The #1 Budgeting Mistake Smart Moms Make—and How to Fix It (Without Giving Up Pumpkin Spice Lattes) | 443

17:16They'll come to me and my kids now they're like, mom, I want this sweatshirt. It's $300. I'm like, I am not buying you a$300 sweatshirt. It's not happening. And then they relentless, relentless. It's not happening, but this is the kind of thing. These are big expenses. They want to go to magic mountain. It's two,$300 to go just for it to take them out. So they're like, those are big expenses. So definitely budgeting the kids that we ever were. Our bougie kids, bougie kids. Yeah. They're all like looking at each other, what each other has and they want. So that's definitely a category that, that is something that is like seriously needs to be looked at.

17:54Dyana:And then our whole tagline is you don't need another budget. You need a budget system. And that's really what, and like we've talked about, you can, anyone can set up a budget, but do you know what to do afterwards? And that's really what we've put into place here. Yeah. And in a minute, we'll get to the automate part, which really does make it a system. And every mom needs as many systems that happen automatically or as without as with as few in the moment brain calories or decisions as possible. That's what we're going for. You're not alone when it comes to the kids. We, we have a kid's savings bucket and we have a kid's spending, right?

18:22Because the savings buckets, we summer camps and maybe camps. Yeah. whatever just who knows maybe they use sports there's so many different things that we pay for but we don't really think how much am i spending on these kids every year i need to have a plan so it's not like catching me off guard and we had we've had people look at and be like okay actually we need to dial it back a little bit i never saw it how much we're spending and the same i want to just one tweak with the kids thing you can depending on their age you can also put it on them so let's say you say look my budget allows me to spend 50 bucks per kid a month or whatever number you got you can give that to them and say hey this is if you want to go out with your friends if you want to go to the birthday party if you whatever this is how much you have you decide how you're going to spend it if you want to save it for six months to get that sweatshirt please be my guest if you or if you want to just spend it and you realize you don't really want to spend 300 because now it's on you and it's your money and you have to spend it and get rid of it that's another tactic to use is to give them that kids budget themselves and help them learn how to manage it, but I just want them to have a buy-in there.

19:25Dyana:Like you're setting the limit and then they, you're giving them the responsibility to get to decide how they want to spend it. And I think it's meeting in the middle, right? So it's not, you're not necessarily saying no, you're saying maybe not now, but here's the money and you get to decide, like Shannon said, do you want to wait six months? Do you want to do something else with it? And not just put it back on them. I think it gives them responsibility too. Right. And how to manage money. I could talk about kids and budgeting like all day long, but seriously, it just triggered so many things like in my head going, Oh my God, they do this and this, like, how do I manage that?

19:57Dyana:People are afraid to bring kids in on the conversation. And we are encouraging you to have that conversation with them. We want to give them financial literacy. When we started, we said, you don't know what you don't know. Nobody taught you. And that's fair and true, but we can teach them. And this is one of those little steps that can help. Not only do we see, can I see what I'm spending on them, but also I can start to pass on some knowledge and some skills to them so that no offense to us, they're not like us when they're 30, they're better and they go further faster. And I think that's what it is.

20:25Like when I was growing up, they didn't talk to us about finances. We didn't have it in school. We just, my dad would give a little money, we'd go spend it. Right. Never thought about really savings and stuff, things like that. So thank you for that. That's amazing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's great. So, all right. So how do you put a budget on autopilot? All right, girl, let's do it.

20:46Dyana:He alluded to at the beginning that, you know, you're probably using the same accounting system, banking system that you use when you first open your first bank account, but we want to do things a little differently. So we want to have that main account that you're probably using right now. We're going to rename that as your bills account. Okay. Think of all of your income that's coming in. Think of it as a funnel. So all of your income is going to come in to this bill account. And that's the only thing that's happening in that account is it's paying all of your bills and your minimum debt payments.

21:14Yep. So all the income comes into the bills account, pays all the, all of the bills, debt payments. And next you have already created a budget. Good job. You just listened to our categories and you did a good job. And so now you have different line line or different amounts set up for gas and groceries, set up for your personal money. Like we talked about set up for the kids. Maybe you have a couple of savings buckets that you're starting with vacation and Christmas or whatever. Those numbers we are now, those are those line items also represent accounts. Okay. So you're going to have a spending account.

