Summary
Crystal and Lanea discuss various aspects of financial literacy, including the importance of understanding fees associated with credit cards and savings accounts, navigating the current housing market, and the impact of home ownership on wealth. They delve into the causes of economic inequality, the significance of political awareness in financial decisions, and the role of relationships in financial health. The discussion emphasizes the need for intentionality in spending habits and the importance of shared financial values in partnerships. They conclude with strategies for setting financial goals and maintaining accountability.
Takeaways
- Understanding credit card fees is essential for financial literacy.
- High yield savings accounts are recommended for emergency funds.
- The housing market has become increasingly unaffordable for many.
- Home ownership can significantly impact wealth accumulation.
- Economic inequality is influenced by various systemic factors.
- Political awareness is crucial for making informed financial decisions.
- Controlling spending habits can lead to better financial health.
- Intentionality in financial decisions can yield significant benefits.
- Shared financial values are important in relationships.
- Setting financial goals and accountability can improve financial outcomes.
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.
Crystal Chabot (00:30)
I have some key highlights from our most recent analytics update on our YouTube. Our viewers specifically are looking for information on investing their emergency fund, how to avoid being house poor and quote unquote, how they keep you poor.
Lanea (00:49)
How the man keeps you for her.
Crystal Chabot (00:51)
That’s what it said. That’s a top search. And that’s a valid search, I think. That’s how I would ask it too, you know?
I think the first is relatively easy to address in terms of investing in an emergency fund. Generally, an emergency fund is meant to be like cold hard cash that we can have as actual like liquidity. So investing it isn’t really a great idea because that would tie it up and not allow the level of liquidity that emergencies require. So I think like the
Lanea (01:10)
Mm-hmm.
Crystal Chabot (01:25)
There’s two types of people that this question applies to. There’s one that’s at the stage where they can’t afford to invest their emergency fund. And then there’s other people that are at the stage where they have a huge net worth or mass amounts of different accounts spread out all over and
they have like the credit worthiness and the ability to put emergencies on their credit card and pay it off in a lump sum before the interest hits.
Lanea (02:02)
See, I agree, but I also disagree because I think for an emergency, like a true emergency, it’s unexpected, it’s urgent, and it’s necessary. I think it has to be those three. And then, and I think that you can pay most things with a credit card, but you can’t pay everything with a credit card.
Crystal Chabot (02:02)
Uh-uh.
Lanea (02:26)
So I would still advise keeping an emergency fund in a high yield savings account.
Crystal Chabot (02:32)
True, the, the, God, I don’t even remember what it was. It was some type of repair we were doing on the house and they would not accept credit cards. We had to write an actual like check, yeah.
Lanea (02:42)
A check. Yeah. I mean, I’ve run into that too with like house stuff or a lot of times, maybe you could go with like a plumbing company, for instance. You could potentially go with a bigger company and pay with a card or you could go with a more like…
Crystal Chabot (02:57)
Yeah.
Lanea (03:06)
mom and pop one and you may or may not be able to pay with a card but it’s probably like 10 % cheaper.
Crystal Chabot (03:14)
they do tend to charge you to use your credit cards at a lot of, yeah, like the 3 % bank fee and that is legal for them to do as long as they disclose it, so.
Lanea (03:18)
Yeah, a fee.
Mm-hmm.
I yeah, I just, wouldn’t have my emergency fund in anything but a high yield savings account, perhaps a money market account. Cause that’s liquid. And I also don’t think that I would ever invest anything for a period of where I thought that I was going to have to pull the funds if the period’s less than five years.
Crystal Chabot (03:37)
Mm-hmm.
Right, it’s just the time in the market, the odds of you hitting the gold rush.
Lanea (04:00)
and it’s just so, if it’s a true emergency, then you’re going to have to withdraw the funds at any point, whether you’re up or down.
Crystal Chabot (04:11)
On the other hand, there’s becoming house poor, which puts its own strain on finances. This is hard because there’s different ways you can become house poor. like, I think one of the main ways that people become house poor, well, the main two ways is that people buy a house that’s
too big, like they just can’t afford it. And then they buy a house maybe they could afford, but then they throw all of their cash into like fixing it up.
