monthly admin meeting EP1: black sesame lattes, an introduction & katsu chicken sandwiches

each and every month my husband and I sit down and spend an afternoon scheduling our bills, talking long term financial plans, and set a few simple goals for the upcoming month. and since talking about money is stressful, boring and a little scary we starting making a fun little date out of it.

this habit has worked so well for us that I wanted to share it to help other people accomplish their financial goals.

in this blog post I will share:

• step by step process for how we organize our finances

• tips and motivations reminders

• my very simple Notion template I use to track our meetings (I am not an expert at this or Notion just something I am sharing that worked for us)

my husband and I started doing this monthly admin meeting in Nov 2023. I was going back to work full time after a long stretch of unemployment/gig work. I was laid off from my job at the beginning of Covid so I had already been budgeting for a few years. But now I was going to be working full time again and would no longer have the capacity to manage the bulk of the administrative duties of the household.

I saw this idea on tik tok of couples doing this meeting once a month to talk about goals and knock out all the boring adulting things that come with just existing and loved it. and as a girl who uses the tiniest of accomplishments to reward herself I thought it would be fun to turn this into a little date. hubby and I don't get out much alone, especially considering we moved across the country 6 years ago with two kids, so our village is pretty small.

it's been a little over a year and we are in the one of the best financial situations we've been in awhile. don't get me wrong, we have a lot more to accomplish and we still make stupid decisions but all in all things are more organized than ever. we were able to purchase our first home, and we are millenials so you know that was quite the achievement. so yes, big fan of the admin date and wanted to share some deets that have worked for us.

admin date essentials

now there is no one way to have an admin meeting but there are a few key essentials you need to consider to make sure your meeting is low pressure but also productive.

pick two placesfor your admin date

• a spot to hang and have the meeting: coffee shop, casual dining spot, library, you get it.

• reward spot: for all your hardwork you deserve a little treat. pick somewhere you've been wanting to go or an old favorite and treat yourself with something you love for being a brave little cutie.

and don't worry if it isn't in your budget to go out this month - hubs and I have done many a monthly admin night at home.

have a game plan

having a planning agenda that works for you is the most important. over time, we've learned what works for us, but feel free to adjust or change the process in any way to fit your lifestyle.

here is our agenda:

• schedule our bills for the month

• discuss any long term financials goals or upcoming projects

• pick three very simple, realistic financial goals for the month: we alleviate the preesure by not counting anything we dont accomplish but thinking of everything we do accomplish as a bonus point!

bring the right tools

laptop (and charger if your laptop is old like mine)

planners

pens

highlighters

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episode 1: march 2025

on this month's episode of monthly admin date, we venture to downtown-ish Portland to visit two spots we've been wanting to try for sometime: we are going to start at Less & More Coffee because I have been dying to try their black sesame latte. this coffee shop is located in an old bus stop, so the vibes are on point for a little walk up coffee moment. you already know what I got and my husband snagged the tiramisu latte and we headed to the river to catch in some views.

we then trecked back in the other direction to score a good table at Tanaka. this restaurant had been on my must visit list for some time now, I have literally been dreaming about these katsu sandwiches. Oddly enough, my husband just so happened to be at a job near there a few weeks earlier and went without me. everyone knows behavior like this a huge betrayal in a marriage so Tanaka moved instantly to the top of our list, so we can even the score.

we ordered way too much food (I should probably add this to the essentials list) and scored a table near a window to have our little meeting. I still feel a little cringe about whipping the tripod out in public, so the window and snake plant next to us really came in clutch for propping my phone up to record without making too much of a scene.

the sandwiches were so insanely good and the curry sauce for the fries was a 15/10. once we got our food, I tried a bit of everything and then started out meeting. it took u about an 1hr and 1/2 to get everything done. we of course had to grab some sweets for our boys and walked back to the car.

it's weird because something as simple as coffee and an insanely good sandwich can actually make you look forward to financial planning. it's crazy, but here we are!

admin meeting agenda:

all the nitty gritty details of how we work through our monthly admin date. let's break down step by step how we organize our admin meeting.

I use this very simple Notion template.

I built for tracking but you could totally mimic something like this in Excel or Google sheets.

first up: scheduling our bills for the month

identify all pay dates for the month: pull up the calendar and write down all our pay dates for the month. My husband gets paid weekly and I get paid on the 15th and 30th. this is going to allow us to know what days to schedule our bills for.

sort bills by due date: the first time you use the notion template you will need to fill out your financial obligations in the table, but you will continue to use the same table going forward so you will only have to do this once.

schedule bills: we go through each bill and schedule them online when possible. we fill in the due date column as we schedule them. we try and split them up evenly amongst the pay dates so we don't overpay and end up overdrafting. we also prefer scheduling our bills so we don't have to remmeber to pay our bills weekly. this prevents us from being late and incurring additional fees as well.

discuss long term financial goals/projects

set 3 simple goals for the month

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monthly admin date reminders

there is a lot of unspoken weirdness and shame around money and I truly believe talking about it washes away that awkwardness and makes it easier to face it. like with anything taking the first step is the hardest but once you start (and start rewarding yourself) it will become a habit like anything else.

financial success is a long game so don't put unneccessary pressure on yourself or compare your journey to anyone elses. like with anything, we take it one step at a time.

don't be too restrictive. for some of us it can be easy to take this journey to the extreme. having balance, like with anything, it crucial to your overall success. overachieving and obsessing about saving can lead to burn out or reckless decisions. be sure to include some treats or "wiggle room" in your budget, it's important.

capitalism is tearing us all down, so any shame you feel around money is unwarranted. this system thrives on making financial literacy as confusing as possible while simulatenously persuading us to feel icky about discussing it. it sucks, but even leaning into those icky feelings and asking yourself where it comes from can help take away some of that shame.