Episode 42: Financial Health with Shellye Carpenter, Part Two

00;00;08;09 – 00;01;33;20
Kelly Parbs
According to a recent survey, 71% of Americans identify money as a significant cause of stress in their lives, and 54% of millennials say that financial anxiety is making them depressed. A study conducted by the American Psychological Association indicates that as many as eight out of ten Americans are stressed about money, and over half of them are feeling fatigued, irritable, angry, and lie awake at night with worry. Many of them report having headaches, upset stomach, and increased muscle tension. I’m your host, Kelly Parbs. I’m a licensed clinical social worker and have dedicated my career to helping people with their mental health. Clearly, financial health and mental health are closely connected. Today, I will continue my conversation with Shellye Carpenter. Shellye has over 20 years of experience helping people with their finances. Her message is that small changes can make a big difference over time. Thank you for tuning in. As we continue our conversation. Let’s talk about credit reports and credit report reviews. How often should people be looking at their credit reports? And are there specific things they should be looking for?

00;01;33;22 – 00;06;27;09
Shellye Carpenter
Sure, you should look at your report, minimum, minimum once a year. Even if you’re not using credit cards or if your car loans are paid off, what have you still look at your credit report. Because that will tell you – credit reports are one way that you can find out: A, if you’re information has been compromised in any way, because the way that you will know that is if there’s anything authorized credit cards or loans on your, attached to your credit report. Obviously, you’re going to want to dispute those and get those resolved. So you should look at it minimum of once a year. But what we tell people, what we recommend here at balance, that people do is check it a couple times a year. You can do it three times a year at minimum. Actually, I think you can do it more than that now. But if you go on Annualcreditreport.com and that’s the only site out there that you can truly get a truly free credit report. Annualcreditreport.com you will input some information, your social, your name and so forth, and you will be able to select one of the three bureaus. So the three bureaus are TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. So what you do is you go on, enter your information, select one of the bureaus, download your report. You’re going to want to look at, make sure they’ve got your, you know obviously your name and your birthday. Your, your address is correct. All your personal information is correct. Then you’re going to want to look at your, all the accounts that are listed on your credit report. Those are called trade lines. So you’re going to make sure that your, the credit cards that are on there that they’re yours, that any student loans that are on there are yours. Car loans, home loans, etc.. Make sure that those lenders are your lenders and nobody else’s lenders. They do have a spot on there where if there are other names associated with this account, they will have those on their. So make sure if there are other names, whether it was like a spouse or a child, that you might have on an account as an authorized user. Make sure that those names are correct and if there’s any name on there that you don’t recognize. Reach out to the credit bureau and reach out also to the lender. So if it’s a credit card that has your name and somebody else’s name you don’t recognize attached to it. Reach out to that credit card company. Just call the number on the back of your card and talk to them. Also, you’re going to want to let the credit bureau that you pulled that from. So let’s say you did TransUnion. You’re going to want to let them know that this person is not associated with my account. So you do that then you can go back four months later, go to Annualcreditreport.com, enter your information and then select another bureau, a different bureau. So second time do Experian. You download your report, print it out or read it on your computer or whatever and look at it and make sure that all the information is correct. Then four months later go back and then do the Third Bureau that, you know, the one you haven’t selected yet. Download that report and look at it. Make sure everything is correct. Sometimes you’ll find different information on different bureaus. I don’t know exactly why that happens or how that happens, but lenders do report information. Sometimes they’ll only use one. They only report to one agency and not another. And that’s pretty common, actually. So, even though all your credit cards, all your, all your information will be on there, the certain lender may not report to all three bureaus. So just keep that in mind. But it’s important to make sure that all that information is correct. They do have places on the areas on the credit report, or with the lender I’m sorry, that you can make statements. You can go in and type a statement and add just for context or whatever that maybe you’ve got one item in collections and you are working with the person to, you know, pay down that debt. You can go in there and type that. There’s a certain amount of characters you’re limited to. So you can’t make it like a novel or anything, but you can definitely add some context to whatever situation is showing up on your credit report. So again, look at it minimum once a year. At bare, bare minimum. But ideally look at it 2 or 3 times a year and just do it every four months or so. And that should give you a good – after a year’s time, you know, you’ll get to see what’s, what, what one bureau has on you versus what another bureau has and, that you’ll be able to keep on top of any kind of mistakes or errors that, that the lender may have made or that the credit bureau made, and you’ll be able to dispute those with the bureau.

