Help for your financial stress with Lacy Wolff

ERS' own wellbeing expert, Lacy Wolff, joins the hosts Dani, Angelica and Suzanne to discuss trends in member attitudes towards their finances, their financial stressors and helpful ERS resources.

Mentioned in the episode:

ERS Buena Vida Podcast

Buena Vida 

ERS Money Talks newsletter

Wellness webinars

Money Mindsets & the Marketing Trap with Nick Daugherty

From $40K Debt to Financial Freedom: Kari Karber's Journey

Steps to make your emergency savings fund

HealthSelect wellness resources

HealthSelect condition management programs

Texa$aver

Transcript

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(intro) What we know is everything's connected, right? That stress that we can experience from the financial side can increase our blood pressure. It can increase our heart rate. It can affect how well we're sleeping. If we don't have that in order, it's going to be really hard to go out and live a good, solid, healthy life. ERS’ own wellbeing expert, Lacy Wolff, joins today's episode of Money Talks to share what she sees as trending among member attitudes towards their finances, their financial stressors and helpful ERS resources.

Dani Levrie: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Money Talks. This is Dani Levrie. I'm an editor here on Money Matters, the newsletter that distributes Money Talks.

Suzanne Krause: I'm Suzanne Krauss, also one of the editors of Money Matters and Money Talks.

Angelica Rivera: I'm Angelica Rivera

SK: We're really happy to welcome Lacy Wolff to our podcast. She's the ERS coordinator of Statewide Wellbeing Initiatives. And in this role she's helped share many resources about well-being with our members. And that includes financial well-being. Welcome, Lacy. 

Lacy Wolff: Thank you. 

SK: We wanted to have Lacy on to talk about the trend she's seeing and member attitudes to their finances, what their stressors are, and share some of the resources ERS has to help members with their financial well-being. Thank you so much for having me. It's really an honor to be here and to share some of the things that we're learning through the wellness side of, of things here at ERS.

DL: Thanks, Lacy. I want to also mention that Lacy is such an advocate, and she hosts an award-winning podcast, currently Buena Vida Podcast, formerly known as the ERS Walk and Talk Podcast. Many of you may have heard it, and we also encourage you to listen to it because it shares another side of this holistic wellness initiative that we're doing here at Iris. Most recently, Lacy led an initiative for the Buena Vida well-being platform. Lacy, some people may not be aware of what Buena Vida is. Can you give us a brief overview of Buena Vida?

LW: I would love to. It's one of my favorite things to talk about. So first of all, I will just say that we took a lot of time and put a lot into the branding. So Buena Vida means the good life, and we really wanted to have a program that would help people find their good life, whatever that is. And we know that a good life is different for every one of us, depending on, you know, what we want from our lives, our situation, our family, where we live. All of these factors play a big role. And so Buena Vida is not just a platform or an app. It's a program. And it really is all-inclusive for all the things that come, you know, you think of with health and wellbeing. Um, but the platform specifically, I'll talk a little bit about and share some of the benefits and the resources that people might want to know about is through WebMD. So WebMD has the contract currently to supply this platform. We have a mobile application. And through that you can start out you can create a profile, just like I think about it as social media for wellness, right. So you can go in and create your profile and then you can take a health assessment online, take about ten minutes. And just through that right away you get twenty five dollars. This year that's going to change next year. But you earn money that you can spend in a store and that will help to customize you in the platform, kind of living your good life, finding the things that are going to support you most based off of how you answer those questions. It has actions that people can take. We at ERS really wanted to be able to incentivize things that we think are important, like doing your annual preventive exam. So you can do things like that and earn money for doing that. And we have challenges, community groups to support each other. And a lot of other resources that can help drive people toward healthy behaviors. And every quarter I work with Blue Cross, our administrator of our health plan and our internal team and agencies to have campaigns to support well-being. So we have quarterly kind of campaigns, and then we have monthly themes within those campaigns. So for instance, this August, we are in the mental health quarter, but we're focusing on the financial aspect of mental health because we know that finances can deeply impact our mental health and our wellbeing. 

AR: One of the things I really like about the app, Lacy, is it gives you all of your wellness things. You know, access to hello heart, learn to live all the things that maybe folks don't know that are offered through the health plan in one spot. And so rather than having to go out to the website and look, you know, all these different places for different things, you just go to your app and then you have access to all that information in one spot. So that's one of the things I really enjoy about it. 

