Budgeting Basics

talking about budgeting. I think it's so important. I don't think that there's one way to budget. I think there's a lot of ways that we can go about this. But I do think we need to be aware of the money coming in and the money going out, and

we're going to get good with money, live this frugal lifestyle. Yeah, And frugality allows you to have that flexibility with budgeting because the more intentional you are about your purchases, the less you have to worry about sticking to the budget, breaking, busting whatever you call it budget. And there are different budgets for different seasons of your life as well, and so there's not one budget that works best for one person all the time, or any person in general. We

do have our favorites for certain seasons. But once you get really good at mindful spending, conscious consumerism, all of that simple living, it takes the need for budgeting away so much, which is is why we don't harp on it, because we feel like frugal living is a alternative to a strictly budgeted life. But it bears repeating that when you are trying, when you are starting, this is a necessity. No matter who you are, you can't get around it. Yes,

I don't even care if you a multimillionaire. You got to know the money coming in the money going out. So we're gonna go through some basic methods trium on for size. We're gonna talk about some basics of how to and that will be that. But first sponsors oil and vinegar, two things that seem to not go together, have paired up to sponsor this episode. Like Sweet and Salty, Chilian macaroni, Fear and Joy, they're all here to announce

the frugal friends for your anniversary party. Who it's gonna be the best fancy frugaltle fiesta with all the money saving party hacks paired with all the luxury one can expect from us. Think hot dogs and charcouterie. If you're Frugal Friends listener, you can celebrate our accomplishment with us on April in St. Petersburg, Florida at our four year anniversary party. If you'd like to join us, head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash party for more info. Yes,

we would love to see you at the fiesta. It's gonna be so smart. Actually gonna be hot dogs and sharguttery. But I liked the sound of the pairing of those who really likes hot dogs, f y I sharcoan, Well, we all love charcuterie. I like hot dogs too. I'm not gonna lie. I do love a good hot dog. Oh they're so tasty. I could practically always go for a hot and they're always in the budget because they

are so affordable. So if you love budgeting, or maybe you don't love budgeting, here are some episodes to queue up for after this episode. So the first would be episode one seventy seven. That's where we talk about a values based budgeting systems. So it's more of we go through the values based spending philosophy, philosophy that we follow and how to tie that into a values based budget. So that's kind of like a higher level sort of like one oh two and then episode Onete minimalist budgeting,

that's where I fall more into. I am definitely less budget conscious than Jill is. Jill loves to make the budget and I just love too, but I still would I would qualify myself as like the nerd of the family, Like I am definitely more administrative and organized, but I just don't. I like to be just a little more free, just lay in my life, chilling the spreadsheets. Yeah, and

so that's not as me runch in the numbers. So that just goes to show that you literally can be anybody you want to be and still have a budgeting practice. So today is very much one oh one basics. So if you feel like you've got a good budget, you can skip this one. But if you're like people and feel like you don't, it's for you. But if you also just want to hear me talk more about hot dogs,

stick around. Awesome. So let's get into our first article on the four basic budgeting methods, and this is from nwc U dot com Credit Union if you don't have a credit union, check out your local one. Jill, what did you think of this one? It's excellent. I think it gives a really great summary of some classic budgeting styles.

So feel free to think about what might fit best for your lifestyle, what you know of yourself, your earnings, and the way that you spend, to figure out which budgeting style is gonna be best for you at this time. And like you said, Jen, it might shift. We might come into a different season of life and we choose a different budgeting style. So the first one, and we'll just go through all four, is the basic budgeting method.

They just call it. Yes for us, it's the classic budget where you just list out your expenses line by line, but within columns. So they talk about having two columns, one being an estimated spending column and the second column being the actual spending column. I believe then that you'd have rows that go across and coincide that you can picture a spreadsheet and you have the different categories of items.

So I think with this budget, I mean, certainly you could get really nitty gritty and just list out every single thing that you might spend on, or you could categorize like groceries, entertainment, utility and electric miscellaneous, and then you right out what do you think you're going to spend in each of those? Of course, if you know what your fixed bills are, then that should be pretty self explanatory. And then think about what's a reasonable amount

to spend. If you're doing it in a month monthly basis that you're going to spend that month, then it does require going back through and comparing what you actually spent to what the estimated spending was going to be. Of course, hopefully keeping a pulse on it, not just making this forgetting about it spending and then going back and saying oops. But it can help us to identify where was I realistic with this budget? What was true? Where did I spend less? Where did I spend more?

