Speaker 1: Episode two, Stop strict budgeting and start living in the
Speaker 1: radical middle. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll
Speaker 1: learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live with your life.
Speaker 1: Here your host Jen and Jill mm hm. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Frugal Friends Podcast. My name is Jen, my name
Speaker 1: is Jill, and coming at you for the first time
Speaker 1: for the second time this week is the Frugal Friends Podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you you're hearing it right. We're doing two episodes a
Speaker 1: week now because we're that good of friends and really
Speaker 1: we just want to hang out more and we're like,
Speaker 1: we might as well just record while we're doing that, right,
Speaker 1: We might as well. So, yeah, we're excited to share
Speaker 1: with you some of our hot takes on budgeting and
Speaker 1: how we reject strict budgeting and strict methods and extreme
Speaker 1: methods to live in the radical middle. You know, we
Speaker 1: love that term. We've used it very often in a
Speaker 1: variety of ways, just the radical middle, not the extremes,
Speaker 1: which you know, speaking of, let's get into our sponsor,
Speaker 1: the pendulum. It has a wide range of motion, and
Speaker 1: while it can swing very far into opposite directions, the
Speaker 1: pendulum has reserved this ad spot on today's episode to
Speaker 1: inform us that it prefers to swing only slightly and
Speaker 1: very near to the middle. It's tired of all the
Speaker 1: energy it takes to be at either extreme of the
Speaker 1: spectrum of motion, and it dislikes how far apart and
Speaker 1: opposed to itself it can become when it primarily hangs
Speaker 1: out in the extremes, the pendulum in all its fields,
Speaker 1: and Meta wanting to inform us that the radical middle
Speaker 1: is where it's at. Absolutely pendulum, thank you. It is exhausting,
Speaker 1: and I too prefer to swing only slightly, so I
Speaker 1: get it very near to the middle, right, very near
Speaker 1: to the middle. But it is. We call it the
Speaker 1: radical middle because it is like radical. Nobody wants, nobody
Speaker 1: likes to be there for some reason. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: very it's very fun here, it's very easy, requires very
Speaker 1: little energy. But for some reason, it seems it looks
Speaker 1: like it's easier to pick a side and stick to it.
Speaker 1: Like in life and in personal finance. It's not always
Speaker 1: easy because the vortex of the extremes can want to pull.
Speaker 1: But yeah, let's be radical and let's hold the tension
Speaker 1: of both extremes in the middle. Absolutely So we're talking
Speaker 1: a little bit about we're talking all about budgeting today.
Speaker 1: So if budgeting hasn't seemed to work for you in
Speaker 1: the past, this is a great one for you. And
Speaker 1: we also have a few others that you can queue up.
Speaker 1: Episode two oh eight, which we did very recently, is
Speaker 1: all about budgeting basics, how to budget without deprivation. That's
Speaker 1: a super popular episode for us. And then episode one
Speaker 1: seventy seven we talked about what is values based budgeting
Speaker 1: and how do you practice it? So those are those
Speaker 1: are three favorite episodes on budgeting that we've done two
Speaker 1: oh eight, one eight six, and one seventies seven. We
Speaker 1: Jill and I have differing budgeting methods and we're still friends. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: isn't it? Isn't it crazy how you can have such
Speaker 1: different budgeting methods and still be friends today's day and age.
Speaker 1: Uh so this is gonna be We always bring like
Speaker 1: a very balanced approach to how we talk about it,
Speaker 1: which I love. So let's get into this first article,
Speaker 1: which is titled It's from CNBC and it's here's why
Speaker 1: budgets don't work for people. What did you think of
Speaker 1: this one? Jill? I would describe this article as basically
Speaker 1: normalizing why budgets can be really difficult, or why we
Speaker 1: feel as though at times we keep breaking the budget
Speaker 1: budgets don't work for me, or I'm averse to budgets,
Speaker 1: I don't want to budget. It's not a whole lot
Speaker 1: of tips. It's just a bit more of explanation, normalization, empathy,
Speaker 1: which I really appreciate. I don't think we get much
Speaker 1: of that around this conversation about budgeting and getting our
Speaker 1: finances in order. It's usually a lot of just do it,
Speaker 1: you gotta do it, stop avoiding it, and and I'm
Speaker 1: guilty of that. You'll hear that sometimes out of my voice,
Speaker 1: just the Nike motto. But this is I think really
Speaker 1: helpful for some of us. And I think many of
Speaker 1: us can find ourselves seen by this article of ah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that's why, and you're not alone in the why budgets
Speaker 1: can feel really like something you don't even want to
Speaker 1: talk about or look at or do, or those of
Speaker 1: us who do engage in budgeting, why sometimes we can
Speaker 1: feel as though we keep messing up with them. Spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: no one's budget is perfect, even if they've done it
Speaker 1: for years and years and years, so that's my take
Speaker 1: on this article. So that's why I think it's worth
Speaker 1: going through it. Yeah, so yeah, I also love the
Speaker 1: normalizing of it because when I I talked to personal
Speaker 1: finance quote unquote experts all the time, and and they
Speaker 1: don't all budget the same, if at all. Uh So
Speaker 1: it's not a universal truth that somebody else's budget has
Speaker 1: to look like your budget, if at all. So, but
Speaker 1: we will say, and Jill and I both agree that
Speaker 1: if you are getting started, budgeting is like a non negotiable.
