Episode 25: Pocket Change Podcast
Looking to improve your finances in 2024? On this special episode of Pocket Change Podcast, Jonathan Jones, financial counseling coordinator, joined Shea and Maddie for the first episode of the new year. He shares financial wisdom and advice to help you kickstart this new year with a solid budget and a healthy credit score. We are also celebrating one year of our Pocket Change podcast. Thanks for tuning in!
“I always come back in my mind to any kind of change, and you really want to start with finding willingness. If I'm going to introduce change, I can set lofty goals, but if I'm not actually willing to do them, it's not going to go very far. If there's willingness, that's a great place to start,” Jonathan said.
Summary
The first step to improving your financial health is finding the willingness to change. This involves identifying where your willingness lies and setting realistic goals. Begin with something you're comfortable with, like saving a small amount each month or investigating your retirement savings options. If you overspent during the holidays, don't beat yourself up. Focus on moving forward by paying off debt quickly and creating a savings plan for next year.
There's no single right way to budget. Choose a method that makes sense for you, whether it's using apps, spreadsheets, or even pen and paper. You can utilize different accounts with clear labels to separate your spending, bills, and savings goals. This makes it easier to track your money and stick to your budget. Discussing money openly with your partner or family can strengthen relationships and lead to better financial decisions.
Jonathan explains that credit is about risk assessment. Lenders use your credit data to assess the risk of giving you a loan. There are three main factors: payment history, amount owed on loans, and length of credit history. Payment history matters most, so making on-time payments is the most important factor in boosting your score. Aim for a 30% or less utilization rate on your credit cards. Time is valuable and maintaining open accounts for a long period adds stability to your credit score. Think of your credit score as a dynamic cloud of data reflecting your financial responsibility, not a building to be constructed.
Key Takeaways
- Start with willingness: true change requires a genuine desire to improve.
- Money is deeply emotional, especially during holidays. Recognize emotional spending and avoid self-blame, focusing on moving forward.
- Find a budgeting system that works for you. There's no "one size fits all" approach. Choose a budgeting method that aligns with your preferences and lifestyle, whether it's a simple account structure or digital tools.
- Focus on communication: Budgeting can be a shared responsibility. Open communication about finances can strengthen relationships and lead to better financial management.
- There are three factors that impact your credit score the post: payment history, amount owed on loans, and length of credit history.
Leaders invests in its employees by providing opportunities for them to become certified financial counselors. To meet with a financial counselor, visit our website.
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Full Transcript
Both:
Happy New Year and one year of Pocket Change!
Shea:
If you're listening, check us out on YouTube because we've got some confetti and we're celebrating the new year on this episode of Pocket Change. But hey, this is Shea.
Maddie:
And this is Maddie.
Shea:
And welcome to the Pocket Change podcast.
Maddie:
Where you'll learn better ways to spend, save, and invest and take control of your financial journey.
Shea:
So, Maddie, we're celebrating our first birthday of Pocket Change podcast. We are so grateful for all of our listeners.
Maddie:
Happy first birthday Pocket Change. It's been a great year and we've talked to some awesome guests and I'm excited to see what year two is going to hold. It’s going to be fun.
Shea:
And since we're in the new Year, 2024, around this time of year, a lot of people think about their finances, think about resolutions, the things they want to accomplish. Maybe they have financial goals. So we're going to talk to someone who can really help our listeners develop their goals and see what's in store for 2024.
Maddie:
Yeah, and I'm excited to talk about some healthy financial habits for this year.
Shea:
Instead of me having double the glasses, I’m going to take these off for the episode.
Maddie:
We'll take them off.
Maddie:
So we're excited to welcome our guest, Jonathan Jones, who is our financial counseling coordinator here at Leaders to Pocket Change today. Welcome to Pocket change, Jonathan.
Jonathan Jones:
Thank you for having me. Happy New Year Pocket Change!
Shea:
Happy New Year!
Maddie:
Happy New Year!
Jonathan Jones:
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be on the show and to talk with you guys about financial habits, right?
Maddie:
So first, just tell us a little bit about your position here at Leaders and how you help our members.
Jonathan Jones:
So I am a financial counselor and I take appointments with our members that want to go a little bit deeper into budgeting and credit counseling side of things. It's an opportunity for them to set up an appointment, sit down. We can, you know, spend as much time as we need to to work through the issues that they're facing and help put them on the right track.
Shea:
I think that's great. And, you know, thinking about the new year and resolutions and goals people have, what's kind of the first piece of advice for someone who wants to improve their financial health?
