 All right, take it away, Troy. Troy, can you unmute yourself? Got it, sorry about that. Hi everyone and welcome. I'm assuming everyone can hear me. Welcome to this presentation from Balance. I am a smart money coach, also considered a financial counselor, and as well as my colleague, Howard Fetale, that's also on this call. He is one of our seniors and I'm so happy that he has graced me with his presence to be here. So today we're gonna talk a little bit about saving with purpose. And the idea is to provide you with a little bit of understanding as to why it's so important to save. If you came on to this with anticipation that we will be doing some in-depth investment type knowledge, that's not what this is about. This is more about the 101, the sort of basics to saving and getting started in that realm. So I wanna make sure that that's clear so that folks understand sort of where we're going with this and what this is about. This is about building towards saving. So basically for us, this would be the beginning and getting you ready to go and see some, maybe a financial advisor, because that financial advisor will help you with more long-term investments. We're gonna do the basics prior to when you get there, okay? So with that being said, welcome once again. I'm happy that you all are here to join and listen in on this presentation. I'm gonna make it as painless as possible, try to make it as exciting as I possibly can. And we're gonna kick it off now. So the first thing I would like to talk about is, this is about creating goals that will help us to improve our lives. I mean, that's basically what we do. We're always trying to set goals. This is why we go to the gym and want to lose weight or build muscle. We apply for new jobs because we wanna seek a challenge for ourselves and increase our income. That's oftentimes why we do these things. We play community sports, for instance. I play basketball in the community because I like to explore hobbies. But in addition to that, I also wanna connect with the people that are in my neighborhood. And curiously, we don't tend to look at savings in that same way. Many times we don't identify an end goal. Whereas when I'm lifting weight, I have an end goal. Maybe my goal is to bench press 500 pounds, but that's not what we do when it comes oftentimes to our savings. We don't have an end goal. So today's workshop, we'll learn how to save with purpose. And this can help us to strengthen our financial footing and moves us a step closer to achieving our financial goals. We'll also review some common types of savings goals that can help us later on to set major goals for ourselves later on in life. By the end of this workshop, I hope that you'll have a strong understanding as to why it is important to save with purpose and what you'll be purposefully saving for next slide. Okay, so you'll tell me when you want me to dance. Yeah, I'm sorry. I forget you can't see this. So I'm gonna ask you to go to the next slide, actually. Okay, so one of the big pieces to saving is understanding the difference between instant gratification, which is the right now and delayed gratification. And a lot of times it's really difficult to save because a lot of people don't want to deal with the delay in gratification. You want the right now. If I asked you, hey, do you wanna eat right now versus and spend some money on food right now versus saving to buy something later on. It's like, hey, I'm hungry right now. I wanna eat right now. So delay gratification is something that's harder for us to achieve. One of the best ways to understand this concept is through something that was done called the marshmallow experiment. And in this experiment, this was done by a Stanford professor and his associates. They basically brought in a bunch of five-year-olds into a room and sat them in chairs and placed a marshmallow in front of them. And the researchers told the children that if they eat this marshmallow, they could either eat it right away or they could wait about 15 minutes and have a second marshmallow. And quite frankly, I mean, as soon as the researchers left the room, most of these children, of course, ate the marshmallow right away because that was instant gratification. And they couldn't wait for that second one, although it sounded like a really good idea. So the same things tends to happen with ourselves and our savings and our spending, we tend to like instant gratification right away. When it comes to the choice of whether to spend or whether to save, like I said, once again, it's about instant gratification. If you can shift that perspective though and start to resist temptation, rather than talking and thinking about today and starting to recognize the benefits of delayed rewards, this will absolutely can change your life and the way that you look at things, they can reduce your stress levels as well as help you to probably live longer because as things come up, you'll be more prepared for them. Next slide, please. So another barrier to savings that many people experience is the challenge of taking that first step. And this is something that we have with many things, right? Taking the first step is always the hardest thing to do. You may ask yourself, hey, you know what? I'm living from paycheck to paycheck. There's no way I can save, right? But the reality of it is that's not necessarily true. After taking a long, hard look at your spending and shifting your focus to delayed gratification, you may be able to find some areas where you can reduce your expenses and free up some money to put towards savings. Because a lot of times we don't really think about that portion as sort of like, I only have what I have, but a lot of times we also have a lot of extra things in which we partake in that we could probably reduce. And we're gonna get more into that later as we start talking about looking at your spending habits and the way that we sort of have many of us don't really think about a budget. And so having a budget also helps with these things, like I said, I'll get into a little bit later. You may also feel that any extra money that you have should be going toward paying debts. However, it's important to build savings while you're trying to pay off debts. And this is a huge piece. So I'm gonna say this again. It is important to build your savings while you're trying to pay off debts. While increasing payments to pay off your balances, like for instance, on like a credit card, it's quicker to save money and interest. What happens if you experience, and like if you do that, what happens if you experience an unexpected expense? For instance, a car issue, any kind of a little issue that may come up, you don't have money saved for