Speaker 1: Episode one three, how to get back on track with
Speaker 1: your budget Quickly. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where
Speaker 1: you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, rights, and liver
Speaker 1: with your life. Here your host Jen and Jill. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my
Speaker 1: name is Jill, and welcome to a budgeting episode on
Speaker 1: the Frugal Friends podcast. You didn't expect it, no, of course,
Speaker 1: here it is another budgeting episode. Yes, today, specifically, we're
Speaker 1: talking about how to get back on track quickly. We're
Speaker 1: not going over how to budget. It's all about what
Speaker 1: do we do when life throws us something or you know,
Speaker 1: we mess up because we're not perfect. People like, what
Speaker 1: do where do you go from there? M hmmm yeah,
Speaker 1: things to identify how to get back on track. We're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna dive into it. But first our sponsors,
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Speaker 1: is a digital workbook with six week long challenges that
Speaker 1: turn improving your finances into a game. You'll get sixty
Speaker 1: pages of teaching and implementation guidance on topics ranging from
Speaker 1: decluttering and increasing your income to having healthy conversations. About money,
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Speaker 1: is created to be gone through in pairs or small groups.
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Speaker 1: so that's real good, no code needed. That's Frugal Friends
Speaker 1: podcast dot com slash Workbook awesome. And this episode is
Speaker 1: also also brought to you by All and Nothing. Do
Speaker 1: you mess up or experience unexpected life events? First, congratulations,
Speaker 1: you are a human living in the real world. Second,
Speaker 1: All and Nothing want you to know that you don't
Speaker 1: have to choose between them. There is a third option,
Speaker 1: and it's called doing the best you can. Remember the
Speaker 1: next time you experience events that are suboptimal, that you
Speaker 1: don't have to be all or nothing. You can do
Speaker 1: the best you can. Oh, what a nice little pep talk.
Speaker 1: As a sponsor, All and Nothing all coming together, you
Speaker 1: don't usually see them coming together there on opposite ends
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, so really beautiful. When you can get
Speaker 1: two instances that don't typically agree to come together for something.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, so true, Well done landing that sponsor, Jim,
Speaker 1: Thank you really proud. Alright, So we have got two
Speaker 1: articles from the interwebs that we have searched and we
Speaker 1: have found acceptable to relay back to you, and we
Speaker 1: are going to talk through them because they both have
Speaker 1: really great information on getting back on track with money
Speaker 1: and your budget. So this first one UM is from
Speaker 1: our good friend Alison Baggerley over at inspired budget dot com.
Speaker 1: I promise you we did not just pick this one
Speaker 1: because she is our friend and that she was the
Speaker 1: co host for the show when I was on maternity leave,
Speaker 1: but it real. She really does have the first article
Speaker 1: on Google on this topic, and she gives some really
Speaker 1: great strategic recommendations. What did you think, Joe? It's great
Speaker 1: and I want why I am partial. She was my
Speaker 1: co host when you left me to have a baby,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think she's great. I think she gives
Speaker 1: great tips. I think that she really did well to
Speaker 1: succinctly explain why this might happen for us when we
Speaker 1: fall off track with our budget, and then some real
Speaker 1: tangible ways to get back on track and we want
Speaker 1: to go through all five of the things that she
Speaker 1: listed out. So the first one, as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: we have to face the problem. We have to identify
Speaker 1: what the problem is, what got us off track again.
Speaker 1: The first step sometimes can be the hardest, That can
Speaker 1: be tough to look at things, especially if we are
Speaker 1: at fault in the situation. But it's only going to
Speaker 1: help us in the future if we can know what
Speaker 1: was it. And so she gives a couple of examples
Speaker 1: which I think are really helpful. Was it that you
Speaker 1: wanted to keep up with your friends with either what
Speaker 1: they own or what they're doing. Was it an unexpected
Speaker 1: expense that kind of threw off your budget, or where
Speaker 1: you unprepared that month and didn't actually write out a
Speaker 1: budget and then ended up spending more than what you earned.
