All right. It’s time again for the lessons from the sessions. And so when we do these episodes, we just want to take the things that we’re working and talking to our clients about and bring it here to you so that it can help you with your monthly budgeting and your behavior when it comes to your finances.

Yeah. And we know that they are getting something out of this. We’re getting something out of this and we’re talking to them. And so we are hoping to bring that to you guys, like Shana said and we know it’s going to help you because we have heard time and time again, people ask us all the time, how do you get so much content for your podcast?

Listen, yeah, we have all these sessions with our clients and we bring that information back to our audience. Yep. So let’s dive right in.

My first lesson, Vanessa. Is so good. It’s so good because I love this young couple. I talk about them all the time. First of all, he’s a welder, which I love. Anybody in the trades we’re so grateful to you that you have skills. I know. And we need more of you and and also they can make some really good money, like you really can, and they’re in that spot, however.

Happen to know firsthand. Sometimes in the trades they can. It’s the same with like military. My husband always says if you look around the military base, like all the things that prey on young people with bad financial decisions, are there tattoos? Strip clubs, use car lot, like all of it. It’s like that with some of the trade schools is they, or the trades they have a.

Somebody come by that will give you tools on credit. So there’s different companies, Snap-on Cornwell. There’s all kinds of different ones that do that. And then these young people get into debt and they get in a cycle of using debt to replace their tools, which they obviously need for their job.

From the very beginning. Yeah, from the beginning. And it’s hard to get out of. So that’s where we are with them. He has a cornwell. Loan that he pays on and he just gets a new tool, adds it to the loan, gets a new tool, adds to the loan. So he is just literally gonna have to pay this bill. So it’s like a line of credit?

It is a line of credit, yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And they just, they keep coming by and be like, look at this new, and by the way, the tools are not that great. You can go down to Harbor Freight and get similar, some of so anyway, long story short, he gets a tool allowance as part of his job.

So what we did is we we set that aside this year and it’s in a savings bucket, and he knows now if he’s going to need a tool. That’s where I’m pulling the money from so that I can stop the cycle of credit and then I think that we will pay off the corn well. That will prob the the loan will be the next month or two.

But the first step really was getting out of the cycle of using it. How do I pay for a tool when I need it? ’cause I will need them. So we’re gonna set the tool allowance aside to be used for tools. I know. It’s crazy. I know. It’s crazy. Yeah. But I think it’s a new. It’s a concept that people aren’t used to.

It’s I am gonna set aside $500. I’m just throwing a number out there, right? So if I have $500 a month to set aside specifically for tool purchasing or whatever it is, if whatever trade you’re in, and I think that there’s such a peace of mind that comes with that knowing that you have the money available versus even like my hairdresser, I love her so much, but she, all the money that goes in goes directly out, like there’s no money set aside. Specifically every month consistently for like hair products or different things that she needs. And so when you budget that way and you set systems up Yeah. To be able to do that, it’s there’s so much pressure, so much less pressure there.

Yeah. And I have a hair a similar she has a spa and so we’ve actually created a separate spending. Account and a spending card for her to do all of her in and out with all of the retail stuff that she has to do. That way, like you said, she knows it’s there. Yeah. And it just keeps replenishing itself.

And eventually we can cut some of the top profit off of it eventually, but for now, I just want it to be over there because again, when you need supplies for your business. To do your thing, you want to know that there’s money there for it. And so in this case, that is how they’re doing that.

Okay. And you can’t run your business unless you have the tools sometimes. Sure. Or the products or the whatever it is. And so you need to have that money available. So Yeah, I get it. So I just recently had a client who graduated love them so much. They graduated a while ago and they came back and they said, listen.

We have a new life change situation and I, we wanna, have one month coaching sessions available to us. And we so they’re, she’s thinking about switching jobs. And so it was really great ’cause I kind of life coached her a little bit and she was like I think I wanna go to this new job.

And I was like why do you want to do the job? Are you okay with this? Are you okay with that? And I just really made her thought, I really made her think about like. All, why did she want this job? Was it because she wanted less hours? Was it because she wanted more time with her daughter? Is she okay with working less hours?

Was she okay with the less pay? All of that, that went along with it. And she kinda got teary-eyed and it just, it really allowed her to go, yes, I’m making this decision. I. For the right reasons. I think that was really good for her to go through. But anyway, so she was contemplating this new job and we made a mock budget for this. And so the lesson here is to make a mock budget for any lifetime situation that you have going on, whether it’s a new baby coming, a new job. Whether you’re gonna buy a new house, I have one client, she’s purchasing land to build a house in the next couple of years, right? So I think if you can make a budget to be able to go, okay, this is what I want.

