July 28, 2024 • 27 mins
Using the control center to help reduce debt. Knowing the numbers and when bill are due will help in the debt reduction cause.
Article Link:
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/how-to-pay-off-more-debt-using-budget by Brianna McGurran
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Charles McDonald (00:03):
Hello, I'm your host, Mr. Chuck, a 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. Using
control center, using thecontrol center to help reduce
(00:26):
debt, knowing the numbers andwhen bills are due, will help in
the debt reduction cause. Whatis a control center? Well, if
you haven't been following, orif you're new, it's another word
for budget. I call it thecontrol center, because that's
where you can control yourpersonal finances. And that goes
(00:50):
along with doing your tracking.
You do your tracking to create areport to get the information to
put into your control center.
And what you do once that's alldone, no I hadn't have I didn't
dive in, haven't talked aboutit. But you use that
information, you have to updateit on a regular basis, every
(01:15):
time you get done after theupdate and you're tracking,
whether it's weekly, or everypay period, or whatever the case
is, you update your controlcenter. So you can see at a
glance what's going on. Now Ipersonally break my control
center down and at the very topis my income. So I put that in
(01:40):
on a regular basis, usuallyevery pay period. And then I
update everything else, just seehow my spendings doing. And my
math, imagine what my budgetednumbers are my control numbers,
which would be column B, thenumbers that you've over time
has defined on a monthly basisis what you're expected or
(02:05):
should be spending on a regularbasis. Now, that's easy for
loans, mortgages, car loans,when you just put in a minimum
payment. And it should alwayscome to zero. But things you
have to watch out for groceries,gas, for the automobiles, maybe
(02:28):
daycare or child care, maybediapers depends on your stage of
life. Maybe you are putting toomuch into your retirement
account and you're gettingbehind in other places. How's
your debt Dawn, he can look at aglance, when you update it.
(02:50):
How's your credit card debtdoing? Because you should have a
running balance of your creditcard debt within your control
center. And how much have youput into your savings? What's
your savings balance? Is itgoing up over time? Or is it
stagnant, or maybe going downbecause you take money out, but
(03:12):
the control center is there. Ifyou look and view it to give you
information of what is going onand your personal finances. So
let's break it down a little bitmore. Let's start with housing.
We know every month we pay ourmortgage. So that always comes
(03:36):
to zero, which is good, itshould if you didn't pay it. And
that's where it's important toknow how much is due. And when
it's due on your monthly billsand your monthly bills are what
make up your needs. The thingsthat you pay for on a monthly
basis that you have to pay nomatter what. And how are you
(04:00):
doing on that? Did you miss ormake a late payment on your
mortgage or auto loans? Butwe're focused on housing? Is
there anything in your housingit's this assume it's the middle
of the month now? Is thereanything left there they have
yet to pay for? Maybe some ofyour utilities are due and
(04:23):
towards the end of the month?
Maybe some of them are due inthe middle of a month or do
throughout the month? So youhave to be aware of how much you
owe and when is it due? And whenyou update your control center.
You can look at the detail ofyour housing and see which
utilities have I not paid foryet? Should I have already paid
(04:45):
them done? Am I late on making apayment? So it should be one of
those if you're around themiddle of the month and you're
not sure when your bills aredue? Maybe it's going to
Secretary Third month you'vedone this. But if you're not
sure when things are due, that'swhen you should investigate, you
(05:05):
should look to see, well, whendo I did pay at the previous
month? Okay, well, I hadn't paidinto that. When is it due,
maybe I paid it late in themonth, and maybe it was due
early in a month. So let's getcaught up on making timely
payments on all your needs. Notonly will that help you, with
(05:30):
your planning on reducing yourdebt, but it will also improve
your credit score, which wouldget you cheaper insurance over
time, because those with badcredit, your scores are gonna
have higher insurance rates, onefor that reason, that's if
(05:52):
you're perfect everywhere else,like you're a perfect driver.
And you'd ever make any claimsand make claims. But if you got
bad credit score, you still gotto pay a higher rate. So get
that under control. So that'show you use your control center.
And over time, you'll have ageneral idea, my housing costs
(06:16):
is about $1,200 a month with mymortgage, or about $500 a month
without my mortgage, and it'sdue spattered throughout the
month, I paid some my utilitiesthe first week of the month with
the mortgage payment, I pay someof them in the middle of the
month, I pay some and late inthe month, I pay all my credit
(06:39):
card bills, as scatteredthroughout the month, I pay for
my car insurance on a monthlybasis. And it's roughly in the
middle of the month I have mycar loans are due towards the
end of the month, all my billsare scattered throughout the
month, but you got to know howmuch is due. And when it's due.
