July 30, 2023 • 25 mins
Knowing the basics of personal finance, the tracking makes more sense. Everything will start to fall into place as to the importance for personal finance. Tracking of monies into and out of checking will start to full fill the five aspects of personal finance. Then creating a budget will be the control center to increase savings and achieving other goals.
Article Link:
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/tracking-monthly-expenses
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.
Charles McDonald (00:04):
Hello, I'm your host, Mr. Chuck, I retired
accountant turned truck driver,I reduce my debt in a relatively
short period of time, debtreduction, to achieve financial
freedom takes commitment,confidence, determination.
(00:24):
Tracking basics, knowing thebasics of personal finance, the
tracking makes more sense.
Everything will start to fallinto place as to the importance
for personal finance, trackingof monies into and out of
checking will start to fulfillthe five aspects of personal
finances, then creating a budgetwill be the control center to
(00:46):
increase savings and achieveother goals. Remember, what are
the five aspects of personalfinance, income spending,
savings, investing protection.
So when you're tracking what istracking, tracking is nothing
(01:07):
more than keeping a checkregister. If you don't know what
a check register is, that'swhere you record, every deposit
and every withdrawal and out ofyour checking account. Today,
we're using apps or applicationsto help us do that the
(01:31):
application does all the math,only thing you need to do is put
in the date, who it's from orwho it's to the dollar amount,
select a category as about it,application will do the math,
they will add or subtract itfrom your balance. There's many
(01:52):
of them out there, I use onebecause it's easy to use, it's
inexpensive, less than $10 ayear and does the job. And you
can customize the categories towhatever you want. And move them
around, change it. And that kindof stuff is called count
(02:12):
about.com. that's all one wordat give it a shot or look for
something else if you don't likeit. Or if you want to see what
else is out there. There'splenty of them out there, then
your budget, I do a budget usinga spreadsheet because then I can
control it. And I don't do it inthe same application. Because
(02:35):
most of the tracking apps don'tdo a budget real good. Budgeting
apps don't do tracking verywell, from my experience. But
there's some newer ones outthere, that cost quite a bit of
money about $15 A month or about$100 a year. But they're out
there that if you're willing tospend some money, then go for
(02:55):
it. Try to find one that doestracking and budgeting and
basically concentrate on thebudgeting side of it. And that
you need a budget. That's an appthat I've looked at, and I've
never used it, I don't get paid.
They're not my sponsor, I don'tsave any money from them. But it
(03:15):
seems like it's a good app. Forpeople who wanting to do a
budget. For those who arestruggling to get out of debt,
or to say money or to keep theirspending under control, it
appears to be a pretty good appto help you that. Also tracking
will help you know what yourtake home pay is that will
(03:37):
remind you to pay yourselffirst, you will see how much
your savings are. You can evenput in the interest rate. You'll
know how much money you haveavailable to spend and you know
how much money you haveavailable to save. It will help
you create a budget much easier.
(04:00):
Tracking is the history of whathappened in your personal
finance. A budget is going tohelp you control the future
today. And future is what thebudget is going to help you
control. And once you have yourbudget set up, you need to get
in the habit of looking at yourbudget to see how much money is
(04:24):
available to span for thatcategory, based on what you
budgeted for tracking is gonnahelp you set those numbers. But
that's just the start that ifyou've never done this in the
past, you got to do it now andstart right away. What I
(04:47):
recommend is get yourself an appgo back to the beginning of the
previous month. Figure out whatyour bank balance was 30 plus
days ago enter that in as yourstarting balance and enter all
the transaction for thatparticular month up to the
current date that you're in,then you can do a report by
(05:12):
category, from the beginning ofthe month to the end of the
month, print it out, now youhave your starting point for the
dollars, you need to budget bycategory, your budget is almost
done, you just need to open up aspreadsheet, put in your
categories, put in your thiswould be the column for the
(05:34):
budgeted amount, then you have acolumn for the actual amount.
And the new thing for me is acolumn for the allocated amount.
