Are you still relying on your list of bills to manage your finances? It’s time to break free from that cycle and create a system that supports your financial future.
In this episode, I’m diving into why a list of bills isn’t a budget. If you find yourself trapped in the same financial patterns year after year, it’s likely because you’re using “fake math”—planning only for what’s due without considering your real-life needs or goals. I’ll explain why this method keeps you stuck and how shifting to a budget based on your actual spending patterns and lifestyle can help you stop reacting to expenses and start managing your money with confidence.
If you’re ready to leave behind the stress of living paycheck to paycheck and start planning for your financial safety and freedom, this episode is for you. Tune in to learn how budgeting with real math can transform how you manage your money so you can overcome the financial overwhelm and shame holding you back from hitting your goals.
Learn how to break free from the list of bills…
- [01:16] Why a list of bills isn’t a budget
- [06:13] What real math allows you to do with your finances
- [09:24] Say goodbye to your list of bills
Tune into this episode of Money Files to learn why you need to stop using a list of bills as a budget and start aligning your spending with your lifestyle.
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 you should stop using a list of bills as your budget, check out my episode, How Fake Math Is Killing Your Budget!
Transcript for “Why Your List of Bills Isn’t a Budget (And What to Do Instead)”
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. So I’ve been talking about systems, this is my second week talking about systems. And today the system I want to talk about that I need you to get rid of in 2025 is your list of bills. Because your list of bills is not a budget, it’s not a plan, it’s not a strategy, and it’s definitely not the system that’s going to build your financial future. If you’ve ever paid off a credit card only to run it back up again. Or if you find yourself in the same spot with your financial goals, you keep setting the goal every year, year after year, I want to save a thousand dollars and you never hit it. Or if you’re constantly caught off guard by expenses that aren’t technically surprises, you are not bad with money. You’ve just been using fake math.
And today I’m going to show you exactly why relying on a list of bills is keeping you broke, stuck, and exhausted. And I want to help you shift out of that cycle for good. So tracking your bills can feel productive. It feels like you’re doing the responsible thing, but here’s what’s actually happening. You’re planning to pay what’s due, but you’re not planning ahead. Fake math gives you just enough confidence to get to the next thing. Or worse, it gives you a false sense of being ahead right before you get knocked back down again. You think, oh, I can buy that ticket. Everything else is paid. But then that annual bill hits, or your kid needs new shoes, or the card needs a repair, and suddenly you’re scrambling paycheck to paycheck again. Your card balance is creeping up again and it feels like you’re in a financial washing machine that won’t spit you out.
That’s what fake math does. It creates a loop, and it’s powered by the belief that listing your bills is having a budget. It doesn’t. Here’s what fake math never lets you do. It doesn’t let you cross off your financial goals. It doesn’t let you build a savings at last. It’s not actually stopping you from using your credit card to float your life because fake math doesn’t leave room for the truth. It doesn’t ask you what your real life costs. It doesn’t plan for when, it only plans for now. So when the tire blows, or when HVAC breaks, or when the best friend plans a destination birthday party, or when your kid’s tuition is due, a real budget plans for all of it. When you use real math, the kind I teach in my five month coaching partnership, like you start creating space, you start creating honesty.
You plan for auto maintenance, home repairs, giving, birthdays like everything. And that’s how you finally stop relying on your credit card to bail you out. You stop being reactive and you actually start being responsive. And that’s the difference between survival and safety.
So I want to tell you about one of my clients, when she came to work with me, she was tracking every bill in her planner, like literally writing it down with a due date. And she told me like she was showing me on the consult, her planner and how she tracks her bills. And that hit me because you listening to me right now, you’re doing that in some capacity. You have a very fragile system where if you are planner disappeared, or if you’re list disappeared, you wouldn’t be able to pay your bills. Maybe it’s a planner, maybe it’s your memory or maybe it’s a spreadsheet that you never look at. So she had goals in mind, and what we’ve been able to do by actually talking about the real math and getting comfortable with her real life, we’ve been able to put things into her budget that weren’t in her planner. Because remember, her list of bills was in her planner, and that was just the things that were due on the dates they were due.
But it had nothing to do with the life she wanted to live. And the things that she wanted to do was to be able to celebrate her 40th. And she wanted $2,000 to be able to do that. And she wanted to be able to spend that money without guilt, without putting it on her credit card. She also told me about some home repairs that she wanted to focus on and some other things that were coming up in the next six months. So in between our first and second call, we’ve gotten into the work to make sure that we implement what I call my three bucket money system. And so we’ve gotten really clear on how do we need her money to support her bills, how do we need her money to support her spending, and how do we need her money to support her savings? So we’ve looked out already at the entire year, we’ve gotten a little bit more granular for like what’s coming up in the next 30 days, what’s coming up in the next 90, the next six months.
So we’re not just talking about what’s due, but we’re talking about what do you want? There’s a big difference between what’s due and what you want. What’s due is survival. What you want is safety. And so we are leading into safety because we want her to always be able to say yes to the things that she wants, right? And so in our first two calls, literally two calls, we’ve made space for her birthday, which is $2,000. We’re making space for some home repairs. She needs to get her fence fixed. She also wants to do some upgrades on her security system at her house. But we’ve been making space for that. We’re looking at her numbers, not just by what’s due right now, but looking at like, how do we actually plan ahead? And here’s the most powerful part of this work, is that she isn’t having to restrict herself. She is getting to prioritize herself.
And that’s what real math allows you to do. It is going to allow you to prioritize you. I’m going to say that one more time. Real math is going to allow you to prioritize you. So many of you don’t want to budget and you stick to the list of bills because you don’t want to be told what you can’t spend money on. Like there’s this fear about how you’ve budgeted in the past, and all that’s really doing is just helping you stay afloat. So you’re not someone who’s bad with money, you’ve just been relying on a tool that was only ever meant to help you survive. And a list of bills is what you’ve learned when you had to get by and it made sense. It helped you stay afloat. But now it’s time to get unstuck because your list doesn’t ask you how you actually want to spend money. What do you need to feel safe? What would it take for you to feel in control? So when you operate from a list of bills, you’re not planning to live, you’re just planning to survive in that moment. And you have some level, I call it a financial hum.
And I explain it as, like imagine if you lived in an apartment where you had a window air unit, and you know how that window air unit comes on and it makes a noise, but the longer you live there, you don’t even hear the noise anymore. But when somebody like a visitor comes and they’re like, Hey, what’s that noise? And you’re like, what noise? Oh, that’s my AC unit. That’s how you’re living with your finances right now, is there’s just this level of hum and anxiety that you have that you’ve just grown accustomed to, that you’ve just grown accustomed to not knowing how you can pay for your auto repairs. You’ve grown accustomed to putting any trip on your credit card because it’s just been enough for you to be able to pay your bills. And that tightness that you have in your chest and in your body, the sleep that you don’t get at night, the stress that you have in your shoulders, you’ve just gotten used to it.
I want you to know, like that doesn’t actually have to be your default. Just because you’ve gotten used to something doesn’t make that normal. And you don’t have to be good at spreadsheets to be good with money, and you don’t need to cancel everything you love. You don’t need another no spend challenge. The thing that you actually have to bring to the table is honesty. I tell my clients all the time, like, I want you to be honest. If you are honest with your numbers, your numbers are going to support you. And I want you to be honest about how you want to spend. I want you to be honest about what your life actually costs. And I want you to be honest about what you’re ready to create next. Because when you stop doing fake math and start budgeting with real math, like everything is going to change. You can go to brunch without guilt. You can buy gifts without stress. You can save for your future and actually like enjoy your life right now, but also know that life in the future is taken care of.
And that’s what I want for you. This episode, if you hear nothing else, it is an invitation for you to try again with your finances. I know once again that list of bills, it has been your crutch through a decade, two decades or maybe it’s even your new support system because maybe you’re in a new part of your life where you’re like, Hey, Keina, this is the first time I’m like newly divorced. I’m out here on my own. Or I just graduated college, or I just got my first job that I’m making over six figures. Whatever that is, there’s some level of newness. And so that list of bills is your emotional support system. And this episode is an invitation to thank that emotional support system for getting you as far as it’s gotten you. And to take the next step to where you create true financial safety for yourself by engaging in real math and asking those critical questions about how much does my life actually cost?
What do I want to spend money on? I want the invitation for you to drop fake math and insert real math so that way you can create real safety within yourself so that you feel good about what you have to show for your money. So if this episode created any type of feelings within you, or you were like, yes, Keina that is exactly what I’ve been doing. I just want to invite you to apply to work with me in my five month coaching partnership. I’m going to help you implement my three money bucket system and start looking at what is the real math? What do I need to fund my bills? What do I want? How much do I want to be able to put into savings? And how much do I want to be able to spend drama free? Like creating just those three simple buckets is going to turn your entire life around where the next time something happens in your life, your kids need new shoes, you need to get a filling.
You need a new tire that you are not going to roll your eyes. You’re going to open up a bank account and say, okay, I got the money for that. I got that. I feel safe, I’m secure. And what happens in my five month partnership is that we make space for your goals and we remove the shame that you’ve had with your finances for years. And we do it all without the pressure of needing to be good at math, without the pressure of, oh my goodness, Keina, I budgeted in the past. It never worked for me. But what I’m going to show you is how you can stop guessing and start knowing about what to do with every single paycheck, what to do with every single bonus, how to manage every unexpected expense. And coaching is really the next step. If you are looking to put yourself in a place where you can spend money drama free, and feel like you have a surplus of money. So this resonates with you. Go to the link in my show notes, wealthovernow.com/appointment and apply to work with me, and I will talk to you guys next 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.
