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

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

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

I had a client come in and I said, You know, we always have our pleasantries in the beginning. Right. And then, and so everybody fakes those. It’s all things get real. Yeah. Everybody’s like, I’m fine. Everything’s great. Whatever. And then. It’s like, oh, and so she said, A lot of life happened and she’s so sweet. She’s actually very what is it like optimistic?

She’s very sweet and. And so when she said a lot of life happened, that was code that. And and so what we found out is we have just put her. In store mode and it’s really actually sort of storming month because November. You know, it was already kind of done, but in the month of December, they will. And it’s a very, I know it’s very touchy.

It’s very difficult. And You know, our prayers go out to everybody, but anybody who fosters children knows what. What a difficult, difficult, emotional, emotional ride. That is. So how. Anyway, so their foster kids are going to be moving out. In the summer and. So that completely changes literally every, every column of the. Of the budget other than debt, right. Changes income.

It changes the bills changes. What you’re doing for groceries. And it changes what you’re saving for different things. Right? So, So that is happening and they’re moving. They are closing on a house. And so they’re moving in January. Mary. So December and January are very serious change life-changing event. Months. So we got to fix all of that and. It was very difficult for, for them.

So now their income is. Going to go way down and they’re in their expenses are going not necessarily all the way up. But the, the, the rent to the mortgage is definitely going up. Everything else is kind of. Going to go down. But that is significant. And then their income went down. So we were just going through. Through, and we did a mock budget and, you know, bless her, like not bless her heart, but bless. Her because she was like, that’s what I needed.

I knew that I needed to come in the session. Session and just look at what it is. And then we like, and so sometimes, you know, you were saying your. Client, which was such a great analogy. Said you can be the officers. Of the giraffe. Right. And so she could have her head in the sand and be like, whatever. We’ll just figure it out as we go, or just like have your head high and look directly at what’s happening. Happening and figure it out.

So that’s what we did. We made a mock budget based on. On the new normal, and that actually it’s going to be several different normals, right? January. I was going to be crazy. All the way until March. And so a lot of. Things like flipped and switched and changed. And so now they know. What the numbers are. And they’re going to go back to the drawing board and And S. And see what else they can cut or add as far as income.

Well, and how nice for. For the way that our budget budget system works, we have not only a mock budget column. Right tab for you to be able to plug all those numbers. You also have all the months ready. Ready to go all set and it auto-populates. So that way, if you need to go in there and change it, adjust. You can’t and you can literally see months in advance of what that’s going to look like.

And. How it’s going to affect you. And so how, I mean, she probably came to that session just. Probably full of inks, like wasn’t really sure. And then you laid it out for her showed. Her everything on paper, black and white. And she probably took a deep breath and that was probably the. Exactly what she needed.

And it’s just so good. And I had a couple of sessions. With some clients to this week and they were like, All I needed to do was see it on paper. And walk. Like talk. About it and walk through it with you. And then once we did that, it was like the huge way off. Off their shoulders. Yeah. And I think that that is the benefit of coaching. Now, all of us have the ability to coach.

We know that, but that is the benefit of coaching is just. Having someone I’ve seen it I’ve felt it. I should say way more recently. Just having someone else to look at this with is, is, is big. You know, for, for so many people and having someone, a trusted partner on math. Like, you know, it’d be like having a tutor on math or having, you know, somebody next to you.

You can. Treat off of, not that you would ever do that guys. He would never do that, but anyway, that’s kind of what it’s like. It’s like, okay, it’s not. Just my brain. That’s two brains looking at this. This is really the way it is. I can feel confident that that can’t. Can’t be wrong. And also our, our, our stuff.

Does the math. For you. So there’s no human, math error going there. Oh bonus. Big big bonus. And so she was already a one thing that was good is. She was already proactive on some things that we had talked about in a previous session before she came. Into this one, which was changing from Verizon to T-Mobile. Which T-Mobile will pay off your phones if you If you do that in a lot of cases, I don’t know what the rules are, but I’ve seen it many, many. Awesome. Yeah, so they pay off their phone.

So the phone bill goes down, the phone bill goes down anyway, because T-Mobile’s. Mobile’s less. And they got to get rid of Hulu and Netflix. Because you get it free somehow with T-Mobile. I don’t really know how that works either, but they did it. So we. I just, I was like, delete, delete, delete. She changed when they moved. They’re going to go from whatever internet they had to T-Mobile internet, which. There’s this $35 wherever they are. Oh, yeah.

