Transform Your Finances with Values-Based Budgeting with Sherry Andrew

On this episode we speak with Sherry Andrew, a former manufacturing plant worker turned financial coach, who shares her personal journey from getting fired to mastering her finances and helping others do the same. 

Sherry discusses the impact of a single-income household on budgeting, the importance of aligning finances with personal values, and the transition into full-time self-employment. 

The interview also delves into addressing scarcity mindset, the power of having an abundance mindset despite financial constraints, and practical tips for managing money, especially for entrepreneurs. 

Sherry emphasizes the importance of having a budget that matches your values and priorities so that you can feel more empowered with your money.  Download her free budget tool to help you do just that!

About Our Guest

After being fired from a career of almost 17 years, Sherry took a leap of faith to follow her passion for personal finance, and launched Money Mindset Financial Coaching. Through her own financial journey after her job loss, she found her passion and now focuses on helping others with their money. She recently discovered that she has ADHD, and this has inspired a pivot in her business. She now focuses on helping individuals who also have ADHD make shifts in their finances. She loves working with ADHD entrepreneurs because the added complexity of self-employment can add financial stress.

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Mind + Money Podcast

About the Host

Kim Hagle (she/her)  is a Body Image Coach, Certified Personal Trainer, Registered Holistic Nutritionist, and founder of Radiant Vitality Wellness. 

Through mindset and movement coaching she helps women develop a kinder relationship with their body so they can consistently fuel and move it in a way that supports their health without restricting food, doing tortuous exercise or constantly worrying about the number on the scale

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Let’s stay in touch! Kim is on Instagram and Facebook @radiantvitalitywellness

Disclaimer.  The information contained in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice.  Always consult a health care professional about your unique needs.

Transcript

Yeti Nano: 0:47

welcome back to the Power in Motion podcast, the show for women who want to feel great in and about their body, regardless of size, so they can live their fullest life. I'm your host, Kim Hegel, Certified Body Image Coach, SIZE Inclusive Personal Trainer, and Non Diet Nutritionist, on a mission to help women just like you develop a kinder relationship with your body so you can consistently fuel and move it in a healthy way. supporting way without restricting food, doing torturous exercise, or constantly worrying about the number on the scale. So today's episode brings us an interesting topic. We're talking about money today on the show, and you might be like, What? Why? That has nothing to do with movement or nutrition or health at every size. What's going on here? Well, you know what? This is the Power In Motion podcast and really, you know, we're all about helping you step into your power and in fact, feel the best that you can in all areas of your life. And I personally believe that health is so much more than just the physical, right? Our emotional health, our mental health, our spiritual health, all work together to form our overall well being. And I believe that, financial health factors into that. Like how we feel about our money, factors into our overall well being. Our guest today is Sherry Andrew. I've known her for quite a few years. We were in a networking, group for female entrepreneurs way back when I started Radiant Vitality in 2020. And I have always really loved her approach to personal finances. My own experience, as I'll share in this interview, with budgeting has always been really dreadful, for lack of a better word. it was very much like dieting, all or nothing. I either went all in with it and very tightly controlled every penny that was in my bank account and how it was spent, or I completely avoided my finances. put my head in the sand, didn't look at my accounts and, and just avoided the whole thing because I rejected that whole idea of feeling restricted around my money. Very similar to how I would with dieting. I didn't want to be restricted so I just like throw caution to the wind and eat everything. And I really like Sherry's approach because just how I encourage us to find satisfaction in eating and enjoy in movement. Sherry takes a similar approach with budgeting. And though you'll hear in the interview that she does encourage you to use a budget, it's a values based budget, which I love. It's all about prioritizing those things in your life that are important to you, and that may be different than other people. But making sure that there's room in your budget to enjoy life and do those things that bring you joy, while also being productive. So, saving for those things that are really important in the long term. So I think you're going to find this episode really, encouraging and informative and, and Sherry's just a great human being that I think you'll really enjoy hearing from. So let me tell you a little bit about her. Her story begins when she got fired from her career after almost

Yeti Nano-1: 4:03

17.

Yeti Nano: 4:04

years, and during that time she took a big leap of faith to follow her passion for personal finance and launched Money Mindset Financial Coaching. Through her own financial journey after her job loss, she found her passion and now focuses on helping others with their money. She recently discovered that she has ADHD, and this has inspired a pivot in her business, where she now focuses on helping individuals who have ADHD make shifts in their finances. She loves working with ADHD entrepreneurs because the added complexity of self employment can add financial stress, and she's got some skills to help mitigate that. So we talk about it all in this interview. We talk about the struggles of being an entrepreneur and having variable income. We talk about her whole experience with job loss and having to create a budget and, and live In a different way than what she was used to. We talk about scarcity mindset and how that factors into our relationship with money. And even our willingness to do those things that we enjoy. and at the end we talk about how Sherry's experience with finding out that she has ADHD has has changed her business and changed her outlook, but not in the way that you might think. Like, she has embraced her condition with such an empowered mindset, and I think you'll find it very inspiring. So, I do hope that you enjoy this interview as much as I do. Let's jump right in.

