The Better Budgeting Podcast

Build Your Own Business for Financial Freedom

• Danielle Reese

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Money coach Danielle Reese shares powerful strategies for building a small business for financial freedom and unlimited income potential. She explores how entrepreneurship can transform your financial life without requiring significant startup capital or perfect timing.

• Upcoming Better Budgeting Blueprint releasing April 2025 for $99 with special feedback offer
• Various client business examples including laser engraving, microblading, photography, and yard sale flipping
• Benefits of starting a business include unlimited income potential and schedule control
• Creative problem-solving like renting equipment initially to generate income for later purchases
• Building a business takes time - Danielle made only $567/month when she left her full-time job
• The importance of "building the plane while flying it" - solving problems as they arise
• Business finances support available for entrepreneurs struggling with taxes and compensation structures

Ready to start your own business journey? Check out the Better Budgeting Playbook or join our Financial Freedom Society on Facebook. For business finance support, message Danielle through the links in the show notes.


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. One more thing before we begin here is a few housekeeping. The grocery guide I created, called let's Talk Groceries your guide to reducing your grocery bill that is up for grabs for you. This is packed with all kinds of nuggets to reduce your grocery bill, like meal peppering and couponing and actually how to prepare to shop for groceries, because that's something that is not covered a lot, so I cover for you exactly how do we prepare to grocery shop and how the heck do we stop going over budget or grabbing things that we don't want or need? So grab that guide in the show notes. The next is my new release of the Better Budgeting Blueprint. I am really excited about this and y'all wanted a budgeting template and my heart just cannot, cannot, do that. So April 1st 2025, this is when it's releasing and I am releasing a budgeting template that comes with some mindset work. All right, this is because some of you only think you need a tool, and I know that it is much more work than that. There are so many other things that go into creating a budget and making sure that you're sticking to it, and that's why I've had a hard time with just being like here's my budget, like, go ahead and grab the template and move on. No, no, no, no. Like I want to make sure that this stuff sticks and you are making lasting change, and that's why I created this blueprint. So here's the deal Again, april 1st 2025 is when it's going to be released.

Speaker 1:

I'll have a link in the show notes for you and here's the deal. Okay, I need 10 people to try the first time release and I know all these tools work, but I want to make sure the delivery works Okay. So I'm going to be looking for 10 people to give me feedback. Here's where the deal is Okay. It's going to cost $99, which, by the way, is a steal for this whole suite that you are going to be getting.

Speaker 1:

If you complete all the tasks and you give your feedback within the first 30 days of buying it, I'm going to give you a $50 refund, like no questions asked. You submit all your work, you fill out the feedback form Fantastic, thanks so much for giving me the feedback. Here's your $50. So, really, you're buying this for $49, which is even a bigger steal, and I wanted to do this because I love feedback. I actually just sent out client feedback forms two weeks ago, asking all my clients hey, what can I do better for you? What do you need support in? And I think that's really great, as a business owner is getting feedback. I don't want to just release things out there and be like, okay, well, here it is, and not hear from you all. I love hearing from you all. So you're going to want to sign up in the show notes to pre-register for this. That way, it's sent to you automatically on April 1st and that kind of segues really great into our topic for today, which is starting a business.

Speaker 1:

So my kids are seven and eight, they are in first and second grade and both of them right now are working in their social studies classes on creating businesses. And my daughter, she, is creating a makeup business and my son is creating a creating a makeup business and my son is creating a baseball card trading business and I was like this is so awesome for you, at the ages of seven and eight, to learn about entrepreneurism. I thought it was fantastic and I'm like you know what I actually do have a lot of clients that also have small businesses, and I want to talk to you today about starting your own small business. It is a game changer. Like, obviously I'm a small business owner, it's me, it's my virtual assistant. I've had other people along the journey as well, but it's a very considered like considered a really small small business, but there's so much potential and the biggest thing I hear about people who are working those nine to five jobs or any W-2 job we should say salary or hourly it is I need to be able to make more money and not have to punch another clock. I got you. I totally understand. So today's episode is all about building your own business.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now, if you are in the US, or if you are aware of US politics, our administration has put tariffs on a lot of different countries for all imports and it is just a frenzy over in the stock market. Now I did go in today to check to see like, okay, well, what's actually going on in my investment portfolio and honestly, I lost way more money at a different part of last year, from, I think, october to December, than I did in this like whole tariff situation. We'll see how it shakes out, but it is not right now as bad as all the media is saying, at least from my portfolio. If yours is real bad, you better be getting on the phone with your financial advisor and ask him to stop the bleeding, change your portfolio around a bit. But what can we do to change our everyday financial lives? Well, we can reduce expenses or we can add income, and we're going to focus on adding income today.

