July 16, 2025 • 5 mins
Savannah Girmschid, Financial Wellness Manager with Lake Michigan Credit Union joins us to discuss financial wellness, conscious spending choices, and tools that LMCU has to help you manage your money.
More information can be found here: https://www.lmcu.org/personal/banking/financial-wellness
More information can be found here: https://www.lmcu.org/personal/banking/financial-wellness
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I love the topic of financial wellness. This is West
Michigan's Morning News Steve Kelly Schmidty back with us soon.
That's Tony Brooks in for Brett Makita, financial wellness manager
at Lake Michigan Credit Union, is Savannah Germskide. Savannah, thanks
so much for doing this again today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
One of the things that dumbfounds me about professional sports
is how so many of them go bankrupt within a
couple of years of being in the league. So even
these people who get millions of dollars find ways for
it to go away. We have the same problem. So
talk to us a little bit about exactly what financial
wellness is and why it's so important.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, definitely. So when I think about financial wellness, I
think of it as one component of our well being.
So similar to physical wellness or emotional wellness, financial wellness
is really are we set up to live healthy financial
lives so that goes beyond just like, are we making positive,
healthy choices with our money? But are we thinking about
(01:03):
our money in the right way? Is our relationship with
our money at a healthy spot? Do we have the
tools and the resources and knowledge, the education to be
able to manage our money effectively no matter how much
we have of it, And then are we having healthy
habits in our lives that really support reaching our financial goals. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
When I grew up, sometimes the store was closed. The
store isn't closed anymore. What are conscious spending choices, Samanna?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, we're obviously bombarded with a huge variety of things
that we can purchase on a minute by minute basis.
When we think about conscious spending choices, where we're our
goal is really to move from making decisions about what
we're spending our money on or how much we're spending.
(01:57):
We're moving from more of like an autopilot two really
thinking through what do we want to be spending our
money on, and just making those intentional, thoughtful choices. Oftentimes
we think those small purchases it seems like they don't
make a big impact. But if you think about just
(02:18):
spending an extra fifteen dollars a day, that impact. If
you're spending an extra fifteen dollars a day, that adds
up to almost six thousand dollars over the course of
the year, and that's a huge choke of money. You
can spend that on a vacation or even to a
home repair project, something along those lines. And so just
(02:40):
getting in the habit of evaluating our small choices and
figuring out do these choices align with our values, with
our goals and is this really where we want to
be spending our money or is it something that we're
just doing because we're in the habit of doing it
and we haven't really sought through and evaluated does this
(03:03):
choice align with our long term goals.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I also remember layaway when I was a kid, or
Christmas clubs for parents that what are a couple of
easy ways that people can start making more intentional spending decisions.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, that's a great question. So I think just evaluating
your expenses, maybe tracking for a month and figuring out
how much you're spending in different areas. I know when
I did this, I was I just kind of was
shocked at how much money I was spending on eating out.
And when I really thought through, you know, that area
(03:42):
of my spending, I realized that's not something I really prioritize,
and so that's an area that I was able to
cut back on significantly. And so doing that tracking, evaluating expenses,
looking at recurring expenses, out what really is important to
(04:02):
me versus what am I doing just because I'm on
autopilot and not really thinking it through, and then just
implementing those waiting periods for ourselves too, waiting twenty four
hours before making a purchase, or talking it over with
a friend or someone else in your life who can
(04:24):
provide maybe some perspective, especially for those bigger decisions. But
those small choices, again, they add up, and oftentimes we
think through the bigger ones more. But conscious spunding choices
are something that we can all work on making, whether
we're making five dollar decisions or five thousand dollar decisions.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Lastly, does LMCU have any tools or maybe resources to
help people do this to spend their money more wisely?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, for sure. We have a great financial wellness center
on our website. So if you go to see dot
work and click the link on the top of the
page that says financial wellness, there's a variety of different
calculators and articles and other tools that can help support
you wherever you're at on your financial journey. There's a
(05:14):
calculator where you can plug in I'm spending an extra
five dollars a day or ten dollars a day, and
what's that going to add up to over the course
of a year, ten years, What if I invested. So
it's kind of interesting to explore those tools and really
use those to support you and your financial journey.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Financial Wellness manager at Lake Michigan Credit Union, Savannah Germskin,
A pleasure. Thank you for your time today.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Thank you so much. Have a good day.