Kim: 5:35

Hey Sherry, welcome to the Power in Motion podcast. I am so excited to have you here today and talk to us all about money and how we can have a more empowered mindset around managing our finances.

Sherry: 5:47

So welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's a

Kim: 5:51

pleasure. So, hey, before we get into all of the good stuff, why don't you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and the journey that you took to become, to be doing

Sherry: 6:01

what you're doing now? Yeah, so it was a little bit of a bumpy one. So my background actually was in manufacturing. I worked in a manufacturing plant. I had been there for coming up on 17 years and was actually like, Making statements around, Oh, only X number of years until I retire. And the number of years, now that I look back was a little alarming because. It was a high stress job. It involves nights and weekends and shift work and all of those things that aren't very good for our health, mental and physical health. And then one day, completely out of the blue, somebody decided that I didn't have a job anymore and I got the notification that I had been terminated. And it was very overwhelming all of the feels through the next three or four days and then for months after that, actually, because things took a long time to get sorted out and one of the first things I did. early on was to sit down and look at our finances to really look at things to be, okay, we've got to change some things. And what does that look like with us now being a one income household grateful that we were a two income household before I lost my income, but we cut everything back to the bare bones. We cut things. I never would have imagined cutting. Hmm. We I did have a budget before I got fired, but we didn't really have a budget. We had a plan, and then our actual spending veered so far away from the plan because I could work overtime to compensate for extra spending, but my husband doesn't have that ability, so we were now a one income household with one income that wasn't flexible, it couldn't increase. And We cut everything back and that summer wasn't super fun. Bless my husband's heart. He loves to golf and he retired the golf clubs the day I got fired. And that led to me learning, like, how do I actually proactively budget? And how do I take it from a piece of paper to an actual plan that we're living within and not feel like I'm losing all of our lives to this budget that's so restrictive. And I learned so much. I figured out all of the things that made our life easier, even though it was harder because it was that one income and it was a drastic change, but that led me to, Oh, wait, what does this look like for helping other people? And part of my termination package included some coaching of my own. And I was working with a career coach who challenged me after a trip, because one of the things I love to spend money on. A lot before I lost my job was travel and I had a trip rebooked to Peru to hike the Inca Trail, which was amazing. And the people who were on this trip, which they were strangers. And they love their jobs. They were talking about their jobs, excited to get back to them, excited for their growth in their jobs. And when I got back and I sat down with my career coach, she just, like, immediately said, something's different. What's different? And I was like, people like their jobs. Oh, weird. It was completely new information to me because, Work was money, and that was it, and I was counting the end of a shift, the end of a work week, looking forward to the weekend, and she pushed me to say, like, what does liking your job look like for you? What could that be? And I immediately sprang to mind, like, I love money. I love all things money. I wanna, I'd love to help people go through the transformation that I went to. Without that super challenging back against the wall have to event to open up more doors for them and I immediately I didn't even pause I said, Oh, but that's not possible that's not a thing. And thank God she challenged me to say like, is it, is it a thing. Have you actually looked at this and started looking and found out that. It is a thing. Yeah, financial coaching, financial, financial counseling, like those are careers. There is, is education and training towards those. So it opened up so many doors for me and thankful for getting fired. Thankful for that career coach to challenge me because Financial coaching is a thing and I'm able to help people go through that transformation and a couple of my favorite clients, they were able to leave jobs and move into full time self employment, doing things they love and having flexibility of time and schedule and who you work with. Like, those are all things that I didn't know were important to me before. Because I didn't have a choice and now being able to go for coffee on a Tuesday morning with a peer or a friend, it just, that flexibility is invaluable to me and you can't put a price on it. I

Kim: 10:58

agree 100%. Like I love entrepreneurship, even there are struggles, not gonna lie, there's definitely struggles, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Here's what I want to ask you when you're telling this story, like what an inspirational story, first of all. But. So many people in that situation that you were in would see this as like the end of the world and having to live by a budget, you know, there's a lot of like negative connotations with a budget and like that it would be restrictive and very confining and you'd never be able to have a life again. And like, I could just see a lot of negative thoughts around having to live by a budget. And then you're saying, I love money. And I'm like, how, what were you thinking? Like what's difference in your mindset that allowed you to feel so empowered around money when you're in this situation of having to tighten

Sherry: 11:47

up your bootstraps? I think it was the exercise of going through everything and seeing like, Oh crap, things are going to be tight, but things are going to be manageable. Like in black and white on paper. We could live within that one paycheck and it wasn't comfortable and it wasn't where I wanted to be for a long time, but it worked. And with the hard work and with those changes, we were able to do it and I saw it as a path to time for me time to figure out what is next. What do I want next? I was actually like interviewing for similar roles in a leadership position in a manufacturing plan and a few like things close by. And it really was heartbreaking to think about. Okay, now I'm going to have similar overtime weekends, but a commute was now going to be added. I was grateful before where I didn't have a long commute and being able to look at. Okay. Is this the life I want and looking at the different job descriptions and the opportunities that were available to me with my skill set that I had, I'm like, Ooh, this isn't, this isn't what I want. I've enjoyed the time to figure out our finances and some, some downtime, because in those almost 17 years that I had been at the plant, I had just head down work so much and never really had time to come up for air. And. Getting fired gave me time to come up for air and start to see the possibilities of what a life could look like that wasn't factory life. And did you

Kim: 13:26

have to get, did it force you to get really clear on your values and priorities in a way that you hadn't really addressed before?

Sherry: 13:33

Oh, a hundred percent. If I had looked at our budget the week before I got fired and thought, okay, I, we need to pare this down as much as possible for whatever reason, It wouldn't have been what it was the following week a few days after I got fired because my back was against the wall and we didn't have a choice and there wasn't an immediate path to income for me because like severance and lawyers and all those things were involved and that takes a lot of time. So being able to have that plan, it felt so freeing, even though it was a big shift and it was. really restrictive when it comes to looking at the plan in black and white, but it's like the restriction was a path to freedom, which even saying that seems a little ridiculous. And I'm a big supporter of your budget has to align with you and what's important to you. And some people really like, they want to have that more money in retirement, more money to put away for debt. And they want to like sock money away for freedom later. Yeah. Some people want more freedom now, and maybe they have to work a little bit later in life, but if they're doing something they enjoy, that's different. So it's figuring out like, what really is important to you? And is it reflected in your money? And if it's not, how do you change that? Like, I spend money on things that other people don't and vice versa, and we drive older cars, we have an older home, but it gives us that flexibility and being able to do a lot of things that align with what's important to us.

Kim: 15:19

Yeah, that's what I'm hearing is the difference. I guess that that's. Making sense as to why you weren't feeling bogged down by this budget as you set it up in a way that is important to you that aligns with your values and allows you to still have joy in life. Right.

Sherry: 15:35

Yeah. And I think that's it's

Kim: 15:36

a common misconception is that we have to give up all our joy and live by this budget.

Sherry: 15:42

Yeah. And, and if you think about a budget that way that's how it's going to feel. Mm hmm. So, and a lot of people don't. Resonate with the word budget. So if you're wanting to make changes with your money and the word budget just makes you feel all prickly and gross, like don't call it a budget, call it a freedom plan, call it a financial freedom plan, a time freedom plan, a retirement plan, call it whatever resonates with you. That helps you see what making changes with your money, what it does for you currently and what it will do for you in your future. Right.

Kim: 16:16

It's like getting clear on your goals, your values, your priorities, and then allocating your resources to make sure that that's all possible,

Sherry: 16:25

right? Yeah, like, if you tell me that you love to travel, and I look at your budget, and there's not a penny in it for travel, and you're traveling, And using a credit card to do that, and then you come home, and you're stressed, that leads to a cycle of like, how, how is that actually adding value to your life when you come home and you don't open that credit card bill because It's a point of stress for you because you know, you overspent and you know, you didn't have a plan for that. And when I support my clients to make that pivot to come home from a trip, you pay off your credit card with all the things you've spent on your travel with money you've pre saved. Like that pivot is significant because you're able to then travel and you enjoy it more when you know you're not coming home. to a big credit card bill and a pile of debt. So

Kim: 17:25

what I'm hearing is like an abundant mindset. Even though finances were limited and finances were tight for a moment, you still had an abundant mindset in the sense that all of the things that we value and are important to us, we can still fund and we can still enjoy life. Tell me some of the ways that you see scarcity mindset showing up, like with your clients or just out there in the world. And how, how does that affect people's, Financial

Sherry: 17:50

situation. I see it a lot with people who they're in that avoidance mode. And lots of people make decisions and talk about money from a scarcity place because they don't know any better. They don't see it. And one of the phrases that is kind of like an ick for me is that I can't afford it. I hear people say that. And oftentimes this is to our spouse, our partner, our kids. And a lot of the time, when I hear this, I can take it a step further and think, it's not that you can't afford it. It's that it's not something that's important to you, but sometimes that I can't afford it is so much easier to explain than, than it's not important to me. So if your friends ask you like, Hey, you want to go out for dinner on Friday night, we're going to this fancy restaurant. And you start doing the calculations in your mind about how much it's going to cost and For me personally, going out to a restaurant, it's not really high on my priority list, I'm a bit of a picky eater, sometimes it can be stressful, and I do enjoy quality time with my friends, but looking for alternatives. to do that. And instead of saying, I can't afford it saying, you know, why it's not something that I want to spend my money on or my time on right now. But do you want to maybe get a coffee on Sunday morning and just figuring out how to really stand in your values. And it's not so much of a trend right now, but a few months ago, the on Tik TOK, it's that loud budgeting around. No, I'm not going to go out for dinner because I'm saving for, or it's not a priority for me, or, like, I'm paying down credit card debt, so I'm focusing on my money, and those things aren't in my budget, and I, I, I love that trend, and I think we should do more of that, and get the conversations going around money, because scarcity can often come from feeling alone, and Because we're not talking about money, because there's a lot of like shame, we don't talk about that, we don't talk about our salaries, we don't talk about what we're charging in our businesses, what we're spending our money on, how much our debt is, we feel alone, especially when it comes to debt. We think, oh, the neighbors, they have a nice car, they have a nice house, they just went on a vacation, they're probably, like, they've got to be doing really well. And then you look at your own finances and you see, oh, we have this debt, we're not able to pay as much towards it as we want to. And we always think we're behind everybody else, but that's, that's not the case. Lots of people are carrying debt. A lot of times the people that are carrying the debt are doing those things. and living beyond their means and we don't know that because we only see what they allow us to see. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim: 20:47

And it's true. We don't talk about it. We tend to stay very hush, hush about our financial situation. And I remember hearing those messages loud and clear. Like we don't talk about what we make. We don't talk about how much things cost. We don't talk about what we spent on this or that. And there's a lot of other messages. I distinctly recall, like money doesn't grow on trees. And. We're not made of money and you have to save for a rainy day how do you think all these messages that we hear about money and particularly the ones that women hear and internalize, how do you think that keeps us stuck and, and, and not really making the best of our financial situation?

Sherry: 21:28

A lot of it starts with our incomes and our salaries. And by not talking about it, maybe we are making less than our male counterparts. There's lots of statistics around every dollar that a white man makes, a white woman makes less, and a woman of color makes even less. And it's all very scary because That salary transparency or lack of it keeps us stuck. If we know what the person who's working beside us doing the same role as us, hitting the same metrics as us, what they make, and it's more, that gives us the ammunition to go and say, like, Hey, I'm earning this, this person's earning this, we're doing the same job. And it holds the balance. Entrepreneurs back a lot in their business as well. When you come to pricing your services or your products, we get in our heads a lot and we undervalue ourselves because we just don't have that. Like, ah, yeah, I'm, I'm worth this. I'm there's a lot of shame around charging more because like you get in your head thing, Oh, so and so is not going to pay that. There's not going to be a market for that at that price. Um, In so many ways, we hold ourselves back because we overthink things, and we have heard a lot of things from our parents and the adults around us growing up about money, and those like, yeah, those phrases, we can't afford it, money doesn't grow on trees, we can't do that, like, we don't make as much as so and so, and the shame around money and avoiding it. And we either learn from the adults in our lives growing up. We either learn one way or another. So maybe they teach us healthy money habits, or maybe they don't talk about it and create that shame and Even from both situations, we can come out of it like following those paths or crossing and doing the complete opposite. If we grow up in a household where we got everything and we saw it creating stress for our parents or our adults in our household, we can then be super restrictive and think, well, they did this and they went down this path and I don't want to do that. And I'm going to be like, The complete opposite. So it's really, it's really challenging to work to find that balance, but when you do, it's so freeing to find those systems and that plan for your money. That's aligned with you. It, it just opens up so many doors and relieves so much stress. Yeah,

Kim: 24:09

I can see that. Like I know at different times in my life, I've either been very strict with a budget. or completely avoidant, right? There was, there's been no middle ground and both were rooted in scarcity. Both were rooted in there's not enough, so I have to manage it very closely and watch every single dime that I'm spending and make sure that I don't go over and certainly like those things that I love and enjoy, there's no, there's no money for that. So, you know, and save, save, save. Or completely avoided and just spending willy nilly until I get that credit card bill and feeling so much shame that I overspent, right? So how do you support your clients to take a more gray and empowered approach to their, to their money?

Sherry: 24:54

It starts with a task that is challenging and it starts by looking at where has your money been going. So this is often where that avoidance comes up when people want to make shifts with their money, but then they think about looking at where it has been going and it immediately like snaps them into avoidance. So first we peel back the layers on where the money has been going, which many clients have told me it's not. It's an exercise that's freeing in and of itself to be able to say, okay, now I know where I stand. I know where my debts are. I know my bank account balances. I know what my monthly spending has been. And then we take a step back and think about what things are missing from your budget based on your values and what things are in your budget that don't align with your values. And how can we make that shift? to add some things in that are important to you and take some things out that aren't important to you. And then the next thing is we take it a step further because lots of people avoid their money because they think this is going to take me hours. It's going to take me hours every week, hours every month. Life is busy. We don't have time for that. But what I love to help my clients do is simplify things. You don't like, okay, I love to track every transaction. I love to know how much did I spend on groceries last month, last quarter, last year. I love that. But I nerd out on spreadsheets and tracking and all of those things. And that's not necessary for somebody who just needs to get it done. There's quick and dirty options. We can look at using different accounts for different types of spending, using a credit card specifically for one type of spending and paying it off. in full every week. There's lots of systems that you can put in place that make the time very, very little to manage things. So spending 10 minutes on your money once a week, that's completely manageable for everybody. Like sometimes it feels like you've got to squeeze it in, but 10 minutes of time for your money that leads to a big change. And yes, it's like, It's like cleaning out your closet when you first start. It gets messier before it gets cleaner and you have to spend more work on the front end, but what it leads to is so empowering and it's, it's worth the time and it's worth the effort. And sometimes the only option for somebody is to have that, like me on your shoulder and be like, okay, we're meeting next Tuesday. Did you do the work? Right. And you probably see this as well too with your clients. It's like, sometimes. It's okay, you didn't do the thing. So now we have an hour together. So now we're going to do those things together. And sometimes it's just the, oh, I meet with Sherry tomorrow. I'm going to go in and do those things that I was supposed to do last week. Just that, like, that accountability is really transformational to help people get those things done that they're in avoidance mode over.

Kim: 28:11

And what I'm hearing you say is, tailor your approach based on each person's individual needs. So if they like to geek out and spreadsheet, you can set them up with an awesome spreadsheet. If they need quick and dirty and simple, you can do that too, right? So, thinking that it needs to be complicated. should not be a barrier to getting started and sorting out your finances.

Sherry: 28:31

Yeah. Yeah. Just the biggest hurdle for most people when they're making changes with their money or wanting to make changes with their money is that like you're digging your heels in the sand around getting started and you think getting started is going to be like climbing a mountain. And once you actually actively get into the work, you realize, Oh, Wait a minute. It wasn't a mountain. It was a hill, but it wasn't a mountain and it took some work, but it wasn't an overwhelming amount and setting a timer for 10 minutes and just saying, I'm going to do this for 10 minutes and then seeing how far you get, like just creating those pockets of time to start. And then you start to get excited about the work you're putting in and what you're seeing and what that can lead to. And it gets more exciting and you want to spend more time on it to get your plan going and moving. Yeah,

Kim: 29:23

yeah, especially as you start to see those things that you value, like, growing and some savings coming, right? Like, having that abundance start to build, I think that would be very motivating.

Sherry: 29:35

Yeah, I said this, I said this in a podcast that we recorded last week about how Your brain can be rewired. We, we often see a lot of impulse spending people, like the add to cart, the Amazon, it makes it so easy for us to spend these days. But being able to shift that excitement from getting it from spending to getting it from saving. Being able to see that bank account balance grow or your debt decrease really can start to give you motivation to get you excited about not spending and putting money towards your financial goals because once you start to knock some small ones down, those bigger ones seem a lot closer in reach than they were before. Yeah.

Kim: 30:24

Yeah. Those things that you feel like you'll never be able to afford, suddenly you're starting to see progress towards and it feels like, hey, I can actually have this someday. Right. Yeah. Now, you have some insight on this because I know like being an entrepreneur has its own unique challenges in that our income can be variable from week to week, month to month, year to year. So how, how do you help your clients manage the ebbs and flows of income when they're self employed?

Sherry: 30:54

Oh, this is one of my favorite things to do working with an entrepreneur to make changes with their money is so exciting for me because when you're working with a salaried employee, like they have a fixed amount of money that's going to come in unless they get a part time job or start a side hustle. So we've got a sturdier framework. We're working with them. When you tell an entrepreneur, okay, you're, you're here now, but to do all of these things that you want to do, you need to increase your income by 10%. They're like, hold my coffee. I'm going to go do it. So being able to get that clarity for an entrepreneur, because often we don't know what do we need to bring into our business to cover our expenses, cover our taxes, pay for all the things and pay ourselves. a consistent income that we need to hit our financial needs and goals and walking through that clarity. Because when I work with an entrepreneur, we look at the business, the income, the business expenses, and we look at the personal, the income and expenses. And a lot of time it's coming up with that. You need to bring in this much revenue per month on average into your business. To do all these things. And often it's this light switch comes on and they go, okay. And they do it, get to work and they get to work. And because a lot of times we don't know, we're just like, eh, like I made this much this month and it was okay. So maybe that's what I need to make, but maybe you weren't putting enough away for taxes. And the systems that I help my entrepreneur clients get set up with. Involve getting them excited to file their taxes. Because. The goal is to always like be a little cautious and reserved if you think you need to save 20 percent for your income taxes. Well, let's save. 22 percent 25 percent of your income, because then if you only needed to save 20 percent and you've saved 25, then you file your taxes and you look at the amount that you've either remitted already or the amount that you have in your tax savings account and you go, Whoa, there's there's an extra 1, 000 1, that is now money you've over saved. that you get to decide what to do with either in your business or on the personal side and it's tech season here in Canada and I've received a few message from current and past clients that were those messages to say like I have this much extra that I get to decide what to do with. Yeah,

Kim: 33:34

that is something I learned from you way back when I first met you and it's something that I've done and I love it like so I take whatever percentage off the top line of my revenue and I put that away for taxes, but income tax is only calculated on your net, not your gross revenue, but I still I take it off the net or off the gross. Sorry, I take it off the gross and then I always have a surplus. Right? I just pretend that I need to save this percentage every month, and then when income tax comes around, I never have to pay what I have saved, and I'm like, it's bonus time, baby!

Sherry: 34:07

And I love that, and a lot of times, Entrepreneurs, they let the bookkeeping get in the way of saving for taxes because they think, I don't actually know what I need to put aside for last month because I've avoided my bookkeeping, so I don't really know what my income is, and I don't really know what my expenses were, so I'm just going to do nothing because I don't know that right amount. But being able to pivot it and save percentages based on the top line of what came into your business that month, it gets rid of that need to know what your expenses were. And we make decisions, and I do it myself, and I recommend to my entrepreneur clients to take what's in your account that came into your business, in a weekly period, a bi weekly period, whatever frequency you're doing it at, and stash money into different accounts and give them jobs based on what these percentages are of, I break my income into my salary account, what I'm going to pay myself out of, my taxes, my expenses, and having that clarity then gets rid of the ebbs and flows of what you can pay each month. the higher income months, you put more into the account that you pay yourself out of, then you need to draw from it to pay yourself. And it helps compensate for those lower income months. And that helps get rid of some of the scarcity in your business, which can lead to like desperation and sometimes taking on clients that you know are going to be nightmares or working with people that don't align with you because If you're having a low income month and you're feeling desperate, you're just grabbing at any straw that will bring in income into your business versus, yeah, it's a lower income month, but I'm still going to be able to pay myself because I've got a buffer in the salary account that gives you a So much empowerment in your business to say like, Nope, this isn't the job for me. This isn't the client for me. We're not aligned. We've all had those like calls with potential clients or customers. I'm like, please don't hire me. Please don't. They're sending the red flags. It's like, Oh, let's, let's double the cost or the quote. Like hopefully they'll. They'll go away or hopefully they'll pay me that amount. But really being able to say like, we're not, we're not a good fit. Let me refer you to a couple of people that may be more aligned with you. It's so empowering to be able to do that and take those decisions back into your own hands. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim: 36:42

So, yeah, so several different accounts for your business and I know that you do that with your personal accounts too, right? Can you walk us through how you manage your personal

Sherry: 36:50

spending? All of the accounts. All of the accounts. So, I am a visual person. I like to see things separated and I like to be able to, Open my banking app and clearly see how much money do I have set aside for this thing. So, on the business side, that's taxes, salary, all those things. On the personal side, I have different accounts for different purposes. So, some are fun. Like vacation savings, like new technology, gifting, but some are necessary, car maintenance, home maintenance, annual insurance payments, like, so every pay, money just goes into these separate accounts so that I know, like, it's just, it's annual insurance renewal time for us, so when I get the bill, I look at, okay, how much am I putting into this account every two weeks, does it add up to what my bill is this year, or do I need to make, So what can often derail people when they're starting to budget is they have an expense come up. That's one of these larger expenses. Maybe your car's in the shop and it's going to cost 1200. You didn't have that budget line in your plan. So you throw your hands up like budgeting doesn't work. Cause now I have to use my credit card for this expense. And now my credit card debt is just going up and it's obviously garbage and doesn't work. Let's throw it all out. But being able to look at those annual expenses and break them down into how often you pay yourself. And every time you get paid, putting a little money into these different accounts means you get to the time when that expense is there, and then you have the money there. And it's not a perfect system. Sometimes you have 500 in a car maintenance account, and you have a 1, 000 repair bill, and you've got to juggle things around a little bit. But having 500 is better than having zero and having to stress about that whole amount. And if something in your budget isn't working, just give it a tweak. Like so many of my savings accounts came from, Oh crap, I didn't think about this. I have to figure this out. How do I figure it out? So that's not a problem next time. So I years ago went into the Rogers store to get a new cell phone because mine had just stopped working. And they said, okay, great. Your bill is going to go from 45 a month to 115 a month. Um, no, it's not. Goodbye. And I went to the Apple store, which was in the same mall. And I went, I need a new phone so that I could keep my 45 plan. And then later that week, I'm doing my budget. And I went, Oh, that phone costs quite a bit of money. It wasn't in my plan. Where do I get the money from? And how do I stop it from happening again? I'm not going to take money from the car repair or the home maintenance fund because those things could come back to bite me in the future. So I'm like, Oh, I guess I'd take it out of my vacation fund, which wasn't something I wanted to do. So then the new technology account was born with a small transfer every two weeks, just to cover the next time the phone dies and I like to hold on to things longer than Some people, and there's no judgment around what's important to you. Maybe you want a new phone every year, but what does that look like in your plan? And if you're doing it through your provider, what is it really costing you? And how do you evaluate what decision is best for you? Right,

Kim: 40:39

right. So it's, it's not a perfect system, but it's a work in progress. And like, you're taking those mistakes, if you will, and turning them into learning opportunities and just constantly adjusting the plan so that you don't end up.

Sherry: 40:51

Stuck. Yeah. And it, it gives you, it gives you freedom and flexibility. And so many people would end up with, okay, that's now on your credit card bill. Well, do you put it on your credit card? Well, maybe you just go back to the Rogers store and you add, I can afford 115 a month. So you're, a lot of those decisions often become short term pain of that charge going on your card or like longer term, more costly. And like, if I do the math, that extra increase in my plan pretty quickly adds up to paying for the phone and cell phone providers in Canada, they're not super flexible. So you can't just pay for your phone and call them up and be like, I'd like to get that 45 plan back. They're going to laugh at you. And yeah, to, to this day, we're still holding on to those 45 a month plans, which is like, it's almost unheard of here. Oh, it is. It is going with, uh. lower, like less reliable provider. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim: 41:53

A hundred percent. Yeah. And having that money in all those different accounts that gives you that ability to make. empowered decisions. Instead of having to make a choice on the spot that maybe isn't in your best interest, you can really think it through because you've got a

Sherry: 42:09

buffer. And yeah, it can seem counterintuitive a lot of times too, because I'll have clients come to me that say like, well, why would I put money into these accounts when I'm carrying high interest, high interest debt on a credit card? Like Sherry, this doesn't make sense. I'm paying 25, 30 percent interest on this credit card, and I'm also putting 500 a month into these different savings accounts. Why? And it really comes down to the psychological point of it, where if you can have this money in these savings accounts and you can build up your plan so that when that expense comes You can then avoid adding to your credit card balance. And if you can get in the position where you're not relying on your credit card to cover the speed bumps and the emergencies in your finances, in your life, you start to see that credit card balance trend down consistently. Then that gets more motivating. And then you find ways to get creative, to put more money towards that credit card balance, to see it go down even faster. So yes, from a numbers perspective, Putting every penny you can towards your high interest debt makes the most sense. But from an emotional standpoint, you feel like you're not winning. When you see that credit card balance go up and down and up and down and up and down, but you get it trending down. Yeah, you, it starts to stoke the fire. It is kind of

Kim: 43:33

counterintuitive, right? Like everything we've been taught is like pay the biggest debt first, right? But then you never get outta that emergency cycle. Yeah, if you're never building up your wealth and your savings, if you just bounce from one emergency to the next, like building up that credit card balance. So yeah, I can see how that would work. That's really great. This is a really valuable conversation. You've given us a lot of practical tips that we can use. Is there anything else that you feel is important to share today before we start to wind

Sherry: 44:05

down? The biggest thing is, and I touched on this earlier, is if you want to make some changes with your finances. Don't wait for Monday. Don't wait for the first of the month. Don't wait for the start of the new quarter, the start of the new year. Just start. It's scary, but continuing to be in avoidance mode is a lot scarier from someone who was in avoidance mode all of the time, who thought I was budgeting and then every month without fail got a credit card bill. Four, two, three, 4, 000. That wasn't part of the plan that then like created that cycle of over time and not getting to have a lot of time for myself and my family and working for the dollars and not working. For my life to be able to find what was important to me. So just start. Find a buddy who wants to make some changes too and start talking about money. Maybe that's your spouse or partner. Yeah, figure out, figure out what can create accountability. And maybe that's working with a professional, like a coach like myself, but maybe it's just having those conversations once a week with your spouse or partner or close friend and being able to just keep each other motivated because things are going to get hard. No matter what you do, there's going to be hard times in your money and Sometimes having that person beside you, like going through those challenges too, is what you need to keep going. So just start, set a timer, do something for half an hour today and half an hour next week and just get the ball rolling to peel back the layers on. Where your money's been going and where you want it to go, where you want it to go. And

Kim: 45:42

you have a great tool that you're sharing with our listeners to help them start that process. So in the show notes, yes, tell us

Sherry: 45:49

about it. Yes, I, like I said, spreadsheet nerd, I have a free budget tool where you can Put all your numbers together and it does all the math for you, because full disclosure, I love a spreadsheet, I love money, I love numbers, but I can't math for crap, so I, I rely, some of the calculations that I have to pull my phone out when I'm on a client meeting sometimes are embarrassing, but I, I can't do a lot of math in my head, so I fully own that, so, Having a tool where it can help you not only do the math, but help you think of those budget categories that you might not be thinking of, because we think about how much is my monthly mortgage payment or my monthly rent and what's my phone bill and how much is my insurance, but we don't think about How much did I spend at the vet last year? How much did I Holiday spending. Yeah, how much did I spend in these bigger categories that are larger, infrequent amounts that don't come up when we think about, okay, here's what I spent last month and let's build my budget around that. And being able to include those larger things is important for the sustainability of a budget long term. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Kim: 46:58

Yeah. So you can download that at the link in the show notes. It is free. So go and get that. And then for our listeners who want to stay in touch with you, where can they find you on the interwebs?

Sherry: 47:11

So I'm a big fan of social media. If you want to come and see my face, come and follow me on Instagram and also on TikTok. Instagram, a little more structured, sometimes over on TikTok, it's where I kind of let my hair down and just throw something on there that I have as an idea that popped into my head or a question somebody asked me. So TikTok and Instagram is where you will see me the most. And I love. Interacting. So if you have a question, I'd love to get a DM from you because that inspires my content. Because if you have the question, somebody else has the question and they're just too afraid to ask. So ask those questions and let's start the conversation. Let's start talking about money as much as possible.

Kim: 47:54

For sure. And speaking of talking about money, you got a new

Sherry: 47:57

podcast. Yes, yes. A lovely financial planner, Val and I have started a podcast. We're four episodes in. So our podcast is focused on content around money, but also around ADHD. So interacting with ADHD and money is what we've started to focus on, but we're also going to be leaning into life and ADHD. And what do we do with our lives that help us make changes and do the things we want to do? Because ADHD creates a lot of barriers for us and it's kind of like doing life on level 10 when everybody else is doing life on level like two or three and we can beat ourselves up and we can get distracted when things don't happen perfectly the way we want them to. So we just want to help everybody figure out how can you make some changes with your money and with your life with ADHD because I've learned a lot about myself personally. not officially diagnosed, but thanks to a good family doctor medicated, which has been so helpful. And as women, we are often not diagnosed and we don't feel comfortable speaking up because we don't present those traditional, uh, symptoms. But if, if I could put a speaker in my brain, when I laid my pillow, wait, laid my head on my pillow at night, I think my husband would be shocked because I don't present, I don't have the shaky leg. I don't have the fidgets. It's just like my brain is on high speed all of the time with a million ideas and entrepreneurship. That's a blessing and a curse because we can have a lot of ideas. But we don't have the time to implement all of the ideas, which can sometimes mean we don't implement any of them. So just being able to help inspire and motivate and share our challenges with what we go through and solutions that we found to help us navigate those challenges.

Kim: 50:04

Yeah, and normalize the experience, right? We didn't really get into the ADHD side of things today, but it's another area where there's so much shame and stigma, and there's so many people who have this, like, why don't we just talk about it and normalize it and figure out how to work with our brains?

Sherry: 50:23

Yeah, and, and for so many, ADHD, we see it as a challenge, but being able to figure out how we can create challenges for us because the thing like challenge is one of the things our brain thrives off of. If we can create those motivators for challenge. And a lot of times I share with others, like I'm going to do this. Before the podcast had been out, I was talking to a lot of people about like, we're gonna launch a podcast in March of 2024. And the it got real sticky sometimes because we had some challenges with technology and all of those things. And then figuring out how to get it on the different platforms and If you look right now, it may be duplicated on Apple Podcasts where you see every episode twice, but like, sometimes done is better than perfect, like, it's not harming anybody, each episode being out there twice, other than my perfectionist tendencies, but it's out there and having that self imposed deadline that I shared with others helped make sure it got out there in time. Yeah, yeah.

Kim: 51:26

Yeah, I have not listened yet, but I can't wait to tune in and, hear how you're, how you're approaching money and how you're approaching ADHD. And in both situations, I think you've turned what people can consider challenging situations you've taken a very empowered approach with both and really turn them into strengths. And I think that's one of your most admirable qualities. So, I really appreciate you taking the time to, to share with us today and be on the podcast. This has been such a great conversation.

Sherry: 51:56

Awesome. Thanks so much.