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
Episode 83: Navigating Going Over Budget
Ever blown your budget and felt like a complete financial failure? You're not alone—and it doesn't mean your financial planning skills are broken beyond repair.
In this candid episode, I share my recent DIY deck painting project that went spectacularly over budget (six gallons of paint when I planned for three—and still counting!). As a money coach who's paid off $60,000 in debt, I'm pulling back the curtain to show that even financial professionals sometimes miscalculate expenses.
Rather than dwelling on the mistake, I walk through the exact recovery process I use with my clients and myself: pulling up the numbers for clarity, strategically reallocating funds from other categories, and making intentional decisions about what truly matters. The $20 I'm trimming from several different budget categories allows me to complete my project without derailing my entire month's financial plan.
The real value comes in understanding what NOT to do when facing budget overruns. Don't bury your head in the sand, don't shame yourself (financial missteps aren't moral failings), and definitely don't keep swiping those credit cards. As I learned from my dietitian: just as one off-plan meal shouldn't ruin your entire day of healthy eating, one budget category exceeding its limits doesn't mean your financial plan is worthless.
Budgeting isn't about rigid perfection—it's about resilience and adaptation. Our consumer culture constantly pushes us to solve problems by spending more, but with practice and sometimes guidance, we can develop the skills to evaluate each purchase against our true priorities. Want personalized support navigating your financial journey? Check out the Better Budgeting Playbook or reach out for one-on-one coaching to transform your relationship with money.
Danielle is a money coach helping those 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.
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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!
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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 1:Today, I am sharing a real life story with you all, and I am an avid DIYer. I grew up in a household. It was always a fixer upper. My dad's done construction my entire life, probably getting close to 40 years. I grew up in a household. It was always a fixer upper. My dad's done construction my entire life. I'm probably getting close to 40 years. I'm not 40, just so you know, but he's been doing it for a very, very long time. So I have I don't know taken on some of those qualities and traits, I would say. And one thing when we bought this house is I said you know, I don't want to fix her up. I don't want to fix her up, so I bought a beautiful house, perfectly done, nothing, nothing needed changing, but, like you, want to make it your own right. So I just started doing things, and my latest project is our deck, and it is a barn red color. The paint has been chipping for the last five years that we've been here, so it was time for a nice fresh coat of paint, and this is a project that I am way over budget. So, even as a money coach, you know this happens and I want to talk to you all about it, because when things go over budget, most people they either spiral or they just go ahead and start swiping Right, and neither of those is the best solution. So that's what we're going to chat about today.
Speaker 1:Now, going back to my deck project, I thought I accounted for everything right, like the paint, the brushes. You know, I had some brushes, I just need like maybe one and I just I really thought most of my money was going to be spent in the paint, and that's true. I thought, yeah, three cans, three gallons, like we're, we're good, we're golden. No, we are not. We are six cans in and we are not even the first coat all the way down across the deck. Oh man, we are really rolling in over budget on this project.
Speaker 1:For me, I know what to do, I know how to manage this, but for you, you might even say should I even bother trying to budget anymore if this keeps happening? Maybe it's not just one project, it's multiple things, maybe it's just everyday stuff that you just keep going over budget with. So the answer is not to give up, but to pivot. So we're going to pivot and I'm going to teach you how. First off, we are not going to panic. Okay, we're not going to shame ourselves, we're just going to pull up the numbers. That is the first thing that we're going to do. We're going to pull up our spending plan and we're just going to get through it. If you don't have a spending plan, perfect, shameless, plug the better budgeting playbook. I've got spots for you. I've got all types of ways to work with me, whether it's just getting into the better budgeting blueprint, which is only a spending plan and mindset worksheets or, if you wanted more personalized one-on-one coaching, got that too. But in those numbers we're going to figure out what did we actually spend, right. This gives us a lot of clarity when I talk with clients about what they've done in their spending. A lot of the times I have to say don't bury your head in the sand. Let's just figure out where we are. Once we do that, we'll have clarity. Then we can figure out where to go from from here. Now, if you can, we're going to reallocate funds right.
Speaker 1:For me, I'm going to a trip to Fort Lauderdale this month and I was like, okay, well, I'm going to knock $20 off of that. And then I was going to knock $20 off of an amusement park day and I'm going to knock $20 off this and $20 off that until I get to where I need to be. For you, that might be dining and entertainment. That might be canceling a subscription that maybe you're actually really not even using. One I'm kind of contemplating of getting rid of is Disney Plus, and that makes me so sad, like emotionally. It's kind of sad because my kids are kind of starting to outgrow it, yeah, and it's just like another phase of life, right, but we're not watching it as much. They're more so watching the Netflix and, you know, hulu. So I'm like, oh man, do we really need Disney Plus anymore? But anyway, so for you it might be a subscription, it might be.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know we are going to go do this event, but instead of getting ice cream on the way there while we're there, we're just not going to get the ice cream. We're going to, you know, do something different. So those are just some examples of how we can reallocate funds. Now, if you have used debt or maybe savings for whatever to cover this gap, then we're going to make a plan to pay it back, and maybe that means that we're pausing the eating out. Maybe we're skipping the next target trip, like we can recover from this. It's just going to take some finagling, okay, and it's going to take dedication and discipline as well. Like I said, I'm going to forego about $20 in a couple of different categories to pay for this overage. That does not mean for you that you have to just cut out all eating out for the entire month. Maybe you're like, all right, well, I was going to set aside 200. Now I'm only going to set aside 100. And we're going to be really strategic of when we're going to go out to eat. Now.
