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 86: The Four Steps to Financial Success
Have you ever watched thousands of dollars drain from your emergency fund in what feels like the blink of an eye? That sinking feeling when unexpected expenses hijack your carefully laid financial plans is something I experienced firsthand recently—$7,000 worth of dental emergencies, home repairs, and orthodontic surprises over just three months.
The math is sobering. Even saving an ambitious $1,000 monthly moving forward, it would take seven full months to rebuild what disappeared in a quarter of that time. This imbalance between how quickly money leaves versus how slowly it returns creates the same psychological barrier many face when looking at debt—that overwhelming feeling of "why even try?" when the journey seems so long.
Through years of coaching clients through similar financial crossroads, I've developed a four-part framework that transforms this paralysis into progress. It starts with creating a crystal-clear vision of what financial success means to you personally. Next comes connecting with your deeper "why"—those emotional drivers that give your financial goals meaning beyond numbers. Only then do we build the process (the actual mathematical plan), followed by the most crucial element: taking consistent action with accountability. Most people get stuck creating beautiful spreadsheets and budgets that never translate into real-world behavior change because they're missing the accountability piece.
Whether you're rebuilding an emergency fund after unexpected expenses or tackling significant debt, this vision-why-process-action framework creates a system that can withstand setbacks. When financial emergencies drain your resources and your motivation, remembering the paradise waiting on the other side becomes your anchor. Ready to transform your financial journey? Connect with me through the links in the show notes—I'd love to help you build a personalized roadmap to financial stability.
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.
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!
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Grab your free copy of The Bank Statement Exercise.
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. Welcome back to this week's episode. I'm so happy to have you here and listening.
Speaker 1:All right, it is not fun to spend money. Okay, it is not fun to spend money and you know I am going to stand by that statement. Okay, because it is not fun when you have to spend $7,000 over the last three months on things that you did not plan to spend $7,000 on. So do you understand when I say that it's not fun to spend money, okay, especially for that reason. However, I guess it is a little bit fun to spend money on vacations and you know eating out and Target and Starbucks and you know all the fun things that y'all love to do Books, plants, those things but there comes the time where you need to spend money on things that you just don't love the idea of doing right, and that's the part of the emergency fund I do not love. Do not love the idea of spending money out of my emergency fund, even though that's exactly what it's there for. Okay, over the last seven months, I've made a list of the things that I've had to spend money on. They are my son's orthodontic care.
Speaker 1:When my son got his orthodontic care taken care of, he was on my husband's previous employer's insurance. Since then, we've switched insurance and the orthodontic care was taken care of under the previous insurance during that time frame. But I didn't know this fun fact you should learn your policy payment options, because orthodontic care for this insurer is paid out quarterly and because he did not have insurance for that quarter that they were going to be making the payment they were he was no longer insured by them during that time they do not pay it out at all, which is bananas. How is that even legal? How is that even legal? I have no idea. So that was a pretty penny that we had to pay out of pocket.
Speaker 1:And then our toilet cracked. Our toilet seat had a really heavy seat and I don't know if you have kids, but if you do, sometimes they slam things and that heavy toilet seat over time, I guess, with them dropping it, it sent a crack down the side of the toilet so we had to replace that because it was leaking water. Thank god, praise the lord, it did not ruin the floor. It hadn't been leaking that long, so we just had to put a fan on it and then buy a new tile, because we had to cut out the tile to see if the floor was wet. And so we put a fan on it, bought a new tile, bought a new toilet, put it on there. But still a pretty penny that I did not enjoy at all.
Speaker 1:We had to get our yard excavated again. We got it excavated in August of 2024 and the problem did not resolve itself. It kind of resolved itself. Standing water started happening. The issue was water was getting into our home, into our garage space, you know, seeping up against the house. So the first excavation took the water away from the house, but then it had standing water in a different part of the yard, which is just a disaster when you've got dogs and kids and then you got mosquitoes and bugs, okay. So we had to have him come back and fix the yard again to fill in that, you know, new game plan and everything. So that was a very, very expensive penny that I did not enjoy at all.
Speaker 1:On top of that, I had to have emergency dental surgery a couple weeks ago. Like a child. That is irresponsible. I never had my wisdom teeth out. Like a child, that is irresponsible. I never had my wisdom teeth out. I had one tooth one wisdom tooth pulled in 2019 and none of the other ones had come through yet. So the oral surgeon was like, if they're not bothering you, then we'll just leave them and we'll just see how things go. And I'm like, fantastic, that's great. Um, but I ended up getting an abscessed tooth and one of my impacted wisdom teeth and so I had to have emergency surgery on a Sunday in an emergency dental clinic and my insurance did not cover a cent of that $1,000. So you know it's been a very expensive couple of months. So those are all kind of the emergencies that have been happening. So those are all kind of just the emergencies that have been happening.
