Jessica Quindlen: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Sound Cents Podcast. I'm Jessica Quindlen. Today we're discussing spring cleaning your finances. Spring is just around the corner, and I wanted to bring in some folks to discuss ways that we can infuse our spring cleaning desires into our financial habits. I have today, Bree Shellito, our Senior Manager of Community Impact.
Hello, Bree.
Bree Shellito: Hey Jess.
Jessica Quindlen: And Laura Straub, our Community Education Lead. Hello, Laura.
Laura Straub: Hey y'all.
Jessica Quindlen: Let's just dive right in. What key aspects of personal finance should people evaluate during financial spring cleaning?
Laura Straub: Yeah. So I have three for you. So one, review your subscriptions, and then review your grocery bill.
Seeing if you're sticking to it. That's the biggest one that a lot of us tend to forget about, or just don't want to budget for because it's hard. So, review that and see what's happening with your groceries.
And then review and automate your bill tracking and saving goals. So, are you putting money into your savings account? Are you paying your bills on time? Those simple things that can really add up [00:01:00] over the year. So, just kind of taking a peek at those and seeing where you're at with them.
Jessica Quindlen: I love that. That's fantastic. So Bree, how can listeners refresh and update their budgets for the upcoming month?
Bree Shellito: Well, spring is just a perfect time to really take a look at what you did. We evaluated last year. We maybe created some resolutions that we were going to do better for this year. Have they maintained or have they not? Either way is okay, but let's refresh those. Are we on track for the goals that we really wanted to make in 2024?
Many of those don't seem to have a financial component, but if you look further into it, everything has a financial component. So, taking a look at your goals, and also spring is less of a time for holidays. You don't have a lot of crazy spending coming up.
It's just the perfect time to slow down, evaluate what is summer going to look like? What are some upcoming things and how are you on track so far for the year?
Jessica Quindlen: I love that. So Laura, what are common budgeting mistakes [00:02:00] people make and how can they be corrected?
Laura Straub: As I mentioned before, our groceries is probably number one.
So just reviewing do you have a budget for those types of expenses? And if not, this is a great time to look at it because you have a couple of months that you can see how much you are spending on groceries and then evaluate it.
Bree Shellito: Well, and not just groceries, but just in general.
Yes. Food is an absolute need. Humans must have some sort of sustenance to maintain. However, what does that look like? Whether it's eating at home or eating out, like it adds up, especially when we're talking about full meals from start to finish. Are you ordering the drink and the fries and the other things? So, evaluating per meal, per month, per day, whatever it looks like for you.
But take a look at your eating.
Laura Straub: Yes. And it's okay to add in those. So still have room in your budget to go out and enjoy those. But yeah, kind of just keeping an eye on them and seeing what it is that you're spending. And then not [00:03:00] reviewing your subscription is another common mistake. I will say it's not necessarily a mistake, but just something we kind of forget about.
So, look back. Are you using your gym membership that you signed up for? Are you using all those TV streaming? And if not…
Bree Shellito: All of them? Every month?
Laura Straub: Right, exactly. So, suspending them, pausing them, whatever it may look like for you but just review those subscriptions and make sure you know what ones you have and if you’re utilizing them.
Bree Shellito: The average American on subscriptions alone, Jess spends $219 a month.
Jessica Quindlen: Well, it adds up. I mean, you look at one, you're like, “oh, $5.99 here, $11.99 here, but they add up super quick. Well, now there's a subscription service for your subscription service. There's so many, I can't even. I can't always keep track.
Laura Straub: And then I would say that another common budgeting mistake is just not knowing your impulse buys. So just checking in on yourself. What are you impulse buying? Are there ways that you can maybe avoid that impulse buying? So, shopping online [00:04:00] to pick up at the store, if you're tempted to, you know, reach for things on the aisles that you walk through to get to the back of the store.
So there are different ways that you can kind of help yourself when it comes to impulse buying. But knowing what it is for you and coming up with some strategies to help you is important. For myself, that is food. So having someone go with me or those pick up online. But it can be lots of other things too.
If you're a big book reader, like buying your books instead of going to the library. Things like that that you're just kind of impulse buying might help you.