And ours is 50. So I thought that was rude, but either way 50, the T-Mobile internet is not bad. It’s like this. And it’s like, A cute little box. And it’s 50 bucks. So that’s also. Also her hers is going down to 35. Sorry. That’s definitely like less than half. What she was calling, what she was doing. And then as they’re moving there, they’re going ahead and calling broker. To get all the best quotes. For everything to just reset everything.

And they, and so, so that was So she did a lot of work there and I, and that’s good. We need to do that work anyway, but it certainly. Certainly as important once your income is going down. Oh for sure. And then the other thing. That she did. Th we talked about was she has. A extra car sort of, I don’t really know how her husband’s work works, but. He doesn’t need a car, but he’s a welder.

I’m like, how do you not? I don’t know. I don’t know. How did they provide a car? No. Oh, no, I don’t know. He doesn’t even need gas budget. I don’t know. It’s very interesting. So she kind of has an extra car. And she wanted, it was really close to being paid off. And she was like, well, maybe I should sell this. And it would pay. For whatever, you know, and. Would we be able to set aside and savings? We’ll have debt or whatever. And I just cautioned her not to. And we didn’t go to Dubin cause I didn’t wanna get too emotional.

Right. But basically. This is a much bigger car that she may or may not need in the next. A little bit and. I said, well, if you’re ever thinking about fostering again with. Most of them are right. I usually is not a heartbreak situation. Then we don’t necessarily. We don’t want it. We. W don’t want to be like making a short-term decision for the long-term. You know, not good decision, right?

So if we need a big car and. Once we heal and once things, whatever, in six months or a year, we don’t want to go ahead and sell it now. And then put ourselves in the position where we don’t have enough. Room in our cars for. For all the, all the children that we might. Right. So just so the trick is it’s very. Easy to sort of be like, what can I do quick fix, quick fix, but we also want to have a. Long-term view at it on it. You know, I think selling cars is one of the things that. People here that you should do immediately, or if the first thing you should do. You’re right. Actually something that Shane and I caution against.

Yeah. For situations like that. Well, it’s just, I don’t know. We like selling houses and selling cars. We’re like, hold on. When I sell an asset. Let’s let’s pause. Yeah. Like let’s actually look. At what’s happening. What’s going on? What are your goals for the future and all that? Before we make of Ross decision like that.

And sometimes it does make sense and not necessary. Really because of the money aspect, because they they’re not using it. They don’t need it. Like. There’s other reasons why they’re ASL it. But you know, most of the time let’s. It’s just really think about the why behind all that. So. All right. So my. Wonderful client.

I love her so much. She is in the medical field. And she is. Currently pregnant and she’s going to have her baby, I believe in. April ish. Timeframe. And so I love her, but. She is so anxious about many. Because she’s never had a system, they have separate. At finances and she just doesn’t really. Really know how to do everyday money management. She’s so busy doing everything else. They already have, I don’t know if it’s one or two kids already.

And so there’s a lot going on. And she just needs some help. She needs some help. With it, with her finances. And she literally came on her session this week. And the first thing she said, I know you told me not to do this, but I did it anyways. And I was like, oh, that’s never a good.

Oh, And I was like, okay. So. She opened her bank app and started setting up all her automat. Automatic transfers when she wasn’t ready to do so. She. Just told me, she’s like, girl, I will go in there and just transfer sense. Like literally penny. Pennies because I feel like it wasn’t the exact amount that needed. To go and blah, blah, blah. And I said, this is what happens is people don’t know. What to do or how to do it.

And they just start doing things, thinking that it’s helping, but it’s actually more. Convoluted and more complicated than it needs to be. And so I told her, I was like, okay, let’s. Let’s start at the top of the very first of no of the Minoan boy. And let’s see. See how many. Transactions and transfers and stuff happened.

And. She like almost didn’t even want to tell me no. Cause there was so much that she couldn’t even make. Sense of it. There was so much happening that she physically had like her hands in. And that she transferred out that she had no idea why and how, and when. It all happened. And so I was like, okay, well, the first thing we’re going to do is cancel all those. Transfers that you’ve just set up.

So that way we know where all your money is. And so, you know, when we talk about setting up your system, We under. Understand that when you hear about the system that you want to do it immediately.

Okay. So we understand that when you guys first hear about their system, want to start the system, you guys get really excited and you want to do it all at once. I’m going to do everything that we tell you to do all at one time because you want to be done and move on. However, the way that the system works, it just doesn’t, you can’t do it that way.

