How to Budget for Unexpected Expenses Without Using Credit Cards | 541

Hey, budget besties. We are re-airing a conversation we had with our good friend Ella Catherine from her podcast Lifelong Learners Collective. People think they're unexpected, but are they really? Almost is like Christmas comes every time the same time of year. Like almost. It's a surprise. And you know you're going to need your oil change. And you know that the tax or the property taxes or the insurance bill are coming. But we're just not. So a lot of times when we're budgeting, we're thinking monthly only. And so when we, what we want you to do is go think annually. What are these things that I spend? Maybe it's anniversary gift or maybe it's this vacation that I take with my family every year. Let's think that way as well. Let's look at the bird's eye view. And that's where a lot of those unexpected expenses come in. So we want you to set up savings buckets for things like vehicle maintenance, home maintenance, medical, your pets. Pets can be a big one that are expectedly. But they, but it happens. And so we want you to be able to save monthly for those a little bit at a time that way when the big unexpected expense comes, you've already got money set up for it. 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 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 the guess what? You're in the right place. We're Shayna and Vanessa. We're best friends, business partners and master financial coaches trained by Dayfrancie. We've been in business since 2019 helping hundreds of amazing people like you create budgets, get out of debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck and know exactly what to do with their money. In this podcast, we'll share with you everything we know plus everything we're working on with our clients so that you have the best chance at reaching your financial goals. We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages and even bring your kids in on the conversation. 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 properties 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. Hello everyone, you're listening to the Lifelong Lawyers Collective. I'm your host Ella and this episode is full circle. I'm so excited. I have with me the budget besties. Now, those of you who have been following my podcast journey since 2020 for five years now, it's hard to believe, I'll just start off as a budgeting podcast, something I love to talk about. Now I get to interview amazing people like the budget besties, Shayna and Vanessa, they're here to talk to you about what they're passionate about budgeting and how to make the money that you're making from your business or your job work for you. So ladies, welcome. Thank you so much for having us. Hi, Ella and everybody listening. We're excited to be here. We're excited to talk about the B word. We're excited that we're in good company. We can all probably talk about the B word for extensive amount of time, but it's okay. Don't be scared listeners. It's all going to be good. It's going to be chill, no judgment, all fun. Okay. Well, and we really, we turn it to being bougie on a budget. Yeah. So it's like, we start off with it being the B word, which everyone knows. Oh, the minute you say budget people put a wall up, they're like checked out. But then we start saying, no, listen, what if you could be bougie on a budget? And we start getting them back. They reel back a little bit. And because it's an exciting topic, the way that we discuss it, I want to hear more about the bougie part. Cause when people are budget, they're like, ew, cheap. It's going to fall apart quickly. It's like, ooh, there is such a stigma around the word budget. Yes, there is. The matter is you got to have one. Cause if you don't own your money, your money's going to own you. Yes. I love that. So we were talking before we started recording about how you started in the budget space and why you started to help people. Cause everybody was really freaking out on 2020. There was a lot, there was a lot of budget problems that we all had, but we actually started before that, which we think was divinely inspired obviously. And we had taken Dave Ramsey's training, which you're a Nashville. So you know who he is. We love him. And we took his training, but then we started actually putting it into place, working with clients, working with clients, working with clients. And we realized, you know what, not everybody wants to live on rice and beans. Not everybody wants to give up their pumpkin spice lattes so that they can be on a budget. Okay. So we have to come up with a system and a method where people can pay off debt if that's important to them. They can save money. They can pay their bills, but they can still go, go get their pumpkin spice lattes. They can, whatever it is that makes them feel, feel good. They don't have, it doesn't have to be so restrictive. Yeah. It's interesting because when her and I came together and we've been friends since our boys were four, they're now 17. So a long time apart, we were doing this system that we didn't really know was a system. It was just the way that each of us did our finances. And we came together to start this business. We started talking about how we were doing it. And we're like, Oh, I do that. Oh, you do that. How does it work for you? And we came up with this program and this budgeting system for our clients and they loved it and it worked. And it was automatic and they were able to have more of their own money and see where it was going and watch it build in their accounts, but also have the freedom to spend. And then Shayna said, you can pay off debt and gone vacation. You can pay off debt and save for that emergency that you need to save for, you can pay off debt. And there's so many