"0:00:00 - Speaker 1

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through registered representatives of Cambridge Investment Research Inc. A broker-dealer member, FINRA, SIPC Advisory Services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. A registered investment advisor. Cambridge and Greenway Wealth Advisory are not affiliated. It's time to dive into some insider secrets of investing and retirement planning To make your retirement as smart and as elegant as possible. This is Money Chic with Sherri Rash.

0:00:31 - Speaker 2

Welcome into another edition of Money Chic, women and Retirement. It's our final episode of the year, the calendar year. We'll be back with more in January, so we thought we'd have a little fun and talk about new year's resolutions with Sherri Rash, financial advisor and money coach at Greenway Wealth Advisory. Sherri, what's going on? How are you?

0:00:50 - Speaker 3

Doing alright. When I was getting ready for our discussion today, I'm like, didn't we just talk about resolutions? And because we in the beginning of this year we talked about we had two episodes I think worth the resolutions, and I'm like, no, that was almost a year ago.

0:01:04 - Speaker 2

So it just shows how quickly time flies. That's right it does. So we got to ask, because you mentioned it on the last podcast we did did you get your shopping done? Are you almost done? Are you? Are you there?

0:01:17 - Speaker 3

It's moving in the right direction.

0:01:19 - Speaker 2

Okay, because we're I think we're dropping this right before Christmas, so you're out of time.

0:01:23 - Speaker 3

Sam is a little stressed out right now.

0:01:25 - Speaker 2

Okay.

0:01:26 - Speaker 3

Definitely has the elves working over time.

0:01:28 - Speaker 2

I got to, I got to. Well, let's. Let's have some fun and talk about some resolutions. Maybe one resolution is next year to have the Christmas presents done early. Put that one on there, that's a good one. But let's go like I don't know. Top five or so right Resolutions for retirees and pre-retirees. Let's talk about it from a financial standpoint and not just you know we can do again pre-retirees could be you know, people in their 30s, right, Whatever.

But let's kind of go through it a little bit and talk about a few things. We've got actually this kind of interesting little article that talks about people making resolutions and it says 81% of Americans with financial New Year's resolutions see inflation as a spoiler to those. That's kind of interesting. What do you think?

0:02:07 - Speaker 3

It is interesting We've talked more about inflation this year than, I think, the past five years combined, but it's been so high that of course it has to be a topical conversation and I think no one's insulated from it. It's affecting everyone, you know. Even just as simple as going to the grocery store. We're seeing it, we're all feeling it, and it has to be putting a strain on everyone's spending. Your paycheck is just not going as far, so this actually makes complete sense. If you're spending 10% more on basically everything, of course you're going to have less money to save or pay down debt, or your debt may be accumulating. I saw the other day that credit card debt is the highest it's been in quite a few years. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I also think it's pretty insightful that these people surveyed realized that inflation could hurt them?

0:03:06 - Speaker 2

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean 81%. And so, breaking that down a little bit, say they think that inflation will make it harder to meet their financial resolution goals and only 20% are confident that they'll be able to keep up with their upcoming financial New Year's resolutions. So, with that stated, do you like to make those? Do you see people making those clients or potential clients or whatever? Is it something that normally happens like hey, this is the year I'm making this change, or whatever?

0:03:33 - Speaker 3

I think I'm going to start asking my clients what their financial resolution is and if they haven't made one maybe say, well, what do we want to do this year? What is your goal? Because I will ask what financial goals are. But I think positioning it as a resolution is a good thing. So you know, everyone kind of has the same goals, the same handful of goals, whether they're resolutions for the year, paying off debt, saving, so you can guess that's the top one too, right, you know that's the top.

0:04:04 - Speaker 2

Going into this article, we were like I guarantee you that's the top one, and it was 53% said yeah, paying off debt, which makes sense.

0:04:10 - Speaker 3

It makes sense. So I would say having a strategy to paying off debt is also important, because we'll say you know I want to decrease my debt, but how are you going to go about it? You do need a strategy. When I work with clients through my financial foundations program, I look at the debt that they have and I'll ask them if you came into an extra $1,000, and you have two credit cards, would you just send $500 to both credit cards? And most of the time the answer is yes and which is interesting, it makes sense.

But if one balance is significantly higher than the other, or if the interest rate is significantly different, my recommendation is send the full $1,000 to one, usually the one with the smaller balance, and get it that much closer to paying it off. Because if you're just sending $500 to both, you're taking a little bit out of the balance. But let's take a chunk and it sounds very simple, but I can actually see the light bulbs go off when it's let's just work on paying down one piece of debt first and then let's move on to the next.

