Embark on a journey to financial clarity with Arron Goodrich of Fifth Third Bank, as she shares her ascent from part-time teller to Financial Center Manager and now, your guide through the fiscal maze. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone from young adults navigating their newfound financial independence to seasoned individuals eyeing retirement. Arron's knack for simplifying complex banking concepts and her unwavering commitment to financial education will equip you with the tools to discern your needs from your wants and take control of your budget.
As we celebrate Financial Literacy Month, we recognize the hurdles of managing debt. It's time to put away the credit card and face the numbers with a clear strategy. Arron introduces practical budgeting techniques that can turn financial chaos into calculated success, debunking the myth that financial advice is a luxury reserved for the affluent. Whether it's through budgeting apps or good old-fashioned pen and paper, the steps outlined in this discussion are designed to pave the way to achieving your financial goals and liberating you from the burden of financial stress. So, give us a listen and start your path to a healthier bank account.
Embark on a journey to financial clarity with Arron Goodrich of Fifth Third Bank, as she shares her ascent from part-time teller to Financial Center Manager and now, your guide through the fiscal maze. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone from young adults navigating their newfound financial independence to seasoned individuals eyeing retirement. Arron's knack for simplifying complex banking concepts and her unwavering commitment to financial education will equip you with the tools to discern your needs from your wants and take control of your budget.
As we celebrate Financial Literacy Month, we recognize the hurdles of managing debt. It's time to put away the credit card and face the numbers with a clear strategy. Arron introduces practical budgeting techniques that can turn financial chaos into calculated success, debunking the myth that financial advice is a luxury reserved for the affluent. Whether it's through budgeting apps or good old-fashioned pen and paper, the steps outlined in this discussion are designed to pave the way to achieving your financial goals and liberating you from the burden of financial stress. So, give us a listen and start your path to a healthier bank account.
perspective. Perspective is spelled p e, r, s, p, e, c, t, I, v e. Perspective, the 30 000 foot view. Perspective put on someone else's shoes. Perspective can also refer to the state of existing in space or one's view of the world. Perspective rea audio face, or one's view of the world.
Speaker 2:Perspective REA Audio Reemployability. According to Experian, the average American household debt in 2023 was $104,215, which was up 11% from 2020. This includes debt from mortgages, auto loans, student loans and credit cards. Interestingly enough, according to NerdWallet, nearly three quarters of Americans about 74% have a monthly budget. However, a majority of Americans over 80% say they overspend, at least sometimes. So where are you when it comes to debt and budgeting? April is Financial Literacy Month and, with it being Tax Day earlier this week, we thought we'd have some fun with money and give you some information to help you improve your financial knowledge.
Speaker 1:Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes in a particular country or socioeconomic context.
Speaker 3:Erin Goodrich is the Financial Center Manager at Fifth Third Bank in Valrico, florida, and we had her on having her on REA Audio this week because we have been fortunate to have Erin come into re-employability and do some financial education with our employees and it's been super, super helpful, and because this is Financial Awareness Week, or month, rather, we wanted to invite Erin to come in and kind of help us with some of those tips. So, erin, thank you for taking some time out of your busy day to join us on REA Audio. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:It's a pleasure so tell me a little bit. So tell me first. So Fifth Third Bank? We were chatting a little bit before we started recording. Fifth Third Bank is not necessarily a national bank. So if you're in California, you may not be familiar with Fifth Third Bank and what your role is. So just give us a high level overview of what type of bank is Fifth Third Bank and what do you do in Valrico Florida in Valrico, Florida.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely so. Fifth Third Bank has been around for 150 years. We are based out of Ohio, Cincinnati, so Fifth Third Bank is very much a large enough bank to where you can have all of the things that a large bank can do for you but still have that small bank buy where you have that personal banker experience, where you have somebody that you can actually sit down, talk to and understand your financial goals. I've been the financial center manager here as a manager for three years, but I've been with the company for a total of 12 years, so I have seen a lot of great things that the bank offers in comparison to what else is out there.
Speaker 3:What got you interested in financial management and banking?
Speaker 4:So funny story. I started out as a part-time teller 12 years ago. I didn't know a darn thing about what banking could do for me and my future and started just seeing what other bankers do, how the in and out of the day functions, and really caught my eye, got interested, dived deep into it and this company has let me just thrive from there, so never thought I would be here.
Speaker 3:Were you always like a numbers person, Like when you were in high school? Is this what you wanted to do?
