Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Money Made Simple: Quick Tips for Managing Your Finances with Chris Browning | Clutterbug Podcast # 257

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Managing money doesn’t have to feel overwhelming! In this episode, I sit down with Chris Browning, the host of Popcorn Finance, to chat about making finances simple, fun, and accessible for everyone. Chris’s quick, ADHD-friendly episodes are packed with tips to help you save, budget, and manage money with ease. He shares his #1 piece of advice for financial success, actionable strategies you can start using today, and even some practical tips for teaching your kids about money. Whether you're just starting your financial journey or looking for ways to improve, this episode is full of ideas to help you take control of your finances.   Learn more about Chris and his amazing financial tips here: https://popcornfinance.com/       You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast #moneysavingtips Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's no denying that clutter and money go hand in hand. And a lot of people who struggle to declutter oftentimes have the scarcity mindset or stuck in the scarcity cycle of they've got a little extra money so they better quickly buy things on sale. They better buy things so they have it for in the future in case they don't have the money for those times where they can't count on the money being in the bank. and this type of mindset often leads to not only living paycheck to paycheck, unfortunately, or living in debt, but also a home filled with stuff. So I love talking about finances because I think when you can be empowered to start looking at your money differently and realize that it is a tool to help make you more money and even if you are living paycheck to paycheck, that there is a way out, there is a way to

build a safety net for you. That is so empowering, so life-changing. And I am thrilled to introduce today's guest, Chris Browning. Chris is the host of an incredible financial podcast called Popcorn Finance. And I am a huge fan of this podcast because it's easy to listen to. It's inspiring. It's short. It's sweet. It's to the point. It's never boring. And it makes me more confident in my savings, in my investing, and just in my personal financial management. I never knew anything about this. So anytime I find someone who is there offering expert, incredible advice in little short bursts that feel never boring or overwhelming, I'm here for it.

And I'm so excited to introduce you to Chris from Popcorn Finance 2. Welcome, Chris, to the Clutterbug podcast. Oh, thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be joining you. I've been looking forward to this all week. I'm excited to have you because my favorite thing about your podcast is it's super ADHD friendly. Popcorn Finance is the best name to describe this because it's just like, poop, wisdom, wisdom, wisdom, wisdom, and drop the mic and I'm out long before I get bored. Thank you.

That was a whole idea behind it because I have a short attention span and I was like, I wanted to make something that I would want to listen to it because sometimes I'm like, you know what, especially on money, like technical stuff. Sometimes I can only focus for so long. So let's get in and out. That way we don't overwhelm people. Yeah, because finance can be snores fest, but you make it interesting in little bite-sized pieces, which I appreciate.

But I'm going to be honest, financial experts, a weird place to get into. Before I pick your brain for all your amazing knowledge, how did you? become the financial guru? Well, thank you. I don't think if I ever call myself a financial guru, but I appreciate you viewing me that way. It's very kind of view. You know, I kind of got into this by accident. I went into college as an art major, actually. I had this dream of being, of working at Pixar because I love working on like computer, like modeling and things like that. And I got into college and I was like, I don't feel like I'm as passionate as all these other people around me. And I just happened to be taking a finance class could just fit into my schedule. Like it wasn't intentional.

I was like, well, I only want to be on school at school on these days at this time. This fit in that little category. And I was like, this is really interesting. I didn't know any of this stuff about money. Like I, it was like so obvious to me how little I knew, but how practical this was. And since I was already kind of questioning my decision to go in as an art major, I was like, maybe finance might be the route. And I just was very fortunate, ended up at a school with a huge business program. They had a, uh, within finance, you could focus in on financial planning. And that's the route I decided to go. And that's kind of how I got into this world of talking about money. I went to school for it. I got my degree in finance for the focus

of financial planning, uh, ended up graduating in the middle of a recession. So I started doing like bookkeeping work and I ran payroll departments and I did, uh, work as a financial analysts. And but I always had this like, like, desire to like talk about the subject because it was so practical. And I'd end up being the person at all my jobs who taught everyone how to like sign up for the 401k plan and what does this mean? What's a bond? All this stuff. And it was always, I really enjoyed it. And it kind of slowly led me back towards this path where I used this podcast as my way to do the thing that I was going to be doing as my career years before. So amazing. Here's why, because nobody knows anything about money for some reason. Do you know, like what? My parents never talked about money.

They thought it was rude. But in school, we didn't even learn how to do a budget. I didn't know what compound interest was. Like, legit till I was over 25 years old. I claimed bankruptcy when I was 25 because I was in so much debt and honestly had no idea why I kept paying the monthly payments and it never went down. Like, I didn't know. And I don't think I'm alone. No, not at all. It is not common knowledge. It's not really. It's getting better. You're saying more personal finance courses pop up across high schools, across the country, but it's still not just something that you would obviously inherently know for any reason. And if someone doesn't ever show you what you should be doing and teach you these basics, how would you know? And I think that's how many of us end up being,

you know, as we get into adulthood, we're like, well, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just winging it and hoping for the best. And that normally doesn't work out for most of us. Yeah. I thought for the longest time. Money was just something that you used to buy nice things or to buy cool things. Like, I didn't know anything. And I'm so lucky that my husband introduced me to so many finance books and self-help books. And I was able to completely change my way of thinking. And I don't talk a lot about money on the Clutterbug podcast, but I think it is like a foundation. It's one of the bricks of your life that has to be solid. So you need a solid understanding. and you need to be able to manage it and proficiently in order to have a great life.