Speaker 1: You've got to do it. You've got to figure out
Speaker 1: where your money is going. You've got to you've got
Speaker 1: to mess up. You've got to learn growth comes through
Speaker 1: challenge and struggle, and you've got to you've got to
Speaker 1: struggle through those budgets to figure out what needs work
Speaker 1: and how to work on it. But we want to
Speaker 1: normalize a budget that's less strict and more doable so
Speaker 1: that you can work on little challenges every month, versus
Speaker 1: feeling like you've failed at budgeting. There's too many challenges
Speaker 1: to work on and you just give up. So that
Speaker 1: is the budget we want to avoid, and we want
Speaker 1: to move into budgets that present challenges and struggles that
Speaker 1: are more tackle able. So one of the things that
Speaker 1: the article cites about what can make budgets or even
Speaker 1: just that word challenging or post barriers is that we
Speaker 1: can often approach budgets in similar ways to how we
Speaker 1: as humans can approach dieting. Some of the mindset perspective
Speaker 1: around a diet can be similar to the mindset perspective
Speaker 1: around budgeting. And I love this quote that they give
Speaker 1: within the article from an author Melissa Brown, who wrote
Speaker 1: a book about budgeting, who said, it's not about dieting,
Speaker 1: but rather eating well. And I also don't believe it's
Speaker 1: about budgeting, but rather spending and investing well. And what
Speaker 1: a shift. It's not a circumstantial shift, but it's an
Speaker 1: approach shift that I think is so so helpful that
Speaker 1: we want to be presenting to our listeners and to
Speaker 1: ourselves as well, Like stop with the strict stuff because
Speaker 1: it only lasts for so long, or even let's say
Speaker 1: you can stick to a strict diet to keep going
Speaker 1: with that illustration. Usually that's only to attain a certain goal,
Speaker 1: and then once that's done, then the diet goes out
Speaker 1: the window and you maybe fall back into old practices,
Speaker 1: but more a sustainable lifestyle that is aiming at well
Speaker 1: being and not just strict things. Another barrier that they
Speaker 1: also talk about is some of the perspective around it.
Speaker 1: So both with the dieting and budgeting, but I'll begin
Speaker 1: to shift solely just towards budgeting. Is the way that
Speaker 1: we can talk about it, of almost as if whether
Speaker 1: or not we can stick to a budget bears impact
Speaker 1: on our character or even morality or our self discipline,
Speaker 1: and if we can't do the thing, then we're not disciplined.
Speaker 1: We're not a person of character. We don't have a
Speaker 1: grit that it takes in that when we begin to
Speaker 1: attach it our identity and what we're capable of and
Speaker 1: whether or not we're a good human being. Holy smokes,
Speaker 1: of course we might want to avoid this. If we're
Speaker 1: attaching language that is self deprecating and not helpful, not beneficial,
Speaker 1: then my goodness, there are deeper reasons that budgets might
Speaker 1: not work for people or that we might avoid them,
Speaker 1: And so I really appreciate the ways in which they
Speaker 1: pointed some of these things out to help us understand
Speaker 1: why we might be averse to this concept or why
Speaker 1: engaging and it doesn't always seem to go the best
Speaker 1: way that we'd wanted to go. Yeah, what you said
Speaker 1: is super profound, and it is so common looking like
Speaker 1: not being able to stick to a budget that is
Speaker 1: quote unquote perfect, is quote unquote what you should be
Speaker 1: spending can and doing that over and over can lead
Speaker 1: to feelings of why am I not capable of doing
Speaker 1: what the math says I'm able to do? I must
Speaker 1: be incompetent. So and that's really when I started out
Speaker 1: what I felt so much about budgeting. I would make
Speaker 1: a perfect budget that said I should be able to
Speaker 1: save and pay off debt and all of this stuff,
Speaker 1: and it was unrealistic because it cut out pretty much
Speaker 1: only the things I enjoyed and left only spending on
Speaker 1: things I didn't care about, and it didn't like the
Speaker 1: and I was unable to keep it. Like but I
Speaker 1: didn't know that I wasn't budgeting, and like I was
Speaker 1: budgeting the way somebody was telling me I was supposed
Speaker 1: to budget, but I wasn't budgeting in a way that
Speaker 1: was right for me, and that made me feel like
Speaker 1: I was a failure or incompetent. And over the years
Speaker 1: now I've learned and I hope it doesn't take you
Speaker 1: years listening to this to learn that it's it's not you,
Speaker 1: it's probably need the budget, And I'm just saying maybe
Speaker 1: also an income issue. And I love that this article
Speaker 1: pointed that out because they think there can also in
Speaker 1: the personal finance world be a pull yourself up by
Speaker 1: the boot straps. Doesn't matter your situation, you can do this.
