#099 $hootin the Financial $h!t - Back to School Edition

Congratulations! Your summer has arrived! The kids are back in school or back to college, One way or the other summer as the kids know it has come to a close. This is an annual occurrence yet many of us get caught off guard and are scrambling to the malls, Target, WalMart or online to buy all of the stuff our kids "need" for the school year. Today the Talk Wealth To Me crew discuss the different ways to prepare financially for this annual ritual.

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Intro 0:00

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 0:31

You hear that you hear that.

Felipe Arevalo 0:34

Sounds nice.

Chase Peckham 0:35

Sounds nice. You know what that sound is?

Felipe Arevalo 0:37

Sounds like my place.

Chase Peckham 0:38

Silence. You know why that is Phil? Because everybody is at school.

Felipe Arevalo 0:46

Isn't that great.

Chase Peckham 0:47

The Peckham household, everybody has gone except for me. And the little Tito dog it's officially back to school day here in the Peckham family. And most of the country has either gone back to be at the end of last week or the beginning of this week , uh, which here in the San Diego area, everybody went back yesterday in public schools. And today my kids went back to their school, which is where my wife works. And so she went to work , um, even on her chemo week. Uh, she, she has got it together and , um, she wanted to be there for the kids to go to school for her. Not only, she's never missed a first day of school at her school that The Bishops school. Um, but it's also , um, our kid's first day and my daughter's first day at her new school. So.

Felipe Arevalo 1:37

Nice, first day of middle school, right?

Chase Peckham 1:39

First day of middle school for her. Yeah. So it's going to be the first time she actually walks around to different classes.

Felipe Arevalo 1:44

Yeah change classrooms.

Chase Peckham 1:44

Have different teachers. Yeah. She's feeling all big time. They're wearing , uh, they're they're, they're super excited.

Felipe Arevalo 1:51

Nice. Yeah, I know. I dropped off Barrington yesterday, first day of school, his first day of in-person school since COVID started. So he was very excited to tell me about all the things he did and how he made new friends. And it's a good to get back into the flow of traffic at the schools drop off and pick ups. Um , you know, we he's going to new school. So trying to get into that new routine, I don't where to drop them off, where to pick them up. We couldn't find them after school yesterday he got a little teary-eyed . Uh,

Chase Peckham 2:27

You guys guys didn't discuss that before, or you did and he just kind of forgot.

Felipe Arevalo 2:31

He kind of forgot. He wasn't sure if he was going to the afterschool program or not. Uh , because normally he will be going to the after school program, but we were off yesterday, so he kind of got lost in the in-between.

Chase Peckham 2:41

Oh that's right .

Felipe Arevalo 2:42

And eventually I , I saw him in like the little courtyard from on the other side of the fence and he was just kind of spinning around looking for us. And I was like, buddy, what are you doing? And he was like, I don't know where to go.

Chase Peckham 2:58

Is that called ESS or something like that? That's after school .

Felipe Arevalo 3:02

Uh, yeah. Now it's called project safe out this way. I think each school district.

Chase Peckham 3:07

Ok has a different name for it.

Felipe Arevalo 3:08

Yeah. But yeah, same idea. Um, I think growing up that's what was called that for me after school program or something.

Chase Peckham 3:15

Yep.

Felipe Arevalo 3:16

Um , yeah, so it's parents are going back to school as well. You know, it changes up our commutes, it changes up our routines.

Chase Peckham 3:26

It does.

Felipe Arevalo 3:27

It, it's a different , uh there's uh , there's still that difference when you can tell in summer is over , um, not the actual season, but what we grew up learning as summer.

Chase Peckham 3:37

Right.

Felipe Arevalo 3:38

And then we're back in the school year at this point.

Chase Peckham 3:41

Yeah. It's odd for us. Uh , here in San Diego, weather-wise, it's, it's now really starting to get warm for us.

Felipe Arevalo 3:48

Right.

Chase Peckham 3:48

Out here in San Diego that we kind of get into our dry season, so to speak. Um , so it feels like summer for quite a while , August, September, October, we get those Santa Ana winds in October, our fire season on the west here. So it gets, it heats up for us a bit, but summer is officially over as far as school is concerned.

Felipe Arevalo 4:08

Right.

