302. My Bills Are More Than My Income... What Do I Do?

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Welcome to episode #193 of the Debt Free Dad Podcast. So what do you do when your bills are more than your income? How can you build an emergency fund and get out of debt when you can't get caught up? We are going to offer some motivation and tips on today's show.

What You'll Learn

• We understand the stress of bills exceeding income, but we're here to provide
  you with practical tips and motivation to break free from this cycle.
• Join us for empowering insights and actionable strategies that can turn your
  financial situation around.
• Be inspired by real stories of individuals who have faced similar financial
  struggles and successfully emerged debt-free. Our show is not just about
  motivation; it's a practical guide to transforming your financial reality.

Chapters

• 0:00 Overcoming Debt and Financial Struggles
• 9:13 Understanding and Implementing a Budget
• 14:43 Prioritizing Necessities in Budgeting
• 22:19 Navigating Debt Collection and Settlements

Transcript

Brad: 0:00

Hey guys, I just want to take a minute and just say thank you, you know, thank you for tuning in to our podcast and sharing and being a part of this incredible community here at Deferredad. We've got some amazing things lined up for 2025. We've got new episodes, fresh strategies and even more tools to help you tackle your debt and build a brighter financial future. But for now, we are spending some time and taking a little break during the holidays and we're serving up our favorite episodes as replays for you guys here over the next few weeks. But don't worry, big things are on the horizon and we cannot wait to share those with you Now.

Brad: 0:33

From our family here at Debt-Free Dad and to yours, have a very happy holiday season and here's to a debt-free and stress-free new year. Stay tuned and thanks for listening. Hey everybody, welcome to episode number 193 of the Debris Dad podcast. So what do you do when your bills are more than your income? I mean, how can you start doing some of the stuff that we talk about on this show Things like building an emergency fund, getting out of debt when you can barely get caught back up? We're going to be offering some motivation and some great tips on today's episode. Stay tuned.

Anouncer: 1:09

You're listening to the Debt-Free Dad podcast with Brad Nelson. Brad and his co-hosts experience the anxiety of living paycheck to paycheck before learning the fundamentals of financial security. They are now on a mission to empower regular people to pay off their debt for good and enjoy happier, less stressful lives. Keep listening for inspirational interviews, tips, tricks and practical advice to gain financial freedom.

Brad: 1:39

Hey, how's everyone doing today? You can find us on Facebook, tiktok, youtube and Instagram. Just search Brad Nelson or Debt Free Dad and, as always, welcome to today's show. Remember to get all the resources, show notes and links for today's show. You can head over to thedebtfreedadpodcastcom and check out episode 193. Again, that's thedebtfreedadpodcastcom, episode 193. And you can also find all of our other episodes there as well, and you can check out the YouTube videos there.

Brad: 2:07

So today we wanted to talk about this topic. We had a question come in and, quite honestly, guys, I mean we get this question quite a bit here. In fact, if you go to our website, defridadcom, there is a actual freebie that we give away to people about what do you do if you're behind on bills and how do you get that turned around. And it's been on our website for years and I got to tell you it's probably one of the top outside of our free workshop life without payments. It's one of the top areas that a lot of people are signing up for, because we know a lot of people struggle with this. It's like you know, they want to get out of debt, they want to get back to square one, they want to build an emergency fund. But how do you do that when you're just behind all the time? You're constantly playing catch up and where do you even begin? And we actually got a question and I want to share this. This just actually came over, I believe. Yeah, it was our Life Without Payments Facebook group page. It's a free group, by the way. If you're not a part of that group, just search Life Without Payments in Facebook. It gets you into that community. It's free. We've got thousands of people that are in there and they're having these conversations every day.

Brad: 3:04

This is a question that came over from Jess. She says okay, everyone, I need help. Our bills are more than our income and right now they are all late because I was out of a job for a month and right now I'm only working part time. I have called all the credit cards to see if they have any kind of financial hardship programs and they don't and couldn't work with me either. We currently have no car insurance either.

