How to Budget as a Couple Without Fighting: Separate Accounts, Automation, and Debt Payoff

  jamie. We are so excited to have you on Financial Coaching for Women. Thank you for coming on to share your story about one-on-one coaching.

for having me.

Okay, so we actually fun funnily enough, just got off a session and your husband was in the house for the first time.

He’s been doing all the sessions with his little beanie cap in his car. ’cause where are you guys? You guys are in.

We’re in the, the, the Twin Cities, Minnesota, Minneapolis area.

have, yeah, I have, we have several people right up there, so I get ’em mixed up, but it’s cold. That’s what I’m trying to say. Yeah, it’s cold. So he, poor guy is like in his car doing, doing the budget session, but he’s all in, so I mean, that’s great. And then Jamie’s just home all warm and everything now.

I’m just kidding. I.

My cup of tea,

lives other than the cold. She lives like we would, we would just love it. Like it’s just, they’re surrounded by woods. And I was like, oh, look at all of that out there. Good job. Watch it from in here. Mm-hmm. It looks really pretty.

yes. Yes. Right.

So. Okay, so let’s jump in here. Tell us, you know, you know, we were just talking about your first call with Vanessa, so tell us what kind of led to you seeking it out.

Finding us and, and yeah, how that got started.

Yeah, for sure. So Kevin and I have been together or married for over 23 years and together since we were teenagers, we, neither of us were raised with a really good idea of. How to handle finances. Neither of our parents were reckless or crazy or anything like that. You know, both made good incomes and things, but we just didn’t have it modeled for us.

So we came together as kids and have grown up, and here we are pushing 50 in a couple years and just really realizing that while we’ve had a number of years of. In our 23 years of marriage, there have been a handful of periods of time where we have been very diligent to follow certain programs that we’ve talked about before.

You know, for budgeting and things like that that have really helped us. But we have been, quick to fall out of those rhythms. And when we fall out of those rhythms, what has happened to us through the years is that we just shoot from the hip and hope for the best. So, yep, we, you know, we’re thankful and blessed to have our needs cared for in what our income is.

Nothing necessarily above and beyond and, but we live comfortably and, have made enough to, to do just fine, but it’s not comfortable for us to continue forward. It got to a place of chaos where it was really stressful. There was no insight into what is ahead for us and we weren’t investing anything, any, and it feels like the cost we get to 50, the more that feels.

Foolish. And our kids are getting older and we had nothing for savings for college. And here goes our son, our first kid into college. And so it just, the shooting from the hip and hoping for the best had us shallow breathing financially for a really long time. And life has brought us in the last five plus years a lot of big things.

Really big things. And so you just. We, we just kept doing life and not getting our hands around our dollars and the two of us together, we needed someone else in the mix. I too am a coach and I know the value of it doesn’t matter how much you know, it doesn’t matter how many tools you have tried. It doesn’t matter the budgeting tools, the.

Programs, the theories. Sometimes you just need somebody else to throw off the cog wheel a little bit, a third person. And so I just dug in and started looking for budgeting coaches and I saw the two of you and I listened to a bunch of your podcasts and I was like, I wanna be friends with them, so I want their coach ago.

We wanna be friends with you too. Absolutely. You would absolutely love them. They’re amazing and their kids are amazing and I just love it. She’s the one I was talking about yesterday, I was talking about you

Oh.

you. Get the cash out for the kids’ chores. And if they don’t do ’em, they don’t get it.

And you’re like, I’ll just put that in my pocket maybe if I want to. And I’m like, I love that you have the discipline to do that. So anyway. Yeah. I love that you add that up enough, baby. That’s like a pedicure. Yeah. I mean, let’s go.

Oh sure.

Yes.

Yes.

I, and you know what, Vanessa? We were just, we were just talking. We took a little break after I had some meatloaf.

It was delicious. I’m so excited ’cause it’s so warm. We were talking about we will never buy another course again. Mm-hmm. We will not, we will only buy coaching. Yeah. We will only pay for coaching because we, we. We need exactly everything that you said. I know I just had a free call with a guy, I believe it was this week, and he said, I know the value of coaching and I wanna go further faster.

He said like, if you’re, I know you’re listening on the podcast, but he’s thinking like a like a 35 degree slant. And he said, I don’t wanna go like this. He said, I wanna go 90 degrees. Like, I wanna go straight up as fast as I can, and I know I need a coach to do that. And I’m like, that is it. Like that whole analogy was perfect.

