How to Plan Your Money for 2026 (Step-by-Step Annual Budget Setup) | 514

0:00Shana, most people don't have a money problem. They have a January problem. Yeah. For the most part, people say it's all those quote unquote surprise expenses or the things that I didn't expect that blow up their budget. They might have some sort of handle on the monthly stuff. It's the other stuff that messes them up. That's what we want you to do in January to fix it. Yeah. Those unexpected expenses. Yeah. Yeah. And if you don't decide where your money is going on purpose this year in 2026, it's going to decide for you. It's definitely going to decide for you. And it's going to be all gone. That's the decision.

0:31Right. It's not going to decide to stay in your bank account. It's going to decide to go elsewhere for sure. 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 all together or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances.

1:02We 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. We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on the conversation.

1:37We 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. Goals without a budget are just a wish list with glitter on it. Yeah, I feel like you're making this vision board maybe, or you're doing your goal list or whatever. And if you don't have a budget, like it doesn't matter. What is it you always say about goals and money and budgeting?

2:08Yeah, everything is tied to money. Some way, shape or form, right? Always comes back to money. It makes the world go round, not in a bad way, in a good way. But we just want to make sure that we're being good stewards of it and making sure that we're using it the way that we truly want to use it. Yeah, and it reminds me of the friend scene, which maybe you guys don't know this, but Vanessa does. So it's like where Monica and Phoebe and Rachel are all in there and they're depressed. And Monica's, I don't have a plan. Or Rachel, I don't remember. One of them is like, I don't have a plan. And Phoebe's on the ground drinking a milkshake or margarita, whatever it is, with her hair on her face.

2:40Something with a straw. And her hair is in her face. And she said, I don't even have a pla. I don't even have a pla. I'm like, that's probably you. You don't even have a pla, you guys. You've got to get a pla. We're going to help you with a plus today so you can plan your money in 2026. Yeah. And if you make good money but have nothing to show for it, 2026 is the year that we're going to fix that. So I think something that we know, Vanessa, is we have done these kind of things, annual planning sessions with our clients. And we know the first thing that we really need to think, which you might not be used to thinking about, is what is our goals?

3:12What are our goals for the entire year? What is our vision? It's really weird because sometimes we get so stuck in the day-to-day, we're just trying to survive. We're trying to make it. We're maybe thinking about this month or this season. But if we actually think of the year, go look at your entire 2026. What do I want out of this year? That's a crazy idea. Yeah. I think we come off of Christmas being such a crazy two months, really. Think about Thanksgiving, November, December. It's been crazy. Now we're finally into January and we're taking a deep breath and we're like, okay, do I just continue to go?

3:40Right. But we really want you to just pause and take a minute to go, what is, what do I want for myself for this new year? What can happen for me if you just sit down intentionally and plan for just a short period of time to be able to reach all your goals? Yeah. And it's not even necessarily just goals. Let's think about what is my life going to look like in 2026? I'm sure you have plenty of the examples, Vanessa. One of mine, my client that we needed to talk about was their daughter was going to go from being in preschool that they pay for to being in kindergarten, which they won't pay for. Oh, so that is a big budget change.

4:13He was also going to get a promotion and a raise. Sometimes maybe, maybe a kid's graduating, or maybe you have something like something procedural changing in your life. Not just goals. Goals are great, really important. But for them, they didn't have vacations. They weren't, that's not their goals. That's not what their vision was. Like, but sometimes that might be what it is for you. Here's the trips we're going to take and stuff like that. And for me, I think of goals and even situational things. What is happening to me? What do I want to make sure happens correctly for me in this new year?

4:40and how am I going to make it happen? And really what we want you to do is take a bird's eye view, take a step back and go, okay, what's happening right now in the month? What do I need to make sure I can focus on throughout the year? So that way I know that I'm still focused on what's happening in November. Yeah. And so just see what is the overall, like Vanessa said, bird's eye view of 2026. What do I want out of it? Sometimes this will be nitty gritty specific trips we're going to take or I'm going to buy a house or move or whatever. It might be stuff like that. Maybe it's I'm going to get debt free.

5:08Right. Maybe it's like, I'm going to stop using credit cards or I'm going to do something monetary. Maybe those are the things that I want to do. Maybe they're habit deals, but either way you get to set the vision, cast the vision for 2026. And it's something that's like the first step that you need to do for sure. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So the next thing I want to do, once you really have that bird's eye view of what's happening for the year, we want you to now go, okay, these are the big things, big rocks that are happening in 2026. what is happening monthly? So I think those are two very different things.

5:39People forget. It's easy for in a month to go, okay, I can plan for gas groceries and my bill's done. Yeah, but we also need to take that bird's eye view that you just had of the year and put that in your monthly budget. First, you have to do your monthly budget first so you can see what you can afford, right? To do for those big bird's eye view savings bucket kind of deals. So you're just gonna make it your monthly budget and you're gonna, it'll allow you, especially if you're using hours, which we think you should, budgetbusiness.com forward slash budget. It will show you income minus debt minus bills bills minus spending.

