How to Plan a Peaceful and Intentional Year With Your Money | 502

0:00Vanessa:Hey, Budget Besties, big news. We're hosting our live money makeover bootcamp. Yes. Picture this, a fun interactive hangout where we're breaking down budgeting, tackling your money goals, and setting you up to start 2025 on the right financial foot. Yeah. All in real time with us. We know you're juggling a lot right now. So we've scheduled this bootcamp for after the holiday hustle. So do your future self a favor right now and sign up at budgetbesties.com forward slash And then you can get back to the holiday hustle. Let's dive into a new year together with a fresh plan for your money. My middle one is six months.

0:35So you have to imagine anytime anyone sees it, they're like, do you play basketball? Do you play basketball? She's played basketball since she was in third grade. Actually, no, she started in first grade, but it was like, you know, the little ones. And then like really in third grade, her entire identity has been basketball, basketball, basketball. And she was just making it up to varsity in high school. and she came to us and she's like, I don't think I want to play anymore. And it was, you know, it one, I was, I was shocked because I'm like, you know, like, and I love watching you play basketball, but it's something I've always instilled in them.

1:10Any sport they've ever done, any activity, I said, what's the number one thing? They're like, have fun. If it makes you happy, you keep doing it. The second it doesn't, you have to fulfill your commitment for the season. but then you know if it doesn't make you happy if it doesn't bring you joy don't do it so she got to the point where she felt comfortable enough to come to us to be like i don't think it's making me happy anymore and as hard as it was to to give it up like we we let her give it up you know so it's it's teaching your kids that too that it's it's okay do you make good money

1:45Vanessa: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 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.

2:15Vanessa: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.

2:44We 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.

2:52Vanessa: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. We are so excited to have our friend Carrie on our podcast. We've been over on her podcast here and there, but she is a first time guest on Financial Coaching for Women. We're so excited to welcome. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Girl, this is the perfect episode for this time of year for our listeners. So you're talking about planning your year and just really being intentional because you said right before we got on, you have time and you have money.

3:28Vanessa:Let's put those things together. Let's make magic happen. So talk to us about how you first set that up for the new year. Yeah. Like you said, time and money are the two major commodities we have. So when I plan out my year and I'm very intentional about planning and budgeting, I am a former mom who is in one hundred and forty thousand dollars in debt when we first got married. So like digging out of that hole and really being intentional with time and money has been how I've made it this far in life. So the way I look at my year is I map it out very loosely, but I print out the full year's calendar and I'm like, what are the big things that are going to happen this year?

4:10and how do I need to budget around it? So I'm going to use my life, my 2026 life as an example. My oldest is graduating college. Are you, wait, wait, wait, everybody, hold on. Let's all take a deep breath. Are we praying for her? Let's pray for you. What's happening? Pray for everybody. Pray for me. When you just thought, when you just said all that, I was like, okay, let's get ready. Deep breath. Like emotionally prepare yourself to think about everything that's going to happen in 2026.

4:35Vanessa:Okay, here you go. All right, let's talk about it. Deep breath. So without knowing everything that's going to happen, you know, the things that I know are going to happen is my oldest is graduating college. High school. God, gosh, forgive me. College. My oldest is graduating high school. So with that comes, you know, once she starts getting these wonderful acceptances to college, there's some that we didn't go see because we're waiting to see financially. Is it within budget? That's that's my biggest thing. Just moms. Let's take a pause here. When you're looking at colleges. is the first big tip I have is tell your child not to fall in love with the college.

5:16They're not allowed to fall in love with the college until they know if you can afford it. And that's, that's the first conversation we had with her was, you know, you can apply to that$80 ,000 a year college, but you're not going unless you get a good scholarship for it. So, you know, we let her do it, but once those financial papers come back in, then we'll let you know if we can go and see it. So we have three of those. Then she applied for big scholarships. And with those come interviews, which might be in North Carolina. So it's like, okay, on this date, we might have to go to North Carolina.

