How to Break the Paycheck-to-Paycheck Cycle in 30 Days (Even If You Make Good Money)

 Okay, you make decent money, but somehow your account still looks like you only get $9 and 18 cents in it. Rude. You’re constantly checking your bank app, moving bills around and praying your paycheck hits before everything bounces. But listen, it’s not a budgeting problem, it’s a system problem.

And today we’re gonna show you exactly how to fix that in the next 30 days,

 . listen. You might feel like you’re living paycheck to paycheck and all of that. It’s not you, it’s your system. It’s not that you’re being irresponsible or whatever. It’s just that you literally never learned how to manage this, how to set this up, how to organize it.

Yeah. And systemize your budget. Yeah. Most people that we coach, they make really good money, but their problem is that one of the problems is that they have everything coming out of one bank account. And if you’ve listened to us long enough, now we say that is not the best practice here.

We want you to have two separate, at least multiple, but two, at least two separate bank accounts where you have one that’s just handling your bills. And other spending accounts that you, where you spend your money out of. Yeah. And listen, what we’re talking about is how to get out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle.

And this is one of the reasons that you’re in it. Everything, there’s so much coming out of one account and you don’t really know what’s going on. And it’s. Confusing. So you just end up spending every, basically your quote unquote budget is to get to zero or $9 and 18 cents, as we said by the next payday.

And you know that if you just, if you can make it to the next payday that’s what’s happening. And you’re just looking at this one big, messy account, think about that account. So it’s has mortgage come out, has the water bill come out? Has am like, I just bought something on Amazon.

When is that polling? It only pulls when it ships. When is it shipping? There’s a lot of decisions and a lot of, you’re relying on that bank account for a lot. If you can remove some of those decisions for that bank account, you’re really gonna allow your money to do more for you. Yeah. And another pro part of the problem is we’re thinking.

In payday mindset, right? We’re waiting. We’re hoping like I can go get groceries next payday, or I can pay the rent when it’s payday, and that’s not the right way to do things. We wanna teach you a better way today. Yeah. And honestly, that’s more reacting versus planning. So a lot of people, like Shana said, they’re living paycheck to paycheck.

Not on purpose, it is just what has happened. And so we have a paycheck plan for you, but that is more planning ahead of what we want your paychecks to do. Not in this, I can only eat, I can only eat or buy groceries every other week because the, every other week is when my mortgage comes in and I have no money left over.

Yeah. So the thing is, you’re not bad with money. You’re just. Stuck in a broken system. Probably the one that you started when you were 18 and you haven’t really upgraded it yet. Yeah. And no one taught you how to fix it. Yeah. But hey, that’s why we’re here today. Yeah. And we really wanna teach you the cost of living paycheck to paycheck.

Like what is, how is that really truly affecting you? Because it’s not just affecting your. Finances, it’s affecting you emotionally and mentally and really affecting all of your decisions. Yeah, we say all the time, you’re prob you’re probably not a greedy person. You probably aren’t always thinking about money, but that doesn’t mean it’s not controlling you in some ways, right?

And if it’s affecting your emotions your decisions, you are the way you react to things than it is. And so one thing. That paycheck to paycheck living does, is it? It’s constant decision fatigue. Vanessa was just talking about that with what we’re gonna teach you, you’re gonna separate everything.

You don’t have to make as many decisions or literally do math and then make decisions. That’s awful, like adding those two together. But part of the reason is like. You’re so tired of not knowing if you have money or what you’re, if you should do it or not, that you just do it anyway. Yeah.

Like sometimes that happens or you just you won’t make a decision about saving that money because you feel scarcity. There’s just a lot going on there and that’s why, that’s part of the cost of living paycheck to paycheck. And when you can’t make a spontaneous decision or some, you can’t do something, like in the moment, you can’t say yes.

We want you, our goal for you is to be bougie on a budget. You’ve heard us say it. What does that mean? That means saying yes to things. That means going out and on a coffee date with your girlfriend. That means taking the kids to Disneyland. That means taking your husband on a dinner date or him taking you out, whatever.

