Performance coach Jen Cohen is a master at ab crunches— and crunching numbers. She shares the story of how she talked her way into a job at Olive Garden before she was even old enough to work- and then reveals her secrets to eating healthier on a tight budget. 

Jennifer’s Money Story:

Thanks, Bobbi. When you asked that question, it makes you think and go back into your brain a little bit to think why someone is the way they are, subconsciously. I think it really goes back to when I was really small, four, five years old when my mom and dad did get divorced, and I guess money was quite tight. I do remember my mom, to make extra money, my mom is a psychiatric nurse, and she had a full-time job, but she had now two kids also, and it wasn't enough, so she would have these odd jobs.

Jen Cohen:
I don't remember all the details, but I do remember her working to sell stuff. She sold Mary Kay cosmetics on the side. She would also cut out pieces of the carpet in our apartment where she was selling them, and I think that vision or that imagery really stuck in my brain in a negative way. It told me right at that moment, "I don't want to be poor, or I always want to make my own money and feel financially stable and secure, not to rely on somebody else for my financial security."

Jen Cohen:
From that moment, I guess even as a small, small child, I went through life thinking of ways of having side hustles or working and doing things. When I was 12 years old, I remember bargaining and hustling with the manager of the Olive Garden down my street about working for him.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, you were 12 years old, and you were working at Olive Garden?

Jen Cohen:
I was. I was a greeter. They wouldn't allow me at 12 because you're too young to get ... I wasn't allowed in the actual restaurant because it was illegal, but I negotiated my way with this guy and just begged him and just hawked him enough where he gave me a job as a greeter. I was able to open up the front door for customers when they walk in. When they first get there, the first person you see was me, and I'm like, "Hello, welcome to Olive Garden." That was really my first real legit job when I was in nine, no, seventh, eighth grade, something really ... I was young, where I remember people in my neighborhood be like coming to the restaurant and be like, "What are you doing here?" It was very odd.

Bobbi Rebell:
But it sounds like you were actually really proud to be earning money, even at that young age. You weren't embarrassed about it. You were excited.

Jen Cohen:
Oh, God. No. I loved it. I always loved having my own money. I always loved having that option, never having to ask my mom or whoever. If I wanted something, I would have it, but here's a caveat. I would never spend my money, so all of this was for me to have savings. It wasn't for me to actually buy stuff. I've never been a very materialistic person. It's really about having in my head knowing that I had that backup, having that security blanket. I would literally save everything.

Jen Cohen:
Then through high school, through college, I always had multiple jobs just so I had it where very comfortable later on, but it was never about that. I've been very rich, and I've been poor, or in the middle, but it's never been that story that's driven me. It's really about that I think one experience when I was a little girl that just has always been subconsciously in my brain where I'm driven to make and create financial security just to have it.

Jennifer’s Money Lesson:

The takeaway is, A, number one, always spend below your means, not above, just so you have that ability, and find and figure out ways to save money. There's so many ways now. You can eat cheaply. You can figure out ways. You can work out for free. You can eat for less than $7 a day. There's a lot of ways to be crafty and resourceful if you want to be.

Jennifer’s Money Tip:

People can actually be much healthier on a very restricted budget. First of all, eating canned salmon. Canned salmon is automatically wild.

Bobbi Rebell:
I didn't know that.

Jen Cohen:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
And wild salmon is better. That's not just a myth to charge you more at the store.

Jen Cohen:
Absolutely not. Farmed salmon has a lot of toxins and maybe a lot of mercury. It could have a lot of different things in it. That's why people say limit your fish intake to maybe once a week, twice at max.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, and that wild salmon is really expensive near me.

Jen Cohen:
It's expensive everywhere, but if you buy canned salmon, just make sure you look on the can. If it says wild Alaskan, that can of salmon would be maybe $2.50 to $3 at most, and that's higher quality than salmon that you would buy that would normally cost about $14 a pound anywhere else, maybe $17 a pound, depending on where you live. That is the perfect portion. That in itself is a meal.

Bobbi Rebell:
How do you usually eat it? Do you put it on a salad? What do you do with it usually?

Jen Cohen:
You could do anything. You could put it on a salad. You could actually ... When I'm starving and I need something to satiate me, I could just take the can of salmon, mash it a little bit of Vegenaise or mayonnaise whatever you'd like, or just put it in a bowl or whatever, eat out of the can as a snack. When I was on a budget I would eat that all the time, and I still eat that.

Jen Cohen:
The other thing is frozen vegetables. Frozen vegetables are a higher quality-sourced produce than what you find at the store because by the time it's at the store, it's been sitting on trucks, it's already half rotten. When you buy frozen vegetables, they flash-freeze them when it's at its peak, so the quality is better.

Bobbi Rebell:
So frozen vegetables, but not canned vegetables? What's the difference there?

Jen Cohen:
Listen. Canned corn, there's nothing wrong with canned corn. I mean, the reality is this: I don't like canned vegetables as much because I think when you do that in the cans, they have to add sodium. I try to stay away from that, but when it's the frozen vegetables, it's typically just the vegetable in itself flash-freeze in a bag so there's no added anything. It's just the vegetables. Canned vegetables typically have to have a preservative to keep it because it's not frozen, and also added salt. That's why I choose to have the frozen vegetables.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that all.

Jen Cohen:
And frozen fruit, by the way, too.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes, and I do that in smoothies a lot, actually. I did that even today in a smoothie.

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Don't be a food snob. Jen talked about eating frozen veggies and canned fish and how, quote, "fresh" isn't always better even if it's organic. Oh, my goodness. Could you imagine? Organic not being the absolute best? You need to pay attention. You can really get burned paying up for all that so-called fresh food because when you take away all those chemicals, which you should, we don't want the chemicals on our food, of course, but sometimes, the shelf life is just really short.

Recently, I splurged on these organic grapes at Whole Foods, and they went bad so fast. I had paid $8 for a bunch because I really wanted the grapes and I wanted to feel like I was eating healthy, and they barely lasted. That is also, by the way, a reason not to go shopping with your kids because I was with my son, and he also felt we should get the grapes, even though they were really expensive, and it's really hard to say no to a kid with they ask for food that's actually not junk food. Even if it's not the absolute healthiest fruit, it's not junk food, and that hard not to encourage, so try to leave your kids at home when you shop, although that's not always realistic.

Financial grownup tip number two:

The power of persuasion is very real. Good for Jen. Jen really shouldn't have been working at the Olive Garden at age 12 because it was not actually fully legal, but she got her way because she was creative and she found a way to get to yes with a reluctant manager and find a way to work there without technically working there and not technically breaking the law. That was a great lesson for all of us, Jen. Be persuasive and find a way around obstacles.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Jennifer’s website - jennifercohen.com

• How to save money and cut calories on your morning coffee from Starbucks

• Jen's book Badass Body Goals

Follow Jennifer!

• Instagram - @TheRealJenCohen

• Twitter - @TheRealJenCohen

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

How to Buy Art Like a Financial Grownup

The art market is intimidating for many of us. But it can be a great way to both invest or just collect pieces you love and want to enjoy having. Gallerist and art advisor Janis Cecil walks us through exactly how to get started, what to look for, and how to get the best price. 

Bobbi Rebell:

A lot of our listeners are very curious about investing in art and what it takes to get started, so I wanted to bring you on to kind of give us the inside scoop in, I hate to say a safe environment because so many galleries seem intimidating even as your friend walking into that beautiful space in Chelsea, it's vast. You see this stunning art on the wall and you don't really know how it all works. How does it work? How do you start buying art, Janis?

Janis Cecil:

The primary market are galleries that represent artists who are making art now, which they are then presenting and selling to the public. There are other types of galleries called secondary market galleries, which just specialize in selling works that had been sold before. These works were sold from an artist at one point and now they're back on the market, either because the owners decided to sell them for whatever reason. The three Ds are often thought of, which is death, divorce, or debt.

Bobbi Rebell:

Oh my gosh.

Janis Cecil:

Sometimes people sell for those three reasons. Other times people just want to upgrade their collections or they've moved and they can't take their big painting with them. There are all sorts of reasons why people sell.

Bobbi Rebell:

So the first step is to figure out what you like? Let's say you're ready for a transaction. I know when I've gone in, for example, to your gallery, there is no price tag next to these paintings.

Janis Cecil:

That's true. Very observant, Bobbi. There is actually a rule in New York that galleries are supposed to have available a price list upon request. I would suggest that if there's something that someone likes in a gallery, just say, "Hi," either there'll be someone, a staff member of the gallery, it could be a sales director who will talk to you about prices, there could be a price list available upon request at the front desk at the gallery. Every gallery will be somewhat different about this. They may have someone come out and talk to the person who's asking about prices so that way they can give a fuller understanding of the artist and their career, and kind of help the viewer understand what they're looking at and how things are priced.

Janis Cecil:

A price that's quoted by the person at the gallery is somewhat negotiable, especially if it's primary market. An artist who is selling will have an agreement with the gallery where they split the proceeds from the work that's sold and usually there is between a five and a 15% discount that can be given to a buyer.

Bobbi Rebell:

What is the language that you would use to ask for that? I mean, what do you say?

Janis Cecil:

One of the negotiating tactics would be to say, "Hi, I really like this painting. What's the price?" Then someone tells you the price. You can say, "Well, is that the best you can do?" Or, "What do you think the best price is?" I think the nomenclature here would be best price. And then also there are things that can be negotiated, which could be, if it's a larger work that would cost money to send someplace, right? To ship somewhere, you can kind of negotiate shipping costs. Maybe the gallery can ship for free, or they can actually pay for the crating.

Janis Cecil:

Imagine now, paintings that are really expensive to build a crate that's actually museum, or where they that can travel across large distances costs thousands and thousands of dollars. In this case if you're buying something smaller or something that is less valuable, you could use something called a master pack box, which they can actually order and it'll fit their artwork perfectly and keep it super safe so it can be sent by Federal Express or another courier or hand-trucked.

Bobbi Rebell:

New York is somewhat of an art gallery every day and a fair every day because there's so many galleries, but many people do enjoy going to art fairs. I know I've gone to them and I've actually bought art at them. Tell me how those work differently from walking into a gallery.

Janis Cecil:

Okay. The art fair is kind of like the art buying experience on steroids. I mean, it is just all about the transaction and all about introducing people to new artists or to a new body of work they haven't seen by an artist. If you see something you like, I would advise going in and introducing yourself to whoever looks like they're in charge in that booth. I would just start a conversation and say, "Hi, I like this. Tell me about the artist. Where are they from? What's the material? What's the medium of this work I'm looking at? Is it an oil, is it acrylic, is it a watercolor?" If it's a sculpture, "What's it made out of?" And then they can talk to you about the artist's inspiration or their goals that they're trying to achieve with this work.

Bobbi Rebell:

And again, how negotiable is it? And does that negotiability change depending on how early or how late in the fair you're there?

Janis Cecil:

Yes, things are negotiable always. Again, I would go by the five to 15% rule remembering, of course, that there is no incentive necessarily for a gallery to give a discount to an artist that's super hot when they're pretty much going to sell everything out. They may not give discounts at all or they may decide, "Look, if a collector's coming to us and they buy it from us a lot, we're going to always give them kind of a 10% discount." It's going to depend, really depending on the artist that is of interest and the gallery where you're looking.

Janis Cecil:

And then at the end of the fair, so say the fair starts on a Wednesday, that's the VIP day. Then on Sunday comes and you could be at the end of the week when the fair's about the close, there could be perhaps more flexibility and prices just because the fair's almost over and they tried to sell things before they leave.

Bobbi Rebell:

Because it's expensive to ship things back, right?

Janis Cecil:

It is expensive to ship things back. Or you know what? Shipping things back when they're sold, everyone's happy to do that.

Bobbi Rebell:

Of course.

Janis Cecil:

Of course, they'd rather ship it to its next home.

Bobbi Rebell:

Yes. Okay, are there things to look for if you're buying for what you love, that goes without saying, but if you're buying and you do hope that this will appreciate in value, so you're buying as an investment. What are some things that people should keep in mind?

Janis Cecil:

Things you're looking at are condition of the work. Doing homework, say on a database that records auction sales. That could be Live Art Auction, or Artnet, and looking at what other works of art have sold by that artist in similar years or similar media. And then also having a condition report and doing basic due diligence on what the work is being sold.

Bobbi Rebell:

How much of this is available online? What can people find out if they don't have access to an art expert like you?

Janis Cecil:

Well, there's a couple of different ways of doing this. Both Artsy and Artnet have auction records online. Artsy, also provides kind of more of a bio and understanding of where that artist's work is in the firmament of contemporary art today. So artsy.net and you would basically go on the site and say, "Okay, I'm interested in a painting by," let's say, the American Alex Katz, or, "I'm interested in a sculpture by," let's say, the British sculptor, Lynn Chadwick. Like, "What museums are this work in and what are the prices at auction? How do we find sculpture or paintings by these artists?"

Janis Cecil:

There's a whole way of doing that. There'll be galleries you can search, you can google the artist's name and see who represents the artist or the estate of the artist. And remembering that if you fall in love with something that's very, very expensive, say a Jasper Johns painting. Jasper Johns paintings will cost deca millions. Even if you love Jasper Johns, and you can't afford that, which by the way, most people cannot, you can still buy a beautiful work on paper by the artist or a limited edition print. Our firm in itself is really good in print making. It could be etchings, it could be lithographs, right? Like Warhol, silkscreens, all these things are ways to buy art by artists who are famous, who are eternally recognized and to make it affordable.

Bobbi Rebell:

Well, I was even looking at Blain Southern's website before we started recording and there's a lot of really accessible stuff as inexpensive, by the way, as when artists had a mug that was 10. It was 10 pounds in this case because it was from your British branch. But there's very affordable works and works that are from the artists, but as you said, they're editions, they're prints. That means there's not only one, but there's only one of the one that you have. That's right.

Janis Cecil:

And that's the edition of 50.

Bobbi Rebell:

Exactly.

Janis Cecil:

At the edition of 50 you will get your own edition number and it will be edition to of a 50, or 10 or 50. And there's something else to know, which is that most editions have what's called an artist's proof. Or in French you'd say [French 00:11:34], and so there'll be a limited edition say of 10 and then there could be two artists proofs. They're actually, it means there are 12 in existence, but the say, at the edition of 10 when you buy something it'll either be one of that 10, or it could be an artist proof if the artist does decide to sell them.

Janis Cecil:

Another way to find really beautiful limited editions is to shop at museum stores and I love museum stores because it's great. You're supporting artists, you're supporting the health of the institution when you buy from museum shops, and if you're a member at a museum then you also get a discount when you do that.

Bobbi Rebell:

Even though you're buying this artist at a lower price point, a more accessible price point, it is fully work of that artist and could also appreciate. It is a limited edition. It is potentially an investment, it could be-

Janis Cecil:

Oh, for sure.

Bobbi Rebell:

Nothing's ever guaranteed, but it is a way to buy these artists at much more affordable prices.

Janis Cecil:

Exactly. I mean Jasper Johns, Prince by Jasper Johns, when he made them were incredibly affordable. They are now worth over a million dollars. And the important thing when looking at art is to think about what is it that I can buy with the budget that I have. I'd rather buy one or two things a year that are really good quality that are representative of the artist. In other words, that means they're kind of emblematic of what the artist does, right?

