How To Make Ends Meet Without Getting a Side Hustle

really weird financial time right now. We altered some of our schedule to fit this in, and yeah, it's so necessary. I mean, we're still wondering how long is this going to last? And what do we need to be thinking about and considering and taking care of our budgets and and even I know one of the things you wanted to talk about is just not not getting a side hustle on top of this. I know so many times we talk about, oh, add more to your plate, and sometimes it's just all you can do to figure out

what you currently have going on. So and it's still a lot of people are out of work, and a lot of the work people did on the side, or I know, at least for me, like as a freelancer, a lot of the work that I could have been doing is on hold right now, and so that limits a lot of people's options. So this is a simple episode about how to make ends meet um and the number one answer is not going to be make more money, because that is the number one answer on a lot.

I mean, if you can. But then beyond that we'll talk about and then even what you need to think about it to recover once this does come, once the dust settles a bit more, Now, what do we need to be setting our sights on because it's gonna look a lot different than than before. Yeah, and then we'll talk a little about the stimulus check as well. Awesome, First, our sponsors. Our episode is also brought to you by online courses that don't cost a lot and actually help people.

Y'all ever gone to a blog, downloaded a free template and find out the creator has a course, but it's like four dollars, no thank you, or you find one that's thirty and you buy it and you're like, I already knew all this stuff. Online courses that don't cost a lot and actually help people are here to solve that problem. You know how we know they're affordable because

I'd actually pay it and I don't buy stuff. You know how we know it helps people because people tried it, and they said, so online courses that don't cost a lot and actually help people because some stuff you can find for free on the internet and some stuff you can't. Yeah, and they tried it and they said, so, yeah, how do you spell that? And they said, so, you'll have to check out the show notes to see how that's about. But yeah. So I have an online course that I

launched in January and we took ninety people through it. Um. It's called five Weeks to five hundred uh, and it helps you save five hundred extra dollars over the course of five weeks. And people really had a lot of great things to say. So I am relaunching it right now. It opens today. Enrollment closes next Thursday, so you've got seven days two enroll. You can go to five Weeks to five hundred dot com. That's the number five and the number five hundred, uh and check out more info

and UH. A lot of people found really useful. I've revamped it to be more relevant for what we're going through right now. UM. So it's less than fifty bucks and it will help you save a lot of money going forward through this challenging time and then also long term which if you're listening to this real time, it's a and and registration is open through all right, So let's talk about making ends meet without getting a side hustle. The first article that we're going to go through has

a lot to do with mindset. It's from Don't Waste Your Money dot Com and it's five tips for getting back on your feet after a financial disaster. And this article is kind of talking about any financial disaster, but I think that it's super relevant right now. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, the authors coming from the perspective of a personal financial crisis, uh, wrapped up in relational issues and all kinds of other

things which we know that they are intertwined. And so this is even right now, what we're going through is probably bringing up all other kinds of layers relationally. But yeah, so we're gonna go through the five tips. The first on is to know what you own and know what you owe, So essentially saying, let's get a handle on what we're even looking at. We can't make ends meet, we can't solve any problems if we don't even know

what the problem is. And so certainly this is a time to refocus on what you own, what you and what you owe on what you own? Uh. And and this might sound really simple, but there are a lot of people and if this is you, you're not alone who kind of go on autopilot with buying things using credit cards, UM, loaning, going on payments to even buy furniture like that. It's it's common practice. And I think as long as we've got money coming in, we just

kind of keep going. But it's times like this when who knows where our finances are going to go to say, all right, what are we looking at? What do we owe on different things? What do we own? Um? To really figure out what it is that you're working with, UM, how much debt you're potentially in, UM, what it is that you're spending money on, and go from there. Yeah, and it could be on the other side of the

spectrum too. You could be really worried and anxious about it, and you just kind of list everything out, look at what your bills are, look at what your debts are, and you might see that it might just take a little bit of tweaking of the budget and you're okay, but get over that fear of actually listing everything out because it may not be as bad as you think it is, and if it is, then it's never going to get worse than it is right now. You can only go up from here as soon as you start. Yeah,

that is the starting point. It can be scarier. It might not be scary. Yeah, it's usually scary. The second thing is to drain the emotion from your decisions. I know that for me, I've been super anxious um the past several weeks, and I'm not a typical I'm not typically anxious, So I can only imagine what other people are going through that emotion, that that anxiety, the fear. I'm sure that we've seen it impact a lot of people spending decisions hashtag toilet paper. So try to separate

