2024 Financial Goals!!!

smbaccari

Happy New Year!!!

2024 is here! For most people the new year signals a time for some positive changes they want to make in their lives. We all know by the end of January, most of us have “broken” these “promises” we have made to OURSELVES. The odds are pretty good these “promises” were unrealistic anyway, so we kind of set ourselves up to fail, right? This year if the “resolution/promise” is to be more Financially Fit, Let’s start this week or even today with doing one simple task to start to pave that path.

 We could do a simple task like, writing down a simple goal for ourselves and give ourselves ONE week to complete it… This task should be simple…and if your motivated, just do it today! Maybe that task is REALLY looking at your checking account and seeing where your money is going. This should not take that much time… We need to look back at least 3 months if not 4-6 months. Some banks will break it down for you… This might not be pretty not be pretty… But just do it…

Once you have done that… Check this off you’re to do list you have at least accomplished SOMEWTHING! Now the following week, or the same day the goal is to find a “habit” that you have with your money that you’re not happy with and need to change. It could be as simple as I take out too much cash every week and spend it on???  Fill in the blank…Maybe too much takeout food, maybe it’s on Uber, when the walk would be a double dip for another 2024 goal, just find something small to change and stick with it… If we set a very small goal, there is a better chance of that goal becoming a reality and a better chance of us sticking to the small changes. The following month we set another small goal… And so on… little changes…

It’s like saying you want to lose 50 Lbs.; we all know this will not happen in 30 days. The same goes for getting financially fit, this takes time and confidence building. Hang out with people that are trying to do the same thing or are already there… This helps a lot! It keeps you on track.  You did not get financially UNFIT overnight, so you cannot expect to get financially fit overnight either.

Good luck getting and keeping your small goals today/this week!!! Happy New Year everyone and let’s get financially fit in 2024!

Do we really need to make New Year Resolutions??

smbaccari

Here we are Christmas Day already! Another year ALMOST behind us, with just a few days left. You know what that means… Those new year’s resolutions are right around the corner! I don’t know about you, but I hate those New Years resolutions. Don’t we have enough stress in our lives? I don’t need the pressure. Instead of creating a “promise to myself” That everyone will ask me about, I just say I’m pretty close to perfect so no need to make a resolution! 😊  Ok, I’m not but I still like to use that as my reason for NOT making a resolution. Maybe the easier thing to do is to look at each day or month and just do something a little better? Maybe it’s saving just a little more each month. Ex: upping our 401K contribution by 1%. Maybe its NOT purchasing that Latte EVERY day, how about just on the weekends. Maybe Its cancelling ONE subscription that we don’t really use anyway. Maybe it’s reading a financial book/s. Or listening to a financial podcast every day on the ride to work. What if every month we do one little thing that moves our financial life in the right direction.  They say little changes can add up to big accomplishments…. After all, what we are really trying to do is phase out the bad habits and create good habits. None of us are perfect, so let’s go easy on ourselves and see if we can go into 2024 with a goal of working on our financial literacy and creating better habits when it comes to our money. What if we just make a list of a few things we want to change this year in our financial life. Let’s use the NO Lattes during the week as an example. If you complete the task let’s, say for a month, check it off the list. Don’t get me wrong, there will be some slips here and there, but if we have pretty much changed that habit, it’s a WIN!

Once you have mastered your first new habit on the list, move onto another new habit on your list. Maybe it’s setting a limit on how much you spend on Amazon each month? Or NOT spending anything on Amazon, for a month! We all have things we do or spend money on that we know is wasteful, these are good places to start! It will be cool to look at the list NEXT December to see our accomplishments and how far we have come! Maybe we keep a journal about the habit and next to it each month we list how much money we DID NOT spend on it vs our old ways. 😊 EX: Lattes on only the weekends vs everyday = $100.00 a month x the number of months you do that, could become over $1000 in savings!    

So, we do not have to make New Years Resolutions, that’s too much pressure. We do have to create positive new habits for ourselves that we build on each day or month. 😊 Happy January!!!!

Are you ready for the Christmas shopping season!?

smbaccari

Well, it’s that time of year again! Oh, sure it’s festive and it’s time off from work, and hopefully it’s time spent with family and friends! BUT it’s also a time of year when most of us go WAY over our typical monthly spending! What’s the answer here? For starters. We need to start with a total dollar amount that we think we can realistically handle. Really think about this….

According to a poll done by LendEDU, the average person will spend $997.00 on Christmas this year between gifts, food and decorations. And according to NERD Wallet 74% of people will use credit cards to pay for those gifts. Nerd Wallet also tells us 52% of people last year incurred credit card debt due to holiday shopping and 1/3 of them are STILL paying it off. Let’s not be one of those people this year!

