How to Budget for October Without Feeling Restricted or Overwhelmed | 624

0:01Normally they need that money. They're like clenching their fists and waiting for that paycheck to drop to be able to do everything else. Can you imagine not having to pay$4 ,000 a month on minimum debt payments? What can you do with that? It would completely change your life. The spending is just, it's a little boost. You took your income, you subtracted the debt minimum that you have to pay, subtracted the bills. My client paid off her mortgage at the end of September. So I'm so excited. Can you imagine making your budget without your mortgage, guys? Yeah. Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it?

0:30Are 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.

1:02We'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.

1:34And 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. Ta-da. All right. Welcome to our monthly budget, guys. Have you made your October budget yet? if you haven't. And we're going to do it together. And that's why we do these every month so that you know that this is a good trigger for you to make next month's budget. Wait, we have to find out a better word than trigger. Don't trigger. Prompt. It's going to give you the budget vibes. Yes. There you go. It's giving budget vibes.

2:07Good budget vibes. Okay, good budget vibes. So we're going to dive into how to create your October budget, what to not forget about October because it's happening. And we're just going to do it all together. Okay, so what is the first thing that we want to look at when we're creating your next month's budget. Contrary to popular belief, it is last month's budget. Yes, that's right. So what we want to do is close out September. We want to make sure everything got finalized the way it was supposed to, that the numbers are all correct. Especially if you're in the beginning, this is super important because I can't tell you how many times I have to pull a September bill that didn't quite make it.

2:41We have to pull it and put it into the next month, October, so that we have two on that month, just so that we can get the system running. So you just need to go through and make sure everything got handled and take care of. Yeah. And a lot of people ask, why doesn't your Simplify Budget System have an actual column versus budget? Here's the quick fix to that. Just to replace the budgeted number with the actual number and then your entire budget updates. Like that's the whole goal. And guess what? Your next month already has the number in there because it auto-populates. The bonus, guys, of our Simplify Budget System when you're using it, you want to go ahead and replace the actuals with the budget.

3:12We're going down a rabbit hole. But what is the purpose of looking at the plan versus actual? there's no good information that's coming from the plant. It means you didn't do a good job planning. Sorry. You don't need that shame in your life. What you need is what actually happened. That's the number that you're going to look at. Even if you have both of those columns, that's the number you're going to look at. What actually happened? And then I can use that moving forward for whether it's bills or spending or saving. That's the number I actually need to look at. And here's the deal. We've had so many people message us, where is your actual column?

3:40And then we tell them the reason. They're like, oh, that makes sense. Like when we first started coaching years ago, we did have an actual column. I never filled that out. We did. Not just us, but our client. Nobody used it. Yeah. Because it was pointless. All we did was just replace the budgeted amount with the actual amount. It's much simpler. Much more simple is what it made it. Okay, here's the deal. You've updated September. You got all the information. Now the next thing that we like to do is go ahead and update your account balances. On the Simplify Budget System, there's an asset tracker.

4:09Let's go through and do those numbers. I love this part of a session because most of the numbers don't go up. I love it when they get to the point where they actually are like a month ahead. And the bills account always has like thousands of dollars. And that is so different than when we start with them and they have zero dollars or they're like, I got$100 in two weeks. How's it going to go? That's a really good one. And then obviously the savings buckets are going. You're tracking all that. In the asset tracker, you're tracking not only your investments, but you also have your house in there, your vehicle in there.

4:36But you have all those savings buckets. And like Shana said, you're watching the amounts go up. But with updating your account balances, you also want to make sure you're updating your debt tracker. So right next to the asset tracker on our simplified budget system is your debt tracker. So go ahead and update the current balance column of that. You can see there's a wonderful little chart. It shows you how much debt you've paid off year to date. And going back to the asset tracker, which is way more fun than the debt tracker, let's be honest. You, I don't know. Absolutely. I don't know. The colors, though, like they're both so pretty.

5:06Oh, OK. The debt tracker is not scary because it's pretty. That's true. I think that's all your debt problems are gone because it looks pretty. No, really. We're really trying to help you. The other thing I love about updating all the account balances, which you guys should get the same effect when you put our system in place and log into your bank account, you get the same effect, is I love seeing the groceries, the spending not be at zero because you're living this new life where you always have money and you're not even worried about it. And it might be you may have a whole week left and you still have$400 in your groceries.

5:36That's where I get excited because then when we see those numbers being heavier than they start. That means it's working. Well, how many clients do we have? And they're like, oh, my gosh, there's$3 ,000 in my bills account. And it's not even the first of the month. And that's because they're a paycheck ahead. So it's so nice. And my client earlier this month, he said, this is the first time my paycheck got deposited and it didn't matter because normally they need that money. They're like clenching their fists and waiting for that paycheck to drop to be able to do everything else. And because they're a whole paycheck ahead, it just doesn't matter.

