September 22, 2024 • 23 mins
Need help in saving money here are some tips to get started.
Article Link:
https://bettermoneyhabits.bankofamerica.com/en/saving-budgeting/ways-to-save-money
Please support the show by subscribing, can cancel at any time. Thanks for the support.
- Subscription page: https://www.buzzsprout.com/961804/support
- Contact: ReduceDebtIncreaseWealth@Gmail.com
- Wanting Budget Spreadsheet Place Spreadsheet as Subject
- https://Happygiraffe.org/live
- https://www.shopfinancial.com/lantianbaiyu/
All other inquires place topic into Subject.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:03):
Chuck, hello, I'm your host, Mr. Chuck, a retired
accountant turned truck driver,I reduced my debt in a
relatively short period of time.
Debt reduction to achievefinancial freedom takes
commitment, confidence,determination,
saving money. Tips. Need help insaving money. Here are some tips
(00:26):
to get started.
This is nothing new. This issomething that, if you have some
common sense, you probablyalready figured out. But by
saving money is not thatdifficult.
The first thing you have to dois prioritize where your money
(00:49):
is going. And what do I mean bythat? Well, if you want to save
money, the first thing you gotto do is know where your money
is going. Therefore you shouldbe tracking all the money coming
in and going out of yourhousehold. The second thing you
need to do is have some type ofbudget so you know how much is
(01:10):
going where on a monthly basis.
Once you have that done, inorder to save more money, you
need to reduce your spending.
But what spending am I talkingabout? Well, most of the
professionals gonna say yourdiscretionary spending,
(01:30):
that's money that you spend,such as going out to a
restaurant to eat instead ofeating home, or stuff you spend
on a hobby or entertainment,that is part of it. But another
way you can save more money isto look at your needs and try to
(01:52):
reduce what you're spending onyour needs down to the minimum
amount possible. So what it whatam I talking about? Your needs
are the things that you payevery month in order to survive,
housing, transportation andfood.
How much are you paying forthose three categories? And can
(02:16):
you cut your spending in any orall three categories? Let's
start with housing. Let's sayyou bought a home. You're not
renting, so you have a home themortgage. The only way you can
reduce your mortgage payment isto either refinance it and
borrow less, which is probablynot a good option for most
(02:38):
people, because the mortgagerates are higher now than they
were a couple years ago. So youdon't really want to finance to
Ohio a higher interest rate.
Your real estate taxes are setby the government. There's not
much control whether they canvote against any real estate tax
increases that come up on yourballot. Good luck with that, and
(03:02):
you can look for cheaper ordifferent homeowners insurance
that gives you the same coveragefor a lesser amount. The only
other place you can save wouldbe your utilities in the
summertime. Raise yourthermostat higher in the winter
time, put your thermostat lowerso you're cooling less and
(03:26):
heating less if you don't havegood insulation or bad windows
and stuff like that. That's along term project that you can
upgrade to help reduce yourenergy spending. That's going to
take some money.
The projects you do on yourhome, such as maintenance and or
(03:47):
upgrades that you can controlthat a little bit based on how
much you can afford at the timethat you're don't want to get
something done yourtransportation instead of having
that brand new car that costs30, $40,000
with a 800 or $1,000 a month carpayment. Sell it if you can get
(04:11):
out from under it withoutcosting you too much. Buy a good
used car that you can pay cashfor. Have no car payment. You
know, you pay less for the car.
You can afford to do moremaintenance on it, as something
would break or need to berepaired.
If you don't have a $1,100 carpayment, you have a $300 car
(04:35):
payment, that's $800 you freedup monthly that you can put
somewhere else, and I'msuggesting most of that into
savings food. Instead of goingout to eat,
cook all your food at home, tryto save as much as possible. I'm
(04:55):
not saying don't ever go out toeat again. I'm just saying,
instead of doing it.
Every day or once a week. Try tominimize it down to once a month
or on special occasions. Samething with clothes. If you're
one of those persons that spendsa lot of money on clothes, quit
(05:15):
doing that. What do you do withall the old clothes? Are you
giving it to charity? Well, thatmay be a tax deduction for some
it's not really a great taxdeduction, but it's better than
nothing.