Like we want you to say yes to things, but when you are consistently. Making your decisions around money, that means you are being controlled by it and you can’t say yes because you don’t feel good. You don’t feel good enough to say yes. Yeah. And then another kind, like cost of living, paycheck to paycheck is you’re one, one unexpected bill away from panic.

So you’re literally living down to the last dollar and not on purpose. And you’re really white knuckling it through the next payday and if you get if your electric bills a little bit more, or you forgot that it was this quarter was trash, was the trash bill or whatever, then it’s oh no.

We’re like, I don’t know how we’re gonna eat. We don’t wanna take that away from you. Yeah. For you. And honestly, there’s. What we wanna do is we wanna gain clarity and we wanna gain peace of mind and be in control of our budget. And by making your decisions based on your paycheck and always having decision fatigue and all that, like you have no peace.

Yeah. You literally have no idea what’s going on with your money because it’s not organized. Yeah. It’s financial whiplash. So you go from, everything’s great. I have money to, I can’t afford milk. In three days. And we’ve had clients literally say that I used to, I would get paid. And two days later it’s all gone.

And we want to be done with that rollercoaster. Yeah. Think about how many times you guys are, oh, we’re fine. Oh, we’re bad. Oh, we’re fine. Or things are bad. Like we, that rollercoaster. Is not, it’s not worth it, I don’t think. Yeah. And if you’ve heard us talk about being consistent with your budget, that is the type of lifestyle that we wanna implement with your finances is doing the same thing all the time.

So it just really removes all of that anxiety. Yeah. And all the rollercoaster of emotions. So what we really want for you is to go from being, living paycheck to paycheck, to being a paycheck ahead.

And then, so if you can do this in 30 days, this is the number one thing that you could do to get out of the cycle. We’re gonna give you some other tips and stuff, but it would be to get a paycheck ahead. So what you wanna do? Is look at that last paycheck of the month and see if you can start to count that last paycheck of the month.

For next month. So whether you have to finagle some savings or whatever you need to do, if I can just assign, let’s say. May 30th is when I get paid that is actually going in my June budget. It’s the first paycheck for my June budget. That is the number one way. ’cause then you’re always gonna be a paycheck ahead and we can start to implement some of the stuff that we’re gonna teach you to get outta the paycheck to paycheck cycle.

And I’m sure some of you heard that and you were like, there’s absolutely no way that I can do that because that paycheck that’s coming in on the 27th of the month is paying all the bills that were due on the 15th, but they’re giving me a grace period. And because I haven’t paid them yet. We hear you, we hear what you’re saying.

What we wanna say here is, like Shana said, see if you can dig into your savings, see if there’s a way that you can make a little extra money with yard sales or side hustle or something, or see if you can maybe cut back on a couple things to be able to get that buffer. So what we want for you is to use the last paycheck of the up this month and the next paycheck of the next month for.

Your budget. Okay, so let’s say it’s the end of May. Okay. I’m just gonna use an example. If it’s the end of May, your paycheck is coming in on May 27th. We wanna use May 27th and maybe June twelfth’s paycheck for June, and then that last paycheck in June is going to be for July. Yeah. Okay. That’s how this is gonna.

Be consistently, you may not be able to do this immediately, but most of our clients are able to get here fairly quickly. By just looking at the numbers. Yeah. And just assigning them. So what we’re going to do is go from looking paycheck to paycheck. We’re gonna go bird’s eye view and see what your money can do in a month.

And that’s what you need to do. You need to look at it in a month. So you can start and see if you can actually make this happen. And if you do, then you’re gonna take out assigning a bill to a paycheck. Specifically, or waiting for payday to buy groceries. Or overdrafting. All of that can go away.

If we take want first. Take that bird’s eye view of a month. Looking at our budget in a month’s eye view. And then also. Trying to get that paycheck ahead. Yeah. All right. So to recap, we’re taking the last paycheck from, let’s say this month, and we’re using it for next month. Okay. And the idea here is that money is sitting in your account.

You’re not touching, you’re not doing anything with it. It’s going to be assigned to all of the bills that are coming up in that next month. So they’re all the money is there waiting to be used. Yeah. And so you wake up on the first of the month and. And all of those bills are basically covered. You don’t have to do anything.

