Stop Strict Budgeting & Start Living In The Radical Middle

you you're hearing it right. We're doing two episodes a week now because we're that good of friends and really we just want to hang out more and we're like, we might as well just record while we're doing that, right, We might as well. So, yeah, we're excited to share with you some of our hot takes on budgeting and how we reject strict budgeting and strict methods and extreme methods to live in the radical middle. You know, we

love that term. We've used it very often in a variety of ways, just the radical middle, not the extremes, which you know, speaking of, let's get into our sponsor, the pendulum. It has a wide range of motion, and while it can swing very far into opposite directions, the pendulum has reserved this ad spot on today's episode to inform us that it prefers to swing only slightly and

very near to the middle. It's tired of all the energy it takes to be at either extreme of the spectrum of motion, and it dislikes how far apart and opposed to itself it can become when it primarily hangs out in the extremes, the pendulum in all its fields, and Meta wanting to inform us that the radical middle is where it's at. Absolutely pendulum, thank you. It is exhausting, and I too prefer to swing only slightly, so I get it very near to the middle, right, very near

to the middle. But it is. We call it the radical middle because it is like radical. Nobody wants, nobody likes to be there for some reason. I mean, it's very it's very fun here, it's very easy, requires very little energy. But for some reason, it seems it looks like it's easier to pick a side and stick to it. Like in life and in personal finance. It's not always easy because the vortex of the extremes can want to pull. But yeah, let's be radical and let's hold the tension

of both extremes in the middle. Absolutely So we're talking a little bit about we're talking all about budgeting today. So if budgeting hasn't seemed to work for you in the past, this is a great one for you. And we also have a few others that you can queue up. Episode two oh eight, which we did very recently, is all about budgeting basics, how to budget without deprivation. That's a super popular episode for us. And then episode one seventy seven we talked about what is values based budgeting

and how do you practice it? So those are those are three favorite episodes on budgeting that we've done two oh eight, one eight six, and one seventies seven. We Jill and I have differing budgeting methods and we're still friends. Yeah, right, isn't it? Isn't it crazy how you can have such different budgeting methods and still be friends today's day and age. Uh so this is gonna be We always bring like a very balanced approach to how we talk about it,

which I love. So let's get into this first article, which is titled It's from CNBC and it's here's why budgets don't work for people. What did you think of this one? Jill? I would describe this article as basically normalizing why budgets can be really difficult, or why we feel as though at times we keep breaking the budget budgets don't work for me, or I'm averse to budgets, I don't want to budget. It's not a whole lot of tips. It's just a bit more of explanation, normalization, empathy,

which I really appreciate. I don't think we get much of that around this conversation about budgeting and getting our finances in order. It's usually a lot of just do it, you gotta do it, stop avoiding it, and and I'm guilty of that. You'll hear that sometimes out of my voice, just the Nike motto. But this is I think really

helpful for some of us. And I think many of us can find ourselves seen by this article of ah, yeah, okay, that's why, and you're not alone in the why budgets can feel really like something you don't even want to talk about or look at or do, or those of us who do engage in budgeting, why sometimes we can feel as though we keep messing up with them. Spoiler alert, no one's budget is perfect, even if they've done it for years and years and years, so that's my take

on this article. So that's why I think it's worth going through it. Yeah, so yeah, I also love the normalizing of it because when I I talked to personal finance quote unquote experts all the time, and and they don't all budget the same, if at all. Uh So it's not a universal truth that somebody else's budget has to look like your budget, if at all. So, but we will say, and Jill and I both agree that if you are getting started, budgeting is like a non negotiable.