LW: Yeah, that's exactly what we were wanting to build out, was kind of a one stop shop for all the things. So you may say, you know, like, for instance, if I had a musculoskeletal issue, a report that I'm dealing with chronic pain, I should see in my Take Action section, hinge health pop up there. Right? Or if I have a heart condition or hypertension, I should see Hello Heart our heart heart health program pop up as a resource. So yeah. 

Thank you for mentioning that. 

Yeah. And I think, you know, it ties directly into financial wellness in that these are things maybe you would know are available to you at no cost. And so, you know, just having access to that in those resources, I think not only is obviously part of your physical health, but can directly impact your financial wellness as well too, for sure. And if you think about managing a chronic condition is stressful and it's costly, and a lot of people are trying to do a lot of things on their own, may not realize that we have these amazing benefits out there. And sometimes, I don't know, I've seen research with marketing. You need to see something seven times before it really resonates with you. And so it's kind of like we're just beating that drum through all the different ways that we communicate. And this is I think it's just another great way to to get information out to our population that may help support folks. 

SK: And, Lacy, you had mentioned that people have the health assessment. Um, and one of the components is to answer some questions about their financial well-being. Can you tell us a little more about the stats you're seeing in that?

LW: Yes. That's one of the great things about this app for us ers is that when you take that health assessment, we can run reports on an aggregate level. I can't look at what anybody says individually, but we can see kind of the trends in our population and we can figure out how do we need to focus our efforts to support people more effectively. So, for instance, forty percent of respondents said that financial stress is affecting their health, their job or their relationships. And we have I think over twelve thousand people have taken that health assessment at this point. And so that's a stat that means something to us. And so and again, thinking about all that y'all are doing by putting together this great financial podcast and the newsletter to support, that's how we're responding. You know, we're using this data and actually being able to to put some stuff out there to support folks.

DL: Well, we had some feedback that said, you know what from from a question, what benefits or tools do you feel would help you reduce financial stress? And twenty four point six said retirement planning. So of course we're always talking about Texa$aver, the 401(k) / 457 program and then investment planning was twenty two point two percent. And then help managing cash and debt issues happened to be an eighteen point two percent. So we're constantly looking at how to budget, circling back to some communications, even even you know, you mentioned the the bring something up seven times. You started with the um Kari Karber, now Kari  Winkley story. And we pulled that and we're constantly pushing that information. 

LW: Absolutely. And the Kari's story is so powerful. I hope we can link to that again in the show notes of this episode. But Kari's story was inspirational because she was able to pay off forty thousand dollars. Was it forty thousand dollars, I think, in debt in a pretty short period of time as a single mom. And I think when we look at finances, a lot of times people feel super overwhelmed. Last last week, I had a really great speaker, um, deliver a webinar on this topic. He said. It's less about what we make, more about what we do with what we make, and really forming those good financial habits. And, and that's, that's what we're trying to do is help with the education, because obviously we're not the employer here at ERS, but we do care deeply about people's financial health, mental health, physical health, and especially as state employees. 

AR: Right. That's what's so great about Kari's story is, she's a state employee and she has access to the same resources and benefits that state employees have access to. So it's always great to hear, those success stories, from other state employees. 

LW: Absolutely. And I think it was interesting just last week hearing the story from the speaker. His name is Nick Daughtry. He talked about just one of the biggest things that we do in America is we get into these huge car payments, right? Like, yeah. He said eighteen percent of people in America, I think it was eighteen percent of people in America have a car payment over one thousand dollars. And in Texas, it's we are like the worst because of our big trucks.

AR: We love our cars. We love our cars.

DL: A thousand dollars a month a month. Y

AR: Yeah. It's pretty. And there's some people. 

LW: Yeah, some people have car payments over one thousand five hundred dollars a month. He was saying, now on these long term payments, you know. Yeah. It's wild. It's like, you know, house payment. So, um, or what a house payment used to be. so. 

