by Tricia
I received a comment from a visitor:
“I looked through your income. You definitely need to work on that. I see the problem as income, not expenditures here as you’ve reached a point where you can’t cut many more expenses out and still have a huge debt to pay off.”
With taking a look at how much we’ve spent, I think this visitor has a valid point. When you take away what we are spending as a cost of our debt (the finance charges and interest expense – things I can’t do much about until they are paid off) we are spending around $2,186 a month for our family of three on “living expenses.”
There is spending that can be reduced, such as groceries and dining. I know there are people that skip all dining and can pay very little to feed large families. Perhaps we just can’t get to that point because we lack time. Often, the meals out are from the local fast food place because we need something fast and we don’t buy many regular groceries that are fast to make.
The cigarettes of course can go, and I am still getting ready for that. I have a stressful event coming up – and I am waiting until after that is over to give quitting my best shot.
I guess after looking at our spending, we are overall doing quite well (I believe) for our family size. There probably isn’t much more we could cut before we drastically reduce our quality of life. I already buy most things used or cheap, when possible, so the only way to reduce expenses like that would be to not purchase things at all.
As this visitor said, that means that we are close to the point where we just need to earn more income. I’ve thought about this greatly, and I think I have a solution that will help.
What I am doing right now is working three jobs, each with different pay. My highest paying job is my full-time job. With working the three jobs, I am working over 40 hours a week and I’m getting pretty burnt out. My house is also clutter-central because I lack the time to do anything about it. With a 4-year old in the house, it seems as though when I clean one room – the next one is dirty. I’m sure those out there with little ones in the house can relate to that! LOL!
What I am going to do is quit all of my jobs except for my full-time job. I am going to further my education so I can earn more and I am going to put all of my effort into working my way up with the company. It’s a great place to work and if I mess it up because the other smaller jobs are pulling at me I don’t know if I could forgive myself for that. If they need someone to work extra hours – I need to be able to say yes. I want to be the worker they can always count on to do what needs to be done. That is a trait that has always made me an asset to employers.
Another avenue I think I need to really look into is earning passive income. But for some reason when I think of passive income I think “scam”. Probably because it’s money you earn for doing very little. Perhaps I will look into it more and see if anything could work for me.
I have a lot of thinking/researching to do, and I have to summon up the courage to quit two jobs this week. Wish me luck!
