Hello and welcome to our YouTube channel. Today, we're going to be discussing the top
10 strategies for debt management. If you're struggling with debt, it can be
a stressful and overwhelming situation. But don't despair, there are steps you can
take to get your finances back on track. As always, make sure to Like and subscribe
to the channel to stay up-to-date on all of the latest news. Let's get started! Number 1. Make a budget: The first step in
managing your debt is to understand how much money you have coming in and going out each
month. Make a budget that includes all of your expenses,
including your debt payments. By tracking your spending and identifying
areas where you can cut back, you can free up more money to put towards your debts. Use budgeting tools and apps to help you stay
organized and on track with your spending. Number 2. Prioritize your debts: Not all debts are created
equal. Some debts, like mortgage or car loan payments,
are considered "good" debts because they can help you build credit and improve your financial
situation in the long run.
Other debts, like credit card balances and
payday loans, are considered "bad" debts because they usually have higher interest rates and
can be more difficult to pay off. Prioritize paying off your bad debts first,
as they are costing you the most in interest charges. Focus on paying off one debt at a time, starting
with the one with the highest interest rate. Number 3. Negotiate with creditors: If you're struggling
to make your debt payments, don't be afraid to reach out to your creditors and ask for
help. They may be willing to work with you to lower
your interest rates or negotiate a payment plan that works for you. It's important to be proactive and communicate
with your creditors, as ignoring your debts will only make the situation worse.
Be honest with your creditors about your financial
situation and explain why you are unable to make your payments. They may be willing to help you find a solution. Number 4. Use a debt consolidation loan: If you have
multiple debts with different interest rates, a debt consolidation loan can help you simplify
your payments and potentially save money on interest. With a debt consolidation loan, you'll take
out a new loan to pay off your existing debts, and then make one monthly payment to the lender. This can be a good option if you're able to
secure a lower interest rate on the consolidation loan. Just be sure to carefully compare your options
and choose a lender with competitive rates and fees. Number 5. Use a balance transfer credit card: If you
have high-interest credit card debt, consider transferring the balances to a credit card
with a lower interest rate. Many credit cards offer introductory 0% interest
rates for a limited time on balance transfers. Just be sure to read the fine print and understand
any fees associated with the balance transfer, as well as the length of the introductory
rate period.
If you're able to pay off your balances within
the promotional period, you can save a significant amount on interest charges. Number 6. Consider a debt management plan: A debt management
plan is a repayment plan that is set up through a credit counseling agency. The agency works with your creditors to lower
your interest rates and monthly payments, making it easier for you to pay off your debts. With a debt management plan, you'll make one
monthly payment to the credit counseling agency, and they will distribute the funds to your
creditors on your behalf. This can be a good option if you're unable
to negotiate a lower interest rate on your own. Just be sure to choose a reputable credit
counseling agency that is accredited by a reputable organization. Number 7. Seek professional help: If your debts are
overwhelming and you're not sure where to turn, consider seeking the help of a financial
advisor or credit counselor. They can provide personalized advice and assistance
in finding the best solution for your specific situation.
A financial advisor can help you create a
budget and a debt repayment plan, while a credit counselor can help you understand your
options and provide support as you work to pay off your debts. It's important to work with a professional
who is knowledgeable and experienced in debt management, and who has your best interests
at heart. Number 8. Cut expenses: To free up more money for debt
payments, try cutting unnecessary expenses from your budget. This could include things like dining out,
subscription services, or entertainment costs. Look for ways to save on your monthly bills,
such as by negotiating with your service providers or switching to a cheaper plan. Every little bit counts, so be sure to look
for opportunities to save wherever you can.
Number 9. Increase income: Another way to free up more
money for debt payments is to increase your income. This could be through finding a higher paying
job, starting a side hustle, or finding ways to monetize a hobby or skill. Even small increases in income can make a
big difference when it comes to paying off your debts. Consider taking on additional work or starting
a business on the side to boost your income and accelerate your debt repayment. Number 10. Consider bankruptcy as a last resort: If your
debts are truly overwhelming and you're unable to make any progress in paying them off, bankruptcy
may be an option.
However, it's important to understand the
long-term consequences of bankruptcy, including the impact on your credit score and your ability
to borrow in the future. Bankruptcy should be considered as a last
resort, after you have explored all other options for managing your debts. It's a serious decision that should not be
taken lightly, so be sure to consult with a financial advisor or attorney before proceeding. These are the top 10 strategies for debt management. By following these tips and working with a
financial professional, you can get a handle on your debts and take control of your financial
future. Remember, it's never too late to start making
positive changes to your finances. Thanks for watching, and be sure to like and
subscribe for more helpful financial tips.
over the last 5 years I have tried and tested so
many different strategies to manage my money and I've done that because understanding how to
manage your money and be in control of your money is one of the most important life skills
we can learn today it doesn't matter if you're making 50,000 or a 100,000 a year the number one
thing that makes a difference is how you're able to manage that money and the real skill of money
management is about making the most of the money that you have not just for investing and for
growing wealth but instead to find the perfect balance between living in the moment and planning
for the future when you find something that a is easy to do and B it's easy to maintain then
managing your money stops feeling like a chore so in this video I wanted to talk you through my
three-step method for effectively managing your money in a way that makes you feel in complete
control of what is coming in and out of your account every month I'll also give you some of
my favorite tips along the way if you want to use the same template that I have created then
in the description box you can find completely for free the link to to download and use this
to incorporate for your own finances as well okay so this is what the tracker looks like it's
got the colorcoded spending categories the income section at the top and then the overview on this
table over here so these sales will change color as you start filling in the sheet you'll see in
just a moment you just have to click file make a copy and then you can duplicate it and use it
for yourself now step one is to define the three fword wait for it a key part of being in control
of your money is defining where you want to but before we even do that you need to First figure
out exactly how much money you're bringing home each month so this is the amount that lands in
your bank account after tax if you have multiple income sources you want to include all of them
in here your 9 to-5 day job your weekend gig your freelancing work that you do on the side maybe
some Investments that are paying off whatever these numbers are you want to put them in the
top left blue section over here for example if I'm making 3,000 a month after taxes for my day
job I'll put that here another 200 a month let's say from my creative side hustle and 500 a month
from freelancing so you just plug in those numbers at the top now if you're employed the number
is pretty straightforward it's the amount that lands into your bank account each month after
tax and other state contributions have already been deducted so in this case that's a 3,000 a
month but if you already contribute towards your workplace pension you actually want to add that
number back in So if you contribute say 200 a month towards your pension add that 200 back into
this and so that number would instead be 3,200 the reason for this is because the amount that
you're putting towards your pension contribution actually goes towards the future U category
which will come to in a second now if you're self-employed or you're a freelancer you need
to take into account taxes the last thing you want to do is assume you have all this money
coming in and Define your goals on a higher number than you should and then be disappointed
when you don't hit your goals so in this case the 200 from my side hustle and the 500 from my
freelancing work that is after tax once you put those numbers in your total income is calculated
now that we've done that we can Define the three FS the fundamental bucket the fund bucket and the
future you bucket you want to decide how much of your net income so the 3,700 in this case you
want to put towards each of these buckets the funds allocated to the fundamental bucket are
dedicated to your essential needs these are the non-negotiables of Life housing Transportation
food money placed in the fund bucket those are the costs that enrich your life with joy with
experiences and then lastly everything you put into the future you bucket that is an investment
towards the life you envision years down the road in the world of budgeting there is a popular
guideline that you may have heard of called the 50320 rule it suggests that 50% of your
net income should go towards the fundamental needs 30% should go towards the fund bucket and
20% should go towards the future U so those are the percentages that I'm going to put into this
column right here so 50% towards fundamentals 30% towards fun and and 20% towards future me
and what you'll see as we start filling in the sheet and putting your numbers and your actual
spending in is that the colors of these sales will change depending on whether or not you're
in line with your goals or if you're overspending or under saving I do want to make a quick Point
here actually about the 50 3020 guideline it was introduced in 2005 in the book all your worth the
ultimate lifetime money plan and so it was during a different economic landscape over the years
we have seen inflation Rising healthcare costs inreased student loan debt fluctuating housing
markets all of these factors have really impacted people's disposable income and the proportion of
their income that goes towards their fundamental needs so you may want to modify these percentages
and tweak them based on your unique circumstances you want to start filling in the three colorcoded
columns in the middle so the fundamentals the fun stuff and the future you the fundamentals like
we said are the non-negotiables they are the fundamental things for your day-to-day living
so this includes things like housing your rent or your mortgage payments includes utilities
and other bills so we're talking about um water gas electricity it includes Transportation
so your car payment train tickets to get to work or any other mode of Transport that you pay
for groceries would also go into here Insurance minimum debt payments for your debt o ations and
you want to find what you spend on each of these by looking through your bank statements so your
debit card statement your credit card statement or any apps that you use it may be that your app
automatically categorizes your spending for you so maybe all your utilities come into one so
you can put that one number as a total let's say 200 into this cell over here or you can split
it up so break it down by water gas electricity it depends on how detailed you want this to be when
it comes towards spending towards your needs you want to as much as possible have this automated
have direct debit set up so that everything is getting paid automatically the more friction you
can take out of anything the more likely you're able to keep that thing up the last thing you
want is to receive constant monthly reminders to pay your bills and then you need to remember
your password log into your system enter your bank details manually transfer each month it's just not
fun and these kind of things make managing your money a chore it creates unnecessary friction so
once you go through and enter all these numbers so let's say 1,200 for mortgage 100 for utility 30
for phone and you keep filling in these numbers you can then check the table on the right and
that will immediately show how you are doing in relation to your goals so I had to set a Target
here of 50% of my net income to spend towards the fundamentals but this sale here has turned red so
I'm clearly exceeding that threshold so then you need to reassess that goal and that something will
come to in step three and this column by the way at the end it shows the actual amount that you're
spending in the currency that you're spending in this way you have a clear idea of both the portion
of your income that you're spending in terms of percentages towards each of these categories
but also the exact amount you're spending as well then we have the middle column and that is
the fun stuff now you want to be really clear with yourself here you want to clarify these
categories from the outset you really don't want your fun stuff creeping into your needs just
to justify some spending so the fun bucket is all the things that are not essential these are the
things that at the core are completely optional so examples of what can fall into the fun category
include subscriptions like Netflix Spotify Amazon Prime entertainment so things like going out
to the movies eating out getting that round of drinks self-care so things like your nails
facial haircuts and traveling these are all examples of what falls into the fun category
the fun bucket also includes those upgrade decisions that you make so if you're buying a
Mercedes instead of buying a more economical Toyota or if you're shopping at Marks and Spencers
instead of Tesla goes or getting a gym membership instead of working out at home those are all
upgrades they're little extras that you spend money on that makes life more enjoyable and more
entertaining so you can see a few more examples that I've put in there and again you could split
it out so I've got clothing as spending 200 100 in that category you could split that out and
make it as detailed as you want you could have a line by line jumper trousers or whatever you've
bought in the clothing section everything could go into here once you fill in all the categories
for your wants as I've done here the table on the right again will signal whether you're on track
or whether you need to cut back once again in this case I'm spending 25% of my net income on
my wats so the sale hasn't flagged up I've got some leeway I've got some room to spend more if
I want and then the third column is the future UB bucket and this is all about paying yourself
first there are a few ways you can do this but I always recommend setting up automatic transfers
from your bank account that you get paid into into a separate savings account as soon as you get
