(auto-translated)

‍

Dan Slagle  00:00

Our monthly money checking doesn't need to make us perfect, but in a way, it's, it's more about like, how, how do we continue to stay connected in this area of our life? Right?

Natalie Slagle  00:11

You know, we've always said, at least with our business, we want money to be a tool and a reason why couples stay together, not why they break apart, and this is one of the ways to do that. Is because you have these intentional, deep, meaningful conversations about money that you don't have with anyone else, maybe your financial planner, maybe you work with Dan and Natalie. But besides that, like these conversations are a form of connection, and how great is it for those who are partnered that you have someone that that you can create this intention with?

Natalie Slagle  00:56

Welcome to Money Dates, the podcast that makes money, conversations with your partner feel a little less taboo. I'm Natalie Slagle, a certified financial planner, and I'm joined by my husband and business partner, Dan Slagle, also a Certified Financial Planner. Say Hi, Dan, hello. In each episode, we'll share honest stories and practical tips to help you and your partner feel more connected and confident on your financial journey. So grab your drink, get comfortable and join us for our money. Dates. Hi, Dan Natalie, how are you doing? Great. Okay, this was a question that I had for you as someone who tends to use the mail bathroom. So for context, we have this new workspace, and there is an all gender bathroom. And when I went in there, it's nice because I like, go in and I'm like, This is no different than going to the bathroom in someone's house. Like it's not like people's houses have a female and male and all gender bathroom, like it's everybody uses the same bathroom. So anyways, and you know they're the stalls are very closed. So then I was going to the sink, and there was a gentleman next to me, and I just panicked, because I thought, Do men do small talk in the bathrooms? Like a lot of times, if I might be in a female bathroom and someone's wearing something that I would like, and I'm like, hey, that's cool, or your hair looks awesome today. You know, I try to say something friendly, but it felt weird doing that to a dude, so I wanted your take on it, Dan, is there small talk in your bathroom?

Dan Slagle  02:37

Experiences having used the all gender bathroom? No, I haven't had any encounters for

Natalie Slagle  02:44

small talk. Well, I'm not talking about in that bathroom specifically. I mean, you go, you know, there's a gentleman's bathroom. In a woman's bathroom, you go to the gentleman's what happens in there? Do y'all talk to each other, or is it?

Dan Slagle  02:56

Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's exactly what I was gonna say. It said it's very, very manly banter. More like, how you doing good. Okay, all right, then bye.

Natalie Slagle  03:07

So I should, I should have a low voice and kind of grunt the next time I'm approaching a gentleman in the all gender bathroom,

Dan Slagle  03:15

yes and yeah, pronounce your words a little differently. Like, rather than like, how are you doing today? It's how you doing something like that, you know, like Wilson from home improvement, leaning over, over the fence, like channel, his voice,

Natalie Slagle  03:29

okay, okay. But seriously, do Is that a thing? Did do men chat with each other?

Dan Slagle  03:35

I haven't really had that experience before. I think it's more get in, do your business, get out. That just seems to be what a bathroom is, right? If you want to have small talk and you go find that person somewhere else in

Natalie Slagle  03:48

the place that you're at, I suppose, yeah, but you know, you're just so close, like, physically, like, we're washing our hands right next to each other. I was

Dan Slagle  03:59

like, there's anything wrong with like, yeah, small talk saying hi,

Natalie Slagle  04:03

okay, I wouldn't be strange if I was like, I like your sports team on your hat, yeah? But if I know you, obviously more than maybe the potential male you you'd encounter in the bathroom. And I know that's just like forcing the small talk. I mean, even as you said it, you're it's just like it felt so forced. Didn't Did you have an experience recently at at our workspace where you try to like, compliment a guy's soccer Jersey, and I did like, and you the only team you really know is the team I support, Liverpool and and you're like, is that a Liverpool jersey? And he was like, no, no, not. It was probably their rival. And you were just like, I was he was taken. I was like, Oh, I'm gonna not impress this guy, but I'm gonna, I think a really good way to make small talk is to find something you can relate to or compliment someone. So I wanted to be like, I like, Lynn. Liverpool, or I enjoy watching it with my husband, that's the extent of that. And then showing like, hey, we have a common interest. I was like, so pumped, because I don't know too much about sports and sports teams. And I was all excited. I was like, sweet jersey. Is that Liverpool? And he was luckily, so friendly. And he was like, Nope, it's not, this is from the German league. And I was like, what, what

Dan Slagle  05:24

you could have carried with the conversation? And asked more about, oh, what team is it?

