Val: Hey guys, I’m so excited to have Jess Wayne with us today. She is going to talk all about debt and she has an awesome story and just a lot of experience and just being an entrepreneur and also dealing with money. So I’m excited for you guys to hear her story and. just to learn from her and to learn about something that is kind of taboo a little bit.

And so we’re just, we’re just going to dig into it. And I’m going to ask, I’m going to ask those questions that people are like, Ooh, am I supposed to ask that? So Jess, tell us what you do currently. You have a couple of businesses and also, give us just a quick overview of, Just your view on debt in general, and then we’ll get into your story.

Jess: Yeah, thanks, Val. I’m so happy to be here and ask me all the tough questions because I’m here for it. So I’m Jess Wayne and I, yeah, I have a couple things going on. So I have a photography business, Jessica Wayne Photography. I’ve had that for about 11 years. I’m based out of Wisconsin, so that has its own, tricks to it.

And then I also have a financial, life coaching business, a Just Wayne coaching, which, I absolutely love it. And I fell in love with finances. I have a really crazy story with that and I’m just, so excited to be here. So thank you.

Val: That’s awesome. So give us your yeah How do you feel about debt and maybe? What how you felt in the past how you feel now about it? Yeah, just give us the the basics of that.

Jess: So, you know, as a financial coach, and I actually truthfully got my, got started with personal finance, binging Dave Ramsey. So, which, you know, you have that. But, So when I started my debt journey, I honestly was thinking all that was bad, but as I’ve gone through my journey, I’ve really realized that debt is a tool.

And there are so many positive ways that we can be impacted by debt or use debt to, um, further ourselves. And so I don’t believe that all debt is bad. I don’t believe in shaming or feeling embarrassed if you have debt. Honestly, we still have debt on our farm or our house, so that is a tool, right? It can get us places, but we have to be really careful with how much debt we take on, the types of debt, and really that it can create so much stress and overwhelm in our lives, and so if that’s the case, I don’t want that for anybody.

Val: hmm Yeah, totally.

Okay, so I’m just dying to hear the full story of what happened there. I know there’s some farming in there. So yeah, tell us, give us the, the raw story of what happened for you and how you paid off all your debt.

Jess: Okay, buckle up because it’s a long one, but it was this, okay, it was the start of the pandemic. So the COVID pandemic. So it was April of 2020, which we all thought the world was ending, right? Like we had no idea what was going, what was coming our way or going on. And I was at the time working as a nurse.

And so, and my husband who farms, so he’s a full time farmer, he had to have emergency back surgery. And our three boys, they were about nine, six and three at the time. They, the two were in school, so they had to come home and do virtual schooling. And then we pulled our youngest from daycare because again, we thought the world was ending.

And so all of our boys were home with us 24 seven. My husband had emergency back surgery, which I couldn’t even be in the hospital with him. I sat in the bed of our car or vehicle for nine hours waiting for him to get out of surgery. And I couldn’t and you couldn’t even like it was all about essential, right?

Like I remember going to the bathroom at the quick trip like one time at the gas station Because I was like not supposed to be in there And so it was a crazy time and then I was furloughed. So basically laid off of my Super stable nursing job that I thought was super stable for four weeks. Looking back, it was the best timing that that ever could have happened, but it was, a really scary and uncertain time in everybody’s lives and especially our lives, just dealing with so much.

So my husband, again, is a farmer, and so with farming, in the spring in Wisconsin is when, um, you have to put in your, your crops, so like your corn and soybeans, and he wasn’t able to do that, and so, since I was home, I literally was told that I had to farm, I had to plant our crops, and I didn’t know how to drive a tractor, like, It was unreal.

And I don’t know if you know what a tractor is like these days, but it’s not like, you know, a little lawn tractor. It’s like the size of our living room. It’s huge. And so, and he couldn’t even teach me how to drive it because he couldn’t get up into the tractor. So our nine year old son, bless his heart, got in with me and was teaching me how to drive this tractor.

And it is. Fairly more automated than it used to be, but, I had to plant our spring crops, so I planted hundreds of acres of crops and, when I was in the tractor for, you know, 12 hours a day, I was doing a lot of thinking and, I really, like, I was asking myself, like, how in the world did I get in this?

situation. How are we here? And so I realized that we couldn’t hire somebody. We couldn’t afford to pay somebody to plant our crops full time. And if the crops didn’t get planted, that’s our family’s livelihood. Like, that’s our paycheck. And so I realized that we were drowning in debt. We didn’t think it was as bad as it was.

