How Do I Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck?

crystal's in anchorage hey crystal how are you hi good thanks so much for taking my call sure what's up um currently my husband and i are have no debt except for a little bit of a car payment and our mortgage uh we've got a steady income but we kind of struggle just getting by check to check and wondering what is the best way to kind of get out of that rut what's your income oh about six uh about 72 000 a year okay how much your house payment 1700. how much car payment um about i do about 300 a month on it you would do what's your car payment you have a payment amount yeah i i do about 300 a month on it i i go a little bit extra okay but i mean your car payment is actually if you don't do what's the actual payment 210. okay that's what i'm asking all right good okay so that's okay because you're the extra is a choice you know and that's not a bad choice because we're going to get your car paid off that's going to be something we're going to do here in a minute but but uh we're going to put a lot more than 300 on it but um anyway all right so you're not giving me any numbers here that are causing my brain to explode like you've got major problems which means that you're probably like most people including me when i first started this uh in that by not having really good organization with my money and every detail out laid out it the chaos eats these dollars for breakfast and so a written budget a detailed budget will make you feel like you've gotten a raise because i'll give you an example if you what how often you guys get paid twice a month yeah okay so a take-home pay check is how much three thousand dollars okay so we got six thousand dollars minus house payment minus car payment is three is that that's two thousand dollars yeah yeah so i got four thousand dollars left cause that feels kind of weird doesn't it it does like right this second you're asking yourself i know i got water and i know i got i got i know i've got electricity and i know i've got food uh and i know i got some insurance i got to buy here and there uh but you're starting to ask yourself where the flips is money going and that's kind of what i'm asking yeah so yeah you got to get on a game plan and when you get on a budget you are going to feel like you got a raise and crystal i'm going to tell you as i started off on dave's plan uh some almost 16 years ago that is exactly what was the thing that was the awakening for me i was doing too much stupid in grocery stores and in restaurants and so getting down to the root of it you taking a look get some bank statements out go back and look at the last three months and find out that category where you're bleeding money and it could be online shopping it could be grocery stores it could be eating out whatever it is you're going to do an analysis you're going to see it but you cannot manage money with a rear view mirror right you can't wait let's over and then go wow that doesn't work you have to tell it what to do before it leaves on paper on purpose before the month begins every single month and in agreement with your spouse so they don't do something else that's exactly right and i was just going to say with that when you find that trouble spot go to the cash envelopes on it i'm telling you having the budget like dave's talking about beforehand and then having the cash i'm telling it's going to give you more control and like dave said it's going to feel like you gave yourself a raise because guess what you did yeah jump on every dollar and start using the it's free to use just every dollar.com download the app and start using that budgeting app with you and your husband and you to start working on that tonight you're going to feel like you got a raise there's a reason you're leaving losing you know there's just no intentionality behind the dollars and no one does by the way you're not like you're not like horrible nobody does that all right you have sat down with people for many many years what is the typical the area of the budget that people are absolutely lying about what is it the one where you go this isn't real eating out eating out yeah i would agree i'd say eating out of the grocery store because with the stores we have now they think they spend less at the grocery store yeah they know they spend it a lot at restaurants but when they find out what they really spend they go oh my god yep yeah yeah i remember i was sitting in a financial peace group leading small group one time years and years ago and uh you know we're kind of going around talking about the lesson that night and we're like okay why aren't why have you not been able to fund retirement where it was an investment lesson one of the questions we're just talking about you know why why didn't you feel like you've been able to do retirement and there's an old country boy sitting in the thing and he goes yeah we looked at it spending 1200 a month in restaurants i know where our retirement's been going we've been eating it about died laughing but he's telling the truth i've been eating it that's it that i'm telling you that's what a lot of people do with it they eat they they eat their future yeah and that's scary and you know what that's something we can control because what couldn't we just tell you i love restaurants yeah a lot of my i've got good friends you and i have good friends personal friends that we share they're world-class chefs that own restaurants we go to their place i love that kind of stuff i'm not against restaurants but from a budgeting standpoint when you're calling me and saying i'm broke i have no money i will tell you that ninety percent of what you spend in the restaurant the money is spent on entertainment ten percent is your actual food cost yeah so go home and make make some make some makes make some white beans and cornbread well and and i'm going to tell you this even throughout all this situation with the pandemic of people being at home more you know utilizing that found out what they were spending they really did because people were like what we've got where about all this money where this money come from that's right and it's all it was you're not going all the time all the time so be intentional be smart and and again starting to set some things cut it back a little bit crystal you're not different in that regard i don't know if it's food that you're spending it on but you will discover it when you go back and look at the statements like chris suggested and when you start writing it down and try to make it behave hint for everyone is starting their new budget this month whatever you think you're spending at the grocery store you're wrong it's more than that i agree and so if you think you're spending 500 you better put 750 in there because you're gonna find that it's more you've you've been lying to yourself so long that you know i really do do that i've had these people tell me these ridiculous numbers we make it on fifty dollars a month no you don't you can't even no this is absolutely ridiculous so you know but but because here's the thing that is a category that if you under fund it you will go back and either break your budget or you'll have to go back and correct your budget in the middle of the month as you're learning how to budget your first couple of months if you'll go ahead and over fund it you don't feel like you failed you can always cut your food budget back in future months that's a good call for the first two to three months you're doing your budget when you've never done one in years over fund your grocery store budget because your category because you're always everyone spends more than they think they're going they do and you people that are super nerds and you do the coupons and you've got all these apps on your phone and all this stuff you still spend more than you think you have because we there's something about denial at the grocery store that we didn't we're in denial about what we spent no that's a good point and at the reset event if you haven't watched that you need to go check it out i gave three tips which is make a grocery list only buy what's on the list and stick to the dollar amount you said you're going to spend i'll give you a fourth one don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry truth big truth as if i have ever done anything yes but there you go those burritos i bought from sam's weren't that good when i got him home well you bought two 270 yeah i know i was hungry dave i was real hungry

Channel: The Ramsey Show - Highlights

Views: 495,531

Rating: 4.9307361 out of 5

Keywords: the dave ramsey show, budget money debt cash, real estate, insurance, how to make money, dave ramsey, save, credit card, compound interest, buying house, buy, snowball, How Do I Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck?, how to stop living paycheck to paycheck, living paycheck to paycheck, paycheck to paycheck, stop living paycheck to paycheck, stop living paycheck to paycheck tips, personal finance, get out of debt, money, paycheck, budgeting

Id: _o_JUR2KZKw

Length: 8min 17sec (497 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021