I just took on a second job and finally make a decent enough amount of money,

Question

I am behind on a few bills and recently got a second job, I make 2700 a month and my expenses come to around, 1500 a month. Why does it feel like its so hard to catch up, and what are the first steps.

Answer 1

Do you have a cell phone? Cable TV/Satelite? Internet? These are all items that seem like necesities today that were not as available 20 years ago.  

Answer 2

Your first step is to not use your credit cards and try to pay them down.  Start with the one with the highest interest rate and pay as much as you can until it is paid off (make minimum payments on the other bills).  Once that is paid off, switch to the next highest, and so on until every thing is paid off or up to date.

While doing this, sit down and look over your spending habits.  Try to cut back on as much as you can that is really unnecessary.  For example, do you eat out every lunch or brown bag it?  If you eat out, cut that back to maybe once a week and bring a sandwich from home the rest of the time.  You'll be amazed on how much that saves.  Same with afterwork activities.  Look for things to do for free if you must go out.  If you smoke, stop (a pack a day habit is $35 a week or more, $140 a month - using this money on bills will get you paid off a lot quicker).

When you shop, don't impulse shop.  Bring a list, go right after lunch, and only buy the stuff on the list.  Same with non-food shopping.  For a while, only buy what you really need.

Once you have gotten into the habit of budgeting, it becomes much easier and you will be surprised at how much extra you have.  Once you have paid all yours bills, revisit your spending and you should find you can start splurging a bit.  Just don't go overboard and run the bills up again.

Good luck.

Answer 3

if your take home pay is 1200 a month more than your expenses - you should be able to get out of debt pretty quickly - cut down on entertainment and eating out - that adds up to a lot right there

Answer 4

Make a budget of where every penny of your income will go before payday and stick to it. Hopefully your living budget is less than you earn and anything left over goes towards paying the past due. Include everything in your budget, food, entertainment, spending money, everything so there won't be any surprises.