6:03Money comes in, money goes out, and he's not even worried about it. Yeah. And you're able to spend money however you're going to anyway. You're not restricted and playing the paycheck to paycheck game anymore. Okay. Hit that nail on the head. Let's move on. So now it's time to make October's budget. I did a jingle. You're welcome. And so you guys know there are five categories when you're making your budget. Income, debts, bills, spending, and savings. We have broken it up like that just to make it as simple as we possibly can. And like have your brain have a way to declutter all this noise about budgets and money and what's happening.

6:34That's the way. We're going to put five columns and you're going to fill those up. So the first one is make sure you're putting all of your income. Even if you have a garage sale, if you have commissions, bonus. Some of our clients are just getting tax money back because they filed late or had an extension. So if you have tax money, any type of income that's coming in to your household, even if your kids are paying you back for their phone bill, make sure you list it all here. Very good. Okay, so this next is debts. And we love to tell everybody about this because it seems counterintuitive. When we were using Dave's system, it was really weird.

7:04It was like a very, very bottom second thought. And it's like, no, no. So we'd like to put those next right after the income. Why? Well, first of all, we want to keep it front and center because it's something that you can get rid of. The debt column and every line item on the debt column is something that you will eventually be able to pay off and not have to put in your budget anymore. And that's exciting. And seeing it right there is so good for you to be reminded of that. What else is good to see is the number in our system. It adds up your minimums. It adds up how much you're paying in minimums.

7:30And that's good to know because you can look at that number and say, how would I rather spend$1 ,300 a month or whatever your minimums total up to be. So that's a really good way to keep it front and center and cognizant of what's going on. I was reading an email from a listener and her debt, I think her minimum debt payments were like over$4 ,000 a month. And she's really strapped right now. And so we were emailing back and forth and I was giving her some strategies and tips. I was just thinking, can you imagine not having to pay$4 ,000 a month on minimum debt payments? What can you do with that?

8:00It would completely change your life. Yeah, absolutely. So that's what we want you to do. You have the best number, which is your income. Then we go to the worst number, which is your monthly minimum debt payments. But pause right there for a minute and envision, what would my budget look like if that number wasn't there? Make sure you're only putting the minimums for this debt. We're on step two. Income was one. Debt is two. And we're just putting the minimums, which maybe you don't know because you put a little extra on everything all the time. We're done with that. That's not happening. Go back by the minimum.

8:25And that's what you're paying. We'll tell you why when we get there. But just put the minimums in the column. Then the next one, bills. These are all the things that you're getting charged for on a reoccurring basis. Your subscriptions, your utilities, your mortgage, your auto insurance, all that stuff. If you are getting billed for it, make sure you are putting it in this column. And that way at the bottom, it'll total that up. If you listen to our podcast, know that we want you to have a bills account where all of these bills and debts are coming out of. That's part of the system that you want to incorporate with this.

8:51When you're setting up your budget, this helps. Now I've gotten, I put my income, I've gotten my debts and my bills done. And now I know, all right, whatever number is left, this is what I have to work with when it comes to spending on what I need to spend and saving on what I want to save. Yeah. So the next column, Shana alluded to, is spending. This is where you live in your budget. This is where you are actually spending money. Yeah. What are you doing with your hands? You're getting haircuts. You're going to the restaurants. You're getting gas, groceries. Maybe you have a fall festival. Maybe there is, I don't know, a concert or something happening.

9:20Weddings, if you have some events happening this month, this is where you put all of that in that column. Yeah. So spending is what we're talking about. Spending, what you do with your hands, events. The bulk of this is going to probably be your groceries, right? And then your gas. Those are the main ones. We usually have you start with overestimating what you're going to spend there. Once you get super diligent, you do a really good job, you can take it lower. So you're going to put those in there. And then that's what Vanessa is talking about after. It's all the discretionary spending. But you have to spend money on gas and food.

9:48It's important. But then there's other stuff you're going to spend money on. So we're going to budget for it on purpose, which is, like she said, the personal money, the money for the kids, the money for the haircut. all of that goes in the spending column just like every other column in our budget it tells you at the bottom how your money is being divided how are we doing with our money maybe you're going to find out that you're spending 75 of what you make and that's going to be an interesting moment to see if that's what you want to be doing with your life it's interesting you said i don't know if i've ever looked up how much my client's spending is compared to their bills and so i don't do it specifically but there's and they know it there's a few clients and i said your budget your bills are like more frugal than mine.

