Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper interview Sarah Wilson from Budget Girl about saving, budgeting, and creating additional income streams.
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Interview With Sarah Wilson (Budget Girl)
Rob: What's up guys. Today we're excited to have Sarah Wilson here also known as Budget Girl to join us for today. We are super, super excited to talk to her.
Melissa: Thank you so much for being with us, Sarah.
Sarah: I am so thrilled to be here.
Melissa: So let's start out with, can you just give us a little bit of background, you're known as Budget Girl, so how did you get started with that? And just give us a little bit about your story.
Sarah: So it's kind of like a tragic backstory thing. Not really, but seven and a half ish years ago I got laid off from my job as a newspaper reporter in Mississippi. Wasn't anything I did wrong, just they found someone they could pay less than me. So I was suddenly $33,000 in student loan debt that I hadn't been paying off because the government said I didn't make enough. And jobless and therefore on unemployment.
And I had this degree that was essentially worthless and I had no idea what I was going to do. Completely on my own. Like no family had turned to anything like that. And I swore to myself, once I got a new job, I would figure this whole money thing out. I would never be this scared and like depressed and anxious about money again.
Cause that kind of takes over your entire life when you're in that position. And so that's what I did. Once I found a job, I got on a budget, hence the moniker. And I started teaching myself personal finance and money management. And over the next three years, I paid off $33,000 worth of debt. I gained a couple of new streams of income.
I learned the basics the hard way. And now I am doing much better. Thank you.
Rob: Awesome. And that is a lot of debt to pay off in a short amount of time. That is amazing. And that's exactly what a lot of people need. This encouragement. They need to know your steps and how you actually did this.
So we're very, very excited about this.
Sarah: I should also mention that while I was paying off the $33K in debt, I was making $1,600 a month or $24,000 a year pre-tax as a newspaper reporter. So I was low income near poverty line income.
Melissa: Wow. So you definitely had to figure out a budget. So what were some of the struggles that you went through then?
And then how would you help somebody who might be in that position now?
Sarah: Absolutely. So like so many people who are kind of thrust out into the real world after high school or college, I had no real financial education. My parents didn't teach me. It's just what it is. And the school system didn't teach me.
So when I was in college, I took out student loans to pay for school and also to pay for like my dorm expenses and my sorority expenses and eating Taco Bell and clothes. And I didn't really realize what the reality of life was going to be. Once I graduated and that I had picked journalism, which was not doing that well in 2010 or now.
So I wasn't going to be making the type of salary that I could very easily pay off. I wasn't a doctor or a lawyer or something that would have a higher end salary to potentially pay off all those loans. So I started from the very basics. I started reading all the personal finance books I could, and a lot of those kind of deal with higher budget problems if we're being honest. I had to start with the absolute basics of understanding where my current money was going and where I could stop those drips. So eating out had to go, pretty much entirely. And I had no idea how much I was eating out until I actually sat down and saw how much I was eating out.
So the very first step I tell every single person is to start writing down all of your spending. Like if you can't get your mind around a budget yet, that's okay. But write down all of your spending. And just by writing it down or knowing that you have to write it down, you're going to spend less. So congratulations.
And then starting to figure out things like meal planning, because we make terrible decisions when we're hungry. And I used to just go to work for the week, bright eyed and bushy tailed and not thinking I was going to get hungry that week. Suddenly, you know at 2:00 PM on a day, and I don't have any food and what's the only option at that point, Taco Bell, again, it's an adversary of mine.
So we start tapping those leaks that we see, the easiest ones are usually food. We all spend more money on food than we need to, or we have to, and that's a really good place to start. And then, especially if you're very low income, it's very easy to find where the rest of your money is going. You might have to start negotiating some bills or transfer to like a lower cell phone plan.
I negotiated my car insurance like every six months and every single time it went down. Anytime someone tried to charge me more I called in renegotiated, got it down. It became a hobby for me. And so many of the things, it just kind of felt like a game and that I was leveling myself up and every single month, my budget did a little bit better and it doesn't matter if I made a win every single day, but every single month I was getting better with my money.
And I was developing these money habits that saved me money, that I was then able to use to pull myself out of that situation.
Rob: I love it. I love it. And three key takeaways from what you just said, that everybody needs to have the notes for is definitely writing stuff down. You got to take those notes and figure out where that money's going.
