Tag: #personalfinance

Thoughtful Thursday posts, Uncategorized

Thoughtful Thursday- March 16, 2023

amybenoit

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

One book I read this past week was “Taking Down Backpage: Fighting the World’s Largest Sex Trafficker” written by Maggy Krell, a legal trailblazer who has taken on high-profile criminal and civil cases. One of the most important things I learned from this book is that The Communications Decency Act shields internet providers from facing suit over the content by those posted on their sites, but does not provide immunity if a provider engages in their own criminal acts. Despite its reputation, sadly Backpage could not be charged for pimping, but bank fraud and money laundering charges held, $200 million in assets were seized, and BackPage was shut down. Visitors to the page have been greeted by this message:

How to Be a Better Human- Why Kim Scott thinks you need to ask for feedback

One thought-provoking podcast I listened to this week was about soliciting feedback. Nearly all of us have experienced times when someone went off on us for something we had been doing for a while that people didn’t like but didn’t correct until they couldn’t take it anymore. We think “why didn’t you tell me?” One of the solutions to this is to solicit feedback regularly. There are four steps:

  • Think about the words you’re going to use to ask for feedback, and make sure the question can’t be answered with a “yes” or “no.” Don’t ask “Do you have any feedback for me?” Consider asking “What could I do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me?” Some of my other favorites include “What could I do to be more successful in this role?” “What concerns do you have at the moment?”
  • Embrace the discomfort. No matter how good your question is, the other person may feel uncomfortable for a moment.
  • Listen with the intent to understand, not to respond. Ask follow up questions.
  • Reward the candor. Use the recommendations given. Continue asking for feedback after corrections have been made. Be open to changes.
Optimal Relationships Daily- How to Spend Money Wisely
  1. Make a list of what you value. The best way to spend money wisely is to align your spending with your values. Ask yourself: “Am I spending my money on things I value?”
  2. Make a list of things you really enjoy. Avoid spending too much money on things that aren’t at the top of your “joy” list.
  3. Make a list of places, things, or people that cause you to make poor spending choices. If you can identify these weak points, then you can begin to live your life in a way that helps to avoid some of these spending hot spots.
  4. Review your regular spending for things to eliminate. List your required spending for the month, such as rent or mortgage, insurance, debt payments, utilities, services, etc. Is there anything on that list that you don’t need or want?
  5. Review your regular spending to identify things to reduce. Can you call the providers to ask for a better rate?
  6. Create a budget.
  7. Start writing down each purchase you make.
  8. Switch to only cash if you have a problem with credit card spending.
  9. Implement a “sleep on it” rule. For any purchase over X amount, wait one night/a week/thirty days, etc. to evaluate the potential purchase against your values and your budget.
  10. Put future spending on a calendar. It allows you to prepare by saving for the spending requirement and allows you time to shop around for the best price.

When I graduated from college, I was determined to work hard, live frugally, and pay off my student loans early. In addition to working three low-paying jobs, I kept a categorized and color-coded Excel spreadsheet of all of my income and spending. I then evaluated my spending each month and worked on cutting back some expenses. It worked well for me! This month, I started tracking my spending again and am making an additional category: recurring, variable, and impulse purchases. I look forward to evaluating each month to get a better idea of my expenses and values.

The School of Greatness- 3 Daily Habits to Improve Your Life w/ James Clear

James Clear is the author of “Atomic Habits,” which has sold over 5 million copies. He recommends 3 daily habits to improve your life:

  1. Learn something new by reading or listening to podcasts.
  2. Physical activity
  3. Reflection and review of your day

The more your habits align with an expectation of a group or tribe, the easier they are to stick to. Join groups where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. One example listed was drinking habits. If you want to stay sober, make sure you spend time with people who are sober and don’t pressure you to drink.

The way you spend your days is the way you spend your life. The bad days are more important than the good days. They test you and your values, and you need to find a way to show up.

Food, We Need To Talk- Cardio, Lifting…or BOTH?

People who diet or want to lose weight tend to decrease calories and increase movement/cardio.

To lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat. Cardio is an easy way to burn calories, but you need to increase muscle mass to increase your metabolism. You need to do a mix of strength training and cardio. Cardio alone is one of the worst weight loss tools.

Over half of our daily metabolism comes from our basal metabolic rate. One of the biggest determinants of BMR is muscle mass. Muscle requires more calories to maintain. As you lose weight, your BMR is going down. Try to counteract that by building new muscle tissue by lifting weights.

