AJV (00:01): Hey everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. It’s AJ Vaden here, and I’m about to introduce you to two of the most joyful and outgoing and entertaining but also financially prudent and savvy women that I’ve come in contact with in a long time. And they call themselves the budget besties, but know Shayna and Vanessa are their names. And I want to kind of give you a little bit of heads up of what this interview is about, which I always do , so that you know if this is an episode for you. So if you’re listening and you’re deciding whether or not you should stick around, then I would ask myself a couple of these questions. One, do I want to have more money? Hmm. If you answered yes, maybe this is the episode for you. Would you like to keep more money that you make? AJV (00:55): The answer is yes. This might be an episode for you. Would you have like to have less debt, more spending power, less financial pe or more financial peace and less financial stress? If you answered yes to any of those, then this is likely an episode around money, specifically budgeting that will help you have a better and more successful financial path moving forward. And so, as we’re rounding out the year and looking forward to how can we best prepare our audience to have an awesome next year, I thought having the budget besties on the show would be so helpful and powerful for you guys. So let me give them a quick formal introduction, and then we’re gonna get right to the heart of this interview. So, Shayna and Vanessa are best friends and business partners on a mission to help take the shame out of the money conversation. They are master, master financial coaches and also co-hosts of one of the top rated, top 1% actually range podcast financial coaching for women. Now, we’re not gonna talk about financials just for women today, but if you happen to be of the female six, then check out their podcast because it’s gonna talk about really unique tailored budgeting best practices, philosophies, and principles for women. But today we’re gonna talk about it from men and women, both Shane and Vanessa. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having SR (02:22): Us. Yes. Thank you for having us. We’re so excited to talk about the B word AJV (02:26): . Y’all, I first of all love you and it’s really an honor to get to have BBG clients on the show every so often because we already inherently know you and your brand and what your heart is really all about. But one of the things that I like to do when we’re introducing you to the larger audience is help them get to know you. So, out of all of the topics in the world that you guys could have paired up to talk about as best friends as women, why money? Why budgets? VP (02:59): You know, I think that we are both financially wired in a way, and I will tell you that I, this whole thing, the reason why we came together, it’s a, it’s a total God story. Yeah. Right. So we met at the YMCA, our boys were four years old, SR (03:12): They’re now 16. I know. So just pause for a moment and do the math there, . I know. VP (03:17): And we were, we worked out together and I was going, I just started going to a church and Shayna needed a new church. And so that next week she came with me and within two weeks we were starting to lead a community group together. Yeah. If that tells you about our friendship. SR (03:32): Yeah. So yeah, we signed up for this church and within two weeks we’re leading a community group together that kind of gives you the idea of our friendship and the level of intensity in which we do VP (03:40): Anything in difference. Yeah. SR (03:41): And so, you know, we did life together as moms, our boys. Like I said, like she said, they were four, now they’re 16 and we’re still doing life together. But it all started AJ with a little book that I know that you are familiar with called The Total Total Money Makeover. Mm-Hmm. . And I picked it up, read it, gave it to my husband, he read it, he said we already do this. And I was like, ah, okay, babe, if you’re sure. And I gave it to Vanessa, and you know, she took it and ran with it. VP (04:07): Yeah. So I honestly, it’s, it’s hard for me to stay tuned into a book. I read this book in a week. I loved it. I loved the concept of it. My, we were actually going to Portugal. We took the kids and we went for three months to Portugal. My husband came out to SR (04:20): Live with her grandmother. VP (04:21): Yeah. So my grandmother, I’m half Portuguese, she was out there for six months and she said, bring the kids. And I said, can I do that? And she said, yeah. So I told my husband, I said, babe, I’m gonna go though. I went for three months and really found out what was really important to my family, our morals, values. We loved that simple life. I really, really enjoyed the simplicity of living in a small house and enjoying family and only having what we needed and going to pick the fresh vegetables and everything. So anyways you know, we came back, sold the big house, sold all the stuff that we didn’t need. We bought a smaller house, downsized. And after buying that house in three years, so I was 31 and mortgage free. And debt free. And I realized that that to me was a goal. I wanted to be able to own our house. I wanted to be able to have things that were ours and we didn’t want to live like the Joneses anymore. Like we had our own way of living now. Yeah. SR (05:07): And so we were, we were still friends, but we are military, so we were about to move away from Florida, which is where we’re back now. And I was able to through my own I was a stay-at-home mom primarily, but I also had a, you know, side hustle as, as we all did at some point, it seems like. And I was able to cashflow a trip to Disney World for my family, pay for it in cash, which was the first family vacation that we had taken. Military families. You get famously, you get to go home, that’s your vacation every single time, . So it was like this really mind blowing experience for us. And we drove to Disney World, listening to Dave Ramsey and drove home listening to Dave Ramsey, my husband and I when he got home, he had sold his car within a couple, a couple days, and we were debt free. And so we then started teaching FPU, and that’s when with, with what I was already doing, I added financial coach training to the mix with my husband. We both took it. And that’s when Vanessa was having a little, a little moment herself. VP (06:03): . Yeah. So I was really in a, I was in a dark place for a couple years with my job, my current job. I knew it was a job. It was a means to an end. I knew I was in this job because it was easy and worked around my kids’ schedule and my husband worked a lot. And so I needed a way to make money, but it also needed to make sure that I could