I’m Shana, she’s Vanessa.

We’re so excited to have you. We’re so excited to chat. So why don’t we start off and you tell us about yourself a little bit. Let’s see. I am 26 years old. I’ll be 27 in August. I’ve been married. I’ll be married for three years in August. I have a dog. His name is Koda. He’s a lot mixed. My husband and I, we just let, we just moved to Dallas.

We’re in Royce City, so it’s like east, the country from Virginia. We moved here We closed our home in January, so we’re first time homeowners, new to the Dallas area. I’m a medical assistant, but I’m getting back in school to go for my BSN RN. Wow. Congratulations. Let’s go, girl. Yeah, I got a little bit of a lot going on.

You’re on fire. Hold on. When is your anniversary? What date? August 8th, and my birthday is August 15th. Okay. Oh, we were so close. My anniversary is August 6th. You, and you almost started saying that, but anyway, that’s so cool. You have a lot going on. I don’t know if that’s, and you should be really proud.

Look at all the accomplishments. Thank you. And you’re getting new glasses. Hey, yes, finally.

 So can you tell us real quick, how did you hear about us? So I’ve been needing to like, get a lot of like budgeting finance thing going on. And I listen to podcasts. So I. Work about an hour, almost an hour, 20 minutes away from my home.

So I listen to podcasts all the time. So I just went on pod, the podcast app, and I just typed in like budgeting tips for women, and you guys were the first thing that popped up. budgeting tips for women. And like the first episode that I listened to, it was like, talking about how many bank accounts you should have.

And I was like, wow, I only had the checking and the saving. And I’ve heard other people talk about Oh, they have this, and this. And I was like, Oh, you’re crazy. Like that. No, but then you guys actually explained it and explained why it was necessary. And I believe the next day I went on the USAA app and I opened up like four more accounts.

I’ve just been listening to you guys. And so when I found the, when I went on your website and I saw the opportunity for for us to talk, I was like I need this. Yes. I love that. Yeah. We are so excited to hear. I was thinking like, wow, that went in an overwhelming first episode. I love it. I love it a lot, but it was what I needed.

I was like, wow. Yeah. I went back to my husband and my mom. I was like, you guys have to listen to them. Oh, I don’t know. Hey, we have listened. We have had some couples on a free call and the husband’s I found you. And then I brought my wife. So I got her that she needs to listen. I love it. And we have, there’s people, and I have a feeling you are one of these people, just especially how you introduced yourself, how life is going for you.

Some people are just a plus students. And it sounds like you’re like, I listened and I did. And I love that. And some people take a year to listen and do which is fine. We’re here for them too, but we love the A plus students. You get a gold star, go ahead and put it on your shirt. So tell us Brianna, what’s going on?

What’s bringing you to the call today? Okay, so I am not good with budgeting or saving. I’ve never been. My husband is he knows where every dollar is going. If something unexpected comes up, he’s prepared for it, but I just know how to spend. I don’t know how to save. If I put something in a savings account and I run out in my other account, I look over, I’m like, oh, but I have this.

I’ve always just been told you need to save. Never really guided on how to just like, Oh, you don’t save your money. You need to save your money. You need to put 25 aside each check or something. And I’ve just gotten to a point to where I will literally get paid and two, three days later, it’s gone.

And I can’t tell you what happened. It’s not like I’m buying clothes. It’s not like I’m buying shoes. I probably go to target. That’s probably my. And I get a whole bunch of stuff for the house and I feel like I’m taking care of the house taking care of my bills and everything is done. And my husband’s like, how much do you have left over?

And I’m like, nothing. Don’t ask that question. Yeah, no. Okay. So love all the words that you said. First of all, you are very, so we podcast today. You people, women in particular love to say I’m not good at, I’m bad with this. And no, you’re very smart. You’re very savvy. You’re very capable. You’re going back to school.