Brad: 3:26

I'm at a loss. Haven't even really bought stuff we don't need as well. I'm stressing out about all of this and I can't get caught back up. I can't even have an emergency fund because of not making enough money and how, and now we have more bills than our income. I have no idea how to get caught back up. Please help. And we had quite a few comments that were on this. But I thought you know there's a lot of people out there that are probably dealing with this right now and I thought it would just be a really great episode just kind of not only answer this question and hopefully offer some tips and some motivation to get through something like this, but also to offer our perspective and what we've dealt with. And Katie, you had mentioned you know you dealt with some of this when you first got started and you started joining Roots, so can you share a little bit about how that worked for you?

Kati: 4:11

Yep, this was me like five or six years ago, when I was just about to start Roots, and the first couple of months probably as well. It was just I was taking on a new car payment. Oh, deja vu Cause. I just had to start doing that again. Uh, this week as well, with my new car. But I'm in a much better place.

Kati: 4:32

Um, so, five, six years ago, when I first joined roots, I was. I wrote down everything that I was spending and it was $500 more per month than I was bringing in for income. And I'm like, how does this even happen? But guess what? I was just charging it to all of my credit cards because, oh, I'll just pay it off, you know. But all my credit cards were like maxed out and I couldn't charge anymore because I'm like uh, okay, now I'm like really out of money. Not that credit card is actual money, because you owe it.

Kati: 5:08

Um, but it was a matter of do I pay my credit card bill or my electric bill? And one of brad's rules is protect this house. And he's like um, you need a place to live, you need your lights on, you have to pay your electric bill. I'm like, but if I don't pay my credit card, my credit score will be like awful. And he's like don't worry about that. And I you didn't.

Kati: 5:35

Actually I didn't know I, you said something that was like, oh duh, like I had tried to call the credit card companies and I would always be late because it was due on the 13th and I got paid on the 15th. So I was always floating that payment for those two days and just praying my direct deposit came in before that one cleared, or else I was going to have another overdraft fee and a bank fee from the credit card company. And I called them. I'm like can you just move my due date to the 15th? So two days. They wouldn't. They wouldn't work with me on the interest rate. They wouldn't work with me like on a payment plan, nothing. So I'm like, well, screw you. Like I'm not going to give you my money If you're not going to work with me. Like I need to prioritize what's important. I have to do my utilities my house, my rent, my car like do the important things.

Kati: 6:26

And yeah, my score went down a little bit. I was only late for a month or two on it. But then I got caught up because finally I had my priorities in order and writing down that budget and seeing how much I was spending versus bringing in, it's like okay, we got to put the brakes on because what am I doing? And that was a big eye opener. So, yeah, that was me at that time and I didn't go out to eat, I don't go to Starbucks, I don't drink coffee. I'm like what could I possibly be spending all this extra money on? But it was clothes and my weekly trips through to target, wandering the aisles, and it's like I don't need three bags of cookies, I don't need the brand name of everything. Right Buy generic shop at Aldi. It's there's little things that make a huge difference.

Brad: 7:18

So can you talk a little bit just about that mentality of you were already, you knew you're already behind, but yet you were still doing some of those things. Was that just to make yourself feel better?

Kati: 7:28

Yeah, it was a. It was a temporary bandaid to make the. Oh, this sucks as my part of part of my life, but I didn't understand. When you emotionally shop, you're spending more money and that just doesn't help either.

Brad: 7:43

Right.

Kati: 7:44

But going out to eat and all that kind of stuff, it's like, oh, that's where all my money is going, I cut cable out. It's like, oh, that's where all my money is going, I cut cable out. I did a lot of trimming of my spending.

Brad: 7:58

Yeah, I know. So when I was married to Sarah and when she started getting out of debt this before we got married, so this is 12 years ago probably she's in a very similar situation as you and she paid off $33,000 in 11 months it's crazy, but same situation, you know behind. Paid off $33,000 in 11 months it's crazy, but same situation, you know behind. And every single bill that she had she was behind in it and I remember you know some of the stuff that she was still doing. She was doing a lot of that still shopping, she's still getting her nails done and I would ask her, I would be like, why? So can I just ask, without me feeling like making you feel bad, which didn't work out real well, by the way, but you know, why are you spending money when we're so behind on things? And she would say, well, it makes me feel better, I'm working as hard as I can, I can't get caught back up, and this is what I do for myself and this is the one thing that makes me feel better and I'm going to do it. And I said, okay, that's fine, we can keep some of those things in there for now, but let's just rearrange this, let's get you on a new plan, let's figure this out, and, month by month, we'll take it month by month. But it was interesting how she decided to cut a lot of that stuff out once she had the plan and it started to work, she was much more willing to be like I don't need this stuff and I'm going to work through this Now.