pick up the kids to and from school and everything. And so when God really led me to paying off my mortgage, he told me that that was gonna happen. He said, you’re gonna start your business mortgage free and debt free. I remember laughing and going, that’s cute. Not really sure how you do that. I was 28 at the time. And so, anyways, I remember when after I did the thing, I was walking around my house with my palms up going, okay, God, a plus student here. I did the thing, what’s next? And he said, oh, you’re gonna show other people how to do that. And within that week. And I said, how, and within that week, Shayna had messaged me and she said, I’m moving back home. I want you to get your financial coaching certification and we’re gonna do this thing together. Wow. And so that was that. When we say that our business was literally led by God, it truly was. SR (06:54): Yeah. And, and just real quick, ’cause I know we’ve been talking for about 30 minutes already. It just reminds me of your story with Lewis, how he called, you know, right after that happened with you guys. And it was just that, and that’s what we need as well. We need, God, we need neon flashing signs. Otherwise we may not do be be as keen to understand what, what you have for us. And praise God, he had it for us in that moment, and we’ve been going ever since. Yeah. AJV (07:16): You know, what I love about it is we don’t talk a lot about publicly, like the brand positioning statement of brand builders group, but if this is new to any of you listening, it’s like we talk about brand positioning statements at brand Builders group with our clients and our members, which Shayna and Vanessa are, and we talk about you know, the, the core of any personal brand is to determine what problem you solve for the world. What’s the cause of that problem? What message do you have, which is the solution to that problem? How do you uniquely solve that in a way only you can, which is your uniqueness? What are the payoffs to solving it? And that’s kind of your brand positioning statement. And what I love what you guys just said is at the heart of the center of what we build our entire company on, which is very simple. It’s not sexy but it’s very simple and it’s teach what you know. Mm-Hmm. . And how do you do that? Will you simply teach what you have done to the person that you once were? SR (08:13): Yeah. VP (08:13): And AJV (08:14): Well, any great business is a result of, you did something, it changed your life, and now you wanna help other people do the same thing. SR (08:22): Yep. VP (08:22): Right? SR (08:23): Yeah. And you guys always say you’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. We once were those people. And and you know, we’ve had great mentorship and we’ve been able, we’ve been doing this now for long enough that we’ve been able to kind of take our, to build our own system and, and build our own like you said, best practices. Yeah. But, but for sure we are now helping who we are people who make good money, but have nothing to show for it VP (08:46): . Yeah. Well, and when we first started, Shane and I were both individually doing finances in a way that were the exact same, but we had no idea. And when we brought our business together, we realized, oh my gosh, we have a whole system here, and this is what we’re teaching our clients. And that has been the most amazing transformation to watch what, like you said, what we use in our own personal lives separately didn’t know until we came together. And now we’re showing other people and it’s working, and we’re watching it work and watching it change their lives. And it’s really rewarding. AJV (09:15): Well, I love that. And I wanna talk about that. And I have to tell you, like we, we did a total money makeover before we got married. Our commitment to each other is that we would not get married and until we could enter our marriage completely debt free, so that we, we were starting from, you know, ground zero clean slate. And so we did the envelopes for almost two years until we both paid off all of our debt and then got married without any debt and entered. And that’s how we started our marriage. Mm-Hmm. was, it’s like, all right, let’s figure out, let’s figure out this money thing. And so let’s talk about the budget. So and just money in general, like what, what causes people to make good money, but yet have nothing to show for it? SR (10:00): Well, it reminds us of a story. So let’s you know, you know, brand builders, Rory, you guys say a lot. Diluted focus equals diluted results. Mm-Hmm. Well, when we started our business, as we said, we’re not, we weren’t a hundred percent in tune with what God had for us, apparently, because we had a, a side business to our financial coaching, and we were, we were teaching fitness classes, aj, which obviously is the same thing. Okay. Yeah. So if you can imagine, we’re up there teaching fitness classes in our facility, and then the students are out there looking at us following every move. Right? VP (10:29): Yeah. So we were you know, we’re at the front of the class, we’re looking out, and all of a sudden I see a roach. Okay. A big fat Florida roach crawling across the floor, like almost robotic, but its big old arms, and it’s approaching one of our clients. And I gradually, like, continue to let Shana teach, and I just walked out. SR (10:48): We’re all on Upward Dog. Yes. Nobody can see . VP (10:51): Yeah. And I got up quietly, grabbed an extra mat, put it over the roach, and slid it all the way across the room so nobody could see it. SR (11:00): Yeah. And, and what what we’ve learned is that that’s kind of how people treat their finances. Mm-Hmm. , you know, they just wanna sweep it under the rug. It’s kind of this, this thing that if we can just put it, put it over here, move it, move it outta the way, we won’t look at it. If we don’t look at it, it’s probably not a problem. Right. And that’s how people end up with making good money and having nothing to show for it. What, what we know is they get to this point, they’re doing so well in their career, they’re, they’re making more money than they ever have, and yet somehow they still feel like they’re living paycheck to paycheck. VP (11:27): Yeah. You know, a lot of times they’re, AJV (11:29): I wanna touch on that for just a second. Yeah. Because you said an important word there, they feel VP (11:33): Yep. AJV (11:34): Mm-Hmm. . So how many of it, how much of this is our emotional relationship to money and what we think we should be making, what we think we should have versus reality? Because I’m sure it’s both, but I think that feeling has a lot to do with this. I’m just curious to hear what y’all VP (11:53): Have. No, absolutely. Because when we first started this, we were trying to find our words. What is, what