Natalie Slagle  05:29

Well, I did. He was a very it did carry on. But to your point, you know, sometimes maybe I not try too hard. At least I'm trying, at least I'm trying to make conversation with someone, which, yeah, this has been kind of a fun experiment. It's a co working space, and so working around other professionals. Maybe I'm just kind of out of it a little bit, and I still, I need to still work on that muscle and my professional small talk. And I'm trying, Dan,

Dan Slagle  05:58

you are trying, and no one's no one's fault in you for trying. I think it's, it's amazing that you are trying, because Thank you know for from my perspective, I'm probably on the opposite side of the camp. I do feel like, you know, we have our own office now, and it still feels a little little quiet in our wing, because there are private offices and not everyone's here on the same day. Let's not go too far down the rabbit hole in in this conversation, let let's get to some of the the Yeah, too much toilet topic. The main topic that we want to toilet talk. There you go. Rather than small talk, it's toilet talk. There you go. Now, you've just coined the name for small talk in the all gender bathroom. Yeah. All right. Now, Natalie, what do you want to talk about today? Today, we're going to talk about the monthly money check ins and how to go about it, and what it could look like. Yeah, and this conversation stems from a lot of client conversations we've been having throughout the first month of the year, and asking clients a question. Again, we phrased this question in a previous episode of You know, fast forwarding to December 2026, what would make you feel financially proud about the past year again, putting yourself in that future lens and looking back and thinking, Okay, what do I need to start working on? Or what do I want to see accomplished, or at least progress on some financial items, and in a throughout conversations, some of the recurring themes that I've been hearing is we want to, as a partnership for the clients that I'm referencing, have conversations more frequently on a monthly basis, to just have some check ins, like, are we progressing towards the things that we set out at the beginning of the year that we want to accomplish and and so I thought, as we were preparing for this meeting, it would be really interesting for you and I to have a take on, how would we go about structuring a monthly money check in, framing it with A few questions for you all, for you all listeners, to take and have with your partner. And you brought up an amazing point before we even started, before we

Natalie Slagle  08:12

hit, let me say this art because,

Dan Slagle  08:15

because you're the one who brought it up initially.

Natalie Slagle  08:17

Okay, well, because when I asked so we kind of always assign who's going to pick the topic, and then that person also kind of prepares more of the topic for the conversation. That's a little behind the scenes of the money dates podcast now. So Dan was in charge of this week's, and I asked him, What are we going to talk about? And he said, we're going to talk about doing monthly money check ins. And my thought is, oh. And then I was kind of curious on how he was going to kind of create, kind of the outline for this, and then I'm reading it. And I was like, Dan, we don't do this. This, like, and he was like, You're right. We should probably say that. Like, we should probably say, hey, we don't do this, Dan and Natalie personally on our financial if anything, I feel like we actually do it better on the business side and not so much on the personal side. So as an additional part of our preparation, we were like, Why don't we talk about how we should do this? Like we don't really do the monthly money check in. And I have voiced to you, I want to check in about our personal financial situation more often, and so today, and to be fully transparent, we do not do this. I would like to do this. And so we're going to talk about how to go about it, and then I'm going to say I like that, or No, I don't want that, right?

Dan Slagle  09:39

Because it's a quick question to our audience, right? Like, when was the last time you and your partner talked about money without any sort of tension or guilt or spreadsheets thrown across the room? And I guess when you say spreadsheets thrown across the room, I'm like, no one's throwing their computer across the room, but it.

Natalie Slagle  10:00

Know, I mean maybe, yeah, so, I mean, when was the last time we did? I think we did. We had a really great deep dive back in, I think early December or November. I've talked about that so many times, because it felt so good. So we don't do it monthly, and I, I think it would, it would be great if we did. So what would it look, you know, like? What would it look like?

Dan Slagle  10:25

Or you want me to lead this? Okay, I see where this is going. Yeah. I mean, let's, let's do it. Let's get into how we are going to be doing our monthly money check ins going forward. So we'll talk about what we ask, what we are going to avoid and and what, ultimately, we hope, brings us closer at the end of this conversation. So my first rule with a monthly money check in, I always like to start with cash flow, right? Like, I think that's a really important area to discuss. And again, coming from this. This is stemming from conversations that I've had over the last month that's typically where this gets brought up, like, at that point of of our conversation with a client, they're like, We need we should be doing this more often. My first rule with with cash flow is it's not meant to be a budget interrogation. This isn't meant to cast blame, and I don't feel like there should be any like, why did you buy that energy? You know what I mean? Like, we're we are a team as we go through this, if you are doing this with a partner, I think it's even good things to go through yourself and ask yourself some of these questions, right? It's not so to me cash flow, some questions that I would consider asking right off the bat, is, with your partner, how are you feeling about money right now?

Natalie Slagle  11:53

I like that question because in the numbers are important, but the feelings are also important, and so that is a good because maybe, maybe you're spending a lot and it feels good, or maybe you're not spending a lot and that doesn't feel good. And this is what I talk about so much, is a couple has the same if they're transparent about money, and they kind of share their collective finances. It's the same situation, but the feelings extracted from it could be completely different, and that happens with us a lot. So I really like that. Just really basic check in. How are you feeling about our money right now?

