August 21, 2025 • 11 mins
August offers the perfect opportunity to reset your finances before the busy end-of-year season. Casey, a financial education specialist with over 10 years at Centric Credit Union, shares practical strategies to manage expenses during the costly back-to-school season and beyond.
• Back-to-school expenses can exceed holiday spending costs, with basic public school fees alone costing hundreds of dollars
• The free Centric Credit Union app features an Insights tool that automatically categorizes spending and helps create custom budgets
• Setting up spending alerts at 80% of your budget provides accountability and prevents overspending
• Distinguishing between needs versus wants is crucial during financially intensive seasons
• Taking time to evaluate your spending patterns can reveal "sneaky spending" habits that derail your budget
• The budgeting tools can automatically tag recurring vendors to specific categories, making expense tracking easier
Download or open your Centric Credit Union app to explore these financial management tools. Find more resources, tips and inspiration at mycentricorg. Centric is federally insured by the NCUA.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kelli Green (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Live
Better Podcast brought to you byCentric.
I'm your host, Kelli, and todaywe've got a very special
episode lined up for you.
August is here and, while thesummer might be winding down,
it's actually one of the besttimes to hit the reset button on
your finances.
Each week this month, we'vebeen sharing quick and practical
tips to help you budget smarter, save more and reduce money
(00:23):
stress just before the year-endrush begins.
Today, we're diving deeper intothose tips with someone who
knows this territory inside andout.
Casey joins us to sharereal-world advice, simple
strategies and maybe even a fewpersonal stories to help you
tackle everything fromback-to-school spending to
sneaky subscriptions, all theway to getting a jump on your
(00:45):
holiday savings.
Well, Casey, good morning andwelcome to the Live Better
podcast.
It is so great to have you here.
We're going to dive in and talkabout a topic that we know
you're very familiar with, withback-to-school savings, overall
expenses and how differentlittle expenses here or there
can really add up and impactyour budget in a big way.
(01:06):
So welcome and just share withour listeners.
It's been a couple months sinceyou've been here with us, so
tell us who you are, what you dohere at Centric and a little
bit about why you're excited totalk about these tips today.
Yeah, I'm very excited.
So I'm Casey.
I've been with credit union forfor about 10 years, maybe a
little more and my role rightnow is training.
But I've held several differentroles at the credit union , one
(01:28):
of those being in the marketingand business development
department, where I actuallywent out and worked with our
employers in the community thatpartner with us and teach the
financial education.
So that part for me is reallyspecial, like you said, and so
I'm just really excited to behere and shared some of the tips
.
I think just from being able tosee the impact of sharing and
having conversations with peopleabout their real life
(01:49):
situations there's really whatgets me excited to talk about it
.
I love it.
.
We've it in ourselves.
going through the back to schoolexperiences and there's a quote
and I wish I knew who actuallyfirst said this but going back
to school is more costly thanChristmas and the cost of gifts
and so forth.
And it's true, you know I havetwo children and the cost to go
(02:13):
back to school just to payschool fees, just in school fees
.
Those are their little clubsand everything.
It's been over $220 just to getthem into school and my
children go to a public schooland it's just expensive.
So I know that everydayexpenses.
You got to account for everydollar.
That's right, yeah, so if youwouldn't mind, you know why?
(02:35):
Do you really and truly thinkthat August is such a key month
for maybe revisiting ourfinances?
Casey Messer (02:41):
Well, we talked about the idea of the mid-year
reset and I really think, justkind of looking at that through
the whole year, it makes sensebecause starting now and really
before now, we're about to haveall kinds of expenses.
So you know the school fees areup front.
We know about that and we canprepare if we're ready for it.
But then there's things thatcontinue to happen.
(03:02):
So if you don't take a pauseand look at where you're at,
it's just going to continue toeither be catastrophic for you
or it's going to.
You know it's going to help youif you're, if you're prepared.
Kelli Green (03:12):
I love that.
If you're planning and ifyou're prepared for this, it
could be catastrophic.
That we have with our CentricCredit Union app is the ability
to verify your credit score,review your credit report, which
is a great way to identify ifthings are reporting correctly
or if you might see there couldbe some identity issues there.
(03:34):
But something that I love somuch about this, especially when
you're thinking about amid-year reset, is our budgeting
tools that we have throughInsights, and it is incredible.