things that you can do and people just, they weren't used to that because the vocabulary that, and what they've been hearing was either or you don't step into a restaurant until you pay off debt. You can't do this until you pay off debt. You live on beans and rice. And we just really wanted to take the shame away from that and allow people to live their life. Well, and honestly, nobody really taught you how to budget. Even Dave Ramsey does not teach you how to budget. People tell you should budget. And but nobody tells you how and it seems like maybe I should already know, but you don't. And that's okay. And especially your listeners, their entrepreneurs, we know that you're good at a lot of things. Like you're really successful. You're good. You have magic in a lot of your areas. This is not something that you should be expecting that you understand, like from birth, nobody taught you nobody showed you. So it's okay to step into a learning moment to figure this out. And that's what we wanted to do is make it ease, not feel so heavy, not so no taboo. So taboo, we wanted it to feel light and simple. And that's what our budget system that we came up with, we went after we started coaching, we realized nobody knows how to budget. And we're like, okay, we tried to find a budget, Ella, but none of them, they're all awful. They're like, fixed and variable expenses and just like all these all these charge so many call it like so many it's just it was very overwhelming. We're like, okay, we'll make one. It'll be the simplest budget anybody's ever had. It's actually going to mimic what you do with your money, like how you spend your money, how you what you do with your hands instead of all this random stuff that you don't need to do. A lot of budgets are having you track stuff that you don't need to do track. They're just like busy work. We don't need that in our lives. Like we're all busy enough. Thank you very much. So we set up a budget system and we can go into it. That's very simple. And then as we got better at it, we figured out how to make it automatic where you can set up your budget in your bank and your bank will be your personal assistant. What do you see people spending the most on that you feel like should be eliminated first? I don't think that there's anything that we really tell them to eliminate. I think one of the things when we go through people's budgets and we look at it is are you using the thing that you're paying for? So we really don't say no. A lot of people come to us like, I feel like I should get rid of all my subscriptions and sell the house and sell the car. And we're like, calm down. Let's look at everything first and see what's going on. But really, it's just they have all this money, but it's going out as fast as it's coming in because they don't have a system in place. They have one account that they're spending out of. And everything's messy. But we really try to look at all of their bills and they're spending and say, do you love what you're doing? Do you use the things that you're spending your money on? And if the answer is no, then it's got to go. If it's wasteful money, then it's not worth spending money on. But if it brings you joy and you absolutely love it and you're having a good time and your budget allows for it, then let's put it in there and make it put some guardrails around it. Because if you're going to Target and you're spending $400 every time you go to Target on meaningless things that you don't really care about, that's a problem. But if you're going to Target to buy things that you love and things that you want to spend money on and your budget allows, then that's okay. So we're not ever going to start with what you shouldn't be doing. In fact, our clients these days, they come on because they've heard us so much. They're like, okay, look, I'm willing to do this, but I'm not giving up restaurants and I'm not giving up travel. I'm like, girl, I'm not going to make you. I was never going to make you anyway. But what we want to do is we want to put everything on one piece of paper. That's really where people are spending, but it's not Ella. It's not like they're going to Gucci or whatever or something like they're just, they just don't know what's happening with their money. So when we put it all on one piece of paper in five very simple columns, then they can start to see, they're like, oh, look at all that income I make. That's the first one we do. And then they're like, oh, bummer. Now I realize why I feel, but I'm paying $2,000 in debt payments every month. I didn't really, I never really thought about how much it was when they added it up. I put all my bills into one column. I list them all. And then I realized, why am I paying for four TV streaming services when I'm never literally at home to watch TV? Can somebody tell me why? We don't know why, but it's like all these little things. And then when we build the spending, we help them set up spending accounts and budgets where it's very easy to stick to. And they know, because a lot of overspending comes from just not knowing. Just, I'm, it's like my, I'm using one account and I hope that everything's gonna work out. I'm just, I hope I wish. Oh, and if it doesn't, then I'll just pull out a credit card. That's usually the quote unquote plan that people have. So we just, we help them just start with the plan. And that really does start with dreaming again, because, and that sounds kind of cliche, but because just what most people think is I'm going to go immediately to what I have to take away immediately to restricting with budget. We want to flip that script. We want you to instead start with dreaming. What big dreams, excitement, goals, are you excited about that would make you actually motivated to budget? We start there and then we build a budget