Afford Anything - Q&A: “Help! My Mom’s Financial Crisis Is Becoming Mine!”

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

#623: An anonymous caller feels trapped in a no-win situation with her financially reckless mother. She has the means to bail her out, but it doesn’t feel right. What should she do?  Shannon is excited about investing in several companies overseas. But she can only access them using American Depository Receipts. What are they, and how do they work?  Jennifer calls back with an update on putting a vacation on a credit card and playing the rewards game. Former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I tackle these three questions in today’s episode. Enjoy! P.S. Got a question? Leave it here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe, when you were a financial planner, how common was it that you were working with clients who were trying to manage finances, not just for themselves and their immediate family with their kids, but also their parents or their grandparents? It was incredibly common. Like, more common than you would think, I think we all worry about our parents as they get older. We want to help them age gracefully. And we want to make sure that everybody's happy. And they changed our diapers when we were little.

So we want to return that favor. Yeah, so we want to change them when they're old. That's right. Change them again. It all comes full circle. We're going to answer a question today from a caller who is worried about her mom, financially speaking. And there are limitations to what she and her sister are able to do. And we're going to talk through what's next.

It's one of the hardest questions in financial planning. We're also going to chat about ADRs, which you'll find out what they are midway through the show. We're going to discuss credit card rewards. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, but not everything. The show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's double-eye fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant. I trained in economic reporting at Columbia.

Every other episode, ish, I answer questions from you. And I do so with my buddy, the former financial planner, Joe Saul C-high. What's up, Joe? Hey, Paula, super happy to be here. I hope everybody's having a great summer. And like you said earlier, we've got some great questions. Incredible questions. Our first question comes from Anonymous.

Hi, Paula, and Joe. my mother has always lived outside her means and she continues to do so, but now it's catching up to her and my sister and I are really concerned about it. She and my stepdad bought a new house just two years ago because she had to have a larger garage. She wanted a pool, etc. We knew it was far outside of their means when they did it and expressed our concerns to some extent, but they moved on ahead. Now they are house poor and so they're having to sell it. They're also having marital problems and she wants a divorce. The problem is her take-home pay from Social Security and a small retirement is about $2,800 a month. Her husband's isn't much better. Meanwhile, even a one-bedroom apartment in the area

where she lives, which is near my sister, is like $2,000 a month. So the math of living alone just doesn't math. But she doesn't want to move and both my sister and I live in very high cost of living areas, and we don't want to move either. She also has a car payment and medical bills. Now in their mid-60s, they together have under $100,000 total in savings and no 401k or investments. This messy situation is a combination of unlucky breaks, like having to go on long-term disability during prime working years, health issues, and marijuana problems. But living outside your means also catches up to you. and it's certainly caught up to them. My sister and I are both in good financial positions now with successful careers and our husbands have successful careers. So we probably could help. But we don't

really want to give her several hundred dollars a month for the next 25 years or so. That feels pretty unfair considering their lifestyle. When my sister and I have had to work since the moment we turned 16, we've had to be frugal and figure out money on our own and make thoughtful, calculated decisions and work like crazy to get where we are. And Paula, thank you for all the good advice. That's helped too. We also have adolescent children and are trying to pay for extracurricular activities and save for college while covering all the other expenses families have

and save for our own retirement. This is a lot to unpack. Believe me, I know. But I guess the question boils down to this. How do you help a parent who is in a legitimate financial crisis but is unwilling to make the drastic lifestyle change? changes necessary. Some may say you don't help, but this is our mother, so at some point her problems become our problems. Moving in with either of us is not a viable option, so what else might you recommend, and to what extent should we meddle now in hopes of lessening the cost to us

later? And if we have to supplement, should we buy a rental house and let her live there so at least we can be building equity? Thanks for any tips and advice you can offer. Anonymous, thank you for your question. The first thing I want to say is I'm sorry that you and your sister are facing this. And also, congratulations to you and your sister for how hard you've worked and for everything that you've built. It sounds as though both of you have incredibly vibrant, successful, fulfilled lives that you have worked incredibly hard for. So huge congratulations to both you and your sister for everything that you've achieved. And now let's talk through what to do about your mom.

There's a lot to unpack here. And I know, Paula, you and I were so excited about helping with this question that we talked a little bit behind the scenes. Yeah. And my advice is broad and yours is more specific. So why don't I paint the broad foundation and you go from there? Perfect. We'll see if you agree with my broad foundation.

