The Better Budgeting Podcast
The Better Budgeting Podcast is your go-to resource for mastering your finances without the stress. Hosted by Danielle Reese, this podcast breaks down budgeting, saving, and smart spending into simple, actionable steps. Whether you’re tackling debt, building wealth, or just looking to make your money work smarter, we’ve got expert insights, real-life success stories, and practical tips to help you take control of your financial future. Tune in and start making your budget work for you—without sacrificing the things you love!
The Better Budgeting Podcast
Investing in You for a Better Financial Future
What happens when a quirky airport encounter leads to profound insights on personal growth and financial empowerment? Join me as I recount my humorous and enlightening journey through Charlotte, North Carolina, where even an energy drink powder had a story to tell. Discover how a trip to the IFCC conference became a pivotal moment in understanding the true power of investing in ourselves. From airport antics to conference wisdom, I weave tales highlighting the unpredictable nature of life and the immense value of committing time and resources to personal and professional development.
But that's not all—it's time to revolutionize your approach to financial success by focusing on essential workplace skills and behavior change strategies. Learn why mastering communication, empathy, and resilience is just as crucial as technical prowess and how networking can open doors to unimagined career opportunities. Dismantle the cycle of financial stress with actionable budgeting insights that transcend traditional methods, proving that even high earners can find peace of mind. Tune in and transform your personal and financial growth journey with strategies designed for real-world impact.
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.
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.
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome back to the Better Budgeting Podcast. I'm so happy to have you here. This episode is going to be all about talking about investing in yourself. So this idea sparked because I recently invested myself and I went to Charlotte, north Carolina, y'all. I should be a Southern belle. I love the Southern culture. Oh my gosh, it is just yes, yes. So a little bit of fun stuff for that trip.
Speaker 2:Um, your girl had to get up at 3 30 in the morning to get to the airport to be ready at the gate to start loading on to that airplane at 7 55. I live like an hour and I don hour and 15 from the airport. So when I tell you that I researched the time for busyness on a Sunday for this particular airport, I researched and all of them said between the hours of 6am and 8am it is mayhem. And I was like I got to get up early, I got to get to that airplane. I literally sat there for an hour and a half. There was not a soul in the terminal. Oh, I was like I could have slept an extra hour. Come on, yeah, I don't know. All of the research that I did was invalid because it was not busy at all. I flew right through TSA which, by the way, little story about that.
Speaker 2:I have a energy drink powder that is like vitamin based and I had a canister of it and I didn't have any single pack sticks, because that's usually what we'll have when we travel. But I haven't been traveling a whole lot lately, so I was like I'm just going to throw the canister in there through the canister in my bag. I didn't check a bag, so this was going to be my carry on and I put it through the conveyor belt. And the conveyor belt on the other end of the scanning machine has two conveyor belts. So the person looks at the x-ray I guess it's an x-ray right and they decide does it need to be investigated or are we good? And if it needs to get investigated, it slides over to the second conveyor belt.
Speaker 2:Well, my dang bag went ahead and slid over to that second conveyor belt and I'm like I am sorry, what? What is happening here? And I was I must have like I packed a razor to shave, like that must, that must be what it is, no biggie whatever. And they are going through my bag and they're like oh well, you have anything sharp in here. And I was like I don't know, maybe maybe a razor, and they're saying okay, and he pulls out my canister and he says I need to test this. And I was like okay, why? Oh, it might be a mix with some type of substance like cocaine, like you're testing my energy drink for cocaine, what? And the funny thing is, like a week prior, maybe not even a week, my husband and I were watching this show about this airport in Brazil that is a hub for drug activity and it's all about them like catching these people and people smuggling drugs into the country. And I'm like these people really think that I am going to bring this in here Like what? All right, so they tested it. Obviously it came back clean because it truly is an energy drink powder. But now I know that I just don't pack that anymore. I pack single serve, sealed packages. And then on the way home from Charlotte again I took my powder and I was like I'm going to put it in the little bin by itself so that they see it, no questions asked, they're going to want they see it, no questions asked, they're going to want to test it, no big deal.
