Financial Coaching for Women: How To Budget, Manage Money, Pay Off Debt, Save Money, Paycheck Plans

Make Your March 2026 Budget with Us: A Step-by-Step Monthly Money Plan

28 min
Feb 23, 20263 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Hosts Shayna and Vanessa guide listeners through creating a March 2026 budget using their five-step system: income, debt, bills, spending, and savings. They walk through a real client example (two teachers earning $16,000/month) to demonstrate how to close out the previous month, list all income sources, account for minimum debt payments, categorize bills and subscriptions, allocate discretionary spending, and plan for upcoming expenses like spring break trips and birthday celebrations.

Insights
  • Budgeting success requires visualizing all income sources (paychecks, reimbursements, side income) in one place to understand total available funds for the month
  • Separating minimum debt payments from discretionary extra payments prevents underfunding essential expenses and allows strategic debt payoff focus on one debt at a time
  • Recurring monthly spending (gas, groceries, entertainment, personal money) should remain consistent to reduce decision fatigue and create predictable budget patterns
  • Subscription audits become possible only when all recurring charges are listed together, enabling intentional spending decisions rather than passive consumption
  • Savings buckets for known future expenses (holidays, car maintenance, sports fees) prevent emergency credit card use and distribute costs across multiple months
Trends
Growing adoption of visual, aesthetically-designed budgeting tools to increase user engagement and reduce psychological resistance to financial planningShift toward automated, set-and-forget budget systems that separate accounts by function (bills, spending, savings) rather than manual transaction trackingIncreased focus on permission-based spending models that allocate discretionary funds upfront rather than restricting or shaming consumer choicesRecognition that subscription fatigue is widespread; budgeting platforms now highlight subscription aggregation as a key feature for cost discoveryEmphasis on paycheck-ahead methodology to decouple income timing from expense timing and reduce paycheck-to-paycheck financial stressIntegration of family financial conversations into budgeting systems, including separate accounts for children's allowances and spending educationDebt payoff strategy diversification (snowball, avalanche, minimum payment methods) becoming standard educational content in consumer finance coaching
Topics
Monthly budget creation and structureIncome tracking and multiple income sourcesMinimum debt payment vs. extra debt payment strategyRecurring bills and subscription auditsDiscretionary spending categories (groceries, entertainment, personal money)Savings buckets for planned expensesPaycheck-ahead budgeting methodologyDebt payoff methods (snowball, avalanche, minimum payment)Family financial planning and children's allowancesSeasonal and annual expense planningAccount separation and automationBudget visualization and designDebt consolidation considerationsEmergency fund buildingFinancial coaching for couples
Companies
Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University
Hosts Shayna and Vanessa are master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey's methodology and principles
People
Shayna
Co-hosts the podcast and guides listeners through monthly budgeting process with real client examples
Vanessa
Co-hosts the podcast and provides coaching insights from client work, particularly debt payoff strategies
Quotes
"Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it? Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck?"
Shayna or VanessaOpening segment
"We want you to pay for what brings you joy and what you're excited about. But if you're paying for seven or eight different online streaming subscriptions and you're not using them, then that's a conversation that needs to be had."
Shayna or VanessaSubscriptions discussion
"Your bill is a bill. If you get charged for it every single month, it's reoccurring, it's consistent, you know what's happening. So that's what goes in your bill column."
Shayna or VanessaBills section
"Savings buckets are really how you avoid going into debt in the future. That's why we want to have that column."
VanessaSavings section
"Once I put it on paper, I realized I can afford it and me, it's not as bad as I thought it was."
