Get Clear On Where Your Money Goes: Separate And Organize Your Money | 509

20:33I think cats are cats, kids, pets, and what is it? Glam up because you can go in person and get your nails done and stuff. And normally you can get a discount when you do it. And the pets, maybe they play the groomer, right? So they're getting that out once in cash each month and then they put it in their cash envelope. But the rest of it is most, for the most part, it's going to transfer automatically to the account on the pay cycle that they choose. So when you put those emojis in and you decide, okay, I'm doing cash or I'm doing an account. And this little calendars here make it tells you that it's a one-time thing.

21:04So when you're saving for someone's birthday, you don't need to transfer half the money, the beginning of the month and half of the money at the end of the month, you just need to transfer the money when you're going to make the purchase for the birthday gift. Right? So that's why it's a one-time transfer that you're doing. Everything else is going to be set up automatic. And so when you do that, your paycheck plan automatically calculates all of that to tell you exactly what to do. We have some people that say, I make my budget and then I don't even look at it. All I do is look at the paycheck plan because it tells me what to do.

21:29If I do this, then I'm successful and everything is done for me. Yeah. I want to answer a question, which we're not necessarily to the questions yet, but I think it's a great, it's a great question for right now is annual bills. She said, do I transfer it back to my bills now, or do I leave it in the account? Mostly that's up to you. If you want to pay out of your annual bills, we have some clients that want to do that, but it's so easy. You would have here, for example, it's, you would have it, please hold, call. here it is. You would have all of your annual bills listed out here. You know when they're coming, right?

21:59So you can just transfer from annual bills, win the actual bill into your bills. You can do it that moment. And it's super easy, super, because you're not going to, you're only going to have what, like 10 annual bills. So you're only going to have to do it a few times and it will be the one like manual thing that you would have to do. But I think that the good thing about this is that it's the way that you want to do it, right? So our system is set up. We give you a generalization of this is what we, most of our clients do. But if you want to have that bill pulled directly from the annual bills account, go for it.

22:27If you want to transfer it back into the bills account, then go for it. Feel free to do that. But just know that those savings accounts are saving for future expenses, right? They're not considered spending accounts. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we're going to get to questions here in a minute, but let's move on.com. I'm going to figure out, figure this out. Who's excited that I definitely know what I'm doing. Yeah. Here we go. Nailed it. It's fine. You guys love me anyway. Okay. So let's keep going here. Oh, that was fun. That's a fun next step. All right, Vanessa drum roll. She's going to pick.

22:58I'm going to scroll through here, guys. Dana, Dana S. If you are Dana S. girl, email us at hello at budgetbesties.com and we will get you your gift card. Thank you for coming to our boot camp. Yes. Okay. And don't forget to save your questions. We're going to go get to questions here in a minute, but we want to talk about real stories because we think they're helpful. Plus, we love the sticker that says bougie on a budget. Our graphic designer made us just wanted to share that with you. And it's rose gold. And it's rose gold. It's really important. It's important. So she says she's always been a saver, but apparently she's been doing it wrong.

23:33First of all, let's pause. Everybody stop being mean to yourself. You don't know what you don't know. Anyway, this system has allowed me to see where I'm putting my money and my goals. It's helped me to pay down debt. And that's amazing. It's so thrilling entering the numbers and seeing my net worth increase. And I love what she said there. What we are talking about today is getting clear on where your money is going. That's the savings buckets are really helping you. And so are the spending now all the time. If I went back to the budget all the time, we tell our clients, okay, look, you're making$20 ,000.

24:00You can see that 6 ,000 or 10 ,000 of that's going to bills. It's going for your regular life. You're spending$5 ,000 a month and you're saving 5 ,000. Now I actually know what's happening. You don't know. Sometimes it's give or take. I spend money when I need to spend money. You don't really know. But now I spend$2 ,000 on groceries every month. Like I know that's where that goes. I know I'm saving$3 ,000 a month toward different stuff that is important to me. And knowing actually where your money goes is what we all really want. It's not, it's not that we don't want to spend money. It's not that we don't want to save money or we don't know we have to pay our bills, but actually knowing I'm working really hard every day to earn this money.

