Episode #97: “I Do… Within Budget: Mastering Your Wedding Finances”

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Transcript

Welcome to Fiscal Physical

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Fiscal Physical Podcast. Join us each week as we sit down with the founder of Alchemy Wealth Management and author of your Fiscal Physical, Ryan Nelson. Tune in to gain valuable insights and practical tips as we simplify complex financial concepts into digestible lessons. From budgeting to retirement planning, this podcast is your go-to resource for mastering financial literacy.

Aaron Hoisington 0:33

Welcome everybody to this week's episode of the Fiscal Physical Podcast. My name is Aaron, still here with Mr Ryan Nelson. You guys get us every Tuesday. Please set your clocks to that your watches to when the Fiscal Physical podcast drops. We'd love you to have it on standby ready to go here. And Ryan, how are you doing today, man?

Ryan Nelson 0:54

I'm doing well, how are you doing?

Aaron Hoisington 0:55

You know, not too bad. Not too bad. Another glorious day there and I did plug it earlier, but I haven't actually plugged it. But thank you everybody who's been listening to these episodes. We couldn't do it without you guys, or if we did, it'd be a lot more lonely. So we thanks everyone for checking us out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, anywhere you get your podcasts Really appreciate it, and today we got a good episode here. I think this could be a banger, Ryan. What do you think?

Ryan Nelson 1:20

Yeah, I'm excited for it.

Aaron Hoisington 1:21

Yeah, so we're going to be talking about mastering your wedding finances. So I do dot dot dot within budget this is a cool little name that came up there and you know weddings are an event that a large number of people will have at some point in their lives. You know, it can be a large expense, could be a small expense on how you guys get or how anybody uh really, uh really, sets it up. Um, at the time of recording this, ryan, you are also planning to get married at some point in the future.

Ryan Nelson 1:52

I I do believe.

Aaron Hoisington 1:53

So I am, I am. I reserve the right to walk that back, but I don't think I will. And uh, myself, I've, I've been married for about a little over five years now, so I've, I've done the wedding thing, I've attended. You've probably attended several weddings in your days, yeah for sure. I was trying to think back on, uh, like, the number of weddings I've been to and like it's, it's, it was a lot higher than I thought.

Ryan Nelson 2:14

Sure.

Aaron Hoisington 2:15

Like I was like.

Speaker 1 2:16

Oh yeah.

Aaron Hoisington 2:17

I've been to these and so you can kind of get an idea. And you, you walk in you're like, wow, they spent a lot on this or this is really, you know, budget friendly. So I think today, ryan, just as far as how it goes into financial a piece of it, because it is something maybe you want to plan for, Maybe you, you know you didn't budget for, maybe you did budget for. So I'm hoping you can give some, you know, tips and tricks on kind of how to best budget for things. And without you know, we're not going to throw any shade for people who want to spend a lot, spend a little. It's up to you, obviously. But, ryan, I'd love you to break it down Some budgeting tips. What do you think? What do you think?

Prioritizing What Matters Most

Ryan Nelson 2:51

Let's do it, so yeah. So I'd say, first and foremost, you probably should decide on what number you're comfortable and willing to spend on the wedding, this, like a lot of other things. If you don't have an idea of what you're planning on spending and you just go into it sort of with your eyes closed, then each individual item can just end up accumulating and costing a lot more than you maybe should have spent or bargaining on spending. So having sort of an idea of a total number before even starting the process is probably the best place to start. Then I would say, maybe prioritizing what matters most to you so you could think about, like, the venue, the food, photography, entertainment, et cetera and not every couple is going to value all those things the same right.

Ryan Nelson 3:35

One couple may value venue and say, oh, I don't care about the food or photos.

Ryan Nelson 3:39

Another one may say, oh, I just want it to be super entertaining, I don't care where it is or what the food is, and you know, somebody else might say, you know, this is like just for us, I just want to make sure I have, you know, photos that I can keep for the rest of my life and remember, you know. So every couple may value different things, but so for you it'd be worth sitting down, prioritizing and ranking what matters to you. So once you have your overall number, then you've identified cool, what do we care about? Maybe it's venue and food Perfect. Now you can start to break out like okay, of my overall number, how much could I start spending on these different items? And if you don't value photography, it'd still be easy, if you hadn't done this pre-planning, to go into a meeting with a photographer, them, tell you some numbers and say, well, I like option B more than option A and I like option B more than option A and I like option C more than option B or A, so let's go with option C.