Speaker 1: Did you cave to an impulse spend so kind of
Speaker 1: thinking through and so those are kind of a good
Speaker 1: start to consider what was it for me? And then
Speaker 1: that will help will certainly connected to future steps, but
Speaker 1: also in the future to know, oh, this is this
Speaker 1: is a problem area for me, This is something I
Speaker 1: need to keep a pulse on. This is typically when
Speaker 1: I overspend that self knowledge and self understanding will help immensely,
Speaker 1: even beyond maintaining your budget and not finding yourself falling
Speaker 1: off the wagon constantly. I think another important tip to
Speaker 1: add to this is to separate yourself from the problem
Speaker 1: because a lot of times we can encounter these problems
Speaker 1: and we we think that they are attached to our identity,
Speaker 1: like something unexpected popped up because I did something, or
Speaker 1: I'm just not capable of overcoming my mistake, stuff like that,
Speaker 1: And so you have to first identify the problem and
Speaker 1: then do the really hard mental work of separating yourself
Speaker 1: from it. Uh. It is an isolated instance and maybe
Speaker 1: sometimes yeah, in the case of impulse spending, it can
Speaker 1: be a habitual instance, but still is something that you
Speaker 1: can overcome when you learn the right habit, change steps,
Speaker 1: and start to put in the work. It is not
Speaker 1: a reflection of who you are as a person. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the second is to evaluate the situation. So this
Speaker 1: means you'll need to start tracking your expenses, be honest
Speaker 1: with where you stand with your fine dances the bigger picture,
Speaker 1: and Allison says to get started, print your previous month's
Speaker 1: bank statement and evaluate your spending and money habits. You'll
Speaker 1: need to grab a calculator and total up how much
Speaker 1: you spent on everything, specifically purchases that were unnecessary, and
Speaker 1: I would take I would also not just unnecessary purchases,
Speaker 1: but purchases that were unplanned and impulsive as well. So
Speaker 1: I love this. Uh, you know, if you're already doing
Speaker 1: a budget, this will be, you know, pretty easy. But
Speaker 1: most of the people who find themselves in the situation
Speaker 1: are not doing a budget. So to take a full
Speaker 1: inventory of what am I making, what am I spending?
Speaker 1: It seems so basic, but so few people actually do it.
Speaker 1: I let a coaching program earlier this year, and I
Speaker 1: I just assumed everyone would come and it was it
Speaker 1: was to pay off debt faster. So I assumed everybody
Speaker 1: coming in would know how much debt they had. But
Speaker 1: there were some people that did not. They just knew
Speaker 1: they had debt, and so we really needed to get
Speaker 1: back Dix and take a step. I didn't realize we'd
Speaker 1: have to to Okay, what did I spend over the
Speaker 1: last three months, What did I make over the last
Speaker 1: three months? What is my actual debt number? Stuff like that.
Speaker 1: How deep does the rabbit trail go? We can know
Speaker 1: that there's a problem. We can identify the problem, but
Speaker 1: unless we know the real brevity of it, we're not
Speaker 1: going to get too far either. Great first two steps.
Speaker 1: Once you've done that, the third that Allison lists out
Speaker 1: on here is to make a budget. You knew it
Speaker 1: was coming coming, yeah, and that's just part of finances
Speaker 1: that we've got and we've got to be able to
Speaker 1: allocate money. And I know we throw that word around
Speaker 1: a lot, but simply put, it's where is your money
Speaker 1: going to go and not spending more than what you
Speaker 1: make and putting that on paper your plan for how
Speaker 1: you're not going to spend more than what you make,
Speaker 1: and even how you might get at some of those
Speaker 1: financial goals that you might have, whether it's saving or
Speaker 1: paying down debt, you name it. So again, as Jen
Speaker 1: said at the top of the episode, we're not going
Speaker 1: to tell you how to do that. There's plenty of
Speaker 1: episodes on that and resources on that. Certainly Allison's got
Speaker 1: some great free resources on her website. So make a budget.
Speaker 1: That's going to be the next step to help you
Speaker 1: get back on track quickly and then forth, you know,
Speaker 1: I love this one. Is to give yourself grace. No
Speaker 1: one is perfect no matter how often you write a budget,
Speaker 1: something unexpected can and usually does pop up. And that's
Speaker 1: why we have that miscellaneous category in the budget. It's
Speaker 1: not just an extra place where you throw money you
Speaker 1: don't know where to put. It is an intentional place
Speaker 1: in the budget because things come up every month. And
Speaker 1: if you've got uh, you know, if you own your
Speaker 1: own home, if you have multiple kids, stuff like that,
Speaker 1: then you may need to have a bigger miscellaneous fund.
Speaker 1: And it may feel like, oh, I'm pinching pennies and
Speaker 1: this just keeps me from breaching my goal faster. But
Speaker 1: don't believe that leap mindset. A miscellaneous fun helps your
Speaker 1: budget stay in equilibrium because when you have a budget
Speaker 1: that fluctuates month to month, it's very hard to keep
Speaker 1: track of long term. So you want your budget to
Speaker 1: say as same month to month as possible, and having
Speaker 1: that miscellaneous fun means you don't have to do so
Speaker 1: much moving around in other categories to make this budget.
Speaker 1: That's like dollar for dollar, penny for penny on the
Speaker 1: mark with every category. It gives you room um to breathe.