You just haven’t learned, literally haven’t learned this part yet. It’s just like anything else. You haven’t learned it yet. So please give yourself grace. The other thing, girl is storm mode. We talk about storm mode when you’re moving and all new jobs and all these things happen, it’s very hard to budget anyway, but first time home homeowner, like That’s, oh boy, that’s a big scary black hole of where all your money can go so that you’re not alone there.

Yeah. Yep. I actually have a client that’s buying a house and oh, she’s, her year. She has a year and she said, how much do I need to, or I said, how much do you wanna save for your down payment? And she said, 10. And I said, but they were saving 20 . I said, because of the amount of things that you have to buy and that you’re gonna get in between that time.

, you have to have this money set aside. Because the chances are you’re going to spend it anyways. So we’re just going to do it on purpose. We’re going to budget and save for it. So like Shannon said, it like you’re going through storm mode right now. There’s a lot happening. And so what we want to do is just make sure that everything is taken care of and everything is accounted for.

And like she said, you’ve not done this before. This is the first time that you’re learning how to navigate all of this. And you don’t and because you don’t know how, it seems hard and it seems like you are not good at it. Yeah. But that’s not true. Yeah. And so what I wanna say is you have one habit that we can work with, which is you spend whatever’s in that account.

Yes. . On payday, you’re like, target. Yeah. And then when you leave Target, you’re like, oh, all done. All done. Until the next paycheck. Okay. So what, we call that bank account balancing. Totally fine, totally normal. What we wanna do is. Put the right amount of money in there so that this is what I have to spend in your, the rest of it’s happening automatically.

So there’s nothing wrong with having a house budget. I try to make it a point just cause I’ve moved so many times in my life and we are military too, is let a woman have some money for her house. For the love of God, give her something to make that house a home because that’s just your nature, right?

So you, what we would do with you is, That’s what we do. We set us, like you set your budget up and then a portion of the money would go toward your house budget, right? Furnishing your home, decorating, whatever you want to, even if some of the basics, like we need a hose or whatever, go there and you know that’s what your budget is.

Because then guess what? When you go to target, you have a hundred bucks, you’re all done. You have to prioritize. So the cool thing that we like to do is I can have a list. I can look on Amazon, I can window shop, but then this month, here’s my budget. Which one of these things do I actually want to prioritize?

And that way you have the best of both worlds. You’re like coming up with a vision for your home, but you’re sticking to a budget. My husband and I both get a want and a need list for the house and cause his wants or needs are very different than my wants and needs. And mine are all aesthetic and his actually serve a purpose.

Yes. Same here. Yeah. If you guys can make a list and go, what’s, this is, what’s really important to me. And this is what I want to do. Shana said, when that money comes in and you put it in that account, then you can say, okay, Can I spend it this month or do I need to save up for it for next month?

And both of those answers, both of those are fine, but now you’re just set. You have parameters basically. Yeah. And my biggest my biggest thing I forgot to mention, after pays, Klarna’s, all those. No, I will look at it and be like, Oh, that’s 200. But I only have to spend this much.

Yeah. Yeah. So that’s my problem. And I probably have multiple, not anymore. My husband’s gotten really onto me about that. So I’m doing better. But at one point I had two, 300 of multiple orders. Yeah. No, you’re not alone. Okay. No, I had a client comes to me. I thought it was girl laugh. No. You know what?

And let’s talk about girl math. Oh, I’m writing that down. We’re doing a freaking episode on that. Here’s the easiest girl math. If you can’t pay for it all right now, you can’t afford it. So that, and they’re preying on you. They’re preying like you’re, like hunting, that cannot like praying, hoping the best. We’re preying on you. They know that you’re like, I really want that couch or I, whatever it is, and I, but I can afford 20. I can’t afford 200 or whatever. It’s not your fault. They know exactly what they’re doing. Like they put the color of the font and everything, like everything specifically to pray and get you to push the button and you do.

