The #1 Budgeting Shift That Will Give You Peace (and Still Let You Live Your Life!) | 476

0:00Hey, budget besties. We are re-iring a conversation we had with our good friend Jesse Merchan from her podcast Bold Faith Moves. 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.

0:29or 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.

1:01We 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.

1:27Welcome back to Bold Faith Moves. Here we empower women to own their worth and get bold in faith, life, and business. If you've ever felt unworthy or stuck, this is your space to break free, unlock your potential, and build lasting habits for more energy, joy, and fulfillment. I'm your host, Jessie Mershon, Mindset Coach, Speaker, Wife, and Mama Four. And today we are going to be talking all things budgeting with Shana and Vanessa. And I'm so excited to have them on. They both do a podcast together and have built a business and brand around budgeting, which is something that I was just sharing with them.

2:08I think no one wants to talk about, right? Because it's not a very comfortable situation to say, Hey, I can't buy my groceries or I can't afford to go on a vacation with my kids. So this episode is the first time that we are ever having someone on to talk budgeting and I'm so excited. It's them. A quick little intro for them as Shana and Vanessa are best friends and business partners on a mission to redefine personal finance for women worldwide. They're keynote speakers, master financial coaches, and co-hosts of the top 1 % globally ranked podcast, financial coaching for women. All right. They are going to go into a little bit about their journey, how they got started in budgeting and came about getting this all together.

2:57Yay. We're so excited to be here. Thank you so much. We love to talk about the B word. So we're here for it. Very taboo. And we're just talking about it in the open. So yeah, we're excited to talk with you, but just a little bit about how we got started. We were been friends since our boys were four and they are now 16 and long time. Yeah. It's just a little they're getting older. We're staying the same. It's fine. But we met at the YMCA in a fitness challenge group and our kids were going to school there as well. So that's when that's when we first met. Yeah. And two weeks later, we were actually started going to church together that weekend.

3:32And then our level of commitment is super high guys. And then two weeks later, we were trying to lead a community group at that same church that we just started going to. Yeah. That we just, we really, our boys are the same age. Shana had a little girl that was a little younger than mine and they all just got along so well. And so it just made sense. Yeah. And somewhere along the way, trying to do the beach and the free library events and everything else, we, I found a book called Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. I read it. I gave it to my husband. He read it and said, we already do this. And I said, I don't know if we do, but okay, whatever you say.

4:07And I gave that book to Vanessa and she had a little different way of going about it. It's hard. I don't have to really love a book to sit down and read it. And this one I read in about a week. I just tore through it. I'm very financially wired naturally. And so I read it. I went to Portugal with my kids because my grandparents are Portuguese and she was over there. And my husband and I, he came out with us and I thought, babe, this is who we are. We love to live simple. We are not the like keeping up with the Joneses type of people. We came back home really simplified and downsized our lifestyle.

4:39And within three years of coming home, we were mortgage-free and debt-free. And I was 31 years old and all rolled into, you're going to teach other people how to do this. Yeah. And so our, it took us a minute longer. It felt like to do that. We had, we, I had cashflowed actually, I think, wink, wink, the same company that you used to coach, coach for. I had cashflowed a Disney vacation with that company. And that was my first back at it job after my third child. And we paid for going to Disney. Like you talked about in the intro, that's something that people can't afford. They can't figure out how to do it without using credit.

5:12And that was really what got me excited about it. And we listened. So we live in Florida. It's still a seven-hour drive to Disney, y 'all. We listened to Dave the entire way there, an entire way back. And we had paid for the whole thing in cash. By the time we got home, my husband that week went and sold his car. We got debt-free, all the things. We started teaching FPU, all of that kind of stuff. And at that time I was a personal trainer and finances just always came up. It affects every part of your life. It really does. And so I decided to take Dave's coaching training and that was when something special was going on in Vanessa's life.

5:46Cause we were apart at that time for a little while. Yeah. So she moved to Virginia because due to work and I was in a really dark place with my job. I knew that I was there only like part-time, but I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know how long. And I really was asking God for just some vision. I need neon shining lights. I need to know what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. After we paid off our mortgage, I remember walking around my house with literally my palms up going, what is my next step? And that's when that exact week, Shana texted me and she said, I need you to get your financial coaching certification and we're going to do this thing together.

6:16And I was like, all right, God, I got that sign. I can do this. And so in 2019 is when we started our journey together. Yep. And so we both got our, we got our certifications. I moved back and we started coaching and here we are, what, five, five years later. That is amazing. And for anyone that is listening right now and feeling the weight of your financial situation, know that you are not alone because as they share tips to help you and ways to connect with them after they were there too. They, no one is just debt-free unless you are choosing to work towards that and choosing to put the work in to become debt-free.