Brad: 9:13

Again, that's not everybody's situation, by the way. The reason I'm glad that Katie brought that up, though, is because there's a lot of people, though, that still are doing that. There are spending money even when they're behind on things. They say they want to get caught back up, and I see it as a financial coach all the time. It's like when I have you go through, look at your past spending, they're finding things they're like oh I forgot about that, oh I forgot about this, right, and they may not be huge amounts of money, but there's still maybe some spending that's going on that you can take a look at. So I would say that's kind of the first thing that I would share.

Brad: 9:44

If you're in a situation like this, where this individual like Jess, who's behind, the first thing I'm going to have you do right away is just go back and look through your spending. Where are you spending your money? Where are you spending? Look at your bank account, look at your credit cards. Look at Venmo, look at Cash App, look at all these buy now, pay later programs. Look at where you're if you're using cash. Save your receipts, like just get a feel for where your money is going. And I would say most people who are living paycheck to paycheck or behind their bills have had most again, not everybody, but most don't really have a true sense of where all of their money is going, because they're so unorganized and things are all over the place and that, unfortunately, is what causes a lot of the stress, guys.

Kati: 10:27

For a lot of people, it's just they don't, they just have nothing to really rely on and they're just constantly playing defense and one crisis to the next, and that just creates a lot of stress and it's not like oh, go ahead.

Ryan: 10:40

Ryan, I was just going to say I think that and that's what leads, I think, a lot of people to that spending right, it's like you don't feel in control, you don't feel like you can make any progress, like it's all hopeless. So, like you can make any progress, like it's all hopeless. So I'm going to just go buy this thing because it's going to make me feel better and what I mean. I'll just be in the same boat I am next month, but at least I'll have this thing that I want. And I think, like you do have a plan in place. Once you start seeing things on paper, it starts. It's almost. I know that was for us, like when we laid everything out and you see what you're spending, it was easier to say I spent that on that, I don't need to spend that on that. But when you don't do that, you just don't, you're not thinking about it. So you, you'll go spend the money.

Brad: 11:23

Right and look at everything. Look at everything. What are you? What are you spending on insurance? What are you spending on your cell phone bills? What do you spend it Like? Question everything and as you're going through there and just ask yourself the questions like, do we need to spend it? Are we getting the best price, you know making sure that every single dollar counts when you're in this situation and and ideally you guys, when, if you're in this situation, this isn't going to be forever, Like we, just like Katie's not living this way anymore After five years of of doing this, like it's way different way, way, way, way better, way less stressful, right, you have to think of it kind of like someone who's like I need to lose weight and they aren't willing to do portion control.

Kati: 12:04

Like I'm not gonna name names my mom um did you just throw your? Mom under the bus. She's not listening.

Kati: 12:13

Oh, she probably is actually, but she was like oh I need to lose some weight and I said, well, if you follow this, you just have to cut down on portions. She's like but then I'll still be hungry. And I'm like, yeah, I get. But if you eat less food, then like, why does that not make sense? That if you eat less food, then like why does that not make sense that if you eat less food, you won't? Yes, you might be hungry at first, but eventually your body will get used to a little bit less food on your plate.

Ryan: 12:44

What your mom's saying makes perfect sense to me.

Chris: 12:51

So what was your mom's name? Again, no, mom.

Brad: 12:56

her name is mom, but you're but you're not mom I love you so much but the reality is though, you're not, you're not wrong, you know and, and I think you know, we and again, this isn't everybody I want to just confirm, because we'll get people that will send us messages and be like you guys are way off basis, like I have no money, I have no spending, but there, this happens. I see it all the time, and that's why I think it's important that we bring it up, because they're still spending.

Kati: 13:19

That's going on I was going to target for groceries, but it was the five other things that I happened to pick up from the dollar bins every time right four times a week.

Kati: 13:30

That right adds up. Now I am pulling up my gas buddy app and saying, okay, which gas is? 299? I filled up for 289 the other day I was so excited versus everything else is like 329. I'm like I'm gonna drive an extra two miles to get you know 30 cents a gallon savings, especially when I'm getting really low. And all of those little things add up using coupon apps and all of that so can you.