from there. Think about when you were young and you were getting married or you were with somebody that you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with. You had a vision, even when you were in college, you had this vision of what your life was going to look like and what you wanted those goals that you had for yourself. And then life happens. We get in the rut of it. We don't pay attention to the things that we originally wanted and we forget. So we want to bring you back to that point where you are excited about your life. And so that way you can take your money as a tool, use it as a tool to work for you to achieve all those goals. Yeah, I can definitely relate because this morning I started the Friday's garbage day at my house. That's when they come. So I find all the things that I need to throw away. Something I realize is I spend money stocking up on groceries because I want to save money from getting takeout. But as life has it, I end up getting takeout anyway or going out to eat with my friends. So I thought about this morning is do I really need to get this many groceries when it takes me a while to go through my groceries versus and it's nice to have snacks or something every now and then versus okay, sometimes it's just better when somebody else makes my meals for me. Yes. Okay, that is such a good example of being bougie on a budget. And that's what we try to get people to understand. We want your budget to match your real life. And with you and all of your passions and all the things that you're doing, let's be really honest about you making meals. It's the same if you're a soccer mom and you're never home. Let's be honest about what's going to happen. And let's build that into the budget so that it's not a surprise. It's not I hope I have enough. It's let's do it on purpose. But really, people just don't they haven't stopped to think about what their life requires, what they really caused, what how what would work best. We want you need I heard somebody say it this way, we want you to afford the level of support that you can afford. Right. So if that means you're having someone help you make meals, if you have a housekeeper, if you have grocery order delivered or whatever things that you can do to help support your real life, we want you to have those and obviously we want to put them in the budget and living your best life. We had a client one time, she said, listen, I think there were a family of six, no, eight, I think she had six kids and so many people and she said, Oh, we send $4,000 a month on eating out. And she said, I want to bring that very first month of coaching. She said, I want to bring that down to a thousand. Perfect. And I said, you can't bring that down to a thousand. That's very unrealistic. You're not going to do that. So why are you putting something in your budget that you're immediately going to be unsuccessful at? And then you're going to hate it and you're going to say it doesn't work and I can't do this and budgeting isn't for me. So it's just about having those realistic goals to support. Like Shayna said, what you want to do, a lot of people will look at what everyone else is doing, what everyone else is telling them they should do or these, this 10, 20, 30% and you should be doing this and you should be doing that with your money. No, every single budget is different. We really pride ourselves on not having a cookie cutter budget. Every single one of our clients does it differently on purpose as they should because it's their budget, it's their life and it's specific to what they want. I like it. And something too, when you talk about having that goal in mind, right? It's probably already like, what is your goal? It's going to be a vacation. It's going to be buying a house or something huge. But what do you do to coach your clients on unexpected expenses such as? Yes, you know what? We are so glad you asked. Right here, girl. We're right here. We're so glad you asked because that is the like one of the best questions you could ask because that is usually what busts the budget, right? But usually what you're using credit for too. And we like to say we're going to plan ahead for the non-monthly but 100% expected expenses. People think they're unexpected, but are they really? It almost is like Christmas comes every time the same time of year. It's the price. Yeah. And you know you're going to need your oil change and you know that the tax or the property taxes or the insurance bill are coming. But we're just not, so a lot of times when we're budgeting, we're thinking monthly only. And so when we, what we want you to do is go think annually. What are these things that I spent? Maybe it's anniversary gift or maybe it's this vacation that I take with my family every year. Let's think that way as well. Let's look at the bird's eye view. And that's where a lot of those unexpected expenses come in. So we want you to set up savings buckets for things like vehicle maintenance, home maintenance, medical, your pets. Pets can be a big one that unexpectedly, but they, but it happens. And so we want you to be able to save monthly for those a little bit at a time that way when the big unexpected expense comes, you've already got money set up for it. And annual bills are another one. So people, they'll pay their annual auto insurance or their vehicle registration or their HOA fees. And then they go, oh, don't have to worry about that for another year. And they completely write it off. And they scramble, they scramble and then, yeah, they forget afterwards. But in the moment, I had a client who came on and she said, I have this $800 HOA, do a fee that's due in January, January. And she said, and I don't know what to do right after Christmas. And I said, what if you take $800, you divide it by 12, and you start