How To Build Your May 2026 Monthly Budget: Plan Your Money Step by Step | 558

21:11There's just a lot of that's happening. And so we want to, like Shana said, on purpose, put aside a certain amount of money for yourself, whether it's Target Runs, Starbucks, that bracelet you're looking at, copy date with a girlfriend or whatever. But this is a no judgment account. We want you and your spouse to each have their own separate checking account with your own separate debit card. So that way y 'all can spend your money how you want. Because we want you to be able to open your bank app and say, yep, I got money for groceries. I've got money for me. I've got money for all the kids. activities like separate groceries gas and restaurants so we recommend gas and groceries is together it's pretty systematic you bend the same amount on gas and groceries every single month in your mind for the most part give or take gas and groceries are a necessity you have to do that and they go together they're both cheese but restaurants is more discretionary for funsies and we want you to separate those and also so you know i know when we go to a restaurant this is how i'm affording it and i also know i can go to the restaurant and i still have grocery money it's not all coming from the same pot.

22:07I love this. I love this. But you would, how do you keep track of your debit cards? So you would max, if you have a kid's account, you'd max really only ever have four debit cards on you. And because remember the bills account, we're not keeping that debit card. We're not spending money out of that. So you're only going to keep debit cards on you for the accounts that are in the spending section. So to recap, cause there's so many, we have the gas and groceries one that we talked about. We have, like Shayna said, the restaurant one, which is like family fun, entertainment, things like that. We have your pocket money one.

22:37And then the one that we don't have on here, we're talking about is the kids. If your kids have friends that have birthday parties or they want field trip money for school or whatever. So really you'd have four. And the fun thing about it is that banks have different designs you can choose from. You can label them. So there's options. And then we have labels too. We're getting those made, but I did want to deep dive a little bit more into the kids one, because this is one of those things that really breaks people's budgets because they'll do this. They know how to write down their bills. They know how to, even if it's a guess, they know how to guess how much they spend on groceries.

23:09The kids is, I didn't see that coming. And it's like, sometimes it's like whatever they need. So we want you to have a separate item for this so that it doesn't break your budget. And also mom, Hey, usually it's your money that this is coming out of. So this is why you feel like you never have any money. So we're going to break that cycle and make a kid's account and section of your budget so that you can plan for it. How you plan for it is up to you. Some of our clients easily spend a thousand dollars on their kids a month and they don't bat an eye. Some of them have a$50 budget per kid each month.

23:39And that's what, that's how they want to make it work. And it's just up to you. If you have like, we had volleyball, right? And volleyball, that's going to be separate. Yep. That's, that was like 1400 to$3 ,000 at a time, but like once a year. So that's a savings bucket. So we're going to get savings. Okay. Got it. I'm ahead. We'll talk about that. When you put things in your monthly budget up here, like those, the income, the debts, the bills, the spending, like those sections up top, not your savings buckets. These are all things that are happening in the month. They're happening all the time, continuously over and over again.

24:09So that's why, and we try to dump them into categories. Shana said you have gas and groceries. Doesn't matter if it's toilet paper or hand soap you're buying. Like it's everything you're going to buy at the grocery store and gas. It's just easier. Pocket money is everything for yourself. You want to throw your nails in there, do that. You want to put it in a savings bucket, we can talk about that. But we just want to make it simple. A lot of people will get in their head and they're like, I just don't know how to categorize this. But just pick one and then stick with it. Okay. And so the last part of spending is your stuff that comes up each month.

24:39So this is really, for the most part, Carrie, the only thing that's going to change month to month. Once you build this budget, it's done. Except for you have to, you're going to change your debts because those are going to go away. And then the little things that come up. So for example, Mother's Day would be in May. So you might need to set aside some to take mom to brunch or whatever. So those are the things. Even if you have, maybe you needed something extra for the house or whatever, you don't have a savings bucket. Springtime, flowers, things like that. Whatever is this month need, you're going to plan for that and put it in there.

