Overwhelmed by Budgeting? Tired of Tracking Every Expense? Try Our Simple, 5-Column, One-Page Budget | 463

0:00Over the years, we've seen some pretty terrible budgets. We're talking notebooks full of scribbles, awful words like fixed and variable expenses, and long lists of tracking every transaction. No wonder most people hate budgeting. If that's what you're doing, no wonder it feels overwhelming. We totally get it. But here's the thing. It doesn't have to be that way. Today, we're going to show you some bad budgets. Bad budgets, bad budgets. What you going to do? Yeah, and why they fail. And then we'll teach you our simple five column budget that we use with every client. Yeah. And once you see it all on one page, realize budgeting can actually make sense.

0:37And it can even be something that you can stick with. So we are in episode three of our series for our budget besties method. 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.

1:15We 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.

1:50We 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. Yeah, so today we're talking about step two, which is to build your budget. And it's a big deal. It's going to be really exciting. And the thing that we want to do to kick this off is show you some bad budgets because as we said in the intro, over the years, we've definitely seen some doozies and we totally feel you.

2:25If this is what you were working with, no wonder it's not working, no wonder you don't want to do it, all the things. So when we've had clients show us their budgets, we said, can you please send that to us? We need to keep that for proof. And it's also really great to see why it wasn't working. And one of the questions that they say is, why can't I make this work? And we put it on our budget system and they say, oh, like I completely understand why I couldn't do this on my own and why I was making it more complicated than I had to. Yeah. So we have this one budget where they really tried you guys like, okay, so if you look, if you're not watching, but you could, they have their income separate.

3:03So they did at least list that out. And then they have August expenses. And I think that's part of the problem, but I will tell you if you can't see it, it's color coded. So they started, that's not bad, But they're literally, instead of it being a budget, they're just listing. And it took them 111 different rows to figure out everything they spent money on. And tell you what, that is not a budget. That's actually tracking what you spend your money on. And it's not helping you to plan. Congratulations, you've graduated to a bookkeeper or data entry. That's what you're doing here. And nobody has time for that.

3:39And also, they have August expenses. And then, Shayna, the next thing they have is August chunked, which I'm assuming is everything that's tallied up. They categorized it, yeah. So they tallied up everything in the August expense column and chunked it into whether it's a bill, groceries, food out, shopping. So, yeah. And the colors are not pleasing to the eye. Yeah, they're not. They're a little obnoxious. Because they're the automatic ones that they're giving you. It's not your fault. We get it. That's the automatic colors you got, but it's not for fun. No. And it's just really hard to follow.

4:06Shayna said there's things all over the place. It's not really in order. It's a mess. There's more than one month on the same spreadsheet. And the thing is here with this particular one is what they were doing is they're not budgeting. You might think you are because you're putting everything down, but what you're doing is after the fact putting down everything you did spend money on. What we want to do is before the month starts, say we are on purpose going to, we know this is how much we spend on bills. This is how much we're going to budget for groceries. This is how much we're going to, and then on purpose we know what we're doing, not going back because that's how we get to the end of the month and we don't know if we have money to go out to eat.

4:39We don't know if we can pay the next bill that comes in, unfortunately, at the 29th of the month. That's what makes it confusing. Because that August chunked column, Shana, is basically, like you said, they're adding up everything after the fact. So you haven't actually made a budget at all. And then if you want to do better, how do you do better? You can't. You just think, maybe I'm not spending as much this month, but I don't know until the end of the month. And I think the first assumption is I have to stop spending money. But do you? Why don't we organize it and see what's actually happening and make a plan for your munchie?

5:07For your munchies. for your money ahead of time. So that way you can say, Hey, we only spent$2 ,400 or going only going to spend$2 ,400 this month on groceries or whatever, but you can't do that after the fact. Yeah. Here's another one that we got and it's all on a piece of paper and they have neat handwriting. I'm going to give them that. That is a bonus for them. That's about it, but that's okay. Again, it's one of those things where they really tried. They're doing this on their own. So they're trying to figure out if they can stick with that, but there's no system in place, right? This is a business.

5:40Hold on. This is a business and a personal budget on one page. And so that's, it's a good try. I do think it's a good try. I also see W2. So this is a weekly budget and week two. And that's what the, so they're also dividing their quote unquote expenses up by paycheck, which is part of the problem. That is, we teach you not to do that. We want to look at a month's view, but yeah. So again, this is an example of just words and numbers on paper. Okay. I made this, but now what do I do with it? And they don't know because it's not a system. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. All right. Let's look at another one.