paid again when you create a system that works for you you remove the need for willpower you remove
any friction and there's no excuse not to save you don't get to the end of the month and realize
you don't have enough money to be able to save like you said you would at the start of the month
all of that push and pull just disappears in this category you can include things like investing
in stocks and shares topping up your emergency fund and putting money towards your savings funds
if you're not sure where you should start and in which order you should put money towards I have
a video right here that explains step by step where you should be putting your money and in
what order when it comes to your savings fund I would also recommend having a separate account
for each of your bigger saving goals so if you're saving for a house have a house fund if you're
saving for a car have a car fund have them all with specific purposes that way you're keeping
them separate and you could easily just log into your account and check what the balance is and
how far off or close you are to that goal it's a lot more motivating than having it all in one
as just a savings pop so there a sale right here for the future U category that works in reverse
if you're contributing less than the amount you initially planned for the future you the savings
and investment bucket then the sale will turn red indicating that you're not saving enough and then
we're on to step three and that is the reflections arguably the most important part there's no point
in coming up with all these goals and all these of questions you can consider and ask yourself is
have you paid all your bills on time are there any late payments if so why can you set that up to be
automatic are any of the sales read meaning either you spent more than you should or you saved less
than you should if that's the case why did that happen what did you spend on if it's that you're
spending too much in the fun bucket then are there ways to get the same thing for less or is it
that you simply need to reassess and cut some of those things out or maybe you spent less than you
thought you would in your fun bucket in which case you can increase maybe your savings an investment
section you could pay more towards yourself and pay off your debt faster it might be that this is
the first month that you're tracking your spending in which case these percentages might need
some tweaking to make it something that is more sustainable over the long run instead of just like
plugging the numbers and closing it and getting on with your life reflect at the end of the month and
see where you can improve your finances once again if you do want to download and use the same one
that I have it's linked completely for free in the description box below if you do use it this month
come back and tell me how you get on I'd love to see what what you thought and how it helped
thank you for watching and see you next week
38 years ago my wife sharon and i got married and we were stupid we didn't know anything if we'd have known half of what we know now we'd have known not to get married because it was a mess i was a beer drinking hellraising hillbilly and i talked her into marrying me and we moved to nashville and started off our lives and about of course nashville y'all know about nashville right it's the buckle of the bible bell there's more baptists there than people and so we we moved to nashville and about two weeks after we were brand new married my wife who had never discussed god or jesus or anything else with me prior to marriage remembered that she was a baptist and she gets up on sunday morning and said we're going to church and i said we are not doing anything it is sunday morning i will be here watching football and drinking beer like all good rednecks well that didn't go well she got really upset and she cried and she was mad and i didn't care and she went storming out of the house and it didn't take her long to find her tribe because those baptists are everywhere and so she wanders in the back door there's a little baptist church and they prayed at the end of service for her heathen husband and this scene repeated itself every week for quite a while it wasn't going so good and so i decided i was going to get rich and i got in one of these multi-level things you know those things where you make all your friends mad and so we me and my beer drinking buddy we get in this thing together and this is how bright daryl and his other brother daryl were we would we would go to happy hour and then go make sales calls and couldn't figure out why we couldn't grow the business dumber than a rock right so then we heard that they were having one of their big rah-rah things and if we went to this meeting we could learn how to do it and have a yacht and a big house and all the stuff we were supposed to be having and we weren't getting any of it so we drive from nashville down to birmingham alabama to the alabama theater and have you ever gone back to something in your past and it shrunk in my mind's eye the alabama theater holds 10 000 people we did an event there a while back it holds 800.
[Applause] but me and daryl were in the back of the balcony up there all day long with these guys telling us how to get rich and the stuff we should be doing and all these kinds of things and it's a great sales conference or whatever in this thing and the big guy gets up at the end he's the closer and he's the one we wanted to hear because he was who we wanted to be when we grow up and whatever he said we were going to do and we had written down five things on the drive down there that if we learned these five things we could be ready to do the business and he was a great speaker and it was as if he had our five things as his talk outline he had credibility before but by the time he finished answering all our questions about life he owned us you know what i'm talking about and then he says there's one more thing and we went no we had five that's it one more thing if you don't know god you need to meet him because if you think business is about monetary transactions you're going to fail and you need to learn that people are important and god's son jesus will teach you that their the people are important and you will not succeed in business until you understand people are important and i looked at my buddy and i said has he been talking to my wife so he goes i don't know he says what to do so we got to do that and i said well i don't know what to do you know what to do no i don't know what to do we go back to the hampton inn or wherever it was we were staying we get the gideon's bible out of the nightstand we open it up it's king james shakespeare and jesus the chances of these two hillbillies getting through this is zero close that puppy up put it in the nightstand but i did go home i told my wife i said we're going to church and she said who are you and what have you done with my husband and we started visiting churches and we went to some of those churches where people aren't happy y'all have been one of those churches where people look like they were weaned on a pickle [Applause] not having fun and then we went back door this little church this is 30 40 years ago right so we go in the back door this little church and it was kind of stuff happening in there about 400 people it had something in the air you know and and the people in the choir they were like moving and stuff and we're like this is dangerous and then one woman in the choir raised her hand like she knew the answer to some question and so and then they all started raising their hands and i told sharon you know how you do when you're visiting churches we're on the back row sneak out right and so we're on the back row i said they get snakes out i'm out of here i'm just saying [Applause] we kept being drawn back to that little church and that old pastor about as good as you can get he would stay say wonderful things from the pulpit like this is what the bible says and then if you don't agree with that you're what's known as wrong i love that like somebody because i thought christians were kind of wimpy and he was like a man you know and and his wife you know they his old school church they stand at the back when everybody left and shake everybody's hand and give everybody a hug on the way out is a little church anyway you could do that right and she's a big squishy woman so she'd give you a big old grandma hug you know and you get that big grandma hug and his manliness and that woman and his talks led me to jesus changed my life and i i do everything backwards most people meet god at the bottom of a crisis of some kind i met him on the way up and i started buying i left that little multi-level thing i started buying and selling real estate and i got rich at least for by a kid from antioch tennessee standards by the time i was 26 i had 4 million worth of real estate a little over a million dollar net worth and i was making 250 000 a year in the early 80s that's 20 000 a month and i don't know what neighborhood you grew up in but where i grew up we called that rich and it was fun too sometimes i hear these people say all those rich people are miserable we were having fun fun fun i mean i had that car i always wanted you know that car if you ever got some money i'd get that car you know that car car i always wanted was i wanted a jaguar because no one in the neighborhood i grew up and could spell jaguar much less knew what it was or how much it cost so it was exotic i got me a jaguar and maybe within 90 days i was a jaguar you know it's like right you know i was having fun man we went to hawaii and we loved it that water is so blue we went back and then we went back again we loved it we were having fun now i'm not here to tell you money will make you happy and i'm certainly not a quote-unquote prosperity gospel guy but money's not evil either it's not in scripture the bible doesn't say that money is the root of all evil it says the love of money is the root of all evil what i have discovered now 30 years later is that money makes you more of what you already are it magnifies the good and exposes the bad brightly if you have a temper and you get money lord help the people around you you will be a rage-a-holic tyrant i mean you you will be out of control if you are generous and give and you get money you'll become what the world calls a philanthropist and you will impact entire communities with the wealth that god allows you to manage you become more of what you are and some of the people around you when you get money become more of what they are like the crazy in your family gets crazier and listen let me just tell y'all every family has crazy and if you think there's not crazy in your family that means it's you [Applause] this is how it works you guys and so we were blowing and going everything was so good we were cooking and i had done some stupid stuff how many of y'all ever do something stupid with money how many of you that didn't raise your hand have a problem with lying all of us have done some stupid stuff with money and i had borrowed too much money i had four million dollars with real estate but three million dollars worth of debt on it it was on short-term notes because i was flipping this house flipping these houses before there was cable tv to tell you how and and so we're just chugging along chugging along the bank gets sold to another bank and a guy in another city looked down and said there's a kid 26 years old owes us millions of dollars let's limit this relationship which is banker talk for ruin his life and they called our notes the short version of the story is we spent the next two and a half years of our life losing everything we owned we were sued we were sued so much we're on a first name basis with the guy with the sheriff's department bringing the lawsuit papers a little pink slip thing and sharon's like making him cookies hey harold how's it doing today just good miss sharon here's your another one and so we were just it was just like coming at us like crazy we had a brand new baby and a toddler our marriage was hanging on by a thread because you could have some money fights now you can have fights but in a marriage you can have some money fights number one cause of divorce number one cause of disagreement in america today money fights now we didn't get a divorce we held on to each other but sometimes it was just to get a better grip you all know what i'm talking about right she she's from east tennessee the hills of east tennessee and frying pan throwing there's an olympic event finally after standing in the shower was so hot in my face i could hardly stand i would just stand there and cry because i was so scared i couldn't breathe year after year month after month finally we were bankrupt so i met god on the way up but i got to know him on the way down and it changed everything i had an i surrender all moment and i'm not talking about a baptist altar call i'm talking about i surrendered we're doing it your way and i don't care what anybody else thinks you're it you are the lord you are in charge and this is your instruction manual we're doing it this way and i don't care what the other books say and i don't care if somebody's mad and i don't care if somebody's sad we're doing it this way period and there's a lot of stuff in here i mean i'm gonna raise my kids this way my kids are like dad what's this rod stuff and i'm like come here baby i'll show you i'm gonna run my marriage this way submit yourselves one to another oh no that means i gotta draw dishes 2500 scriptures on how to handle money and possessions god's concerned about teaching us how to manage his stuff his way for his glory he's really concerned about that and i said okay god apparently i'm an ignoramus when it comes to money i've got a degree in finance and all these letters and licenses after my name but here i sit broke so there's a problem with the knowledge base i was operating from something's got to change what does it say about money and it's all in here it's crazy y'all i'm still learning stuff 30 years after i first started studying this subject and it's it's it's crazy how in-depth and detailed and nuanced the instruction is it's all there but you just carry it you gotta open it and read it i mean it's the osmosis thing running up your arm doesn't work you gotta really get you gotta and man it's hard it's hard so i got a bunch of young people working on my team there's about 964 folks on our team right now and give or take one and um a bunch of youngins on my team and i came in the day and one of these young guys was doing the stuff wrong that he's supposed to be doing and i was like hey i'll do it that way do it this way huh i said no that's wrong there's a right way to do it wrong way to do it you're doing it wrong this is the right way do it this way and he's like okay okay i come back two days later he's doing it wrong again the same way i'm like hey again one more time this is the way don't do it that way do it this way i come back two weeks later he's doing it wrong again i'm like boy we're going to set you free in jesus name okay this is ridiculous and he looks at me and he says i'm not like you and i said you don't have to be like me you just got to do it the right way and to the extent you're not like me and the way you do it you need to change when you're doing it wrong you need to change when you're walking the wrong way in christianity god says stop you're doing it wrong when we change that's called repentance in our world i got a lot of stuff i get to repent for every day because i do so much stuff wrong but this money stuff i studied it and studied it and studied it and i've been doing it right for decades now and it works and i'm i'm believing i'm a lot better husband than the one the guy that that woman married 38 years ago and i'm a lot better daddy than i