saving again, this year, you're going to have to pay it right now. Cause I think it was that month that she's, that she called in. And I said, yeah, you're going to have to figure out how to pay for that right now. But then after that, take that $800 divided by 12 and start saving for it every single month. So what Shayna is talking about is preparing for these unexpected expenses every month. Those need to be part of your budget. We're not just talking about budgeting for your minimum debt payments, your monthly bills and your groceries and gas. No, we're talking about everything else. You have to really figure out what you truly cost. And at the very beginning of doing this, you may not get it right. You're not going to get it right. You're not going to remember everything, but progress is better than perfection. So if you can put a little bit of money aside for that emergency pet visit that's going to happen, you know, it's coming. If you have $200 saved in that account versus having nothing, that's less $200 that you have to come up with in the moment when something happens. So we would just really want to urge you of, we call them savings buckets, but they're separate accounts. We want you to open up separate savings accounts for these items, rename them. Okay, find a bank that allows you to do this without restrictions, rename that account. Because when it says your daughter's wedding, when it says Christmas, when it says vehicle maintenance, when it says home repairs, you're less likely to pull from that because it's named and it's labeled and it has a purpose that money is now being put in that account for a purpose. You're less likely to steal from it in that moment when you're at Chick-fil-A and you just racked up $60 because you took your family out for fast food restaurant. Like you're going to want to save because you're going to see those accounts build up and you know that in the long run, you're going to be able to have that money for when you need it. That is smart. And I, like you said, a lot of these expenses that come up, you say they're unexpected, but for me as much as I drive, I was somewhat, I knew I was going to eventually have to get new tires. I knew I was going to have to get new brakes. I knew I know I'm going to have to get an oil change at least once every other month. It's just, it's just, I'm sorry about all the thriving you were doing. Pets are so expensive to your point, planning ahead, starting with an end in mind, knowing that these things are coming is so important. Yeah. And not to say that things won't come that you're not expecting, but there's so many things that we can expect and plan for. And it's really going to take that roller coaster out of your budget to just have that set aside. And we like to think of it, of you being your own bank. So when you say tires, I had a client, we had a client that they just got a credit card every time they needed tires and then they would pay it off. And it's okay, let's reverse that and let's know that I'm going to need new tires. I don't know what the answer here is Ella. I need to go ask my husband, but like every year, every two years, I don't know when you do it, but anyway, I'm going to need new tires like every two years or every so often. I'm going to just start setting that aside in the savings bucket. And then like our other client, she went in and she thought she was just going to get like a fix of flat or whatever. And they're like, Oh, you need all tires. You're going to, you're basically going to die on the way home. That's how they're so dramatic. And she's okay. And he was like, the technician, he was like, what do you mean? Okay. Everybody usually freaks out. They're like trying to scramble to figure out how they're going to pay for this. What are you, why are you? As he's handing her their application, their credit card application. And she's, I have the money in my account. I have a vehicle maintenance account. And she's, wow, that's really impressive. And we're like, yeah, it is impressive. And we, but really it's just, you can be your own bank. Stop, you don't have to stop or borrow money. Like Vanessa said, you're going to have savings with a purpose. A lot of times people have savings accounts and it's just like this random like money that we can steal from all the time because we don't really know what it's for. And then, or maybe we'll save, but we don't, we're not really purposefully saving because we don't really know what it's for, but you're going to save for all of these things on purpose automatically, which we haven't really gotten to, but we do want you to set up transfers to your savings buckets automatically. And they're going to happen basically on your pay schedule. And then you're just, you're saving automatically. You don't have to do anything. That, that's the problem is we're also busy that we, our intention is to do good things and to save money, but we don't think about it. But here you're going to plan your savings buckets out. We listed Christmas, gifts, medical pets, kids. Oh my gosh, kids are also very expensive and vacations, annual bills, all of the things and see, do okay. If I set $25 aside for this one every month and this one needs a hundred and I just set that automatically, then I'm automatically saving. I'm a good girl. I get an A plus checkbox. Like you did the, you get the gold star because you're doing it and it's happening automatically. It's not depending on you remembering on you, your willpower, any of that. Because like we said, when these things pop up in the moment, because you weren't prepared or you forgot about them, you're usually putting them on a credit card. Like this is why people go into debt is because of these quote unquote unexpected expenses. And we want you to be your own bank. Imagine if you