Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I'm At
Speaker 1: and today we're talking about why you need to create
Speaker 1: a budget. So Joel, today we're gonna talk about budgets.
Speaker 1: We're gonna We're gonna talk about how you and I
Speaker 1: have slightly different approaches to to budgeting. Slightly different or
Speaker 1: very different. I'm not sure we'll find out. I think
Speaker 1: I think we do have pretty different takes on budgets,
Speaker 1: and so I think it's really interesting getting into it,
Speaker 1: and hopefully a lot of takeaway from people who are
Speaker 1: frightened the budgets or you know, really want to do
Speaker 1: a budget. I think this podcast is going to kind
Speaker 1: of help people sort through those issues. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like that's one of the good things we've got going
Speaker 1: for us. We like similar things, but we're very different dudes.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of same end goals in mind,
Speaker 1: I think, but our means of getting there often differs
Speaker 1: great a different buddy, which is why I think it's awesome.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of more go with your go with your gut,
Speaker 1: and you're definitely more planned out. Let's put every I'm
Speaker 1: the numbers guy. You're like Excel spreadsheet to the max.
Speaker 1: Empirical data. Give it to me, that's right. Uh. And
Speaker 1: as always on the Porn Poor podcast, we crack a
Speaker 1: beer every time and today, Matt, you got you picked
Speaker 1: up the beer today and what are we drinking? This
Speaker 1: is tweak, a stout with coffee. It's aged and bourbon barrels.
Speaker 1: I had this a few years ago. Oh, you were
Speaker 1: actually over at our house and I give you a sip, right,
Speaker 1: I saved some for you. Yeah, that's that's when you
Speaker 1: first had it. So my brother in law got this
Speaker 1: for me one Christmas. You got me a six pack
Speaker 1: of a bunch of different beers that we don't get
Speaker 1: here in Georgia. With this being a higher a BV.
Speaker 1: This is a six beer, so yeah, we get every
Speaker 1: beers here, but we don't get the big time stouts
Speaker 1: that they make because they're big time stouts could go
Speaker 1: up to eighteen percent, and so this one's at sixteen.
Speaker 1: And Georgia the cap on a b V is fourteen,
Speaker 1: so we don't get these big stouts here. But this
Speaker 1: is Yeah, it's fantastic. Excited to have this again. It's
Speaker 1: been it's been a while since since I've had this one.
Speaker 1: So Matt's Poor and the beer right now. At the
Speaker 1: end of the podcast, as always, will give you kind
Speaker 1: of our tasting notes what we think about the beer.
Speaker 1: And this is, if I remember correctly, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite stouts of all time. I'm pretty pumped to be
Speaker 1: having it again. We'll give you our tasting notes in
Speaker 1: just a little bit. I did make it out to
Speaker 1: the Avery Brewing Company, I guess about a year and
Speaker 1: a half ago. It was absolutely beautiful. The beers were
Speaker 1: there in Colorado, uh outside of Boulder, obviously in Colorado,
Speaker 1: just outside of Boulder, I think, And oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: their facilities amazing. They make some amazing so hours. Oh so,
Speaker 1: by the way, Matt Avery just last month sold of
Speaker 1: their brewery. And this is a hot topic and craft beer.
Speaker 1: We're both in the craft beer in a huge way.
Speaker 1: But breweries are selling out. It seems like almost every
Speaker 1: other week you hear a report of a brewery selling
Speaker 1: part their steak or their whole brewery to a big conglomerate.
Speaker 1: And Avery just soldt to a Spanish company. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about craft breweries that are selling parts or
Speaker 1: their whole business to other companies, and especially like I guess,
Speaker 1: the big one was wicked weeds. Telling to Budweiser that
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff scared scares the craft that was
Speaker 1: kind of big. I mean, I don't know, man. My
Speaker 1: question is is the beer gonna taste different? Yeah it is?
Speaker 1: Well no, no, no no, I'm not saying is. I'm saying
Speaker 1: that's a big question, because then yes, then I have
Speaker 1: a problem with that, right. You know, these are companies
Speaker 1: where they've been working hard over years and sometimes decades
Speaker 1: to make something fantastic, and as the owners, my natural
Speaker 1: tendency is to think that oh, if you own it,
Speaker 1: this is something you've worked for, is something you built,
Speaker 1: and if you want to sell a portion of it,
Speaker 1: and especially it means you said the only sold thirty percent,
Speaker 1: I mean they're obviously maintaining control over the company. And
Speaker 1: I think there's a big difference in the way that
Speaker 1: a company sells, and it's especially in craft beer. And
Speaker 1: we'll get to the topic at hand budgets in just
Speaker 1: a second. I think it in craft beer, the way
Speaker 1: you sell makes such a big difference because if it's
Speaker 1: a Spanish company and kind of keeping similar structure and
Speaker 1: the same brewers in place, all that stuff, keeping the
Speaker 1: same mindset and company culture. For instance, like I think
Speaker 1: when Heineken bought Lagunitas, they kind of wanted to everyone
Speaker 1: to kind of remain in place, and you know, status quota, continue,
Speaker 1: change of management, changing capital. Yeah it's under a new name.
Speaker 1: But but with something like wickul Weed sells a percent
Speaker 1: of Budweiser that people start to wonder, Okay, well you
Speaker 1: also you kind of sold to the people that they
Speaker 1: want to stamp out craft beer, you know, so it's
Speaker 1: as seen as articles. Yeah, so it's I think it's
Speaker 1: that kind of thing um And I don't think we
Speaker 1: know what the overall effects is going to be, but
Speaker 1: it's just interesting that a lot more of those are
Speaker 1: things are happening in the craft beer world. And if
Speaker 1: you're super into craft beer, you do care if you're
Speaker 1: brewery sells a steak, If your local brewer right down
Speaker 1: the street from you sells steak or sells out to
Speaker 1: another company, it could affect the quality and and that
Speaker 1: would absolutely be a bummer, right Yeah, But fortunately for us,
Speaker 1: I guess there's and just how it affects the industry
Speaker 1: as a whole, I guess as well. It's something it's
Speaker 1: sorry for me sometimes to think beyond the immediate What
Speaker 1: is this due to the beer, right, and if it's fine,
Speaker 1: then maybe it's gonna be okay. But I remember reading
Speaker 1: some on that and just how it affects the craft
Speaker 1: beer industry as a whole and what some of the
Speaker 1: big brewers are trying to do so well, a lot
Speaker 1: of it comes down to tap space and shelf space,
Speaker 1: and if you've got the big money, you contributors, you
Speaker 1: can buy shelf space and tap space and we don't
Speaker 1: have to get in all the nuances. But it it
Speaker 1: does that kind of stuff, it affects that stuff in
Speaker 1: the bottom line for everybody involved. So cheers, tweak, let's
Speaker 1: drink smells so good? All right, We'll get to tasting
Speaker 1: notes later on, but so fights it to say at
Speaker 1: this point that's real good. This is fantastic. That warms
Speaker 1: you up like your drinking bourbon too. It's just perfectly balanced.
Speaker 1: We'll talk more about this later, all right, Matt, moving
Speaker 1: on to the topic at hand today, budgets, and for
Speaker 1: a lot of people that's a really scary word. So
Speaker 1: let's kind of define it and talk about why maybe
Speaker 1: it's not as frightening as it initially sounds. Yeah, man, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so to me, a budget is just us deciding, like
Speaker 1: where we're going to spend the money before you actually
Speaker 1: spend it. Right, It's not some sort of list of
Speaker 1: rules that you have to follow or abide by or
Speaker 1: you swear to. It's just having a plan. That's the
Speaker 1: easiest way to describe it. It's saying that this is
Speaker 1: how much income I'm going to half of the month.
Speaker 1: It's listing out your expenses. It's deciding where you're going
Speaker 1: to spend that money and then just sticking to it.
