221. Baking it Down - Money Talks with the Miracles

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💵 Money Talks With the (older) Miracles.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 221 - Money Talk with the Miracles, Corrie's still outta commission, so we've got another Miracle sister as a stunt double - meet Ashley with YNAB.com. 

Ash is the older (and wiser) sister and also an employee of an app that helps folks manage their money. Now, this is not a sales pitch; that said, I do use the app (and pay full price - what happened to sibling hookups?!), and we're giving away 3 months of it in the Sugar Cookie Marketing group. 

But we are talkin' about the "YNAB Way" - an approach they take to help business owners and individuals look at the way their money works differently than we're typically told to. The goal of this unique approach is to remove the "ick" of budgeting and replace it with a spending strategy. Basically, they put you and your money on the same side of the war against debt and dollar dread.

Here's the "YNAB Way" approach as it applies to bakers:

• 💵 1. What does this money need to do before I’m paid again?
• 💵 2. What larger or less frequent spending do I need to prepare for?
• 💵 3. What can I set aside for next month’s spending?
• 💵 4. What goals, large or small, do I want to prioritize?
• 💵 5. What changes do I need to make, if any?

The key is giving every dollar a job. That means each month, every dollar you intake gets assigned a role, aka a job. In your "money that came in" line, there will ideally be 0 dollars because all those dollars were moved from the "ready to be given a job" and then were allocated to some line item in your budget. 

That's where the 5 steps come in. 

The first "job" your dollars need to tackle is the things that, if not paid, you won't have a business next month. Think website hosting fees, licensure fees, and booth fees. Got those dollars assigned? Cool - we're still in business.

Step 2 - The next are those not frequent but very necessary expenses (YNAB calls them sinking funds). These are things like yearly renewals, oven repairs or replacements, insurance policies, heck, maybe your Cookie College yearly renewal you got at a MAJOR discount during the Mid-Summer Membership Sale next week (you smart spender, you) - all things you gotta have, but aren't monthly bills. 

Step 3 gets your money working ahead. Instead of just funding your bills for this month, imagine a world where next month is already accounted for, too. *Sighs in relief* As wise older sister Ash said, "We're trying to level out the financial roller coasters." 

Step 4 is my personal favorite. Once the bills are all budgeted for, we can start prioritizing our dream spending. Ash says you can learn a lot about a baker through their budget, especially when it comes to goals and wants. Think buying that Eddie, or going to CookieCon 2026, or spending with (budgeted) reckless abandon at The Vendy Blendy. 

And we end with Step 5 - the overview and the adjustment. We see what we had to spend, we see what we will spend, and we now see what we want to spend - where can we optimize? Where can we dream bigger? Where can we spend less?  Like Ash says, "It's a constant conversation with yourself about how you want your money to work for you." 

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or watch it on YouTube) by searching for Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 221 - Money Talk with the Miracles.