Budgeting is boring, right, It's all spreadsheets, hardmaths, and one hundred reasons you shouldn't go out for brunch anymore. But for She's on the Money founder Victoria Divine, budgets are anything but boring. Victoria's She's on the Money podcast gets over one million downloads every month and she's built a Facebook community of over one hundred and seventy thousand members. So why do we need to let go of the
idea of using budgets purely as a restriction tool? And why does Victoria treat her budgets as an extension of her personality? And why do we need to rely less on technology when it comes to budgeting. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium. And this is how I work, a show about how how to help you do your best work. On today is my Favorite Tip episode, where you go back to an interview from the past and
I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. In today's show, I speak with Victoria Divine and I wanted to know when it comes to budgeting, what are some of Victoria's favorite apps that she recommends to her clients.
Oh my gosh, there are so many of them. When it comes to budgeting, though, before I tell you what my favorite apps are, I think understanding what a budget is is really important because there seems to be this idea that a budget is all about restricting what you are spending. It's all about saying, Okay, so I need a budget because I spend too much on groceries each week and I'm now going to cap it at one hundred dollars. So budgets make you feel restricted if you're
not looking at them from an abundance mindset. So a budget, from that, she's on the money perspective, is much more about just really deeply understanding where your money goes and how it comes into your account and then how it leaves your account, and not so much around restricting exactly what the amounts should be, but rather looking at your account going Okay, I am a couple and I have two kids, and yeah, we spend three hundred dollars a
week on groceries. Does that provide value to us? And if the answer is no, then cool, cut back your groceries and you know, be a bit more savvy there. But for a massive foodie like myself, I wouldn't want someone to cut my grocery budget. I'd want them to cut something else out before you tell me I can't have my fancy stuff. And I think that everybody is
different in that way. So when you start to look at budgeting, it's actually making sure that your values are in line with the income coming in and going out of your account. And there are lots of different ways to manage it. So I've written a budget and cash flow course and I do that because or I've done that because I didn't feel like anything truly took you on the journey of understanding your money story, understanding what's coming in and going out, and creating a banking structure
that really works. And I feel like it goes beyond what you could say budgeting apps do because it literally tells you, Okay, this is what you spend, These are the bank accounts I want you to have, and this is how I want you to manage it for success. Whereas a lot of my community also love apps like Pocketbook and we Money, and you know there are a million out there. It's just about what you actually value
and what you want to track. Because some of these apps connect directly with your bank accounts and do data feeding, and some people aren't comfortable with that, so some people want to manually put it all into a spreadsheet. And to be honest, there's no right or wrong when it comes to budgeting as long as you are paying attention to it.
If someone's just wanting to get started, and I love that explanation of a kind of a reframe of what a budget is, Like, what's a good go to app that's simple to get started if someone wants to, I guess we'll get more insight into where the money is going to me.
It's actually the smart Money Go budgeting tool that you can download. I just feel like it's a free spreadsheet that you can fill in and get a good insight into what you're spending and saving. I'm not the most tech savvy person. There are lots of apps out there, but I feel like when it comes to money, you actually need to go back to basics and not rely on technology too much to tell you what percentage you're
spending and reality. One of the most powerful things I find that my community is able to do is what I call a bank account audit, which is definitely as sexy as it sounds. And that's when you print off. Yes, print off, not do it online. I actually want you to hold the paper in your hands and have two different colors of highlighters, So printing off your bank statements from the last three months and then highlighting your discretionary
costs and then highlighting your non discretionary costs. So these are the things that you don't really need to be spending money on and just having a good look at, well, where is my money going?
Hello there. I hope you enjoyed this little excerpt of my chat with Victoria, and if you want to hear the whole interview, there is a link to that in the show notes. And if you're looking for more tips to improve the way that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets and software that I'm loving. You can sign up for that at Howiwork dot cot
That's how I Work dot co. How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from dead Set Studios, and thank you to Martin Nimba who does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound much better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.