Today, we’re talking about how to stick to a budget without feeling restricted. So this is the B word, right? Everyone loves the word budget. They feel icky when they, when they hear it, it, cause they think it makes, their money restricted. It thinks that makes her spending restricted. And so what we’re trying to tell you today is that it doesn’t, it really doesn’t really allows your money to do a lot of things.

Yeah. And. Budget. Yeah. Budget is not the B word. As you might think bad B word. And and so we’re going to give you some ideas about how to be on a budget. And how about Ashley allows you to enjoy life? That is what, and it gives you, you know, what actually is probably making you feel restricted is not knowing and, and spending, even though, you know, you probably shouldn’t like all of those emotions and anxiety and stress that you have when it comes to, not having a budget and not using a budget. All of that goes away with a budget, a budget actually, lets you know what you can spend, how much you have.

It helps you save money for the things that you’re really excited about it lets you know, for sure all your bills. Like, it’s actually freeing. It’s very freeing. It is. So my son got his first job this year. Right. And so we set up his bank accounts, we set up his bills account, his personal spending account and a savings account. And, you know, every single paycheck, his money gets transferred into his spending account and he’s, it’s piled up because. You know, he’s 15, right?

He’s not spinning all his spending money all the time. But it’s 10 bucks a week. Y’all so I think that’s a reasonable amount, but anyways, We looked in his accountant of the day. And I said, isn’t it cool to know that you have all of this happening over here, which was what was going on in his bills account, what was happening in a savings account?

And I said, and you still are able to have your spending money. And he goes, yeah, it really does. You know, and it’s this the idea of knowing that he has his money budgeted and he has the freedom to spend the money in his spending account because that’s what we’ve allotted. Yep. So today we’re just going to go through some different things that are going to help you understand that your budget is not going to make you feel restricted.

It’s going to make you feel free. Yep. And allow you to spend and feel good about it and feel like, again, that. You can spend money knowing that other things are happening and everything is really organized and taken care of. Yeah. Okay. So I think sort of where we have to start is mindset. Okay, because as we sort of talked about in the, in the, or the intro is you have to look at this with a different attitude.

We have, we have this experience, what was it last year? I don’t remember when sort of separately, which is always what happens separately, but it’s exact same thing happening when we were talking with our husbands separately about where all their money went. Yeah. You know, they work really hard.

They make a lot of money and I’m like, hi, what? Where to do, oh, go, we didn’t, you know, whatever. And we are like, Hey, let me show you what happened. You paid for this. You did this. The reason we were able to travel here is because of this because of you and your money, and really it’s a mindset. That you have to change and see what all of your money is able to do.

And that is what a budget is going to do. It’s going to let you put all of your income and divide it into little jobs, and then you get to have the attitude, like, look at what my money can do. Look, it’s not restrictive. It’s like, wow, look at all these cool things that my money does. Yeah. And I think it’s when you don’t know where your money is going.

Right. So when you’re just blowing it and spinning it and swiping, and you have no idea. Then you can look back and go, where is all my money? Where did it all go? Why do I feel broke? You know, it, there’s just a lot of questions that, that, that are rise with that. But to Shana’s point when my husband asked the beginning of last year, you know why?

Well, he, his question was. Why don’t we have no money. And I was like, hold on. Okay. We personally on purpose. Put guardrails around certain accounts. So that way it keeps us in check personally, because we know ourselves. And I said, but because we put guard rails on, this is all the stuff that your money was able to do for our family.

And I listed it all out and I listed the amounts of money that went into each of those categories. And then he felt like he kind of put his shoulders back a little bit and he was like, oh, okay. Like, But because we knew because we had a budget because we documented exactly where the money was going.

I was able to show him all of that and it really made a difference, but it was like Shannon said, it’s all about a mindset. Like you. Not knowing where your money is going is more difficult in my eyes than knowing where it’s going and feeling good because every dollar had a specific job. Yeah. And so the idea is if you put all your numbers on a budget, Then you should be able to look at that and not feel restricted.

Like Vanessa said, you’re going to have spending money. It might be having some guard rails, but you look at that number, look at that budget and don’t feel restricted. Feel blessed. Yeah, feel good. Like look at what I’m affording for my family. Look at what I’m affording for my kids. Look at what we’re saving for.

Look at all. This house that we’re paying for, like all of these things that you should not let it feel restrictive, like your brain has to tell it otherwise. Right. Well, and I was just going to say it and the idea and Shane and I were just talking about this in the car, literally about the idea of a, of not live feeling like you have to live like the Joneses, right. So sometimes you get into an environment or you start hanging out with certain people and you start seeing what maybe what their, their life is like and what their, how they’re living in.

Hey, listen, you don’t know if they’re putting it all on, on credit. You, you actually don’t know the answer to that, but sometimes we feel like we need to level up. Oh, you know, always level up like all the time. Well, your kid is doing this well, my kid’s doing this. Watch that, oh, your kid wears, this are my kids going to wear this. You know, so really think about what is important to you.