And now all their cash is stuck in a house that, I mean, they fixed it up. You’re not going to get equal value dollar for dollar on most things.
Lanea (04:54)
have a lot of empathy for this situation just because the housing market has changed so much in the last five years. like pre-COVID, I think that for, if you look at the numbers, the average amount that you would pay for a house, has gone up exponentially. So I think people now, if they want to own houses,
Crystal Chabot (04:58)
Okay.
Lanea (05:22)
are in a position where the average house is now pushing what is even affordable. It’s not like they’re trying to get houses that are well outside of their means or luxury purchases. It’s just an order to even get your foot into the door.
you’re forced to spend a much higher percentage of your income than you were several years ago.
Crystal Chabot (05:49)
back before everything went crazy. My golden rule when we bought our first house was don’t buy a house that’s like purchase price is greater than three times your annual income. So for someone making like 50,000 a year, you don’t go over 150. But the average home price in the United States, according to Forbes, let’s see, in the second quarter of 2023 was
Lanea (06:04)
Mm-hmm.
Crystal Chabot (06:18)
$495,100. 495, basically 500,000.
Lanea (06:22)
How much?
Okay, and then the average median household income is $80,610.
Crystal Chabot (06:35)
Yeah, that’s way more than, yeah.
Lanea (06:36)
So it just doesn’t, you know, it just does not compute. So it’s like, people just not going to get houses?
Crystal Chabot (06:42)
Right, yeah that-
That’s just, I don’t have an answer for it. The only answer is to try and come up with a creative way.
Lanea (06:49)
One.
I mean, and that’s kind of the situation that we’re in a little bit, although I can’t even really say that because we’re just exponentially lucky, is that I purchased my first house. I was the absolute youngest in our friend group to do it. Like, we probably had no business purchasing, but it was a foreclosure and it was $76,000 and that was 2014.
Crystal Chabot (06:59)
Thank
Mm-hmm.
Lanea (07:22)
And then in 2022, I sold it for $234,000. Now, I put a lot of money into it, you know, and a lot of time, and I replaced everything, but I could never have afforded to purchase my own house, less than eight years later.
Crystal Chabot (07:32)
Nice.
Mm-hmm.
Lanea (07:47)
I could not have done it. Like, it would be impossible.
Crystal Chabot (07:50)
Yeah, and we actually were looking to buy a house in 2014. It was like $54,000 and needed a new roof. But otherwise it was fine. It was like down by the psychiatric hospital. the bank was like, first off, your students. So even though you have income, we’re going to say no. And second off, even if we did say yes, you’d be paying 8%.
Lanea (07:57)
Yeah.
Crystal Chabot (08:17)
So we didn’t buy a house and we rented. changed so much since then.
Lanea (08:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, it just it. So I have a lot of empathy and I don’t know what you really do in that situation. Like, do you hold off on purchasing? I don’t know what the answer is, because statistically speaking, A lot of wealth is built by home ownership.
Crystal Chabot (08:31)
Thank you.
Yeah, traditionally in the US, it’s primarily real estate.
Lanea (08:51)
But on the other hand, think owning a house can be like the biggest help financially. it can, exponentially enhance your net worth due to, appreciation, or it can literally bankrupt you because if you don’t have the ability to manage maintenance or repairs or emergencies, you’re kind of fucked.
Crystal Chabot (09:08)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Lanea (09:20)
And you know what percentage of Americans can handle a thousand dollar emergency. I know it’s not very many.
Crystal Chabot (09:27)
No, I don’t know the stats on the 1000.
Lanea (09:32)
I mean, emergencies are not a thousand dollars at this point. think emergencies like come in at a minimum of like fifteen hundred.
Crystal Chabot (09:35)
You
I don’t really have any tips for being house poor.
Lanea (09:42)
But you, I mean, I think that you do because you guys just purchased a house.
