September 16, 2025 • 46 mins
Let's talk about the nitty-gritty of money chats in relationships! We dive right into why having open conversations about finances is not just a good idea—it's essential. Whether you're in the early dating phase or getting serious, discussing what you want financially can set the stage for a more stable and secure future together. Our special guest, Jaricka Thomas, shares her insights on how these conversations can help ensure that both partners are on the same page, especially when it comes to planning for unexpected events like illness or loss. We also explore practical strategies for couples, from budgeting to bucket lists, and how to avoid the pitfalls of keeping financial secrets. So, grab a comfy seat and let's get ready to turn those awkward money talks into a breeze!
Chapters:
- 00:00 - Navigating Financial Conversations in Relationships
- 06:11 - Navigating Financial Conversations with Family
- 10:42 - Understanding Financial Literacy and Its Impact
- 18:30 - Understanding Survivor Benefits and Financial Security
- 27:30 - Navigating Financial Conversations
- 31:22 - Navigating Financial Conversations in Relationships
- 38:21 - The Importance of Open Money Conversations
- 41:46 - Wealth and Its Lessons
Takeaways:
- Having money conversations early in a relationship can set a solid foundation for financial support and understanding later on.
- Using budgeting apps and tracking spending can help couples visualize their finances, leading to more informed decisions about their money.
- Having a financial plan and involving your partner in it can enhance trust and cooperation, ultimately leading to a stronger relationship.
More about Jaricka Thomas:
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Episode 310
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When you were dating someone.
Okay.
When you're dating someone,you need to start having these money
conversations, like, what doyou, what do you want financially
with your life?
Like, what do you want life tolook like?
And how is money going to helpsupport you in that?
Because you don't want justmoney just for the sake of money
and then do nothing with it.
Have those conversations andthen when you're starting to get
serious with someone, let themknow, like, hey, if something happens
to either of us, I need tomake sure that both of us have some
(00:22):
form of protection so thatwe're not left hanging.
Right.
I want to be able to make surethat I can help pay for your expenses
or you can help pay for mine.
If there's one spouse who'sworking and the other one who is
either at home as a caretakeror doesn't have the ability to work,
make sure that person also hasthe ability to be a part of the financial
conversations that you havewith either your benefits coordinator
(00:43):
at work.
Welcome to the About Thy Waterpodcast show where we help the sandwich
generation build strongfinancial habits so that they can
spend money, talk about moneyand enjoy their money with confidence.
Today I have somebody who is,no, I gotta say, they not new to
this, they true to this.
And her name is Jerica Thomas.
(01:05):
And how you doing today?
Doing very well, thank you.
How are you?
It's another day in the neighborhood.
Yes.
Yes.
Because you know, goingthrough life, you feel about like
you always feeling behind andyou never have enough.
And it's one of the thingsthat I feel as though we don't talk
about it enough, which is thesavings aspect of it, of finance.
And we know how to make money,we know definitely know how to spend
(01:28):
it.
But saving has always been oneof those things we have to always
come back to and try to makeit our everyday thing, make it a
lifestyle.
So, you know, for you, how doyou make finances long lasting and
something that we can controlover our lives?
Yeah.
So I'm someone who very muchdid not grow up saving money well.
(01:48):
And I think my mom tried herbest to tell me like, save your money,
but I didn't know what I wassaving for.
So obviously as a child I wasvery impulsive and I just didn't
understand what I was supposedto do with that.
But now that I've, you know,gotten my, my grown woman job and
I've been paying my own billsand you know, suffering the consequences
of those actions earlier in mylife, I realized like the saving
(02:10):
is so that I can Spend the waythat I want to, and it just helps
me to kind of create a plan.
So I'm very strategic with theway that I use my money.
I use credit cards for a lotof things just for, like, you know,
points or cash back.
And then I have those cardsattached to a budgeting app where
I'm allowed to then, I guess,categorize the way that I'm controlling
(02:31):
my spending.
And every single time that Iget paid, there's this very specific
system that I use where aspecific amount goes straight into
my savings, and then thosesavings are split into different
buckets.
And it just allows me to havea lot more control.
And it doesn't feel restrictive.
It just.
It helps me feel so much morefree with how I'm using my money,
and I just feel like I'mallowed to do so many things.
(02:53):
Yeah, we always hear about savings.
Is it, like, a percentage, oryou just do, like, a dollar amount?
How do you do your.
Yeah, so I actually do apercentage amount that comes straight
out of my direct deposits.
Generally, whenever anyonestarts a job, when they're signing
up their direct deposit,they'll just put one account and
move on.
I actually do two accounts.
I'll do 70% goes into mychecking, 30% goes straight into
(03:16):
my savings.
So I'm looking at my spendingmoney, and it's really only that
70%.
That other 30% goes in mysavings, and I don't miss it because
I don't see it.
And that then gets reallocatedas different goals, and then I can
spend that as I want to.
And.
And, you know, if I want totravel or if I want to do something
extravagant, I'm not worriedabout, you know, can I afford that
this month?
Because I've saved that into adifferent bucket with my savings
(03:37):
account.
Nice.
Was this something that yougrew up.
Learning or not at all?
When did you discover this?
Not at all.
I did a lot of research withpersonal finance as I got my first
job, you know, as.
As a millennial.
I. I came out of school withso much student loan debt, and I
was like, I need to get thistogether as fast as possible.
And it really took a lot of,like, reading and watching videos
(03:58):
and listening to podcasts.
And I at that point realized,like, oh, I have to just create a
system and it'll work.
And really, that's the hard part.
Like, once you figure out,like, what your system is, everything
else flows, and it justbecomes a lot more easy.
But, no, unfortunately, Ididn't learn that growing up.
I had A single mom who did hervery best, and she's brilliant, she's
excellent at what she does, and.
But she also didn't knoweverything, and I think that was
(04:21):
also passed down from herparents as well.
So I had to take a lot of thatinto my own hands.
So what age are we looking atwhen you said, like, high school?
Like high school or collegeafter college?
It was after college.
Yeah.
I was still impulsive all theway through college.
I'm not even going to lie.
I will not get okay with the.
Parties on the weekends.
Yeah, it was just like, youknow what?
I want pizza.
I have $10 in my account.
(04:42):
We're getting pizza.
You know, it was.
It was like that.
That's awesome.
Did you.
So as you were going throughthis, through college, did your.
Did you ever, like, talk backto your mom?
Like, at post college, as youwere learning this, did you like,
hey, Mom, I've just found this out.
You should try this?
Yeah.
Actually, as I began to learnmore, my mom and I are really close.
(05:05):
We talk all the time.
I would tell her, like, hey, Ijust learned about this.
Did you know that?
And there was some stuff whereshe's like, yeah, I kind of had an
idea.
Or, no, I actually had no idea.
Like, where'd you learn that from?
And so my mom is of the.
Of the kind of the Gen Xgeneration where they have a lot
of things kind of set upalready in their mentality, but she
is so open to learning.
(05:25):
So the dialogue that we hadback and forth actually helped her
to be more educated as well.
That's really good.
What is one thing that stuckout to you that you were surprised
that your mom didn't know?
Ooh, investing.
And, you know, and I'm not surprised.
I'm surprised, but I'm not surprised.
Knowing the history of our people.
She just didn't know a wholelot about investing.
So as I learned and as Italked to her more, she's like, okay,
(05:47):
so she had a lot morequestions because she was curious
and wanted to learn forherself as well.
But, yeah, it just wasn'tsomething that she obviously didn't
grow up learning.
So she didn't know to passthat information down to me.
It was definitely something Ineeded to learn for myself and I
was able to share with her,and she was able to start investing
in the ways that best fit herlife and.
And her retirement goals.
(06:08):
So as a daughter of a singlemother, like, how was that conversation?
Did it just kind of like, hey,for the person that's listening,
right now they got a parentand they was like, you should start
investing.
What was that conversation?
Look like, what was that conversation?
I'll definitely say it wassomething that, like, I'm pretty
sure I just brought up, like,hey, I've been reading this.
(06:29):
Did you know about X, Y and Z?
And she's like, no.
And she's never one to shyaway from new information.
She's not really afraid of anything.
I have a very, very resilient mother.
She takes, she takes necessary risks.
She's not going to, you know,gamble her life away, but she takes
necessary risks when she knowsthat there's a good outcome on the
(06:49):
other side.
She just needs a lot of information.
Right.
She wants to make informed decisions.
So when we had thatconversation or when we started having
those conversations, I wouldshare with her, like, hey, I'm, I'm
learning about, you know,these Roth IRAs.
Like, I know you're not atthis income limit, but like, have
you started part of this?
Have you heard about it?
I started doing this.
This is what it's doing for me.
(07:10):
Just sharing my experiencesand being transparent with her so
that she could, she couldunderstand it for herself and see
what she was able to do on her end.
And that's really good to diveinto it first before you talk to
your parents.
Absolutely.
Because sometimes they feellike, you know, the diaper mentality,
they also want to listen,like, yeah, I told you this before.
And then they listen tosomebody else like, oh, they got
(07:32):
the right answer.
Right.
And I think for her, there's,she's had conversations come up throughout
her lifetime or throughout hercareer, and it just wasn't explained
in a way that she felt shecould benefit.
And I think that happens a lotwhere people are like, yeah, I heard
about it, but I don't know howthis works for me.
And so then things seem soinaccessible because you're like,
all this information is out here.
What am I supposed to do with that?
(07:52):
So if, if it's not made to berelatable or if it's not meant to
be goal oriented to, hey,you're going to need this.
Because as you retire, youwant less money lost to taxes and
you want more money grown thatyou can use for yourself, and that
gives you more freedom to dowhat you want, then it starts to
click.
And.
But if you just say, oh, youneed to invest because it works,
that doesn't mean anything toa lot of people.
(08:13):
Yeah.
So for the person that'slistening to this right now, and
we're talking about theGatekeeping side of the house, which
is through jargon or throughdifferent processes to create these
different barriers to get intoit or even just have an amount of
money just to even start to invest.
What would you.
What is one practical advicethat somebody can get started today?
(08:35):
Google is your best friend.
It really is.
Like, AI is great, and Ithink, you know, there's a lot of
integration of AI inside of Google.
But if you just want like asimple answer to like, a simple circumstance
that you may have, like, ask Google.
Google.
There are so many resourcesout there and sometimes you're going
to get a lot of marketing andads, but like, just keep, just keep
(08:56):
searching until you feel likeyou've gotten the most authentic
answer that you can get.
It's very easy, especially inthe finance world, for everything
to feel like it's beinggatekept, right?
Because they use these bigwords like you mentioned, jargon
that people just don't understand.
And it seems so intimidatingthat people are like, no, I don't
want to hear this anymore.
I'm just going to log out.
And you have to make it so, somuch more accessible.
(09:18):
And you have to make it relatable.
Like, hey, like, if you wantyour kids to go to college and spend
less money towards studentloans, like, these are the options
for you.
And you can start really smalland build it as you increase your
income or as, you know, yourkids start working and just make
it really simple.
Break it down to a level wherepeople feel like they're being met,
where they're at.
(09:39):
But yeah, I think that there'sjust so much information out there
that it just gets overwhelming.
So people get a lot ofanalysis paralysis where it's just,
oh, this is too much, I'm done.
I don't want to hear it anymore.
And that is one of the worstthings that we could do for ourselves.
But having more openconversations with each other and
making finance a naturalconversation is very essential, especially
(10:02):
for our people who are needingto kind of get out of the mud and
do it for themselves becausethey cannot rely on, on any systems
or any programs to do it for them.
Yeah.
Why is this so passionate for you?
I've.
I've seen too much.
I've seen, I've seen too manypeople be at such a large disadvantage
because they just didn't know.
And some of that being some ofmy own family, some of that being
(10:24):
clients that I've worked with.
I'm also a clinicaloccupational therapist, so I work
with people mostly in theirhomes, and I see how they Just can't
really survive.
And they're really hoping thatyou can come in and save the day
for them.