You won’t be successful longterm. And so one of the things I told her was we’re just not there yet. Like we, we are literally at the very beginning, she’s a brand new client. I think this was her third session. So the first two sessions of a new client is making your budget. We have to get all the numbers, put it into place.

And we’re literally just starting at a square one. Yeah. And this was again, her third session. And we were just, we just weren’t there yet with transfers with guaranteeing the money was going to be there and with everything going on that she had and making sure we had to. Yeah. Have all the bills in one account and all that.

She had already opened up her gas and groceries in her personal pocket money accounts. Like she already had those open. It was great. And usually we don’t have that. When somebody comes into coaching, they start at square one. So she was already ahead of the game. However, we just weren’t there.

And then she said, Oh, I also transferred 2, 000 into my maternity fund because, that’s, we’re in store mode for her as well. So we are literally not paying off debt. That’s not our goal right now. We are just setting everything up to make sure she has enough money for when she’s on, on leave that everything can be paid.

And so she just randomly transferred a bunch of money into the maternity fund savings. And I was like, that’s a great idea. I see where you’re wanting to do this. And I understand, however, we need that money back. So we needed to and I told her, I said, our goal here is to consolidate to then distribute, right?

So we had to we have to bring everything into the one bills account, see it all, get a full picture of what everything looks like. And then we can start dispersing and doing the transfers and setting it up. Yeah and that reminds me of But what I want to say is what I think it’s interesting.

What you said is they just want to do everything, which is exciting. That means they’ve listened about our system. They think they can see that this is probably going to be the thing that works. It’s going to make them feel feel like they’re finally got it together and they finally, and it’s finally going to work and you’re let’s do it all right now, but.

We’ve got to have the training wheels first, like we’ve just got to just ease on, we’re just like easing into it. And it’s definitely a step by step process, not an all at once process. Yeah, and the last thing I want to say about her is that she’s got multiple sources of income coming in. And they’re all, so she basically gets paid weekly. And so in her mind, when we talk about setting up a system based on payday, she had Some transfer is going to be attached to this paycheck, and some transfer is going to be attached to another paycheck.

And I was like, we just need to pick one pay cycle. It doesn’t matter which one you pick. But you need to pick one paycheck cycle to work off of. And the other one, Just gets deposited into the bank. And that was like so hard for her. Cause she was like what do you mean? And I was like, it’s just there.

The money’s just there. You don’t need to do anything with it. It just gets put in your bills account. And that concept of not being tied to this paycheck to paycheck cycle was really interesting and new for her. And it was really freeing. Like when I explained everything to her, she was like, Oh, like the release of having to be tied to that each and every paycheck was cool to watch her like work through that.

Yeah. I think. There are different kinds of people. There are the people like this person. And I have several clients like that too, that are like over involved right. And there’s so much going on and you’re trying to make more go on and you’re trying to make sense of it.

And that makes you feel like you’re, it makes you feel better to be doing stuff. But it’s not usually, it’s not always the right thing. And then we have the other people that are like, just if I don’t look at it, whatever, like nobody has to know. And so they’re like super uninvolved. So both can be wrong or both can go wrong.

I should say. And I just thought I thought about her when you were talking about her and I’m just like, I was never that person. If anything, it was the other one. You were the ostrich. Yes. I was like, Oh, it’ll be fine. I like, I don’t want to be all up in the bank. I don’t want to be looking at all these paychecks.

I don’t want to be managing it. That just sounds not fun, but she’s definitely not alone. It’s a lot of them like that. And I think, especially if you get, I think it’s almost harder if you get paid weekly because if you’re getting paid every other week or even if you’re getting paid like once a month or twice a month, like you’re forced to budget a little bit more versus weekly.

Like you always have money coming. So it feels like you have more money or you have more, you can be mess. You can be a little less. Discipline, but and so I think that’s part of it. But, and then as far as the multiple sources of income it’s just enough things going on to be messy. And that doesn’t help, that doesn’t help.

And I have several clients like that too. We’ve got this I have, I think the most complicated client that we’ve ever had. And and it’s fun. It’s fun to see. Makes it interesting. Yeah. And so she has like money coming in, like her car the Jeep people pay her to have a Jeep. What? I don’t know. I don’t know how it works.

I want to know about this life. Okay, and then she has obviously, and then she has her own business where she is a Esthetician of some sort and then she has people that work for her in that business and then she helps people with marketing on business And I’m just like, okay. She’s a chameleon. And then obviously she gets checks.

