147: Do You Actually Know What It Costs to Be You? Build a Budget That Finally Sticks

The One Number Everything Needs

Jessica 0:00

Before you can invest, pay off debt, buy the house, or plan the trip, you need one number. This is the episode everything else builds on. Do you actually know what it costs to be you every single month? Let's dive in and find out.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Sugar Daddy Podcast, yo. Learn how to make the pockets grow. Financial freedoms where we go. Smart investments, money flow.

Jessica 0:27

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Sugar Daddy Podcast, where we help you build a clear financial plan so you can feel confident and in control of your money. If you're an OG, welcome back. And if you're new here, we are so glad you joined. We hope you'll stick around. We release new episodes every Wednesday. Hey, babe, what are we talking about today?

Brandon 0:46

Today we are talking about, I think, one of the hardest parts of financial planning and the most overlooked, and that is cash flow and budgeting. How much does it actually cost to be you on a monthly basis?

Jessica 0:57

The real me or the real me that I want to be?

Brandon 1:00

The real you. That's what we're always focused on. We're not focused on what you want to be currently. You need to know what the real Jessica is spending each month.

Jessica 1:10

Still too much. Still too much. Um, okay, so cash flow and budgeting. I feel like, I mean, this makes sense because you can't do the things if you don't know what you have.

Brandon 1:22

But you'd be surprised the number of people that tried to build a plan without even this is the first step of the plan.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Okay.

Brandon 1:29

This is the very first step. You need to understand how much money you have coming in, how much money you have going out, and where is it going. And the idea there is that you want to have a surplus. The idea is that you're spending less than you have coming in.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah.

Brandon 1:41

But you'd be surprised the number of people, this is not where they start. They have no idea. They have a they have a vibe, a feeling, but it's like we could actually know the the specific numbers.

Jessica 1:52

You get a paycheck and a pay stub every other week, probably in most cases. Yeah. I'm always so surprised. There's a couple of uh podcasts that we listen to, and one of the main questions that always comes up is like, did you know that you make this much? And people are always like, No, I had no idea. Or they're off by thousands of dollars. Like some episodes, it's like, oh, you make $180,000 combined. Did you know that? And they're like, No, we had no idea.

Brandon 2:17

And it's like, how do you not know?

Jessica 2:19

How do you not know? How do you not do you not go to work to know how much you're getting paid?

Brandon 2:23

But that is honestly the norm. You know, even when it comes to like, you know, how much you spend in a month. Now, like obviously there's gonna be some fluctuation there, but you should be within a few hundred dollars of what that is. And I bet you majority of people out there are not gonna be because they don't know because you can't know something that you're not

Why Most Plans Fail First

Brandon 2:40

tracking.

Jessica 2:40

That's true. I mean, I am very surprised at the conversations that I have where, you know, you might be asking, like, well, what do you pay for health insurance? And people don't know. Like, if I have money being taken out of my check, I'm gonna know exactly how much it is.

Brandon 2:56

And the thing is here is that what we're really looking for is this one number. Know your one number. One number. And that's how much your expenses are for a given month. Because that's gonna drive every other decision that comes after that.

Jessica 3:08

Well, and there's so many, right? I mean, you have the basics, right? Your housing, likely your vehicle, then all of your utilities. Then you've got to think about your subscriptions that you're paying for, your gym membership, your Netflix, all of that stuff, maybe daycare, and then sports or activities for your kids. You've got your food. And then there's the things on top of that, you know, it might be the unexpected stuff, but then it's also, oh, we got to buy the birthday party present. Oh, we got invited to a random dinner we maybe weren't accounting for, or, you know, maybe a bill like one of our bills keeps coming back really high. And now we're investigating why it is so high. But again, we know it's high because we track these things. So if you don't track and have a sense of like what everything should cost, you're really just living line life blindly.

Brandon 3:59

Because the thing is that budgeting has a negative connotation to it. People think it as limiting what they're able to do with their life. Like it's like, I mean, like almost think of it like a diet, you know, that's like you said, the restriction. Um, do I have the willpower to stick with it? If I slip up and I make a mistake, now there's guilt behind it. Yeah. And that's the reason why people, you know, don't put one in place, or even if they do put one in place, they don't stick with it.