And a lot of it has to do withjust lack of resources, and resources
cost money.
And I look at them and I thinkto myself, you know, not pity, but
(10:45):
just what a disservice that'sbeen done to them.
You know, people have workedso hard for such a long time and
it gets, you know, they get tobe 70, 80 years old and some of them
have nothing to show for it.
And it's not their fault.
I don't blame them.
Financial literacy issomething that's been kept away from
people to keep some people ata lower end.
And they don't even realizethat that's been done to them.
(11:06):
They just know that for somereason I'm suffering and I don't
even know what I could havedone to fix this.
Yeah, that's a sad thing.
And some of the times isreally the small stuff.
You're like, hey, just evenputting away 10% or even $5.
Right.
Could actually help you out.
But also with the older folks,like you said, those resources not
(11:26):
knowing what's out there forthem in the community, just even
going, like you said, Googleis right there.
But some people don't evenknow what to Google.
Right, Right.
That's true.
And so they don't.
Some people don't know whattheir struggle is because they're
only in their own head abouttheir own perspective.
They don't.
They may not understand, like,people aren't going through this
like I am.
(11:47):
I didn't, I didn't realize that.
And I think too, especiallyfor the older generation, there's
so much traditional nuancethat just seems as though, like,
this is just the way it is.
But realistically, they'vebeen kind of placed into a level
of poverty that they may notbe aware of.
Was.
Was a system that was put inplace to keep them there.
And that's really unfortunate.
(12:08):
And to, to be on the otherside of that and to witness that.
I don't tell them to theirface like, hey, do you know you're
being disserviced?
But I, I try to show themlike, these are the resources that
you probably need.
But in the back of my mind,I'm thinking, we've gotta make sure
people aren't gonna be doingthis for forever.
Like, this isn't necessary.
The struggles that people aregoing through aren't always necessary.
Yeah.
And on your website.
(12:28):
Yeah.
Provides several services onthere are there resources that are
like your Go to resources fora lot of people.
Yeah.
So I have a debt payoffcalculator on the website that I
usually try to point people inthe direction of because obviously,
you know, if you need avehicle to get to work, cool.
If you, if you have a houseand you, you need shelter for your
family, that's cool too.
(12:48):
And I want people tounderstand how much money they could
be losing to the interestrates of their debts.
Debt sometimes is just very necessary.
Right.
Debt is almost a privilegebecause if you get a, if you get
a lower rate, you're using itkind of as leverage.
If you're getting it at ahigher rate in some way, it's, it's
robbing you down from yoursavings potential.
So I try to make sure thatpeople are very aware of what their
(13:11):
debt is actually costing themand how that is kind of taking away
from their savings potential.
But that, that's one goodresource on the website.
I have a resources page and Ialways encourage people, you know,
if you need a place to start,if you can't save money right now
and you know that you have alot of debt, go to the resource page,
download the debt payoffcalculator and just work with the
numbers there.
I created the formulas in there.
(13:33):
You just have to put yournumbers in and see what that looks
like so you can start freeingup some cash for yourself.
Awesome.
It's actually a really good form.
I texted thank you.
So pretty cool.
So, you know, obviously goingthrough the debt is one thing, but
we also dealing with thefamily dynamics.
So I understand you got, youknow, your pet babies, the three
cats.
Yeah.
(13:54):
So how is maintaining theirbills along with your own bills because
of your day to day life?
Yeah.
So I would say for me, themost expensive thing that I normally
have to deal with doesn'thappen often.
So it's not like a month tomonth expense.
That's kind of the beauty ofjust having pets for people who have
(14:14):
children.
Like there are months, thereare week to week expenses or day
to day expenses.
So then that adds up to their,their month to month allocation of
their money.
But I kind of just build inmy, my expenses into the miscellaneous
category.
So when my wife and I aredoing our monthly money meeting,
we will go through oursavings, our investments, our debt
(14:35):
payments, and then groceries,shopping, travel expenses, and then
the miscellaneous is kind ofeverything else that follows that
falls under that.
And so the pet expenses kindof fall in because they don't, they
don't cost that much.
I think we did our monthlymeeting two days ago, we spend maybe
about $60 a month for three cats.
Like, it's not that much.
And I know that for people whohave children, they're spending probably
(14:57):
$60, maybe a day, depending onthe child.
You know, my, my expensesthere aren't, aren't that much.
But in order for people tounderstand more about like, where
their money is going, like,you have to track it.
Like, you really can't escape that.
You really have to track it.
Whether you call it a spendingtracker or a budget.
I know people don't like thatB word, they don't like budgets.
(15:18):
But, but you have to do it.
You have to just know what'shappening so you can get in control.
And I don't look at it asrestricted or I just look at it like
this is the information I needso I know how to move forward from
here.
Was this something that youput into place when you were paying
off the $75,000?
Yeah, I had to because I, I, Ididn't know what, where my money
(15:39):
was going or really, I didn'teven know how much we were making
in total.
So when we put our money intothe same tracker and started looking
at, you know, where are wespending our, are we even saving?
Okay, great, we have a lot ofleg room.
And at that time, I paid offmost of my debt before we even like
had pets, before we evenbought a house.
So I had a lot more room tokind of explode through the, through
(16:02):
the debt payoff process.
Now I've still been able topay off a lot of debt even as I accrued
on more debt through the houseand through buying a vehicle.
But it really took the work ofunderstanding, like, where is it
going first?
So I know how to allocate thatout later.
So now that you paid yoursoff, what are your thoughts on actually
having the student loan, likeforgiveness for the others?
(16:25):
We still need it.
We do.
I believe that the educationprocess has become way too expensive
just for the average person.
Especially if people arecoming out of college with, you know,
50 to $100,000 of debt andthey're not even making that much
on a year to year income income.
When I was in grad school the,the summer that I started my graduate
(16:47):
school program, at the time,our department of education was being
run by Betsy Devoe.
They had increased theinterest rates of the student loans
while we were in class.
So there was a wholeannouncement where someone came and
was like, hey, the interestrates are going up, so you guys want
to take out as much as you can.
Right now because as of nextyear, that rate's going to change.
We're freaking out.
None of us know what we're doing.
We don't, we don't know anything.
(17:07):
Like, we're still trying toget our careers off.
And all I'm thinking is, oh,Jesus, like, am I going to be able
to afford this?
I don't even know like, howmuch I'm going to make when I leave
this program.
And I just know that gradschool is really expensive.
And of course you know thatthe graduate loans are a lot more
expensive as the interestrates are per, I guess, compared
to undergraduate withsubsidized loans.
But yeah, I think that thestudent loan repayment program is
(17:31):
definitely needed and thestudent loan forgiveness would have
been nice.
I think the preface of, oh,well, you took it out, so you need
to pay it back.
I, I just don't think it's, Idon't think it's that simple anymore.
And I, and I don't see thepurpose of, you know, robbing people
of the opportunity to get debtfree so that they can afford other
things.
Like realistically, from acapitalism standpoint, people can
(17:53):
afford to spend more money inother areas if they had less debt.
Yeah, I just, I don'tunderstand, I don't understand.
I'm like, if you're payingstudent loans, you're not getting
that.
Right.
But if they get their pay,their loans paid off and they're
able to buy, you know, threeSamsung TVs, then that's more money
in your pocket.
Samsung, like, what are yousupposed to do about that?
So, yeah, I, I, I still wantthat for people.
(18:14):
Do I think it's going tohappen anytime soon?
Not in this current state, butI do hope that that is something
that will occur here in thenear future.
Of course.
All right, well, let's hopeyour predictions are correct because
I still got my hanging around.
I hope it is too.
Yes.
Because one of the things thatyou wanted to talk about today was
really talking about thesurvivor benefits of one spouse.
(18:37):
Why, why is this so importantthat people learn about this?
Yeah, I think that especiallyfor women, because this happens more
often to this demographic.
There is this notion that ifyou, and for straight women, of course,
there's this notion that ifyou are someone who is kind of like
the, the caretaker and youhave, you know, a male partner or
(18:58):
a husband who providesfinancially, that, that they're going
to take care of you.
But I think it's veryrealistic that not even all men understand
all the implications offinance and they're just as easily
taken advantage of byfinancial systems as women are.
But there are supposed to bethese providers, which I can see
(19:18):
that, you know, if you havethose traditional values, that that
is something that you reallywant to uphold.
And.
And I respect that.
However, I do believe thatthere needs to be a better conversation
between men and women of whatthe financial outlook may hold if
one person passes away.
And that's not just if thehusband passes away, that's also
if the wife passes away.
What do these things look like?
(19:39):
But when it comes tosurvivorship benefits, I've seen
far too often that women whohave lost their male partners because
women have a much higher lifeexpectancy, especially because most
times men just aren't going tothe doctor or they're ignoring their
health crises.
And then it becomes this wholething that the women just don't feel
like they have anything.
(19:59):
Right?
They're like, I don't know anyof the passwords to the account.
How do I, you know, contact,you know, Social Security office
to get this money?
Do we even have Social Security?
How do I, you know, do X, Yand Z?
And it leaves the women in avery vulnerable state where they
don't know if they're going tobe financially supported and they
don't know who to ask.
Because these conversationshaven't been bad before.
But there's a scenario that Ispoke with my audience about here
(20:24):
previously that's stillgenerating a lot of conversations
of a woman that I spoke with.
Her husband passed away, andhe was a state employee, a public
employee for the state of Texas.
He didn't have Social Securityand his pension did not have survivorship
benefits.
So that left her with only theamount of money that they had in
her savings, which she quicklyblew through due to funeral expenses
(20:44):
and things like that.
So it's scenarios like thatwhere she's like, okay, now what
am I supposed to do?
Right?
She's having to try and dependon her children, who don't also have
a whole lot of money and theyhave their own families, and it's
just.
It becomes a systemic burdenfor the family.
And those aren't scenariosthat people want to deal with, but
it's a conversation thatdefinitely needs to be had as soon
as possible.
Yeah.
And.
But how do they.
(21:05):
Like, what resources or whatdo you feel is like a checklist?
If you were to generate achecklist right now, what would it
be?
So a good checklist would be,let's start from the beginning, when
you were dating someone, okay.
When you're dating someone,you need to start having these money
conversations.
Like, what do you, what do youwant financially with your life?
Like, what do you want life tolook like?
And how is money going to helpsupport you in that?
(21:26):
Because you don't want justmoney just for the sake of money
and do and then do nothingwith it.
Have those conversations.
And then when you're startingto get serious with someone, let
them know, like, hey, ifsomething happens to either of us,
I need to make sure that bothof us have some form of protection
so that we're not left hanging right.
I want to be able to make surethat I can help pay for your expenses
or you can help pay for mine.
If there's one spouse who'sworking and the other one who is
(21:47):
either at home as a caretakeror doesn't have the ability to work,
make sure that person also hasthe ability to be a part of the financial
conversations that you havewith either your benefits coordinator
at work or with yourretirement planner.
If you have a separateretirement account outside of your
employer, like, make sure thatyour spouse is involved in those
conversations.
It should not be a secret.
(22:08):
So start having those conversations.
Build in your beneficiaries ofyour spouse or whoever you need to
be the beneficiary of your account.
If something happens to you,those things need to be in place
and that's pretty quick.
Like, you can do yourbeneficiaries within two or three
minutes if you just log ontoyour account and put their name and
usually their social in.
Very easy things to do, but itwill help alleviate a lot of the
(22:29):
stress of if something happensto me, are they going to be set.
Another one is make sure youhave life insurance.
You don't have to have a fulllife policy.
You can have a term policythat's very cheap.
My wife and I, before we gotmarried, we took out life insurance
for each other.
Pay.
I pay $21 a month.
(22:49):
She pays 18.
Right.
Our policies are very cheap.
And if something were tohappen to either of us, we've, we've
created a plan.
We've had the conversation.
I'm not keeping this house.
I don't want it.