Speaker 4:I liked math more than reading Hundred percent. My coworkers still laugh at me sometimes because I have to spell check everything that I do.
Speaker 3:Right. So when you came into part of what you do in your role obviously to help people better understand finances and how to navigate finances because I know that's one thing that I mean even at my age, we learned how to write a check like that helps me anymore, right, and that was about all they gave us in high school about financial planning or financial matters, and it's really a shame. I feel like that's probably why a lot of people are in the financial situation that they are now, because they just don't know. They're scared of money, right. They don't know how to manage money. They don't know the basics of how to do certain things that will help them down the line, right. So tell us about some of the things that you do when you go out and talk to people and what are some of the crazy fun questions you get.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, absolutely. So a lot of the things that I see just going out. You know, I like to be like an advocator for them. Let them know that, hey, you're not the only one that went to school and only learned how to fill out a check. You're not the only one who your parents didn't tell you about how to budget your money or where you should spend it or how to plan for your future. That is such a common thing. That happened in our older generations and still to this day in our newer generations.
Speaker 4:Until we can start changing that path where it's OK to talk about finances, so that your children and your heirs and your own self can learn how to be better and let your money not control you so much. Learn how to be better and let your money not control you so much. So I do like to kind of be less intimidating for people. I like to let them know that, hey, I'm somebody who is like you as well, so don't be intimidated to go to your banker, the personal bankers that are at financial institutions. It is our job to help you achieve your financial goals, and the only way we can do that is if we start talking about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's a sense of shame sometimes when not only when people get into debt trouble, but also just saying I don't know, I don't understand all this stuff, right and and there should be no shame, because there's a lot of things we don't understand when I first start, or even as you get older as well, yeah, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about debt. What are some fundamentals that you teach people in trying to keep out of debt?
Speaker 4:I would say the first step in understanding debt is understanding that credit cards and loans are not free money. So a lot of us are not fully financially educated when we're 18 and we're approved for our first credit card and the first thing we do is max it out and then we try to figure out what that bill that came in the mail was for. So understanding is not free money. And then if we get to that part and we can teach our you know from from step one about it's not free and how do we pay it back, how do we budget for it. I would also start avoid spending on credit cards If you don't currently have the money in your bank account. Credit cards are not designed for you to get by. They're designed for you to control your credit score, to tell banks how well you can repay a mortgage back in your future or anything like that. It tells banks how you budget.
Speaker 3:So you know it's funny that you mentioned credit cards and you know when you first start out understanding that it's not free money. So I'm at that particular stage in my life where I've got older kids who are going away to college or doing other things and when we were working on my son's college budgeting for him, he was going to have to pay for a chunk of it, or most of it actually. So we had to look into loans and things. The problem was that he couldn't get a loan because he didn't have any credit, so I had to co-sign for him. So is there such a thing as good debt and how do you build credit without getting into trouble?
Speaker 4:Yes, there is such a thing as good debt. Mortgage loans, credit cards and loans are all good debt. It's not necessarily the product or the credit card itself that makes it bad debt. It's how well you make your payments on time. It's how well you keep your utilization down on your credit limits. That's what truly is good debt. Somebody who has no credit cards, no loans or anything to a bank has bad credit right. So that's not really good debt. If you have no debt, we want to see that you have debt. We want to see that you're able to maintain and budget that debt. We want to see that you have debt. We want to see that you're able to maintain and budget that debt. So all credit is really good debt. It's just managing it.
Speaker 3:So if I'm 18 years old, I know that I'm going to want to maybe get a car loan down the line or a mortgage down the line, or even have to get a student loan. What's a good way to start building credit?
Speaker 4:There's a variety of factors. The one thing I always recommend is, when you are younger, to start with a secured credit card. A secured credit card is where you have to put your own money down in a savings account that you saved for. So one, right there, you budgeted for that. Maybe it's $300, maybe it's $500, whatever it is, but it shouldn't be really more than that, because the limit when you're 18 getting your first card isn't important. It's how well you're managing that limit that you were given. So starting with a secured credit card is a great option because it allows for you to have collateral in the event that you got in over your head. You started relying on that card too much, you can call the bank and say, hey, I can't afford these payments right now. I need to go ahead and pay with the savings I put up as collateral and then, once you're back on your feet, maybe getting a full-time job, you can enter back into that without having the late payments or the charged off bad debt.