Jessica 4:22

Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, there are I think there's so much content now online that is trying to help people reshape that budgets aren't restrictive. It's literally just a plan for every dollar. Like every dollar has a has a job.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Yeah.

Jessica 4:37

Where's that? What is that job of that dollar? And sometimes the job is to pay a bill or to invest or to save. And then other times it's to spend. And some people who have budgeted really, really well their whole life now have a hard time actually spending money. So putting a bucket in place that's like, no, this is fun money. Like, go do something fun with this, I think is also really important.

Brandon 5:00

Most people don't have the tools to put a proper budget in place, which is why most people's budgets fail. And like honestly, if your budget failed, if you've done multiple budgets and they always fail, congratulations. You're normal. Like you're not the exception. Like that's a majority of people because no one has showed them the proper structure to make it one work for them and also make it easier overall in your life.

Jessica 5:23

Yeah. So where do we get started on actually knowing your number?

The Perception Gap In Spending

Brandon 5:29

Well, first and foremost, you have to get the numbers.

Jessica 5:31

Okay, that makes sense.

Brandon 5:33

So for us, the easiest way to get the numbers is monarch money, to be honest with you. Like we I know you love monarch. You might be tired of hearing us say that, but one of the things that I want to make sure people understand is like, I want to help you make your life easier. So if there is technology out there that you can utilize to make your life easier rather than having to pull these numbers manually and skim through them, why not use it? Because what on the things that we always talk about with monarch money is that you can connect all your various accounts. So in this scenario, you can connect your bank account, you can connect your credit cards. And by connecting those, you're gonna have your purchase history. And it's not gonna just pull the purchase history from this month, last month, or the month before that. It can pull up to, you know, like a year's worth of purchase history so that you can actually see the patterns over the month of what you've been spending. And that's where you're gonna need to start because that's gonna also help once you're connecting all those accounts. It's gonna give you a number as far as what is your actual amount of money that you're bringing in based off the paychecks that you have coming in. And this is gonna be the aftertext, which is, you know, actually more beneficial for a lot of people. What is the amount of money that's actually hitting your bank account? And then how much are you actually spending and what are you spending it on?

Jessica 6:40

Yeah, what are those categories? Because without tracking it, I guarantee you you are spending more in categories that you are not even aware of. And you use it with your clients. So actually when you're setting things up with your clients, do you do they have that aha moment of like, oh, I didn't realize I was spending X on this?

Brandon 7:00

Oh, yeah, it's called the perception gap. It's what you believe that you're actually spending on various expenses compared to when you actually look at the black and white numbers, what you are spending. Yeah. And I would say one of the number one categories for people is eating out.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Food.

Brandon 7:14

A lot of people don't realize how much they are spending on eating out. And I'm not talking about just groceries, which can also be a surprise for people, but the fact that you're eating out, because you might not be somebody who eats at these big fancy restaurants. You eat at just regular restaurants. So it might be, you know, $15 here, $20 there. But if you're consistently doing that on a regular basis each week, it adds up quickly. I've had people where like I've had where like a single individual were like we look at how much they're spending on eating out, and they're spending over $1,500 a month on eating out.

Jessica 7:44

And they had as a single person?

Brandon 7:46

Yeah, and they had no idea.

Jessica 7:47

What did they think they were spending on eating out?

Brandon 7:50

Under a thousand.

Jessica 7:52

So that's a big more than 50% difference.

Brandon 7:56

Not more than 50%. That's a $1,500 and under a thousand.

Jessica 7:59

Oh, okay. Well, but that's still a big gap.

Brandon 8:02

No, it's a big gap.

Jessica 8:03

Yeah. Well, and it's not, I mean, you know, when I remember when I first got my debit card and you had like your, you know, ledger and you wrote down, okay, I spent four dollars and thirty-five cents at Walmart, and you know, because it was your it was your debit card and you were keeping track, but now it's all the bills, it's all the things, it's all the sports, you know, registrations and school fees, and it it just adds up so quickly.

Brandon 8:27

Yeah.