Crystal Chabot (09:48)
guess and we purchased it for under the three times our income. But that’s because we’re willing to make sacrifices in different parts of our life like location. we moved across the country and I have no friends out here. I don’t have any like career contacts out here. We literally are just like
starting over from scratch basically, which is fine, but I don’t think a lot of people are willing to go that far.
Lanea (10:21)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I mean, we’re making sacrifices to not not in the same vein by any means and sacrifice is a little bit of a strong word, but we’re living in 900 square feet.
Crystal Chabot (10:38)
I don’t know how you do it. The little trailer I lived in, was 1,400 square feet and that was small enough.
Lanea (10:47)
Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s definitely tight. Like we don’t love it. But our mortgage is we’re never going to be able to get it this cheap again. And in order to maintain a decent savings rate and be close to work and daycare, it just makes sense to make the sacrifice of space at this point.
Crystal Chabot (10:51)
Yeah!
Mm-hmm.
And it’s relatively temporary. I know you mentioned possibly moving in the next four years or so, so.
Lanea (11:15)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think that will definitely and that’s, I mean, that’s one thing were it helps to have an end in sight.
Crystal Chabot (11:28)
one of my friends from Nelnet, she moved to Texas like two and a half years ago now. And they’re living with her in laws right now. Her husband can get a VA loan, but they’re saving up for a down payment and like money to be able to fix it up if they need to.
But there’s just, even she was adamant that they cannot, as a couple with no children, they cannot have a double income and live in Nebraska just because of how insane the housing market and like income-wise of a difference it is between Texas and Nebraska. Like she makes two or three times more in Texas than Nebraska.
Lanea (12:19)
than she would in Nebraska. And she doesn’t have to pay income tax.
Crystal Chabot (12:21)
Yeah!
No, that helps. Yup.
So just like those tiny little things, they can make a difference between being able to find an affordable house and not find an affordable house. The how they keep us poor bit is there. Well, there’s no single “they” and poverty is a multifaceted issue with interconnected causes. So it’s a bit hard to answer it, but.
certain systems and structures perpetuate that economic inequality. And we have things like the debt cycle and predatory lending and potentially limited access to financial services going against many different demographics. And overall, I think everyone is facing things like wage stagnation, rising healthcare costs and education.
education inequality, and as we mentioned, housing affordability. I’m not one person is solely to blame for their financial situation, but it’s hard. We are adults at the end of the day and our choices are important, but so much of our choices are like influenced by how we were raised and the economy and societal and like company corporate influence.
Lanea (13:49)
I also would encourage, I mean, we are recording this on November 1st. So I would encourage, we have a, yeah.
Crystal Chabot (13:54)
Yeah, it’s gonna be so different by the time it comes up. Wait, wait, wait. Okay, okay, this episode airs the 7th of November, so we’ll have our answers in the future.
Lanea (14:06)
Okay.
But I do think it’s important not only on the federal level. Obviously, a presidential election is huge. But so much of policy is determined at the state and local level. And I don’t think that those people get much attention. on the bigger side, you can check
Crystal Chabot (14:26)
Yeah, by the little guys.
Lanea (14:34)
how representatives are voting and what they’re voting on, the bills that they vote yes and the bills that they vote no, and the bills that they just don’t even show up for. That’s all available. But I think so many people go by what the political ads say or if they’re Democrat or Republican.
Crystal Chabot (14:37)
Mm-hmm.
Lanea (14:55)
I think that they go off of that rather than actually looking at records because I just know in Nebraska. and we are a deeply red state, so I can’t even pick on both parties just because the other party doesn’t exist. like Deb Fisher, she is running for reelection. She’s the senator from Nebraska.
Crystal Chabot (15:10)
haha
Lanea (15:15)
we have gotten multiple mailings from her, multiple TV ads saying that she is pro-veteran. Well, if you look at her voting record, the biggest piece of legislation to hit veterans, and she specifically said pro-veteran, the biggest piece of legislation that impacts veterans was the PACT Act. It happened fairly recently within the last couple of years, I think it was 2022.
Crystal Chabot (15:37)
Mm-hmm.