is actually happening with people when we realize is they have a lot of money. They’re not, they don’t need to live paycheck to paycheck, but it feels that way because their money, they’re not being good stewards of their money, not on purpose, but just because their money is coming in and it’s going out as fast as it is, you know, as fast as it’s coming in. Because there is no rhyme or reason to how they’re spinning. They, it’s not organized. Everything is convoluted into one account. It’s very overwhelming as to what’s happening. And they’re sticking their head in the sand and just not paying attention to it. Yeah. And SR (12:26): That’s really, that’s really you know, we’ve all heard of lifestyle creep, and so you have, you know, lifestyle creep as you’re spending, or your money increases, so do your, so does your spending. But what we’ve learned, AJ is recently it’s been a lot with people coming on our podcast. It’s, I still have the 18-year-old budgeting system that I was using. That’s really what it is. Like, I may be making six figures or, or seven figures, but I’m still operating as my 18-year-old, whatever I did then for my finances. ’cause I, you know, I’ve been busy. I haven’t had time to learn. And so that’s hopefully where we come in is we can, we can give you some systems Mm-Hmm. to, to use in your budget. Just like you would in any other, you know, motherhood or anything else that you’ve tried to level up your life and, and get to the next level. But truly, they’re just, they’re, you know, like Vanessa said, head in the sand if I just ignore it. And that’s, that is the, the feeling that we’re, that they’re trying to, to not face the music, to not face the overwhelm. But, VP (13:17): But, but they, they don’t know what they don’t know. So, like Shana said, they’re sticking in this 18-year-old mindset of one checking account, one one way of doing stuff, because that’s the first way that they were taught. The only way they were taught. They’ve never been taught a new way, which is, you know, nothing wrong with them. It’s just and we’ve not sought out a different way. Right, right. SR (13:35): Well, and, and honestly, people feel paralyzed a little bit. So if they do go to seek it out, they get, imagine being our age, which is very young. We’re very young. All of us are very young. Ej It’s fine. And, and being told, you know, just, you know, intensely do nothing but pay off debt. That’s really hard when you have kids and you have all of us. AJV (13:56): And very fun. It SR (13:57): Not, it’s not fun. It’s not very fun. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s paralyzes people a little bit. Right? Mm-Hmm. So what we wanna do is explain it maybe in a little bit different way so that you can, you know, be a good steward, like Vanessa said, but also let’s, let’s fund some of these fun things. Mm-Hmm. You know, we, honestly, honestly, we’re a little bougie. We wanna be bougie, but we wanna be on a budget. Okay. And we believe you can do both. Yeah. And VP (14:19): You know, we love Dave Ramsey, but we used his system first with our clients, and then we found our own system. Mm-Hmm. . And it really was based on their response from our clients. Mm-Hmm. like when, as we formed our business. And as things evolved over time, it was like, oh, this is really what they want. This is what, this is the lifestyle that our clients want. And so we designed a budget system specifically around that and it’s tailored to each individual person based on their lifestyle goals. Because what we’ve realized is that, hey, you can have your pumpkin, pumpkin, spice lattes and pay off debt. Yeah. Hey, you can maybe cut back on the subscriptions that you don’t even log into anyways. And then also go on travel. Right. Go save for vacation. And different things like that. AJV (14:59): And I think those are a couple of things that I think are really good to kind of talk about. So what are some of the biggest pitfalls, traps, mistakes, whatever we wanna call ’em, I’m gonna call ’em mistakes. What are some of the biggest mistakes that you guys see with people managing their money? And what are some things we can do to avoid those next year and forevermore? SR (15:22): Well, there’s, there’s one really, really big one. And this is what every, there’s a lot we can go into a lot especially when it comes to relationships and there’s so many different things. But the big one really, honestly, AJ is having one account. So imagine you have one account and it’s trying to track and you’re trying and do a mental math, which hello, I’m not even good at real math, like with a calculator, let alone with just trying to do it in my head. But you’re trying to mental math, whether did the rent get paid my phone bill, but also I need to go to Target. But also the kids are wanting to stop by Chick-fil-A, but all oh, field trip dues are, are tomorrow. Like you’re trying to do all this mental math with one account, VP (15:54): And then also at the same time you’re at the grocery store trying to figure out is there enough in there because what’s been pulled and what hasn’t. Right. Yeah. SR (15:59): ‘Cause The bill’s still gonna get paid. And so you’re trying to do all of this math. So that is one, one mistake. And when we say the 18-year-old system, that’s kind of what it is. You thought, well, I went to the bank and I opened my account. And that’s how it is. Well, we are in this digital age, ladies and gentlemen, so you can have more than one checking account. And so what we teach is let’s separate all of that. Let’s separate and have a Bills account, let’s separate and have spending account, let’s separate and have savings. And we can make all of that automatic, but really truly organizing it and separating it into, like you alluded that you and Rory did when you guys were were, you know, engaged, you had your cash envelopes. We can kind of put that exact same system into your bank and then you can very clearly know what’s going on. And that really does take away some of the stress and the mental math in the mo in the moment. AJV (16:44): Yeah. VP (16:44): That’s really helpful. AJV (16:47): I have a, I have a question. It’s like, why don’t people do that? Is it just ’cause they don’t know that they can’t? SR (16:54): Yes. VP (16:55): Yeah. That it’s honestly, when we tell people, Hey, open up a second checking account, they’re like, what do you mean? And we’re like, I mean, you can, you can do that. The thing is, is that they’re so used to just having, you know, when you go to a bank, they tell you to open one checking and one savings, and that’s just how you end up operating unknowingly. That you can have a whole different system available to you if you just ask. Right. If all the what is it, what’s the saying? All the answers to the questions you