Why You Blow Up Your Budget Right When It Starts to Work—And How to Fix It in 10 Minutes | 436

0:00So today we're going to tell you how to fix your budget after you self-sabotage. Raise your hand if that sounds a little familiar. Maybe once in a while you went a little crazy on some spending and you feel like your budget is a mess and it can't be fixed and it's irrevocable. But it's not. And we're going to help you today so that you don't throw the whole budget out. That's not the point. We want you to help. We want to fix it. We want you to know what happens. And we're here for you to help you. Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it? Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck?

0:24Do 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 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.

0:56We'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. 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.

1:28And 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 what does self-sabotage look like, Shannon? We have so many examples from our coaching clients. Listen, you guys are coming to coaching a lot of times because you don't have good money habits. Nobody ever taught you anything. You've been in like the wild survival mode trying to just do this. So you're going to have these habits and we're going to have to help you work them out. So for example, just the other day, I mean, my husband - So we had coaching this week.

2:02Yes. And so we get a lot of our stories, a lot of our examples - Right from coaching, yes, baby. Straight from our last two days of coaching. And I have to tell you, we have a variety of clients and different vibes for different people. I remember with this client, my husband was sitting over there in his office and I know he looked up at me when I was like banging on the table girl you are not this I was like like giving her a TED talk of why she's gonna overcome and do so good and blah blah and she was laughing it was fun anyway so the way it started though was she the first thing we did was she told me her new paycheck amount right because we were updating her budget and she got it was I added a thousand dollars to it and I was like and she said literally she said hey before you start to cheer.

2:43I already spent it. I already did it. It blew up. And I was like, okay, great. I was so excited. And then I went like, my emotional rollercoaster was strong. And then we started plugging it in. We're spinning here, transfer here, transfer, Zelle. And I was like, I don't know why I did that. And I was like, I do. I know exactly why you did that. We see it all the time. It's called self-sabotage. It's what you guys do. It feels like as soon as you feel like things are steady or it's going, you're like, hey, this doesn't feel right. This isn't correct. Stuff is supposed to be stressful, awful. I don't know what's going on.

3:14Let me fix, let me make that the reality. And then you do all this craziness to make it feel the way you're used to it feeling, which is not, which is chaotic. It's because we're so used to, Shayna said, this old feeling, this old way of being chaotic and not knowing and wrecking balls in our brain. So the second everything is going right, it obviously can't be working. It has to be harder than that. And so we - Let me fix it real quick. Let me go fix it. Yeah. And then you get your hands on it and just jack it up. Yeah. But it's okay. It is okay. And we're going to help. Like we said, we're going to help.

3:45We're going to tell you how to fix it once you may have gone down one of these spirals. But really what we see is it was going to work. It was going to work. And then you were like, nope, let me mess it up first. Not just was it going to work. It was like we've had clients where they were going to put$3 ,000 extra on debt. And by the time we get back with them two weeks later, I mean, there's$0 to go on debt. Or there's$100 or$500. Like we've seen many scenarios in many different ways. And it's funny how this episode came up with my client. I signed on with her coaching session, literally hit record the second we got on the screen.

4:18And she goes, I have a confession to make. Like in the screen, got in it. And I was like, hold on, are we in church? Is this, are we in Catholic church? Are we in the confession box? And it just all came out and she just felt so bad. And in her brain, it was unfixable. Like literally in her brain, she could not, it wasn't mathing for her. She couldn't see it. She had no idea how to go back. from it. And it took us, Shana, 10 minutes. 10 whole minutes? 10 minutes to fix the whole thing. And it was fine. And what she did 12 hours before she met with me was buy a$130 app that she thought she needed before our coaching session to fix it before we got on.

4:57So now she's in the process of asking for a refund for that app that she doesn't need, which was a tracking app. So I'm like, don't. And again, she said, I literally went back to my old ways in 30 seconds. 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.

5:30Yeah. 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 budgetbesties.com forward slash budget and grab yours. Now back to today's show. So I'm picturing, like I'm picturing your client.

6:04I'm picturing how many of my clients have come and And what you said, they feel bad. They feel like they're going to be in trouble. There's so much money baggage out there. And it just, it breaks our heart. It is a large part why we do what we do. And I think about these women that feel this way, that feel like they're, they feel so shamed about what they did. And I think about you guys, not everybody can be a coaching client. So right now, here's your moment to understand, do not feel ashamed. Do not, don't waste. You're not the first. You won't be the last. But don't waste one second on that.

6:34That is the devil getting your time, getting your energy, getting your emotions. You don't have time for that. Like Vanessa said, we can fix it. It is a math problem, y 'all. And it's not like one of those calculus math problems. It's one that we can actually - It's a subtraction and an addition. That's only all the things. There's no multiplication even. Okay, no division. We don't have to do any of that. But we can actually fix it and just spend your energy on that and stop shaming yourself. Stop allowing yourself to wallow in that because we don't want that for you. And we're releasing you from that right now.

