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Money Insight/Skype Interview

Yes, money the topic you loved to hate or hate to love were either way, we'll probably talk about all of the above. Um, again, I just want to really quickly hit on the it depends. We just went through a big long list of insurance stuff in a lot of different options, and when you add it all up, there was a big number at the bottom and that's a sample number? I'm not necessarily your number, but we're just talking about options and the big picture, so then we can move into the littler pictures later on it and then what to do about it? And of course we're going to be talking about ideas and information around money, best practices, information we've gathered and heard and talking about it really in a planning to find the joy of living within your means. This is all positive, no shame, no frustration money is a some energy out there that we can work with in ways that we really want. We're going to talk about common themes and questions, and then we have some worksheets and some other guard...

rails to go through, but I'm very excited very, very excited to be able to bring a guest on to share with us. Many of the common themes and questions that she as a writer about money gets asked over and over and over and over again which is ways to find the joy of living within our means and so she and I put together a quick list of all of the things that she's asked over and over and over again and or themes or advice or things that they're the timeless things about money that we can keep doing we should start doing or we should keep doing more of and so we're going to hit all of these together you guys have this list and then the rest of the worksheets we'll talk about later when we have time where his homework so if you want to pull this out I'd like to really really welcome to the interwebs a amazing woman writer and every every category she probably makes her own kimchi and felts too when I don't even know about it like this when when she talks about money people really really, really really listen so I know that sandy is joining us via the interwebs and so she'll be here I'm not in the studio but on the giant monitor larger than life as she is and that because um we're doing this and there may or may not be a minute or two getting her on and when she gets here I think the first question people always always seem to ask is what? Oh, I dio or I'm not good with money, so I'm wondering of sandy can hear us at this point I can hear you. Hi hey, are you so good? Thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely so absolutely I spend about an hour trying to come up with a bio for you that would talk about all of the things that you do. You're writing for red book you're writing for all I mean anything about finance, you've written it for anyone, but I was going to ask you to share with us maybe you're one or two most favorite articles you've written about money and and why that isthe that's funny, I'm actually writing a story right now that is called mistakes I made on the way to financial freedom on dh it does make me think of you and you know of this chat because of exactly what you were saying before, you know that now I feel very in control of my money, and I feel like I know what's going on mistakes still happen. Things slip through, the cracks were all human, we're all living, but you know, these air e I like this story because it shows that these things happen, but you can kind of wrap your arms around it, so I think that's one of my favorite stories that I've ever written and then another one, I would say was a story about financial spring cleaning that was really, really gave me it was an early story that I did. I write for a lot of women's magazines, so that means that I'm approaching money really from household perspective, sort of how you sit around your kitchen table and you deal with your money on dh this was really a chance to sit down and do a hit list of stuff that I hadn't taken care of in my financial life that happens a lot on bit sort of showed me how when you do prioritize it, it takes you good places exactly. So your phrase find the joy of living within your means. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. And I do want to mention that when we first started talking, well, not quite a year ago about money, we had a long conversation about how you're a freelancer and that many of the money situations take maybe an extra step or two or it's just maybe not the same as somebody who has all of the stuff taken care of through work or threw a jar, right? Yeah, right, you know, when you're a freelancer, you've got money coming in at irregular time. And so it is more on you to take make sure that you're putting money away that you're saving that you're doing all the things that you could do on a more regular automatic in a more regular automatic kind of way if you had a paycheck coming in but that doesn't mean that it's I would like you mohr sometimes in touch with your money, right? So I wanted to go first with your quote, if you can still hear me, I'm so bad with money I can and one of the things I love about that is I carried that phrase in my head for a good twenty or twenty five years and I know people do that too and whether or not you're actually bad with money, I think I don't saying you're bad with money but actually being bad with money I think are two separate things and that's your quote, but if you can still hear me or freezing up a little bit here but maybe if you're freezing we could still hear you audio wise and you can let us know kind of maybe where that came from or why it looks like we're reconnecting with you. All