Debt-Free Dreams & Bougie Budgets for 2025 | Budget Besties | Work Like a Mother Podcast, Episode 56

Get ready to kickstart the new year with an empowering and practical episode of Work Like a Mother! Marina Tolentino is joined by returning guests and financial powerhouses, Shannon and Vanessa, best friends and co-hosts of the globally ranked Financial Coaching for Women podcast. Together, they tackle the “B” word—Budgeting—and share game-changing strategies to help women master their finances in 2024.

Discover actionable tips to simplify your spending, automate your savings, and attack debt without sacrificing your Starbucks runs or Target hauls. With relatable anecdotes about mom life, expert budgeting hacks, and encouragement to be “bougie on a budget,” this episode is the ultimate guide for women who want to crush their financial goals while living life on their terms.

Don’t miss this fun, insightful conversation that’ll leave you inspired to take control of your money and plan for your best year yet. Save this one and share it with a friend.

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Budget Besties Bootcamp (starts today)!

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Marina Tolentino
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Transcript

0:00

It's a great time to just get a fresh start, clean slate. I think I just heard a recent statistic that, like, the average American has $3,000 saved. That's it. The first thing is to stop using it, which is kind of scary, right? All by itself. But you have to stop using it and putting money on the credit card in order to pay it off. Girl, I'm not playing this interest game. I'm playing how much money are you going to get back in your pocket by getting rid of that minimum payment? Like, that's what I'm looking at. All right. I've got the duo back. Originally, they were on the PODC podcast on episode 33 of the Work Like a Mother podcast. And we have Shannon, Vanessa, who are best friends and business partners on a mission to redefine personal finance for women worldwide. Not only are they amazing podcast hosts of a number 1 or 1% globally rigged podcast called Financial Coaching for Women, they're also keynote speakers and master Financial coast coaches. If I could talk. But honestly, they're mamas of lots of kids. They've got a whole gaggle between them and they're in their mom and work life era. And so I just love having you guys back. So welcome back to the show. Oh, thank you for having us. We're excited. We love you so much. We can't wait to talk about the B word, girl. The new year. We're going to talk about some finances. Yes. And we want to like, self actualize us being in the new year. Because every year, Marina, we're like, December is going to be great. We're going to do so good at December. And then we just kind of doesn't keep. This doesn't happen. We just kind of fall forward through December, like wake up and stumble through the next day. Even though it's all for good. It's all good. But it's, it's, it's definitely January vibes. It's going to be great. January vibes are going to be so good. A thousand percent. And I really feel like women, especially in this mom life era. Right. We're trying to figure that out. This is the new normal. And every year, our kids get a little bit older and a little bit more expensive. The budgets keep evolving and changing as we do. We can't just have a set it and forget it program. For the most part, we still have to pay attention to make it grow. Um, so I would love to hear, like, what is the new year, new plan? What do we do? Well, you know what, what we what the cool thing is is that you have a fresh set of 12 months to do it. Right. So if you do put it down on paper and figure it out now you have all year to make it happen. So you know, if versus people that come to us in September or October, we have less, less time. And it's a crunch time for your budget. Usually those that time of year. So right now it's going to be the same process ever would. Right. Would be, let's start off by happy like getting it all on paper. So you know, usually we would say take the last three months but maybe. Look at the last. Maybe look at like September, August and October. Like those are like more normal months. Go through those bank statements, see what you, what your bills are, what your spending is, all of that kind of stuff so that we can set up a brand new budget. Yeah. And you know what, it's like Shannon said it's a great time to just get a fresh start, clean slate. Because I think at the end of the year I was just talking to a client, she's like, I just need to get through this month. Yeah. Yep. And preach. Yes. I feel like we all think that way. Shane has got two December birthdays, I have a December birthday, we have Christmas, we have a lot of festivals. There are Christmas events, there are school events, there's a lot of work parties, there's just community events, church events. There's just a lot happening. And so we were trying to scrape by the best we can. You know, we. A lot of our clients are maybe this is the first year they're paying for cash with all of this stuff and maybe you're not there yet and that's okay. But what if next year that could be you? So the idea of like planning ahead, sitting down, adulting for a minute and maybe just an afternoon. Right. Let's just adult for an afternoon and plan ahead to go. What vacations do we have coming up? How