Speaker 1:And on top of that my kids they're back at school, which is fantastic, but we pay for lunch and that's $3.15 per kid, that's $6.30 a day, almost $7 a day. That is quite costly and I thought you know I'll just reduce my grocery budget by however much a month that we plan to spend it on school lunch. And yeah, it hasn't been working out y'all. I have not figured out that groove yet because I've had to replace it with buying dang snacks. I have to buy snacks to send to school and they have to be pre-packaged snacks because you know there's kids in there with severe allergies. So you buy the pre-packaged snacks, pre-packaged, the pre-packaged snacks, which is much more costly than just buying in bulk and putting it in individual bags.
Speaker 1:So yeah, there's just been a lot of financial changes over the last couple of months in my family and it has not been enjoyable to spend money at all in this household. It just it hasn't. And you know, if I think about how long it took us to save up that money and how long it took us to spend it all. It's kind of gross, okay. And also, how long is it going to take us to spend it all? It's kind of gross, okay. And also, how long is it going to take us to save up that money? Even if we were putting a thousand dollars a month of savings which is, you know, a big goal for a lot of families even if we were putting a thousand dollars a month in savings, it would still take us seven months to put that money back, and that feels. That feels icky. So then I got to thinking I wonder if other people feel that way too.
Speaker 1:Just about like paying off their debt. You might feel like I'm never going to get out of this. Or even if I am going to get out of this, it's going to be 15 years from now, and then it feels like it's going to take forever. So why even try? Why even bother? Right? I'm just, I'm going to just keep making the minimum payments. My statement says it's going to take me 15 years if I make minimum payments, and it is what it is, and I'm here to encourage you, okay, just like I'm going to try to pep myself up about all this money that has left our household and needs to come back. We're going to try to pep ourselves up, okay.
Speaker 1:One thing that we're going to work on is vision. Right, we're going to get a clear vision of what we want, okay. So for me, I want security and I want financial stability. All right. Security for me is having a number in the bank account, because with that number, I can take care of any unexpected expense that's going to pop up. Now, financial stability for me is a little bit different than financial security. Financial stability for me is that my business has an income that is stable. Okay, so for me, I'm an entrepreneur, I have an unstable income, essentially, and financial stability to me looks like a set number every single month and letting that be kind of the ground floor of what we need in our household to maintain our lives Okay. So those are really, really important to me. That's the vision. If I had a perfect financial life, those two things coincide, are the dream, okay.
Speaker 1:What is that for you, especially when it comes to your debt? So it might look like we are able to pay for an unexpected expense. We don't need to rely on friends, family or credit, um, or loans for any anything that we need. When I was paying off debt back in late 2016, early 2017, the moment that turning point for me is my mom slid me a hundred dollar bill and she said go get groceries, because you need groceries. And I thought to myself oh my gosh, like we're making a lot of money every single year, why is my mom giving me money and why do I need it, like I did need it, you know. So that feeling can be part of your vision, or the anti-feeling, I guess you could say, can be part of the vision. You know, when these unexpected expenses pop up, I don't want to have the feeling of freaking out, right? Scarcity, anger, being upset, worry, anxiety. That could be part of your vision as well.
Speaker 1:So, in order to make these long goals happen, you have to have a clear vision of what it is you're going after. It's not I'm just paying off debt. For me, it's, I'm not just building up the emergency fund again. It is the vision of what will be accomplished after that is so important. Okay, because in order to get through these hard times, we got to have that shiny paradise on the other end. Now that you have a nice, clear vision of what you want. We got to talk about why you want it, why I got a clear vision of what I want. Why do I want it? Why do I want to be debt free? Right, and it could be very similar to what that vision is, but dig a little deeper. Right For me, if I. You know, I told you about the story of my mom sending me the $100 bill right sliding across the counter. You know, I never wanted to be in that situation, ever again, so it was something that I didn't want, that I wanted to achieve, right.
Speaker 1:For some of you, it might be what you want to achieve, and why. Why is that? I want to have that feeling of accomplishment. I want to be able to give generously. I want to be able to give my kids the best freaking Christmas that there's ever been. Why is that so important to you, though? It's so important to me to give my kids the best Christmas ever, because you know I didn't have a good Christmas when I was growing up. Or you know I want to be able to give generously to them so that they know what giving generous is. There's so many reasons why, okay, and some of them you're not going to agree with somebody over here and their reason why and your reason why they don't always align right but find the vision and then figure out the why. What does it look like and why does it look like that?