Speaker 1: I think this is such a good tip and probably
Speaker 1: related to my biggest area of difficulty that how I
Speaker 1: define falling off the bandwagon with my budget. I think
Speaker 1: sometimes I will feel as though I ruined my budget
Speaker 1: even though I have the money to spend on something,
Speaker 1: or it might feel as though, oh, I could do
Speaker 1: without that thing. I think, especially for those of us
Speaker 1: who aren't who are more savers than spenders, I think
Speaker 1: it's also really good to identify what does it mean
Speaker 1: for me to actually ruin my budget or yeah, to
Speaker 1: not be on track anymore, and to be able to,
Speaker 1: like you said, Jen, have that grace, have that miscellaneous fun.
Speaker 1: Just because you are buying something that you might perceive
Speaker 1: to be frivolous doesn't always equate to you've ruined everything.
Speaker 1: So having room for that to happen if there is
Speaker 1: room in what you earn for that. Absolutely so. The
Speaker 1: last one on here, number five is once you've done
Speaker 1: all of these steps prior, now set new goals. Now
Speaker 1: that you've written a budget and and you've done all
Speaker 1: of these things, the next thing, and maybe even your
Speaker 1: long term goals haven't shifted that much, but identifying a
Speaker 1: few short term money goals, and this should be related
Speaker 1: to certainly number one and number two of these steps
Speaker 1: of what was the initial problem or issue or pattern
Speaker 1: that needs to be interrupted? And are there some new
Speaker 1: ways that I can actively work to interrupt that pattern
Speaker 1: or to make sure that this doesn't happen again. So
Speaker 1: if you identify, yes, it was FOMO that caused that
Speaker 1: impulse spend that I didn't want to do, then maybe
Speaker 1: you're you set goals around that of I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go out every single time my friends want to
Speaker 1: go to the bar, or if it is an impulse
Speaker 1: spend at a store, I'm not maybe it's a no
Speaker 1: spend month that you want to do. There can be
Speaker 1: some short term goals to help put some action behind
Speaker 1: what you're identifying. You you want in your life, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I've always known goals are super important, but I
Speaker 1: just recently got re reminded in my own life because
Speaker 1: we don't have any pressing short term goals right now.
Speaker 1: But sometimes that makes me feel guilty because I'm like,
Speaker 1: we were doing so much with so little when we
Speaker 1: were paying off debt, and now I feel like we
Speaker 1: have more money and and we're saving, but like, what
Speaker 1: are we doing? I feel kind of pointless because I
Speaker 1: have retirement goals, but those are very far off and
Speaker 1: I realized for me, I need more short term goals
Speaker 1: that are not just arbitrary. I want to have X
Speaker 1: in my retirement fund, like I need tangible goals. So
Speaker 1: we're kind of starting to maybe play around with what
Speaker 1: we have originally planned for retirement and investing and kind
Speaker 1: of change it up just so that we can be
Speaker 1: more effective in our mindset and what we do day
Speaker 1: to day. So it may not be what people are
Speaker 1: saying you should do, but if we if it makes
Speaker 1: us more effective budget ers and spenders and earners, then
Speaker 1: it's better for us. It was identifying like I can't
Speaker 1: like an arbitrary amount of money is not a good
Speaker 1: enough goal for me. I need something else. M h.
Speaker 1: So you're saying you'll even set shorter term goals aimed
Speaker 1: at that long term goal, like now you're kind of
Speaker 1: more gamifying how you're saving for retirement and more bite
Speaker 1: size pieces. Well, we're thinking about investing in real estate
Speaker 1: sooner than what is originally planned. So I I mean,
Speaker 1: because then just having money in the bank isn't like
Speaker 1: a good goal for me. Yeah, I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: just like a mental thing or an immaturity thing like that.
Speaker 1: It doesn't motivate me. Um, but I think doing something
Speaker 1: with the money is going to be more more motivating
Speaker 1: for me. So this is something I want, We want
Speaker 1: to do, both of us. It's not something like we
Speaker 1: feel like we have to do or as an arbitrary
Speaker 1: part of the plan. This is kind of like personalized
Speaker 1: for us. Sure. Yeah, And I think you're hitting on
Speaker 1: something that is also connected to impulse spending. If we
Speaker 1: don't have some solid goals in place, ideas of where
Speaker 1: we want our money to go, then we are more
Speaker 1: apt to flippantly spend it on whatever. But if we've
Speaker 1: got something that we're really excited about, that can be
Speaker 1: a strong motivator to not purchase that random thing at
Speaker 1: the store that we saw that looked cool. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think what you're saying helps with that. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: this also comes down to um, like you don't It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to just be real estate. It can just
Speaker 1: be like knowing what you value and having goals based
Speaker 1: around your values. Those can be really great short term goals.
