Living paycheck to paycheck is extremely stressful. What if your expenses outweigh your income? What if your check is late? What if your hours are cut? There are so many unknowns you juggle, and that amount of stress can be crushing. Plus, you can end up “up a creek without a paddle” if a vehicular or medical emergency occurs. So, stop doing it! Sure, it’s easier to say than it is to do, but there is a way to get out of the constant struggle. This article by Jessi Fearon at The Budget Mama outlines how she and her family beat the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle by getting a month ahead of their bills:
Instead of living on next month’s income (by relying on credit cards) or living on this month’s income (living paycheck-to-paycheck), we are living on last month’s income (being a month ahead)! Each month we save all of the money that we earn. We don’t spend paychecks or any other cash we get during the month when we receive them. Imagine a jar labeled “for next month” where we actually stash all those paychecks. When the next month starts, we figuratively dump out the jar, count it, and create the month’s budget using all of that money that we earned last month
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