What kind of adjustments do I need to make next month? And the idea with budgeting, at least in the beginning, is that you are doing a month to month basis because expensive shift month to month. Some months you have your car insurance that's due if you pay it bi annually, and other months you have but a ton of birthday parties to go to who knows, but it's worth looking at it each month and adjusting where the numbers are

going to go. But that's the basics of a classic budget, the two columns, what do I think I'm going to spend, what I actually spend, and then keeping a pulse on that. Yeah, and most budgeting apps are going to follow this style. It's gonna be totally free form. You put in whatever you think and then you add whatever you have spent, so your y naps, your every dollars, your mint. This is this is what they follow, and this is what

you can use. If you want to use a zero based budget, then this is kind of the one we use. We also use the second method in a zero based budget, you can use either, and that is the cash only budget. So this one also can you know cash envelope system they can be synonymous, but this method allows you to

literally only spend the cash that you have. Uh And so I've never been a huge fan of cash envelopes, but there are people who, because of their spending habits like swore by it and really really needed it to kind of hone in and dial down some of those impulse categories. It really can help you get a handle on your spending and connect you more with the action of spending when you're pulling out real cash receiving change back.

I did this method when I first started out with budgeting and trying to get a handle on my finances, and I do think it helped. But about nine to twelve months in I recognized all right, I got it, and I made my switch to a different methods. So it's it's worth considering, especially if, like you said, Jen, you are the person who's just starting out or really needs to get a handle on where your money goes. This could be worth considering. I think it would be

fun to do. Will not fun, but like good to do, like a thirty day cash only challenge. So if you're trying to figure out is this for me, or you're trying to hone in on something, try it for a month and see what happens. It will not be convenient, you will probably not love it, but it will probably be good for your spending. Will probably be good for your budget. But so we our favorite type of budget

is the zero based budget. We think it helps you reach your financial goals faster than any other of the other types of budgets. We're gonna talk about so the cash only and the classic budgeting methods are the ones that meld best into there. And I would say I've always said a cash envelope is more of a method to stick to your budget than it is an actual

budgeting method. But since it's included here, we'll just parse it out from the classic budget and say that, but you can use the classic budget and still just pay for things in cash. So I don't love it when people separate them, but here we are, so yeah, zero based budget using the classic or cash only methods. The third budgeting method is the percentage budget. Some also call it the proportional budgeting method. This sounds maybe a little bit like where You're at gen or maybe this is

even more I have strong opinions on. So, well, here's what it is. It is parsing out your budget into different percentages, so setting aside a percentage for spending versus saving. You can set aside a certain percentage for needs, a certain percentage for wants, a certain percentage for savings. So some people might put let's say eight of their income towards expenses. That might encompass both wants and needs and then save. And so if you are doing the proportional

budgeting method. You don't have to be too much into the weeds on where all of that eight percent goes if you're sticking within that eight percent and putting to savings. Another type is the where you budget of your income towards needs, towards want, towards savings. Obviously you decide the percentages. I think these are examples of how someone might go about this, but that's the overview of the percentage budget. All right, give us your hot take, Jen, I hate

the percentage budget, So it's okay. It's actually not that I hate the concept of using percentages, but I really just do, truly hate how much the budget is promoted, because who are you to tell me the percentage of my income that should go to what I want to spend on. You don't know my income. Income is very important when you're deciding percentages, because sometimes you're in a low income in a high cost of living area, you're

going to spend more than of your income. Then sometimes you're trying to maybe catch up with retirement and you want to save more than or you're trying to pay off debt, then you're not gonna want to put towards once, So it's just it is so subjective, that is very arbitrary. So that's why we love the zero based budget more because you can't decide your core values and decide the expenses that you want to make based on those core

