379-Diet-Culture Free Budgeting with Chelsea Hester-Bradt

Going Beyond The Food Show 379-Diet-Culture Free Budgeting with Chelsea Hester-Bradt

This is episode 379 of the beyond the food show. And today we're going to talk about budgeting, not budgeting macro budgeting money in a diet culture freeway with our guests. Chelsea Esther, stay tuned.

Hello, my sisters and welcome back to the podcast. I'm going to talk about budgeting today. We've never talked about this in almost seven years existence of this podcast, because I couldn't find someone who was diet, Culture free, oppression free in the way that she coached budgeting for women. And I found her.

I found the gem, Chelsea Hester, who is an intuitive eating counselor who gets how women are impacted by diet culture well beyond the food. And as soon as I found her, I'm like, you have come on the podcast and talk to my sisters. And here we are today, we're going to talk about budgeting. And I'm going to share my personal story of budgeting, because I've been on the budgeting journey since January 1, 2023.

And it's very interesting what I've discovered about myself in this journey. Now, just before we move into this very interesting and educational conversation around budgeting, I want to give you a heads up for all of you that are listening to this podcast that are provider or coaches in the health spectrum, life coaching, counseling, and want to study with us inside the non diet coaching certification.

It is enrollment season for cohort number nine. Yep, four years of teaching professional how to help women with the non diet approach. So if you want to be part of co op number nine, we have an early enrollment period that's going to start October 28, 2023. So in. Seven days, you're going to have access to early enrollment, which will give you access to two very powerful, lack of better word, bonus.

One being a eight month extended payment plan at no additional cost to you. So we take the price of the tuition divided by eight, and that's what you pay. And we also going to give you the jumpstart program, which is a. process that I created for you to start studying the different module of the certification ahead of time.

And I help you craft a individualized path of learning for you based on an assessment that we do together. So that's the jumpstart program. So as soon as you pay your first incentive. Ment of your tuition, we give you your id and then we give you your link to your private student portal and you can get started.

So if that is, you know that you need to get yourself on the wait list. So the link to the non diet coaching certification wait list will be in the so note and. I can't wait to work with you, starting January 4th, 2024. Okay, my sister, let's talk about budgeting and money with Chelsea Ester. We will roll the interview for you.

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Stephanie: Welcome to the show, Chelsea.

Chelsea: Hello. Thank you so much for letting me be here. It's an honor.

Stephanie: it's very exciting for me. I have personally been looking forward to this episode and picking your brain on budgeting because I have my own Stephanie's way. And I'm, I'm really curious to see if the, your way, the YNAB way is a solution for many of our listeners. So let's talk about how you came into the world of budgeting as a certified intuitive eating counselor and what is it that you teach exactly?

Chelsea: Yeah. Okay, well, like you said, I'm a certified intuitive eating counselor, my training, I have my master's in counseling, in clinical mental health, and worked with eating disorders before going the coaching route, so that was my first passion, my first love, about six years ago, I was hanging out with a fellow So, Eating disorder therapist who she whipped out her YNAB app and started like logging her finances and I was like, whoa, Whoa, doesn't that feel like a diet to you?

Chelsea: Like I've never seen someone in the eating disorder world logging their finances because my association with budgeting is that it's restrictive and resembles a diet and Feels very limiting and scary. And so six years ago, long story short, she turned me on to YNAB. I was hooked. I have ADHD. So that became my hyper focus of the year.

Chelsea: And I guess it's still kind of is, but I did a deep dive into YNAB, became their biggest fan, love it, love it, love it. And then it wasn't until last year that I started realizing the parallels and the overlap. A lot of my clients were talking about their relationship with money, marrying their relationship with food.

Chelsea: And at the same time, YNAB created this coaching certification program. So they basically said, we want to train people to go out into the world and teach our software because we don't have the capacity to do that. On the individual level. So I went through the YNAB coaching certification program last year, and that opened up this branch of my business and it's been going great and I love it.

Chelsea: And yeah, so I do one on one YNAB coaching. YNAB is absolutely a tool that you can pursue on your own. What is YNAB?

Stephanie: We're using the like acronym here. Let's go to the, what the heck is YNAB?

