#29: Interview with Rosemarie Groner, Budgeting for Your Personality

Join us for an interview with Rosemarie Groner, The Busy Budgeter! Rosemarie has been featured on Country Living, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fox Business, and Rockstar Finance and has taught over 18 million people how to budget and save money (even if they're a total hot mess). She teaches how to get the best results with the least amount of effort and specializes in the toughest cases of chronic disorganization. 

We got to hear about Rosemarie's life transformation from disorganized and in debt to a successful blogger and business owner! Learn about some of her methods for simplifying your life through automation, 15-minute convenience meals, and incentivizing your budget. Enjoy!

Www.busybudgeter.com
rosemarie@busybudgeter.com
Free Budgeting Workshop: https://event.webinarjam.com/register/19/vy8orup

Find Rosemarie's Vegan Queso Recipe: https://app.plantoeat.com/recipes/33745428/

Connect with all the PTE Podcast recipes here
Sign up for a free trial: plantoeat.com
Contact us: podcast@plantoeat.com

Connect with us:
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest

Transcript

[00:00:00] 

I'm Riley and I'm Roni. And this is the plan to eat podcast, where we have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you answer the question what's for dinner.

Roni: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Plan to Eat podcast. We are really excited today to share an interview with Rosemarie Groner. She is a budgeting expert. She's also a Plan to eat customer. So she's amazing all around, obviously. And we loved talking to her.

Riley: Rosemarie has been featured on country, living entrepreneur, Forbes, Fox business, and rockstar finance, and has. Were 18 million people had a budget and save money, even if they're a total hot mess.

Roni: She also teaches how to get the best results with the least amount of effort. She calls it bare minimum effort on a consistent basis. And she specialize specializes in the toughest cases of chronic disorganization [00:01:00] and budgeting. So it was awesome. We learned so much from Rosemarie and we know that you guys are gonna learn a ton too.

All right. Rose Marie. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today.

Rosemarie: Thank you for having me. I cannot even tell you like you guys are my favorite app. I tell everyone about you. So this is actually probably one of my favorite podcasts.

Riley: Oh, thanks. That's

Roni: so nice.

Riley: sweet. why don't we just get started? And why don't you tell everybody about, about yourself?

Rosemarie: Okay. So my name is Rosemarie Groner and I have kind of a weird story where I was actually a Virginia state trooper for like nine years. And I worked a crazy schedule. Like I can remember working 16 days in a row without a break with overtime and court stuff. I can remember working, uh, like on opposite shifts of my husband, like with a young baby.

So I felt like we just never saw each other. And I felt like, so I've been chronically disorganized my whole life where I'm just like, [00:02:00] it was a total hot mess before hot mess became cool. and I was just always late to everything. Like. Sink was always completely filled with dishes. Like I can remember being in an apartment and my laundry pile was so big that it came out of the laundry room and would like mound up in the hallway.

And I can distinctly remember being in my state trooper uniform, and like having to like crawl over the mountain of laundry to get out the door. So it's so funny cuz when people are like, oh my God, I'm such a hot as I'm like, no, no you're not. like I I'm definitely winning that award. And so I, when I had my first child, like John is not any better than I am.

Like he's more detailed, but like together we're not. Any better. And it wasn't just, it wasn't just a house. It was the budget was everything. We were just like a total mess. And we realized really quickly that like, we're, we're not gonna get anywhere unless we kind of figure out how to work with who we [00:03:00] are.

And so that started me on this. Whole journey of being like, you know what, I really just wanna be able to quit my job and stay home with my child. And I don't really care how that happens. I just wanna figure out a way to do that. And so what I, what we figured was the easiest way was to live in one salary.

And that was really, really hard because I am so impulsive. So like we would set up this amazing menu plan. That we're totally gonna stick to. And then by day two, we were still ordering out. So we called this like the rotting chicken and the fridge phase of our lives, where we would be going out and buying like Lima beans and chicken breasts.

And then it would all rot in the fridge while we went out to eat every day. So. Total hot messes. And it was a real, it took me one year, but once I figured out how to work with my impulsive personality, like everything that I had tried before was trying to fix who I am. Right. Like I'm impulsive. I don't have willpower.

I'm such a mess. Like why can't I do better? And the second that [00:04:00] I was like, you know what, there's nothing wrong with me. I don't have willpower. I'm very impulsive, but I don't necessarily think this is something I could fix. I need to find a way to work around who I actually am. I cannot even tell you how fast everything changed.

It. It felt like it was overnight, like in reality, it took. Weeks and even months to like stick to those changes. But I remember it feeling like the first day I was like, oh my gosh, this is really gonna work. Like, this is the secret. And so within one year we had paid off our debt and I had replaced my salary working at home, um, running a home daycare.

And so what that was basically. My whole goal. Right? And then we, that's how we had ended up paying off all our debt because we lived on John's salary and we funneled all that extra money that I was making, running the home daycare into paying off, uh, those loans. And I was so excited about the fact that our house was like, Clean to my [00:05:00] standards.

