Now take a step back and subtract\u00a0your total expenses\u00a0from your\u00a0total income. Are you positive or negative? If you are in the positive then congratulations, especially if you are significantly in the positive. This means you have additional money to throw at your debt or your financial goals.<\/p>\n

If you are in the negative then it is time to make some adjustments. Do you really need cable? What if you switched to an alternative streaming service? Do you need 100 mbps internet? Do you really need to eat out twice per week? I know it is tough to give up certain luxuries but remember the more you give up the quicker you can rid yourself of your debt. However, I encourage you to leave certain amenities in your budget if your debt is of great amount ($60,000+). The reason for this is, just like in dieting\u00a0if you give up everything you are less likely to stay on the plan.<\/p>\n

At this point your expenses should be less than your income. Now look again at your budget. What are you able to drop off your budget while still enjoying your financial freedom journey and be able to pay off more than the minimum payment of your debt? Are you able to switch to carpooling to save gas and tolls, would you survive on eating out only twice a month instead of twice a week, what about switching to generic food? These are decisions you need to make, however, the harder you think, the more out of the box thinking you have, the sooner you will be able to pay off your debt.<\/p>\n

Finances are a Partnership<\/h3>\n

Finances are one of biggest reasons for divorce in this country. Therefore, I cannot emphasize enough if you have a significant other\u00a0it is important to include them in all of your budgeting decisions. I would encourage you to review and discuss your budget every month so everyone is on the same page. Then every four months I would recalculate your entire budget from scratch, this allows you to see things in a whole new light and you might be able to decrease or completely eliminate some new expenses.<\/p>\n

Your Financial Freedom Partner,<\/p>\n

Joel Parker<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When completing your very first budget you will either find that it is\u00a0incredibly easy or unbelievably challenging, unfortunately, it is most likely the latter. This is because society has trained us to spend more than we make, we can get 5 years same as cash or just put it on a credit card and pay…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5254,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-personal-finance","category-30","category-39","description-off"],"yoast_head":"\n