047: If Your Wallet Could Talk [3/3]

If Your Wallet Could Talk ft. Eryn Schultz of Her Personal Finance

If Your Wallet Could Talk is a three-episode podcast series that was created at the LA Ossa Production Camp in March 2022.

Podcast team: JoJo Evonlah, Brenda Hernández, Quinn Greenhaus, Saranne Rothberg, Tiffany Yu

Guest: Eryn Schultz of Her Personal Finance

Somewhere on her journey from management consulting to retail grocery operations to healthy school lunch, Eryn Schultz developed a passion for personal finance. Starting with a desire to help her co-workers get their free 401K match, she started to create content to help people master their finances. Eryn has a BS from Georgetown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Eryn is not a Registered Investment Advisor at this time.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/her.personal.finance/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eryn-schultz-26830317/

Facebook: http://facebook.com/her.finance.day

Website: https://herpersonalfinance.com/

Transcript

Hi, It's Tiffany here and I know we are on a little bit of a break from Tiffany & Yu, the podcast. We are getting ready to gear up to start recording for season three. But in the interim, I wanted to share a three-part mini-series of a project that I had an opportunity to work on back in March. I had the honor of getting selected for Ossa production camp. Ossa is this incredible company that creates a community and network of women podcasters that brought together a group of women podcasters to form teams to learn the ins and outs of what it was like to create a branded podcast. So the brands that I was on the team of was a financial services company who was looking to make different aspects of personal finance more relatable and approachable so these next three episodes are the episodes that we've recorded as part of that will also include the trailer here and the full episode and I want to thank our guests again for coming on and being part of this project. And I also want to give a special shout out to my team. Saranne, JoJo, Brenda, Quinn and yours truly. I hope you enjoy.

why is it that I will let my friend me but I won't tell her how much money I made. If finances burning and you're not gonna want to make time for it.

This is if your wallet could talk to real financial challenges, real solutions who's ever

bought and why should I give him 6000?

A lot of people think an investor is like an old white male sitting in a boardroom on Park Avenue doing these deals. It's not every one of us can be an investor.

Hi I'm I'm a first generation daughter of Asian immigrants, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker and I'm trying to figure out how to save and live well.

And I'm I grew up in a single parent, low income household. I'm on track to graduate debt free and redefine what finances mean to me.

We're bringing on money experts to break it all down and have some real talk.

Some sort of plan or checking in on your money

once a month. Even if a lot of what I'm saying today sounds like gibberish but just try it a little bit. Because future you is gonna really be thankful that current you did a little bit to start,

we realize that we all have a voice in our head about how we feel about our relationship to money, the money.

We all have it. It's in our head. It criticizes us. It can make us feel ashamed, but it can

even celebrate us when you find a bargain or get a raise.

If you're wondering how would it sound and what would it say Caitlyn?

Caitlyn, we really really don't need that in our house right now. And that would be better off and your retirement money. Oh my gosh. Are you sure you want to expand on that? What's your wallet voice? Share with us by tagging hashtag wallet

talk and join us every Tuesday to take control of your wallet at wallet talk.com. Where's the money?

Somewhere on her journey from management consulting to retail grocery operations to healthy school lunch, Eryn Schultz developed a passion for personal finance. Starting with a desire to help her co-workers get their free 401K match, she started to create content to help people master their finances. Eryn has a BS from Georgetown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Eryn is not a Registered Investment Advisor at this time.

Tiffany: I actually wanted to start by saying Georgetown was your dream school, which is where we both went to college. And you left with a bunch of debt. I was wonder if you could just start there because I think that our audience is gonna relate to that 

Eryn: part of it. Yes. So I was 18. I was very naive. I'm from text this and the decision came down to, am I gonna go to Georgetown and pursue my dream of living in DC and studying international affairs?

Or am I gonna go to Texas for free? And it's so fascinating cuz I loved Georgetown and my best friends I met at Georgetown, but at the same time is anything in life. Really? $160,000 better than something else. And so, especially we just moved to Austin, which Austin has always been a happy place for me. I was super cool and worked at UT debate camp, two summers in college as well.

So got to live here in my kind of late teens, early twenties. And so, yeah, I think as I think about my life, I don't know if I would be, if I financial educator, if I hadn't had student loans, it really made me think about money at an early age. , but at the same time, you know, it's, it would be nice to have not had that financial stress so early.

