Why You'll Never Escape Living Paycheck to Paycheck

I was going to use a different approach for this post.

But since you're here...

...your actions tell me 2 things:

You are living paycheck to paycheck
You want to stop living that way

I have something interesting for you.

This may be a long post...

...so I've decided to give you a short and longer version on why you'll never escape living paycheck to paycheck, so you can ingest the information quickly or dig deeper if you need to.

Plus give you a few ways to live differently.

And then I'll bring it together at the end, so you can have a concise understanding of what your next intelligent move is going to be.

So here's...

The Short Version

You will never be able to escape living paycheck to paycheck if you continue to do what's making you live that way.

READ THAT AGAIN.

Here's the Longer Version

This is going to be felt by a lot of people. Here are some reasons that indicate what living paycheck to paycheck means:

You are living paycheck to paycheck if your:

First check is spent before you get the second one
Check is "technically" gone before you cash it
Car needs a repair that will leave you broke
Savings account has nothing in it
Monthly expenses are higher than what you make a month
Checking account has a positive balance that doesn't exist
Bank account doesn't allow you to have fun without paying stuff late

I know you can add to the list.

Now, lets go over why you live paycheck to paycheck.

Living this way can last a lifetime, and can be summed up by...

Three Reasons

There are THREE REASONS why you live paycheck to paycheck.

And you can turn this around which is pretty cool. I'll show you how in moment.

1. Your income
2. How you treat money
3. Your behavior

These are the three reasons.

Lets break them down and see why these three things have you live paycheck to paycheck, and then we'll see how you can break free of this trend.

Your income is self explanatory. You don't make enough money.
You treat money like you have a lot of it.
Your behavior isn't showing any evidence of action to either increase your income or treat it differently.

How can you turn this around?

Do the Opposite of That to STOP Living Check to Check

Let's start with income.

1. Here's a way to look at income: Not having enough money isn't because you have too many bills and isn't because things cost too much; its an income problem.

Thinking you have an income problem will cause you to look for ways to make more money (increase your income). And if you made—lets say, $1,000 more a month, would you still live check to check?

2. Treat your money like you don't have a lot of it by making a budget. You'll have to cut out your wants (at least don't impulse buy often) even after you've made more money.

Making more and spending more won't do you any good. It'll just put you in the same financial situation with a higher tax bracket.

I know that's boring and takes a ton of discipline to do, but you have to spend less than you make.

3. In order to increase your income and spend less than what you make, you have to break your habits.

Your new actions (the ones you need) will have to soon overpower your current actions to give birth to a new behavior that makes your bank account look healthy.

And hopefully—your new actions, if done consistently, becomes a new habit—and putting money into your bank account every two weeks becomes natural.

Summary

Make more money, treat money likes its limited and consistently do what's necessary to make that happen.

If you're a skimmer, and made down here without reading the article, click here :-)

Good luck!

- Michael

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