Starting from being curious. So asking questions like, well, what did you hear about money when you were growing up? How did your parents deal with money? How did that impact you? And instead of, I don't know if you do this, but I definitely do this in my 15 years of marriage and see this with my clients of like, I already know that answer.

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. Welcome back to the money mindset podcast. I am Ashley with budgets made easy in the money mindset podcast. Oh, it's been over a year since I have recorded a new episode and I am so excited to be back at it.

Our first guest is Amy Scott, who is a financial advisor, turn certified professional financial coach who teaches couples, how to get on the same page about their money and why it may be the most important thing they ever do today. We are going to talk about how to bring curiosity back into your relationship so that you can improve your finances and get on the same page so you can save money and pay off debt.

So let's get back to it and dive in with Amy. Hi Amy. I'm so glad to have you with us today. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me Ashley. Oh, you're welcome. And I'm so excited because this is the first episode that I have recorded basically since COVID, so you're my Guinea pig to get back, to give back to it.

And I was so excited to just dive in and start getting back to, you know, doing the podcast and sharing all this wonderful information with my audience because it's, it's so amazing. Like all the different things that you can learn about finances, you know, not just budgeting. I know I teach people about budgeting and paying off debt, but there's so much more to it,

right? Like you have to cover the foundational stuff, but once you kind of cover that, there's, ah, there's so much more to learn and there's always new things to learn and grow in all aspects of your life, but especially finance. Yes, absolutely. It's like a Pandora's box once you open it, right? Yes. It's like once you start improving one area of your life,

it really motivates you to improve other areas, which is why I'm so excited to talk to you today because you are a financial coach for couples. And, oh my gosh. If I could tell you how many times I've heard, how do I get my spouse on board? Mainly husbands. Cause most of my audience is women. So it's like, how do I get my husband to stick to the budget and stop spending money?

You know, I'm sure you hear it a lot too. So I'm excited to talk about that with you and get your tips and maybe, you know, how kind of, how you approach things as a couple, because I mainly work with like one spouse they'll come to me, I'm looking for help. And it's kind of like, okay, well how do I drag my partner along with me?

But it's really hard to do that when you're only dealing with one of them. Right. So what kind of give us some ideas of how you help couples work together with their finances? So I worked with individuals and couples over the years and I will just say that I found that when I was working just with individuals, we would do a bunch of work and then maybe they would hit roadblocks with their spouse.

And so as you kind of mentioned before, like I, I found that, okay, this is an area where I have some facility around. Like I wanted to see people really get some of the results that they wanted. And so getting the couples on the same page about money was something that was really appealing to me. And I am a numbers nerd kind of like you Ashley.

I mean, there's a reason I went into financial, like one part numbers nerd, right. But on the other hand, I'm also, I've been my husband and I participated in couples coaching through an organization called couples coaching couples for about 10 years. And because of that, I learned a lot of ways for my husband and I to get on the same page about many different things,

parenting and our marriage, our relationship with our kids, you know, our parents, all that kind of stuff. And so I found that some of the tools that I learned in that organization and through our coaching of other couples really helped as far as finances as well. So that's why I have a particular passion around working with couples. And so some as far as the tips go,

I think so often around finances, at least what I've done in the past is like, well, here's this budget? Why can't you just follow this? Right. So I've often start with the why of why each person in the couple wants to tackle their finances. Because I think so often, I don't know if you have seen this or not, but so often for me,

