Extra Money Still Needs a Job + Tight Budgets Aren’t Always a Spending Problem | Lessons from the Sessions | 598

0:00We are spending way too much money. We don't know where it's going. Girl, this isn't girl math. This isn't, it's not free money. It's not fake money. It's actual real money that we have to account for. And if you want to be a big spender, a big baller, be a big baller, but put it on a piece of paper. That's all we're asking. I've had people come to me and they're like, what can I cut? And I'm like, nothing. Sometimes it is an income problem, unfortunately. And we don't love that. Stop shaming yourself for a problem that isn't the actual problem. You're never going to find a solution that way. Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it?

0:35Are 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? 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.

1:06We'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.

1:38And 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.

1:53I have this sweet, lovely, wiser couple, and they've been doing their finances a certain kind of way for most of their life. I'm picking up what you're doing now. Yeah. Okay. And when they first hired us last year, they have a business and we do the business budget and their personal budget, but this is a personal budget conversation. But they, so they've been with us for a minute. And I will say that they got everything set up, their automatic transfer set up into spending. Everything was going great until – Wait for it. Until they got a lot of cash in their pockets. So I found out last session because we've been working on a lot of their business stuff.

2:31And so she's, I really need to work on personal. So we're going to do that. And she said, I get a lot of cash in Venmo payments for something that she does on the side. and then she said and then my husband gets a lot of he does a lot of side jobs and he gets paid in cash and she said and we just we use that and we don't put it in a budget we don't account for it that's so fun for them yep we don't it's just not anywhere and we just spend out of it and she's and i just spend out of my venmo balance and i was like girl this isn't girl math this isn't it's not free money it's not fake money it's actual real money that we have to account for i said it's not about, it's not like putting in your budget is going to be shameful or it's bad, or it's telling you that you're, it's restrictive.

3:14It's none of that. It's the fact that you want to look at your whole budget and say, this is what I have coming in this month. Wow. I'm so excited. I'm so proud of it. And then the question is, what do I want it to do for me this month? And when you're keeping some of that in cash and not accounting for it on the budget, and it's flying out the door as fast as it's coming in. And she said, we are spending way too much money. We don't know where it's going. And it's because they started taking cash for payments and not accounting for it. So anyways, it doesn't matter whether it's a flea market, like a sale that you made, or if it's selling stuff on Facebook marketplace, if it's whatever, any type of cash that you bring in, put it in the budget so you can account for it.

4:02Yeah. And listen, we're not going to shame you. We don't want you to shame yourself. But what you want to do is put that in the budget. And then if you think that you want to spend it, because that's what you, that's what you want to do, you need to put, oh, here's this thousand dollar extra or Venmo payments, thousand dollars in your budget. And then you can go ahead and add spending, put a thousand dollars because the key here is to own it. If what you want to happen and if that's what's happening, own it. If looking at it makes you feel a certain kind of way when you actually are looking at it, then do something different with it.

4:34The point is we're no longer the head in the sand. We're no longer covering our eyes when we don't want to look at it. We're owning it. And if you want to be a big spender, a big baller, be a big baller, but put it on the piece of paper. That's all we're asking. That's all we're asking. And then you'll make your own decisions. Maybe you'll change your mind. Maybe you won't. I think I told you before, I had clients that they had$1 ,000 spending money each month. Sure. And you know what? They really did a great job. They didn't do ever mess up ever. And that's what they needed. That's what they wanted.

5:02Whatever. It worked for them. Yeah. We're not telling you what to do with your money. We're just saying, put it on paper. You're accounting for it all. Yeah, because otherwise it's going to disappear. And it's funny you say that because that's what they decided. They said, okay, if we are now accounting for this money, I want to increase our spending money each. I was like, perfect. And they did. They set theirs to$1 ,000 each, which is fantastic. I don't think they can afford it. And I'm excited that they can afford it. But again, it's just every, they wanted boundaries. They love the boundaries that they put in for their gas and groceries, for their family fun.

5:32But their spending, their personal spending money was getting under control because not only did they have the money in the spending account, they also had all this cash and they were blowing the cash because it wasn't accounted for in the budget. And it was like, quote unquote, free money, girl mouth, whatever you want to say. It's not really a thing. We don't want to do that. We want to put it in there so you can feel proud of what your money is doing for you. Yeah. And also it's just part of that like less, there's fewer webs that are tangled or like random things floating in your brain that you have to account for.

