(upbeat folksy music) Hi everyone.
I hope you enjoyed our”How to Teach YNAB” series on the blog and on the channel.
If you missed that, I will have links in the description box.
And in this video, Iwanted to go over a small, yet powerful concept that really helped to shift my money mindset and it's a tool that you canuse in your own budget today.
So if you've watched some of my videos, you know that I love paper planners.
And in a lot that I've used, they include a page or two in the beginning for youto list out your goals.
So come late December I love to sit down with a brand-new plannerand dream about what I want to accomplish the next year.
Under my home category for years, my number one goal wasto replace the flooring.
Our carpet was so rough and I knew that if we could replace it, it would make a huge impact.
So in the planner went the goal and with my first paycheck in January I would send some money fromchecking over to savings.
But throughout the year, life happens.
We went out to eat a little bit too much, the checking account balance got low, I got nervous, and I moved money back from savings into checking.
We had to replace the trim on our house, that wiped out savings.
And I forgot to save forpersonal property tax and had to raid the savings account again.
So this cycle went on for years and years.
I never gained any real traction and I was always raidingthat savings account.
And it wasn't until July 1st of 2018 that I created my firstbudget using the YNAB method.
YNAB teaches that we budget our savings.
This was a new concept to me.
When I had tried budgeting in the past, I used whatever generic template came with the app or the program.
This was the first time Iwas making things personal.
So instead of having thatbig lump savings account, I started saving for my emergency fund, for an upcoming vacationand for the flooring.
And just that simplething of naming my savings it made that flooring goalfeel real and I got motivated.
And suddenly when I knewI was pulling money out of the flooring category tofund things like dining out, takeout became a little less tempting.
So I started that first budget on July 1st and by November of the same year, the old carpet was being pulled up and the new floors were going down.
And that seems like a dumb example, but to me it meant everything.
For years, for a decade, I had told myself I was a person who was bad at money.
But I had proved tomyself I could set a goal and I could save for it.
So that really made a huge impact in how I thought about myselfand how I could handle money.
Now that I know that there is power in naming our financialgoals in our budget could we take it a step further? Sherri, one of our wiseYNAB teachers, had the idea to get really creative withdifferent aspects of our budget.
And I'm gonna share three of those today.
First, let's talk about debt.
Back in January in our Debt Bootcamp, one budgeter decided to renameall of her debt categories with the names of her most hated bad guys.
So her focus debt became Voldemort and she equated every dollar she budgeted to that category as an attack on him that was weakening his strength.
She took the feeling ofhostility and powerlessness that surrounds debt andinstead channeled that into becoming the hero whotakes down the bad guy.
You can do this too.
Name your debts, have some fun with it.
Think about enemiesyou'd like to take down, Joffrey, Ramsay Bolton, Nickelback.
I actually don't have feelingsfor or against Nickelback.
Mine would probably be Ganonwho I have yet to defeat after 150 plus hoursplaying “Breath of the Wild” but I will get to it one day.
Another way we can use thesecreative category names is building a new habit.
A lot of new budgeters have a hard time saving for true expenses.
A true expense is a larger, less frequent expense.
Things like personal property tax that I have a history of forgetting, Christmas, braces, homemaintenance, car maintenance.
Car maintenance isn't alot of fun to save for, especially if you're working against your old spending habits.
But what if we did a mental shift and instead of calling themtrue expenses we referred to them as future debt prevention? Because that's exactly what it is.
If today you were thinking ahead and setting aside moneyfor car maintenance, when the time inevitably comes that you will have to purchase new tires, you're saving yourselffrom having to reach for a credit card and you'reable to buy it in cash.
You can reinforce your money habits each time you look at your budget.
If home maintenance insteadbecomes a warm, safe place for my family, wouldthat make things easier to put more money into thatcategory instead of dining out? Your emergency fund becomes peace of mind or saving for a rainy day.
And car maintenance canbecome always getting the kids to their activities on time.
We can flip things around and use the same conceptto break a bad habit.
I was talking with our writer, Rachel, and she reminded me of astory we told awhile back about Melissa who quit smoking after 20 years using her budget.
So you take the bad habit category and rename it something like “That Terrible Thing I Want toQuit” or “My Achilles Heel.
” When Melissa saw how much shewas putting towards cigarettes each month instead of thingsthat she really cared about, that's when things clicked for her.
So if you'd like to read herstory and see her playbook, I'll put that link in the description box.
By making things personal in our budgets, we can change our money mindset.
We can become moredetermined to pay off debt.
We can stop like I wasdoing always reaching into my savings accountfor unimportant things.
And instead start saving forthings that really matter.
Let your budget be the placewhere you lay out a plan for the life you're trying to create.
That's the most effective budget is one that's alignedwith your priorities.
I hope this video was helpful.
If you have any ideas forcreative category names or you just want to tell mesome of your favorite bad guys, I would love to read it, so leave that in a comment down below.
Thank you so much for watching and I'll talk to you again very soon.
(upbeat folksy music).