But here’s the thing. I think Andy Stanley talks about having guardrails and like just a guardrail that you can have as. I don’t pay. I don’t use a firm or after pay. I just don’t like, if I want it, I save up for it and just become that person because right now you’re, you are, you’re going to win because you’re so young and you’re coming to us now and we can hopefully help you.

But as your budget gets more complicated, the more years you get into budgeting, you don’t want to be like some of the people that come to us with, 34, five, 50 lines of debt because they’ve done so many of those things and they just get in a cycle that they can’t get out of. Husband made swap.

Let’s be all done with that. Yeah. And I would say like you have an opportunity to be a millionaire by the time you’re 40 or less. Yeah. You’re the same age as when my husband and I decided maybe I was 24, 25, but not much different. You decided to literally change your life. And that happened for us.

I was 33. Okay. So you have an opportunity to do this. By the time you’re 48 to become a millionaire, you, this is a reality for you. It’s not like a maybe someday in the future it could happen. No, it’s for you because you’re deciding now that you want a different future for you and your husband.

And Shayna said, you just become the type of person that you no longer use those options to pay. They do make it so easy. Now they’re on everything. Every time you can buy something, the option is available. I would say go through, pay them all off if you haven’t already. Delete your account with them, right?

Go through and just take your cards off, delete all of that line of credit. Close it. So you no longer have access or it’s, it’s harder. Like Shaina said, those barriers, those guardrails, you’re one, one step harder for you to be able to click that button and say, yes, please sign me up.

Yeah. Okay. So the bigger picture though, Brianna. Cause you gotta get on a budget. So you’re like, I don’t, I don’t know my dollars just disappear or whatever. So let’s be purposeful about the budget. So when we say, sit down and look at your income. Okay. And then take out how much you have to pay for debt or bills, like the actual thing, number for electricity or whatever that, whatever it is.

And then whatever’s left over, then we start to put that Into spending and saving categories. Okay. So your gas, your groceries, your personal spending, and then over here, and then maybe your house budget, you have a, whatever you can afford for a month and then over here, savings buckets, whatever they may, might need to be.

We can go through a list of those, but some things are like house maintenance now that you have a house or Christmas now that Christmas is always coming every year. So then the rest of your budget is happening or you have a budget. And that’s how, like, when you say your husband knows, Where every dollar’s going?

So will you, and you will know this is where all of my paycheck is getting dispersed on purpose. And then you’ll have that one account that says, all right, it’s time for, you can call it Target if you want, and you can dance. You don’t have to. It’s up to you. But it’s time for Target. Where am I gonna get for my a hundred bucks?

Or whatever it is, and then you’re going into Target. You’re not taking away ever getting to go to Target. . But you’re just putting parameters on it so that you can also be saving. For, and spending the right things on the other, the right amount on the other things. And I know you said that you sometimes will, we’ll move money over to spend it.

Yeah. You’re going to hide your accounts so that way you don’t see them. So the only account that you’re really looking at is maybe your target account and your personal pocket money spending account that you have. And that’s it. Like you, and here’s the thing is name them something to where, when you go to pull money out of it, you’re going to have a guilt trip.

Moment for yourself. Okay. And you’re going to okay, if I pull that money, I am pulling from our future pool or vacation to Europe or whatever, like just, Christmas present for my husband or mother’s day gift or whatever it is, for your mom, just really make those account names matter to where it’ll make you not want to pull from them.

And then, and, or hide them. Okay. Because what we’re trying to do is the extra checking account that you open for yourself that is that spending money account. Correct. That is your new budget. That is your new amount that Brianna can go spend on whatever she wants. And then you, like she said, you also have that target account or that, that home repair account where you can go buy all this stuff for your house.

So you will have a couple of different parameters in place based on the category of how you’re spending your money. So that way it keeps you in line. 📍 Okay.

 We’ll get right back to the show, but we wanted to give you a heads up right now that our signature budget template and course is available

guys. It is simple, easy to use and pretty plus it comes with walk through videos and special trainings that teach you exactly how to budget. We’re going to teach you the exact systems we use with our clients to get out of debt, to set up the savings buckets, to create the bills account and to know exactly what’s going on with your paychecks and so much more.