Speaker 1: And while I appreciate looking at what's within my control,
Speaker 1: right there are some more macro level things that we
Speaker 1: can aim at changing, but also at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, the only thing we have to control is
Speaker 1: what's within our smaller sphere. So so yeah, there's there's
Speaker 1: a tension with that, but I do appreciate that they
Speaker 1: pointed out sometimes the issue with the budget is the
Speaker 1: circumstance that we find ourselves in that there truly isn't
Speaker 1: enough money or the type of work that we're engaged
Speaker 1: in isn't going to provide us with the stability and
Speaker 1: the sustainability to be able to do the thing that
Speaker 1: all of these people are talking about being able to do,
Speaker 1: and they talk about it's It's definitely an article worth
Speaker 1: looking into, and we cite it in our show notes,
Speaker 1: but they talk about how full time employed people who
Speaker 1: have benefits and vacation are much better, more easily able
Speaker 1: to budget do the thing because they've got the thing,
Speaker 1: versus maybe the hourly worker or the ten worker who
Speaker 1: has some more income volatility, is going to face more
Speaker 1: challenges in this budgeting process because what is brought in
Speaker 1: monthly is so variable. So also recognize your context and
Speaker 1: so just I mean, of course the message overarching is
Speaker 1: going to be be kind to yourself, but please don't
Speaker 1: beat yourself up, especially if you've got month to month
Speaker 1: income variability and potential volatility. There of course it's going
Speaker 1: to be more difficult blement. And we're not static creature.
Speaker 1: So even if we have a sustainable we know what
Speaker 1: we're going to bring in monthly, our monthly expenses shift,
Speaker 1: and that's another thing that they cite as why budgeting
Speaker 1: can be difficult. We're not We're not static. We are dynamic.
Speaker 1: What we spend monthly on groceries shifts, whether or not
Speaker 1: we've got medical bills on any given month, if you
Speaker 1: know the car insurance happens to be due that month.
Speaker 1: We we've got these expenses that change month to month
Speaker 1: and Therefore what we put into savings needs to change
Speaker 1: month to month. And I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest takeaways I have from this article is approaching our
Speaker 1: finances and dare I say some version of a budget
Speaker 1: with that in mind of what's changing here, what's dynamic,
Speaker 1: what's realistic for me? Not just that I want to
Speaker 1: put in Okay, this is just what I spend monthly,
Speaker 1: but month to month, recognizing that we need to change
Speaker 1: and shift because our circumstances are changing and shifting and
Speaker 1: being kind to ourselves that it's okay if not, I'm
Speaker 1: not able to put as much to savings this month
Speaker 1: as I did last month if my circumstances are different
Speaker 1: this month than they were last month. Yeah, And change
Speaker 1: is not failure. Change is life. Like things change month
Speaker 1: to month, season to season. So if this season is
Speaker 1: a heavier or busier season, then your plans for reaching
Speaker 1: your goal have to adjust. But you also have to
Speaker 1: want to realize when that season shifts. So when you
Speaker 1: move out of a busy season to revamp and and
Speaker 1: kind of I think people would say kind of quote
Speaker 1: unquote get back on the wagon, but like it's it's
Speaker 1: really just shift making a shift, And I love that
Speaker 1: the article does mention income because we, as frugal people,
Speaker 1: will focus a lot on what can I cut? What
Speaker 1: can I cut? But we are like, it's less what
Speaker 1: can I cut and more how can I be a
Speaker 1: good steward of my money, time and resources. And being
Speaker 1: a good steward of your time means you're making the
Speaker 1: most of the forty hours a week you spend it work.
Speaker 1: So we're always looking to optimize and increase our income
Speaker 1: in the ways that serve our financial goals, you know,
Speaker 1: not going after the eighty hour a week half million dollar,
Speaker 1: you know, the thing that sucks up our life, but
Speaker 1: increasing our income as it helps us reach our goals.
Speaker 1: And sometimes the article points out budgeting can encourage a
Speaker 1: restrictive mindset about money, and that's what it is. When
Speaker 1: you hear somebody say like, sorry, I can't do that,
Speaker 1: I'm on a budget. That makes you think that a
Speaker 1: budget equals restriction, when a budget is really just a
Speaker 1: plan for getting you closer to freedom, and not freedom
Speaker 1: down the road. Freedom now, freedom in this present month,
Speaker 1: freedom in the next month. Because we all know if
Speaker 1: we had a bad spending month, you know last month,
Speaker 1: we feel more anxious this month, and so the budget
Speaker 1: when you're doing it in accordance to you, putting what
Speaker 1: you value in their putting um efforts to increase your income,
Speaker 1: cutting the things that don't matter to you. When your
Speaker 1: budget has all of these elements, then it's a budget
Speaker 1: you want to stick to. And saying no to something
Speaker 1: isn't oh, sorry, no, I'm on a budget. It's sorry, no,
Speaker 1: I don't actually want to do that because doing this
Speaker 1: helps me get to my dream life faster. Like the
Speaker 1: boundaries aren't because of the budget. The boundaries then come
Speaker 1: from you, and if it's something you do want to
Speaker 1: do that is in alignment with your values, then you
Speaker 1: don't have to say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm on a budget.
