💰 This $1,874 Paycheck Completed My $3,000 Emergency Fund + Extra Debt Payment!

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Hello everyone. Welcome back to Journey to Wisdom and Wealth. My name is Tara.

[00:00:05]Today we are going to be allocating out our final paycheck for May.

[00:00:10]>> [gasps] >> It's living our life like it's golden.

[00:00:13]Living our life like it's golden. It's our golden paycheck of May. Shout out to Tasha over at Mind Your Money for coming up with that coining that term at least you know outside of Jewel's Got.

[00:00:26]>> [laughter] >> That is I love this kind of month because it's and I love this particular check because I always save the best for last. I always what can we put on that last check to help us out. And so this check is going to run from 5/29 to 6/11. I am pre-recording. It's Thursday but when you see it will be Friday. So happy Friday. It's Friday. It's Friday. It's the end of the week and the last day and the best day and a great day. Happy Friday. And shout out to my girl Monique over at Madura's Budget cuz that's her jam. Okay. So let's go. I'll link both of their channels in the description if you want to go check them out. Tell them Tara sent you if you've never checked them out. Okay.

[00:01:14]>> [clears throat] >> Excuse me. Allergies are on deck so if I do a lot of and I apologize. [snorts] There's this these kind of videos are not edited. We just out here live in these streets.

[00:01:26]So let's talk about what we actually got for our last check. Our last check came in at 1874.88.

[00:01:34]Praise the Lord. 1874.88 and we had $75.90 rollover. And so that those two together would give us a total of 1950.78.

[00:01:48]So we're starting off correct in the bank. Now we're going to move over 99 cents or actually more than 99 cents over to Apple storage because I up to my Apple storage because the I'm editing on my iPad now on my Taras Life edit channel all the vlogs. I edit on my iPad. It gives me a little bit more of a bigger screen and I like that. And it's easily connecting to like my Insta360 Go files and it's too much room on my phone right now. So, I upgraded to the 299 plan but I believe they're charging 259. I'm going to make this 259 cuz it was prorated to when I started it.

[00:02:30]So, I actually need to transfer over 259 out of that account.

[00:02:35]And yes, Gina over at Regina Renee's reality. Check her out also. I know I still need to I probably should go on live and let us freaking figure out how to make this gift card. I need to do this. Things that I don't want to do on myself, I'm always trying to pull y'all into it. So, Apple Let's see if Apple music has enough money. So, I need to actually go from Apple.

[00:03:00]Every time I type that I get apparel. I knew that was going to happen.

[00:03:06]Did I get rid of my Apple storage account? I don't know about that.

[00:03:15]Y'all know we did a lot of things over there.

[00:03:18]Oh, wait. I don't have that anymore?

[00:03:22]You guys, hold on a second.

[00:03:25]You know what? I think it's these streaming streets. I think these streaming streets is where we put the Apple.

[00:03:30]So, in these streaming streets we're going to take out 259 and this is for the new Apple storage amount.

[00:03:42]I need to um keep my device clean though because I'm not trying to like go up tiers cuz I think the next one is like 999. Like that's a jump.

[00:03:52]I think that's what it is.

[00:03:54]259 [snorts] streaming services to Terrace transfer sex size so Okay, and the money it went up should have went Did it go down? Yeah, it went up. It went up. It went up. So, this is going to be 259.

[00:04:10]We're going to update our note.

[00:04:14]And that's prorated at yeah, 195337.

[00:04:17]Okay, we're matching. We're matching.

[00:04:18]We're matching.

[00:04:19]Let's continue on and mortgage we don't really owe anything and I know we could put something, but we actually don't need to because the two checks that we get in June. So, we got paid here. That mean our next check is the 12th and the 26th.

[00:04:35]So, when we get both of them we'll be able to pay our July mortgage on the 26th. So, we're fine not to put any money towards the mortgage. So, nothing there.

[00:04:44]>> [snorts] >> Again, Apple storage I'll pay that on the 6th of the month. Uh it'll send me the bill and then I think the garbage trucks are here y'all if y'all hear that apologies and again it's really early in the morning so it's kind of dark still and it's been nothing but rainy here lately. What has y'all weather been like? I mean when I see the sun for a couple seconds I get joyous. But it's been rain rain rain which I'm not complaining about because I think it's just an indication that we're going to have a very hot summer and we're going to need those waters reserves wherever they keep them water reserves. Okay?