Dan Slagle  12:37

Yeah, yeah. I think then the next question you could consider asking is, is there anything money related that's been causing you stress lately, right? Like opening up the conversation to allow your partner to again share how they're feeling about finances right now and again, it's easy to go through day to day life. Maybe there's some just expenses that happen on a recurring basis, but getting to the root of, is there anything that's stressful right now, and it allows you to play a role, active role, in being a sounding board and and ultimately working to how do we relieve some of that stress that you're feeling for your partner? Right?

Natalie Slagle  13:19

And I like focusing on the stress, because it could be I'm stressed on how much is going out the door. I'm stressed on how much we're spending lately. It keeps it a little bit more macro, rather than like you were saying the blame game on, on budgeting and and things like that, and then digging. Oh, okay, I hear you. You you feel stressed right now about how much we're spending. Well, let's dig into that. What about it is stressful? Is is it the amount, and is that an ongoing thing, or is it we just have a really expensive month, but we've prepared for this. This is why we have our savings, and obviously the balancing act of listening and not always giving an answer, but giving someone the space to address that feeling and then taking it from there.

Dan Slagle  14:06

Last option I would ask in in this portion, to start off your your monthly money check in, is, is there something you're proud of financially this month? Right? So we talked about what's causing you stress? Well, we can also focus on doing a complete 181 80, and talk about what's what's giving you joy. What do you feel most proud about at this time?

Natalie Slagle  14:28

Yeah, I think about how, like my mind went to it doesn't always need to. I mean, this is a financial check in, but maybe you're proud to financially be able to take time off of work, whether you're self employed or you work for a company that gives you ample amount of time off. There's so many different facets of your wealth that you can be proud of and to not take it for granted.

Dan Slagle  14:55

Yeah, I think these three questions really can set the tone for. Monthly money check in. I think these check ins, I don't even think we talked about it, they could probably be 2030, minutes through some of these questions. Yeah, right, right. So we're not talking about taking a full day or multi day, extensive amount of time out of your life, but they're really good questions to just set the tone for for the conversation. Maybe alleviate some of that natural tension that may come into this type of conversation. And I feel like one of the biggest signs that, okay, this is going to be a good meeting, it is that tone that the two of you are bringing into the conversation. And I feel like, if, if you can set the appropriate tone, oh my gosh, did you hear that? No, I felt like I was going to say tone and oh, your Minnesota accent, yeah, yeah. Which I should have just, I should have just gone through with it, rather than catching myself. Anyway, sorry. What I was saying is I feel like, if your partner suddenly, just like, relaxes from hearing these questions, I think that's your sign to continue on with the conversation and know that it's going to likely be a more productive conversation, as opposed to if there's a lot of tension built up, right? Like sometimes we don't want to continue the conversation if there is some tension, because it's just, it may just go downhill

Natalie Slagle  16:13

from there, right, right? And this can inherently be, I mean, it depends, it depends on your situation and what you need to talk about in that month, but it it can obviously have some underlying stressors or frustration or whatever, whatever, whatever. And so starting it with these types of questions, rather than jumping into Okay, let's look at our income. Let's look at our outflow. It just yeah, it sets the tone. It makes me think of in our team meetings, we do a couple check ins, and then we do a song, and we do, we call it the Monday moves, because someone in the team it's always random. It's just who's got a song to play that they want to share, and we play the song as a team, and then we all just sit in our computer chairs and dance like the nerds we are, and that is a way of us setting a tone. You know, we're going to talk about numbers, we're going to talk about our expectations. We're going to check in on our goals. Sometimes this is a stressful conversation, but there's something about music and moving your body that feels good, and maybe that's added here. It doesn't need to be. But I think there's just something about going into a conversation with kind of framing, how you want to go about this, how you want to speak to your partner about it, is a is going to help a lot.

Dan Slagle  17:40

I remember, I told another professional once that we did that, and their response was like, I'm so happy I don't work for your your company. But you know, some people, you know I'm not, like, we wouldn't force anyone on our team to participate and share. I might, all right, well, I wouldn't have someone felt uncomfortable with it. But you know that if we're fortunate that the team we have music is really important to to our group, and we get to expand our our music palette, and listen to a lot of different artists, and you can dance however you want to. We just sitting in the in the chair, you know, doing the the mom dance, where you're raising your fingers up and down. Or you could just, you could fully get into it. Anyways, I don't want to spend too much more time on what we do for Monday moves, but if you are interested, we do have a Spotify playlist capturing all the songs that we've ever done during our Monday moves. Anyway, so let's go on to the next portion of this conversation. Okay, I think it primarily has to do with the numbers? Yes, right? So now that we're we may, you know, hopefully, be in a calm setting, I think reviewing the the numbers is obviously very, very crucial when we're talking about a monthly money check in. So what to cover, right? So I think it's important for a household to think about, are there any income changes, right? And for for most people out there, I'll say w2 things are pretty consistent, right? So there, there might not be too much fluctuation in in terms of what every paycheck is reflecting. I think we're, well,