Speaker 1: I can't do that. You can say, oh, actually I
Speaker 1: value this, and I've already eliminated this because I don't
Speaker 1: value it, so I can do this without guilt. I
Speaker 1: love that. Again, that's a way that we approach it,
Speaker 1: how we talk about it inside our own minds, and
Speaker 1: then how we talk about it with other people. It's
Speaker 1: definitely a shift I'm trying to make more and more,
Speaker 1: especially as we host a lot of people, and it
Speaker 1: seems really fun to go out to eat, but yet
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want it to feel restrictive. I
Speaker 1: want to have fun with people. But I've started to
Speaker 1: say I've got a really fun plan for dinner at
Speaker 1: home this night, and so it's not a no, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm really trying to cut back, right. We hate that
Speaker 1: term cut. I don't want to cut stuff. I don't
Speaker 1: like to be cut. But it's it's not cutting if
Speaker 1: it's I've got something really fun at home and we
Speaker 1: can cook together and have a really nice night in.
Speaker 1: That sounds so fun and and it's creative. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so those are some of the shifts and approach that
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not I'm not like expert at That's just
Speaker 1: something I'm trying and it is working for me because
Speaker 1: I need to be tricked when you can reframe it
Speaker 1: in your mind and and not be disappointed. Oh I
Speaker 1: can't go out. I don't have enough money. It's how
Speaker 1: can I get creative and have more fun not spending money?
Speaker 1: Like challenge yourself to have more fun than going out
Speaker 1: to eat, or more efficiency than getting take out, like
Speaker 1: turn it into a game. That's why we do like
Speaker 1: monthly challenges in our membership to try and gamify this
Speaker 1: process of reaching financial goals. So it is when you
Speaker 1: can change it in your mind, it becomes less like
Speaker 1: associated with restriction and more associated with creativity, which in
Speaker 1: our recent episode with Miranda from Live Free Creative, that's
Speaker 1: what we talk about. I can't remember the number, but
Speaker 1: it's all about opting for a mindset of creativity versus deprivation.
Speaker 1: And the second article comes from The Housewife Modern. I
Speaker 1: think it's I think it's said that way. They talk
Speaker 1: about anti budget, the easiest budget ever on the budget
Speaker 1: for people who hate budgets. There's they're still amusing a
Speaker 1: lot of the word budget to not have a budget.
Speaker 1: But I knew you'd like to give us your hot
Speaker 1: take on this. So this is actually one that I
Speaker 1: know a lot of my colleagues, I guess you would
Speaker 1: call them. This is how we we practice and with
Speaker 1: the caveat. Like I said before, these colleagues, if we
Speaker 1: were all in personal finance, we've all been studying and
Speaker 1: doing this four years. It definitely took me, I would
Speaker 1: say three or four years of budgeting. Two of those
Speaker 1: years were very strict paying off debt, and then the
Speaker 1: years three and four were kind of I was more
Speaker 1: the fire movement, and I was just like really radically
Speaker 1: saving until I kind of figured out a way to
Speaker 1: live my dream life now versus in the future. And
Speaker 1: so it is not a budget that I recommend to
Speaker 1: people knew, but it's definitely one that once you are confident,
Speaker 1: once you've achieved some of your bigger goals like paying
Speaker 1: off consumer debt and getting your retirement savings to a
Speaker 1: to a place where compound interest is really going to
Speaker 1: start working in your favor, you can let off the
Speaker 1: gas and kind of just do this anti budget. And
Speaker 1: what it is, it's a three step budget. You choose
Speaker 1: a savings rate and then you pull the savings directly
Speaker 1: from the top of your paycheck and you put it
Speaker 1: aside and you live what is on what is left over,
Speaker 1: and that's it. Boom. Once, yeah, once you know, when
Speaker 1: you are so in tune with your expenses and your
Speaker 1: discretionary like spending, this becomes And once you have a
Speaker 1: steady income as well, I will say, like our income
Speaker 1: is higher than it was when we started out. So
Speaker 1: those are kind of the components. But once you do that,
Speaker 1: you don't have to track every single transaction. I look,
Speaker 1: I go in once a month, I look at our
Speaker 1: spending to make sure that there is no fraud, and
Speaker 1: I just look to make sure that we everything seems
Speaker 1: normal and nothing is out of place. And that's that's
Speaker 1: what I do. And we pretty much we live on Travis,
Speaker 1: my husband's income, and we save my income, and that's
Speaker 1: how we do. We don't even have an actual savings rate. Uh,
Speaker 1: we just live on his income and we actually probably
Speaker 1: we live on less than his income really because we
Speaker 1: we save more after and it was through years of
Speaker 1: doing that. When I so I was laid off in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, we stopped maxing out my four oh one
Speaker 1: K then because I was like, I was eight weeks
Speaker 1: away from giving birth. So since twenty nineteen we've been
Speaker 1: doing this, and it's how we were able to save
Speaker 1: two buy our new house, and turn our old house
Speaker 1: into an investment property. So this allowed us to do that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean yeah. So the article gives a
Speaker 1: little bit more detail with each of those three steps
Speaker 1: of the choosing a savings right, they recommend and aim
Speaker 1: at between ten to. Of course, you can start smaller,
Speaker 1: so if that seems unreasonable or not attainable, right, now
Speaker 1: begin with just one percent. What is one percent of
Speaker 1: your take home pay? And how can you begin setting
Speaker 1: that aside? And then increase that to two percent, three
Speaker 1: percent until you get up to a comfortable range, hopefully
Speaker 1: within that ten to twenty percent. Of course, they highlight
Speaker 1: that if you are an older adult who is hoping
Speaker 1: to retire sooner and you don't have a lot of savings,
Speaker 1: then you're gonna want to aim at more than twenty
Speaker 1: percent so that you can have some level of comfort
Speaker 1: and cushion and retirement. But if you're in your twenties, thirties, forties,
Speaker 1: you know ten to twenty percent would would be a
Speaker 1: good aim. Yeah, And so this follows in with kind
Speaker 1: of whatever your financial goal is. So we say, have
Speaker 1: one financial goal that you are working on at any time.