right, all right, well, I love the internet I'm going todo is live tv, which is which was what we lived here creative lie, so, you know, we could maybe we could have the audience maybe throw any questions that you guys may have, we could throw some questions, and I think we'll get the word from our folks in the back room how they want us to really? Well, well, so you like you like maybe a couple questions about money? Well, here's, what I'd like to do that's a great idea, and the thing that the thing that I'm constantly surprised by is the fact that when I think there's nothing, that else that could come up for another questions that I'm still surprised. I'm not surprised about how often I can still be surprised, and when it comes to money, that kind of seems to be the thing we want to take out of the factor is the surprise part. So what I'd like to do is have you guys open your worksheet and there is the top ten list of things that come from sandy, and what I like to do is throw this out to you guys, and I'd love to hear your experiences with money and or what really works because what we're talking about and what we're going to get to is the big things that, you know, the monster under the bed, um, we're gonna get a little flashlight and we're going to look underneath the bed and we're going to see that nothing is really there and then we're going to talk about what actually really, really works, and I know that we're working on getting sandy back, so we'll have her come in a soon as we're able tio, but hear that here, the top ten common themes, questions and misconceptions are you ready? The first one is I'm so bad with money um, and then what sandy was actually just talking about was personal finance really starts at the kitchen table, and so one of the things about the checklist from the get your shit together project is that it's been downloaded a ton of times, and I hear story after story that it sits on the little pile of things on the kitchen table, so we're not talking about optimizing your hedge fund, right? What we're talking about is getting money to feel less scary and disempowering and getting you holding the reins of your money scene and making those choices yourself so kitchen table and just start somewhere starting somewhere. A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step and to get dressed for the morning, you just got to put on some underwear before you put on pants a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step and pants today we're talking about pants, okay, so speaking of that journey, yeah, I we're good to roll again great she's back up we have sandy we have you back back. I'm so excited so I was just talking about the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step and then my and bio tallix added and pants so you want to prepare for the journey so I was going just sharing the top few lists of our ten that I'm so bad with money, kitchen, table, personal finance just start somewhere and then money and values so I would like to ask you guys because what? We're going to talk a lot about his money and values and we have some worksheets that we're going to talk up through later so when you think about money, I'd like to hear what you how that makes you feel and the second piece of that is what are your values about money? And this could be stuff your dad said to you your grandma used to talk to you about but when we start talking about money it's really about how you feel and what your values are for what you want it to be so three words three sentences, three quotes but I'd love to hear what you are, what you feel feel about money and values about money as we go through the list and sandy, do we have you back? I think we might not have picture but no audio picture but no audio you know, she is largely him liar. Oh, you're right, so can we can I just back up a little bit? I have these guys on a side homework project thinking about money and values and what words come up when you think about money and think about values, but I'd like to ask you about the I'm so bad with money and where that came from and some of the things that you have experienced from other people that you've worked with, we lost her way. She keeps getting the questions I know she's there, she's on the east coast on some really tall building, some we're going have I know the answer to that and we did see is yeah, right, well, you know what we have? I have a lot to cover, and I actually have some worksheets we've got short term planning and long term planning in here, too, so the other common theme and misconception is also we all have a lot more money power than we actually realize that we are in control of a lot of choices all the time, every day, every time we swipe our card, we're making a decision and we are using our power, so I want to think about this is we are in the captain seat you are in, you are captain picard in the seat um fear of making bad decisions so this is something that I've been reading a lot of articles about lately and hearing a lot about the fear or kind of peril ization about making the wrong choice offense often leads us to make no decision at all and no choice and so often when you don't start planning early andi you wait until later because you're afraid to do the wrong thing there are opportunities missed along the line to start saving early even if modestly and with without a lot of risk so in action is not always safer than some action um and then really thinking about where we're most vulnerable we've talked about an emergency savings fund which is really, really critical but then the other ways in which our lives get knocked sideways just over the break I heard somebody talking about