Hello, my budget besties. It is Monday, February 6th and I did not get this episode out in the morning like normal. I feel like I am just running around like crazy and I'm behind on everything. But you know what? I was like, I'm gonna do it now. I'll just let you know that I am late. It's seven 30 o'clock at night.

I'm gonna just release this once it's done. But I do wanna let you know what we have coming up this week. So February 9th, 2023. So if you're watching the replay, it's probably already over. I am doing a free workshop on how to pay off $500 in 30 days. So you can save your seat for that@budgetsmadeeasy.com slash workshop. And if you can't join me live,

that's okay. You will get a limited time replay. So go save your seat, sign up now. And today I wanna talk about making things too complicated. So right now I'm currently teaching the Money Plan Bootcamp live and I had a member of the bootcamp who's also a member of Money Success Club, mentioned that her biggest takeaway was from last night's step number three where I talked about not making it complicated and trying to do one thing at a time because we get so overwhelmed when trying to create a budget and a money plan that works for us.

And basically what I was talking about that I'm gonna share with you so that maybe it'll hit you too and something will click cuz you know how you just like hear something a different way and it finally is like, oh that makes sense. That happens to me too. It's okay. Basically I was talking about when you're new and you're learning how to set up a money plan that works for you is realistic for you and your real life.

In the beginning you have to do one thing at a time. And the problem is, too many people tried to do all the things at once and you get overwhelmed and then you don't make any progress. So, you know, the example that I used was on my money journey when I first was learning how to manage my money, stop overspending, all the things I didn't do a zero base budget and meal plan and cash envelopes and,

and, and all at once. I did one thing at a time, got it working for me, then added another thing. So the first thing I did was plan for what was left after bills, right? So I have the income per paycheck, take away the bills, see what is left, then allocate food and gas and anything else you need to save for like Christmas vehicle maintenance,

vehicle tags, taxes, property taxes, all those types of things. And then what is left over, depending on how you want to plan for The, all those things that aren't yearly and there's a couple different ways you can do that or I mean are yearly and there's a couple ways you can do that. And then, then you plan for what's left over.

So does it go to debt, does it go to savings? Like what do you wanna do with what is left over? Do you wanna have some money for just shopping on whatever you want? Things like that. But you don't wanna start trying to figure out how to make a money plan that actually works for you. And at the exact same time trying to figure out how to meal plan and you know,

drastically cut costs there and add in a second job and in cash envelopes and add in all, you know, selling everything and all the things that we can do to make the plan happen all at once because it gets way too overwhelming. Do one thing at a time, do your money plan first. Get in a good routine with that so you know,

when are you gonna check in with your budget? When are you gonna go to the bank? If you do want to, if you need to get cash or maybe you need to make some transfers between banks and things like that, you know, how are you gonna handle that? Then add in the meal planning once you've got a good handle on that,

add in the meal planning and that's gonna take some time and some practice as well. So you know, start looking for new recipes and figure out a a time and even a time of the day that you can kinda work on that. Like, you know, you can make your overall plan for the week or the month and then each day, you know,

maybe if you go into work a little bit later or you gotta drop the kids off at school and you've got a gap, you know, even 20 minutes or something before you have to go into work, you know, while you're there playing on your phone. Look at Pinterest, find some new recipes, create a meal plan. And then what you can also do either in the morning or the night before is,

you know, re-look at your meal plan, see what you're gonna have for dinner the next day. Set out the ingredients that you can and you know, prepare whatever you can for the next day. So then you don't have the excuse of, I'm tired, I just wanna go home and lay down. I don't wanna cook. You know, just already have things kind of prepped,

even if you're gonna do a crock pot meal. So get the crockpot out, put the little baggy in it, get the ingredients that you can out on the counter with the crockpot, like get everything together and ready to go so that you don't have that easy of an excuse. So then you can add in cash envelopes. You really only wanna start small and build up the habits,

build up the routine. So even when you start cash envelopes, if you decide to do it, whether you're doing actual cash or digital, start with one category. One category that you are constantly overspending on is usually food or eating out fast food, some variation of food. Cause a lot of us do grocery pickup now. So I don't even use cash for groceries,

but I will still use cash for like fast food and eating out. You know, that's usually the biggest thing. Maybe it's, you know, incidentals, whatever you wanna like have is spending money, you know, you don't have to account for it, but once it's gone, it's gone. Maybe it's so much money for makeup or clothes or nails or hair or whatever it is that you like to spend money on for yourself.

And then just have one category to start because it does take practice and it does take figuring out a routine. And if you just go to the bank without a plan and you're just not in a good habit with spending the money and you get all the cash and then it's just all gone and you don't know what it went to and maybe you just put it all in your purse and you didn't separate it and all the things that will happen,

especially when you're starting, it'll just, it'll screw up your plane even more. So it's more important for the long-term success that you start small and just make it simple as possible so that you can follow through with it. If you make it complicated and a whole bunch of steps at once, you're not gonna make as fast a progress, if any progress because you're just too overwhelmed and trying to do too many new things at once.

You wanna start with one small thing at a time. All right, let me know what you think. If you will commit to doing one small thing at a time. Not all the things, one thing at a time. I know this is a shorty episode, but I do have to go live here in a few minutes and teach step four of the Money Playing bootcamp,

which is all about those habits and routines. So I hope you have a great week and I hope you come and join me for the debt workshop on Thursday night at 8:00 PM Eastern. Of course, depending on your time zone and what you have going on, you may not be able to watch it live, but you can of course watch the replay. So make sure you sign up so you can get the replay link.

Again, that link is budgets made easy.com/workshop. I hope to see you there. Have a great week.