values and and budget there. And once you have done that and you have gotten comfortable with that, then you can calculate your own percentages, and yeah, this can be a more freeing budget. Like that's that's not a bad. Like saving is definitely is where I like to stick to. It's where I recommend people go when they're starting out. So it's it's you have to be aware of your

your values, you're spending. You have to be kind of trained in intentional spending before you can create a percentage budget. So it's not bad. But I just think the like budget model is so arbitrary. It's so outdated, and I don't I don't recommend it for anyone. And maybe you do end up being fifty because your income is right at that sweet spot and your cost of living is at that sweet spot. That's awesome, but it's so our income and expenses are so diverse and varied, Like I

just don't I don't find it practical anymore. I appreciate those caveats, especially saying probably is not the budgeting method to start with. Absolutely got a really good handle on it. I think as I'm even reading this article, seeing the and you don't even need to track your expenses, that does go a little bit against the grain of some of our ethos related to frugal living and intentional spending.

That it's not just about oh who cares. We do want to be spending around our values and not be so disconnected with the decisions that we're making, even if we're making those decisions within an eight percent amount of spending a lotment, and then you know, we pick our percentages. If this is what we move towards once we have a good handle on our incomes, expenses and spending, yeah, I would say I fall into this fourth and final

budgeting method is the pay yourself first budget. So we've gotten really good with our our monthly bills are you know, as low as we can get them. We have of our recurring expenses and so really our only discretionary expenses our food. You know, we're very consistent everywhere else, and so we have our our investments set up to be auto debited and and we are essentially kind of just

float through that. I don't want to say you always want to be improving and becoming more intentional and connected with your spending, but you can get to a point. I mean, we've been hosting this podcast for over four years. So if we've been talking about intentional spending for so long, and we were doing it before we even started, we don't have a problem just paying ourselves first and moving

forward with the freedom to spend how we want. Because we do spend with intention and we are, like Travis and I are aligned in our you know, each other's core values, and so we give each other this freedom to spend on that. And so it is the frugality allows us to do the pay yourself first budget. I'm sorry, I probably forgot to like say what it is. It's essentially just putting your money towards saving and goals first as soon as you get paid, and then you can

spend whatever else you want. And this again is an advanced budgeting method because I used to do this before I was paying off my debt and it never worked as well as I wanted it to. Well, I think the difference is the pay yourself first, meaning pay your future self first. You had the pay my presence self first, No, I would pay I would pay my future self like I would save money, and then I would run out

of money. I would always overestimate the amount I thought I was capable of saving because and I would make the budget and the budget would say I'm capable of saving this amount, so I would save it, and then by the end I was out of money, and I'm like, I wasn't trained in like paying attention to my spending, and so that was where the disconnect was. And so I needed to get on that really really like what's what's the word like detailed really detailed zero based budget

where I had a lot of categories. Basically every transaction was a category so I can see it, you know, Like I had to get really really detailed at first so I could find those patterns so that I can work on those things. And as I worked on them, then I was able to go back to this pay yourself first budget and actually we do have money left over after you know every month, um that we've been

able to save like additionally, so that's excellent. And I can vouch because I'm an actual friend of yours advisors that I see you living very simply and intentionally and finding ways to not spend money where it's not necessary, and having found yourself in a content place where you're just you're not constantly buying or redecorating or filling your home with stuff. Oh yeah, definitely not. And also I

think part of it comes with age two. I, as I get older, UH don't care as much about things that I used to care about, and I feel confident in not caring. So those are those are things you will learn as you budget as well and just from life. So let's talk about how to make a personal budget. Any in this will work with any of these a little. I mean even with the last one, which is literally just a kind of an A D twenty. But we I don't even know what our percentages are at this

point because our income barries every month. So even with a pay yourself VERST budget or an E D twenty, you can still use um this step by step guide from the Balance to make your personal budget, and we'll go through all six. I do want to say I like the introduction in this article where they highlight that a budget does not have to be restrictive to be effective.