Like, you know, I'll make surethat you're taken care of and then
I'll do whatever I need to toget rid of this house and then whatever
else needs to happen after that.
Take time off to grieve.
It's.
(23:09):
It's horrible when people havea spouse that passes and then they're
forced to go back to workbecause they have no PT they don't
have any money to sustain, youknow, the, the time it takes for
their mental and emotionalhealth to, to get back on level,
that's necessary to befunctional day to day at their job.
Those things are super, super important.
Okay, and you mentionedearlier about the passwords.
Do you recommend like a.
(23:29):
Just a regular notebook withall the passwords.
Should it be like brightcolored or the special box or something
like that?
Whatever your preferences.
I have some clients that I'vetalked to, they do like a, you know,
on pen and paper or they typeit out and they put in a secure lockbox
with a key, whatever.
Or some will do like a digital file.
I have a digital file that'spassword protected, however you want
(23:50):
to do that.
I just try to make sure thatlike everything, every account that
I have, you have access to that.
And if I update thosepasswords, thankfully with my digital,
with my digital file, likethose passwords will update with
it.
So if something happens to meor if even I don't have to be like
dead and gone, but even if I'mjust incapacitated.
Right.
I may be in the hospital.
I need you to be able toaccess these things because if I
(24:13):
can't talk and you're like,well, I don't know, then we're both
in a bad situation.
Yeah, I think having thosethings in a secure location where
both of you know, like, hey,this is my information, your information,
all in one secure spot.
If something happens, this iswhat we do next.
That is really good reminderfor a lot of people who, like you
said with your mom, she mighthave known about it, but did you
(24:36):
do anything with it?
A lot of people just don'tknow where to go coming up with that
checklist.
I don't know, maybe we shouldcome together and just create a checklist.
Yeah, call it like walletsense or something.
Yeah, I think that would be great.
People, people really need thedirection, I believe.
You know, we could talk allday, have these conversations.
But like you said, if they, ifthey walk away and they move on and
(24:58):
they forget, like they've donenothing with it.
But we want that informationto be productive information, like
take it and go with it.
Do something with it.
Yeah.
And I watched too many snappedor investigation discovery things.
So when the other person foundout, oh, you got life insurance on
me.
Okay.
Hey, right.
You know, talking to theboyfriend, trying to murder the guy.
(25:18):
And I was like, what, do younot think that you'll be connected
to go to jail as well?
Come on now, now the money'sjust sitting in limbo, you know,
it's ridiculous.
So one of the things that I. Ido try to recommend is also is to
do like a POD or a tld, liketransfer on death or pay on death.
Yeah.
When somebody's in the samebank account, so it's a lot easier
(25:40):
to transfer that money insteadof them.
Like, hey, I need to passwordto this account.
Can you give me this account?
We can just show up with thedeath certificate and they'll just
transfer the money on you.
Right.
And again, all you need isjust a social, I believe the social
in the name of the person.
Yeah, yeah.
So the, the transfer on deathstuff is really good.
And I would say, you know, ifyou're someone who maybe you're.
(26:01):
You're not married, maybeyou're single, and.
But you have family membersthat you want to make sure have access
to your estate.
If something were to happen toyou, you want to make sure that that
is something that's in place.
My wife and I have sharedaccounts, so my name and her name
is on the account.
So if something happens to me,she doesn't have to go through.
She doesn't have to jumpthrough loops to get to the money
because it's equally legally hers.
Now, there are some accountsthat I only have access to, just
(26:24):
like she has some accountsthat she only has access to, but
we're both the beneficiarieson those, so that helps with that
as well.
But, yeah, doing that, doingthe transfer on death documentation,
also having a will in place isjust very, very beneficial.
You just want to avoid as muchhiccups in the probate process as
possible.
But even if it's not death, ifit's disability and you need POA
(26:44):
things involved, if it's.
If it's, you know,hospitalization and you're incapacitated
and you need someone to beable to act on your behalf, you want
those things to also beinvolved as fast as possible because
you just.
You just never know.
I could be in a car accidenttomorrow, but I don't want that to
happen.
But if it happens, I want tomake sure that the person.
My wife has access toeverything she needs to as soon as
(27:07):
she needs it.
I don't want to have towonder, will she be able to take
care of this?
Yes or no?
That's.
That's the worst thing I coulddo for the person that I love.
What is the most recent moneyconversation that you had with your
wife?
Because now I'm thinkingabout, you know, you talk about survival
Benefits.
But now it's like, you'realive now.
So like, what is.
Yeah, what are thoseconversations like now?
And then how did it start, ifyou don't mind me going back that
(27:29):
far?
Yeah, so we started havingmoney conversations.
Actually.
Before we started dating, wewere just friends and we were in
grad school together.
That's how we met.
And so when the interest rateswent up, we were like, oh my goodness,
what are we supposed to dowith this?
So we were actually helpingeach other kind of go through the
loan process and trying tofigure that out and like, what that
was going to mean for us.
And then, you know, after wegraduated, we were on the same page
(27:50):
of like, we have all thesestudent loans, like, what are we
supposed to do with this?
And we shared expenses at this point.
So it was like a no brainer.
Like, we need to startfiguring this out as fast as possible.
We, together as a couple, wentthrough a financial program and it
was, it was insightful.
We learned a lot.
There was a, there was a lotof things that, you know, we started
having more organicconversations about outside of the
(28:10):
program that we were like, Idon't really agree with that.
And this doesn't really alignwith what we want.
And then we just started tonaturally talk about, you know, what
do we want out of our life?
What do we want to see withour money?
How is that going to servewhat we're, what we're wanting to
do?
And it became very importantfor us to have these conversations
because we're very giving people.
We wanted to make sure that,like, you know, if we're going out
(28:32):
with friends or going out withfamily, if there's, you know, someone's
meal that we can cover, we'relooking at each other like, hey,
can, you know, can we pay forthis person?
Like, yeah, absolutely.
Or we have that conversationbefore we leave the house.
But, you know, every singlemonth it became a habit of we need
to just sit down and just lookat it because it gets overwhelming.
Like, if I swipe my car 60times 1 month, I don't want to look
at all those transactions.
So, you know, we justdesignate one day out of the month.
(28:55):
Usually it's at the end of themonth to review over what we did
and then to also talk aboutwhat's coming up.
So for, for me, that's super exciting.
And for her, she's alwayslooking, you know, a couple months
in advance because she's like,I want to do this, I want to do that.
She's a very, very good planner.
And for me, I'm like, okay,what's coming up right away?
And we're using kind of ourstrengths in that aspect to have
those conversations together to.
(29:16):
To gear that next step forwhat we're going to be doing with
our finances moving forward.
But, yeah, I think that, youknow, the last conversation we had,
we went over our.
Our money, our monthly moneymeeting, and we were just talking
about, like, the trips that wewant to take coming up pretty soon.
And some of that is, you know,financially, we gotta be prepared
for that.
But I also use a lot of creditcard points.
I love.
(29:37):
I love the points and miles game.
I just love credit card points.
And I've.
I've been on many trips whereI don't spend almost a dime, and
I just love that.
And to me, it's.
I've gamified that, so I spendless money.
And that's such a hack.
If no one.
If y' all aren't doing thatnow, that is such a hack, and you
need to do it.
But, you know, we have a bigtrip that we're trying to plan for
next year, and we are tryingto build up the most amount of points
(29:58):
as possible, but we're doingso within our budget.
Right.
We are still looking at ourmonthly money, trying to make sure
that we're staying in budget.
We're not putting ourselves incredit card debt.
Never do that.
But we're making sure, like,okay, this bonus is coming up.
Let's make sure, you know, ifwe're going to go here, we're going
to use this card to hit thatbonus, get these points, and it becomes
fun.
Right.
We try not to make it a verydetrimental conversation.
(30:20):
We don't argue about our moneybecause we're having conversations
organically.
We may have a couple ofdifferent goals.
Right.
But we're building that in sothat we can accomplish them together.
There may be something thatshe wants.
And I'm like, okay, yeah,let's see what we can do about that.
And.
And then there's something I want.
She's like, all right, cool.
Yeah, let's work on that, too.
It's never a.
Well, I want that.
So.
No, it's.
Yes.
And let's figure that out together.
(30:40):
Always.
Nice.
Now, is this, like, do y' alldo this at a dinner table or just
kind of like a special placein the house where y' all have y'
all certain discussions?
Yeah.
So sometimes we have it justkind of chilling in the living room,
just.
So it's a.
We.
We try to do it In a veryrelaxed environment.
There's a couple of occasionswhere we've, like, gone out to a
restaurant and did, like, awhole thing.
We're like, let's have a money date.
And we just made it fun.
(31:01):
Like, we're having a good meal.
We're having, you know, ourfavorite food.
I think we went to a ramenrestaurant, ate some takoyaki, ate
some ramen, and just had agrand old time.
Pulled out our laptops andstarted doing some work and talking
about our money.
And we just try to make it anenjoyable experience, because when
we tie that emotion to it, itbecomes easier.
But if it's constantly anagitating experience, this.
That's why couples don't havethose conversations.
(31:22):
So.
Yeah.
Would you think y' allwould've worked out if you didn't?
We all weren't on the sameexpectations when y' all had those
money discussions.
Ooh, I don't know.
That's hard to say.
That's.
That's hard to answer.
Um, well.
Cause it's working now.
It's just working.
We're very.
We're both very exploratory.
And I would say, kind offinancially, I was a little bit more
structured in the beginningof, like, this is what needs to happen.
(31:43):
That's what needs to happen.
But then I also learned, like,I can't be the money person, because
if something happens to me, Iwant her to feel confident, to be
able to do things on her own.
So when I open up thatconversation, like, hey, I can't
be the one to just do this.
Like, I really want you to bea part of this.
Because I also felt the needthat, like, she, as a woman, also
needs to just be empowered toknow, like, if I'm not here, for
whatever reason, you got this,or if we don't make it, for whatever
(32:04):
reason, you got this.
And so it was very easy forher to be like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah,
let's make sure that we havethose conversations together.
And it kicked off from there.
That's really good.
That's how you know you have ahealthy, healthy relationship, especially
with the expectations.
Because I've heard one of myclients said that she just gives
her money to the husband andthat's it.
(32:25):
And she was like, well, I justneed my money when I do it, or.
And she's just like, we putthe money into the account and that's
it.
And she just get whatever she needs.
So what are your thoughts on,like, combining?
Like, obviously, there's threedifferent ways.
What are your thoughts oncombining accounts versus having
separate accounts, I think youshould have both.
I think everyone should haveboth, quite honestly, especially
if you live together.
(32:46):
Now, I know there's that, youknow, small percent.
I wouldn't even say small.
I know there's a percentage ofpeople who, you know, they're with
their partner for a period oftime, and maybe they're long distance
or maybe they just like havingtheir own space.
Maybe you don't need to shareexpenses then, because your.
Your home expenses are alittle bit different.
But for the vast majority ofpeople, kind of in those very traditional,
like, you're with yourpartner, you live with your partner,
you guys share groceries andhouse expenses, and, you know, you
(33:08):
probably do certain things andaround holidays and stuff like that.
I do believe that you shouldhave a combination, have a shared,
at least shared savings accounts.
Checking is a little bitdifferent, in my opinion, just because
I don't really.
We don't really use ourchecking account.
Like, our checking accountpays our.
Our credit cards.
That's just the way that weuse them.
So for us, it's not reallythat necessary.
Having shared savings accountsand then having savings accounts
(33:30):
for yourself.
Right.
We have three accounts that weshare, and then I have three of my
own, and I think she has twoor three of her own.
But when we're looking at ourshared money, we're looking at those
shared accounts, and I put anequal amount into the shared account
just as she does.
So that we're always lookingat, what have we contributed to that?
What does that mean for us?
We got something coming up.
Okay, I'm going to put some in.
(33:50):
You're going to put some in?
We're good.
But it allows us to feel likewe have freedom but that we also
have some cohesiveness withwhat we want to be able to accomplish
financially.