[00:05:17]>> [laughter] >> Cell phone why does it say $50?

[00:05:22]Oh, I think in my mind I was going to try to pay my cell phone ahead, but I'm not going to do that now because it I can't. I can't pay ahead on that. You can only pay a year up front. I learned that recently. You can only pay a year.

[00:05:38]You can't do like oh 3 months ahead or 6 months ahead. So, we're going to skip that for now. However, when we move into after we save our 3,000 in emergency fund, when we move into month ahead fund, I think I'm going to have a separate envelope where I try to save the $300 for the phone, so we can just pay this phone off for the year in 2027.

[00:05:58]It's $25 * 12, but I think once you pay it ahead of time, they take a payment off, so 275 for the year. So, that is what I'm aiming for, but we'll leave that alone for now. So, water is nothing is not due until the 13th. It's nothing for car insurance. Yeah, electric, the next bill the next check will have a lot of this stuff. Nothing for internet, nothing for security, and security equipment does not exist anymore. So, when we do quarter three, we can take out this line.

[00:06:30]Excited, okay. ChatGPT will be due probably on the 18th or the night and the one of these. I don't know when these two are actually coming out.

[00:06:42]Sir.

[00:06:45]Mhm, we'll have a buffer, so I'm not going to worry about them. As long as there's more than $30 in the buffer, and honestly not sure if they're automatic or if they're going to send me a check.

[00:06:56]Um, if they're automatic, I'd like to set them up actually on the credit card, so that they charge the credit card and just pay the credit card off, but we'll we'll see. I couldn't do that with ChatGPT at the time because someone had hacked into my credit card that I usually use to pay bills, so I don't I didn't do that.

[00:07:12]Um, we're going to leave those blank for now, and then Canva will be not due. I don't know why. Oh, oh, Canva was due last pay period, but I hadn't paid it off the card yet. I did go and schedule it last video, so this should be coming out of the bank. This is not due until the 20th, and this trash essential will come out sometimes in the first week of June.

[00:07:33]Uh, Quicksilver, we'll pay that off as I go. Silver one, same thing. So, I do think we have more than enough money left to make an extra payment to my Discover card, so I'm going to go and make an extra payment to my Discover card.

[00:07:47]I'm so excited to be able to do that.

[00:07:50]Please hold.

[00:07:52]Okay, so this is where we're at. We don't have a payment due um for right now. We have 50908 and I was looking like why? Cuz I thought we were in the fours, but then I remembered that I put um the orderly moms right here.

[00:08:06]This order This I don't know if I think they were trying to make sure that was the right account for something.

[00:08:11]Uh the orderly moms 2150. I bought something from her shop a cute little mystery mini bundle. I'm excited. I love a mystery. Except when I have to roll in sale save. I don't like that kind of mystery.

[00:08:22]Um 21 50 was what it was. It's the you know, it wasn't that much. It's the you know, the taxes and the shipping. But 47.

[00:08:30]Okay, I was like I know I was in the fours, but that's okay. I'm probably going to end up taking that 21 $22 out of giving and um doing that that way.

[00:08:40]So, I'm going to go ahead and pay my 125 again cuz I've been we've been doing really good, y'all. And I even have a little bit of cash back on this card.

[00:08:49]All right, please hold.

[00:08:51]All right, y'all. Confirmation.

[00:08:54]Payment has success successfully been scheduled of 125.

[00:08:59]So, that's good. We will leave that It was red because or pink because I was considering whether or not to do it, but we'll go ahead and make that clear for right now.

[00:09:09]Um and we'll wait for that to clear.

[00:09:12]Home Depot does need to be paid. I think I saw something from them in my email. I might have to do that one off screen just because sometimes it's hard for me to get into these accounts, but hold on for a second.

[00:09:24]All right, guys. So, I'm in my account.