Right now we're going focus onthe pass through tracking. So
that would be your budgetedamount. And why am I using that,
we got to start somewhere. Andif you don't know how much
(05:58):
you're paying for anything,because you've never tracked it,
he might have a vague idea. Butputting estimates in a budget is
not gonna get you anywhere closeto being successful. And it
might even discourage you fromcontinuing on with your
(06:18):
tracking, or continuing on withyour control center. Tracking is
the lifeblood, it's what'sthere, you got to do it at least
once a week, every couple ofdays, the more often you update
it, the less time it's gonnatake, the more you do it, the
faster is gonna come. Becausemost of these apps will
(06:40):
remember, when you type in thename of the grocery store you go
to, it will pop up and I'll havethe category, you got to be
consistent on your category. Soif you buy gasoline at your
grocery store, and that it wasfor gasoline, make sure you
change that category, maybe putthe name of the grocery store
(07:02):
dash fuel or gas, so that youcan have another name set up
with the proper category. Sothat's what tracking is all
about. So how you get started, Ihave links in my show notes. And
this one's from the nerd wallet.
First thing to do is get allyour statements together. And
(07:23):
when I say statement, I'mtalking about your credit card,
your checking account, andwhatever else you're putting in
there to track. Now what youtracking what your accounts,
it's going to be everything thatyour money flows into or through
that you use to buy stuff, andthat you have to pay back. So
(07:45):
that would be your checkingaccount, your savings account,
at least one savings account,and all your credit cards. If
you're doing a debt reductionplan, which we're going to talk
about later, you still gottatrack your credit cards, he
shouldn't be using them, butyou're gonna be bank and
(08:06):
payments to them. So it's a goodway to keep an eye on what your
balance of your credit cardsare, as you go through time. So
you can make an informeddecision on which one to pay off
first or last or whatever thecase would be. Then you want to
categorize all your expenses andthe NerdWallet is saying you got
(08:29):
to group them by needs for meneeds are housing,
transportation and food, theNerdWallet it's also saying
health care, but health care ifyou're paying for your health
insurance, through work, youdon't have to track that in your
budget. Because we're workingwith your net take home pay,
(08:53):
it's already been paid and takencare of. He don't need to budget
for it. There are include inlife insurance, childcare, and
groceries and miscellaneouspersonal items. Also credit card
payments, student loans, anyloan payment you got. That was a
(09:13):
need because you're required tomake a monthly payment. And
doesn't matter if you make thehow much money you make. You
still need to make that monthlypayment no matter what then you
have once which would be diningout alcohol movie,
entertainment, memberships, gymsor clubs, travel, vacation, home
(09:36):
decor, some clothing, our onceneed to group this by needs
first in your budget and thenone second, then the second half
of your budget for yourexpenditures. I'm not saying you
need to do away with them. I'mjust saying that's how you
(09:58):
should add up your budget. Andif you find your budget is way
out of whack, look closely atthose items you classified as
needs. And consider negotiatingrefinancing or downgrading, you
can take money out of your wantsto help cover some of your
needs. Now, when I say housingthat includes all the utilities,
(10:20):
the taxes, insurance,maintenance, when I say
transportation, that's the autoloans, gasoline, oil changes,
maintenance. So it's pretty muchgonna cover everything. Scan
your spending for the past fewmonths to get a sense of what
(10:42):
you once are, and how much youtend to spend on them. Have each
adult in your household do thesame if you're creating a family
budget, this exercise gives youa realistic baseline, he can use
what you've learned to makesmall changes in your spending
over time. So if you look backand see how much you're spending
(11:04):
on a particular item, let's saycoffee at a coffee shop, because
you stop and get a coffee everymorning. And maybe you should
that's a want. So you shouldhave that coffee shop as a
separate line item in yourbudget. look back and see how
much you're spending over aperiod of time. Maybe that's
(11:26):
something you can cut back onget a smaller cup. Instead, the
large, if you're getting alarge, get a small one, save
some money that way. Don't goone day a week, cut it out
completely get your coffee athome, there's ways you can
control your spending, he justgot to think about it. If you
pay off your credit cards infull each month, classify the
(11:49):
expense according to what youbuy groceries under needs, for
example. However, if youmaintain a balance and are
accruing interest and fees, Lispayments beyond the minimum
under debt repayment, okay, soif you pay off a credit card
(12:11):
every month, and you get a zerobalance, you want to when you
make that payment to the creditcard, classify it as shopping,
or groceries or break it outinto a couple categories. If you
have a general idea what theyare, if you have a running
balance, they're sayinganything, all your payments
(12:33):
should be classified as debtrepayment, but they're saying
anything. Beyond the minimum,I'm saying all your payments,
there's gonna be debt repayment,classification, and identify
room for change as you track youready to make adjustments.
