Summary
Lanea and Crystal discuss the challenges of maintaining a relationship while navigating parenthood, particularly focusing on the concept of ‘money dates’—scheduled discussions about finances between partners. They explore the importance of financial communication, setting mutual goals, and the dynamics of spending and saving as a couple. The conversation also touches on the need for accountability in financial matters and how to adapt financial discussions and date nights after having a baby. They share personal experiences and insights on how to make financial planning a more proactive and engaging process for couples.
Takeaways
- Money dates are essential for financial communication.
- Setting mutual financial goals strengthens relationships.
- Proactive financial meetings can prevent conflicts.
- Mindful spending aligns with lifestyle choices.
- Adapting date nights post-baby requires creativity.
- Financial accountability enhances partnership dynamics.
- Regular check-ins can help maintain financial health.
- Understanding each other’s financial perspectives is crucial.
- Long-term planning is key to financial success.
- Using templates can streamline financial discussions.
Transcript
Crystal (00:00)
Hi, I’m Crystal, the founder of the Piggy Bank Patrol, a podcast that gets parents talking about money. Myself, along with my co -founder, Lanea are financial analysts and new parents. We want to empower parents to learn healthy money behaviors while breaking cycles and teach children about money.
As always, the piggy bank patrols content is intended for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and is not to be taken as legal, financial investment, or tax advice of any kind.
Lanea (00:30)
Hey Crystal, I know that you have a baby and everything, that really puts a damper on it, but when was your last date night?
Crystal Chabot (00:36)
man, I feel like it’s been ages. Are we talking about money dates or normal dates?
Lanea (00:44)
Let’s go both.
Crystal Chabot (00:45)
my last normal date was my money date. And thinking back on it, that was…
Lanea (00:50)
Well then why did you ask?
Crystal Chabot (00:53)
don’t know!
thinking back on it, I think that was in November of 2022. So the baby isn’t even in the picture at that point.
Lanea (01:03)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a long time ago.
Crystal Chabot (01:06)
I do remember though it was really hard to talk Nebraska water boards obnoxious
bragging about their claim on Colorado’s water. It was actually kind of disturbing how power hungry they were and how big they thought they were.
Lanea (01:25)
Is that why the night stuck with you? Because I would have never remembered a date night two years later.
Crystal Chabot (01:30)
we didn’t even get anything really talked about besides being like, we need to move. And that was right after we got back from visiting New York for the first time too, so.
Lanea (01:43)
okay, all right. Let’s try and put the timeline in place, because I think I met you January of 23.
Crystal Chabot (01:44)
Yes.
Yeah, so it was like right almost right before. When was your last date?
Lanea (01:54)
Gotcha.
with or without the baby, because we do stuff with the baby, but without the baby, it’s been at least since he’s been born. We haven’t gone on a date night without the baby yet.
Crystal Chabot (02:07)
Okay, well, I mean, it’s hard to find childcare for that kind of stuff anyway.
Lanea (02:12)
Yeah, I just don’t trust anybody either. I try, well, no. So I take that back because the last time we went out was for Adam’s birthday back in May and we left Leo with my aunt, which I do trust her. So we had a night out back in May. So it’s been a hot minute, but there is no finance talk involved in that date.
Crystal Chabot (02:30)
Mm
Yeah, that’s a
That was your chance.
Lanea (02:38)
So when you say money date, what do you mean?
Crystal Chabot (02:42)
it’s time your partner and you set aside each month or quarter to hold a meeting about your finances as a couple. This means going over where you’re at financially and setting goals and actions to reach
mutually agreeable future together. And it’s also a great time to check in with them and spot budget overwhelm or weak points in goals or actions before they can have major impacts. money in general is avoided.
especially date nights, because it’s so important to everyone’s actual wellbeing that it’s easy to disagree and become overheated.
Lanea (03:21)
Yeah, that wouldn’t be necessarily fun on a date
Crystal Chabot (03:24)
if you both take a mutually agreed approach to it, I think that it can help whether that be making dinner at home or going to a restaurant to discuss because some couples won’t fight in public and others won’t fight at home and vice versa. But it could also be a good time just to take a break from the day to day monotony of life.
and maybe relax a little, get yourself a little bit of wine. Maybe not a whole bottle because you don’t want to throw it on them at the end, but.
