How to Stop Business Travel from Blowing Up Your Family Budget or Using Credit Cards | 471

0:00The part that you're sending, you can do that physically or obviously online using different software and hope maybe that would make it faster. Either hiring somebody or making it part of your process. For example, when we have a session before we get up, we write the recap. Nobody, we don't necessarily want to do that, but it's just something that we have to do or else it's going to be something that keeps on getting. It adds up. Yeah. And then that's what it is because it's like any other task, right? It might actually take five minutes, but in my mind, I am making it this thing and I don't want to do it.

0:27And yeah. And, but again, like you did all the first steps, like you already funded it, you got it separate. So this next part is really like just that last little, this little bit sprint. And I know you can do it. Do you make good money, but have nothing to show for it? Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have big dreams for your financial future? Do you want to get debt free, but you don't want to live on beans and rice? Or you don't want to give up those pumpkin spice lattes? Hey, it's okay. If you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the month.

0:57Hey, it's okay if you want to seem like you have your finances all together or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances. We know what you're doing probably isn't working, but guess what? You're in the right place. We're Shana and Vanessa. We're best friends, business partners, and master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey. We've been in business since 2019, helping hundreds of amazing people like you create budgets, get out of debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck and know exactly what to do with their money. In this podcast, we'll share with you everything we know plus everything we're working on with our clients so that you have the best chance at reaching your financial goals.

1:32We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on the conversation. We can help you no matter where you're at, whether you're the single mom who's never had$500 in her savings account or the millionaire who's paid off four real estate 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. All right, Stephanie, welcome to Financial Coaching for Women. We're so excited to talk to you and see how we can help.

2:03Stephanie:I'm a big fan of your work. I'm excited to get to visit with you both today. Thank you so much for coming on. So please tell us what is going on and yeah, just tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, I'm a law professor and I've discovered your budget system in the last couple of months and really enjoyed a lot of what I've learned so far. I relied on credit cards often for like business trips and I'll get into that a little bit more. So you've persuaded me, we've shifted to now I have a million accounts with Navy Federal Credit Union and we're doing everything with debit cards. But one thing that I struggle with that I could use your help with, and one area where my husband said maybe we still need credit cards for this is When I go on business trips, sometimes I don't get reimbursed until months later.

2:51Stephanie:I submitted something in April for a trip that I then was reimbursed like two weeks ago. And it's not as though this is like the main way I earn a living. So it's not like a side hustle that if it wasn't sustainable, I would just quit doing it. Like it is part of my job. I have to go on business trips. I have to present things in different places, sometimes other countries. it's not my main source of income, but it does add up these expenses. And so in the past I had used a credit card because it's not really my money that I'm spending for me. And it's hard to budget. It's always like, how much is this trip going to cost?

3:26Stephanie:And so the credit card would help give me some margin, but then you end up having to pay credit card fees and so on and so forth. So I now have a business account, like a debit account, but still I could use your tips on like, how do I track all these expenses more effectively? Sometimes I just forget about them. And my husband thinks maybe we should still have a credit card for things like car rentals, where then you get car insurance or international trips where you have international fees. Anyway, I'm struggling with that. That piece is like a nuanced hard thing for me to figure out. And I'd welcome your thoughts about that.

3:57Stephanie:Do you want to go first? First of all, thanks or good job opening the million accounts. Like you're already on your way. And it sounds like you're on the right track. That would be the first thing that we would have said is to open a separate business account and have everything going into that and coming out of that has to do with any of your travel. The only, perhaps the only difference we would say is if you're, would be able to, is to pre-fund it. So look at maybe the worst case scenario, one of these trips, which might be where you're international. If you're able to, we would just want to pre-fund that account and say, let's say you spend$2 ,000.

4:28I don't know what it is. And then that would just be rolling forward. You would just put it in that account, spend from that account. You don't have to track anything. You don't have to track anything because you're using that account. The only thing happening in the account is your business expenses. And the only thing that's going to go into the account would be the reimbursements, right? So everything for that would be happening there. So if you just fill it with money first, and then you're just spending that and reimbursing that in a cycle, and you never have to worry. Does that make sense?

