Sept. 17, 2025
106: Your Six Month Money Makeover
What If You Could Completely Transform Your Finances in Just 180 Days? Forget overnight success stories and overwhelming budgets, this episode is about real, lasting change. Jess and Brandon are breaking down a six-month financial reset plan that shows you exactly how to take control of your money, no matter where you're starting. They’ll walk you through: The first step everyone skips (but shouldn't): Getting crystal clear on where your money is goingThe tools that simplify your entire...
What If You Could Completely Transform Your Finances in Just 180 Days?
Forget overnight success stories and overwhelming budgets, this episode is about real, lasting change. Jess and Brandon are breaking down a six-month financial reset plan that shows you exactly how to take control of your money, no matter where you're starting.
They’ll walk you through:
- The first step everyone skips (but shouldn't): Getting crystal clear on where your money is going
- The tools that simplify your entire money flow (yes, we’re talking Monarch Money)
- How to build an emergency fund without feeling broke
- Debt payoff strategies that actually match your personality (Snowball vs Avalanche)
- How automation becomes your secret weapon
- And why small, consistent wins are the key to long-term wealth
If your bank account isn’t reflecting the life you want, this episode gives you the roadmap to change that. In just six months, you can go from overwhelmed and disorganized to confident and in control.
Hit play and learn the exact steps to finally reset your finances, for good.
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Notes from the show:
Chapters
00:00 - Changing Your Financial Trajectory
03:42 - Getting Clear on Your Numbers
08:51 - Cutting Expenses and Redirecting Money
10:59 - Building Your Safety Net
16:12 - Attacking Debt and Credit Improvement
21:04 - Planning for Future Growth
25:52 - Locking in New Financial Habits
Transcript
WEBVTT
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What if we told you that in just six months, you could completely change your financial trajectory?
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Six months from now, you could have a working budget, a starter emergency fund, less debt and more confidence with your money.
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That's what today's episode is all about taking small but powerful steps that compound into life-changing results.
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Whether you're starting from scratch, bouncing back from some mistakes or just ready for a reset, this plan will help you take control of your finances and set yourself up for long-term success.
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If this is of interest, stay tuned.
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Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
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Today we are talking about a reset Going into the last half of the year, final stretch.
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How did we get here?
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People need a reset.
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Well, I also think that a lot of people want to make changes for their finances, but it's become so overwhelming and they don't think that they can do it in a realistic amount of time.
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Or they have to do it all at once.
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Correct, and the goal of today is that you know, within a six month period, you can really actually do a financial reset and set yourself up on the path towards a much better outcome as far as from a planning standpoint, with your finances to get to where you want to be.
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Yeah as far as from a planning standpoint, with your finances to get to where you want to be.
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Yeah, I equate it too to.
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You know, when people are on like a health journey and they start working out, they start eating right, they start drinking their water, all the things, and at that six month mark is when you can really see changes.
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You know, like I'm thinking of one of my friends in particular.
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She started in the new year and you know she's down over 30 pounds off of her blood pressure medicine.
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Uh, cholesterol is back in check, collarbones popping, I mean.
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You know like I'm so proud of her I always think it's funny we do the collarbone popping because if you know, you know, you know well, that's also like a thing for women, because no man is trying to have his collarbone pop.
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Yes, it's a Well, I am speaking as a woman.
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Listen, you all know what I'm talking about.
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It's the collarbone, it's popping, you know.
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So all I'm saying is I'm so proud of her, you know, or anybody that's made consistent change, you know, and that, like, it obviously doesn't happen overnight.
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It's like no, you show up for yourself multiple times a week and you make choices and then boom, six months hit and you're like, oh my collarbones popping.
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I think there's a lot of similarities between improving your finances and improving your personal health.
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There's a lot, there's a big correlation between the two, because one that's not going to happen neither one of them is going to happen overnight, sadly, and one of them is going to happen overnight, sadly.
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And one of the biggest contributing factors to success is consistency for both.
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Yeah, discipline and consistency, yeah, yeah.
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So, anyways, all I'm saying is you know, if you've ever been on on that kind of a journey, right, whether it's you're on a fitness journey, a health journey, a mental health, wellness, meditation journey, whatever it is, it's that consistency and discipline that yields the results that people end up looking for, and so this is no different.