And I know that this is often the hesitation and the barrier for people when we have this conversation, Jen, you and I just talked with a younger woman recently who's getting a handle on finances, has more expenses, so wants to know more about what should I be doing to be tracking because not knowing is making me anxious, but yet not feeling like she had the time to really get into whatever she can structed in her mind

as what it means to have a budget. And I think that can be so much of our perspective on budgeting is it's going to be restrictive, or it's going to be a lot of time I'm going to have to put in a lot of work. And I just want to push back against that idea to say, it's not our budgets that are restrictive, it's our income that is restricted. And so if we're concerned about budgeting because we think that it's going to be restrictive, then I would challenge us to say, well, is it possible then

that I'm spending outside my means? Is that really why I'm afraid to get into the nitty gritty of my finances and Usually we rip off that band aid and it is far less scary than we think it's going to be. It's usually the unnamed, unknown, mysterious thing that causes worry and anxiety. When we're actually able to look at it, name it, that is what reduces that anxiety. It takes the legs out from under it. So I think a budget can do that. And again, it doesn't have to look one way. It can be a lot

of different things. We can choose different methods, but it is about knowing and about having a handle on how we are spending and saving and making our money. The suspense is always scarier than the actual picture. I think about horror movies and it's always the suspense. I can't watch horror movies at all. It's the suspense that gets me because once I see like the actual monster or whatever is actually going on, I'm like, well, this is

dumb and why do you make these? But the suspense gets me so hard, like I freak out, And that is what happens with our finances. And the longer it goes on, the more the suspense builds. So it is one of those rip the band aid off things, and it is generally nine times out of ten, never as bad as you think it's going to be. And even if it is an ugly monster. Yeah, you know what the ugly monster looks like now, and you can deal with it. The devil, you know, is better than the

wl you don't. I don't know that that's good. I don't know if that's a good idiom to be like repeating, but it is valid in this case. Yes, So let's go through it. Start us off, Jen, all right, So the first is ripping off that band aid, getting all your financial paperwork out. So that means your bank statements, your investment accounts, utility bills, and it's you know two. So all of these should be digital. We should not be pulling out papers. You should go paper lists if

you're not already. So getting all of these things out, I find it easier to connect it to something like personal capital. You can um connect your your credit cards, your debit cards, your investment accounts, all of that. Honestly, when you're just starting out, don't worry about your investment accounts or retirement or any of that. Let's just look

at your income and let's look at your expenses. Let's start there for first, because when we When we get that, then we'll be able to focus on retirement investing more. So let's focus on our our income and our expenses first, that foundational piece. So pull it all out and really see, like what you have going on? How like, and I would say for transactions, let's go back ninety days. Let's go back ninety days, and I like to copy them

all into a Google sheet. Then you can sort the rows like alphabetically and that will um put the identical transactions together, and then you can categorize them from there. And so go through ninety days and see what you have spent on what over the past ninety days. You kind of combined one and three, which is so so sorry because we're such X person on us. But really I think that all these these steps they don't necessarily have to go in a certain order. At least with

these first few, it's kind of a gathering. So that number one in the Google sheet gather, gather, and it's like steps one through three is basically gathering, and so gathering all of your financial paperwork was one. Number two is calculating your income. I mean, gather, gather up whatever you're in that money money if you're a W two employee and you get a regular paycheck where taxes are automatically deducted. This should be a pretty simple step to

know how much you make every year, every month. Not always a half step, but it should be a simple step. Yeah. Uh, And certainly if you've got other forms of income coming in, whether it's social Security or child support, if you are a subcontractor, like a ten ninety nine worker, then gathering up what you made the this is definitely where that ninety days, I would even say potentially longer than that, maybe the past four months of what you made month to month. I know that can be a really hard

thing when your income is variable. So giving yourself a good buffer of what has it looked like in the past to give yourself a good sense of what will

it look like going forward conservatively. Of course, we love to aim at growth when we're subcontractors or business owners, but let's look back to give that trajectory and be pleasantly pleased if it ends up being more, and then begin to base your budget around a really conservative estimate, whether that i it could be the median, or it could be budgeting based off of your lowest month in the past. Four months, so that you have really a nice buffer for yourself. Yeah. And then third, create a

list of monthly expenses. So this is where we're going to alphabetize the transactions on that Google sheet, combine the ones that are same, and then categorize them out. I would say, no, I mean as detailed as possible when you are starting out with this, or if you feel like you're restarting, as detailed as possible. You cannot have too many categories or or anything like that. It's not easy to maintain that. That's not sustainable. And that's okay,