But why you keep buying moreclothes if you haven't wore out
the old ones, and especially ifthey're still in fashion? So you
(05:38):
need to look at ways you canreduce your spending
cross the board, that's going tohelp you put money into your
savings account. I have anarticle here eight simple ways
to save money. Number one isrecord your expenses that's
trackinginclude savings in your budget.
(05:59):
Part of your budget should be $1amount that you're going to put
into savings every month, andthen automate that so it happens
automatically, whether it's acertain amount every payday or
once a month at a particulartime a month, you feel safe
transfer money to your savingsaccount that's not needed to
(06:19):
cover some expense coming up.
Find ways to reduce yourspending so they're not saying
anything here that I aren't setgoals. What are you saving for?
Are you saving for a new car orfor a house or children's
(06:40):
education or retirement,pick the right tools, make it
automatic, and then watch itgrow. I don't know how watching
your savings grow is going tohelp you increase your savings.
That's what I'm seven, eightminutes into this, and I pretty
much covered everything I needto cover.
(07:01):
Use common sense. Look for waysto reduce your spending,
especially on your needs. Cellphone, for example, is a good
place. You can look for anotherplan that's less per month that
gives you the same coverage.
(07:21):
Do you need that coverage? Levelof coverage? Maybe you can cut
back on it and save some moneythere.
Cable TV is a big waste ofmoney. Switch do away with cable
TV if you still have that, anddo away with it. Go to
streaming, but limit yourself toone or two streaming services,
(07:44):
so pick the ones that are gonnasave you money and provide the
entertainment that you have andyou'll can. You can save $100
or more a month if you keep yourstreaming under control. So
there's a couple more tips onhow to reduce your spending.
(08:07):
Every year you should becomparing your insurance plans
and see what's else out therefor the same plan. Can you get a
cheaper price with your cellphone? It's the same thing. Do
away with subscriptions you nolonger using. Do away with
things that you know that you'repaying for that you no longer
(08:29):
use, whether it's a gymmembership or antivirus software
for your computer or whateverthe case, that's where tracking
is going to help you, because ifyou know where your money is
going, you're gonna see some ofthese things pop up when you
enter it into your software, andyou'll say, Oh, why am I paying
(08:50):
for that? I'm paying for thistwo times a month. What's going
on with that? You caninvestigate it and cancel one of
them. That's the best way toreduce your spending, is knowing
where your money is going. Thesecond way is looking at your
monthly budget for the dollaramounts that you're spending,
(09:13):
housing, transportation, food,clothing, entertainment, credit
cards, whatever the case wouldbe, see where your money is
going. Look at the differentcategories, and can where can I
reduce some spending? Now, ifyou're on my debt reduction
plan, that's your spending.
You're using your credit card.
(09:37):
Should been done. So anythingthat's going there should be
payments, which, over time, willreduce your spending, because
it'll go away, you'll pay itoff, and then they'll give you
more money you can save, andthen increase your emergency
fund faster. For those of youthat listen past episodes, you
(09:58):
pretty much know what I'mtalking.
About you need to set somegoals. Define what you want to
save for, whether it's a shortterm, long term, to make the
savings easier and moremeaningful. If you're trying to
reduce your debt, that's whenyour goals I want to pay off all
my credit card debts. I want topay off all my card loans. I
want to pay off my house loan.
Whatever it is, set short termgoals, credit card, first car,
(10:23):
second, personal loans. Automateyour savings use tools or apps
to transfer funds regularly to asavings account, making it a
habit and reducing thelikelihood of overspending. This
comes in handy if you're one ofthose persons that looks at
their checking account, sees thebalance, and so I can buy that,
(10:47):
and you buy something, and thenlater on in the month, you come
up short on something you haveto pay for.
Quit doing that if you automateyour savings. And you know you
can put $50 a month into asavings account. Do it if you
get paid twice a month, do $25every payday. Do $10
(11:08):
every if you get paid weekly,$10 every payday, whatever it
is, set it up automatically. Getit out of your checking account,
and you'll never miss it, andyour savings will grow. Cut back
on discretionary spending.
