Big Announcement - The Budget Meeting Guide

[00:00:00] Welcome to Money Talk with Skyler Fleming, where talking about money is encouraged. Let's get talking! Welcome Money Buddies to this special episode of Money Talk. Today we're announcing the brand new Budget Meeting Guide. You can find the link in the very top of the show notes, but in this special episode we are going to go through each page of the guide on video. So head over to YouTube if you want to check it out. And we're going to learn about some great ways and tips and tricks to have an effective budget meeting starting today.

[00:00:27] So if you want to go out and have a great budget meeting, download the guide and then set up a time and go and have a great money talk. I'm also going to share some extra tips and tricks that aren't in the guide itself. So you're going to learn a little bit extra by listening to today's episode. This special episode is right on the heel of yesterday's episode all about budgeting. That was a great episode and I recommend you go back and check it out and then use today's guide to really help fuel your motivation and build some momentum towards doing better with your money and doing better with a budget.

[00:00:54] The money talking points for this bonus episode are one, how can you get started with a budget meeting? Two, how could a budget meeting benefit you? And three, what would a productive and healthy money talk mean to you? With those money talking points in mind, let's get right into today's special episode.

[00:01:20] All right, let's go ahead and put the guide up on screen and talk about first, what is the budget meeting guide and what is a budget meeting? Well, it's a guide to help you stay on top of your money with a regular budget meeting, which is a regular time to talk about your budget. Budget and finances. They're pretty simple. They don't have to be overly complex and stressful. You don't have to stress yourself out trying to figure out the perfect way to have a budget meeting because this guide is going to help you figure that out. It's going to help you take some simple steps to figure out a good path for you to go forward with talking about your money regularly.

[00:01:49] Be sure to head to the show notes, download this resource so you can either look through it as we're going or head over to YouTube so that you can see the video as I show this here on screen. As we talk through this brand new resource, as you can see here on the main screen, it says your guide to staying on top of your money with the help of a regular budget meeting. So let's go ahead and move on to the next page here. What do you do before your first budget meeting? You're saying, Skylar, I know I need to be talking about money more. I know a budget meeting can be helpful. What do you do?

[00:02:15] Well, it's all about tracking. Track, track and track some more. You have to know where your money is coming from and where it's going. By tracking your expenses, you arm yourself with the data that you need to make good, healthy financial conversations. And without tracking, you don't really know where it's going. And there's some great tools like Excel, My Budget Coach, Google Sheets, Monarch Money, YNAB. All those great apps can help you figure out how to track it. There are some great free trackers out there like Empower Personal Dashboard.

[00:02:42] It's very likely your bank or credit union has some sort of a thing built into their app that you can connect your other accounts to. As you can see here on the guide, I have a five year spreadsheet template that you can get for free as a part of this guide where you can simply enter in your transactions and it's going to do some categorizing and tracking for you. On that guide, there's a great way to schedule a free money talk with me and I'm happy to help anyone get set up with it. So that's what to do before your first budget meeting is make sure there's some tracking in place.

[00:03:08] I recommend 90 days of expenses be tracked, but as long as you have at least one month categorized and tracked, that's going to be super helpful towards building that momentum with a budget meeting and getting your budget going in the right direction. Alrighty, now you have your first budget meeting on the calendar. You're ready to do it. You're ready to go. What do you talk about? What do you discuss at your first budget meeting? Well, these things here on screen and on the guide about your monthly, quarterly and annual budget meetings, these are straight from my wife and I's budget meeting.

[00:03:35] We make sure to talk about the previous month's spending and then what is upcoming in the next month that we're going to have to spend money on. A perfect example of this was our last budget meeting. We talked about how we might go skiing. We talked about how some family is going to come to town. We're probably going to have to travel to go see our family. So what is our gas expense going to look like? Just that itself is such a great conversation to have to set your money up for success. Now you'll notice here on the guide, there's also a quarterly and an annual topics that are better for bigger discussions. You only need to have every once in a while.

[00:04:04] Things that are good for quarterly discussions are long term goals, buying a house, down payments, investing goals. Things like that, that don't need to change super frequently, but do need some conversation regularly. And then your annual budget meeting. This is the fun one. Update your net worth statement. Who doesn't love that? If you're a money nerd or you're getting going with money, your net worth is going to be a huge tool for you that helps you build that momentum and see your money grow and start working for you.

[00:04:28] So here's the tips of things to do every month, every quarter and annually with your regular budget meetings. Be sure to download the guide, check out these points because coming up I actually have a template that you can download. That's a Word doc or a Google doc that you can use to type in your notes right away. But let's move on to the next point. And like I said, here's the template that you need. I have a Google doc linked right in the guide that you can go and download today that can help you start with setting up a budget meeting agenda. And why do I say use an agenda? Well, because it's super useful.

[00:04:58] You have a place to write your notes down. You have a place to document things. You have a place to document changes, decisions, ideas that allows you to free up mental space. I had an episode a couple of weeks ago where we talked about getting organized. And one way to get organized is by writing things down. Set up your budget meeting agenda. Keep it simple. Have a monthly section and quarterly section and annual section. And here's the key things to do. There's going to be some tips for a productive budget meeting coming up. So stick around for that. Basically, just create a document that your own agenda can be whatever you want.

[00:05:26] You can download mine from the guide or just write down your own. It's a monthly talking points. And then you just jot down those notes. It's to keep track of your ideas, talking points and decisions. What are those secret tips that make budget meetings so productive? Well, plan ahead. You have to make sure you're putting things on the agenda so that you know what to talk about ahead of time. But also, here's a little secret that I'll let you in on. If you plan ahead, it's going to save you so much stress in a marriage or even by yourself that maybe you're saying, Oh, I spend too much time thinking about money.