The second one is focus. You guys, you have to plan it. Well, I should say plan ahead. Like Sarah said, you're going to get hungry in the middle of the day. If you're just going with no plan into the day, you're going to go and spend that money. Great, great advice. And I've forgot the third one.
Melissa: I wrote down a couple. Meal planning was one.
Yeah, it's a really, it's a good one. And I remember going through, Taco Bell was big in college because it's so and in high school because it's so cheap.
It's so cheap and so good. I remember going.
Sarah: And our stomachs could handle it.
Rob: Exactly. Then.
Melissa: Right. Start writing down your spending and I love the negotiating bills. Negotiating the bills is pretty cool.
Sarah: It's huge. And you only have to do it once. So, like I dread being on the phone with people, especially like customer service people, but that is a thing where if you can like muster up the courage once, like once a year and call your cell phone company, your blah, blah, blah, your internet company, anything like that, you can save money every single month with out nearly as much effort as the other things.
So I would make a list and just see, like, who could I bother today?
Melissa: I might need to do that too.
Rob: A lot of people...
Melissa: I think that we're due to do that.
Rob: And a lot of people don't think that's possible. That's like us when we do negotiation because we're resellers, we don't go out and pay the price that somebody is asking, we always ask them to go lower.
If it's worth it, they don't go lower then we pay the price. But at the same time, you cannot get it lower if you do not ask. So that's it, that's one of those things that, that is great. Great advice. Negotiate some of these things, guys, they can get your, your costs down cost of living down. And it's a great thing that they do negotiate.
Sarah's sitting here telling us they will do it and you just have to do it, and you don't have to do it all the time, but just do it for sure.
Melissa: So you said, you know, money habits and getting better at each month. What if somebody's like thinking, okay, these are all great things to do. Where do what's the first thing I start with?
Like, I don't, like, it's overwhelming to think that I need to do all these things at one time. Where should I start? Or is it different for everybody?
Sarah: It might be different for everyone, but I think food is probably, I think there are statistics behind it. Like we all spend a lot of money on food and right now prices are rising now would be an excellent time to kind of figure out how much things cost in your area.
The cheapest grocery store, that type of thing was something where I moved to a brand new state. I didn't know anyone there. I didn't know. I'd never been to a Save A Lot before. I used to go to the salvage grocery store. And there are deals to be had there. My friends and I would just shop based off of where I could get the best deals.
I would make a meal plan. I would search budget recipes on things like budgetbites.com. I love that website. I didn't really know how to cook. I started doing little changes. Like I used to buy the boneless, skinless chicken. I started buying the whole breast, sticking it in the Crock-Pot and then the bones just fall right off. Though I was always terrified of biting into a bone, but I would find little things like that where it wasn't a lot of time sink, but it could save me a dollar a pound. Which, and if I bought things on sale, I could then freeze some. I could just kind of make a meal plan based around what was the cheapest thing that I could get at the time.
And it was just, it really solved my food budget problems. I know we're talking a lot about food, but there's a huge wealth of potential savings there.
Because there are things we can kind of go without.
Melissa: Yeah, for sure. We definitely find ourselves eating out more than we should.
A lot.
Rob: It's getting a lot more money, but I even relate that back to even like what you're saying is shopping. I mean, we have an ALDI and I don't know if they're all over the country or what, but we have an ALDI Melissa knows the difference. If she goes and shops in ALDI it might be the difference between
Melissa: A hundred dollars more than if I'm going to Publix.
Rob: Publix. Between going to a grocery store, that is a lot cheaper and still great, great products.
They have great fresh products and then going to a Publix, more like a name brand store, that it's going to cost a lot more money. So she knows that. And if you prepare ahead and you plan on doing that, that will help you out. And that saves us like a hundred dollars every time she grocery shops. So it's really, really big.
Sarah: I can go to Target for like two grocery things or I could buy an entire week's worth of food.
Rob: Exactly.
Melissa: It's crazy how much food can change.
Rob: If you control that food guys, that's where we can start. I know Melissa and I eat out way, way too much. And once we start looking at it, it's like, oh my goodness, this is where the money is going.
