Making Cent$ of Money: Budgeting 101
Free Online Workshop (Making Sense of Money)

Making Sense of Money – Budgeting 101 Video Transcript

0:14
Hi there, and welcome to Making Sense of Money – Budgeting 101. My name is Catherine, and I’m a financial education specialist with the Credit Counselling Society, and I’m really glad you’re here today.

0:26
In the next little while, we’ll simplify budgeting, take the stress out of where your money goes and build a plan that supports your real life and real priorities. My goal is that you’ll leave feeling encouraged, organized, and ready with practical steps you can use right away. So let’s jump in.

0:44
Let’s start with a quick snapshot of who we are. The Credit Counselling Society is a Canadian non-profit. Our mission is simple. We help, we educate, and we give hope. We do that through free and confidential credit and debt counselling and through flexible debt solutions and practical financial education like the session today. If at any point you want to talk through your situation, even just to get some clarity, we’re just a phone call away, I’ll leave our contact information at the very end. There’s no pressure and no judgment, just support and a plan that makes sense for you.

1:20
When people struggle with money, it’s rarely because they’re doing anything wrong. Most often, it’s life. It’s a job change or fewer hours at work, relying on credit for basics, illness, an injury, separation, or simply the high housing costs. And all of these can happen to anyone at any time now. Budgeting isn’t about blame. It’s about regaining a sense of control so you can respond to whatever comes with more confidence and less stress. And that’s what today is about.

1:52
Here’s our road map. First, we’re going to connect you and your money to your values and your goals. Then we’ll look at expense tracking, planning for irregular and emergency costs, and building savings in a way that sticks with you. And finally, we’ll tie it all together with paycheck planning. Each step is going to build on the last so by the end, you’ll have a simple, flexible system you can actually incorporate into your day-to-day life.

2:21
By the end of this recording, you’ll be able to reflect on your money values and goals, understand and act on your financial priorities, plan for irregular and emergency expenses, and create a saving system that’s organized and realistic. Let’s start by reshaping what budget means.

2:39
What comes to mind when you hear the word budget? And for some people, budget means restrictive. For others it means empowering. Now here’s the reframe I want you to carry forward. A budget is a spending plan, and that’s it. It’s a tool for organizing your money around what matters most to you. Not to anyone else, not to your neighbours, just you. There’s no universal right or wrong here, only alignment and your plan to reflect your priorities and your reality and not anyone else’s.

3:13
What a budget really is. It works best when it’s written down. Life changes, expenses shift, you know big priorities evolve, so your plan needs to be visible and easily available and ready to be adjusted when a new expense appears. Your written plan is going to show exactly where to rebalance when a debt is paid off or your income rises. It will help you decide what that freed up money should do and where it should go. Your budget is a living guide, not a rigid rule book. So changes to it can happen often, or if nothing changes, it may stay the same for a long period of time. But it is something that is flexible.

3:54
Before you get into any numbers though, you have to decide what better looks like for you. Maybe it means less stress or feeling organized or having stronger boundaries with spending more savings using your money with more intention or easier having easier money conversations at home. Keep your version of better front and centre and you’re spending plan is there to support that vision. As soon as you start organizing your money, even with small steps, stress tends to drop. Predictability returns and sleep improves and with a clear plan you feel back at the wheel instead of money happening to you. That sense of progress builds something powerful. It builds a sense of hope, and hope makes it much easier to keep going even when life throws trial at you. Whatever your situation, there’s three elements that form your foundation of any budget. Your take home net pay, your living expenses and your savings lines. That means short term goals, emergency funds, and irregular expenses.

4:59
Now if your income is irregular, that’s OK, budgeting still works. The key is to build around conservative income estimates and priority based spending. Then adjust as money comes in and a written plan will help you see it all at a glance.

5:15
Now here’s a powerful question. What does money mean to you? Does it mean safety, freedom, flexibility, the ability to give comfort or adventure?

5:27
Your answer to this question will help you decide what you want your money to do for you first. It’ll help you prioritize your goals, and it brings a purpose to the numbers and guides the priorities you’ll fund.

