BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 508: Budgeting Tips for Families Living on ONE Income

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

Can you really be a one-income family in 2024? Not if you don’t know how to budget! To achieve her money goalswhile living on a single middle-class income, Emy knew she had to take control of her finances and seize any opportunity to save money. Single or married, you’ll learn to do the same in this episode! Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Money podcast! Today, we’re chatting with budgeting coach Emy Lee, who was able to achieve her lifelong dream of being a stay-at-home mom by cleaning up her family’s finances. Of course, this was no easy feat. Growing up, Emy was taught very little about personal finance. It was only after shifting her mindset, creating a budget, and building smart money habits that she was able to make raising a family on one income a reality. In this episode, Emy shares some of her top budgeting tips—from saving money on groceries to avoiding common spending triggers. You’ll also learn about the 50/30/20 rule that makes budgeting easy, the “spendfluencing” problem to be mindful of when scrolling through social media, and the budgeting hack people with irregular income can use to keep their finances in order! In This Episode We Cover How Emy raises a family on a single middle-class income Lowering your grocery bill each month with simple shopping hacks The “carryover” fund that people with variable income MUST have How to avoid “spendfluencing” pitfalls on social media The most common spending triggers (and how to combat them!) Creating a realistic budget for your family using the 50/30/20 rule And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group Network with Other Investors on The Path to FIRE Through the BiggerPockets Forums Finance Review Guest Onboarding Join BiggerPockets for FREE Mindy on BiggerPockets Scott on BiggePockets Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Apply to Be a Guest on The Money Show Podcast Talent Search! Money Moment Slash Your Food Budget by $150+ Per Week with EASY, Healthy, and Tasty Meals Food Spending Eating Away at Your FI Plans? Here’s How to Eat for Cheap Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-508   Interested in learning more about today's sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email us: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we are going to talk to a stay-at-home parent about how she structured her family's finances and took control of her family's spending to enable her to be a stay-at-home mom. Yeah, I think there's a lot of folks out there who have the dream of being able to become a stay-at-home parent at some point in their lives. But to realize that dream, in many cases, that aspiring stay-at-home parent must still find a way to contribute meaningfully to household finances, often in the form of controlling expenses and financial planning. and that's in addition to the other many contributions that state-home parents make in the form of managing a household, raising children, and much, much more. So if you or your spouse wants to be a stay-at-home parent, this episode will show you how to make that financially possible. And for that, we've brought in Emmy Lee, a budgeting guru. Emmy tightly controls her family's spending and embrace that role after a conversation with her future husband. Her expertise in careful planning and budgeting allows her family to live,

off of one middle class income. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, my darling listeners. With me today, as always, is my dear co-host, Scott Trench. Thank you for that very sappy intro, Mindy, get it, snappy, stay at home parent. All right, we're here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you're starting. Emily Lee, welcome to The Bigger Pocket. It's Money Podcast. I am so excited to talk to you today. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Let's jump right into the background with you with regards to your money story. How were you

brought up talking about money, your relationship with money as a kid? Yeah. So growing up, my parents didn't really talk too much about money. My mom gave me a couple of pieces of financial advice. She told me that my very, very first paycheck, I could just spend it all, literally every penny. And then she also told me to avoid credit cards like The Plague. So, yeah, I didn't really know too much. It wasn't until I met my husband that I started learning more and more about finances and why they're very, very important. What about like, did you tend to be a saver? Did you tend to spend everything when you were growing up, maybe work in high school jobs or whatever?

