This is pretty much true for every single person in every single financial situation. Whether you’re a millionaire, or paycheck to paycheck, or homeless. You need to understand where your money is coming from and where it’s going.

  • nictophilia@fedia.ioOPM
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    6 days ago

    One thing I see a lot on the reddit personal finance sub is people posting a budget like this:

    Our monthly income is ~$6,500 net

    House is worth 325k

    401k’s have about 400k

    I also have a pension in retirement

    Bills—- Mortgage/esgrow $1800 Owe $105k

    2nd mortgage $1000 Owe 105k

    Car payment $617 2nd car paid off est value of 37k

    Insurance $370

    Phone bill $250

    Utilities $250

    Groceries $1200

    Life insurance $135

    Credit debt ~37k over 3 different cards. 10k @0%

    Mortgage is at 2.75% 2nd is at 11%

    Which…ok, that’s waaaaay better than nothing. We have something to go off of here. Phone bill is crazy high, that’s a ton of cc debt, etc. But it could be so much better. It doesn’t explain why the cc debt is so high. Why do they have a 2nd mortgage? How many people is that grocery bill feeding? Where’s the “eating out”, “movies”, “vacations”, “random gas station snacks”, the stuff that might have caused the cc debt in the first place? The more granular the better.