You've got to do it. You've got to figure out where your money is going. You've got to you've got to mess up. You've got to learn growth comes through challenge and struggle, and you've got to you've got to struggle through those budgets to figure out what needs work and how to work on it. But we want to normalize a budget that's less strict and more doable so that you can work on little challenges every month, versus feeling like you've failed at budgeting. There's too many challenges

to work on and you just give up. So that is the budget we want to avoid, and we want to move into budgets that present challenges and struggles that are more tackle able. So one of the things that the article cites about what can make budgets or even just that word challenging or post barriers is that we can often approach budgets in similar ways to how we as humans can approach dieting. Some of the mindset perspective around a diet can be similar to the mindset perspective

around budgeting. And I love this quote that they give within the article from an author Melissa Brown, who wrote a book about budgeting, who said, it's not about dieting, but rather eating well. And I also don't believe it's about budgeting, but rather spending and investing well. And what

a shift. It's not a circumstantial shift, but it's an approach shift that I think is so so helpful that we want to be presenting to our listeners and to ourselves as well, Like stop with the strict stuff because it only lasts for so long, or even let's say you can stick to a strict diet to keep going

with that illustration. Usually that's only to attain a certain goal, and then once that's done, then the diet goes out the window and you maybe fall back into old practices, but more a sustainable lifestyle that is aiming at well being and not just strict things. Another barrier that they also talk about is some of the perspective around it. So both with the dieting and budgeting, but I'll begin

to shift solely just towards budgeting. Is the way that we can talk about it, of almost as if whether or not we can stick to a budget bears impact on our character or even morality or our self discipline, and if we can't do the thing, then we're not disciplined. We're not a person of character. We don't have a grit that it takes in that when we begin to attach it our identity and what we're capable of and whether or not we're a good human being. Holy smokes,

of course we might want to avoid this. If we're attaching language that is self deprecating and not helpful, not beneficial, then my goodness, there are deeper reasons that budgets might not work for people or that we might avoid them, And so I really appreciate the ways in which they pointed some of these things out to help us understand why we might be averse to this concept or why engaging and it doesn't always seem to go the best

way that we'd wanted to go. Yeah, what you said is super profound, and it is so common looking like not being able to stick to a budget that is quote unquote perfect, is quote unquote what you should be spending can and doing that over and over can lead to feelings of why am I not capable of doing what the math says I'm able to do? I must be incompetent. So and that's really when I started out

what I felt so much about budgeting. I would make a perfect budget that said I should be able to save and pay off debt and all of this stuff, and it was unrealistic because it cut out pretty much only the things I enjoyed and left only spending on things I didn't care about, and it didn't like the

and I was unable to keep it. Like but I didn't know that I wasn't budgeting, and like I was budgeting the way somebody was telling me I was supposed to budget, but I wasn't budgeting in a way that was right for me, and that made me feel like I was a failure or incompetent. And over the years now I've learned and I hope it doesn't take you years listening to this to learn that it's it's not you, it's probably need the budget, And I'm just saying maybe

also an income issue. And I love that this article pointed that out because they think there can also in the personal finance world be a pull yourself up by the boot straps. Doesn't matter your situation, you can do this. And while I appreciate looking at what's within my control, right there are some more macro level things that we can aim at changing, but also at the end of the day, the only thing we have to control is

what's within our smaller sphere. So so yeah, there's there's a tension with that, but I do appreciate that they pointed out sometimes the issue with the budget is the circumstance that we find ourselves in that there truly isn't enough money or the type of work that we're engaged in isn't going to provide us with the stability and the sustainability to be able to do the thing that all of these people are talking about being able to do, and they talk about it's It's definitely an article worth

looking into, and we cite it in our show notes, but they talk about how full time employed people who have benefits and vacation are much better, more easily able to budget do the thing because they've got the thing, versus maybe the hourly worker or the ten worker who has some more income volatility, is going to face more challenges in this budgeting process because what is brought in

monthly is so variable. So also recognize your context and so just I mean, of course the message overarching is going to be be kind to yourself, but please don't beat yourself up, especially if you've got month to month income variability and potential volatility. There of course it's going to be more difficult blement. And we're not static creature.