Alone, the big fix expense inyour life, like the cost of
(12:55):
housing vehicles and utilitiescan make significant impact on
your budget. Beyond that, checkout additional ways to save
money that can give you somebreathing room, cut out
entertainment, cut back onentertainment, do away with
cable TV, do streaming TV, checkwith your cell phone provider to
(13:15):
see if you can get a a betterrate for the same type of
service. These are things youcan do at least once a year.
Anything that you're paying forand using cell phone is a good
example. Every year check to seewhat new services your provider
has, what new plans they have,he might be able to have the
(13:38):
exactly the same thing for $10less a month, and he can get it
by making a phone call 1015minutes on the phone, you're
gonna save $120 a year, maybemore. He can also change
services. If you're not payingfor a phone, then you can change
services whenever you feel likeas your service should be month
(14:02):
to month. Once you've honoredthe whatever contract you had to
start with. If you find thisepisode helpful, and we'd like
to make a contribution, you cango to the footnotes in my show
notes and look for asubscription link. And it will
take it to a place where you canmake a contribution. Or you can
(14:22):
go to reduce debt increasewealth.com Click on the support
button, and you're exactly thesame place. Oh, I'd like to
thank those who already madecontributions in the past. I'll
be back in one moment with myfinal thoughts. If you're
interested in learning about anonline software that helped
(14:44):
myself get out of debt, it doestracking, budgeting and keeps
track of all your assets and allyour debt and even tells you how
much and when to transfer money.
and your savings account, andhow much and when to transfer
(15:04):
money to your debt, and whichdebts to pay off in order.
First, it's not cheap. It's aone time payment. But it will
definitely be an investment,something and yourself, and an
investment in your personalfinancial life. If you're
(15:24):
interested, send me an email atreduce debt increase
wealth@gmail.com. And I'll sendyou the information about this
online software that workedgreat for me. What are the other
benefits of tracking? As I saidbefore tracking is what happened
(15:47):
in the past, it gives youguidance, as a starting point to
set up a budget. Another benefitof tracking is you have a pretty
good idea of the balance amountof money that you have in your
checking account at all times.
You also know how much money youowe on each credit card all the
(16:10):
time. If you keep everything upto date, it only takes a few
minutes every week, if you do itweekly, a few minutes, maybe
five to 10 minutes, if you do alot of transactions is gonna
take a lot more a lot more time,then you might want to keep
(16:31):
receipts, and enter them andyour checking account or your
credit card or whatever it is,as you go, every couple of days,
I was in the habit of keepingreceipts, stick them in my
wallet, every couple days, I'dpull them out and I would enter
EM my tracking app, I've kind ofgot away from that because I do
(16:53):
a lot less spending. And I setup a second checking account
that I transfer money into oncea week that I don't have to keep
track of because I track thatonce a week transfer and
classified it as shopping,because that's what 99% of the
(17:14):
money I'm using is gonna be forbuying something when I'm out
and about when I'm buyinggasoline, it's a big dollar
purchase, I'm using my debitcard. If I'm buying groceries,
the same thing, I'm using mymain checking debit card, that's
one of the ways I've done it toreduce the amount of
(17:36):
transactions I have to enter andkeep track of is that a good
thing? I don't know. The morecontrol you have on your
finances, the more aware ofwhat's II know what's going on,
the better off you're gonna be.
(17:57):
If you are a person that has anoverspending problems, by
tracking your spending, you'llbecome more aware of where your
money is going. So if you everasked yourself, I got paid four
days ago, Where's all my money?