’cause we’re gonna teach you in a minute, you’re gonna have a separate Bills account. But you don’t have to do anything. You’re, you have the money in there for the bills and they can get paid. And you don’t have to think what bill is when, what day is this, that, and the other you, because you’re a paycheck ahead.

Yeah. So remember we’re getting out of that paycheck to paycheck cycle and assigning what paychecks pay, what bills, and we’re dumping all of the month’s money in an account to be able to pay bills. And it doesn’t matter what paychecks pay, what. All the money is there and you can use it however you want.

Okay. Yeah. And so again, we want you to go from paycheck to a paycheck ahead. . Four steps. Basically, you, we have for you to get to stop the paycheck to paycheck in the next 30 days, right?

 The first thing you really need to do is a 90 day audit. Which I know you’re really excited about. You’re like, yes. That was what I was hoping you would say. No. Maybe you’re not, but it’s okay. What we just want you to print out the stuff that’s going on. Or like your bank statements, your credit card statements.

Look at what’s going on. Highlight, see, how much am I spending here and there? Yeah. This is really gonna be like the only time we want you to track stuff. Okay. Yeah. And really it’s like a one and done situation. Like Shana said, you’re gonna get out some highlighters, maybe the green highlighter is for gas, and then yellow is for groceries.

Pink is for restaurants. Like you just wanna be able to see how you’re spending your money, and that honestly is just gonna allow you to make a really good budget for yourself. Yeah. Because when you do that, you’re also gonna see all the bills, all the. Descriptions, everything else that you do. And we want, we, we don’t want you to create a budget so that you can’t do any of that.

We just want to know what’s actually happening so you can see the numbers and plan accordingly. Do it on purpose, right? Yeah. So based on that. And some of those numbers might be eye-opening and you might have a moment. It’s okay. And you may be paying for multiple subscriptions that you’re not even using.

That’s the whole point of this. Yeah. It’s just, if there’s no shaming, there’s no judgment, we don’t care what’s on it. We just want you to go, okay, do I like what I see? If not, I’m gonna make some changes. If I do then they stay. Yeah. So from there you’re gonna create your monthly budget.

That’s what’s exciting. So you’re gonna use that data and you can go listen to one of our podcast or videos. On how to create a month your monthly budget. Ba basically you’re gonna use what you just looked at with your 90 day audit, with all your statements. You’re gonna have income, you’re gonna have your debt minimums, you’re gonna have your bills, you’re gonna have spending, and you’re gonna have sav savings.

You’re gonna plan all of that on purpose based on what you just found out. And in a month, right? Yeah. All of this in a month instead of paycheck. So we’re not thinking for paychecks here. We’re thinking in the entire month, like you said. Shana said, when you go to make your budget, you’re putting in both of those paychecks and it doesn’t matter which, which paychecks pay what bills.

You’re putting both of them on there and then writing all of your expenses that are coming up for that month. Yeah. So here is one thing that’s really gonna help you stop living paycheck to paycheck. You are going to, like we said, we want to take the rollercoaster out, so we are going to have you.

Separate your money. Okay. This is the number one game changer. This may be the first time you’d ever heard somebody tell you to do this, but our clients and our customers, our listeners, they absolutely love it. Yeah. So first of all, we want you to have a Bills account. All of your income is going to go into that Bills account like Vanessa said.

So what happens is only thing coming outta this account is bills. So all of your income comes in and all only thing that ever swipes outta or debits outta this account is bills that is very freeing to know my bills are okay. Okay. So then the other. Separate account you are gonna have is groceries.

Okay. A lot of our clients like to make put together gas in groceries. They’re, they have, they looked at their 90 day audit. They were like, I spend 3000, I spend 2000, whatever it is that’s in their monthly budget. That is going to be a separate account that I’m gonna put money into.

That way I know all the bills can come and I always know I have money for groceries. This is so important. Yeah. And we talk about separating to simplify. This is where we’re doing that. We are having a. Bills account to pay bills, nothing else. And then you have a couple spending accounts.