25:07Yeah. So the idea here is that this money, and if you look, we have really cute emojis on the side, right? So the top ones that are, they're little debit cards. Those are showing you that you're going to use a debit card to be able to spend that money, right? You're using a checking account. So you have a debit card to spend that money. The little cute calendars at the bottom, we like to put those there because it's like a one-time thing. This is happening once a month. It's one time that you're going to grab the stuff and then you're going to pay for it. So this money actually sits in your bills account until you need it because we're not transferring it anywhere because it's month specific.

25:43So it changes all the time. Shana said, the top half of the spending stuff, that happens systematically. So we're going to talk about how we transfer the money into those accounts. But in the month ones, those happen once a month. So the money is going to sit in bills, which is great because people, again, are like, I'm so nervous about money being in my bills account to make sure I can pay for bills. Yes, you have extra sitting there because you're not going to spend any of that until you need it. Let me just make sure I understood what you're saying. So Mother's Day, that$100, that's sitting in the bills account?

26:14Right, because remember, that's where all your money funnels into. Like you're all of your into there. And then like, I have an automatic transfer that transfers to the other accounts. When you need that money, because it's month specific and you're not setting up the automatic transfer. When you need it, you'll transfer the money and you have it. Okay. Let's go ahead and talk about this. So when we say we want it to be automatic, we're, and we have a system. Now you have a budget that tells you every month I need$1 ,400 for groceries. I need 400. This tells me what I'm doing per month. So then we're going to set up a paycheck plan, which is going to help you actually do the thing that your budget says.

26:46Right? So if we're looking at May and we're going to do every two weeks because they get paid every two weeks or the first and the 15th, right? So that's what this is showing. It's telling you. So what you're going to do, like you did, Carrie, is set up your automatic transfers. And it tells you right here, if you're going to set up on the first, you're going to do the 850 to your gas and groceries account. You're going to do 200 to your pocket money account. And you're going to do 100 to restaurants. And that can be set up automatic. You set that up to happen. Every bank has an option for the first and 15th.

27:14They have an option for every week. They have an option for every two weeks. They have an option for once a month. Actually, they have all of these options. You may not know. And so you set those up to go automatic for the rest of your life until you change it. Yeah, I didn't know I could just open up extra checking accounts. Fees. Yeah, that's the big thing. It's like people just don't realize the benefits that their bank has. They just have to go find them and ask for them. So there's a lot there. And so just to recap before we move on to savings, what has happened is all of your income came into the bills.

27:39It's sitting there paying bills as it's needed. And then every first and 15th, it's putting money in all of your spending accounts so that you can spend money and you don't have to do anything. Other than these three things are happening automatically. They're already going. You can't be bad at budgeting because it's doing it already once you set up our system. That's what's so good about it. So that is why, yes, you're going to have$250 pooling in that bills account, but you're just going to grab that as you need it and put it in your personal pocket money and you go swipe that. That's the account that you use for the random or little things that you need to spend money.

28:11Makes it. And the reason why we don't go change the reoccurring transfers every month is because that's more annoying than just knowing that you need to just use 50 bucks for someone's birthday or whatever. $50 there that you know you need to. You can just one time transfer it over and it's easy. We're using debit cards. We're not doing credit cards for each. No credit cards. You're too, you make too much money to be relying on debt. You're in charge of your money. You are off every month. You spend more money because you're using the credit. They know that you're spending more money, you're putting more on it to get these quote unquote points that you don't actually need because you're actually going to make more money with the amount of money you have in savings.

28:47But it's just also, it's not, you're not budgeting if you're using a credit card. That's not, and you're not in control of your money and you're not being a good steward as much as you could be. Okay. And we know that's what you really want. This from decades and decades of research. So as much as you may think that you can handle it and you want the points and all of that, understand this is behavioral science. It's been, I promise it is. So to that point, when you're able, when we're going to get to the savings buckets, which most of the stuff that you swipe for are these things that you don't know how that you didn't plan for.