This is so easy to do, right? We have all been there probably more than once. Maybe this year we REALLY do set a dollar amount on the spending. Hey maybe our challenge is to spend LESS than the Average person ($997) this year! Ya that does not mean we spend $996, 😊

So, what’s the game plan? Let’s really look at “THE LIST” Most of us can cut the list back, or spend less. It’s also OK to tell people early in the season, like now… That you are cutting back and paying off some bills or trying to save more.  You may be surprised at how other people might want to do the same thing and are grateful you said it first!

 One thing that may help these days are those office Christmas Secret Santa Gifts! That feels like something that did NOT come back after the pandemic, Thank God! It was not the money as much as the stress of WHAT to get that EVERYONE would like! Maybe we get thoughtful, yet personal gifts that do not need to cost much. After all it’s the thought… that’s what they say anyway.

The one thing I DON’T want is a huge credit card bill! This year I am going make most of the purchases with CASH.  I will decide on a dollar amount that I can handle with CASH, and then I MUST stay in that Budget. There will be some things I need a credit card for like online purchases. BUT I will also SET a limit on that amount as well.

Another “thing” I personally will also focus on… NOT buying things for myself while I am supposed to be buying for others! Come on you do it too! You see a great deal on boots, and it’s like, I NEED these, and they are on SALE! Merry Christmas to me! Ok none of that this year. 😊

They say “experiences” are remembered more than “Items”. Ex: Maybe you plan a day with your best friend or family member with something you found on Eventbrite vs buying a gift.

Maybe you take all the nieces and nephews out for a day trip together to the movies and make your own pizzas back at the house for a gift to your sibling and a day for the kids to remember the time together.

Look on Group On for your City, or Eventbrite or your town’s community calendar. Some museums are FREE on certain days, Some Zoos are FREE or Historical tours. There are many things to do that are low cost or FREE, like sledding or skating. GIVE people your time vs an expensive gift they may not even remember next year.

This year let’s challenge ourselves to be more mindful of what we buy vs buying it to get something/someone off the list.  Put some thought into how much we are spending and what we buy, is it really the “right” gift?  If we cut the spending down a little and set a limit on what we put on a credit card, say $200.00 IF you can get it paid off when the bill is due, and the rest CASH, AND get below the average person’s spend… Maybe we will be less stressed this year, knowing we do not have to pay for Christmas for the next 3 months+! 😊 Happy shopping/gift giving!

Week Three Money Challenge

smbaccari

We spent the last 2 weeks looking back at our bank statements over the last three months or so to see how we can FREE up $100.00-$200.00 per month. That “Found” money we put 1/2 in a retirement account we already had, or we started one. The other half we put in the “emergency fund” which hopefully is in a high yield savings account. While you were scrolling those bank statements/activities online, did anything else jump out at you? Maybe there were things like your debit card at the grocery store! Maybe there were random trips here and there that you see a credit card or debit purchase? It’s not pretty sometimes, right? Sometimes it feels like money just passes through our hands like water…. ☹

Being more mindful of WHAT you spend money on might help us NOT spend as much???  Everything we do in life in general seems to be due to a “habit”. So what if we make a habit of really thinking about IF we really need to spend money on certain things or items, vs the impulse to spend. It’s hard! I get it! Maybe we say ok this week my budget for groceries is $100.00 that’s it! I will use cash only and really plan for the week as well as plan meals out. I am assuming this for a family of four.

Maybe it requires you to go to two or three different stores over the weekend to get everything you need. Assuming the stores are not far from each other, maybe it’s worth it! I started buying things at ALDi and another main grocery store than the one at the bottom of my street. I did some rough math and saved at least $30.00 this week! I even googled some coupons and saved on things like the special dog food at the pet store! Hey, it all adds up! Little by little more money ends up in our pocket vs out of our pockets. Your challenge for this week is MIND SET! Be aware of what you’re spending money on. Do I REALLY need this? Is this product sold some place else cheaper? EX. I buy my organic spinach at BJ’s, which is the same price at my grocery store, but at BJ’s it’s three times the size and I freeze it!  Let’s only buy what we need for a few weeks and see if we have some extra cash at the end of the month before the next check shows up. That’s how we start moving in the right direction, living on LESS THAN WE MAKE!! Not saying it’s easy, but it is possible…. We do this EVERY month. This is our NEW Habit.

Week Two Money Challenge!

smbaccari

Hi everyone,

So how did we do last week with finding an extra $50.00-$100 in our monthly budget to allocate to our long term/retirement accounts?! Again, the goal here is to keep us all accountable! Its like getting up at 5 AM to meet your friend for a run! You get up, because you know they are getting up! This blog is a support blog to keep us moving forward. If you miss a week or, have a weak moment and buy a new pair of shoes… Just get back at it! After all we are only human.