What are your goals? What brings you joy? What, what is making you happy and learn to be content with all the things that you have? Yeah, I think that’s a big one. So when you look at that budget, If you feel restricted, give yourself a little gut check. And think. What about me five years ago? How would me five years ago feel looking at this budget?

Would I be like, wow, look at the things I can afford. Look how much money I have or would, you know, would you feel differently? I don’t think you would feel differently if you can like, think about. Being the mentality of the five years ago, person with a budget of today, right? The budget of the person today. The income of the person today.

If you can go back in time and learn to be content and feel joy, the way that you were living before you let lifestyle creep happen. Right. Which is usually a big part of why you feel. This happens. If you can try to, to grasp back onto that, like where you were, then it will help. And but another reason that you might feel like it’s restricted, Is some of the decisions that you’ve made, like Vanessa said, you might have accidentally. Bought a boat. We’re trying to keep up with the Joneses or whatever.

Right? So you might have some amazing decisions that, you know, we teach you to put your debt first after income in the budget so that you can see how much we’re paying. And sometimes when we do budgets, the debt is so staggering, you know, thousands of dollars every month, because, and so you’re paying, you’re feeling quote unquote restricted because you made all those decisions in the past, unfortunately, and you’ve got to clean those up and literally for most people’s budgets, Vanessa, that’s the only thing that quote unquote makes them feel restricted because they have those hundreds, thousands of dollars every month, they wouldn’t be like rolling, literally rolling in the dough with money everywhere, not even knowing how to spend it.

All right. And it’s. So it’s those debts that make you feel restricted. So just think about, and one of the exercises we like to do with our clients is, okay, we’ve put your debts on paper. You’re paying three, $4,000 a month on debt. Imagine what you could do without that. That is where really, you know, when life begins. But it’s really what allows you to not feel restricted.

So when you think a budget makes you feel restricted, no, it’s actually, like Shana said the decisions that you made in the past that you’re now having to pay for and you’re hot and you’re not having to kind of clean up. Once you can get rid of those or at least bring them down a bit if, especially if it’s a credit card.

So like a boat payment, a car payment, things like that, those payments don’t change for the life of the loan. But I maybe like a home equity line of credit or credit card or bank loan, those will decrease as the, as the balance decreases. So the more you can put on those, the more money you get back in your pocket each month.

So you can use that extra money to do other things with. Okay. And I want to pull out a quote. I don’t know why this came up, but I said it earlier. And it’s going back to George Bush and he had a quote. W who said I’m the decider? And I was just thinking about how, how great with words he was in that way.

And so you’re the decider. So if you feel like your budget feels restrictive, it might be that you have the wrong numbers, but again, you’re the decider. So go look at those numbers. If you you know, a common one is you’re not putting enough for groceries or you’re not enough site. And that feels very much a big one.

We really know what it’s like to try to. Feed all of these humans that you have to feed on such a short budget. Right? So that is something that might make you feel restrictive, but again, you get to decide the numbers. So if you feel like, Hey, 50 bucks, a paycheck is not enough for her spending, go change it, girl.

Like you can change. You are the decider. Yeah. So trial and error. Okay. Allow yourself, some grace. And while you’re figuring this out. But really find out what, what are the right numbers for me? What. How much money do I need for groceries every other week or every week? However you get paid. To make it last.

So my husband gets paid weekly and I tell my kids, don’t ask me for things on Wednesday night because your dad gets paid Thursday. And that’s when everything happens. That’s when the grocery budget gets replenished. So don’t ask me for anything. On Wednesday, feasting on Thursday. And it is a leftover day on there on Wednesdays, right? Or digging out of the freezer. Whatever, but but that’s the routine and that that’s the life that they know they’ve known it forever and that’s okay.

And like, we’re totally fine with that. But you just have to figure out what the right number for you is. Right. Yeah. And again, like for this is a trial and error, you can adjust all of these. The only thing that you can adjust is your bills. Some of them. You can, once you see them all on paper, you might be willing to get. Ah, let some go, but your bills and your desks are net can’t necessarily, adjust, unless you just turn the boat back in.

I don’t know why we’re on a boat kick, but it’s happening. We live in Florida. Yeah, that’s true. So, but you’re spending, you can adjust. So it doesn’t feel as restrictive sometimes. We’re so like Vanessa gives us the example of her client that month. One. They looked at what they had been spending on restaurants.

And she said, we’re going to cut it in half. Maybe not like that’s, when you feel restrictive, you need to maybe grow into the kind of person that doesn’t spend money eating out, or that doesn’t spend as much on clothes or beauty or whatever. You might need to grow into that. And you don’t necessarily need to start.

You want to be like, I’m slowly getting to the point where you feel like, Hmm, maybe I should put some of this money in savings instead. And we promise you can grow into that. Our clients all the time, they get more excited about saving money than spending, but give yourself, like we said, trial and error, grace. The time period to get there.