Speaker 1: It's just I mean literally, it's just a plan you
Speaker 1: and you get to decide that plan, right. It's not
Speaker 1: like somebody else is gonna say, oh no, you must
Speaker 1: do it this way. Certainly, there's tactics and ways and
Speaker 1: approaches to creating a budget, but when it comes to
Speaker 1: the actual amounts within the budget and you in your
Speaker 1: different categories, you're gonna put your dollars on the things
Speaker 1: that you value. That's what That's what makes it yours
Speaker 1: as well. So what would you say to someone that
Speaker 1: thinks that a budget is limiting. No, a budget is
Speaker 1: not limiting per se. You're not sort of keeping yourself
Speaker 1: from doing things unless that's what you want to do.
Speaker 1: You're deciding now what you're gonna do down the down
Speaker 1: the road and in the in the weeks to come
Speaker 1: in that month. And so if you know at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the month that like, oh, it's I'm gonna
Speaker 1: want to do these other things because I can't. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna behave and I'm gonna spend my money as
Speaker 1: soon as I get it, well, it's good at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the month to sit down and think ahead
Speaker 1: a little bit. Really, all it is is just thinking
Speaker 1: ahead and making a plan. Yeah. I think most people
Speaker 1: think that a budget is about depriving yourself, so you
Speaker 1: spend as little money as possible and you allocated to
Speaker 1: the right places. But really, when it comes down to it,
Speaker 1: you're living a water and gruel lifestyle to try to
Speaker 1: skip by because that's what it takes. That's what budgeting is.
Speaker 1: It's it's that sort of a process. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a slog and I think that's probably where people get
Speaker 1: bogged down. Initially. I don't want to do a budget
Speaker 1: because it means it's gonna restrict me in all these ways.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to go out and eat right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: folks are like, well, I still want to go and
Speaker 1: get my nails done, or whatever arguments there are against it.
Speaker 1: That's what keeps people, I think a lot of times right,
Speaker 1: that's what keeps people totally from from doing it. And
Speaker 1: in the trick is I guess that you you have
Speaker 1: to prioritize those things, and some of those things you
Speaker 1: will have to cut back if you want to meet
Speaker 1: other goals that you have. So you have to make
Speaker 1: decisions sometimes now in the short term that will impact
Speaker 1: your long term budget, and so it might take cutting
Speaker 1: back on certain things that you deem not as important
Speaker 1: in the immediate in order to achieve that long term success.
Speaker 1: If you want to take a trip next year to Europe,
Speaker 1: you can start budgeting for that, start saving now absolutely,
Speaker 1: as opposed to the typical finances sort of model is
Speaker 1: don't plan ahead, you do it when you want, and
Speaker 1: then you end up paying for it after the fact.
Speaker 1: But what are you you also paying for after the
Speaker 1: fact if you've financed it, you're paying for financing, you're
Speaker 1: paying interest. Yeah, you're paying interest on it as opposed
Speaker 1: to saving ahead of time. So it's it's almost like
Speaker 1: a reverse payment program. Instead of paying a bank or
Speaker 1: a lender. After the fact, you're you're just saving up
Speaker 1: and paying yourself ahead of time. I think one of
Speaker 1: the most difficult aspects of budgeting for me sometimes is
Speaker 1: I forget to make it personal. And I think that
Speaker 1: when it comes down to it, I'm better at budgeting
Speaker 1: when I truly make it personal to what I need.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I guess we all do this. We begin
Speaker 1: to think, well, this is what everyone else is doing,
Speaker 1: or this is this is what my budget should look like.
Speaker 1: But really you have to make it personal. And if
Speaker 1: you want to drop four thousand dollars a year on travel,
Speaker 1: you can do that, but you just need to budget
Speaker 1: for it. Just put it on there the every month
Speaker 1: that you're gonna set aside. However, many you know four
Speaker 1: thousand about about by twelve months, and now you know that,
Speaker 1: like every month, we need to set aside this much
Speaker 1: money towards that one trip at the end of the year,
Speaker 1: or for the two trips that we have. If it's
Speaker 1: a priority for you, man make it happen. It's just
Speaker 1: about making those decisions before they happen. That way, you
Speaker 1: have time to prepare for it. So do you always
Speaker 1: budget so like before and well, specific to before you
Speaker 1: and Emily got married, did you budget when back when
Speaker 1: you're single? No, I didn't budget, and I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1: And and Emily and I've had a difficult time at
Speaker 1: times trying to figure out budgeting in our marriage because
Speaker 1: I do have a kind of this like mental roadblock,
Speaker 1: aversion to budgeting, and part of it is and I
Speaker 1: wrote an article actually a few years back on my
Speaker 1: personal blog about why I didn't budget. And I think
Speaker 1: it's okay for some people at different times in life
Speaker 1: to not have to budget, but not for most people,
Speaker 1: only for a few And the reason I think it
Speaker 1: works for me is because I was so frugal. I
Speaker 1: was so into not spending money for quite a long
Speaker 1: period of time, and I liked seeing my balance grow
Speaker 1: every month. I just didn't really buy needless things, and
Speaker 1: in lifestyle creep wasn't really a factor for me at
Speaker 1: that point in time. You're you're living so cheap that
Speaker 1: making a budget for you maybe wasn't the wisest used
Speaker 1: to your time, because it's fine you were, you were
Speaker 1: spending nothing on everything, right, And I felt like, I
Speaker 1: think at that point in time, I was probably like
Speaker 1: working more hours and so less time to spend and
Speaker 1: I was just really kind of focused on building something.
Speaker 1: I see the need for a budget in our lives
Speaker 1: more now than I have in quite some time. And
Speaker 1: so this actually, this next year, it's gonna be really
Speaker 1: big focus for us to actually kind of adopt a
Speaker 1: budget again and try to because we have a goal
Speaker 1: in mind. Because actually, and here's the goal. We bought
Speaker 1: a rental property recently, and we did take out a
Speaker 1: small portion of our home equity loan UH in order
Speaker 1: to put down to get this rental property. And so
Speaker 1: we want to pay that off in months. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: want to pay that off quickly, and I gotta have
Speaker 1: a plan if you want to do that, do that exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so we're like, we're not terribly uncomfortable with it
Speaker 1: being there, but we'd rather get rid of it. And
Speaker 1: the only way for us to do that, well, I think,
Speaker 1: is to budget for the first six eight months, get
Speaker 1: back into it, pay it off quickly, and then you
Speaker 1: know what, I think that that that we're just in
Speaker 1: a phase where we're gonna be budgeting for a while.
Speaker 1: But then maybe at some point we'll be in another
Speaker 1: phase of life where we don't feel the strong need
Speaker 1: to budget and sit down every week or month and
Speaker 1: do that. But we are in a phase in life
Speaker 1: where we're getting back into that and we're really excited
Speaker 1: to get back into it. Yeah. I think the biggest
Speaker 1: thing with that is especially if you have a partner,
Speaker 1: especially if you have a wife. And this is where
Speaker 1: it came down for me and Emily, where budgeting actually
Speaker 1: really begin to help us get on the same page
Speaker 1: about money, was that I was so frugal and she
Speaker 1: would feel bad if she spent money, even though like
Speaker 1: I didn't want her to feel bad. I didn't want
Speaker 1: her not to be free to make that decision to
Speaker 1: buy something, but because of my mindset and her knowing
Speaker 1: my mindset about money, she felt uncomfortable making that spend,
Speaker 1: buying that item of clothing or going out to eat.