4:56Stephanie:Yeah, that makes sense in terms of what I have noticed is that it keeps that whole wild party separate from our own budget because what used to be happening is it was wrecking our home budget for sure and x amount of family spending and then suddenly i have a three thousand dollar trip to england and it's we were planning on that so it's helping in that sense if you have tips though for how to track expenses immediately it's almost like running aside a little business and i never like that's not why i became a professor right so yeah what we're gonna say is that there's going to be that front loading time where you're going to have to see what is your average amount that you spend, or let's go this way.

5:33Let's go really safe. What's the most you've ever spent on a business trip before. And if it's that three to$4 ,000 mark, and you're our second lawyer that your professor that has this exact same situation. So this is what we did for him is we put, you have to pre-fund the amount of money in the account. And so if it's$4 ,000 that you've ever spent on a trip before, then you need to try to buffer that account. You need to save up. So whether you're, if your goal was to pay off debt right now, we're going to pause for just a minute. We're going to save the money. We're going to pre-fund that account for$4 ,000, right?

6:05And so that way, you know that you always have that money coming in. Like Shana said, every month you're going to be budgeting to put money in that spending account specifically for business expenses. And then as your reimbursements come in, that's, they're going back into that account. So it's a revolving door. So there's going to be no longer where you're racking up expenses. And then six months later, you're getting paid back on the credit card where you've had to pay for it. So not only have you, did you have to pay for it? And then you had to pay off the credit card. Now you're just using this account with money coming in and money coming out consistently.

6:39Does that make sense? But it is going to require you to front load it. And it is going to be a little bit of a challenge at the beginning. I don't know what your budget looks like you may have$4 ,000 in your budget extra every month. That's great. So then it's only going to really be one month of, of a restraint to be able to do that. And I just want to ask when you're saying help with tracking, what do you, what do you mean by tracking the expenses? Because for us having everything in the one account allows you very clearly to see everything that you've spent and, and everything that is B has been reimbursed.

7:12And then I don't know what sort of forms you have to use with your work or whatever as far as so what is the problem there

7:17Stephanie:exactly so i have front loaded the account so i appreciate that so i now have four thousand dollars in my business account i don't want to do that every month though right i don't want to take four thousand dollars of our family every month my goal my goal is that moving forward i will just make it sustainable with whatever i'm doing with reimbursements or honoraria from these businesses it is still tricky for me though okay i guess here's what i'm trying to say the beauty of what I love is happening with your budget system with family stuff. I don't really track how much I'm spending on Amazon.

7:48Stephanie:It's just, hey, what do we have in family spending right now? We have a positive number. I guess I can get a few more things on Amazon. And like, I don't really care about the rest. Done. Yes. All the math is done. Yeah. But with this business account for a very non-math person, it is going to be easier that I'm now seeing all the expenditures on one card. But like, I still have to take pictures of all those receipts in order to not have it be a$4 ,000 drain on my family, but to be money that has been coming in and reimbursed for someone else. I also have to figure out, okay, so this organization that I went and spoke at, I'll send that reimbursement to them, but this one, I'll send that reimbursement to them.

8:23Stephanie:So it's like exactly the type of system that your amazing budget is meant to avoid for my family. I still have to do something smart on my business side and I don't know what to do. And I like, anyway, so if you have thoughts about how to make that more streamlined, I would welcome that. 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.

8:56And it's going to give you permission to spend. Everybody loves that. Yeah. It's straightforward, pretty, and packed with walkthrough videos that break down the exact methods we use with our clients to get out of debt, set up a bills account, separate spending, build savings buckets, and end the paycheck to paycheck feel. 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.

9:29Now back to today's show. So when you send these reimbursements and you're not just sending them to your one job, you're actually able to send it to different locations.