Janis Cecil:

If you're wanting to buy a work by an artist who's famous for painting portraits, maybe if you're going to buy just one thing by that artist, buy something that's actually figurative, right? That represents a portrait or a person. And that's kind of what that artist is known for. Whereas what if you want to buy something like by the British artist, David Hockney, and he's known for doing interiors but also these incredibly lush landscapes. In that case, a landscape by David Hockney makes perfect sense.

Bobbi Rebell:

What should people do when they walk into the galleries and it's just dead quiet and they've just got, there's just somebody at the desk kind of staring at them. You can feel so awkward, Janis.

Janis Cecil:

Well, I mean, most front desk people that I've had anyone at the front desk, I've always encouraged them to be friendly and smile and be welcoming. I think it's just to say, "Hi," and then when you leave say, "Thank you." And if you're like, "Oh wow, I love that. Can you tell me more?" And if the front desk person is super busy or can't talk to you, then they'll usually get someone who can.

Bobbi Rebell:

Amazing. Such great advice.

Episode Links:

• artsy.net is free

• artnet.com is paid but there is a lot of free information

• The Art Dealers Association of America - www.artdealers.org

Follow Janis!

• Instagram - @janisgcecil

• Twitter - @JanisGCecil

• LinkedIn

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Author, Podcast host and Entrepreneur magazine’s Editor in Chief Jason Feifer shares specifically how he raised his speaking fees, and confesses to a massive and very un-grownup recent financial blunder.

Jason’s Money Story:

Jason Feifer:
So I had done a lot of unpaid public speaking and then felt like it was time to actually start charging for this. And I didn't know how to because I was genuinely uncomfortable saying you should pay me for this. Actually, I just hadn't really done that. It's weird. I have been very successful in my career. I have a high profile job, but the ways that I've been paid have largely been these very established methods. I get a salary and that is it.

Jason Feifer:
And now here, I am telling someone, you have asked me to do a thing, I know that I could do it for free because I've done it before, and you probably know that too. But instead I'm going to set a very high fee and expect that you pay me that. And I was so uncomfortable doing that that I kept undervaluing myself. I had a friend who's in this industry who had told me what my value would be and I just literally couldn't say it to people. And so I was telling them half or a quarter of it.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did this evolve? So someone reaches out and says, Jason, we want you to speak at our events. What happens next?

Jason Feifer:
So here's how the conversation would start at the beginning of this. Somebody would invite me to their event and I would gush over the event. And I would tell them how excited I could be, and we would talk about literally everything except for money. And then, they would bring up the money, and then I would have a number in my head that I was supposed to say and that I couldn't say it, and I said something lower. And that is not what happens now. What happens now is that, very upfront, as soon as somebody reaches out to me, I say, do you have a speaker budget for this?

Jason Feifer:
And sometimes I will also say, do you ever speak your budget for this? I would do this for free if I could, but I have two kids and a very busy job and I can only do these kinds of things if there's compensation. Sometimes they don't. But oftentimes, they do. They say they have a budget and then they'll ask me what the budget is, or what my fee is, and I'll tell them. And I'm just really upfront about it because that is my worth, and I have over time taught myself that I am worth something and that there's no shame in being worth something. But it took a long time to get there.

Bobbi Rebell:
What was the tipping point?

Jason Feifer:
The tipping point was actually my wife getting extremely annoyed that I was leaving New York to go speak at these things and not getting as much as she thought I probably could get. But honestly, it was talking to other people and seeing what they were being paid and realizing that I was doing the same work, and I was I think better than a lot of them, and yet I was getting paid less. And that told me, most importantly, that I could stand up for my own value and I wouldn't put other people off.

Jason Feifer:
The thing is you don't know what the marketplace is and so you don't know what people are willing to pay and you are afraid. Everybody's afraid, I think, of showing themselves to be too full of hubris, and say I'm worth this crazy amount of money, and that people will look at you. It'd be like, no, you're actually just a jerk. But once you understand the marketplace and you get a sense of what people actually will pay, then you realize, Oh no, wait a second, I am valuable and I'm not being obnoxious in my value. I'm just being straightforward in my value.

Bobbi Rebell:
But how do you know what the marketplace is? And for example, in the market that you're talking about, which is speaking, which is very often doing keynote speeches, moderating panels, emceeing events. There's no database where everyone says what they make. How do you know?

Jason Feifer:
No, there's no database. I wish there was a database, but there are a lot of people who do it, or there are a lot of people who work with people who do it. And so, I just started asking everybody. Every single person who I interacted with at any event or just in the course of my work, we would start talking about speaking and I would just start asking them either, are you willing to share what you make or are you willing to share what the ballpark is for people in our range or whatever.

Jason Feifer:
Because the thing is that people do not volunteer this information upfront because I think oftentimes people are uncomfortable sharing numbers and being the one to broach that subject. But if you open up the door to it, a lot of people actually are fine sharing information because they understand that information is power for everybody. And if they share something with you, you'll share something with them. And just starting that conversation and having so many of those conversations, you start to triangulate what your value is or what other people did to get more valuable, which is also so important.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what was that? What did people do to get more valuable?

Jason Feifer:
Well, one of the things that they did is that they did a lot of add ons. That was not something that was intuitive to me. So you would go to an event and you'd find some fee, but then you would start upselling people. You'd be like, I'd be happy to come in the evening before and have a dinner with your sponsors or whatever. I'm around. Is that something you'd be interested in because we could just throw on an additional fee for that? And people are happy to do it. And that's how I've upped my fee often for taking time that I would be... What would else would I be doing? I might as well be having dinner with somebody and making a little extra money.

Jason Feifer:
But yeah, it was a lot of add ons. I found that the key to the add ons is not just that you're willing to do stuff, but that you're showing them that you're invested in them and invested in helping their whatever it is be as successful as possible. And so, here they have an asset. The asset is you, and there are two ways that asset could be, it could either somebody who just blows through and doesn't really care and just collects the check or, someone who says, hey, I've invested, I care, I want to do what's great for you. It's going to cost a little bit more, but I'm there and I want to do it. And I think that they also want to pay me just because they like me and that matters.

Bobbi Rebell:
How do you handle it when someone says, I don't have the budget that you're asking for it.

Jason Feifer:
So I take it on a case by case. Is it something that I really want to do? Is there some other value that I can extract from them? Because sometimes, there is. I could, for example say, Oh, I'll do it for this lesser fee that you're offering, but can you buy copies of my book? Can you buy some subscriptions to the magazine for people who are attending? Can you give me the email addresses of everyone in attendance so that I can follow up with them and maybe get them to sign up for my newsletter or whatever. If there's something that makes sense for me for other reasons and it doesn't really put me out, I'll do it for a little less.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners from your story?

“I have over time taught myself that I am worth something and there is no shame in being worth something but it took a long time to get there.”

Jason’s Money Lesson:

Jason Feifer:
The lesson is lead with value and be confident in your value. I hear from people a lot, if I could just turn it around as me as a recipient of people pitching, I hear from people a lot who want a lot of things from me. They're pitching me because they want me to write about their company or they're pitching me because they want me to assign them a story or whatever. And a phrase that they use all the time, I literally just read about this in the magazine, a phrase they use all the time when they write to me is, let me know if you ever need a dot dot dot. Let me know if you ever need a writer. Let me know if you ever need a good story. Let me know if you ever need a customer service solution or whatever it is.

Jason Feifer:
And that is a terrible, terrible way to pitch yourself because it actually puts the sales onus on me, the person who's supposed to be sold to. Now, I have to research them and go back to them and say, Oh, you know what I actually do. Here's the thing; nobody ever just needs a blah, blah, blah. They never do. I am full of writers. I am full of stories. I don't need any more of them. So why would I take any more of them? Because if somebody comes to me and isn't shy about their value and is instead value forward, if they understand what I'm looking for and what kind of value they can provide to me, if they're upfront about that and good at communicating that, then I see the value and I want the value.

Bobbi Rebell:
Such great advice. Let's move on to your everyday money tip because, Jason, you're being very brave. You're going to admit to having done something that you're no longer doing, right?

“I was doing the same work and I think better than they were and I was being paid less. And that told me that I could stand up for my own value and I wouldn’t put other people off.”

Jason’s Money Tip:

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's move on to your everyday money tip because, Jason, you're being very brave. You're going to admit to having done something that you're no longer doing, right?

Jason Feifer:
Right.

Bobbi Rebell:
... that costs you thousands of dollars. Tell us your everyday money. Thousands of dollars. Oh my goodness.

Jason Feifer:
I know. I'm so embarrassed and annoyed that I have done this. It is the most basic piece of advice. Look at your statements... Go through them line by line, your credit card statements. There were some services that I had signed up for that I either forgot about or in one case it was a fairly expensive service that I thought I had signed up for a month of, but it turns out it was a recurring fee.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh, that's your worst nightmare. And can you get them to refund a few months back at least? Is there any recourse at that point? because you clearly weren't using it. Do you want to tell us what kind of thing it was? Was it a really expensive magazine, Jason?

Jason Feifer:
No, it was a social media management thing. It was $400 a month.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my God. Oh my God. How many months did this go on, Jason?

Jason Feifer:
Ten.

Bobbi Rebell:
You didn't catch a $400 charge for ten months?

Jason Feifer:
No, I didn't.

Bobbi Rebell:
Jason.

Jason Feifer:
I know, it's awful. It's awful. And now you're like, what kind of completely irresponsible financial person is this? And the answer is that I do too many things myself and I have a number of different income streams from speaking and podcasting and I'm just throwing it all into the same account and I just wasn't being mindful of where the number was. And so there was this giant hole being poked in my finances, and it was just pouring out $400 a month.

Jason Feifer:
I contacted the company and they were not really willing to be helpful, and I've gotten in touch with the head guy. And he just kept putting me off and putting me off, and I can tell what's happening, which is that he's hoping that he is going to wait me out, and that I'm going to just give up on this and forget about it. And so, I literally have on my reminders app that tells me all the things that I should be doing. One of them is to keep texting this guy.

Bobbi Rebell:
So this is unresolved right now. So you're not paying ongoing, but you've now paid 10 months, you paid $4,000 to this company?

Jason Feifer:
That's right, and I proposed a deal to them too, and I just haven't gotten the money back. I'm a little resolved to just eat it as a very, very expensive lesson in keeping tabs on your credit card forms. But I am also going to text this dude for the rest of my life demanding my money back.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think you can automate that. So Jason's going to un-automate his bill paying and he's going to automate, I'm sure there's an app you can download that can charge you another monthly fee to automatically text this guy. I'm going to text him for you, too.

“If you open up the door to it, a lot of people actually are fine sharing information because they understand that information is power for everybody. ”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Like Jason did, work up the courage to ask, but also, as he did, keep it reasonable so you can get to the yes. People ask how I got such high profile people to be in my book, How To Be A Financial Grownup; those included Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank, designer Cynthia Rowley, and even Tony Robbins. A lot of it was simply working up the courage to ask, but I also kept the ask really simple. It was two questions, similar format to this podcast. You'll have more success if you ask for something that's easier for them to do.

Financial grownup tip number two:

Jason talks about add ons and up-selling. Not only does this bring in more money, it also provides more value for clients. Most important, it often strengthens the bond and creates a relationship where you're probably going to have a better shot at getting hired again. Play the long game.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Jason’s website - www.jasonfeifer.com

Follow Jason!

• Instagram - @heyfeifer

• Facebook - @jasonfeifer

• Twitter - @heyfeifer

• LinkedIn

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Journalist Jeanne Pinder, founder of ClearHeathCosts reveals how medical costs can vary widely for the same products and procedures- and how we can find out- and negotiate- to get the best price.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Jeanne’s website - clearhealthcosts.com

• GOODRX.com

• Negotiating Bills

• wnyc.org/healthcosts

Follow Jeanne + Clear Health Costs!

• Facebook - @ClearHealthCosts

• Twitter - @chcosts

• LinkedIn - @jeannepinder

• Pinterest - @chcosts

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Guide, how to pay less for healthcare. Like a Financial Grownup with Clear Health Costs, Jeanne Pinder. You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, Certified Financial Planner, Bobbi Rebell. Author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. And you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're going to get there together. We've got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
No secret. Our healthcare costs are ridiculous. What makes matters even worse is that it is one of the few things that we buy where we don't even know what it costs. In fact, we don't even ask ahead of time. Very often we don't negotiate. We don't know what the competition is charging and there is often zero transparency. The costs are all over the place. For example, a simple blood test could be $500 in one place, $7 nearby. An MRI routine procedure can cost $300 to $6,000 in another location just a few blocks away. Very few of us even think to compare costs and shop around the way we do almost obsessively sometimes for everyday items.

Bobbi Rebell:
This is an urgent episode. I worked to bring it to you for a very long time. I am really excited about it. As you can tell as a journalist, I can tell you I really appreciate the work that goes in to getting the data that I just shared. Before my New York Times reporter, Jeanne Pinder is nailing it with the company that she founded, Clear Health Costs. Their work in bringing transparency to the healthcare marketplace by telling people simply what stuff costs is amazing. She has been called a benevolent genius for good reason.

Bobbi Rebell:
Listened to the end of the episode. It's not that long. Take notes or listen again, or go to the show notes at bobbirebell.com for a transcript. And by the way all the episodes are there. Use the search bar in the top right corner to get more info about our guests, or more info about the content of any of the episodes. But first, listen to this one. Here is Clear Health Costs founder and CEO, Jeanne Pinder. Jeanne Pinder, I'm so excited you're here with us. I've been trying to get you on the show for quite a while, but you're a busy lady. You are the founder and CEO of Clear Health Costs, and you are here to basically give us the lowdown on how we can be better financial grownups when it comes to what we pay for our healthcare. Tell us first about Clear Health Costs, and how it came about and what it does.

Jeanne Pinder:
Yeah. Thanks for inviting me. We're a New York City journalism company, no longer startup, bringing transparency to healthcare by telling people what stuff costs. We do this not only on our home site, but also in partnership with other news organizations in long running consumer friendly investigations. We're partnering now with CBS national news and WNYC public radio, and Gothamist here in New York, telling people what stuff costs.

Bobbi Rebell:
How do we even know where to begin with controlling our healthcare costs, because obviously, we often don't have that much choice when it comes to insurance, and we all feel like we're overpaying for insurance, and then we still do pay for this stuff.

Jeanne Pinder:
Right. Yeah, so we recommend that people just, whenever it's feasible, ask what stuff is going to cost you. We know that not everything is shoppable. Like we wouldn't expect you to shop your emergency up, inducted me or your cancer treatment, but if you think about it, somewhere around 80% of our healthcare system interactions are shoppable, where are you going to get that sore throat looked at, where are you going to get that MRI. Do you have choice in scheduling your surgery? So once you've ascertain that it is shoppable in some sense, you can start out by asking simple questions. Ask the insurance company if applicable and the hospital or doctor, how much will this cost me on my insurance?

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. Meaning what's the net cost to you?

Jeanne Pinder:
Yes, and what's the cash price? Quite often they'll say, "Well, we don't know or we can't tell you," but our view is that if we make that behavior a normal behavior if everybody's asking. And increasingly, we hear that people are able, doctors, hospitals, labs, clinics are able to come up with a number.

Bobbi Rebell:
And then how do you even know where to go to start comparing? Because sometimes to go to get a second opinion, I would think you maybe have to go get a second appointment with another doctor, which is not only money but also time. Should you be going to second appointments just for the cost of it? How does that actually work in practice?