0:05:28 - Speaker 2

Yeah, and typically right. We want to do that with whatever the highest rated one is, you know, highest interest rate one. So, yeah, if you've got and I think I've done that myself in the past too I just have the two, and one has a very low balance. The other one doesn't have too bad. But yeah, it's kind of like you find yourself, you know, one day I was looking at that going am I really making any real debt? Or should I just switch this up and do the minimum or just a tad above the minimum, or something like that on this one while I put the majority on the other one, get it down and then I can double up that focus the next time around. So that's a good point.

Now I know we throw in a lot of numbers at folks, but so it says 66% of Americans plan on making a financial resolution for the new year. In fact, that 53% made one last year and 49% said they managed to keep it, which I thought was kind of surprisingly high. 53% made a resolution and basically 50% kept that resolution. That's pretty good, but if you think about our initial number this year, 66% are saying they want to make one, but 81% of those people said they don't think inflation is going to allow them to get it done. To me that's just. The biggest tell of this entire thing is that we are very worried about inflation even in the upcoming year.

0:06:38 - Speaker 3

Yeah, and that's interesting that the ones that made the resolution, half of them kept it, but we had these inflation issues in 2022.

0:06:48 - Speaker 2

So which is true. That's a good point, yeah.

0:06:50 - Speaker 3

Yeah. So I wonder if they think inflation is going to get worse for next year, or also, could they also be thinking about the market volatility that we're seeing? I think that's interesting, and every generation, because they broke this article, also broke it down. It's from a Motley Fool, broke it down by generation, and although the top resolutions are all similar, the saving for a significant milestone baby boomers were the least that was the least.

0:07:27 - Speaker 2

I kind of found that interesting right. They were kind of like are you making one? No, we're old enough. We've been around the block.

0:07:33 - Speaker 3

No, yeah, yeah, we're Gen Zs, we're. Yeah, we are saving for a milestone which could be starting a family, buying a house.

0:07:44 - Speaker 2

Right, right so.

0:07:46 - Speaker 3

I thought that was interesting and that was the biggest resolution for Gen Zers. And then, right after that, millennials, millennials are also looking to save for a milestone.

0:07:57 - Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah. So it's talking about breaking it down in general, just just on the terms of in general, are you going to make one same kind of thing right? With the breakdown it seemed like you know, I'm a Gen Xer About 60% of us were like sure, we'll do it. You know what the hey most boomers were like, nah, we're not doing it. But millennials and Gen Z were well over 70% for saying yes, we just want to make one in general, whatever it happens to be some sort of financial resolution, and what happens is it's just like losing weight. Right, we tend to make these things and it is hard to stick to them. So any kind of thoughts or thinking in terms of how do we make them? Making them is easy, but how do we stick to them?

0:08:38 - Speaker 3

You have to make the resolution, like you said. That's easy, but part of the resolution is the plan as well. So I am going to pay off debt, for example, by allocating an extra $100 pay check to XYZ debt that I have. So I also using the losing weight example, I think you always start a diet on Monday. So on Monday I am doing this and you say it's going to start on Monday. So then you're holding yourself a little bit more accountable and putting a plan in place. So instead of being a little bit vague and say I'm going to pay off my debt or I'm going to save for retirement, I'm going to pay off debt by doing XYZ, I'm going to save for retirement by doing ABC.

0:09:26 - Speaker 2

Gotcha. Yeah, I mean, they go into some pretty good detail and we can put a link into the show notes if folks want to check this out. But you know, as far as I think, finding ways to break that down. Let's say, if debt is the key thing and that typically is for most people starting into the new year, maybe you break it down by types of debt, right? That's one of the things they mentioned on here as well. If you've got more credit card debt, obviously start there. But maybe you've got some medical debt or something like that, right? So maybe it's worth picking an avenue, I suppose, and tackling that. Maybe that helps you get it done.

0:09:59 - Speaker 3

Yeah, breaking it down into bite-sized pieces always makes it feel a little less like you're climbing a mountain. So and then also you can celebrate the win. So if you pay off like we were talking about the debt, pay off the smallest debt, that's a win, celebrate it for a second, give yourself a pat on the back, but then keep focused and then redirect that to the next piece of debt to get rid of.

