Regaining control of your finances isn’t just about hitting your goals—it’s also about who you’re becoming throughout the journey as you build a new financial identity.
In today’s episode, I emphasize the value of non-budget victories. These achievements go beyond major financial milestones like paying off debt or growing your savings. Non-budget victories can include anything from developing better financial habits to having impactful money conversations.
I share an overview of non-budget victories so you can start celebrating financial wins. Then, I’ll share examples of my clients’ non-budget victories and explain how these wins are crucial building blocks for long-term success. Finally, we’ll explore how celebrating these non-budget victories helps reframe your progress and encourages a growth mindset.
Join in as I discuss non-budget victories…
- [01:34] Why our brains focus on what’s not working
- [04:40] Why It’s okay to not reach your goal right away
- [06:25] The impact of celebrating non-budget victories
- [14:53] Why it’s important to celebrate every win
Tune into this episode of Money Files to learn how non-budget wins are the building blocks to financial success.
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 this conversation about non-budget victories, check out my episode, Sustainable Change: Take the Next Best Step to Change How You Think and Feel About Money!
Transcript for “Why Non-Budget Victories Are the Building Blocks to Paying Off Debt and Saving Money”
Intro: Hi and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work every day 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. As usual, thank you so much for tuning in. Today I want to talk to you about something that I do with my clients all the time. They are like, oh my goodness, Keina, your unwavering commitment to this is just really something that every single call I feel like you’re not going to ask me, but you do. One of the practices that I have on the calls that I have with clients is I ask them to start the call with wins. One of the reasons that I ask them to start the call with their wins is because, and I’m guilty of this as well, our brains have a tendency to shout at us all of the things that are not working.
I even have to pause myself in my journaling and in just like daily practices and force myself to say like, okay, Keina, what is working, especially my brain? It will have a tendency to go towards like, okay, what are all the things I need to fix? What’s not working? So I wanted to share this with you because it’s something that, like I said, I always am talking to my clients about this and also this episode is needed because I need my clients to always have this as a resource as well. But our brains can offer what’s not working, especially when it’s in relation to whatever goals we have.
So a lot of my clients, they’re coming to me and their goal could be to pay off debt or they want to be able to travel more, or they have a wedding coming up and they want to be able to pay for the wedding, but they feel like they’re not sure how they’re going to pay for the wedding because they feel like they don’t have any money or they just got a salary increase and they don’t want to blow their money. So there are a lot of different reasons that clients come and work with me and then along the way they have goals that they’ve set and maybe they just don’t feel like they’re reaching their goals. So they might feel like, Keina, I’m still seeing interest added to my debt, or like, my debt isn’t being paid off or I have this goal Keina, but it just seems so far away or I’m still struggling with spending more money than I should.
So there are these big problems. One of my clients used to be like, okay, you’re making this into a mountain and it’s really a hill. So let’s actually look at this problem in the hill state and not in a mountain state. But as a coach, I actually want to let you know that I don’t think it’s a problem that you haven’t reached your goal. I don’t rush to pay off debt with people. I don’t rush to make people cut all their expenses. I don’t rush to make people start saving $1,500 a month. I don’t rush those things. I think oftentimes when people come to work with me, especially when they’ve had their own budgeting trauma, is that they have rushed to reach some of these goals.
They’ve paid off debt in the past with a bonus and then they’re right back into debt. But I think because the paying off of the debt has been their North Star, they didn’t actually allow themselves to become the person who doesn’t have debt. Or they’ve started budgeting in the past and they overspent one weekend and so they quit budgeting because they overspent and they didn’t know where to go. But they never gave themselves the opportunity to build the identity of someone who can actually see overspending as just a data point and not a permanent marker of failure.
So when you actually decide that you want to make a change with your finances, there will be moments where you feel overwhelmed. There will be moments where you haven’t reached your goal and you feel overwhelmed because you’re still in debt or you feel overwhelmed because your goal feels so far away. I want to let you know that it’s okay that you haven’t reached your goal. You don’t necessarily need to reach your goal in 30 days. You don’t necessarily need to reach your goal in even 60 days. As a coach, I care more about who you’re becoming along this journey because I know that if I can get you to shift how you identify financially, then it means the results you have and that you create for yourself are going to be sustainable.