24:34I know where it goes is really a big deal. And I love how she said, I'm seeing my net worth increase. That is a tab that we have on the budget as that's optional that you are welcome to track. There are so many other resources besides just the monthly budget that's on there that you are again, optional. You don't have to use them, but you are welcome to, and she's tracking that. Yeah. Okay. All right. So your homework, you guys, so let me go ahead and put that in the chat. You will get it in your email and be in the same link to the folder that you went yesterday for the replay. Yep. So their homework is to plan your accounts.

25:06So think about it. If you have your, your say your spending accounts and your savings accounts, you're going to list what your spending accounts would be and what your savings accounts can be. Now let's be a visionary for a second. When you're doing your savings accounts, you may say, I am far off from being able to fund these. Doesn't matter. Okay. Let's the first section we want you to do is go, these are the ones that I can do right now. And then we want you to plan what are your, like the goal for your savings book. You want to have travel medical, maybe you have an HSA or an FSA, so you don't need medical.

25:38So you can mark that one off, right? But maybe it is your annual bills, your clothing fund, your pet fund, your vehicle maintenance, all of those things that you want to have. We have some people that have specific wedding accounts for their kids. They have not just a kid's account, but they have specific accounts for their kids' names, right? So you can do it however you want. if you were to plan out what your spending accounts and your savings accounts were, what would they be? Yeah. And this is just planning the accounts. Yesterday, when you did your audit, you came up with some numbers and you will do that as you build your budget.

26:08The numbers are going to be as according to your budget and a little bit of your audit, but the audit answered, what do I spend? And when you make your budget is going to answer, what do I want to spend? And so you've, but right now we want to know the accounts because as Vanessa said, everybody's different. Some people want a kid's line item. Some people want family entertainment. They want it all bundled in one. Some people want one account per kid. It's just really what makes the most sense. Some people don't want restaurant money. Some people want restaurant money. People don't want personal care.

26:34It's up to you what your account name look like. But then the other thing you can do is name them. Like we, when you're going to - The best part. Eventually you're going to go open these at the bank and you're going to get to have a fun name for each one. So you can do that as well when you're planning them out. Yeah. Okay. So tomorrow guys, what we're going to do is come everyone. This is like a hot topic. Stop living paycheck to paycheck. How do I get a paycheck ahead? This is what people want. That is tomorrow. So if you have a friend that you know that's living paycheck to paycheck, bring them.

27:01We're gonna go through exactly how to get a paycheck ahead. And then we're also gonna have giveaways you just wanted to go into, what to look forward to for tomorrow. Okay, and so now we are going to answer your questions. Here we go. We got them. They're coming in. Oh, debit card labels. What is it? Budgetbesties.com. Slash debit card stickers. I will put the link in the chat for you. Yeah, debit card stickers, free shipping. It's really cheap. you can get those and start using them. I know some of you had questions earlier that it goes so fast, goes so fast. So if you can put them in again, that would be wonderful.

27:31She says she has a bucket called fair money. So I can give money when I go to the Renaissance fair. Listen, listen, her son and my son both have swords that they've purchased many sorts from the Renaissance fair. So you're not alone. We love that. It's super fun. Okay. Let's see. Okay. What else do we have for questions. She said, I have a small business doesn't pay for itself yet. I know I need separate accounts, but I haven't because I have to pay many business expenses on my personal account. Always need to money to live. How do I get? How do I until I'm making money in my business? How do I get out of the cycle?

28:09There's not really a way to get out of the cycle until you're making money from your business, right? In order to pay your own bills, what you're doing is paying your business, whereas your business should be paying you. So you could start off by doing that. We also So say, so you could start off by having a business budget, having a personal budget. And if you have to put a line item in there for your personal budget that goes paying business, fine. But at least we're acknowledging what's really happening and there's a number attached to it. And that will get you in the habit. If you have your business budget set up in its own separate accounts, it will get you in the right habit until it's making enough money to pay for itself.