you're not supposed to sustain that. Just start out with it. You know, maybe next month we have a few fewer categories, maybe because we're intentionally spending and we can eliminate several whole categories. Um, And then month by month we get better and better and this budgeting becomes more and more sustainable. But yeah, so mortgage payments, car payments, insurance, groceries, utilities, entertainment, personal care, and you can we didn't google this, but

view um can google like hundred budgeting categories. I am hunter percent sure if I googled that right now, I would in an article with a hundred budgeting categories, which is too much. It's an article that shouldn't have been written. But I bet you and well she does that. I'm going to talk about where we go after we've gathered, after we've done steps one through three, then we look

at fixed versus variable expenses. When you look at all these categories and what you've spent over the last ninety days, consider what are the fixed expenses meaning mandatory expenses that you need to pay and set expenses like what's not changing? And then your variable expenses as in the things that can change month to month. What is fluctuating within each category? For me, that's typically groceries. I mine is so paired

down at this point. I mean, I do like to be in the weeds with my transactions, but my variable expenses are just groceries and miscellaneous. Of course, there's tons of quote unquote subcategories that you could identify in there, but that's all I have. But figuring out what's fixed what's variable, that will provide a really good launching point to determine where do I have room to make adjustments

in my budget? If I'm identifying I don't actually want to be spending this much or my income can't support this kind of spending, but parsing it out in that way is a good next step after the gathering stage. And I would challenge that there is no such thing as a fixed expense. I think all expenses are variable, So take with that what you will. Even your mortgage. You can refinance, your bills can be lowered, interest rates

can be lowered. So no, if you have in your mind that no expense is fixed, then it can change how you alter and lower expenses in your budgets. So it's just a mindset shift to have no expense is fixed. You can always do something. You can move, you can get a different car, like some of these are not very super feasible, but there is literally always something you

can do to lower or eliminate an expense. I love that pushback, and I think that's why I like how this article also highlights that it's some of those mandatory things like we will have to spend money on food and shelter, but it doesn't mean that it always has to be the same amount we spend. Right, there are some mandatory expenses, but nothing is fixed. And there are no less than seven articles that have one plus budgeting categories, So take your pick. I'm sure they are all identical.

Well done. So the next step, step five, is to total your monthly income and expenses, and this is where they recommend the coming up and singing gross. I again, I think a zero based budget is best, especially if you're starting out and you don't know what your percentages are. These percentages, they are arbitrary, They are not customized, and you are a custom person, So make sure the only thing you need to make sure is that your expenses

are less than or equal to your income. And if we're including savings, we want them to be exactly zero based, but we want those discretionary and mandatory expenses to be less than your income. And you can make your own percentages. And if after you've done step one through five and you're looking at this monster, but it's not such a scary monster anymore, or it's a shining gem of a jewel.

Either way, it's worth now looking at any adjustments that need to be made to any of the expenses, like Jen highlighted, whether it's the mandatory expenses or the variable expenses. Considering now that you're looking at it and the worry and anxiety is taken away and we can see it

all in front of our eyeballs. What needs to shift are their categories where I might be spending far more than I thought I was spending and it doesn't need to be that much because I don't actually value it that much, or wow, my income cannot continue to support this, or I want to be putting more towards savings or retirement or debt payoff. That's when we start to change

and shift how much we're spending. And that's where we implement all of the other frugal tips that you have in all to two hundred seven other episodes in the archives of how to Do That with two hundred less Ways to Save Money, Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash e book, and We've got you, We've got you. Just do it so that that's that you. You look at it, you make decisions, you make changes, you keep going, you shift, you adjust, you find new methods that work for you.

But all along the way, you are growing the skill set and muscle of knowing the money coming in, the money going out, making those intentional values based decisions, and getting more and more confident content. I love that this the six steps to make a budget. Actually are only the first half of this article. The other half is how to use your budget review and tweak your budget and stick to your budget because the secret to success.

