Should You Pay Off Debt or Invest First in 2026? | 499

0:00Hey, Budget Besties, big news. We're hosting our live money makeover bootcamp. Yes. Picture this, a fun interactive hangout where we're breaking down budgeting, tackling your money goals, and setting you up to start 2026 on the right financial flip. Yeah. All in real time with us. We know you're juggling a lot right now. So we've scheduled this bootcamp for after the holiday hustle. So do your future self a favor right now and sign up at budgetbesties.com forward slash bootcamp. And then you can get back to the holiday hustle. Let's dive into a new year together with a fresh plan for your money.

0:34So you want to invest, but you don't have a budget. Or you want to invest, but you're still in debt. Yeah. What do you do? That's a good question. But today we're going to walk you through budgeting versus investing versus being in debt, what to do, plus how to put investing in your budget. We know you guys ask us questions and a lot of investors are people that we are friends with that do investing, that they refer people to us because they don't really understand when, like how to balance budgeting and being in debt and investing and which one do I do, when do I do it, how do I do it? So that's what we're going to talk about today.

1:05And that's a good point. We have a lot of friends that are investors and they have people come to them and say, hey, I want to invest. And they look at the budget, they're like, hey, you can't. But I have some friends that will help you. But I have some budget bestie friends that can help you out. But I think that's a lot of people don't really know the scope of what financial advisors do. And so when they go to them with their budget, they're not really sure how or when or if they even can. And so we're going to hopefully walk you through this so you can make the best educated decision for yourself.

1:34Do 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. We know what you're doing probably isn't working.

2:01But 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.

2:34We 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 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. So we have an awesome boot camp, Shaina, coming up that is going to maybe help walk you through how to budget so you know how to invest, right? It's going to be at the end of the year after Christmas. So that way you don't have to think about maybe all the bad choices or all the choices that we wish we didn't make.

3:06Just put your finger in your ears during Christmas time. knowing that you are set up to come to the bootcamp afterward like a good girl you're going to sign up now and you're going to be ready to go after the new year so it's going to start on december 29th it's going to be that first week it's really going to set you up for 2026 yeah so go to budgetbesties.com forward slash bootcamp to sign up we can't wait to go through that with you it's gonna be fun do you know that you should invest like you've heard that you're like i totally agree with that but you're just not really i hear you yes but can i or where is this money coming from.

3:35And so we just have three things that we're going to talk about today. The first part is that you're going to have to have a budget first. I know everybody's mind is blown. B word. They're like, what? I never expected to hear that from Shane and Vanessa, that the first step is going to be a budget. But it's true because we need you to know what you got to work with for one thing. But a lot of times, Vanessa, people will try to invest before they have a budget and they don't even know. You don't know if you can afford to it to actually invest. Yeah, we hear that a lot. And the reality is if you don't see everything on one paper, you have no idea how much you cost.

4:07Therefore, you don't know how much you can invest. You don't know how much you have coming up for Christmas and the HOA fee or everything else. So we really want to make a full budget so you see everything. And when we say that, we do include the non-negotiable required savings bucket items that are coming up. Yeah. And so somebody had written in, which is what inspired this episode, which was, I want to invest, but I don't have a budget yet. Make one. So, like, I'm not trying to be ugly, but it'll take you like 20 minutes. Yeah. It'll take you like 20 minutes to make a budget. And then you'll be able to, especially if you're using our system, budgetbesties.com forward slash budget, it's going to do all the math for you.

4:40Because you need the budget. It's going to tell you, here's how much I make, minus how much I pay on debt, minus how much I pay on bills, minus how much I need to, minus my non-negotiable savings buckets, like Vanessa said. And it's really simple. You need all of that information before you can make any other decisions. That's the first bit of information you need. And I want to say, too, that came from somebody joining our Facebook group. So if you're not in our Facebook group or you have joined our Facebook group and you answer those questions at the beginning, we read those. We want to know why you're coming and what information you need to help you be successful.

