38: Big changes for 2025!

Feeling overwhelmed by your grocery bills? You're not alone, and I've been there too. Back in 2020, amidst the chaos of having a newborn and all my kids at home, I discovered the power of focusing on our grocery budget. This revelation not only eased our financial stress but also birthed the Money Mom podcast's new vision. Tune in as I share my journey from financial anxiety to empowerment, using simple strategies that transformed our spending habits. Through smart meal planning and budgeting, I managed to save hundreds each month, and now I'm here to help you achieve the same.

xoxo,
Rachel

Where to find me:
Instagram: @heyrachelcoons
TikTok: @heyrachelcoons

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:03

Hello and welcome back. Did you notice the big change? Did you notice that we changed the name of the podcast from the hey Rachel Kuhns to Money Mom podcast? If you didn't, that's okay, but I am so thrilled to be expanding for the new year and changing things up a little bit. If you've been around for a while, you may have noticed that things look a little bit different on my Instagram. There's a new name on this podcast. I have a new vibe and a whole new vision for what I'm going to be doing in 2025. And today I just want to take you a little bit behind the scenes of why I made this change, what it means for you and where we're headed together, because I truly believe that this shift, this change, is going to help you and anyone that comes into my world so much better. The shift has been coming for a long time. So grab your Diet Coke, grab a blanket and cuddle up, because this is going to be a good one. So I want to rewind for a moment back to 2020.

Speaker 1: 2:25

It was obviously a tough time for everyone. It was a rough year. There was a lot of uncertainty, families were stretched thin, people were out of work. We were trying to do more with less. And, truthfully, for me it was a really overwhelming year, not just with COVID, but it was when I had my fourth baby. All of my children were home out of school and I felt like I was at my wit's end. And it was during this time that the whole financial situation that Brad and I were in kind of weighed heavily on my shoulders. Brad had been working for a while. I had chosen to stay home with my family and be a stay-at-home mom, and it was during this time that I realized that I needed to take a better look at our finances and not just think that it was Brad's job as the income earner, that it was his job to do all of the money stuff.

Speaker 1: 3:31

And it was that during that time that I started focusing on our grocery spending because, truthfully, I felt so overwhelmed Again just had my fourth baby, all of my children were home, I was homeschooling my oldest kid and the thought of having to control our finances with budgeting in general felt too much for me. So I had to take it down and bite size it down, and when I started looking at our spending, we hooked our finances up to Mint and it was tracking it for us. And so when I saw that we were spending a big chunk of our money on food every month, that was where I wanted to tackle first. It was we were at the time we were spending $1,200 a month for our family of six and that was where I decided to focus on. I couldn't do the whole family budgeting thing. I couldn't do that but I could focus on my grocery spending.

Speaker 1: 4:23

I wanted to make that change, not just for myself but for our family and so that we could have some extra money every month. I wanted to be able to contribute to our finances without going and getting a job, but still have serious success. I wanted to feel the tangible difference, even as a stay-at-home mom. So I dug in and I started meal planning. I started learning how to shop smarter, I learned how to set clear intentions with our finances with that grocery budgeting container. And what happened? I wasn't expecting, but we started saving hundreds of dollars every single month and having that extra income really helped me first feel confident that I was actually helping our financial situation. But on top of that, I felt less stressed than I had before. I felt like my meal planning and shopping and cooking routine was easier than it had ever been and I was feeling empowered, and I think that was the biggest ripple effect was that I started feeling empowered, that I could control our family's finances, and I could do it really simply by just focusing on our grocery budget, and that's what changed everything.

Speaker 1: 5:44

That's when I started sharing what I was doing with my Instagram. It's when I created the Grocery Budget Boot Camp in 2023. And that's where my first ideas were born, because I had felt like I had unlocked something that was life-changing for me and for all of the families that I was working with, because I knew that I wasn't alone in the struggle. I knew everyone was dealing with this overwhelming feeling of inflation and rising grocery costs, and that's where we built the community that we have now the Shop Society and it's grown. We now have over a thousand members and it's bigger and better than, truthfully, anything I could have ever imagined, and the results that we see inside of the Shop Society are life-changing for all of these women.

Speaker 1: 6:34

But that's when something started tugging at me and I started to realize that, while grocery budgeting is an incredible tool and I really believe it's the first step it's the easiest and most effective way for families to have extra monies every month. But I started to get this thought of like what's next? I'm helping people tackle their grocery budgeting, but there's still so much more to unpack. There's like, okay, great, now that you've saved all this money, what are you going to actually do with it? I saw families who were saving money on groceries, but they still had credit card debt. They still wanted to build an emergency fund, they still wanted to start investing and to start saving and to truthfully make the big changes that really lead to financial freedom. And I wanted people to feel like they were actually thriving and not just surviving. And that's when I realized that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 1: 7:39

I love grocery budgeting so much and I will continue to talk about it and be really passionate about it, but it is just the starting point. It's the foundation that we build. But it is just the starting point. It's the foundation that we build, but it's not the full story, and if you want to build lasting financial freedom for your families, we have to go deeper than that. We have to untangle all of these other issues that families have. We have to look at a bigger picture out of all of our finances. We have to look at how we budget as a family, our relationships with our spouses and how we both deal with money, how we change the way that we view money and the way that we feel around money, because money is so there's so much energy that goes into our emotional process with money. And then we have to know how to invest, like how do we build well for our family. And then the final step is how do you even make more money? How could you bring in money? And that's when I decided it's time. It's time for a change.