[00:09:26]However, I'm not in my account. I did that you know, one to pay one time. Just give me some information cuz I can never remember how to get in. But there's a minimum payment of 29, but it's actually 72 um let's close that. 72 what did I say 72 28 72 28 so I was wrong 72 28 is actually more money >> [clears throat] >> excuse me and we're going to it's already set up I think for my Capital One but I don't want to do that I want to pay the full 72 28 send me a confirmation email and I'll fill all this in so I'm going about to pay that and I'll be right back y'all all right guys thank you for your payment I don't know if you can see that or not hold on it says that behind my big head but thanks for my payment and everything is gone through so great that'll go through the bank though so we have to wait to clear that that's not going to clear right away and a lot of these are not going to clear right away and then we have nothing to pay to Ulta nothing to pay the car cuz I already paid that nothing to pay the student loan speaking of the car let's talk about it cuz we did a whole video on whether I should keep the car payment or switch to a different car payment well I decided to just keep the car payment as it is a lot a lot of you guys had very good comments and the ones that stuck out to me I think I read already but the thing that's made me just stick with this I'll when I'm ready to start paying down heavily on the car I'll just start paying heavily on the car with who already who I'm already with because I've already paid a lot in interest in the beginning we're at the end now so it doesn't make sense to switch to someone and then get more fees and all that just to lower the interest rate and God has provided so far so that we can handle this so we'll just we'll be okay if we get to a point where we actually need to have a lower payment for financial reasons then I'll revisit that at that time I'm thinking about making a tracker for the Discover card would you guys interested I haven't decided if I want to make a make a digital page and track it that way or make a Google Sheets page and track it that way should I do that?

[00:11:32]Let me know in the comments.

[00:11:35]And then student loan we don't have anything yet. And we already paid all the stuff for these medical bills for this month. I ain't giving them no extra money. Sorry.

[00:11:46]>> [laughter] >> Eating out is already funded. Actually, it's funded more than it should be technically because I'm a month ahead and you know chat GPT and then are telling me to lower it. So all of that won't hit until next quarter which is fine. Gas is getting 120. And groceries, everything else that must be funded. So 120 and 90. So that's a total of 210. So we're transferring over $210 to our month ahead fund.

[00:12:19]No, we're moving it to hold your horses cuz there's money already in month ahead. Hold on, wait a minute. That's not right.

[00:12:26]Hold your horses, okay? And then we're going to do today's day and we're going to do 210 dollars, not 21.

[00:12:35]>> [snorts] >> And this is be for the rest This will be for the rest of our June variables. I have to remember that when I'm doing June that we already have money set aside for that. Transfer and so we Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, wait a minute.

[00:12:52]>> [snorts] >> Okay.

[00:12:57]Yeah, so these I think are our money for this next month. This stuff was like the extra that was supposed to go in May because May was a longer month. But yeah, so we got our 80 for eating out, 40 for fun, 120 for gas. We can make this green.

[00:13:13]Oh, success.

[00:13:15]And then we have our 20 for giving Oh, no. We only have 20 for giving? Is it Is it just this one?

[00:13:21]Yeah.

[00:13:22]But [laughter] 200 for groceries and 90 for self-care.

[00:13:26]Huh. I don't like that. I don't like that. Why did giving get shafted?

[00:13:32]I think, unless I'm not thinking about it correctly.

[00:13:35]Let's move down to sinking funds.

[00:13:36]Sinking funds is where the money really resided.

[00:13:40]>> [laughter] >> That's where a lot of this extra money is going.

[00:13:44]And so, it begins. I'm not bringing y'all through all of that. That's too much back and forth. So, I'm going to move all my money and then I'll come back and share with you where everything went.

[00:13:55]Please hold.

[00:13:56]All right. I just wanted to say success with y'all. Success. Okay. So, we did a lot. I did a lot on my own and see, the money definitely went down. But, let's talk about what I moved. Let's let's scroll on down to bottom. Probably should have scrolled down before I came back. Okay.

[00:14:10]So, we had $50 go to apparel. $50 to build a buffer. And this is what I really love about my extra paycheck. I get to bump up some of these sinking funds that I don't usually get money in throughout the year. So, every time I get a big one, unless I have a main thing to do with it, I like to bump up my sinking funds. What do you do with your extra golden month check if you get one? I understand some of us get paid the 1st and the 15th or 15th and the last day. And so, you don't always see that. But, if you do, what do you do with it? Okay, birthdays born day got a 100, which is good for my goal. And then, pit Really? What is this? Capital Oh, $30 bonus.