Speaker 1: It was always kind of, well, should we go to
Speaker 1: the restaurant that's where we're only going to spend like
Speaker 1: forty bucks or is it okay if we go to
Speaker 1: the restaurant, we're gonna drop seventy five dollars tonight. And
Speaker 1: because it wasn't down on paper and it wasn't something
Speaker 1: that we discussed, it was this thing that we just
Speaker 1: didn't talk about and it was this unsaid like difficulty
Speaker 1: in our marriage. And so that's where budgeting for us
Speaker 1: really comes out. If it was just me, I could
Speaker 1: get by without a budget, but because it involves my
Speaker 1: wife and feelings and how we process things together, it's
Speaker 1: really really helpful for us to be on the same page. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for us, it was didn't want to do it at all,
Speaker 1: Like she she saw it sort of like we talked
Speaker 1: about initially, where it was this thing where we're gonna
Speaker 1: be enslaved to the numbers and whatever, whatever the charts
Speaker 1: or whatever the numbers say, that that's what we have
Speaker 1: to do. So after talking with her about it and
Speaker 1: learning what it really is, she saw basically the freedom
Speaker 1: in that. And so she saw that, Okay, at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the month, we're both going to talk about
Speaker 1: this and we're gonna decide together what we're going to
Speaker 1: spend on whatever it's going to be, say, you know,
Speaker 1: going out to eat. Well, then once you've decided what
Speaker 1: that number is, like we have to I mean, and
Speaker 1: this is how we approached it, was that you we
Speaker 1: had to spend that money because we've decided that's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do, and so there was no guilt at
Speaker 1: all associated with, say, going out to eat. It was
Speaker 1: a matter of that, you know, we decided that this
Speaker 1: is what we're gonna do, so let's do it, let's
Speaker 1: have fun. And once that sort of clicked for definitely
Speaker 1: for Kate, then we were able to man totally get
Speaker 1: on the same page. She saw it as a as
Speaker 1: a a tool that sort of got rid of that guilty.
Speaker 1: Do you let things roll over or from month to
Speaker 1: month in your budget? Let's say you and Kate each
Speaker 1: have like a personal expense account and you usually have
Speaker 1: a certain amount of lotted into it where Matt can
Speaker 1: buy whatever he wants that month that's fifty bucks or under.
Speaker 1: But let's see you're saving up for something that's do
Speaker 1: you roll that over? How does that work in your budget? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we actually we do. We do roll it over,
Speaker 1: so we don't have a monthly we we don't have
Speaker 1: a monthly amount where we're basically forcing ourselves to spend that.
Speaker 1: And if you don't think it's just sort of gone,
Speaker 1: that kind of goes for us. I've we've got this
Speaker 1: overly complicated budget because I'm a nerd, but where we
Speaker 1: each get a certain amount that we've decided that we're
Speaker 1: gonna get every month, and and if you spend it,
Speaker 1: then you spend it. But otherwise, for the most part,
Speaker 1: we're saving up in the in those in those buckets.
Speaker 1: Is another way to look at it that we've that's
Speaker 1: how we've talked about it before as well, that we're
Speaker 1: sort of letting the bucket grow because we know that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: in my case, oh, I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get a bike. Uh, and it's gonna cost thousand, two
Speaker 1: thousand bucks and I'm not gonna be spending a whole
Speaker 1: lot of money on other other other things. All right,
Speaker 1: what if you buy that item early on in the
Speaker 1: year and so you're in negative in your personal account
Speaker 1: on the budget, how do you tell that? So it's
Speaker 1: it's just as there as a as a negative that
Speaker 1: we try not to let that happen. But when it does,
Speaker 1: it since there as a as a negative, and then
Speaker 1: it slowly takes back up as the as the months progress.
Speaker 1: And yeah, in general, we try not to dip down
Speaker 1: into the red. General good rule of budget, good rule
Speaker 1: of thumb, don't get in the red. I mean that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why, right, it's just if you're
Speaker 1: on the same page with your spouse, it helps two
Speaker 1: work as a team. When you can work as a team,
Speaker 1: you're just going to be able to get so much
Speaker 1: more done having that accountability to your significant other. And
Speaker 1: even if it's not a spouse or I think having
Speaker 1: a friend or somebody that you can sort of talk
Speaker 1: to and about your goals, I think that's really helpful
Speaker 1: as well. I don't I don't think there's very many
Speaker 1: people at all that do that. But the reason that
Speaker 1: I say that is because this is something that not
Speaker 1: just couples can do, but yeah, somebody that's not in
Speaker 1: a relationship as well. Well. It's interesting. I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of people actually have found kind of some
Speaker 1: therapy in starting like a blog to document how they're
Speaker 1: doing with budgeting. And actually a lot of successful online
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs started off as budget bloggers talking about getting out
Speaker 1: of debt and how they kind of pulled themselves up
Speaker 1: out of their out of their debt hole and now
Speaker 1: they're budget masters, and so those people are always interesting
Speaker 1: to read. And there's just a lot of people like that.
Speaker 1: So maybe for you, maybe it's not even public. But
Speaker 1: maybe it's just journaling about it, but writing it down
Speaker 1: and keeping track of your progress and having some sort
Speaker 1: of visual record of what you're working towards and what
Speaker 1: you've what you've done. I mean for me, So I
Speaker 1: started making my budgets back in ten years ago, right
Speaker 1: out ten years ago. Now what's kind of crazy is
Speaker 1: that I can look back and see what I was
Speaker 1: saving towards back then, see see how much I was spending.
Speaker 1: It was significantly less than what we spend now is
Speaker 1: a family of five. But it's actually, it's it's really cool,
Speaker 1: I think to be able to it's sort of a
Speaker 1: a time machine in a in a sence, you know,
Speaker 1: to kind of be able to go back and look
Speaker 1: and say, oh, this is we thought this was such
Speaker 1: a huge deal. It was not. Or we saw, you know,
Speaker 1: this came up and this kind of wrecked us for
Speaker 1: a couple of months there, but in reality we saw
Speaker 1: how it kind of ended up being okay, and we
Speaker 1: kind of stuck to the plan and because of that
Speaker 1: where where we are today. So yeah, I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to about how just in general, so we're I mean,
Speaker 1: we're talking about why you need to budget, right, So
Speaker 1: as a tool. What a budget does essentially is takes
Speaker 1: this plan that you want to have right in regards
Speaker 1: to your finances and your money, and it takes it
Speaker 1: and it links your plan that you have in your
Speaker 1: head two your behavior and how you actually live throughout
Speaker 1: the month, because you can we can think that we
Speaker 1: want to do something all day long, but if we
Speaker 1: don't really have a plan for it or have it
Speaker 1: written down, we're just gonna do what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: Our friends are gonna go out and oh this is
Speaker 1: coming up, or oh man, this show is in town.
Speaker 1: Oh man, there's so much fun stuff I want to
Speaker 1: do and things I want to buy, and you misbehave
Speaker 1: and then you're you look at back at the end
Speaker 1: of the month and you think, oh my gosh, where
Speaker 1: did where did all my money go? The budget is
Speaker 1: there to keep you in line, and it's yourself keeping
Speaker 1: yourself online. It's not like it's somebody else. You get
Speaker 1: to do this to yourself. It's like your your past
Speaker 1: self telling your future self how you're gonna behave and
Speaker 1: sticking to it. So, Joel, are you act like are
Speaker 1: you naturally a spender or a saver? I mean so
Speaker 1: and I asked this because earlier this morning, we're having
Speaker 1: a conversation and you're taking some anagram, any aramagram or something,
Speaker 1: and you're talking about how, oh, man, maybe I'm not
Speaker 1: actually a sort of a minimalist, saver, kind of frugal type, right.
Speaker 1: Do you think you're naturally a spender or say so?
Speaker 1: I think, deep down, at my core, I'm probably a
Speaker 1: little bit of a spender. But I think some of
Speaker 1: the circumstances that happened in my life and in childhood
Speaker 1: have driven me to be frugal, to be a saver,
Speaker 1: to desire security in that way. I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: naturally this minimalist, frugal guy, but that is part of me,
Speaker 1: and it's ingrained in me at this point because it's
Speaker 1: something that I've learned over years and years and years.