Shayna or VanessaClosing segment
Full Transcript
Want to pay off debt but don't know where to start? Stop making random extra payments and hoping for the best. Let's build a debt payoff strategy that actually works. Join us Thursday, May 28th for our debt payoff workshop so you'll know what you owe so you can pick your debt payoff method and you can start getting out of debt. We'll help you organize your debt, understand your balances, interest rates and minimum payments and help you choose what to pay first. Discover all three payoff methods including the snowball, avalanche and minimum payments and we'll also tell you what to know before applying for debt consolidation. No shame, no finance bro nonsense, just your next right step. Grab your spot at budgetbesties.com forward slash debt workshop. You guys, you know what that time of month it is? Uh oh. It is to make your upcoming month's budget. It is the end of February, it's only 28 days which means you really need to get on your game for more. Yeah. It's really short. Yes, yes. And you know, it's, you were just saying to me the other day Vanessa, like do you know next week is the last week of February? And I was like what, why are you saying, why are you saying these things to me? And I realized it's because January felt like 18 years and then like you said February is so short and it's like goes fast and we have so much going on this month personally. And so anyway, the point is February is almost over. It's time to make your March budget. Like March is coming you guys and we want you to have a plan in place before it hits so that, and then if you do what we tell you, it can be kind of automated and then you can just like enjoy March. Sit back and relax. 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 working but 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 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. 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 their 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. All right, so listen, this is the episode where we make your monthly budget. But before we make the upcoming month's budget, we have to close out the current month. Okay, so sometimes you'll be making this budget depending on where you get paid because remember we want you to get a paycheck ahead. So if you're using the last February's paycheck for the upcoming month, you may be making this. Let's see if you get paid on a Friday, you may have made this on the 20th, right? Or you may be making it on the 27th, whatever that looks like for you. You have a couple of straggler bills that still need to get paid even though that paycheck is coming in, but you're not supposed to remember use that paycheck for any of the bills in that month because it's going for the upcoming month. So we really need to make sure, look at your budget for the current month and just kind of close it out and see, okay, all the bills are covered with the previous two paychecks and this last paycheck of the month is definitely going to go all towards March. Yeah, okay, so you're going to quickly close out your budget. All you're doing is just seeing if any bills were slightly different or if there was an extra bill that you forgot or if you messed up, like you're not allowed to, but you accidentally spent money out of the bills account or whatever. And so you just want to close it out so that you have that for reference and you can move forward with the clean slate into March. And it's really exciting because the first thing you're going to do is just list out all your income. You're going to list out all that income. It's going to feel so good. You're going to be like, look at all the money I make. So if you look at this budget, this is actually a client's budget. Okay. And so we like to show you all different kinds of budgets with all different kinds of income with different bills, different things going on. So you know that it's not cookie cutter. It's not always perfect. It's not always the same. And that this system works as a matter of whether you bring in $7,000 a month or $30,000 a month. Okay. And if you look at this budget, you can see that they're using, it says the 30th, that's supposed to be the 28th, their February 27th paycheck actually to go towards March. And they're all set ready to go, which means that they are a paycheck ahead. Yes. That's fantastic. And you said that one of these persons is a teacher, right? Actually, no, they're both teachers. Yeah. I was wondering if possibly because they have the same paydates. So as much as we will sometimes get flack from you guys because we put like they're making a total of $16,000 a month right now, this is on teacher's pay. This is a regular person job. Like all of us have regular people job and they're making decent money. And that's why you're here because you probably feel like you make good money. You have nothing to show for it. And so even though it's a higher income, maybe some of you might feel it's still like two teachers, regular, very relatable. Yeah. But when you see us make this budget, you'll understand like they make good money, but their regular monthly bills are like they could live off of that even if they made almost like three fourths of all this, right? Because it works. So when you look at the income here, they have their income, her and her husbands, plus their daughter pays for herself and bill, plus she has a reimbursement from her HSA because it's paying for the orthodontist bill, plus she has extra pay because she knows she's doing something extra as a teacher like staying after for something. So she's got that