{"id":1428,"date":"2017-10-27T03:00:20","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T08:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kerryaclark.com\/?p=1428"},"modified":"2017-11-08T11:16:25","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T17:16:25","slug":"on-paper-we-dont-have-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kerryaclark.com\/blog\/on-paper-we-dont-have-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"On Paper We Don\u2019t Have Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Family Plan<\/a> is nothing more than a way for a family or individual to resolve their problems.\u00a0 The goal is to resolve problems. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Every person and every family is different; that means no family\u2019s problems will be the same. \u00a0We\u2019ve been discussing the accounting\/fiscal department<\/a> of the family plan<\/a> for several weeks and today we will discuss how to make your expenses more manageable. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all found ourselves dealing with problematic expenses. \u00a0Maybe we\u2019ve gotten behind on paying the power-bill. \u00a0Do you know how difficult it is to get a bill back under control? Maybe you\u2019re recently married and you know the two of you together should be better off than the two of you separately. \u00a0It\u2019s funny that most couples think this way and still find themselves dealing with the same or more financial woes. \u00a0The reason why is because there wasn\u2019t a well defined plan. \u00a0I\u2019d like to tell you about how Pamela and I<\/a>\u00a0made a plan for our expenses and hopefully give you the motivation you need to plan for yours.<\/span><\/p>\n

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On Paper We Don\u2019t Have Enough
\n<\/b>We found ourselves in a bad situation. \u00a0We had more expenses than we had income. \u00a0Our ends weren\u2019t meeting. \u00a0Each month we found ourselves in the same situation and it created more and more problems. \u00a0Then one day we decided to do something about it. \u00a0We decided we\u2019d no longer live like this. \u00a0There are people out there who can pay their bills with no problems and we wanted to be one of them. \u00a0So our plan for our accounting\/fiscal department<\/a> was to be able to pay our bills and have a little money left over as opposed to being short month after month.<\/span><\/p>\n

We sat down together and laid out everything we knew about our finances. \u00a0We took five steps, however I\u2019m only going to give you four:<\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. We listed every single expense we had.<\/strong> \u00a0This included those we were currently paying and ones we weren\u2019t. \u00a0Have any of you been there? \u00a0There are just some bills you can\u2019t get to because there\u2019s no more money. \u00a0\u00a0For example, we had student loan payments deferred. \u00a0Listen to what we did next.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. We separated the mandatory expenses from the non-essential expenses.<\/strong> \u00a0You can simply place an asterisk by the ones you must have. \u00a0Here are a few examples:<\/span>\n