Doing Better with Money By Talking About It with Ralph Estep Jr - 184

In this episode, I’m joined by Ralph Estep Jr., a seasoned financial coach and host of The Ask Ralph Show. We dive into why simply talking about money can be the game-changer you need to make smarter financial decisions. Ralph and I swap some crazy credit union stories, reflect on the importance of financial literacy, and explore how humility, simplicity, and consistency are core traits of financial success. You’ll walk away from this episode feeling empowered to talk more openly about money and build better habits, one conversation at a time.

💰 This Week’s Money Talking Points

1. What’s a financial mistake you’ve learned to avoid because of others?
2. How important are regular money talks to you?
3. Which of the 5 traits do you need to work on to do better with your money? (Intentionality, Discipline, Learning, Generosity, Gratefulness)

⏱️ Key Timestamps

[02:00] – Quitting my job to become a CFP + why regular money talks made it possible

[04:00] – Why money talks matter: Learning from others' mistakes

[06:30] – Missed opportunities when you don’t talk about money (like prepaying your mortgage)

[08:30] – The power of starting young and saving early

[10:30] – Even high earners live paycheck to paycheck—here’s why

[12:00] – Employer match = free money. Why are you stepping over it?

[16:30] – My hot take on credit card hacking and keeping things simple

[20:00] – Emergency fund reality check: Start with $10/week

[24:00] – Conversations = solutions. Don’t suffer in silence

[27:30] – Let go of shame. Today can be your fresh financial start

[29:00] – Ralph’s 5 traits of financially successful people

🔗 Mentions & Resources

Ralph Estep Jr.'s Website: FinanciallyConfidentChristian.com

FREE BOOK: Mastering Your Finances: financiallyconfidentchristian.com/master

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

Welcome Money Buddies to this week's episode of Money Talk. This week we're talking about crazy credit union stories, learning from others' mistakes, and why financial literacy is so important. I'm your host, Skylar Fleming, and let's get talking. I'm very excited for this conversation today. As many of you know, I used to work in a call center for a credit union, and this is where I found out how much I enjoyed money and helping people with their money. So today's guest, when he mentioned that he also worked at a credit union. I knew this would be a great crossover and a time for us to share some crazy stories and what we've learned at our credit unions that we both worked at. So there's gonna be some exciting stories shared and then some exciting things that we learned. You would be surprised by some of the crazy stories and situations that happen when you're on the phone trying to help people out from sad stories to people getting scammed to very rude and crazy members who you'd really don't want to help at all. So I'm excited to share some of my stories today on this episode, so be sure to stay tuned for the money talking points at the end so you can hear some of those stories. But let's keep this one moving with why it's so important to talk about money and what we learn from others, as well as how we can avoid making those same mistakes. But real quick, in the Skyler story time today, I. I quit my day job in order to take a break to finish studying for the certified financial planner exam. And I'm changing careers. I'm moving from marketing and public relations into financial planning, so I'm super excited for this and this is all because of regular money talks. I'm gonna get into this more in the money talking points later, but regular money talks with my wife and I have allowed us to plan for this and allowed us to feel comfortable with taking this risk and taking this. Sacrifice for me to change careers. So thankfully my wife works a job as a PA where she makes enough money to provide for our household. So I'm able to take this chance to switch careers and change and find something new to do. So that's the story. Time for today is about how I quit my day job and now I'm focusing a lot on the podcast right now, but also focusing on passing the certified financial planner exam, and I'm super excited for that. But today's money Buddy is Ralph a Steppe Jr. Ralph is a highly respected financial evangelist and entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience getting individuals. Business owners and organizations through the complexities of financial management. As the host of the Ask Ralph Show, he's become a trusted voice in the personal and business finance space. Ralph shares practical, actionable insights designed to help people take control of their money, align their financial goals with their faith, and build a foundation for long-term success. And you're gonna love this conversation today. It's a great one. So make sure you stay tuned. But the money talking points for this week are first, what's a financial mistake that you've learned to avoid because of others? Second, how important to regular money talks to you? And third, which of the five traits do you need to work on to do better with your money? And I'll share those once we get to that money talking point. But you're gonna hear them mentioned by Ralph in the interview. But with those money talking points in mind, let's get talking and welcome Ralph to the show.

Ralph Estep Jr: 2:58

Skyler, thank you for having me today.

Skyler: 3:00

Yes, I'm super excited for this conversation. We connected online and I noticed that you worked for a credit union and that connected with me because I also worked for a credit union, I'm sure we've both heard some crazy stories. We've helped some people, I'm sure we've seen some people maybe try to take advantage of credit unions. There's always some crazy stories that come out from that, I just wanted to talk about what we learn from other people, because I think that's an essential part of having good money talks is understanding that you can learn from people. What do you think the value is in talking about money when it comes to learning?

Ralph Estep Jr: 3:32

Well, I think in this country we do a bad job of teaching people. How to manage their money.

Skyler: 3:37

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 3:38

parents wonder why their kids don't do well with money, and then they look at their parents who struggle with money.

Skyler: 3:42

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 3:43

I think if you can start to have a conversation about money, because here's the thing, You're gonna learn where people made mistakes. You're gonna learn about the pitfalls that people have fallen into themselves. it's absolutely important that we do that because it will help you understand the pitfalls that are in front of you. Help you understand just what other people have been through

Skyler: 4:02

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 4:03

don't feel shame because other people have struggled as well. You know, I talk about this on my show all the time. I've made mistakes and I have a master's degree in accounting. I've been doing this for 30 plus years. I make mistakes also, but when I talk to people, I learn from them. I get to have a better understanding of how to potentially avoid those, pitfalls and some great ways to do things better.

Skyler: 4:22

Yeah, I think that's what's so awesome is you learn great ways to do things better, but really what's essential is avoiding those mistakes that people made. Like I've come on here and I've shared that I wanted to be way too math focused with my wife's student loans, which led her to. Have an emotional reaction to feel like I was requiring her to work for the 10 or 15 years that we were gonna pay them off. So I will share that one until it is like beat to a pulp because if someone else can avoid that mistake and get their marriage off on the right foot, where you're considering both emotions and the math when it comes to money, that's gonna be a huge deal for people. And honestly, that's why it's so fun to talk about it on a platform like this, is that you get to share with a wide audience and then if there's one or two people that say, hey. That story really helped me and my wife and I are now on a better financial page. Like that's worth everything because then they're able to teach it better to their children if they have them or other people around them. What is the risk if we completely shut ourselves off from that conversation?