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It's you're not going to wake up overnight and have a budget.
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You're not going to wake up overnight and be a millionaire, like those.
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Things don't happen, but within a six month period, you can make significant positive improvements.
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Oh, 100%.
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So that's what we're going to talk about and even on all honesty, after one, two months, there's a lot of things that we're going to talk about that you can do, that are going to put you in a significantly better place than your peers.
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Yeah, I love it.
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Where do we start?
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What's number one?
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Let's just jump right in.
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First is getting clear on the numbers what is going on in your current financial life.
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So what you're going to end up having to do here is that you are going to find out where am I spending my money?
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Where is it going?
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Most people don't do that.
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They do not.
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So you got to figure out how much money I've coming in.
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So for my you know, if you're working a W2 job, you have a salary, whatever it may be.
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How much do you have coming in on a monthly or annual basis?
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And then where is that money going?
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And the only way to get clear on that is to pay attention to it and actively track it.
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Now I would say the easiest way to go about doing that is utilizing technology.
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So there's several different apps and software on your computer where you have what's called account aggregators, where you can connect your bank account, your credit cards, and it'll pull in all your different transactions.
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So you have a clear picture of where you're spending your money.
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Yeah, and what's really nice about those is it'll categorize it right.
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It will show you where your priorities are.
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So one that I think is great, because a lot of people were familiar with Mint and that was a great app, but it no longer exists.
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But some of the people that created mint have actually created a new product called monarch money, and that is a great.
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Now you do have to pay for it, but there's a lot of discount codes.
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I think there's often a 50 discount code for um the first year of having it.
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But this is an account aggregator that allows you to connect all your various accounts and the nice thing is that it's going to pull in several months of expenses so that you have your log Correct, because the idea is that you want to look how much you've been spending over time, because there's going to be some.
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There probably is going to be some variations from month to month, but you want to get a really good average of what you're spending on a monthly basis.
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Yeah.
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So yeah, it's all those little purchases that add up.
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You know, sometimes it is the iced coffee, sometimes it is the.
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I'm just popping into TJ Maxx real quick and it's like what did you really buy?
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Did you really need something?
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You know, we obviously spend a lot of money on travel, but there are also waves of life where we spend a lot on food, you know, then there's now we've had some medical expense stuff.
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So it's really nice to be able to see where your money is going.
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And you probably have an idea, right, if you're door dashing every other day, you know where your money's going.
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But for most of us that are like living life, paying for things for our kids and camps and track out and summer plans and school supplies, and like you're swipe, swipe, swiping right, we're not paying for things in cash anymore, we're not using our checkbooks anymore, and so it's really difficult to remember how quickly all of those small purchases add up, and so using something like Monarch really helps give you that picture.
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Yeah, and along with that, you also do want to.
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You know we are talking about pulling your credit report.
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Yes.
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So that you know what your credit report, you know what's on your credit report and making sure that everything that's on your credit report is valid for you and you don't see any errors, but then also, with that, also figuring out what your current credit score is.
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Yes, and I'll add on to that If you have not locked your credit bureaus after you've pulled your credit report, do that Because, again, there's so much fraud.
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You're constantly getting the email saying this was breached, this was hacked, etc.
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Etc.
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I think there was just a recent one.
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You know, with Google, 2.5 billion accounts.
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I mean protect yourself.
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Put your two factor authentication on all of your apps, you know.
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Check your credit report, make sure everything that is there is yours and then lock your credit bureaus because you don't need anybody opening up credit in your name.
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Yeah, the biggest part of this is this is the organization phase.
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So you do want to make sure, like you know any loans that you have, you know where they're at, you know how much you're paying, you know what the interest rate is on them, you know your 401k plans, everything of that nature.
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You want to know what's going on with everything that has to do with money within your financial life yeah, where do we go from there after we're organized and you can like what take a month to do that yeah, well, yeah, this is going to be.
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This is going to be month one, and this the purpose of this is that this is going to be so you have a clear understanding of what your starting point is, because there's no way to put a plan in place to get to where you want to be if you're not clear on where you're at today.
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So this is a step that's going to be a lot of legwork and this is the step that honestly scares most people away, like most people cannot get started because they see all the work that needs to go in in step one and they maybe start and they don't finish.