21:44You're going to have five major spending accounts. You're going to have your gas and groceries account. Okay. You're going to have your, we call it restaurants, but if you have kids, we usually say like family funds, just so you can wrap your head around what it is. So it's like restaurants and it would be a goofy golf, whatever, all that stuff. And then you have your personal pocket money as well. Right. And maybe a kid's account. So you're, so then what, when Vanessa's talking about a funnel, all the money's coming in, in the income, in the bills. Now let's say I put$2 ,000 for groceries. Okay.

22:11Let's say I get paid on the first and 15th. It's all, everybody's face, we can talk about that. Everybody's pay schedule. But if I get paid on the first and 15th, what I'm going to do is I'm going to have a thousand dollars in my paycheck, go to grocery, to my groceries account on the first and a thousand of it go to my groceries account on the 15th. That way, every time I get paid money is specifically already set aside gas and groceries, which is so important because we have to feed them and they're always hungry. Right. And, but that same concept is going to go for every line item in my budget, including my savings bucket.

22:41Dyana:So imagine that your money is coming in. What's needed for bills is staying in bills. Okay. And then what's needed for spending is getting funneled out on payday. Like Shana said, to those different accounts. So you no longer have to track how much you spend at the grocery store, how much you're spending at target, how much you're spending for the kids. Like now it's going into each account and those accounts that you now have for spending, those are your new budget. That's like your account balance is your budget for those items. But if the debit cards swipe scroll, you got money in there. But it's as easy as just pulling up your bank app and being able to see the different accounts and the balances you have.

23:17Dyana:And you know exactly how much money you have to spend in those categories. But also remember, your bills are all covered. You don't ever have to worry about paying a bill or if you have enough money for a bill because it's all in the bills account. Yeah. And so that's another thing to just understand. Your bills are going to get set up automatically. So you're not paying bills. Your bills are just happening. The money's always there. They're coming out automatically when they're due. Okay. It's happening. With your spending, you're going to have a couple debit cards that you keep on you. And as I said, the thing is, I know every time I go to spend money, I know where it's coming from.

23:49If I go to the grocery store, I have money for groceries. I'm going out with my girlfriends. I have money for that. I always know where it's coming from. The other thing that we really love about this system, so we talked about savings buckets. Another one would be vehicle maintenance. It's one of the unexpected expenses. You need tires. You need oil changes. Like things, oh no, I never knew that would happen, but we didn't. Okay. So we have, for example, one of our clients. So for example, maybe she had$50 going into her vehicle fund or a savings bucket every paycheck, right? She shows up to go get her tires or a tire fixed.

24:19She thought, you know how they do that flat, fix a flat thing. This is a true story. And they're like, oh no, you actually need all new tires right now or else you're basically going to be home. But that's what they always say, but she believed them this time, whatever. So she's okay here. And he's wait, what, what do you mean? People usually freak out when I say that she's like, no, I have the money. I've been saving for it. Here's my, so she just was able to pay it in the moment. That is what we want to solve for your busy working moms in the moment. I don't have to figure out where the money's coming from.

24:46I don't have to figure out what did the rent get paid? Do I have enough money? Where do I have to put this on credit? Is my credit limit going to allow me to do this? You have the money where it's coming from for all of these things. So imagine you've got your income coming into your bills account, going out to your spending

24:59Dyana:accounts. And the last thing like Shannon was alluding to was your savings bucket. So not only is money being funneled out of your bills account into those specific spending accounts that we have, those savings buckets that we talked about before, like vehicle maintenance, they're automatically getting funded as well every single month. So that way, when you need the money for those things, when they come up sometime in the year, it's just building over time and you have the money for Ford and tires and you didn't have to figure out where the money was coming from or pull extra your money from your business account to make that happen or put it on a credit card.

25:30Dyana:Yeah. Emergency or a credit card. The money has been building up over time because you knew that you needed tires sometime down the road and you've been putting 50 bucks, a hundred bucks into that account. Okay. And just a couple other bonus things. You can rename your accounts. So Diana's fun, happy times money. That could be an account, whatever you want. I like that. I need happy time money. You can set these transfers up to happen automatically on payday there for the, for indefinitely for the rest of however long until you want to change it. So not just bills, you're not just setting up your bills to be paid automatically.

