A Simpler Way to Budget: Stop Using Credit Cards and Set Up Accounts for Bills, Groceries, Travel, and Costco Runs | 453

0:00You can't pay off all your debt, fund all your savings buckets. And it just, it's fine. It's no big deal. You're not alone. Like a lot of people start there, but you have to pick and choose. So if you want to get out of debt, and it sounds like you do, then that money that's all going towards the savings buckets right now or your vaults, figure out what are the ones that you absolutely need to have maybe this quarter or coming up here soon. Fund that. Everything else needs to pause. Use all the extra money that you have towards paying off that debt. So when you actually go to make a budget without debt, you're going to see that you can put that money in all these different places that's funding your future because you're no longer paying for your past on your credit card.

0:39Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it? Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have big dreams for your financial future? Do you want to get debt free but you don't want to live on beans and rice? Or you don't want to give up those pumpkin spice lattes? Hey, it's okay if you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the month. Hey, it's okay if you want to seem like you have your finances all together, or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances. We know what you're doing probably isn't working, but guess what?

1:08You're in the right place. We're Shana and Vanessa. We're best friends, business partners, and master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey. We've been in business since 2019, helping hundreds of amazing people like you create budgets, get out of debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and know exactly what to do with their money. In this podcast, we'll share with you everything we know, plus everything we're working on with our clients so that you have the best chance at reaching your financial goals. We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on the conversation.

1:40We can help you no matter where you're at, whether you're the single mom who's never had$500 in her savings account or the millionaire who's paid off four real estate mortgages. And we're not going to shy away from the tough love. We'll tell you what you need to here and encourage you at the same time. This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. All right, Rebecca, thank you so much for coming on Financial Coaching for Women. We're so excited to have you for a live call today. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. All right. So tell us what questions you have. What brings you to the call? What's going on?

2:11My problem is I don't have really that much debt like literally one thousand seven hundred and sixty two dollars in credit card debt i don't have a house payment don't have a quarter payment i'm pretty good but my problem is i have my savings account my you know things that i want to do vacation and pampering and all that kind of stuff and i don't want to use my credit cards but i find myself using my credit cards all the time because I didn't have the money to pay for the things I want to do. That was happening with my gas in my car. So finally I did the 90-day audit, and I'm like, okay, I spend about$300 a month on gas.

2:56Every payday when I get paid now, I put$300 in my gas account for my car, and I have money there now to put my car in my car. Yeah, that's great. That's a great start. Okay, so you did the 90-day audit. You figured out how much you needed for gas, and you put that away. You said you did the same for groceries or just gas? No, just gas. I haven't done that for groceries. So I have my gas account. I have a SoFi account that I have on my vault, and that's where the gas account is. I have a different account for groceries, so I just want to leave it like that for right now. Okay, so what are the unexpected expenses that are popping up that you're using your card for?

3:37I go to Costco and I use my city bank pizza card but I try to pay for it when I when I do that I charge it and then I go into my account and pay it but I mean that's not the ideal situation to be in yeah it's an extra step that we're not we're going to forget to do and we know we've done a Costco rant before and our our what we had to say about that is no one can afford Costco there's so many things in there that we are like yay and then we get to the register we're like oh they're bright and shiny things but yeah there's so many everything there costs at least 50 okay so that'll be difficult but what you can do is do you go to costco every month or every so often i try to go every month and i don't spend like the other day when i spent 186 dollars yeah it's not a lot but it's more than what you want to do okay so if you want to make this sort of regular is you want to look at your Costco.

4:35What am I buying there? And even it out on purpose. So if my budget allows me that I can do$200 at Costco without having to use a credit card, because that's part of my grocery budget, then I need to do it on purpose. So if I'm getting paper towels one time, the next time I'm getting the toilet paper, like I need to make it a steady spend at Costco if I really want to work with Costco versus I go once for$500 and then I go once for$100. We want to make it even so that you can plan for it and you can budget for it in your monthly budget. Just like you did with your gas. You did the 90 day audit for gas and you figured out how much you spend there.

5:11We're going to do the same with your Costco. We're going to - And your groceries. Yeah. Yeah. Your groceries. So what Shana is saying, if you don't want to break up groceries versus other stuff at Costco, just make a Costco account or a Costco vault if you're using SoFi and go, okay, this is my allotted amount that I'm going to spend there every month. And that's what I get. So it's holding you accountable. If you want to add a buffer, that's totally fine. But it gives you an amount of money that you know that you can freely spend within those boundaries. Does that make sense? Yeah. It does. See, I get paid once a month.