We just really didn’t know and so I started binging anything related to money that I could. I was listening to a podcast and audio books at night. I was reading books and then I added up our debt and we had over 100, 000 of debt. That didn’t include our farmer house. So that was two vehicle loans and a big camper loan.

And so we, came up with a plan to begin a budget and to really focus, Really put all of our focus into paying off our debt. And so I got the crops planted and they grew, they weren’t great, but they grew. And I went back to work as a nurse. And luckily, I was able to pick up all the extra hours I wanted as, as a nurse during COVID.

So I swabbed a lot of noses for COVID and worked just a ton of extra hours. We sold. So many items from our house. You know, I, I always tell my clients like to go through their house and, and sell items to, to put onto their debt or into their savings, but it’s not, that’s not a fix, right? It’s just kind of a band aid for now, but it helped every little bit helped.

I paid off my car over three years early, and then we, as a family, came to the decision to, to sell our camper. So our camper was only about a year old. It was like a destination camper. So I’m on a permanent site. But by selling our camper, even though it was a really tough decision, it allowed us to pay off our remaining debt and put some money into a savings account, which we then needed later on.

So it was just such a blessing that we were able to do that, but not everybody has that option, right? But it was a, it was not a decision we took lightly, but one that I’m really glad that we made.

Val: Yeah. Wow. So what did money management look like before? Did you, so you said you created a budget at the time that all this happened. So did you budget at all or just, yeah, what did that look like?

Jess: Yeah. We didn’t budget at all. We, when I heard the term budget, I would cringe. I’m like, what? No, that’s so restrictive, but I’m in my thirties. So at this time I’m in my thirties. I’m like, I don’t need it or thinking up to that. I don’t need a budget who, who I didn’t know anybody who had a budget that I knew of anyways.

You know, my parents growing up, my parents talked about money a little bit. They taught me a really valuable lesson. Thank goodness to never get into credit card debt. But besides that we really didn’t talk The nitty gritty of money. Right. And so, my husband kind of managed the farm finances and I did more of our personal finances and, but we didn’t know how much we could afford it for things.

We, when we went to buy a different vehicle, I had no idea what we could afford per month. So when I created our first budget, well, when I started tracking our spending for our first budget, we were spending, for a family of five. Before all this inflation, we were spending 1, 000 on our groceries, not including most of our meat because that came from the farm, and 1, 000 a month eating out.

And then now, after, after inflation, now our budget for all of our food is less than 1, 000. So from, you know, over 2, 000 to less than 1, 000. But it just really was eye opening by creating a budget.

Val: Oh yeah. And food is always the category that everybody overspends on.

Jess: It so is.

Val: And especially with inflation, we have just realized how incredibly expensive it is now to eat out. Like it, it slowly like crept up. And so it didn’t feel like, it wasn’t like there was this huge jump, but now, like, cause we’ve been budgeting for a while and the other day Mark was like, man, if we go out to eat, that could cover like almost, almost a whole week sometimes of groceries.

I mean, we have two little girls, so, you know, that’s different than three boys, but it’s, I mean, it’s kind of crazy. And. Sometimes, you know, sometimes that’s worth it and you can budget it in if that’s a part of the, you know, lifestyle that you want to have and can afford. But I think a lot of times we just don’t know what we don’t know.

Jess: Yeah. Yeah. You know, and and I created our budget to be fairly restrictive at least in the beginning again I was, I was very Following a lot of, you know, Dave Ramsey’s plan. But then I realized that that didn’t work for us, right? Like that plan of never going out to eat or we’re really busy family, just like so many people are.

Right. And so I was not willing to sacrifice memories with my family. And my three boys like hockey. And so I wasn’t willing to pull them from their sports and things like that. that. So a budget, as much as I hated that term, it really doesn’t have to be restrictive, right?

You can make it however you want. And I always say it’s just a plan for your money. And so then you know where your money is going and how much you can comfortably and guilt free spend.

Val: Right? Yeah. And it’s, it’s intentional. So intentional doesn’t always mean restrictive, and it’s more about making sure that you can do the things you really value and making those a priority. And I think a lot of times when people don’t budget, they end up getting in situations where they can’t do the things they really care about because of.