So kind of take us through.
What does that look like?
How do people set that up?
You just want to maybe justshare that with our listeners.
Casey Messer (03:54):
Yeah, so we'll just kind of use this time of
year as a good example thatyou're getting ready to go back
to school and maybe you knowyou've taken a second.
You know, understood, okay, Ihave this much to spend on back
to school, or I know it's goingto take, it's going to cost this
much, based on my school'ssupply list and the things the
clubs like you mentioned theschool fees.
So you can use the Insight tocreate a budget for that, and so
(04:17):
inside of that particular area,inside the app, you can tag
your transactions there.
Once you've set up that budget,so you know let's just label it
back to school budget and youcan pick the accounts that are a
part of that, and so you knowlet's just say it's your
pro-real or your checkingaccount which makes the most
sense.
Nice, you're using yourchecking account or swapping
(04:38):
your debit card and you want togo in and just kind of label
certain transactions If this youknow, this transaction at
Walmart was for school suppliesand it will help you calculate
that and it can even give youreminders on where you're at
with that budget, so it'll helpyou stay on track instead of
just spending.
You know, however you want,hoping it all works out for the
best.
Kelli Green (04:57):
That's not a good strategy at all, no, a
catastrophic path pretty quickly.
So just for our listeners, Ijust want to kind of run this
through.
But we're specifically talkingabout the Centric Credit Union
app.
This is a free personalfinancial management tool that
is available to every one of ourmembers who downloads our app
(05:26):
and as you are using your debitcard and you're making
transactions, you can seeexactly how that is impacting
your overall budgets.
You name your budget, whetherit's a grocery, auto fuel
expense, you can name theseanything you want.
And as you tag thosetransactions that means every
time you swipe your card, eachtransaction that you see, you
can tag those to say, like youmentioned, back to school or
groceries.
I even have set it up to havenotifications.
(05:48):
It says, whenever I've reachedabout 80% of my budget.
I really want to know kind ofwhere I'm at, because it's given
me insight to say, hey, hang ona minute, you need to be aware
of where your finances are.
So that has been a reallyhelpful thing for me.
And just managing this Once youset it up, it only takes a few
(06:08):
minutes Once you tag thosetransactions.
So, for example, if you have aparticular grocery store that
you go to every single month orweek, once you tag that vendor,
you can say Walmart, amazon,target, any of these places.
Once you tag those, say, ifit's groceries or clothing or
fuel, it will always tag thosebusinesses or those different
(06:29):
retail outlets as thatparticular budget.
And that's what I love about it, because you don't have to go
back in and make any changes.
Right, yeah, it's just easy.
So that's something that'sreally great.
It just takes oneaccountability for this August
mid-year reset, like you'vementioned, and just to go ahead
and say, okay, ideally, and whatI liked about it.
(06:49):
Did you ever have an experiencewhen you were going through
setting it up just to see,because it would go ahead and
kind of categorize some thingsfor you?
How was that experience for youwhen you first experienced
Insights.
Casey Messer (06:59):
Well, it knows what are food vendors and their
transactions.
So it actually used the wordsdining out, yeah, and it was
like you know all of my budget,and so it was really I mean to
see how much it.
It went ahead and tagged thatfor me.
It was so nice for it to justdo that on default, but it did
show me how much I was spendingup my budget on on eating out,
(07:20):
and to me that wasn't.
I didn't like what I saw.
So I was able to make changesbecause it gave me that
information.
Kelli Green (07:26):
And this is the great time to do that because
even though, if you've not evenopened up the app and checked
this out, this information isstill working in the background
for you.
So if you're getting ready tocreate a budget, you can go
ahead and reflect on maybe theprevious month and say, oh, wow.
So this is kind of where it is,because that's a big hurdle,
(07:46):
because you may think well, Idon't really know what my budget
needs to be for fuel or what mybudget needs to be for
groceries.
Especially as we're getting tothe holidays, our grocery
budgets might increase becausewe're cooking maybe a little
more or more specialty items orwhat have you for the holidays,
but it gives you a really goodinsight, I think, to see right
away where your expenses areheading.
(08:06):
So it's great.
It's a good tool to get youstarted, for sure.
So, as we're just kind ofwrapping up, I did just want to
just ask you a couple finalthings too.
You know, is there anything inparticular?