Ryan Nelson 4:27

And then again it's just starting to add up and you realize like you're way outside of your budget. I'd also, you know, just setting expectations with each other, like as a couple, so having less honest conversations with your partner and families about contributions and goals. So if you're getting money outside of just the two of you, you know, having an idea of how much you can expect or how much they're willing or able to chip in matters, because that all affects this. And if, if you're not having those clear conversations on the front end, how could you then appropriately plan right? So it'd be much better to get you know, get an idea of what those contributions um might look like on day one, as opposed to after you start planning and and all of that stuff.

Ryan Nelson 5:12

Um, then I would say, break it down into the bucket. So kind of like I said before, identify, you know how much is going to be, how much you know. Once you've identified your priorities, then identify okay, what's my total amount, so how much we're willing to put in, how much we're getting contributions from, maybe family. Now you can start to break it into the buckets and say, hey, I could spend X amount on the venue, I could spend X amount on catering, x amount on photography, etc. Etc. And you could break that into like percentages. So if the, if the dollars and cents have to change over time, you could say, okay, we're willing to spend, you know whatever 40% on the venue, 20% on food, and then, if you can, either, depending on when you get married, if the, if your amount you're saving goes up or goes down, you can always flex this up and down as well. Another thing I would say is like plan for some of those hidden costs. So, depending on what you're doing or where you're going, you might have to tip people or servers.

Ryan Nelson 6:03

Right, there might be some taxes or service charges or fees that you're not initially thinking about and that are in some ways sort of hidden right. So you may have a service provider tell you a flat rate, but then what you don't realize is there is a service fee and tax on top of that and like a underlying assumption that you would tip them. And so now, all of a sudden, this $5,000 package might turn into $8,000 after the service fee, the taxes you know. So it'd be start planning for those hidden fees now, or those hidden costs, and do your best to uncover them and make them not hidden.

Aaron Hoisington 6:33

Yeah, and I think that also like you, sometimes you'll get hit with those hidden costs like day of the wedding or whatever, and that's like the the last thing you want on your mind as well too. So you build that little buffer for that time or that, those, those possible opportunities like that. That's a huge piece of it, cause you don't want to be like somebody come up to you, like hey, like, actually, it's 400 extra bucks if you guys wanted that and it's like just do it or whatever it is, and that's kind of how those things snowball.

Aaron Hoisington 7:02

So having that little bit of extra buffer is a huge piece to it, without a doubt.

Avoiding Debt and Hidden Costs

Ryan Nelson 7:06

Yep, exactly. So not only just try to uncover those hidden costs to plan for, but then just also assume that you're not gonna uncover them all. So build that buffer in, typically like five to 10%, for those unexpected costs, and that would be most of sort of the high level, actually budgeting advice. A couple other things to think about is I personally would highly recommend avoiding debt. So you know, like me and my fiance, we will have been engaged for like 24 months or maybe even longer, and you know what that allowed us to do is it gave us enough opportunity to save up for the wedding we wanted, and we won't go into debt to have what we believe is a pretty nice wedding. So determine what you want and figure out a plan of how to get there, but don't necessarily gravitate towards the easy button, which would be taking out a loan, right? So I would definitely try to avoid debt if at all possible. So pay with your savings and cashflow, try to avoid credit cards and loans.

Ryan Nelson 8:11

And then I would also say track your spending. So I'm a big spreadsheet guy. I love spreadsheets, oh, absolutely yeah. So I would say use a spreadsheet or something to track your spending.