I know, you hear these like debt payoff stories and stuff and they're like, what is the secret to your success and like getting on a budge it. And I was like, well, that's only half the story because sticking to the budget is you can make a budget every month, but if you don't stick to it, you're not going anywhere. That making the budget is only half. It's not even half of the story. It's like one tenth of the story. And I will say I think having a budget will

also reveal where we might have an income need. I know, we talk about changing expenses and that's a great step and it's a low hanging fruit, but we also say

make adjustments to your income wherever possible. If you're not able to get at the goals that you want quick enough, or you're not able to afford some of the even mandatory expenses that you have, then this is where we want to look at growing our skill set, knowledge base, advocating for ourselves for higher pay whatever the case is, we don't have to stay stuck either in how much we're making. Yeah, we're not advocates for racing to like having your spending ber race to the bottom to pinch

every penny and spend as little as possible. We we do not advocate for that. We love spending money. We just love more like we love what we're spending on it. We don't spend to fulfill any like emotional needs or as an activity out of boredom or anything like that. We love the things that we are spending money on.

And so that is a huge shift. It becomes so much easier to stick to your budget when you know you love the things you're spending money on, and you have your list of things that you don't love and you are confident enough to not spend money on them. You've created boundaries so that you can say no to family and friends when they ask you to spend money in those places. So it is a budgeting is not

just numbers on paper or in an app. It is a refined ing of your character to be able to say no to self, no to others, and even yes to self and yes to others where it may have been difficult to before. So don't get discouraged if you're trying this and in three months you feel like you're still sucking at it, Because if you can change your personhood in like three months, that's awesome. We would love to interview you on this show because it is. It's

almost impossible. But yeah, so just be encouraged that half of it, more than half of budgeting, is this process of learning how to use it and learning how to execute it. Do you know what else? I love? And it's not hard to execute. If it costs money, I'd love spending money on it. The Villa of the week. That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name

is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. To bills, Buffalo bills, bill claim. This is the bill of the week. Hi, jenn and Jail. This is Lindsay and I paid off debt with my husband and we're from Pittsburgh, p A. We paid off about forty five thousand dollars and it took us two

to two and a half years. We were each making about forty to forty five thousand dollars during that time, and it was all student loans, credit cards, and a car payment. And what made us decided to start paying off debt was that we were I was turning thirty and we just needed to get our lives together. Now that we don't have the debt, we can cash flow vacations and we're putting a lot of money towards our

for a one case. I would tell anyone paying off debt that it's totally worth it, and once you get to the end, you get those results forever. Thanks love the podcast, Lindsay, Ah, this is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. We love hearing your debt payoff successes. And it is a monthly income for some people or is that monthly some people, right, But

for most people it's a yearly income. So it's just so crazy to think that you you took essentially a year out of your life to pay this off in just two and a half years, and we're so proud of you. Lindsay well done. I love how you called out the need to just be an adult and the way that you worded that debt pay off is a forever result. I love that description and how you can enjoy that reality for the rest of your lives and some of the ways that you've highlighted that's been true

for you. Cash flowing vacations, more money towards retirement. It's it is that gift that keeps on giving. So well done celebrating with you, Lindsay from Pittsburgh. Absolutely, if you want to submit your bill of the week, visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill to leave us your bill or your debt payoff celebration And now it's time for lightning round. It's like a game show. So today we are sharing what budgeting method did you start with

and what are you using? Now? I forget what game show that's from, but I really or maybe it's not. Maybe it's from a sitcom. I don't know, if you know, if you could discern that, let us know. So I started with, obviously, the zero based budget um I have in my work as a personal finance writer. I have tried minus the last year two every budgeting app that has come onto the market. I have written story after

story about them, review after review. I've just downloaded so many budgeting apps and I have not found one that I love. If I'm being completely honest, I really i've been using When I do do a budget, a regular budget, I'll just use a Google spreadsheet. But I've always been on the search for a budgeting app that I could love. But I have to come to the conclusion that maybe it's not for me. Maybe that's why I don't like. And we get asked all the time, what's your favorite

budgeting app? We can never answer them because we basically basically we don't use apps, and so I've I've given up for the past maybe a year or so. So there. I'm sure there are a lot of new budgeting apps that are on the market that I have not tried, but they all when I see the press releases for them, they all sound pretty much the same. So yeah, I mean that's um. I started with zero based budgeting on an app and now I just wing it. Here you go,

Jen Smith, she wings just wings it. Uh. But I mean, yeah, we are out of place. If we were out of place where we were not saving every month, and so this also comes down to the fact that we do not have any financial goals that we are trying to reach fast. So that's a big difference we've reached our fast financial goals. We paid off our debt, we saved our emergency fund, we built up two hundred thousand in our eat like a hundred k each in our retirement accounts.