Speaker 1:

I have a lot of clients that do work for the US government. I think I actually have six, which is to me, that's a lot in one sector that works for one institution, basically, and all of them are really struggling right now with their job position, whether they're leaving or they're staying or you know these new practices that have been implemented on them and it is. It is crazy over there right now and there's a lot of questions in the coaching calls that I'm having with them, a lot of questions about what should we be doing. Should I be looking in the private sector to find another W-2 job? Should I start my own business? What should we be doing? Should I be looking in the private sector to find another W-2 job? Should I start my own business? Should I just stay? What should I be doing? And I really love the idea of creating a business. So, in preparation for today's call, I was like you know what I'm going to list out all the small businesses that my clients have in addition to their current W2 jobs, just so you can get a taste of like what's out there, right? So I have here laser engraving, microblading that's like the tattoos for your eyebrows. They also do like lash lifts.

Speaker 1:

Planning, slash organizing services that's a really fun one. Photography, baseball glove restoring product sales, such as like MLMs, virtual assistant services, slash graphic design, landscaping business, house cleaning services, crafting and selling their crafts, antiquing, yard sale, flipping. So they go and they buy things at yard sales and then they flip it on eBay. Flipping. So they go and they buy things at yard sales and then they flip it on eBay Before and after school care. I have a girl right now. I'm trying to convince her to think about starting a party planning service because she is just an amazing host and just amazing at planning parties. So I'm like, hey, girl, like this might be your natural talent, you can make a business out of it.

Speaker 1:

So why do I strive for people to open their own businesses? Well, first off, it's unlimited income. There is the unlimited potential of income. I should say Unlimited potential. You can make $100 in a month, or you can make $10,000 in a month. Really, it's whatever the work that you're going to put into it, that is the gold nugget for here. I'm going to start it off with that. You have the gold nugget of unlimited earning potential. And if I say to someone, hey, if you start this business, you made $5,000 a month, wouldn't it be fantastic for you? They would be like yeah, absolutely, that would completely change our lives. We pay off debt, we have an emergency fund. I'd feel more secure in our finances. Okay, let's go do it, let's go build it.

Speaker 1:

The other thing is you're going to have control of your schedule. I know you're busy. Okay, I got so many clients that they're working the full-time job, they've got a side hustle and they are taking care of their kids and their family and they're trying to keep their house clean and keep up with laundry and the dishes. And you know, having relationships and things, it is wild, but the thing is this is to be a season or it is supposed to be a lifestyle. All right, you can start a small business for a season to help you with your finances and getting in the right direction, and then end the business if you decided to. Or it can become your whole life and you can quit your job, like I did, and and create this business and then live off of that income.

Speaker 1:

But it is so helpful to not have to go and punch a clock when you are already super, super busy, having something that you can do and weave in between your downtime during the day. And if you say I don't have any downtime, listen, I'm going to challenge you because I had two toddlers and a full-time job and I would travel to different states hours on end and then I'd come home and I would do coaching calls and assessment meetings and I was posted on social media and and scheduling content. And I'm not saying that it's easy by any means. I'm saying that you got to build that in the little parts of your day that you can. The other part is this can give you a sense of purpose if you are really struggling at your job and you have got this nine to five that you just don't feel like it's very purposeful. You're kind of tired and you just like, eh, I'm doing it for the paycheck right now.

Speaker 1:

Find something that gives you a sense of purpose and make it into a business. You might be already doing this right now. You might be like at home making diamond art or something. I just recently found that very stressful to me. Actually, I do not enjoy diamond art like you got the little, the little gems and you're trying to like pick them up and then flip them over if they're upside down and oh my, it is, yeah, and I've I tipped over the tray like too many times. It is a stressful thing for me. But let's say that you love diamond art, right, and then could you create diamond art like templates, right, or or whatever the heck they are, I don't even know, but you know, like a picture and make a diamond art for people and sell it on Etsy? Heck, yeah, you could, because you love it. You're like, oh, this is so much fun for me and you want other people to experience this joy and that going to bring you some purpose. Okay, again, you're probably doing something already that you could easily make into a business and obviously this is going to add a level of income to the household. It's another stream of income.

Speaker 1:

So if you're building it where you're making maybe $100 a month, great, it's $100 a month. Maybe that's your groceries for a week, maybe that is one half of a week of daycare, who knows? Right, it could be worth something. It's a doctor's visit, is an extra $100 on a debt payment. It is something. Because I bet if you found $100 bill on the sidewalk, you would be jumping for freaking joy. Right, I would be so happy if I saw a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk. But if I say to you, hey, your business earned a hundred dollars this month, you're like that is pathetic. No, it is not, it is amazing.