much are my kids going to cost me in 2025? What do I think? Christmas. What did I spend this year on? Christmas. Therefore, what can I plan to spend next year? And just really getting a full picture of what you really truly need to put in your budget. Instead of just going, I got gas and groceries covered, like I'm good. No, there's way more to your budget than that. We just want to plan for all of it. No, so true. And I think so often even just thinking about vacation planning, it's like, do we have the money? It's just like a question. Not like, let's plan ahead for the money. It's not. We do have the money. Yeah. And so. And it doesn't have. So, you know, the main thing that we teach that makes sort of makes us different than everybody else is to have separate bank accounts. Right. And I'm thinking about, I just before we recorded this, I just got off with a client. She's a lawyer and sometimes we have clients. Marina, I don't know if, if you feel this, it's like, did you do your homework? No, she did not do her homework. But it's okay. We're going to do it in the session. We're going to do it in the session, girl. We're going to get it done, girl. She opened up her. Because her checking, her spending account was in a different bank, which was really messing her up. And so she was just stealing from her bills account. Right. She opened up her account for spending in Ally. We kind of, it's kind of a really easy banking online banking system that we recommend. She set up a spending account and she set up her automatic transfers based on the budget within like five minutes. Like in the call. Yeah, in the call, super fast. So we said, okay, these are your paychecks, pay dates. This is when you're going to set up the transfer your monthly. So for her, she's single. Her monthly personal spending amount is $500. Right. So on her every other week on her payday, $250 comes from her bills account and it goes over to her spending account. So every two weeks she's got$250 to go do all of her fun single things. And what I told her is I said, and then you don't even have to look at the bills account because your budget has set up all of the bills to get paid automatically. As long as you don't mess around in there, you are, you're paying your girls your bills on time, girl, and you always have spending money. And so that's like the system. We want you to be able to set it up for the new year and then. Yes. We don't want you to be completely ignoring it, Marina. But it is actually a little set and forget it. Well, yeah. And this idea of I think opening that separate checking account for specifically like just spending is. Is mind blowing. And it's a concept that we're not really used to yet. You know, we're. Some people are still banking like they were when they opened up their first checking at 18. Right. So this idea of having one checking and one savings and that's where everything happens. It gets really convoluted. It gets really confusing. There's a long list of transactions going on that month. So what got spent, what didn't get spent, what still needs to pull? Do I actually have this money for Target? Like, all those questions go through your mind when you go to the store to try to spend money. And so if you allot a certain amount of money, like Shannon's clients,$500 a month, if you allot a certain amount to go into a spending account that's completely separate than an account that's just paying your bills, you have the freedom of knowing, hey, doesn't really matter how I spend this money. This month I got 500 bucks and I'm good. There's no tracking. There's no accounting for any of it. You don't have to use an app to do any of it. No. It just makes it so much simple, so much more simple. That's so true. And I don't know why there is such a hurdle for people to open up multiple accounts. There's, like, some disbelief that, like, oh, it's going to cost me more money. It's going to hurt my credit. I don't know what they think, but it's literally just like they think it's. Going to be more confusing. I think that's really the one that we hear the most. Well, and it's not. So. So my client, and I know she said I want come on the podcast. So she's like, totally open to all of it. But she, you know, she has adhd, impulsive spending. Like, that's kind of why she came into coaching. And she's seeing a therapist for it. And. And I said, okay, well, one thing that does help is no. So when you sometimes when you look in your account, you have a thousand million transactions or you, well, you have a lot of money because there's a lot of different things going on, Right? So if we can just at least tell your brain, look at the spending account. That is what I know I have money to spend. And I told her, girl, we can increase your spending. I don't care however much you needed to have. But you just look at that number. You don' when your brain sees this big number of everything together, it's like, well, I think I have this. Or maybe I will, or I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out later. If I have them, if I actually have the money. Right? But if you have a separate spending account, one you exactly know. So there's no guesswork. And then also your bills are being paid, which is so much better. I had another client today and I wrote it down and of course I don't have it right in front of me, but she said, this is the first time all of my bills are on pay or paid on time. And