#232 – Financial Things You Won’t Regret Buying

Hi, and welcome to the money boss pound podcast. I am Anna Sergunina, your host. And today, we have a special episode as I want to flip the script on your spending habits as we explore financial things you don't need, but won't regret buying. Now, not a typical episode. But I want to highlight a couple of ideas I had, in my mind. And I and I want to say that you actually really hurt me right? As we're talking about things that you should be spending your money on. I'm gonna talk about applications and software that you might be benefiting from, as well as relationships and consultations that it's probably worth your money to spend on and how all of this ties in into the financial success, you can build a free family. Are you ready? Let's do it. All right, number one on my list of items that you can actually spend money on our budgeting software and budgeting apps, you've been the listener of the show for quite some time. And I did a complete serious an overhaul of what I'm using as a software to help me keep track of the spending and budgeting. And also the transition that one of my favorite platforms has gone through at the at the end of last year mint.com. So I want to highlight this for you again, and I found myself if that transition started to take place, I found myself that I finally had to face the reality and put my big girl pants and pick a software. Or in this case, it's an application that sits on my phone, or you can access it in a browser that I had to pay for. So as much as this exercise of keeping track of your spending and making sure you're staying within your budget and really giving just an idea is not the most exciting exercise everyone is doing or wants to do. Much less pain for it. But here's why I think it's worth your spending your dollars on something like that. Now, I'm not talking about hundreds of 1000s of dollars, I'm talking about under $100 a year that you would pay on an application like you need a budget, or monarch money or tiller, you need a budget is more focused on actually giving the precise job to every dollar. So that's just it's just a different approach to budgeting. Monarch money is the one that I'm using that's very similar to mentor it kind of gathers all the transactions and gives you a snapshot of your spending. Tiller is a budgeting platform that is attached to a spreadsheet. If you spreadsheet nerd, it helps you kind of stay within that ecosystem and still get the the answers that you need. It also pulls your transactions and kind of gives you that snapshot picture. So why I think you should be spending money on something that gets you to see the reality for that exact reason. Because if you don't have a little bit of a pain and pain, I mean, you spending money on this program, you actually aren't really going to pay attention, you actually aren't going to really do stuff that's necessary, if that's your goal, right to keep you in line. So for that reason, paying for something is going to get your attention perked up a little bit better. Plus, I think paying for a program, you have a different expectation of what it delivers you experience of how you use it is very different. So any of these three platforms are awesome is what I recommend, depending on the type and style of how you want to process the data. All right, my item number two are financial planning consultations. And yes, my friends, I might be biased because that's what I do every day. And I still think that a lot of people are hesitant to spend money on a financial planner or advice and really struggle a lot of times to make decisions. Now. When you look at this type of an expense for some people, it's centered around making decisions. And when you are faced with making decisions, whether they're small or big, and a lot of times people look for counsel, legal or financial or tax or any other counsels when they're make face to make a decision that they can make on their own. And that's okay, you can find people that would help you in those kinds of instances. However, how I view financial planning consultation or ongoing work with a financial planner, as a way of investing in your future? Because decisions that you're going to make whether it's how do you invest your portfolio? What kind of insurance to buy? How can you save more for retirement, where to save for my kids education, and how do I save money on taxes and which 529 plan plan I should open for my daughter and the list goes on. Those are like, for most of us are, you know, one time big decisions to be made. However, we're the value of having a relationship with a professional like a financial planner comes is when you work with them on an ongoing basis. And there's all kinds of models out there that allow you whether you're just starting out, or you already somewhere along the way in your career to seek help. And where it really lands for me is that as your life changes, as you change jobs, as you move, as you sell your home, as you buy new one, as you spend your family change jobs, start businesses, as you do your life, you have somebody in your corner, who is going to help you keep it all together. And it's really hard right now to put an actual dollar value on something like that. But in contacts of making sure that you're not making mistakes, that is a big one for me. So my friends, I love this, I very much value that not just because somebody pays me a fee to help them well with all of these questions, but because I've seen it