Chelsea: What the heck is YNAB? It stands for you need a budget. So Y N A B, you need a budget. and it's a web app. The web version is very robust, but then it's also a mobile app.

Chelsea: So you can use it on your phone as well. so anyone who's listening today, you can sign up for YNAB. I have full faith that you can do it on your own. YNAB has lots of free resources on their website to help guide you in setting it up. And a lot of people have complex financial situations and don't want to spend hours watching YouTube videos on learning how to use it.

Chelsea: So that's one reason people would book me. Also... Because of my training and counseling, I support people emotionally with money. So if even just turning towards a budget brings up emotions for people, I help them with that as well. So that that would be the reason someone would work with me rather than just setting it up on their own, which anyone's welcome to do.

Stephanie: So let's talk about the parallel between budgeting. You use a great example, right? Whipping up your app to like, log in your financial transaction, just like we used to do with pulling up an app and logging in our calories. Yep. That's a great analogy. Why is it? Like, what drives people in their relationship to money to use a budget altogether and not use a budget? Like, how do you see those parallel in your practice?

Chelsea: Yeah, I think that a lot of budgets do. Almost identically mirror a diet where you have a set amount, you know, you're supposed to stay within a certain amount of money, just like you're supposed to stay within a certain amount of calories, and if you go over, there's a lot of shame, a lot of it's like, retroactive, where you look back at the end of the month, and you're just like, wow, I really messed up, and Then there's the, I hear a lot of the like, well I blew it, you know, I blew past, I was supposed to only spend 100 on groceries and I spent 200, so the like, screw it mentality, the kind of like, Like we do with food of like, well, I went over and now I might as well spend a thousand dollars.

Chelsea: Right. Cause I blew it. So I think there's often a lot of that and then YNAB. So there's two aspects. YNAB itself, the software functions differently than any other budgeting app I've met and, or worked with. And so I can talk about that in a minute, but I think specifically to intuitive eating, I think of YNAB as.

Chelsea: Meal planning rather than dieting where with intuitive eating and not everybody meal plans and that's fine. But I think a common question is like, can I meal plan and intuitive eater? Can there be any sort of structure to my eating without it feeling like a diet and without any sort of meal plan? Or I use that term very loosely.

Chelsea: A lot of people just open up their refrigerator and there's like a sense of overwhelm now that I can eat all foods. I don't even know where to start. There's overwhelm. I can have anything. And I think that if you look at your checking account and there's no sort of structure or plan or an idea, an intention with the money, just like we have intentions with the food of like, I hope to use up these ingredients over the week, right?

Chelsea: Like it doesn't have to be rigid. So I think of YNAB as creating that structure that I think most people do need. Too much freedom is creates overwhelming chaos, and then too much restriction can lead to living a very rigid, fearful, guilt and shame ridden life. And so I think of YNAB as like the structure that many of us need with our finances, and then the software itself is just very different.

Chelsea: you want me to get into like what the software is?

Stephanie: Well yeah, before we get into the software, I just want to say What comes up to my mind as you describe this approach to budgeting is, you know, when we look at the eating pendulum and intuitive eating, we, like, restrict on one side of the pendulum and then we, like, free for all, like, binge on the other side. And then through the process of intuitive eating, we land in the middle ground. It's not black. It's not white. It's the gray. Where we can eat everything we want, but we still have gentle nutrition. So we could say gentle budgeting. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Right. So, and I want to say to my own experience, it was my first time years ago in the corporate world.

Stephanie: We, I used to do so much budgeting in my job that with my money was like, fuck this shit. I'm not budgeting anything. And then in the last year when I was working with my accountant for my business and like, how much do you want to get paid? I don't know. He's like, what, how much do you spend in your expense?

Stephanie: I don't know. Cause it was a free for all. I just had, I moved money from the business to the personal when I needed it. It's like, that's not how you need to do this. We need some structure, right? So I put in budget, but they were flexible, right? So, and that really for me resonate as gentle nutrition. I need to eat vegetables and fruit, but it's not going to be eight cups a day.

