Most people today spend more money on needless junk than they do on living expenses. In that reality, people complain that they are always broke. What's worse is people eventually set themselves up for a major crisis. Planning ahead is the last thing people do.

I re-evaluated my true living expenses a few years ago and came up with approximately 29% of my incoming earnings at that time. After I did this, I added up all my payments to every thing I'd owed. It calculated out to be approximately 77% of my earnings. If you ad these figures up you realize I was heading in a negative direction. I wasn't broke. I was below broke.

Being broke is one thing. Being in debt was far worse than being broke. Naturally, if any disaster comes my way, I'd be even worse off. I was totally stressed out. I figured that if I get sick or if I slip and fall, I'd start losing material goods faster than I obtained them.

Yes, I had insurance and sick leave, but I didn't have the deductible. Lucky for me I was strong, energetic and I could get overtime when I got behind. Luck is what I was living on.

Now, when a bill got paid off, you'd think I was relieved. I was, but for some strange reason, I knew I could finance something else. That something else always came around. I filled that extra income up with another bill. There was too many things out there that I needed. I thought.