If you're tracking, you couldlook back the last four days
(18:18):
since your last paycheck and seewhere your money went. You paid
rent, you paid some utilities,you put gas in the car, you went
to the grocery store, you wentout and had some entertainment,
you know where your money went,because it took track kept track
of it. That's the idea. And themore you do it, the better
(18:41):
you'll get the easier becomesthe more aware of what you know
what's going on in your personalfinance, they'll be more aware
that you where you're wastingmoney. If that's the case, you
become more aware of how toreduce some spending cut back
somewhere where you might bespending too much and free up
(19:04):
some money to pay off that debt.
And the more debt you get paiddown, the better off you're
gonna be because then you havemore money in your savings,
which means you'll have a biggeremergency fund. And then
eventually, you'll start havingmore money to invest.
(19:25):
So you have the five aspects,income spending, savings,
investing, protection, you gotfour of them covered.
Eventually, just by tracking theprotection is insurance, and you
can budget for that. And becausewhen you buy a home your lender
(19:49):
is gonna require you to havemaybe mortgage insurance and
homeowners insurance. When youbuy a car and get a loan on it.
Your lender is gonna require youto have automobile Your
insurance, and you got yourlicense, you're required to have
on bills. So that's going to bea given. What other insurance
protection can you do? Well, youhave life insurance, if you have
(20:12):
a family and children, andyou're the main income earner,
you got if you something thathappened to you, you need to be
able to replace your income foryour spouse and children. If you
are injured but are notdeceased, then you need some
insurance to replace your incomebecause your are unable to work.
(20:37):
That's disability income. Wehave short term yet long term.
That's the basics of what youneed. As far as protection, I
got to keep a fine line balanceon insurance, it's good when you
need it. But if you'restruggling and living paycheck
to paycheck, you probably have ahard time making those payments.
(21:01):
Also tracking. Once you've doneit for a 12 month period, you
can go back and you know wasonce in a while type bills, you
can see what they are. Maybebecause my homeowners insurance,
I pay once a year, my realestate taxes I pay twice a year,
my car insurance, I pay twice ayear. And it's March and
(21:25):
September, for an car insuranceis January and June for real
estate taxes. It's September forhomeowners insurance, I know the
stuff because of track. Overtime, I may not know the exact
dollar amount, I have a vagueidea, I have a general number, I
(21:47):
got to close within 20 or $30.
You don't have to know he needsto know what your net take home
pay is. If your net take homepay is $300 a week, you only
have $300 a week to spend. Ifyour take home pay is $1,500 a
week, then you have $1,500 tospend. But you don't need to
(22:09):
spend it all on that same week.
If you're able to allocate yourmoney to other expenses that are
coming up due and the next week,two weeks or three weeks, and
you're put and you're holdingthat money back to pay it for
three weeks in the future.
You've got your finances undercontrol, and you're doing fairly
(22:32):
good. As I said before, there'syou need an app or not you need
an app, you need a budget, thatis an application at $15 A month
or $100 a year. It's a decentapplication for a budget, and
also does tracking. I don't knowhow much or what it does. But it
(22:55):
does enough. In order to do thebudget, its main focus is to get
you to set up a budget, set upyour categories, allocate money
to a category and help youcontrol your spending and help
you spend where you need tospend the money and save some
(23:17):
more for future purchases. Theless debt you have, the better
off you're gonna be. We all needsome debt, housing, and auto and
transportation is probably twodebts. At a minimum you should
have having three or four creditcards charged up to the max
(23:39):
limit is that you don't needhaving a lot of student loan
debt is debt that you might haveincurred, and increase your
income sometime in the future.
But did that really do it foryou. And don't rely on the
government to come along and doaway with the student loan debt.
(24:02):
Because as you can see, that'snot happening. And if they do
it, there'll be a real strictguideline and requirements. And
if you haven't made timelymonthly payments for the last
five years or 10 years, you'reprobably not gonna get that
relief from your student loans.
That's my personal opinion.