6:02If it's all in the budget and it's all, then your spending is getting funded automatically. We're not having all these different puzzle pieces that we have to manually put together. We just going to make sure all the memo automatically get deposits to the bills account. And then all of our spending can happen automatically. And we're just, that's the goal here is to make it as streamlined as possible. Yeah. 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.

6:35It'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.

7:11Six months from now, you'll wish you started today. So we're going to go from that to where they can afford$1 ,000 in spending every month to a different situation. And this is really hard, and I'm going to be really honest. The thought and one of the conversations that I've almost had with my client is there's a reason marriage is important for a budget when there's kids. It's really hard to afford everything on your own, right? Like you have your own mortgage. He has his own, your ex has his own mortgage. You have your own power bill. He has, that's so hard. And, and seeing it on a budget several times, we have lots of single moms that we, that we help.

7:51We have to acknowledge that's hard. And it's a whole different situation than when you have dual income funding a budget or one income, but one set of bills either way, that's, it's different. And so this particular client, she keeps, she has a habit of coming to the sessions. Like, I just need to figure out what my problem is. I need to figure out what am I, why, like it was her and like her spending or her bad habits or her and over and over. And I think she's finally starting to believe me. I've said most of the time it's not an income problem. In this instance, it is an income problem. You're only making so much and you've got your own set of bills to, that you're not sharing.

8:30You're not able to share. And that's tough, especially when you have two kids as well. And so the problem here is not how much you're spending. it's literally your income. And where you live and where she lives in the country in the northeast is expensive. And so her rent or her mortgage, I'm not sure which one it is, is basically one of her paychecks. So then she has to afford everything else on one of her paychecks. And that's why it feels tough, right? And understanding the real problem, not it's not that you're spending too much. It's not that you're going out shopping or whatever. The budget's very frugal.

8:59That's hard to do all by itself. And so that doesn't necessarily help the situation, right? That's not going to make money grow on trees. But stop shaming yourself for a problem that isn't the actual problem. You're never going to find a solution that way. Start really recognizing this. If there is something I can do about the mortgage or the rent, or in her case, if I've got a junior and a senior, if I can just somehow make it happen for these two years and then downsize once they're gone, let's be honest about the problem so we can be honest about the reality and then theoretically the solution that we can use to fix it.

9:32Especially when they have a conservative budget. it. So I've had people come to me and they're like, what can I cut? And I'm like, nothing. Can't find anything. Sorry. There's nothing in here as a financial coach of however many years doing this, doing thousands and thousands of budgets. I cannot find something for you to cut because like you said, it's not always an expense problem. Sometimes it is an income problem, unfortunately. And we don't love that. But again, like Shana said, it could just be a season that you're in. I said this before, but I had a free call with a lady and she said, I need$6 ,000 to pay off my debt.

10:03And I was like, great, get another job for$6 ,000 and then be done. And she was like, oh, I can do that. Yeah. It's not this lingering, oh my gosh, I have to get a second job forever. It is, I'm going to do it for a short amount of time, get what I need to get done and take care of it. And then I can wipe my hands off it, move on. And then I have the wiggle room in my budget that I need to be able to be successful. So yeah. And this, and the key here is like identifying the real problem. And so because of this problem where we've been living with this hard, not enough income to pay all the bills, then we've racked up debt.

10:34That's the reason you put a lot of pressure on yourself. And maybe if some of you need to put pressure on yourself, don't not do that. Sometimes it has to happen. But maybe it's, oh, I was doing that to feed my kids. I was doing that to be able to pay the mortgage every month. Fix the flat tire or something. And like Vanessa said, maybe she gets a second job for a little while to pay off some of the debt so that her budget's not so tight or whatever it might be. But if we don't look, and that means what we found out with that solution is it was an income problem because she keeps coming to the call thinking, what do I need to do?

11:04Stop spending, stop my bad habits. I don't know that we can, we can't, we're just going down the shame cycle that just keeps repeating. We're not actually solving the real problem. And you're not going to get healthier. I think about like mentally, all of that. You're, if you continue to think it's a meatball and the shame, that's not going to help anything. And you're going to go down this massive rabbit hole. Like Shana said, own it, figure out what it is and then know how to fix it. And then move on from there. And again, even if it's a short term situation that you have to put yourself in, that's okay because you're going to know a time frame and know, okay, I just need this dollar amount or I need to do it for this many months and then you can be done.

11:35So we hope that those helped you. 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 with your money.