I can't even believe this is me. And they're super sweet. They're a young couple, right. And they just getting their first mortgage and all that. But she's like, this is me. I'm paying all my bills on time. We're like winning. Yeah. Yeah. I had my client this morning was like, she was crying on the call and she said, I'm not used to having this much money in my account. Like, she has to really settle with the idea of being the type of person that now has money because before it was all convoluted, she had her business and her personal in one account. Okay. Like, oh, no, that. Right. And I was like, gross. Yes. So you want to talk about convoluted? And I said, first of all, your CPA is going to love me once we separate everything. But, you know, she's just. It was coming in and going out as fast as, you know, it was, and she just didn't know where any of it was going. And so now she's very organized. We have multiple accounts to set everything up. And the idea of seeing. Because I'm organized, because I set a certain amount aside just for spending and for bills and blah, blah, all that. I can see it. And she had like$1300. She didn't believe me, that she could put on debt, like, literally legit in the call said, I don't trust it. And I was like, well, I promise it's there. We just have to realize and get used to the fact that we have like, this money is mine. Like, I did this. And so it's just. It's really cool to watch them kind of overcome that. Yeah, that's so good. I think I just heard a recent statistic that like, the average American has $3,000 saved. That's it. 3,000. That doesn't get us to the next month. That's literally paycheck to paycheck. And so I think for so many Americans, it's just they're living out of survival. So how do we take them from that survival overwhelm state to like, taking the first step? Because the first thing is like, well, I have to invest in coaching to work with you. What does that cost? You know, like, how do you get someone over that hurdle. First of all, I'm really happy that the numbers moved up to 3,000 because. I was gonna say I thought it was lower. Did not used to bear that. So that's good. So how do we get them the first step from overwhelm? Well, okay, we, the first step we do is we're going to put the numbers on paper. Because one, it's data. We do not have to add drama to the data. It's just numbers and facts. And typically once we, we told you to print out those three months, once we do that, I know it can be a little uncomfortable to see how much you're spending, but if you can just face the drama. That's what's overwhelming to me is like the not knowing and the, and the all over myself and giving myself shame and guilt. I'd rather just like see what it actually is. And then I just told my kids this the other day. My daughter got a bad grade on a, on a, on a quiz and I said, I'm not, she's afraid to tell me. I said, I want you to think when you get this, how can I solve this? That's all I. What can I do to, to make this right to do better next time? That's all you need to focus on. There's no point in focusing on how you got that question wrong and you can't believe it. Whatever. It's the same thing with your numbers. There's no point in focusing on what I did wrong. What I want to do is put some fresh numbers that are actual math, actual data on a piece of paper and look at it, because that' less overwhelming. In fact, usually when we do it, it's not as bad as you think it's going to be. And just by putting on the numbers there, you start to feel more empowered. You start to feel more like, okay, I can actually do this. And like, you want to do something, it's the avoiding of it that makes you feel overwhelmed. Hey ladies, real quick. If you are looking for a mentor, I just wanted to remind you that I offer mentorship to entrepreneurs. So if you're someone who has a never ending to do list and you're smiling out of control and feel like your business doesn't have a track plan, I want to work with you every single week for a month at a time. It's super simple. But I come from over 10 years of experience doing this myself and now I'm willing to give that information back to people. So I've mentored real estate agents. I've mentored wedding photographers, I've mentored other business owners and they've come from a place of overwhelm mostly and they really just needed clarity and a couple of action steps to move the needle. And we've seen Gigantum leave leaps and bounds in their business. Like I can't even tell you. So if you're interested and you want to know what that looks like, I want you to go to marina tolentino.com and there's a calendly link there to do a 15 minute discovery call with me just to see if we're a good vibe check to make sure we're on the same page. And I would love to work with you one on one to really boost your business to the next level. Let's dive back in. I mean, how many times, Shannon, do we show a client their budget? We're like, hey, you got $3,000 left over? And they're like, no, because they really don't believe that there's that, that there's extra. But when we put it on paper, it's nine times out of ten, not as bad. I had a lady was texting us at like 9 o'clock last night going, thank you for helping me work through talking to my husband about this. Because she had for so long bared all of the responsibility and all of the stress about the finances because she didn't want to bother him. Well, that