So I'm curious what is one piece of financial advice that you wish everyone new? I have one too. So you share yours. Okay. All right. Mine, this is a little, like a non-traditional piece of personal finance advice. Maybe not exactly what you were thinking about when you asked this question. But for me, the biggest piece of advice I give people, because it's something I wish I would have been told when I was younger.

is to stop comparing yourself to other people and what they're doing with their money because a lot of people are hiding debt and you just don't know it. There are so many people who have tons of credit card debt. I mean, you mentioned it. I had a ton of credit card debt in my 20s that really bottomed me down for many years. And you can give off the appearance of having this very great, stable, even like very, like, wealthy lifestyle without actually having the money to back it up because you can just charge and charge and charge until you hit that limit. And there are so many people doing that. And we just don't realize it because we don't often openly talk about money with our friends or family. We're all just kind of just, it's like this little dirty secret everyone has behind them is that credit

card that's sitting in their wallet or their purse. And, you know, credit card debt across the U.S. It hit, I think it's like a little over $1.1 trillion in the third quarter of this year. And that is like one of the highest points that they've seen in years. And it just goes to show there's a lot of debt out there. And it makes everyone look like they're doing better than they are. And so when you start comparing yourself to what other people are doing, you're not making a fair comparison anymore. But you're really stressing yourself out. You're getting down on yourself. And to me, the comparison really kills any of your own personal progress that you'd be making in your life financially because you're trying to compete with someone or do exactly what other people around you are doing. When they really, in fact, a lot of them may not be able to do that themselves. And so for me, if I would have locked that in when I was really young, I would have been in a much better place. I wouldn't have had all that credit card debt because I would have just been living a life that was meaningful.

to me, based of what I could do financially versus trying to copy what other people were doing. Oh, that's really good. I think that whole keeping up what the Jones is is, you're right, a huge cause of people's stress and worry and financial issues. And I remember meeting and a friend and we were new, you know, getting along and chatting. And I was like, oh, where do you live? And we were talking. She lived around the corner in this huge mansion. And I knew what she did for a living. And I knew what her husband did for a living. And I went home. home to my and I was like, we are doing something wrong, Joe. She has this giant house. They can obviously swing it. But then when I actually had coffee in her home one day, they had no furniture.

You know, it was very much a situation of being house poor. But from the outside, I was just comparing my life to hers and felt pressure to then upgrade to a bigger house. Because if she can afford it. I should be able to afford it too. Yeah. There's so many of us. We do that in so many areas of our lives where it's looking at someone's house, their car, the trips they take without really understanding what they're actually doing financially when it comes to how they got all this stuff. Yeah, that's so good. Okay. So my piece of financial advice that I wish everyone knew is to pay yourself first. And obviously I heard this from, you know, so many financial gurus, but it changed my life, especially when I was starting out really broke. We didn't have any extra money to save.

So as soon as we did get a paycheck, we would just put like a little bit away in something we couldn't touch. So then when we did run out of money before the next pay, it sucked. But it didn't suck as much as trying to save the leftovers. Does that make sense? No, it does. So paying myself first was it transformed my entire financial situation. slowly over time. Yeah, it was the one thing I did that I think had the biggest impact. But that's the next question I want to ask you. So someone who is living paycheck to paycheck and they're like, I couldn't possibly save anything. Do you have a piece of advice on how someone

can start saving in those situations? Oh, yeah. I mean, because that could be, it could be tough, right? Like, you want to do the best thing. You want to do like what's right for your future, but you feel like, oh, I don't know if I can because things are so tight right now. And the one caveat I always give when I get this question is that, you know, there's a wide spectrum of financial situations that people find themselves in, right? And there are some people who, if you're just like struggling, like every day is like a struggle. You can't even, there's no space in there. Like, ignore me right now because you just getting by is all you're focused on right now.

So you don't need to add the extra stress of trying to worry about I can't save as much as someone else. I think sometimes just making it day to day is already like a win, right? So if you're in that boat, just be, be proud that you're making it through day by day. But if you're someone who has the wiggle room, but you know you're just maybe making some poor decisions with how you handle things, I think one of the best things you can do is break it into small steps, right? I think sometimes you think either I'm saving nothing, I'm saving hundreds or thousands of dollars all at once, right? Like you, there's no middle and there's a lot of room in that middle space to save. And so even if it's like, you're someone who hasn't been saving at all and you say next month, I'm going to put $100 in my savings account.

It's not a lot, but it's something. And if you can do that consistently, then you sort of build that habit, right? And I think seeing your savings account balance start to build up can be a very motivational thing. And then it becomes this thing in your mind. It's like, okay, I could go do the things I like to do. I could go out to eat more. I could go shopping.

