[bronco21016]

> We wouldn’t throw “money in/money out” mantras at random bankrupt people (or do we? I can’t tell anymore), we shouldn’t do that to overweight people either.

The entire personal finance sphere is based around this advice. Make a budget, cut costs, get spending under income enough to pay off debt. So yes, we do distill it down to “money in/money out” for people who mismanage their money. Fortunately, when it comes to money it generally is that simple, provided the income is sufficient to maintain the basic necessities of life.

[makeitdouble]

For finance, is it that simple ? I agree I would see that for families that have a decently balanced budget but need to build assets to get out of the borderline red zone.

For people straight in the red, more often than not the advices I've seen applied IRL are akin to talking to one's bank to reevaluate the situation, checking with local institutions how they can help, reviewing tax declarations, giving up on too low paying jobs to completely change their status etc.

To me these changes are often more structural or complicated than just deciding where the money goes or to how much extent.