And welcome to the money mindset podcast, where you will find the inspiration and motivation. You need to manage your money better. So you can stress less as living the life you want. It's Ashley with budgets made easy in the money mindset podcast. Today. I am going to tell you about why budgeting is not about math. I know, I know that you think that it is,

but it is actually not the reason you can't seem to stick with your plan and make progress on your financial goals is not because of the math. But before I dive into why it's not about the bath, I'm going to let you know that I am doing a free live training this week, Thursday and Friday. So August 18th and 19th, and it's about how to recession proof your finances.

So I know a lot of people are worried about what the economy is going to do, but when you take these steps toward financial freedom and set things up in such a way that I'm going to explain during the live training, you don't have to worry about what the economy's going to do because you have taken care of yourself. So come join me for that free live training.

Budget's made easy.com/recession, R E C E S S I O N. And yes, I did have to Google make sure I smelled that right, because spelling is not my thing either. Neither is math, but come join me, sign up. It's free. So I'm only doing this live Thursday and Friday this week. So if you're watching it after it's already live,

I'm sorry, but if you're watching this during the week before we have, before I went live, come join me. I'd love to see you and hear you and see what you are struggling with right now, if you're worried about the economy or not, but let's really set our finances up so that we don't have to worry about what the economy is doing,

because we have no control over that. But we do have control over our own finances. So come join me, but just made easy.com/recession, rec E S S I O N. And I will see you there alleging has nothing to do with the math. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. Budgeting is just making a plan for your money.

This is only a small fraction that has to do with money because money is emotional. If we're all about math and logic, then we wouldn't be in debt. We wouldn't be living paycheck to paycheck. We wouldn't spend money that we don't have. We wouldn't spend money because of mom guilt, because we're bored or we're anxious or depressed, or, you know,

all the things that lead us to spending money that we don't have. We struggle with sticking to the budget because of our emotions. Things come up that we didn't plan that we didn't want to say no to. We feel guilty. You know, if it were all about the math, it would just be the logical answer of no, I can't do that right now.

Or, you know, I'll save for it delayed gratification, but it's not about the math. We spend money based on our emotions based on our triggers. You know, when you're bored and you're just scrolling through Amazon or Walmart target online, shopping, you know, all the places online that's because we're bored is some because we need to spend the money most of the time,

right? Maybe we're looking for something specific that we feel we need right then, but it's most likely a want. And if you don't have the money for it, why are you looking for it? Right. It's because of that emotion, we think it'll make us happier. We think that it will improve our lives somehow. Not because we have the money most of the time,

right? If you're in debt, then you don't have the money for it. And so you're buying something based on emotion, how you feel, how you think that item is going to make you feel. And a lot of times it's because of, you know, boredom, like I said, overspending, if it were just about the math, it would be the logical thing that we just don't spend money that we don't have.

Right. But it's not about the math. It's about how we feel all the thoughts about money, how we were taught about money, what we were taught about money, how our parents showed us how to spend or not spend money and the hand to how to handle that. Even if they didn't directly teach you like, Hey, pay this bill. This is how you read a checklist,

how you do a budget. They still taught you things about money and how they handled things in the day to day. So you picked up on that. Whether they actually sat down and taught you anything about finances, you still learn from them. So what did you learn from them? Did you learn that you can spend money, that you don't have that debt is okay.

That that money is scarce. That people that have a lot of money had have hurt people along the way, or they're scam artists, or they inherited it, things like that. So how you think about money plays into what you do with your money? And if you are struggling with sticking to your budget or sticking to a plan, figure out what those emotional triggers are and how you can create an emotional trigger for your big goal.

So I have a budget strategy session that will be coming live in like three weeks with a gin. And we dive deep into this. So about creating that big goal, it being specific, emotional, timely, and putting those triggers and reminders of that big goal, where you're going to see it a lot on your phone, on your wall, on your bathroom mirror and your closet on your fridge.

Like put that emotional goal on the fridge. Okay. So you'll see it every day. Put it on your phone, a picture of it on your phone. Things like that. If you're auditory, maybe let's say your big goal is to go to the beach, a big vacation, or maybe it's Disney world. Okay. Let's use Disney world. As an example,

maybe you put up a savings tracker and you're filling it in. As you say for that, if you're a visual person, if you are an auditory processor, maybe you listen to Disney songs or, you know, something auditory with Disney. Maybe you watch some YouTube videos where you can hear people and see people riding the rides and seeing the characters, because there are tons of YouTube videos out there showing you like everything there is to do at Disney.