don’t ask, it’s always no. Mm-Hmm. . So if you just ask and shop around, a lot of people are also at banks that they think they have to bank with, but there’s a bank out there that’s gonna do what you wanna do. And remember, you’re in charge, not them. ’cause You’re, they’re actually working for you when you’re going to hire a bank to do a job. So the idea of having multiple accounts to be able to assign them to do different jobs is mind blowing. AJV (17:40): Yeah. Then, so, okay, here’s a technical question for everyone listening. So then let’s just say I, I just, I jotted down four. There’s a Bills account. We would, we would call it a household account, but Bills account, a spending account, a savings account, and then I stuck one called taxes. So let’s just pretend that we had four accounts, right? So when you get paid is it a manual I’m gonna take in my weekly paycheck and you know, this much goes here, this much goes here? Or are you guys suggesting that you have auto amounts going to different places? Or what, what are some of like the tactical best practices of managing? Yes. Because that takes a kind of organized Truman. SR (18:22): Well, well first of all, the, the biggest mistake is manually managing your accounts. The more you’re in it, the, you know, the more we tend to mess it up. No, love us. Right? It’s kinda like me in the kitchen. It’s fine. But the, the thing that we find is that you want to separate all of those accounts. Yeah. And VP (18:41): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what what you wanna do is have all of your income come into your, your bills account. So that first, the main account that you have is your bills account. Yeah. And so all of your income, every source of income that’s coming in is coming into one main account. And you only keep in there what’s enough to pay for all of your bills and all of your debt payments. And then from there you automatically are funding Yeah. Funding the other accounts. Yeah. SR (19:05): Well, because the, the mistake that you, that you were alluding to that people do is they try to live paycheck. They try to assign paycheck to a specific paycheck to specific jobs. What we want you to do is let’s take a bird’s eye view, a monthly view of what your money can actually do in a month. And that’s from that bird’s eye view. Then we can start to manipulate each paycheck. But what we want, what we love AJ, is to take the rollercoaster ride out of this paycheck to paycheck, this feast or famine. You know, we have people say, well this is this, this, check the rent’s due. So we don’t really have a lot for groceries or, you know, whatever. So stuff like that. And we’re VP (19:36): Telling you can actually eat four weeks out of the month, aj, it’s fantastic. SR (19:40): . And so we do, we do want it to be very, even very smooth. And there’s a couple other things that this system solves you. One, you always know when you need to spend money, you always know where it’s coming from and that you have it. Right. That is that, I mean, we do talk to women a lot, but that is such a, VP (19:57): So much weight off the shoulders. SR (19:58): Yes. Especially as mom, they’re, they’re coming at you from every angle with something. And then so we really wanna be able to solve that problem. The other thing that you talked about, taxes. So that’s, we’re gonna separate. We, we really want you to separate your business and your personal and we would have you automate setting aside taxes. Mm-Hmm. on your business side. That way that’s always taken care of. ’cause That’s another monkey on your back that you don’t want to have. But really these accounts, it’s, it’s making it easily organized. It’s making it we even try to make it fun. Like we have clients rename their accounts. VP (20:29): That’s the best part that you can rename all your accounts. Yeah. SR (20:31): And you know what, so you have boys, we have daughters. If you have an account that says, you know, Melanie’s wedding, you are so much less likely to steal money from that for you to go to go to Target or whatever, go shopping. And so and so you can rename it. We have people say, my name is no when it comes to their savings account, like all kinds of VP (20:50): Fun things don’t touch this. Like, right. SR (20:51): Yeah. And so, and, and then the real thing is like when you log into your own bank app, you don’t need a special app. You can see all of this money Mm-Hmm. organized, you know exactly what’s going on all the time. I VP (21:02): Think that’s the other part of it is people believe or they have this notion that they need a separate app, some third party device or thing that’s gonna help them track all their money. And what, what we like to say is let your bank to be your personal assistant. Let your bank app do the work for you and you can set it up automatically. We teach them this system to where, like you said, the money comes in and then the money all goes out. And it’s all based on what your budget is telling you you’re allotted for those different accounts. But then once it’s set up, right, do something today that’s gonna make tomorrow easier. Once you can set it up, take the time to do that, you’re, you step back and it’s so nice that not have to worry about that. You know, for instance, for an example, my husband gets paid every Wednesday afternoon. So Thursday morning all my transfers happen. Mm-Hmm. . And I didn’t do anything. It just automatically happened based on what my budget said. SR (21:48): And you have money for groceries every week. It’s so amazing. . AJV (21:51): Yeah. And, and I love, and I love adding some of the funness to it of like, you know, you know, give it personality, but also give it purpose. Right? Mm-Hmm. it’s like, Hey, if I said this was for savings, it’s for, you know, something better words than savings. Right. That just kind of feels account that I can pull from kind of when I want to. But it’s like, no, what’s it, what’s it really for? Right. Yeah. Like, what are we, you know, and I love, you know, it’s like, well, I’m not gonna steal from a daughter’s wedding to go shopping. So, you know, I think those things are really have the, create those emotional attachments. Now there’s something that you just said, Vanessa, that I wanna kind of touch on, which is you said, you know, once you have your budget, you kind of know what stays in this account. How many people come to you guys and have never made a budget. VP (22:39): A lot. A lot. And we’ve also had people who have made a budget, but then they don’t know what to do with it. And that’s, I think that’s where we, where we feel bad because we have tried to use other people’s budgets for our business. And we first came to to, together we tried to find a budget that would help people you know, see if we can partner