money and the money segment coming up because their friend just got divorced and that selling the house at a loss clear them out that a new illness or a sickness you don't have the money set aside to take care of that right? Like if you need to spend six months taking care of a family member who's ill it's very hard to spend all of the money that you need to keep spending on dh not have any income in the way and that's not jeff if I might highlight you that's that that's not disability. You weren't disabled, that you had a of commitment and important commitment to take care of of our family, which is really about community and showing up. So covering ourselves in that situation to so weaken bob and weave with more options. Um, a couple things about good and bad debt, we talked about good debt and bad debt. Um, clearly having twenty five credit cards with joy, enormous rates is not necessarily good debt. Um, but some of the good debt that we have assumed for a long time is that really good whether or not we're thinking about it from our credit rating or whether or not we're thinking about in a cave and agree to use one thousand dollars college student loans, something a financial liability and responsibility, we want to saddle ourselves and or our children with as they move out of the home and into an adulthood. So while absolutely college graduates make more money statistically, you have a three hundred thousand dollars crushing debt sitting on top of you, which may or may not, you know, three hundred thousand dollars one and that's a big example, but that isn't very it's a likely number it's, not a made up number, so so what do we feel about good debt and what we feel about bad debt? Ok, so on that note yeah way you're going to do try audio only with sandy great so I don't know what sandy can you hear us yet? I can maybe not quite yet so hopefully should can't you hear me? Ok sandy, I love it and you play hard to get with may I'm not trying I'm trying to throw myself into your arms I know I know this across the country hard to get I love it I love it I was just makes me want it makes me want to go out with you more well, thank you so much for joining us and I've been going through our list so I've given everybody while you've been thankfully and thank you for struggling with with the beauty and power that is is the internet for joining us. I really love to come back to our number one thing, which is that I'm so bad with money and that writing about money and interviewing people and talking with people for all of the years that you have about money. I'm so excited to talk to you as a financial expert about the pulse of america rather than a financial expert who is going to talk to us about optimizing our for a one k so when you talk about I'm so bad with money, can you talk to me a little bit more about where that comes from you know that's something that I hear people say over and over and over again on did you know in different I'm hopeless with money ah ha terrible with money andi I understand it because really for most of my life I felt the same way money not my thing what a mess look at this I'm paying overdraft charges or you know I don't seemed tio goto where I want to go I don't seem to be moving forward and what what really was a blinding insight for me once I did start trying to learn mohr and kind of read up more on what was out there was that money is a skill it's not a given it's not like the color of your eyes it's it is something that you learned so you know somebody doesn't say I'm terrible with bicycles and never get on a bike you learn you you start small and you keep going and so I think if people think of it is more of a skill and something that you can take baby steps in learn maybe we can stop sort of putting up this wall because the other thing that saying I'm terrible with money does is it makes it not your responsibility you know it takes it out of your hands it's sort of a position of powerlessness and we we all really have more power with our money I think than we are aware ofthe absolutely absolutely yeah so you know how do how do we move and reframe that? And I love talking to you about all of this stuff because one of the things that I feel is so important is too shift our thinking about a state planning as something boring and hard and awful that you have to think about this stuff too wow here's a few things I can do to make my life way more awesome and when it comes to money reframing how we think about that as a skill we learned rather than something we suck at is really important. So how do you help talk to people about learning those skills like what are some good places to start for that that skill building that you found has has worked you know it's interesting because I feel like your work also comes from that direction it's not yes you do have so do a bunch of paperwork but what it's really about when you look at it is taking care of yourself and taking care of your family and it comes from a position of sort of love and affection and just, you know, taking care of your community wants you you go a little bit further, so with this idea of you know don't don't think you're bad with money on go into it there are so many people out there now who are writing about money in so many different ways, you can go online and find blog's from people ordinary people who are doing all kinds of stuff. If you're interested in coupon in start reading those blog's if you're interested in, you know, maximizing your checking account, there's going to be a block for that there's gonna be a website for that. Whatever interests you go in that way for me, it was reading the personal finance bloggers, you know, really