coming in. Now, that extra pay, she believes it's going to be around $800, but she only put 300 because she's not sure. And you always want to make sure when you're doing your income that you're putting a guaranteed income that you absolutely know that's going to come in. Yeah. And so the real point here is it's not just their paychecks that are on the budget in the income. The daughter's cell, the money that their daughter is reimbursing for the very expensive cell phone bill that she has apparently, is income. It needs to go in the income line. It needs to be counted. The same for the HSA that will come and go, you know, but it's still going to be listed there. And then of course, any extra bonus pay that you get, it's all there so that you can see how much you have to work with and what all is possible in one month total. It's not going to separate account. It's not doing this or that or the other. It's all combined. It's all joining the same army to fight the same fight. We're all in this together. Yeah. Okay. Once you have all of your income listed and again, every single source of income is coming into this column, then we're going to move on to the debt column. The debt column. And your debts are any money that you owe anyone for any reason. Yeah. And yes, this is like not the most exciting thing to do right after you just listed all your income and you're like, look at all the money I make. And then, but immediately it is like we want you to see it. We want you to be like, oh, it's not my, that's not my favorite thing. And like these particular people Vanessa has worked with and they paid off some, some debts recently, but so they only have two. A lot of times guys, we see that you'll have way more than two to list in the debt column. And so the thing is, is it gets you motivated because when you see like they're only paying, they're paying $597 every single month toward debt. Many of you will be in the thousands, $2,000 between card payments and credit cards and student loans and all of that. And we're not, we don't want you to feel bad about it, but we want you to see it because this column, everything in the debt column can go away and it will give you a good focus. It's separate. It's not a bill. It's separate. It's something that we can work on and get rid of so that we can have more money back in our budget. Yeah. Imagine having that money like she has an extra almost $600 that she could have in her budget. And I understand she makes good money and she's doing a lot with it. But like Shayna said, she had a lot more debt. We paid some of it off. So now she's able to do more with that money. And as you see, she's got some big things going on last month and this month. So we had to be able to fund that. And she did not, she would have, if she wasn't in coaching and she didn't have a plan, put it on a credit card, but she's not, she's able to put it and use cash for it. Yeah. So the debts are going to go ahead and list out the name of the debt, the minimum payment only. And why are we only listing the minimum payment due in this column? And I'm glad you asked guys. So I'll tell you. So I know you're like dying to know. Okay, so listen, we want you to pay more on debt. We do. We're really excited for you to be able to do that. However, you need to know how much you cost in a month, bare minimum before we can decide how much extra you can put on debt. You need to know like how much you can pay in gas and groceries. There's so much more going on. Plus, when you're doing like $5 extra here, $100 extra here, $50 here, $50 here, $50 here, $50 here. You're not actually making a lot of progress. So we want you to put all of your minimum payments due for debt on this column. And then we want you to take the bulk of money. Like you can see right here, they have that total remaining. We want you to take that bulk of money and then choose one debt to be able to put all of it on so you can make the most progress. Yeah. So, okay. So at this point, we've added up, this was the positive number in your, in your budget was the income you're like really excited. So, and then we've, the first thing that we took away was the debt. So we added those up. We're taking that away. Now we know, okay, in this case, they had set 16,000 minus 600 left to fund the rest of the budget. Well, the next column that we're going to start to look at is bills, right? A bill is anything with an invoice and a due date, right? It's kind of regular coming out of your account. You know how much it is, same amount kind of every month. That's what the bills are. And we like you to list them if you can in like due date order. It's kind of for fun, but you don't have to. Really, you just want to brain dump, especially if this is your first one. Yeah. Like every, every bill you have, which also by the way also includes, as you can see in this budget, if you're following along at budgetbestseeds.com forward slash March budget, a lot of subscriptions. Yes. They do. So remember, mortgage utilities, insurance, phone bill, they have Xbox, they have their gym membership, they have Roblox, they have storage, they have their chopsticks that they get monthly. We're excited about that. Comcast, there's just so much going on, but all of it is listed here so they can visually see how much they're spending on their bills every single month. And also, this isn't a needs or wants or fixed or variable. Like that's, no, your bill is a bill. Okay. If you get charged. On Capitol Hill. Okay. And bill, you get, you get charged for it every single month. It's reoccurring like Shayna said. It's consistent. You know what's