Identify areas where you canreduce expenses. Says, cooking
at home instead of buying lunch,skipping expensive beverages or
canceling subscription services.
(11:33):
I guess expensive beverage wouldbe that latte in the morning
that you stop at the coffee shopto buy at five bucks a shot. Do
it at home, make your own usecash instead of credit cards.
Remember, we're not we're tryingto quit using the credit cards.
So using cash payments cash helpyou stick to your budget and to
avoid overspending. But ifyou're on a debt reduction plan,
(11:57):
you're not using any credit soyou have to use cash or cash
equivalent, which would be adebit card, if you ingest your
budget regularly track yourexpenses and income to identify
areas for improvements and makeadjustments that's needed. So if
you cut back on some thingsyou're paying for that was
included in your monthly budget,says some subscriptions, such as
(12:19):
cable TV or maybe you had 10streaming services, and you cut
most of them out, reduce yourbudget for that category down by
the amounts you were paying,because you're no longer going
to be paying it. Start small.
Begin with small changes, likesaving $1,168
by brewing coffee at home, andgradually build up larger
(12:41):
savings goal? Prioritize needsover one, focus on saving for
essential expenses likeemergency fund before allow
allocating funds for discussiondiscretionary spending.
Remember, saving money is a longterm process that requires
discipline, patience andpersistence. By implementing
these strategies and stay incommittee, you can achieve your
(13:02):
financial goals and build a moresecure financial future. So
start small. Only use cash tobuy things now this are items
such as going to the grocerystore or going out for
entertainment. If you know youhave $100
(13:24):
for entertainment a month, take$100 cash, stick it in an
envelope, write entertainment onit. And once it's gone, your
entertainment for the month isdone. You can carry the unused
portion forward into the nextmonth, you cannot use the next
month entertainment budget forthe current month. So that's a
(13:48):
way to start controllingyourself on your spending. You
have to be focused. So that'swhy tracking all the stuff
that's coming in and going outof your household, financial
stuff, money coming in yourchecking account, and everything
you're spending on will help youget an idea where your money's
(14:10):
going. And once you can focus onthat, you can see the items
where you can cut back where youmay be overspending. Maybe it's
going out to dinner, going outto eat too much. Maybe it's too
much entertainment. It could beanything. Maybe you're spending
(14:31):
too much on a hobby that yourealize you're not doing well.
If I do this hobby and I gotthis much money, then I can sell
something and I'll get somemoney back. But that may be
true. But how long is that goingto take you? You need to control
the spending side of it, becausethe income side of it may be
months away, and if it'ssomething that keeps you busy
(14:54):
and keeps you from spendingmoney while that's okay, but you
still has to put a limit.
What you can do every monthbecause you have a limit on the
amount of money you have. It'snot because it's you can. Don't
have the ability to do it, youdon't have the money to do it.
(15:15):
So you have to limit yourselfand pace yourself based on your
income and your other expenses.
Remember, your needs come first.
You got to pay those thingsevery month in order to survive.
Once you get those paid off,then your discretionary comes
(15:35):
second. You don't necessarilyneed them. You don't need may
want a lot of things, but youdon't necessarily need a lot of
things, and that's where most ofyour control is going to come
in. If you can quit a bad habitof smoking cigarettes, smoking
cigars or drinking a 12 packevery day, then you'd be able to
(15:58):
save some money. I know it'skind of obvious, but I gotta
state the obvious, because somepeople listening might be
struggling with trying to savemoney, but they're smoking three
packs of cigarette a day. That'show much is that? $15 or more.