I love the topic of financial wellness. This is West
Michigan's Morning News Steve Kelly Schmidty back with us soon.
That's Tony Brooks in for Brett Makita, financial wellness manager
at Lake Michigan Credit Union, is Savannah Germskide. Savannah, thanks
so much for doing this again today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
One of the things that dumbfounds me about professional sports
is how so many of them go bankrupt within a
couple of years of being in the league. So even
these people who get millions of dollars find ways for
it to go away. We have the same problem. So
talk to us a little bit about exactly what financial
wellness is and why it's so important.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, definitely. So when I think about financial wellness, I
think of it as one component of our well being.
So similar to physical wellness or emotional wellness, financial wellness
is really are we set up to live healthy financial
lives so that goes beyond just like, are we making positive,
healthy choices with our money? But are we thinking about
(01:03):
our money in the right way? Is our relationship with
our money at a healthy spot? Do we have the
tools and the resources and knowledge, the education to be
able to manage our money effectively no matter how much
we have of it, And then are we having healthy
habits in our lives that really support reaching our financial goals. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
When I grew up, sometimes the store was closed. The
store isn't closed anymore. What are conscious spending choices, Samanna?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, we're obviously bombarded with a huge variety of things
that we can purchase on a minute by minute basis.
When we think about conscious spending choices, where we're our
goal is really to move from making decisions about what
we're spending our money on or how much we're spending.
(01:57):
We're moving from more of like an autopilot two really
thinking through what do we want to be spending our
money on, and just making those intentional, thoughtful choices. Oftentimes
we think those small purchases it seems like they don't
make a big impact. But if you think about just
(02:18):
spending an extra fifteen dollars a day, that impact. If
you're spending an extra fifteen dollars a day, that adds
up to almost six thousand dollars over the course of
the year, and that's a huge choke of money. You
can spend that on a vacation or even to a
home repair project, something along those lines. And so just
(02:40):
getting in the habit of evaluating our small choices and
figuring out do these choices align with our values, with
our goals and is this really where we want to
be spending our money or is it something that we're
just doing because we're in the habit of doing it
and we haven't really sought through and evaluated does this
(03:03):
choice align with our long term goals.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I also remember layaway when I was a kid, or
Christmas clubs for parents that what are a couple of
easy ways that people can start making more intentional spending decisions.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, that's a great question. So I think just evaluating
your expenses, maybe tracking for a month and figuring out
how much you're spending in different areas. I know when
I did this, I was I just kind of was
shocked at how much money I was spending on eating out.
And when I really thought through, you know, that area
(03:42):
of my spending, I realized that's not something I really prioritize,
and so that's an area that I was able to
cut back on significantly. And so doing that tracking, evaluating expenses,
looking at recurring expenses, out what really is important to
(04:02):
me versus what am I doing just because I'm on
autopilot and not really thinking it through, and then just
implementing those waiting periods for ourselves too, waiting twenty four
hours before making a purchase, or talking it over with
a friend or someone else in your life who can
(04:24):
provide maybe some perspective, especially for those bigger decisions. But
those small choices, again, they add up, and oftentimes we
think through the bigger ones more. But conscious spunding choices
are something that we can all work on making, whether
we're making five dollar decisions or five thousand dollar decisions.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Lastly, does LMCU have any tools or maybe resources to
help people do this to spend their money more wisely?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, for sure. We have a great financial wellness center
on our website. So if you go to see dot
work and click the link on the top of the
page that says financial wellness, there's a variety of different
calculators and articles and other tools that can help support
you wherever you're at on your financial journey. There's a
(05:14):
calculator where you can plug in I'm spending an extra
five dollars a day or ten dollars a day, and
what's that going to add up to over the course
of a year, ten years, What if I invested. So
it's kind of interesting to explore those tools and really
use those to support you and your financial journey.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Financial Wellness manager at Lake Michigan Credit Union, Savannah Germskin,
A pleasure. Thank you for your time today.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Thank you so much. Have a good day.
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