was when i started and matter of fact i got grandbabies now and if i don't know how great grandkids are going to be i've been nicer to their parents and so i mean it's my my kids are like who are you you want this one back okay so this is this one smells you can have it and so oh man it's you get better if you change the technical theological term will be called sanctification over time we get better if we change so let's talk about the five things that the bible says we should do with money now there's a whole bunch of them but if you do these five over a couple decades a hundred percent of the time you will get results that will blow your everlasting mind a hundred percent of the time because let me just tell you if you plant corn don't be shocked if corn grows as you sow so shall you reap if you plant nothing and wait on the government don't be surprised if you have mud this is how it works you are in charge of planting he is in charge of sunshine and rain and there's this dance that we do with god between our works and his blessings and provision and protection that causes this thing where his children the heirs to the throne a royal priesthood are blessed and this is how we do it the first thing is you get on a written plan we call it a budget in the financial world jesus said don't build a tower without first counting the cost lest you get halfway up and you're unable to finish and all who see you begin to mock you and say this man began to build and was unable to finish don't build a tower without first counting the cost my friend zig ziglar used to say if you aim at nothing you will hit it every time my friend john maxwell says a budget is people telling their money what to do instead of wondering where it went winning is an intentional act when the super bowl is over and the little reporter runs over and says how did you win the guy never goes i don't know i just got off the bus and this thing happened getting to the super bowl is an intentional act over decades of developing your skill [Music] no one accidentally grows a bumper crop unless it's weeds no one so plant something control the process control the controllables write it down this is my plan thank you lord i'm gonna do this i'm gonna manage your stuff i'm gonna take care of my own household first it's in there remember and we're gonna live this plan out and we're gonna do this thing it changes everything the second thing is you need to get out of debt now we knew dave ramsey was gonna say this that's a fairly predictable thing coming out of my mouth but here's the deal the borrower really is slave to the lender the ritual is over the poor and the borrower is slave [Applause] to the lender i've experienced that i lost everything because i let other people have control over my life you know what that's called a master well dave i don't know if i agree with all your theories about debt it's america you have the right to be wrong [Applause] my old pastor used to say a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion i've led more people out of debt and into wealth than anybody breathing on the planet today and i'm not bragging i just showed them how to do it god's ways i didn't make up any of this i stole it all from god and your grandmother and so we're going to get out of that because it's no fun trying to be married like this right knock your glasses off doing that this is crazy you guys we're walking through our lives where all the money comes in all the money goes out and only the names are changed to protect the innocent we make tons of money and we have none and we can't figure out why i know why you gave it all to a financial system that's designed to take it from you you surrendered it and we've got to stop so i quit borrowing money period for anything for any reason and this weird thing happened when i didn't have any payments and i made an income i had money it was so strange and then when i got money and i bought an asset that created income that i paid cash for i got to keep all that there was no payment except for what the government takes but i mean there was no payment and it was it was an amazing experience and the first few years were tough because you know other stuff i wanted to do and i didn't have the money and i had to learn this magic ancient word called no most people don't know this word you press your tongue towards the roof of your mouth you release there no it's tough you're not allowed to say it in our world anymore it's politically incorrect so you know what i did was we got the scissors out and we said no more i'm not going to play you guys game anymore it's time for a plasectomy it's time for plastic surgery citibank what's in your wallet money american distress thank you discover bondage bank of america oh my gosh you don't have any credit cards no not for 38 years well 30 years that's when i went bankrupt they wouldn't give me one at first and then later after they would give me i didn't want it because i had learned this stuff from the bible and this is my wallet green president's faces four pieces of plastic my debit card on my business my debit card for my home my driver's license and my handgun carry permit um oh rednecks in oklahoma i see okay i had a guy call me on the radio and he's like you're gonna kill me my truck payment i said how much is your truck payment 763 dollars you have a 700 truck payment yeah i said how much is your house payment i live in a double wide 550.
oh man i said dude if your truck payment is bigger than your house payment you might be a redneck the borrower is slave to the lender you got to sell that truck dude it don't you you don't own it it sounded good at the time and you and i both know the reason you called me is you just wanted somebody else to say it out loud with you who's also done stupid because i know what stupid looks like son that's stupid that truck's got to go you're saying i gotta sell my truck what'd you just say of course i said you sell your truck and stutter thing owns you man this is crazy get you a truck that you can own instead of it owns you this is just crazy the third one surprises people and that's foster high quality relationships the bible says be not deceived evil company corrupts good habits did you know you become who you hang around with i was up north of the day and you know all those people talk alike they got accents they thought i had one but they had a group accent thing going i saw it and when they moved down south they stayed there long enough we teach them how to talk right and they're fun i love yankees they're awesome but um it's fun there's a couple in here right now but they um we can have all the phone we want you know you become who you hang around with studies say that your 10 closest friends over the next decade your income will be within 10 to 15 of the average of your 10 closest friends and some of you're going i need some new french [Applause] well maybe i mean you don't let your little son your little johnny run around with the weed head down the street because you know if you do he's going to turn into a wheathead right he comes home talking language we don't talk in our house you go where'd you pick that up because you didn't pick it up in here so where'd you you know oh yeah okay you become who you hang around with be not deceived evil company corrupts good habits so hang out with generous people and you will be generous people hang out with people who read the bible you'll end up reading the bible you can't keep yourself from doing it hang out with people who treat their wives with respect men and you will find men who treat their wives with respect and you'll start treating yours that way it's an amazing thing that happens it's a weird thing that happens so choose carefully now i'm not talking about being nice to someone or snubbing other people i'm nice to anybody i love people i love people that are wrong even i love people okay but i'm talking about my crew the men in my life that shape my language the men in my life that impact my spiritual wealth my generosity my thinking in business and my acumen who are the men in my life that are doing that ladies the same thing for you you're going to become who you hung around with now the next one is save and invest see if you don't have any payments and you got a plan the first thing you're going to want to do is save and invest because in the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil and the rest of that proverb says and a foolish man devours all he has if you spend everything you make biblically speaking you're a fool i didn't say it god dad don't get mad at me but i have been a fool big red arrow fool full full i know i know what being a fool feels like it feels like being broke because i spent everything i made because i've always been able to make money i just weren't able to keep it i always thought i could out earn my stupidity and i tried it for a long time it doesn't work save and invest you're saving for an emergency fund first save three to six months to get ready for maybe something like a a what a rainy day visual aid 2020 right man i mean what if you had no payments and a big 20 000 emergency fund in 2020 happen or what if you had 20 000 in payments and no money for emergencies in 2020 happen do you have two different results the answer is yes in the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil and then that leads you to the position to be incredibly outrageously generous it's hard to be generous when you're broke you can be generous and smile and open the door for somebody but i'm talking about writing a check to feed hungry babies i'm talking about buying a single mom a car i'm talking about you can reach over and pay somebody who's struggling light bill through the end of the year i'm talking about outrageous even sometimes spontaneous generosity and you can do that if you're not broke and you've got your stuff taken care of at home if my life bill is paid i can help somebody if i'm still threatened over here i don't even see them god loves a cheerful giver he loves a cheerful giver so i want you to try this next time there's a holiday maybe easter or thanksgiving or something like that and you're driving to grandma's house with the kids now you're gonna go have a big feast that day but on the way i want you to do something crazy i want you to stop at the waffle house leave the kids in the car motor running pull up in front of the window so you can see inside and the people in your car can see inside i want you go inside by yourself leave them out there they'll be running their mouth anyway kids put the screens down watch this go in there have a cup of coffee at the counter she'll come to the counter she'll pour your coffee this is thanksgiving morning and who's working on thanksgiving morning at waffle house pay for your coffee and i want you to take three or four of these uncle benjamin franklin pictures 100 bills and i want you to slide them on the cup and slip out go out in the car tell the kids hey watch god work watch what god does when he shows off she'll come over she'll pick that stuff up and she'll look at it she wonders if it's a trick because in her life it's been so long since anything good has happened to her and then when she realizes it's real and then even if she was in church that sunday or hadn't been in church in 20 years of sundays a hundred percent of the time the human spirit can smell god's spirit she knows what's going on and a hundred percent of the time after she does this she'll go thank you and then she looks one more time when she realizes no one's looking and she has no idea there's a family with a six-year-old sitting in a van watching her inside whose dad or mom just pulled this idea off the six-year-old's life is being permanently changed while he watches this then she goes into and does a snoopy dance because that's the whole difference in her month now i want you to go spend 300 with your spouse on a really nice night out and enjoy yourself if we being evil know how to give good gifts how much more so our father in heaven i want you to learn to enjoy money but i dare you to have more fun with 300 bucks than that so to the extent you're not outrageously generous because you're in debt and haven't saved money you're not on a plan and you hang out with selfish people who are worried about their instagram photo any one of those five things that's not there or any five of those five things is not there it's time for all of us to get a little better and change makes god smile when you do he loves you he's crazy about you god we thank you for this day thank you for this incredible church we thank you for pastor craig thank you for his friendship over all these decades the incredible work you've allowed him to do and the work you've done through him and this unbelievable holy spirit team god thank you thank you thank you for work that matters we ask you bless people help them have the power to change their lives holy spirit speak to them speak through them help them change in jesus name amen as you keep praying today at all of our different churches uh those of you uh who say oh i i feel the same thing that waitress would feel there's something in my spirit that bears witness with this but you may say i'm not really a committed follower of jesus when dave talked about debt there's another type of debt in the bible it's called a sin debt and you know it when we look at money we all know we've done stupid things with money we feel guilty sometimes but when you look at life we recognize that we've all done stupid things in life and we feel guilty we've sinned there's really really really good news that god loves you so much that he became like you he became one of us in the person of jesus who never sinned jesus the innocent one gave his life died and god raised him from the dead he shed his blood to pay for our sin debt because of the grace of god because of the risen christ anyone who calls on that name that is above every name the name of jesus your sins would be forgiven your debt your sin debt would be erased and you would change you would become brand new today wherever you're watching those of you who say i need his grace i need his forgiveness today i turn around i turn from my sin i repent i turn to jesus i give him my life that's your prayer would you lift your hands right now just lift them up all of our churches say yes i give my life to jesus as we have hands going up in all of our churches if you're watching online just type in the chat i'm giving my life to jesus and now because of the goodness of god his presence would you pray with those around you pray out loud pray heavenly father forgive my sins erase my debt jesus save me change me make me new fill me with your spirit so i could follow you thank you for new life i give you mine in jesus name i pray because somebody celebrate big worship god [Applause]
– Hello my dudes, my name is Tiffany, and today's video is about
how I paid off $10,000 in credit card debt in six months. I am so excited, and this really hasn't even hit me yet. You know how mobile banking is. Money doesn't even seem real. It's all numbers on a screen. So in this video I'm going to
explain how I got into $10,000 of credit card debt as well
as how I got out of it. Let's jump right in. First of all, this has been the best
year for me financially, and this is my first year
being a full time YouTuber, where this is the only
job that I am working. It's been that way since January so it's still relatively new, and I have been earning small
amounts of money from YouTube since about 2012, but this is not a YouTube
get rich quick scheme. It has taken a lot of time, and work to get to the point
where this is my full time job, and of course I want to mention how grateful I am for this job, because it has given me the
flexibility to work while I am still a full time college student.