Like, what was your kind of natural inclination? It was definitely to spend everything. Like, if I had $5 left in my bank account, I was at the bar with a business. beer for $5. It was all gone. And yeah, I never really was taught to save too much. I think that first paycheck that my mom told me to go blow just kind of like carried over through the rest of my paychecks. But I was also in college, like I wasn't really making all that much. But wasn't to save. It wasn't to, you know, be smart with it. Good times. And so what triggered the change? What triggered the change to like becoming this, you know, budget savvy professional? And what led up to that?

hate to give my husband all the credit here, but that really was him. He taught me so much. His family did talk about finances and they talked about credit cards and he had a credit card going into school. So he knew a lot more than I did. So when we got together, he taught me a lot on our very first date. I told him that I wanted to be a stay at home mom. Like that was my dream. I want to be a stay at home mom. But you can't be a stay at home mom if you're not budgeting and managing your finances correctly. And so it kind of like dawned on me that if I want to be able to live my dream as a stay-at-home mom, I'm going to have to figure this budgeting thing out. And I figured out how to be frugal and to save money and work on a budget.

And we lived off of one income. Even when I was working, we would just stash all of my money into or all the money that I was making. It's our money, right? All the money I was making into a savings account and worked on paying off debts. And then so when it came time for me to become a stay-at-home mom, I was really able to just do that. So that was kind of what clicked. I was like, hey, wait a minute. I'm going to have to get a grasp on this if I want to live out my dream of being a stay-at-home mom.

This first date conversation that you had here, which is so awesome, where it sounds like what I'm gathering is you said, that's what I want to do. But then you had like a self-actualization of, oh, and I'm going to throw out some terms here. You can tell me if I'm close or not on this. But, hey, that might come with a lack of, you know, in finance terms. offense in income generation. So I better get good at defense in order to make that possible. Is that kind of a way to frame what was going through your head at that point in time? Yeah, definitely. You can't just roll on nothing. So you have to be able to budget to be able

to do what you want to do. And for me, that was being a stay-at-home-law. Awesome. And you mentioned that we've, you know, while growing up, you would come into a couple dollars. It was being spent on that. What changed following this? Like, how did, what was the process you undertook or how did you begin the journey of becoming good at budgeting to get to where you are today following that conversation? I mean, the biggest piece of it is your mindset. Like, that's truly all of it. I know that's like such a blanket answer.

But once you can switch that switch in your head, it, you know, you see a dollar and you say, okay, well, I can either save this and we can pay and we can use it to pay off, you know, whatever, so that I can become a stay-at-home mom later. Or I can use this dollar and go buy something that's going to fill my house and then I'll probably but donate it later. Like, it's just a mindset shift. And that's what I needed. I'm very much, like, driven by what I want and I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. Awesome. And so what, what in practice? I love the mindset shift. How did that translate to what you spent on? Or, you know, did you immediately stop, you know, ordering takeout? Like, what, what did that

translate to in terms of like the way that you conducted your daily expenses or monthly planning process? Well, the first thing we did was set up a budget and really like look at the money that we're bringing in and then categorizing it and figuring out how much we can spend in groceries and take out in random shopping trips. So many people go from spending, well, now I have to be on a budget and I resent it. Yes, yes, yes. I think that's like a lot of people when they hear the term budget, they think restriction. They think and that's not it. It's spending within boundaries. I think the biggest thing for me was like not. having the conversation around money growing up didn't give me structure for spending when I was in high school and in college. So it was almost like I was ignorant as far as like spending money. It was money coming in, money coming out, money coming in, money coming out. And then I met my husband.

And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, if you want to be a stay at home law, we can't do that. Like let's figure out our budget. Let's figure out the money coming in, figure out where it's going to go so that you can do that. So that we're not living paycheck to paycheck. we're not taking out debt. We're not, you know, and getting into that spending mindset, the $150 trips to Target became a one item thing. You know, like if I need to go to Target for, at the beginning of our marriage, it wasn't diapers. But now, like, if I need to go to Target for diapers, I'm going to Target for diapers. I'm not going to Target for diapers plus $300 worth of other things.