5:42So I really like that. At first, when I first started getting paid once a month, I was like, I don't know if I can do that. I haven't ever done that before. But I like it because my money comes in once a month. My money goes out. All my bills are automated. So I have all my money. I liked that when I first started listening to you girls, I was like, oh, an account just for bills, right? So I did that, and I'm trying to get there, but I'm almost done. Yeah. Well, that's good, Rebecca. Yeah, it sounds like you've got a lot going for you. Like you said, you don't have car payments. You don't have all of that.

6:15You're just in the last bits of finalizing it, and it sounds like the grocery is spending. Because what you're saying is getting paid once a month is nice because it's like one and done, but then you have to budget that money for a whole month before you get more and that is really hard so there's a couple ways to solve for either way you need to see how much you're spending on groceries and then you need to hold yourself accountable when i go to costco if i only have two hundred dollars i can only spend two hundred dollars i don't get to get all of the things there which is why it's easier for me to just not go to costco that part for me is easier but if you love it then you just need to make it work within your grocery budget you need a grocery amount for each month.

6:54Now, other thing that you can do is keep all the money in your Bells account and pay your spending accounts weekly so that you are just still, you're still living. Like whether you have restaurant spending, personal money, whatever they are, you can get money in there weekly so that you can just live that week to week. And you don't have to try to budget a whole month. Okay. I have a thousand dollars to last the whole month. Instead you would get 250 a week and then you just have to make the week work. That's the power of you being able to make your budget match your life like you get to decide how often you quote unquote pay yourself into those spending accounts does that make sense yeah for example i like i said i have the gas the gas well i'm on the travel boat because we're going on vacation in september i have i get my nails done and i get my hair done and i get massaged things like that so i budget for that and i have that in my my time i get paid i move the money on the matter if it gets transferred every direct deposit this amount goes there this amount goes there this amount goes there and then I'm like okay well I'm$130 left for the entire month for whatever comes up okay so realistic so you were saying that you still find yourself using the credit card at basically I'm sure at the end of the month when you still have things that you need to buy or want to buy but you're still you are funding those volts right is that what you okay Okay.

8:19And so what do you find yourself using the credit card on versus what you're saving for in your vaults? How is that different? Like I said, I use it at Costco. Really, that's the only place I use it. Okay. But what I do, and I do it, I've been really good. I'll go get gas. And if I get it at Costco, I'll just use my Citibank card. And then I'll cash for the money out of my vault, and I pay it right away. So I'm pretty good about doing that. But I know it's a pain. I shouldn't be doing that i should just be using my account instead of using my credit card it's just one less step it's going to be way easier for you to just use the cash and be done instead of having to figure out how to transfer every time so i think making that costco account or vault however you however sofi does it it's one less step and it's going to help you it's going to wean yourself off your credit card.

9:12Yeah. Like I said, I know the other one is my PayPal account. And I always use other providers when they go to concerts or whatever I do. And I use that as six months free interest. I screwed up on that a little bit. They have those promotions on purpose. Yeah. Those promotions are there on purpose because they know they're not done. All right, budget besties. It's time for some real talk. You don't need another budget. You need a budget system. Our simplified budget system is what you've been looking for. It's going to allow you to be bougie on a budget. You'll be able to easily set up a system that runs automatically and shows you exactly where your money is going.

9:54And it's going to give you permission to spend. Everybody loves that. Yeah. It's straightforward, pretty, and packed with walkthrough videos that break down the exact methods we use with our clients to get out of debt, set up a bills account, separate spending, build savings buckets, and end the paycheck to paycheck feel. If you're new to budgeting, this is the perfect way to jump in. And if you're already a budget nerd like us, you're about to meet your new obsession. This is the upgrade to your finances that you need right now. Yeah. So head on over to budgetbesties.com forward slash budget and grab yours.

10:27Now back to today's show. So you have your travel vault, you said use fund that and think about, okay, how many concerts, how many times do we go on vacation throughout the year? And so that way you can fund it with the proper amount to be able to pay for cash when those trips and stuff come up that you want to get. And I would shut that PayPal account now. Yeah, the problem I have, And this is a problem I had with my gas. And the same thing. It's okay. I don't have this money going out. And then I still need to pay my credit card bills. But how am I? I'm not going to have any money left after I, it's like a vicious cycle.