0:10:26 - Speaker 2

Now I think that's a good point. What's your thoughts on the uses of some sort of tool like an app? So, on this they talk about, 73% of Americans plan to use some sort of budgeting app to help keep those resolutions. As a financial professional, do you think these tools are useful or what's your thoughts there?

0:10:42 - Speaker 3

I have a contrary opinion when it comes to a budgeting app. I'm not a fan of budgeting apps and I'm also not a fan of the word budget in general, so I'll get up on my soapbox for a minute Good work.

0:10:57 - Speaker 2

It's your show, do it.

0:11:01 - Speaker 3

Budgets are just, in general, I think, have a negative connotation. They feel very restrictive, like you can't do something. It makes you feel bad for spending money or punish you or restrict you from spending money. But we have to spend money to function right. So I believe in, instead of a budget, having a spending strategy. So you have to spend money. It just, it is the way it is, that's the way the world works. You have to spend money, but let's have a strategy around it instead. And I think those apps, although they're well intentioned, you could say I'm going to spend $100 a month on auto, on my car, between gas or what have you. It's inevitable that as soon as you set that budget, something breaks on your car and you just blew your budget forward the months.

0:11:54 - Speaker 2

Yeah, murphy shows up, for sure. And then you're discouraged.

0:11:57 - Speaker 3

And then you're discouraged and you see that flashing number of that your way over budget and then, a lot of times, the apps will then carry over that budget. So if you set your budget for $100 and you went over by $50 for that month, you then have $50 less the next month to spend. But you set it at $100 for a reason, because that's usually what you spend. So you're constantly digging out of a hole that it created and I just think that that's discouraging. So instead, have part of your spending strategy. Have a part of it is saving. So saving for that emergency fund, saving to pay down debt, growing your net worth in one way or another by reducing debt or saving more that, I think, is a better way to look at your spending. Or, if you want to have a budget again, a spending strategy. Figure out how to spend your money in a way that's efficient and encouraging for yourself.

0:12:54 - Speaker 2

That's awesome. Yeah, I like that. That's good advice and I think a lot of it, depending on your age too, and obviously what Sherry does for a living. As you're getting closer to retirement, you want to start working with a financial professional to help you with some of this stuff as well. So I think those are all good points to be made, and I also want to share one final bit on this article, sherry, and then we'll wrap it up. But they did survey. This was done. The survey was done on November the 4th, so just about a month or so ago, right, so not too far back. They surveyed 2,000 American adults and the respondents were 49% male, 50%, some percentages there female. So it was a nice smattering of people. So these numbers have got a decent representation, I think, across the board. So I thought it was worthwhile to share that. Anything else that you'd like to share from a resolution standpoint, do you like to make them yourself? Maybe not financially, but just in general?

0:13:46 - Speaker 3

Yeah, I like to make resolutions in general. It helps to hit that reset button to set good intentions for the year. Last thing to point out with this article is why weren't the respondents not able to keep the resolutions?

that they set for this year, and the biggest reason was when it became too expensive to keep the resolution. So I don't know if that just means that they couldn't afford to pay down the debt or to save or what have you or save for that big milestone. But the next one was I wasn't able to maintain the habits and I think, again, by having a strategy in place while you're setting the resolution is the big thing. So set the resolution and then come up with a plan right away to keep it. And if you're not sure of what to do, go to Find an Advisor and explain to them what you're looking to achieve, and they can help you put a plan in place to achieve that.

0:14:48 - Speaker 2

Yeah, no, that's a great point actually. So habits typically are a big point of that, and maybe the other reasons they couldn't do it was possibly the rise in inflation all throughout the year, right, so 322, and then that's probably why that's the leading concern going into 23. So, fun conversation, fun article to check out. Again. We'll post the link to the article in the show notes Should you like to peruse through that. And, as always, don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple, google, spotify, whatever platform you like to use. Money, chic, women and Retirement is the name of the show and you can find that information as well at GreenwayWealthAdvisorycom. That's Sherry's website. Go, check her out online. A lot of good tools, tips, resources. You can also schedule some time with her if you need some help as well. Greenwaywealthadvisorycom. Sherry, thanks for hanging out. It's been fun doing these here this year and I'm looking forward to chatting with you in the coming year.

0:15:39 - Speaker 3

Seeing here. Thanks, Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you as well.

0:15:42 - Speaker 2

And we'll see you next time here on Money, chic, women and Retirement with Sherry Rash. "

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