Unexpected Expenses Keep Wrecking Your Budget? Do This Instead! | 613

0:00Hey, before we jump into the show, we wanted to give you a heads up that our free budget workshop is happening Friday, September 11th at noon central. At the workshop, we'll show you the simple budget system that we use to help women organize their money, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and finally feel confident when it comes to their money. So if you're brand new to budgeting, this will help you start the right way and avoid common mistakes. And if you already have a budget that's not working, this workshop will help you simplify it and make it work for real life. This workshop is 100 % free and you can save your seat right now at budgetbesties.com forward slash workshop.

0:32You're not paying your credit cards. You can't afford groceries. You need to eat. You need to feed your child and your family.

0:39Michelle:That is what's important. They cut you freeze and you don't know if you should keep doing what you've been doing or what the most important thing is. Just stop and take care of what's the most important. Put a pause on some of those things that are maybe further out in the future. and let's just focus on what's happening right now. You're paying for whatever this emergency is in cash, right? So it's still a huge win versus in the past, you probably would have put it on a credit card. 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?

1:14Do 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? If you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the month. 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.

1:52In 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. 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 gonna shy away from the tough love. We'll tell you what you need to hear and encourage you at the same time.

2:19This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. We are back with Coach Michelle for another episode on kind of what they do during office hours, what's going on, and all the success that they're having over there.

2:33Michelle:Hi, ladies. Thanks for having me. We're pumped to have you because, look, okay, spoiler alert. We're hopefully in a couple months, we're going to have a really good story about bats, but we're not talking about bats today, okay, because you have lots of juicy stories. but stay tuned for office hours chats and we might get to a story about bats, but okay. So, you know, just in case you guys don't know, office hours is inside of our membership. We'll talk about that later. And Michelle leads people through all their questions, helping them with their setting of their budget and all of that kind of stuff.

3:03And then we get real life details and problems and circumstances that she walks them through. And then she comes and tells us so we can help you guys. That's the plan. plan.

3:12Michelle:It's our mini little sessions of walking through life happening. And we talk through all sorts of things, whether it's something that just happened in their house that needed them to go jump into those savings buckets and reorganize, or if it's how do I plan for this upcoming thing that's going to happen. We talk about very specific things that are happening in people's homes and with their lives and with their spouses and their families. And people get vulnerable and real and just need somebody else to talk to and get a different perspective, right? And that bird's eye view. I think it's so interesting you say that because you would think that people wouldn't want to do any of that when it comes to money and their budget, maybe their debt and all that kind of stuff.

4:04But you know what? We're all tired of it being too taboo to talk about because We're all suffering, I shouldn't say suffering, but we're all going through the same sort of problems. And we all, everybody has some sort of money issue to tackle, whether you feel like it's really a stressful one or not, but every month something's coming up, right? So we're all human. It's all real. And it's nice to have a safe place to talk about it and bring up, bring it up without any judgment. And that also has some accountability. When I do free calls, a lot of people say, I'm probably the only one. I'm like, girl, no, you are not.

4:34We're all going through this together. And it's really great that they have our membership and they have the office hours inside that to be able to do life together and figure out finances together. All right. So let's talk about some of the successes, some of the situations that you've helped them navigate through this. Let's talk about the first one. She had$3 ,500 of unexpected expenses, like in a hotel bill and other things that kind of popped up that she was able to take care of. Tell us about that.

5:04Michelle:this gal she was working so hard so she's getting ready for her cross-country move right and she's moving the whole family right and it was a big deal and there was all of these unexpected expenses coming up with hotels and restaurants and all the things that you don't necessarily plan ahead of time when you're doing a big move you forget to account for them exactly you do because you think about moving and you some of the things but then all of a sudden the expenses start hitting you and start adding up really quickly. And she did a beautiful job. She took her mock budget and figured out what the cost of living adjustment was for her from one state to another.

5:44Michelle:And she also included in every detail she could possibly think of before that move. And she was able to stash money away into her savings bucket so that she had it there before the move took place. And the best part is she's military spouse. And she took that information, and she's been spreading the word and telling other military families, you got to do this, you got to plan ahead. And you've got to save before you PCS, but you have to save before that next move comes. Because there are so many big expenses. These military families, I love them. And I think they are amazing in everything that they're doing.