We didn't tell each other what we were going to say. Yeah. Yeah. But we did talk about directionally where we were headed. So my advice is just whenever I say. saw this working with families, I think 100% you have to help your parents. You have to. And I can hear the frustration, your voice, and I get it. And whether it's a parent in your estimation, throwing away money, or not taking advantage of opportunities to help themselves, it gets really

frustrating. That's why my core advice is around this. I don't think helping them financial financially, aka giving your mom money, helps anyway. It's a little bit like when they train people to scuba dive or the old thing that you hear people talk about with airlines, if there's a problem put on your own mask first, right? And when you're clearly in this sandwich situation where you have your financial security, your children's financial security, and your parents' financial security altogether, you clearly are the sandwich. So the best way to help everybody is to make sure that you're okay. And then I think your kids rely on you because different than your mom, they don't have as much of an opportunity to be gainfully employed, bring as much money, they don't as much life experience.

So helping them is clearly number two. But that doesn't mean that you don't help mom. We think non-monetarily. So one thing that I like is not telling mom, to do. It is asking mom questions. The best mentors I have, Paula, are the mentors that got me to bring out the solution myself. And I think the questions might be around just the hard math. Mom, what do you think you're going to do after your divorce? How do you think you're going to handle this? I'm just worried about you and I want to know what your strategy.

would be. And not in a confrontational way, but in a, I want to help. I'm curious. How does your strategy work? And I think that this might be an icebreaker, Paula, to help mom start thinking about the money. The way that I see it, rent is $2,000. And you only bring in X amount of money. Like, where do you think that difference is going to come from, mom? What's going to happen? And then helping mom figure it out, but mom is in charge and mom is leading the way. And you are a trust. advisor rather than where I feel like she's putting herself in as mom's savior and I don't think you can be. So you're advocating for the Socratic method, right? The Socratic method of asking probing questions such that the student uncovers the answer themselves. A hundred percent.

It might not be where you end, but I think that's a place to start. When I heard her talk about buying a piece of real estate, I feel like if you use this method, those decisions are in the future. Let's see what mom's really thinking first. And if mom hasn't thought about it, these questions for a lot of people, when they start finally doing the math, they go, what am I going to do? How am I going to get this done? And then mom shows her hand. I was hoping that you would help me.

If mom says that, then that opens up a whole different discussion. Just fundamentally, I think that's where I begin this approach. As I hear you talking in that manner, I'm reminded of an interview. that we did last year, I think it was at some point in 2024 with Charles Duhigg. He's a Pulitzer Prize winning author. So much of what you just talked about reminds me of our interview with him. So we'll drop that link in the show notes. Oh, Anonymous, we never gave you a name. Okay, we'll do that next. If you do follow the Socratic approach, I would recommend listening to the interview with Charles Doohig first or checking out his book, Super Communicators. It is very much about how to

have these types of hard conversations in a manner that's non-threaty. approaching something in a way that's inquisitive rather than prosecutorial. Before we discard this important discussion to do the important discussion about what her name is, I have another resource, which is our mutual friend Cameron Huddleston wrote a book a few years ago, which I think when you're communicating with parents, it's a really good book. It's called Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk. Yeah. It's just a lot of this is how you talk to a parent in a way that will not shut.

them down. We also interviewed her. We'll put that link in the show notes as well. All right. Now on to the important thing. The name. Wait, yeah. Wait, can I actually, before we give her a name, can I piggyback Joe off of what you said and suggest one other way that they can have this conversation. Paula, it's your show. You can do whatever you want. So the So the Socratic method is one approach. A different approach would be to tell stories about a, quote, unquote friend. It could be a fictional friend, but tell stories about a friend that serve as a cautionary tale, right? And make those stories mirror the situation that your mom is facing. But by virtue of saying, hey, I've got this friend and her mom is in such and such and just describe something that is

analogous to the situation that the mom is in, but describe it through the lens of this is something that's happening to your friend. If she hears a few of, those stories. That can be the cautionary tale, right? It's very much like how children learn. Children learn by reading books, watching movies. They hear these stories of fictional characters, and there are moral lessons that are embedded within those stories, and those moral lessons then get adopted and applied to your own life. That's essentially what you're trying, in the form of just casual storytelling about some friend that you have who is in some sort of situation, wouldn't it have been better for your friend if X and Y and Z were to have happened

instead? I think that's a great way to approach the situation because I feel like it just sounds like through the frustration I hear in her voice that they've probably tried to address this head on and it seems to go nowhere. I know people in the Nepali community, sometimes the parents have like certain expectations around what their kids are going to do and the adult children will be chafing about those expectations and they're trying to figure out how to communicate to their parents. Like, if we live in the United States, this is not how people here behave. How do you express that to your parent?

And the strategy that I have seen that works really well is that you gather a whole bunch of people for dinner, but the adult kid in question is not present. And then the other extended family members will say, hey, did you hear about so-and-so? Oh, my goodness. That's so cringe. They still have that. Oh my God. Right. This is so passive aggressive. Yeah. And they'll gossip about somebody else and be like, can you believe they're doing that? It's so cringe. They haven't let go of that village mentality. And so this entire gossip session about somebody else. But they'll do so when the adult child in question is not in the room. So it doesn't even look like it was a setup because that person isn't even there. And By virtue of doing that, it's a way of imparting the idea to the parents that these are the new rules of the road and these are the new expectations.

