How to Break Free from Paycheck-to-Paycheck Living: Transforming Your Finances with Intention

  Okay. Today we are here to talk about why and how and who and where and what about the fact that our podcast is called financial coaching for women. Absolutely. But I will say we do have some men that listen to us and then they email us and they’re like, Hey, I sent your podcast to my wife.

Yeah. And that was a good plan. Good job. Because we really do, We are women, first of all, that helps, but we want to speak to women. There’s a whole dynamic that’s going on that goes on with money and wealth and finances and budgets and math. With women, that’s very different than what goes on with men.

And we all just have different languages and different ways of understanding and talking about stuff. So that’s why we talk to women. And our goal in general is to get women to take ownership and to feel confident and savvy and smart about their finances.

  📍 Do you make good money, but have nothing to show for it. Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have a 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 her savings account or the millionaire who’s paid off for 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

 I also think that the conversation is just different, right?

So like the way that men process and understand and deal with finances is a lot different than women. And we understand that there are, there’s usually one One person in the marriage is handling it like not in a bad way Not that like it’s a parent child relationship with the money on purpose But it’s just usually it falls on one person usually the husband or the spouse is out working and then the other one is at home handling the rest of the stuff and then also has the finances That’s just and it’s not that it’s a burden or anything.

It’s just how that how it fell Yeah, so today we’re going to talk about Empowering women, which we don’t love the word empower. We feel like it’s a little bit overused, but why we’re here, what we’re doing and to empower women when it comes to their money. Yep. All right. So Shane has a fun story.

We, I remember this client, she first joined. We I actually know her. She was an in person client, right? So she was a local client and she came to a bunch of our events that we had and then she moved away, but Shane has been coaching her ever since. And she just has this fun little story about how, when their first session went.

Yeah. The first session, she came in with two beers. Like she, like you said, it was in person. So we were going to meet in person. She came into the office and she had two beers. And I was like, that’s interesting. She brought me one. Nope, they were not one and one. It was both for her. And really it was because she was so anxious to talk about this topic.

And the next week she brought a bottle of wine, y’all. And I’m like, okay, it’s fine. We’re going to get through this. So this is where she started. And I just had a session, like you said, it’s been a couple of years. I just had a session with her. Recently, and she came in the session and said, Hey, before we even start, I, we need to talk to you.

I need to tell you that when I used to be so stressed out about this and now I look forward to it. And she said, even my son commented on it. She said, um, she used to, right before the meeting, she would be all stressed out and not looking forward to it and anxious about it. And he’s mom, you’re so calm.

Like you’re so you’re, are you actually looking forward to this meeting now? And she is. And she was, she just went on to say she had started off there and now she feels so confident. She’s excited to look at her money. She feels like she knows what’s happening. She’s good at it. She feels empowered again, our buzzword that we don’t exactly love.

And what she said is she’s now she’s so much further than where she started that she invested into coaching to get a real estate license because she is a client that has six real estate properties, right? That just makes sense. Or eight. I’m sorry. I keep, I always mess that up. But she, so she went from being.

I don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to do the math to now. I feel so confident. I’m going to even take it to the next level. I know we don’t love to use the word empowered, but she is she’s so empowered now. So in control, so confident, like you said with her money and you have literally transformed her budget.

I remember walking into the office the day after your session with her and I went to go throw something in the garbage and I saw the two beers and I was like what happened here last night? Like I have no idea because I do remember that, that visual. It’s just, she’s come such a long way and she had a lot to handle.

So I want to say, Shana, when you started working with her, she was like in the middle of buying, purchasing more properties, right? So it’s you not only did you have to deal with. Or her, what she had going on is what she was going to have going on from that point on. So she had a lot like in, there was a lot in the air, a lot going on with her finances.

I think they were moving at the same time, but you have literally set it up. So it’s like an automatic set it and forget it system for her. So can you imagine going from the convoluted system that she, or non system that she had to what she has now? It’s completely night and day. Yeah. And I think yeah.

Not everybody’s like this, but in her case, her husband was also like nonchalant, had none of them, neither one of them. It wasn’t a situation where one’s a nerd and one’s not. It was like, both are free spirits. I don’t want to look at it. We’ll just keep making more money. I’m sure it’ll all be fine.