5:48That's, you know, flight and all those wonderful expenses that come with traveling. Then I have my daughters turning 16. Another thing we said we would never do is a sweet 16. To me, they're like the most expensive things. They're our family is we say you can pick where we're going on our family vacation this year and we go on an extra special one so she picked spain so now we have to we have to that sounds like so we're at least it wasn't like an australia or something that sounds a little more expensive yes well my oldest one picked greece i mean i pushed her to pick greece that was kind of my bucket list so i'm like we could do that spain is a little little less expensive thank god because we also have college sorting in the fall so it's you know the dorm purging everything for the dorm it's the travel to drop her off those hotel rooms and then of course the college expenses and then I can't forget my 12 year old and you know he's got the sports we have sports everywhere but you know the sports and everything that comes along with it so those are just you know the kids covered and then it's you know I want to have an intentional relationship with my husband you know we're very big on once a month date nights you know and once you start getting into all those expensive things.

7:01It's, you know, mapping out, blocking out when those date nights are going to happen. And depending on your budget, as you see those numbers going down, you know, our date nights might just be walk the kids out of the room and like, let's watch a movie together or let's, you know, do something low budget. But we also like to try to go on a vacation alone, just the two of us, you know, that's something that's always been very important to us. So it's things Things like that, mapping them out. And don't forget self-care, you know, especially if you like to get your hair done or things like that.

7:35You want to make sure that you're mapping those things out intentionally as well. So what I hear you saying is let's look at 2026. And have you ever heard that analogy I know you guys have, where you have the jar and you put the big rocks in and then you put the little pebbles and then you put the sand. And right now it sounds like what we're really trying to identify for 2026 is what are our big rocks? Like that's going to ground our schedule. That's going to ground our budget in general. If we can start thinking about those, I'm sure all the other ones will sort of come to mind and sort of trickle in.

8:08And even the, I would say like the sand version of that, Vanessa, is just your regular month of budget. Like the stuff that you always have to pay for that's going to be your everyday, day-to-day life. But I'm thinking about our next year. And, you know, there are things that happen in your life that are not your kids. Like I'm trying to think that like big events, you know, like when my husband retired, when other people maybe retire, we won't talk about anybody. When you start a business, when you change jobs, when you're moving, maybe you're moving, maybe you're having a baby, maybe you're getting a pet.

8:37Look, that is a whole big event, right? Expensive. Yeah. We have some really close friends that are, that are moving and buying a ranch and, and stuff. So there's so many things that could be that if you can just look at these big things in your life next year, then you can start to like fill in everything else around it. But those big things are key to identify first.

8:54Vanessa:Well, and I love the rock, the pebble, the sand, the water analogy in that jar, because you fill it with water or sand first and you're done, you're out, right? There's nothing else that you can put in there. And those are the small peddly things that happen to you throughout the year, right? What we want to do is make sure we, like Carrie was saying, you want to intentionally map out those big rocks, those things that you absolutely know, the things that you love, that bring you joy, that you're excited about, put those in there first so that way you know that they're never going to go anywhere and that you don't make time for other things that are going to interfere with those.

9:25No, and that's exactly what I teach my client. I use that analogy all the time and not just, so the way I teach it is not just those big rocks being your non-negotiables and placing them in your week. I also talk about it in terms of like work-life balance and the balancing stones. So when you really are intentional and you take the time to really reflect on what your values are and what matters to you most, and you're putting those big rocks in your calendar on a large scale for the year and then doing it every month and then doing it every week and then daily balancing those stones throughout your day, that's when you're able to create kind of that work-life, life-work balance.

10:09Vanessa:Well, I also think that things happen. Like you're actually putting things into motion. You actually accomplish things, you complete things, and it makes you feel that you're successful, right? And her and I were just listening to a podcast, and the lady was like, you deserve this time to be able to plan out the next year. And I'm like, yes, I do. I do, right? And so, but everybody does, everybody, whether it's business or personal or both, like you deserve a chance to sit down for an hour, my goodness, or even two or more. If you want the whole afternoon, girl, take it. But you deserve that time to sit down and plan out what the year is going to, what's going to happen.

10:47Vanessa:So that way you can feel good when you do achieve those because you're, you're most likely going to achieve them when you write them down. Well, I also love the, the part where you, the tactical part you said, Carrie, about like pulling out a year, the whole year's calendar, because Vanessa and I talk about all the time, a lot of the problem that people have is they, they think paycheck to paycheck, right? And so we say, Hey, we want you to look at it at a bird's eye view with a month. We want you to look at the whole month. What can your money do in a month? Right. But then truly the next step, our last step is to look at the year because you, if you're only looking narrow focus into that month, you're going to miss next month's big bill that's coming that I could be, have been saving for, or you're not going to see Christmas.