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So this is the hardest step and I can tell you that if you can get through this step successfully, you're honestly, you're already 50% there.
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This is the hardest step for people that people don't take, because they know it's going to be time consuming, they know it's going to be a little daunting, they know it's going to be a little reflective of what they've been doing.
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It's also emotional because a lot of people don't cause more than likely.
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We not more than likely.
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We've all made bad financial decisions, decisions, we've all done it, and this is going to force you to face some of those decisions that you've been putting off yeah you know those people that, like you know the old saying like oh you know bills are coming in the in the mail, but I'm not opening the the bill yeah this is that kind of equivalent, where you are now ripping the band-aid off, yeah, and if you can get through this, then honestly, like I said, you're halfway there.
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Yeah, okay, we have gotten our foundation.
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We've organized, analyzed.
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Where do we go from here?
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All right.
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So month two, now that you've got an idea of where your money is going, this is where you're going to start to make some adjustments on where your money's going.
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Are there areas that you're spending money on that aren't bringing value to your life that you can cut back on so that you could free up money to allocate to other places that would be beneficial in your life?
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the subscription costs that you're not using.
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I mean, even I was sitting on a um a gym membership it was.
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It was small, it was 28 a month, which is very inexpensive for a gym, but the reality was I'm not going.
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Yeah, this is the cut.
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Yeah, month two is the cut indirect.
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Yes.
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Cut back on the expenses that are unnecessary and then redirect that money to some place else.
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That's going to help you and, like you said, like this could be maybe your impulse buying.
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You know you're buying clothes just because because, let's be honest, like you know, we work from home now, so I don't have to have all the clothes that I had before.
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Like you know, I can't remember the last time I bought a suit, because I only wear suits for special occasions.
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Now I don't do Zoom meetings.
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I don't wear suits on a Zoom meeting.
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Right right.
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But the idea here is that you do want to go through, you know, your budget with a fine-tuned comb and see where you can free up money.
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Budget with a fine-tuned comb and see where you can free up money.
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Because the idea here is that, honestly, the overall encompassing of you know, from a financial plan standpoint that's going to yield some success, is living on less than you make.
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So here we want to create an even bigger margin.
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We want to say like, hey, is there things that we can cut back on so that we can allocate this money towards other places?
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Yeah, now, once you've found in some money, some places that you can cut back on, you freed up some money.
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Now's the time to redirect it.
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Hey, do I need to start building up?
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You know my savings, you know.
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Do I need to start working on my high yield savings account and building that up, or do I need to maybe allocate that money towards high interest debt?
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The idea here is that you want to find, you want to free up money, and then we're going to start to make a determination on what to do with that money.
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Yeah, so we're freeing up money and putting it towards potential debt and or savings?
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Yes, and that's kind of where you roll into month number three.
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Month number three is kind of building that safety net and that's going to be building up your emergency fund.
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So you know, you do want to have an initial target of you know, like you said I know that it can be such a daunting task to think of I need six to 12 months worth of expenses saved up and that's a lot of money, you know.
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But focus on getting that first thousand, next thousand, two thousand, three thousand, then you build up that first month, then you build up three months.
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Do it on small increments and put away what you can, because what I think happens often is that people have an idea of an amount that they should be saving in their mind and if they can't save that amount, they save nothing.
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Like, honestly, if you could only save $25 a month and that's all you can do, that is significantly better than saving nothing.
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Yeah.
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But the idea here is, like you said in month two, you've gone through your budget and you try to free up money and now you have a little bit more to put towards this so that you can build up that safety net a little bit faster.
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And the idea, like I said here, is that we are doing the planning and we're having a clear understanding of what our financial situation is and how much we can allocate towards these different things.
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So here we should have already had an idea.
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Hey, maybe we already know that we can put $200 a month towards our high savings account right now.
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You've already done the numbers.
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You've looked through your finances and your budget.
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Automate it now.
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Automate it because we are big proponents of automation, because it makes your life easier and ensures that what you want to have done gets done.
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Yeah.
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Because some people want to say like oh you know, I don't feel comfortable automating, I'm going to do it manually.
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And then they forget.
