Conversation #119 | 5 Steps To Consider In The Pre-Broke Stage Episode

Welcome to Another Great Episode of The Mindfully Rich Podcast!

Today I'm discussing the Pre-Broke Stage.  You know where you're not yet broke, but see it on the horizon.  Yes, I know I'm not the only one who's been there today and I want to discuss some helpful tips to assist you if your experiencing this stage in your finances now.    

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Transcript

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Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Mindfully Rich Podcast, your weekly look at life and finances with the twist, where we talk about improving your overall relationship with money and building better financial habits. On each episode, I'll discuss real life situations and give y'all practical advice. The point of this podcast is to help you stand your financial lane so you won't end up broke. I'm the creator and host, Gina Richie Richardson. Now, let's jump into today's conversation. Hey y'all, I'm back and in three weeks straight, y'all. Three weeks straight, I've been back. And yes, I am super proud of this new consistency that I'm showing. And one of the biggest reasons why I'm super excited is I wanted to make sure that I am continuing to show up for y'all. I know how it is. My favorite podcast is Here's the Thing with Kev on Stage and that chick Angel. Chow, if they missed a week, I would be like, oh my God. So I understand that people were letting me know. Like, you don't understand when we've gotten used to listening to your voice. When you gone, it's like, girl, where are you at? And so that's the reason why I'm like, nope. Forget all this other stuff. I'm gonna try to find a way to make sure that I am showing up. And so thank y'all once again for being here. You know that I can't start this podcast off without giving y'all gratitude. Thank you for all of the listen, all of the listens. Ha ha gotta catch my voice. Thank you for all of the listens. Thank you for all of the support, all of the reviews that y'all were writing. Y'all just don't understand. Y'all are the reason why I'm here, the reason why I do this. Child, this is not a paid thing. This is me giving back. This is how I decided I wanted to make sure that I serve people as a whole. God has given me so many different gifts and is giving me wisdom beyond my years. And I want to make sure that I'm giving that back. And so that's the reason why I do this podcast. And so today I got another insightful episode in store for y'all. But first, let me get to some church announcements real quick. All right, last week I discussed credit sayings I had to unlearn. And then the week before that, I discussed money sayings that I had to unlearn. Now, why I just didn't say both of those at the same time, I don't know. I just be liking to talk, I guess. Okay. But both episodes were good. Now the credit win was longer. Child, that was the longest episode I've ever done solo. Okay. It was a 40-minute episode. So y'all make sure after today's episode, y'all go back and listen to those if you haven't already, just because it was a lot of great information shared. I'm pretty sure that we can all relate to the information that I talked about in there. And let me know what you thought. All right. Don't forget, check me out on my Instagram page for the podcast. I have been more consistent. Let's say that. All right. I've been posting at least twice a week. Yes. To those of y'all that have not been checking it out, yes. Your girl has been over there posting. Okay. So check me out on Instagram. That is the social media platform of choice I've designated for the podcast. And that is mindfully underscore rich underscore podcast on Instagram. All right. Let me go ahead and turn all these alerts off because that's just gonna irritate me throughout the episode. That's how y'all know this is live, okay? Look, child. Sitting here right now in my living room. That's how I do this. All right. Let's move on to the next piece of business. What is the next piece of business? Oh, I'm in business, y'all. Okay, I am booking speaking of speaking engagements, hosting engagements, facilitation, new clients. Check me out on my website, I am mindfully rich.com for more details on my services. If you want to contact me, all of the information is there. All right, and so we didn't get all of the church announcements out the way. And so let's go ahead and jump into the mindful money moment. For those of you that are new, this is the time where I take a music title, and today I'm so excited because I have one. But I take a music title and I use that as our topic point. And so today's song inspiration is coming from Drew Hill's Five Steps, where I'm gonna be discussing five steps to take during the pre-broke stage. I know y'all like, oh, let's get into it. Yes, yes, we about to. Okay. Okay, so let me give you some background as to why I picked this title. All right. Five steps, oh my God. A song, right? All right, but the title