The #1 Retirement Tool You’re Overlooking (and How to Use It Now)
episodePreviously titled “Ep 153 | The #1 Retirement Tool You’re Overlooking (and How to Use It Now)” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
Wealthy After 40: Retirement Planning and Budgeting for Gen X
18 min
2 speakers
3 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What does 'budget' really mean and why is it a tool for direction not restriction?
When I say the word budget, what comes up for you? For most clients I work with, it's words like restrictive, hard, complicated. But here's the truth. A budget isn't about restriction. It's about direction. And when you understand how to make a budget work for you, it becomes one of the most powerful tools in creating the retirement you want. Welcome to the Wealthy After 40 podcast, the show for Gen X women and couples who are ready to ditch financial stress and feel confident about retirement. I'm your host, Dailene Higgins, financial and retirement coach, helping Gen Xers master their money and create a personalized retirement plan so they can stop spinning their wheels and step boldly into their dream retirement.
If you're feeling behind, don't worry. Continue listening to this podcast as well as be sure to grab your free guide, Five Must Do Steps to Start Retirement Planning Now at elevatefinances.us backslash must do. And remember, let's make retirement possible together. Welcome to the episode. I am so excited to talk with you about budgeting today. It's not a subject that most people enjoy talking about, but I believe it is very powerful. So a budget is the bridge between where your money is now and the retirement you want later. When you create a budget that works for you, not against you, It will become your most powerful retirement tool. This is why when I first work with clients, I help them create a budget for what is happening now.
What are you spending on? Not what you want to happen in a perfect world. I think that is where a lot of people heading into making a budget, they're like, well, I need to do this and I need to do this and I need to do that. And if you create a budget that has those elements in it, your perfect world, and it's not for what is happening now, you are going to feel restricted. You're going to not be successful. The key is to create a budget for now. What are you doing? And then if there are You know, those things that you need to add in, you know, change, include, we work towards that. That is how you get a budget to be powerful and guiding and giving you direction because You know, if you're going to learn how to like, let's say, jump rope, speed jump rope, you're not going to just go, OK, well, I need to be able to do.
I don't even know how fast those girls do it. I just saw it the other day and I thought, holy cow. But, you know, OK, you're going to start out with what you can do. Let's measure that. What can you do? I can do 10 jumps in a minute. I don't know. But you get your baseline and that's what you do with a budget. You get your baseline with your money in a budget right now. right now. This is what's happening. This is what you say is going on. This is what we're going to work for if you want to add, you know, X, Y, and Z. Let's dial back. What is a budget? And what is the goal for you using a budget? Well, we've kind of talked about it a little bit, but it's really about clarity and intention. clarity with where is your money going now, and then because you want to add X, Y, and Z, you bring in that intention.
I intend to do these things, so I've got to be clear about what I'm already doing. It's not about depriving to get there. A lot of people are stuck in that, well, but then I won't feel like I can do this for me. Okay, well, We've got to really build this with some intention. And intention comes with goals and clarity and what you want to do, where you want to go. And the better you can see where your money is going and then align it with what you want most, that is the goal for using a budget. Okay. And I don't know that a lot of people are quite doing that with their budget yet. They don't have a goal. They don't have a, I want this or I want that. Next episode, I'm going to share how I did that in my personal budgeting journey.
But for you, really, you need to dial into what do I want from my money? And I think most individuals here have found me because they're looking towards retirement. Now, there might be a couple of things before that.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
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