Transcription
Rebecca Jarvis:
He even had some issues along the way when he was applying to jobs. If they think of you as somebody who's not a credit worthy individual, they can say, "Hmm is this person really responsible."
Bobbie Rabell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbie Rabell. Author of How to be a Financial Grownup. You know what, being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbie Rabell:
Hey friends, welcome to another edition of Financial Grownup. I do want to first take a moment to thank those of you who are already supporting the show through subscribing, and of course through rating and reviewing it. Those early reviews have been so precious to me. They are truly appreciated, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you haven't rated or reviewed the show and you like it, or you just want to give me some feedback, please do so. It means the world to me.
Bobbie Rabell:
All right, this guest is amazing and inspiring. She was spared some of the most damaging early in life mistakes that so many of us make thanks in large part to her mom's early lessons about using credit cards and the dangers of debt. But, here's where it gets really good guys. In addition to learning early on how to be financially responsible herself, what I love about speaking with her and what really comes through in this interview is that she is an empathetic and truly supportive friend. Many of her friends, for whatever reason, didn't have the ideal financial educations or experiences, but she is there for them. She is not judgmental. She is helpful. Rebecca Jarvis is the Chief Business Technology and Economics Correspondent at ABC News. She is also host of one of my personal favorite podcasts, No Limits with Rebecca Jarvis, which you should definitely check out. In the meantime, here is my interview with Rebecca Jarvis.
Bobbie Rabell:
Rebecca Jarvis, you are such a financial grownup and I'm so excited to have you on the program. Welcome.
Rebecca Jarvis:
Thank you so much Bobbie. I'm so excited to chat with you. I love your books. I love you. You set a great example for so many people.
Bobbie Rabell:
Thank you.
Rebecca Jarvis:
So thank you for what you're doing.
Bobbie Rabell:
Well, speaking of great examples, I am such a fan of the No Limits podcast, which is no moving into live events, which is awesome. I mean I could literally spend my entire podcast rattling off all of my favorite episodes. Of course, I love the live show you just did, which featured Robin Roberts, who holds a special place in my heart because she survived a horrible disease that my mother did not survive. Every time I look at Robin I get emotional and happy for her. I love the Sheila Nevins episode, which is dishy. I'm basically telling people to go through your archives. Of course, my friend Randy Zuckerberg, who is amazing. Tell me more about what's going on for 2018 with No Limits.
Rebecca Jarvis:
Thank you. I really appreciate that. We are starting to do more live podcasts. We did this most recent one with Robin Roberts. Also, Gabby Bernstein, which a number of people probably know from the space. She had an awakening, a moment in her life where she hit rock bottom, and she figured out gratitude to come back and be a stronger person. But what we're looking at now is a year ahead where we will be doing some live events. We'll continue to talk to game changing women. That's my mission statement is to talk to women who have broken down walls, who have figured out how to play the game, set the rules, and looking at their paths, the trade offs along the way, the choices that they've made along the way, what success really means to them and how they're figuring out balancing all of it. It's really honest, authentic conversations. My favorite thing Bobbie is when a guest will say, "I've never told this to anyone before." I know we're in the right spot if that's the conversation that we're having.
Rebecca Jarvis:
We'll continue to do that. We also will continue to feature and highlight women from our community who are No Limits entrepreneurs of the week. Every single week we feature a listener who is building an empire of her own, and how she's doing it. She gets featured on her Instagram account, on my Instagram account. She gets featured on the podcast and we share a little bit about her story. Anybody who wants to apply for that can always email me at nolimitswithrjpodcast@gmail.com. Feel free to send me ideas and submissions as well. I do read all of the emails there.
Bobbie Rabell:
Okay, I can't wait to see who is going to be next on No Limits, but I'm also looking forward to your money story. It's a good one, do tell.
Rebecca Jarvis:
Okay. I would say that for me my money story, it started early. My mom is a financial journalist. She's a columnist at Reuters. When I was a kid, she was a columnist at the Minnesota newspaper where I grew up. She sat me down before college. The conversation that we had prior to me leaving for college was all about credit cards. It wasn't your typical going off to college conversation, but she talked me through the idea that when you go to college, and the rules were a little bit different back then, you could be a bank and advertise anywhere on campus for people to sign up for credit cards. She said they're going to be everywhere. They're going to be hounding you. They're going to tell you it's great, it's the best thing in the world. Don't do it. You need-
Bobbie Rabell:
By the way, people should know, no longer allowed, but they were bribing you too probably.