SK: Well, I think that's why this episode is relatable because everybody has some sort of moment in their life and maybe they've overcome it where financial stress was a big part. Or defining, even if it was, you know, like, personally, I've had you know, big vet bills that I wasn't prepared for that prompted me to get pet insurance, which was a really good financial move and just preparing. You know, some of it is inexperience and others is just really getting good with your finances and making a budget. So hopefully with the resources, you can learn to be more confident and take some of that stress out, because the budget should really guide you and not stress you out, I think. 

LW: Yeah, absolutely. And I like how Nick talks about you have to put things into the budget that will help you stick to a budget. So for instance, if you know that you like, you know, shopping for clothes, create a budget for it. Like put one hundred dollars in a in your monthly budget that allows you some flexibility so that you can go shopping for something that's going to give you joy. Because if you make it miserable, it's going to be hard to stick to a budget. So yeah, I think these, um, these things all definitely we can all relate. And everybody's had their financial challenges, but it's really coming back to those daily habits and, you know, figuring out what's going to work. Everybody's different. 

DL: Me personally, holding to a one hundred dollars shopping clothing budget would be a difficult challenge. But I, you know, I think having a community of people to help you, like my friends will, will definitely be able to help me do that. I could say, hey, you know, we can window shop, but I'm not going to take my credit card or my card inside of there. I think that, um, you know, challenges are so, so helpful for us all. And I think that's part of the reason why I also like Buena Vida. And you kind of brought up the assessment earlier So I went ahead and took it, and I was shocked and disappointed because I thought it was going to score higher. But I did get some Buena Vida Bucks, so I'm okay with that. But it did connect me with some things for the community to help me in the elements that I very much need help in.

LW: Yeah. I'm so happy you said that, Dani, because, yeah, just signing up for the program isn't going to get you that twenty five bucks, but you have to go in and do that health assessment. It should take about ten minutes and it really does help guide your experience in the app. So it's yeah, it's a really great entry point. And if you haven't been in the app or on the, you can use the web based platform on your computer as well. It's going to prompt you to do that until you do it. 

SK: And Lacy, you have a particular, insight into how finances, impact people's, you know, life, more broadly. Can you tell us a little more about what you know about that? 

LW: Yeah. So my formal educational background is in exercise physiology. And so I spent a lot of time kind of learning just about human physiology, how the body works and what we know is everything's connected, right? And so the brain is connected to the body and how you think impacts your hormones. And every emotion you experience will create a shift in your heart, your digestive system, and so on. And I think about like going back to psychology one hundred and one, the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? We all had that class probably at some point. Or you've seen that that hierarchy and security is really at the bottom of the pyramid. And when we are financially stressed, right? So if you're experiencing some sort of financial burden or major issue, you're having a hard time making ends meet that's going to impact being able to put food on the table. It could impact your shelter, your ability to buy your children clothing for school, which is going to impact their experience. And so all of those things that stress that we can experience from the financial side can increase our blood pressure. It can increase our heart rate, it can affect how well we're sleeping. And all of these things contribute to these chronic conditions that we're seeing so prevalent in our society. Um, also, when we don't have a budget in place, we're more likely to like just swing through and buy fast food from a from a window, right? Because it's easy and it's cheap and that's going to impact our health. But having that that food budget and really kind of thinking about how am I going to live my life week by week, meal prepping and things like that can make a huge difference. So to me it's it's all interconnected. And the financial piece is really kind of down there at the base of the pyramid. If we don't have that in order, it's going to be really hard to go out and live a good, solid, healthy life. Um, for our families. 

DL: I fully agree, I think that, um, right now is an excellent time for us to maybe challenge ourselves and others. Uh, with the start of the new state fiscal year to to really develop a new budget. Uh, there are lots of new things coming at us, new new schedules, new elements inside of our careers that it might be a good challenge for us, internally within us. And then also, uh, you know, our subscribers to create a new budget. And I think that will be able to really help them out in this addition, too.

LW: Yeah, I love that. I think, uh, creating the budget is our first, first step. And really, even before creating a budget is figuring out over the past month. How did I spend my money? Like, where is it going? If you don't have a budget already? For me and my husband, when we started budgeting, I realized that we were spending way too much money on restaurants. Like, just way too much money. Because I love to eat out. Like, I love to not have to do the dishes. But that was a wake up call. And if I'm just, you know, spending have no idea, then, uh, yeah. 