(07:04):
And when it's coming up? Is itgonna be due before your next
pay day? Or is it going to bedue after you get paid, because
you have to look forward up totwo weeks. So you have control
of your personal finances. Soyou're not scraping around and
trying to figure out how you'regonna pay for some when it comes
(07:27):
due, you're gonna know that inadvance, and it's gonna take a
lot of stress I alive becauseyou can rest assure one I'm
gonna get paid on this day. Andthese bills are due after that I
have one bill due for thatbefore that, but I have enough
money in my checking account, ifI limit my grocery shopping to
(07:50):
$300 from now other than andonly put $20 a gas and have in
the vehicle between now andthen, and be able to pay that
bill. That's called planning.
And you need to plan your life.
He need the plan your personalfinances, so that you get all
(08:12):
your needs and things that youhave to pay under control. So
that once you know that, you'llbe able to say I got an extra
$300, I can put it in my savingsaccount. And you got to increase
your emergency fund. And themore you're able to do that
(08:34):
without having to take the moneyback out of the savings account
to pay a bill that you forgotabout because you shouldn't not
forget about anything. over athree or four month period of
time, you should have all yourbills, identify and your control
center. And you should knowwhat's coming due. Now, yes,
(08:55):
there may be some bills, you payquarterly, maybe some bills, you
pay semiannual. But you gottathink, what are they look back
through your checking accountand see what's happened. And
I'll check out all the months isthere any bills in there that
are kind of foreign to you, andidentify them and maybe it's
(09:16):
something that you need to startplanning for the value of your
control center, be able to planahead, know how much money you
have, know how much money youhave to lay out that bills are
coming due. So you can limityour some of your spending,
(09:37):
whether it's gas for the car, orgroceries or dining out or food
deliveries. You can cut backsomewhere. Let's talk about
cutting back if you have yourcontrol center, and maybe you're
paying everything timely andeverything's looking good, but
you're still not able to saveany money. You're still spending
(10:01):
more than you make on a monthlybasis, he can tell that by
what's your total income, andwhat last year total expenses,
what's the net number at thebottom of your control center,
when you get through a completemonth, is it still a negative
number, if it is, that meansyou're still using credit to pay
(10:22):
for something, he have to stopdoing that. Or that means that
you had to transfer money out ofyour savings account to cover a
bill, then you may be the weeklater you put it back, you have
timing issues. That's why youneed to have a minimum balance
(10:42):
of at least 300 to $600, that inyour checking account that you
try not to use. So if you haveone of those timing issues, you
might have enough in thechecking account that temporary
cover it and then you get thenext pay, you're paying yourself
back. And you really do that. Sonow you're still backup your six
(11:06):
or $300 minimum in your checkingaccount. But what's causing that
the cause of that is you havetoo many needs that you're
paying for based on the incomeyou currently have. So what you
need to do is go through yourcontrol center, and look at all
(11:28):
the needs that you're payingfor. Maybe under housing, you
have cable TV, have internet, ithave five streaming services,
why do you have five streamingservices and still paying for
cable, I've talked about this inthe past, you have to maximize
(11:49):
the use of your internet serviceby streaming, get rid of that
expensive cable TV, you can getstreaming services to pretty
much cover all that. And it'sgonna save you a bundle of
money. But you got to limit thenumber of streaming services you
(12:09):
have, you can't have three orfour streaming services where
you're looking at the same thingwhere you're have the same
channels that you're watching.
But maybe you have streamingservice a because the has this
channel that you like to watch,maybe has streaming service B
because a doesn't have B'schannel and B don't have A's
(12:34):
channel. And see it's the samething. You have to cut something
else, you have to make alifestyle choice here. What can
you do away with and livewithout an order to save some
money to get your debt undercontrol. Because if you got four
(12:55):
or five strings, services,you're wasting money, it should
be no more than three, I saytwo, but I allow up to three to
at the maximum, maybe one thatyour kids watch some shows on
and one for that you watch someshows on that's not covered on
(13:17):
the other one. Try to do awaywith duplicates, don't pay for
multiple services, for the samething. That's called using your
common sense and spending yourmoney wisely. You work hard for
your money, quit giving it away.