(24:24):
Start your tracking today. Getthose categories. Try to keep
the categories as minimal aspossible. But make sure you
include everything that'shappening in your life. If you
get an application, you do nothave to use all the categories
in there. It's only a guidelinefor you. And if you don't like
(24:46):
the name of one, you can changethe name you can add it to
categories list. You can changeit around, make it work for you,
and you'll be glad you did so
Hello, I'm your host, Mr. Chuck, I retired
accountant turned truck driver,I reduce my debt in a relatively
short period of time, debtreduction, to achieve financial
freedom takes commitment,confidence, determination.
(00:24):
Tracking basics, knowing thebasics of personal finance, the
tracking makes more sense.
Everything will start to fallinto place as to the importance
for personal finance, trackingof monies into and out of
checking will start to fulfillthe five aspects of personal
finances, then creating a budgetwill be the control center to
(00:46):
increase savings and achieveother goals. Remember, what are
the five aspects of personalfinance, income spending,
savings, investing protection.
So when you're tracking what istracking, tracking is nothing
(01:07):
more than keeping a checkregister. If you don't know what
a check register is, that'swhere you record, every deposit
and every withdrawal and out ofyour checking account. Today,
we're using apps or applicationsto help us do that the
(01:31):
application does all the math,only thing you need to do is put
in the date, who it's from orwho it's to the dollar amount,
select a category as about it,application will do the math,
they will add or subtract itfrom your balance. There's many
(01:52):
of them out there, I use onebecause it's easy to use, it's
inexpensive, less than $10 ayear and does the job. And you
can customize the categories towhatever you want. And move them
around, change it. And that kindof stuff is called count
(02:12):
about.com. that's all one wordat give it a shot or look for
something else if you don't likeit. Or if you want to see what
else is out there. There'splenty of them out there, then
your budget, I do a budget usinga spreadsheet because then I can
control it. And I don't do it inthe same application. Because
(02:35):
most of the tracking apps don'tdo a budget real good. Budgeting
apps don't do tracking verywell, from my experience. But
there's some newer ones outthere, that cost quite a bit of
money about $15 A month or about$100 a year. But they're out
there that if you're willing tospend some money, then go for
(02:55):
it. Try to find one that doestracking and budgeting and
basically concentrate on thebudgeting side of it. And that
you need a budget. That's an appthat I've looked at, and I've
never used it, I don't get paid.
They're not my sponsor, I don'tsave any money from them. But it
(03:15):
seems like it's a good app. Forpeople who wanting to do a
budget. For those who arestruggling to get out of debt,
or to say money or to keep theirspending under control, it
appears to be a pretty good appto help you that. Also tracking
will help you know what yourtake home pay is that will
(03:37):
remind you to pay yourselffirst, you will see how much
your savings are. You can evenput in the interest rate. You'll
know how much money you haveavailable to spend and you know
how much money you haveavailable to save. It will help
you create a budget much easier.
(04:00):
Tracking is the history of whathappened in your personal
finance. A budget is going tohelp you control the future
today. And future is what thebudget is going to help you
control. And once you have yourbudget set up, you need to get
in the habit of looking at yourbudget to see how much money is
(04:24):
available to span for thatcategory, based on what you
budgeted for tracking is gonnahelp you set those numbers. But
that's just the start that ifyou've never done this in the
past, you got to do it now andstart right away. What I
(04:47):
recommend is get yourself an appgo back to the beginning of the
previous month. Figure out whatyour bank balance was 30 plus
days ago enter that in as yourstarting balance and enter all
the transaction for thatparticular month up to the
current date that you're in,then you can do a report by
(05:12):
category, from the beginning ofthe month to the end of the
month, print it out, now youhave your starting point for the
dollars, you need to budget bycategory, your budget is almost
done, you just need to open up aspreadsheet, put in your
categories, put in your thiswould be the column for the
(05:34):
budgeted amount, then you have acolumn for the actual amount.
And the new thing for me is acolumn for the allocated amount.