Don’t just look at the # on the scale. Muscle mass can cause you to be in the overweight/obese category weight-wise. Focus on increasing your muscle mass. The most ideal place for new weight loss clients is for the scale not to move at all (signaling you’re gaining muscle and losing fat and building your metabolism). Maintaining muscle is easier than building it. You only need to do 1/7 of the work to maintain it.

If you do the same thing every day or week, your body will get used to it. You need to switch things up and add more weight to your exercises.

Cardio is useful in overall health and preventing diseases, but if you have to do cardio and lifting on the same days, whatever you do first is what you’re going to get best at. Prioritize according to your goals. If your goal is to change your body composition, lift weights first.

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Thoughtful Thursday posts, Uncategorized

Thoughtful Thursday- March 9, 2023

amybenoit

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

Life Kit- The five kinds of perfectionists

Five kinds of perfectionists:

  • Classic perfectionist: highly organized. They do what they say they’re going to do, when they said they were going to do it, and in the way they said they’d do it. They are highly reliable and add structure to any environment they enter. They cannot be as spontaneous and sometimes don’t welcome collaboration and connection. People working with them can end up feeling more transactional.
    • I consider myself a classic perfectionist most of the time.
  • Procrastinator: waits for conditions to be perfect before starting. They tend to ruminate. They can prepare so well and see things from a 360-degree angle and are not impulsive. They encounter challenges around getting projects off the ground because they experience anxiety around beginnings.
  • Messy: in love with beginnings. They can start anything effortlessly. When they hit the middle of the process and the tedium that is involved in staying committed to carrying out those goals, they lose interest and energy because the middle isn’t perfect and doesn’t match the perfect romanticized energy around starting.
  • Intense: razor sharp focus. They are really great at generating outcomes. Sometimes they prize the outcome so much that they lose the sense of team/relationship building in the process. They get their desired outcome at the great expense of others around them. Others’ safety depends on their outbursts.
    • Gordon Ramsay was listed as an example of an intense perfectionist, as conveyed in his television shows, such as Hell’s Kitchen.
  • Parisian: wanting perfect connection. They often practice people-pleasing at the expense of sacrificing their own sense of identity and pleasure. They are genuinely warm people who focus on inclusion, collaborate well, and enjoy working with others.

Ways to work with and reframe our types of perfectionism:

Explaining vs. expressing. When you only explain and you don’t express, it emphasizes a transactional, no-team-oriented, get-it-done attitude. It makes people feel disconnected. If you only express (messy and Parisian types), you talk a lot about how you feel but you aren’t asserting your wants and needs. You need to explain and help others understand you better.

Control vs. power. They look very similar, but they are very different. Control is about manipulating and planning one step at a time. This leaves you frantic, and your desperate energy and anxiety can be felt by others around you.

Power is about influencing and being a visionary. You accept that, no matter what happens with the outcome, you know what’s important to you and trust yourself to understand what to do next.

You can’t think yourself through your life. You have to be open and surrender. You don’t know what’s coming next. You can’t be in surrender and in control at the same time.

Questions to ask yourself:

  • Are you hurting or helping the people around you in pursuit of your ideals?
  • Does this action serve to connect or distance you from your values?
  • Are you pursuing this ideal for the right reasons, or are you seeking some kind of arbitrary external validation?
SHE with Jordan Lee Dooley- Asking for Help as a Perfectionist

Perfectionists tend to want control of everything in their lives. When it comes to work, as the work piles on, they may become overwhelmed because they feel that they can’t delegate or trust others to complete tasks to their expectations. Here are some tips:

  1. Set up standard operating procedures. Make it easier to delegate. Test the process yourself according to your instructions before you delegate! It can be so easy to think that others will do it your way, but they won’t without detailed instructions!
  2. Start really small with one small task at a time. Delegating and giving up control doesn’t come naturally to most of us, and giving up too much control causes us to feel overwhelmed and micromanage. Delegate little bits at a time!
  3. Communicate your expectations and dissatisfactions clearly and kindly. Encourage people to ask you questions! If a question is repeated, remind them that you’ve been through this before, and challenge them to look at examples and convey that you trust them. People can’t read your mind. You have to tell them and show them what you want by example, by screensharing, etc. You have to tell them what you don’t like and correct them so it doesn’t drive you crazy for an eternity!
  4. The sky is not falling when they drop the ball. Expect them to drop the ball. Something is bound to slip from your control. Give them the room to succeed and make mistakes to help them develop as well. No one will be perfect. Mistakes are inevitable.
Optimal Finance Daily- Life Insurance Beneficiary by Jeff Rose

The biggest lesson I learned in this podcast is to have contingencies! So many people list their spouse’s name as a beneficiary with no contingencies. If a beneficiary dies, the benefits will go to the contingent. If you and your spouse are both killed in a car crash at the same time, without a contingency, your benefits are left in limbo. Several contingencies must be clearly identified.