it. And so then you end up utilizing your credit cards all over again. And the idea is to not use your credit cards and put yourself in a larger amount of debt. A better approach would be to save while you're paying off things. We don't often talk about that, but I think that's a huge piece once again. Also, if you find yourself asking, if I can't save a lot per month, what is the point of saving a small amount? Even if you only spent like we're able to save, let's say five or $10 a month, over time that adds up. And it's also good to create that habit. So when you do have more, you can actually save more. Those are really, it's really big to try to do that and create that habit early on, because that way, that delayed gratification becomes more of a routine for you and not something that is so harsh when you try to start saving. Don't let the fact that you don't have a lot of money left over deter you from starting to save. Because one thing that I can say for certain is if you never start saving, you'll never save anything, right? It's just like the lottery. If you never play, you can never win. It's the same concept. Please next slide. So when it comes to how saving helps, it is one of the most important ways that saving can help you is by creating a shift in managing your finances. Managing our finances is normally something that we do oftentimes reactively. We do it because, oh my God, I gotta pay for this right now. We don't necessarily do it proactively. And that's what I mean when I say reducing stress and making your life a little bit better. If you are proactive and you're always prepared, you don't have to get ready if you're already ready. So that's the idea. In this particular example, imagine that you're taking your car in to an auto mechanic. And you're hearing engine noises that are strange and you're like, you know what? I need to go and get my car fixed. The mechanic estimates the cost to fix this to be $1,500. If you had not planned for that expense, how would you pay for it? Many people would likely, if I was to ask you guys one-on-one, you would likely tell me, oh, you know what? I'd probably put it on my credit card, right? But if you pay for it with your credit card, then now you're paying interest. Which means you're actually paying more than that $1,500. So the idea, this is why we talk about putting aside money for savings and preparing for consequences that will inevitably happen. There will always be things that will happen from day to day that we didn't necessarily prepare for. However, if you have savings and you create a savings and for these types of things to happen, you're a lot better prepared in life and it's just a bump in the road that you can kind of get by. And considering what we had happen last year that many people didn't prepare for, savings has probably become more at the forefront for a lot of folks because even those that thought they had it together, if you lose your job and you have nothing saved up, it doesn't matter how much money you made the year before, what you have now is what matters. And with delays and things like unemployment and other things, people who are really scrambling and still are struggling right now due to these things. So it is very important to try to put aside money for things like vehicle maintenance in advance. So you don't have to worry when that time comes because it's not a if, it's a matter of when those things happen. It could be a tire, it could be all kinds of things like that. And maybe you don't have vehicles, maybe you own a home, maybe it could be appliances, it could be anything. So there will always be things. So by managing your finances proactively, planning ahead for expenses, you'll be better able to control your finances. And rather than your finances, being in control of you, and that's the difference. This control will not only enable you to make good financial choices to improve your financial situation, but to avoid paying interest on the credit card, but it'll also remove the emotional stress that arises when you have these unexpected consequences or expenses. So saving is a win-win for all of us. Leah, next slide, please. One more time. Okay. So for this particular portion, I think you guys got maybe a handout that came along with this. And on slide two, we'll get there's some space for you to write down some information here, because this question is something. Troy, we don't send out the handouts till after the program. Oh, okay. Okay. Good to know. So this may be a portion where you could actually jot down because I'm gonna, these three questions are questions that I want you guys to ask yourselves. And so now that you understand the barriers to saving and how savings helps us, let's review and determine how to determine your savings goals. The first step in determining your savings goals is to visualize where you want to be in the future. You can do this by action yourself, these three questions that are here. What does your ideal financial situation look like? How does that differ from where you are today? And what purchases would you like to make that you cannot make today? So, whether that mean purchasing a home, whether that mean school, whatever that is, these are the things that I want you to think about as we move forward in this. So, Leah, if you will, please go to the next slide for me. As you start to think about, answer those questions we were just discussing, it's important to make sure that all your goals, for one, let me say, all your goals may be different. My goals in life are gonna be different than Howard's goals or any of your goals. All of our goals are probably gonna be slightly different. So it's important to know that it's okay for our goals to be different. It's also okay to go about things in different ways. Everyone has a different way of accomplishing the same goals. So, but one of the things I want you to do is to think about smart characteristics. These are very, very important things to know when you're looking to build. You wanna make sure that it's specific. You wanna make sure that your goals are attainable, realistic, and time-bound. So the first thing I would say is you wanna make sure that a goal should be, like I said, specific and answer the question, what exactly do you wanna achieve? That's what you wanna ask first. What is it that you wanna achieve? A goal should also be something that is measurable, which is where the M from smart comes from. You wanna make sure that it is measurable so that you will know when you have achieved that goal. If you don't know when you achieve the goal, then it's sort of pointless. So a whole reason that we're having a goal is to also know like, hey, I achieved this, I