Natalie Slagle  19:16

let me add to that, though, because it's the beginning of the year, and this tends to be bonus season. So I think a lot of our clients, a lot of listeners, they're getting bonuses. They're getting maybe they're getting their quarterly stock vests, whatever it may be. So if income could very much, why are you smiling? Income?

Dan Slagle  19:34

Exchange my thunder. I wasn't done with my thought. And I was gonna say, however, we are in a time where there could be bonuses in stock compensation. I didn't steal it. See you rolling your eyes at

Natalie Slagle  19:46

you were just sitting there smiling, and maybe your girl wanted to chime in, huh? Cool. All right, that's totally fine. That's totally fine. Okay, so income, it could be static and it could be variable, just depending on what happens. And. Then looking at after income. Then, of course, naturally, you look at expenses, and I feel like expenses, like, sometimes they're never normal. There's always things coming up.

Dan Slagle  20:11

There are always things coming up. And every month there's just, like, maybe a major expense, whether that's, you know, we're talking 1000s of dollars, or if you have just a pretty steady month. It could just be, hey, we went out to eat, and we had a larger restaurant built this month, right? And then just being again, aware of some of those changes, actually, as part of the prep to this meeting, I actually went through our, we are recording this towards the end of January, and I went through our budget for the month, and looked at what our major expenses were. Do you care to guess what those those were for the month?

Natalie Slagle  20:49

Let's see if I'm going to do a category. I would just assume it's groceries. No, we're

Dan Slagle  20:54

not even talking about category. I want you to specifically think about larger expenses, medical. Okay, fine, that would that was not included, but yes, that's obviously number one. Okay, all right, fine. Medical was number one, sure, but it's needed. Health is wealth, hashtag the other, the other major expenses were Costco was number two. We had a Costco trip in January, so that that was the largest, one of the largest line items.

Natalie Slagle  21:23

Oh, that was, like, our expense, as far as, like, the most expensive thing, the most, yeah, sorry, one one time transaction was definitely Costco. And we only go to Costco, maybe once a quarter. Maybe we only go to Costco when your mom's in town. Let's be real. I know, and she's already, she's coming back in town to help us move, and she's like, we got to go to Costco. I'm like, Mom, we just went. But maybe she's right, because then we can amp up our cupcakes again. Anyways, Costco.

Dan Slagle  21:52

And then number three was when your dad was in town for his birthday, and we treated him to his birthday dinner, which is obviously awesome and totally worth it. It's just a noticeable larger transaction line item for for the month of January, absolutely

Natalie Slagle  22:09

and the so the other thing that I noticed with our clients, this happens a lot with, speaking of medical bills, is sometimes you forget to reimburse yourself from your health savings account or your flex savings account, or, you know, some of our clients, they they like, at the end of the year, they're doing their disbursement from their their dependent care FSA. And I think it's interesting, because not only does this create opportunity to just comb through, hey, what we make, what we spend, but there tends to be follow up items like for us, we the way our Health Share program works is that we have to go submit a reimbursement. It's not just automatically run through an insurance and that's a task, that's a task that one of us has to do, and we need to get on the same page on, hey, have you done that yet who's gonna do it, and so some of this is also just creating that opportunity to assign who needs to do what. And otherwise you, especially as young parents would, there's just so much going on you just kind of forget.

Dan Slagle  23:18

Yes, I totally agree with that. So again, it's a good check in to say what, what is left outstanding and who needs to accomplish what in order to get it done. Other areas, I think you could talk about in this section. Again, we'll we'll follow up with a few questions to that you and your partner can ask. I think looking at things like account balances is still important. Again, not like micromanaging and going into, like, the investment mix every month, but it's more like, high level. How are we progressing? Like, what do accounts look like? Whether it's bank accounts, investment accounts, 401, K's even things like, if you have an auto loan, looking at what, what's the balance with their current loan? The other thing could be, look, taking a look at at bills, how are things trending, and also thinking about, you know, potential subscriptions to review, because, as we know, those things can possibly get out of hand. Yeah, and memberships, all of those. Yeah, and I don't mean for this to this section to be, let's hone in, or zoom in on, like, every single latte purchase. It's more about like identifying the patterns again, it's it's progress, not not perfection. And so some questions that I think we should be asking in this section, and Natalie, feel free to chime in as proposed questions come up on on your side. I think the first one that I would ask in this section is, Did anything

