The Better Budgeting Podcast

Family Feud of Finances

• Danielle Reese • Season 3 • Episode 9

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What happens when your well-intentioned efforts to pay off debt are sabotaged by family members using your Amazon account? Tune in to this week's Better Budgeting Podcast as we navigate the murky waters of managing shared family expenses. I recount a real-life client scenario where extra purchases made by relatives derailed their debt repayment plan, and we discuss the critical need for clear boundaries and effective communication to prevent financial strain. Learn how to ensure that any cash paid back by family members is actually applied to your debt, and discover new methods for handling these tricky transactions to maintain financial health.

In the latter half of our episode, we'll break down the cultural norms surrounding borrowing financial resources and the impact they have on our perception of money. Uncover the dangers of using someone else’s credit cards or subscriptions, which can lead to overspending and a distorted sense of financial reality. I challenge you to take control of your financial habits by critically evaluating your subscriptions and spending behaviors. Whether you choose to reintegrate them responsibly or cut them out completely, this episode is all about fostering lasting behavioral changes for better financial health. Don't miss out on these actionable insights designed to help you achieve financial stability and peace of mind.

Danielle is a money coach helping women and couples who have been trying to figure out their finances FINALLY create a clear plan so they don’t have to worry about waiting to refill their bank account the next payday.

She is the founder of The Financial Freedom Society on Facebook and her signature money coaching program, The Better Budgeting Playbook. You can sign up for her newsletter by clicking here.

Take the first step towards financial freedom and sign up for a complimentary assessment call with me, Danielle Reese.


Grab your copy of "Let's Talk Groceries" Your Guide to Reducing Your Grocery Bill" This is an ebook with over 30 pages of tips, tricks, and guidance to help you save hundreds on your grocery bill!

Sign up for the early release of The Better Budgeting Blueprint for $99 with a $50 refund once completed. The release is scheduled for April 1st 2025.

You can connect with her on Facebook or Instagram.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Better Budgeting Podcast. I'm your host, danielle Reese. I'm a money coach and the founder of the Better Budgeting Playbook, and this is my one-on-one coaching program for women and couples who have been trying to figure out their finances, finally create a clear plan so they don't have to worry about waiting on payday anymore. I became a money coach in 2020 after paying off over $60,000 in debt, rekindling my marriage, becoming financially free and wanting others to experience the same. If you'd like to work with me, you can check out the link in the show notes there. Also, we have the Financial Freedom Society on Facebook. It's a free Facebook community focusing on debt payoff, saving strategies, budgeting and money mindset. You can find the link to that community in the show notes as well. Hey, welcome back to this week's episode. Happy to have you here, and let me tell you it has been raining nonstop for four days, and I will add four nights as well. I feel like we're going to have to start building an ark here soon, because there is no end in sight for at least another week. Thank God, I, in time, got my yard excavated a couple months ago, because all the water was just flowing right down into my garage. So we had a hurricane I don't know a month or so ago and, yeah, all that flowing right down into my garage. So we had a hurricane I don't know a month or so ago and, yeah, all that water went right into my garage. So an excavation company came by, excavated my yard. So my yard is tore up and trying to grow grass, so this rain is very helpful for that grass, and I have to share with you that there is a tomato plant growing in the middle of my yard. Now I have, I think, about eight tomato plants in my garden. So my thought is one of my dogs decided to eat one and you know what happens in the yard with dogs, right, and now I have a foot and a half almost two foot tomato plant growing in the middle of my lawn, which is cool. I'm going to keep it there until it decides to kill off with the frost. But anyway, we are going to talk about family feud this week when it comes to your finances.

Speaker 1:

This episode is truly inspired by a conversation that I had with clients this past week and I feel like so many people get stuck into this system that we got to talk about it. So a little bit of a backstory. These clients of mine they are paying off debt right. That is their primary focus. They've got an emergency fund saved up. Their primary focus is debt payoff. So they've got an Amazon card and their Amazon card they use for all of their Amazon purchase. My client is a teacher, so it is September now, so she has used that in July and August for some of her supplies for teaching, which is perfectly fine. But I noticed that there was a significant increase on her Amazon card because every month I have clients they filled out it's called a balance sheet and it's so. It gives us a snapshot of your progress.