won. I wanted to save $2,000, I got there, yay. So that's the whole idea. Also, when the goal is attainable, there are steps that can be determined to achieve it. A goal should be realistic and it should also be time-bound or there should be a timeframe for completion. So whether this be something that is long-term or short-term, a few weeks, a few months, a few years, it should have a date of completion. I want you to think for a second, the back to when we were just talking about what does your ideal financial situation look like? What did you think about when that came up? How does that differ from where you are today? And also what purchases would you like to make that you cannot? I want you to think back to that because those are the things that I want you to look at being smart about where those things that you came up with smart. Next slide, please. Let's talk about short-term goals. Early on, I used to think short-term goals as things that were like a couple of weeks and things like that. I never really realized until I got into this that short-term goal could be something, anything less than 12 months, which is a long time. 12 months seems like forever, doesn't it? And so it's important to sort of separate your goals into short-term, mid, long-term. So you have a better idea as to how long it's gonna take. So once again, you're looking at about 12 months for your average short-term goal, well, less than 12 months for short-term goal. Also, when looking to achieve, you're likely, how can I put this? You're likely to be like smaller amounts that you're probably likely to, it's common for short-term goals to begin when you want to say for emergency, they're like a creative emergency savings, it's nice to have like a short-term goal to begin this. Funds set aside in case that you might need at some point over the next year. That is what you want to try to create is a short-term goal that you can have create some emergency savings just in case anything happens. Like we talked about the car repairs. In this case, you could also look at things like emergencies, vacations and small purchases. Emergency savings can carry you through hard times, times where you experience a reduction in income which a lot of people experienced last year. Also, unencountered, unexpected expenses. Once again, car repairs, house repairs, et cetera. If you don't currently have an emergency savings plan, this would be something I would consider a top priority. This is something that we should make a priority because it's something that at some point we will all use. And once again, like I said, last year was a doozy for a lot of people. It was a real eye-opener for a lot of people because they weren't necessarily prepared. And honestly, it would have been hard to prepare for such a crisis. So no one really would have known this was gonna happen. And so those that didn't have any kind of emergency savings, it was a problem for them because, hey, you live and check to check and then you have nothing saved up in case of anything. Hey, I need milk, I need whatever. So it's important to do that. Like I said, the other things for short-term goals, these could be things purchases like, a new computer, clothing. This could be things like saving for holidays and vacations that you would like to take each year. These are things that having one of these savings accounts would be great for. You should begin for a short-term, you should begin saving for a short-term goal. You will notice once you do this, your mindset, you will have a shift in your mindset where you recognize that your spending choices today are directly impact your ability to do what you wanna do in the future. Next slide, please. We're gonna talk a bit about mid-term goals here. And mid-term goals are things that take between one and five years to achieve. These things are determined, this requires a different mindset than a short-term goal, obviously, because a short-term goal is a shorter time period. So within a mid-term goals, it can be easy to think of things, the achievement date by mid-term goal is also, it's so far away that sometimes it could be really difficult for us to achieve this one. This one is a harder one because short-term, hey, I can finish this off in less than 12 months. I might finish this off in a few weeks, might be a few months. But when it comes down to a mid-term goal, it just takes so much longer, it makes it much more challenging for folks to stick to it. So this sort of, you know, sort of goal, oftentimes it's tough. And so sometimes we'll get people who want to skip, you know, skip the savings. You know, it's important to have it, have savings every single month. And when you start doing it long-term, they're like, hey, you know what? I'm gonna miss this month. I'm gonna use this savings to do something different. And so it's important to try to stick to that goal, to achieve this at the end. You want to make sure that you achieve your goal. Also, when looking at this, you want to stick to your plan. You want to do your best to stay on track with your savings. You want to make sure that, you know, like when you look at this, I think you'll think of, think yourself later as you start to accumulate more money and you start to see how much you're saving and how that savings is going. Look at your statements. Reward yourself, you know, paying down debts. These things often take some time. It's not an overnight process. So if you have credit card debts and you want to pay them down, that's not something that you're gonna be able to pay overnight. Same thing with a car payment. These are things that take a little longer to do. So it's important to understand that these things take a little longer in your planning. Also, when you start looking at paying, like if you want to take vacations and things of that nature, just understand that they are a longer, it takes a longer time period to be able to do so. Leah, I'm gonna go to the next slide for long-term goals. So long-term goals are things that we look to achieve that are more long-term. They're more five years or longer. Oftentimes, these are things like, you know, when we want to purchase a home, these are things when we want to, you know, set aside money for our children's tuition, these are things that we want to do as far as like 401K and retirement accounts, that this is what long-term goals are. So just to give you sort of an idea, it's also important not to delay to start these goals. These are goals that you want to get started on as soon as possible because they take the longest to achieve. So the sooner, the better, and, you know, that will help you in the end. Also, they require a lot of money, right? So like if you're looking