Wellness Wednesday 16: Financial Freedom

Join Mark and Eliz as they discuss being financially wise in this tough economic time.

Favorite Driver Trainer Quote:
A plan without action is wasted thought, but action without a plan is wasted time.

What is FirstFleet tenFour?

The company podcast of FirstFleet, Inc. designed and intended to connect and communicate with our team of dedicated transportation professionals around the country. Let's start a conversation.

This is an Unedited Transcript - it may be wrong! Please verify with the audio file before posting any quotes.

Welcome to FirstFleet 10-4

Hello, everyone. And welcome to another episode of the first fleet. Ten four podcast, Mark McKnight here with our host. No, no you're hosting. Yeah. I know Elizabeth Wyndham as well. I'm joining him to. Sound like an idiot talking about money. Now it's funny because I get to listen to your voice on every single one of them.

And you're just having the rest of us here. Just kind of fill in. So no, no, I need all the help I can get. These are fun and I enjoy doing them. So it's nice to, to end kind of in today doing, doing a podcast and just kind of getting some, some, some talking points in there and. I've noticed the last two that you have just you've put out there are from the driver trainer meetings.

Yeah. Yes. We, I had so much fun. I was able to grab a bunch of driver trainers at our Charlotte driver trainer meeting a couple of weeks ago. And it was just wonderful. Getting to hear, talk to them, hear their stories. I just had a blast. Oh yeah, they sounded great. I know that in the Nashville meeting, when I got to kind of do a little, kind of a, like a little infomercial for the, driver trainer meeting, was that.

Fun to be able to promote, because I told everybody there that if you're wanting to get involved with the podcast and you're wanting to talk to a new driver, a recruit a possible or prospective driver with us to push them to that, that one that you did with the driver trainers at Centennial and the Peters.

The episode that you did and the Charlotte meeting when you had four drivers as part of that episode, two drivers from Georgia. And then one of the things was out of the Centennial location and another one that's out of the box location. Then you had two new drivers out of the Richmond, Virginia location.

Oh, those were excellent. So much fun with them. They were great. They were great. I know Ron Mitchell, they are Centennial driver. I had a chance to meet him and Martin dude. Yeah. And he had a, he had a great. Thought of like a kind of is, is one I had to write down to actually, I probably listened to it a couple of times, it's a great life lesson for us.

I want it tacked up on my wall. Yeah. So I just kind of wanted to reiterate it for everybody. And what he said was a plan without action is wasted thought, but action, without a plan is wasted time. You have to think through things before. And not just do something without thinking it through. First of all, it's, it's, it's, it's a tongue twister.

But second of all, it's like, okay, you know, how, how do you take you to mess it up? You know, how do you take each of those steps individually? And it's really, it's, it's, it's a nice piece of wisdom in there and you know, something to give your kids, it's something, you know, for sure. Driver trainer, to be able to also give a perspective driver.

I think that's a great opportunity to really, you know, don't be in such a hurry. There's so many things that we talk about even at the meeting is so far as don't get in a hurry, be patient, have a plan and it's can go a whole lot better that, that day and the. We'll go a whole lot better if you just kind of think things through and take your time.

It's great. I love it. And our driver trainers are supposed to be passing on their wisdom about driving to our new hire. So that was just perfect. I was a piece of wisdom that everyone needs to hear, so I needed it. That's where it's not, let's do it twice and even wrote it down. So thanks Ron. Appreciate it.

But it was, it was a great opportunity and most of them had only been there a short period of time, you know?

Yeah. Well, we were not talking to. 20 year driver trainers. These were fairly new drivers, new driver trainers to our company, but they're wonderful, wonderful guys. And we really are glad to have them on the team. Yeah. And then you the one that just dropped was with Roger pool, then our safety team and James Macintosh.

I've known Roger for a while and always get to, you know, I get to travel with him som, but I met James at the, at the meeting and really enjoyed getting a chance to talk to him and kind of getting to learn about his experience as well. You know, starting in the military, drove in the military got his education.

And taught elementary school for a number of years and decided he wanted to, to get back into the transportation side of the business and does a great job for us up there in Oxford. Wonderful job. I know I was so excited to an honor to talk to both of them. I learned a lot from, from them and our conversation really went away from.

The driver trainer aspect into more wellness topics. So personal wellness, financial wellness, we covered it all. So that was, that was very fun as well. And I told Roger, we needed some more different accents on the podcast, you know, being since we're based in Tennessee and we've gotten a lot of Tennessee voices.

And so it was nice to see some variety on our podcast or here's some here's some variety definitely dropped a lot of good. Applicable points whether, whether you're on the road or whether you're not. And honestly, I know a couple of things that both of them said I spent, especially James in regards to sleep, was stepping on my toes.

So especially now that daylight savings. I'm feeling, especially sleep deprived at the moment. So yeah, it was very helpful. Yeah. So, yeah, so we need more like that. I enjoy doing these, but we need more they'll get bored of us eventually, but I think if we have more people more drivers and more people outside of the Murphysboro office, it would like to be a part of this.

