how to stop living from paycheck to paycheck

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  1. Hello Jade, Thank you for writing on Financial Planning Tips For The New Year: How To Stop Living From Paycheck to Paycheck. I enjoy while reading and learn some financial tips. 

    Everyone who deals with money and who relies on money for survival needs to have a solid personal financial plan in place.

    You are doing a grate work by helping people in their financial planning. In my views your post is valuable to everyone.

    I also bookmarked your post for reading it again in details.

    Thank you for you efforts.

    Parveen

    1. Thanks, Parveen.

      I really believe that everyone will benefit from a solid financial education but it can be difficult when parents aren’t always financially aware either. 

      We can’t teach what we don’t have and if we’re not financially educated, what can we tell our child?

      I’m so happy that you found this post useful.

      Do let us know how you get on. 🙂

  2. It’s an extraordinary article, Jade! I am very happy to read it and I enjoy it. You are really wise about financial planning. 

    To be honest, I’m on the 2019 team: The Year of Debt. Because this year I have a lot of expenses. Until I felt trouble even just to breathe, because my budget is too tight. However, it is very true what you write that one of the points to be able to overcome this problem is to increase cash flow. And maybe that will be my first resolution for 2020.

    Speaking of books, I really like reading! However, practically all the books that you recommend, I have never read yet. Therefore, if I have to choose 1 book to start, which book do you recommend the most?

    1. Thank you very much, Kylie.

      I know what you mean. When a budget is too tight, it’s like a noose around your neck. You’re afraid to move or spend a penny that’s not in the budget in case it all comes crashing at your feet.

      Increasing our income combined with majorly decreasing our expenses (and by this, I mean restructuring our lives like when we sold our car to get rid of huge monthly maintenance expenses) was the solution for us.

      Only doing one wouldn’t have solved anything.

      If you have to choose one book, The Richest Man in Babylon would be it. 🙂

  3. Hi Jade, great article with lots of practical advice and life stories for readers to follow. Budgets can be difficult for many people to follow once established and like a diet, they are not fun, the benefits take time to eventuate and generally after a few months, you’ve given up out of frustration and back to square one again.

    I really like Steps #2 and #5 – pay yourself first and pay off debt. Absolute gold (no pun intended). I read “The Richest Man in Babylon” when I was a teenager and from then on I endeavoured to follow the 10% rule as religiously as possible. One of the easiest ways I found to do this is set up a bank account that charges high fees for more than a couple of withdrawals a month (reduces temptation to spend) and arrange for your payroll office to automatically deduct 10% from your salary and pay it into this account before you even receive your regular paycheck.  Now you learn to live within 90% of your net salary or wages and it’s amazing how quickly you adapt to this new discipline. 

    What advice would you give to someone who has reviewed their expenses, cut back where they can and instituted a budget but were still struggling financially to keep their head above water?

    1. Thank you very much for this comment.

      You know what, I actually asked my husband – who is currently the breadwinner of the family – to do the same as you: get payroll to automatically deduct 10% from his salary. That’s absolute gold, I thought and I was kicking myself (sorta) for not thinking of it sooner.

      And then, of course, my husband said, “You did tell me to do that a while back.” 

      In other words, all this time, I’ve been factoring in 20% of his income as savings, which is obviously not a bad thing normally but as we have credit cards to pay, the 10% I’m manually squirrelling away can now go towards settling debts that charge us extortionate fees.

      So, thank you. 

      As for your question, this is what happened with us as late as mid-2019.

      The only solution that worked was for my husband to secure a higher paying job closer to home that offered transport. Which meant that we were not only just earning a few hundreds pounds extra, we also now have less to spend on as he doesn’t have to travel so far.

      It’s a great way to free up a lot of cash.

      Also, hustle hard. There are so many things you can now do on the side. If push comes to shove, you can also drive for companies like Uber in your free time or list a spare room on AirBnB. Start an online business like blogging (although this is a long-term game).

      If all else fails, negotiate debts with your lenders. Many are only too happy to help. Or you can apply for some debt relief if there really is no other way out.

      A lot of options are now available, thankfully.

      Again, loved your comment and thanks for sharing your experiences!

  4. hello, i really want to first appreciate your effort in putting this great website together and writing this article. the kevin and jade plan is something i should get now. i went into debt two years ago because i couldnt plan my budget with my paycheck. i am just recovering from that process

    1. Thank you for sharing your experience, Benny. It is definitely a difficult thing to get out of. Hope this post helps you on your journey. 🙂 Happy holidays!

  5. Living paycheck to paycheck is never fun, especially as a single parent. I believe in saving every chance you get and planning a budget to follow, etc… I agree with your ideas.
    great New Years resolution ; )

  6. They should absolutely teach this kind of stuff in schools;) Thanks for that! Pinned for later as well. Have a good rest of the year!

