Your Financial Starting Point

Welcome to episode three of Keep Finance Queerd!! This week I am going to answer one of the most common financial questions: where do I start? This episode will break down the four steps you should take first in order to feel more in control of your finances and get out of survival mode. I dive into what information you should know about your money, and also challenge you to reflect on where you want to go in the future. This episode is full of tangible financial advice so you can stop feeling panicked about your money, and and start taking back your power.

We will talk about:
- money in vs. money out
- fixed expenses
- understanding where your money is going
- facing your debt
- planning for your future
& finding what is (and isn't) working with your money!

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Transcript

0:00

Hi friends. Welcome back to Keep Finance Queerd and welcome to another solo episode. I am super excited for this one. I will probably say that about every single episode, but I think this one is going to be a really great episode. Just start off this whole season and to really give you a good starting point for your finances, before we dive into some of the spicier topics, the more hardhitting topics. And I want to take a second here to really draw attention to that and just kind of just sit you down and have a little chat about this. So I really don't want you to be listening to this podcast from survival mode. And I know that a lot of you are in survival mode. I know that a lot of us in general are in survival mode right now. Like we're living through a freaking pandemic and things are hard right now. Inflation is high, mental health is plummeting. It is a hard time. And I do not discount the experiences that you are going through. But I really don't want you to be entering this podcast space listening to Keep Finance Queerd from a place of survival where you're unable to kind of remove yourself temporarily from the situation to assess what else might be going on and what other areas of your finances might also need to be addressed other than just your budget. So basically what I'm doing in this episode is I'm throwing you a life raft. I'm giving you the starting point for your finances to help you take a breath, to help you be able to just take a step back a bit to calm down and really feel more at ease with your money before we dive into the really hard stuff. Because this is an intersectional money podcast. And we are not just going to be talking about budgets and, you know, paying off debt, building up your savings. All that stuff, of course, will be covered. But we are going to be really diving into some of the harder hitting topics that are not discussed on most finance podcasts. We're going to be talking about being neurodivergent and how that affects your money, how being queer affects your money. We're going to talk about how to invest in alignment with your values, how to spend money in alignment with your values, how to overcome impulse spending. We're going to talk about scarcity and money and if it's actually about your mindset or just systems of oppression and so much more topics like this. The goal of this podcast has always been to step beyond those typical topics when it comes to money and put the person back in personal finance. And in order to do that, we need to talk about the messy topics. Okay? But like I said, this episode is the life raft. It is the starting point to help you take a deep breath, to feel more in control with your money, and to feel comfortable taking that first step with your finances. The first step to getting things organized. So that when I jump into some of the other topics, you're not feeling like I said, that you're in survival mode. You're feeling like, okay, I have a second to breathe, and I can listen to this episode and absorb it and really take in what Elise is saying in this episode instead of just being in panic mode. That's what I want to do with this episode. And that's why I'm excited for it, because I think it's going to be the perfect way to kick off the podcast. And I do want to make a Disclaimer before I dive into all of this that everyone's situation is different. That's the whole point of this podcast. Keeping finance personal. Okay. So there will be some things that I mention that maybe don't apply to you and your specific situation, and that's okay. So in this episode, I want to cover the four steps for getting your finances in order. Basically, the four steps to starting out on your financial journey. I always get the question of, where do I start when it comes to my money? What do I even do first? Because I get it. It's overwhelming. Like, there's so much information online. There's so many finance creators out there and educators to learn from it's. Like, what am I even supposed to do? So this is the answer to that question. These are the four steps that I think that you should take at the very beginning to start yourself off on the right foot, to start organizing your money, start feeling confident and in control of your money. And that's what we're going to cover in this episode. So let me stop rambling and let's actually get into the episode. Okay. Hi there. Hi, I'm Sydney. My name is Rebecca. I'm an autistic, a woman. I'm Jane. I'm a first generation Latina. I am a single mom and a survivor of domestic abuse. I am an ADHD plus sized millennial on the autism spectrum and add creating other problems in itself. Even though I bring in decent money, I struggle with staying ahead of everything. I am now struggling to pay off my debt. My traumatic brain injury means that it's hard for me to concentrate long enough to sort out my finances. The hardest time managing my finances. My parents were never able to teach me. I love my Starbucks habit, and I'm not giving it up. And you don't have to. Okay, let's dive right in to the four financial starting point steps. Okay. So I'm going to run through them really quick so you know what to expect. And then we'll dive into detail on each one of them. Step number one is understanding your starting point. Step number two is facing the hard stuff. Step number three is looking forward to the good stuff. And step number four is finding the alignment or the misalignment before I dive into these four steps, I do want to recommend that if you are able to if you are not driving as you're listening to this, that you pull out your phone or pull out a notebook where you can take some notes because we're going to be covering a lot of steps on what you should be doing with your finances