Bring on 2021! We kick off the new year with the importance of family at the forefront of our minds. We have just come off the holidays and let's face it the oddest of holidays it was for many families as traditions took a back seat to a virus. But the realities of the the holidays and a new year come to attention as credit card bills start coming in and the anxieties and frustrations that can come with it. Everyone has heard of #BlackFriday and #CyberMonday and hopefully #GivingTuesday but #BlueMonday has come and gone and most may not even know it exists. But many may be feeling it. We discuss how emotional finances can be on both sides of the equation and how important it is to put it all in perspective and the tools to creating a healthy financial future.
Bring on 2021! We kick off the new year with the importance of family at the forefront of our minds. We have just come off the holidays and let's face it the oddest of holidays it was for many families as traditions took a back seat to a virus. But the realities of the the holidays and a new year come to attention as credit card bills start coming in and the anxieties and frustrations that can come with it. Everyone has heard of #BlackFriday and #CyberMonday and hopefully #GivingTuesday but #BlueMonday has come and gone and most may not even know it exists. But many may be feeling it. We discuss how emotional finances can be on both sides of the equation and how important it is to put it all in perspective and the tools to creating a healthy financial future.
[inaudible] Welcome to Talk Wealth To Me, a safe space podcast, where we chat about anything and everything related to personal finance, the information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute as accounting, legal tax or other professional advice.
Chase Peckham:I feel like we should be listening to a song, uh, by, um, uh, what's her name, the country artist that she, she became famous by singing that song. And she'd go, bluuue what's that called? Uh,
Felipe Arevalo:Leann Rimes.
Chase Peckham:Leann Rimes. Thank you. Yes. I'm feeling blue.
Felipe Arevalo:In 1994.
Chase Peckham:I cannot sing that very well, but yeah, Leann Rimes, that song was huge. There's also a song called blue Monday from a new order. That was like huge when I was a kid, uh, at which, which kind of brings us to the theme, uh, of something that just came and went, uh, before this episode dropped.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah, it was a blue Monday. And, you know, along with everything else these days, maybe you missed it. You know, maybe you didn't even realize it was Monday, except for the fact that, uh, you know, some kids weren't in school, uh, and you had to deal with that as too, but it's, it's usually the third Monday in January and it's when the holidays have come and gone, new year's resolutions for many people, unfortunately have started and ended credit card statements are in for the holidays or they're due now for your holidays shopping extravaganzas and you know, it's, there's no real science behind it
Chase Peckham:I would imagine it's pseudoscience. Right? I think it would have to be brought up or created by a company of some kind too.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah, it was out of England, I believe. And it was just a marketing thing, but so many things, uh, today that we're marketing things catch on and there's some truth to it though, when you think about it.
Chase Peckham:Beyond just money too. It's it's I would imagine it's failed, uh, fitness routines. It might be failed, new year's resolutions, right?
Felipe Arevalo:People have given up on them.
Chase Peckham:Yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:You know, for, for a lot of us up here in the Northern hemisphere, you know, United States, Europe, all that, uh, it's winter. And in some places, not for us, it's going to be 90 degrees out here in San Diego today.
Chase Peckham:80 where I'm at.
Felipe Arevalo:Uh, but for a lot of Americans. East County. Uh, for a lot of Americans, you know, we're in the middle of winter, they there's snow storms. Uh, you can't go outside longer nights, shorter days, the whole thing. And it all plays into the fact that, you know, it's not the, not usually the happiest time of the year and finances play right into it because, you know, we see it all the time. Every year, you know, November, December, people don't want to talk about their finances, they want to enjoy the holidays. They, they sometimes throw budgets out the door to, to take care of that holiday shopping. And now if you went in, if you use credit cards or you start to look back at it, you can no longer return things. And you're looking at your statements saying, oops, you know, how did I go that far off? And how am I going to recover from this?
Chase Peckham:Yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:So it's very, it's, it's a difficult time for, for opening up credit card statements for a lot of people.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. It's, you know, this is that time of year. You're absolutely right. It's, it's crazy. And so many people, we start out the year with excitement and I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And we tend to hold ourselves pretty tight to those resolutions that we create for ourselves. Um,
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:And I think that's why when we talk about goal setting, right? So often with budgeting, um, that we, we say, you know, bite off less than you can chew, right?