Speaker 1:Eating out for me is very purposeful. I want it to be purposeful. I want to go on a date. I want to have a good meal. Mama makes a lot of meals at home. I don't want McDonald's, I don't want Burger King, I don't want sheets, I don't want rudders, I don't want gas station sushi Like. I want a good home cooked, beautiful, like restaurant quality meal with my restaurant budget. So if I had to cut it from 200 to 100, guess what? We ain't doing the dominoes. We're getting the local pizza shop that has the best New York style pizza ever because that's so good and that's what I want. But you know what else I wanted? I wanted the deck done and painted. So for me it was higher on the priority list to get the deck done and painted. I'll forego the dominoes and all the other extra stuff. I'll still get my lovely New York style pizza, but I'm not going to be able to go out to eat and do the other things too.
Speaker 1:And a lot of the times when clients work with me we have to process through that. You haven't been taught how to do that. You haven't been taught to stop, think and evaluate, because we've grown up in pretty much a consumer society. You know, oh my gosh, social media has made this so much bigger than what it needs to be. Guys, lately I've been seeing like ads for something that goes into the back of your toilet and it like helps with your hard water stains on your toilet. And you know how much this is. It's like $50. Like $50 to take care of like hard water stains, which, by the way, like vinegar and elbow grease. Does you know like we have just made consumerism such a big thing that we think we need to spend a lot of money to run our everyday lives and that's not really the case. It's not the case at all. But we get to evaluate each decision. We have control of that.
Speaker 1:So that's one of the things that I teach in my program, the Better Budgeting Playbook, that you need to be able to learn how to evaluate financial decisions. And you probably got into the situation that you are in because you just you don't know how, you probably haven't seen a good example of it, or consumerism has, you know, got a hold of you and you're like, oh, I want the newest this and the newest that and I want that thing. And there's just so much stuff out there that it's hard to navigate. And sometimes people feel like I need somebody to teach me those things and hold me accountable so that I can be better with my finances. And if that's you, you're in the right spot. Go into the show notes, apply for the program. We'll chat, we'll see if it's a good fit for you Probably is, by the way, but there's lots of ways to work with me in that, now that I've told you what to do when you go over budget's, talk about what not to do, all right, so this is stuff that you, you might be doing right now.
Speaker 1:So I want you to like not do that, okay. So don't ignore it. Please don't ignore it, because you're burying your head in the sand, like I said earlier, and you're really not going to get anywhere with that. I mean you will get somewhere. You're just going to be in the wrong direction, and this is a big one. That I talk a lot with some clients is you know, don't punish yourself. Going over budget isn't a moral failing. Like. You're not bad with money, okay, you're human, you're learning. Shame doesn't help, all right, it just really just paralyzes everything. So, again, we're going to look at the numbers and we're going to move forward.
Speaker 1:Now, back in 2018, I had hired a dietitian and her name was Sarah. 18, I had hired a dietitian and her name was Sarah. She was fantastic. Shout out to her. And one of the things that she had taught me is that don't let one meal derail your whole day, your whole week, your whole month. And I was like, oh, okay, like so you, when you think of you're trying to eat better, maybe you're trying to lose weight, you're trying to build muscle, and you have like, quote, unquote, cheat meals, right, don't let one cheat meal turn into two cheat meals, to three cheat meals, to four cheat meals. Same thing with your finances. Okay, don't let one mistake derail your whole month. One category going over doesn't mean your entire budget is a bust. All right, stay committed to the rest of it. You can still win this month with your money.
Speaker 1:And the last one is don't keep swiping. Don't do it If you're using credit cards. Nope, they go in the underwear drawer. Go put them away. I have clients it's funny they actually put them in like a baggie of water and then they put them in the freezer. I have another one that put it in a mug with water and froze it.
Speaker 1:Like sometimes you got to do what you got to do in order to maintain the saneness and keep with the goals. And sometimes that's a physical barrier. Sometimes you know it's just a mental barrier, but do what you got to do to stop that swiping. It will keep digging that hole deeper. So if this has happened to you whether it's, you know, the deck situation, a bathroom, a birthday party or just groceries, like you're not alone. All right. The goal is imperfection, though. All right. The goal is awareness, adjustment and growth. That's what we want to do, all right.
Speaker 1:Budgeting isn't about being rigid. It's about being resilient. That's how you win with your finances. It's being resilient, being disciplined and going with the flow, not with the vibes. Okay, I saw this meme or you know whatever the other day, a reel, and uh, it was like I need to stop budgeting off of vibes and start budgeting off of math. Yes, yes, you do. All right, all right. So if you've recently gone over budget on something or you're not sure how to recover, just send me a DM, a message, go into the show notes, wwwdaniellereesecoachingcom. You can email me whatever it is. I'd love to hear your story and offer you some quick tips. So with that, I'll talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.