Jeanne Pinder:
Yeah, we usually suggest something simple like an MRI. You can call three separate providers, and ask them those questions. How much will that cost me on my insurance? What's your cash price? Very important, ask for the cash price.

Bobbi Rebell:
Can you explain that?

Jeanne Pinder:
Yeah. So we're hearing increasingly that people are finding if they put away their insurance card and pay cash. They can get a better rate. It doesn't necessarily fall against your deductible. Although, you should be able to take something like that from your HSA if you have one. But increasingly, we're hearing that people who are choosing to put away their insurance carrier didn't pay cash, do better. Not in every case.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is the thinking behind that? Because my gut instinct, which is clearly wrong, is that it's better to have insurance, right?

Jeanne Pinder:
Well, you have to ask every time. All bets are off. There are no rules. Everything we thought we knew about healthcare, we don't really know that anymore. So for example, we all grew up thinking that our insurance premiums gave us access to the lowest price. That is no longer true necessarily in every case.

Bobbi Rebell:
How do you even know?

Jeanne Pinder:
In most cases, making three phone calls to ask the price, it might take you half an hour. It might take you an hour in advance of a procedure that you'd be surprised what you find out. Yes, in fact, we've heard that a simple blood test could be $500 one place in $7 another place. And if you haven't met your deductible, it really makes a difference. A simple MRI could be $300 one place and 6,000 in another, a few blocks away in the same city.

Bobbi Rebell:
So explain why there's such a cost differential? Does one person pay higher rent? Is one place subsidized by the government, one isn't? Why such a big differential?

Jeanne Pinder:
Well, the biggest reason why is that there is no transparency in healthcare. So people aren't used to publishing prices, and people aren't used to asking for prices. A few rules of thumb. We generally think that any procedure in a hospital is going to be much more expensive. So let's say that lab test, if you get it at LabCorp on cash can be dramatically cheaper than if you get it in a hospital lab.

Bobbi Rebell:
With that, can you negotiate? Let's say for some reason you want to have it at the hospital, can you tell the hospital, "Well, if I go to a lab it's going to be less." Can you match that price? Is that something that people do yet?

Jeanne Pinder:
Yes. People are doing that increasingly. I did it myself actually. I needed an MRI for a member of my family. The orthopedist in question gave us a list of three radiology providers that he uses. And because I know how to do this, so I called the first one and said, "I'm a cash customer. I'm not using my insurance. What's your price for the MRI, the particular code number?" And she said, "$900." I called the second one and had the same conversation. She said, "$600." And then the first one called me back and said, "If you can be here at seven o'clock tonight, it'll be 450." Right. So it's like surge pricing on Uber. Right?

Bobbi Rebell:
Jeannie's reacting to seeing my face. I have a look of surprise for our listeners that obviously can't see me. I was like, "You got to be kidding." Oh my gosh. It's like, are they going to have Black Friday sales one day? I don't know.

Jeanne Pinder:
It is. You never.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you can definitely negotiate. And is it the thing where you can say, "I'm willing to come in last minute and fill an empty slot." Because they're trying to manage their business. That's crazy.

Jeanne Pinder:
And you can say anything that you feel comfortable with. Not everybody is. Well, like for example, my friend Cindy, she was going to a doctor, and she had to get slightly gross. She had to get wax removed from her ear. So she went in and the first thing they said at the billing office was, "Give us your credit card." And she said, "How much is it going to cost?" And they said, "We don't know." And she said, "Well then, why should I give you my credit card?" And she left.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that.

Jeanne Pinder:
Well, not everybody wants to do that. And again, we don't expect you to behave like that when you're on the gurney waiting to have your appendix removed. But increasingly, people are asking because people are getting these terrifying bills, making decisions not to go to the doctor because they get a terrifying bill.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is some of the language that people could use when you want to negotiate beyond saying, "Well, your competitor offers this price." Can you make a hardship argument, especially if you have insurance but then the insurance isn't going to cover it that well? What are the kinds of techniques that are most successful in negotiating a healthcare bill both before and after you get the bill?

Jeanne Pinder:
Right. Generally, we say just those simple questions, how much is this going to cost me on my insurance? What's the cash price? Yes, I'm shopping around. We don't hear a lot of people who are having a lot of success they're saying, "Well, your competitor up the streets charging 6,000 and we'd rather have it for 4,000." But we do hear a lot of people who are asking that question very specifically, and asking it of several providers because quite often the providers do know what their competitors are charging and they do want your business.

Bobbi Rebell:
We'll talk a little bit about that because I think people don't always understand that there's the other side to this, that they also in some cases are not necessarily getting rich off of us. They have their own business issues going on.

Jeanne Pinder:
Right. And one of the issues that they do have going on is that there are people who are not paying their co-insurance and their deductibles. There's a huge conversation in healthcare finance these days about people who are just not paying. So as a reaction to that, we think these cash prices are coming to the fore. Not every time, not every place, but quite often.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about prescriptions. What can people do to lower their prescription costs? Because we were joking before we started taping that I have a prescription that would be very, very expensive, but my doctor gave me this kind of coupon that goes directly to the manufacturer, and that made it only $25, and it's a monthly thing, which is great, but what if you didn't get that coupon? How would you even know what you don't know what to ask for?

Jeanne Pinder:
Yeah. So we say ask that same question at the pharmacy. How much is this going to cost me on my insurance and what's your cash price? You can also go online to goodrx.com and get an idea of what the prices are going to be there. They have coupons that the issue. In general, we hear a lot of people who are saying that they are finding that their copay, like they might have a $35 copay for a common medication, but they can buy it on cash for $4. It's crazy.

Bobbi Rebell:
That makes no sense though.

Jeanne Pinder:
It makes no sense. Right. Again, you think that your insurance policy gives you access to a lower price. That's no longer true.

Bobbi Rebell:
What tips do you have for getting the right amount of money back from your insurance provider? Because I find, how do you know if your doctor even coded it correctly? Are there certain ways you can research that yourself, and make sure when they submitted it's submitted in the best possible way for you? Because I find, a lot of times they're not necessarily paying attention.

Jeanne Pinder:
I think you're right about that. We generally suggest, and again, I'm not saying that this is right because they feel like when people are not healthy, they're not at their best. They would rather not be arguing over nickels and dimes, but we do recommend that people ask on the front end, how much is this going to cost me, and then scrutinize the bill on the backend, like is this what they said they were going to do, and does everything look kosher here? We have a little handbook on how to argue bills on our website.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that. We'll leave a link in the show notes. Make sure to send that to us.

Jeanne Pinder:
Okay.

Bobbi Rebell:
But in short, go ahead. How do you argue the bills?

Jeanne Pinder:
Yeah, so I have argued many a bill over the years.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm not surprised. And probably very successfully.

Jeanne Pinder:
Well, sometimes yes and sometimes no, but you should document everything. Do it in writing. Don't do it on the phone because doing it on the phone, you're not going to have any record of stuff. I have sent stacks and stacks of copies to CEOs of hospitals and of insurance companies complaining about my treatment. I can get a little bit enthusiastic about arguing bills, but it's worked out for me in many cases. And I think if everybody was reading their bills and challenging them, I think we would be able to reduce the amount of shenanigans that goes on in hospital and doctor billing.

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you think there's a lot of... we just calling it shenanigans? I would call it fraud over-billing.

Jeanne Pinder:
Well, In some places I think it is fraud. In some places that shenanigans. In some places it's just so complicated. The doctor submits one code and the insurance company says, "Well, we don't code it that way. We code it another way." The sum total is that the patient gets stuck in the middle.

Bobbi Rebell:
What are the things we can control it? So for example, I noticed that one doctor, they have multiple labs. They can send a test out to, not all the labs, maybe on your insurance. Can you tell the doctor, "Please send it to this lab, not the other lab."

Jeanne Pinder:
Yes. And try to in every case. Again, it's really hard to place that burden on you as the patient. They should be doing it automatically, but you can remind them. And also when you're doing this prep work, I always recommend that people take notes, take names and take numbers. You can ask for something in writing, for example, a hospital estimate in writing, which will then make it easier for you to argue on the back end should you want to. For many of us, we're a little bit squeamish about talking about body parts and money because it feels like, "Ooh, well, maybe my doctor's going to think that I'm like a cheapskate or something." But I really think it's time for this to come out into the open, and for all of us to get comfortable with the fact that asking that question is going to make us, and our doctors frankly feel a lot better.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, you are a tremendous resource. One more question. We're talking in general about medical procedures that are not necessarily elective. Do you have any negotiability when it comes to things that are elective?

Jeanne Pinder:
The elective procedures that we price on in our database are pretty much already negotiable. They're basically a cash marketplace. So we do pricing on Botox, LASIK and teeth whitening, and they really are pretty much an open marketplace.

Bobbi Rebell:
Fascinating. So they're probably more negotiable because they're really running purely as a business where you can truly take your business somewhere else?

Jeanne Pinder:
Yeah, they'll have specials, special on the LASIK, special on teeth whitening.

Bobbi Rebell:
All good to note. Jeanne, where can people find out more about you and Clear Health Costs?

Jeanne Pinder:
Yeah, clearhealthcosts.com. You can also find us on cbsnews.com/healthcosts, wnyc.org/healthcosts, and gothamist.com/healthcosts.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tremendous resources. We are so grateful to you. Thank you so much and happy holidays.

Jeanne Pinder:
Thank you Bobbi. Thank you. Happy holidays to you too.

Bobbi Rebell:
That was awesome. Big things to Jeanne Pinder. Be sure to check out Clear Health Costs as Jeanne said in all the places, including their partnership with WNYC public radio and Gothamist. That's wnyc.org/health costs. You can also check out their partnership with CBS national news at cbsnews.com/health costs. This is one of those episodes you definitely want to go to the show notes. You could do that at bobbirebell.com/podcast/jeannepinder.

Bobbi Rebell:
You can also just search for her name, J-E-A-N-N-E P-I-N-D-E-R in the search box. That also goes for all the episodes of Financial Grownup. You can get show notes and resources for all of them. And if you like this podcast, please be sure to subscribe and leave a review. And if you have other ways to save on healthcare DM, so that I can share it with the whole community. On Instagram, I am @bobbirebell1, and on Twitter @bobbirebell. And of course, check out Money With Friends. My other podcast with my friend Joe Saul-Sehy. You may know him from Stacking Benjamins. Be sure to follow Money With Friends also. On all the socials, it's at moneyfriendspod. Thank you everyone. Infinite things to Clear Health Costs, Jeanne Pinder for helping us all get our healthcare costs under control. Like the financial grownups, we are. By everyone. Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media Production.

When all her friends seemed to be buying houses, sculptor and novelist Georgia Lee Hussey took the plunge. She quickly realized how much she didn’t know about home ownership, credit scores, and adjustable mortgages- and how much it was going to cost her. But the way out of the debacle was also the way in to the career she never knew she always wanted. 

Georgia’s Money Story:

Georgia Lee Hussey:
Well, thank you so much. It's fun to be able to talk about money stories, my favorite topic.

Bobbi Rebell:
let's get into that now. It has to do with your first real estate purchase, you were just 27 years old. Tell us your money story.

Georgia Lee Hussey:
Sure. So, when I moved back to Portland from New York, I thought, well, I want to move back and I want to buy a house because everybody I know is buying houses. And they were telling me how it easy it was and how great it was and how much the values of the houses were going up. And it seemed too good to be true, and as we know, things that are too good to be true often are.

Georgia Lee Hussey:
And so I qualified for a mortgage ... You'll love this. I had a five 50 credit score, I had no money down and I had two loans. So I had one loan that I had a seven and a half percent fixed rate and then a second loan at an 11 and a half percent adjustable rate. And I literally did not know what any of that meant. So the process of buying this home as a single person and trying to figure out how to make the cash flow for that work when I was working basically a high-end sales job with irregular income, was quite an awakening to what it meant to be a financial grownup.

Bobbi Rebell:
When you were getting this loan, did the loan salesperson, for lack of a better word, did they explain any of this to you?

Georgia Lee Hussey:
You know, they may have, but it was such a blur because everything was new. I didn't know what any of the terms really meant. I'd never been around somebody who bought a house before. And I'm a pretty smart person and savvy, but not in the world of finance. So they may have explained it to me, but I was surprised two years later when I was trying to figure out what to do with the house and that I was going to have an adjustable rate. I literally didn't understand that about-

Bobbi Rebell:
How long was it before it adjusted?

Georgia Lee Hussey:
I think I had ... It was a three year ARM.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's short. Wow.

Georgia Lee Hussey:
Ugh, God. As a CFP it just makes me cringe inside to think about that. Although I was very lucky, thanks to a lot of privilege to be able to get out of that house.

Bobbi Rebell:
So how did it play out? So you're in this house, it becomes pretty clear that with your irregular income from a sales job, this is not sustainable. What happens?

Georgia Lee Hussey:
Sure. So I did all the scrappy, punk rock, arty things that I had always done. I got renters, I rented my garage, I rented the extra bedrooms, I did work trade with people to paint it. And I was working in modern interior design, that's how I leveraged my sculpture background. And so I can make it look really good. So I was really leveraging the resources in my community, in my friend group to be able to do that.

Georgia Lee Hussey:
But as I was realizing the extent of the problem of not understanding how to budget really, because nobody I'd ever been around had budgeted. I started learning everything I could from basically personal finance blogs, which were the equivalent of personal finance podcasts in the early [inaudible 00:06:11]. And I realized how much structural ignorance I had about how money operated and how mortgages worked and how taxes worked. And so I just started teaching myself everything I could. And talking to my friends about it, because I was really surprised by how little I understood. And then I started talking with my friends and they were really ashamed that they didn't know either.

Georgia Lee Hussey:
And that's really what struck me, was that these incredibly intelligent, successful creatives were as dumbfounded as I was by money. And I realized that nobody had taught us anything about money. And I think that's pretty intersectional. A lot of my friends were female, a lot of my friends were queer, a lot of my friends were creatives or artists of one kind or another. And all of us in our individual groups, has been disenfranchised from the world of wealth and wealth accumulation for a variety of reasons and a variety of money stories.

Georgia Lee Hussey:
And so that really is what lit the fire under me to become a CFP, because I realized there were so many people who were being excluded from the financial world of stability and safety. And so I realized there had to be some job that did this. I was looking for a career change anyway, and I really loved the analytical element of money and the creativity of problem solving, which ... It's basically, my joke is that financial planning is exactly the same as installation sculpture, but it's just instead of using money, you're using clementines or glass or whatever your medium of choices.

Bobbi Rebell:
So wait, what happened with the house?

Georgia Lee Hussey:
So, I had the house for three years, that was when I was starting to learn about the personal residency exclusion.

Bobbi Rebell:
What does that mean?

Georgia Lee Hussey:
Yeah, so if you own a house and it's your personal residence and you sell it and you've lived in it, you are able to not have to take the gains on the sale. So there's a $250,000 exclusion. That was not going to be a problem that I had, I think I had a $10,000 gain on the house. It wasn't going to be a big deal. But if you don't live in the house at the sale, you have a certain period of time that the IRS can look back and tax you on the gain.

Georgia Lee Hussey:
So I was renting the house, because I had moved in with my partner at that point and I realized that I sort of had a ... I had a moment where I had to either sell it or commit to renting it for the longterm. And I think that was really my first opportunity to analyze an investment and make a decision on whether this was a good choice to sell or hold. I ultimately decided that I wanted to sell because I did not like owning real estate, too much time and energy required to maintain it.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you sold it at a slight profit?