with somebody to use their budget that they’ve already created. And the reality is that there was not one out there that made sense to us. Mm-Hmm. that actually told you what to do with your hands. That literally was just words and numbers on paper. So even people that have made a budget, they’ll show us like this literally, or written, don’t paper know what they’re on. Yeah. Right. And they don’t know what’s, they don’t know what to do with it after they’re done with writing words and numbers on paper. And so, really, and the AJV (23:20): Reason I ask, the reason I ask is I was sitting here thinking, how many people actually make budgets? VP (23:29): Well, SR (23:29): It’s the B word for a reason. Right? Right. VP (23:30): It’s taboo. AJV (23:31): It’s so, so, okay, so here’s my question for you guys. How do you make a budget? Like, if we’ve got people listening today that are going, well, I thought budgets were people who, for people who didn’t make enough money or I felt budgets or something that you, you, you know, do only when you’re this. And it’s like, if you’re sitting there listening to this going, I I don’t actually have a family budget. I actually don’t have a budget for how I spend my money. What would be a couple of first steps for everyone to do if we’re, if we’re trying to get a financial grasp on how are we going to better steward the money we have? I I do think budgets are helpful and necessary even if you choose not to follow it. It’s like visibility, awareness is step one is awareness. Right? Yeah. So what, what do we do? Like, what’s step? Well, SR (24:19): I think, I think the first thing to think is, is to understand that the perception of a budget is that it’s restrictive. Yeah. And I don’t wanna do it. It’s a chore. But what we are going to do is we’re going to let, is show you how it gives you freedom. Freedom to spend and freedom to live the life that you wanna live, to be, you know, bougie on a budget as we say. But, and it’s a very simple process to make a budget. But I think going back to, you know, when you were talking about you and Rory as young people, it’s really about being intentional. Like I, yes, you make good money, but do you, are you really proud? Are you, are you, are you certain about where what it’s doing and where it’s going? Or and is it VP (24:53): Serving SR (24:53): You well? Yeah. Or is it serving future you? Well, so we can be really intentional and really fun, but what Vanessa was alluding to is we saw these budgets with variable fixed and blah. And where everybody’s like, but what, so what do I do with my hands? Okay. So what you do is you have your income. That’s what you start with. It’s very exciting, aj. It’s the best number. Everybody’s like, woo woo income. So we like to start with the income. Okay. And then next we like to li list out our debt payments. Okay. So we’re trying to do this, you could do this in 10 minutes. Yeah. Rough draft. Be okay with the, you know, b plus work. Let out your list out your debt minimums, because that is what you’re minimally gonna need to pay every month. Mm-Hmm. . Right? Our next list is our bills. We’re gonna list out our bills. And this is actually really eye opening for people. Like Vanessa said they start to see how many subscriptions do, do I listen to that much music actually, or you know, and, and start to see all of it on one paper. And when, when you had said about I make good money, that’s the budgets are for people who don’t. No, actually you need to get a good glimpse of where your money’s going. And that can be really eye-opening. So, you know, so the bills is the next one. Yeah. VP (25:54): So after you list it out, AJV (25:55): Can I pause there for a second? I have a question for you guys. This is back to a tactical question. How do you even do that? Like to, like, how do you even list out all of the bills? ’cause I think a lot of people are set it and forget it and sometimes there’s annual subscription payments that come out. And it’s like, are you are, how, how do you even do that for a very, for the person who’s going to, I actually, I want to do this. Mm-Hmm. . It’s like, how do you even know what you’re spending money on? VP (26:24): Well, we like to tell people to do a 90 day audit. So a 90 day audit, it’s gonna have you gather all the information that you need to be able to make this. Now we understand there’s quarterly bills, there’s annual bills, like we get that. But if, let’s just start with the monthly stuff first. What are you getting charged for monthly? And sometimes they’re on four different credit cards. Sometimes they’re in one account. Mm-Hmm. . So really the the idea here is to gather your information to know what are you spending your money on. And we wanna list all of those out. Yeah. Now a bill is something that you are getting charged for every month. So some people will try to list their subscriptions that are spending like, well, I’m just spending money over there. Like, no, no, no. You’re, that is something that’s coming in that you’re getting invoiced for, that you’re getting a receipt for. That is a bill. So that’s what you wanna, you know, you start with your income minus your minimum debt payments minus your bills. SR (27:10): Well, and what’s really funny is we, we do work with primarily people who make good money and they don’t necessarily need to cut their bills. That’s not usually the problem. It’s more spending. Yeah. But once they see everything listed out, aj and like you said, it’s just set it and forget it. Well, 7 30, 45, 99 over, like, once you start to see it, you’re like, oh, let me, let me go ahead and take a little ownership over this. Mm-Hmm. and, and clean it up a little bit. And that’s really the goal there is you, it’s not, it’s not about whether you have a gym membership and a Netflix membership and this and that. It’s about whether that is actually aligning with what you want your money doing for you. AJV (27:44): Yeah. And there’s VP (27:44): No shame on, like, we’ve had people that fill up every single line in our budget with their subscriptions and all their everything there. That’s fine. We don’t, that’s, there’s no shame in that. We want you to be able to live a life that you can afford. But that’s the thing is can you afford it? And sometimes you don’t know the answer to that because you haven’t listed it on paper to even see if it’s possible. AJV (28:00): I was in a conversation with my husband, Rory a couple of weeks ago about all these miscellaneous charges. ’cause We have a household bookkeeper that’s something that we’ve chosen to invest our money into because both of us are like, we’re not very good at monitoring this and we need someone to help us. And I, a couple months earlier I had seen those and I had gone in and made sure like, well, we