happening. So that's what goes in your bill column. Yeah. And you might have to go pull these from all kinds of different places, right? Cause it might be on your credit card or your kids playing this one or your husband's paying that one or whatever. We're going to put them all in one, one column and then eventually all in one account. And they're all going to pay out the same thing. Something that we recommend is maybe putting, putting all your regular bills and then like maybe at the bottom, you can list all your subscriptions out, especially as you're just getting started because this is the first time, most likely that you're going to have seen all of these on one paper. And that's when you can make some decisions. If you want to, again, we're not telling you this is your budget, your, your choices. But if you see, oh, I have three music and five TV streaming things, I may not need all of those. Then you'll, you'll see them all in one place and you can make like, oh, but we definitely want Disney. We don't need Netflix or whatever you want to do. Yeah. But having the data and looking at it in front of you is really important in order to make that decision. Yeah, we have never come to a client and be like, well, you have to cut X, Y and Z. And we, you know, we had a lady one time in our, we were guesting on her podcast and she said, what's the first thing you tell people to cut? And we're like, that's not what we do. That's not how we budget. We want you guys to pay for what brings you joy and what you're excited about. Okay. So if you, but if you're paying for seven or eight different online streaming subscriptions and you're not using them, then that's a conversation that needs to be had. If you're using everything that you're paying for it and you, you are budget allows you to do that, go for it. Yeah. And so to Vanessa's point earlier at this point, you can see how much you spend on bills every month. And usually guys, it's not, it's not, it's not near, it's not as much as you're going to be putting in that spending and saving column. Right. And that's very interesting. A lot of times like these people haven't, maybe they don't feel like they need to, but they haven't really streamlined their subscriptions. But a lot of times after a couple months with our clients, we really see that bills column is as little as it really can be. Like we're not, we're not like over exuberant on those things. And so you'll, you'll know that my income minus my debt in this, in this instance, their income was 16,000. Then they did 6,000 on, or 600 on debts and then they're paying 5,000 give or take on bills every month, right? Which means they still have $11,000 to budget. And that's what we want you to see. We want you to see, okay, after every bill and every debt payment is over. And every debt payment is, what do I have left to allocate towards spending or savings? Yeah. All right, budget besties. It's time for surreal talk. You don't need another budget. You need a budget system. Our simplified budget system is what you've been looking for. It's going to allow you to be bougie on a budget. You'll be able to easily set up a system that runs automatically and shows you exactly where your money is going. And it's going to give you permission to spend. Everybody loves that. Yeah. It's straightforward, pretty and packed with walkthrough videos that break down the exact methods we use with our clients to get out of debt, set up a bills account, separate spending, build savings buckets and end the paycheck to paycheck feel. 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 once you fill in your income, your minimum debt payments and all of your recurring bills that you have, then we move on to the spending section of your budget. Yay. So this is where you live in your budget, right? Your spending is all the discretionary. This is where you're buying gas and groceries. This is where you're going out to eat. This is where you're getting pocket money. You're going to Starbucks. Like all the different things that you need cash for and all that. Yeah. And we were recently talking in another podcast about groceries and how people think that they have to be. Like it's a fluctuating number, but actually what we have, maybe we're the only people of it. So we're very special, but we definitely preach that 90% of your budget can be the exact same every month, which is going to make you feel so much better. It's going to make you feel light as could be because you don't have to make all these decisions. But part of that is in your spending, we basically have four or five of the exact same spending categories, line items, accounts, whatever you want, whatever verb is we want, that are the same for every client. And then you can vary it up. Yeah. So at the top of this spending section, we have your gas and groceries, you're eating and entertainment, which is going out deep. We do have her dry clean with her because she pays it in cash and she doesn't want to pay it from the bills account because she's pulling it out, right? And she doesn't touch the bills account. We have her and her husband spending money and then they have kids. So those are really your five big categories of spending that you're going to have consistently every single month. Unless if you want to do like specific kids account. So like for her case, she does a generic kids, but some people will have each kids names and then they get, you know, they each get their own money. Yeah. And so let's let's let's rewind here. So gas and groceries. If you don't know a number, you there's a couple things you can do. You can go back