Like the laundry was always done. The dishes were always done. I felt like Martha Stewart, like someone who was actually organized when I come into my house and I'm like, girl, no, but like to me was like, oh my is. And so I started the blog mostly to talk about, like, to people who are like me to people who have been trying to budget and never sticking with it for like 12 years trying to meal plan and not sticking to it for 12 years.

How do people like that get the same results instead of reading all of these books written by organized people that are never gonna work for them because they don't have the willpower to stick to it. So I started busy budgeter, um, Gosh, almost eight years ago. And within a year that had completely overtaken the home daycare income we've had over 18 million readers.

Like we've been on Forbes and business, insider country living and like all over the place. It's just been absolutely insane. And this has been my, I mean, full time, but I only work part-time [00:06:00] hours, but this has been my full-time income job for going in eight years now, which has just been nuts. Sorry. That was a really long answer.

Riley: No, it was incredible. That's incredible. 

Roni: Yeah, we love to hear people's backstory and just like how they, uh, well, it's not like this style of li life, I guess, has like fallen into your lap. Like you've obviously worked really hard for it, but it's just cool to see that, like you had a completely different profession and like you've made your way now to be a, like a budgeting expert.

So that is

Rosemarie: crazy as a hot mess, which there aren't a whole lot of people like me who are budgeting experts now.

Riley: Right. But I think that that's the most relatable part of the whole thing is that it's easy to read. It's easy to read those books and, you know, whatever book of, you know, choice you might be reading, um, to try to like get yourself organized, but often those can feel so rigid and, or like, you have to be this way.

So you have to change your whole personality to be like this instead. And that is just [00:07:00] not. Happen because you can't change those parts. So you can't often change a lot of those parts of you. Um, and so leaning into who you are is so much more relatable and feel so much more accessible.

Rosemarie: Yeah. And it works like that's the funny part is like, I, I tried so long for like 12 years and nothing that I ever did work like, and like the second I started working with my personality, like those changes happened so fast and they felt so natural. And I'm like, why didn't I do this years ago? Like I spent years beating myself up and once I was just.

Yeah, I'm totally gonna walk into target and spend hundreds of dollars. Like that's just the fact it got so much easier and it's so funny. Cause I, I, I used to make fun, particularly in the blog. So hopefully like of my whole readers, reading this, I used to make fun of what I called kale smoothie drinkers.

Right. Because it would be like, I mean, Anytime somebody would mention to kale smoothie. I'm like, these are not my people. Like, [00:08:00] I, my favorite food was a big Mac. Like those were my people. So, but it's so funny because you know, now fast forward I've been doing this for like probably nine years total, cuz we started before I started the blog.

But like now I'm like a plant based vegan and I it's just like, I actually drink kale smoothies and I feel a. Guilty every time I do, but it's just so funny because things that I always thought were unattainable for me that, well, those aren't, those aren't for people like me. That's for like different people.

Like I can actually stick to now, which is just insane.

Riley: It's funny. Um, occasionally I'll be like, oh, I would never do that. And then I find myself like a year later, oh, what's doing the thing I said, I would never do.

Rosemarie: kale smoothies are kind of amazing. Go figure.

Roni: Or being like, I'm never gonna be like my mom when I grow up and then you're like, I'm actually my mom's clone.

Rosemarie: it's true. It is totally true. It's hilarious.

Riley: Oh, man.

Roni: Okay. So I wanna [00:09:00] hear more about, um, this, how you, how you have figured out and how you have developed, like how personality plays into budgeting. Do you have like a framework for like different personalities and how it relates to budget?

Rosemarie: So the easiest way we do. So for the most part, what I do is there's a lot of subsets of people who have personalities like me, but the two traits that we really focus on are no willpower or very low willpower and highly impulsive. So we have students and readers who are like technically organized, but those aren't really our jam.

Like I want, I want the people who are like crying on the couch about money and that like have. Crawl over their laundry pile. Like those are my people. And what we actually do is we have a whole framework and it basically starts with like, figuring out where you are right now, because the first step where people do this wrong and we can actually even relate it to meal planning.

Right. Cause that's a huge part of the budget. So if you figure out where you are right now [00:10:00] and how much money you're actually spending. That's the first step before you do anything else. Cuz most people set a grocery budget based on something that they read on the internet or somebody else's budget and their habits have nothing to do with that grocery budget.

So I think of all of life as like foundation and leveling up. So for instance. When we go people, we have a signature course. We bring people through hot mess to success. And the first thing we teach them is automation, which is we're removing them from running of their homes. So that means that like, we're gonna teach them how without spending any money to automate things for the same, same amount.

So basically you spend less time and you should remove yourself from the running from about five hours a day. So this is like no more running errand. Groceries delivered to your house for the same price that you're gonna shop in store. How to do that, how to shop like that. And even down to like little nit nitpicky things like, um, I, we have a cat, so we have a cat genie.