people like frugal dad, you know, people who had kind of been through a similar trajectory that I had and who you had now come out on this other side where they seemed like they knew so much and I thought, wow, you know, if this guy could do it, I can do this absolutely well, one of the phrases that we discussed our red is once you start finding that entry point your own gateway into the money world, whether it be, you know, old cars or couponing, or saving for college or getting free stuff, you know, whatever that is you, then you then quickly realized, I think is what you said, that you can fall in love with your money, so talk to us about falling in love with our money. You know, I think for the earlier part of my life in a lot of people feel this way I think about their finances they're a little scary, you know, there's any money news, khun b a little frightening, but once you I kind of learned a little bit more about how bank accounts were how credit cards work, how insurance works, whatever it is that you're going into, you know you're getting a wider view it it becomes something where you feel like you're keeping yourself healthier it's almost like, like doing exercise or, like once, you know, when I when I learned to do ah backwards dive in the pool when I was eight years old like all of a sudden you're able to do this thing on and it takes some effort but it's kind of beautiful and it's under your control, so I think that's kind of what I mean and once money stops being this frightening thing, it becomes something where you really are because it's never just about money, right? It's never just money it's always kind of a conversation about safety and appreciation love, et cetera, and so you're able to take care of yourself and I think, you know, falling in love with that is a very healthy, healthy thing, and like I said kind of beautiful, yeah, I love it well, I wanted to ask you just in case uh the internet continues to not be on our side today um about what really works because what people want to know is what they should do and so similar tio me going online and trying to figure out how to clean up my life and what to do after someone dies gave me thirty one million results it's it's a fire hose and overwhelm of top ten lists and things you should dio and so finding an entry point that inspires you and hits you you know what you like and where you love is great but then can can you share with us from your experience when people when people come up to you at restaurants and get on their knees and hold your hands and say, please, sandy, what do I dio what what actually work ox and if we're going to be digging in a little bit later in some sections yeah, what what what works? I think a lot of us know the things that were supposed to be doing we know that we're supposed to be spending less than we make we know that we're supposed to have an emergent c fund we know that we're supposed to be saving for retirement, so then you know, the spot I think is like you said the how andan also, you know, just kind of getting up to tackle it like you said, you know, putting on the underwear, taking that first step, I would say, you know, for folks who want to start thinking about the basics of that kind of thing, wise bread online, for example, has a list of the top personal finance blog's you can just look down that list and see what you know, what appeals to you. Their bank rate has amazing information about different bank accounts and different credit cards, and, you know, that kind of thing there's a various magazines out there that they could be a little scary because they're definitely for someone who's a couple of steps further on, but I think you know, the basics that is that's the basics like, have you do you, you know, have you sat down and thought about a budget? It doesn't need to be ah, fully planned out one hundred percent, you know, every dime a budget, but even like a smudge it, you know, kind of like a basic outline, you know, that helps taking it sitting down and looking at the bills that you're paying and you know how, what, what is what kind of interests are you paying? How much do you owe just kind of reappointing yourself with what you have in front of you can be a very, very good first step and you can even actually just decide that you're going to organize your your financial papers you're just going to sit down and put away the things that you need to put away and that'll kind of dip your feet into it a little bit without saying ok, I'm going to overhaul my whole life let me just let me just physically get this organized any one of these things can start, you know, getting you getting you settled in and there there's, you know, there are a lot of different programs to do a budget for example, the important thing for you you do know is this is like anything else like you are gonna want a different car than somebody else different one is goingto, you know, turn your crank and work for you if you tried mint and it doesn't work go do you need a budget? You don't need to feel bad because mitt doesn't work for you do you prefer quicken that's perfectly fine find something or do you like to write things down in a notebook? Whatever actually works for you and you'll feel it is the right thing you know there's not one given right thing with these things there's a lot of resources and then there's just following what you know what feels good excellent, you know, one last thing I'm going to ask you, I want to make sure to get out there is that people talk a lot about your financial goals and priorities, and starting with goals and priorities is important because you need to know where you're going, but when you start running or