brought to you by the every dollar app start budgeting for free today. All right. So in 2022, October of 2022, my husband of 22 years decided he was then being married and he left and he divorced me in the process of all that. So his income was around 130 at the time.
Mine was around 45. So I'm very scared. He just bought me a brand new car in September. So when he went to October, I took the car back to me, song where it came from.
And I said, I'm going to just payments by 96. And that is not nothing. I'm going to have to have a cheaper payment. Somehow.
Well, so they refinanced it. Basically, I sold it to them and they sold it back to me. You just went back to me and used your something like that. It lowered the payment by about 50 bucks.
And I was just trying to figure out how to cut expenses everywhere. Sold a house and so I had to pay. So this took my whole teacher out of private school. This took up that whole school year for me at the end of it all.
I had to sell at the house. I had to get to that X around 28,000. I had a substantially more, I think I had around 120 out of it, but I needed to pay. I had 60,000 in master's degree student loans that I had to pay for.
And I had about 6,000 or 8,000, I think, from my undergraduate degree, which had included a 16,000 parent plus loan on it. So I paid those things off. In the process of the expenses, discovering everything, I had forgotten that I was a cosignor on the youngest daughter's student loans because she was a senior in college at the time. So it was kind of out of sight out of mind while she has since graduated.
And she's paying on her student loans on the cosignor. So I can't like you anything. I've got 38,000 in the money market savings. I've got 3,000 in just an emergency fund.
We've had a lot of changes in education in Arkansas. So my salary starting this coming school year will be 52, 4. And I have also taken on a second source of income that generates roughly for the 20, 23 year I had. It brought in around 12,000, which minus the 30% taxes out of that, whatever that would be.
And I'm on track to make about 14,000 with it this year. But I'm like, you're not 30% tax bracket, but go ahead. Well, that's what paid taxes. That's what the IRS charged you.
It's literally a 30% of that income. Well, you need to buy your taxes properly. You'll get some of that. That's not right there.
How can we help today? So I need to know what to do. So I spent my whole life raising kids homeschooling loans. I have basically no retirement.
I started my own since all this happened. And I found out this coming school year, my school is going to start a retirement whereas it's not a 401k. I can't remember that the letters and numbers are happening. Does it do automatic or do you get a say in it?
I get a say in it. They match 3%. So we can opt in or not. And I want to stop.
The bottom line is that you've had your heart broken and you've been drug around behind a car for the last two years. Meet every dollar budgeters, Christy and Steve. They used to fight about money. I'm the spender.
I'm definitely the savory. Now that they budget with every dollar, they're on the same page. Money is definitely one thing we do not ever fight about. Having a budget gave me the permission to spend.
Knowing that the money is in each category, it just allowed us to work together better. Now that's what we call a win-win. Now we just have to pick pain colors. We can't help you with that.
Every dollar. Create your free account today. The bottom line is that you've had your heart broken and you've been drug around behind a car for the last two years. So you're just wrong.
Right. Okay. Other than that, your math is okay. Your math is going to be okay.
You're going to get there. Okay. You're very analytical. And that's how I know you're going to get there.
You know all your numbers. We don't have to ask you what they are. You're just spitting them out. Just left and right.
Even the ones in the past that don't matter anymore. So here's where we're going to walk you right up what we call the baby steps. Lots of 51 year olds making $50,000 a year, $75,000 a year with your extra income coming in. Have become millionaires by the time they were 65 or 70.
This is of them. As a matter of fact, the number three most likely career in our millionaire study, we study 10,000 millionaires, number one was engineer, number two is counter number three was teacher. And the reason is that you're very process driven and I'm going to give you the process. It's called the baby steps.
Baby step one is $1,000 in the bank. You've done that. Two is be dead free. Everything but your house.
Now. How much debt do you have? This is not a house. Well, I don't have to have them.
I live in an apartment. I live in an apartment. I have a car. Okay.
How much is the debt on the car? It's 25,000. The car is, oh, 25. It's worth 21.
Okay. And it's a lot of car. That's that stupid car that was bought right before the divorce, right? Right, yes.
And you refinanced it, so you got screwed twice on it. OK. Now, and you've got how much in a money market account? 38,000 right now.
And how much debt do you have other than the car and the living in the apartment? Men. OK, this is going to be very scary for you, because you've built up walls trying to survive the last two years. But if I woke up in your shoes, I would write a check today and pay off the car.
Now I'm debt free, and I have 13,000 left in my money market. And how much was in the other account? 6,000? 3,000?
3,000. OK, so now I've got $16,000 that I can earmark into a money market account as an emergency fund, which is adequate for you to have as an emergency fund. That's baby step three. Then baby step four is start putting 15% of your income away.
If she puts 15% of 75,000 away from age 52 to age 65, what does she have? 65. I have 70 in here. Oh, you got 70?
Uh-huh. 480,000. But I did that at your current income. You didn't do that with the extra income.
I did that 64. That's 64,000. OK, so you'd have $500,000 if you invest 15% of your income. And that's what no match, but you told us you get a match.
Right. OK, go ahead. Are you OK? Yeah, so you're going to get that on top of that.
So you're going to have $600,000 or $800,000 if you invest 15% of $64,000 and you never get a raise from age 52 to age 70. OK, so you're OK. OK, you're going to be fine. But you're going to have to continue to be very process driven, math driven, and let the facts talk to you.
And the facts have done a good job talking to you in the midst of all your pain and trauma. You've remained fairly clear headed. Congratulations. It's very difficult what you've been through.
Because you've been through hell. Thank you. And then other thing I'm going to do is get a photo that has the student loan on a tight budget. Make sure she gets a freaking job and she pays the bill.
She's got to be responsible. She can't throw this back on you. Right. No, she's been doing great.
I know she gets to keep doing great. And we're going to put her on beans and rice, rice and beans. No, no run around Italy. Get the freaking student loan paid off, kiddo.
And then you can go have your life. But mom's on this thing and mom can't handle any more people dumping on her. Had enough dump on you lately. So you can fight through this.
You can do it. Hang on. Free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.