00;06;27;12 – 00;06;45;00
Kelly Parbs
So this really comes back to this idea of being organized and having a plan. And then, you know, maybe getting it on your calendar that you should be checking your credit report. Because I think on any given day that’s not something that we have on our to do list. And it would be easy for months or years to go by without doing it.

00;06;45;02 – 00;07;22;01
Shellye Carpenter
Yeah, again, I definitely am hearing a theme in our conversation here, and it is up to us as consumers to stay on top of our own information, in our own habits and so forth. But yeah, there is and unfortunately, no one’s going to come out and say, or it might be a very rare instance where somebody might proactively approach, you know, send you a letter or call you or email and say, “hey, we noticed that there was an error on your report,” that’s almost never going to happen. So it’s very, very important to, again, self-advocate and stay on top of our own information, in our own habits and practices.

00;07;22;04 – 00;07;54;09
Kelly Parbs
And not to wait for a crisis. And I’m saying that to myself. I waited until I was a victim of identity theft, and all of the sudden I was getting notices that, about unemployment, which was kind of scary because I was, I was employed, as far as I knew. And it turns out someone was stealing my identity to get unemployment benefits. And that’s what prompted me to get a credit report. And what I’m saying is we shouldn’t wait until there’s a crisis. We should be doing that more proactively.

00;07;54;11 – 00;09;35;01
Shellye Carpenter
Yeah, and sometimes it takes, and I’ve also suggested – and this is also I’m talking to myself too – is to be consistent. So, the beginning of the year it’s a, it’s a prime time for people to start taking stock of their, their health, their physical health and then their financial health as well. And they might, “okay, I’m going to get organized and I’m going to get on my Excel spreadsheet every month and fill in all this stuff,” etc.. And, you know, 1 or 2 months goes by, kind of like going to the gym, first couple months you’re really into it, and then after that it kind of, you know, wanes and peters out, if you will. And consistency is really the key in a lot of the things we’re talking about right now, a lot of in terms of staying on your budget, watching your spending, keeping organized, keeping up with your bank and credit card statements, looking at what you’re spending on a regular basis. It’s really organization and consistency are pretty much the, the two things that need to happen in order to have success with staying on top of your finances, and so, like I said, I’m telling that to myself as well as to the audience because, I can be very inconsistent and it’s hard to go back and recreate or track down some of that information the longer you go. So my advice is to again, organize and be consistent. Take, take ten minutes every month instead of a half hour every six months, because you’ll have a lot more success that way.

00;09;35;03 – 00;09;46;20
Kelly Parbs
Shellye, you mentioned that people specifically struggle with childcare, groceries, gas, and housing. Do you have any practical tips for our listeners who might be struggling with any of those?