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:You want those smaller short-term goals that will over time add up to those longer term goals, but there's something that you can keep up with and it gets right to talking about smart goals. Right. And I know that people go, Oh God, I learned about SMART goals when I was in high school. And college taught me about this. I think every other class in the world talk about preparing and planning through SMART goals and all those kinds of things. But the problem is with, with poo-pooing all that is, it actually works. And it works well. The problem that people have with resolutions and those kinds of things in the reason that we get so sad or depressed by those when we don't accomplish them is because usually there's such grandiose things, right. We say, I want to lose 40 pounds in two months.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:That that's really, really, really difficult to do. And probably a little unhealthy. So.
Felipe Arevalo:It's a little unrealistic. Yeah. And it's something where there may not be a science behind Blue Monday, but there's definitely a science behind goal setting. Um, and, and, and, you know, goal setting theory. And that can definitely, um, you know, be something where you can practice. You can be better at it. And, and you can definitely go ahead and put it into play. And I saw an article on online. I think it was a CNBC article and it was, um, not having, you can have this big, yearly annual resolution, you know what you're thinking, I'm going to lose 50 pounds, or I'm going to lose weight. Sometimes you need to put a, a number to it, and that's great, but it really comes down to, you know, what is it that you are going to do, uh, to accomplish that? And you can do little goals that you can actually keep that with time will compound to the big goals that you have. For example, let's say you want to lose weight. Maybe you make it your goal, uh, to go on a walk for five minutes every day. And, and losing weight is a very big and scary task, but going for a five minute walk, you know, unless you have some kind of health condition that doesn't allow it a five minute walk is doable for a lot of people. And then maybe your five minute walk turns into a 10 minute walk, and then maybe you start mixing in some jogging. And then before you know, it, well, maybe a little longer for some of us who don't do a good job of running, uh, you know, and maybe then you, you start running for the full 10 minutes. And with time you do that every single day, or you go out there and you stay active and you eat right. Then you're going to accomplish your bigger goal, which was initially get healthier and lose weight by doing just those little things. You allow it to become a habit because forming a habit will make it easier for you. Just like everything with money. Maybe you don't start off with this huge thing, but you start off with, you know, what, I'm going to eliminate this expense, uh, you know, I'm going to eliminate or reduce eating out. Um, and then you say, okay, I can do that. I'm going to try and go through all my monthly subscriptions and find out which ones I'm not doing or not taking advantage of and cutting those out. And if you cut out, you know,$50 worth of monthly subscriptions, that's$600 by the end of the year in, you know, a couple hours worth of work
Chase Peckham:A hundred percent. That's exactly right. I, you and I had spoken about this earlier, and I don't know if I brought it up on an earlier episode in the podcast, but Kerri came up with, she was going to do this no spending January.
Felipe Arevalo:How's it going?
Chase Peckham:Awful. Uh, but, but here's why we actually stopped it before it went, because I said, Kerri, is that realistic? Uh, in the fact that, you know, January has so many sales, you're looking for specific things in your wardrobe that you want. Um, and she, she did go a little bit crazy. I mean, COVID is, has, has started something in my wife that isn't normal. And I think she's finding comfort in buying leisure wear. That's the weirdest thing. We have this local company here in San Diego, uh, that's called Viori. Uh, and, and it's kind of like a Lulu lemon, but it's more, um, it's less athletic wear, less workout wear and more kind of at leisure, right. Uh, very comfortable, but you could wear it to work. It's both, and it's great, but she's obsessed with it and she's in it. And she even laughed. We were laughing about the other day. That's kind of a little, it's a little bit of a problem. Right. And, uh, she and her girlfriends, Oh, did you see this? And Hey, we have this coupon, like they're going back and forth. And I'm saying, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, take a sit back. And let's take a look at what we're doing here. You don't realize that we could be spending, you know, we have a budget for certain things and we could be cracking into that. And she said, okay, well, this is December. And this is before Christmas. She said, okay, then I'm going to do a no spend January. And I said, you know, maybe we don't do that. Maybe what we do is we just say, it's a no Viori spending January and right off the bat, she's smarter. You know, she's, she's pretty smart woman. She said, well, that's gonna make it a no spend January because that's really the only place she was spending her money. And I said, but, but doesn't that sound a lot better than no spend January, because why limit yourself? Because that's not, first of all, it's not realistic. You're going to have to buy certain things. Avery, we found out her soccer cleats, we've been neglecting the poor little girl's feet. Her toes are punching out of her, her shoes, her cleats, she's going to need new ones. We're going to have to buy those so that we just don't count that as a no spend January. So it's not realistic. Right? So there are certain things. Maybe we just do a, you know, no Viori January. So that seemed a little bit easier, less, you know, less hard to take in. And we're realistic. And now she's not going to feel guilty every time she goes, okay, well, I gotta buy shoes for Avery, Oh, her her knee pads for volleyball are bad. We got to buy those. Now. She's not going to feel guilty because it's not part of the no spend Viori does that. Right?
