<prompt> Human: Im a recent college graduate and I have a decent paying job for the first time in my life. I have credit card debt and school loans that all want a piece of my income and I honestly have no idea how to keep it all straight. I make enough that Ive been able to wing it so far, but my apparent inability to figure this out on my own is introducing a lot of stress into my life. I know I have the capability to become financially independent, I just dont know how.Ive tried using services like Mint and You Need A Budget but there is just so many different optionscapabilities I dont know how to sit down and actually analyze my spending. A couple things I would like to do is set out a budget for essentials. Things like gas, groceries, personal care, pet care, etc... get my credit card paid off and pay off my student loans. Putting it into a list like that seems really simple, but moving money around isnt my strong suit. I just need to know what I can do to learn. Where do I even start from?As requested, here is a little more info on my current state of financesMy Info:Credit Card Debt: 3100 APR 18.99School Loans: 2500 3 14000 6Income: 2200monthAssistant: Forget about setting a budget for a second and just get used to tracking and monitoring your expenses.First, start with something really high level, just the mandatory expenses rent, bills utilities, CC and loan minimum payments, etc Take a typical month and add all that up.Then add up your take home income for the month. Subtract the mandatory expenses from your income. The rest is theoretically how much you have to feed yourself, entertain yourself, get yourself from place to place gas, subway whatever or pay extra towards your debt.Now you can figure out exactly where your money is going. I use mint for this, once you get in the groove of tagging everything, Mint learns from your tags and starts auto tagging stuff. Start with the simple broad categories, Food, bills, travel, etc. Dont worry about nitpicking sub categories, just get a loose handle on your money. Once you get that done you should start getting a good idea of where all of your money is going, and you can refine from there as you get more comfortable with int and Mint starts learning what all your purchases relate to. You can also set rules up to tag certain purchases automatically.Once you know where you spend money, you can come up with a budget and start to get things under control and into the positive.Human: The thing that confuses me here is that I dont have that great of a memory, so when Im going through what Ive spent, I dont always recognize what that specific purchase even was. Lots of small purchases here and there, like getting groceries a couple items at a time. The store will show up several times in my purchases and I dont remember what was groceries and what was Entertainment as they often come from the same store.  <response>: Spend a few minutes every day then, or save receipts. Honestly if you dont put in the time to figure it out, it isnt going to magically fix itself.And if you cant remember exactly what you bought, just broadly categorize the store. If youre spending too much money, it doesnt matter if youre spending it on food or entertainment, you cant afford to spend that much. 