Speaker 1: It's kind of yeah, it's kind of shaped you to
Speaker 1: to kind of be who you are today. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you I gotta I gotta imagine that you are to
Speaker 1: the core. Man. I It's tough because there's things that
Speaker 1: come along and I think, oh I need this, or
Speaker 1: oh I really want this for for me, I want
Speaker 1: this for our family. These are these are now priorities,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times those things involved a lot
Speaker 1: of money, and so therefore we're spending We're spending money
Speaker 1: but kind of left to my own so my own devices.
Speaker 1: And if it was just me, if I was a
Speaker 1: single dude, I would be a sad single dude living
Speaker 1: by myself, not spending any money, without a life, and
Speaker 1: nobody would want to be my friend. Dude. I'm serious. Uh,
Speaker 1: Having Kate to kind of balance me, bounce me out
Speaker 1: and that in that sense has been very good for
Speaker 1: for who I am. But I do so because of that. Yes,
Speaker 1: at my core, I do think I'm a saver. I'm
Speaker 1: a organized saver, and the budget helps me get there.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let me give you my quick breakdown
Speaker 1: my approach to budgeting, how when I do it, how
Speaker 1: I've done it, how Emily and I've done it together,
Speaker 1: because you're more of a free spirit when it comes
Speaker 1: to numbers, and you mentioned going with your going with
Speaker 1: your gut. You think that's how you approach it. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much, so, I'll say. But when we are and Emily,
Speaker 1: it's just like Kate is for you. Emily is a
Speaker 1: great balance for me and she really helps me stick
Speaker 1: to a budge it, look at the numbers, think through,
Speaker 1: especially if we're on a mission on a goal, and
Speaker 1: then how to kind of feel free inside of that.
Speaker 1: And so with the way we approach it. There's a
Speaker 1: bunch of different apps, as we've said, a bunch of
Speaker 1: different websites, a bunch of different formulas that people use.
Speaker 1: I use Mint, the Mint app, Mint dot com. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's the most widely used budgeting tool. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we tried it for a while there to see
Speaker 1: if it would work for us. Yeah, I think for us,
Speaker 1: we use Mint specifically as a way to just track
Speaker 1: all of our expenses. So we use credit cards and
Speaker 1: checks for pretty much everything, and like almost no checks anymore.
Speaker 1: It's pretty much all credit cards, right, and get get
Speaker 1: those points, get that catch back, Yeah exactly. And so
Speaker 1: but that can be a problem for people who because
Speaker 1: because credit card doesn't register the same mentally when you
Speaker 1: make a transaction as actually taking cash out of your
Speaker 1: pocket and handing it to somebody. So that's again, if
Speaker 1: you're going to be using plastic, the budgeting really can
Speaker 1: kick in if you're not super frugal. It's really important
Speaker 1: because you could find yourself spending a lot more freely
Speaker 1: using plastic as opposed to cash. I totally ability that
Speaker 1: as far as like the emotional impact, Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you just swipe it and forget. I don't you have
Speaker 1: to swipe it in more, you just hand it over
Speaker 1: like or online make it swipes it for me. How
Speaker 1: easy is it to make an online purchase now or
Speaker 1: like Amazon one click or whatever. There's all these kind
Speaker 1: of things that make it so easy, and then two
Speaker 1: days later the things shows up your doorstep and you
Speaker 1: forget you just spent twenty eight dollars on it. You
Speaker 1: forget that you even ordered it. Sometimes, but I feel
Speaker 1: like that's a tendency for people, right especially in today's
Speaker 1: day and age, with easy online ordering, that's just kind
Speaker 1: of goes hand in hand with it, all right. So
Speaker 1: I use Mint and we basically filter all of our
Speaker 1: credit cards in there, and so use it as a
Speaker 1: tracking exactly, and so in an instant I can get
Speaker 1: a snapshot of kind of where we're at for the month,
Speaker 1: you know, up or down. It's just got the cash
Speaker 1: balance first, the credit card how much we owe on
Speaker 1: the credit cards? Right then, obviously we don't care a
Speaker 1: credit card balance, but it just gives me a snapshot
Speaker 1: kind of where things are at, and then on top
Speaker 1: of that weekend at the end every month, go through
Speaker 1: all those transactions. Mint doesn't do a great job of
Speaker 1: categorizing it. Yeah, I was gonna say that was one
Speaker 1: of the things I remember being annoyed with having to
Speaker 1: manually say, no, this actually needs to go here now
Speaker 1: where like the very next time there's a purchase there,
Speaker 1: it needs to go to this other category. It kind
Speaker 1: of bounces back and forth, and so that that can
Speaker 1: be a tough one. Uh We that's why we kind
Speaker 1: of actually go manually through all the transactions and then
Speaker 1: entered into Google sheets and we kind of sit down
Speaker 1: and then we're like, okay, well, did you would you
Speaker 1: buy here for this amount? Because we don't always tell
Speaker 1: each other before we buy something that's ten or twenty bucks,
Speaker 1: so then we can kind of say, okay, you're at
Speaker 1: eighty bucks for this month, and we're at this much
Speaker 1: for groceries. And so we try to sit down once
Speaker 1: or twice a month go through it so we're on
Speaker 1: the same page and kind of see where we're at.
Speaker 1: And that's the easiest, simplest way we found. There's all
Speaker 1: these other I've heard so many people rave about you
Speaker 1: need a budget uh also called wine ab for short.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of people to rape about that
Speaker 1: budgeting app and website. We've just found that meant for
Speaker 1: us it's simple. We've already kind of got everything flowing
Speaker 1: into there, and then we just use Google sheets to
Speaker 1: kind of track and see where we're at for the
Speaker 1: month and then overall and how we're progressing that years. Okay,
Speaker 1: So then on the Google sheet, is that where you
Speaker 1: set here how much you're you're wanting to spend in
Speaker 1: different categories, So say with groceries, okay, so at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the the month, you've already you already had that set.
Speaker 1: So we know, yeah, we're gonna drop four five dollars
Speaker 1: a month on groceries, and we're gonna do a d
Speaker 1: and fifty on entertainment which includes our date nights right
Speaker 1: every month, or you know, this is how much our
Speaker 1: mortgage is. Obviously the set things like that, and so
Speaker 1: that's kind of how we use it. And then we've
Speaker 1: all right, at the end of the month, we've we've
Speaker 1: got fifty bucks left for going out, or we've got
Speaker 1: five bucks, and so we stay in and make dinner.
Speaker 1: Got you all right, So what about you? What's your approach?
Speaker 1: So okay, so yeah, we we take the more nerdy,
Speaker 1: uh all numbers approach. So basically since the beginning, when
Speaker 1: I first created my first budget, I've always created a
Speaker 1: zero sum budget, so meaning that at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the month, I set the my projected income list out
Speaker 1: all my expenses, and literally at the end of the
Speaker 1: month it should be zero. So your income minoster expenses
Speaker 1: equal zero. And within those expenses includes goals, right, so
Speaker 1: it's like saving for that vacation or that trip in
Speaker 1: addition to investment savings in retirement and things like that,
Speaker 1: I've got those within my I call it. I call
Speaker 1: it an expense, but it's just a way for me
Speaker 1: to say that my goal is this month, to say,
Speaker 1: you know, to put aside towards my roth ira A.
Speaker 1: So those numbers are also included in the expenses. So
Speaker 1: my goal is that at the end of the month
Speaker 1: there's not a single penny. I mean literally, there's not
Speaker 1: a single penny that is unaccounted for because I've essentially
Speaker 1: spent it already at the beginning of the month with
Speaker 1: the you know, with the goals that Kate and I
Speaker 1: have set in mind, and then we you know, we
Speaker 1: move moved numbers around month the month. If we're like, well,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a month where we're gonna focus
Speaker 1: on this, maybe a little bit more, say, oh, actually
Speaker 1: we're gonna need to ramp up our our savings towards
Speaker 1: vacation because we didn't take into account the beach was
Speaker 1: gonna be more expensive or something like that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's the general approach for me and so and the
Speaker 1: tools I used then for that excel, I mean just
Speaker 1: the basic excels, you know, multiple I got two or
Speaker 1: three spreadsheets, and do you just pour over all your
Speaker 1: statements in order to about once a week if I'm
Speaker 1: if I'm diligent and on top of it, once a week,
Speaker 1: I just export stuff and just plug it into plug
Speaker 1: it in our spreadsheets, and then I do manually move them.