This week I finished reading “1000+ Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently” written by Marc Chernoff. One thing that stood out to me was an example of a tangerine.

“Imagine you had a ripe, juicy tangerine sitting on the table in front of you. You pick it up eagerly, take a bite, and begin to taste it.

You already know how a ripe, juicy tangerine should taste, and so when this one is a bit tarter than expected, you make a face, feel a sense of disappointment, and swallow it, feeling cheated out of the experience you expected.

Or perhaps the tangerine tastes completely normal— nothing special at all. So, you swallow it without even pausing to appreciate its flavor as you move on to the next unworthy bite, and the next.

In the first scenario, the tangerine let you down because it didn’t meet your expectations. In the second, it was too plain because it met your expectations to a T.”

How ironic! The tangerine can be substituted for almost anything in your life: any event, situation, relationship, person, or thought. If you approach any of these with expectations of “how it should be” or “how it has to be” in order to be good enough for you, they will almost always disappoint you in some way.

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Thoughtful Thursday posts, Uncategorized

Thoughtful Thursday- March 2, 2023

amybenoit

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids- Don’t swallow gum! And other things parents say

This was an interesting episode covering myths parents tell their kids. The most interesting issue addressed was that people say you must wait one hour after eating to go swimming. I have heard this throughout life, and I just learned that this is a myth! There is no harm in swimming right after eating. The worst that could happen as a result is that, if you swim vigorously right after eating a large meal, you might vomit. Most swimming is not done vigorously, so there’s no need to wait to get back in the water!

For You From Eve- Wellness Hacks and Mindset Shifts that Actually Work & Changed My Life

These wellness hacks helped the host change her life:

  • Stop distracting yourself with media. Let yourself feel your feelings and reflect.
  • Journal and write affirmations.
  • Take cold showers for breathwork/calming down. It doesn’t need to be a full cold shower; you can start with 1-2 minutes of cold water before adjusting the temperature.
  • Exercise!
  • Invest in skincare/makeup/hair.
  • Meal prep and purchase healthy foods.
  • Set limits for time spent on social media. List to podcasts instead.
  • Read self-help books.
  • Get 7-9 hours of sleep.
  • Take vitamins and supplements.
  • Meditate.

I do many of these things, and they have helped me change my life! Exercising, journaling and writing affirmations, starting a skincare routine, meal prepping and clean eating, reading self-help books, listening to podcasts, prioritizing sleep, and limiting social media have benefited me greatly.

I am currently reading “1000+ Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently” written by Marc Chernoff. One thing that has stood out to me so far is:

Everyone gets upset and loses their temper sometimes. When you catch yourself passing judgment, add “just like me sometimes” to the end of a sentence. For example: That person is grouchy, just like me sometimes. She is being rude, just like me sometimes. Choose to let things go. Let others off the hook. Take the high road today.

Marc Chernoff
Sad to Savage- Things I Wish I Knew Sooner: Advice From Your Big Sister (Shelby Sacco)

Sad to Savage is one of my favorite podcasts and is mostly focused on habits. However, this episode contained so many things I needed to hear that are mostly unrelated to daily habits:

  • Being selfish is the most important thing you can do in your twenties. Do what’s best for you and be independent.
  • You are who you surround yourself with.
  • Growth is not linear. Life is a rollercoaster.
  • Quit the job you hate. If you need the income, spend a couple days or weeks updating your resume and applying to jobs. You spend a lot of time at work, so don’t tough it out in hopes that it will get better.
  • Find the fitness you like. If you’re miserable doing it, it’s not the correct fitness for you. You should not dread working out.
  • Cheating has nothing to do with you and has everything to do with someone else’s qualities.

If someone treats you badly due to addictions, you cannot control someone who does not want to change. You cannot make someone want a different life.

  • Do not leave your hardest tasks for the end of the day when you have less willpower. Be smart with your willpower. When you have formed daily habits, they don’t take willpower.
  • Invest in yourself and your future. You can educate yourself through reading.
  • Do not rely on motivation. The days you don’t feel like it are the days that matter most.

Not everyone is going to like you, and that’s okay. What people think of you is none of your business.

  • The red flags you choose to ignore won’t go away.
  • The words you say to yourself and about yourself make up how you see yourself, and they decide your actions, which ultimately decide your life.
  • You are never too good to apologize to someone.