Speaker 1:

I remember the first sale I made was $97 back in 2020. It was my very first client. I charged her $97 for one month I actually think that was for like two months or something and it was amazing to me. I couldn't even believe it. People were paying me for my services how amazing. And that's another mindset that you might have to get over. You have to get over the fact that people might judge you for whatever you're doing. Okay, you might have to understand that there's going to be people that are in your corner, but I will tell you from my own experience, there are a ton of people that are going to be in your corner.

Speaker 1:

Do you know how many times I heard how dumb it was, even from my husband and I think I mentioned this in earlier episodes like he didn't really believe in the vision that I had with money coaching. Like Danielle, it's kind of funky that people are going to pay you with money, that they don't have to help you with their money, like it doesn't make sense. And I was like I know that it doesn't make sense to you, but it makes sense to me, because if I wanted to learn something and I had no time to waste, I would be paying somebody to streamline this out of my desperation to fix my finances. I would pay somebody to help me do this and he's like, okay, right. So, not only my husband, but I have plenty of people, even to this day. Last week I sent out a quote for someone and they're like, yep, no. And I'm like, all right, well, you know, it ain't, it ain't for you, I guess, go find somebody else.

Speaker 1:

And I want you to have that same mindset for whatever business that you're going to have. If it's making diamond art templates or crocheting or antiquing or whatever it is, even if you think it's funny and that nobody would ever buy something like that, I bet you somebody is going to buy things. Guys, there is a website called Feet Finder where people pay for photos of people's feet. Like how weird is that? Okay, you can make money doing anything in this country. Just please, make sure it's legal, please. We're not going down that path. Here's another little nugget you got to do the work.

Speaker 1:

I know when it looks like you're starting a business, you feel like it's just a huge mountain. Then you're. You think, all right, well, I'm just not going to do it because it's just going to take too much effort, it's going to take too much work. But listen, you're just putting off the potential income, that potential life that you're looking to build. You're just putting it off every time that you're like oh, it's too hard.

Speaker 1:

And I want to give you a perfect example. Okay, I had somebody that was interested in building a lawn care business and they said I want to build this lawn care business, but I don't have a lawnmower. I have a weed whacker. And I thought the word weed whacker is like really weird. Maybe it's like something that is located to me, but some of you know what that is. Other people would call it a string trimmer for the edges of your yard. Okay, I just want to make that clear, because that seemed like a really weird term and it is correct, but string trimmer is also the correct word. Anyway, that's all they had and they didn't have a lawnmower. And they're like I'm trying to get a loan for a lawnmower but I can't. My debt is maxed out. I want to create this lawn carrying business but I can't do it because I don't have any money.

Speaker 1:

That phrase that you ever hear is you need dough to make bread. Right, is a phrase that comes from business owners Like you have to have investment to be able to invest in a company. No, no, you need creativity to build a company. Okay, that is one of the best attributes to have as a business owner is being able to be creative in situations. So I said, okay, what about borrowing a lawnmower from somebody? Oh, I don't really want to borrow a lawnmower from somebody because I'm going to be doing a lot of like lawns and I don't want to ruin somebody else's lawnmower. I said, okay, that's fair, all right, cool.

Speaker 1:

I said what about if you moved all of these people to a weekend, right, and you did maybe a Friday, a Saturday, a Sunday, and you mowed all of their lawns and you rented a lawnmower? And they were like, oh, that's not terrible, but then I would have the cost of the lawnmower. I was like, yeah, you would have the cost of the lawnmower. What if you use somebody's lawnmower and I know you don't want to do it long term but what if you use somebody's lawnmower for like three yards, okay, and get 90 bucks or $100, whatever it was and you take that money because now you're only using that person's lawnmower three times I can't imagine you're going to damage it too terribly and three times. But let's say you take that money and then you go rent a lawnmower and you rent it for the weekend. Let's say it costs $300 for the whole weekend, maybe 200. I don't remember the numbers. It's been a while.

Speaker 1:

And you say, okay, I'm going to jam all of my people into this weekend and I'm going to rent this lawnmower for, for easy math, a hundred dollars. And I need to make sure that I make at least a hundred dollars to cover the rental, $100 to cover the rental. And I need to have more money saved so I can eventually buy this lawnmower and I need to pay myself. So there's three things right there. Four, if you want to add in taxes, you can write off the cost of the rental for tax purposes, so that reduces your taxable income. Fantastic, love that for us. And then you return the lawnmower on sunday evening, you calculate all your cash and you just do it the next weekend and the next weekend and the next weekend until you save up enough money to buy your own lawnmower. And they were like that's not a bad idea. Cool, that's what being creative in business is about. And I will tell you in six weeks they bought their own lawnmower. They jam packed everybody in the weekend, they rented a lawnmower and then they saved up enough cash to buy their own. Now you could say, okay, well, now we got to save up for maintenance on the lawnmower and the fuel and all that stuff, and that stuff is all deductible for your taxes, at least in the United States. Okay, so you have to be creative when it comes to starting a business.