Right now we're going focus onthe pass through tracking. So
that would be your budgetedamount. And why am I using that,
we got to start somewhere. Andif you don't know how much
(05:58):
you're paying for anything,because you've never tracked it,
he might have a vague idea. Butputting estimates in a budget is
not gonna get you anywhere closeto being successful. And it
might even discourage you fromcontinuing on with your
(06:18):
tracking, or continuing on withyour control center. Tracking is
the lifeblood, it's what'sthere, you got to do it at least
once a week, every couple ofdays, the more often you update
it, the less time it's gonnatake, the more you do it, the
faster is gonna come. Becausemost of these apps will
(06:40):
remember, when you type in thename of the grocery store you go
to, it will pop up and I'll havethe category, you got to be
consistent on your category. Soif you buy gasoline at your
grocery store, and that it wasfor gasoline, make sure you
change that category, maybe putthe name of the grocery store
(07:02):
dash fuel or gas, so that youcan have another name set up
with the proper category. Sothat's what tracking is all
about. So how you get started, Ihave links in my show notes. And
this one's from the nerd wallet.
First thing to do is get allyour statements together. And
(07:23):
when I say statement, I'mtalking about your credit card,
your checking account, andwhatever else you're putting in
there to track. Now what youtracking what your accounts,
it's going to be everything thatyour money flows into or through
that you use to buy stuff, andthat you have to pay back. So
(07:45):
that would be your checkingaccount, your savings account,
at least one savings account,and all your credit cards. If
you're doing a debt reductionplan, which we're going to talk
about later, you still gottatrack your credit cards, he
shouldn't be using them, butyou're gonna be bank and
(08:06):
payments to them. So it's a goodway to keep an eye on what your
balance of your credit cardsare, as you go through time. So
you can make an informeddecision on which one to pay off
first or last or whatever thecase would be. Then you want to
categorize all your expenses andthe NerdWallet is saying you got
(08:29):
to group them by needs for meneeds are housing,
transportation and food, theNerdWallet it's also saying
health care, but health care ifyou're paying for your health
insurance, through work, youdon't have to track that in your
budget. Because we're workingwith your net take home pay,
(08:53):
it's already been paid and takencare of. He don't need to budget
for it. There are include inlife insurance, childcare, and
groceries and miscellaneouspersonal items. Also credit card
payments, student loans, anyloan payment you got. That was a
(09:13):
need because you're required tomake a monthly payment. And
doesn't matter if you make thehow much money you make. You
still need to make that monthlypayment no matter what then you
have once which would be diningout alcohol movie,
entertainment, memberships, gymsor clubs, travel, vacation, home
(09:36):
decor, some clothing, our onceneed to group this by needs
first in your budget and thenone second, then the second half
of your budget for yourexpenditures. I'm not saying you
need to do away with them. I'mjust saying that's how you
(09:58):
should add up your budget. Andif you find your budget is way
out of whack, look closely atthose items you classified as
needs. And consider negotiatingrefinancing or downgrading, you
can take money out of your wantsto help cover some of your
needs. Now, when I say housingthat includes all the utilities,
(10:20):
the taxes, insurance,maintenance, when I say
transportation, that's the autoloans, gasoline, oil changes,
maintenance. So it's pretty muchgonna cover everything. Scan
your spending for the past fewmonths to get a sense of what
(10:42):
you once are, and how much youtend to spend on them. Have each
adult in your household do thesame if you're creating a family
budget, this exercise gives youa realistic baseline, he can use
what you've learned to makesmall changes in your spending
over time. So if you look backand see how much you're spending
(11:04):
on a particular item, let's saycoffee at a coffee shop, because
you stop and get a coffee everymorning. And maybe you should
that's a want. So you shouldhave that coffee shop as a
separate line item in yourbudget. look back and see how
much you're spending over aperiod of time. Maybe that's
(11:26):
something you can cut back onget a smaller cup. Instead, the
large, if you're getting alarge, get a small one, save
some money that way. Don't goone day a week, cut it out
completely get your coffee athome, there's ways you can
control your spending, he justgot to think about it. If you
pay off your credit cards infull each month, classify the
(11:49):
expense according to what youbuy groceries under needs, for
example. However, if youmaintain a balance and are
accruing interest and fees, Lispayments beyond the minimum
under debt repayment, okay, soif you pay off a credit card
(12:11):
every month, and you get a zerobalance, you want to when you
make that payment to the creditcard, classify it as shopping,
or groceries or break it outinto a couple categories. If you
have a general idea what theyare, if you have a running
balance, they're sayinganything, all your payments
(12:33):
should be classified as debtrepayment, but they're saying
anything. Beyond the minimum,I'm saying all your payments,
there's gonna be debt repayment,classification, and identify
room for change as you track youready to make adjustments.