I have people come to me and they say like, this is something we should be doing. Right. You know, this is something we should be doing because our parents did it or our peers are doing it. We're seeing other people may progress. And so, you know, I use that expression, like, you know, don't shit on yourself,

but also on your marriage, on your partner, on your spouse. And so the beginning is just a really, what is it that you want and why do you want that? And that's going to be different for each person in the couple. And in my experience, often couples haven't necessarily had that conversation, which I find to be a very grounding conversation,

a place to start from before we start to tackle more of the spreadsheets and the how of things. So that's a first step. Absolutely. And I love that you focus on them as individuals. And then as a couple, because I mean, we are individuals and we're trying to manage this relationship and communication is hard times, you know? And like,

even just with finances, like, you know, as an individual, you have to determine why, and then can come together as a couple and figure out what you're going to do together as well. So, you know, everybody has a different background and they grew up differently and you know, all those things play into how we think about money. So what are some ways that you help couples get on the same page because maybe you've got,

you know, one, couple that wants to, you know, pay off their house early. And the other one is like, well, you know, I still want to shop and not worry about all that. Like why do we, you know, why do we need to pay off the house early and invest every single dime? You know? Cause you know,

some of us can be a little extreme where I like, I, I will want to save like every single penny and you know, my husband wants all this expensive equipment, you know, cause nothing he wants is cheap, you know, cars and equipment and tools and all the things, you know? So it's like, you kind of have to find that balance where you're not like the extreme on both sides as well,

and that can be hard for people. So kind of how do you help people work through that as a couple? So I think it again goes back to first that white piece and then, well what do we really want? Because I think a lot of times we're using money and making purchases cause you know, it's embedded into our life. It's hard to go by,

especially with Amazon nowadays, it's hard to go even a few days without spending money. So the first step that I take with folks is, you know, to raise their consciousness and know that sounds kind of like woo or woman is like to raise your consciousness of where your money is going. And you know, that can look like looking back over the last three to six months,

how are we spending money? Things like that, that a lot of financial coaches do. But I think the piece that's missing for a lot of folks, whether they're individuals or, or couples is connecting the financial choices they're making today with their longer term goals. Yeah. So I think there's like a lot of unconscious spending. So that's the piece. I mean,

as far as like raising consciousness, like let's not unconsciously spend and then later feel like, oh, well I wanted to be able to do X. We wanted to be able to take this vacation or make this move or, you know, go part-time with work. So I could spend more time with the kids, like whatever it is, people need to be able to see these,

the, the choices that we're making today are impacting those future options. And I like to say a lot of times to me, it's not necessarily about having more money. I wouldn't have people go to a financial coach. I mean, sure. We all want more money coming at us. Right. But the goal of it is to really be able to have more options.

So that's the piece Ashley, and I don't know if you find this in your work, but I find that with couples in particular, if they have experienced, which let's be honest, almost every couple has a certain level of disagreements, stress upsets around money. They stop talking about it. It's kind of a one of those things, right. I guess it's kind of pushed to the side,

bury down, we'll get by, we'll do that. We're doing the best we can. So my work is really to kind of raise that to the surface and say, there is no good or bad here. There are no choice. We are not going to label something as a good choice, a bad choice. We're just going to rise it to the surface and look at it from an objective perspective of this is what we've been doing with our money.

And then I do an exercise with my folks. That's, you know, with my clients, that is, this is what you've been doing. We've got to actually be able to see it. It's almost like when you work with a personal trainer and what is the first thing that they do is have you sit on stand and not sit hopefully, but scale and you know,

do different measurements, whether that be measurements of your body or how fast you can run a mile or you know, how many spots you can do in a minute. Things like that. That's the first piece with folks is to have them have clarity around the whatso right now, and then come together and say, well, what do we want for the future?

And let's come up with a plan where no, everybody may not necessarily be able to have everything that they want, but we are clear that the choices that we're making and the spending that we're doing right now is going to allow us to have those things. We want longer, longer term that we've decided on together. Absolutely. And I love that you mentioned looking at it objectively kind of taking those emotions out of it because I'm sure,

you know, a lot of resentment blaming all those emotions come up. Well, you spent this money and you spent that money and you know, all of that plays into it as well. When you start bringing those conversations back to the surface, like you mentioned. So do you have any tips for kind of helping put those feelings to the side and kind of starting fresh,