AR: So the awareness and then and I like how you said, you know, if you're spending put it in your budget. Right. Because I think that was my thing for a long time. I was like, well, I just won't buy a new outfit this month, you know, I'm going to and I won't put it in my budget. But what did I do? I went and bought a new outfit anyway, and so it's just like budget for it. Put it in there. And to your point, the awareness is probably one of the key factors. So and then you feel guilty because you bought the new outfit and you can't enjoy it. So yeah it's it's a cycle. 

DL: I agree. So I went ahead and challenged myself this month to see how much I'm going over my budget for groceries and spending. And right now, because my schedule's been changing a lot with my in-office schedule, I've been spending a whole lot on convenient spending. Like I'm driving in my commutes kind of long. I'll drive and grab my food and have that convenience eating while I'm driving. Of course, it's one handed. It quickly shove it down my throat. Right. But, um, then I come into the office, I'm working, and I buy some food here, too. And I have to admit, my budgets. Right. So I challenged myself, and I laugh all you want, laugh all you want. But I challenged myself one week, and I saved sixty dollars. Not doing that convenient spending just for. Just for lunch. I'm still doing my breakfast and dinner, but yeah. Yes, yes, I enjoy food and I'm gonna make sure that I'm gonna eat something healthy. And sometimes healthy foods are a little bit expensive, right? 

SK: But they're worth it. 

DL: They are worth it. But you know what else is worth it? Making those healthy foods at the house where I know that I can spend my money in places that maybe it's best suited for me in the long term and something that really creates a routine for me, because I think that's one thing that's really helpful, is having that routine to avoid having to come back to my budget weekly or month by month, to try to adjust and maneuver in a safe way for my mental health and my finances. Right? 

LW: Yeah. That's great. I mean, and it is really I think the thing is as well, you can make adjustments month by month. You aren't stuck. Like if you realize, oh, I need I'm going to need a little more money in this area because that's not working for me. We've got to figure out how to make adjustments, but we only make what we make. You know, unless you want to pick up an extra job and, um, you know, drive Uber or something like that. There's always side gigs that can help, 

DL: But even then, you're you're spending money on gas, right? You're going to be adding to that wear and tear.

SK: And it's pretty stressful to add a second or third job and not have that time as downtime. And hopefully if you get your budget in order, I think you can kind of you don't have to monitor it all the time forever. Once you get good with it. I think it can. It takes some practice, but hopefully a good budget can keep you from having to keep your eye on it, like every single purchase. 

DL: Absolutely. So whenever I took my health assessment through Buena Vida, I got a score for some of the things that are impacting my life. And one of them was stress. So it did push me information for stress. And one of them was the Learn to Live application and just other community elements for it. 

LW: Right. Yeah. Learn to live. You know for anybody who's managing stress that's another program. Absolutely no cost to our health plan participants. It's digital and I've been going through the resiliency course. So I think this is a good one even if you aren't managing a condition. Or maybe you don't have full blown anxiety or depression or substance use issues. We can all learn some skills to be more resilient so that when stuff does happen, as it inevitably will in our lives, we're all going to deal with stress. Then we got some tools and some resources to really be able to to address that.

AR: So going back to one of the stats you mentioned earlier, Lacy, we said that forty percent of the respondents that took the health risk assessment within the Buena Vida app stated that financial stress was impacting their health, job or relationships. And so we talk a lot about, like, sure, establish a budget and all these kinds of things. But the app can help with maybe, like you said, meeting people where they are. Right? Maybe you just got to get the stress under control before you can even think about a budget or what's next with my budget. Um, so maybe we talk a little bit about the resources that that are available. 

LW: Yeah. And I think that that's such a great point. Forty percent of, of people are, you know, trying to manage financial stress. But maybe the thing that you need is to talk to a therapist, right? Maybe you need to really seek professional help, because maybe there's some underlying stuff there that is affecting you and that is so overwhelming that, you know, you got to figure that out before you can deal with this budget. And so we have a couple of programs, you know, like MDLive and Doctor on Demand. We have virtual mental health visits at no cost to plan participants. A lot of people don't know that. And we have a huge network of mental health support that you can see someone in person, um, for a traditional copay as well, which, um, you know, I think there's a lot, just a lot of resources out there. 