I'm exhausted just hearing that story. Just the setup that goes into that. And if the relative gets it wrong, like they accidentally get it wrong and then the parent finds out some way that they were set up, then the ramifications get even worse. That's a different case because that's a case of parental expectations. around how an adult child will behave. Sure. And it's also a chafing of cultural expectations between one culture and the people that move to the United States in a different culture.

Yeah, exactly. But that's how that situation is handled. It isn't just the adult child telling stories that are cautionary tales. It's also roping in the whole extended family to tell stories that serve that cautionary tale function. It takes a village. Yeah. It takes a village to lose the village mentality. All right, that's my foundation.

Paul, that was my advice, but you have more specific stuff you thought of. I do. Oh, but we do need a name. I can't believe it. We might have forgotten to give Anonymous a name. What do we do? You can't go nameless. Yeah.

Seriously. Ooh. Oh, you got one? You can't go nameless. No, you know what? That's not a nice name. I was going to say, so I just watched a movie. I saw the movie, how it did.

train your dragon. And the name of the dragon is toothless. So I was going to say you can't go nameless, but you can go toothless. But who wants to be named toothless? That's not a nice name. Let's not do that. Let's not do that. No. I saw a good movie recently. Oh, what did you see? The critics liked a lot better than people did. And it's funny because I went and saw it with my spouse, Cheryl. And Cheryl did not love it. And I thought it was really good. I thought the script was really good. The message was really good. It's called the materialists. And it is about how bad, dating culture is in the United States right now. We're trying to check boxes versus seeing each other as people is the message. So Dakota Johnson is a matchmaker. And then Chris Evans is her

ex-boyfriend. Pedro Pascal is a guy that she meets during this whole dating scene. And it goes through her experience. Talk about cringe, by the way. Some of the things that her clients expect. Dude in his late 40s says, you know what, I've been dating these women in their early 20s. And I just like that anymore. So I think we make him a little older. And she goes, oh, okay, I've got this woman. She's closer to your age. He goes, how old? She goes, still not close to your age like 36. He goes, oh, I don't want to go over 29. When I said older, we're all checking these boxes instead of letting people be people. So materialist. But anyway, we could call her Dakota because this movie is about relationships. And she's trying to get this relationship really working for

mom's relationship with money, her relationship with her mom and her sister. Maybe she's Dakota. That's beautiful. That's a great name. That's way better than toothless. I can see her driving down the road going, please don't call me toothless. Please don't call me toothless. It's a beautiful dragon. I love the dragon. And if you know the story, it is a great name. Yes, exactly. Exactly. But yes, anonymous, your name will be Dakota. All right. So let's give Dakota more specific advice, which now that we set the table, but I how to address it, Paul. I think you've got that. So I'm going to throw out two specific ideas that are a little bit out there. And so when you hear them, and I'm saying this for everyone who's listening, because I'm sure there are plenty of listeners who are in a similar situation, when you hear the following two ideas, some of you are going to have knee-jerk reactions of, whoa, that's way too out there.

That's not realistic for me. But others of you will say, huh, that's creative. It's clever. It's interesting. I hadn't thought of it. Maybe that might work. That's also what she asked for, Paula, was much more a brainstorming session. Like, what can I do? What opportunities haven't I thought about? Here are two potential ideas. One, Dakota, you mentioned that you have adolescent children and your sister, I believe, also has kids who are maybe also adolescents. I know, of course, adolescents don't need the level of child care that a young child might need. but are there any things related to the upbringing of the kids or the running of the household

that you could pay your mom to do? In other words, could you hire her? Could you hire her to help, I don't know if they have driver's licenses yet, could you hire her to help drive them around? Could you hire her to help cook meals? Could you hire her and pay her to assist with domestic tasks or childcare? If so, it would be a win-win. friends, Eric and Kelly, who had a long post on LinkedIn about this very thing, that this wasn't

even on the table in January for their family. And then a friend of there said, you know what, we hired a house manager. And she preps meals for us, does a lot of the behind the scenes dealing just everything around the house to shuffling kids. To your point, for them being busy people, it paid for itself almost immediately. This was a great person to have. in the house because what they didn't want was to have less time with their children. They want to have quality time with their kids and not time when we're just doing the random stuff where I'm not paying attention. Kids not paying attention hand that off to somebody else. And if grandma can do that, you can pay her for it. Exactly. And there's so much minutia. We got to return these packages to

Amazon. We've got to buy a garden hose. We've got to coordinate with a sprinkler repair guy. Your ability to go up with minutia is ninja level. Thank you. The spring. Recycleer repair guy and buy a garden hose. And by the way, to let everybody know how ninja level this is, Paula doesn't even have any grass in her house. I live in an apartment. There's no lawn anywhere and she's coming up with lawn analogies. Like that is freaking ninja.