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And then what happens when they forget that money gets spent someplace else.
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No one has time to do anything manually.
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We are all too busy.
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If it's not automated, we know it's not going to happen.
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Absolutely Automate, automate.
00:12:47.075 --> 00:13:03.317
And then also during this step in month three, one of the biggest things that I always talk about is that maximizing your earning potential, so making sure that you are earning as much as you can during your working years to make the planning aspect easier, Because planning is great, but know what's even better than just planning?
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Having more money to plan with.
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So here, like you know, if sometimes you can do all the planning in the world, but sometimes at the end of the day it does, come down to it's an income issue.
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You're not making as much money as you can and you simply have to increase the amount of money of coming in.
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So this could be also part of that stage where, hey, maybe you start a side hustle and, like I said, we're not all about the hustle culture, because we want to find a happy medium and not work too much but if you need more money coming in and that's one of the main problems maybe this is just for a season, but then also it could be hey, maybe I look for a different job.
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Maybe you've been at your job for 10 years and you haven't really been receiving any type of significant pay increases and maybe now it's time for you to test the market and see if you can make more money elsewhere.
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So this could be that stage in month three while you're doing this.
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Yeah, one other call out I was talking to a friend about it is if you have opportunities within your current role.
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She happens to be a nurse and her hospital was actually allowing her to take other certifications, like licenses, that the hospital was going to pay for, and then she would get an additional differential.
00:14:11.384 --> 00:14:20.416
So you know x amount of dollars per hour extra for getting these different licenses, and they were completely paid for by the hospital.
00:14:20.416 --> 00:14:28.421
So you know she ended up taking the test, getting that extra certification, and now her hourly rate has gone up.
00:14:28.421 --> 00:14:39.028
So if there are things that you can do, that your job is giving you access to licenses, certification programs, et cetera, especially if you don't have to pay out of pocket take advantage of those.
00:14:39.836 --> 00:14:39.876
A.
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They're going to look great on your resume.
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They're also going to help set you apart for other roles that you might be applying for, especially, like you said, if you've been somewhere for a long time.
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It might just be time to see what else is out there, because we know that loyalty, unfortunately, in this environment, is no longer rewarded.
00:14:58.090 --> 00:15:10.846
So staying with a company you know for longer than four or five years at this point, without changing jobs and getting those pay increases, you're going to end up being probably vastly underpaid.
00:15:11.576 --> 00:15:22.759
Also too you have to think about it from this standpoint is that getting a pay increase today isn't just about a pay increase today, because that's also going to be the basis of any type of increases.
00:15:22.759 --> 00:15:24.946
You get percentage-wide moving forward, right.
00:15:24.946 --> 00:15:36.508
So if you were to switch jobs and say you say you know you were making, you know $70,000 and now you're making $100,000, that 3% increase is more on $100,000 than it is on the $70,000.
00:15:36.528 --> 00:15:37.029
Exactly.
00:15:37.416 --> 00:15:44.696
So you do want to focus on that and, like I said, we're not saying just jump ship to jump ship, but make strategic moves that will benefit you.
00:15:44.956 --> 00:15:46.738
Yeah, absolutely Okay.
00:15:46.738 --> 00:15:52.684
So after we um, you know build the safety net, maybe increase our income, where do we go from there?
00:15:53.225 --> 00:16:06.259
Then we do want to also focus on attacking your debt and then, if you need to in this scenario, also work on increasing I mean sorry, improving your credit score.
00:16:06.259 --> 00:16:06.541
All right.
00:16:06.541 --> 00:16:17.129
So the biggest thing I see when it comes to people that have debt and I'm more or less talking about credit card debt, high interest rate, consumer debt they don't have a strategy picked out or chosen to tackle that debt.
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They're simply making whatever, maybe the minimum payments they have on that, and they haven't chosen a strategy and they have no idea when they're actually going to pay off this debt.
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When you need to focus on one, having a strategy.
00:16:29.235 --> 00:17:10.269
Now, two of the main strategies that most people have some familiarity with, or as they're alluding to me today, is the snowball method versus the avalanche method, and to kind of let you know what that is snowball method is, you have have, say, you have three credit cards and you start out with the credit card that has the lowest balance, all right, so you're paying that one off, you're paying the minimums on all three cards, but any extra money that we found during month two, maybe we're allocating some of that money towards paying above the minimum balance on that credit card that has the lowest balance, and the idea there is that once you pay off the credit card with the lowest balance, then you get a little small win.