Okay, so when you say equalamount, y' all meaning like y' all
both make the same, that y'all okay to contribute the same,
or is it just like, how's that?
Yeah, yeah.
So we actually do make aboutthe same.
My wife is an occupational therapist.
(34:11):
I'm also an occupationaltherapist, and we graduated at the
same time.
So our years of experience isthe same.
Like, we do the same job, wemake the same.
Now, that doesn't work for everyone.
We just have a very unique circumstance.
So, you know, if one partneris making 120 and the other one's
making 60, that's a different conversation.
Split it up into percentage.
Right.
So if you guys have, you know,an emergency fund that you're building.
(34:34):
Maybe one spouse can put in20% and the other puts in their 20%.
Make it work for you.
But don't, you know, Well, Imake 120, so I'm going to put in
a thousand a month.
You also got to put in athousand a month.
You're going to make thatother person broke while you're just
kind of like, riding on.
On.
On.
On freedom there.
So that's just not going to be beneficial.
But whatever feels naturalusually go with that.
(34:54):
And also just have those conversations.
And you will find out just bytalking, like, what feels fair.
Right.
We don't always agree on everything.
Sometimes it's just, let'shave a conversation to understand
what we mean.
Because sometimes I maysuggest something, she's like, well,
no, that.
That doesn't work.
And then she'll give me her perspective.
And I'm like, okay, I see whatyou mean.
Like, it's just about havingthe conversation.
(35:14):
Yeah.
And one thing I do admire thaty' all have those comfortable conversations
of understanding.
Like, hey, this is somethingthat is important to me, and I really
want to make sure I understandwhat you're saying.
Yeah, yeah, We.
We have to.
I mean, and we may talk about.
I mean, we talk about everything.
And I think that is somethingthat not everyone is used to.
(35:34):
There's.
There's also going to be adifference in dynamics between couples.
Not everyone has that availability.
And we're also veryemotionally vulnerable with each
other, which not everyone has.
So I may talk with some of myclients and ask them, like, what
do you want out of your money?
And you're like, I don't know.
I just know I'm not doing it right.
And it's like, okay, now wehave to.
I also.
I also have to kind of be atherapist to figure out, like, what
(35:55):
do you value what.
What means the most to you?
Like, okay, you want to beable to see your family in New York
on Christmas.
Like, you want to spendChristmases in New York.
Okay, great.
What does that look like asfar as your.
What are your resources right now?
How are we going to be able toafford that?
Because money gives you thefreedom to do the things that you
want to do.
And when people don't haveenough of it, then they're left with
less resources.
(36:16):
So we got to work on buildingthat up.
And it's like, well, I don'treally care about money.
I just care about this.
And it's like, you care aboutthis, but you need money to get there.
And so sometimes we have to dothat back and forth.
We have a good system where wejust have those conversations.
We're open.
Not everyone is emotionallyavailable like that.
So it really takes havingthose conversations and just kind
of digging in.
(36:36):
It's not all about money.
I don't care about money asmuch as I care about the value of
my life.
I want to maximize my life andmy travel and my experiences and
my happiness as much as possible.
But I know that I can do thatwhen I have money.
So, yeah, it does provide some.
It does.
Money buys happiness.
I don't know who said itdoesn't, but it does.
Totally agree.
(36:56):
Because this brings up to thethird segment, which is the features.
And again, talking about thevalues that you have.
So, like, what areas of focusdo you feel as though that you need
to prove upon in your life?
Spontaneity.
Spontaneity, for sure.
I'm a very structured person,not just with finances, but just
like, with my routine.
(37:17):
Like, someone wanted to, youknow, stalk me and figure out what
I do.
They could easily find thatout in two days.
Like, oh, she's prettyconsistent with everything.
So I'm not very spontaneous.
And my wife really tries toget me out of that.
Like, you just do the samething every day.
And I'm like, yeah, becausethat works.
Like, it's working, you know,and so that's one thing.
And I think that too, youknow, right now, as we are still
(37:38):
building upon the life that wewant to have, I think that that spontaneity
will come more naturally.
But I know I also need to beforced out of that space.
So for me, you know, my goalis I don't want to work until I'm
even 55.
Like, I'm trying to get out ofthere, you know?
And so for me, it's like,boom, I gotta do this, I gotta do
that, gotta do this, gotta do that.
And it's like, well, you alsohave to have fun in the middle of
that.
So you have to maximize whatyour life looks like in all aspects
(38:02):
of that.
Because I may not be here toeven look at, you know, what.
What will my retirement yearslook like?
I'm planning for it, butthere's no guarantee that I'll be
here for that.
So I do need to do better, ofcourse, with just maximizing every
single day that I have right now.
I like that.
There.
Anything that you wanna talkabout to the audience before we get
into the final four questions?
Oh, my.
(38:22):
My number one recommendationfor literally everyone is make money
conversations, normal and natural.
Don't be afraid to talk aboutit if you're.
If you're not afraid to, youknow, talk about sex or talk about
alcohol or talk about otherthings, like, don't be afraid to
have conversations aboutmoney, because the lack of those
conversations means thatyou're probably being underpaid,
(38:43):
means that you're probably notmaximizing the power of what your
dollars can actually do, andalso means that you don't know what
would happen if for somereason you stopped working or maybe
you got in a car accident,you're not able to return to your
job, or, you know, your.
Your parent falls ill and theyhave to come live with you, and you
have to file for fmla, butyou're not making money.
(39:04):
You don't know what thosethings look like.
So start having very normaland natural conversations.
It may not feel natural in thebeginning, but the more often you
do it, practice will make thata lot more attainable and a lot easier
to do.
So.
Yeah, just don't bedebilitated by the fact that it just
seems scary.
Wow.
Okay, now that sparked the question.
(39:24):
Well, if you don't feelcomfortable, like, because if you're
scared in that relationship toeven open up about money, is that
a.
Is that a, like, red flag or asign to say, like, hey, I need to
leave this relationship, or doI need to try to find other ways,
so I need to bring in a third party.
Like, what should they do ifthey don't feel comfortable?
I would definitely say it'snot a red flag.
(39:44):
Not yet.
I think there's a level tothat, but it takes effort.
So if you're not comfortableyet, and I know that not everyone
grew up with the.
With like, maybe emotionallyavailable parents.
Sometimes we bring to thetable what we've been presented with
and what we were raised with,and we have to learn how to break
those cycles.
If you need to bring in athird party, if you need to have
maybe your own personaltherapist first, or maybe you need
(40:06):
to have, you know, a couple'stherapist, like, do that.
Therapy has absolutely changedmy life.
Not financially, because Ididn't have that problem, but I had
other things that I needed todeal with that allowed me to evolve
as a person for myself andevolve as a.
As a wife.
So, yeah, I mean, having.
Having a way to break down,like, what is in the way of me being
(40:27):
able to open up and be vulnerable?
Maybe you don't feel safe, ormaybe you've never felt safe and
you didn't know that that waseven a thing for You.
You don't know what you don'tknow sometimes.
But if you realize, like, hey, I'm.
I'm afraid to have certain conversations.
It could be money, it couldbe, you know, kids.
It could be future things.
I'm afraid to have theseconversations with a person that
I want to spend my life with.
Like, what is that about?
(40:48):
If you're not questioning thatand if you're not trying to do the
work for it, sometimes it'sokay to bring in that third person,
and sometimes it's just reallynecessary to do so.
That is awesome.
Good stuff.
Good stuff.
Love it.
All right, so you ready forthe final one?
All righty.
(41:09):
So for those of you who arenew to the show, the final four questions
are the final four questionsthat we ask every guest that's only
about that wallet show.
So we can learn a little bitmore about them.
Or maybe you might want tohave them back on the show.
Who knows?
Just leave a comment.
Alrighty.
Number one, what does wealthmean to you?
Wealth means, to me, unlimitedpossibilities for the things that
(41:29):
I want.
Wealth also means being ableto buy my way out of situations I
no longer want to be a part of.
Like, all seriousness, if Idon't want to be here, I can buy
my $30 Uber and get out.
I'm leaving.
So, I mean, wealth just givesme the options to protect my peace.
Wealth will give me theoptions to enjoy myself without restrictions.
All of those things.
(41:50):
About that.
Number two, what was yourworst money mistake?
Oh, my goodness.
Oh, man.
I've talked about my.
I talked about this with myaudience before buying my truck.
I shouldn't have done that.
I was still deep in studentloan debt when I bought it, but it
was during the pandemic, and Iwas depressed, and I was like, I
need a truck, and I shouldn'thave done that.
It's paid off now because Irealized that that was really dumb
and I shouldn't have done it.
(42:10):
And the car I had wasperfectly fine.
There was nothing wrong with it.
I just wanted something new.
But, yeah, that was my.
That's definitely my worst mistake.
I think we had those moments.
It happens.
I know it's normal for a lotof people, but, like, don't do it.
Don't do what I did.
Okay.
Number three, is there a bookthat inspired your journey or changed
your perspective?
(42:31):
Ooh.
Okay, I have two.
Can I give you two books?
Okay.
Yeah.
My very.
The very first book is thePsychology of Money by Morgan Housel.
That is such a good book.
Like, if you are not sure.
Like where your money habitsor behaviors or maybe fears around
money are coming from.
Read that book, the Psychologyof Money.
Great book.
The next book, I will say,especially for those type A people,
(42:53):
if you're type A, listen to this.
You need to read Die With Zeroby Bill Perkins.
Excellent book.
Because if you are someonewho's just like, go, go, go, work,
work, work, and I'll retirelater, you do not realize that your
body cannot sustain all thethings that you've saved over the
years to do.
You want to start maximizingyour life right now.
So, yeah.
Die With Zero by Bill Perkinsand In the Psychology of Money by
(43:14):
Morgan Housel Highly recommend.
I just read that was Zero.
Did you love it?
And I was telling me you love it.
I totally enjoy.
So good.
I gotta.
I need to.
Because I was going to put mytwo lists up, my bucket list and
my availability list.
I think the other list.
Just because, like, these arethe things that I want to do while
I still have the energy.
Yes.
And available.
(43:34):
Because it's so stored thatright there.
Put it together for me.
Like, I. I can ignore the restof the book, but the end of it was.
Was for me at that point.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah.
I mean, we can geek out aboutbooks later.
I got.
I got a lot of books that Ilove, but those are my two tops right
now.
Recommend number four.
What is your favorite dish to make?
(43:56):
Ooh.
I love to cook, so this one'sactually really hard.
And I don't have, like, aspecific genre of meals.
I will say I really, reallylove doing homemade wings and fries.
I don't know what it is.
It's just.
It's so good.
And really, I do it outside.
I do it on the grill mostlybecause it causes a lot of heat here
in Texas to do that inside the house.
But that's one of my favoritethings to make.
(44:17):
Homemade wings and homemadefries, like, straight from the potato
itself with, like, a goodgarlic aioli sauce.
That's the best part, too.
Yeah.
I usually do spicy mayo, butthe aioli, I need to get some.
Yeah, if you make it fresh,it's good.
Garlic aioli.
Garlic, you know, parmesan,parsley fries, spicy wings.
Yeah.
All right.
(44:38):
I mean, I need to go getsomething to eat at that.
I hope I make you hungry.
You sure did.
This is the last question ofthe show, which is where could people
find out more about you?
Yeah.
So if you're interested tolearn more, you know, kind of get
connected with the community,I'm on Most social media platforms
except for Twitter, YouTube,Instagram, TikTok at Saving Sense
(45:02):
HQ.
And you can also findresources like the debt payoff calculator
at the resource center onsavingsense.org Also, there have
some really good services ifyou need something kind of one on
one or if you want to get, youknow, connected with a group service
where you can learn in asetting amongst other people.
All my services are virtual,so I do it right here.
(45:22):
Um, so that you can be in thecomfort of your home.
I'll do the same.
Um, I also do some savingsaudits as well.
If you're like, hey, I don'teven know if I can afford anything
just yet.