Georgia Lee Hussey:
A tiny profit. But really if you look at how much money and energy I put into that house, it was basically a forced savings account with a very high rent.

“I realized how much structural ignorance I had about how money operated and how mortgages worked and how taxes worked and so I just started teaching myself everything I could.”

Georgia’s Money Lesson:

Georgia Lee Hussey:
Well, I think there's a couple. One is that self-efficacy is a skill that we built. I didn't know anything about money, but I was able to access information about money and how to build my own self-efficacy around this new skill set. So that's one thing. I would also say that identifying your money story is essential. Because when I was at the beginning of my journey, I was learning a lot of new skills around budgeting and money management. But until I paired that with the work I was doing in therapy around behavior change and personal awareness, I couldn't utilize those tools and structures very well. I wasn't utilizing them. I knew them, but I couldn't implement it. It's like a doctor saying, "You need to lose weight." And that's the only tool that we're given.

Georgia Lee Hussey:
And money is so emotional now, there's plenty of research now showing that all of our decisions are emotional and we just make them seem rational and logical. So once I understood that I had been told I couldn't be good with money as a creative and as a woman, I had been told that budgeting was dumb or not cool, that there were all these layers of money stories. Once I identified those and could pick them apart a bit, it was much easier for me to step into these structures with a sense of personal awareness and clarity about how they were going to serve me, and how they were going to help me change that story going forward.

“What struck me was that these incredibly intelligent successful creatives were as dumbfounded as I was by money. And I realized that nobody had taught us anything about money.”

Georgia’s Money Tip:

Georgia Lee Hussey:
There's a series of questions we ask our clients, and I would highly recommend asking your friends and family because we're heading into the holiday season. It's a great opportunity to have some more substantial conversations about what's important to us and what we value in the various relationship circles we live in.

Georgia Lee Hussey:
So one thing that I think is an interesting question is, what did your mother teach you about money? What did your father teach you about money? Often there are not explicit lessons, like sitting down and having the talk. But there are usually things we gather from watching the world around us, and they're usually different for each parent or guardian that we have in our life. And then I think it's really interesting to ask our parents, "What did your mom and your dad teach you?" And what do you think their moms and dads taught them.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that part of it, because we often just relate to our own generation and one up, but if we have the opportunity, if we are with our parents and the older generations, ask them what they learned from their ancestors. Because we rarely get that and I know we don't have time to get into it now, but people can follow up and read in all the places you're interviewed, and I'll leave some links in our show notes, but you have a very interesting multigenerational story about money that really formed who you are today.

“Identifying your money story is essential.”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Don't sign anything you don't understand, even if all the cool kids are doing it. Georgia's friends were buying homes and I'll bet most of them were just as clueless about what they were signing. No excuses, ask questions, read the documents. For those of you guys who have not been at a real estate closing, you write checks and everyone else leaves with checks that they cash. You are paying these people, make them explain everything. Don't let them rush you. You're the one who is paying, you are the one who is on the hook. I have not done this all the time, I have signed documents I have not known. You know what? I now know better, so I'm passing that knowledge onto you. Take the time, no matter how long it takes.

Financial grownup tip number two:

Speaking of friends, Georgia's decision to buy a home was influenced by her friends, who truly meant well. But beware of well-intentioned, pure influence, kind of a cousin to peer pressure. Your friends most likely don't know your actual full financial picture, including your goals, and you don't have to share it with them. When they encourage you to, for example, treat yourself to whatever, especially this holiday season, they mean well but they aren't paying. Thank them for their advice and support and just say you'll think about it to deflect any persistence.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Georgia’s website - modernistfinancial.com

Follow Georgia + Modernist Financial!

• Instagram - @modernistfinancial

• Facebook

• LinkedIn - @georgialeehussey

• LinkedIn - @modernist-financial

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Black Friday can be a great time to kick off your holiday shopping and maximize your budget. Family Finance expert Andrea Woroch joins us with her best tips and favorite apps to get it down like a grownup. 

11 tips and tricks for Black Friday shopping

1. Derivative goods.

2. Misleading discount claims.

3. Sale price isn’t always the best price.

4. Save more with discount gift cards.

5. Some retailers promising best deals on Black Friday.

6. Beware of bundle deals and rebates.

7. Think about your impulse purchasing triggers.

8. Avoid extended warranty.

9. Watch out for fees.

10. What to buy, what to skip.

11. How to shop safely.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Andrea’s website - andreaworoch.com

• Parabis - The website where you can find out if stores owe you a refund - https://paribus.co

Follow Andrea!

• Instagram - @andreaworoch

• Facebook - @AndreaWoroch

• Twitter - @andreaworoch

• LinkedIn - @andreaworoch

• Pinterest - @andreaworoch

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Entrepreneur and author Teneshia Warner shares a childhood story of being paid less because she was female, and being told that it would always be that way- by her own grandmother. Teneshia also shares her advice on how to handle the dream bullies and previews her new book.

Teneshia’s Money Story:

Teneshia Warner:
All right, so The Big Stretch, I am thrilled about my second book. As you just mentioned, I'm the founder of The Dream Project, and I was able to take a lot of the key learnings from speaking to over 180,000 dreamers, iconic dreamers, as well as my own story, and put it in a book format of a 12 week dreamers bootcamp.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I can tell you the book literally lays it out in very easy to follow steps and there's a lot of accountability in the book. We're going to get to that soon, but I don't want to hesitate to get to your money story, because this is kind of an epic story. There's a big twist, it has to do with your great grandmother and a lesson she taught you. But the lesson she taught you was not the one that she intended to teach you. Go for it.

Teneshia Warner:
All right, so my money story, it actually dates back until I was a young kid. I was in the third grade, so think I'm eight or nine. I had an idea that I wanted to work the summer over at my great grandmother's farm. She owned a farm with hundreds of acres of land. And my uncle, who was also very younger, he's only five years older than me, I went to him, and his name was Gerald. I said, "Gerald, I have an idea. I think I can convince our grandma, [Osi 00:03:43], to allow us to work the farm and pay us versus pay other people."

Teneshia Warner:
So he was down for it. And I went over to my grandmother and I pitched her on this concept. You should keep the money in the family, let Gerald and I work for you this summer. And so I landed us a job, Bobbi. And we were working the farm. We would get to work around 4:30 AM. I would go with my grandmother and Gerald would go with my great grandfather. And for my great grandmother, we would go and get eggs out of the chicken coop, we would clean the porches, we would pick fresh vegetables, we had to cook dinner. I mean it was a long, long day. And then as for Gerald, he was doing things in the field like picking corn, all types of hard labor things.

Bobbi Rebell::
But you're both working.

Teneshia Warner:
We both are not only working, we are working hard. At the end of the day we're exhausted.

Bobbi Rebell::
So then comes payday.

Teneshia Warner:
Yes. So we do this for about two weeks and payday comes. Prior to this, I didn't negotiate how much she was going to pay us, I was just happy to have a summer job. And so she gave us these envelopes, and I didn't want to be rude and open it in front of her.

Teneshia Warner:
So we got in the car and we went back home. And we open our envelopes. So Gerald tore his envelope open and out comes this money that's folding. And then I tear my envelope open, and coins drop out.

Teneshia Warner:
And so I'm looking, and I'm like, wait a minute, something's wrong here. Where's my money? There was no money, there was not folding money in there. And so I went to my mom and I said, "I need you to take me back over to my great grandmother, Osi's house."

Teneshia Warner:
So she took me back and I said, "Hey you, you must have made a mistake because I don't have any folding dollars and I only have coins, so you didn't pay me the right amount." And we kind of went back and forth. She told me she was very clear on the amount that she paid me. And I kept pushing, pushing.

Teneshia Warner:
And then finally she said, "You know what, Neshia." She called me Neshia. "I'm not going to pay you the same amount that I paid Gerald, because the world is not going to do that." She said, "No matter what, girls do not make what boys make, and I'm not going to start doing that." Yes. So it really pierced my heart.

Bobbi Rebell:
And this was a statement, not a discussion.

Teneshia Warner:
This was a statement, yes. It was like, the end. And so I was really, really courageous with what I did next, Bobbi. I put my hands on my hip, I looked at her in the eyes and I said, "If you're not going to pay me what you pay Gerald, I need you to know I quit." And I took off running because she definitely believed in the rod and she would have spanked me, but it was worth it for me to stand up for myself.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what did Gerald say?

Teneshia Warner:
So my dearest Gerald. Gerald felt sorry for me. However, Gerald continued to work and collected that check for the rest of the summer.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. And that folded money. And what did your mom say? And did you have any further discussions as you got older about this with any of the people involved?

Teneshia Warner:
So my mom, she's just awesome. I told her how I felt, and she told me that I did not have to go back and work there, that if I really wanted to quit, that I could. Hindsight looking back, I realized she really wanted to teach me a lesson, and she knew that that was going to give me an experience to stand up for myself and to actually demand my value, which leads me to, that's why it's my money story because one of my biggest lessons I took away from that, and that's, it's okay to demand your value and stand by that.

Bobbi Rebell:
And the amazing thing is, that was not the lesson that your great grandmother was teaching you.

Teneshia Warner:
Absolutely not.

Bobbi Rebell:
She is from a different era, and we love our grandmas, but that was not the lesson that we want to teach people today. What is your lesson for our listeners from that story?

“It’s ok to demand your value and stand by that.”

Teneshia’s Money Lesson:

Teneshia Warner:
So my lesson for your listeners is, if you are a small business owner, and or, if you're working in corporate America, there comes a time that you have to be extremely comfortable with what you bring to the table and the value that's associated with that, and willing to negotiate based on that value, and not compromising that.

Bobbi Rebell:
One thing in the book that I've asked you to talk about as your money tip, your everyday money tip is, how to do a dream detox specifically. If there are people in your life that are what you call a dream bullies, what do you do specifically to get rid of those people? Do you just ghost them? What do you do?

“When you have a dream and you have a big idea, it is important that you safeguard your dream.”

Teneshia’s Money Tip:

Bobbi Rebell:
One thing in the book that I've asked you to talk about as your money tip, your everyday money tip is, how to do a dream detox specifically. If there are people in your life that are what you call a dream bullies, what do you do specifically to get rid of those people? Do you just ghost them? What do you do?

Teneshia Warner:
Well, I definitely wouldn't say ghost them. Well, first, I think it's very important to know that when you have a dream, and you have a big idea, especially when you really originally get that idea, it's important that you safeguard your dream. So you have to become aware of who is in your circle.

Teneshia Warner:
Do you have a circle of dream champions? Champions reflect back to you the best of who you're becoming, they're going to reflect back to you the possibility that this dream can become a reality. And or, you have dream bullies. And dream bullies are those that are within our circle that potentially just cannot see the vision that you've been given for that dream. Sometimes your dream bully can be the people that are the closest to you, that actually love you the most, and they will actually try to protect you as you stretch to become more uncomfortable and to step outside of that comfort zone, you will find that you start to disrupt the comfort zone of sometimes the people that are really close to you.

Teneshia Warner:
Those individuals can sometimes want to protect you. Instead, they're becoming a dream bully. They're working against your vision. So for me, my best friend in the whole world is my grandmother. Not my great grandmother, but my grandmother. Her name is [Noretha Hearns and 00:09:24], and she is the biggest dream bully I've ever encountered.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my goodness.

Teneshia Warner:
And so I've had to learn, when I have a big idea, and I have a concept, I don't share those visions with my grandmother because she's not going to support me in having them turn out. So for the listeners, how do you do a dream detox and how do you protect yourself from the bullies? Well, number one, first you need to identify who they are. Second, you need to alter your conversations accordingly. That's not the place to go and share your next big idea, that's not the place you call where you want to know, do I continue to go or do I stop?

Teneshia Warner:
And so it's not about cutting out dream bullies completely out of your life. I don't want you sort of ghosting everybody and then saying Teneshia and Bobbi told you to tell everybody peace out. No, that's not what we're saying. However, I will say it's about becoming conscious, and aware, and protecting your ideas and your dreams accordingly. And it may mean altering your relationships with the person, especially as you're in a season of birthing a new dream. You may not find yourself hanging out with the old best friend where you know you guys used to gossip, or you weren't doing anything productive. Maybe that's not the person that you will be spending the majority of your time with in this new season of bringing your dream to reality.

Teneshia Warner:
One of the things that you talk about in your book also is doing a time audit. Absolutely. And, Bobbi, you and I were just talking. You talked about the fact that your book was in Cosmo, or in these business magazines. It wasn't that it just appeared there, but you did a lot of hard work. And so the hard work that goes into where you invested your time. So when you have this idea and this dream, you need to also do a time audit to say what time can you get back, and work that time for you and your dream.

“Your big idea and your dream, I can 100% bet it is not going to dwell within the zip code of your comfort zone. You are going to have to stretch beyond that, and it is probably going to take some radical action.”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Bobbi Rebell:
I totally related to tenacious experiences with dream bullies. I probably had more bullies, as she calls it, than supporters when I announced, a few years ago, that I was going to write a book with candid and personal money stories from super successful people while working full time in media, with three kids and a husband, and of course a dog.

Bobbi Rebell:
People were not only skeptical, some made really hurtful comments, and I know there was chatter behind my back at work. It was pretty bad. They really thought I would never pull it off. I had some supporters, don't get me wrong, but I wish I had Teneshia in my corner back then. But she's right, sometimes it's better to just not share your plans with them early on, especially if you kind of know they're not going to be supportive.

Financial grownup tip number two:

Do a time audit, kind of like those weight loss diaries where if you're write it down, you see what's going on, and that act in and of itself will change your behavior, and you'll have a better focus and be able to better allocate your time. You become more accountable. Don't necessarily though, share it with those dream bullies.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Teneshia’s website - egamigroup.com

• Teneshia’s new book The Big Stretch

Follow Teneshia!

• Instagram - @teneshiajwarner

• Facebook - @teneshiajwarner

• Twitter - @teneshiajwarner

• LinkedIn - @teneshiajackson

• Pinterest - @dreamcreative

Follow Egami Group!

• Instagram - @egamigroup

• Facebook - @EgamiConsulting

• Twitter - @egamigroup

• LinkedIn - @egami-consulting-group

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Bobbi reveals her favorite new money related books for financial grownups, and how to decide if they are right for you. This month’s picks include Becoming Super Woman: A Simple 12-Step Plan to Go from Burnout to Balance by Nicole Lapin. Money for the Rest of Us: 10 Questions to Master Successful Investing by David Stein, and Pay off Your Debt for Good: 21 Days to Change Your Relationship with Money & Improve Your Sending Habits So You Can Get Out of Debt Fast by Jen Smith.  

Book #1: Becoming Super Woman: A Simple 12-Step Plan to Go from Burnout to Balance by Nicole Lapin

Here’s what I liked about it: 

-If you look at Nicole’s social media and the content she puts out- she looks like the total perfect person you and I will never be. This book gets real about what’s going on behind the scenes. It's a book about burnout from someone who not only has been totally burned out, but who admitted to being so burned out while writing the book about burnout that she delayed the books release. 

-while there is definitely the familiar take care of yourself vibe, Nicole gives extremely specific things you can do - including worksheets and exercises, to actually fix the problems and streamline your life. And some are super easy to do - but we just don’t seem to think of doing them- at least I don’t. Things as simple as deleting apps that waste time. Why not, It’s not like they won’t have you back. Remove the temptation. There’s a ton of simple obvious but not obvious stuff that will literally make you feel a weight off your shoulders. 