Lanea (03:53)
Well, hopefully it’s done by that point.
Crystal Chabot (03:55)
Yeah, and the whole point is, it’s supposed to be a partnership, so let’s treat it like one. Even if that means getting a little business -y on the side.
Lanea (04:04)
So I think we both do quote unquote money dates, but we found out about the concept of them in pretty different ways. I found out about it through, of course, YouTube. I learned about the concept from Jules Acree. She has a video, How We Organize and Discuss Finances as a Couple. And I actually found it when I was researching how to combine finances.
when we got married. So it’s a couple of years old at this point, but I think it’s still a really relevant topic. And it’s a great video. It’s pretty short, but she also includes a free Notion template, and it’s just a really good resource. How did you find out about the topic?
Crystal Chabot (04:47)
was going through the bigger pocket money podcast list, hitting up the episodes and I came across it on episode 157. I thought it was a really cool idea. I went and messaged my husband and was like, hey, let’s do this. And we started doing it.
Lanea (05:06)
When was that? Do you remember your first one?
Crystal Chabot (05:09)
January of 22.
Lanea (05:12)
okay, all right. Were you pretty consistent when you first started?
Crystal Chabot (05:15)
Not really. January 22 was the proof of concept month for me showing him that we can actually make money by investing. Because until then, I had just been investing alone since 2018 in my own account and he hadn’t really been paying attention. But I was able to show him the math for
were 30 % year over year since 2018. So he kind of figured out that, hey, if we just saved instead of spent all our money on useless crap, maybe we could actually retire.
Lanea (05:55)
And your crisis is kind of more like you’ve always taken that approach right like yours is more of somewhat like goal Oriented or how do you how do you approach the the like date night?
Crystal Chabot (05:56)
Hmm.
YAH!
Yeah, so ours is more like the bigger picture versus hard numbers because as long as we’re hitting our saving percentage, it doesn’t really matter.
for our first meeting after I got him to agree to do it and realize that fire could be a thing, we had to get down to the nitty gritty of what we actually our life.
Lanea (06:34)
Like what you want it to look like.
Crystal Chabot (06:36)
Yeah, I don’t think a lot of people I don’t think a lot of people think 10, 15, 20 years out, right?
Lanea (06:44)
No, Adam and I have definitely had the conversations about it and I think I’ve been detailed conversations, but not necessarily financially detailed conversations about that far out. I don’t know, it just hasn’t really come up. And we’re relatively new to combining finances and everything. So we’ve kind of talked about
Crystal Chabot (07:01)
Mm -hmm.
Lanea (07:10)
And he’s not on board with fire like you guys are. you guys are very much on board. And even me to like a certain degree, I want the independence part of it, but don’t mind working. So I don’t see myself necessarily not working in the least immediate future.
Crystal Chabot (07:30)
Right. it’s not really a retire early that pushes me. It’s the ability to have the power to take back my life whenever I want. Because I feel like, yes, exactly. I want to be like, fuck you and leave and go do other things that I enjoy.
Lanea (07:40)
You want fuck you money.
Yeah.
I get that. Well, and I think it was Ramit Sethi? I think he was the one that is like, I want enough money to never have to work with somebody that I don’t, like our values don’t align. And I really like that.
Crystal Chabot (08:03)
Yeah, I want to be able to leave in the dust.
that’s a very powerful and heady thing to be able to just be like, you know what, I don’t need this job. See you later. Not, I better find a job and give my two week notice because I need the two weeks pay between.
Lanea (08:19)
Yeah,
See, our like our money dates are very much more. I don’t know, like a recap of the month. So ours are more we just meet once a month to go over how the month went. So it’s very reactive in nature rather than proactive. And I kind of I didn’t realize that until I was researching for this episode is that’s, what we do. We really just do a monthly
But ours also doesn’t ever get heated. Maybe, and maybe it’s because it’s already in the past, I don’t know. But ours is very much just, this is what we spent.
Crystal Chabot (08:56)
Yeah, I think the past aspect is part of it. Because if you’re looking into the future and discussing what you should spend, when you should spend it, what you should spend it on, like new vehicles, Christmas gifts, do we need a new appliance, that kind of thing like that can be a lot more stressful.