But going from that to now, is the big transformation and what we see a lot. podcast once recently and the woman that we love, we adore her. She assumed, That all the women that we work with don’t do the finances. Because there is that stereotype out there that women are not, as financially mathy, whatever.

She assumed, remember, she assumed all the women that come to us are the ones that aren’t doing it. And actually that’s not the case. But I think there is a huge stereotype out there that women are not, Wired for finances, or maybe they don’t feel confident, they have to give it over to someone else who’s smarter or whatever.

There’s just this weird shammy thing going on there. I was just gonna say and they feel ashamed that they should know, or they’re supposed to know, but nobody is ever taught them. Yeah. So how, and I think also it comes along with they’re so successful in other areas of their life. usually own a business.

They’re wonderful members of the community and church. They’re amazing wives, right? And they have a lot of other things going on, but their finances is just something they just cannot get a hold of because they were never taught how to properly take care of it or understand it or, manage it.

Yeah. And when you said that, what it made me think of is this phrase, Unfair expectation. They have an unfair expectation on themselves that they should already know it and they should already be doing it. And that’s unfair. You’re not being fair to yourself. Vanessa said, you’re crushing it in so many other areas of your life and we’re really excited and proud of you, proud to know you, proud to call you a friend or a client or a listener or whatever.

It’s unfair for you to expect that you’re automatically going to know all of this. It’s not, that’s not right. And so we have the women that. that are over there doing that. And then we also, we do have women that are doing the finances. They’re like so overdoing the finances that like, they’re so stressed about it.

They’re in it every day. They’re trying to do different math and move money. And they’re the ones that are doing it. For all of it again, you just want, you don’t know what you don’t know. But then also they’re the ones that either you’re doing it or you think you should do it.

And then the ones that are doing it either way, we, what we find is that you’re actually hiding. information. You’re hiding the financial stress, the burden. You’re actually hiding what’s really going on with your finances from your spouse or your partner because you don’t want to, you don’t want to stress them out.

You’re carrying the, so you’re trying to carry that all of that weight on your shoulders that you are trying to not involve them, not in a, not in a malicious way, but I don’t want to, Them to have to deal with it because they’re off working, they’re off doing a lot of stuff and I don’t want them, I don’t want them to burden it.

But what that’s turning into is thousands of dollars being put on debt because you’re trying to compensate for what is not managed properly. And then they have no idea what’s going on. Yep. And the case in point exactly of that. And I know you’ve had clients just like this. I had a client come in, she’s a banker.

She makes a lot of money. She’s obviously good at math because she’s a banker. Like you have to be, I feel like But this particular area, she’s not mastered, right? But she they, it’s so many of our clients where they just, if I just make more money, then everything is fine.

I’ll just keep making, I’ll add to the pot so that whatever I’m taking out doesn’t, end up adding up. But with her, it was just like you said she felt like it was her responsibility to handle it cause she’s a banker. Obviously if you have one of the people in the marriage that’s a banker, she’s going to be doing the budget, right?

Here you go. And so she felt that burden. She kept it all to herself. She kept on just doing what wasn’t really working, but it was working well enough until it got to be too much of a burden. Then she came to coaching and we’re going to get her like, she’s so fast. She’s going to get so straight now. I’m so excited.

But that happens. Like I should already know it. Like you said, I’m going to carry it and not have to worry about, or not worry my spouse about it. But none of that. And that, so that’s what we see. That’s what we see people coming to us with. And it’s, that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. Yeah. And it’s just, what we’ve seen is that it’s just not, it’s not helping.

And then the poor spouse who doesn’t know anything that’s going on, you finally involve them. And they’re like, I had no idea. And it just, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t end well guys. So we really want to open that communication. Hold on. Okay. I don’t like any of that. What was I saying?

Oh, I don’t know. Let me add one more thing, but I was reading that and I don’t like it. Oh, I haven’t read it yet. . As far as her being a banker, we have a lot of people that. Can do that line of work But when you’re talking about daily money management Which is what we deal with right and dealing with your budget and setting up a system that is very different please don’t think that because you’re a CPA or you’re a bookkeeper or you’re a banker You’re That you should know how to do this.