(13:41):
And if you quit giving it away,it's gonna help increase your
savings, your emergency fund,and it's gonna help eventually
reduce your debt within overtime, it's gone to speed up and
get faster throughout theprocess. But that's what the
control center is gonna do foryou is going to allow you to
(14:04):
look at things and say, Hmm,well, I need natural gas through
a house, I need electric, I needmy cell phone service. But on
your cell phone service, do youhave an extra phone do you don't
use the next year a couple linesyou're paying for that you're no
longer using. Maybe your kidswent to college and got their
(14:27):
own phone service and they lefttheir old phone there and you
have a couple of lines, updateyour service and get rid of
those extra lines you're nolonger using as long as you can
get the similar service for whatyou need at a lesser price and
you can save some money. That'sour goal here. So that's what
(14:48):
we're using to look at thedetail and your control center
and see whether things therethey can live without. Are there
things there that you no longeryours may be under memberships
or entertainment, you have a gymmembership, maybe a couple other
(15:08):
memberships that you no longeruse and cancel them. Why are you
paying for something you're nolonger using? Cancel it.
Same thing goes with virus antivirus on your software for your
computers, maybe you're payingfor two or three of them, and
you only use them one, becauseyou can use one for multiple
(15:31):
computers. And maybe as you gota new computer, he just bought a
new service. So you're payingfor multiple, get rid of them
and keep one. That is how youuse your control center. You can
also use it on your debt. If youset up your debt and put in a
(15:55):
beginning balance, paymentcharges, the beginning balance
plus charges, less payments,ending balance. If you set it up
that way, for each credit card,when you look at your control
center and you go to your creditcards, you can add a glance see,
(16:16):
if you use then your creditcards for up in that period in
the month, you can see if youmade any payments, you can see
if you're made the minimumpayment, you can see if the
minimum payment being madetimely. And you'll know your
ending balance because you dothe math. And I'll do the ending
(16:38):
balance for you. It's a littlebit more of a pain in the butt
because you have to look at yourcredit card statement online,
put in additions, as charges himput in your payments, your
subtractions as payments, whichyou know because the payments
you should know about becauseyou pay them from your checking
(17:00):
account. But you need to updateadditions, the additions may
only be interest that the creditcard company is charging you but
you have to account for it, hecan see how much it's really
costing you over time bycarrying that balance. So that's
why we need to get our debtunder control and get our
(17:23):
finances on their current tool.
They all go hand in hand witheach other. And you'll be glad
you did so and your trackingsoftware, he should be able to
generate a report that gives youthe same information for your
credit cards. I'll be back inone moment with my final
thoughts are the articles that Ireferred to in my episodes, have
a link in my show notes. Ifyou're interested in checking
(17:48):
out the software that Ipersonally use to get my demo
control, it's in my show notesunder shop financial, you need
to copy and paste the link. Andit'll take you to the website.
Any questions, you can justcontact me through that
particular website. If you valuethis podcast and would like to
(18:09):
make a contribution, I had acontribution link in my show
notes also give whatever youfeel is appropriate for the
information I am providing. Ithank everyone for listening to
my podcast. So for those of youtrying to pay off your debt,
when you have a budget, andsticking to your budget can help
(18:32):
you reach your goals faster, andcan help you identify how much
money you have available totransfer into savings because
you know which bills have beenpaid. You know how much money
you have coming in, you knowwhich bills are gonna come due.
So you know, you have a littlebit of extra, really not extra,
(18:53):
but you have some moneyavailable to put in your savings
to increase your emergency fund.
Remember, while you're payingoff your debt, your emergency
fund is a minimum of $1,000 upto a maximum of 3000. And then
when you have the maximum amountin there, you take out the
(19:17):
difference between the minimumand the maximum and you apply
that to one of your debt. Andyou do that when most of all
your monthly needs are paid up.
And you don't have anythingcoming due for at least a few
days. If not a week or two.
Maybe you have a pay periodwhere everything's paid. You
(19:40):
have a full paycheck coming inand you have most of that is
either gonna go to groceries,gas for the vehicles, and some
odds and ends around the housebut you don't apply it to your
savings because you know yourneeds are satisfied By
satisfied, and nothing is comingdue, that's the important and
(20:04):
knowing what's going on, thatall your needs are paid, all
your monthly payments have beenmade. And you have this little
bit extra that you can set asideand build up their emergency
fund, so that you can one dayapply it to one of your debt.