turned into racking up a bunch of debt to make it work, quote, unquote, make it work. So he didn't, he couldn't feel it. Right. Because she was trying to in her eyes, what is it? Safeguard him from it. Right. And then she messaged. She's like, I finally talked to him and he is so on board. He's so excited to work through this. She's like, I had no idea he was going to react like that. So it's the same concept of putting it on paper. Guarantee it's not that bad. Have that conversation. Guarantee if you show up with the data to like to talk about it, it's not going to be that bad of a conversation because it's you guys coming together as a team, trying to work through it. Yeah. Take the emotion out of it. Just look at the facts. I think that's a big hurdle. I feel like so long in the beginning of our marriage, it was so emotional about every money conversation, like a personal attack. And it's like, no, you know, you. Know, the thing that's changed about that, I was thinking about that the other day is let's be honest, we make more money now. Okay? So it really was almost survival, like, a lot more emotion in the beginning. Of course it is, because, you know, are we going to have gas or groceries? Which one do you pick? One. Right. But now we have more money, and we know that we do, and we probably should be a little better steward of it and have more than $3,000 in the bank, possibly because we know we have. We know we spend that a month, so we probably could be able to save that. And truly, by putting it on paper, we do see people feel that it's just the natural next step to be a better steward of your money, especially like Vanessa, once you see what's possible. So, like, this client that I have was using credit cards. She's single, makes good money. Okay. She was using credit cards. And now she, this month is going to put 500 in her emergency fund, pay off one credit card. And we still, like I said, she still has her 500 to spend each month. That's usually the case, you know, if you just. And then. And you're willing to do that, that is hard, right? To not spend 5,000 or however much her credit card is, but actually paid off. That is hard, but it's. It's worth it once you see it and you see what's possible. Well, and we call that being bougie on a budget. So, like, the idea of being able to have spending money, go to Target, go to Starbucks, go wherever you want to go and have fun. Nordstrom or wherever. And then also, hey, you're paying off debt. Or also, hey, you're saving for vacation or for Christmas next year or for annual bills or for birthday gifts. Like, being able to do all of that at one time and budgeting for what's important to you is really exciting. And we, like I said, we call that being bougie on a budget because it's what's important to you. Like, not everyone's budget is the same. Yeah. As it shouldn't be. Like, Shayna's budget is very different than mine, but what's important to her is budgeted in. Right. And vice versa. So we just want you to know that you can have it both ways. You can have fun spending, and you also can build wealth, and you also can pay off debt. Yeah, totally. Okay. So going back full circle, it's January. We're like, resetting budgets and everything. Talk to me about credit card attack. Like, what is the strategy to get down our debt? How do you. Okay, well, the first thing is to Stop using it, which is kind of scary, right? All by itself. But you have to stop using it and putting money on the credit card in order to pay it off, which is a strategy all by itself. So let's. That's why you have to do the budget, which I know is annoying. We've been saying that B word like so many. Rude. But don't worry, you don't need another budget. You need a budget system. We'll get to that. That's what we're going to. We're going to make it easy. But you need to see on paper to make sure that you know you can afford your life. So a lot of times what you're doing is swiping because you don't know. Right. So if you can make sure, okay, I have money for savings, I have enough for groceries, whatever, then I can put that credit card aside. That does not necessarily, unfortunately, mean that you can pay it off immediately. Right. But what we want to do is set the budget up, and I'll let Vanessa speak to this in such a way that we know exactly at the end of the budget how much we can pay each month to. To get the credit cards finished and taken care of. Well, and this may be the first time that you're having to actually pay that minimum payment on your card. Like, this may be the first time that you're not just paying it off. Because if you think about it, and I've had a lot of credit card conversations lately with my clients, of trying to play this game, this. This point game with the credit card companies, trust me, you're not winning. Like, I know you think you are, but you're not. But anyways, so if you think about paying off, paying the minimum payment versus paying it off, that's really hard, especially when you're used to racking it up, paying it off, racking it up, paying it off. You're a whole month behind when you do that. Okay? So what we really want you to do is set up your budget in a way that it's got five columns. It's super easy. All right, so you're going to list your income, then you're going to list all your debt payments, and only you're only going to list your minimum payments. So if you set a credit card to just pay $500 every month on