And 

Tiffany: so you mentioned like having so much student loan debt. Got you. Thinking about money. So I was wondering if we could go back to the origins of kind of your relationship with money. It's 

Eryn: an interesting question. I was just talking to my brother about this over the weekend, and I grew up in Houston with a really close-knit family.

And one of my first memories is going to a baseball game with my grandparents. And my grandfather tried to sign me up for the underage driver or, sorry, I'm I'm misspeaking, but the, um, what is it called? The, the designated driver designated driver? Yes. Were you're the, um, the driver who doesn't drink, but I was like nine years old and they were like, you have to be 21 to get the free Pepsi, uh, for doing that.[00:02:00] 

But I was nine years old. And so I think just there was a lot of like frugality in my life, in my lifestyle, because two sets of grandparents who. would drive, you know, 10 miles out of their way to get like 50 cents cheaper on avocados or whatever that was. And so I think there was just from, from an early age was conscious of the value of a dollar.

And then I think making this really big decision and my, my parents kind of were like, Hey, you can go to UT, you're not gonna have debt, or you can go to Georgetown and you will. My, I was laid out to me, but I think it was really abstract. And I didn't really understand. What it meant to have student loans and like, what is it gonna mean that I have to make a $750 monthly payment?

I don't think it was until I got to college and was really living on my own. That money came into a much sharper focus for me. And, you know, tried to live off of $5 a day, eating wise. It was a lot of, of frozen burritos, but I think it taught me a lot about frugality when I was first on my own. Yeah. A 

Tiffany: lot of meals at Leo's.

Yes. So let's fast forward a little, you then go and you graduate from Harvard MBA, top business school, and you go and you work in management consulting. That's kind of like the dream for a lot of MBA students or sorry, undergrad. Then you went into consulting, then you went into, at your MBA and then you worked at the grocery store leadership program, but you just had so much experience in corporate finance, but you.

Didn't really know how to manage your own. And so I know you've talked a little bit about how they've started incorporating some personal finance classes into the course offering at HBS, but why do you think it's been missing from education for this long? 

Eryn: I think it's a real gap. I think some of it is there's a liability issue for schools to teach personal finance.

And I've had conversations with people who are financial educators who don't think it should be taught in high school because it's not gonna resonate with people. I think. And actually, as I have started teaching classes, I've realized the people who are the most engaged and take the education the most seriously.

[00:04:07] It's when you've gotten to a point in life where you're trying to make your money work for you. And so a lot of times it might be that you're trying to buy your first house, or you're trying to pay off your student loans. Maybe you just graduated from grad school and you're making real money for the first time in your life.

[00:04:22] And so I think some of it is that. Up until these decisions are real. It can feel like monopoly money. You're like, oh, like, sure. In the abstract, I should do that. But it doesn't actually come into sharp focus until you're at a point in your life where you're making money and, or you have debt that you have to pay off.

[00:04:41] Tiffany: It sounds like you get to a point where you're pretty much confronted with it. Right. I mean, you had, you had over six figures of things that you were confronted with. Yes. 

[00:04:49] Eryn: Well, and I think for me, I realized that going to private college constrained my choices afterwards and, and ways that I'm sort of grateful for.

[00:04:57] And I've always been a more numbers driven person. [00:05:00] You know, I majored in economic within the school foreign service. And then I was working in management consulting, doing spreadsheets every day. So the math, at least didn't intimidate me. And I really went on a journey to learn a lot about personal finance on my own, because.

[00:05:15] I had these loans and I was trying to decide, do I pay them off as quickly as possible? Or do I try to invest at a faster rate while I'm paying that off? That was the central tension for me. And I landed on, Hey, I'm not gonna pay my loans off as quickly because they're under a four person interest. And so if I'm able to invest in a stock market and I have time on my side, cuz I'm young, that's gonna add a lot of value to me.

[00:05:38] And then I went to business school and learned a lot more about investing and about finance. And it was really only when I was working on a grocery store chain and I started overhearing people talking about the 401k and how many questions they had about it. And I kind of took on this personal crusade of, I realized the person who helped people was whoever in the store happened to [00:06:00] know the most about personal finance and was willing to talk to.

[00:06:03] And just by virtue of my background, Being good at numbers. You know, when they say, Hey, we're gonna match 2.5% of your salary. Most people that's really abstract to. And even how do you calculate what that is on a weekly basis? Especially if sometimes you have overtime, sometimes you don't just that comfort with numbers.

