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. I would actually say it's going to make you feel a lot better to get it all out on paper and I just had a session with somebody yesterday and it was really fun. She's a single mom, she is digging herself out from a little bit of a hole as well. But I said, look, your goal in February is to open the accounts, set up the system. Nothing else, don't care about anything else. March, then you're going to set up your or you're going to see if you can pay off any extra debt. Then what's next month? My gosh, April's when you're going to start your savings buckets. Like it's just one thing at a time and it will make a difference. But for you getting it out on paper, you might have, you can have two different pieces of paper, but getting it all out on paper is so important. It's so vital. It is going to help that perfection. You're going to see it, you're going to start to see it, but you don't have to do everything at the same time. 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? If you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the month. If you want to seem like you have your finances all together or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances. We know what you're doing probably isn't working, but guess what? You're in the right place. We're Shayna and Vanessa. We're best friends, business partners and master financial coaches trained by Dave Rancy. 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, 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 workers. 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. Alright, Chelsea, welcome to Financial Coaching for Women. We were so excited to have you and chat with you. So tell us what brings you to the call today. I just happened upon you guys by chance, although I don't think it was by chance really. Yeah. I actually went through Financial Peace University years ago and my husband and I like attempted to follow all the baby steps and it worked. But I just felt like it wasn't really for us and the way that you guys describe how you handle finances, it really resonated with me in a way that you could still live life and enjoy life and build memories and be wise with your money. And that's where I want to be. And so that's what pulled me in. Oh, amazing. Thank you for those kind of words. We do hear that a lot. I don't know. And I don't want to say I don't know what it is, but I'm appreciative of the content that we have and the listeners that we have because when we first started out on this journey, it was there's something not right here. Yeah, I'm glad that we're able to do that. I'm glad that what we say our system, the way that we talk about budgeting how we don't just it's not just a budget template, it's not just words and numbers on paper. It's a whole thing. And so we're glad that it is helping you guys and just helping you stay in a different way. Yeah. Oh, but is there something specific that you maybe have a question about or that you want us to hopefully tackle and help you with. I always listen to y'all's intro to the podcast every single time, even though I pretty much haven't memorized at this point, because every time you guys say, do you make good money but have nothing to show for it. And that's totally how we feel. We are a single income household. But my husband makes decent money. And even if we're committed right now, and have been for the last several months to make good choices financially, if there was a choice made even a few months ago or a year down the road that maybe wasn't the best choice. It's catching up to us and we're finding that it's putting us behind. Not only do we not know how to get a paycheck ahead. We don't even know how to get caught up. We're actually behind on bills, but we shouldn't be like on paper, like as far as like how much we make like compared to family, like we we make more money than all of my siblings. And yet we've had to borrow money and that it's not a good feeling. I'm like, okay, we should be okay. We shouldn't be struggling. But because of some decisions we've made in the past, we are and we need to know how to get out from under that, so that we can then start really like following the system and making it work for us. How do you guys have debt, obviously? We do. It's not astronomical, but we do. Okay. And have we have you listened to our podcast where we talk about trying to speak and have conversations with them to see if you can reduce some of that because hearing you and you can hear the weight of all of this. You said you've had to borrow money. I'm trying to figure out what steps have you already taken? Have you opened up separate accounts? Like where are you at in your budgeting journey? So we actually did consolidate before we before I found you guys. Hey, I got you. And I'm like, so we got a loan, like a personal loan, so that we could pay off all of our credit card debt, which we did. And if I'm honest, I don't even know how it happened, but we ended up using the credit cards again. That wasn't the intention and I, it feels dumb that I don't even know what we're doing. Yeah. And so we've done that to try to like get it back in good standing with all of the people. We have what do you call it with your with our mortgage company. They deferred payments for us at one point because we were like two or three months behind. We were looking at foreclosure and we have five children. And so that was not an option for us. And so we've lived with family before. We do not want to do it again. And we so we got caught back up, but now we have found ourselves behind again. And part of that's because I just had major surgery last week and we had to pay several thousand dollars for that. And so now we're like, okay, how do we do this? Because once we get to the three months, our mortgage company will not allow us to make payments. They want everything that's owed all at once. Yeah. Okay. So what I want to say is you're not alone. Like, especially medical debt and just all these different things. There's just so many things that can pop up and even like the most well meaning people. It just, it catches up to you. I wanted to just offer that I had a client that was behind on almost every single bill and she this was mostly in her business, but she didn't have any personal. She was single. So you know how any personal bills, she paid them all through the business. And to the point where she was deciding this person is not yet threatened to cut me off