Thanks for watching the. Nine
It is Friday. For many, that
means payday, But before you
spend you need to budget do you
have a good budget going?
Joining us live this morning to
talk about how to do that baby
Steps to budgeting. Baby steps.
Paula Swain, financial planner.
For the financial Center for
Women, Paula Good morning. Good
morning, Dina. How are you? I'm
good. Thank you. I'm happy to
be talking about this. And I
know that we're focusing on the
ladies, especially those who
are maybe contemplating divorce.
So let's just start right
there. We know that divorce is
expensive and then living alone
is very expensive. What do you
have to be in a certain
financial place to even
consider divorce? Well, you
know, Divorce is difficult. And
you know, sometimes you have to
weigh the options Do I? Worry
about my family answers or do I
worry about my happiness? So
it's so easy to kind of figure
out where you are. You know,
First you want to build your
team, you know, get a divorce
attorney, uh, divorce coach or
financial planner and a couple
girlfriends to talk to you. And
then prepare a budget. So if
you can know where your income
is coming from, you know, do
you If you work, you know how
much are you bringing in your
you know, compare that to your
monthly expenses. Stone
necessities like your housing
food, transportation, child
care health insurance. And then
you know those wet so nice
expenses, you know, like
entertainment vacations.
Sometimes you might have to
give that stuff up for a little
while. While you're going
through the divorce. Yeah Let's
just talk about the basics of
building a budget for any of
us. At any point in your life.
What's the first step so you're
looking at? You're looking at
Do you write, dear? You're
making a list or what are you
doing? Yeah you know, grab a
piece of paper and a pen and
then you know, just less. You
know, this is how much my
my, um my car payment is my
insurances and then total it up.
And if you want to, I always
suggest, like for 30 days that
you keep. Journal with you and
write down everything that you
spend. So if you're going to
Starbucks, how much was that?
Or if you're buying a pack of
gum? How much was that? You can
get an idea of how much you
really spending. And once you
do that, you know, it's really
an eye opening experience
because you'll find out that,
um you're kind of wasting a lot
of money on stuff that you
probably don't even need. Oh
for sure. What is the one area
where you recommend that?
Where's the biggest money waste?
Where can we cut back easily
and save a lot of money? Do you
think. Well for me. I've been
shopping at holiday market
which can be a little expensive,
but, um, you know, you just
have to look at. You know,
food, entertainment, Um. You
know those things like going to
Starbucks every day, and I
mean, I don't. Fault anybody
for having to have their
college just eating out in
general Right? The more Yeah.
Expensive Yeah. Yeah Eating at
home, taking your lunch to work
instead of going out. Um just
kind of thing, but, you know,
sometimes those are social
things for people, and they
need those. Activities So just
kind of take a look at where
your money is going and figure
out what you can give up. All
right. And then once you come
up with, so you get a month
worth of expenditures and then
you figure out and then you do
have to figure out about long
term savings investing,
preparing for the future to and
that gets a little more
complicated. That's where you
might need help. Yeah, Yeah,
I'm just, you know, Pay
yourself first. So what That
term means is, you know, Make
sure that you're putting you
know 10, 15 or 20% into your
401 K also, make sure you're
putting money into emergency
account so that you know, um.
That's something happens that
you're going to be okay.
Financially So you want to
definitely pay yourself first,
and then live on the rest. And
hopefully when you total up all
your income. That you're going
to match your expenses and
you're going to you know, I
have. I don't know what they
definitely Paula. Just the
first step is just tracking it.
And that is a good first step
that I feel like many of us
don't do. We sort of just Spend.
unaware, and so just keeping
track of it is like a little
journaling. It's like keeping
track of the food you eat. When
you're trying to figure things
out, So makes sense, right? All
right. There's also some
websites. You can use our apps
like mint. Com will work too.
It's a great way to track your
spending. That's true. Yeah,
technology is very helpful. Um
you can learn more at financial
center women dot com. That's
where you find Paula Paula.