Fixed Variable Periodic Buckets

Brandon 8:28

And the thing is with your spending, it kind of basically boils down to into like three buckets. You have your fixed bucket first. So those are gonna be the same, the bills that you pay that are gonna be approximately the same amount each month. So it's gonna be like, you know, your rent, um, your car payment, student loan payments, your phone, subscriptions to um streaming services, all those things that are gonna be. Uh well, utilities, no. Well, utilities can fluctuate.

Jessica 8:52

Okay, but there's it's still a fixed cost.

Brandon 8:54

It's not a fixed.

Jessica 8:56

No?

Brandon 8:56

No, it's a variable. Fixed okay, fixed means that it doesn't change. It does not change. So you know exactly how much you're gonna pay each month.

Jessica 9:04

Okay.

Brandon 9:05

So the first bucket is the fixed.

Jessica 9:07

Got it.

Brandon 9:07

Now the next bucket is variable. Okay. And that's where your utilities would go.

Jessica 9:11

And you want to find the averages.

Brandon 9:12

Correct. Right?

Jessica 9:13

So you pay more for your AC in the summer than you do maybe for your heat in the winter.

Brandon 9:17

Because slightly, yeah, they change. So like that's gonna be like your, like I said, your utilities, your groceries, yeah, okay. Heating out, stuff of that nature. Things that, you know.

Jessica 9:26

Vary.

Brandon 9:26

Vary.

Jessica 9:27

Okay.

Brandon 9:27

And then the last bucket is gonna be actually the one that a lot of people overlook is the periodic bucket. That's gonna be the one that stinks up in a lot of people because those aren't the ones that are just like, I'm doing this every single month. It might be once a year, twice a year. Or it's also those things where, like, you know, during the holiday season, you know, Christmas, I'm buying gifts now. That's just for the month of December. So it's gonna be those things like that. And honestly, a lot of people like, you know, they want to tell you, like, oh, it's the uh uh, you know, $5, $8 coffee that you're buying each day. That's what's breaking your budget. No, it's normally the periodic bucket because a lot of people aren't thinking about that when they're putting a budget in place. And then they're not properly prepared and they haven't been saving money. So for example, you weren't thinking about, you know, having to buy a bunch of gifts during Christmas. You weren't saving up during the course of the year, and now December hits you and you're like, oh man.

Jessica 10:16

Or the new tires that you need for your car. You knew you know that you can't ride on these tires forever, but you were not budgeting and planning for those tires that are gonna come due in in a year or two.

Brandon 10:29

And then the last part is like one of the things that as far as where your money is going, like we have those buckets, but then also if you're in a relationship, are you and your partner working on the same budget? Because you might be working on one budget, I might be working on a different budget, and they're not the same budget. And that's gonna cause an issue.

Jessica 10:46

Yeah, yeah. Well, and like how is that money being spent? Yes, you know, okay. So, how do we how do we do this the right way so that hopefully we don't try to create a new budget and then not stick with it for the 20th

Use Tools To Get Numbers

Jessica 10:59

time?

Brandon 10:59

Like I said, the easiest way is to go ahead and get on our money. You use our code, it's a code for 50% off for the year, and that's gonna roughly have you paying about $50 for the year. Okay. All right, so that's gonna be the easiest way because you got to first plainly get the numbers. How much are you, what is your rent, what is your mortgage, how much are you spending on gas, how much are you spending on groceries, all that information. How much money do you have coming in each month that's hitting your uh bank account from working? Because it's gonna what Monarch is gonna do, it's gonna give you a very nice high-level overview. You're gonna see a green number and it's gonna be how much money you have coming in. That's what you're paid. You're gonna see a red number and it's gonna say those will be your expenses, how much money you have going out. And then it's gonna give you a plus or minus on whether or not you know you're spending more than you have coming in or you're spending less than you have coming in. And as we said before, the idea is that if you want to build wealth, you're gonna have to spend less than what you have coming in. Yeah. That's the only way to do it.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Yeah.