it, we're going to change all that, change everything to only pay minimum payments. And eventually we're going to put some extra on debt. But we want to see actually what you. What do you have to budget for what are you required to pay? And then after your debts comes your. Your bills. Like, you want to list everything that you have to pay in your bills. Yeah. And. And so then you're going to do your spending, and that's where. So that's why. So usually you're using the credit card and you're paying it off, like Vanessa said. But now we're going to spend the money that we earned on the things that we want and need, and then we're also going to set aside some for savings. So that means we probably won't have enough left over to pay off the credit card, but that's okay. So once we've allotted, like when I said income minus debt minimums, minus bills, minus spending, minus savings, there's usually something left over. Right. We're not, we're not in college anymore. We kind of make a little bit more money. Girl. Yes, girl. And so we might have a little bit extra. That's when we're going to use that amount to attack our. Our debt. Right. So it might take you a couple months to, to get the thing paid off and be done with it for good. But the first step truly is, is like transitioning to using cash instead of using and being okay and getting the budget system set up and, and seeing it work, and then you can pay off your credit cards. You know, there are different strategies that we use with our clients. It depends on where they're at, their income level. So, you know, Dave Ramsey is going to tell you minimum balance first, and then you go all the way to the higher balance. With. With what? With our clients, a lot of times they, they have a lot more money. So they might be able to attack a bigger one, though, with a higher interest rate, all in one fell swoop. And if we can do that in all. All in one fell swoop, we want to, because obviously we want to save that interest, especially right around now. Bonuses, tax returns, raises, like, there might be a good chunk of money. So you want to be very discerning about which ones you pay off first. And it doesn't. It's like, Vanessa, it's not cookie cutter. It's up to you what's important, what makes sense financially. And if you have two cards that have, like, comparable balances, but one has a way higher interest rate, you know. Use, pay that or even a higher minimum. Yeah. Higher min. Yeah. And me really quick, one of my clients this morning was talking about, like, oh, I don't want to pay all that card off because the interest rate is lower. And I said, girl, I'm not playing this interest game. I'm playing how much money are you going to get back in your pocket by getting rid of that minimum payment? Like, that's what I'm looking at. Yeah. So sometimes depending on like a furniture loan or even a car loan, you might have a higher payment, lower interest or whatever. So it might feel like it's a different game. But if you can get $500 back into your budget that you can use to pay off the next stuff, that's better than 197. Right. So there's just strategies there. But. But yeah, yeah, totally. Okay, so then Christmas is going to come around 2025. How are we budgeting for it in advance? Oops, I'm gone. And are we just like going through our bank statement of December to be like, this is how much I actually spent to then budget for the next year? Or how do we take that approach? You know, it's not about being perfect, okay. It's not about getting every single dollar that you're going to spend on Christmas. It's about getting a general idea of what do. What did I spend around? What did I spend this year? If you can take that number and then divide it by 12 in January and go, okay, if I set aside$500 a month or whatever that number is for you, I set aside this amount of money for 12 months, I'm going to have enough money saved to be able to spend money on Christmas. Because it's not a matter of, well, if I spend the money. No, you're going to spend it. You know you're going to spend it. So you might as well just start preparing now in a very smart way, in an affordable way. Right. To be able to save over 12 months instead of having to cram it like October and going, oh, Black Friday's coming, and then you're having to do that in two months. Hey, I'm sorry to interrupt, and I hope you're enjoying this episode of the Work Like a Mother podcast real quick. I just want to remind you guys, if you are worried about missing an episode, you don't have to worry anymore because we are creating a weekly email that's going to go out automatically every single time there's a brand new episode episode. And this email is going to have everything you need to know about this week's featured guests. It's going to have all of the links and the resources that we're going to talk about in this episode so you don't have to go around and fumble through the show notes, but it's going to be served in your inbox every single week. So if you guys want that access, be sure to click below one time in the show notes today. Sign up for that email, and then you'll never have to worry about it in the future. And bonus, if you really love this, we'd love it if you share this with a friend. Friend, give us a review on whatever platform you're listening to, and we'll continue to bring new episodes, new information that's going to help you level up your. Life every single week. And