<prompt> Human: Im going to preface this with one thing I have never had money before. I grew up in a household where you didnt always have shoes or electricity. So to me,having enough money to pay your rent meant you were doing good.I remarried last October. My husband works as a cook and made around 500 a week net normally,has been getting more like 400 lately because of winter slow down.I work taking care of disabled adults and my check should be about 550 gross but I work a ton of overtime. Lately Ive been consistently getting 25 hours of overtime every week which brings my pay up to almost 1100 for the week. Sometimes I get more overtime. I havent worked less than 48 hours since I started,but generally I get at least 56hrs,and for over 2 months Ive been getting 65 to 70.I get paid biweekly,he is weekly. Approx 250 is deducted out of my check for health insurance for the family. Rent is 1200.We pay 60 each after taxes for our phone service. Approx 70 Internet and 75 electricity but obv that can vary a tad. We each have a credit card with a low balance and about 30 bill each monthly. This was meant to help us repair our credit after our divorces,where we were left pretty screwed. We do not smoke or drink. We do use a laundrymat right now but are looking at used washers to buy to do laundry at home. Laundrymat is like 30wkUntil this month we were paying a lot of other bills but paid them all off.We each have student loans and have to work out new repayment plans,and Im looking at buying a new used care bc my van is dying and I need it for work.Coming up June,Ill be eligible for my work retirement plan. It said it does 1.5 but I dont know much about how retirement plans work.Im 27,my husband is 31 and we have 4 kids between us none together,from previous marriage. My ex is supposed to pay 500 child support but is 4 months behind so I havent had that income.I really want to work on-Improving credit so we can buy a modest home for our kids.Saving reasonably for our retirementCreating a nest egg. I am not good naturally at saving bc i never had anything to save.Im looking for advice on budgeting, creating a savings plan etc. Im not naturally good at this and Im finding it so overwhelming I cant start. Being poor my whole childhood etc has made it hard for me to make good long term financial plans because I have no experience with them.  <response>: Here is one way you start. This is standard advice from me. Other people will give you different advice, but all of us are trying to help; take what you can from each reply. Some of what follows wont apply, much is pertinent to your situation:You must track all of your spending. All of it.Base your budget on what you need to spend, not on your income.What do you spend each month for these categories and any others that you can think of? You can guess, but it is much better if you actually track expenses for several months, especially for the variable categories like food or gasolinepetrol. rent food -- in two parts: groceries for home, food out restaurants, coffee shops Internet Netflix household items Scotch tape, thumbtacks, etc eyeglasses if you wear them Look at zennioptical.com for inexpensive glasses cable phone landline, cell car repair averaged for the year car insurance renter insurance life or medical insurance parking gym membership haircuts fuel for the month driver license vehicle registration clothing replacement laundry andor dry cleaning car repair for the past year incidental purchases the coffee at the convenience store tips at restaurants etc etc etc.THEN think about income and debt.For income, you want to know your average monthly take-home pay. So if youre paid once a month, thats easy to know. But suppose youre paid weekly. Then multiply your weekly take-home pay by 52 and divide by 12.For example, take home of 400 a week x 52 weeks 20,800 divided by 12 1,733 a month.The other way is to multiply weekly pay by 4.3, the average number of weeks in a month. In this example, 400 x 4.3 1,720 a month. Close enough to use either method. Now lets look at debt.List all debts separately, with the amount owing, the monthly payment, and the interest rate. For exampleDebt Amount APR PaymentCC 1 3,000 14.7 200 CC 2 4,050 21.6 125After you have done all that, you should have a much better idea of the current financial situation. You know your expenses, you know your monthly debt payments, you know your income. Do the math. Now you know how much is available for other things.Assume that the necessary expenses add up to 1,000, and the debt to 325. So theres 1,325 taken away from 1720, leaving about 400. If your objective is to reduce the debt to zero, lets add 200 a month to the debt with either the lowest balance snowball method or the highest interest avalanche method -- whichever seems better suited to your situation and your psychology.While you do this, you should do two more things about the debt. First, do not reduce the amount you pay on the other debts from where they are this month. If you can afford to pay x this month, and if youve measured your expenses correctly, then you can afford x next month and the month after that, and so on. if you cant afford x, try to reduce the debt at least a little, by paying more than the minimum each month, even by a few dollars.Second, stop adding to your debt. Put the credit cards away, dont take out more loans. Go on a strictly cash basis. Dont buy what you cant pay for from the surplus, the difference between budget and income.The other 200 could be partly play money, partly long-term saving, partly building up an emergency fund. If you find that there isnt a surplus, you have two options: Increase income second job, sell off unneeded stuff, sell plasma Decrease expenses reduce Internet cost, eliminate restaurant meals, limit vacations or vacation spending, reduce grocery cost by changing eating habits -- this doesnt mean starveAs I said, some of this isnt your issue, but much is. Good luck with this. 