And this is gonna be a slowprocess at the beginning. But
(20:29):
over time as you debt startscoming down, and going away,
that process is gonna speed up,because the first day you pay
off, that's one less minimumpayment, you have to make the
second one, that's two lessminimum payments, you make the
third one, that's three lessminimum payments you made. So
(20:49):
you'll be able to rebuild yoursavings faster. So you'll be
able to apply sooner, and youget your data under control. So
the benefits of using a budgetas a budget gives you a clearer
understanding of where yourmoney goes each month. And it
can help you identify spendingpatterns and areas where you can
(21:13):
cut back. That helps youpinpoint how much income you can
safely devote to debt repayment.
Remember, we're not the vote andwe're devoting the minimum
payment, and then we're buildingup our emergency fund until we
have enough and then we'reapplying that to our debt. We're
not saying we're going to apply$500 extra a month to our debt.
(21:36):
I did that for years and neverrarely made much progress avoids
something would happen because Ididn't have a big enough
emergency fund. And I always wassomething that I would need to
use a credit card again. Andeven though I was getting paid
down, and something would happenand not have to charge
(21:59):
something. But I had thethe available funds on the
credit to do it, thank Godbecause I kept paying it down.
But that's not how you get outof debt. If you follow my debt
reduction plan, that's howyou're gonna get out that it'd
be able to see how much incomeyou can report towards an
emergency fund is crucial tokeep an emergency fund intact,
(22:22):
while eliminate debt so youdon't go into additional debt if
an unexpected expense arises.
Budgeting helps you set aside areasonable percentage of income
for fun and non essentialexpenses, which can help you
prevent your debt from beingunduly stringent and the
(22:46):
motivating, that would be yourentertainment category. I really
don't talk about that becausethat's up to how serious are you
getting out of debt, I'm seriousabout getting my debt under
control as soon as possible. SoI can build up my emergency
fund. So I can build up thatextra cash. So that can do what
I want later. Maybe it's a twoor three years down the road.
(23:11):
But that's too or that's five to10 years sooner than if I don't
do anything. And basically ifyou do a budget, adjust your
expenses for you have a hardtime making a budget work or
finding enough to pay down yourdebt. You need to make some
changes, maybe you can cancelsome subscription services or
limiting takeout. To reduce yournon essential spending, be able
(23:35):
to rent, renegotiate cell phonecontracts, cable bills,
insurance policy and make themmore affordable. Cable bills
should go away. It should beinternet service and a streaming
service. You don't really reallynegotiate your cell phone, you
just call them up and Tom yougot to change if you're not
locked in. That's the beauty ofbeing month to month if you're
(23:58):
not locked in, you can call themout and say Ah, I got this other
service here I can get the sameexact service for $30 less a
month and see if they'll matchit. That's part of the process
you do over time is you got tokeep up with everything you're
paying for can you get the sameservice at a cheaper price from
(24:20):
another provider? Or maybe yourservice provider is given a
special that they don't tell youabout because they don't tell
existing customers about waysthey can say money because they
like the most they can get out.
But if you call them up and saymy bill is getting too high I
(24:40):
have and Tom will paying for itcan what can you do? I'm gonna
either change providers aregoing to cut back drastically.
Your phone survey or cable orcable TV service I'm referring
to you should not be pay anextra for your local channels,
he needs to cut that right outby an antenna, it's a one time
(25:04):
expense, and you begin anantenna. Unless you live way out
in the country, we can't get anyTV stations through an antenna.
But you be surprised by anantenna, I've set it up, I get
all my local channels free, Iquit paying for it, and well,
then I got rid of it. So Istream to streaming services is
everything I need. And I stillcan't find anything in a watch.
(25:28):
But that's beside the point. ButI watch everything on that live
TV or through my streamingservices. And more than happy
been doing it for 10 years now,roughly. And I save a lot of
money. By doing that, you can dothe same thing with your cell
phone service you can do samething with your insurance. And
(25:50):
insurance agent, maybe you haveto up your coverage. But yet
don't mean you have to pay more.
bundle your home in your autotogether to get a cheaper rate
if you long as you got good autoinsurance, and good driving
records, do what you can toreduce your bending art, whether
(26:14):
it's for entertainment, nonessential items, or for
essential items, but you got toknow what your essential
payments are every amount aboutwhen they're due. So you can
plan to make sure you have theavailable funds there to make
timely payments. So you have agreat credit score. And that's
(26:37):
all and that works. It andyou're debt under control,
reducing your debt and gettingyour personal finance as a whole
under control. And you shouldn'tbe scared of it. Because it's up
to you to control your money.