Can we do it? Can we afford it? And once you see that on paper, it really allows you, I. To either A, make the decision, or B, not make the decision. So in this case, to our first session, so we had two sessions that month. So our first session we went through and just put all the numbers down on paper, has anything changed since the last time we met?

What are some new stuff we have going on? Pay, pay raises, all of that. Her husband does timber, so we added that in there. And then by the time we had our next session, she said, I went ahead and gave them my notice and I’m, we’re, I’m changing jobs. And she was so excited about it because we had a plan.

She knew that she could pay off. She has two debts left. They knew that they could pay off one whole debt before she even switched jobs. And she was starting July 1st is the new job. So anyways, I just think it’s really important to make sure you’re planning ahead for this stuff, not just letting it happen to you.

Yeah. I, and I think I’ve mentioned before when my husband was gonna retire for the military. I think we did a new mock budget every day based on any possible variable to any situation. Yes. Because we were also, he was retiring and we were moving at the same time, so there was so much going on and it’s just this math, it’s math and so it doesn’t lie.

And it gives you, gives some concreteness to your worried mind or your anxious mind. So I think that’s a great plan. And speaking of. My next one was also a big life change, boo budgeting to move is what we were doing, and I wanted to just give a little, a little, some ideas. If this is you, if you’re like gonna move soon or you’re thinking about it there’s some things that you have to think about.

Sometimes in in this case, they were gonna have to still pay rent for at least, I think it’s actually unfortunately two months. They’re gonna have to be paying rent. And then that was gonna overlap with one month of the mortgage. So we had to make a budget. So there were so many mock budgets, like every single month for three months or four months was different.

And we you wanna consider that? Do I have overlapping expenses? And always utilities are going to be weird for a couple months when you’re moving, right? ’cause you’re gonna have to close out the old the old ones and then they’re gonna trickle in a little bit here and there with some whatever ha may, may happen.

And then you don’t know. You can ask for for utilities from previous owners, but you’ll be lucky if you get them. But you can guess really Yeah. Is what’s gonna happen with utilities for a new place. Especially if you’re going from renting to owning or you’re moving to a different area.

There’s just a lot of variables. So you just want to definitely have. Like a buffer in there. That’s how, that’s literally what our category was called. Utilities Buffer. We know it’s gonna be under $500. That’s what we’re gonna budget for. And seems reasonable. We know that for, because especially sometimes you have to pay deposit.

Yeah. There’s just so much. And so it feels so unknown, but you can budget for it. And that’s, so that’s why I wanna tell you. And the other thing is when you’re going to move, especially. Actually it’s really either way. If you’re going to move you wanna have a fund set up beforehand because there’s gonna be so many things, whether it’s just moving, like you’re gonna have to hire movers or cleaners or carpet cleaner or whatever.

Versus additionally, if you’re moving and you might have to pay for an inspector or anything like that, you just wanna have money set aside a lot more than you think ’cause it’s gonna be expensive. Love you so much have money set aside for all of the stuff that’s gonna happen then. And then the last thing that I wanted to point out is.

I always have my clients set up a budget for making your home once you move in. And that’s not even necessarily like for funsies, even though I love it for just to be funsies, but really what it is oh, I don’t have a lines or something. I don’t even have the things to live correctly in this new house ’cause it’s a different formation or, layout or whatever. So we want to put that in a budget on purpose because it’s gonna happen. You’re gonna find things and you don’t need to be. Or surprised by it, just put it in there and if you don’t spend it all great, then you can go buy curtains or maybe not curtains, but then you can go buy that vase that’s gonna go perfectly on that shelf or whatever to make the house a home.

But you wanna have the all of that figured or figured into your budget when you’re moving. I had a client whose daughter was living with them to save money to be able to buy a house, and without even knowing that she had the money available to her, she went ahead and put an offer in on the hou on a house and still needed money for the down payment.

And was planning on asking the mom. Her mom and then her in-laws for like half of it each. And then they were gonna pay them back. And I told, I was sitting there talking to the mom and I said have you talked to your husband on whether or not you even wanna do this? Give your daughter the money?

And she said, no. And I said let me give you my 2 cents about that. I said, does she have any money to move in? I know she’s been saving money, but does she have any money to actually use as move-in expenses? And she says, no. And I, and she, so she didn’t have enough money for the down payment. She didn’t have money to move in.

But she was really trying to get this going as fast as possible. And I’m like, like you said, Shannon, it costs way more than you think to purchase a house. Oh, so much more. And people underestimate that. And they think if I just have a couple thousand for the down payment or whatever that is, whatever your bank requires, I’m good.