Speaker 1: 8:47

This podcast and what I preach my online community, my social media isn't just about grocery savings anymore. We're still going to do that, but it's more than that. It's about empowering you as a mom, how you can take full control over your finances as a mom, how you can take full control over your finances. I want to help you save, spend and build wealth intentionally, and that, like literally just gives me chills Like this is so needed.

Speaker 1: 9:22

Finances tend to be a very masculine thing and moms get overwhelmed by this, and I want to help make it easier, because I truly believe that moms are the heartbeat of their family's finances. It doesn't matter how much money the provider makes, whether that's your husband, whether that's you it doesn't matter how much money you make if you can't control the back end of that. You have your offensive team. You have your team making money, but you have to have a defensive team as well, and that's what I want to create. I want to create that defense for you. Moms are the ones at the grocery store. Moms are the ones paying bills. They're the ones that are managing the day-to-day spending when they have to sign their child up for soccer, when they have to buy the gift for the birthday party.

Speaker 1: 10:16

More often than not, we are left out of those bigger money conversations. We're not taught how to budget correctly. We're not taught how to invest or how to build wealth. We're not taught how to invest or how to build wealth, and I'm here to change that, and the new name of this podcast reflects that bigger vision that I'm looking towards. It's about you stepping into the power that you already hold as the CFO or chief financial operator of your family. It's about helping you feel more confident, more capable and in control of the money so that you can tackle debt, so that you can save, build up your emergency fund and create this life that you want for your family.

Speaker 1: 11:04

So here's what you can expect moving forward, we're still going to talk about grocery budgeting, because I do believe it's the fastest and easiest way to save money, and once we've done that, once we've started there, it's where we springboard. We're also going to dive into family budgeting. So once you've set up the grocery budget, you can also set up a system so you know exactly where your money is going every month. We're also going to tackle how to pay off debt. 46% of Americans are in credit card debt, and then, on top of that, we've got loans, other financial stressors, and the great thing about credit card debt and other debt is that if we start saving money on groceries, we're easing up some money every month that we can then go pay off debt. And then, once you've done that, then you get to look bigger on what's capable. Do you want to save for that family vacation? Do you want to start investing your money? But you have to get rid of the debt first.

Speaker 1: 12:09

I also am heavily going to dive into money mindset, because we can talk all day about tools, resources, things that you should be doing, but if you don't stop feeling guilty or stress or fear or scarcity around money. Nothing's going to change. You're still going to feel those things, even if your money story and situation is different. We're also going to talk about how to learn how to build wealth for the long term, even if it's just $10 to $50 a month. You start small, you learn the tools, you learn what you need to do, and then it can unlock so much potential.

Speaker 1: 12:51

And then the last piece of this is actually making money. If you're in a place, really simply you can start bringing in a small income, because sometimes the fastest way to financial freedom is actually creating more income, but on your own terms. I'm not saying you have to go out and get a job. There are so many ways in 2024 and 2025 how moms can make money, and they can do it from their house, they can do it during nap time, it doesn't have to take up too much energy, it can be really simple. And so those five pillars budgeting, paying off debt, money mindset, investing and making money are really the five pillars that we're going to be covering and how they all work together. It's like the puzzle piece that we're creating for a bigger picture about how to transform not just your finances, but also your life.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Where you are right now might feel a little bit overwhelming, like this is a lot to tackle and you're just like I'm just stressed about money, I'm just stressed about the extra bills coming in, and maybe you're also working so hard as a stay-at-home mom and you still feel like there's not any extra energy to put towards this. How can I contribute it? Maybe you're doing everything you can, but it still doesn't feel like enough. I get it. I've been there and I want you to know that there is hope and it doesn't have to. You don't have to jump from one point to another. We can give you stepping stones, building blocks, and this podcast and my online community is here to support you, because I don't want you to feel alone in this journey.

Speaker 1: 14:39

I don't want you to feel like you're having to tackle this on your own. You can take control of your and you can do it one step at a time, and I promise you, when you start seeing changes, when you save your first $600 a month on groceries, when you're able to start even start paying off your credit card or feeling confident enough to talk about money with your partner, it's going to create a ripple effect that will then change your life. So here's what I want you to do next, if this episode resonated with you and you're excited about the changes, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any future episodes and you can share this podcast with another mom. Maybe you have a friend or a sister or someone close to you that you feel like would resonate with this message. Maybe you have a friend or a sister or someone close to you that you feel like would resonate with this message. Share it with them.

Speaker 1: 15:33

We're in this together and I want to help as many moms as possible. And if you're ready to start right now, you can head over to my Instagram heyrachelcoons and check out the resources that are already there waiting for you, or you can go check out my free training that will link below this episode as well. Thank you so much for joining me today on the Money Mom podcast. I'm so excited for where we're headed together and I can't wait to see the incredible changes you're going to make in your family's finances. Remember, you're the key to your family's financial success. You've got this and I am cheering you on every step of the way. I'll see you here back next week.