the emotion from your decision. Stop impulsive spending. Uh really, look at what you need and why you need it. Stop it with the treat yourself spending. Like, I know, being at home is difficult, you know, not working is difficult. But the more we try and make ourselves feel better with online purchases or drive through purchases, the deeper we get into this cycle, and it's creating habits that might persist once all of this is over, So just make

sure you identify those and cut them off. Let's be let's try and be really practical about the spending we do right now. Yeah, and the worst we feel about it afterwards too. It's like temporary relief, but then long term it just kind of keeps perpetuating the problem. Yeah. Yeah, okay. So the third one on this list is to take clear eye and bold action. And this is just speaking to It might take um a big swift move towards um drastic changes in your budget and the way that

you approach finances. This may not be the time where just cutting out your morning Lante is going to do it. This might mean some some really difficult breaking of habits, but also setting of new habits, being okay with going without on certain things or even luxuries. Um, And I think just the time to to hunker down and and find the motivation to take very clear and as it says, bold actions in the direction of making your your money work when it when everything is so chaotic or there's

not a lot of money. Yeah. So that means like saying no to family that might be asking for money or making other decisions that other people may not agree with or might be out of your character, But are you moving in the right direction for you? At this point, You're turning over a new leaf and you are beginning to just make the decisions that are right for you. And I think something that goes along with that too,

is like, don't play the victim. Like there are a lot of things that are happening to you, but they are the same things that are happening to millions of other people around the world, and we are all sad for each other, but I don't think any of us are direct victims in this, And so just separating yourself from that too, and saying like, I am in control of where I go from here. I am in control of what I do now. Things are not happening to me.

I am reacting and acting in the midst of things happening. Yeah. The fourth is to build a support team. You can't do this on your own. And I know I'm a proud person, I'm strong, independent woman, and I'd like to believe I can do it on my own, but there are many reasons that I can and I have to rely on other people, not just financially but emotionally. Too. Um So. I mean that's meaning if you are suffering from anxiety and depression, like you're seeing somebody virtually or

in person to get help with that. You are surrounding yourself with good family and friends um via like Zoom Happy Hours or or whatever like digital card games. Establish your community and reach out to them, even if that's out of your character. I understand it's out of my character. But you need people to support you in this, and

you need the right people. You don't need people that are gonna tell you you're a victim and make you feel bad about things you spend or make you feel good about spending money you shouldn't like, choose healthy people to be on your team. Yeah, this time really exposes our vulnerabilities. So much has been stripped away, whether that's job loss or you have the ability to be social.

So much has been taken and I think it's important to find ways to be able to regain some of that control, but also learn ways to protect that vulnerability, which can be surrounding yourself with trustworthy people. That the more and more you isolate, even when it's so easy to do that right now, just the greater and greater the impact of the distressing things are going to have. So yeah, finding finding people who are going to help you. And last on this list is they say rely on

the best expert on your finances, which is you. And this is an interesting one because we are not all financial planners or experts on finances. However, we are the experts with our own finances, or at least the ones who are able to make the decisions that are going to be best for us. Certainly, this would mean research, this would mean consultation with people who are experts, but ultimately this relies on us. No one else is going

to do this for us. No one else is going to dig us up out of the rut, make our budgets work, make the ends meet. That's on us. And I think sometimes we can fall back into this traps and we were what you were saying about being the victim of I can't do that. I'm not I'm not good with numbers. I don't know, I can't I can't do it. I don't calculate, or I'm not a nerd. Well, if you can add and subtract, you can do your budget, you can figure out your finances, and you can fill

in the rest with additional resources and research. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, you've got to make the moves in this and you've got to take control rather than playing the victim to whatever you think is happening to you with your finances. You are the CEO of your life. And if you kind of view it in that way, like CEOs don't know everything about everybody and everything going on at their company. They delegate the things they're not good at, but they still take

on the hard tasks that their employees can't do. You are the CEO of your life. So the things you can't do, there are apps and software programs that can help you, but you ultimately have to make the hard decisions for your life for your company. That comes down to you. Nobody's going to do it for you. So

just keep telling yourself, like I am the CEO. I am the CEO, Like I am the most important person in this company of me, and like I'm going to delegate what I can't do, and I'm going to make the hard decisions when I have to because that's my job. That's an adulting, adult thing. I know this is what scares people about being an adult. But there's friends and community and support to help you through that. Yes, yes,

so our next article is from Mulana Mulanomy. I can't say that word like it's a two words put together. It's moolah and economy put together. So think of that. And that's the name of this blog dot com. It's not an economy of cows money money, and it is ten tips for surviving on a limited budget. Yes, and we're not going to go through all ten, but um definitely gonna share a phaves. Yeah. So I liked number

