Episode 263: 5 Ways to Save Money So You Can Start Your Virtual Assistant Business

Full Episode Transcription:

Arianna Vernier: One of the biggest things I hear from people who want to become a virtual assistant, but they just don’t think they can at this time. One of the biggest excuses that I hear is that they just don’t have the money to invest in this yet. Now, I totally understand everybody’s situation is different, but I think there are some things you can kind of analyze and cut back on in your life. Potentially, that could help you make this dream come true faster. A lot of people see investing in themselves as throwing money away and they’re not going to get it back. But when you’re investing in your dream and something that’s going to allow you to make more money, you’re investing in your skills and that investment’s going to come back, hopefully a hundred percent. Most likely a hundred percent, but hopefully even more than that, okay? So what would you say if you knew you can make back whatever your investment is in becoming a virtual assistant?

Arianna Vernier: What if you could just make that back with one client and then every other client after that was additional income? So in this episode, I want to share with you five ways that you can save money so that you can start your virtual assistant business. Number one is to pre plan your meals and buy in bulk when you can. If you are just going to the store, you don’t have a game plan of what you’re going to be eating that week. When you’re buying all the ingredients, you might get home and realize, hey, I already have two of this thing I just bought. Or maybe you could have got whatever items you bought at the store. Maybe you could have bought them in bulk.

Arianna Vernier: And gotten them even cheaper and set aside that extra little bit of grocery money towards your first payment for a virtual assistant course. So if you preplan your meals, that’s going to really help you. Save a lot of money in the long run and one really great thing that we do that I like to recommend is we make two to three Really big meals every single week and then we just eat those leftovers all throughout the week now I know some people just are not About the leftover life and I get that but this works for us We get just to kind of rotate them. So it’s still a mixture. But it’s a really great way to make a big meal in bulk. Buy the food in bulk and then you’re saving money. All right tip number two is related to this. So if you have that That game plan in place for what you’re making and you make the food ahead of time, prep it all maybe at the beginning of the week so it’s not as overwhelming when you actually go to make the meal. You’re going to be more likely to eat out less frequently and you’re going to save a lot of money. I mean if you have a family of four like we do, it’s probably like Close to I don’t know sixty to a hundred bucks depending on where we’re going every single time we eat out And if you’re eating out always we that could be two hundred dollars that you’re kind of wasting every single week.

Arianna Vernier: Now I’m all about I love restaurants I love eating out and having fun But if you’re just doing it because you don’t know what else to eat you have no food in your fridge or none of the food sounds good. Well, that’s a problem and that’s definitely a place that you could be saving money Alright, tip number three is to make your coffee at home for a while. If you’re buying Starbucks every day, I just encourage you to keep those receipts and see how much you’re actually spending on coffee a month. It’d probably be a little bit scary, okay? So if you just made coffee, I don’t know, if you made coffee at home, 50 percent of the wheat You’d probably be saving a lot of money.

Arianna Vernier: Okay, you could probably afford a virtual assistant course like my virtual assistant mama academy Just by doing that for a month or two, you know All right tip number four is to look at any Recurring expenses that you have you don’t use is there a tv subscription that you never watch anymore? But you’re still paying for Are you on a phone plan that you don’t really need that big of one and you could downgrade to a smaller one? Where could you cut out expenses that you were just not using like you thought you would? Tip number five, this is kind of related, is to have a budget that you’re updating regularly because when you have that budget you’ll be inputting those expenses that you’re getting and then it’ll be like wait I’m paying for this and I don’t even use it. Like I know for me I love to read but sometimes I just get in such a busy season that I Just don’t have time to read and so I’m just listening to free audiobooks from my library And so I was paying for kindle unlimited when I didn’t even have time to read the books on kindle unlimited So I went ahead and canceled that so if you have a budget that’s helping you figure out where your money is going You can really see Where am I spending this money and do I really need to be spending money there or can I?

Arianna Vernier: Those expenses even just a little bit and start saving that money so I can invest in my skills and Knowing how to set up my virtual assistant business. So I hope this was helpful Let me recap those five ways to help you save money so you can start your virtual assistant business faster. Number one is to pre plan your meals and buy in bulk when you can number two is to eat out less Number three is to make your coffee at home for a little bit Number four is to look at any recurring expenses that you don’t use, and number five is to budget. All right, if you’re wanting to dive in the virtual assistant world and you’re still trying to figure out what to do, I do have a free workshop coming for you that’s going to teach you the five P’s of becoming a successful virtual assistant. You can register for that at ariannavernier.com/free-workshop or find that link in the show notes. As long as you register, you’ll get the link to watch the training live or if you can’t make it live, you’ll also get the link for the replay. So go check that out. I can’t wait to see y’all there. I hope you have a wonderful new year and we will see you back here in 2024 for our next episode.