I'll help you just find yoursavings for you.
No problem at all.
But, yeah, check me outsavingsense.org or on social media
platforms at Savingsense HQ.
All right, if you need a blackSusie Orman, you know where to go.
This was so fun.
(45:43):
Thank you so much for sharingyour story, your insights, and, I
mean, I can't wait to seewhere you go from here.
So for you who are listening,I want you to take a moment to remember
that you have to learn how toput one shoe on at a time.
Because trying to put them onat the same time, you can get confusing.
You might hurt yourself.
Exactly.
So just keep it nice and simple.
(46:04):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Don't do too much at once.
For sure.
Yeah, Just start small, Onestep at a time, literally.
There we go.
And thank you, everybody.
Y' all be safe.
Yeah, we out.
When you were dating someone.
Okay.
When you're dating someone,you need to start having these money
conversations, like, what doyou, what do you want financially
with your life?
Like, what do you want life tolook like?
And how is money going to helpsupport you in that?
Because you don't want justmoney just for the sake of money
and then do nothing with it.
Have those conversations andthen when you're starting to get
serious with someone, let themknow, like, hey, if something happens
to either of us, I need tomake sure that both of us have some
(00:22):
form of protection so thatwe're not left hanging.
Right.
I want to be able to make surethat I can help pay for your expenses
or you can help pay for mine.
If there's one spouse who'sworking and the other one who is
either at home as a caretakeror doesn't have the ability to work,
make sure that person also hasthe ability to be a part of the financial
conversations that you havewith either your benefits coordinator
(00:43):
at work.
Welcome to the About Thy Waterpodcast show where we help the sandwich
generation build strongfinancial habits so that they can
spend money, talk about moneyand enjoy their money with confidence.
Today I have somebody who is,no, I gotta say, they not new to
this, they true to this.
And her name is Jerica Thomas.
(01:05):
And how you doing today?
Doing very well, thank you.
How are you?
It's another day in the neighborhood.
Yes.
Yes.
Because you know, goingthrough life, you feel about like
you always feeling behind andyou never have enough.
And it's one of the thingsthat I feel as though we don't talk
about it enough, which is thesavings aspect of it, of finance.
And we know how to make money,we know definitely know how to spend
(01:28):
it.
But saving has always been oneof those things we have to always
come back to and try to makeit our everyday thing, make it a
lifestyle.
So, you know, for you, how doyou make finances long lasting and
something that we can controlover our lives?
Yeah.
So I'm someone who very muchdid not grow up saving money well.
(01:48):
And I think my mom tried herbest to tell me like, save your money,
but I didn't know what I wassaving for.
So obviously as a child I wasvery impulsive and I just didn't
understand what I was supposedto do with that.
But now that I've, you know,gotten my, my grown woman job and
I've been paying my own billsand you know, suffering the consequences
of those actions earlier in mylife, I realized like the saving
(02:10):
is so that I can Spend the waythat I want to, and it just helps
me to kind of create a plan.
So I'm very strategic with theway that I use my money.
I use credit cards for a lotof things just for, like, you know,
points or cash back.
And then I have those cardsattached to a budgeting app where
I'm allowed to then, I guess,categorize the way that I'm controlling
(02:31):
my spending.
And every single time that Iget paid, there's this very specific
system that I use where aspecific amount goes straight into
my savings, and then thosesavings are split into different
buckets.
And it just allows me to havea lot more control.
And it doesn't feel restrictive.
It just.
It helps me feel so much morefree with how I'm using my money,
and I just feel like I'mallowed to do so many things.
(02:53):
Yeah, we always hear about savings.
Is it, like, a percentage, oryou just do, like, a dollar amount?
How do you do your.
Yeah, so I actually do apercentage amount that comes straight
out of my direct deposits.
Generally, whenever anyonestarts a job, when they're signing
up their direct deposit,they'll just put one account and
move on.
I actually do two accounts.
I'll do 70% goes into mychecking, 30% goes straight into
(03:16):
my savings.
So I'm looking at my spendingmoney, and it's really only that
70%.
That other 30% goes in mysavings, and I don't miss it because
I don't see it.
And that then gets reallocatedas different goals, and then I can
spend that as I want to.
And.
And, you know, if I want totravel or if I want to do something
extravagant, I'm not worriedabout, you know, can I afford that
this month?
Because I've saved that into adifferent bucket with my savings
(03:37):
account.
Nice.
Was this something that yougrew up.
Learning or not at all?
When did you discover this?
Not at all.
I did a lot of research withpersonal finance as I got my first
job, you know, as.
As a millennial.
I. I came out of school withso much student loan debt, and I
was like, I need to get thistogether as fast as possible.
And it really took a lot of,like, reading and watching videos
(03:58):
and listening to podcasts.
And I at that point realized,like, oh, I have to just create a
system and it'll work.
And really, that's the hard part.
Like, once you figure out,like, what your system is, everything
else flows, and it justbecomes a lot more easy.
But, no, unfortunately, Ididn't learn that growing up.
I had A single mom who did hervery best, and she's brilliant, she's
excellent at what she does, and.
But she also didn't knoweverything, and I think that was
(04:21):
also passed down from herparents as well.
So I had to take a lot of thatinto my own hands.
So what age are we looking atwhen you said, like, high school?
Like high school or collegeafter college?
It was after college.
Yeah.
I was still impulsive all theway through college.
I'm not even going to lie.
I will not get okay with the.
Parties on the weekends.
Yeah, it was just like, youknow what?
I want pizza.
I have $10 in my account.
(04:42):
We're getting pizza.
You know, it was.
It was like that.
That's awesome.
Did you.
So as you were going throughthis, through college, did your.
Did you ever, like, talk backto your mom?
Like, at post college, as youwere learning this, did you like,
hey, Mom, I've just found this out.
You should try this?
Yeah.
Actually, as I began to learnmore, my mom and I are really close.
(05:05):
We talk all the time.
I would tell her, like, hey, Ijust learned about this.
Did you know that?
And there was some stuff whereshe's like, yeah, I kind of had an
idea.
Or, no, I actually had no idea.
Like, where'd you learn that from?
And so my mom is of the.
Of the kind of the Gen Xgeneration where they have a lot
of things kind of set upalready in their mentality, but she
is so open to learning.
(05:25):
So the dialogue that we hadback and forth actually helped her
to be more educated as well.
That's really good.
What is one thing that stuckout to you that you were surprised
that your mom didn't know?
Ooh, investing.
And, you know, and I'm not surprised.
I'm surprised, but I'm not surprised.
Knowing the history of our people.
She just didn't know a wholelot about investing.
So as I learned and as Italked to her more, she's like, okay,
(05:47):
so she had a lot morequestions because she was curious
and wanted to learn forherself as well.
But, yeah, it just wasn'tsomething that she obviously didn't
grow up learning.
So she didn't know to passthat information down to me.
It was definitely something Ineeded to learn for myself and I
was able to share with her,and she was able to start investing
in the ways that best fit herlife and.
And her retirement goals.
(06:08):
So as a daughter of a singlemother, like, how was that conversation?
Did it just kind of like, hey,for the person that's listening,
right now they got a parentand they was like, you should start
investing.
What was that conversation?
Look like, what was that conversation?
I'll definitely say it wassomething that, like, I'm pretty
sure I just brought up, like,hey, I've been reading this.
(06:29):
Did you know about X, Y and Z?
And she's like, no.
And she's never one to shyaway from new information.
She's not really afraid of anything.
I have a very, very resilient mother.
She takes, she takes necessary risks.
She's not going to, you know,gamble her life away, but she takes
necessary risks when she knowsthat there's a good outcome on the
(06:49):
other side.
She just needs a lot of information.
Right.
She wants to make informed decisions.
So when we had thatconversation or when we started having
those conversations, I wouldshare with her, like, hey, I'm, I'm
learning about, you know,these Roth IRAs.
Like, I know you're not atthis income limit, but like, have
you started part of this?
Have you heard about it?
I started doing this.
This is what it's doing for me.
(07:10):
Just sharing my experiencesand being transparent with her so
that she could, she couldunderstand it for herself and see
what she was able to do on her end.
And that's really good to diveinto it first before you talk to
your parents.
Absolutely.
Because sometimes they feellike, you know, the diaper mentality,
they also want to listen,like, yeah, I told you this before.
And then they listen tosomebody else like, oh, they got
(07:32):
the right answer.
Right.
And I think for her, there's,she's had conversations come up throughout
her lifetime or throughout hercareer, and it just wasn't explained
in a way that she felt shecould benefit.
And I think that happens a lotwhere people are like, yeah, I heard
about it, but I don't know howthis works for me.
And so then things seem soinaccessible because you're like,
all this information is out here.
What am I supposed to do with that?
(07:52):
So if, if it's not made to berelatable or if it's not meant to
be goal oriented to, hey,you're going to need this.
Because as you retire, youwant less money lost to taxes and
you want more money grown thatyou can use for yourself, and that
gives you more freedom to dowhat you want, then it starts to
click.
And.
But if you just say, oh, youneed to invest because it works,
that doesn't mean anything toa lot of people.
(08:13):
Yeah.
So for the person that'slistening to this right now, and
we're talking about theGatekeeping side of the house, which
is through jargon or throughdifferent processes to create these
different barriers to get intoit or even just have an amount of
money just to even start to invest.
What would you.
What is one practical advicethat somebody can get started today?
(08:35):
Google is your best friend.
It really is.
Like, AI is great, and Ithink, you know, there's a lot of
integration of AI inside of Google.
But if you just want like asimple answer to like, a simple circumstance
that you may have, like, ask Google.
Google.
There are so many resourcesout there and sometimes you're going
to get a lot of marketing andads, but like, just keep, just keep
(08:56):
searching until you feel likeyou've gotten the most authentic
answer that you can get.
It's very easy, especially inthe finance world, for everything
to feel like it's beinggatekept, right?
Because they use these bigwords like you mentioned, jargon
that people just don't understand.
And it seems so intimidatingthat people are like, no, I don't
want to hear this anymore.
I'm just going to log out.
And you have to make it so, somuch more accessible.
(09:18):
And you have to make it relatable.
Like, hey, like, if you wantyour kids to go to college and spend
less money towards studentloans, like, these are the options
for you.
And you can start really smalland build it as you increase your
income or as, you know, yourkids start working and just make
it really simple.
Break it down to a level wherepeople feel like they're being met,
where they're at.
(09:39):
But yeah, I think that there'sjust so much information out there
that it just gets overwhelming.
So people get a lot ofanalysis paralysis where it's just,
oh, this is too much, I'm done.
I don't want to hear it anymore.
And that is one of the worstthings that we could do for ourselves.
But having more openconversations with each other and
making finance a naturalconversation is very essential, especially
(10:02):
for our people who are needingto kind of get out of the mud and
do it for themselves becausethey cannot rely on, on any systems
or any programs to do it for them.
Yeah.
Why is this so passionate for you?
I've.
I've seen too much.
I've seen, I've seen too manypeople be at such a large disadvantage
because they just didn't know.
And some of that being some ofmy own family, some of that being
(10:24):
clients that I've worked with.
I'm also a clinicaloccupational therapist, so I work
with people mostly in theirhomes, and I see how they Just can't
really survive.
And they're really hoping thatyou can come in and save the day
for them.
And a lot of it has to do withjust lack of resources, and resources
cost money.
And I look at them and I thinkto myself, you know, not pity, but
(10:45):
just what a disservice that'sbeen done to them.
You know, people have workedso hard for such a long time and
it gets, you know, they get tobe 70, 80 years old and some of them
have nothing to show for it.
And it's not their fault.
I don't blame them.
Financial literacy issomething that's been kept away from
people to keep some people ata lower end.
And they don't even realizethat that's been done to them.
(11:06):
They just know that for somereason I'm suffering and I don't
even know what I could havedone to fix this.
Yeah, that's a sad thing.
And some of the times isreally the small stuff.
You're like, hey, just evenputting away 10% or even $5.
Right.
