How to Create a Simple 2026 Budget That Actually Works | 504

0:00Want to pay off debt but don't know where to start? Stop making random extra payments and hoping for the best. Let's build a debt payoff strategy that actually works. Join us Thursday, May 28th for our Debt Payoff Workshop so you'll know what you owe so you can pick your debt payoff method and you can start getting out of debt. We'll help you organize your debt, understand your balances, interest rates, and minimum payments, and help you choose what to pay first. We'll cover all three payoff methods including the snowball, avalanche, and minimum payments and we'll also tell you what to know before.

0:30for applying for debt consolidation. No shame, no finance bro nonsense, just your next right step. Grab your spot at budgetbesties.com forward slash debt workshop. Guys, we are so excited to talk to you today about what's happening next week. I know we have our money makeover bootcamp. Yes. It's the first time we're doing something like this. We've seen a lot of people have success with it because it, it gives us a, it's different than just the podcast where we can go, we'll be able to go back and forth and we'll be able to interact with you and really get into some nitty grits, some deeper stuff with you.

1:02And we're really excited. 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, Hey, it's okay. If you want to seem like you have your finances altogether, 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?

1:32You'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. We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on the conversation.

2:04We 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. 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. Vanessa, how much do you think people just spend on Christmas? Probably a lot. A little bit. Just a little bit of a lot. Or how many people do you think overspent? All. It's like 50%, 25%, all of the above. Like all of you overspent probably. But you know what?

2:40Actually, maybe you didn't, but it's okay. That's okay. Whatever. Maybe you're really good. I haven't met that unicorn, but they probably exist, Vanessa. and I even wonder like okay I have so many questions that I need stats for right how many people made a budget this year for Christmas and you know we are trying to help people do that we're so excited to talk to you about today about that it's the norm of being able to be to pay cash and be prepared for Christmas yeah yeah I think the norm is overspending but Vanessa the other thing is like it's not the way that people think you know people come to us they're so stressed out out there so full of shame and I'm so bad with money and I don't know how to do math or whatever they say.

3:20And we actually believe you guys, we actually believe that you don't really have a spending problem. What you actually have is an organization problem. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that aha moment of needing to be organized to help you not overspend really helps people figure out it's not me. You know what I mean? Like it, this isn't like an emotional thing or it's not me. It can be fixed and I can move past this and I can get better. Yeah. And it's not like I have to do this by having a no spend month. Hello. No, thank you. No, we don't love that. We don't love that for you. We had a podcast on a no spend month.

3:58You should go. Don't do no spend months. That was our podcast. You're welcome. Spoiler alert, TLDR. But actually what we know is if your money is organized, it changes how the guesswork, the stress, all of this stuff about spending to where you naturally will spend less. So today we're telling you that you don't really have an overspending problem. You have a disorganization problem. The solution is to have separate spending accounts, Vanessa. Yeah. And I think that that may be one of the first times people hear that. Like, listen, we're saying that you're disorganized with your money. That's why you're overspending.

4:30But imagine being organized with your money. And what does that mean? That means having separate or more than one account to be able to do it. Yeah. And knowing, so part of the confusion is you don't actually know how, if you have money to spend, how much you have to spend. So you kind of spend, maybe you don't. And so that's part of the problem. But the other problem I think that people really have is they get this rebellious spirit, Vanessa, because they feel like they never really have money. And so then they're just like, well, I'm going to drain everything in this bank account and I'll, and future you, you can figure that out.

4:59Right. Or they put it on a credit card or whatever, and it's still a future you problem because they're just so, they're so over like feeling like they never know or, or having to make all these like math problem decisions in the moment to see if I can even actually go to target. Like what we want for you is for you to know exactly how much money you have to go to target and to know that you do have money to go to target and it can be anywhere. It doesn't have to be target, whatever, whatever hobby lobby, anybody, any takers, any takers? I'm definitely I'll be there. But, but here's the other part too, Shana is while you were talking, I was thinking about me personally and in one of our clients, Michelle, knowing that you have money and it's there and you're, and cause listen, I'm a rebel.

5:38Like I'm going to tell you right now, you tell me, no, I'm going to show you how it's going to be a yes. You tell me that wall is per mission accepted. Yes. I am very much a rebel. So I'm for this, but for me, I think having my separate spending money for whatever that is and knowing that it's always getting replenished and it's not just now or never, right? Spend it now because you're never going to see it again. There's something about that that's so freeing and it doesn't, I don't know. I just, I don't become as rebellious. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. We've seen it over and over and over with our clients.