6:11This is so fun. So this one has fun words like soft bills. Shayna, what is a soft bill? We've been doing this for a hot minute. Obviously it's not a hard bill. We've been doing this for a minute. Like what is, I'm assuming by looking at it, it's a subscription. That's what they're classifying. Maybe stuff they don't think they have to have or whatever. Oh, okay. Like it's not a rent or mortgage, power, utilities. It's not like the four walls or whatever. It's not a knee or four walls. Yeah, maybe that's what they were going for. Okay. Yeah. But again, I don't know what's happening here. This is also a business budget and a personal budget on one page.

6:45Yes, that's so good. Love that for them. Did you though? They're your client. Yeah. And then so now we know that when they have their income, it's all the way over here at the end. And then we know monthly. What do we know? that there's something monthly. That's what there is. There's a number, but what does that mean? Yeah, and like how much is left over? What do we, nope. Do we even have money in there for gas and groceries? Let's see. Yeah, groceries, zero. Oh. So. That's not going to work. Maybe you would know after later if you have money left over for groceries. This is just another example.

7:14Next. Yeah, I will say it's neat. It's neat. Hey, this one's digital. Yeah, it's digital. It's got some borders. It's neat. That's something. You got to go, you got to get what you can get. We got to give you some credit words too. Okay. This one's my client. So stresses me out. So immediately stressed out. She is, guys, she's so smart. She's like a doctor. I love her so much. And she tried. She said, I listened to you guys for a year, bought everything, and then I finally had to join coaching. And the transformation that she made in the six months of coaching was astronomical. It was insane. But this is her budget.

7:44This is what she started with. Yeah. And if you can't see it, what we're looking at is a budget that goes down 54 rows. So you have to scroll. You can't tell. It is still also dividing everything by paycheck. and then you don't know, like, where is it that she knows how much she has to spend on groceries? Does she have any money to go to Starbucks? Does anybody know? Where is the totals? This is just checking off. This is literally just writing expenses and checking them off. And so she has it color-coded by what bills is going to be paid by what paycheck that gets deposited. And if it overlaps, it's a different color.

8:19Like, it's just a mess. There's zero money in here for groceries. Yeah, and she has – One thing that she has going for in there is she knows she has the extra items. So we taught, we teach that. There's going to be specific things to the month that you want to budget for, but there's no amount. We don't know how much she has left. Does she know how much she has left? Maybe it's possible. The colors are better. Are they? They are. There's just less of them than the other one. That's better. No, I think they're better choices. There's whatever. It's fine. Okay. So let's look at our last bad budget here real quick.

8:48That's on the side of a planner. So this is on the side, the note section of a planner. Again, it's just a list of bills and how much they cost. It's not telling you what to do. It's not telling you any actual information. Does she have money to save? Can she put extra money on debt? We don't know. She doesn't know. Maybe she does know, but I can't tell by this budget. 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.

9:27And 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.

10:00Now back to today's show. So if you want to add to this collection, we would love for you to email in your amazing budgets at hello at budgetbesties.com, you guys, and maybe you'll be on the next podcast. So what does that teach us? Budgets fail because they're complicated or messy. Ours works because it's simple. Yeah. And easy to read. It's a budget you'll actually want to stick with because it's simple, it's clear, and it's all on one page. Yeah, so you've heard us talk about it on the podcast. Our budget is a simple five-column budget. It's really pretty to look at. It's all on one page, and it's super easy to understand and fill out.

10:36We even get compliments from the husbands about how pretty it is. Okay, I understand. Shout out. All right, so the first thing you want to start with is your income. It's the best number in the house. It's exciting. We have to see what we're working with, so we put that in first. And at the very top, if you look, if you get the paid version, like our Simplified Budget System, it actually calculates for you. But for template purposes, you have the option here to type in what your income is and then what your total budget is and what your remaining is. And that's going to let you know what's going on with your money.

11:04Yeah. So you start with the first column is income. And I said, we're going to put everything in there, all the paychecks. We're not going week by week. We're looking at what your money is going to be able to do for you in a whole month at the whole month's time, not just week by week. The next number in our budget is not everybody's favorite number. It's the debt column and everybody loves that it's right next. It's like we would go from this high emotional high, look how much money we make. And then we're like, oh, look how much money we're giving away to debt payments. It's not everybody's favorite, but it's okay.