had more money in the bank than your credit card limit, then that credit card becomes obsolete at that point. Yeah. And I have friends who talk about quote unquote winning with credit cards where they say, okay, I've got this card for car expenses and I pay it off every month and I actually get cash back on it or I have this card for dining out and then I get cash back on it. And they say they pay it off every month or every once every other month. But do you see more people winning with that approach? You're a month behind. Yeah. Like literally you're an entire month behind because now you've racked up debt and then when you get paid, then you pay it off. And here's the other part of that. Tell me name one person that got rich off of credit card points or built wealth off of credit card points. No, yeah. No, you spend more money because you're using a credit card. So if you use your own money, you spend less, you're more aware, you're more conscious of what you're spending when you're spending it. And then also your savings buckets are building and you're watching thousands of dollars being built in your savings account that by the way we recommend you use high yield savings or money market accounts. So you're getting three to four percent interest on all of these accounts. So you're making more interest. We really just want you to change your mindset. We do want you to break up with credit cards. Like the deal is just to put it bluntly, the broke mindset is focused on the credit score. Right. The wealthy mindset is focused on net worth. You're not going to build net worth on credit cards. That's just not, that's not even the game that we want to play. You might be quote unquote winning, you think, but that's not even the game. You don't want to be in that game. Right. We want to be in the game, like Vanessa said, we could be saving all this money and earning, earning interest, making way more than our credit card points are. But the other point with credit cards is you still owe someone money. You still are in the past. You are funding, paying for the past instead of funding your future. And that's not where we want you to be. We want you to be your own bank. We want you to be thinking forward. Stop playing those games. We want you to swap the credit card for the debit card. 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 an 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. If what you're doing isn't working, and your 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. We also want you to have separate spending account. This is really important. So you're going to have an account just for your bills, and then all of your spending is going to go into a different account, right? And then you're going to have a debit card, and that's what you're going to use instead of credit cards whenever you need to spend money. And then you're going to also, by the way, have these savings buckets. So you don't have to go rely on a credit card when something comes up because you've got the money set aside. All you have to do is transfer it from your savings account, which was earning you interest, right? And then you're going to put it, your spending account, and buy whatever it is, purchase whatever it is. And all of these things are going to help you to stop having to rely on credit cards, because another reason we rely on credit cards is I have so many transactions in one account. I don't actually know if I can afford whatever it is I'm doing. But when we separate that and you have all your bills coming out of one account, they're never in, they're always getting paid on time, because the money's always in there and our spending money is in a different account. All they have to do is just live in that spending. And I don't have to worry if my bills got paid or anything like that. Another point I want to make about credit cards is credit cards are used to create loyalty with certain brands. So my first job ever was at a cold store, and they wanted us to get cold credit cards because they knew credit card customers are going to come back and shop over and over again. Same with the Southwest Airlines card. Okay, you got a Southwest Airlines card, yeah, you get free flights, but it also ties you to that one airline when Delta, for example, is going to have more international flights and may have the better deal every now and then. So that's another purpose of credit cards is to tie you to that brand. And you're eventually going to spend more money because you're going to ignore the brand that's offering the better deal. For sure. For sure. For things you don't need because you have a credit card with that company. Yeah, absolutely. And I recently heard somebody say that they spend more money a year than the NFL does, like on marketing, the credit card companies do. We think we're winning the game, we're not. They're making you think you're winning the game, but you're not. And so we just want to step away from that. And I know we went straight into savings buckets, but Shayna right now is alluding to these spending accounts. You're probably shifting through a couple of credit cards in your wallet trying to figure out, or in your debit card. So it's like, I have my debit card that I can maybe use at the beginning of the month before all the bills come out. And then towards the middle of the month, it's like, what has come out, what hasn't come out, what's still pending? I'm not really sure what I have left. Oh, I'll just use this credit card. What am I spending my money on? Which credit card should I use with for the points? Like it's just so much nonsense going through your brain. And so what we recommend is just like we talked about having separate accounts for your savings. We want you to have a couple separate accounts for your spending, because imagine