Is Your Refund ‘Free Money’? A Financial Director Answers

Hello, and welcome back to the second episode of Type A Unhinged.

Today, we have an awesome guest speaker with us, Antony.

Antony, you want to start off just telling us a little bit about yourself?

Sure. Well, my name is Antony. As you already said, I was born in Spain.

Probably you can guess by my accent that I'm not a Minnesota or a U.S. local.

I moved to the U.S. back in the summer of 2015, and I've always been working in different finance roles around the world.

Chemical industry, travel industry, and lately now, the controller at Fun.com, a company that basically sells costumes for Halloween, among other things.

I'm married. I have two kids. I don't know how many details do you want.

Whatever you want to share.

And a beautiful cat that tends to sleep by me almost all day long.

She's very old, but we appreciate having her.

So would you say your passion in life is numbers and finance?

Professionally speaking, yeah, for sure.

I always enjoyed numbers and the logic that things, at the end of the day, have to balance and that there's some sort of order in life.

I don't like messy things.

Sounds pretty Type A to me.

Well, that's how it is.

That's how I am.

We're all different.

What about, you said professionally.

What about personally?

What are some of your passions outside of work?

It's nothing special.

I like a little bit of everything.

I mean, I enjoy travel, going to movies, although in the last years, to be honest, it's been more like just watch movies from home with the family, not so much really going to the movie theater.

By the way, also because the quality has declined a lot.

So not a lot of.

It's not worth spending the money on going to the cinema anyway.

I like reading and I know just enjoying life, but I'm also a big food fan, so I like cooking and, you know, tasting new things.

It's awesome.

You mentioned the going to cinema and the quality being so much better that you don't pay to go anymore, so that probably lends into your finance passion.

Right.

And family.

How do you go about budgeting for your family?

You have two kids that are grown enough to college.

So how did you make sure that you could help them in that way to have some successful starts?

Well, I always thought that it's important for a person or for a family to have a budget.

I mean, you need to know how much you earn, how much you spend, have clear targets on how much you want to save and invest.

And I don't know how to do that unless you have a budget.

You can have it, you know, more detail or less detail.

But I tend to say that if you don't know where you're going, you will almost for sure end up getting lost.

So you need to plan everything around your finances to make sure that you achieve your short term and long term goals.

So for me, the budget is like the key tool that you need to have in mind in order to get there.

It feels like the quote of the episode.

Yeah.

If you don't know where you're going, you're going to get lost.

Yeah, probably.

Would you say obviously we know that you're passionate about numbers at work since we worked with you for a bit now.

Would you say that you treat personal and business budgeting similarly to them?

I do. Yeah.

I mean, at the end of the day, you know, money can be a major source of stress or if you manage it properly, I would say your freedom.

So.

But having those good money habits for me help you a lot.

You know, to feel better, enjoy better your life and avoid surprises.

So definitely I don't know if it's because I'm a finance person, but I would say that the answer to that question is a big capital yes.

I haven't had this conversation with you, Antony, but with a lot of my friends, I'll say, you know, like, I don't really get stressed out a lot, but money is like the one thing in life that I can, like, stay awake at night where I want to be.

about and so i completely agree like having a good plan is like money can mess things up

it's interesting but some people may know more or less or with a good certain of detail how

much they make but then you ask them how much they spend and they have no idea

not to mention if you try to go into details like how much you spend in entertainment how

much you spend in groceries how much of your expenses are fixed how many of those are

variable and you may have the opportunity to reduce if you want how much of what you spend

is really a need on how much is just i don't know something that you do but that you could cut or

that you could reallocate to somewhere else so it always puzzled me that you say how much you make

every year and yeah give or take i would say 90 percent of the people will let you know exactly

a spot on if they want to share but they have no idea whatsoever how much they spend and again in

watch in what

categories so so is there is there like other apps or is there a certain like software that

you utilize to help you keep all of that straight and break it down easily or have you always been

kind of building it yourself i do know that there are some apps available to be honest i've never