Chase Peckham 4:08

And which kind of brings up what we're going to talk about today. And it , the finances can change so much. Uh, it's so much different. I should say from when I was a kid, it seems that I remember like it was a Rite of passage. Like my mom would get us together and there would be like a full day of going to school, going out and going to the mall and buying all of our back to school stuff. So from clothing to all our gear and it was just like this one deal one day deal. And you know, for, I'd love to know for, for others, if that is still a thing with a lot of people, because with online shopping with , uh , I mean the world that we've lived in , uh, the last number of years with COVID and the kids, you know, last year, they didn't go back to school right away. So back to school shopping consisted of maybe electronics and making sure the wifi was strong again.

Felipe Arevalo 5:05

Right.

Chase Peckham 5:05

Um , and, but this year for the most part, all kids are back in school. Uh, they, they are there . So D D does it go back to that kind of history of having to need a budget for the back to school things?

Felipe Arevalo 5:22

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know That it, at least not this year, I don't think it was, there were some people I saw.

Chase Peckham 5:28

I think it snuck up on people. We were super excited. Cause I'll tell you what I saw a ver a lot of very happy faces, like at the little.

Felipe Arevalo 5:34

There were a lot of smiles at the Drop off,

Chase Peckham 5:39

The social media of parents, like saying happy first day of school. I mean, I don't know if alcohol sales went up yesterday in our area, but , uh, it's, it's quite possible that a lot of parents were feeling like summer is upon us

Felipe Arevalo 5:53

Just driving there , driving them to school yesterday was like, everyone was pictures and all the parents are leaving with this big smile on their face. Like, oh , there you go. I don't have to pick them up till later. Um, but it's different. It , it changes up the, not just the back to school shopping. And I don't know if that'll go back to that one trip to the mall type of thing, especially with malls really kind of going by the wayside is in general. You know, there's not a lot of malls per se, even here. I mean, I'm more likely to go into a Costco, target or Walmart than to go to a mall.

Chase Peckham 6:27

Right.

Felipe Arevalo 6:27

Uh , for, for back to school shopping. So

Chase Peckham 6:30

It used to be like a day,

Felipe Arevalo 6:32

I remember.

Chase Peckham 6:32

Like our mom would take my brother and I, and we, it would be we'd go to the mall and we would say, okay, well, what kind of clothes do we need? You know, where I lived, we had winter. So we had, you know, do we need, how many pairs of long pants, how many new do we need another jacket, blah, blah, blah. Um, and, and it always seemed to be the time when we would buy the club , my mom would buy the clothes for the kids and then we would do lunch out of it. We might go to a movie. It was like a whole day. And I'm not, I don't know if we have that anymore because I know in my family, we don't. Um, my kids aren't really into that as much. Although my daughter was a little bit this year because she needed to have going into sixth grade. There was like a laundry list of things that our schools said that our kids needed. So she took that, you know , she really needed and wanted to get into involved in that. So she, and , uh , Kerri did do that last Sunday, like a mom daughter thing, but my son wasn't interested in it at all.

Felipe Arevalo 7:30

He probably would rather you ordered on Amazon and him not have to deal with it.

Chase Peckham 7:34

I think he really even realized what he needed to have until he was putting back backpack together last night. And then it was kinda like, well, wait a minute, I don't have that. And we were like too bad, your fault. You're going into eighth grade kid, get your stuff together.

Felipe Arevalo 7:47

Right.

Chase Peckham 7:49

But I think there's still the premise is we talk about in our, in our, in this podcast, in our presentations over and over and over again, and it gets brought up is this time is coming upon us. And there are going to be things that kids do need, whether it's a , you need to save a lot or it's not, it's not very much, it's putting that in your budget and understanding that this is something that you're going to want to save for that this is coming up and it's really no different from the holidays, whether it be Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever, a holiday that you.

Felipe Arevalo 8:23

Celebrate.

Chase Peckham 8:24

Yeah. That's the word I was looking for. Thanks, man. That just went blank. Um, and or if it's birthdays or if it's other different holidays that you celebrate , uh, it's the same kind of thing and it's things that you need to do. And so it's coming up with that game plan ahead of time. Uh, and, and hopefully the people are not scrambling late and trying to send those emails to their teachers saying, I'm so sorry, we're behind. We didn't get the, the, the, the email. And it went to my.