-She flips the switch on a lot of things we buy into. For example: don’t just have a to do list- have a done list so you can appreciate your progress. And I loved this Mark Twain quote she included- “never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” Because seriously, the world will not end if you don’t do it all. 

Who is this book for? 

Besides this being an excellent book for you if you are feeling burned out- It’s also a book that your hyper over achievers friends could probably use- on the outside, but who you worry don’t know when to stop themselves. Rather than a direct intervention- gifting a book can be a subtle hint that you are worried they aren’t taking enough care of themselves. So on that note a great holiday gift book. 

Book #2: Money for the Rest of Us: 10 Questions to Master Successful Investing by David Stein

Here’s what I liked about the book: 

-David is a natural teacher but his style is inviting and accepting. He doesn’t keep it super simple- but he invites you to re-read chapters when the material is dense. This is not a page turner, and not a book you can read while multi-tasking- and because of that you will learn a lot from it. Stein will literally make you smarter. 

-The book speaks to all levels of investing- it is simple enough for beginners- who are willing to really focus. But the concepts are sometimes sophisticated which is something many mainstream books are lacking.

-David makes great use of storytelling, which can help bring complicated concepts to life and resonate with readers. 

Who is this book for? 

The book largely summarizes a lot of the concepts that fans of his podcast are already familiar with- but the written format and the way it is organized adds a new dimension.  

David is just really good at taking complicated topics and making making them accessible. A lot of books out there rehash the same lessons we’ve all heard- this book simply operates at a higher level, and the reader will literally know more about investing and be able to apply those lessons to their long term financial plans.  

Book #3: Pay off Your Debt for Good: 21 Days to Change Your Relationship with Money & Improve Your Sending Habits So You Can Get Out of Debt Fast by Jen Smith.

Here’s what I liked about it: 

-The focus of the book is on habits. There’s no quick fix here but there are proven strategies that are realistic. 

-Jen is sunshine on a cloudy day. Jen has a positivity about her that shines in her writing and can really motivate people in what is really an often depressing situation. Jen has herself paid off a mountain of debt 78-thousand dollars in jus 23 months- so she doesn’t judge- and her experience and empathy come through 

-This book is part of an ecosystem so there is complimentary support everywhere you turn, from the blog, to the email newsletter you can sign up for and of course the podcast. You feel like you are part of a community with a great cheerleader. 

Who is this book right for:

This is a book that is designed to solve a problem: debt. So if you have debt, this is for you. 

If you are part of the debt free community- or are working on what has come to be known as the FIRE movement- that stands for Financial Independence Retire Early- you are 100% the target audience here and you will love this book. That said, who can’t benefit from some no bs talk about getting rid of debt- or making sure you don’t get into debt. 

Episode Links:

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Nicole Lapin’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Becoming Super Woman: A Simple 12-Step Plan to Go from Burnout to Balance

David Stein’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Money for the Rest of Us: 10 Questions to Master Successful Investing

Jen Smith’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Pay off Your Debt for Good: 21 Days to Change Your Relationship with Money & Improve Your Sending Habits So You Can Get Out of Debt Fast

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Sometimes the best career role models are your first ones. For Ellevate Network CEO Kristy Wallace unfiltered advice from waitresses at a summer job she started as a teen still ring true. Plus her money tip that will instantly save us all cash and extra pounds this holiday season. 

Kristy’s Money Story:

Kristy Wallace:
Yeah, it was really interesting. I grew up in this tiny town in New Jersey, called Sea Isle City, and my sister and I worked at this Italian restaurant Bono's and we were teenagers when we did this. We worked there for years every summer, but all of the other waitresses were older. They were oftentimes already in college or many of them were teachers and this was their summer job when school was out. And they really helped instill in us values and perspective when it came to the work we were doing. Waitressing is so interesting because you get tips, you walk out of the door with cash every night and you can easily, especially if you're a young teenager want to go spend that money. But we saw from the teachers how much they saved that money. They worked really hard to get the tips. To keep track of that money and then saved it because that was what was helping to pay their bills and helping them during the school year.

Bobbi Rebell:
Were you tempted when you first started waitressing to just go out and spend the money?

Kristy Wallace:
Of course, of course. And especially I think when new have new driving cars. And so we wanted to go to the mall and buy things and just always going to Wawa, which was this convenience store there and buying drinks and sandwiches. I mean, it's so easy to just throw money away. And the advice that these other waitresses gave us around saving that money and using it more meaningfully. It really stood out. It stood out to me and it continues to stand out to me today because I think oftentimes it's, particularly now with credit cards and you just put your card down and buy, buy, buy and then suddenly you get the bill and it's wide eyes, sticker shock.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did the conversations start? I mean you guys were the new kids there, did they just see what was going on that you were spending your money? What happened?

Kristy Wallace:
I think the conversation started earlier in the season when things were a little bit slower and they would be talking about, how much money did you make last night or tonight, things are a bit slow. Here's how much I'm hoping to make this summer. This is why it's important to make X amount of dollars a summer and how it helps with rent or helps pay my bills during these months and into the winter. So they were just with each other very honest and transparent about their expectations for how much money they wanted to make or needed to make, how they were going to use it and spend it. And we're very inclusive of my sister and I in those conversations. So clearly we didn't, we were still living at home, we were younger, we didn't have that perspective. And we I'm sure would say in this kind of some flippant comments like, Oh, we just go out and buy a bunch of stuff.

Kristy Wallace:
That's great. We have cash. And so they definitely sat us down and said, "Listen, waitressing is a great job but you end up with a lot of cash and it can be easy to not keep track of how much you're making and to put it in the bank and to manage it wisely. And you know, just for now, and especially when you're going to college in a few years and you're older, it's really important that you understand how you spend your money and you spend it wisely." A few years later when I was going to college and using the money I made in the summer to pay for my bills and expenses once I was in school, I came out of the gate just, with all the insights I needed to be successful in that budgeting and in that planning.

“Take the extra shifts.. Put in 110%. Understand how your work relates to the money you are making.”

Kristy’s Money Lesson:

Kristy Wallace:
Be mindful of how you spend your money. You really want to understand ways you can save how you spend the money, but then also the impact you personally can have on driving that income, right? And when I was waitressing, something that I learned from the other waitresses was tips are relational to service. So if you have good service and you work hard to be the best at your job, then you get some money or take the extra shifts. There were a number of summers, particularly once I was in college then I didn't take a single day off the entire summer. I worked every day and I loved it because that meant I was making money and I had my little book where I was keeping track of how much I was making and how much I wanted to make.

Kristy Wallace:
So the lesson is just put in 110%, understand how your work relates to the money that you're making, particularly as you get into the workforce into a corporate environment. Really looking at the work that you do, how that ties to the business and the business success, and using that as a motivator for you to do great work, but then also make that extra money and ask for it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Speaking of extra money, you have extra money because of the everyday money tip that you're going to share. Tell us your everyday money tip.

“Do great work but also make that extra money. Ask for it. ”

Kristy’s Money Tip:

Kristy Wallace:
I have three kids at home. They are little kids and every month or week the grocery bills were astronomical. And at the same time I was finding that I was spending a lot of cash every week and I couldn't quite understand why. So I spent a lot of time, I looked at all my budgets, my numbers, and where I was spending money and how I was spending it. I love Excel spreadsheets, so I categorized everything. And realized it was spending not just a lot of money at the grocery store, but a lot of money eating out just during the week. Getting coffee, grabbing breakfast, lunch could easily add up to $20, $30 a day. And when you think about that over five days a week, plus the grocery bills, it really adds up. So I stopped doing that. I stopped eating out. I would bring my breakfast and lunch. My husband and I would make these little egg muffins.

Kristy Wallace:
You make eggs in a muffin tin, so they're easy to just grab and go and make coffee at home. A pound of coffee is $12 versus a $4 cup of coffee when you're out. I love making soups and stews. They're relatively inexpensive to make and they freeze and they last a long time, so I make a big pot every weekend of something and just found it to be not only easy but financially healthy. And healthy for me in terms of the food I was eating.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, and I think the everyday money tip there is actually look at the numbers because this is not something new. It's not something that we haven't all thought of. We all know that we shouldn't be spending so much money out, but it takes a lot to actually sit down and say, "Wait, look at what I'm actually spending," to actually add up the receipts.

Bobbi Rebell:
Especially when your grocery bill was high as well, so you might've thought, well I don't want to spend more money on groceries and if you eat at home in theory you'd be spending more on groceries so it's all going to work out. Not so much. I think you have a great example and making things like soups and stews in batches. I think that's a key thing that you have it ready in advance. It's something that I need to work on more is to actually plan in advance what you're going to be bringing with you when you go out so you're not left scrounging for coffee because you didn't have the coffee machine set the night before. And also maybe have a coffee cup that's portable that you can bring with you because you don't have something to bring in the coffee with you and it's time to go. You're kind of stuck and you're going to buy that coffee on the run.

Kristy Wallace:
Plan ahead, be creative. There's lots of great sites and recipes out there.

Bobbi Rebell:
What's your favorite site?

Kristy Wallace:
I like all recipes actually because it's crowdsourced and so there's kind of some fun things and the comments are really interesting. Food 52 is always great. There's some great bloggers out there. We will sometimes try to eat Paleo or maybe Whole 30, so some really great sites out there with some good modifications to recipes that are really healthy and delicious.

“Plan ahead. Be creative. There’s lot of great sites and recipes out there.”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Let's talk about work ethic and the fact that while it's nice to enjoy your work, we all should. It is also about the money. In fact, if we're being honest, there is nothing wrong with admitting you are showing up because they are paying you money. I love that we're paying attention more these days to things like self-care and "work life" balance and it's about time that matters, but let's not forget Kristy's advice. Take the extra shifts because work is about making money. Not saying we can't all benefit from a little yoga. All that stuff matters too, but paying bills is also a form of wellness. Think of all the reduced stress by having extra cash in the bank. Don't lose sight of that.

Financial grownup tip number two:

Christie talks a lot about meal planning.With the holidays coming up maybe also do some shopping planning. We're just a smidge ahead of black Friday and there's nothing wrong with shopping, but if you plan out ahead of time what you're going to buy, those plans will go a long way to keeping you from buying something not on your list because it's on sale. That's not a good reason. I've fallen into that trap. Trust me, and also don't forget if you do fall into that trap and buy something and you regret it. As I've said before, don't be afraid to return it. You usually can. Problem solved.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Kristy’s website - www.ellevatenetwork.com

• Ellevate’s new peer networking circle Squads

• www.allrecipes.com

• food52.com

Follow Kristy!

• Instagram - @kristyawallace

• Twitter - @kristyawallace

• LinkedIn

Follow Ellevate Network!

• Instagram - @Ellevate_Ntwk

• Facebook - @EllevateNetwork

• Twitter - @EllevateNtwk

• Pinterest - @ellevatenetwork

• LinkedIn

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Just in time for the holidays, Jen Smith, co-host of the Frugal Friends podcast and the author of the new book "Pay Off Your Debt For Good" joins us with her spending strategies so we can all shop like Financial Grownups.

3 strategies to spend money like a Financial Grownup

1. Focus on your habits

2. Figure out what you value

3. Let go of guilt and shame

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Jen’s Website - www.modernfrugality.com

• Jen’s podcast The Frugal Friends Podcast

• Jen’s new book - Pay Off Your Debt For Good

Follow Jen!

• Instagram - @modernfrugality

• Facebook - @modernfrugality

• Twitter - @modernfrugality

• Pinterest - @modernfrugality

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Money coach Whitney Hansen, who hosts the Money Nerds podcast, reveals how the pain of poverty and family instability almost led her to a tragic decision as a teenager. We also discuss how the challenges of true financial struggle can impact a family and inform priorities as an adult. 

Whitney’s Money Story:

Whitney Hansen:
I still get choked up about this too, even to this day. But it was a really tough time in my life because my parents were going through this divorce and they were married for a long time, six kids, so they had a really great life together. But my dad started a business and that business led to unhealthy habits. So he had really, I guess some issues with boundaries. It was a 365, 24/7 business. And so he turned to-

Bobbi Rebell:
What was the business?

Whitney Hansen:
Pallet distributing.

Bobbi Rebell:
What's that?

Whitney Hansen:
Pallets, you always see him on Pinterest when people make like coffee tables and furniture and stuff from them, but it's what carries goods across the country in semi-trucks. So it's the wooden like crates almost. That's what his business was, was fixing those up and selling them.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. And so had he had that business before your parents got divorced or was it a new thing, so that was another change?

Whitney Hansen:
So it was before they officially got divorced. He started the business probably about 10 years before they officially divorced. And so it was just a really consuming business. He was terrible at delegating, could not find the right type of help. So instead of trusting people, he put all of that pressure on himself. And that led to having to take pallet calls at like two in the morning sometimes. It was just a nightmare. It really was.

Bobbi Rebell:
So then something happened with a mattress?

Whitney Hansen:
Yeah, so with the mattress, after they divorced, my mom moved up to Boise and truly she left that relationship for her life. The abuse was getting so bad and it was just a terrible situation. And so she moved up to Boise making $7.25 an hour at a hobby and craft store and trying to support six kids in this little two bedroom apartment. And we were so broke, Bobbi, like we were broke. We didn't have any money at all, so we were sleeping on the floor.

Whitney Hansen:
My mom and I, one day we were walking and we found a mattress in the garbage can. So we went home, we grabbed her car, threw this on the top of the car. It's really that ridiculous. We both like had our hands out the window holding the mattress down and we took it home. But we were so freaking excited because for our family, that meant we didn't have to sleep on the floor. And it was such a sad moment, but such a powerful one. I was 16 and I will never forget that. It taught me my first personal finance lesson.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us more about that.

Whitney Hansen:
Well, I started to really reflect on that and what I learned is that there's really a difference between a want and a need. A lot of times we say that we need something. Oh I need to get this new shirt, I need to get this new mattress, I need to get whatever it is.

Whitney Hansen:
But there's a huge difference between what we truly want and what we truly need. So I always carried that with me throughout my entire adulthood and my being a grownup. I mean that's something that I've always looked at, is this truly a want, Whitney, or is this a need? Of course it's like giving yourself permission to buy what you want on occasion, but always putting that in that perspective.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us more about that time of your life. I mean, how did you survive? How did you get other things? Were you able to get it through people that were helpful to you? You were you working as a 16 year old?

Whitney Hansen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, so that's the sad thing. When you come from a really poor, poverty type situation, the families all working together to support everybody. So I had my own job. I had a job when I was actually 14 is when I officially started working. But I bought the family car when I was 16. My mom took out a loan, I made the payment, and I paid for the car insurance. That's just the way we did it.

Whitney Hansen:
We had a ton of help. Our church was super great. They were really helpful from that perspective as well. But I didn't deal with it well. I've actually never shared this publicly, but when I was 16 I was hospitalized for suicide.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my goodness.

Whitney Hansen:
Yeah, it was a terrible time. It really was not great. But what I started learning from all of this stuff was that when you have control over your money, you have options, and that's what I decided when I was 16, I was never going to be stuck in a really crappy situation because of money. I knew that was something I always wanted to have control over.

Bobbi Rebell:
What kind of conversations were you having with your mom? Because at 16 you're not that young. You know what's up.