you know, you know, working on your, why focusing on the same goal I'm sure certainly helps with that, but you know, that's hard that is hard work to kind of look to the future without the resentment and just, you know, showing some grace and forgiveness so that you can move forward to that big goal together. Gether yes. Therein lies the rub,

right? Yes. One of the things that I do think if you, if couples work with a financial coach or somebody who's a third set of eyes for a lot of folks that may be that someone in their life that they trust, right. As a mentor who can look at that and help them to see that objectively. And you know, that's what I do as a coach is,

okay, you said that, but do you realize all the layers behind that? So without necessarily hiring someone to do that work with, I think as couples, you know, I wish there was a silver way to do this. I often have them start with some questions before we get into the finances. Before we get into the numbers, I give folks like,

you know, several questions that they can ask each other and maybe your listeners could ask these questions like on a date night, right. Or driving in the car, which is when my husband and I often have conversations at each other about this kind of stuff, starting with not necessarily the numbers, Ashley, but starting with, for example, a question of what messages did you hear about money growing up,

start with being like, I think the first step is being curious and if we can continue to bring curiosity to this area of life, like we want to do in our marriage in so many other places. Right. Right. You remember when you first got together with your spouse and you were a little more curious about their background, about their family, about experiences they had about what they cared about,

what they believed. It's almost like getting back to that place and starting from being curious, so asking questions like, well, what did you hear about money when you were growing up? How did your parents deal with money? How did that impact you? And instead of, I don't know if you do this, but I definitely do this in my 15 years of marriage and see this with my clients of like,

I already know that answer. I already know that answer because I've been with you long enough. I have to shift my thinking into curiosity mode of like, actually I don't know that, how can I put that to the side and just really be curious, another question I'll often have my clients ask each other, be it, even if we are not working with each other,

but this will be something I may ask inside of a workshop with folks is if you were given $50,000 today, how would you want to spend that? And again, you're asking that of each other and you're listening as much as you can without having it figured out for them. Like, I bet you do this. I don't know what your husband can bet you buy a car,

but like why, what would you want to spend that on in? Why? Yeah. I love that question. My husband and I still will like kind of play that game to this day. Like, and the answers have changed over time. So like you said, just cause you think you might know the answer, just listen and kind of see how things have changed.

Like even in the last six months, that answer has probably changed for my husband and I, but it's just so fun to just sit and dream, you know, even though it's probably not realistic or it may not happen, you know, somebody's not just most likely going to just hand you $50,000, but it's like, okay, well, you know,

if we had that, what, what would we do with it? And it's really fun to just kind of daydream a little bit about it together. Absolutely. And I think things rise to the surface almost every time I talk with folks, they say, we asked that question and I learned something, I didn't know. I didn't know that you wanted to be able to take that vacation or visit family,

right. Or put that home renovation. There may be things that you already know that come out, but there, it leads to deeper conversations. And you know, I just thought of another question. I often ask folks that kind of comes piggybacks on that. Ashley, which is, is there anything that you want to be able to do right now,

financially? Is there anything that you want to be able to spend money on and thus money on that you are afraid to even bring up? Because you're worried about my reaction. Ooh, that's a good one. Good one. I liked that one because again, it's coming from a curiosity space and here's the coaching to the spouse or partner who hears this as much as you can be quiet.

Yeah. It's hard. And not to have a reaction, especially if it's like going to be a bad, bad reaction or something, you know, got to keep it, keep yourself together until they're finished explaining. And you know, maybe even ask some, you know, do you have a mass like follow up questions? Like, well, why you know why?

Or, you know, not, not yes or no questions, but more open-ended questions. Do you kind of practice that as well? Absolutely. Absolutely. As much as folks got and I'll say, well, can you say here, here's the followup to it. If you can keep your mouth shut, which I listen, it's challenging. Sometimes my husband will,

there'll be something he says and I'll say, well, we can do that and we can move this and you can, and all he wanted was to be heard. And I think that's, I don't know, at least for us that's one of our biggest challenges is just allowing for that to be said. And then the followup question always is, can you tell me more about that?

