Hello, I'm Kai,
the producer of Balancing Life's Issues here with Wendy Walner to balance the
issue. Hey Wendy, how you doing?
Good. But you're more than a producer.
You're my friend and colleague and chit chatter on this.
So thanks for joining today, Kai.
Fair enough. Well thank you for that. And so, you know, the point of today's,
uh, brief little podcast is we're gonna talk about an issue and how you could
potentially balance that. Um, so what issue are we gonna talk about today? Wow.
So this morning I got up like probably the rest of the whole world with, uh,
why we shouldn't panic, um,
which I always think it's interesting when we turn on the news, um,
and the other podcasters and they're all telling us how to feel. Um,
and yet the reality is banks, banks closed banks went out of business. Um,
and we saw it on television. Um, we saw investors losing money.
So I think panic may be actually maybe inappropriate emotions.
I thought we would chit chat today about what we do with our panic and how we
can learn from it and,
and really engage in a conversation that I'm so passionate about,
which is money. Fair enough. You love talking about money, right?
Kai? You know, I used to hate it. Um,
and I think there's probably a little bit of humility,
a little bit of shame there cuz I wasn't very good with it. Um,
but as I kind of figured it out, uh, I'm now actually happy to talk about it.
I think shame is one of the most complicated emotions that we have.
So we don't take financial literacy class.
I'm not even really sure people know how to write a check today anymore. Um,
you know, it's Venmo and Zel. We kinda all learn it by ourselves.
So to me it's really sort of interesting that, you know,
I don't know who's taking a class in what a good FICA score is,
and yet we're supposed to know this.
And so I really wanted to talk about, you know,
learning, um, personal finance and budget and frugality. You know,
frugality is one of my favorite topics. Like how do I live not on my paycheck,
not within my cha paycheck,
but below the paycheck so that when the blankets the fan we're like,
okay.
Right. There's there's something there to rely on.
The only financial class I think I remember was fifth grade misses
something taught us how to write checks. Um, other than that, you know,
you get to college, you have your student debts, you, uh,
if all of your expendable is going to tuition,
well then you need a credit card in order to buy groceries.
And that was the position I found myself in, got as high as $16,000.
Um,
and I was with my partner at the time and we had to have a serious conversation
like we can't, you know,
continue down a path together financially and achieve our goals and dreams.
Yeah. If your dead is like this.
And so that was kind of the moment where it flipped for me. And I taught myself,
you know, self budgeting and, you know,
really committed to knocking that away 800,
900 a month and about five years later we got to the other side.
But it was a really tough time. Yeah.
And you were lucky to have a supportive partner.
You were also lucky enough to have that idea of you just said self-taught.
So I didn't have that experience. You know,
I was not even 35 when I got divorced with three young children. Um,
and I remember going to the bank saying, I don't really understand anything.
We always say step number one is swallow every bit of shame and
own the fact that every question is a fair question. Um, I, you know,
understanding even on a granular level,
like fear Isaac or FICA is a good thing. It's an algorithm, right?
It means that we don't take into account gender or race or age that
we use an algorithm, a mathematical algorithm to say, yes,
I trust Kai to pay his bills. Mm-hmm. .
So I wanna make it real for people. You have to sit down tonight,
tomorrow with a cup of Chail,
tea and go to annual credit report.com.
And it's not free.
You're gonna need to know what is your FICA score and you're gonna
need to know what is a good FICA score. And, you know,
we wanna try to get it up there above seven 50. That's our goal.
And that's ok because we can do that. We can get ourselves access to money.
Um, and when we are talking about panic,
panic sits in when we know we need to learn something.
Panic sits in when we've gained too much weight, when we're drinking too much,
when we've let conflict go. So let's really engage.
Let's use this opportunity to ask one another. Hey, what's your FIKA score?
And will you share it with me? And will you share with me what you did? Mm-hmm.
, let's just make it part of our conversation.
What's your FIKA score and what would you like it to be?