Lanea (09:14)
Yeah. absolutely. What was the biggest idea that came out of a money date for you?
Crystal Chabot (09:21)
during one of the discussions, it basically dissolved into me being like, what do you want? And he’s like, I want ducks.
The only one thing you want in your life, ducks. And I’m like, great, because I’ve been listening to Arborist’s podcast and I can do an orchard and make 350 ,000 in like five years startup time. So one of the best things I think that came out of it was our mutual agreement that I don’t want to live in a city and he wants to have ducks. So.
Obviously, countryside plus ducks equals an orchard.
Lanea (10:03)
So that’s where your, so your orchard idea came out of a finance date night.
Crystal Chabot (10:09)
Yeah, yeah, I had been playing around with Arborist podcast for a little bit, just trying to figure out what I could do. Keep in mind, I kill plants so easy. I cannot keep them alive. I think the longest plant that I’ve ever kept alive is right now down in my kitchen and it’s a succulent. But I have killed succulents in the past and I also killed, I killed one of the succulents that it came with.
Lanea (10:32)
I have too. Yeah, yeah.
Crystal Chabot (10:35)
because Raph was watering it and then I watered it. So now it’s kind of just like it got moldy and I took out the sludge part and the other plant next to it is okay. But yeah, a permaculture orchard would totally be doable on even just three acres of land for two people. And
Lanea (10:38)
Nice.
that’s not very much.
Crystal Chabot (10:56)
I life can’t just be waking up, going to work, eating dinner, going to bed and doing it over and over again for 40 fucking years. I can’t do that. There’s no way that that’s what life is.
Right? Is that not what it… I don’t understand. Like, I graduated university and then that’s it.
That’s boring.
Lanea (11:17)
I yeah, I don’t hate the stability of it though either.
Crystal Chabot (11:20)
I can’t, my brain needs more, my brain needs more. So the way that I got to the duck plus country plus orchard is when I was studying in Tokyo, my economics professor taught us the five whys and that you cannot get to the root cause of any issue without directly asking why at least five times.
Lanea (11:22)
I know, I know, I know.
Crystal Chabot (11:41)
So I found it to be very applicable both in and outside of work. And it’s a tactic I deployed in our conversations. It’s also a tactic I used at work when I couldn’t get like Excel to work. Like the X lookup, I’m like, why?
Lanea (11:55)
Just ask it enough times.
Crystal Chabot (11:56)
Yeah, but basically if you apply it to different areas and just like adapt it, you can come down to your base happiness and find a mutual agreement with your partner that works for both of you. Yeah, you just ask why. That’s it. You just ask why.
Lanea (12:12)
I that was kind of what enticed me about the Jewels video is that she does much more of a monthly finance recap concept. However, one of her things is they really track their goals.
their goals have already been set and they really have like a why for their meeting and that’s to measure the progress and keep the goals in mind. She also does a really cool thing called financial flossing and that comes from her meeting. It’s something that they do routinely. It’s meet together to discuss finances to make sure they are on the same page and I just, I love that.
And in their financial flossing section, they actually ask the following questions every time that they meet. And I think that that’s pretty good to have, set questions where you’re really checking in and just going over the routine and the maintenance of your finances. And that is, is our current spending and saving matching the lifestyle we want to live? How do we feel about our current budget?
any upcoming big purchases we need to be aware of and for them it’s anything over 500, any subscriptions that we should cancel, what are our top spending categories of the month and can we increase our automatic savings slash investing? And I just think that that’s really smart even if you dive down into the questions themselves because it’s really examining.
the outcome of what you’re spending or just being more mindful. even the subscriptions that they could cancel, they obviously are keeping a really good tab on what their outflow is monthly on a reoccurring basis. So you can’t answer that question unless you know. And people have more subscriptions than they even realize, or at least the majority of people do.
Crystal Chabot (14:03)
don’t I know it.
Lanea (14:04)
Yeah, and then like matching like the current spending, is it matching like our lifestyle? Is it matching what we actually want? And I think that that was also a powerful concept that I kind of learned from YNAB was, what you spend on is what your priorities are. And am I actually spending my money on what I want?
she has that notion template. So it’s very templated in nature, but I don’t personally use a template, but I kind of want to after rewatching the video again. I think having those sections and having those questions would be really helpful.
