After YNAB and Dave Ramsey: The Budget System That Finally Worked | 581

0:00And I was scared. I was really scared. I had convinced myself if I taught FPU enough times, it would finally sink in. I was newly divorced and a single mom, and I just knew I couldn't do it. But it was constantly chasing my tail, just trying to get ahead. But holy smokes, you guys figured it out. It really does simplify things. There was that moment where it feels like the doors

0:27Brianne:are just open and if you follow Vanessa she'll make you a very rich woman. Do 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? If you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the month. 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?

1:00Brianne:You'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.

1:32Brianne:We 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 hear and encourage you at the same time. This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. Thank you, Brianne, for coming on Financial Coaching for Women. I remember when I had a free call with you. You were a little sassy and you were very nervous, very scared. I was so excited to work with you because I, you know, as much as the free coaching call is like, you're interviewing us to make sure it's a good fit.

2:09We're doing the same. We don't necessarily offer coaching for everybody. And so, but you were that perfect client. So if you could share a little bit about kind of how you felt at the very beginning of just this journey of, for you of getting your finances in order? It started in a way that I was condensed. I couldn't afford coaching at the time. I was newly divorced and a single mom. And I just knew I couldn't do it. And so I kept trying on my own. And the reality was that I could totally do it. The fact that my money was going elsewhere because that's just what happens when we don't look at things that are as a whole picture.

2:55I had been a YNAB user for eight, nine years. You need a budget, by the way. Yeah. And honestly, I loved it. I absolutely loved YNAB. And that was part of the roadblock, I think, when Vanessa and I started coaching is I came in and I knew that what I was doing wasn't fully working. But by golly, it was still the way I was doing things. And whatever Vanessa was going to tell me, I didn't like it. And I knew I needed to listen, but I was only listening with like half an ear. So yeah, when we started coaching, that very first session was rough. Because I had what I envisioned and what YNAB had taught me was a budget.

3:48and I didn't, I actually never had to do like the 90 day audit because I knew my numbers. You ask me anything, I can tell you exactly where my money is going. I can tell you exactly what I spend on every single bill every month. And so when we went through everything, I just crowded numbers off. But the reality was I really didn't have a budget. That version of the budget really was not a working budget. And here, this is kind of what I've come to the conclusion of is I needed a system. All I had before was software. And prior to YNAB, I actually had taught FPU several times. I was a Dave Ramsey person.

4:32I had taught Financial Peace University. And I had convinced myself if I taught FPU enough times, it would finally think in. There was something I just wasn't missing. So if I just kept doing it over and over with the class, there's something that would click. But that wasn't it because I wasn't using a system. And so, yeah, so that's how we got here. So when Vanessa and I had our first session and I was very resistant, shall we say, we got off of that call and I ended up sending Vanessa an email basically saying, I am going to resist this. I know that this needs to change. I need to trust you.

5:17I need you to not give me an option. And I was scared. I was really scared. Well, I just know that you made so much progress and you sent your daughter to Sweden and you went to Sweden to visit her and you just knocked out debt and you are also a physical therapist or massage therapist, excuse me. and you we set up your business budget we did your personal budget paying off everything organizing it all setting up your savings buckets funding everything in cash and it was literally like you were a different person by the end of it as far as how confident you were with your money yeah and i think that yeah it's such a heavy thing and so i can totally see the resistance

6:05Brianne:and you know but the thing is like minna said you've done so well and on the bookend of this You're basically could teach what we do. Like you taught FPU, which by the way, they don't teach you how to budget. That's what the problem was. But anyway, it doesn't matter about that. But now you can teach what we do because you're an expert. You got it all. And so much so, Brian, that I believe that you have some notes. Maybe you have some notes about, you know, maybe some people say some things. You're like, hey, listen here. Listen here. So I think we should go through your notes and see what we got, what you can teach our podcast.

6:41So back story audience, Brianne listens to our podcast. And when she wants to say something, she makes notes. And she has come here prepared with all these things that she wants to talk about. Because she's a preparer. She's a preparer. She's, like Shayna said, has become an expert on our system. So Brianne, we'll let you take the floor. You are welcome. I know what we can do. You are welcome to chime in, girl. okay well so i think a big turning point for me was the no tracking because ynav part of ynav there's two different sections of ynav there's and then there's your account and it's essentially a software like keeping a check register and i like busy work that's what i thought i like busy work.