don’t use that. We’ve outgrown that. Or we don’t, we, we hired, you know, a full-time nanny. We don’t need the babysitter app anymore. And so I had canceled all these, but they kept coming. Mm-Hmm. And I was like, I was like about to like dispute all these charges with a credit card. Like, I was like furious. I was like, I canceled all these, y’all, both of us had them on two separate cards, two separate account names. And not only were we paying for stuff not being used, neither of us had known the other person had also signed up and subscribed to it. So I think part of the reason you’re not was asking is like, man, you don’t even know where your money is going sometimes unless you’re doing these types of audits. And I had canceled in this particular with like a care.com, but he had signed up for one and we were both paying for the same thing. Gum app that we’re both of them not being utilized. VP (29:15): Right. It happens a lot. Yeah. We see that a lot. We, I even had a lady who was paying for an auto insurance on a card that she no longer owned for like a year. And she, we couldn’t, she wouldn’t, you know, I don’t have access to their bank accounts, but she was like, something’s not adding up as a girl. We have to figure this out. Sure enough, it was an insurance payment. Yeah. AJV (29:34): And, and so I think that’s why I ask, because I think that’s so important. It’s like, even if you go, oh yeah, I’m gonna keep all those, it’s just, just awareness. Yeah. It’s just awareness of like, where’s your money going? And that was just like a recent story that happened to us. And I’m like, ah, that is so ridiculous. It’s awareness. We had that So ridiculous. Yeah. Didn’t even know. It is. SR (29:55): Yeah. It is awareness. And that’s like what we were talking about sweeping, sweeping the under the rug usually. And I you said you that you guys have a bookkeeper because you’re not good at math. Which I would not agree with. But anyway. Yeah. I thought I was gonna, you were gonna say ’cause you’re too busy. Yeah. Like you guys are a lot busy. You have full lives. And do I wanna spend amount, amount enough time on, on my budget? AJV (30:14): Absolutely. Managing it. SR (30:15): Oh, managing. That’s what was, sorry. Yeah. She’s like, excuse me. I’m very good. CEO good at math. I don’t like math, but really, but who has, who has the time? And really we do try to solve that, right. And make this a very hands off, very easy system so that you, so, so that we all can spend time on, on more fun things than budgeting. But it is, it does happen more often than you think. And that’s really what, like you said, it’s just awareness. Let’s just look at this once in a while and make sure that everything that we’re spending our money on is what we wanna be spending our money on. Well, VP (30:42): In the old days, you think about, there were check registries, people were, they’re tracking transactions. There’s apps that are trying to help you do that. And you’re, that is so time consuming. Nobody has the time. We’re very busy. We have a lot, we have wonderful lives that we’re very excited about. They’re very full that we want to do. We wanna spend our time doing other things with our kids and at their events at work. Nobody has time to sit there and track your finances. So, like Shana said, the way that we have it set up for you is an automatic system that if you just take the time one afternoon to be able to do, it’s a basically a set it and forget it. Remember that George Foreman a long time ago, that I didn’t forget it. That’s basically what it does for you. And it allows you time back, the freedom back to not have to track or account any of your stuff. SR (31:24): And if you can imagine the Bills account, so what, what we said is if you have one checking account right now, you have hundreds of transactions, like literally every, every Chick-fil-A every, you know, soccer due from YMC or whatever, everything is in there. If you switch it to what we’re talking about having a Bills account, you would’ve found those much easier because there’s only so many bills transactions happening. And you can really, you can clearly isolate that and without a lot of time and you’ll be able to see it. So then, but okay, so to recap, we were talking about income. Yay. Fun number, excited. Everybody’s having a good time immediately to kind of the worst number, which is debt minimums, which the Vaden didn’t have when they got married. Congratulations. And then we’re going to the bills, right? But then after that is the, VP (32:02): The most fun. SR (32:03): That’s when we’re getting, we’re getting, we’re finally here where we get to spend money. It’s very exciting. This VP (32:07): Is where you live in your budget, right? Yeah. SR (32:08): And so this is really what, what differentiated us when we, when we made our, our budget. When you spend money, this is when you’re swiping. When you’re either going to the grocery store, you’re going to the restaurant, you’re going even if you’re paying for a babysitter, all of this stuff that you’re spending, it’s not a bill, but it’s over here. It’s discretionary. It’s different every month maybe. And that’s what we really wanna put over there in that column. And we will add, you know, with, when you use the audit that we talked about, that’s when it can get a little ugly. We’ve had clients come in and say, well, I did what you told me and I wanted to throw up, up. So thank you for that. Because they were spending so much money on restaurants. Imagine, you know, $4,000 a month on, on restaurants. If you have a goal to get out of debt, seen it, you have a goal to travel. Like, you know, it’s just not in alignment. And that’s what, like you said before, awareness. It’s what it’s really about. VP (32:54): Yeah. So the idea with this spending account is really just allow you to see how much money you’re spending. And so there’s two questions here. What am I spending my money on and what do I wanna be spending my money on? Mm-Hmm. . And then once you decide what your budget allows, then you can designate a certain amount of money to be transferred into that spending account from your built account each paycheck. So it allows you the right amount of money with some guardrails. Like we never wanna make you feel broke. But the idea here is, you know, one of the things I like to ask my clients is ever have you, have you ever asked a millionaire how they got there? And the answer is, it’s never on accident. Like, it was very strategically planned. And so what with this, we wanna give you the right amount of spending money where it feels good and you feel like everything is covered and there’s a little bit of cushion, but it’s, you’re not, it’s not out of control. Right. And also you don’t feel restricted. SR (33:37): Well, and