Crystal Chabot (14:36)
Right?
So when you guys meet up, I feel like it would actually be a good idea as well to actually write out the answers too. And that way you can kind of keep track and maybe do an annual review to make sure everything was actually met or to identify things further.
Lanea (15:01)
that’s a really good idea. didn’t really think about that.
Crystal Chabot (15:04)
Even just like a recap. Like meeting notes.
Lanea (15:06)
Yeah, no, think that that’s a… Yeah, no, an agenda.
Crystal Chabot (15:11)
Yeah, I forgot the word. I haven’t been working for a while.
Lanea (15:13)
And like one other thing that she mentioned, which I think is just really genius is that one thing that they do during their monthly meeting is they identify their worries and identify quantifiable solutions. for example, if you are worried about the rate of spending, the solution was to identify and cancel ABC subscription, which will save X number of dollars per month.
Crystal Chabot (15:27)
Mm -hmm.
Lanea (15:40)
And she also has action items as well and follow ups from the last meeting and they actually write down their action items and they copy and paste over their follow up items from the last meeting and they notate what progress was made. And I think the fact that they do that and they actually update is very powerful.
Crystal Chabot (15:54)
a nice
Yeah, it’s like a little work meeting when you work in finance.
Lanea (16:02)
Yeah, absolutely.
counting you know.
Crystal Chabot (16:06)
Yeah.
Lanea (16:07)
Do you guys meet on a specific cadence?
Crystal Chabot (16:10)
cadence wise, were doing monthly, but then it got to the point in the fire journey where we had maximized literally everything. We were saving 66 % of our income. We couldn’t cut more than that. I think like the best month that we had was that was one of those magic three pay months.
Lanea (16:32)
Mmm, yeah.
Crystal Chabot (16:33)
we didn’t really have anything to cut. And then at that point, we’re just like, well, see you whenever. Do you guys have a cadence or do you plan to set one?
Lanea (16:44)
Yeah, we actually kind of do. So we meet monthly, but we meet at the very beginning to discuss what happened in the previous month or we meet within the first week or so.
We actually never plan out the next month. And I didn’t even realize that, until thinking about it. ours is just very, like what happened. So we go over our savings rate and we go over which categories had what spending.
We use Monarch money primarily, so they have some graphs and charts there. we kind of go over that. it’s just really reactive and I want it to be more proactive or planning. And I think it works for us in the fact that Adam doesn’t really have any financial worries and his only main goal is to spend less than we make. So anything on top of that is just extra.
Crystal Chabot (17:20)
Mm -hmm.
Lanea (17:33)
our meetings are never actually confrontational in nature and we’ve never had a heated conversation about finances
Crystal Chabot (17:40)
That’s good, but also at the same time, I’d be a little apprehensive because when it does happen, I wouldn’t know what to expect until it’s happening.
Lanea (17:48)
Yeah, and I’m sure, well, like, I mean, life is long, so I’m sure it will happen at, you know, at some point, but…
Crystal Chabot (17:53)
yeah.
There is no way in 40 years that you can say that…
Lanea (18:00)
Yeah, and I’m sure that we’ll have different ideas on what to spend and stuff like that, but because there isn’t any pushback or attention, there’s kind of a lack of why.
Crystal Chabot (18:11)
Which makes it hard, because then you’re like, why am I even saving?
Lanea (18:13)
Yeah.
See, I don’t wanna say I have my goals and he has his goals because everything’s combined and we’re very much one family, one goals. he just doesn’t care about quantifying goals like I do.
Crystal Chabot (18:29)
Yeah, if it happens, it happens. If it don’t happen, it don’t happen.
Lanea (18:31)
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. and obviously he would be upset if we spent more than we’re making consistently, without it being big one -time things like a house purchase or something along those lines. if our cash flow went negative, it would be an issue. on the regular…
Crystal Chabot (18:42)
yeah.
Yeah.
Lanea (18:52)
It’s just not an issue.