I can go on this trip. Or I could see my savings account get a little bit bigger and feel the security that comes with that. And so for me, that's my like starting with little small steps, even though, yeah, it's not going to save a hundred bucks a month. not going to change your life ultimately, but it can change it in the sense that it shifts the way you think about money. You see the progress you can make in a short amount of time and it becomes that encouragement. Because we all need that little bit of encouragement to make

us continue to make the positive steps because, you know, just the idea of doing better with money is not enough to keep us motivated. We need something that we can like grab onto to feel better. And I think those little small steps really help us get that encouragement that we need. Yeah, you hit the nail on the head because that's exactly what happened to me. The idea of saving money seemed horrible. Let me just tell you that because I was so broke. But when I set up the automatic transfer that came out the day that we got paid and it kind of, you know, just snuck a little tiny bit of money away, I forgot about it, to be totally honest. I forgot that that was happening and I kind of adjusted to living on the pay that we were getting. And then when my husband's like,

look how much money we had saved, it wasn't a lot. I think it was $800 or $900 at the time, but it might as well have been a million for me because I had never saved my whole life. And that shifted my brain. I became excited about seeing my little nest egg grow. And so I became, I started second guessing little purchases, which I had never done before. And the thought of saving $10 at a time seems like, well, or $100 a month. Like what the heck's that going to do? But when you can see it start to grow, then you've got them. You've caught the bug, the saving bug. Oh, yeah, definitely. And I've relate handling your money to like, like getting in shape and losing weight. To me, there's so many parallels between those two activities. And it's kind of like when you like, okay, I'm going to turn my life

around. I'm going to work out. I'm going to eat better. And you see your clothes get a little bit looser. Like that becomes the motivation to keep doing it. And the same thing like, save. You're seeing that balance go up. You're like, it's kind of nice. I like seeing that. And it kind of just keeps pushing you in that that direction you want to go into. Yeah. So let's talk about a horrible elephant in the room. Debt or credit card debt. Because it's great to talk about savings.

But when we have crushing debt, that can feel suffocating and overwhelming. And for a lot of us, I'm just throwing myself under the bus here. I didn't really even understand debt. So I remember I got a credit card bill once. And my husband was like, at the time, we had just started. dating. He was like, saw it. He was like, holy crap, you owe a ton of money. And I was like, no, man, I only owe like $500. It says here right at the bottom. And he's like, that's your minimum monthly payment. That is, you're just paying interest. That's what, that's not what you owe.

And I, honest to goodness, didn't even know that. Like, I didn't understand that eventually that would not pay off my debt. And so how do you suggest like when debt does feel super overwhelming? And you're like, I don't have enough to pay off the $10,000 or whatever it is that I owe. How would someone tackle a debt when it feels like that and when it feels like, oh, we just have to keep paying that minimum monthly balance? debt can be some of the most like depressing like soul-sucking situations to be in because I've been there right I had I think my early 20 is like around $27,000 of credit card debt that just built up it felt like out of nowhere I know it wasn't out of nowhere but it felt like it came out of nowhere

and it becomes something you obsess about right so it becomes this thing that you kind of just weighs on you it's just always there in the back of your mind and so for me one of the things that helped with this was first of all like getting these small wins, right? Because like you said, like paying just a minimum balance, it's not, you're going to be paying that off for years. Because like you said, the majority of that is going to pay off interest. You're accruing interest on a monthly basis. They're going to tack down. If you don't pay off your credit card at the end of that month, that billing cycle, the next time around, they're going to charge you interest on that balance. And then that gets added to your balance and then you get charged interest plus your old balance. And so it just keeps compounding and building. They can get out of hand quickly. So for me, first of all, it's like getting a small win. So if you're dead to spread across multiple, let's say credit cards, for example, For me, I was paying off like the smallest one first. That really helped me get like a little bit of a win. Right. It was like, okay, I got rid of one of these. And the nice thing, too, is that when you have multiple credit cards, each of them has a minimum balance on it. Or sorry, a minimum payment on it. So when you knock one out, that shrinks that minimum payment down, right? So if you were paying

$700 a month across three cards now becomes a minimum of just five. And that extra money you had, you can start throwing on those other ones to accelerate those payments. And it's, it's called something like the snowball method where you pay off these little amounts, these little balances, and you can add that to the next one so that way the payment gets bigger. It's like this snowball rolling down the hill gaining momentum as you go. And so not only are you kind of like making some work through all of this, but you're getting a little win, so you feel good because you paid off something, and you're just making progress because it is a slow journey.

It is going to take you a while, especially if you have large amounts of credit card debt. It's not something you're going to tackle in a few months or maybe even a year. But doing something that keeps you motivated and just staying consistent, it's great. because it has to be consistent. You have to keep doing it. You have to build it into your budget and say, this is non-negotiable. I have to pay this every month.