Whitney Hansen:
Yeah, yeah. No, I definitely did know what was up. One of the biggest conversations that she shared with me was the importance of education. That was the one thing she had regretted her entire life. Her family did pretty well. Her parents died when she was really young. They did well enough that they left her some money for college, but she blew through it all with my dad. They just were very financially irresponsible. So that was one of the big conversations was Whitney, you need to get an education. You need to make sure you can take care of yourself no matter what. So that was always the focus of the conversation when I was a kid.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where were you in the sibling order? What were your other siblings doing at this time in your life?

Whitney Hansen:
Second oldest. My oldest sister, she had quite a rough childhood herself, of course. She ended up moving out of the house officially when she was 16. She moved in with her boyfriend at that time. She has four kids now, so she's doing super great. But she was running her own family. She got pregnant when she was 17 in high school.

“When you have control over your money you have options. ”

Whitney’s Money Lesson:

Whitney Hansen:
I think the biggest lesson is how much control you have when you have money. When you have that money instead of just immediately blowing it on stuff that we don't really need, if you start to prioritize your own financial responsibility, and as a woman especially, you have to be able to take care of yourself in some capacity.

Whitney Hansen:
Now that's not saying don't be a stay at home mom if that's your dream, do it. But make sure that you have some skills that you can fall back on. I think that's one of the biggest lessons I can impart for people is just make sure you can take care of yourself, whether it's divorce or death or disease, we don't know what's going to happen in life with our partners, so you have to be able to really financially take care of yourself and be a grownup.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's so impactful what you're saying and really hits home with so many people because we don't know it. It may be something like a divorce, but also sometimes people become injured. Your partner may lose their job. There can be a lot of unintended things that happen and things that you can't possibly plan for, but you have to always be able to have an income stream, even if you take it up and down at different points in your life. Having that ability and the education to do that is really important.

“Make sure you can take care of yourself..we don’t know what is going in life with our partners so you have to really be able to take care of yourself financially and really be a grownup.”

Whitney’s Money Tip:

Whitney Hansen:
Oh, I love this. This is such a nerdy one, but it works wonders. My favorite tip in the world is for any person that's trying to better their financial life and doesn't quite know where their money's going, to print off your past 30 days of your bank statement and or your credit card statement anymore, we have Venmo as well, that all counts. Print those off, have those sitting in front of you and then assign three different categories that you tend to overspend on. So for me it's eating out, it's coffee, and it's Amazon. Amazon's the worst for me. So I will print off those statements, I'll write those at the top, and I will literally go line by line and highlight each of the different transactions as a specific color to make sure that I am looking at every single transaction.

Whitney Hansen:
It works like crazy because you have to highlight those transactions and you have to remember I'm the one that swiped my card this many times. This is on me. I think it's so much more personal than just like a roll up thing. I love apps and software. I think they're amazing, but when it's just a roll up number, it's not the same as when you actually have to physically highlight those things. It really does trigger a lot of changes in your financial life.

Bobbi Rebell:
Give us an example of something, especially when you first started doing this, that you noticed that you were surprised by.

Whitney Hansen:
For me, I've always been pretty frugal because of my background, but what I can tell you is I did this in a group with a bunch of college students, actually. We were doing this exercise and one guy kind of looked up and he had this deer in the headlights look. He was all white, and I'm not a nurse, but I'm like "Dude, are you all right? Do you need to get out of here? What's going on?" And he's like "Well, I just finally realized how much I spent on eating out." I'm like "Okay, cool. Well, how much should you spend?"

Whitney Hansen:
"I spent $400."

Whitney Hansen:
Now I think you and I get that that's not necessarily good or bad, it's all a proportion of your income. But he told me his income was $800 per month.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh no.

Whitney Hansen:
I was like "Well, homie, I think 50% going directly towards eating out is probably not great." But he had no idea because he was just mindlessly spending and not even paying attention. I think it's really normal.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, a lot of us don't know. What about for you personally, what have you noticed?

Whitney Hansen:
For what I've noticed, this is really interesting, whenever I feel insecure or not so great about myself or I'm like dealing with some self esteem issues or whatever it might be, I'm not feeling as confident, I tend to spend more money on clothes and things that I don't need. I see this in my spending. If I'm having a crap week where I'm just not feeling great about myself, I don't feel like I'm cute enough. I don't feel like I'm skinny enough, whatever the heck it might be, I see that in my spending. So for me, I have to really pay attention to that and just monitor my spending to make sure if I do have a bad week, I'm not actually just blowing money because I'm not feeling super great about myself.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, and what's good about that is with things like clothing, everybody, you can return it.

Whitney Hansen:
Yes, you can.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you haven't taken the tags off or anything.

Whitney Hansen:
That's right.

Bobbi Rebell:
So don't wear it. So versus like going out and eating, like the gentleman you were talking about, that can be at least corrected, right?

Whitney Hansen:
Absolutely. I think that awareness is key. So when you do this exercise, you're going to get that awareness. Then you can start to say, am I okay with these charges? Or if you want to fix it, you can. I think that's the beautiful thing.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that. Let's talk more about The Money Nerds Podcast, because this is one of my go to's. I love it that it's three days a week and you do different things. So you do Mondays, you talk about just kind of what you like. Then another day you have your sort of normal format where you do interviews, and then Fridays are always these five tips that are things you can really do in your life right away.

“Whenever I feel insecure.. I tend to spend more money on clothes and things I don’t need.”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

If your financial problems are weighing on you mentally, you must get help. Please find the right professional. You are not alone. We've all been there and there are many organizations out there that can work with your budget, even if that budget is zero. Many employers also offer mental health counseling that is often a free benefits.

Financial grownup tip number two:

We talk a lot about apps and online resources for your finances on this show, and yes, there are a lot of resources also for mental health online. I'm going to give you links to some articles in the show notes that list options, but here are some that stand out that are pretty popular. One is Talkspace. Another one is BetterHelp, and then 7 Cups of Tea, which is more of a peer to peer resource where someone, maybe like you, can just be someone to listen to you and hear what's going on in your life. I want to caution you guys. I have no affiliation with any of these and I have not vetted them directly myself, but they are places to start and do your own homework.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Whitney’s website - www.whitneyhansen.com/

• Whitney’s podcast - The Money Nerds

Follow Whitney!

• Instagram - @whitney_hansen_co

• Facebook - @WhitneyHansenCo

• Twitter - @whitneyhansenco

• YouTube - @thewhitneyhansen

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

The gig economy is not going away anytime soon and that means we have a big challenge because a lot of us dong’ get steady paychecks. Freelance writer and personal finance expert Zina Kumok of ConsciousCoins.com shares her success strategies and more.

5 Ways to Manage Unsteady Income

• Make sure to have an Emergency Fund

• Find the minimum amount you need to earn a month

• Having extra money

• Diversification

• Increase your rates on a regular basis

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Zina’s Website - www.consciouscoins.com

Follow Zina!

• Instagram - @zinakumok

• Facebook - @consciouscoins

• Twitter - @zinakumok

• Pinterest - @zinakumok

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Journalist and author Nicole Lapin shares a hilarious story of how a lack of preparation almost led to total humiliation.  Plus why procrastination can be a good thing for financial grownups.

Nicole’s Money Story:

Nicole Lapin:
Yeah. I started as a business reporter on the floor of the Chicago Merc when I was 18 years old, and when I was asked if I knew anything about money news or business news, I totally lied, and I faked it till I made it. And then I had to become real, because I found that money is just a language like anything else, and I could not speak that language. So I was going to interview the founders of a tech company at the time and my boss, who was awesome, said to me as I ran out the door, and I would always carry like a big diaper bag, almost combat ready with all sorts of stuff, like a poncho just in case, from my time in actual general news, I didn't know what would happen. I was combat ready. And he was like, "Do you have the P&L?" You know, a lot of people call me NL or Lapin for short.

Nicole Lapin:
And I was like, "No dude, I'm good. I don't need to pee." And I get to the interview and the PR person was like, "Do you have the P&L?" And I'm like, okay, think, Lapin, think. She is not asking you if you need to pee, this must be a money term. I sit down with the founders, and they're like, our profits, as you can see from our P&L, you know, blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, okay, okay, has to do with profits, think, think, think. Profits. L, losses. And I kept saying PnL, like Kibbles 'n Bits, and I didn't even know it was an and. Like, I just was so clueless, and that was a great example of how I had to think about this right on the spot and definitely was not prepared.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, so what happened? How did this play out? Did you have an aha moment in the middle of the interview?

Nicole Lapin:
I had the aha moment, and I knew enough that it had to do with their balance sheet, and so I could sort of dance around it and get through the interview. Then after that I wrote down PnL, like N for Nicole, and then it took me another hot minute to realize there was an and sign. It was like profits and losses.

Bobbi Rebell:
At the time, did you confess to anyone? Did you tell your boss, "I didn't know what that meant," or did you just keep going?

Nicole Lapin:
No, no, no, no, no. I just had super intense imposter syndrome, and I just thought everyone was going to figure out that I didn't know what I was talking about, and I would have never, ever admitted at the time that I couldn't speak this language. I only now can talk about this, very gladly in hindsight. I love making fun of myself with the most embarrassing money stories, but no, definitely not at the time.

“Money is an intimidating language. It’s ok if you can’t speak the language. Just ask what something means.”

Nicole’s Money Lesson:

Nicole Lapin:
I think realizing that money is an intimidating language. We just don't have a Rosetta Stone for this growing up. And it's okay if you can't speak the language. Just ask what something means. I've talked to COs of major publicly traded companies who have asked me like what does [inaudible 00:06:00] mean, for example, like right before we went on the air, and I was like, "Dude, it's just the bond buyback program." Like, no big deal. And they were like, "Yeah, I just didn't know the terminology." And so there's lots of terminology that sounds confusing. If you went to China and you didn't speak Chinese, you'd be confused. If you went to Wall Street and you didn't speak the language of money, you would be confused, too.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I love that you're saying that, because so many of us kind of nod and pretend we understand something and maybe make decisions that we shouldn't make, because we don't want to admit that we don't get it.

Nicole Lapin:
Yeah, totally. And you're definitely not alone. I think a lot of people smile and nod and don't join basic money conversations because they're too intimidated and too scared to admit that they don't know what's going on.

Bobbi Rebell:
So true. And by the way, your website and your books are a tremendous resource for understanding a lot of this stuff.

“I aim for progress and not perfection. If I have more good days than bad days then I am totally winning.”

Nicole’s Money Tip:

Nicole Lapin:
I like to rethink conventional financial wisdom, conventional business wisdom. And yes, you're right. I rewrite financial dictionaries and business dictionaries. I did it in the back of Rich (beep) and Boss (beep). This is maybe why I'm single. But at the end of every chapter in every book, I rethink conventional wisdom to hopefully help you think for yourself. And procrastination is often used as a bad word. It's used as something that you should avoid, but I actually think that you can not fully procrastinate, because it's so cathartic to cross out all the things on your to-do list, like, here we go, dry cleaning, you know, pick up this, blah blah blah blah blah. And actually, those things might not move you towards your goals. So if you remind yourself of what you're working toward and what you have to do and almost connect the dots, I came up with a Super Woman journal that's a companion journal along with Becoming Super Woman to help you do that throughout the day, and I create this point system that's almost like a weight loss sort of system that allows you to give yourself points for things you're focusing on and forgive yourself first if you're not focusing on just the then and there. Because I think we can have it all. We just can't do it all, especially not at the same time.

Bobbi Rebell:
So true. And another thing that I love about the book is you have these really compelling quotes. For example, related to what we were just talking about, you have a quote from Mark Twain, "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow," which makes a lot of sense when you really think about the reasoning behind it.

Nicole Lapin:
Yeah. If you have to pick up your dry cleaning or something, and you need to get something done that will move you toward making your side hustle your full time hustle, I would do that and then get your dry cleaning, unless you really have like nothing, nothing to wear. I would do that later on.

Bobbi Rebell:
Another thing in the book that I love is that you have not just a to-do list, but a have done list.

Nicole Lapin:
Yes. Because, you know, we often get into this mode of we've just not accomplished anything, and we're not doing anything compared to everybody else on Instagram. And I think comparison is the thief of joy, and also we tend to compare ourselves to the best version of each aspect of our lives. So we compare our fitness regime to a fitness blogger who works out five hours a day, or our mommy life to that of a mommy YouTuber who bakes bread for her kids and homeschools them. That's not realistic. And so if we get into that cycle and we don't have the definition of what success is to us, we often feel inadequate. We shouldn't.

Bobbi Rebell:
No, we should not feel inadequate. But one thing that you also work through in the book is you have specific plans for people to organize and get towards those goals in a realistic way, not in a way where you're trying to keep up with somebody, like you were just talking about.

“Comparison is the thief of joy”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

We didn't get to this in the interview, but a lot of Nicole's advice focuses on productivity and avoiding distraction and all the stress that that causes, and of course spending time when you didn't mean to on things. For example, she recommends a browser extension called unroll.me. It's free, and I am now using it. I will leave a link in the show notes. You can always find the show notes by going to bobbirebell.com and then going to the Financial Grownup podcast area. There's also a handy search box in the upper right hand corner, where you can always just type in the guest name or any keyword, but definitely check out unroll.me.

Financial grownup tip number two:

Another one from Nicole's book was to keep emails to five sentences. If it has to be longer than five sentences, then it deserves a phone call. I'm going to start trying that in my workflow. We'll see how it goes, but if you do it, too, let me know how it goes.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Nicole’s website - nicolelapin.com

• Nicole’s book Becoming Super Woman

Follow Nicole!

• Instagram - @nicolelapin

• Facebook - @NicoleLapin

• Twitter - @NicoleLapin

• YouTube - @NicoleLapin

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

6 things you need to know about HSA’s

1. Tax free contributions

2. Grows tax free

3. Qualified medical withdrawals

4. Dental vision and hearing

5. After 65 no penalty for non medial withdrawal

6. Perfect medical nest egg in retirement

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Danielle’s website - boomerbenefits.com

Follow Danielle!

• Instagram - @boomerbenefits

• Facebook - @BoomerBenefits

• Twitter - @boomerbenefits

• LinkedIn - @boomer-benefits

• Pinterest - @boomerbenefits

• YouTube

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Getting a huge salary jump is awesome, but even with a big jump Paychecks & Balances podcast host, Rich Jones had some lessons to learn when his compensation skyrocketed. The entrepreneur behind the Show Starter shares his experiences, and how we can all get not just the best pay but also the best jobs. 

Rich’s Money Story:

Rich Jones:
Yeah, so by day I work at Google. I've been there for over five years. I'm moved to a tech startup called ScrollMotion, and it was the shortest role in my career, I'd only been there for about nine months. I actually got an email from a recruiter at Google and I thought it was spam. Even though my ultimate goal was to move to a big tech company, I kind of had this self-doubt of, "Oh wow, they're reaching out to me. Is this really a real role? Why are they reaching out to me in New York when this position is based in California?"

Rich Jones:
I went through the interview process and it probably took about three to four months, but then ultimately I ended up getting the job. I made the transition from New York City to California. And part of what I realized throughout the process that I think is really important, one is the importance of negotiation. And I learned this more for the role that I had at the tech startup because I won't say how, but I came across how much the person in that role before me made and it was a lot more than I had actually asked for.

Rich Jones:
And part of what I did not consider is that I worked at a nonprofit. Nonprofits typically pay a little bit less and when I saw an increase, I was so focused on one, getting out of that nonprofit because I realized that role wasn't for me, that I had this fear of not wanting to mess up the opportunities. I said, "Hey, this is a pay increase, this is great." Only to get there and find out that I actually could have asked for a lot more.