7:32And now I've figured out through the busy work, I really kind of like not doing that. And that is one thing, like, I know a lot of people are resistant, and they think they still need to track and they still need to, you know, have a separate Google sheet or whatever it might be to keep track of where their expenses are going. But you don't. And honestly, in my business, having the business budget, doing my taxes the last two years have been so much easier than it ever was before. And I was, I was tracking everything. Like prior to YNAB, I was a Quicken books person. So like, I like numbers. I like documents.

8:13I like all of that. And I think that's a huge turning point. I remember saying, but how am I going to keep track of what happens in my accounts? And Vanessa was like, it's really easy. You pull up the account and you see what your balances and you see what's left to spend in that category. And I was really resistant on the multiple bank accounts. I really was. Because I thought it's all spending out of, it's still spending. I'm still spending that money, whether it's out of one account or whether it's out of multiple accounts. How is this going to simplify things? Well, holy smokes, you guys figured it out.

8:51It really does simplify things. So that was a big thing for me too. And I love that because now I can go to the grocery store and instantly just pull up my bank account and I don't have to think of like did I enter that into YNAB? Did I enter that into my books? Is that total what it was? And the other thing that really always caught me into a trap and I comment on the Facebook post occasionally on this same thing. The whole Rob and Peter to paypal my budget in ynav essentially we only budgeted sorry i'm really throwing out ynav's name a lot well that's what i wanted to do i wanted to speak to all of the ynavers out there because i was one obviously i i love talking and standing on the soapbox about things i'm very passionate about and at one time it was ynav and now it's a simplified budget system because I've seen the light.

9:55One difference is in that budget, we only budgeted the money that I currently had. And so when I would put that into the categories and I would say, well, this is what needs to be paid before the next payday. The problem with that is life happens. And when I needed something else to change, I would just go into those categories because it was all in the same account. I didn't manually have to make any transfers, right? So it's coming out of the same account. And so I was constantly just moving from one category to the next. But then when I needed that money that was in that other category, it wasn't there.

10:37And so it was constantly chasing my tail, just trying to get ahead. And I think that was why not tracking and having things separate and just being a balance in real time, rather than needing to go back and, and figure out whether I could put my transactions in and if my balance was really the balance that I had to work with. I think that's why that was such a turning point for me.

11:03Brianne:Let me just say real quick about YNAB, which we love them. They seem great. Okay. We, I think they just fall in the same trap of busy work, which I think because everything is, seems a little more complicated these days, there's you know a lot more bills a lot more things are online whatever everybody wants something to do to feel like they're getting a gold star being a good girl like being a good student okay well here's the thing where we can track everything and it's just not the right solution it is a solution but it's not the right one it's like what smarter not harder and or it's harder not smarter let's just smarter and like make it as easy painless as that's where we went and that's why did we do that because we are efficiency girls.

11:40Brianne:You are as well. We are not in the business of making things more complicated than anything. We don't have a lot of time, all of that stuff. But what I wanted to say real quick, and then you can get to your next note, is you know how feminism was famous for burning their bras or something? I feel like that's what, I don't know. I'm not really sure, but I think that that's the thing. Okay, I feel like what we need to do is have this commercial where everybody's tearing up their check registers and burning them and throwing them in the air. And they're tracking and they're like all free and like singing and dancing and stuff.

12:13Brianne:That's where we're at because we don't need, you don't need to be weighed down with that crap anymore. We don't need that. We can move on. It was like a fun time. Okay. Next on your list. Come on, let's educate. Let's educate people. Okay. So I know a roadblock is these separate accounts for people and they're afraid they're going to get odd looks when they go in the bank. And you don't. Honestly, if you get an odd look, that's the wrong thing. turn around and walk out because I have 11 savings accounts. I have six checking accounts. Four of those are spending. Two of those are bills, one for my personal and one for my business.

12:52And when I was setting this up with you, Vanessa, I would like, when we were very first starting with my things, buckets, I feel like every week because I'm self-employed, I usually do all of my my banking every Friday and it seemed there for a while like every single Friday I was like hey I need open dream war saving to a town and the girl at the counter was like okay they don't care they don't care all it is is like you're giving them something to do for their job

13:22Brianne:you're welcome they're welcome yeah absolutely making the time fly faster faster it's so true what you say like they're I mean to be fair they're either gonna look at you like what and then they'll do it. Or they'll be like, whatever you say, click, click, click, click, click. It's not a big deal. It's all in your head. And like you said, if they can't do it, you're at the wrong bank because there are plenty of banks out there that will allow you to do this. You just have to ask. And to be fair, some people are still operating in the same banking system that they had when they got their first job at 18, right?