Stephanie: Yes. Does that make sense? Yes. Absolutely. It could be two cups one day and then ten cups the next day and I don't measure it. It's just volume of vegetables. Okay, so let's talk about the software, how it is different than other budgeting software.

Chelsea: Yeah, so they have what they call the method. And there's Like four rules, four principles of that method.

Chelsea: The first one is give every dollar a job. So this, I would say is the biggest difference. So anytime you have an inflow of money, or if you're right, when you're starting out with YNAB, whatever the current amount of money in your checking account is the money that you work with and you give every one of those dollars.

Chelsea: A job. So you have your categories, you know, dining out gas, Broadway shows. I live in New York city. It's my favorite thing. Right. So I have those categories and I go through and I say, okay, I want to put a hundred dollars into groceries. I want to put a hundred into Broadway. You go through, that in and of itself, there's intention and it helps you clarify your priorities. And you really are looking at like, I have this money. What do I want to do with it? And how do I want it to. serve me and give me the most fulfilling, joyful life. And I think that's a really big difference too, is why not places such emphasis on honoring your priorities, your joy, your values. There are no shoulds.

Chelsea: There's no, you need to put a certain amount into savings or you need to be paying off your debt at this rapid pace. it's very fluid and flexible and honors what's important to you. And they recognize that. What's important to you may not be what society deems as the like quote unquote best way to spend your money, right?

Stephanie: 20 percent of your income should go to this and 18. 5 to this. Like the Dave Ramsey approach of very structural, that is not how this application works.

Chelsea: Not at all. Not at all. So you're getting the very first thing people do when they encounter the app is soul searching. The very first thing they do is because they're saying, I have a thousand dollars in my checking account.

Chelsea: Where do I want that money to go? And then, so then you distribute it down and then you live your life. And as you're spending money, you're seeing, Oh, okay. Right now I have 500 available in groceries. I'm going to go spend that. If you get to a point where you don't have the money that you want in that category, you have a choice.

Chelsea: You can either choose to not. buy the thing or you can move it from another category. So YNAB flexibility is key and without judgment or shame. And that is all over their messaging is move the money without guilt, without feeling like you messed up. It's just, Oh, actually I do want to go out to eat more this month than I thought I would.

Chelsea: I'm going to pull that from my clothes category because I don't need a new dress. This month, but I do want to go out with my friends tonight. so there's the flexibility piece and a big difference in the like proactive assigning of money is very different than most budgeting apps where it's retroactive, where you're just spending your money and then you look back and you're like, Oh, shoot, I met quote unquote messed up.

Chelsea: Oh, man. And then that's where the like, I blew it. I can't budget this. I'm not cut out for this. And so YNAB puts you in relation with your money every day. And I think that is something that I connect parallel with intuitive eating as well as like, bringing you into relationship with your body, bringing you into relationship with food, bringing you into relationship with your money.

Chelsea: Where it's not something that you are like the puppeteer trying to control. From the outside. It's you asking, what do I want these dollars to do for me and what's important to me? And so Yeah, there's a couple, the other rules, are embrace your true expenses, which I don't think has, I don't know how much of a parallel I can draw to intuitive eating with that, but basically it says that most things in your life can be a monthly bill, like holiday gifts.

Chelsea: If you have holiday gifts coming up, rather than you waiting till December, November and being like, oh, shoot, I need to just find 1, 000 for gifts, you start dividing that up. And you set aside a hundred a month. And then when December rolls around, you have this nice, beautiful lump of money waiting for you.

Chelsea: So that's another just, one of the method is you're saving for those expenses along the way. and then the fourth part of the method is called age your money, which again, don't necessarily have anything connected to intuitive eating with this, but it's the idea. This is what gets you out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle where we're wanting the money, the dollars that we make today in an ideal world.

Chelsea: To be, we're budgeting them and assigning them to next month's life, next month's bills. So that there's space between when you make money and when you spend it. So it's the opposite of like, Oh, thank God I got paid today. I need to go give this check to my landlord right now. Right. Like that would be zero agency.

Chelsea: Yes. Yes. And so it's. Taking that away, and that takes months of just time you, you know, switching, you're switching your mode, you're switching your relationship and used with money, and so that one just kind of naturally happens. It's not really something you have to intentionally implement.