[00:06:22] I think gave me a head start and made me really passionate about trying to help others. You know, at this point I've completed a certificate in financial planning. I sat for the certified financial planner exam about two weeks ago. So I think I've, I've gained a lot of personal knowledge, but. It, it did feel frustrating that that wasn't taught in school and is something that I hope will change in the future.

[00:06:47] Tiffany: You're committed now. And congratulations on, on sitting for the exam. 

[00:06:50] Eryn: Thank you. Excited. I won't find out for another five or so weeks whether I passed or not, but even just the process of going through and learning the material, [00:07:00] I already feel like it's deepened my knowledge and understanding of personal finance.

[00:07:03] Tiffany: So you talked a little bit about this 4% interest rate. and you decided you weren't gonna pay your loans off right away for our listeners, you know, who 4% interest doesn't really mean that much to them. Is that good? Is that bad? How do you know whether or not that's a good number? 

[00:07:21] Eryn: Yes, I, I think that's a really good question is like, what, what is good?

[00:07:25] What is average? Um, I like to, I think about 5% as sort of the threshold for over 5% to sort of high interest debt. Under 5% is probably something that you can manage those payments on the interest. Isn't crazy. And it's interesting because 30 year mortgages we've been living through a period of time where they've been relatively low for the past two years, people are getting 2.7, 5% mortgages.

[00:07:50] So when you're partially wondering why the heck is it so hard to buy a house right now? A lot of it is because interest rates are so low that all these investors are coming [00:08:00] in and are buying properties because they're able to pay so little on the debt on the flip side, a credit card. And a lot of you probably know this, or you least know credit cards are high, but credit cards are 18 to 22% interest.

[00:08:12] So when you have a credit card, it almost never makes sense to pay that off slowly. You almost always wanna roll that to a 0% card or just pay it off as quickly as you can, because the interest is so high. So student loans are generally right around 5%, but I was able to refinance mine for lower than that.

[00:08:31] So they started at 6.8, but I got them below that. And so I was able to make a bigger return on the market by investing the market's average to 7% return versus what I was paying on that debt. So 

[00:08:44] Tiffany: follow up on that. How did you refinance that 

[00:08:47] Eryn: there were two things that I did, but the bigger one I'll talk about is after business school.

[00:08:52] a lot of companies you've seen SoFi. I mean, one of the jokes that I say is, I think it's so ridiculous. The super bowl this year was [00:09:00] in a, a stadium named for a student loan refinancing company. But in the past 10, 15 years, It used to be, you know, you got a loan from the government and maybe you went through a private lender, but there weren't that many options to refinance.

[00:09:13] A lot of companies realize if you have a good job and you have like a degree in sort of profession, that's going to enable you to make money. That you're probably a pretty good risk for paying that money back. And so if you have a 6.8% loan from the government and they can offer you 4%, you're probably not gonna default and you can save money on your loan and they can still make money.

[00:09:39] Because they're also differentiating within the risk pool. So unfortunately, if you're a music history major and you have 120 K and loans, some of you might have seen the wall street journal, just did the whole thing on how like Columbia MFA students have like 200 K in debt and make $35,000, which is really depressing to me.

[00:09:56] but if you're an MBA, if you're an MD, [00:10:00] if you're a veterinarian and I'm talking about the professional classes of degrees, but there's a lot of other people who are higher earners who would also fall into this bucket, um, you don't have to be a high earner. They just look at what is your debt income ratio.

[00:10:13] They want it to be less than 50%. So if you have a thou thousand dollars a month loan payment, and you're making 5k a month, That's a 20% debts income ratio. So I say all that to say, they run through all your financials. They look at your credit score. So know your credit score before you try to refinance.

[00:10:32] And based on that, they give you a rate. And so I was able to get all my student loans for under 4% interest, which made it a lot easier in terms of paying them off. 

[00:10:40] Tiffany: And you talked about credit score. We can do a whole episode on this, but how do you go and figure out what your credit score is? 

[00:10:46] Eryn: Okay. Two things, one.

[00:10:49] I like to start with credit karma, but a lot of people only go to credit karma. And that is a mistake because credit karma is gonna show you what's called your vantage score. And it's only gonna [00:11:00] show you two of the three. The score that your mortgage broker is gonna check is gonna be a FICO score. 90% of lenders.