13:53They have one checking, one savings. They had no idea that anything else was possible. I have a new client right now. I love her so much. She didn't even know that reoccurring, she didn't even know you can make transfers with a bank app. from one account to another. Had no idea that was possible. So, you know, walking her through that, she's a little older, she's probably in her 50s or 60s. But you know, just bringing to light these, these tools that you have available to you, like opening up an account, changing the name, setting up transfers, all of this is in your favor. And we understand, like you said, a lot of people think that, especially we have a lot of guys that come to us and like, I'm not my, why do you want my wife to, and I to open up all these accounts?

14:26And how is that supposed to simplify things. And like you just said, it does. It's a weird, weird concept of, you know, more like when we say separate to simplify, you need to separate your money. Yes. Yeah. In this concept, yeah, more is less, but it does help. And it allows you to take that cash envelope system to digital, right? So your bank, and so you can just clearly see all your money and how you're spending it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And when I, my bank, I bank at a credit union. And when I started setting up the accounts on the back of the debit cards, they will put a label on it for me for what it is.

15:06And so at first it was kind of comical because here's another roadblock that I had to get over was using debit cards because I felt very insecure in using the debit card versus as a credit card because of the fraud thing. So I'll explain how I got over that hump. But in the beginning, when I had, I separate my gas and my groceries, and then I have restaurants that I use restaurants and entertainment kind of together that way, you know, if we want to grab a pizza or if all of a sudden we need to order concert tickets. If we have a concert tickets, we have to get. Right. That is exactly right. But my gas and groceries are separate too.

15:46So those are my three spending accounts. And then of course I've got my business spending account. I've got my personal spending account. And so it's, it's somewhat comical when I'm standing at the, the check, the checkout at Walmart and I pull out my wad of debit cards and I just am like flipping through to see which label I'm looking for. I'm not looking for the credit card that has the limit that's open for me currently. I'm looking for the correct label on my debit card.

16:13Brianne:You just put a little bubble in your head just so everybody can know what's actually happening. Let them touch. Okay, and you said how you got over the credit card versus debit card thing. How'd you do that? That was a big roadblock when Vanessa and I started coaching because I had a friend who had, unfortunately, years ago, this was honestly probably 12 or 13 years ago. She had had a fraud situation with her debit card and whatever bank she was at. They completely wiped out her account. Her bank froze all of her account. She had access to nothing. And just like that, it was as if she was broke because she had no liquid that she could use.

17:02And that scared me. I was like, I have already had to deal with credit card fraud issues in the past. And it's been so easy to call the credit card company and say like, I had fraud activity or they flagged it before I even realized it. And so that was my security blanket because I knew how easy that was. But I also knew that security blanket was also getting me in trouble. And so I knew I needed to get over that. but it actually, I had talked to my bank and I said, what happens if there's a fraud on my card? And so she kind of talked through how that worked. Well, last summer I had a fraud on my card.

17:41And I know like a lot of people, I shouldn't say a lot of people, I have heard the comment from some about how, how are you going to know? How are you keeping track if you're not tracking? How are you keeping track if there's fraud on your account? Well, it felt a whole lot simpler than having everything in one account because now I have 10 bills coming out of my bills account. And so it doesn't take me long to look through those and check those off of my budget. And in my personal spending and in my groceries and in my gas, there's not that many transactions to just be able to keep an eye on it.

18:17It's so much easier. So I had a fraud issue on my debit card last year. And it obviously. I found out about it very quickly. And I called the bank. They closed down that card, issued me a new one right away. They actually print debit cards in-house. So I didn't even have to wait for one to come. They just printed me a new one, got me set up. And then they instantly gave me that same day. They gave me my money back that had been taken out on the fraud. And I said, okay, how does this work? Because clearly I was confused that I was getting it that instantaneously. And she said, well, we do our backend stuff.

18:55We do this preliminary credit to your account. You get your money back. We'll do our investigation. If we end up getting money back, then we'll take it, you know, we'll, you know, exchange it out, whatever. And so just like that, it was taken care of. And so at that point I was like, okay. All right. So I think that my friend, either debit cards and banks have gotten better in the last 12 or 13 years and or some banks are just better than others. And this is another reason why you need to just ask your bank and shop around. If they're not going to treat a fraud issue like that, they have part of that.