So we hit these milestones and we got to the place where we're like, okay, we can coast now at this savings rate and be okay. And so we got there. We decided this is our enough, this is when we'll hit it. And when we hit it, we started to take an interest in different things. So we we moved on and moved up. We started refining other parts of our lives because we had refined the financial part, and

so that's where we currently are. Then you just have such a good handle and sense on how much do you make that's that's not elusive to you, and that you know for sure you're not spending that amount because you're hardly spending, so you don't have and what you do spend on you know that you're spending intentionally and within your values, so it doesn't you don't have to be in the weeds if you don't want to be

any stage. And when we say like hardly spending, like I'm sitting here next to a latte that I purchase. You know, like I spend money, It's just that I don't spend it on things that I don't value. Like I make sure I really value everything I spend money on. And spoiler alert, if you value everything, you don't actually value anything. So there are very few things that I value, and I spend without hesitation in those things. I spend on them whenever I want, however I want. Wow, you're

sounding like a fancy friend. Now it's my eleanor coming out. So for me, I, um, I started from the bottom and I'm still here. That's not totally true. I just wanted to say that, So I'm just meaning that my technique really hasn't shifted that much, but my skill in implementation definitely has. So I will say, as I mentioned earlier in this episode, I did begin using the cash envelope technique. Not it's not like you said it's on a budgeting method. It is a technique to help get

me connected to the transactions that I'm making. And it did help, and I was writing everything down as it happened and experiencing cash leaving me. But now I don't need that technique to keep me on track anymore. I would say my budgeting method most aligns with the first method that we talked about in that first article, or where we look at estimated expenses and actual expenses, what you actually are estimated spending actual spending. That is a

lot like how my spreadsheet looks. It's very paired down. There's only four or five categories. I do it based on payment, so we now get paid bi weekly. So that's how I budget based on my bi weekly spending, my bi weekly earnings, and I like to I like to be in the weeds. I know that that's not for everybody, but I like to look at every expense,

that expenditure that we make, every trans action. I will say I found a lot not a lot, but a good amount of errors over the over the years of oh, this should have been returned to us and it wasn't, so I make that phone call, or we were charged in error for something, or we might have been compromised. So there's been a decent amount of times where keeping my pulse on it that strongly has helped me to know that I didn't actually spend that. I have a

really good example of that. We'll talk about that in the aftershow something just recently happened the aftershow. Oh so anyhow, I I like it. It has worked for me all along. It's almost a cathartic experience for me bi weekly where I sit with a glass of wine or a cup of tea and and I go through it and it really helps us to stay on top of things and continue to make those mindful, intentional decisions with where do we need money to go next in the next two weeks.

I do feel lead and this is mainly because a company sent me a budget binder that maybe I should try do an experiment with doing traditional paper budgeting, giving it a try. They sent me this very cute budgeting minor and if I like it, I'll tell you who it is because it's cute. So I feel like because I was sent that for free, m in the weeds. Cute, Yes, and I would like to hold it and hold it. I would like to carry it around in my purse and I guess, hold it, yeah, be seen with it

with it? So yeah, and if you want more so, we actually have an entire beyond the basics budgeting like lesson in UM Personal Finance Simplified, which is our course in the Financial Freedom Mentorship. So we talk a lot about executing the budget. I mean that's a bad term, but like doing the budget, but implementing the budget. So that's definitely UM. There's way more we could go into, but these are the basics. So thank you so much for listening. I hope that you got something out of it.