5:39
How do we decide what these money values are? Money values and priorities, they go hand in hand. You may ask yourself, where do you find that in your budget you want your numbers to go? Where would you like it to go? By answering these questions, it will help you define your priorities. A student at home may find value, flexibility and learning, and a parent may value stability and closeness to family. Someone nearing retirement may value security and low stress. Values are

6:10
going to shift as your life progresses, so check in regularly. That’s where flexibility with your budget must happen. And remember, sending that aligns with your values is not wasted, it’s intentional. Others may point a finger and say that’s not how they would spend their money, but it doesn’t matter. Your budget is going to reflect your values. For example, choosing to live close to family, even if it costs more, may seem irresponsible for some people, but it can be exactly right

6:41
if the connection is your value. Whatever your values are, though, translate them into goals. Goals provide direction, motivation, and a clear purpose for how you will spend and save your money. Big or small doesn’t really matter, but clarity does. You have to know what your goal is. When you can point to a goal and say that’s what we’re working towards, decisions around money will become simpler and more productive. Momentum will start to build.

7:12
When you set your goals, you want to define a few areas. You want to know what it is, how much it costs, and your time frame. And you want to have a bit of a guide around how long you want to work towards this goal. Will it be a short-term goal that’s 6 to 12 months? Will it be a medium-term goal that’s three to five years? Or will it be a long-term goal that’s 10 to 15 years or more? Once you know your costs and time, then you can translate the goal into a monthly

7:42
or a per pay amount and that’s completely up to you. You also want to make your goals SMART. That word is an acronym. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timed. Measurable means how much you want to save it for. Achievable is real, having it being realistic. Does the money figure fit into your other priorities? Having it Relevant means it’s applied to your money values, and having it timed means you have a clear endpoint to when you will achieve your goal. Specifics turn a wish into a plan, Relevance keeps you motivated, and Timing is going to keep you moving. Let’s put all of this together with a quick example. So all of these prompts will help you build a successful SMART goal. For example, my first goal is to take a vacation. You want to go in 18 months. That’s the time frame from your goal. The total cost is $1,500 and that means saving about $84 a month or roughly $38 every two weeks to get to that $1,500 over 18 months. By writing out these prompts you can see where building these bite sized chunks makes it a lot easier for you to take some big goal like $1,500 and break it into something realistic and tangible. Now you have a dollar figure you can apply to your next paycheck and within your monthly or weekly budget to help you work towards those long-term savings.

9:18
Now you also have to understand that some budgets may not fit what the goal is asking you to save or put aside. If it’s not, you can always adjust it. That’s also why it’s very important to write it down. Can you adjust the time frame? Can you adjust the dollar figure? All of this will end up changing the end number. So again, that flexibility will help you work towards that long term savings.

9:44
I now want to talk about some savings tips. Set clear goals and expect them to evolve. Pay yourself first by treating savings like a must pay bill and use separate accounts to keep goals organized and watch out for bank fees. More accounts should not mean more charges. If your institution does charge, ask about low fee options or go shopping around and see if there is a bank or a credit union that may offer lower fee or no fee options.

10:12
If goals are the destination, then tracking is going to be your dashboard. Knowing where your money actually went is how you close the gap between intention and reality. If you haven’t tracked before, start simple. One store, one category, or even one week at a time. Awareness is what completely changes the game. Why does it work? Because tracking can feel tedious at first, but it quickly pays off. You’re going to start passing patterns, identify leaks, and see small changes free up real dollars and practice becomes habit and habit becomes confidence.

10:46
This isn’t about perfection. It’s about telling the truth on paper so that you can make informed choices that actually help you and supports your budget and supports your values. There’s so many different ways to expense track, so you’ll want to use a method that you’ll actually stick with. It can be pen and paper. You can use this simple spreadsheet. All of this is a good way to build great habits. You can even use our free CCS tracking booklet on nomoredebts.org.

11:17
Cash and envelope systems can also be a very powerful way to help track groceries or simple things like gas apps can help too. Many banks include built-in tools, so if you consider third party apps, check with your bank first about security and insurance implications before linking any accounts. You want to try one method for at least two weeks, then review what how it felt and what you learned. You can always tweak from there. Sometimes you may have to jump from method to method. The point is, tracking is a muscle building tool. The more you do it, the more regular it gets, and it’ll be ingrained and part of your day-to-day life.