We would love to have the more voices, the first fleet. Out there on the podcast air. Yes. So if you want to be a part of the podcast, feel free. Please give me a call at 6 1 5 2 5 7 9 9 0 5. And leave me a message. And I will hear that immediately and get back with you. Or you can send me an email and we will arrange a live.

Call well, not live, but we'll arrange a call and we'll do it over the phone. So we can, we have lots of options, but I would love to get a lot more voices from first fleet to be a part of this podcast. Yeah. There's a lot of people out there you can sell, who really want to share, who wants to share their experiences with the company.

And you know, it's huge in today's, you know, As, you know, as we, as we may have our driver trainer meetings, you know, the big push this year on the driver trainer meetings for those that have attended and those that still have one more left, it's kind of that first 48 hours and making, you know, how do we make the new driver feel welcome and how do we, how do we really help retain that neutral?

Give them welcome them to the family need. Yeah, we made a lot of enhancements to the process. We did try to make it a little bit more streamlined and more efficient. Right. I've been working hard to update all the training videos for those new hires. So that that process is much less painful for everybody involved.

And we've really streamlined the paperwork involved and we're getting our driver trainers trained and. How to train them well, how to be a good friend to them and introduce them to the company. And so we're, we're getting there. Engagement's huge engagement. They gotta know who to call when they have a question, they need a friendly face.

Yeah. And we got the technology. I mean, obviously I, as I've said before, I'll, I'll put this, I'll put this technology team second. They're second to none out there in the field. What, what we have to offer, and we still need to have that personal touch. I know we've had some, some comments is, Hey, we love the technology.

We still want that personal touch. And that, that engagement, that connection, because I know we've learned through COVID, you know, whether it's been remote or how we've done it, you know, just even society in general. And we've lost a lot of connection with people. Yeah. Yes. And you as great as technology is it will never replace a personal, real, personal relationship facing.

That handshake is just going to stay. We can't, we can't keep away from it forever. Yeah. That's the reason I've enjoyed getting out to the beach, going to the drive train meetings is to be able to reconnect with people and meet new people that we haven't had a chance to in the past, we have a lot that are attending for the first time.

So it's been great and, and hoping that they're taking away something. That's what my challenge is when I get a chance to talk is take gap on one takeaway. And let's move. And how do you, how do you apply it when you, when you go back? So I think we can do that in a lot of different areas, for sure. I kind of gets to our topic today.

I think maybe, maybe that's a good segue into this is kind of one of our, I guess, I don't know if this will be released on a Wednesday, but this will be one of our wellness Wednesday. Podcast episodes. Absolutely. We need more and more of them. Yeah. A little bit different than we maybe we've done in the past.

As much as I love talking about nutrition and, you know, movement and all that, I've been on that a lot lately. Yeah. But there's, you know, there's one that's this that can help with that in the longterm. And that's the financial wellness piece, right? Stress on our bodies can be caused by external things like financial stress and emotional stress.

And so we're going to talk about financial wellness and financial stress that can be caused by what we do with our money. So, yeah, and there's a lot of areas, you know, that, that there's a lot of, there's a lot of different things that we do that. Some we can't control. Right. You got an inflation going on right now.

You know, it's at the highest it's ever been. You know, I remember hearing about it back in the seventies back when, you know, when I was real young, I remember hearing my dad's stories. You weren't, you weren't around in the seventies in any way, besides. I remember hearing about that when, you know, I was too young to really know much about it, but I'm not too young now.

And my kids are old enough now where they're kind of like, oh, we're we're now this is our first experience with it. And so you have a lot that have never been through a situation like this, and, you know, we've had good times for a long time. It's hard to imagine the money that is in my hand. Is worth less than it was a year ago.

Like I can't, it's hard to wrap your head around that. It really is like the inflation other than, you know, oh, okay. Now it costs me $30 or $40 to fill up my car as opposed to 20. I think that's one of the big things as far as the, as the, the vehicles and groceries, groceries. Yep. I'm having to rework my budget for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. I know my wife she's we've always had a suburban with kids and so we had one that, you know, we drove til about the wheels were about to fall off and we had another one and now we don't really have a need for a suburban, but it's paid off. So it's easy and it's got about 120,000 miles on it.

So it's just now foreign, but my wife kind calculated the other day. She goes, okay, for this amount of money, I can drive this many miles and it was. That's not very far, you know? So when you start breaking it down to how much does it cost per mile? It's, it's getting up there. And I know when I, when I travel and I see, you know, how much diesel costs, we see how much diesel costs every day, when, when we get our, you know, we get our file in from right from the fuel stops.

