Car Paid Off, Student Loan Debt Next? The Best Move for Your Budget | 530

0:00Amanda:I think there's a meat in the middle. There is. And like, you've been in like super aggressive mode to get this vehicle paid off and everything. I think that's really great. And you should be proud of that. And I think it's okay to take, take a minute before you get right back to it. And I will say, when you started the conversation, you said, I have a doctorate level. I have doctorate level debt. It's, it seems fair to think about when I have doc closer to doctorate level income, then I can aggressively talk, tackle the doctorate level debt. Does that make sense? Like right now we're, and hopefully everybody's happy where they're at.

0:33This is a precious time with the kids and we want you to have date nights. Like not having date nights is not, that's not the plan. It is. It can be a short-term plan, but it's not a long-term plan. And so we are just, we just think I would look at, we would look at how much you have, you have now wiggle room in your budget, see what you can do to make life feel more sustainable, feel like what he was talking about, feel that vibe. And then maybe there's still some that we can put towards student loans. if not have both of you have an agreement and say this is the day this is the month really that we think next year or whenever it's going to be that we'll go we'll get right back on this horse and we'll start tackling that do you make good money but have nothing to show for it are you tired of

1:12Amanda: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? You're in the right place. We're Shaina and Vanessa. We're best friends, business partners, and master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey.

1:45Amanda: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. 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.

2:17Amanda: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.

2:30Amanda:Hi, Amanda. Thank you so much for coming on Financial Coaching for Women. We're so excited to have you. Hi, thanks for having me. Yes, love your shirt. I think, don't you feel the shirt like that? It's beautiful. Amanda, tell us what brings you to the show? What can we do? How can we help? Okay, so I've been listening for a while. I have most of the system put in place. So like I have the different spending accounts. I have the different savings buckets, which by the way, has been super helpful because my husband is military. So we might not be getting paid this paycheck. So he goes, do I need to take this USA loan out?

3:09Because normally USA would front our paychecks during shutdowns, but that's not happening this time. Yeah, whatever. So he was like, do I need to take out this loan? And I was like, no, we have it. We're a paycheck ahead. so yes a mini wave in celebration of you good job good job and then if we don't get our next paycheck we still have enough in like our savings buckets to cover us for a little bit before we're trying not to take the loans but that was just a little win i was really excited that's a huge good job yeah it's a huge one but the reason i booked the call is because um i don't know what to do about my student loans so we are about to pay off our second car so we'll have both cars paid our second car will be paid off in July so I'm like I don't know if I want to do the Dave Ramsey style where you take that and turn it into your next payment because we've just been paying like the minimum on student debt but we're getting to a financial part of our life where we can be a little bit more aggressive with it but it feels like a mountain that we can never climb out of.

4:17I have a doctorate degree, so I have a doctorate amount of debt. But we have three little kids and my husband is gone all the time because he's military. So I only work right now preschool hours. So I'm not getting a lot of pay for the amount of debt that I have for my student loans, which that'll be changing in like the next year. I can go more full time. But I just can't figure out how much because it'd be nice to have more spending money because we're being pretty conservative. And so paying off that car could give us a little bit more flexibility there. But if we put all of it on the car, how do we figure out our next step there?

4:52Amanda:Are your student loans in one lump sum or are they different places, different interest rates? They're all federal. Okay, do they all have different interest rates? I think they're all together. They're all together, okay. So are they broken down even if they're with the same lender? Are they broken down into, we see that all the time. Like you might have one lump sum, but they're like little different ones? There's two or three if you look at the breakdown. Okay. But they're all relatively the similar interest rates. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The reason why we ask is sometimes when you break them down, it allows you to see it a little, and it's a little less scary.

5:28Amanda:Yeah. So when I have a client right now, she's got seven different student loans, but it's one lump sum, but we broke it down in her debt tracker. I don't know if you have our system yet, but she broke it down in her debt tracker. So that way we can tackle each amount as one. Does that make sense? Like each one at a time. Yeah. And it lets your brain, like it gives your brain something like other than one, one,$200 ,000,$50 ,000,$40 ,000, whatever. So I wanted to ask you, what is your husband? Like, what have you, what are, what is his opinion? What do you guys, what are you weighing pros and cons?

6:01And then we'll give you what we, what we would suggest. So far, he's just excited to be done with the tarp.

6:06Amanda:I agree. He's like, that's a win. Little win here for a minute. Yeah. Okay. so he follows the system, but like, I'm the one that makes sure all the little boxes get checked and stuff. Yeah. You implement it. Okay. So he's excited about the car being paid off. Yep. And you guys are in the government shutdown situation right now. And you're trying to figure out whether or not to tackle your student loans. I would say you're in a storm mode situation right now for a short period of time. I don't know if rolling that into the student loans would maybe make you feel the best at this moment, it might maybe in the future, but maybe right now you need to allocate that money elsewhere until you feel a little bit more stable in your finances.

6:50Amanda:Does that make sense? Yeah. And I would piggyback on that and say, right now you have maybe a year, you said, while you're at home, like preschool hours, like you said, with your kids until things are going to change both time-wise and time-wise. And at that point, it sounded like you're saying you'd be able to be way more aggressive on paying those off. And it might actually feel like a mountain that you can climb because you have a lot more income to climb it with. So I think that's where we're different. So we love Dave. You know that we love Dave and we agree with almost everything that he says.

7:24But in this moment, time is precious. And you might want to, I would look at my budget and say, if I were to increase my spending accounts, how much would make it feel like a win? Is there savings buckets that we haven't been funding or haven't been fully funding that we want to maybe do that? And then I might see if there's extra leftover once because you had a good budget, you were paying extra on the vehicle, and now you don't have to pay that. And you don't have to pay extra on that amount to wiggle. And there's nothing wrong with splitting it. You might bump up some of your savings. You might bump up a couple of savings buckets.

