The idea of combining your money with your spouse
and there being this open con, uh, conversation
and very communicative
that only works within healthy relationships, right?
And so a lot of times when we start talking about that,
what it does, Jason, is it exposes where people have kind
of these breakdowns in their relationship,
and it kind of leads to a bigger, you know, um, conversation
that usually involves some sort of counseling
and getting to the root of, Hey,
why is there this trust breakdown?
And why is there this kind of fear
that comes up when we talk about that?
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Let's get the conversation started.
Welcome to our next episode on the
Hope in Real Life podcast.
We have an incredibly special guest here with us this week,
and we are talking, uh, about finances
and the role that they play in our lives,
the anxiety they can bring,
and how we can find financial freedom.
Fantastic guest. Listen, check out this, uh,
accomplishment here.
Uh, co-host of the Ramsey Show, which, you know,
we're a big fan of around here.
Bestselling author of her new book,
money's Not a Math Problem, and Personal Finance Coach.
She's appeared on Fox News.
Cheddar News has been featured in Fortune Magazine.
I have heard her recently at the Think Conference,
a nationally renowned speaker.
I am a bit of a fan here.
Uh, please welcome to the show our guest, Ms. Jade Warshot.
Jade, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Jason. Thanks for having me.
Thank you for the kind words. Yeah,
Absolutely. Um, you
know, I'll say this, uh, on this topic of money.
Um, you got a lot of experts out there in the field, and,
and one of the things that I really appreciate about you
and about your story is you're not just a, an expert,
but you're also a, what I would say
as a practitioner from your story,
and we'll get into that in a minute.
But before we do, why don't you just, uh,
let our listeners know a little bit about yourself?
Well, um, I started in personal finance.
Uh, our story starts over a decade ago, uh, back in 2007.
So that's when I really started kind of getting my head
around just financial literacy
and what it means for everyday people, myself specifically,
because a lot of us, we don't learn how to manage our money.
Right, right. We don't learn it in school.
We don't learn it in middle school, high school, college.
And then before you know it, you're kind
of out in the real world and you're really just taking on
whatever culture tells you.
Yeah. And so, uh, for me,
that education started back in oh seven.
My background is in entertainment,
and so I've been a vocalist for the past 15 years
and started a, a business with my husband in that area.
And so that led me even deeper into personal finance,
because as a musician, you know how it goes,
it's like feast and famine, right?
It's, it's like there's, there's two groups of people
who are historically bad with money,
musicians and athletes, right?
And so there was really just this need to get, uh,
our finances in order.
Much of that reason was because of our debt.
And, uh, that whole story is
what led me to this moment in time. Yeah.
And so you just mentioned your debt, and so, uh,
and you talk about this in, in your book, but you
and your husband at one point had about
$460,000 in debt.
And so to our listeners, who right away may be
thinking, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like, she's a professional,
like she's not really gonna
be able to connect with my story.
$460,000 in debt that you paid off in seven
and a half years, it seems like you attribute that,
uh, to budgeting.
Can you just talk for a minute about
what that journey was like?
Yeah. You know, when I tell people $460,000
of debt initially, they're like, oh, great, you had a house,
you paid off your house, big whoop.
And I'm like, no, not a mortgage. This is consumer debt.
Like I always tell people,
this is like the down and dirty debt, right?
Yeah. This is credit cards and student loans
and vehicles that you can't afford.
This is real people debt, right? Uh, everyday debt.
And, um, you know, nowadays now
that I'm working a little bit in a more, um,
high profile type position, people are like, well,
of course you paid your debt off.
Like, you probably have a great salary, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, wait a second.
This was back when my husband and I first got married.
Like this was in 2007, the great Recession.
Back then, we had just gotten married.
We were making $30,000 a year combined.
So I just need to set the stage, like I need people
to understand, like, this was not a good situation.
And so it was a seven year, seven
and a half years, really, um, almost eight year journey of
just facing reality as John Delony would say.
Um, getting our income up, uh, learning
to live on less than we make.
Yeah. And just wrapping our arms around each other
and going, we're gonna, we're gonna accomplish this,
come hell or high water.
We don't care what it takes, and the rest is history.
We are able to pay it all off.
And so you attribute much of your ability to do that
to a budget, um, which most Americans don't have, right?
Yeah. And don't, and so if somebody's listening, like, okay,
great, so that's a huge accomplishment.
I don't have a budget, I don't have any
idea where to get started. What would you say to them?
Yeah, I would say two things.
I'd say a budget is the foundation.
It's the tool that you need.
Um, you know, in order to accomplish anything financially,
a a budget is basically a map to get
to your financial goals.
That's how I, I like to talk about it.
But the truth is, a budget is simply a plan for your money.
It's you deciding ahead of time this month,
this is how I'm gonna spend my money.
And I would suggest for people
to do a brand new budget every single month,
or at least tweak the budget
that they have every single month,
because every month is different.
And you get to decide how you spend that money.
However, it's very important to also say like, yes,
you need the budget, but the budget is not a magic trick.
Like, right, it's a plan for your money,
but it's not a magic trick.
You have to add money to it in order for it
to function in the way that you
want and need it to function.
And so there is this dual play of, uh, you need that budget,
but most of us are also looking at, um, in order
to make it function, we've gotta do one of two things.
We've gotta get our spending down
and we've gotta get our income up.
And so those are the two factors that go into
that budget in order to make it function.
Um, 'cause I, like I said, it's not a magic trick.
Yeah. And, uh, you know, again, I mentioned, I,
I follow you a bit on Instagram and,
and you talk a bit about what are some ways to get
that top number up.
And so we'll probably come back to that, uh, in a moment.
But, uh, what, so what are some, so, okay, fine, we need
to start a budget and, uh, it's not a magic trick.
What are some common mistakes that you've seen
for in folks when they actually start to work
to create a budget or stick to a budget?
Um, you know, it, it runs the gamut.
Um, I would say the first thing is just
a lack of consistency.
It's like, okay, Jade, I did my budget,
and then it's like, then I never looked at it ever again.
Yeah, right. Like, okay, how are you,
how is it providing the accountability you
need if you never look at it?
Which is why I really love, um, the budget
that we have here at, at Ramsey Solutions
and the budget that I've been using for over a decade.
It's called Every Dollar. And it's great
because it's on your phone and it's in real time.
You know, you, you spend money
and the next day the transactions are in your phone,
you can track them and it'll say, like, if you said, Hey,
I'm gonna spend, I don't know, $600 this month on food.
Well, I went to Publix yesterday
and I spent $20, well, now it's gonna show you
that you have $580 left.
Like it's in real time.
And so I think that really helps people with
that first issue, which is really consistency in staying
plugged in and tuned into it.
And so it helps with that.
Um, so I'd say that's problem number one.
Problem number two is I think that people, uh,
they're a little vague with their numbers.
Yeah. It's kind of like, yeah, I made my budget
and then I'll go look at it
and I'm like, Hey, you, you left out some really
important things on here.
Like, uh, you know, you've got the, the basics,
like you've got rent and cell phone and, and gas,
but you don't have any entertainment on here,
or you don't have, I know you go to get coffee,
You went to Starbucks five times this week,
that costs you $400.
You have to put that in your budget, you gotta put
That in there. And so there's
this part of people's brain that's like,
it's, I don't know what you would call it, it's just a lack
of reality when it comes to, uh, what the true numbers are.
So I always tell people when it comes to budgeting,
you're really looking to have three characteristics.
You want it to be detailed, which is thinking about
every single thing
that you could possibly spend money on in a month.
You wanna be realistic.
So, you know, if you're a family of six
and you put $400 for food, you know,
you're living in a fantasy at that point, you know,
you're just waiting to
Fail, especially if one
of them is a 15-year-old high school boy,
which is our situation. So, bro,
That is, I feel sorry for you.
That's a, you need a whole supermarket in your refrigerator,
and so you're being realistic.
And finally, you have to learn to be flexible.
You know, life is fluid and things come up
and stuff happens, and it's not a failure if you have
to move money from one category
and shift it to another, like,
grandma's birthday comes up, you forgot about it.
That's okay. We can make changes within the budget.
And so as long as it's detailed, realistic,
and flexible, you're kind of off
to the races, and that's a good place to start. Yeah.
So Jade, your book, it just came out this past December.
Um, money's not a Math problem, which to, to our listeners
look 70 page super easy read.
And so I, I, listen, you gotta go get the book,
but what, what I like about the book is it's not, um,
a typical budgeting book.
It's not about decimals, it's not about spreadsheets,
it's not about percentages.
You really outline five lies
that people believe about money,
and then you address those with five truths
that really can be life changing if people
can get their minds around these.
And so, I love the approach.
What are the two biggest lies
that you see people falling into over and over again?
Oh, uh, you know, that's a good one.
I would say probably with couples, the, the biggest lie is
that, you know, budgets are best done alone.
You know, I don't want to combine my money with my spouse,
like, this is my paycheck, and he's got debt. You know,
If I were to say that to my wife,
we'd have a problem. I think, listen,
Jason, I tried to tell people all the time,
if my husband ever said to me, Jade, you know, I'll,
I'll take care of the bank account.
You know, you take care of the babies.
Like, it'd be an unsolved mystery Jason.
Like, they wouldn't be able to find him.
They'd be like, what happened to Sam? So you already know.
Yeah. This is a touchy, touchy subject.
Like, it's almost like you're, it's you're on one side
of the equation or the other, you know,
some people are like, yes, this is the only way combine
finances and other people for various reasons, whether it's,
um, you know, past traumas or bad relationships
or bad experiences.
They're like, listen, I will not, you know, I,
it makes me feel some type of way, Jade, when you tell me
to combine my money with my spouse
because you don't know what I've been through,
or I don't wanna expose myself in that way.
And so there's really a lot of teaching
and unpacking that has to be done around that area
for people to feel like they can,
because the truth is that, um, mindset, the idea
of combining your money with your spouse
and there being this open con, uh, conversation
and very communicative
that only works within healthy relationships.
Right? And so a lot of times when we start talking about
that, what it does, Jason, is it exposes
where people have kind
of these breakdowns in their relationship,
and it kind of leads to a bigger, you know, um, conversation
that usually involves some sort of counseling
and getting to the root of, Hey,
why is there this trust breakdown?
And why is there this kind of fear
that comes up when we talk about that?
Because if you can't be completely transparent
with the person that you sleep in the same bed
with every night, the person that you've pledged your,
you know, eternity to, then who else is there?
Right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
So it's a, it's a big conversation.
And you know, I always just say, you know, you're one,
you know, Dave Ramsey would say, when you,
when you become married, you become French wewe, right?
Yeah. And so, yeah.
And so the, you know, I always tell people, I said, I say,
the first place to start is if you can do
what I call a vocab rehab,
you're headed in the right direction.
Because so much of us will say things without really, um,
thinking about the implication of it, like I said
before, oh, it's my money and it's his debt, and I got paid,
and that's your bill, and this is my savings.
And we're, we're separating
ourselves just with our language.
Yeah. But if we can start to say things like, Hey, uh,
what are we doing with our money?
And did we get paid and are we on a budget
and is this, um, you know, is this our plan?
Yeah. Talking like that brings the other person in.
And so that's a good place to start if you're,
if you're listening and you're going, okay,
where can I start?
And, and that's a good place to just kind of, um, get
that, get the ball rolling there.
So, and you know, I don't, I don't know about
as much about personal finances, Jade, certainly as you do.
I, um, I have spent a lot of time as a coach.
And so I, I'll tell you, one
of the fastest ways you can know a team is not going
to accomplish all
that it could accomplish is if they start pointing fingers
and saying, well, you this and you this, and I this,
and I this, and my wife
and I, we actually have, um, as it relates
to our relationship, if we find ourselves in a moment
of tension, which is more than I'd like to admit,
probably all of it, my fault, of course, um,
we actually have a rule that we have
to stop if we find ourselves talking about, well,
you this and you that.
And we have to recognize, no,
wait a minute, we're on the same side.
And so how do we come around to the same side of the table
and actually solve the problem together
instead of going out with another?
So mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. Yeah. Incredibly important.
So that's, that's one lie. Anything else you got for us?
Uh, I would probably say that there's,
I'd probably say the next one is,
let me pick, I I might give you two.
Yeah. One is that a budget is just a list
of my debt and my bills.
Yeah. Like, it's just those priorities.
And then anything left, like I get
to just, it's up for grabs.
Like it's Right. Yeah. Right.
And that was my,
my biggest problem coming outta college is like, okay, hey,
I, I, I know what it costs to pay my rent.
You know, my utilities, my phone bill, my gas, my car note.
Can't I just spend everything else?
Do I really need to plan out everything else?
Shouldn't that just be for me?
And, um, I think that's kind of where a lot of folks are.
It's it, Hey, I'm, I, I'm adulting jade.
I'm paying my bills on time,
and I've got a couple grand extra,
or a couple hundred extra,
and that money's just for, for me.
I don't wanna put any guardrails around that,
or I don't wanna put any plan or blueprint around that.
And I'm like, listen, most Americans,
there's a statistic out there that says, um, like 70%
or something like that of Americans, if you just said
to them, Hey, what'd you spend last month?
They don't know. Yeah.
If you said, Hey, what'd you spend on food last month?
They don't know if you said, Hey,
what'd you spend on going out?
Or entertainment? They really don't know.
And so it, it goes back to stewardship to say,
okay, this is my money.
Um, and everything we have, I mean, at the end
of the day, is on loan from God, right?
Yeah. The Earth is Gods and everything in it.
And so when we have our money, we have to treat it as such,
like, we're managers of this money
and we should be good stewards of it.
And so part of that is being able to say,
here's what I did with it.
Here's what, like if somebody gave you, you know, Jason,
if you said, Hey, I'm giving you this investment
and I'm giving you this sum of money,
and then you're checking in, you want that person to be able
to say, here's exactly what I did with that money, right?
Yeah. Whether I lost it or I added more to it.
At least I was aware of the process, right? Yeah.
And so, with the budget, we're really doing that.
We're making ourselves aware.
And by doing that, most of us feel like we have more
and we're able to actually accomplish our goals.
Um, so, you know, a budget is not just a list of your debts.
It's you taking every single dollar
and giving every single dollar an assignment.
And it doesn't have to be bad and boring.
You can, some of that money can go towards clothes
or getting your nails done, right?
It's just you keeping a record of
Strong nail game, by the way, come
On, somebody, you know, I try to come through,
You know, you are, um, I, I know a lot of our listeners,
you know, that might necessarily,
might not necessarily be seeking God's best interest
for their life, but you hit on something there.
I think that's really important to recognize.
You either have to have this perspective or you don't.
Um, and if you don't
and you're wrong, well that's, that's a tough place to be.
But if, if we do believe
that the earth is God's and everything in it,
and if we believe, 'cause a lot of times we think,
like even in the church, it's like, okay,
well maybe I tithe 10%, and so that's God's no, no, no.
The reality is everything is God's
and he gives it to us at two Steward, as you said.
Yeah. And you, you made the point, like,
how are we stewarding it?
Well, and so if you believe that, if you just use
that framework that you set up, I mean,
I have a, a staff, right?
And if I go to one of my staff members
and say, okay, this was your budget for last year.
How'd you spend it? Where'd it go?
And they're like, I really have no idea.
And then I realized, okay, well by the way,
you did overspend by 20%.
Mm-Hmm. And like, the likelihood of me wanting
to give them a larger budget next year
is probably pretty slim.
And so, man, when you put
that in this cosmic supernatural realm,
if like money is the, is a challenge for you,
and if you really do, are hoping
that God will somehow magically bless you with resources,
man, we really do need to take a look at
are we stewarding it well and well, yeah.
I don't know of anyone who I've interacted with in my life
who said, Hey, I manage my money as closely as I have,
whether a lot or a little,
and I was very faithful, uh, even to be generous back
to the church or back to the community or whatever that is
and say, and I really regret that it didn't pay off.
Like it didn't actually turn around.
So yeah, I think that's a great point.
And you know, there's, there is that part of it
that if you're like, Hey, you know, Jade, I, I'm not rocking
with the Bible or scripture yet.
Listen, I respect that.
But you can also look at it from this angle, which is,
I also tell people, you know, your money
is the most expensive thing that you own.
Yeah. And a lot of people kind
of are like, wait a minute, what do you mean by that?
I'm like, think about it. Your money is so expensive.
Think about what the cost is for you to obtain it.
For most of us, it's time away from our family,
the people we love the most time away from our children.
It costs us sleep. Right?
For a lot of people, we do jobs
that we don't even really love.
And so it's a mental strain
and it, it, it costs us stress and, and worry.
And there's those mental calories gained.
We spend so much to be able to bring this income in.
The, the least we can do is treat it with care. Yeah.
It's a, it's a sign of self-respect at that point to treat
the most expensive thing that we have with care.
You know, if you bought a Louie bag,
you wouldn't just take it in the house
and toss it in the corner.
Right. You would never do that.
You know what I mean? If you want, just
To be clear, I wouldn't buy a Louie bag.
I never listen. I probably wouldn't either,
but, you know, you know what?
Whatever it is, if you buy a brand new vehicle, I mean,
it's like you, you park all the way at the end of the lot so
that nobody scuffs it.
Yeah. You know, you take care of the things
that you realize the value of.
And I think a lot of times people need to stop
and realize your cash money
is the most expensive thing you have. Treat it with care.
Yeah. And, and just to be clear, I'm not knocking anybody
that's bought a Louie bag.
I'm just saying, I don't know that Louis baton
handbags look good on me.
That's not the book that I personally go forward.
But if it looks good on you and you got
the, the cash, go for it.
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and really a way for you
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We have a tool for you called the Hope in Real Life app.
It offers things like parenting tips, financial resources,
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What do you say to a person who says, yeah, budgeting?
Um, because I know we've got like some,
some young adult listeners Yeah.
Budgeting, that sounds like something
that people do when they become adults
or when they have children,
or when they have to start thinking about college,
which most people probably don't start doing to their kids
or juniors in high school anyway.
But what, what would you, which is probably too late,
what would you say to the young person to say, Hey, budget.
Good idea. I'll start doing that when I'm an adult.
I would say that it's never too early to start, um,
being intentional with your money,
because so much of what we know about money has to do with
time and compound interest over time.
Right? Right. And so, um, you know, if you can get a,
if you can get a head start with making the right decisions
and putting those right habits in place, it's just going
to serve you well.
It's gonna make it easier for you,
because I don't think I have to explain to anybody
how difficult it is to quit a bad habit
and start a new good habit.
Right. Right. Like anybody who's ever been like, oh my gosh,
I have to stop biting my nails.
Or anybody who's been like, I gotta start eating better.
It's hard. Yeah. Like, it's hard to stop a behavior
that we've made regular Yeah.
And suddenly pick up a new routine.
It's not to say that it can't be done 'cause it can,
but why not just start it from the jump?
Is, is what I'm saying. And so something as simple
as budgeting is something that you can do easily.
Like I said, it's on the app,
and the bigger part
of it is it's gonna save you a lot of mistakes.
You know, I, I've been working on this project here at
Ramsey, it's called the Grad, the Grad Guide,
and it goes through basically five mistakes
that you shouldn't make in college,
and it talks to young adults.
And I, I talk about, there's two types of mistakes.
There's the mistakes
that you're like, Hey, this is my first rodeo.
I didn't know any better. I tried
and, you know, I had the best effort and best intention,
and it just turned out to, you know,
bomb it, it was a mistake.
And then, and it's like, okay, yeah, I get it.
Like, that's living life. Right?
That's school of hard knocks. Then you've got the other
mistake that's like, somebody literally told
you, Hey, don't do that.
Or like, if you do that, you're gonna die.
And you're like, I'm gonna try it anyway.
And then, you know, it's,
and you have the opportunity
to learn from someone's mistake.
Yeah. And you don't, that's the type
of mistake that I like to avoid.
Yeah. And so, you know,
you've got someone like me on the other side
of things going, listen, if you can get your financial
priorities and get your, get your smarts on early on
and learn about this thing and start these habits
and, you know, avoid debt and start budgeting
and save up money, and you listen to that
and go, no, I don't think so.
Then I'm like, Hey, you're, you're making the worst kind
of mistake that there is because you're talking to someone
who was deeply in debt, had to dig her way out, had
to spend almost a decade righting wrongs.
Yeah. You know, and that's not fun.
And I don't wish that on anybody.
And so, you know, this is your wake up call to kind of go,
okay, like, how many more years do I wanna
wander in this wilderness?
I, you know. Yeah. It's up to you to make those choices.
One of the, one of the things that should be on your list
is don't, don't fill out the credit card application on
campus just to get the free T-shirt.
Don't do that. If you're in college, don't do it.
It's a slippery slope. You've got.
Um, so, you know, sometimes when you,
when you're talking about hard things,
you've gotta actually take a look in the mirror, right?
Like, you had to say, say, okay, where am I?
And that's not, that's not always comfortable.
Um, but this is one of those topics, like, what do you think
a person's debt actually says about them?
Like, what does it say about their beliefs?
What does it say about their idols?
Um, anything you would say to that, to somebody who's like,
Hey, let's, let's just take a real hard look at what's going
on in my heart, in my life right now.
Yeah. I mean, you know where, where your money is,
that's where your heart is also.
And so all the time people say to me, to my face, Jay,
if I say, Hey, what, what do you prioritize?
Like, what do you care about? Oh, you know,
and they'll say all the right things, you know,
I wanna set up my kids for success
and you know, I want my kids
to have a better life than I had.
And yes, I, I value my family. What do we all say?
My family is the most important thing to me. Right? Right.
But if I were to look in your bank account,
I would probably find the opposite.
And so this is where that incongruency happens where we say,
I value this, but our money shows like, weirdly,
you value Chick-fil-A a little bit more than you
value your kids' college.
Like, let's be honest, that's what we're choosing.
And so I, it's so important to have that kind of,
whatever you wanna call it, that come to Jesus,
that choose reality moment of looking and saying, I say,
and you know, my intent is good here, that I value my kids,
that I wanna set my family up for success.
That if something, God forbid were to happen to me,
I want my husband or wife to be well off.
Like, be okay. We say those things inwardly
or outwardly or that's the intent.
But if we look at our money,
we are not doing anything to honor that.
Hmm. So the, the, the, the bank statement
that is the great, it's like blood work.
Yeah. It shows where all the issues are. Yeah. Right.
When you get your blood drawn and you get that report back
and it goes line by line,
and you can see if you're in a, a healthy state
or a negative state.
Right? Yep. And the budget is the same way when you pull up
that bank statement, when you start doing a budget
and you go line by line
and you go, oh my goodness, like,
this car note is what's keeping me from having the proper
life insurance or this car note is keeping me from
investing for a future.
If I don't invest, my kids are gonna have to take care
of me when I can't work anymore.
Yeah. Oh my goodness.
Me stopping at Chick-fil-A and McDonald's and Chipotle,
and doing this lifestyle,
this is what's keeping me from saving
up for my kids' college.
It's a hard place.
It's a, it's a strike of reality that you're like,
oh my gosh, and it's uncomfortable and lucky for you guys.
I like uncomfortable conversations.
Yeah. And we don't, we don't shy away from those on the,
and I think, you know, if I had to sum up
what you're saying is it's, it's real easy to say one thing.
Mm-Hmm. But if we're not,
but if you really believe that,
which I believe our listeners do,
I believe you've got folks out there
that really do their family really
is the most important thing.
But we just get caught up in these habits
that if we don't have the discipline to stop
Yeah. And to
actually look at where our money's going, man,
we're gonna find ourselves in a situa
or the, at least the likelihood
of finding ourselves in a challenging situation
or a place we never wanted to be in ourselves,
or we never wanted our kids to be, that likelihood goes up.
And so we've gotta be disciplined to press pause
and actually see where our money's going.
Yeah. And, you know, I wanna qualify that a little bit
because a lot of people might be thinking, well, Jade,
that's easy for you to say, but you know, when my husband
and I were in debt, I remember, you know, we started getting
to that age where you're thinking about having a family.
And I just remember thinking,
I can never have a family like this.
Like, we can't even, you know, I'd come home some days
and the water is turned off.
I come home some days and the lights are off.
Like I, I can't, the decisions
that I'm making are not allowing, you know what I mean?
Like I said, there's, there's a, a,
a incongruency that's there.
And so I remember saying to my husband, if we don't do this,
we can't have a family.
Yeah. And so in our case,
and I, I would never, um, uh, in, in no way am I saying
that you have to be debt free
or anything like that before you start a family.
Hear me very clearly, I'm not saying that,
but in our case, uh, we decided we are like in, we need
to get certain things financially in order so
that we can have this life that we say we want,
and so that we can value the things that we say we want.
And for us, we were married 10 years
before we started our family.
We were married 11 years
before, uh, we could save up to buy a house.
So there were all these things that we, um, delayed in order
to do the right way.
And so I just want you guys to hear that I'm, I'm,
I'm saying that from a place of having been there.
Yeah. And having made those tough choices.
If you had to say, uh,
if we just were gonna jump super practical, like, Hey,
these are your primary buckets, um, that you need
to focus on out of the gate when it comes to budgeting.
Um, would, what practical advice would you give?
Yeah, so I would, I would frame everything up
through the, the baby steps.
And so real quick, I'll give you a quick framework on that,
and then I'll show you how it relates to the budget.
So, uh, we teach a series of baby steps.
Um, it's seven steps and you walk them in order.
Um, and so the, and, and you do one at a time.
So the first baby step for anybody, I don't care, you know,
you can decide based on the baby step where you're at.
The first baby step is you need a thousand dollars saved.
You would be shocked, 56% of Americans
can't cover a thousand dollars emergency.
Wow. They just, they'd have to go
to a credit card or do something else.
And so to just take a thousand dollars, set it aside in,
in cash, I don't care if you put it in your sock drawer.
Then after that, with whatever money you can scrounge up,
it may be you have money saved beyond a thousand dollars.
You're gonna take that money
and you're gonna do baby step two,
which is you're gonna pay off all of your consumer debt.
So that's everything except your mortgage.
So if you have student loans, car notes, credit cards,
you pay everything off
and you do it, it using a method called the debt snowball.
Maybe we'll talk about that later. But that's step two.
And then after you've done that, then you go to step three
and you say, okay, all my debts cleared.
Now I need more savings. Like a thousand
dollars is not gonna cut it.
So now you get to save up three to six months of expenses.
It's up to you if you wanna do three months
or six months, depending on your tolerance or whatnot.
And then after that, you start investing.
Once you get that, that, that fully funded emergency fund,
now we start investing, we invest 15%
of our paycheck every single month.
That's how it goes. That's we're, we're planning
for the future that's going into retirement.
And now baby steps four or five
and six, these are the only ones
that we can do at the same time.
So we can be investing that 15%.
We can put a little aside for our kids' college,
and if we want to, if we have a home,
we can start paying off, you know, little
by little doing some extra payments on the house.
And then baby, step seven is you've paid off your house,
you have no debt, and you're just being generous
and you're living your life like, it's golden.
And so that's the framework of the baby steps.
How it relates to budgeting is
wherever you are in the baby steps,
like you might be listening right now
and you say, well, Jade, that's great.
Um, I don't have any debt and I have a mortgage and,
but I'm not investing.
Then you would say, okay, now that I'm doing my budget,
I need to make sure that I'm accounting for that 15%.
So basically the baby steps
are telling you the priorities, okay.
That need to be accomplished with your budget.
Does that make sense? Absolutely.
So if you're in baby step two
and you say, Jade, I have, you know, credit card debt
and car loans to pay off,
then when you make your budget every month, you need
to make sure that there's extra margin
to make extra payments on those things so
that you can pay off that debt quickly.
So I appreciate that.
And you mentioned debt snowball, since we're on it,
you just wanna take a moment and just kinda unpack that
for a second for those who might
be listen. Yeah, I'd love to.
So with the debt snowball, this is what me
and my husband did with the debt snowball.
You take every debt that you have
and you list it by balance,
full balance, smallest to largest.
So for instance, if you have a car payment, uh, you know,
maybe you're paying 400 bucks a month,
but the entire thing is like $32,000.
You're, you're looking at the $32,000.
So you're listing it by full balance, um,
smallest to largest.
Some of you might be thinking, Jade,
what about the interest rate?
Trust me, the interest rate doesn't matter when you do this
the right way, it's gonna be negligible in the end.
And so an and,
and one of the reasons
that I wrote money's not a math problem is
because when we're trying to do something like pay off debt,
it's not always about the math.
It's about the psychological, um, implication of it.
That's, we wanna That's good. Keep going.
We need to feel motivated. That's right.
And so when you list them smallest to largest,
you pay off the small one first.
Most of us have like a little 300 or $400 debt.
When you knock that out, you get that hit of dopamine
that makes you go, Ooh, I feel great.
Yeah, I accomplished something.
Right? That's like losing the first two
pounds in a weight loss program.
You're like, I can keep going. I can do this, I can
Keep going. And you
see the result of it, it feels great.
And so that's how this works.
Um, and so what you do is once they're listed smallest
to largest, you pay minimum payments on everything
because you don't want, you know, to be delinquent.
You don't want bill collectors calling you.
'cause that sucks. I know firsthand.
Uh, and so you make minimum payments,
but then with any money that you can find extra,
scrounge it up side, hustle it up, you throw all
that money at the smallest debt until you knock it out.
And so then once that debt's paid off,
not only have you freed up that minimum payment,
but you freed up all the extra money you had with it,
and now you can pile that onto the next smallest debt.
And so it creates the snowball effect more
and more money that you have to throw at each debt,
uh, as you get to it.
So, couple more questions here,
and these just kinda keep coming to mind while,
while we got you on the show.
But yeah, let's go. You, you mentioned, uh, I mean, so you,
you're an artist, you're a vocalist, husband's a musician.
Um, this is like, more than ever,
I feel like I'm hearing people talk about side hustles
and, you know, no one's less
and less people just have one job.
So what that means though is a lot
of people might have an irregular income
or they might freelance a, any pointers for folks
who are out there like, Hey,
I don't just make $3,000 a month or $4,000 a month.
I don't know how much I'm gonna make any, you know,
in any given month, how any advice you get. So you're
Talking about like a, like an irregular income? That's
Right. Yep.
Yeah. You know, with irregular income, there's a couple
of ways that you can approach that.
My husband and I had that I still have, I work on commission
and I still have an irregular income.
And so two, two ways to approach it.
A if you check out every dollar, which is the budgeting app,
I'm always talking about,
there's a really cool thing in there.
It's called paycheck planning.
And essentially what you're doing
is you're planning out your paychecks as opposed
to thinking about your,
you're thinking about your budget as a whole.
But it, it's, it's dwindling it down to, okay,
when I get this paycheck, what can I pay with it?
And you're scheduling it out by paycheck.
And so when you do that at, at the, at the core,
what you're doing is you're prioritizing the
most important things first.
So whenever you have an, uh, irregular income, you start
with the most important things first is rent, no matter
what, then you're doing utilities, then food,
then transportation, because you gotta have those.
And then if you say, okay, I've still got money left,
then you go to the next important things.
Maybe it's daycare or maybe it's, you know,
and you go insurances and you go down the line.
Um, and so what I always tell people
with I irregular income is budget with the bare minimum.
Like, you can kind of look at a month
and say, yeah, maybe I make anywhere
from five to eight grand.
Well budget five grand, right?
And, and if you can make it work with five,
then when the other extra three comes, now we can say, okay,
now we can put more to groceries.
Or now we can, you know,
beef up another category a little bit more.
But start with those four walls first, the ones I mentioned,
uh, the four most important categories,
and then go down by order of priority.
And so that's how that works.
And if you're at a point where you're like, Jade, it's not
that dire for me, even at,
even at the minimum, I know that it's enough.
That's excellent. What I would say is, if you can keep,
if you can always be a month ahead, I think that
that's the most, you know, that's the best place to be.
So if you're in real estate,
or, you know, like us, we were in, in music, it it,
let's say it takes $7,000 a month to make your house tick.
If you can get a month ahead,
and so you've always got 14,000, that's great
because you kind of just know that, uh,
you're okay no matter what hope
In real life family, we just want to take a moment
and let you know about a resource that is available to you.
I know a lot of our listeners aren't necessarily active in a
church, might not even be a Christian.
We are still thankful that you're spending time with us.
However, we do get asked regularly,
how can we find out more about your church
or even just about this Jesus guy.
And so if that is you, I want you to know you can tune in
to get Hope tv.
We have live services on Saturday, 4:15 PM and 6:00 PM
or on Sunday at 9:30 AM
or 11:15 AM Those are Eastern standard times.
If you can't tune in during those times,
we will drop our YouTube link as well
as our podcast link down in the show notes.
We would love to have you join in with us.
Let's keep sharing some hope.
Got a lot of parents out there.
At what age is it appropriate to start talking
to your kids about money, about budgeting, um,
how the world, I mean, 'cause
you made, you made a great point earlier.
Like these aren't things, we teach so many things in school,
not a knock on public schools,
but man, of all the things that we could learn, like how
to handle our money seems like it should be on the list.
What, what age do you start talking
to your kids about this stuff?
Yeah, I think you start as early as possible and you,
and you put it in a way that they can understand.
So I have a four and a 6-year-old,
and so I, you know, I'm not talking to them about, you know,
trust funds and investments,
but I do talk to them about little things like when we go
to the store, what I want them to understand is
that things are not free.
Um, and so for right now, my husband Sam
and I, the biggest thing we've been trying to get them
to understand is when I leave all day, every day I'm going
to a job and I'm putting forth effort.
And for my effort, I get certificates
of appreciation all money.
And that money allows us to buy the groceries in the house
and it allows us to buy the bed that you sleep in.
And so just openly talking about the fact
that things cost money and, and
or cost effort is what I'm trying to teach them.
And so another way to reinforce that is then when I say,
okay, um, son, I need you to clear off the table.
He might say, well, do I get money for that?
And I might say, well, that's, you know,
that's just your personal responsibility in the house.
Let's do something. Let's do another effort
that maybe you can get paid for.
And so, you know, I'll ask him
to do, you know, some, by the way,
You did get food?
So that's kind of, that's pay, okay. That's,
That's a certificate of appreciation, right?
There's Right. And so we're just teaching them
that you can do a certain effort, um,
and you can get money and response.
And then it's taking to them, to the store
and letting them realize, Hey, $2 can't buy you everything.
It can only buy what $2 can buy.
And so they're starting to learn that.
And so that's at a younger age.
And of course as they get older, you know,
you start talking about things like college and school.
I do think it's important to have those conversations early
and often as parents, uh, regarding expectation.
Yeah, I expect you to further your education.
I don't care if it's college or you go to a trade school
or you go, you know, um, you know, do a certificate online
to get the certification.
Whatever it is, there's an expectation
that you're gonna further your, your education.
Now let's talk about cost. You know? Yeah.
Your dad and I, we've got some money set aside
and here's what it's for, or we've got some money,
but we expect you to pay half.
Like make sure you're having those conversations
because when you don't, you look up, they're 16, 17,
and they're choosing a school that nobody can afford.
Right. And then the next thing you know,
you're going into student loan debt, you
or the children or both, right?
And so having those conversations very important.
Okay. Well, Jade, uh, we've had a great time together.
Uh, uh, let me ask you this.
If there's, if there's anything, I mean, you,
you give your life to this topic.
I mean, it's obvious that you understand the
tension that this can bring.
And not only that, but the freedom
and the hope that we can find on the other
side of these challenges.
We've covered a lot of territory,
but if there was, in your experience, if there was any
one thing that maybe we didn't cover that,
if you could speak directly to the person that's in a place
that they would not describe as financial freedom, um,
what advice would you give to him
that we haven't covered yet?
Um, I would just, I would talk, I would say two things.
I would say that, um, debt is something that you need
to wage war against in your life and in your home.
Because debt is a thief and it steals from us.
And, you know, unfortunately, culture has told us
that this is just the way of the world.
Like you need debt. 'cause you need your credit score
and you need debt to build your credit score
and credit score to build your debt.
And that's just completely false.
And there's not very many people saying
That's because the people that are telling
that narrative want your money.
That's why I That's right.
Yeah, that's right. These people,
and I say it all the time, the people
who benefit from your bondage will
never help you fight for freedom.
Yeah. And so, debt benefits from you being in debt, it, it,
you know, the borrower, a slave to the lender.
And so you kind of,
before you know it, it's so easy to get caught in that trap.
And there's not very many people, um, out there saying, Hey,
you don't, you don't need to do that.
Like, there's another way. Yeah. You know?
And so I hope that you hear that
and kind of do a quick overhaul of your emotions and,
and go, yeah, I do feel like I'm in bondage.
I do feel like I'm kind of slave to this lender
and I'm working because I have to pay off this debt
and I'm working because of that.
And, um, you know, debt motivates us to do things
that we don't wanna do.
It makes us do things that we have to do. Right? Yeah.
And so my, my, my motivation for that person is just
to know like there's a way out of that.
And you don't have to stay that way.
You know, for my husband and I,
it was seven and a half years.
And what you need to know is the average person is out
of debt when they start working our program.
They're out of debt in two years or less. Wow.
Like that's a drop in the bucket for freedom's sake. Right.
And so just know, hey, the time's gonna pass anyway,
and you could look up in two years
and you could be the same.
Uh, you could be better off or you could be worse off. Yeah.
And that all depends on what you do in this moment.
And so my my advice to you would be in this moment, to kind
of make that first step forward so
that in two years you look up and you're totally free.
That's beautiful. Uh, I would, I would, um,
I would add onto that, you know, to, to our listeners
that are, and, and I love what you said, like
debt is bondage and, and we need to wage war against it.
The reality is, um, God didn't create us
to be in bondage to other things.
In fact, Jesus said, I came that you would have life
and have it abundantly.
And a large part of that is recognizing like, no, no.
And and whether you believe this
or not, you have a God that loves you, that does not desire
for you to live life and bondage.
And there's actually passages of scripture
where like Jesus calls back to, Hey, listen,
if the sparrows in the sky are taken care of,
your needs are going to be met.
But like you said earlier,
we do have a responsibility to do our part.
Yeah. And so I'm so grateful for you for
really giving the better part of your life
to helping people find freedom in this area that it,
that we desperately need.
So thank you for that. Um, as we wrap up, I mean,
this podcast is called Hope in Real Life.
And, uh, you're a real person, uh,
even though you're just on the other side of the screen
or maybe the earphones for for many.
But, um, what Jade, I'd love to know for you,
what are you the most hopeful for in your life,
maybe say in the next five years?
Most hopeful for? Yeah.
You know, my, my kids are, are, are very, very special.
And I'm, I'm hopeful to see like who they turn into
and how their leaders, you know, wherever they are,
whether it's in their classroom
or in their, on their sports teams.
And I just have a lot of hope in, you know, when you
do these principals, principals are great things
because they don't return void.
Like when you plant seeds, you know,
you plant corn seeds, you get corn, right?
And so I'm really excited because I know that my husband
and I are planting seeds in them.
And I, I, I know that they're going,
that the time is gonna come where they're fully grown.
And so I'm excited to see that.
And, uh, that relates back to
what we've been talking about with money.
Like you have the opportunity to plant seeds of prosperity
and plant these seeds of financial peace.
And when you do that, it will grow
and you will be able to see the fruit of that.
And so those are the things I'm most excited about.
Okay. So your book Money's Not a Bath Problem
to our listeners, listen, you need to go get this book.
Uh, we'll say this, we've got 10 copies on hand.
And so to the first 10 listeners that, um, share, uh,
this from Hope in real life,
we will make sure that we get you a copy.
We'll track you down, our team will,
and we'll get you a copy of it.
Um, you can also drop a comment, uh,
in whatever platform it is that you're seeing this
and just say, uh, money's not a math problem.
And we'll make sure you get those. But that's only
for the first 10 'cause we've already got those
and Jade's got plenty more, uh,
that she would love for you to get your hands on.
The other thing I would say is, as a part of this platform,
hope in real life, we actually
have an app that we've created.
You know, we've got different growth tracks in there,
marriage, parenting, um, we have one in finances as well.
And quite honestly, a lot of our material runs, um, hand
and glove and parallel with, um, a lot of the FPU stuff
that you've already talked about and
some of the baby steps that you have.
But I would encourage you check
out The Hope in Real Life app.
Our latest drop there is on Money and Motivation.
That's a great resource.
Um, and we'll drop all the links including a link
to Jade's book in the show notes
and everything that we talked about.
And so, um, Jade, thank you so much, uh, for the time
that you have given to us.
Awesome. Thank you, Jason. It was a pleasure to be
Here. Yeah, we look forward
to having you back in the near future.
And to all of our listeners, listen,
I I hope this has been valuable for you.
It's been valuable for me. I've got a whole page,
uh, of notes here.
But, uh, listen, if you have somebody in your life
that you know would benefit from this content, man,
just take a second and, and share this with them.
You never know just what one split second from you sharing
something with someone else the hope that it can bring
to them in a life where they desperately need it.
Uh, love you guys.
Thanks for tuning in, Jade,
thank you One more time for being here with us. Thank
You. We'll see you
guys on the next episode. Love y'all.
Thanks for tuning into this episode
of The Hope in Real Life podcast.
If this content was valued
before you don't forget, like, subscribe, share.
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