And of course it's not only allowing me to earn enough to pay my bills, but also to be able to throw large amounts of money at my debts. If I were working a minimum wage job like I have in past years, I would not have been able
to do this in this timeframe. Of course, I still would
have been making payments, but it wouldn't have been possible to pay this much, this fast. So first of all, thank you to everyone watching my channel, and supporting my videos.
Keep doing it, please. No, but really I don't want
anyone to directly compare their situation to mine. I think when it comes to personal finance, it's important to remember that it's all about concepts, and strategies. Everyone's income, and expenses, and situations are very different. Those amounts will vary wildly, but when it comes to debt pay off. The strategies are all
pretty much the same. If you are trying to get out of debt, I hope that this video is somehow helpful, or maybe a little inspiring for you, and if you're not in
debt, congratulations. Maybe this video will help
you learn from my mistakes.
Anyway, let me give some
backstory into my situation. How did I get into $10,000
of credit card debt? So I made this video back in March to publicly announce my
debt pay off journey, and specify exactly how much money I owe. In addition to my credit card debt, I also owe now about
$18,000 in student loans. By the way, I chose to tackle
credit card debt first, because the interest rates are higher. My credit card interest
rates averaged about 20% while my student loan
interest rates are about 4%. so I'm 24 now, and I have considered myself
to be financially independent pretty much from age 19 when
I moved out of the house, and went to college. But even before that, since I was 16 I've been working, I bought my own first car, paid for insurance, gas,
everything, paid my phone bill, Ms. 16 year old independent. Once I got to college though, my biggest problem was that I just was not making enough money to keep up with my expenses, and that is when I started
to rely on credit cards to kind of bridge that gap, and obviously we know those balances can grow really quickly.
I used to work regular minimum wage jobs, you know, in food service, childcare, work study jobs on campus. I made about $15,000 in 2016, and then in 2017 I studied
abroad, and couldn't work, and then that summer I
worked at a summer camp, which did not pay much. It's more of an experience, and in 2017 I only earned $5,000. I honestly don't even know how I survived. So while studying abroad, my room, and board was covered by student loans, and I got a small stipend, but I did end up adding about
$1,400 to my credit card by the end of my semester,
and time traveling. Shortly after that summer, I also had to spend $2,000
on emergency dental work, yay to being uninsured. No, that was not fun, and I also decided to drop
$2,000 on SmileDirectClub to straighten my teeth.
I definitely did not have the
money for that at the time, but I was just sick of being
insecure about my teeth, and honestly now very worth it to me. I'm glad I did it then, but then of course studying
abroad was amazing, but it also costs a lot of money, and it definitely added
to my student loan debt, and my credit card debt, but again, I think it was worth it. I mean, I would not regret
that experience ever. So yes, looking back about $5,500 of my $10,000 credit card debt happened in just 2017, I had always been conscious of my debt, and I always made my payments
on time every single month, but by like early 2018 I was 22, and I just still wasn't
earning very much money. Actually before this year, I had never earned more than
$22,000 in a year before taxes, and my credit card payments were annoying, of course, but I was kind
of used to just paying them, and I had no idea how much
money I was actually wasting.
I did the math just
recently, and in 2018 alone, I paid $1,587 in interest
across four cards. Want to know how much I earned that year? Just about $20,000 before taxes. So the amount of interest that
racked up on my credit cards was over 12% of my entire annual income. That is insane. Clearly I needed to pay this off, and I knew that I was not gonna
live with this debt forever. So now I'm gonna tell you a
few basic steps for paying off credit card debt, and what my actual process was like. Step one, you've got to
get serious, and commit. This is honestly the hardest part. A lot of us can live with debt. Why is my shirt doing this? That's really annoying. A lot of us can live with debt, and kind of push it to the back
of our minds, and ignore it, but it is so important to finally realize that
you are done with this, and you are gonna start
seriously working to pay it off.
The reality is debt pay off
does not happen passively. You know, making minimum
payments for years is going to cost you so
much more in interest. The best way to pay off
debt is to pay it off as aggressively as you can. So I think it's important
to let your friends, and family know that
you're on this journey, and maybe they can help
hold you accountable.
Maybe you just want them to understand why you'll probably be saying no to spending money in certain ways. It helps to have people around
you supporting your process. For me, I just announced it publicly, which you definitely don't have
to do if you don't want to, but you know, I'm a YouTuber, and I like to share my life
with the world, and overshare, and that's what this
video is doing as well. Next, I would definitely
recommend balance transfers. Use those to take advantage of lower, or 0% interest rates for a
certain number of months, sometimes up to like 18 months. Using balance transfers
wisely will obviously save you a lot in interest. Plus it kind of gives
you like a target date to encourage you to pay
that off before the lower, or zero interest rate ends.
By the way, I don't have time to explain everything in detail, so if there's anything in this video that you are confused about, or want to learn more about, I will be linking some educational resources in the description. So yes, I did do a few balance transfers, so I did benefit from
lower interest rates, and sometimes zero interest
for a limited time, but it's crazy that I've still racked up that amount of interest,
even with balance transfers, I don't want to do the math on
how much it would've cost me if I didn't, but it would not be pretty.
Second major tip, you
must track your income, and expenses religiously. So I actually made
another video about this. I was talking about what it's
like being self employed, and paying taxes yourself, and what my kind of budgeting,
and tracking routine is. So if you're interested, check it out, but the thing is I actually
enjoy this process now. Like I used to be one of
those people who was scared to even look at my bank account, and now I check it like weekly at least. I always know what I have spent, and I know what I'm gonna
spend in the next month, and that makes me feel more secure, and I don't feel like I'm drowning. Third tip, of course you have
to pay more than the minimums.
They're kind of two main strategies when it comes to paying down debt. There's the debt snowball,
and the debt avalanche. The debt snowball, basically you would list all of your debts from smallest to largest. You would pay the minimum
on everything of course, but then any extra payments would go to the smallest amounts, and then once you pay that off, you would move on to the
next smallest amount. It's like a snow ball. This one is satisfying, because you at least get to start off, and get the ball rolling,
knocking things out, even if they are your smallest accounts, and then the debt avalanche
would be focusing on the highest interest rates first, knock out whichever account
has the highest interest rate, and then move on to the
next highest interest rate. So I actually think I did
kind of a combination of both. Obviously, generally I chose
just credit cards first, because of the higher interest rates rather than my student loans, and then I did pay off
some smaller accounts, like if I had an account with just a few hundred
dollars in the balance, I pay that off, but then I basically ended
up with two credit cards that each had about $4,000
to $5,000 on their balances, but anyway, the most important
thing in paying off debt is that you need to
somehow find extra money to be able to throw out those payments, whether it's an extra $50, $100, $500, whatever you can spare, you need to put it
towards your debt first.
Basically, if I ever had a certain amount in my checking account,
say over like $2,000, I would take everything over that amount, and put it toward debt. So where do you find that extra money? Well, there are two basic strategies. Either you can cut your spending, or you can make more money, and of course you could do both. For me, I've definitely gone
down the make more money route. I explained that in the past, I simply was not making enough
money to cover my expenses, let alone have extra
money to pay towards debt. So I knew that one way or another, I would need to make more money. I'm still of course very
mindful of my spending, but I do not have like a strict budget. I still travel, because I have to fly across
the country to see my family, and that's kind of non-negotiable for me, and I do like to treat myself
in other kind of smaller ways, but there are some financial
gurus who will tell you that you need to cut out
everything in your life that is not a necessity.
Like Dave Ramsey will tell
you to eat beans and rice, rice and beans. Other gurus will tell you
that your $5 daily coffee is ruining your finances. The thing is for some people being extra, strictly frugal can work, but for me, I knew that if I cut out
everything that brought me joy, and tried to live on
a super strict budget, I would just end up miserable, and I would hate the process, and if anything that
might cause me to fail, I definitely could have
cut down on certain things, but I probably would have
only paid off my credit cards like a month early, and to me that just
wouldn't have been worth making the whole process less enjoyable.
I mean, let's face it, paying off debt is not fun. You've got to get through it somehow, and you've got to make it
something that you can sustain in the long run. Like I like my Regal unlimited movie pass. I like gonna Starbucks a
couple of times a week, but at the same time I don't like go out. So I save a lot of money that I otherwise would spend on entertainment, or drinks. This is why it's important
to look at your spending, and look at your budget, and figure out what works for you.
What are your priorities, what are the things that you're
willing to spend money on that make you happy, and what things are you
willing to cut back on? But anyway, yes, in my
situation, increasing my income was a hugely essential element. Make more money. It's that easy, isn't it? No, YouTube is definitely unpredictable, and I'll admit that a lot of
my increased income this year has come from just being lucky, and a couple of videos
doing really well randomly. So if you want to support me, you can like, and comment on this video so that the algorithm will bless me. And if you're enjoying this video, I mean you could subscribe. Seriously though. Having YouTube be like my only source of income is interesting, because it does fluctuate wildly. Some months my only paycheck is my big Google AdSense payment, and then other months I'll get AdSense plus maybe
sponsorship paychecks.