6:54But if you are someone that is carrying the weight of that, know that you are not alone, know that you should not have shame around it because majority of Americans are like, I think they just said that we have the highest credit card debt that we have ever had and people are struggling. And like you mentioned, it's something that when you're struggling, it's not just the weight of the financial situation. It's affecting everything. It's affecting your sleep. It's affecting your marriage. It's affecting your decisions and what you do. It's affecting what you buy for groceries and what kind of gifts you get people and where you go out and where you don't.

7:31It's like, it is literally consuming your life. And it's, I forget if it's the top reason. Do you guys know, is it the number one or the second reason marriages fail? Yeah. Number one is infidelity. Yeah. Which is a big deal. We understand that. Yeah. Which, but yeah, that is, it's horrible because you don't realize how much the financial stuff is weighing on you. Yeah. I just, I want to say what we talk about and what we're going to talk about is going to get a little sophisticated. Okay. But y 'all are ready. But what isn't talked about enough is financial literacy. We all know that's a thing that we're lacking in financial literacy in general, but things are so much more complicated.

8:09When you talked about credit card debt a generation ago, nobody had credit cards. So it's and they know how to advertise, they know how to market to us, student loans, all of us are new tools that we are not educated about. So of course, we go down that path, because everybody literally everybody's saying it's a great idea, look at what you're going to save and all that. So there's that. But then also our budgets, our bills are just our money life is so much more complicated. Again, go back a generation ago, we were our emergency fund was parked in between the mattresses, or you had a tin can and grandma was stuffing the money in there.

8:38Things are way more complicated now and we didn't get the education to match it. So there is no shame. Absolutely no shame. You don't know what you don't know. And I love how you just said, listen, you're not alone. We have so many people who come to us with money baggage, just the weight on their shoulders. They've never been taught and they feel like they should know because they're so successful in other areas of their life. And we're like, why do you expect to know this when you were never taught it? And one of the things that we love to tell our clients is this is not something that's going to start and stop in six months.

9:05This is something, the information, the knowledge, the tools, the resources that you're going to get during this coaching is something that not only you will be able to use, you'll be able to pass down to your kids and your grandkids. You can teach them a whole new way and have these financial conversations that you never had as a kid. Yes. And I never really thought about that, that we didn't have, they didn't have credit cards back then. And now it's, it's almost like an excitement when you can get a credit card and you get approved. And it's this cool thing when in reality, it's like, that's where you start going downhill because once you start putting things on credit cards in order to maintain everything, that's where people are getting worse and worse.

9:42And then it's also like, you don't even have to be paying off everything on the credit card and they're upping the amount they're giving you. So now you have more money to go out and spend. And it is like a cycle that once you get sucked in, it is very hard to get out of. So I am super excited for today. So they are going to go into three of their budgeting tips and they do have more, but we're just going to get into three to start you guys off today. We don't want to overwhelm anybody. Yes. We could talk forever about this, the B word, like we said, and we are, we are budget besties. That's what we go by.

10:14So you're our best friend and we will get real with you. But what we want to do is make sure that you understand the budget doesn't have to be boring. Okay. It's not this bad word. It's not boring. We're, but our tips, we're not going to just go through, okay, enter this line item. And this is the math. That's not where it's at. That's not how we're going to be. And also we want you to know that even if you make good money, you still need a budget because it allows you to do so much more when you can give every single dollar that you're making a job. Like we have clients that bring in$7 ,000 a month.

10:42We have clients that are bringing in$50 ,000 a month. And sometimes the clients that are making 7 ,000 are actually making more progress on their debt than the people that make more because the people that are wealthier are used to just spending it more and earn faster. However, when we actually give them a budget and show them like what all their money can do for them, it's really mind blowing. And it's really awesome to be able to play with that much money and show them a different way. Yeah. So one of the biggest game changers, the first tip that we have is going to blow your mind. Maybe, maybe, but just trust us.

11:11Okay. Is having separate bank accounts. Okay. We don't have to bank like we did when we were 18. You can actually have more than one bank account. And this is one of the key ways that, that we like to help you make budgeting easier and more simple. Yeah. So we like to keep your spending money separate from the money that's going to be paying your bills. OK, so it's instead of having everything in one account and it being super convoluted and going through transaction after transaction, you have thousands of things that you're trying to look through throughout the month to see where your money went.

