Harness Money

This is your financial baseline.

I recommend the You Need A Budget software to help with this step or Personal Capital or Mint. Or you can just print off your Bank/CC statements and go through it.

How much money do you need each month to survive. The more junk you have the more money you will need. I just learned that my father has 5 different vehicles and he is paying insurance on all of them. That becomes a lot of money that he needs each month to survive and thrive.

Everyone month you have fixed costs:

– Home payment

– Utilities

– Subscriptions

– Food

See if you reduce the cost of any of these items. You may be able to, you may not.

Figuring out what your fixed costs are will give a minimum amount that you need to bring in each month. You can make that money with a job or receive that amount of money from your investments or passive income.

You are not able to retire until you are certain you can pay for your basic needs each and every month.

It is a good practice to determine what are your fixed expenses and what are your ‘fun’ expenses. Things that are not vital to life, but make your life a whole lot better. More on this step coming up.

Recommended Tools

– You Need A Budget

Click here to take the next Harness Money step.