Holiday Budgeting with LMCU

Tiarra Weddle, Financial Wellness Coordinator at Lake Michigan Credit Union joins us to outline steps to take advantage of holiday budgeting. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We will get back to the matters at hand. Twenty
second annual Turkey drop for Meltrodter Ministries now underway. Let's
talk a little bit about the challenges of paying for
the holidays on the liveline with us this morning. Tierra Wedell,
financial Wellness coordinator at Lake Michigan Credit Union TIERA, thanks
for taking time today.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Let's talk a.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Little bit about those challenges. What makes holiday budgeting different
than everyday budgeting.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, of course, so there are a lot of parallels
between holiday budgeting and you know, everyday budgeting. But because
there are so many categories within holiday budgeting itself, such
as people and traditions and circumstances, it is probably just
smarter to have that whole category separate from everyday budgeting.
So I would just use it as it as its
own budget budgeting template, separate than everyday budgeting because it's

(00:52):
a one year set of expenses.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
You know, if you go to LMCU dot org for
you guys, for example, there are a lot of great
things on there. And I love the Financial Wellness Center,
I'm a member, and so you know, things like budget
and goal tracking, you know, just podcasts or interactive courses
money saving ideas. You guys have everything right, there's a
great resource for free right, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Of course. And we also have for the holiday time
a holiday club Share account, so you can actually have
a savings account set aside and have automatic deposits into
that account throughout the whole year, so that when it's
the holiday time you can already have a designated amount
of funds available.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
It sounds like a great first step. Is that what
you would recommend for holiday budgeting?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Of course, I would say definitely use our Holiday club
Share and also to take into consideration what you can afford.
A lot of times it's very easy to want to
know what we want to do first, but first you
can all look at your budget and your income to
see what would be most feasible for you for the year,
and then kind of just doing that from a personal
standpoint and not trying to compare to everyone else for
social media or different cultural things, and seeing what's best

(01:56):
for you and what's going to be the most financially
healthy for you and your family.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Tiara, I kind of do our finances for our family,
and the one thing that I think is interesting in
eye popping I'm sure that you hear this a lot
from people who use it or take a look at
it is taking a look at your budget, and it's
simple with that wellness center as I mentioned, or if
you have your own you know, through apps or whatever
the case might be, where you actually see where your

(02:22):
dollars go. And right now, to me, I mean the
grocery bill or anything as far as eating out is
just amazing because you're like, Wow, if I didn't do this,
that's money I could save to you know, maybe give
this holiday season or getting ready for spending for the
holiday season.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Right yeah, yeah, for sure, And those are just great
ways to just have years off being a little more
organized and sometimes propper preparation prevents poor performance. So if
you're preparing, you know, efficiently, and if you're making those plans,
everything is going to go so much smoother.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Go back to support from a place like Lake Michigan
and Credit Union, what sort of resources are available to
help us budget for the holidays.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Absolutely, so, there are so many resources available through Lake
Michigan and also outside in terms of you can use
AI to your benefit, maybe using chat s, YOUBT just
to organize yourself into see how you can put things
into categories if you struggle with doing that, and I
mentioned you mentioned our Financial Wellness Center with the budget
tools available in addition with our Holiday Club Share. You

(03:26):
can also make an appointment with someone at a nearby
branch if you are an LMC member and we can
just get you started in that right direction as well.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well done. We will get this in the podcast section
at woodradio dot com. Tierrawdell is a financial Wellness coordinator
at Lake Michigan Credit Union. Thank you for your time
this morning.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Thank you so much for having me