Ryan Nelson 8:22

You know there's already the costs of a wedding, since I'm in the middle of the planning, you know some of them come early, some come in the middle, some come late. I'm sure I'm going to receive some invoices after the wedding itself finalizes, right. And so if you're not sort of tracking your spending, it can be easy just to kind of forget what you've already spent in the past. And again, it would be a way where these expenses could kind of get out of hand and you know, you end up spending a lot more than maybe you were originally bargaining for. And then, lastly, I would say like focus on the meaning of this. So this would be true not just for weddings, it'd be true for cars, it'd be true for a house purchase, it's really true for everything in regards to a wedding. If we think about the meaning of this, it's the goal is the celebration of the marriage, not to impress others right which is easier said than done.

Ryan Nelson 9:06

We all are human and want to impress other people as well, but if you kind of remember what the purpose of this expense is, it can probably help keep you dialed in and there's ways to celebrate that marriage at certainly different price points. And again, this would probably be sound advice when you're buying your car, when you're buying your house, remember what your car is for, and impressing others is usually not the best use case for that. Yeah, so I'd say in general, that's where I would start from a budgeting standpoint and how to financially plan for a wedding. I heard some there's some like kind of viral stories here recently of like some billion dollar weddings.

Aaron Hoisington 9:48

Oh, yeah, yeah, and so Bezos wedding. Well, I think his was only like 50 million or something.

Ryan Nelson 9:53

But there's there's been some other weddings that are literally, I think, a billion dollars, which are insane, yeah. So if you think of the Bezos wedding, I think that one was like 50 million, which is an absurd amount of money. Sure, yeah, a billion dollars is 20 times.

Aaron Hoisington 10:07

Yeah, I was going to say that so um, actually, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Nelson 10:12

So it's crazy, um, but yeah, so the point is you can end up spending whatever you want on a wedding, whether it's, you know, probably between couple, grand and apparently a billion dollars. Sure, yeah, um. So you know, figure out again going back up, you know to where we started, like figure out what number you're comfortable with and figure out what you value, and then you can, you can put together a pretty good plan to probably have an amazing wedding at whatever price point you're happy with Yep, absolutely, man, and I think you hit on some some great points there for sure.

Aaron Hoisington 10:39

I know that, like when my wife and I we were planning our wedding, I really didn't care very much. I'm like that's just kind of the I'm like cool, like yes, I prefer our. My main thing is you hit on that. One of the last points is I don't want to go into debt for this. I'm like cool, months we can save enough money to probably do what we want to do. And you know you adapt and you figure these things out. And it's like are there any non-negotiables? Like I always love to start there, like cool. Are there anything you specifically want or specifically don't want?

Aaron Hoisington 11:12

And just having that conversation with your partner, it really feeds into. You know you made the connection between like the car, the house, and like you really want to make sure that both parties are happy with it. But it's like what are you trying to accomplish with this? If you want to have that, that oh ah moment, awesome, great. If you want to save for it and able to do that, phenomenal. You want doves to fly out, like you know, third minute of the ceremony Great. Like it's probably going to cost you a little extra to do that though, but very similar to finances, like sit down, talk with your partner, because you guys might think you're on the same page, but when it actually comes to it it's like oh no, I wanted to spend. You know, I wanted to get a wedding photographer and a videographer, and you're like shoot, that's an extra 10 grand.

Speaker 1 11:58

It could be something like that.

Aaron Hoisington 11:59

So just ensuring that clear communication is done, I think is a is a is a really solid way, and tracking everything Big piece of it too, for sure. So these are, these are awesome, ryan. Obviously we're we're definitely not here to give wedding advice, but I think that if you're able to do it in the way that fits best for you within budget, I think everybody you know happy life could be ahead of you. Well, I don't know, Hard to say, but at least a happy wedding could be done. So awesome man, appreciate the insight. As always, we'll go ahead and take a pause here and everybody hang tight.

Speaker 1 12:31

And now to put the personal in personal finance.

Aaron Hoisington 12:37

Welcome back everybody. This side of the physical, physical podcast. We are on the personal side here and, Ryan, this one is really interesting to me. So just to kind of set the stage, your mom was a teacher, if I'm not mistaken, growing up, she sure was she sure was retired, living off that purse, love it. But my question for you is did you have a favorite teacher in school, at any age level, you know, elementary, high school, college, whatever and if so, like what made them unique or what made them stand out to you?

