How to Lower Your Credit Card Payments and Free Up Cash Fast | 544

I want my kids to be set in a better place than me. What does that mean? We talk about money because they have moms, our kids have moms that are financial coaches. It's just, it's inevitable, right? We know that they're gonna be very equipped by the time that they grow up, by the time they're in college, they get married, they have kids. We want them to be financially savvy. And like she's saying this, financially illiterate. This is what you should want for your kids. Yeah, and I always push back because a lot of people will tell me how busy their kids are. And I understand that your kid is busy. They have to learn to manage their time and stuff costs money. Like, it doesn't matter how busy you are. I don't know, are you, once you're an adult, is somebody gonna pay your bills so that you can continue to do all your favorite hobbies? No, that's probably not gonna happen. So we have to learn now. And the cool thing I think Vanessa is there's so many opportunities, more entrepreneurial versions. Like Vanessa's son is able to mow grass for some people during the summers when he's less busy on purpose or whatever else he does. That way he can stock up money. And when he's in the middle of every single sport all year round, he doesn't have to necessarily worry about it as much. Obviously my son edits the podcast so he can make some money that way. He does tutoring on his schedule, whenever he has time. Babies sitting, dogs sitting, all that kind of stuff. Stuff that is not necessarily like every day, every weekend, like stuff that they can hear in there, build up money. You can, like Vanessa said, teach them to have a bills account, teach them to have spending, teach them to save some of it, teach them to give whatever. Doing that opens those conversations on purpose for you to have with them so that you can, you know, it's not like you're even coming from I know everything, it's just let's talk about this. How would this work? What would I do? All of that kind of stuff. And it gives you a good basis, foundation to start having this conversation. Today we're bringing you real life stories and lessons from our private coaching sessions. If our clients are dealing with it, chances are you are too. So we're breaking it down to help you avoid the same mistakes, feel less alone, and walk away with some quick wins for your budget. 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? When you don't want to give up this pumpkin spice latte? 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 for right places. 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. Prove your marriages and even bring your kids in on a 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 loans. And we're not gonna shy away from the tough love. We'll tell you what you need to hear and encourage you at the same time. This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. I have a sweet single mom. I love her, she's a teacher. I believe she lives in California. And she also has some rental properties. She calls it a casita. She has a little house in the back where she gets some income and she also has a full rental property. I think it's long term rental. And listen, she came into coaching and she knew that she needed to change some stuff. Like she just knew things needed to change but she wasn't sure how to change them because she'd been looking at her numbers by herself for so long. And sometimes you do that you get tunnel vision and you're not really sure something needs to change but you don't know what can change and how things can be different. And sometimes getting a fresh set of eyes on it, Shana just helps. It allows for that third person coming in, giving suggestions, we're not emotionally attached to your money. And so it just makes a big difference. I was looking at her monthly minimum debt payments and they were $1,517 a month. So $1,500 a month, she was paying a monthly minimum debt payments. And that was just credit cards and one small utility debt. They weren't, that's not mortgages, that's not anything that was literally credit card debt. And I tried when her first month of coaching editors and have conversations, we have our DIY debt relief workbook. And so I went through that and gave her the script and show her how to do everything, but she didn't do it. And I don't know if it was just time or she just didn't wanna make the phone calls. And I believe I got some of that from her, like that feeling I could tell, like she just didn't want to make those phone calls. Yeah, I don't blame her. I think, I know. And I think I actually remember her saying something like, this isn't embarrassing, just really, she just shamed herself for that. And I thought, listen, you're in a situation where you need some help. And the worst that they say is no, nothing changes. The best that they say is yes, and everything changes, right? So anyways, January happened, she didn't make the phone calls, February happened, she was doing some traveling, didn't happen, finally happened in month three earlier this month. And she was able to lower her debt payments from $1,500 a month to right under $1,100 a month. So $1,091 saving her $426 a month in her budget. Guys, that is not small. That is huge. And that was such a big win for her because guys, she needed that wiggle room in her budget. Yeah, and we've seen that over and over. So I'm gonna have a lesson coming up in the future about ripping the Band-Aid. But that is actually about setting up the automatic transfers, cause people don't like to do that. But this is the ripping the Band-Aid. We have seen so many times, there are like sometimes random companies that are just stubborn and they won't help you. So many times though, they already have a plan. They already know that you're, they already know that if she calls, this is what we're gonna offer her. And it may be a reduced interest rate, it may be a lower payment. And a lot of times it may be payoff. Like they have something for you, you just have to call. And yeah, it's not the most fun conversation. But it's fun saving $426 a month. That sounds