For week two, lets focus on re-looking at our monthly spending and really digging into where we are spending TO MUCH $$$!!!  I personally found 2 items, that I KNOW I cancelled, and YET there they were back on my monthly charges! I finally got that fixed! It was only a combined total of $40.00, but still.

Once you re-look at the past three -four months of your spending we now need to find another $50.00-$100.00 in the budget to build the emergency fund! The goal is to get to three months of expenses. But the first goal is to get to $1000 in that fund. Let’s make part of this week’s challenge to have that money go into a high yield savings account! This is different than a regular saving account. There are several to choose from. Some suggestions are SoFi, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Citizens… Many to choose from. Just make sure you can open it with NO fees, and NO min. Read all the terms as well. Most of these accounts are Online ONLY.  It’s been a long time since your money could make 4%-5% interest in a SAVINGS account. This is NOT a CD account. It’s a high yield saving account and you can get at your money at any time, unlike a retirement account.

Should you have any questions on how these accounts work, there are usually 1-800 numbers to call and talk to someone.

So that’s your WEEK TWO Challenge! Find $50-$100 a month, set to automatically funnel into a High Yield Saving account with a goal to get to $1000 to be the start of your emergency fund! Remember when we set it to happen automatically, and treat it like a bill, you will make it happen!! We pay ourselves first!!! Good Luck! You got this!!!

Week One Money Challenge!

smbaccari

This blog” Two Chicks Talking Money” is for other woman like us, just regular people with regular jobs. Getting financially “literate” is intimidating and may seem overwhelming.  That’s why we have each other! It’s not going to take much to get the ball rolling and start learning. We are not going to become day traders and must understand every technical term about the stock market. We are also not going to talk about investing in any ONE stock. We are going to INVEST in the market though!

Let’s do ONE Challenge each week, to up our financial position. Little steps in the right direction…

This week, Lets find an extra $50.00-$100.00 you can put into your retirement account AUTOMATICALLY, so that this happens EVERY month AUTOMATICLY.

IF you do not have a tax deferred retirement account at work, investigate opening a ROTH IRA or a traditional IRA. Get online or walk into a Fidelity office. They will take it from there.

We can do this! That’s this week’s challenge!

If you have never read the book The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas J Stanley & William D Danko. You must pick it up and read this! It is motivating and makes you believe Yes; I too can do this!

Now don’t get me wrong this is NOT a get rich fast book or some fast-track way to get to the finish line. These days we only have ourselves to ensure we have money to survive when we are older and no longer able or willing to work. How quickly we get to that finish line, well that does depend on how much you save. The younger you start, even with a small amount, the faster it grows. So, when we think of the word INVESTING, we do this!! This can be in a company retirement plan, like a 401K. 403b…. Or even just a brokerage account. BUT we MUST set money aside for it to grow. Let’s also not get worked up on when the “Market” goes down, it will, we know this! It will also go up! Ya more for us!!! So what do we do when the market goes down??? I say BUY MORE! If the market is DOWN (And we are not pulling money out because we are already retired) Up your monthly contribution! Even if it’s only $50.00 more a month. Hey, it’s a SALE on STOCKS! Right!? What Chick does not like a sale!!! That’s what it is accentually. It’s all good! Clean your “Closet” aka, stop paying for things you do not need every month… Subscriptions for streaming, a latte EVERY day… Girl, that’s $100.00 a month if the Latte is Monday- Friday! Let’s not even get into the calories and the sugar! I LOVE Lattes, but not 5 days a week. Let’s fill the “closet” with more Index funds! 😊 Good Luck this week!

Saving for an emergency fund:

smbaccari

Let’s talk emergency funds! All the stats tell us less than half of Americans have three months’ worth of expenses in the bank. Other statistics tell us over 50% of people could NOT come up with $1000 if they needed to!

The experts tell us we must have three-six months’ worth of expenses in the bank for emergencies, like losing a job.  Let’s say you spend $3000 a month on average for expenses. Expenses are the essentials, like rent or mortgage, insurance, electric bill, groceries… You get it. Not the extras like takeout food, going to the movies…new shoes. 😊 For this example, we are using $3000 per month as your “essential” total, therefore you should have $9000 in a savings account. Yikes! That’s a lot of money!! I know I get it… But you must start with something… Maybe the first goal is half of that and as you build momentum it will get easier… It may take several months to get there, maybe a full year+… but we need to have a starting point… This is a SAVINGS account, NOT a retirement account. So, NO IRAs. Or ROTH IRA’s, 401K’s…  a savings account that you can access immediately!

This looks like a HUGE undertaking… I get it… We are NOT lazy; we work hard for our money! BUT are we paying attention to our money??? What if we start to drill down and pay attention a little bit more.