Speaker 1: Like for me, some of my values, like one of
Speaker 1: them is achievement and finishing things. And so that's why
Speaker 1: having a long way off goal it's not healthy for
Speaker 1: any it's you know, not the healthiest for anybody, but
Speaker 1: especially for me who feels like I need to be
Speaker 1: taking the next tangible step, achieving something, finishing something very frequently. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm also in any Graham three, so that kind of
Speaker 1: like goes with that value. I need to have shorter
Speaker 1: term tangible goals. So I highly recommend you find what
Speaker 1: your core values are and make some new goals around those.
Speaker 1: Those canna be really helpful for short term. So, like,
Speaker 1: maybe you want to be very generous, but you see
Speaker 1: that your budget and your spending has not indicated that
Speaker 1: you value generosity, but in your heart you do. So
Speaker 1: maybe your goal is to increase you're giving to wherever
Speaker 1: by one to five, or give to a new place
Speaker 1: something like that. Goals don't have to just be numbers
Speaker 1: in the bank. Mm hmm. Yeah. All right, So that
Speaker 1: is our first one, So thank you Allison for that
Speaker 1: beautiful masterpiece. Uh. The next is from Living Well, Spending Less,
Speaker 1: and it's another list of five like simple ways to
Speaker 1: get back on track, but instead of strategy, these are
Speaker 1: more like concrete action tips. Yeah yeah, so we'll get
Speaker 1: into it. Uh. The first one is to freeze your
Speaker 1: spending I am particularly keen on this one because she says,
Speaker 1: freeze your spending, and I would call it a no
Speaker 1: spend challenge, And I know everybody in our Facebook group
Speaker 1: and listeners love no spend challenges. So if you have
Speaker 1: gotten into spend mode or something big has happened and
Speaker 1: you need money fast, a really great tangible way to
Speaker 1: do that is to just take a spending spreese for
Speaker 1: spreese freeze it's a spending on spending spree um and
Speaker 1: and just take thirty days away from discretionary spending. So
Speaker 1: people ask all the time when I do a no
Speaker 1: spend challenge, like what do I do about my bills?
Speaker 1: What do I do about gas? And I'm like, you're
Speaker 1: not impulse spending gas. Um. So you look at the
Speaker 1: things that you're more prone to impulse spend, habits, spend,
Speaker 1: mindless spend, emotional spend, all of those categories, and you
Speaker 1: stop spending on those things. UM. Food is kind of
Speaker 1: like the biggest issue because we still have to buy food.
Speaker 1: So it's like you can't avoid the grocery store, but
Speaker 1: you can avoid things that are not on your list,
Speaker 1: not in your meal plan, and not within the confines
Speaker 1: of the budget. So, but some people choose to do
Speaker 1: a pantry challenge, on a no spend challenge where they
Speaker 1: just eat out of their pantry. I have never kept
Speaker 1: enough food on hand to do that. Um, but it
Speaker 1: is definitely a thing you can do. So freeze ready
Speaker 1: for the apocalypse, jem, I am not, no I have.
Speaker 1: We don't have a lot of storage in our kitchen already,
Speaker 1: Like we don't have a pantry. We have three cabinets,
Speaker 1: four well, the fourth one is just all like small appliances,
Speaker 1: so we have actually we just have a cabinet and
Speaker 1: a half for food. That's all. Yeah, a cabinet and
Speaker 1: a half and then whatever's in our fridge. So and
Speaker 1: we're fine with that. Good for your work. Just won't
Speaker 1: come to your house when the world falls apart and
Speaker 1: we have to figure out whose house we're going to
Speaker 1: go to for that. Yeah, let's do that in the
Speaker 1: after show. Okay. Uh. The second one on this is
Speaker 1: to save on food. And I really appreciate that this
Speaker 1: is on here. It doesn't state this, but I'm imagining
Speaker 1: because this is one of the biggest areas of overspending
Speaker 1: is on food and groceries, and it is the one
Speaker 1: that we have degrees of control over. Certainly, we spend
Speaker 1: a lot on rent or mortgage and utilities, but those
Speaker 1: are not as easily fluctuating. So food is usually the
Speaker 1: area of greatest difficulty and the area where we have
Speaker 1: the most potential to rain it in. Now, I will
Speaker 1: say with this, the author of this article is really
Speaker 1: harping on coupons. If you're a coupon or hats off
Speaker 1: to you, that is not the route that I take
Speaker 1: or necessarily what I would recommend spending a ton of
Speaker 1: time on. I don't see the savings being worth it
Speaker 1: for the amount of time that it takes to do
Speaker 1: this and the lack of flexibility of where you can
Speaker 1: shop when you've got coupons a different stores. Anyhow, that's
Speaker 1: a whole other conversation that we do have on various episodes.
