Hello, Wineammers, my name is Jesse Meekham, and this is podcast number 184 for you need a budget.

Where we teach you four rules to help you stop living paycheck to paycheck, get out of debt, and save more money.

The question is, what order do you do that?

Well, I just said, we teach you to break the paycheck

to paycheck cycle, get some breathing room,

get out of debt and save more money. But is that the correct order? Let's discuss.

We talk about true expenses, embracing your true expenses. Rule 2. Why? What about getting out of debt? Do you really want to be

setting money aside for Christmas when you're paying 22% interest on a credit card?

I would submit that you could perhaps lower your

Christmas budget, but that's just one guy's idea, maybe not yours. Would you

be saving for an extravagant vacation?

I use the word extravagant carefully.

If you're in debt, you're saving up for that true expense of vacation.

Could you whittle that down to not be extravagant, but just... of I don't think that works, but the question remains, do you pay off your debt first or do you save money?

And specifically what do you saving money for?

What we want to have happen?

This is key. We don't want you going backward. I don't want you

rapidly paying down your debt. I admire your intensity and your excitement. I

don't want you rapidly paying down that debt and then having

some bill come charging down at you like a freight train that just completely

derails you. Which messed up my metaphor because it was the one on, it was the train.

But we don't want you to be taken two steps forward and one back.

...