00;09;46;22 – 00;14;11;01
Shellye Carpenter
Yeah, we get those calls, these calls every day. And, and our counseling team does a fantastic job in sharing, you know, small tips and practical tips with people to kind of help ease that, ease that burden and maybe close some of those gaps. With specifics to groceries, so like I said earlier, I’m going to contradict something that I said about unsubscribing because one of the best ways now, you know, coupons used to be a thing. Every Sunday you get in your paper, you would get this big, haul of store coupons and manufacturer coupons and so forth. And that’s kind of gone the way of the dinosaur now too, because things are so digital and, you know, hi-tech out. And so I’m going to suggest that if you, there are stores in your area, grocery stores in your area, that offer digital coupons that you might want to download their app. Again, check all the security features, check the reviews, make sure that everything is in good order. But you might want to, take a look at their app and see if they offer downloads, downloadable coupons that are available only in the app. You won’t get them in the newspaper, you won’t get them in an email, or you might get an email, but in a newspaper or magazine or anything like that, because you can save a lot of money doing just, just by using digital coupons and learning to spot bargains and using your coupons when something goes on sale if you can, and so forth. So digital coupons and digital loyalty programs. Again, great for gas, saving on gas. There are some national grocery store chains that they have not only great digital coupons, but they have a gas program too, where you know, every hundred dollars you spend, you get $0.10 off a gallon, something like that. Sign up for those. And if, if it is possible for you to, you know, stay loyal to those, you could save some significant money, you know, over time, $0.10 a gallon is nothing to sneeze at when it comes to filling up your gas tank. So look for loyalty deals in the form of digital downloads, through their app. Again, signing up for email list. If my grocery store is telling me if you get on our email list, we’ll give you 10% off. I’m all over that. Now, I may unsubscribe later, but that, that’s, you know, for for something that is vital, like groceries, I mean that’s a good deal. If it’s a clothing store and if it’s, you know, if I’m buying a high dollar item, you know, a coat or a purse or something. Yeah, I might do it for that one time. But then as soon as I get the first, you know, 3 or 4 emails following, then I’m gonna unsubscribe because it jumps up your inbox. And also, if you were only there to buy that one item, you don’t need to be tempted again. So there is some balance and give and take in the whole giving up your email address or downloading an app in order to get some discounts there. Childcare, that, that is a tough one. It is so expensive now, and in some places, such as where I live, it’s, we actually are known as a childcare desert, which means that there are not enough providers for all of the kids out there who need quality childcare. And so I would suggest, you know, figuring out, if your local childcare center is full, you know, look at some programs, maybe at churches like Mother’s Day Out programs, those can be reasonably priced, you know, pairing up with friends and so forth. Those can be, can be, a good, good money saver for you. And again, it’s, that is, that is an issue that our country, I think we need to address cause it is, it’s hard to find childcare number one, and when you do find it it’s very expensive. You know we need solutions to that on a national basis. Housing again you could bring if you have a place that you’re living in and you’ve got some extra room, you can think about possibly renting out a room to a very qualified person, somebody that you get along with, obviously, or could get along with. But look at some different options at, you know, room share or sharing a home or an apartment with somebody to help cut those expenses. Because, again, rents are going up in this country, too, right along with housing prices. And so it’s important to find some creative ways to offset some of those expenses.

00;14;11;04 – 00;14;56;02
Kelly Parbs
We’ve talked a little bit about social media and how it can get us in trouble financially – those darn sales. But let’s talk also about how social media can help us with financial well-being. One thing I’ve observed with my adult children is how easy it is for them to buy toys and clothes for their kids. Between my two daughters, they have eight kids under nine years old, and when they need to buy something, let’s say like a pair of rain boots, it’s very likely that they can find beautiful, nearly new boots for a fraction of what they would have cost new. They do this on local apps that connect moms to buy and sell things. Do you have any other ideas for us, Shellye?