or cut the electricity. So I'll pay this other one until they like it was like that. Yes. One way that that you want to, first of all, you need to have your monthly budget set and you need to like really be honest about that. And then we want to list out, we listed them as debts, all of the past payments that she needed to work on catching up. But that way they were out of the brain. Okay. You know, this is what we've got to catch up on, but it's in my debt, which means not forever, but then I can start just like I would my actual debt. I can start to make a plan on how to catch up. So if I can pay a half an extra mortgage to get caught up this month and then the next month, but you really need to still be able to see it all, but not at the expense of your basic budget. We had another client a long time ago on the podcast. She couldn't pay her debt bills. She couldn't pay them and pay her budget. So she literally didn't pay six credit cards every month, but that gave her tiny bit of wiggle room in her actual budget to be able to slowly start paying off one at a time, even though her credit went down, whatever. She had to make that decision and you might also have to make that decision, but it all does start with that baseline budget. Like if I have the bare minimum on my budget, can I run that? That's the first step. I have to be able to live on that budget. And then I can start to tackle everything that's behind in an orderly fashion. Yeah. And when she means seeing even it's utility debt or whatever your bills that you're behind on, you need to list in your budget. Do you have our budget system? I don't. Okay. You can use the free version, the free template that we have at budgetbestsees.com, board slash budget template. And you want to list all of the bills. So when we say bills, like we're talking about the utilities, water, electricity, all of that, just what your monthly bill is. And then on the debt column, we want you to list all the stuff that you're behind on. So don't combine those. We want you to listen out separately because Shayna said you really want to see visually, it needs to get out of your head. You need to see visually how that's separate. Okay, this is my actual monthly bill. This is what our usage is. This is how much I'm behind. And so what she was saying, okay, I have 15 extra bucks this month. Who's getting it? Right. So you just, but you have to be able to see it. You can't combine that massive bill on your bill on your, your bill column, because you're not going to know what's debt and what is current. Yeah. And sometimes if it's only a couple, we'll put, especially getting a paycheck ahead, we'll put like the regular bill is here because that never changes. And then down here on the same bill column, it's like November's gas payment, November's, or whatever, I guess it would be January. And if there's just a few, we put those down there. And if you can check them off, you can. It's not they roll over to next month. And you just get slowly caught up. The most important, this is something Dave Ramsey says, we don't necessarily always, sometimes we part ways, but the four walls, that's where you have to think about. We're not giving up any of the things that, or we're definitely paying all the things that we have to do to stay in our house, to stay fed, all of those kind of things. And then anybody else who's calling our name to pay them back, then we'll start to tackle those one at a time based on what we can do. It's time to enter your coaching era, because making good money should feel like making good money. 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 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. Have you opened up separate accounts yet? No, and that's definitely on the list. I think I have felt a little overwhelmed to like fully jump in. I think, like y'all said, I need to put it on paper because there feels like there's a regular budget and then all the other stuff that we need to get caught up on and then just regular debt that we've been paying on. And I think a part of me, the perfectionist side of me wants to have everything just right. And then I can start, but obviously, let's not. That's a protection mechanism. That's what this perfectionism, that's what it's a control feature to protect yourself from actually having to confront the truth. But I would actually say it's going to be making you feel a lot better to get it all out on paper. And I just had a session with somebody yesterday. It was really fun. She's a single mom. She is digging herself out from a little bit of a hole as well. But I said, look, your goal in February is to open the accounts, set up the system. Nothing else. Don't care about anything else. March, then you're going to set up your, or you're going to see if you can pay off any extra debt. And then what's next month? My gosh, April's when you're going to start your savings bucket. It's like, it's just one thing at a time and it will make a difference. But for you, getting it out on paper, you might have, you can have two different pieces of paper, but getting it all out on paper is so important. It's so vital. It is going to help that perfection. You're going to see it. You're going to start to see it, but you don't have to do everything at the same time. Yeah, that's not the goal. Now I'll tell you, opening up that account, those, the account for gas and groceries and the spending account, even if that's all you do, if you just opened up a spending account and you bulk everything in there and you, but you have that, the gas and groceries separate, because that's very important to know that you have that money for your family, especially with the family of you have five kids, the family of seven, you need to have that peace of mind to know that your bills are being taken care of. And I will tell you the game changer every single time it never fails for the last almost was going on six years, six and a half years, six and a half years now, is having separate accounts. You cannot see all of your money all bunched up in one account. It's a black hole, right? Of transactions. And that's where everything gets lost. So when you say, I don't know how it happened, we just ended up having to use your credit card again. It's because we have this massive account with all this money going in and out and nothing is being held accountable. So if you can do the one thing, like after you put everything on paper, that is a must. You can't open up an account and put money in