Brad: 13:58

You know you mentioned the word budget. I think all of us obviously can speak to this in our own way of how important a budget's been, not only just getting caught back up, but just really managing our finances in general. But you had mentioned a budget was a big part and just reprioritizing. So can you share? Because that's like the next tip. You know you have to make sure you're on a budget was a big part and just reprioritizing. So can you share it? Because that's like the next tip, you have to make sure you're on a budget.

Brad: 14:14

And if you look at statistics I mean right now, I think it's almost seven out of 10 households, according to Gallup, who did a recent poll on this, don't have a household budget. That's almost 70% of people. And then you got about 61% that reported that they're living paycheck to paycheck, and I think those two statistics are too alike, right, it's like if we had more people who were just budgeting, I think we'd have a lot less people who are living paycheck to paycheck, because they'd be paying attention. So, as far as getting caught up for you, how much did a budget play a role in?

Kati: 14:41

that it's huge. First you have to create one and then you have to follow it. That's the harder part. The first couple of budgets are going to be. We always call it our crappy first budget, like it's not going to look pretty, it's not going to work the first month, most likely, and it's going to be hard to stick to it. Like you can write it all down but then you actually have to go. Okay, I'm only putting this much towards whatever this month. You have to stick to that plan too.

Kati: 15:11

And yes, emergencies come up, but always stick with your house, whatever your roof is over your head, your car, if you need to, you know, get to your job, your utilities, so your lights and everything stay on in your house and your heat. It's now fall in Wisconsin it's. I'm already Um. But yeah, just like the important things, you don't need to go out and buy new clothes every single week. I'm going to guess you might need something for work or for school at the beginning of the school year, but how often do you have to really go out and buy new clothes and shoes and things like that? Sometimes you just have to stop for a while, right?

Brad: 15:52

Well, I think, when it comes to the budget, I think the most important part is just prioritizing the necessities.

Chris: 15:57

And I think so that's what I was going to say is we're talking about Jess's question here, and there's the financial coach part of me that's saying be careful of answering just Jess's specific situation, because we don't know all the details. But what we do know is there's a lot of Jess's out there in the world, right, there are a lot of them out there who their bills are more than their income. And yeah, you've got to analyze where am I spending my money? You've got to start a budget. But at some point Brad, you're right, and Katie touched on this earlier there's got to be priorities. There has to be what is the most important thing? Well, I think a roof over your head.

Chris: 16:38

Do you think you're stressed now? Imagine being out on the streets, homeless, or living in your car. How much more stressful would that be? So let's put a roof over our head. That's got to be number one priority.

Chris: 16:48

I don't care who's calling me, I don't care who's bugging me, but I'm going to make that rent payment or I'm going to make that mortgage payment. I'm going to make it on time before I do anything else. And then, you're right, I'm going to put food in my stomach and I might have to portion control. All right, that might be part of it to keep the food budget down, but at least I'm going to eat, because if you think you're stressed now, imagine how it feels to not have food in your stomach and to go days without eating so that you can pay your credit card bill. No, you've got to eat, you've got to keep. Like you mentioned, it's cold there. Well, it's been cold here in North Carolina and Georgia the last couple of days and it's only going to get colder. You got to make sure you keep the heat on, keep the lights on.

Kati: 17:28

Right.

Chris: 17:31

Cable may be questionable, right Internet may be questionable, cell phone may be questionable. So there's certain utilities that have got to, you know water, you've got to have electricity, you've got to have heat, okay. And then transportation, you're right. So Jess mentions not having car insurance. Well, if you can't get to and from work, of course there's sometimes other options, depending on where you live. You're not going to keep having that income and it's only going to get worse. So there's some people you've got to say no to and there's certain things that you have to say yes to. So what were you going to?

Brad: 17:59

say Brad. I was going to say but Chris, what about my mom saying that I should pay my credit card bill because my credit score is really important?

Chris: 18:11

How important is your credit score when you're living out on the streets homeless? But how am I gonna buy stuff though?

Chris: 18:17

chris you don't? I mean, I get that point right. Right, this is for the, the jesses out there who, yeah, who've analyzed their spending and there are brad, you know, there are some of them that they do right now have more bills than income, even if they cut bare bones to everything. What does that person do? Or what does that family do? You're right, they're going to be getting credit card calls. They're going to be getting calls or people telling them take care of your credit scores. The most important thing no, the most important thing is to keep a roof over your head, to have somewhere to lay down at night, to go to sleep right, to not starve, to have food in your stomach. The credit card companies can kiss off while I'm concerned and I've had to tell clients that and, brad, you've had to tell clients that before many times.

