Single & Struggling - Step 2: Financial Triage - The Red Zone

When everything feels urgent and the bills are piling up, where do you even start?

In this second episode of the Single & Struggling series, Jerry walks you through a practical “financial triage” system to help you prioritize what matters most when money is tight.

You’ll learn how to sort your financial obligations into clear categories, focus on protecting your essentials like housing and income, and create a plan before making any payments or calls.

This is not about perfection—it’s about stabilizing your situation and buying yourself time.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, behind, or unsure what to tackle first, this episode gives you a clear path forward.

💬 Have a question or comment? Contact Jerry here

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The following podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Remember to seek competent tax legal and investment advice that is unique to your personal situation. Hey everybody, welcome to the Pink Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jerry Williams. We talk about all things related to money from a queer perspective. And you know, recently I created this new series that I've been really surprised by called Single and Struggling. Then the reason it's surprising to me is because you never know what's going to resonate with people. And I've said this before, but we're all on our own journey at some place in our financial life. And some people are at their very beginning, some people are near the end, and everyone else is way in between, right? So, and when you're really talking about some of the things that people don't know, that's okay. I mean, there's things that I don't know. Like, you know, I I think I talked about this before as well, like crypto. I mean, that's just something I am exploring, but that doesn't mean that I know it very well. And so for me, it's just a little toe on the water and doing my little tests, you know, doing my little dollar cost averaging of one or two dollars a day, but I have like nine different positions, so I'm very diversified, but it's still all crypto. Where that goes, I don't know. I'm still in the experimental stage, I'll say. But anyway, what I'm saying is we're all at some point in our lives, and when we're trying to really get our arms around our financial situation, the beginning, as I've said before too, is the very best place to start. Now, I talked about this last time, and what I said is you first have to gather everything that you have, you have to bring all your piles together, and then you have to start sorting and you know, organizing them to the degree that everything is right in front of you. And then you start to open your mail and you gotta take a look at it, and this is the good, the bad, and the ugly, and that's just the reality of it. Because we face reality and then we can do something about it. So after we've done our first sorting, then again, we've taken a look at everything, but now we move into what I call financial triage. And what I mean by that is we're gonna have to prioritize things. And when you take when you think about triage in terms of a medical sense, they develop triage because what they had to do is in like let's say a battlefield, they had to assess people, those that are gonna live but need immediate care, those that are beyond care, and those that fall somewhere in between. So you got to get to the most urgent cases first, and that's what we would want to do with our financial life. Now, in the case of a real triage, they use different colors, and we can use colors as well, if you want to, not necessary, but you can. Like if you want to use some sticky notes, you know, various colors, or you want to buy some construction paper, whatever. That's up to you. You know, I'm a visual person, but you may not be, and it just depends on you. So, what I'm trying to say here is that the urgent things are gonna be red, and the things that I'm most what I'm talking about red, they have to be handled immediately. We got to do this now, and then we're gonna move into the yellow, again urgent, and then we're gonna move into blue, less urgent, and then everything else falls into black. Okay, so we've got just four little piles, or maybe big piles, but we've got our piles, and now we've sorted it out in our triage. So are we ready to start paying these people? No. Are we gonna go ahead and start making phone calls? No. And are we ready then to set our financial goals and put a plan in place? No, we're not there yet. And the reason again is because we don't need to put the cart before the horse. So we're just trying to still organize things and we don't want to rush into things without a plan because we need to have ourselves organized. And so the better way to do it is again taking a look at let's say the red pile first. So the red pile could contain things like let's say they're ready to snatch your car, let's say you're ready to be kicked out of your place, let's say that you're ready to be sued, and on and on and on. Okay. These things are people that are knocking at your door and they've got their hand out and saying, now, pay me right now. Now that's kind of a scary place to be, and I could I could totally understand that. I mean, I've been there myself, you know, where you are, you hate to look at your mail, and then when you do, it's nothing but it's there's no good news there. Everything is terrible. And that's because we've let things slide. We've overlooked things and we've ignored it and we've turned our back. But the reality is there they are. So again, do we want to rush into this? No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. So what we're gonna do here is we're gonna take a look at these urgent things and we're gonna again structure them in a way that's important to us. And that means when you think of food, shelter, clothing, right? Well, we're gonna go, yes, the thing that's most important right now is keeping a roof over our head. So if you're gonna be booted out of your apartment or they're gonna foreclose on your house, that's what we're gonna take care of first because we need to protect our little four walls. We need a place to lay our head at night. And so we can't res we can't