Even though it's tempting to pull that credit card out and use it to buy something else or do these things that are actually much more fun than paying off debt. That consistency in the long run is really what's going to help you make some type of dent in this progress. That is paying off dead. Yeah, can we, I'm going to ask you your feelings. I already know what your feelings are about like the whole, ho, ho, ho, the payments. We had a furniture. company when I was younger and I was just starting out, you know, I had my little apartment and I had like

all crappy hand-me-down furniture. I saw this advertisement at Christmas. It was like, ho, ho, hold the payments. Three years. You don't have to pay. Come shop, buy all this furniture. And you don't have to make any payments for, you know, so many years. I was so excited. I was like, this is genius. I'm going to pay it all off before the time is up. And I'm winning at life with this furniture that I don't even have money for now, but I get to enjoy it now. Little did I know, friend, that the whole, whole, whole, your payments also, I think it was like an 18% interest that was retroactive from the first day. So for those three years, they were interest adding and adding. And of course, I didn't pay it off before the three years was up because, you know,

I was young. And then I have a bill. That makes the three times what the furniture actually costs, which I didn't understand, but compound interest, you know. And then I'm paying 18% on that, this huge new number. It drowned me. It suffocated me. It was unbelievably crushing. So, I mean, I already know how you feel about these things.

But I do think they're sneaky peats, man, these companies that give us this dangle, this beautiful, shiny carrot. front of us. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's getting more prevalent now, but the all these buy now pay later services, right? That you can pretty much do that deferral of like paying off the total amount for almost anything. You do it with groceries now. It's like there's so many options for this like kicking the can down the road. And as tempting as it is, right, like to see like I can get something that, because really it's allowing you to buy something you can't afford right now, right? Instead of having to wait to save for it, you can say, well, I can just do it now. And I'm just like, it's like I'm doing it

in reverse. I'm saving, I'm putting the money towards it slowly into the future versus doing it now waiting to buy it down the road. But all you're doing is you're just creating future payments for yourself, right? And I've read these reports from some of these buy later by now, by now, pay later services. They'll do these like big analysis for the year. And what they show is that by and they put these reports out to give to retailers, right? It's like to incentivize it. Like, to look how great are services and what it's going to do for your business. Because they've shown that the adding in these by now, pay later services actually increase. is the amount that people spend because now you're not spending based off of what you can do now.

You're thinking, well, this is a large amount, but like out, I can spread this out over months and months. So I feel better about spending this large amount of money right now. And that's the big selling point for why these retailers are incorporating this into their websites. It's because they know it's going to convince you to buy more. And the reality is like, yeah, doing one of these, like, you know, say you bought a couple hundred dollars worth of clothes used by and not pay later, probably not that big of a deal to have like a $30, month payment or $30 every two weeks payment for the next, you know, four or five months or maybe or maybe for two months. But where people get into trouble is that you keep doing this

over and over again. And so now you're just basically creating an indefinite monthly payment that's just getting larger because you're going to do it this month. And you do it the next month. You're doing something next week. And you're just constantly adding these smaller amounts together that alone, not a bad, not a big deal, right? But when you add it together, now you're creating a multiple hundred dollar bill for every couple of weeks that may stretch across the whole year. And now all you're doing is eating into all of your future money. So basically you're now, it's almost like when you budget, you set a plan for all of your money. Instead, you're setting a plan for all your money to go to these debt payments that you're repaying all these payment

plans. And it's just, it's so easy to do, but the long-term impacts of that are huge, because now you're taking away money from your future self that you could have been using for things that maybe you were really excited about doing, but now you can't. And that's the trap that I think exists with these programs that allow you to buy more upfront and push these payments off because it tricks you into thinking that you're making it easier on yourself. But in reality, you're just making things a lot harder, probably for a long period of time. Yeah, especially with the interest that I didn't understand how it worked because now you're

paying interest on interest and interest on interest and I didn't understand that. husband, you know, he bought me all these books and he was like compound interest friends, it's either your worst enemy or your very best friend. You decide. And I really honestly didn't get that. I didn't understand how quickly it adds up and how much you, of your hard on money, now you're paying to big fat banks. It's going right into their pockets. So when I finally got debt free and we started investing, that's when I saw the magic of compound interest in this positive, incredible way. And it really changed how I thought about money. Now I see it as that's not just a dollar. That's a dollar that can make me $2. And then that $2 makes me $3. And that $3

makes me $4, which is really exciting. That's when we start talking about investing. But truthfully, investing is scary. And where do you start? Do you have suggestions for someone who does have maybe a little bit of savings and or or even a lot of savings but doesn't really know how to invest or it feels intimidating. Do you have some suggestions? Oh yeah. Yeah. I love this topic because it's one of those things that it's one of those like, I guess like very exciting things where it sounds really complicated. But in reality, you can do it in such a simple way that is very stress-free because I think we see, we all see like the images of the day traders, the people with all the monitors up and they got the little charts going and you're like, I don't know what you're

talking about. Or you turn on like MSNBC or one of those channels and it's like, you know, oh, here's these, the stock market is up. It's down. It looks a lot. It's intimidating, right? But the reality is, to me, investing can be so boring. And to me, it should be boring, right? It shouldn't be something that you have to think about all the time because we all have busy lives. We have families. We have jobs. We have friends and things we like to do. We have all these responsibilities we have to think about. And the last thing you want to do is tack on this new job of trying to become a stock investor. So for me, I always recommend the best place to start investing. And the simplest way to do it is through your work 401 plan or if your job doesn't offer

one, an IRA, which is just an individual retirement account. That's what the letter stand for. And it is essentially very similar to a 401k, but you just open it on your own. You can do it through any of these brokerage companies. There's so many places you can do this on your own, like fidelity, you do betterment, Vanguard. There's so many companies out there that do it. But essentially, these accounts are just the special tax advantage, a little almost like, I'll call it a bank account. It's not a bank account, but you think of it like a bank account. It's a place where your money goes into and then the money you put into this account is used to purchase investments that then sit within the same account.