Ralph Estep Jr: 5:20

you started with the biggest one and that's marital conflict.

Skyler: 5:22

Hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 5:23

Look, I honestly think that is the biggest cause of marital strife to be very candid with you,

Skyler: 5:28

I agree.

Ralph Estep Jr: 5:29

Nine times outta 10 it's money. and two people are

Skyler: 5:32

I.

Ralph Estep Jr: 5:32

They come from different experiences. Your wife or you may have come from a place where money was really scarce and it was a tough thing. Or you might come from a place where we had plenty of money. We never had to worry about a budget. We never had to worry about what we would call restrictions I also think, and this is one of the things I really focus in on my daily show, is it's creates financial stress, it creates anxiety, and if we don't talk about it. you keep that buildup inside

Skyler: 5:57

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 5:58

It also gives you missed opportunities. There's opportunities when you talk about my, there's things you may not have considered. I'll give you a great example of this. I was doing some financial counseling the other day with somebody on the phone and I said, well, tell me about what's going on with your finance. And he said, well, I've got this, I got that. And I said, you have a mortgage? She goes, yeah, I got a mortgage. I said, well, has anybody ever talked to you about prepaying your mortgage?

Skyler: 6:19

Hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 6:20

she said, Ralph, what are you talking about? Let me just walk you through a No, and this is, this is interesting. I said, lemme just walk you through a real simple scenario. I said, how much extra could you throw at your mortgage every month? says, well, right now I could probably throw$500 a month extra. I said, great. Let's do the math.

Skyler: 6:38

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 6:38

years off of our 30 year mortgage. By paying$500 more a month. It was a huge number,

Skyler: 6:44

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 6:45

we had that conversation, because we had that discussion. If we hadn't had that discussion, she would've been perfectly contentious. Continue upon her way of paying that 30 year mortgage and

Skyler: 6:55

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 6:55

of paying her mortgage, she would've paid a million dollars for a$300,000 house.

Skyler: 6:59

Yeah. And that's a fantastic story because 10 years is a long time. if you can tell someone in 10 years less time, you'll be living with the biggest asset that people have in their lives that fills the most free to not have that mortgage hanging around your neck. I think that's one of the things people always say is when you pay off a home, it's a different level of ownership because there's nothing the bank can do about it. So that's such an awesome story about opportunities. One of the things I like to share is that when you begin to talk about money and begin to plan it, you're gonna have what seems to be more money coming into your life because you're gonna know what to do with it if you're not talking about it or planning for it. You're still getting money in all these different ways except you're not knowing where it's going. You're just spending it. But when you have those conversations, those opportunities begin to open up. That's such a fantastic example. I love that one.

Ralph Estep Jr: 7:44

I've got a tax client right now. They come in every year, they've been made their taxes done probably with me for 20 years. And every year they come in, they say, you're the guy who saved our finances. And I always chuckle, I say, they said we paid off our house in 10 years. and the husband just retired. And he goes, Ralph, I did this because of you.

Skyler: 8:00

Hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 8:00

And I was like, no, you did it because of your hard work. I appreciate the accolades and I appreciate what you're saying, but think about how impactful that is.

Skyler: 8:08

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 8:08

a person in his late fifties. Who's able to retire we had a conversation about paying your house off early and it changed their financial dynamic forever.

Skyler: 8:22

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I love to talk to young adults. That's kind of my target demographic as I try to speak to people who were where I was five or 10 years ago to get them started earlier. What kind of power do you think that sort of conversation, even if the people in their forties or fifties are having these conversations and it's still. Changing their financial life. what kind of impact can having these conversations even earlier have?

Ralph Estep Jr: 8:43

the thing that I see time and time again is my clients and people that I work with who start saving early. seriously, like your first job, you're 21, 22, 23 years old, put money into that 401k.

Skyler: 8:56

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 8:56

don't realize even a hundred dollars a month, what that means to you. In 30 years, in 40 years.

Skyler: 9:05

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 9:05

young people, you know, I've got this mentality I'm gonna live for today. it's a big party this weekend, I'm gonna go buy this and I'm gonna go buy that. But if you have that conversation. Somebody that can kind of, mentor you is probably a good term to use

Skyler: 9:17

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 9:18

you and say, Hey, guess what? You're not gonna miss it$25 a week. Doesn't, it is not a lot of money.

Skyler: 9:24

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 9:25

as well as I do that just escalates and gets bigger and bigger and the younger you start the better. Because the other side of that is the people that I talk to who are 55 and have zero in retirement.

Skyler: 9:38

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 9:38

Trust me. I think the latest statistic I read is 67% of the US population lives paycheck to paycheck.

Skyler: 9:45

That's crazy.

Ralph Estep Jr: 9:46

secret nobody wants to talk about. Everybody assumes, well, that's people that don't make a lot of money. Wrong answer Listen, I've got clients make$300,000 a year that live paycheck to paycheck. But if you start off early, you start off with an action plan. You start off with a focus, like I'll call it your intentional spending plan. Even when you're young, the best time to do it because if not, you're gonna be, and listen, I'm gonna share something with the listeners here. I didn't really start my retirement planning I was almost 48 years old now. I'll be 53 in September. So I've got a little bit of ground to make up now.

Skyler: 10:18

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 10:19

I've been blessed. I've got a very successful business. I don't say that being arrogant, but I do. But had I thought back and said, at 25, if I was just doing a little bit, it would've been huge.

Skyler: 10:31

Yeah, and I wanna share from the perspective of, thankfully I did start early. My time in the credit union is what kicked me off to getting started with that. Seeing people who were in a bad financial situation and saying, I never want to be. In that situation. at my current job, I started with just that employer match, just making sure to get the employer match in the 401k and that was enough. I think it's like one 20 to maybe 200 a month depending on bonuses or whatever. And only like three years into it, my money, half of the account is just company match and growth.