used any so i'm not in a position to recommend or to talk about any i've always used excel something

simple

that you know that has a structure that you understand that suits your needs and that's

that's just what i do maybe that's something we can get from you and share with our listeners

kind of a baseline for them to start with that they don't have to pay for

yeah well our if anything i would say just just start simple the most important thing is first

identify how much do you earn so what are the different sources or types of

your income which normally is going to be your salary or the salary of you and your spouse

but if you have any other side i don't know hassle or any other passive income that you may receive

identify that i always say use the net so of course and you need to understand what are the deductions

that your payroll has and and that's your baseline below that then it's just track your expenses and

as i mentioned before

there are different ways of how to sort them you can start with saying those are my fixed expenses

and those are my variable expenses that may help you because in the variable categories where you

may have the opportunity to reshuffle things or to be more flexible or you can categorize your

expenses between which ones are the needs and which ones are the ones so typical examples

fixed expenses are going to be like your mortgage

and you may have not remembered the units that you've received or the amount of money you've

received and then how to allocate the корабles i might see that you could be a lorsqu or tenant

or your rent any car payments that you may have insurance expenses i don't no utilities property

taxes stuff like that within your variable category uh you will have your groceries

grass transportation vacations clothing entertainment and stuff like that and then

it's sort of personal to decide what of that is a need and what of that is a one

to be something that you need to live while things like streaming services as long as we were talking

about movies or vacations or entertainment are going to be things that you just want

so for me that gives you the opportunity to understand how you are currently allocating

how much of your income is coming in and in what categories again you are allocating

those funds that you have available and then decide if you want to have some sort of saving

target or investing target where do you have the opportunity to reallocate resources from one area

to another another tip that i would also recommend is to pay yourself first to do something similar

like what the government does i think for everyone is very clear that you get your gross salary

you can't pay for it

and before that amount really reaches your bank account you're gonna have the

federal government and the state government if applicable your Social

Security and your Medicare automatically deducted from that amount before a

single penny you know makes it to your bank account which is your net so I

think that you should have with yourself exactly the same discipline and before

you start thinking how do I want to spend my money say if I want to save

five or ten percent every month then put already that amount apart and try to

automate it as much as possible in a similar way like you may be contributing

to your 401k if you have one at work and then that amount is automatically

deducted before you even get the money to your bank account so then you start

like okay now that's the amount that I really have for my expenses and let's

manage that and let's allocate that

but just doing something simple like this would be in my opinion very helpful

for everyone because you would have that saving habit on a monthly basis the key

is to start then once you start you know just let things compound and get bigger

and it will give you a good understanding of where you're spending

money and in some cases you may even surprise yourself like well I wasn't

aware that I was spending that much in this category or that much here that

that's not something that I want to continue doing going forward or if you are in a need really to

cut expenses then it's also easy for you to say okay that's the area that we need to look at

because that's where we are spending the most and that might not make sense so as I said keep it

simple but start and have the discipline you know to keep it every month so the more time you have

the more complicated you can do it but you know two three steps and that should be it if you if

you ever feel up to it I would be interested in seeing like a blank template that you use

just because I think it's interesting that our our numbers guy uses just excel which totally

works right I just think it's funny a little bit I personally have tried a few budgeting apps one

was called YNAB like Y-N-A-B and it stands for you need a budget I actually really

liked the app on my phone and it helped a lot however it was like 90 or 100 a year and I just

felt like why am I paying for an app to help me budget that feels like backwards so then I

switched and I used a couple of free ones I have one on my server now called actual budget similar

to the rest it helps it's basically like excel on steroids but I agree it helps with all those

things you called out Anthony like how much are you spending in entertainment how much are you

fixed what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing what are you

doing what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing

versus variable expenses and it calls out weird things that don't quite follow the normal

pattern too anyway like I said if you happen to ever have a clear template I would be interested

in at least seeing it to take a look not a problem maybe a few comments in in that area

and again I haven't tried any app so I'm not going like to criticize them but for those to

