Hey Shalu, please don’t feel dumb, this happens to almost everyone. It’s rarely one big mistake, it’s a bunch of small stuff that adds up without you noticing.
Honestly your rent isn’t the problem. $1,500 in Houston is pretty normal, and you’re allowed to live somewhere decent and enjoy your life. I’d go after the little leaks first. Pull up the last couple months of statements and cancel anything you don’t use. The gym you barely go to, random subscriptions, all of it. Delete your saved card on Amazon too, it sounds silly but making it a little harder to click buy helps a lot.
Eating out is probably the sneakiest one. Don’t quit it, just give yourself a number for the month and stick to it. Also, check your car insurance. Rates in Texas swing a lot between companies and a lot of people save a few hundred just by comparing.
The biggest thing for me was setting up an automatic transfer to savings the day I got paid. Even $200 is fine to start. If you wait to save whatever’s left, nothing will be left. Then spend the rest without guilt. For a target, 15-20% is the usual advice, but if you’re at zero now, start with 5-10% and bump it up every few months.
And if you send money to family, treat that like rent, a fixed bill, not something that leaks out of your budget. You make good money and you caught this early. Track things for 3 months and I think you’ll be surprised how fast it turns around. You’ve got this 💛