No one is in charge of your happiness except for you. You need to find and do things that bring you happiness.

When having a conversation with someone, ask if they want advice or just want someone to listen. Same goes for when you are the one talking.

Your entire life can be completely different in one year if you choose to do the work.

Waking up early will give you the time you need to do the things that you currently don’t have time for.

Your habits make up your life. You have the power to choose/change/create your habits. Investing in yourself and your habits will be the best choice you will ever make.

Optimal Finance Daily- 9 Painless Ways to Trick Yourself Into Spending Less by Sarah Von Bargen
  • Unsubscribe from newsletters that tempt you.
  • Block yourself from websites where you spend too much.
  • Turn off your computer’s/phone’s autocomplete credit card option so that you have to be bothered to get up and retrieve your card every time.
  • Order online and do curbside pickup to prevent impulse purchases.
  • Eat something before you go shopping. Don’t go shopping while hungry.
  • Give yourself a three-day waiting period. If you forget all about it, you don’t need it. If you still find yourself thinking about it three days later, pull the trigger.
  • Put yourself on a cash-only budget. We are much slower to spend cash than use our credit cards, and cash is not an option when online shopping.
  • Put a reminder in your wallet. You could print a wallet-sized photo of something you’re saving for.
  • Unfollow social media accounts that tempt you to spend. Unfollow accounts that make you want to spend more to keep up, and fill your feed with those who provide value to you or who are in your tax bracket.

Personal tip: If you are concerned about unsubscribing to newsletters that tempt you, when you want to purchase something, look on milled.com and search for the company to view e-mails that have been sent to customers to look for discounts. You can also look up promo codes online for discounts.

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Thoughtful Thursday posts, Uncategorized

Thoughtful Thursday – February 9, 2023

amybenoit

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

36 Things I’ve Learned in 36 Years- Healthier Together Podcast

I learned a lot from this podcast! Here are some of the 36 things mentioned on the podcast:

Ask yourself if everything that you are doing in your life is because of what you’re being told to do by society/family/friends or if it’s something you want to do.

  • Eat a small salad before a meal to make it more blood-sugar friendly. This slows the absorbance of glucose in your bloodstream.
  • Listen to podcasts or watch tv only during a workout to make working out easier.

Clean out your social media feed to include only those that make you feel good or provide value to you. If you follow celebrities that make you want their lifestyles and make you fall into the comparison trap, stop following them out of respect for your mental health.

  • While the state of the world can make it scary to have kids, in reality, people have always lived through scary times. Having a child is an act of hope in making a better world, and you’ll get through it.
  • Brush your hair before you shower. You’ll distribute the conditioning oils from your scalp and there will be fewer tangles to get out after the shower. Get a wetbrush.

The best way to not be on your phone in bed is to plug it in in another room. If your phone isn’t there, you can’t reach for it.

  • You will probably not remember everything you want to for later. Write it down or make a note on your phone or use an app. I currently send text messages to myself when needed and leave them unread for some things I want to remember to do ASAP.
  • I learned about the concept of Sound Baths to relax. These are relaxing sounds, that, when combined with headphones, can help with depression and anxiety. The Insight Timer app Sound Baths were recommended in this podcast episode, but you can also find other sounds on YouTube by searching for “sound bath.”

If you don’t put the things that you value most like relationships or self-care on your to-do list or calendar, they’ll get lost in favor of things that you ostensibly value less. It’s easy to put your relationships after everything on your to-do list. Build them into your calendar.

Ways to Save Money on a Limited Budget or Low Income-Clever Girls Know Podcast

Housing:

  • Try downsizing, rent out a room to someone, or live with a roommate.
  • Try not to spend more than 30% of your income on housing. Move to a cheaper neighborhood.
  • Also consider utility costs and property taxes when making a decision about where to live.

Food:

  • Limit how much you are eating out. Be intentional about planning when you are going out to eat. Plan a day and plan it in your budget. It’s okay to decline invites to expensive restaurants with friends or make suggestions for other restaurants if needed.
  • Look at your pantry so you aren’t buying things you already have. Not every non-perishable item is a good bulk purchase. Only buy in bulk if you will definitely use the product in time.
  • Curbside pickup and delivery help curb impulse shopping.
  • Search the internet for recipes to make with ingredients you already have.
  • Buy fresh foods and avoid pre-cut pre-packaged fresh produce that has high markups.
  • Meal plan and prep. I like to do this one or two days a week, especially on a Sunday, so that I am prepared and don’t have to think about it after work each day.