6:25Michelle:But they're not told that they that there's going to be a lot of money out of pocket to them before and after or before, during and after these moves. A lot of this is reimbursed, right? But it's reimbursed word reimbursed, right? So it takes that stress off. And so that's, that's what she did. That was her biggest win is she was able to put this money aside and take that, that stress off. And that, that feeling of she had it there when the time came to make it happen because it's just stressful. And then you got kids on top of it. It is hard and you're trying to establish it in a new place. $500 is not small.

7:04Michelle:That's a lot of money. To be able to configure your budget. And we had a testimonial call with an Simplify Budget System user. And she said, I love the system because it allows you, it allows it, it allows your budget to morph with your life. And she's able to look at what she planned for and she had to make changes and morph with what was going on in the moment. And that's okay. It's not something that's set in stone. So that's fantastic that she was able to do that. Yeah. So let's talk about some other fun friends. I want to hear about this fun friend that has 10 savings accounts and 10 checking accounts.

7:43Let's go. She's not messing around and it's running, it says, as a well-oiled machine. Tell me a little bit about that.

7:50Michelle:Oh, she's the best. She is the best. I love her. She jumped in when we did the debt workshop at the beginning of the year in January, right? The beginning of January. And that was the big workshop where a lot of folks discovered the budget besties and jumped in. And so it's awesome to hear after a few months what they've done. And so what this gal did is she just jumped in with everything and committed to separating on all those accounts. She followed all of the process, right? And now she's got 10 of each, the savings and the spending. And she just is so excited. And that is literally what she said was it was a well-oiled machine now.

8:34Michelle:and so she is just tickled with the amount of time that she spent getting it set up and how much time she's spending now is such a difference right she just goes in and checks everything and it's all just working exactly like she told it to and it's just a I think it's a really good feeling to her that it's made so much more clarity come through and with her husband he is totally on board at first because sometimes you have a little hesitancy when you're talking about changing things up but she's like hold on give me a minute let me see if it works and it does and he just thinks it's fantastic too yeah what does she got 10 checking accounts for do you know tell it she's got all sorts right because she's got four kids okay okay so when you have four kids between the two of you you've got five right yeah so when you have four kids then that changes a few things right so she's got four kids and they've just got things they're doing and they made sure that they have their fun money accounts they're each have their own set aside right yeah so let's go through it right now i'm about to yeah i was like let's guess but let's already know so it's gas and groceries or those could be two separate ones she probably eating out obviously she has her spending her husband's spending then we add four kids and we're already at eight and you can add sports medical pets pets or family fun yeah right separate your like eating out from your i didn't say that one so i was just thinking i had missed that one so okay so we like you said four kids gets you real close plus by the way one of them that we're trying to introduce a little bit is i just set it up with a client this week was her last week was annual bills as a checking account.

10:19And so that's, that could be another one. And then Vanessa said, if it's something that you're like glam up or medical or something that you're constantly spending, then you would want that one to be a checking account too. Yeah. We have a lot of people that have lots of pets, which is great. Love pets. I'm a big pet family. When there's a thunderstorm and I'm coaching, they're all right there by my computer feeling really safe from all the lightning and the booms and my coaching clients get a kick of it. It's one of those things where it's easier to just have a checking account for it. If, especially when you buy the food separate and there's a lot going on people who have chickens and farms and it's just easier to have that separate card so you know we're for it get as many as makes sense to you and your household and what's going on so i love how organized she is and i love how she's calling it a well-oiled machine too yeah and just visualize that it's not like she has 10 debit cards in her wallet right no five of those were other people yeah right that are gonna have those and then she doesn't necessarily have to have a debit card for all of them either but but honestly it's it's like the cash envelopes did you have five, would you have had five envelopes in your, in your purse?

11:18Maybe like easily. And then of course there's the extreme opposite, which would have been like any mini, mighty mo, which credit card has a balance. Let me pull one out and see, like, sometimes that's what people are doing. So yeah. If you make annual bills, a checking account, you don't have that debit card on you, right? That one stays home. You're just attaching it, ACH payment for when that yearly bill comes out. So that's not a debit card that you would have on you. Again, the bills account, debit card isn't going to be on you. And yeah, it's just, there's a lot there that's working that working in your favor.

11:46And I actually had a new client. He said, do I have to have these debit cards on me? Is there any way around this? And I said, no. And let me tell you why you wouldn't want it to be any other way. And he understood and he was actually really excited for it to be that organized. Right. And knowing that he didn't have to have all the debit cards in his wallet, that was the other thing, because like we said, there's 10 of them. She has 10 checkings. She may not have debit cards to all of them. She may not need them. And then also she's got four kids. So but that's plus her husband. Five right there aren't even involved in her wallet at all.

