<prompt> Human: I graduated in May 2014 with 32,000 in student loans. I started my job making 67,000 as a software engineer the following month. At this point, I didnt really know how to budget and honestly didnt care. I had a lot more money than I was used to, so I bought myself a bunch of toys and ate out a TON. By eating out a ton, I mean I would eat out twice a day and also sometimes buy snacks at the convenience store. I was averaging around 25-30 on food per day. I didnt realize this until I found rpersonalfinance in November 2014. I read up on budgeting and decided to figure out my monthly expenses out of curiosity. EXPENSES June 2014-Dec 2014: Rent: 375 my share w 2 roommates Utilities: 98 my share w 2 roommates Fuel: 80 Food: 800 Internet: 24 my share w 2 roommates Cell phone: 125 Verizon Gym: 78 Various subscriptions: 88 FiveFourClub, Netflix, STARZ, Complete Nutrition Entertainment: 200-500 this changed month to monthThrough conversations with peers and posts I had seen here in PF, I realized I was overpaying for my cell phone bill and paying way too much for food each month. I also decided I could probably live without all those subscriptions I kept Netflix and lower my spending on entertainment each month. So I decided I had to start paying attention to my spending and ended up creating a budget that I thought I could live with. I also decided I needed to start paying off my student loans as the 6 month grace period was almost up.New Budget Jan 2015-present: Rent: 375 Utilities: 98 Fuel: 80 Food: 340 started cooking 95 of my meals, still went out once or twice on weekends Internet: 17 threatened to move to Google Fiber so they reduced bill to 17 Cell phone: 75 threatened to move to a different carrier so they reduced my bill to 75 Gym: 78 this is expensive but I gotta keep my gainz Various subscriptions: 9 Netflix Entertainment: 100-200 Student Loan: 332 autopayEvery bit of money I saved by following this new budget went to my student loans. Today, I paid off the final 3,000. I have rpersonalfinance to thank. Reading posts here each day kept me motivated to pay my loans off as soon as I could. If I hadnt found this subreddit, Id probably still be paying the minimum monthly payment. I hope my story can help motivate others as your stories motivated me.  <response>: Your salary and student loan debt are very similar to mine but I graduated in 2015. Hoping to have a similar post in about a little over a year. Congrats and good job! 