Speaker 1:

I am not a fan of this social media culture. That's like. I made $900 in one day by selling this template, like you know how many people they had to reach out to to do that. It is not easy work. It is not, and if your content's not being seen, nobody's gonna see it right, nobody's gonna buy it. There is a lot of work that goes into this. It is not just buy a template and sell it on social media. It is not just for an MLM right, like selling products. It's not just like just post a whole lot and people will buy it. No, it is not. It's about building relationships and if you are going to build any type of business, whether it's on social media or it's a physical business, you're going to have to go out and find people to buy your services or your products, and that's not always a get rich quick kind of thing. It takes some time.

Speaker 1:

When I was building my business at first, the first two years, I didn't think I would be able to move full time. That was always the goal, but I didn't believe it. Job it was $1,000 a month. That's what I needed to make in my business to just like live, basically bare bones, budget cover the bills put a little bit like a little like $20 a month in savings. Okay, I needed to make $1,000 a month. When I gave my notice, I made $567 that month. So from day one to two years later, I was only making $567 a month. Did I have a fire under my butt? No, right, because I just didn't believe that I could actually leave my job. But once I finally realized the number that I needed to leave my job, I was able to put an action plan in place. I was able to be like okay, well, that's this many clients and I need to sign on this many new clients every single month in order to maintain this. And I broke it down into really easy, small, actionable steps, as far down for me as being like well, how many people do I need to talk to a day about this? How many people do I need to share my message with in order to make sure there's enough eyeballs on my business? Now my business is all online, so it's going to be very different from someone that has, maybe, a lawn care business, where you got to go house to house plus, you know, being online, so I don't want you to get discouraged that you're not making tons of money at first.

Speaker 1:

It takes time to build a business. Any business out there that is a huge corporation started in someone's basement or garage and it was small. It was tiny and they also believed that it was not going to be huge and they didn't know how to get there. And they had all of these questions. And the greatest phrase I ever heard while building my business is to build the dang plane while flying it. Just get into the cockpit and start flying it. And if you need a wing, start building the wing, all right. And if you need some gas, put fuel in it. And if you need some brakes, put them on there.

Speaker 1:

Okay, build your business as the needs come up. Maybe you want to have a house cleaning service and you don't have a vacuum, okay, use the homeowner's vacuum for a bit and then you notice that it's going to make it so much easier. If you have, like, a squeegee and something else for people's windows, because you've been running into a lot of windows and you're trying to make your job easier, okay, great, go get the squeegee now. All right, you don't need to start with everything first, because I will tell you, people that start businesses and invest a lot of money up front usually fail because they're building it too fast on things that they just don't need yet. So I am a firm believer that building a business in today's economy, tomorrow's economy, 10 years ago economy, it is going to bring flexibility, it is going to bring extra income, it's going to bring a sense of purpose for some of you, and I just, I truly believe that is kind of the way of the world right now.

Speaker 1:

Again, you can buy literally anything out there. You want to make t-shirts, screen t-shirts Great, start making some screen t-shirts. Then go share the heck out of it. Stop listening to the inner critic that's inside of you that says what your idea is not worthy or it's not good enough, it's not going to make money. Go out and do it, do it with some passion, do it with some excitement, know that you are serving the world by offering your service, and actually it is a disservice if you hide your skill set and don't share it. So I hope that this episode was inspiring for you today. It is something that I really love chatting about.

Speaker 1:

So if you have a business idea that you were just like Danielle, I have had this idea on my heart for a while. I just don't know how the heck would I even make that happen. Listen, my business brain can probably help you figure it out. I am not a business coach in the sense of being able to narrow down a niche for you, but I can come up with a thousand business ideas pretty quickly. And then I would encourage you to follow some business mentors, find people that are going to be in your corner to really help you build this business.

Speaker 1:

And if you didn't know this, you probably didn't because I don't share this very often, but I do help people with their business finances. I have a wonderful setup that I do with clients that come on board for personal finance but they also have a business. So we kind of do a tag team we'll work on their personal finances and we will set up their business finances. So I've been taking more and more clients over the last couple of years for business finances, as I've become more familiar with business finances, and I would love to help you if you already do have a business and you're like I don't know what the heck I'm doing with these business finances. I just know that I need to put 20% aside for taxes and I should probably save something and I don't know how to pay myself.

Speaker 1:

And if you have a lot of those questions, just send me a message. In the show notes there is a send a message link and it will come anonymous. So if you do want me to reach back out to you, then go ahead and put your email or a phone number in there and I'll connect with you and we can talk about it and be like all right, well, what's not working and what is working? And if I have any advice for you, happy to do it. Or send me a message on Facebook or Instagram. I love that as well. All right, thank you all for listening to this week's episode and I'll talk again soon. Bye, bye.