Speaker 1: How long is that process when I do it once
Speaker 1: a week, maybe like thirty minutes. Takes me about thirty
Speaker 1: minutes to look over those numbers, plug those into the
Speaker 1: proper categories and then kay, I mean, we don't even
Speaker 1: have meetings anymore. I just send Kate a text, I'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, budget update, dash, dash dash, and then I
Speaker 1: say grocery hundred under entertainment, a hundred, fifty dollars under gas,
Speaker 1: you know, forty dollars under things like that, And that's
Speaker 1: basically what kind of helps dictate and point us in
Speaker 1: the right direction for the rest of the month. All right,
Speaker 1: but let's say this. So let's say, particularly on a
Speaker 1: line NIGHTE and like gas, you're doing zero some budget.
Speaker 1: But if every money should be at the end of
Speaker 1: the month directed somewhere, what happens if you've budgeted seventy
Speaker 1: for gas and you only spent thirty five, or vice versa,
Speaker 1: you aren't on a road trip and you spent more,
Speaker 1: how do you handle that in the budget? And where
Speaker 1: does that money go? Yeah? So does it look like
Speaker 1: so in the first example, if there's additional money left over,
Speaker 1: that's just money that we then it's just additional month
Speaker 1: that's going to go into whatever we decide it's going
Speaker 1: to go into. So typically it's the following month or
Speaker 1: that same month that the same month. Yeah, so, and
Speaker 1: say that specific month we had planned to set aside
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars to go to a roth Ira, Then
Speaker 1: if we're forty bucks under in gas, well instead of
Speaker 1: eight hundred, it's eight forty that month, and so we
Speaker 1: just kind of make some changes on the fly. And
Speaker 1: obviously sometimes you just have to drive somewhere, right, and
Speaker 1: so sometimes we do go over. But like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: the road trip, well that kind of comes out of vacation,
Speaker 1: and so that's something we've already planned for. We know that, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is gonna include all of our expenses for that trip,
Speaker 1: and so that's that's how we know reconcile it in
Speaker 1: that in that case. All right, So here's another interesting question,
Speaker 1: and there's probably a lot of people listening that are
Speaker 1: in the same position as Matt is. I am a
Speaker 1: regular forty hour week employees somewhere with a paycheck that
Speaker 1: I can count on that looks pretty much the exact
Speaker 1: same every two weeks. But you, sir, have vastly different
Speaker 1: incomes from month to month. So what do you how
Speaker 1: do you budget when you make ten thou one month
Speaker 1: in two thousand in the next. Yeah, so that's when
Speaker 1: margin comes into play. So sort of like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: you're asking about the sort of personal categories with like okay,
Speaker 1: so do you roll over you know, like if you
Speaker 1: don't spend all of your all of your map money
Speaker 1: for the month. And so the my answer to that was, yes,
Speaker 1: the same thing kind of goes. So we have I mean,
Speaker 1: basically we kind of roll it into what we call
Speaker 1: our emergency fund, but we have a more loose, sort
Speaker 1: of liberal emergency fund, and what that acts as is
Speaker 1: our margin. So in the months where we do have
Speaker 1: that additional income, right, so, say like the ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollar month, that additional money, we know that that's a
Speaker 1: fat month. It's not like we're like, oh man, this
Speaker 1: is our life, now, let's get used to spending it all.
Speaker 1: We know that we have to set aside some like
Speaker 1: a good chunk of that for some of the leaner months,
Speaker 1: and so when that happens, we basically stockpile our emergency
Speaker 1: fund a little bit, knowing that there's gonna be some
Speaker 1: leaner months ahead, and that way when those months do
Speaker 1: inevitably come along, we're able to kind of dip into
Speaker 1: that and all that all balances out. It would be
Speaker 1: nice to have a consistent income because it would absolutely
Speaker 1: make budgeting easier. But for us, I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: doing this for for so long now, with ten years. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't even really think about it. So here's it's
Speaker 1: something that's always kind of been hard for me when
Speaker 1: it comes to budgeting, because I'm good at like saving
Speaker 1: up money, not spending, not spending a ton, and always
Speaker 1: saving every month and not spending more than we make.
Speaker 1: What happens when and in some I touched on earlier
Speaker 1: make your budget personal for me. We try to allocate
Speaker 1: money to the things that we love. And there's a
Speaker 1: few things that we have said aside, like, for instance,
Speaker 1: I have three things that I'm okay spending more money
Speaker 1: on than probably most people do. And those three things
Speaker 1: are craft beer. Obviously we're drinking a good one now. Uh.
Speaker 1: Folk art. I love folk art, and so I buy
Speaker 1: a piece every year, sometimes two. We Emily and I
Speaker 1: just share a love for folk art and travel. We
Speaker 1: travel usually one domestic and one international every year. We
Speaker 1: try to allocate money for those things. But if there's
Speaker 1: a deal on something, I have this kind of thorn
Speaker 1: in my side that I have to I almost have
Speaker 1: to pull the trigger. And so let's say there's a
Speaker 1: great deal on a trip somewhere where tickets to Barcelona,
Speaker 1: Spain are normally and there's a round trip ticket for
Speaker 1: foreigner and fifty dollars. I just have a built up
Speaker 1: savings can I pull the trigger on it? That's that's
Speaker 1: the thing. I guess. It's it's like a different way
Speaker 1: of like brain compartmentalization. And my brain isn't saying I
Speaker 1: budgeted it out over twelve months. It's saying I put
Speaker 1: all the excess in the savings account and I'm spending
Speaker 1: out of there. That's kind of the way my brain
Speaker 1: thinks about it. Yeah, So I mean, so, yes, we
Speaker 1: try to take advantage of the deal. I'm I'm with you.
Speaker 1: We're not so rigid that when we see a fantastic
Speaker 1: deal or an opportunity to come along that we're like, nope,
Speaker 1: we only were still working towards that, you know. So again,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, well, what if there's a big purchase,
Speaker 1: and I mentioned how when I when I got like
Speaker 1: a recent bike that I purchased, it took me into
Speaker 1: the red. And but that's so that's still like something
Speaker 1: I'm still slowly kind of building, you know, rebuilding and
Speaker 1: getting back up to zero and then beyond that, trying
Speaker 1: to start saving again to be able to get something
Speaker 1: else on one. So when we see a deal on
Speaker 1: a flight, even though we necessarily may not have all
Speaker 1: of that money saved up for that vacation, it's not
Speaker 1: in the vacation fund in that category exactly. Again, we
Speaker 1: have enough margin in our you know, in our emergency
Speaker 1: fund that we're able that we've stockpiled because we know
Speaker 1: that we've we do that in the you know, the
Speaker 1: in the fatter months, we're able to kind of dip
Speaker 1: into that. So it's not like we're overdrafting our account
Speaker 1: or anything. We're sort of overdrafting that little category. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and that category is sort of hurting there
Speaker 1: for a couple of months until we're able to kind
Speaker 1: of rebuild it. But we're never overdrafting. We're never It's
Speaker 1: not like our bank our account bounces ever zero or
Speaker 1: honestly even close to that, because we like to maintain
Speaker 1: a cushion. Yeah. No, I think that's a great way
Speaker 1: to put it. Never going to credit card debt for lifestyle,
Speaker 1: no way. Never over debit your account for lifestyle. If
Speaker 1: this is a decision and you have the savings built
Speaker 1: up to make that choice and pounce on the deal,
Speaker 1: I think it's okay. In moderation with the knowledge that
Speaker 1: you immediately want to start building that back up when
Speaker 1: you get back from your trip or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: if it's the bike that you bought or the trip
Speaker 1: you went on, immediately you start working towards building that
Speaker 1: cushion back up. But if you have that cushion, I
Speaker 1: think you need to be able to give yourself a
Speaker 1: little bit of freedom. I think probably a really important
Speaker 1: caveat for people to hear in that is, if you're
Speaker 1: going to do that, make sure it is for one
Speaker 1: of those personal categories for which you put major importance.