11:57
What about irregular expenses? So this is another piece of your budget that is extremely important and cannot be overlooked. Irregular expenses are things that don’t happen monthly, but they do happen. Things like property taxes, car maintenance, insurance, dental visits, school supplies, gifts, and other miscellaneous things. But because timing in the amounts they vary, they can completely derail a budget if unplanned for. So we need to plan for them with purpose.

12:28
Now here’s a way to think about them. You want to group them by things like housing, living, work, and personal. It feels like a lot. You can also download our budget Excel spreadsheet through the same website, nomoredebts.org and it has these categories already listed out for you. Otherwise, you can always create your own categories. You want to list each expected item and estimate a yearly total. So for illustration, let’s just say your list adds up to $3,000 for the entire year.

12:58
The question is then, how do we set that money aside in a way that’s painless and is predictable while we treat it like a monthly expense and we create an irregular savings account? So what we want to do is add up the annual total. In a previous example it was $3,000. In your case it may look different. You want to take that dollar figure and you divide it by 12 for a monthly transfer or 26 if you want to do a bi-weekly transfer. Again, that amount is completely up to you.

13:28
Whatever your pay schedule is like, it’d be recommended to match it towards your pay schedule. You want to automate that amount into the irregular savings account and use it only for the expenses that you listed out earlier. Track the ins and outs so the balance stays healthy. If the math doesn’t fit, that’s OK. You can trim a category here, or trim a category there. Increase gradually or revisit estimates. That’s the beauty of an irregular expense account, because most of the time you’re not going to use the entire amount right away.

14:00
You may take out a little bit, track those expenses. You can always try and catch up with your contributions later on. The win is having a system in and of itself, again, practicing and recognizing that there are purchases outside of your monthly spending you do need to set aside money for.

14:21
Let’s talk about emergency expenses. Emergency expenses are for those situations that we could not predict. If you’ve done your best to create your budget, you created your irregular expense account, and then there’s a situation that arises that nobody could have predicted. That’s where the emergency funds come in. Emergencies are unexpected and they’re unpredictable. We don’t know when, what or how much to put aside, but we can do our part in preparing for a crisis so that it doesn’t

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become a catastrophe. Instead, it’s just a small inconvenience that may happen in our budget. And there’s a couple of different ways to look at an emergency fund. We recommend saving for three to six months of living expenses. So you would take your budget, you times it by three or times it by 6. That is a significant number. It can be for a lot of us. So that would be a long-term goal. To get to that long term goal, we encourage a many families and many individuals to start saving up

15:23
for $1,000 over the course of a year, $1,000. That’s $40 for every two weeks or roughly about $80 a month. Is that an amount that’s doable? Now knock on wood, you don’t use that $1,000 over the course of a year. You can shift that $1,000 into a long-term emergency fund so you can work towards that longer term. Three to six months of living expenses. The right amount is going to vary with your location, your family situation, your household size

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and even job stability, so remember to be flexible if targets feel out of reach. Plan for emergencies that will most likely hit your life situation first. So for example, many Canadians a car repair is a comment and often around a few $100 is needed. Or if you have family that lives far away, you need to price out a last minute flight. What does that look like for you if you need to pick up and leave right away and save towards those specific needs?

16:22
Focus on the habit of contributing consistently, not just on the number. Remember, small deposits do count, and momentum matters. Practice those muscle saving habits.

16:34
We want to make sure that when we are putting savings aside, we have to keep our savings safe from ourselves. If we attempted to dip into savings, design a little friction for yourself. Make it hard. Choose a savings account without debit access, remove the card altogether, or pick an account that requires a branch visit to withdraw or having someone else hold you accountable. Ultimately, it means the more pauses you put between being able to put your money aside and taking the money out, that means fewer impulse decisions.

17:05
Some other savings tips I want to leave you with includes a 40/40/20 rule. This is if you ever receive a lump sum, whether that’s a tax refund or a bonus from work or a gift that you receive, apply the 40/40/20 rule. That means 40% of that lump sum would go into savings, 40% goes into repaying debt, and 20% is for something fun, something for yourself. You’ll strengthen your future, reduce costs, and still enjoy a well earned treat. That balance is going to keep motivation high.