one on here, which is fine, tune your budget. You're gonna hear me say it again and again, just ceo you have. That's nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants that to be the first one on the list if you've not done your budget, and you should probably just turn this podcast off real quick and go do that and then come back on. So I think sometimes we

can think, all right, there's no wiggle room. I've got my budget pretty well hammered out, or I don't have a budget, yeah, in which case I already spoke to you. But I would say, look again, especially in times of financial crisis, we can think, yeah, no, it's some bare bones look again, Look again, Ashta, look again. Yeah, guaranteed, if you are not looking at your budget often there is wiggle room. There is something that can be cut, that can be trimmed, that can be eliminated, that can

be combined, whatever you want to do. There's there is wiggle room in there called gen She'll find it for you. And it doesn't have to be long term like this budget. The budget is fluid. You do not set it and forget it. You revisit it often. And so if you are cutting a lot out right now, that doesn't mean you're going to be cutting a lot out forever. This is a unique time and you're going to have a

unique budget for this time. You can slice and dice something for the time being that will eventually come back into place. So yeah, that's disappointing, but it's not it's not a loss for forever. Yeah, definitely. Um And then number two stick with the basics. So again, this is a really unique time and so we don't have to be creating these normal meal plans. We don't have to have a normal time with kids, Like it's okay, your kids are sitting in front of like nanny TV. And

that's how I was raised just fine. But like they don't have to be doing crafts. They don't have to be going like two parks as we've already been seeing, like you just can't so And it's the same with your finances, beans and rice Italian Mexican, like just having these staple things you do every week, something that's predictable, so that you don't have to think very hard, because chances are your thinking really hard about a lot of

other things, and that's giving you decision fatigue. So when we go into decision fatigue, will make the really easy decisions and then the difficult decisions suffer because our brains are expended. And that's when we can't carry out our CEO duties of making good decisions for our company. I'm running with this, We're not getting away from it. Yeah, And so you have to make as few decisions as possible. So set up simple systems and bring things back to

the basics. This is not a time to become iron chef, though I'm sure you many of you have tried. I'm in quarantine. I'm going to make lavish meals. That's you probably already feel, so like, don't feel guilty, It's fine. You were set up to fail from the beginning. I like what you're getting as far as freeing up emotional and mental resource and recognizing that we need that to be able to pay attention to our finances and make money.

If if we kind of expend all of that in some of these peripheral areas, it really can rob from the more essential priority things. Yeah, okay, I also liked number four on here, which is downsize your life so you may not even realize how much stuff you have. I know I didn't. I mean, Eric and I live in a hundred seventies square feet and we've moved just about every year of our marriage, which is coming up

on eight years, so that's those are fun percentages. But every single time we move, of course, it kind of leads to this purge of stuff, and we live small

and we still comment on how much we've collected. So I know we're not alone and that like guaranteed, we all have a ton of stuff, and this could be a time to look at not only what do I have that I could sell to be able to make some money to beef up my emergency fund, but also what do I have that again is taking up mental and emotional space that I could get rid of to just free myself up a little bit. But also what can I get rid of that I'm not spending time,

energy and money to maintain. I think sometimes we we run into obstacles and we still try to figure out ways to make status quo work. All Right, I got obstacles coming at me, But how do I make sure we are still operating up here? And this time? Any financial crisis or uncertainty requires a change of perspective to bring it down a couple of matches and say, no, we're not status quo. It's not life as usual. We've

got to make perspective changes. We've got to make some hard shifts in the way that we're living, in the way that we're spending. Not just how do I keep up? How do I keep going with where I'm living when my finances aren't there? Okay? Then shift It might even mean moving. I don't want to be dramatic, but for some people it could mean do I have too large of a house that it's just stressing me out? Do I have too many vehicles? Is my car payment just

way too much money? And if I didn't have it, then I wouldn't have to be worried about making ends meet. So again, you're going to have to make the decisions that are right for you and right for your family. But I do think that these types of times call for thinking outside the box and changing our perspective and

simplifying your space translates into simpler spending. When you are surrounded by clutter, it clutters your mind, and in reality, it does clutter your mind and it impacts your decision making. And with a simpler space, a simpler schedule, a simpler meal plan, you have more room to make better decisions. So I mean and all spending really is. Staying in budget is just about deciding to do the right thing when you open your wallet, deciding to open it or

to not open it. Yeah, that's what it comes down to. So just do everything in your power to set your surroundings up to make those better decisions. Yeah. The next one that I liked was don't utilize credit This would be a really easy time to apply for credit card, just in case when they're hunting you down they want you to. Yeah, and I love credit card. It's for travel hacking purposes, so you will never hear me speak bad about a travel rewards credit card, but I don't

have one because I need it. I don't have it just in case I have it, I paid off every month, and I would do the same thing with a debit card. So don't get one right now, because you are only setting yourself up for future financial turmoil, for future debt. You'll only be doing yourself a service to avoid using credit right now, like you said, Jen, because of the further financial impact that that will have down the road.