Speaker 1: I think, for instance, let's say you know, we we
Speaker 1: just recently got done with the Christmas shopping season, Black Friday,
Speaker 1: Cyber Monday, blah blah blah blah blah, bah blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and people like bought a bunch of ship it they
Speaker 1: didn't need because it was a deal. That is where
Speaker 1: you get yourself into trouble is you just bought an
Speaker 1: Amazon kindle in a fire stick and blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, all these things that you had not
Speaker 1: budgeted for I didn't think you needed until the deal
Speaker 1: popped up. And if you're super intelectronics, and that's when
Speaker 1: you're lining up like that's one of your calling cards. Hey,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm super into. That's personal for me, that's
Speaker 1: that's the line out of in my budget. It's okay
Speaker 1: to make that purchase within reason, even if you go over.
Speaker 1: For us, it's travel, right, that's what we're talking about
Speaker 1: our bikes. But if that's your thing, that's okay. You
Speaker 1: you need to want to replenish it quickly, but don't
Speaker 1: do it for something that's not one of those main categories,
Speaker 1: those main things that drives you, because that's what leads
Speaker 1: to the hangover and to the ruination of your budget.
Speaker 1: I feel like if you're pouncing on deals from all
Speaker 1: these other categories that you don't really care about in
Speaker 1: the end, And what you're describing to basically is how
Speaker 1: we approach money in general. Like we're not so by
Speaker 1: the numbers that we're just trying to be rich, Like
Speaker 1: that's not our goal is to amass tons of money.
Speaker 1: One of our goals is to sort of live a
Speaker 1: moderate life where we're spending money, you know, some money
Speaker 1: now we're trying to save, obviously for for the long term,
Speaker 1: so that we have money down the road to to
Speaker 1: either become financially independent on or to retire or buy
Speaker 1: a yacht. Is that your thing you're gonna you're gonna
Speaker 1: be the yacht guy? Could be someday, But couldn't you
Speaker 1: see me with those little sailor hats or whatever if
Speaker 1: somebody else is driving the yacht. Maybe we're trying to
Speaker 1: find ways to focus on the things that matter to
Speaker 1: us now and to also plan ahead so that we're
Speaker 1: not broke down the road. Totally agree with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not so extreme that we're just only saving now
Speaker 1: and not spending a single dime. That's where I was
Speaker 1: maybe ten years ago. And we're not also obviously not
Speaker 1: advocating a lifestyle where there's just excessive consumption. We're you're
Speaker 1: just making these silly purchases that aren't gonna mean anything
Speaker 1: to you, and even like a couple of days later,
Speaker 1: like you said, where you kind of have the the
Speaker 1: purchase hangover and you're just thinking, man, why did I
Speaker 1: do that? Yeah? Yeah, And I think if you find
Speaker 1: yourself continually going over like that, making purchases that then
Speaker 1: you later regret. There's a couple things that you can
Speaker 1: do to kind of change your mindset. You can change
Speaker 1: some of your habits, some of the ways that you
Speaker 1: shop online, some of the ways that you shop in stores.
Speaker 1: And even if you buy something, you can give yourself
Speaker 1: like a forty eight hour period or something to decide
Speaker 1: without taking the tags off and causing the receipt whether
Speaker 1: you really want to keep it. There's a couple of
Speaker 1: things you can do in your life, yea, to prevent
Speaker 1: yourself from maybe you made the mistake in the heat
Speaker 1: of the moment, but then you go return the item
Speaker 1: if you decide that it doesn't fit your budget and
Speaker 1: it doesn't fit your lifestyle. So you know, you mentioned
Speaker 1: how you guys. Essentially you kind of track all of
Speaker 1: your spending vehemin and then you kind of plug that
Speaker 1: into sheets on the Google sheets. I mean, how do
Speaker 1: you actually go about creating your dollar amounts for your
Speaker 1: different categories, like within your budget? Yeah, well so that
Speaker 1: obviously there are certain items that are fixed like your yeah,
Speaker 1: mortgage right yeah, right, so insurance stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: then the other ones basically started off by looking at
Speaker 1: previous months. Oh hey, how much did we spend on
Speaker 1: groceries last month? Was it? Do do we feel like
Speaker 1: that's normal. Hey, how much do we spend on entertainment? Oh? Hey,
Speaker 1: well we want to do more in this. Can we
Speaker 1: cut down in that a little bit, be a little
Speaker 1: more focused on our entertainment spending so that we can
Speaker 1: add a little more towards the paying off debt bucket
Speaker 1: or whatever. And like I said, we we don't really
Speaker 1: have We just have mortgage. That that's it except for
Speaker 1: this small home equity and that's what we're going after.
Speaker 1: Oh and a little bit emily student loans. So those
Speaker 1: are the two things that we want to we want
Speaker 1: to tackle this year. She's got to knock it out
Speaker 1: like five or six grand left, right, Yeah, No, it's
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's not very much super low interest rate.
Speaker 1: So it's not like we're terribly concerned. We're we're kind
Speaker 1: of like, let's do this. Eighteen is going to be
Speaker 1: the year, just like a bunch of that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna feel so good. Yeah. So it's it's usually
Speaker 1: it's based on previous months and on then Okay, can
Speaker 1: we pinch a little more there so we can breathe
Speaker 1: a little more here, priorities shift a little bit or
Speaker 1: I recently shopped our insurance, so that dropped a little bit,
Speaker 1: so we can decided to put a little bit more
Speaker 1: in this bucket if we want, or save a little more.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of it's kind of that combo of
Speaker 1: history versus where we desire money cultures kind of moving forward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that So that's I think that's true
Speaker 1: as well for anybody that doesn't have a budget and
Speaker 1: so you're taught, you're saying based on previous months, if
Speaker 1: you've never even done a budget. Ever, that's I think
Speaker 1: that's exactly how you need to start as well. And
Speaker 1: maybe that's what you're saying, right, but yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: we initially came up with the number exactly. So instead
Speaker 1: of like you can think through that like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is what I want to spend or this is what
Speaker 1: I think I'll spend the month on groceries or entertainment
Speaker 1: things like that, like some of the more variable expenses, right,
Speaker 1: the things that you that are kind of more dependent
Speaker 1: on your behavior, Like it's so much more effective to
Speaker 1: look at what you've actually done, because you can think
Speaker 1: all day long that this is what I would like
Speaker 1: it to say, but what's more effective and just honestly
Speaker 1: easier is just to look at what you've done, like,
Speaker 1: let's look at your past, let's look at your patterns,
Speaker 1: and then you can kind of base your numbers around
Speaker 1: that and obviously, hopefully from your first one there you're
Speaker 1: once you have your income and then you've got your
Speaker 1: previous month's expenses, Hopefully you're not spending more than you're
Speaker 1: actually making because then there's going to be some serious
Speaker 1: changes that that need to happen. But step one, just
Speaker 1: do it, you know, make it happen. Like there's never
Speaker 1: gonna be a perfect month, because every month is going
Speaker 1: to be different, Like there's always gonna be something that
Speaker 1: comes up that you're gonna think, oh, but this isn't
Speaker 1: something that I'm going to have to deal with all
Speaker 1: the time. Well, there's always gonna be something, So just start,
Speaker 1: you know, starting moving forward, put the numbers down, start
Speaker 1: tracking those expenses, and then and checking in with it
Speaker 1: as well. For us, it doesn't do us very very
Speaker 1: much good if we are if we wait till the
Speaker 1: very end of the month before we look at where
Speaker 1: we've done, it's it's more of a sort of oh,
Speaker 1: how did we do this month? As opposed to how
Speaker 1: are we doing. How can we modify our behavior to
Speaker 1: make sure that we're sticking sticking to our goals and
Speaker 1: staying on track to what we want to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's there's two things I want to say to that. One.