7:01Yeah. So let's say you guys made a budget and this month you were going to put$1 ,000 extra on debt and then everything got derailed. You accidentally, quote unquote, I have air quotations going on, guys. You accidentally had that Bill's debit card in your wallet, which is what happened with my client. And you spent out of it and you spent all the money that you were going to put on debt. The worst thing that happened is that you don't have any extra money to put on debt. But it's still a win. Why? Because you paid cash for everything that you paid for. Yeah, fine. You didn't pay all the extra money on debt, but you didn't go further into debt.

7:36You now became your own bank. This is why it's so important to – and this is what we did with several clients this week. Like we said, we had all of our coaching clients. And you just have to go back and look at the math and fix it. It's not some unknowable problem. It's not some mystery that you can't figure out. You're going to go in there and say, okay, this is what we – let's walk you exactly through what we do. We look at the asset tracker. We update what's in your accounts. Then we go into the budget and you go into your bills and you tell us every single sweet line item that's in there.

8:07And that way we can see if you've spent it. We can check off everything that was planned for and we can add to the budget everything that was not planned for. And then we just have to do the math. For example, my client had several not planned transfers to the spending account for one of them. And so what we ended up doing is taking off one of her extra debt payments that she was going to do. So they spent all of this money before we got on the call. It was July 2nd. She said, it's been a real good month. It's been a real good month. It's been two days, girlfriend. I said, literally, girl, it's day two of the month.

8:38She said, I know, but we had a good month. It was their anniversary, whatever. Okay, fine. It's cute. Now we're just going to take that out, and it's now the budget is back to black. The same thing happened with another one of my clients. A lot of people have trips. Listen, whatever you think you're going to spend on your trip, like, you might want to just double. I don't believe you anymore. None of you. Okay, it's fine. Trips are expensive. It's fun. Have a good time. but just don't be unrealistic however we did a plan for this trip that they were going to take we planned 520 dollars was they were very specific about how much they thought it was going to be and she came back and she was again like i said shame i feel so bad i'm awful at this i let me just beat myself up and okay i was like okay now let's go in the bills account because they hadn't gotten their debit card yet which is wonderful love it they're spending debit card and we just listed it all out and i said look all of this you spent 120 more than we actually budgeted and planned.

9:27So now all we have to do is change$120 of the rest of your budget to make it fine. And you're good. And you're just going to learn and get better every time. But the point here is you have to look at the math. Don't just go buy an app that's going to distract you. It's like how when you have to do the work and you're like, let me clean my desk instead. That's what that did. It was like, let me distract myself and not deal with the actual problem. That actually only took 10 minutes to fix. Yeah. It's just, you guys get, like Shayna said, distracted in what should be happening or what's supposed to be happening.

9:57And really, it's just let's look at what did happen. And that is going line by line, especially I think it's the bills account that trip people up the most, especially when this is their first time budgeting. They're not used to seeing that big old wad of money in their bills account, be ready to pay all their bills for the whole month, and it throws them off. So if that happens, and you are you're using the money for bills, all you have to do is go like Shana said, line by line to see what actually happened. But eventually you won't have to do that because you have such a good system in place and you have the right amount of money set aside for vacations or spending.

10:31And I think that's what it is. You haven't figured out the right amount that you need for spending or your savings buckets or for travel and stuff. You don't have it like tweaked in or dialed in yet. So you spend a little more and then you think everything has gone haywire, but it really hasn't. Shana said it's been very easy on, we have been doing this for years, guys, and every single time we have fixed it in 10 minutes, It's super easy. It's just a simple math problem. It is a simple math problem. And I think another thing for the self-sabotage, like you want the chaos and everything, or you don't want it, but you know how to deal with.

11:03We are going to heal that. It will probably take some time. But what is going to replace it is peace, satisfaction, and seeing your savings buckets growing, the freedom in having spending money and not having to feel guilty or wonder if things are going to work. And this is what I told my client. I said, you're going to get your dopamine hit from logging in and seeing that you have money. That's what we're going to do. Instead of spending money on random things that you didn't need or that you certainly didn't need at this moment, you're going to change your behavior and get sleep at night because your bills are paid.

11:38Feel good. Feel happy. Feel excited because you're saving for a vacation. All of that, we're going to change your behavior. Understand it might take a minute. It might take a minute. I think it's also super important to know exactly what your money is supposed to do instead, which is why this budget is happening. Vanessa said, if you think in your mind, I have this big glob of money, I can probably pull some of it. That's what the budget's for is it says, no, look, every single dollar is going to be put somewhere on purpose. So for this one client, she was supposed to put that money toward her paycheck for next month because she's a teacher and she won't get one.

12:11So now we are even more clear. It's very much more clear. this bank account, we are trying to get this to 6 ,000. Instead of the 2 ,500 that we're going to have, now we have 1 ,800 because you spent all of that. But being very clear, this is where that quote unquote extra money is always going no matter what. If there is extra money in my budget, if you know that, it's also going to help you. Yeah. And I think you made a good point about the amount of money that you have for certain things. You're not going to get it right the first couple of months, maybe even the first three or four months that you're starting to do this.

12:42but every month you're going to get closer to the right amount of money that feels good. So that way, like Shana said, you have money and the freedom to spend, but also you can feel good because you know that your bills are covered. You know that you're saving for the future and all that is happening. 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.

13:20Imagine 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.