5:11And we make podcasts like this for you. Once you've made a budget and you see everything on paper, remember this does include your non-negotiable savings buckets like annual bills. That's not the only one, but that is a big one. Then you need to be able to see all of your debt at once as well because you need to know how much you need to make in monthly minimum payments. Yeah, this is important. So a lot of times, just like with your budget, you haven't looked at everything on one piece of paper and you don't really know you're like playing the guessing or hoping game. And nobody, none of us want to look at debt.

5:40Okay, we get it. We understand it. But we need you to see it all on one piece of paper. And we need you to have a conversation with yourself. Face the music. It's like, we're not mad or sad. It's just numbers. It's data, right? But you need to know that because it's going to go into your decision of what I'm going to do about investing but having it and we like on our budget you have your debt tracker we want you to use that that's where you can see it all there's lots it's very pretty even it really is even for debt like it's still it makes it not seem like you made the colors like on the pie chart on purpose so like it took a lot of time if you guys don't know how much time vanessa spent on making colors on a pie chart that seems like it doesn't make sense but they all have to go together but it does so every other color is a dark and light and the whole thing if they were all lit up.

6:27They all go together. It's very pretty. It's important because if you're going to be looking at debt, it might as well be pretty. But yeah, so you want to see it all on that debt tracker. 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. And it's going to give you permission to spend. Everybody loves that. Yeah.

6:59It'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 budgetbestdc.com forward slash budget and grab yours. Now back to today's show. And we also have three different ways you can pay off debt.

7:33So we have the debt tracker, we have the snowball, the avalanche and the debt minimum section for you to be able to make a decision. We want you to make an educated decision because it's not the same for everyone. So once you put all that in there, you can go, okay, wow, I can pay this credit card off in three months or something. Unless you have it all written down and your numbers, you can't decide and you really can't make decisions for your future. Yeah. And so step one, you're going to get that budget. And then part of that, but also step two is knowing all of your debt situation and knowing that big number of how much you spend on debt monthly.

8:04That's going to be a fun thing to know. But that all of that data is when now we can go in and make decisions about investing because you're, that's what like Vanessa said, the CFPs are going to ask you how much do you want to invest? Do you have a million saved up already? And you're going to be like, oh, okay. But But this is the data that you're going to need to be able to start to look at investing. Yeah. And so we want you to be a good investor. That's the idea. The idea is once you start, you never go back, right? So we want you to put that line item in your budget and we want you to never take it away.

8:37And in order to do that, you need all your information. Yeah. So if you're looking at your budget and let's say after you have everything in there, you have a thousand dollars extra, right? Or to assign. you're gonna have to decide do I want to put that$1 ,000 extra on debt and get this cleaned up as quickly as possible or do I want to only put 500 of that on debt and put 500 toward investing that's why we want you to have all this information you have to see one how much you have left over and two do I want to put any of this extra on debt or my savings buckets that was part of the how much you have left over once everything is said and done this is how much I have left over and once I know how much I've left over how much of that do I want to assign to investing yeah and we have a lot of people that come to us and they are investing and they can't.

9:20So they'll be investing and then they'll come to coaching and they say, why do we feel so tight? Why are we going back into debt? You're going into debt because you're putting a thousand dollars in your investments that you can't afford every month. So it's not that we don't want you to invest. We both invest. We want you. That is our goal for you, but you have to do it in a way that makes sense for you and your finances. In order. Yeah. In the right order. And so we're not necessarily saying that you have to wait till you're completely out of debt to do it. We just want, like we said, we want you to have all the data and then you decide.

9:48You might decide, okay, once we get all of the credit cards paid off, then we're going to be able to put a lot of money toward investing. Or maybe we want to pay off a couple and then we'll start next, in six months, we're going to start investing or whatever your goal is. But you have to, we just want you to have the data. And then once you have the data, once you make the decision based on the data, then you're going to be able to put your number, your magic number of investing into your budget. It's going to be in your bills column because it is a bill. It's going to be the same number every month.