[00:11:06] Check your FICO score. So you wanna know your FICO score the best way to do that is annual credit report.com. You get one free one a year, normally during COVID. I think they're actually making them free on a weekly basis. And so you wanna go to that website, download your credit report, and that's gonna tell you what your score is.

[00:11:26] And ideally you wanna be at like a seven 50 D seven 60 or higher, and that's gonna give you access to the lowest interest rate. So the higher your credit score, the lower interest rate, the less you're gonna have to pay the bank. 

[00:11:37] Tiffany: All right. Let's transition away from debt away from credit. I know we still probably got a lot of questions about that, but I wanna talk a little bit about retirement, which I know can feel like.

[00:11:48] More than two decades away for you and I . Um, but you coach women, our high achievers a lot on retirement. So we've got 401ks IRAs. I've been learning about some of the other [00:12:00] accounts that are available. Like why do we have so many retirement accounts? Like why does diversification 

[00:12:04] Eryn: matter? This is funny, cuz I get asked this question a lot and it it's like, like the alphabet soup of retirement.

[00:12:10] And honestly, a lot of it is just the us tax code. And I think this is like becoming more and more known that our tax code is purposely complex and that there have been movements from the IRS to say, Hey, let's simplify this. And then the turbo taxes and the other big tax HR R blocks of the world come in and no, no, no, let's keep it complicated.

[00:12:33] So I think what's happened is that over time there have been different bills. The 401k was an accident. You know, everybody used to have a pension. And the great thing about a pension was that you didn't bear the risk. The company bought the risk. So they told you we're gonna give you 2% of your average salary, you know, times your years of service.

[00:12:53] And you know, you're gonna get $5,000 a month in retirement or some concrete number. Now we have a system [00:13:00] where we bear the risk. And it's interesting because people opted in for that. And, you know, the 401k was sort of, oh, there's this like thing in the tax code where you can actually, as a company, get a tax break, if you contribute to retirement on behalf of your workers.

[00:13:15] And so some consultants saw that and was like, oh, this could be a great way to incentivize companies. To save in a different way than pensions. And because pensions you're only guaranteed sometimes like a three or 4% return a year, you can actually earn mu more money cuz the market has had a higher return than three or 4%.

[00:13:33] But the problem with that system is that now we bear the risk and most people don't know where to start with retirement. And as a result, you know, with baby boomers, I think it it's unfortunate, but that generation. Didn't have the tools. They probably weren't set up for success to save the right way for retirement.

[00:13:51] And I feel like millennials, we get a bad rap. One in five millennials is already supporting our boomer parents. So I could talk a lot more about [00:14:00] the alphabet soup of like all these different accounts, but it's not really diversification to invest in different accounts. It's just different ways to save on taxes that the government has set up for us.

[00:14:11] Hmm. 

[00:14:12] Tiffany: You talked about how most people don't even know where to start with retirement. So I'm gonna reflect that question back to you, cuz I'm sure a lot of our listeners are like, I'm so overwhelmed by this alphabet soup. You talked about taxes and I don't wanna pay attention to them. Like where, where do we even start?

[00:14:27] Like, do you first start with an IRA? Like what? Yeah. 

[00:14:31] Eryn: this is like my favorite question. I'm a barrel of fun at parties. Cuz I will like talk to people about their 401k plans and they're like, wow, no one wants to talk about this ever, but I try to make it fun. Right. So I would say the good news about retirement is that if you're lucky enough to have a 401k from your employer, you probably should start there.

[00:14:50] And part of this for me is about like, what's gonna be the easiest thing to actually get you to start investing and your 401k, you get tax [00:15:00] perks for participating in it. You don't even necessarily have to understand them in detail, but know the default is probably gonna be that you aren't paying taxes on that money today.

[00:15:09] So that means that you get to save on your tax bill while you're saving for future you. And the great thing about saving through a 401k and contrast to IRA is an IRA is a little harder to set up. You have to pick what company you have to actually open the account. You have to pick the investments, a 401k it's already set up for you.

[00:15:27] And especially if you work at a bigger employer, they probably have it default. To an investment. And this is one of the number one mistakes. I feel like people make is they feel like investing is picking individual stocks. You gotta be like part of wall street, bets and buying game stock and AMC and whatever you do not need to buy meme stocks to be investing.