firsthand, firsthand, not just personally, but professionally, I've got some options for you where you can actually go and find advisors, and financial planners who can help you with all questions that I just discussed that are pertaining to your financial life, a couple of networks to consider, depending on how you want to work with somebody. And this is also probably episode for another conversation. But making sure you understand how financial planners are getting paid, whether they're selling you a product or they want to manage your accounts, or they really are truly giving you advice and charging you either hourly rate, or you pay them a flat fee for their project. That's just depends on what you're comfortable with. I am more experienced in the space of hourly or project based work. So two, three networks that you can look up in your area and see who are the financial planners that you could work with. And by the way, these days, we all work remotely anyway, number one is Garrett Planning Network. And I'll include the links in the show notes, XY Planning Network, and national association, personal financial advisors nappsa. When you go on either of these sites, you can put in your zip code and you'll see a ton of financial planners come up, look up their companies understand what services they're offering, set up a free consultation, most of them offer that to begin with and start to get a feel like where do you fit in. And don't worry that maybe perhaps for some of them, you may not be an ideal client because you don't have a base of assets that they can work with you. There are others that would happily offer you suggestions and advice, because you're just starting out, that's how Mainstreet financial planning operates. We don't have minimum assets to manage, we don't have minimum, anything, it's really we have flat fees for our services. And you can engage us on an hourly basis if those services isn't something that you're looking for. So financial planning, consultation fees, and engaging professionals is a big one. Because there's lots to be made. And I think, and I've seen this again, too professionally, we're going to be faced and having to talk to someone at one point in our lives. All right, number three on my list our educational resources, this is one category that you should not regret spending money on. And it starts not just with your own education, it also translates into what you do for your own children. Now if you know me by now, you know, I do have a very heavy focus on making sure that my son grows up to be literate, right? Not just financial literate, but in all other areas of literacy. So I am a big proponent and spending money, unapologetically. And I've gotten better with this too. By the way, I've I found a local library here in my town, but books online courses, workshops, videos, documentaries, whatever it is that helps Lauren concept. Get these ideas stronger in our heads, practice, right

if there's ways maybe there's camps or workshops that somebody can attend, that can solidify these concepts for you and your family. I am game For that, one of the things I will share with you too, and if you're listening and want to write this down, I put together a resource guide for parents who are interested in teaching their kids, some of these initial financial literacy concepts, and it's called Kid. So go to the link, kid, K ID moneyboss.com. And you can download my free guide. But I'm basically giving you a list of podcasts episodes I've recorded and a couple of other ones that I respect and admire games, you can actually play with books, you can start to start reading to them and actually having them do some work on workbooks as well. So these are just some of the ideas I have for you. But it is one category that it's almost like shouldn't be even put on our budget. It is for our betterment, right, not just us, as a family as parents, but also as our kids don't no guilt here at all my friends. All right, my category number four, our legal documents. Now, I wish I was in the state planning attorney, but I'm not. However, this is the one expense. And I almost want to say this is like one of those one time expenses that we as parents should really invest in, but making sure you have proper legal documents in place. And what am I talking about here, I'm talking about making sure you have a will. If you live in a state where that favors trusts and your attorney recommends that you should have a trust. And for those like who have minors, you probably want to consider trust, because trust is something that it's a specific type of vehicle, that structure slash vehicle that helps to make sure that if something happens to you that the kids get the money, and then all of the stuff that you really wanted to do is outlined for them because minors cannot make decisions legally and financially. And so that helps kind of outline all of that. And then also every state has their own statutory healthcare forms. This is for someone to make health decisions on your behalf. If you can't, as well as power of attorney, this is for someone to make financial decisions, if you can't. So we're not talking about a very huge investment here. But it is an investment that you definitely should not feel guilty about. And you definitely should put at the top of your list. For for you to make sure that you have all of that aligned, there are ways to get these documents in place. There are ways that you can find forms online, I'm not a big advocate of that, because there's a lot