Could actually help you out.
But also with the older folks,like you said, those resources not
(11:26):
knowing what's out there forthem in the community, just even
going, like you said, Googleis right there.
But some people don't evenknow what to Google.
Right, Right.
That's true.
And so they don't.
Some people don't know whattheir struggle is because they're
only in their own head abouttheir own perspective.
They don't.
They may not understand, like,people aren't going through this
like I am.
(11:47):
I didn't, I didn't realize that.
And I think too, especiallyfor the older generation, there's
so much traditional nuancethat just seems as though, like,
this is just the way it is.
But realistically, they'vebeen kind of placed into a level
of poverty that they may notbe aware of.
Was.
Was a system that was put inplace to keep them there.
And that's really unfortunate.
(12:08):
And to, to be on the otherside of that and to witness that.
I don't tell them to theirface like, hey, do you know you're
being disserviced?
But I, I try to show themlike, these are the resources that
you probably need.
But in the back of my mind,I'm thinking, we've gotta make sure
people aren't gonna be doingthis for forever.
Like, this isn't necessary.
The struggles that people aregoing through aren't always necessary.
Yeah.
And on your website.
(12:28):
Yeah.
Provides several services onthere are there resources that are
like your Go to resources fora lot of people.
Yeah.
So I have a debt payoffcalculator on the website that I
usually try to point people inthe direction of because obviously,
you know, if you need avehicle to get to work, cool.
If you, if you have a houseand you, you need shelter for your
family, that's cool too.
(12:48):
And I want people tounderstand how much money they could
be losing to the interestrates of their debts.
Debt sometimes is just very necessary.
Right.
Debt is almost a privilegebecause if you get a, if you get
a lower rate, you're using itkind of as leverage.
If you're getting it at ahigher rate in some way, it's, it's
robbing you down from yoursavings potential.
So I try to make sure thatpeople are very aware of what their
(13:11):
debt is actually costing themand how that is kind of taking away
from their savings potential.
But that, that's one goodresource on the website.
I have a resources page and Ialways encourage people, you know,
if you need a place to start,if you can't save money right now
and you know that you have alot of debt, go to the resource page,
download the debt payoffcalculator and just work with the
numbers there.
I created the formulas in there.
(13:33):
You just have to put yournumbers in and see what that looks
like so you can start freeingup some cash for yourself.
Awesome.
It's actually a really good form.
I texted thank you.
So pretty cool.
So, you know, obviously goingthrough the debt is one thing, but
we also dealing with thefamily dynamics.
So I understand you got, youknow, your pet babies, the three
cats.
Yeah.
(13:54):
So how is maintaining theirbills along with your own bills because
of your day to day life?
Yeah.
So I would say for me, themost expensive thing that I normally
have to deal with doesn'thappen often.
So it's not like a month tomonth expense.
That's kind of the beauty ofjust having pets for people who have
(14:14):
children.
Like there are months, thereare week to week expenses or day
to day expenses.
So then that adds up to their,their month to month allocation of
their money.
But I kind of just build inmy, my expenses into the miscellaneous
category.
So when my wife and I aredoing our monthly money meeting,
we will go through oursavings, our investments, our debt
(14:35):
payments, and then groceries,shopping, travel expenses, and then
the miscellaneous is kind ofeverything else that follows that
falls under that.
And so the pet expenses kindof fall in because they don't, they
don't cost that much.
I think we did our monthlymeeting two days ago, we spend maybe
about $60 a month for three cats.
Like, it's not that much.
And I know that for people whohave children, they're spending probably
(14:57):
$60, maybe a day, depending onthe child.
You know, my, my expensesthere aren't, aren't that much.
But in order for people tounderstand more about like, where
their money is going, like,you have to track it.
Like, you really can't escape that.
You really have to track it.
Whether you call it a spendingtracker or a budget.
I know people don't like thatB word, they don't like budgets.
(15:18):
But, but you have to do it.
You have to just know what'shappening so you can get in control.
And I don't look at it asrestricted or I just look at it like
this is the information I needso I know how to move forward from
here.
Was this something that youput into place when you were paying
off the $75,000?
Yeah, I had to because I, I, Ididn't know what, where my money
(15:39):
was going or really, I didn'teven know how much we were making
in total.
So when we put our money intothe same tracker and started looking
at, you know, where are wespending our, are we even saving?
Okay, great, we have a lot ofleg room.
And at that time, I paid offmost of my debt before we even like
had pets, before we evenbought a house.
So I had a lot more room tokind of explode through the, through
(16:02):
the debt payoff process.
Now I've still been able topay off a lot of debt even as I accrued
on more debt through the houseand through buying a vehicle.
But it really took the work ofunderstanding, like, where is it
going first?
So I know how to allocate thatout later.
So now that you paid yoursoff, what are your thoughts on actually
having the student loan, likeforgiveness for the others?
(16:25):
We still need it.
We do.
I believe that the educationprocess has become way too expensive
just for the average person.
Especially if people arecoming out of college with, you know,
50 to $100,000 of debt andthey're not even making that much
on a year to year income income.
When I was in grad school the,the summer that I started my graduate
(16:47):
school program, at the time,our department of education was being
run by Betsy Devoe.
They had increased theinterest rates of the student loans
while we were in class.
So there was a wholeannouncement where someone came and
was like, hey, the interestrates are going up, so you guys want
to take out as much as you can.
Right now because as of nextyear, that rate's going to change.
We're freaking out.
None of us know what we're doing.
We don't, we don't know anything.
(17:07):
Like, we're still trying toget our careers off.
And all I'm thinking is, oh,Jesus, like, am I going to be able
to afford this?
I don't even know like, howmuch I'm going to make when I leave
this program.
And I just know that gradschool is really expensive.
And of course you know thatthe graduate loans are a lot more
expensive as the interestrates are per, I guess, compared
to undergraduate withsubsidized loans.
But yeah, I think that thestudent loan repayment program is
(17:31):
definitely needed and thestudent loan forgiveness would have
been nice.
I think the preface of, oh,well, you took it out, so you need
to pay it back.
I, I just don't think it's, Idon't think it's that simple anymore.
And I, and I don't see thepurpose of, you know, robbing people
of the opportunity to get debtfree so that they can afford other
things.
Like realistically, from acapitalism standpoint, people can
(17:53):
afford to spend more money inother areas if they had less debt.
Yeah, I just, I don'tunderstand, I don't understand.
I'm like, if you're payingstudent loans, you're not getting
that.
Right.
But if they get their pay,their loans paid off and they're
able to buy, you know, threeSamsung TVs, then that's more money
in your pocket.
Samsung, like, what are yousupposed to do about that?
So, yeah, I, I, I still wantthat for people.
(18:14):
Do I think it's going tohappen anytime soon?
Not in this current state, butI do hope that that is something
that will occur here in thenear future.
Of course.
All right, well, let's hopeyour predictions are correct because
I still got my hanging around.
I hope it is too.
Yes.
Because one of the things thatyou wanted to talk about today was
really talking about thesurvivor benefits of one spouse.
(18:37):
Why, why is this so importantthat people learn about this?
Yeah, I think that especiallyfor women, because this happens more
often to this demographic.
There is this notion that ifyou, and for straight women, of course,
there's this notion that ifyou are someone who is kind of like
the, the caretaker and youhave, you know, a male partner or
(18:58):
a husband who providesfinancially, that, that they're going
to take care of you.
But I think it's veryrealistic that not even all men understand
all the implications offinance and they're just as easily
taken advantage of byfinancial systems as women are.
But there are supposed to bethese providers, which I can see
(19:18):
that, you know, if you havethose traditional values, that that
is something that you reallywant to uphold.
And.
And I respect that.
However, I do believe thatthere needs to be a better conversation
between men and women of whatthe financial outlook may hold if
one person passes away.
And that's not just if thehusband passes away, that's also
if the wife passes away.
What do these things look like?
(19:39):
But when it comes tosurvivorship benefits, I've seen
far too often that women whohave lost their male partners because
women have a much higher lifeexpectancy, especially because most
times men just aren't going tothe doctor or they're ignoring their
health crises.
And then it becomes this wholething that the women just don't feel
like they have anything.
(19:59):
Right?
They're like, I don't know anyof the passwords to the account.
How do I, you know, contact,you know, Social Security office
to get this money?
Do we even have Social Security?
How do I, you know, do X, Yand Z?
And it leaves the women in avery vulnerable state where they
don't know if they're going tobe financially supported and they
don't know who to ask.
Because these conversationshaven't been bad before.
But there's a scenario that Ispoke with my audience about here
(20:24):
previously that's stillgenerating a lot of conversations
of a woman that I spoke with.
Her husband passed away, andhe was a state employee, a public
employee for the state of Texas.
He didn't have Social Securityand his pension did not have survivorship
benefits.
So that left her with only theamount of money that they had in
her savings, which she quicklyblew through due to funeral expenses
(20:44):
and things like that.
So it's scenarios like thatwhere she's like, okay, now what
am I supposed to do?
Right?
She's having to try and dependon her children, who don't also have
a whole lot of money and theyhave their own families, and it's
just.
It becomes a systemic burdenfor the family.
And those aren't scenariosthat people want to deal with, but
it's a conversation thatdefinitely needs to be had as soon
as possible.
Yeah.
And.
But how do they.
(21:05):
Like, what resources or whatdo you feel is like a checklist?
If you were to generate achecklist right now, what would it
be?
So a good checklist would be,let's start from the beginning, when
you were dating someone, okay.
When you're dating someone,you need to start having these money
conversations.
Like, what do you, what do youwant financially with your life?
Like, what do you want life tolook like?
And how is money going to helpsupport you in that?
(21:26):
Because you don't want justmoney just for the sake of money
and do and then do nothingwith it.
Have those conversations.
And then when you're startingto get serious with someone, let
them know, like, hey, ifsomething happens to either of us,
I need to make sure that bothof us have some form of protection
so that we're not left hanging right.
I want to be able to make surethat I can help pay for your expenses
or you can help pay for mine.
If there's one spouse who'sworking and the other one who is
(21:47):
either at home as a caretakeror doesn't have the ability to work,
make sure that person also hasthe ability to be a part of the financial
conversations that you havewith either your benefits coordinator
at work or with yourretirement planner.
If you have a separateretirement account outside of your
employer, like, make sure thatyour spouse is involved in those
conversations.
It should not be a secret.
(22:08):
So start having those conversations.
Build in your beneficiaries ofyour spouse or whoever you need to
be the beneficiary of your account.
If something happens to you,those things need to be in place
and that's pretty quick.
Like, you can do yourbeneficiaries within two or three
minutes if you just log ontoyour account and put their name and
usually their social in.
Very easy things to do, but itwill help alleviate a lot of the
(22:29):
stress of if something happensto me, are they going to be set.
Another one is make sure youhave life insurance.
You don't have to have a fulllife policy.
You can have a term policythat's very cheap.
My wife and I, before we gotmarried, we took out life insurance
for each other.
Pay.
I pay $21 a month.
(22:49):
She pays 18.
Right.
Our policies are very cheap.
And if something were tohappen to either of us, we've, we've
created a plan.
We've had the conversation.
I'm not keeping this house.
I don't want it.
Like, you know, I'll make surethat you're taken care of and then
I'll do whatever I need to toget rid of this house and then whatever
else needs to happen after that.
Take time off to grieve.
It's.
(23:09):
It's horrible when people havea spouse that passes and then they're
forced to go back to workbecause they have no PT they don't
have any money to sustain, youknow, the, the time it takes for
their mental and emotionalhealth to, to get back on level,
that's necessary to befunctional day to day at their job.
Those things are super, super important.
Okay, and you mentionedearlier about the passwords.
Do you recommend like a.
(23:29):
Just a regular notebook withall the passwords.
Should it be like brightcolored or the special box or something
like that?
Whatever your preferences.
I have some clients that I'vetalked to, they do like a, you know,
on pen and paper or they typeit out and they put in a secure lockbox
with a key, whatever.