28:38Yeah. And I'll say, listen, you're not alone. A lot of people will fund their business at the beginning for a short period of time. And sometimes they'll say, okay, I only want to do this for three or four months. That is their goal. And then from that point on, they make the business fund itself. So we understand if that happens, but like Shana said, acknowledge it, put it in your personal budget. And then eventually when you make your business budget, you're going to have all your business expenses, what the income is, and then you'll have a line item in your business budget to pay personal, right?

29:03That's the long-term goal. So somebody asked which banks do this. Somebody else said they have a fee if they go on a negative, if they don't keep a minimum balance, that's fine. A lot of banks don't do that anymore. So you might be averse to changing banks, which we understand. So then you would just not be able to go under that without paying a fee because we don't need to pay fees. They're already making money off of our money. But just understand most banks don't do that anymore. And somebody else said something about Canada. If you can put that question back in there. I put a list of banks that our clients have told us that they use.

29:33Mostly it's the local credit union that's going to be. Those are really good. They're going to have all the features that we're saying. What features? Things like having multiple checking and savings, no fees, being able to rename them, automatic transfers, all of those kind of things. Yeah. All right. let's see what else do you create separate savings accounts as well yes listen here's why so some we've had a lot of people that try to push back on this until they do it and they love it we understand that you want to have one account that you're going to have an excel spreadsheet and you're going to go okay in this one account i have this is for medical and this is for family and this is for whatever you are that means you have to now go back into that excel spreadsheet every time you go to spend money and deduct it from that category again tracking we're not doing that.

30:16When you have an account that's named travel and one that's named vehicle maintenance, one that's named home, the account balance is your guardrail. That becomes your mini budget, right? So you no longer have to track. For instance, my husband went to Ace Hardware and I said, just remember to take it from the home account. And he did. You just transfer the money from the home account into the personal spending. He swipes the card and everything is documented. I never have to track anything. That is why we want to do it separate. Okay. We have another question that I remember somebody said from earlier, I'm going to throw it to you.

30:45What if I'm going to Costco or target and I'm buying stuff that are household and I'm buying groceries? We don't want to get nitty gritty here, guys. If you're going to Costco, what is going to be your Costco budget for the month? Okay. Now, if you're going to Costco to buy like a bedroom set that you know that you're going there specifically, that is a little different, but if you're randomly going, buying different things, what is going to be your Costco budget for the month, your Sam's club membership or your sand club budget for the month target, all of that. We want to figure that out again.

31:13If you're, what do you say? I'm trying to think of the word. If you're abusing it, you're going to know if you're abusing the situation, you're going to know. Right. And I try to work as many household things into my grocery budget as possible. Obviously not like Vanessa said, not the big upgrades and things, but I personally put batteries and light bulbs. I work all of that into my grocery budget so that I don't have, I don't want to have to make that decision. I just want to have enough in my groceries to get whatever I get because I go shop at Walmart, which is a similar problem, but I'm not trying to do that in the moment.

31:43Again, you're getting in the weeds of it and it's going to, in the long run, it'll be a headache. Yeah. Okay. This is a common one. You're going to love this. My husband is very against having multiple accounts. I got him to agree to a Christmas savings bucket, bills, groceries, and gas and spending. Those are wonderful. Those are great. What else do we need for him? Yeah. Yeah. Gold medal has been working on opening up more savings accounts into different buckets. Any tips on explaining the process and the benefits? Go ahead. You go ahead. I was going to say as hopefully as he sees Christmas work, it will work.

32:16It will work in your favor to get more. But you know what I would say the most important thing, Nicole, is dream with him about those savings buckets. So go to travel, kids, pets. This is not dreamy. This is more like annual bills, car, home maintenance. Look at that, get that whole, that whole savings bucket planner filled out with him. And I think that would be a really good first step so that you can see we have different numbers at least. And if you can do that to start, then maybe the next step he'll feel good about opening accounts eventually. Because here's the deal. Most of you guys have the money to be able to fund your savings buckets, but it just disappears throughout the month.