and having some notes will be extremely helpful for you to actually go back and do all of the things that I'm suggesting. If you are driving, please do not take notes, but make sure to go back and listen to this episode when you are able to take notes or able to actually do the work along with me while I'm explaining this episode. Another thing that you may want to do that could help you out with some of the steps in this episode is go and download my free financial audit. I will be referring to it throughout this episode and it is a PDF resource that I have that will help you really write down and basically document your financial starting point. This is completely free to download. So if you want to download this, even right now, before we dive into the episode, you can go to the show notes, click the link for the financial audit, and yeah, you can either download it or print it out and kind of have it along beside you as we're going through this. If you're not able to do that right now, don't worry, you'll still be able to follow along. No problem. Okay, so let's dive into step number one, which is understanding your starting point. So really the first thing that you need to look at and understand when it comes to your money is where are you actually starting? Like, what is your money situation look like right now? And I know that you might be able to tell me some things about your situation right now. Like, I'm stressed, it's not good, it's out of control. I hear those things a lot, but I want to get in more detail. Okay. I want to see the numbers. So that's what we're going to talk about. So we want to look at the money in versus the money going out so that we can start to understand maybe what's happening with your finances and why you may feel like you're left with no money at the end of the month or why you feel like you don't have the money to put towards debt repayment or savings or whatever it might be. So let's talk first about the money in. So money in is how much money are you actually bringing into your accounts every month? So if you have a consistent income, if you get paychecks biweekly or twice a month, then this is pretty simple. You can calculate this just by adding up the paychecks that you get in a month and what that total is. Now, if you have an inconsistent income. This is obviously more complicated. And in order to figure out a little bit more about the money coming in, I suggest taking an average of your last six months. So you're basically going to write down how much money you made from the previous six months. And I also recommend writing down what your lowest income month was and your highest income month over those past six months and then taking an average of that. So you have kind of like three different numbers to look at when you're making any sort of decisions with your income. Okay, so we know how much money is coming in. Now we need to look at the money out, which is really just how much are you spending? So the simplest way to look at this is to look at both your fixed expenses and your unfixed, aka your variable expenses. So your fixed expenses are your cost of living. So your cost of living is everything that you need to pay for to survive. Essentially, this would include your monthly bills, any sort of subscriptions that you have, any expenses that you have to pay for every month. I have more details on the fixed expenses and everything that you could write down for this in order to get more clarity around your fixed expenses on the financial audit that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode. So if you want to go back and do this in more detail after, then I definitely suggest downloading the financial audit and kind of diving into this. But for the purpose of this podcast episode, I want you to write down all of your fixed expenses that you have to pay every single month and how much money each one is. So you could write down rent, your crave subscription, your Spotify subscription, your utilities, if you have medication that you have to purchase every month, things like that. So write down all of your face expenses and I want you to add up the total. So the total number that you add up is essentially your cost of living. And I want you to look at that number and think about how you feel about that number. Just sit with that for a second. Now another thing I want you to do is I want you to divide your total cost of your fixed expenses by the total money that you have coming in that you calculated right at the beginning of step one. And this will give you the percentage of your income that is going towards your cost of living. And again, I want you to think about how does that percentage make you feel? Now when I ask you those questions, there could be a variety of different feelings that come up. You might feel really good about that number, or you might feel scared or anxious or horrified at that number. And I'm not going to tell you what's normal or what percentage you should have because that doesn't exist. Normal does not exist, and there's no right formula or number. Personal finance is personal for a reason, and your situation is completely unique. For example, I have clients that live in large, major cities that will pay way more in living expenses than my clients that are living in the middle of the Prairies. Right. Like, you can't compare the two. And the cost of living is different for a reason. So it really comes down to you, your personal situation and how you feel about it. So I want you to look at those numbers and think about how you feel. And I even urge you to write down some of the emotions that might be coming up for you, because that's going to help give us more answers on what needs to change or what doesn't need to change about your financial situation. Okay, let's take a deep breath, take a sip of water, and let's move on to the unfixed or variable expenses. So essentially, how much money are you spending a month? And I'm not going to sugarcoat this. This is probably the most difficult part of the episode because this section might bring up some not so fun feelings for you, but we're going to do it together. Okay? I'm here with you. You are not alone. Let's tackle this together and go through those uncomfy feelings together. So for a rough estimate of how much you're spending every month, you can go back and look at your bank statements and essentially just track where your money is going. So most online banking apps nowadays offer the kind of categorization of your expenses and a very rough breakdown. So they're often not categorized the