and see what do I what did I spend last couple months on average, put that full number in there and then we're going to break we can break it down from there. We'll tell you about that in a minute. Or you just guess, like really, if you just don't have time for that, like guess, okay, I think I spent $2,000 because I get really excited. I spent $2,000 because I give or take spend this much a week, 500 a week or whatever. Put it put it in there and then let let we can adjust as we go. The same with entertaining. So the entertainment, we usually have a line item called entertainment or family fun or eating out. Like it's really whatever you I had a client. I had a client once. I mean, it really was like not beer, but like going to the bar. Like that was their date night and they like to go to breweries or whatever. And I can't remember what was called, but it was that's really all they ever did. And then their son had his own because they only had one kid and he has own like eating out budget. So it really is. But that's what that one is. And that's a that's really important to set aside. And in these two things, if you can get those streamlined and like and like same every month, you're really going to feel like that that push and pull of your budget really lessen. And this is why we have clients and say, Hey, I didn't use all of my grocery money this month. Do I roll it over or do I put it towards that or what do I do with it? And our first suggestion is to leave it because we know that you're going to end up spending it one way or another and you're going to need it. Girl, if there's bogos at the store, I'm going to go grocery shopping. I'm buying them. Okay. So it's good to have that extra buffer in there. Now, if you're like, no, I know I'm very strategic. I'm on it. I know I'm never going to use it. I'm good next month. Then put it on debt. But this is why we're saying your budget can pretty much be consistent. So if you're saying, well, no, mine's not this time. I only use 200 or this time I use 300. If you average it out over the year, you're going to spend about the same amount every single month. But if you do end up with extra leave it because you will need it at some point. Yeah. And so the other, so those are the first two, the gas and groceries and then the entertainment, whatever way you want to, you want to phrase that eating out and then that are non-negotiable. Obviously, or maybe it's not obvious, but we tell, we're telling you that it's personal spending money is non-negotiable for you and your spouse in your budget. The amount here, this is a little bougie. It's a little fun time. They're having a little good time. That's okay. You can have as much as your budget will really allow or make sense, but it's non-negotiable that it is in there. And that's always going to be the same. In this case, they are getting money in their personal spending account and then they're also getting a little cash to carry in their wallet as well. So you can do it whichever way makes the most sense for you. And they broke it apart here. So you can, if you're watching and if you guys know our budget, we have emojis, we love little emojis. And it tells you, is this going to be, you're using a debit card from an account or are you pulling this out in cash? And so you can really at a glance see what is happening with your money and how you need to take money out. Like she knows she's got her cleaners. It's the same. She pulls it out in cash. She has her cleaners and her, her husband's cash and the kids money is in cash as well. So what she does is she adds that up. Our paycheck plan does that for you. You're able to take that and you know when you go to the ATM exactly how much you need to pull out and voila, you're done for the budget. And the paycheck plan tells you how much you pull out and then which category, how much each amount will get in their wallet or whatever. And so the last one that is always there is the kids. Well, if there are kids at home and that is different for everybody, how they want to do it. In this case, it's the lunch money plus a little cash for the kid or whatever. And that's how much she knows to get out every paycheck so that that's always funded. And we want you to have a kids account or a kids line on them because we want that. That's another one of those things that if you really think about it, that seems to mess up your budget every month, right? That's why we want to systemize it. And then on purpose, we're deciding how much we're doing and if the kids want to do something, then they can choose based on the budget what they can do and what they're not going to do. And it's really important. Right. Okay, so listen, we're bringing you a real life budget. So this isn't cookie cutter. So this one doesn't have savings buckets. Okay, so if you listen to us, you know that we always say you're going from income to minimum debt payments to bills to spending to savings. When she first came to me for coaching, she had all these savings buckets and she still has the accounts. They're there, but we're not putting anything in them this month because she has a trip coming up that she was either going to put on credit cards or she was going to put on credit cards and fund her savings buckets or not fund her savings buckets and be able to pay for it in cash. And that's the route we chose. So we are not funding any savings buckets right now because she has a lot going on, which means then this month, so if you're, if you know, we do the exact same five about $5. Different categories at the very top and then we list what is going on this month. What