Speaker 1: And this doesn't include investing, because you should be investing,
Speaker 1: even if it's a tiny bit for your entire life.
Speaker 1: But if your goal is to save an emergency fund,
Speaker 1: work on that and that alone. If it's to pay
Speaker 1: off your high interest at work on one debt and
Speaker 1: one debt alone, and just kind of tackle one thing
Speaker 1: at a time, and and this is what that would
Speaker 1: go to at at any given moment. So for us,
Speaker 1: it looks like we are just maxing out to rath eyrays.
Speaker 1: That's all we're doing right now, because we just bought
Speaker 1: this house that needs a lot of renovations and we
Speaker 1: want to cash flow those we don't we're not taking
Speaker 1: out any debt for the renovations, and and so that's
Speaker 1: what that looks like for us. And that's that second
Speaker 1: step of pulling the savings directly from the top of
Speaker 1: the paychecks. So it's not a matter of, oh, we'll
Speaker 1: see if it's left over, but pulling it from the top,
Speaker 1: setting it aside, and allocating it to one of those
Speaker 1: things that Jen just mentioned. Either that includes paying off debt.
Speaker 1: They're talking about the savings, but it could go towards
Speaker 1: the debt payoff from their building up an emergency fund
Speaker 1: and from their increasing the retirement savings. But as we've
Speaker 1: are already talked about that savings for retirement can be
Speaker 1: on the back burner throughout all of those things. It's
Speaker 1: just an increase of saving for retirement once you've got
Speaker 1: the emergency fund and the debt paid off, and then
Speaker 1: that moves into step three, which is living on what's
Speaker 1: left over. But of course there's so much wiggle room
Speaker 1: and ways of making this work for us. Within that
Speaker 1: final step, I think you're definitely going to have some
Speaker 1: people who have that more written out and a solid
Speaker 1: handle on what that is, and you've got others who
Speaker 1: are really comfortable knowing I'm not going to go into
Speaker 1: debt to live on what's left over, get the things
Speaker 1: extra that I want. I kind of know what my
Speaker 1: bills are, and I'm able to live on the rest
Speaker 1: that is beyond after I've saved or put that money
Speaker 1: towards debt payoff. Yeah, if you are new to this
Speaker 1: and you are not confident in what your core vause are,
Speaker 1: you're not confident in or haven't made like a lifestyle
Speaker 1: design like future plan. If you're not confident in all
Speaker 1: these things, then tracking intensely the more the less confident
Speaker 1: you are, the more intensely you should track, and that
Speaker 1: will help you get confident in what are my core values?
Speaker 1: What can I say no to? What can I say
Speaker 1: yes to without guilt? Um? Is this getting me closer
Speaker 1: to the lifestyle I want to lead in the future.
Speaker 1: So this helps you get there if you're not already there.
Speaker 1: If you're there, and you've got the years of self
Speaker 1: discipline and kind of training. I do feel like budgeting
Speaker 1: could be a nerd Olympic sport almost. But once you've
Speaker 1: trained trained yourself enough, then yeah, Like I'm very I'm
Speaker 1: very much a free wheeler. Honestly. As much as I
Speaker 1: like to plan things like for frugal friends, you would
Speaker 1: think I'd also love to plan things in the budget.
Speaker 1: But for some reason there is a disconnect there. I
Speaker 1: would much rather work on frugal friends then I would
Speaker 1: on my personal budget. And I get that. So like,
Speaker 1: if that's you, I see you. You still got to
Speaker 1: do it. I still make myself do it once a month,
Speaker 1: but you do, you should do it more frequently. At
Speaker 1: the beginning. There is no reality where we can have
Speaker 1: zero pulse on the money we're making and how we're spending.
Speaker 1: There's no article, even an anti budgeting article, where that's
Speaker 1: gonna affirm or support that. But to say there is
Speaker 1: space for all types of people. If you love to
Speaker 1: track every single sent, have at it. If you don't,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that this world is in no way
Speaker 1: for you. Just having a sense of what am I making,
Speaker 1: what am I spending? Is that aligned with my values.
Speaker 1: And once you've got a general sense for that and
Speaker 1: you've got it under control and you're you're not impulse
Speaker 1: spending in massive quantities, then you can kind of go
Speaker 1: on auto pilot. You can get to the point that
Speaker 1: Jen's talking about, where yes, she's not sitting down with
Speaker 1: pen and paper every single week. But again, I guarantee
Speaker 1: you Jen that you know in general what your expenses are,
Speaker 1: how much you're paying on your mortgage, and how much
Speaker 1: daycare is, and kind of the general sense of what
Speaker 1: you can spend when you're at the grocery store, and
Speaker 1: how many times each month you can be going out
Speaker 1: to restaurants. Like, we can get to a point where
Speaker 1: we know this and we can live within our means
Speaker 1: in that way, and I still have to do a
Speaker 1: monthly check in, because habits can come hab It's come
Speaker 1: from not paying attention. If you're not intentionally building habits,
Speaker 1: habits are being built unintentionally. And so when I see
Speaker 1: something and it's usually in take out, um, then I
Speaker 1: can see that habit kind of like building and building.
