{"id":71,"date":"2019-07-23T12:57:21","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T12:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/?p=71"},"modified":"2019-07-23T12:58:35","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T12:58:35","slug":"the-bottom-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"The bottom line"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Dollar_Sign1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-72\" width=\"94\" height=\"67\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Dollar_Sign1.jpg 375w, http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Dollar_Sign1-300x214.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 94px) 100vw, 94px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone&#8217;s situation is different. But the bottom line is that you have to make more than you spend. I like to look at  cash flow on a month to month basis. Simply total your expenses and subtract them from your income for the month. You should end up with a positive number. This formula does not include any income automatically diverted to a retirement account. Sometimes a big repair bill or healthcare expenses will give you a negative number for the month. Generally, there are two options to make a positive number next month. Find a way to bring in more money, or cut expenses. I find it easier to cut expenses, but you can sometimes work extra hours or sell something of value to achieve the same result. It&#8217;s never fun cutting back on expenses. But, if the price of everything keeps going up, and your income stays the same, you need to do something to maintain a positive cash flow. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone&#8217;s situation is different. But the bottom line is that you have to make more than you spend. I like to look at cash flow on a month to month basis. Simply total your expenses and subtract them from your income for the month. You should end up with a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}