like a good time for me. And as my hour on the phone max probably, is it worth that? But why you're doing something else? Is it, am I worth $426 an hour? I think so girl, yeah it's gone. And that's like months, right? That's $426 a month for years. Because this wasn't just, oh, we'll put it in place for six months or what. No, this was permanent changes. Like 100% permanent changes to her credit card payments. I think three of them were down to 0% interest from 29%. These were huge wins for her, saving her thousands and thousands of dollars over years of payments. I just wanna say, if you're teeter-tottering on whether or not these phone calls matter, they do matter, they are worth it. Shayna said, you are worth it, your money is worth it. Take the time to sit down and have a conversation with your creditors because they could say yes and it could make all the difference. All right, I have a really small bit point that I wanna make, which is every four weeks does not monthly. Say it girl, say it girl. And that's annoying. You know, we were talking about Vanessa, we were talking about today how water and trash bills are there to sabotage you. Like they come up with this, I'm gonna build quarterly stupid idea. Like why? Just build me monthly, stupid, it's confusing. Yeah, how does that help you? So the pet food thing. Like the pet food, we're gonna, we want in on this game. We want in on this confusion. So they're like every four weeks or every five weeks or whatever. Or I have some clients that get, every four weeks to get this shipment different kind of shipment every six weeks. So I'm like, oh my God. Okay, anyway, the point is when you're trying to budget for that, you have to understand that four weeks does not mean monthly. You need to take that number. First of all, you take 52 divided by four, right? Cause every four weeks is how often it's gonna end up being 13, right? Like you're gonna end up making 13 payments a month instead of 12. And you're probably putting it in your budget or thinking in your mind. Basically that's once a month. No, it's actually 13 times a year. So it's more than once a month. Not that big a change, but we just wanna make sure we're budgeting quickly. So this fun friend has a lot of animals. Okay, so it's really expensive. She beat me. And so we, she has her whole separate pet fund and we are setting aside this money monthly and her pet bill, her pet food bill is actually coming out of her pet account because it's so much. But what the point is, if you have an expenses every four weeks, you need to do the math and then you need to be saving the right amount. So let's say the four week example, right? You're gonna divide 52 by four. Okay, let's say it's $400. Then you're gonna multiply four times 400. Then you're gonna divide that number by 12 because you want a monthly payment, which it's actually 13 payments, not 12, which is, again, in this particular instance, isn't that big of a difference, but it is enough of a difference to do the math. And then that's the amount that you set aside. It's not that, like I said, it's not that big a deal, but we just want you to understand when it comes to your paychecks, when it comes to your bills, all of these things. If they're doing it every four weeks, your nails, your hair appointments, you need to understand that those are not monthly amounts. We're gonna turn it into a monthly amount so that we can make your budget very predictable. Yeah, I think that's important too, because a lot of people will try to do the week thing, and it's, or you can just do the math that Shayna just did one time and then put it in your budget, put it in your savings buckets, however you're gonna do that. Then that's on a monthly basis, and that's the number that you do. It's very easy, but to try to figure out how many weeks is this and how many weeks is that every single month, and then now your budget isn't consistent, but there's a way to make it consistent. It's just like when people say, I can't do a budget, I can't budget because I have inconsistent income. Like, well, actually you can make it consistent. Let me show you how. So there's a way to do it. We just have to back up, get out of the weeds, and have a bird's eye view, and not have this victim mentality, and say, no, I can't, I am in charge, I can do something about this, I can make a difference here. This is how I'm gonna change it. So my next client came to us as a simplified budget system user for months. She's had it, she's loved it, she's been using it. Okay, hold on. I'm gonna take this time to ask her our clients, ask her our audience. Do you think we should name it the Boozianna Budget System? Should it be the automatic budget system, or should it stay the simplified budget system? Okay, I just want you to know, email us at hellobudgetbudget.bustys.com, I just wanna know. Email us at the Facebook group, tell us, yes, we would love that. We're just trying to figure out how many more domains to buy, guys. Okay, that's where we're at in our life. For fun. Yeah, it's for fun, Zeze. Okay, so she's wonderful, and she's really watched all of our videos, she watched all the walkthrough videos inside the course, watched our filled out example, and wanted to make sure she was doing the budget the exact way that we teach it, which was great. The only thing was, she was loving the idea of saving specits, which everybody does, we hear it all the time. Love this idea of saving for unexpected expenses. She had a ton of them, her and her husband are both teachers, they make great money, but she also has a very bougie budget, as she should, why not? She can afford it, okay? But she had some debt on, I think, two cards still. And she really was trying to pay them off, but she was trying to also fund her savings buckets. So I told her, what if we just pay for in-the-moment things? So it was two months of, okay, what do you have coming up right now? What do we need to pay for in the month of January, in the month of February? We'll put those specific things in the budget, take out all your savings buckets just for two short months, and then we'll go back to funding them, and you will