Speaker 1: But the ultimate foundation of this concept is to save
Speaker 1: on food, and we've got plenty of episodes on how
Speaker 1: to do that again because it is our number one
Speaker 1: area of overspending, So check out some episodes on that. Certainly,
Speaker 1: like Jen said, consider a pantry challenge. If you do
Speaker 1: have more than one and a half cupboards for your food,
Speaker 1: find ways to cut your spending. One of the tips
Speaker 1: is to shop the perimeter of the grocery store, meaning
Speaker 1: you're not going up and down all of the aisles
Speaker 1: of snacks and goodies. You're just getting the essentials of
Speaker 1: meat and produce. There's lots of different things that you
Speaker 1: can do to do to save on food groceries. Of course,
Speaker 1: don't go out to eat, do a do a month
Speaker 1: of no restaurants, whatever it takes. Really consider this area
Speaker 1: if you want to get back on track with your
Speaker 1: budget quickly. Yes, the third one is one that I
Speaker 1: don't agree. It's the only one that I think is dated.
Speaker 1: But I have an alternative solution. So she says, donate
Speaker 1: items for a tax right off, I will say, donate items.
Speaker 1: Clean out your house, get your house all minimalized and simplified.
Speaker 1: Donate these things to your buy nothing group. Because if
Speaker 1: you are spending time decluttering your house, you are not
Speaker 1: spending time spending money like it is a great time filler,
Speaker 1: and when your house is less cluttered, you actually feel
Speaker 1: less of a need to buy things. So when your house,
Speaker 1: when you feel like, okay, my living room decor is finished,
Speaker 1: like I have completed decorating this room. When you see
Speaker 1: a candle or a eucalyptus wreath or something like online,
Speaker 1: you don't feel as much motivation to buy it because
Speaker 1: you don't feel like, oh, I just need one more
Speaker 1: thing to finish this decre So that's just one example
Speaker 1: that when you declutter and you simplify, it can help
Speaker 1: you spend less money and take and putting things on
Speaker 1: your buy nothing group takes way more time than donating
Speaker 1: it to the thrift store. Um So it's not right
Speaker 1: for every situation, but it takes time and that's going
Speaker 1: to keep you from going to t J Max. And
Speaker 1: that's my goal. So that is my amendment to number three.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I like it. Number four is return or
Speaker 1: sell items you don't need. I like the direction that
Speaker 1: this one's going because it's not just saying how do
Speaker 1: we ring in our budget, which we talked about with
Speaker 1: Allison's article, but also how can you potentially bring in
Speaker 1: some money or put money back into your pockets as
Speaker 1: you're trying to get back on track with your budget.
Speaker 1: I really like this idea of returning items. I realized
Speaker 1: that it's not always possible, but sometimes we do have
Speaker 1: things lying around that still have tags on them, or
Speaker 1: that we thought we were going to use that we didn't.
Speaker 1: That can be returned even if we don't have a
Speaker 1: receipt for them, So really consider that. I know for myself,
Speaker 1: I have a constant return pile in the trunk of
Speaker 1: my car, and I make sure to keep my receipts,
Speaker 1: specifically when I go shopping and I get things that
Speaker 1: might be outside the perimeter of quote unquote needs, might
Speaker 1: be a little bit more of luxury items. But if
Speaker 1: I decide when I get back home, you know what, Actually,
Speaker 1: that doesn't work. I've made sure I didn't immediately throw
Speaker 1: out my receipt and then I just put it right
Speaker 1: back into the back of my trunk with the receipt
Speaker 1: taped to it. Done, we're ready to get money back,
Speaker 1: And of course, if that's not possible, consider selling your items,
Speaker 1: whether that's on Facebook, Marketplace or some other platform or
Speaker 1: even local yard sale groups. Certainly it's a great idea,
Speaker 1: especially as you link that with Jen's tip of just
Speaker 1: decluttering minimizing. That can really jump start you and getting
Speaker 1: back on track if you can get money back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like when you have a fresh start Physically, it
Speaker 1: translates to a fresh start mentally. So if you're mid
Speaker 1: month and you fall off, then create some kind of
Speaker 1: physical fresh start, even if it's small, and you will
Speaker 1: feel a renewed motivation mentally to jump back on your budget. Um,
Speaker 1: it's funny how how that happens, but it's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: The last one on this list is to tell your
Speaker 1: money where to go. So another one saying you got
Speaker 1: to make a budget. It so and she she says,
Speaker 1: if your budget seems to be spiraling out of control,
Speaker 1: then it's time to crack down and find out exactly
Speaker 1: where your money is going. So I think sometimes we
Speaker 1: can mentally think life or budgets or things are spiraling
Speaker 1: out more than they may be in reality. So it's
Speaker 1: always good that if you get this emotional feeling like
Speaker 1: things are out of control, then you do something tangible
Speaker 1: to feel in control. Um, and that's revisiting your budget.