Rich Jones:
And what I've learned from tech companies like Google and Facebook, they really do try to do right by people, and instead of kind of negotiating people downward, they want to make sure that they bring people in at a fair market rate because they ultimately don't want to lose these people because the cost of hiring and losing someone is so high. Part of what I learned in the process is the importance of negotiation.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell me more about the actual moment you got the job offer. Did they say the number first or did you?

Rich Jones:
They said the number first and it far exceeded the number that I had in mind.

Bobbi Rebell:
Was this a phone conversation? What, where, how is this happening?

Rich Jones:
It was a phone conversation. I was ready to go back and forth and I had my numbers in mind, didn't realize that I was undercutting myself in the process and they made an offer that honestly had me floored. It was a no brainer.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, but did you ask for more?

Rich Jones:
I did not because it far exceeded what I was even looking for and I felt completely comfortable about the offer. The lesson here is having a number in mind and I made sure that I did research when I looked at this role to make sure that I wasn't going to get undercut. When they came back with a number that was far greater than what I had in mind, I could've went back and forth with them. And there are situations where I would say, "Hey, ask for more," but it was so much greater than what I thought it was going to be. Everything else about it made sense that it made sense for me to ultimately accept the role.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did you find out the data about the previous employee that they were making more and about how much more was it, like a percentage-wise? Give me some sort of scale.

Rich Jones:
Oh, it was about 20 to $25,000 more. It was one of those things where I was doing some research in the system for a project and I saw what they were actually making. And I had this Wow! Moment of, "This is not good. I could have asked for a lot more." Part of what I've learned in my current role, especially because I work in staffing or worked in staffing for a number of years, even if I probably had asked for more for the role at Google I probably wouldn't have gotten it. Because I think one of the other mistakes I made is that at the time they would ask you what you were making today, and companies sometime anchor on that. Once we tell them what you're making, they just try to do a percentage increase. One thing I probably would have done differently is not actually share that salary information and just said come back-

Bobbi Rebell:
You shared it before they gave you the offer?

Rich Jones:
I did, I did. I did. And more states now are implementing policies or laws where companies can not ask for salary information specifically for that reason. I actually encourage people, if you're talking to a company and they ask what you're making today, that you not tell them that actual number and see what they come back with. If they come back with a number that's lower or even if it's a number that's right where you want to be, try the approach of, "Hey, I'm super excited about this offer. If we can get to X number, I'll be willing to sign this offer today." And that recruiter is incentivized to go back and see what they can do to ultimately get you that number that they want.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you to take action after getting this information, did you go ask for a raise?

Rich Jones:
No, I did not ask for a raise because for me, my ultimate goal was to move to a company like Google or Facebook and it happened sooner than I expected and that's why I say it caught me off guard and I'm like, "Wow, they're reaching out to me." Because to me it was, "I'll get a couple of years of experience, I'll go and apply. Not this company will find me on LinkedIn because my profile is optimized and then contact me." I'd say over the course of three years, my total compensation increased by 200 to 250%.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Rich Jones:
And while at that-

Bobbi Rebell:
Now wait, let me ask you, was that prompted by you becoming a better negotiator because you now have this information or they're just a generous company and that's kind of what they gave you?

Rich Jones:
I think it was more so prompted by things like updating my LinkedIn profile so that they could find me in the first place because there is applying for jobs, but then there's also recruiters who were out there every day looking for talent, scouring LinkedIn. I was that recruiter. Part of the insight knowledge I had was how a recruiter would go about looking for somebody who has a particular set of skills.

Rich Jones:
A big part for me was updating my LinkedIn profile so that if a recruiter was looking for someone who had a combination of HR experience and recruiting experience, and they had this profession in human resource certification, my profile would pop up. While it wasn't as heavy on the negotiation side, there were things that I did to optimize my profile and optimize myself so that if people were looking for someone with my skills, I would pop up in that search and I attribute it a lot more to that.

Rich Jones:
I think part of what's helped me maximize my raises and my increase, it's not so much that I had to negotiate a higher pay, it's that I documented my value and I documented the things that I did to bring more people in, the things that I did to a higher level of impact and then that was ultimately factored into my bonus percentage, which is on a scale. And that was ultimately factored into the salary increase, which is also one scale. It's funny going from being an individual contributor to a manager and then having to go through that same process, where if an employee didn't tell me all the things they did, I had so many things going on so I could not remember everything that they did.

Rich Jones:
But there would be times where they'd say, "Hey, I did this and I did that." And I'd be like, "Oh yeah, you did do this, and you did do that. You should be an exceeds expectation, versus a meets expectations." A lot of it is on the individual to make sure that they're documenting and that they're in a position to be able to show the value that they've added. I had it for that conversation, but also if an opportunity came up outside of the company, I had those things documented, which would then become answers for interview questions or things that I could put in my LinkedIn profile to further show my value and that I'm a high performer.

“I actually encourage people, if you are talking to a company and they ask what you are making today that you not tell that number and see what they come back with.”

Rich’s Money Lesson:

Rich Jones:
There's an article that came out from Glassdoor, a couple of years ago. For someone starting at a salary of $50,000, the difference in not negotiating a $5,000 increase when they're first starting could be the difference of $600,000 over the course of their working career. What people don't think about, we talk about compound interest when it comes to your savings account or when it comes to stocks and investing, but we don't talk about the compound effect of negotiating a higher salary.

Rich Jones:
Because if you start by negotiating up, then every salary that you negotiate going forward or every increase that you get going forward is going to be a lot higher. There are people, they're actually scared to negotiate because they think that the company's going to pull the offer. And I can tell you from being on the employer's side, no recruiter or no company is going to rescind offer because you asked for something. In fact, we expect you to ask for something.

“If you start by negotiating up, then every salary that you negotiate going forward or every increase that you get going forward is going to be higher.”

Rich’s Money Tip:

Rich Jones:
A couple of apps that I really love today. One is Tiller. It allows you to connect your bank accounts and I'm someone that loves spreadsheets. And they have these templates and these customized spreadsheets where if you connect your accounts, it'll automatically pull in the information. You can see what you're spending on by category, if you're over or under or at budget. And there's also a feature where I get an email daily that anytime there's been a transaction, whether money coming in or money going out, I see that first thing in the morning.

Rich Jones:
And there've been times where I've said, "Wow, did I really just spend that much on food?" Or, "Wow, I forgot that I had that subscription." That's one service that I use to kind of see where my spending is going. But the other service that I really like, it's called Truebill, and initially this started out as an app that would monitor all your subscriptions and tell you where you could have a subscription canceled, where they can negotiate on your behalf to bring that subscription costs down.

Rich Jones:
And just even today before we recorded this interview, I've realized that I was getting double-billed for a particular subscription and now I'm in the process of having them resolve it for me so I don't have to deal with the process of calling in and talking to multiple people and going back and forth and sending emails. Pairing up apps, one, I have something that tells me where my money is going on a day to day basis, which keeps me sharp. And then two, I have a service that's monitoring my subscriptions, but it's also giving me a breakdown of how I'm spending for the month. And I can see that category by category and it kind of tells me if I'm doing too much, if I'm going over budget and I found both of those to be super helpful with each other.

“I can tell you from being on the employer side,  no company is going to rescind the offer because you asked for something. In fact we expect you to ask for something. ”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Manage up. Remember Rich, said to prepare for performance reviews, that's just part of it. This is all about communication with your supervisors. Those are the people who decide how much you get paid. Don't assume they know and in some cases even understand what you do and how valuable you have become to the company.

Financial grownup tip number two:

I love what Rich said about the very first salary being an anchor to ongoing salary negotiations. He is 100% correct, but at the same time, don't assume you are worth more than they're willing to pay. With the first job, you don't always bring as much to the table as you will in future jobs. Yes, you probably went to school and studied, but let's face it, in most cases the companies are also going to put a lot of resources into training you. Just factor in what you will learn as an employee when you are in that negotiation and be thoughtful about your asks.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Rich’s website - paychecksandbalances.com/

Follow Rich!

• Instagram - @paybalances

• Facebook - @paychecksandbalances

• Twitter - @PayBalances

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

David Stein shares a sneak peak of the investing strategies from his new book, including how to differentiate between investing, speculating and gambling. He also discusses why you need to know who is on the other side of a trade, and the key factors that will make an investment profitable. 

3 Best Investing Tips

1. Know if a financial opportunity is investing, speculating or gambling

2. Know who is on the other side of the trade

3. Know what it takes to be successful

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• David’s website - moneyfortherestofus.com

• David’s book Money For The Rest Of Us

Follow David!

• Instagram - @moneyfortherestofus

• Facebook - @moneyfortherestofus

• Twitter - @jdstein

• YouTube - @MoneyFortheRestofUs

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Chad Parks, founder of Ubiquity Retirement and Savings, and the producer of the Broken Eggs documentary shares a money story of a chance encounter with a waiter who seemed indifferent to his own eventual retirement crisis, and the “aha" moment that followed. 

Chad’s Money Story:

Chad Parks:
So, when we were on the road trip making the documentary, one of our stops was in New Orleans. The way we got the stories was we literally would just stop and talk to anybody, and sometimes it'd be on-camera, sometimes it'd be off-camera. We were at dinner one night with the film crew and he's asking, "What are y'all doing here?" And we told him we're making a documentary about retirement. That got him talking about his own life, and that he's been a career waiter, and that he has not been able to save substantially, and that he thought that he just... Retirement was a foreign object to him and he just thinks that he's never going to be able to retire.

Bobbi Rebell:
About how old was he, would you say?

Chad Parks:
In his late 40s.

Bobbi Rebell:
Late 40s, so this is a time when it's starting to get real. You're no longer a kid who can kind of say, "Well, I maybe am paying down student debt or I just had a baby. At 40-something, you are definitely an adult.

Chad Parks:
Yeah. I think what was really also stood out a lot was that he didn't really seem too concerned about not having savings or a plan. And his attitude was that he just figured that the government or social services would be there to help him and that he'd figure it out. That was a little bit disheartening to hear because if so many people do believe that, then we're really going to be in for some serious problems in the future if everybody has got that attitude.

Bobbi Rebell:
And also, he was a waiter and that is the job that is typically not one that has maybe all of the programs and the retirement plans that some other jobs have. So that could also be a factor as we move towards more of a gig economy, right?

Chad Parks:
Oh, for sure. The statistics are frightening. More than half of the U.S. working population don't have the ability to save at work. The point of the business is, they're small. They don't think they can afford a small business retirement plan and they don't do it. And so, half of us in this population don't have a vehicle to save easily and efficiently for their future.

Bobbi Rebell:
As you had this conversation with the waiter, what were your colleagues and friends at the table, what was their reaction? And was there conversation afterwards about it?

Chad Parks:
Well, it definitely proved the point of why we're on the road, right? To kind of understand what the reality of people's understanding of retirement is, what their attitudes are. And I think what we all walked away from, not only with this talking to this gentleman but for most of the people we talked to, was that there's a big awareness that there's a problem, but not many people are doing much about it nor do they know what to do about it. So we likened it to this whole thing of like, we all know we need to go to the gym and work out, but not many of us do.

Bobbi Rebell:
What else did the waiter say to you?

Chad Parks:
That dependency on social services, it didn't sound like he had much of a plan. And he literally was living paycheck to paycheck. He just kind of shrugged his shoulders and it was like, "I don't know what to do about it."

Bobbi Rebell:
Did he ask you?

Chad Parks:
Well, I mean, I could preach all day about it, but...

Bobbi Rebell:
I mean, I'm saying, did he ask you though?

Chad Parks:
No, he did not.

Bobbi Rebell:
I say that because part of the problem is that many of us don't ask. So of course, we should get more information, but he, like many people maybe in your film, didn't ask.

Chad Parks:
This is a very good observation. Yeah, that's true. I had to stop and think about that and no, he did not ask and had he asked, I might've been able to share some good information with him.

Chad’s Money Lesson:

Chad Parks:
So, this concept of retirement is relatively new in our country. Pretty much if you think about after World War II, when the GIs were coming home and the modern corporation went back to building cars and doing what they did, there was this promise of the three-legged stool of retirement which is, you would get a pension plan from your employer, social security was going to be there for you in your older age. And then in the '70s and '80s, we introduced the additional savings vehicle of a 401k. That sounds great, right? You got a guaranteed income, you've got a safety net with social security, and you can augment your retirement savings with a 401k or IRA. Unfortunately, we know today, especially in 2019, that most businesses don't offer pensions anymore. Good example was General Electric having just frozen the pension for their 20,000 employees.

Chad Parks:
Social security was never meant to be the primary source of income in your retirement, but unfortunately for a lot of people, that is becoming the primary source. And social security itself may actually end up having some reduction in benefits in 2034, 15 years from now, by about 25% if they don't make any changes to it today. Then that puts the onus back on personal savings, and just as I shared before, half of our country doesn't have the ability to even save at work, and that's where we are.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's where we are. And what scares me here is not only, as I mentioned, that people aren't asking and being their own advocates, but our expectations of people realistic in terms of what people earn, what people can realistically save in our world, and our lifestyle expectations. If we're being honest, we have an expectation that everybody has a cellphone and everybody lives a certain lifestyle and it's partially the media, but we also have to own it ourselves. We choose to purchase things or live lifestyles that maybe are not sustainable.

Chad Parks:
No, you're so right. And that, I call it, nicknamed this the microwave society, right? Everybody wants everything instantly and want instant gratification. We are marketed to and sold to, we are rewarded with spending. Unfortunately, our attitudes are not the same about long-term savings. It's not really exciting nor fun to see your paycheck go down and to see money accumulate over a long period of time, in this idea that you're visualizing yourself in the future. And this whole concept of asking the average individual to become a savings expert and investment expert, a budgeting expert, to be able to say, this is your magic number, this is when you retire, this is how much money you're going to have, that's really putting a lot on people.

Chad Parks:
I was formerly a certified financial planner. I went to grad school for finance and it was, I said, it's a shame I had to go to grad school to learn the basics of personal finance. And so it's really, as much as we try to get people to say, listen, this is your responsibility. Don't forget that the way the world has been set up today is that it's not up to the government, it's not up to your employer. Unfortunately, it is up to you to take your future in your own hands. But at the same time, we haven't equipped you with the tools to do so. So, that's where we kind of have this big chasm as a society that we really need to figure out.

Chad’s Money Tip:

Chad Parks:
Yeah. So, as I was saying there, it's hard for people to visualize themselves in the future. None of us want to acknowledge that we're going to get old. It happens to other people. And so, one of the ways that I've found to really help people to drive that point home is to volunteer at a retirement home. These are the people who have lived their careers. These are people who've had the life lessons and the experiences that they're happy to share with you. And when you sit down and you just listen to people tell their stories, you can absolutely relate to them. You can learn, you will be emotionally moved. And hopefully, after some time doing that, you'll go home and you'll start to rethink your priorities and say, "All right, this person seemed to be okay and have it pretty good." Or "this person over here, wow. I really don't want to end up like them. So, what can I do differently today?" And then it's also just being kind and sharing some of your time with people who are in the last stages of their lives and could use a little camaraderie.

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

I am generally against the whole trophy for everything, but when it comes to retirement, making an effort can solve a lot of problems. Just trying. The truth is, you guys are a self-selecting audience. You are interested in money stuff. The waiter probably not listening to this or any podcast related to money that's going to actually help him do something other than quote, figure it out when the time comes. The waiter isn't even asking our guest, Mr. Parks, for solutions. He's not even looking, he's not trying. But you guys are. So pat yourself on the back and definitely an A-plus for effort, because you guys are at least interested and I bet you are in better shape than you realize.