Chris: 19:01

Yep, that's right. And the ones that listen and the ones that do it come out of the back end better off, and that's when they realize you know what. That credit score wasn't as important because I can live to fight another day when I've got a roof over my head, when I've got food in my stomach, when I'm warm and I feel taken care of. Maybe we need to do a whole episode on was it Maslow's hierarchy of needs at some point and figure out what's the most important things and if that's all you have the money for those are the things that you do, nothing else.

Kati: 19:32

And like it doesn't mean you don't eat. You could swap out cereal or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead of you know going out to Culver's or whatever your fast food of choice is every couple of days and like, just make, yes, your kids can be picky and you know what they're not going to know if it's not the name brand cereal, if you just hide it from them, you know, feed them what is cheaper, those kinds of things. And yes, um, definitely prioritize, because being homeless in Wisconsin is way worse than being homeless in Florida right now.

Brad: 20:09

So if you're, uh, if you are looking for some extra tips on starting a budget, though, uh, and wondering like, how do I even go in on that, make sure you check out episode number one 26 that we did. It's all about budgeting for beginners. Uh, that'll give you a lot of great tips to get started with. But, yes, prioritizing your necessities first, I think, over and above figuring out how you're going to get caught up on past due credit cards and things like that, is the most important thing.

Kati: 20:32

And, just as a note, five years ago at this point, when I was buying a new car, my credit score sucked to begin with After I paid off $130,000 plus in debt. Now I have a great credit score and, yes, it helped a lot more this time when I had to get a new car and had to finance part of it. But I have pretty much ignored my credit score for the last five years because there's if I don't have money to buy it in the first place, I probably shouldn't be buying most of the things that I was using credit cards on.

Chris: 21:06

So you mean to tell me that by not focusing on your credit score, I got better?

Brad: 21:11

I just focused on getting the debt. Do you know how many times we see that, though in Roots? All the time, people will be like I can't believe my credit score went up. I haven't even been paying attention to it.

Chris: 21:23

Well, we see it all the time. Good Good Keep not paying attention to it.

Brad: 21:27

Yeah, right, right, don't make it the main focus, right.

Kati: 21:30

It's just the number that tells you how good at debt you are right.

Brad: 21:34

Right. So the next area you want to focus on once you get your budget together is kind of like what Katie was mentioning to you earlier. It's figuring out who do you owe and drawing a line right. So not everyone's going to work with you. As we pointed out in Jess's situation, those credit card companies aren't really going to work with you.

Brad: 21:50

Jess, the one suggestion I would give you is don't give up Call back, because sometimes the person that you're talking to may not be able to work with you.

Brad: 21:58

But if you keep calling back and I'm not saying you got to call back every single day, all day, right, but call back and make another attempt and be like hey, I called you guys. I know you guys said that you guys weren't able to work with me, but here's my situation, here's where I'm at. I've got a plan. I just need to get you know. I need a little bit of time and just work with them, right, and some of them may not work with you, which I think is garbage. You know, when these companies get you all wrapped up to these products and then a lot of them just are like you know, have a nice day when things go wrong. I mean, how many people have that happen to them? It's not like Jess just woke up one day and was like I'm not paying you guys. This is just life stuff, right? So you know some of these companies won't work with you.

Chris: 22:39

That's their mentality, Brad. That's their mentality is. They think that people are just calling to scam them. I mean, I can only assume Right, but you know and I know you because you've worked with many clients as well who you gave them the very advice that we just talked about If you don't have the money to pay them, don't pay them. Two or three months down the road, how many of those credit card companies are now calling you asking you what they can, what can you do?

Anouncer: 23:01

Yeah.

Chris: 23:02

How the tables turn Right Now. Granted, yeah, it might hurt your credit score a little bit, but they'll work with you when you don't pay them. But they'll work with you when you don't pay them. It's amazing.

