I Blow Through Our Monthly Budget In A Week

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Stop sabotaging myself and my family and actually stick to a plan. A little bit of story. My husband and I, we make about $220,000 a year, but we have about $313,000 in non-mortgage mortgage debt. We have three kids. We're almost 40. We have no retirement, no savings. I make a plan. We've been through financial peace. So we make a plan every month, and I just blow it by like the fifth or sixth of the month. I have no self-control when it comes to telling my kids no to activities, trips, experiences. My husband says he's on board. He doesn't really help at all. So all of it really falls to me, and I have no self-control. So I'm just kind of struggling here. Why is that? Why do you think you have no self-control? Because there's got to be a basis for that. Is it that you just have this fear of losing out, like missing out, that you're feeling like, man, the time with my kids is short. I got to get it in. What's the base of that type of impulsive spending? Yeah, and that's how I grew up. My parents, my mom was the same way, and now they're at retirement age, and they have no retirement, and I'm really worried for them. But that's kind of how she's always lived, is just my experiences come first, and we'll figure it out later. So I feel like I need to get it in while they're... My son's almost 16, so I got short time with him left, and I just feel like now is now or never kind of thing. Interesting. John, I know you have so much to say about this. You know what? Go ahead and go. You go. Well, I was just going to ask you, did you shower today? Yes. When you go out, do you put on deodorant? Maybe fix your hair? Here's what I want to... I'm saying something ridiculous, right, on purpose. I want to introduce to you that you do have self-control over certain parts of your life, and those are things that you've affirmatively said, this is important to me, this matters, and I'm going to do these things. And anytime you're trying to change an action, right, and really live into a new identity, I'm a person who... It has to matter. That's to be a reason why I'm doing this. Because right now, what you just painted the picture for us is you wish you were like this, you wish you had retirement, you wish you had a budget, you wish you were a person that you could count on, but you're not going to, because your mom did it. It worked out. You're worried about her, but it's fine. And you only have two years left with your son, so we're just going to do it. And you're certainly not going to do it just because John and I tell you to do it. So if you don't want to do it, then go do your thing. The internal war you've created inside your own chest is tough. If you want to get control of this thing, man, we can help you there. But what I don't want to do is I don't want to just sit here and you're like, no, I'm staying in this fire pit. And you keep holding the gas and the matches, like you're just going to burn yourself. I'd rather you just make peace with the path that you're on. My kid's 16. I think the best way to love him is to give him whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to always say yes to everything he asks. And if that's your path, I disagree with it. But man, you go do that. Well, I think there's something that we can help you with in that today, which is to challenge even the validity or the truthfulness of that way of thinking. Because I do. I think that sometimes we think that being there for our kids is buying them what they want and doing all of these. It's like more is more, but it's not always more is more. It's almost never more is more. I mean, I think think about just just gift number one. If you and your husband lock arms here and and by the way, you'll make a ton of money and y'all had two years that were uncomfortable. A, you'd give your 16 year old the gift of seeing his mom and dad lock arms and do something really hard together. That's a blessing because the world he's inheriting is going to take a lot of transition and change and hard work. And you'd also go out to 40 year old him and he would never, ever, ever have to worry about his mom and dad. You would take that from them. That'd be a gift. And I would, I would wager those gifts are way more important than what like another trip. Exactly. And it's not like you're not doing any trips. It's the 10 of them. And I can also imagine a world where your husband is like, I'm not, I'm not going to get on. Why would I keep getting on board? Because me continuing to get on board is just a, I'm, I'm sowing the seed of resentment because I'm going to get on board. My wife's going to get off and then we're going to have, we're going to fight about it. I'm just do whatever you want to do. So let me ask you this. Are you done? Are you done, done, done? Yeah, I really am. It's, it's very stressful and I'm tired of it. Okay. The first place I want you to go in the J is going to give you a clear path. The first place I want you to do when you get off the phone here and we're going to hook you up with some free resources to get you started. I want you to make an appointment with a local therapist in your, in your area. Cause you got, you got history here, right? Yeah. Okay. I think it's time. And I'm telling you, your kids having a ringside seat to watching their mom walk the gauntlet will be one of the, if not the one of the greatest gifts you'll ever give them. Okay. Yeah. You're worth feeling at peace in your own skin. Cool. Yeah. I needed that. Okay. All right. Jay's give her a path. Uh, well, dang John. Uh, yeah, I want to make sure that you do get total money makeover. I'm actually going to send you my book to what no one tells you about money. Cause it definitely approaches this from a non dollars and cents side. And I, I sent some of the things that you're saying, uh, I talk about in the book and I think it could really help, uh, just under underpin, whatever you get out of counseling and things like that. Um, the debt, there's a lot of debt here. Uh, I don't want to try to rush through it in the time, but can I offer you something? I feel like I'm supposed to offer you something else instead. What I want to offer you is something that I will help you with your kids. And I don't say much about this, but, um, I lost my mom and I'm going to tell you the things that I remember about her are not the trips we took or the things we did. I think about how her face looked when I'd walk in the room, or if I hadn't seen her in a while and I knock on the door and she opens the door and she, how her, I think about things like that. I think about what her handwriting looks like. I think about little inside jokes that we had things that made us laugh. I'm not thinking about an outfit she bought me or didn't buy me. I'm not thinking about the trip we didn't take. Do you see what I'm saying? And when I think about my kids now, the most intentional things that I can do are if I just tackle my son, you know what I mean? Mom's not a 42 year old. Mom's not supposed to tackle her son, but he loves wrestling. So if I do that, I didn't buy him something. I didn't show up to another game because maybe I couldn't show up at the game, but the intentional thing I did was that night when I tucked him in bed, I tackled him and I wrestled him down because he likes that. And I just want to encourage you that your kids just want you. They just want to be around you. They want you to whisper something funny in their ear, you know, make a poopy joke or whatever. And I know your kids are older, but that's what they want. So create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.