So even if we have a sustainable we know what we're going to bring in monthly, our monthly expenses shift, and that's another thing that they cite as why budgeting can be difficult. We're not We're not static. We are dynamic. What we spend monthly on groceries shifts, whether or not we've got medical bills on any given month, if you know the car insurance happens to be due that month. We we've got these expenses that change month to month and Therefore what we put into savings needs to change

month to month. And I think that's one of the biggest takeaways I have from this article is approaching our finances and dare I say some version of a budget with that in mind of what's changing here, what's dynamic,

what's realistic for me? Not just that I want to put in Okay, this is just what I spend monthly, but month to month, recognizing that we need to change and shift because our circumstances are changing and shifting and being kind to ourselves that it's okay if not, I'm not able to put as much to savings this month as I did last month if my circumstances are different this month than they were last month. Yeah, And change is not failure. Change is life. Like things change month

to month, season to season. So if this season is a heavier or busier season, then your plans for reaching your goal have to adjust. But you also have to want to realize when that season shifts. So when you move out of a busy season to revamp and and kind of I think people would say kind of quote unquote get back on the wagon, but like it's it's really just shift making a shift, And I love that the article does mention income because we, as frugal people, will focus a lot on what can I cut? What

can I cut? But we are like, it's less what can I cut and more how can I be a good steward of my money, time and resources. And being a good steward of your time means you're making the most of the forty hours a week you spend it work.

So we're always looking to optimize and increase our income in the ways that serve our financial goals, you know, not going after the eighty hour a week half million dollar, you know, the thing that sucks up our life, but increasing our income as it helps us reach our goals. And sometimes the article points out budgeting can encourage a restrictive mindset about money, and that's what it is. When you hear somebody say like, sorry, I can't do that,

I'm on a budget. That makes you think that a budget equals restriction, when a budget is really just a plan for getting you closer to freedom, and not freedom down the road. Freedom now, freedom in this present month, freedom in the next month. Because we all know if we had a bad spending month, you know last month, we feel more anxious this month, and so the budget when you're doing it in accordance to you, putting what you value in their putting um efforts to increase your income,

cutting the things that don't matter to you. When your budget has all of these elements, then it's a budget you want to stick to. And saying no to something isn't oh, sorry, no, I'm on a budget. It's sorry, no, I don't actually want to do that because doing this helps me get to my dream life faster. Like the

boundaries aren't because of the budget. The boundaries then come from you, and if it's something you do want to do that is in alignment with your values, then you don't have to say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm on a budget. I can't do that. You can say, oh, actually I value this, and I've already eliminated this because I don't value it, so I can do this without guilt. I love that. Again, that's a way that we approach it, how we talk about it inside our own minds, and

then how we talk about it with other people. It's definitely a shift I'm trying to make more and more, especially as we host a lot of people, and it seems really fun to go out to eat, but yet I don't. I don't want it to feel restrictive. I want to have fun with people. But I've started to say I've got a really fun plan for dinner at home this night, and so it's not a no, sorry, I'm really trying to cut back, right. We hate that term cut. I don't want to cut stuff. I don't

like to be cut. But it's it's not cutting if it's I've got something really fun at home and we can cook together and have a really nice night in. That sounds so fun and and it's creative. And yeah, so those are some of the shifts and approach that I'm I'm not I'm not like expert at That's just something I'm trying and it is working for me because I need to be tricked when you can reframe it in your mind and and not be disappointed. Oh I

can't go out. I don't have enough money. It's how can I get creative and have more fun not spending money? Like challenge yourself to have more fun than going out to eat, or more efficiency than getting take out, like turn it into a game. That's why we do like monthly challenges in our membership to try and gamify this

process of reaching financial goals. So it is when you can change it in your mind, it becomes less like associated with restriction and more associated with creativity, which in our recent episode with Miranda from Live Free Creative, that's what we talk about. I can't remember the number, but it's all about opting for a mindset of creativity versus deprivation. And the second article comes from The Housewife Modern. I

think it's I think it's said that way. They talk about anti budget, the easiest budget ever on the budget for people who hate budgets. There's they're still amusing a lot of the word budget to not have a budget. But I knew you'd like to give us your hot take on this. So this is actually one that I know a lot of my colleagues, I guess you would call them. This is how we we practice and with

