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THE LOWDOWN

In this episode  I dive into the real issues many of us encounter due to post-COVID effects, inflation, and increasing expenses. I discuss how to focus and budget when money is tight.

The key takeaway is to identify your primary focus or goal and build your budget around it, making necessary adjustments, and recognizing what is within your control. I give practical advice on managing expenses, considering extra income, and navigating the difficulties of financial uncertainty. This episode is a real talk on surviving and planning amidst financial challenges, emphasizing resilience and prioritization.

MENTIONED IN SHOW:

Website: www.lovealwaysjess.com/getstarted

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/love.always.jess

SHOW NOTES:

Episode begins at [00:00:54]

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Hey, I hope that you're doing well. I feel like I start every episode with that. [00:01:00] And honestly, it's because I truly do hope that you're doing well. life can be hard. We all know this and sometimes it can be so easy to fixate on the negative. I've been there. I do it sometimes. I've been doing it lately. but it's good sometimes to find a positive in the day. And

one of the positives that happened to me today was I am doing some ingredient prepping with a friend and we created these veggie meatballs. So this morning I went to their house and we cooked them. And when I got home, I was sitting at my computer desk and I like went to go scratch my nose and I was like, my fingers smell like a memory, and I was trying to find what the memory was, and then it dawned on me, it smelled like my [00:02:00] grandpa's chili recipe, and it was a chili recipe that he took to the grave with him.

My mom had tried to recreate it over the years, trying different herbs and spices. And that smell that was on my fingers left over from cooking the meatballs just like opened up this memory. And now my brain is trying to figure out what was creating that smell. And What I can do to recreate this chili to see if it can come anywhere close Because when I tell you it was the best chili, I seriously mean it

So it was just like a positive memory. It was a positive like remembrance of childhood and like a light bulb almost going off of Holy shit Did I just crack the code? So definitely going to try to explore that [00:03:00] at some point and trying to write down and remember everything that we put into these veggie meatballs so that I can pick and pull different pieces and put them into my chili to try to see if I can finally create it.

That was definitely something that I kind of miss from my childhood was my grandpa and my great uncle had the The best food. My grandpa had the chili and my great uncle had his homemade clam chowder. And I just remember growing up and thinking, one day I want to open a restaurant and I want that restaurant to include their recipes.

But unfortunately, I don't have those recipes. So, yeah. It was, it was just nostalgia, and I'm so happy that that happened. So that was a positive memory that happened to me today. And I am [00:04:00] very, very grateful for it. Because it just kept a smile on my face through the rest of the day. Which, Today I want to talk to you about budgeting, which I guess kind of goes hand in hand with ingredients for a chili.

Because when we're budgeting, we are trying to

find, The different pieces and the amounts that we need for the pot that we could call life. Okay, I'm going to stop with the chili analogy because that's just going to lose me, but you get what I'm saying. It kind of went there.

We are in a time in this country where a lot of us are feeling the pressure and the struggle and the financial hardships thrust upon us from. The aftereffects of COVID, [00:05:00] inflation, rising housing prices,

costs of gas, groceries, all of that have substantially increased.

We see the effect that the wars in the Middle East and Russia, Ukraine are having on our oil prices, how they're affecting shipping across the entire globe. There's a lot of increases in prices. It doesn't feel like any of that is going to go away anytime soon. Now, if our government would do things right instead of playing this,

you are the bad person. I'm the good person juggling act that we are seeing. They could implement things that could help us.

We're not going to see that anytime soon, unfortunately. So today I want to talk about how do we budget when we don't have money for the things that we [00:06:00] need and the things that we want.

First and foremost I want to say your feelings around this are valid. You can be angry at the government, you can be angry at corporations, you can be angry at capitalism, you can be angry at

the minimum wage not being increased over the past Nine years. I think it might be longer than that, but that's definitely something that's going around right now on the internet is how long it has been since the minimum wage has increased for the federal minimum wage,

and it sucks. Your feelings are a thousand percent valid, and I hope that you take a moment for yourself to honor that, to honor your feelings, because it is shitty. More and more people are becoming unhoused. More and more people are losing their jobs or having to choose between [00:07:00] food and medication for their family.

And it makes it difficult from a day to day basis.

So where do you even begin?

One of the first things people tend to ask me when they've rambled on about the job situation, their house situation, their financial situation, is What do I do?

And honestly, the answer to that can be anything. It really comes down to What are your goals?

And when you don't have any money, it can be scary to think about Goals, it can be scary to think about anything outside of how do I survive? because

When money is tight

and when you're just skating by and making things work, that is all you're focused [00:08:00] on.

So, pause for a second. I recognize you are just focused on surviving.