Speaker 1:

Now, your progress is not just financial. We talk all the time in this podcast about how your mindset is the biggest factor with you winning in your finances, not just the debt going down. But it is important to make sure that the debt is going down and the savings is going up. So she filled out the balance sheet and I noticed that, oh, this is this is a little higher than what it should be with just one interest charge. So I've asked the question you know what's been going on with this and she explained that she did have some purchases for school.

Speaker 1:

However, it's not all of that and I was like it's not all of that, so what else is it? She said, oh well, my family. They send me a text and say, hey, I want to buy this. Will you do it on your Amazon? And more than likely it's, because it's going to get shipped to her house anyway. But for gifts, for birthdays, holidays, that's the way it goes. I said, okay, well, do they pay you back? And she said, yeah, but they'll pay me back with cash most of the time and I'll either hold on that cash or I'll put it in the bank and it just kind of gets lost and the balance stays on the Amazon and I'm like, ah, there we go.

Speaker 1:

That's the problem. Well, at least one of the problems. So, making sure that you're actually putting cash that people give you on the debt that you have accumulated, so that you aren't technically in debt for it, that's super duper helpful. But there was a big pain point and I feel like a lot of people run into this and that's why I'm talking about this. There was a big pain point of my grandmother's, older my parents. They don't want to buy things off the internet. They don't feel like it's safe. I'm like I don't feel like it's safe, but it's safe for you to do it. Like what? But that happens a lot where people don't believe putting their debit card on the internet is safe. I agree, I don't really like it either. That's why I use credit cards. Still, however, there is always a plan in place to buy that product but also pay that product off on the card, so I don't accumulate any debt, and that's what I teach my clients as well.

Speaker 1:

So we had this honest conversation about family and having them purchase their own things. Now, this could be them using your Amazon card, this could be them using your cell phone carrier, or even you using their Amazon or their cell phone carrier, or their Netflix or your Netflix. It goes two ways. It's a two-way street. So, right, this second I'm specifically going to talk about my client being the one that's making all these purchases, and I said you've got to go to the family and rewrite this. We've got to put a different method in place, and that is because your primary goal is to pay off debt, and what's happening is she's going and buying things on the card, which is fine. She gets a discount, I think, because of the Amazon card. Great, wonderful. We have a plan to pay that off with cash that we earned from a paycheck. We're not accumulating any debt, totally get that.

Speaker 1:

However, what's happening is that money is going to just sit there, or that purchase, rather, is just going to sit there on that credit card until that cash comes in. Sometimes cash comes in, sometimes it doesn't, and when you have one person, two people, three people sending gifts to your house for the holidays, you're going to make a huge mess when it comes to this credit card Understanding. Okay, who paid me? What purchase is this for? Whose is that? What is this? And I had suggested they need to flap their own wings and fly off into their own Amazon account and try to purchase those things themselves.

Speaker 1:

Here's the thing. It's okay to be a good daughter or a good son and a good steward and help people out, but it's becoming a point where maybe you feel like you're getting taken advantage of or maybe you feel like things just aren't adding up. This is adding way more stress than it should. It's okay to have that conversation and say hey, mama, mama, I'm sorry, I cannot buy anything else on Amazon. I am not even using it for myself at the moment, and if I am, I'm paying off that day. It's just too much of a hassle. If you want to get something from Amazon, you're going to have to get your own account.

Speaker 1:

Now, I am fully aware that some parents are not going to take that lightly, but you are an adult girly. You are an adult. You can make the best decision that you can for your family. And if that decision is, hey, I'm no longer buying anything for anyone on my Amazon card, so be it, so be it, it's okay. It's okay to take control of your finances and say, hey mom, hey dad, hey grandma. I just can't do it anymore. It doesn't work with my system anymore. Maybe one day I can get back to it, maybe not, I don't know. But right now it is just another headache that I got to keep track of and I've got too many things going on here and I'm telling you it's a hard conversation. However, if you get through that, you are going to make your life so much easier when it comes to that aspect. So much easier to maintain that card and its debt payoff plan than it is adding stuff to it, wondering who paid, who did this, who did that? Oh, the cash was accidentally used for this because I had it, and I'm just getting confused myself.