And it's, it's crazy. How much is out there? We still getting a decent discount. Oh yeah, probably nine. 5% of our trucks stops. We get a very, we've got a good, strong discount. That's what I thought. And we always encourage our drivers to pay attention to the network. You know, it, you know, when, when one thing we've had calls on is why are you telling me to go to this truck stop versus this truck stop because the truck stop.

You're not telling me to go to. Right on the side. Sure. Sign says it's 10 cents cheaper, but when we dig into it, the one we're telling them to go to is quite a bit cheaper, just because those discounts aren't seen at the truck stop. Right. But all those truck stops that are good and get us the best discount or in the first fleet mobile app.

Correct. And we have someone who manages that right daily. Oh, wow. I didn't realize it changed that much. Well, I mean, she, Danielle, she's kind of our, she works with our fuel network and so she doesn't change it daily. I shouldn't say that, but she monitors the gallons daily and then she will make some changes with the managers and we'll, we'll try to redirect just to make sure we're getting and feeling.

I mean, in the end, I mean the cheaper, the fuel that we can purchase quality fuel, the better it's going to be for everybody. Right. Absolutely. Yeah, the size that, the big thing, cause I know growing up, I mean, I could tell with my dad, that was one of the things that kind of brought stress to him growing up and trying to raise three kids.

And you know, he worked at the same place for 42 years and, you know, steady, but you know, he, he was always very concerned about it and I think he brought us up in that same way, you know, it's, it adds a little, it, it can add a little stress to things. Person that handles money. Well my parents were, they didn't spend a whole lot, so I mean, they saved a whole lot and when they, we didn't, we didn't go on and big trips and stuff like that.

So it was just, it was. It was very, very modest and then say I'm thrifty, but my wife is cheap. So, and I'll tell her that she does, which we joke about that. I'm like, okay, well, do we need this or not? And my wife will just dig and dig and dig, even if it's. I look for something. If we want to go on a family vacation, she will spend hours and she will find, I mean, it's amazing what she can do.

She spends a lot of time doing it. It's probably the time value may not be worth it, but for the rest of us, it's been great. So yeah, she's extremely cheap. And most you grew up with her mom that way, her mom's the same way. So it's helpful that both of us are moving in that same direction, but not everybody may move in that same direction.

Then you get some conflict. Ways to handle money. And then that adds to the stress as far as how to move forward. Absolutely. You know, I was talking, we mentioned Ron Mitchell. We talked to him, I talked to him, he had, he had some great stories to, for me to, for, to tell me while we were there, because actually he came, you know, at the, at the meetings we've been looking and giving away a Dave Ramsey.

Yeah, and that we want to talk about the total money makeover. So we had, they had all that all, I didn't take that many for the first time, so they all went away. So Ron came and asked for one, but he can't tell me his story. He's I mean, he's done a great job. It sounds like he's got a really good financial mindset and then how to approach things.

So it'd be great, you know, to have a lot of our team members moving in that same direction. So we gave away a few and I've got it. I know you have one that you need to send to someone from that same meeting and I've got three. I need to send out to Henderson, Nevada. Tolleson Arizona and and down to Ron and down at Centennial.

So I need to get those indeed to get those out, but we took more to Nashville. These books, Mr. David beanie, our executive vice president purchased these and then we're taken more to Dallas. So it was, it's been good to see more people. Engaged and really interested. And I think this is probably the time this is tax season.

This is tax season, and then you've got the inflation. Then you've got interest rates just went up. So people have been, you know, borrowing for, for maybe new mortgages or refinancing. Now that got a little more expensive. So I know the point where I'm really getting, starting to get out of my depth. How do you, how do you handle money when you've got all these costs that are coming into the equation that you didn't have before?

So it's definitely something that a lot of people it's on a lot of folks mind. Yeah. I know mine. I've got to do my taxes. I've got, I don't know how long, how many, how many weeks do we have? Like two or three, April 15th, Friday. I sent it to the 18th this year, but I don't know. I'm just looking at April 15th.

Is that that's that's that's the deadline. No, always hits right around my birthday, like a couple days off. And I know it's always the worst birthday present is, oh, look, I get to do my taxes for my bird for happy birthday to me. Well, technology has made that a lot easier. That's true. I'd say just a little bit for, for, to do a TurboTax, but it's, it's a lot easier for you to kind of say, okay, Yeah, for sure.

But I know I'd like to, if we can talk about this, you know, some of the books. Yeah. And you know, like I said, a lot of people have taken these from the meetings and we sent some out to some of the fleets. We want to, we want to get more out to those that actually need it or want to get a copy. So, I mean, that's something, if you're interested in a copy, then you know, the number that you gave earlier, someone can kind of come connect with us to get a copy.

We'll we'll keep copies out and we'll send them. Yeah, as we need to, if you want a Dave Ramsey, the total money makeover book, give us a call 6 1 5 2 5 7 9 9 0 5. And let us know, and we'll send you a book. So make sure you give us your name and terminal and some details and we'll get it to you. It's it's it's so it's interesting.