slowly shuffling onda also setting goals and priorities is something we do a lot because we don't always keep them so or there's something that we make and re break and make and break and making break. So is there a way that you found or other people have shared with you that that that north star of a goal or priority really helps you keep moving things forward in a good way? Like, how do we do goals and priorities that aren't just that don't suck or that aren't just things that we do and right on a list and then never look at again? Well, you know, it's funny, because that that's the essence of a budget, right, like the heart and soul of budget, is what matters to you because what happens when you don't, you know there's a phrase from dave ramsey, the debt goro that's, like when when you don't tell your money where to go? It just kind of goes you know you need to you need to tell your money where to go you need to make sure that you're not you know, something that I was talking to somebody today and I said, you know, for me personally buying lunch at work is the gateway drug like if I start buying lunch at work pretty soon I'm buying breakfast on by a snack on buying, you know, it's just sort of like I'm not paying attention I'm just frittering through so when I have a budget it makes me think, ok, that parfait like five times a week is that worth let's say hat going to a movie with my husband? No and much rather go to the movie and so that kind of helps me say no to these things that you know, there's nothing wrong with this parfait there's no reason why I shouldn't have it except that something else is more important so I think I believe very strongly and writing things down you can have a million different conversations but write something about writing it down actually puts it in your sensory memory on dh you can also one thing that has worked for a lot of people that I've talked to there a lot of savings accounts now they let you label buckets so you can automatically divert money to different buckets in your savings and what that means is no on savings from something that's depriving you oh, I don't get to have this money it goes into savings to you can send it to your, you know, drinking mai tais on the beach bucket, you can send it to your peaceful retirement bucket, you can send it to you know, but my buying my son that his first car bucket and that that really having that hole and maybe writing it down and going through the actions of setting those buckets up are the kinds of things that keep things in front of you. You know, some people do vision boards, you know, some people write it on post its whatever kind of keeps your goody in front of you isn't what's going to motivate you a lot more than oh, I can't have I can't have I can't have, you know, so that's so that's, you know again, it's it's a little bit personal, but you just want reminders of what you're working towards because that's where the joy is that's fantastic. So any final words from us before we dig in, we're going to start thinking about those goals and priorities, and we're going to follow a fifty twenty thirty but getting approach to start thinking about where those buckets are for us and where we want stuff to go, any words of advice or encouragement and then I think that we have some some people from the interwebs after after you talk final words you know, I would say you sort of said, you know, you're your goals and priorities and not losing track of them you definitely I do believe in keeping them in front of you, but I I also believe that sometimes we get scared off by something that seems a permanence like, oh, you know, I'm going to start saving for that car it's going to take eight years and I'm going to fall off the wagon, you know, you you can have your priority shift, you can have, you can move things around it just really all you want is to be able to keep an eye on it like my husband and I have a list of home improvement projects and every once in a while we rack way re rack and stack up and there's nothing wrong with that suddenly, you know, for one reason or another, the flowed redoing the floor now seems more exciting or or, you know, more possible than putting in new windows that's perfectly fine. You know, we don't have to feel bad about not getting to the windows, we can feel good about the fact that our life has changed and now we want a really good floor and we're going to get it awesome sandy thank you so much. Thank you so much for struggling tio keep checking on and on again before we leave I'm wondering if there's any questions from the interwebs out there since you guys were crossing each other in the cloud right now we are yeah, I would love to know if anyone has questions. Sandy hi, my name is susan. I'm a host here and I was hi. I have a question from gloria are actually a statement gloria says can we have sandy and chanel's financial advisor phone numbers I'm looking for advice would love to hire professional but it's hard to trust people in this line of business. So the question is how do you find someone that you do trust to advise you in your financial matters when it is such a personal thing? You know, the first thing I would tell you is I just did a story recently where I spoke to a financial adviser and the idea was ok let's say you have a little nest egg you have a thousand dollars on do you want to spend it on getting financial advice? You know what what's what's the best way to do this and this is what this professional told me he said, yeah, you know, you can do that look for financial therapist, you know there are various sort of, you know, acquitted kind of, you know you want to make sure that you have somebody who