Felipe Arevalo 8:54

Spam or whatever.

Chase Peckham 8:55

Right? Exactly. I'm still learning how to use this , uh , Blackbaud and whatever it might be.

Felipe Arevalo 9:02

Yeah. And it's something that even after the back to school shopping is done, you know, it may be, you know, afterschool programs. They're not free school lunches.

Chase Peckham 9:12

Yeah.

Felipe Arevalo 9:12

Or packing a lunch that could be an added expense. I know some school districts do offer.

Chase Peckham 9:17

Free lunches,

Felipe Arevalo 9:18

Free lunch. I know our school district this year did a blanket. Everyone can get free lunch.

Chase Peckham 9:23

Really even without applying for it?

Felipe Arevalo 9:26

Yeah. It's , they're just not charging for lunch.

Chase Peckham 9:28

Okay. and ours did that too. I think a lot of people should check that and probably know that, but ours did that through COVID , uh , the last number of years , uh, especially for those families that were in need.

Felipe Arevalo 9:38

Yeah. I think that's why they expanded it to this year, because before it was only you had to apply and qualify for it this year. They were just like, everyone gets a free lunch.

Chase Peckham 9:51

Okay.

Felipe Arevalo 9:51

So I think that's great for, you know , families who , who may be struggling or, you know, they've , they've always been able to apply, but this maybe puts a family that's kind of like right on the fringe of not qualifying for the free lunch, but could use it. Um, you know, it check your with your school district. They may have expanded it as well. I know my kid is excited because usually I pack them a lunch just because it's easier and only let them buy lunch on Fridays. And he was like, I get school lunch, yeah, if you want, and then he, like, I asked him, what'd you get? He was like, well, they said I had to have a fruit and vegetable, but I didn't like apples. And I didn't like the celery. So I only ate the pizza. Uh ,

Chase Peckham 10:39

Of course he did.

Felipe Arevalo 10:40

So it was like, okay ,

Chase Peckham 10:42

They really have done. They've done a great job in making food more healthy than from the days where.

Felipe Arevalo 10:47

They have! It's not like when we were kids.

Chase Peckham 10:48

When we got bean burritos with some kind of meat in it. And the pizza was some kind of Totinos

Felipe Arevalo 10:53

Like the rectangular pizza with the rectangular pepperoni's. Oh yeah. Oh, and I remember like the bread pizzas, Yeah like the thick.

Chase Peckham 11:02

Totinos. Yeah, it was right. Like garlic bread, but with pizza On top of.

Felipe Arevalo 11:05

Garlic bread with cheese. Yeah, exactly.

Chase Peckham 11:07

Yeah. We liked that day.

Felipe Arevalo 11:09

That was good. Back in the day. I remember. And then your dessert, you got those little ice creams with the wooden spoons.

Chase Peckham 11:15

Oh yes. Like you wouldn't get at the ballpark back in the day.

Felipe Arevalo 11:19

Yeah, exactly.

Chase Peckham 11:20

When I used to go to Dodgers stadium and Angels stadium when I was a kid.

Felipe Arevalo 11:23

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 11:23

The wooden spoon

Felipe Arevalo 11:24

And it's something where they don't do, anymore.

Chase Peckham 11:29

No.

Felipe Arevalo 11:29

They have, like, I remember in high school, they had a, this was my finances in high school and my mom would give me lunch money at the beginning of the week. And I would spend that lunch money on Hot Cheetos.

Chase Peckham 11:41

Oh geez .

Felipe Arevalo 11:42

Uh , Dr. Pepper or Mountain Dew and a cinnamon roll, or one of those bean burritos with some kind of meat in it. And that, that was lunch Monday through Wednesday, maybe Thursday, and then I'd run out of money and then I'd bring an apple because that was my first without knowing it where I was like, I got a budget this better Fridays when they have the good food and I'm out of money because I spent it all day one, two and three . Um, but yeah, they don't have vending soda vending machines on high school campuses anymore. So , um, which is a good thing,

Chase Peckham 12:20

Right. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's interesting. Cause my kids school , uh , in the library or near the library , um, we're lucky enough that my children get to go to , uh, both of them now, are there a private school here locally in San Diego? My wife has worked there for a number of years. So we're , you know, we're, it's great that my kids have an opportunity to be with her mom every day, which is exactly why she wanted to be at the first day of school today. Uh, even though it can be a little rough when you see mom walking around campus and you're like, oh, there's your mom. Uh, even though she's not a teacher, she is in administration. And so she's , uh , she's, well-known around the campus. Uh, and that can be tough for kids, but.