at college tuition or any of these things, because it takes so long to accumulate the funding, like once again, you have to start earlier. Next slide, please. Another thing that you have to think about when you're looking at long-term savings is you also have to look at the rate of inflation. It's important to take that into consideration. Inflation is a general rise in price of the goods and services that causes a fall in the purchasing power of the money. And so what that, what this means is that a dollar, you know, what a dollar buys you today may not be as much in the future, which is sort of the whole cheeseburger idea. You see three patties on one side and nowadays that's what you used to get. Now when you get a cheeseburger, you get one patty and one slice of cheese. So the reality of it is over time that money value drops. We talked to our grandparents and they tell us, I used to buy all these different things from the grocery store for like $5, whereas now we spend $50 on some chips and dip. So times have changed with that. Next slide, please. So where to stash your savings? This is another, a common thing that we get that comes up all the time. Oftentimes, you know, we don't know. So now that you know what you want to save for, the next step is decide where you want to save it. For short to midterm goals, you want to choose an account that provides like easy access to those funds, such as a traditional savings. So a traditional savings account will help you to save for emergency funds and things. So that's sort of what you want to have for that. When you start talking about more long-term goals, you want to go to something a little different. You want to have something that's completely separate from your, you know, checking and savings account. So a great way to, you know, effortlessly save is to set up automatic deposits. I think that, you know, I've done this years and years ago. Many of you may have also done the same. I automatically would have always put away a certain percentage of my income to my savings just automatically. That way I don't have to think about it. It's already there. There's not a whole lot of, you know, of negotiating involved. I know what I have coming in and I know exactly where my savings should be. And so that really makes it a lot easier of a process to be able to save. So another account to consider when, you know, you're holding funds for like short and midterm goals, are money market deposit accounts. These are similar to our traditional savings accounts. The real difference there would be, with these particular types of accounts, they differ in the sense that they have more variable interest rates. And oftentimes you get a higher yield than you would on a traditional savings account. So that's why we want to use those. And you can get those through your financial institution. So if you bank with Chase or Bank of America, some credit unions, you should be able to open those there. It's important to also know that there will likely be a minimum balance requirement if you decide to open up one of those accounts. But pretty much you have one with a traditional savings as well. Next slide, please. I'm going to go over briefly, like long-term retirement accounts. So for long-term retirement accounts, there are specific savings vehicles that are used to hold your retirement savings. This could be your 401k, 403b, these types of accounts are offered from employers to their employees. Oftentimes like so for 401k, these are for for profit companies. The 403b is for non-profit companies. And these types of accounts, you decide what percentage of income you want to contribute to your retirement. And many times the employer, they may match that or a portion of that contribution. That money is deducted from your paycheck pre-tax. So beforehand, meaning that you don't have to pay federal state income taxes on it, you really only pay if you decide to pull that money out. So it's important to understand how that works. So the other major way to say for retirement is a lot of people use the traditional individual, I'm sorry, the traditional individual retirement account, better known as a IRA. And IRA is a type of retirement account that is similar, very similar to a 401k or a 403b. But the difference is they're not tied to the employer. So you can have these even if your employer doesn't have a retirement savings account. You can start this on your own or you can have both. When you open these types of accounts, you could also open these at the same at many financial institutions, such as credit unions, banks, mutual fund companies also. A Roth IRA is different from a traditional IRA in regards to the tax implications. I won't get into too much detail about that, but there are some differences there. Contributions to the Roth IRA are not pre-tax deductions, meaning that you can pay off federal and state income taxes on those contributions. You already pay those, the federal and the state in advance. So as you earn, you know, as you earn, your earnings grow, it's tax-free in the account. And since you've already paid the taxes to the federal and the state, when you decide you want to use that money, you can withdraw those funds, you know, with no questions asked, with no issues with your taxes. Which type of IRA is going to be most beneficial for you? It really is all dependent upon your tax bracket and, you know, you're not going to have to pay and, you know, now, like your tax bracket right now versus in retirement. So you'll want to consult a financial advisor, as I spoke about earlier, to help you determine which type is better for you. Next slide, please, Leah. So this is one of my, you know, one of the things that at Balance, we use more than anything I'd say. This is like one of the things that we do as you come through the door. And I sort of spoke about this a little bit earlier. You have to take inventory of what you spend. And in order to be able to invest, in order to be able to save, you need to find, know exactly what you have coming in and what you have going out. And so knowing your finances will help you to identify, you know, your starting point. The best way to handle, to get a handle on your finances is to create a monthly budget. And, you know, a lot of us haven't really used a budget. Maybe we've never had one before. We think we have and maybe not really, really stuck to it. It's important to look at your day-to-day spending. And I mean everything. And when I say that, here's an example that I've run into a lot right now. Because everyone's at home, people still have to eat. And a lot of times you get tired of eating in the home. So people will do things like, for instance, they will order Uber