How to Budget for Quarterly and Annual Bills Without Stress | 555

0:00We used to have some people who said, I just want to put my quarterly bill. I'm going to divide it by three and put it in my budget monthly. But then they would not understand in two months why they had an extra$300 in there and they would take it out because they were like, there's this extra. I'm going to put it on debt or I'm going to go spend it. And I'm like, no, we have to remember you added that quarterly bill. And who wants to have to remember that? Yeah, it just gets convoluted. So just take the quarterly and annual bills out of your monthly bills account. And you can either have the savings bucket that you transfer over to bills or like Shannon said, our new upgrade is to have it.

0:27Just make it a checking account and auto draft those bills out. you probably don't even need a debit card for them because they all usually now are taking ACH direct payments. So it just makes it super easy. 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? 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.

0:55Hey, 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 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.

1:31We 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 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. so we pulled two questions from our facebook group and we think that they are they're both savings bucket questions so we thought that we'd just make a podcast yeah out of it and to help answer them yeah and if you have questions you can go budgetbestos.com forward slash ask and ask your own questions and we'd be happy to answer them so here's the first one miss i'm going to read it and then you're going to give us all the wisdom okay i am on month two of fully budgeting i love that and that's real honest because a lot of you just half budgeted and And she has an exclamation point in there and everything.

2:24So she really means it. Like she's very serious about her fully budgeting. Some things I ran into is having money and savings that I needed to cover some things because of our pay. Put a pin in that right there. And what do you do if you want to save for something specific in three months? Since our savings buckets do it by year, I guess I would need to manually, gross, do the math. She didn't say gross. I did, by the way. Manually do the math in my head. No. And set up that transfer. I wish there was a way to see based on my check dates and bill dates where my account would be at any given moment.

2:56So if I needed to move bills transfers around, I could so we don't ever overdraft. Okay, there's a lot of parts here. Yes. Let's start with part one, Vanessa. What do you do if you want to save for something specific in three months? Yes. So yes, you have to do math. So our savings bucket planner inside your budget system, the only way we could do it generically was just divide it by 12. because eventually you will be on a 12-month division system with all your savings buckets where you're budgeting for them 12 months out of the year. Okay, so yes. However, you literally could just grab your phone calculator.

3:30If it's$3 ,000 you need in three months, guess what? You just need to budget$1 ,000 a month for that. But it's short-term, right? Yeah, and don't do it in your head. Yeah, no head math. That was really, I'm really proud of you for that math, but what if there's like sense and like it's, the number doesn't end in an even number? No, bro. Do that on. Always round up. Yeah. Yes, that's another tip. Tip number one. And also just always use the calculator. Yes, please. That's part of our budget system and it does all the math for you. But like you said, yes, you do need to just – so if your car insurance is due in three months and you haven't had time to save for it or, you know, your property taxes, yeah, you're going to just take what that bill is, divide by three, start setting aside for it now.

4:08And then once you hit that, then you'll be able to start setting aside the 12-month version of that. So that'll be perfect. However, I wish there was a way to see my check and bill. Okay, so what she's saying is you have money in your bills account. At any given time, paychecks are coming in here and there, and then other bills are coming out here and there. I want to know exactly what that number should be at any given time. No, you don't. That's what old you wanted to do. The version of you that was having to track everything, you super stressed out and all in the weeds about it. No, don't do that.

4:38We don't want to. Yeah, I wish I could show like a picture of a meadow, like an overgrown meadow and pull you under the street yeah pull you back like away from the weeds and get a bird's eye view of everything because shana said those tracking apps that wanted you to know every cent that was in your account and every given moment because of your paychecks and your bills and all that that's what you that's what probably budgeting was like for you in the past or what people told you budgeting is like or what you should be doing you don't have to do any of that that's what we're saying like i just want you guys to understand the freedom and i would love for you guys to come in our facebook group and talk to our fun friends in there you can go at facebook.com forward slash, I believe it's financial coaching for men is the Facebook group and talk to them.