So based on my earnings in the first few months of this year, I had estimated that I was gonna make maybe $40,000 this year, which is about $3,000
a month before taxes. And remember I have to pay taxes
plus self employment taxes. So my taxes are higher
than if you had a job that takes your taxes out for you, but I have had some better
than average months, which have raised my income,
and now I'm estimating that I'm gonna make
over $60,000 this year, which averages to about $5,000
a month again before taxes. Overall, it's very cool. I mean, again, I've never made more than like $20,000 a year. So I'm like, wow, making that coin, throwing it to the banks. I love it. I should never dance again. Here's the big question a lot of you guys asked on Instagram. Of course, this depended on how much money I made each month, because it fluctuated. Some people can do what's
called a zero sum budget where literally every
dollar in your paycheck is accounted for, but because I don't get regular paychecks of the same amount, I can't
really do a zero sum budget.
I have to look at not
only this month's income, but next month's income, and try to make sure that I will have enough
money to pay my bills. So I've brought up some examples for you. If I were to make it $3,000 pretax, that would be about $2,250 after taxes. My regular expenses like rent, other discretionary spending bills come out to about $1,800 a month, and my minimum payments
of debts earlier this year when they were at their largest, we're about $285 for student loans, and then $300 for credit
card minimum payments. So that's about $600 in debt payments, but if you do the math on
that $2,550, minus $1,800, minus $600, that wouldn't be enough. So in months like that, what I would have to do is underpay, or under save for my quarterly taxes, and then hope that I'd be
able to make it up in a month where I made more money. So if I were to make $5,000, I would pay approximately
25% toward taxes. I don't know my exact tax rate, but I use QuickBooks, and it just tells me how much
I need to pay each quarter.
So then after taxes I would have $3,750, and then after my bills, and discretionary spending, I would have about $1,800 left, which is about half of
my after tax income. So then I would pay again those minimum debt payments about $600, and then I would still
have about $1,200 extra to put toward a credit card that month. I hope this is making sense. So I've reviewed all of my
tracking, and everything, and I've tried to figure out
kind of what my trajectory of debt payments was like. Basically, most of my
debt payment progress has happened since June, and I've been able to make
a few big chunk payments to slowly knock down my
balances month by month.
These were my total credit
card balances by the end of each of these months, June was still at $10,000
so even from March when I made that first video to June, I didn't really make any progress. Then July I was at
$4,100 so I made a huge, huge, huge chunk that month, somehow. August $3,100, September $2,965,
and finally October, zero. That's still very surreal for me to say. Like I'll see it when I believe it, or I'll believe it when I see it, and I have seen it, and I guess I still don't believe it. I'm not making sense. So anyway, that pattern of debt payment probably looks quite erratic, but what happened was I was
so excited about paying more toward my debts that I was
kind of neglecting my taxes, my quarterly estimated taxes.
So I was paying too much toward my debt, and not saving enough for my taxes, and I realized that about
halfway through the year I was like, okay, I've got to pause the extreme payments, focus on catching up on my
taxes, and then continue. So that's what I did. It's so hard to pay
your own taxes yourself. Like when it's taken out of your paycheck, you're like, okay, fine,
but to do it yourself, to get that money in your
bank account, look at it, and go bye to 25% to 30% of you.
Kind of breaks your heart every time, but you got to do it. You don't want to be screwed
when it comes to tax time. We are responsible tax payers here, and by the way, from now on I am actually going to put aside, or just send a payment every single month rather than waiting until
the actual quarterly due date just because it'll be a lot easier on me, and of course now my
credit card debt is gone.
Every time I say that I could
like tear up a little bit, because it's just, it's
been with me for so long. My debt and I have just
been so interconnected. No, really it's, I'm very proud of myself. Can I tell you guys a secret? My hype song regarding
my debt payoff journey is "Gimme" by Banks. Listen to it. It's about getting what
you want, what you deserve, and I've listened to it a
shameful amount of times fantasizing about this
moment, and here I am, $10,000 in debt lighter,
and it feels great, and I just cracked my hip. (distorted music) Oh yes, I did the math again on how much interest I have paid so far in 2019 for my credit cards, and that amount is $838
just January to September. That's insane. It is so nice to know that
I will no longer be wasting about $100 a month just
on credit card interest. So now I have more questions
that I got on my Instagram.
Oh my God, I'm gonna, this shirt. Am I sweaty? Is that sweat? Yeah, it is. I'm unraveling. I'm supposed to look put together. I have questions for my Instagram. Let's continue. How do you resist lifestyle inflation? Basically, when you
start to earn more money, it is very, very, very
tempting to spend more money. How do you resist? Especially when you've been on a budget, you're like, oh, now I have
a little bit more money. Maybe I can go shopping. Maybe I can buy that thing I've wanted. It is so tempting, and it's honestly so easy
to spend that money away, rather than putting it toward your debt. So obviously for me, something that's helpful again
is when my paychecks come in, a portion goes to taxes, a portion goes to debt, and then I only leave myself with the amount that I actually need.
So I'm kind of taking my
own money away from myself before I can spend it on anything else, but also, I will admit I have
been spending a little bit more than I used to. I have still been traveling, I've bought some more clothes, usually only about $100 a month, or less. You know, it's fall. I had to buy new things, but again, generally, my spending has not increased too much, and my income has increased substantially. Maintaining of that bigger gap
between what my expenses are, and how much money I'm making
is obviously the difference. How do you stay motivated
during your debt payoff journey? For me, I love to watch, and consume a lot of financial content, and of course tracking
my spending does help me. In terms of financial content, I watch The Financial Diet, Aja Dang for her college
debt payoff journey. Sarah Nourse makes a lot
of finance related videos about how to be responsible, how to save, great stuff. Occasionally I'll watch a
little bit of Dave Ramsey if I want some, like honestly, if I want to see people who
are in like a much worse situation than me.
That's when I watch Dave Ramsey. I also watch a lot of those
like Millennial Money, like how people spend
their money type of videos, because now I have become obsessed. I want to know how much money people make, how much money they spend
on different things. Do you have debt? What kind of debt? How are you handling your debt? I've become incredibly nosy when it comes to personal finance. I wish I had x-ray vision just
to see into people's budgets, but yeah, mostly I stay motivated just by keeping my financial goals in the forefront of my mind. Constantly thinking about them, constantly seeing how I'm doing, and of course every time that
I paid off a credit card, or another balance, it's
a satisfying feeling, and it keeps you motivated to continue. What did you find was the most
helpful way to think about the process of paying off debt? To me, I just had to remind myself that the longer I take to pay this off, the more it's going to cost me.
It is not fun to throw
thousands of dollars at debt, but I have to remember I've
already spent that money, and now that spending is
costing me this amount of money in interest every month. So I'd like to stop wasting that, and just get it over
with a rip the bandaid. Don't put this onto future you, okay? Because past you already did that, and think about how mad we are at her. No, I like her. I'm really getting lost. Big question, am I saving
wow paying off debt? No, I am not. To me it just doesn't make
sense for me to try to save while I'm paying interest.
I would rather put as much money as possible toward those debts, get rid of them, and then
focus this hard on saving. It is important though to
have an emergency fund. So I really should, you know, take some time to build up a few thousand dollars for that, but I'm not gonna be
starting my retirement fund, or any serious saving until
my student loans are gone, or at least mostly gone. We'll see. I don't know. I feel like I just want to get rid of the
student loans altogether, and then move onto the next thing. It feels like a clean break. What is next? I was just saying exact same strategy, but with my student loans, and specifically I'm gonna try to pay off my parent plus loans first, just to help my parent's credit, so that they don't have
to worry about it anymore, and then I will focus on my own loans.
So I've got updates on that too. I've actually already paid a good amount of my total student loan balance off, and I didn't even really realize it, and my current school, because I transferred, my current school's financial aid package covers the entire cost of my tuition, and fees, and everything. So I have not had to take
out additional loans, and that has been major. If I had stayed at my first university, I would have graduated last year, but I also would have graduated
with over $40,000 of debt.
So progress, I did actually specifically pay off a Perkins loan. It only had about $500
left on the balance, and it was like a separate
thing to the rest of my loans, so I just wanted it gone. So I paid that off. The total for all of my
student loans were $27,405. Back in March the total was $20,747. So now I'm at $18,606, hell yeah. It seems a little bit crazy to cheer for that amount of debt. It's still a lot, but seeing that I've already just paid off $10,000 in credit card debt, and that I've almost
already paid off $10,000 of my student loans is amazing to me. That is really exciting, and I do want to be proud of myself, and see how far I've come, and I'm just gonna keep on trucking.
How has your credit score changed? I literally just paid off
the last balance of my cards like two days ago, so I
don't think my credit score has been updated since then. But I did use the Credit
Karma simulator thing, and it says that my score
will go up to about 750-ish, and I can't actually remember
what my credit scores have been in the past. I feel like they were in the good range, so I think maybe it's gone
from like a 650 to like 750. I'm very happy with that. I'm a big geek about my credit score. I want excellent. I want to hit 800 baby. We're gonna get there someday. Did you still use credit
cards while paying them down? Yes, I did. It sounds kind of counterintuitive. I have a Starbucks card, and I have an Amazon
card, so I did use those, because they're only for
like small purchases, and the rewards are
kind of worth using it, but no, for most of this year, I pretty much paid everything
with my debit card.
And now, recently I've actually gotten a new airlines reward credit card, so I'm trying to transition
to using credit cards, the smart way where you use
them to max out rewards, and then pay them off in full every month, and don't pay interest. So yeah, some people when they
pay off their credit cards, kind of want to cut them
all up, and burn them, and never use them again. I can see how people
might need to do that, or might feel like that's
better for them, but for me, I think I can responsibly use them, and not get carried away.
I want to take full advantage of the possible rewards, you know? But I do find it intimidating to think of paying off an entire month's spending all at once. So what I like to do is I
kind of pay off my credit card balance like every week, or two. That might seem like overkill,
but to me that's easier, and then what I look
at my checking balance, it's more realistic rather than having a lot
of money in my checking, and be like, oh cool, I have money, and then looking at my
credit card balance, and being like psych, that's
all go into my credit card. So yeah, and last question, what do you recommend for younger people regarding credit cards, and student loans? So I have given a good bit of
advice to my younger brother, because he's currently
a sophomore in college, and generally I would recommend
that like 18 year olds get their first credit card.
I know some people are scared of it because they think
they're gonna max it out, or I don't know, you might, but I think that for the sake
of your average credit age, it's best to get a credit
card as soon as you can as an adult just to
start aging that credit. But also I think it is important to learn how to use it responsibly, learn about credit, understand how you can
use it to your advantage, and then of course I would
recommend if young people are getting credit cards to actually pay them off, unlike myself, don't make my mistakes, but again, I don't really
regret a lot of my spending, because so much of it was
just necessary for me.