[00:14:51]What?

[00:14:52]I don't know what that is. I don't even know if y'all can see I don't even know what that is. Capital One Capital One says there's a bonus or something. I'm like, what? I like money.

[00:14:59]Okay. Continue on. Pimp my ride, which is my car maintenance, got 60. And Merry Christmas got 50, which barely gets anything. Health is wealth got 60.

[00:15:10]Um HOA got its normal 44 or 45.

[00:15:13]Uh household got a big one, which we needed, which is a 100. New VA New HVAC got a 100, which is great. Beauty is only skin deep, got 80, which is great.

[00:15:24]I only had like I want to say like 10 or $9 in there. We out, which is travel, got 20. All the things got 50, and new appliances got 50. And after looking at new appliances, I think I have enough saved now for a stove. Exciting. Or dishwasher, but I'm going with the stove.

[00:15:41]>> [laughter] >> I use my stove way way more, and I don't know how to use my dishwasher since it broke. Then of course, I moved my $25 Navy Cre- Navy Federal credit. So, let's talk about things that I didn't move that I wanted to talk to you guys about, which are in yellow.

[00:15:56]This Sam's Club, I put 50 here, but I don't think so. I think Sam's Club definitely went up from 50 to 60, but I don't think I need this much to fully fund it, which is what I'm trying to do right now. So, if y'all give me a second, let me log into Ally, so we can see what's going on over there.

[00:16:12]All right, guys. So, we're back in our Ally account, and we're going to go to our main account, which has all of our buckets in it.

[00:16:20]So, buckets, where are you? Okay.

[00:16:23]Can I make this smaller? I don't need all of this. I actually just need to see Taro, why don't you ever set up your screen before you come back over here?

[00:16:33]Huh?

[00:16:36]Okay.

[00:16:37]So, Sam's Club, where Sam's Club? Sam's Club, where are you? Okay, so it's not fully funded. Whoa, Sam's Club needs 60, and it has 21. So, 60 minus 21. Sam's Club needs to get $39, and then we can be done with that.

[00:16:56]39.

[00:16:59]And this needs to be updated anyway.

[00:17:01]Edit bucket goal, because baby Sam's Club said, "We're going to charge you an additional $30."

[00:17:08]Oh, okay. Well.

[00:17:12]Oopsy. Let's make it a 2026 >> [snorts] >> update. It's been in there since 2024, clearly, or 2023. So, now our new goal is 60 and we need to move $39. Okay? And then, Amazon Uh Amazon, I don't think we're anywhere near hitting the goal.

[00:17:34]So, [snorts] Wait. Wait.

[00:17:37]Amazon, where are you? Has 56, but it'll help us get to the 150 that we set.

[00:17:43]Hopefully, they don't go up, too.

[00:17:45]But, that'll help us. It's not going to Can we just be done with that?

[00:17:49]Sometimes, I just be wanting to be done with these smaller ones to get money back into my account. You're annoying.

[00:17:55]Like, this little mouse is still doing weird things. And there's nothing to be done. I the old meal.

[00:18:03]Uh we're in Tide's. We're not even in the right bucket. What's happening, Gordon now?

[00:18:09]>> [gasps] [sighs] >> It's all fine, Tara. This is a test of your patience and we need to get to work. So, 5603 >> [snorts] >> I think we have 150 minus 5603.

[00:18:22]We need 9397.

[00:18:24]Do I want to do that? Minus 50 What's 43? No, okay. Um Let's do 95.

[00:18:33]Just taxes and things.

[00:18:35]And then, we will do Uh we're just going to talk about GoodNotes. GoodNotes has $26. I feel like GoodNotes is $25 and I feel like GoodNotes literally is already covered. We'll move the $5 just to make it 30 and be done with that. So, that's that's fine. And then, Savings Book goes to That's going to my emergency fund right now, which is Peace Over Panic. I want to see how close we were to to getting it to 3,000. Oh, Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells so. Okay, 3,000 minus No, why did I do that? 272880 plus 200 minus 3,000 Sorry people I don't got it. Mhm, mhm.