32:52Literally. It just disappears. You have all of your bills due at the beginning of the month. And so the latter half of the month, you can spend freely and you do, and then it disappears and you don't know where it is. Now you don't have any money again. So again, if you build those savings buckets out with him and show him, this is what our money can do for us. If we're diligent, if we're smart, that is going to, that's going to be more exciting for him. And again, men like to see results and data. You both seeing the numbers, seeing actual data, not just the conceptual, we probably should be saving for car maintenance and that will help.

33:20And then the first thing you can do is get all of those numbers total and put it in a savings account and then we will work on him we'll work on him to get them to be separate savings and secretly he'll be working on himself when he's doing this process so when he's using the bills account spending account all that like naturally it's going to be working i did have i see a question here it says curious why you combine gas and groceries together when you want to use those separately we combine them just because they're very consistent like you know you're going to get 50 bucks or 60 bucks 70 bucks in gas every single week or twice a month whatever that those are consistent numbers you can always count on if you're going on a trip obviously that's coming from the travel fund.

33:55I think Shana, she, hers is separate, mine is together. You can do it however you want. It's just to try to condense the amount of checking accounts that you have, but feel free. If you want to do them separate, go for it. I just want to say Babs, I realized we were talking really fast, so I'm going to pretend to slow down again. It might last one minute, but watch. Wow. You guys love us anyways. Okay. Lisa asked twice. She clearly wants to talk about this. So we're going to do it. We can't, so we can't use credit cards to pay bills and spending just to get the miles, even though we pay them off every month.

34:23We don't teach that. So we understand some of you are like disciplined enough to figure that out and to use it to your advantage. How are you, if you can find a way to be on a budget and credit card at the same time, we are, we are open to that. At the very minimum, you need to put a budget and you should see, Hey, I shouldn't, my payoff amount shouldn't be more than 5 ,000 or whatever your budget is showing for spending in every month, but we don't teach that. I'll just say that. Here's what I'll say is your money for bills should still go in a bills account. However, you decide to spend, do that.

34:56Your money should go into a spending account. It should go into gas and groceries account. It should go into a bills account. And so you know what your budget is for those categories and how you choose to spend it and pay for it. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. Can't anyway. Okay. So what do you do when you have money left over in the accounts? Because you're a good girl. And at the end of the month, because you spent less than you budgeted, let's go. First of all, you do the stretch. It's called you put your arm up, you fold it, pat yourself on the back because you're a good girl. Now, um, this is the fun part.

35:27This is a fun time. Yeah. You get to decide, right? So you can do one of two things you can, or actually three. If your goal is to pay off debt, then throw that extra money on debt. If you don't need it. Okay. If your goal is to add more money to your savings buckets or start a savings buckets, start it with that extra cash. You can just leave it in the account and let it roll because you're eventually going to spend it. So whether you spend$500 this week in groceries, but next week you spend 400 in a couple of weeks, you're going to need that extra hundred because something's gone and Vanessa's buying it at the store.

35:57Again, don't get in the weeds of it. You get to decide how you want to spend that money. And I will say we see this happen more and more. The more you do this, you, again, when we talk about your central nervous system, calming down, you're not anxious. you're not feeling like you never have money you're not worried about bills you're not all of that is going to naturally help you to spend less money we've seen it over and over so you'll start to see that now the only thing that will happen is costs go up every so it's getting less but numbers are still numbering okay she somebody said my partner lost his job due to health reasons i've also been on medical leave for a year major illness left me hospitalized for four months starting life over and we are in debt.

36:35We have a debt relief. You have a debt relief prompt guide or something that I heard about on your podcast. Yes. So we'd start there, Adrienne. It's at budgetbesties.com forward slash DIY relief, debt relief. Who's going to find it? I'm going to find it. I'll put it in the chat. So knowing, hopefully going forward, if obviously we're sorry to hear all of that, but if you are able to start over, that's great. Like you can start and just understand, don't put a lot of shame in the debt. That's what happened. And it had to happen, right? They're obviously the circumstances were extenuating, but what you want to start doing from here on is start on a budget from here on out with whatever you can.