I don't know if you know what that is. It's like an automatic [00:11:00] litter box. So you never touch it. It like. Hooks into your gray line, but it's really easy to hook up. Like you can do it yourself. And so it flushes, washes, rinses dries all of the lake fake litter. And so we've had ours for two years now and I've never once touched litter.

So I don't have to do that. And same, we use gravity feeders for the animals. So like I basically have to top 'em off and I taught my kids how to do it. Seven to 10 days. So like all these little chores that you think, oh my gosh, you have to do this. You don't actually have to do it. So we teach you how to automate things.

Um, RX by mail, like, uh, maybe replacing like, uh, like if you're constantly going to library, replacing that with like kind unlimited, something like that. And then after we remove you from all of these things, we take it and we basically teach you the next step, which is foundation, which is dishes, laundry, and schedule book.

And it's like, I don't. What else is wrong with your house? Just ignore all the cherrio [00:12:00] shrapnel on the floor and just do those three things. Cause the one thing that we see that people like me have in common is that they are constantly trashing and un-trashing. And you can take it for meal planning. You could take it for budgeting.

You could take it for weight loss. It's the, and you know, I lost, uh, 65 pounds. With the same sort of principles. And it's because when you're dieting, you're like either on diet or off diet. And for most people, the time that you're off diet is way longer than the time that you're on diet. So you're on diet for like a week and you're off diet for two months.

And it's the same thing. Like you do your laundry in this huge Herculean effort for like 15 hours one day, and then you won't do it again for two weeks. And so like you clean out this crazy room and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so organized. But then you don't do your dishes in your laundry for four days, cuz you're so exhausted.

And so the whole concept is to do bare minimum effort on a consistent basis. And then once they have that foundation under control and that includes learning how to use the schedule for your personality. So. [00:13:00] It's like a stationary object that stays in your counter. You can't lose it or miss it. And once we do that, we teach them meal planning because now that they have a consistent schedule, like they know when they're gonna need to do things and they can anticipate what's happening, they'll actually stick to their meal plan.

Now they know they have enough information. Their dishes are always clean. Their kitchen is always like habitable so they can stick with it. And then once we get the meal planning under control, we teach them budgeting. Because like the biggest budget Buster is your grocery spending. So if your grocery spending's outta control, it's really impossible to budget because you are always gonna end up every single night, ordering pizza or eating out or going off budget and leave the chicken rotting in the fridge.

Because the rest of your life doesn't support your ability to kind of like live like that. And then when we're done with all of that, we teach them simplified house cleaning so that if they wanna have Martha Stewart pretty homes and they want like their windows washed or [00:14:00] whatever their jam is, like, we can teach them that.

But we have to do all of these other steps first.

Riley: Wow. There's so much. There's so much there. I'm. It's like planning for the non it's, like teaching somebody. Who's not a planner to be a planner, but with, I mean, we talk a lot about that at Plan to Eat. It's like, if you're not a planner, how do you transition to becoming a planner? And it sounds like you have this method that really does just funnel people to the, if you do these things, you will become a planner because, but it will become a very natural piece.

It's not like an unnatural part. Yeah. Wow.

Rosemarie: We do everything so that you're literally set up where it's easier to do the thing that you want them to do than it is to do what they're naturally would like to do. Like it's it's and, you know, for meal planning, one of our favorite tricks is if you have someone that's addicted to fast food, If their favorite food is big Macs like me, they're not gonna get them to eat 15 minute, like kale smoothies.

You're not gonna get them to be like roasting chicken at night because [00:15:00] it takes five seconds to go through and it's gonna be something that they're addicted to. They love the taste of, so what we do is we teach them 15 minute meals, making convenient foods from home. So like Tex chicken wraps using like Tyson's frozen.

Chicken nuggets or chicken tenders, things like that. So it tastes very similar to the stuff that they're already eating. And the really the only shift is it costs a little bit less. It's slightly healthier, cause it actually has vegetables in it somewhere and they're getting used to cooking at home. So now you can transfer.

From 15 minute meals that tastes very similar to what you're already using and it's cost controlled and you can switch to, uh, freezer meals or freezer cooking, or like going to the next level where it's literally just shoving a casserole in an oven or starting a crock pop before you go to work. And then kind of like transitioning in baby steps out of what they're used to doing, to what they wanna do to where it's literally easier to go home and make that thing you're really excited about than it is to like drive all the way to the, [00:16:00] to the drive through and spend extra time and extra money.

So we set them up to win, basically.

Riley: Yeah. Very tangible little things.

Rosemarie: Yes. Yeah.

Roni: So is that how you basically learned to become a better meal planner? Cuz you mentioned that you guys went through your chicken rotting in the kitchen phase

Rosemarie: Yes. So, yeah, so basically we did all of the steps that we laid out. There's been a couple of roadblocks that we've changed, where we realized that it worked really well for us, but something different works better for like the masses. But for the most part, the way that we teach is the way that it worked for us and the way that, um, that we found success.