00;14;56;04 – 00;17;59;09
Shellye Carpenter
Yeah. So I am in a very active group called buy nothing, and buy nothing is a movement where people come together and they offer up things, you know, they’re giving away, getting rid of stuff. Or, somebody can put out a request out, you know, “do you have a car seat?” or, “is anybody out there? Do they have a car seat that they’re no longer using?” So a buy nothing group is committed to, or the buy nothing philosophy, I guess, is committed to sharing resources with one another. Either that we don’t need, don’t want and keeps people from having to go out and buy something. So what I would recommend highly, and these are Facebook groups. So give, you know, set aside the discussion about the safety and social media whatever. But if you go on Facebook and look for, just search, in the search, look for buy nothing and you might find that there’s one or more groups in your community that you can swap things with. You know, you take a picture of, of something and posted on there that I’m giving away, and somebody will come to your house and pick it up. Or you can meet at a mutual location, you know, some, some place like a grocery store parking lot or something, and hand it over. However you want to do it. But my buy nothing group is very, very active and I tell you, I haven’t gotten a lot. I haven’t asked for a lot or taken advantage of a lot of the things that people have given away, but I have been able to give a good number of things away. And it’s kind of cool because it’s, you know, I’m all for giving to charity shops and so forth. That’s that’s great too. But it’s kind of neat to be able to connect with somebody who really needs something that you’ve got, you know, for their child or, you know, for their home or what have you. And a lot of times they’ll do what they call gratitude post where they’ll post a picture of their kid using the toy or playing with the toy that you gave them or, or. Yeah, yeah. And it’s really just a fun, you know, I haven’t made any friends through it, but I’ve made some like, Facebook friends through it, but it’s a really neat way to just share resources. You know, if you’ve got stuff you don’t want in your house anymore, and your decluttering it’s a great way to get rid of some things. If you, maybe if you have a new baby in the house or a child in the house, and you don’t have a lot of money for toys or for new books or for clothes, I can’t even tell you how many posts involve baby clothes. Sharing and, and giving away and, and people asking for baby clothes. It’s just a great way to share resources without having to spend money. And the items that you see on there run the gamut from groceries that, you know, “I don’t know why I bought this can of vegetables or buy this can of peas, but I don’t want them, they haven’t expired. Does somebody out there want them?” Almost always you’ll find a taker. It’s really a neat movement. So I just, you know, if you’re out there and you’re looking for a place to maybe find some free items, I would highly recommend looking for one of those groups in your area, but it’s called buy nothing, and then it will have like your community’s name listed after it.

00;17;59;17 – 00;18;00;20
Kelly Parbs
Great tip.

00;18;00;23 – 00;22;08;08
Shellye Carpenter
Yeah, and social media also is great. There are so many great sites out there for DIY, you know, how to make things yourself. Instead of paying for services like house cleaning, or car washing, or lawn care, you could obviously do them yourself. Saving a lot of money and, you know, gaining some skill in the process. But also there are so many resources out there: videos, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok – whatever your thoughts are about TikTok – that have DIY videos on how I can, you know, cooking, there’s so many cooking videos out there, it seems like there’s always a new cooking technique. You could learn, different ways to cook on social media, to learn how to fix things home repair skills, even if you’re a crafter. Again, that’s where buy nothing or swapping can be very valuable, because if you’re a crafter, instead of going to the craft store and purchasing materials that you might only use half of for your project, have a lot left over, you might find those same materials available on your buy nothing group, like you could get, you know, obviously for free. And so you’ve got supplies you need for a project for free. But, you know, obviously, instead of hiring someone else to come in and do things around the house that you could do yourself, if you do them yourself, you’ll obviously save some money there. Clothing swaps are a really popular thing on social media, too, that you can find in your area that instead of buying new clothes, you just organize a swap with your friends or with this community group and bring the stuff that you don’t want to get rid of, you donate that to the event, and you can go through and maybe pick up some great new things, you know, new to you, for yourself. So that’s another idea that is a great, social media is a great place to find those type of resources. You can also use social media to find recipes for DIY cleaning products. There are so many sites out there that are dedicated to making, more natural homemade type of cleaning products to avoid the onslaught of chemicals in your house. So social media is a great place to find that. Again, selling unwanted items, Facebook Marketplace is very popular, but also there are many community pages out there too that are buy, trade, and sell. Even if you looked at, did a search on those terms buy-trade-sell, you’ll come up with something in your area that, there’s a, there’s a group for that, just like there’s an app for that, there’s a group for that. And also like I said earlier, you know, consider renting out a new space. If you have some extra space in your home, you might, rent it out on a platform. You know, like Airbnb or Vrbo. Also, I was reading about a new trend where people are renting out their backyards for people with pets. So, like, if somebody lives in an apartment and they have a dog or, you know, a dog, I guess would be the most likely pet, that needs some backyard space to play in. People are renting out their backyards and you can come bring Fido over for an hour and play fetch with him in our backyard for a fee. So people are getting very, very creative. During Covid, I think there was a little trend for a while where people were renting out their backyards that, if they had a pool and letting people come over and swim in the pool for an hour, whatever. For a fee, and the hosts would be elsewhere, you know, they’d be in the house or gone while the, the family enjoyed some pool time in the backyard. So that’s a little different. And I don’t know what the going rate is or anything like that, but I do remember reading about that, at the time, it was, it was kind of a new twist on, “gee, how do I, you know, I can’t go to the public pool because it’s closed due to Covid,” so some people were renting out their pools for families, I mean, people to come and enjoy. So if, you’re really just limited by your own imagination when it comes to learning things on social media or finding things on social media, it’s really just, kind of a vast array of people’s imagination. It can be, it can be a great place to save, find tips to save money.