Cut back to two packs, then cutback to one package, be better
for your health and definitelybetter for your wallet. That's
(16:21):
just what you need to do. Youhave to have a mindset to I want
to say money. Where can I cutback on my spending? Where can i
What can I do to limit myspending so that I can have more
(16:41):
money for myself, so I can buysomething more expensive later
on down the road, or I can getmy debt under control so I'd be
able to save more money fasterso I have a decent retirement,
decent amount for my children'sat college education, decent
amount for a down payment for anew car, or to buy that vacation
(17:06):
home or luxury yacht, whateverthe case would be,
you need to pace yourself basedon the income that you're
currently have in yourhousehold, and then limit your
spending to that. So if you wantto put it simple, spend less
(17:27):
than what you makeis as simple as that. I'll be
back in one moment with my finalthoughts are the articles I
refer to in my episodes have alink in my show notes if you're
interested in checking out thesoftware that I personally use
to get my data control, it's inmy show notes under shop
(17:48):
financial you need to copy andpaste the link and it'll take
you to the website. Anyquestions, you can just contact
me through that particularwebsite. If you value this
podcast and I like to make acontribution, I had a
contribution link in my shownotes. Also get whatever you
(18:08):
feel is appropriate for theinformation I am providing. I
thank everyone for listening tomy podcast. Okay? For review?
No. You have to be tracking. Youhave to have a budget. You got
to know what you're spending onyour needs, and you got to
control your discretionaryspending. Anything that's not a
(18:32):
need your basic needs arehousing, transportation and
food, anything else would bediscretionary which you want to
control the most your needs, youneed to review and see any of
those things that you're payingon a regular basis. Can it be
reduced? Can you get a betterprice for the same service after
(18:53):
you do all that, it's just amatter of controlling your
discretionary spending. How baddo you want to save the money
for whatever the reason wouldbe, how bad you want to pay off
that credit card debt? How badyou want to get completely out
of debt? It all is in your hand.
(19:17):
You have to be in the mindset, Idon't want to spend any more
money than I necessarily have toin order to live a comfortable
life. And before you buyanything that costs more than a
couple $100 or even $100you gotta ask yourself, Why am I
buying it? Do I need it? I'vegotten by without it so far. Why
(19:40):
do I need it now? Can I dowithout it? Give yourself some
time, at least three days aweek, two weeks. The larger the
item, the longer the period youshould wait before you make the
final decision. Special.
If you something you reallywant, maybe you can get by
(20:03):
without it. Maybe you buywithout buying something
similar. Don't cost as much. Doyou have to buy a brand name
instead of a no name? There'smultiple ways to reduce your
spending. You just have to lookfor and one of the ways is, if
you paid off your credit cards,do not close them out, because,
(20:24):
for number one, it will hurtyour credit rating, because your
credit to income ratio largernow, because you don't owe as
much on a credit card and youhave available credit that
you're not using, believe it ornot, creditors love that, so
(20:44):
don't cancel it. Down the road,you're gonna get an offer to
transfer balance, and maybe it'sa three or four or 5% fee to
transfer balance, but you'regonna get no interest for 12
months, 18 months, whatevertheir offer would be, I always
had 18 months. They might havereduced it to 12 months, then
(21:08):
you can transfer part of yourbalance off a high interest
credit card there, and you'llrecoup the balance transfer fee
within one or two months by notpaying the interest on that
dollar amount of money that youwould have, but only transfer
(21:29):
amount based on what you can payoff and the time period that
they're giving you. Because ifyou don't pay it off, they go
back to day one and recalculateall the interest and add it to
it, and you don't want that.
You're trying to avoid payinginterest. So you don't want
that, because they usually havea high rate of interest, so you
don't want to be paying that. Mynext couple episodes, I'm going
(21:50):
to talk about tracking indetail. I know I've done that
very many times in the past. I'mgoing to talk about setting up a
budget the easy way. Say, I dothis in the order to make it
easier for the average person toaccomplish these things. You do
tracking, and then you do abudget. Now, once you get your
(22:12):
budget down, then you do yourdebt reduction plan. You can put
that into play, or you can do itall at once as you go, but over
a period of 30 to 60 days, youshould have your tracking down,
you should have a budget inplace, and you should be working
on your debt reduction. That'swhat we're going to talk about
(22:33):
in the next three episodes. Iknow it's the same thing, and
it's boring. It's boring for me,maybe, and after the next three
that'll give me 10 moreepisodes, and I have five years
in disappointing I'm thinkingabout quit doing this podcast
when I hit the five year mark.
