Avoiding Credit Card Debt in a Hard Season: Budget Help, Side Hustles, and Real Wins | 562

0:00Want to pay off debt but don't know where to start? Stop making random extra payments and hoping for the best. Let's build a debt payoff strategy that actually works. Join us Thursday, May 28th for our Debt Payoff Workshop so you'll know what you owe so you can pick your debt payoff method and you can start getting out of debt. We'll help you organize your debt, understand your balances, interest rates, and minimum payments, and help you choose what to pay first. We'll cover all three payoff methods, including the snowball, avalanche, and minimum payments. And we'll also tell you what to know before applying for debt consolidation.

0:32No shame, no finance bro nonsense, just your next right step. Grab your spot at budgetbesties.com forward slash debt workshop. All right, we're back with Coach Michelle. We have to sing her name because she's amazing. Coach Michelle is one of our coaches. And well, she's the awesomest coach for office hours as well. That's one of the things she does. She also, you guys recently, we have added in that, that you, if you buy the budget system, you can get a budget setup session with Michelle for a steal of a deal, which is going to be amazing because, you know, Michelle, I think one of the things that you do in office hours so well is really help people take that first step or start like getting into it.

1:14And that's what the budget setup session can do is, you know, I have this budget. Yes, you can do it on your own. Absolutely. But also Michelle could spend an hour and really help you get everything like done, set up, figured out and tell you like, and you'll walk away with everything ready to go, which is like amazing. Well, and office hours is sometimes has to be generic because you're, it's one to many, right. Right. Versus if you were, if you have someone by themselves, they just bought the system. It's brand new. It's a clean slate. You're able to get in there, build their budget in one hour.

1:44And so you don't have to do anything else, right. You have that time set aside and you and them can do that. And I think that that's, it's a great investment. So we're excited to be able to offer that ongoing now, not just before we did it a limited time. Now it's ongoing. So yeah, we're pumped. 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 when you don't want to give up this pumpkin spice latte? If you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the money, 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 from Superfinances.

2:20We know what you're doing probably isn't working, but guess what? 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 a conversation.

2:55We can help you no matter where you're at, whether you're the single mom who's never had$500 in their savings account or the millionaire who's paid off four real estate workers. 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. okay so give us something juicy give us a little lesson or something juicy from one of the office hour sessions recently so this this friend of mine this gal i've considered them my friends

3:26Coach Michelle:we all and come office hours we're immediately my friend because i just i just love their hearts this gal has been coming to office hours for quite a while i think we've we've been seeing her for over a year now. And she is the hardest worker. I mean, there are so many people that work so hard. She works so hard. She has kids at home and she has some, one of her kids needs extra care. And they work on that really hard. Her husband has a startup and she is so supportive of him. And she encourages him and tries to do anything possible to give him the hours he needs to be able to work on this startup because, you know, it's just really a tough thing to just get going on something like that.

4:11Coach Michelle:And he's working really, really hard. And so I knew that this was going on and she's frugal in a lot of ways, but she's doing it for a season and she recognizes she has to cut back just for a season. This isn't a lifestyle. This isn't something that they want to maintain forever, but just to help because the startup is using up some of their savings, right? And so she's come to us and asks, what do I do? Because I've got the kids 24-7. I have very little time extra past her part-time job, right, to be able to do side businesses and stuff like that. What do I do? Because the startup's starting to eat away at the savings because some of the paychecks for the startup have dried up a little bit just for now.

5:01Coach Michelle:So she's trying to help bridge that gap, right? Very, very against taking out credit card debt because they've been debt-free for a while and she wants to maintain that progress, right? And I really admire that. So she was looking at some ideas. She was considering taking a 401k loan. That's something her husband wanted to do. And I believe she was encouraged to take a business loan or perhaps a personal loan. And so we talked through those options, right? Because, you know, at the end of the month, she's not some of the expenses just aren't getting covered and she's trying to stretch. Right. So we walk through some of those things because she's trying very hard to avoid cracking out a credit card again and racking up that kind of debt at those high interest rates.

5:49Coach Michelle:And so what was beautiful about this is we have a lot of other people that were attending that jumped right in and were like, hey, here's some suggestions. suggestions. You're an art teacher. Why don't you do some tutoring or do some lessons or why don't you do this? Or, you know, you could do online things. You know, they recognize that she might not be able to leave the house extra. She might need to be there with the kids. And so pet sitting, babysitting, you know, dog walking, just they're talking. We even had suggestions of doing laundry, you know, because believe it or not, there's people that are out there that would rather somebody else would do their laundry and would pay them for it.

6:30Coach Michelle:So somebody gave that suggestion. So there was a lot of like side hustle, side gig kind of stuff talked about. We also talked about being very careful about taking a 401k loan, right? Because you can come with penalties and fees and business loans would be actually very appropriate because it's for the business. It's to maintain the business startup. And the same with a personal loan, she needed to explore those options as well, if that would help bridge the gap. Sometimes you just need like a little bit of relief. So that way you can take the next step. And so I think walking, like you being on that call with her, allowing her to walk through all of the options that she was thinking about, and then being able to, you know, have that sounding board, not just you, but the other people in the group that may have had similar stories, may have had similar questions and being able to get those, those questions answered.

