Having Trouble With The Budget 

This is crazy to me watching all these videos where these people make way more than me and they still still have tons of debt. I would rejoice making 80k a year.

My husband is self-employed so his monthly income is rarely the same. Some months are higher, some months are lower. What has worked for us is based on previous years income I get an average of what his "average pay" would be on a monthly basis. I base our budget on that average. If he makes more than that average, that money stays in the company account. If the following month he makes less than the set average he has that "extra" money to make up the downfall. So his income is technically the same each month.

Dude didn't even comprehend the advice. You're going to keep going into the red with variable income without a specific plan that gets updated throughout the month. Simple.

If you are on an irregular income you need to save at least a months worth of expenses and then live off of last months income.

If you are in the red every month you need to get rid of the car payment.

Thank you Dave! He was freaking out for so many minutes I was waiting for him to listen and hear that he needs to SHUT OFF his electronic withdrawals OR cancel his direct deposit immediately - go to work, pick up that check and take it home until you've fixed your budget.

Finally Dave doesn't press the mute button and just talks over them without them explaining completely the situation! But as always great advise Dave!

Guy is in a tough spot right now, but sounded like he really wasn't understanding what a budget was.

how to budget... 1. add up every bill you pay every month (don't forget bills you may only pay once or twice a year such as phone plans, insurance, license renewals, etc. and divide those payments by the applicable months to get the monthly cost) 2. figure out your average monthly transportation cost and average grocery costs. 3. add step 1 and step 2 and that's your total monthly expenditures 4. add up your monthly take home pay (after taxes) (this number should be higher than that calculated in step 3 otherwise you have a problem) 5. subtract step 3 from step 4 (if this number is negative you are living beyond your means and need to cut costs, sell property, and/or get a second or better paying job) 6. if the amount calculated in step 5 is positive now you can decide how much of that amount you want to spend and how much you want to save. 7. subtract the amount you want to save each month from the amount you calculated in step 5 and that ladies and gentlemen is your spending limit for each month.

This guy needs YNAB

Well he was just not getting it. First thing to do is take out the negative amount and then work with what you've got. Think of the negative amount as the most urgent thing you gotta pay!

The way to get out of a bad situation is to plan for the future. He had 12 in his account because he didn't plan. Start new each paycheck. He didn't plan.

Poor guy I know the feeling. Seems like the hardest step is the first step. Once you make that you can get momentum and fix this

Good advice, Ramsey!

Good advice!

This caller just had no idea how to budget. This is the idea of Dave’s Solutions. You must cover your 4 walls before anything else. How silly it was of them to pay a line of credit and be hungry....he needs to enroll in FPU immediately. I’m sure he has by now.

um okay... sometimes I don't think people get it all together. I know what this guy is talking about ... the solution is simple... or at least not so scary.. if you are on an irregular income as I am, I never know exactly from one month to the next what is coming in exactly... BUT do this, figure out what your last year's income was, divide by 12, that becomes your BASE income. You HAVE to start a zero based budget for sure starting ASAP using your BASE income. but this poor guy, I've been there, done that, now we're on the other side of things a year later, but what I did was cancelled our car payment that month, delayed insurance payment, delayed utility payments, even asked for a ONE month relief on our mortgage payment to get us through the disaster bit. Meantime, I DID a zero based budget starting the next month, and even though we were way behind due to really unforeseen circumstances, I used the "what does this dollar have to do next (in priority) and I'd put it in my budget. so I couldn't even run a real budget at first, I had to run a revised budget to catch up on bills. my husband was very ill for over 2 years, in and out of hospitals, we got behind, we used the debt snowball to pay off overdue bills once we realized okay his income is no more, it's downto mine and mine is irregular (self employed). but you can do do the skip or move payment thing if you absolutely have to but NOT otherwise. it will carry you through a month to give you some breathing room. With using a BASE income which in my books is "okay I know we'll make at least this much next month (based on my last year's income)... but it could be a few hundred more each month, I use my base to create my budget, and any extra goes to debt snowball or paying of anything we were behind on. We're still in the debt snowball area, but we're way way out of the situation this guy was in, but we were there too. I feel for you. it's painful and so scary! I hope that helps. I found it confusing for this poor guy listening to Dave, and I love Dave Ramsey's stuff, I listen to him all the time, even on the treadmill haha! Hope that helps Mr. whoever you are with $12 in the bank, I soooo know your pain! sometimes unexpected things zap the life out of us, in our case it was sudden and severe and long enough all our savings were used up. sad.. but because of it I had to learn zero based budgeting and plan life a bit better going forward.

great advice

Every job ive had so far has been irregular pay checks. You just need to write down all your expenses and makes sure the wants dont get too crazy and once the bills are paid figure out percentages of what your going to do with excess cash. retirement, stock market, other investments, savings, or vacation.

I don't budget. I pay a preset amount to my debts, a tiny bit to savings (until I am debt free) then I pay other bills, and live on the rest.

I really like this strategy fr.

You can not control money if someone is taking it automatically from your account. How are you going to keep the lights on when a credit bill is at the top taking your money😢

What's is their debt to income ratio and how can they earn extra money?

I get why the guy couldn't get the concept because paying bills until the money runs out and then ignoring the rest doesn't compute with logic. He's trained to do the same thing every month like a robot without considering the needs of his family over the creditors. When tou're trained to pay everything that's due, you don't consider that you should make sure you can put food on the table and if that means not paying some bills than so be it. If things are this bad the creditors should take a backseat or you have a conversation with them. I'm surprised he didn't talk about the 4 walls.

The only complication here sir is that you are either slow or not listening. Grab paper, grab pen. What is the first paycheck you have coming? Start planning with that. Obviously first thing is to get current, so that's number 1. Then what's the next most important. Probably food. Next, shelter. Next utilities. Etc....

He needs to be more positive and focus on how to make things better from now on and learn from the mistakes. He is talking to DAVE RAMSEY. if he doesn't get it straight now after talking to DAVE RAMSEY GOD help him.

He's clueless