Speaker 3:Say, people have started to get overwhelmed or are overwhelmed or are absolutely over their head in debt, and that can be very scary, because it's almost like you don't know. You want to take action, but you don't know where to start. Yeah, so what are some steps that people can take when they find themselves starting to get overwhelmed with debt?
Speaker 4:Sure.
Speaker 4:So a lot of people find themselves overwhelmed, most likely with credit cards, because they've switched too far out of their means or they've overextended themselves on loan payments, or job changes have happened where now the income is different.
Speaker 4:So the first step is going to be to stop using the credit card so that you're not continuously making those any higher. The second step, and the biggest, hugest thing, is create a budget, so you cannot control your finances if you don't know where your money is going. So I like to use the example of print out your bank statement and highlight all of your wants and then, in a different color, highlight your needs and how much of that are you spending in actual needs versus wants? And that, right, there is a big eye opener that allows you to also start building that household budget. So how much money do you need to keep your household going and any extra money that's there? Now let's start a separate second budget where we start figuring out how do we get this debt paid down, how do we do the snowball factor to start getting it paid down?
Speaker 3:Are there any budgeting apps or guidelines or templates or anything that you are aware of that are helpful?
Speaker 4:There are hundreds of budgeting apps. There are books that you can buy. I have one that I actually use. I bought it on Amazon. It's $7. Every month. It has a list to make sure that you've paid your bills that are due that month and you can pretty much check it off. I'm very much of a check the box, so I feel completed type of person. If you are Excel savvy, you can create a budget on Excel, but you can do it on lined paper. All you need to do is just write down what your monthly income is and write down each bill. Total those out. Do you have enough money coming in, including any side hustles, to pay just your monthly household bills, not any extras, along with any loans or credit cards you might have? And you can do that on a plain line paper, you know, without having to spend any extra.
Speaker 3:Let's go back to that 18-year-old again, right? So they're starting things out, and so is that the advice that you would give them to create their first budget, or a young family that's just starting out.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Everybody in every age group needs a budget and they need to look at it not just the one time they ever made it, and never look back. You have to look at it regularly, whether it's monthly, weekly or bi-weekly, depending on your pay cycle. Sometimes it helps. It just depends on how your mind works. If you're a college student and you are working a part-time job great how are you going to be able to feed yourself? Do you get money coming in that's supplementing you from scholarships or grants or anything like that? You usually get all that money up front for the first semester, so how do you plan to budget that lasting your whole semester? So absolutely.
Speaker 3:So as you get older, right, let's look at the people in their 40s and 50s now thinking about retirement. Never had a budget, is it too? Late for them to start.
Speaker 4:No, it's not too late for them to start. This is like they need to start for sure, because their life is going to change. If they plan on retiring right now, you get a paycheck and you can work more hours. You can still side hustle if you want to to collect more money, but as you get older there's less of that and you go towards a fixed income. Did you plan for retirement? Did you budget that throughout your years? If not, what is your retirement fixed income going to look like and do you have enough to be able to stop working? So you again will need to budget to be able to go to that type of lifestyle.
Speaker 3:Now, I would imagine, at Fifth Third Bank, someone can come in and talk to you or someone else about these topics.
Speaker 4:Yes, at Fifth Third Bank personal bankers myself, financial center managers we encourage people to come in and sit down and talk to us about it Because, you know, in the event that you ever want to buy that first car or that first mortgage or plan your retirement, we want to make sure, we want to see you succeed and be able to do those things.
Speaker 3:And one of the things that I think my misgiving was younger is that, you know, talking to a banker, I needed to have like money, like I had to be wealthy in order to talk to a financial advisor or talk to a banker about planning for the future. And you know personally, when I I mean I always laugh my first job out of college, I made $18,000 a year. I was like I could. I had $100 for food a month, right, so I was like I'm not going to talk to a banker, they're going to laugh at me. That's not the case, though, is it?
Speaker 4:No, and that's a very common misconception. That um fifth, third, is trying to help change and that's why we go out to your companies, like you, and talk to your employees, because the thought of walking into a bank and talking about your finances is so intimidating. So if we can spread a message in a group to be, you know, just kind of a wide knowledge spread, then it helps give the idea of like okay, that person's not so scary, I can go and walk in and talk to them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you do this quite a bit and it sounds like you really enjoy going in and talking to people. It's gotta be, it's gotta be nice to get out of the branch and go talk to people and help them out. And I'm sure you get a lot of people that you probably see the stress you know released from them when they know that there's a kind person that's willing to help them understand some of these things. You've got to get some funny questions sometimes.
Speaker 4:Do you?
