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Give me just a minute. I want to help you turn your budget into a spending plan. You know, a budget is just you telling your money where to go instead of the other way around. I have never actually seen anybody succeed with money without controlling the outflow of money. Where'd it go? I have no idea. If you have no idea where your money went, you pretty soon will not have any money at all. Famous actor Errol Flynn said, my problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net worth. You know, he was the highest paid actor in Hollywood for over 20 years. He ended up broke. Writer A.A. latimer said, A budget is a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions. Well, we want to get you away from your gross habits. We want to get you away from your suspicions. We want to get you controlling your money. And the way to do it is to have a budget. Top of the morning to you. I'm Brian Buffini. Today we're talking about money on the Brian Buffini Show. We like to say a budget isn't about restriction, it's about freedom. But let's be honest. The word budget can feel about as exciting as organizing your sock drawer on a hot Friday night. Still, here's the truth. If you don't tell your money where to go, it has a funny habit of disappearing. So I'm going to help you take the stress and the spreadsheets with the 17 tab energy out of budgeting and replace it with a plan you can actually stick to A few smart moves, a little discipline, and suddenly your money is working for you, not the other way around. Because a bulletproof budget isn't about pinching pennies. It's about building peace of mind. And that, my friend, is worth every cent. Here comes our blueprint for success. On today's blueprint, we're going to talk about how to build a budget. My mentor, the great Jim Rohn, introduced me to a concept called the 70 10, 1010 plan. Learn to live on 70% of what you make. Give away 10%, save 10% and invest 10%. He also recommended a book. I read this book 39 years ago. It was called the Richest man in Babylon. And in that book, it says a portion of all you earn is yours to keep. Pay yourself first. So 70 10, 10 10. That was my first goal. Well, the very first thing that happened for me and my bride is when we started the budgeting process, much to my chagrin, we weren't at 70%, living on 10%, giving 10% saving and 10% investing. In fact, we were spending 106% of what we were making. So our first budget was 106, 000. And you think, how is that even possible? Well, that's possible because in America, it's a credit culture. And in America, you can spend money you don't have. Need a bed. Well, you can buy a bed and there's no payments for 12 months or 18 months or 24 months. Imagine that, sleeping on a mattress you don't even own. Pay an interest on it. You can get credit cards. Everything can be financed. Can't afford the car, Guess what? We'll give you really low payments. And the next thing you know, you're living beyond your means. Most people, they say, are living paycheck to paycheck. Probably not true, because ultimately, most of us are living on credit. So the very first time, Brian Buffini, the guy who's taught millions of people about budgeting and has helped create thousands of millionaires, the first time I did this exercise with my bride, we were spending 106% of what we were making. So the first thing we did was stop the slide. We said, okay, from this point, going forward, nothing goes on credit. If we can't afford to pay for it, we don't buy it. And we've kept that promise to each other for 34 years of our marriage since. So our first year, we were in debt. And after that first year, we have never had a balance on a credit card since. So we then got to 97,111. We were going to live on 97% of what we made. We gave 1%, saved 1%, invested 1%. Now, as people of faith, we were very committed to being able to give 10% of what we earned. And that was our first goal. So I did two things. I increased my earnings, and I maintained and even cut my expenses to the point that we got to 90, and then 3, 3, and 4. Then we got to 80, and then we got to 70, 10, 10. And then eventually, over the decades, you get to 50, 40, 10, things like that. So the bottom line is this. It doesn't matter where you start, but the same disciplines that my wife and I put in place 35 years ago are the same disciplines we have today. For example, how did we get to save and invest? Well, we made them automatic. And the very first thing we ever did was to put in an automatic withdrawal from our checking account into our savings account. And it was started out as 50 bucks a month, then it was 50 bucks every two weeks. Now, I can remember the feeling. I remember the feeling, man, 100 bucks a month is not going to do anything for us. Little did I know I was putting the disciplines and the systems in place to change my life forever. In fact, I'll tell you this, nothing financially has ever made me more money than that one decision. Because over the course of my life, all that's happened is it went from 50 bucks every two weeks to a hundred bucks every two weeks to 150 bucks every two weeks to 200 bucks every two weeks, then