Jonathan Jones:
It's a great question. I always come back in my mind to any kind of change. You really want to start with finding willingness. Right? So when I think about, you know, New Year and resolution and, you know, if I'm going to introduce change, I can set lofty goals, but if I'm not actually willing to do them, it's not going to go very far.
Asking those questions about where does my willingness lie? You know, if you are, you know, willing to set aside money every month for saving, then that's a great place to start. You know, if you know, you're willing to say, okay, I'm going to go to my employer and investigate my retirement savings options, I know that I have an opportunity maybe to give more there.
If there's willingness to do that, that's a great place to start. So finding that willingness. It's really hard to introduce change where you're not willing to do it. It's like, okay, I'm going to improve my diet. I'm going to cut out sugar, I'm going to cut out caffeine. But I'm not really willing to do that, it's not going to go very far.
Shea:
I think that makes complete sense, starting with something that you're comfortable with - where you're willing. I think that's a great first step and a good piece of advice.
Maddie:
Yeah. And, you know, like you can tell our members to do so many different things, but if they don't have the willingness and the motivation to do it, then it's probably not going to happen either. So I love that point that, you know, you have to be willing to do it.
Jonathan Jones:
Yeah, it took me a long time to really figure out how to read that with member interactions - to help them find their willingness. I think that's a big opportunity that we have and we sit down with members is to help them identify that because they may have some sense that they need to make some changes, but they may not really know where that willingness lies. And we help tease that out a little bit.
Maddie:
Some of our listeners, you know, after the holidays might be in the position where they've spent too much. So what should they do now?
Jonathan Jones:
Yeah, that's always an interesting question. And that holiday shopping and spending, that's such a challenge. You know, money is emotional. Always. Period. Christmas and holidays it's even highlighted or heightened even more. That emotional sense of the choices that you're making. And so those might include choices that I'm willing to go into debt for something that you probably maybe shouldn't.
But that emotional drive is there. Recognizing that, hey, you know, this is what it is, right? To not beat yourself up, to not go back into that shame game. Because really that's not going to change anything. Transactions are done and we've got to find a way to move forward. So if someone, you know, did include debt, it's really kind of saying, okay, how quickly can I rearrange my finances so I can address that and kind of pay it back as quick as possible so that I can then get on track for next year with a savings plan. If you find yourself in that spot where, you know, you spend too much. You know, recognize the emotional elements that went into that, come to terms with those, but don't, you know, don't rest there and don't let that beat you up. Just find out how can I move forward both with paying the debt or just in, you know, creating a savings plan that's going to prepare you for next year.
Shea:
If you don't know where to turn, maybe start by meeting with a financial counselor. Someone can kind of help you through that and guide you along the way. And so along those lines, you know, a lot of times if we don't want to get in that situation again, we should probably think about budgeting. If someone has never budgeted before, you know, that can be tricky too.
So what are some things you would encourage people to do if they've never budgeted before?
Jonathan Jones:
One of my favorite questions to ask people is what do you do for a budget? And most of the time I get kind of blank stares or I get like some kind of piece of, Well, I've tried this or I've tried that. You know, occasionally I’ll run across someone that's, you know, really got a plan laid out.
And, you know, one of the primary things about budgeting...because there's so many different ways to do it right. You know, we have apps. There's, you know, spreadsheets. You can get...
Shea:
Old school pen and paper.
Jonathan Jones:
Steno pad, pen and paper. And so the best budget is always the one that makes sense to you. And if it makes sense to you and it's simple enough for you to stick with it. To keep up with it. So that's really different for different people. And so the thing that they are willing to engage with, they're wanting to utilize.
That's the right thing. If someone doesn't really have an answer for that, I always go back to the idea of, okay, budgeting can be as simple as your account structure. So like, you know, here at Leaders, everybody has a savings account. That's just a part of the membership structure of a credit union. And so someone might have a savings and a checking, but how they use those accounts and, you know, then thinking about adding in additional accounts. You don't have to live out of just one account. The idea of, you know, you can add in additional savings, you have multiple savings, you can have multiple checking accounts that have different purposes. And really a budget is all about what do I have? What I have, you know, responsibility for, management over, dreams and goals for. If it's an answer to one of those questions then it's a likelihood, it needs an account of its own so that when you log into your online banking, for instance, your budget lives there. It’s staring back at you.
And so it becomes like a living, breathing thing that you interact with. And all a budget is is telling your money where to go to work for you anyway. And so if you've got a structure that mirrors those things that you have responsibility for, management over, dreams and goals for, then you've got a place where that makes sense to you. And I love, like in our online banking, you can go in and actually change the labels.
Shea:
The names of your accounts.