Stephanie: And I want to say to this, like, I'm into my 10th month, well, so whatever, we're in September, so the 9th month of me using this app, which is not why now, because I didn't know it existed, but think I'm going to switch next year, but this, it took me 11 months to like figure out my budget. That I felt good living with, that I could do everything that I wanted and not put money where I didn't want it. So it takes time to construct. a spending and budgets that feel good to you.

Chelsea: Yes. Just like with intuitive eating, there's going to be the trial and error. There's going to be the like, well, I ate more. I ate beyond fullness. Whoops. That was slightly uncomfortable. Fine. We learned from it. We accept it. Right. Just as your When you're breaking away from dieting, you're, this idea that you're just going to like magically know what your body wants at every moment in the exact amount is very unrealistic. Yeah, so it's great.

Stephanie: And the way you're speaking about it. Is the compassionate Ruth, instead of the like blaming, punishment, willpower. And that's what I call the quote unquote, Dave Ramsey scream at you kind of world. It's like, it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to not hit, like, we're just going to, how do we deal with that?

Stephanie: And that's for me took like three months of me dealing with this budgeting app in a way that wasn't my old wiring. You fucking messed up, you're bad, you don't know how to budget. Like it took me three months of rewiring my brain to deal with a budget in a non black and white way.

Chelsea: And isn't it so interesting that you've done all of that work with food and then it didn't just automatically transfer over to your relationship with money. You had to consciously work with it.

Stephanie: It was intentional. Like you talked about, I decided that 2023 was going to be my intentional personal finance year. Now I've got mindset skills and that I teach those skills. So I'm like a little bit more equipped, but it took me three months of getting off the old way of thinking about budget, the corporate way that I was training. So it does require effort. And it's an intentional effort that you need to decide up front. You're going to have to put some effort coaching yourself to change those ways. It's not going to fall off the sky.

Stephanie: So we have this app. We have this philosophy. Now, what would be your advice to people who have done the work of diet culture? Forbidding, like moving away from diet culture and that mindset, the weight neutral approach to health. It would be a. Healthy money management routine

Chelsea: aside from using YNAB

Stephanie: or with using YNAB or what do you do for your money? Yeah.

Chelsea: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think similar with food before we even start implementing. I mean, you can download YNAB right now and start implementing things, of course. And simultaneously, I think one of the first steps is becoming aware of what are your current beliefs around money and what are the rules?

Chelsea: Like, that's one of the first things I do with my intuitive eating clients of like, what food rules are you still living by that you might not even realize? What are the shoulds? So I would ask people to start there, like as you're embarking on This new relationship with money. Let's be aware of what you're bringing into it.

Chelsea: Like, what are the rules? What have you been told your whole life? You're supposed, you know, quote unquote, supposed to do with money. What do you feel guilty about? What evokes guilt when you spend money on X? How does it make you feel when you spend money on this? How does it make you feel so right? Like bringing awareness to some of the stories and rules that you're entering into this new relationship with money with.

Chelsea: And then in practice, I think, When you get paid, and you can do this with or without YNAB, when you get paid or today, just go open your checking account, look at that number that's there, and try to assign purpose to those dollars. Really think about, the question in YNAB world that we ask ourselves is, what does this money need to do before next money arrives, before more money arrives?

Chelsea: So ask yourself, the money that you currently have, the real cash that's in your possession, what does it need to do? Before more money arrives and just set that gentle awareness and intention of, yeah, I have to pay rent or I have this bill coming through. Oh, my sister's getting married next week. Maybe set aside some money for that, but anything that's going to happen in your life or on, you know, the next two weeks, the next month until you get paid.

Chelsea: And so bringing some awareness and intention to that. And then if you wanted to go the route. Of tracking, in a very gentle way, then I would say using YNAB, I find to be the easiest, or if you want to share what you use, that's fine too, of course, but I personally wouldn't want to do it via pen and paper. That seems laborious to me, or like a Google sheet.

Stephanie: I can't do it in the line of a cash register because that's where I do it. Like when I have downtime, I pull up my app and I like classify my expense on the go.