And so if you’re new to budgeting, our system will. We’ll help you get started easily. And if you’re a budget nerd like us, this system is about to become your new best friend, your new obsession, because it’s the exciting game-changing upgrade to your budget that you need right now.

So head on over to budgetbesties.com/budget.

Now let’s jump back to today’s show. 📍

 And then one more thing, and then we’re going to stop talking and let you talk. That’s possibly going to happen. We just love you so much. And somebody’s coming to deliver something from Amazon.

That’s not to make my dog bark at all. Sorry. But okay. So what I wanted to say is you said, people tell me I should be saving, I should be saving this. It should be saving that. And it’s so nice that other people have great financial advice for you, isn’t it? But what you want to do is decide what you want to save on purpose.

There’s generally the idea that you want to have an emergency fund, right? Of however much, especially as a homeowner, you want to have something there. And then we can send you a list of savings, but things, savings buckets that you might want to consider. Saving money for, you might want to be investing like Vanessa said be, between your home and every other thing, you can become a millionaire.

So you, you might specifically want to say, I’m going to send a hundred dollars to my investments or money market or whatever, but you can decide, I do save money for a reason. And one of the reasons like. We like to save money for vacations or those are the things when people say you should save money.

They don’t know what they’re saying either. They’re just like, somebody told me once to save and I save money, but you want to save specifically for your goals when you said that, literally the first thing that came to my mind was, but if you don’t know your why, then you’re not going to save money.

It’s not going to matter. Yeah. There’s a purpose. So you just have to know your why. Yeah. Sheena says. Everyone’s budget is different. Everyone saves money for something different. Find out what motivates you. Got any questions? We just verbal vomited on you, no, it’s okay. Like, when I made those accounts, my, my brother and my sister, one’s graduating college, the other is graduating high school next year, and they want to do a siblings trip to Disney.

I actually opened up an account, and I titled it Disney 2025. I, I, like you said, like in your just now and in your podcast, you said that basically everything has a purpose, everything has a why. So I have a glam account now that’s titled glam account. I have the bills account. I have like my emergency fund.

I have our emergency fund and everything. I think the part is just putting it in there and keeping it in there. And I’ve looked at everything. So it’s just like, when do I start the saving after I’ve paid off my paying fours, after I’ve set aside some money for my emergency fund, or like, when I get paid, do I just, Like I said, pay all my bills and then disperse, or do I give myself a month or two to get all everything in order and then go from there?

Like take care of all the debt mess over here and then focus on like the budgeting. I think Shana alluded to it earlier when she said, make your budget. So our, if you don’t have our free one page budget template we can, we’ll add it to your recap and we send that to you, but it’s five categories.

Okay. So you type in your income. You put your debts in your bills and then you do your spending, which is your gas groceries, your monthly or whatever, like the things that happen on a monthly basis, that’s what goes in your spending. And then before you do your savings or add any extra undead, you need to see what that, what the remaining number is.

So you’ll take your income and your minus your minus your bills, minus your debts, minus your spending and see what’s left. Yeah. Yeah. And you see what’s left. And then honestly it happens differently for every client. So sometimes if you’re bleeding because of those a million different payments and honestly It’s just bugging you.

You might just be like, and if it, if you can pay it off quickly, we might be like, just get rid of that and then get else going, right? That might be a thing. Cause then you get that back in your budget and you can really play around with with where you want everything to go. But your emergency fund, you and your husband can decide you have a starter emergency fund, especially if you, I don’t know how much that you have, but you, it doesn’t have to be fully funded.

So then. Then like Vanessa said, it’s all going to be playing with what’s left over in your budget. What is left over after you pay the things that you have to pay. And then you can say, okay, I have I have 500 I can put on debt a month and I still can set aside 200 for this vacation with my siblings.