to thousands, then to many thousands, then to deca thousands and beyond. The same disciplines that my bride and I put in place 35 years ago are the same disciplines we have today. We made our savings automatic. And out of that savings, not only did we build up our reserves, which I'll talk about in a minute, but then we use that money also for investing. And we've made those investments. And over the course of 35 years, that constant consistent investing has turned into a fortune. It starts by first, controlling the outflow, secondly, committing no more debt. And I'm going to give you some books as references to help you here today in my blueprint. And then thirdly, putting those processes in place that ultimately all you have to do is add to it. The second thing I'd say to you is that make sure you build up a surplus of reserves. I will share with you. People say the first million is the hardest, and that's true. But I'll tell you something that's harder than that is to get the first month of reserves. Do you know that 70% of Americans do not have one month of their expenses set aside in an account? I'll tell you why it's very hard to do. And I will tell you when I'm typically coaching someone and starting from scratch, it typically takes someone a year to be able to save up one month of their expenses. But once you get to the one month, then you can get to three. It takes a year to get one month. I typically people get to that three to six months reserves within two to three years. And what that monthly reserve does for you is it gives you peace of mind. Now that I have the three to six months reserves, as I continually put those automatic deposits into my savings account. Now I invest from the savings account. Important. I never invest with debt. That's how people go bankrupt. I lost everything on an investment. That meant you lost money, you borrowed. So never borrow money for an investment, ever. Save that money, grind it out. And there's times when you might buy a house, you might buy a Big investment and the reserves get depleted, and that's okay. If you buy your first home and you go down to one month's reserves again, fine. It might take you two or three years to build up those reserves again. Couple of books I'd recommend to you again, read the book the Richest man in Babylon by George Clason. That's the book that made me a millionaire. He's a good friend of mine. His name is Dave Ramsey. We're golfing buddies. His book Total Money Makeover, I believe is the best book written to help people get out of debt and get that first month in reserves and then a nice book as well. And another good friend of mine named David Bock wrote a book called Finish Rich. Very, very good stuff. Those books should be part of your blueprint. Reading a book on your finance, instead of scrolling for five hours on your phone, let me tell you that scrolling will not make you a millionaire, but reading those books will. Here's the third thing I share with you is make cuts where necessary. So the first thing you do is you make a list of all your expenses and then you put them into three categories. What are my fixed expenses, what are my irregular expenses, and what are my discretionary expenses? Your fixed expenses might be your mortgage, your car, your property taxes, those kinds of things. So what are the other payments? You might have kids tuitions a couple times a year. What are those things that are irregular? So you have your fixed expenses, kind of something you can do nothing about. You have your irregular expenses and then you have your discretionary expenses. And this is really usually where you go to work, and this is where you tighten up. By the way, My wife and I do this exercise every year. Every year we take at least one trip where during the trip we'll go to Hawaii and we'll do our walks on the beach, we'll play golf. But during the afternoons, the time is set aside for us to go over the small items in our budget. For example, the endless subscriptions. And you find out you're paying for this kid and that kid and this Netflix and that and so on and so forth. And oh, by the way, canceling subscriptions is a royal pain in the behind. They all have AI customer service where you can never get a proper answer. But those kinds of things, saving 50 bucks here and 70 bucks there. Ben Franklin was America's first millionaire, and he said, a penny saved is a penny earned. The budgeting app I recommend and that we use in our family is called Monarch. My kids actually turned me onto this I love this app. I think it's fantastic. It also contains your net worth, all your assets. It can tell you how you're doing financially. And you get to monitor your budgeting at point of investment and sale, focus on your regular irregular expenses, make cuts on those discretionary expenses, especially your subscriptions. I'd use the Monarch budgeting app. And if you do that, here's what will happen. Not only will you have a budget, not only will you have a blueprint, but you'll be on your way not just to have peace of mind financially, but ultimately build your own fortune. I hope today's blueprint has helped you follow it. Like all blueprints, you'll construct a fortune.