how-to-create-a-money-date-with-yourself-Feb-24-2026-restream
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Intentional Money Moves Live. I'm Leah Hadley, and this episode was recorded live and is brought to you in audio form so you can take it with you wherever you go. Each week, I tackle the money topics that matter most to women who are ready to build wealth with purpose and confidence from investing and retirement planning to navigating finances through some of life's biggest transitions.
No topic is off the table. Now. Let's get into it.
Hi there and welcome back to Intentional Money Moves Live. I am thrilled to welcome a very special guest with us here today. This is Jennifer Bush. Jennifer is one of our senior financial planners. She has been in the industry for a long time, and we are gonna be talking about something. Very practical, that really can benefit anybody who's listening today.
So thank you so much for being here with us, Jennifer. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So [00:01:00] today we are talking about money dates. So, Jennifer, what on earth is a money date? A money date is a, a date basically with yourself to focus on your finances. It's a, it's a dedicated, intentional time to review things and to connect with with what's going on.
And it's kind of taking a shift from being. Scared to do it or overwhelmed and to be more intentional and react intentional with the process and not, you know, just ignoring it. So it's, it's, it's not about the numbers, basically, it's, it's kind of an alignment with your goals and your values.
Fantastic. You can do it by yourself or you can do it with a partner. You can even do it if you're a business owner. I hope you're doing it if you're, we'll talk more about that in minute. Yeah. But I'm thrilled to be having this conversation today because I think a lot of times, you know, so many people out there.
Make money management and wealth creation [00:02:00] much more complicated. Yeah. Than it needs to be. And so when we take a step back and start to look at what are some very simple, very, very simple systems that we can integrate into our lives, all of a sudden the financial decisions, they become quicker, they become easier, more efficient, because we're much more in tune to what's going on.
So I love that this is something simple that literally. Anybody can implement. And we're gonna dive into kind of more specifics around what does that actually look like for you, but Jennifer, this was something that you specifically had an interest in talking about, and I'm curious why that was of interest to you specifically.
Yeah, I think it's because we got a lot of clients who just they don't. Pay attention to their finances, and they just have this anxiety around things stress. They, they don't see small problems, so they, it becomes big problems down the road. And what I really wanna do, I mean, what, why I joined Intentional, intentional Wealth was because [00:03:00] I love the word intentional.
Right? I love that. With only a few minutes every week, you can really start to uncover what's going on in small, little tiny bits and take control, be more empowered with your finances rather than just kind of out of sight, out of mind. This kind of forces you, but in a good way to, to kind of tackle that one bite at a time.
And I love using the word date specifically when we talk about a money date because generally most people have very positive associations with the word date, date most of the time. And a lot of people have very complicated associations with money. So I know for some people when you. Say, kind of money date.
It's, it's kind of like a mixed message. It's like, okay, this is, you know, I enjoy dating, but do I really wanna do it with my money? So I'm, I'm looking forward to diving into this, but here's where I wanna start, because I think this is just important for people to think about, right? What happens when somebody does not check in on their [00:04:00] finances on a regular basis?
You get all stressed out, right? You get stressed out, you have anxiety. Maybe your credit score goes down because you didn't pay a bill on time. You know a lot, a lot of stuff, you get late fees. You, you don't pay attention to subscriptions. When you signed up for this thing last year and you forgot to cancel it.
You are wasting money, you know, you're really wasting money and you're kind of compounding the problem by not paying attention to it. That's right. Right. We can compound positive things, but we can also compound challenges, right? Yeah, exactly. And so completely ignoring it and not paying attention.
Can create some very difficult challenges. There's no question about it. Exactly. How do you recommend somebody kind of get started? How often do people do this? What, what does that look like, Jennifer? So what I say to start with is to think about what you wanna, you wanna bring fun into this? You don't wanna just have crazy, you know, oh my God, I'm gonna deal with this.
Put on some music you love. Light a candle. If [00:05:00] you're, if you're, you're, you love going out to coffee, go out to coffee, get a coffee, bring it home, whatever. If you're doing it with your spouse, do something fun before or after it. So you wanna set the stage first. Set the stage to have a, a somewhat nice experience, right?
While you're dealing with something you may not be comfortable with. And the, the next thing to do would be maybe to start off small, maybe 15 minutes the first time, and start by maybe just checking your account balances. And that's it. Put it away. There's, we can kind of go anywhere with this conversation, but what I recommend is just to start.
Ultimately you kind of wanna set a schedule that's like maybe every Sunday morning, this is what I'm gonna do for an hour every Sunday, or, there are certain things you wanna do weekly. There's certain things you can do monthly. We can go into more detail about that. I don't wanna overwhelm people with the question.
Yeah, absolutely. And I was thinking about it. You know, I had these [00:06:00] organizers come and help me organize my house this past year, and I am a person who struggles with physical mail. I will just be honest with it. I get overwhelmed with physical mail and then we started gutting. You know, when my mom got sick, we started getting her mail and then, you know, we're still getting her mail since she passed away.
And it's just, there's so much mail, I swear. And so it's very easy for me to let the mail accumulate so I don't have to deal with it. But when the organizers came through, they helped me set up a super simple system. It literally was like, no, you don't have to look at the mail every day. Like, thank for my permission, I needed that permission.
Yeah. But just put it in this box and then set a time for yourself and every week, this is the date and time that you look, the mail, pay the bills, whatever. Right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And for me, because I do, you know, a regular money day with myself it was very easy to be like, oh, let me just build this on top of the habit that I already have.
Yeah. Oh my gosh, Jennifer, what a relief it has been now they haven't been working with me probably about four months, I think ago we were working together. So the last four months not having these piles of, and even during the [00:07:00] holiday season when you get like three times as much mail is still, it was such a release.
It was such a relief and it's so interesting. It's not like I'm managing the mail on a daily basis, but it's interesting how internally. We're taking that in. It's piling up. Right? I remember. Because everything of mine is online. Mm-hmm. So I lose track. Yeah. Literally lose track. Right. So then I do have piles of mail and as you're talking to me about this, I used to be really good and I had a green folder for money, Uhhuh.
My green folder was money because green, you know, money is green. And I would put everything weighted to money in this folder as a temporary holding point, Uhhuh. And then on my money date I would open the folder and see what the heck's inside. Yeah. And so that's maybe the first step is just compile the papers.
Make a list of what you wanna check. Just put it in that thing and save it for next week, whenever the date is, you're gonna do it. You can do that same system with other things around the house. Maybe there's a kid folder and [00:08:00] you know, maybe, of course you can't look a deal with your kids once a week, but you know what I mean.
You, you can do that system, that organization system for lots of different things. Oh, absolutely. Now we've talked a little bit about weekly. I know for myself, my process is very different weekly. Versus monthly versus I do kind of a big annual process for myself. Mm-hmm. Talk to me a little bit about kind of timing and what you do and don't do during various money dates.
Okay. So for, well, this is what I do, right? And, and this could be different for you and for other people. So every week I, so I track my spending in a program called Tiller Money, and I used to use Monarch. There's reasons why I'm not using 'em now. But, so every week, or when I think about it, I'll go into Teller and I'll categorize my spending.
Mm-hmm. I do have some automatic categorizations happening, but that I, I make sure that everything flows in. Mm-hmm. So I'm just kind of being aware of what's come in, what's gone out, [00:09:00] just. It is kind of like a peace of mind thing, I think. Yeah. Because OO other times of the month I'm checking my bank balances.
I don't check 'em that day. I might check to see, depends on what week it is. If it's the week that I have to pay my credit card bills, then I'll schedule those for payment. Mm-hmm. If it's the end of the month, week, then I will look at my balance and go, Ooh. I saved money this month. I'm gonna put that into my savings.
Mm-hmm. So I transfer the money to savings. Then if you have this concept of the Joy Fund, I've been trying that on. I've set up a budget, but I'm not spending it. So I think my weekly check-ins also I'm seeing where am I at a budget, like, so I have a budget and then what I've spent and. It's just reminding me like, I hear you in the back of my mind every time I do this, you have your joy fund.
Why aren't you spending it? You have permission to spend it. And so I'm kind of banking those dollars. 'cause maybe I won't do the coffee dates with myself. Maybe I'll save it [00:10:00] for a massage. Yeah. And I'll spend it all at once. So, so, but, but, but that's just kind of a, to be aware of, of, so whatever it is you wanna be aware of.
Maybe you're paying down debt and you wanna see it going down over time. So that's kind of what I do on a weekly basis. On a monthly basis, I, like I say, I pay my bills transfer the savings. I don't, I don't, I pay off my credit cards every month, but if I didn't, I would be looking at my debt to see how it's going down.
Mm-hmm. And then I also look at, you know, since everything is automated for me. I just wanna make sure that when the, the credit card is due, the, the, the schedule, the transfer is scheduled. And so I make, make a note of that. I wanna stop you really quick there, Jennifer, because I've noticed with a lot of folks that this automation, while absolutely positive, can trip people up a little bit.
And so I appreciate the fact that you're acknowledging yes, you have the automation set up. But you're still proactively, I have to Sure. [00:11:00] The timing works out right. I I mean, I'll confess, I'll confess a really embarrassing thing as a financial planner with almost 20 years of experience. Last month, or is it January?
You know, life has changed the last few months I got a new job. You know, just things have shifted and I was really diligent about making sure all my credit cards were, you know, I had some travel, all my credit cards were like lined up and, and ready to go. But I made a mistake and the month before that transferred a whole chunk of money to savings.
Mm-hmm. And I hadn't realized I did that. And so my credit cards got paid on time, but guess what? I overdrew my account. Mm-hmm. I was so embarrassed. I'm like, oh my god. You know? So I had to, I had to like hurry up and get the money back. The money was just sitting there in a different bank. It was at my savings account and I was like, oh, shoot.
So now I don't do that anymore. Now I keep. Enough for the month in my checking. And it's all good. I'm, I'm happy with that, but I mean, even, even people like me make mistakes and so it's [00:12:00] really important to just, you know, have a list of what you're gonna be checking off. You know, I'm gonna check my spending, I'm gonna check this.
And that way you don't make the stupid mistakes that I did. Well, I'll tell you, I'll, I'll share one too. You're open and honest. We have, it's so silly that we even have it set up this way, but we have a. A subscription, I can't even remember which subscription it is. It's something like $10 a month that hits a credit card that we don't use.
And so I didn't pay it because it's, and this actually went on for a couple months before I realized Oh yeah. 'cause it's just, and so now, instead of, and this is so silly, instead of changing. The card that it goes to, I just set it up to autopay. 'cause we don't use that card anyway. And I'm like, well, it'll be like 10 bucks.
I'm just gonna taken care of. But it's such a silly thing. So we all do the silly things. Right. Well, and you know, it's, it's good that you're using that card you never use because if you don't use it. You will get a letter in the mail saying, we're gonna close this card unless you use it by this date. And, and I, that's happened to me.
Been, and usually I don't care. Like I'm at a, had a balance transfer and I paid it off and I don't care. Close [00:13:00] it. Yeah. It saves work on my part. But if you wanna keep something open, you really should be using it. And that's, well, that's a really good point. Look at that. I'm, I'm getting good tips from my financial.
But that's a really good point because that is a card that I've actually had for a really long time. Oh yeah. It's great to keep that close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a really good, yeah, you wanna keep that in your repertoire. Alright, so let's get back to talking about Monday. Okay. About how long should a money day last?
I would say I initially just two 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes maximum. Just, you wanna get in a routine, so, so you wanna, you wanna do these things, but you also don't wanna overwhelm yourself. Mm-hmm. So if you do it too long, it's gonna be overwhelming. You're not gonna do it again. So you don't, you kind of wanna, there, there's a book called, it's, what's his name? I wrote it down. I wrote this book, habit Stacking Habit. Here it goes. Are you thinking of Atomic Habit, James? Clear? Yeah. It's all about habit stacking. Mm-hmm. So what you wanna do initially is have a positive experience. Mm-hmm. You wanna create a [00:14:00] habit. So it maybe it's once a week for 20 minutes.
And then after a few weeks you feel comfortable, you're not freaking out anymore. Maybe you do 30 minutes, but you don't have, like, my weekly check-ins are 10 minutes. Yeah, but the month, the week, the monthly one that I have to actually pay my bills. Takes about an hour because I wanna be, well, maybe not, not that long, maybe half hour.
But I'm doing my categorization and I am looking at my savings and I'm looking at, you know, my goals. And so that one takes longer, maybe an hour for that one quarterly. I check in with my goals, like maybe I'll check in with myself in the end of March. Did you just, did you spend your Joy fund? Okay.
Schedule a, a massage, right. I might look at my investments. Which is my 4 0 1 Ks. I might look at that quarterly, but usually that's once a year. I really don't pay attention much once a year. And then every year it takes longer, right? I might have a couple of phases where I am looking at what happened last year.
Was I [00:15:00] on target for things? Was I not on target? Of course you gotta do your taxes. That's a whole other money date for myself, and that could take. A couple of hours to kind of, the, the critical thing here is anything you're doing for taxes, keep a folder, right? A folder. And what I have is, I'll show you, I have this also green, right?
This is my financial folder and I have a tab called taxes and I have a tag called, called filing, and I have a tag. A tab called checkbook or check checking like weekly check-ins. Mm-hmm. And that way when you sit down to do your taxes, you have it all together rather than where's my stuff? I might look at my estate plans once a year, just kind of depends on what's going on.
Like right now I need to update my stuff. And insurance, you know, you, you get that renewal twice a year, so it just depends on what's coming up. Yeah. But you wanna make sure that you always have at the end of your, money date, what's the next action? Mm-hmm. So you wanna keep track, okay, I'm doing these things, but what [00:16:00] am I gonna do next time?
And then you just make a note. You can put in your calendar, maybe have the money date task in your Outlook calendar, whatever, and then it recycles every week and you know what you're doing the next time. You don't wanna spend time and the money date figuring out what to do. You wanna like have a plan.
This is what I'm gonna do next week. Yeah, that's such a good point. And you know, for some people they may be doing it with a partner, right? Yeah. So what does that look like? Well, first of all, no judgment, right? It's a no judgment zone. You're basically trying to see what what has happened. And I think sometimes it's so hard because you've got a couple coming together and they have different history.
Right, so, so there are different personalities. They have different histories, different upbringings, different values, and so you want to. Acknowledge that you're coming together to do this thing, but you're bringing you, you're bringing your [00:17:00] baggage, right? Absolutely. Which people sometimes forget that you're bringing, you know, you're bringing your stuff into this conversation, but maybe start with what your your goals are for this money day.
What are we gonna, what are we gonna try to do during this time? And we're gonna just observe and we're gonna set goals, and we're gonna get on the same page and we're not gonna. I mean, it's, it's very hard. I remember doing this with my ex-fiance. It was, we sat down to do this and I was just like, why do you spend your money like that?
And he was like, why do you keep saving your money? We were just opposite, right? Yeah. And we had to develop a, a system. And the, the system ended up being, and we can have a whole session on this, but the system ended up being that I have my accounts, he has his accounts, and we decided. What accounts are in the joint account?
So once, so we set up a, like a money date system, whatever, on just our joint stuff. Mm-hmm. What are we gonna put in there? How are we gonna figure that out? It was it [00:18:00] based on income as how we did it and what are our expenses in that middle bucket. And then. Basically, if we did anything special, we might contribute towards that, but this all we, we didn't deal with all the other stuff.
We just dealt with this one. It seems simple when I'm talking about it, but it was not simple to get there. It just was simple. Yeah, absolutely. That takes work. It takes intentionality, it takes compromise. Right. Really deciding compromise what we're gonna handle together. There's a lot, and you're exactly right, Jennifer.
We are bringing not just our own personal experience with money. Yeah. But every conversation that we've ever had with a family member, with a boss, with every experience that's experie our parents, how our parents handled money. Absolutely. I mean, a lot of people walk into this and you know, my experience was watching my parents who lived paycheck to paycheck.
Yeah. And, and my experience is I'm a financial planner, and so I see people with all different net worths and I see [00:19:00] these older couples who have nothing and it freaks me out. So I'm coming from the perspective of I need to be careful with my money. It needs to last. I would save. And then you might have somebody who.
Who has a, has an awesome job and they've never had that experience. And so they're just very flexible with their money. More spendy and no, neither one of us is right or wrong. It's just our experiences coming into it. Sure. But knowing what the other person's bringing in and then setting these, setting these group goals as these joint goals for the, for the, the entity of the marriage or the, the couplehood or whatever.
It's really important to kind of. Just kind of have all that, all that awareness. Absolutely. And one of the things that I really like to start with when I'm having conversations with couples who have some friction around some of the finances is really talking about what's going well. Yeah. You know, if one person is, is the person that's paying the bills and all the bills got paid on time that month.
That's a good thing. Let's [00:20:00] take a moment and acknowledge the fact that like that doesn't happen for everybody every month. Right, exactly. Like that is something positive that happens and when we really start to acknowledge and recognize where we're working together and where we're being successful, then we have something that we can really build upon.
It's so easy for people to really. Focus on the differences to focus on the conflict, and that just is gonna perpetuate that, right? So the more that we can shun to some kind of a common ground. The other thing that I just really encourage people who maybe are feeling a little bit anxious when it comes to money or talking with their partner about money is to start.
Really, really gently, and even, you may not fully know, you might think you know, but you might not fully know what your partner has experienced around money, maybe as a child or what they heard messaging or what their experiences were in young adulthood. And all of these things are shaping the way we think and talk about money now.
And so even just opening up the conversation, a money date literally doesn't even [00:21:00] have to look at numbers. It could be. Tell me about your experience with money growing up. What was that like for you? Yeah. You know, starting to open up the communication, the dialogue that allows us to start to kind of chip away at some things that may feel more challenging.
Yeah. The other thing is, is make sure that you have neutral language when you're going through things. Mm-hmm. Right? So instead of saying you spent, you could say, oh, the budget shows that at the budget shows that we're over by, you know, a hundred dollars this month. And then you just kind of pause and, and kind of see what happens instead of, yeah.
Well, it's your fault. You know, you, you bought that thing, you know you don't wanna do that. Right. And it's not always about spending either. I mean, in all honesty, right? It's also taking a serious look at the income, the savings. If there's debt that's out there, it's really looking at the full picture. And it's so easy for people to focus on the spending, but there's a lot more to that picture than just spending.
So how do you help, or how do you recommend couples [00:22:00] avoid arguing as a result of their money date? I guess probably by having that neutral language, trying to understand or empathize where the person's coming from. Right. And just I guess just making sure that you maybe set limits on the conversation, like, we're gonna talk about this, this, and this.
If a, if a sensitive topic comes up, see if you can handle it. And if not, take a break. Come back later if it's continues to come up. There are financial therapists that you can sit down with and talk about issues. Kind of helps bring a third party into the conversation. Mm-hmm. Sometimes people hire a finished therapist.
Sometimes they hire a a financial coach or even a financial advisor, a financial planner like us mm-hmm. To get through the conversations. But you just really have to have empathy and compassion for the other person. 'cause we all have different experiences. Yeah. I will say I did a training for other financial planners last year on how they can bring [00:23:00] mediation skills into their financial planning practice.
Oh, neat. That's helpful. And I think that even if you don't have that other person facilitating the conversation, one of the most powerful tools that I learned in mediation is just simply making sure that people feel very heard. Yes. And so acknowledging. Jennifer, I'm hearing you saying. Mm-hmm. And one of the things that I found so fascinating was that you don't always hear what they're saying, or they may, may not be communicating what they think they're communicating.
Oh, I know. I'm a total, I'm, I'm totally bad about this because I'm listening for my entry back to the conversation. I'm not listening, sometimes I'm just not listening to the conversation and I have to. Step back sometimes, especially if I'm trying to have a conversation with somebody and there's some conflict, I have to go, whoa, wait a second.
Yeah. Hear them and say, I hear you. Mm-hmm. I hear you're upset, or I hear you're scared, or I hear whatever. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So powerful. So. Jennifer and I are gonna be on for about five more minutes. We're gonna be talking a little bit more here. If [00:24:00] you have questions. I just wanna invite you to put them in the chat box.
We're happy to, to talk through answers to any of the questions that you may have. But here's my question. How do you make this process sustainable? You start small. Start small. Like I said, start with 15 minutes and pair it with something enjoyable, right? And so, not that I recommend people do this money date at a coffee shop, but like my joy fund is gonna include going across the city of San Jose and trying different coffee shops to get matcha lattes.
I love matcha, right? But I don't know that I wanna do my money date there, but this is an example. Sometimes I make 'em at home and then I can sit down and do something, something enjoyable, put on some music, make it. Make it more comfortable, whatever your comfort thing. Some people like I, I can see my sister doing this lighting a candle.
Mm-hmm. Some women like to do that light a candle. It just kind of brings more. Whatever it's mood. Yeah. When I'm, you know, like working and I'm focused and actually when I [00:25:00] do my annual, 'cause my annual review takes me a while 'cause I am kind of working through my, my budget and my goals for the year. But otherwise I personally do mine on the sofa, in the family room with the fireplace on, with really nice music that just helps me to focus like you know, just that kind of concentration music or whatever.
But I don't have any kind of aversion to thinking about or talking about money. Good thing. 'cause I'd be in the wrong profession if I did. Yeah. But even for myself, I wanna make an enjoyable process. Right? Yeah. So why should I be in an uncomfortable space sitting at a desk like, you know? So, yeah, absolutely.
Well make sure you have like the same time, the same day each week. That will help to build the habit. Mm-hmm. Track the wins. Celebrate your progress. Yes. It's not perfection. It's, you ever heard that sentence about how do you eat the elephant? One bite at a time, the poor elephant. But that's how you hand, that's how you tackle these these big things.
Just one thing at a time. Yes, absolutely. Can I just see a question pop up here? Yeah, we have a [00:26:00] question. Oh my God, I get tripped up because when I look at my budget, I always feel like it's impossible to make ends meet. So that makes me feel avoidant. I get that somehow I am managing, but unexpected expenses.
Trip me up. So what would you say to this person? I would say to give yourself a big, giant hug. I don't know if you do that, but hug yourself for acknowledging this. And you know, I think that in your case it's probably a, a matter of continuing what you're doing and checking in, but think of ways, how do you create this, this emergency fund on this side?
Because if, if you're doing fine and then all of a sudden. The car breaks down, my car's in the shot right now. The car breaks down and you're like, oh crap, that a thousand dollars was to pay my rent or whatever. And now you're like, oh, I better use the credit card. This is the kind of stuff that throws people off.
So in, in trying to build your budget, maybe you build in transferring some money to [00:27:00] this site account where you can save it for emergencies, because there's always gonna be an unexpected thing that comes up. Not an emergency, but things like. The car breaks down. You have a crown for your tooth that you have to pay for, like just things come up.
And so, and the other thing to do is for your budget, make sure you add an unexpected. Well, that's what I was gonna say. You know, we always talk about planning for the unexpected, but the reality is it's the unplanned expenses we expect them to happen. Which is why we absolutely, as financial planners are always talking about having this, this cash cushion of safety because we know.
That people use it all the time. We see it in our practice. People lose jobs all the time. People have vehicle troubles, people have things happen to their house. Goodness gracious, with the freezing pipes everywhere. I mean, I just keep hearing story after story. So we know these things happen. They are expected.
They're not unexpected. We just don't necessarily have the ability to plan for them in terms of timing. Right? Yeah. What I do for mine, you know, when I set up my spending plan for the year, [00:28:00] I have things that I know are every, every month. They're my fixed monthly expenses. They, they are just kind of paid automatically.
Then I have my I know it's gonna come, but it's a once a year thing. Mm-hmm. I know it's gonna come, but it's a quarterly thing. I kind of sock that money away in a sinking fund, a bank account I just call syncing fund and I just put that money there and when I need it, I pull it back. Mm-hmm. Then there's the unexpected, well, the things that I expect, but I don't know when it's gonna happen.
Yep. Car repairs. Health related stuff, you know, deductible for my insurance, you know? Mm-hmm. Those things I can expect that's gonna happen periodically, so I better put money aside for it. Yeah. And then you have the unexpected. There really shouldn't be much unexpected because if you think about it, if you think of all, all the possible things that can go on, you should have a placeholder every month or every year for that stuff.
So it shouldn't throw you off. I, I am not a should person. So it it, if you plan for it, [00:29:00] you should be okay. It won't, no, it won't, it won't throw you off if you, if you have a plan for it. Absolutely. Exactly. The other thing I'll say, you know, for those of you who are struggling from a paycheck to paycheck, two of the things that I see that I think are incredibly valuable, first and foremost to look at your fixed expenses and to be serious about it, you know, those are the expenses that you have month in and month out, and they are what they are.
When you make an adjustment to your fixed expenses, then that adjustment, you know, you benefit from that every month going forward. Right? So, as an example, if your rent is $3,000 a month and you find a place that's $2,200 a month, now you're saving $800 a month, right? That's a, a simple example of how reducing your fixed expenses a lot of times.
People are very attached to their fixed expenses, whether it's their car payment or it's their rent or what have you. But we wanna be realistic around income and expenses. Mm-hmm. And that income is not sufficient to really support the level of fixed expenses, then you absolutely will always have a hard time because [00:30:00] you've already committed so much money every month.
Mm-hmm. That there just isn't a lot left at the end. Right. Yeah. And so that's one piece of it, but the other piece that I wish more people would look at. Is increasing your income and being really intentional about that. It might not be an overnight fix, but I really want people to feel empowered that they are in control of their income and they can take the steps they need to take in order to be able to increase their income.
So it's definitely two sides of that coin and we wanna look at both of both of those. Absolutely. Now Jennifer, we are running up here on time, so I just wanna really thank you for taking the time to have this conversation with me today. I think it's an important one. It's one that we have some resources for our Empowered Sisterhood members.
If you are an Empowered Sisterhood member wanting to implement a money date, we have some great resources for you in the Real Money toolkit. So be sure to take a look at that online or ask about it in your next coffee chat or financial coaching call. Any final words for us, Jennifer? No, just get started.
Just, just schedule 20 [00:31:00] minutes this weekend and start. That's all I can say is just start it. Think about what you're gonna do during that time, then make it enjoyable and just start. That's all you can do. Just schedule time and start. Don't judge. And even if, even if the only thing you do during that time is look at your bank account balance.
That's all that is. The win awareness is the key. What, what are there? Don't judge, just observe The awareness is the first step to wealth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Alright. All right. Thank you again, Jennifer, for all of you who have been here with us today. Thank you for watching. I will absolutely come back for anybody watching the replay, make sure you get your questions answered, so please feel free to put any questions that you have in the chat and we will see you next week.
Bye-bye. Yeah, bye.
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