9:38Stephanie:Yeah. That's what I'm trying to tell you. So like other universities invite me to come speak and they each have their own system and sometimes their own vendor portal. And so if I didn't get reimbursed every time I go speak somewhere else, and sometimes I'm traveling two or three times a month to go present a paper or whatever, then basically I would just be paying my own money to do my job. And I didn't want to do that, but it's, it's, I don't have a good system. Sometimes I had done that. Cause I just forget. I'm like, I don't know where those receipts are. It's too long. Forget about it. I'll move forward.

10:06Stephanie:But that's not a, that's not a good way to run a railroad. Okay. So that it's just one of those things about the type of industry that you're in and the type of job that you're doing. You are going to have to be a little bit more systematic on, on how to send those receipts. Now maybe that's in the moment. So the second it happens, you send them out. So you know, in your brain, the full process is completely done. Otherwise they're going to rack up. You're not going to remember. It's going to become more of a hassle and a burden in the end to be able to do that. I would say maybe if you have, gosh, if they're all different, I would say you could have a spreadsheet to where you could have the different names of the people.

10:44So you could have check boxes. We even have a section in our budget sheet. There's a notes section in there. You could use that if you wanted. There are check boxes that could help you organize all that, but it's just, it's one, it's tricky. So my, honestly, Stephanie, my first thought is hire someone to do it. Yeah. I was like, but does she want to, I don't know. Yeah. There's gotta be someone out there that maybe you could just speaks that love language. Because that's what we would do. I'm just being really honest with you because this is, you said it's not that you're the math part is not your favorite part.

11:12This is not what you signed up to do. Like why you signed up to, to be a professor and everything. So I might see, I honestly might see if I could. Do you, are you able to turn a profit or you just only, do you get per diem when you're gone or do you only get reimbursed for what you actually spend?

11:28Stephanie:If I was consistent about submitting my reimbursements, I would be turning a profit, like a modest one. But like sometimes when I go speak, I get a modest honorarium. I don't always, but there's enough of that coming in that it, it is profitable. Now there are also some events I get invited to that not all of it is reimbursable. Like those modest honorarium would help offset and more than offset the times when I am having to spend my own money to travel. So yeah. So otherwise, if we don't hire someone to do it, which again, for it or hire a student or I don't know, I don't know. Otherwise, it would just have to be a system that you decide to set it.

12:05But for example, maybe every time on the flight home, that's when I do it or when I'm and I just it's not anything anybody wants to do. Totally understand that, but that is when I do it. The receipts, as I get them, I upload them to a certain pictures file. I take a picture and I upload it and I don't have to, at least I know it's there. When I get booked for something, I create a folder in Google drive that it's just, you're just going to have to set up a system because the problem is you're like you said, everybody has a different way to get reimbursed. And that is, there's no way to systemize that, unfortunately.

12:37Yeah. And I was thinking before you said it was all different vendors, you could send that bank statement. And that's one of the things that's really great about having this separate account is it's all business expenses. So you could just send that to them. But if it's all different people, then you're going to have to set up an external system of either some folders or taking pictures or whatever that looks like for you. Set reminders in your phone. Hiring somebody, data entry right now, I think I looked it up on chat GPT a couple of months ago,$15 an hour is a very decent rate to hire somebody for data entry.

13:02And that's exactly what you're doing. What you're doing is not bookkeeping. It's literally data entry. So that might be worth it to you.

13:09Stephanie:That's a good point about the bank statement. One thing I could do is I could send the same bank statement, but just redact. I was going to say, or highlight. Yep. Highlight. What their parts are. Yeah, the part that you're sending. You can do that physically or obviously online using different software and hope maybe that would make it faster. Either hiring somebody or making it part of your process. For example, when we have a session, before we get up, we write the recap. Nobody, we don't necessarily want to do that, but it's just something that we have to do or else it's going to be something that keeps on getting.

13:37It adds up. Yeah. And then that's what it is because it's like any other task, right? It might actually take five minutes, but in my mind, I am making it this thing and I don't want to do it. And yeah. And, but again, like you did all the first steps, like you already funded it, you got it separate. So this next part is really like just that last little list, little bit sprint. And I know you can do it. Yeah. And in order for you to not fund that account for a thousand dollars every month, unfortunately, until it's rolling, you're going to have to submit those reimbursements on a timely basis.