Brad: 23:12

Right. So when we talk about drawing a line, though, that's where you want to work with the people that are willing to work with you, and focus on helping and getting those ones paid and the other ones, like Chris and Katie have said you just don't pay them and get yourself back on your feet. Focus on the necessities. You want to make sure, obviously, you're focusing on making more income. That's a big one, too, guys, and this is another area where I see a lot of people because you're tired, you're worn out, you're broke, you're behind in bills and you may have kids at home, and it's just exhausting to have to worry about this stuff day in and day out, and the last thing you want to do is work more, right?

Brad: 23:53

It's like just this constant hamster wheel that we get ourselves on, but you got to understand with a good plan, it's temporary and you can get yourself out of it, like when Sarah was getting out of debt before we even started this business, and she was doing this like she was working three jobs one full-time job, a part-time waitressing job, one full-time job, a part-time waitressing job and she also started a direct sales business, which did very well, and she ended up doing that full-time for many years and but I didn't see her for 11 months.

Brad: 24:19

It was like, am I actually dating somebody Because she was working so hard and getting out of debt, you know so it's possible, but you got to put in an immense amount of effort to get caught back up. But once you do remember, it's temporary, because with ongoing consistency, budgeting, doing the stuff that we talk about on this podcast, you hopefully get yourself to a point where you don't have to worry about some of this stuff anymore, where, when things happen, when life happens, you've got a plan, you've got an emergency fund, you have less debt, you have less payments and you can weather a lot of these storms without having to be so stressful.

Kati: 24:49

Yeah, I sold stuff. I did grocery pickup and delivery for a couple of local grocery stores. I did a direct sales business.

Brad: 25:00

Like I found different ways to make more money, to get caught up and then continue to pay off debt as well, yeah, the one caution I do want to throw out there, when we talk about getting talking and reaching out to your creditors, is we're talking about most current people you're behind with, right.

Brad: 25:18

I wouldn't recommend, like, if you're in a situation where you're behind on current debts say, a couple of credit cards, maybe a car payment, maybe an insurance bill, whatever, right but if you have older debts, things that have been out there for a while and they're not collecting or calling you, I would not recommend that you call them and let's, let's wake these people up too, right? Let's just leave those people alone, because if they're not calling you, we'll deal with them guys later. All right, we want to deal with the people that were most recently behind on, people that are going to start calling us if, if payments don't get made, all right. So I just want to make sure we we distinguish between the two of those and we don't get you guys calling a bunch of people that you owe money to, that that aren't really even collecting on you anymore.

Brad: 25:58

There's different ways to go about that, but we're not going to get into all that on this episode, but leave those people alone.

Kati: 26:04

And I was going to say from medical debt never, ever, put it on a credit card. If you can work out a financing plan with them, even if it's $10 a month, as long as you are paying that, they can't send you to collections or charge you interest, right, right?

Brad: 26:18

It's medical. Yeah, they don't charge you interest, right yeah?

Chris: 26:21

Make sure you work with them. This is Chris talking. May not necessarily be Brad or Ryan, katie, amber, we're here. If somebody is willing to work with you, you may not be able to pay them, you may have to put them off, but if they do continue to work with you, I think you owe it to eventually, once you get yourself on solid footing, to pay them what you owe them.

Chris: 26:46

Don't go into this with a mentality that, well, if I don't pay them, they'll settle and I can get out of it for a lot less. Into this with a mentality that, well, if I don't pay them, they'll settle and I can get out of it for a lot less. I've always preached as a financial coach that get yourself on a solid footing and then eventually pay it off, as you agreed, because very few people are bankrupt. Now, if you've got a creditor who's not willing to work with you and they're being awful and terrible and eventually they want to settle, that's a different story. But don't go into it, I guess, with the mentality of if I don't pay these credit cards, eventually they'll settle and I can get them paid off for a lot less. I don't think that's the mentality you go into this with, but you certainly go into it with. Well, I just don't have the money to pay you right now. We'll get to you later, like you said.

Brad: 27:36

Right, quieter, like you said, right, yeah, I think being open, that and transparent, uh being nice, is also a good thing too. Um, you know, and and working with them, I think, is, uh, only going to serve you well and and for a lot of the people that we work with, as long as they go to it with that attitude, kind of very much like chris said, a lot of them have a lot of luck getting caught back up and getting those back completely caught up or completely paid off eventually. Right, especially and we're not going to talk about settlements or anything like that today but I like those right when they come back, like you mentioned, chris, where they'll come back to you and be like what are you willing to pay? Like, can we settle this? Can we get out some? Then we get into some fun stuff where you can start paying off a lot of debt. Now, there's different things that get involved with that. We're not going to get into all that in an episode, but it's not always necessarily a bad thing that you're behind because you can't use it to your advantage in some ways too. But again, that's another show. We'll talk about that another time.