I had no other options. When you're 19, and not making much money, and you need to pay for bills, and you need to buy food, and you're not relying on your parents, and you're not taking any
money from your parents. I mean, what can you do? Sometimes you're desperate. So that's what I did, and I don't know what I would've done if I couldn't have used my credit cards. I wouldn't have had any
other options really. But that is why as soon as I was able to, I started this journey of
aggressively paying them off. So rather than ignoring my credit cards for another five years, I have taken these steps to make up for my past
irresponsibility, or mistakes. Hello? I know there would be
some people who'd be like, why would anyone ask for your advice if you're the one who was the idiot who got into $10,000 of debt? And my response to that is like, I think everybody makes
financial mistakes.
If you don't, I guess you're lucky, and maybe you have a lot of guidance, but a lot of us don't
have a lot of guidance, or we are in desperate situations, people who are in poverty, or who are living paycheck to paycheck, they don't have a lot of options, and that's why a lot of people
have to rely on credit cards, and other things that are not
the best financial decision, but sometimes it's all that you have. Yeah, but my point was just that just, because you've been bad
with money in the past doesn't mean that you cannot learn, and ended up really good with money. So Chelsea from The Financial
Diet would be a great example.
She used to be terrible with
money, and now she's a boss, and she's leading a literal
financial company, so… So then when it comes to student loans, I've actually started
a whole list of tips, and things that I would recommend
when it comes to students making choices about their loans. Should you take them out? How much is okay to take out, et cetera. So if you guys are interested in a video about student
loans, let me know. I would probably make it
like a hybrid of this video, and Internet Analysis. Make it more like student
loan facts, and information, and plus tips, not the
title, but you know. Anyway, wow, here we are. Thank you guys so much for watching. Again, if you want to
continue supporting me, and my channel, and my
debt pay off journey, just keep watching my videos, give me likes, give me comments.
It helps the algorithm like me, and recommend me a bit more. If you want to follow me on Instagram for some mediocre pics, you can do that. If you want to follow me on Twitter for some political Tweets, and occasional memes, you can do that, and just stay tuned for my next video. Okay, thanks, bye. (upbeat cheerful music).
You spend your salary before you even receive
it. You want to learn how to save and accumulate
money, to get out of debt. There's no magic financial wand, but a few
simple tips will help you take control of your budget and save money for anything you
want. Here are a few reasons why saving is important
and why it serves as a safety cushion. Saving more money means gaining an additional
degree of freedom and improving your living conditions.
Savings represent the future of your children,
money set aside for vacations and luxury items. If you're unable to save money and it slips
through your fingers, you need to know that you won't save a penny until you understand
exactly where your income is going. Saving isn't as fun as spending, but nothing
is impossible. The golden rules of a family budget, formulated
by financial experts, will help you understand how to start saving money and stay on the
right track.
Now let's look at the secrets and methods
of setting money aside in any situation. Secret number one is expense tracking. How can you decide where to save and set aside
money if you have no idea about your expenses? Download an Excel spreadsheet, customize it
to your needs, and start recording your expenses without delay. Keep a notebook or install financial tracking
apps if you don't like electronic spreadsheets. Once you have a clear picture of your expenses
in a typical month, you can identify problem areas, determine how much to save, and reduce
discretionary and impulsive purchases. This will become evident within a few weeks. At first glance, it may seem silly to write
down all your expenses since you already know everything. But when you have your financial statistics
in front of you, not just for a day or two, but for a month, you may be surprised by the
amounts spent on specific things.
This will help identify where you spend more
and where you can save. After all, in the context of a single day,
these may be trivialities, but in the context of a month, they could be an alternative to
a new refrigerator. This is one of the secrets that shocked me
when I started recording every expense. Has this ever happened to you? Leave comments under the video. And if you haven't started using this secret
yet, start doing it immediately. Develop a plan. Clearly define your goals and set realistic
deadlines for achieving each item. Simply saving money for a "rainy day" is a
psychologically losing strategy. People need a push, a threat to their well-being,
or motivation. Saving becomes easier when there's an anticipated
and coveted dream ahead, like an apartment, a car, or something less monumental but equally
important to you. Goals can vary from a long-desired purchase
of a new TV to a trip to a country you've always wanted to visit.
It would be great if your goal could genuinely
inspire you. Your goal should be as specific as possible,
such as a particular model for the TV or a trip of a certain duration to a specific country,
with a rough list of planned places to visit. Set both long-term and short-term goals, calculate
how much money needs to be saved each month, and stick to the plan. Trust the experience of successful businessman
Stephen Covey: "Goals are pure fantasy" if you don't have a specific plan to achieve
them. Distinguish between needs and wants. It's easier said than done, but make it a
rule to pause before making a purchase. Before grabbing another pair of shoes or an
exceptionally wonderful fishing rod, sleep on it for a few days. Besides, research shows that the pleasure
of anticipating a purchase is much greater than the pleasure after the acquisition itself. Treat yourself occasionally. The difference between thriftiness and miserliness
is about the same as between starvation and healthy eating. Secret number two: Pay yourself first. You have probably heard this phrase many times. Do you know why I often repeat this principle? Because it works.
Paying yourself means setting aside a certain
portion of your earnings into a deposit account, a separate account, or simply putting money
aside in an envelope. However, saving what's left of your salary
at the end of the month after all expenses is a huge mistake made by the overwhelming
majority. You should think of savings the same way you
think of any other bills. When you receive a bill for electricity, cable
TV, or phone service, what do you do? That's how you should approach your savings
account. If your goal is to save, let's say, $1,000
per month, prioritize that payment first. Secret number three: Spend less than you earn. No, it doesn't mean you have to give up all
the luxuries. Don't worry, I'm only talking about reasonable
economy and future planning. Think about it, if you earn $5,000 per month
and spend $6,000, your budget balance will be -$1,000.
Most likely, you used a credit card, and you'll
have to repay the debt with interest. So in the future, you'll have to cut expenses
not by $1,000, but by a more significant amount. A zero balance is already better. You know how to plan, but you don't know how
to save money. In this case, you risk being unprepared for
unforeseen expenses that life regularly throws at you. Let's face the truth. Even if you increase your income, your financial
situation won't change; you'll simply allow yourself to spend more. The only way out is to learn how to control
expenses and save money. How can you do it better? The answer is straightforward: do it immediately
after receiving the money. This is the fundamental rule of personal finance
management. By setting aside money right away, you remove
it from your family budget and automatically adjust yourself to the necessary financial
framework. Otherwise, you'll face a typical situation
where at the beginning of the month, you seem to have plenty of money, and it seems harmless
to treat yourself a little.
By the end of the month, your wallet is empty,
and you're only spending on essentials. Unexpectedly, it turns out that you can't
save anything that month. Therefore, the right decision is to set a
specific day (usually a date) when you receive your salary and regularly deposit savings
on that date–deposit the money into your account and forget about it. It's the best way to save money.
If you're interested in the topic of saving
money, please like this video and leave comments. Subscribe to the channel and enable notifications
to not miss out on new videos..
(upbeat rock music) – He sees it, he
wants it, he buys it. – Four cars in four years? What is up with you? – I know what's right,
I know what's wrong, sometimes I just
don't give a (bleep). – Do you have any idea
what I'm gonna make you do? – Get the hell out of here.
– I am serious. (couple laughing) (upbeat rock music) ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ – My name is Candice. I am a secretary for
an education institute. – My name's Clint, I'm
an operations coordinator for a liquid bolt company. Me and Candice
got married young, pretty sure we got
married when we were 22. We think we're coming
up on five years. – Clint never stops spending. – When I get something in
my head and it's something that I want, I don't think
about it and I just do it.
– I don't wanna be
spending the money but he has to buy
everything new. Big screen TV- – Nice definition. – [Candice] He had to
get the surround sound. – Can't have a TV
and not proper sound. – Various video game
consoles in the past, motorcycles, cars,
everything he wants he gets. – Candice definitely monitors some of the spending
that I've done. – There's online banking and I
can view that at the instant. Like where he has gone
to the strip joint. – She'll be online,
she'll be like, oh you're there are you? She's like a stalker like- – Guess who showed up there?
(Candice giggling) Some days I hate
him but I love him. Clint doesn't open any bills, nor does he go online
to check anything. – I have no clue as to
what's in the bank account.
The bill fairy comes
down and pays our bills. (Clint chortling) – I will pull from
our line of credit or go into overdraft. – But that doesn't bother me. Credit is pretty much what makes the world go
'round I guess I would say. – [Candice] Now we
have purchased a condo that closes in a couple months. – Again, that was
probably more my idea. – Clint doesn't realize that we have to come up with
the deposit before we move in. There's other things that
contribute to being emotional. He can't have kids naturally. That's extremely
emotional for me. I'm frustrated, I can't do IVF
because of Clint's spending. – I think mine and
Candice's relationship is more at risk with the baby situation than
the debt situation. – If we get further
and further in debt, I think that Clint and I
will eventually part ways. Because we won't have kids which is something
that I really want. He'll have all his stuff
but he won't have me. (upbeat rock music)
(cars honking) – [Narrator] This month, I'll help this couple
move from red to black.
I've been solving money
problems for over 20 years. Tackling everything from
high finance to low income. I help people understand
money and debt which is still a huge
mystery for most folks. And it's the number one
reason couples split up. So now, I'm making house calls. (upbeat pop music) When it comes to spending, Clint is like a kid
in a candy store and Candice is powerless
to stop the binge. The way things are going, they can't afford
to start a family. It's time for these two to
get their priorities straight. Hi, Gail Vaz-Oxlade. – Hi I'm Candice! – Nice to meet you!
– Nice to meet you too! – I'm Clint. – Nice to meet you Clint.
– Nice to meet you.
(upbeat pop music) – You're a bit of
a boy, right Clint? You're a boy man, you sit here and you
play shoot-em-up games! (Candice giggling) So Clint, how many
hats do you have? – Pardon?
– One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten, 11- (air whooshing)
– We'll go to a store, Clint is like a woman, he will
try on fifty million things. He's got a hat fetish,
shoes, clothes, everything. – One of the things that I
notice about the two of you is that there's a definite
discrepancy in your stuff. His robe is beautiful. – Oh yeah.
– Her robe is ratty. – I'm sorry. – This is pretty well
your relationship. Very often what happens is, no matter what I do to
help on the financial side, I actually can't
solve the problem because the problem
is between them. That's not your case. It's very clear that
you're very tight and you love each
other to death. When will you know
you have enough? Enough clothes, enough hats- – Honestly I probably
won't ever do that.
– $80,000 in consumer debt. Are you kidding me? – I know where
the money's going. – No you don't! Neither of you knew
where the money was going and I'm gonna show you
where the money's going. You don't know where
the money is going. (somber electronic music) There's your $80,000 in debt. You went off and
had an IVF treatment at an interest rate of 32%. These people are
stealing from you. If you can afford a baby, you should be able to pay
for your IVF straight up. – Yeah.