In the moment emotional decisions in the past, you know,

Jess: Yeah. Yep.

Val: yeah, it’s, and it’s hard, like anybody listening. I know that it’s hard. And I know that even the changing your mindset. about the word budget is hard. And so if it’s easier for you to call it a plan, call it a plan.

Jess: A plan, a strategy, something your spending plan, whatever it, whatever it may be. Yes. Absolutely. And really, like you said Val, it, you know, I always say it, you know, It’s the plan should reflect your values, right? So if you really value traveling like that’s super important to you Then create your plan so that you can travel and you don’t have the guilt.

I always carry around that guilt With spending now, especially since i’ve worked so much on like changing my money mindset and just all of those things And so for us for example food really isn’t that important to us. We’re not big food people. Um, so our food, our grocery bill tends to be lower, but then our other areas like our sports, um, tends to be higher.

So we just value youth sports because our boys love it. so really your plan, your budget should, should reflect your values.

Val: Yeah. So tell me about kind of the guilt process because I know that that’s a huge, it’s a huge piece to all of this. And especially with, with what I do with people, there’s usually a moment of, I can’t believe I did that, or I wasted that, or how am I in this point? And there’s a lot of. Shame, and we don’t want people to know because we’re so just so ashamed, but I have tried to help people understand that in most cases, nobody taught you, nobody really showed you how to do this well.

And you just have the choice to, to stop and, and, Change course, you know, so give us just kind of give us your story with guilt and how you’ve worked through that

Jess: Yeah. So I’ve always struggled with guilt in kind of everything, right? Like not being working outside of the home. I wanted to stay home with my babies, for example, or, you know, going out for dinner on a date night with my husband and, you know, a lot of it centers around my children, but also with our spending, I still can struggle with it time to time now, because I’ve gone almost the opposite direction of that.

I Not that I don’t want to spend money, but that it’s a little bit more difficult because I know what Saving can do and just all of the things but I really Think that those guilt feelings aren’t really positive. They’re not helping us in any way, right? But as far as being I think we all feel so many shameful feelings around money because we don’t talk about them.

So when I talk with my girlfriends or anybody, we will talk about anything and everything before we talk about money. I mean, we will talk about our marriage, our children, sex. We’ll talk about. Everything and not talk about money. We may talk about how expensive things are getting, right? Like we’re going to throw in little things, but you better not talk about how much you make or how much debt you have, or, you know, how much you have in your savings account, those things, at least in the Midwest, I’m sure many other places.

They’re just not talked about. And so I carried a lot of guilt and shame with having debt. And I didn’t know, do other people have debt? Because again, you, you see so many people having the nice car, having the boat, having the camper, the nice clothes, all of these things. And you’re wondering how can they afford it?

And I can’t, or, you know, and, and that’s where, you know, Debt is tricky because you, you don’t have to, nobody knows who’s in debt, right? Or how much debt we have or how much money we have or how much we’re making. And so I think that with the mindset around money and the, the shame with it is because we just don’t know.

And you’re right. We weren’t taught anything. So I know growing up, you know, I’m in my thirties growing up. We, we didn’t really have a financial class. My parents weren’t, they weren’t secretive about money, but they weren’t very open about money either. And I think so many of us were raised that way.

And so we, we just don’t know, we weren’t taught and we were not sure how to approach that topic. I remember one time when I was, Starting our budget and kind of, um, tracking our spending. Like I remember asking one of our neighbor dads gets, he does, the cooking and grocery shopping in their house. I remember asking him one time, like, how much do you spend on groceries?

And he kind of looked at me like, what are you asking me? I’m like, Oh, okay. Sorry. We shouldn’t ask that, you know, but he didn’t know either. And I’m like, yeah, well, I’m now told I need to know all this stuff. And I don’t know. And I don’t know. How to even start tracking expenses and just all of the things, right.

And with our, you know, our mindset around money, it’s a lot. I say like our mindset around money is like a puzzle, a puzzle. And so a lot of times you have to remove a puzzle piece. You may have to even like throw it away. Sometimes you have to clean it up a little bit, polish it. Put some new pieces in, put those old pieces in that are just a little cleaner.

