[00:00:00] Speaker A: It is Take Control Tuesday. That means that Mansa Musa is on the phone with me. And Mansa, a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck, not really sure what's coming in, what's going out. And today we're going to talk about that.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, first of all, living paycheck to paycheck is a very stressful way to live. To say nothing of financial surprises like bounce checks and things like that that end up costing you fees and things.
So one of the most practical things that you can do when it comes to managing your money is to develop a cash flow calendar. Now this is very simple. All you have to do is get a calendar. Now it can be a paper calendar or a digital calendar, like Google or I Calendar or something like that, but what you want to do is put down when money's coming in and when money's going out.
So on my cash flow calendar I have income and I have that marked in green. So every time I get paid, that's put on the calendar.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: And every time I have to pay a bill, I'd mark that in red.
That's put on the calendar as well.
And the thing about the calendar is it repeats because your bills are a lot of times the same, right? Exactly. Your rent, your car payment, they're generally the same. So if you go through this exercise and you write down, let's say for the month of September or October, whichever month you're in, once you can see that, now you can understand your cash flow.
More importantly, when you see that, and you see that, for example, if you've got to pay your rent and it's taking the bulk of your check to do that, and then other bills then cause a problem, you can actually call your creditors, credit card companies, utility companies, and ask them to change your due date.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: So you can move your due dates so they're more convenient on your calendar so everything isn't lumped up all at once. And believe me, once you've gone through this exercise and put that down, now you can look at your calendar every month. You can see what's coming in, when it's going out and make any adjustments that you need to make. Now, when it comes to the credit card payments, now once again, we always say a well managed credit card is one in which the statement balance is paid in full by the due date.
That's different every month. But you can write that into your cash flow calendar monthly. The regular ones, like your rent, your income, because checks may or may not change you can put those on and they'll just flow from month to month.
The good news is you watch that, you look at your bank account on your mobile app and if you see you got a shortage coming, you can address that through savings or some other way.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: But it stops you from bouncing checks.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: And coming up short. So develop and use a cash flow calendar is the tip that we want to leave with people.
And once you're able to see that, it helps you and it reduces stress.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Yeah. That is so perfect. Man. I had never thought of it that way. And that's a good thing for a whole family to do as well.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: And once again, the important thing is your credit card companies and other people will change the date that payments are due to work with you. So use that to your benefit to smooth out your cash flow.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, we'll put that information on our
[email protected] and Mansa. I look forward to more tips like that in the weeks to come.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Thank you.