the caveat. Like I said before, these colleagues, if we were all in personal finance, we've all been studying and doing this four years. It definitely took me, I would say three or four years of budgeting. Two of those years were very strict paying off debt, and then the years three and four were kind of I was more the fire movement, and I was just like really radically saving until I kind of figured out a way to

live my dream life now versus in the future. And so it is not a budget that I recommend to people knew, but it's definitely one that once you are confident, once you've achieved some of your bigger goals like paying off consumer debt and getting your retirement savings to a to a place where compound interest is really going to start working in your favor, you can let off the gas and kind of just do this anti budget. And

what it is, it's a three step budget. You choose a savings rate and then you pull the savings directly from the top of your paycheck and you put it aside and you live what is on what is left over, and that's it. Boom. Once, yeah, once you know, when you are so in tune with your expenses and your discretionary like spending, this becomes And once you have a steady income as well, I will say, like our income is higher than it was when we started out. So

those are kind of the components. But once you do that, you don't have to track every single transaction. I look, I go in once a month, I look at our spending to make sure that there is no fraud, and I just look to make sure that we everything seems normal and nothing is out of place. And that's that's what I do. And we pretty much we live on Travis, my husband's income, and we save my income, and that's

how we do. We don't even have an actual savings rate. Uh, we just live on his income and we actually probably we live on less than his income really because we we save more after and it was through years of doing that. When I so I was laid off in twenty nineteen, we stopped maxing out my four oh one K then because I was like, I was eight weeks away from giving birth. So since twenty nineteen we've been doing this, and it's how we were able to save two buy our new house, and turn our old house

into an investment property. So this allowed us to do that. So yeah, I mean yeah. So the article gives a little bit more detail with each of those three steps of the choosing a savings right, they recommend and aim at between ten to. Of course, you can start smaller, so if that seems unreasonable or not attainable, right, now begin with just one percent. What is one percent of your take home pay? And how can you begin setting

that aside? And then increase that to two percent, three percent until you get up to a comfortable range, hopefully within that ten to twenty percent. Of course, they highlight that if you are an older adult who is hoping to retire sooner and you don't have a lot of savings, then you're gonna want to aim at more than twenty percent so that you can have some level of comfort

and cushion and retirement. But if you're in your twenties, thirties, forties, you know ten to twenty percent would would be a good aim. Yeah, And so this follows in with kind of whatever your financial goal is. So we say, have one financial goal that you are working on at any time. And this doesn't include investing, because you should be investing, even if it's a tiny bit for your entire life. But if your goal is to save an emergency fund,

work on that and that alone. If it's to pay off your high interest at work on one debt and one debt alone, and just kind of tackle one thing at a time, and and this is what that would go to at at any given moment. So for us, it looks like we are just maxing out to rath eyrays. That's all we're doing right now, because we just bought this house that needs a lot of renovations and we want to cash flow those we don't we're not taking out any debt for the renovations, and and so that's

what that looks like for us. And that's that second step of pulling the savings directly from the top of the paychecks. So it's not a matter of, oh, we'll see if it's left over, but pulling it from the top, setting it aside, and allocating it to one of those things that Jen just mentioned. Either that includes paying off debt. They're talking about the savings, but it could go towards the debt payoff from their building up an emergency fund

and from their increasing the retirement savings. But as we've are already talked about that savings for retirement can be on the back burner throughout all of those things. It's just an increase of saving for retirement once you've got the emergency fund and the debt paid off, and then that moves into step three, which is living on what's left over. But of course there's so much wiggle room

and ways of making this work for us. Within that final step, I think you're definitely going to have some people who have that more written out and a solid handle on what that is, and you've got others who are really comfortable knowing I'm not going to go into debt to live on what's left over, get the things extra that I want. I kind of know what my bills are, and I'm able to live on the rest that is beyond after I've saved or put that money

towards debt payoff. Yeah, if you are new to this and you are not confident in what your core vause are, you're not confident in or haven't made like a lifestyle design like future plan. If you're not confident in all these things, then tracking intensely the more the less confident you are, the more intensely you should track, and that will help you get confident in what are my core values? What can I say no to? What can I say

