Have you ever felt like there was more month than money? As a six-figure earner, you might wonder how it is possible to make a good income and still feel like you don’t have enough to save, pay down debt, or reach your goals. The problem isn’t with your paycheck. It’s that you aren’t aligning your budget with how you spend money.
In this episode of Money Files, I dive into the common struggles many high earners face with their finances, even when making six figures or more. I discuss why a budget is essential, especially when things like lifestyle creep, life changes, and inflation are at play. I also share practical tips on how to take control of your finances, break free from the cycle of overspending, and ensure your budget reflects your reality, not fake math. Listen to learn how an intentional approach to spending can give you confidence and clarity with your money.
Explore why it might feel like you don’t make enough money and what to do about it:
- [03:02] Why you need a budget
- [04:45] 3 reasons you don’t think you make enough money
- [04:50] Lifestyle creep
- [06:55] Life cycles
- [08:41] Inflation
- [13:42] 3 actionable steps to align your budget with your spending
Tune into this episode of Money Files to learn why it can feel like there is more month than money and actionable steps to take to realign your budget with your spending.
Are you ready to start asking for help with your finances? Apply to work with me, and let’s start working towards your financial goals.
If you loved the discussion about why it can feel like there is more month than money, check out my episode, Ditch the Fake Math: How Your Spending Habits Impact Your Budget!
Transcript for “How to Align Your Budget with Your Financial Reality”
Intro: Hi and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work everyday with professional women and solopreneurs to help them get out of financial overwhelm and shame so they can experience more flexibility and ease with their finances. Are you ready to gain confidence and learn to manage your finances intentionally? Tune in and grab financial tips that will help you master the way you think about and manage your finances.
Keina: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Money Files. I want to talk to you today just about things that I hear clients say, whether that’s a potential client on a consult or just in general talking to people about money. One of the things that I’m hearing when I’m listening to people talk about money is they’re talking about they can’t do what they used to do with their money or I feel like I have more month than money. Or maybe you’ve even seen the reels on Instagram, or memes that make it feel like making $100,000, just kind of feels raggedy, like how is it that I make $100,000? And if you’re like me, you might be in a position where you’re one of the first people in your family to make six figures. Your parents have made far less than the money that you make right now.
And you might be in a position where you’re making double or even triple of what your parents were making, but you are in a place where you’re trying to figure out how is it that my parents were able to do all the things that they did and I feel like I’m kind of scraping by? Like I said, you feel like you have more month than you have money. And this is one of the reasons that I believe that every single six figure earner should have a budget. Too many people believe that budgeting is just for when you’re not making enough money and they hold the belief. You may be one of them that budgeting is about restriction, but just the simple fact that a hundred thousand dollars really doesn’t feel like it probably did at one time and or you thought it was going to feel a certain way but you actually just didn’t understand the value of a dollar. Both of those things can be true.
So I want you to have the skill of being able to budget to create wealth so you feel like you have something to show for your money. I don’t want you budgeting because you feel like it’s going to make you have a restricted lifestyle. So many of my clients, I get messages from them while they’re working with me after they start working with me, after they finished working with me, just about, they’re like, oh my goodness, Keina, I just feel so much more in control. This is the best decision that I’ve made and we’re taking the same amount of money that they’ve had, but we clean it up. If you’re on my email list a couple weeks ago, I was doing a financial fairy godmother series and all of those questions that you have in your head at night about money, those are the questions that we answer in my five month coaching partnership.
But also, those questions are the reason that you want to have a budget because it’s going to help you be in control and make more intentional decisions with what you want to be able to do financially. So back to why you need a budget. I want you to have a budget because when you have a budget you can actually get to know your money in an intimate way. I want you to have an intimate relationship with your money. I want you to have an intimate relationship with your spending habits so you feel in control. And when you have an intimate relationship with your money and with your spending habits, you don’t have to be scared of certain things that come your way. If you are someone who, I have a client who is a contractor and his pay fluctuates. Well since we’ve been working together, it’s okay that his pay fluctuates, like he’s still able to do the things that he wants to do.