Speaker 3:have any great stories from when you do this.
Speaker 4:You know I think he's not funny. They call us like stiff bankers, right, because we're not funny or anything. So I can't say that I really have any funny stories that have happened For me. It's more or less when they ask the questions and I can see the light bulb. I see the light bulb go off for them and where they have now changed that misconception into like, oh wow, this is great. That to me I guess it's not really funny, but it feels good. It makes me smile to be able to see that someone has changed their perspective on something or learned something new. So I don't know if there's necessarily anything funny. Most banking stories are not funny because if you put the money in the wrong account it's not funny to the customer. So it's not really funny stuff that happens with us.
Speaker 3:So if somebody is fortunate to be in an area where there's a Fifth Third Bank, obviously they could go to your website right to get more information. There's a lot of tips on there, and so your website is what.
Speaker 4:FiveThreecom.
Speaker 3:Don't overcomplicate it.
Speaker 4:Don't try to spell it out. It's the number fifty three dot com.
Speaker 3:Five three dot com. Now, if somebody does not live in an area where there's a fifth third bank, are there any websites that you would advise them to go to to get more information to maybe start looking at figuring out their debt and budgeting?
Speaker 4:and budgeting. Yeah, there's a couple sites that I'll read up every now and then there's a company, I believe it's, called Nerd Wallet. They have a lot of great tips on there. I have personally read them myself A lot of great tips that they offer, and they do link you to banks that are out there as well. There's also I've personally shared this in some of our topics. This is not I'm not paid by this company, but I have personally used a company website called Undebted. It's U-N-D-E-B-T-I-T dot com. It's a free resource that'll help you if you're trying to get out of debt. It'll build you like a checklist almost to help you see what you need to pay every month and when your debt will be paid off if you follow the plan. So, yeah, it's undeaditcom and that's one that I just use as a resource. It may have tips. I've never explored it. I just used it to help clients show how they can manage their payments on their debt and get out of debt faster.
Speaker 3:That's super awesome. Erin, thank you so much for spending some time with us and thank you for coming into re-employability. We love having you and look forward to having you come in again.
Speaker 4:Thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer by a governmental organization in order to collectively fund government spending, public expenditures, or as a way to regulate and reduce negative externalities.
Speaker 2:So Monday was income tax day, oh yeah. But I bet you wondered where did the first income tax actually come from? Or maybe you didn't, but I'm going to tell you. The first income tax was imposed by Congress to pay for the Civil War in 1861, but it was much different than what it is today. In 1913, the 16th Amendment was ratified that said Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived. Yada, yada, yada, yada. So income taxes are part of the Constitution, so you can't get out of it. So when I was finishing up my income tax, I took a look at the TurboTax website and they had some very interesting facts about the income tax. Check this out.
Speaker 2:The tax code was a scant 400 pages when it was adopted in 1913. Any guesses on what it is now 1913. And he guesses on what it is now 70,000 pages. There's more tax forms and schedules than there are Siberian tigers in the world. That's over 800. A person earning $100,000 a year in Hawaii will pay almost 50% more in state income taxes than someone who earns the same amount and lives in Indiana. So there's a price to pay for those palm trees. So there's quite a few states that have some odd tax laws on the books. There's one thing called the jock tax, where taxes are paid by athletes from visiting teams when they come into that state. West Virginia adds a special tax to sparklers, you know those things that kids run around with on the 4th of July. And finally, the city of Chicago taxes fountain sodas at a higher rate than bottled or canned pop. Hmm, All righty, how much money do you have?
Speaker 1:I've got my mind on my money and my money on my mind. Just kidding, I don't need money in the cloud.
Speaker 2:When we talk to injured workers, a good many of them tell us that the biggest stress they had when they were first injured wasn't necessarily their recovery, but their financial situation. Indemnity doesn't cover full wages and many families struggle because of that. Companies with solid return to work programs can help their employees get back to financial normalcy by accommodating their restrictions and paying them a full wage, Whether it's real work being accomplished for an employer on-site, or to non-profit through re-employability's transition-to-work program. Getting injured workers off the couch and working for their full wage is a win for everyone involved. If you're in the workers' comp industry, please consider your options and the well-being of your employees. We hope you've learned a thing or two about the basics of financial literacy. Alexa, can you take us out with a joke?
Speaker 1:Why did the cow do jumping jacks? She was practicing her cowlisthenics.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to REA Audio. Please make sure to follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. We appreciate you. Have a great rest of your week.