Young and Married
Laura and Henry are young married couple with no children. Laura works at a call center making $10 an hour. Her annual income is $20,800 before taxes. Henry works at a hospital making $20 an hour. His annual income is $41,600 before taxes, but he can work overtime if he chooses. They take home about $3500 per month after taxes. Laura has a high school diploma and is 20 credits away from an Associate’s degree. Henry has a college diploma.

Expenses:

Rent $1500
Car Loan $350
Student Loans (Henry) $125 minimum payment
Student Loans (Laura) $75 minimum payment
Utilities $200
Cell Phones/Internet/Cable $180
Groceries $300
Eating Out $250
Misc $700
All credit cards $500 minimum monthly payments

Debts:

Laura Student Loan: $4000 at 5%
Henry Student Loan: $2000 at 11%
Car Loan $18000 at 8%
CC #1 $1500 at 18%
CC#2 $2500 at 14%
CC#3 $7890 at 21%
CC#4 $3000 at 19%

1. What do you think Laura and Henry’s goals should be? ● Housing- maybe downsizing to something more affordable ●Eating out- they could pack lunch for work and eat more at home to save money ●Extras- get rid of anything that is not a necessity like cable ●Credit Cards- only use them in an emergency ●Schooling- better pay ●Henry should be working all the extra hours that he can handle to get their bills paid down

2. What steps can they take to reach these goals? ● The first thing