this will keep you from going into debt again, right? So we can stop the cycle once and for all. We want you to think about. We. We have so many. I put it on our Facebook, I think, like last week or whenever. How many of you are paying cash for Christmas for the first time? And just like, scroll, scroll, scroll. Yes, me, me. And they're so excited. We're so excited for them. That's. That's golden. That feels so good. But the. The thing we want you to do is, is when you don't. Just look at December, right? Let's look at all of the different spending that we've done for Christmas, whether it's for decorations, for spin, for parties, maybe for your ugly sweater that you have to get a new one every year or else everybody will know that you reward it or whatever. Who knows? We don't. We don't care. We're not discriminating that. We just want you to think about it at all of it. It's not just the presents, right? If you do cards or family pictures or whatever. Let's put it all in there like Vanessa said. Divide that by 12. Set up a separate bank account, okay? Call it Fun Things. I have a client, she will rename Nameless, but her husband, she calls him Dana Claus because he likes to spend money. You could call it Dana Claus if you want. Whatever. And so. So you're going to rename it, and then we recommend hiding it, at least at first. Okay, let's just hide it. Let's just set it over there. Let it. Or at least know that you can hide it so that our whole system are what we were talking about, our budget system. We want all of this to be automated. So in this case, you're gonna like Vanessa. You're gonna set up your budget. You're gonna know how much you're gonna be doing with your Christmas. Maybe you're gonna divide that by two paychecks because you get paid twice A month. Right. That amount you can set up, like we talked about that client earlier, to transfer to your Christmas account automatically. You can put a little sticky note on, on your transfers to say Christmas. That way when you look in your bills account, be like, why did I lose 300? Oh, okay, it's for Christmas. It goes automatically without you having to do anything. And it's so much less likely you're going to spend that because it's gone, right? It's gone. And then in that account, you can reorder your accounts on your bank. You know that you can reorder which ones you see first in order of importance and you can rename it and if you want, you can hide it. Like, there's so many digital tools available. We want to make sure you're using them. Well, people don't, they under utilize and underestimate what their bank app can do for them. And you know, we're still talking to people going, you can set up reoccurring automatic transfers into accounts every however you want. Like, yes, you know, use that. You don't need some random app to be able to help you track your expenses or help you budget. You really just need a budget. And of course, we want to look at our signature, our simplified budget system. Excuse me. Because we have recently relaunched it. So our simplified budget system is amazing. It's basically a one stop shop. But coupled with that, your bank app, you're golden. That is literally all you need to set up those automatic transfers. Every paycheck. Mm, that's. You're. It's good. And then just real quick, I know we've been talking for about 18 hours, Marina, but just imagine by next Christmas, you have all the money and you can just live in that generous, awesome spirit. You're not going into debt. And more importantly, by Black Friday Girl, you have money in the bank you need. If you find those deals you can use, you can utilize it because you have money set aside. Well, one of the things I was going to add to that was don't like, come June, no, pull up that account and be like, oh, I will figure Christmas out later and try to pull from that. Because that is coming. Like Christmas is coming. It's December 25th, y'all. Every year, like, it doesn't change. Okay, you're going to spend the money. So if you name it something fun, we have some people who name accounts like don't touch this or Touch Me and Die or whatever. Like just super fun names. If you do that, you're less likely to pull from it. And like Shayna said, the number one thing that we totally recommend is to hide it from your view. Oh, my gosh. So good. I wanted to hear a quick glimpse because you guys have older children than I. Mine are 4 and 9, and you guys have teenagers. What are some of the expenses that you're currently dealing with? That I have no idea yet. And preparing for as they transition out? My son's girlfriend. Okay. Actually, it's not really. I just. I just want to say as of today, because she turned 16. Yeah. She's allowed to have a girlfriend. Or they're both. Whatever they are. They're both 16. As of today, anyway. No, actually, not really, because he needs to pay for that. He pays for that himself. But I'm just letting you know, like that one. That one is. That was very special today. So cute. Well, and, you know, they. They don't get cheaper. I always thought I'm like, oh, it's just gonna get easier that the older they get. Like, it obviously can't get more expensive when they're younger, as when. You know, when you see them as. As younger children. That's a lie. Because we're doing travel, volleyball. We're doing all these camps and sports and courses. My son is doing diving course, and he's also gon Getting his pilot's license this