Sarah: At the end of the month you look at that and you're like, I spent $400 on eating out this month. What the hell? And you're like, where could it, once you start thinking about where that money could have gone. And I was the exact same way at the very beginning of my journey. I didn't realize how much I was eating out or going to the grocery store for like one meal's worth of food, buying a bunch of random things coming home and not having anything I wanted to eat.
It was yeah. Going to like meal planning once a week, grocery purchasing all of those it's simplified my life too, which gave me mental room to do other things. Cause like you said, like we were talking about, 2:00 PM on like a work day. You don't have any food around. I feel a little bit like, you know, the guy who wears the same shirt every day, but if I already have my food prep plan and ready, I can focus on other things.
Melissa: So what tools have you found that helped? Were there different tools that you used then that you use now? Or like, have you found some that you'd like to use during your whole time of learning to do better with your money?
Sarah: My number one tool is my budget and I use a Google Sheets budget that I can check on my phone at any time. You know, I can log things in as I purchased them. I'm also a big proponent of use, whatever budget works for you and your brains. So if an app like YNAB works for you, use the hell out of it.
It's a pen and paper set up works for you, use that, but have something that you can mentally not dread putting in your numbers every day, week or month. However you want to do it. I wouldn't advise month for starters. I used to do it every single day. It kept me on top of it and not blowing any budget, but yeah, that was a big tool for awhile.
I used a shopping app that helped you like price compare things for price matches, but that doesn't really work at Walmart anymore. I used to be able to price match an ALDI an hour and a half away to a Walmart where I lived. And that was awesome.
Melissa: And then they would, they would give you that price, whatever it was?
Sarah: Yeah, it was all because I lived in like the tiniest town that only had one grocery store, but the main tool is the budget and using the wealth that is the internet to figure out ways to do things better. And it sounds hard and intimidating, but if you just focus on one little thing at a time and improving one process or cutting down costs on one thing, you'll build those habits and it will become easier.
So I still use a lot of the things that I'm talking about now. We meal plan for the week. I have a little list of meals that we already have the stuff for. That's like easy meals. So in case we do come home and we're exhausted and we are real tempted to like order in some takeout, we can be like, oh, we can do grilled cheese, tomato soup, or this or this other thing that's in there or in the freezer, I've got a big stack of already marinated chicken in bags, in the freezer, ready to just pull out and go. And it's so simple things that once you get used to them, it makes life so much easier. And then you can focus on other things and be less stressed. I don't want people to be so stressed about money.
Melissa: Yeah.
Rob: For sure. And one of the things that you did say is it's not going to be easy to do it in the beginning, but once you build those habits, it gets so much easier.
And then you're going to absolutely love it in the future, once you build that habit and you're able to save money on that right there. So that's very, yeah, that's very reassuring.
Melissa: I had one question, but before we do that, I wanted to also, talk about the spreadsheet versus writing them down versus, an app.
Because a lot of people think, oh, there's so many different, awesome apps out there and they can, if it works for you, that's great. But I've tried to use YNAB like three times and I can't cannot get it. So and a spreadsheet works for me. Or just pen and paperwork for me. And I'm like, that's fine.
So I can, I can deal with that. Like that works for me.
I'm not good with all the fancy things. I guess.
Sarah: I need space for like notes because something's going to happen that I want to write a note to my future self about when I come back, like what did I do?
Melissa: Okay. So you're writing out your budget.
You said you started doing it daily in the beginning, right? You were doing it on a daily basis. Do you recommend like kind of looking at what you've spent the previous month and kind of guide off that and then kind of write your budget on that?
Sarah: Kind of a spending recompense if you will. Yes,, if you have the mental energy to do that whole, all of your, like, if you're always using a debit card or credit card or something like that, and you pull all of your statements for like the last month and then, highlight out into the categories.
So you can actually see what you're spending that can stop some budget shock. Because when we go to make our first budget, we're like, we only need $200 for groceries this month, right? Whereas if you did the spending analysis, you go through and we spent $600 on groceries last month, it gives you a much truer starting point.
But I also understand that that is just mentally impossible for some people. So if you want to start today, start today and then make those adjustments as you go. So you don't start at that $200 grocery budget, or if you started the $200 grocery budget for this month and you spent $410 the next month, try for $350, like make it attainable so that you don't just throw it down, walk away and say, I'll never be good at this because you can be good at this.
Rob: Yeah, that's a great point, for sure. So, and realistically, you're not going to you, you screwed up the first month and then you either throw it down and you're like, all right, I'm going to go down $200, if you can't realistically do it and make those small changes. Yeah. That's going to be pretty sweet for sure.
Sarah: Be very kind to yourself. When budgeting, especially when starting the first few budgets are not going to work super well. You have to keep adjusting. And over a time, over those three years that I was paying off debt, I got my grocery budget down by two thirds and I got my personal spending down by like a hundred percent.
And it helps. It changes. And you can just keep kind of working a little bit at a time. And those baby steps that you can take towards being better with money are just going to feel so rewarding. And it's going to reward you versus having a budget that is completely for a different set of human beings.
And then trying to follow that, being mad at yourself. I had a lot of, kind of self-flagellation at the beginning with budgeting and I don't want people to do that. There are better ways to get yourself under control and get your spending where you want it.
Melissa: So then instead of beating yourself up over not being able to hit your goals and you were making more realistic goals and then small wins and then you keep going.
So that's awesome. I keep doing the math in my head about you paying off $33,000 in three years so on $24,000 a year. So I'm like that you spent, you're paid off about $11,000 a year on $24,000 a year. That like that you have to be pretty frugal and make sure you know where every dollar is going.
Sarah: I did. The last year I had gotten a new job where I made closer to $30,000 but it was still like at those numbers, it's pretty marginal, if we're being honest. It doesn't seem like, you know, $6,000 would be marginal, but you know, you moved to a brand new area, cost of living is a little different. You kinda have to start over with some of the stuff. It worked. I did it.
Melissa: That's awesome.
Rob: Yeah. And that's really, really cool to think about that too, because you have the habits you have, it's built in and you get that stuff paid off and that's what can lead you into the next chapter, because you're able to live on that type of income.
And then you're making that much more money. Once the bills are paid off to throw it at something else, investing in other stuff. So that's really exciting. That's cool.
Melissa: So that's exactly what I wanted to talk about next was now that you've created those habits, you have extra money cause you're still probably have those same habits.
And now what are you doing with that extra money? And you do some pretty fun things?
Sarah: Yeah. So I was very used to living with a very small amount of money. And once I paid off my debt, I kind of just rolled that into a big emergency fund and I started investing and then I started saving for kind of whatever I wanted to do next with money. I loosened the reins a little bit.
I have bigger personal budget, a bigger grocery budget now, but it's you do it for several years and that's just what you live off of. And I don't feel restricted at all. So I started saving up for, I wasn't super interested in just purchasing a house for myself. I became very interested in multi-family properties and like owning real estate as an investment and as a way to make more money in a different stream of income. So I bought a duplex, which I'm in right now, which I am house hacking. So I rent out one side and I live in the other and I make $150 a month over my mortgage.
Rob: Wow.
Melissa: I love it.
Sarah: And have no housing costs.
Melissa: Wow.
Sarah: Which is amazing. And I would love to be able to do that again.
And I also recently converted a vintage holiday rambler travel trailer into an Airbnb camper stay. So that's been really, really fun and such a creative outlet for me, I was able to take this thing that was unlivable and turn it into a really, really cute Texas themed stay. And I've had people stay in it and pay me money to stay at it.
And like, they like it. And I also have like this spare house now that I could, I can make money with. But it was only $15,000 to do it, which is a lot of money, especially to like past Sarah. But now I was able to cashflow that and that was really cool. So I'm very much into the real estate stuff now. And I do, I do invest, but I don't necessarily find that as interesting.
Melissa: So you're doing, doing the long-term and short-term rentals, which is pretty cool. Do you have like, do you like one more than the other? Are they just different?
Sarah: It's it's more passive versus active. So the long-term rental is completely passive. Like she just lives there and pays me. Every once in a great, great while she might like have a maintenance request and that, that it's amazing. It's crazy that that pays my mortgage. The short-term rental is a lot more active, especially since it's only been out for a couple of months. I'm just now I have someone who checked in today and when they check out I have a cleaner, who's going to do a trial clean for me cause I've been cleaning it myself and that takes a lot more time.
So I'm trying to make that into a slightly more passive income stream, but it's been so much fun. I love it. I really, really do.
Melissa: I follow your Instagram for the camper? I think it's so cool. It's so cute. I love it. So do you want to have more, is that what your plan is to grow a portfolio of real estate?
Sarah: I would, I would love to get some land this year, move the ag wagon to it, have it set up permanently there, and then also build out some other kind of unique stays. So I would love like a geodesic dome or a schooly, or maybe not a yert, but like other little kind of lower cost to entry types of homes that I can make really cool and be a unique place to stay.
So that hits all of my buttons. Like this is cheap, this is cute. This is fun. Like all of them.
Rob: That's awesome. That sounds exciting. Yeah. And it gets you going, you enjoy it. So that's what you're able to do. So that's really, really cool.
Melissa: And then you have more freedom, like when you're kind of in your spot now, like you can, they could, this is a fun, extra way to make some more money.
So you can kind of find those things that you enjoy.
Sarah: And now that I don't have debt anymore, it's much lower risk. So I save and invest 40% of my current income. I have seven or eight streams of income. Now that I started building up when I was in debt, which I think is very important to talk about, like you guys do the reselling, which is so cool.
I did a little bit of reselling while I was in debt. Did not enjoy it. It stressed me out, but I love watching you guys do it. And I do remember the thrill of buying something at a yard sale and then being able to sell it for like five times as much, because they didn't know what they had. And like you find the perfect buyer and that's, that's such a thrill.
And I love watching you guys do that, but I had other side hustles that I was building, which is what made that paying off $11,000 a year possible that I enjoyed a little bit more. Like I like secret shopping. I did a little bit of like dog training and sitting, all kinds of sorts of stuff like that.
It was really, really fun to cultivate. I essentially made saving and making money my only hobby, which sounds depressing now that I'm hearing it aloud, but it's, it's a game. It's a challenge. And I could see every month, how much I was able to make, I did a stint doing pizza delivery, which was not nearly as lucrative as I thought.
No one tipped Hungry Howie delivery driver at 3:00 AM.
Rob: Wow.
Melissa: That stinks.
Sarah: I wasn't raised to do a lot of things, but if you drive something to my house, you get $5, which is now like, not even that great a tip, but that's what I learned. Like if, if you're too lazy to go out and get it you have to pay the person at least $5.
Melissa: For sure. Now they're asking for tips when you go get food from somewhere that they're not even serving.
Sarah: I'm not.
So I do tip the pickup place at my local sushi cause the girl that runs the pickups, like that's her entire job. She's just doing that. But yeah, it's, it's tough to rationalize, just like the picking up of food and having to tip on that now, too.
Melissa: I don't know how much you didn't really service, but that's a tough one.
So, and you started sharing your journey with other people on YouTube, right? It was the first place you started?
Sarah: Yeah, I did. It was right at the beginning when I moved to Hammond, Louisiana, right after that layoff period and, really, I didn't know anyone in the state. I didn't want to annoy my friends to the point where they wouldn't talk to me anymore.
And I knew that if I was going to really change my entire financial life and want to focus on paying off debt and figuring out ways to do that. I was going to need to talk about it to somebody. So at the time there were like three financial YouTubers. It was his and her money. Lydia Senn and a channel called debt is dumb that isn't around anymore.
And all of them were like couples or people with dual incomes. And kids. And I just didn't really relate. So I set up my phone on a stack of books and took off my glasses. So I was cross-eyed the whole time and started talking about money. And very slowly people started kind of encouraging me or, and this was actually even more fuel, they were telling me I couldn't do it. So I started putting my actual budget online every single month and being like, this is how much I made. This is how much I spent. Here's the right way I am doing it. And it was kind of like a doubt me then watch me moment.
Rob: That's awesome.
Melissa: That is grueling. That's awesome.
So, any last parting words before we finish up?
Sarah: You are in the right place. If you're watching this, get some ideas. If everything doesn't apply to you, that's fine. If you can get one little nugget out of this that you can implement and improve your finances, that's huge progress.
Keep going.
Rob: That is awesome. Great advice. Sarah, thank you for jumping on and doing this. We know everybody's going to absolutely love this and get some great nuggets from you. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
Sarah: It was my absolute pleasure. Bye.