Jonathan Jones:
The names on the account. So instead of saying like, you know, prime savings, you know, you can make it say, emergency fund. Or you can make it say, Christmas fund, or you can make it say vacation or...
Shea:
Like one for bills, one for spending.
Jonathan Jones:
Absolutely. Oh, man, that's such a helpful- that one idea alone has helped so many people to say just have two checking accounts. You know, I've got a bill account and spend account. Actually, earlier today I help someone with this idea and we implemented it. So the trouble with one account is, especially if you’re running tight, you end up swiping into your bill money.
And so just simply by separating those things out, you can create, you know, a context where you can put aside money that's already spent, that's already spoken for, for bills, and then transfer money to that spend account. It's like a digital cash envelope system in a way. It just helps people take control of that spending cycle so they're not finding themselves short.
Maddie:
And I love that because then that also takes some of the work out of like, you don't have to calculate it, you don't have to go into a spreadsheet and do all these things. You can just look at your online banking and say, well, this is how much I have left to spend, and this is, you know, how much I have to pay my bills or whatever it may be. So it also just makes it a little bit easier for, you know, our members to interact with that.
Jonathan Jones:
It really does. It checks that simple box because you're doing one thing and people are typically looking at their online banking anyway. So you're absolutely right. It puts it at their fingertips. They're going to be willing to stick with it because they can see it and it's incorporated something they were doing anyway, which is checking their accounts.
Maddie:
So do you have any additional budgeting tips that we haven't hit on yet?
Jonathan Jones:
You know, budgeting is one of those things that... you know, money is emotional. We're relational beings, relational people. And so oftentimes people are not just thinking about themselves, you know, when they're, you know, thinking about their money. Finding a way to communicate well about money, like, you know, taking a step, a positive step on the budgeting side of things can actually be a great help on the relationship side of things, whether that's with a significant other, a spouse or, you know, whatever the arrangement is.
People that share in that financial responsibility for household, that creates tension a lot. And so taking the steps to say we're going to make a budget, we're going to make something that makes sense, where we can keep up with money. Everyone can be informed. It's really, you know, a great relationship opportunity as well. So, you know, people can be on the same page.
And so having that conversation, you know, not just with yourself, but when, you know, really leaning into the relationship and saying, hey, let's talk about this, not just talk about it in terms of it being, you know, a fight on a Saturday morning where it ends up, you know, with something written down on a piece of paper that gets stuck in the kitchen, you know, junk drawer and not looked at until the next fight next month.
But a conversation that leads to, you know, let's put a structure in place, right. You know, let's set up accounts so that we can understand where our money is going. So the additional advice would be, you know, just to think about, you know, your money, as you know, connected to your life, you know, both emotionally and relationally. When you think about your money, it is dollars and cents.
It is ones and zeros. But it's more about the elements of your life that are important to you, relationally and emotionally, are reflected in that financial management. And we do that a lot. We'll sit down with people that had tension about money, but we, you know, help them communicate and work through, implement some solutions so that they understand what's going on in their financial world and they can communicate about it.
Shea:
Really gets into the kind of the counseling piece of it, you know, more than just the financial side. You know, like you're talking about people's emotions connected to money and also it affecting families and relationships. So it is really kind of a full circle type of program.
Jonathan Jones:
Yeah, No, it really is. And one of the things I like to help people see is, you know, our relationships, our extended family networks, they really, you know, they need stability. And so when you have someone in a family network or a friend network or, you know, that has you know, there's shared responsibility around things and someone becomes unstable, you know, the whole family network becomes more unstable.
And, you know, being willing to, you know, have a conversation that goes beyond just, you know, that protective move and say, okay, let's get help with this. Let's get help with the budgeting side of things. Let's get help understanding, you know, how we can control our spending and really planning for, you know, how to use debt that gives family systems more stability.
And when we have family systems that are more stable, then they can deal with more because life is going to come. Life’s going to happen to everybody. And, you know, the stronger that family system is, the more adaptable it is to those changes and challenges they're faced with.
Shea:
And one thing that kind of goes into stability and a lot of people think about is their credit score, especially around this time of year. You're thinking about finances. So what are some of the top three things that affect credit scores?
Jonathan Jones:
Yeah, I love this conversation and you know, primarily the conversations I have are about budgeting and credit. And the first thing to really understand is that the whole credit industry, the whole credit game, it's all about risk assessment, right? You have to understand the why behind things and the why behind credit is risk assessment. It is a whole industry that exists to serve, you know, really the businesses and the service providers and the lenders in the world to say, hey, we want to know what's our risk in doing business with this person.