6:07And that's really your monthly flow, like how life goes. And that will tell you how much you have extra with whatever goals you're going to have, whether it's paying off debt or saving for vacation or saving for this or that or the other. You're going to know what your monthly looks like so that you can know how much you have to put towards your other stuff. Yeah. And you really have to take a look here. If your monthly budget is taking up all your money, so we're talking about minimum debt payments, your regular monthly bills, your spending, gas, groceries, things like that, like Shayna said, and your annual bills, because really that's the non-negotiable.

6:37But other than that, if you're already at zero or you're in the negative, the reason it feels so tight, the reason we're going into debt probably, the reason why your budget feels restricted is because all these unexpected expenses that pop up, like t-ball fees and gymnastics fees and, I don't know, that family vacation that your mom always expects you to go to for Thanksgiving or whatever, like all these things that come up throughout the year that you make happen somehow, we can't budget for them on a monthly basis because our budget is already so tight. Yeah. And so in our budget, wow, weird that we have the perfect way for them to do what we're talking about.

7:13In our budget system, we have a savings bucket planner. And so when we go through doing this kind of thing with our clients, we're going to go through this and we're going to look at it fresh for a new year. And this is a great thing to do in January because you have all year to save up and really start to implement a plan. And there's all kinds of categories, pets, kids, gifts, glam up, what you're doing, household projects. So you might have regular like air filters and oil that you do, but maybe this is the year I have to fix the sprinkler or whatever. I don't even know. We might need to put that in the plan for your savings buckets.

7:43Shana, this is the year that I'm going to replace my backdoor. Do you believe that? I do not believe you. I do not believe you. Regular functioning backdoor. We bought a foreclosure, right? We bought, and it's still, 10 years later, we're still slowly putting things in there. Everything else has gotten upgraded and like bougie. And then the back door is just living its like 20, 2001 life or whatever. It's fine. But we arched, right? I brick arched my house and I have a beam in there. Like it's beautiful, but that poor little back door. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Yeah, exactly. So then we also have categories like vehicle, medical, travel, annual bills and clothing.

8:18Now let's take a step back. So that's like overall. You might have different ones, but those are general savings buckets that you want to plan for. But it's not just overall. Like when we're talking about pets, for example, do they have a special operation or surgery or something that needs to happen? Or is it just the regular sort of annual expenses that you normally would have for them? That's$400. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm saying that from personal experience. It just happened to me. She's fine with it. But listen, we've got medical, we've got travel, annual bills, like all of those savings buckets that Shana mentioned, they are really important.

8:48And we want to make sure that we put them in your budget. And when you're doing it, you need to go specific. So for example, when I did my medical for the one clients, they are doing braces for one of their, so this is a year specific. It's not just general, like we have copays every year or whatever. You want to look into each one of these categories, what it's going to be different. This client that I had, Vanessa, for the first time, they're actually going to be able to have a glam up. I think they felt so good about that. Yeah. It's really exciting. And so for them, then also what was fun is their annual bills didn't change at all.

9:18So yours might, but theirs were the very, the same ever that they were last year, but then other stuff changed. Their vacations also were the same. Their vehicle was the same, but then their kids, like I mentioned, their kids, preschool and different stuff is changing. So they have to, you have to update those things. And what you're going to do is plan out everything you can think you're going to spend in the year and it'll give you an annual total and a monthly budget. Yeah. And I'm going to go back to the medical really quick. A lot of people are like, I have an HSA. That's awesome. That becomes your medical savings bucket.

9:45However, if you need to supplement it because you know you're having a surgery or that something big is coming up, then you need to put it in here. It's just going to help you better prepare. Right. So you're going to go through and you're going to plan all of those. And then the next thing that you do is you figure out how to plug it back into the monthly budget. That's what doing all of that does. So, for example, let's say you added everything up and your pets, you need to be saving$200 a month for your pets. And that's a lot. But that's like a surgery, right? That's if you have multiple pets.

10:13I don't know anybody who has multiple pets. Anyway, I saw a meme, Vanessa. I'm going to share it with our listeners because I think that they would either identify with it or they'll get to know you better. It said how – the title was how people become cat owners. And the cat walked in the door and says, I live here now. And the lady said, okay. That would be me. Yeah, and I was thinking about your brother who saw the little kitten. Anyway, that's you guys. If that's you and I feel like that does happen to people, then we need to make sure we put it in the budget. Anyway, so my point was you take your expenses and you go ahead and put that$200 number into your monthly budget.

10:46Remember, we told you you had your income minus your debt, minus your bills, minus your spending, which are all very normal and regular. And now you're starting to take away from whatever's left over by plugging in the monthly amount for your savings bucket. 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 going to give you permission to spend.

11:20Everybody 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. 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 budgetbesties.com forward slash budget and grab yours. Now back to today's show. I want to caveat here and say a lot of people come to us and they say, I want to do the savings bucket thing now.

11:59I hear you talking about it. That's going to change my life. I know that's what I need, but I can't do it. I can't financially do it. We get it. Our whole system doesn't take a month to set up. It might take a minute as far as being able to add the savings buckets in there. So sometimes you look at your budget and you were paying$3 ,000 a month in minimum payments. That's why you can't afford to put all of the savings buckets in there yet. But if you're listening to this and it's something that you want, start with annual bills and then start adding in the next highest priority one. So if you're planning out your year, then your year needs to match your budget.