She gets Deposits from like Venmo or whatever she has cash and there’s just so much and then there’s so much and then all of her bills We’re coming out weekly because of this sort of like cycle and that’s what we’re trying to break We’re trying to just get out of that because it’s not fun for anybody You know, and I think the idea of throwing all the money in one account and just working off of one pay cycle is really hard for people that are like, do you have all this money coming in?

And I had another client earlier and she was like, I have money sitting in my Zelle account. And I was like, why? She’s I don’t know. And I’m like, no, I don’t know. You need to transfer that out to your bank account. It’s just people who have leave money in their Venmo account or PayPal balance.

No, get it out. You need to always have your money into in one place. It’s way easier to manage. We promise. 📍

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And. And it’s going to give you permission to spend everybody loves that. Yeah. It’s straightforward, pretty impact with walkthrough videos. That break down the exact methods we use with our clients to get out of debt set up a bills account, separate spending bills, savings buckets, and end the. Paycheck to paycheck feel. If you’re new to budgeting, this is the perfect way. To jump in and if you’re already a budget nerd, like us you’re about to meet your new obsession.

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All right, so another client that I had came in and she was feeling discouraged. So they’re like polar opposites. I love them so much. Maybe they’re not in real life, but when it comes to budgeting, they are.

And he’s so happy and everything’s going great. And she’s over here not exactly the sky is falling, but she’s not, she’s more cautious. She’s a little more like cautiously ambitious, whereas he’s just optimistic and he’s just all the way optimistic. So anyway, he comes, I, he usually gets to the call first and we’ve had we’ve had a conversation and he’s look at all these cool things that we did, blah, blah, blah.

And this is going to be okay. Even then this happened and I think it’s just like reframing it. And then she comes on and we get the rest of the story. And for her again, like like you were saying with another client, she, this is her second month and then we’re not even in, I think it’s.

Maybe the third session. And she’s I feel like we’re not moving fast enough. So we’re not making progress fast enough. And, one analogy I found myself saying several times now is that I don’t know if you’ve heard people say, you didn’t put the weight on, it took you 10 years to put the weight on.

It’s going to take you more than a day or a month or whatever to get it off. And I feel like it’s. It’s like this. You have a lot of time that you’ve had the wrong, maybe the wrong financial habits, and it’s going to take time to one and learn those financial habits and then also un muddy the waters, right?

We need to clear it out, but it’s going to take a minute. It takes a minute to do that. And it’s, we have an order of things and the way that things want to go. And, like we’ve said before, people hear what we’re doing and hear the idea, especially of the savings buckets. They get really about that.

And, but you can’t do that right away. Not necessarily depend. It depends on what you got. And even if you could do it right away, you still have to do it in this order, right? Which is first, we’ve got to get your budget set up. See what we’re working with. Okay. You’ve got to get the budget set up.

And then we want to set up, the basic system, which is having the bills account and having set money set aside for. For spending separately, right? That’s like the basic first step. And for us, the something that happened that is also very important is to get you a paycheck ahead, right? Or at least get you caught up to where you’re not having to make payments late because The paycheck hasn’t come in and right like that takes time and it takes money, right?

So whereas you would want to fund savings buckets, or maybe you want to fund, um, payoff debt or whatever we can’t do that until we get the system set up. So the bills, whether you have a buffer in your bills account or whether you have. your paycheck ahead, that is a focus to get to that point.

Then you get to decide, if you’re going to be very strategic about paying off debt, or you want to do savings buckets. And typically, we have to pay off some debt in order to free up enough and to make it even worth it for you to set aside money in the savings buckets, and so that’s the order of things that we, I really can’t skip or change.

Yeah they definitely go in that order. When you were talking about un mucking the water, I thought of my parents have a pool, so I, this is where my brain went like if your pool gets algae or if it turns green, you have to shock it and it gets all cloudy, and then it gets clear.

Oh! Yeah! Shock it. Yeah. Yeah, shock it. And then it gets all like all the chemicals in there and it gets all weird. And then it gets all clear. So anyways, that’s just how I thought about it, but really that’s how it is, especially when you’re living paycheck or let me go back when you feel like you’re living paycheck to paycheck.

Cause the people that we work with are actually not living paycheck to paycheck and they don’t have to, but that’s just how they’re living because they’re of their lifestyle or what they’re used to. Money’s going in as fast as it’s going, excuse me, money’s going out as fast as it’s going in.