Brandon 11:55

So high level is gonna show you that. Now, let's see, for example, if you put the information in and you are currently spending more than you have coming in, more than likely you have some credit card debt and stuff of that nature because that's how you're funding that deficit. Now, what you're gonna do next, you're gonna want to have to look at what's going on with these numbers. Where am I actually spending my money? And that's where the deeper next step comes from the deeper dive, because you have that high level overview that lets you know that you're spending more than you have coming in. Now, where is it going? Yeah. Monarch uses AI to categorize your spending. So you can look at the different categories of where your money's going. So, you know, if you have the category for groceries, category for entertainment, and you can also customize those if you want to go in to um, you know, make them more aligned with how you would like to view your different expenses. But the overall thing I want you to understand is that that next step is that diving in and figuring out where am I spending money. So if you look at eating out and you see, like, hey, I'm spending a lot of money on eating out. If I cut back here, this is gonna allow me to have more money to put over here, whether that's put more money towards paying down debt or put more money towards investing. But the idea is that you're gonna have to do that work in order to get that information.

Jessica 13:07

You need the visibility because you can't manage what you're not measuring.

Brandon 13:12

Yeah. And like I said, the nice thing is that it's gonna show you on a monthly basis how much you're spending. So it's gonna give you that one single number, that number that you need to know. How much are you spending in a given month? That number dictates so many other things because for example, when it comes to you know an emergency fund, your emergency fund is based off of your expenses. So you can't have a properly funded emergency fund if you don't know how much you're spending on a monthly basis.

Jessica 13:35

It all comes back to this one number.

Brandon 13:37

So if you're you know, if your monthly expenses are, you know, $5,000 and you want a six-month emergency fund, now you know you need $30,000. But if you want a six-month emergency fund, you have no idea how much you're spending on a monthly basis. How are you going to start that?

unknown 13:51

Yeah.

Brandon 13:51

Everything starts with understanding your numbers.

Jessica 13:54

I love it. I love it. And it'll also give you an opportunity. Let's say you are spending more on food than you thought, and that's a very common category. Then you could potentially put things in place, like maybe you do a meal delivery service, maybe you do the, I don't know, the Whole Foods viral family hack and do some meal prepping that way. Brandon did that last week.

Brandon 14:15

I mean, I literally had a client. So I, and it's also like, you know, I like to get to know my clients outside of just obviously the black and white numbers. I want to know more about their lives and the goals that they don't think necessarily have a monetary tie to them that you're looking to do. So I have a client that, you know, when we looked through her numbers, she was spending significantly more than she thought she was eating out. And it was not because she was eating out with friends as an enjoyment. It was a convenience factor. She's a single individual and it just made life easier from a convenience factor. Now I also knew that she was looking to improve her health and be on a health journey. I was like, let's let's save the eating out maybe for, you know, those occasions with friends that you've talked about. So that it's actually special. So it's enjoyable, but you've also talked about wanting to improve your health. So maybe let's look at still having the convenience of not having to cook, but look into these meal plans that they can send you already pre-made meals and you just warm them up. So one, it's gonna be less than eating out um on a regular basis like you were currently doing. And it's also gonna help you in your health journey to improve your health.

Jessica 15:09

Yes. And it's again, you know, hey, instead of going to the grocery store, walking down the aisles, picking up things that weren't on the list, you select what you're gonna be getting every week and you have a fixed cost associated. Because I know when you were doing like factor and I knew exactly how much I was spending and I was doing hungry root, same thing. Like it really significantly cut down on, oh, let me just grab a couple of these things because they're BOGO, or let me, you know, get some backstock in the pantry. Like even having that kind of thought around it is beneficial because you know what you're gonna be spending.

Brandon 15:46

Yeah. And once again, back here, like it's having knowing that number builds on everything else. So we've already talked about the emergency fund. But then also when it comes to debt payoff, knowing how much you're spending and how much you've coming in and whether or not you have a surplus is gonna allow you to put extra money towards paying down debt quicker. Yeah. So that's gonna help out with that. Also, if you're looking to achieve financial independence, you know, one of the numbers you kind of roughly hear of is you're gonna need maybe 25 times your income. Do you know how much you're coming in on a monthly basis? Is that number going to cover what you need in retirement, no longer bringing in any money? So, therefore, once again, that number is gonna help you out in regards to so many other different goals that you're trying to reach. I mean, a lot of things are based off of that, all that information as far as like, you know, purchasing a house, um, you know, some of the trips that maybe you want to take. Do you have money to put away for vacations? Um, for the guys out there, your income, I mean, it's gonna come into play also, possibly buying a ring if you're looking to propose. All that information is based off of knowing your numbers.