Felipe Arevalo 13:01

It's extra pressure on the kids.

Chase Peckham 13:02

We had our meeting yesterday,

Felipe Arevalo 13:06

Like, you know, the teachers know her, her mom probably bump into her all the time say ,

Chase Peckham 13:10

Oh yeah.

Felipe Arevalo 13:10

It's like, man, I gotta be extra good.

Chase Peckham 13:12

Those Peckham kids . Yes,

Felipe Arevalo 13:13

Exactly.

Chase Peckham 13:14

Absolutely. There , they have a little more added pressure to them , uh , than your everyday kid. Uh, but we had our orientation for my daughter yesterday and I went , uh, and they were saying that , um, there is the, each kid has an account and , um, that they can buy uniforms with and those kinds of things, but they can also outside and they get food. Like they , they get a good lunch every single day, every student that's part of the tuition. Uh, but they also there's food in like their little store. So there is candy. Yes. And so the joke was yesterday is , you know, you need to set those boundaries with your kids. Um, we're not going to track what they go get. So if , if you don't want your kids eating , Reese's , uh, don't, don't let them have it.

Felipe Arevalo 14:02

Don't load up their card.

Chase Peckham 14:02

Right. And so then their mom , some moms were like, well, why did they even have reesse? And like, well , um, that's a good question. And we get that every year, but , uh, you know, everything, can't be just nuts and stuff like that because obviously there's food allergies and all that stuff. So,

Felipe Arevalo 14:16

yeah.

Chase Peckham 14:17

But it's just interesting that there are different ways that kids can't spend their money. Um, but , uh,

Felipe Arevalo 14:24

It's funny, you mentioned allergies. My kid, my a day two , I already got a call from the nurse. Um, because my kid told her he was, they were rolling around in grass and Barrington said he's allergic to grass. So then they started panicking. Um , and he might have some skin allergy to grass. He gets a little itchy, but he showers and he's okay. Um, but the way he said it , he's like, oh no, I'm allergic to grass. And now I'm getting itchy. So panic call from the nurse. Do we have to hit them with an epi pen ? No, he's fine. Uh, he doesn't need, any of that, he's just overdramatic. Um, but it's something where you know that there there's that before you don't have to worry about missing work or having to take time off to bring them to go pick them up from the nurse. Thankfully, he's fine. He's just like, it's all right . Just give him , uh , let him wash his arm or something.

Chase Peckham 15:21

Right.

Felipe Arevalo 15:21

He'll be fine. Uh , but it there's those added expenses. I know a couple of years ago, Sarah had to leave work because Barrington, he was in kindergarten at the time, decided he put Play-Doh in his ear and all of a sudden, there you go. Now you have to bring them to urgent care. And now you have to miss time off work,

Chase Peckham 15:38

The little ones.

Felipe Arevalo 15:39

the little ones. Exactly. But it changes the entire spending. You know, for some people you mentioned this earlier, for some people, it could reduce their expenses. They're not kids are now, they're eating lunch at school. Now they're not at home all day. They don't have the lights going all the time.

Chase Peckham 15:59

Yes.

Felipe Arevalo 15:59

And the refrigerator is not getting raided.

Chase Peckham 16:04

Yes. And they're not constantly asking you, can we go to Chipolte? Can we go to Chick-fil-A? Can we, and even though I have to say no every day , but it is, you know, that the financial peace of mind that I have, that I'm not even going to get bothered by that anymore , uh, is great. And they're not eating me out of house and home. So I'm not buying sandwich stuff as much.

Felipe Arevalo 16:23

Right.

Chase Peckham 16:23

I don't have to buy nearly as much of that. Uh , and we're lucky now, but the AF with the sports and my kids are at a certain age now where we don't have , uh , the ESS or the afterschool stuff we have to pay for , uh, which, which is, oh no .

Felipe Arevalo 16:38

But you have your own new expenses, right? Yeah . The sports and the gear and the

Chase Peckham 16:42

Yeah . Well, yeah. I mean, yes, there is, there is part of that , uh , for sure. I mean, we're lucky enough our kids get to play middle school sports in the school. They have their equipment, but yeah, there is stuff that they need to buy , uh, for certain things like gloves or something like that. But yeah,

Felipe Arevalo 16:57

Gloves and cleats,

Chase Peckham 16:58

Yeah cleats, all that's, we're lucky enough that they're , you know , our kids are playing club sports and all that. Anyway ,

Felipe Arevalo 17:03

Oh so they have all the equipment.

Chase Peckham 17:03

They have, yeah. They just, they're going to use that same one. They're not going to be color coordinated for the school. We just buy black or white. And that kind of goes with everything. We're not going to go sick . We're not going to go color specific here.

Felipe Arevalo 17:17

Yeah. But you know, there's the, so there's the new spending pattern . People might have to change their driving. You know, their time they start work time, they get off work time. They, so , so there's all those financial possible financial implications you might have to pay for college students going back. That's a big expense. Now you got to pay for parking. Now you gotta try and find parking. You have to, well, most, a lot of campuses aren't coming back to in-person yet. So I don't think parking is going to be issue at most schools, but , uh, you know, there's those added expenses. There's moving costs for college students who are moving back to wherever school happens to be. And, you know, parents, if they're helping them out, you know, bringing them to either east coast or bringing them to California, if they're not already here, you know, there's a lot of expenses for , for a lot of people with this first, first day of school. Uh, and , and it can, it can add up.

Chase Peckham 18:19

Right. Well, hopefully people took advantage of the different things that they can , uh , uh, with back to school sales and there's all kinds of coupons and rebates sites. There's all kinds of cash back apps that you can use. A.

Felipe Arevalo 18:30

Some states have that tax.

Chase Peckham 18:30

A lot of states, we talked about this. Yeah. They have sales tax holidays where it'll be a no tax day for school stuff.

Felipe Arevalo 18:38

See, I think in those states, it's probably still a thing to go back to school shopping.

Chase Peckham 18:42

It could be.

Felipe Arevalo 18:43

Where it's an event and because why wouldn't you take advantage of the, I mean, I know if I could get a tax free on a certain day, then it's all going to get purchased on that certain day.

Chase Peckham 18:53

Right.

Felipe Arevalo 18:54

As opposed to, you know , spreading it out or buying it on a different day, just to deal with the crowds and save whatever the sales taxes in the area. Um, but especially if you're going to buy multiple kids, multiple outfits, any kind of electronics and that kind of thing that could, that sales tax break can be worth taking advantage of that day.

Chase Peckham 19:19

And you know, it's not just the kids K through 12, they're going back to school. Uh , we've got our college students that are going back to school and sometimes , uh , and, and some of these maybe even , uh , sophomores that have never seen their campus before and are now moving onto their campus or moving near their campus because of COVID, they didn't get that opportunity. And they were, you know, they may have gone to Stanford or they may have gone to a specific school and they were remote the whole time.

Felipe Arevalo 19:47

Right never left home.

Chase Peckham 19:48

Right. So they they're , we could be having freshmens and sophomores and huge, you know, amount of, much more kids , uh, getting on their own for the very first time and figuring out what they need to do. And that could be for the very first time , uh, getting their own bank accounts, opening up a new bank account locally, wherever they, or they're taking , uh , and shifting their bank account to a , a local bank near where their , their campuses.

Felipe Arevalo 20:13

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 20:13

Um , if they're not at a big national bank, like B of a, or, or city or, or something like, or chase, something like that.

Felipe Arevalo 20:20

Yeah. Even some of those bigger ones don't always have the same footprint in different areas. So you might have a, you know, a big brand , a big brand bank, like a , like a Citi, for example. And there's not that many branches here in San Diego, right. There's a couple here and there, but it's not going to be the most convenient. Um, and then there's other parts of the country where they're on every corner. Like we would have a B of A or a Chase bank here,

Chase Peckham 20:45

And it just might be smart that there's a local union or something like that, that caters to students. So they might, you know, if you want to, if a student, which is smart , uh , you don't want to get into credit card debt by any means. And a lot of kids get into credit card debt , uh, in their college years.

Felipe Arevalo 20:59

Yeah that's when I started.

Chase Peckham 20:59

but it's smart to start building your credit now. And so if you get a student card that has a very low limit, so you use it for very little things and you pay it back every month , uh, they have great ways of building credit that way. Uh, and you could have , uh , those credit unions, those local ones , uh, can be really, really beneficial in opening that up. Cause they may not even, you may not even need a credit score or a credit background to open up that account.

Felipe Arevalo 21:28

Yeah. They're far more likely to help out with a starter card, especially if they're affiliated with the school in some way, or they have a branch near campus where they know every single semester or every single year, they have that new influx of young students. You mentioned, you know, sophomores for the first time getting to go onto campus because they weren't allowed to last year.

Chase Peckham 21:51

Right.

Felipe Arevalo 21:51

That's, that's a bigger than usual crowd coming into the area. And I know some of the schools out here were struggling with housing on campus housing because freshmen get priority. And then it usually goes freshmen, grad, seniors, juniors, sophomores last, but this year sophomores, we're looking at it saying, wait a minute, I got priority last year. I didn't even get to go on campus last year. And now I'm the last on the totem pole , you know , that's,

Chase Peckham 22:21

That's tough.

Felipe Arevalo 22:22

That's a rough, that's a tough year to be in because you know , your first year on campus and you're not actually on campus again, because there's no housing you're on waiting lists. You're trying to find something in the community.

Chase Peckham 22:35

Right.

Felipe Arevalo 22:35

So, you know, that that particular class got , uh, you know, short end of the stick.

Chase Peckham 22:44

Yeah. It, it would be tough. Uh, the other thing that they need to look at , uh, you know, they might be opening a checking account savings account there , um , moving things over. Uh , but there's also great ways of looking at like high yield savings accounts like Marcus by Goldman Sachs high yield online savings. You can do a lot of online banking now. Um, but you can also look at the different, you know, looking at , uh , these different places that don't have a lot of fees , um, that are lower fees. Again, cater to students knowing that there's not a lot , uh , of, they're obviously not working full time .

Felipe Arevalo 23:15

Right.

Chase Peckham 23:15

Uh , most of them aren't , uh, so the , the fees could be much less, which, which is really important.

Felipe Arevalo 23:24

Yeah. It's definitely something where they need to explore all their options. And especially if they're out there for the first time or out on their own away from mom and dad for the first time, you definitely want to look at all the different options and remember that if you do have a credit union and they're part of the co-op local, wherever you are, and you end up at another part, the country, you know, check to see if their credit unions are also part of the co-op, you may still have access to your.

Chase Peckham 23:51

absolutely no fees,

Felipe Arevalo 23:52

your money with no fees. So that's a big bonus. And , and I know there's some national credit unions that are absolutely almost everywhere. So at that are part of the co-op. So, you know, you probably can find a ATM that works. I know down here, the ATM's inside the seven Eleven's are part of the co-op, so you can hop on into it and you still have access to .

Chase Peckham 24:18

Those fees are, like are crazy sometimes.

Felipe Arevalo 24:22

Yeah. And you might get charged a fee if you have a bank and use the wrong one by the bank whose ATM you're using, and then also by your bank for using someone else's ATM. And now you've got like a double fee.

Chase Peckham 24:34

Right.

Felipe Arevalo 24:34

And it's something where it's like, if you can avoid that, you know , and that's one of the things with the credit unions. That's great is that as long as they're part of that, co-op, you have more access points to your money than with the big banks, because you can hop into other credit unions that are part of the co-op and just use their , so just kind of check in your area, if you have a credit union, which credit unions are part of that co-op and now you might still be able to keep the one you had back home while having that access to your money locally, wherever locally happens to be,

Chase Peckham 25:08

Right Yeah. It's back to school is it's such a man. Some kids are nervous, some kids are excited. Parents are mostly all excited. Uh, it's just, it seems, it just snuck up on me this year. Um, I, and I don't know why , uh, I don't know if it's working from home mostly, and I'm just used to the kids being here most of the time , uh, whether they're reading or playing games or whatever, they're , they're in another room and it's just super quiet. Uh , and I'm, I'm not spending any money anywhere right now.

Felipe Arevalo 25:43

Right.

Chase Peckham 25:45

It's a very strange thing.

Felipe Arevalo 25:46

And your electricity Bill is going down because you don't have lights and TVs .

Chase Peckham 25:51

Yeah the air is off.

Felipe Arevalo 25:52

computer and yeah.

Chase Peckham 25:55

So many things shut down. Yeah. Hopefully that energy bill goes down.

Felipe Arevalo 25:59

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 25:59

That would be a big bonus.

Felipe Arevalo 26:03

Exactly. So it's , it's very exciting. And , and it's a shift in the finances that happens every year. There's those shifts that kind of happen . And then at the end of the school year, it'll shift back into summer mode. And, you know , so there's those expenses where you might be saving on some things, but you might be spending more on others and hopefully it just balances out. But this is why we tell people all the time to revisit your budget.

Chase Peckham 26:30

Right.

Felipe Arevalo 26:30

And if you have your budget and you share your budget with someone else, you know, this would be a good time to review it at the end of the month, or whenever you do your budget dates or whenever you budget meetings, whatever you want to call them and just kind see, like, what are , what new expenses have we incurred now that we're back to school? What expenses are we going to save on now that we're , um, you know, now that the kids are back in school and how does that change stuff? I mean, most people go to school at a relatively close to home. So it's not like they're adding a long commute and having to pay for more gas or anything like that. Uh, but there is the added time to pick up and drop off and, you know , hopefully it balances itself out. Or hopefully, maybe it's , it's a little cheaper cause they're in school longer than they're not. So if that can help your finances,

Chase Peckham 27:21

It's really weird. I'm going from seeing my son most , you know, all day 24 hours a day outside of football practice. But now he goes to school, they left at 7:00 AM and.

Felipe Arevalo 27:30

You're not the drop-off guy anymore.

Chase Peckham 27:32

I am not, I don't have any of that anymore. Now. I have no morning responsibility at all, except to wake up and, and get to work,

Felipe Arevalo 27:40

Get yourself ready.

Chase Peckham 27:41

Workout. Yeah . And , and getting myself to work consists of , uh, getting out of bed. Uh , so , you know , but I do, I'm the kind of, I like to have a routine. So I do like to get up with the family, getting up , uh , early every morning. Now I will be part of that.

Felipe Arevalo 28:00

Your not going to Just sleep through it.

Chase Peckham 28:02

Gosh, no, I just, that would make me feel like, yeah, no , no , no,

Felipe Arevalo 28:06

You hear it all. I would imagine it makes it,

Chase Peckham 28:09

But it's interesting. I was saying I got to see my son and daughter so much. And now , uh , with football practice three nights, four nights a week , uh , he'll get leave at seven o'clock this morning and he won't be home till eight o'clock tonight. And I won't see him until I pick him up from practice.

Felipe Arevalo 28:22

See, him a couple hours dinner bed,

Chase Peckham 28:25

Maybe Because eight o'clock and now they're back to, you know, during the summer we were pretty lenient with bedtime. Uh, they will, they are going to bed at nine o'clock now, so they don't have much time.

Felipe Arevalo 28:35

Right.

Chase Peckham 28:36

And they need that sleep. That sleep is incredibly important.

Felipe Arevalo 28:39

Yeah. It's definitely something where it's like, all right , buddy, let's get you to bed. I'm like, can I stay up? No, it's not summer anymore. Like you need to I'm the drop-off guy in the morning. So I do a lot of driving in the morning. I draw, I drive the little one to my mom's house and then I get home. Barrington was kinda sorta ready . I had To help them with getting your shoes on, get him in the car, drop him off and then come back and start work. So I have that full morning routine right now. Sarah is lucky. She doesn't do any morning. Drop-offs uh , so she just, boom work .

Chase Peckham 29:14

My whole world's changed. I don't have, I don't make breakfast anymore. I don't drop off. Uh, I don't have any of that. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's really, really strange for me right now,

Felipe Arevalo 29:29

The adjustment period where you're like, oh, this is, this is what having nothing to do in the morning feels like. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Well, congratulations to you. Uh , your kid.

29:58

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