I do have rental properties. I have to manage lawn care for. Right. But still. I was on chat with a lawn care agency yesterday. Oh, there it is. For a property that's located in Georgia. All right, not as random as I thought it was.

It's also summertime. Summertime is when those things happen. But yeah, there's minutia around running home. Can you pay mom to help with that? It does create that win-win. If you're going to hire anybody to do something, it'd be great for the kids to have more time with grandma. It's a win in that regard as well.

So that's one idea. The second idea, and this is literally way more out there, would your mom be open to living in Thailand, in Mexico, in Colombia, in a country where the dollar goes a lot further. And not necessarily forever, but would she be open to living there for a couple of years so that she could save up some money? Would she be open to maybe spending half the year there and then half the year in the U.S.? Would she be open to the expat lifestyle?

I know several people whose parents were unprepared for retirement in the United States. but who discovered that there are these vibrant expat communities in Medellin, in Panama City, in Quenca, in Ecuador, there are these very vibrant expat communities where you can live very good at a fraction of the cost of what you would pay here in the States. So would your mom be open to a geo-arbitrage adventure? The big thing that I worry about is just making sure that mom has community while she's there, I think plugging into groups of people. When I see people move away from a community, often the mistake they make is they don't plug into the new community.

So helping mom get acclimated, find friends, find groups to belong to, I think is a big important step in that process. And that's why I highlight specifically Medellin or Quenka, like these are places where there are American expat communities. Because when you go to a place like that, frankly, it's easiest to become friends with other Americans or other Westerners. So places that have a concentration of other retirees, other expats, are the places where you are most likely to be able to form that community. And part of the reason that I highlight Panama, Colombia, Ecuador is because there's no major time zone change, family that's in the United States. Like, you're still in Western Hemisphere time zone. There are plenty of great places that you could live with great expat communities in Bali, in Thailand, across Southeast Asia as well. I would encourage you to do that.

medical care in particular is amazing in Thailand. The time zone change is a bit difficult, so you have to weigh that into your decision and the cost of that life is just such an opportunity. And that is why so many people from the United States choose to retire there. And it turns retirement into an exciting adventure as well. And when you don't have a ton of money, you think that your opportunities are limited for adventure and they don't have to be. Exactly. I know not everybody is going to be open. to an idea like that. Even if your mom's not open to it, if you think that there's a chance,

maybe go on a vacation there with her. Because oftentimes, if we haven't seen a place directly, we can be a little bit more closed off to the idea and sometimes proximity without seeing it with your own eyes. That changes minds and hearts. So yeah, those are my two specific ideas, hiring your mom or geo-arbitrage. But Joe, I like your broader idea of the Socratic method

or my suggestion of the passive-aggressive method. Yeah, I got to say Socrates liked it when I gave him that idea, too. Kay Sok, as we call him. Thank you, Dakota, for the question. And please call us back with an update. Let us know how this shapes out. Up next, we're going to unpack a financial tool that you may not have heard of, something we've never talked about on this show before, ADRs.

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deals, head to Wayfair.com now to shop Wayfair's Black Friday deals for up to 70% off. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Sale ends December 7th. Welcome back. Our next question comes from Shannon. Hey, hey, Paula and Joe. Shannon here, just calling into my favorite podcast with a queue for the Q&A. Here it is. What do I need to know if I'm considering investing in American depository receipts or ADRs? Now, in case any of it matters, here's some calls. context. After going through a divorce nine years ago, I started over from nothing. I have since saved up about $130,000, mostly in retirement funds now being directed along the efficient frontier, as well as some cash in a high-yield savings account for a home purchase in two to three years.

I'm now 39, hope to retire early, and I also have no debt. I recently decided that I want to put a small amount of my portfolio towards individual stocks as a fund, so to speak. I'm talking about two to three percent, certainly no more than five, and I have identified the companies I want to invest in. But here's the catch. They're based out of Finland and Switzerland. So they're not primarily listed on U.S. stock exchanges, but apparently both companies offer American depository receipts that trade over-the-counter in the United States. I may not have started listening to afford anything until late 2020, but when I did, I started from the very beginning and bingaged every episode, and I don't remember ever hearing about AVRs.

So that brings me to my question today and the hope that you two can shed some light on whatever this is and that it might be helpful to someone else too. Cheers. Shannon, thank you for the question and thank you for calling us your favorite podcast. I'm honored. I'm flattered. Joe, I feel like we should take a bow. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm very honored.