Jessica 16:44

Yeah. All right.

Brandon 16:45

If you're doing it responsibly.

Jessica 16:47

So we're gonna get Monarch money, we're gonna use our 50% off code, and we're gonna get all that visibility in a beautiful, easy-to-use app. Then what are we going to do once we have those numbers?

Pay Yourself First And Automate

Brandon 16:59

So some of the things we want to do is change the way that you look at budgeting overall.

Jessica 17:03

Okay.

Brandon 17:04

So most of the time when people are thinking about budgeting, all they're thinking about is I have restrictions in regards to what I could spend my money on here.

Jessica 17:10

All the things I can do.

Brandon 17:11

Correct. Yeah. So we want to flip this. So first, pay yourself first.

Jessica 17:15

Always. Rich people pay themselves first, people.

Brandon 17:18

And I can't say this enough. Like you hear it, you I hear it all the time on social media. It's true. This is one of the things on social media that I 100% agree with. Pay yourself first. Pay yourself first. Because you want to go ahead and put money into your savings and investing. That's how it's going to start to build upon the self-induced compound interest. So, one of the things I want to really preface here is that pay yourself something.

Jessica 17:42

Even if it's $5 your paycheck, and then whatever you're contributing to your 401k to hopefully get your match or 403B or whatever the retirement account looks like for wherever you're working, get that match and then pay yourself. Because one thing that you always say is build the habit.

Brandon 17:56

Yes.

Jessica 17:57

Right? Build the habit of putting money aside.

Brandon 17:59

Also, too, if you're someone that's younger, say you're in your 20s and you're listening to this podcast, you have time on your side, and compound interest is your strongest and best weapon. Because if I could go back to, you know, early, mid-20-year-old Brandon, I would wonder say, put more money away, put something away because that compound interest, it's it's amazing.

Jessica 18:20

Yes. So pay yourself first in your investments and in your savings, because if you save it for the the very end of the month, guess what? You're gonna look up and you're gonna be like, I don't have any money.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Yeah.

Jessica 18:30

Yeah, because you will have spent it. So put it aside and better yet, automate, automate, automate. Get it out of your paycheck before you even see it hit your bank account. So if there's a way for you to like, you know, take that $5 or $10 or $100, whatever you can do and route it into your high yield savings account instead of it hitting your bank account, do that. Yeah. And make sure you're doing the same for your investments.

Brandon 18:53

Because the thing is here is that once you know your numbers and you can actually look at, hey, how much can I actually, you know, pay myself, that now becomes a fixed.

Jessica 19:03

Ooh, look at that.

Brandon 19:04

It now becomes a fixed part of the fixed bucket. So you can automate that because we want to automate the fixed stuff. That's gonna make your life significantly easier, especially when it comes, like you just said, to come to paying yourself. A big part of financial planning is making your life easier. So if there's anything that you can do to, you know, take away the ability to have to do something manually. Oh, I'm a big proponent of that.

Jessica 19:25

Who has time for anything manual?

Brandon 19:27

Yeah.

Jessica 19:27

So not me.

Brandon 19:28

When it comes to automating, automate all the fixed expenses that you can. Yeah. Including paying yourself.

Jessica 19:33

Yeah.

Plan For Periodic Surprise Costs

Jessica 19:34

Then we also want to plan for the unknown expenses or the expenses that you know are coming, even though they might be very varied. Yeah. So think about Christmas, think about those birthday parties. If you've got a high schooler, thinking about senior photos, prom, all of those things. I've seen a lot of posts recently where it's like once your kid hits ninth grade, put $20 a week aside because by the time they hit senior year and all those flyers keep coming home about senior pictures and class rings and prom and this, and you will thank yourself. So again, you can plan because you know the money's gonna be needed somewhere. So just go ahead and start putting it aside. If you've got a pet like we do, Remy, he's laying right here. We love you, but he's expensive. So that unexpected ear infection, that unexpected whatever, put the money aside, right?

Brandon 20:26

Yeah. The idea here is that the periodic bucket is the expenses that normally cause the biggest issues because you didn't plan for them. So the idea here is that you're planning for them so that when they do arise, you have money to handle them. And that doesn't cause you to go into debt because if you don't have the money and it is an emergency and something that needs to be taken care of, if you have a credit card, that's normally where it's going to go.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Yeah.