Speaker 2:The other thing is that really bothers me with TSA. It's like I never know what to do. Do I take my shoes off? Do I take my hat off? The jacket stays on, laptop stays in the backpack, doesn't stay in the back, like what is going on here. There's so much just variety, based on wherever you are. So it goes through and it gets scanned again. But my backpack goes through and the canister goes through and I was like that's weird. But my bag got checked and I'm like what are y'all checking for? Oh well, we're going to check your liquids to see, you know, your shampoo and everything. I'm like are we serious? You don't want to check my canister for drugs? But anyway, it went fine and I told the guy you know, thanks for keeping us safe and that really lit him up. He was like so happy about me saying that he's like I just really appreciate you telling me this. And I said Well, let me ask you a question why? Why do sometimes I go through an airport and I got gotta take my hat off and others not? Sometimes I can take my shoes off, sometimes not like all these things. And he said well, ma'am, if the bad guys caught on to us and they knew our routine, they could just slide through and I was oh, that's a good point, that's a good point. So, anyway, those are my exciting travel stories for when I went to this conference.
Speaker 2:But this conference was based in Charlotte and it was called IFCC International Financial Coaching Conference and I was able to go. 30 people were able to go and I was one of the 30, which is awesome. And for the last two years I've been on Zoom calls with a lot of these people and this conference is all about getting better at your craft. Let's get better at financial coaching. If you've listened to a bunch of episodes, you know that I bring other financial coaches onto this podcast. I don't feel like there's any type of competition for me whenever I'm in a room full of people that just want to do better for themselves but also want you to do better and are willing to teach you what has worked for them and what hasn't worked, and so that you can go and you can try different things. So I did do a presentation while I was there for all of the other financial coaches and I listened to a lot of presentations and I learned a lot of great stuff that I'm going to be implementing into my business over the next year.
Speaker 2:But this really kind of comes around into the topic that I want to talk about today, and it's investing in yourself. I had to invest in myself in order to go to this conference, right, and I learned a lot of great skills and I'm going to have an ROI on that, a return on investment on that over time, whether it's like I implemented new things right away when I came back or things I'm building out right now for 2025. And I think that is safe to say, that we need to constantly invest in ourselves, whether it's through education or it is through habits, so that we can get better over time. Reason number one would be higher income potential. Right, like, even if you don't even own a business, if you become more marketable and you learn more skills and you specialized in a certain demand, you are going to potentially get a higher income. Like, why wouldn't you? The only reason you wouldn't is if you took a job that was lower paying than what your skills can offer, not to mention that lifelong learning allows you to be adaptable, and I don't know if you know this, but, like, rapidly, things change all the time, especially in the work environment and the job market, so it helps you with staying competitive if you are going to invest in yourself to learn new skills. Another thing is that personal development is going to fuel your professional growth a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Okay, a lot of workplaces want to know can you communicate clearly, with empathy and be resilient just as much as those technical skills. Yeah, you can be a great plumber and you can change a toilet, but can you upsell people? Can you create lasting relationships? Can you leave such a great impression that they're going to go tell all of their friends about it? Those are the type of skills that companies really, really look into and they want to know. Can you do that for them? Because, yeah, anybody can change a toilet. Right, I've actually changed a toilet. It's not a great project, by the way, but I've changed a toilet. Anybody can. Anybody can change a toilet. Right, I've actually changed a toilet. It's not a great project, by the way, but I've changed a toilet. Anybody can. They can pay an 18 year old just out of tech school to change a toilet, but can you help grow their business? And that comes down to being able to build relationships and communicate.
Speaker 2:Investing in these things, like taking a speech class or learning about networking and becoming very familiar with what your product is. If we can learn how to market ourselves and we invest in ourselves to do that, you're going to earn more income. People are going to say that, ah, I need that person on my team. I need to pay them what they're worth so that I can grow this business exponentially. And I mentioned networking. Networking is so important whenever you are an employee. We want to know who do you know it's who do you know so that we can grow. That's what it comes down to, and if you can learn and invest in networking with other people, you're going to be put in rooms and opportunities that you've never been in before. I will tell you that when I joined IFCC that is their conference, but it's through a company called Coach Connections. Man, like I never knew that there was 150 plus financial coaches in the world. Like I could only find like three and they weren't even doing what I was doing. So it's really awesome to connect with other people because you're going to learn skills from them that you're not going to learn in a classroom. You're going to learn what has worked, what hasn't worked, and it's so, so important to invest yourself so that you can have a better future, a better financial impact on your family.