Chelsea: Yeah, yeah, right. So I think if you want, that would be another way to implement some change, would be as you're spending to look at the category. You know, you've assigned 50 to clothes when you go buy your new dress, make a note that, okay, I spent the 50 that I'd assigned to clothes. If I want to buy more clothes before I get paid again, I'm going to need to find that money. And that's the words we use. It's not like, oh, I need, I did something wrong.

Chelsea: It's just, I need to go find that money. Where do I want to pull it from if it's not already here? You know, assigned to quote.

Stephanie: One question I asked myself, and that's the reason why I came to the world of budgeting in January is. What do I want to create with my money? Right? Like everyone's got their life and what they want to achieve in their life.

Stephanie: Like, what is it that I want to do with, because I couldn't answer that question. Like I knew I wanted to do things, but I wasn't planning ahead. Like I couldn't do certain things because the money went somewhere else. So is that a good question to ask ourselves? What is it that I want to create with money? Yes.

Chelsea: That's so beautiful. I think that hits on two things. One, it hits on. This idea of like, we're taught to save, like, just put money into savings and nobody knows what they're saving for. Like, people show me their savings account and I'm like, cool, what is that money for? And they're like, I don't know. I'm just supposed to save money. So I think, that's getting to the heart of like, what are we saving for and come up with something really specific. And then I think, so that's one aspect of why I think that question's beautiful. And then I think the other aspect is because if you know what you want to create, say it's very important for you to create, bring I don't know. A new non profit into the world. Who knows? That's very big. You can create much smaller things too, but say that's your dream. Travel holiday somewhere. Travel holiday somewhere.

Chelsea: That's, love it. So you want to go on holiday somewhere. And then, right now, you're walking the streets of New York City and you're wondering, Should I go see this Broadway show? Well, you now have a question of priorities and neither one is wrong, but it makes it a lot easier to say, like, it feels different in your body.

Chelsea: In the diet world, you would say, No, I can't go see a Broadway show. I don't have enough money for that. I can't afford it, right? It's that line. I hate that line. I can't afford it. That's not true. It's actually, oh, well, I'd rather prioritize my holiday right now.

Stephanie: It's a choice instead of I have to. Yes. So, are you saying, in a way, that there is no budgeting rules? You get to make your own? Absolutely. I think that's the big shift here, because for many of us, we just assume that there has to be budgeting rules. Now, the way you're presenting this is, we get to make the rules. Yes.

Chelsea: You get to make the rules, and that's why I think structure is helpful, because similarly with intuitive eating, when you say there's no rules, a lot of my clients are like, well, that's scary, right? Like, I, that's why I think diets are appealing to some degree, is because they provide the structure, and people wake up knowing, this is what I need to do. Oh, this is how I'm going to eat, and that gives them some predictability. Some peace of mind. So if we're taking the rules away, we need to create some sort of structure that leaves us from like flailing around being like, well, if there are no rules, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Stephanie: And moves you from living a life of, I have to, to living a life of you choosing what you're going to do in your life, using your money. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Can we ask one more question? What about debts? That's a hot topic, both in the business world that I coach and here, like people are thought debts is bad. It's a rule. What is your thoughts on that?

Chelsea: Well, we don't use the word bad, right? There's no good or bad for one. And so with debt, a lot of times debt is created, well, I guess almost always. By nature, debt is created when there isn't enough money to cover what you're wanting to live. So the emphasis in YNAB first is learning to spend real money.

Chelsea: And that's what I call like the money that's in your checking account. And that goes back to what I've been saying of like we assign jobs. To those dollars so that when it comes time for my holiday, I know I have that real money for that. So preventing debt, I guess you could say, is where we start because a lot of the cycle that I see people in is, Oh, I'm going, I get the big old paycheck and I'm just going to throw it towards my credit card debt.

Chelsea: Yeah. Because I feel like I'm supposed to. And then I have zero dollars in my checking account. And so I just keep living on no money, and I create more debt, right? Like, it doesn't get you anywhere, you just feel like you're doing what you're supposed to do. I have money, and I put it towards my debt, but then I don't have any money to actually live on.