And if you can get your moneyworking for you, instead of you
(26:58):
working for your money. You'llbe glad you did so
Hello, I'm your host, Mr. Chuck, a 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. Using
control center, using thecontrol center to help reduce
(00:26):
debt, knowing the numbers andwhen bills are due, will help in
the debt reduction cause. Whatis a control center? Well, if
you haven't been following, orif you're new, it's another word
for budget. I call it thecontrol center, because that's
where you can control yourpersonal finances. And that goes
(00:50):
along with doing your tracking.
You do your tracking to create areport to get the information to
put into your control center.
And what you do once that's alldone, no I hadn't have I didn't
dive in, haven't talked aboutit. But you use that
information, you have to updateit on a regular basis, every
(01:15):
time you get done after theupdate and you're tracking,
whether it's weekly, or everypay period, or whatever the case
is, you update your controlcenter. So you can see at a
glance what's going on. Now Ipersonally break my control
center down and at the very topis my income. So I put that in
(01:40):
on a regular basis, usuallyevery pay period. And then I
update everything else, just seehow my spendings doing. And my
math, imagine what my budgetednumbers are my control numbers,
which would be column B, thenumbers that you've over time
has defined on a monthly basisis what you're expected or
(02:05):
should be spending on a regularbasis. Now, that's easy for
loans, mortgages, car loans,when you just put in a minimum
payment. And it should alwayscome to zero. But things you
have to watch out for groceries,gas, for the automobiles, maybe
(02:28):
daycare or child care, maybediapers depends on your stage of
life. Maybe you are putting toomuch into your retirement
account and you're gettingbehind in other places. How's
your debt Dawn, he can look at aglance, when you update it.
(02:50):
How's your credit card debtdoing? Because you should have a
running balance of your creditcard debt within your control
center. And how much have youput into your savings? What's
your savings balance? Is itgoing up over time? Or is it
stagnant, or maybe going downbecause you take money out, but
(03:12):
the control center is there. Ifyou look and view it to give you
information of what is going onand your personal finances. So
let's break it down a little bitmore. Let's start with housing.
We know every month we pay ourmortgage. So that always comes
(03:36):
to zero, which is good, itshould if you didn't pay it. And
that's where it's important toknow how much is due. And when
it's due on your monthly billsand your monthly bills are what
make up your needs. The thingsthat you pay for on a monthly
basis that you have to pay nomatter what. And how are you
(04:00):
doing on that? Did you miss ormake a late payment on your
mortgage or auto loans? Butwe're focused on housing? Is
there anything in your housingit's this assume it's the middle
of the month now? Is thereanything left there they have
yet to pay for? Maybe some ofyour utilities are due and
(04:23):
towards the end of the month?
Maybe some of them are due inthe middle of a month or do
throughout the month? So youhave to be aware of how much you
owe and when is it due? And whenyou update your control center.
You can look at the detail ofyour housing and see which
utilities have I not paid foryet? Should I have already paid
(04:45):
them done? Am I late on making apayment? So it should be one of
those if you're around themiddle of the month and you're
not sure when your bills aredue? Maybe it's going to
Secretary Third month you'vedone this. But if you're not
sure when things are due, that'swhen you should investigate, you
(05:05):
should look to see, well, whendo I did pay at the previous
month? Okay, well, I hadn't paidinto that. When is it due,
maybe I paid it late in themonth, and maybe it was due
early in a month. So let's getcaught up on making timely
payments on all your needs. Notonly will that help you, with
(05:30):
your planning on reducing yourdebt, but it will also improve
your credit score, which wouldget you cheaper insurance over
time, because those with badcredit, your scores are gonna
have higher insurance rates, onefor that reason, that's if
(05:52):
you're perfect everywhere else,like you're a perfect driver.
And you'd ever make any claimsand make claims. But if you got
bad credit score, you still gotto pay a higher rate. So get
that under control. So that'show you use your control center.
And over time, you'll have ageneral idea, my housing costs
(06:16):
is about $1,200 a month with mymortgage, or about $500 a month
without my mortgage, and it'sdue spattered throughout the
month, I paid some my utilitiesthe first week of the month with
the mortgage payment, I pay someof them in the middle of the
month, I pay some and late inthe month, I pay all my credit
(06:39):
card bills, as scatteredthroughout the month, I pay for
my car insurance on a monthlybasis. And it's roughly in the
middle of the month I have mycar loans are due towards the
end of the month, all my billsare scattered throughout the
month, but you got to know howmuch is due. And when it's due.