And I'm also happy that she is expanding the repertoire, things that we talk about. Yeah, exactly. This show has been on the air since 2016. It's hard to find something we haven't covered. It is, which means that this should be Paula obscure and weird. And what's funny is, it isn't. The good news, Shannon, it's actually pretty straightforward. So, you ready, Paula? Let's do it. All right. When you buy a stock overseas and it's listed on another exchange, like maybe Frankfurt or let's take Tokyo Exchange, Hong Kong, and And don't offer it first in the United States. It is exactly, Shannon, what you're saying, an ADR. So an ADR is just almost like, Paula, think about it as a placeholder. I want to buy the

stock on my local exchange, but it's offered on a different exchange. So this is meant to be shares, receipts for shares. That's American Depository receipts for shares that are actually listed somewhere else. So I get the receipt. It means I actually have claimed to these shares, even though I'm buying it on a different exchange than they're offered on. By the way, back in the old days, there used to be some arbitrage opportunities here. You could look at it on the German exchange where it's listed, or Sweden. She said one of these was a Scandinavian company. Look at that exchange and then look at it on the New York Stock Exchange and the price is a little different, Paula. So you buy it on one and then you sell it on the other right away and, you make a little bit of money.

But guess what? All the short term high frequency traders have really eliminated that, which is good because all this is exactly shanan what you're looking for. It's just you're buying the company that you want to buy in a straightforward manner. There truly is nothing magical or different than buying the stock. I mean, the Uber nerds out there know that there are, if you really dig deep, okay, maybe, but for every purpose I've ever had and I've bought a bunch of ADRs in my lifetime, you're just buying the stock. It's the way that you buy the stock in a foreign company. So I think, as we always do here and afford anything, we should broaden this out, because truly that's the answer. We're done. That's it. But I think that a few things I want to

point out for everybody else. Number one, Shannon, I love the fact that you said, three to five percent of my portfolio is play money. Love that, Paul and I know you do too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's the perfect setup because we all know that the majority of our portfolio should be in buy-and-hold long-term index funds. But the problem is, particularly for people who are interested in personal finance and who are interested in investing, it's so tempting to invest in the latest hot fad. It's so tempting. And so rather than resist and then one day cave and binge, like, why not a little bit

of play money? If you use a nutrition and diet analogy, it is the equivalent. of having one or two meals per week where you're like, on Sunday night, anything goes. Sunday night is my anything goes meal. The other six days of the week I'm going to eat really healthy, but on Sunday, all bets are off. Yeah, it's not unhealthy. There's a lot of healthy things, whether we're talking about the meal or the stock. With the meal, we're getting something that we enjoy.

We're not overindulging because we're limiting it to one meal. We're having fun, but we're saying, I want to be healthy and have fun forever. So if I can have the cool meal once a week, that's fantastic. With individual stocks, I think there's a lot of behavioral lessons. Like, why the hell did I do that? Wow, that was stupid. The number of lessons I've learned, I'm like, why didn't I look at the number of shares that had been shorted before I did this?

Or why didn't I look at free cash flow before I bought that stock? I learned so much just by having skin in the game that I really. that I really like it. But limiting it, Shannon, I think is pretty badass. The second thing, though, whenever you deal with an international company, what you got to watch out for is that if you're a company, you mentioned a Scandinavian company, so let's go there. If you're in Scandinavia and you are investing in a Scandinavian company, it's pretty straightforward. The stock does well, my money goes up.

But right now, the dollar has been falling very quickly. And so, Paula, companies can make money for local investors and a U.S. investor will lose money because we're buying it with dollars. So there also is the exchange rate game that we got to keep in mind whenever we invest internationally. Right. The dollar is currently having its worst year since 1973. I happen to know that stat off the top of my head. I said it earlier, Ninja. Just look at this.

sprinkler systems, dollars, ninja. I remember that off the top of my head because somebody took that headline and posted a comment on social media where they just said, me too. And I wasn't even born yet. And I'm thinking, hey, bell bottoms went out and then they came back, right? Bell bottoms were in in 73 and then they came back later. So the dollar will be back. We know the dollar will be back. And that's going to also affect your shares.

If the dollar bill goes in other directions, you'll find stocks go up and down internationally based on that as well. So just keep that in mind. You're like, hey, this company had record profits. Why am I losing money? It also is because you're buying it in a foreign currency. So remember those. But that's what an ADR is.

Very straightforward, Paula. You're taking an international thing. You're buying it domestically. Now you own the stock. I'll say one other thing. I know there are a lot of great companies that are listed on foreign exchanges. But one thing to note, there are also a lot of great companies that start in other countries that decide to list themselves on U.S. exchanges. In fact, the London Stock Exchange in particular is struggling because companies don't want to list there.