It is so very different. We actually, it is, we actually have financial advisors as clients. We have CPAs, we have bookkeepers, we have bankers. We have all of those or have had in the past as clients. And it’s because they, what they’re doing is different. So don’t think that it’s the same. And don’t think like Shana said, you should know because you don’t.

And that’s okay because you’ve never been taught. But if you do end up investing in coaching, that’s what we’re here for. And we’re going to show you how to do that. So you can be successful. So you can check that part of your life off your list and you can move on to worrying about something else. Exactly. And in general, people just don’t get the gap here is in general, we don’t get taught. And we talk about it all the time. What you may have been taught was and gosh, we’re going to date ourselves, but I think balancing a checkbook, I believe I did that in in elementary or high school, whenever it was.

And I do remember maybe trying to do a one budget one time. None of that is even relevant anymore. So whatever you may have been taught is not even, we have so many different bills. We don’t use a silly checkbook anymore. Like all of that is so different. There’s no way, like even if they did try, somebody did try to teach you, they don’t know.

And then again, a lot of times our parents aren’t necessarily the perf, the best model, love them. So whatever they may have taught, tried to teach us is also irrelevant. Things are way more complicated, way more digital. There’s more going on. Even if you did try to learn, which most of the time we weren’t given the opportunity, it’s still something, it’s still difficult and you shouldn’t have that expectation on yourself.

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It reminds me of Shana. You talk about like your marketing degree, and how it’s completely obsolete. Yeah. Cause now, every day it’s every day it’s changed. So it’s interesting cause we went to Texas for a wedding and my niece has gone to major in marketing. And I had a long conversation with her about that, but I was teaching her on how to use AI properly for her, for marketing that she had never even thought of.

Nobody had ever shown her. And I was like, this is what we’re doing because I told her about your example and she was just like blown away. But because of what they’re teaching in school is just completely obsolete than what is actually needed in the day to day. So this is the same thing.

Maybe schools or colleges or whatever teaching you are telling you of what you think you’re supposed to do with your money versus what you actually need to do with your money on everyday money management to be successful. They’re not the same. Yeah. And even some of the larger voices out there, I think of they’re telling you how to invest.

That’s fine. I can’t get to that point because I can’t even figure out how I’m going to pay for a cheer and groceries the same month. So that doesn’t apply to me if I’m a woman. And then we have, the Scorched Earth mentality, the gazelle intensity, and it’s just not, it’s just not realistic.

Look, my kids are going. To want to do things and I want to allow them to do things. And so that’s where we come in. What we’re saying is even if you do try to learn, there’s a lot of harsh talk out there, right? So it’s maybe I don’t really want to do this once I start to hear it. So that’s where we’re, what we’re trying to do, why we’re talking to women, why we’re financial coaching for women is we want to create a judgment free space.

We want it to be fun fun. Lighthearted, simple, easy to do. We know we have no time, so you have no time. So our system is designed to make it easy and as least time consuming as possible. I was just reading our testimonials from our Simplified Budget System and a lady, I love that this was created by busy moms for busy moms.

Because she’s not wrong. Like we, like she said, have a lot going on. We want to make sure that the information we give you is going to be tactical. It’s going to be easy and simple to understand so that way you can implement it and be successful in your life. And one of the things that we talk about is being bougie on a budget. We want you to have the life where you can go to target, you can go to Starbucks, you can go to Amazon and shop online. You can do all these things that you want to do within. some guardrails there, which is fine, which is self imposed as you’re as you should.

But also you’re paying off debt or also you’re saving for that vacation and Hey, you’re saving for Christmas, all of these things that we want you to have, you can do at the same time. And I believe that we have really made a name for ourselves in the, this area this are in this space about how you can do both.

Yeah. And we want it to be encouraging because that’s what we need. We don’t need somebody yelling us. We want to hear the real, as Vanessa said, the real actual things that I do with my hands, but let’s have some fun while we’re doing it. It doesn’t have to be like, this is not, budgeting is not boring.