6:10It's taking your, you, you no longer can have that rebellious spirit because there, there's nothing to fight. You're getting money, every paycheck friend, like it's all, you're, you're good. Like, and like you said, it's not, I have money now and never again. It's not, I don't know how much money. It's like, hey, every, I just got off a call with a client. They put 50 bucks in their spending account each week, every, each, both of them, right? Or maybe you do more, maybe you do less. It's really depending on your budget, what you want, but you have money every single time. And it's coming, it's refunded.

6:37It's going, coming every time. You can save it, you can spend it, whatever you need to do, whatever you feel like it. I think that is really freeing to your point. But what I think also that is really cool is we put your spending in categories, right? So right now we're really talking about personal spending because that tends to be where you maybe overspend. But what we do is instead of having to like have this big or awful budget where I'm trying to figure out, did I pay the rent? Okay, I can't go to Target. Did I – do we have groceries? Okay, now I can go to Hobby Lobby or whatever you're doing.

7:07You have one account that has your spending budget in it, and that's the only math you have to do if you want to go to those stores or you want to go get your hair done or you want to go get a coffee or whatever. You have your one little spending account. It's like a mini budget, Vanessa. It's like mini decision. And it allows you to just spend guilt-free, right? So you know that you have money to take a girlfriend out for lunch, to get a pedicure, to take your daughter to a date night or whatever. However you want to spend your personal money, that gives you the freedom to do that. Having a separate account or using cash, however you want to do it, it just allows to have that freedom.

7:39Hello, Budget Besties. This is the podcast editor, Zach. Due to illness, the Budget Besties are postponing the boot camp until next week. We would love if you would come and join us then instead of this week. Prayers would be appreciated. Thank you. Editor out. One of our clients, Michelle, she came on the podcast and did a testimonial. And she said, knowing that it was getting replenished every Thursday, she said, did something to my brain. I literally, I knew that it was coming. So naturally, I spent less. Naturally, I was not out there just blowing money here and there. And it just gave her a sense of control over her spending.

8:17Yeah, and I feel like that sense of control is so important. The lack of having to make a million decisions also. So these two things already are going to contribute to you spending less without you doing anything else. But then also, you don't have to track anything. Hello, hello, sign me up. Because it's all by itself, like you said. Yeah, so some other budgets have you track or turn in receipts like that one husband had told us or wife had told us about her husband. You don't have to do that here because it's in one account. And what are you going to track? You can just go look in your bank account and say, oh, I spent all my money at Target.

8:48Done. Or, oh, I remember. Oh, now I remember what I spent my money on. And we went to launch that one day. And the next day, I went and got new shoes. And it was a wonderful day. And I had it. It was great. It's great. And then you have to track. It's all there in the one account. And it's only like 10 transactions. There's not a lot. So you don't need to keep a record of it. It's right there. One of the first things that I tell my clients, like, hey, when we put money in the spending columns, Jane, of the budget, especially for new clients, I'm like, hey, you got$3 ,000 this month for all your spending categories.

9:16and they're like but but what don't i need to tell you how much i spent on groceries and how much i spent here and how much i spent there i'm like no i don't care if it's out of the bills account and in your spending categories i don't care and neither should you like why does it matter why do you need to know that this month you spend 159 dollars in groceries or this week versus 161 last week like why do you need to know that that is not recently we were talking about the magic of multiple bank accounts vanessa and i'm just like i want you to imagine right now if you pull up your bank app, right?

9:45And you're looking at your bank accounts and it says gas and groceries,$500 restaurants,$200. Shana's fun spending money,$200,$100. How much money are you going to give me? I don't know. And then it also has one for my kids. Cause that's important. Y 'all that's important. Cause they're, they will steal every single dollar that you ever had. If you don't have a separate line item for them, it says kids 75. Right. And so I have, I have my bank accounts. I can see how much everything I have. And I just, I can get through that. I can make micro decisions. I know I have money for all the things that are important.

10:12And like Vanessa, I can just go live my life and spend the money and then it'll get replenished in a week or two or whenever I do my transfers and I'm good. That's all I have to do. Yeah. And I think that that is hard for people to grasp because for so long, Shana, there's this tracking culture, right? You have budget apps and you have this and that that require you to go track everything. Wait, wait, mic drop. It beeps at you. But mic drop. Tracking culture. Like that's a mic drop right there. We are in that tracking culture. They want you to be busy. They want you to do stuff that doesn't matter.