And the biggest difference for us was 15 minute meals. Like I never would've gotten over my fast food addiction. So when you're a state trooper, a lot of the fast food, um, Companies give would give us free food. Right? And we usually eat as a shift. So whenever we would go out, I don't even remember eating a lot of fast food before I became a state trooper, but like every single day on day shift, we'd be going to one of these fast food [00:17:00] places.

And by the time I left the state, police, I'm in a sedentary job where I sit a lot. and I basically shoving fast food in my face all day. And by the time I left, like I was not eating vegetables I was not eating fruit. Like I was totally addicted to fast food. And the idea of spending all that extra time, all the extra like organization planning to have to cook something versus just running through and grabbing a big Mac or chicken sandwich or something like where that didn't make sense in my head.

And so 15 minute meals was a lifesaver for me because it was more variety. It was still the same food. Similar tasting food, you know what I mean? Um, but it made it so that I was actually consistently cooking at home every day and, and getting used to that habit. And then once that was happening, it was really easy to switch into.

Um, there's a company called freeze easy. And so it's basically like a, a drag and drop menu builder. It's similar. It it's, it basically lets you choose, um, freezer meals that you like and then it [00:18:00] builds. It basically tells you how to cook them. So you can make like 10 meals in an hour or something, but rather than most of the companies like are like, here's the pre picked meals that we have for you.

This lets you choose the ones that you want. So we did that for a while and then once we got outta that and I started just cooking, cooking like normal. Um, and this has been years now, like I said, we're plant based baking. Now we've come a long away from this, but. One of the things that's funny is that plan to eat has kind of transitioned through all of those things.

Right. We have all of our 15 minute meals in there. We've got all the plant-based vegan meals. We've got all of my cuz. We also the same way that we automate everything else. We also automate parties. So all of my, like, like, um, main party, um, like the recipes that I make for every like 4th of July party or Easter party or Thanksgiving, all of those things are all housed in Plan to eat.

So it's almost. This epic, personalized cookbook of things that I know that we all [00:19:00] love. And you can put notes in there too. So you could be like, oh, like John hated this, but I loved it. So I can remember like, you know, don't serve this when John's home or whatever.

Riley: That's awesome.

Was just gonna ask how you found a plan to eat.

Rosemarie: So I wanna say it was actually a reader recommendation years and years ago. Um, it was 2017 or 2018, I believe. And I'd reach out. Um, So I'm a blogger now, uh, we've got a really large email list. And so every once in a while, I'll reach out and be like, Hey, what's your favorite like app or whatever solution to this, like plus size workout gear or whatever.

Because what I found is that crowdsourcing information from, from large groups of people like that, who are all similar personalities, Is like the best way to find new things. And we had a couple of different people respond about playing to eat. So I tried it out and I was instantly hooked because it solves all of the problems that I had.

Right. So we used to use this complicated [00:20:00] method called an inspiration binder, which I love. But plan to eat makes it so much easier that it's kind of antiquated now, but we used to have like a three binder and I would find things from a cookbook or I would find things online or things like that. I'd print it out and then I would put it in the three ringing binder, and then I could write notes on it, star it like shift it, like for instance, some meals.

I know like, well, I always wanna make double of this cause I can freeze the extras, whatever that is, that would be in this inspiration binder. And it would make meal planning thoroughly easy because when you. Are stuck in that role, like on Sunday night and you planning is just like another task for you to do.

That's really hard to get excited about like what you're gonna be making this week. Do you know what I mean? You're just trying to check that box out as quick as possible. And so we used to make it so that you could just flip through and like, oh, these are all are our favorites. These are the things that we make over and over again.

Everybody's always happy. And when I found plan to eat, what I found is that it's exactly all of the benefits that, that inspiration [00:21:00] finder had. But it has so much more like the fact that it makes the shopping list for you. Right. You can just click the click and then it automatically creates the shopping list for you.

The fact that you can put notes. So like I can tag things as 15 minute meals. I can tag things as plant-based vegan. I can tag things as like Easter 20, 22. So that. I can share recipes easily. Um, so it's just, it, it's the really perfect solution. I really haven't found any flaws in it. And it fluidly kind of fits whatever eating style we have going on.

Oh. And also, um, like potluck things. When you like, have to bring things to something there's like this five minute fudge, that's like so easy to make because it's literally like, Chocolate and peanut butter and a stove top, and then fill it in the like mini muffin cups. Ising two hours like baking brownies and stuff minutes.

A few [00:22:00] minutes.

Roni: Do you have your own like, uh, budgeting resources that you give to people? Do you recommend budgeting apps? Uh, like how do you go about doing that with your, uh, clients?

Rosemarie: So there has been a big shift in this, and I don't know like how much into budgeting you are, but for a long, long time, there's been a lot of budgeting apps and there's, um, Benefits and drawbacks to kind of all of them. We have always taught for the whole eight years. And this is what we did too. We have always taught pen and paper because that is literally the easiest way to do it.

There's no, um, it's kind of like this, it's an overwhelm of learning a new technology. It's one more thing that you kind of have to overcome before you're successful. And then the other problem is that, like we just talked about. Our personalities. Most of the people that I'm gonna teach to budget are gonna be like, yes, and then fall off the wagon for two weeks.