12:33If you are planning all these things out and then you realize you can't afford it, then you have to go back, walk it back. And that is what I did with my one client. When they first did their savings buckets, they were very dreamy, very excited. Which is, I will say, a good way to start doing your savings buckets. And then when we looked at, and this is what was really fun about this year specifically for them, is when we looked at what they couldn't afford to fund their savings buckets monthly. We actually set up all of them by the end of coaching so that they could put$30 a month into each one just so they can get in the habit, so they can feel good.

13:02And then now he gets a raise in February and they're going to be able to fully fund all of their savings buckets. It's such a difference that they have worked through to be able to do that. So you just have to see what you can. And like Vanessa said, if there's three or four that are like, I'm going to go all in on these. And then once I get a raise or once I get more money or less debt minimums, I can do more. That's fine. But your budget needs to match your goals and you match your budget. And you need to be able to put it in there and then you can go from there. Yeah. And I will say, think outside the box.

13:30because I just had an annual session with a lady and she was trying to fund her savings buckets monthly and she couldn't. However, she gets four bonuses a year. And we found out that 90 % of her savings buckets can get funded with her commission checks. And then we just needed to put a little line item into the monthly budget to be able to cover the rest. So there are ways to work around this. I don't think that, oh, I tried it, can't do it. This isn't for me. No, we just have to figure out where you're gonna start. And so that's where the funding part, you can either fund it monthly or you can fund it.

14:01I have clients that fund it with only overtime, so they can't actually put it in their monthly budget, but they know every check that they get over the baseline that we put, that's all going to savings buckets. And they still are prioritizing, right? Because they have to get the first one full and then the next one, or maybe they'll do it with a tax refund or whatever. And that's why that having that whole planner is important because then you know exactly what milestones you're trying to reach. And so you can keep the plan and then you can stick to it throughout the year. Yeah. And a lot of people, we've had people ask, how come the savings bucket tracker doesn't tie into the budget.

14:29We're like, because it can't. Because sometimes you'll make a really dreamy savings bucket list, which is great. That's what we want for you. But you have to slowly add it into the budget, right? And so that's the reason why it is separate. And we love having it that way for everyone. And so the way that would look is let's say this person who got a commission check, let's say she gets it in March is something. March 1st. That's exactly when she gets it, Shaina. Look at you. So in March, she's going to put her commission check into the income column. And then she's going to go in the savings buckets and look at her planner and say, okay, I'm going to make sure my top four savings buckets are completely full.

15:03So I feel really good about that. She'll put that in the savings column and she'll make sure her entire commission check is spent in those savings buckets and she'll be good. And it's going to be great. And so that's what you can do when you're needing to do it manually, which is totally doable. Totally. A lot of our clients do that. You can also automate it where if you, if it does, if you have a more realistic or you've done the work to get out of debt or whatever, You put those in there and then you can automate those transfers to your savings buckets each month. And so they're building for your goals, for your life vision for 2026 automatically.

15:33And I love how we talk about renaming the accounts. So it's not just one account with all this amount of money in it that you are trying to divvy up to all these different categories. No, you're going to have a separate account for them. But I want to hit on this automate part really quick, Shana. It's not just automating your savings buckets, automating your bill payments, all of your spending, everything. thing. So think about being able to set your budget on autopilot, right? You sit down for the new year, you set up this plan, you set up your automatic transfers. We're using your bank app as your personal assistant.

16:01And that way, every paycheck you have money every time. For me, I do mine weekly. I love it every Thursday. Everything gets replenished. Some people do it once a month. Some people do it every other week. Some people do it every twice a month. There's so many different ways to make this happen for you. But to know that you always have that money being transferred into those categories, either spending or savings, is a game changer. It is a game changer. And what you're what we're saying here is that's also your life. So you've set up a spending budget, or you've set up a family fund. And that's how you're going to live your 2026.

16:30That should be part of your vision, too. And so the whole budget together, not just your savings, all of it is how you're going to plan your money for 2026. Yeah. So think about again, when we're talking about this bird's eye view, that's usually savings buckets. We're talking about what's happening in the month, that's spending, that's bills, that's debt payments, everything that goes on day to day. And when you put all of that into one budget, then you're going to plan out your whole year naturally. And you're going to be ready for all those unexpected expenses. Yeah. And you're actually going to be able to stick to this the whole year if you do it right.

17:01So that's what we want for you. We want you to have the bougie, amazing goal oriented vision board life that you have, you have thought up for yourself that you've drawn for yourself. We just want you to do this process that we've talked about today to make your money, your budget match that so that it can actually happen. Yeah. So if you're looking for a budget system, okay. Wait, do we know anybody that has one? I think we have one. We just recently made some updates to it and some tweaks. We're really excited about it. So go to budgetbesties.com forward slash budget and check it out. 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.

17:38Watch our Automate Your Budget Masterclass at budgetbesties.com forward slash automate. We'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.