yes to without guilt? Um? Is this getting me closer to the lifestyle I want to lead in the future. So this helps you get there if you're not already there. If you're there, and you've got the years of self discipline and kind of training. I do feel like budgeting could be a nerd Olympic sport almost. But once you've trained trained yourself enough, then yeah, Like I'm very I'm

very much a free wheeler. Honestly. As much as I like to plan things like for frugal friends, you would think I'd also love to plan things in the budget. But for some reason there is a disconnect there. I would much rather work on frugal friends then I would on my personal budget. And I get that. So like, if that's you, I see you. You still got to do it. I still make myself do it once a month, but you do, you should do it more frequently. At

the beginning. There is no reality where we can have zero pulse on the money we're making and how we're spending. There's no article, even an anti budgeting article, where that's gonna affirm or support that. But to say there is space for all types of people. If you love to track every single sent, have at it. If you don't, that doesn't mean that this world is in no way for you. Just having a sense of what am I making, what am I spending? Is that aligned with my values.

And once you've got a general sense for that and you've got it under control and you're you're not impulse spending in massive quantities, then you can kind of go on auto pilot. You can get to the point that Jen's talking about, where yes, she's not sitting down with

pen and paper every single week. But again, I guarantee you Jen that you know in general what your expenses are, how much you're paying on your mortgage, and how much daycare is, and kind of the general sense of what you can spend when you're at the grocery store, and how many times each month you can be going out

to restaurants. Like, we can get to a point where we know this and we can live within our means in that way, and I still have to do a monthly check in, because habits can come hab It's come from not paying attention. If you're not intentionally building habits, habits are being built unintentionally. And so when I see something and it's usually in take out, um, then I can see that habit kind of like building and building.

And if I don't do a check even after years of hosting a frugality podcasts, it can happen It happens to everyone. You're building habits, whether you're being intentional about it or not. The goal is just to be intentional about it. And once you've built a habit, to be

intentional about maintaining it. Um So there is no world in which you can even if you are making multiple six figures, there is no world in which you can opt out of checking your finances because even like that's how really rich, I mean like mega stars I don't know what do you call the and music and actors stars. Uh, that's how they're they get like scammed is they hire somebody to manage their money and they don't look at it and somebody is taking like way too much off

the top to charge them for managing their money. It happens so often. So there's no world and no amount of money in which you are absolved from this forever. Do you know what we are intentional about? And I don't want to be absolved from m I I love this And this is the least restrictive thing I do every week. 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 paid off your mortgages.

Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clint, this is the bills of the week. Hi, Den and Jel, this is theas from Oklahoma. I started listening to your podcast a few weeks ago, and I just really kind of fell in love with it. I've been listening to different episodes of My Ways Home from work and I wanted to share what I felt always was my billow

of the week. So I was stressing because I had a car repair that I had to make, and I found myself in a bit of a pinch financially, and I remember that I could possibly call, you know, some of the companies that I, you know, owe money to, like my car loan and things like that that I was worried about paying. So I called one of them, and it turns out that they actually have a toenay grace period from the do date as your payment, and

it took a huge weight off with my shoulders. And so basically I just wanted to remind people, you know, it's likes be afraid to call your loan companies and that type of thing, because you never know what might happen, and it might really help you get back on track with whatever you know has happened in your life. So anyways, just wanted to share thank you. That's amazing. Yes, don't be afraid to call these loan companies and just see what you do because it can have an impact on

your credit score and your credit report. But if you at least call and you have a record of the call um, then that is something you can do to fight that and bring your credit score back up. So yeah, definitely, I'm so glad to hear about how this grace period helped you in a particularly stressful time financially and just getting over that barrier of making the call. I think

that goes for negotiation as well. Sometimes we can just get this stress anxiety over making a phone call, but glad that you did it and experienced freedom as a result. It's great. Yeah, that's definitely me. I feel I internalize and I say, oh, it's my fault. I don't deserve to have a grace period or I don't deserve to

pay less because it's my fault, my mistakes. But like reject that and just say you don't get what you don't ask for and maybe you don't get it, but you definitely don't get it if you don't ask for it. So just see what's available. Make the call. If you all listening want to submit your bill. If it has to do with making a scary phone call or asking for something or just having something given to you, visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill, leave us your bill.