There is a big article in The Economist, which is a British magazine, big article in the economist about how even companies that are UK-based would rather list on an American exchange. Yeah, the world in ADRs is changing and has changed significantly. over the time that you've had the Afford Anything podcast where there are definitely fewer them for that very reason as we become daily more of a global economy just very quickly becoming a global economy. There's one more thing we should mention if you're buying an ADR or a foreign stock inside of a brokerage account, a non-IRA brokerage account, and you have dividends that are paid out, you may have some foreign taxes that are due depending on the country. So I would look into what my foreign tax burden might be.

I do that. Often it's very straightforward. You just got one more form that you've got and your tech software picks it up really easily. But I think we should also talk about that. When you invest internationally, that can create some tax reporting that you wouldn't have if you stayed domestic. That said, I like the diversification and it truly isn't onerous. Just I think checking all the boxes, Paula. That's a box we need to check that you might have another tax form. Thank you, Shannon, for the question. And have fun with international investment. Up next, we're going to talk credit card rewards and credit scores. And that's coming up right after this. Welcome back. Our final comment today comes from Jennifer.

Hey, Paul and Joe. This is Anonymous or Jennifer, as you named me in my previous question. I had called in a couple months ago to ask about potential downsides of putting my vacation expenses on a credit card and paying them off at a later time. I really appreciate your insights. And to clarify, you had question whether I actually had the money to pay it back now and was able to do so. The answer is yes. I have plenty in my savings account. If in the worst case scenario, I need to pay it back immediately, I can. But basically, I was just trying to game the system in order to invest my money now and pay my expenses later. I had asked you what potential downfalls are to using this method. And guess what? I came across one. After so many years of trying to game the credit cards and take advantage of their interest-free 15 months or 18 months, I finally got gamed back. I got rejected by a credit card for the first time ever the other week because I had opened too much credit in the last 24 months. Also, interestingly enough, the credit score that was being reported from certain credit bureaus. I believe TransUnion was one of them, was reporting my score in the 800s, but when my credit card rejection came back, they had used Experian, and my credit score was around 750. So it was about a

50 point difference between one credit bureau to the other. Anyway, just thought I'd follow up and give you a new downside I just discovered on the credit card opening game that I've been playing for a while now. Thanks again for answering my question, and thanks for all you do. Jennifer, thank you. First of all, thank you so much for calling back and sharing that update. This is one of my favorite things, Joe, when people call, who have previously called in with a question, and then we hear the follow. So much of the time, we never hear the follow-up. So one of my favorite, favorite things, Jennifer, and thank you for doing it, is calling with a follow-up and sharing what happened. And how about those surprises?

Right, exactly. And the additional downsides that you have listed, they're huge, and that's a big part of the credit card game. That difference between credit agencies, Paula, of 50 points. It sounds like forever. Like, that just seems ridiculous, but that's not as uncommon as people think. Right, exactly. That is why we have three credit bureaus. It's the check and balance of knowing that your true FICO score is going to draw from all three of those credit bureaus, TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. But Jennifer, to your point, sometimes you're going to be evaluated just on one of the three, which sucks, but that's how some companies do it. Between her scores,

not a big difference in who's going to give you credit and who's not. There's some that want it really close to 800 or maybe over 800 if you're looking at those tippity top cards. But most creditors, Paula, between those two credit scores she's talking about, you're not going to find a significant difference. Those people are still going to offer her credit. Yeah, exactly. How about about the, I applied for too much credit in the last couple of years. This is why I think they tell people don't go apply for credit that you're not going to use because of the fact that if you get these hard credit pulls too often, then you need something in the future. Potentially, you won't get it because of Jennifer's cautionary tale. Exactly. That's a difficult place to be. In fact, it's funny.

Another one, Jennifer, that happened to us. So we are adding on the back of our house. And we found this clearance deal at Crate and Barrel, which, by the way, if you find a clearance deal at Crate and Barrel, that brings it down to the price you pay anywhere else, which is pretty good. But they were going to give us more money off if we used a crate and barrel credit card. No annual fee, right? We'd pay it off. Like you, Jennifer, we already have the cash. Cheryl already had that from a previous sale that we had found. And she's like, yeah, but she didn't have Paula enough credit. So the sales person goes, oh, we'll just, we'll just get you more. Cheryl's had this thing forever.

She's had the card. She's had the crate and barrel card. And it's always had a zero balance. And this is funny. She goes to get more credit. And they deny her. They deny her more credit. And they said, you know, we'll send you the reason in the mail.

And Cheryl's got it, I don't know, 838, 48, 4850. Like she's up at the top with her credit. So then we decide the three of us, I will open up a crate and barrel new credit card to get the additional money because it wasn't a little money. It was a lot of money they were going to give us. Wait, the three of us decide, you said? Yeah. Cheryl, the salesperson. I was like, wait, who's the third in my head? I was like, maybe Joe's talking about he's working with his own financial advisor.

