<prompt> Human: A little bit of back ground...Passive redditor using a new account: 35 yr old male, married with a child, living in the NYC metro area; we just bought our first house and have a mortgage of about 390k remaining - monthly mortgage of 2,800. My wife I combined make 200kyr before taxes; we have 190k in 401k, but other than that we are pretty much living pay check to paycheck. We do not have any other loans.What can we do to get out of the pay check to pay check scenario and start saving for our daughters education and retirement?  <response>: I have a feeling you wont even be able to make a budget right now though, because you have no clue where your money is going. So my recommendation in the next two months before you try to do any budgeting at all is to simply track every single expense you have. Every dollar, ever tip at the restaurant, should be tracked. Either do it manually by hand recording every transaction, do it manually by looking at your credit card transaction list at the end of the month, or use a service link Mint.com to automatically track expenses. YNAB is highly recommended software to help you manually track them.Come back here in two months with an exact number for your monthly take home income and a list of how much you spent monthly average in categories like these : Bills Utilities internet, water, electriciy Home Mortgage, property tax, home insurance, HOACondo Fees home supplies, furnishings, repairs Food with subcategories for groceries and fastfoodsnacks and restaurants Entertainment includes alcohol, movies, games, etc etc Shopping Clothes, books, diapers, etc etc etc Transportation car payments, insurance, gasAnd we might be able to help you. The only weapon you have to wield in saving for retirement, college, or towards your mortgage is surplus income. The size of this weapon is the difference between your income and your expenses. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, you either need more income or less expenses. 