came from a meme. It's a Shrek meme. And so I don't know if y'all have seen this before, but Shrek is one of my favorite DreamWorks characters. Okay, I am a DreamWorks Disney and Pixar fan, all right? And Shrek is laying in the bed, and the caption reads, That pre-broke stage, like you ain't broke yet, but you can see it coming. Chow, when I tell you I can relate, I was like, oh, ooh, this touched my soul. I know it's gonna touch some other souls too. So we about to go on here and talk about this, okay? I want to know, have y'all ever been there? Hell, are y'all there right now? Okay, today, let's let's just open our hearts and our minds up just because let's just be real with ourselves, okay? No lying to nobody. It's just me and you. We just talking today, okay? And so, child, I can relate to this perfectly, okay? Y'all, I've been taking some big risks, okay? Been taking some big risks. Betting on myself, living on savings, dipping in there. Chow, it has been a time. And so when I saw that meme, I was like, oh, I'm like, I'm like right in there. Like, I see it. So it's like when you're there, you know, we gotta make some things shake. We gotta, we gotta get some things off the ground. We gotta figure out what those next moves are gonna be. Just because that pre-broke stage, man, it ain't no joke. Now look, check this out. I didn't been pre-broke and I didn't been broke broke, okay? Broke broke is ooh, that's that's a different episode. I believe I didn't made one on that one before. I may make a an update on that, okay? I feel like there's some updates to the broke stage, okay? So, what do you do if you're in the pre-broke stage right now? And I am glad that you asked. And so we're gonna go ahead and move into the five things that I think you should do if you are entering that pre-broke stage. And so the first thing you should do is recalculate your income and your expenses, all right? So we got to be real with ourselves, and especially in a pre-broke stage, because if you're in this stage, you either lost a source of income, you separated from someone who was providing income into the household, or you're unable to bring in as much income as you once was. All right, and let's be clear the pre-broke stage is when you start seeing the money ain't funding and moneying like it used to. All right. You see it. It's like, all right, things ain't adding up. I'm coming up shout at the end of the month. What is happening? All right, and so it's real easy to get desperate in this stage. I want y'all to really realize this. I've worked with so many clients, especially being in the financial world for as long as I've been. I've worked with so many people that while they're in this stage, they become desperate and you become more susceptible to scams. All right. So let me go ahead and just kind of explain this just a little bit. Whenever you need money, you start looking for those quick ways to find money. All right, those quick schemes, those pyramid schemes, multi-level marketing opportunities, all of those things. Now, I'm not saying that they're bad. I'm not saying that all of them are bad. I'm saying that you really need to do the research so you can see the work that needs to go in along with the monies that you're gonna make. You also are susceptible to those scams where you start receiving checks, fundraisers, sweepstakes, things like that, where they're saying, Oh, you won and you know you ain't even play, or it's a grand opportunity if you send in this amount of money and they always require you to send in a certain amount of money to them first. And lots of people fall for it because a lot of them are in that pre-broke stage or that broke stage where they're more susceptible to these scams because they're desperate and they need money. But I don't want y'all to fall for that, okay? So during the onset of the pre-broke stage, you need to know how much money are you bringing in and that you have to spend for the month. You need to ask yourself is this enough money for you to pay your current expenses, your loans, and your bills for the month? You need to know that because you need to make sure that you can still take care of yourself, your family if you have one, the responsibilities that you signed up for. That's those loans, of course, so that you can continue to live. Unfortunately, we pay a cost to live. There is a cost of living. All right. I wish that we can pay everybody in hugs. Okay, I talk about this all the time. I give bomb hugs. Okay, let me give you this hug for payment. All right. No, we can't. Unfortunately, because there is a cost of living, when you're in a pre-broke stage, funds are limited. You need to figure out okay, how much money do I have right now? How much money is gonna be coming in? How much money am I going to be spending with the money that I have? Let me give you an example. When I went through my divorce, I went through the actual broke stage, all right? There was no pre-broke. That was boom.

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Okay.