Ralph Estep Jr: 11:01

Yep.

Skyler: 11:01

for those listening, they're saying, oh, it's not gonna do anything. It only took three years for my money to essentially double as far as I've put in there and what it actually equals. there's a whole bunch of value in that money that's gonna continue to grow over the next three years, or 10 years or 20 years. So getting started now is a huge deal. when you mentioned that 67% of people are living paycheck to paycheck, if you think about the median household income, 67% is over half. That means that if you wanted to just look at that average or middle of the road salary that people are making, that means people making more than that. And everywhere down, if you think it's just because you don't have enough money, that's a large chunk of people living paycheck to paycheck. over half of the people you look at, you're out on the store or whatever, and you see three people, two of them are probably living paycheck to paycheck. That is a ton of people in a really worrying statistic.

Ralph Estep Jr: 11:50

Yeah. And you brought up something crucial to talk about, and that is how many people don't at least contribute enough for the employer And I liken it to this. It's the picture. You're walking down the sidewalk, right? You're walking to the park. There's a hundred dollars bill laying on the ground. If you're not contributing at least enough to the

Skyler: 12:07

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 12:08

And I am floored how many people don't do that. Because it's one of the things when I meet with people, I'll say to'em, okay, tell me about your retirement plan at work. Yeah, we've got one. Yeah, I'm young. I'm not worried about that. Well, but you're leaving money on the table. I don't even care if you're not trying to get to that maximum contribution

Skyler: 12:24

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 12:25

at least do this.

Skyler: 12:28

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 12:28

and it's their eyes. Are you serious? Yes, you are leaving money on the

Skyler: 12:32

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 12:33

Bend

Skyler: 12:33

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 12:34

pick up the a hundred dollars bill. I think that's a great analogy.

Skyler: 12:37

Yeah, I love that. That's exactly how I'm gonna start teaching it to people is like, maybe I'll have to keep a hundred dollars bill in my pocket and I'll just throw it on the floor and be like, what are you gonna do about that? And they'll be like, well, I'm gonna pick it up. that's the obvious answer.

Ralph Estep Jr: 12:47

a no brainer, but how many people just step over it and continue walking with their head buried in their phone And it's simple.

Skyler: 12:55

simple is exactly what I was about to ask about next. you talked about a simple conversation where it's like saying, oh, are you gonna leave and walk over a hundred dollars bill? Or maybe if your employer's generous, it may even be more than that, that conversation isn't complicated. Do these money talks have to be complicated in the spreadsheets to actually be helpful.

Ralph Estep Jr: 13:12

Absolutely not. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out personal finance.

Skyler: 13:17

Yep.

Ralph Estep Jr: 13:18

it's simple. Just Focus on small things.

Skyler: 13:21

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 13:22

on small things that you can accomplish. one of the big things I talk about on, I, I do a daily podcast show, a thing I talk about every day is track where your money goes.

Skyler: 13:32

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 13:33

Just write it down. You don't have to get fancy with it. You don't have to go buy a bunch of apps. you can get a pad of paper, a little notebook but keep it simple.

Skyler: 13:42

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 13:42

and you don't have to get stuck on all kinds of jargon. it doesn't matter.

Skyler: 13:46

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 13:47

And just take small steps, little actions. Just start with one simple question, what can I do with my money? what is my short term plan? What is my intermediate

Skyler: 13:55

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 13:55

my long-term plan? People make it so complicated, the problem with making it complicated is people get overwhelmed.

Skyler: 14:02

Yes.

Ralph Estep Jr: 14:03

I can't do this. I said, this is way too complicated for me. Asset allocation models. And I'm

Skyler: 14:09

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 14:09

this YouTube and this guy's carrying on about this. It's not that complicated,

Skyler: 14:13

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 14:14

and that's where I think a lot of people make their mistake. They think you have to have a degree in accounting, or you've gotta have a degree in finance to figure out personal finances. It's kind of like a diet. And I've lost a lot of weight in the last couple years. a really simple function of if I take in less than what I expend out, I lose weight.

Skyler: 14:32

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 14:32

in more, I gain weight. that's what puts people in debt.

Skyler: 14:36

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 14:37

more than they're bringing in, it's not rocket science. I.

Skyler: 14:40

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 14:41

So I think that's the answer to your question it absolutely does not have to be complicated. Take small steps, pick one thing a week, pick one thing a month, and just laser focus on that and just, and just understand. The biggest thing, biggest takeaway I'll say today know where your money's going.

Skyler: 14:56

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 14:57

you think you don't have control over it, but you do. You have the control to tell each dollar where it's going.

Skyler: 15:03

Yeah, a couple things are coming to my mind of recent podcast episodes I've done and one I did all about tax efficient investing, which can be that overwhelming topic that people just get stuck in the mud on. I was talking about the taxable brokerage account, and I'm like, one, it has a complicated name that's gonna initially overwhelm people. But just get simple and get started with just adding$50 and then leave it and give yourself a week to be like, yeah, I did it. And then go see what you invest in and learn step by step, because there's all sorts of different areas. There's investing, there's credit card hacking if you wanna do that sort of stuff. There's budgeting, there's all sorts of different little techniques that are overwhelming by themselves. I'm gonna say this about credit card hacking and it's gonna make some people cringe. But I don't care about rewards that much. maybe every now and then I'll optimize it. And all of those of you listening, you're listening to this person who's on a podcast that preaches money, and I love talking about money, and I just said there's an area I don't bother with because it's too overwhelming I don't want to keep the spreadsheets, I don't wanna manage the payments of everyone, all, me and my wife having 18 different credit cards, it's just not worth the energy for me. So we have a couple that do well. We usually get cash back, or I'll use points in some portal if I'm very specific about it, but I'm not gonna plan my whole life around it. And that's just in an effort to keep it simple and straightforward. How has that simplicity helped you in your own personal finances?

Ralph Estep Jr: 16:21

I think if you keep it simple, like I said, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. It doesn't have to be that complicated. If you keep it simple, you're gonna do it. Here's a great example of this. I have clients come and say, Ralph, man, I got the best credit card ever. I get points for this. I get points for that.