29:14We're going to help you plan for him. And when you open your bank app and you have $5 ,000 in your travel account and$4 ,000 in your Christmas account, that is going to be feeling so much better than how, okay, that's a small game. You're playing a bigger game, right? You have to win. Yeah. We like to say that people, when you're focused on people who, this may not sound good, but poor people are focused on their credit score. Like that, it's a mentality. It's like, It's a poor man's mentality of trying to figure out what my credit score needs to be. It's a fake number that somebody made up for you to think that it's important, right?

29:46And what we want you to do is focus on how wealthy you are. And by that, like we're going to focus on the amount of money you have in the bank. That, like Shana said, is the long game. That is what, that's the vision. That's the goal. Okay. So the last part of the budget here is savings. We have$3 ,200 left in this budget. Look how much this budget has already done for you. It's$11 ,600 a month. Okay. And they have two people. Yeah. Between two people. They don't have that much debt, which is great. We have their bills. They're actually having, they have$500 payment towards tuition for their child.

30:16They have their mortgage, their tithing. There's a lot happening here. Yeah. And so then they have all of this money. Okay. To divvy up with their savings buckets. And we're not going to go super into this. You can, you can buy this core, this, but this budget system is for sale along with training courses to really go into each thing way more in depth. And just like Carrie's program really quick, you get lifetime access to it. So you can always come back, look at it, watch the videos again. You get the updated template. If we ever update it, which we are going to in a little bit because we found some more things that we want to change.

30:45But you always get that updated version. Yeah. So savings buckets are, they're going to be separate accounts that you're saving for something specific. A lot of times people have general savings. They don't really know what they're saving for. They don't know how much they need to save. They just have this feeling that I should probably save. And then they usually, like we talked about before we got on, they steal from it. Right. Because they didn't plan. They have half a plan, which is something. I'll give you that, but it's not a real plan. So what the savings buckets are is all of these big expenses that are going to come at you that are coming.

31:13And people usually call them unexpected. Oh, I didn't realize I was going to have to get my oil changed. I forgot Christmas. Or volleyball for the club fees for volleyball. Like all of these things are not necessarily unexpected. It's just like we're busy and we don't think we forget. We don't plan. So that's what we're going to do here on purpose. Some people really struggle on, do I put this money in a savings bucket or do I pay on debt? Okay. There are some times we'll make somebody's budget and they have so much debt that they can't start these savings buckets yet. We want you to see that these are not maybe expenses.

31:45These are all going to happen. You are going to spend this money. So what we want to show you is that we want to budget ahead of time for it on purpose. Shana is showing the savings bucket tracker right now, which allows you to plan out your year. So everything that you don't spend monthly, you come in here and you go, okay, I think I spend$120 on gifts. This is just a small one. But I think I spend this much on gymnastics, volleyball, whatever. You get to figure out how much you cost in a year. And then you take that monthly budget number, you stick it in your budget, and then you honestly can say that you are budgeting for your life.

32:20Yeah, give or take. Sometimes if you need it in three months, we have to change. Like if taxes are due. We will coach you and help you, but you'll be able to figure it out once you learn more about the system. These are the things that you normally would put on debt. So we do want to plan for them and put them in our budget before we pay on debt because we don't want you to have to revert to using debt because you didn't have the money. So we're going to put that money. So all of those are the only thing I did want to say is when you said I get my nails done every two weeks. Yeah. That is something that people get confused about.

32:49So just really quickly, all of your stuff that's not monthly, right? It's confusing. it's six every six weeks or whatever you take that amount you divide it you see how many times you go a year that's what we want to do so if i have i go every two weeks i don't even like to do two weeks let's do this hair let's use my hair that i go every like like seven weeks so if you so yeah the idea here is that you're taking your hair appointment that you do every seven weeks you'll do 52 divided by seven yeah that'll tell you go about seven and a half so let's just broadened it up to eight you go eight times a year and it costs you a hundred dollars then i'm going going to put$800 here.