Chelsea: So, first shift is to practice. Living with the money that you currently have, and that might mean you are not paying down your debt. It just might, because you're building a new skill of, I'm learning to live and spend real money. Can you use credit cards? Absolutely. You just want to spend money on your credit card that you have available in your checking account to then put towards your credit card.

Chelsea: So not anti credit cards, but so I'd say that's the skill we want to build that skill so that we're not just throwing money at our debt, but we're actually learning how can I live a lifestyle that long term is going to prevent more debt. And then as we gain awareness of how much extra cash flow do you have?

Chelsea: Great. Do you want to put some towards your debt? Do you want to? Is that important to you? Sure, you need to pay, like, your minimums. Like, I mean, I'm, you know, we want people to not include penalty fees or things like that. Like, if you need to pay your minimum or if there are some legitimate have tos, then we account for that.

Chelsea: But there's no expectation that you need to just come in with, like, your main goal to be pay off your debt. I always ask people, is that important to you? And if it's, if it is, in what timeline and how much Of your life, you know, how much are you willing to say, I'm not going to go on this holiday right now because it's important to me to pay down my debt quickly versus I'm not on, I'm not in a rush.

Chelsea: I want to go on this holiday. And that means my debt, you know, I'll pay it off more slowly.

Stephanie: And it comes back to the very beginning of the podcast, which was about. Looking at your relationship to money and choosing what you're going to believe about your money, including that does not have to be shameful and bad and terrible and make you feel less than that can be neutral.

Stephanie: You get to choose what you think of that. Yes. Amazing. So people are hearing that they're like, Oh, like that's my next step. Like I've done the food thing that like the body image thing and I'd like you just broke my mind that I can think what I want about my budget. I'd love to do that. So what's the next step to come into your world?

Chelsea: Yeah. on my. Website. So I recently led a workshop called why not one on one? Very amazing.yeah, yeah. I go over. It's like, I would say it's literally the next step to this conversation where I'm going. I it's a I'm screen sharing the software. I'm giving people an idea of what does this actually look like?

Chelsea: You've heard me talk about these concepts? What does it look like on the screen? so that's a free workshop available on my website under the free resources. Resources. page,

Chelsea: My website is chelseahester. com. Perfect. chelseahester. com. And if you wanted to go to the direct page, it's chelseahester. com slash free. Dash resources. Perfect.

Stephanie: We go there, we get that workshop, and that is the next step to this conversation. You have like packages and things you can like if somebody's like I want to get this done the right way and I want to do it with someone you have packages to walk people through this and coach them through this and I want to say like How I see Chelsea being more than the average budget coach is the whole mindset piece because that's what you're trained.

Stephanie: You're a certified health counselor, no,mental counselor. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So you can really do that work of looking at your belief with money plus easing your way into budgeting.

Chelsea: Yep. And that package, it's a one month. it's called the setup package. And there's zoom calls, which are like the software and the teaching and the getting everything set up. But part of that package is unlimited boxer support, which is like a walkie talkie app. So for the month, and that's where a lot of that mindset work comes up. That's where people message me and are like, I'm scared to look at my budget, or I feel really guilty that I just. Went to a concert over the weekend and I'm like, I feel really guilty about it. And then we talk about it. Right. So that's, I think one of my favorite parts of what I offer is that boxer support, because that is where we can have more of the conversations about mindset, emotions, working through things. and then of course there's like the zoom calls, which we do the screen sharing and the diving into the budget.

Stephanie: And I just want to say to people, like, Would I not be a professional at mindset work? I would definitely go into that one month with you because it would give me the skill to like manage my mind. That's my privilege of being what I do for a living. I was able to come into the world of budgeting and make that easy for me. But if you don't have those skills, like go get that one month package because you're going to need it. Guaranteed. It was a pleasure having you here.

Chelsea: Yeah. Thank you so much. This is like one of my favorite conversations I've ever had because it's blending my passions and my love and yes,

Stephanie: we are like, I want to address different part of life. Like there's going to be more interview coming in, in weeks to come because what we find to be the problem with diet culture and food and body, trust me, it's everywhere in our life. Like we got to deconstruct many aspects of our life, including the way we approach money. Thank you. Thank you.