is not selling you anything who is, you know, going to be fee based, et cetera. But he said, really for most people, unless you have a very complicated situation for most people, you would be much better off just buying yourself a book and socking away the rest of that thousand or fifteen hundred dollars it's going to take you on, guy, you know, having kind of walked these paths, I have to say, I think that's true like literally you can buy personal finance for dummies, which is a very good line the for dummies books actually, and start digging in and you probably unless you have, you know ah, a child who has, you know, particular issues, elderly parents, et cetera that that's going to be a better bet for you until later, you know, until things are more complicated. So the advice from the financial advisor is don't waste your money hiring a financial adviser, I think unless you have some contrary lee a complicated seen but it's really it's really, you know, a simple family, and that was pretty powerful for me because that is his industry and that's what he told me absolutely great to know great advice, thank you, sandy and saying the another one more question where's the best place to start with our fans financial health? Like, if you say, if there's that one place jim, I this is the host, jim, where is that spot? You know, I mean, these things are personal if you're getting close to retirement age and you don't have a retirement, you know, kind of nesting waiting for you, then that pretty much tells you where you should be focusing, but for most people, the first step, there's a lot of debt in this country and you want to get out of debt because, you know, debt is really it's this thing that you're paying for no reason, like once, once I kind of got over the mindset of, oh, we're supposed to carry credit card debt and you just paid a little bit and I looked at at, you know, the interest rates, etcetera, this is just money you are giving to banks, you are flinging it their way just, you know, because so really tackle that debt, because once you're out of that debt, what increases is your freedom? You, you know, you don't have to have a job, you know, a certain job because you have so much debt, you don't have to make certain. You know career choices family choices etcetera because you have that debt so I would say that that really is kind of the very, very first step on dh while you're tackling that then you also do want to as early as possible like I said save for that start saving for retirement even if you don't have very much it piles on and the earlier you start it makes a huge huge huge difference so even if it's a small amount just start putting it away the other the other important thing to know is that recently research has sort of concluded that willpower is a muscle and the more you use it the stronger it gets so even if you're only putting away you know, ten dollars a paycheck or whatever at the beginning you're building up your muscles that you'll be able to save more you'll be more capable as you go along great so many thank you so much I want to throw out one last thing if you don't mind credit rating yes um are we talk? You know your credit rating obviously it's it is more complicated than it seems you know you have several credit ratings we've sort of been told you know there's there's one out there I think you know most most experts would agree that you really need you need to look at your credit report probably more you know your credit rating matters if you are going to be buying a house buying car, you know anything where you really need credit, but what you need to really do is keep an eye on your credit report at least once a year, maybe twice a year. You get you can get free credit reports, or you can also get kind of close enough credit snapshots, it's so that, you know, when something has gone wrong, you know, and I've had that happen where suddenly, you know, I looked at my credit report, and I was like, I don't where is this coming from? Mistakes happened, you know? You want to keep an eye on it so that when you need it, that's, not when you're getting the surprise. Awesome. Do you have a great resource for us? For that? There is I think there is a there is one web site that you can go to, where you do get your official credit report, and I don't want to give you the wrong, I think it's free credit report dot com, but let me just double check and we can have our guys, we can have our people google it as well, and we'll do a capture of all the great words and names and places that we threw out and make sure that it gets included in the final uh, resource guide that we're also building to throughout this throughout this session. Perfect. Thank you, sandy. When you're looking at where your credit report is coming from, look at the ftc. Because that's, really? Where the to tell you, it's, that that's where you get the real deal? Yeah, great. Sandy is always a huge pleasure and honor to chat with you. Thank you again for making this happen and enjoy the rest of your fabulous, glamorous new york afternoon. You have a good day by thank you. Great and love her is wonderful. I love her. So we have a few minutes left. And so what I love to do is keep those warm, happy, positive thoughts in her heart as we look really quickly at what kind of breaking it down in those buckets like so we're talking about which of these buckets that are important to you and that there there are these hacks and tricks you can set up to have this amount of money routed. Um, without you getting in holding in your hand, into your savings or into paying off your debt or into your, um, beers of the world account, whatever it is you want to d'oh.