Felipe Arevalo:Right. No that makes sense. Because you make it more realistic in a way that if you have to go buy your kids, something, you still have the ability to do that without having to give up on your goal. Um, you've made it so that you can still do the things that you have to do and not give up on your, your financial resolutions or your financial goals. And it's funny, you mentioned like sharing with people in today's age because we have our phones on us all the time. And because we're doing so much online shopping, I think we're all guilty of saying, Oh, look at this. I know someone who really can use this or who really would, I know someone who would buy this, I'm going to share this link to them. You know, I was on Costco the other day on the website. I bought a Barcelona, a zip-up track jacket, and they had other teams on there. And I said, Oh, you know what? My brother would really like this Liverpool one, let me text him about it. And my friend is really gonna like this Manchester one, let me text him about it, because they might not know that Costco doesn't usually carry soccer jackets.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:Um, so, so there I go sending it off to two people and they might not be in the market for a new soccer jacket, but I almost guarantee that I sparked enough interest where they at least went and looked at it and maybe purchased one themselves. So I'm guilty of, you know, messing with their finances as much as anyone else. And I didn't even think about it until you were mentioning, you know, sharing with friends
Chase Peckham:You were being a friend. And I said, I said, right, when you talked about the soccer jackets, like I even know that that's even a thing. Now. I am learning to like soccer, I with my daughter playing as much as she does. I really, really appreciate it. I still can't get myself to watch, uh, watch it on TV yet, except for the women's Olympic team, which is really fun or the women's U.S. Team.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:You bring up another good point. Uh, and when you talked about the going for a walk, and I think if we turn that in the world of finances, because everything, we do, all these choices that we just talked about, losing weight, walking, you know, those are all financially driven, right? Walking is free and it's small and it's something you can do. But how many people go out and might purchase Beachbody for a hundred and a big workout for what$110, which I've done. And I loved it, but how many people will buy the DVD set or buy the on demand and then never use it and you're paying for it for a year and you don't use it.
Felipe Arevalo:Or gym memberships that people sign up for the gyms are packed in January.
Chase Peckham:Typically, on a normal year, not a COVID year.
Felipe Arevalo:Right. And then, by by. Now this time of year, it's back to normal, you have four or five people that made it the hiking trails. You know, I used to hike religiously all the time and I would take the first week or two off because it was just, they're just too crowded. But then you go now and, you know, it's, it's pretty much back to normal,
Chase Peckham:Right? So let's pretend then that credit card debt, a lot of people will feel a little depressed. There'll be a little bit anxious because their credit card statements are starting to come in from the holidays, uh, before the holidays, um, the, the extra money that they spent on presents, uh, and food, and all of the things that come with the holidays that bring us such joy while we're doing them now is kind of, uh, becoming a reality that, Oh gosh, you know, the fun is gone, but the reality of bills are still there. So let's just take that theory of the smart goals and taking those little small steps that we can take. And that means taking that credit card debt. Let's just say, there's the extra credit card that you have an extra grand or so on it, uh, because of presence and just say, okay, as I'm doing my budget, I'm going to put an extra$50 on this credit card. And I'm going to pay this certain amount over the next six months till it's paid off and I'm not gonna leave it there to just keep compounding interest. I'm not going to leave it there to just keep adding onto it. I'm going to stop using that credit card that I used for that or credit cards. And I'm going to pay a certain amount every single month until it's paid off and you put an end date on it. So now you're not stressed about the fact that it's there and it's growing. You just say, look, it was worth the investment, right? Why, why get depressed about it? Why upset yourself about it? Come up with a plan to get rid of it, set those expectations, pay it down. And then when you pay that every month, you're going to feel good about the fact that you're putting a dent in it.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. And you can't go back and change it.
Chase Peckham:That's right.
Felipe Arevalo:So why beat yourself up over something you can't change? All you can do is what are you going to do now? And then what are you going to do going forward to fix the problem or to come up with a solution. So if you sit there and beat yourself up about it, you know, we can all beat ourselves up. I feel like for financial decisions that we've made in the past, whether it's recently or, you know, back in our college years or, you know, whatever it is, but it does you no good to say, man, I should have purchased, you know, Starbucks stock instead of Starbucks coffee when I was in college. Um, you know, because I've done the math a little bit and when you do the math, you realize, wow, I really messed that one up. You know, that's hindsight, you know, I didn't understand investing when I was 18 and in college, I didn't understand. I knew what a budget was. I was a business major. Uh, but if I beat myself up over that, I'll beat myself up over potentially for the rest of my life. So I have to just say, you know what? I did the math as I, how silly that was. And I'm just gonna, you know, what can I do now, financially? What can I do now to affect the financial future so that you're not beating yourself up 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road for the decisions that you made today.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. And, and we, I mean, we're all human. We, we, we make decisions based on emotion a lot. And unfortunately that sometimes that can get us into trouble and it's not just money it's relationships. Uh, it it's, business-wise, it's, uh, anger over, uh, the state of, um, politics. I mean, there's so many things that get into our emotions right now and we react on them. That's part of growing up, right? That's part of evolving as a human being is learning how to handle those emotions and think about the actions that we're going to take next, uh, this morning, uh, as we're recording this, it's my birthday. And my kids wanted to take me out for a burrito. We can't stay there. We had to pick it up and bring it home. But you know, the trip was nice, but it was unbelievable. This woman, as we're going to pick up my wife's hot chocolate at Starbucks, she just stopped in the red zone the opposite way. And normally people will, you know, let somebody out of the car. They'll just hang there until they come back. Okay. Or they'll then drive around the parking lot and then pick them back up. This woman parked right in the red zone, right in front facing the wrong way. Like she's driving in England, right. Turned off her car got out. She's the only one in the car. And I'm like looking at it, going in Clay could see my face, my son. And he goes, Oh, dad out, dad, you don't, you don't need, I go. That is just rude. That's just wrong. And he said, but dad, is it worth your birthday day? Is it worth getting upset about, is it worth it? Or should you just drive around the parking lot, drop off mom and just say, you know what? This doesn't have an effect on me today. And I went, this is coming out of the mouth of a 12 year old.
Felipe Arevalo:That's good. That's amazing. I try and tell that to my kid all the time.
Chase Peckham:So, and he was absolutely right.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:And people are sitting here thinking, well, what, what does that have to do with finances? Everything, because we do the same thing when it comes to sitting on Amazon, when it comes to sitting at the Viori website or the Lulu lemon website or Walmart or Target or wherever we're at, we might have every reason in the world to buy or purchase those things that are sitting right in front of us and is as easy to purchase as a keystroke.
Felipe Arevalo:Right. It's so easy. And it's so easy to do, uh, without thinking, um, two things. It's funny, you mentioned driving and questionable driving. Uh, I was on, uh, Twitter this morning as, you know, I do the, the Twitter for the podcast and for the SDFLC. And I saw a tweet from, uh, one of the Shark Tank sharks, uh, Daymond I think is his name. Um, and he tweeted out like, just, Hey, let's talk, get something off your mind. And that's exactly what I had to get of my mind is like, there are some bad drivers out there today. People just. Drive better. Uh, so if you're listening to this in the car, be a courteous driver and be nice to your fellow drivers and share the road and whatnot.
Chase Peckham:Uh, jeez, If You were driving down the 52 earlier today and ran into Felipe, man, you must be a crappy driver.
Felipe Arevalo:Exactly. But you mentioned now you mentioned it's your birthday. I was going to ask is the no spend January, because that's your birthday month. It's an unfortunate coincidence of months.
Chase Peckham:You know, there's so many things that are unfortunate about having a birthday in January. Uh, you know, you get to start off the new year, but one it's close to the holidays. So people are already kind of holidayed out, right? The celebrated, celebrated out a little bit. Um, and then yeah, January tends to be a resolution time. So, uh, it was so funny. So many of my friends would do no drinking January, right? They would, they would take it off and I'm like, it's my birthday. How are you going to do that? And they're like, Oh, sorry, Chase. But you know, those kinds of, or, or they're on a diet and my birthday is in the middle of January. So I just never any kind of resolutions that had anything to do with that. And, and this is why, why I'm not really a big on resolutions, uh, per se. And, and I'm, I'm not big on resolutions because as big, and as we mentioned, the beginning kind of grandiose as people make them out to be like, I am going to change the world. You know, no, again, we're getting back to the baby steps thing and you just becoming the way that you improve your finances, the way you improve your life, the way you can improve your, uh, feeling. Uh, if you, if you get anxious or if you're depressed or whatever, is, is taking these baby steps in doing things on a routine basis, right? Having them become good habits that you're not having to do crash diets. You're not having to create these big, uh, credit card bills that you're going to have to pay back because you've come up with the habits and learning how to spend learning, how to handle, uh, your monthly, daily, weekly finances, learning how to eat kind of more correctly to where you're not having to do the yo-yo effect on everything, right? Because we get really high when we're, when we're in really good shape or our finances are really good. And then we're get really low when things aren't as good. And so you want to try to keep it kind of in that middle ground to. I I'm, I'm happy ground.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:And it all has to do with that. And it's figuring that out on your own, what makes you happy? Where is it that you want to be, and then create, you know, we talk about that in our budgeting process presentations, all the time is creating that road trip, creating that plan for yourself. That is not, you know, crazy. It's, it's, you're not, when you're going to go on a road trip and you know, you've got a, uh, a week vacation and you're going to drive across the country. You're not driving half of the country in a day. Right. That might be an awful lot to bite off.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. Well, you need about two weeks to drive across the country.
Chase Peckham:Well you know.
Felipe Arevalo:I've tried it, I've done it. Um, you can get to Seattle, uh, on a day drive.
Chase Peckham:That's insane.
Felipe Arevalo:But, uh, it wasn't as fun. And, and on the way back, it took us three days, uh, you know,
Chase Peckham:More relaxed.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:Or you're not as edgy.
Felipe Arevalo:You enjoy things. Yeah. And it's something where, you know, you mentioned the scenario earlier about, you know, having that credit card debt and then coming up with a six month plan to pay off your holiday debt. You know, what's the cool thing about that is you're now in the habit of doing that, if that's the scenario that you're going in, what you do is you take those, that money you were paying off and you put it in a savings account and come next holiday season, you have six months worth, which is about how much you spent this year for your purchases next year. And then it becomes where it's like, de-stressing you, and, and having that plan allows you to, you know, correct mistakes or any impulse buys that you may have done in the past, and then give yourself that cushion. So that next time you don't have that same cycle repeat itself. And then once you've done that, once you've successfully completed that cycle once, then it becomes something that you just do, and then it becomes easier. And you don't have that up and down where you fall into debt in the holiday season, and then you pay it off and you're happy and you say, yay. And then you start shopping again at the next holiday season and repeat the same cycle in 2022.
Chase Peckham:And then people are sitting there asking, Whoa, what am I going to do though? I mean, the holidays come every year. And the answer to that is, is again, you're going to plan ahead. And it's the same thing. When people ask us about saving, I don't know how to save. I never feel like I have enough at the end. And the answer is you plan ahead. You, you like you would pay, you know, if, if, if you're in a position where you, your, your company matches a 401k and that money comes out of your account, uh, every month, every pay period, do the same thing with savings. Uh, in fact, I just increased mine, uh, this year. Uh, again, I, I have a plan, uh, that my wife and I both do, and we increase it by a hundred dollars every year. And whether we have, whether we have raises or not, you know, we, we will do that because we have figured out that as we get older, we got to save more for, for, uh, inflation,
Felipe Arevalo:Right..
Chase Peckham:And not just in our 401ks and those kinds of things, but for emergency funds, for travel funds for someday, we're going to get to travel again, um, for, uh, saving for the holidays, right? If you can save, uh, beforehand. So it comes out of your check before and you don't even recognize it. And then you live your daily life, your monthly life and pay your bills on the rest. Now, obviously you've got to do the math and make sure you're not taking out too much, so there's enough. But if you do that, you're not even gonna, you're saving without even, without even recognizing it.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:Which is phenomenal. Right. And you can do that for anything. We say it time and time again.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:You can do that for your, for your vacations. You can do that for the holidays. You can do that for saving for your, for the vehicles that you need to get the oil changed and rotate tires and get new tires and, you know, fix breaks. And those kinds of things, all these things that we know we're going to happen, but we just put off until they actually happen. And then we go, Oh my gosh, we can plan ahead for those things. And then you're not getting yourself into credit card debt.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. It's funny. You mentioned cars. Like you can have a separate little savings account just for cars, whether it's repair or replace. Just standard wear and tear or whatever. Uh, that's on my to-do thing to do list, uh, this weekend is for Sarah and I to open up one specifically for car expenses, whether it's, and then, and then you set your, uh, car payment, whatever amount you for your car payment to that account. And then you put a little extra, which will then cover the wear and tears and the repairs that eventually will come up. And, and what that does is it'll just compartmentalize that portion of our budget, where it's, that's, where it comes out from. That's where the credit card payments go to that's where savings will automatically go for that car. And as long as you're not being charged, any kind of fee with your bank or credit union, which if you are, you should probably shop around and find an alternative. Um, you know, that's a whole nother episode. Um, you know, you can have multiple accounts, you can have lots of them specifically for different things, uh, at one or a lot of different banks or credit unions. Um, you know, in today's digital age, you don't even have to be near, you don't even have to go in to open an account. You can do it online, you can do everything online. They send you your debit card, they send you everything. Um, so make it easy and, you know, use technology to help you out. If you're, you know, walk into your, or shoot an email over to your HR department and ask them to deposit money straight into your savings account at the same time, right before it goes into your checking account, savings has gone into savings because if you wait until the end and you try and save at the end, there's usually little to nothing left you, you end up spending the money that goes into your savings. So we say all the time, you know, pay yourself first,
Chase Peckham:Absolutely paying yourself first is so important, you know, and finally, Felipe. If you're finding yourself that you're a little depressed or you're, or you're angry at yourself, or you're just feeling kind of down because, you know, be easy on yourself and understand that so many people are going through these same things. We find ourselves right now with COVID-19 in a pandemic. And, you know, at least in the state of California, you know, we, you know, we are sheltered in for the most part. Uh, give yourself a break, uh, understand that. I'm not not saying that you just ignore it. I'm not saying that you continue the same habits that got you into the places where you're in, but understand that you've got you're human and you're gonna that, that you're gonna make mistakes. Um, but it's learning from them. I tell my children all the time, making mistakes is okay, uh, in sports or in life and tests and whatever you do yelling at your sister, you know, hitting your brother or whatever it might be, but learn from those mistakes. The most successful people in the world, the most successful business, people in the world failed many, many, many times, but you know what the difference with a successful person and a non successful person is for the most part.
Felipe Arevalo:Learn, get up and get going again.
Chase Peckham:Get up. Don't take no for an answer and or learn from your mistakes and, and evolve. And, and eventually, you know, it'll hit, but have perseverance and just realize that that you're going to stumble, but it's getting back up. And by doing that, you're going to feel not only better about yourself, but you're going to start to see success start to happen.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:Right now is there a, is there luck that goes involved with, with being super successful? Absolutely. But you know what they say about luck, those who succeed from luck are prepared for when that luck comes,
Speaker 2:They take, they take
Speaker 1:Opportunities when they come and they run with it. Right. And so, um, I hope that everybody gets through this January. I hope that 2021 is going to be a much better. It can't be worse. I don't think, um, you know,
Felipe Arevalo:knock on wood.
Chase Peckham:Knock on wood. I will knock on wood. Um, you know, it was just, this is my 49th. I'm in, I'm in my 49th year. Now I'm, or, or maybe I'm in my 50th year. I don't know how that works. I'm 49 years old.
Felipe Arevalo:Or level 49 now.
Chase Peckham:Level 49. Now that's a nice way to put it. Um, and you know, this has been unprecedented. I've never seen any kind of year. Like it both with an, obviously you've never lived through a pandemic, uh, to this scale. I've never seen political unrest like this. Um, I'm glad it's coming to an end. Um, no matter which side of the, uh, side of the fence, you sit on, um, you know, uh, we're ready for a change. Uh, just a change in leadership. I don't care, not talking Democrat, not talking Republican, um, just the country is in turmoil and it needs to heal. And so for all of you out there that are listening, I pray that you all are doing well. I pray that you work hard, uh, and get all the dreams and all the things that you, uh, are striving for. And that's by taking the baby steps, anything is possible
Felipe Arevalo:Try being nice to someone today. And then that might make a huge difference in that person's life.
Chase Peckham:It will make you smile.
Felipe Arevalo:And it'll make you smile. Exactly.
Chase Peckham:That's right. It'll make you smile. And a smile will go a long way. So, um, look, start having the savings come out of your paycheck, every pay period. That's a great start. Even if it's 20 bucks, start, start somewhere, but make the step and have it be a baby step because those baby steps that you're right Felipe. Those walks turn into jogs and those jogs turn into running. And next thing you know, you're doing half marathons and then you're doing marathon. So, um, it all, it's just, it's all a mindset. And once you get into that mindset and things are clear and you created a better path for yourself, those things that you want to attain will happen.[inaudible].