Comments on: Cut the Crap and Check Your Monthly Budget Commitments

By: David Wilson

David Wilson — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:56:02 +0000

Thanks for the post, great information. People forget that making small changes can make a huge difference in their overall financial status.

By: zencontrol.net

zencontrol.net — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:05:54 +0000

good one… but, before cutting on budget one should have a budget. A lot of people today, don’t have budget … they just have their credit cards and credit card bills…

By: TIPS

TIPS — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:31:43 +0000

Interesting read.. well done .. Thanks for the post.

By: Canadian Personal Finance Blog » Blog Archive » Random Thoughts on Budgetary Week

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:55:38 +0000

[...] No Debt Plan gets “real” and states, “Cut the Crap and Check Your Monthly Budget Commitments“. [...]

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:11:33 +0000

@Michael: I’m all about what works for you. If your system works and you are paying off debt than who am I to tell you is doesn’t work? I wouldn’t do that anyways — but congrats on your progress thus far.

@Steve: Sounds like a solid plan. You’re right, sometimes it is a lot of work just to identify the issues at hand. But you can’t stop there. Good job on recognizing you’ve got to keep pressing forward, and forward, and forward.

@Ashley: Good idea! Now what if we did that with everything we “can’t” do from personal to work to spiritual…

@Ken: I am continually shocked at how many people I know that don’t have a budget. That live paycheck to paycheck. That can’t fathom having the savings we have. The consequences are deep and long for ignoring small problems today.

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:45:06 +0000

So many consumers just do what feels good. They operate without a written budget and still wonder why they keep running out of money. I agree with the earlier post by changing “I can’t” to “I don’t want to”…they are just like kids in a candy store. They prefer now thinking over future thinking. It’s too bad they won’t face their true debt and see the need for change. Saying no to the future has consequences.

By: Ashley @ Wide Open Wallet

Ashley @ Wide Open Wallet — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:50:52 +0000

When someone says they “can’t” have them switch it to “don’t want to”. I takes the victim mentality away. If they say “I can’t cut my cell phone plan.” Then just have them say “I don’t want to cut my cell phone plan.” They may still not cut it, but at least they are making a choice in the matter rather than playing victim with their hands tied.

It really works.

By: Steve in Denmark

Steve in Denmark — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:00:59 +0000

It could be that some people think that the ‘hard work’ is just identifying that they have a problem? Once someone like yourself has gone through their budget with them, they might thing that’s it. ‘Phew! That was hard work, eh?’, bet you’ve heard that a few times. It’s hard enough owning up and having a look at the shocking news. Maybe they think you have the magic wand you pull out at the end for all your clients. You wave it and everything’s ok. They may have to go without a couple of things for a couple of months, they may have to stay in a few weekends, then that’s it. Back to normality.

My wife and I realised things were getting bad and took kind of pre-emptive action and got ourselves an extra job. A cleaning job in the late afternoon/evening. We realised we needed to do something and now! We hate doing it, I’m not looking forward to go off doing it now, and I sure as hell ain’t looking forward to doing it (and another one) on Sunday…but it’s getting us out of trouble and we’re nearly out the tunnel. I also – when I’m not at Tekniske Skole getting the qualification which, next year, will take me up several wage levels – do as many extra shifts, work as many ‘free days’ and weekends (here and there) as possible. We reckon this time next year, we can wave ‘two’s at the cleaning company and survive just nicely on our regular wages. But we realise we need to work damn hard for 2009 to get there.

By: Michael_W

Michael_W — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:22:15 +0000

Adding another comment because I forgot to check the notify me box. LOL

By: Michael_W

Michael_W — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:21:26 +0000

I’ve been using the percentage system to keep my budget in check. In my spreadsheet I have 2 cells for 2 different income ratios. One is monthly expenses to income ratio. I don’t want that to go over 60%. The other is my debt payoff to income ratio. The higher I get that above 40% the better off I am.

The reason this works for me is that it makes it easier for me to make decisions when it comes to extra income or extra expenses. For example, my electric bill came in high versus my budgeted amount for February (rate increase). Once I plugged the new number in my budget, my monthly expenses ratio went up and my debt payoff ratio went down. So, I now have to figure out a way to get the rations going the other way. Maybe that means a little extra income (selling something, OT, etc) or I have to cutback on one of my other monthly expenses.

I make it a game and the push back isn’t as difficult!