AR: So the Doctor on Demand and MDLive are at no, they don't have a copay. No. If you're using the app. 

LW: Yeah. It's amazing. And you think about how expensive mental health can be, you know, when you don't have employer insurance. But the access to that, you know, online is is amazing. I just got off the phone with a very close friend of mine that works for the state that is seeing a therapist online, and it has been a game changer for her. 

AR: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, just talking through what's going on in your head, right? And we think about to be able to verbalize it. Right? Yeah. With an objective person that's going to look at it. 

LW: Exactly. Yeah. In a different way. 

AR: And I know so many people that, you know, they just go out to their car and they're on their therapy visit and, you know, they just do that and come back and it's at no cost. And it's a really cool thing. So. Yeah. And you can get to that through Buena Vida. To your point you can get right to those resources. 

DL: That's me, you know, I'm just a go, go, go person. And I think that, like, it's definitely a mental thing. So for me, I see my therapist and I am actually pretty stressed about my finances. Right. So I have a decent salary, I have an excellent credit score, low debt. But it's really just the mindset that I grew up with that makes me so concerned about my finances. You know, like growing up, we didn't we did a month to month kind of thing. And it's concerning, right? So having that individual be able to like, help me plan things out, even though I have my budget, I stick to it and I it's not like I don't plan that sixty dollars lunch in there. It's associated with food. But maybe I'm spending excessively on food. Right. Mhm. Um, but I think that it's definitely something that's really important to me. And I wish more individuals did I see my therapist weekly. If I'm having to be in the office, I'll go take my lunch hour and I'll go talk to my therapist in my car. So maybe Angelica's talking about me whenever she's talking about so many people to do that.

AR: I used to do it, too. Um, but yeah, I know I tell a lot of people like, hey, let's go have lunch. And they're like, oh, right after my therapy session, I'm like, cool, we'll work that into. So I think it's I mean, it's a cool thing to have access to that at your fingertips. The other thing about these stats, I'm looking at these stats. I love these stats. I think I've told you that before. They just are so telling. And the other thing that a lot of people are interested in is, you know, financial planning resources and, you know, retirement planning. And I think a lot of these respondents are probably more tenured in their state career. But I talk to a lot of people when I travel to that, you know, they're younger and they're thinking about financial planning now and retirement planning. And I think that that's, you know, one of the things that we try to push all the time, I think Dani mentioned it earlier, is the availability of the Texas Saver RPAs. And whether you're contributing or not, you know, I think a lot of people don't even know they're contributing. And it just, you know, it's so it's so, um, it's kind of a cool thing because it's like, oh, I've been putting this money aside and you're like, wow, I didn't even know that was there. But, you know, knowledge is power. And so just talking to someone, um, about what your situation is and what your long term goals are, I mean, that's a resource that we have available at no cost, right? So, um, and I think we probably have a card for Texa$aver. 

LW: We do. Yeah. You can get right to Texa$aver from the Buena Vida Portal as well. We have links to and the Texa$aver. The website has come so far. I mean, it's really they've got some phenomenal tools on that website so you can project for the future and really have your stuff in order. Um, and I mean, there's great education there. You don't even have to talk to somebody. But if you wanted to, they they'd make those counselors available at no cost. Like you said, they have a budgeting tool. 

SK: Yeah. When you're in your, logged into your account and see your dashboard, you can do savings planner, you can bring in your whole financial picture and do budgeting rainy day fund. And I think we see that in some of the survey respondents that people want help, they don't really know how to plan for an emergency fund. Um, or you know, how much that should be and when they should use it. Um, even though Danny has written an article for Money Matters, if anybody wants to go back and look at that.

DL: Oh, all, all of these things are going to be in the show notes.

LW: Yeah, it's going to be a long list of show notes. Oh yes. 

AR: Yes I love it. Yeah. All of these programs that we're talking about can be found in the app. 

LW: Yes. Yes. And some of them are triggered by the way you answer questions or claims data so there are things that people, everyone will see all the time. And then there are things that only if you have a condition. But the other really great thing about this program is that if you go in and you say, I have diabetes, we can reach out to you through email, through the program and say, here's all the resources that we have to support you. And we have Wondr Health. We have Real Appeal. We have Omada for Diabetes. Maybe there's some more that I'm leaving out, but there's all these programs that we have available, so we can also email that to you directly. And so that's just another way that we can get those resources to, to our plan participants. And again, I mean we have to say this stuff so many times sometimes because like Dani said, I might not be ready to change my life right now. Like, I might have too much going on to focus on changing my nutrition because I'm taking care of a sick parent, right? Like, there are times in our life where we just need to get by. Like, just live every day. Yeah. And then when we're ready, it's there.

AR: I like the idea that, you know, the whole holistic wellness aspect of Buena Vida is so amazing. And I think August is sort of the month where we talk a lot about financial wellness. Um, and you have some content that you put out this month in addition to your podcast. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? 

LW: Sure. So we had a webinar I talked about a little bit about earlier with Nick Daughtry, and we had, I think over five hundred people attended that webinar live. I have it recorded and we can also put a link to that webinar in the show notes. It was very well received, really great content. He's always really inspirational. And then on the twenty eighth of August, we are going to be doing a webinar on healthy eating on a budget, which I am overwhelmed with the response we're getting on this. We have over a thousand people registered for that webinar. So that tells me that's something that people really want help with is how to eat well on a budget. AR: It can be expensive.

LW: Oh it's so yeah, it can be so expensive. And so Holly Cuzzo, who is our dedicated sorry, who is our dedicated, um, program manager at WebMD. She's going to be coming in and delivering that content. And so we're excited to push that out as well. And then I have been promoting what y'all do. 

AR: So cool. And all of that is prerecorded too, right, Lacy. So they can find that hopefully, like you said, we'll put it in the show notes but also on online. 

LW: Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Great. 

SK: Also in the Buena Vida app, when you complete your, incentives and get your Buena Vida Bucks, there is a whole little store there to spend your Buena Vida Bucks. And there are many, many cool items. But specifically, on topic to this episode, some of the items include, a subscription to Goodbudget, a budgeting app. Also, the Calm app, the Headspace app, and a book called The Psychology of Money and some other things, um, specifically to reducing anxiety and financial stress. 

AR: Oh that's cool. I didn't realize we had books and stuff on there, and it was pretty easy to get those Buena Vida Bucks.

LW: It's so easy. Yeah, we've made it so easy this year. We wanted to make it super simple. Three actions you can earn your full one hundred one bucks, which is ninety nine dollars in value that you can spend in a store. Um, and if anyone's wondering, we have to. We have to stay under one hundred dollars. That's why it's capped at ninety nine dollars because of tax implications, because we're not the employer. We want to tax anyone

AR: We don't want to tax anybody.

LW: And we don't have to send out tax forms to everyone. That creates a whole other layer of challenge. But we have ninety nine dollars that we can work with, and this year is twenty five dollars or twenty five points for doing the health risk assessment. We keep talking about twenty five for downloading the app. I mean, that's the easiest twenty five dollars you'll ever make, right? And then fifty dollars for doing your annual preventive exam. Because we're really trying to get folks to engage with preventive health care. And that's a really great first step if you have a PCP, which most people in our health plan do. You can go see your PCP. It cost you nothing to do that. To do that visit, you'll get your blood work. If you don't go to your PCP regularly, you can do this virtually from home through a Catapult kit. All of that is available in the app. All that information. So yeah, next year we're going to change this a little bit though. So just keep keep an eye out. You want to earn your points this year and spend them.

AR: When do they have until 

LW: We are encouraging people to get their annual exam before November fifteenth, because it can take four to six weeks for that claim to process. You don't have to do anything either. The claim will go through Blue Cross and be sent to WebMD, so you don't have to do anything to get your fifty dollars. It should just pop up in your app and, um, and then you can spend it. But before November fifteenth, you'll be safe. Uh, if you do it after that, you might, you know, we just you may not get that point in time to spend them because they have to be spent before the end of this tax year, December thirty first.

AR: Real quick, Lacy, like in addition to the things that Suzanne just mentioned. I mean, there's Nike hats on here. There's the viral Stanley cups that everyone goes crazy for, there's Yetis, there's Oakley sunglasses. 

DL: Oakley sunglasses. Wow.

LW: Yeah, it's all mostly health related things. It was interesting too. We went back to Well OnTarget, the program that we had before through Blue Cross and looked at what people were spending there. It was Blue Points before. What are people spending their Blue Points on. And I don't know if anyone else finds this interesting, but the number one item people redeemed points for was the Gun and Garden magazine. So we added that to our store.

AR: Interesting. 

LW: Because Texas. 

AR: Because Texas, I love it so much.

DL: I was going to guess the toothbrushes. I you know, I have to admit, end of the year, right? It's the end of the year. So in the event that you maybe are budgeting, maybe you want to get somebody a gift, a healthy gift. 

LW: Yeah.

DL: With your Buena Vida Bucks, their toothbrushes and of course, the Stanley Cup that Angelica mentioned. So, Lacy, you're talking about the future of Buena Vida. Can you tell us what's in store for the upcoming year? 

LW: Yes. So I'm super excited to announce our upcoming challenge. It's called Trek through Texas. This is a state park themed challenge that we've been working collaboratively with Texas Parks and Wildlife, WebMD, and others together. And it's a six week challenge. And the goal is to get fifty thousand steps in a week, which is about seven thousand steps a day. Seven thousand is what we know is really helpful for heart health. Um, ten thousand. It's kind of been debunked. I don't know if y'all knew that, but ten thousand is so interesting. Yeah, I mean, ten thousand is great, but seven thousand is really where we see the most benefit. After that, it's, uh, not not quite as much benefit. Um, but if you want to do. Well, that's good news. Yeah, that's good news. So that's our goal is to get fifty thousand steps a week, and then you get entered into a drawing for a state parks pass, uh, donated by Texas Parks and Wildlife. And, um, so that's that's our big challenge that starts on September fifteenth and registration will open on September first. And I also just want to share, um, I guess this is a good time to share what's happening in the next year. Personally, I am actually leaving my role here at ERS. And so this is a little bittersweet, to announce, but I think this is a good forum to to kind of push that out because, um, yeah, I just want to thank miss you. 

AR: We will miss you. 

DL: You'll be so missed. Yeah. 

LW: Well, I'm gonna miss you all. It certainly is. Like I said, bittersweet is the emotion for leaving this amazing place. I have really loved, loved, the opportunities that I've had here. And I absolutely love the people that I've had the opportunity to work with and support across the state. Um, but I'm excited for the next adventure.

I'm vested, you know. I've been with the state close to twelve years, and so I'm just going to leave my money here and, um. 

AR: Smart move. Yeah. 

LW: And maybe, maybe come back and finish out with state government and get a retirement.

AR: Lots of people do that. Yeah. It's a good move. 

DL: So you did your research and you spoke to the most knowledgeable individuals that you're aware of within your rest to make sure that you're making the best decision for your finances moving forward. Of course, you're aware of what you're doing with your upcoming role, but you wanted to be sure that you were aware of what you're doing with your pension and your 401 (k) / 457, everything you're doing with Texa$aver prior to leaving. So that that's really amazing.

SK: And the program will continue, we’ll rehire for the role and people will still get Buena Vida and the, you know, hopefully

AR: She set it up for success before she before she leaves us. And I know, you know, you've done amazing work with that Lacy. So congratulations and a lot of connections throughout the state with our benefits coordinators and those, at the various agencies we serve. So thank you so much.

DL: You did the great thing that the national park things, you left it better than you visited it.

LW: All right. Thank you, I love that, I love that or I guess the state parks. 

LW: Yeah. State park. Any parks? Right?

DL: Yes. Nature. You're you're leaving us better than when you saw us and you visited. Thank you. 

AR: Well, thanks for joining us, Lacy. We really appreciate it. For everyone listening, go download the app. You'll have access to a ton of resources. Lots of, things that you didn't know existed in terms of offerings for your health plan and well-being initiatives. 

SK: Thanks, Lacy, again for being on today's episode. We're going to miss you, but you've left us with lots of wonderful resources. And, as always with our listeners, we love to get your feedback on any of the things we've been discussing or what you'd like to hear in future episodes. So please send us your ideas at Story_ideas at ers.gov.gov. Because we'd love to hear your thoughts on Money Talks.

Speaker This material is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide investment, legal or tax recommendations or advice.