are the things that are happening this month that we know that we need to fund? And that is why that this budget does not have a savings bucket section because we're going to pick that up next month. We're very excited about that. Yeah, so normally you have like one or two things that are because like we said, we will have savings buckets. You will have a savings bucket for travel for for your kids for Christmas for gifts and all of that will be systemized so that you can have a very consistent monthly budget and it's not weird. However, as especially in the beginning, there are things that come up in the month that you haven't yet said for or that you didn't think to budget for or whatever. So that they'll have like one or two line items there, right? And so that's where that's going to go. And then so then at this point we've taken the income minus the debts minus the bills minus spending and now we would be able to go put savings. So in this case, if she she would have $847 left after all of her spending for the month, which is super fun. She could either say I want to start my annual bills savings buckets for $200 and and then travel for 500 or five or whatever. And that's when we would start to do it. And it would come out of what's left over after we've done those other things and and savings buckets guys are really how you avoid going into debt in the future. That's why we want to have that column. That's why we want to have start funding them for the things that you know that you're going to fund. Even if your goal is to pay off debt, there's still certain things that you need to save money for so that you don't revert to using debt when they come up. So in the month of February, they had a Disney trip in the month of March, they have a universal trip, right? So there's a lot going on. And this month there's $3,000 going for this trip. And that was like part of what was already paid for like previously. So listen, there were some things that she wanted to do that she just couldn't do because this is this is was her goal. This is like their their spring break trip with the kids and they're so excited to make this happen. And like Shayna said, this is a $3,000 line item in her budget. Imagine if she had been saving for this over a 12 month period or over months and actually had a savings bucket set aside and didn't make this decision. Maybe like in a short period of time, she would not have to pull $3,000 out of a month's budget to be able to do that. So that's what savings buckets allows you to do. It allows you to take out the unexpected expenses that are coming up like this trip and be able to plan for them. So like Shayna said, annual bills, savings buckets, Christmas, your gifts, your kids' birthdays, vet bills, all the different things that you know that you're going to spend money on eventually. You should be able to save for them over time. Yeah, so now what we what we know is that she has extra money in the budget. And so her goal, like Vanessa said, is to pay off debt, right? So she's been doing a good job of that. Vanessa's been working with her already pay off debt. So now the last thing that we're going to do in your budget is whatever your goals are, right? And so for them paying extra on debt, you can see this comes last. So we told you, we promise you, you could pay extra on debt if you want, you're just not doing it first. You have to see like Vanessa said earlier, how much do you class? How much can I actually afford to pay extra on debt? Because I don't want to just put a huge payment on there. And then at the end of the month, I have to go use credit cards again, because I didn't actually have that money. This system allows you to see it the same with it allows you to see how much you're spending because these folks can see like what I would know a client would be coming in and be like, I have to use credit card. I can't afford this. Well, actually, once we put it all on paper, we know you can afford it. And that's what budgeting does. Even if you have a crazy month where you're doing all the things, let's see what the numbers say. Let's look at the math. And for them, they're going to be able to go on these troops, pay for everybody's apparently everybody's birthday is happening. And they're going to be able to pay extra on debt. Yeah, absolutely. And then like Shana said, like you're being you're able to do all of this and put an extra $847 on debt. That's awesome. If you make less, that is okay. Your bills and your spending are going to reflect that, right? So yes, she's doing a lot because she can afford to do a lot. But like last month she messed up. She told me, she's like, listen, I messed up. We looked at it and I said, look, it's a wash. We're going to plan better for March. We're going to do better. And we did. We increased our groceries. We increased some of her spending money. We fixed some stuff. And yet we could not do the savings buckets yet because she said, nope, my goal this month is to completely pay off. And I think that Southwest card is going to get paid off this month. And she's so excited. So that way come April guys, her savings buckets, like they're going to be on full force. Yeah. And it's important to note that you're, once you make this budget, you also should have a goal, you know, and it doesn't always have to be monetary. It might be a goal. Like my main goal is I'm going to pay off this one debt or my main goal is I'm going to get a paycheck ahead or my main goal is I have a client where her focus other than just setting up the system and letting it do its job is to call all of her creditors and see if