Now it's time for rounding round. So how do you make budgeting sustainable for you? That is our question today. I will go first, so I again I will check my I'll check personal capital because it has all of my accounts in one place. Since we do travel hack, we have several credit cards, checking accounts, stuff like that, so I will check that just to like make sure there's no fraud, because that's super common. If if anything, you need to be managing your money to make sure

nobody has uh. There's there's not any things that you're not sure about on your transactions. But I think just the fact that we have always lived on one income makes it super like super easy. That's just how we do it. We save my income and we spend travises, and I think that's and we and we spend less than his income. So it's yeah, but something else that's

made that sustainable as increasing our income. So going like Travis went to a different job to get a higher pay increase, and then he came back to the job he left for more money, Like he would have never got that jump and pay if he hadn't left the company I have, I, you know, stopped doing things in my business that I thought I had to do and just kind of simplified to do the things that we're making me the most money. So just being strategic about

increasing our income has made budgeting much more sustainable. Absolutely, Yeah. I love that. For married couples finding ways to live and dual income, I suppose um ways to live off of just one salary, I think that can be excellent, not totally attainable for every person, but a really decent aim For myself, I would say a rhythm helps make budgeting sustainable for me. And I think in a lot of aspects of life, wherever I can find a rhythm, um that can be related to habits and rituals, things

that I enjoy engaging. And so for me, the rhythm is every other week and it goes in step with how we are paid. Both Eric and I are paid bi weekly, and thankfully our jobs happen to pay us on the same day bi weekly, so that makes it really nice for us that that it happens to align

in that way. So my rhythm falls in step with that, where I'm able to sit down and look at what was brought in in those past two weeks, what was spent in those past two weeks, and keeping that pulse on it helps me to stay within the boundary lines that I have set for myself to spend within the values. If I see something that needs to shift, I can make that quick pivot because I'm keeping a pulse on it quite regularly, and and I enjoy it. For me, it does kind of feel like this treat or or

to look at finances every other week. That's not that's not everybody, and that's okay if that's not you. But I enjoy it. I usually am sitting down on the couch. It's relaxing, I've got a beverage of choice, and it's an enjoyable time for me. I feel like it can lead to some nice reflection, it leads to some short term and long term goal setting, and it's just a rhythm that I've practiced and so it's just a part

of my routine at this point. Yeah, And I think just to bring it all home, like to reject strict budgeting, I think you have to know what you love, what you don't love, and how to spend less on necessities that you don't necessarily love. And so we've been really like we've been really like developing this kind of like step by step kind of mantra that we can use to find that radical middle. And we actually just called it the Radical Middle method because we're lazy and it's

great because it's an awesome yeah. Yeah, And so that's kind of like what we focus on in our our membership, but like taking you through the three steps to kind of once you do these three steps, then you can start to create a budget that is that rejects extremes, even if those extremes are sent in place by you, because I know a lot of the times it was

me telling me that I had to be perfect. But it helps you reject those restrictions you put on yourself and create a holistic budget that is practical now that lets you live life now but also prepares you for the future and to live bigger in the future, so there's components to each, but basically, like the three steps are you want to like design your dream life essentially, so knowing your core values, having like a growth mindset,

stuff like that. And then you create a financial plan around that, so financial goals like ten years out, five years out, one year, and then kind of figure out how you want to pay off debt, save invest stuff like that. And then then you focus on like the everyday stuff like saving smarter and not harder, so the

things that are most efficient, controlling your spending. Doing all these things, but having those first foundations allows you to make a budget in the third step that is not restrictive, that is not strict because you already know, like I wanted be a digital nomad in five years, and this is how much I need to make per month. I don't need to make ten thousand, maybe I only need to make seven or you know what, you have the plans,