You know, maybe a simple actionstep that our listeners can
take today to get on a betterfinancial track?
Casey Messer (08:25):
Yeah,, well, some of the words that we've talked
about sneaky spending, just inparticular, just thinking about
needs versus wants.
You know, it's a basic conceptthat we know, we talk about
Really, especially during thistime and even moving forward as
we move into the holidays,taking, you know, time to sit
down and understand what youreally do need or what your
child needs for school, versuswhat they want or what you know
(08:47):
you want to give them.
that doesn't fit in the budgetlike your future self really is
going to thank you for that inthe moment it might feel like,
oh, I'm not able to give themextra, or I might not, you know,
be able to do this right now,but maybe you can do it later.
Just thinking about that andthen sneaky spending.
How that fits in there too isif we aren't already aware of
(09:07):
what we need versus what we want.
We're just going to combinethose together and our wants are
going to kind of ruin ourbudget.
Really, taking my kids with meshopping, you know I'm not aware
of what I'm doing, so there'sseveral factors that can affect
that.
But just really being aware ofwhat you need and not just going
for it,
Kelli Green (09:27):
The awareness is so important and, like I said,
that's what I love so much aboutthe mobile app, our Insights
that option.
That's right.
You can choose it right fromthe menu when you download the
Centric Credit Union app.
By choosing Insights, it willgo ahead and kind of give you an
idea of where you are, whatyou've spent on dining out,
clothing, all these differentcategories, and you can create
(09:48):
those categories for yourself.
But it's a really good insightto say, okay, hang on a minute,
we may be a little off trackright now, but we can get it
back on track once you're madeaware.
And then you hold yourselfaccountable and setting up those
automatic alerts, I think arereally great in ensuring that
you stay on track.
That's a good accountabilitypiece for sure.
(10:10):
Well, I just want to give a bigthank you to Casey again for
just sharing these practicaltips with us, because this has
been great, and especially aswe're kind of winding out summer
and getting kicked off for thefinal months.
So I just want to tell youthank you so much for being here
and sharing this with ourlisteners.
Casey Messer (10:24):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Kelli Green (10:25):
You bet! I want to give a big thank you to Casey
for sharing such practical, easyto use strategies.
We know our listeners arewalking away with ideas they can
put into action right away.
Remember, whether it'sresetting your budget, planning
for back to school, cutting outsneaky spending or getting a
head start on holiday savings,every small step makes a big
difference over time.
If you haven't already downloador open your Centric Credit
(10:48):
Union app it's your one-stopfinancial control center and
explore the tools that we talkedabout today.
You can find more resources,tips and inspiration at
mycentric.
org.
Centric is federally insured bythe NCUA.
Welcome back to another episode of the Live
Better Podcast brought to you byCentric.
I'm your host, Kelli, and todaywe've got a very special
episode lined up for you.
August is here and, while thesummer might be winding down,
it's actually one of the besttimes to hit the reset button on
your finances.
Each week this month, we'vebeen sharing quick and practical
tips to help you budget smarter, save more and reduce money
(00:23):
stress just before the year-endrush begins.
Today, we're diving deeper intothose tips with someone who
knows this territory inside andout.
Casey joins us to sharereal-world advice, simple
strategies and maybe even a fewpersonal stories to help you
tackle everything fromback-to-school spending to
sneaky subscriptions, all theway to getting a jump on your
(00:45):
holiday savings.
Well, Casey, good morning andwelcome to the Live Better
podcast.
It is so great to have you here.
We're going to dive in and talkabout a topic that we know
you're very familiar with, withback-to-school savings, overall
expenses and how differentlittle expenses here or there
can really add up and impactyour budget in a big way.
(01:06):
So welcome and just share withour listeners.
It's been a couple months sinceyou've been here with us, so
tell us who you are, what you dohere at Centric and a little
bit about why you're excited totalk about these tips today.
Yeah, I'm very excited.
So I'm Casey.
I've been with credit union forfor about 10 years, maybe a
little more and my role rightnow is training.
But I've held several differentroles at the credit union , one
(01:28):
of those being in the marketingand business development
department, where I actuallywent out and worked with our
employers in the community thatpartner with us and teach the
financial education.
So that part for me is reallyspecial, like you said, and so
I'm just really excited to behere and shared some of the tips
.
I think just from being able tosee the impact of sharing and
having conversations with peopleabout their real life
(01:49):
situations there's really whatgets me excited to talk about it
.