5:16This is so freeing when you don't have to do that. Your pay, your paychecks are going in, your bills are being paid. You don't have to know every single cent of what's coming out of each paycheck. That's the whole point. So just back up a little bit. Yeah, I agree. And, but also you can have a buffer in there, a buffer in your bills account so that you never have to think about it. And then especially our clients that get a paycheck ahead, they're just, it's just always refilling your bills. Let's say you cost$5 ,000 in bills a month, and you get paid 10 ,000. And like half of that is probably leaving your bills account, give or take for different spending or savings.

5:50Then like you're if you're a paycheck ahead, you always are going to have 5 ,000 in there no matter when the bills are due. And it's just your paychecks are now just refilling that amount, right? So you never really do need to know down to the penny, right? And it might take a little bit, maybe your buffer at the beginning is only 100. And then you get up to 500 and you slowly build that buffer so you don't have to worry about it, that's what we want for you. And to get a paycheck ahead, guys, we have an episode. It's 517. It's back from January. If you want to listen about how to get a paycheck ahead, it's actually very simple.

6:20And you could do it and start it this month, get ahead for the next month. So we recommend you going back and listening to that. So that way there's none of this, how much is coming from which paycheck and what bills are coming from which paycheck, like you don't have to do any of that. It's just a revolving door. Money's coming in, money's going out, it's getting sent to your savings, it's getting a send to your spending. And I know you probably won't trust it at the beginning. I get that. Our clients are like that at first. And then they implement the system. They set up the automatic transfers and they trust it a hundred percent because numbers are just black and white.

6:50They don't lie. And it's just really easy to set it and forget it. Yep. All right, budget besties, it's time for some real talk. You don't need another budget. You need a budget system. Our simplified budget system is what you've been looking for. It's going to allow you to be bougie on a budget. You'll be able to easily set up a system that runs automatically and shows you exactly where your money is going. And it's gonna give you permission to spend. Everybody loves that. Yeah, it's straightforward, pretty, and packed with walkthrough videos that break down the exact methods we use with our clients to get out of debt, set up a bills account, separate spending, build savings buckets, and end the paycheck to paycheck feel.

7:31If you're new to budgeting, this is the perfect way to jump in. And if you're already a budget nerd like us, You're about to meet your new obsession. This is the upgrade to your finances that you need right now. Yeah. So head on over to budgetbestdc.com forward slash budget and grab yours. Now back to today's show. All right. Let me read this next question. So she said, I just finished my first month using the system and it went great. Congratulations. That's the same topic. And she also used an exclamation point. These are our people who use exclamation points. Okay. Okay. My question is, if I am taking money out of my savings buckets to pay for quarterly bills, drainage or trash, gross.

8:09Like we've already said on a different podcast, we are really against these companies that bill quarterly. I feel like they're just doing it to confuse us. It's a personal attack. Yeah. It's really rude. I think so. Anyway, so we get you. That's annoying. Okay. Or do I list it on my budget somewhere? Or do I list it on my budget or do I transfer the money from savings and pay the bill and not add it to the budget? It's a great question. Not add it to the budget. it. Yeah. Just act like nothing happened. I zeroed it. I reconciled it. It's done and I don't have to put it in the budget. It's like a ghost transaction.

8:36So we're going to talk about if this was, she's saving money in a savings bucket or savings account and she's trying to transfer it to use in one of her spending accounts. And Shana's going to get to the bill part. So the way that we want you to do this is to put the amount of money, let's say, I'm going to say it's your hair appointment that you get done every eight weeks, whatever. Okay. I'm just going to say, you know, your hair appointment's$300. I'm just saying you got got a cut, you got a color, you got some foil, you got all the different things going on, trim. Okay. So it's$300 including tip.

9:04So you're going to get on your phone. You're going to transfer the money from your savings, your glam up savings bucket. You're going to transfer it to your spending account,$300. And you're going to write in the little notes section, hair appointment. Okay. And you're going to transfer the money and then you're going to swipe or Venmo, whatever you do from your spending account to pay your hairdresser. Then from your budget perspective on paper, you're going to add it as a line item in your income section. You're going to say from glam up, you're going to put$300 and then you're going to put it over there in the spending section, hair appointment,$300.

9:37So it cancels each other out because remember your budget has to show where all of your money is going. And if you put on there that you spent$300, but it actually came from savings, if you put it in your budget without showing that it came from savings, you're saying that you're pulling it from those paychecks, which it did not come from there. Or you're just going to look like you are less$300 and you're not actually. And then you're going to be like, I have extra money. I know what's happening. I just wanted to say the math for that backing up would be you're taking 52, dividing it by eight because you do it every eight weeks.

