?

I know this is a lot. I’m sorry, My dad was always good with money and I wish I would have gotten advice from him more. My mom isn’t, and we really just have no adults in our life who are so we just want to make the right financial decisions now so it’ll make our future easier because we do eventually want kids as well. Thanks