37:13What, if anybody has income now that hopefully people are better or whatever, start now and try your hardest not to use debt moving forward. And then the debt relief guide is going to show you how to work backwards and get out of debt. Yeah. I think the biggest part is that there's no shame in any of it. It's just, what are we going to do from this point on to not go backwards and to do as much as we can to get out of it as fast as you can? Yeah. I don't know. Did we already answer this Vanessa? Do you have separate savings accounts for those buckets? Yes. Not, not one vault. You guys can do that if you really want to.

37:44We don't teach that. We want separate accounts. That's a good point, Shana. We don't do the savings buckets or vaults or baskets or whatever the banks do. You, we actually have separate accounts. And again, the reason why is because that is one account that It has all the things listed and now you have to go track and you can't actually deposit money into that specific bucket because it's under an account. It's a mess. It doesn't work the way they're like almost there, right? They got it 90 % of the way figured out, but it's still not right. So what we want you to do is actually open up separate bank accounts.

38:13As far as which accounts should be checking versus savings, if you're spending it throughout the month, that's a checking account, right? Because your savings accounts are going to have limited amount of transactions sometimes. sometimes. So if you're saving up and you only maybe use it once or maybe only a few times a year or once a month, like you can, that can be a savings account because you're, but you don't want, again, we don't want to get in this tracking and having to do all this stuff manually. So if I, if it's the groceries, I know I'm spending it every month. That's why it's a checking account.

38:39I put one amount in there and I just swipe it all month long and I don't have to worry about it. That's what you want for anything that you're spending. And then savings is just going to add up and you'll transfer it here or there. Medical is one of the things that as our clients get older, they sometimes transfer that as a checking account. They move it over to a checking account because it just makes more sense. They have multiple appointments a week sometimes. So just that's what you're looking at. Want to make the least amount of work for you as possible. That's what this is. Like Shana said, if you're constantly in there transferring money, it needs to be a checking account.

39:07Okay. I want to see what Kristen said about she's, she, they follow Dave and they've been doing a loose form of our system. What I've been doing is adding our annual expenses into our bills account, but and breaking it up into monthly amounts going into the bills account. So if it and then we said, do we advise against doing it that way? Now, if you feel like that works for you, do it like it sounds like it's working for you. So what she's saying is she doesn't put her annual bills money in a separate account. They just leave it in their bills account and their bills just constantly getting paid.

39:37That's if that works for you, do it. We're not going to one downside is that up until a few months ago, we kept running. We kept running out of money in our bills account because I kept touching the bills money since it looked like there was so much in there. That's the, that's the downfall sometimes. So if you're running into that problem, then you probably need to open up an annual budget. Yeah. An annual bill savings account and separate it just to hold yourself accountable because you do, you'll see a bunch of money in there and you're like, Oh, this will be fine. I don't need that for five months.

40:02Let me just use it. No, we want to take it out. Yeah. Yeah. We definitely. So I think Shana sees Shana spend. That's the whole reason we have this, you guys. Okay. We got to get this stuff out of sight. Okay. and it's just natural. I feel like, unfortunately, if depending on what kind of money baggage you have money, you feel like you need to spend the money. But we it's just our and then even when you have money, like you don't need to it's just like leftover from when you were 18 and had no money or whatever. And it's just this habit we see you're not alone there. So again, separating it and sometimes it's not you it's your spouse.

40:34Oh, love them the spouses that we have. He thought there was extra money. So he just I'm like, No, but there wasn't but there wasn't extra money. Anyway, so yes, it's separate. It's not that hard. You did the math already. So just transfer it out would probably be what you would do. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. I have budgeted amounts in your system for the five categories. Do I transfer those totals to similarly named bank accounts? So Babs, I'm already speaking fast again. Sorry. Didn't last but 13 seconds. So what we would suggest is you get in a paycheck cycle, paycheck plan, where when your paychecks are dropping, you transfer.

41:08if you get paid every week, you'll transfer it, your total amount divided by four, theoretically. If you get paid twice a month, then you would take that amount that you budgeted and you do it each paycheck. So it'd be by half or divided by two. And that's the amount that you're transferring. Yes, they are separate accounts. Yes, they are named spent, Babs spending or gas and groceries or something fun like it. Yeah. I think that's a good point is whatever you have it named on your budget is what it should be named in your bank account. I just think it's just easier that way. Yeah. Susie said, how many checking and savings accounts should we have?