Bree Shellito: We're humans. We definitely get into habits. And so even what you're talking about with groceries Laura, are you making a lot of the similar meals?
Do they all have similar ingredients? Are there more meals we can make by buying something in bulk. You know, you and I joke about cheese and actually grating our cheese. I love it, by the way. It's been a big change in our household because we use a lot of cheese and not buying shredded cheese already pre-shredded.
Not only does it taste better, but we can really make it last a little bit longer with a [00:05:00] block. So just thinking about some of those things.
Jessica Quindlen: I love that. So why is spring a good time to tackle debt?
Bree Shellito: You know, spring is such a great time just to evaluate finances in general, but especially debt. Like I mentioned before, there's not any huge holidays or anything that come up typically around this time.
So, assessing what it looks like. Also, April is tax time. Folks kind of got prepared for whatever that looked like during tax season. So now we have an idea of what income was last year. We can really evaluate what we're bringing in. What was going out and just taking a look at it. So especially if, if you're somebody that's tackling debt, taking a look at some of those different strategies, the snowball method is a really big one that a lot of folks know.
That's where we start out making those minimum payments. And then as we've paid off a debt and we start kind of with the smallest balance as we pay off those debts, then we can kind of continue accumulating that for the next debt and getting those paid off on time. But another great method that we love even better is the avalanche method.
That method is where we look at the highest [00:06:00] interest rate first, regardless of the balance, because the highest interest rate is costing you the most money. So, if we can allocate more towards that one first, we're going to save money in the long run. We can just take a look at what money is coming in, what money is going out and what we can really add towards getting those paid off.
Jessica Quindlen: Nice. I love that. Laura, what documents should individuals organizing keep track of while they're financially spring cleaning?
Laura Straub: Yeah, well taxes. That's the biggest one. You probably got them all out during tax season or you are. So just making sure you're keeping those in a document so they're filed away you'd have all your tax documents for that year labeled organized whatever that it looks like for you. And then looking do you have old bank statements, receipts, just clutter, right?
Start shredding those or, you know, filing them away. So there's not out and about is the biggest one. But yeah, just starting to get organized. There's not necessarily a key document. Most things are all [00:07:00] digital nowadays. You can always pull them up. But just having yourself organized can help you so much when it comes to that mindset.
Because if you have it clean, put away, organized, it's a lot less daunting than when it's a big shoe box full of just stuff that you have to then organize to even do anything with it.
Bree Shellito: Using the right tools as well. We talk about different personal financial management tools. Sometimes, especially if you're someone that has multiple accounts maybe credit cards, finding a tool that works for you where you can see it all in one place is helpful. So a place that you can actually pull those all together, see the balances versus having to log into each one individually can be a huge time saver.
Jessica Quindlen: That's great. So Bree, what role does goal setting play in our Financial health
Bree Shellito: Goal setting is huge. And when it comes to really setting a goal, knowing what you value, knowing what you're really striving for is the only way to really get to something is to have a goal, have a plan in mind. So when it comes to actually creating those goals, [00:08:00] knowing what you value and also having some sort of personal attachment to it can be huge.
A tip that we share with our learners is really the idea of labeling the account with what you're saving for. Because the likelihood that you'll pull from something that just labeled “savings” versus something that's labeled “trip to Tahiti” is so different. So, if you just consciously see that you're pulling away from achieving an actual goal, maybe it's a car down payment, maybe it's a trip, it's a vacation, there's so much more emotional attachment to that instead of just pulling out of savings. So having those goals, labeling those goals and just knowing why you're working towards them because it's something you value. Maybe it's time with family, time with friends. Just knowing what you value, setting a goal towards it and actually labeling it if you can.
Jessica Quindlen: Yeah, that's fantastic. I love that. Well, that brings us to the end of our show. Bree, Laura, thanks so much for being here.
Bree Shellito: Thanks for having us.
Laura Straub: Yeah, thank you.
Jessica Quindlen: Thank you for listening to Sound Cents from Ent Credit Union. Be sure to follow our podcast as well as rate and review us. I'm Jessica Quindlen. I will see you next week, same time, same place.
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