(07:04):
And when it's coming up? Is itgonna be due before your next
pay day? Or is it going to bedue after you get paid, because
you have to look forward up totwo weeks. So you have control
of your personal finances. Soyou're not scraping around and
trying to figure out how you'regonna pay for some when it comes
(07:27):
due, you're gonna know that inadvance, and it's gonna take a
lot of stress I alive becauseyou can rest assure one I'm
gonna get paid on this day. Andthese bills are due after that I
have one bill due for thatbefore that, but I have enough
money in my checking account, ifI limit my grocery shopping to
(07:50):
$300 from now other than andonly put $20 a gas and have in
the vehicle between now andthen, and be able to pay that
bill. That's called planning.
And you need to plan your life.
He need the plan your personalfinances, so that you get all
(08:12):
your needs and things that youhave to pay under control. So
that once you know that, you'llbe able to say I got an extra
$300, I can put it in my savingsaccount. And you got to increase
your emergency fund. And themore you're able to do that
(08:34):
without having to take the moneyback out of the savings account
to pay a bill that you forgotabout because you shouldn't not
forget about anything. over athree or four month period of
time, you should have all yourbills, identify and your control
center. And you should knowwhat's coming due. Now, yes,
(08:55):
there may be some bills, you payquarterly, maybe some bills, you
pay semiannual. But you gottathink, what are they look back
through your checking accountand see what's happened. And
I'll check out all the months isthere any bills in there that
are kind of foreign to you, andidentify them and maybe it's
(09:16):
something that you need to startplanning for the value of your
control center, be able to planahead, know how much money you
have, know how much money youhave to lay out that bills are
coming due. So you can limityour some of your spending,
(09:37):
whether it's gas for the car, orgroceries or dining out or food
deliveries. You can cut backsomewhere. Let's talk about
cutting back if you have yourcontrol center, and maybe you're
paying everything timely andeverything's looking good, but
you're still not able to saveany money. You're still spending
(10:01):
more than you make on a monthlybasis, he can tell that by
what's your total income, andwhat last year total expenses,
what's the net number at thebottom of your control center,
when you get through a completemonth, is it still a negative
number, if it is, that meansyou're still using credit to pay
(10:22):
for something, he have to stopdoing that. Or that means that
you had to transfer money out ofyour savings account to cover a
bill, then you may be the weeklater you put it back, you have
timing issues. That's why youneed to have a minimum balance
(10:42):
of at least 300 to $600, that inyour checking account that you
try not to use. So if you haveone of those timing issues, you
might have enough in thechecking account that temporary
cover it and then you get thenext pay, you're paying yourself
back. And you really do that. Sonow you're still backup your six
(11:06):
or $300 minimum in your checkingaccount. But what's causing that
the cause of that is you havetoo many needs that you're
paying for based on the incomeyou currently have. So what you
need to do is go through yourcontrol center, and look at all
(11:28):
the needs that you're payingfor. Maybe under housing, you
have cable TV, have internet, ithave five streaming services,
why do you have five streamingservices and still paying for
cable, I've talked about this inthe past, you have to maximize
(11:49):
the use of your internet serviceby streaming, get rid of that
expensive cable TV, you can getstreaming services to pretty
much cover all that. And it'sgonna save you a bundle of
money. But you got to limit thenumber of streaming services you
(12:09):
have, you can't have three orfour streaming services where
you're looking at the same thingwhere you're have the same
channels that you're watching.
But maybe you have streamingservice a because the has this
channel that you like to watch,maybe has streaming service B
because a doesn't have B'schannel and B don't have A's
(12:34):
channel. And see it's the samething. You have to cut something
else, you have to make alifestyle choice here. What can
you do away with and livewithout an order to save some
money to get your debt undercontrol. Because if you got four
(12:55):
or five strings, services,you're wasting money, it should
be no more than three, I saytwo, but I allow up to three to
at the maximum, maybe one thatyour kids watch some shows on
and one for that you watch someshows on that's not covered on
(13:17):
the other one. Try to do awaywith duplicates, don't pay for
multiple services, for the samething. That's called using your
common sense and spending yourmoney wisely. You work hard for
your money, quit giving it away.