So it's just really that focusing in on what you have and not versus what you want. You don't go to Target for what you want. You go to Target and Target tells you what you're going to do. No, no, no, no. We don't want to hear that. No, no, no, no. You're absolutely right. Nobody goes to Target for $300 worth of stuff. They go to Target for one thing and they come out with $300 worth of this stuff. And that's really, I mean, Target really sucks you in. Yeah, they do. But it's that mindset and kind of like, no, I'm not going to do that. You know, like that's what you want. We are taking a quick break. Once we're back, Emmy will break down her biggest spending and budgeting

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We're now going to dive into her work as a budget coach and her biggest tips to sticking to a budget. We don't really talk about self-control on this show, but you have to exercise some self-control. You had a goal. I want to be a stay-at-home mom. I also had a goal of being a stay-at-home mom once I started having kids. kids, I wanted to be with them through kindergarten. I wanted to be home with them so that I was raising them when they were little.

And then once the youngest went back to school or what started school, I started work. And that worked out great. But it also took some preparation. And I had to exercise some self-control. I didn't go on these massive vacations. And we didn't, you know, I didn't buy every fabulous piece of clothing that I found. And I didn't have the latest phone in a nice car and all of these things. Because that didn't matter to me.

It was easy to give those things up because I wanted to stay home with my kids. I happened to have a super low paying job. So it was also really easy to quit that when I had my first baby. But, you know, did you feel any restrictions once you went from spending the entire paycheck to saving? When I see budgeting, I see like, you okay, what brings you joy? For me, that's stopping for coffee. I love to stop and get a coffee. So we figured out how to factor that into my budget.

I go and I get one coffee every week instead of one copy every single day. So with that, you're still getting the things that you want. You're just within a boundary. You're not going every single day. You're going once a week. And so that helps with that restriction. You figure out what you value in your budget. For me, that was getting a coffee.

If it's a designer handbag for somebody, then let's sweet. Let's work that into your budget. And that will help you not feel restricted. You just said a nice phrase. Let's work that into your budget. Your budget isn't about removing everything that's fun. It seems to me that the Gen Ziers are way more interested in personal finance, budgeting, investing, all that kind of stuff than the millennials were. You know, like relative to like when I, like when I tried to buy my first house hack, nobody was talking about that stuff 10 years ago, right? Now,

whenever I talk to a Gen Zer that's interested in those kinds of, you know, you know, aggressive wealth accumulation, all that kind of stuff, seems like five of their friends are also into it alongside of them. Are you noticing that's true as well? Is that a trend or are Gen Z is just bad with money too? No, no. Have you heard of loud budgeting? I have now. So that's a new, that's a new trend on social media. And I'm like, yes. You know, people are saying, I can't go to dinner tonight because I'm saving up for a trip to Europe or I can't go to dinner tonight because I want to buy this handbag. Like, they're talking about their money and why they're budgeting and why they're not spending. It's called loud budgeting. And I'm like, I'm here for it. So yeah, I definitely see like a bit of a shift of that.

More people are becoming more interested and are showing it more on social media. So what questions do you get the most from folks that haven't been educated on this? Like what do people come to you with to try to learn? Well, my clients for the most part come to me because of their spending. But like as far as questions go, I get a lot of questions about like groceries is a huge one. I get questions on people who have variable incomes is another big one that I see a lot. So people that don't make the same amount every month, that's a really difficult to budget with. But the spending is like the biggest part of what people come to me and what I advise and help people with is their spending.

What are some of the things that they're struggling with spending on? A lot of it is just emotional spending. So the trips to Target and Amazon and, you know, I, when I, when I, get a new client, I do three months worth of their spending, which is a lot. But when I give them their budget, they've got three months of numbers and numbers don't lie. They're going to tell you exactly what you're spending your money on. And it's like they're quite shocked by it for the most part, but that shock kind of gives them the fuel to like, you know, take control and make changes. But it's that. It's the spending that's or the emotional spending is what I see a lot of.

So how can we give advice to our listeners who may be stuck in? in emotional spending patterns. How do you overcome that? How do you stop that and switch into more of a saving mindset or less of a spending to, what's it called retail therapy? Did you see that I roll? I tried not to eye roll. I roll away.