11:26It's going to come up as a surprise again and you're not going to have money for it. Right? So when we teach people to budget, we say, let's look at the month and then let's look at the year. And here, when you are, guys are talking about your planner and your weekly schedules and all of that. I'm like, yeah, that is, as Vanessa said, that's kind of the stuff that happens to you. You can, it can be very quick to, to feel like your, your schedule is taking over you. But if we can take this time, like you guys are saying, and look at the whole year, I imagine looking at the whole year, what is going to happen all of 2026 and how that is going to shift the way I spend my time, the way I spend my money, and just my mind getting ready for all of it.

12:03I think it's a great, great idea.

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12:41Vanessa:If 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. The other thing I say to do is like really reflect on the year. Like what really, and you do this in budgeting too, like what worked for you and what didn't work? What were your roadblocks and where did you excel and have that same mindset going into the new year? And even the, you know, writing the letter to yourself, your future self of what do you want this year to feel like?

13:22So when you're planning your year, keep that in mind. And when you're mapping it out, you know, you have to put in the things you have to do, just like, you know, your bills. You have to pay them. Those events that are happening in your kid's life, they're going to happen. You can't change them. And it's using the time and space around that, just like you would do with the extra money you have. and really being intentional about how you spend that time, just like you're being intentional about how you spend your money. Well, I think we need to pause what you said there because you kind of went through it really quickly, but reflecting is so important with your money and your time.

14:00But I think we're so busy, go, go, go. And if you're like us, you're probably the same way, Carrie. It's like, what's next? That's fine. I already did that, but what's next? It's very hard to be actually intentional about staying in the moment, realizing what you've accomplished, realizing what actually went well and what didn't go well. And I think, so I, for example, when you said that, I thought about my daughter, she needs to reflect on her life decisions this year because, you know, part of my budget is her gymnastics. And she kind of went back and forth this year about how serious she wanted to be about gymnastics.

14:32And I think next, you know, she's going back to all in next year. And so just having that moment of reflection, like, why did I think that? What made me make that decision. I'm changing. I'm going, you know, to this new direction. Why is that? Like, so that you can really get the, get information and like reflect and, and, and, and face yourself and, and really be able to that way that doesn't happen again, or that way you can learn from it instead of just going so fast through it that you don't really reflect on it. So I actually do this on a weekly basis. I swear by the clever Fox planner because the prompts are all in there, but at the end of the week, it's like what went well, what didn't go well.

15:10And let's even rewind it. The beginning of the week, you're saying, what are my focuses for this week every day? What are my top three priorities? So that way, by the end of the day, if I just got those top three things done, I feel accomplished. And if I didn't, okay, at the end of the week, I'm reflecting like what held me back. And then, so I'm doing that every week. So that way I know the next week what to change because if nothing changes, nothing changes. So then I do that on a monthly basis. You know what I look at the bigger picture like what really held me back on a larger scale this month and again on a quarterly basis.

15:44So by the end of the year like at this time. we're at the end of the year now, I'm able to kind of look back through my planner and my journals to be like, okay, where did I show up the way I wanted to show up? Where do I need to work on? So that way I'm way more intentional planning this year. And I write that future letter to myself. So I know, you know, to do that, to check in with it every couple of months to be like, am I where I really want it to be? Am I on track to where I want it to be by the end of this year?

16:12Vanessa:I like that. You're just doing the professional development, personal development or whatever, but every single week you're checking in with yourself to say, how can I get better basically, right? How can I do this better? And you're consistently making those 1 % changes to get yourself to where you want to be. And I think that that's great. I think it's great to keep that in the forefront. Well, so going back, so what we've said is reflect a little, reflect on 2025 and then start planning for 2026. And I think that the reflection part is really important because, you know, and I guess I always think about the lens through the lens of our kids.

16:44So I think about Vanessa's son, who's getting his pilot license, right? And how that's going to shape a lot of his decisions, right? You know, or my son who decided this year to not do piano anymore, but to go all in and base upright base so that you can get into college for it. And, and like those, but you need that reflection, a little bit of that reflection really helps. So maybe I'm not going to do this or that or the other, because I know I want to go all in on this, Or maybe that did work this year, but I have different goals for next year. So then I'm going to, I'm going to swap what, what I'm going to do.