Yes. That's a good one. That's a good open-ended question for like anything really just write that down At anything. Exactly. Just write that down and get again, that's the doing right? Asking those questions, the being pieces, keep coming back to that center, which is being curious. And if you mess up a little, cause we all will just take a moment and say,

you know what? I see that I wanted to fix that. And I apologize that I just tried to fix that. And will you tell me more about that? You can clean it up literally in five seconds. That's awesome. I love that. So once people kind of, or couples, once they kind of work on their, why they're being more curious,

they're really working toward getting on the same page, working together. What tips do you have for people to actually start implementing budgeting together? You know, cause I talk about cash envelopes, which, you know, since COVID that's people have stopped using cash and all those things. So it has changed a little bit in the last year and a half or so,

but how do they kind of manage the money aspect in the day to day together? Cause it can be a little hard if somebody, you know, if they're not communicating or sticking to the budget together, do you have any tips for like the practical day to day budgeting, sticking to the budget, you know, paying off debt, those types of things.

Sure. You know, in my experience, there's usually one person in the couple who likes to manage the finances more. There's usually somebody who's paying the bills because it's like a job just like every other job. I don't remember the last time I took our dog out in the first thing in the morning, like my husband's been doing that for the five years.

We've had our dog bear and you know, it's just something we don't even talk about. I think the same is true. As far as finances now it's maybe not as important who takes the dog out or the trash out or drives the kids to school, picks up the groceries. But as far as finances go when 1% and I think it's a very normal for one person to pay the bills,

kind of manage the day-to-day spending. It's okay to do that. But I do think what happens when one person's been doing that for quite a while is sometimes resentment can build up. So the person, it can either be in the person who's paying the bills, who feels like, oh, I, you know, I got things together. I've paid the bills,

we're okay for this, you know, pay period. And what I mean by, okay, it's not necessarily getting by, but like we're good. I feel comfortable. We've put money where we want it to be. And then the other person who's involved in the day-to-day spending cause usually both members of the couple of were involved in the day-to-day spending. And sometimes the other spouse who's not managing the money may be involved in more of the day-to-day spending.

Especially if you have kids you're in, you're out and about with the kids and you know, swiping debit card to pick up, you know, groceries or some takeout or kids, activities, things like that, that resentment can build up because they don't have a shared plan. So I do use the word budget, but I think overall it's kind of this bigger plan and often one person is kind of managing like the spreadsheets or using the apps.

So often people ask me like, well what's the best app to use or as far as our finances go. And I personally say like, whatever the two of you are going to use together so that you can both have a shared idea of what's happening with your money. So, you know, I tend to do that literally just with Google sheets and I set them up,

I use the plan ahead method and I set them up so they can see clearly what's happening with their money so they can see the impact of the choices they're making today on a pay period, three, six months down the road. So I think whatever works for you, I have a lot of folks who use different types of budgeting methods that they can both see.

But the piece for me, I am somebody, I used to be a financial advisor, Ashley and I did a lot of work with Dave Ramsey's team. And so like I did the budgeting and the envelopes, but I found that often folks didn't necessarily want like one person was more into using the other person. So again, I'm always looking at like,

where can we come to compromise together? And what I have found that works well with my clients and is a big shift is setting up a separate account, a separate checking account just for day-to-day spending. So they've got their bill account, they're paying their bills out of that. But it's turning that day-to-day spending, which often is the biggest source of conflict in a couple,

right? They may be paying 2,500 on a mortgage, but the arguments are not about that. The arguments are about, well, why did you spend $65 at target yesterday? Right? So that's the piece I've really gone to work on over the last couple of years is like, how do we get you on the same page about that? And this most simple method I have found that works the best with my folks is like I said,

turning that everyday spending into a fixed expense, like a bill instead of swiping, swiping, swiping debit, or folks use credit cards, dwindling the Mount inside of the mean bill checking account. So if you look and see for the month, like, all right, we spend, you know, look back a few months and say, all right, we spend 2000 a month on our day-to-day spending,

taking that amount and putting it every month or split it into every two weeks or weekly, whatever works best for you into a separate checking account called a spending account. Both of you have a debit card and you just use that account for day-to-day spending that way. There's no co-mingling and you don't, you have a clear amount that you can both work with together.