Crystal Chabot (18:54)
Right. No one wants to be in the hole. My husband was telling me about this one person. He was listening to a podcast. don’t know what podcast it was. He listens to the ones that I do not listen to. But this one girl, she went to this, he was a financial advisor, and she was like, so I have no money. I’m
like this much in debt and my car broke down so instead of paying $5 ,000 to fix it I spent $50 ,000 so I can drive a new car.
Lanea (19:23)
my gosh, it had to have been Caleb Hammer. It had to, it had to have been. that was 100 % Caleb Hammer.
Crystal Chabot (19:26)
That might be it. I have no idea.
I don’t even know who that is!
Lanea (19:34)
girl!
Crystal Chabot (19:34)
Did you hear that episode?
Lanea (19:36)
I mean, I don’t recall that specifically, but that concept I know has happened. you have to come back and report to me if it was Caleb Hammer or not, because I know it was Caleb Hammer.
Crystal Chabot (19:41)
it
Yeah, I’ll ask him, I’ll ask him. he did say who it was, but I was driving at the time, I ain’t listening.
Lanea (19:53)
So I, yeah, I actually listened to Caleb Hammer quite a bit, but Caleb Hammer is literally like a sledgehammer to people versus Ramit Sethi is like a scalpel. So they accomplish the same things, but in much, in very different ways.
Crystal Chabot (19:58)
I don’t know who that is.
So, Caleb’s who you go to to get the banhammer? Nice.
Lanea (20:14)
Yes, yeah. If you wanna just like lose brain cells, that’s what you, or you like feel better about yourself, it could always be worse.
going forward, do you think that you guys will start doing monthly date nights again?
Crystal Chabot (20:30)
once we start getting money coming in yeah, we’ll start doing them again. It’s just right now I don’t feel like there’s any reason because I know that if I go and I’m like, hey, we saved 100 bucks last month, he’s going to be like, where’s the rest? I’m going to be like, well, you have a mortgage.
Lanea (20:49)
Would you do anything differently between what you used to do for Monday, date night than what you would do going forward?
Crystal Chabot (20:57)
I have a baby so I won’t be eating out anymore. I actually have not ate out and like eat out eat out at a diner since having a baby. The only thing that I’ve done is order takeout. So I’ve just had pizza and Chinese.
Lanea (21:10)
my gosh. OK.
Crystal Chabot (21:11)
going forward we just wouldn’t eat out because we don’t we’ve we’re down to like eating out maybe once a month now because it’s not even that good of food. Honestly, I’ve been able to make food better myself, so then we just make food ourselves. And we’re also trying to reduce food waste too and grow. I hate that.
Lanea (21:18)
jeez, that’s really impressive.
Yeah.
courses.
Crystal Chabot (21:34)
that we used to buy like groceries and then go out to eat.
Lanea (21:37)
That’s what we do now. That is what we do now. like five months ago, we were doing really good there for three months in a row. And then the last two months have really taken a hit.
Crystal Chabot (21:43)
Yeah.
The fast food dash pass got you or something.
Lanea (21:49)
I mean, I would never pay for delivery, but yes.
Crystal Chabot (21:52)
I for delivery all the time if I’m eating out. Yeah. How do you, what do you do? Go pick it up?
Lanea (21:55)
for real? I never do. Interesting. Yeah, I wouldn’t, I will not pay for delivery.
Crystal Chabot (22:03)
I’m, I have a baby. I’m not gonna drive across town to pick it up.
Lanea (22:07)
Well, I also send Adam. Adam usually goes, like I would say the eight to nine out of 10 times Adam picks up while I watch the baby, so.
Crystal Chabot (22:09)
I don’t have an Adam, I have me.
Dude, do you know how sexy that would be to have someone to go pick up your food for you I don’t have that.
Lanea (22:25)
It’s pretty nice, I’m not gonna lie, it’s pretty nice.
Would you follow a certain template? Because I really do think I’m going to implement Jules approach a little bit more closely. I’m going to change it to where it’s more like we do the same things. I think writing down the answers to those questions are really good. That’s a really good idea for tracking purposes. And I think we’re going to try to make it more proactive in nature going forward.
even just monthly review, I do think that’s important. And I think that that’s a good thing to do regardless of if you’re single or a couple, I think in a couple you have more accountability, which is a good and a bad thing. But I think the concept of just sitting down and actually reviewing and being
Crystal Chabot (22:54)
Yeah.
