Ever heard the phrase, “lebih besar pasak daripada tiang?” (It means "the peg is bigger than the pole," or basically, living beyond your means). It's a proverb about when your spending is way higher than your income, so you end up using debt just to cover the rest of your bills.

This kind of lifestyle can seriously mess with your head and your finances, both now and in the long run. Why? Because it makes it super hard to save for the future, you get buried in debt that's tough to shake, and you're constantly stressed out.

So, if you're already in this boat, check out these things you can do to turn things around:

Why you're spending more than you earn

To fix the whole "spending too much" issue, you first need to figure out why it's happening. Here are a few common reasons for this income deficit:

1. The "Sandwich Generation" life

Let's be real, being the sandwich generation often means you're broke every month. You're covering the daily needs of your parents plus your kids and partner. That makes managing your monthly salary a real challenge, as you’re trying to stretch it across three generations all at once.

2. Mountains of bills and payments

Got a home loan, plus using paylater and credit cards? Watch out! If you don't keep tabs on them, those payments and credit bills can stack up quickly and become way harder to clear. Since interest compounds, the longer you take to pay them off, the bigger the amount you actually owe gets.

3. Business troubles

Another reason your spending might outweigh your income is your business. This can happen in two scenarios: when you’re first starting out or when the business is losing money. In both cases, the business is likely ringing up more expenses than income.

4. Unexpected hits to your wallet

Sometimes, spending more than you earn is just due to things popping up out of the blue. Like when a parent or child has to go to the hospital, or your car suddenly needs a trip to the mechanic, and so on.

Quick fixes for spending more than you earn

The best way to handle spending more than you earn depends on the root cause. But, if your monthly salary just isn't cutting it for your monthly bills, here are a few things you can try.

1. Have a family chat

This is a great option if being the sandwich generation is why your income is too low for your daily needs. Instead of trying to carry the whole load yourself, talk to your relatives about how you can share the financial burden.

2. Track your spending and find what you can cut

First things first: list out all your monthly expenses and figure out which ones you can reduce. For instance, maybe you spend Rp500,000 on coffee in a month. You could cut that by 50% and use the saved Rp250,000 to knock down your debt payments.

3. Know your liquid assets

The third step is to look at all your assets and group them by how "liquid" they are (meaning, how easily you can sell or pawn them). Then, sell or pawn those assets and use the money to pay off the debts with the highest interest first.

For example, you might have a car for your commute. Before your debt gets any bigger, you could sell the car and use the proceeds to pay off your loan. You can then use public transport to get to work, or use part of the sale money to buy a motorcyle.

4. Boost your income

If you’ve tried everything above and you’re still short on your debt payments, it’s time to earn more. With the gig economy booming, there are tons of side hustles you can do for extra cash, like being an online taxi driver, freelancing on Fiverr or Upwork, and more.

5. Look into credit restructuring

Another idea is to ask your bank for credit restructuring. If you have a solid reason, the bank might give you a break, like lowering the interest rate or extending the loan period. Just be sure to calculate the total amount you'd have to pay until the end before agreeing to anything, so you can pick the best plan.

If most of your debt isn't from a bank (like, maybe it’s from an online loan app or "pinjol"), you can try to restructure the credit yourself. The trick is to use a large chunk of your extra income and the money you saved earlier to pay off the high-interest debt. If that's still not enough, you can take out another loan (what people call "digging a hole to cover a hole"), but make sure it has a much lower interest rate.

For example, say you have a Rp100,000,000 debt with a 24% annual interest rate from a pinjol app. After selling your car, cutting monthly expenses, and earning extra income, you manage to save Rp89,000,000. You could then use a credit card loan from Honest for the rest.

Why Honest App? Because when you take out a loan through this credit card app, you might be able to pay it off with 0% interest and no admin fees. That means once your Rp100,000,000 pinjol debt is gone, you have about an extra month to pay off the remaining Rp11,000,000 loan with 0% interest on Honest.

You can use this same debt-clearing method for loans from other places, whether it’s a bank, a leasing company, or even paylater debt.