Speaker 1: I think it's probably like you said, it's really important
Speaker 1: to do a check in. Maybe I mean every week
Speaker 1: would be ideal, but most honestly, we don't. I feel
Speaker 1: like we kind of do it every ten days. You
Speaker 1: do it every two weeks, right like middle of the month,
Speaker 1: end of the month. That's that's probably a great way
Speaker 1: to do it that way. If you're by yourself or
Speaker 1: with somebody else, you guys can update each other, or
Speaker 1: you can just be updated about your individual budget. But
Speaker 1: being able to look at it twice a month probably
Speaker 1: the most helpful way to do it, and better looking
Speaker 1: at it, you know, zero times a month, that's for sure, right, Right,
Speaker 1: Like anything that anybody does is going to be better
Speaker 1: if it's something that you haven't done before. Right. So,
Speaker 1: just as long as you're moving in the right direction, man,
Speaker 1: I'm happy, and we'll probably take you longer at the
Speaker 1: very beginning to Yeah, you know, and but but now
Speaker 1: that you're kind of budget master, thirty minutes every ten days.
Speaker 1: It's not that bad, but it might take you longer
Speaker 1: and you might need to set aside one night of
Speaker 1: the week or one night every other week where you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm not watching Netflix, I'm not doing anything. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: checking my budget out. And one of the other part
Speaker 1: of being an adult, right right, just not watching TV
Speaker 1: and instead doing the things that you don't really want
Speaker 1: to do. Then someone's gotta do it. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: kind of adult stuff that sucks. Yeah, honestly I say
Speaker 1: it sucks, but in reality, I kind of when I
Speaker 1: sit down and put on some music and start plugging
Speaker 1: in some numbers and seeing where we're at, I know
Speaker 1: you love it. Oh man, that's that's put on some
Speaker 1: slow jams and uh start start getting in with the numbers.
Speaker 1: There one other thing I want to say too, I
Speaker 1: think it's really helpful to have kind of like a
Speaker 1: big goal in mind with your budget. And depending on
Speaker 1: what phase you're in, where you're at in your life
Speaker 1: and where you're at with your debt levels, it could
Speaker 1: be something different. But for Emily and I this next year,
Speaker 1: like I said, we want to kill that home equity line.
Speaker 1: That's it's not that big even, but and then we
Speaker 1: want to kill the rest of our student loans. And
Speaker 1: if we can do those two things, how good are
Speaker 1: we going to feel at the end of it. And So,
Speaker 1: wherever you're at, whether it's eliminating student loans or another
Speaker 1: debt in your life, or whether you know what you're
Speaker 1: doing pretty good with debt and you just want to
Speaker 1: you want to be able to take an awesome vacation
Speaker 1: to Europe, or you want to stay it for that
Speaker 1: new bike, whatever it is. If you can have a
Speaker 1: big goal in plan, they can help keep you focused
Speaker 1: and no matter where you're at, you can come up
Speaker 1: with that big goal this year. Hey, I'm gonna set
Speaker 1: this goal for myself and that's gonna help me stay
Speaker 1: focused throughout the year. Without Without that, it's hard to
Speaker 1: stay focused. Absolutely. Yeah, that's as sort of the why
Speaker 1: am I doing this? Right? Yeah? Yeah, totally. The budget
Speaker 1: is there as sort of a tool, like right, it's
Speaker 1: it's like a month a month. This is like boots
Speaker 1: on the ground, like getting kind of down and dirty
Speaker 1: with it. But it's easy to kind of get lost
Speaker 1: into why am I even doing this? Like just let
Speaker 1: me just do what I want to do. But then
Speaker 1: if you're able to step back and sort of look
Speaker 1: at it for maybe, you know, maybe for a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of folks. Yeah, it's the year, like
Speaker 1: what do I want to accomplish this year? And having
Speaker 1: goals like that, then you can say, oh, well, this
Speaker 1: is why I'm doing this because I know that if
Speaker 1: I set aside a thousand bucks every month, we'll shoot
Speaker 1: I can do a lot with twelve grand by the
Speaker 1: end of the year. Like, think of the stuff I
Speaker 1: could either pay off or think of the you know,
Speaker 1: how much more I can put towards retirement or you know,
Speaker 1: investment or in another rental property like you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of stuff that when you get to
Speaker 1: the end of the year, you're stoked about because you
Speaker 1: know that you've set these every month, you've set these
Speaker 1: goals with you know, within your budget to achieve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it might not be the sexiest goal. Somebody's goal
Speaker 1: might be a freaking trip of the Galapagos Islands and
Speaker 1: swimming with turtles. Yeah, that's that's nice and that's cool.
Speaker 1: But yours might just be to have an emergency fund
Speaker 1: because you don't have one yet. Yeah, having some more
Speaker 1: margin in your life that allows you to take advantage of,
Speaker 1: say some of these deals that pop up, or just
Speaker 1: to not be stressed, you know, to to know that
Speaker 1: you're not living paycheck to paycheck. I think for a
Speaker 1: ton of people would feel amazing. I know it would
Speaker 1: feel like I mean, I've talked with folks and I
Speaker 1: know that having that sort of hanging over them where
Speaker 1: they know that if they don't get paid, they don't
Speaker 1: get their next check. All of a sudden, there upside
Speaker 1: down on stuff, and and in a world of hurt.
Speaker 1: You can't make unrealistic, crazy budgets, and you can't make
Speaker 1: changes for a month to month that are huge, like
Speaker 1: you just need to make these you know, these slight
Speaker 1: tweaks and these slight changes to where you know that
Speaker 1: if your goal is to say, save more, and you
Speaker 1: kind of want to tighten the beat a little bit
Speaker 1: on some other categories, make make sure you make small changes.
Speaker 1: First of all, once you base your budget on your
Speaker 1: previous most expenses, like that should be pretty dang realistic.
Speaker 1: And from there I think you should most definitely be
Speaker 1: able to make slight you know, these these small changes
Speaker 1: and tweaks too, to bring about the changes and goals
Speaker 1: that you're trying trying to achieve. There might be some
Speaker 1: really big changes that you haven't considered. Maybe you think
Speaker 1: that this line item in your budget for maybe you
Speaker 1: haven't shopped your insurance in a while. I think there's
Speaker 1: there might be some big moves that you can make
Speaker 1: in that budget that you just haven't considered to help
Speaker 1: you make the other line items, and again, look up,
Speaker 1: make it personal, look back to your goals. What's your
Speaker 1: what are your goals? If you don't care about driving
Speaker 1: a fancy car, sell your two thousand twelve vehicle, riding
Speaker 1: a two thousand two vehicle, and save a bunch of
Speaker 1: money on insurance and on taxes, and start changing some
Speaker 1: of those things, some of those bigger things, bigger picture
Speaker 1: of things that are actually taking a big chunk out
Speaker 1: of your monthly budget it and that can help you
Speaker 1: get your budget in line. I think if you find
Speaker 1: yourself butting up against it or going over every month
Speaker 1: because it's not worth the stress of not being able
Speaker 1: to meet your budget, because you own things that are
Speaker 1: too expensive or aren't worth it to you, that just
Speaker 1: don't provide the value, look at some of those things.
Speaker 1: Maybe in your life that are a big, outgoing item
Speaker 1: that doesn't meet your value. Maybe you're paying too much
Speaker 1: on rent because you two people living in a square
Speaker 1: foot house. Maybe you can downsize living an eight hundred
Speaker 1: square foot house, save yourself six dollars a month. Your
Speaker 1: budget becomes a whole lot easier to meet. There's tons
Speaker 1: of different tactics, right and like ways to get creative
Speaker 1: about either bringing in more money or cutting your expenses.