Speaker 1: It can be changing something up or tracking, retracking things
Speaker 1: and putting like numbers on the on the paper to
Speaker 1: show yourself, Okay, it's messed up, but it's not out
Speaker 1: of control, so that you can put things back into perspective.
Speaker 1: That's super important. Yes, well said. You know what else
Speaker 1: is well said? And super important week. That's right, it's
Speaker 1: time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe
Speaker 1: a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe
Speaker 1: you've paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and
Speaker 1: you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Bills,
Speaker 1: Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton. This is the bill of the week.
Speaker 1: So before we play this bill, we want to say
Speaker 1: sorry to everyone. We are very behind, and we're about
Speaker 1: six months behind with playing bills. So for the next
Speaker 1: few weeks months I don't know, we're going to double up,
Speaker 1: and if it doesn't go well the first weeks, maybe
Speaker 1: we won't, but we're gonna double up for a little
Speaker 1: bit so we can make sure we play every single
Speaker 1: bill before you stop listening to the podcast because it's
Speaker 1: so funny. Because we had issues, we had to beg
Speaker 1: people for bills of the week and now we're really
Speaker 1: backed up, but we don't. We want your voices to
Speaker 1: be heard, yes, and so here is bill number one. Hey,
Speaker 1: frugal friends, this is Ali from Sydney, Australia. My bill
Speaker 1: of the week is that once a week I pay
Speaker 1: for my mother in law to come and clean my apartment.
Speaker 1: She is a stay at home mom with her younger kids,
Speaker 1: and so giving her that extra cash feels really good.
Speaker 1: And she is an amazing cleaner. She could get done
Speaker 1: in two hours what takes me a whole day. So
Speaker 1: that is my bill of the week. Thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much. I love the show. That's awesome. I would
Speaker 1: love to do that Payne clean my house. Ali. There's
Speaker 1: so many things I like about this bill, certainly the
Speaker 1: way that you say it and what it is. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I love it. You have found in your frugal journey
Speaker 1: just opportunity to pay for a service like this and
Speaker 1: what that frees up for yourself mentally and emotionally physically.
Speaker 1: I'm so thrilled to hear that you have permission in
Speaker 1: your frugality to provide work to somebody and receive just
Speaker 1: a really convenient service, and not just somebody your mom.
Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, thanks for that one. All right, here
Speaker 1: is our second bill of the week. Hi didn't Jill,
Speaker 1: So I just had to pause upon because I was
Speaker 1: listening to an episode. The episode was lisas a rolling
Speaker 1: unclaimed website things, So I paused upod and went on
Speaker 1: it for Florida and I had a claim for when
Speaker 1: I worked at our house hubs in high school, so
Speaker 1: only but pretty freaking cool because I didn't know existed.
Speaker 1: So thanks for all good advice and the episodes, and
Speaker 1: have a good one. That's awesome. I love we've been
Speaker 1: getting so we've gotten so many bills since we had
Speaker 1: Lisa on um. That was our money Hacks episode of
Speaker 1: people finding money. It's I love getting these these messages.
Speaker 1: All of these states are probably like, what is happening?
Speaker 1: Why is there this influx of people finding their money? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're like, we need this money right now making sure
Speaker 1: more people get their money. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for leaving your fantastic bills. If you have a cleaning
Speaker 1: bill that you love paying, or you found a bill
Speaker 1: that you weren't expecting but really helps you a lot,
Speaker 1: then please head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash
Speaker 1: bill and leave us your bill and we're going to
Speaker 1: try to get to it closer to when you record it. Now,
Speaker 1: well said, thank you. Now it's time for the learning wound. Ah. Well,
Speaker 1: we all have stories, and while we could probably share
Speaker 1: budgeting stories all day, we wanted to specifically tell some
Speaker 1: stories about getting back on the wagon with budgeting nestle
Speaker 1: in that comfy cozy. It's story time. Yes, Um and Jill,
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to go first, because you're a
Speaker 1: much better budget than I am, so you haven't a story.
Speaker 1: And yet this is still vulnerable for me, But it's good.