But one of the questions to ask yourself is, in this moment of survival, what is my number one concern or goal or focus? Pause

Because obviously we all want to get out of survival mode. And it's really easy to say to yourself, I'm okay. I'll figure it out. It's going to be okay. I just need to ignore it. I just need to let it simmer a little bit and then it's going to get better. But without asking ourselves, What is survival? The priority.

We don't, we don't get to have a direction to look toward.

And I'm not asking you to think of these outrageous dreams of if I won the lottery [00:09:00] or if I were to get a 20, pay raise, this is what I would do with my money because that's great. And that's amazing to think about. But right now your, window of focus. is narrow. You're just trying to get by and pay for your necessities.

Realistically, you don't have either the income to pay for everything that you're doing and then some, or your expenses are way too high that they're getting really close to being paycheck to paycheck if they're not already. So when I ask you, what is your focus? What is your priority? That's gonna differ for some people.

For some people, it might be maintaining this apartment or maintaining this house that my family is in. Making sure that we get to stay here no matter what.

[00:10:00] For other people, it might be they don't care where they live, but it's about finding a job that they love, regardless of the income. Or, it simply might just be finding a job that pays me more. or being able to afford my child's insulin or my husband's medication for something.

So what is your primary focus? And then we're going to build our budget around that, because that is the number one thing that you need to make sure that you can pay for, or the number one thing that you need to make sure that you get to do. If that's enjoying your job, regardless of the pay, cool. So what does that job mean?

And what is realistically that income going to be? And then from there, you can break down your living expenses based on your income.

Income based budgeting is essentially saying, [00:11:00] okay, I make 50,

000 a year or not. Yeah, a year that equates to X amount of dollars. Take home a month. So I need to make sure that within that range, let's say it's 3, 000 a month. Within that range, my rent can't exceed 1, 000. I have utilities that cost 100, and then I have a car payment that is 300. Car insurance is another 100.

Bucks a month, if I'm doing my math correct, that's about 1, 500 for 3, 000. And then you have 1, 500 left to figure out, do you put some into savings? Do you put some into retirement funds? What amount do you put towards food? What other expenses do you have that you need to pay for? How do you make it work?

Maybe you're in a higher cost of living area and your [00:12:00] rent is actually 1, 800 bucks. Thanks.

which is 800 higher than the original thousand that you budgeted. So you have to move things around and scale different things. Now let's say your goal is to make sure that you stay in the apartment or the house, that your family is living in. So depending upon if it's a mortgage or if it's rent, your expense that goes towards that may fluctuate depending upon if it's a mortgage and if you have your property tax baked in and it's a fixed interest, your payment's not going to fluctuate that much.

So if your income were to go down or your income were to increase, You really wouldn't have to worry about keeping your place of living. But, say it's a variable interest, or you have to pay for property taxes once or twice a year, or you [00:13:00] have rent that every single 12 or 15 months when your lease is up, your rent increases.

So then, you're not sure to what extent it's going to increase, because that's going to depend upon what the landlord decides. And you have to be ready. To be able to afford whatever that, that payment is going to be when the time comes.

So budgeting for that can be a little bit trickier, especially if you are limited on your income and things are tight in other areas. Say your landlord does come back and your, your rent increases 300 bucks. But things are already tight. So what do you do?

First and foremost,

the first thing to do is to sit down and lay out all of your expenses. What does it really cost for the things that you're paying for? Look at your checking account, your savings account, your credit cards. Look at anything [00:14:00] that you potentially have costs going out the door, or from. All bank accounts

and then ask yourself realistically if there is anything on that list that you could give up for the time being because it's easier to change things within our control. At first, until we can figure out other means to be able to cover these items, these cost increases.

Yes, I hear you. You want the answer to be, I get a raise at work, or I get a new job that pays me more.

And that's great and that can happen, but that takes time. So unless you are already looking, unless you are already predicting this increase and putting the time and the energy into finding that new job or finding that new way of income or talking to your boss about a promotion [00:15:00] or a raise, that's going to take time.

It's not going to happen instantaneously. We would love for it to, but it's not going to. Realistically, and you have to come up with the money in other, in other ways. So does that mean that your family cuts back on groceries for the week? Or, maybe instead of giving, getting a specific brand, you choose the generic brand.

Maybe you, Go to Costco or Sam's Club and you buy toilet paper in bulk instead of at Target because you get more for the bang, more bang for your buck. Look at the things that you're spending your money on and see what areas you can move things around in because every little bit does help.

Extra income is not always guaranteed, unfortunately,

and I would love for that to be the answer to everybody's problems, but we do live in a society where [00:16:00] Capitalism exists, corporations are greedy, the federal minimum wage has not been raised in the past nine plus years. And there's a reason for that. I don't necessarily think it's a good reason, and I don't think I really know the reason, but

the federal government has a reason for not increasing the minimum wage.