summer. Super. I have so much money for that. Don't worry. But they. They are. They're just so involved. They're so busy, which is exciting. I love watching them do all this. But it does. It costs money. Basketball shoes, gymnastics trips. Yeah. So obviously, you know, your kids will have their own activities. The other thing is they cost. You just cost more to feed, and it just. That slowly escalates. But when you have four or five athletes, which, you know, all of our kids are. Are dedicated athletes, which costs so much to feed them. That's a different. They're always hungry girls decorating and girls like my husband. My. My daughter's birthday's today. My youngest. And I'm like, she wants clothes. And he's like, no, that's not fun to open. I'm like, she's a girl, babe. Like, you have to understand, it's different. It's different. But girls are. My girls are way more expensive by far than my son. By far. Haircuts, you know, whatever. What else is in our budget for these kids? Obviously shoes. So we need different shoes for different events. Okay. Yeah. Not just shoes for school, but now we have basketball shoes and volleyball shoes. And, like, recital shoes. Yes. My Son always has, you know, his. He plays piano at church, but then his recitals and it's Sunday dress. And then there's something else. He has to be in super formal wear. I'm like, it's a great, like, I have to buy him a suit. Like now he has to have two suits because he wears them so often. So I don't. I think I'm just rambling. Is this therapy? No, but this is because it kind of jogs my high school memory of like, oh yeah, and there's prom and then there's this. And then. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Homecoming just came and went. That wasn't cheap because my, my daughter's dress came in and it wasn't like the picture, which. Great. So then I had to spend another$150 to get it altered because she was in tears because it's her first homecoming and. Well, you can't let that happen. Right. So it's just. Yes, it was very expensive and braces were both. Did she get out of her. She's almost done. Yeah. And then mine just started hers. So that's also fun. And just, you know, gas bill. Yeah, like uber momming. You probably already have that, but it's not getting cheaper either. Insurance. Auto. Like adding another driver. Oh, good point. Auto insurance. Yes, because the. You're going to have them pay for their own insurance because that is the right thing to do and teach them financial literacy, but they're still going to be automatically added to your policy, to your, your, your vehicles as an extra driver, whether you want them to be or not. So that's just fun. I mean, who doesn't love more expenses? No, this is very much like good hyper, like future planning for me because I'm not there yet. I'm so like, we're about to hit puberty and that's all in my mid right now, like nothing else. Okay. I also wanted to ask you guys about college planning because I feel like the general demographic of 20 year olds and then our generation was like, is it worth it? Right? We don't get paid more for degree now. It costs more than ever. Like, are parents still planning for college or what are we doing these days? Hold on, wait. Where's my Cody Sanchez book? Have you. Do you know? Yes, that's why it's top of mind. I've been listening to her podcast. Yeah, I just, I was reading this and she has a whole thing in there about college. And I think, I think by the time our kids are especially yours, ours are, you know, we have some a little bit older. It's going to be really hard sell. It's going to be an interesting conversation for sure. You know, it's. My brother in law just came for Thanksgiving with his kids and his kids are going to college. And because they knew that dad was fronting the bill, neither one of them even looked for a scholarship. Nothing. No grants, no scholarships. She didn't even know that she could go to her. Her counselor at school or her guidance counselor at school and ask if they have any department specific scholarships. Like she knew nothing. She was very uneducated in that. In that department. I was like sick to my stomach thinking my brother in law can literally be saving thousands of dollars a year if they just made the effort to ask. But nobody has taught them. Nobody. I was gonna say he didn't make them. So it's a. It's a. It's double edged sword by. By far. Here's. Here's some advice. Make them pay for it. That's first. But if you don't, if you're too nice, that's fine. We get it like we are way too nice to our kids. It's fine. If you want to save the money and then have a real honest conversation like why don't you go get. Go get some real world experience. If you'd rather use this money for. To invest in your business or your first home, I'd be happy. Or my, my. My sister in law, her dad, her dad gave her money and she could use it for the wedding or their home and she's like. Or that one, that one wedding at your house. The one that. The thing that lasts. Yeah. So. So you. If you. If you are saving maybe by the time they're graduating you say this money. That's why we don't really preach the 529. We say like put it in high yield or somewhere else so that you can do with it what you want. But I, I think you're absolutely right. I don't There. There were the honest truth. There are various few degrees that actually need or jobs that careers need degrees. They lied to us and said that