best, but you can kind of see how much you spend on eating out, how much you spend on travel, how much you spent on transportation, and things like that. So that gives you a very rough estimate of where your money is going. But if you want a more specific kind of categorization, I definitely recommend looking closer through your bank statements and figuring out kind of exactly where your money went. And if you want a very accurate picture, then I actually suggest tracking your spending moving forward. So starting today, as you're listening to this episode and start tracking your spending as you move forward for an entire month so that you know exactly where your money is going and you're not making any guesses when it comes to your finances. But if that is too overwhelming, a rough estimate is also a great place to start. So I want to say here that there's no right or wrong way to spend your money. And I will never tell you to stop spending money on something that genuinely brings you joy. The purpose of doing this and the purpose of really sitting down to figure out where your money is going is to help illuminate what areas you might want to make some changes to. And this could mean that you want to spend less money in a certain category. Or it might even mean that you want to spend more money in a category that is something that you say you really value but currently just aren't spending money on. So by doing this and by beginning to be more aware of your spending, that allows you to make changes to areas that will support your financial goals. And this step is difficult. I know it's uncomfortable. It's not fun. It's probably overwhelming. But by being aware of your spending and actually taking the time to sit down and look at where your money is going, that allows you to make changes that will support your financial goals and get you to where you want to go. Which brings me to step number two on our financial journey here, which is facing the hard stuff. Let's get all of your shit on the table, OK. In order to move forward and take control of your money, first you need to face the parts that scare you. And most often, for most people, this means debt. So in order to get your shit on the table, to face this hard stuff, to face the debt and maybe the guilt and the shame and all of those ugly feelings that come up when you think about money. When you look at your bank account, it's important that we sit down and take a moment to look at what that debt actually is like. What is the monster that you feel like you're battling in your head? What are we actually dealing with? Because sometimes it's a lot less scary than you think. And also, even if it's just as scary as you think, having the actual tangible numbers to look at, I promise you, will help you feel more in control in the long run. Initially, it might scare you shitless. It might make you feel like you're going to poop your pants. But in the long run, because you know exactly what you're working with, it allows you to make decisions from an informed place. So we are going to figure out exactly what kind of debt you have. And I know that it's easier to run from it and to hide from it and to pretend it doesn't exist. Take it from someone who used to literally throw out their student loan letters and to delete the emails about student loans. I have been there, but I know the reason that you're here. The reason that you're listening to this podcast is because you want to make some real, lasting changes in your finances. So we're going to do this uncomfortable step. All right. So I want you to write down all of the types of debt that you have, how much you owe on that debt, and what the interest rate is on it. So the type of debt would be like student loan, credit card, line of credit, mortgage, how much you owe, of course, is how much you have remaining on that debt to pay off and what the interest rate is on that debt. And this is important to know when you get to the point where you're figuring out your debt repayment plan, because you want to know which debts have the highest or lowest interest and which ones you owe the most or least on. So you can figure out which ones you want to tackle first. So the interest rate is like, for an example, most credit cards have an interest rate of around like 20%, so that would be the interest rate that you would write down. And again, this is broken down into more detail on the financial audit if you want to have a nice place to kind of keep everything. Okay, so now that you're feeling probably a little stressed from doing that, let's switch gears to some more exciting stuff, and let's go on to step number three, which is looking forward to the good stuff. Let's talk about the good stuff that you're looking forward to when it comes to your money. Okay? So I'm going to ask you some questions here. Feel free to just think about them as I'm asking them, or to write them down and to Journal about them later. But I want you to think about what your big financial goals are like. If there was no boundaries, if there was no obstacles in your way, what are your big financial goals? What do you want to achieve with your money and with your life? Why are you listening to this podcast? What made you listen to this podcast? What made you subscribe to my content to follow me on social media? What made you want to listen to content about money and make changes in your money? Like, why have you decided to listen to this podcast? Maybe you want to be debtfree. Maybe you want to buy property one day, or you want to save up for a big wedding or to travel the world. Or you want to start your own business. Maybe you want to retire your parents. There's so many different things that you could be aiming for, and I want you to really take the time to think about what it is that you want. What are those big, scary financial goals? Okay, so you've got them now. I want you to write down those goals and put them somewhere that you can see. I want you to post them up somewhere. You could write them on sticky notes and put them on your mirror. You could put a big sign on your fridge. You could tape it to your nightstand, table, your bedside table, so that every time you go to sleep, you look at it. I don't care where it is, but I want you to write it down and put it somewhere that you will see so that you can remind yourself why you're doing this why you're putting yourself through this uncomfortableness. It's because of the good stuff. Because we want to get to the good stuff. We want to get to the actual living of life, the thriving, not the surviving, not the stressing. We