00;22;08;11 – 00;22;18;28
Kelly Parbs
Financial experts always advise people to save money and have an emergency fund. Can you give us some advice on how to actually do that?

00;22;19;00 – 00;26;24;16
Shellye Carpenter
Sure, I would start by saying, so a lot of the experts are, you know, they say three, have 3 to 6 months of living, essential living expenses on hand. And that is a very wise tip to follow. But sometimes it can be hard. You add up a month of expenses and you multiply it times three, four or 5 or 6 and you’re thinking, oh man, I can never save that much money. Don’t think about that. Just think about getting in the habit of saving something. $5 a paycheck, $10 a paycheck, $2 a week. Whatever it is, start small. But again, consistency. We’ve talked about that throughout this conversation. Consistency is key. Don’t do it 2 or 3 weeks and then stop if you can at all afford it. Save a little bit. Every time you get paid. Set something aside for yourself. Pay yourself first. You’ve earned that money. You’ve worked, you know, 40 hours a week, maybe more with overtime. And you deserve to keep some, something. Hold it back for yourself, not to spend it on something foolish, but to save in case, you know, to give you peace of mind when you do have that financial emergency that will come. We all have them. So I would start by saying, save a little, save what you can afford to save. But get yourself on a consistent schedule. I do like to to share this anecdote that I read about a few months ago in a Facebook group, there was a girl who, we were talking about saving money. And, you know, this very question, how much did you start with, etc. and this one girl posted, she said, “I finally have $100 in my savings account, and let me tell you how I did it.” She was working a minimum wage job, 40 hours a week plus, had maybe 1 or 2 small children, struggling to make ends meet. She had managed to save, it took her a couple of months to save $100, and she did it by saving her spare change. She literally dug under her couch covers and found a nickel here, a quarter there, a couple dimes under her seat in the car or what, you know, different places. And she put it in a jar. And when she got to $100, she went and opened a second, or a savings account at her financial institution. And we were so proud. I mean, we were congratulating her and giving her kudos, and she was so proud of herself, and she was saying how hard it was for her to get that $100. But just the peace of mind. And $100 in the big scheme of things might not be much to some people, but to this girl it meant that, that A, she had a little tiny cushion. So, you know, hopefully she didn’t have to spend it all on one emergency, but it gave her a little bit of a cushion which gave her peace of mind, which helped her sleep better at night. Which is better for your financial health or your physical health and so forth. And it took her a couple of months to actually come up with $100. She did it all in change, and it was, like I said, in a jar. And then she took it to her bank or credit union and deposited it and was so proud of herself. And we were so proud of her. And that’s what it, that’s what it takes, it takes determination. And she had a goal. She didn’t say that, you know, my goal was to save $100, but she wanted to get something for herself and was struggling because her income just, you know, it wasn’t enough to provide that cushy savings account. So my advice would be, yes, you eventually want to get to 3 to 6 month of expenses in an emergency fund but if you have to do it by digging under the couch cushions and looking in the ashtrays and under your bed or whatever for spare change, do it, just do it. Do something to get yourself in the habit of saving something for yourself on a regular basis, and eventually you will get there. You will get to the 3 to 6 months and, but it does take a little bit of sacrifice, but it takes more determination to do it really than it does sacrifice.

00;26;24;18 – 00;26;48;09
Kelly Parbs
One component of that story that I really like is that she had this group of people who were cheering for her and rooting for her. She had that support. And so maybe that’s part of this too, is having an accountability partner to help you with your goals. Or maybe there’s someone in your life that you can cheer on and help them with their goals just by encouraging them and being supportive to them.