Cause know. It seems like it's hard. It does. It seems very scary when you're dealing with money. Yeah. But you know, he had a great, and this is just from the introduction piece of it, as far as you know, he said you know, his, his belief is that personal finance is 80% behavior and only 20% head knowledge.

So when you think about it, behavior, behavior goes along a lot of ways and, and how you, and how you handle certain things and kind of what's your, not your lifestyle, but how you approach. Okay. And just your habits have we've talked to we've talked habits. Are these like micro habits or just your mindset of how you approach money?

I think everything is a micro habit. I think if you have your micro habits in place, It sets the stage. This isn't really taught much in school. I mean, my kids have had, my kids have had, they did some online classes and so they did hide up F a personal finance class. I couldn't stand it. And I was like, your mom and your mom.

And we've taught them how they need to be here. How they need to like a good stewards, you know, we're all called to be good stewards of whatever we've been blessed with. And finances is one of those things that, you know, how are you handling that? Right. So we all, we've always been, you know, with four kids, they all handle it differently.

And sometimes you gotta learn, you can be taught. I was like, what is it? You can, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Yeah. But, but it's interesting as they get. I can see changes. You know, I just had a conversation with my oldest of the day, you know, he's married and looking to buy a house either as delivering short term or as investments.

So he's learning, he's asking questions about what the banks are asking, you know, how much. I mean, what a credit score, if he has, if he has this particular credit score, or how does that move into what the bank says? He has the ability to, he goes, what does that mean? When that bank says, I have this much I can borrow for a mortgage.

I was like, well, it doesn't mean you have to borrow that. No, don't never, never borrow what the bank never borrow. The maximum in the bank tells you. I learned that when I was doing my house hunt last year, that was they, they said I could borrow a lot more than I thought I did. Ever feasibly borrow. So, but I had to figure out my monthly budget first in order to know what I could borrow, because then I had to work out, okay, here are my expenses for each month and here is how much I make.

And those numbers have to either match or I have to spend less than I own. Like, that's just. Yeah, just basic, you know, and that's a point that I think it's worth noting. And I may ask you a question maybe too personal, but when you talk about how much your expenses are, when you're talking about your expenses, are you talking about, this is all, this is what I, this is my take home.

This is everything I've got to take on. This is what I can spend. Or do you allocate, you know, how do you allocate. That I'd like to figure out how, you know, how does that work and how can some of our listeners kinda, that may not take advantage of things like that? How does that work? Sure. Okay. I actually, in looking through this book, I, I already do a couple of things that Dave Ramsey already mentions.

And there's one part in, I think it was chapter. I don't even know if, somewhere in the middle of the book where it talks to. Saving your first bit of emergency fund. And he, he mentioned specifically, you have to hide it from yourself. And that to me is what I've always done is in order that's how I save for a house.

That's how I've saved my hope for a car all my life. I have to hide it for myself. And that works really, really well. So for me, I look at, for my expenses, I take 10% off the. Of my paycheck and it gets routed into a savings account and I never see it. So when you talk, when you think about how much money you asked for how much money I actually have, I don't even consider that you, I do not.

Yes. So my take home pay and my weekly paycheck is what goes into my checking account or what goes into yeah. What goes into my checking account. And it's not even accounting for that 10% that I put into savings and with 401k. Well, that's another thing off the top. So I've got the work 401k, so that goes out and then the benefits and the health savings account.

So that goes out. I never see that. And then I take another 10% and that goes into savings. And then the rest, however much that is, that goes into my main account for all the, all the bills and all the, all the expenses, you know, my clothes, budget, my entertainment, eating out. All that stuff. That's good. And I'm not sure how many people take advantage of that and say, you know what, I'd really like to do that, but I don't know about setting up a different account and you can actually set up a different account with the same bank.

So it makes it probably a little easy to do that. Thanks. Thanks. We'll help you out. And we can have four accounts on our Workday on our, on our Workday yet, if you have four different four different savings accounts, or if you have a checking in three savings accounts, which honestly go for it, I would recommend it if.

If you need to hide money from yourself, go for it. You could have a special Christmas savings account and you set it aside and it's $10 a week just for Christmas gifts or just for whatever, or, you know, just for a new car fund. Yeah. And Workday makes it so easy. You can do it correctly. You haven't got us anything in the payroll for them to make the change and then test it.

It's just goes in and black and send you the training. Great, great plug for that. You have a lot of training videos out there for Workday, so yeah, that'd be great. I think that'd be a great thing that we can definitely that in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's so simple and I find it essential for me.

I have to hide that money and I just can't think about it. So then I'm pleasantly surprised when I check my savings account bank account. Cause I have an online one that has a little bit higher interest rate. And so, you know, Once every couple of weeks, I don't look at it all the time, but then it's like, oh, look at that.