having these automatically funded accounts that tells you, Hey, this account, that's just for gas and groceries. And you can fund it every single month on payday. And you know exactly how much money you have there. And then, Hey, this other account, that's Ella's personal pocket money account. This is for fun. You get to do whatever you want with that account, buy that shirt, go to Starbucks, go to Target, whatever you want and have a good time. And it has some guardrails around your spending. So that way you can feel good and feel free about spending that month. But also, you can watch your bills being paid and your savings being built. So it's just about separate, we call it separating to simplify. So yes, we're going to replace those couple of credit cards you had in your wallet with a couple of debit cards. And it's going to keep you so much more organized. There's some radical changes you see in your clients make to get ahead financially if they have a lot of credit card debt and they want to get ahead. One thing we get everything on, one piece of paper. I think a couple things happen. When you see what's actually happening, it's a game changer. A lot of times we don't really know why we have no money. But once we put, and we do, we want you to put everything on one paper, it starts with income and then it goes to debt minimums only. So we do have people only go down to the minimum payments and we'll get to why. And then we list all your bills. We, like Vanessa said, we set limits for your, or set amounts for your spending, whether it's gas and groceries, restaurants, personal spending, and then we set up your savings buckets. And then we see how much money you have left over. And that's the really telling point. A lot of times people have much more money left over than they thought. And so that's when we will put, we will on purpose put that money toward debt. If that's their goal. To pay off debt. Yeah. Because you asked about if, how they're getting out of debt. The other thing is once they really see, like you, if you know, I have $400 to spend on myself a month or $200 or whatever you set. If I know I have that, I know everything is getting paid. And I actually know where my money is going. I know that it's doing the things that, like we talked about the dreams that I, my vacations and everything. It's really fun to see how all of our clients, their overspending problems just go away. Like because they don't have this scarcity mindset, maybe sometimes I can spend or not, that kind of fuel some of that overspending. And then they also have, they know that they're doing the right thing. Finally, they feel really good about their money situation. So then they just stop overspending. And that's a big reason, a big way, how they start to pay off debt. And then they see all the debt. Seeing all the debt at once is very motivating, right? Because when you're just keeping your head in the sand and letting that be over there and just like paying minimums and just hoping it, finally some magical day, it goes away versus actually looking at it, people get very motivated. And it's, it gives you an actual like plan and to do list. And it's progress. So when they separate all of this out and they see it working for them, and I have a brand new client, this is her first month with everything all together. And I said, you got $3,000 left over this month. And she said, I don't believe it. And I said, look, this is what I love about budgets. It's math. It's just numbers on paper. And it doesn't lie. And that is what she had leftover, but she couldn't see it before because she was just aimlessly spending throughout the month because she didn't know because she had one account. But when you see progress, when you see those spending accounts being built, and then you can use them and you see those savings accounts building and your earning interest on that. And then you have an account knowing that all of your bills and your debt payments are being paid and it's separate. That is what keeps people from overspending. Because there's no like Shayna said, there's no this inks of, I don't know what's going on. I'm just going to spend because I'm not sure. It's crazy how empowering, how exciting it is when I had a life situation where I was rolling over 401k from a previous company, it's an IRA. And then I was going over all these plans. It's, yeah, someone to travel this year. So when I go to Aruba and Greece, and I also want to buy a house and I'm going through all this. And we just sat down together and showed how much I had in savings for retirement. And he's, hey, you're doing really well for your age. I'm like, really? Really? Yeah, you're doing great. So continue to be able to max out that 401k. And then also putting some money in stocks here and there. Like to me, I'm dipping my toes in the stock market and cryptocurrency and just being able to buy the stocks and know what you're doing and ETF funds, which I know Jay Brams, he talks a lot about. It's, oh, you're still doing well better than most people because you're willing to go out and talk about it. You're willing to put it on paper. And then seeing how much I have left over for the month to live off of, it's okay. Because I doubled my income from 2022 to 2024. I doubled what I made, but I still was like, wait a second, yeah, I'm making more, but then my expenses are higher. And I'm blaming this on inflation. And really, it's just the habits and the mindset that I have and the lack of planning. And I'm also putting perspectives. Also, I'm doing a lot more than I used to. Yeah. And things are more complicated now than they every year. I feel like things get more and more complicated or more. And we just, we're not really sure how to fix it or organize it because when we go to make a budget, it's just