<prompt> Human: So I need a little life advice. I recently graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. I found a job immediately, yanno STEM and all. Now that Ive gone from making 8k a year by working on the weekends to having a salary of 49k set to increase to 54k in 1 month, I need help adulting. Im in a pretty good place, I have no foreseeable financial calamities. I am 21 years old. Owe 2k to my parents for my only student loan, which they paid off for me so I can pay them interest free. Woo Hoo, hope i didnt incriminate myself there. I make payments to them weekly, about 200. I also have a balance of about 800 on my credit card. I live at home rent free, even though Id like to move closer to work about 40 miles away and subsequently have no expenses. I pay about 50 a week in tolls and an untracked amount on food. My paycheck per week is 650. Currently all my money sits in my checking and savings accounts, except for a CD i have with 10k 3.I guess my real questions are, should I continue to pay down my debts in such a slow manner? Should I work on slowly gaining independence from my parents, in that my car is in their name etc? Is it possible to afford to live on your own at such a young age? Is renting an apartment or saving for a down payment on a house the better option? Should I focus on retirement saving or some other type of investments, i.e. stocks? Can I expect to be fucked by taxes since I have nothing to deduct and my income has increased so drastically? Is hiring a personal financial adviser worth it? I know I laid a bunch of stuff out and Ill follow up with additional info if needed. Any advice given would be much appreciated!Assistant: I also have a balance of about 800 on my credit card.Pay that off immediately, and never carry a CC balance. As far as moving out goes, you can probably afford to do it, but for every month you stay at home, you should be able to save at least 1k probably more, so if you stay at home for one extra year, you should be able to save about 15k. Human: See I thought this was the correct notion. Ive had the card for about 4 years now and always paid my bill off at the end of the month in order to build credit. I have a score of 755 right now but a couple of my friends told me that if you never have a balance, your credit cant grow. Ill heed your advice.  <response>: As long as there is an activity on your CC every month, and you pay your balance off in full you get all the benefits of building credit, without having to pay any interest. You dont get any extra credit building credits for carrying a balance, but you do end up paying tons of unnecessary interest. 