The Better Budgeting Podcast

Episode 92: You Need to Know Your Why

• Danielle Reese • Episode 92

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Ready to stop restarting your budget every January and finally make your plan stick? We dive straight into the heart of financial change: finding a why that outlasts motivation and holds steady when life gets messy. Instead of chasing perfect spreadsheets or new apps, we focus on the deeper reason your money matters—what stress it’s costing you right now, what you’re afraid won’t change if you stay on autopilot, and who you’re really doing this for.

We unpack the difference between surface goals—pay off debt, save more, feel less stressed—and a personal why that fuels consistent action. We also explore how to navigate slow seasons and curveballs without losing momentum, reframing the key decision from can I afford it to does this support the life I’m building.

Along the way, we share coaching insights on why tools suddenly “work” once your purpose is clear, and how to pivot your plan when family or career changes demand it. If you’ve tried resets and templates without lasting results, this conversation gives you the practical mindset and structure to create calm, confident progress—no perfection required. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a fresh start, and leave a quick review to tell us your why and what you want your money to support this year.

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!

Sign up for The Better Budgeting Blueprint for $99.

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You can connect with her on Facebook or Instagram.

SPEAKER_00:

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 to this week's episode of the Better Budgeting Podcast and the first episode of 2026. 2026. I can't believe we are here for another year. If you didn't know, this podcast started just from a passion project back in 2023. So we're getting up to three years old with this podcast. And that's really just, I can't even imagine that even happening from the very beginning of how long this would go and how many people it's impacted, how many people I've met through this podcast. So if you didn't know, you can actually send me a message. Every episode has a link. It says send me a message and it comes anonymously. So if you have questions about anything in your finances or you're like, hey, I need you to contact me, send me your contact info and we can get connected. You can also find me on Facebook or Instagram as well. But I love connecting with all of you. I've met so many people through this podcast. So with the new year means resolutions. So let me ask you something. Have you ever sat down to get serious about your money? Because I would say that that I don't even have a statistic, but I'm gonna guess that is one of the most common New Year's resolutions. Just a guess.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