Alone, the big fix expense inyour life, like the cost of
(12:55):
housing vehicles and utilitiescan make significant impact on
your budget. Beyond that, checkout additional ways to save
money that can give you somebreathing room, cut out
entertainment, cut back onentertainment, do away with
cable TV, do streaming TV, checkwith your cell phone provider to
(13:15):
see if you can get a a betterrate for the same type of
service. These are things youcan do at least once a year.
Anything that you're paying forand using cell phone is a good
example. Every year check to seewhat new services your provider
has, what new plans they have,he might be able to have the
(13:38):
exactly the same thing for $10less a month, and he can get it
by making a phone call 1015minutes on the phone, you're
gonna save $120 a year, maybemore. He can also change
services. If you're not payingfor a phone, then you can change
services whenever you feel likeas your service should be month
(14:02):
to month. Once you've honoredthe whatever contract you had to
start with. If you find thisepisode helpful, and we'd like
to make a contribution, you cango to the footnotes in my show
notes and look for asubscription link. And it will
take it to a place where you canmake a contribution. Or you can
(14:22):
go to reduce debt increasewealth.com Click on the support
button, and you're exactly thesame place. Oh, I'd like to
thank those who already madecontributions in the past. I'll
be back in one moment with myfinal thoughts. If you're
interested in learning about anonline software that helped
(14:44):
myself get out of debt, it doestracking, budgeting and keeps
track of all your assets and allyour debt and even tells you how
much and when to transfer money.
and your savings account, andhow much and when to transfer
(15:04):
money to your debt, and whichdebts to pay off in order.
First, it's not cheap. It's aone time payment. But it will
definitely be an investment,something and yourself, and an
investment in your personalfinancial life. If you're
(15:24):
interested, send me an email atreduce debt increase
wealth@gmail.com. And I'll sendyou the information about this
online software that workedgreat for me. What are the other
benefits of tracking? As I saidbefore tracking is what happened
(15:47):
in the past, it gives youguidance, as a starting point to
set up a budget. Another benefitof tracking is you have a pretty
good idea of the balance amountof money that you have in your
checking account at all times.
You also know how much money youowe on each credit card all the
(16:10):
time. If you keep everything upto date, it only takes a few
minutes every week, if you do itweekly, a few minutes, maybe
five to 10 minutes, if you do alot of transactions is gonna
take a lot more a lot more time,then you might want to keep
(16:31):
receipts, and enter them andyour checking account or your
credit card or whatever it is,as you go, every couple of days,
I was in the habit of keepingreceipts, stick them in my
wallet, every couple days, I'dpull them out and I would enter
EM my tracking app, I've kind ofgot away from that because I do
(16:53):
a lot less spending. And I setup a second checking account
that I transfer money into oncea week that I don't have to keep
track of because I track thatonce a week transfer and
classified it as shopping,because that's what 99% of the
(17:14):
money I'm using is gonna be forbuying something when I'm out
and about when I'm buyinggasoline, it's a big dollar
purchase, I'm using my debitcard. If I'm buying groceries,
the same thing, I'm using mymain checking debit card, that's
one of the ways I've done it toreduce the amount of
(17:36):
transactions I have to enter andkeep track of is that a good
thing? I don't know. The morecontrol you have on your
finances, the more aware ofwhat's II know what's going on,
the better off you're gonna be.
(17:57):
If you are a person that has anoverspending problems, by
tracking your spending, you'llbecome more aware of where your
money is going. So if you everasked yourself, I got paid four
days ago, Where's all my money?