00:17:10.269 --> 00:17:20.788
Maybe it helps from a morale standpoint as far as helping you stick with it, and then the money that you were putting towards paying off that card now rolled over to the next card that has the second lowest balance and so on.
00:17:20.954 --> 00:17:22.902
You're like stacking your payments.
00:17:23.001 --> 00:17:23.343
Correct.
00:17:23.584 --> 00:17:23.744
Yeah.
00:17:26.555 --> 00:17:39.807
And then you have the avalanche method where, instead of focusing on the debt that has the lowest balance, you're focused on the one that has the highest interest rate All right, and you're attacking that one, paying the minimums on all the other ones, but all the any excess money that you have is going to the one with the highest interest rate.
00:17:39.807 --> 00:17:43.505
Then, once you pay that off, you pay off the next one with the next highest interest rate.
00:17:43.505 --> 00:17:48.096
Now, either method works.
00:17:48.096 --> 00:17:55.801
Now, if you're looking to minimize the total amount that you're paying on that debt, mathematically the high interest one avalanche method is going to allow you to pay the least amount.
00:17:55.801 --> 00:17:59.018
However, there's not a wrong or right way to do it.
00:17:59.419 --> 00:18:01.426
You just need to know who you are as a person, correct.
00:18:01.426 --> 00:18:02.875
Do you need the small wins?
00:18:02.875 --> 00:18:10.941
Are you going to feel encouraged and like you want to keep going more as you're paying off the smaller balances and kind of checking that off?
00:18:10.941 --> 00:18:16.884
Or are you the numbers person who wants to actually pay off the higher interest debt?
00:18:16.884 --> 00:18:18.885
I'm the small wins person.
00:18:18.885 --> 00:18:20.787
You're the high interest person.
00:18:20.826 --> 00:18:25.790
So, again, the win is paying off the debt, how you go about doing it.
00:18:25.790 --> 00:18:29.960
Pick something that is sustainable to you, know who you are as a person and get it done.
00:18:30.280 --> 00:18:33.805
Yeah, and each month is stacking on top of each other.
00:18:33.805 --> 00:18:46.386
So in the previous months we went through our budget and we have a very firm idea of what our cash flow is, as far as how much money we have coming in, how much money we're going out and what excess money do we have available to allocate towards paying off this debt.
00:18:46.386 --> 00:18:51.246
So once you choose a method, whichever method it is, automate those additional payments.
00:18:51.767 --> 00:18:54.040
Right, and there's that automation.
00:18:54.182 --> 00:18:56.759
Yes, and with paying off these debts.
00:18:56.759 --> 00:19:01.278
This is what's going to help increase your credit score, if you do have a low credit score.
00:19:01.902 --> 00:19:05.685
Yes, we have an entire episode on what goes into your credit score.
00:19:05.685 --> 00:19:08.896
There are five components, so we're not going to get into that.
00:19:08.896 --> 00:19:09.798
Find that episode.
00:19:09.798 --> 00:19:11.318
We'll also link it in the show notes.
00:19:11.318 --> 00:19:21.846
But you know, paying off those debts improves your credit utilization, which is a significant factor within how your score is determined.
00:19:21.846 --> 00:19:27.471
So you know, make your payments, make the minimum payments, make sure that everything's getting paid on time.
00:19:27.471 --> 00:19:29.093
That's number one.
00:19:29.315 --> 00:19:30.538
Yes, that is.
00:19:30.538 --> 00:19:33.046
The biggest ding on your credit score is late payments.
00:19:33.734 --> 00:19:42.426
Yes, so make sure that you're making all your payments on time, but then you know, decide what is most sustainable for you and what you can stick with long term.
00:19:42.426 --> 00:19:48.557
When it comes to paying this off, I'll also say this use a debt reduction calculator.
00:19:48.656 --> 00:19:50.741
There's a bunch of free ones online.
00:19:51.082 --> 00:19:53.855
We'll link the one that Brandon likes in the show notes.