[00:15:47] The best way for you to save for retirement in a lot of ways is in a diversified way. So you talked about diversification before diversifying doesn't mean having money in an IRA in a 401k. I like to say that's like showing [00:16:00] up at a restaurant. It's just an account. You still have to order off the menu.

[00:16:03] You have to pick an investment. And the great thing about about most 401ks is a lot of them default to you to something that's called a target date fund. They're riskier. When you're younger, meaning more in stocks, they get less risky over time. And so if you start with your 401k, you are investing, you're saving for your future.

[00:16:21] And it's like kind of the easiest way to get started. And your company has a fiduciary duty to you, meaning they are obligated to set you up for success with that. So I could go on and on and on about this, but I'll, I'll stop and I'll let you ask me all questions. If any of that was intriguing, 

[00:16:38] Tiffany: I would be your buddy at that party.

[00:16:40] talking about the 401ks. All right. So. Our, our buddy IRA. You said they're really complicated cuz you gotta pick one. And then, and then you're also saying once we figure out where we wanna open this account, then we have to pick some, we gotta pick some other things. If it's so complicated to [00:17:00] open one up, then why should I open one?

[00:17:02] Eryn: And I don't want people to leave thinking, oh my God, it's so complicated to open up an IRA. You can do it in five to 10 minutes. But it is more work than a 401k cuz a 401k. You probably can go through your company, HR, you literally just check a box somewhere, right. And you don't have to make any choices.

[00:17:20] So the first choice with an IRA is what company do I wanna work with? I am personally a big Vanguard fan. I don't get commissions from them. They don't pay me. But the founder of Vanguard, his philosophy was low cost buy and hold investing. So you're not day trading stocks, you're buying and you're holding for the future.

[00:17:40] And so kind of in the same way that if there's like a certain clothing brand that you know is high quality, like I know that if I'm investing with Vanguard, that they're and line with my values. So I'm a big Vanguard fan. I would say, if you are really overwhelmed by this whole process, The robo advisors are out there, you know, [00:18:00] betterment and wealth front.

[00:18:01] They actually will make this go from a two step process to a one. And I open up an account with them. They'll ask you a bunch of questions about what you're investing for. And they'll kind of take care of the investing for you. You pay an account fee. Oh 0.2, 5%. I believe is for both of them to have an account with them, but it's probably the easiest and hands off way to you open up an IRA.

[00:18:25] You have to send money to it, but they're gonna help you with the investing side of things. If you do say you wanna open up an IRA and I personally have an account with Vanguard. I talked about target date funds, Google them, but they're sort of a one and done way to invest within an IRA. Um, and I also really recommend the book, a simple path to wealth, which I think it's six hours of audiobook.

[00:18:48] And I think does a really good job of breaking down how to actually think about what securities to invest in and like what it means to invest what diversification means. [00:19:00] Why buy and hold is important. So none of this has to be that complicated and really you could get set up with an IRA and within an hour, I think people get really caught up and is fidelity or Schwab better.

[00:19:12] And so that decision paralysis keeps us from ever starting. Honestly, the difference between fidelity and Schwab, I don't know, maybe it's gonna be $5,000 in retirement. The bigger thing is if you don't start investing like waiting five years is going to cost you a lot more than agonizing over with what firm is gonna be the best one to go with.

[00:19:34] I definitely 

[00:19:34] Tiffany: went down that rabbit hole of fidelity Vanguard Schwab. What what's the difference, which one's the best. Also, thank you for the book recommendation. And if you listen on two X speed, you'll finish it in three hours. so, yes, it's to be six hours. So I've got some questions to close out our conversation on IRA, and I'm going to, uh, then hand it over to my friend and co-host Jojo who will ask you some rapid fire questions and close it, our conversation.

[00:19:59] But [00:20:00] one of the questions I have for you is you work with ambitious women, me and you both. And one of the big things that we talk about is work life balance. Right. And so how do you think about putting money into an IRA while also making sure that we're kind of like covering our life, like the type of lifestyle that we 

[00:20:18] Eryn: wanna live now?

[00:20:19] That's a really good question. And I would say retirement is a non-negotiable, you know, , I feel like it's so easy to not make it a non-negotiable, but before you get to retirement, Um, and sometimes you're not there yet, so it's a, maybe it's a nonnegotiable, but you're not gonna be able to work on it until next year.

