110: Why Budgeting Keeps Failing You (And the Simple System That Actually Works)

You've tried the apps.
You've started the spreadsheet.
You tracked your spending for a week (maybe two) and then life happened. Sound familiar?

Here's what I want you to know: this is not a you problem.

You don't have a discipline problem or a willpower problem.

You have a systems problem.

And in this video, I'm going to show you exactly why traditional budgeting fails smart, capable women... and what to do instead.
In this video you'll learn:

Why traditional budgeting was never designed for your real life

Why restriction-based budgets are nearly impossible to stick to

The 3-bucket system that replaces overwhelming budget categories

How to know exactly what you can spend without tracking every dollar

The simple weekly check-in that keeps you in control without burning out

If you've been stuck in the cycle of trying, stopping, and starting over again — this video is for you.
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#budgeting #moneytips #budgetingforwomen #personalfinance #moneymom #financialfreedom #budgetingmoms #moneysystem #savemoney #financetips

xoxo,
Rachel
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Transcript

The Budgeting Start Stop Cycle

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You've tried to budget, maybe more than once. You found an app or a template or you just opened the notes doc on your phone and started tracking your expenses. And it works maybe for a few days or a couple weeks. And it felt like you were doing the right thing until it didn't. What happens is life gets busy, something comes up, you have a week where you don't track anything and you don't check in with that notes app. And by the time you come back to it, your money situation just feels too messy or you're too overwhelmed and too busy to fix it. So you either unsubscribe from the app, you close out the spreadsheet, and you tell yourself, we'll figure this out next month. Does that sound familiar? Here's what I want you to hear today in this video. You don't have a willpower problem, and you don't have a discipline problem. My guess is you're disciplined in a lot of areas of your life, like getting the kids to school on time or showing up to your job when you need to, or doing the laundry when there's excess laundry that needs to be done. You don't need more discipline. This is not a you problem. This isn't your fault. This is a systems problem.

Not Willpower, It’s A System

SPEAKER_00 1:23

And today I want to show you exactly why traditional budgeting, the way that we view budgeting right now, actually fails smart, capable women like yourself. And what to do instead. Let's paint a picture for you. You're a woman who either earns good money or your husband does. Maybe not like rich people money, maybe the money's not like rolling in every month, but real solid money that looks good on paper. And things should be fine when it comes to your finances. And yet, when the end of the month rolls around, you look at your bank account and you start to think, where did all of this money go? You didn't buy anything in excess. You didn't go crazy on some wild shopping spree. It was just normal life that you're experiencing. The groceries that you had to buy, takeout a couple times, maybe a few things that you ordered from Amazon, some subscriptions that you have to have. You're filling up your gas in your car. And then just the random things that life throws at you when you have a life, a household, kids, and a job. And somehow at the end of the month, it's still gone. So you tell yourself, okay, this is the month that I am gonna get serious. I'm going to get serious with the budget. I'm going to track my spending. And so you do that for a couple days. And immediately it just feels like you're adding more and more to your already full plate. And then you start to feel overwhelmed by what you see. You are setting limits on your money. You're setting restrictions on how much you can spend in certain areas. And you probably feel a little good about yourself because you're more in control. And then Tuesday rolls around. Your kids come home from school and they need new soccer cleats or they need that money for the field trip. Your work is insane. You've got a thousand things that you need to complete. You're exhausted. And the last thing that you want to do is open up your phone and log another Starbucks purchase. So you don't. And I actually don't blame you for that. And then a week goes by and you start to feel guilty because you've made some more purchases that you haven't tracked. And by the time that you're ready to face those numbers again, there is so much to catch up on that it just feels easier to start over again and again and again. And I want you to know that if this is normal for you, it's not unique to just you. This is the experience of almost every single one of my clients that I work with. And it keeps happening to you, not because you lack commitment, not because you want this to work more, not because you're ready to make a change, but because the model itself, the system that you're trying to plug yourself into is broken for the way that your life actually works.

The Three Reasons Budgets Fail

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Money is not black and white. As much as budgeting coaches want to tell you that, your money needs gray area. It needs wiggle room. And when you try and fit that black and white approach into your budgeting, when your expenses are anything but black and white on a month-to-month basis, it is going to fail every single time. Because here's what no one tells you about traditional budgeting. It was not designed for a real woman's life. It was designed for a perfect, predictable, spreadsheet-friendly life where every week looks the exact same. Every expense fits neatly into a category. And then you have unlimited time and mental energy to track everything down to the dollar amount. That's not your life. Your life has chaos in it. Your week looks different every single week. Some months you spend more, some months something unexpected happens. Some months your income isn't even the same number. And when a budgeting system requires perfect conditions to function, it will fail the moment real life shows up. So I hope you feel like if you failed in the past, it's not your fault. It's the system you've been trying to plug yourself into. And here's another reason why budgeting tends to fail so many people. And this one's important is that traditional budgeting that we look at today is built on restriction. The whole underlying message of typical budgeting is to spend less, cut out the lattes, trim the dining out, stop buying things that you don't need. And I don't know about you, but when something feels like a punishment or feels like I'm going to get less from it, when it feels like I am told to shrink my life and deprive myself of things that I enjoy, it's hard to stick to it and want to do it because you probably work hard. You probably earn the money that you make. And you don't want to feel like you have to ask permission from your spreadsheet to enjoy spending money. And there's nothing wrong with that. The third reason traditional budgets tend to fail is because they require daily effort to maintain. Every purchase is supposed to be logged, every category is supposed to be checked. Every week you have to review it. And listen, when you are already managing a hundred things in your life, like most moms do, your mental bandwidth is not unlimited. And when a financial system requires more energy, more time, more mental bandwidth than you have left at the end of the day, it's not going to last. And that's not you being weak, that's just a reality. So

