Marriage and Money: How to Stop Fighting and Start Budgeting Together | 554

0:00Why do smart, hardworking couples who make good money still fight about money every single month? Those couples don't need more effort. What they actually needed is a better system. Yeah. If money conversations in your house feel tense, this episode will show you what changes that. Most people do not have a money problem. They have an organization problem. What happens when a couple finally stops guessing with money and gets on the same page? We're going to hear from lots of couples in this episode that are going to tell you exactly what happens and maybe what they did to make that happen. Yeah, they were using credit cards, feeling stressed, and avoiding the numbers.

0:34Then everything changed. And you're going to hear today what happens when money stops being the biggest stressor in your marriage. 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? When 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.

1:07We 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.

1:42We 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 workers 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 i'm a corporate pilot i knew it was a good thing but i had some reservations about it as far as like we're paying this person a lot of money a month for vanessa not this person sorry and but i'm like i got a new job financial pay increase i mean we got to do something because at the end of every month we have zero and we're still using the credit cards and all that stuff And if this is crazy, I'm like, I can do this on my own, but obviously doing it on my own is not working because we have nothing to show for it.

2:26It's made Tina and I work together and we've had lots of discussions in the finances. So it's been a work in progress and it's paid off. We've seen big dividends just in the eight months we've been doing it. That would be the biggest win. And then just being faithful in the last eight or nine months, seeing our debt drop, not using the credit cards anymore. Last month was a bloodbath from the end of the budget. And we didn't use a credit card. We had extra money. But we didn't use a credit card. So that was awesome. My husband's great. He's like, whatever you want to do, like, I'm on board. This is great.

3:02I know that things are a mess. But we were on the same page. Like, yep, it's a mess. We don't know what's going on here. It can't get much worse. It can't get much worse. There's the positive in it. I think we're at the bottom. I think this is about it. But what was the, like, turning point for him? I will say as a wife, my husband works, I do work-ish and a stay-at-home mom. So I definitely work, but he brings in the financial income and he brings in a really good income, but we live in Southern California. It's stinking expensive. And so I didn't want him to feel like he's doing all of this, but he gets 10 bucks.

3:37Like, here's your$10, like go find something. So when we created those separate accounts, like here's his, here's his spending account and here's his business account. That was awesome. Until the day he realized he had to go into his spending account to pay for a business expense because he wasn't really paying attention. And he was like, oh, yeah, I don't like that. And I was like, well, that's what you were doing to me every time you went into our personal checking account to pay for a business. He's like, oh, yeah, I'm sorry. I wanted to be able to, you know, speak financial stuff with my wife without getting frustrated or angry, you know, actually have a conversation rather than spiking the frustrations there.

4:24So I was like, OK, well, maybe if I start listening to the podcast, I can kind of figure out how I can communicate effectively with her and kind of approach it from that aspect. And up until you guys were totally separate in our finances, we kept everything completely separate. I paid my set of bills. He paid his set of bills and we had kind of divvied up the house expenses. But I had no idea what money he had and what he was spending. And he had no idea what money I had and what I was spending. And I was drowning and I was too proud to admit it. And I racked up a pretty significant credit card bill in the process.

5:01So when she finally did tell me about the credit card debt, I was like, well, shoot, I've got that in my account. Like, let's just pay it off. Hey, let's do the joint account thing, you know? And so all of our money is going to the same account now and we can always take a look at it together and figure things out. And the budget system that you guys put together has been a huge blessing for us. You know, we can talk through, yeah, we can talk through our goals together. Hey, we've got, you know, this much extra that isn't allocated towards bills or to the default savings accounts that we've got set up.

5:34We automated a lot of that stuff. You know, we've got automated transfer set up. So, hey, we still have this extra money. What should we put it towards? Right now we're working towards paying off Sarah's car. And it was, for me, it was a major learning shift to go, hey, this is how this is supposed to work. We're a unit. We're not two separate entities. We're working together and building a life together. it takes that stress of the money conversation out of our marriage completely because it's all there i mean we just put the stuff in every month we check the boxes and we pop into the budget spreadsheet probably several times a week each of us but it's because we like to not that we have to and to be honest budgeting was something that i always resisted i to me it was a it was a bad A B word.

6:26It wasn't a four-letter word, but it was a bad word because I just didn't believe in them. It just, I didn't think they worked. But what we were doing was not working. I could never answer the question, how much did you make this year or how much are you making this year until after taxes of the following year? I just had no idea every year. So, yeah, going through, we did our personal and then we did the business. And it's the same process. It was huge. getting those both put into the spreadsheet and looking at and and it works like it really works the system works and it's it's really changed i look at things so much more carefully when i'm purchasing them not to say that i was spent with abandon but i say oh and maybe not this month because or not this week because it's not really there and you you then it's a to me carol if it's not there you can't buy it and uh that was a reality check but i'm grateful honestly just a feeling of knowing being more calm of understanding how it all fits together.