To be surviving off of it right now, it is far better to make some drastic changes in your spending than to go into further debt. Okay. Number six on here is shop outside the box. So this is talking about when you are spending, how can you cut so going to farmers markets if you have them nearby, or even like roadside stands, dollar stores, thrift stores for essentials

if they're open, I mean, or just not spending. Ultimately, yeah, I think one of the biggest things right now for spending since a lot of things are at the time of this recording closed, I'm not sure how it will be when this comes out, but eBay and Facebook marketplace, those will never shut down. So I mean just use your best judgment when ordering. But and we always say this, if you need something, think used first, choose secondhand first.

Just check to see if it's available secondhand before you go buy it new, and you don't have to wait forever to find its second hand. Just check and do your due diligence before you automatically by new, and look around the house see what you already have that you can reuse. Last on the list that we're going to go over is number ten. Plan for the big picture.

A real problem we have in the middle class is that we are focused on the here and now, and we make decisions for a month out, a few months out, if that if we are lucky, maybe a year out if we're if we think we're smart. But other people, people that have wealth plan for the big picture. And it's not even necessarily because they have enough money to plan for the big picture. They were raised probably I don't know, or acquired this knowledge to think of the

long term implications of their current choices. So whenever you are making a choice, a decision to spend or not to spend, think about the ramifications it will have long term. And that I mean that is different for everyone. So like, I'm not even gonna give any examples. Um, but you know, for you what your purchase is are going to look like long term. You know what it's going to look like if you decide to move or give up your

car or whatever. And I would say most of the time, those long term implications, if you're giving something up and spending less, are going to be inherently positive. Start to change your mindset to be one of thinking about the big picture, not just the result the immediate result of your spending. Yeah. And again that's taking some of the emotions out of what I want right now, what I think will give me instant gratification versus the long term. Yeah.

You know what else is long term? That I mean so part of my big picture, but also instant gratification. The bill of the week, that's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That's bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clint, this is the bill of the week,

Hiden and Joe. I am calling to tell you about my favorite still, which is the monthly bill I pay to the Financial Jam. The Financial Jim is a place where anybody at any level of finance or income experience can go get professional help with their money. And now more than ever, I am so so thankful to have my financial trainer, Sarah, helping me through this crazy, crazy time of postal insulation and Elizabeth's madness. Um So I have never been more thankful to be a member of

the Financial Jam. I pay the still every single month, but it is the best bill I pay. And I really think that everybody could gain some some help from a professional financial trainer. Yeah. I have heard of the financial gym. Real good. Yeah, it's amazing, So highly recommend if you are looking for a financial trainer, you can search the financial Gym. I mean, I have used those metaphors of stretching muscles, exercising muscles. Yes, thank you, thank

financial to do that. Yeah. And if you have a trainer, whether it's financial or I don't know, maybe it's personal, in your fitness or in your life. I don't know. Some bill witnessing your fitness, Yes, witness the fitness. Send it to us at Frugal Friends podcast dot com. Slash bill. We want to hear all about it, which our spirits in this and we will share it on this podcast. Well, now it's time for the learning world. Yeah, Okay, there's a baby sleeping here, so we can't because this is

our last time recording in the same room together. Now sadness all right, So for the Lightning round, we're going to go over how to spend your stimulus check. Uh sorry to our international listeners. This is directed towards our US listeners. But how to spend that stimulus check if you're getting one, yeah, if it's not already spent. Right, And so I did a YouTube video on my channel Modern Frugality about the steps to go to the order

of operations. So, whether you are overwhelmed because you have so many things that you need to pay that won't cover it, or you're in an okay place and you're just looking for how to optimize the or more that you're getting, walk through these steps. And we're just going to go through like a few of them today in the Lightning round. Because it's quick, it's lightning, it's lightning. The lightning round usually isn't that quick, but we're saying it. Yeah,

