by T.J. Wolfe

Created on: April 02, 2009

Living paycheck to paycheck? How to stretch your income

Many of us can't even afford to live paycheck to paycheck. A few years ago, the mantra may have been paycheck to paycheck. Yet, today many of us have slipped into financial turmoil and are frantically trying to find a way out.

When the dot.com bubble burst in 2000, both my husband and I were holding down solid six figure salaries. You could say we were living the good life. There wasn't much that was outside our means. We were actually able to save and have a good time.

We ate well. We had toys we didn't use. We took vacations to five star resorts. We had every technology gadget in the house and every service you could imagine. We got incredibly fat. Our health deteriorated and our friends were loud.

Than 2000 rolled around and the world turned. Suddenly, both of us were unemployed. We had a mortgage that unemployment wasn't going to cover. We had toys to payoff. We had a mistake on prior taxes and had a back tax bill to pay. We could no longer afford the things we were accustomed to doing.

This was the first shockwave. Usually the first shockwave is the most stressful. For us, the first shockwave was mind-blowing. Our whole life revolved around our lifestyle. Entertainment was going to a five star resort. Entertainment was going to the theatre. Entertainment was going shopping and spending $1,500 on things we didn't need. Somehow, we had completely surrounded our life with external stimulus and had lost perspective.

In addition, we had bills! Every month the mortgage company wanted to get paid. The credit cards thought they should get paid. The phone company wanted their share. Uncle Sam was requiring his deposit. The cars sat in the driveway yelling, "Feed Me! Pay my bills!" And on and on and on.

I thought that the downturn in 2000 was just a blip. It would correct itself. We would be back to work and holding down our six figure jobs again. I mean, really, we were actually very good at what we did. Looking back, it didn't turn out that way.

To get through this short upset, we stopped most of our services. We turned off the cell phones. We got rid of the Dish TV. The lawn service, cleaning service, blackberries, satellite internet and every other service was stopped. You're probably thinking, "Wow, there was $400 to $700 a month" and you would be right.

I changed grocery stores. Instead of the high-end store I had been using, I changed to the low end store with dirty floors and customers who sneezed on you.

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