7:55And then the rest of it starts to go toward the student loan. On the other hand, it is OK. Like Vanessa said, you're in store mode. like we're at a year, about a year to keep it going and be able to do some of the things as a family, whenever he is home and whenever you are home. And that's okay. We want to give you permission to say, we're going to pay the minimum until this set date that we know, then we're going to go back to being aggressive.

8:20Amanda:Because this year is going to go by super fast. It's also going to go by super slow. Meaning in the moment, the day to day, you might feel like, oh my gosh, I'm already out of spending money. Oh my gosh, we feel so tight. Oh my gosh. And so we want to remove that. So like Shana was saying, if you can maybe add a little bit here and there to relieve some of that stress, because I'm sure you're stressed that you, as you alluded to about your student loans, you know, that's there, it's weighing on your shoulders. We don't need to add in the fact that you're also trying to put every nickel and dime that you have onto that debt as much as you can.

8:52Amanda:And then in the day to day, you feel super broke. That's not going to feel good, but in a year, like in that small, so being present right now, doing the things that you can do to alleviate a little bit of that, knowing that in the future, just one short year, when it gets there, you're going to be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it's already here. You're going to be able to tackle it in a completely different way and that much faster. 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.

9:24Amanda: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. 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.

10:04Six months from now, you'll wish you started today. Yeah, my husband doesn't because he says we need to pay more on the student loans, but he doesn't want to sacrifice our quality of life is what he says. Yeah. Which I agree with because at this point, we're doing pretty well financially, but we're still saying I would love to get my nails done or different like vanity things or go out to dinner, do that extra date night or whatever that we're saying no to right now that we would want to say yes to. Yeah. I think there's a meat in the middle. There is. And like, you've been in like super aggressive mode to get this vehicle paid off and everything.

10:42I think that's really great. And you should be proud of that. And I think it's okay to take a minute before you get right back to it. And I will say, when you started the conversation, you said, I have a doctorate level, I have doctorate level debt. It's, it seems fair to think about when I have doc closer to doctorate level income, then I can aggressively talk, tackle the doctorate level debt. Does that make sense? Like right now we're, and hopefully everybody's happy where they're at. This is a precious time with the kids. And we want you to have date nights. Like not having date nights is not, that's not the plan.

11:15It is. It can be a short-term plan, but it's not a long-term plan. And so we just think, we would look at how much you have now wiggle room in your budget, see what you can do to make life feel more sustainable, feel like what he was talking about, feel that vibe. And then maybe there's still some that we can put towards student loans. If not, both of you have an agreement and say, this is the day, this is the month really, that we think next year or whenever it's going to be that we'll get right back on this horse and we'll start tackling that. Okay.

11:46Amanda:That makes sense. That feel good? yeah, so I guess get to where we want to be with our specific savings buckets or our spending, like how much we're putting into our spending accounts, and then push harder on the student debt once we're in the spot where we want to be with those other things. Yeah. And it may be a thing where you can't fund all your savings buckets where you, the way you want to, right? Sometimes we fill out a savings bucket tracker and they're like, this is great in a year, but not, maybe not right now, just maybe put money in there for the important ones, like birthday gifts and I don't know, annual bills.

12:19Amanda:That's a must. So just look at those and go, what are the immediate savings buckets that we need to fund? And then as far as spending, what's going to make it feel a little better and a little less tight throughout the month. And then yes, if there's a hundred or$200 left from that car payment, then you can throw that on debt as long as everything else is taken care of. And again, this is just a short, short period of time. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That sounds good. Okay. And we've been doing it for a year and a half. So last Christmas, we didn't do any credit cards for Christmas either. We had that savings bucket was filled to where we want to be.

12:51Yeah. No, I think you should be, it sounds like you started off with all your wins. And I think those are incredible. A lot of people would wish that they would be in a situation that you have worked hard to be in. And then, and so I think give yourself some credit, get let off the gas just a bit, feel the relief of all of some of the relief of all the hard work that you guys have done. Allow yourself to feel the win. celebrate that yeah and then yeah when you whenever things change and income goes up then you can tackle them aggressively again you know how you have the muscle you've done it it's not like you're just going to give up we know that that's fine it's okay okay perfect thank you you're easy because yeah that all figured out amanda you had just a simple little question and and thank you guys thank you we know you and your husband thank you for your service we hope that the government gets their life together and you guys get your paycheck we We really do, but good on you for being a paycheck ahead.

13:46Yeah. Thank God we were a paycheck ahead because, oh.

13:51Amanda:We had a call with a client, a graduated client, and their episode actually already aired. And about literally about this, about the government shutdown and how them being diligent this past year, obviously not knowing that this is going to happen, but just getting their finances in order and using our system in their like a month ahead. And it did not affect them the way that it had in the past. and it sounds like you guys are in the exact same position and that's awesome. Yeah. Yes. Thank you for all your content because that's why we are. We're glad that it was able to help. The best reward, the best thank you is that you did it and you're in this position.

14:25So that's wonderful. Feel free to come back next year when you're tackling it and we can have, if you have any other questions, I have a feeling you won't because you seem really smart and savvy, but you're welcome back. And we're just, we're thankful that you came on and I think this will help other people. A lot of people see that student loan like it's the last one. They're like, oh, I don't know. I don't know what to do. That will help a lot of people.

14:45Amanda:So thank you. 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. Imagine less stress, more savings, and the freedom to spend money without having to track every dollar or babysit your bank account. Go to budgetbesties.com forward slash automate to start today.