Speaker 1: It's necessary for people to know that we've not arrived,
Speaker 1: we're not effect Yes, I do I budget. I budget
Speaker 1: every two weeks related to the money that we make
Speaker 1: every two weeks, and still so much can happen in
Speaker 1: two weeks. So there's there's a lot of stories I
Speaker 1: could tell. I'm gonna I'm going to choose this one
Speaker 1: first of all. Every time that I do our budget
Speaker 1: every two weeks, Eric definitely gets a little nervous because usually, well,
Speaker 1: it can go one of two ways. Either I'm really
Speaker 1: excited or I am nearly beside myself. And I will say,
Speaker 1: but since moving into a home that we have purchased
Speaker 1: in Florida, so thrilled for that, by the way, but
Speaker 1: it needs a lot of renovations and we have also
Speaker 1: had a lot of visitors, and my kitchen is a
Speaker 1: dumpster fire, and so cooking in it is not living
Speaker 1: my best life now. And so you name it for
Speaker 1: all of these reasons. We have spent in some weeks
Speaker 1: more than what we've made. And I realized that during
Speaker 1: these budgeting sessions that I have by myself, and so
Speaker 1: at one point this would have been I don't know,
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago. This happened and I just
Speaker 1: got so serious and I walk into Eric while he's
Speaker 1: playing the drums, just live in his own best life.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile I'm like, we're spending more did we make. We
Speaker 1: cannot keep up with this, and it was really good
Speaker 1: to get him on board. I think once I was
Speaker 1: actually able to show him the numbers, because I think
Speaker 1: sometimes he thinks I'm dramatic and I'm just like, we
Speaker 1: don't have enough. We're not and he's like, no, we
Speaker 1: make enough money, We've not spent that much. You're fine.
Speaker 1: But if I'm actually able to show him, here's the
Speaker 1: actual numbers of what we spent, here's the actual numbers
Speaker 1: of what we've made, we both need to be on
Speaker 1: board to remedy and rectify the situation. And so once
Speaker 1: I was able to very realistically present this to him,
Speaker 1: he was Okay, yes, we need to do something about this.
Speaker 1: And I will say it began with raining in our
Speaker 1: grocery budget, it was a Okay, we need to eat
Speaker 1: at home for definitely the next five months. So that
Speaker 1: was the biggest way that we did get back on track.
Speaker 1: And I think just realizing that and saying okay, we
Speaker 1: now are at that stopping point where we can't be
Speaker 1: collecting things what we have, we need to be content
Speaker 1: with and be more mindful going forward with what renovations
Speaker 1: were doing next and certainly what food we're eating. Mm hmm,
Speaker 1: so good. I think my is a similar story in
Speaker 1: looking at the numbers. Um is really motivating for me.
Speaker 1: Like I said earlier and in full transparency, Travis and
Speaker 1: I are not great budget ors. We budgeted very strictly
Speaker 1: for a number of years in order to pay off
Speaker 1: debt and start our investing. But as we start and
Speaker 1: making more, we started saving more and and somewhere along
Speaker 1: the way we we stopped being a strict with budgeting.
Speaker 1: Will do it occasionally, but when we don't do it.
Speaker 1: In the months that we don't do it, I can
Speaker 1: feel myself getting anxious about money, even though I know
Speaker 1: we're spending less than we make because we've spent years
Speaker 1: training ourselves to do that. This isn't just something we
Speaker 1: started doing, but there's still this emotional component of anxiety
Speaker 1: of not knowing and so and it is not until
Speaker 1: I look at the numbers to see what we're doing
Speaker 1: and to see that we're doing okay, but we could
Speaker 1: be doing better. And I think that's where the shorter
Speaker 1: term goal that I talked about earlier, that maybe two
Speaker 1: years out instead of goals that are five ten years out,
Speaker 1: has been really important. And I think that's maybe one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why fire is so popular, like financial
Speaker 1: in depense retire early, because people are trying to take
Speaker 1: this goal that's maybe decades out and push it forward,
Speaker 1: you know, to five to ten years. But that's not
Speaker 1: our goal, So I need something in between there. And
Speaker 1: so we are definitely going to be looking at our
Speaker 1: numbers more often and um trying to optimize what we're making.
Speaker 1: I think we're both Travis is starting a job where
Speaker 1: he's going to be making more money and I'm kind
Speaker 1: of at a slow season with my business. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of weird to flip flap back from like I
Speaker 1: used to be the one, you know, bringing all the
Speaker 1: money in and now I'm not. And that's like I
Speaker 1: can't spend the way that I was, So it's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: budgeting is. I mean that's why I don't have a
Speaker 1: budgeting blog. I have a love hate relationship with it.
Speaker 1: But when people are like, how am I going to
Speaker 1: get my money together? I'm like, you have to budget, like,
Speaker 1: there's no other way. Yeah, until you build up some
Speaker 1: of those habits, like you said, it didn't just happen overnight,
Speaker 1: and now you can kind of keep a pulse on
Speaker 1: it without needing to do it every week. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there is a way to do like really quick and
Speaker 1: easy budgeting by like keeping things the same every month,
Speaker 1: but that's also something you have to work up too,
Speaker 1: So you have to have a buffer in your bank
Speaker 1: account in order to do that. So but for at first,
Speaker 1: you have to do just bare bones, zero base budgeting. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks everyone for listening to this episode. We hope that
Speaker 1: there's been some helpful tips for you all in how
Speaker 1: to get back on track once you feel like you
Speaker 1: fell off the bandwagon with your money. It is possible.