Before working with me, he was like throwing money just in little places everywhere because of the fear that, I’m not sure how much I’m going to get paid in the next two weeks or the next month. And so let me just pay as much as I can right now. But he was actually creating the exact cycle that he thought he was preventing himself from being in. And that’s the fact that because of how he was managing his cashflow, he was creating the scenario where he didn’t have money in three weeks or four weeks and then is having to use a credit card to be able to cover some expenses. So when I talk about having this intimate relationship with your money, regardless of what’s going on in your life, you are going to be able to answer questions when you have a budget that allows you to develop that intimacy.
So to dive a little bit more into today’s episode, I want to talk to you about three reasons why you don’t feel like you have enough money. The first reason I think you don’t feel like you have enough money is because of lifestyle creep. If you were honest with yourself and you look back at your life 5 years ago, 10 years ago, you don’t have the same life, you are probably traveling more, you maybe bought your dream car, maybe you are eating out more, maybe you’re shopping more but you’ve adopted new habits, you’ve adopted a new lifestyle. And so there comes a point where you also have to acknowledge those things. If you went from not having a car payment to having a car payment, that’s going to influence your experience with your money, even if you did get a raise. I know when I finished paying off my student loans, one of the things that I did because I had a Honda Civic at the time, I went and I got a new car and so I basically traded my student loan payment for a car payment.
So I have to recognize that lifestyle creep in my own life because sometimes we can be in a place where we think like, oh well I’m not paying student loans anymore so I should have more money. But where did your student loan money go? We need to be able to answer that question. I’m thinking about my client Chrissy, she had kids that were in daycare and she’s like, I don’t understand how my kids were in daycare. I was spending thousands of dollars on daycare. I should have more money. Where is my money going? And so if we’re not actually answering the question based off of being able to look at a budget and being able to see where the money’s going, we’re going to feel the sense of like, I don’t understand why I feel like I don’t have enough even though these certain things have changed. And so some things are going to have changed in the sense of where you feel like you’ve gotten rid of expenses. I also want you to think about what expenses have I picked up along the way just because of lifestyle creep.
The second reason why you might feel like you don’t have enough money is also because of life cycles. Once again, thinking about where were you five years ago versus 10 years ago, versus now. A lot of things could have happened in the last 5 or 10 years. You could have gotten married, you also could have gotten divorced, you could have bought a home. So your living expenses have increased. Maybe you’ve had kids, so you’ve also started to spend money on daycare, you spend money on sports, you spend money on clothes, you are going to have extra costs for food, because if you added to your family that’s going to happen.
Maybe you graduated grad school and now you’re paying back student loans like that would also impact your finances. Maybe you even started a grad school program and you’re paying for it out of pocket. That would most definitely impact your finances. Maybe you had a cross country move, but just being able to ask yourself what lifecycle changes have I had, is going to really help you understand what has changed in my life that makes me feel like I don’t have enough. And even if you’ve gotten raises in these last 5 and 10 years, in a position where you feel like I’m making more than I’ve ever made before, these are still questions that you want to ask yourself. Because once again, sometimes we have this phantom number in our head that, oh, when we make $120,000, like I’m going to be rich like Oprah. But that’s not Oprah money you just told yourself that’s Oprah money. And so we have to be able to have these come to Jesus moments with ourselves.
And then the third thing that I want to talk about is inflation and just the sheer reality that things are more expensive. I want to give you a disclaimer right now that I’m not an economist. I did take two econ classes in college, macro and microeconomics. But even without me not being an economist, I can tell you that the price of gas and the price of a pound of chicken is a lot higher. I just googled really quick because I was just curious but just to give you a number, like a gallon of gas five years ago, the average gallon of gas, and this is just from Google, was $2.17 cents. 10 years ago it was $2.40 cents. And then in 2025 the average they say is $3.80 cents. Like gas has gone up by what? A dollar, dollar and a half.
So just knowing that can be really helpful to kind of frame where your money is going. The other one that I looked up and I’m laughing because I feel like I’ve been looking at prices on things since I was a small child, but I looked up a pound of chicken and when I googled it, they said like a pound of chicken about seven years ago was about a $1.49 a pound. And then in 2025 the average is $4.8 cents. So just thinking about inflation and the rising cost of things, that’s another reason why you might feel like, I have more month than money or I can’t do what I used to do with my money. And so I’m mentioning this because I think the biggest area that we have to look at in our finances is our discretionary spending, especially when it comes to inflation because the simple staples that you’ve bought year after year, they’re slowly rising, whether that’s the price of energy, like I just got a message the other day like, hey, your electric bill is going to be higher and your water bill’s going to be higher.
There are things that are happening. So if we’re not paying attention, it’s like these little things, a dollar here, a dollar there that are making you feel tighter. So if everything is an extra dollar or even as $3 added to it, those things over time can add up. And what you thought you spent at the grocery store may not really be the true number that you’re spending at the grocery store anymore. So your habits might not have changed at the grocery store, but the fact that the prices have changed at the grocery store are going to shift things for you. I was just having this conversation with a client the other day because she’s like, Keina, like I’m making so much more money than I was making five years ago. I’m like, yeah, and you have three kids now and you are still grocery shopping probably in the same way that you’ve always been grocery shopping and prices have gone up.
And I want to put in asterisk here too. This is not a conversation about, leave the latte or like don’t buy the strawberries or that type of conversation. I just want to have a, hey, let’s get real with what’s actually happening and let’s make sure that there’s no fake math in how you’re managing your money. Because if you are using fake math, then what’s going to happen is you are going to experience this place where you feel like you don’t have enough and you feel like you’re not able to do the same things. And this is like in 2025, you have to take a look at your spending habits and actually have a true budget. So you’re not falling victim to fake math. And fake math is when you assume that you’re still spending the same amount of money you were 5 or 10 years ago, but you’re not. So you might tell me, Keina, I spend $200 a month on groceries, or I spend $100 a month on gas. Yeah, I think you probably did that 10 years ago, but you’re not doing it now. But in your mind, if those are the numbers or the estimates that you’re holding onto and those are the ones that you’re using, that’s why your money feels funny because you aren’t actually looking at the real numbers and seeing what you’re actually doing. And so there’s a misalignment.
So the simple solution here is that you have to get rid of fake math and create a spending plan that reflects reality. It has to reflect what’s actually going on with your finances today. So if you’re still with me and still listening and you’re like, okay, Keina, like what do I need to do and how do I move forward? The first thing I want you to do is I want you to get curious about your spending. So before making changes, just actually observe like what’s actually happening. Look at the last 30 days. What’s your grocery total? What’s your eating out total? What’s your gas total? The way that I tell clients to go through and do this is, you don’t have to go through and add every single number, but even just looking at the last two weeks, especially if they feel like “normal weeks,” and when I say normal, I mean like, oh well Keina, I was out of town, or Keina, I had friends in town.
Find a week where you feel like you’re doing your normal cycle of things, your normal cycle of life and see how many times you went to the grocery store in a week, see what you did in another normal week and add those two numbers up and multiply it by two. If you spent a hundred dollars one week at the grocery store, the next week you spent like $80, that’s $180. So I would assume that you probably spend somewhere around 360 on groceries. So maybe you’re one of those people telling yourself, I only spend $200 a month on groceries. No, you spend about 360, probably $400 a month on groceries. So you are just taking a dipstick of what reality is for you right now, especially with the fact that we just talked about prices changing. You can do the same thing for eating out.
You can do the same thing for your gas. If you’re looking at your gas, like look at the last 30 days, how often were you filling up on average?
You don’t need to do literal math for this average, but on average I fill up about one time a week. Sometimes I do twice a week. So let’s just say you fill up five times a month, how much is it to fill up your tank? That’s pretty much like the starting number that I would go and use in your spending plan for your gas budget. And remember, these numbers are all flexible. We’re building a spending plan that you’re supposed to have a relationship with. So as you learn yourself and you understand your financial patterns, then you can go and adjust these numbers as needed. The next thing I want you to do is to compare your perception with your reality. So where are you still using numbers that don’t add up. Look at the numbers that you’re writing down and where are you not being honest with yourself? If you’re telling yourself that you don’t eat out, look at the last 30 days, did you eat out? Chipotle counts as eating out guys.
People like to tell me that they are reformed and they’re not eating out. And I’m like, you went to Chipotle? Listen, I’m not villainizing the Chipotle, but you’re not calling it what it is. Eating out doesn’t always mean that you go to a restaurant. So go through and look. You could even put your coffee routine into an eating out category. So be honest with what’s happening. And then also look at what categories are quietly eating away at your income. So I think I told you guys in a former episode, one of my clients loves to go into the grocery store and just kind of like pick up a snack, essentially harmless, but it’s to the tune of about $12 a day, which is about $60 a week, if you do it five days a week. And if you’re doing that, that’s $240 for the month. And so once again, not good or bad, but are you doing that consciously? And are you doing it intentionally?
And if you can’t answer yes to that question, we just want to turn the light on. My nutrition coach is like, we want to make sure that you haven’t turned off the security cameras in your kitchen where you’re like, oh, you know this doesn’t matter, I don’t have to pay attention to this. No, it does matter. So when I put it into the plan and I say like, $240 for snacks, how does that change my numbers? And then third, I want you to make conscious adjustments. If prices have gone up, decide where you need to shift. In last week’s episode I talked a little bit about people, especially if people are having to go back into the office full time. So they’re being transitioned out of working from home, like what numbers are going to shift for you because of that? And if you can be honest with yourself, make conscious adjustments, your money is going to feel better.
So maybe you were spending $200 a month on gas and then if you’re going back into the office, what is that going to mean for your gas budget? What’s going to change? Like make the changes in your budget? Because if you don’t make the changes in your budget, you are going to have a budget that is full of fake math and there are going to be financial goals that you’re unable to hit because you’re not being honest with yourself. So I want you to know that a budget isn’t about restriction. It’s really about you being in control so you don’t feel like your money is disappearing. And as a six figure earner, you need a budgeting system, not because you don’t make enough money, but because when you’re not intentional inflation, lifestyle creep, life changes, they get to decide where your money goes and you don’t get to decide where your money goes for you.
So if you feel like you have more monthly money, let’s get started by actually looking at the real number because curiosity is going to be the first thing that actually helps you take control and helps you build that awareness. If you are like Keina, where should I start? You can download my spending plan, if you go to the show notes. You can also just apply to work with me. If you are in a place where you’re like, oh my goodness, Keina, this sounds great, it feels overwhelming. I’ve tried to do this on my own before, but I feel like once I do it I can’t get started. Apply to work with me because you are going to get the accountability and support that you desire. In one-to-one coaching, we meet for 45 minutes one to one on Zoom and you have 15 coaching calls over the course of five months. So we basically meet three times a month and we are going to go through your numbers together.
You are going to be just completely at ease with the fact that you don’t have to do the thinking on your own. The questions that you have and you’re like, okay, Keina, well what subscriptions should I cancel? Like we can go through and audit your subscriptions together. Tell me about this. I’m going to ask you the questions. It’s going to be a dialogue. Working with me is not a place where you’re like, Hey, let me go binge spend and then I’ll work with you Keina, that’s not it. Come to me right now as you are. I am going to be able to help you make any decision that you are in the midst of making right now better than if you wait until after you make the decision. So I would love to see you on my calendar and have you apply to work with me so in 2025 you can actually feel like you have more money to spend drama free. Thank you so much for tuning in and until next time, have a great week.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to Money Files. If you’re ready to take the next step to reach your financial goals, head to www.wealthovernow.com/appointment and let’s get started.