Natalie Slagle  24:41

surprise us financially this month? Yeah, I like that, because sometimes I get surprised on we've talked about this before on how, how much money we were spending on Amazon purchases, and we made a really strong effort to take a step. Pack from that. And so that was surprising because I wasn't in I don't monitor our spending. You keep me in the loop, and you're saying, Hey, we're on target, or no, we're not, but I'm not really looking at the nitty gritty. So it's important to assess what is surprising, and do we you know, sometimes it's surprising and there's no action. It's like, oh, cool. We spend a lot of money at this place because, you know, a big thing for us is, if you're saving enough money, then everything else can be spent. And who cares what it's spent on. Everybody has different preferences, different hobbies, different interests, different desires. Like it doesn't always have to be let's cut expenses. Let's cut expenses let's cut expenses, because if you're saving enough money, then spend the rest of it. You know, we're only on this earth for so long, like but sometimes, I think the takeaway for us is it wasn't the well, maybe you're going to know more about this, Dan, but it wasn't, Oh, we're spending so much money at Amazon. It was, are these really the products we want to bring into our home. Is this really the company that we send we put all of like, a ton of money in? Could we be shopping local? Could we just get in the car and and drive somewhere to pick this up instead of buying, you know, it just made us question like, is this spending in alignment with our values? And so I really like that question, because the surprises that can come up financially could be just like unique surprises.

Dan Slagle  26:29

Yeah, yeah, totally. And again, it's, it's asking the question, did we stay aligned with not only our values, but our priorities that we set out for for the year? And ultimately, I think the, you know, the last question I consider asking in this phase of the conversation is, is there a category that needs to be adjusted? And I think spot on with your point, for us, it was, it was that miscellaneous bucket that you kind of just throw a Amazon purchasing because you don't really know what, or recall what it was for, especially if maybe you weren't the one purchasing it, or again, if you have multiple orders, it might be hard to account for what exactly it was. Same thing with like a Costco trip, right? I kind of always just group it into groceries, but the reality is, you might have bought a speaker that was on sale. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud, but that tends to always throw off some of the categories that we're looking at and things to just be aware of, right, right? Yeah. So I think with this section, it's if talking about money with your your partner, especially as you get into some of maybe these, like, more granular details, if it feels like you're literally trying to diffuse a bomb, then try talking about patterns instead of, like, specific purchases, and again, aligning some of those patterns with priorities and household values.

Natalie Slagle  27:48

What's a pattern when you say that I'm thinking like, how would I in a moment where I'm like, frustrated with our spending and it feels like I'm a ticking time bomb, or whatever. How would I go about addressing the pattern, rather than saying, Hey, Dan, you go and like, do this, and I don't like that, or you're spending our money this way, and I don't like

Dan Slagle  28:17

sure, I think so, with identifying a pattern, obviously, you know, from my standpoint, you need to have some sort of data, right? So we've talked about at least one of you needs to be tracking expenses that are occurring. And then the platform that we use, you could take a step back, rather than getting into the transactions again, you still need to record that you have buckets or categories of total expense line items. And one thing that how I identified the pattern that we had of we were putting too much into Amazon, was I just group Amazon purchases as miscellaneous in the miscellaneous category. And what I identified over the past of the past maybe six months or so, was our miscellaneous line item when, again, when you take a step back out of the actual individual transaction, that category was being overspent very heavily every single month. So then I decided to go into it and identified, Hey, pretty much all Amazon. So that's how we identified the pattern. And then we challenged ourselves to say to what you said a few minutes ago is, can we be thinking about how to, how do we make these purchases more locally, or even, you know, if it's a bigger box, like retail store, can we do that locally, as opposed to just like the convenience factor and and what we've noticed Since that trend is that miscellaneous category has dropped dramatically because of that identification of past patterns, right?

Natalie Slagle  29:48

I also like a pattern that I've seen come up a lot with our clients is because not all of our clients track, you know, their expenses to the extent that we do. I just ask like, how often are you pulled. Money out of your savings account to replenish your checking and sometimes it's like, never. If anything, our checking account just keeps growing, and we're sending money over to the savings and it's like, great. That's all we need to know your checking account is growing. That means you're not spending everything that's coming in. Maybe there's a pattern there, like we have the opportunity to invest, or you have the opportunity to spend or give more. But the other, you know, a negative pattern that our clients have faced before is we're transferring money from our savings once a month, and then it's like, Well, is it for an emergency? And it's like, no. And it's like, well, there's the pattern. You're making this transfer from your savings or from this other bucket. And in this, you know, in this made up situation, maybe that's not ideal. Therefore, what do we need to change? Whether it's cash flow investments, whatever it may be, what do we need to change, to change to make change to that pattern of depleting the savings account? So, yeah, I like the idea of, like, just looking at, kind of the high level patterns, and then having a conversation of what needs to change.