10:26OK, your saving is conservative. The spending is just a little bougie. And it's fine if that's what you want to be. If you'd rather be spending more than saving more, that's your budget and you're allowed to do that. But it's good to be able to see it at a glance. Like this is actually, oh, maybe that's not maybe we want to save more for our house than we do want to spend going out or whatever. That's what I was going to say. It's all about looking at it and seeing it. And we like to also tell people or ask them, does this align with your goals and your vision? What do you want to do with your life?

10:54And what do you want to plan for? And if your spending column is taking up all that money, then we cut back somehow. Okay. So then the last column is you took your income, you subtracted the debt minimum that you have to pay, you subtracted the bills, and now you've subtracted, like Vanessa's, the things like taking the kids to do their - All the sports. Yeah, all the sports, their activities, and you getting your hair cut, and then getting your nails, and all of that's taking care of spending. 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.

11:25No 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.

12:05Six months from now, you'll wish you started today. Now you have a handful of some leftover. If you don't, let's revisit that another time. you might have a number left over and that number is going to go for saving. You might have different savings buckets for your annual bills, for your house maintenance, for travel, for Christmas. There's all kinds of different savings buckets, but that's where that money goes. So the next thing you want to do is really put in specific items for the month, which I've already alluded to before. Maybe you have an event, wedding, something happening specifically in October that you want to plan for.

12:37So put that in. If you have anything left over after you've done your debt minimum payments, all of your bills, your spending, your savings, then you want to make an extra on-debt line item in your spending. So that way you can put that money on debt. If paying off debt is your goal, this is the time when you're creating your budget that you want to account for that. It's going to ebb and flow. There might be months where your main goal is saving for vacation. You're not necessarily putting as much on or saving for anything really. But then there's months where you're like, okay, let's really hit this debt thing.

13:04So that's what you do at the end. Okay, let's talk about some things that are going to happen specifically in October that you might want to add to your budget because that's what our clients are doing. And we want to help you because you're our friends and we want to tell you what they're doing. Hopefully it'll prompt your memory. Budget for them yourselves. Even though all of the stores have Christmas trees out, we still have two holidays before that. The one this month is Halloween. So don't forget to budget for Halloween. You're probably going to need some costumes for the kids, maybe for yourself, maybe for a Halloween party, maybe for an office event, but definitely for candy.

13:35I was doing a budget with somebody earlier this week and she has five kids and she's she had a really cute. So I loved her. She's like we're going thrift stores for we're not doing like brand new costumes. I don't believe in them. Like yes girl preach for it. Then she's mentioned she was gonna do$50 for candy. And I said I love that. Like I literally said where do you live? The trick here is to be realistic. She did the same thing for her husband's birthday. It was like oh i think 200 i'm like really for the thousands of people in her family to go out to eat for his birthday and so when you plan for these things in the budget make sure you get the whole picture don't just think i'm going to get one costume for this kid you also need it's decorations and then you need to be realistic about candy because i don't know what happened but it is so expensive though it does like it does and adds up yeah it's so expensive that kind of goes along with when people are budgeting for grooming and getting their hair done and the next question i ask is does that include tip and they're like oh no yes you have to get the whole picture make sure you're planning for the entire event yeah as much as you can it's progress not perfection but we want to to get as close as we can i like i wanted to put this one in because it's been buzzing around which is cotillion which is so cute so fun it's like etiquette class for the kiddos that ends with and i know they have dinner and dance and so i we put that in my client's budget and i really liked it so i was like let's make sure we bring that up just in case anyone else is thinking about that So I have three different clients budgeting for weddings in October.

14:58So make sure you're not only budgeting for the wedding. Maybe you're in the wedding. So you need things. And then also gift, right? Travel. All of that that is incorporated that comes with going to the wedding. Make sure you're budgeting for it. That is so fun because I have a client who will eventually budget for the wedding. But she just put it in there at the end of our session. Next session, we need to talk about how I can go see her new boyfriend. So they have to fly. So they're each budgeting once a month to see each other. and I was like okay girl let's get that in the butt it was really fun um super sweet another thing that I put in a budget for a client this month was home chef I haven't ever done any of the hello fresh or any of those things we talked about cost per meal because she's single okay so I we put it in the budget and it's not bad it's not a bad thing especially if that is going to keep you from eating out which is your normal go-to it's actually really great and then we have friends that their kids can make it because it comes so easy their kids can do all of it themselves.

15:52And that's really important with a lot of this on the go family stuff. So I think it's a good idea, but it's interesting to think about the client. They actually market it that way. So think about how much you can feed yourself versus how much they can feed. And it might be totally worth the time exchange for you. Do your research because there are so many healthy options now, which I love. So do your research, look at all of them, compare ingredient, the nutrition facts, like all of that, and then the cost and see which one makes sense for you. If that is, like Shana said, what you want to do.

