This week Lynne is chatting with the Consumers @Work Manager Scott Dobson about the innovative technology tools are available to help college grads (and anyone else!) budget their money in a smart and safe way. Tune in to the latest edition of Money, I’m Home!

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0:00:06.8 Lynne Jarman-Johnson (LJJ): Money, I’m home. Welcome in. I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union, and we are here for you, to help you succeed with all of your financial wellness and just your overall well-being. So, to do that, we’re talking this week, about technology tools, especially for those who are just starting out. And when we say just starting out, that means, okay you might have your first job, you’re looking at possibly getting a first house. All the big stuff that’s happening in your life is coming down all at once. Scott Dobson is here…

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0:00:38.3 LJJ: Who is our financial expert, and he really does help us understand how we can just go down the path of success. Scott, thanks so much for being with us today.

0:00:47.1 Scott Dobson (SD): Sure, my pleasure.

0:00:48.2 LJJ: So, tell us a little bit about new technologies. Okay, I’m going to say it out loud.

0:00:53.1 SD: Okay.

0:00:53.9 LJJ: There are so many things and new ways to spend money and to share money and to apply for a mortgage per se, there’s just… There’s something out there all the time, with so many advertisements coming your way. How do you, as you’re starting out, really kind of know where to begin?

0:01:13.0 SD: Yeah, you’re right, there is a lot of technology out there. You pretty much don’t have to have a check book or cash or anything. You can do stuff pretty digitally these days. So yeah, I think the very first thing that I would do, I’m a college grad, I’m just getting my first real job and I’m going to have some money and I need to manage it, the first thing that I would do is set up an online banking account, of course, yeah of first year of consumers with mobile banking attached to that. And that allows you to look at all of your accounts with… On a computer, anywhere online or with any mobile device, 24/7. So that connects you with your money all the time, make it easy by setting that up so that you can see your finances and engage with them whenever you want to. Secondly, you just graduated, you’re getting that new paycheck that you’re super pumped about, direct deposit, that. There is zero reason to get a piece of paper from your employer and drive to one of our offices and then put it into a machine where we turn it back into digital money. Just direct deposit with your employer, they can get it to your account quickly and more easily and more safely than if you’ve got a piece of paper, you can have access to your money quickly and easily.

0:02:23.4 SD: So, I highly recommend having an online account, and setting up direct deposit. That gets you so you can see all of your money and it comes in automatically. So being able to see it and having it come in automatically both really good things. And then next, you’re probably going to have some bills. They’re probably going to be for the same thing, for the same amount every month. You’ll probably have a place to live that you’re going to have to pay for, maybe a car loan payment, maybe a student loan payment that’s due every month, there’s no reason to get out a check book and write a check for your rent every single month. Use our technology technologies, we’ve got great online banking, you can get on, set up your landlord, set up the amount, set up the date and have it automatically paid for you every single month. If it’s the same amount, the same time, to the same person, and you know you’re going to pay it because you need to live there, there’s no reason then 12 times per year, figuring out that you’re going to send them there a check. Have it set up and pay it. In fact, if every bill is the same amount for the same thing every month, just use auto pay, you can just set it and forget it.

0:03:26.3 SD: And just like that, your money comes in automatically and all the bills that you need to pay to take care of your life and maintain your credit score are all set up. And then the remainder is yours. And with the remainder, that’s how you got to live the whole rest of your life. Buy groceries and go grocery shopping and go out to dinner and go on vacations and all that stuff. So don’t quit using technology because your paycheck coming in and your monthly bills have been paid all the time. Of course, we have a great debit card that you can hook to your account. You can hook that debit card to Apple Pay, so if you don’t want to take the card with you, you can just use your phone and in most places take Apple Pay, and online places you’ll take Apple Pay, so you can use your money that way without having to have cash in your pocket that you might lose. And because you’re spending money and you’ve got a phone and it’s really easy to do, there could certainly be times when you spend maybe a little more than you anticipated, and you’d look at your checking account and, “Oh my gosh. It’s much lower than it should be. I wish I had known I got below $100.” And we know you need those tools.

0:04:25.9 SD: We have alerts. And you can easily set up with your debit card to send you a text message to say, “Hey, I only have so much money left in my account” or “Hey, you just bought something.” So that makes it really easy. And we have automatic transfers to a savings account. We teach all the time, start saving, pay yourself first, save a little bit. We have an automatic transfer feature. You know what I’m going to save 20 bucks every payday, there’s no reason to manually move that money, you can just kind of set it and forget it and use those transfers to help you out.

0:04:57.7 SD: And outside resources like Venmo, you can… Your PayPal, that you can connect to your account to use to pay anyone anywhere to move money around. So, it just makes it pretty easy, a lot of technology out there to move money and make sure you know where it is.

0:05:12.5 LJJ: And honestly, the neat part about having a financial institution that you respect and trust is you can always ask for help.

0:05:19.0 SD: Always ask for help! Yep. And we’ll get you pointed in the right direction. And we’ll make sure that you’re set up, and we’ll make sure that all your bills are paid on time, and that you’re building your credit score, and then you can use the technology so that when you’re… You need to borrow money, or… We can look at your credit score and say, “Oh, you pay everything on time, you’re great, we will give you a loan.” Well, a lot of people, you’re thinking about maybe buying a house because you graduated from college, you’ve got your first real job, it’s time to think about saving and buying a home, we’ve got a great technology, we have a thing called a FastApp. It’s an application to use for getting a mortgage and buying a home, and it does way more than just applying for mortgage, it gives you all sorts of information of on how much money should I save? What would my payment be? What kind of information do I need? How long do I have to have my job before I can apply for a mortgage? All of that’s out there on our FastApp, and you can look at that 24/7. So that technology is out there and you can go get the information that you want and need any time that you want to.

0:06:20.3 LJJ: Well Scott, thank you so much. It is so refreshing to hear financial education talked about in just a way that’s easy to understand, so we really appreciate you.

0:06:30.1 SD: Sure thing.

0:06:30.7 LJJ: Thank you so much for joining us, I am Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union. We’d like to thank Jake Esselink for his wonderful production skills. And we’ll see you next week.

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