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It happened so quick, all right? I had a person that was bringing money into the household that was no longer doing so. All right. I also had taken on a job where I was making less money. I had just moved to a new city. It was a lot going on all at the same time. I've also been in a pre-broke stage where I left a job due to work conditions, things weren't working out, where I was no longer bringing in that income. And so I had to recalculate and see what income am I going to be bringing in. How much savings do I have to help me with living through this pre-broke stage that I'm in right now? What can I do? Just because you need to make sure that you're understanding that how much money you're bringing in in comparison to the bills, the expenses, and loan responsibilities that you're going to be paying out. All right. And so this leads us to the second step you should consider during the pre-broke stage, which is trimming your expenses. Because, like I said, I've gone through this before divorce and job loss. I understand all too well, once your income has decreased, all your expenses are no longer necessities anymore. Okay, child, everything that you thought that you was buying that you needed to buy, no, you're gonna see very quick, you don't. All right. For me, I gave up cable first. I started cutting cutting them TV subscriptions, those movie subscriptions, for example, like your Showtime, stars. Chow, let me tell you what, okay, when it comes to Showtime and Stars, they only own when my shows are on, especially if I'm in pre-broke stage. Like if I'm if I'm doing okay, I may keep them on for a little bit. But Showtime, I only watch for the Shy. Stars, I only watch for the Power Series, all of them, and P-Valley. All right, and we know P Valley is finna take forever and a day to come back. Okay, so right now, them things are off. All right. And so for all my Apple people, if you don't know where to find your subscriptions, like especially if you use your Apple ID to sign up for subscriptions, you can go to your phone settings, type in subscriptions, and it'll bring up all of those subscriptions, all of those things that you done signed up for trials for, just so you can make sure and see that I cut them things off, okay? Because I went through mine before making this episode and I had to get rid of three whole subscriptions that I didn't even know was coming out. All right. So go ahead, check out your subscriptions. That's a good place to start when you're trimming the fat on your expenses. All right. Next, for me, I cut personal care items. Now, I'm gonna be completely real with y'all. Because I do speaking engagements, I'm a praise and worship leader, I speak with my hands. A lot of people can see my hands, and my hands, they look like booty diggers when I don't have nails on them. Like they just look bad. And booty diggers is a term we use back at home in Chicago, okay? Look, it's just a thing. That's what they look like. All right. I don't like that. I like my hands to look feminine and cute. So far, I've been able to still maintain that. But I only go monthly for my hands and my feet, and I've cut it down and I go to the cheapest person that I can go to that where it'll still look good. All right. That's just for me. For you, you're gonna have to take a look at what are your personal care items. And when we're talking about personal care, I'm talking about getting your hair done, your haircut, skincare, self-care products, services that you may use for self-care, whatever it is, all right? Just because sometimes we can be in denial about how much we spend in this area of our lives, okay, in this category per se. But be honest with yourself so that you're not in denial of how much you're spending there and if you can still afford those things, all right? And speaking of being in denial, child, just because I've worked with so many people when it comes to their budgets and cutting back on expenses and how much they're really spending, a great way when you're trying to trim the fat on your expenses for you to see where you're spending too much at and where you can cut back at is making sure that you print out your bank statements, your bank statements andor credit card statements where you're spending money. Because if you print those out, take my highlighter method, okay? I'm just gonna have you take two highlighters in this case, all right? Take one highlighter and you highlight every single expense and/or bill or loan that you needed to pay for throughout that month that you need to pay for or that was planned, and then take another highlighter and you highlight all of the things that were unplanned or unexpected, right? Adding up all those unexpected and those unplanned items will show you where you need to trim the fat. Now, I get it, things are gonna happen, right? But that's the reason why we budget, that's the reason why we check and see what are our expenses and the things lots of time people don't understand that you made bills, you've made expenses out of things that you purchase in life. That's why printing out your bank statements and/or your credit card statements will help you with understanding how you spend money, what you've created bills from the things that you've been purchasing throughout the month, where you