want the good stuff. Right. So having that reminder can be just so nice. It's like that little push of like, why am I doing this? Oh, yeah, that's why. Okay, step number four, our last step is finding the alignment or the misalignment. So now that we've walked through these first three steps, you've really put everything out on the table. You understand where your starting point is, how much money you have coming in, how much money is going out. You've faced the scary stuff. You know exactly what numbers you're working with. And you've also thought about the good stuff that you want and the reason why you're doing any of this and why you're listening to me speak right now. So I want to take a step back and look at the big picture. I want to look at all of these things together. And I want to ask you this question. If I were to look at where your money is going so your money out, would I know what financial goals you were trying to achieve? I want you to sit with that for a second and really try to bring yourself out as almost like a third party person. Viewing your finances essentially, are the decisions that you're making with your money right now, supporting the financial goals that you want to achieve in some way. And looking at all of your numbers, what is supporting that vision you have for your life and those big goals and what isn't supporting it, what needs to change, what barriers are holding you back, what systems are working against you, what is currently operating in alignment, what is working well, and what's operating out of alignment, what isn't working well? What is throwing everything off? The thing about alignment and the reason why I often use this word is because when one thing is thrown off, everything can get thrown off. Think about a watch, an old school, an old school wrist watch, and think about if one gear were to stop spinning properly, the whole watch stops working. So sometimes when one thing is off with your finances, it can throw all of your finances out of whack or just simply make you feel like all of your finances are out of whack. And this is often a discovery that a lot of my clients come to when working with me is that it's not actually as bad as they think. The situation isn't as bad as they think, but it's just because one thing really isn't working and it's throwing everything off. So what is out of alignment for you when it comes to your money? Okay. How are we feeling? I hope that even if you're feeling some not so great things, right now that you're also feeling maybe a little bit more in control and a little bit more empowered because you have more awareness of what's actually happening. I always find that when I know what's going on in the situation, that really helps me know how I want to act and respond to that situation. And I think that a lot of times when it comes to our money, we're not exactly sure what's going on, and that causes a lot of panic and rightfully so. It's scary to not know what's happening and it's scary to feel out of control. So I really hope this episode helped with the first step in the right direction of feeling more in control when it comes to your money. So if you've been enjoying this episode, if you want to kind of dive more into this financial starting point and go into more detail about all the things I talked about, then I'm going to plug a couple of resources for you right now. So the first one is the free financial audit that I mentioned. So this is a PDF worksheet that will walk you through how to figure out your income, write down and document all of your fixed expenses, your debt, your savings. So basically it's like your clear financial starting point all in one spot, all written down. So I highly recommend doing that. It is free. The link is in the Show Notes, so you can go and download that. And then the other thing that I would highly suggest is some of my mini courses. So in my mini course library, I have six different mini courses that cover a variety of different topics and they are a low price point. They are $47 each, except for the Build Your Budget mini course, which is 57 because it is jam packed with information. But a great starting point would be the mini course called Manage Your Money, which is basically an extension of this episode that will go into more detail about all of these things, as well as go into more detail about how to organize your money when it comes in. So when you get paid, where should it be going? How to organize your accounts, what accounts you should have and how you should set those up, what emergency funds are and how to set those up, and just a lot of good stuff like that. So if that is of interest to you, you can take a look at my mini courses and more information about them below in the Show Notes. They are also available all the time to shop on my website. And yeah, like I said, $47 very affordable. And actually, if you leave a review for this podcast, you can even leave a review for this episode and DM me a screenshot of that review. You can get 15% off of any of my mini courses. So if you're listening and you're like, I want to get one of those mini courses then definitely leave a review and deem it to me and I'll give you the code to get 15% off so now's the time to take advantage of that. So I want to encourage you to keep working on these tangible things when it comes to your money to look at your expenses, to look at your spending and look at the numbers. But I also really want you to open yourself up to the upcoming topics because the tangible financial advice is actually a very small part of the equation here. I would say that the tangible financial tips only make up about 20% of your actual financial success and about 80% of that is understanding all of these other topics that we're going to dive into like understanding systems of oppression and mindset and your own mental health and the aspects of your identity that impact your money and all of that stuff. This is going to be the stuff that people don't really talk about but we're going to talk about okay. Okay. That is it for this episode thank you so much for listening. Bye friends, if you enjoyed this podcast episode, we'd love it if you would share a screenshot on your social media and tell us what you loved about it. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can subscribe to the show rate and leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. I will be donating $1 for every review left in the first six months to organizations that our podcast guests have chosen. Thank you for listening and remember to keep finance queerd.