It’s not restrictive. It’s not sad. It’s not. A punishment. It’s exciting. And we want you to think that way too, because you’re making good money. You’re really successful. We want your money to be on that level with you. We have so much fun in our coaching sessions with our clients. We laugh, we cry, we have the best time.

So much fun crying. It is just kidding. Yeah, but a relief. No. That’s women need it. You need it. You need this breakthrough moments. We do. And y’all do. We do. I, we’ve prayed over our clients on sessions. Like it’s just. You become family, you become our best friends, and we never want to leave you.

It’s really fine when you graduate, it’s fine when you’re dealing with it. But honestly, it’s just like Shaina said, we are We want to be supportive, we want to be approachable, we want to be shame free and judgment free. We want to look at it as just data. It’s just information that we’re going to take and figure out what we’re going to use, how we’re going to use it to make you better in the future.

Yeah, and we want you, like it says in our intro, we want you to know it’s okay if you’re using credit cards right now, if you don’t, you want, you don’t want to tell anybody that you don’t really have your budget together. Like we get that. And we also want to give you permission, like Vanessa said, to be bougie on a budget.

We want to give you permission. That’s I think something that you don’t hear a lot about is no, you can still get your nails done and we’re still going to get this budget done. Like both can happen at the same time. That’s what we’re here for. And that’s why we’re here for women. We know what you’re going through.

We know the budget. How often do I, do we call it and then you say, I thought, I can’t believe I thought you were talking to me. You’re talking about me or that’s exactly what it is. And I’m like, yeah, we know because we’ve been there. We’ve been there with our clients and that’s why we do what we do.

And here’s the guy version. Okay. We’re fun. We’re excited guys about your hunting trips. We’re excited about. You’re men’s weekend. We’re excited about the plane that you want to buy after graduation. I have a client. She’s Hey, I need a budget in a plane that my husband needs to, it’s called a kit, so he’s going to build it and then he’s going to fly it.

Like that is we are excited to do those things in your budget for you as well. That is what it’s all about. So it’s not just about. the wives getting their hair done and all that. It’s about him. What does he want? What is his hobbies too? Let’s make them both happen, put them in the budget.

So that way you guys both have something to look forward to. And also you’re hitting your goals that you guys want to accomplish and the ones that you set together. Yeah. And also the everyday stress that you’re feeling, that’s what we’re here to try to get rid of. That’s, all the quote unquote unexpected expenses, the people that are constantly hitting you up for money.

And you’re like, but where is this supposed to come from? That is what we’re here to solve because we want you. One, to be able to hit those amazing goals that Vanessa talked about, but we want you to just feel peace. We want you to feel confident and peaceful about your money. Like whenever something comes up, that’s fine.

I know where it’s coming from. I know it’s going to I can just deal with the situation. I don’t have to deal with the money stress about the situation. And that is what we’re also trying to do. Yeah. So again, guys, we, this is tailored for women specifically because we actually, what we’ve seen, like Shanna’s alluded to earlier, is that the women are the ones that are making most of the budget.

So we want to tailor this to you guys. So that way, you know how to handle and you feel empowered to have those heavy, important conversations with either your financial advisor or with either your CPA or with your spouse. So that way you come to the table with data and you come prepared with information.

Yeah. And I, when you said that wherever you are, if you are the one that has never looked at the budget, which we definitely have people that come to us that have never done a budget and don’t really want to.

Hello, let’s talk about the very first story of the client with beers. But we have that all the way to the people that are all up in it, like so in it that, that they’re not going to know what to do with their free time once they get the system set up. Either way, no matter where you are on that spectrum, you can become a very confident, savvy, financial CFO of your budget, of your money, of your household.

You can. It doesn’t matter where you are. Our system works for anyone, and it works as simply, clearly, and automatically. That way you can get back to doing whatever else you would rather do. Yeah. And I love that because like we say, our budget is not cookie cutter. Our system is not cookie cutter. It’s very tailored to what you have going on and what’s important to you as it should be.

So if you want two savings buckets, It’s done. You have to, if you want 10, if you want 14, you want to be crazy like Vanessa, have 14. That’s fine. Whatever is tailored and whatever makes sense for you in your life. Do it because this system works for every single person and how they have everything set up.