Speaker 1: And if I don't do a check even after years
Speaker 1: of hosting a frugality podcasts, it can happen It happens
Speaker 1: to everyone. You're building habits, whether you're being intentional about
Speaker 1: it or not. The goal is just to be intentional
Speaker 1: about it. And once you've built a habit, to be
Speaker 1: intentional about maintaining it. Um So there is no world
Speaker 1: in which you can even if you are making multiple
Speaker 1: six figures, there is no world in which you can
Speaker 1: opt out of checking your finances because even like that's
Speaker 1: how really rich, I mean like mega stars I don't
Speaker 1: know what do you call the and music and actors stars. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's how they're they get like scammed is they hire
Speaker 1: somebody to manage their money and they don't look at
Speaker 1: it and somebody is taking like way too much off
Speaker 1: the top to charge them for managing their money. It
Speaker 1: happens so often. So there's no world and no amount
Speaker 1: of money in which you are absolved from this forever.
Speaker 1: Do you know what we are intentional about? And I
Speaker 1: don't want to be absolved from m I I love
Speaker 1: this And this is the least restrictive thing I do
Speaker 1: every week. The week that's right, it's time for the
Speaker 1: best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was
Speaker 1: born and his name is William. Maybe paid off your mortgages.
Speaker 1: Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have
Speaker 1: to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clint,
Speaker 1: this is the bills of the week. Hi, Den and Jel,
Speaker 1: this is theas from Oklahoma. I started listening to your
Speaker 1: podcast a few weeks ago, and I just really kind
Speaker 1: of fell in love with it. I've been listening to
Speaker 1: different episodes of My Ways Home from work and I
Speaker 1: wanted to share what I felt always was my billow
Speaker 1: of the week. So I was stressing because I had
Speaker 1: a car repair that I had to make, and I
Speaker 1: found myself in a bit of a pinch financially, and
Speaker 1: I remember that I could possibly call, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the companies that I, you know, owe money to,
Speaker 1: like my car loan and things like that that I
Speaker 1: was worried about paying. So I called one of them,
Speaker 1: and it turns out that they actually have a toenay
Speaker 1: grace period from the do date as your payment, and
Speaker 1: it took a huge weight off with my shoulders. And
Speaker 1: so basically I just wanted to remind people, you know,
Speaker 1: it's likes be afraid to call your loan companies and
Speaker 1: that type of thing, because you never know what might happen,
Speaker 1: and it might really help you get back on track
Speaker 1: with whatever you know has happened in your life. So anyways,
Speaker 1: just wanted to share thank you. That's amazing. Yes, don't
Speaker 1: be afraid to call these loan companies and just see
Speaker 1: what you do because it can have an impact on
Speaker 1: your credit score and your credit report. But if you
Speaker 1: at least call and you have a record of the
Speaker 1: call um, then that is something you can do to
Speaker 1: fight that and bring your credit score back up. So yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to hear about how this grace period
Speaker 1: helped you in a particularly stressful time financially and just
Speaker 1: getting over that barrier of making the call. I think
Speaker 1: that goes for negotiation as well. Sometimes we can just
Speaker 1: get this stress anxiety over making a phone call, but
Speaker 1: glad that you did it and experienced freedom as a result.
Speaker 1: It's great. Yeah, that's definitely me. I feel I internalize
Speaker 1: and I say, oh, it's my fault. I don't deserve
Speaker 1: to have a grace period or I don't deserve to
Speaker 1: pay less because it's my fault, my mistakes. But like
Speaker 1: reject that and just say you don't get what you
Speaker 1: don't ask for and maybe you don't get it, but
Speaker 1: you definitely don't get it if you don't ask for it.
Speaker 1: So just see what's available. Make the call. If you
Speaker 1: all listening want to submit your bill. If it has
Speaker 1: to do with making a scary phone call or asking
Speaker 1: for something or just having something given to you, visit
Speaker 1: Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill, leave us your bill.
Speaker 1: Now it's time for rounding round. So how do you
Speaker 1: make budgeting sustainable for you? That is our question today.