Speaker 1: But if you don't have a budget to know what
Speaker 1: you're spending on things, you've got no clue to what
Speaker 1: what what even to make changes on. And so to me,
Speaker 1: that's the biggest value that a budget brings about is
Speaker 1: that it it's the formation. I think it's one of
Speaker 1: the things that you're sitting down. It should reflect those
Speaker 1: primary values. And if it doesn't, that's when you start
Speaker 1: making changes and you start cutting things, You start shopping
Speaker 1: things around, start making different buying decisions, and you re
Speaker 1: prioritize because you can take that trip next year if
Speaker 1: you really want to, if that's something you care about,
Speaker 1: if you budget for it and you can do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: folks say that, like there's so many things in life
Speaker 1: where folks are like, oh, I can't afford that. Well,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, you could afford that if you if
Speaker 1: that was something you valued. So for instance, that trip
Speaker 1: or travel or other or saving for the future, saving
Speaker 1: for retirement, these are things that you could afford to do,
Speaker 1: but maybe instead you value something else you value, you know,
Speaker 1: hanging out with your friends and going out Like there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that, but it's it's just kind of
Speaker 1: being honest with yourself and paying attention to what you're
Speaker 1: actually doing with your money. Right. Yeah. My friend Paula
Speaker 1: has a podcast called Afford Anything, and she says you
Speaker 1: can ord anything, but not everything. And one of the
Speaker 1: things she talked about was she went on a three
Speaker 1: month trip I think the Indonesia or something like that,
Speaker 1: and everyone was like, how how can you afford to that?
Speaker 1: That's crazy? And I think it. I don't remember how
Speaker 1: much it cost her, but it was five or six
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or something like that for three months in Indonesia.
Speaker 1: And she's like, why does no one question when Joe
Speaker 1: at your work buys a twenty six dollar hunday but
Speaker 1: everyone thinks I'm ridiculous for taking three months and drop
Speaker 1: in sixth grand to go to Indonesia, and I think
Speaker 1: that's exactly that's exactly correct, and so many people they
Speaker 1: think it's insane and that nobody can do that, nobody
Speaker 1: can afford that. It's because you don't prioritize it. Because
Speaker 1: you don't because you prioritize when, really does it align
Speaker 1: with your values? And it's okay if it does, but
Speaker 1: does it align with your values? Constantly be questioning that?
Speaker 1: And I think that will help make the budget process.
Speaker 1: Having that end goal in mind and wanting your budget
Speaker 1: to reflect your values will help make it personal and
Speaker 1: help make it something that you can actually stick to
Speaker 1: and not feel like deprivation. Yeah. Absolutely, all right, Matt,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the beer. So obviously the podcast is poor,
Speaker 1: not poor. We poured a beer earlier. It was Avery
Speaker 1: Brewing Company Tweak a uh stout with coffee aged bourbon barrels.
Speaker 1: It's sixteen percent, so we might be feeling it a
Speaker 1: slight amount at the end of this podcast. What's your
Speaker 1: take on the beer? Very delicious, incredibly well balanced. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit sweeter, which I like. Yeah, it is sweet,
Speaker 1: a good sweet, not like a fake sweet. It's got
Speaker 1: this real nice like bourbon sweetness. It's like real. It
Speaker 1: tastes like real coffee with like a little bit of
Speaker 1: I don't want to say maple. It's not like maple syrup,
Speaker 1: but there's definitely like a sweet oakness to it totally,
Speaker 1: and it's just, yeah, it goes down really smooth for
Speaker 1: sixty So I picked this up when I was in
Speaker 1: South Carolina. I was in Greenville. I was that at
Speaker 1: the local store there and I saw it on the shelf.
Speaker 1: You can't get the stuff here, man, Yeah, you can't
Speaker 1: get it. Can't get it in Georgia. And next time
Speaker 1: I'm out there, I'm going to pick up a few
Speaker 1: more of those, that's for sure. So yeah, I would
Speaker 1: recommend picking up if you see these in your local
Speaker 1: package store, pick up an avery Tweak. It's a fantastic beer.
Speaker 1: Still one of your one of your favorite stops. Ever.
Speaker 1: Do you think I think it's up there? I think
Speaker 1: it's probably a touch sweet for my favorite. I prefer
Speaker 1: just a little more like dark chocolate and uh, some
Speaker 1: more bitter notes. Maybe some more bitter notes going on.
Speaker 1: But it's really good and the coffee really balances it
Speaker 1: out and gives a little bit of that bitterness. I'm
Speaker 1: a I'm a huge fan, and it's it's pretty light
Speaker 1: on the coffee. Huh, yeah, it could, it could. I
Speaker 1: feel like maybe in the years past there's been more
Speaker 1: And then I thought about that, but I think so.
Speaker 1: So I think tweaks of beer they make every year
Speaker 1: and it changes every year, and so maybe this year not.
Speaker 1: It's like a little chillier, you know, a little sweeter.
Speaker 1: It's like a like a like a caramel cube or
Speaker 1: something in my mouth. And that's totally how you know
Speaker 1: someone's a beer nerd. By the way, too, if they
Speaker 1: start comparing a beer to the beer of beers past.
Speaker 1: So we we definitely hit that we're complete beer nerds. Right,
Speaker 1: So that beer was fantastic. Let's wrap up on budgeting, Matt,
Speaker 1: what are the main takeaways for people if they just
Speaker 1: want it budgets in thirty seconds? Well, and for the
Speaker 1: first thing, budgets are just a tool. They're not some
Speaker 1: sort of weird cult that you're going to join. All
Speaker 1: it is is you saying that this is what we're
Speaker 1: gonna spend this month and deciding that before you actually
Speaker 1: spend the money. It's having a plan. That's step one,
Speaker 1: and you know what, we have a plane in almost
Speaker 1: everything in life. Don't be afraid. Plans aren't bad. Budgets
Speaker 1: you're scary. Call it your money plan. Okay, maybe that's easier.
Speaker 1: No budgets. Instead, we're gonna have a plan for our money. Yep, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a budget. And use the approach that's
Speaker 1: the most most comfortable to you. Test out a couple.
Speaker 1: Don't be bound by the medium. And sometimes maybe it's
Speaker 1: just paper and pencil, right, like I mean, if if,
Speaker 1: if you want to go that straightforward and not be
Speaker 1: distracted by some of the other aspects of the applications
Speaker 1: that are out there. Man, just a pad and paper
Speaker 1: is all you need, Like, you don't need all these
Speaker 1: other tools to to make it work. But essentially, start
Speaker 1: with your income, list out your expenses and your your
Speaker 1: goals and what you want to spend on different categories
Speaker 1: for that month, and then track it. Yeah, track it.
Speaker 1: And then if you see yourself starting to get get
Speaker 1: too high and say groceries, well maybe not get the
Speaker 1: organic avocado instead, you could you know, dive towards of
Speaker 1: peanut butter and jelly or something I don't know, like
Speaker 1: whatever it takes for you to to to keep your
Speaker 1: groceries if you've got to eat Ramin and PBNJ for
Speaker 1: the last four days of the month to meet your
Speaker 1: budgets to nothing wrong with that. You know and always
Speaker 1: have that big goal in mind, because I think that
Speaker 1: that so much helps the motivation and the stick stick
Speaker 1: tuitiveness of a budget if you can keep that big
Speaker 1: goal in mind in front of your face all the time.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm aiming for, and it's something that
Speaker 1: really matters to you, that helps the budget stick and
Speaker 1: helps it not to feel quite as much like the drain.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much everyone for listening. Our home on the
Speaker 1: web is how to Money com Check it out. We'll
Speaker 1: have our shown us up there for you. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: don't forget to hit the subscribe button wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: to your podcast. We'd really appreciate it. Our buddy. Until
Speaker 1: next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.