another key part of this pers of this spending column, and we’re not done yet, we got one more column after the spending, but is personal spending. So when you were asking earlier about feeling people have money, baggage, and they have different kind of self sabotage things that they do when it comes to their money. And so one of the, one of the ways to fix that is to get you used to having money. You have money, you have money to spend, nobody’s telling. You can’t. And so you can take away some of that, some of that angst that people have. You have permission. You have permission. Go to target girl, go to target to your heart out or wherever you need to go. And, and, and that’s the personal spending money. And we want that separate for each you know, the the husband and the wife or whatever, whatever you know, situation you have there. We want that separate so that you can, you can have it. And, and it really does help heal. Yes. Your relationship with money in some ways. And, you know, this whole system is really gonna help heal your relationship with your spouse when it comes to money as well. AJV (34:35): Hmm. Yeah. I think that’s so good of just like the personal spending accounts where it’s like, don’t have to ask permission. These are set aside amounts where it’s my free will money. And I, and I love that. And I think, you know, one of the things I think is like, so important that you guys brought up is like, we have money baggage, right? Mm-Hmm. . There’s money trauma or money insecurity or scarcity or whatever, whatever there is. And I, I would be curious to hear a couple of things that you guys have just seen that, you know, as people are listening, it’s like for the people listening who are going, man, it’s like, I know I should do all these things, but I’m still not because I have this emotional disconnect with money. And you know, one of the things that I run into a lot is people always think, well, I have to make more. AJV (35:22): I have to make more. And the question is, but do you Mm-Hmm. And it’s like there’s a, to some degree it’s like, could you ever make enough? Or is it really, I need to make more? Or is it you need to spend less? And, and I would just be curious, what have you guys seen as, you guys have been doing this with so many people over all the years of like, what are, what are some of the, the challenges that you guys seen and some of, hopefully some ideas of how do people overcome some of those money? Emotional? Yeah. VP (35:59): You know, we’ve had couples come together and, and never actually talk about money before they get married. And so when they get married, well, first of all, nobody ever taught them how to handle their own money. And then they get married, and now you’re having to handle two people’s, you know, two people money together that neither one of ’em ever spoke about. Mm-Hmm. So then you have the husband whose family maybe was very wealthy never had to worry about money. So he just spent all the time. Then you have the wife who came in whose family didn’t have a lot of money. So any money she does have, she wants to hold onto it because there’s money baggage there. And he has money baggage in his own way because never had to worry about it. So it was never a problem. Right. And then they come together trying to work this out and, and do finances together. It’s really, really difficult. SR (36:40): Hmm. Yeah. And one of the, one of the things that people are doing is they’re, they’re trying to not, they’re not looking at their numbers. So they’re just spending, spending spending until the, until they get to zero. That’s usually, or until their credit card balance is, is maxed. That’s, those are the two options. And, and so when we take ’em through the system, they have to get used to having money. It’s such a strange phenomenon. Like, you know, you, you’re making good money, you have money, like you’re, you’re doing well, but they, you still have this internal need to spend, spend, spend because you, you’re still living on that 18-year-old system or whatever where I didn’t have anything. And it’s scarcity. And so that is one interesting thing that we’ve seen is their, their money starts to stack up in their savings account. They have money every time they get paid. SR (37:21): And you can’t, you can’t have this self-sabotage loop of spend, spend, spend, have no money, spend, spend. It starts to break it. But it really is about, you know, taking full ownership when it’s amazing how I, how we can see people that, that spend money on their hair, their nails, their vacations, their, their car, like they’re so spiny, but once they actually start to look at it, they, and they take ownership. They’re not running from it anymore. Right. They’re looking at it, they’re taking ownership. They, they change. They really do. This is gonna blow your mind. They get more excited about saving money. Mm-Hmm. than spending money. And that’s just what we’ve seen. We’re not telling them to do be that way. It’s just like, right. It starts to be like, kind of be gamified. Like I ca I am this new person that, that gets more excited about spending than I, or saving than I do spending. VP (38:05): We have on average, depending on where people are in their, their financial journey, like they’re either paying off or saving about $20,000 in six months after working with us and seeing that the system that we put in, in place for them. But Shayna just had a client the other day who had money in the account and before they met, she just like transferred it out somewhere and Shayna’s like, what, what’d you do? And she said, well, I had money in there, so I just moved it. And she’s like, no, no, no. What the reality is, is because she’s not used to having money, she’s not used to seeing any money in her account. She’s usually always in the red or it’s, you know, at zero. So for her to see this money that we specifically put there on purpose, that was really hard for her to like settle with and be okay with. AJV (38:41): Yeah. I think, I think that that the, those emotional ties to money that we all have, regardless if it came from childhood, adolescence, adulthood, doesn’t matter where it comes from, it comes from something. And it’s, it really is having good awareness of what am I making? What am I spending, what do I want? And then what do I have to do about it? Right. Mm-Hmm. . And I think those are all kind of like some of like the basics there. For the, for, for everyone who’s heading into the new year, which we’re just right around the corner if we were to talk about just some simple steps that anyone can take to have more financial authority over their money in this next year, what would be some of those simple next best steps? SR (39:25): Well, as we alluded to, go ahead and print out three months