<prompt> Human: Ok so right to it. I make 396 a week without O.T. Im currently looking for a better job but being fresh out of school I took what I could get. I have 2 main payments my car payment 249 my insurance 88. Both of those are monthly. I currently do not have to pay rent but I am often finding myself broke! I know I am a compulsive buyer. How do I stop this? I want to save up live on my own. I have financial goals like owning my own house one day and a dog. I dont want to try to pursue those things though being financially irresponsible.  <response>: 396 x 4 you make 1,584mo or 19,008year.You spend 2988year on your car.You spend 1058year on your insurance.Based on what you told us: after your recurring bills, you spend 4046year on those bills. Based on what you told us: after your monthly bills, you should have 1247, leftover each month. You should have 14,962 leftover. But thats why youre here. Are you 100 sure you dont pay for cell phone, netflix, healthcare, etc?Biggest thing is awareness. Dont overplay the budgeting buckets. Keep it something simple like: Gas, Food, Other. You know what you spend money on, so lets say you go and buy coffee every morning, then you may want to look on your online banking, and add up the past month or so. Lets say you spend 150 on coffee last month...thats good to know. And go from there. Stop the spontaneous purchases. Look at your purchases and look at how it is really changing your daily life. Or look back this past year and ask yourself if those cool iPhone apps, are of real use to you. I use DollarBird to track my spending, and it also projects out to see how much I could be saving after expenses and bills. I like to play the Another big thing, is to have a goal. Id say, it would be rather simple to save 50 of that leftover: 600mo. After saving for 6 months, you could have 3600 saved, and even more pending you save more. Try some tricks. I like to go 7 days without purchasing anything, unless its groceries not fastfood nor restaurants, gas, or a bill. Get to a savings of 2k and then 5k, and make list of your things that you want, and wait until you get to those benchmarks. 