(13:41):
And if you quit giving it away,it's gonna help increase your
savings, your emergency fund,and it's gonna help eventually
reduce your debt within overtime, it's gone to speed up and
get faster throughout theprocess. But that's what the
control center is gonna do foryou is going to allow you to
(14:04):
look at things and say, Hmm,well, I need natural gas through
a house, I need electric, I needmy cell phone service. But on
your cell phone service, do youhave an extra phone do you don't
use the next year a couple linesyou're paying for that you're no
longer using. Maybe your kidswent to college and got their
(14:27):
own phone service and they lefttheir old phone there and you
have a couple of lines, updateyour service and get rid of
those extra lines you're nolonger using as long as you can
get the similar service for whatyou need at a lesser price and
you can save some money. That'sour goal here. So that's what
(14:48):
we're using to look at thedetail and your control center
and see whether things therethey can live without. Are there
things there that you no longeryours may be under memberships
or entertainment, you have a gymmembership, maybe a couple other
(15:08):
memberships that you no longeruse and cancel them. Why are you
paying for something you're nolonger using? Cancel it.
Same thing goes with virus antivirus on your software for your
computers, maybe you're payingfor two or three of them, and
you only use them one, becauseyou can use one for multiple
(15:31):
computers. And maybe as you gota new computer, he just bought a
new service. So you're payingfor multiple, get rid of them
and keep one. That is how youuse your control center. You can
also use it on your debt. If youset up your debt and put in a
(15:55):
beginning balance, paymentcharges, the beginning balance
plus charges, less payments,ending balance. If you set it up
that way, for each credit card,when you look at your control
center and you go to your creditcards, you can add a glance see,
(16:16):
if you use then your creditcards for up in that period in
the month, you can see if youmade any payments, you can see
if you're made the minimumpayment, you can see if the
minimum payment being madetimely. And you'll know your
ending balance because you dothe math. And I'll do the ending
(16:38):
balance for you. It's a littlebit more of a pain in the butt
because you have to look at yourcredit card statement online,
put in additions, as charges himput in your payments, your
subtractions as payments, whichyou know because the payments
you should know about becauseyou pay them from your checking
(17:00):
account. But you need to updateadditions, the additions may
only be interest that the creditcard company is charging you but
you have to account for it, hecan see how much it's really
costing you over time bycarrying that balance. So that's
why we need to get our debtunder control and get our
(17:23):
finances on their current tool.
They all go hand in hand witheach other. And you'll be glad
you did so and your trackingsoftware, he should be able to
generate a report that gives youthe same information for your
credit cards. I'll be back inone moment with my final
thoughts are the articles that Ireferred to in my episodes, have
a link in my show notes. Ifyou're interested in checking
(17:48):
out the software that Ipersonally use to get my demo
control, it's in my show notesunder shop financial, you need
to copy and paste the link. Andit'll take you to the website.
Any questions, you can justcontact me through that
particular website. If you valuethis podcast and would like to
(18:09):
make a contribution, I had acontribution link in my show
notes also give whatever youfeel is appropriate for the
information I am providing. Ithank everyone for listening to
my podcast. So for those of youtrying to pay off your debt,
when you have a budget, andsticking to your budget can help
(18:32):
you reach your goals faster, andcan help you identify how much
money you have available totransfer into savings because
you know which bills have beenpaid. You know how much money
you have coming in, you knowwhich bills are gonna come due.
So you know, you have a littlebit of extra, really not extra,
(18:53):
but you have some moneyavailable to put in your savings
to increase your emergency fund.
Remember, while you're payingoff your debt, your emergency
fund is a minimum of $1,000 upto a maximum of 3000. And then
when you have the maximum amountin there, you take out the
(19:17):
difference between the minimumand the maximum and you apply
that to one of your debt. Andyou do that when most of all
your monthly needs are paid up.
And you don't have anythingcoming due for at least a few
days. If not a week or two.
Maybe you have a pay periodwhere everything's paid. You
(19:40):
have a full paycheck coming inand you have most of that is
either gonna go to groceries,gas for the vehicles, and some
odds and ends around the housebut you don't apply it to your
savings because you know yourneeds are satisfied By
satisfied, and nothing is comingdue, that's the important and
(20:04):
knowing what's going on, thatall your needs are paid, all
your monthly payments have beenmade. And you have this little
bit extra that you can set asideand build up their emergency
fund, so that you can one dayapply it to one of your debt.