Ryan Nelson 13:08

Yeah, before I answer that, do you remember all of your teachers' names from every grade? Um?

Aaron Hoisington 13:14

before I answer that, do you remember all of your teachers names from every grade.

Ryan Nelson 13:17

No, not really. No, yeah, I wish we talked about this before in the podcast.

Aaron Hoisington 13:19

I think it sounds familiar, like the the conversation, but I was like I was going through, I was like I don't know if we've actually done this one before but yeah but I think we have talked about teachers, sure, the impact and stuff.

Ryan Nelson 13:30

Yeah, before um, yeah, I, I, I'm. I'm the type of guy I can't remember um a lot of my teacher's names throughout, like elementary school and stuff like that, so I'm probably not the most uh prepared to answer a question like this. Um certainly I had some great college professors. Um, I had, uh uh, my coach gray was my basketball coach and math teacher and I happened to like both basketball and math Perfect.

Ryan Nelson 13:55

So that was a a natural, a cemetery there, um, so yeah, I'd say, uh, I'd say yeah, he, he is a teacher. I guess that, when you ask me, he's one that jumps to mind here. Um, and also, yeah, I had some fantastic like professors, professors through college, but what about you?

Aaron Hoisington 14:11

yeah, no, it's interesting kind of growing, so it's fun. I had no idea how much people actually like know about me because I technically didn't grow up in reno, I didn't go to school here or anything, but um moved here after after college and such too. So, um, it's funny, within our friend group we'll get together and talk and people talk about like their high school teachers and they remember and I was like like I don't remember a lot of my like teachers at all Like.

Aaron Hoisington 14:34

But fun fact. So growing up up until sixth grade I was actually homeschooled, so my mom was yeah it's funny. Not many people know that, but uh. So my mom, can you remember all your elementary?

Speaker 1 14:45

school teachers.

Aaron Hoisington 14:46

I do remember all my elementary, just my one, just my mom. So, uh, I'd probably lean towards her. But actually in high school I had a teacher. He was an English teacher, so I had him freshman and senior English and his name was Mr Arthur actually, and he actually was one of the reasons. Well, a driving force behind my son's name is Arthur.

Ryan Nelson 15:05

That's awesome.

Aaron Hoisington 15:06

So it worked out that my wife liked that name and I also really liked that teacher and he really taught me kind of what the English was and like how to phrase it and how to how to write.

Aaron Hoisington 15:16

I forgot everything immediately but at the time like it really uh, he really made a good and he was also a junior varsity basketball coach, so he we also like had that in common too, so it was fun. He was a. He was a good guy. Every time we go back to idaho for thanksgiving, like the last like three out of four years, we've ran into him in like a weird place oh that's cool and uh, it's.

Aaron Hoisington 15:38

It's super fun. My mom is also a teacher. She's still teaching. She actually had his two kids just recently in school too, so it's it's pretty funny how it comes full circle exactly yeah it's awesome um, but yeah, he was, he was great.

Aaron Hoisington 15:48

I'd almost think about him, and every time I see him I still call him Mr Arthur, even though he's like I'm like actually we're relatively like we're not that far apart in age, so it's just one of those respect things too. But anyway, I'd love to pose that to the listeners. Let us know who your favorite teacher or teachers were growing up, why that is, and if you guys have a question, email us. Podcast at alchemywealthcom. Text us, send us a letter, whatever works best for you and Ryan. I think this is a good place to end this one and I'll let you say the final words.

Ryan Nelson 16:21

As always, stay the course.

Podcast Closing and Disclaimer

Speaker 1 16:24

Thank you for joining us for the Fiscal Physical Podcast. Until next time, happy listening and, as always, stay the show. For more resources, you can visit Alchemy Wealth Management's website at wwwalchemywealthcom or find your fiscal physical the Book on Amazon. We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that personal finance is just that personal. Please don't take anything we say as advice. The preceding content is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It's not an offer or a solicitation, nor should it be construed or relied upon for tax, legal or investment advice. It doesn't consider your personal financial situation or objectives and may not be suitable for you.