Lanea (15:42)
She voted no on it. That is public information. She voted no multiple times until it was finally put through with, political pressure by Jon Stewart. and again, this is public information, but I don’t understand how you can say that you’re pro-veteran when you vote against the biggest piece of legislation to impact veterans.
Crystal Chabot (15:57)
Mm-hmm.
Lanea (16:07)
And that’s across the board. It’s across the aisles. it’s very much down to the individual representative. But that’s just something to really consider keep yourself informed, what issues are important to you and how are your representatives voting on those because they can say one thing, but do something very different.
Crystal Chabot (16:28)
I think a lot of us just vote based on party and party has become an identity. it’s, I hate that about our culture that everyone is like, this is my identity. It’s like, no, we’re a society we’re each our own individual, but we don’t have to be so individual that we align with other people. It’s just, it’s fucked up. It’s a fucked up mentality to have.
Lanea (16:41)
Yeah.
Crystal Chabot (16:55)
And for that comes out of detriment. people see an R or they see a D and they could be voting against their best interest because they don’t know any better. the only things make us better is to educate ourselves, try and in this instance, how they keep us poor.
Lanea (16:55)
Yeah.
Crystal Chabot (17:18)
Just like focus on things we can control. We can control who we vote in. We can control what we advocate for. We can control our spending habits, change them if we are aware of them enough. It’s becoming aware of the little things that outside influence has kind of preset forth us to do.
Lanea (17:30)
Mm-hmm.
Crystal Chabot (17:45)
And then figuring out how we can change those behaviors and grow from there. It can make a tremendous difference in the micro day-to-day of our lives versus the overall picture because it’s the small changes that lead to the big change in our overall life. Yeah.
Lanea (18:03)
big changes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think you hit a big one. You know, you can control what you spend your your money on. Like, do you know what you’re spending your money on? Are you tracking what you’re spending your money on? Or is it going into a black hole? So and maybe you can’t control your biggest expenses like, you know, just the daycare. Yeah, housing, daycare, like, those are huge, but you can
Crystal Chabot (18:24)
Mm-hmm. Housing. Yeah.
Lanea (18:32)
control other things and you have more control over your day-to-day decisions than a lot of people think that they do.
Crystal Chabot (18:43)
basic consumption habits, how often you purchase new clothing, how often you’re purchasing entertainment, like movies, video games, going out and doing things that cost a lot of money that adds up to. And I think a lot of people have fallen into just not going out and leaving or leaving their house since COVID.
Lanea (19:08)
Yeah. Well, but it’s not even like big things. It’s like very little things that you can can do, like turn your thermostat down one degree. It might not make a huge difference, but if you could save five, ten dollars a month, making little, little changes like that can add up over time instead of grocery shopping, once a week
Crystal Chabot (19:09)
Ha
Lanea (19:33)
try to push it out every 10 days.
Crystal Chabot (19:35)
Mm-hmm. You can embrace it’s too good to waste. In Japan, they practice that a lot. And it’s basically like, you have these ingredients, so make use of them. Don’t just throw them away, because I know food waste is a really big one in the US.
Lanea (19:50)
Yeah.
Crystal Chabot (19:51)
And I hate to refer to this, but also just tiny little spending habits, like going out to Starbucks, changing that, just stopping that daily purchase. It doesn’t just add up financially in the end, especially if it’s every day, but it can change how you feel about yourself instead of purchasing
that likely filled with sugar drink. Going for a little ten minute walk instead could have huge health changes that come back to you and that impacts your ability to make money. Fitness, having a good body fitness can earn you more money because you’re able to think clearer.
Lanea (20:32)
Yeah.
Well, not only that, you know, I think that there is the pretty tax too.
Crystal Chabot (20:48)
Yeah, that’s, I literally just mentioned in the previous filler episode posted last week, I mentioned the utility of a hair tie. And I went over different ways that a hair tie could bring like utilization to someone’s life. And one of them was maybe you have a big presentation, having long hair will hold you back.