Speaker 1: I will go first, so I again I will check
Speaker 1: my I'll check personal capital because it has all of
Speaker 1: my accounts in one place. Since we do travel hack,
Speaker 1: we have several credit cards, checking accounts, stuff like that,
Speaker 1: so I will check that just to like make sure
Speaker 1: there's no fraud, because that's super common. If if anything,
Speaker 1: you need to be managing your money to make sure
Speaker 1: nobody has uh. There's there's not any things that you're
Speaker 1: not sure about on your transactions. But I think just
Speaker 1: the fact that we have always lived on one income
Speaker 1: makes it super like super easy. That's just how we
Speaker 1: do it. We save my income and we spend travises,
Speaker 1: and I think that's and we and we spend less
Speaker 1: than his income. So it's yeah, but something else that's
Speaker 1: made that sustainable as increasing our income. So going like
Speaker 1: Travis went to a different job to get a higher
Speaker 1: pay increase, and then he came back to the job
Speaker 1: he left for more money, Like he would have never
Speaker 1: got that jump and pay if he hadn't left the
Speaker 1: company I have, I, you know, stopped doing things in
Speaker 1: my business that I thought I had to do and
Speaker 1: just kind of simplified to do the things that we're
Speaker 1: making me the most money. So just being strategic about
Speaker 1: increasing our income has made budgeting much more sustainable. Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that. For married couples finding ways to live
Speaker 1: and dual income, I suppose um ways to live off
Speaker 1: of just one salary, I think that can be excellent,
Speaker 1: not totally attainable for every person, but a really decent
Speaker 1: aim For myself, I would say a rhythm helps make
Speaker 1: budgeting sustainable for me. And I think in a lot
Speaker 1: of aspects of life, wherever I can find a rhythm,
Speaker 1: um that can be related to habits and rituals, things
Speaker 1: that I enjoy engaging. And so for me, the rhythm
Speaker 1: is every other week and it goes in step with
Speaker 1: how we are paid. Both Eric and I are paid
Speaker 1: bi weekly, and thankfully our jobs happen to pay us
Speaker 1: on the same day bi weekly, so that makes it
Speaker 1: really nice for us that that it happens to align
Speaker 1: in that way. So my rhythm falls in step with that,
Speaker 1: where I'm able to sit down and look at what
Speaker 1: was brought in in those past two weeks, what was
Speaker 1: spent in those past two weeks, and keeping that pulse
Speaker 1: on it helps me to stay within the boundary lines
Speaker 1: that I have set for myself to spend within the values.
Speaker 1: If I see something that needs to shift, I can
Speaker 1: make that quick pivot because I'm keeping a pulse on
Speaker 1: it quite regularly, and and I enjoy it. For me,
Speaker 1: it does kind of feel like this treat or or
Speaker 1: to look at finances every other week. That's not that's
Speaker 1: not everybody, and that's okay if that's not you. But
Speaker 1: I enjoy it. I usually am sitting down on the couch.
Speaker 1: It's relaxing, I've got a beverage of choice, and it's
Speaker 1: an enjoyable time for me. I feel like it can
Speaker 1: lead to some nice reflection, it leads to some short
Speaker 1: term and long term goal setting, and it's just a
Speaker 1: rhythm that I've practiced and so it's just a part
Speaker 1: of my routine at this point. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: just to bring it all home, like to reject strict budgeting,
Speaker 1: I think you have to know what you love, what
Speaker 1: you don't love, and how to spend less on necessities
Speaker 1: that you don't necessarily love. And so we've been really
Speaker 1: like we've been really like developing this kind of like
Speaker 1: step by step kind of mantra that we can use
Speaker 1: to find that radical middle. And we actually just called
Speaker 1: it the Radical Middle method because we're lazy and it's
Speaker 1: great because it's an awesome yeah. Yeah, And so that's
Speaker 1: kind of like what we focus on in our our membership,
Speaker 1: but like taking you through the three steps to kind
Speaker 1: of once you do these three steps, then you can
Speaker 1: start to create a budget that is that rejects extremes,
Speaker 1: even if those extremes are sent in place by you,
Speaker 1: because I know a lot of the times it was
Speaker 1: me telling me that I had to be perfect. But
Speaker 1: it helps you reject those restrictions you put on yourself
Speaker 1: and create a holistic budget that is practical now that
Speaker 1: lets you live life now but also prepares you for
Speaker 1: the future and to live bigger in the future, so
Speaker 1: there's components to each, but basically, like the three steps
Speaker 1: are you want to like design your dream life essentially,
Speaker 1: so knowing your core values, having like a growth mindset,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And then you create a financial plan
Speaker 1: around that, so financial goals like ten years out, five
Speaker 1: years out, one year, and then kind of figure out
Speaker 1: how you want to pay off debt, save invest stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And then then you focus on like the
Speaker 1: everyday stuff like saving smarter and not harder, so the
Speaker 1: things that are most efficient, controlling your spending. Doing all
Speaker 1: these things, but having those first foundations allows you to
Speaker 1: make a budget in the third step that is not restrictive,
Speaker 1: that is not strict because you already know, like I
Speaker 1: wanted be a digital nomad in five years, and this
Speaker 1: is how much I need to make per month. I
Speaker 1: don't need to make ten thousand, maybe I only need
Speaker 1: to make seven or you know what, you have the plans,
Speaker 1: so you're not doing any of the extremes anymore. You're
Speaker 1: just going with your plan, and your plan leaves room
Speaker 1: for you, you know, to throw a curveball and to
Speaker 1: change your mind. But throughout it makes budgeting enjoyable. It
Speaker 1: makes it a plan, it makes it a tool, It
Speaker 1: doesn't make it a restrictive set of rigid rules. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what we when when we sat down
Speaker 1: and tried to think, Okay, how can we like make
Speaker 1: budgeting not restrictive and help people like get out of
Speaker 1: the extremes. This is kind of what we came up with.