11:40You actually have a way to see the account that's paying your bills and the account that you're spending out of. Yeah. And to your point about the mom who's do I have money for groceries? And it's not again, it's not it's usually not that you don't have money. It's just you don't know what's accounted for what or how much or this or that or whatever. So what we like to do is have you set up a bills account that all your bills are coming out. Your income's going in there and all your bills are coming out. There's no anything happening but the bills there. But then you're automatically transferring money over to your spending account.

12:08And you can have more than one spending account. Again, you can start with one. Trust us. It sounds, I don't know, but trust us. It does work. And it does become very simple and very clear what's happening with your money. We like you to have a gas and groceries account and a personal spending checking account. And so you're automatically transferring whatever your budget says. We can talk about the actual budget in a minute to those accounts. And then you always know my bills are completely taken care of. My stress as a mom or even as a dad, whoever's like the one that's always thinking about the bills, that's good.

12:36And I know exactly how much I have if I want to go to Nordstrom, I want to go to Target or whatever it is. And I know exactly how much I have to go get dinner because I forgot to take anything out. Imagine pulling up your account and not having to track every transaction or needing an app to do that. Like none of that. Imagine literally opening up your bank app and going, okay, I know exactly how much I have for gas and groceries. I know exactly how much I have to go to Target and have fun on Amazon. Also, here's an account that just my bills are coming out of it. I don't have to touch it because it's just coming in and out, right?

13:05And one of the things that I had, I'll tell you, I have a new client and I love them so much. And they were scared to do the new spending account. So they kept spending money out of the bills account until we got everything set up. And I just had a session with them. And I said, all the money that you just spent out of your bills account, well, why did you think you had all that money that it was yours? Because it was in the account. And I said, yeah, but honey, your mortgage wasn't paid yet for the month. So that realization of going, oh my gosh, I saw the money in the account, thought that I could spend it, but I didn't even pay my mortgage.

13:36Imagine not having that feeling. Imagine knowing that you're transferring money over to a completely separate account and knowing that you can spend that money freely. I love that. And when you guys say start a separate account, is that within the same card or it's separate cards? Separate bank accounts. And so you would get separate debit cards for it. Okay. So usually what we have is we have people that are carrying around two debit cards. And so we might get some pushback from that, right? But what we know, because we have done hundreds, we've helped hundreds of clients is you've got at least two credit cards in your wallet right now, let alone your debit cards, right?

14:13So it's really not going to be that much of a habit change. It's just going to, you're going to have your debit card. So you would have your gas and groceries. You're always going to have that one on you probably and your personal spending. And they're all separate accounts and they're separate debit cards. And we have labels that you can get and you can put them on there. And then you just always know. And you, like Vanessa said, you open your bank account. Right now what happens when you're at the checkout lane, you open your bank account and you're like scrolling through a bunch of transactions to see, did this thing happen?

14:36Okay, I'm good. How much money do I actually have? This is pending, whatever. No, you can just open your bank and be like, oh, I have$400 still for groceries this month. I'm good. And that's, to me, that is really what for me personally changed my life is as a mom. Don't you feel like people are always asking you for money that you're always getting hit up. There's always something and there's bills. And now I've got this gymnastics thing I have to buy, whatever. And do I have money to buy food? Like I actually have to feed like that. I think that's my primary job is making sure that we have food.

15:03And I don't even know if I have money. And so knowing that, that was the best like feeling for me. And also gas. Let me tell you, there was a time when I'm like looking in couch cushions, can we get some more gas money? Anybody got some? But you know, that Bill's account checking account that you're going to have, you don't carry the debit card. You're not using the debit card out of that. So that's not even in your wallet. Like Shayna said, the only debit cards you're going to have on you is the gas and groceries and your personal pocket money. That's it. That is super easy to decide which account you're going to spend when you go out.

15:30So let me guess. And you said you have labels. Yeah. Yeah. Little vinyl stickers. So you just, some of them, when we, before we had those, it's like, they just wrote on it with a magic marker or something, a permanent marker. But now we just have little stickers that you stick on them and groceries or gas, or we have some people that open up seven, like they just, they're super hardcore and they want an account for every single thing. We have people that just bunch it up and use gas and groceries and personal. It's based on your preference, but start small, start where you're at. Try the one. If you just want to open up one and transfer all your spending money over there first, that's great.

16:02And then as you feel comfortable, then you can go, okay, yeah, I really want my pocket money separate, which is real, which is usually where people are at, then we decide what we recommend. That's usually the first one. Yeah. Okay. 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.

16:35Everybody 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 budgetbestdc.com forward slash budget and grab yours. Now back to today's show. The second tip we have is that you can be bougie on a budget.

