FinancialStruggles #BudgetingTips #SavingMoney
Hey everyone, let’s talk about the struggles of managing finances on a single income. 🤔
So, I’m sitting here scratching my head, wondering what my wife and I are doing wrong. We have a decent income, but every month it feels like we’re barely treading water. Anyone else feel the same way?
Here’s a snapshot of our situation:
- $6200 monthly income
- $3200 for essential bills
- $1200 for food (family of 4)
- Various unexpected expenses eating up our extra money
I tried using Rocket Money to track everything, but it’s still a constant cycle of getting out of credit card debt and then falling back in. 😫
How do you guys manage to make ends meet and not lose your minds in the process? Any tips or tricks you can share? Here’s what I’m thinking might help:
- **Emergency Fund: Building up a buffer for unexpected expenses
- **Trimming Expenses: Cutting back on non-essentials to save more
- **Seeking Additional Income: Side hustles or freelance gigs to increase earnings
Let’s swap ideas and support each other through this financial rollercoaster. 💪🏼💸🎢
Ah, the joys of inflation with stagnant wage growth. You are not the only one that is in a similar situation. Does your budget include any savings towards a retirement account?
Really need to start with a budget and emergency fund…. No other magic pill other than making more income. Track your last 3 months of spending to see where you actually spend your $$. Pay yourself first with anything over the essentials by having it deposited in a HYSA that is separate location from your checking account to avoid any “borrowing”.
First question is what are essential bills? Because my math tells me after your mortgage you are paying 2000k per essential bills. I have a teen driver and I am paying less than that (probably like 5-700 less). You are spending about 300 a week on food, is this including formula and a lot of eating out? I probably in the 800 range and I could shop much better if I had the energy. Where is the other 1800 going?? It is expensive as shit out there, but the description you gave isn’t very precise.
Dave Ramsey is an idiot in many respects but five years ago we took the deep dive, started following his principles, and we’re so much better off for doing so (let me say I disagree with many things I’ve heard him say, and he’s a bit of a nutball, but some of his advice about being debt free helped us). You need a tight written budget, and a sinking fund for the BS that comes up like repairs and sports fees for the kids and gifts for family members and just extra stuff that isn’t a regular monthly expense. He also always talked about being “gazelle intense” about getting rid of debt and earning extra income. It was helpful for us, but I know he’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
This is how I felt until the kids left home. Sorry, I wish I had more to offer.
Ay bro all the advice here is really good. You’ve taken the first step and recognized you’re not ok with the way things are. That’s whats up. Now the hard part is holding yourself accountable to do some of the things suggested here to get where you wanna be. Good luck
Save first. I have $100 come out of my paycheck and directly into savings that isnt connected to my checking.
They are not surviving, people have no money since Covid and corporate greed.
I remind myself if I die tomorrow none of it matters and no one is responsible for my debt when I die (at least where I live). It’s just money and we have what we need and there is always enough. That’s how I don’t lose my mind lol.
We are a two income household, couldnt afford it any other way. I have a sheets doc and both me and my partner list out exactly what our spending is for each other and what we make so we are both transparent. Reoccurring payments, credit cards, subscriptions, utilities, savings etc. Then I have a lump sum that I can spend from the 15-15th and I track that manually. It all goes to coffee, eating out, groceries that kind of stuff. I mange our budget and money. My partner isn’t that good at it either but I don’t get mad. I just budget and let him know what needs to get done. I actually utilize debt as a way to manage funds. Debt isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We are able to afford nice things because of it. I just have limits and put caps on things. My partner is scared of debt but I’m not. There are things we can not out right afford so it goes on the credit card. And I often use my tax returns to pay off debt and pay it down month-to-month. I’m very strategic and I have amazing credit which works in my favor.
Pest control could be cut why can’t you learn to do it? As well as some basic maintenance?
Also you could cut the pest control and pending the tractor fix scrap that and then roll that to someone to cut your grass while you learn some car maintenance
You’d be surprised the cost of parts and how simple some jobs are and it’s not that time consuming vs what you pay.
Not a bad thing to learn and then pass the knowledge to your kids.
Pen and paper. Write it all down. You’re hemorrhaging money. You can’t have vehicle repairs every month.
Define essential? You calling food delivery or 10 streaming services or hobbies essential? You’re not being honest with yourself if you really “can’t find” where 3k is going each month.
I can’t believe you lowered your 401k %. Mind blowing.
A couple things. I’m commenting mainly because my wife and I have the same monthly net. 2 years ago I started a no debt journey following Dave Ramsey specifically. We had $20k in car debt and $20k in student loans. Paid it all off within a year (not solely from our monthly net but mostly). How’d we do it?
First made sure we had an emergency fund of some kind, for the DR plan we did $1k like he says, it’s not suppose to be enough but it’s to keep you from using your credit card.
Next is we completely stopped using credit cards. I am okay with the idea of credit cards but my wife isn’t so much so to keep things clean we stopped using them all together.
The next thing is the biggest, we did a STRICT budget. We cut everything. Now 2 years ago going to the grocery store it was easier to only spend $100 a week for both of us but it still wasn’t easy. Like my wife loves to cook all sorts of dishes and I wasn’t about to take that from her since we also needed to stop eating out. So I basically used a spreadsheet while at the store to log everything in the cart so we could take out what we didn’t need before checking out. It’s gonna be hard but you need to set a number (that is painful and hard) you can spend every week on groceries. Like seriously, get creative with it.
But food isn’t enough. The kids now get their clothes at good will, we don’t spend money to go camping (now we camp in the back yard or go to the park). Remember, this part is just for a season, but remember to make it fun for them. You now watch YouTube to make repairs on your vehicle.
Vehicle debt? This is more case by case but you may need to evaluate if it’s worth selling your vehicle for a temporary beater. The average American car debt is $700 a month which is insane and will weigh a lot on someone with 6k net monthly.
Budgeting apps. I downloaded and paid for the EveryDollar app, made and stuck to a budget. This might be the most important part. You get to play with your money and assign every single dollar. This is where you need to talk to your spouse and have hard conversations about spending habits. Every single dollar that goes through your checking account needs to be accounted for. Like I cannot express enough how important this is and how vigilant you need to be about this. This is where you’re gonna see what you can cut out of your life based on what are real needs.
Like seriously LIVE POOR AF. Live so poor your kids friends will make fun of them. No more pest control, again no vehicle repairs, no more camping all the time. Idk if the $1200 a month is for groceries + eating out, but you will not eat out again.
Pay off debt. DR says to start with lowest balances and then work your way up. Personally I say tackle credit cards first because those usually have insane interest rates. If you have debt, you likely have monthly payments, the idea is to free up liquidity by paying off that debt. It sucks, it’s hard, it feels like throwing away money, but it’s freeing.
Now what’s your goal? You’re finally able to have something at the end of the month, and can save. You need a 3-6 month emergency fund in a HYSA that you can have easy access to in the event you or your spouse loses a job. Also having this emergency fund is your key to not needing to go into debt.
What’s after that? Retirement, HSA, 529, etc.
Lastly, your entire household needs to be on board 100%. If you have kids, this is a great opportunity to take them on a journey. Remember, they will not wanna be on board unless you have a PLAN. The point is to get to a point where your life is better so make sure they understand these are temporary sacrifices in order to live a better future.