I hate that phrase. I do too. Me too. Man, me too. Yeah. It's tough because you really have to get a grasp on how you're feeling. Right. So before you go out of the house, ask yourself, like, how are you feeling today? Are you PMSing? Are you stressed? Are you feeling sad? Are you feeling really excited? Like, truly understanding why you might go out. Make a list. I'm a list maker through and through. I love my list. Make sure you have a snack and some water and then go out. And it's truly like once you see it on paper, once you see it on your budget, it gives you. It gives you.

it gives you that fuel to make the changes. What about with grocery shopping? I know that's another area that you are an expert in. What kind of tips do you have there and how do you maintain your own personal budget? So our monthly grocery budget is $800. And I get comments all the time that that's really high. That's really high. Yes, we probably could make it lower.

I know, right? We could probably make it lower. But with $800, it seems to be a good point. balance of getting food and saving money because what we don't want to do is just by like the bare minimums, the bare basics. And then we're left craving and we're going to go try and fill that void with fast food or with shopping. Like we have to feel fulfilled in what we're eating and nourished at home. So yeah, the $800 budget is for our family, we have two smaller kids. So that's something to keep in mind. We have a two year old and a four year old. So then

don't eat a whole lot when they get older. I'm sure I'll have to raise it. I have a one and a half year old kid and she is a bottomless pit for food. So I can yeah, the young kids can still, you know, take down a lot. So if you make dinner, does she eat like the same dinner that you guys are eating? Some food she's not quite ready for. It doesn't have the teeth to really handle them. But where, yes, where we can share we do. Yeah, that's a big money saving tip there is to have your kids eat what you're eating because if you're making two meals every meal that's going to add up really quickly and with kids like snacks and drinks those all add up really quickly too um some other tips for saving money on groceries shopping in bulk and freezing a lot like there's so much that you can

freeze that you probably don't realize like meats cheeses milk you can freeze milk bread you know there's so much buying in bulk from like Costco we do one big um like Costco um like Costco or Sam's Club trip a month. And then every week we just buy food to kind of like fill the void, fill what we're needing for recipes. But buying in bulk, shopping seasonally and shopping locally, having your kids eat what you're eating. Those are all good ways to save money on your groceries. Is there a ratio you recommend people using to split their income between groceries and rent and fun and savings, et cetera? Yeah, there's a lot of different like ratios out there. I personally, we use the 5030, 20 rule says,

that 50% of your net income goes towards your needs, 30% goes towards your once, and then 20% goes towards your debt repayment and savings. And that's just like a good guideline. Like there are so many different ones out there like the pay yourself first. I don't even know. So many. You just have to figure out what kind of works for you. But we use a 50, 30, 20 rule. And then as far as like individually breaking it up, it's hard to say like an exact percentage. But a good, good way to do it is to look at your previous months and then try. find like an average and then maybe try and take it down a little bit if you're trying to save money, that would be a good place to start. You mentioned that you have people reaching out to you talking

about unstable income. What tips do you have for people who are trying to budget with unstable income? This is a question that's got and I get a lot as well. Yeah, it's a really hard one because, so my advice would be to figure out how much you need every month in expenses. So list out all of your expenses, all of your needs and all of your wants. And then that dollar amount is what you know that you need to be making. So for variable incomes, list out all of your expenses, figure out the bottom line number that you need to be, that you need to have every month to cover all of your expenses. And then I like to suggest to use some sort of like a slush fund or carryover fund. And when you have months that you make more, you add to it. And then if you have a month that

you make less, you can pull from it. So you kind of have this like overhead account that you can pull in and out of it. I like that. I like that a lot. Earlier on, you mentioned that your parents really scared you away from credit in addition, of course, to telling you to spend your entire first paycheck. But what are some tips that you give for people to encourage them to use credit, but maybe not abuse it? Or has your, you know, has your position evolved on that? Yeah, yeah, it has. We only use credit cards now. We don't use debit cards at all. My suggestion, is to use your credit cards, pay them off in full every single month so that you're not carrying a balance over. For somebody that's first starting out, I would suggest that they get a credit card