The thing that I want you to know is I don’t want you to have to live in that fear of what happens if it doesn’t work this time. Oh, I always get to this point. And you use all of your past financial, what you may consider failures to validate that you can’t do something different. So because of that, you don’t build up your financial identity, like you don’t build yourself up. The reason that I actually ask my clients to start with wins is because I need to build a foundation and I need them to build that foundation for themselves, that there are things that they do well with their money. There are things that they experience differently with their finances, and I need their brain to rewire and see that.
So the concept that I have, and if you are in the weight loss community, you probably have heard of non-scale victories. Well, I want you to think of non-budget victory. So let me just explain a little bit. So if you had a weight loss goal and you’re like, Hey, I want to be 120 pounds, that isn’t the only thing that you would be tracking. So your non-scale victories might be like, my pants fit a lot better. I only had one cocktail this weekend or I was able to say no to the french fries that I felt like were on my plate and I didn’t feel the need to continue consuming them. So those would be non-scale victories where you’re telling your brain to pay attention to the things that are happening, that are not just focused on the scale.
I am borrowing that concept from the weight loss, like fitness world to talk about non-budget victories with you. And so my non-budget victories are what’s happening for you that has nothing to do with, like, your budget? And when I say budget, it’s also, it could be the goal of, like, paying off your debt or wanting to have five figures saved. There’s your big goal that’s attached to how you manage your budget. I want you to be paying attention to what are the things that are my non-budget victories. I think it’s important that you are actually able to identify your non-budget victories because you become your own example of success. I don’t want you looking at Bob on the internet who’s screaming, woo, I paid off $10,000 or $100,000. You’re like, dang, I can’t be like Bob. I don’t even know why I picked the name Bob guys. I don’t need you comparing yourself to Bob. Like Bob’s got his business and you got your business.
You cannot be so focused on the social media aspect of what you see. I need you to be in your numbers. I need you to be paying attention to what is happening to you and how are you becoming your own example of success that may not have anything to do with you getting to that final goal. If your final goal is to pay off $30,000 worth of debt, I can tell you there are a thousand wins in between the moment you decide that and the moment that you reach that goal. I need you to be able to celebrate each and every one of those wins and those victories because you are going to become your own example of success.
When you become your own example of success. It means when you reach paying off the $30,000 worth of debt, you’re going to be like, dang, I’m like somebody completely new. I know that I’ve done this before where I’ve paid off debt, but like I didn’t trust myself once I actually got to paying off my debt. I also know that if for some reason I took on debt that I have all these markers of success that can show me I’m still on the right path. You need to become your own example. Also, when we celebrate non-budget victories, it will reframe your progress. Instead of you saying like, oh, my goal is so far away. I actually was talking to a client and I said like, can you tell me some of the wins you’ve had? And like, where do you want to go next?
And he’s like, Keina, I just have like so long. I have so far to go. I was like, okay, stop, pause, okay. I’m like, let’s just take a step back to where you were when we first started working together and where you are now. I’m like, you and your wife have actually set up allowances for your kids. Now when I look at your bank account with you, like you aren’t giving your kids money just all willy-nilly, like on a random Tuesday, a Thursday, a Friday. You are actually giving them, both of your kids have debit cards and not only have you empowered them with an allowance, you are actually having conversations with your kids about how they should use and manage their money and you are creating an entire different generational shift there.
Me having that conversation about that win with him is a non-budget victory. Like in their goals, the goal that they want is to be able to pay off debt. But one of the goals we’re celebrating along the way is that their kids have allowances. Keina, how is that a non-budget victory? Well, it’s helping them make sure that their kids aren’t continually dipping into their account and they have some clear boundaries with their kids because of the clarity with the boundaries they’re going to be able to have more money to pay towards their debt. When they get on the other side of not having debt they’re also going to have clear boundaries with themselves about their kids, how they want to give money to their kids and what’s not going to go into their credit card for their kids.
So that non-budget victory matters. It is not a small win. We’re not talking like that to ourselves. We are calling that a victory because it matters. Other things that I was able to reframe for him is I’m like, can you tell me the last time you told me you had to wait until payday to pay a bill? I was like, that right there is revolutionary. It has nothing to do with the fact that they still want to pay off their credit card debt, but it is one of the foundational building blocks for them to get on the other side where they have actually paid off their debt. I am helping them create and become their own example of success and they are able to see themselves in a different light than when they first started working with me.
So those are the same things that we have to always be able to do for ourselves, especially when we’re working towards new financial goals. If you’re not working towards debt, you could be working towards earning more money and still even then there are non-budget victories that we have to pay attention to. Maybe you had some really hard conversations this week, and when I say hard conversations, like you reached out to people that you never would’ve reached out to in the past, but you reached out to them and you said like, Hey, can we have a coffee? That right there is a non-budget victory that’s going to help you reach your goal of earning more money.
So remember, we want to pay attention to these non-budget victories because we’re using them as building blocks for your sustainable success. So in the future, if you feel like, okay, I’m off track, you can reference your non-budget victories and you can identify like, these are the things that I’m capable of doing and here’s what I’m actually capable of creating. And wow, I can notice my shift from like six months ago versus like a year ago and look at the progress I’ve made. Like you want to be able to use this because it’ll also support you staying in a growth mindset when you are working towards your financial goals and you are working towards whatever you are desiring to change or whatever challenge is in front of you.
So like I was telling you, my non-budget victories, these are the results that I celebrate with clients the most. I will say that I am my client’s mirror throughout that five month coaching process, like I am their mirror, I’m their cheerleader. And when they want to tell me like, Hey, here are all the things that I can’t do and let me tell you Keina why it’s not working. I’m like, okay, I’m listening. Alright, can I open up my scroll of all the things that you have done. I love being that mirror because the other thing that I know is when you are working towards a goal, a couple of different things can happen. As you actually experience more success, you can cross that goal off and give yourself another goal to accomplish and just switch it out really quick. And before you even know it, you’ve blown past the fact that you’ve reached a goal.
So it’s nice for me to be a mirror and to be that cheerleader for you because then you’re able to be like, oh wow, like I didn’t realize how far I’ve come and now that I’m actually reconnected and I understand how far I’ve come, like I know exactly how I can push in order to reach the next part of my goal. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing or I don’t have to see it as like it’s either it’s all working out or nothing’s working out, or I’ve made no progress or I’ve reached my goal. So being that mirror and that cheerleader for them is very beneficial. I talked to one of my clients, it’s been a year since we had our consult and we’re still working together and I’m like, do you remember where you were when we had a consult? You were in your car, you had out a sheet of paper and you were reading from the sheet of paper all of your bills to me and you were telling me like, okay I have this due.
And then Keina, no, I have this going on and this going on. I’m like, do you know, like that’s a non-budget victory. There are still other financial goals that we are working on. But when I think about just even how she organizes her finances now, it’s completely different. As I’m helping her think through her non-budget victories, it’s allowed her to pay attention to who she’s becoming through the process. And it’s the reason that I also want you to pay attention to your non-budget victories because it’s going to allow you to pay attention to how you feel going through the process of reaching your financial goal and being able to ask yourself like, what am I able to easily do now that I couldn’t have done a week ago? What am I able to do now that I couldn’t have done 30 days ago?
What am I able to do now that I couldn’t have done a year ago? And like with my clients, I just actually have a new client that I’m working with right now and she got back, this was our second call and she’s like, Keina, my husband and I, we actually, like, talked about money. I told her, I was like, oh my goodness, how good did that feel? She was like, it felt good. And I remember on our consult, she was telling me how her and her husband don’t actually talk about money, but that’s a non-budget victory. And that non-budget victory is going to help her on her pathway to success. And your non-budget victories will also help you see and intentionally celebrate shifts in how you are thinking about and how you’re interacting with your finances, which ultimately is going to shift your financial identity.
So this week I want you to be thinking, okay, we take some intentional time. This is a great thing to add to your money dates as well. It’s like what non-budget victories am I having? Also, take it a step further. If you are interacting with me on Wealth Over Now, on Instagram, or you’re in my Facebook group, or you’re on my email list, email me back and tell me like, what are your non-budget victories? I want to be able to celebrate them with you. If you want a coach in your corner to actually help you start spending money drama free and for you to be like, oh my goodness, it’s like really nice to have someone who can hold me accountable, but also help me see my own progress, apply to work with me in my five-month coaching partnership. So if you go to the show notes, you can apply there or if you go to Wealthovernow.com/appointment, you can book a call and get on my calendar and we can work together for the next five months. So thank you so much for tuning in and I look forward to hearing about your non-budget victories. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.
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.