12:13Yeah. It's time to enter your coaching era because making good money should feel like making good money. Yeah, 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.

12:55If 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 on Friday, we're going to hear from someone who speaks to this, but I really liked what you told us, Michelle, about how someone said that naming the accounts was reducing the temptation. Tell us more about that.

13:26Michelle:Yes. I've heard that more than once, but definitely the naming the accounts. if you guys use different examples on the podcast, but some people, if they've got something named that it's got their kid's name in it, right? They're like, oh no, that's for my kid. I'm not touching it. I'm not going to pull that to go over here and pay for the appliance repair. I'm not going to use it to get an oil change. I'm not going to use it to go to the restaurant. This is specifically for my kid, right? And that we talk about how it's a simple thing. It's easy. It's something that that doesn't seem life-changing but it can be it's it changes how they think about the money because if they've got it labeled a certain way it keeps them from using it for things that they didn't intend to do i think it's just it represents your money in a different way it's more intentional it's more personable and when you're looking at your bank account and like you said it says catalina's wedding chase's college trip to bali that's apparently not going to happen.

14:28My kid's senior year is already spoken for. It's fine. But when all these things are labeled and you're like, yeah, I'm not going to pull from that because I want to do that thing. Or Christmas, maybe this is the first year you're funding Christmas for the first time in cash. We've heard that and you'll hear that on Friday as well, but you're not going to want to sabotage that. You want that to happen. So you're going to make sure that you keep that money aside. Also a fabulous feature that your bank account allows is to hide them. You can continue to deposit money in there automatically and systematically every single month, but hiding the account so you don't see it and it's not a temptation.

15:04Michelle:Absolutely. Yes. And I just heard just recently too about somebody who was able to put money aside for Christmas funds. So when you said that, that reminded me. So yeah, for the very first time in we're hearing - We're talking about that. It's September, y 'all. Christmas is coming. It's four months away. Don't think about Christmas on Black Friday when most of us do start putting that in the budget because we don't want you to have to put it on credit. We want you to pay cash for it and paying for Christmas over four months instead of one or two months is a lot easier, a lot more doable. Again, it's just, we're in that holiday season.

15:37I feel like Hobby Lobby starts that process in July. I know. And I feel like I'm already behind. I know, but because it's helping us start thinking about how we can spend money in the world. Well, that'll help us to save money. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. Because we've got Halloween we've got Thanksgiving we have Black Friday we have Christmas like I'm trying to block you know I'm in y 'all right she keeps doing it she keeps telling us all the things we have to save money for well my my son does too because his birthday is in a couple weeks and he's like I needed a piano bench and I would like the Hobbit a new a nicer version of Hobbit and I'm like I'll keep things he may know me well that I haven't bought anything yet but I'm like no So it's going to come to a close.

16:20This whole bartering time is going to come to a close. Right. It's almost September. I don't know if, but okay. But he is in our September budget. So we can just at the very last minute decide what it is that he actually wants to do. He has six days from the first to the sixth. Okay. And apparently storm mode has been coming. Hot topic. The hot topic. It's storming here a lot in Florida. So that works on two levels. But tell us what's been happening with your people and how you've helped them.

16:46Michelle:Yeah, we're working into hurricane season, aren't we? Getting close to that. Storm mode came for several folks over the summer. And what I mean by that is they hit a spot in their life where they had income reduction or they had a huge change in life circumstances that they just needed to pause the putting stuff towards big savings buckets and stuff like that. And so there's a lot of questions that came around. What do I do? They cut you freeze. And you don't know if you should keep doing what you've been doing or what the most important thing is. And I think when big things happen, big, sometimes tragic things or sometimes really scary things happen, sometimes we kind of our ability to work through.

17:32Michelle:It's harder, right? You need to bounce those ideas off of somebody. And so it was really good that we got to have these discussions about just stop and take care of what's the most important. put a pause on some of those things that are maybe further out in the future. And let's just focus on what's happening right now and talk about the four walls, as we've talked about before, taking care of making sure everybody's fed and the lights yelling, right? And they get to work. Yeah. Like all the important things. I think it's really hard, especially for those who, you know, and obviously people hear our budget system and they think I want to do all of it right now.

18:04And unfortunately, sometimes you can't implement every part of our system immediately in month one. But when they get to the point where they are able to start building their savings buckets, and then something happens, mayhem happens, and they have to stop and they have to go into store mode. It's like, I was right there. I was doing it for the first month. But also I remind them, you're paying for whatever this emergency is in cash, right? So it's still a huge win versus in the past, you probably would have put it on a credit card or not done the thing that you probably needed to do and therefore lengthening the problem where now you're just rearranging your money, maybe stopping some savings buckets, maybe reducing your fund money for a month because whatever is going on to take care of the problem at hand in cash and not go further into debt.