Brad: 28:24

I think the biggest thing I want to talk about. I think the biggest mistake most people make who are in this situation is this last one. The crisis comes, they figure out a temporary solution. It's like a bandaid that they put on it and that pain of that situation goes away and they don't actually keep going and they don't fix it. So I see this all the time.

Brad: 28:45

People will reach out to us and be like Brad, I've heard your show or I've heard a class from you. I got this situation going on. What do I do? Tell them what to do. They, you know, do a thing like they put the bandaid on it, but then they don't continue like working on their finances.

Brad: 29:01

They just say, okay, that crisis is over, I'm going to go back to my old ways, and then the next crisis comes, and then they have to do it all over again, right? So I think the key is is make sure you have accountability, make sure you're sticking with it. Don't just get caught back up and say, okay, we're good. No, like, how can we make sure and ensure that this never happens again? And we actually can do much better with our finances? We can build an emergency fund, we can have less debt, so when a job loss happens or a medical issue happens and we're out of work for a while like we're going to be okay, we're not going to have to deal with this again, and I think this is where most people mess up. They just, they just quit. Once the pain of the crisis is over, they just stop and they go back to their old ways of living.

Kati: 29:46

That's why we have an emergency fund and it's one of the first things we do, because guess what Emergencies happen all the time, all the time.

Brad: 29:54

So the totally awesome debt freedom planner is helping so many people make consistent progress with their finances, whether that be building emergency funds, paying down bills, budgeting, tracking paydays, saving up for larger purchases, goal planning and planning for those irregular yearly expenses that always seem to catch you by surprise. Now the Debt Freedom Planner will help you take the stress out of managing your money. And if the thought is running through your mind, hey, I just need to have a simple tool to get my finances together. This planner is perfect for you. Head over to TheRealDebtFreeDadcom, click on the Debt Freedom Planner in the menu at the top of the page and order your debt freedom planner today. All right, that's all means. It's time for the celebrations of the show, and today we're kicking off with Aaron Hood. Aaron says I was under the budget allotment I set aside to pay off my credit card for my trip, so it's paid off already, which is a huge win. She says my emergency fund now is just under $7,000. And her goal is 10 grand. Aaron, good for you, congratulations.

Chris: 31:12

That's a great place to be and katie mentioned a few minutes ago why you need an emergency fund because emergencies happen all the time. What I found was that eventually, yes, emergencies happen, but you don't use your emergency fund. You just sort of figure out how to move money around your budget. Well, why do I mention that hillary morse, end of the month had lots of unexpected medical expenses but was able to pay everything without touching savings?

Brad: 31:40

Yeah, that's incredible.

Kati: 31:41

And then Rhonda Garner Bateman was asked to go to a concert and had to tell her friend, I can't go. Usually they would say, of course, and put it on a credit card. And then her husband said there are some things that he wanted to buy. And she told him well then we need to make a list, prioritize it what it's going to cost and save up for those items. So, way to go, rhonda. That's exactly what we just kind of talked about.

Brad: 32:08

Rhonda's dropping the hammer. I like it, we're proud of you. Rh. Rhonda's dropping the hammer.

Kati: 32:12

I like it. We're proud of you, Rhonda.

Ryan: 32:15

And Becky Sponhaus. I'm excited that I made enough in tips this week to pay my car payment, so I'm going to use the other money I have been saving towards to pay off another credit card. Getting her done one credit card at a time yeah, that is awesome.

Brad: 32:29

Becky. Congratulations and congratulations to all you guys. Hey in a time. Yeah, that is awesome, becky. Congratulations and congratulations to all you guys. Hey, if you're just getting started with our podcast, or maybe you've been listening for some time and you're interested in how you can get started on the road to financial freedom, go visit our website at debtfreedadcom and sign up for our free Life Without Payments workshop, where I'm going to show you the first steps that have helped tens of thousands of people just like you and I kick financial stress and worry for good. We'll see you guys next week.

Anouncer: 32:55

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