Eats or DoorDash or something like that. And oftentimes they don't realize what those expenses are. And the reason I say that is because when I have people and we interview people and we're talking about, you know, hey, I don't know where my money is going, et cetera. And I say, hey, well, how much did you spend this week on eating out or Uber Eats? So, and then it becomes, oh, well, I spent, you know, $20, three days this week. That's $60 a week, you know? And then you're looking at, you know, basically $240 a month, you know, in the month. And you think about, as that adds up, you probably didn't really even think about it. Oftentimes people don't even really think about things like that or they don't think about the six pack of beer that they buy per week or whatever that those other things are, you know? And so as we look into those things, you get a better idea as to where you can cut some costs. And oftentimes we do have things that we can cut. So the golden rule of budgeting is that your expenses should not exceed your income. You should not be spending more than you are making. Bottom line, if you're spending more than you're making than you're in trouble. So if you crunch the numbers as, you know, in a budget and you have, like I said, more going out than coming in each month, it's imperative that you change some habits. If you are in a position where your expenses are, you know, exceeding your income, you won't be able to commit, you know, very much just to your savings goals. So you'll end up having to dip into those funds as you start trying to save, you'll also be going back and dipping in and taking something back out. And so the idea is that we don't want that to happen. So you want to make sure that you budget and account for it. And more than anything, stay disciplined. You have to stay disciplined. It's not fun, I'll be honest. But what is fun is when I take my vacations that I've saved for. So I think that is a huge thing. Saving, like I said, is not fun, but that reward in the end is beautiful. And so those are things to think about. So the first step to saving is freeing up some funds. If you can free up some funds, you can definitely put toward, I don't, like once again, it doesn't matter whether it's five or $10 or whether it's hundreds of dollars. But the more you make, the more you should be able to put aside and hopefully over time that accumulates. When evaluating which spending habits to adjust, keep in mind that the sacrifices that you make today will help you to secure success tomorrow. Next slide, please, Leah. So this next portion is more interactive and you guys can actually use your reactions at the bottom, I think that they work for you guys. So as I asked these questions, you could, you know, actually, you know what? I don't know if you can actually raise your hand for each of them, but I'll, so I'll just have you guys think about them. Which would you rather do? Buy coffee and a pastry every day? Or like I love, take a vacation. It's important to know that there is no right or wrong answer to this during this exercise because the reality of it is, everyone's spending priorities, once again, are different. Mine are different than yours. Yours are gonna be different than mine's. Mine are different than Howard's. So it really is, I see somebody said, coffee. So it depends on, you know, what your preferences are. So for me, mine, like I said, is vacation, but I see some people are like, you know, hey coffee, vacation, hey listen, whatever floats your boat. Next slide please, Lea. So would you prefer going to a movie and, you know, and getting popcorn and soda once a month or purchasing a new upgraded cell phone? That's another one, like, you know, like, you're gonna have people that would go for either just because it's all about preference. Cell phone, I see cell phone. Yeah, I'm probably more of a cell phone guy. I can watch, you know, Netflix at home. Movies and popcorn, definitely. I like that. So all of these things, they're like, once again, there's no right or wrong. These are just preferences and things that people like. The next slide for me, Lea. This slide, this one, would you rather have cable TV or pay off your credit card balance? You know, which one would I enjoy today? I'd say probably, I don't know, how the one of those could be great for me. I mean, like, I don't really, I could do without the cable TV. If I could get rid of the, you know, not having any debt, not having debt is a race. So paying off debts is definitely, will be my choice, but I know for some folks, you know, once again, to each his own. But these are the types of questions in which we at Balance work with people to, you know, things to identify. We try to get people to start thinking about these types of choices and what it is that they want to achieve. Everybody has different goals. So to sit down with people and talk about like where your preferences are to look at a budget cause oftentimes people have really grandiose ideas. For instance, you know, I get a lot of people to come in and they say, hey, I wanna purchase a home. And they don't think about how many things, how many steps there are in order to purchase that home. There are, you know, the whole idea of obviously you're gonna have to probably put down a chunk of money for that. So maybe you've saved, but maybe your credit isn't good. So you maybe not get the highest interest rate you want or the best, I mean, the lowest interest rate you want, the best interest rate you want. And so that you have to think about those things. You have to consider that. You have to consider if you decide to get a condo, will this, the HOA fees eat me alive because those can be expensive. There's the insurance piece that you also have to look at. And so a lot of times people just aren't quite prepared for all of these different things. And so as we start to sit down, we look at budgets, you know, we have to look at some of the expenses that we have from day to day that we never think about. Like once again, when before the pandemic, a lot of times, especially like working downtown, it's like, hey, you know what? We're gonna stop and have maybe a brewery after work or something. And you don't think about how much that actually costs and how much that takes out of your budget. Some people probably may save themselves a lot of money right now during this pandemic because they're not able to socialize in the ways that they were before and spend the same amount of money that they were before. So all of these things are things to consider. And these are just the basics of sort of saving and getting started and things to think about as you get started. The next slide, Leah. So here at Balance, we