Or some will do like a digital file.
I have a digital file that'spassword protected, however you want
(23:50):
to do that.
I just try to make sure thatlike everything, every account that
I have, you have access to that.
And if I update thosepasswords, thankfully with my digital,
with my digital file, likethose passwords will update with
it.
So if something happens to meor if even I don't have to be like
dead and gone, but even if I'mjust incapacitated.
Right.
I may be in the hospital.
I need you to be able toaccess these things because if I
(24:13):
can't talk and you're like,well, I don't know, then we're both
in a bad situation.
Yeah, I think having thosethings in a secure location where
both of you know, like, hey,this is my information, your information,
all in one secure spot.
If something happens, this iswhat we do next.
That is really good reminderfor a lot of people who, like you
said with your mom, she mighthave known about it, but did you
(24:36):
do anything with it?
A lot of people just don'tknow where to go coming up with that
checklist.
I don't know, maybe we shouldcome together and just create a checklist.
Yeah, call it like walletsense or something.
Yeah, I think that would be great.
People, people really need thedirection, I believe.
You know, we could talk allday, have these conversations.
But like you said, if they, ifthey walk away and they move on and
(24:58):
they forget, like they've donenothing with it.
But we want that informationto be productive information, like
take it and go with it.
Do something with it.
Yeah.
And I watched too many snappedor investigation discovery things.
So when the other person foundout, oh, you got life insurance on
me.
Okay.
Hey, right.
You know, talking to theboyfriend, trying to murder the guy.
(25:18):
And I was like, what, do younot think that you'll be connected
to go to jail as well?
Come on now, now the money'sjust sitting in limbo, you know,
it's ridiculous.
So one of the things that I. Ido try to recommend is also is to
do like a POD or a tld, liketransfer on death or pay on death.
Yeah.
When somebody's in the samebank account, so it's a lot easier
(25:40):
to transfer that money insteadof them.
Like, hey, I need to passwordto this account.
Can you give me this account?
We can just show up with thedeath certificate and they'll just
transfer the money on you.
Right.
And again, all you need isjust a social, I believe the social
in the name of the person.
Yeah, yeah.
So the, the transfer on deathstuff is really good.
And I would say, you know, ifyou're someone who maybe you're.
(26:01):
You're not married, maybeyou're single, and.
But you have family membersthat you want to make sure have access
to your estate.
If something were to happen toyou, you want to make sure that that
is something that's in place.
My wife and I have sharedaccounts, so my name and her name
is on the account.
So if something happens to me,she doesn't have to go through.
She doesn't have to jumpthrough loops to get to the money
because it's equally legally hers.
Now, there are some accountsthat I only have access to, just
(26:24):
like she has some accountsthat she only has access to, but
we're both the beneficiarieson those, so that helps with that
as well.
But, yeah, doing that, doingthe transfer on death documentation,
also having a will in place isjust very, very beneficial.
You just want to avoid as muchhiccups in the probate process as
possible.
But even if it's not death, ifit's disability and you need POA
(26:44):
things involved, if it's.
If it's, you know,hospitalization and you're incapacitated
and you need someone to beable to act on your behalf, you want
those things to also beinvolved as fast as possible because
you just.
You just never know.
I could be in a car accidenttomorrow, but I don't want that to
happen.
But if it happens, I want tomake sure that the person.
My wife has access toeverything she needs to as soon as
(27:07):
she needs it.
I don't want to have towonder, will she be able to take
care of this?
Yes or no?
That's.
That's the worst thing I coulddo for the person that I love.
What is the most recent moneyconversation that you had with your
wife?
Because now I'm thinkingabout, you know, you talk about survival
Benefits.
But now it's like, you'realive now.
So like, what is.
Yeah, what are thoseconversations like now?
And then how did it start, ifyou don't mind me going back that
(27:29):
far?
Yeah, so we started havingmoney conversations.
Actually.
Before we started dating, wewere just friends and we were in
grad school together.
That's how we met.
And so when the interest rateswent up, we were like, oh my goodness,
what are we supposed to dowith this?
So we were actually helpingeach other kind of go through the
loan process and trying tofigure that out and like, what that
was going to mean for us.
And then, you know, after wegraduated, we were on the same page
(27:50):
of like, we have all thesestudent loans, like, what are we
supposed to do with this?
And we shared expenses at this point.
So it was like a no brainer.
Like, we need to startfiguring this out as fast as possible.
We, together as a couple, wentthrough a financial program and it
was, it was insightful.
We learned a lot.
There was a, there was a lotof things that, you know, we started
having more organicconversations about outside of the
(28:10):
program that we were like, Idon't really agree with that.
And this doesn't really alignwith what we want.
And then we just started tonaturally talk about, you know, what
do we want out of our life?
What do we want to see withour money?
How is that going to servewhat we're, what we're wanting to
do?
And it became very importantfor us to have these conversations
because we're very giving people.
We wanted to make sure that,like, you know, if we're going out
(28:32):
with friends or going out withfamily, if there's, you know, someone's
meal that we can cover, we'relooking at each other like, hey,
can, you know, can we pay forthis person?
Like, yeah, absolutely.
Or we have that conversationbefore we leave the house.
But, you know, every singlemonth it became a habit of we need
to just sit down and just lookat it because it gets overwhelming.
Like, if I swipe my car 60times 1 month, I don't want to look
at all those transactions.
So, you know, we justdesignate one day out of the month.
(28:55):
Usually it's at the end of themonth to review over what we did
and then to also talk aboutwhat's coming up.
So for, for me, that's super exciting.
And for her, she's alwayslooking, you know, a couple months
in advance because she's like,I want to do this, I want to do that.
She's a very, very good planner.
And for me, I'm like, okay,what's coming up right away?
And we're using kind of ourstrengths in that aspect to have
those conversations together to.
(29:16):
To gear that next step forwhat we're going to be doing with
our finances moving forward.
But, yeah, I think that, youknow, the last conversation we had,
we went over our.
Our money, our monthly moneymeeting, and we were just talking
about, like, the trips that wewant to take coming up pretty soon.
And some of that is, you know,financially, we gotta be prepared
for that.
But I also use a lot of creditcard points.
I love.
(29:37):
I love the points and miles game.
I just love credit card points.
And I've.
I've been on many trips whereI don't spend almost a dime, and
I just love that.
And to me, it's.
I've gamified that, so I spendless money.
And that's such a hack.
If no one.
If y' all aren't doing thatnow, that is such a hack, and you
need to do it.
But, you know, we have a bigtrip that we're trying to plan for
next year, and we are tryingto build up the most amount of points
(29:58):
as possible, but we're doingso within our budget.
Right.
We are still looking at ourmonthly money, trying to make sure
that we're staying in budget.
We're not putting ourselves incredit card debt.
Never do that.
But we're making sure, like,okay, this bonus is coming up.
Let's make sure, you know, ifwe're going to go here, we're going
to use this card to hit thatbonus, get these points, and it becomes
fun.
Right.
We try not to make it a verydetrimental conversation.
(30:20):
We don't argue about our moneybecause we're having conversations
organically.
We may have a couple ofdifferent goals.
Right.
But we're building that in sothat we can accomplish them together.
There may be something thatshe wants.
And I'm like, okay, yeah,let's see what we can do about that.
And.
And then there's something I want.
She's like, all right, cool.
Yeah, let's work on that, too.
It's never a.
Well, I want that.
So.
No, it's.
Yes.
And let's figure that out together.
(30:40):
Always.
Nice.
Now, is this, like, do y' alldo this at a dinner table or just
kind of like a special placein the house where y' all have y'
all certain discussions?
Yeah.
So sometimes we have it justkind of chilling in the living room,
just.
So it's a.
We.
We try to do it In a veryrelaxed environment.
There's a couple of occasionswhere we've, like, gone out to a
restaurant and did, like, awhole thing.
We're like, let's have a money date.
And we just made it fun.
(31:01):
Like, we're having a good meal.
We're having, you know, ourfavorite food.
I think we went to a ramenrestaurant, ate some takoyaki, ate
some ramen, and just had agrand old time.
Pulled out our laptops andstarted doing some work and talking
about our money.
And we just try to make it anenjoyable experience, because when
we tie that emotion to it, itbecomes easier.
But if it's constantly anagitating experience, this.
That's why couples don't havethose conversations.
(31:22):
So.
Yeah.
Would you think y' allwould've worked out if you didn't?
We all weren't on the sameexpectations when y' all had those
money discussions.
Ooh, I don't know.
That's hard to say.
That's.
That's hard to answer.
Um, well.
Cause it's working now.
It's just working.
We're very.
We're both very exploratory.
And I would say, kind offinancially, I was a little bit more
structured in the beginningof, like, this is what needs to happen.
(31:43):
That's what needs to happen.
But then I also learned, like,I can't be the money person, because
if something happens to me, Iwant her to feel confident, to be
able to do things on her own.
So when I open up thatconversation, like, hey, I can't
be the one to just do this.
Like, I really want you to bea part of this.
Because I also felt the needthat, like, she, as a woman, also
needs to just be empowered toknow, like, if I'm not here, for
whatever reason, you got this,or if we don't make it, for whatever
(32:04):
reason, you got this.
And so it was very easy forher to be like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah,
let's make sure that we havethose conversations together.
And it kicked off from there.
That's really good.
That's how you know you have ahealthy, healthy relationship, especially
with the expectations.
Because I've heard one of myclients said that she just gives
her money to the husband andthat's it.
(32:25):
And she was like, well, I justneed my money when I do it, or.
And she's just like, we putthe money into the account and that's
it.
And she just get whatever she needs.
So what are your thoughts on,like, combining?
Like, obviously, there's threedifferent ways.
What are your thoughts oncombining accounts versus having
separate accounts, I think youshould have both.
I think everyone should haveboth, quite honestly, especially
if you live together.
(32:46):
Now, I know there's that, youknow, small percent.
I wouldn't even say small.
I know there's a percentage ofpeople who, you know, they're with
their partner for a period oftime, and maybe they're long distance
or maybe they just like havingtheir own space.
Maybe you don't need to shareexpenses then, because your.
Your home expenses are alittle bit different.
But for the vast majority ofpeople, kind of in those very traditional,
like, you're with yourpartner, you live with your partner,
you guys share groceries andhouse expenses, and, you know, you
(33:08):
probably do certain things andaround holidays and stuff like that.
I do believe that you shouldhave a combination, have a shared,
at least shared savings accounts.
Checking is a little bitdifferent, in my opinion, just because
I don't really.
We don't really use ourchecking account.
Like, our checking accountpays our.
Our credit cards.
That's just the way that weuse them.
So for us, it's not reallythat necessary.
Having shared savings accountsand then having savings accounts
(33:30):
for yourself.
Right.
We have three accounts that weshare, and then I have three of my
own, and I think she has twoor three of her own.
But when we're looking at ourshared money, we're looking at those
shared accounts, and I put anequal amount into the shared account
just as she does.
So that we're always lookingat, what have we contributed to that?
What does that mean for us?
We got something coming up.
Okay, I'm going to put some in.
(33:50):
You're going to put some in?
We're good.
But it allows us to feel likewe have freedom but that we also
have some cohesiveness withwhat we want to be able to accomplish
financially.
Okay, so when you say equalamount, y' all meaning like y' all
both make the same, that y'all okay to contribute the same,
or is it just like, how's that?
Yeah, yeah.
So we actually do make aboutthe same.
My wife is an occupational therapist.
(34:11):
I'm also an occupationaltherapist, and we graduated at the
same time.
So our years of experience isthe same.
Like, we do the same job, wemake the same.
Now, that doesn't work for everyone.
We just have a very unique circumstance.
So, you know, if one partneris making 120 and the other one's
making 60, that's a different conversation.
Split it up into percentage.
Right.
So if you guys have, you know,an emergency fund that you're building.
(34:34):
Maybe one spouse can put in20% and the other puts in their 20%.
Make it work for you.