she can get reduced interest rates or payment plans are deferred or whatever. Like you need a goal for the month with your money. Like what is our, even if it's a habit goal, like let's just think, what are we focusing on this? But then also Vanessa, there are some things that we would like to do. There are some things that we want you to remember for March. So you saw them there. Their big thing is birthdays and trips and trips that they needed to add to their budget. I had a client that needs to add braces and they're also adding to their budget, saving for a new car for a new driver in their family. Yep. So, you know, just to help jog your memory, maybe you've got spring break coming up and listen, if you're, if you're like, oh, no, spring break, it's not till April. Well, how much is that spring break trip going to cost you? And could you spread it out over two months instead of trying to wait until April to do that? We've got, you can early Easter prep because Easter is the very beginning of April. And if you don't have enough money to be able to fund that, then you can try to do some of that in March as well. Spring cleaning, it's that time of year where things are going to get warmer and planning and fertilizing and whatever else in the yard. And maybe you're doing a whole house clean thing. And so, you know, be able to plan for these things and know what's coming up so that way you can pay for them in cash. Yeah. And hey, you have a young guy that is starting his spring sport, which is baseball. And so you guys, if you have sports that are coming up or camps or whatever, let's go ahead and start getting those funded and plan and pay for. And don't forget about the fees. Those are one, but then also are there supplies? Like somebody got a new baseball club. He did get a very pretty new baseball club. I can't wait to see it. Beautiful. But those are kind of the things. And then maybe like different car maintenance. You said Vanessa that you have your client that every spring she likes to do like $600 with a yard, flowers, fun stuff. So, you know, anything like that, that's what you want to think about putting in that March budget on purpose with your numbers and seeing what you can do and what you can fund in the whole month. Yeah. Because listen, it's wedding season. And I think it's also baby season. Because I think people are inside in the wintertime. So all the babies are due in spring. Yeah. So what we have shown you is you're going to set up this budget. It's so simple guys. It's so pretty. We understand that nobody originally like woke up today and was like, I can't wait to budget. We have made it as simple as appealing as possible so that you will do it. You can do this. Income, debts, bills, money that I spend and money that I want to save. You can do that. You're totally capable. We believe like we've made it as simple as possible for you to do. I'm actually, Shayne, I got to say that I think a lot of our customers do love pulling off our budget because it is so pretty. And I actually have some of this. I just pull it up because it's so pretty and easy to look at. So listen, budgetbessies.com forward slash March budget. Follow along. Help. This will hopefully help you build your March budget so you can see what things that you may have missed. Because I remember I actually in November forgot to budget for my client for Thanksgiving. Oh, it's fine. Yeah. No one's perfect. We're going to figure we're going to get it all together. Yeah. And so this will, this is just helping you like, yeah, it's going to be pretty to look at, but it's going to make you really feel in control. You know, one of the hardest financial habits to break that we've learned recently for you guys is like looking at your numbers, not being afraid, taking control. And this, this is doable. You can do this. And so we wanted you to see it. We want you to know it's literally five steps. Yeah. It's doable. You can, we want to see you be successful and we have done everything we can to hopefully help you, encourage you and remind you that it's time to make your March budget. Yeah. And one of the things that I really appreciate about this year guys is that once I put it on paper, I realized I can afford it and me, it's not as bad as I thought it was. Yeah. So get the wrecking balls out of your brain, put it on paper, whether you're a digital person, whether you print it out, whatever you want to do, get your numbers down so you can see what is possible. Yeah. And if you really want to learn about this, go to our boot camp because what we're, what we have shown you is really step one, Vanessa, it's simplified. Like this is more simple than it, than you thought it was. I think it, but then in the boot camp, we're teaching you about separating and then automating, which is like the magic. It's when it becomes magic. Yeah. Absolutely. So if you want to learn more about our three step process, go to budgetbesties.com forward slash start and check out our boot camp. If you're tired of feeling like your finances are all over the place and you're ready for a simple, set it and forget it, way to budget, we have something special for you. Watch our automate your budget masterclass at budgetbesties.com forward slash automate. We'll show you step by step how to finally organize your money, how to set up your accounts and put your budget on autopilot. So your bills, saving and spending run like clockwork. Imagine less stress, more savings and the freedom to spend money without having to track every dollar or babysit your bank account. Go to budgetbesties.com forward slash automate to start today.