Our Spending Is Out Of Control (What do we do?)

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. I need massive help on budgeting, how to get through it, and how to keep from spending kind of out of control. Okay, is the is the out of control spending because you can't stop or you feel like the life you guys have created or you've created is needing a higher dollar amount because of the payments and all of it? Okay. How much do you guys make a month? Um, it's just my husband working. He's a truck driver. He makes roughly $5,000, $5,200. Okay, and that's what he brings home. That's what hits your account every month. Yeah. Okay. Um, what's your mortgage payment? Um, we don't own a house. We rent. Okay. I'm afraid to buy a house just yet. Okay. How much is your rent? $1,200. Okay. Yeah, that's reasonable. Um, what kind of debt do you guys have? Um, we have like four credit cards. We owe some stuff on like bills like we like didn't pay, so we have to pay those. And then we owe to like Verizon, then we have medical debt, and then I have student loans, and then a car. How much does it all add up to? Around $24,000. How much is the car? The car, it's $8,219, but it was from a couple years ago, so it's gotten reposed since then. Like, I haven't had it in a few years. Oh, so you don't have a car payment right now? But you're still paying it. No, after I started listening to you guys, I will not do a car payment ever again. Okay, so you, but you don't have a payment now. You have an $8,000 repo. All right. Yes. And, um, okay, what are, how much is your student loans? Um, $7,100. Okay. Are you paying payments on those, or are they in default? They're in default. Probably like a month or two ago, I tried calling and going on the website, and the girl kept telling me I had to wait because it wasn't in their system yet. So they couldn't tell me if they could bring them out of default, or I could start making payments. What bills are you behind? You made a comment that there's still bills. Oh, okay. So these are bills from, like, other, like, places we've lived. Right now, we're not necessarily behind on our bills, but, like, these that we owe within debt is, like, Progressive, Duke, and I think that's it. Yeah, there's only two. And Verizon. Okay. So it sounds like you got, like, eight or nine, ten bills floating around between all of that and the debt payments. Yeah. Okay. How much a month is going to all of that? How much money do you have to make where budgeting is just optional? If you chose C, watch this. She makes about $170. I make about $115. Hold on. Did you go back after you paid off everything, borrow some more money? Oh, yeah. Oh, no, Carlos. We like to go here and there, and we get this Mercedes. Oh, no. You went full South Beach. It's not just about how much you make. It's about having a plan for what you've got. So start budgeting with every dollar for free today. Okay. How much a month is going to all of that? To the debt payments? Okay. Right now, because we do have an active credit card, my husband is trying to pay that off, but the interest on it is so much. It, like, isn't hardly going down. How many kids have you got? And two. And you don't work outside the home? No. How old are your kids? One is about to turn seven. He is in school. The other one will turn five in December, but I'm trying to get him into an all-day preschool next year or this year so that I can work. Okay. So let me tell you what I think I'm hearing, and you can correct me if you want to. It won't hurt my feelings, okay? Okay. It sounds like you all are completely freaking clueless. You have no idea where your money's going. 5,200 comes in. You aren't paying payments on the student loans. You aren't paying payments on the repo. You aren't paying payments on hardly anything except one tiny little visa card, and you can't even seem to pull that off. You have no idea where your money's going. Does that sound accurate? It's very chaotic and very stressful. Does that sound accurate? Yeah. You're about like 100% spot on. Okay. So how does she build a budget from that, Rachel? Yeah. Well, Jimmy, I would sit down and look at where the highest dollar amount of expenses is going. So you can look category-wise. Look back the last couple of months and just see, food, is it restaurants? Is it random moments of shopping? Is it Amazon? Where is it all going? And then you have to make a realistic budget to say, hey, the way we've been living isn't working, which you feel that. You feel the chaos. And then to say, okay, in order to have a level of control and this piece that you're looking for is that detailed plan that's going to strip back a lot of it. So I would go down the main categories. We'll get you every dollar for a year to be the premium version that'll attach to your checking account, Jamie. But I want you guys to walk through these categories and really say, okay, if we had to limit it, and we say beans and rice, rice and beans here at Ramsey, or if it's ramen, whatever it is, but cheap, cheap groceries, no out to eat, nothing. That's the food category. What can we barely scrape by to make sure we still have food? And then you just kind of go down the list. And I bet, Jamie- Food is first, lights and water second. Yeah. Your four walls. Yeah. Food, shelter, utilities, transportation. Pay this reasonable rent. Stay current on the bills. And then I bet you, Jamie- See, $2,000 will do all that. And I was going to say, I bet you will find 15 to $2,000 after you live on nothing. You delete Amazon, you do nothing. Literally no spending money. No life. Yes. You're broke. And when you get real radical like that, you're smart enough after talking to you, you're way too smart to be this broke, but you're just disorganized and chaotic and you can fix that. So you sit down with this every dollar budget. We're going to give it to you when you get off the phone. And then you send a, send the link to your husband. Is he on the road? Um, yeah. Or is he in town? No, he's on the road. Yeah. Send the link to him, download this. You and me are going to look at this. We're going to decide what we are going to do with $5,000 this coming month. And then we're by God going to stick to it because I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. The, okay. That's one thing. So I started reading one of your books, the complete guide to money. And, um, I try to like, okay. It says in the book, don't bring up your name as like a, um, so I try not to, because I've done that in the past and he didn't like that. Well, what I don't like if I'm you is being broke. And so Bubba, who's out there driving a truck, you're going to freaking do this or your life's going to be miserable. Cause I'm going to make it miserable. I don't care what Dave Ramsey says. I'm tired of living like this. We're going to fix this Bubba. This is you talking, not Dave Ramsey says, or the book says, or there's an intellectual discussion here. I'm sick and tired of my sucky life. And we're going to fix it. And you're going to quit spending like you're in Congress on the road. And I'm going to quit spending like we're in Congress back home. And we're going to get on in control. Like your life depended on it because it does. You've got to get the two of you are going to have to get passionate. I don't really give a crap what Dave Ramsey thinks that doesn't even matter. It shouldn't even enter into the discussion, but you know, you guys have got to get upset enough about this to attack it. Both of you. And as long as you just dance around and go, well, I can't figure out how to do this. You're going to not do nothing. There's always a reason to do nothing and be broke. Look around America. Everyone in America does nothing in his broke and they're sitting on their thumbs. And meanwhile, you can fix your life here. You can go do this. You're smart enough to do it, but you know, and Bubba's going to come along. He ain't got a choice. He gets out there, bringing home the bacon, driving good. Grind those gears, man. Send me a check and quit spending it. We're about to do this, get it done. And you guys got to start having a discussion with that kind of thing. Not where we're mad at each other, but where we're mad at this status quo, this mediocrity, and we're not going to live in it. Yeah. And it's going to, and it's going to build a whole new set of habits for you guys, Jamie, because you probably have been used to being like, well, the kids need that. Just get it this or that, that it's going to, it's going to change completely, which it should, you should have a one 80 response to everything to get a completely different result of what you guys have been doing. Keep doing what you've been doing different and it's going to be hard, but I tell you that hard as much easier to push through in the heart of sitting of what you've been doing and sitting in that stress. And so there, there is freedom on the other side of peace and control and margin. You just have to control that income. And that means usually saying no to yourself, create your free, every dollar budget today, the simplest way to budget for your life.