If you're tracking, you couldlook back the last four days
(18:18):
since your last paycheck and seewhere your money went. You paid
rent, you paid some utilities,you put gas in the car, you went
to the grocery store, you wentout and had some entertainment,
you know where your money went,because it took track kept track
of it. That's the idea. And themore you do it, the better
(18:41):
you'll get the easier becomesthe more aware of what you know
what's going on in your personalfinance, they'll be more aware
that you where you're wastingmoney. If that's the case, you
become more aware of how toreduce some spending cut back
somewhere where you might bespending too much and free up
(19:04):
some money to pay off that debt.
And the more debt you get paiddown, the better off you're
gonna be because then you havemore money in your savings,
which means you'll have a biggeremergency fund. And then
eventually, you'll start havingmore money to invest.
(19:25):
So you have the five aspects,income spending, savings,
investing, protection, you gotfour of them covered.
Eventually, just by tracking theprotection is insurance, and you
can budget for that. And becausewhen you buy a home your lender
(19:49):
is gonna require you to havemaybe mortgage insurance and
homeowners insurance. When youbuy a car and get a loan on it.
Your lender is gonna require youto have automobile Your
insurance, and you got yourlicense, you're required to have
on bills. So that's going to bea given. What other insurance
protection can you do? Well, youhave life insurance, if you have
(20:12):
a family and children, andyou're the main income earner,
you got if you something thathappened to you, you need to be
able to replace your income foryour spouse and children. If you
are injured but are notdeceased, then you need some
insurance to replace your incomebecause your are unable to work.
(20:37):
That's disability income. Wehave short term yet long term.
That's the basics of what youneed. As far as protection, I
got to keep a fine line balanceon insurance, it's good when you
need it. But if you'restruggling and living paycheck
to paycheck, you probably have ahard time making those payments.
(21:01):
Also tracking. Once you've doneit for a 12 month period, you
can go back and you know wasonce in a while type bills, you
can see what they are. Maybebecause my homeowners insurance,
I pay once a year, my realestate taxes I pay twice a year,
my car insurance, I pay twice ayear. And it's March and
(21:25):
September, for an car insuranceis January and June for real
estate taxes. It's September forhomeowners insurance, I know the
stuff because of track. Overtime, I may not know the exact
dollar amount, I have a vagueidea, I have a general number, I
(21:47):
got to close within 20 or $30.
You don't have to know he needsto know what your net take home
pay is. If your net take homepay is $300 a week, you only
have $300 a week to spend. Ifyour take home pay is $1,500 a
week, then you have $1,500 tospend. But you don't need to
(22:09):
spend it all on that same week.
If you're able to allocate yourmoney to other expenses that are
coming up due and the next week,two weeks or three weeks, and
you're put and you're holdingthat money back to pay it for
three weeks in the future.
You've got your finances undercontrol, and you're doing fairly
(22:32):
good. As I said before, there'syou need an app or not you need
an app, you need a budget, thatis an application at $15 A month
or $100 a year. It's a decentapplication for a budget, and
also does tracking. I don't knowhow much or what it does. But it
(22:55):
does enough. In order to do thebudget, its main focus is to get
you to set up a budget, set upyour categories, allocate money
to a category and help youcontrol your spending and help
you spend where you need tospend the money and save some
(23:17):
more for future purchases. Theless debt you have, the better
off you're gonna be. We all needsome debt, housing, and auto and
transportation is probably twodebts. At a minimum you should
have having three or four creditcards charged up to the max
(23:39):
limit is that you don't needhaving a lot of student loan
debt is debt that you might haveincurred, and increase your
income sometime in the future.
But did that really do it foryou. And don't rely on the
government to come along and doaway with the student loan debt.
(24:02):
Because as you can see, that'snot happening. And if they do
it, there'll be a real strictguideline and requirements. And
if you haven't made timelymonthly payments for the last
five years or 10 years, you'reprobably not gonna get that
relief from your student loans.
That's my personal opinion.
(24:24):
Start your tracking today. Getthose categories. Try to keep
the categories as minimal aspossible. But make sure you
include everything that'shappening in your life. If you
get an application, you do nothave to use all the categories
in there. It's only a guidelinefor you. And if you don't like
(24:46):
the name of one, you can changethe name you can add it to
categories list. You can changeit around, make it work for you,
and you'll be glad you did so
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.