Mm-hmm. Because we talk about it’s the difference between joining a gym and hiring a personal trainer. Yeah. Right. His was just so visual when he like did his hand like that. And and I just love, we have a lot of people who know the value of coaching and some people who’ve never even invested in themselves at all come into coaching and are, and are blown away.

So thank you for coming on and sharing this. We’re so excited to just kind of dive into kind of what got you. You explained kind of what got you here, but kind of what your journey looked like while you were coaching with Shayna ’cause she was your amazing coach. And so just tell us, like, one thing that, I know you just had a session with her today, but what is one thing that stuck out to you that you know you’ll never forget from your time coaching with her?

Oh man. It’s so funny. I, I’ll, I have to apologize right now. I’m like the most tender person. I’m so thankful for this and so thankful for you, Sheena. So I’m like, oh, I’m kind of emotional about it because I think that the biggest thing is, and, and I don’t mean this to sound funny, but just Shana, what you bring, what you brought energetically to the mix for us.

I, I don’t know if you could kind of read Kevin’s and my personalities. He is very, very strategic and systematic and let’s get to it. He’s like the most tender precious man, but also like. If we gotta do something, we gotta do something. And I’m like, all heart. And he’s a lot of mind. And anyways, you just brought the perfect energy into our mix.

And that’s what I think when you have a, a marriage, we’re two very separate, different people, but we’re one. And then you brought something energetically in that just met, met him where he’s at. And myself too. Just who you are, how you’re wired, and how you let us, it just felt like, let’s go, let’s go.

And, you know, you were right there to connect with us and things, but like drive us forward. And I don’t know, it just, it took us from like a 30 mile an hour back road to 65 on a highway. Let’s go still? Yeah.

Yeah, I, I get what you’re saying and I think, you know, I just had, we just had a, a conversation earlier today on another podcast, and she said, you know, you said something about being called and yeah, Vanessa and I, this is what we’re here to do. Like, we have no doubt, and like Vanessa will always say, you know, you guys are family to us, like.

You can’t dive into someone’s entire, your entire life is on that budget, you know, and we, I, I told you guys, I love you guys. I was so excited. We’ll talk about your win that we just talked about at the end of your session, but we love you guys and we we feel like it’s our job to kind of represent both of you, like, negotiate, you know, like manage manage, both of you both have goals.

You both have different, you know, needs and stuff. So Absolutely. It’s our job. We love it for sure. So. So tell us like about the system. You know, like you guys kind of slowly implemented your, I I didn’t get to say it on your session, but I’m gonna say it right here. Sometimes people are very slow to want to set up the things automatic, but as soon as you do baby Hmm.

It’s like, oh, I don’t have to do anything. I’m so excited and it’s actually

Yeah.

changer. But it is normal to like. For people to have a little bit of trepidation. Yeah. But anyway, so talk about the system. Everything, like between the, the Bills account or your spending money, or your savings buckets, the budget, how it looks, how you guys, you and Kevin talked about it, like, whatever, tell us what, like, worked for you, what, you know, what made it click and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. I would say. Right outta the gate. The first thing that comes to my mind was opening all the accounts that at first we were like, what? And kind of went into the bank with our tail between our legs, like, are they gonna laugh at us? And thankfully we got a. Woman who was great about it. And so opening all those different accounts because we once did do the cash envelope, you know, bought the accordion thing that had everything labeled.

And we did have that day, 15 plus years ago where we did all that, it made sense to us the cash envelopes no more, but all the different accounts. I love that part of the system. And then from there, it just feels really good to watch that automatic. And yes, we are slower to all the automated. I think as of this month we will be completely all fully automated into our, our savings buckets and things like that.

But just watching those automatic transfers into the different spending accounts, I love that. Even something funny and tiny as finally getting a rhythm in our kids’ chores, money, and, you know, there’s just. This is going here in this bucket. This is going in this bucket. Yeah, that’s the first thing that comes to my mind.

Does that answer that question?

Yeah. No, absolutely. And I love how you’re saying that because you, you know, Shana’s talked about your journey with me here and there, and you guys have been so successful and what you have accomplished in six months. you’re just now really implementing that automatic part in month six. And I think that that’s great because so many people do this differently, right?

Based on. Their situation, what they have going on, what season of life they’re in. And so just know that you can do so much still and be, and be successful and, and only implement, you know, the very last part at the very last session, the month that, that you’re in. And that’s okay. Yeah. And I wanna speak to a couple things.