19:37I think you're right though. I think a lot of them now do that instant credit immediately. And then while they're digging deeper into it, they can figure out what's really going on. But I love that. And I want to ask really quick, did that happen out of your spending account yeah so was your bills account affected at all did any of your bills not get paid because they froze anything no and you're and it was the spending debit card not your bills account debit card so it didn't interrupt anything that was attached to that debit card

20:05Brianne:right yeah yeah we're just going to add fraud resistant to our system now that you've told us that because that's what vanessa's always said is like well if they get one account it's not going to have everything in it whereas before if you have one account everything's in there you are It can be a problem. But also you can notice it faster. But also I do think that banks have gotten better. So whereas credit cards used to have quote unquote better fraud protection, now debit cards, which by the way, now have a credit card thingy on all of them. They're all also credit cards for the most part. They also have all the protections.

20:39Brianne:They have the protections now because everything, just like why we're doing all of this, everything's more digital. There's a lot more of that. So everybody's gotten better. So that whole argument just doesn't hold any water. It's time to enter your coaching era because making good money should feel like making good money. Yeah. Imagine six months of private coaching where we'll tell you exactly what to do. No guesswork, no confusion, and absolutely no judgment. It's a done for you system that actually works. You don't know what you don't know, and that's not your fault. And that's why we're here.

21:12Brianne:Financial coaching with us looks like two coaching sessions a month, personalized recaps and after hour support, you can text and email. So you're never stuck wondering what to do next. Together, we're going to build your budget, set up your system and tackle any challenges that come up along the way, which by the way, they always do. If what you're doing isn't working and you're tired of trying to figure it out on your own, sign up for financial coaching at budgetbesties.com forward slash coaching before all of our spots fill up and we will help you go further faster. Six months from now, you'll wish you started today.

21:43Brianne:we're on like financial coaching myth busters by brianne yep so give us the next one brianne okay let's see okay so finding out what i cost in a month how simple does that sound when you talk budget like when you're talking budget like i have always said i mean obviously my history with financial software and financial classes like i always deemed myself as financial nerd But just the reality of I never really figured out truly what my bottom dollar, what I cost in a month and how impactful that was. Because that was like step one of the rehab program to actually get ahead. So I always cash flow to everything in the moment.

22:37and being self-employed, I have that luxury. I know not everybody has that luxury of being able to kind of add business in when they need extra business and take care of that. But unfortunately, unfortunately, that's where my mind was, was if I just need to work a little bit more this month, I will. And so if something came around, I never told myself no, like nothing ever was off limits. It was like, okay, well, I'll just figure out how to pay for that. I'll just figure out how to cashflow that. And so estimate taxes were a huge thing for me that the concept is not that monumental, and yet it is, about taking something that we pay early, annually, semi-annually, whatever it is, and divide it by the months that we need to save for so that the money is there.

23:30That's pretty smart, right? It's not that hard to figure that out. But I never did that. Instead, I lived in the moment. And then once I made it to that month, if I had$1 ,200 of estimate taxes that needed to be sent off this month, then I got to cash flow it. And then that month got really stressful. And I cash flowed that. And then I went, okay, I'm good for another three months. And that was how I lived because I just cash flowed. And so being able to set up and get into a rhythm of just automatically having certain things like my taxes are just one of those, but my business expense or my business supply is that was a big thing.

24:13Because, again, I just lived month by month in what needed to happen. And I met my needs when they needed met. but now I've kind of seen the light and I can meet my needs all month long all year long and not have to suddenly go where's that extra$1 ,200 coming from so that is like a huge one that was another thing I think that that forced me into the whole robbing Peter to pay Paul thing because when I'm cash flowing everything then it's like okay well I need that for here now So now I don't have it there, but I will next month. I'll run it there and then I'll steal it again. And then I'll steal it again.

24:54Maybe somebody wants to come in and look at it because you, like you said, we, you know, we tell people you can get tunnel vision. This is how you were doing it for so long. And this is the only way that you saw it until somebody else was like, or what about this? And it was like a light bulb, like, oh my gosh, I didn't even think that was possible or I could do that. Or, you know, in setting up those buckets really allowed you to, again, have your business on a like easy rhythm.

25:16Brianne:them. Well, and I think that this is the whole point, smarter, not harder, but nobody's teaching us smarter. They're teaching us credit scores. They're teaching us how to get points on your credit cards or whatever. There's so much noise out there, but this is all the common sense stuff that's going to make our lives easier. Nobody's teaching it except for us. We're trying, we're trying, but what I real quick, before we get to the next myth buster, I do want to say when you said like figuring out how much you cost or like your bottom dollar and you're, you know, you are talking by the way, for the listener, we're talking monthly and annually, like actually knowing what What I cost monthly and annually is a big aha moment.