You have your gas and groceries, you have your personal spending money. Maybe you have one for your kids, maybe you have one. Your spouse has one. Maybe you have one for family fun, like you get to play around with how many spending accounts you want to have and be in charge of, but. When we tell you it’s gonna take the decision fatigue out of it, we like trust us, trust the process.

It is so much easier to know that you have all this spending money over here and it is not affecting your bills or when they’re being paid or how they’re being paid. Yeah. And hear this, you’re doing a monthly budget, right? So you’re gonna do all the math. All the math is gonna math and you’re gonna find out, okay, I make $10,000, 5,000 of it goes to my bills and all that stuff a month.

I have. 3000 for spending, and I’m saving 2000. You’re gonna know that based on the budget. And so what you’re gonna be able to do is specifically assign amounts to the gas and groceries, to your personal spending so that you always have money, but, and it’s always separate from your bills. So your bills can always get paid.

And you have money. You’re not thinking. I can go to the grocery store once the phone bill clears, like that’s never happening again. You’re just gonna look at your groceries account. It has $500. You’re gonna go get chicken so you can eat dinner and all your bills are gonna be paid separately and automatically it’s gonna be great.

To paint the picture, think of it as a funnel. Okay? If you’re watching us on YouTube, you have all of your money coming in to the Bills account. From your Bills account. It’s being funneled out to your spending accounts on payday. So really the only thing that’s happening on payday is that your spending accounts get funded.

But your bills account, all the money is just still sitting there waiting for your bills to happen. Yeah. To come out and that’s great. Yeah. And you don’t even look at that account. Yeah. You don’t need to, you’re gonna look at it specifically as you get your bills system going as you like, check off bills, but you don’t look at that number.

All you look at is the numbers in your spending account, like your gas and groceries. And your, your actual personal spending. Those are the numbers you look at. You just stay within the, those numbers and you don’t mess with the bills and then everything flows and works automatically.

And you don’t feel that crushing sense of I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t I used to, I thought I made good money, but I have nothing to show for it. Now you will see, you will have something to show for it. Yeah. So now you have these separate accounts. Okay? So the next step, what we want you to do now is set up.

Automatic transfers. So this is really where you don’t have to do anything manually and it becomes like I said it and forget it situation once you get your numbers right. So it may take a couple months for you to be like, okay, I thought I needed $1,600 in groceries, but I actually need 1800.

If this is the first time you’re making a budget, you’re probably not gonna get it right the first time, and that’s okay. There’s no shame in that. But once you have your numbers pretty set on how much you spend on yourself a month, how much your family spends on like restaurants and goofy golf or whatever, and how much gas and groceries is, you can set up automatic transfers from your bills account, one payday.

Into those spending accounts. So you literally don’t ever have to worry about when that money is gonna get replenished in those spending accounts. Yeah, and we just had a client on a testimonial and she was basically saying she used to spend. And, but what? Just frivolously like whatever.

But once she separated it, that’s what really changed because a lot of times you’re living paycheck to paycheck because you are one, you maybe have more expenses than you really should, right? It’s usually not an income problem. It’s almost always an expense problem, right? But you also just because you don’t really know, you just spend, you just do whatever.

And so that is what gets you down to the wire. However, if I get $400 to spend on myself or whatever I want every month, then you’re going to be way more likely to stick within that, and it doesn’t mess up anything else. You’re gonna be like, okay, I can deal with that. That seems reasonable.

And also, we talked about a little bit, we touched briefly on the savings, and you also know things are being saved. Oh, if I don’t mess with anything, I’m saving for that vacation. And that feels way better than a random Amazon purchase, right? So just having it separate really does help you.

But then also what Vanessa’s saying is. You are not in it manually, you’re not touching it. You, there’s less opportunity for you to mess it up when you automate it. And everything happens while you’re sleeping. And then you just have to stick with those balances. And this is how your bank becomes your personal assistant and it basically can run your budget for you once you set it up.

Yeah. And we set, we have clients say all the time, like they. They feel so much better knowing like whether what you can set up those transfers, whichever one you want, they feel so much better knowing every two weeks I know I’m getting more money. Or every week I know I’m getting more money and I don’t have to like white knuckle ’cause I’m always getting more money.