And that's normal. That's part of the process. Right? And so when you start on an app, when you fall off the wagon for two weeks and comes [00:23:00] back, it is really overwhelming to reconcile your account. Like it's during your impossible, if you don't already know what you're doing. So we've always taught pen and paper, something came out called cube money.

Um, I think it was February of last year, that is like, it's like the plan to eat of the budgeting world. It's unbelievable. And what it is, is it, it brought digital cash envelopes to the world and they combined your bank account and your budgeting app all in one. So it's not gonna replace your bank account or at least not the way that we teach it.

We keep it as an extra spending account. So you basically. Out of your paycheck, all the money that you're going to spend, like groceries, like fun money, um, babysitters, like stockroom stuff, all of that stuff goes over to this cubic account. And then when the money goes in there, it goes into a cloud and you divide it into all of the categories that you're gonna spend.

Just like we just talked about. But also it can go real granular. So if you're like, well, I'm bringing to the kids to the water park on the 15th, you [00:24:00] can set up a water park like envelope, you can set birthday parties, you can do funds, you can do all of these things. And then when your budget is setting cube, every time you go to spend the money, you have to just open the app on your phone, click which envelope from, and then swipe it.

If you do not click. Your card will decline, which sounds like a pain in the butt. Right. But it's genius because it forces people like me to look at their budget. And if they're gonna be over in groceries, they're like, okay, you're gonna be over in groceries. Where are you gonna take this money from? You gonna take it from your kids' allowance.

Really? You're gonna do that. And so you have to like it. Again, you're using your personality, cuz in your best moments, when you're sitting there doing the budget, you're making a decision that you are now forced to stick with in your worst moments. And the cool thing about the way that we teach budgeting is we teach incentivize savings, which means that this can get really complicated, but essentially.

The reason why people don't stick to their budgets is because it's not fun. [00:25:00] Just like big macs are better than kale smoothies. It is way better to walk into target and buy the boots or whatever the heck you wanna buy than to like stick your budget. So you sticking to your budget is literally an impossibility until you want something more than sticking to your budget.

So in some cases, if you have like a serious fear factor, right? Like you're about to. Lose the house, or if it's like a trashed house situation. And if social services is about to come and take your kids because your house is so messy, those fear factors force you to choose the thing that you want the most in those moments.

But hopefully those things never happen. So how do you get someone who never gets to that point to change their, their behavior and incentivize savings is how we do that. And what that means is that. Buying a house in 10 years, your dream house or paying off your debt in a few years is never going to be a strong enough motivator for someone like me to choose the right thing in the moment.

So what we do is at the end of every week, you set your budget, you put it in your account, whether you do it on pen and paper, whether [00:26:00] you use cube and whatever you were under, whatever is left in that account. At the end of the week, you take 20 to 50% and there's reasons why that's 20 to 50%. It depends on what your situation is.

And you go blow down whatever you want. Anything you want, guilt free. It can be. I mean olive and june target, it can be, I've got a whole list on my wants list. And when we do that, what we find is that people who sucked at saving money, who could never stick to a budget first week are boom, under budget in every category, because what they really want is olive and june target or whatever their new jam is.

And it makes it so that they're instantly able to win in a few days, instead of some like really long. Goal that is not really tangible the rest of that money, 50 to 80%, depending on what you're putting aside goes into extra debt payments, and it goes into your savings account. And then once your savings account has your emergency fund, it goes into long term investments in betterment.

And [00:27:00] so like, what this does is it means that. Every time you win. So does your savings account, so does your investment and it's gonna be so easy for you to actually stick to it because you're so excited about the things that are in your wants list. That's the other thing is we replace shopping. So like general shopping people that are really impulsive.

You, we still shop all the time. The difference is we shop to fill our wants list and I don't care about sales or like anything like that, because I don't care if I spend a little bit more on it. Available one day. I know if it's on my wants list, I can buy it whenever I want. Once it goes on your wants list, then every single time you make a purchase, you're basically looking at your wants list.

And you're like, do I want this like on sale pasta thing at the grocery store more than I want the Bettys that I'm saving up, or you can tell that all of my wants list comes from Instagram ads, by the way. . But. You can basically compare and contrast. You're like, do I want this impulsive purchase more than I want this thing that I really want at the end of the week and be, [00:28:00] and it it's really forcing you to realize this is a, this or that situation.

And you have to decide which one you want, where before, if you're impulsive, you're in the store. And you're just kind of feeling spendy and you're just grabbing things clearance. Cause you're feeling spendy and you're not really relating. That if I spend this money here, I'm not gonna get to spend it there because in your mind, you're like, well, I have to stick on budget, so I don't have money to spend period.

So none of it matters. Does that make sense? We constantly give people a way to win. It's kind of like herding cats into the direction that you want them to go.

Riley: Wow. I, I, but I think you're forcing people to see it differently, which I think is something that potentially, if that's your personality type to just be spendy, like to use your word, like, but when you start to point it out, like people don't necessarily see that about themselves when you start pointing it out.