– Okay? 'Cause there's some planning
that goes into parenthood. And then you have all this
money on this credit card. At almost 20%. So you're not pro-actively
managing your credit, you're not figuring out how to
get your interest rates down. – No. – And your car loan Clint? At your payment, it'll take
100 months to pay it off, over eight years.
(melancholy guitar strumming) 'Cause you carry
forward negative equity. – Every time that we
trade in these vehicles, we lose money and
it just added up, added up onto his previous loan.
– Four cars in four years? Too many cars. What's that car
actually worth today? – Like $15,000.
– Okay. So that $15,000 car, you're gonna have to
drive for eight years and you're gonna
pay $51,000 for it. Ooh look, finally we got
something you understand. By the time it's all paid off, the way you're
doing it right now, you're $80,000 will have
cost you almost $145,000.00. – That's crazy. Yeah that kinda made me
step back and kinda look at what am I doing, why would
it be at that amount? – Okay so right now, you're housing is about $1,200, which is about 30%
of your income. And that's okay, you can spend up to 35%
of your income on housing.
But that's about to change. Clint, what's your new
mortgage payment gonna be? (somber jazz music) What's your property taxes? What are your
utilities gonna be? (Clint sputtering)
(Candice chuckling) What's the condo
gonna cost to insure? (Clint clearing throat) Maintenance and condo fees, you know what your
condo fees are gonna be? – Yeah, cheap. – Okay, so you actually
haven't got a clue. You just bought the
most expensive thing you're ever gonna buy
in your whole life. And he didn't even think to
check what it would cost? What is up with you? Every month you're overspending
by $2,755 every month. And if you keep it up, in five years you'll
be $677,000 in debt. (both chuckling)
(Gail snapping) – When he's silent it's 'cause
he's actually in trouble. – So my question is, is
that where you want to go? – No.
– You're sure? – Very sure.
– Very sure. – Okay, so will you do
anything I ask you to do? – Anything. – Over the next few weeks, I'm gonna give you a
series of challenges to do.
You do the challenges
to my satisfaction, I'll give you up to $5,000 to
help put a dent in this mess. If you don't do the
challenges to my satisfaction, you don't get the money. If you have the wrong attitude,
you don't get the money. – Okay
– We're gonna get your spending in line, okay? We're gonna put your debt
repayment on the front burner. And we're actually gonna try and get your guys
working together. You don't need
credit cards anymore, you can go get them
for me right now 'cause they're going bye bye. Coming up, challenge one leaves
Clint searching for words. – Get the hell outta here. – I am serious.
(couple laughing) ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ (upbeat techno music) – Clint laughs off
his overspending. – I put the bills
underneath my pillow, wishing for the bill fairy.
(chuckling) – [Gail] But wife Candice
doesn't find it so funny. – I resent the fact that
he doesn't pick up on that we're in so much debt. – What does $80,000
worth of debt mean? How many cars is that? – One good one.
(Candice laughing) – I can see why
you have trouble.
With that debt,
they can't afford the medical assistance they
need to start a family. So the stakes are as
high as they can be. – He'll have all his stuff
but he won't have me. – [Gail] For the next month,
this couple will learn to live on a strict cash budget. No more credit cards. They'll complete
weekly challenges to tackle their money
and relationship issues and if they're
willing to change, I'll reward them with
thousands of dollars to pay down their debt. No changes, no money. You guys are
overspending by 75%. – (chuckling nervously) Oh man.
– So instead of the $4,000 a
month you have been spending, you will have only $1,000 to
spend on your variable expenses which is things like,
$100 a week for food. $100 a week for transportation. $25 a week for entertainment. Clothing and gifts? – Oh God it's
gonna be like zero. – Five dollars a week.
(Candice laughing) – Okay, oh God. – $17 dollars for other,
this includes your pet food. – Okay.
– Okay? Because your living on cash,
you have to write it down. Here's a budget binder. Make sure you track
every penny you spend. – Okay. – I feel that I'm
gonna have to step back and reevaluate things
that I feel are a need.
– It's time to hear about
your first challenge. You're actually spending
more on your transportation than on your housing. And that's because of that
silly little car go-around where you keep carrying the
debt from one car to another. So, since your car is all fire
and important to you buddy? You're gonna live in
your car for weekend. – What?
(Candice giggling) You're joking.
– I'm not. – Get the hell out of here!
– I am serious. – I love you!
(Candice giggling) – Because your car is the
most important thing to you- – Get the hell outta
here, are you serious? – I'm dead serious.
I mean, you're prepared to put your entire
financial situation at risk for the sake of a
car so, you know, you might end up having to
live in your car one day. So see what it feels like. – Yeah, that caught me
off guard completely. That wasn't even in my
spectrum whatsoever. – Part two is, you don't
know sweet diddly squat about the place you're buying. You need to know
what it's gonna cost for you two to
live in this place. So that you have a
budget that works. And you're gonna use his figures because your challenge this week is you're so hell-bent
on having a baby, you're job is to make a budget
that incorporates the fact that you wanna have a baby. So your costs are gonna go up, you have to figure all that out. Make it so, I'll
see you next week.
(upbeat funk music) (Candice knocking) – Yeah okay. To sleep in the car was
absolutely horrendous. I could not get comfortable. The thoughts I had last
night for the most part is pretty obvious, it's not
the smartest or brightest thing to spend more money on something
you spend a couple hours in than you know, keep a
roof over your head. – Hi I'm-
– With that in mind, Clint researches
the occupancy costs of their brand new condo and Candice adds up
the baby expenses. – Did you ever use formula
and what was the cost? – An average container, at
least $20, sometimes $30. – How many diapers- When I was doing
my IVF treatments, all I was thinking was of
the immediate you know, gratification of
becoming pregnant. – The day care costs are
obviously the one big thing. That's a huge thing
you have to consider, you look into beforehand. – I'm glad that she forced me to look at how much it
would cost to have a child. – Did you find out
about the condo? – Yeah, I was in
the dark for sure.
– Yeah.
– And the questions you asked me last week?
– Right. – I'd definitely
be landing them. – Okay good. And so, what was the
whole experience like, living in a car? – It gave me time to think
about what was going on and things like that-
– And what did you think when you thunk? – That I put us in, you know,
not the best of situations. – I thought for sure
that he would be like, F this, I ain't staying
in this (bleep) car. – Right, you were a good boy. – He was. – How did you find
doing the budgets? – I had to do a couple years
in order to get it to balance- (Gina laughing)
Yeah. Yeah it won't balance now. – When I did your budget I
couldn't get it to balance. – Okay. – You were several hundred
dollars over a month. You have a lot of debt and it's at a very
expensive interest rate. See all the stuff around here? These are all people
that needed money. So the first part of this week's challenge
gives you a choice.
Either, you sell $15,000
worth of your stuff to pay down the debt.
– Okay. – Or you find a way to
make an extra $700 a month. Somewhere generating that
on a consistent basis. – Between the two of us? – Between the two of
you to cover that. Part two is, to go to
a financial institution and say we need to do
a consolidation loan. And I need the lowest
possible interest rate. – Am I glad the bike's going? Hell yes!
(Candice chuckling) ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ – You're actually
spending more on your cars than you're spending
on your housing. Clint has been facing
up to the reality of his financial situation. You're gonna live in
your car for a weekend. (Candice chuckling)
– What? – I thought for sure that
he would be like, F this! I was definitely proud of Clint. He did a complete 180 from
last week to this week.
– [Gail] That means
his wife Candice can start thinking
about the future. But with all that
expensive tech, I can't balance their budget. Candice and Clint had to
either come up with $15,000 by selling things or make an extra $700
a month between them. Their decision surprised me. – Clint and I decided to go with both option that she gave us. So we decided to sell my car. I know that taking the bus, it's gonna save
me a lot of money. Also I've spoken with my mom and I've decided to go
there and do my laundry. And I'm going to& be
her new cleaning lady and I've gotten a part
time job on Saturdays. It's just admin work
for a law office. (dirt bike revving)
(upbeat rock music) I was surprised that
Clint put up his bike but it's just sitting there
costing us money a month. – I love riding, it's
a nice escape but, I'll have time
for that later on. – I have visions of him
breaking his neck so, am I glad the bike is going? Hell yes!
(Candice chuckling) And Clint has two leads
for an extra part time job.
– For the time being, to help us get out of
our rut and you know, get things moving
forward a little bit. I can sacrifice some free time. – [Gail] And Clint found a way to turn another bad boy hobby into a source of income. – Tattooing, there's some more
things I could probably do. Get some business cards made
up, I don't know, flyers. I'm not scared of work at all. (jazzy pop music) – What'd you sell? – The car, my bike and yeah,
I got some employment leads. – Good. – And I got another
part time job- – Wow!
– With my old work, just on Saturdays.
– Okay well, you know what? If that's what it takes to
get you out of this hole, bust your butt now and then
you can have the life you want. Did you get the interest
rates on your loans down? – We went to a
different credit card, it's 5.99% for the
first two years. We're gonna roll
everything into it. Line of credit, credit card,
credit medical, all that. – So like, okay,
you did all of this? You put lots of thought into it.
So why didn't you do any
of this stuff before? – We needed somebody
to kick us in the ass. (both chuckling) – So, that's it,
that's all it took? – No, that's not all it took.
– No. – It's something that we'll
have to work on every day. – So are you ready for your
relationship rescue challenge? – Sure. – All I can tell you about
that is have a good breakfast. – Are you kidding me?
– That is (bleep) nasty. ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ – [Gail] A few weeks ago,
Clint couldn't have cared less about his spending or his debt. – He sees it, he
wants it, he buys it. – [Gail] And his wife Candice had made poor
choices of her own. You went off and had a treatment
at an interest rate of 32%. But instead of making excuses,
Clint decided to man up. – I guess part of being an
adult is managing your finances. – Before I award them up to
$5,000 to pay down their debt, they have one last
challenge to complete.
(upbeat rock music) As they work through my
financial obstacle course, they'll have to stick
together for better or worse. – You made a commitment
to each other but your financial
irrepressibilities has put your future
on the ropes. Now one of you has to go
on the ropes for the other. Chose who does the
ropes challenge. Candice has stepped up. Yeah like that, keep your feet straight
like that in the middle. (Candice giggling) – The ropes were really,
really hard for me.
I wanted to stop
like a million times. I can't-
– Yes you can! – I feel like I'm gonna be sick! – You can, you're
good, you're good. – I think what kept
me going was Clint. – That's it, perfect! – In this challenge,
Candice can't work so Clint has to carry
the load all on his own. Crossing the creek caught me
off guard, it's very deceiving, you wouldn't think it
has that much power but it'll take you
out man, no problem. – [Gail] After two tough events,
it doesn't get any easier. – What the (bleep) is that? – The century egg. – Whoever sat out the ropes
course eats this challenge. – Thank God!
