Lessons from Real Coaching Clients: Why Biweekly Mortgage Payments and Micro-Investing Apps Like Acorns Might Be Keeping You Broke | 488

0:00Today we're bringing you real life stories and lessons from our private coaching sessions. If our clients are dealing with it, chances are you are too. So we're breaking it down to help you avoid the same mistakes, feel less alone, and walk away with some quick wins for your budget. 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.

0:31Hey, 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.

1:07We 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. Imagine paying your mortgage twice a month and you set it up that way because you really didn't know if you could afford to pay your mortgage all at once in one lump sum.

1:42And I think now, actually Shana, when you go to get a mortgage, it's one of their options is for you to pay it twice a month because they know that it's been so hard for people to pay on the first and that big chunk. So they're like, oh, let me help you. We're going to help you spread it out. So you're going to pay it on your payday. How nice of them. When is your payday? Okay. We'll sync it with your payday for you to pay the mortgage. So that way it's always taken care of. So that we get our money. That's the actual most important thing. Exactly. So that's so kind of them. That's so sweet. They're on your side, obviously.

2:12Yes. They're obviously looking out for you. And your bottom line. Okay. Hard pass. This is why. And I don't want, don't hear what we're not saying. Okay. Okay. We want you to get ahead on your mortgage. We want you to be mortgage-free. Okay, that is something we want for you. I said yes, queen. Yes, queen. Hold on. Melanie said, you're from the 80s when I said that yesterday. I was like, girl, that's like from yesterday. Don't call me. I am from the 80s. We learned that from them. I am super cool and legit and young. Okay, from the 80s. Yep, yep. So we want you to do all this and accomplish big things, but we want you to do it the right way.

2:48So I had her call her mortgage company and ask if we can move it back to once a month. and she did this after one of the payments at the beginning of the month and so they skipped they're skipping the middle of the month which is fantastic helps a lot probably yes because we need that buffer to build up so that way she can feel comfortable and it will be there but it's just the comfortable yeah to pay the mortgage at the beginning of the month the upcoming month so i asked her to call they said yes we're moving it why are we doing this we're doing this because she's twenty thousand dollars in credit card debt and she's tight and she's sacrificing being able to buy gas and groceries today so she could potentially have an extra mortgage payment paid throughout the year, right?

3:28That's what you're doing. When you're making these payments every other week, you will eventually make one extra mortgage payment in a year. You get it. Yeah, because the two, you'll make two extra payments. Because there's 26. But you're doing them half of the payment. So it ends up being one full payment. So you'll make one extra payment in a year by doing this. Okay. I'm, we're for that. We're not against you making an extra mortgage payment in a year and saving on the interest, but she's sacrificing so much now because she literally cannot afford to do that what i told her i said let's do that i would i want you to do that but let's do it on purpose and let's make one extra mortgage payment a year in full instead of you feeling so tight every single month that you can't even afford gas and groceries and you have no idea where your money is going and then you're in her thing and she said i stress eat she said i have i need to have a budget for chocolate and ice cream which i'm like girl i'm that's fine you're like love language right yeah So now you're my client.

4:17We'll have to work through this together. But the reason why she's doing that is because she's so stressed about her finances. And why is she stressed about her finances? Because she doesn't have money for gas and groceries. Why does she have money for gas and groceries? Well, let me tell you. Because she's making extra payments on her mortgage payment that she can't afford. It's like a huge domino effect. Yeah. So I just, we want to make sure your everyday bills are covered and you can make, you can comfortably make that extra mortgage payment on purpose later on in full. Yeah. A lot of times these decisions that you're making, you're doing in good faith.

4:44You have good intentions, right? Right. And, but the, what is the reality of the budget say? And that's why it's so important to have everything on one piece of paper. I talked about in a couple of lessons ago that I had that client that was paying$200 more on her HELOC every month, but she was racking up credit card debt every month. It's very similar to what you're saying. It's just because somebody said it would be a good idea to pay extra doesn't mean you can actually afford it. And, but, and also it doesn't mean that you won't get back to that spot where you can do it on purpose, but you need to make sure your budget is in the black before you pay any extra on debt.