Speaker 1: And so you can live in the radical middle because
Speaker 1: what works for me doesn't work for Jill, and what
Speaker 1: works for us may not work for you. So if
Speaker 1: you can find your own place, it can work for you.
Speaker 1: Budgeting can work for you. Knowing that there's permission for
Speaker 1: that is hopefully the takeaway here that yes, be intentional
Speaker 1: steward your resource as well, but there's an one right way.
Speaker 1: There's not a one size fits all. We we can
Speaker 1: find ourselves somewhere on that spectrum and still be doing well. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: speaking of the radical middle method, you'll find that in
Speaker 1: our Frugal Friends Club, which is our monthly challenge club,
Speaker 1: and we every week share a win from one of
Speaker 1: our members. And so this week's win is from Valerie
Speaker 1: and she actually hers was very long. They tend to
Speaker 1: be long, So I'm just going to pick out a
Speaker 1: few of them from her post, and she'll even started.
Speaker 1: I'll spare everyone in the long winded backstory and each
Speaker 1: of these items. But today I did these things. I
Speaker 1: paid off my phone, which had over six left on
Speaker 1: zero percent financing, paid off my car only had one
Speaker 1: K left after this month's payment, and just paid it off,
Speaker 1: and paid off the last four thousand of a loan
Speaker 1: that I took out in twenty twenty for an elective surgery.
Speaker 1: I am so excited about all of this, have a
Speaker 1: really good feeling that I'm actually going to stand track
Speaker 1: this time, especially with the support of this community. I
Speaker 1: also have to remind myself that life is likely to
Speaker 1: show up along the way. I even have a dentist appointment.
Speaker 1: I'm super nervous about this week that could end up
Speaker 1: leading to a not small bill, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to let that stop me, even if we have to
Speaker 1: occasionally throw slightly less at debt than I want. Amazing Valerie,
Speaker 1: she really knocked it out of the park with these
Speaker 1: three things right in a row, and I think those
Speaker 1: winds and celebrations are what can help to sustain for
Speaker 1: when the next curveball might get thrown. But so much
Speaker 1: progress made here to help in moving forward with life
Speaker 1: and whatever happened with that dentist appointment. So congrats Valerie.
Speaker 1: That's so amazing. Yes, I love reading about the mindset
Speaker 1: shifts because that will last long after uh and anybody
Speaker 1: leaves the membership and moves on like these these mindset
Speaker 1: shifts will last and compound. So congrats Valerie, and thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. If you want to check out our
Speaker 1: monthly challenge, community had to Frugal Friends podcast dot com
Speaker 1: slash club to see which challenge we have coming up next.
Speaker 1: See you next week. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirian.
Speaker 1: What have you been finding in your budget? Finding in it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What's uh? What's what was your last budget meeting? Like? Oh,
Speaker 1: we were able. Eric and I talked about our budget
Speaker 1: big picture when we were on our tenure anniversary trip,
Speaker 1: which was really cool and I actually had some takeaways.
Speaker 1: It always surprises me. I think I've been doing this
Speaker 1: for so long, what more can shift? But I actually
Speaker 1: made a whole new spreadsheet. I got real into the
Speaker 1: weeds with actually Excel. Before it was kind of like
Speaker 1: a Google sheet that had a table in it. And
Speaker 1: now I've moved over into a sheet where I've got
Speaker 1: some formulas plugged in to help me better track. But
Speaker 1: my takeaway was partitioning out some of my categories a
Speaker 1: bit more for intentionality. I really liked the simplified way
Speaker 1: that I tracked expenses, and that did work for a time.
Speaker 1: But now with some simultaneous multiple goals that I have
Speaker 1: but an ability to put some of them on autopilot,
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of parse out some sinking funds
Speaker 1: that were aligned with some of our values to really
Speaker 1: just get a little bit better of a grasp on
Speaker 1: our finances in this particular season because we're doing renovations
Speaker 1: and we also have goals for travel and host ing
Speaker 1: and all of that. So this season is requiring a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a eyes on where the dollars
Speaker 1: are going. Even though I've had years of experiences with budgeting,
Speaker 1: I'm noticing what right now life is requiring. So that's
Speaker 1: a recent shift I made. What about you, Jen, So
Speaker 1: we are going to have to start making a renovation budget.
Speaker 1: I think that is one budget we are going to
Speaker 1: have to make because right now we are renovating a
Speaker 1: part of our house to be a rental and that
Speaker 1: takes priority. We have money saved for that already, but
Speaker 1: I think making we just need to know what we're
Speaker 1: going to spend because Travis has a hard time spending money,
Speaker 1: and so we need to just plan and put on
Speaker 1: paper that we are allowed to spend this much every
Speaker 1: month for the renovations, so that he feels the free
Speaker 1: dum to spend that money. So that is because I
Speaker 1: would just like buy everything right now, but I'm not
Speaker 1: the only one that lives here, so I think it
Speaker 1: can help, yeah, for not to feel just like loosey goosey,
Speaker 1: we don't have any control over what's happening right now,
Speaker 1: but rather a intentionality that this is okay because this
Speaker 1: is allotted for this particular project. Yeah, I think, and
Speaker 1: I think that will make Travis feel better. That's the goal.
Speaker 1: It's the end goal. Make your spouse feel better.