    1. Thank you! That’s exactly what I’ve been telling people all these years. Right now, I’m looking for children’s books that help with money. I haven’t really found one yet but when I do, you can bet I’ll write about them. 🙂

    1. Excellent! I’m glad you found this helpful and I hope you enjoy the journey. Being able to free yourself from debt is exhilarating. As exciting as watching your bank balance grow. 🙂

    1. Hi Nina, I know what you mean. Sometimes, debt just hangs over your heard and it doesn’t seem like it’s going down. But, with proper planning, there is light at the end of the tunnel. 🙂

  7. Hello; Do you really believe if I take these actions that you have taken they will get me out of the red?

    Many times I find myself overspend and I see no reason why there was no need for the products that I spend money buying. on the other hand. The Credit Card bill is always at an all-time high. It never seems to go down. I think I will follow your pattern. Regardless of my senseless habit of spending, I will have to stop somewhere.

    Thanks for helping

    DorcasW

    1. Hi Dorcas,

      I believe that to be true. 

      I don’t know about you but ours was a slow slide into the red so we didn’t even really notice until we were well and truly stuck in it. We really needed to do a complete overhaul of our finances just to make sure that we don’t make it any worse.

      Thankfully, after following these steps, we’re slowly climbing back out. We really recommend it.

      Do let us know how you get on and if we can provide even more resources to help you out. 🙂

  8. Creating a budget and also staying consistent completely changed the game for me. I would barely make it to the next paycheck, and I could never figure out why. That moment you take time to compare your expenses to your income is a big wake up call! I will definitely still need to get the Kevin and Jade Financial Plan.

    Thanks for sharing this.

    1. Agree with you completely, Jordan. Sometimes, just looking at the numbers is enough to make the change we need to get our finances in order. Thanks for sharing. 

  9. I love the look of your site. And your information is so PRACTICAL! Too many times in my life I’ve felt like I was just dead-broke and I would never break out of it! I love your practical tips to increase your income even if you have a full-time job. With the internet, anything is possible. I especially loved your section about throwing whatever cash you do have at debt like there’s no tomorrow. I’m definitely guilty of paying the minimum on student loan debts, then going out and buying myself a new computer. Debt is debt, and it grows like a weed. Thank you for your information! Bookmarking, sharing, reading again!

    1. Hi Jackie,

      Yes, the internet has definitely made so many things possible that we wouldn’t have been able to do before. Now, we can work full-time in an office (if that’s what we really want) and then come home, where we can do some more online stuff that will let us earn sort of a top-up income. It’s wonderful that way.

      Also, paying attention to what we’re buying – and why – can really help us with saving and spending. Sometimes, we just buy impulsively to fill a hole in our lives and not because we actually need the item. We then feel worse after because we know that we didn’t actually have the money to spend on it, which sometimes prompts us to buy more. And the vicious cycle then continues.

      Thanks for sharing. I love your weed analogy. 🙂

  10. This is a really great post full of helpful tips and information to try and help someone get debt free. I’ve actually been meaning to tackle my budget again and this post gave me the inspiration to start this weekend. Thanks so much!

    1. Hi Sasha, good to know that this post has inspired you to take a look at your finances. Do let us know how you get on if or when you apply any of the steps here. Have a good weekend! 😀

  11. I loved that you went over reducing your spending….as well as increasing your income. Most budgets don’t really bring this up. Cutting off subscriptions and cutting back on things like cable plans totally adds up in the end.

    1. Thanks, V. I agree. Most of the time, it seems like we just keep getting told to budget or to save but we don’t always get the concrete steps. If we’d known earlier on, we might not have ended up in the red in the first place (but who knows really, right?). Anyway, sometimes we also just tend to stay with a provider out of habit. Like right now, we’ve just switched to a new energy provider and we are now paying £30 less PER MONTH than we were previously. We’re also seriously considering just selling our car and just using an electric bike. This would save us on monthly car insurance costs and yearly MOT and road tax. All to the tune of about £3,000 PER YEAR. Shocking how money just flows out. :-/

  12. Great information Kevin and Jade.To be honest I don’t have a financial plan but luckily my hubby is good with financial planning. Having read your article, it helped open my mind that this is something i need to have because i think people with financial plan are more likely to be confident in their plans to retire.These simple steps of yours will help me get started.Thanks

    1. Hi Rochelle, thank you for your kind post. We are very happy that this has inspired you to start designing a financial plan to suit your needs. We’ll be publishing more posts about this topic as well as a free printable that you can download to use at home, so keep an eye out.

      Also, you might find our latest Blissful Finance post on accelerated debt repayment plans useful. 🙂

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