solve our problems when we're so fearful of falling asleep. So that's not gonna work. So we need to tackle that first. And then the next thing we're gonna tackle is of course, we're gonna look at what I say is important, your transportation. So, why do I pull transportation ahead of, let's say, food? It's because, yes, we have to eat, right? But we could even eat ramen if we have to, okay? So we're gonna push that down because that is a variable expense, and we have a lot of control over that. Now, I'm not saying you should eat ramen, but I'm saying we could if we had to, right? That will sustain us at least for a little while until we get our act together. So we're gonna go to transportation. And the reason I say that is because we need the means and the methods to get us to work. We have to protect our income. That's extremely important. If you arrive to work late and you develop a chronic pattern of that, then pretty soon, you know, you're probably not gonna be at your job any longer, right? It just leads to more problems. And so we need to make sure that we protect our income, and that's our transportation. You may take Ubers or you may take the subway or whatever your method is, but we have to make sure that our transportation is solid, right? We have to make sure that we're not gonna lose our means of getting around. Not necessarily the means of getting around to go out and party, but our means of getting to work and creating the income. So even if you, let's say you DoorDash or you Uber, et cetera, you know that that vehicle is the main part of that gig. You gotta have it, right? Can't gotta have it or you can't do it. So then what do we do after we protected, you know, our house, our roof over our head, and our transportation? Then we're gonna look at the things that we need to keep us in the house comfortable. So we look at our utilities, our water, our gas, our, you know, whatever it is, all those utilities that you normally pay on a day in and day out basis, water, all that good stuff, right? So we need to make sure that that is uh taken care of as well. And then we can move down to other things that are demanding our time and attention. Now, it could be a wide variety of things. You know yourself better than I do, and you've got your pile sorted. So we shouldn't have a hundred things in our red pile, okay? We just can't tackle everything all at once. We've got to start somewhere, yes, but we can't do everything all at once. And so what we're creating here is a systematic plan to attack this pile. And once we now figure it out, let's say I got to call the leasing office, I've got to pay them some money behind 30, 60 days on my car payment, and they're ready to shut the lights off and stuff like that. So now we've got one, two, and three at least, four, whatever it is. We've got them, we organize them and prioritize them in this fashion so we know where to start. Now, again, do we pick up the phone and do we call the rental office? No, right? No, because they're gonna say, pay up. Are we gonna pay up? Yes, but we only have so many dollars, and we can't just use all our dollars on one thing because how's that gonna work, right? Then we end up with no dollars. So we have to use our dollars strategically, and again, this is where we map out a plan. So we know then that we owe rent or we have to pay our mortgage, and we know that we need to protect our car, and we're behind, we need to get caught up, and we're behind on this and that, and this and that. So once we have this, and again, I know this can be very scary, and you're looking at this and your head is racing and you're sweating, but the more that you take control over this, the better it's gonna be. Because you have to go into this calmly, and you can't be going into this like a crazy person. That's not gonna work. And if you need to be calmed down by somebody, then grab your husband, your wife, your best friend, whomever, and take a breather. Go for a run, whatever you gotta do. So let's just again relax here because when I say this, I truly mean it. All these things are temporary, they're not permanent in the sense that these control your life, and they're definitely not worth you putting your life on the line for it. So that's never an option, and it's not the case here because there is a way to fix every single problem. Every single financial problem is fixable to one degree or another. You may not like the solution, okay, but there are solutions to everything. So, not to go on and on and belabor that point, but you hopefully understand. If you don't, you probably need to seek, you know, some counselor or, you know, some kind of therapist, because there I'm no psychiatrist and I'm no, you know, therapist or anything like that, right? So all I know is certain behaviors get in your way, and we need to just address some of these behaviors head on. But anyway, that's a sidebar. So let me jump back here. So we have our piles, we prioritize them. We got our red, yellow, and our blue and black. And then we know we've got to protect our four walls, and we got to make sure that we have our transportation secured and we have our utilities, etc., everything that makes life comfortable inside our four walls, all taken care of. So now we're ready to let's say deal with our housing situation. So this is where again you need to marshal up all of your dollars, all of them. Where are they? How many do we have? Do we have a thousand? Do we have five hundred? What do we have? And so let's say our rent is I don't know, nine hundred dollars, and maybe you have I don't know, seven hundred dollars, and that's it, until let's say you get paid, and maybe you get paid in I don't know, a week. Okay. So, yes, we could hopefully throw seven hundred dollars at the rent, but we're not going to. So, in this case, what we're gonna do is create again a plan, and maybe this is the good time to rope in Chat GPT or whatever AI you use, because we need some help here in creating a structured plan that gives us the main points to hit in a conversation in a way that turns people from no to yes, or at least maybe. So let's say that Chat GPT creates a strategy here to tackle our rent. So let's say then you've got the main points you need to make, and then you know how much how many dollars you can use to