I didn't know. I had that much money in there. It's very exciting. Yeah. Yeah. So the insert that goes, that kind of, that goes towards your possibly emergency fund that you're talking about. Is there a recommended amount that they say for emergency funds? The goal he says to start small, if you have no emergency any emergency, any emergency fund, he said, if you don't have anything saved right now, have a thousand dollars.

Just to have a thousand dollars saved up in an emergency fund, just start there. And once you get that thousand, that's when you can start to save more. And so I think the goal that most financial business people will tell you is three to six months of expenses and to have it in cash, easy to get ahold of.

So in a, in a savings account, although it's kind of sad right now with inflation, I'm just watching it be worthless, but that's a little hard. I don't know what to do about that. So I'm just going to, it goes back to a saying that I've used in many people can go quote me here that I've talked about this too in the past.

It's a, it's a coach that I've listened to and I've probably said it on the podcast before. Okay. Control the controllables and low and late and let the rest go control the controllables. And to me. A lot of this is the controllable piece of it, as you know, that's my behavior piece. I can't control, you know, some of the things that are out there, but the pieces that I can.

And I think part of that is if, if I can take just if I can shave just a little bit off and do exactly what you said, as far as setting it aside into a different account where I don't see it as similar to a 401k, I don't see a 401k. I'm not going to, I don't plan on looking at my 401k until I. Closer to retirement, unless I had to make some adjustments, but I've got it all set to add more money.

Yeah, exactly. I just, I'm just going to keep pushing into it for sleep contributes to it. So money free money everybody come on. Yeah. Plus, I mean, we're kind of getting off topic, but we have the HSA for those who are in the high deductible. That's a great way. We talked about that. That's it's not, it's not a free insurance plan, but if I'm paying for a full family and first sleep puts in just a little bit more into the HSA w netting a positive.

Yeah, that's a set. That's essentially another savings account. The first fleet gives you and it's just for health related expenses, but those could really, yeah, you can take it with you. It's part of an investment account. They're expensive, especially when it comes to health care and dentist and doctors and all the stuff.

So, yeah. Invaluable. Yeah. One of the things he mentioned in here, which I thought was was pretty good as the fact of, I mean, we've been in some w you know, 2008, we had a pretty good recession and everybody felt that back in 2008, and since then, we've been pretty much on a rebuilding and recovery phase until it's almost like a brief a replenishment, but it's definitely been a phase.

We've we've been living in, in the good times for a while. And there's a, there's a piece in here. I'm just going quote it so it doesn't look like, it sounds like it's coming from me when times are booming, you can do dumb things with money, get sloppy and take huge risks without realizing it. I've heard, it said this way, even a Turkey can fly on a tornado.

People are running around buying things. They couldn't afford with money. They didn't have to impress people. They didn't even like, and they were doing it in record number. So those are the kinds of things. I think over time, it's just like, we've gotten kind of accustomed to it. Now. All of a sudden I was having a meeting this morning, as far as, you know, if you took the last 10 years and you said, okay, what's been the, what's been the inflation increase over the last 10 years.

And then if you took the last 10 years versus this year, Does it all, even out of what the last 40 years look like, you know, is this, you're just an anomaly, you know, I've seen predictions from, from, you know, investment bankers that say, it's going to go down next year. Don't quote me on that. But as far as you know, they're, they're not seeing that this could be a long-term, but nobody knows right now there's so many things going on in the world right now, but what can we do?

We think that's the big thing is what, what part of this, what part can do we need to play in this? Because it's really comes down on us. Sure, absolutely. I know with, with Dave Ramsey, a lot of things that he talks about are all about how to, how to be more in control of your finances. And so I was talking with a good friend of mine who she and her husband have paid down over a hundred thousand dollars in debt in, I think they did it in like four or five.

How much over a hundred thousand, maybe it was six years. Maybe it was more let's see. No, they finished in 2017 and I think it took him seven years. Yep. But I mean, just amazing. They worked so hard and they followed Dave Ramsey steps and they really she was, you know, they backed off a little bit now because they can relax.

Her statement to me was Elizabeth. You don't know just how free you are until you. I don't have any debt hanging over your head, like getting rid of that debt was personal freedom to them. Now she's like, now I can think about, oh, look at that. We have some extra money. We can think about a vacation. Now we can think about, you know, going to the beach.

Now we can think about doing these things that we would never considered before, because we had all this debt that was just a lead weight dragging us down. So set of paying off the past or they're looking towards. Yeah. So now it's like, oh, look at that. 400. Once they stopped, once they'd finished paying off the debt, they're like we have $400 a month that they didn't tell us.

We don't have any word for it to go at the moment cause they were done. And so it was just feeling a huge, absolutely huge. And so her, her forecast. From from our discussion, she was like, well, the four keys that they used following the Dave Ramsey kind of money plan was to number one is live on a written budget.

And so every month they knew exactly what they needed to spend for, for the basic essentials. You know, they knew they, they had. Or they didn't know if, like, for example, you're not going to spend a hundred dollars on your car every month because you know, depending on how much you drive, you don't need tires.