(22:56):
I'm not sure what I'm gonna do,but I'm gonna try to make it so
that I have at least five yearsof episodes on how to reduce
your debt and how to gain wealthby debt reduction. Maybe I'll
throw an episode in there towhat to do once your debt is
(23:18):
coming down. Over time, as yourdebt come down, your emergency
fund, minimum balance should beincreasing, stay tuned for more
information. That's all I havefor today. You.
Chuck, hello, I'm your host, Mr. Chuck, a retired
accountant turned truck driver,I reduced my debt in a
relatively short period of time.
Debt reduction to achievefinancial freedom takes
commitment, confidence,determination,
saving money. Tips. Need help insaving money. Here are some tips
(00:26):
to get started.
This is nothing new. This issomething that, if you have some
common sense, you probablyalready figured out. But by
saving money is not thatdifficult.
The first thing you have to dois prioritize where your money
(00:49):
is going. And what do I mean bythat? Well, if you want to save
money, the first thing you gotto do is know where your money
is going. Therefore you shouldbe tracking all the money coming
in and going out of yourhousehold. The second thing you
need to do is have some type ofbudget so you know how much is
(01:10):
going where on a monthly basis.
Once you have that done, inorder to save more money, you
need to reduce your spending.
But what spending am I talkingabout? Well, most of the
professionals gonna say yourdiscretionary spending,
(01:30):
that's money that you spend,such as going out to a
restaurant to eat instead ofeating home, or stuff you spend
on a hobby or entertainment,that is part of it. But another
way you can save more money isto look at your needs and try to
(01:52):
reduce what you're spending onyour needs down to the minimum
amount possible. So what it whatam I talking about? Your needs
are the things that you payevery month in order to survive,
housing, transportation andfood.
How much are you paying forthose three categories? And can
(02:16):
you cut your spending in any orall three categories? Let's
start with housing. Let's sayyou bought a home. You're not
renting, so you have a home themortgage. The only way you can
reduce your mortgage payment isto either refinance it and
borrow less, which is probablynot a good option for most
(02:38):
people, because the mortgagerates are higher now than they
were a couple years ago. So youdon't really want to finance to
Ohio a higher interest rate.
Your real estate taxes are setby the government. There's not
much control whether they canvote against any real estate tax
increases that come up on yourballot. Good luck with that, and
(03:02):
you can look for cheaper ordifferent homeowners insurance
that gives you the same coveragefor a lesser amount. The only
other place you can save wouldbe your utilities in the
summertime. Raise yourthermostat higher in the winter
time, put your thermostat lowerso you're cooling less and
(03:26):
heating less if you don't havegood insulation or bad windows
and stuff like that. That's along term project that you can
upgrade to help reduce yourenergy spending. That's going to
take some money.
The projects you do on yourhome, such as maintenance and or
(03:47):
upgrades that you can controlthat a little bit based on how
much you can afford at the timethat you're don't want to get
something done yourtransportation instead of having
that brand new car that costs30, $40,000
with a 800 or $1,000 a month carpayment. Sell it if you can get
(04:11):
out from under it withoutcosting you too much. Buy a good
used car that you can pay cashfor. Have no car payment. You
know, you pay less for the car.
You can afford to do moremaintenance on it, as something
would break or need to berepaired.
If you don't have a $1,100 carpayment, you have a $300 car
(04:35):
payment, that's $800 you freedup monthly that you can put
somewhere else, and I'msuggesting most of that into
savings food. Instead of goingout to eat,
cook all your food at home, tryto save as much as possible. I'm
(04:55):
not saying don't ever go out toeat again. I'm just saying,
instead of doing it.
Every day or once a week. Try tominimize it down to once a month
or on special occasions. Samething with clothes. If you're
one of those persons that spendsa lot of money on clothes, quit
(05:15):
doing that. What do you do withall the old clothes? Are you
giving it to charity? Well, thatmay be a tax deduction for some
it's not really a great taxdeduction, but it's better than
nothing.
But why you keep buying moreclothes if you haven't wore out
the old ones, and especially ifthey're still in fashion? So you
(05:38):
need to look at ways you canreduce your spending
cross the board, that's going tohelp you put money into your
savings account. I have anarticle here eight simple ways
to save money. Number one isrecord your expenses that's
trackinginclude savings in your budget.