7:50And yeah, I always felt like it should be easier. It should be better. I feel like we do make enough money that it shouldn't be a struggle, but it always was before Budget Besties. And now it's not. It's time to enter your coaching era because making good money should feel like making good money. Yeah. Imagine six months of private coaching where we'll tell you exactly what to do. No guesswork, no confusion, and absolutely no judgment. It's a done for you system that actually works. You don't know what you don't know, and that's not your fault. And that's why we're here. Financial coaching with us looks like two coaching sessions a month, personalized recaps, and after hours support, you can text and email.

8:37So you're never stuck wondering what to do next. Together, we're going to build your budget, set up your system, and tackle any challenges that come up along the way, which, by the way, they always do. If what you're doing isn't working and you're tired of trying to figure it out on your own, sign up for financial coaching at budgetbesties.com forward slash coaching before all of our spots fill up, and we will help you go further faster. Six months from now, you'll wish you started today. It just was a family stressor. And finances, as I'm sure y 'all see and help people every day, but it is such a heavy burden on a family and a marriage.

9:11What a blessing to be able to help people with removing an obstacle. That's one of the biggest stressors that you can imagine. So that's what led us there was just having a really successful business from the sense of we're not having to search out for people. But yet financially, why are we check to check? Why are we struggling with keeping up with taxes? Why are all these issues still here when we have a quote unquote successful medical practice? And yeah, that was the catalyst was like frustration, ego. I'm like a little kid that like, don't, I just want to spend money where I want to spend it.

9:47I don't want you to ask me why I bought that book. And of course, Vanessa's always, the gut punches are always very kind and gentle and they're never like, they're never shameful. They're very graceful, but they're like, what do you, what do you do? You don't have that money to spend. And so yeah, there's ego that was probably my concern. And just that's probably the biggest one. Like the only roadblock for me for asking help is always just like ego. Like, why can't I figure this out? So there was probably some inner shame that I put on myself of, I shouldn't know how to do this. I'm a grown man, but looking back and being able to humble myself a little bit and go, I really never did learn how to do this.

10:21I didn't get business training in school. I didn't get business training in medical, in my PA training as well, nor did I get it. And so I'm forever grateful. We're not even a year into this yet, and it's already just flipping so many things around on its head, and I'm happy to eradicate my ego. So it's been good. I think it's important to point out the pressure. Again, a double-edged sword. There's a lot of pressure on you as the provider, as the dad, as the husband. There's a lot of pressure, but also you didn't get any trading on this. How did it get better? So then you're feeling bad about feeling bad.

10:53Like it's this domino effect that you can't correct. And it's really hard then to come to and ask for help at that point. I'd say don't wait as long as I did. So if I could go back to a time machine, I'd go back and engage this a lot earlier, as early as possible. Even if I didn't think it was affordable at the time and figure out a way to make that. Again, I think the, I don't know if everybody's similar to me with just, again, trying to cover their eyes to not see things or it feels overwhelming. and so they get frozen. I think that's probably a common scenario. And so I'd say just engage it and don't be afraid because again, you guys are so gentle in the approach and the baby steps, even if the person knows like I did that there's probably a mountain of things that need to be fixed here.

11:38We're not going to tackle that all in one session, but the baby steps really make huge differences. And so I'd encourage people just not to wait if they're in a similar situation where it feels like they're just stuck, stress that's affecting their personal health, their family health, their marriage, don't wait. I had always done the budget and communication wasn't very strong. My communication with her towards it wasn't very strong and then she took more of an interest in it. And I was like, yes, good. Yeah, we did that so she could see some things and did that for a while, but then realized we needed some help It took me a little while to maybe admit that, but we needed some help.

12:21Money has always been something that in our marriage that has caused some strife. And maybe we haven't presented our best selves when we talked about it on our own. So my thought was he was really opposed, but I'll let him speak to that. I thought my argument was, okay, even if all we do is learn to communicate with one another about money in a healthier way, because we're on our very best behavior when Vanessa is on the call. I feel like that alone was worth what we were going to invest in this if it made our communication better as a couple. I think for me, I was concerned, is this coach legit?