I love it.
.
We've it in ourselves.
going through the back to schoolexperiences and there's a quote
and I wish I knew who actuallyfirst said this but going back
to school is more costly thanChristmas and the cost of gifts
and so forth.
And it's true, you know I havetwo children and the cost to go
(02:13):
back to school just to payschool fees, just in school fees
.
Those are their little clubsand everything.
It's been over $220 just to getthem into school and my
children go to a public schooland it's just expensive.
So I know that everydayexpenses.
You got to account for everydollar.
That's right, yeah, so if youwouldn't mind, you know why?
(02:35):
Do you really and truly thinkthat August is such a key month
for maybe revisiting ourfinances?
Casey Messer (02:41):
Well, we talked about the idea of the mid-year
reset and I really think, justkind of looking at that through
the whole year, it makes sensebecause starting now and really
before now, we're about to haveall kinds of expenses.
So you know the school fees areup front.
We know about that and we canprepare if we're ready for it.
But then there's things thatcontinue to happen.
(03:02):
So if you don't take a pauseand look at where you're at,
it's just going to continue toeither be catastrophic for you
or it's going to.
You know it's going to help youif you're, if you're prepared.
Kelli Green (03:12):
I love that.
If you're planning and ifyou're prepared for this, it
could be catastrophic.
That we have with our CentricCredit Union app is the ability
to verify your credit score,review your credit report, which
is a great way to identify ifthings are reporting correctly
or if you might see there couldbe some identity issues there.
(03:34):
But something that I love somuch about this, especially when
you're thinking about amid-year reset, is our budgeting
tools that we have throughInsights, and it is incredible.
So kind of take us through.
What does that look like?
How do people set that up?
You just want to maybe justshare that with our listeners.
Casey Messer (03:54):
Yeah, so we'll just kind of use this time of
year as a good example thatyou're getting ready to go back
to school and maybe you knowyou've taken a second.
You know, understood, okay, Ihave this much to spend on back
to school, or I know it's goingto take, it's going to cost this
much, based on my school'ssupply list and the things the
clubs like you mentioned theschool fees.
So you can use the Insight tocreate a budget for that, and so
(04:17):
inside of that particular area,inside the app, you can tag
your transactions there.
Once you've set up that budget,so you know let's just label it
back to school budget and youcan pick the accounts that are a
part of that, and so you knowlet's just say it's your
pro-real or your checkingaccount which makes the most
sense.
Nice, you're using yourchecking account or swapping
(04:38):
your debit card and you want togo in and just kind of label
certain transactions If this youknow, this transaction at
Walmart was for school suppliesand it will help you calculate
that and it can even give youreminders on where you're at
with that budget, so it'll helpyou stay on track instead of
just spending.
You know, however you want,hoping it all works out for the
best.
Kelli Green (04:57):
That's not a good strategy at all, no, a
catastrophic path pretty quickly.
So just for our listeners, Ijust want to kind of run this
through.
But we're specifically talkingabout the Centric Credit Union
app.
This is a free personalfinancial management tool that
is available to every one of ourmembers who downloads our app
(05:26):
and as you are using your debitcard and you're making
transactions, you can seeexactly how that is impacting
your overall budgets.
You name your budget, whetherit's a grocery, auto fuel
expense, you can name theseanything you want.
And as you tag thosetransactions that means every
time you swipe your card, eachtransaction that you see, you
can tag those to say, like youmentioned, back to school or
groceries.
I even have set it up to havenotifications.
(05:48):
It says, whenever I've reachedabout 80% of my budget.
I really want to know kind ofwhere I'm at, because it's given
me insight to say, hey, hang ona minute, you need to be aware
of where your finances are.
So that has been a reallyhelpful thing for me.
And just managing this Once youset it up, it only takes a few
(06:08):
minutes Once you tag thosetransactions.
So, for example, if you have aparticular grocery store that
you go to every single month orweek, once you tag that vendor,
you can say Walmart, amazon,target, any of these places.
Once you tag those, say, ifit's groceries or clothing or
fuel, it will always tag thosebusinesses or those different
(06:29):
retail outlets as thatparticular budget.
And that's what I love about it, because you don't have to go
back in and make any changes.
Right, yeah, it's just easy.
So that's something that'sreally great.