That really like. Probably turns on a little light bulb and then you're incentivizing it all. So it's like, you're helping people see themselves [00:29:00] clearly, and then you're incentivizing it, which like you said is just winning. So that's really interesting.

Rosemarie: Constantly give people a way to win. And it's so funny, cuz I feel like so many of our readers and students have always struggled with, um, like feeling like, I mean, I know I felt like this, I always felt like I was broken. Right. Like everybody else was so organized and so put together like what is wrong with me that I can't keep my bedroom clean, that I can't get my laundry done and you work so.

Hard when you're chronically disorganized. That's the crazy part is like, you would think that you're lazy. And I, I know that I used to feel lazy, but I worked so hard to be that messy. And now, like I do, you know, it's less than 30 minutes a day of stuff that I do around the house and then that's it. Then I'm going to do the stuff that I actually care about.

So it's so. It's so fascinating to me, how much effort it takes to do it the wrong way and how little effort it takes to do it the right way. It's just that we never have confidence enough to try because like everything in the world [00:30:00] is saying, no, no, no, you're wrong. Like, you need willpower. You need to like push through like, you know, nothing tastes gonna skinnier, whatever crap that they tell you and you hear all this stuff.

And you're like, okay, I'm the problem I need to like, will power my way through this. When in reality, What we find is that when you unlock the power of your personality, it is so fun. And the fact that I have this unique personality makes it so easy for this, for me to save money. It makes it so easy for me to invest in save.

It makes it so easy for me to lose weight because I'm using my strengths in the way that service me best. If that makes sense.

Riley: Wow. That's very powerful. 

Roni: Yeah, I think that's awesome. And this is something that we love to talk about too, is like this idea of like giving your future self a favor, you know, like that's, what we talk about with meal planning is like, you're doing your future self a favor by doing this thing. It's relieving that stress it's relieving all of your brain drain and all of those things.

And so it's like, that sounds like [00:31:00] exactly what your method is doing is like, it's really stressful to be in your home with a pile of laundry. That's just nagging at the back of your brain. Like you need to do that. You need to do that. You need to do that, you know, Yeah. And it's similar when you're thinking about dinner.

It's like what's for dinner tonight. What's for dinner tonight. What's for dinner tonight. Like if you just plan ahead a little bit, or you just do your future self a favor, you don't have those nagging thoughts, and then you're just free to enjoy the other things that you're doing.

Rosemarie: It's it's crazy. It is so crazy. And it's funny because meal planning was pro it's. One of those things that like. You can really do it wrong, at least for, for my sort of personality or you can really do it. Right. Um, one of the tips that I was gonna say, like my favorite part of plan to eat is that I have this like station set up in my kitchen where we, we bought this like really old iPad off of Gazal.

Like, I wanna say it was less than a hundred dollars. It was like, I think it's like a generation one. I may have even been 50 bucks. I don't remember. It was really, really old. And [00:32:00] we used 3m to permanently Mount it to the corner of the kitchen. So it doesn't even have like a fancy anything. It's literally just taped to the wall with 3m and it's plugged in all the time.

So like it never gets unplugged and it's set to never turn off so that the display always stays up. So what this means is someone like me, one of the reasons why I wouldn't stick to the meal plan is cuz it's like, my phone's not charged. Cause my phone is never charged . And so it's like, oh my phone's not charged.

I don't really know what I'm making today. I don't even know where I save that recipe and things like that. And this makes it so the plan to eat is always there. It's never not on, it's literally just a top of my finger. And so we've had that. I got that right after I got Plan to Eat. So this was 2017 or early 2018.

So this has been like years now. It's still kicking. It's kind of amazing. Um, and also like making sure that you put like things that don't require recipes cuz you know, everybody's really good at saving recipes, but a lot of people don't take the time to snap a picture [00:33:00] of their like milk and cereal and put it in plain meat or, you know, Yogurt in granola or what, whatever your jam is.

Like, if you're in the 15 minute meal spectrum and you're like, you know, bagels and cream cheese, or like Jimmy Dean sausage delights, if you're currently like binging on McDonald's sausage, egg, and cheese every morning, like trying to make healthier swaps that are a little bit more budget friendly. That are just as easy to make at home, sticking those into plan and eat and, you know, let that be your meal plan for the week.

It doesn't all have to be like roast to asparagus and roasted chicken every night, or even once, once a week. I mean, we lived on 15 minute meals for at least a year or two before we like transitioned into freezer, meals and capsules. And. You should also go to vegan. Cause that's been so fun. I'm just saying it's, it's so much easier.

Cause you don't have to worry about meat going bad. You just buy a whole bunch of vegetables and you're good to go.

Riley: We encourage people similarly to like, not over [00:34:00] plan, um, like to look at their meal plan and like, and look at their week and say like, I've just got a busy week. It can be something simple that is still meal planning. That is still better than the alternatives that you could be walking, like whatever you would choose otherwise.