[00:05:55] Well, by committing a specific time, you're going to end up spending less time thinking about money because you have time set aside to talk about finances. Maybe you're saying, Oh, I don't want to commit 60 minutes or two hours to budgeting every single month. But trust me, if you do that, it's going to be less than the overall time you spend thinking about your money when you don't have a committed time to talk about it and to think about it. So here's some tips for a productive budget meeting. Write down your discussion topics ahead of time. Wait until your budget meeting to discuss the topics.

[00:06:23] Make sure you take notes to keep track of your thoughts and ideas and wait to discuss your budget meeting. Like I was just talking about, it reduces stress and anxiety around your money. My wife knows this firsthand. I used to bring up topics all the time, just at random. I would learn about something online and say, Hey, we should do this with our money. We should do that with our money. And she'd be like, isn't this counter to that? All sorts of things that this conversation and me talking through this is probably just invoking stress in your mind of all the different money conversations you have to have day in and day out. But when you schedule a time and write things down, don't forget to write them down.

[00:06:54] That is when you can have helpful, productive, and healthy money talks with your regular budget meetings. Again, just a reminder that this whole budget meeting is to help reduce stress and anxiety with your money so you can have healthy money talks. Check out this free guide at money talk with Skylar Fleming dot com slash resources, which is in the show notes. So go check it out. Download this free guide and let me know what you think. Are you going to start having a lot better, healthier money talks and money budget meetings? I think you will. And I think you're going to like this guide. Next, let's talk about the money talking points.

[00:07:21] How can you discuss this with a friend or a family member to get them on board with a budget meeting? So the first money talking point is how can you get started with a budget meeting? Start with a simple word doc or Google doc, write down a few discussion points. And then here's the key schedule a time to talk about with your money buddy or with a spouse. Talk about those discussion points.

[00:07:50] Don't make it too complex and don't try to figure out your entire financial picture all at once. My wife and I are still working through many conversation points over years. Because it really just can't be solved all right away. We bring up the housing down payment discussion every two months or so because that's something that persists in our mind. But we're not worried about it. We're not stressing about it regularly because of that scheduled time that we have to talk about money. We don't worry about it throughout the month. Your meetings will get more detailed and better as they go.

[00:08:15] My wife and I used to take hours, literal hours with these meetings and they'd be stressful. There would be tears involved. But now we're down to 45 to 60 minutes to do everything from budget last month's income to talk about our discussion points and their healthy and good money talks that we're having. And I like to say throughout this episode, I've said it. You can spend a little scheduled time thinking about your money or you can spend all of your time thinking about your money because you don't have structure around your finances.

[00:08:41] A simple budget meeting can be the difference between sleeping well or staying up awake all night thinking about your money. Let's move on to the second money talking point, which is how can a budget meeting benefit you? It benefits my wife and I a great deal. It could benefit you in a couple of different ways that I've identified here. You could have decreased money stress, fewer money fights, better alignment with your finances, better control, better confidence, more willingness to spend money, which is awesome.

[00:09:07] Maybe you're the spouse in the relationship that's the spender and you want to see the saver spend a little more because you're doing well with your money. The budget meeting can help give you confidence to spend money. It gives my wife and I confidence because we're checking in on those categories we have and saying, oh, yeah, you have a lot in your Skylar fund or your Rebecca fund. So I have confidence to spend money on things that I want because I know we're in control of our finances. Another way it's going to help you, it's going to help you decrease buyer's remorse and you're going to feel better with your money overall. Just make sure to start simply like I've been saying the whole time.

[00:09:35] Start simple and it'll naturally get more complex, but you'll be naturally doing better and better with every budget meeting. Let's talk about the third money talking point. What would a healthy and productive money talk mean to you? Well, it's better for your life overall. For me, it is. It's going to be so much less worry. It's less worry for me. It just makes everything easier in life. My wife and I don't have to worry so much about money because of our regular meetings. We know when we're going to talk about it. We know that it's going to have minimal stress because we're working together.

[00:10:02] What would it mean to you to have a healthy relationship with money or with your spouse concerning money? How much better would it be if you could just have a productive money talk? Well, that's what today's guide is going to help you figure out how to do. So go to moneytalkwithscatterfemming.com slash resources and download the budget meeting guide. The link is in the show notes, but that does it for today's episode. I really hope those three money talking points were inspiring for you to take action. Go get the guide and start having regular budget meetings. They're the best and eventually you're going to look forward to them and find them fun.

[00:10:31] My wife and I are always excited when that reoccurring event shows up on our calendar because it means we get to talk about money. It means we get to have fun with our money. It's a great time for us to set goals, learn together, control our finances together and overall just become better aligned with our money, which is just awesome. It makes it all the more fun through these budget meetings that we can be in control together and reach our financial goals together. Thank you for listening to today's special episode on money talk. The best way to stay up to date and connected with all things money talk is by subscribing to my newsletter.

[00:10:59] Head over to the show notes and click on that link to sign up for my email list. And that's going to be a great way to stay up to date with all things money talk. And of course, you can head on my website and use the contact form to send me any questions you might have. If you're looking to get started with budgeting, I've partnered with my budget coach, a platform that connects you directly with a financial coach and your budget. I'd love to work with you over there, so make sure to check out the link in my show notes. And remember, the best way to learn from today's episode is to go and have a money talk about it with a friend. But thank you for listening to today's episode of money talk.

[00:11:28] I'm your host, Skylar Fleming. Have a great week. Thank you for listening to money talk with Skylar Fleming. This show is provided for informational and entertainment purposes and may not be specific to your unique situation. Please be sure to do additional research before making any financial decisions.