10:17It's going to be automatically deducted. You're going to set it all up automatic, amazing. And you're going to be a good investor because now you know you can afford it. Now it's coming out automatic and it's non-negotiable line item in your budget. And why is it a bill? Because it's reoccurring and it has a due date because normally you're going to say, okay, set to pull this on the 15th of every month or whatever. That is considered a bill in our eyes. We understand that it is savings, but you're with the way that we have your budget set up is that your savings are for savings buckets and things that are in your bank.

10:44Your bills that are being pulled out every single month, that is going somewhere, right? It's Charles Schwab, it's going to Fidelity, it's going to, it's being pulled out by a company on a due date, it's reoccurring, so that we wanna put that in bills. And because we wanna make it non-negotiable, we wanna make it as hard for you to take away as possible because we want you to continue doing that. And in order to do that, you have to have your numbers, you have to know how much you can be investing so that way you're not going back into debt to try to compensate because you're investing. That's not a good trade-off.

11:13Yeah. Here's what we want you to understand. There's no right or wrong way to do this. There's not a black or white answer to when do I invest, how much do I invest? It is going to be based on your numbers and it's based on your lifestyle. So we know that people want to be bougie in different ways. If you want to travel and that's going to take more out of your budget than investing because it's more important to you than investing, that's going to be based on your budget. If you want to invest and you don't care and we're going to be fine, that your debt is just racking up, that's fine for you too.

11:44But we just at least want you to make an informed, educated decision based on your own numbers. I feel like we're going to be like Monica. You remember an episode when she shows up to the messy, Ross's messy girlfriend at night in the middle of the night? She said, can I just please clean your thing? We're going to be like, it's fine that you're not paying off debt. It's regular. We're totally fine with it. It's fine that you're collecting interest. It's fine. I also want to talk about, too, those who are holding off to invest through their work, like through their place of employment. So I have a new client that just signed up and they said, hey, we did not know that my husband's employer matched his 401k.

12:17Should we go ahead and do that even though we're still trying to get out of debt? And our thing is, yes, it's free money. So we just said, look at how much they match. Let's figure out what that looks like and let's meet that. so that way you at least get that minimum amount back. So again, it's different for everyone. There may be someone that says, yes, I hear what you're saying, but I don't want to do that. That's fine. If that's not what you want to do, that is okay. But it is free money. And again, so in that case, if they're investing through their employer, it's not going to be a line item in their bills.

12:45But just know that there are many different ways of investing, whether you're going to do it through your employer, whether you're a business owner and you do it through your business. And so then your money is just coming directly to your personal budget. It's all very different. But the whole, everything behind this is, You have to make a budget. You have to see your numbers. You have to look at your debt. And you have to decide what the right number is for you to be able to invest to still be able to afford your life. Yeah. And I'm going to be a party pooper again. I'm going to go back and circle back to what you said based on that thought.

13:13I've had people come in, we made their budget, and they were investing through their employer. And if you're negative, you can't. And I know it's not going to be a fun conversation, but you're going to have to go tell them to stop, to stop doing the percentage or whatever. Or you just, that's why it's so important to get your numbers and why you need to use our budget because it does the math for you. But you need to know, oh, I can't afford this or I can't afford this. And if I can, then fine, keep it if that's what you want to do. But if you can't, you might have to have this hard decision or a hard conversation.

13:46Unfortunately, it seems like it makes it be a conversation instead of you should just be able to go in and push your own buttons and run it yourself. But it's not always that easy. But you just have to, again, you just have to know the numbers. And you're not going to set yourself up for success if you're trying to invest now and you can't afford it. That is not going to end well for you in the future. We just want you to make sure you're making an educated decision based on your situation, based on your budget, based on your numbers. So that way you can be the, like, set up the best way possible in the future.

14:13So we want you to go to budgetbesties.com forward slash bootcamp because we want you to sign up for the bootcamp. We're going to see you after Christmas, before the new year, help you think about all of this, get it all implemented. get all your questions answered. It's going to be a fun time. Yeah. Go to budgetbesties.com forward slash bootcamp. Hopefully we'll see you there and set you up for 2026. 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.

14:46We'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. 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.