Um, so it can be simple. And so it's, it's fun to kind of connect in that way because, um, you know, like we encourage people to add takeout once a week to their meal plan. If they like can't live without it, do it once a week. And then you've still got that night. You still planned for it, which means your budget is happier because you planned for it.

And you're not doing it every night, but your recipes don't have to be this complicated thing. Um, particularly if you're learning and you're trying to become more of a planner, it really doesn't have to be that hard. It can be really simple.

Rosemarie: Yeah, it really can. And the other thing that we teach our people is that like, if, you know, you've never stuck to a meal plan before, and particularly if you leave the house for some reason, so this isn't gonna work as well for like stay at home moms that don't [00:35:00] really get outta the house a lot. But if you're leaving for work or you're going pick up the kids trip school or something just planned for three days at a time, go to the grocery store, grab the things for three days or get those things delivered.

And then. Once you eat those three days of meals, whether that takes you three days or five days, then go out and get the next meal. So it's almost like a simplified plan where you're not like on Monday, we're having this and Tuesday we're having this and Wednesday we're having this. It's more like we're gonna just choose these items.

And when those items are all eaten up, we're gonna choose three more items. And then another way that goes really well with that is, um, a backup meal. Um, they can have other names like pantry meals or things like that, but basically having something in your house that you were really excited to. That no matter what is wrong with the, the plan you will eat this.

So like we see if you're addicted to fast food. And one of my readers, um, sent me an email that was like raving about this. And she had used Chef Boyardee as her backup meal. And so it's so funny because like other people would be [00:36:00] like, oh my God, you can't eat that. I can't serve my family that, but it's so funny, like how personalized this is to you, but for someone that's addicted to fast food, If having a $2 can of Chef Boyardee in your fridge is gonna help you secure a meal plan, girl, you go get that Chef Boyardee like that's amazing.

But for somebody else, this may be like a freezer casserole. This may be like frozen, um, pre-made hamburgers. Like there's no. Wrong. It's just where you are in your journey. Do we want you to be healthy? Do you want, do we want you to have lots of fruit and vegetables and lose and lose weight? Yes, but like, from my perspective, if you've got a difficult personality, we're gonna get you there.

But if we can't get you off of the fast food and kind of like onto those baby steps, we're never gonna get to kale smoothies or whatever your version of like healthy and happy is. So let's just like go through and just do all of the things and do it in the right order.

Roni: I love that you said that you should be excited about the meals that you keep [00:37:00] on hand at home, because I think it's really easy for people to just think like, well, the thing that I keep on hand at home should be, it should check all the boxes. Like it should be easy. It should also be nutritious. It should also be whatever.

But like, uh, yeah, if you're, if it's not something you're, you have, uh, a level of excitement about then of course, just going out and getting takeout is easier.

Rosemarie: Yes. Our backup meal for years was always like cowboy burgers because you can, you can actually cook the burgers and then freeze them with the buns and a separate container. And if you put them into the oven all together, you can heat them all out pretty quickly. And the buns get like crispy on the outside and like kind on the inside.

It's amazing. And then you can, um, put like onion rings on the sheet pan too, and then heat those up too. And then build like this. Barbecue onion, ring burger. So it wasn't super healthy for you, but like, I was super excited if I screwed up the meal plan and we went to the back meal and now as plant-based vegan, it's usually like, um, Mac and cheese with like a cashew based cheese sauce with like nutritional yeast.

It's [00:38:00] again, super delicious, but either way, like I'd prefer to stick to the meal plan, but if I'm screwing up the meal plan, like I am perfectly content to go to that backup meal. There's no, no shame there.

Riley: Wow, what a success story you have. I would love probably we don't have time today, but I would love to hear how you transitioned from a fast food addicted to a plant-based vegan. Like I'm sure that was a really long journey too. And it had its own steps along the

Rosemarie: it really wasn't. Cause I'd already done most of the work. This is actually, so I have, um, a hereditary heart disease. That's not super tragic or serious or anything. Um, it's AFib. I mean, it's not like. Not a heart disease, but it's not anything that would like impact like my, you know, length of life or anything.

But it's hereditary. All of the women in my family have it. And there's like, I read an article from Harvard or something and it was like, you know, people have. Fix this, they can't, it's not technically curable, but there are people who used to have this and now conserved to be cured [00:39:00] just cause it's not happening anymore.

And one of the things that, um, the article had written about was that, you know, plant based like lots of fruits and veggies and doing all these things. And so basically in February of this year, I was like, I'm just gonna dedicate one year of my life. To trying to mark all of the boxes and doing all of these things and then just seeing what happens.

So you get blood work every three months, like at the doctor's office to see like what numbers are like affecting and how your, your choices are making it. So, but it is very funny to me because this is something that I never thought was even possible. And in fact, when I read it, when I was like, okay, I don't know what they're gonna tell me to do, but I'm gonna dedicate one year of my life to this, cuz this would be great.