And this is gonna be a slowprocess at the beginning. But
(20:29):
over time as you debt startscoming down, and going away,
that process is gonna speed up,because the first day you pay
off, that's one less minimumpayment, you have to make the
second one, that's two lessminimum payments, you make the
third one, that's three lessminimum payments you made. So
(20:49):
you'll be able to rebuild yoursavings faster. So you'll be
able to apply sooner, and youget your data under control. So
the benefits of using a budgetas a budget gives you a clearer
understanding of where yourmoney goes each month. And it
can help you identify spendingpatterns and areas where you can
(21:13):
cut back. That helps youpinpoint how much income you can
safely devote to debt repayment.
Remember, we're not the vote andwe're devoting the minimum
payment, and then we're buildingup our emergency fund until we
have enough and then we'reapplying that to our debt. We're
not saying we're going to apply$500 extra a month to our debt.
(21:36):
I did that for years and neverrarely made much progress avoids
something would happen because Ididn't have a big enough
emergency fund. And I always wassomething that I would need to
use a credit card again. Andeven though I was getting paid
down, and something would happenand not have to charge
(21:59):
something. But I had thethe available funds on the
credit to do it, thank Godbecause I kept paying it down.
But that's not how you get outof debt. If you follow my debt
reduction plan, that's howyou're gonna get out that it'd
be able to see how much incomeyou can report towards an
emergency fund is crucial tokeep an emergency fund intact,
(22:22):
while eliminate debt so youdon't go into additional debt if
an unexpected expense arises.
Budgeting helps you set aside areasonable percentage of income
for fun and non essentialexpenses, which can help you
prevent your debt from beingunduly stringent and the
(22:46):
motivating, that would be yourentertainment category. I really
don't talk about that becausethat's up to how serious are you
getting out of debt, I'm seriousabout getting my debt under
control as soon as possible. SoI can build up my emergency
fund. So I can build up thatextra cash. So that can do what
I want later. Maybe it's a twoor three years down the road.
(23:11):
But that's too or that's five to10 years sooner than if I don't
do anything. And basically ifyou do a budget, adjust your
expenses for you have a hardtime making a budget work or
finding enough to pay down yourdebt. You need to make some
changes, maybe you can cancelsome subscription services or
limiting takeout. To reduce yournon essential spending, be able
(23:35):
to rent, renegotiate cell phonecontracts, cable bills,
insurance policy and make themmore affordable. Cable bills
should go away. It should beinternet service and a streaming
service. You don't really reallynegotiate your cell phone, you
just call them up and Tom yougot to change if you're not
locked in. That's the beauty ofbeing month to month if you're
(23:58):
not locked in, you can call themout and say Ah, I got this other
service here I can get the sameexact service for $30 less a
month and see if they'll matchit. That's part of the process
you do over time is you got tokeep up with everything you're
paying for can you get the sameservice at a cheaper price from
(24:20):
another provider? Or maybe yourservice provider is given a
special that they don't tell youabout because they don't tell
existing customers about waysthey can say money because they
like the most they can get out.
But if you call them up and saymy bill is getting too high I
(24:40):
have and Tom will paying for itcan what can you do? I'm gonna
either change providers aregoing to cut back drastically.
Your phone survey or cable orcable TV service I'm referring
to you should not be pay anextra for your local channels,
he needs to cut that right outby an antenna, it's a one time
(25:04):
expense, and you begin anantenna. Unless you live way out
in the country, we can't get anyTV stations through an antenna.
But you be surprised by anantenna, I've set it up, I get
all my local channels free, Iquit paying for it, and well,
then I got rid of it. So Istream to streaming services is
everything I need. And I stillcan't find anything in a watch.
(25:28):
But that's beside the point. ButI watch everything on that live
TV or through my streamingservices. And more than happy
been doing it for 10 years now,roughly. And I save a lot of
money. By doing that, you can dothe same thing with your cell
phone service you can do samething with your insurance. And
(25:50):
insurance agent, maybe you haveto up your coverage. But yet
don't mean you have to pay more.
bundle your home in your autotogether to get a cheaper rate
if you long as you got good autoinsurance, and good driving
records, do what you can toreduce your bending art, whether
(26:14):
it's for entertainment, nonessential items, or for
essential items, but you got toknow what your essential
payments are every amount aboutwhen they're due. So you can
plan to make sure you have theavailable funds there to make
timely payments. So you have agreat credit score. And that's
(26:37):
all and that works. It andyou're debt under control,
reducing your debt and gettingyour personal finance as a whole
under control. And you shouldn'tbe scared of it. Because it's up
to you to control your money.
And if you can get your moneyworking for you, instead of you
(26:58):
working for your money. You'llbe glad you did so
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