Dan Slagle  31:07

Yeah, let's talk about the next section of this conversation, how we would go about structuring it. To me, the next conversation should really stem from, again, we've talked about cash flow now it's like, now it's just checking in on goals and progress, right? So aligning short term goals that you have and long term goals that you've, you know, hopefully at before even this conversation, you and your partner have, have identified what those priorities are going to be, whether it's a 2026 goal, or, if we think about it, could be a 2027 or, you know, 2030 goal, potentially, that you're building up to. So I think in this section, I I would focus on certain topics, like, what are our savings goals that pay off potentially, if you, if you do carry debt, travel goals, that's a huge one for for you and I, in addition to some of the the clients that we work with, could be home goals, Home project type goals, and then even just like, personal and and shared goals that You've set out for for the upcoming 12 months. Those are some of the topics that I would have in this conversation, readily available. And again, just tracking how you're doing, progressing towards these items. And I think it's also a really good point. I mean, we're in the first month of the year at the time of this recording this conversation, and the progress you're making is going to be a lot different if we recorded or had this conversation. Let's fast forward to June or September, right? Because you're going to start seeing more progression take place. And I think important questions to ask yourself, in addition to your partner and have conversations around it's just a check in on depending on how things are progressing, maybe there was a step back in income. Whatever it may be, it's really just getting in alignment and asking the question, what goal or goals feel most important right now, right?

Natalie Slagle  32:55

You know, I feel like savings goal. It's like, I want to save all the money, and you can't. And so there could be, you know, you could have these goals, and arguably, not every goal should be reached, right, because then it's too easy. And so there could be things that you're making great progress on, and there's things that, oh, we wanted, we were hoping, or, you know, a goal was to pay this down more aggressively, but things came up. Medical expenses came up, or whatever, whatever, whatever, we decided to go on that trip, and we weren't we didn't think we would, and so now it, it's not happening. So is that okay? Does that feel, you know, what of these goals we we made, there's been some updates along the way. So what does feel most important right now that we focus on and and lean in towards,

Dan Slagle  33:45

yeah, the next question I would ask is, are we still excited about the goals that we set? Now, again, we're in January, But fast forward a few months, there might be a pivot that you need to have. Pivot remember that episode? Who doesn't remember that episode? But there might be some changes that need to happen to some of the goals that you set out. And maybe one goal just doesn't excite you anymore, because that's just how life works, right? One of the founding values we have at our company is, is what Natalie, you know? What I'm referencing here to?

Natalie Slagle  34:21

What is it to now I'm blanking, what is it? Dan, it's all right. We're going through a whole exercise where we're realistically good. To adapt is to live. Thank you. I had the words in my head, and they weren't, boom, of course, to adapt is to live.

Dan Slagle  34:37

Taken from what we believe was a quote from David Attenborough on a commercial for one of the Discovery Channel type shows that he always has narrated, and we loved it so much, because the reality is, life isn't perfect. You need to be able to adapt. That's the key to success, and one of the keys to success in our minds. And why not just make. At a value of ours as our company so Natalie, please say it again, but this time with an accent.

Natalie Slagle  35:07

Do adapters to live?

Dan Slagle  35:09

Oh, amazing. I love hearing that. Thank you. What other questions should we think about asking in this portion?

Natalie Slagle  35:15

Well, along with just the adapting is, of course, are there any goals that just need to be changed or or reworked. I think that that kind of goes with what you were saying before.

Dan Slagle  35:28

Yeah, yeah. And ultimately, if your goals don't match your real life anymore, like, that's not failure, right? No, I think it's actually growth, yes, because you're learning to identify priorities, and you're you're making decisions that are going to be in the best interest. You can't do everything at once. At the end of the day, you cannot do everything at once.

Natalie Slagle  35:51

Yes, yes. Let's go to the next segment, because I'm actually kind of excited about this one, because I think this could open up a can of worms for a couple outside of finances. But if it needs to be said, if there needs to be a discussion around it, then there should be, and I'm cheating, and I'm looking at your notes, but this is getting a little bit now. We're getting back out of the technical side, a little bit out of the numbers. And the next question you ask is, did anything feel unfair or unbalanced this month? That's a good question for any couple, any household. I mean,

Dan Slagle  36:38

I'm surprised you think that because I actually second guessed how I I wrote that down as we were prepping for this episode, because I used the word in this context, it's unfair, but based off of the word fair and that word, we try not to use that word in our household.