Rebecca Jarvis:
Exactly. Exactly. That's the latest story that just came out that a lot of these banks are now even working with the colleges and giving kickbacks to the colleges. Anyway, my mom sat me down, she had this conversation with me and basically said, "Becky, whatever you do, do not sign up for these credit card offers that sound too good to be true. You don't need to do that. Instead, save your money and think about every penny that you spend is money that's coming out of your savings account. Don't spend money that you don't have." That really made a huge impact on me. I have to say because I now in my life have two credit cards. From that point forward, I was just much more skeptical. I think, I look around at a number of my friends who didn't necessarily have those conversations ... I actually had a really good friend in college who he ran up $10,000 in credit card debt not fully recognizing at the time that he would eventually have to pay that back.
Bobbie Rabell:
Oh no.
Rebecca Jarvis:
And he's a smart guy.
Bobbie Rabell:
And it's not just pay it back. It's pay it back and paying interest.
Rebecca Jarvis:
Exactly, which the interest on credit cards is always going to be the highest interest that you're going to get. It's way higher than the amount of interest that you pay on a mortgage. Way higher than the interest that you'd pay on a student loan. Credit card debt is some of the worst debt that you can take on. Anyway, this friend of mine, his credit score was ruined so he couldn't go out and get a mortgage or a car loan post-college. He also ended up not being able to afford paying off the loans and ultimately his family had to step in and help in. He even had some issues along the way when he was applying to jobs. If they think of you as somebody who's not a credit worthy individual, they can say, "Hmm, is this person really responsible?" He was. He was totally responsible. But anyway, that was a big lesson for me along the way just thinking about debt and my mom sitting me down. I'm so thankful that she did, talking to me about it early on.
Bobbie Rabell:
Besides obviously not getting into credit card debt in college, what is your lesson for our listeners? What is the takeaway?
Rebecca Jarvis:
I think that one of the biggest takeaways is recognizing that no matter how much money you have, or feel that you don't have, budgeting and thinking through your needs versus wants is a really valuable thing. There's research out there that shows that almost every person, whether they have $10 in their pocket or $100,000 in their pocket, is very likely spending more on wants than they're truly aware of. I cover so many stories about people who have gotten out of debt. One of the biggest things that the people who have gotten out of debt have done is they figured out, they've gone through line by line, their spending for the last three months.
Rebecca Jarvis:
They've said where am I spending on my needs versus where am I spending on my wants. One of the greatest things that you can do for yourself is think about what those wants are in the short term, and if you can cut back on those wants, you will make sure that you have the future cushion and money to spend on your needs and to get out of that debt. I think it's a really important thing to budget and to look at needs versus wants.
Bobbie Rabell:
Do you have any specific recommendations for budgeting? Do you budget?
Rebecca Jarvis:
I've done the budget. You literally sit down with your credit card statements and you go through line by line. You can use a ruler to go through line by line. You circle every single time you see something on that credit card statement that is a want verus a need, you circle it. It's a reminder to yourself that those are not the things, especially if you're already in debt, which so many people are. Credit card debt just passed $1 trillion. It's at the highest level, a record level. Going through those credit card statements, circling the wants. You don't have to go out and get an app. You don't have to go out and get some fancy technology to do this. It is really right in front of you right now. Most people have bank accounts and credit cards that are already on the internet, that you can access on the internet.
Rebecca Jarvis:
I really like Mint. I think Mint is a good app where my husband and I have all of our, every single loan, every single piece of money, every single paycheck, feeds into our Mint account so we have a full picture of how much we have, or need to spend towards various areas. I do think that that's a good way, but I don't want people to feel complicated. We don't have to over complicate it. It's as easy as taking a look at that whatever it is, whether it's your checking account, or it's your credit card, and saying where am I spending my money and where am I wasting my money.
Bobbie Rabell:
Right, the numbers tell you the story.
Rebecca Jarvis:
Yes, completely.
Bobbie Rabell:
Before I let you go, I do want you to give us a money tip. Something you or maybe your husband uses. Something that our listeners can put to work right now.