10:08That number equals 6.5. By the way, I did this in the calculator, not in my head. You're going to round that up to seven. Yeah. Okay, I'll do that. I did not do that in the moment. So 52 divided by eight. So we're going to round that up to seven. And then we're multiplying seven times 300. And that was with the tip. Don't forget the tip. Vanessa said that. So now I have$2 ,100. I'm dividing that by 12 so that I now have a monthly amount to set aside, which is$175. That way, whenever this$300 bill comes, that's what I will transfer over. And I've already got it set aside because I'm saving$175 each month.

10:41And now, since you buffered it from 6.5 to 7, in case your hairdresser increases her prices. Which they do. You're already buffered in. Yeah. Like, by the way, spoiler alert, no bills gets less. That's what I've learned. I always buffer with my clients. Sometimes they're like, yeah, but it's$426. I'm like, yeah, that's$450 in my mind. Yeah, sorry. Let's just go ahead and make that$450. Okay, and so the same thing would work the same for your bills. You're going to put the Walmart Plus or the Amazon Prime in the bill column, and then you're going to put the transfer income in from your annual bills account.

11:16That's typically what you would do. That way you can show it in the budget like you said. Don't want to not add things to the budget, like theoretically, because then you don't have history and you can't go back and look at it. And Vanessa said you could accidentally do one or the other and just mess it up. So let's try to keep it straight. However, the hack for that to not have to do that is a new idea. Our new hack. Yeah, which we love for you. Which a lot of our, which we've been telling our clients to do individually because we always say individually each one of our clients' budgets looks different, right?

11:47Because when we coach on their specific lives and what they have going on. But it's just become a generic thing that we think we want to really talk about. And in the spirit of making things as simple and easy as possible, what we think you can do is make your annual quarterly bills, whatever you want to call that account, make it a checking account and have those bills come directly out of that account. Auto-drafted. Auto-drafted every year, every quarter, whatever it is. And you've got all the money going in there and all those bills. So you really have two bills account. But the one is monthly and the one is everything else.

12:15And then they're functioning the same way. But it's so separate, so clear, so easy. You don't actually have to worry about like the timing of the transfers or when to do it. We don't have to like keep some of the money in this account because it's going to come out and I don't know exactly how much I have done. So have that annual bills account, be a checking account and have everything come out of there automatically. And we used to have some people who said, I just want to put my quarterly bill. I'm going to divide it by three and put it in my budget monthly. But then they would not understand in two months why they had an extra$300 in there and they would take it out because they were like, this is extra.

12:45I'm going to put it on debt or I'm going to go spend it. And I'm like, no, we have to remember you added that quarterly bill. And who wants to have to remember that? Yeah, it just gets convoluted. So just take the quarterly and annual bills out of your monthly bills account. And you can either have the savings bucket that you transfer over to bills, or like Shannon said, our new upgrade is to have it. Just make it a checking account and auto-draft those bills out. You probably don't even need a debit card for them because they all usually now are taking ACH direct payments. So it just makes it super easy.

13:11Okay, we hope that those questions served you. You probably have a similar question, especially if you're using our system that we're teaching. and if you have your own questions though go to budgetbesties.com forward slash ask and we would be happy to do that our facebook group i think vanessa said a fun link for it but it's also budgetbesties.com slash facebook you can ask in there you can dm us like we are we are available we are available and we love your questions because it makes it really easy for us to come up with content because if you have that question probably other people do too so it really helps yes and we know that your questions help serve our audience so bring them we welcome all the questions bring it oh it's already been brought in listen people that are young don't know that Is that from Bring It On?

13:48It's from Not Another Teen Movie Making Fun of Bring It On. Oh, I think I watched that a long time ago. And I just, I have to realize people, I think I said it to a Melanie's volleyball coach. And she's... She didn't know. She's too young. She's too young. I was like, I'm old. That's fine. Okay. All right. I love you all. We'll see you next time. 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.

14:18We'll show you step-by-step how to finally organize your money, how to set up your account, 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.