Episode 306: 3 Practical Tips to Help You Reach Your Financial Goals as a Work-at-Home Mom

Full Episode Transcription:

Arianna Vernier: Hey, y’all. Welcome back to the Virtual Assistant Mama podcast in this episode, I’m going to cover three practical tips that you can use to help you reach your financial goals as a busy work at home mom, someone who’s, you know, trying to provide for their family, but also wants to spend all the time with their babies, how can you actually make your income goals happen while juggling family life? So, my first tip for you to help you reach your financial goals is to have a budget. I know you’re, you might be cringing at that word.

A lot of people just like kind of hold themselves back when they hear that word budget. And, I get it because I used to be the exact same way, same way with a planner. A lot of people are like, Nope, I’m not doing a planner. It’s too constricting. I can’t do it. But think if you reframe your mind around it, you might be more open to the possibility of sticking to a budget. So when I think of a budget or even doing like a planner every week, I like to think of it as a roadmap, and I see it as less constricting than not following a budget at all, because when I get to actually see where my money is going and be aware of everything that’s happening, which sounds scary at first.

But you can actually see where you’re hemorrhaging money that you don’t need to, right? And where you’re doing great in certain categories and you can figure out, Why am I doing great in that category? How can I apply it to this category where I’m always like going super negative in? And it just, it gives you a plan and it’s not something that has to be set in stone. It can adjust based on, you know, what’s happening that month or whatever. But it just gives you a roadmap to actually feeling like you can keep money in your bank account. And it’s not just always disappearing without you knowing where it’s going. So I highly recommend having a budget. You can Google and find all kinds of like basic budgets to start out with if you don’t have one. But it’s just a really good tool to have in your pocket to just help you figure out where your money is going, what you’re actually spending it on, and how you can just minorly tweak things to make it a little bit easier and less stressful on you. I typically sit down and update my budget twice a month.

And just like put in my different transactions and what they what they go to if I buy something that I know, like one purchase goes to a bunch of different categories. And I know I’m not going to remember. I’ll just put a quick note in my phone like really quick. Or I’ve even seen people keep their receipts and then they just like highlight what they’ve done. In different colors, you know, this is kid’s stuff, this is grocery, this is home stuff, etc. So whatever works for you, keep it simple when you’re starting out and you can always tweak it over time. But highly, highly, highly recommend having a budget. Alright, the second tip to help you reach your financial goals as a work at home mom is to know what your bottom line is.

So you need to know what you need to make in order to cover not only your expenses that you have, but also like your taxes you need to pay, what you want to be setting aside for like retirement and savings and all of that. You need to know what that number is. So you know what you’re actually working towards like it’s easy to say, you know, I have the school to make 5, 000 a month.

Okay, but after taxes, what will you actually be taking home? What do you need to set aside for like I said retirement savings? Whatever and then what’s actually gonna be left in your pocket? Are you gonna have enough? Are you gonna have a ton? What is that actual number going to look like once you’ve taken everything out of it? Okay, so I just want you to be aware of that. Know what that bottom line number is that you’re trying to actually work towards. And then tip number three is to backwards design towards your goals. I’ve talked about this in episodes before, but in teaching, we. I have to backwards design for our students. We have a certain subject we need them to master. And so we have to figure out what lessons do I have to teach and in what order do I have to teach it those lessons to get my students to be able to master this subject, right? So you’re going to do the same thing with your goals. Once you know that bottom line number, your goal income of what you need to be making, and then also where all that money is going to be going once you actually make it, then you can figure out, okay, how many clients do I actually need to hit that goal. If I’m charging this rate for a client for, you know, 20 hours of work a month, how many clients do I need to actually hit that income goal? And then you can break that down even further and just saying, okay, if I, you know, I need four clients to hit that number, This week I’m going to apply to this many jobs, and one of those should turn into a new client.

This week I’m going to apply to this many jobs, and so on. And you can really just make it even more possible for you to hit your goals. I think a lot of people set goals, and then they don’t really make a plan to execute them, and they just turn into dreams instead of actually getting to be accomplished goals. And so if you make that game plan, you are setting yourself up for success, and you’re going to find you. That you’re able to hit those goals and those dreams a whole lot faster. Okay. So real quick, let me just recap those three practical tips I have to help you reach your financial goals as a work at home mom.

Number one is having a budget. I know just do it. Number two is knowing your bottom line numbers, what you need to cover everything. And number three is backwards designing towards whatever your income goals. All right, y’all. I hope this episode was helpful. If you need help in this area, this is something that I help you with in the Virtual Assistant Mama Academy. That program, VAMA, gives you literally everything you need to hit your goals and be successful. You get the roadmap for landing clients as a virtual assistant. You get all the tools, templates, resources. You get to save so much time, money, and energy because I’ve got it. All laid out for you and I help you identify what your income goals are and we figure out how you’re going to get there. Okay. Walk hand in hand with you through that process. So if you are ready, go check out virtualassistantmama.com. You can also find that link in the show notes, see everything that’s included. Can’t wait to see you in there and let me know if you have any questions. You can always DM me on Instagram at @arianna.vernier or come into our Facebook group. You can find that link in the show notes, drop your questions, and I would be more than happy to answer them. All right, y’all. I love you so much and we will see you next time.