But you, when you don’t have the money, you have to create the money in the account. Shaina said, before you do anything, before you do the transfers, before you want to do savings, because before you want to pay off debt, before you want to do anything, you have to have the money readily available.

So that way you have that buffer so you can set everything up, but if there’s nothing there to work with, sadly money makes the world go round. We need, this is, we’re working, we’re talking about budgets, people need money. Yeah. So we need the money there in the account, and if we can all get it in one account, then, and all set up in the system ready to go, then you can make that happen in time.

Yeah. I think we’re just going to stick with the pool analogy. Did you love it? I’m still loving it. I’m still like in shock of how shockingly good it was. But I just, I love the part where you said about shocking, because it is a shock to your system. It is a shock to your behavior, to your habits. And that all by itself is shocking.

Takes a minute. And then things do slightly, like Vanessa said, session one, we’re going to probably set up a budget, right? Session. And you may not be coaching with us, but this is the order that you still need to do. Session two, we might talk about how we’re going to fund things or how we’re going to set up the transfers or or what, how we’re actually going to run the budget.

Then session three, we might start looking at, okay, now we’ve got a full month. What’s going to happen. We have maybe a little extra buffer at the end. What are we going to do with that? It’s just. And then slowly by, by six months or whatever you, it’s so clear, it’s so clear it’s running automatically.

And it’s now, it’s like that water fountain that the water that you have in a pool. And it’s just like clearly flowing and crystal clear and keeping the, keeping it all running. And anyway, so that is just understand it takes a minute and it’s going to be okay. And you’re going to get there.

It may be frustrating, but again, like the whole weight analogy, It’s not going to happen overnight and that’s okay because you’re going to get there and it’s going to be totally worth it. Yeah so you know, my client, when she, we were talking about in store mode and the baby coming and I said, literally you need to set this up properly and I know you want to know what to do with your hands, but you’re not going to have time.

To mess with this later. Cause you’re literally going to have a baby in your hands and you’re going to have so much to do with your hands when that baby comes, that now we have to hold off, set it up properly. So that way you can be hands off of that, but it takes some time to be diligent and get the right bank and set up the right amount.

How much is too much for groceries? How much is too less. Does that make sense? No. How much is too little girl. Fine. Don’t worry about me. And if I sound horse y’all I’m losing my voice. So we’ll see how well those all these podcasts go. It’s just, we understand that you want to know what to do with your hands.

That’s why we set up our budget system, the way that it flows and then a way that works. And it’s wonderful. However, we eventually get to the point where it is hands off and you are going to get bored. So we want you to do something else with your hands eventually. Go for walks, go on a trip, go do things where you are not in the bank app.

You’re not making the mistakes. It’s all automatic. Yes. And that brings up the final point from these clients, which was we were going through their budget and their mortgage hadn’t gotten paid, which is not great. Cause that tends to be a bigger one. And I was not excited about that. Yeah. But it was something like they hadn’t been able to go into the bank and pay it.

Excuse me. Pardon me. What? And they’re like, and everything else they basically had set up on automatic, but I don’t know what bank they’re working with. Like it has been, I feel like it’s like Amish or something. Like they live somewhere where there’s no electronics or something because they, it took them days to get their account set up.

Like their bank is just. It’s different. There’s a little, it’s a little different. So I said, they got to have a way for you to pay automatic. So you’ve got to make that a priority because we cannot have the mortgage payment not getting paid. We cannot have you having to find time between everything like Vanessa was just talking, between everything that’s going on, you’re going to find time to go to the bank every month and pay your mortgage.

Absolutely not. Hard pass. No, thank you. So automatic. I’ll see you Is always the option that we’re going to take and we’re going to force them to make it automatic. If for some silly reason, they don’t have a way to do that. We are going to send a check automatically. through our bank to the same bank, apparently.

I don’t care what you do. It’s somehow, we’re going to make it automatic. I was just thinking like having her write out 12 checks and date them appropriately. And then every month all she has to do is put it in her mailbox. Like that would be the only other way if they somehow, oddly enough, doesn’t, they don’t have a way to pay online.

Yeah. So strange. I’m sure they do. It’s just. It’s 2024, y’all. Yeah. It’s just something that you just they tell you how to do it, or you figure it out one time what you’re going to do, and then you don’t ever go back and think if there’s a better way. So that’s what their homework was. So they, hopefully they’ll get that fixed.