Skyler: 16:35

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 16:36

great, I just looked at your statement and you've got a balance on your credit card. Well, of course I use it for everything. so you're paying interest every month. Yeah, I can't afford to pay it every month. well, you ever thought about how much you are spending to get the rewards? They're like, never thought about it like

Skyler: 16:55

or you subtract the interest rate from the point rate and it doesn't make sense.

Ralph Estep Jr: 16:58

losing money. That's

Skyler: 16:59

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 17:00

the credit card companies love you because you're putting money in their pocket. And people are amazed by that. Like, oh, Ralph, you're a sage.

Skyler: 17:08

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 17:08

But people get hung up on that. You know, I wanna use my credit card for everything. Great. Make sure you pay it off the end of each month so there's something simple.

Skyler: 17:15

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 17:15

I think credit is great. I'm not one of these folks like Dave Ramsey. Never use credit. I don't believe that use credit, but use it wisely.

Skyler: 17:22

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 17:23

And if

Skyler: 17:23

It makes sure you're paying it off.

Ralph Estep Jr: 17:25

pay at the end of the month

Skyler: 17:26

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it doesn't.

Ralph Estep Jr: 17:27

like my oldest son is in a Coast Guard and he is super frugal. He uses his credit card for everything and every Friday he pays his credit card he never wants to get himself into that position where he has a balance.

Skyler: 17:41

and that's one way to track it and review it. Like if every Friday you sit down and you look at it and you say, okay, my balance is.$400 this week, Or maybe it's a thousand because you had something come up, but you're able to look at it and stay on top of it, and that gives you that same sort of sense that people talk about when it comes to spending cash, like you're actually reviewing it. And that's all that really matters. Like you said, tracking is the essential bare bones thing that you need to get started with. If you're feeling overwhelmed by finances and you think there's a million different things you have to go do right now. stop thinking like that and just figure out one thing that you need to do and it's probably track your expenses. Because once that happens, your mind is just gonna start working. I often share a story that when I was in high school, I started tracking my expenses. I thought I was really cool. I built this spreadsheet app on my phone but I was tracking it. And I told my friends, I was like, Hey, I spent this much last month on eating out. We were always hanging out, so we were probably doing the same thing. And they're like, whoa, that's a ton of money. And we were able to naturally and easily together say, let's stop doing that. And that just took that whole expense out of the equation without this big blow up or all this drama of, oh, well my friends hate me if I stop going out to eat with them just by simply tracking it and then saying, Hey, here's what the data says. I don't like that. Let's do it a little bit differently.

Ralph Estep Jr: 18:51

I agree with you, and I think that's huge. Even if you just track it for one week.

Skyler: 18:55

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 18:56

oh, I had no idea. Or something simple like create a simple budget. People get freaked out when you use the word budget. I don't like the

Skyler: 19:02

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 19:02

I call it an intentional spending plan. understand what's coming in and what's going out. the other thing, Skylar, that I think we really should focus to do is have people set small achievable goals.

Skyler: 19:13

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 19:13

I wanna save for a vacation. I wanna save a down payment for a home. I wanna save a down payment for a car. Those goals are, motivational. A lot of people don't have an emergency fund because the first thing they hear is, experts say you should have three to six months worth of your income in emergency funding. when they hear that, they go, I'm not even gonna bother. There's no way I can do that.

Skyler: 19:32

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 19:32

to them is I say, do you have$10 extra a week? Well, sure Ralph, I can find$10 extra week. I said, there's your emergency fund money in a year

Skyler: 19:40

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 19:42

Wow. That was easy. But a lot of people get overwhelmed because they hear three to six months worth. And, and listen, I'm not saying that's not a good plan, that is a

Skyler: 19:49

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 19:50

to have that money aside, but it's overwhelming to somebody who's struggling to figure out how they're gonna put food on the table for their family,

Skyler: 19:56

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 19:57

how they're gonna fix the car when it's making that crazy sound. They just gotta call from the mechanic and it's$3,000 to get it fixed.

Skyler: 20:04

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 20:05

Hey, build that emergency fund. I call it an arc of assurance so they know what's there.

Skyler: 20:10

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 20:11

It's simple, but make it small, make it actionable. we use the word smart goals. I'm sure you're familiar

Skyler: 20:16

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 20:16

specific, measurable, you get the idea. But do that because it's motivational and then it's kind of like this momentum building thing. Once you have a couple of wins. It's easier to get those wind because you're gonna have struggles. Listen, all of us are going to have rainy days. but the truth is, we set those small attainable goals, it builds that momentum.

Skyler: 20:37

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 20:37

once that momentum starts, you're gonna like you said, when you're tracking your money. Then when that person comes say, hey Sky, we should go out this weekend Initially. Like, yeah, but

Skyler: 20:45

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 20:46

My goal is I want to take my family to Disney World and I need to put aside$500 a month so that we can have a great trip that we're not incurring credit card debt to get there.

Skyler: 20:55

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and what you just said goes back to tie it into what I said earlier about you'll begin to notice those opportunities.'cause like you said,$10 a month, if that isn't a massive amount, that isn't going to ultimately set up your true emergency fund But it's enough to build awareness you get a surprise bonus at work, or come into something you can sell at home. then you know, where do I need to put this money? Oh, my emergency fund. you're staying consistently aware of it and suddenly you're saying, wow, how did I save a thousand dollars this year? And then you're saying, I can do that. And then it just builds momentum and builds momentum. I love that. Just start out small, take it one step at a time, and don't try to master everything the experts say to do, because there's a whole lot more to it when it comes to behavior behind it.

Ralph Estep Jr: 21:36

I've got a great credit union story

Skyler: 21:38

Perfect.

Ralph Estep Jr: 21:38

I was executive vice president of a, pretty big credit union here in Delaware. We had about$40 million in assets and one of the things that I did was I ran what was. Called our collections department. The first thing I did was I renamed it'cause I said, collections sounds terrible. And I renamed it. member advocates, because most people want to pay their bills.