Entertainment:

  • Find free or affordable entertainment. Ex: matinee movies, Groupon, free museums on certain days, etc.
  • Look into bundling services.
  • If you have cable, make sure you aren’t paying for tiers/channels you don’t need. If you have internet, make sure you aren’t paying for speeds you don’t need.
  • Cell phone services often provide options for free entertainment. Library cards also provide free entertainment. Inquire about these benefits at your local library.
  • Shop around for car insurance, cell phone plans, and cable/internet rates yearly.

Other tips:

  • Take care of your health. Take preventative measures through exercising and eating right. Eating healthy may be more expensive, but your health needs will be less expensive in the long-term.
  • Using a cash envelope system with pre-set budgets can create more mindful spending. You can use this for most categories or just those you struggle with most. Ex: groceries, eating out, or entertainment.
  • You can only cut back so much. Look at the life skills you have that you can use to generate more income. Don’t be embarrassed to work a part-time job to live the life you want to.
How Working As A Collections Agent Helped Paco Understand the Emotions People Have About Money- Clever Girls Know Podcast

This podcast was particularly interesting to me because I spent about six years working in the creditors’ rights legal industry. Prior to starting in that industry, I HATED talking about finances and tried to avoid it. However, after learning about the struggles people faced and different financial priorities and consequences, such as lawsuits, bank garnishments, and wage garnishments, I became determined to work three jobs and be frugal so that I could pay off my student loan debt early (in 3 years) and save for a wedding, better vehicle, and a downpayment for a house. Since then, it has been my goal to live debt-free as much as I can. Here are my take-aways from this episode:

When receiving collections calls, the top emotions people go through are embarrassment (forgetting about their payment or being seen as irresponsible), anger (co-signing and later regretting it), shame, and guilt. Asking people “Why are you late on your payment?” made the host experience emotions about money and gain empathy.

There are grace periods. Usually only payments that are late 30 days are reported to the credit bureaus. If you are late because of your income, work on fixing that and increasing your income instead of cutting back on expenses. Look into getting an extension or finding a program that can help you if needed. Sometimes people are caught in a repeating cycle that you can’t completely resolve, such as when people roll over car loans when trading in or getting another vehicle.

Your potential for change is limitless. You have the power to change your emotions about finances and meet your financial goals.

Chipotle: Steve Ells (2017)- How I Built This with Guy Raz

Chipotle holds a special place in my heart, as I worked at a very busy Chipotle part-time for three years, I often make Chipotle’s recipes of fajita veggies, cilantro lime rice, and guacamole, and I still consider Chipotle my favorite restaurant!

Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle, went to culinary school. One day, he visited a taqueria and thought about opening his own taqueria to make enough money to open a fine dining restaurant. He wanted to open in Boulder, Colorado, but he couldn’t find a good location. He visited with a real estate broker and told him about his concept of an open kitchen, grilled meats, and fresh veggies and herbs on an assembly line, and he found an old building at University of Denver for about $80k in 1993 that needed renovations.

Steve wanted to be frugal. Table bases were made with pipes, the service counter was faced with barn metal, and he wanted stainless steel on top of plywood for tables. His idea was to have one restaurant as a cash cow to help support a full-scale restaurant.

He knew from his culinary experiences that he wanted to use chipotle peppers as an ingredient and that’s how he came up with the name Chipotle. He didn’t have recipes. Instead, he used techniques he learned in culinary school and emphasized tasting food after making it. He opened with a handful of people and had some friends work the line.

On opening day, sales were about $240. The turning point was in October 1993, when a restaurant reviewer for the Rocky Mountain news gave a glowing review, stating that “Chipotle is unlike any fast food you’ve had. Everything has depth, character, nuance, and layers of flavor.” This review resulted in a line out the door and ultimately the restaurant ran out of food. Chipotle could not keep up with the demand. Chipotle was profitable within the first few months.

Eventually Chipotle expanded nationwide and created a business plan. At one point, for seven years, McDonald’s owned a majority (92%) of Chipotle, but the businesses cut ties due to different priorities.

In October-November 2015, 52 people got sick with e-coli. Chipotle later developed safety practices such as blanching avocados, lemons, limes, and peppers.

Steve Ells acknowledged that he was lucky to have a father who could invest $85k into his first restaurant and lucky that McDonald’s was willing to invest. He was in the right place at the right time, although he emphasized that his plan failed in a sense because he wanted to be able to have one restaurant and walk away from it. Chipotle instead expanded so much that he didn’t take time off in the first year, and Chipotle now has over 2,600 locations! Steve Ells stepped away from Chipotle in 2020 and is now involved in real estate investments.

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!