(05:59):
Part of your budget should be $1amount that you're going to put
into savings every month, andthen automate that so it happens
automatically, whether it's acertain amount every payday or
once a month at a particulartime a month, you feel safe
transfer money to your savingsaccount that's not needed to
(06:19):
cover some expense coming up.
Find ways to reduce yourspending so they're not saying
anything here that I aren't setgoals. What are you saving for?
Are you saving for a new car orfor a house or children's
(06:40):
education or retirement,pick the right tools, make it
automatic, and then watch itgrow. I don't know how watching
your savings grow is going tohelp you increase your savings.
That's what I'm seven, eightminutes into this, and I pretty
much covered everything I needto cover.
(07:01):
Use common sense. Look for waysto reduce your spending,
especially on your needs. Cellphone, for example, is a good
place. You can look for anotherplan that's less per month that
gives you the same coverage.
(07:21):
Do you need that coverage? Levelof coverage? Maybe you can cut
back on it and save some moneythere.
Cable TV is a big waste ofmoney. Switch do away with cable
TV if you still have that, anddo away with it. Go to
streaming, but limit yourself toone or two streaming services,
(07:44):
so pick the ones that are gonnasave you money and provide the
entertainment that you have andyou'll can. You can save $100
or more a month if you keep yourstreaming under control. So
there's a couple more tips onhow to reduce your spending.
(08:07):
Every year you should becomparing your insurance plans
and see what's else out therefor the same plan. Can you get a
cheaper price with your cellphone? It's the same thing. Do
away with subscriptions you nolonger using. Do away with
things that you know that you'repaying for that you no longer
(08:29):
use, whether it's a gymmembership or antivirus software
for your computer or whateverthe case, that's where tracking
is going to help you, because ifyou know where your money is
going, you're gonna see some ofthese things pop up when you
enter it into your software, andyou'll say, Oh, why am I paying
(08:50):
for that? I'm paying for thistwo times a month. What's going
on with that? You caninvestigate it and cancel one of
them. That's the best way toreduce your spending, is knowing
where your money is going. Thesecond way is looking at your
monthly budget for the dollaramounts that you're spending,
(09:13):
housing, transportation, food,clothing, entertainment, credit
cards, whatever the case wouldbe, see where your money is
going. Look at the differentcategories, and can where can I
reduce some spending? Now, ifyou're on my debt reduction
plan, that's your spending.
You're using your credit card.
(09:37):
Should been done. So anythingthat's going there should be
payments, which, over time, willreduce your spending, because
it'll go away, you'll pay itoff, and then they'll give you
more money you can save, andthen increase your emergency
fund faster. For those of youthat listen past episodes, you
(09:58):
pretty much know what I'mtalking.
About you need to set somegoals. Define what you want to
save for, whether it's a shortterm, long term, to make the
savings easier and moremeaningful. If you're trying to
reduce your debt, that's whenyour goals I want to pay off all
my credit card debts. I want topay off all my card loans. I
want to pay off my house loan.
Whatever it is, set short termgoals, credit card, first car,
(10:23):
second, personal loans. Automateyour savings use tools or apps
to transfer funds regularly to asavings account, making it a
habit and reducing thelikelihood of overspending. This
comes in handy if you're one ofthose persons that looks at
their checking account, sees thebalance, and so I can buy that,
(10:47):
and you buy something, and thenlater on in the month, you come
up short on something you haveto pay for.
Quit doing that if you automateyour savings. And you know you
can put $50 a month into asavings account. Do it if you
get paid twice a month, do $25every payday. Do $10
(11:08):
every if you get paid weekly,$10 every payday, whatever it
is, set it up automatically. Getit out of your checking account,
and you'll never miss it, andyour savings will grow. Cut back
on discretionary spending.
Identify areas where you canreduce expenses. Says, cooking
at home instead of buying lunch,skipping expensive beverages or
canceling subscription services.
(11:33):
I guess expensive beverage wouldbe that latte in the morning
that you stop at the coffee shopto buy at five bucks a shot. Do
it at home, make your own usecash instead of credit cards.