it if you don't know how much to put. So if you can put it all on paper, open up that gas and groceries account and open up a spending account and get that money out of there. And then that's where you live. Like you tell your husband, here's your new debit card. This is what we have to spend this month. And this is it. Like we have to hold ourselves accountable. You will be surprised how much money is left in your bills account at the end of the month when we're not dipping in there. Yeah, and I would add to that. And this is for everybody. We want you to get our budget system. We understand not everybody's in a position right away. Use that free template, which are going to do is because our budget system does the math for you. You have to do the math, but that's okay. You're willing to do it. I know. So you add the income there. You're going to, you're going to have to add it manually in the income column. Add all of your bills. Add your groceries. Like Vanessa said, and a little bit of a spending budget debt is not negotiable, but it is. You have to pay your mortgage. You have to pay like your electricity bill and then you can pay your credit card bill. Right. So, right. We want you to list your debts. We want you to list your bills and those like minimum spending, spending, see where you're at that. So when you have to add all those up, you say income minus debt minimums, minimums only minus bills, minus my main spending buckets, then see where you're like leftover amount is that's going to be eye opening as well. If that's leftover, then you can play around with it, but that leftover is what's going to go to get you caught up. If there's not, then something does have to change. So that might be, I'm not, I'm going to call some of these credit people and say, I can't pay you. We're in a hardship right now. I will get to it as soon as I can. But you have to do that math. See what your budget is actually capable of each month. Vanessa said, once you set the budget up and then once you put the separate the categories, you're going to be amazed at how you actually stick to it. Much more, you're much more likely to stick to it than you think. Also using your credit card doesn't force you to do anything. It doesn't make you actually budget. So that's, that's its own problem as well. Yeah. The last thing that we'll add is for you to have conversations with all of those companies that you owe money to. Like Shannon said, you can call and tell me you're in a hardship. You also need to call and talk to them and ask them about reducing your interest rates. Just ask them what can they do for you? Payments, interest rates, all of that. If there's a payoff, like sometimes we had a client one time they offered them a payoff amount, which was 60% off of their balance. Plus they gave them a payment plan on their payoff balance. Like it was, I've never seen that before. You never know what they're capable of offering, but you have to ask. So with you being behind on a lot of it, that's fine. Have conversations. Let them know that you're aware. Let them know that you need help and just see what options they have available for you because they may surprise you. Okay. Yeah. And another thing that was super helpful from you guys is when you talk about like being realistic with what you really spend because I had this number in my mind of this is what we should spend on groceries. So we were consistently, we have three boys and they just eat all the time. Forever, all the food. Forever. All the food. And when they were home for Christmas, I was like, how did we ever afford, we used to home school. Yeah. And I was like, how did we ever feed you guys all day every day? Like how, how and, but I'm realizing now that we're really consistently spending several hundred more than what we say we're going to, but it's not because we're buying filet mignon. No, we're not feeding people. Honestly, my budget is much more than it ever has been. And I have to be honest, we're not eating as well as we used to because of just the expense. And I think we need to do a podcast episode on it. I'm telling you now, that's how you'll know you remember groceries is we just talked to another lady and she has the mind set of like when she got married, her grocery budget. That's where that's what you think about. Yeah, there we are so far beyond that you guys, all of us. It's just so different. And we're as women, we're always trying to like the grocery budget. We can really affect. No, you have no control. We're kids and 20 years later. No, you can't. Yeah, so much more. And we have to really be realistic otherwise, because we do have to feed people. That is a number one job of the money that comes in the house. Yeah. Yeah. Not alone on that one. And I'm not going to become an extreme coupon or I'm sorry. No, that's a full time job. No. Yeah, we just again, like you said, budget realistically, I think that's going to help. So girl, your plan is to put it all on paper with our free template. You need to open up those separate accounts. You need to have the conversations with the debt people and the utility people, whoever you're behind with all of them. Just set aside like two hours, make the phone calls, just own it. And then you're, I promise that is going to be so much, there's so much weight can be lifted off of your shoulder from all that. Yeah. And then with that list that you make them in a said you're just going to prioritize there prioritize what who am I paying back first and then just do it. Don't don't have any shame. Just let it go. If you can't do it immediately, if you can't do it as fast as you want, just one thing at a time with what is realistic, what I can do. That's the way to get back. And then when you're caught up, you'll have been budgeting and you'll have extra and it'll feel amazing. And then you'll be able to start saving for the future and hopefully circumvent some of this from happening again. Yes, that is the plan. All right. Yes, girl. Chelsea, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you guys. I really appreciate you. If you make good money, but have nothing to show for it, this quiz will help you figure out what's really going on with your money and what your next step should be. You'll get a personalized result and a simple action step to help you feel more organized and less stressed. Go to budgetbesties.com for slash quiz and take the free quiz today. That's budgetbesties.com for slash quiz to find out what's really going on with you.