7:24So she can make the best decision for her and her family in that season of life that she's in. Yeah. Right. And I love that they were in a community when, when she's asking this question that she's in a community where they're saying, don't do credit cards. Look, I'm here. I'm in this situation and I don't want this for you, you know, and where else are you going to, we were just talking to clients and they're like, we can't talk to our friends about this stuff. You know, you know, we're not going to bring up, Hey, things are really bad financially. What do you think? Like, but this is a community where, you know, whether you're in our Facebook group in office hours, you can truly just have every we're all in this group because we're all have some sort of problem that we're trying to conquer and deal with.

8:02And we're all admitting that finances is not the easiest thing to do. Right. So it's a safe space to bring your problems, to ask for suggestions. And you're going to get the right kind of help instead of you're in one of these finance bro boards. They're gonna be like, well, you can get a HELOC and then you're going to borrow that against your 401k. And if you just do this with the interest for your tax season and you're like, what? Anyway, you're not going to get that kind of advice. You're going to get somebody saying, we know you can do this. Don't do credit cards, girl. You're going to like, and you got support.

8:31And then I love that they threw out all these options and ideas for her that are super interesting. Like, you know, ironing people's stuff or whatever, like whatever, like all of these things as a, as, as a mom, like you could do all you could totally. So I just love the community aspect of what you're, what you're reporting back to us about. Well, on how they took her career into consideration when they were giving her some suggestions. So I think that that's wonderful. 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.

9:09No 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. Financial coaching with us looks like two coaching sessions a month, personalized recaps, and after our 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 where all of our spots fill up and we will help you go further faster.

9:49Six months from now, you'll wish you started today. All right.

9:53Coach Michelle:Any other like fun stories or wins that you would give us? Yes, yes, yes. So one of our, another longtime budget system user came back to us because here's my favorite part of office hours. When people, I mean, there, there's all sorts of good things, but when people tell us their wins because they're coming to office hours to celebrate that in this community that's so encouraging and motivating, right? So this gal comes back to tell us that this year she got to pay her estimated taxes from her tax savings bucket that she had set up. And she's like, look at how this worked. Because last year, she is awesome.

10:36Coach Michelle:She is so awesome. But last year, she was really ashamed because she had to ask her mom for help. now I'm sure her mom was like whatever you're my kid I'll help you anytime but for her she felt so good yeah she felt so good she was able to save up herself over time and then when it came due boom she was she got to pay it and it was just such a relief and also it was that seeing the savings buckets in action seeing them work exactly how they were intended and so that felt really good to her. And her other big win in this last month was she paid off a vehicle. And it wasn't a small payment. It was almost$800 a month that she got to add back into her budget, which is pretty amazing.

11:22I'm for that. I love that for her. I love that for her. But I do want to say that we were just talking to our clients about that, about not being behind on taxes, being able to get ahead and not feel like it's always on your back. And actually, this is a great summary point here because I actually remember this particular amazing person and she had a one-time session. I was just going to say that. Yeah. She had a one-time session, which helped her, you know, even more than office hours already was helping her, helped her like think about how to do this. And now here she comes back and she's able to do this.

11:52So, you know, this is a great segue. Yeah. She booked that budget setup session and use that time wisely. She's amazing. And I'm so excited to see her and listen, not everybody can afford coaching. We get it. That's why we're, we're introducing this budget set up session to be able to, you know, and you look at budgets, you can tell when somebody can afford coaching and you can tell based on the situation, look, this is better suited for Shana and Vanessa. You can afford it. I think you need to invest in yourself and go this route. This one, this wonderful human, she could not afford coaching, you know, her budget said so, but she could afford that one-time budget set up session.

12:27She took advantage of it, use it. She's involved in everything and you know, it's paying off.

12:32Coach Michelle:Yeah, it's paying off and she's making progress. And so her way to pay it forward is to come back, share her wins and encourage other people. And she has done a fabulous job of that, of encouraging other people to buy the system, to consider coaching, see if it works in their budget. You know, how I feel about the value of coaching is it's that time value of money, right? And so those folks that are really going to benefit from coaching, the ones that are going to jump in with you that can afford it and that will help them are the ones where they really have limited time, right? And that small investment in coaching is going to give them really big outcomes sooner rather than later.

13:16Coach Michelle:And if that's what they're looking for, I think that's really, I would really encourage them to, to work on heading that direction. And because your, your future time is uncertain, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love all of these. And so really what this is saying, guys, is if you have questions, that's what office hours is for. It is so that you don't have to do this alone. It is so that if you have questions, there's a community and there is a very smart, knowledgeable, loving person named Coach Michelle who can help you. That's what office hours is, is a place for you to come as if you had your own financial coach, which you do.

13:52And you can get help and get support and accountability and community. And so you guys need to show up to office hours, you know, and get and Michelle will be there ready to help. Yeah. Yeah. And remember that budget setup session, if it is something that you're like, listen, I've been sitting on the simplified budget system because I'm afraid to do it alone. And I don't know. I just, I need some extra help. So if you bought the budget system and you're thinking, I need some accountability. I'm looking at it. I feel alone. And I just need a second set of eyes on it. Go to budgetbesties.com forward slash setup.

14:22And you can book that budget setup session with coach Michelle. If you make good money, but have nothing to show for it, this quiz will help you figure out what's really going on with your money and what your next step should be. You'll get a personalized result and a simple action step to help you feel more organized and less stressed. Go to budgetbesties.com forward slash quiz and take the free quiz today. That's budgetbesties.com forward slash quiz to find out what's really going on.