And so, things take time.

And when you are playing around in the capitalistic society that we live in, you don't always get the answer to be Get more money. If you want to start working a second job, by all means, do that. But also ask yourself, is that going to be short term or long term? And realistically set up the expectations that you want from getting the extra job.

What areas of your life is that extra job going to impact? Is it going to impact your current job? Is it going to pay you [00:17:00] more than your current job? Is it temporary? You're only going to do it for six months. Or is this something that is long term? Are you going to lose time with your family? Are you going to lose out on sleep?

Is it going to be detrimental to your health? These are things to think of and I know it sucks to think about these things. But it's important too, because

the last thing that you want to happen is to bring on this extra source of stress for extra income and there be no end in sight. And some people might think, I'll just add it onto my plate and it's going to be temporary until I make this work, until I get this whirling. But then what happens is they continue to find themselves in the same cycle.

They've added extra income, but they've also added extra expenses.

Because maybe that second job takes you further away from home and you have to pay for gas,

or

it takes a toll on [00:18:00] your health and then you have extra medical bills.

That's not always the case that that happens, but it's definitely something to consider. And getting the second job is what you'd end up doing great. But also be realistic about the time that you want to spend doing it. Is this something that you said is only going to last you six months? And if that's the case, make sure it's only six months.

Because in two, three years down the road, you're going to be like, how did I get here? Hold yourself accountable. Do check ins. Okay, I got this extra job to be able to pay off my car, and I just have to add an extra 500 a month for the next six months to pay off my car, and then I'm done. Make sure that that 500 extra that you're getting from the job goes towards that car, and doesn't go towards anything else.

Because if you put it towards other things, then it's not going to help you with your [00:19:00] car and then that car payment will prolong itself. And then you can't take that car payment and roll it over to paying off a credit card or roll it over towards paying for rent. These are the things that we need to be mindful of.

Especially when money is tight because it's so easy to get an extra job, have extra income, or cut down on costs in one area and see that extra cash in the bank and then be like, cool, I'm going to go to the concert with my homies today. Or I'm going to take my family out to eat. While all of those are fun and while all of those are great, let's make sure that we're not impacting our goals, impacting our focus.

I want you to have fun. I've talked about that other episodes of this podcast. I have talked about how you don't have to stay in the shitty circumstance to get out of it and how you get to enjoy life as well. But let's [00:20:00] make sure that What we're doing with our money actually goes towards our goals.

You know, I've been talking about buying a house and I've definitely increased my savings this year, um, by a lot and I am so thankful for it, but I am not anywhere close to that down payment and I still have five ish months left in my lease and I don't know if I'm going to get there. And part of that is because I didn't tighten myself up.

When it came to my money this year, I still enjoyed some things. I needed a break. I needed to get away from the noise upstairs. And so I paid for a fancier, more private hotel on a vacation. Could I have done something a little bit less expensive? Yeah. Should I have? Probably. And that's something that I'm going to have to deal with when the time comes for getting a [00:21:00] house.

But I also have changed things. As I mentioned earlier on this podcast episode, I'm doing ingredient prepping with a friend that has cut down on my expenses for eating out alone. And I'm thankful for that. Is it perfect? No. Do I still go out to eat? Yes.

But it's made my expenditures a lot less.

So when I'm sitting here and I'm like, I haven't heard from my boss about my pay raise, and this is me cause it's and I was banking on that pay raise. To help me save for my house. I get irritated and annoyed because my boss hasn't given me my pay raise. But remember what I said a few minutes ago, Getting the extra income takes time.

It's not always instantaneous. I was banking on that happening in March. It hasn't happened yet. I don't know if it's going to happen yet. There have been other circumstances that have [00:22:00] happened since March, before March, that have delayed it. And that's okay, because that's not something in my control. Did I make the mistake of banking on it?

Did I make the mistake of hoping for it? Did I make the mistake of thinking it's going to happen? Because every single time that it happens, My boss has said it's going to happen. It's happened. Yeah And that was foolish on my part,

but I also have sat down and taken the time to Navigate and rearrange and shift the things that are in my control

and the things in my control

might be Completely different but the things in your control and the things in your control might be small You You might be working with dollars or pennies here, but every little bit helped.

Every little area that you can make an improvement on. And that improvement might not happen [00:23:00] overnight,

but it is something we can consciously think of in every single action.

You know, one of the things that. I've been doing because I don't like to spend an arm and a leg on air conditioning is I've been keeping the air conditioning off as much as possible. And I know it's been really hot. So I have had to run the air conditioning, but I also try to minimize it. So at night, I open the windows to cool down the inside of the apartment.