26:01Dyana:You're also setting up these transfers into the spending and savings accounts to happen automatically on payday. Yeah. So when you wake up, you have money for groceries and you didn't have to do anything. Okay. And so really, then all you really have to do is just be like, Oh, look, I have money. When you look at your bank app, so you don't need another app. You don't need anything crazy. You're just using your bank app to see I have money here and here. And look, we understand this is a lot, okay? We gave you the shortest version. Straight from a fire hose. Yes, we gave you the shortest version we could possibly give you.

26:31There's more to it. We promise what happens right now, if you set this up, take a little bit of time right now to set this system up, like we always have to with the system, with the little front work, you're gonna save so much brain calories. You're gonna save money. You're gonna save time in the future. You don't have to do anything after this with your hands. It's all gonna be done for you, which is important because usually when we have to do it, that's when we mess up.

26:53Dyana:I know if there's a lot, like I said, a lot of information, but there was one thing that you took away from this was obviously make a budget. But the second thing is to separate your spending from your bills account. Like literally if you can know exactly how much you have for spending throughout the month and how much you have for bills, having those two things in separate accounts is literally going to change your life and not, and we're not just saying that because We think it's great. We do. But all of our clients, everyone who's heard us talk, they have done this step and it has drastically changed how they handle their money.

27:23Dyana: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. 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.

27:59If 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.

28:10Dyana:Yeah. So head on over to budgetbestc.com forward slash budget and grab yours. Now back to today's show. So I have a question. So let me just, so I have to put this in my brain. I'm a visual person. So I have to see the buckets, see the categories. Okay. So five accounts, right? You said five accounts. Okay. So I would have one. So some of them are just going to sit there. Like the savings are going to sit there. The automated bills is going to sit there. So that's just, so now we've got three categories we're like playing with, right? So the other ones, am I going to have, wait, what are the other three categories?

28:44You have the budget, the savings, and the other three are? So you have your bills account, all the income comes in and the bills get paid out. So that is one account. It's a spending account because you're paying bills, right? It's automated. Yep. It's all automated. And then your gas and groceries as a spending account that you're going to do. Okay. her pocket money your spouse's pocket money and then restaurants if you want it to be a separate you can use it as cash but restaurants family fund that's one and then if you want you have a kid's account those are the five that we want you to have checking accounts checking accounts okay that's what i want if we have we sometimes we have single single moms or whatever and they're like i don't need to separate because i don't need so many accounts i just want their life isn't as complicated i just want the gas and groceries over here and then i'll so it's really up to you.

29:29But like Vanessa said, the important thing is to separate them and to be able to at a glance know exactly how much money you have to spend on anything that you want to spend money on. And that's so good.

29:37Dyana:Wait, you have to share this at the beginning. Excuse me. You have so much going on. You're probably running a business or you're in a high capacity position. You're a mom. You have a lot. You're busy in your community with your friends and everything. We want you to be able to take finances off of your shoulders. Like for you to just open your bank app and know exactly how much you have for spending and know that your bills are covered. Like you just one less thing you have to worry about. Yep. Okay. So if I'm going to the store, I'm sorry, I just, I really love this. So I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to use this.

30:06Okay. So the category, so am I going to have how many bank accounts? How many cards am I going to have when I go to the store? If I go shopping, if I go to buy something for the kids, if I go, so how many cards, bank accounts am I going to be actually actively using?

30:20Dyana:Yeah. No more than four. Okay. So if you think of it would be the Gadsden groceries one. It would be your pocket money one. If you have a restaurant's one, like an out to eat one. And then if you have this one, so it'd be no one to work, but you listen, I know it may sound like a lot, but you probably have that many credit cards in your wallet. Let's be honest. But the fun thing about it is that all the banks nowadays, they allow you to have different designs for the cards. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them are even now allowing you to label it, like what the account name is in a friend and put a sticker on it and you can label And now like I know exactly, I can look at my debit cards and I know exactly what they're for.