33:24Yeah, that's how much I spend in a year. And it will tell me, okay, just set this aside. And because what we want is not for you to get to the hair lady and be like, oh, gosh, I didn't, I forgot that I had this huge$300 appointment this month, you're going to have money set aside in a glam up fund so that you can always just have it. And you just, this is what we're talking about. We want it to be easy. The thing that people say the most, one of the things is, I always know where the money's coming from. Yeah, we want you to know where the money's coming. If you look at the savings bucket, you're saving, this person is saving$2 ,900 a month in their savings buckets between all of them.

33:55You're not going to make more in credit card points than you are in interest when you use a high yield savings account to save all of this money. Okay. That you want to continuously put$2 ,900 every single month. That's making three to four, sometimes 5%, depending on the market, on all your money every single month. And it's just compounding as you go. Okay. And okay. A different account for every one of those. Yes. Yeah. And we know that you feel like you might, but it's organized for you. Just imagine if, you know how people used to stuff cash in envelopes and you had all these different envelopes.

34:27It's like that, but digital. And it seems overwhelming, but it's not. When you open your bank app and you're like, look at all this money I have everywhere. It just looks like columns, basically. Right. It is. Like I opened up my bank account, Carrie, and it's like kids education, vehicle fund, home fund. I know that we can now go replace my back door, a screen door that needs to get done because we have the money in there. Hey, I'm her budget bestie and I know they're not going to do it. That door has been needing to replace since I've known her. It's fine. I love it. I love it. It's definitely.

34:56In theory, she could. Okay, that's already done. In theory, she can do it. So I love that because I don't think people realize when you go online, you can change the name of the account to the name of that thing. Your bank, the bank is going to be like, okay, you want eight savings accounts? Yes, I have eight savings accounts. Yes, please. Thank you. I'll take that. You went to the bank, Carrie, because that's the kind of human you are. Do it online if you can. And nobody can. Nobody will look at you. Nobody judges. Listen to what I did. I went to the bank and then this woman was like, oh, we're so happy to have you as a customer.

35:25I now email her and she opens up accounts for me. It's like I have my own answer. I feel like I'm so fancy. Your concierge service. Yeah. She's going to do this for everyone. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. She actually delivered all of my debit cards to my house. What? What bank? It was M &T, which I was like, yeah, but I don't, I wouldn't say that's how, anyway, she's been amazing. She's, I have all your debit cards in. We are working on building our, making our own bank, but we just haven't gotten that. You can help us with that, Carrie. Okay. So again, the paycheck plan is going to show you.

35:59Okay. So the savings buckets are going to be digital. So what you're going to do is say every time that you're the first and the 15th, because they get paid, you're going to pick a pay schedule. It You just pick one. Like we talked about the categories, just pick it and stick to it. It doesn't matter. Okay. But for them, on the 1st and 15th, they're going to set up all of these transfers automatically. So every first$340 is going to annual bills and$250 is going to travel. And the 15th, the same thing is happening. So by the end of the month, they will have added all of this full amount to those buckets.

36:29Maybe sometimes they use it. Everybody say it with me. Automatically. Automagically. This is so mind-blowing because even though I do this, I'm hearing you say this and I'm like, nobody does this. like you guys are teaching something that is so disruptive to like initially and people don't like new and I want to just warn you all if you are saying to me I can't do this I can't do this I need you to realize that it's a racket and they have been doing this for a very long time and have successfully helped so many families get themselves to a much better place take the racket out they know what I'm talking about and pivot on that and say, what if I actually did do this?

37:12What would this look like? And it could literally change the trajectory of your entire life. Absolutely. It's funny. We usually have husbands that are like, hold on, more than one checking account. I'm not really sure I can handle that. And literally they're the ones that are coming back two or three months later going, this has been the best decision. I know exactly where my money is going. I know how to spend it, why I'm spending it. It's just so clear. And like we said, separate to simplify it. It may seem like a lot of accounts. Sure. But you find the right bank that'll work with you, which we've, there's thousands out there.

