[Music] well hey you guys so no matter what the latest stats are saying when it comes to inflation or the housing market one thing that has always been true is that too many people are living paycheck to paycheck and this has always been the case ever since I've been in this world for 15 years of personal finance it's always a high percentage of people and here's the deal at all income levels all ages we see that this can be true because people can stretch their inome come so far to basically like exactly what they need and then there's no margin left over which tells me for sure it's not always about the money that's the problem sometimes it's about the person handling the money because Building Wealth has always been about Behavior more than a specific dollar amount so today I want to share exactly what I mean by all of this and here are nine steps to stop living paycheck to paycheck and finally achieve some peace around your money and stick around because number nine is more mental than tactical and maybe something that you've never considered before so make sure you hear that one out all right let's get going so step one to stop living paycheck to paycheck is to get on a budget now if you've been following me at all you know this is always in my top you know tips always with stuff because this is the thing you guys the budget is the thing that is going to help you have a plan for your money cuz I think it's one of the biggest mistakes people make is they're not intentional with their money they're not sure exactly where every single dollar is going and then what ends up happening is you just end up spending without realizing where or what you're spending on and then naturally that paycheck to paycheck lifestyle can continue but when you can plan out where things are going where your money is going then you can cut back on different areas intentionally to create that margin and stop living paycheck to paycheck so if you have not made a budget with every dollar make sure to do that you can go to everydollar.com Rachel and make sure to create your first budget if you haven't already because this is going to help you again get out of that cycle all right step two is to take care of your four walls so these are the four most important things that you have to have in our world we talk about needs versus wants and a lot of our wants have kind of drifted into our needs so you really want to take this apart and focus on what you need in life and put that at the top of your budget again these are your four walls it's food shelter utilities and transportation so those are the four things that you have to have to survive to at least have this Foundation under you to know okay everything my house isn't going to be taken away or it's not that I'm behind on rent or my lights are getting cut off like all of that stuff puts you in a really bad Tail Spin so again making sure your food shelter utilities and transportation are covered first and foremost and then on your budget it's everything else all right step three to stop living paycheck to paycheck is to cut extra expenses so if you have things in your life again this could be some wants that have kind of like merged with needs really you know take those apart hard and say okay what are things that I don't have to have to survive these are streaming services memberships subscriptions eating out shopping going on Amazon on the Amazon app like these kind of things sometimes it's like we just end up spending money because it's just there and when you trim all that back even if it's you know $2 $300 a month that's significant you guys it really is so cutting back things that you don't need is going to help you step four is to start an emergency fund so it is so easy to live paycheck to paycheck because if something happen and if you have any margin you just dip right into that and you just build no savings so having savings is huge so your emergency fund is really your safety net between you and life so if you are finding margin in your budget this is the first thing I want you to do is I want you to get a $1,000 emergency fund having cash in the bank and letting you be your emergency fund is so massive when it comes to cutting the cycle and then once you have that and you pay off debt then you can bump that up to 3 to 6 months of expenses saved in the bank step five is to ditch debt that's right get it out of here you guys I mean if you cut out a car payment that's $600 a month you know you pay off your student loans that could be $300 a month like you start to add up some of these payments and if that's money back in your pocket I mean that could be $1,000 easily in just payments that you're paying out so getting out of debt is really huge but how I want you to do that is by the debt snowball this is where you're going to list out all of your debts smallest to largest regardless of the the interest rate pay minimum payments on everything and attack that smallest debt first then once that's paid off all the money you're putting towards that over to your second smallest debt and you keep moving up moving up moving up until you're debt free and we find people doing the debt snowball method get out of debt in 18 to 24 months on average which seems insane because there could be so much debt but listen if you cut out everything in your budget you take an extra job like you create some serious sacrifice for a short amount of time it's amazing what can happen with all that momentum and then once you don't have payments you have margin and that paycheck to paycheck living really does stop all right step six is to increase your income so I just mentioned this when it comes to getting out of debt and that could be taking on a side hustle like whatever you have to do again to create some of that extra income as big but I think what's really key is you want to get to a place where you don't feel like you have two side hustles and your main job just to survive on your basic you know uh basic living expenses so being able to look at your actual career and like the job that you have and saying hey am I getting paid market value maybe there's another opportunity with a different company that would pay me more you know some of these questions start asking yourself because you can get a large bump in salary um and again don't just chase the money constantly but make sure you're getting paid for what you're worth step seven is to live below your means so you have to be in a habit of living below your income because if you don't and you continue to live at your income or right above it then you're never going to get out of that paycheck to paycheck cycle it's going to be this constant like we are spending what we have versus saying hey this is what we're making and we're not going to spend 10% of it 8% of it like whatever it is like find even a percentage just to say let's try to save this amount and and live below it and when you start doing that and that becomes a habit as your income increases that will continue to be your Lifestyles you're able to say We'll up our lifestyle a little bit but we're always going to live below our means and that's going to give you so much peace step eight is to save up for big purchases so when you think of things like I mean this could be anything from I don't know a TV or a refrigerator to a car like things that just cost a more substantial amount of money A lot of people are used to just going into debt for it and it's like yeah I mean of course you would that's what you do who has a couple thousand dollars just laying around but when that's your mindset and again you go back into debt and you start using your income to pay payment that is money that is not working for you and so getting in the habit of saying okay I'm probably going to delay some gratification for this big purchase and actually save up for it and create a seeking fund even in your budget have a line item that says I don't know new refrigerator whatever it is and it's like okay let's save up you know a couple hundred bucks a month towards this because we're going to need to replace it in five months or whatever you know you can do the math but just to realize that you can look ahead and actually plan out for some of these purchases and it may mean that you're going to purchase it later than you really want to but again it's giving you the power of using cash instead of getting back into that payment cycle which is just terrible all right before I share about number nine I want to share about one of our sponsors so you guys scammers are everywhere I mean it's crazy and I'll admit it I fell for when not too long ago I was distracted I got a text from USPS like your package is lost so you need to pay 30 cents to the carrier cuz your home address was messed up and blah have a great day and I was like oh my God USPS they're so nice and I went through it all y'all God I can't believe it and that night my 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and what where all of your information is cuz this what I've done it is crazy all the websites of who has your address or your past address or who knows that you're related to your parents I mean like it's just crazy how much our information is out there so to protect your information go to join delet me.com Rachel for 20% off that's join delet me.com srael all right now that I mentioned ear this final step of not living paycheck to paycheck is a little different than the others because it's not like a concrete action that you can do it's not like oh go and open up your every dollar budget and do this task instead I want you to remember what I said at the beginning of this episode behavior is the most important factor and one behavior that you absolutely have to put into practice along with managing your money is managing your mindset because this is what will Propel you forward as you work the baby steps and this will also bring you back to the whole reason why you decided to pursue your money goals in the first place so step nine is to remember your why when you want to be wise with your money and you say Okay I want to get in control of this area of my life there's usually a reason why and it may be Stress and Anxiety it may be oh my gosh you know I just got married or maybe it's we had our first kid or maybe it's gosh I'm just tired of working this job and I feel like I have to cuz I have to pay bills like whatever that why is that you think I want to get in control of this part of my life have your mindset around that cuz that's going to help Propel you again step by step and in the times where it's hard and the sacrifice is deep knowing your why is so crucial be sure to check out my episode on how to save your first $100,000 all right you guys remember to take control of your money and create a life you love
