I’m 22 and honestly feeling really overwhelmed with my finances and life in general right now. I recently graduated and started my federal GS job, which I know is a blessing and a stable career path, but I still feel extremely behind compared to everyone else my age online. I’m current on all debts and have no collections or anything derogatory on my credit besides high utilization.
I make about 71k at my full-time federal job and also work part time around 20 hours a week, making $17.95/hr. I’m in a ladder position, so if everything goes well I should eventually move up to a GS-13 and make well over 120k in the next 4 years, which is part of why I’m conflicted about what to do financially right now.
On paper it probably sounds like I should be doing fine, but I made a lot of irresponsible financial decisions when I was younger and now I feel trapped trying to fix them all at once.
Right now I have:
around 10k in credit card debt
about 20k in personal loans ( 2 10K loans) (14% ish APR)
around 27k in student loans (which my job hopefully will cover with a 3 year SLRP program contract)
and a 48 month car lease with payments that are about $1,026/month
The car situation is honestly where a lot of this spiraled. It started with an expensive car that was in my sister’s name that I was tied to. That eventually turned into trading the car in and rolling negative equity into another vehicle in my own name. Then later I traded that car again into my current lease.
Part of the reason all of this happened is because my sister got pregnant and needed a different vehicle herself, but she couldn’t really move forward financially because I was still tied to her credit as a co-signer situation. Earlier this year (January 2026), I ended up taking out a personal loan partly to consolidate/clear credit card debt and partly to help with a down payment so I could finally get the car situation separated from her credit and move everything into my own responsibility.
At the time I thought I was making the “adult” decision and fixing things, but now I honestly feel like I just buried myself deeper.
I still live at home, and while I’m grateful for that support, I honestly feel guilty because I’m not paying real rent and still don’t have meaningful savings yet. I contribute about $115 biweekly toward groceries because inflation has made everything expensive, but I still feel ashamed that I haven’t taken advantage of living at home better financially.
I really want to move out and live on my own soon, but right now it feels impossible with all these obligations hanging over me.
I recently started my TSP through work, but outside of that I basically have no real savings yet.
On top of everything, I also deal with an autoimmune condition that drains me physically and mentally, and lately I just feel exhausted trying to keep up with everything. I’m not missing payments or anything, but mentally I feel like I’m drowning from the pressure and regret from past choices.
Part of me has considered bankruptcy just to reset and finally breathe, but another part of me feels like maybe I’m overreacting because I do have decent income potential long term. I spoke with one attorney in MD and they said 3K for chapter 7 and said I qualify and another said it would be bad faith to file right now and i could go to jail due to the personal loans.
I guess I’m posting because I want honest advice from people who maybe were in a similar situation in their early 20s. Did things eventually get better? Is this recoverable without destroying my future financially? I just feel really lost and ashamed right now. Constructive criticism and advice would be nice, i’ve beat myself up enough.
Current budget:
Income: FT job: 1792 bi-weekly and roughly $800 biweekly from part time. (Note: I didn’t check I work 2 jobs on W2 so it really should be a bit less because I had the goal of paying off debt aggressively to try and breathe)
Debts:
Car note bi weekly: 513 bi weekly
Personal loan #1: 220 biweekly
Personal loan #2:225 biweekly
Spending money/ gas money/ etc: 660 bi weekly
Insurance:174/mo
Groceries / household contribution: $115 biweekly
Phone: $145/mo
Affirm: $394/mo till july (zero interest)
All remaining goes plans towards credit cards and debts
Thanks.
submitted by /u/Akademiks77
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