37:44And it is like Shannon said, it's so nice to be able to pull up your phone and see every, all the money that you have and where it's going. Spreadsheet. That's like saying this one bank has$5 ,000 in it. And you've tried to decide how you dog-eared it. It's never going to work like that. No. Most apps and budgeting systems are actually teaching you how to be an accountant and track track like you said reconcile and see what happened what we are teaching you like we said the budget's telling your money where to go i made a plan and then the automation is making it happen you don't have to track anything there's no need to i mean you're already done your app and you're like i don't have enough money yes that's all you have to do then you drive home yes you turn around and you go home because you don't have no credit cards so you're just not doing it but it's just the old Coldway is a reactive system.

38:29So there's a lot of budgeting, quote unquote, apps. They're not actually apps. They're bookkeeping and accounting apps. Like Shana said, what we are teaching you is actually how to budget. We're putting your money there on purpose. It's proactive. It's before any of that. You don't have to track anything. Yep. You can check mark. That's all you have to do. Just like our nutrition approach. We don't track it. Nope. It's just so aligned with the mindset of living with, we say food freedom. You guys say financial freedom. And freedom doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want. Freedom means you live with intention and you don't break promises to yourself and you are focused on what really matters for the right reasons.

39:02Yeah. Freedom means you're living according to what you want, what you always want, what you are aligned to, not just this reactive way of doing things. Okay. Chase needs some extra money. Our budget has sold us. Listen, they said you made a lot of money and you budgeted most of it, but look, you have a little bit left over. What do you want to do with it? Unfortunately, you have debt, so that's what we're going to work on, but otherwise you would be able to save it or do something fun with it. But here, it tells you exactly how much is left over. So we're going to go, that's when we're coming back and saying, how much am I putting on debt?

39:33Remember we said at the beginning, don't put that yet. You're only minimums now. And they went real hard and heavy on their savings buckets. If you want to do, you don't have to be putting$3 ,000 in the savings buckets if you want to focus on paying off debt first. So anyway, but they're going to put$376 extra in debt. Yeah. And if you notice, we have your payment here. So when you use a firm, you have now entered into a debt agreement. So you put that there. And then when you pay it off, now you have another$250 to be able to play with each one. Yeah. So each time you pay one of these off, it'll go back into your budget and you'll be able to pay extra.

40:08And so the only other thing I know that we've been talking a lot, it's a lot for people to absorb. They're going to do a great job. It's so good. It is so good. Drinking from a firehouse, you're welcome. The thing I wanted to show you is there's so much, there are so many bells and whistles on this system, but one of our favorites is, let's say you get a new bill. What is it? What do we get? Spa. Like a membership, like a yoga. Yeah. Oh, yoga. Hot yoga. Hot yoga. Yeah. Monthly membership. So it's not in the budget over here, right? This is a brand new, unchecked, fresh set of downs budget for you, right?

40:41For January. Oh, but if I put it here, because it's a new bill and I have to, I always have to pay it. I don't know how much it is,$89. And it comes out on the 7th. It's automatically in every budget going forward. You don't have to go change every budget. I was just wondering, so you put it automatically went up into June and July and August. Yes. Every month from there on out. They're like spreadsheet geniuses. Like why would you want to retype your budget every month? No kidding. It takes off just that month. In every month going forward. But it doesn't ever change anything going backwards.

41:12Okay. That is genius. So I, and look here too, we're going to delete these. This is the only thing that we ever have to change in our budget now because everything else is automatically or, and then this one might change given on what happens. Right. But everything is, that's what we're saying. You sit, you do this one time, you make the plan, you set up the automatic transfers and you have to spend like 10 minutes budgeting every month after that. Now, this is insanely amazing. And I am sure that there's a lot of you watching right now. and then you're like, okay, but what about this? But what about this?

41:41Because you feel like you have all these nuanced kind of situations and all of that. And that is why this is a tool I wanted. This is amazing where they are spending time with you, teaching you this, teaching you their spreadsheet, but also a philosophy, an approach that doesn't exist anywhere. And their spreadsheet will make this absolutely so simple for you. So you can go and get the spreadsheet. It will literally cost you less than when you run to Target. It'll cost you less than what you spend a month on protein powder. It's so reasonable. I actually think they should charge more for it. And who knows?

