Any Spare Change

This is an episode of the Sweet Millionaire Formula show, where the host discusses the importance of budgeting and managing finances. She shares her personal experience of tracking expenses and realizing where she was spending unnecessary money. The host emphasizes the need for setting financial goals and allocating money accordingly. She also talks about the significance of emergency savings and improving credit scores. The episode concludes with a discussion on breaking free from financial limitations and achieving generational wealth. Hi Wealth Builders, welcome back to another episode of Sweet Millionaire Formula, the weekly show where we bring together individuals seeking to break the cycle of financial inequality by building generational wealth. I'm your host Courtney Davis, two-time best-selling author and CEO of Sweet Millionaire Formula. For more information, please follow us on Instagram and to keep up with our webinars and in-person activities. This is episode 8 and we're going to get right into our topic today, but first, a word from our sponsors. Are you looking for your skin to glow this summer with a hydrating moisturizer that protects against UV rays? Well, Spa Weekend has the perfect item for you. Our new hydrating moisturizer gives you a hydrating skin, moisturization that lasts all day. It's lightweight, non-greasy, and perfect for everyday use. When you get out to the pool, you're going out to eat, you want to have that moisture and glow to your face, you will use our moisturizer at Spa Weekend Cosmetics. Guess what, Wealth Builders? Build Generational Wealth, period, is released on Amazon. Sweet Millionaire Formula has produced its first book and it's number one best-selling. Build Generational Wealth is available now on Amazon. Tired of just hearing how to build wealth and want to know the actual steps? Well, we have the 12 Steps to Secure Your Financial Future. It's available now on Amazon. Build Generational Wealth, period. What is the primary purpose of creating a budget, Wealth Builders? Is it to restrict your spending, to track income only, to manage finances and plan for expenses, or to invest in stocks? All of us have a reason for budgeting, or do we? Because we know, and I know for sure that when I would make a minimum wage, I never thought about budgeting because every single cent that I had literally paid a bill and I would be into debt for another two weeks until I got paid again. So what is the primary purpose of creating a budget? Is it A, again, to restrict spending, to track income only, to manage finances and plan for expenses, or to invest in stocks? Ooh, what's your answer? Was it C, to manage finances and plan for expenses? Well, you're correct. I know that I took the envelope method, which was I wrote down all of my expenses on an envelope. I literally did Walmart, Dollar Tree, hair, miscellaneous, gas, out to eat, clothing. And I have about nine sections on an envelope, and I've seen each and every section I wrote down the amount of money by keeping a receipt. I kept receipts for everything, every single thing, from Dollar Tree to Walmart to purchasing eyelashes. I kept all of my receipts, and I did this for approximately six months because I wanted to actually see where is it that my money was going, right? And so what I came to see was in areas like clothing, beauty, miscellaneous, I was spending somewhere nearly $332 extra a month that I could have been saving instead of wasting away because I wanted to buy a purse, I wanted a new shoe, new hairstyle, keeping up all of the trends. And I feel like part of the reason why we don't have a personal budget is because we want to be blind so we can spend freely. Ignorance is bliss. Baby, ignorance is bliss. Let me spend my money in peace. But here at 3 Million Air Formula, we know we're not going to let you spend your money in peace, right? We want to reshape your mindset because if you're using a 50-30-20 rule, we know that you should put 50% of your money towards your needs, 30% towards your wants, and 20% in your savings. Each way that you decide, either way that you decide to budget your money, it would allow you to track your expenses so that you can make investments into the opportunities that are coming up. If you want to take a trip to, say, InvestFest and you want to, you know, those tickets are $1,500. In January, you don't want to go spend $1,500 on a trip when you know in August you want to go to InvestFest and get a table or whatever it is that you may do. But you want to keep in mind that you have goals or that you need to create goals for your money so that you will feel more obligated to put the money in those places, right? I feel for me, the easiest thing for me was to actually see. When I kept those receipts and I was conscious about keeping the receipts, my entire mindset changed because I know I'm like, wait a minute. Oh, okay, I spent $40 here. I spent $40 again. I spent $40 again. I spent $90 a month at Buffalo Wild Wings. Yeah, $20 once or twice a week. It adds up. And those small amounts of money that we don't even look at be those amounts of money that we need in six months, seven months when we need to buy a new computer, you want to buy a new camera, you want to buy a podcast set, whatever it is that you need to set your goals for your money so that you can allocate your budget to those goals. And there are so many avenues, apps, sheets, programs that you can attach your finances to. So it's almost like impossible to say that you cannot see your money or you cannot budget your money. You can, but it's up to you to have something to look forward to. I know I'm much more realistic to reach a goal when I put my money, especially when I have something to look forward to. I have a vacation coming up, baby. I'm saving. I'm saving all of my money, okay? Because I know that that's a part of something that's going to make me happy. So I think that goals that relate to your interests and goals that relate to you investing into yourself are really good goals. We know everything is going to happen right on top of each other, right on top of each other. Like you can't just all go behind a house. Oh, you got to back up. Let's get your budget sheets together. Delete some of these bad things that's on your credit. Get your credit score up to an 800. Then your savings up to $20,000. Then pay off your credit. Then you're ready to buy a house. It's not that buying a house is impossible. It's just that you have to take the steps to buy a house in order for you buying a house to be realistic. That's the only thing. So in today's topic, we're talking about budgeting, right? We're breaking down the steps that it takes to budget, what a budget looks like, and why budget and emergency savings are important. So it's proven that over 90% of households in America do not have a $1,000 rainy day fund. Is that you? Be honest. I know you and your car lies, looking at your account, like I don't even have $1,000. But that is because you haven't planned to have $1,000 in your emergency savings. I feel like if you had a, I don't know, say you went to court. I know for me, I had a ticket that was due in court. And they were just like, if you don't pay this ticket, this $450 is going in your credit. And I'm just like, I can't win for losing. If I pay $400 on this ticket, I'm going to be late on rent. If I'm late on rent, I'm going to incur $131 late fee. And it's almost like it seems like you're living your life robbing Peter to pay Paul. But I think a change of mindset is what really stood out for me when I wanted to start Achieving Generation Wealth and I wanted to improve my credit score. Because I was very, very, very frustrated as to why my credit score from 19 years old to 25, when I looked at it again, why in the last 7, 6, 7 years has my credit score not changed? Who's responsible, okay? Who is responsible for my credit score still being at 530 for the last 7 years? And then it didn't dawn on me until I tried to go apply for an apartment. And I couldn't get the apartment. My credit score was not eligible for an apartment. I had to stay in a relationship that I didn't want to be in for another 2 years. And it was very dawning on me that I needed to make a change in my life that would reflect me being able to be a free woman outside of a man. That is really big and important to me. Because even though we're just talking about budgeting and emergency funds, we still need to know the basic budgeting concepts in order to break the chains of staying in relationships or with friendships or with family members or in cycles of poverty that you just don't want to be in. And poverty is not necessarily you living in the hood and living in the projects or anything like that. Poverty is not being able to use your own name and not being able to leverage your name for business credit, not being able to leverage your name for real estate properties. And you're going to get to a point in your 30s and your 40s where your children are going to need your name. So it's like your name is the most important keystroke. And if you can start by budgeting your money, I mean literally putting $25 away on a self-billed credit builder card for two years will take your credit score from... It will increase your credit score over 180 points. I started a self-credit builder card with a $554, I believe. And to this very day, I have a secure credit card and I have a self-builder account that I pay $25 a month. I started with... When I was working at Wendy's, baby, you couldn't tell me I didn't need that $25. Yeah. In between the two paycheck periods, saving $25 was a stretch. Y'all laughing, but I'm dead serious. I'm dead serious. Because that $25 was... I needed to get some hair. I needed to buy some snacks. I needed to buy some food. That part was low. $25 was a stretch for me. But I committed to the $25 because within the first four months, I was like, oh my gosh, my credit score went up 12 points, 15 points, 22 points. And by the end of the first full year or so, I believe my credit score went from a 550 to like a 570, somewhere like that, 570, 580 in less than a full year. And so, the program is 24 months. So, I stuck with the self-credit builder for 24 months, two years. At the end of 24 months, I got my deposit back and I was able to use my deposit. I put it down probably for something for my business. I can't remember. But I was able to get my full deposit back, all of those $25 payments that I made for my business. Minus the interest, I was able to get my deposit back and keep my self-builder credit card and make monthly payments on my self-builder credit card, which still reports on my credit and it still, to this day, it raises my credit score, anything from 52 to 87 points in two or three months. I love self-credit builder. I live by it and I highly suggest it to you guys because I know that this is a tool that changed my life. Two, three years ago when I was working at Wendy's, I couldn't imagine that I would have a business credit to my name. I couldn't imagine I would have an 800 credit score. But literally two years later, this is where I am because I took the step to change my mind. Even though I didn't have $500, I had $5 and I took the $5 as a sign that I'm going to invest and support me until it worked, until I was able to level up the next credit card. I just want you guys to know and have some personal insight as to what steps you can take to build your credit. We're going to address some of our podcast feedback. You guys, on the episode Island in Seedy or By a Farm, some of the comments read, if I wanted to retire, should I take out the money in my 401k? I highly suggest take out the money in your 401k. Having a 401k is like having weight tied down to your money. It's almost as if you are paying someone to take your money in an essence. If you do proper research, and we'll talk about this more in depth on another episode, but if you do your due diligence and go through the 500 pages that you didn't read when you signed up for your 401k, baby, you will see holding fees, dryer fees, I-funded fees, tax fees. You will see over 10% of your money being used for these predatory companies who know that you're not reading your terms, who know that you're depending on your pension, who know that you're depending on your 401k for retirement, who are slowly but surely draining your 401k with astronomical fees that you have not read about, that you do not know about. This is why in the book that we just dropped, Build Generational Wealth Period, 12 Steps to Secure Your Financial Future, it's available on Amazon. Chapter 10 through 12 will whip you into shape so fast with the examples that we provide. We give you the formula. We break down the formula, and we let you put your own perspective into the equation to see if you're being robbed blind of your 401k. We have a story in our book about, I believe his name was John, and how he thought that he had been working for the plant for 40, 50 years. He had $60,000 left to pay off on his house, and he was going to retire from his job, pay off his house, the $60,000, take out a refinance loan, and he was going to travel the world. He thought that, but he wasn't able to do that because he found out that his 401k was depleted of nearly $30,000 in fees. How would you feel if your 401k was depleted by $31,000 in fees? Do you know how many fees are being taxed and how much percentage the company that you're using to host your money, how much they're charging you in taxes and fees and interest and made up fees to deplete your 401k for their financial advancement, for their financial gain? They know it's a loophole because you didn't read the 500-page packet before you signed. You just signed and took the 401k, and you've been working, working, working, working, working with your head down. In actuality, you should have been picking your head up and reading the small details. That's on the paper. When you say, should I take out my 401k for my job, I would suggest yes because you don't know how detrimental it is. You can put your money into the stock market and make a better return and have a better chance at having a better return with real estate investment trusts or REITs or stocks in the stock market. You have a better chance of throwing your money into a high-yield savings account versus letting it sit into a 401k. I highly encourage all my listeners to take the money out of your 401k, invest it to your business, go all in, and build it from the ground up. It's nothing to lose but to lose the opportunity to live your life. We've got a couple of rapid-fire questions, and we want you guys to, at the end of each episode, there's a Q&A at the bottom. Please leave your questions and your answers in our Q&A because we are watching, and we're listening, and we're keeping up with our community here. We have a list of five questions we want to ask, and you can leave your answers in the Q&A box. Okay? Debt or wealth? A highly successful man or a marriage with a highly successful man? Going on vacation each and every month or putting the money into your savings account to invest into your dreams? Leave your comments in the Q&A at the bottom of our episode. When you scroll down, it says Q&A, and then we'll be able to respond to your questions and your answers on the next episode. Thank you, guys, for tuning in to another episode of Sweet Millionaire Formula. Sweet Millionaire Formula.