You don’t have to start off with your budget, super restrictive, where you have a hundred dollars to get you through the whole month on a category or something, because so that you can do this other thing, like pay off debt or whatever that is, what’s making you feel restricted, but you are. In charge of it. And you’re going to come back and say budget doesn’t they don’t work. I don’t, I can’t do good with elephant.

I’ll take all that out.

And, and you know what, you’re going to probably come back and say, if you do that method of restricting yourself as say, budgets don’t work. I can’t do them. I suck at them or whatever. This doesn’t work for me. Right. That’s actually not the truth. The truth is you did not put the right amount for that category.

Like Shannon said, so. Allow yourself, some grace be the type of person like Shannon said, grow into that person that, that maybe doesn’t spend $4,000 a month on eating out. Gal. It’s not, it’s actually really easy to do. Right. Jaw drop at us. It’s definitely. We’ve seen and, you know a couple of clients, who’ve had some new clients. Lately.

And they said, wow, this first month is eyeopening, right? Yeah. We did not realize how many times we were swiping our card. And that’s really what the first couple of months are about. It’s not about restricting you back. It’s about opening your eyes and really understanding and seeing your spending habits and your mindset and all of that.

That’s happening. And then from there you get to really tweak the numbers and then you’ll find your rhythm with your budget. Yeah. And so one more way to really stick to a budget without feeling restricted is to automate it. Okay. So. Not only can the actual amounts restrict fill you, make you feel restricted having to like be time restricted by budgeting, but actually the feeling of having to go in and do math all the time and look at the numbers, if you can automate it, that is less pressure, less time, less, whatever on you and your numbers are just happening automatically in the background.

That’s going to make you feel less restricted all by itself. Yeah, for sure. So I, when we were talking about doing this outline, I was like, actually for me, It’s like the bank is restricting you because they’re the ones doing the automatic transfer. So if you don’t have enough in groceries, that’s on them.

It’s their fault. No, but I mean, that’s a joke, but. The reality is, is where you want to set everything up as automated as possible. Cause the more that your hands are in it, the more you’re touching it, the more you’re making manual transfers and all of that, the more it’s going to mess up. Love you, but that’s just that we have seen time and time again. That the more our clients are in the bank app making, like I said, all these manual transfers that’s when really everything gets convoluted.

So if you can say, okay, I know I need a thousand dollars. Every two weeks for groceries, then that is what I’m going to set up as an automatic transfer into the grocery account and then hands off. And at that point, all you need is your debit card to that account. And you can monitor it monitor the, the balance from your bank app.

Yeah. And that’s what we mean by not feeling restricted. So when it’s automated, right? So you get paid a drop. You don’t have to think. Well, how much can I CA or not spend, or how much do I have to do this or that no everything is happening. And you don’t, you don’t have to feel that at all. All you have to do is when you get paid, you have money to spend. And again, this is money to spend on money to spend on your groceries, your gas, your personal spending money on restaurants.

If you choose that. The category and it’s funded automatically. So all you have to do is go spend money. It’s not restrictive. It’s like money is automatically coming to me. Every time we get paid. And I know it’s free and clear to be spent. And the same thing once we said what, like. Like we said, once you get as excited about saving, introduced, spending the same thing’s happening, with your savings buckets, right?

So you’re not feeling you. You here’s how it feels you log in. To your bank app and you see money everywhere. You’re like, wow. We hear it all the time. So we’re not just making that up. Yeah, your vacation account, your vehicle account, your medical account, your pets account. All of these are just getting on Christmas.

All of them are getting funded and they just grow every paycheck. And you’re like, wow, that isn’t, that is literally the opposite feeling of restricted. If you can set it up automatically and you watching your money grow automatically. And then you’re also seeing that I get spending, I don’t have to feel restricted.

I know this next two weeks, I I’m going to work within this amount or one week or a month or whatever your, your pay schedule. I’m just gonna work with it. That’s not restricted. That’s free. I know I have $200. I can spend on whatever I want until next payday. That is freeing. It’s not restrictive. And I love how you said free and clear because you know, this is maybe the first time you’re spending cash to pay for all your things.

And you can see that you actually have the cash to spend on all of your, your monthly items. And it’s really nice to know that you don’t ever have to go back and pay for your past. Again, like you’re literally budgeting the money you’re spending your cash. And by the end of the month, everything is down to zero on purpose.

Like Shannon said, whether that’s to your bills, to your spending, to your savings, you’re putting extra on debt. You’re purposely getting that. Number down on your budget to zero. So, okay. So we hope that this has motivated you and changed your mind and maybe changed your perception of a budget of the B word.

Right? We want you to realize that it’s going to give you permission to spend freedom, to spend freedom, to do all the things with your money that you’ve been saying that you want to do. It’s not making you feel restricted. Okay. This is how you stick to it. This is how you do it. Without that feeling.

Yeah. And come back and let us know when you’re that person that has money everywhere under the accounts, and you don’t know what to do with it all. Because it’s all. It’s the first time you’ve ever had this much money in your bank.