And if you're, you know, kinesthetic, you like to feel things. Maybe you get some Mickey ears and you have them around, you know, you can touch it. You can feel it, you can see it, you can smell it. Things like that. Think about what kind of triggers work for you to stimulate that part of your brain,

where you say, okay, is spending this money right now, getting me closer or further away from my goal of going to Disney world. And you'll have those reminders around you a lot. So that hopefully when you get bored, when you get anxious or sad or depressed, or you have something that's coming up like right now that you forget about that bigger goal,

it'll help remind you and anchor you on what you are working towards. So remember budgeting is not about math. Like I failed algebra, okay. I am not a math genius. Like I'm okay with basic math, right? But they have apps for that. They have, we have spreadsheets for that. It'll do the math for you. It's not about the math.

You can lay out a beautiful budget down to the penny and the math is all correct. That doesn't mean that you'll just automatically stick to it because we're human. We're not perfect. We are emotional beings. We are not logical beings. For the most part, that is a much smaller percentage of how our brain works compared to the emotional side. The emotional side is where we make our decisions.

Almost 80% of the time, our decisions are based on emotion. Only about 20% is actual like logic. Now of course, some people are more logical than others. They're more just, that's how their brain works. But overall, your brain functions on emotion. We are human beings. We are not robots, right? And we're not perfect. We're never going to be perfect.

So as soon as you recognize that you're going to screw up, you're going to make mistakes because you're human. That's normal. That is expected. You should be screwing up. You should be making mistakes. Why? Because that means you're trying. The only way you don't screw up and make mistakes is if you don't try at all right. So you're human.

You're emotional. That's not a bad thing. It's not an insult. It's just literally how your brain works. So flip the script, use it to your advantage. Find some reminders of your emotional goal that you have decided that that's what you're working toward. And that's what you're going to do. And keep some emotional reminders around to help you stay on track with that goal.

Okay? It's not good enough to just say you want to stop living paycheck to paycheck. That's just like a baseline goal, right? What is your big goal? Just like the Disney example. You want to take your kids to Disney. You don't want to have to worry about paying for anything while you're there. And the credit cards, when you get home,

you pay for it all up front, you know, you can afford it and you have earned it. That is an emotional goal. You want to make memories with your kids. You want to have those memories for yourself. You want to have those memories for your children. And that would be like a big, major, emotional life goal for you.

Now it could be, you know, something else. That's just an example, of course, but think about really dive deep into what you want to work toward that you have that emotional connection to, besides just not wanting to live paycheck to paycheck. Like that's not enough of a push to get you to like really stick with it over time. Right?

So we, something that we're working towards that we really actually want, okay, the more you want it, the more likely you are to follow through and get it and work for it and do the harder things that you know, you need to do, but you just don't make yourself do it because you're not tied emotionally to that bigger goal. And that's why you can't stick to it.

So figure out how you can, what your goal is, what you're going to do to remind yourself of that goal. Make sure that emotionally, you really want that goal. It's timely. It's specific. So we're not talking five, 10 years from now. We're talking two, three years or less. When do you want to do it? What do you specifically want to do?

If it's Disneyworld than a specific dollar amount in a specific timeframe that you want to save so that you can take your kids to Disney world specific it's measurable. So you can say, you know, $10,000, that's measurable timely two years or three years. It's not 10 years. It's not some day it's soon. Okay. Let me know what you are going to work towards.

What's your big, emotional goal that you are going to start working on so that you can stick to your budget. If you loved this episode, please make sure to follow or subscribe depending on which player you are listening on. I've got some big changes coming to the podcast in September, as we celebrate our third anniversary. Can you believe this podcast has been around for three years already?

I can't believe it either, but we are going to be changing up how we do things around here. And I think you are going well. No, I don't think I know that you're going to love the changes. I love the changes already as well, and those are coming in September. So make sure you are following along and, you know,

come join me on Instagram because I have been going live every Wednesday at 7:00 PM Eastern to discuss the week's podcast episode. So if you're not already go follow me on Instagram, of course, it's budgets made easy on Instagram and on everything else, but that's where I love to hang out. So come let me know that you listen to the podcast and I will see you next week.