If I could get it to go away, what a success story that would be. And then I saw that it was plant based and I was like, I'm not doing that. Like I can't do that. Um, but I had already said like, you know, let's do it a year. So I took a day at a time. It was not like, I was [00:40:00] not like, I'm gonna do this for a year.

I was like, let me just see if I can get through this week and eat plant based. And cause it's, it's actually a lot stricter than vegan. It's like 80%. Vegetables and fruits. Um, but I've been doing that since February and now I'm like, oh my gosh, it solves so many problems of like me kind of grosses me out, like chicken juice, cooking it.

And like in like constantly needing to thaw meat, like it's actually shocking how much easier it is. And how many, like for automation it's been amazing. It's just, yeah, it's a long story. Sorry.

Riley: no, no. no. Thanks for 

Rosemarie: but it's surprising how much I liked it.

Riley: Yeah. Um, a lot of people will do a big transition like that because of a health condition or, and, and that's not why I asked I wasn't, that's not why I asked, uh, but it doesn't totally shock me because often those are things are very motivating, because feeling better or healing like those are, those are really important and those can be very motivating.

Yeah.

Rosemarie: I'm, I am super excited to see, um, cuz I have my, [00:41:00] I've got like my second, uh, blood draw, like at the end of the month. So it'll be exciting to see like how it has affected my numbers and none of my numbers are awful or anything. But the whole idea is that like, if you. Can give your body a rest from digestion.

If you can basically give it all the nutrients that it needs to like run optimally, then basically we may be able to give it a break and, you know, reduce inflammation so that your heart doesn't go into AFib occasionally. And so it's just, it's been really exciting. I, if it works, I don't even expect it to work.

Like I know that this is hereditary and like, but in my mind, my worst case scenario is I try something for a year. I'll be really proud if I can stick to it. And at the end, like it may actually help, which would be awesome. But

Roni: That's a great outlook on it, for sure. 

Riley: Yeah, absolutely.

Rosemarie: yeah,

Roni: okay. So we don't wanna take up too much of your time, but we wanna make sure that people can find you online. So can you just give a shout out to where everybody can connect with you?

Rosemarie: yeah. So the [00:42:00] easiest way is just to go to my website, which is www dot busy budgeter. Dot com and we have, whether you're interested in like budgeting, we've got, um, the 90 day budget bootcamp, and we have got free, uh, one and a half hour trainings online, where we basically teach you our system of budgeting.

Um, if you can't vent on the website, you can just hit the contact form and ask me, and I can send you links to it. Um, for if your motivation is more like the trash house, the meal planning and things like that. We've got, um, We've got trash home transformation, which is like the, the version of that, that just deals with the home at first.

And then we try to get you into the budgeting stuff later.

Roni: Cool.

We like to end our episodes talking about, um, recipes. So do you have a favorite recipe that you have made recently that you wanna share with us?

Rosemarie: Oh gosh, I've got so many, but I think my favorite. My favorite recipe is [00:43:00] probably cashew queso right now because I, and it's not even for plant based vegans. It's literally for anyone. My husband likes it better than regular queso. I cannot figure out why this has never been known to me, but it's basically put it in a high part with blend.

It's cashew, a little bit of apple cider vinegars and spices. It's insanely good. Like you can eat it with chips. You can put it on burritos. I don't understand how cashew taste like this, but it is so good. All of my like non plant based friends, like just slurp it up and I end up having to make double, but it's so good.

It's amazing. Do, have you ever had it, do you know what I'm talking about?

Riley: I, so siete foods. They make a cashew queso that I've had before, but I've never made it homemade before.

Rosemarie: I've never seen. I've never tried a package one. I did not know this was a thing. And like most vegan foods, I was like, rolling my eyes. And I'm like, this is gonna [00:44:00] awful. God, this is gonna so gross. And it was so good. I like can't stop making it.

Riley: We'll certainly link to that recipe. We'll ask you for it and we'll link to it so everybody can go try it out themselves.

Roni: Yeah. 

Rosemarie: Okay.

Roni: Well, thanks for joining us on the podcast today. We appreciate it. Uh, I'm super excited to hear about this because we love talking. I mean, I love learning about people's personalities and stuff. And so to just know that, like, if this is something that you're STR that this is something that you're struggling with, uh, there are solutions you just have to work with who you are as a person.

Rosemarie: there really are. Yeah. We've never seen a case. That's that's too tough, but those are my favorite to find. I'm always like, yes, you think you're impossible. That's totally, we're gonna win. It's

Riley: Oh, man. People are gonna reach out to you because of this. I think

just feel so relatable. Yep. Thank you so much.

Rosemarie: thank you guys. This is really awesome.

Roni: Thank you for listening to this episode. If you want to connect with all of the recipes that we have mentioned in this episode, previous episodes and any episodes in the [00:45:00] future, we now have a plan to eat account and you can get access to all of the recipes that we've ever talked about on the podcast

Riley: Simply go to plantoeat.com forward slash P T E pod. And you can automatically connect with that account and get all of our favorite recipes.

Roni: Thanks again, and we'll see you in the next episode.