00;26;48;12 – 00;28;00;08
Shellye Carpenter
Absolutely. Yeah. Everybody needs an accountability, not an accountability partner, as in, revealing all my secrets or whatever, but just a buddy to give you some support and to maybe help bounce ideas off of or, pick you up when you’re feeling discouraged and to celebrate the wins with you. That is so important. I mean, here in our company, our counselors, we are, you know, they are the cheerleaders for the clients. They will, they will walk that journey with them. And I know that other agencies that provide counseling, they will do that as well. It’s so important to have community, to just, just kind of have your back. And even if you if you didn’t need that support as you went through that just to have something to celebrate with you, I can’t even tell you how many comments that that girls post had. And it just made our day to, for those of us who contribute to the discussion and talk about the different topics and so forth to to see out there that somebody kind of really took it upon themselves to say, hey, I can do this, and it’s not going to be easy. Obviously, you know, doing it nickel and dime at a time is not always easy. But she made it. And so I’m really hoping that that she continues to build on that success.

00;28;00;08 – 00;28;39;23
Kelly Parbs
Thanks for sharing that story. You reminded me of a tip that I heard, which is to tuck away a $5 bill anytime you get one, apparently, and I didn’t know this. I don’t even know if it’s true, but apparently there are less $5 bills in circulation than any other type of bill, and so you’re less likely to get one. And then the tip says, after every $25 to $50 that you’ve tucked away in $5 bills, then put those into your savings account so, you know, maybe that’s doable for some people and maybe not for others. But I thought it was just kind of an interesting way to think about saving a little bit. And eventually that could add up to a lot.

00;28;39;25 – 00;31;30;10
Shellye Carpenter
Yeah. Again, social media, there are so many savings challenges out there, whether it’s the envelope system, or $5 every time you get one, a dollar a day, you know, a dollar one day, $2 the next day, $3 the next day. There are so many of those savings challenges out there. And if that’s your thing, you know, find one that works for you and go for it. Because in the end, what you’re going to get is more money, you know, you’re going to have some money, you have a pile of money there. One other thing I want to mention is when you’re saving, you can automate your savings. Now, the girl with the $100, you know that that obviously didn’t apply to her. But if you, even if you could save $5 a paycheck, set it up with your HR department to have $5 deducted from your paycheck to a separate savings account, I would recommend having it even at a completely separate financial institution from where your checking account is, because, again, out of sight, a little bit out of mind, but having it to where you can’t really access it too easily is very helpful in helping you stay on track, but have it set up so where it’s automated, if you’re a financial institution has what they call a Christmas club or a holiday club, I would jump into that as soon as I got up from, you know, listen to this webinar or this podcast, Christmas club, holiday club, which is where you set the amount, that amount comes out of your paycheck every time for a year. And then typically in November, early to mid November, the financial institution will take the money that you’ve saved over the year, and they’ll just put it back into your checking account or whatever account you specify. You earn some interest on it. And again, it’s an automated way of saving. So again, I used to do this when I still had kids living at home back in the day. And I would put 50, $50, yeah, $50 a paycheck into my Christmas club account. And then at the end of the year, or because you do it from November to November. So, at the end of the 12 months, I had $1,200 that I can either spend on holiday expenses, I could pay my property taxes, I could buy myself something fun. I could, buy Christmas presents for my kids, which is usually what it went for. But it was, you know, it was automated, so I didn’t really have to think too much about it during the course of the year. But then at the end, when it was time, when the money came back into my checking account, it’s like, wow, I’ve already got a little wad of Christmas cash and I don’t have to go into debt to spend for the holidays. So again, I just highly recommend that whatever savings plan you come up with, if you can automate it so that you have consistency, you will be miles ahead.

00;31;30;12 – 00;31;41;23
Kelly Parbs
So hopefully, Shellye, we have inspired our listeners to make some small changes that will hopefully give them some big results. What resources can you direct them to that might be helpful?