worth of those statements. Print out the credit, whether it’s credit card or debit card, no shame there, but let’s just look at it. We like, we like to imagine that everybody can embrace their inner nerd and just get some highlighters, get, you know, just take, take a moment and just look and see what’s been going on. Bring VP (39:43): A beverage, bring some snacks, make a fun afternoon of it, and SR (39:46): Really just see what’s been going on with your money. And you know, when, when people do this, they, they tend to get down on themselves a little bit. They like, like we alluded to, several clients have come and say, well, that wasn’t fun. Mm-Hmm. . But actually it is fun because what it is, is it’s the first step in you taking complete ownership and you should be really proud. Like, awesome, you’re doing awesome. You’re doing the next, the next right thing. And that’s what we wanna do. We wanna look at where, like Vanessa said, where what we have been doing, and it’s really exciting to make a plan of what we want to do. Yeah. Because one of the things when we put the numbers into a budget with any new client, they’re, they’re like, wow, I have that much money. VP (40:19): Yeah. That, that’s true. Literally when we make a budget, they’re like, what do you mean I have $3,000 left over? I’m like, well, I mean, the one thing we love about finances, that numbers don’t lie. Yeah. Math doesn’t lie. It’s really black and white. So for them to be able to see all this leftover money, it’s really eyeopening. So, you know, when they do the 90 day audit and they look at all their, their, their SR (40:35): Numbers Yeah. VP (40:36): How they have been spending their money. The next step is to, the one thing that they can do is separate your accounts. Mm-Hmm. If it’s the one thing that they got out of this podcast at all is to open a separate checking account specifically for spending, and they can transfer a certain amount of money in the air every paycheck based on what their budget allows for them to have the freedom to spend. So that way it’s not convoluted, it’s not met mixed up with all of their bill and their debt payments. Well, SR (40:59): And just one more little thing, you know, we’re coming into the new year, you’re gonna be thinking about your goals anyway at brand builders. You know, we start with who, who are, who are you going to serve right here? Think about who you wanna be. Think about what you guys, what this big exciting vision you have for your life. Because no matter what it is, whether it’s being generous, whether it’s traveling, whether it’s something for your, your kids, it re probably gonna require money. Mm-Hmm. . So we wanna come up with that vision because that vision is what you’re gonna be able to you’re gonna create a budget to fulfill that vis vision and that’s what’s gonna inspire you to keep doing it, to keep trying to to keep looking at the number, stay motivated and stay motivated. Yeah. AJV (41:35): Yeah. The, that’s good. And I, and I love that ’cause it’s like, money is not bad. Right? Letting it rule over your life is bad, but money itself is not inherently bad. It is not bad to make money. Money is necessary and does much good. It’s just what we do with the money and is it ruling over our hearts or are we ruling over it? And this is a step to putting you in control over you ruling it, not it ruling you. Right. Exactly. Yeah, this has been so good and, and so timely as we head into the new year and specifically as we’re going, like most of your spending for the year is done. Mm-Hmm. . So it’s a good time to do a year in review, reset order in review whatever, whatever you can tolerate, right? Mm-Hmm. . But to do some sort of review and go, well, how could it be different in the future? And I love that. Now you guys also have a, a big launch coming out. Mm-Hmm. . Do you wanna talk about that? SR (42:34): Oh, well, yes. We really, really do. So we talked about this budget system that we created working with clients after, after you know, using other ones. And we have redesigned it and it’s really important that everybody knows it’s clear, it’s beautiful. That’s important. It’s important. If you want to look at the math, it should look nice. It has check boxes. Yes. We have added some bells and whistles, but it’s a whole system for you to be able to take control of your finances and, you know, set up your VP (42:59): Budget. Yeah. So you get lifetime access to this budget system. So you get to use it year after year. The idea is that you use one whole system for the entire year, then you get to re Mm-Hmm. download a new one and for, you know, 2 20, 26, 27, all that. But it also comes with a course. It comes with how to videos and exactly how to use it. So you are the most successful when you’re going through it and putting all the numbers on paper. But the reality is, is that, like Shana said, it is simple, it’s clear. It allows you to really see your money as a whole. And the best part, one of the best part is that you can print it all on one paper. Hey, so we were very specific when we designed it that if you wanted to print it out, you can do that. And it’s right there in front of you. We figured if numbers are on one paper, it can’t be so scary. That SR (43:39): May be so scary if it’s one page right. Like that, that seems fair. And so you can go to budget besties.com/aj to to check that AJV (43:47): Out. Yeah. So I would just encourage, like, if you’re listening to this going, man, it’s been a while since I made a budget. I should probably, I should probably have one. Or man, I don’t really know what to do and I never review my spending. This is an opportunity to have a reset moment. Mm-Hmm, , right? This is an opportunity to go, how do I do it in a simple way, a clear way, a navigatable way, one that feels like I can actually do it. And so I would just also encourage you, whoever’s listening, if this is a season that you need to just re-look at how you’re making money and spending money, this would be a great opportunity. So again, budget besties.com/aj and check out the simplified budget system to help you take control of your money. And also, I would encourage if you guys have enjoyed listening to Shayna and Vanessa, then also check out their podcast. AJV (44:43): You guys can go to budget besties.com/podcast. And then you can also just look it up which is Financial Coaching for Women. So check them out visit their podcast, check out their website check out this course. And most importantly, make sure that you make some changes about how you’re viewing your money so that you get to keep more of it. Shane and Vanessa, thank you so much for being on the show. For everyone who’s listening, stay tuned for the recap episode and we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.