And we're going to switch it up today instead of reading one of your kind reviews about us, we actually wanted to celebrate one of our Financial Freedom Mentorship member wins. So we didn't listen to our Bill of the week until we listened to it just now and it just happened to be a debt payoff story. But we want to celebrate another debt payoff story from Christie in our mentorship, who paid off her credit card debt, and so this

was what she posted in the group. She said, I joined this group to hold myself accountable and to learn. I absolutely love the podcast. When I joined two months ago, I stopped using my credit cards, I quit smoking, I stopped Starbucks runs, etcetera. She said, I have smoked on and off for years. I joined with having nine thousand in credit card debt. The only other debt we have is our house. I don't consider that a debt because when we still will make a profit. My hard working

hubby came home and stead he got a bonus. I had no idea, and I have paid off the credit card. I'm still watching my spending behaviors because I do tend to overspend to fill that void board, lonely, depressed, etcetera. I enjoy reading other comments and info. We can do hard things, yes, Christie. I love that wrap up. We can do hard things and then experience the benefits and celebrations of it. What an amazing, beautiful gift to learn of an increase of income for your household and not

have debt. Absolutely, so much more freedom with what you can do with that money. Congratulations, Christie. We're celebrating your win with you. Yes, So thank you all for listening. If you want to check out the Financial Freedom Mentorship, you can do that at Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash f f M. See what's going on in there, see you next week. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirian. So all right, went out to a restaurant with some friends.

We got the tab because it's easier that way, and Venmo exists and I do use a credit card now to get them points. Maybe I never carry a balance, so that works for me now that I don't do the cash envelope system. Well, the restaurant had the point of ale like a mobile point of sale, like it was like chilies or something. Well it wasn't chilies. It was a nice, fancy leg Okay, so they brought it over and it was more just like a credit card point of sale, so you couldn't see the print out,

but it did give a total. But the waitress is standing right there, so I'm not seeing the whole print out of all of the expenses, and I'm kind of still in the middle of conversation, so I just give her my credit card. Thankfully, I did get a receipt. I don't always do that because I'm like, I'll see the transaction on the statement. But I did ask for one because I'm like, that seemed a little high for

being here for happy hour for four people. So it was in my review, my bi weekly review of our budget to to realize, yeah, that was a lot of money. I need to go back and look at that, reviewed the receipt and found like eight additional charges in error and because I'm so aware of our spending and our ordering and how like. Even it was a week a week or two later, and I still remembered we did

not get all those cheeses or that wine. So I called up the place, and thankfully, again because I happened to have the receipt, I was able to list out exactly what was listed on the receipt that we didn't get. Thankfully, I didn't have to advocate for myself too hard. I was like ready for a fight, like I know we didn't get these things, but he was able to see on their end when I called the restaurant that, however,

their system is set up. When we ordered a second one of our cheeses, it was similar to what the table next to us ordered, so somehow there was a computer error where then all of their entire table order got put onto our check. So it was like an additional sixty dollars, and they refunded me right away, although they didn't refund me on the tip, but I wasn't going to push back on that because we did tip

on like way more than what we actually thought. However, I could have walked away having spent an additional sixty dollars and not needing to. If I wasn't paying as close of attention, dang, yeah, well I probably won't be frequenting this fancy restaurant, I know. And it does make me wonder did the table next to us have to pay too or did they realize once we left, like, oh, your tap just ended up getting paid for. It's so bizarre. So be careful with those wandering point of sales systems

at the restaurant. I guess maybe that's the takeaway. And even though it feels like this kind of on the fly transaction, pay attention to what you're buying. Pay attention

to what you're buying. I probably would have looked at it and been like, oh oh no, oh no, and then I would have been like, I don't know what's on here, but I'm saying it was just like, you know, in the middle of conversation and she's there and here you go and search your card, and so it was like in passing, Yeah, oh wow, that seems like a

high number. Yeah. I don't go out to fancy restaurants often, and I am hyper aware of checking before I pay because I worked at restaurants and so I know Mistakes get made, Yeah, but that has never happened in my Anybody getting somebody's just transfer, somebody's table just transfers over to yours. That's bizarre, happy accident for them, or the restaurant, or that woman who got a massive ship. She was great though, so I didn't I don't want to speak

poorly of this waitress. She was awesome, and I think it was a genuine mistake. We got our money back, but pay attention.