Natalie Slagle  36:57

Well, I got very upset when you what was our fight about? It was during, I think it was during maternity leave and having a new baby and being a nursing parent and just having a very different role in taking care of our daughter. We both had very important roles, and we did a great job, but there was just times, especially in the middle of the night, when only thing she needed was me. And I can't remember how the conversation went, but I think you use the word fair, and I just I blew up.

Dan Slagle  37:36

You did. You did. And to your defense, it was likely warranted. I'll admit, yeah, five. Thank you. So maybe rather than unfair, just in case other couples have that negative

Natalie Slagle  37:48

well, and people might be like, what's wrong with that word? And I think it was like, how do you be just to kind of, again, go off script a little bit. But it was like, in that moment, how do you be fair when one's a nursing parent and the other in my 2am mental mindset, when I'm up feeding my child, it just felt like, Dan, you're freaking useless in this moment, and I know you weren't, but my mom was now out there. It didn't feel like the setup was fair and that I was the one who had to do this and that. So that's why I didn't like the word fair. I don't know if, if my now that I'm out of postpartum and I have survived that wave as as have you, I don't know if I'm as sensitive about that word anymore. So anyways, going back to this conversation, did anything feel unfair or unbalanced this month, I think that it could be something like, I picked up the kids from school or from daycare more than you did, or I was in charge of drop off and pick up more than you did. And that impacts my ability to work, and that impacts my ability to bring in extra money, or to get that extra bonus. Or, you know, whatever it may be, or I'm burning more of my PTO, that's like, just so much of your household makeup is surrounded by a financial impact of some way. And so this conversation is, it's, I'm a little like for people to have it, but I'm also like, go have it, because that's a really important question. And sometimes I think the more often you have that you ask this question to your partner, the more often it's probably going to be no things felt good. And it's because we ask this question so much that when it doesn't feel fair or balanced, that we're addressing it.

Dan Slagle  39:40

Yeah, and as you were talking in reading the question, you know, some of these questions have been framed even questions that we previously have recommended, they may have been framed more as potential close and ended questions, right? So the question, did anything feel. Unfair or unbalanced this month very easily could be a no, yeah, move on, yes, and that's move on, if that's how you want to structure it. But I also think there's some power in phrasing it more as an open ended question.

Natalie Slagle  40:13

Sorry, what felt unfair or unbalanced this month?

Dan Slagle  40:17

Absolutely and just shut up and let your partner Think it through. I'm not telling you to. I think a lot of times we tend to, especially with our partners like tend to jump in, right? But it's okay to have just silence and let the person think about it and reflect on it, right?

Natalie Slagle  40:35

Let's move to looking ahead. Okay, you're kind of getting to the end of your check in, and the next thing you want to do is maybe cover the thing you know, we talking a lot about what happened, and now we want to think about, well, what's going to happen, and how are we preparing for it?

Dan Slagle  40:49

Okay, yeah, I think so, looking ahead, if the intention of this podcast is the monthly money check in, so the idea is you're going to have another check in next month. So let's plan ahead for the next month. So things to cover upcoming expenses that you're you foresee happening over the next 3031 days, actually, February has 28 Wow. All right, so things to cover in in this section again, thinking about upcoming major expenses that that you foresee around the horizon, thinking about just like busy seasons of life or change, right? It could come up with, you know, you're having a conversation, not so much in February. Well, February, example could be Valentine's Day. Maybe you're taking your partner out on a hot date, and need to bump up that restaurant budget. But even things like, you know, spring break is around the corner. Think about summer vacations. Kids going back to school in the fall. There's a lot of various seasons of the year where expenses just might might increase. A lot of our people I've been talking to Natalie over the past few weeks have been implementing what we call a dry January, not from the alcohol standpoint, but from a financial standpoint, where it's like, no major purchases except for the basics. And I love that. I love that. So there are opportunities within the course of the year where you can actually, it doesn't always have to be, oh, we're going to spend more money this month. I feel like that tends to be the case. But there could be opportunities within certain months where you say, hey, maybe we can pair back in certain categories, because we're not foreseen a lot of major expenses. Absolutely, the last thing I would consider talking about is what, what is our primary financial focus for the next month? And just like honing in on that, making that a priority, yeah, yeah, I like it. So questions, you could again questions I could stem off for these topics, what does the next month require from us financially? Another one is, what's one thing we can do better or more intentionally? I had a conversation yesterday where it was like it was someone saying, I want to focus more on experiences. I want to get a better handle on some of these variable, miscellaneous expenses so I can afford to have more experiences with my children, because they're getting older, and these are really important to me. Oh, I really like that. Yeah, yeah. I love that. And then I the last one I would round out is, what's one small win that we can aim for? Again, taking some micro steps, as opposed to thinking about, like, the larger end goal. What are some micro actions we can take to, like, build up towards it?

Natalie Slagle  43:36

Dan, what would be a small win that you want to aim for in the month of February?