So pulling it back into a bun or into a ponytail or whatever or braid even, just like pulling it out of your face changes the way that people view you and view your competency.
Lanea (21:27)
Well, and weight is a huge one. mean, and I say that as somebody that’s been on like kind of both sides of it.
Crystal Chabot (21:30)
Yes.
Lanea (21:36)
it makes a difference in how you feel and how you think and how people perceive you and unfortunately, how people perceive you directly impacts your earning potential.
Crystal Chabot (21:37)
It does.
Mm-hmm.
Yes, Those are the main ones that I had listed that I thought were kind of like interesting that our viewers were actually searching for on YouTube.
trying to find those answers. Otherwise, I think the single most important financial decisions that, I’ve personally made, I think is just like making rules for how Raph and I operate financially and really changing our financial behaviors and
changing the way that we think about money and consume and spend it.
from 2014 to 2019, we really focused on rule setting and changing our spending behaviors towards making more sustainable purchases that would benefit and compliment our lives versus buying things just to buy them. and then also one of the other big decisions was Googling how to opt out of the
traditional 65 plus year old retirement.
Lanea (22:56)
you
Crystal Chabot (22:57)
I don’t know why it took me so long to Google that, but I found fire in 2020 and I’m really glad I decided to just be like, how do I not work till I’m 65? Because that was a big relief.
So those two things made a big impact. And then the last one, which would be potentially like choosing to move across the country, not only because of affordability and an increased quality and way of life, but also like the potential to out earn what Raph
and I made combined Nebraska just myself alone. I don’t have an offer yet. The crickets are driving me insane, but yolo.
Lanea (23:43)
Yeah, yeah.
It’s hard. It’s hard. I think for me, there’s a couple things that made the biggest impact. And one of them is being intentional about finances, intentional about spending and making sure that my spending matches my priorities. So being proactive in laying out the month and like what
Crystal Chabot (23:52)
Yes.
Lanea (24:16)
If am I actually gaining value from my spending? this adding value to my life? So I think ours are very similar there. I know when I do that versus when I just track or even don’t track at all, the outcome is ginormous on a single month. It’s it’s absolutely because, like I said, I’ve been both I’ve been in major debt and I’ve
Crystal Chabot (24:31)
Mm-hmm.
Lanea (24:44)
been doing okay. And it seems like I’ve done that both at different incomes. And the difference was being intentional. That’s the biggest factor was intentionality.
Crystal Chabot (24:56)
Even if it’s scary.
Lanea (24:58)
Yes, yeah, I think that’s and I’m an avoider. Like I don’t like uncomfortable situations. So I just avoid them. Yes. It’s terrible. But that is that is me. It’s something I’m working on. I acknowledge it. It’s a downfall of mine, but I’m terrible at it. So I think facing that head on is just super, super critical. Well, it’s like
Crystal Chabot (25:08)
and then tomorrow comes.
Mm-hmm.
Lanea (25:28)
partly back in 2014, I discovered budgeting at that point and really took a hold of it and really, analyzed every single purchase. And I cannot remember how much I was making at that point, but it was pennies and we were able to save like $16,000. And I think our household income was probably like 50. It was…
Crystal Chabot (25:45)
Mm-hmm.
Nice.
Lanea (25:51)
just like ridiculously low, but in a year we saved 16,000. And that was a huge percentage of income on that. And that was just about being intentional. I think the second and probably the biggest was who I married. don’t think it’s discussed enough how
Crystal Chabot (26:01)
Yo, yeah.
Lanea (26:19)
who you are with impacts your life financially. And it makes just the biggest difference. I mean, not only in earning potential, being with somebody who has a career and a skill set that is employable is important or
Crystal Chabot (26:27)
Mm-hmm.
Lanea (26:41)
you goals to become that if you’re younger, but how they handle money and if you are on the same page and do your money values align and, are they financially responsible? do they have a good credit score? Because all of those into a on a day to day lie, day to day. They really do.
Crystal Chabot (26:55)
that’s a big one.
Lanea (27:06)
Like if you are with somebody that you have to constantly float, no matter the gender, like that is going to be extremely difficult.
