How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck: Get One Paycheck Ahead | 549

0:00Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it? Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have big dreams for your financial future? Do you want to get debt-free, but you don't want to live on beans and rice? Or you don't want to give up those pumpkin spice lattes? Hey, it's okay if you don't already know how to budget, or if you're using credit cards to get through the month. Hey, it's okay if you want to seem like you have your finances all together, or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances. We know what you're doing probably isn't working, but guess what?

0:29you're in the right place. We're Shana and Vanessa. We're best friends, business partners, and master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey. We've been in business since 2019, helping hundreds of amazing people like you create budgets, get out of debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and know exactly what to do with their money. In this podcast, we'll share with you everything we know plus everything we're working on with our clients so that you have the best chance at reaching your financial goals. We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on the conversation.

1:01We can help you no matter where you're at, whether you're the single mom who's never had$500 in her savings account or the millionaire who's paid off four real estate payments. And we're not going to shy away from the tough love. We'll tell you what you need to hear and encourage you at the same time. This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. Somebody went to our website at budgetfussies.com forward slash ask and asked a question. You guys can do the same and we're going to play it so that way you guys can hear her question and then we're going to answer it. We just got the budget system and I just started inputting the budget and the debt today and I'm really confused on how to get out of living the paycheck to paycheck cycle and transitioning to a monthly cycle.

1:48Do you have any tips or tricks or advice for that? All right. So basically her idea is like, how do I get out of this paycheck to paycheck cycle and get to the monthly cycle the way that we are suggesting that she does? Yeah. And the biggest, the only way to do this is to get a paycheck ahead. Like in order for you to get out of this paycheck to paycheck cycle, you have to back up and get a paycheck ahead. So that way you're no longer trying to rely on individual paychecks to be able to pay each bill. Yeah. And so I think for me, what that might translate to you is there's a couple of different like wiggle room things that you can do to make that happen.

2:24But really, you're going to have to live even though we don't teach this, but you're going to have to live on less than you make for a minute so that you can get that wiggle room built up. So right now, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, it's because$2 ,000 come in and I have$2 ,000 that need to go out. So what can you do for a month or even half a month, depending on what's going on to not do that? Maybe you could skip a car payment. Maybe because they will let you do that. You can defer it and it doesn't go against your credit. And that would be like a quick way to get, you might not even get a full paycheck ahead, but maybe a half a paycheck ahead, right?

2:56Maybe you're making more than your debt minimums, which we don't tell you to do because you want to, but you can't afford to right now until you get to do a paycheck ahead. Or maybe you call your creditors, not the car payment, but all the rest of them. Vanessa talked about in a recent episode and you're able to get, save some money on your minimums because they will give you a deal or lower payment or lower interest or something. And this will allow you to get some wiggle room so that you can actually start to get a paycheck go ahead yeah so you know once you write everything down on paper and if you don't have our budget system yeah you can get the template version of budgetbesties.com forward slash budget template put everything on one piece of paper and just see okay if you're trying to get out of the month the paycheck to paycheck cycle you need to see your month at a whole anyways so start there and look at it and go okay like shana said how many subscriptions do i have that i don't use or i don't need to pay for it let's look get rid of those when was the last time i re-quoted my auto insurance and re-quoted my phone bill or internet or different things like that.

3:50Look at that. Payments, debt payments. Where can I work? How can I make phone calls and cut those down? There's a lot of things that you could probably do for a short time. And listen, we've worked with people that like Shana said in a recent podcast that have$6 ,000 a month coming in. We've worked with people that have$40 ,000 a month coming in. It's usually not an income problem, but sometimes it can be. Sometimes you're like, listen, I am tight and I have all of these bills tied to each paycheck because that's the only way that I know how to function throughout the month. And we understand that stress.

4:17We've seen it time and time again. But we really want you to get out of that. We want you to get to that freedom where you're a whole paycheck ahead. But to start, if you don't have a buffer, we get it. That's okay. But you have to figure out where in your budget you can either, A, make more money, or B, cut back so you can get that extra cash. Yeah. And Vanessa, you said it. But where it actually starts, which you're already doing this, the person that asked this, is to start looking at your life as monthly instead of paycheckly. which is not a word if you use our budget system that is going to give you that bird's eye view like Vanessa said and then the next step is to get a paycheck ahead which is really just like putting get pooling enough money to where you don't have to have this play these games anymore that's really what that is doing and then you can take a deep breath yeah and be done with it yeah and we have an episode it's 5 17 it's from January 21st how to get a how to stop living paycheck to paycheck so we recommend you going in there and listening to that it's really going to deep dive into how to get a paycheck ahead, right?