41:38Checking is going to be like four, give or take. You're going to have bills, gas and groceries, and spending some conglomeration of spending in kids or family. Savings is probably going to be a few more. Is it a competition? Because I mean, this could be fun. Here's what I want to say. And here's another hint for the husbands, by the way. You can hide your savings. You can hide any account. That's another tool your bank does. So if you feel like it's too much, like you don't want to see all of that, you don't need to, because you can still transfer. Let's say you have oil change. You can still transfer it with the account being hidden, but you can have it.

42:09So when you log on, you only see those spending, you don't see all of the savings. So that is, but usually maybe eight savings accounts, give or take, depending on how serious our clients want to be. I love my savings accounts, guys. It's so much fun. And honestly, it's so nice. Like I said, to be able to pull up my bank account and see all the names and all the amounts in them. I know exactly what my money is for when I'm going to use them. Cause I've already planned all that out and it's just sitting there. So that is, I think that's, it's the freedom to be able to spend in those categories whenever, however I want.

42:40Okay. Okay. Any great resources for budgeting as someone who's going through a divorce and has not done, gosh, we have so many clients and podcasts. So maybe I need to make a divorcee. Is that the right thing? You probably need to make a podcast episode on that. What's the fabulous word for it? That, yeah, a playlist of all of them just so you can feel like you're heard, you're seeing, you understand, like they're going through the same thing. But yeah, I think our podcast is the great resource. We have a lot. We give so much away for free on our podcast. Yeah. And our budget system, I think, too, because we walk you through it.

43:15We just actually got done naming the courses. What is it? Money and Budgeting 101. Nobody taught you how. And sometimes in a marriage, one person is doing it and the other is not. So you really didn't get a chance to get hands-on experience. Nobody taught you how. That's why our first course is called Money and Budgeting 101. one. What's the second one called? It is called the budget system series. Yeah. Set up. So it literally teaches you how to set up a budget. So that's what you need. No, you didn't know. Now you're doing it on your own. There's not like a class you can go to for that. Oh, wait, we have one.

43:43So I would say that we are not sure about anything else. I'm sure some of the people in the chat will help you out with that. Yeah. Oh, look, see Kara. I wish I would have found this sooner. Okay. You guys. Oh, okay. Can you split your, I'm going to go lightning round. You want to do some lightning round on yours. Can you split your paychecks to go into the accounts when you get paid? Don't need to do that. Oh, don't do it through HR. Do it on your own through your bank. Yeah. You're going to set automatic transfers. Everything's going to go in the bills. And then from there, you're going to transfer in using the budget that we showed you.

44:13Why? Because you want to be in charge of your money. You don't have to want to wait to ask HR's permission to change anything you want to change. Jennifer said, what if you don't know how much your check will be? You're going to put the minimum you expect in your budget, plan a budget based on that, and you will update it when you get the actual amount. Will you send me some money to do each month? Yes, Babs. Will you send me some money to do? Hey, is this like an exchange, like a gift exchange? Okay, okay. Guys, that I think is most of the questions. If there was a couple of technical ones, if you have a problem with the budget, send us a screenshot.

44:44We'll try to figure out what's going on and help you. And we will see you tomorrow again. Remember, tomorrow we're talking about how to get a paycheck ahead, how to stop feeling like it's paycheck to paycheck and instead get a paycheck ahead. Yes. And remember, if you've been thinking about the budget, guys, go to budgetbesties.com forward slash. What did I say? Budget Besties? I think I did. I don't think I did that. I feel like you did. Budgetbesties.com forward slash budget to check it out. It's the cheapest it's ever going to be. We have three huge bonuses now that we've just added in there.

45:09We're revamping the course and you're getting all of this at the discounted rate. It's not going to be this price ever again. Yeah. All right. We will see you tomorrow. Bye, guys. 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 budgetbestos.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 you'll build and saving and spend on time on money.

45:42Imagine less stress, more savings, and the freedom to spend money without having to track every dollar or babysitter in your debt. Go to budgetbestos.com forward slash automate to start today. Thank you.