17:12And then of course, again, how much our flight lessons, how much our bases. Because we also have to put that in the budget, baby. Not cheap. You know, you just reminded me of another thing. It's, you know, it's not only did you accomplish things? It's like, did it bring you joy? Did it make you happy? Like, was your son just playing the piano because he felt it was something he needed to do? And the base brings him more joy. You know, are you just going with the motions of life and feeling you're successful because you're doing a good job? But like, if it doesn't bring you joy, that's something you should be reflecting on, too.

17:46And and when you're looking at next year, what's going to make you happy? And as you're filling out those months, take a step back and be like, is this year going to bring me joy? Am I liking what's on this calendar? Is it making me feel good inside or am I like already so stressed? you know?

18:05Vanessa:Yeah. I have a couple of things, but go ahead, Vanessa. Yeah. So the first thing I think about is I was listening to a podcast one time and the guy was talking about, you know, what you, what brings you joy versus what you're good at. And I think a lot of times we get our joy from doing well because we're like the things that we're good at. Right. And so when you look at your calendar, I can imagine like, is this bringing me joy because I am living a purposeful life? Am I fulfilling my calling? Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing or what I should be doing, what I feel like I want to be doing, all of that.

18:32Vanessa:And I think ultimately at the end that it's going to bring you joy, right? And in the long run. And so I just, I think about just for me, you know, one, actually one of our friends one time asked me, like, what is the question that you ask your kids? And I think I remember saying, I want you to do what makes you happy, what brings you joy. But ultimately to me, that really meant like, I want you to live your life, fulfilling your calling. So that way, you know, that internally you are fulfilled and you're excited and joyful and happy and you want to go into the new year feeling that way. And that actually, I'll tell you a little story.

19:05So my daughter, my middle one is six months. So you have to imagine anytime anyone sees it, they're like, do you play basketball? Do you play basketball? She's played basketball since she was in third grade. So actually, no, she started in first grade, but it was like, you know, the little ones. And then like really in third grade, her entire identity has been basketball, basketball, basketball. And she was just making it up to varsity in high school. And she came to us and she's like I don't think I want to play anymore and it was you know it one I was I was shocked because I'm like you're like basketball you know like and I love watching you play basketball but it's something I've always instilled in them any sport they've ever done any activity I said what's the number one thing they're like have fun if it makes you happy you keep doing it the second it doesn't you have to fulfill your commitment for the season but then you know if it doesn't make you happy, if it doesn't bring you joy, don't do it.

20:00So she got to the point where she felt comfortable enough to come to us to be like, I don't think it's making me happy anymore. And as hard as it was to, to give it up, like we, we let her give it up, you know? So it's, it's teaching your kids that too, that it's, it's okay to, to make those changes. I think as kids, especially it's so important for them to listen. And I, I think, you know, know, I think that being happy is not, is, is not actually the right verbiage. What I think with, with us and with our kids is you're going to have, feel that sense of peace and joy because you're doing what God's called you to do.

20:36And when you feel some of that friction or anxiety, or you feel like something's not right, right. It's because you're not listening to that. You're not listening to the, you know, the Holy spirit, whatever you want to call it is telling, is guiding you, trying to guide you. And, and that's where you start to feel that tension. And I think that when you're in God's will, when you're doing what you're, what you're called to do and what, and doing and obeying and all of that, that's when you feel good. You feel peace. You feel, you feel joy, all of those things. And so, so, you know, it is a cultural will frame it as what brings, what makes you happy, but that's really what it is.

21:07And I think it's so important for kids to learn that so early for her to be able to make that decision, to feel good about it and to not feel like it was, I was letting other people down. No, I'm doing what's right. What's correct for me. And I'm going on my path. And it's so good for them to learn that when they're younger. So what, what I, what I think about for me, when I'm thinking about 2026 is I told, you know, I told Vanessa, I joined a gym, right? Like in, what was it? October. I don't remember just to kind of jumpstart getting back into it because you know, my life has been my kids and I'm not going back to the gym.

21:38I finally realized like, I know, obviously I know how to work out, but I need, that's the only time I get to myself all week, all day, all week is, is when I'm working out. Right. And so I go to this gym and there's like 80 girl women there. They're wonderful. They're lovely, awesome humans, but I can't, I'm like, I, I can't people anymore peopling. And I need that time in the morning to myself, to my quiet thoughts, to like get my attention for the day. Not like loud blaring music. It's just not where, where I need to be. So anyway, so as I'm planning my year, that's, I was just thinking about that when you guys are thinking about joy or whatever, like what's going to work for you?