Speaker 1:

The other side is sweet girl, you need to grow up and spread your wings and flap them over to your own Amazon account. It is time. It is time to break free of the cell phone plan from mom and dad or grandma, grandpa, whoever. It is time to break free from the cable stealing or Netflix stealing or Disney stealing or whatever it is. It is time to put your eggs in the dang basket. It is time to let go of the duck. Your body is fully in. The only thing that's holding you on is an Amazon subscription right that you're borrowing. Taking stealing whatever word you want to do. It's time to let go. Girly, it's okay, it's all right, and I'm sharing this with you, not because I don't feel like it's morally wrong, because I've done my fair share of stealing.

Speaker 1:

We're going to use that word of Netflix and Disney plus and whatever over the years, but there is a level of responsibility that comes with purchasing these things, because if your budget cannot afford for six different subscriptions, that means we shouldn't have six different subscriptions and it forces you to really level up the mindset of your finances where you start working with the either ors. All right, we only watch one thing on Hulu. Let's get rid of Hulu. Oh well, I'm going to have to watch Yellowstone a season late, whatever. I probably should be doing other things anyway than every Sunday night watching Yellowstone. I don't even know, I haven't watched Yellowstone in years, but still, that's the process.

Speaker 1:

You start evaluating where you're actually spending your time, along with your money. You're not getting the full effect of your whole financial situation if you're not paying for some of it. Right, and right now we're only talking about, maybe, subscriptions. But let's go even further out and say that, hey, I'm borrowing money from mom and dad and I'm doing that so that I can go on vacation, so I can go and get my daughter a car or my son a car, or I can.

Speaker 1:

At that point, you're not stealing, right, but you aren't living within your means. And that's the point I'm trying to get to is, if you're borrowing Netflix, if you're borrowing this and that and you're borrowing money from other people, we're not living within our means. And we have to step back and say, all right, where can I cut? What can I do to actually live within my means? And if your family has had this conversation with you, I'm sure you walked away angry, grumpy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, just know it's because you need to step out on your own and you need to have the full aspect of your finances, which means if you've got $80 in subscription and you would rather have $80 in subscription instead of going out on date night once or twice a month, that's your choice, but you get all of it currently, with putting other people in the hole, and we don't want that. We want you to be financially independent, we want you to be financially responsible and again, I'm going to say it again okay, I'm an abuser of this as well.

Speaker 1:

In my past, I stayed on my daddy's cell phone plan a little too long. I borrowed people's, borrowed, used people's Netflix and Disney Plus and split things before, but it was for me to not have to pay for something that I really wanted, and that's probably the same thing for you too, and it's a really, really bad habit to have, because it can just snowball and roll over into bigger problems. Like I said hey, mom, we want to go on vacation. We haven't gone on vacation. Oh, no problem here, go on vacation. Oh, hey, mom, I really need to get Cynthia a car. Is that okay? If you help with the down payment, blah, blah, blah, those small stealing of subscriptions habits will fold over into those bigger things down the line.

Speaker 1:

I have to say like this topic is a hard topic to talk about because it's just so culturally acceptable to do these things. To help a brother out, you know well, sister, help a sister out. It's culturally acceptable and what it does is just hinder our reality of our finances. Even so far as using someone's Amazon credit card to make a purchase and then sending them money Venmo or whatever it is there's no physical interaction with cash and I don't know if I've ever said this statistic before, but you typically spend 12 to 18% more when you use plastic over cash, which is pretty wild to think about. If you are just sending that over to someone else who's going to make the purchase and then receive the product, and you know all those things, you're really distancing yourself from the transaction, which means you're distancing yourself from the emotional impact of finances and again, wrapping this full circle, I'm going to land this plane. It actually is adjusting your reality of your own finances and that's scary because you can get real sideways really, really quick. All right, I'm going to challenge you.

Speaker 1:

If you fall into these categories, if you are the person borrowing people's subscriptions, borrowing money, borrowing the things, take control back. All right. See if you can put the Netflix back into your life. See if you can put the Disney Plus back in. If you can't, then it's time to evaluate and say, all right, what do I need to do in order to have this into my life, or am I okay with just cutting it out completely? That's a really important skill set to have with your finances. And then, if you're on the other side, where your family friends are borrowing this stuff from you or they are asking you to pay it and they're going to pay you back, put a stop to it. All right, take control of your finances all right. I promise you there is a method to the madness, because it's not all about the math when it comes to our finances. It's about the behavior. So go, take control of those and I'll talk to you soon. Take care.