work properly you need to map absolutely everything and it's not just your credit

cards if you buy things in cash or you have some expenses that normally you cover in cash I don't

think that an app is going to to cover that when the app categorizes things into different buckets

it might not do it you know the way that you may do it if you would do it from a scratch but one

thing that I learn is the advantage of Excel is that because you do the work you really learn more

about the different sources of credit cards and you don't have to worry about how much money you

are spending and because you have to do the thinking about okay this where do I categorize

that that goes into here or there there it makes you think more like oh really I spend that much

in this thing or in that thing I'm not saying that you cannot do that looking at the results of an app

but when something is just given to you and you don't put the effort yes you have the results but

you may not have gone through the whole thought process you know what I mean of

really assimilating the results of the app and you don't have to worry about how much money you

are spending and you don't have to worry about what happened to get to that result and then what

do you need to correct if that result is not something that you like you may look at the app

and say well yeah clearly I'm spending too much here but okay what now if you've done the work

it's going to be very easy for you to say yeah I know why this is so big because I remember you

know there was this this this this and this that that's that cannot happen again so every person

is different but that would be my recommendation maybe a

little bit I don't know how to say it in English but once you are more familiar with how your

finances are then if you want to use an app use it I use Google Sheets myself I downloaded one a free

one off of a website and that's been helpful it had like categories already built in and then you

just enter your stuff in so I actually had to modify something and then I had to modify something

because excuse me I don't lease a car for example I've always purchased a used car with cash I've

saved it up and then when I need a new one there you go because I don't like having an extra payment

if I don't have to I don't need a brand new fancy car right so like modifying all of the spreadsheets

to to fit my needs and my family's needs is really helped for sure so out of curiosity what what do

you do you link all your like credit card statements

we only have one credit card yeah so we only have one in it we get miles off of it so that's the

reason why we only use the one and then we pay it off at the end of every month to make sure that

we aren't carrying forward any dead and you don't use any cash for anything or very limited it's

it's very limited you know concessions for kids at sporting games things like that Derek will have

cash that he he just carries around a hundred all the time just in case of anything

which has been useful um from time to time like parking for events stuff like that but we don't

use cash for the most part and we write checks only for comp dance otherwise you end up with an

extra fee from them so that's that's the only other thing that's not attracted those are the

things that I mentioned that if you then use some sort of software you need to make sure that that's

captured too or that you have the ability to enter it manually

cash doesn't count is that Nate math are we getting into it it's already been pulled out

you guys once it's out of the bank account it's gone it doesn't count you don't categorize it at

all as long as you consider it as an expense exactly and call it like miscellaneous that's

that's fine but you need to make sure that it it's gone and it's reflected as a cost or as an expense

I'm just kidding I do count cash but I do agree those things are harder to track especially in

the apps yeah um on the flip of die though that's that's funny that you you guys do heavy cash I'm

like I avoid cash like the plague like I do not want change I don't want to put that in my pocket

I don't want to have to run to the bank and get my change counted later like cash is so annoying in

my opinion oh yeah I only use it when I have to

yeah it was concessions and like event parking things like that oh okay I missed that yeah no

you're good yeah I almost put everything on one card and then we just paid off at the end of the

month yeah although now that you say that you only have one not that I'm suggesting changes

but you should shop around a little bit because different cars give you different benefits

depending on what you're buying like you may have a card that give you let's say a

percent or a five percent cash back if you use it for gas or another one that if it's like travel or

entertainment might give you a free versus like a standard two percent on whatever you buy so it

makes things a little bit more complicated logistically but once you get used to it you

capture more savings if knowing what you're paying you always use you know the best credit card for

that to maximize your cash back that's a great tip I do that

yeah so how many do you have Anthony oh yeah uh there's like three different ones so not to make

it too complicated but for example if you are a Costco member and you have like their Citibank

card of course you have like a big discount for cash but anything that is travel and entertainment

as I said it's going to be a three percent cash back which normally in the bulk of the credit

card standard is like a two percent cash back with no limits if you have Bank of America

uh you have the option every quarter to select one category let's say groceries or online shopping or

stuff like that and for that category that you pick you can also have like a three percent cash

back instead of a flat one percent or whatever they may have then as default so it's things like

this again you don't have to do it super complicated but just three or four that may help

you also maximize your savings I mean if you go to Sam's Club it might make sense to have the Sam's