[00:19:27]We're moving to 75. Yep, that way we can be done with that and move on to the month ahead.

[00:19:33]>> [laughter] >> Bob.

[00:19:37]They're calling me Bob. Bob, Bob, Bob.

[00:19:39]Oh my gosh, y'all. Okay, I'm so excited.

[00:19:42]Could you Could you tell? Could you tell? All right, let's go back to Capital One and do a Zelle >> [snorts] >> for 275 plus No, no. plus five. Let's find it. Sent to Susan. Control. plus five plus 95 plus 39 $414.

[00:20:12]It sounds like so much, but we're going to get so much done.

[00:20:15]And a lot of it was already allocated.

[00:20:17]$414.

[00:20:19]Okay, to myself. $14.

[00:20:23]And this is to 39 Sam's.

[00:20:29]I don't think I can put a comma. Can I?

[00:20:31]I don't think I can put a comma. 95 Amazon and five GoodNotes and uh 275 piece of a panic, which is POV for me.

[00:20:46]I don't know if I can put periods, but we going to find out real quick.

[00:20:51]Sent to Terrell Williams 414. Blah, blah, blah. There's no purchase I understand. I understand. Review and send it. Send it.

[00:20:59]Success.

[00:21:01]>> [laughter] >> I'm hyped, y'all. So, I'm going to make these greens and give these a little bit of time to go ahead and um Where Where's my I'm going to make these green. I'll be right back when I can see that it's an ally.

[00:21:15]>> [snorts] >> All right, guys. Our 414 is here. So, let's go ahead and allocate into our buckets.

[00:21:23]We're going to go to buckets. We're going to distribute. Everything lands in the core account. So, we're going from core over to Let's start from the top.

[00:21:31]Uh Sam's Club is getting 39. So, to Sam's 39 submit Okay, and Sam's Club is $60.

[00:21:44]And we are fully funded. And then we're going to go from core over to Amazon.

[00:21:51]And we're going to put 95.

[00:21:54]submit And again, Amazon is fully funded.

[00:22:02]>> [laughter] >> And then we are going to go over to GoodNotes. So, from core uh not over there. From core >> [laughter] >> to GoodNotes, we're going to do $5. And all of these are overly Well, not Sam's, but fully funded. GoodNotes is greater than 1% of my savings.

[00:22:25]And then >> [laughter] >> um we have our savings book, which is basically from core over to Peace Over Panic. And if you don't have an ally account, I love it for these buckets.

[00:22:37]I'm not going to lie. They're out of sight, out of mind for the things that I don't use often. Um and you guys, if you don't have ally, I'll leave my ally link down in description. Sign up. I think I get something, you get something.

[00:22:50]Don't say I didn't tell you, okay? And so, we're going to go to Peace Over Panic.

[00:22:55]And that is going to get $275.

[00:23:00]submit Hey! I don't know what my goal is cuz it doesn't say. So, >> [snorts] >> let's go back to activity and then back to our buckets. I don't Okay, we're done with this part. So, I'm going to close this part. And look at Look at that Do you see it? Yes, Lord. Okay, so Peace of Panic fully funded. Um Sam's Club and Amazon and Goodnotes all fully funded. That's it. We're done.

[00:23:33]We're done. We're done. We're done. So, the last thing to do is make sure that our balance matches what's not in green.

[00:23:40]So, let's do a quick count up and get to our final amount. Not messing with you again. Thank you. So, 259 everything that's not in green we're trying to add to make sure we moved everything. 16 plus 15 plus >> [snorts] >> 125 plus 7228 plus 25 plus our buffer amount of 25905.

[00:24:14]51492 >> [applause] >> two snaps It matches exactly. So, all the money there we have a big buffer y'all. So, we're moving the 25905 over here and that will make us a zero base budget. We're done y'all. Zero base budget. I thank you for hanging in there with me for this long. We have a zero base budget and if we can keep that buffer there y'all, I can start with my use that towards my one month ahead fund.

[00:24:45]Enough said.

[00:24:46]>> [laughter] >> Thanks for watching y'all. Remember order to be great you got to be grateful. I'm super duper grateful for you. Have a wonderful blessed day. I love you. Mean it. Bye.