11:30We list that. We list only the minimums and we're just going to try to plow through, get those paid off and then not have to have them in our budget anymore. Yeah. And you can total it at the bottom. So the next section is all of your bills. So a bill is defined as anything with a due date. So you're going to put all of your bills in here, list them out, and then you can move on to your spending. Yep. And so as Vanessa said, everything with a due date, spending is all the stuff that you go swipe for, the stuff that you're actually trying to spend during the month, your groceries, your gas, your personal money when you go to Starbucks or when you go out to eat with your friends, money that you spend on the kids because they always need something every single month.

12:04All of that is what's going to go in your spending. And we like you to categorize it. And we will get into this specifically on that step. But we like you to categorize it in bulk. You looked at some of the budgets were getting there. They were categorizing gas and groceries. They were categorizing restaurants. Here, the difference with our budget, and Vanessa, it's a system, not just numbers on paper, is we're going to say, look, we have$500 for restaurants every month. That's what we're doing. We're assigning that number, and then how we spend it, we don't have to track that. We don't have to go through every transaction.

12:33We just live within that$500 number. And that's what I was going to add on here is there's 30 lines in this budget. You are not tracking every single transaction that you make throughout the month in that spending column. You are bulking it into categories. And when we talk about the bill or the bill system and the spending system, we will get into how you do that. But just for this budget episode, we're going to talk about categorizing it, like Shana said, into gas and groceries, into personal money, into kids, into family and dining out. I even have a client that has a sports one because both of our kids do travel sports year round.

13:05And they want to make sure they always have money to get in and for money for concession stands. Yeah. And I do want to go back real quick when we were looking at this. Remember the soft bills? I remember that when they were soft. They were like soft and squishy. Those all go in the bills column. So here with the spending, this is stuff that you're, that you don't, it varies every time you do it. The bills are the same every month. They have a due date. They're invoiced to you. And so all of that goes over there and then all the spending. And so these are the first four. So remember, let's go back.

13:32Income. Then we do debts. Then we have bills. Then we have spending. And then what people did not have in any of those budgets, in case you guys didn't notice, and this is the problem, is savings. We have got to get some savings in our budget. This is really where people go into debt. So they forget about all these things that are coming up in their life within the next year and they don't budget for them. And then they wonder why they can't afford the$800 HOA payment that's due January 1st every year, right? So the savings bucket section is for anything that's coming up, anything that you're saving for, anything that you have goals for, you want to put them in there, list them out, and you want to assign a number to it.

14:04And this is why this budget system is so much better and so different than everything else we just showed you, which is how you guys are all regularly budgeting. This puts it all on one page. Everything that your money needs to do that you want your money to do, it's all on one page. So I can actually see if it's doable. This is it. Or a lot of, so we have two ways. Maybe sometimes when you talk about travel sports, sometimes we have, we do these budgets and we're like, see how, why it feels hard is because you really can't afford as much as you're doing. Or the other time they're like, oh, why does it show that I have money left over?

14:35I never have any left over. And so it's just putting it, everything that you're doing with your money on one. You can see it all at a glance, at a bird's eye view. It's so different. And it's clear. I think it's so clear. Another thing that we like to say is you don't need another budget. You need a budget system. And this is a system. Shana has explained. It has all of the columns. And it's not just words and numbers on paper. When we get to the rest of these steps, you're going to see how this budget comes to life. It becomes part of your everyday plan. It's what you do with your hands, right?

15:05Right. That's what makes it so different, so unique, so special compared to everything else you see out there. Yeah. It's like I said, it is not just another budget. It's not just another, I wrote a bunch of numbers on paper and I just, I'm hoping like I'm tracking these things. It is a system that is going to actually make it almost foolproof, right? So you're not going to be able to fail because it's going to work itself. It's going to do all the things that you plan and it's going to be amazing. So again, you don't need more information. You just need a plan. Yeah. So you can check out this that we were showing are beautiful.

15:32Also, we didn't mention it. It's beautiful. It's not scary because it's like light colors and it's clear and it's white space. It's important. It's airy. Yeah, it's airy. It's easy breezy. And you can get that at budgetbesties.com forward slash budget template and go take it to the table with your spouse or whoever you budget with and put it all on there. See what's going on. Get the real picture of what's going on with your money. Yeah, this is a printable version. So you will have to print it out and you can do the checkboxes and you can add everything up on your own. If you want to move over after you've used this for a little bit and you're like, okay, love it.

16:02But I also wanted to do for me automatically, you can look at our budget system. Yep. Okay. So this was step two, build your budget. And so next Monday, we'll be back to talk to you about step three, which is to set up a bills account. 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.

16:35So 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.