put towards this, and then you can make that phone call. And what we're looking for here is time. We're asking for time. We need time to get ourselves straightened out and to fix these problems. And so you never, never, never, never, never want to call anybody in a heated, angry fashion because that is never the answer, and it's not gonna work. All you're gonna do is turn people off and they're not gonna help you. You need to have people on your side, and you the best way to get people on your side to be nice to them, be nice to people, and hopefully they'll be nice to you. But you also you gotta ask for what you need, and you don't get unless you ask. So now we're gonna ask for time. So let's say they have given you 48 hours to cough up the money. You need to then try to get them to say, I am willing to pay as much as I have right now, which is I can give you X, let's say$400. Okay. I can give you$400, and if you give me a week, I can come up with the rest. They may say no, right? They may say you have 48 hours. We'll take the$400, but you got to come up with the rest. Okay, but then that gives me 48 hours that I can use. I can go to grandma, grandpa, I can go to family, I can see what things I have inside my house to sell. What kind of things do I have that I can make some immediate money off of? You know, is there something that somebody wants and they're willing to pay for it today? Maybe, I don't know, you know your stuff. Look at what you got. Even if it creates heartache for you to get rid of it, do it. Maybe it's like savings bonds. Maybe you didn't know that you have some savings bonds and you're talking to your mom or dad, and they say, Yeah, you know, you've grandma, grandpa, whomever, we've had savings bonds set aside for you. We thought you were going to use them for college, but you know, they're still there. I guess you could use them if you want. You know, there's X there. Hallelujah, right? Hallelujah. There's some found money. Maybe it's not for the purpose that it was intended, but it is for the purpose right now. So we could do that. There's a million different things that can happen here, but hopefully you get the point. I don't know the solution to all your problems. You do, though. You need to figure it out. This is your problem, this is your mess, you figure it out. But again, there's a good way to do it and a bad way to do it, and we're trying to do the best we can in the best way possible. So now that we've got some time, this is where we go to our transportation, we beg for time, and then we go to the utilities, etc. We beg for time. And I say beg, but I'm saying ask, right? I'm not saying you sit, oh please, please, please, please, please, please, please don't turn off my lights. You say, uh, if you can give me some time, I'll be glad to pay you what I can today. Sounds like that character. You know, do you remember Wimpy from Popeye? You know, give me a hamburger today and I'll pay you on Tuesday. I think that's what he always used to say. Anyway, I'm not trying to be funny here. I'm trying to be straight, but you know, you can't be just so serious about this stuff that you can't add a little levity in it because it is kind of funny in a way. There are funny things that happen to us all the time. God knows things happen to me all the time. Crazy things. But anyway, all we're doing here is again, we're attacking the problem. We're going from top to bottom, and we've now have a strategy. And hopefully, Chat GPT gave you some points that you can use in your conversations that you're gonna have, and you've been given the grace period of some time, and that time is gonna be a relief to you. That's gonna feel like weights were taken off your shoulders, and that's gonna be enable you to go to bed at night and go to sleep and sleep all the way through. So the ability for you to attack these things and to fix them to a certain degree is just gonna be heaven to you, and that's what you need. So, are there other aspects of your financial life that we're gonna attack? Yes. Yes, we will. Are we there today? No, no, we're not. We don't need to worry about our IRAs and you know, estate planning and all this other kind of stuff. We're not there yet. We're fixing our immediate problems, and this is our triage, and this is where we're at. But the one thing I failed to say, and I would think this would be obvious, but let me say it anyway. No more spending. Okay, freezer spending, cut it off. There is no more spending happening. None. You have to just stop it from whatever you're doing that's bleeding you, stop it. Put a tourniquet on it and turn it very tight so that it restricts the blood flow. And I'm saying the cash flow from your bank account, stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it. No more spending. At least not right now. We don't have the luxury of going shopping and doing anything like that, going out to eat. Stop that. No, no, no, no, no. Anyway, I try not to be preachy here, but I'd rather you get the message and it sticks because this is the way that we fix things. We're gonna come out the other end and we're gonna be better, and we're gonna be glad, and you're gonna have a new set of skills, and these set of skills you're gonna use over and over and over and over again. Not necessarily begging for time, but you the redeployment of our resources in a strategic way. This is how we move ourselves from A to B. Got it. So we already had our first series, I mean our first episode in single and struggling, check that out. And that's you know, starting at the very beginning by dumping your bag out and taking a look at everything right in front of you, create your little piles, and now we're in triage. And I've given you the triage steps and the colors that you can use if you choose. Do it, don't, okay, whatever. But now you have at least a basic strategy to tackle these. Rope in Chat GPT, that would be my recommendation, because we also do not need to spend hours searching, creating spreadsheets, all this stuff. We don't have that time to lose. We use our time strategically as we use our money strategically as well. Anyway, this is where we're at. And we're gonna, if you listen into my next episode, we'll take this one step further. So hopefully that was helpful to you, and I will talk to you next time.