You don't need to spend, you're not going to all change and tires and all that. You're not going to spend a hundred dollars a month each month, but cumulatively, if you budget for that and you don't touch that money, it builds up over time. So then you're ready for the. Car trouble or the new water pump or the four new tires that you need when you're are bald.

You know, something like that. You're ready. And I need to be better at that. My budget is not the best at the moment. I've, I've gotten slack. And I need to get back to it, especially for groceries in the. Those sort of budgetary needs, but live on a written budget, Cassius king spend less than you make and don't get in any new debt.

So that was, that was kind of was like, okay, we'll spend what you make. That makes sense. If I make, you know, if I'm, if I have coming in to my bank account $600 a week, then I know I can't spend any more than that. And so it's like, you just kind of. Gauge it that way. And then another thing that I, that she was, they still do to this day.

They ha they now have a credit card because they know how to use it and they're careful. And, but she said it's amazing how much you feel. How much money's worth when you pay with cash instead of a credit card, like you and, and I catch myself doing that too. When I go to the grocery store, I swipe a credit card and I walk out and I'm like, oh, how much did I actually just spend?

I don't even know. And it was like 20 seconds ago and I just. Even enter my brain because it doesn't matter because it's just swipe that pay cash and they say, do you want the receipt? Yes. Because I've got change and I know what I gave you. And I want to see exactly what you charged me. If you do it, the credit card, it's like, ah, that's all right.

I don't need to say it. Right. It'll show up. It'll show up, but it could be wrong, but it could be wrong and you're not paying attention. And I don't even, I don't even remember it. It's it's like. Does it doesn't exist. It's crazy. And so to this day, she still has in her purse all envelopes with cash for, for the month.

It's like, okay, here is the clothes budget, their clothing budget for the month. Here's their food budget for the week. Here's their, you know, grocery store eating out budget, like everything is budgeted out with cash and they still use cash. And it has been so helpful for them just to know how much they spend and where it goes.

I was like, you know I, I might need to try that, like do a month, Dave Ramsey, he preaches the envelope system and I've had some, I've had a really good friend. I've probably one of the best friends. He has family back way back in the day when they had little ones, they did the envelope system as well.

It, it, it makes sense after talking to her, I get it. Like, if you're not good with money, it is, it's probably the best way to really know where your money's going. Honestly, I don't know. I might, I might give it a month. Try a little. We'll see, it sounds like a lot of work though, but I can do it. I can do it.

I need to get a budget. And I know there's some online tools that people can use. Now. I know one that I've used in the past is mint.com, M I N t.com, which allows you to set up, you know, you can set up your budget, you can set up a savings, you can set up. Tracking to say, okay, let me know if something comes through and what you do is you basically set up your, your bank accounts on there.

So you have a bank account, a savings account from another institution. You can put all that together and it tracks everything and says, okay, here's what you have coming in. Here's what you have going out. Did you mean to spend that much or. $20 if you don't want to, if you don't do something in the written, you know, maybe I allocate a hundred dollars a week for, I don't know, gas or food for food, you know, and all of a sudden my grocery bill comes in and I spent 120.

It reminds me, he said, you know, you went over this way. Do you want us to make a change? So sure. And I know there's more than just mint out there, but mince one I've used in the past every dollar. There, there are a couple more, but some of them cost money, which the free ones. Yeah. I was about to say I'm like, ah, prefer the free ones.

Honestly, Every time I've done it. I've just made a Google doc, an Excel spreadsheet and just plugged it in manually. It doesn't track it for me, but, but at the same as cash Malda smelled, a son did that as well. He did put his, everything in a spreadsheet and he tracked every which he came in and where his money went.

And so he did. A number of months, even when he was here, he was tracking said, okay, where am I spending my money? And it was an eye-opener for him. So it's kind of like the cash system, as far as I'm going to, he's going to keep up with it. So it's, it's visible, he's controlling trying to control the controllables and that piece of it.

Exactly. And I will tell you what catches me is online spending because that's even more disconnected. So it's not even what I spend at the grocery store. It's Amazon that they don't give you a good way to know exactly what you spend. Excellent now, where is it by now? Yeah, I did that one time. I swiped at one time.

I'm like, oh, it really means it really means it. I know. It's not like, are you sure? I was thinking I was going to get an, are you sure? And didn't ask me, are you sure? Thankfully, it was really small test, a small test test in shallow waters. Wow. Yeah. It's but it, it can be very dangerous. So I'm trying to be more careful and mindful about that.

And so what I'm currently in especially as, you know, working on my budget, I'm trying to do the spend only on only essentials that I need. So we'll see. It's, you know, that's, that's my March goal and I think there are enough people now are per kind of taking into context. I think it is currently.

