159: Budgeting for the New Year

Welcome to The Invested Dads Podcast, simplifying financial topics so that you can take action and make your financial situation better. Helping you to understand the current world of financial planning and investments, here are your hosts, Josh Robb and Austin Wilson.

Austin Wilson:

All right. Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to The Invested Dads Podcast, the podcast where we take you on a journey to better your financial future. I am Austin Wilson, Research Analyst at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management.

Josh Robb:

And I’m Josh Rob, Director of Wealth Management at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. So Austin, how can people help us grow this podcast?

Austin Wilson:

Well, we would love it if you would subscribe. If you’re not subscribed, hit that plus, follow, whatever button is on your podcast player. We’d also love it if you would visit our website and sign up for our weekly newsletter to get notified each and every Thursday when we drop a new episode, as well as get a nice little email with a little summary on there, direct link to listen to it. It’s a wonderful little gift as we’re starting this new year.

Josh Robb:

Yep.

Austin Wilson:

We are going to be revisiting a topic we’ve talked about before, and that is budgeting because we want to set everyone up for success.

Josh Robb:

Success.

Austin Wilson:

Success in a new year.

Josh Robb:

Yep. I always argue we should do this budgeting episode, not at the beginning of the year, but at Halloween, because it’s usually a pretty scary topic for a lot of people.

Austin Wilson:

It does scare a lot of people.

Josh Robb:

Yeah.

Austin Wilson:

But we’re going to make it not scary today and we are going to really be setting the record straight and talking about how budgeting’s not scary. It’s actually something that can be freeing to you.

Josh Robb:

I think that’s for a lot of people, they see budgeting as restricting, because you’re limiting what you can do. But in the end, it actually is more freeing because for the things you put in different spending buckets, you could do whatever you want within that bucket.

Austin Wilson:

It’s the most American thing you can do. It’s all about freedom.

Josh Robb:

Freedom.

Austin Wilson:

Freedom.

Josh Robb:

All right. We did do a podcast episode, which we will link in the show notes. It talks about the different types of budgeting based on how you like to see things, whether it’s on paper or in Excel, on an app, on your phone, all those different things. We’re not going to spend time on types of budgets, but I did want to highlight the one that I think is a easy starting point. Can be used in just about any of those, is kind of the framework.

Austin Wilson:

Yep.

 

[1:59] – The 50/30/20 Budgeting Rule

 Josh Robb:

Which is the 50/30/20.

Austin Wilson:

Whoa, whoa, whoa. These are just numbers.

Josh Robb:

I know, I’m throwing numbers everywhere. It equals a hundred.

Austin Wilson:

Okay, that’s good.

Josh Robb:

Break this down. 50% goes towards your needs.

Austin Wilson:

Half of your spendable income.

Josh Robb:

Half, and this is your take home. They call it take home, which is after taxes. Just think of it, if you get a paycheck.

Austin Wilson:

This is what goes into your bank account.

Josh Robb:

After it’s been taken out, what you get. All right, 50% are for needs, 30% are for your wants or things that aren’t essential, and then 20% is saving, paying down debt.

Austin Wilson:

That seems doable.

Josh Robb:

So 50/30/20, broad buckets for a reason, is because everybody says, “Well, I don’t own a home, I rent, so that’s a little different. I don’t have property tax.” Well, it doesn’t matter. Needs are a bucket, whatever those needs are, 50%. Your wants are the dining, the eating out versus buying food at home. It’s the vacation, all that stuff, and then the savings, paying down debt, is the last 20%. By the way, we just finished the Christmas season, it’s going to come up in another 12 months.

Austin Wilson:

Wait.

Josh Robb:

Maybe start budgeting and saving for that expense that you know you’ll have.

Austin Wilson:

I mean, that is a really good way to think of it as higher-level buckets. Because I think a lot of people get scared by thinking you need to put things in envelopes.

Josh Robb:

In exactly this amount for this one thing.

Austin Wilson:

Exactly this amount for this little thing, but if you keep it a little bit higher level, I think that that’s key. I guess this brings us back to the age-old discussion of is it pronounced envelope or envelope? It’s envelope, obviously.

Josh Robb:

Well, I told you if it’s fancy, you get an envelope out. If it’s just a normal plain old one, you get the envelope.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah. What about a manila envelope?

Josh Robb:

Manila. I don’t know.

Austin Wilson:

The color?

Josh Robb:

Is that a color?

Austin Wilson:

Yeah, those big ones?

Josh Robb:

Yeah.

Austin Wilson:

It’s called a manila.

Josh Robb:

It’s manila?

Austin Wilson:

I think it’s manila.

Josh Robb:

Not vanilla?

Austin Wilson:

I don’t know if it’s flavored.

Josh Robb:

Okay.

Austin Wilson:

Okay. Anyway, 50/30/20. I think it keeps it simple and it’s something that is attainable in this new year to say, “Hey, I don’t need to go crazy. I just need to get simple with it. I need to understand where my money’s going and plan for it.”

 

[3:51] – Austin’s Budgeting Technique: Mindful Spending

 Josh Robb:

Yep, so what do you do, Austin?

Austin Wilson:

Yeah. Well, I’m actually going to shamelessly plug another platform here at the office.

Josh Robb:

Oh, boy. Yeah.

Austin Wilson:

The Everyday Advisor, Jessica Hinks, friend of ours, great colleague.

Josh Robb:

Yes, great blog, great blog.

Austin Wilson:

Great blog, subscribe if you’re not subscribed. She put out a blog a while back now titled Mindful Spending about how she’s the financial advisor without a budget. She just tries to be mindful of her spending and keep track of things and question when you want to go buy something or whatever, and that’s the approach that my family has.

We have a lot of things automated, so we know exactly what all of those are every month. But we take a more mindful spending approach where we know what our general categories are going to be like this 50/30/20, and we live within this sort of upper parameters, but we don’t get too weedy with it. But it took us a long way to get here and it took us many years of being young and maybe not doing the perfect thing every time with our finances. Now we’ve gotten to the point where we have a good enough groove financially that it kind of takes care of itself.

Then we’re always just questioning things as we spend them. So, hey, on the discretionary side of things, do we really need this right now? Can we wait another couple of months? And the biggest thing that comes to budgeting and spending that our family tries to do is just live in a very reasonable fashion. We don’t try and keep up with the Joneses or just always get new and better houses and cars and expensive things all the time. We try to make what we have work and that just keeps our discretionary spending down, and I think that’s the lever that has made us most financially successful is living a very reasonably normal, not extravagant lifestyle. What about you?

 

[5:25] – Josh’s Budgeting Technique: Close Tracking

 Josh Robb:

I like spreadsheets and I am a numbers kind of guy, surprise.

Austin Wilson:

I am too, so were you surprised that I don’t actually do that?

Josh Robb:

Yeah, and so I track it pretty closely, but when it comes to especially discretionary or the wants section, it’s kind of broad. I watch where things go just to have an idea, but we just have a debit card that gets loaded on at pay time and then you do whatever you want with that for the month. I don’t care if it’s all spent on eating out this month or whatever. It’s pretty broad and open, but I do track it all just so I get trends. I like trends, patterns, those type of things.

Austin Wilson:

But similar to what I was saying, I’m sure that your life looked a lot different.

Josh Robb:

There’s flexibility. Oh, yeah.

Austin Wilson:

10-15 years ago where you were a little bit more intentional or more focused on the nitty gritty maybe than you are now?

Josh Robb:

Yep, and it’s seasonal too, so kids are getting involved in sports, it’s getting more expensive so you watch that.

Austin Wilson:

And you have a thousand of them.

Josh Robb:

I know.

Austin Wilson:

You’re a team.

Josh Robb:

Spring, summer when they’re signing up for all their stuff they’re going to do, you got to account for that, those type of things. But it’s getting better and easier and you get in those habits, I think.

Austin Wilson:

Is having kids expensive?

Josh Robb:

I hear that.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

Yeah, so I would believe so, yes.

Austin Wilson:

I don’t know. By the time this comes out, I’ll probably have my second one.

Josh Robb:

Yes, that’s right and you’ll be twice as expensive.

Austin Wilson:

Twice as expensive. Yeah. I think it’s all about not letting it stress you out. I think what we’re trying to point out today is that it can be doable without being a burden and that it actually can be beneficial. As long as you’re setting yourself up to meet those long-term goals by putting money away and paying down debt, that’s a lot of the focus that we’ve had on a lot of our discussions over the years.

As long as you’re able to do that and paying your bills and needs obviously, you have a lot of flexibility to do what you need to do, to do what you want to do. That’s a pretty great place to be that a lot of people, especially in America, really aren’t.

Josh Robb:

Yes. Yeah, definitely. All right let’s do a break.

 

[7:17] – Dad Joke of the Week 

Austin Wilson:

Oh, yeah.

Josh Robb:

Give me a dad joke.

Austin Wilson:

I got one for you.

Josh Robb:

Then we’ll come back and just talk about some mistakes some people make with budgets every once in a while.

Austin Wilson:

Okay.

Josh Robb:

All right. I’m ready.

Austin Wilson:

I don’t get why Marvel doesn’t use the Hulk to advertise more.

Josh Robb:

Oh, yeah?

Austin Wilson:

Yeah. He’s basically one big Banner.

Josh Robb:

One big Banner. I like it. That is good.

Austin Wilson:

Bruce Banner.

Josh Robb:

Big banner.

Austin Wilson:

Classic, classic, classic. That is the dad joke of the week, Josh.

 

[7:39] – How to Start a Budget: Tracking Costs 

Josh Robb:

Yes. In our show notes, I have linked a couple different articles and I have pulled 10 pitfalls or struggles that people have or just impressions they have about budgeting. I want to walk through each of these 10 things. One of the pitfalls or struggles people have is they guess at their costs instead of actually looking at them. They’re setting down a budget and they’re like, “Oh, utility, I probably spend $100 a month on utilities” and it’s really $250 or whatever. All of a sudden, they’re already behind. Don’t guess, get a good estimate. A lot of times when I’m talking to clients about this, one of the things I say is, “Don’t budget, but track for about three months or so and then start averaging that to see where you can use as a starting point.”

Austin Wilson:

Absolutely.

Josh Robb:

Don’t jump right into the budgeting process. Start by first monitoring, don’t change anything, just do what you do. See where you end up, and take that over a couple months and say, “Okay, what am I’m averaging?” You’re going to get a lot better off than just guessing.

Austin Wilson:

Well, in the world of the internet that we have now.

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Austin Wilson:

All of your utilities, all of your credit cards, your bank, every single thing you use financially, aside from straight cash, everything aside from cash, you can go see exactly what things cost and what the transactions were? You can see all your bills and exactly how much they were, and guess what? Some of them are the same every single month.

Josh Robb:

Some of them are.

Austin Wilson:

Your trash and your phone and all these things are the same. You can go see all of them. It’s really actually gotten quite easy on a lot of these websites for your bank. You can export it into Excel and then you can sort and filter and do all your fun stuff and get nerdy like we would do.

Josh Robb:

That’s right.

Austin Wilson:

Yes, don’t guess at costs.

Josh Robb:

Nope.

Austin Wilson:

You can get them accurately.

 

[9:10] – The Importance of Not Leaving Out Expenses 

Josh Robb:

Yep, and the other thing along with that is leaving out expenses.

Austin Wilson:

Don’t do that.

Josh Robb:

Again, the one we talked about was zero based budgeting, which is the idea every dollar is being allocated towards something, so when you’re done, you have zero left. If you do that and you leave out an expense, now you’re at a deficit.

Austin Wilson:

We don’t want deficits. We’re not the government.

Josh Robb:

You don’t want to be negative money.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah, we’re not the government.

Josh Robb:

Yes. We can’t print any of our own. Make sure you do a good job of tracking and accounting for everything you know of, and then I’ve always said a great budget item is to have some sort of cushion. Whether it’s an emergency fund or things like that, that is adding to that. If there’s little extra, you can carve out for that one.

Austin Wilson:

The tricky part with that one is cash, I think. Because cash is something that isn’t easy to track unless you manually track it somewhere.

Josh Robb:

I always track the withdrawal.

Austin Wilson:

Unless you have $50 a month, $100 a month.

Josh Robb:

I just track the withdrawal.

Austin Wilson:

And then it doesn’t matter what you spend in a month.

Josh Robb:

I have 50 bucks a month for cash, just because we had a book fair at the school twice a year or whatever and each of the kids gets a couple bucks for buying a book. Well, that’s cash. I need cash. Yeah, I just look at it as a withdrawal and then I just assume the cash disappears. I don’t care where it goes or what. Just budget-wise, $50 is accounted for cash at some point being withdrawn from the account. So yes, you’re right, cash is hard.

 

[10:29] – Using Your Budget Correctly 

Josh Robb:

Another one is not actually tracking your spending. You’re like, what are you talking about? Well, if you work hard to set up a budget and then don’t actually make sure you’re following it, what was the point of doing that?

Austin Wilson:

You just got this number.

Josh Robb:

Tracking along the way and don’t wait till the end of the month to look back. I think watching it along the way is very helpful because if you get halfway through the month and you say, “Oh, I’ve already met my grocery budget for the month and I still have 15 days.”

Austin Wilson:

I’m not eating anymore.

Josh Robb:

I either really guessed at the cost and missed it or something’s changed, let me look at what it is. Track it along the way. Don’t just think, “Well, now that I have a budget, I’m good to go.” The budget needs to be used. It’s a tool, use the tool.

Austin Wilson:

A lot of digital ways of doing this will do that for you automatically.

Josh Robb:

Yeah, pull it in, link your accounts.

Austin Wilson:

Whether that be an app, there are spreadsheet functions through Google Sheets so you can link to your banks now. It’s crazy, but it’ll do it automatically. It’s a little bit easier to do that than it used to be. But yes, make sure you know what’s actually going on, and know the calendar of how things happen.

Josh Robb:

Property tax.

Austin Wilson:

Because certain bills, that comes every year, once or twice a year, everything is consistent. This bill is always on this day, this bill’s always due on this day. You should have an idea of when your money’s coming and going, and we don’t necessarily live, I don’t anyway, in a world of manually balancing checkbooks and these kind of things anymore. I don’t think that’s necessarily super relevant today. But you should at least know what money is coming in, what money is going out, when it’s going in, when it’s coming out at the same time.

 

[11:57] – Assigning Expenses to a Month Vs. Paycheck 

Josh Robb:

That brings me to one, I’m going to jump ahead, assigning expenses by paycheck. That’s exactly what you just said is, let’s say you get paid every two weeks so you get paid essentially twice a month from all intents purposes. Half your pay, couple weeks later, the other half of your pay for that month. Well, if you are paying your mortgage or your rent in the first part of that paycheck, you may not have much left from that paycheck for anything else. But when you take your whole month worth, it’s fine.

But if you are only accounting each paycheck for what’s happening then, that’s not going to be very helpful for you if a bunch of bills show up all in the first of the month or something like that. Don’t assign your expenses to your paycheck, assign it to the month, and then have your paycheck hold off a portion of that for that payment.

Let’s go back to your mortgage or your rent. If you’re getting paid twice a month, paying $500 or a thousand dollars, doesn’t matter what it is and just take it in half each paycheck, that way you’re saving for it. Whenever it’s due, you have the money ready, but you’re not having it all come out of just one paycheck and then making it where you don’t have any cash flow for the groceries and all the other things you need.

Austin Wilson:

It’s really interesting. Aside from emergencies, I’m going to put that in a separate category, there are no surprises.

Josh Robb:

Should not be.

Austin Wilson:

Financially, aside from emergencies.

Josh Robb:

Should not be any surprises.

Austin Wilson:

And we’ve talked about how to plan for those, but you know what bills are coming. A lot of them are the same, or a lot of them are on the same date, you know what you spent, so you shouldn’t be surprised every month. That’s all this planning discussion’s all about is. It’s not very difficult, but I think that is something that if you live on such a tight checking account life, the beginning of the month, when that paycheck comes, that mortgage is taking it all out.

Josh Robb:

Then that’s a problem.

Austin Wilson:

You need to work on understanding that fluctuation and building it up during a certain time so they don’t come down during a certain time and all that.

Josh Robb:

The same is true with property tax, right? You pay it regularly, either once a year or twice a year, depending on how you like to do it. But either of those is a big check, and if you’re counting on that one paycheck, it’s just not going to work. The other months, you got to be saving for that so like you said, it’s not a surprise, you just got to plan it out. That’s all budgeting is doing is planning ahead.

Austin Wilson:

One thing that I’ve learned to do, and I think I cracked the code on, is without specifically, so there’s things like car insurance twice a year, property taxes once or twice a year, property insurance once a year. These sort of things, there can be pretty big expenses on a given month and if you’re pretty tight on a given month and haven’t planned for that, it can really ding what’s left in your checking account, right?

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Austin Wilson:

Because they’re not every month.

Josh Robb:

They show up.

Austin Wilson:

Well, I look at what that spending will be on a total year, and I inflate it every year just so I have enough saved once a month.

Josh Robb:

Divided by 12.

Austin Wilson:

Automatic, divided by 12, and then round up a little bit, automatically transfer money to a savings account I never see, and that is called my accrual account, which I’m essentially doing what you would do at a bank with property taxes and insurance or whatever with escrow. But you’re essentially doing that and then you have an account already ready for that and you can link a lot of this stuff to automatically come from that account.

Josh Robb:

Yeah, there you go.

Austin Wilson:

It’s great. But that’s how you can plan ahead for some of these bigger expenses and you’re not tied to the one paycheck.

 

[15:11] – Plan for Your Savings

Josh Robb:

That’s right. There we go. Another thing is leaving savings out. I talked about 50/30/20, sometimes the 50/30 gets a little bit bigger than 50/30 and then you don’t have much left. You got to plan for savings.

Austin Wilson:

Saving is spending.

Josh Robb:

Don’t just count on, “I’ll save whatever’s left at the end of the month.” No, no, plan ahead, make that one of your top priorities.

Austin Wilson:

Absolutely.

Josh Robb:

Plan to save, and then the other one is being overly restrictive. A budget, again, it’s more of a freeing process than anything. You don’t want to be so stringent on your spending that it causes you to then over-indulge because you get so frustrated. You want to have some flexibility. You also want to be able to reward yourself and enjoy along the way. See, it’s that balance. It really is.

Austin Wilson:

Absolutely.

 

[15:52] – Budgeting on Net Vs. Gross Pay 

Josh Robb:

Then we already mentioned this, but planning on your net, not your gross pay.

Austin Wilson:

Oh, yeah.

Josh Robb:

Gross pay is your full before anything’s taken out, that’s the starting point, and then taxes are withheld, then you have your net pay. You need to budget on the net.

Austin Wilson:

For example, if you make $60,000 as your salary, your gross pay is $5,000 a month. You don’t make your budget on $5,000 a month because you don’t see $5,000 a month.

Josh Robb:

You don’t get it.

Austin Wilson:

You might see $4,000 or $3,500 a month. Just know whatever’s being deposited into your checking account, that’s what you build your budget on.

 

[16:24] – Budgeting as a Couple is Teamwork 

Josh Robb:

Correct. Now here’s one. If you are a couple, not working as a team. You could set up your own budget and then get mad that your spouse isn’t following it. Well, did they agree to this budget? Did they help you design this budget?

Austin Wilson:

Did you come up with the goals together?

Josh Robb:

Yes, and that’s always important because when you are a couple, you really need to make sure that you’re on the same page on what you’re trying to achieve. Working as a team is huge and developing it, tracking it and adjusting it, you have to do that together.

Austin Wilson:

This is where it’s not a one size fits all approach in terms of how couples manage money. But this is where, in a lot of instances, I think it’s better for couples to use joint accounts. Because then there’s an accountability there and it’s really easy for both of you to log in and see the same, “Oh, well here’s how we are at any point in time” without having to bug the other one or whatever. It just helps you be on the same page. Again, not always a one size fits all approach, but it’s what works. I know for me, it’s just really easy to understand that way.

 

[17:23] – Don’t Budget on Non-Guaranteed Future Earnings 

Josh Robb:

Yep. Don’t budget on future earnings that you don’t have.

Austin Wilson:

Oh, yeah.

Josh Robb:

That’s a big one. That it’s like, “Well, I can get this expense because I think I’ll be able to afford it as I get raises, bonuses, those type of things.”

Austin Wilson:

A bonus thing is a thing.

Josh Robb:

Bonus is a big one. Never count on a bonus that isn’t guaranteed. You’ll hear a lot of employees do that where they think, “Well, I’ve got it the last handful of years, I’m going to start counting on that.”

Austin Wilson:

Don’t count on it.

Josh Robb:

It’s not guaranteed.

Austin Wilson:

It’s a bonus for a reason.

Josh Robb:

It’s a bonus. Don’t depend on future earnings, so don’t overbuy to say, “Well, this new car expense that I have, well, eventually, it’ll fit in my budget, but it’ll be over for a little while.”

Austin Wilson:

Or housing.

Josh Robb:

Housing’s a big one.

Austin Wilson:

There was this old saying that was like, “Buy more house than you need and more house than you can afford,” or something. That’s an old saying that people would use because you’re going to make more money. That was the old thinking.

Josh Robb:

You’d grow into it.

Austin Wilson:

And you’re going to have a bigger family and all this stuff, and I don’t think that that’s a financially good thing to think.

Josh Robb:

No, definitely not.

Austin Wilson:

Don’t buy a house you can’t afford now.

Josh Robb:

No.

Austin Wilson:

Comfortably.

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Austin Wilson:

Don’t be house poor.

Josh Robb:

Yes, you don’t want to be house rich, cash poor.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah, not cool.

 

[18:29] – Having Minimal Financial Accounts 

Josh Robb:

Nope, and then the last one, number 10 is do not have too many financial accounts. What does that mean? It means make sure you can clearly understand your financial situation. For instance, I think the biggest one would be credit cards. If you use credit cards, is that if I have five credit cards, I may not be able to quickly understand the total amount of debt that I owe because I look, “Oh, it’s only a thousand dollars. That’s fine.”

Fine, and then the other ones start showing up, you’re like, “Well, I didn’t realize how these all added together.” Just be careful how many accounts you have to know exactly how much money you have and how much debt obligation you have to pay? How many is too many? I don’t know. Probably just depends how easy it’s for you to track. But in general, the simpler you can make life, the easier.

Austin Wilson:

I even think that in a lot of instances it may be worth foregoing a teeny benefit or a teeny percentage of better cash back or whatever to keep things simple. It may not be the best on paper because you’re not getting as much cash back or you’re whatever. But I think that just keeping it in one place is ideal if possible.

Josh Robb:

Yeah, I think you’re right. I agree. Well, those are the 10 pitfalls that we had. Hopefully, this was helpful in giving you some encouragement for budgeting. It is not easy getting things started at the very beginning, but the goal, like Jessica wrote in her blog, is to get to the point where budgeting is second nature and you’re really not tracking it as often as you were in the very beginning. You get comfortable with understanding you’re spending where you’re just budgeting off of autopilot, which is the goal.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Josh Robb:

Hopefully, this was helpful. If you know somebody who was asking about budgeting, share this podcast with them. Also, subscribe and leave us a review if you can. That would be great.

Austin Wilson:

That would be great. Well, until next Thursday, happy budgeting.

Josh Robb:

All right. Talk to you later.

Austin Wilson:

Bye.

Thank you for listening to The Invested Dads Podcast. This episode has ended, but your journey towards a better financial future doesn’t have to. Head over to theinvesteddads.com to access all the links and resources mentioned in today’s show. If you enjoyed this episode and we had a positive impact on your life, leave us a review. Click subscribe and don’t miss the next episode.

Josh Robb and Austin Wilson work for Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. All opinions expressed by Josh, Austin or any podcast guest are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. Clients of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. There is no guarantee that the statements, opinions or forecasts provided herein will prove to be correct.

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