Penny For My Thoughts

So with the million “Recent College graduate” posts cluttering the personal finance blogosphere, I thought I’d hit upon my big confusion when I graduated-something I believe the kids who use LOLspeak would call “I has a paycheck, what do I do wif it?”  I mean, I knew I had student loans to pay, credit card debt to pay, and I wanted to save a little.  So I sat around and came up with things I knew were expenses, as well as things I wanted to save for:
Expenses:
1.  Visa card #1
2.  Visa card #2
3.  Student loan #1
4.  Student loan #2 (due to a medical leave I took my junior year, I had already used up my grace period on my loans, and did not want to defer my loans if I did not need to do so).

Things I wanted to save for:
1.  General emergency fund
2.  Move out fund
3.  Travel
4.  Roth IRA

So, I figured I’d pay myself first, or at least see what that looked like (I didn’t want to get into the trap of paying myself first at the expense of racking up debt).  So I set up the following scale:
General Emergency fund-10% of net pay
Move out fund-1/3 net pay
Travel fund-5% net pay
Roth IRA funding-10% net pay

I ran the numbers out of my substitute teaching/temping paychecks, and found out I would have enough if I paid one bill a week.  This worked out well for me.

One thing I will caution recent college graduates, is not to fall into the trap of “I’m getting a job, so I can charge x/y/z.”  Is it horrible to charge some start up costs?  No, not ideal, but not horrible..  But don’t put extras on your credit cards.