And they're allowed to grow. But the benefit is you don't have to worry about the tax bills for these things because as long as they stay inside of here, they're not going to charge you any taxes. And there's different types of ones where you put money in after you've already paid taxes out of your paycheck, which is called like a Roth IRA or 401K, and then there's other ones where you get to defer the taxes. Like you pay no tax on the money that goes in. It's more like your traditional accounts.

And then you'll pay tax when you take that money out. What's the other one? You pay tax up front and you don't pay tax when you pull it out. But basically, you can just set it up to where you use something called like a target date fund. And I know it sounds kind of complicated, but basically if you get that little booklet from your job, there's going to be a bunch of stuff in there, a lot of options. But there's always a series of options that have a year on them.

I'll say something like 2045 or 2060. And that's the year that corresponds with when you would potentially be retiring. And so what you do is you pick one that looks close to the year you think you'd want to retire. And then what you do is just put your money into that. And then it just spreads the money across several different investment options that exist in that 401K plan or that IRA. And then it will automatically just adjust for you as you age. So as you get older, you want to be a little more conservative, right? You want to take a little less risk because if all of a sudden, you know, it's a big drop in the stock market.

you don't want it to be when you're needing to pull money out. So the great thing about these target date funds is that they automatically adjust and become more conservative. So you'll get, it'll switch from really stock market heavy to more focusing on bonds, which are just basically like small loans that you can make, like the government or corporations that are considered very safe, very stable. You don't make as much, but they have less risk of you losing money. And so with these target date funds, you literally just say, when I get paid, put this much money into my 401k plan and then put it into the,

this target date fund automatically. Once you set it, it just does it on its own. And then all the adjustments, all that complicated stuff just happens in the background. You don't have to think about it. And now you're investing. You've spent 20 minutes with your HR department filling out some forms, turning it in, and then that's it. And you literally don't have to do anything else. And that's how simple investing should be. Shouldn't be you having to watch hours of content online or constantly reading about the latest, you know, quarterly report from this company. Should be simple. be very basic. And then now you're investing and you're going to be setting yourself up for retirement. I love that. Yeah, because it's scary. I'm going to be honest. I'm not great at investing my money.

I like to save it. And then I'm like, I want it to be 100% safe. I live here in Canada. So we have RRSP. So registered savings programs where it does you, whatever you put in, it kind of comes off your income tax. Of course, that's capped. But you, you're basically saving money and in. investing at the same time, which is amazing. But I'm going to be honest, I have invested with like mutual funds in the past with like a fund manager and it wasn't really giving me great returns. And so I got kind of scared. And then 2008 happened. And that was scary. And things took a little little tanky poo. So I decided, nope, I'm just going to do GICs and like high interest savings accounts like a little chicken butt. And man, did I miss out?

Man, did I miss out? Because as I'm sure, I mean, you're the expert here. Tell me the stock market's always trending up. That's the thing. It's like you can't, you can't promise, right? Like with investments, you can't promise everything's going to look great and amazing. But when you look historically, you look at the track record, the stock market in the long run has consistently gone up. There's dips, obviously. There's moments where you see like a little drop or you have big drops. Like you said, 2008. You have 2020 at the start of the pandemic. You have these huge, like just drop-offs.

And obviously it makes it when you feel very afraid, right? Because you see your balance to take a huge hit. But the problem is when people start to get fearful, you make moves. You start touching things. Oh, no. Worlds falling apart and gave me my money. You pull it out. And then what happens is you miss out on the bounce back, the recovery.

Because it consistently has happened where you have these big dips and then the market bounces back over. It could be over a couple of months. It could be over a year or so. But when you pull your money out and then try to put it back in later, all you're doing is you've just lost money essentially because with investing it's this weird thing to wrap your mind around but when you buy a stock for example say buy a share of i know apple if the price goes down you didn't lose money on paper because you didn't sell right if you bought one share for a hundred dollars then tomorrow the price goes down to 80 you didn't lose $20 unless you sell it if you sell it they'll give you your $80 and now you've lost $20 but if you just let it sit there and wait and then the price goes up to back to $100 then maybe 150 over time you didn't make money because you haven't sold it, but you can see it's like it's the, you don't lock in

your gains or your losses until you sell it. And that's where we all get into trouble, where you let fear creep in and then you decide to make a move and sell. And then you're going to miss out on when it goes back up and you just lost money. And now you're trying to buy something that's now more expensive. So yeah, it's about not to me, it's like, set it and forget it. You're putting it in there because you're trusting that historically. Stock market continuously goes up. And that's going to be what you lean on to provide you with enough. return to be able to retire, right? Because it is very expensive to build that money up just in a savings account. And investing in stocks and bonds gives you that greater growth, that greater return