I have to say it. So start with your four walls is in what are your needs and your basic needs? So we're talking food, housing utilities. Are you having difficulty covering those? Then certainly that's what this should go to. Jill, I wrote down a fourth one and totally skipped over it because that's not a real thing. So traditionally the four walls have been uh, food, housing, utilities, and clothing. But like I do not believe clothing is one of

those necessities. Netflix is the fourth necessity, and I if you believe me, can you please agree with me in the YouTube comments of this, I'm going to tell people to spend their stimulus on Netflix. Make sure that you're covering the four ethics and morals to adhere too. Well, if you don't think I have then ethics, you have your own ethics and let me know and I have mine. Okay, all right, So your three walls if you live in

a triangle house, I don't know. I live in a campers kind of too, and then like and then like a curve that comes up and around and cocoons us from front to back again. Okay. Once, So if you don't have any income coming in and you've exhausted all of your aid options, then use it on your four walls. If you have some coming in, whether from a salary or half salary or whatever, then use it for your

emergency fund. You should be able to be your own stimulus, so you should have at least five hundred dollars up to six months of bare bones expenses, so maybe fifteen th I don't know what that looks like for you, but you need to have some money set aside, separate bank account that you do not carry the debit card for, and you do not easily access for online chopping, and don't save the password in the Google there, it's there in case you need it. Nice. Yeah. The next is

high interest debt. So if you've got UH debt to be paid that is collecting a lot of interest, then that's a good priority. Over six percent is something that I would consider high interest personal loans, credit cards, and certainly right now I know that student loan debt is like the interest rate is zero right now, right, But that won't last forever, so so use your discernment on that one um that is not covered in this lightning round.

But our final one is if you have an emergency fund if you are debt free and you solve money coming in, I would encourage you to give your stimulus check away, to give it away because there are people who really needed more than they didn't get it. And you can be the person that impacts people to the extent they need to be given to. So, um, there are three ways that we are giving our check. We're giving a third of it to our neighbors, so people

directly to people in the local community. Just don't know who those people are, but you'll find yeah, yeah, we'll find them. Um. Second is to local charities, so charities that directly help people in our community. And then the third is local businesses, so divving those up and trying to put it back into our community. Yeah, that one I can get on board with. And and again, if if you're having trouble making your own ends meet, then yes, this is for you. If you're not, then please give

it away. Consider being generous. It's money you were not anticipating having. It's certainly not for or vacations for the coolest clothing right now. Like, I mean, that's that's my personal opinion. You can fight me on it, but I just I think this is to help people sustain right now. Yeah, it's it's a stimulus check, like stimulate your community with it, so if you can. But yeah, so that's that's what

we have. So if you got a lot out of this episode, if it taught you things that you needed to hear, the five Weeks to course pretty much goes through all of this and just goes deeper and tells you how to do it. So how to control impulse spending, how to transform your habitual spending, how to simplify things to effectively simplify your spending. It's five modules, five coaching calls, and we we do deep dives. So check it out.

Five Weeks to five dot com enrollment opens today and closes April, and I would love to answer any questions you have about it. Just email me or message me on Instagram and yeah, we'll talk about it nice. Yeah, thank you guys so much for listening. And we want to also thank you for your kind reviews that you're leaving us on iTunes and Stitcher, and we want to read one of them as an example. This one says

thanks for the inspiration. It's five stars. They say love listening to y'all as I pay off my debt appreciated the different guests A A P zero zero zero nine. That's the name, not the part of the video. That's the name. Thank you, Thank you double a pot nine yikes. So we also want to thank those of you who have been sharing the episodes on Facebook and Instagram. That helps get the word out and uh lets people know who's listening and why they should listen and what we

have to offer. So we are still doing our draw ring for ten dollar Amazon gift cards. For every five social tags or reviews that we get, we are giving away ten dollars tagging the latest episode, so it's not just oh, frugal Friends, here's a shout out is the latest episode, and also keep leaving us reviews on iTunes or Stitcher and you can still send the screenshot to Frugal Friends podcast at gmail dot com. That will also enter you to win the ten dot Amazon gift card.

So thanks guys. Stay safe, stay home if that's still a thing, as anticipate it will be, So be wise with your money, be kind to yourself. Frugal Friends is produced, edited and mixed by Eric Siria. Can we talk about that bug that has been harassing you this whole episode. I don't know if you could see it in a YouTube video. Yeah, maybe they have there. You know, you might have seen it more than I did. There were a couple of times that I saw it fly by.

I'm like, I'm just going to ignore this thing. Well every time, I'm lucky at you and nested in my hair. Probably at this point, Yeah, it's been all around you. I have a nice aura. I'm when to name it, Neil. That's an inside joke referencing an older gentleman who took a liking in me, Yes, a keen liking to you. Have you ever an old Scottish man? If you've ever walked somewhere with Jill and then a man says the pretty one and it doesn't look at you, then you

know how I feel. We've already gone over this. This is attention that you don't want, Like we all know you're a dime piece, but we all want all the attention always from Neil, Not this time now, Nope, well nope,