Financial Tools we Use with the Happy Hour Ladies
Financial Tools We Use with the Happy Hour Ladies
Today is the last Friday of the month and my regular listeners know that on the last Friday of the month, I host the happy hour on the podcast where I gather great friends with me to drink cheap drinks and talk about money topics.
At The Financial Gym, my team and I frequently get asked about the financial products and services we use and if we’d recommend them to our clients. I thought it would be fun to find out from the ladies what financial products and services they utilize and if they’d recommend them to you.
What are we drinking?
Melanie from Dear Debt, Lola Retreat, and MentalHealthandWealth.com — Oatmeal Stout, from Bravus Brewing (non alcoholic)
Tonya from Tonya-Stumphauzer.com — Sheperd’s P’Nutty Peanut Butter Whiskey
Liz, Mrs. Frugalwoods, from Frugalwoods.com — Sick
Shannon — Black Box Chardonnay
Podcast Notes
Where do you handle your daily banking:
Tonya: Bank of America. She opened the account in Washington state, shortly after moving there. She was coming back from dropping her friend off at the airport and saw a sign for the bank. It was on her list to do, so she chose that bank. She likes to have one brick and mortar account. Unfortunately, banks like this penalize the least wealthy with fees.
Melanie: Capital One, online only. She broke up with CitiBank about a 10 years ago. A few years ago, she opened a Spark Capital One account for her business. Capital One uses Allpoint ATMs and they are all over the place. There are no fees when you use these ATMs.
Shannon: Bank of America. She has used them for over 20 years now. She opened it, because her first real job was through them. She keeps it open, because it currently houses the bank account for the LLC that she and Bill own together. If The Gym is sold, the sale would be paid to that account.
Other comments: Choose a bank that is convenient for you that is easy to use. If you are paying fees, look for something else. There isn’t really a single bank that Shannon hears people love. Shannon cringes when she hears that someone has an account through Wells Fargo.
Where is your high-yield savings account:
Tonya: Capital One for savings buckets, but Ally holds her emergency savings. They are pretty equal.
Melanie: Capital One, but she has a lot of sub accounts, like emergency savings, business tax account, vacation account, pet fund, etc. She likes that she can nickname the separate savings. The interest is higher than regular savings accounts, but it has been dropping.
Shannon: Marcus High Yield Savings. She can transfer funds and receive them the next day.
Other comments: The Gym likes Marcus, Ally, Capital One. CIT has competitive rates. These are the common ones.
What do you use for investing:
Tonya: Vanguard. Shannon helped her set this up. She was with Raymond James and had a financial non-planner. Vanguard is a low-cost provider. She also uses Stash for a smaller investment account.
Melanie: Vanguard for investing in index funds and Fidelity for a SEP IRA.
Shannon: She used Betterment for a time and it is user friendly, just not in the setup process. She switched to ETrade, because she wanted to be able to buy individual stocks.
Other comments: Shannon has heard good things about Robinhood. If you want a roboadvisor that will pick your own stocks, check out Betterment and Wealthfront. Shannon tried Ellevest and she found it difficult to use. Fidelity is user friendly and has a lot of options.
What credit cards do you use?
Tonya: It varies. She has used Chase Sapphire Rewards and Southwest. She recently transferred her balance from the Chase Sapphire card to a 0% interest rate for 18 months on a Citibank card. They have good, no fee, 0% options right now. She doesn’t get into the credit card game, because it triggers unnecessary spending, unless she has a large planned expense. She makes sure she doesn’t pay annual fees. If you forget about the annual fee, call the company and ask to close the card and wipe off the fee.
Melanie: Chase Sapphire Preferred for everyday spending and she uses the points on travel. She has used cards to get American Airlines points, like Barclays United Airlines credit card. She got her first credit card when she was 28, and it was a Capital One Quicksilver.
Shannon: Chase Sapphire Reserve. She doesn’t love the $450 fee, but she does get a $300 travel credit. If she gets gas, it will automatically apply the credit. She uses the Marriot Bonvoy AmEx for work. She is looking at switching to a Visa, since not everyone takes AmEx. She doesn’t credit card hack, because she doesn’t want to keep up with it.
Where do you have your mortgage?
Tonya and Melanie: The do not have mortgages.
Shannon had a mortgage through Bank of America, but the loan was managed by another company.
Comments: Rate shop. They are all very similar. Mortgage processing is still antiquated. The best case is getting set up with the mortgage on autopay. Shannon heard recently that clients had a good experience through Quicken. If you haven’t refinanced, check into it.
Where do you have your car loan?
Tonya: Her first car was purchased through Saturn financing. It wasn’t until her current car that she went to the credit union and got a 2% loan. She owns her car outright now.
Melanie: No car.
Shannon: She leases her car. There is a small down payment and she has a low payment each month.
Other comments: Credit unions can get you great rates. If it is a used car, don’t go through the dealer. A car loan is not a great idea. Leases offer lower payments, but you need to worry about mileage.
Where do you have your insurance through?
Tonya: Geico for car insurance; Traveler’s insurance for renter’s insurance, including earthquake coverage; Kaiser for health insurance and subsidized through Covered California.
Melanie: Health insurance through Covered California; renter’s insurance through State Farm.
Shannon: Car insurance, renter’s insurance, and life insurance through USAA. Life insurance is set at $35 per month. Car and renter’s insurance she calls every year to lower the price and evaluate her coverage.
Other comments: policygenius.com is great for comparing, Lemonade is another company that offers renter’s insurance and they just went public. Price shop your coverage, because they are pretty much the same.
Other personal finance tools?
Tonya: Personal Capital is where she keeps track of her net worth. She has used Digit in the past, but they charge a $3.00 fee and she felt like she had to put money back into her account.
Melanie: She previously used Tip Yourself and she loved it. She uses Quickbooks Self Employed for her business. She also uses Charlie, an app that monitors her spending.
Shannon: Uses The Financial Gym program to track spending.
Other comments: Gym clients use Mint, Personal Capital, and YNAB.
Your personal finance options should make your life easier.
TAKEAWAY: My biggest takeaway is that no matter how large your accounts are, you are a valuable client to every financial institution. If you don’t feel valued or connected with your financial institution, it’s actually not that difficult to move and try something else.
This pandemic has impacted all of us in a number of ways, and in particular, it’s taken a toll on our business at The Financial Gym. With a number of our clients impacted by layoffs and furloughs and others concerned for their financial future, The Financial Gym could use as much help as possible. If you’ve considered joining, there’s no better time than now, as we have a number of promotions happening. If you’ve ever thought about gifting a membership, you can now do so through our website, or if you’d like to contribute to our Black Lives scholarship program, you can find more information on our website. So head over to, or send friends to, financialgym.com.
If you have any topics you would like for us to talk about during happy hour, please feel free to email me at shannon@fingyms.com or tweet to me at blonde_finance or join the private martinis and your money Facebook group and let us know. Until next time, take care!!