Club car because then you also get like a nice key back if you put gas there things things like that

so or try to think what are the areas where I spend the most and what are the best credit cards

to use in those areas to maximize you know the cash back that I get

for you okay but maybe two or three give you a little bit more savings without over complicating

things too much I'm not saying that you need to have 15 credit cards and that you need to

be thinking all the time okay well wait which one do I need to pull out but just here and there

where it makes sense yeah I don't know if three four might give you enough latitude you know to

capture more savings that what you may get in a standard in just one card unless you

have a great one that might give you like a three four percent kickback and if that's the case then

yeah by all means don't change it but I don't have any of those mine's just miles which which

is nice every few years that's that's true yeah you can you can also do that if you like to use

them to to travel for sure I mean there's plenty of options out there so again that's for every

individual person or family to decide what what works best for them

but just shop around I mean take a look for sure I mean don't stick to just one because that's the

one that you like or that you've been using all the time there might be better things

I do have I have three myself but two of them are like my emergency backups I would use the

others except for I feel like more so than maximizing my savings I need simplicity and

if I introduce too many more bills I I forget and I sit there and I have to like really pay attention

to my calendar and when everything's due I need like my simplicity for you know I feel like I'm

pretty busy outside of work the way it is and the more simple it is the the better I can avoid those

late fees so you're talking about shopping around for cards Anthony one thing I've heard in some

conversations lately is people shopping around for insurance that's something I haven't changed

and I don't know how long I feel like it might be 15 years um and it's one of those things where for

me I guess

my brain, for some reason, thinks of it like, like cell phone, right? Like, I've had the same

contract for a very long time. So I actually have a really good deal. And if I change it,

I'm gonna lose that, right? Because I'm on a plan that doesn't even exist anymore. Right? So

with insurance, like how often would you suggest shopping around for that?

Again, every person or family might have different situations. But I don't think that that's

something that you should be shopping around or changing very often, to be honest. Because I also

think it's important to build, if possible, good relations or trust with your agent or with a

company that you're working. In some cases, that's possible. In some cases, it's everything is done

online. So you don't even have like a contact or a person that you deal with. But at the end of the

day, sometimes it gives you a good peace of mind knowing that if something happens to your house

or with your car,

that you're going to be able to talk to Mr. X or Mrs. Y that is going to be there for you. And it's

not just a policy. It's someone that is really going to care for you. Having said that, I would

say maybe once per year, once every two years, just make sure that the total of your policies,

all the premiums that you pay make sense. Because sometimes you may have a company that may have

better rates for cars,

but not so good, for example, for your house, or things like that. So it's better to combine, put it

together and say for the whole picture of all what I need, what am I getting the best deal? If there's

an opportunity to significantly reduce expenses, then maybe that's a conversation to have with your

agent and see if there's anything you can do before you change. Otherwise, then maybe yes,

consider changing as long as you are not giving away coverage. Because that's the other thing. A lot of times,

a lot of people change, and they don't realize that they're materializing savings only because they are

assuming higher risks. And they might not be even aware of that they're doing that they may think

that my coverage is exactly the same. And that might not be the case. That's another thing to do,

especially for example, for your house insurance, just playing a little bit with a deductible that

you have might give you big differences in premiums. So again, it's what sort of

risk tolerance you want to have? Or how much are you willing to assume in case of something happens to

your house? Something that I've also seen with my experience, and that you need to be careful. Some

companies give you very attractive premiums just on the first year to make you change or to move your

business to them. And then after the first year is done, then you get like the standard rates and you

realize now I'm not saving anything, I'm back to

whatever it is.

I was, or even worse. So just make sure if you are changing, because you think that you're going to save a lot of

money, make sure that increases that you are going to see are just going to be because of inflation or other

adjustments, but not because suddenly you lose some of the discounts that you that you had.

Yeah, I've seen that a lot with like high speed internet, where I'm like, wow, I'm gonna save so much money. And

then you look like the next year, it's triple the cost.

We honest with phone and

internet it. Nowadays, it seems more like the law of the jungle, to be honest, I mean, I don't know your experience, but I

felt like every time I call, and I may say that, you know, I'm considering changing, or I've seen something better or

this or that, I always end up getting a better deal or some sort of discount or some some offer. The problem is that

normally, it's only like for 12 months or things like this. So you need to have those constant conversations with them. But

definitely,

when it comes to phone or internet, I would be more aggressive. And yes, recommend that once per year, you shop around or you look at

options. And if you think there's something better, don't be scared about calling you know, your current provider. Yeah, and let them

know because I would say three out of four times they're going to give you an offer.

So Nate, this sounds really familiar to us talking with vendors. When it comes to like SaaS platforms.

Yeah, you got to follow up every year, you got to ask, got to got to be like, I'm thinking about maybe going to this competitor, and then

suddenly your rate is much lower.

And we are really good at that. And we go down the list of every vendor we have. And we go, what are the what are this year's

renewals going to be? Ooh, I see a competitor of yours is 10k less. Yep. This is like a little off topic. But Anthony, you

reminded me of it when you said,

you should call and ask.

So I just want to say that you're potentially going to switch or you're researching competitors, etc. I saw this article about a year ago

about a new trend. And I tried it out. And it worked. But it was basically talking about how when you're about to make a purchase, especially if

it's bigger, and you're maybe on the fence, and let's say that company does have a welcome discount, it's 15% off. It actually suggested like,

if you just open up a chat with customer service, and you just say,

buy today if the discount was 20% instead of 15. 85, 90% of the time, the customer service agent

will send you a discount to make you convert right now. So I tried that. I bought my new couch.

It was just over $3,000 and the welcome discount was 15% off. And I literally emailed them saying,

I will buy today if you give me a 20% off instead of a 15. And they did.

As much as I hate saying that, coming from the business side, I would hate that. But

from my personal side, I would suggest you reach out and ask if you want an additional discount.

I mean, what's the worst they're going to say, right?

Yeah, it's sad. But a lot of people just to avoid the hassle or the time is like,

it's not worth it. I don't want to do it. Well, you're losing an opportunity. And for the ones

that do it, as you say, it might work. And it's a great example, Nate. I totally agree with that.

I'm not saying that you need to be aggressive or unpolite, but

just...

Just defend your position and just ask. All what you're doing is asking. They're doing exactly the

same, although we may not realize they're offering a price. Feel free to say, well,

what about that one? Not everything is an open negotiation, but sometimes there's flexibility

or room for them to do something better. And as you say, if you don't ask, you're not going to get

it. So...

What does our boss, Marco, always say? Everything is negotiable.

Yeah.

He once told me...

He once told me a story, and we should really have him on, of...

Yes, we should.

Is this the same story? Maybe? I don't know.

It's got to be.

Being young with his family and Target. Yes, it is the same story. So he basically,

he was translating for his family member. I can't remember. Was it his aunt?

Yeah.

Yeah. And basically, the bill was too high. They didn't have the money for it. Or even if they did,

they said they didn't. I'm not sure which.

They asked if there were coupons available versus taking things off to be able to pay for it.

They... And just saying, I won't buy these, right? They're like, how can you make it so I can buy

this? And they went to the back and just found coupons, just generic, you know, manufacturer

coupons and whatnot that they could add to the bill for them so that they could bring the price

down. I was like, I wouldn't have even thought to do that. That's just crazy.

At Target.

At Target.

Yeah.

Definitely has made me a better...

A better negotiator.

I have room for opportunity there, but I've gotten better. I've gotten better.

