<prompt> Human: I have a solid job, finally, and am attempting to get all my finances in line at the beginning of the year. Income: 81,000 Debt: 117,000 Student loan only, no credit card Bills approx. 1250 m Loan repayment: around 1200-1500 m eFund: 3k soon to be 5k Retirement: none sadly, 29yrs old, and job alas has no 401k plan This financial planner basically is talking to me only about life insurance, long term disability plans, which I have no knowledge about, and has glossed over retirement planning options. I have 50k yr term life-ins. that costs me nothing from work, so I dont really think I should even be bothering looking into other plans at the moment no family dependents Still trying to figure out where to budget my income and would really love to hear suggestions.  <response>: If your planner is just trying to sell you life insurance then stop talking to them. They want to take a fee from selling you something you dont need.If you want to budget your income you basically start by taking stock of your monthly income and monthly expenses including entertainment, and spending for things that may not be monthly but can be predicted. With what is left you have your savings and see how you can allocate that to get where you want to go from there. For example if your goal was to retire on 1,000,000 at 65 then youd need to figure out how much to put away to get there. If your savings isnt enough then youll have to change expenses. 