No, with the salesperson. With the sales lady. Because the sales lady's got us on the hook, right? And we're like, yes, we will save even more money. to bring this down to an even more reasonable price. So I apply for the card. My credit is low 800s. Sheryl's is up there near tippy top. So we both have sterling credit. They offer me far more credit than Cheryl has. Wow. Far more credit, which is hilarious because if you look at the current state of stuff, I have a podcast. I make decent money. My spouse loves her job, but she makes way more

money than I do. And she has a better credit score. They would not give her more credit, but they would give me credit. Now, what's funny about this, and this is why Jennifer, we talked about having the cash set aside. When that card came, which I also, by the way, I'm never going to use, we immediately use the credit. We paid it off, done. I'm not doing anything with crate and barrel. Sorry, Creight and Barrel, not doing anything with that card. You know what's amazing? The interest rate on that credit card, Paula. What do you think the interest rate is on the the crate and barrel credit card. In the 20s, I'd say over 20% but under 30%.

33%. 33%. Jeez. 33. I can't even say it with a straight face. Wow. That's why, and Jennifer already knows this, but that's why we asked Jennifer immediately, do you have the cash?

Because if you got the cash and you can play the game, we played the game. Jennifer, you played the game. And now, yeah, I'd just take the credit card. cut it up, cancel as soon as they will let me. So that brings up Paula a couple other dangers that I thought of Jennifer while you brought up this topic because you know Paula why they denied Cheryl more credit? Too many recent hard credit polls? No.

She hadn't used that crate and barrel card in so long that they just weren't going to give her more credit. Is that amazing? Wow. She says she's got great credit and she just goes, hey, I just want to, make this line bigger so I can put this sofa on it. No, you haven't used it. We're not going to give you more. Well, keep it open the way it is, but we're not going to give you more. If you are looking to extend a credit line, I think you go to the places that you use first and then places that you

haven't used as much. That was so wild. Crazy. And then the second thing is a lot of people, you know, Jennifer, play this credit card rewards game, right, where they get the bonus points and then they cancel the card. And you really got to watch out because as an example with Chase, there's a time limit. You have to respect between canceling that card and then re-signing up to get it again. And as an example, another example, American Express, you can only get the bonus points once for each of their cards. American Express goes, you're not playing the game. You're not playing it at all. You're going to get the bonus point one time. And then if you cancel the card and you get it the next time, there will be no bonus program for you. We have you on file. So,

So make sure you know before you try to recycle your bonus point program if you're playing the credit card reward game, how long it is you have to stay out of that point program. And in the case of American Express, it's just if I get rid of the card, should I just get rid of it forever? Because I'm not getting bonus points again. Right. I don't think we mentioned those last time, Paula. So because Jennifer brought this up, I'm like, oh, timely topic, Jennifer. timely. Timely. Timely.

Because we've dealt with the same, same thing. And I'll just reiterate, I think I might have said this on the last show, but my favorite technique for keeping that credit score high is pay off the balance on your credit card multiple times throughout the month so that your debt utilization ratio is super low. I used to do that very regularly. These days, I forget. And I'm like, whoa, you know what? If I pay this off weekly, my debt utilization ratio is going to be.

just consistently really low and that keeps the credit score high. It also kind of keeps you on top of your game when it comes to what you're spending. So it's a win to win. The first part of that I had verified by an industry insider, a guy named George who works with Barclays.

I just did this media tour with Barclays and General Motors around summer travel, which was fun. By the way, 25 interviews in five hours. Wow. Oh my goodness. It was fun.

There were all these news stations that I was on. But in one of the rare breaks we had, George from Barclays told me he was the contact there, said the trick is exactly, Paula, what you said. Just pay it off as quickly as you can. Keep that utilization low because it's not the date that you pay it that they're going to check your utilization. They have their own date. So if you're paying it off on the 25th and they check it on the 20th, even if you pay it off every month, you might have less available credit than if you were paying it off several times.

Every month, you might show a lot less credit than you truly have on average in a month just based on the fact that you're paying it off every month on a different date than they check. Right. Exactly. They have some arbitrary date and you don't know what that date is, which is when they're going to be looking at that snapshot. Since we don't ever know what that date is, just to always be prepared for it by virtue of just constantly paying that balance off. I like that, but I like the other part of what you said even better because I think behaviorally, just pay it off right now. If you got the cash, just pay it off right now. Don't wait for the statement. Don't wait for the due date. Just do it.

Pay it immediately and behaviorally, I think. One less thing on your plate, the comfort that it gives you, the sense of security, the extra credit that you have. There's so many behavioral wins there. Extra credit. It's like homework. But yeah, yeah, do your homework and you get extra credit. There you go. A plus.