First of all. That, you know, one of the things that happened or why we didn’t necessarily automate the savings is you weren’t, you couldn’t, right. Once you got

Yeah.

money back into your budget, then that that entire $797 is now gonna savings buckets. And that was all on purpose. Like, you were willing to sacrifice that for six months.

Like you said, you know, the value of coaching, but then here we are, we got this money, let’s be intentional with it. Mm-hmm. I love that. But I also, you know, one of, one of my favorite things, you guys are very frugal actually. But

Hmm.

value your health. You guys are really good about what I’ve been watching is valuing, you know, family trips time together as a family.

Like you said, you had the senior that you got to go on that college trip, and we kept setting money aside for all of that, and you just did as well. And I, it’s like, it’s just a. When I love your word, you always say precious. It’s a precious version of BNA budget, like it’s near and dear to our heart.

Like, this is what we want. We want your health to be optimal. We want the family time to be optimized in your budget, like all of that. So I love that about your budget and hopefully you getting to see that we can do this and pay off debt

Yeah.

was encouraging.

 Yeah, just to speak to the, the coaching expense, you know, everybody’s financial situation is different, so I’m sure you get people who make way less than we do and make way more than we do. We are very much that middle class American family, but we didn’t have $797 a month.

To, to do this kind of thing. It wasn’t sitting there. Well, it was, but it was going elsewhere as we shot from the hip and hoped for the best all the time. And in our minds it was like, that is not, that’s not there. It’s and I just, I have to say that it is, for us, it was like, we don’t know how it’s gonna happen, but we’re gonna figure it out because the expense of the next handful of years looking like the last handful of years is so much greater than the 4,000 whatever we would spend in six months.

It, it just was like the most beautiful $800 out the door for six months that we’ve ever spent.

I think that that’s a great analogy because there are people in your exact same situation and they’re like, I’m not really sure how. Mm-hmm. And, and, and you know, I just had a young couple had no kids. They are just starting out their life and they knew that 700, that 7 97 was gonna be really tough, but they did it and some like, it was amazing how. God showed up and just made it work and got them through it and then having that money back. And she said the same thing. She’s like, I don’t know if we can do this without you. I said, girl, yes you can because you need this money back in your budget to do other things for your, for your future. But I just love how you knew that it was there.

Not really but there, but somehow not sure. But you were gonna make

Yeah.

and you were gonna figure it out because the investment was so important. Yeah.

Yeah.

you know, one of the first things that you do is put it all on one piece of paper. Mm-hmm. Which, you know, when you’re shooting from the hip. Like, you’re not, you’re not, you can’t, you’re not seeing all of it. That’s how, that’s why it feels

Yes.

from the hip and hoping for the best. But when you put it all on one piece of paper, I think, you know, we, it took a minute to get the right, you know, amounts for your savings buckets or you, you know, the health one and then your, your spending stuff. But seeing it all and then also seeing, hey, okay, Jamie, you know, ’cause you do work, you know, you have, you obviously take care of those lovely kids, homeschool and do coaching yourself, like you said. But seeing where that money is going and like it, you know, on purpose, this is what if I take an extra client or if I take an extra day or whatever, it’s going specifically to, to do things that we wanna do. I think it like just that ownership and, and not shooting from the hip. Mm-hmm. Like knowing it, like you’re, you’re like a, a having a plan, a pilot with all of the, the, the, the things, what are they called? Like the metro? I don’t know. Well, I don’t, I, my son’s doing it. I’m not giving it.

Oh yeah, me. I don’t know.

you know exactly what’s happening.

Like that’s such a different feeling. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

what’s one big win that you can say, I’m sure there was so many things that you guys accomplished, but what’s one thing that you and your husband can look back and go, this, we did this because we took the time and invested in coaching.

There’s a few that come to my mind. The first one that I feel like I have to say is we just sort of stopped bleeding out. I feel like we were just bleeding out. We, it was sort of, you know, just a, what you can’t see can’t hurt. You just put the card through the machine. We were eating out a ton. We do. I am, I’m an integrative nutrition health coach, so health and wellness is a huge passion of mine.

Obviously a huge value and a place where we do put our finances. We, I’m, I’m not a. I’m not a big spender and a whole lot of other things we aren’t. But that is a place where we, when we eat out, we find a place that is good quality food. When we buy groceries, they are quality, it’s quality food. And we are invested in health and wellness in some other ways as well.