10:42None of that matters if you're doing it our way and you don't have to waste your, your, your brain calories on that. But anyway, keep going. Yeah. But just that. And then the member of the bank app, that girl that she said, her bank app was like beeping at her and it was like flashing red and like danger signs or whatever. Like nobody needs that. I'm not, I'm not a crime scene. Don't cross. Right. I'm going to, right. I am an adult and I don't need my app yelling at me if I went$1 over, over this thing, but also you're not going to, and you use it like the way that our system works, right? So it's just your budget needs to match your real life.

11:16Your spending needs to match your real life. And when you do that, you naturally spend less. You're naturally more free and have the permission to spend. What's also cool about this whole system, Vanessa, is it gives you guardrails. So when we're talking about freedom to spend, permission to spend, we are for you. We are for the trip with your girlfriend. We're for the daughter date. We're for whatever. However, you do have other adult goals going on in life, right? You do have things that you want your money to do. And this allows you to, you, not us, Vanessa, we're not telling you what to do.

11:45No one's telling you what to do. So again, you can't rebel because nobody's telling you what to do. You're telling you what to do, right? Nobody's telling you, but you get to set amounts, right? And so you just have these guardrails and they're in place to help you. Instead of spending$1 ,000 this month, I'm going to spend$400, right? Whatever it is you decide. and it's helping you reach your other goals at the same time that you're being able to have that freedom and permission to spend. Well, when we did that podcast with one lady, I don't remember her name, but she said it beautifully. She said, we as adults want guardrails.

12:16We want them. We like them. If you ask any wealthy person, we do like them. When you ask any wealthy person out there how they became wealthy, the answer is not going to be, oh, it just happened. It was on an exit. I'm not really sure. No, they set some type of comfortable guardrails in place for themselves so that way they can spend freely within a certain amount, but also know that everything else was happening in their budget. And that is the concept that we want for you to build. Right, and what she said, Vanessa, is when you're driving along the highway, you don't see a guardrail there and you're like, oh, that stupid guardrail, I hate you.

12:45No, you're like, I am so happy you're there just in case. And that's what these spending categories and these little mini budgets in your account is for. It's there just in case. We're not saying you're going to get in an accident at Hobby Lobby where you hit everything on the way out and it just gets in your cart, right? We're not saying that's going to happen, but just in case. I mean, that could happen to me though. That could happen to me. It's possible. But what we are, what we do know is that when you get to the register, Vanessa, it's going to say, uh-uh, no, sorry, honey, you only had$200 and we're not doing this$500 thing that you just said, right?

13:17And it just gives you guardrails. And even just knowing, Vanessa, just knowing that I know I don't have that much in my account, it helps me to make better choices before I get to the checkout, right? And so, yeah. When you were talking about the being on the road and not having a guardrail there, like on a turn and it's like, Jesus, take the wheel. Yeah. Right. So when we're, we're talking about that with our, with our finances, we're not closing our eyes, swiping the card and say, Jesus, take the wheel here. No, we need to have some type of responsibility and, but also set a certain amount of money that you are comfortable with.

13:47Because I think, Shana, we see that a lot of people will put numbers in their budget that they don't, that they realistically can't hit. They're realistically not going to achieve either they're too much or too little. and so then you feel like a failure. You feel like budgets aren't for you. You can't do this and that's not what we want for you. We want you to set a good budget, something that you're excited about so that way it keeps you within a certain amount. Yeah, and to your point, Vanessa, this is a way that some people heal from having some of this money baggage that we've talked about before.

14:14Maybe you're not used to having money. Maybe you don't feel like you deserve it because you racked up some credit card debt or maybe, but either way, you have to get used to having money and you have to get used to spending money, spending money within guardrails like we're talking about, but also just being okay spending money and being okay having money in your account. Like this is the new version of you who doesn't overspend. You don't binge spend because you're stressed out. You're like, I'm actually not stressed. My money, my budget is like working like clockwork. I feel like a million bucks.

14:39I'm not stressed. I don't need to binge spend. All that's going to be you. Yes. And to help you further, we have a bootcamp coming up. So go to budgetbesties.com forward slash bootcamp. Shayna, if you want to explain a little bit more about it. it's just five days with us live. We're going to go through everything a little bit more in detail that we teach that you need to really just give your money a makeover between simplifying your budget, have a very simple, easy budget to separating your accounts. We kind of talked about that a little bit and even putting your whole budget on autopilot. God, can you imagine autopilot?

15:11Do you remember how you were before autopilot, Shana? I don't even know if I want to know the old me. It's like the old me before I had backup cameras. No. don't yeah oh no i vanessa could not park i'm a really good parker now so anyway the point is yes you need to use modern tools and that's what we're going to teach you in the boot camp so come to budgetbesties.com forward slash boot camp to sign up there 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 master class at budgetbesties.com forward slash automate.

15:49We'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 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.