16:18So a lot of people right now, we don't have time to to sit down and make a dinner like full on because kids are in sports and maybe husbands are working late or whatever and we just have a busy schedule and that's okay and like shana said if it's keeping you from stopping at chick-fil-a every night we probably need to consider this another one that people might need to be putting in their budget is home maintenance or whatever you want to call it i was thinking more like winterizing your home if you're up north you're going to have to maybe do something with your sprinkler if you have a pool you'd have to do something with your pool you might have a lot of leaves october's the month of leaves so you might be budgeting the leaves in the the Northeast.

16:50And the system they have, it's just crazy. They have like services strictly for leave. City services because it's so necessary because they'll clog the drainage system that you have to plan your life. And the same goes when we lived in Alaska, the way that they deal with snow and snow is coming in Alaska. So you might have to get your always there by Halloween. So you might need to winterize your tires or whatever. So just think about home or vehicle maintenance that you might need to do for the weather. That brought me back to when I used to live in New Hampshire as a kid and we would write the leaves in this massive pile and then we get to jump in and mess it all up and you don't get that in Florida.

17:24So sad. One of my clients is budgeting for a trip to Sweden. Her daughter is over there doing a student exchange program. We finally put it in the budget now. I think she's going to go I think June or July next year. But anyways never it never early but it also didn't occur to her that she can afford to go. Oh, and when I showed her her budget and she's saving in a multiple in multiple savings buckets and also paying off debt and she's an entrepreneur, she's doing so well. And she's I just never thought that was possible. So it's really cool for her to be able to do that. And she's saving a thousand dollars this month.

17:54So we have a bunch of different goals. So what you've done is you've closed out last month. You've looked at you've updated your balances, your tracker, your debts and your assets. You've created October's budget with everything, the income, debt, bills, spending, savings and then anything different for this month. Now when you're talking about your goals, her goal is to go to Sweden. What is our goal for our money this month? What is the big thing? It does sometimes change month to month. I have three new clients. Their goal for the month of October is to get the system up and running. They're not allowed to set any other goals.

18:22We're not going to try to do anything crazy. We're just going to get the system and feel confident that we know where our money is going. And certain people tell us, I think I just want coaching for one month. And I'm like, well, it doesn't really work that way because it takes a minute to get everything set up. But you will be so thankful once we're done. So that is a good goal for them. That's not too much. Or when I have new clients, like I literally put three things on their action item list. I'm like, I don't want to overwhelm you. We're going to take baby steps and just start, like literally just start the process and get going.

18:48And then they'll just be able to see the fruit of it in a couple months. So my client paid off her mortgage at the end of September. So I'm so excited. So her goal was to be mortgage-free by October 1st. I don't know what it is. So we made a whole new budget for her. That's so fun. In October. So that was a lot of fun. Beat that moment with a client. She sent me a video message. and said, just pay off the mortgage. Can't wait for her husband to get home so we can go. I told her, you need to pay it off and then go out to dinner and celebrate. Oh, that's a good idea. And I said, yeah. So she said that she's ready for him to get home so they can go celebrate.

19:18Can you imagine making your budget without your mortgage, guys? Yeah. It was possible for them months ago, but they didn't believe that it was possible because their money was everywhere and it wasn't organized. And now, because we created the vision and the budget to map their goal, it was so easy for her to write that check. So we have lots of other goals that are clients. Very typical, like they're trying to save up for Christmas. They're paying off debt, all kinds of stuff like that. It's a big month, a lot of them. I have a client. Her main goal for October is to get her husband to sit down and to look at it together so they can get on the same page.

19:46I have another client. Because of what we did in this session in September, she realized she could not change her short term to long term because it wouldn't be financially viable. So her goal is to not do that. So she's got to rework her strategy for short term rentals. And I have another client. They're upping their rent. So they've got to get a new renter for the new amount. You know, those are all adulting goals. But you have to do them. You have to focus on them if you want them to get done. So I have a lot of clients who are focusing on Christmas. They're starting to put that in the budget if they hadn't already.

20:13I'm making sure. So guys, if you, this is your first time really getting on a budget, start now. It's never too early. And then for all you entrepreneurs out there, it is the end of the year. So if you haven't paid into your quarter, fourth quarter taxes yet, make sure you do that and you get that in your budget. And if you need to budget it over three months, make sure you do that. because if you wait till 2025, you're going to be hit with penalties and fees. So get those payments. All right. That was exactly how to build a budget. We gave you all the steps, exactly what to do. Hey, this is your reminder.

20:42Set up your budget for October. And if you want help, if you want to make it easier, have it be pretty, have it do the math for you. All of these are good things. Then you can go to besties.com forward slash budget. And that's where you can find. Yeah, our simplified budget system does it for you. It's all automated. It rolls over into the next month. It's easy. It's got all the videos there for you. And let us know if you need any help. 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.