Paycheck-to-Paycheck And Can't Tell Our Kids No

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. How do we begin cutting costs drastically and even begin savings? We have no money saved. How do we do that without making our family feel constantly broke? We need help like setting boundaries with our 12 and eight-year-old. We want to involve them in our goals, but they just don't like fully understand and that's okay, they're kids, but we are just so sick of living paycheck to paycheck. We need to replace our furnace and AC and start our savings and we're just, we're nowhere close. How long have the kids been running the house? We do kind of pride ourselves with our discipline, but I guess with that, like, I don't know, we don't really give them consequences. We just say like, hey, quit asking why, like the answer's no, like end of story. I guess we maybe don't follow through when it comes to money. Let me give you a path, okay, you ready? I want you, are you married? Yes, 10 years. Okay, I want you and your spouse and your kids, but I want you and your spouse to pregame this, okay? Okay. And I want y'all to create a set of family values together. Okay. And if you want to put it on, go to Michaels or Crafts Etc. or something and buy Hobby Lobby and buy like a canvas or if you want to put on a piece of wood, some construction paper, and I want you to frame it and put up in your living room, right above your dining room table. Awesome, okay. And that way, here's the thing, when your kids say, but why, but why? You can point to that and say, because that's who we are. Yeah. And so in our house, of course, dude, I want my kids to want things, that's fine. That's developmentally appropriate, like you said, right? It's normal. But my kids know, oh, dad doesn't borrow money. Because that's who mom and dad are. That's just who we are, right? And so it takes, it's kind of like, why don't we kill that guy? Because we're not murderers. That's like who we are. And so, and then George asked a good question. I got to tell you, the greatest gift you can give your two kids right now is for them to see two united, like ride or die, motivated parents doing a really hard thing together to set their family free over the next two or three years. And what you're going to create from that is two kids that know, like my mom went back to college, and I mean, went to college for the first time in her 40s, and then got this big, fancy professor job in her 50s and got tenured in her 60s. You know what I can't say? The words, I can't. Because I've watched a woman do it. And so when this job came up, when I was 40 years old, that I could quit my job I'd worked for for 20 years and go be a YouTuber, right? Like, I was like, oh, I could change in the middle of my life. Because I had a roadmap because I watched my mom do it. Yeah. And we always say more is caught than taught around here. Yes. And so I promise you that it's not going to cause them trauma for them to watch you sacrifice instead it's going to create character. Especially if they know this is who we are. We're anchored into this thing together. And then you and your husband have to suck it up and go do it together. Right. Yeah, we, my husband and I are both, well, especially my husband kind of stuck in that mindset of just lack of and like the kids have never been on a vacation. The kids haven't been able to experience like sports and stuff. Cause like we just don't. Where's the money going right now? We don't prioritize that. How much do you guys bring in every month? Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Before you get there, I want you to double click on what you just said. It's not cause y'all don't, y'all can't figure that out. Yeah. It's because y'all don't prioritize that. Yeah, we don't. So don't blame a bunch of other stuff for the fact that you and your husband have to look in the mirror and say, we've chosen to never allow them to play sports or to never make that a priority for us. Yeah, true. And that, the responsibility of those decisions rests solely on you and your husband. Right. And by the way, you're 12 and eight year old. If y'all once a month set up a tent in the backyard and cut hot dogs over a solo stove, they would remember, they would tell that story at your funeral. They'd have a blast. That's true. Right? And so all this like smoke in our minds of our kids are gonna, our kids are gonna, dude, our kids take a lot of cues from, most of their cues from the pulse and the temperature of their household, their parents. Yeah. If they ever go to therapy, they're not gonna say, well, we never went to Disney, so that's why we're here. They're gonna say, we're here cause I watched my parents live in scarcity mode their whole life, stressed out. Now they may go to therapy and say, I always wanted to play soccer and mom and dad didn't prioritize that. Uh-huh. And that'll be a fair criticism. Right, right. But if you wanna live your life out of fear of a criticism your current eight year old might make in 25 years, that's gonna be a miserable life. Let me give you a line. Your kids don't get a vote because they're kids. What they need is regulated, anchored parents. And if they like sleeping in a warm house in the winter in Nebraska, we gotta get this furnace first. Right. So we have a priority here. And so right now it's four walls, beans and rice. We're gonna cover basic food, basic clothing, transportation, housing, utilities. And other than that, we gotta get out of this situation. We gotta get out of debt. So have you guys actually put this on paper? Have you done an every dollar budget to show here's our income, here's where all of our expenses are? Yeah, I mean, I've got the whole, what you guys call just like a napkin mask. Okay. What does it reveal to you? Cause you're saying paycheck to paycheck. Is it an income issue? Is your lifestyle inflated? Is it payments? Is it a car loan? No, so it's, well, no, it's not. It's not an income thing cause we bring in 7,000 a month. Right. And then our average expenses are about 4,000. That includes obviously like mortgage. And we do have one car payment, but I can't sell it. I know you guys push it. I just can't cause I use it for my LLC. I'm a house cleaner. So I just need a car that I can rely on. How much is left on the car loan? I wanna say 15. Okay, cool. So that's five months, it's gone. Five months. Cause you got $3,000 extra every month. So if you said we bring in seven, we spend four on paper. On paper we spend four. There should be 3,000 left over if we do this right. So five months, the car payment's gone. How much is that payment? 350. Boom, you just got a $350 a month raise. How many houses would it take you to clean to get $350? Maybe like two or three. Okay, so you just got a day of every week back. Yeah. Right, you see how this starts to change your life. And now you can save up. Cause you know how to save up three grand a month to throw towards the debt plus this new 350. So now you got 3,350 saving up in an emergency fund. Three months you got 10 grand. That's a new furnace. Yeah. So just to clarify though, and I just need to hear it from you guys cause I kind of just need a slap in the face. Just like we're cutting cold turkey, like end of story. Yes. Like we're not going to five below. We're not any of that. But listen, it's not for five years. We just showed you a plan to do all this within the next 12 months. Right. And by the way, your eight year old is responsible for the rice. And your 10 year old is gonna make the beans. And you know what? They're gonna love it. They're gonna have a good time. Right? Yeah. No, they complained at first. They said we're having the Ramsey special and it's not Gordon. Different Ramsey. Different Ramsey special. And thankfully, yeah, my daughter smiled and she's like, it's not so bad. But let me tell you this. The three of the top meals I've ever had in my life ever were with Dave Ramsey. You know why? Because he can live like no one else. And he also gives like no one else, which is why he paid for that meal. Because I couldn't have afforded that meal. You know what I'm saying? So there is another side to this thing once you get there. Yeah. Make it a party. Go like, hey, we're gonna do a competition. Each of you are gonna make a meal. I get to be the judge. Yes. And then you can yell at them like Gordon Ramsey. It'll be really fun. You can smash the kitchen. Combine both Ramseys. But what we're saying is, sacrifice doesn't have to mean we're all miserable. No, sacrifice can bring you together in a powerful way. Right. So you get to decide, Victoria. You guys have the income to do this. There's not a lot of debt. This is a pretty solvable problem, but it takes all of you getting on the same page for the next 12 months going, we want a different life on the other side of this for the next 12 years. And it's mom and dad saying this is our house. And as for our house, we're gonna choose peace and freedom. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.