words and numbers on paper and then what? And then people are like, okay, I did this thing. What do I do with it? And so that's what our system does. It actually brings your budget to life. It gives all of your money a purpose. And I know your podcasts is your listeners are mainly entrepreneurs. We actually set up this system for entrepreneurs as well. It's very similar and allows their business to grow and be profitable. We were profitable on date, on month one of our business. We had like $47 of profit and that was so fun. And we were so excited. We were so rich. Yeah. No, we had no money. But it was just one of those things where it was important for us to set this up, not just for our clients, but for ourselves. We didn't want to be hypocrites. We wanted to say, no, we are doing this on purpose. And we're going to show you how our business is going to grow at the speed of cash. And it's been an amazing journey to watch. That's awesome. I'm happy to hear that you guys were profitable in the first month because you practice what you preach. You set up budgets for yourself. What is the one thing when you talk about budgeting? I'm curious. I used to ask guests, like, what's the one thing you don't go keep on? What is the one thing that you always splurge on? And I would get everything from I always use cotton nail toilet paper to I always go on vacations or I always have the best technology. You individually, Shayna, Vanessa, what are your favorite things to splurge on? I'm going to speak for both of us. Our kids are the things that we splurge on. We're not even splurging, but our kids are, they're not, they're not in their cheap era right now. I have three kids she has two and our oldest are 17 and we are funding their life right now, which is the best, best time of our life. But anyway, I'm just joking, but they go to a really nice school. They have, we try to feed them really well and they're all athletes and they cost a lot of money. So they're a big part of that budget. Are they the kids that have the Air Force ones and the Louis Vuitton's? No, that's so funny that you said that. That's interesting. I'm glad you said that because I want to elaborate. Yeah, I didn't think about that. Yeah. So they go to a private Christian school that we absolutely love. It's there. It's there all family there. It's a classical Christian school and they, so their supplements cost a lot, their food costs a lot, their involvement. So her son is very big in music. My kids are big in sports. Her daughter is also big in, or she has two daughters that are also big in sports. So it's just what they're involved in and the things that they're doing are very expensive, which we would not change. We absolutely love being 100% present in their lives doing all this. Also, the boys, they're about to go to college. So it's just making sure that, and all their ACT's, SAT's, like all of that, just making sure that they're on the right track and making sure that we can provide everything that we can to make them as successful as possible. But to your point, no, I don't, we don't, I don't think anybody that we know owns Louis Vuitton, but they, they get their school clothes. My daughter went to a dance. She borrowed a dress from her daughter. That's where we're at. My son has exactly one pair of jeans that fit him and that's a different problem. But no, we, I'm glad that you brought that up. And that's why we say your bougie is different for everybody. We don't do all of these brand name things. We don't, we're not going to Starbucks every day or anything like that. But because we're all, we're focused on these other things. And I think everybody needs to understand that your bougie is different. That was what you were saying, what people don't want to give up. And that's important. That's important to know. And that's why you do make good money. You do work hard for your money. So you should, you deserve to have the things that, that you like, but it's important to get it all on paper so that you're not wasting money on stuff that you don't like, or that you don't, that's not important to you. So sometimes, like I said, sometimes I ask these people, I said, I know you're not home to watch TV. Why are you spending hundreds of dollars on TV every month? I know that's not a value or it's maybe it is, but you don't have time anyway. So let's pause all of that until life slows down, which never happens, by the way. I just think it's important to not compare yourself to what everybody else is doing. And if your kids see their friends having Louis Vuitton purses and Air Force One shoes or whatever, they may go, Oh, mom, I want this. Why do you want it? Do you want it because it's important to you? Or do you want it because you see other people doing it? No, this is what we're doing. This is how we fund your life. This is what's important to our family and what we're doing for you. And I think that, and I know I'm going to go into this other part of it, but it's really good to bring the kids in on the conversation on this. A lot of people are scared to talk to their kids about money because they turn it unknowingly, but they turn it into like a negative conversation of we can't, we have no money, we can't afford it. No, we're not doing that versus, Hey, this is what we're doing. This is how we're providing for you. This is everything that we're giving you. And maybe they have chore money or whatever that they have an allowance that they can decide how they want to spend that money. But it's just, it's really good to stop comparing and just making sure that you're making decisions based on what's best for you and your family and what you want and your goals. I love that you include your kids in the conversation because especially girls, statistics show, and I used to work for a nonprofit