want to thank you all for participating in this. I have, you know, I have Howard here who I know some people have some questions. I know I kind of ran through this thing. And so we're gonna try to answer some of the questions in which people have. Once again, we don't help with investments. That's not what we do, but I can help with some of the basics and running through some of the things that we do because we don't just help with just savings. We help people with credit cards. We help people with credit debt. We help people with student loan debt. We help people with all kinds of other issues getting banked and choosing good banking institutions, those types of things. So Howard, if you will take it off if we have any questions. So I've been watching the chat box and I'm not seeing any questions. Okay. I mean, this is a fairly straightforward presentation. It is the basics of saving and how to get started. So, but if anyone does have questions, please feel free to enter those in the chat box now. You can also unmute yourself and ask your question out loud. Oh yeah, that works too. Questions, questions. Let's get some questions. Hi. Yes, I have a question. Yeah, I keep getting these phone calls from various companies about my student loans and they're from different companies. And I'm certain that, and I've been moving around a lot lately. So it's hard for me to keep track of who's calling me because I'm so busy with this chaotic life. I'm living right now quite frankly, but I keep getting these calls from various companies saying that they're going to help me with my student loan debt, which I do have. How do I know which one is legit? And because I'll have, I'll start talking to them thinking that they're legit, but then they're like, they start to sound shady after a while. Howard, do you have a very easy way to do that because I've had the same issues and I can tell you what I've done, but Howard may have a better idea. Howard, you're on mute. So I know one of the ways that you can actually check because I know a lot of people have issues about where are my student loans, who might be handling them. What I would recommend to clients is there is a good website and it's the federal student loan website. And you can go to nslds.ed.gov. So again, that website's N as in November, S is in Sam, L is in Lima, D David, S is in Sam.ed.gov. And this is a really good website to try to track where your federal student loans are. And I found this to be really helpful for a lot of clients, especially if this participant asks, they're getting a whole bunch of phone calls from different places. So you do have to register for this online and enter your information or username and password. And I think that that would be a good first step to try to locate where your federal student loans are. Thank you very much. Thanks, Howard. And Rosie, I would just be really careful with those calls because there are a lot of scammers right now. Absolutely. And our trading at here at the library is to be extra cautious. You never want to give anybody your personal information over the phone. Most of those organizations would not be pursuing you that way. So I would just not respond. If it were me, I wouldn't respond. And I would do my research to find out who legitimately helps you reduce your student loan, but I would not respond to those phone calls. Yeah, I think that is absolutely correct because one of the things I definitely know is that they definitely normally don't call you unless something's wrong. And so typically you don't have your student loan companies calling you like that. So not for even refinancing or any of that stuff, you'd have to ask for it. Thank you, everyone. I have a quick question. It's two of them. Can you provide a free online budget, some kind of, I guess, Excel sheet where it can go ahead and do calculations for you and perhaps see monthly, whatever, progression of saving. But first, I do want, and I think other participants would want this too, is some kind of sheet that you can input data and just see what results that all of you are talking about. And then the second question is around credit reports. I put in a request for all three of the major, I guess, companies or institutions. And for some reason, the automation on the phone assumed that I wanted it mailed instead of electronic copies. So I've waited. And of course, something as important as this was lost in the mail. I still haven't received it. I'm concerned about it because it has my credit information. So what can I do about that? Thank you. Yeah, so Howard, do you remember the, because most of the apps that I've seen that have budgeting, which we don't, I typically don't use just because we have a system here so we normally don't utilize those apps, et cetera, here. We did have a recent conversation about some of those. And I know Howard's been here a lot longer, so he may have used some more of them than I have. But I know that there are some paid services. The key point was free. I don't know how many good free things there are out there to help you with tracking your budgeting other than coming to some place, which is why we provide the services because we do it for free. But as far as actually having something that you could easily get on your phone, I do think that there were two of them, if I remember correctly, Howard, you may know better than I do. But I think that there were two apps, if I remember correctly, that may be somewhat helpful. The thing with balances, though, everything that we normally recommend are things that we've tested, that we know are legitimate that work. And so therefore, we typically don't, like, I can't approve someone else's app because I don't quite, I can't give you, I don't want to tell you some misinformation. So that's part of the issue that we run into here, but Howard may be able to answer that portion a little better. Yeah, I know a couple apps that a lot of my clients use is Mint. So if you went to, I believe, mint.com, that's one resource. We also do refer clients to nerdwallet.com. And Nerdwallet actually puts out, they have, they list the seven best budget apps for 2021. So I think that that would be a good starting point to kind of look at the Nerdwallet so we can give you examples of different budget apps. Also, what I recommend to my clients is a lot of banks where you currently have your banking accounts with, they do also offer a lot of, they offer like their own app where if you're using, let's say, like your debit card with that bank, it will actually track your purchases for you and categorize it in different categories. So that's another way that I've found that clients may want to look into. So I would say mint.com