have all of your debt paid off. She didn't believe me that it could be a thing, because she just couldn't see the bigger picture. Again, that's why having somebody else come in and look at your budget, non-emotionaly attached to it, they can make better decisions. And she didn't have any big things coming up to where she needed to save in her savings buckets for them, right? So we did that, and in two short months, she paid off all of her credit card debt, everything was done, the balance was zero, and then so starting month three, we were able to put all of her savings buckets back in. And when we did that, we realized, she realized, I'm $300 short. She said, my bougie was out living my income. And so it was already really great, but she said, no, there's $300 of some things that I know that I can knock down. She was budgeting like a $1,000 clothing budget for her husband every year, and then she's, I know he's not gonna use that. So there were some things in her savings buckets that were more dreamy versus reality. And so I told her, come to the next session, think about, look at your savings bucket planner, come to the next session, let's talk about it, and see where we can wiggle around $300. But now she can really focus on her savings buckets and her full budget, knowing she has no debt. Yeah, what I was gonna say is, her, their income's only gonna go up. Her income's gonna continue to go up, and as you get raises, as you do whatever, maybe you can add some of that stuff that you were dreaming about. But then what my mind went through, Vanessa, is, and I'm not looking forward to this, but also when your kids move. Oh yeah, I think she has two high schoolers, so. She's not far. Can you imagine what your budget is? What you might be able to do with your budget at that point, it's not like a forever thing, is really what I'm trying to say. You will make more money, you could, and then also your lifestyle will change. I remember when I didn't spend thousands of dollars on my kids every month. I remember that just a while ago. Just a while ago. But it will happen, it will go back to being that, and at some point, and then I can take more vacations, I guess, I don't know. We'll see, what do you think I'm gonna do with it? I don't know, I don't know. I can't even imagine. Maybe I can travel to go see them. That's really, let's be honest, let's go to bed. But anyway, so just it's not forever, sometimes if you have to do that, I always think that people forget that their income is for the most part only gonna go up. So that's exciting. Yeah, I always, we like to say, you're making the least amount you're ever gonna make, because you always wanna increase your income over time, you always wanna go, not follow the money, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about knowing. I mean, just naturally though. Yeah, knowing your worth, knowing if you're in a career where you get raises, and your naturally, your income is gonna go up. You have a business, you're naturally gonna increase income in your business, because every year after year, how to be a better business owner. Yep. 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 to 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 gonna 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 you're tired of trying to figure it out on your own, sign up for financial coaching at budgetbesties.com forward slash coaching, before all of our spots fill up, and we will help you go further faster. Six months from now, you'll wish you started today. Okay, this client has a business size. A lot of clients have businesses. Yes, if you feel like budgeting is hard, add a business. Like just double the hard, and so that's why a lot of our clients happen to be business owners, but this has nothing to do with our having a business. This has to do with your kids. And a comment that I was the like witch, the wicked witch or something of the West. I don't know what I was thinking. I think that's a first, Shayna. Yeah, I was like, all right, that's fine. Whatever you need me to be. I don't know why it's my fault, but anyway. So here's the deal. This client had a college kid living with her, and I was telling Vanessa, we believe that kids should pay some of their share. Whatever version of that looks like for you guys, really the most important reason is so that they have some skin in the game, that they start to learn how to pay bills, how to be financially responsible, and they learn some financial literacy. The version of that is different for everybody. In this client's case, they needed the money. They, it was like I said earlier, their mortgage is one full paycheck. That's hard. That makes the, you have to live the rest of your life on the other paycheck, and there's a lot more life to live besides just your mortgage. So they needed a contribution from their college age son who was living with them. So I told them to do the math and decide on a number that they felt was fair. And at that point they did. They, I think they took all of their like regular house bills, divided them by five or something and came up with a number for him to contribute. Okay, so now he's moving out. So he's been contributing that sometimes. So it's fine. Oh, okay, not consistently. Not consistently because he doesn't, Not being held responsible. Because he quote unquote doesn't have time to earn money. And I was like, cause they, like he's a college athlete and I understand they're busy, but if, but something has to give, like life is still life. You still have to live your actual life and pay your bills. So whatever, that's not really my point. Now he's moving out. So he's moving in with, he's moving out of his parents house and he's not gonna own the insurance anymore. But I said, that's fine, but you're also paying his phone bill. You're paying his health insurance and you're paying his car insurance. And he's an adult, he's 2021. What part of that is he gonna be responsible for? And they're not cheap. So this client has three kids on insurance right now or on drivers, three teenage young drivers on their insurance. So they paid $1,200 a month for that. They pay $400 a month for the five cell phones. And then they pay $900 for health insurance. And I said, you need to think about how what he's probably gonna be similar to what he's already been paying you because you really went light on him before. Anyway, and so that's when I was, she was like joking that they, he's not gonna be happy to hear that or whatever because you're already the witch of the family or whatever for making him pay or something. I don't even remember, I know they were joking. I really, truly don't take it personally, but I was just like, okay, but the point is again, it doesn't matter if you make, if you have way more money than you need or not. We want some version of this in place, younger, but especially as an adult child living with you or you're paying their bills for reasons, they need to learn. And that is more important than them feeling financially safe or financially like less stress. It's more important for them to learn in a small, safe way that they are responsible for their own life, their own money, all of that, than it is for you to help them feel less stressed or whatever about money. That is the most important lesson, whether you have a lot of money or a little money, this is something that you need to make sure that you're doing for your kids so that they can be financially literate. Yeah, and I think it's not about the money. Like it has nothing to do with the money at this point. It doesn't like Shana said, whether you can afford it or not. It is the financial literacy part. Imagine you having these conversations with your parents when you were younger, okay? Just imagine if they had with you, in how much more prepared would you be as an adult? And like right now in the day of age that you're in, we want you to take this information that you're learning. You're listening to this podcast for a reason. We want you to use this information as a tool and as education to teach your kids because we want them to be better than us. Our kids, I remember my mom just wanted me to be better than her. That was the natural thing. And for me, I want my kids to be set in a better place than me. What does that mean? That means having, I love my mom. She barely had any types of conversations with me ever when I was younger. My dad did, he was super level headed. We had so many conversations. My dad bought me my first racer, okay? When I was like 12 or whatever. My mom did not. But I saw money being handled, but we really didn't talk about it. But my kids, my gosh, like, we talk about money because they have moms, our kids have moms that are financial coaches. It's inevitable, right? We know that they're gonna be very equipped by the time that they grow up, by the time they're in college, they get married, they have kids. We want them to be financially savvy and like Shayna said, financially illiterate. This is what you should want for your kids. Yeah, and I always push back because a lot of people will tell me how busy their kids are. And I understand that your kid is busy. They have to learn to manage their time and stuff costs money. Like, it doesn't matter how busy you are. Are you, once you're an adult, is somebody gonna pay your bills so that you can continue to do all your favorite hobbies? No, that's probably not gonna happen. So we have to learn now. And the cool thing I think Vanessa is there's so many opportunities, more entrepreneurial versions. Like Vanessa's son is able to mow grass for some people during the summers when he's less busy on purpose or whatever else he does. That way he can stock up money. And when he's in the middle of every single sport all year round, he doesn't have to necessarily worry about it as much. Obviously my son edits the podcast so he can make some money that way. He does tutoring on his schedule whenever he has time. Babies sitting, dogs sitting, all that kind of stuff. Stuff that is not necessarily like every day, every weekend, like stuff that they can hear in there, build up money. You can, like Vanessa said, teach them to have a bills account, teach them to have spending, teach them to save some of it, teach them to give whatever. Doing that opens those conversations on purpose for you to have with them so that you can, you know, it's not like you're even coming from, I know everything, it's just let's talk about this. How would this work? What would I do? All of that kind of stuff. And it gives you a good basis, foundation to start having this conversation. If there is one thing that you take away from all of this to teach your kids, it's for them to separate their spending from their bills. Like it is so important for them to learn that concept because if they have one account, one convoluted account, eventually, as they get younger, what they may have one or two bills, we get it. It's not, you may not seem as important for you to have them separated at that time, but it really truly is important. So if you can teach them at a young age to do that, they're always gonna know that they're gonna have a set amount of money that they're responsible for spending, whatever God wills, they decide that is for them. And then they're gonna have an account that they know that always pays bills. And that is gonna be, it's a very mature thing to have for an 18, 19, 20 year old, right, going into their life that way. So just know that you're gonna set them up for success. Yep, and so we hope that these lessons have helped you, that you maybe can see yourself in some of these different situations, and maybe it is encouraging you or helping you or giving you ideas on how to handle your own fun, financial lessons that you're learning, and we'll see you next time. And listen, if there's some things that you wanna chat about and maybe private coaching is for you, sign up for budgetbesties.com forward slash free call. And we can chat about what you have going on and see if having somebody else coming in looking at it in a different perspective will help you out. 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, wait a 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 around my 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.