[00:20:38] The first step is to build an emergency fund and maybe you start with $3,000, $5,000, but that's cash in the bank so that you can support your lifestyle. And maybe this is a slightly different question than what you were asking. but I think that having. A five to 12 month buffer and cash. And if you're single [00:21:00] and you have low expenses, maybe it's five months, but if you have people that depend on your income and that could not just be kids, that could be a parent.

[00:21:07] If you're a homeowner and you own a older house, you know that you're gonna need a new dishwasher. Soon. Having cash in the bank is really important to making sure you're never gonna go under credit card debt. And that helps give you that peace of mind to live your life. But I would say, you know, as you think about retirement versus spending that money today, retirement is really future you.

[00:21:31] And as humans, we all prioritize the future or the, the current day over the future. I'd rather have a dollar today than a dollar tomorrow. But I like to think about my golden girls house and how I wanna future me. I'm a vegetarian, but you know, like I wanna be eating beyond steak and not just ramen in retirement.

[00:21:49] And so when I'm thinking about that balance, I feel like I can still have a really rich life and make choices that I can't afford everything, but I can afford to think that matter to me. [00:22:00] I don't care how much about clothes decorative pillows are more of a should because I'm an adult. But I care about travel.

[00:22:06] And so I'm gonna put more money into travel. And so I think figuring out what do I really care about and where are those trade offs and rent is the number one thing. If you're spending too much on housing, everything else gets really hard. And so I've always lived in cheap places. Fourth floor walk up, no dishwasher.

[00:22:23] What, what. But that's enabled me to save for retirement without feeling like I'm having to make trade offs in my day to day. Uh, 

[00:22:29] Tiffany: so many, so many nuggets in there. I love that you said retirement is a non-negotiable and I'm also just visioning right now. You and I being like 60 years old eating ramen. And if that's what you wanna do when you're 60, that's great too.

[00:22:42] But that just that vision, it T be back to like freshman year in college. Uh, alright, so I'm gonna transition this over to my co-host Jojo. So we're gonna do a little. Shift on our end. Um, who's gonna ask you our final questions to close out the interview. 

[00:22:56] Jojo: Hello? Hello. 

[00:22:58] Eryn: Hi, I'm nervous. [00:23:00] I hope I have good answers for you.

[00:23:02] Jojo: Don't be, don't think too much. Just speak. My name is Jojo, and we're gonna kind of, um, think of this as like a part two. Uh, I wanna pick your brain a little bit. So we're gonna start with you talk about getting your financial house in order order in the court. What does this mean? And what does this 

[00:23:19] Eryn: look like?

[00:23:20] So I'd say, first of all is just knowing your numbers. I know it can be really anxiety inducing to even check your accounts. So, first of all, it's just. Going through that process, like where are all my old 401ks? How much money do I have in cash? So just knowing your numbers is the first step. And the second one is setting goals.

[00:23:38] And I think it's really easy sometimes to set a goal. That's like, I wanna buy a house, but going past that and saying, I wanna buy a $500,000 house and I wanna buy it in three years, but I'll say the second piece is deciding what your goals are. And it's not just, I wanna buy a house, but it's. How much house do I wanna buy?

[00:23:55] Is it $500,000? Is it $200,000? Is it way more than that? Cause I live in New York [00:24:00] city and then figuring out what that means in terms of a down payment and like really setting a goal and. From there, it's creating a plan. And I know that all sounds really easy to say it's hard to do, but it's sitting down and doing the work about what do I want and, and how am I gonna get there?

[00:24:15] Jojo: So we're adults here, right? I'm an adult now I'm enjoying the money I'm earning. And I wanna know if I wanna be a material girl and invest in the du bag. The decorative pillow today will that jeopardize my investment in an IRA tomorrow. 

[00:24:31] Eryn: so I think it really depends. I'm a big fan. If you can. If you can hit a total savings rate, a 20% and buy that your bag go for it.

[00:24:40] But if you can't, then it's really kind of trying to think about, am I Moring my future to pay for today? Cuz debt is really, oh, I spent money on something in the past that I'm having to pay for today. And the same thing for retirement. You know, it sucks. I did meals on wheels a lot as a kid. I think that's why I'm really passionate about retirement.