Speaker 2:Another one is the mindset development for your financial success, and what I mean by that is like Building confidence and resilience, investing in building confidence in yourself. This can lead to better decision making. This can especially lead to better finances, because when you are confident in a decision and you've weighed the options, more likely than not you're going to have a better outcome. When you believe in your ability to earn and manage finances, you're more likely to take smart risks, you're more likely to negotiate compensation and you are actually going to handle setbacks more effectively. You ever met the people that are like have you ever met the people that are like sadness on inside out, one and two, everything is just and this happened and right. So we want to develop and invest in ourselves to learn how to handle setbacks so that they are so quick that, all right, this happened, great. I'm changing my mindset. Moving on, we're fixing this, we're doing something different, because all of that costs money. Right, like, the initial investment might cost some money, but the amount of time that you take dwindling over a decision or being upset by something that costs way more money.
Speaker 2:And then, speaking of money, like investing in learning things that you just don't know. Right, it can be scary. I remember the very first time that I invested in like a high ticket business coach for my business and, whoo, I was scared. I was so scared Because you don't know what you don't know and you don't know if it's going to be successful or not. You don't know if you are going to retain that information, if it's really going to relate to you. You just don't know. And that's really, really scary for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:And I will tell you, outside of the financial objection within my business the Better Budgeting Playbook that is probably the number one objection. Outside of finances it is I don't know if this is going to work. Like, how is this any different than what I've tried before? And my answer is well, I'm different. I'm different, I'm the, I'm the difference. You've tried the budgeting sheets, you've tried to talk with your friends about it. You've sat around kitchen tables with Uncle Larry and he gave you some 1950s version of trying to budget. Like you've done those things and as a high income earner if that is you, if you are making well over 100 grand a year in the household like you don't have time to waste. You don't. You understand that too, because you don't make 100 plus thousand dollars a year without having some type of understanding of investing in yourself. So when people come to me and they want to know, like what's different, well, I'm different.
Speaker 2:I don't give up on my clients. I am not a cookie cutter type of budgeting template coach whatsoever. I just got off a client call and we didn't even look at the numbers once, not even once, because it's all about changing our behaviors and investing in ourselves for the long term. People don't see outside of what they've always known. So if you've struggled with continually earning more money and more money and more money, and for some reason nothing is changing, we're still living that paycheck to paycheck life. You might even have a really great net worth, you might have an awesome net worth, but you are struggling paycheck to paycheck. That is really what I focus on in coaching is let's change this around. Let's work hard on investing in ourselves so that we can hit those goals that you've been trying to hit for a long time.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you the number of people that I've talked to that make really great money but they don't have a dollar in their savings account. You've tried all these less expensive programs, downloads, whatever. You don't have the accountability and you don't have the mindset change that comes with it. And that's why it's so important to actually invest. If you are a high income earner, you didn't get that way from just walking up the ladder. Like you may have paid for college, you may have done seminars you have made, your employer might have made you do seminars or conferences or something like that. Like you understand how important it is to invest in yourself, to grow Same thing with your finances. Self, to grow Same thing with your finances Same thing. You don't know what you've never learned.
Speaker 2:Another thing with investing in ourselves is time. Right, when we have time, we can kind of tinker and drag things along, but for a lot of people, time is a scarcity. I talk to all of my clients and time is one of the things that they ain't got. Okay, they don't have a whole lot of time and even meeting with me once every two weeks or once a month, wherever they are on the scale like sometimes it is like squeezing me in, but the thing is they do it. They squeeze me in because they know that this is going to change their lives, whether they've been doing it for a month or they've been doing it for four years. They squeeze me in because they know it's so important that they work on their finances, because if they don't work on their finances, the house of cards is going to fall. It is that extra layer of accountability that you haven't gotten in any other program or that you haven't even gotten in a download somewhere for ten dollars.
Speaker 2:The other thing about time is we know time equals money, right? The more time that you spend on something, you are either losing money or you're gaining money. And if you could learn what you need to learn right away, put action into these concepts right away, you're not wasting any more time, like you are when you're researching and trying to find what works, what's not working, and then testing it all out no like, let's cut it out. Let's not waste any more time. Okay, so the Better Budgeting Playbook is a great resource for you. It allows you to get one on one time with me and really look at your finances.
Speaker 2:But also, let's start changing those behaviors. Let's change it around. There's no reason for you to be making a hundred plus thousand dollars a year and still be stressed because of finances. Uh-uh, we're not doing that anymore. So check out the show notes or go to my website, wwwdaniellereesecoachingcom, and you can check out the Better Budgeting Playbook there. Apply, meet with me. We'll see if it's a good fit for you and get you started right away. I hope this episode was helpful for you and we'll talk again soon. Take care, bye-bye.