It seems to be the norm these days for people to struggle to get by on a weekly basis until their next paycheck comes. But now it's time to STOP that cycle! The only way you can break that horrific cycle is by taking action and today I have 5 action steps for you to work on.
1. Write down your monthly expenses
You need to know what you're spending money on each month. So any recurring expenses for subscriptions and memberships, bills, rent/mortgage, car payments, gasoline, groceries, etc. should be written down. You can use one of my free budget spreadsheets to list everything. When you insert your take home pay into your budget you'll see if you're paying out more than you make. If you are left with a negative number after income minus expenses, you need to start cutting.
2. Analyze your spending
So now you can go back through your spending from each month and look at any receipts you save, and see if you really need to be spending all the money that you currently do. Look at each category of expenses and ask yourself if it's necessary to spend anything on it at all, or if you can spend less on it. Start making a plan of action to eliminate or cut back on the expenses whether it's cancelling an unused gym membership or cutting the cord on cable.
3. Split your monthly expenses
If you get paid twice a month, and you pay your mortgage entirely out of one paycheck, that's a large amount of money coming out all at once and if you don't budget correctly you may not have enough leftover for the other things you need like groceries, etc. So split your bills that are due the following month into 2. Then you know that you have to leave XX amount of dollars in your account from paycheck 1 so that when paycheck 2 arrives you'll have the total for next month's bill and you can make the payment.
4. Utilize cash or envelope systems for spending
Honestly, the best way to stay disciplined with money is to make it harder for you to spend it frivolously. This makes it much easier to stick to the amounts you've set aside for certain expenses so you can continue to focus on other goals like paying down debt.
If you follow these steps and stay disciplined, you can be on track to break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.
PIN THIS POST
| FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA |
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love reading and responding to comments but in order to get my reply you must ensure you are NOT a no-reply blogger. If you are, here are some quick steps to change that!
1. Go to the home page of your Blogger account.
2. Select the drop down beside your name on the top right corner and choose Blogger Profile.
3. Select Edit Profile at the top right.
4. Select the Show My Email Address box.
5. Hit Save Profile.