and they use it only for gas and groceries. They pay it off every single month in full, and then that's it. So that way you're building credit, but you're not, the other thing that you need to keep in mind is that when a bank gives you a $2,000 credit limit, that's not $2,000 for you to go and spend. That's what they're trusting that they'll get back from you. So you just have to know that whatever you put on that credit card is going to come out of your account. It's not free money and just like keeping that mindset. And then another thing that a lot of people don't know about credit cards is that sometimes you can have your bank adjust their cycle, their billing cycle so that it better aligns with either your bank or your budget. And that makes it just easier for budgeting because sometimes credit cards can be hard to budget with because the cycle dates are different.

Like halfway through the month your bills do. So you can sometimes you can have. that adjusted or you can have or you can pay your credit card off at the end of every month so that the next month you're not going into it with a balance. It's a zero. That's a really good tip. I didn't really think about that. But that would help, you know, really visualize what's going in there a little bit better for me. I'm going to go set that up following this call. That's awesome. Yeah, my husband does that. He pays it off before the statement hits and then we get a bill for nothing. That's always nice to see a bill for $0.00. Stay with us. We're taking a quick break. When we're back,

Emmy will help us understand the pitfalls of fulfillment scrolling. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward. It's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth,

and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves in the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool. that makes money management simple.

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So I know earlier I mentioned that, you know, I think the Gen Zers are better with money than millennials. This is a, I'm going to rephrase that to say, they're less bad the millennials. Less bad. There's a contingent of them that are, are interested in personal finance and seem to be going about the right way. But there's still more, I think, spend influencing than personal finance fluencing. If that's the new term, we're going to use that, watch it go viral here on this. So, you know, like, have you found that this is a huge problem for people that you're, you know, working with and that are coming to you for budgeting advice where they're seeing these lavish lifestyles or maybe even unsustainable or fake lifestyles being posted all over the place by these

you know hot shots who seem to have a Ferrari or whatever and is that influencing how people think what people think is normal in spending i would say 100 yes i love that term spend fluencing because that's what it is they're influencing there is somewhere that i read it was like people post content to either inspire educate or get you to buy something and so that's something that you you to think about when you're seeing social media. And yeah, it is like when you look when you open your social media, it seems like every video, if not, you know, every other video is some sort of an ad getting you to buy something. And I just try and remind people that whenever you see somebody featuring a product, that is most likely a paid partnership. Nowadays, you have to have it labeled

on the video. But if it's something that you're getting money for through like an affiliate link, you don't have to disclose that. You can just like have the item that you're used. You can just like have the item that you're using and then somebody likes it, they go to your storefront and they buy it and you get a took a change for it. So you have to know that when you're seeing a video and you're seeing all of these things that people have, they're getting paid for it in some form to promote that. And part of being a budget early is kind of knowing that and being like, yeah, that's not going to work on me, you know, I'm above marketing here, you know? And so yeah, seeing that, it is, it's hard though. And it goes back to the mindset and really being,

content and happy with what you have. And so when you see people showing all this stuff off, you're just like, you, whatever, like, I'm good with what I've got. You know, it's that mindset. Yeah. Is that the answer? Is that how you protect people from that is just understand the shine a light on and understand the financial incentive behind what's going on here and the reality that this person probably doesn't own that Ferrari. And if they do, they're probably in huge debt or have foregone huge investments in order to get it. Yeah, that's a big piece. piece of it, but then also understanding kind of where you're going into your scrolling, like, how are you feeling? If you're not feeling fulfilled in a certain area of your life,

and then you get on social media and this person is fulfilled in that area, are you going to want to buy whatever they're showing to help yourself feel fulfilled? Kind of knowing that. Again, checking in with yourself, just like you would check in with yourself before you go into a store or a mall, check in with yourself before you start scrolling. Yeah, I'll say that sometimes these folks that are like posing and like these crazy beach towns, you know, or whatever or have like a, like a really fancy car behind them. Just kind of make me mad. I guess that's my trigger for some of this stuff.