Speaker 1: Please don't allow that one mistake or a few mistakes
Speaker 1: to make you feel as though it's it's a lost
Speaker 1: cause at this point, it's not it's never a lost cause.
Speaker 1: Let us be your cheerleaders and champions in that process,
Speaker 1: and certainly hang out with us over at the Frugal
Speaker 1: Friends community group on Facebook. Tell us you're falling off
Speaker 1: the bandwagon stories, but also how you got back on.
Speaker 1: And we also want to thank everyone just for listening
Speaker 1: in general, and for your kind reviews on iTunes and
Speaker 1: Stitcher like this one. It comes from Jennifer Lawrence. I'm
Speaker 1: so impressed Jennifer Lawrence Lawrence for giving us five stars
Speaker 1: and calling this a fun new listen. Thanks, ladies, your
Speaker 1: podcast has been a fun surprise find keep it up.
Speaker 1: I too, m a y nabb er, so I loved
Speaker 1: how you highlighted them and you're living on an extremely
Speaker 1: low income episode, Wow, Jennifer Lawrence, who knew that you
Speaker 1: were keeping such tight reins? Just love your work, Love
Speaker 1: your work. We also want to thank our friends who
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Speaker 1: the latest episode and tag us on Facebook or Instagram,
Speaker 1: we are adding you to our monthly drawing. So for
Speaker 1: every five tags and reviews we get each month, we're
Speaker 1: giving away a copy of the Frugal Friends workbook. So
Speaker 1: if you have not won it yet. It's still on
Speaker 1: flash sale. Today's the last day. But if you have
Speaker 1: missed it, then just leave us a review and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll put you in that drawing. Yeah, so keep leaving
Speaker 1: those reviews on iTunes or Stitcher and send us a
Speaker 1: screenshot to Frugal Friends Podcasts at gmail dot com. That'll
Speaker 1: get you into the drawing. And don't forget to tag
Speaker 1: us on social. We'll see it and we'll see you
Speaker 1: next week. Bye. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Syrian. Okay,
Speaker 1: who's house for the apocalypse? M. I mean I'll just
Speaker 1: tell you straight up, parents Travis's parents farm. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's smart. If we can make it up there, it
Speaker 1: is an hour. Um, if it's in a pinch, I
Speaker 1: might go to Joseph and Jess's house, UM because I
Speaker 1: feel like Joseph will spare no expense in UM and
Speaker 1: and they both um like professionally shoot guns. You know
Speaker 1: they're good at it. Oh wow, you're thinking, Okay, you're
Speaker 1: going there with it. I'm thinking apocalypse. What are you thinking?
Speaker 1: I mean, apocalypse can just mean that the world is ending.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that we have to kill people. You don't,
Speaker 1: I mean you don't think people are gonna get mean
Speaker 1: and the apocalypse shot somebody. Neither am I, But I'll
Speaker 1: go to Jess honest to goodness. I'm not a survivalist.
Speaker 1: I just want to be where is their good food?
Speaker 1: As I ride this thing. I don't need to survive it, Okay,
Speaker 1: not need to be the last one in that case.
Speaker 1: My in laws um is a great place because I
Speaker 1: believe they even own a cannon. Um, you're all about
Speaker 1: the weapons. I just want to know where is their food?
Speaker 1: Where is their wine? I'm gonna find myself there coming
Speaker 1: get me. That's fine. They live next door to a
Speaker 1: bunch of dogs, like some kind of dog breeding like
Speaker 1: under the table thing, so people might be scared to
Speaker 1: even come close to the property. I'm all about isolation, um,
Speaker 1: And how can I stay safe? Um? I'm all about
Speaker 1: good food and wine. Yeah, and my mother in law
Speaker 1: is a fantastic cook. Um, and my father in law
Speaker 1: is a fantastic winemaker. That's where I want to find myself.
Speaker 1: You can hold yourself up with the guns and the
Speaker 1: cannons and the dogs. That'll be a fun life to
Speaker 1: come out of that hole. All the thing is here,
Speaker 1: But you've got your guns and cannons, all the things
Speaker 1: that I dislike I'm going to hold up in the
Speaker 1: Apocalypse with It's very telling um of my true nature.
Speaker 1: I guess that's disappointing. You are an achiever, so I
Speaker 1: want to just do the Apocalypse the best. We just
Speaker 1: have different definitions. I'm in Angiogram three too, but we
Speaker 1: just have different definitions of like was doing the best? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh that's so interesting. Well, glad we somewhat figured that out.
Speaker 1: We definitely learned more about each other today. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: everybody listening learned more about both of us, for better
Speaker 1: or for work. Oh goodness, all right,