11:10So I'm like, oh my gosh, how do I get out of it? That's where I'm stuck. I was trying to have the money and still spend all these literal savings accounts and pay my bills off at the same time. yeah there's a couple different things the first thing is to stop using the credit card like if you're gonna that's how you break the cycle that's the first step then slowly pay it off as you can i would say i know you mentioned most of the savings buckets you had i might have i might it sounds like the budget is so tight that we might not be able to do all the savings buckets i'm not sure because if you said you had 130 or 180 left over within the month for anything and that's not that much.

11:49That's a good buffer to have as you're getting going with budgeting. I can see where that disappears really quickly. And then on top of that, if you have a credit card bill that you have to pay, then that's also making it really tight. So stop using the credit cards. Don't go to Costco for a couple months or something. If you have to, do what you have to do to make it stick and to be able to not add to the Costco credit card and to be able to use cash for groceries and then start paying it off. You might, like Vanessa said, if you really want, you can set up a separate Costco vault eventually, but I might break up with Costco for a minute until I can get myself out of the cycle of what you're talking about.

12:29Yeah, you can't do it all. You can't pay off all your debt, fund all your savings buckets. And it's fine. It's no big deal. You're not alone. Like a lot of people start there, but you have to pick and choose. So if you want to get out of debt, and it sounds like you do, then that money that's all going towards the savings buckets right now or your vaults, figure out what are the ones that you absolutely need to have maybe this quarter or coming up here soon. Fund that. Everything else needs to pause. Use all the extra money that you have towards paying off that debt so when you actually go to make a budget without debt, you're going to see that you can put that money in all these different places that's funding your future because you're no longer paying for your pass on your credit card.

13:11Okay. I know. Listen, we know that it's going to be tempting in the moment, but I think that's where Shana was saying, like, just don't go in. Don't go into Costco. Delete the PayPal app from your phone if you have to. Let's break up with those things right now to hold yourself accountable to getting out of that situation. So that way you can feel better moving forward. And you, then when you go back, you now have a plan because you have your own Costco account. That's going to hold you accountable to the amount of money that you're going to spend there. Okay. Yeah. What do you know? I can do that.

13:51I think I can do that. I think I can do that. Like I said, I did it with my gas for my car. And it's, Oh wow. What a concept. I don't have to pass my gas anymore because I have the money there to pay for it. So just implement that slowly in your budget, implement it one thing at a time. So now that you have the gas thing down, but you said, if you go to Costco and get gas, then you'll use your other card. No, it's a non-negotiable. You always use the gas, the amount of money for gas. You don't use the card anymore. So you have this system down for your gas. Now let's implement it for groceries and then let's implement it for Costco entirely.

14:22Let's just roll it out in baby steps. Yeah. And I mean, that, that is how we would tell you to do it anyways. Like how are you going to slowly wing yourself off of the credit card is you're going to go take one thing off that I'm using the credit card, take the next thing. So then the next thing is all of the groceries, pantry shop, just to get through a month. You just need to get through a month to where you're not spending over what you have, but also to do the audit, to be truly honest about what you're spending on groceries. I think that's good too. And then if you have that money in the account, that's what we stick to.

14:51And that's it. There's no credit card bailing us out. We have to spend only this amount so that I can not be relying on credit cards anymore. Okay. I know I'd probably be shocked if I do a 90-day audit and go back and see how much I'm actually spending on. And that's what credit cards always do. They allow you to overspend without thinking about it. But if you're planning it on purpose and really looking at the numbers, you're going to automatically be better and do better. So, yeah, I think that's definitely what you should do. You can look at the numbers and then try to stick to something that's realistic and get yourself off of those credit cards.

15:27Is there any other? Did you have any other questions? Did we did you on our last call? She wrote some stuff down. So I want to make sure that we hit all of your questions and helped you as much as we can. That was basically it. And trying to, you know, fund my account, my savings account and pay off my debt at the same time. And I'm lucky. I don't have a lot of debt, like a lot of people. Don't say you're lucky. You've made good decisions and you worked hard. Yeah. That's a good deal. Yeah. I've worked hard. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to get over this last little bit. You just had a little, one little hill to go over and now you're like sailing.

16:02You've got the savings bucket set up. You've got the bills account set up. You've got the cast account. You're like this close, this close. All right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. If you're tired of feeling like your finances are all over the place and you're ready for a simple set it and forget it way to budget, we have something special for you. Watch our automate your budget masterclass at budgetbesties.com forward slash automate. We'll show you step-by-step how to finally organize your money, how to set up your accounts and put your budget on autopilot. So your bills saving and spending run like clockwork.

16:36Imagine less stress, more savings and the freedom to spend money without having to track every dollar or babysit your bank Go to budgetbesties.com forward slash automate to start today.