00;31;41;26 – 00;33;29;26
Shellye Carpenter
I would have, or recommend that our listeners first start off with their own financial institution, their bank, or their credit union, wherever you have your, your money. Those, those organizations, those institutions will most likely have some financial wellness resources. If they don’t, and they’re usually free because banks and credit unions don’t charge for that type of thing, so, and that might be webinars on how to start saving money or of a whole variety of topics. It might be downloadable worksheets if you want, like a budget worksheet or something. It could be articles about the importance of retirement, you know, how much to save for retirement, etc. So I would first check with your local whatever bank or credit union that you do business with, and ask them if you don’t readily find it on their website, you know, ask them if they have it, then if they don’t, then I would also check with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The website is consumerfinance.gov. Again that’s consumerfinance.gov. They have a wealth of resources: articles, podcasts, videos that you can take a look at. It’s all free, downloadable stuff, printables, things you can print out and take with you. They have just a lot of resources. And so again it’s all free. I would also, you know, check with your library, ask your librarian if they have any new resources on personal money management, finance, personal finance. That can be a real, again, wealth of information. And the librarians love to be helpful. And oftentimes libraries will also bring in speakers about topics like this. So check and see if they have anything like that on their calendar coming up. So there’s a good variety of free resources out there.

00;33;29;28 – 00;33;50;02
Kelly Parbs
And I also have to mention if you have an employee assistance program like the one offered through, Empathia, you are likely to have excellent resources. So make sure that you talk to your HR department about what resources are available to you for any type of financial consulting or counseling.

00;33;50;04 – 00;34;44;26
Shellye Carpenter
Yes, your HR departments can be, again, a great wealth of information because they have all that benefit information at their fingertips. So I agree with that. But yeah, there are a lot of free resources. Even Google, if you have a computer at home and you’re on the internet, just Google whatever topic is of interest. You can type in budget ideas or just budget, and you’ll get a whole host of results in your search. You could type in, you know, “How much do I need to start saving for retirement?” Believe me, you’ll get tons of, tons of hits on that. So Google is a great resource too and most of that stuff is free. So if you want to, if you’re really like a visual person, you can also look at Pinterest. They have some great downloadables for budget worksheets, allowance charts. Oh goodness. Just all kinds of financially oriented printable downloadables for you too. So lots of resources out there.

00;34;44;28 – 00;34;59;29
Kelly Parbs
Well, and don’t forget about what Shellye said about Annualcreditreport.com. That’s a great resource to remember as well. It looks like it’s about time for us to wrap up, but before we do, do you have any last thoughts that you want to share with our listeners today?

00;35;00;03 – 00;35;49;19
Shellye Carpenter
Well, first of all, thank you for inviting me to be part of your podcast, but personal finance, it’s, it’s 80% behavior and only 20% head knowledge. I would really encourage everybody, all the listeners, to increase their knowledge of money management and how things work, how things like retirement accounts and products like that, how they work, but also just keep learning. Don’t stop learning. There’s always something new to learn from when it comes to money, things change all the time and resources come available all the time, new resources. So just stay interested, stay engaged and keep learning and you will achieve your financial, you know, look for help. Accountability partners and support. The resources are out there and you can achieve your financial dreams just like everybody else.

00;35;49;21 – 00;35;50;10
Kelly Parbs
Great information Shellye. Thank you.

00;35;50;13 – 00;35;50;19
Shellye Carpenter
Thank you.

00;35;50;35 – 00;36;42;10
Kelly Parbs
People who are financially stable tend to have a more positive outlook on life, and they are less likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression. Being in a good financial state contributes to a good mental state, and when your mental health is better, your life is better. You may not be able to tackle your financial goals all at once. Set attainable goals and keep working at it. Small changes can make a big difference. To hear more episodes of On Topic with Empathia, visit our website and Empathia.com. Follow us on social media @empathia and subscribe to On Topic with Empathia to hear new episodes as soon as they go live. I’m your host, Kelly Parbs. Thank you for listening to On Topic with Empathia.