they. That we did and we did actually like literally just because it was a bullet line on a. On a job application. Right. Not because we actually needed it. But I hope that. That something's coming where we can. We can. Because you know you don't learn anything anyway until you're actually at your first job. Yeah. And so maybe something's happening. I'm for this amazing. I think we're in the middle of a shift right now for sure. Like I think Cody was saying that Google engineers don't need a degree anymore. They just need to be able to prove what they can do. I'm like, they need experience. Yeah. Well they need to be. Have certifications or have. Which if they're nerds like that they've been doing it since they were 12 anyway. So they, they can prove that. I love that, I love that. For. And here's the other thing. Student loan debt. I have a client who's a welder and that is like a awesome job they make. He makes great money. The way that they roped him into his student loan I think should be illegal there. It's, it's very, it's very bad. Very shady. It's a, it's very shady and it's, it's a trade. Right. So it doesn't cost very much, but he's going to end up having paid like $30,000 for something that probably cost him 7 or 8,000 just. And so student loans if nothing else. That is why we should be going into a new era. Because they're predatory. They're like money off. Yeah. And kids are not, they're not smart enough at that point unfortunately to make good decisions about their financial future. Usually. Yeah. And you know, in my brother in law situation they're divorced and so it was kind of like almost like a guilt thing on his side about feeling like he had to pay for it. So if, if anyone is any guilt, any type of guilt at all if you're, if you have that over you, like. No, absolutely not. There are so many programs, so much information, so much research. Use AI to help. It's amazing tool to help you figure out what scholarships, what programs. Well, if you guys even if that's even the, the, the path that you want to go to because you know, we're huge. I remember when I taught middle school for five years, they wanted me to teach a careers class and it was basically like telling, having them take a test that's going to tell them what career they're going to do or be a 13 years old. And I was like, no. I told him. I was like, I'm not teaching that. That's ridiculous. You, you literally hear yourself. And I would tell the kids, go out and get 50 jobs. Like go out in the, in the workforce before you're 20. Have 50 different jobs in all these different career fields and just find out what you like and what you enjoy. Because I know like I have a business degree. Shayna has a business degree. We learned more in the day to day. And actually running a business and doing it hands on. I have. I couldn't even tell you one thing. I learned one of my business classes. I can't. Well, and then I think we said this before on when we were here last, but the last thing I'm gonna say is, you know, like Vanessa's saying, if you are feeling guilt, don't feel guilt. If you're feeling responsibility, you do have the responsibility to give your children the knowledge that they need to or to give them what the wisdom that you can. And then they can make. They can make their own decision about college, about debt, about all of that is not your responsibility financially. Right. So no, that's. Throw that in there. Yeah. No, it's just perspective. It's all perspective. How do we adult better? How do we get better at, like, not feeling overwhelmed and feeling more proactive on everything? So remind me again, what is the boot camp that's coming up? The money makeover. It's starting 30th or January 1st. When is it starting? Starting today. Yeah, today. December 30th through January 3rd. We're going to do 30 minute webinars Monday through Thursday. Just kind of really hit training. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. And it's all free. Right. So we're really going to talk about setting up the new year, like, really, really well. And so that way you feel prepared and just have the tools in your pocket to be able to succeed. Yeah. Each day we're just going to teach on a little different thing just to give you some. Some oomph. And then we're going to talk about how to automate your budget on Friday to get you. And that'll be January 3rd. So you're going to be totally set for the new year. And. And we're going to have some fun prizes and giveaways. So it's going to be really good. I want to join. That's going to be fun. I was just like, wait, you spoke my love language. Excuse me. I will say the best thing is that with you, it's just like this. When you coach. With you, you're so fun. And honestly, most of the coaching is the accountability. Because if you just, like, send me off with homework, good luck getting me. Oh, no. Hey, I just told you about the clients. Like, we'll get together. It's fine. Yeah, but it is fine. Yeah, yeah. So I appreciate you guys so much. It's always so fun talking with you guys. I'm so glad. And we'll have all of those links below in the description. And we'll reference the previous episode you guys were on too, so they can go back and listen to that. But this is going to be an amazing year, so I'm so excited. Thank you so much. It is. And we'll see each other. We'll see each other in person. That's in the budget. Yes, girl, yes. Okay, we'll see you later. Bye.