Financial grownup tip number two:

One thing we can all learn from our waiter is that, our waiter friend in the story I should say, is that to some degree, we will all figure it out along the way. Redefine what retirement will mean for you and set your goals, but also live your present life. For example, you could see ads for older couples blissfully traveling the world, on luxury cruises or whatever, but honestly, that may not be for you. You might not suddenly wake up at a certain age and suddenly have this burning desire to go on a riverboat cruise. Maybe you will but maybe not. Your retirement bliss could be totally different and at a different price point, higher or lower.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Chad’s website - www.myubiquity.com

Follow Chad!

• Instagram - @myubiquity

• Facebook - @ubiquitysavings

• Twitter - @ubiquitysavings

• LinkedIn

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Bobbi reveals her favorite new money related books, and how to decide if they are right for you. This month’s picks include The House Hacking Strategy: How to use your Home to Achieve Financial Freedom by Craig Curelop, Your Turn: Careers, Kids and Comebacks by Jennifer Gefsky and Stacey Delo, Retirement Reality Check: How to Spend Your Money and Still Leave an Amazing Legacy by Josh Jalinski and ZenBender: A Decade-Long Enthusiastic Quest to Fix Everything (That was Never Broken) by Stephanie Krikorian.

Book #1: The House Hacking Strategy: How to use your Home to Achieve Financial Freedom by Craig Curelop.

Here’s what I liked about it: 

-The book has a ton of very specific case studies- including that of the author.

-The under the radar red flags for choosing tenants. Things you would not think about.

-How to successfully invest in areas that are NOT distressed.

Who is this book for? 

Everyone interested in actually house hacking but also those of us who are just curious how it all works. I was extremely skeptical, and honestly, some people over leverage in my opinion. But there is a real formula and method to success and Craig does a great job explaining it. This makes GREAT cocktail party chatter as they say.. I thought it was well worth the time I invested, even though I do not plan on investing in real estate using the house hacking strategy.

Book #2: Your Turn: Careers, Kids and Comebacks by Jennifer Gefsky and Stacey Delo. 

Here’s what I liked about the book: 

-If we are being honest- it spoke to me, and to most of my friends. This is a book about how to keep that career going- even if you hit pause.

-While there is a positive tone, it is not the usual rah rah blah blah blah you go girl stuff. This is realistic and because of that both empowers and challenges the reader to take ownership of the fact that making it happen has to come from them

-The book doesn’t just speak to the parents wanting to make a career comeback- it also speaks to the employers who want these great resources back at work. 

Who is this book for? 

The authors have targeted working moms- so that’s clear. This is also a book that men should read- and not just dads who may face similar challenges coming back into full time work. I mean the men who worked with the women earlier in their careers and will get re-introduced to them when they return to their jobs.

Book #3: Josh Jalinksi’s Retirement Reality Check: How to Spend your Money and Still Leave an Amazing Legacy. 

What I like about this:

-Josh talks about tools that aren’t always super mainstream these days- including annuities and whole life. Not for everyone- but they are for some people and we all should have a sense of what they are so we can make the decision that is right for us.

-Josh strikes a nice balance between focusing on living the life we want, and also wanting to leave something for those who come after us. Passing wealth on to family members is something many people also care about that isn’t often addressed in books aimed at one’s own retirement. 

-Josh’s gregarious personality comes through making this tough topic a lot more pleasant to learn about

Who is this book right for:

Anyone who wants to retire comfortably, and wants a roadmap that wants a fresh perspective - including some controversial options. 

Bonus Book: Stephanie Krikorian’s Zenbender: A Decade-Long Enthusiastic Quest to Fix Everything (That was Never Broken).

What I loved about this book:

-So much of the time we think we are the only ones experiencing but in fact many others like Stephanie are having similar life experiences- from insecurity, to weight and career battles, to questions about where you are in life, relationships and of course, adulting. 

-This book may be non fiction but it is a page turner as if it were the fiction book you just need to tell someone about asap so they can be in on it too. 

-Stephanie has amazing money tips and life insights- from just using one pump of shampoo to save money- to the admission that yes, in her words “I’m built to spa”. Stephanie knows who she is, and she will help you figure out- or admit- you you are too! 

Episode Links:

Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

Craig Curelop’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of The House Hacking Strategy: How to use your Home to Achieve Financial Freedom

Jennifer Gefsky and Stacey Delo’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Your Turn: Careers, Kids and Comebacks

Josh Jalinksi’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Retirement Reality Check: How to Spend your Money and Still Leave an Amazing Legacy

Stephanie Krikorian’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Zenbender: A Decade-Long Enthusiastic Quest to Fix Everything (That was Never Broken)

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Chris Browning, host of the Popcorn Finance podcast got a clean bill of health for his wife after a hospital stay a few years ago. But despite having been patients there before, a billing mixup left his credit score needing intensive care. 

Chris’ Money Story:

Chris Browning:
Yes so you know, unfortunately my wife, she had to go in for surgery and which is never a good thing. So we went to the hospital, everything got taken care of. She's all well now. We figured we'd just get a bill in the mail, that's how most medical bills come, they just send you something in the mail.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did they do any paperwork while you were at the hospital? Did you give them insurance information? What actually transpired at the hospital? Because you do usually fill out some stuff.

Chris Browning:
Yeah, so leading up, you sit in the finance office and they have you sign a couple of waivers and disclosures. And they say. "Alright, let's see your insurance". They took a copy and they said, "Okay we'll bill you". And that's literally all they told me. No further information other than that.

Bobbi Rebell:
And the hospital was in Network? Do you remember?

Chris Browning:
Yeah, it was an in Network hospital.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you were trying to be in Network, okay.

Chris Browning:
Yes, so we did everything we thought we were supposed to do and we visited the hospital before and the billing seemed to work fine, so you know we didn't even think twice about it. It felt normal.

Bobbi Rebell:
This might be important later on. You were in the system having visited the hospital before?

Chris Browning:
Yeah, it was a local hospital.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Chris Browning:
So we just thought, we'll get a bill in the mail like we have in the past. We waited around, nothing came after a couple of months and to be honest, I kind of just forgot about it, because it had been so long and it just never showed up.

Bobbi Rebell:
I would totally forget about it.

Chris Browning:
Yeah, after two months, you assume you would receive it. After that, life just goes on. You do other things. You live life. And so, I have this habit of checking my credit score, because one of my credit cards on their app, they allow you to check your credit score for free, and they'll update it like every seven days. And so I was just taking a look at it, and I noticed my credit score had dropped like a crazy amount. It had dropped about 150 points. That was very alarming, to say the least. And so I decided to take a look in my credit report. And I went to freecreditreport.com. I saw this like delinquency mark and I was like, that's strange. I remember paying all my bills.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right.

Chris Browning:
And when I looked into it, it just gave me just a random number. It didn't really give me a lot of details.

Bobbi Rebell:
Like a phone number?

Chris Browning:
Yeah, it was a random phone number from a ... it was an area code I'd never seen before. And so I gave the phone number a call, and then they gave me the details. They said this is from the hospital that we had visited, and they say you didn't pay your bill and it's been turned over to a collection agency. And this was the collection agency that I was speaking with.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Chris Browning:
I was just shocked and I was like, well how did this happen? And they have limited information.

Bobbi Rebell:
Sure.

Chris Browning:
And all they'd allow me to do at the time was they said, "Would you like to set up a payment plan?". And I was like, well yeah I want to get this cleared up. But I said, "Let me call the hospital first".

Bobbi Rebell:
Well right, and how do you even know they're legit. I mean they're saying they have the debt, but what exactly happened? Because you'd never heard from the hospital.

Chris Browning:
Exactly, so I was a little hesitant. I don't want to give you money just yet. So I called the hospital and got hold of billing department and I asked them. I said, "I see this delinquency on my credit report. They're saying that our bill was into collections, but we never received a bill in the mail". They said, "Well yeah, we mailed it out to you". And I said, "Well we haven't got anything for months". So they checked their system and they said, "Well here's the address we have for you", and it was the wrong address. They had transposed the numbers around, and who knows where the bill actually went.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which is crazy because two things. First of all, you had been to this hospital before, so presumably you were in the system correctly at some point because you had paid previous bills. And number two, any company, any person, we should all do it, but certainly a company, a hospital, should have a return address. So if they were going to the wrong address, you would think that they would return the mail, and the hospital would receive it back.

Chris Browning:
Exactly. You think they'd be some type of notification for them to know that whatever they mailed out just came back.

Bobbi Rebell:
And they never called you.

Chris Browning:
They never called.

Bobbi Rebell:
But presumably your phone number is on there.

Chris Browning:
Exactly, you'd think if they hadn't been paid all this time, they'd have at least called to follow up. But no. I think maybe it's just the sheer volume they deal with. They don't even try, they just immediately send it to collections after the time period had passed.

Bobbi Rebell:
So then what did you do?

Chris Browning:
So after I verified with them what collection agency they actually sent the bill to, and it matched the information they I had received from the number I had called, I called the collection agency back, because at that point, the hospital said there's nothing we can do. It's been sold to collections, you know it's out of our hands. I called the number back, I spoke with them. I said, "Yes, we want to take care of this". And I said, "If we pay this off, is there a way that this could be removed from my credit report, because it's a huge mark on my credit?".

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's also not your fault.

Chris Browning:
Exactly. Because I explained to them, I said we just never received the bill. I didn't know what type of pushback I was going to get. If they were going to say no. But surprisingly they said, Yes. If you set up, if you agree to a payment plan now, they gave me the total amount. It matched what the hospital said it should be. They said, if you pay this off, we will contact the credit bureaus and have the delinquency removed, because you've taken care of this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course. That's the least they can do. Did the hospital take any ownership of the fact that they had not followed up?

Chris Browning:
Not at all.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's disappointing.

Chris Browning:
They basically just said, sorry, nothing we can do. It's out of our hands and it was on me to take care of it.

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's foolish on their part because generally, and I assume this was the case when you send something to a collection agency, they're only getting a fraction of what the bill was. So they lost out for not bothering and not having the right systems in place to check with you. Presumably the doctor could follow up with you and your wife, so they had contact information that was correct in some part of the system.

Chris Browning:
You'd think that if they knew they're going to lose money, that it'd be in their best interest to do a little more follow-ups, spend a little more time, but no, they just I guess, just dump it off.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, they lost money too. So that maybe there isn't the right stakeholder at the hospital that took ownership of the fact that that bill was not being paid for that reason.

Chris Browning:
Exactly.

Chris’ Money Lesson:

Chris Browning:
I would say first of all, make sure that you follow up on all your medical bills. Even if you think that the office is going to take care of it the way they should, you just never know. You could end up in the situation like this. So I do acknowledge that I could have called and followed up after a month of not hearing anything back.

Bobbi Rebell:
But maybe the insurance you were in Network, so if I was doing something in Network, I would have assumed that if I didn't get a bill, the insurance covered it.

Chris Browning:
I made that assumption too, but I think after this now, I'm going to be on the safe side.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course.

Chris Browning:
I'm going to give them a call just to follow up if it's been like an unusually long amount of time since I haven't got any communication from them. Just to eliminate any issues or this ever happening again.

Chris Browning:
And the second thing I would say, check your credit score. I was really fortunate that that was a habit that I had picked up. You know we had been paying off some debts so I was in the habit of looking at my credit score to see how it was changing. That's the only reason I knew that there was any type of issue is because I saw my credit score had dropped drastically, and that triggered me to look at my credit report, and that's where I found the error, and I was able to finally take care of it.

Chris’ Money Tip:

Chris Browning:
So my money tip would be check with your credit card company, if you do have a credit card. Or even some banks. A lot of them offer access to your credit score and some even your credit report directly through their website or their mobile app. And so it's really simple. It's free a lot of the time and it's just a really convenient tool to have with you, and whether you're looking for errors or you just want to kind of track your progress. I think it's a really great incentive that these banks are offering to let you stay on top of your credit and your finances.

Bobbi Rebell:
And specifically, how often do you do that?

Chris Browning:
I've slowed down. I was a little obsessive. I was checking like every day at one point. Now I'm on a once per month basis. I'll log in, just kind of look and see how things are going, just I want to keep the practice up. I don't want to get too comfortable and let too much time pass, because who knows when an error could pop up.

Bobbi Rebell:
So when people check their credit score, what are the things that they should be looking for that are good and that are bad?

Chris Browning:
So I would say for sure, any type of drastic change. So if you've made this a habit and you're checking on a regular frequency, your credit score's not going to swing wildly. You know it's normal for it to swing 10, 20 points here and there. But if you see any type of drastic change, that would for sure be a trigger point to let you know you need to look into this a little bit more. Whether it's going to some place like freecreditreport.com which is run by Experian and you're getting a copy of your credit report just to see what's going on. Wild changes in any area of your finances is normally a sign of something that's not normal and that's maybe something you should look into a little bit more.

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip Number One:

The only thing Chris did wrong here, he did not follow up in finding out what he owed the hospital. So the tip is to try to stay on top of your medical bills, especially the ones that you know are probably coming. Even if you're hoping they're not. That said, the visit was in Network, so Chris in all fairness could have believed there wasn't much to do except for a co-pay that he probably had already paid at the hospital. But at the end of the day, he himself says he should have checked in and been more on top of it. Mixed feelings about that though.

Financial Grownup Tip Number Two:

Don't assume that corporations or institutions such as hospitals are competent in their billing. Question everything. This especially goes sadly for end of life situations where the family is distracted and just wants to move on. Assuming you do get bills, try hard as it may be to go through them. I know of some instances where the bills were so out of control, literally offensive, that people have gone to the financing offices of the hospital and just negotiated them down on the grounds that no one could possibly go through every charge for an overpriced Bandaid or medication or whatever, and prove that it actually happened, was given and was priced correctly. Fairly, and fairly is pretty broad when it comes to our healthcare system. Hold them accountable. Just because they throw a list of a thousand teeny charges on a bill, doesn't mean you can't question it.

Episode Links

• Listen to and learn more about the Popcorn Finance Podcast

• Check your credit score!

Follow Chris Browning and Popcorn Finance!

• Twitter - @popcornfinance

• Instagram - @popcornfinancepodcast

• YouTube - Popcorn Finance 

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Investing can be intimidating, but there are some simple basic steps that can put anyone on the path to success. NextGen Wealth founder Clint Haynes CFP® walks us through 8 steps to get started investing, including how to decide how long to own a stock, if and when you should pay fees, which stocks make sense with your goals, and how to understand the role emotions can play in our investment decisions. 

8 Steps to Becoming a Great DIY Investor

• Understand How to Invest for the Timeframe for Each Goal

• Understand the Role Your Emotions Play in Investing

• Your Investments Will Lose Money on Average Every 3-5 Years

• Each Goal Should Have Its Own Specific Portfolio/Bucket

• Rebalance Your Portfolio(s) at Least Annually

• Choose Investments with Low Fees and Expenses

• Don’t Reinvent the Wheel When Creating Your Own Portfolio(s)

• Monitor Your Investments Quarterly to Annually

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Clint’s website - www.nextgen-wealth.com

• Clint’s course - The Financial Freedom Blueprint Course

  • Special discount to Financial Grownup listeners of $300!! Discount will only last for the next 48 hours.

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