18:56Yeah. And we were talking to Nikki, she's going to be on the show on Friday. And she was saying that being able to see everything on the budget gives you at least that clarity when these things hit, right? Whatever these emergencies are, at least you can adapt to it. You can say, like you say, pause, we're going to pause extra on debt. We're going to pause some of these savings buckets because I need to, spoiler alert, I need to fix whatever the bats did, right? Or whatever it is. We're going to get there guys. But that she can see it clearly on the budget. So this would be like, how can I adjust for this?

19:26But the more serious version of store mode might be what you're talking about, Michelle, where I had a client this week where I had to tell them, you're not paying your credit cards. You're simply not paying them. And I know that's really hard, but you can't afford it. You will pay for your, all the bills that you have to pay. You're going to have money, a little bit of money for groceries, a little bit of money for spending. That's what you have to pay. And then as you make more, so she's going to go work because she's in the middle of a divorce and she just moved and all of this kind of stuff.

19:57And it's just a hard, it's a hard season and it's not forever. And she's also trying to sell her business that she owns a building for. So it's just so much. And I was like, you're just going to be okay with this is the way, this is the way it is. And then she's going to work a second job. And when she doesn't have the kids, that money's going into account. And then you can pay your credit cards when you can. And it's so exciting. I think that's a good point because I had a client that they really wanted to pay on their carts, even just the minimum payments. And I said, you can't afford groceries.

20:23You need to eat. You need to feed your child and your family. That is what's important. I understand that there's a sense of guilt there because you are the one that put yourself in the situation and I get it. But also we need to know when, okay, I'm owning this, but also I can't pay right now, but I'm going to pay next month. And I told her, call them, speak to them, have that open line of communication, let them know what's going on. So they don't think you're trying to hide from them. and sometimes when you do call them and speak to them, they offer you something or they offer you some help.

20:51So anyways, I just think that that was worth mentioning because it's really important to know when you make your budget, if things are tight, you're gonna have to make some sacrifices here and there. And obviously your spending accounts, your important ones like gas and groceries, you gotta fund those. So Michelle, let's talk a little bit about office hours and what we have coming up so that people can get their lives together and come join us.

21:16Michelle:it's very encouraging and inspiring. I think that everybody should join it at least once a month. Again, we have office hours inside our membership. We are so excited to have our membership. It is for the people who have purchased the Simplified Budget System. And if you've graduated for coaching, this is exclusively for you. We're so excited to offer this, to have that ongoing support, that ongoing accountability. And we're so excited to offer a workshop this month. It is September 11th. It's going to be the second Tuesday of every month at noon central in this month. We're doing every other month.

21:50It's going to be a budget workshop. Every other month is going to be a debt payoff workshop. So keep that in mind. And then, so you have that free workshop. Plus, if you have the Simplified Budget System or you've graduated from coaching, you have the opportunity to have weekly calls with Michelle and set our membership that's going to continue to grow and have exclusive events, exclusive offers in there. So we are pumped. If you have any questions about that, feel free to email us at hello at budgetbuzzies.com. And we'll get you more information. Yeah. So you can sign up for the workshop at budgetbusters.com forward slash workshop.

22:18And then if you're already a coaching client or you were a coaching client or you already have the budget, you'll get information about joining the us for the membership where you can get all of Michelle's wisdom and insight and help. And then all that's some other things coming up. So it's exciting. It's an exciting time. It is very exciting. It is. We're excited to all do this together and continue to grow and hold each other accountable with our budgets and have our budgets evolve with our lives because we are all like our shana and i's kids they're boys are seniors and so our budgets this have you made like a next no but i was just thinking about it as i'm talking this september's budget is going to look way different than next september so this is like the last budget we're making with all of our kids in high school it's kind of weird so anyways but we're so excited to to share that share this journey with you guys but michelle thank you for coming on we're so excited to see you in office hours absolutely Thank you.

23:11If you make good money but have nothing to show for it, this quiz will help you figure out what's really going on with your money and what your next step should be. You'll get a personalized result and a simple action step to help you feel more organized and less stressed. Go to budgetbesties.com forward slash quiz and take the free quiz today. That's budgetbesties.com forward slash quiz to find out what's really going on with your money.