Brandon 20:47

And then now you've gotten yourself into debt and you're paying high interest to pay off this debt. So the better plan is if you can start putting money away for these things.

Jessica 20:56

Yeah. And we really like Ally for that. We'll link Ally as well, high yield savings account, because if it's money that you're not using, it should be in savings and you should be getting something for it. Ally is really great because it has buckets that you can use. And that way you're not just putting all your savings into one bucket where you're like, wait, what is this for? You can have a bucket that says tires, you can have a bucket that says birthday party, summer camp, prom, whatever it is, right? I even have a friend who I said, you should put your new boobs bucket on there, you know, because she wants a breast lift. Like, great, let's put a bucket together.

Brandon 21:29

That is one thing that I encourage everyone to do because you think that it's just a sminer thing. No, it matters. Being able to take a large sum of money and then break it down and see what buckets there are and the specific amounts you have in each bucket, and for those purposes, you'd be surprised at how much that is such a mind switch that is so helpful.

Jessica 21:47

It it's just really nice because it also then gives you the permission that I think people are missing to use that money. Like you saved that $2,000 for the tires. So now when it's time and you get that. Bill and it's like, oh man, you go back to your buckets and you're like, oh, I've got this, and I've got it set aside for tires. So you're not then messing with something else. You're not messing with the vacation fund. You're not messing with the Christmas present fund. You're not messing with the summer camp fund. You got your tire fund. It's right there. You're gonna take that money out. Maybe you have something left, maybe you had a coupon. Great. And now you build it back up again because you know you have another four years on those new tires.

Keep It Simple Avoid AI Errors

Brandon 22:24

Yeah. And the last part is like honestly, keep it boring. What ends up happening with some people is that they're trying to track too many uh moving factors.

Jessica 22:31

You do not need a 34-page spreadsheet.

Brandon 22:33

Yeah. Now, unless unless you're one of those analytical people and that's your jam, I don't want to yuck your gum. That's not what I'm looking to do. But if you enjoy it, if you love it.

Jessica 22:42

If you like it, we love it.

Brandon 22:43

There we go. That's I messed up the saying. But the idea the idea here is that, you know, you only only really need to track like those three or four moving parts. You know, you can use that three bucket method as far as looking at, you know, the uh fix, variable, periodic and really kind of look at it from a high level. You really only need to go granular initially. And then if you're having any issues where you are starting to spend more than you're bringing in, then you need to do the deep dive again. But once you get things set up in place and you have your numbers and your work, you have your goals in place of where you want your money to go, you can kind of just look at those high-level buckets.

Jessica 23:18

Yeah, I like the three bucket method. I think it makes perfect sense. And then adding in that layer of like a monarch money or some sort of tool that helps you aggregate and pulls everything together for you.

Brandon 23:28

And monarch allows you to do a fixed versus variable type um style to look at your finances from a high-level overview.

Jessica 23:35

Yeah. I also like that it'll flag, like, oh, you have an uncategorized expense, right? If it can't tell what it is, it's not just gonna put it in a slot for you. It'll say, like, hey, you need to actually come in and like tell me where this needs to go, which I think is great.

Brandon 23:49

I want to make a call out too, because so one of the things that I do is when I'm working with clients and I set up their monarch, I do the setting up for them. Now it can take some time to set it up correctly. And if you don't know what you're doing, you can mess it up. And I want to be very um uh straightforward with that because what I've seen happen is that Monarch uses AI. So, for example, if you have the category of groceries and you wanted to change groceries to tires for some reason, you're now messing up their AI and it's gonna start keep pulling in, you're fighting against the AI. So if you have groceries, you need to change it to a very if you're gonna change that category, I highly recommend not changing any of the automatic categories. Oh or if you're going to change them, change it to something very similar. So, for example, one category that's automatic is child care. If you want to change it to daycare, same idea. No, for some people, I've I've met people that want to change the name and do that. From childcare. But you need to change it to something that is a very much the same category.

Jessica 24:45

Okay.

Brandon 24:46

Don't try to change like nanny. Yeah, like don't take the rent category and try to make it eating out.

