Real Coaching Lessons: Budgeting for Paycheck Gaps + Planning College Visits Without Debt | 526

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. Let's talk about how important it is to fund your grocery account. Okay. Seems important. I think people, especially families with twins, need to do that.

1:40Okay. I have this wonderful client and she is a hardworking businesswoman, but she just moved businesses. And so she now gets paid at the 15th of every month. It's really hard because before she got paid on the first. And so moving companies where your income is already going to drop because of the lapse and paying time and all that and commission and everything to a company that's, okay, yes, great. You're going to make, you have the opportunity to make more money here, but now we're going to pay you on the 15th of every month. Oh, by the way, you have seven massive bills that are due between the first and the 14th.

2:16It's been a struggle to organize everything. And so one of the things I had her do was call all of the companies that she could and get her payments moved from the first to, let's say, the 15th or 16th. And so she's working on that currently. But she did say, look, I have no money for groceries. And I said, oh, we need to fix that. So we are going to front load and fund those accounts no matter what. So we are saving this month to fund the grocery account for next month, for the 1st to the 14th, to make sure she has that. So instead of paying off debt this month, that's what we're doing, saving that money up to buffer her gas and groceries account.

2:52so that way the kids can get some yogurt. I think it's important. Yeah, it is important. It's very important. And that's like a severe situation. And I have a client switching jobs right now too. And that lapse, like for her, the way that we did it is she skipped a payment that was big for her student loans. And so she was able to like, that one paycheck that she was going to miss, she was able to catch up. But switching jobs is very, it can be very stressful. Ideally, in the perfect world, you would have worked with us before and you would have had emergencies set and we would have had that set up for you but in the moment you definitely have to figure something out and groceries and food to eat are non-negotiable but in the general not emergency way groceries are still really important and we want your system to be putting money into your grocery account every so often so that you can go get groceries so that you can eat and it's not the end of the month and there's no money for groceries because that and then nobody what do we do we put on debt or we just pretend to eat oatmeal only or whatever.

3:49That's not what we want for you. We want it to be consistent and steady. And the last thing you need to worry about is whether I have money for food. Girl, you already have to make dinner. You know what I mean? You already have to decide what's going to be for dinner. And she's traveling. So it's like her poor husband is having to deal with this. There's no money in there. What am I supposed to do? Tell him to go freezer shopping for the next two weeks? We're lucky he's like cooking. We're lucky he's trying to feed the family. Poor guy. We're not going to do that. But yeah, so we just really want to take out the roller coaster ride when it comes to all of that and just make it nice and steady.

4:19And that's what your groceries account can do. And the other thing here is just because for this situation, even Shana, so they didn't put money on debt, right, to be able to fund these things that they need funded. That is still a win. Yeah. So just know that you may not have made the progress that you thought you were going to make a certain way that month, but you're still making progress. That's still a huge win when you're funding your gas and groceries account and know that you have the cash there for that. Yep. It's time to enter your coaching era because making good money should feel like making good money.

4:47Yeah. 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 hour support, you can text and email. so 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.

5:20If 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. So I have a client that has a senior, and she admitted, and I it's so funny because I just talked to my son's girlfriend's mom I feel like there needs to be a name for that but um what I just say is my family future in-laws yeah it's fine we actually we we so cute we Freudian slip that all the time the other day on his birthday I said your father in-law I was like I'm just kidding I didn't mean to say it anyway okay back to the story okay calm down everybody we're back to the story she my son's girlfriend's mom say that five times she She was like, I've been sticking my head in the sand about SATs and stuff like that.

6:10I was like, look, we get it. I get it, get it. And so this mom was like, I've been sticking my head in the sand about her son's out-of-state college visits. If you're doing that kind of thing, it's coming. Hello, it's September, and he's a senior. Okay, you know what I'm saying? We're going to have to start to focus on that. And so what we need to do is start figuring out what that's going to cost. Let's be really realistic. So it depends. It can be very varied. if we're going to somewhere where we have to fly that's going to be a whole different situation than somewhere we can go we can drive to stay the night and come back or whatever either way you just need to figure it out stop putting your head in the sand because either you're going to regret not doing it or you're going to regret it because you put it on debt so let's figure it out what you need to do is say how much is this going to cost me everything from travel to lodging to getting a sweatshirt so that i can say i have my auburn sweatshirt or whatever i'm sorry if you love alabama or whatever i don't know anything that i'm just saying it okay it's not personal it's It's close by.

7:05It's close by. And so whatever, you want to put all of that in, just start to look at it and then give yourself the grace to have more than one month to pay for it. So start setting aside money into a bucket for these college visits. What it does is it allows you to say yes. Yeah. And you feel good about saying yes. Sometimes we say yes and we're also cringing at the same time because we know that it's going to be a damper to our finances, but we don't know how because we don't have the numbers. We don't have a budget, but we know it's going to hurt. And we don't want that for you. We want you to be able to say yes and book the trips, buy all the things, but within reason.

7:38There has to have some type of guardrails around it. But we want you to be able to do that knowing that you can cover it and pay cash for it. Yeah, and the whole like, we'll figure, I'll think about it later, like just, that's not gonna, that's not serving you, that's not gonna help you. And again, this might, doing something like this might be the situation, just like we talked about before, where you're not paying off debt because, or any extra money that you typically would be putting towards this or that or the other might need to go specifically to go into an account for something like this.

8:05And that's fine. That's a good win. Again, that's a win. We're not using debt to pay for these trips. We're not using debt to book tickets and all that kind of stuff. We're going to do it in cash and that's a win. And then if we have like this client, if we have a freshman, then we're going to go ahead and think about that now. So it's a little easier to save up for. Yeah. Saving up for a couple years is a little different than saving up for four months. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So if you guys are listening to this going, I would, I could really use some decisions and some of these topics that you're talking about are hitting home for me.

8:36We would love for you to check out our coaching page at budgetbesties.com forward slash coaching and jump on a free call. We'd just love to chat with you about it. 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 so your bills, saving, and spending run like clockwork.

9:07Imagine 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.