No, you need sometimes three to four times as much of that for everything else that is involved in this situation. So I think it’s really important to just plan ahead of time and make sure that you look at the numbers. That’s what I tell everybody ’cause I don’t know, because she’s an expert at moving.

I am an expert, but moving,

 There’s this old adage that my mortgage is gonna be less than my rent. That has nothing to do with how expensive it is. It’s gonna be a homeowner, it’s going to be way more to be a homeowner. Let me just stop you in your tracks there. It doesn’t matter.

The difference, the a hundred or couple hundred dollars you might save monthly in mortgage versus versus rent. It’s gonna be more. And so anyway, the point is you can budget for it. It can feel less like unknown, but you have to do that on purpose. Yeah. And it just takes gosh, if you just took an hour with you and your spouse sitting down looking at the numbers or your accountability partner, whoever.

You could really go into whatever this decision is more comfortably. But you just, you have to have, like Shane said, the concrete data of the numbers on paper. Okay, so my client recently has an auto, like an auto insurance payment coming up. Now, most auto insurance companies you can pay monthly, and I think most of them are on like a six month plan.

I think they’ve moved, a lot of ’em have moved away from that annual plan and they’ve moved more into six months. So every six months he is literally stressing out. Usually putting it on credit cards, trying to figure out how to make this payment because they don’t have the money. ’cause it’s a huge chunk.

It’s him, his wife, and I think they have two kids on the auto auto insurance payment. We won’t even talk about kids paying for that. We won’t go there. We won’t. All we’re gonna do is. But I was, I had a session with just him just about their, ’cause they do business, I do their equestrian center budget for their business and then also their home.

But I told him, I said, Hey, what if, and you have three months left, right? Until this payment is due. And I said what if we start budgeting for this now? And I said, so that way you have the money in three months available to you instead of having to come up with what. That big chunk is in three months.

And he was like, that’s amazing, right? I’ve talked to her about savings buckets. She has all that stuff set up, but for him is really he all he could see was what he needed in the moment. And it was really hard for him to plan ahead. So I think, you guys hear us talk about savings buckets all the time, but I wanna reiterate.

If you have something coming up, whether it’s three months, two months, six months, seven months, five months, whatever it is, and it’s a big payment and it’s literally like a monkey on your back and you know that it’s coming and you know that it’s staring you down and you’re afraid to make this payment when it comes.

I, we would encourage you to start saving. Now for that, put aside, divide that number by however many months you have left to pay for it or pay until it’s due, and start putting it in a little savings account. And then that way, when the money comes due, you have it. And if your auto insurance payment is by six months or 12 months, then the next time you have this, you can actually divide it by the full amount of months that you have, and it’s gonna be such a small number to manage in your budget.

Versus trying to come up with all of that money in one month. Yeah. And yeah, it’s just gonna take the panic out. Yeah. Let’s stop, like we say all the time, we want it to feel. Not a roller coaster your money. We want it to just feel steady. And the savings buckets are the way to do that, to take those big expenses and make them more bite sized, monthly manageable.

And and like Vanessa said, then you’ll, you won’t have to like be surprised. I meant like scurry at the last minute. You’re just not trying to figure out how to how to do this because you’ve planned ahead. And again, looking at it, thinking about it, making a plan is way less scary than guessing and hoping and wishing and maybe an having anxious thoughts in your head. So definitely gonna be better to do that. I was thinking, Vanessa, if this sounds interesting, if you’re like, this is like me. This sounds like me. I need this coaching in my life. Don’t you think they need this coaching in their life?

Oh yeah. All of these are from our coaching clients. Yeah. Our one-on-one private coaching clients. And we bring their situations to you in hopes that it resonates in some way. Yeah. So if you’re thinking about coaching. Then we do a free discovery call to see if it would be a good fit, and you can go to budget besties.com/free call to figure out if.

You wanna schedule one of those if you think it might be the right thing for you, because some of some of you are, will come on. We’ll, you’ll listen to the podcast. You’ll take it, you’ll run with it, you’ll do it. You’ll buy the budget. You’re like, you don’t even need. Our help, which is fine.

We’re fine with that. Which is why we have the two offers. Yeah. We have the simplifying budget system for those of you that are gonna do that, but also coaching like people, we know that people wanna be held accountable with coaching. Yeah. And then some of you, you’re like I definitely need my handheld.

I know who I am, I know I’m not, I am not messing around. And I could use that. So just check that out. Budget besties.com/free call and we’ll talk to you next time.