And then you have this big, beautiful puzzle. And that’s kind of how I think about her, how we think about money is we need to change it a little bit and we need to be willing to kind of throw some of that away and to bring in the new,

Val: Mm hmm. Totally Yeah, and I think it’s so it’s so powerful and this is even just a psychology thing but to name what What we’re, we’re dealing with. And so I think with money, when we keep it secret and we don’t talk about it, we don’t process it verbally. And for some people, verbal processing is essential to like overcoming when we keep it just in the dark.

It has more power over us, but when we can speak it out loud and come to terms with just the reality, even just acknowledging the reality of our situation, then we can start to name it. We can start to understand it and learn about it. And that’s when we can actually overcome, especially the mindset stuff.

I think it’s, Anything in life, this is just like a life, this is why you’re considered a financial life coach

Jess: uh,

Val: because there’s, there’s life within it, but anything in life, if we are keeping it to ourselves and we’re not letting anyone else in on it, there’s a good chance that we have some sort of unhealthy mindset about it.

Because we, that’s, we need each other. That’s why we have community. And even if it’s taboo. Just as an encouragement to anybody who’s like, Oh, nobody in my friend’s circle would talk about money. You can be the first and you can start to make it less taboo just by being transparent and even just having the conversation of, Hey guys, I want to start talking about money.

Like I want to bring you into my life in that way to help me for us to help each other talking about money. And. It’s scary to be the first person to do something like that, but, but it’s so worth it. Do you feel like you have found some people that you can be open with about money?

Jess: yes, yes, for sure. And you know, and it’s the same with like mental health, right? So mental health is another pretty taboo, topic and I’ve struggled with anxiety. And so, it’s like the more often I bring it up to others. The more I hear, Oh, me too. I’ve been there too, or, or I understand, or I know so and so who’s, or, you know, my friend, they may not name them, but has had these same struggles.

And it’s a, it, it brings you together. It kind of bonds you quicker too, but also with money. You can be the first person or you can even ask permission. It sounds kind of silly, but in your friend group, say, do you mind if I talk to you about this? Do you mind if I bring this up? And I bet you the majority of those people are going to be relieved that you brought it up and they want to know too, because we all want these answers.

We want to be better, however that looks or with whatever that is. And money is. Is one of those things and money isn’t everything we do, right? And so also with money coaching, I always say, you know, grab if you, if you, don’t want to seek out a coach, a financial coach, find a budgeting buddy or an accountability partner that will be there to help support you and hold you accountable because there’s going to be times where you kind of fall off the wagon and that’s okay, but you’ve got to get back on it.

Right. And somebody, Ideally who is just one step further than you, they they’re where you want to be, or they, they’ve paid off debt, or they’ve got, you know, an emergency savings account or, or whatever that may be and find that village. Like, I know I’ve created a, um, I did my own podcast on creating your village because I used to think when my kids were really little, like, where is my village?

They all talk about this village and they’re not here. Like. You know, those memes that go around on Facebook or social media of like, do they just show up? Do I, is there a number to call? And, and you have to create that. But the cool thing is that you get to create that, right? And it may be uncomfortable talking about money in the beginning or whatever it may be.

But it gets easier and your friends are probably will be relieved that you brought it up.

Val: Totally. So is there anything that you don’t talk about with your friends with money?

Jess: probably not. I mean, but there are friends that I have that aren’t open to talking about money and that’s okay. I don’t ever want to push it on anybody. I mean, one of my best friends, we don’t talk about their finances or our debt or our, you know, what the actual numbers are. And, um, They, they know what I do.

So I also feel like they will come to me if, and when they’re ready and not for, not to hire me, but just to confide in me. And they may not want to, because there’s, there is so much judgment there. And not that I’m judging them, but they feel judged. They feel guilty, all of those feelings again. Um, so some of my best friends, we don’t talk about money, but so many of us have started to, which is, which is a beautiful thing.

Val: Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. And I think, too, with that, I think it is a good word. You said that they might feel judged even though you’re not judging them. I think that’s a really good word for everyone to hear and just to like let it sink in that just because someone is showing you a better way. Or wants to help you do something in a better way does not inherently mean that they’re judging you and, and that’s how we grow.

