At this level, you make just enough money to pay your bills, but there is nothing left over for saving and investing. This means that if anything catastrophic happens to your income or expenses, you easily fall back into the struggling level because you have nothing to bridge the gap. An even more common scenario is that you have not saved enough for college or retirement, and when those major life events come up, it’s a crisis.
This is a very precarious position to be in, but sadly it’s where most Americans are regardless of how well they think they are doing.
The key to moving forward from this stage is to increase your cash flow so that you can have a surplus to start saving and investing.
At this stage, focus on the following things:
- Raise the income from your primary source
- Focus on creating more income
- Budget and create an emergency fund
- Do G.O.O.D. (Get Out Of Debt)