And that really changes how you spend money, your relationship with money and how and how your accounts look. It just really does change it. And that’s gonna help you to stop living paycheck to paycheck. I remember Shayna Michelle. She was saying at one time she goes, I used to just spend money ’cause I never knew when I was gonna have it again.

Yeah. But she seems like a good plan, right? Why not? Scarcity mindset, let’s go. But she said, I knew I was getting replenished tomorrow because that’s when payday was my her spending account. And she goes, so I didn’t need, I didn’t feel the need to go buy that thing that I really didn’t need anyways.

Yeah. That I wanted. She’s I just waited until the next day and that was fine. Yeah. Yeah. And that just makes me think one more tiny little point I’m to harp on here. A lot of times you’re a living paycheck to paycheck because you don’t realize how expensive you are. Like you think it’s you or like your habits, but once you actually get it all on paper, you’re like, oh, we need to change some things.

And that might mean we don’t actually need this gym membership that nobody uses, or we are eating out $2,000 a month, we wanna make that 1500. Whatever it means once you actually look at it. That’s why it’s ’cause when we put people’s, what they’ve been doing. On the paper, they’re like, oh, I have a lot more left over than I thought.

It’s yes, you do. When you actually make a plan and look at it and do it on purpose. I think it, it sparks two questions when you actually know what’s going on. You go, what am I doing and what do I wanna be doing? So you get that. You have the autonomy to make that decision and go, we need more, we need less based on our actual habits.

Yeah. You don’t wanna just put some arbitrary number in there and go, I think we’re gonna hit this, or I think we’ll stay below that. No, like I had a client the other day, she tried to tell me that they needed $700 a month for groceries for a family of four. That’s not correct. And I said, I don’t think that’s true.

Nope. You did it wrong. We’re not gonna put that in there right now. Yeah. It, she had no idea. She really had no idea how much and that’s what happens. Yeah. Yep. And that’s why you feel awful because you, you thought I thought I was being responsible by setting the $700 budget.

But you bust it every month. Yes. And that’s what she said. She’s we always rent out. And I’m like I’m trying to tell you it’s not enough. Yeah. So what, like what we’re asking you to do is set up a budget. Try to get paycheck ahead. And all of that will help you to stop living paycheck to paycheck.

You’ll have your bills paid on time without having to worry about it. Groceries are, this is a big one. Grocery money is always there and it’s always automatic. Yep. You’ll have guilt free spending. Think about having money for gas, money for groceries, money for Chick-fil-A, and also you have money to take your girlfriend out.

For for a coffee date. Yeah. You’ll build confidence with your money. You’ll have breathing room in your budget. When the paychecks hit, guys, you really won’t even notice it, or it doesn’t matter because you won’t need the money right away. . And most of our clients, like Vanessa said earlier, they, it doesn’t take as long to get here as you think. It just takes you being willing to look at it, put it on paper, use our budget system, budget.com/budget, go there, do it.

Be intentional. Like you probably were gonna blow the $200 that it costs. Anyway. So you might as well just come and buy it and be intentional and you’ll get, you can get there in 30 to 60 days. Yeah. And guys, this is literally the next level of adulting. Yeah. We’re not even kidding.

You’re going to love it. Stepping into this new role of not feeling so anxious about your paychecks. And remember, the idea here is stop living paycheck to paycheck and get. A paycheck ahead. Yep. So you can also go watch our free Automate Your Budget masterclass@budgetbesties.com slash automate.

That is free. We will teach you, we go way more in depth. We went through it quickly here Today. We go way more in depth about that. Yep. You can also grab our Simplified Budget System. It’s the exact tool that we use to help our clients. Separate all their accounts, get a paycheck ahead and automate everything.

And that’s at budget besties.com/budget. And if you like this, if this helped you, please subscribe. Leave a review. You know what? Tell a friend, phone a friend, whatever it’s called. Yeah. Whatever it is. We really wanna try to get this message out there. We want money to be easy and simple and give people confidence and have the freedom to spend.

That’s what we want for you. So if you can help us share the word, spread the word, then we would be really grateful.