can cut back. All right. Hopefully, all that is making sense. All right, we're gonna go ahead and move into the third thing you should consider doing during the pre-broke stage, and that is making payment arrangements with your bill with your billers, child. Woo! It's morning when I'm doing this, okay? Now, it's already obvious that if you're entering the pre-broke stage, that you're limited in funds, your moolah is down, your coins is not coining up anymore, okay? So after you've determined you've cut your expenses and you've made some trim downs on how you you're going to spend money moving forward, you got to give yourself some room so that you can pay these bills and making payment arrangements that are going to fit how you can now start paying your bills moving forward. All right. This is the thing. Lots of people they love to run from their bills. They're like, I don't have the money to pay it. I'm not gonna talk to them. That call that comes in, I'm not answering it, forget them. Okay. No, that's not what you want to do. Child, these people are in these positions at these companies. They have payment arrangements departments, okay? They have people that can work with you to make these payment arrangements, but you have to first understand how much you're gonna be able to pay. You can't make a payment arrangement if you don't know, if you haven't done the previous steps and understand how much money you have coming in, how much of your expenses are going out, your bills, your loan responsibilities, and then also trimming down the fat on those expenses. If you haven't done all that, you don't understand what your payment arrangements need to look like. Because when you make a good payment arrangement, it needs to be I can pay y'all 50 this week, and then the next week I can pay this, or I can't pay y'all 50 until the the 10th, and then on the on the 25th, I got y'all the next time. You get what I'm saying? So it's like you have to move in steps so that way you can understand what your payment arrangements need to look like when you're talking to them. But don't run, don't run from the payment arrangements. You call them billers and you make those payment arrangements so that they fit how you now have money to pay out your bills and any of your expenses, okay? Which leads me, because I almost went into the fourth reason. That's why I was studding a little bit, which leads me to the fourth thing that you should consider during the pre-broke stage, and that is making loan deferments and or skips with your lenders. Okay, so I just got through talking about the payment arrangements, right? Which falls into the next category for loans. So if you have a loan, meaning you utilize your credit to get said thing, all right? You have a car and you had to get a loan for it. That is now a loan. All right, just to make sure that we're all we're all familiar on what loans are. You know what? This episode ain't for me to explain loans. I got other episodes where I explain what loans are. Loan deferments. For those of y'all that have loans, there is something called a skip andor a deferment that your lenders offer to you so that if you are going through hardship, if you're going through a bad time, they have these different skips andor deferments that you can take for your loan so that you can skip that payment. So you're not paying that payment for that month. This is the thing. You have to call them. You have to see what that process looks like. You have to see what they would need in order for you to do so. Also, if you've lost a job and you have on your loan the job loss, there is an insurance for job loss. Child, I love some insurance, okay? Insurance episode coming soon, okay? There's a job loss insurance that some people have on their loans too. File for that. So that way you can have your loan paid while you no longer have a job if that's the reason why your funds are limited. All right. If you've just decreased in income and you still have a job, you can still call your lender and try to qualify for their loan deferment and/or skip. All right. Once again, they have departments that are there that specialize in assisting you when you are going through challenging times. All right. You don't want to suffer in silence. And lastly, moving on to the fifth thing you should consider doing during the pre-broke stage is finding ways to make more money. Now, this ain't rocket science, y'all. If you're not making enough money now, then you need to find smart ways to bring in more money. Whether it's a new job, you're switching careers or roles, or you're monetizing a hobby or a side hustle. Chow, as expensive as it is right now, you need to be doing all of that. All right, all of those things need to be working together for your good. All right. I get it. Finding a job, switching a job, or trying to find something that's better and a better paying job at that, it seems intimidating, especially if you've been working somewhere for a long time. But this is the thing what is the other option? What is the other option? If you're in the pre-broke stage, you're there because you are limited in funds somewhere. You need more money. What is the other option? Unless you got a sugar daddy or sugar mama that's gonna now start taking care of you. Okay, for the rest of us, we gotta plan on ways to increase our