Crystal Chabot (27:16)
my, so my, my parents, they bought a ton of houses, right? This last house that they purchased, the only reason my dad was able to purchase the house was because of my mom’s credit score was so good. His was so bad that they almost did not underwrite the loan.
Lanea (27:33)
is huge, obviously. that’s a big example, but it’s little things, too. It’s your car insurance rate. are you paying, what, 20, 20, 30 percent more per month in car insurance because your spouse doesn’t have a good credit score?
Crystal Chabot (27:45)
Yup.
they have a bad driving record.
Lanea (27:51)
or a bad driving record. Because or both because the but I mean, there’s act, you know, actuary data that’s involved that shows that if you are a bad driver, you probably have bad finances if you have a bad credit score. But it’s all those it’s all those things that
Crystal Chabot (27:53)
Or both? Double whammy.
Yes.
And you probably own a red car.
Lanea (28:15)
make an impact on and you know we just talked about the little things that add up to big things does your partner have the same outlook that you do like are they willing to forgo those little things are they willing to not stop at gas stations or spend money on convenience food because they have the same big picture all of those things do they
Crystal Chabot (28:34)
the little bottles of
Lanea (28:38)
value saving? are they willing to make sacrifices to either work more hours or gain a skill in order to be more employable so you guys can, reach your financial goals together? So I think that’s the literally the biggest thing that I’ve ever done was marry somebody that shared the same financial outlook as me.
Crystal Chabot (28:48)
Mm-hmm.
Now that’s hard to find.
Lanea (29:06)
don’t know the stats on it, but I do know that there is a correlation between couples that I know that appear happily married because you never know, you know, but, and what financial stress does on a relationship.
Crystal Chabot (29:23)
I like to think that financial stress is basically the equivalent of any other type of stress, like job stress or health stress and how they handle either of those. Well, we know the outcome of the other. Yeah.
Lanea (29:30)
Absolutely.
And we all know the outcome on, yeah, we all know the outcomes on that.
Crystal Chabot (29:41)
Do they just bury their head in the sand and hope you figure it out for them?
Lanea (29:46)
Yes. Well, and I vividly remember that is partly why Adam and I got along so well. And our relationship isn’t perfect by any means. But, but on our second date, we talked about being frugal. And that was a big part of our second date. For you.
Crystal Chabot (29:57)
No, no one says.
Nice. I don’t think a lot of people do that for their second date or their like third or fourth. You basically had your first money date like.
Lanea (30:12)
Probably, probably not. Yeah, probably not, but it was just in.
But it was just it’s an it’s an important aspect for both of us. it is something that we both value. So it wasn’t awkward when it came up. It’s just like, my gosh, you use coupons to
Crystal Chabot (30:23)
Yeah.
Look at this! I got 50 % off my meal tonight!
Lanea (30:36)
Yes! Yes! Legitimate!
Crystal Chabot (30:39)
coupon days ago.
Lanea (30:42)
like legit like legit
But yeah, that’s the biggest. And I don’t think that, I guess I don’t know what you would do if you’re, in a situation with somebody that, doesn’t share that maybe separate finances completely. But even then,
Crystal Chabot (30:46)
my god.
Well, I that starts to borderline possibly on opening up a bigger risk of financial abuse. Just because they don’t share the same values, like if it’s not matching and they go against you or you go against them, that just opens it up for hiding things and sneaking around and then, fuck, we’re bankrupt.
Lanea (31:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Yep, yeah. Then suddenly your spouse will support it. Half the debt.
Crystal Chabot (31:34)
Yeah.
You you lose your house, they take your dog cat.
And you’re paying them!
Lanea (31:40)
Yeah. And you nail on the coffin.
Crystal Chabot (31:46)
Yeah, there’s no one way. And so it’s one of those things to definitely consider before you get into it. leading into like finance, like date night mentioning that we had our first finance date night all a really long time. And Raph did not do his homework to think about what he wants in the future. So
Lanea (32:12)
Okay.