that allows you to have your money grow so much faster than you ever could by just sticking it in a savings account. Despite the fear and anxiety we all feel by putting our money at risk, it has been proven that, you know, for decades now that the stock market continues, the stock market continuously grows and goes up and recovers from all those downturns, even as scary as they are. Yeah, I'm going to try to be more brave. Chris, I'm going to try to be a little bit more brave. My husband's also a chicken butt, but he really likes something called index link to funds. I've never asked him what this is, but I'm going to ask you. I just nod and pretend I know what he's talking about when he says this, but maybe you could fill me in so I can seem smart next time he

talks about it. Oh yeah, I got to. And I know there are some differences between here in the U.S. and then in Canada, I know we have, there's similar similarities, but there are some differences. So my examples may be a little more U.S. leaning, but they're pretty close. So when you talk about the stock market, right, you hear people say, oh, the stock market is up. Stock market is down. There are thousands of stocks traded. So every company that decides to go public, right, that means that they take the ownership of their company, they break it up into millions of these little pieces called shares. And so then they take these shares and they put them up on a stock market, a stock exchange, and people can come buy those shares.

So when you say the market is up, you're not referring to one company because there's thousands of them. What they need is like a tool to help you know, like, how is everything doing as a whole? So they create these things called an index. And there's so many indexes out there. In the U.S., the big ones are like the Dow Jones and we have the S&P 500. And so what they are, it's just a grouping of stocks. Like for example, the S&P 500, it tracks 500 of the largest companies here in the U.S.

And so what they do is they look at these 500 companies. They track all their stocks. They use this complicated, weighted system to figure out a price for it. But basically, as this group, this collection that they're following changes in price, that's what they're using to measure how the market is doing, right? There's big ones that have like thousands of stocks or small ones that have like, you know, 40, 50 stocks in it. But when you talk about an index fund, what it is is that they create a basically a basket

of stocks that you can invest in that tracks in one of these. these indexes, a tracking tool. So, for example, the S&P 500, 500 stocks in there, I could go out and on my own manually go buy all 500 of those stocks in the same order and proportion that they have them, but it would be very time consuming, very complicated, don't want to do that. And you can't just buy it. I can't just buy the S&P 500 because it's not an actual product. It's just a tool used to measure how something is doing. But there are these companies that come in called mutual fund companies. And what they do is they just basically create the product for you. They go through, they follow exactly what people are tracking in that index, and they just buy it all for

you. And then you can buy a piece of that bucket of stocks. So a mutual fund is just like a collection of stocks or bonds that you can buy a share of, saves you all that time and work. And you pay them a small fee because they did all the work. An index fund is a type of mutual fund. So it's just a mutual fund that just buys everything that exists inside of one of these tracking indexes. And so the great thing about it is they're typically cheaper because people running it don't have to do as much work, right? You're not paying someone to go through and make all these decisions about what's the best stock. Should we sell now? Should we buy now? They're just copying this index, this measurement tool. Whatever they're doing when that measurement tool to track the stock market, the people in this mutual

fund just copy that. And so it's much more, it's much, much more inexpensive for you to own these shares. And it's following a large group of stocks. So you can invest in this super simply. You don't have to think about it. And you're saving a lot of money because the fees are super low. But that's essentially what these index funds or these index tracking funds are. There are mutual funds that someone was making for you that track an existing index that's already out there. And it provides you a lot of diversification because there's a bunch of things in there. So one thing fails.

It's not going to tank everything. Yeah. And it's also super cheap and easy for you to invest in. I like this. It's like investing for beginners because if you're like me and you don't want to follow and know what's going on, that feels stressful, you're just like the top 500. Some might be crappy. But overall, consistently, historically,

it is constantly going up and doesn't go down. So that's cool. You know what? I always say it's not just for beginners. This is how I invest. I've been, I went to school for this. I've been talking about this for years. This is how I invest because it works. It's cheap. And it doesn't stress me out. And so don't feel like it's only for beginners. I think it's great for everyone. Anyone can do this. It's a great word to invest for, I think the vast majority of people. I love that. I was going to ask you. I was going to say, what do you invest and give us your secrets? You're like index links. Keep it simple.

I love that. Okay. I'm all about the like shortcuts and the tools. Do you have an app or something that you recommend can help people keep their finances in order? I have this new app on my phone that's been helpful for me. It's like connected to my bank. And then every morning it sends me how much money I spent the day before. Boy, that really was like, whoa, stop it.

And then if I'm going over my budget that it like just, you know, it did all the data and like averaged it out. So if I'm going over that, I get an alert that's like, bro, stop spending money today. You're going over your budget. And I appreciate that. It has definitely helped me curb my spending. Do you know of any other apps or do you have anything that you recommend that can help people kind of get, yeah, get their finances in order? Oh, yeah. There are so many out there. And to me, it's like you, because of the variety, I think there's something for everyone because everyone has a different style and what they And like the one I've been using and they're not paying me to say, I get nothing for saying this.

Don't worry. I'm not like, it's not a commercial. But the one I've been using that I've been trying out for a little while now is called co-pilot. And have you heard, have you come across this? Yeah. I've heard a lot of people talk about it. Yeah. Awesome.