And let's share that information.
That's amazing. And I, I I think you bring, uh, that kind of openness, uh,
to tough conversations. And I think your ability to walk into a bank and say,
Hey, I don't know what the hell's going on,
speaks volumes to the path you've been on kind of getting to that place.
Cause I know it wasn't easy to begin with, but to,
to continue balancing this issue and like the topical one,
the one that's in the news, like,
can you help explain to us in like as simple terms as possible,
like what's happening with the banks right now?
Yeah. Well, I think it's always very interesting and, and again,
I think the first step to say is that nobody knows more than you. Right?
There's no one out there,
there's no fortune teller that's gonna tell you what's gonna happen tomorrow.
So let's just start with like a Silicone Valley Bank, right?
Which had a lot of investors from Silicone Valley,
that's why it was called Silicone Valley Bank. And so, you know,
we kind of got used to these incredible success stories,
the Googles and the Facebooks and the Silicone Valley stories like that.
And then in came so many other companies like the cybersecurity ones and the
ai, you know, artificial intelligence ones.
And so there were a lot of high risk. Um, and so one,
the step number two is, you know, I have to be an honest investor.
I'm a super conservative investor. You've got a choice. Like,
do you want to know your money is safe?
Are you a little bit of an aggressive investor or are you a super aggressive
investor in Silicon Valley? They took some risks.
So know where you're ultimately where your money is as an investor,
as an employee. Ask the question, go to your managers.
Go to your managers, managers, look online, do some Glassdoor reviews,
do some due diligence about where, where your payroll is coming from,
how much risk is your company involved in,
and are you comfortable with that risk? Does it fit what you want?
Yeah. Yeah. So ask ask my employer today, you know,
is is payroll safe? Uh, know where my investments are going if I have them.
So I guess just to kind of wrap this up, you know, should I be worried?
And if so, you know, what's one thing I can do today to help protect myself?
So I know that what I'm about to say may hit people like a punch.
Being worried is not always a bad thing.
Being stressed is not always a bad thing,
being concerned or even panicked sometimes we need to be,
when I had a PHUs score of 350 with three young children, it was panic.
The emotion of panic that made me say, I have to make changes.
So I'm not telling you to panic and do nothing.
I'm telling you to be worried and concerned enough to learn what you need to
know. And I'm,
I'm absolutely encouraging you to sit on the phone with your bank,
with your credit cards, ask the tough questions,
and do not feel any shame or embarrassment to say, I don't understand.
Tell me again, I help me understand how do I get out of debt?
How quickly can I get out of debt? Is things like a consolidation loan possible?
A debt management program con uh,
possible talk to your employer about can I take a loan out from you?
How quickly can I live debt free to get my FICA score up until the
700 s because then I will have access to capital no matter
what. So begin the process. Um,
I know that you may be surprised to hear it is one of the things I'm most proud
of in my life that I've done. I've learned how to be financially independent.
I learned it by saying, I have no clue what you're talking about. Hmm.
Tell me again and have a little fun with it,
because in the end it's an amazing process. Like,
aren't you super proud of what you've done?
I love once a month setting up the expenses for the coming month.
I love looking at it every morning to see, oh,
how much should we spend over the weekend on Mondays? And most importantly,
with a baby on the way in our life, , you know,
kind of starting to plan ahead. Come July,
there's a big old new line item that we're gonna have to consider.
And that money's not coming from, you know, a new place. You know,
that's money that exists today that we have to figure out how to spend, um,
differently. So. Well, Wendy,
thank you so much for coming on to help us balance this issue today.
And yeah, I guess we'll, we'll see you next time. There's,
there's something in the news we need to talk about. Good.
Go ask the tough questions everyone. Bye.
This has been a production of Balancing Life's issues with your host,
Wendy Walner, produced by me, Kai Sorenson.
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and you'll get brand new episodes
as they drop. Got an idea for the show.
Leave a comment or email Kai ka i balancing life's issues.com.