It just takes oneaccountability for this August
mid-year reset, like you'vementioned, and just to go ahead
and say, okay, ideally, and whatI liked about it.
(06:49):
Did you ever have an experiencewhen you were going through
setting it up just to see,because it would go ahead and
kind of categorize some thingsfor you?
How was that experience for youwhen you first experienced
Insights.
Casey Messer (06:59):
Well, it knows what are food vendors and their
transactions.
So it actually used the wordsdining out, yeah, and it was
like you know all of my budget,and so it was really I mean to
see how much it.
It went ahead and tagged thatfor me.
It was so nice for it to justdo that on default, but it did
show me how much I was spendingup my budget on on eating out,
(07:20):
and to me that wasn't.
I didn't like what I saw.
So I was able to make changesbecause it gave me that
information.
Kelli Green (07:26):
And this is the great time to do that because
even though, if you've not evenopened up the app and checked
this out, this information isstill working in the background
for you.
So if you're getting ready tocreate a budget, you can go
ahead and reflect on maybe theprevious month and say, oh, wow.
So this is kind of where it is,because that's a big hurdle,
(07:46):
because you may think well, Idon't really know what my budget
needs to be for fuel or what mybudget needs to be for
groceries.
Especially as we're getting tothe holidays, our grocery
budgets might increase becausewe're cooking maybe a little
more or more specialty items orwhat have you for the holidays,
but it gives you a really goodinsight, I think, to see right
away where your expenses areheading.
(08:06):
So it's great.
It's a good tool to get youstarted, for sure.
So, as we're just kind ofwrapping up, I did just want to
just ask you a couple finalthings too.
You know, is there anything inparticular?
You know, maybe a simple actionstep that our listeners can
take today to get on a betterfinancial track?
Casey Messer (08:25):
Yeah,, well, some of the words that we've talked
about sneaky spending, just inparticular, just thinking about
needs versus wants.
You know, it's a basic conceptthat we know, we talk about
Really, especially during thistime and even moving forward as
we move into the holidays,taking, you know, time to sit
down and understand what youreally do need or what your
child needs for school, versuswhat they want or what you know
(08:47):
you want to give them.
that doesn't fit in the budgetlike your future self really is
going to thank you for that inthe moment it might feel like,
oh, I'm not able to give themextra, or I might not, you know,
be able to do this right now,but maybe you can do it later.
Just thinking about that andthen sneaky spending.
How that fits in there too isif we aren't already aware of
(09:07):
what we need versus what we want.
We're just going to combinethose together and our wants are
going to kind of ruin ourbudget.
Really, taking my kids with meshopping, you know I'm not aware
of what I'm doing, so there'sseveral factors that can affect
that.
But just really being aware ofwhat you need and not just going
for it,
Kelli Green (09:27):
The awareness is so important and, like I said,
that's what I love so much aboutthe mobile app, our Insights
that option.
That's right.
You can choose it right fromthe menu when you download the
Centric Credit Union app.
By choosing Insights, it willgo ahead and kind of give you an
idea of where you are, whatyou've spent on dining out,
clothing, all these differentcategories, and you can create
(09:48):
those categories for yourself.
But it's a really good insightto say, okay, hang on a minute,
we may be a little off trackright now, but we can get it
back on track once you're madeaware.
And then you hold yourselfaccountable and setting up those
automatic alerts, I think arereally great in ensuring that
you stay on track.
That's a good accountabilitypiece for sure.
(10:10):
Well, I just want to give a bigthank you to Casey again for
just sharing these practicaltips with us, because this has
been great, and especially aswe're kind of winding out summer
and getting kicked off for thefinal months.
So I just want to tell youthank you so much for being here
and sharing this with ourlisteners.
Casey Messer (10:24):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Kelli Green (10:25):
You bet! I want to give a big thank you to Casey
for sharing such practical, easyto use strategies.
We know our listeners arewalking away with ideas they can
put into action right away.
Remember, whether it'sresetting your budget, planning
for back to school, cutting outsneaky spending or getting a
head start on holiday savings,every small step makes a big
difference over time.
If you haven't already downloador open your Centric Credit
(10:48):
Union app it's your one-stopfinancial control center and
explore the tools that we talkedabout today.
You can find more resources,tips and inspiration at
mycentric.
org.
Centric is federally insured bythe NCUA.
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