Remember, we're not we're tryingto quit using the credit cards.
So using cash payments cash helpyou stick to your budget and to
avoid overspending. But ifyou're on a debt reduction plan,
(11:57):
you're not using any credit soyou have to use cash or cash
equivalent, which would be adebit card, if you ingest your
budget regularly track yourexpenses and income to identify
areas for improvements and makeadjustments that's needed. So if
you cut back on some thingsyou're paying for that was
included in your monthly budget,says some subscriptions, such as
(12:19):
cable TV or maybe you had 10streaming services, and you cut
most of them out, reduce yourbudget for that category down by
the amounts you were paying,because you're no longer going
to be paying it. Start small.
Begin with small changes, likesaving $1,168
by brewing coffee at home, andgradually build up larger
(12:41):
savings goal? Prioritize needsover one, focus on saving for
essential expenses likeemergency fund before allow
allocating funds for discussiondiscretionary spending.
Remember, saving money is a longterm process that requires
discipline, patience andpersistence. By implementing
these strategies and stay incommittee, you can achieve your
(13:02):
financial goals and build a moresecure financial future. So
start small. Only use cash tobuy things now this are items
such as going to the grocerystore or going out for
entertainment. If you know youhave $100
(13:24):
for entertainment a month, take$100 cash, stick it in an
envelope, write entertainment onit. And once it's gone, your
entertainment for the month isdone. You can carry the unused
portion forward into the nextmonth, you cannot use the next
month entertainment budget forthe current month. So that's a
(13:48):
way to start controllingyourself on your spending. You
have to be focused. So that'swhy tracking all the stuff
that's coming in and going outof your household, financial
stuff, money coming in yourchecking account, and everything
you're spending on will help youget an idea where your money's
(14:10):
going. And once you can focus onthat, you can see the items
where you can cut back where youmay be overspending. Maybe it's
going out to dinner, going outto eat too much. Maybe it's too
much entertainment. It could beanything. Maybe you're spending
(14:31):
too much on a hobby that yourealize you're not doing well.
If I do this hobby and I gotthis much money, then I can sell
something and I'll get somemoney back. But that may be
true. But how long is that goingto take you? You need to control
the spending side of it, becausethe income side of it may be
months away, and if it'ssomething that keeps you busy
(14:54):
and keeps you from spendingmoney while that's okay, but you
still has to put a limit.
What you can do every monthbecause you have a limit on the
amount of money you have. It'snot because it's you can. Don't
have the ability to do it, youdon't have the money to do it.
(15:15):
So you have to limit yourselfand pace yourself based on your
income and your other expenses.
Remember, your needs come first.
You got to pay those thingsevery month in order to survive.
Once you get those paid off,then your discretionary comes
(15:35):
second. You don't necessarilyneed them. You don't need may
want a lot of things, but youdon't necessarily need a lot of
things, and that's where most ofyour control is going to come
in. If you can quit a bad habitof smoking cigarettes, smoking
cigars or drinking a 12 packevery day, then you'd be able to
(15:58):
save some money. I know it'skind of obvious, but I gotta
state the obvious, because somepeople listening might be
struggling with trying to savemoney, but they're smoking three
packs of cigarette a day. That'show much is that? $15 or more.
Cut back to two packs, then cutback to one package, be better
for your health and definitelybetter for your wallet. That's
(16:21):
just what you need to do. Youhave to have a mindset to I want
to say money. Where can I cutback on my spending? Where can i
What can I do to limit myspending so that I can have more
(16:41):
money for myself, so I can buysomething more expensive later
on down the road, or I can getmy debt under control so I'd be
able to save more money fasterso I have a decent retirement,
decent amount for my children'sat college education, decent
amount for a down payment for anew car, or to buy that vacation
(17:06):
home or luxury yacht, whateverthe case would be,
you need to pace yourself basedon the income that you're
currently have in yourhousehold, and then limit your
spending to that. So if you wantto put it simple, spend less
(17:27):
than what you makeis as simple as that. I'll be
back in one moment with my finalthoughts are the articles I
refer to in my episodes have alink in my show notes if you're
interested in checking out thesoftware that I personally use
to get my data control, it's inmy show notes under shop
(17:48):
financial you need to copy andpaste the link and it'll take
you to the website. Anyquestions, you can just contact
me through that particularwebsite. If you value this
podcast and I like to make acontribution, I had a
contribution link in my shownotes. Also get whatever you
(18:08):
feel is appropriate for theinformation I am providing. I
thank everyone for listening tomy podcast. Okay? For review?