so you're not doing any of the extremes anymore. You're just going with your plan, and your plan leaves room for you, you know, to throw a curveball and to change your mind. But throughout it makes budgeting enjoyable. It makes it a plan, it makes it a tool, It doesn't make it a restrictive set of rigid rules. So yeah, that's kind of what we when when we sat down and tried to think, Okay, how can we like make budgeting not restrictive and help people like get out of

the extremes. This is kind of what we came up with. And so you can live in the radical middle because what works for me doesn't work for Jill, and what works for us may not work for you. So if you can find your own place, it can work for you. Budgeting can work for you. Knowing that there's permission for that is hopefully the takeaway here that yes, be intentional steward your resource as well, but there's an one right way. There's not a one size fits all. We we can

find ourselves somewhere on that spectrum and still be doing well. Yeah. So, speaking of the radical middle method, you'll find that in our Frugal Friends Club, which is our monthly challenge club, and we every week share a win from one of our members. And so this week's win is from Valerie and she actually hers was very long. They tend to be long, So I'm just going to pick out a few of them from her post, and she'll even started. I'll spare everyone in the long winded backstory and each

of these items. But today I did these things. I paid off my phone, which had over six left on zero percent financing, paid off my car only had one K left after this month's payment, and just paid it off, and paid off the last four thousand of a loan that I took out in twenty twenty for an elective surgery. I am so excited about all of this, have a really good feeling that I'm actually going to stand track

this time, especially with the support of this community. I also have to remind myself that life is likely to show up along the way. I even have a dentist appointment. I'm super nervous about this week that could end up leading to a not small bill, but I'm not going to let that stop me, even if we have to

occasionally throw slightly less at debt than I want. Amazing Valerie, she really knocked it out of the park with these three things right in a row, and I think those winds and celebrations are what can help to sustain for when the next curveball might get thrown. But so much progress made here to help in moving forward with life and whatever happened with that dentist appointment. So congrats Valerie.

That's so amazing. Yes, I love reading about the mindset shifts because that will last long after uh and anybody leaves the membership and moves on like these these mindset shifts will last and compound. So congrats Valerie, and thank you for listening. If you want to check out our monthly challenge, community had to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash club to see which challenge we have coming up next. See you next week. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirian.

What have you been finding in your budget? Finding in it? Yeah? What's uh? What's what was your last budget meeting? Like? Oh, we were able. Eric and I talked about our budget big picture when we were on our tenure anniversary trip, which was really cool and I actually had some takeaways. It always surprises me. I think I've been doing this for so long, what more can shift? But I actually made a whole new spreadsheet. I got real into the weeds with actually Excel. Before it was kind of like

a Google sheet that had a table in it. And now I've moved over into a sheet where I've got some formulas plugged in to help me better track. But my takeaway was partitioning out some of my categories a bit more for intentionality. I really liked the simplified way that I tracked expenses, and that did work for a time.

But now with some simultaneous multiple goals that I have but an ability to put some of them on autopilot, I wanted to kind of parse out some sinking funds that were aligned with some of our values to really just get a little bit better of a grasp on our finances in this particular season because we're doing renovations and we also have goals for travel and host ing and all of that. So this season is requiring a little bit more of a eyes on where the dollars

are going. Even though I've had years of experiences with budgeting, I'm noticing what right now life is requiring. So that's a recent shift I made. What about you, Jen, So we are going to have to start making a renovation budget. I think that is one budget we are going to have to make because right now we are renovating a part of our house to be a rental and that

takes priority. We have money saved for that already, but I think making we just need to know what we're going to spend because Travis has a hard time spending money, and so we need to just plan and put on paper that we are allowed to spend this much every month for the renovations, so that he feels the free

dum to spend that money. So that is because I would just like buy everything right now, but I'm not the only one that lives here, so I think it can help, yeah, for not to feel just like loosey goosey, we don't have any control over what's happening right now, but rather a intentionality that this is okay because this is allotted for this particular project. Yeah, I think, and I think that will make Travis feel better. That's the goal. It's the end goal. Make your spouse feel better.