Lanea (23:09)
proactive in nature. those would be the good things regardless of if it’s a quote unquote date or not. Because I just don’t think very many people actually even review their finances on a monthly basis, let alone actually plan ahead. Yeah.
Crystal Chabot (23:22)
no.
yearly. Look, most of the people I know review their finances when they’re coming up at tax time.
Lanea (23:33)
Yeah, and even then, how are they really reviewing it seems it’s very, polarizing. It’s either people that actually have, a good handle on their finances and, track it pretty closely, whether it’s, a budget or a spending plan but they have their goals, like, they have their processes.
Crystal Chabot (23:34)
don’t really. No,
Lanea (23:54)
and then people that like do nothing. But there’s not very much middle ground or at least I don’t know of very many people that have a middle ground. it
Crystal Chabot (24:03)
I don’t know anyone. always one or the other. It’s not in between.
Lanea (24:08)
It seems they either have no idea of where their money is going or they have a very good
grasp on where it’s going.
I actually did my homework and I set up goals for 2025 and I set up a five -year plan and I ran through them with Adam. We actually had a conversation about it and everything.
Crystal Chabot (24:24)
nice.
Lanea (24:28)
So for 2025, we are planning to save 25 % every month. That’s like our I’m going to transfer that either to investments or to our savings account every month, So that get lost. And then I’m going to contribute $7 ,000 to my Roth IRA.
I want to set aside $7 ,500 for major home system replacements like our HVAC, water heater, stuff along those lines. We’re about halfway there, but I want to finish saving $40 ,000 for a new vehicle. And I want our net including our house vehicles or our company 401ks to be a quarter of a million.
Crystal Chabot (25:13)
Mm
It’s actually kind of interesting because the quarter of a million is technically our net worth goal for right now. obviously it’s not our fire number, but it’s a pretty good midway point for it.
Lanea (25:23)
Really?
We’re at 225 right now. So I think that we’ll definitely be able to hit it. I’m, yeah, I’m trying, I’m trying girl.
Crystal Chabot (25:33)
shit, you’re gonna hit that soon.
Especially with investments, just investments alone depending on it what you’re in. damn it.
Lanea (25:42)
Most of our money is in high yield savings though.
I know, I know. Yeah, I know. It’s getting 5%, but we’re paying taxes on it, so it’s not a great investment strategy.
Crystal Chabot (25:58)
Okay, I do have a question on the whole the major home system replacements, the 7500. Is that going to be something that you save yearly or you just saved to the 7500 and stop?
Lanea (26:05)
Yeah.
Yeah.
We’re just saving to the 7500 and stopping.
Crystal Chabot (26:19)
Okay, does that represent a specific amount of your house value or where did you get the number?
Lanea (26:27)
Well, at first I thought kind of 5 ,000, but, because I think we’ll need to replace our AC at some point within the next couple at first I thought it was 5 ,000, but then I was thinking that we might do a heat pump instead.
And I think that those are closer to like the six, $7 ,000 range. So that’s how I got that number.
Crystal Chabot (26:49)
Mm -hmm.
Lanea (26:52)
I’m always an oversaver. So I’m like, so should we set stuff 10 ,000 for, know, because stuff could go out, multiple systems could go out once. And he’s no, maybe we should do five. And then we kind of split it at 7 ,500 after, the ACs cost a lot of money.
Crystal Chabot (27:06)
Men in the middle.
Yeah, we don’t even have an AC so…
Lanea (27:14)
It’s probably a good thing.
Crystal Chabot (27:16)
Yeah, we don’t really need it. Just window ACs are fine when it gets really hot, but you said you had a five -year plan?
Lanea (27:23)
Yes. So I want to save 50 ,000 for a new house. I want to save up for plastic surgery I want to pass the $500 ,000 net worth. And I think that we can do that we either need to save quite a bit per month, like 3000 per month, or our investments need to do a lot better and we need to start putting money into investments instead of.
Crystal Chabot (27:35)
Mm -hmm.
Lanea (27:45)
like a 5 % savings account. But even at a 5 % I think if we saved $3 ,000, I think it was $3 ,100 a month, which we should be able to do, we would still hit it. So we’ll see.