Skyler: 21:55

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 21:55

let's be advocates for them to pay the bills. Anyway, so this one day collector comes to me, say, Ralph, I am depressed. I, my, my numbers aren't great. Can you sit down with me and we'll do some calls together? I said, absolutely, let's do this. we sat down and I said, let me, let me make some calls. First person I called, the person had a, a personal loan with the credit union. They owed$5,000 on, hadn't made a payment in six months. they answered the phone, and they said, I just don't have any money to pay. And I said, wait a second. is that a tv? I hear in the background and they're like, well, of course I'm sitting here watching tv. I'm outta work right now. do you pay for tv? Well, yeah. how much is your cable bill a month? Why does it matter? you can't pay us a hundred dollars a month that you owe. That's what you're paying$200 a month for cable.

Skyler: 22:38

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 22:39

it's all comes down to you can find stuff that matters to you.

Skyler: 22:43

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 22:43

out a way to do things. Like you said, get a small side job. sell something. I would, people get upset with me sometimes in the CRI and say, if you can't afford to pay your car loan, I'm gonna make you walk. So go figure out a way.

Skyler: 22:56

Yeah. Use the car while you have it to. but sometimes those harsh conversations have to happen when you're in a tough financial situation, whether they're coming from. somebody you owe money to, a friend, or a family member that's trying to get your butt in gear, for lack of a better term, but how can those financial hardships that people are going through, how do those conversations help begin to resolve that

Ralph Estep Jr: 23:16

Well,

Skyler: 23:16

I,

Ralph Estep Jr: 23:16

the big thing that it does is it helps them understand that they're not alone in that hardship. It's not the first time you've

Skyler: 23:22

mm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 23:23

that's what I used to train my collectors. I'm like, look, put yourself in the position of the person you're calling. I truly believe this, most people wanna pay their bills. and when you can help them, you can have that conversation, help them through it. Like one thing, it used to drive our examiners crazy, but I would allow members to only pay the interest only on the loan. And

Skyler: 23:41

Hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 23:42

I'd even have'em pay less. So to answer your question, I think that by having a conversation, you know, and that's the thing I would tell members, listen, come talk to me. Come

Skyler: 23:50

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 23:51

us. Let us see how we can help you, because nine times outta 10, we'd be able to figure out a way out.

Skyler: 23:56

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 23:57

There's a workout because the problem is so many people get stuck in it. they get in that quagmire of just giving up. you throw the hands up in the air. I don't know what to do, Ralph. There's nothing I know. I can't do anything.

Skyler: 24:08

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 24:08

take a step back and say, okay, what can I do? What can I control? You can certainly control where your money is going measuring it. We talked about that already. You can control it. Maybe you need to go sometimes. It's a function of you're not making enough money,

Skyler: 24:22

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 24:23

you know you need to go out and find a second job. Guess what? your spending choices put you in this position. You're gonna have

Skyler: 24:30

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 24:30

out.

Skyler: 24:31

Yeah. And sometimes it's a hard conversation that gets you in gear and says, I need to go drive for Uber, or deliver with DoorDash, or whatever. Some of those jobs that people think are beneath them might be just your key. You need to get outta your financial hardship. And as you were sharing their story about how there's always something that can be done. When I worked at a credit union, I was a tier two supervisor on the customer service side. you would be shocked how many people did not know, or you probably know this, but they didn't realize you could ask for fees to be rebated so many people would find themselves in a tough situation, and it was their first time they had ever gotten an overdraft fee. You'd look through the account and it would be like something crazy happened and it would be like two or$300 that they're now in the negative, the fees have piled on and they're crying on the phone because they're like, I don't normally do this. You're like, yeah, I can see that I, you don't normally do this, and you rebate all of that, and the relief that comes off of them. you can feel it. You can feel them smiling and happy. those are some of the funnest conversations to have is when you can. Work with somebody and make something better for them financially, and then they're able to get back on top of it. So I think that's the ultimate thing to ask is if you're in a true, hardship and things are really difficult, ask for help. Because nine times outta 10, the credit union or bank, they still want to get paid. They don't want to just write it off as a loss and get rid of it completely. So they're willing to work with you. you may not have to follow the exact written terms as they were because you're in a different situation. So why do you think people are so scared to even bring that up or talk about money when it's hard?

Ralph Estep Jr: 25:54

Well, I think people are ashamed. I think that's what it comes down to. they find themselves in this box. I get annoyed when I hear this. Well, Ralph, I just don't know how to manage money.

Skyler: 26:03

And they let it all go.

Ralph Estep Jr: 26:04

You chose to make the statement, I don't know how to manage money.

Skyler: 26:09

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 26:10

You made that choice. That's a conscious choice. I was out walking on the farm the other day and decided I would film a YouTube short. one of the things that I really like to talk about is that. a new day.

Skyler: 26:21

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 26:21

a fresh start. What you did yesterday, that's fine. You may have to pay back the money. You may have to figure something out. But today you can start over. And I think a lot of people, they just get stuck in this pit of despair.

Skyler: 26:34

Hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 26:34

And they just don't see a way out. And if they could just go talk to somebody, talk to a mentor, talk to a friend, talk to somebody who's got their stuff together, and now listen. Find somebody that's not judgemental.

Skyler: 26:45

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 26:46

person because, well, why did you put yourself in that position? What you want to hear is, Yeah. guess what? I made those mistakes to.

Skyler: 26:53

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 26:53

Why don't you try that? people fall into this cycle of despair and they just feel like all I do is make bad decisions.

Skyler: 27:01

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 27:01

I always get myself in over my head by credit card debt, It's a funny credit union story, right? I had somebody say to me one time, you're gonna laugh when I tell you this one. We called to tell'em that their account was overdrawn. And they said to me, I can't be overdrawn. I still have checks.

Skyler: 27:15

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 27:16

Anyways,

Skyler: 27:17

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 27:17

story. but again, that's a question of financial literacy. But I think that people get themselves stuck in this cycle of shame,

Skyler: 27:26

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 27:26

of just not understanding how to get out. I think a lot of people are really judgmental. when you can meet somebody, you can have that conversation with them. You know, like you said, it might be, Hey, you're gonna have a season of rice and beans or whatever.

Skyler: 27:39

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 27:40

Ramsey's

Skyler: 27:40

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 27:41

rice and beans. Well, guess what? have a conversation and realize that today's a new day and you can start fresh.

Skyler: 27:48

Yeah, you may have the upcoming year or two years might be extremely difficult financially, but let's put a stake in the ground right now for everybody listening. If you're struggling with your finances, put a stake in the ground right now. Forget your previous decisions and understand where you are currently and let's move forward. And let's talk about what people that are successful with money, some of the traits and qualities they have with money so that people can change their mindset to match these successful qualities and they can move forward and begin to make better decisions in that direction. forget about the past decisions like you are where you are and let's move forward. What do you think some of the key things you notice that successful people with their money exhibit?

Ralph Estep Jr: 28:27

I think you have to be. You have to have some. Humility too. I think that goes along with this.

Skyler: 28:31

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 28:31

be willing to say, look, I've made mistakes, have humbleness about this. but, but, but I think that, you know, lot of times you, you'll be surprised, you know, if, if you can sit down with somebody and say, Hey, here's what you can do. I think that the big traits of people who are successful have intentionality.

Skyler: 28:50

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 28:51

make money decisions. That's why I don't call it a budget. I call it an intentional spending plan. They have intentionality, they have a purpose. There's a reason

Skyler: 28:58

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 28:58

big one is they have discipline. They're discipline. They have consistency. They set up those automatically. They pay themselves first. They automatically put money into savings. Another big one is continuous learning. I think that's huge.

Skyler: 29:11

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 29:11

gotta always be learning.'cause there's always something new. I'm a Christian It's important to me. One of the big things I think, is generosity.

Skyler: 29:18

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 29:19

The

Skyler: 29:19

This always comes up. Yes.

Ralph Estep Jr: 29:21

who are successful are generous. Be generous. have gratefulness for what you do have, because a lot of times it's easy to get stuck in this, well, I don't have this and I don't have that. But appreciate what you do have. The people that I know who are successful, the common traits of successful people are those who understand gratefulness

Skyler: 29:41

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 29:41

listen, I've met some very wealthy people and they're the most unhappy people in the world

Skyler: 29:46

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 29:46

is in this, truth bomb on you here, You should be grateful because you're

Skyler: 29:49

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 29:50

many other people

Skyler: 29:51

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 29:51

Just the fact that you have internet or television radio, whatever you're doing. because of that, you're so much farther ahead than so many other people right now have gratefulness to that. So to answer your question, intentionality and purpose, discipline and consistency, continuous learning, generosity and gratefulness. I think those are the main key characteristics that I see in people who are successful with their money.

Skyler: 30:19

Phenomenal. Yeah, that's fantastic. Those five things. I think if someone wants to write'em down and put that on a list of things you need to exhibit and do with your money in order for it to begin to work for you and become successful with it, intentionality is a huge one. That's one of the things my wife and I use. We describe ourselves a lot as being intentional because we'll see people, they'll say. Oh, I wanted this, so I purchased it. It was a couple hundred bucks and it's like you could purchase it, but if you could be a little bit more intentional about saving for a couple months or identifying where that money is actually coming from to pay for it, that is a game changer. Like my wife and I, we we're both in the process of selling our old iPhones and buying new ones. that's not a cheap expense, but we've been intentional about saving for it for a couple months or something like that. We're gonna sell our old ones, make sure we have money for it, we could just buy new ones if we really wanted to. But that bit of intentionality bleeds into every other aspect of our life, and we're able to be more specific about decisions. We're able to be intentional about when we do decide to use credit card reward, making sure we're paying it off and things like that. There's so much that bleeds into. Intentional is one of my favorite words to use when it comes to making money decisions, but that's a great path for somebody now to take and put a stake in the ground saying, I'm gonna do better with my money. And I'm gonna exhibit these five qualities that Ralph just told me about with my money, but that's a phenomenal place to leave it on. let's leave it on a successful note for people so they can drive forward and begin to do better with their money. I got two final questions for you, Ralph. Let's go ahead and dive into them. The first one will be, how can people learn more or contact you if you have any questions?

Ralph Estep Jr: 31:48

Best way to contact me is go to my website. It's called financially confident christian.com. I do a daily podcast. It's an audio video. I write a daily blog. Best way to do it, just go to financially confident christian.com.

Skyler: 32:01

Awesome.

Ralph Estep Jr: 32:02

have, another show that I'm getting ready to launch next week. It's for small business people. It's called Grit and Growth Business. So if you're a small business person, you're just getting started. It's a great thing. Again, that's a grit and growth business.com.

Skyler: 32:14

And then the final question that I ask every guest is, what's one thing you wish you would've known sooner when it comes to talking about money or that people should use when they're getting started?

Ralph Estep Jr: 32:25

That's a tough one, my friend, but I got two key takeaways to that. One, the power of compound interest.

Skyler: 32:30

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 32:31

I think that one is huge

Skyler: 32:33

Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 32:34

those two things, if you can understand those two things. I'm gonna add a third one, spiritual discipline, which I think is important'cause that's where my heart is, but the power of compound interest, which means start early and be as aggressive as you can, on both sides of that, because that's a two-edged coin, right? the cost of compound interest as well. And see, when I was in college, you get that credit card offer, oh, this is great.

Skyler: 32:55

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 32:56

want. That thing spirals outta control quickly. So it's a two-edged sword, but the other side of that is just that discipline. I think that if you can start to do that discipline from the beginning, that you're intentional in your spending, that before you just go buy something, you say, do I? One of the things that I talked about on my show a couple weeks ago is a 24 hour pause and I

Skyler: 33:17

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 33:18

I wish I had done this sooner in my life before I bought anything. You know what? pause for 24 hours

Skyler: 33:25

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Estep Jr: 33:26

you're gonna find is in 24 hours, you probably don't need it.

Skyler: 33:30

Yep.

Ralph Estep Jr: 33:30

I think online shopping's great because you can put stuff in the cart and come back for it. I do that a lot on Amazon. I'll put stuff in the cart. My wife was like, you know, there's stuff in the cart. I'm like, yeah, stuff

Skyler: 33:39

And it's just waiting. Yeah.

Ralph Estep Jr: 33:41

it's the way. So, so that's my two big takeaways. The power compound interest and financial discipline. I think those are the two big things.

Skyler: 33:48

Yeah, I love the 24 hour rule. I teach everybody about that. If they have any sort of struggle with spending It's put a 24 hour rule in place and that's gonna change how you spend money. Because like you said, most things we realize we don't need. But what a fantastic conversation this has been. Ralph, thank you so much for coming on.

Ralph Estep Jr: 34:04

Skylar, I appreciate the time and I wish all your listeners well.

Speaker: 34:17

Thank you so much to Ralph for coming on the podcast. That was a great interview. And I say that about every single one, but that's because I love talking about money and I love all these great guests we're able to have on to be able to share. Their financial stories and what they've learned so that we can all do better with money together. But let's get into the money talking points today. The first money talking point is what's a financial mistake you've learned to avoid because of others? And for me, it's complicating my finances. I could very easily build a very complicated system, and I started to do that a few years ago. I was so gung-ho about opening new credit cards and various bank accounts for promos and investment accounts, and you name it. I tried to open it. Thankfully, I heard on some podcasts that I listened to about how people were talking about the value that they got from simplicity, and this made me realize that I was burdening myself with trying to keep track of everything and keep up with it all and all these different accounts, and it was racing around my head and I was losing track of things and my spreadsheets were off by a few pennies and things like that, right? You hear the complexity in what I was trying to do. Now I look at things through the lens of simplicity, and I consider the question, will this make my life more complicated? And I think this is a great perspective to have on considering new things to enter into your financial picture. I've also learned from my time at the credit union, a few other things that I wanna share here and a few other mistakes that I knew to avoid because I heard other people struggling with these things. The first one is always work to pay off your credit card in full every single month. Always make sure to pay off the statement balance. Don't get behind on loan payments and then this one might surprise you, but you can ask for help from rebates with fees, especially from credit unions. I think most people were surprised when they would call in and we'd be able to rebate several hundreds of dollars worth of fees to them just because they found themselves in a hard situation. We were able to rebate those. So I think that's something most people don't realize that they can avoid, and that is the strain on fees or. Late payment fees or things like that, if you can give a good reason and there's a real reason why you have that fee and shouldn't have it, well, it can likely be rebated. And then of course, one thing that I learned to make sure to avoid is always make sure you fully understand the terms of what you're signing. And this came all the time in crazy conversations about people not understanding how their auto loan worked. And then it would become late or not quite understanding how a credit card worked, and one that would often get people, and this is something they just didn't realize because they didn't fully understand the terms of what they were agreeing for is what I like to consider a scam of the 90 day no payment. This is a popular promotion in the auto loan space, especially that you get to sign today with 90 days with no payments. Woo-hoo. Right? No payments for 90 days, but guess what? You're probably thinking it right now. Here, I'm gonna say it. The interest is still accruing and it's accruing at the highest possible balance you'll ever have on the loan, which is at inception, so the highest balance you'll ever have on the loan. Is accruing 90 days of interest without you making any payments to it. So then when people would make their first payment and their first payment would only go towards interest, they would be so upset, and that's because of the 90 days no payments, right? You could use that as a wonderful opportunity to make your monthly payments and always be 90 days ahead. That way if some true emergency happens, you have a buffer built in there instead of needing to then call in later and ask for a skip a payment, which also just moves your payments and interest further down the line and messes up your terms of your loan. And makes you pay even more interest. So there are a couple things there is make sure you always understand the terms of what you're agreeing to. And this is where I like to bring up a story about a 0% credit card that my wife and I got right as I was about to consider starting the CFP program. I got a well timed credit card offer for 0% on any purchases made. I. Through March of 2026 or something like that. And this timed out well with an expense that was higher than we were maybe considering, but we knew we could easily save up the money over a couple months. So we went ahead and purchased it on the 0% card. And believe me when I say I made sure I knew exactly how to get that 0% because I did not want a balance to go on this card and get that 26% interest rate or whatever it may be. And I learned, I asked a couple times and I made sure to learn how to get that 0% rate. And how to make sure we were never going to lose out on it. And that's just simply now turned into a savings account that has the money ready to pay off that credit card with an automatic payment for the minimum payment coming out of it every single month to make sure we still get that 0% rate. So this is one of those interest rate arbitrage situations where we're able to earn more in our savings account than this credit card because the credit card has a 0% rate, so it's very easy to stay on top of that one. But we made absolute sure to understand how that card would work, and that's what you have to do about any sort of debt situation you get into. Avoid the mistake of misunderstanding how your debt product, auto loan or whatever sort of loan works, but after you consider what financial mistakes you can avoid because you learned about it from others. Let's move into the second money talking point here, which is how important are regular money talks to you? While my wife and I, we would not be anywhere close to where we are financially if it wasn't for our regular money talks. Like I said in my Skyler story time, I just recently quit my job, which is a big undertaking. That can be scary, especially if you're providing for a family or if you're comfortable with your lifestyle. This is something that we've been thinking about for quite some time, but we were able to practice budgeting for it and prepare for it. A few months ago, we did an entire budget meeting without my income. Just to see what it would look and feel like. And it turns out we were just fine It, we still had money left over at the end of the month. Thankfully, we're in a great position right now, but we weren't as worried after we did that, that we thought it was gonna be a huge struggle. But after we did that exercise, we were able to realize it wasn't gonna be as big of a struggle as we were worried about. So that enabled me to take this leap into finding a new career and working to become a CFP. Without these regular money talks, we would not have been able to prepare ourselves mentally to take a financial step back. They also allow us to plan for our fund expenses. Like our Hawaii trip last year. We saved for that for years, and we were able to spend however we wanted to when we got there. So imagine this, you have regular money talks. Those regular money talks allow you to not have to worry about finances at all while you're on the vacation. Now imagine a vacation where you don't have to put it all on a credit card to pay it off later, and you don't have to worry about spending when you're there because you know. The savings are already in place before you get there on your trip. And here's what I like to say. Consider this one for a second with me. I like to say that you can spend an hour or two talking about money every week talking about it intentionally. Or you can spend several hours a day stressing over it. And let's not forget about the sleep that you can lose when you're stressing about money. So you can either spend one to two hours a week worrying about it, or you can spend seven to eight or many nights worrying about it and not able to get good sleep. So if you just intentionally