Crystal Chabot (32:13)
He didn’t really participate in any financial talk and was more just like, eh, we’re not bleeding money, so we’re good, which is really fucking frustrating.
Lanea (32:24)
To be fair with a baby, not bleeding money is probably a very good, good thing.
Crystal Chabot (32:30)
the no spend October, it only halfway panned out because I broke down and I needed heat in my car and I didn’t want to figure out how to solder a piece of my car without electrocuting myself. So I purchased a new console for like 250 bucks and put it in my car and it works beautifully as of this morning.
Lanea (32:42)
Mm-hmm.
Well, I’m very happy about that. I don’t even know if that counts as no spend or breaking your no spend if it’s a necessity, but good job.
Crystal Chabot (33:01)
I mean, theoretically, the heat worked if I turned my car on auto and then let it sit for like 10 minutes.
Lanea (33:11)
See, and this is exactly why both Adam and I need to contact you because you will give it to people how it’s like is like my version of a need and your version of a need are two very different things. And sometimes I need you to be like, nope, you absolutely don’t need that. What are you talking about?
Crystal Chabot (33:25)
Hey
Lanea (33:34)
I cannot remember what my homework was last time.
Crystal Chabot (33:38)
I honestly, I don’t know what it was either. And I am the one that edited the podcast.
Lanea (33:45)
I just can’t remember. We did have two things that happened this week, though. So we had our second meeting with our financial advisor, and that went pretty good. I was tasked with outlining, developing a plan at a year at a time. So like 12 months, months worth of projected income and expenses. I haven’t done that before. So I need to do. Yeah, I’ve never done it. I’ve been so
Crystal Chabot (33:52)
Mm-hmm.
Nice.
Yeah.
Really? It’s basically your job that you do right
Lanea (34:15)
I haven’t done it in my personal life, okay?
Crystal Chabot (34:19)
one of the first things I did once I figured out how to do it.
Lanea (34:22)
Yeah, I’ve just never, it’s never come up. Now I keep track of my sinking funds. So it’s, I know how much my large annual expenses are like car registration, some insurance and stuff like that. So I know that information, but I’ve never done it a year at a time.
Crystal Chabot (34:35)
Mm-hmm.
Lanea (34:43)
And then I also need to work on my 2025 goals. I guess they were not specific enough and or too easily attainable.
Crystal Chabot (34:55)
She’s like, you can do harder things.
Lanea (34:59)
Speaking of which, we hit a very special number on our net worth today. And it’s only to yes. Yeah. And it’s only because it’s the beginning of the month and I’ve spent nothing or paid nothing. with
Crystal Chabot (35:05)
250?
day.
How you did that? But then I remembered The majority of it isn’t invested. So because my stocks are have been tanking this last week.
Lanea (35:26)
Yeah, it’s because I put all of our paychecks into a separate savings or a separate account and I release it at the beginning of the month and our mortgage hasn’t withdrawn yet but it’s 250, I know, , $250,394.83. Yay.
Crystal Chabot (35:35)
Yeah, yeah.
Nice.
I’m so proud of you guys.
Yay!
Lanea (35:51)
So, quickly, be under but I’m gonna savor it today.
Crystal Chabot (35:56)
Well, if you don’t look at it till next month, it won’t really decrease, right? One would hope. We’ll see. But you will know the day this airs.
Lanea (35:59)
That’s true, yeah.
What? Yeah.
Crystal Chabot (36:06)
man. Yeah, I guess like my homework moving forward is going to be trying to wrap my head around the fact that when I discovered fire, I had nine years left and now I think I have to reset it to nine years.
Lanea (36:23)
think that’s okay though.
Crystal Chabot (36:26)
Yeah, but girl, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it to 40.
Lanea (36:30)
You will definitely make it to 40.
my homework is going to be, we just wrapped up October, so I need to go over how we did in our third quarter goals and planning. And we’ll report back on that next episode.
Lanea (36:48)
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
“Tiny changes can lead to the bigger picture.”
“Vote based on issues, not party identity.”
“Focus on what you can control, like your spending habits.”