Rebecca Jarvis:
One tip that doesn't relate to debt or any of the things we've already talked about that I really like is if you are spending money, think about how that money can help improve you in some way, education, additional learning, whether it's useful to your community. Those are the areas where that dollar, whatever amount of money that you're putting out there, will come back to you ten X, will come back to you so much, with so much more value than just the single penny or dollar that you've spent. Think about those places, when you are spending, think about those places where it goes beyond that sugar rush of oh I just got this new thing. Think about those areas where if you spend your money on something to make yourself better or stronger, then you will gain so much more from that dollar than if you just spend it on whatever thing is sitting in front of you.
Bobbie Rabell:
Can you give us a personal example?
Rebecca Jarvis:
Well for me, I've spent my money on education. I mean that's probably the biggest thing I've ever spent my personal money on is going to college, taking ... I'm not good. I'm not there yet, but taking Spanish classes. I haven't done this yet this year, but I was looking at different art classes because I really love art and I really would love to be able to create art better. Even things like a gym class, for example, if you feel healthier, and it's something that you feel like you can regularly commit to. I have a group of girlfriends that I work out with now, and I will spend money on those workouts with that group of girls because it has genuinely made my life exponentially better.
Bobbie Rabell:
It's all about experience versus just having more stuff. Thank you so much Rebecca.
Rebecca Jarvis:
Thank you.
Bobbie Rabell:
This was wonderful. Rebecca Jarvis, No Limits. I can't wait to hear all of your episodes for 2018 and beyond. Thank you so much.
Rebecca Jarvis:
Thank you. Have a great day Bobbie.
Bobbie Rabell:
Wow, Rebecca had a lot of great info and advice. Here is my take. I want to pick up on Rebecca's money tip and the importance of investing in yourself through education. I have always done this, and I really encourage everyone to do it as well. Most recently, some of you know this, I became a certified financial planner. It was a huge investment, both in time and money, but I felt strongly that if I was going to be here giving advice I need to know my stuff. Can I be stumped? Well, definitely. You guys will definitely be able to stump me, and I'm still figuring out the new tax law, but after I left Reuters last spring, I did take a break and I got my CFP.
Bobbie Rabell:
Over the years I've also gone back to school when things just didn't make sense, or I wanted to know more. For example, early on at my first job at CNBC I realized I honestly, truly did not understand how the fed worked. It was something that I would go on to write about quite a bit in my career, so I took a class. I kid you not, I literally took a class on how the fed worked, how the federal reserve worked. There is a class on that. It doesn't get nerdier. I even took a class on technical analysis because it was just so strange and I didn't understand it. Still don't get it 100%, but the point is I'm always learning.
Bobbie Rabell:
So how do you make it work, both from a money perspective and a time one? Financial grownup tip number one, get someone else to pay for it. If you work for a large company, odds are they have a program to reimburse tuition. Some may require good grades. All the better. Incentives are good. If they don't have a program, ask your boss if the company can pay for a course. Explain how improving your knowledge will ultimately benefit the company. For example, if you want to learn a language like Spanish or Mandarin, you could help the company break into markets where that language dominates, or maybe open up an office in another country. Find a way to make your case and get them to pay for it. If not, there are nonprofits that support continuing education, as well as government programs. Do some homework, find the money.
Bobbie Rabell:
Financial grownup tip number two, and this one is harder. Find the time. We are all so busy. Finding time for something that seems like an extra may seem like a non-starter. I had this problem when I decided I was going to write my book. I had a very demanding job, and was barely seeing my family as it was. I would get home literally just in time to tuck my son into bed before I ate a quick dinner and crashed for the night exhausted. I mean I couldn't even get to the mail pile. But then, I thought about it. I decided I was going to write this book and I was going to find the time. But where?
Bobbie Rabell:
Well, I found the earliest time I could drop my son off at his school, and even if I had a ton of work and a huge busy day ahead of me, I did not go into the office early. I created a window of time between school drop off and my job, my primary job, and stuck to it as a protected time. No plans with friends. No grabbing coffee with the other moms. No doctors appointments. No phone calls. Just the book. And it worked. Find the a time slot that you can carve out and then protect it like a beast. It works.
Bobbie Rabell:
All right, that wraps up this episode of Financial Grownup. Thank you again for all of your support. If you like the show, or just want to give me some feedback, please rate and review it in iTunes, and of course share it with your friends. I truly appreciate all of your support.
Bobbie Rabell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbie Rebell is a BRK Media production.
