Sep 29, 2026 · 37 min · 10 segments
Leaving a job you hate takes more than wanting out - it takes a financial plan. Hannah Kesler explains how to calculate your Get Ahead Number, build an escape fund, reduce monthly expenses, and create…
Hannah KeslerHost
This means what is your mortgage payment or your rent payment, the credit cards that you're using, your car payment, your grocery expenses, the phone bill.
A lot of you guys, you have an idea of what you're spending every month, but when you actually go back and look at your credit card statements or your bank statement, you're like, oh shit, I'm actually spending a lot more than what I initially thought.
Because y'all, it can actually like add up, right? I mean, the five bucks here, the $10 here, the $12 here, add that up consistently week after week, and it becomes a large monthly expense that you're sending out the door.
Your salary may not be keeping you at your job, but these obligations that you do have are.
So the question I wanna ask y'all is, how many months, if you were to go in, and your paycheck were to stop tomorrow, how many months could you sustain your livelihood at where it's at right now? Because there's a difference, right, between emergency fund and this escape fund, okay? And let me kind of lay down the foundation here.
An emergency fund is very important, right? It's the time that I need capital because something unseen comes up and a tragedy happens and I need this money to go and do something with.
The transmission goes out in my car, I need a new roof on my house, whatever it is, right? So emergency funds are important.
I'm specifically talking about your escape fund and creating a place that you can warehouse and build up money so that you can create this runway that allows you to take back your time and have control of your freedom of choices that you're making for yourself so really get real with this and i want you to put a a a number behind this how many months could you live if your paycheck stopped tomorrow i want you to write that on a piece of paper and then what you need to do in my opinion is start building up some of those cash reserves and then it will also help you decide how much do you need of a runway to then start executing this escape fund for yourself.
This means what is your mortgage payment or your rent payment, the credit cards that you're using, your car payment, your grocery expenses, the phone bill.
A lot of you guys, you have an idea of what you're spending every month, but when you actually go back and look at your credit card statements or your bank statement, you're like, oh shit, I'm actually spending a lot more than what I initially thought.
Because y'all, it can actually like add up, right? I mean, the five bucks here, the $10 here, the $12 here, add that up consistently week after week, and it becomes a large monthly expense that you're sending out the door.
Your salary may not be keeping you at your job, but these obligations that you do have are.
So the question I wanna ask y'all is, how many months, if you were to go in, and your paycheck were to stop tomorrow, how many months could you sustain your livelihood at where it's at right now? Because there's a difference, right, between emergency fund and this escape fund, okay? And let me kind of lay down the foundation here.
An emergency fund is very important, right? It's the time that I need capital because something unseen comes up and a tragedy happens and I need this money to go and do something with.
The transmission goes out in my car, I need a new roof on my house, whatever it is, right? So emergency funds are important.
I'm specifically talking about your escape fund and creating a place that you can warehouse and build up money so that you can create this runway that allows you to take back your time and have control of your freedom of choices that you're making for yourself so really get real with this and i want you to put a a a number behind this how many months could you live if your paycheck stopped tomorrow i want you to write that on a piece of paper and then what you need to do in my opinion is start building up some of those cash reserves and then it will also help you decide how much do you need of a runway to then start executing this escape fund for yourself.
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