So you've been living paycheck-to-paycheck, waiting for your next paycheck to clear before you can pay your bills or go out to eat. This can be a stressful time, but don't worry! We have some tips to help you break this cycle.
In One Goal, tap the "Plan" button in the top right, the weekly "Cash Flow" will appear just below the top bar. When we're breaking the paycheck cycle we actually want that amount to be POSITIVE! For example, if it says "Extra Income to budget ... $15" that means that if we followed our plan every week, we'd have $15 extra in our Income reserve each week. The more positive cash flow we have the faster we'll break the cycle. In order to do this, we'll need to cut back on some unnecessary expenses.
This could be as simple as not going out to lunch every day, perhaps canceling Netflix for the next few months (just watch funny youtube videos together instead 😁), or planning some cheaper dates for date night. In One Goal we can use the "Plan" page to view where our money is going. Tap plan (inside the main menu on the left), then tap "Plan". Here is a list of all the spending categories, and what percentage of our income goes toward these categories. Tap on a category type (like Spending), it will show all the categories of this type below it. If one category looks like it's taking up a high percentage, we can quickly edit our plan right there to even things out.
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In order to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, we need to save money for the future. Rather than spending it right as we get it, we put it into the "Income" reserve. If we have at least 1 week saved in our Income, then our categories will fund automatically, and that's the goal! We want our categories funding automatically every week, so that we don't have to worry about it!
One Goal shows you the "age of your money" at the top of income.
This is where One Goal gets its name. We can choose a goal that we agree on, and then every week, if we spend less than expected in a spending category, the extra money is automatically moved to our One Goal! To have the full effect, go through each category, and set a maximum. To get there: tap plan, then tap on a category, then tap edit category, scroll to the bottom where it says "Overflow to One Goal". Toggle that on, and set the maximum.
Each week as our categories are funded, if a category is funded over the maximum amount, the extra money is sent to our one goal (which should be "Income"). That way any money we don't spend this week can be saved for a future week to help us break that living paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.
As we spend less than we make, we'll slowly build up our income reserve. Once we have a few weeks of income saved, we'll be able to finally breathe easy without stressing about when the next paycheck will clear! If unexpected expenses come up (and they always do), simply make a new category and pull money from other categories to balance it out. If we overspend, just move money from another category to balance it out.
That's it! Please share your struggles/successes as you break that paycheck-to-paycheck cycle! We would love to hear what works for you, so we can share your story with others!