[00:24:59] When you [00:25:00] see someone who does not have the financial means to take care of themselves in old age, it hits different. So if you're struggling and you're not paying for retirement, sign up for meals on wheels shift and like the next month. And I, I feel like you'll, you'll maybe shift your priorities or get hide hustle because you can always increase your income.

[00:25:17] So if you really like need that decorative pillow or that facial, or you wanna go on that trip, You can make it happen. You just have to work for it. 

[00:25:26] Jojo: Gotcha. So we've seen how you use your humor on your social media to sort of build your brand. So we wanna know, does humor have a place in 

[00:25:36] Eryn: finance? I think it has to cuz if finance is boring and stressful and you only think about money as a bad thing, you're not gonna wanna make time for it.

[00:25:46] But if money can be something that helps you achieve your goals and can be fun, then I think a lot more people will start opening up IRAs and not feeling so intimidated by them. 

[00:25:57] Jojo: I see. So we don't play about our money, but money can [00:26:00] be funny. So my next question is sort of similar to that. Um, we know that you're a big advocate for closing the gender pay gap, and we wanna know, does feminism have a place in finance and what that looks like?

[00:26:12] Of 

[00:26:12] Eryn: course, feminism have a place in finance. To me, feminism just means that women and men ha should have access to equal opportunities and are equal contributors. And so a lot of it for me is that in relationships and in the workplace that women take ownership of their finances in the same way that men do.

[00:26:32] There's some statistic that millennial women Def to our husbands and to their male partners more even than boomer women. And that really bugs me, but I think part of it is just crowding in conversation. So next time you're with one of your girlfriends, like there was a video that just went viral on Instagram about like, why is it that I will let my friend bikini wax me, but I won't tell her how much money I make.

[00:26:56] And so it doesn't have to start with like getting [00:27:00] totally financially naked, but maybe you start by saying, Hey, where are you investing your money? Do you have a 401k? Do you have an IRA? And those maybe are easier conversations to start with. And then eventually you can build up to having more financial transparency.

[00:27:14] Jojo: Absolutely gotta start somewhere. All right. It's time we wanna know. What does your wallet, voice sound like if your wallet could talk, what would it say? And how would it 

[00:27:25] Eryn: sound okay if my wallet could talk currently, I don't actually have a wallet that I use regularly. It's like my credit cards and a rubber band.

[00:27:32] So I think they would say we're living simply, we're living just with what we need and we have a plan so that it's not so stressful and we're kind of automating to the future. 

[00:27:42] Jojo: And is that their voice? Is that how they sound come across? 

[00:27:45] Eryn: Oh, that's interesting. So you want me, what would my actual money sock like?

[00:27:49] You gotta do the voice. Interesting. I feel like we would have a big base. And that that doesn't have to be gender. Okay. Let 

[00:27:56] Jojo: us, it, my, my money would 

[00:27:59] Eryn: be big [00:28:00] because I feel like I have a plan and it's a strong foundation. I can't really do voices, but that's the best you get for me. 

[00:28:07] Jojo: All right. Finally, what three tips would you give our listeners to mellow out their wallet?

[00:28:12] Voices. 

[00:28:13] Eryn: One, make some sort of plan for checking in on your money once a month and start small. But I would say if you are nervous, so like even check your accounts, that's the first step and just lean into that anxiety because the numbers aren't gonna get any better. If you don't ever look at them. Um, the second one would be automate as much as you can so that you don't have to think about it and worry about it as much.

[00:28:37] And that's another reason I love. You know, if you can take money outta your 401k, you don't have to think about that. And the third one would be have that cash buffer. If you have credit card debt, trying to make a plan to get out of that as quickly as possible. But if you don't or if you have in the past, you wanna make sure you don't get there again, having, you know, five, six months of your living expenses and cash [00:29:00] is game changing.

[00:29:01] You don't have to start there, but maybe it's your first 5k, um, or your first 10 K and you do something like. Go get your favorite chocolate bar to celebrate. Try to make money fun and not just something that's shameful and anxiety inducing. 

[00:29:16] Jojo: All right. I'd imagine that last tip will really stand out for the users that have a credit card with a big base.

[00:29:22] But, uh, we thank you so much for being here with us today. Uh, we really value and appreciate your time and all of them you've shared with us. 

[00:29:30] Eryn: Well, thank you so much, Joe. This was a lot of fun and really grateful to get to collaborate with such an awesome team.