Speaker 1:After that, then we start building the process. The process is the math Okay, it's the math, but it's also the mindset and action that goes with it, because math without action is just it's nothing. It's nothing when it comes to paying off debt or anything in your finances. Math without action just keeps stuck where you are. So the process might be we're getting a debt calculator and we're figuring out how are we going to pay this off. We're going to go ahead and apply $50 extra a month to a debt. We're going to, you know, work extra hours, and all those extra hours is what's going to go towards the paying off debt. There's going to, you know, work extra hours, and all those extra hours is what's going to go towards the paying off debt. There's going to be a lot of different. Oh gosh, just mumbo jumbo out there. Okay, it's just so many different ways to figure out how to pay off debt. Um, even you know, I see these, these kind of prompts all the time about chat gT and being able to, you know, put your bills in there, put your debt in there, and it'll tell you exactly what to do.
Speaker 1:Guys, the other day I was trying to test out chat GPT and I wanted to go to the bank and get specific bills from the teller to spread across my categories, okay, and I wanted $400 to be taken out and I wanted it spread out across these categories. But then I said I want to have to be taken out and I wanted it spread out across these categories. But then I said I want to have this many fives and this many ones and then fill in the rest. Right, it gave me the wrong math. It shortened me by five dollars, it added it up to 395 but told me it was 400. Please don't use chat GPT with your numbers. Okay, please don't do it. And if you do, fact check it, big time, fact check it. Okay, but more importantly, just send me a message. I'd be so happy to lay out a plan with you.
Speaker 1:And again, that is just part one, because now we have to do the action, right? So let's say we're going to do the snowball method, which is we're going to list all of our debts from smallest balance to largest balance. We're going to pay minimums on everything and we're going to attack that smallest balance first with all extra money and we're going to pay that sucker off right, and after that one's paid off, we're going to take what we were paying on that every month and we're going to apply it to the next smallest debt and then we're just going to keep snowballing that. So let's say, let's say we do it that way. Okay, now the action is to actually do it. Okay. The numbers on the paper mean nothing unless there's action followed.
Speaker 1:So why haven't you done it? Why haven't you followed through with the budget that you've set multiple times? Why haven't you followed through with the debt plan that you found on Google? We got to figure that out because you're just going to continue to repeat that cycle, and that's why coaching is so important, and where it's the most valuable is you're going to meet with somebody every single week or, I'm sorry, every other week, and you're also going to have people in every single week or, I'm sorry, every other week, and you're also going to have people in your back pocket to answer questions in between those sessions and say, hey, like you know, how are you doing this week with staying within your budget on this grocery bill, have you gone and made that extra payment? Did you move that money over into savings? No, you didn't. Ok, well, why not? Let's talk about it. Let's figure out why her into savings? No, you didn't. Okay, well, why not? Let's talk about it. Let's figure out why.
Speaker 1:And I have a client that she struggles with putting money into savings at the beginning of her pay cycle. She always likes to do it at the end of the month or, I'm sorry, the end of the pay cycle. So when she does that, it's always short, it's always short. So let's say that she wanted to put $200 in savings for that pay cycle. She puts maybe 170 in. So we had to dig into well, why, why are you feeling like this isn't working? Or what is holding you back from putting that into savings first? And she's like I'm just worried if I need it, if I need it, then it's there. And she's like and actually what's happening is I'm overspending it and this is a cycle that she's had for years and years and years. So we came up with you know, the idea is that you know savings. If she just put it into her savings. It's still hers, it's still there, she doesn't need it and then it's gone, it's out of the account. She doesn't have to worry about calculating it in and making sure that she doesn't spend it and all this other things.
Speaker 1:But sometimes you need to have a coach there to help you dissect that, in order to figure out why you're doing the things that you're doing or why you're not doing the things that you're supposed to be doing in your finances. That's why I'm coaching is so important and that's what's different between my program and also, you know what you're going to get, for you know Google Sheets or Excel, or you know anything else. You know chat, gpt, for that matter. So it's action. Okay, vision, then we need the why of that vision, then we need a plan and then we need action. Okay, process, then action. That is the system that needs to be taken care of in order to take care of, you know, just debt or putting into a savings goal.
Speaker 1:So for me, you know when I look at oh my gosh, we've spent so much money over the last three months out of our emergency fund. I've got to build this back up. I'm going to go through the same thing. I'm going to create the vision. I'm going to figure out the why of that vision, what's deep down inside. I'm going to then set a process and then I'm going to follow up with action to make it happen. And that is really the process of coaching too.
Speaker 1:And most people they get stuck on. They set the plan of the process, but there's no action. And that's why you need the accountability process. But there's no action. And that's why you need the accountability. Somebody to check in with you, someone to see, hey, how's it been going? What are you struggling with? Talk to me about it, let's figure it out, because I know that that vision you created and that why behind it was so dang strong. We got to get there. Don't get hung up on the process. Let's get on to it right and get into this action phase. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you'd love to connect with me, check the show notes, send me a message. I'm happy to chat with you about your finances, or schedule a free session with me and talk to me about your finances and see if coaching is a good fit for you. All right, I'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.