talk about money on purpose, on time, regularly. Then you are gonna worry about it and end up talking about it a whole lot less overall. And speaking of intentionality, I'm excited for this final money talking point. So let's move into that one because this is a great one. The third money talking point comes directly from what Ralph said about the five traits. It's which of the five traits do you need to work on to do better with your money. Those five traits are intentionality, discipline, learning, generosity, and gratefulness. I wanna go through each one of these to help you think about an area within your personal finances that you could apply these traits towards. So let's talk about intentionality first. This means making a decision and sticking to it. This means not making a haphazard decision about the next thing you're gonna buy. Put some real thought into it and plan it out. I have a great story I'm gonna share here, but consider if you need to budget for a month or two for something. And this recently happened with a pair of shoes that my wife wanted to get. She really wanted them. She wanted them bad. She tried'em on and she's like, I don't know if I ever want wear another pair of shoes. She really wanted them, but of course they weren't cheap and we realized that my wife buys shoes every three to four years that last a bit longer and shared they're more expensive. But her buying these nicer shoes that last three to four years, equate it out to the less durable shoes that I buy every year for about$40. So that process helped us realize that this was gonna be okay, that this larger expense. Really equaled out to how much I spend on shoes as well. So then we said, what if we take a month or two to set aside some money for them and this allowed us to take a day or two to think about that and how do we wanna spend it? So then we were able to look at our financial spreadsheet, or financial app, whatever you may use, plug it in here. We were able to look at our savings accounts and syncing funds to see if we had the money, and then we ended up saying, yeah, we, we do have the money. Let's go ahead and get the shoes. But the intentional process lasted over a few days. And that allowed us to come to an intentional decision that was in our best interest, both financially and for my wife to get some new shoes. But think about intentionality and consider trying it very, very intentionally with the next purchase you wanna make. Next I wanna talk about discipline. Discipline is going to be setting a set scheduled budget meeting. I want you to set a specific time aside each week for the next month or each month for the next year, or something along those lines, and set that specific time aside to talk about money. This is going to help you more than you know. And then here's the real kicker. I want you to send me a text message or email. About when your next money meeting is gonna be, and I'm gonna help remind you, this is gonna show you how a money buddy or an accountability partner can be super helpful towards you staying on top of your goals, especially if you're not married. If you're married, make sure you set this money meeting with your spouse. If you're not married, even more reason to let me know about it so I can be your money buddy and help you make sure you stay on top of your goals. But discipline means setting that specific time and keeping it. The next point here that we're gonna talk about is learning, and you're already doing a great job with this one because you're listening to a personal finance podcast. So keep seeking out good educational content to help you learn about money and consider teaching it to other people. But the next one is generosity. And perhaps this could be as simple as donating more money or more time. Is there a cause that you care about that you can set up a reoccurring donation? And recurring donations to charity are so much more valuable, just like a recurring subscription is extremely valuable for revenue when it comes to all those companies that you have subscriptions for. So here's the trick with this one. If you feel like you need to be more generous, consider canceling one of your streaming or entertainment or music subscriptions because you probably have multiple that you don't use. Or maybe if you do really only have one of them, congrats, that's a great place to be in. But if you have multiple streaming services that you're paying for. It's very unlikely that you're using'em all at once. So consider canceling it and switch that regular monthly subscription over to a charity of your choice. They're gonna love it. Even if it's only$13 a month or whatever it might be,$20 a month, that's gonna be a big deal to the charity'cause they're gonna love having that regular recurring donation. The last trait here that I want to talk about with this money talking point is gratefulness. And this could be a great place for a journal. You could journal about how money makes you feel. You could also journal about the good opportunities that you're starting to notice with your money as you're building this plan out. Now, here's a good one that can help you combine generosity with gratefulness. Be grateful for good customer service and tip well. So you're tipping well with that generosity, but you're also being aware and grateful of good customer service. There's two things in one, so notice that way that you could apply two traits at one time because that could be really fun. But figure out some ways to realize the good things that you have and that will help you out a ton when it comes to not getting hung up on challenging things. Here's the challenging thing that just happened with this podcast episode, this solo part that you're listening to, the file Corrupted Man, was I upset initially, and it took me a minute to get over it because I recorded a really great episode and here we are having to rerecord it. I was upset, but that challenging thing, I was able to overcome it, and here we are. I'm recording it again about an hour later. I was able to go do some other things. I'm grateful for my dog that kept me company and helped me calm down. I was able to play with my dog a little bit. So realize the good things that you have and it will help you a ton when it comes to not getting hung up on the challenging things like a file corrupting, or maybe it's like the story I shared a couple weeks ago about my wife's student loan showing back up and us showing a bunch of interest on it. So don't get hung up on the challenging things by being grateful for the good things that you do have and the good opportunities that you do have. But that wraps it up for the Three Money Talking Points today. And as we close out this episode, I wanna bring it back to the meat and potatoes of our conversation, which is talking about money. It's simple, but it's so powerful whether you're married or single money talks, or how we learn, grow, and avoid repeating the same mistakes. Ralph and I have both seen it in our credit union days, how people can turn their situations around completely just by having a simple money talk. And when we don't talk about money, that's when the stress builds. The shame sets in and opportunities pass us by. But when we do talk about money early and often, we get on the same page spot great opportunities and start building real momentum in our finances. And it does not have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be complicated at all. You don't need fancy spreadsheets like I do. I love spreadsheets, but you don't need'em at all. Set a goal, write something down, and let's keep doing better with money. One money talk at a time. Thank you for listening to today's episode. The best way to stay up to date and connected with All Things Money Talk is to subscribe to the podcast and sign up for my email list. Head over to Money talk.show and submit your name and email right there on the homepage. You can also use the contact page on my website to send me any questions you might have, and I would love to answer them on the show. But if you're looking to get started with budgeting, I've partnered with my budget coach, a platform that connects your budget directly with your financial coach. Me, and I would love to work with you over there and help you with your budgeting. The link is in the show notes. And remember, the best way to learn from today's episode is to go and have a money talk about today's topic with a fellow money buddy. But thank you for listening to this week's episode of Money Talk. I'm your host, Skyler Fleming. Have a great week.