And, but it was just like scans, scans, scan. We are just bleeding out. There was no idea around how much were we spending on eating out on supplements, on you know, whatever. And I think. We stopped the bleed, we got our minds wrapped around how much on average we were spending and we the, just the creating of a budget again.

And then we really disciplined ourselves to stick to it and, never diverted. I mean, I think every single time we got on the call with you, Shayna, it was like, we did it this last two weeks. We did it. We stuck to it, and there were some, some incidentals that came up that we were like, oh, we didn’t know that was coming.

But it wasn’t like I just went and bought $250 pair of jeans, you know? Yeah.

The budget and the stopping the bleeding was huge. And then another win was we’ve, we have paid off some debt and I think we didn’t think we’d be able to touch that for a really long time. And also it is our son’s, oh goodness, here, I’m gonna be emotional. It is our son’s for. My word, he’s our first born and here he goes.

So I did get to take him to visit some colleges and we are gonna be able to take one last family, family vacation. And we didn’t know if we’d be able to do that really. And it’s a sweet, sweet, important time. And so paid off debts. We, we got to do some things with our senior that we didn’t know if we do, how we do it, and now we get to go on a fun family vacation that we have prepared for, so feels really good.

Yeah, the to, you know, the, the final session was them paying, they’re gonna pay off a, a credit card with a bon, with the, with Kevin, with Kevin’s bonus. I’m gonna pay off a credit card, which you did not think you would be able to pay off. You know, it’s, it’s not a small amount. And then and then you’re still gonna put. $5,000 or whatever you guys said toward I was asked ’em if I could come with them. to Glacier National Park. National Park. They’re gonna take this amazing trip with their kiddos this summer, and it’s just gonna be so cool. And it’s, it’s so, such a, it’s such a blessing to, to, to know that you can do both.

Like you can be a good, you’re being a good steward. Both of those things are very, I think being a good steward, obviously. But you can do both. Mm-hmm. And you were able to do both. And that’s the capstone of your coaching. Like I was, like, I told him sometimes we’re like, Hey, can you pay that debt off while we’re on the session with us?

Yeah. Right now. Just, wanna participate, but it’s okay. I, it’s fine. But that’s huge. And to your point, like, and, and then. the same time now you’re also being able to fund those savings buckets almost fully. You got a couple that are still stragglers almost fully every month. Yeah.

Yeah,

And those memories

it’s great.

with your family, I mean, you know this, that’s, it’s priceless.

And to do that and you know, our daughters play travel volleyball, and my son usually comes. Every single time. And if he doesn’t, she’s really upset if he has like a game or something because it, we make them little mini family vacations. So it could be something that tears our family apart or whatever.

Or we can turn, turn into something really special and just spinning that time together. In that little hotel room, girl, you get real close. Mm-hmm. But you know, those car rides, those are just something that you’re not gonna get back because they are leaving soon. It’s so sad.

Yeah.

just ’cause you wanna cherish that last, those last little bits.

Yeah.

ask this question. How, how has your communication maybe changed or your relationship changed about money

Hmm.

and budgeting and all that kind of stuff?

I love that question. I love that question. Yeah, we, I think that through the last handful of years as finances have just slipped through our fingers again, you know, we can look back. Maybe five years ago we had our hands wrapped around it a little bit more. But in the last few years as it slipped through our fingers, I think there’s just been an increasing tension when we talk about finances.

And it’s because we’re both living with a fairly large amount of tight in our chest about our money because we don’t know where it’s going. We know that we’re not. We have, we had, and still have debt to deal with. And it’s not because we buy super bougie cars or we drive pretty old, like we drive cars into the ground and you know, but for us it was like, oh my goodness, the seal on that sliding glass door and we’re in Minnesota, it’s $7,000.

We’re gonna have to put that on a card. We don’t have a choice. We have to replace that sliding glass door, you know, and there that debt sits. But anyways, so. Some debt head mounted, and now we paid off a bunch. We still have a couple things. We had a medical thing happen with our daughter that’s sitting in front of us, but gonna get paid off the, but the tension just kept growing.

Of, you know, Kevin would often say, when I tell him I wanna take a trip, where do you think that’s going to come from? And I’d say, I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out. And that was the conversation. And, and we would, but it didn’t feel good. We found it, we figured it out, but it didn’t feel good and we didn’t know exactly what it meant for the future.