The reason why I like this one, like there is a monthly fee, so it's not free. But I honestly feel better paying for something because that means they're probably selling less of my data. It doesn't mean they're not selling any of it. But there's less likelihood that they need to sell all my data because I'm paying them for the service. And the reason why I like that. market is that it won, it gives you a daily recap of all your transactions. So you basically have to go, like you go in and it shows you, okay, on this day, here's all the things you bought. And it gives you, it tries to automatically categorize it for you, but then you can also go in and change it.

And then you can go through review and say, okay, I accept. And then it'll add it to, like, solidify it into your spending your budget. And I like that because it makes me review what I've been spending, you know, every day. And I can build it up and do like, you know, a week at a time, but I get to see, make sure nothing weird has come through my bank accounts. But also it has this tracking feature for your monthly bills. So I can put in all my recurring bills and then it has like basically checks them off it. I give it. I say like for example, if it's like my, my electric bill, it knows that it's going to come out around this time of month. It's about this amount and then it can automatically categorize it for you. This is one of your recurring ones.

And then it checks it off. So then I can make sure that I didn't skip anything. Like I try to automate as much as I can, but there are some things that make that that I pay manually. So it's nice to be able to see, okay, this bill came out or why didn't this, why didn't this show up? Maybe something was wrong or did the automatic payment not work. So for me, I love tools like that. It has, like, ability to build a budget. You can see how much progress you're making and, like, are you spending too much on eating out or on groceries or on going on, you know,

trips and things like that. So this is not the only option. It's just the one I've been trying out lately. But there's so many out there's one called Wynab. There's Monarch. There's a ton of them out there. But I think, for me, I just downloaded like three or four and I just tried them out. And that is the best thing to do.

It was like, give it a test. See if you like the way this works. So this fits the way your budget and your final. finances work. And then if not, there's a problem with just deleting your account, then moving on to the next one and try to find that one that kind of fits your style. I love that co-pilot. I've heard a lot of people talk about it and say it's great. I want to give it a try. Now, does cope, this is what I need an app to do for me. When I pull in the Starbucks drive through, I need it to be tracking my location and I immediately get an alert that says, no, Cass, turn around. You're over your Starbucks

budget for the month. It probably, that's a little too big brother. maybe it's not quite there yet. Not yet, but I think, yeah, I think someone needs that too. Like just shut my phone off. Turn it off. Shred my card and my wallet. That way I'm not spending anything I don't need to buy. Yeah, just like have some sort of alarm that goes off.

It's like, hey, dummy, no, no more ice chai lattes this month. You've hit your budget. Yeah, okay, this is exciting. I think I might try copilot. Though I love what I'm getting, it doesn't really give me the details that I wish I had. with like really breaking down into different buckets. So it sounds like co-pilot does that, which I think is helpful because it is eye-opening when you realize how much you spend on one certain category when you don't even realize

you're doing it, whether it's your makeup obsession, your Starbucks obsession, or just eating out because all of that adds up really quickly. It does, even though you don't think it does. And I think that's why these apps are so important because you can get a real, it really holds a mirror up to you. It's like, you thought you were doing well. Let me show you what you actually did. Yeah, I love it. Okay. I didn't know anything about money and I really wish I would have because I could have started earlier and I wouldn't have been in the starting off my life in the debt that I had. It took me probably till the age of 30 before I really understood. You still see that I don't understand much, but at least I could, you know, manage a budget and make sure I wasn't, you know, paying interest on things and I was paying for cash and that I had enough savings to feel safe and secure.

and I had a really good handle on my money. But again, I was almost 30. How can we teach our kids about money in a way that sticks, knowing that it's not really being taught in school and that kids are being offered credit cards now first year of university or college without any real idea of what to do, how to manage it, and how any of this works? Do you have suggestions on how we can help our kids

become more financially literate so they don't make the same mistakes we did. Oh, yeah. I think it's so important because like you said, so many of us start off with no information and that's how you get taken advantage of, right, and end up in really tough situations. You know, I don't have any kids,

but I lean on my friends who do have kids to kind of get their experience. And I have friends who have kids all the way from, you know, little kids up to like adults at this point. And so for me, what I've seen from them, some things I've heard from them, some things I've read and like studied about teaching kids about money,

I think there's two things that you can do to really, really help set them up. I think number one is it's a little vulnerable to do this. I think a lot of parents are hesitant. This is probably why most of the parents don't have detailed conversations with their kids about money because it's really helpful if you kind of let them get a little peek into what's going on and how you run your household, how you run your finances. And it can be hard, right? Because I think you want to maintain this position of authority, right? And letting someone, especially that your kids see what you're doing can show them some mistakes that you've made. you can show them that maybe you're not doing as well as they thought you were doing.

And of course, you don't want to overwhelm them. Like, oh, you know what, sorry, we might have to sell the car and move out of our house. You don't want to throw the weight of your financial life on them, but letting them see how you manage your bills. Like, what are bills? Like, what does it actually cost to run this house? Like, for your mortgage or your rent, your utilities, what it costs to go buy groceries. Like, letting them get a peek into what you're doing makes, for them when they become an adult,

it makes it less mysterious, right? Like, you're not like, I have no idea what I'm doing. You're like, oh, I've seen my parents do this. I've seen them sit down and how they, what they have to pay. So I have an idea what it's going to cost for me when I move out and become an adult. I think letting them get a little peak, like, doesn't have to be everything, but letting them see a little bit of how you're running the house and what that looks like. And maybe they gain a little bit of appreciation also for what it actually costs for them to do all the stuff they like to do, right?

Like they have no idea. Money means nothing to you as a good. It's fake. It's nothing. So getting a little peek at what it actually takes to run a house. I think it's a really good idea. And I think the other thing, too, is. to give them a little bit of responsibility.

And with that responsibility, not just like the opportunity to spend some money, like giving them a little bit to manage on their own, but also have to give them the opportunity to fail with that money. Because it's better that they make the mistakes now when it really means nothing versus the first time they get to really mess up is when they become an adult and those stakes are much higher. And I think there's a tendency to want to jump in and stop a kid from failing.

Like, no, no, no, no, don't do that. This is I used to do it. But for me personally, I've learned the most when I've messed up. That's when it really sinks in. I'm like, oh, you know what? That hurt. I really mess that up. Now I know I'm not going to make that mistake again.

I think it's really important to give kids that opportunity to one, be have a little bit of freedom to make their own decisions, but also to mess up and see the repercussions of that failure. And I think it's just, you've got to maybe step back a little bit, even though you want to jump in and intervene, but I think letting them see a little bit about your life and how you manage money and then letting them manage some stuff on their own and mess up,

I think are two great ways to let them kind of take the, step into adulthood and what it means to manage their own money. I love that. Yeah, we have an 18 year old daughter. I did not do right by her. Okay. I did not because I'm so, it went by so fast, man. I don't know what else to say. Like all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, yeah, she's an adult. So she's in college. She's driving to school every day. So she has to pay for her own gas. She has to pay for all her own, anything she wants above and beyond basic living expenses at our house, she has to pay for. So she has a little job. And then we said, okay, we're getting to the point where you're going to have to start paying your cell phone bill. She works two days a week and she went,

what are talking about? There's no money for him. I'm broke. I paycheck to paycheck. How could I possibly? And I'm like, well, it means no more McDonald's. She's like, I'll have, I'll just be working for gas and a phone bill. And I realized. Now I should have been doing that from the beginning because she's had that little extra padding in her budget. So she kind of got used to like door dashing when she doesn't want to go out or stopping for a coffee or a McDonald's breakfast. That's not reality for most people just starting out. We can't spend like that. We just can't spend $12 on a on a breakfast on our way to our job where we make $12 an hour, you know?

No, but I wouldn't blame yourself, right? Like it's hard. Like, look, I'm not a parent, but I'm not a parent. see my brother as a kid, I see other people. That's a lot of work on top of just you also existing as an individual and living your own life. So I don't ever fault anyone for maybe not get around to this. But like you said, like now, even though she's over, she's 18, she's still young enough. She still has time. She still has your support to learn these things. And it sucks. But hey, she's getting like the reality check now. That is, oh yeah, stuff costs money. And I can't

just use all this to do whatever I want to do with it. Yeah. Oh, life's hard, man. Life's hard. It's going to be okay. I just, every day, I'm like, it's okay, Izzy. She's like, I just got paid and I have nothing left. I got paid yesterday and it's all gone. I'm like, welcome to life, my little one. Welcome to life. It's rough out there.

It's rough out there. It's so great. But there are people like you who are there to help us. And your podcast, Popcorn Finance, is amazing. And it's real life advice. And it's amazing advice that can help us improve our finances, but it's delivered in a way that's never boring, friend. So I appreciate that right to the point. And yeah, I recommend everybody listen. So let my listeners know how they can

follow you and how they can learn more about all the knowledge, the wisdom as the financial guru that you have to offer. Oh, thank you so much. I have very kind of you. I really appreciate that. And thanks for having me on the show. It's really great getting to sit here and talk with you and talk with all the people in your audience. And if they want to check out the work that I do at Popcorn Finance. Just search wherever you found this podcast. Search for popcorn finance. You'll find me there. You can also find me on Instagram and TikTok. Just look for popcorn finance. And I'll be over there talking about personal finance stuff and answering questions. And if you have a question, please, feel free to send it into me. I love getting questions from listeners. And I always try to make

episodes around those questions when they come in. So good. And I'm going to make sure that I put links to everything in the description down below in the show notes. So please check that out. you, Chris. Thank you so much for being on the Clutterbug podcast. I'm already feeling a little bit more financially savvy now that I know what an index link to fun is. And I'm definitely going to let my kids see behind the curtain because I haven't done that. It does, it does feel awkward, but you're right. It's something we should all do because how else are they going to know except when I throw them in the deep end of the pool and I don't want them to drown. So water wings time. Exactly. I love to hear out. Please let me know how it goes.

Thank you so much. And thank you everyone listening. I hope you're feeling a little bit inspired to save a little bit, invest a little bit, and track your budget with an app so that you do better in 2025. Thanks so much and we'll see you guys next time.