Yes. It does require conversations. Like, are you for this two week period, we have this a thousand dollars. What are we going to spend it on? But I have found that it moves the needle so far forward and couples don't fight as much around like, well, you shouldn't have spent this, you shouldn't have spent that, that took money out of this account.

Like that account is designated just for that day-to-day spending. So that's the big piece I would have as far as removing some of those arguments. Ashley, I love that idea. And I know that a lot of people do like to have like the separate accounts for, you know, bill pay and different things like that. So I really like that idea of just having that,

just spending account and sharing that. And then you don't have to stress about, well, hopefully you don't have to stress about the money for the bills being spent on other things this Exactly, exactly. And like when you look at that spending account and it has, you know, $200 in it, you know, that $200, it's just for day-to-day stuff.

It's not like you're looking over the bill account and seeing $400 in there and being like, okay, let me do the mental math of what bills haven't cleared. Right. And how much can we actually spend on pick out, pick up, take out, you know, delivery of food or that extra run to the store or whatever. It becomes a lot clear,

a lot clearer for folks. I just think that's a really big first step for couples to take. Oh, I, I really love that idea. So do you have any last words of wisdom or maybe like one thing that you want people to take away from this episode that is like, if you get nothing else out of this, like no, this,

I guess the biggest piece for me is to know that it's possible that so often we wait on things in life that we know will make a difference to us because we think like, well, let me get things together. You know, let me get my finances in order or let me lose weight before I go to the gym or things like that. Like it's possible to start now.

And I have met with folks who have had various financial situations and the biggest factor that makes a difference for them is the willingness to start. So I encourage you just to start with those questions that Ashley and I talked about earlier in this episode, like that's a first step. It doesn't have to be like, we do everything in one day, but get curious about your partner,

their views, what they want and know that it's possible. Oh, absolutely. I love that. You said that. Cause I, I mean, I see it too, people just, and they call it perfectionism, which I did not realize. I'm like, I'm not a perfectionist, you're talking about this. I have to be perfect, but it's that waiting for everything to be right to start like that's a of perfectionism I'm so I'm so glad that you brought that up.

Like just, just do something, just get it going. So that's awesome. And I always ask people at the end, what their favorite nonfiction book is because, you know, we're always learning. We're always trying to improve our lives at least, you know, on the show we are. So do you have a favorite nonfiction book that you know,

that you like? I love the book atomic habits by James clear that book, that book I it's so worn, I should probably get another copy. It is just, I I'm really interested in habits because I'm interested as a coach and working with folks that if I only see them for two hour session, I work with them over a couple of years,

whatever that is. I want whatever we work together to be sustainable. So that book really takes apart how you build and sustain habits that are important to you and how you dismantle habits that really don't serve you plus it's fun. And it has great examples around finances, but also around personal wellbeing and your relationships as well. So that's my, my top nowadays,

a non-fiction book. Ashley. That is a great book. I think everybody should listen to it. Like it's one of my top books as well. It's yeah, it's amazing. So I'm, I love that. You love that book too. Well, thank you so much for being with us today and you know, get me back back to the podcast.

I appreciate it. Absolutely. It's been so much fun. Thanks. Thank you so much to Amy for being with us today. And if you're ready to get started on your budget and your spinning plan, get all your stuff organized so you can save money and pay off debt. Go grab your free budget starter kit, a budget's made easy.com/start, and I will talk to you soon.