Mike Mussio, president of FBB Capital Partners, offers some advice to help potential savers get ahead.

<div class="block">While many Americans would like to find a way to save money, a new report says most are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Mike Mussio, president of FBB Capital Partners, offers some advice to help potential savers get ahead.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

How to Save When It Seems Like an Impossible Task

Do you feel like you're living paycheck to paycheck? You are probably not alone if the answer is yes. A report from Lending Club found that 61% of adults feel the same. That's the majority of adults, 61%. But there is a way to break the cycle. President of FBB capital partners. Mike Muo joins me now to walk us through steps to get out of this cycle. Mike, how can our viewers stop living paycheck to paycheck and start putting some money away for savings? Yeah. So there's only really two levers to pull if you're living paycheck to paycheck, one is uh money coming in. So the income or the cash flow you have coming in and, and increasing that over time or decreasing or having a better handle on the money going out or your expenditures. Um Most people have uh more of an issue with the uh with the ladder rather than the former if they're comfortable and they like their job. And a good place to start is to take an assessment real time and exhaustive of what is actually going out, month to month and determine what is discretionary and what is non discretionary in terms of expenditures and then move forward from there. So 61% I don't know if that surprises you, but 60 61% of adults living paycheck to paycheck or at least feeling that way obviously is, is the majority. Why is this so common? Yeah, II I think post pandemic. Uh this is something that we've been dealing with uh the last few years, which is higher inflation, we just ended a 20 year plus period where inflation was below 3% much of the time it was below 2%. Uh And that was manageable. Uh costs of goods, you know, generally were declining, think of an HD TV, 15 years ago versus today. Uh The cost of services have increased and we're coming through a three year period where inflation for both goods and services have gone up up and that income that the cash flow coming in hasn't necessarily kept a pace. And so um we've added with the services, for example, levels of convenience that also uh you know, add convenience to our lives, but uh likely are costing us more for things that, you know, minus the convenience, you know, maybe we could have two meals if we, you know, out uh or dinners in, if we didn't rely on doordash, for example. So there, there's a, there are many factors but um I think it's so prevalent right now because people still haven't shaken concern of inflation off. Um And there are a lot of things with inflation in general is outside of our control as individuals and that provides hiring. So obviously, I hear you mentioning inflation a lot that has made it extremely challenging. I think the worry is that, you know, higher borrowing costs seem like they're here to stay at least for the time being and certainly prices are still elevated. We're not, we might be seeing disinflation, but certainly we're not seeing deflation just yet. And so if someone continues to navigate this market, Mike, what advice would you give them? Yeah, I mean, I, I think, you know, create a, create a plan in terms of what those outgoing expenditures look like and start to think, you know, both strategically and tactically and what I mean by that is, um you know, strategically, you know, do it is if I live in a city, does it make sense for me to own a car, pay for gas, you pay insurance or should I be using, you know, public transportation? So bigger ticket things about how you operate day to day and then tactically think in terms of, you know, smaller everyday items. Um and whether it makes sense to, you know, buy uh groceries at the, at the store that are maybe a little bit, you know, below the normal. Uh so you have a lot of different uh options for loaves of bread, for example, at the very basic um and so think of it that way and, and maybe start by saying by thinking in terms of, you know, if I have credit card debt, what does my balance sheet look like? Do I have an emergency savings uh account? Do I have credit card debt? Um You know, how am I going to address, you know, each of those things, right, paying down credit card debt and adding some to an emerging emergency savings account and start just taking baby steps. You break this marathon down into miles and start taking baby steps and you'll start seeing progress and with that progress, we will come increased confidence and lower financial anxiety over time. Yes, I like that step by step. I do think that that is the best way to go. How much should people be aiming to have in an emergency fund? You want to aim to grow that reserve up toward, you know, 3 to 6 months of expenses. Um And you know, I I throw on the do not fret here, right? If you're starting from 03 months of expenses can sound like a lot. But again, start at 25 bucks a month and do that for, you know, two or three months. And then if you can increase that to 50 bucks a month, the best way to build this over time, Chris is, is to automate it, right. So instead of sending everything into your checking account, send 25 bucks a month or 50 bucks a month or 70 bucks a month into a separate savings account. So you never see it, hit the checking account where you might spend it with a debit card or you think it's available for other things and over time like that will get up towards that three month target. Um, and once you get to three months, maybe you decide from there, you start, start putting some money into an investment account or a Roth Ira or something like that. So, um that, that's where we begin, but again, you know, break it, break it down, don't uh do not fret when it comes to budgeting. Are there easy things that you think can be cut up pretty quickly. We always hear the streaming concept uh that streaming subscriptions are among the first to go but any other tips in that department? Yeah, I, I think streaming, I, I think the, the convenience stuff. Uh it, it is sneaky as well, right. The, the Muo family had a Chi Chipotle delivered last Friday and when I looked at the receipt, I couldn't believe it. Uh So we're not gonna be doing that anymore. Um There's so there are, there are things again in our everyday lives that, that I think that from a convenience standpoint, uh you know, going back to like the, the uh the Amazon wish list, you know, um be, be uh be tactical about what you're spending money on and, and think longer term, I think the way to balance this is you want to celebrate your successes. So when you have a couple of good months of hitting those, hitting those marks and those milestones, you feel like you can go out to dinner with friends or you know, go travel to visit family, do those things. But the the goal again is to do that without worrying while you're enjoying this experience about how am I going to pay for this? This is just on a credit card. Stay away from that and, and over time you'll be much more financially healthy. All right. I thank you for the tips. We appreciate it.