Tracking Vs A Money System

SPEAKER_00 8:12

let's talk about what actually works instead. I want to offer you a completely different way of thinking about your money and budgeting. The goal is not to track every dollar, the goal is to understand where your money is going and then to have a clear, simple structure that directs the money before it just disappears unintentionally. And those things are very different. Tracking your money is reactive. You spend, then you record it, and then most of the time you'll feel bad about it. When you create a money system, you are proactive. Your money will have a place to go before you spend it. So when you make a purchase, you already know whether it will fit in with that system or not. Think of it this way: a budget is like going on a diet where you're gonna write down every single thing you eat every single day, and then try to stay under a specific calorie limit. And then every time you go over that calorie limit, you feel like you failed, and then you have to start the diet over again. A system is more like just having a fridge stocked with food that you actually want to eat that fits in with your plan. So you're naturally making good choices without obsessing over every single meal because you have the stocked fridge. One will require constant effort and willpower. The other just works because it's built into your structure of life. That is the shift that I want you to make if you've struggled budgeting. Stop trying to track your money harder. Start building a structure that tells your money where to go and that works for you and your life. So you're probably saying to yourself, right, okay, that sounds good. What does that actually look like? I'm gonna give you three things. And these are foundations of a system that will actually hold up, even in a busy, unpredictable life.

The Three Buckets Simplification

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Number one, I want you to know your three buckets. Instead of 15 budget categories that you'll never keep up with, just simplify everything into three buckets: fixed, flexible, and future. Fixed is everything that's gonna stay the same every month. That's usually your rent or mortgage, your car payment, insurance, subscriptions that you are committed to. This is the money that's already spoken for before you do anything else. Flexible is everything that moves and is variable: groceries, dining out, gas, shopping, fun, kids stuff. This is where the gray area lives in your life. And this is where most of the confusion lives. And it's where you need a number to account for that pool, not a tracking log. Most of the time, I have my clients start with just by focusing on their grocery spending when they start out with a plan. That's because groceries are the fastest and easiest way to cut that number every month. And I have a whole system that I teach to be able to save $600 every single month on groceries. I'm gonna drop that masterclass in the chat. And we have helped over 7,000 families save over $3 million in groceries alone. Okay, the third number is your savings, investments, debt payoff. This is the money that's actually building something for you. So we have fixed, flexible future. That's it. Three buckets. You actually don't need more than that to get started to have a clear plan with your money.

Set One Flexible Spending Number

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Number two, give yourself a spending number, not a spending list. That number, the amount that is left over every month is your flexible spending number. That's what you have to work with. You don't need to track all the subcategories. You just need to know what that number is and stay inside of it. So, for example, if I make $7,000 in a month and my fixed expenses equal $4,000 that month, and I want to save $1,000 every month for my future retirement and savings, that means that I have $2,000 left over at the end of the month after the fixed and the future to put into my flexible spending account. That's it. So then we have to decide, okay, what is that gonna look like with our groceries, our other activities that we do, our eating out? Can we fit and stay within that flexible number? If you can, then you're gonna stay out of debt and you're gonna have enough money left over at the end of the month. If you can't, then we need to work some things out and figure out where we take away in the fixed and the future to be able to pay for those gray area spendings that you have every month. The way that this works is it's so much simpler to maintain because instead of asking yourself, am I over on dining this month? You're just asking yourself, do I still have money in my flexible pool? One question, one place to check, and it's easier to answer. Okay,

Weekly Five Minute Pulse Check

SPEAKER_00 13:19

number three is then build in a weekly pulse check, just once a week, not daily tracking. You don't have to check this every single day. Daily tracking tends to burn people out, especially if you're busy. So instead, I want you to do one, one, five to 10 minute check-in every week. And I do recommend doing this with a spouse or partner so you can look at the numbers together, look at your accounts, see roughly where you are for the month, notice if you are on pace or if you need to pull back a little in the second half of the month and stay flexible throughout the month if you need to. And that's it. You're not logging every purchase, you're not categorizing every single transaction. You're just maintaining that awareness, which is all you actually need to be able to stay in control. Five minutes once a week. That's probably something that you can agree to do and actually keep up with. I want to leave you with this. The reason budgeting hasn't worked for you in the past isn't because you're broken. It's not because you're just terrible with money. It's because you've probably tried to fit a square peg into a round hole. You have been handed a system that requires you to be a different person than you actually are. Someone with more time, more energy, more consistency than your life actually allows you to have at this point in your life. That system was never going to work for you. But a simple, structured, real life approach that can work for you. You don't need to track every single dollar to feel in control of your money. You just need to know where it's going and be really intentional and have a clear enough picture that you stop feeling confused and you start feeling calm. That's the goal. Not perfection, not restriction, just clarity.

Clarity Over Perfection And Subscribe

SPEAKER_00 15:18

If this resonated with you and if you've been in that cycle of trying, stopping, starting over again, and you're sick of it, I want you to hit subscribe to my channel because this is exactly what I talk about every single week. Simple, real life, judge-free money guidance for women who are done feeling behind. And if you want to go deeper with me, the link is in the description where I'll tell you how I can help you build this system for your specific life. You've got this. I know you can do it. I'll see you in the next video.