So, you know, on that, I just kind of roll my eyes, look at them, like, you know, that's so much parks a fancy car. I'm like, what are you doing, you know, around on this? You're just showing off. And it's not, it's like the wealth is by definition, the money not spent, quote from Morgan Housel, which I think is very powerful. But anyways, speaking of triggers, what are some of the things that that you found to trigger people who are, you know, coming to you for budgeting advice or that trigger the desire

to go spend or make people feel bad. And like, what, what do you, what have you noticed in your interaction with clients around that? I see a lot of stress. I've talked about stress lots of times in this, but stress is the biggest, I would say the biggest one. You also have things like insecurity. If you're feeling insecure, you have, I talked a little bit about PMSing, like hormonal spending is another big one that a lot of people don't really talk about, but is a good, good thing to think about if you're a woman, along with like the insecurity thing, like if there's some part of you that is feeling insecure, like, you know, you have acne and you're feeling really bad about it. And so then you see a video and it's an acne treatment. What people need to understand is that

marketing kind of plays on insecurities. And so if you're feeling bad about that and you go and you spend a ton of money on an acne treatment, that's something that maybe should like send up a little bit of a red flag. It's not, you know, you can't shop to fill that void. Nothing's going to fill that void unless you, like, truly do it yourself. Like shopping will not fill that void. And you have to be honest with yourself. What is it that's missing from your life? Shopping is not going to fill that unless you are missing a pair of jeans and you need a pair of jeans. Shopping's not going to fill your void. Something is missing in your life emotionally. Shopping is only going to be, like, a band-aid and then it's going to go away. You're still going to have the void, so you're going to shop

more. Yeah, you have to look within yourself and your interactions with people. And if your trigger is that when you're relaxing at nighttime and you scroll social media and then you shop because you're doing that, what else can you do during that time? Can you, you know, maybe pick up knitting or snuggle or something, do something other than shopping and scrolling? Or it's like your go-to when you get a new achievement at work is to go buy yourself a bag, like, is there something else that you can do to help fill yourself or make yourself feel fulfilled rather than shopping? So that, yeah, it's just understanding yourself. And I feel like when people go through the budgeting process and they really look at their

spending and they start to understand it, they become so in tune with themselves and with their emotions and how they're feeling. And that's, that's huge. It's a huge part of spending that I don't see a lot of people talking about. It's the emotional side of spending. So aside from just like shutting off your social media, which is an option and perhaps a good one for a lot of folks, can you, how do you do you do anything to control the flow of information that's going on your social? Do you, for example, follow or unfollow certain folks or snooze them or turn them off or whatever around that? How do you control your social feed personally?

Yeah, I just made a video about this that got some traction, basically telling people to unfollow the, those that make them want to spend money. If somebody, if their whole social media account is based off of trying to sell you things, just to unfollow them. Like, you're not going to lose any part of your life, I promise you. There are inspirational people. There are cleaning motivation videos. There are so many other things that you can consume on social media than people just trying to sell you things. And it is like, just block them, unfollow them. Do whatever you need to do. put your phone down. You can, you can hide words. You can hide videos. You can hide hashtags. If that, if you need to do that within your social media, you can do that.

So how do you handle this? You know, you're now an influencer and all that. How do you, how do you, you know, how do you handle things with with advertisers that you work with? Yeah, that's a, that's a hard one, something that I, like really struggled with internally. I was like, how can I, like, sustain myself on social media and take brand deals, but also at the same time, be telling people not to spend money on brand deals, you know, or, you know, whatever people are trying to. So that was like a dilemma that I had with myself. Like, how do I do both? So I really only promote things that I feel like good about, things that I would buy myself, things that I would use myself. And it's hard. Like, but also I feel like I have a good viewpoint as being an influencer and a budget coach. Like,

I feel like I have a different vantage point. So how can someone determine who to follow? and who to get rid of. I do the same thing. I only promote things that I truly believe in. I don't need somebody's money. I need my reputation. Because you can't get your reputation back. That's really important to me.

But there's a lot of people who seem really sincere and they're actually sliding in. And by the way, let me tell you all about this widget that I got that I totally love and would never, ever, ever promote without totally using it. And they've never actually used it. How do you determine, like, are there any cues that you can take from somebody that is promoting

things? Because there are really great products out there that do cost money. There is a cost and there should be, you know, somebody's hard work should be rewarded. I can think of somebody right off the bat. Chelsea Brennan created the emergency family binder. I think it's a great product. I talk about it all the time. And she deserves to be financially compensated for all.

the time she put into this product. But there are other people who have other products that are just smarmy and gross. How do you tell the difference? I mean, that just like comes to your own judgment, right? Like, like I was saying before, what do you value as far as like what you want to spend your money on? If it's something like, you know, I'll spend money on things that like tools for the house, tools for the kitchen, skincare and makeup is something that I'm okay, spending a little extra money on. But it's just you have to find what you value. And, And if you're triggered and you see something on social media that you really, really want to buy, put it in your Amazon wish list and just let it sit there for a little while. And if, you know, at the end of the month, after you've done all your budget, if you have a little bit of extra money, then buy it or work through.

When I get a new client, I send them a packet of worksheets. And one of the worksheets is a spending flowchart. And the flowchart just takes you through and it says, like, do I really need this? and helps you determine whether or not you actually need something. And some of the questions are like, you know, how am I feeling was I triggered to buy this? Do I have something at my house that will already do its job? Is it a replacement for something? These are things that you can ask yourself whether or not you actually need to buy something.

Well, I mean, this has been awesome. Where can people find out more about you? TikTok is where I'm mostly at. And I'm also on Instagram now. It's Emmy X, Budget, S-A-H-M. which is stay-at-home mom. Emmy X-Budget, and it's Emmy with one-M-E-M-E-M-Y-X budget. Budget S-A-H-M for Stay-At-Home mom.

Awesome. And we will link to that in the show notes here at Bigger Pockets Money as well. So, yeah, thank you so much, Emmy. This was really, really powerful. Great to hear your story. Thanks for sharing it and giving us an overview of how you got here. And thanks for the awesome tips as well. Thank you guys so much for having me.

It's been such an honor. Thank you so much, Emmy. And we will talk to you soon. Okay. Bye-bye. All right, Scott. That was Emily and that was a lot of fun. I really like her ideas surrounding budgeting with unstable income as well as just getting

your emotions and your emotional spending in check. That is, I think, one of the biggest issues that people who are trying to transition from not having a budget to having a budget, that's one of the biggest problems that they are, or biggest hurdles that they're going to face is getting the emotion. spending unchecked. Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think it starts with, and I love the way she framed it. It just starts with making that mental switch.

I'm going to control the spending for myself and or my household. And to that end, I'm going to just, I'm not going to completely create an environment of incredible scarcity. I'm going to create an environment that is sustainable and that gets me towards the things I really want to buy in life, whether that's an investment portfolio and financial freedom. That's the ability for one parent to be a state. at home parent instead of bringing in a full-time income or something else. That's all we're doing when we're budgeting here.

And I think that M.E's mindset really kind of exposed that. And you can't have some of those things and emotionally spend on a regular basis that is uncontrolled. It is going to take a little bit of self-control, but you have to keep your goals in focus. What is it that you truly want? That one more random thing that doesn't really mean anything or the goal. I think you really want the goal. So focus on the goals.

Absolutely. All right, Scott, should we get out of here? Let's do it. That wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He, of course, is Scott Trench and I am Mindy Jensen saying, take care, sweet pair. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give us a five-star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you're looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash Bigger Pockets Money.

Bigger Pockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kaylin Bennett. editing by Exodus Media, copywriting by Nate Weintraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the Bigger Pockets team for making this show possible.