13:00Are they just going to tell us what we want to hear? Is it going to be like a one-size-fits-all thing? Is it going to be like we just mentioned, super, super strict? This is the only way that it can happen? So I think that was some of my worries. And what happened? No, none of that has come true. It's been a good experience. So yeah, none of that came true. Yeah. And probably not a surprise here. I like how we have a plan and she agrees to the plan and we have a plan going for the month. It's not just, oh, what did we do last month? No, it's what are we going to do this? Yes. And I really like, and what I've wanted to do for a long time is looking at our annual expenses and breaking those down by what we need to save for each month.

13:45So when something like that comes up, it's not, oh my gosh, now I need 2000 for insurance and we got to make that in the budget. Oh no, we've been putting it, we put in 50 a month or whatever in order to meet that. My biggest win is that when we talk about our finances now, it's pleasant and it's something that I don't mind talking about. We have a vision and a goal and we're both working towards that same thing. And he understands the state, the spending part. I understand the saving part. And I think overall, but for me, that's been the biggest win for us is that we can finally communicate about our finances in a really healthy way.

14:23I think everyone needs a budget coach and you'll have to do it forever or what, as long as you need, but somebody to help put that in perspective for you and to help you align your goals. I think it's been wonderful. I love it. yeah along the same lines that don't be scared don't be scared to to jump in and do that i think that money is such a tough issue for so many people to talk about and just so many people are spending above their means or trying to keep up with the joneses and it's just it's not doing great things for our society and it's don't be yeah don't be scared to to open that up and try to do something differently and try to work with someone that's going to get it done that's going to help you get it done vanessa's been she's been kind but she's she's honest she's honest and sometimes you have to make sacrifices sometimes you're making compromises but yeah you need to be able to work with people that are knowledgeable and know what they're talking about and and take that into account and it's just going to better your your family and your life but But you see right away the return on investment.

15:35You're literally helping us gain money back that would have just disappeared. It would have run off at its own legs. And so that to me is an easy decision to make. And you see the impact right away. So definitely, I think it was a good forcing function for us to evaluate what actually are our habits with spending and start to think about that right away. We had tried to do different budgeting in the past. And basically what we tried to do up until that point was, let's do some calculations, figure out where our money's going and then make a plan. And then we didn't really know what to do with the plan at that point.

16:08Like, how do we stay on track? How do we actually make this a system that works for us? And so we didn't really have any kind of organization or budget really. And conversations we had about it felt either awkward or a little bit stressful or it was just hard and uncomfortable. And we just were not used to even talking about money. My money is going where it needs to go when it needs to go there. And I just am overseeing that process now. And instead of having to manually do a million things in order to clean up the mess that's happening. So we had, by the time that we were pretty much done coaching, we had put aside three months worth of income, of the baseline income.

16:48I think we ended up paying off about$15 ,000 worth of debt during the time together. We just shoot from the hip and hope for the best. We are very much that middle-class American family, but we didn't have$797 a month to do this kind of thing. It wasn't sitting there. Well, it was, but it was going elsewhere as we shot from the hip and hoped for the best all the time. And in our minds, it was like, that is not, that's not there. It's, and I just, I have to say that it is, for us, it was like, we don't know how it's going to happen, but we're going to figure it out because the expense of the next handful of years looking like the last handful of years is so much greater than the$4 ,000 whatever we would spend in six months.

17:32It just was like the most beautiful$800 out the door for six months that we've ever spent. We just sort of stopped bleeding out. We have paid off some debt. And I think we didn't think we'd be able to touch that for a really long time. But in the last few years, as it slipped through our fingers. I think there's just been an increasing tension when we talk about finances. And it's because we're both living with a fairly large amount of tight in our chest about our money because we don't know where it's going. We had and still have debt to deal with. And it's not because we buy super bougie cars or we drive pretty old, like we drive cars into the ground.

18:15And, you know, but for us, it was like, oh, my goodness, the seal on that sliding glass door. And we're in Minnesota. It's seven thousand dollars. We're going to have to put that on a card. We don't have a choice. We have to replace that sliding glass door, you know, and there that debt sits. But anyway, so as some debt had mounted and now we paid off a bunch, we still have a couple of things. We had a medical thing happen with our daughter that's sitting in front of us, but going to get paid off. but the tension just kept growing of you know Kevin would often say when I tell him I want to take a trip where do you think that's going to come from and I'd say I don't know but we'll figure it out and that was the conversation and and we would but it didn't feel good we found it we figured it out but it didn't feel good and we didn't know exactly what it meant for the future And so for our relationship at this point, I just think there's like we're flowing now.

19:11We know what we're doing. We're in full unity on how we spend our money, how we don't spend our money. And we're both excited about the future, where we're at right now and what's to come. And so the tension has lifted and our communication is light and there's excitement and joy and a plan and we don't feel that tight yuck inside about finances anymore. 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.

19:50We'll show you step by step how to finally organize your money, how to set up your account 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.