No. You have to be tracking. Youhave to have a budget. You got
to know what you're spending onyour needs, and you got to
control your discretionaryspending. Anything that's not a
(18:32):
need your basic needs arehousing, transportation and
food, anything else would bediscretionary which you want to
control the most your needs, youneed to review and see any of
those things that you're payingon a regular basis. Can it be
reduced? Can you get a betterprice for the same service after
(18:53):
you do all that, it's just amatter of controlling your
discretionary spending. How baddo you want to save the money
for whatever the reason wouldbe, how bad you want to pay off
that credit card debt? How badyou want to get completely out
of debt? It all is in your hand.
(19:17):
You have to be in the mindset, Idon't want to spend any more
money than I necessarily have toin order to live a comfortable
life. And before you buyanything that costs more than a
couple $100 or even $100you gotta ask yourself, Why am I
buying it? Do I need it? I'vegotten by without it so far. Why
(19:40):
do I need it now? Can I dowithout it? Give yourself some
time, at least three days aweek, two weeks. The larger the
item, the longer the period youshould wait before you make the
final decision. Special.
If you something you reallywant, maybe you can get by
(20:03):
without it. Maybe you buywithout buying something
similar. Don't cost as much. Doyou have to buy a brand name
instead of a no name? There'smultiple ways to reduce your
spending. You just have to lookfor and one of the ways is, if
you paid off your credit cards,do not close them out, because,
(20:24):
for number one, it will hurtyour credit rating, because your
credit to income ratio largernow, because you don't owe as
much on a credit card and youhave available credit that
you're not using, believe it ornot, creditors love that, so
(20:44):
don't cancel it. Down the road,you're gonna get an offer to
transfer balance, and maybe it'sa three or four or 5% fee to
transfer balance, but you'regonna get no interest for 12
months, 18 months, whatevertheir offer would be, I always
had 18 months. They might havereduced it to 12 months, then
(21:08):
you can transfer part of yourbalance off a high interest
credit card there, and you'llrecoup the balance transfer fee
within one or two months by notpaying the interest on that
dollar amount of money that youwould have, but only transfer
(21:29):
amount based on what you can payoff and the time period that
they're giving you. Because ifyou don't pay it off, they go
back to day one and recalculateall the interest and add it to
it, and you don't want that.
You're trying to avoid payinginterest. So you don't want
that, because they usually havea high rate of interest, so you
don't want to be paying that. Mynext couple episodes, I'm going
(21:50):
to talk about tracking indetail. I know I've done that
very many times in the past. I'mgoing to talk about setting up a
budget the easy way. Say, I dothis in the order to make it
easier for the average person toaccomplish these things. You do
tracking, and then you do abudget. Now, once you get your
(22:12):
budget down, then you do yourdebt reduction plan. You can put
that into play, or you can do itall at once as you go, but over
a period of 30 to 60 days, youshould have your tracking down,
you should have a budget inplace, and you should be working
on your debt reduction. That'swhat we're going to talk about
(22:33):
in the next three episodes. Iknow it's the same thing, and
it's boring. It's boring for me,maybe, and after the next three
that'll give me 10 moreepisodes, and I have five years
in disappointing I'm thinkingabout quit doing this podcast
when I hit the five year mark.
(22:56):
I'm not sure what I'm gonna do,but I'm gonna try to make it so
that I have at least five yearsof episodes on how to reduce
your debt and how to gain wealthby debt reduction. Maybe I'll
throw an episode in there towhat to do once your debt is
(23:18):
coming down. Over time, as yourdebt come down, your emergency
fund, minimum balance should beincreasing, stay tuned for more
information. That's all I havefor today. You.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.