You have to get your finances in check and run your life like a business with regular meetings, allowances, become a penny pincher and make every cent accounted for. Work with your partner and not against them to accomplish this.
- Make some working capital by selling, selling, selling. If in the past year you have not smelled it, read it, wore it, looked at it, touched it or what ever, then you do not need it. So sell it by means of a garage sale, ebay, craigs list, local classifieds or however you can.
- Now you have some working capital to play with or if you need to pay a bill I completely understand this too.
- Make a budget and stick to it! A list of all of your debt: loans, bills, groceries, gasoline, or any expense you might have on a monthly basis and don't forget to add in some fluff for those unexpected expenses.
- Use cash whenever you can. I was always going over budget on my groceries because if I planned to spend $100 and the bill was $120 then I just swiped my little card and went on my way but now I was over budget by $20. This made me $20 short on a bill and then it just has a domino effect and I was always in the hole at the end of the month.
- Eat at home and save a lot of money. It really doesn't take that long to make dinner, get yourself a crockpot and let your dinner cook while you are doing other things.
- Take a calculator to the grocery and make it your new best friend.
- Every week on payday my husband and I have a "money meeting" we always pay ourselves first even if it's $20 and stick that money into the lock box for our rainy day fund untill you have 6 months of income. If he gets laid off or something happens to your finances then you have that emergency fund ready. I've been there when we didn't have this fund and it wasn't pretty. We lost our home and had to file bankruptcy. I have always had to learn the hard way.
Once you have this under control you can relax and figure out what you really have to put into a business.
