The budget breakdown of a 26-year-old who earns $32,000 a year and tracks every penny: 'I'm pretty content with where I'm at'
This story is part of CNBC Make It's Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

Graham Zickefoose didn't always know what he wanted his career to look like, but he knew he wanted to be self-sufficient.

The son of an elementary school principal and stay-at-home-mom, Zickefoose had a "pretty solidly middle class" life growing up in Boise, Idaho. Though he's always been grateful to his parents for their support — including paying his rent during college — Zickefoose knew he didn't want to depend on them long-term.

In college, he admired friends who were "making their own way financially," he tells CNBC Make It. "And I thought, 'My goal one day is to be financially independent and make money for myself.'"

After earning his bachelor's degree from the University of Idaho in 2018, Zickefoose worked as a content writer for a print marketing company in Boise, earning around $40,000. The salary allowed him to pay his bills and start saving money, but he didn't feel called to marketing long-term and began looking for something new.

He discovered the field of city planning through YouTube, where he watched videos from the popular City Beautiful channel.

"I decided to look a little bit more into what it would take to become a city planner myself," he says. "Once I found out that I had that interest, then I had a reason to go back to school that I knew would lead me to a career that I wanted."

Now 26, Zickefoose is a graduate student pursuing his master's degree in urban and regional planning at Eastern Washington University in Cheyney, Washington, near Spokane. And he's earning enough to fully support himself financially.

Because he's part of a graduate assistantship program, his tuition is paid for by the university. On top of that, he receives a $1,159.20 monthly stipend from the university as well as $875.97 per month in additional scholarships.

Those earnings, combined with his part-time work as a planning assistant in Spokane's Planning and Economic Development Department, brings his annual pay to about $32,000.

While he wants to earn more in the future, Zickefoose is happy for now being able to pay his way on his own.

"For where I'm at in my life, the money that I'm making is enough for me to pay all the bills that I need to pay and do a lot of the things that I want to do," he says. "I'm pretty content with where I'm at financially right now."