30:58Dyana:There's no question. It's not hard. It's just a new habit to form. Awesome. One last point too. Okay. You can be bougie on a budget. This, if you notice, we didn't tell you how much to spend. We didn't tell you like, all of our clients spend a lot on groceries because they want high quality food and it's important to them, right? For that. They all have gym memberships. They all get their glam up. They have their hair, nails, whatever. Like this is not telling you what not to do. It's just telling your money where to go on purpose because that's where you want it to go. The one thing that we didn't finish when we were talking about credit cards, I had to mention it.

31:31When we do income minus debt, minus bills, minus spending, minus savings. If there's something left over, then we put that money toward debt. If we want to get out of debt, that's the extra at the end of the budget, because we're seeing it's a zero based budget on purpose. At the end, if I have$300 left over once I did everything, then I put that on my first debt that I want to try to pay off.

31:50Dyana:And if there's not anything left over and you want there to be so you can get out of debt, or maybe debt's not your goal. Maybe you don't, maybe you don't have any debt, so that's not a problem. But if you do have debt and you're trying to get out of debt, if you don't have anything left over after you made your whole budget, then go back and go, okay, do I need all of these subscriptions? Do I really spend that much at the grocery store? Just really think about how your budget is flowing. Because again, we're not saying no, it's very customized to your lifestyle, your goals. So you just have to double check that and go, where do I want my money to go?

32:18Dyana:But again, putting it on paper first, being able to see how much you spend in the month will allow you to see how much you want to spend. Yeah. It's funny because I'll look at my account sometimes and I'll be like, I can't, I don't want to, I don't want to look at it. Cause then if I have acknowledged it, that means that I have to like stop or slow it down. I was talking to somebody and she's a organizer, a minimalist. And she said, she puts her clients on a 30 day spending a 30 day freeze. Everybody's on a 30 day freeze because she said usually after those that first week or few days you don't want it anymore so it's like not not in the money sense it's more of like in the minimizing sense right and the reason we are doing what we're doing now we're not doing this for teenagers we love them and we will help them we're doing this because you're making more money than you've ever made it's you know it's time for you to not feel that way and you're just like everyone else like head in the sand let me just ignore it but what we want you to do is look at your money and be like yeah I did that.

33:16I have money. I have money. You want you to look at it and be happy. As we alluded to in the beginning, it seems complicated. It seems hard. It's like this boy, it's like a boy world with all this finance too. Take that our budget system, the one that the freebie and the one that we have, it's very pretty. It's like light teal and pink. It's really pretty. We want this to feel like something you can own and be confident about.

33:36Dyana:And most of our clients after working with us, and I'm just saying this, it doesn't matter whether you're working with us or not. We've had people that have just literally use the system and have this month's success. They're paying off and or saving, depending on what journey they're on around$50 ,000 in six months, because they are, they now know what's happening with their money. Whereas before they had no idea where it was going, but now they're just intentional and it has a plan and they're putting it there on purpose, hence the automatic transfers. And so it, it actually is happening. What they want to happen is happening.

34:07It's intentional. I like that word being intentional about your money. Cause yeah, It's easy to get derailed and a little bit of this and that. And mom puts them on this card and this. And wow, you guys, thank you so much. I have to say, it's really been a privilege talking to you both because you have given so much. I have to say, I'm so excited. I'm going back. I'm going to listen to it again and again. And I'm going to get on your freebie list here too. So they're giving you a gift today, which is called the one page budget template. And if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about what the freebie is.

34:37Yeah, absolutely.

34:37Dyana:Our one page budget template is basically a snapshot of what our budget looks like. Okay. And so obviously it's not the digital version. Like ours, our whole system does it for you. It does all the math for you. The one template is a section for you to be able to see your budget on one page in those five simple categories. Yeah. We figure the way my brain works, Diana, is if it's on one page, it can't be that hard. Like when it's budget, like I'm flipping and there's stapled or something like, oh no, hard pass. It's pretty. It's very simple. that is what we want the vibes that we want for you.

35:08And it's those five categories we just talked about. So what we want you to do is download this, print it out and just start, just get a brainstorm, just brain dump. It doesn't have to be perfect to start. We just want you to start thinking like, what does my money look like in a month? It's all in one piece of paper. Just get a rough draft and get going. Yeah. Love it. That's great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the interview. Yes. Thank you for having us. Bye. Have a great day.

35:31Dyana: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. 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.