By virtue of doing that, you essentially turn it card into a de facto debit card, but with additional protections and additional rewards. It's a wonderful system if you can keep up with it. Exactly. Well, you could do once a week, twice a week. I mean, just make it like Sunday and Wednesday routine. And I literally now, Paul, I don't even do that. You know what I do? The second I spend the money on the credit card, I pay it. But the charge is pending for a little while. There's usually a 24, 48 hour lag when the charge is pending versus when it goes on the actual statement. They'll still give me the money as a credit. They give me the money. Let's say it's a $350 charge. I get a $350 credit. So I end up plus $350 and then zero it out. Like for me, I just spend it and I go pay that amount of money. And it's

easy. I sit in the parking lot of the place. If I'm out shopping, if I'm online, I just jump over to the site. It's part of the transaction for me now. Makes it really simple. If you're at a cafe, you get a coffee and a croissant. Do you like pay that? No. Those little things where I just take it out for the $5, $10 deal. Those wait until the statement. Like that one at the end of the month, I'm like, oh, I got this random $50 on here. But you know what? If I'm worried enough about my credit score where the $50 is going to matter, then I certainly have a problem. And to be fair, when I was younger and I needed credit more than I do now, and I needed to make sure my credit was pristine more than I do now, that 50 bucks might matter.

At this stage of the game for me, I can afford to wait. I think the technical term for that, if I did the $5 croissant and coffee or heck, $10 and I paid it off right away, I think the technical, the scientific term for that is anal retentive. I think it's what the scientists call it today. Well, on that note, Jennifer, thank you so much for calling in and giving us that update. Great update. Yeah, what a great conversation.

Where can people find you if they'd like to hear more of your not anal retentive financial habits? You know what? Just recently for Independence Day, we had a great roundtable where we talked about having a financial revolution. Like, we just need to get our stuff together. So we talk financial revolution with frequent contributor Jesse Kramer, Dorothea Kelly, our badass friend from Detroit. She's a fantastic creator. And get this, Paula.

We got the guy who's on your podcast. and my podcast every week, but you never hear him. Actually behind the microphone on this one, Steve Stewart. Nice. Because we're talking about debt. And Steve has so much that he can offer when it comes to budgeting and debt. I thought you were going to say, because we're talking about debt. And Steve has so much debt.

So much. If there's a guy with debt. You want to talk debt. Steve's got so much debt. For people that don't know, Steve, he is Mr. Anti-Ddead. Like way more, way, way more. Yeah.

Anyway, that's a great one. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, stacking Benjamin's wherever you're listening to us now. Yes. Did Steve play for me in the trivia? Or was that Dorothea? No, Dorothea did. Ah. Yeah, Dorothea did.

And I won't tell you whether she won for you or not, but let's just say she didn't. Oh. I know. Well, you know what? I'll ask this off camera. No, I'll ask it on camera. Did another point go to OG? I can't tell you.

Ah. For those of you wondering what we're talking about, there's a year-long trivia contest, and there's one particular contestant who has just amassed all of the points. Just this year, he's killing us, Paula. Right? Yeah. He's killing us. Absolute runaway winner.

We're midway through the year. It's becoming difficult for any contestant to catch up even in the next six months. But you know, it's wild, Paula, frequent contributor, Doc G, from Earned and Invest, our friend, Doc G, has played on behalf of OG three times this year. and he's gotten three points for OG. Doc G for people that don't follow our show, he sucks at trivia. But he's lightened it up this year

and he's putting OG even further ahead. So yeah. Not great. Meanwhile, Jesse and I have formed the coalition to defeat OG. I think we all have. I think Doug and I have too. I think it's everybody against OG and that train can't be stopped.

And yet he still keeps winning. It's so annoying. Anyway, fun stuff. fun friends. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. So thank you, Joe, for joining the show. And thanks to all of you for being part of the Affordor community. If you enjoyed today's episode, please do three things. First and foremost, share this with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, cousins, parents, grandparents, grandparents. Grandparents, cousins. Yeah, grandparent. The sprinkler repair guy. Share it with a person who sells you a garden hose. Your mom who lives in Ecuador's friends. Yes. The sales lady at Creighton,

barrel. Share this with all of them because that is the single most important way that you spread. F-I-I-R-E. Second, subscribe to our newsletter, afford-anything.com slash newsletter. And third, join our community. Afford-anything.com slash community. And can I throw in a fourth? I'm going to throw in a fourth. Go do it. Open your favorite podcast playing app. Hit the follow button so you don't miss any of our amazing upcoming shows. And while you're there, please leave us up to a five-star review. Thank you again for being an afforder. I'm Paula Pant. I'm Joe Solci-Hi. And we'll meet you in the next episode.