And so for our relationship at this point, I just think there’s, like we we’re, we’re flowing. Now we, we, we know what we’re doing. We’re in full unity on how we spend our money, how we don’t spend our money. And we’re both excited about the future, where we’re at right now, and what’s to come. And so the tension has lifted and our communication is.

Light and there’s excitement and joy and a plan and we don’t feel that tight yuck inside about finances anymore. And not because it looks perfect. ’cause again, we still have debt. And I still would like to bring in a little bit more in terms of income, but those things will come.

gonna

There’s

yeah. Yeah.

order and there’s peace.

to your point, the thing I, I thought is the accounts are how you know where the money’s coming from. Mm-hmm. Friend, Kevin. No, I’m just kidding. I, that was before, but now he

Yes,

know, and both of you can see it. And it’s not like something to, to dispute.

It’s like, oh no, we have $5,000 in our vacation fund. That’s how we’re gonna buy the tickets. Like, ta-da. All done. Yeah.

yes, yes, exactly.

think it’s

Yeah.

people may wanna come into coaching and be like, I wanna be able to pay off all my debt in the six months. And, you know, sometimes you can’t, based on the situation, like you said, we’re not, we’re not going out and buying an expensive purses here.

This was debt that was necessary, like windows, that’s kind of important. You need glass in your house to protect your home. Mm-hmm. Right? So there are things that kind of may have racked up and I mean, I had clients, they’re, they were living in a hotel for months. Because they had water leak and it was a, it was a mess.

And so that all, all of that debt was incurring while they were on coaching and new things and piping and all that. And yeah, it wasn’t the best situation. We always say, listen, when you sign up for coaching, something’s gonna happen. We’re just telling you right now. Just be prepared. It’s gonna, it’s gonna happen ’cause the enemy’s trying to, trying to come tear you down, but we’re gonna

Yes.

out and we’re gonna make it work.

And from this point on, after you graduate coaching, you’re going to have a plan. You’re gonna know exactly how to pay it off, because you’re gonna be very purposeful with your money, not just, like you said, shooting from the hip. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So last question. You know, what would you tell somebody who’s maybe where you were, although you, you, you googled budget coaches, so you were, you were maybe a little further, but maybe a month before that.

What would you tell somebody that that’s in that position, feeling that kind of way? What would you tell them?

Oh, a month before,

were in that angsty, like some we have something is not, it’s not working. Something’s gotta give.

Yeah, I honestly, I would just say you need to bring somebody else into the mix. Get out of your own mind and your own dynamic in your marriage if, if you’re married, and bring somebody else into the mix because if you feel stuck, if that’s a word, I would say, if that is a word that someone listening would describe, I feel stuck.

We are not meant to do. Things on our own. I think as Americans we’re so accustomed to isolation and sticking to ourselves and our white picket fences. And I don’t think it’s meant to be done that way. I think we really do need one another. And no matter how strong or disciplined or res well resourced you think you are.

’cause I am one of those who I’m like, I got all the resources and the I you know, or even Kevin and I, we tried a million things and they all work fine. We need, we need support, we need one another. And you know, for those of us who are believers, I just really do believe that the body of Christ is meant to shore one another up.

And so I would just say, look for support and the kind of support that, you know, quickly, you won’t feel stuck anymore. Yeah.

So good. Thank you for your kind words. That was very, very sweet. Well, we have nothing to say. We can’t, we can’t put, we can’t top that. That’s a great way to end it. Yeah. The only thing I will say is we are so blessed. We have the best clients. Yeah. We get to do, I mean, you guys listen to Jamie.

She’s amazing. They did amazing. I’m so excited for their family. Kind of wanna move in. I already told you guys that. And so adopt us. We are very blessed to be able to help. Who God brings us. Mm-hmm. And you know, we get great clients and we get, we get to see it through, and then you go on your way and graduate and go to Glacier Park without me.

It’s fine. Anyway, we’re so thankful to you. Thank you for coming on. Yeah. I think, you know, it helps a lot of people. Yeah. I know your story is gonna help, help somebody’s listening and maybe thinking, I don’t, I’m doing this on my own and should I be, do I need to be? And hopefully they’ll reach out because we don’t want them to do it alone.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you both so much for being obedient to what you’re called to and just bringing what you do. It’s such a gift.

Thank you, Jamie.