Jessica 24:52

Okay, that's a good call out.

Brandon 24:53

You'd be surprised the number of people that start messing with it and doing that. Okay. So do not do that because it will cause a headache in your monarch. But like I said, I take the time of my clients to do it for them and it saves them time.

Jessica 25:03

There you go. So again, if you want to turnkey service to help manage your money, obviously that's what Brandon is here for. And he spent has spent a lot of time doing monarch courses and things as well to get it right. Because again, this is the foundation. This is the scaffolding that you need to take care of everything else. It's going to give you that visibility into what you can invest, what you can save, where you can spend, how much fun you money you do have. So this is really the most important part of everything you do in your finances is understanding your cash flow. What is the money coming in? What is the money going out?

Brandon 25:41

Yeah.

Jessica 25:41

Yeah. Any other call-outs?

Brandon 25:44

Um, honestly, I think that's enough. Yeah. I think that's a a good groundwork start for really understanding the cash flow and budgeting aspect, how important it is, some tips and tools that you can utilize to do this on your own. Yeah. And really set you up in the right place. Because, like I said, this is the beginning of planning. So if you're trying to do anything else from a financial standpoint, planning, if you don't know this number, everything else is going to fail. I'm telling you, because you it's you haven't started the beginning. It's like trying to build a house without building the foundation. Right. No, sorry. That's that was interesting.

Jessica 26:13

Without buying the lot. No, it's without the thing.

Brandon 26:15

It's like building a house without actually having any plans drawn up by an architect on how to build the house.

Jessica 26:22

Right. Okay.

Brandon 26:23

You're just randomly doing stuff.

Jessica 26:25

Yeah, which we don't want. And I think too, just reframing if you are a person that has historically thought that budgeting is restrictive, changing your mindset into budgeting is giving every dollar you earn a job really does

Budgeting That Funds The Life

Jessica 26:40

help.

Brandon 26:40

Yeah. And it the idea is that the budget is going to allow you to live the life you want to live. So if you look at your numbers and you know your numbers, you're like, hey, I want to take this vacation. I know my numbers. I can afford this.

Jessica 26:50

Yeah.

Brandon 26:50

I can take this vacation.

Jessica 26:52

Well, and we have friends that joined us in St. Lucia last year who, I mean, you actually Um The Clients.

Brandon 26:58

We're friends, but then also clients.

Jessica 27:01

And we said, Hey, we're going to St. Lucia. Do you want to come? And guess what? They had a vacation bucket.

Brandon 27:07

Because we had built a vacation bucket into their planning. Because that was one of their values. They valued being able to travel.

Jessica 27:14

Yes. And so they actually ended up coming. And throughout the trip, they were like, well, our financial advisor reminded us that, you know. So it was just, it was funny. But again, giving your your money a job instead of feeling restricted, it will allow you to do the things that you want to do, whether it's, you know, go on the trips or, you know, take your kids somewhere or take your grandkids or do the house renovation, whatever it is that's important to you, putting that money aside and giving it a job of this is the vacation bucket, this is the concert bucket, this is the fun bucket, will make everything better and it will help you enjoy it when that time comes. Yeah. All right.

Recap Sharing And Closing

Jessica 27:50

Hopefully this has helped you. Remember, you have your fixed bucket, your varial bucket, and your periodic bucket. Figure out what those are. Use our code in the show notes for Monarch and get set up so that you understand that number. We will talk to you next week. Share this episode with a friend, and we'll talk soon. Don't forget, Benjamin Franklin said, an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. You just got paid. Until next time.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Sugar Daddy Podcast Yo. Learn how to make the pockets grow. Find news of freedoms where we go. Smart investments, money flow.

Jessica 28:25

Thanks for listening to today's episode. We are so glad to have you as part of our Sugar Daddy community. If you learned something today, please remember to subscribe, rate, review, and share this episode with your friends, family, and extended network. Don't forget to connect with us on social media at the Sugar Daddy Podcast. You can also email us your questions you want us to answer for our past the sugar segments at thesugardaddypodcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail through our Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Our content is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based upon your own personal circumstances. We should take independent financial advice from a licensed professional in connection with or infinitely research and verify any information you find in our podcast and which you rely upon, whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise.