Ep.38 🤑 3 Crucial Steps to Survive a Tight Budget

[CFM COACH ASSISTANT AI ]: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Money's not yout Problem podcast. I am Madeline, your host, and today I'm reporting directly from the Women in the Money Empowering Conference. It's a big name. I almost forgot. It is hosted by the Utah Treasurer's Office. And they've been doing this for about six years now. This is the second year that I attended, but they've been doing for a while. And it's a great initiative to help strengthen and empower women to make decisions with money, to learn how to manage money. And there are all sorts of breakout sessions. There's taxes, how to start a business, estate planning, and all other subjects related to money and women. It also encourages us to actually go out and make money. Last night they had a session, it was a dinner session. It was about budgeting. And I was really excited to see that there are other people teaching about money the same way as I am about budgeting. And they used the example that I used from Dave Ramsey, which is the zero based budget. It was actually kind of funny to see they used different terms for the things that we've been doing this time all along with Dave Ramsey. But anyway, it's great because that information needs to be out and it shows that our information, that information that's given, it's really important and needs to be applied and it works. That's the most important thing. Now, today I won't be talking too much about the budgeting, the process, but I'm going to give you a summary of one of the parts that I thought it was really interesting from yesterday. They were talking about how do we not stick to our budgets and what are some of the problems that we face when we have a budget and we don't follow, one of the things was that when we don't have enough income to make sure that we cover our basics and have money to spend and to do the things that we also need. And of course, if you don't have enough money coming in and you have a really tight budget, there are three options that you have to increase your capacity to manage your money, to cover your basics and make progress, even if you're paying off debt. And they brought out the three options that you have when you have a problem like this. One is you need to increase your income. That means you have to figure out a way to bring more money into the household. The second one was cutting down your expenses, spending less money. And the third one, which was one that really brought me into bringing the subject here on the podcast, is the 45 Frugal Joys. So they gave us some time to brainstorm ideas of Frugal joys, things that you can do still keep moving forward with your plan and not feel that life is a drag while you're paying off debt and you're working extra over time to be able to make the money that you need to cover your expenses. It was a fun exercise to hear from other people on the table. And they gave us a list of 45 things other than the ones that we brainstormed with our table mates. And I'm going to share those with you. I'll also have a link down in the show notes, so if you want to download, you can have that too. It's like an equation, right? If you don't have enough money, then the first thing you got to do is increase your income. How do we do that? Here are some suggestions for you. Adjust your W4. What is that? Well, if you work outside the home or if your husband is working or in your family, you have someone working outside, adjusting your W4 is really important. It's to make sure that you don't get a big refund at the end of the year when you do your taxes. And a lot of people see those, like, hey, this is so exciting. And it used to be my money to go to Brazil, I'm not going to lie. And we would have the money taken out. And then in March or April, whenever we did our taxes, we got the big refund. It was like, yay, we go to Brazil. Well, that means you're paying extra to the government. So they are using your money, investing and making more money while you're not. So if you adjust your W4, maybe the number of deductions that you're taking, maybe reducing from married to single, you reduce the amount that they take out from your check just to make sure that you're paying what it's supposed to. Of course, when you do your taxes, you're not going to get a big refund, but at least you're not paying more than you should. And you're getting that money in your check every month or every paycheck. So that's one way to do that. Now, if you're paying, having to pay at the end of the year, you're not paying enough taxes throughout the year. So there are two options there. You can learn more about deductions and use those into your everyday life. And I'll do. I'm going to do another episode on that later, later on in the year, or you can again adjust your W4 but in the other direction, right? So if you had married and you're claiming three on your dependent, reduce that from three, put zero. If it's still not enough, then you can change from married to single. Usually that's. If you put single and zero, that's the most amount of money they're going to take from your check. So if you're to pay at the end of the year when you do your income taxes, make sure you change your W4 so you don't have to pay. On top of everything else. You also have this IRS bill. If you have an IRS bill right now, put that first on your debt. Snowball, get the IRS out of your life because they will garnish your money. They're going to take straight from your check and you're not going to be in peace until you have that paid off. Another one they have here is of course is doing some side hustles. So freelance writing, coordinating events. So you could be event planner, delivering services. You can take some of those. You could do ride sharing services. So either you can deliver food, like deliver services. So if you work for grubhub or Eats, Uber Eats, you can deliver the food and you get a lot of money from doing that. It could be your side hustle and you could work at the times where you're not working at your full time job. Of course if you don't have a full time job, you can look for another full time job. But if you have difficulties with childcare, then while your husband at home or your mother in law's at home or your mother is watching the kids, then you can go and do some driving. Also doing Uber or Lyft ride sharing, those are great options as well. And the more you do it, the more consistent. Then Uber gives you opportunities to schedule rides. So then you're not at the mercy of whoever's calling you. You can schedule the rides and pick the shifts or pick the locations that you want to keep driving. I have a friend that's doing that and she's making a lot of money and she's super happy and she didn't have to learn anything new. She already knew how to drive. All she needed was the gps. They provide that and there you go. Do some social media, do some social media management. Or if you are good, you could do a va, a virtual assistant and you can do those things from home. You also could do some translation services. Although now with ChatGPT it's much easier to just put in there and ask to translate but you would be surprised. There's still some sites that offer the in person their services. So that means they're going to revise what ChatGPT creates. I have a transcribing podcast program and they offer do you want the transcription? But they offer if I want the transcription then by the computer or, or if I want the transcription done by a person, of course that person is going to read it, make sense of what it's saying, make sure that has the grammar right. And if the sentence is actually part of the context. So you can still do those jobs. You could do notary. And so people just say, hey, I need to notarize this paper. And you could just go to the place and get that paper notarized for them and put your stamp there. You could do some home cleaning, organizing. You could do licensed photography. So during the weekends or at nights or events, you go and take pictures for people. You can rent out a parking space. So if you have space in your garage and you don't have an extra car, you can rent that. You'd be surprised how many people would like to put like a project car or something in a garage, but they don't have that space, do some car detailing. So if you're pretty clean, you can go to people's house and clean and wash their cars and making sure that it's all clean for them at their home. You could also do some IT services if that's what you you do. Some people, educators, they can increase their income by doing some online tutorial. You could also create a blog to create a blog and to make money, just like a podcast or a YouTube channel, you would have to get advertisers and people to pay to be on your podcast. So then it brings more people, they sell more, and then they pay a percentage. You could also do some pet sitting and grooming. So if you're pretty good with dogs, you could take the dogs for a walk and let other people know around you that you do that. And you'd be surprised how many people actually want the help. And they also need the service. So they'll combine both. If you're pretty good at shopping, you could do thrifty shopping and then you resell it. So if you go, you notice that you can see if you go to different places like Goodwill or Desiree Industries, you're going to see some people that are always there early in the morning because that's when they bring the stuff, the newer donations out. So then they grab whatever it's best and then they Resell it on ebay. You could do that. And let's see another one. You could create a website or domain. You could do some graphic designing and let's see, you could do some baking and cooking. I know a lot of people that did that and I purchased things from them because they were doing it and if they're doing it and it was delicious anyway, but I wanted to help them. And there's people out there that want to help you, so they will do that for you. All right, so we talked about, of course you can also get a regular part time job. Also you could get just a regular part time job. The most important thing to remember is when you're broke, the best place to go is to work. Just like Dave Ramsey used to say. All right. Second part of the equation would be decreasing the expenses. In decreasing the expenses, you have to look at your budget. If you're not making a budget, that should be your first priority. Just to make your plan and see where the money is going. Where are you letting money slip away? So decreasing the expenses could mean you could do meal planning and instead of going out and eat out, then you make your plan for the week and you eat what you plan. And it's so hard because if you do that, then you learn that you are accountable to yourself. You follow through with your plan. Not only this skill is going to be good for your pocket and for your health, but it's also going to be applicable to other areas of your life because you know that you're a person that says that it's going to do something and you follow that plan. You can buy generic brands or you can use coupons and get the regular brands, but use a coupon so you can get the same discount about paying the same price as a generic brand. I've been doing couponing for, I don't know, my daughter is 14 now for about 13 years and I know that I can buy regular brands if I use the coupons and that's available and when it's not, I have no problem. I'll buy the generic. The important thing with shopping, when you're shopping with coupons is buying the thing when it's on sale and you have a coupon. That's when you pay the lowest price. Sometimes is buying the thing in the smallest size because the coupon apply, right? So it has to be that size matching with the coupon. But a lot of people just say, oh, just buy generic, all of it. And you don't need to. So always purchase things when you don't need it. The problem is when you need it, then you're going to end up spending a lot of more money than that. Also, they gave the idea of doing some home repairs. So if you're good at with your hands, you can do some repairs. And notice that these are not things that are related to being a woman or not. But this was in the women's conference. But men could just go and do some repairs when they get home from their regular job. You can just go and do some other repairs. And if you're good doing repairs anyway, you can just go do that. I know that at home I have a toolkit that I bought myself when, I don't know, for Christmas one year, I actually gave to a friend, I gave to two friends and I bought one for myself. I know I always know where it's at. And everybody in the house uses that because nobody knows where all the tools that my husband has in the garage, what are they used for? There are too many of each kind and we don't know which one we need. In my little toolbox, that was one of the best $10 investment that I ever did. I use that all the time and I hang frames. I do all sorts of things that you could do for other people too. So doing yourself not only could be a side hustle, but doing yourself, you don't have to pay someone to do it for you. That's a way to decrease your expenses. Also making sure that your machines and things are well maintained so that they don't break down. So go do the oil change. When it's time, rotate the tires. If you have a car, make sure that the car is clean. Keep it. If something is spilled, just go and clean it right away. Because if you're going to take it later on to be detailed, going to be a lot more money. Let's see. Instead of just buying new, you could replace things. Instead of buying new and replacing things, you could fix them just like we talked about, just like household things. But you can also do that with your things with regular items in. Am I recording? Are you kidding me? Where did it stop? Is it recording? Hello? So instead of replacing something, you can try to fix them just like your clothes. Sometimes you have a pair of pants that need a new pair, pair of pants that need a new button or a zipper. And if you know how to sew, you can fix your own things. Instead of taking to a tailor and getting it done there, you can cut down the energy usage. So when you get the bill, they give you A breakdown of where you're spending the most energy. Just look through those categories and see if you can cut down some of those things. Reduce the type of. Of the length of your shower, or help your family to turn off things that they're not using. And resetting the temperature, the thermostat a little bit higher, a little bit lower than you would love just for a season, just until you're back on your feet with your finances. Of course. Shop sales and use coupons, but only buy things that you actually need, right. That you use in your house. Buy it when it's on sale, things that you customly use. Also, you might want to cut down some of the things that you have on your grocery list. Sometimes we have little guilty pleasures, so you might have to put those away for a side. Eat at home. Eating out, it is more expensive, and you do that more often. So cutting down on the snacks and things that you purchase outside the home, that helps as well. Make sure that you're taking care of your health. A lot of times people say, I don't have money to eat well, I don't have money for this. But then you end up spending a whole lot more money with your medical care. You can grow your own garden and have the products that you want. The funniest thing, we have a garden in the backyard that my husband has. He takes care of it, and he plants all sorts of things. We had two things, actually, a funny and a sad thing. We had a hailstorm here in Utah a few weeks, Rock, last month, and it destroyed his garden. All the pebbles, the big pebbles of rock, just destroy all the plants. We had bushes of berries, and they got all destroyed. It was really sad. He had a part that was covered, and that part kind of stayed okay, but everything else was just scattered by those rocks. And so that was kind of sad because he had a lot of tomatoes. Those are really good to have at home. And the other funny thing is that we have a little dog, a Yorkie. His name is Oliver. And Oliver just found a tunnel because now by this time, the garden has started growing again. But my husband's not taking as good care right now. So Oliver found a little tunnel under the plants, by the tomato plants. And he keeps going under, back and forth, back and forth. And then we don't know where he's at. He's at the garden. So the other day he came back, and my daughter found on him a little, tiny little snail. I was like, what in the world? So he was walking, and he was probably walking under one of those bushes and a little tiny sleigh snail got into his fur. Poor thing. Luckily we were able to see otherwise he would have a little friend there. You can negotiate your rent, you can negotiate your bills. If you are paying off credit cards, you can call and negotiate your rates of the tax rate they're charging you. You can negotiate the interest rate they're charging you. We all know you can cut down some of your memberships you and subscriptions if you're not using. You don't need to actually cancel completely and think I'm never going to have that again because you're going to work from a scarcity mindset. But you can say, hey, I am going to pause this for a while and if you don't use it, then after six months you can cancel. But if it really makes a difference for you, then you can reinstall it. Just tell them that you won't pause it and then it'll be fine. You can also look for ways to improve your skills. That way you could get a better side hustle or get a better job. There are lots of free educational resources online, so you don't need to pay for any course. Nowadays you can learn anything. It's just when you purchase a course from someone, they just made sure that the, the outline or the lessons build on top of each other. They have. They're all in one place. It's. It's not a convenience, but it's pretty convenient to have someone that already did the research for you so you don't have to keep looking for the videos. And you know how it is when you go look for things for videos anywhere, you end up just getting distracted and doing something else. How many times have you gone open the computer to do something and then there was a notification or an email that you saw pop up and you end up even forgetting to do the thing. I do this all the time, so I had to remove all notifications. After I go through my emails, I close the window so I don't have that urge to go back and check anything else. And if you're doing something that you remember that you have to do something on the computer, have a piece of paper on your side and just write it down what you need. You can also do some DUI gifts. So I have a daughter that draws. I have a daughter who sews. So if I can convince them they could do a gift that I could purchase from them or that they actually have done several times where they gave something that they made to other people, you can buy non perishables in bulk. And I know if you're a family of two and you go to Costco, you don't need a huge gigantic bottle of mail. So you can maybe split with someone else that goes with you, and then you guys can split the bill and split the items. You can unsubscribe from marketing emails. Why is that? Because they usually offer. If you sign up for them, it's because you're looking for something that they have to offer to you, and their job is to sell you stuff. So if you unsubscribe of some of them, you stop getting those tempting emails for you to purchase something that you already like. So if you unsubscribe, that helps as well. Or marketing sometimes is to make you want something that you didn't know you wanted. So you got to be careful with that too. You might not even need something like, what did I get once? Oh, I got something for you to play pickleball by yourself. Because I don't want to play pickleball, but my husband does. So I just got that because they sent me an email and it looked like a great idea. Yeah, you can ask. He never used the thing, so was it necessary? Was not. I needed a present, so I got that. Well, that wasn't a good present. That wasn't a good use of my money. You can use public resources and entertainment. So a lot of streaming services, they offer you things for free or just a regular tv. And you can also go to the library for books or listen to those free trials. But if you do any free trial, remember to cancel before the time is up. Otherwise you will be charged. And let's see what else. And we have here. Just look through your insurance, look through your bills and see if you can negotiate. So these are different ways that you can do to increase your income and decrease your expenses. Now let's talk about the joy. So there are certain things that we love to do that cost money. For example, right now, there is money. Send it to me. There's this movie theater that they show the video, they show the movie, and you eat what they're eating in the movie. So one of the things they have is ratatouille, and it has everything that they eat throughout the movie. If you have ever watched that, you see there's the. The cheese and the fruit, and there's the ratatouille and all these. And she sent me that. I was like, I want to go do that. Well, it's $100 to go see it. And you have to get the tickets and it's on the same city I'm at. So I would have to travel to go at least to Vegas. They have one in Vegas, they have one in la, one in New York and one in London. I would love to do those. But right now I'm trying to be more frugal. So finding something that you can do that is fun, that you like it and it's not expensive, that is one of the ways to go when you're trying to keep up with your budget. So let's see. Right here we have read a good book. Again, if you cannot buy the book or get the free audible, if that's what you like, then you can go to the library. The only problem with that, you cannot mark the page that you like. You can enjoy a really good book. I don't know, cup of tea or hot chocolate, or just go to Starbucks and sit there. You just buy that one cup and that's it. Or if that is still too much, not every day, you can do it at home. I. My husband got this plant for me, this lemongrass plant, and I've been enjoying having some lemongrass tea that I used to have in Brazil all the time. I've been having for the past few days, and it's been great. And it cost me nothing. He had the plant already. You can explore a new neighborhood. If you like to go for walks, you can walk on the neighborhood. You can go to a garden and go and actually literally smell the roses. You can find and attend a fun free event in your area. A lot of the malls over here, they offer movies outdoors or they do yoga classes outdoors. And you'd be surprised with some of the colleges, they are actually open, offer community events that you can go and they cost very little. Or over here they have the Provo Rec. They have recreation centers here. And you can just go and join one of their events. Usually it's very inexpensive and you can take your kids and they have events for the kids, too. You can listen to a new podcast. You can go visit a museum. You can go exercising. You can just play with your puppy. You can host a chocolate tasting where everybody brings just one box of chocolate or a different chocolate. And you can now taste. You can meditate. You can just go up in the mountains or by a lake and just sit there and enjoy the nature. You can call someone you haven't talked to in a while. And sometimes I know people go away from phones, but one of the things that I love is to call my brother. Walter. And we spend an hour and a half on the phone. It is so fun. He's so funny. He has great stories. It's just such a fun way for us to talk. And it's been a while since I was able to have that. But in the beginning, when I first moved here, it made such a difference. I couldn't talk that much because it was expensive. Then we moved from this to. It was like the calling on call, call and collect. That's what it was. And then we went from a program that offered an international. And it was so expensive as well. My mom will let me call. And then I remember one year that she told me one week, well, we need to talk less because your dad just put the bill over here for me to see that. We have a place over there in the fireplace, my mom's house, where they put letters, something that was important for someone else. And he. The bill there. He wouldn't say to her, not talk to me, but he put the bill. And the bill was pretty hefty. So she told me we need to talk less. So I understand that. But nowadays you can talk anywhere. And so I remember doing Skype with my brother for the first time on New year's Eve of 2000. And now I can just call him from my cell phone. And I have a special plan on my phone. But if you don't want to spend with that, you can talk through WhatsApp or Facebook. They also have those options where you can just call people. You can host a potluck with friends. You can take a good nap. You can invite a friend over to a chat. You can bake something delicious with the stuff that you have at home. There are some sites that you put in the ingredients you have at home and it gives you a recipe. So then you can do that. You can take a dog for a walk. You can. If you're pretty good at this, you can give yourself a manicure, a pedicure. You can do some kind of diy. You can do some kind of DIY project on your own. You can plant seeds for a garden. You can take a bubble bath. You can just read a magazine or browse for a few minutes on the Internet. This is not a sin. You just put a timer and you just don't spend four or five hours there. But you can just browse it. You can take a free online class. These are always good. You can volunteer. You can go find something somewhere that you can go and do for people. You can clean out your closet and donate those clothes you can go to the farmer's market, but be careful to not to buy the stuff because a lot of times farmer's market have a really high price for things. So if you just go sample things and just walk around, that's a good vibe. You can go on a seasonal activity like apple picking, pumpkin carving. You can send someone a handwritten note. You can send an email to someone you haven't talked to in a while. You could take a tour, a local business. I don't know if I would do that, but sometimes they would have a specific route that you could go and try it out. You can watch the sunrise, you can watch the sunset. Let's see what else if I miss. Yeah. So these are some of the ideas that they're giving us to do for frugal joys. What are some of your frugal joys? What are some of the things that you really enjoy doing that you're not doing right now, that you could be doing instead of spending money now? All this, it's really good. But we have to deal with something that's really important. If you're not doing those things right now, they require change, and specifically change of behaviors and change your actions. You're not going to get different result if you don't change your habits. What do you do consistently? President Brett Wilcox talked about that for us to change, one of the best ways is to invite Christ into our lives. Right now. We just talked about on Come Follow Me in Third Nephi, when Christ comes back and he comes to the Americas when he's resurrected and he comes in and they're talking about the changes. And a lot of people think it's about the physical changes on the mountains and the valleys and all the what happened with the earth. But it's not only that. The changes that he's talking about to the more righteous people is the change of heart and repentance and the atonement make possible for us, for people that are trying to do what's right, to the strivers to change from what we are right now to getting better. So I invite you to invite Christ into your life so you can experience that change and have that strength with you to move forward. There is a quote that he says on the podcast Dr. Brad Wilcox on Follow him of that week that says you can welcome Christ without welcoming change. That is entirely true. If you invite Christ into your life, you're going to change. And that commitment to change is what makes us better every day. It's not that it's going to Change our value. While we are valuable to him, we are already valuable. We don't need anything else. But we want to improve. We want to progress. And with Christ on our side, it's much easier. Now, I know sometimes it's difficult for us to talk about money, but one of the ways that we can invite Christ, and that's the thing that he taught the most in all the standard works, is about prayer. We invite Christ by praying and creating that connection with our Heavenly Father. And through Christ, we're able to feel connected. I believe it was last conference, General Conference in April 2024, that one of the Relief Society general presidencies or the counselor talked about how the house is not strong. The rock, it's not what makes the house strong, and it's not the wood. It's not those things that make the house strong. When you build a house upon the rock, right, that scripture and that primary song, it is the connectors between the house and the rock. That's prayer. That's how we get strong, is by having our strong connections in connections with Christ and with God. We do it through prayer. So, okay, you can pray by yourself. But even though talking about money is difficult, what if you invite other people to pray for you? You can ask them, find someone that you trust. Find a community like we have the CFM Academy, a community. You can ask them to say, hey, I'm really struggling with this. Can you guys pray for me? I'm working on this money journey. You don't even have to be specific and tell what you're working on, but you can tell people, hey, would you pray for me? When we ask other people to pray for us is we're acknowledging humility that we trust that other people's faith can do for us. I'm going to read a little story that brother Brad Wilcox again told on this conference. Brad Wilcox told about his life during a. I think it was a Timeout for Women event in Florida. His daughter was about to have a baby. She was in this meeting with Sister Emily Belle Freeman and Sherry Dew and other people that were going to talk to the. To the ladies. And he was super excited and had Emily Bel Freeman by his side. And he's like, oh, I'm getting texts that my daughter went to the hospital. She's getting our baby, our. Our granddaughter. And they were talking. Then all of a sudden, as he was looking at the text message, they stopped coming. He was talking to his wife that was with his daughter, and the text messages stop coming. And he's like, uh, oh, is everything okay? And then he wouldn't hear anything. He wouldn't hear anything. He started getting a little nervous. So he sent a message to his wife and said, I really need to know what is happening, Debbie. And then she said, the baby is not okay. The baby was born, it was great, and it's not doing okay. So their son in law was rushing to the NICU with the baby and so he could give the baby a blessing. And immediately when he read those words, he thought, I need to pray. So he just went upstage. Sister Sheridan was giving her talk and she's like, oh, here comes Brad Wilcox. He has an announcement about his granddaughter. And she was thinking he was going to say, hey, it's a girl, it's a boy, or whatever. And he grabs the microphone and he says, sisters, the baby's not okay. The baby was born, but the baby's not okay. I need you to pray for me to pray for my baby and to pray for my baby's baby. And as he was asking for that, Sister Sherry Drew grabbed the mic and said, this is what we were born to do. We are born to pray. This is what women of the church, women of faith, we pray for each other, we support each other. And so I don't know a thousand people there. So they had all those women pray for his granddaughter. And sometimes we wonder if, okay, so what is going to happen there? And so in his case, his granddaughter is fine. She's now a, like he says, a precocious and smart first grader. This is in 2024, but not always. When we pray, we get the solution that we get when we pray. We're strengthening our connection to get the help from Heavenly Father that we need. It empowers us to do what is hard. And now you may thinking, okay, fine, so if it's a thousand people in Florida, then something's going to happen. But if I'm praying by myself, then there's strength in numbers, right? If I'm going to pray by myself, then something's not going to work, or I am not going to be able to face this tough decision with my finances or be able to stick to my plan. That's not true. The scripture says very clearly to go into our closets and pray to our Heavenly Father. It doesn't matter if it's one person, but when we invite others in, we're increasing that power of connection that we have and others are able to serve by praying for us. Imagine you stop your day to pray for someone else for something that you not necessarily need, but you want for someone else. That is charity and that creates unity amongst us. I have a friend that she was not doing okay. She was in the hospital, but the husband was in. Those tough guys didn't ask anybody for help. But when he saw that his wife was about to die, he posted a message on Facebook and he called out for prayer. And I said to my sister in Brazil, we're all praying for her to whatever was the Lord's will for them for her either to come back home or I would pray for him to be comforted and have strength to do whatever you think, oh, that's not a problem. They already have a 22 year old and it's fine. But they end up having later on life a little boy and he's probably, I think Christopher Matthew is six years old now. And imagine that now Matt would have to raise Christopher by himself. I'm also happy to say that Joanna's back at home. She's still recovering. She's actually went to a rehabilitation place and she's recovering. So that was in that moment, right. And what he wanted was the restoration, the blessing and having her well. And that worked for them. Just like when we give our names to put in in the prayer room temple, it's not going to be because there's kids in the temple. That's going to make a difference for me praying by myself. But I encourage you to think about a couple people that you trust that you'd say, hey, I'm working on this journey, I'm working on my finances. Would you pray for me so I can do things better? Now I know I probably went away further than I would want, but I really wanted to share these things that remember, if we combine our faith with good money management and money skills and applied knowledge and we've taken care of our minds, saying, hey, I believe that God can help me. I believe in a possibility that I can change. You can make a huge difference in your finance life and you can see opportunities and you can find resources because God is going to be guiding you. You're going to be finding those things. And sometimes people wonder, well, what if I don't know if it's God's answer to me or if it is just my mind or if I'm just seeing things. Well, I've heard two ways. One way is that if something is good for you and you've been learning and you've been filling your mind with good things and there might be a way that the Lord will guide you through your own thoughts. It's going to give you direction where you need to go, or it's going to help you identify a resource to be something useful to you. And also there's that, you know, you get confused when the thing is not for you, you got confused and you forget it. Right. Or you might, you might get a very strong impression that you should do something. But that's the importance of you learning how you hear the Lord, learning how he speaks to you specifically. So I wanted to share this with you directly from the conference. So remember our key parts over here. If you're struggling and putting a plan together for your money, money's tight right now. There are three parts of this equation for you to get back on your increase your income, decrease your spending, and increase your frugal joys. All this through the lens of faith and believing that Christ can help you. And pray always. All right, everyone, I'll leave this episode with you today. You can sit. All right, so I'll end here, our episode. I'm going to go back and run to another session right now, and I'll share more of that later on. Another episode. Remember, money is not your problem. Hate.