But don't, you know, Well, Imake 120, so I'm going to put in
a thousand a month.
You also got to put in athousand a month.
You're going to make thatother person broke while you're just
kind of like, riding on.
On.
On.
On freedom there.
So that's just not going to be beneficial.
But whatever feels naturalusually go with that.
(34:54):
And also just have those conversations.
And you will find out just bytalking, like, what feels fair.
Right.
We don't always agree on everything.
Sometimes it's just, let'shave a conversation to understand
what we mean.
Because sometimes I maysuggest something, she's like, well,
no, that.
That doesn't work.
And then she'll give me her perspective.
And I'm like, okay, I see whatyou mean.
Like, it's just about havingthe conversation.
(35:14):
Yeah.
And one thing I do admire thaty' all have those comfortable conversations
of understanding.
Like, hey, this is somethingthat is important to me, and I really
want to make sure I understandwhat you're saying.
Yeah, yeah, We.
We have to.
I mean, and we may talk about.
I mean, we talk about everything.
And I think that is somethingthat not everyone is used to.
(35:34):
There's.
There's also going to be adifference in dynamics between couples.
Not everyone has that availability.
And we're also veryemotionally vulnerable with each
other, which not everyone has.
So I may talk with some of myclients and ask them, like, what
do you want out of your money?
And you're like, I don't know.
I just know I'm not doing it right.
And it's like, okay, now wehave to.
I also.
I also have to kind of be atherapist to figure out, like, what
(35:55):
do you value what.
What means the most to you?
Like, okay, you want to beable to see your family in New York
on Christmas.
Like, you want to spendChristmases in New York.
Okay, great.
What does that look like asfar as your.
What are your resources right now?
How are we going to be able toafford that?
Because money gives you thefreedom to do the things that you
want to do.
And when people don't haveenough of it, then they're left with
less resources.
(36:16):
So we got to work on buildingthat up.
And it's like, well, I don'treally care about money.
I just care about this.
And it's like, you care aboutthis, but you need money to get there.
And so sometimes we have to dothat back and forth.
We have a good system where wejust have those conversations.
We're open.
Not everyone is emotionallyavailable like that.
So it really takes havingthose conversations and just kind
of digging in.
(36:36):
It's not all about money.
I don't care about money asmuch as I care about the value of
my life.
I want to maximize my life andmy travel and my experiences and
my happiness as much as possible.
But I know that I can do thatwhen I have money.
So, yeah, it does provide some.
It does.
Money buys happiness.
I don't know who said itdoesn't, but it does.
Totally agree.
(36:56):
Because this brings up to thethird segment, which is the features.
And again, talking about thevalues that you have.
So, like, what areas of focusdo you feel as though that you need
to prove upon in your life?
Spontaneity.
Spontaneity, for sure.
I'm a very structured person,not just with finances, but just
like, with my routine.
(37:17):
Like, someone wanted to, youknow, stalk me and figure out what
I do.
They could easily find thatout in two days.
Like, oh, she's prettyconsistent with everything.
So I'm not very spontaneous.
And my wife really tries toget me out of that.
Like, you just do the samething every day.
And I'm like, yeah, becausethat works.
Like, it's working, you know,and so that's one thing.
And I think that too, youknow, right now, as we are still
(37:38):
building upon the life that wewant to have, I think that that spontaneity
will come more naturally.
But I know I also need to beforced out of that space.
So for me, you know, my goalis I don't want to work until I'm
even 55.
Like, I'm trying to get out ofthere, you know?
And so for me, it's like,boom, I gotta do this, I gotta do
that, gotta do this, gotta do that.
And it's like, well, you alsohave to have fun in the middle of
that.
So you have to maximize whatyour life looks like in all aspects
(38:02):
of that.
Because I may not be here toeven look at, you know, what.
What will my retirement yearslook like?
I'm planning for it, butthere's no guarantee that I'll be
here for that.
So I do need to do better, ofcourse, with just maximizing every
single day that I have right now.
I like that.
There.
Anything that you wanna talkabout to the audience before we get
into the final four questions?
Oh, my.
(38:22):
My number one recommendationfor literally everyone is make money
conversations, normal and natural.
Don't be afraid to talk aboutit if you're.
If you're not afraid to, youknow, talk about sex or talk about
alcohol or talk about otherthings, like, don't be afraid to
have conversations aboutmoney, because the lack of those
conversations means thatyou're probably being underpaid,
(38:43):
means that you're probably notmaximizing the power of what your
dollars can actually do, andalso means that you don't know what
would happen if for somereason you stopped working or maybe
you got in a car accident,you're not able to return to your
job, or, you know, your.
Your parent falls ill and theyhave to come live with you, and you
have to file for fmla, butyou're not making money.
(39:04):
You don't know what thosethings look like.
So start having very normaland natural conversations.
It may not feel natural in thebeginning, but the more often you
do it, practice will make thata lot more attainable and a lot easier
to do.
So.
Yeah, just don't bedebilitated by the fact that it just
seems scary.
Wow.
Okay, now that sparked the question.
(39:24):
Well, if you don't feelcomfortable, like, because if you're
scared in that relationship toeven open up about money, is that
a.
Is that a, like, red flag or asign to say, like, hey, I need to
leave this relationship, or doI need to try to find other ways,
so I need to bring in a third party.
Like, what should they do ifthey don't feel comfortable?
I would definitely say it'snot a red flag.
(39:44):
Not yet.
I think there's a level tothat, but it takes effort.
So if you're not comfortableyet, and I know that not everyone
grew up with the.
With like, maybe emotionallyavailable parents.
Sometimes we bring to thetable what we've been presented with
and what we were raised with,and we have to learn how to break
those cycles.
If you need to bring in athird party, if you need to have
maybe your own personaltherapist first, or maybe you need
(40:06):
to have, you know, a couple'stherapist, like, do that.
Therapy has absolutely changedmy life.
Not financially, because Ididn't have that problem, but I had
other things that I needed todeal with that allowed me to evolve
as a person for myself andevolve as a.
As a wife.
So, yeah, I mean, having.
Having a way to break down,like, what is in the way of me being
(40:27):
able to open up and be vulnerable?
Maybe you don't feel safe, ormaybe you've never felt safe and
you didn't know that that waseven a thing for You.
You don't know what you don'tknow sometimes.
But if you realize, like, hey, I'm.
I'm afraid to have certain conversations.
It could be money, it couldbe, you know, kids.
It could be future things.
I'm afraid to have theseconversations with a person that
I want to spend my life with.
Like, what is that about?
(40:48):
If you're not questioning thatand if you're not trying to do the
work for it, sometimes it'sokay to bring in that third person,
and sometimes it's just reallynecessary to do so.
That is awesome.
Good stuff.
Good stuff.
Love it.
All right, so you ready forthe final one?
All righty.
(41:09):
So for those of you who arenew to the show, the final four questions
are the final four questionsthat we ask every guest that's only
about that wallet show.
So we can learn a little bitmore about them.
Or maybe you might want tohave them back on the show.
Who knows?
Just leave a comment.
Alrighty.
Number one, what does wealthmean to you?
Wealth means, to me, unlimitedpossibilities for the things that
(41:29):
I want.
Wealth also means being ableto buy my way out of situations I
no longer want to be a part of.
Like, all seriousness, if Idon't want to be here, I can buy
my $30 Uber and get out.
I'm leaving.
So, I mean, wealth just givesme the options to protect my peace.
Wealth will give me theoptions to enjoy myself without restrictions.
All of those things.
(41:50):
About that.
Number two, what was yourworst money mistake?
Oh, my goodness.
Oh, man.
I've talked about my.
I talked about this with myaudience before buying my truck.
I shouldn't have done that.
I was still deep in studentloan debt when I bought it, but it
was during the pandemic, and Iwas depressed, and I was like, I
need a truck, and I shouldn'thave done that.
It's paid off now because Irealized that that was really dumb
and I shouldn't have done it.
(42:10):
And the car I had wasperfectly fine.
There was nothing wrong with it.
I just wanted something new.
But, yeah, that was my.
That's definitely my worst mistake.
I think we had those moments.
It happens.
I know it's normal for a lotof people, but, like, don't do it.
Don't do what I did.
Okay.
Number three, is there a bookthat inspired your journey or changed
your perspective?
(42:31):
Ooh.
Okay, I have two.
Can I give you two books?
Okay.
Yeah.
My very.
The very first book is thePsychology of Money by Morgan Housel.
That is such a good book.
Like, if you are not sure.
Like where your money habitsor behaviors or maybe fears around
money are coming from.
Read that book, the Psychologyof Money.
Great book.
The next book, I will say,especially for those type A people,
(42:53):
if you're type A, listen to this.
You need to read Die With Zeroby Bill Perkins.
Excellent book.
Because if you are someonewho's just like, go, go, go, work,
work, work, and I'll retirelater, you do not realize that your
body cannot sustain all thethings that you've saved over the
years to do.
You want to start maximizingyour life right now.
So, yeah.
Die With Zero by Bill Perkinsand In the Psychology of Money by
(43:14):
Morgan Housel Highly recommend.
I just read that was Zero.
Did you love it?
And I was telling me you love it.
I totally enjoy.
So good.
I gotta.
I need to.
Because I was going to put mytwo lists up, my bucket list and
my availability list.
I think the other list.
Just because, like, these arethe things that I want to do while
I still have the energy.
Yes.
And available.
(43:34):
Because it's so stored thatright there.
Put it together for me.
Like, I. I can ignore the restof the book, but the end of it was.
Was for me at that point.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah.
I mean, we can geek out aboutbooks later.
I got.
I got a lot of books that Ilove, but those are my two tops right
now.
Recommend number four.
What is your favorite dish to make?
(43:56):
Ooh.
I love to cook, so this one'sactually really hard.
And I don't have, like, aspecific genre of meals.
I will say I really, reallylove doing homemade wings and fries.
I don't know what it is.
It's just.
It's so good.
And really, I do it outside.
I do it on the grill mostlybecause it causes a lot of heat here
in Texas to do that inside the house.
But that's one of my favoritethings to make.
(44:17):
Homemade wings and homemadefries, like, straight from the potato
itself with, like, a goodgarlic aioli sauce.
That's the best part, too.
Yeah.
I usually do spicy mayo, butthe aioli, I need to get some.
Yeah, if you make it fresh,it's good.
Garlic aioli.
Garlic, you know, parmesan,parsley fries, spicy wings.
Yeah.
All right.
(44:38):
I mean, I need to go getsomething to eat at that.
I hope I make you hungry.
You sure did.
This is the last question ofthe show, which is where could people
find out more about you?
Yeah.
So if you're interested tolearn more, you know, kind of get
connected with the community,I'm on Most social media platforms
except for Twitter, YouTube,Instagram, TikTok at Saving Sense
(45:02):
HQ.
And you can also findresources like the debt payoff calculator
at the resource center onsavingsense.org Also, there have
some really good services ifyou need something kind of one on
one or if you want to get, youknow, connected with a group service
where you can learn in asetting amongst other people.
All my services are virtual,so I do it right here.
(45:22):
Um, so that you can be in thecomfort of your home.
I'll do the same.
Um, I also do some savingsaudits as well.
If you're like, hey, I don'teven know if I can afford anything
just yet.
I'll help you just find yoursavings for you.
No problem at all.
But, yeah, check me outsavingsense.org or on social media
platforms at Savingsense HQ.
All right, if you need a blackSusie Orman, you know where to go.
This was so fun.
(45:43):
Thank you so much for sharingyour story, your insights, and, I
mean, I can't wait to seewhere you go from here.
So for you who are listening,I want you to take a moment to remember
that you have to learn how toput one shoe on at a time.
Because trying to put them onat the same time, you can get confusing.
You might hurt yourself.
Exactly.
So just keep it nice and simple.
(46:04):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Don't do too much at once.
For sure.
Yeah, Just start small, Onestep at a time, literally.
There we go.
And thank you, everybody.
Y' all be safe.
Yeah, we out.
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