00:19:53.855 --> 00:20:06.663
But when you can see that maybe adding an extra $25 or $50 to a balance over time, how much time it's actually going to take away from how long you're going to have to pay that debt, it's really encouraging.
00:20:06.804 --> 00:20:22.001
Oh yeah, You'd be surprised at how much, like she said, $25, $50, $100 additional amount each month can significantly decrease the amount of time that it takes for you to pay off that entire balance and also At the end, decrease how much you pay overall.
00:20:22.483 --> 00:20:22.684
Right.
00:20:22.684 --> 00:20:34.134
So again, this is your opportunity to look at the numbers, to make a plan, and if you really have kind of the black and white numbers in front of you, you'll know what you're working towards.
00:20:34.134 --> 00:20:54.546
So then, when you're tempted to spend that random $25 on something that you don't need or aren't going to remember a week or two from now but you will remember, hey, if I add this to my high interest credit card debt right now and I do this for the next four months I'm going to shave a year off of how long I have to make these payments, or whatever that might be.
00:20:54.546 --> 00:20:58.101
So run the numbers, it'll help you stay motivated, I promise.
00:20:58.101 --> 00:20:59.944
All right, what's next?
00:20:59.964 --> 00:21:03.761
All right, so moving into we just finished up month four, moving into month five.
00:21:03.761 --> 00:21:06.410
Now we're focused on planning for growth in the future.
00:21:06.410 --> 00:21:13.548
Now this is going to be where we're taking a look at, like our retirement accounts, your 401k IRA or Roth IRA, if you have one.
00:21:13.548 --> 00:21:17.734
We're going to be looking into how much we're contributing to these accounts and are we maxing them out.
00:21:17.734 --> 00:21:33.909
So, first and foremost, with your 401k plan or 403b whatever you type of a retirement retirement account you have to your employer, if there is an employer match, we want to make sure we're bare minimum taking advantage of that, because that is free money that you'd be missing out on.
00:21:33.909 --> 00:21:52.201
But then also, if you're already taking advantage of that and we've already, you know, taking, we're starting to take care of all those other steps and building upon the progress that we're making then, hey, maybe we still have some additional money that we could free up and increase the contributions to these accounts, because, if we have the ability to, the ideal scenario is that you're maxing out these accounts.
00:21:52.362 --> 00:21:53.724
Yep Perfect.
00:21:54.445 --> 00:22:01.211
All right, but then also, next step moving to that is, we do also want to start to build other buckets of money.
00:22:01.211 --> 00:22:04.380
So there are things that we do like to do.
00:22:04.380 --> 00:22:08.198
You know we do like to go, you know, on vacations.
00:22:08.198 --> 00:22:17.096
I know, you know we're, you know, at the time of recording this, we're starting to creep towards that expensive holiday season where you have, you know, christmas and everything like that going on.
00:22:17.096 --> 00:22:24.743
So maybe you're starting to build up a bucket of money so that you can have money to purchase gifts and stuff of that nature.
00:22:25.065 --> 00:22:37.597
But the idea is that any type of short-term goals that you may have whether that's like a trip, home renovation, maybe you need a new car, whatever it may be you want to start putting money towards these different short-term goals.
00:22:37.597 --> 00:22:44.857
And I do want to emphasize that, with these short-term goals, these are going to be put into a high-yield savings account.
00:22:44.857 --> 00:22:59.050
This is not money that you are investing in the market, because when I refer to short-term, I'm talking about five years or less, and if that time period is five years or less before you're going to access that money, I don't recommend putting it into the market and investing it.
00:22:59.050 --> 00:23:00.632
Keep it in a high-yield savings account.
00:23:00.951 --> 00:23:06.256
Yep, we will link to our high high yield savings account that we recommend as well.
00:23:06.256 --> 00:23:07.460
You're just going to park your money.
00:23:07.460 --> 00:23:09.528
We really like Ally.
00:23:09.528 --> 00:23:17.901
It allows you to have multiple buckets for what we would call sinking funds, so money that you know you're going to be spending but you're actively saving up for.
00:23:17.901 --> 00:23:25.776
So, like you said, the car repairs, maybe the vacation, the birthday parties, the holidays, et cetera, and you can name those buckets whatever you want them to be.
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