income. All right, because life is expensive. Yearly inflation is showing us I'm getting higher, girl. Okay, it's letting us know. All right, things are more expensive. As time passes, it's only going to continue to get more expensive, it's not decreasing. So if you're in that pre-broke stage, you have to find out how are you gonna bring in more income? What does that look like for you? What steps are you going to take so that way you can bring in that income? And see, this is the thing, right? If you've already done those first four steps, right, you know how much money it is that you have now. You also know how much money you need, just because you've calculated all of your expenses, all of your bills, and loan responsibility. So you know how much money you need. The thing I'm loving about now is how transparent salaries are becoming when you're applying for new jobs. You see the role, you can see how much that role makes. And the thing that I like to do, and that I tell people no matter where it is that you live, there's a calculator on ADP. So go to ADP website, they have a federal taxes and state taxes calculator. It does it all in one. You can now see what the salaries are, which you would earn if you were to get into that job. You can put that salary in. It also can calculate state taxes, where you're at if your state has taxes, and it also calculates federal taxes along with retirement, which is bomb. Retirement, whether that's 401k or 403B. So you can see after all of that is taken out, what does that look like? Because a lot of times we go up for that one number. It'd be like you make a hundred thousand dollars, you be like, Yes, sir. Okay, and then you don't. Don't think about the state taxes, the federal taxes, retirement, any of those things. And then you see that you're down to about 80-70 very quick. All right. I'm not saying that that's how much that number is gonna be. That all depends on your allowances. It's a tax thing. You go to that ADP calculator. If you, I mean, if you got another calculator, go to that one. But ADP has a really good one. Um, I'm gonna put it in the notes of this episode. So wherever you listening, it should be like a bio of the episode. I'll put that calculator there so that way y'all can see it. But calculating that salary so you can see is this gonna be enough for me to live on? Is this gonna be enough for me to pay all my bills? And you don't want it to just be just enough to do so. Just because life is getting more expensive every single year. You want to make sure that you are calculating cost of living, not only today, the next year, the year after that. A lot of people don't do that. Remember, the cost of living goes up yearly. So you don't want a job that's just going to just make it for you, where you're you're paying just as much out as you have coming in. So utilize calculators like the one on ADP. Utilize the transparency in salaries, asking when you're on those interviews what the salary is. We are not in a position where we could just sit around and just, you know, I have a term that I wanted to say, but I can't say it. I ain't gonna say it because that I got a term. We can't be silent, is the term I use. We can't be silent around salaries just because you needed to live. There is a cost of living, you need money to pay for your living for you, your family, or whomever it is that you're taking care of. Okay? So, once again, when you're in a pre-broke stage, money is low. You need to find ways to build that money up higher. All right, take advantage of looking at those job boards. Get on LinkedIn, indeed. Use your network when you are looking for better opportunities, more high-paying opportunities. Be transparent in that. I'm looking for something that's gonna pay me more. I'm looking for an opportunity that I'm still going to love, but I'm still able to make enough money for me to live and not just to live, but for me to thrive. Okay. How, what, what, what would that look like? Talk with your network, your family, your friends. Let people know so that they can keep you in mind for these positions because, child, we don't get nowhere on our own. You gotta open your mouth, you gotta tell people what's going on, what you're going through, so that way people can help. Now, I'm one to talk, I don't do this all the time. That's the reason why I can point this out, and I now know this, and I'm getting better at doing this. I'm actually doing this in my life now. So don't be me. How I was. All right, you make sure that you open up your mouth and start speaking life so you can get those opportunities that you need so that you can get out of the pre-broke stage and you can thrive, child. All right, child. It's been a long episode. I done gave a lot of good information, okay? Y'all make sure y'all share this thing far and wide. Y'all, the marketing team, okay. Good information is in this episode. I'm pretty sure lots of people can relate. Don't forget, I'm in business. I am booking new clients, speaking, and hosting engagement. Contact me on my website, I am mindfully rich.com. All of my information is there. Email me, call me, whatever you gotta do. All right, y'all. That's it. That's all I got. I ain't got no more. I want y'all to live life mindfully, intentionally, and on purpose, darlings. And until next time, when I hit y'all with another one.