Like, we have to acknowledge where we are now in order to move toward where we want to be. And it’s not, it’s not about, it’s not about shaming. It’s not about talking about what. Well, it’s, uh, this is actually something I say in my course is we budget because we dream. We have dreams for our life. We have things that we want to do, whether it’s paying for your kid’s college or, you Paying for a kid’s wedding or just like, if you want to have a vacation home so that you can, so that you can go, but maybe it’s also so that you can allow other people to go, like, there’s, there’s so many different ways that we want to use our money, but in order to get to those places.

a budget is or a plan is going to give us the steps and the, the guardrails to get there. So I also use this, this analogy when talking about profit first and how like the percentages provide guardrails. I would say this is the same with a budget, your personal budget. provides guardrails and you don’t scoff at guardrails when you’re driving up a mountain.

So when you want to get to this mountaintop experience, if you want to reach this, this huge goal in your life that, you know, money has an influence on that, we have guardrails. So we don’t die. So we don’t drive off the mountain and never make it to the top. And so I think that seeing. Seeing a budget, seeing profit first, which is, you know, a whole other topic that we’re not talking about today, but Seeing that as guardrails to protect you on your way to this goal or dream It, I think, makes it feel a lot less restrictive and more, more just helpful.

You know, it’s a helpful tool. So I would love to hear just more about your specific debt payoff strategies. And like, what are the ways that you teach people? And I know you have different methods. So for anyone who’s anti Dave Ramsey, there’s something for you or those who love Dave Ramsey. Like there’s, there’s different methods.

So give us the rundown.

Jess: yeah. So when I first started, paying off our debt or really being strategic, well, sort of strategic, knowing that I wanted to pay it off, let’s say that, I, I didn’t realize that there were two main types of debt payoff methods, right? So there’s the snowball debt payoff method and the avalanche are the two main types.

I just kind of was doing a mix or not Any at all. And, I was just putting extra, I was paying extra than our minimum monthly payment on our camper and our vehicles per month. So I was paying more than that. I wanted to get that debt paid off quicker, but I didn’t have a plan on how to do that. So then I just kind of picked one again.

I didn’t know there were two. Types of debt payoff methods. So I just picked my car and I really focused on paying as much extra a month onto that debt as possible. And so I was able to pay my car off three years early, which was amazing. But I worked really hard at that. So when you come up with a plan.

Whatever that may look like, whether you’re going with the smallest balance, first, or whether that’s the highest interest rate debt, right? You want to, come up with a plan. There’s different calculators out there you can use for, um, you know, calculating when you’ll have your debt paid off and things like that.

But know that it’s going to take time and it’s going to take hard work, right? Because you can easily get into debt, but you can’t, you know, Easily get out of debt. And so we worked really, really hard. We focused on my car, got that paid off, and then we focused on the camper next and then ended up selling our camper.

Of course. With my clients, I really go through the two different types of debt payoff methods, and I let them choose. And if they’re not sure, then I kind of choose. For them, but it’s really more about what’s going to work for you with the snowball method. You know, you get those quicker wins usually right away.

And that’s good. That feels good to have that 200 debt paid off that credit card paid off the what, whatever it may be.

Val: Mm

Jess: And we get ahead of that dopamine and it feels so good. And it motivates us to keep going. Keep up right and with the avalanche you’re saving the most money typically and so I’m a numbers gal I never used to be but I am now and so avalanche just makes a little more sense in my mind numbers wise So I tend to steer that way, but that doesn’t mean that that’s what works best for everybody And if you want to be, um, saving money while you’re paying off your debt, I’m all for that.

Um, I’m a big believer in saving as well and having an emergency fund and all of the things, but there’s a way to don’t love the word balanced, but to kind of balance or manage it all. Um, but a lot of times you need somebody there to support you through it because there’s a lot going on in our lives, right?

Like we’re managing kids and chauffeuring them and working and all of the things. So finding somebody to help you is, is really key as well.

Val: Yeah, totally. So just for a, an ultra clear comparison, the snowball method is where you pay off the smallest debt first. Is that right?

Jess: Yep. So you start with the smallest balance. Total amount per debt and you tackle that. So if you have a 200 debt, you’d put that in line and then a 2, 000 debt and then a 20, 000 debt, right? And you’d go after that 200 debt first, get that paid off. And then whatever you were paying on that 200 debt, you then snowball, you move it over and pay it onto that 2, 000 debt and you keep going.

And it’s like you’re, you’re rolling a snowball and building it

Val: Yeah. Yeah. And just for clarity’s sake for everyone listening, you are still paying your minimum payments. on the other debt, but anything extra, it’s all going to the smallest debt. And then you keep moving it up to the bigger ones. Is that right?

Jess: That is correct. Yep.

Val: Okay. Okay. And that is a Dave Ramsey thing, right?

That’s like his method. Okay.

Jess: Yep.

Val: Okay. So now tell us about the avalanche. What are you, what are you prioritizing first there?

Jess: So the avalanche method is a little different in that you’re still lining up your debts, but you’re lining it up, not based on the balance due or remaining. It’s based on the interest rate. So the highest interest rate is going to be first. So let’s say you have one with 20 percent interest rate.

10 percent and 2%. You’re gonna go and tackle that debt. You’re gonna put everything you can for a month extra onto that 20 percent interest rate. You’re gonna pay the minimums on the other two debts as well if you have three. You’re gonna pay off that high interest rate debt first and then everything you were putting on to that are able to, you then move on to that 10%.

Val: Okay.

Jess: paying the minimum on that two percent, um, and then keep going. So, so it, they’re, they’re basically the same other than the order of them,

Val: Yeah. So snowball focuses on the size of the debt overall, and the avalanche focuses on the interest rate, the higher interest rate. Okay,

Jess: Yep. You aren’t going to go wrong either way, and if you do a mix of them too, that’s okay. You know, I think so many people get stuck in analysis paralysis, I call it, where like, they’re not, there’s so many choices, or they’re just not sure. What if I mess this up? You’re not going to mess it up.

Just keep paying on your

Val: Yeah.

Jess: Okay. Okay.

Val: Yeah. And I do think it’s good to acknowledge that like different methods work for different people. And I would say probably personalities. So I think your personality plays a lot into it. And even your, you know, Kind of mindset and mental health around money. So for some people actually seeing a full debt go away quickly is probably going to give them momentum and that’s going to help them to feel, to feel like it’s worth it, like they’re making progress, but then other people.

Being able to see like, okay, I’m saving the most amount of money by. Getting rid of the highest interest rate debt, like that is going to be more compelling to them. And so I think it is really good to just like acknowledge and for people to hear, like you get to choose the, the point is that you’re aware of it and you’re doing something about it and how fast you get that done.

Like, again, none of these things need to be about judgment. Or shame, let’s just look at the facts and do what we can with what we have and, and give ourselves grace in, in that process. And, and I’m with you that you have to still, like, it has to be realistic for you to maintain your budget. And if it is completely unrealistic for you.

To have no childcare or to have no eating out or whatever those things are. We need to be aware of that. Something that a big, shift that I’ve actually been making in my life. Thanks to our counselor is so I’m in Enneagram one. I tend to see things very black and white. There’s a right and wrong.

That’s, you know, we know there’s a lot of gray in life. And so I’ve had to shift from trying to do the best thing, like the, the ideal thing, what is like in my mind, quote unquote, right. And so the, the terminology that was helpful instead of looking at it as, well, this is what’s best, so I need to do it now.

Okay. That’s maybe ideal, but what is best. For our family and like our specific situation is actually a little bit different than maybe what is ideal and that has been really helpful for me to make that distinction to say, okay, maybe technically it is ideal for me to do the. Avalanche, but what’s best for me might actually be the snowball because I can, I, it just makes sense to my brain or, you know, the reverse.

So I think that’s a good mental shift for everyone to make when they’re going through this process and yeah, just giving ourselves grace and all of it.

Jess: yes, yes, I use grace often. And, you know, one of the other things too is, um, I’m married, right? So a lot of the listeners are probably married or they’re in a relationship or whatever that may look like. And so the, the way that, or how fast I wanted to go, or, you know, when I’m the type of person that when I put my mind to something, I go like 110 percent with it.

I’m fully in, I go Mach 80 and I, you know, and my husband may not be the same way. Right. And so we have to work as a team. That’s where that communication comes in really handy. I talk a lot about, budgeting nights or date nights, which whatever, call it whatever you want. Don’t call it budgeting if you don’t want to, but really, including your partner in on things and they’re what.

They choose, or what they want may look different than what you want. And so again, that communication and that kind of meeting in the middle may be needed as well. And that’s okay. also, like you guys work really hard, right? For your money. And so you wanna be able to enjoy it too, like, so. You know, creating your plan to enjoy your hard earned money as well.

And I’m also a big promoter of planning ahead, you know, and saving for your short term goals, your longterm goals, your retirement, just all of those things, but also planning head for things that we may know it’s coming like Christmas and back to school and all of those. Things as well. By planning ahead in your budget or your plan for those upcoming expenses, it’s really going to help decrease your financial stress and anxiety as well, because you’re already setting money aside for those expenses and you’re, really saving for all of those goals and, and just all of it.

And it takes the pressure off. And Having that emergency fund is super important as well for all of those reasons and then some. Oh

Val: acknowledge that there are a lot of people who their, their objection to budgeting is, well, it’s just stressful. Like it’s, it’s too stressful for me to be like micromanaging my money. And I think it’s important to acknowledge that you are just trading different kinds of stress.

Like, would you rather be stressed? Because you overspent at Christmas and now you can’t pay your bills in January. Or would you rather have kind of really controlled stress a little bit by trying to manage and learn how to manage your personal budget and knowing that it’s, it’s a muscle. I tell people that a lot.

Budgeting. Making a plan for your money and managing it well is a muscle. And so just like when you go to the gym the first time, it is going to be painful. But the more you go, the more consistent you are, the more natural it’s going to come to you and it’s not going to be quite as painful and the payout.

That is the thing, the payout at the end and when you get to do these things, like, like I have a client who got to pay for Disney world, um, this fall, like just a couple months after implementing profit first, because she made a plan and she’s like, I never would have thought I would have been able to do that.

Like, we just don’t always realize what we could be doing. We’re not talking about millionaires here. We’re talking about very normal, like median income. Like you can still do big things with your money, even if you’re not making six figures or, you know, whatever. That magical number it’s,

Jess: Yep. Yep. Well, and I always say start somewhere, right? So for example, savings is a good one. Saving for retirement or whatever that may be. So, you know, they recommend a certain percentage, right? But, but you can’t make that percentage say, okay, then start with 25 a month or 25 a week, and then try to Build up from that, you know, and, and automating, I’m a big promoter of automation, so automatically setting up those savings accounts so that you’re, you set it and forget it, you automatically have your money go from your checking account to your retirement account or your checking account to your savings account.

You don’t have to think about it. It’s just happening. You’re saving way more money doing it that way than you would if you had to think about it.

All of those things. Yeah. And you know, to remember that money and finances, again, it’s in everything we do. And so whether we want to, to think about it or not, we, we have to, you get to a point in your life where you have to, you have to get your head out of the sand, unfortunately.

I have a client right now who said, you know, she came to me for financial coaching, but I also do life coaching in that because as we start talking about money, Everything tends to bubble up, right? Relationships, mental health, parenting, all of the things. And she said that by figuring out her finances, it took the stress away of everything.

She said, I have zero stress. She’s a single mom. She’s working really hard. She’s saving for a house and she has zero stress now because she worked hard to get her money and a good place and a plan. And she accepted the help of somebody, you know, and, and had somebody support her and just all of the things.

So it really, you know, debt affects us, but so does other money situations, but debt, especially because again, we have such that so much of those negative, feelings associated with debt. And so by focusing on paying off your debt, or at least getting it to a manageable amount, is really important. So I have clients that come to me that they want to get out of credit card debt, but they’re okay having a car loan for that.

For years or for the rest of their life or, you know, and that’s okay. so yeah, it just is what your goals are. , I’m a huge advocate of really coming up with your goals and following your dreams. I always say it’s never too late to go after what you want. in life and you get to create the life you want to live as opposed to just continuing to live the one you’re supposed to live.

And that can be in whatever you want that to mean in your life, whether that’s your job or career, your, you know, your relationships, but it can also include money as well.

Val: Mm hmm. Oh, yeah. Totally. All right. Well, I would love for you to give us the rundown of where we can find you. I know you have a podcast, and I know you have some, some products, and so, yeah, just tell us where to find you and what resources you have.

Jess: Yeah, so I have a, a free budgeting 1 0 1 online course, self-paced. It’s super easy to do. You can find that@jesswaynecoaching.com, so that free budgeting course. And then I also have a podcast, it’s called Pivot to Your Passion. That is, my podcast and I’m on social media, Instagram and Facebook at just Wayne coaching, so you can find me in all those spots.

Val: Okay? Awesome. so much for being here, for sharing your story with us, and answering all the questions. Really appreciate it.

Jess: You bet. Thanks for having me Vale.