Kind of becoming more of an essential type society because, you know, we don't know, you know, what's going to happen in the next few months in regards to inflation or geographical, geopolitical, whatever may come to pass, you know, there's so much going on that, you know, whether, you know, supply chain, diesel gas, It's hard to say, so how am I really, how am I really spending that?

So I think that's something we needed. I want to make sure my kids understand as well. We're trying our best say, you know, when I saw gas going up, I sent them all a text. I said, draw smart. Now, fill up now and draw smart. Yeah. So hopefully they're, if they're taking heat to that but I know that we want them out.

We want to make sure we're offering, you know, what kind of tools we can help others with that is with this as well, that these books that we can send out, we'll take a bit, which will take them to the next driver trainer meeting. And I looked and, you know, those are, that are on the Virgin pulse program through our wellness program.

We do have a partnership with the bank fifth, third bank and Alicia and I spoke earlier today and they there's an app on the, on the. There's an app within the Virgin pulse app on the benefit side, that is fifth, third bank. It's a little, it's a small app that you can go into for education pieces.

Just to kind of, you know, I set it up to learn about setting, saving for retirement credit score. And another may have been for saving for college. It's cool. Helping mom from my kids. But it's just quick and easy tips that you can learn information from the bank. But I did talk with Alicia earlier and I asked if it was okay if I kind of through.

Promo out there for her. But she and the wellness team, we're putting together some things with the bank and with other providers on the, on the, kind of the financial wellness side to be available to some of our fleets, especially as we do biometric screening. So it could be like a whole wellness day, but there's some more things coming in that regard.

I think that, that we, that we can promote for that. So kind of be on the lookout. And I told her that maybe she can jump on a podcast with you to discuss. Yeah. In the near future, I think that'd be good for kind of letting everybody know what we're doing on the wellness side, on that, on that front. Yeah.

We're combining it. We're getting physically and financially fit, so I love it. And just so everyone knows, if you go into your Virgin pulse app along the bottom, there are five. Tabs, I guess you'd say there's home health benefits, social and profile B click the benefits one that's where you can find the fifth, third bank, financial wellness section.

So just a little FYI to everybody. So go to the benefits tab. Yeah. And it's real practical. I mean, I've watched one today and it's a video explaining how the credit score works. And what does the credit score mean? I need to watch that it's really good. And four means a whole lot as far as you know, what your opportunities are.

Not that we're telling people to borrow, but it just kind of shows you how to kind of what your. Your financial state, just to kind of a quick update of how it's kind of how others see you and how your financial state is. Isn't it like how banks view you as is whether you're a high risk or low risk?

Okay. That's what I thought. I learned the basics when I had to buy a house, but kind of forgotten it since then, so, okay. Maybe I need to watch the video and get a refresher. But I think, I think the big piece on this one is, as you mentioned, the freedom that your friend felt and just so. There's less stress.

There's more. Like a sigh of relief, as opposed to a you know, a sigh of frustration or, or that we can, we had, how do we kind of move past that piece of it? Yeah. It's, it's amazing how much her just anxiety levels and just their relationship as two married people have improved now that they no longer have to worry.

All this debt. It just, it just changed. It really changed their lives, getting out from under that. So it's, it's important and if y'all need any help, you know, we, firstly we want to help. So absolutely. We'll do whatever we can. Yeah. So I do know Dave, Ramsey's very anti credit card. I had to get a credit card to get a credit score so that I could buy a house.

So at some point they are, they do have their uses. Let's put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. The big benefit is if, while there are a couple of benefits, but the big piece is if you get a credit card, Don't hold anything open. And we did, we didn't do credit cards for probably 20 something years when we both got married, we had, we both had discover cards, but we both get this monthly statement.

We both met mailed two checks to pay both of them down. And so we never had anything carry over, but one of the reasons I didn't like it is because I really couldn't track anything. And that was kind of when I was tracking as far as where. Yeah. So we went 20 years. We used our bank account and a debit card.

So that's how we did it. It wasn't till a couple years ago with like, okay, well we'll, we'll go ahead and get one, because there are some discounts and some points these days, debit cards get stolen. And I mean, my wife it's, you can pay online now. So she, so she gets alerts every time, either my card or her cards used.

Yeah. So I was like, okay, well, If I'm, if I bought something, she gets it. I don't care. I mean, anyway, but she immediately after I think she probably pays it off probably three times a week and it's not much. And it's just whatever it is. So every time I look out there, it's your dollar balance. And she, like I said, she's cheap and she's on time.

She will never have to worry about that credit card penalty. That's actually kind of smart. I should pay mine more than once a month. Yeah, that's a good idea. I know mine. My credit card I have for a while, I was just doing it to get a credit score. So I made sure I knew I couldn't quite trust myself with it yet.

So I only use my credit card for. And I just bought gas because that was an essential, I had to have it. And then I paid it off immediately. And that was, I did that for about a year. And then I slowly, I was like, okay, I can trust myself a little bit more. Cause you're buying essentials. Exactly. I'm just buying a centrals and now.