(Candice giggling) – [Gail] This Chinese delicacy
is made by curing an egg in a casing of mud and straw
for weeks or even months.
– The freaking thing is brown! – That is (bleep)
– Are you kidding me? – Nasty.
– Are you kidding? Should've done the ropes. Oh! (Candice gagging) (Clint coughing) I'm good, I can do it.
– Did you do it? I think it was great that
Clint ate that egg for me because if it was me, it
wouldn't have gotten done. – I think the biggest
lesson learned was, patience is important
to wait for something and not just go out and
grab it and forget about whatever consequences might be, whether there'll be enough
money for it or not. (gentle guitar music) – So that egg was
pretty gross wasn't it? – The egg was extremely gross. – But you did it. – I did it, yeah. – Proving yet again that
you're the man and you will do whatever it takes
to get the job done.
– Say it again.
(Candice giggling) – You are the man. – Thank you.
– You're welcome. What'd you learn this month? – I learned to
budget and I learned that Clint and I
can work together and when we work together
we can accomplish anything. – Candice learned a
lot, what did you learn? – Mainly being able to process
what is actually a need and what's a want. – [Gail] Not only have
they learned to prioritize but with a few simple
steps, Candice and Clint made a huge leap in
conquering their debt.
By consolidating most of
their remaining debt at 6% and paying it off in 20 months, they'll save themselves
over $56,000 in interest. When I got here, you were
overspending by $2,755 a month. You thought the kind of car
your drove was more important than just about everything else. And you couldn't work
together to save your lives. So that's all changed. How do you think you did
on a scale of one to five? – Four.
– A four? What do you think Candice? – I think a five! – You do, well you're right. – Oh thank you very-
– Hey, hey, hey! – Thank you.
(all laughing) – This made me realize that it
doesn't just work itself out you have to work hard at it and you have to
get a grip with it.
– I'm really, really happy
to see how well you did. I have for you also
a romantic getaway. – Thank you very much.
– Thank you so much! – You're very welcome. Now I'm getting my hugs.
– Thank you so much Gail. You've shown us a
brighter future. And now, he's gonna
be a perfect man! (Candice laughing) (upbeat rock music) ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ ♪ Money money money
money money money money ♪ (machinery whirring)
(logo beeping)
Growing up, you learned how to do things right. You went to school, got good grades, and now
you've started working. The paychecks are coming and you are happy
to receive them. You may have worked for 3, 5, or even 10 years
but your finances are not looking as good as your career. You are probably one or two paychecks away
from going broke. You know this is a problem, but you don’t
know how to fix it. Have you ever wondered why you have been so
successful in your career, but you seem to be struggling with your finances? The reason is simple.
Personal finance management is not taught
in schools, and it isn't taught at home either. Your school teachers were more concerned about
doing their jobs and grading your papers. Except in a few cases, your parents on their
part encouraged you to be a good student and also to become a responsible citizen. The reason both parties never talked to you
about financial management is that they didn't know it. Probably, they were also struggling with their
finances and never had solutions to their money problems. Managing your personal finance can be a tricky
task especially in the world that we are living in. If care is not taken, even the most prudent
person could slip and find themselves in a financial mess. Do you know why? It is easy to spend the money you earn.
Your bank accounts are linked to multiple
services. Placing an order or making a purchase could
be as easy as a few clicks on your computer or mobile phone. If you want to make the most from the money
that you earn, you must plan for it. You must live in constant awareness of the
money that is coming in and how it is going out. Without the right information, you may not
know how to come out of the rat race most people have found themselves in. That is why we are looking at how you can
be in total control of the money you earn and the things you are spending your money
on. You can effectively account for your money
only if you manage your finances properly. Are you getting some value from this video
so far? If you are, I would like you to do something
right now.
Pause the video. Go ahead and hit the ‘like’ button and
also click subscribe if you are new, and welcome. That way you will be notified of all our inspirational
videos any time we upload them. Done? Great! Let’s dive in. What is personal financial management? As a term, personal finance covers all aspects
of managing your money as well as saving and investing. This includes budgeting, investments, banking,
insurance, tax, mortgages, and retirement plans. Personal finance has to do with meeting your
personal financial goals including short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals. Personal financial management has to do with
your ability to know where you are financially at the moment and what you can do to make
the most out of your income in order to plan for a better future. This involves gaining control over your present
financial situation so that you can organize your daily expenses to match your plans and
expectations for the future.
The reasons why money management is important
1. Saving money
The questions you need to answer are these: What if you lose your paying job today? How far can you go before you get another
job? Have you ever heard the expression "Saving
for the rainy day"? It is important to have some money kept aside
that could save you from emergencies. 2. Security for your family
As you grow in life, your responsibilities will grow to catch up with you. You want to plan for your child’s college
education. You want to plan for your family's health
through insurance and other solutions. Planning for your family security is an essential
part of money management. 3. Investment opportunities
No matter how much you earn today, your needs will increase over time. Managing your money effectively will prepare
you for investment opportunities. You will learn how to pick the right kind
of investments. Having the right kinds of investments will
help you meet your growing needs in the future. Without proper management, you may not have
enough to meet your present needs. And if you can’t meet your present needs,
how are you going to have extra money to invest for your future needs? 4.
Better Living Standard
Are you happy with your present living standard? I’m sure you would like yourself and your
loved ones to enjoy a better living standard in the future. You want to own your own home, or at least
a better one. You want to go on vacation with your loved
ones to distant places. All this can only be accomplished if the money
you earn today is properly managed. 5. Increase in Financial Intelligence
The good thing about financial planning is that it exposes you to higher financial knowledge. When you start saving and making plans for
the future, you will need the services of financial advisors. As you plan and work closely with these experts,
your financial intelligence will increase. Make sure you build a relationship with financial
advisors that you can trust. Trusted advisors will be transparent and willing
to share their knowledge with you.
Over time, you may find that you are beginning
to take investment decisions on your own. Now that you have seen the reasons why you
must manage your finances, you also need to learn the strategies that you can apply to
get it right. Strategies to effectively manage your money
1. Budgeting
It is easy to spend most of your money on irrelevant purchases if you don't have a budget. Making unnecessary purchases will affect your
savings and leave you disappointed at the end of each month. You can get it right by making a proper budget. Map out different areas you want to allocate
your money. As you allocate money for your daily expenses,
also allocate money for your long-term goals such as investments. There are no rules of the thumb here. You should identify a budgeting plan that
is most suitable for you. Several budgeting apps have been created for
smartphone users. You can as well use excel sheets. Do a little research and identify the ones
that suit your purpose the most. A school of thought suggested a budgeting
method known as 50/30/20. A breakdown of this method goes like this:
Assign 50% of your income after taxes to essential living expenses such as rent, groceries, utilities,
and transport.
Assign 30% to casual expenses such as wear,
vacation, recreation, and charity (if you like). Assign 20% to future plans such as savings,
investment, and retirement plans. It doesn't matter how much you have had things
messed up. It is never too late to start. You can start today by drawing a budget for
yourself. 2. The right bank accounts
Operating the right bank accounts is necessary to successfully manage your finances.
You can set up checking, saving, and investment
accounts. These accounts will become the pillars of
your financial success. Your checking account should hold the money
you use for your regular purchases. You should not leave your savings in a checking
account. Keep your savings in a separate account designed
for that purpose. If not, you could constantly interfere with
your savings and squander it on unplanned purchases. Also, fund your investment accounts and be
consistent with them. 3. Emergency fund
One thing about life is that unexpected expenses show up from time to time. What happens if you weren’t prepared for
it? No one prays for misfortune but as long as
we live on planet Earth, situations beyond our control will surface. Set money aside for unexpected situations
such as the loss of a job. You should save up money in your emergency
fund that should last you up to 6 months assuming you lost your job.
Your emergency fund should also hold funds
for situations such as medical bills, major house repairs, or a huge car repair. 4. Keep track of your finances daily
You must check in with your finances daily. This shouldn't take much of your time. Dedicate 5-10 minutes of your time to it daily
and you will be good. Keep track of all your purchases and keep
receipts. Enter your spending into an excel sheet or
the budgeting app you are using. That way, you will know when you start spending
above your budget. 5. Clear up debts
Debt could be a major hindrance when you start working to achieve your financial goals. Identify the recurrent debts that you have
and start with the biggest ones. If you have many accumulated debts, then you
may have to set up a debt repayment plan. Allocate a good chunk of your income to paying
up these debts and aim at clearing them as soon as possible. You can take it up one after the other. Start with the biggest ones, and then the
next, until you have them all cleaned up. When you are done paying off your outstanding
debts, avoid getting into new debts.
Here are some tips that could help you clear
up your debts faster. • Set up a side hustle – If your current
income cannot pay off your debts quickly, you may consider starting a side hustle. A side hustle will not only bring in extra
cash that you need at the moment, but it will also position you to reach your future financial
goals faster. You can go online and research available work-from-home
jobs that you can do in your spare time. You can start with freelance jobs, drop shipping,
or affiliate marketing. Who knows, your side hustle could grow to
become a major source of income for you. • Get a second job – A second job will
be handy to help you clear up your debts. This may require some sacrifices on your part,
but you have to do whatever it will take to come out of debt and become financially free. • Sell off idle items in your home – If
you look around your home, you could find unused or unwanted items lying idle. Put them up for sale on online marketplaces
such as eBay. There could be someone out there searching
for that exact item and willing to pay for it.
• Cut down your budget in some places – Go
back to your budget. Look through your listed items. You may find some things you can do without. Take them off from the list or at least cut
down your budget for them. That way, you could find extra cash to pay
your debts faster. 6. Be smart with your credit cards
Credit cards have become an essential part of our financial activities. It seems unrealistic to not own one these
days. Credit cards provide convenience to us in
paying for goods and services, but they can also become major traps for debts.
Make sure you pay off your full balance every
month. If you can’t do that, then keep your credit
utilization ratio at a minimum. It means that you must strive to keep your
account balances below 30% of your total available credit. 7. Examine your credit score
Keep an eye on your credit card score. Your credit score is a three-digit number,
but it can make a great difference in your finances. If your credit card score is high, you will
attract lower interest rates and better loan terms from lending institutions. A good credit card score will become useful
when you apply for large loans such as a mortgage. Getting a low interest rate on a mortgage
could save you thousands of dollars. Here are some ways you can improve your credit
card score.
1. Get your credit report and check for errors. 2. Use a credit monitoring service to prevent
future errors. 3. Pay bills on time and keep your credit utilization
rate low. Late payment of bills is one of the fastest
ways to ruin your credit score. Well, that’s all for the video. If you are interested in more interesting
content. Check out these two videos. How businesses manage money Cashflow explained It’s Not About How Much You Make, It’s
About How Much You Keep Fundamental’s of Money Management Thank you guys so much for watching, have
a great day and I’ll see you all in the next one.