5:13And that's why our system has you do minimums only and that doing doing the dual payments or the bi-weekly payments that's not minimums we need you to do minimums only make sure your budget is working you feel good about your spending accounts you have you're saving what you need to save and then you can go back and make extra all on your own you don't even need a bank to help you do that you can do it by yourself and it goes for all of them and that's why the minimums is the first step and then we'll go back and figure out if we can pay extra well because you know those paychecks that you have if you get paid every other week you will have two months out of the year where you have an quote unquote extra paycheck.

5:45It can't be an extra paycheck if your mortgage is coming out of it. That's not a thing. And so where that extra paycheck could actually help buffer their bills account or fund savings accounts or pay off debt when it can do something specific, it won't be able to do that. So that's what we're trying to avoid. Yeah. So let's get everything cleaned up so that you can easily, without question, pay extra on debt and get that done, get it cleaned up and then worry about that next. It's one, then two, not both at the same time, because that's obviously what's part of the problem. All right, budget besties.

6:16It'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. 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.

6:50If 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. So I have another lesson and this is super simple. Okay. I'm going to keep it real simple. No acorns. Okay. I helped. All done. Okay. No. Okay. So we have people that come in all the time that are using these apps that do little, they pull little bits of money and acorn stashes. I don't know.

7:25A couple of them. Yeah. There's a different ones. Your job is to turn them off. Okay. Because especially in the beginning, you're trying to get a regular budget. You're trying to, you are accounting for every dollar for the first time maybe. and we don't need something randomly. Like your budget's already randomly getting messed up enough. Why do you want to add that to it? That's the first part of it. Like you don't need to have the chaos that every couple days you get a couple dollar charge here or$10 there or whatever. The other thing is you're not going to invest until you can be sure you can invest.

7:53And you can invest on purpose, what you want to invest in, the way you want to invest, and regularly and consistently, and more than$2 at a time. If you're investing$2 at a time, you're not investing. That's not a thing. That's not a thing. You're just playing games. You're just playing games and you're like doing the shell game with your money because you can't afford it. If that's how you're investing, you can't truly afford to invest. What we want to do instead is set up a budget, get you good, get your debt situation the way you want it, get you on spending and get your savings buckets funded.

8:21And then once you feel comfortable with all of that, then you have a lump sum that you're investing on purpose with a plan for the future. We're not randomly investing, guys. That's not a thing. Yeah. And again, we want you to be these lifelong investors. That, okay, I'm at a point in my life where I'm funding my budget. I'm funding my spending. I'm funding my savings, which are savings buckets, which are safe for things like travel and Christmas and birthday gifts and vehicle maintenance and medical co-pays. Those are all a thing. So we have a lot of people that come to us. And one of the first things they say is, hey, when can I start investing?

8:54We're like, oh, when you can afford everything in your budget. If you can't afford to live life every day normally without investing, then you can't afford to invest. It's that simple. And we understand you wanting to get there. We are for that. We want that for you. But we want you to do it the right way. So that is our lessons from the sessions today. If you need someone to tell you, if you need to pay somebody to tell you to stop using acorns, I can help you out with that. I got you. We know a guy or girl. We know some girls. But really and truly, it's, again, both of these things that we were talking about, they're with good intentions.

9:24Like you think, okay, I'm going to, I can't afford a lot, but I'm going to invest a little or I'm just going to make this extra payment. I know it's going to hurt, but I'm going to make it do like we get it. But that is, that's the normal way. And that's what's keeping you broke. That's what's keeping you using credit cards. We promise. We see it every time in the budget. We want to help you do it a different way, a better way. And that's, you can, we can help you if you don't want to just do it on your own and get the budget system, simplified budget system, budgetbesties.com forward slash coaching.

9:49You could just, or not slash coaching slash budget. but if you want coaching that's budgetbesties.com forward slash coaching yeah and jump on a free call and i'd love to see you there and listen we'll just talk about some stuff and see if it's a good fit 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 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.

10:25Imagine 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.