Money Crashers: How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck

My latest piece for Money Crashers is about another topic I have been fortunate enough to have no personal experience with: living paycheck to paycheck. Apparently, this places me in the minority, as a survey I found at CareerBuilder says more than three-quarters of American workers currently live this way. Even among people making over $100,000 a year, nearly one in ten said they always or usually lived paycheck to paycheck.

Based on this survey, it looks like simply making enough money isn't the key to escaping the paycheck-to-paycheck trap. So what is?

I looked into what experts at Forbes, The Balance, U.S. News, and Quicken Loans had to say on the subject, and boiled their advice down to a six-step plan:

1. Track your spending
2. Make a budget
3. Cut your expenses
4. Boost your income
5. Jump-start your savings
6. Stay on target

There's more to it than that, of course, and you can learn all the details in the article, as well as what definitely won't help (relying on debt). Read about it here: How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck.