Preparing Your Money for 2026: ADHD Money Coach’s Simple, Judgment-Free Plan for Busy Families | 93

02026 is coming fast. All right, so let's make this the year that you have a plan before all the surprises come in. Because one of the things I heard most last year was I just can't seem to get on top of all this stuff that just comes flying at me. Because life lives, right? It just keeps flying at us and until we pause and create a plan, and that's what this show is about is creating a plan that works for you and your family. Life will keep life and all over us. So stick around. We are going to talk about how to prepare your money for 2026.

Hey there, I'm Jules the budget nerd and welcome to the Debt Rebel show. This is the place where working families like yours learn how to stop living paycheck to paycheck, crush debt for good, and build a life where money actually works for your family. In about 15 minutes, I'll share practical family budgeting tips, tough love strategies, and actionable steps to move toward debt free living without the fluff, the shame, or the confusion. And I know a thing or two about this. My family and I have eliminated over $107,000 in consumer debt, and that was after I got my degree in economics.

So stay tuned. This is going to be a great episode. So grab that coffee, your planner, whatever you need to make this a great experience, maybe a snack if you're like me and let's make your money work for your family. OK, So preparing your money for 2026, right? It could be preparing your money for whatever year this is that you're listening to because the important part about preparing your money is to create that plan. And it's not about perfection. If you have listened to the show very much, we talked a lot about this.

It is about progress, not perfection. And one of the things that's also not about is DEP is deprivation. We are not trying to deprive ourselves of the joys of life. We are trying to line up our money so that it matches what matters most to our family in this moment, in this season. OK, So we're not about perfection. We're not about deprivation. We are about being intentional and creating margin. Those are the two things that are highly important to having the financial success and not living paycheck to paycheck intentionality and creating that margin.

So first thing we can do is to just review what your current reality is. So take a peek at what your numbers are. And when we talk about your numbers, you know, what are, what are some of your, you know, account balances? And, and I'm talking also about your debts is just seeing what those look like. And then if you do have your budget set up, it is do we need to update some of those budget categories and identify any leaks that are that are there? So maybe if you have some kind of stress spending, maybe the buy now, pay laters, subscriptions, anything like that, is to just take a peek at those and see what of those things maybe aren't serving you that you can leave behind and that you can move into this new year with a better foundation and a better plan.

And Speaking of foundations, here are the things that are super important to put into place so that you can ditch credit cards once and for all. So this is exactly what our family did. So creating an emergency fund now are. So when I talk about emergency funds, there's two that I that I talk about and they are different from sinking funds. We'll talk about that in a second. But the first emergency fund is that $1000. And that is so that you're not putting, if you think about the last emergency that you had that you put on a credit card, it was probably around 1000 or under, right?

So think about, you know, trips in the emergency room, you have a co-pay for that. You have to buy a new tire because you got a flat and it couldn't be repaired, that kind of stuff. So those are things that you would normally have just put on a credit card. So that $1000 and then you move into your debt snowball. And so we'll talk about, you know, debt pay off here in a second, but that is that first emergency fund and then sinking funds. So these are things that are this is like your this is another credit card, except for instead of paying making a payment every single month to a bank, you're going to be making a payment to your own account.

So we have separate sinking funds set up for things like a new car, tires for our vehicles, Christmas funds, vacation funds, Whatever it is that you're going to be saving up for like sinking funds is you're going to be putting money into that on a regular basis, whatever that looks like for you and your family. But having those set up so that you can put that put that money and it's going to be separate from the things that you, the account that you would have your bills in. Now, this might work for some families to keep it all in one account.

For myself, I have to keep it out of sight, out of mind. And so I still have access to it. It's still within the same the bank that I have our regular bill pay in, but it's just separate so that I am not tempted to spend that and think that. And you know, I've spent my mortgage payment instead of or spent my water bill on something that I didn't need to. So then the next day is those, those debt payoff goals. And so after setting up your emergency fund, setting up your debt snowball, debt snowball is your balances of your debts from smallest to largest.

So we're not going to worry about interest rates and things like that. Because if it was about math, we wouldn't be here. And trust me, I'm, I have been there. I do have a degree in economics. And so I still, I understand this is, this is has nothing to do with math, right? It is about our relationship with money. And so putting that debt snowball in, in the, the balance smallest to largest is going to help us create the winds and the momentums early on so that we keep going with it. And that's the exact same thing that my husband and I did to get to eliminate our $107,000.

So and then you're going to pay that very first that that top So and I'll link in the in the show notes an episode that talks about that debt snowball, if you have some more questions about that. And then thinking about what your income needs and what your income needs and potential are for this new year. So if you anticipate you might be getting a raise or if you need to make some changes in your in your family's income. So for instance, maybe you know, one one person's going to go from full time to part time if you need to make those adjustments within your budget, but kind of looking at the year and seeing if those adjustments need to be made.

So those are the the foundations to set up for yourself coming into this new year. And I'm creating a plan for yourself and preparing your money for 2026. And then now it gets down to the nitty gritty, I like to say to simplify, automate and streamline. And so for myself, this has been really helpful. And at first I was like, you know what, I like paying all of my bills myself. And so that might be you. And especially as you get started, that might be really helpful so that you can see what's going out and what's coming in every month.

But I like to automate everything. And so yes, I do log into my bank bill pay and have those set up so that I know, you know, things are going to be taken out before they're due so that I am not I'm avoiding late fees. And so I just have a much it's a system manages itself as long as the money keeps coming in. And so I can I can automate it on the expense side. So one of the things too that we have found since we have eliminated our debt is we have a lot less accounts to pay on. So where we have less, we have less bills to pay, which is really nice.

And it kind of a weird side effect to simplifying life and by simplifying life like our finances is we just have I have less bills to pay. So I'm the one that pays the bills in as far as like, you know, who actually logs in and pays the bills? That's me. And so it just makes my job a little bit easier if there's any manual things I have to do, but I can just look really quickly and not have to juggle around a bunch of stuff. And so if you can simplify that process and automate it as much as possible and use those auto pays, it's even better.

And one of the nice side effects too of auto pays is depending on your depending on the bill, you might be able to get a discount for for auto pays. So check into insurance does that a lot. So check into that if that's something that would be helpful for you and your family. And then a couple things that are important to think about is just setting up those routines so that you can make sure that look through your budget. Make sure it is set up for 0 based budget so that every dollar that comes in for your income is all spent.

And I'm not saying it needs to leave your account, but it has to have a name attached to it. So that could be emergency fund savings, that could be entertainment, that could be your child's extracurricular activities, that kind of stuff. So making sure it's zeroed out and that you have a routine in place to check that. We do all that kind of stuff inside the alliance. And so that is a regular occurring appointment. And so we just get together and we do those things. So if you need that kind of support, I'd love to be there and help you with that.

So another step is to make a money calendar. The cool thing about this is you can set up checklist, you can find one on my website to just regular monthly check insurance with your budget. Maybe it's also quarterly resets and you will sit down with your spouse and say, Hey, this is do we need to make some, you know, bigger adjustments? Do we need to have more of these conversations? How are you know, how are you feeling about the amount of fun money or, you know, mad money or spending money or whatever you want to call your that line item?

How are you feeling about that? Does that feel right? And having having those conversations and putting those things on the calendar. So if you're like me, if it's not on the calendar, it doesn't happen. Is, is planning those now. My husband and I have a standing appointment on our calendar that we just check in on a, on a monthly basis to say, hey, is this is this, does this budget match what we plan for this month? And then, you know, we check in on our goals and see that, OK, yes, things are working as we anticipate.

And then the other thing is, and this is a really cool thing, if you're doing this at the beginning of 2026 or the beginning of the year is to look at the next year and see if there's any big expenses coming. I know for our family, there's going to be a wedding coming and so we're going to be doing some travel And so that's really exciting. So we're planning that. And then if you found yourself the this year in 2025 and you're like, I don't want to put Christmas next Christmas on a credit card, is planning that into your budget now and looking and seeing where are those big, those big expenses for the year and then breaking them down so that you can put those in your monthly budget and you don't have to put those things on credit card.

So I hope that these little tips will help you prepare your money for 2026 because we've got something big coming here on the show. I'm so excited because 2026 is going to be the year that this show goes big. And what I mean by that is we're going to go big in our debt rebellion. So we're going to pay off $1,000,000 of debt as a community. And I'm going to help you with that because it's so much better when we deal with someone else. My husband and I did not get that opportunity. We just might not hold it ourselves.

And so I'm so excited to be able to do this with you and, and just create some peace for ourselves in 2026 so that our debt doesn't have to carry into 2027. So if you are interested in that, I highly recommend you head over to my website and grab the Debt Rebel starter kit. And that's where the whole thing starts. And you can find that at Debt Rebel Podcast and we will see you in the next episode and in the new year talk soon. Thank you for tuning into the Debt Rebel show today. Ready to take your family budgeting to the next level, stop that paycheck to paycheck grind and start living debt free?

Head over to my website Debt Rebel Podcast dot com that's DEBTREDEL podcast.com to grab resources, tools and tips to make it happen. And don't forget, subscribe, leave a review. And if you know another family that will love hearing today's episode, it would be such a gift for both of us, your friend and me. If you share this episode and remember your debt free life starts with one brave step and I'm cheering you on every step of the way. We'll talk soon. Debt Rebel.

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