17:13What? Our fun little tagline. Yeah. And so really what we talked about, we got the book, David Total Money Makeover. We were trained by Dave Ramsey. And as we started coaching everybody, people would tell us they felt paralyzed. They didn't even want to start because they felt like they would have to give everything up. or sell all their cars, their children may think they're next or whatever. And that would just make them stop from doing it. So what we figured out is we would always like, we just talked about, give them some personal pocket money and do some other things so that you can understand you can pay off debt and build wealth and you can still have your pumpkin spice lattes.

17:46Like it's going to all be okay. Yeah. You know, it's the budget doesn't have to be the B word because it's very taboo. A lot of people hear the budget word and they completely just shut down. They don't want anything to do with it. However, with the right budget system, and that's one of the things that what we like to pride ourselves on, it's not just a budget budget. You can put words and numbers on paper and call it a budget, but if you're not doing anything with it, then how is it serving you? So if you have a budget system in place, then you have the permission to spend. You are able to spend the money that you want to spend and also know that all of this stuff, whether you're building wealth, whether you're paying off debt, whether you're saving for that vacation or saving for Christmas, all that is still happening at the same time.

18:23Yeah. So our budget, the way that we designed it is it's all on one page. It's very pretty and it's very simple. Okay. We have the category of income. We have debt payments. We have bills, we have spending, and we have savings. And so the way that you can be bougie on a budget is you make sure those things are taken care of. And usually it's not, it's not ever an income problem. It's an expense problem. So once you look at everything on paper and you realize I have, wow, I have Spotify, Apple, and Pandora, maybe I'll cut one of those or whatever. Or I have two Netflix accounts. We see that all the time.

18:53And a lot of times people put it on paper and then they're like, oh, okay, let me fix this. And then you get to allow yourself to be bougie in the things that you want to be bougie. Like maybe hair and makeup is important to you. And that's totally great. Let's put that in the budget. Obviously, earrings are very important to Vanessa. Books are my thing, right? So everybody has their thing. Travel, like we talked about. What we want to do is we're not saying no, we're just saying put it in the budget. And when you put it in the budget, what we've noticed is we're way more likely or less, we get more excited about saving money than we do spending.

19:23And so, for example, if you have your savings bucket set up for my trip to Disney and my daughter's wedding and whatever, all of these different things that you're saving for, you get to see that. You get to feel that as you build those savings buckets, which we'll talk about in a minute. And you start to get really excited about your budget. And you can be bougie. I had one client. She'll never leave. We've tried to graduate her. She just doesn't. It's fine. We love her. She came right on and she said, look, I'm going to do this, but we're not giving up traveling and we're not giving up restaurants.

19:50And I'm like, okay, girl. That's fine. I got you. I got you. And so she's still, it's just her and her husband and they have a thousand dollar budget for their restaurants every month. And they also put a thousand dollars short of vacations and they're still paying off debt too. And you can be bougie and be on a budget. One of the things that we love is that every single one of our budgets is very different. A lot of our people come to us from Dave Ramsey. They listen to his website and it's very like this or that, and there's no in between. And we love him. However, what we've realized, like Shane has said before, our clients don't want to do that.

20:21They want to, they want to live a life and also maybe pay off debt and build wealth. We really pride ourselves on not having a cookie cutter budget. It's very specific to each one of our people based on what they have going on, what's important to them, what they claim is bougie, bougie, because that is different for everyone. And so it's really nice to be able to see all these different budgets, all working towards their individual goals. And they're all working. Like all the budgets are working. Yep. And I love that you said they kept a thousand dollars for eating out because I do think that's like the biggest turnoff for people is right they think if we're gonna get out of debt we have to never go out we have to not be fun can't live life and no one wants to live that way nor do I think that's the way that anyone should live where you don't go to do anything because you want to enjoy the life you're living while also not having the stress so I love that you guys brought that because I do feel like I've heard that a lot with Dave Ramsey's plan that it does work and it's amazing but also it's like pretty hard a lot of sacrifices.

21:16Yeah. I will tell you. So when, when Shannon gave me the book, I went really hardcore because that's the only system I knew had I had our system or had I, we had developed our system. I would have done things a lot differently. It would have been more joyful. I would have not had so many great hairs. I was losing hair, but just, but I, maybe it took us to go through that to realize that's not what I ever want again or in what our clients want. And I know we're going to get to our third point, but we just, we want you to be able to enjoy life. So we don't believe in beans and rice. We believe in eating healthy and that's going to cost more, right?