42:19Maybe there'll be another little bonus. Another special bonus. That's not the reason. It's already inexpensive enough. You don't even need the discount. But take it if you can. We're working on that. Okay. But also, I want to just show this because getting the budget is going to be fine, but it's a little bit to me like getting a meal plan. and a meal plan is fine, but it doesn't get you through the nuances of your life, your lifestyle, what you need. So I want to play for you a new client that you guys had, who's one of our clients and coaches at Disruptive Nutrition. She sent me a message the other day and I want to play this because I need everybody to recognize the power of coaching when it comes to your body and your lifestyle.

42:57And I want you to think about the power of coaching when it comes to this, because this is equally as important. So listen to this.

43:06first coaching call with Vanessa and I just wanted to tell you that she's amazing and she put me at ease because I was so nervous to do it I spoke with her last October for the first time and then I had another call in March and I decided to just bite the bullet and do this coaching because I knew coaching works. So I just want to let you know, I'm so thankful for the guest coaches you bring on because it opens up different avenues for people that may not know to look for something. So thank you so much. I love that because I think that is really speaks to the importance of doing this right. And so I want you, everybody at the very least should be going and getting the budget, but can they like book a call to be able to talk to you to see what coaching would look like?

44:04How does that work? Yeah, absolutely. We have a call that you can set up for three, 20 minutes and just what is coaching? What does it look like? How long is it? Just all the questions with the system as well. Yes. There is so much value in one-on-one coaching that there are some people that absolutely need that, that short-term investment in themselves with the system. you get lifetime access. There are also monthly group coaching. The third Monday of every month, you get that. Girl, we are giving this thing away. So if they get the system, which is literally less than like your trip to Target, they'll get a free spreadsheet.

44:39You get the whole entire course that comes with it. And there is monthly group coaching where you can come ask your questions with us there. Okay. So that's great. And then there's also coaching. So the thing is, Carrie, you know how you got the system and watched the videos and did it and you're a magic and you have your bank is your some people are like you and they're DIYer they're like I get it I just need to get there faster some people are like look I know I'm not going to watch those videos I know I'm not going to actually do it unless somebody's there with me telling me what to do that's who the coaching's for we would rather just pay to tell have somebody transfer the like brain to brain knowledge and watch videos then yes then your folks would go to budgetbesties.com forward slash coaching and that's where you can book that free call and you'll talk to Vanessa and she'll tell you about it and see if it's a good fit.

45:21Yeah. And it's really awesome to be able to walk through this journey with somebody and you get, there are session recaps after each call allows you to not think about what you have to do. We have told you, Hey, in between sessions, if you do A, B, C, and D, you're going to be on track and you're going to be crushing it. And that is what they're paying for. They're paying for like the decision anxiety, not having to do that. Somebody else is doing that for them. And there's no judgment, like the vulnerability of debt and how much you make and all of that, like these two women couldn't be more love driven and judgment free.

45:53They've seen it all. And the whole reason they're doing this is because people are struggling. And so they know you're going to come in struggling, but their goal is to get you to leave empowered. When if you go DIY and you need more support, then great. Then you can go connect with them later, but they are thorough. Like I've had you guys on a couple of times now because there's just nobody out there doing what you're doing as well and as intentional as what you're doing. So I love your service. And I just need all of you, my members. I don't care what your financial situation is. You need this.

46:24Thank you so much, Kara. Thank you for the kind words. We love what we do. It's been a blessing to be able to help so many people around the world. And it's fun. I'm just so grateful for you. And go make your May budget. May's the month for you. May's the month you're going to get it together. Let's go. Mighty May. Let's go. Oh, I like that. 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.

46:52We'll show you step by step how to finally organize your money, how to set up your accounts and put your budget on autopilot. So your bills, saving and spending run like hot work. 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.