would be a good one. Nerdwallet.com, it gives a whole listing of different, the best budget apps. And then I would also recommend that you look at your own bank where you have your accounts with to try to see what they might have for programs. Thank you. Howard, I think you said mint as an I-M-I-N-T.com, correct? That is correct. Okay, thank you. And if you have a co-facilitator, if they could type those suggestions that Howard just gave onto the chat area so that everybody can get the correct spilling and option. Thank you, facilitators. I have two questions. One is, I get mail from Capital One and other credit companies and I wanna cancel getting the letters. And when I called, they said that I have to give them my social security number. No, don't do it. No. Okay. And then the other question is, I missed the first part of your program. So the balance service is for free? Yes. And how do I qualify? So balance is a free program for those that live or work in San Francisco. And so as long as you live, work, have an address there, you can receive these services free of charge. And you can speak with any coach free of charge as many times as you'd like. I have people that I talk to weekly. I have people that I talk to monthly, depending upon what their needs are. And so sometimes people need help into figuring out their budgets. And let's be honest, most of us have never really sat down with someone and felt confident and free to just disclose our financial information. This is a good tool because not only do we look into people's credit, we look at any kind of issues that they may have had in banking. And this can be very helpful with getting people started into trying to save and those types of things and figuring out where your money is. Because oftentimes, like I said, we don't look at the little expenses that we make from day to day, the little purchases like coffee. I know a lot of people love coffee, but coffee can be expensive if you go to blue bottle every morning. So those are things that we help people to look into and figure out. Thank you. Do you have meetings in person or Zoom or telephone? How do I, what could we do? So currently we're doing most of our meetings via phone. And honestly, this has probably been the most helpful thing that the pandemic could have given us in the sense that a lot of folks don't feel like coming out and going into a building to receive a service. And so now you can do it from the luxury of your own home. And I think this has been very effective for some folks because once again, all you have to do is pick up the phone and we can talk via phone. We do have the capability to do more like a Zoom meeting, but in general, we typically do currently everything over the phone for now. What's the phone number, please? I'm sorry, I didn't hear the last question. What is the phone number? Oh, so the phone number that I'll give you is a 1-800 number. They have a few different ones. So it's 1-888-456-2227. 888-456-2227. Correct. Thank you so much. You're welcome so much. I'm gonna actually provide another number that will get right to our Smart Money Coaching Department. Not to confuse everybody, but the number is 877-256-0073. So again, that number is 877-256-0073. And that way you'd be actually able to reach a coach pretty quickly. And just to kinda chime in, the first appointment that you do schedule with us is going to be scheduled for an hour. So you will wanna make sure you have about an hour of time set aside to meet with your coach and then we do schedule subsequent appointments, typically at a month out intervals that are about 30 minutes. So this is not like a program where it's one and done, where we just see you once, but it's definitely something that we form a relationship with our clients who continue the coaching, moving through and working on your financial goals. What is your name, your company or company's? It's balance, E-A-L-A-N-C-E. And you can find us on the website at www.balancepro.org. And I'll put that down here for you. And yeah, and we are gonna be having another presentation because I know I thought I saw a couple of questions about credit, but I know our time is like really limited. So I'm gonna be giving a presentation on the 27 related to understanding credit. So I would highly recommend that you attend that webinar, not only because I'm gonna be giving it, but I know that there's a lot of questions usually related around credit. So I'm just to kind of put my, you know, toot my horn that I'm gonna be giving that webinar in the 27. And that's gonna be at two o'clock in the afternoon. I'm gonna make it through the library. Yeah, it's here at the library. I put the link in the chat and I'll send it to you after the program. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? Excuse me, what date is that April 27th that that seminar's gonna be held? Yes, that's right. And that's, what's the topic? I'm sorry, somebody came in and started to talk to me. Understanding credit? Understanding credit. Thank you very much. Welcome. I have a question. Can you hear me? Yes. I think I got lost in the chat. Do you suggest keeping several separate savings accounts for the various things that you're saving for? One for, you know, the sudden loss of income bucket and then the eventual expenses such as auto repair bucket and then yet another savings account for the vacation and for special purchases? I think it really all depends on the person, right? I personally think that it can be a bit, you know much sometimes to have all of those buckets but the good thing about having separate buckets is you don't end up tapping into, you know like your major things that you want to do long-term or mid-range, you continue to have those because like your day-to-day things like for instance like I have like a vacation savings, right? And I have that plus a regular savings that I use. And, you know, so that way if I have any kind of emergencies there's this, you know, emergency fund over here but then I have a totally different fund, you know just for when I go on vacation. So when I go on vacations I don't have to think about what money I'm gonna spend because the money's already there. I use that account only for that. And so I don't think it's a horrible idea to have multiple savings as long as you can manage multiple savings because sometimes that can be a lot the more you have, more accounts you have the harder it is to sort of keep up with them but as long as you're automatically, you know drafting it over it's probably easier to keep up with but, you know, that depends on the person. Howard has been doing it longer so he may have some different advice over his, you know, years of knowledge but for me and my