But you're ready to get serious about your money, you're feeling motivated, you're ready, you're determined, and like a few weeks later, you found yourself, you're you're right back where you started, right? Not making any progress. Um, if that sounds familiar, I want you to hear this. Okay, this does not mean that you're bad at money. It probably just means that you started with the numbers instead of the why. And today we're not just gonna talk about budgets and spreadsheets and strategies and things like that. We're gonna talk about the part of financial change that actually makes things stick. And that is your why. Let's start off with why motivation doesn't last. Okay. Most people come to me with goals like, I want to pay off debt. I need to save more. I just want to stop feeling stressed every single month. Now, you listening are probably like, oh my gosh, those are all of my financial goals for the year. Okay. They're good goals, but they're usually like surface level. Okay. They're surface level goals. Yeah, I want to pay off debt. I need to save more. I want to stop feeling stressed about money every month. Like, okay, like let's let's get deeper into it. They're often built on frustration, guilt, a breaking point, something of those sorts, but not necessarily purpose. Okay. And motivation that is fueled by pressure, guess what? It eventually runs out. All right. We don't want motivation from pressure. We want motivation from deep within. And if your only reason for changing your finances is I'm sick of this or I should be doing better, you're going to keep restarting instead of building momentum. Because when life happens, which by the way, it always, always does, your why isn't going to be strong enough to hold you steady. So you're asking, like, Danielle, well, what is what is the why, right? If it's if it's not those things, then what is it? Okay. It's not a number, right? It's not a magical number in the bank account. I say that quite often to people that start the better budgeting playbook with me. Hey, you know, I see that you wrote in your why is like, I want to have$10,000 in the bank. That's that's not a why. That's that's a goal, but that's not why you want to get your finances in order, right? It's what that$10,000 in the bank account brings is why you want to get this in order. It's not a debt total, it's not a savings goal. Your why is super duper emotional. It's personal, it's usually super uncomfortable. And your why answers questions like, what is this money stress costing me right now? What am I afraid will never change if I don't get intentional? And who am I actually doing this for? For many people, their real why sounds more like, I'm tired of feeling behind, even though we make good money. I don't want my kids to grow up feeling financial tension. I want to make decisions from peace instead of panic. I want to trust myself with money again. That type of why creates change. And even there, you can go deeper into each of those. And this is where some people can fall off the wagon. They're like, oh, no, no, no, no, I don't really want to go into that. I don't really want to dig deeper. But I'm telling you, you don't need a perfect answer. You just need honesty. Because that's what's going to get you to where you want to go. So ask yourself, what does money stress steal from me? Is it sleep? Is it joy? Is it presence with my family? What happens if nothing changes? Where will I be a year from now, five years from now? And maybe the most important question is what kind of person am I trying to become? Not what kind of budget do I want, but who do you want to be? That is your why for getting your finances in order. Let me tell you how this changes everything. Okay. When your why is clear, budgeting stops feeling like a punishment. I freaking love going into my budget every Friday, every payday, and moving my money around. I'm like, saving schools? Heck yeah, I'm paying myself. Great. Paying that mortgage payment, love that. Love being able to keep my house. Love having the electric bill. I love having a light on. But even beyond that, decisions get easier. Boundaries feel more intentional. Progress feels meaningful, even if it's slow. Even if it's slow. It reminds me of my clients, uh Jordan and Kirsten. And we're gonna have them on the podcast again as a little update, but they're one of the episodes in here. And and one of the things that happened in their life, without going too far in it, they had a major, major life change, a couple major life changes, actually, since that last episode. And it completely had to derail the original plan that they had for their money. And it was so dang slow because they were off like a rocket in the beginning, and it really changed everything. We had to pivot what their why was. We had to really dig deep and change things because, and just a little spoiler, they had another baby, okay? And um, what happened was, you know, we're we're going hard, we're doing the dang thing. They had their first baby. They didn't really have the resources financially to sustain themselves. Next baby, they sure did. And we're definitely going to go into those details at a further episode. But slow progress is stoke progress, even if it feels eh, lukewarm. It just feels like you're barely doing anything. Going back to how your why changes everything, you're no longer asking, can I afford this? Instead, you're asking, does this support the life I'm trying to build? And that shift, whoo, that changes everything. All right. Because the numbers don't create discipline. Purpose does. Your why does. Now let me put this into like real life perspective for some of you. Okay. I see it all the time in coaching. People who have tried everything, the apps, the systems, the resets, the new months, new years, all of it. And when they slow down and uncover their why, suddenly all of those tools seem to work. The budget didn't change. The tools didn't change. They did. And I think that's what's so great and so different about coaching versus just a budgeting template online. You gotta dig deep into that stuff. And I have the better budgeting blueprint, and that is a budgeting template, but it also has mindset work, and we cover the why because that is so important. I've tried to share this with you why it's so important. I don't sell just a budgeting template because it's not going to work. It's just gonna be another tool in your email that you're not gonna look at, you're gonna forget about, you're not gonna log in, and you're not gonna do the videos, and you're not gonna do that. But if you get through those why videos, oh goodness, it is such a game changer on you being able to finish it out. So you might be saying to me, Danielle, I have no idea what my why is. I don't know. I just I always thought it was me. Just I want money in the bank and I want to pay off this debt. All right, cool. Let me help you, right? Let me help you out, let me help you grow and evolve and really actually make that 2026 resolution of I want to get my finances straightened out this year, actually make that happen. This is the secret sauce. This is it. The why is the reason you're doing it. And if you aren't crystal, crystal clear on what your why is, you are going to struggle getting those goals completed. So I encourage you, as we are new year, new month, and you've might have made that resolution of I just want to do better with my finances this year, I want to pay off debt, I want to have a budget that I actually stick to. I encourage you to write down why you want this change. Not what you want to fix, but what you want your money to support. When you have that clear why, your money finally has some direction. And that's where that real lasting change begins. All right, thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of the Better Budgeting Podcast. I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye.