Smart Money Happy Hour with Rachel Cruze and George Kamel - We Debunk Your Top Excuses for Not Budgeting

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! If you’d rather do literally anything else besides sit down and make a budget (including watching Frozen with your kids for the 10th time), then this one’s for you. In this episode, George and Rachel are responding to the most common excuses for not budgeting.   Next Steps: 📗 Order George Kamel’s new book, Breaking Free From Broke. 📱 Submit a Guilty as Charged question for Rachel and George! Send a DM to @rachelcruze or @georgekamel on Instagram! Be sure to type “GUILTY?” at the top of your message so we don’t miss it.   Connect With Our Sponsors: 🔒 This episode is sponsored by DeleteMe. Remove your personal information from the web and get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/smartmoney.   Today’s Happy Hour Special: 🥃 Blackberry Lime Mule Mocktail Recipe: Paige Bakes   4 blackberries Lime juice (1 lime) 2 cups crushed ice 6.8 ounces (1 bottle) ginger beer Instructions: Pour lime juice and muddle blackberries in a glass. Fill the glass with ice and strain blackberry lime juice into a separate glass. Top with ginger beer. Enjoy!   Listen to More From Ramsey Network:   💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, I'm Rachel Cruz. I'm George Camel. And this is Smart Money Happy Hour. Cheers, George. Cheers. That's cold. Best descriptor, it's just cold. Well, this is the show.

We're two friends who happen to be money experts to talk about what you're talking about. So everything from pop culture, current events, and money. And today we are here to help you build the bridge and get over it respectfully. But before we lean into our inner highway engineer, Rachel, let's talk about what we're sipping on. I know. This is a pretty great mocktail. Not going to lie. Blackberry lime mule.

Blackberry lime mule. If you like any of those things, if you like mules, limes, or blackberries, I think you're going to love this drink. It's actually a great mocktail. Very balanced. Fair and balanced. We're going to give this a rating and review at the end. Reveal the cost per glass at the end of the episode.

So stick around for that. You don't want to miss that. That's right. Okay, George. So whenever we kind of do a tough love episode here on the happy hour, you know, it's a little mixed reviews, a little toss-up on how people take it. You know what this feels like. feels like when your church has to do like the stewardship sermon about money.

And they ask for money. And it's like, ah, like they know they need to, but it's just always this weird thing. Now this is us doing our tough love episode. Wow. You need to hear this. We don't enjoy this. This is not fun for, actually, it is very fun for us. Oh my gosh.

Unbelievable. I love tough love. It's one of my favorite types of love. You love it all. Love the love. I love to love. But yeah, so listen, we are always giving people, or I am, the best. benefit of the doubt, right? Life is hard. Everyone's story is different. And I want to hear that

and listen to that. To have people love you. But then also, principles around money, they are the principles, right? And they work. And that is what we found. So that's where the tough love comes in. Yeah. As we are here for you people. Consider us your proverbial little league soccer coaches because today we're going to tell you to rub some dirt in it and keep on moving, especially when it comes to budgeting. That's the focus today. That's right. And Budgeting really is kind of the starting points to getting control of your money, building wealth, doing it all. So we want you to have this starting line. We want it so bad. We are your coaches that see you play in the game. And we're like, come on, you can do better. We see you. And that is budgeting. You like that, Cheeryn?

I'm trying to think of you would be a great coach. Have you ever thought about it? Coaching? Yeah. Like sports? Yeah. No. Your kids are so young. There's time. I am a yeller, though. Not corrective yellow. cheering yeller. I get very into it, whether it's swim, soccer, put me in a sports area with my kid.

I love that. There's enough corrective yelling in your family. I think we're good on that. You know what I mean? We don't need that. We don't need that. No, it's a, you can do it. Oh my gosh. Go, go, go, go. I get very excited. Very high pitch. To high pitch, Scheller. Less helpful, but I appreciate that. Okay. Well, here's the deal. Why is it tough love with budgeting? Well, we're going to cover the excuses, which takes some tough love to battle the excuses that a lot of people have. about why they don't budget, why they can't keep it going, why they're not building wealth. So we're going to comb through those excuses today and overcome them.

Yeah, and we all have excuses in life. There's always an excuse. Where's your excuses the most, George? Oh, my goodness. Like, where do I kind of, where's my things where I'm like, I'm not going to do that? Yeah, yeah. At home?

Sure, let's go to home. Oh, that's personal. That's very personal. I avoid things that take mental energy. When I'm at home, I can do things to take physical energy. Okay. But anything that requires... What do you mean?

Anything that requires some thought about like, how are we going to do it, when are we going to do it? I don't want to deal with more schedules and think... Okay. You know what I mean? I leave that to my wife. Yeah. But I'm happy to, like, do laundry and vacuum and chores and clean up stuff. Okay.

Like, I think when I'm at home, the physical energy, I'm like, great. I can keep things moving. Let's go. But if it takes mental energy, I'm out. I procrastinate. Okay. I'm opposite of you. Give me a schedule all day.

Give me a meal plan all day. I'd kill it. So fun. Should we trade lives? But I know, right? But no, A, folding the clothes, you know? That's your thing you procrastinate on. I would literally let it just sit in the dryer and let the kids, that be the closet.

And they just dig through that dryer, get what they need and move on. You know what I do when clothes have been sitting in the dryer? I get some ice cubes. And I'm saying, no, no, I'm saying, okay, dryer, not washer. The washer's bad. Don't get mildewy. No, yeah, I know. That's bad.

But even in the dryer, I'm like, that shirt's going to be so wrinkly. Oh, I know. So I throw some ice cubes in it. I rerun it for a little bit. Me too. Do you know where I learned that? Where?

Babs. Do you remember? Yes, the TikToker. From Babs. Yeah, she's like the grandmother everyone which they knew. I learned that from her. That's a great hack.

I don't know where I got her from. Okay, so we all have it, y'all have our things that are like, I don't want to do that. And budgeting might be yours, but we are here to be your coaches. We're going to get you on up there, old junior. I don't know what accent this is. We're going to be your coaches. And just coach you on up, aren't we?

We're going to just get you right in that game. What? I don't know what that is, but I love the energy your brain today. I'm not sure either, George, let's be honest. All right, George, the excuses, are you ready for them? Let's get to them. We've kind of compiled the top ones that we've heard over the years. We hear them a lot.

Whether it's the Ramsey show, talking to people out and about, social media. You know, it's fun? If you have one that's not on this list, leave it in the comments if you're watching on YouTube. We'll debunk it in a future episode. That'll be fun. But here's the top one. All right, I am self-employed. I have fluctuating income or get paid multiple times a month.

So I can't budget. I can't budget. What's the truth here, Rachel? The truth is, yes, you can budget. And again, your numbers will probably look a little different. And that's how we are. I'm on commission for my life. And so is my husband.

He's doing real estate stuff. So every month looks different. And you don't quite know exactly until you get your paycheck. So what we do is a guesstimate. So at the beginning of the month, we put in here's how much I think I'm going to make. And I usually do like a lower amount, I'll be honest, just to kind of give us some breathing room. And then he gives his number. And then we budget from there.

And then again, if the paycheck hits and it's better, that's great. We'll probably just put more in savings or roll it over to the next month. But if it's less, then we do know, okay, we got to cut some stuff. So again, you're a little bit more of the flexibility aspect of this because you're kind of guessing ahead of time. But that still doesn't mean that you don't plan. Like you know at least you're going to be making something. Very few people are going to make zero dollars. And even if you are because you're a freelancer and I took no jobs this month, then you know that.

So then you're going to have to pull money from savings, but you're still going to have to pay for food and all that. So go ahead and budget out and have a plan. So regardless of what's going on, you can still budget. Yeah. For those that have that regular income, we call it a prioritized spending plan. So you know, I got to pay, make sure the food is on the table, the lights stay on, the rent is paid, the mortgage is paid. Then you can kind of go down the list and say, okay, insurance needs to get paid, gas needs to get covered. Everything beyond that sort of becomes like, if there's more money, we'll get to this.

That's right. If there's more money, we'll get to this. So I think a budget is even more important for those that don't have a stable, fixed income. That's right. And again, it's going to change maybe throughout the month, depending on what actually hits your account. But you still plan for it. Still very important. Excuse debunked.

All right. Number two, George. I don't have time to budget and it takes too much effort. Aw. My gosh. They're so busy. How did you have time to leave that in a YouTube comment section? It's amazing.

that works. I'm kidding. But no, this is one we get off, and people think in their mind, it's going to take me hours because I'm going to have to open some spreadsheet and it's going to take so much brainpower and math. Maybe back in the day, but nowadays, you just use the every dollar app and it does all the math for you. It's on your smartphone, your spouse can be logged in. You both have access to it. And it doesn't take much time once you get it off the ground. Yeah, that's the thing. It's going to, you know, like anything that you're starting out, there will be a level of like, hey, let's set aside an hour. And I'm I'm going to look through the last, you know, month or two of our accounts just to see how much

should we spend on average each month on food, on groceries, out to eat, miscellaneous stuff, maybe stuff with the kids, stuff for the house, like all these different categories, insurance that you pay out, you do have to look back and kind of get an idea of what you were spending. And I always tell people, go ahead and just put those numbers down on your current budget, but knowing that those were numbers that you have without a budget, meaning you can probably when you have a plan, some of those categories can lower, especially things like food that you're just kind of going for, right?

Yes. It doesn't take that much time, really, once you have it going. Yeah, and every dollar copies your budget month to month, which I love, because you'll get it and then you'll delete some categories. That was just for that previous month. Maybe add some. Yes, you'll probably add things. So again, it's an ongoing fluid thing, but it does not take that long. In tracking transactions, I can do like 20 transactions.

I bet you in four minutes. Dang, that's what's up. I'm quick. Well, and every dollar makes it easy. Like, we've got the premium version, and you just literally the transactions show up and you just drag them to the right category. And there's even some auto tracking

where it goes, hey, this is probably groceries. You're good with that? And you go, yep, tap, done. All right, next. My spouse handles our finances and I can't convince them to care enough about budgeting. Ooh, this is one that I have the most empathy for because it's frustrating and difficult

to handle the money by yourself because the other spouse doesn't want, to, doesn't know how to, isn't, quote, into it. We've heard all of the reasons. So if you have no control over your money, like, there's an even bigger issue here when you're not aligned with your spouse when it comes to your goals, what's happening month to month, and you get resentful if you carry that for too long. Yeah, absolutely, because I think at the end of the day, it comes down to what you value and you obviously care about this issue for a reason. And if your spouse doesn't have any level of interest or concern or willingness to go...

or to go with you on that subject, then that's where we always kind of wave that red flag. And we're like, okay, there's probably more of a marriage issue going on than just money, right? And so I think it really is important to understand that it's more than just money. And you may be the one that loves to budget, right? And that's actually Winston in our marriage. So there's always going to be one that's more detail-oriented, one that's going to love it more. But if they just are so dismissive of it,

and won't budge at all with money. The truth is we're grownups here. We have to handle money. And if you do not feel secure or good or confident and what's going on, that's going to create fear and anxiety. And again, if your spouse can't reciprocate and have a conversation around that

and understand, then that's a marriage thing. Well, it's usually a symptom of something deeper. There's some stuff they grew up with or something that happened in their past or there's some shame, guilt, baggage, spending addictions that they don't want to deal with. So they got, ugh, nope, not touching that. So you've got to have a hard conversation

and have it kind of come to Jesus' conversation and really share your feelings and get on the same page. They may not like pop champagne every time you do a budget. They may not just be thrilled, but it's the idea that, yeah, I'm going to work with you as a team in our life and money is included in that. Same reason we shower. We need some financial hygiene regularly, Rachel.

Okay. Thank you both. Thank you. Shout out to those who don't shower. That's just a personal dig. All right. the percentages confuse me. What if I can't save 10% every month, like all budget methods tell me to do? I think percentages is what really hurt people

when it came to budgeting. They go, well, just tell me what I need to spend. And they go, well, I can't do that. And so we don't really subscribe to this percentage model of you have to split everything evenly into these categories. Because everyone's in different seasons. Yep, absolutely.

If you're in debt, it looks different than if you have zero debt. Yeah, it's more about your priorities around money. So if you have debt, your priority should be getting out of debt. So all of your focus, an extra margin and all of it should be going towards that, not splitting it up and like, oh, 50, 20, you know what I mean? So it's, yeah, we're more focused on the individual when it comes to personal finance than just this like system. So that's why the zero-based budget is great, because you are accounting for every dollar in your paycheck, which is very important. But it's going towards the things that you need it to go to, whether it's an emergency fund getting out of debt or what you need it for. Well, and we do have two parameters that include percentages. Number one is it's why. It's why. to have no more than 25% of your take-home pay going toward your rent or mortgage.

That's not a like fundamentalist. Like you have to, it just, it helps you to hit your other goals if your mortgage isn't 60% of your take-home pay. And the other one is giving. We think it's wise. We put giving at the top of the budget, 10% if you're, you know, a person of faith, you're a believer, 10% to your local church. And so giving is an important part of the budget too.

Yeah. And always give a little until you can give a lot, right? I mean, again, we're not legalistic about these and it's like this hardcore thing. but it's just a guideline. And again, it's kind of showing you, hey, here's some things to put into place that's going to help you with your money long term, which is key.

Here's a common one, Rachel. I can't budget because I make enough that I don't need to. Have you heard that one? Well, I make too much. It's not a big deal. Yeah, I have heard that one. What's funny is that I also hear people go, I don't make enough to do a budget.

So I'm like, oh, so tell me where this magical sweet spot is of the middle class people who need to make a budget and no one else matters. That's right. That's crazy. Yep. I mean, on either end of the spectrum, again, a budget is just a plan for your money. That's what it is.

However little or however much it is. Yeah, if you're not making a ton right now, then you need to budget so that you know, hey, these, my necessities are covered. You have a plan. You feel in control. And then when you make a lot, it's amazing how much you can just spend when you don't have a plan. And again, we're okay with spending, but it's just doing it on purpose. And I do think once you're on babysat seven.

It means no mortgage payment, no debt at all. Yeah, you can, I mean, I think there's a level you can be. be a little bit more lax with it. Like, it's fine if you want bigger categories or not. But the idea that you just don't plan for anything with your money is very unwise. There was one other thing I want to mention with this one. Sharks. Lifestyle creep. So people think, well, if I just make more money, then my life problems will be solved or, you know what, I do well, Rachel, I'm fine. I can out-earn my stupidity and my spending habits. But lifestyle creep is real. What happens is you make more and you

just spend more. So you don't actually get any closer to reaching your goals, paying off debt, for the future. So that's where a budget's so important. Even if you get a bonus or a raise, what are you doing with that? Because if you don't make a plan on paper, it's going to disappear into some frivolous spending. Amen, brother, George. That's what I'll say about that. Amen. Okay, what's the next excuse? What about fun money? Whenever I get intentional with my money, there's none left for me. Okay, this is why we budget. This is for the Enneagram 7s who go, wait, budgets are like for people who don't want to have fun. Yeah, uh-huh. No, and you can still have fun, but you got a budget for it.

It sounds so like, well-w-wit-for-fund. But I think having, you know, have a fun category in your budget. Your budget's yours. You can put whatever you want in it. So maybe it's like, I don't know. If you want some money for you, put that in there. Rachel's fun money. That's right.

Just throw it in the budget and plan for it. And it's not penny-pinching. People think, well, Rachel's going to get $4 to spend. You could put $500 in fun money if that's your life. You're an adult. You get to decide. You get to decide what makes sense. Because people always ask us, well, how much should I put? Well, if you're in debt, you want to limit it as much as possible.

But if you have no mortgage payment and you make good money and you're hitting your goals. Consumer debt-free, but you have an emergency fund, you can loosen it up even more there, right? I mean, there's certain parts of this money plan. Get the mani, petty. You do you. You can enjoy it. You just enjoy it. I love a racial category. We have a lot of fun in our life. Yes. And we're on a budget.

It's great. They're not mutually exclusive. All right. The next one is, how am I supposed to account for all the random, bigger expenses that pop up up like new tires or a doctor's office co-pay. Oh, I just saw a video today and someone was like, budget sucked. Budgets don't work because like you get one thing that happens in your life and it just throws off the budget. And so it just doesn't work.

I'm like, what? How does this person exist? So what do you say to those people who go, Rachel, something's going to pop up. So why even plan when the plan's going to go out the window? Well, number one, the miscellaneous category is wonderful for this. So explain this. So this is the catch-all category. So you need to have some, it's kind of your safety net within the budget.

It's like we're going to allow a certain amount of money towards this. And if something comes up, you know, we have this money for it. And these are like ankle biters. This is not that was a random $4,000 expense. Yeah, I mean, tires are expensive, though. So that's my other thing is your number one thing is to have a $1,000 emergency fund. Like, that's the number one thing you do on this plan. So if it is a larger expense, you will have $1,000, just set aside that you can go and get from if you need it.

But also if the ideal, because this happens to us, ideally you will adjust the budget when those things come up. So a doctor's visit comes up and you've got to pay the co-pay. And you're like, oh my gosh, you know, there's not enough in my miscellaneous category. Then you have to then go in adjust other categories because it has to balance. Like we're adults here. Again, this is the tough love. We are adults.

It has to balance. And so you may say, okay, we're going to take a little bit out of out to eat. And my clothing category shrinks a little bit. It's my person. You know, you've got to figure out the math. And that's why I love every dollar. because as you adjust categories, it will show you how much you have left. But that may be a truth too.

We're like, oh, man, you know, this month we were expecting to do X, Y, and Z, but now we can't because we had this like emergency room doctor visit and it shifts the money. But that's life too, right? And for those bigger expenses, we love sinking funds. So this is where you put a little bit of money away each month knowing that there's a big expense coming up in the future. So we just did this with insurance. We've got a big, we pay our insurance yearly.

in full to save some money. And so in a few days, our account's going to get dinged for $3,000 to cover the auto insurance and the umbrella policy and all these other things. And so we have a sinking fund set up in every dollar.

You can mark it as a sinking fund. So we've been putting money away because it's not a surprise that insurance is going to come due every year. Right, right. So it's super helpful and it takes all the stress out. Oh my gosh, how are we going to pay this? You plan for it ahead of time in the budget.

Yeah. And I will say again, it is a, your personality comes into play. because I do get overwhelmed sometimes with like NHOA fee hits or I don't know if stuff happens

that I'm like oh my gosh I probably in true confession form could do a better job knowing what's going on because Winston does a lot of that he's like oh yeah this month and I was thinking if you die am I going to really remember all of this that got dark real quick

it's a lot but it's a lot that I'm like oh gosh our car and shit like I have to like you would have to do some serious digging to find out all the like Nooks and crannies. Because he does. I mean, and again, it's all in the budget.

I see everything going on. But, like, from a logistical standpoint, it's just a lot. So, yeah, that's my true confessions. Wow. Winston, please don't die. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. You need you, bud.

She needs you. I started having him make a list of stuff that he does that I don't know about. Oh, that's smart. Because stuff just happens and Rachel doesn't know. So he just writes things down like Rachel does not know about? Yep. Like, he was doing something the other day. It was probably like air filters or whatever.

I don't know. We found out his Merv. We did. Okay, this is an Easter egg if you watched the past episodes. And it was a high Mervrv, right? He claimed it was like a Merv 16 or something. Yeah, he went high.

Feels aggressive. He goes out. He's very serious about his clean air. Your HVAC's working properly with that thick of a filter. I know, but it's that stuff that I'm like, oh, geez, I wouldn't know. So anyways. That's wonderful. Free spirits.

It's a good way to live, though. Next excuse. I like having a credit card for emergency. and there's no place for that in the budget. There's a reason. Credit cards and budgets don't go well together. Yeah. Because you're paying for something like 30 days from now

and all the transactions hit it once in one giant balance. And so it doesn't make sense. Yeah, and it's unwise. It makes it hard to keep track of actually being very specific. I mean, even Amazon kind of stresses me out because I'll get a bunch of Amazon transactions in every dollar and I have to go to Amazon be like, hey, and I kind of just... Like was this clothing, was it household?

Yeah, okay, this one, this one, this and this. I can't imagine getting a full bill and being like, oh, I mean, it's just a lot. So, yeah, again, and it's a new practice, probably a new habit for some of you all, but try it. Like, live on the debit card, live with every dollar premium and just see what happens because you're able to actually see in real time what's going on. Yeah, and for those that are saying, I need it for emergencies, that's what your emergency fund is for. Yeah. Not a credit card company that's going to charge you 22% interest for that emergency.

And for those that are concerned about fraud, this is a big one. Well, Rachel, online, I'm going to put my debit card info in. What? Here's the deal. If you're really worried about that, there's a site out there. We're not affiliated with them, but it's called Privacy.com, and you can create virtual debit card numbers. So I'll do this with sites that I'm like, hey, I don't want them to have my real debit card info. Maybe it's a trial or something. I don't want them to ding me. And so I'll use a Privacy.com debit card number that's attached to mine so that I'm safe. Love it. So smart. You can just delete that card later on.

Next is I'll budget when I have more money and have made more progress in my financial goals. That's backward, I feel like. You can't start making progress with money until you stay on the plan, until you pay attention to your money and take control of it and change your behavior. Yeah. So I think the budget comes before all of that.

Last but not least, George, I don't want to be reminded of my lack of money. Ooh. You know what I feel it. I understand that. That feels... I saw a great video and this girl said, I don't look at my bank account

because I don't need that negative energy in my life. And I was like, yes. That's how people feel when it comes to budgeting. funny. I know. It's just going to like just bring up all the shame and guilt and baggage and bad habits up to the surface. Here's what sucks about money is, again, we feel like it's a scorecard and it's not.

Your worth is far beyond your net worth. Like this is not a self-worth. Tweet that. Yeah, not a self-worth conversation. But it is frustrating because it is math, right? It's going to happen. So your money mistakes, they are not you. They do not define who you are.

But mathematically, they will follow you, right? Like, there's like, okay, I went into debt for X, Y, and Z. I have a negative balance. So now I have to figure out how to fix that. And so I can see how it can be defeating in some world. I understand that it's like, okay, put my head in sand. And I don't want to know. I'm in denial.

And that can just feel to a degree a little bit easier than when you actually face it. But what I would encourage people is usually it's magnified in your head of how bad it is. And once you actually get it out visually and you have a plan around it, right? we don't want just to leave you, like, where you are. It's a plan of, okay, my first step is $1,000. Then I'm going to look at my debts. I'm going to write them down, smallest salargeists. You know, you start to actually get control of it.

That's what I love about the tactical side of this stuff. So I understand this one. I can feel this one. Yeah, but you don't just stop at looking in the mirror and going, oh, gosh, that's what I spent this month? It doesn't end there. That's right. But you also can't just go, what happened last month?

All right, well, let's not worry about that. If you made $3,000 and you spent $4,000, and you spent 4,000, there's a problem that needs to be addressed. And the longer you don't address it, the harder it's going to be to climb out. So just go ahead and say, today is the best day for me to finally look in that financial mirror. Yep. Because tomorrow's going to be worse if I don't do something about it.

That's right. And then if you just look, you're right. After like a month, two months, three months, you go, oh my gosh, I'm seeing some progress. And then you are looking forward to it. That's what I've heard happens with working out. When you start, when you're at my phase, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm never doing that again. but at your stage you look forward to it it's almost addictive like i can't think about not working out you feel better i feel good yeah for sure i can't imagine feeling good what's it like i know i got yeah i heard

this health thing and i'm gonna be honest not to pat myself on the back but i do a lot of them and the best one i do on the on the it was like five things to do my best one is sleep oh i'm a great sleeper i like i get if you could choose one thing to be good at it would be that i know i go to bed at nine i can't stay up past 10 i fall asleep and I sleep through, I mean, I do really well, unless one of the kids gets up or something, but overall, I'm a good sleeper, and you're not George. No, hard time falling asleep, hard time staying asleep. I know, George, I really am concerned for you as a friend.

I appreciate that. How you feeling today? How many, what was your sleep regimen last night? You know, it was better because usually what happens is like you're on the phone, like bad phone hygiene, and then you're like, oh my gosh, it's 1045, we should stop scrolling, we should get ready for bed, and so it just becomes a cycle. Yeah, and what time do you fall asleep? Like midnight?

I would say a little after 11. Okay. But then staying asleep. And then what happens? We also sleep with the dogs in the bed, which don't... Man, you shouldn't sleep with that. Don't care. Okay.

We do it. We're not changing it. Got to deal with it. But that's another problem. Because they wake up and stuff. Well, you know, they'll roll around. One of them needs to get out sometimes. Do you wake up at like four and can't go back to sleep?

That will happen as well. Okay. Yes. Where your body's just... Yes. Yep. So the key is I need to put my phone on a different room and do all the normal phone hygiene and stuff.

I know what to do. You think that's helpful? You need to send me tips, guys, but thank you. I know that's going to happen. And it's helpful, though? Like, do you see a difference? Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. But also, I need, like, a better, that's why I'm working out because I know I need to kind of exhaust my body to the point where I need to sleep. Yes. So there's all kinds of things, but I think there's a lot of similarities

on the money side. Like, there's things we know we should do, but we're just sort of like, oh, procrastinate, lazy. It's not fun. Because it doesn't always feel good either, right? It feels like just to kind of scroll and do that. I do that.

I do that at night. And then you feel terrible for the next 12 hours. Yeah, that's the thing. And that's the same with money, right? It's just like a, I can kind of feel like a chore. I probably should do this. And then you do it and then 12 hours later, you're like, wow. Whether it's working out or a budget or cleaning the room or laundry, you're like, I feel better after it's done.

We are adulting. Humans, I think, need productivity and progress. Otherwise, we spiral into our worst possible selves. I think that's fair. I love that. All right, George. so good. That was a lot.

Let me just say, you guys, we mentioned every dollar a couple times in this episode. We'll click the link. We'll put it in the show notes. But seriously, this is the budget. We are all for it. We really are.

Even though it's kind of an eye roll sometimes or like, oh my gosh, getting started is hard. Once you're in the habit and it becomes a part of your lifestyle and who you are, you open the every dollar app and track transactions,

you talk to your spouse about it. It just becomes routine. It's not that big of a deal after a while, I promise you. And you can do it all on your phone. You don't need to like open up some crazy spreadsheet and take four hours.

This is a pretty simple process. And if you have a spouse, bring them into the conversation, not like, we need to budget. And he needs to be, hey, I feel like we're just kind of off track and lazy lately. Let's, like, we need to hit some money goals. Here's a great tool we can use to track along the way and keep us on track. That's what I like to talk about a budget, not the like, you need to be on a budget. Like using that negative words and like.

Negative energy. Yeah. You don't need that. That kind of making it a chore versus, hey, this is just like a tool to track. Are we making progress? So good. I love it. Well, George, it's almost the end of the episode,

and we close out every episode with Guilty as charged. And this is where our producer, Lindsay, gives us a new guilty-as-charge question every week. And if we're guilty, we take a sip. Lins? What or which budget category are you guilty of going over last month? Oh, shoot. Oh, my goodness. I know ours.

Or multiple, but. Yeah, there was a few. There was a few. You want to go first? Yeah, I can go first. Ours was out to eat. Terrible. Wow.

Were these, like, nice, like, places that you underestimated? Nope. Oh, dang, we just went out way more than we thought we were. We just ended up getting food. It was summer still, and, yeah, I think we had, like, we had a trip, and there was stuff we were doing. I don't know. It just, it just, you know, too many Papa John's pizzas, you know, where we're like,

oh, yeah, just delivered the house. A lot of Papa John's. Was that your cryptonite this month or last month? I don't like Papa John's. I'm not going to lie. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, that was mine. For sure.

It hurts. I had an oopsie at Costco. What? An oopsie. Ooh, tell us. I spent more than I've ever spent in a single transaction at Costco. Would you ever, will you show me the amount? Because I know you probably want to.

Yeah, I don't care. I'll tell people. You will? I'm not ashamed. I don't know. I just don't like sharing dollar amounts. Well, and this is a lot for us. This may not be able to, but you're like, oh, we spend that in a day.

My total at Costco, after tax was $559. Oh, yeah. And it like, I was like, huh. Yeah. Did you get like a month's worth of groceries, though? Well, we did. Here's what happened. We bought a new pot and pan set.

Oh. Okay. That's so dramatic. For it to be a very reasonable reason. But it wasn't like a plan like, all right, this month we're going to get the pot and pan set. It's going to be too. So that's where it threw me off.

I hear you. So we had to move some things around in the budget to go like, okay, was this singular $560 Costco transaction? Can we make this work? And can I tell you why we got the pot and panette? You could probably guess. Why? The non-stick situation?

Yes, my wife watches a lot of, you know, health videos. Okay. And all the forever chemicals that are in everything. Yeah. And so it was like an immediate, we need to get rid of every single pot and pan we currently own or else we're going to die tomorrow. It had that energy. Yeah, totally.

So we've moved to stainless steel. Wow, those are tough. I had those early on in marriage. I have not yet open the box. I'm still scared. I went stone. Oh. Yeah, Amazon.

How rustic. Yeah. Just got me. Yeah, we have to do some like ceramic non-stick. You know, we've got a few of those for like eggs and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm still scared to like the learning curve of stainless steel can be a lot. It's like a legit thing.

You have to get a piping hot, then test it with water, then add your oil. Yep, yep. And then things will stick, but temporarily. Real chefs use stainless steel. That's what I'm going for. Because it's the purest cooking and the most balanced. Like, they all swear by stainless steel. And it's what my mom used growing up and she's the best chef I know.

Oh my gosh. So she's going to be real happy when she comes over next week to cook, and she's going to be like, wow, you guys really upgraded. Yeah, they're tough. I got all, that's what I ordered for when we got married. Like when I got pots and pans when we got married, and I did all stainless steel. But it is tough.

Deaf cookies. So, yeah, that's what we went over. And, you know, I hope it was worth it. It wasn't like, you know, there's more impulsive purchases, but again, my life is very unexciting. That's the most crazy we get. Pots and pans at Costco, really. Wow.

But hey, forever return policy. The drama of the week. And you know your boy's going to use that. Okay, you guys, DM us any guilty of charge questions that you guys have because y'all come up with some good ones. That's right. On Instagram or, you know, any other social media here on YouTube even if you're watching on YouTube, comment. Yeah, give us some guiltiest charge ideas. They're so great. I like it.

All right, it's closing time, George. You finish. I'm a little closer on my mocktail. Yeah, mine not as much. So this was a blackberry lime mule moktail. So no alcohol, still delicious. It has blackberries, lime juice, jim. ginger beer comes out to $2.10 per glass. And what is your rating?

Hmm. I'm going to go 8 out of 10. It has ginger beer. I'm not a fan of, but it's a good mocktail. Yeah. I'm going to go, I'm going to go 9 out of 10 for mocktail. You know what I'm realizing? I just don't enjoy drinking things from a mule glass. Me neither. It's too cold. It's simply too cold. I agree. I think not enough people are talking about this. I'm with you. It's very cool visually. I think we can all admit that. Yeah. Like if I'm out of restaurant, I'm like, all right, this is a vibe. But for just the actual practicality of it, that brings it down a point.

I agree. I agree. But kudos to Ibu for a great drink today. Thank you. I will always leave the recipe in the show notes. In fact, I don't, but someone much smarter and more responsible than me does, and I appreciate whoever that is. It's so good. We just give these away from, can I just say, we mentioned a mocktail cocktail recipe book.

The comments blew up on that, Rachel. When we mention that, people want it. You should do it. So leave comments on this video so I can show our team that at least 400 people want this recipe book so we can make it. All right, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave a review.

It is so helpful to us. And even sharing the podcast, honestly, that's one of the best ways to spread the words. It shows you care. Yeah, we really do appreciate it. And make sure to check out our episode on harmless purchases that drain your bank account next. Not so harmless then.

All right, you guys. We'll see you next Thursday on an all-new episode of. Smart Money Happy Hour