And then if I leave my apartment, even for 10 minutes, I turn the A. C. off. I leave the windows closed, the blinds closed, but I turn it off so that it's not always running when I'm out. And if I'm going to be gone for the day, I will crack open the windows and shut the A. C. off, just so natural air can flow in and out.

But then I'm not paying for that high bill.

But maybe the way that your A. C. unit [00:24:00] works in the house, insulation works best for yours is to keep the AC running,

adjust the temperature on the thermostat so that you're not constantly running it at 70 or 72. So you increase it when you're out or at night to 77. Something like that so that you're not constantly cranking the cold air and getting charged for it. It's all those small things that we can control that can reduce our bills.

You know, maybe you go grocery shopping, and

you normally like one brand of bread, but there's something cheaper, so try the cheaper version. If it's total crap, go back the next week and get the regular version, the version that you like, and then try something else in a cheaper version. The catch up, I don't know. So take a look at those things and start to ask yourself, where can I [00:25:00] reduce my spending?

Because the extra income is not always guaranteed. And if that extra income is guaranteed and it's happening, great. Take it in. Figure out what to do with it that is going to help you achieve your goals. Is it going strictly towards rent? Is a portion of it going into savings? Are you going to take a lump sum and pay off a credit card and then choose not to use that credit card again?

What is your focus? And it can be hard to narrow down your focus. So I highly suggest choosing one thing as your priority. Is it the roof over your head? Is it time with friends? Is it your family's medication? Is it paying off a credit card? Is it putting money into savings so that you can eventually put a down payment on a house?

What is your focus? And then from there, we get to establish our budget. And I could go into different different budgeting techniques. But, [00:26:00] one, it'd probably get boring, me trying to share it over a podcast. And two,

it's a lot longer of a conversation than just, take your income, subtract what your expenses are, and see what you have left over. Because there's a lot of different factors. There's a lot of different variables that you can choose from when it comes to your budgeting.

But my number one, number one tip is, what is your focus? And you might say to yourself, my focus is to survive. My focus is to make the money that I have work for me. Okay, let's narrow it down from there. What does survival look like to you?

What does living off of 40, 000 a year look to you?

Because if we can figure that out, if we can figure out the primary point, then the rest can be built around that. And again, [00:27:00] it's, it's hard. It's scary. It's shitty. It's for some of us vulnerable to have to come to the realization of this isn't working anymore and I need to make it work. But the great thing is you're at this point and you're finally deciding to do something about it.

So continue with that motivation. Continue with that energy.

And ask yourself realistically, can I keep going this way or does something drastic need to change?

And then from there, figure out your priority.

I hold each and every one of you listeners in my heart because talking about finances and talking about sex is not for the faint of heart. They are two of the hardest topics to have conversations around,

primarily because of the way society has established these two things. [00:28:00] But also because any misstep, any potentiality of looking wrong or broken or

bad for the choices and the decisions that you have made leaves you feeling icky.

But I want you to know, like,

it's not a reflection of who you are at your core.

So maybe you made bad spending choices in the past, or you chose a job that doesn't give you the income that you thought it would,

or you and your partner are welcoming a brand new baby and you need to get a bigger space.

And you just don't know how you're going to cut it.

This is a part of life, and this is a part of being human, and we don't always have the answer.

And there's something beautiful in that, because we get to figure it out. We get to change our [00:29:00] minds. We get to say, Hey, this isn't working anymore. I wanna do better. I wanna do different. I wanna do something outside of this day to day that I've been focused on, and we get to change it.

One little thing can make a drastic difference. So even if you're feeling down, even if you're beating yourself up, just remember that it's all temporary and any shift at any moment could propel you forward into a different future than what you expected.

A life's outcomes are not guaranteed. No matter how hard we work, no matter the energy that we put into something, it's not always guaranteed. But we can do it, we can push forward, and I believe in you, and I know it's tough, and I know it's hard, and I know it doesn't feel like the end is in sight,

and as [00:30:00] much as I can say it is, as much as I can say it's gonna get better. It might not feel like that for a very long time

and it's going to be stressful and it's going to be hard work,

but as cliche as it might be, it will be worth it in the end. So if you find yourself in this situation where money is tight, you don't have money, you're trying to make ends meet, look within yourself and find the strength and the courage and the grit and the gumption to change the things that you can control.

And then, while you're changing the things that you can control, look for, or ask for, things outside of your control to try to help make things better.

I believe in all of you. I believe in your potential, even if you don't. So, go out there, find the one thing to focus on, and then [00:31:00] build everything off of that. You've got this. I love you. Bye. [00:32:00]