 Have you ever actually gone through your bank statements?  With online access to most of our accounts you can really drill down and see what you’re paying for.  Doing this for two or three months in a row and you start to see some things that pop up that maybe your saying “I didn’t know I was paying for that!”

Maybe it’s just $20.00 here, then $30.00 there… Or even $8.00 there… and before you know it you can probably pull together $100 maybe even $200 a month of expenses; you really do not need or WANT!

Let’s start there… And if you can’t get yourself to do this simple task, it might be worth looking into apps like Rocket Money or Truebill. Both apps help track your spending and can cancel subscriptions for you. Rocket Money also allows you to “automate” some savings as well. Both apps for the basic plans start at $3.00 per, but if it saves you $50+ a month and gives you a clear idea of where you are spending your money… Might be worth looking into! 😊 There are several apps out there so do some homework and put together the best plan for you! The goal is to DO SOMETHING… Once you start and get a handle on your HABITS… You can start to work on NEW Habits… That’s what all this money stuff really comes down to OUR HABITS… The goal here… FREE up some money, move it into your savings account AUTOMATICLY… and you will find a few months down the road you have money in the bank for those two new tires and you do not need to stress! 😊Good Luck! You got this!!!

Retirement!

smbaccari

Let’s talk about retirement. A new survey from Axios-Lpsos, says one in five people think they will never retire!   Gen. Xers said they have nothing saved for retirement at all and that’s from the National Institute of Retirement Securities. It’s said this is due to reduced pension plans and decreased access to 401K retirement plans as the major contributors for people working longer.

 I find it hard to believe that people really want to work into their 70s! Sure. you want to have things to do and stay active but do people really want to do the same job they’ve been doing for the last 35-40 years?

 I must think at one point those full-time big person jobs that are stressful and time-consuming, are no longer fun! It’s not a 40-hour week anymore, it’s a 60-hour week for the same money!

 So. what’s really going on? I think people want to stay busy in retirement, but I think they want to do something they feel is rewarding and gets them out. We all need a reason to get up and shower each day and keep our minds sharp. We want to be a part of the world but maybe not the full-time gig we have been doing for the 3-4 decades prior.

 I think more people work full time and stay working full time because they need to, not because they want to and is that good for us overall?

What if we start earlier with small changes in how we spend & save?  Little changes and starting earlier in life. We must educate the younger generations that it is important to start saving for retirement as soon as you start working just a little bit even if it’s only $100 a month, it’s a huge difference on the other end. You might love your job and you might think oh this is great I’m going to do this forever!

 Let me tell you things change overtime, companies change, they get acquired, they go out of business, management changes, you get a new boss and that could change everything! Then suddenly you went from having the greatest job in the world to being completely miserable.

  What’s the lesson here? Start taking care of yourself, the younger the better, but START! A little bit at a time and understand what compound interest does for you!  What’s the worst thing that happens? You get 40 years down the road and you’re still going to work, but you have a $2,000,000 in the bank! Ya, that’s a problem I want!!! Let’s get educated on the “money math”!

Check out this great on-line compound interest calculator from Bankrate! If this does not inspire you, you’re in the wrong place! 😊

Compound Interest Calculator – Savings Account Interest Calculator (bankrate.com)

Example: If you start with $1,000 in a retirement account that earns on AVERAGE 8% return, and you only put $100 per month in for 30 years… You get… wait for it! $146,002.51!!! You would have invested $37,000 and made $109,002.51 in INTEREST!!!

What if as you aged, you added more than a $100 a month or let it run for 33 years, or got a 10% average return??? The market will go up and down but set up a retirement account through work (401k) or a simple IRA, get online with Fidelity or Vanguard, or another major brokage company and start saving! That’s the first step!!!!! These companies have amazing software to guild you along the way as well as real people to call and talk to. Just START!!!

We cannot control everything during those “working” years, and we cannot control the market, but we must put the odds in our favor, so we have options down the road. We want to decide when we retire. We don’t want our “bills & expenses” to decide when we retire!!!

two chicks talking money.

smbaccari

Welcome to our site!

Two chicks talking money, is a support site to encourage woman of all ages to get more comfortable with money and long-term planning. We will blog twice a month about topics from budgets, retirement planning, investing, student loans, car loans, credit card debt… You name it, let’s pull it apart and make better decisions! Getting better with your money comes down to two simple things, making small changes and changing/creating NEW HABITS. This site is to encourage you to take those steps and developed those new habits! Finding an extra $100-$150 per month in your budget, can be life changing over the years. Who has an extra $150 a month you ask?! What if we break it down to $37.50 per week? A little easier to stomach, right? Baby steps!!! You got this! Women live longer than men, we still make less than men, in most cases, and we are the ones that take time out of the workforce or cut our hours to care for others. Thats why it’s so important for woman to understand how to get their money to work for them!