Crystal Chabot (27:47)
Yeah, you need a compound.
unless there’s like some major health complications or something happens, I think you’ll be good.
Lanea (28:03)
Yeah, exactly. Like, if we stay on track, yeah. How about you? Can you remind me what your homework was last week? I can’t remember. I’m so self -focused.
Crystal Chabot (28:08)
Yeah.
I think he can do it.
I don’t even remember what it was.
No, that’s the problem. I didn’t write it down. Hang on. Did I write it down? Let me see. money. Okay, yes, I wrote it down. I wrote down in my notes it says, money goals, one year, three year, five year.
Lanea (28:26)
I don’t know.
Crystal Chabot (28:32)
It’s blank.
Lanea (28:33)
At least that’s real life for you.
Crystal Chabot (28:34)
I forgot that we set homework.
But I do have an update to my quarterly goal, which is in the last episode I said I wanted to increase our net worth by $1 ,000. I’m kind of fucking stupid, right? Because I’m not playing with chunk change. Our net worth already increased by 1 ,000 because the market increased.
Lanea (28:40)
Nice.
Yeah, yeah.
Yay!
At that’s a positive.
Crystal Chabot (29:00)
I have our net worth increased. Now, by the end of this quarter, might be down, right? But in the last week, it has increased by ,023. So,
Lanea (29:12)
You never know, yeah.
that’s awesome.
So I think my self -assigned homework for this episode is that we’re going to review and do our monthly finance meeting at the end of September, and we’re going to do more planning instead of reacting for October.
Crystal Chabot (29:36)
That’s a good one.
My homework will be remembering I have homework for one.
Lanea (29:42)
I mean, you have a baby too, so you know, there’s that.
Crystal Chabot (29:46)
Yeah, my parents visited this week so my brain is just mush.
Lanea (29:50)
That’s totally fair.
Crystal Chabot (29:51)
remembering I have homework and then my homework will be
I’m gonna access the Notion template and just like check it out, but I might just make my own stuff for it. So
Lanea (30:02)
Yeah, I think it’s worth checking out and her videos are pretty good.
Crystal Chabot (30:05)
Yeah. Yeah. I also had an update to the childcare homework that I gave myself too. So I found an open like daycare that has an active open infant spot. And then I looked at I looked at the licensing and registration violations and there’s no way in hell anyone’s going to be watching my kid from that place. It was so bad.
Lanea (30:12)
nice, okay.
Nice, okay.
okay, well…
This was me.
Crystal Chabot (30:29)
No, Like they’re allowing people who are unauthorized to have access to the children. They were watching too many babies at one time than what they were allowed. And there was so many security violations and like health violations that I don’t. She started her licensing in December of 2023 and every single visit has multiple violations. And I don’t understand how the fuck. Yes.
Lanea (30:54)
how they’re still in business. She’s still licensed and accredited. Yeah, that’s concerning.
Crystal Chabot (31:00)
my god. I know. So I do have a appointment for the daycare that I found just south of us. That’s an actual daycare that has education programs and stuff for the kids. So.
Lanea (31:14)
There’s definitely pluses and minuses to that.
Crystal Chabot (31:17)
Yeah, but we have a meeting next not not tomorrow, but the Monday after. So we’re gonna go and see I don’t even know what their rates are. Because when I asked her what the rates were, she told me the hours of operation.
Lanea (31:27)
Check it out.
Way to gloss over that information.
Crystal Chabot (31:34)
it was a really confusing conversation, so I was just like, I’ll see you Monday. I think she just didn’t understand what I said.
Lanea (31:39)
See you later.
Crystal Chabot (31:43)
But yeah, so those are my updates.
Lanea (31:45)
Anyway, so that’s all that I have.
Lanea (31:48)
Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Please remember that finances and parenting is a complex balancing act. But remember, By learning and growing together, we can build a brighter future for ourselves and our families. If you have any questions or want to share your experience, reach out to us at YouTube, Instagram, or Spotify at Piggy Bank Patrol. We would love to hear from you.
Sound Bites
“It’s about finding mutual agreement with your partner.”
“We meet monthly to discuss(finances).”