14:05So that way, the next time you go to make those purchases, money is already coming in. And you may have to do four months of $4 ,000 until you get the reimbursement. Once that's happening, you won't have to continue doing that. You're just waiting at that point.

14:19Stephanie:I do want to say that shifting to the system has already helped because before there was something about having it on a credit card that it was like monopoly money. It was just out of sight, out of mind. And I had no connection between what I was submitting. There was also no incentive often to submit these in a timely way. Whereas man, like I'm dwindling on the business money. Who do I need to submit a reimbursement to so that can be sustainable? It just, it like, it just is, it's more front of mind in a different way. So I can already feel a shift. Can you speak to though your thoughts on, is it ever worth using a credit card so that you can avoid foreign transaction fees or get car insurance if you do a car rental?

14:57Stephanie:Because those are benefits that sometimes come with a credit card that my husband raised a question about. You know, I will say there is one credit card that I keep only when I go international because my bank does charge me 1 % transaction fee. So I do understand that, but I have that money set ready to go in a checking account or a savings account. And then, and I know my limits, I only use that. But I will say they're getting better and find a bank. So my bank I use is related to my husband's work. That's why we bank there. But there are plenty of banks that don't charge an international transaction fee.

15:30And if this is what you do consistently, I would probably look at finding one that does not.

15:35Stephanie:Okay, that's helpful. This is all really helpful. Thank you guys for taking time with me today. You're welcome. The only other thought that I had, Stephanie, was if you could book once a month your own time to do this, book it in your calendar, just have a recurring appointment with yourself to sit down for 30 minutes or whatever. No, again, nobody wants to do it, but just knowing that you have that time set aside and the rest of the, either it's on the way home from the trip or it's just making it systematic, which you're already there. You're like super close to having it, but it's just this last piece.

16:03So I might consider doing something like that. Like every great idea. Yeah. Okay. It's a really good idea.

16:08Stephanie:In fact, maybe even like once a week, I just check in on just an appointment with yourself and some receipts. Yes. Yay. How fun. You're pumped. I can feel the energy. Party in my office. Yes. Okay. Awesome. Thank you for coming on and thank you for giving us that unique situation and you're doing so great. And I, we're so happy. It sounds like it's working and for you and you talked about your husband, hopefully it's working for you guys, the system, and you can start to feel like with this, with separating and like you're making, you're in control. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want me to tell other ways that's helped our family?

16:42Yes. I would love to.

16:43Stephanie:I'm whining to you about the bad part, but I mean, it has affected my spending because there's just something tangible about seeing how it's affecting all the other accounts. We've started funding Christmas, whereas before it was always like, surprise, we entered the tree for$1 ,000 that we have to figure out somewhere for him. so i'm excited about that and it like it was a situation where it was like we make like decent money but it's we shouldn't be shocked by these things we have an emergency fund now there's worse things that we need each of our kids has a little saving of fund and now when they earn money instead of having it in the make-believe mom and dad's head where we often forget and make stuff up now we just do a navy federal credit union transfer they often ask to look they're like did you pay me the five dollars for mowing the lawn or whatever and they see it so like they're learning about money in a more tangible way too.

17:30Stephanie:So like your system has already blessed our family in a lot of ways. And that's just the last couple of months. So I'm excited to dig into it more. So thank you for that. We're so glad that you saw results so quickly. I think that is awesome. I think that's amazing. And it just, it's proof of the system. We worked really hard to make it. And we just love every time we hear one of these testimonials. So thank you for coming on and sharing that. We know that it's going to bless another family. Yeah. And I hope that other people heard that about how you're, how you're paying your kids and bringing them in on the conversation and letting them be a part of it and be a part of making money and also spending money and just understanding it, not having it be this taboo thing that I have to figure out later in life.

18:05So well done and good luck with your receipt party. We're really excited for you. And yeah. And so thank you for coming on. We really appreciate it. And yeah, if you ever want to check in, if you have more questions later on, feel free to book another call. Sounds good. Thanks. 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. 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.