experience it's been it really depends on the person and what they think they can manage. And if that makes it easier to not dip into it and to stay disciplined and not say have them. Okay, thank you. Howard, did you have any? Yeah, I mean, I would just kind of jump in. I mean, you're right about, you know you wanna really, you know keep it to something that you're gonna be able to manage. You know, typically personally I look at maybe two types of savings accounts that I may carry more looking at larger maybe purchases. One, we should always be having for like emergency savings and keep in mind when we talk about emergency savings like we talked about during the presentation the goal really is to have about three to six months of your essential living expenses saved for emergencies. So what I mean by that is if you took let's say your housing expenses your grocery expenses, your transportation expenses expenses that you have to pay on a monthly basis you really wanna set a goal for yourself if you don't currently have three to six months of those expenses saved for emergencies. You know, in case something happens like you lose your job or you know you're not able to work or whatever it might be. And for me maybe a secondary savings account might be if you're maybe saving for a vehicle or I see a lot of people, you know for a down payment on a home. So I would probably look at, you know having multiple maybe savings accounts for maybe larger things. Okay, thanks. Once again, I'll reiterate one more time. Last year was a hard time for a lot of folks and it's still carrying over this year. And so for a lot of folks that didn't prepare they didn't have anything. And like right now you think about the issues with like unemployment and how long it's taking for folks to receive services or receive, you know, that their unemployment. It's very vital to have your own, you know set of resources in case these things happen because it may take months before you can actually get through to someone. And I've had so many of my clients who've contacted me and they've been months and months without hearing back and so, you know, they only have what they have. You know, they only have what they have on hand, liquid cash. And so if you don't have that save then you know, you can be in a situation in which you're struggling and you don't, you don't want to, I mean, have nothing set aside. And I think that's the difference between some folks who sort of were able to make it so far and other folks that are really, really suffering right now. I have a question. Everything being like automatic on computers and stuff. Okay, my worry is that earthquake San Francisco and I can't, the machines don't work. My phone, you know, I can't charge it anymore. And then I can't get, what do you call it? I can't get service. Should I have hard cash saved? So I always believe, you know, when I moved out here, disaster relief was one of the first things I had to think about. I came here from North Carolina, we didn't have the same types of disasters but there's also, there are disasters. And the thing about here is, you know, we all know that it's a matter of time before we probably have one, right? So with that being said, I'd always say, keep that in mind of where you are and where you are. Like no matter where you are, you should always have some sort of emergency bag set aside, an emergency fund, you know, with a little bit of cash in it in case you need it. And I have for instance, an emergency, what I call a power brick that I keep in a bag that I'm ready to, so if anything happens, I have my emergency equipment ready to go. So I don't have to worry about if my phone goes dead, I can just run out with that bag and I'm ready to go. So I think it's always important to have to prepare. Once again, this is about preparation. So prepare as if there were gonna be a, as if you know there's gonna be a disaster. And that's what I'd say, make sure you have some emergency cash. I'm not saying you need to have 10 grand set in that bag, that's not necessary. But, you know, to have some cash in case anything happened is always a good idea to have a little bit on hand. Thank you. Yep. I saw someone had their hand raised, I know we're getting close to the end time, but I wanna make sure that I answer that question. I've got a question. Okay, how do we know what to strive for for retirement? I have no idea what, I mean, of course, as much as possible, but, you know, in order to try to have a set endpoint in mind, what amount with inflation and everything, you know? I think that this is where I think the, you know, we want to make sure that we have a financial advisor for those things because it's very important to make sure that you set aside those things in a very strategic way because you do have to account for all of those things. And those aren't things that we actually handle here at balance. We can definitely refer you to places to do those things, but we, you know, we basically get you prepared to do that. And so we're sort of the step before you do that, or you can do that co-currently. I mean, you can do both at the same time. However, that's not something that we specialize in here. So I don't wanna give that impression that we, you know, I couldn't tell you exactly how much you should put in, but I would advise you to definitely seek some, you know, get that help from a financial advisor. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think we're gonna need to wrap up. Okay. Like I said, there was a question about opening up credit cards and things like that. I really would like to save that until we have my presentation, if that's okay, because we'll definitely be covering a lot about credit during that conversation. All right. Well, I wanna tell you all, thank you so much for this time and taking your time out to listen in on what we bring. And I hope that, you know, for some of you folks, if you have any questions, if you have any needs, please feel free to reach out to us. We'd love to have your business. And in addition to that, just being able to help people to get by and understanding how to, you know, how to manage. Because that's the one thing that, you know, I feel like a lot of times we're not educated on. If you didn't go to school for it, you won't know. So please feel free to utilize these services because every place does not offer these free services. So please take advantage of it. All right. Thank you so much, Trey. So all the recording for this presentation and the slides will be emailed out after the program. And thank you everyone for attending the San Francisco Library program. Thank you all. Thank you Trey and Howard for coming today. Thank you. Thank you.