that would empower women around math. That was the goal of it. Statistics show that sometimes boys are talked to a little bit about investing in budgeting and about money, but not women. So it feels intimidating to start with budgeting and even when they graduate college and get their first salaries, being able to ask for the money that they want. That's good. Yeah. A lot of women still don't like to talk about money. That's very true. Yeah, that's very true. So yeah, definitely talk to them. One thing that we like to do is they have their own savings accounts and maybe their own investment accounts and let them watch it grow. Talk to them about interests and stuff like that. We also, our kids in particular, have always earned money for their sports and for their bigger things. They've been at different levels, whether they need to pay for half of it or they need to earn a certain amount because they need to be in, have some skin in it. And also, I think we think that one of the most important things you can do is teach your kids about money. Teach them financial literacy. Don't give them money. Like you can if you want, but that's not nearly as helpful to them as teaching them how to make money, how to manage money, how to save money, all of those kind of things. And so we really have tried to bring them in on that part of the conversation as well. And then like Vanessa alluded to with our clients, we always have them set up an account for their kids. We used to do cash, but nobody takes cash anymore. So now they have accounts. And then like Vanessa said, automatically we can put money in there every month. And then you're having conversations with them. That's great. You want to go to the birthday party and you want to swimsuit. You pick, this is your budget, you figure it out, or maybe that's when they decide to go to thrift store and get something instead of because they're thinking about the money. And to your point, we just, nobody wants to talk about it. It's taboo. And then we just get launched into adulthood without ever having talked about it or learned. And then we're just repeating some of these cycles. And so yeah, I think we forget that maybe we didn't have that conversation with the kids. And I have really cute example. My aunt went to Portugal to visit my family and my daughter was in charge of watering her plants. And a couple times my husband went with her to water the plants. And then a couple times I went with her. The one time I went with her, I'm watching her water these plants and she's barely putting any water and we're coming once a week. And I said, do you not know how to water plants? And she goes, what do you mean? And I said, you're not putting enough. And so I literally had to go over there and show her how to water plants and have the mindset of, look, you're only coming once every seven days, you need to make sure you're, and I explained the whole thing, but I got back in the car and I thought, I failed my child. She doesn't even know how to water plants. But I think that rolls over to any type of concept, anything that you want to teach your kids, you may think that they know because they're supposed to know where they hear you talk about it or they see you do it. But that's not the same as sitting down and having the conversation of financial literacy and understanding what that means and how to empower them to have the knowledge and the information. So that way when they go someday to negotiate their salary, they understand their worth, they know what all that means because then they know what they need. If they have a budget that's showing, I need this much to survive and I want, I have goals and dreams and things that I want to aspire to, to be and have, I need the money to be able to support that. So having them be confident enough to know about their money so they can have those conversations is really important, but we can't automatically assume that they already know. No. And I know with plants, that's something I'm learning about. I've over-watered mine because I'm like, oh, I travel so much. Am I going to be home enough to take care of them and then I've over-watered them? They're just as likely to disease. Yeah. Yeah, just learning where that balance is. I know something else I'll touch up on is I've doubled in kind of the Maria Kondo lifestyle and that minimalist and it's not necessarily restricting what I have, but it's appreciating what I have. And as a result, I do spend more money on experiences, memories. I don't need a lot of stuff sitting in my closet that I'm not going to wear or something that's going to collect dirt. Whereas in my 20s, it was all about having certain brands and showing people that I was successful instead of enjoying my own success. And I think that's so good. And I think that it's important that you found that. Like you were talking about dancing and how much you love to dance. What's an experience? You'll never get those memories or you'll never get that time back. So for you to be able to take your money and spend it on something that you're always going to remember, you're always going to look back on. I think that's so important than this thing that's going to fill a landfill someday. Now tell us one last thing that you want to leave the listeners with. If there's one thing that you got from this entire conversation, it's to open up a separate checking account for your spending and let that other checking account that you've been spending out of be your solely for your bills. Perfect. Thank you guys so much. Thank you all for listening. And Shayna Vanessa, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having us on Ella. That was really fun. Yes. So we love talking about the B word girl. We had a good time. So much. 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