of legal nuances here and every state has some tweaks to that as well. I would however recommend to contact a local attorney or send me a DM on Instagram, attorney or legal and I'm happy to find someone or share contact that I know in your area. We also too, I will include this in the show notes have our resource at Main Street that you can utilize. I've given this sort of a way to you because it's only available to Main Street clients. But since you're loyal listeners of the money boss parent podcast, you can utilize this resource so we have an option for you to get these documents done. And so send me a DM or send me an email and I'm happy to share that resource with you. All right. And my last but not least, is investing in term life insurance. This is one and I have so many stories to tell you about I won't take a ton of time on this particular episode. But this is one of those expenses that the sooner you do it, the cheaper it is it's kind of like the other way around. And why do we want insurance altogether? And why don't we one term, what does the term mean? term means is that this life insurance is only going to exist for whatever term we buy. It's five years, 10 years, 15 years, 2025 30 years. So because we are raising a family and we have a specific need. At the moment, term insurance helps to keep the cost down. So we select whatever term we have. And I take it a step further is maybe layer or a couple of policies. So maybe you have one policy, that's 15 years and then you have another policy that's 10 year so that way you can maintain and keep the cost down. But what it does ultimately, one thing for you to kind of shift your mind around when you think about insurance in general specifically life insurance. You're not buying it for yourself because as you're still here and you're around it is no good. It only does help insecure your family provides financial support when you are not here. So as you think about them, it is for them that you bind that coverage. That's why if you can Get your hands on it while you're younger, right. And the biggest drawback, and this is some of the stories that I've seen with clients with develop certain medical conditions, life happens to us we gain weight, we are more stressed out, we get diabetes, like all of those things could come up and could happen, which would impact the cost of this insurance and to you have a period while your kids are still young, while the kids are still minor, that you really want to make sure that if something were to happen to you, and your significant other have that protection, so yeah, this item is by any means have no regret spending money on and to maybe you're one of those parents that already done it, you bought your 20 year, whatever amount term life insurance policy, but now you've had another child or two, I challenge you to think about adding more and that's totally okay. You can add more to kind of make that overall life insurance plan more robust. And I mentioned this already, life insurance, especially Term Life insurance is very affordable, you can buy these policies online. A couple of suggestions to explore one is called lemonade.com. I know you have they have options to buy term policies, even some of them without like going into underwriting. Underwriting is like a medical process to make sure that you are healthy, and you are who you are when you're applying for insurance products. And, yeah, I You can also refer and ask your broker who offers auto or home insurance for you. Sometimes they have an extension like so if you have a big company like State Farm or pharma, so progressive, the LA Times they would be offering life insurance as well, for that, but I challenge you to think about like this small expense, yes, you have to pay it every year. And a good good thing about this is that once you lock in the price, it is there for whatever the term is. So let's say it's 10 year policy, that if the premium never goes up, nothing changes. So I love that inflation and all that it does not impact the cost of insurance. So totally worth spending your money on. And as I think about these items, as we wrap it up this conversation, it just really kinda like settles in with me in the description of like, this is the peace of mind that I want for you to have, as you allocate resources in your budget for these kinds of items. These are the big decisions that you will have to make. But I want you to feel educated and I want you to feel like you aren't wasting money you are really not because you are putting it in a place in the resources, I want you to think about these these items as resources, they're gonna, in the long run, make sure you have a peace of mind, provide financial stability, and really make you a more educated consumer of all of this. So without any guilt or regret of buying this is like one of those conversations is go spend your money on these items, make sure you have the right protection in place. And let me know maybe you already have gotten some of these and want to have a further discussion. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you found this episode to be useful, please share it with a friend or relative I would love for them to know what they should be spending their money on as well. And also don't forget to leave us a review. I love getting your comments in there. I much appreciate because that helps to grow the show and get more more ears connected with us. Thanks so much again until next time, remember you are the bosses of your own money.