Okay. A little bit of a topic shift here, but Antony, what advice would you have for someone

that's just starting to invest? They have a little extra cash. They followed your Excel budget

tracker. And so now they have a little cushion and they want to invest. How would you suggest

they start?

The first thing would be congratulations because you did the most important thing,

which is a start. And the second thing,

that you need to understand is that it requires patience for that money to grow. And you need

to let, you know, compound to do its magic. So I always tell people, imagine like a hockey

stick. And that's exactly what your investments can do over time. It takes a lot of time,

but it will come a moment that you're going to see the big increase if you let it compound.

Then keep it simple. Whatever money that you are saving, if you're not saving it because

I want to buy a new bike or a vacation for the summer, that it's something that you're

trying to think, this is for me, long-term investment for whatever it might be for retirement,

for a cushion for you name it. Keep it simple. Just use some sort of low cost index fund that

it's going to give you like a low risk exposure because you're going to have like a lot of

stocks included there. And the important thing is to pay the minimum fee or maintain the minimum fee

or maintain the minimum fee. And that's the first thing that you need to do. And the second thing

is to pay the minimum fee or maintain the minimum fee. And the third thing is to pay the minimum fee.

And the fourth thing is to pay the minimum fee. And the fifth thing is to pay the minimum fee.

So there's a lot of funds out there that might be expensive because they trade very often

or because they're not managed properly. But there's a lot of reputable firms that have

very low cost funds that literally cost you almost nothing. And just let it compound.

There's going to be good years, bad years. But in the long term, you're going to do much better

compared with other people. And let the magic of compound interest work for you.

But that takes time and patience. So be patient.

All right, Nate, is it time? Should we guess Anthony's personality type?

Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea.

They gave it away right from the start.

Did I?

Oh, yeah.

I don't know about you, Dai, but I would definitely guess type A. And I would even go as far to say

type A, both professionally and personally.

I agree.

Okay.

What do you think would be a...

A pro or a con of being type A in the accounting world?

I'm terrible at those things. But a pro clearly is that you feel more in charge of your finances.

And when you are in charge of your finances, I think that you control more your future,

your faith, whatever you want to call it. At least if something is not working,

you have a better visibility of what are the things that you need to change or reshuffle or to cut

in order to make things...

things better.

But it also means that you need to be more disciplined, that you need to do the work, and you don't have

that, maybe more flexibility that a type B person may have.

I don't know.

I mean, everybody is different, but...

Would you ever want a type B?

No, I was going to say I would not be able to leave being a type B.

One thing we want to start as a group is where our current guest speaker asks a question.

What kind of question related to our show here and being type A or type B,

what would you want to ask the next guest speaker?

Yeah, I would say whatever topic you are going to discuss, I would say at the end,

ask the person, give me two or three action items that people should take out of that

podcast or discussion that you had.

I love that.

Maybe some sort of recap.

Well, I think the recap for me on this one is going back to if you don't know where you're going,

you're going to get lost.

Because I think everything that you talked about really hit on that from savings to insurance,

budgeting, all of it.

Yep, agreed.

And I think something that Anthony said that I've also said to my friends that money can be a big

source of stress.

And I don't think you need to be enterprise grade, knowing where every penny is going.

But at the very least, you should have a high level plan.

You should know what your income is.

You should know what your expenses are, how much of those are fixed versus variable.

So that if something did happen, you at least have an idea of how much you can cut out.

Do a test.

You know, it's weekend.

You may be spending time with other family members.

Just ask them high level without sharing a lot of details.

If they know in what they spend their money and how much.

And you're going to be surprised of how many people will look at you and say,

well, I don't know.

I know I spend everything I make.

But I don't know.

So everyone has like a very clear number of how much they make, but not so much on where the money is going to.

And the other thing related with what you said, remember, it's like two sides of a coin.

Yes, money can provide a stress.

But if you manage it properly, also a lot of freedom.

Well, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

That was fun.

Yeah, big fun.

All right.

Well, until next time.

Stay type A.

And a little unhinged.

We'll see you next time.