However, we will also send, we have so many things to send to you girl, send you the vacation planner that we made. And This is another thing. It’s let’s not guess. Let’s make this a reality. You’re doing this with your siblings. Okay. So I do that. If I plan it, how much is the air airfare? How much is the tickets to get in the park?

How much is the lodging? How much am I going to cost for food? And then you divide that by what you said next year, whenever you’re going, how many months you have to get there, right? Yeah. And that’s what you actually need to save for it. So you might, depending on what that number is, that will let you know okay, if I need to say 500 for this vacation a month or whatever it might be, then I can still put 300 on debt or whatever.

So you just need to figure out your priorities and what your wiggle room is. And maybe that’s the only savings bucket besides your home that you’re building right now. And in everything else you’re paying for in the moment. So maybe we’re not saving for Christmas right now. Then. Some wiggle room down the road to do that.

So you’re going to do that then maybe it’s not, you’re not saving for your pet annual visit yet because you’re going to do that in the moment. Some of the savings buckets you just can’t do all right now because you do have debt, right? So let’s see for the couple that are important that are coming up that are non negotiable and then the rest of everything else is going to go on debt because once you can really have the debt minimum payments, you’ll have all the extra to put towards the savings buckets in the future.

Okay, that’s why I was like, oh, I have all these saving accounts now. Do I have to start putting Into it now or it, so thank you for that. Yeah. You’ll just get to earn it. Okay. Okay. And so once I’ve done that, do I like set goals for myself or you need to set goals now, before you do anything I want this much over here.

It’s just going to help you when you even go to fill out your spending section of your budget. If you have a goal and you have your vision and your goals set up, then when you go to fill out your budget, it’s do I actually want to spend 800 a month on restaurants? Or maybe I want to spend 400, right?

So having those set in place first is going to really help. Okay. Okay. Yes. I appreciate it. Like we said, we’ll get you a recap and we’ll send you all those things that we talked about sending you. But just let us know how it goes. We’re really excited. Woo. Disney sibling strip. That’s so cute.

That’s the first one. That’s the first one we’ve heard. We just love our people that listen. You guys are so cool. That’s so sweet. Cause I’m an only child and they live, they do everything together anyway. So when people like that, but we have kids when they want it. purpose. I’m like, look, it can be, it can happen.

Podcasting is such a one sided conversation. So when we can get you guys on the call, it is just so fun to have these meetings with you. Yes, it’s actually it’s so sweet. Just to you guys sound like the exact same on the podcast and here and you guys are funny and laughing at everything.

And I’m just glad that it’s not like just like a serious conversation. Like you really made me feel very comfortable. That is the goal. And financial conversations are not the most easy. We totally agree. We’re trying to change that, to one person at a time, two, two on one. We’ll get there.

And you guys do 101. Helping people. How does that look? Cause I feel like I’m going to need a little one on one for a while until I get my decks in order. Yeah. So there’s basically, I’ll just tell you the three ways to work with us. So we have our signature budget template. If you haven’t heard about it, that’s like the one page budget, the free one page budget Templar template that we’re going to give you.

And they and the recap, but it’s like the full system, right? It’s so good. All the, all these sheets work together. It’s all automated. And so that is, it’s one 97. Okay. Yeah. Just so it’s a one time payment. You get the whole course, everything that comes with it. We also have group coaching, which I think you would be, she would be so fun.

And so group coaching and a lot of people will couple the the signature budget template with group coaching, because it gives them the accountability they need, the community that they have on the calls, everyone’s in the chat, helping each other, rooting each other on answering questions and everything.

And you get both of us, they’re coaching that’s twice a month. And it’s only 57 a month right now. We have our introductory rate for that. And so we do that on the second and fourth Mondays of the month. Okay. One on one coaching is 4. 97 a month. And you’ll meet twice a month with your coach with that.

And that is obviously very specific, very tailored budgeting and coaching on your situation. Okay. Okay. Thank you ladies.