Whether you want one spending account, you want to just use one cause that’s all you can handle. That’s great. Or you want five or six. However you can handle your finances, whatever feels comfortable to you. Our system is set up to be able to help you that way.

Yeah. And we just, our goal is just that every woman feels like they can handle it, that they’ve got control. No matter, like when I said, whatever version of that it is that for them, we want them to feel confident about it. And that client that I had, she said, I just feel so empowered now. And that was, that’s why we do what we do.

We want to transform. It’s like a before and after, right? Before anxious, avoiding, not sure to beers to you. Understand confident, and it’s automatic. Like it’s just automatic. And your kids notice it. That is huge too. You know it’s actually happening when your kids are like, hey mom, there’s something different about you.

Yeah. So listen, if you feel like this isn’t like you’re listening to this, you’re like, that sounds great for them. I’m not feeling that way. That’s okay. You’re not alone. Like we, we have thousands and thousands of listeners, lots of women that come to us and they’re, they might feel the same way that you do, but just listen to the podcast, get coaching, get our system, whatever it is you need to do, invest in yourself in that way.

And then you will get that after. Yeah, absolutely. And email us helloatbudgetbesties. com. If you guys have questions or you’re like, listen. All of that sounds like everyone else, but hey, this is me over here. Would you have something for me? We would love to help you. We’d love to walk you through what’s going on in your life too.

That way you can be successful. Because the ultimate goal here is that we want everyone to be confident with their money. Women want men, but honestly, the women guys, we just, we’re feeling it. We’re feeling the pressure. We’re feeling the shame. We’re feeling the guilt. And we don’t want you to feel like that.

You don’t deserve that. You don’t have time for that in your life. Yeah. All right. So you can, the next thing that you might want to do is you might want to go check out our system, budgetbetsys. com forward slash budget, look at it, see what, if maybe that’s going to help you. And if not, maybe just join our Facebook group and start tip dipping your toe in and seeing what this is all about.

But our simplified budget system. I love it. I had to think about that. It’s got a lot of names, girl. Our simplified budget system, guys, it is, it’s the price of it is less than one trip to target. Okay. So before you go splurge this weekend or next weekend, a target, Think about if you just spent one of those trips and invested in yourself with this, you have a lifetime access to it.

Okay. You’re literally going to be able to transform your finances. Shana said you’re going to be able to you’ll have it now to start the whole year because you have one workbook for every single year. You have to start fresh in January. Yeah. And by the way, when you do that, you get to sign up.

To come to monthly coaching with us. We have one coaching call for any of our clients once a month with us on Mondays. And so then you can get a little extra bonus points. Yeah. It’s included with your purchase forever. Yeah. Forever. As long as we do it, we have monthly coaching with us. We’re so excited.

Plus you get put in our very private secret Facebook group. Secret super secret. All right. We’ll talk to you next time.

  📍 Hey, if you found value in this podcast and you’re ready to go deeper, here are some ways we can connect. First go ahead and take the leap book, a free 20 minute financial coaching call with us.

This is your chance to ask questions, to get personalized advice and start mapping out your financial journey for free. It’s on us. We’re treating you just hop on a call chat with for 20 minutes. It’s going to be great. Yeah next, join our supportive Facebook group, where you can connect with other like-minded people who are trying to figure out this budget thing, just like you, or if you want to take it to the next level, grab our signature budget template.

You’ve heard us talk about it. It’s a game changer for organizing and optimizing your finances. It’s practical. User-friendly and it’s the perfect tool girl. To start making real progress. And if you’re ready to get serious about your finances and you know, you need the accountability sign up for financial coaching.

Now, guys, this is the one-on-one hand holding that, you know, you need, let’s be honest guys, if you’re going to do it on your own, you would have done it already. So that’s what we’re here for. Yes.

And Hey, if today’s conversation sparked a new idea or inspired a change in you, why not share that spark? Tell a friend about the podcast and leave us a review on iTunes. Your words could be the nudge that someone else needs to start their journey towards financial freedom. And by the way, as we say goodbye, remember your financial journey, your wellbeing.

Isn’t just about numbers. It’s about all the peace, the joy, the lack of stress that it’s going to bring into your life. So you’ve got this and we’re here to support you every step of the way