5:12So the whole point is basically, you can do it this month, you can literally start as early as this month, if you can, if you're like, okay, I don't live, I live paycheck to paycheck, but I'm not in a detriment to where I don't like if I stopped eating out for a couple nights, I know that I can get some extra money, right? So if you're not in that much of a detriment, you're like, I think I can get this paycheck ahead this month, you're just going to start making the upcoming month's paycheck or upcoming month's budget with the last paycheck from this month, you're going to put that last paycheck in that month's budget as the first paycheck of that month.

5:42And then you just can put a line on them in your bill section. And it's going to say previous month's bills, or you can list them out individually, whatever you want to do and go, okay, with that last paycheck that I had coming in this month, how much of my bills did I need that paycheck to pay for? You're going to stick those in the upcoming month's budget, right? And just know that month is going to be tight because you're paying for last month, some of last month's bills. But from that point on, you are a paycheck ahead. Yeah. And I think that one thing that helps us is when you do make that monthly budget, put the bills in the order of due dates and you can start to see like when they come out.

6:15Yeah. When they come out, I've actually had people call, like once we get stuff set up, they've called and changed their due dates because it will help. Like maybe it'll help you get a paycheck ahead or maybe it'll just help balance things out. But that is why getting a paycheck ahead helps because then you don't have to balance anything. You don't have to say, oh, I need all of this money in the first of the month because all my bills come out. It doesn't matter because you have two paychecks basically there by the time all those bills come out. So that really is a solution is to get a paycheck ahead.

6:41But also looking at it, months I view, looking at the due dates, looking at your debts. Like I said, you could get a car payment skipped. You could tell them you need a month to not pay. You could, like Vanessa said, go live on gift cards for stuff or see if you can shop from the pantry just have a month where you're like not fully dialed in using that whole paycheck so that you can because even getting some of it ahead like what's what happens what vanessa said is when you go and put let's say we're talking april and you put let's look at a calendar you guys hope please your call is very important to me let's say you're making april's budget and you go in there and put march 27th paycheck as the first paycheck of april what vanessa is saying is you might have had bills that were due on the 28th, 29th, 30th, or 31st of March, maybe they equal$500 or they equal$300.

7:30You need to put that in the April budget line item. And that means that's a little less that you have of that paycheck, but that's still, or you're not fully a paycheck ahead, but you're closer. And as you keep going, especially if you can, and that's, what's cool about our budget system, Vanessa, is it shows you the math, like, oh, you have$500 left over, or you have$600 or you have 200 or whatever. if you can just make that bigger. And then, and then what we do is we would put the rollover into the next month. And then I have more money than my bills are going to come out in at least three weeks.

7:59I am good. I'm done with this cycle. Yeah. And that relief of knowing, like Shana was saying, imagine if for April, let's just say if you had March 27th paycheck and April 10th paycheck, those are the only two paychecks you need for the month because that April 24th paycheck, guess what? That's going to be for May. That is the relief. Knowing that by April 10th, you had all the cash in your account that you need to cover your entire month. That is the goal for you guys. And you can get there. It is very simple. Don't think it's more complicated than it is, but you can slowly get there as long as you, again, put your numbers on paper and be able to see your month as a whole.

8:35You probably have a similar question, especially if you're using our system that we're teaching. And if you have your own questions, go to budgetbesties.com forward slash ask, and we would be happy to do that. If you're tired of feeling like your finances are all over the place and you're ready for a simple set it and forget it way to budget, we have something special for you. Watch our automate your budget masterclass at budgetbesties.com forward slash automate. We'll show you step-by-step how to finally organize your money, how to set up your account and put your budget on autopilot. So your bills, saving and spending around my clockwork.

9:07Imagine less stress, more savings, and the freedom to spend money without having to track every dollar or babysit your bank account. Go to budgetbesties.com forward slash automate to start today.