The, the technology and the tools that the credit card companies have is very, very handy. So I get a text message to my phone. Every time I spend more than $50, like I have that set up a text notification saying, Hey, did you really just spend $50 at this place? And I can. More than just watching for theft and fraud.

It helps me keep track of where I'm spending money. So I it's like, oh yeah, I did just spend that much money here. Oh yeah. Should I have done that? It's, it's a, it's a secondary check on myself and my spending habits as opposed. And it's, you know, it is, I find it very, very. That might be, that might be a good tip for, for other people to definitely.

Yeah. Yeah, because I know if I get notifications on something it's reminders for me and that we may have people that are listening to say, well, I do this. Please call in, let's share those. And we always ask to have one caller, we need one call. It'd be the first call or be the first to call such and such.

And yeah. Do you want two steak knives? I don't know. We don't have any steak now, but anyway, you know, so please call in the drivers and the employees we've had that have been on the calls have offered some great advice and we want to hear, we want to hear more because it's not just us talking. On the podcast.

It's it's other voices that need to be heard that other people need to hear. Yes, exactly. Help us help you.

But no we'll call in and we, we want to hear, because I need more good advice. I definitely you know I've, I've gotten up to the house. That's that's the far, as far as my financial steps have gone and I'm, I'm saving my, for my you're too young to save for retirement. So don't. Well, no, no, no, no, no.

I'm, I'm kidding. I'm being facetious on that. You're never too young to say, don't you remember this compounding face very much. So. Would you rather, what was the thing with compounding? Would you rather have a penny that compounds that, that doubles in price everyday for a month? Or would you rather have $500,000 right now?

Which one would you do? Would you rather have a penny that doubles every day for 30 days? Or would you rather have, I think it's $500,000 just in cash handed to you right now. Today's society would be wanting it now. Our parents society would be giving up. Okay. I think just so much today. It's instant gratification.

It's the instant, it's the, it's the Instagram, it's the messages it's, it's so much comes upon us so quickly. It's like, we'll just, I'll just take it now and then I can reinvest, but I think over long, I do agree that over long-term, it's, it's a small, it's a, that's kind of like a micro habit in it. Yeah.

Well, but it's also. It gets you much more money if I'm saying what I'm saying, but you know, it's not, you're not getting that instant gratification, but it's that longterm, it kind of goes back to a quote that, that is in this book where he says kind of what the motto for this book is. I have to say it slow.

If you will live like no one else later, you can live like no one else. So, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's the way of reminding that if we make the sacrifices now. Sure. Yeah, exactly. We'll be able to take this vacation. Exactly. You know, Straterra, you know, if retirement comes, if you choose to retire, if you choose to retire, then this is, you know, you have more opportunities to kind of absolutely.

Yeah. Take not chances, but takes off my opportunities. A little more free with freedom. So which, which would you choose if I could give you a million dollars today or a penny compounded every day and doubled every day for 30 days, which would, what do you think would get you the most money? 30 days? Oh, a penny you'd take the penny.

Yeah, I would too, especially now that I know why, because penny, if you double it every day for 30 days would net you $5 million at the end of 30 days, as opposed to just 1 million. How crazy is that after 30 days after 30 days, if you took a single penny and doubled it every day by day, so you take a penny and you double it and it becomes 2 cents, and then you double it again.

And the two becomes four, four becomes 16. I don't know. You're the math guy. You take it from here. It adds up really quickly when you, when you compound and when you double things. So, yeah. Yeah. I think those are good questions to ask. The younger folks in our system. You know, to get them to, that's just something to get them to think about, you know, is it worth the wait?

Exactly. Like it was a lot of ways. Anyway, that's a different podcast. So worth the wait. Yeah. We'll talk about that next time. You know, this book right here is chock full. When you look through it, there's a chock full of stories of successful families. Families being successful doing just this and coming out with where they might've been like your friend and they come out with freedom on the end.

Right? I mean, those personal stories make all the difference. It's that's the goal. That's the key. That's what we're aiming for. We want to hear lives, change for the better. And so that's what we want this podcast to do. Call us, or call Dave Ramsey and his show. And tell him, tell him your story. All right.

Call us bird. Come on, please. And thank you, but awesome. This has been wonderful. Thank you. I enjoyed it, enjoyed it. And if anybody else has, if you have any other ideas that you'd love to hear about on. Type of podcast episode, please call in or please reach out to E-liz and just let her know what you would like to hear.

And we'll share whatever knowledge we have or get others on there that are more, have more expertise than we do to get their voices heard. We'd love to have some people from the outside. Take part in this as well, whether it's from our, our, our team, or maybe from an outside, if we need to call in some experts, we can do.

So awesome. This has been fun. I love it. Financial wellness. Well, thank you. We finally did it. This one's been scary for awhile. We've been putting this off, but it was time. So I'm glad to do this. Well, everybody thank you for joining in and until next time, stay safe and take care.