Dan Slagle  43:41

That's a really good question. And we've talked a

Natalie Slagle  43:44

lot of thanks. I just got it from Oh, you

Dan Slagle  43:47

got it from me. Okay, I get it. I get it. Sorry. I'm a little slow. One small win for me is we've talked about in the past few episodes of we have a move coming up here in a literally, a few days for us. And I think in February, I would like to towards more towards the end of the month, have things just settle down financially. Because, yeah, it costs a lot of money to have movers. And, you know, I've been buying boxes and tape and just some smaller expenses. And I'm looking forward to just having things again, more so at the end of the month, just kind of level out. So for me, a big win. And actually, we haven't even talked about this.

Natalie Slagle  44:31

That's because we haven't had a money, a monthly money check in. And we're going to start after this podcast.

Dan Slagle  44:38

Okay, that's right. So one thing for me, in order to have it be a smaller win is mitigating some like, unexpected larger expenses, sure, right? Because, well, when you move into a new home, it's like, oh, I want to buy a new couch. I want to there's a lot of like, big. Things. And I know we've, like, budgeted and allocated for it, but I don't want to all of a sudden. It's like, move into a new house and it's like another extra five grand has gone out the door on on certain things, like, maybe there's a world in which we can space these things out, give ourselves some breathing room, rather than, like, trying to do everything at once.

Natalie Slagle  45:19

Hmm, sounds like we should have a conversation about this, because maybe let me

Dan Slagle  45:23

ask you, yeah, do we have time for me to ask you a question?

Natalie Slagle  45:27

Oh, sure, ask me a question. It's our podcast. I think this one's going to be a long one, but why not? It's not like we are in these parameters of how long they can be. No, let's hear it.

Dan Slagle  45:38

We're literally also just having our first ever monthly money check in live. So of course, it's going to run a little

Natalie Slagle  45:43

longer Dan. This doesn't count. This does not count. We haven't even asked each other or looked at it, but we've created some really, a really good outline, which, by the way, I'm going to make sure that these, all of these questions, and this outline is in the show notes for all of our listeners. So you can just copy and paste it, put it in an email, put it in a Google Doc, whatever you got to do, and then that's your outline for your first money, monthly check in anyways. Ask away, Dan, let me ask a dang question, what's one thing Natalie that we can do better or more intentionally? I've said this before, and I'll say it again. We can be donating money better. I was actually, you know, Dan, you and I don't have a donor advised fund, and I was thinking, like, we could open one of those and just get money in it, like step one, and then it just doesn't feel and then we just have this bucket of money that's yelling at us. Hey, you need, you need to give you need to disperse me. Like, yes, I'm in the bucket. Great, cool. But make that money do work for these great causes, especially in the world we're in today. So that's how I would like to respond. That's awesome. I think we should totally do that. I love it. Great.

Dan Slagle  47:04

Great suggestion. All right, let's wrap it up. Let's reflect a little bit. So the our money check in our future money check in that we will have after this episode, I think, I don't think the goal is to like, continue, like, not continue. That sounds very condescending for what I was, what I'm about to say, our monthly money check in doesn't need to make us perfect. But in a way, it's, it's more about like, how, how do we continue to stay connected in this area of our life? I think

Natalie Slagle  47:34

that's really, really important, right? You know, we've always said, at least with our business, we want money to be a tool and a reason why couples stay together, not why they break apart, and this is one of the ways to do that. Is because you have these intentional, deep, meaningful conversations about money that you don't have with anyone else. Maybe your financial planner, maybe you work with Dan and Natalie. But besides that, like these conversations are a form of connection, and how great is it for those who are partnered that you have someone that that you can create this sort of intention with?

Dan Slagle  48:18

Yeah, I look forward to our official first monthly money check in that we will be having here shortly. And yeah, I think if you enjoy the questions, as Natalie said, We'll include the questions in the show notes. And as you listen to this episode, don't be afraid to just go back and pause and think of pause certain sections and think about the questions. Think about again, how you're going to maybe bring this up to your partner, that this is something you want to do. Obviously, I think it's it's something that's super important when we think about your financial

Natalie Slagle  48:48

health going forward. Absolutely. Thank you, Dan for the conversation. To our listeners out there. If you've enjoyed the conversation, send it to a friend. We'd really appreciate it, and I look forward to our next conversation together. Thanks.

Dan Slagle  49:04

Bye, bye, bye. Hey. If you've enjoyed this episode and are looking for personalized financial guidance, schedule a free complimentary consultation using the link in the description below, Natalie and Dan Slagle are the founding partners of Fyooz Financial Planning a registered investment advisor. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal advisory services are offered to clients or prospective clients where Fyooz Financial Planning and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For more information, including our disclosures, please visit our website@www.fyoozfinancial.com

‍

‍