17:38
Another savings opportunity is called the 52 Week Money Challenge. And how this particular method works is you apply it to the 52 weeks of the year. You can start anytime that you like. So in week 1 you put aside $1. Week 2 is $2, week 3 is $3, week 4 is $4. You kind of get the pattern. You continue on this trend for 52 weeks, and by the end of the 52 weeks, you’ll have a little over $1,300 in a savings account for whatever you decided to save it for. And remember, it’s not about the big, huge amounts that are going to save. It’s about the practice of building these savings. And having these little practice opportunities like these money challenges can go a long way.

18:24
The last piece I want to talk about today is paycheck planning. We’ve talked about a lot from budgeting to expense tracking all the way to how to create some savings. Now how do we tie that all in together is by creating a paycheck plan. So to make things even simpler for you, we can tie in our budget to the paycheck that receive and the money and the amount should make sense because we created our budget off of our take home net pay. And a lot of budgets will run smoother when you separate your money into three different buckets. The first one is fixed expenses, which is anything in your budget that is consistent, regular and predictable. It comes out on the same date and the amount is the same each month like rent, insurance, mortgage payments. The next bucket is variable expenses. These are things that are regular, but the amounts and the dates they change, hence variable. These are things like groceries or gas, entertainment, eating out. It’s basically our spending money.

19:25
Very lastly is the savings expenses. These are things for the future. This incorporates irregular expenses, emergency expenses, and our personal savings goals.

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So all of these are the three buckets and what you can do with your budget is categorize each and every single one of your line items into one of these three buckets. Consider separate accounts, but watch for fees. The point is clarity and flow, but you don’t want to take on extra charges. Now let’s move into an example here. This is potentially what a paycheck plan would look like for someone who receives $3,170 a month of fixed income.

20:08
So this first would show a fixed expense category, then a variable expense category and eight savings expense category. You can see the values at the bottom will add up to the $3,170. And again, as I mentioned, it provides clarity right off the get go because he’s done his job in categorizing everything. They’ll know that when they receive the amount for every two weeks, this amount does not get touched because it must be set aside for all of their fixed expenses.

20:42
Rent, cell phone, insurance, these things must get paid and the required to be paid. So you know that part of that cannot be touched. Then comes their spending money. This is the part where it’s a bit more flexible and this allows you to understand I can’t spend more than X amount of dollars because then I’ll go over my budget because again, every dollar has a job in this picture. Very lastly is a savings expenses where you can see this money is being put aside

21:11
for those other categories like irregular expenses, emergency fund and their personal savings goal. Having this outlined will help you understand that every dollar of your paycheck has a job, and you’ve outlined that job, which ultimately ties back into the values that you created earlier on when you created your budget.

21:34
Lastly is to organize your money. So understanding that you can categorize the different parts of your budget, you can picture your money flowing into three simple lanes. Your income arrives, fixed bills are set aside, and variable spending gets their own lane and saving lanes captures emergencies, irregulars, and personal goals. You can direct your money into its home so you know where it belongs. Seeing each lane clearly, not just visually like this by, but by creating accounts

22:04
at the bank to accommodate these lanes can keep the whole system calm and predictable.

22:12
I’m going to start summing things up for today.
Alternatives to Credit
If you’re really on the path of wanting to avoid using credit to maintain your day-to-day expenses, you’ll want to consider alternatives to credit. There are options that still work well online and in stores, like a Visa debit card or debit MasterCard. Spend money that you already have through your debit account. Prepaid credit cards are also great for controlled spending. Ideally, this is done through your bank. Secured credit cards can also be done through your bank, and they require a deposit and are reported to the bureau. This is the only option on the list that is also reflected as a credit history behavior.

22:54
Now to keep things in mind. You don’t have to do everything all at once. I know it’s a lot. Pick one or two steps that feel manageable. Create or revise your budget to reflect your priorities. Maybe plan for irregular expenses, start or grow your emergency fund, or begin simple expense tracking. It doesn’t matter which one you start with, but the point is to get started.

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You’re not alone. If you’d like a hand with any of these steps, please feel free to give us a call. Remember, our appointments are completely free and completely confidential. A short, friendly conversation with a credit counsellor can provide a plan and a lot of relief.

23:34
We’ve covered a lot today: values, goals, tracking, irregular and emergency expenses, practical saving strategies, and paycheck planning. My hope is that you’re leaving with encouragement and a sense that this is doable. And if it’s not, give us a call. You’ve got this, and we’re here to help whenever you need it.