Credit is all about: we're going to collect data that can be purchased by companies and businesses, lenders, service providers, so that they can do that risk assessment part of their business. And that makes sense.
Shea:
They just want to know that I'm going to pay back the loan.
Jonathan Jones:
That's right. Yeah, that's right. And so that data that, you know, a lot of people want just an understanding of what's going on here. Your data is being collected and sold. It’s for the purpose of risk assessment and the data that's being collected is primarily your debt data. Now, credit reporting can include like, you know, public records, bankruptcies, judgments, collections, those types of things, too.
But the primary bulk of that data is your debt data. What is it like when you borrow money and pay it back? When we think about what affects your credit score, we have to think about, you know, what's that data that's being collected and of that debt data, the three primary things that matter are your payment history, how much you owe on your loans, and then how long have your accounts been open.
And there's some other things like how often are you opening up new debt and having a mix of different types of credit. But the three primary things are payment history, how much you owe on your loans, and how long has that been going on. And when you think about it from a risk assessment kind of perspective, that makes sense, right?
Because the foundation of good credit is always good cash flow management. If you don't have good cash flow management, it's going to threaten your ability to make your debt payments. So if someone's making their payments on time, that's a good indicator. We have healthy cash flow management. If someone's making late payments, it's like a big risk indicator that, hey, there's some...
Shea:
There’s something going on here.
Jonathan Jones:
Something going on here. So making those payments on time is super important.
Shea:
Biggest thing. Making on time payments is the biggest factor that can affect the credit score.
Jonathan Jones:
Absolutely.
Shea:
How many points would that...like if I have one late payment, how many points?
Jonathan Jones:
And so it's less of a matter of points. It's more about percentage of influence. The word image picture I use to describe this for people is when I was in fourth grade, I remember there was another fourth grade class that had a kid that should have been in sixth grade. I remember him because he was kind of a bully.
You wanted to avoid this guy, but also remember him because on field day, his class dominated tug of war. His class dominated tug of war. And I really wanted that tug of war ribbon. And it really like seared that memory. I was so mad. I'm like, it's not fair. It's not fair. He's bigger than everybody else.
This doesn't make sense. But, you know, so that's really the dynamic going on with credit scoring. It's less about points, it is more about influence. And so when we think about the big six grader on that tug of war, that payment history is like that guy, like he's got the most influence. He's the strongest influencer there.
And so, yes, making that payment. When you make on time payments, it's like you're feeding that sixth grader. And that's a good pull. And if you're making late payments, it's like you're feeding the six year old on the other side. It's increasing that negative pull. And so we want to think about prioritizing payments. And everybody has cash flow challenges.
But if you're managing your budget in a way, you're managing your cash flow, where you can prioritize debt payments, where you can say, okay, even when things are tight, I'm going to make sure that that payment happens.
Shea:
On time.
Jonathan Jones:
On time. That payment happens on time. That's really the way to protect that. You want to protect that payment history by first not getting in over your head with debt in the first place.
Give yourself some cushion. The toughest underwriter you should ever face about whether or not you can get a loan is yourself. Because when you get debt, your promising tomorrow's income for today's opportunity. And so it's like, am I willing to promise that tomorrow's income I'm willing to stick to that promise. So your payment history really reflects that when you have own time payment history that shows, okay, this person's got a cash flow that they're managing in a way, and they're willing to prioritize making debt payments.
So we can see that doing business with them has low risk versus late payments that show high risk.
Shea:
Utilization, right? There's a certain percentage we should keep that in.
Jonathan Jones:
Yeah. So the payment history, when it comes to credit scoring, were talking about, you know, around 35% influence on the score. So that's a big six grader, right? The other big six grader on this tug of war is how much do you owe on your loans, and utilization of credit limits is a big piece of that that people, you know, sometimes don't understand.
So from a risk standpoint, if someone owes a high percentage of what they owe. So on an installment loan, like an auto loan or mortgage or a personal loan, you get X amount upfront. And then how much have you paid back versus where you started. That's what matters on the installment side. Then on the revolving side, like credit cards and lines of credit, what matters is how much am I utilizing of my credit limit. So if you're someone that, you know, you're utilizing a high percentage of your credit limit, on paper it looks like you're having cash flow problems.
Shea:
That would be getting it toward being maxed out. In other words.
Jonathan Jones:
Absolutely. So the more you use of it, on paper, the risk element goes up. And so the more you use on the credit card, the higher risk it represents. It's like, okay, this person looks like they're using credit as extra income, It looks like they're using credit, you know, to supplement the cash flow.
And that's dangerous. So from a risk standpoint, that's going to bring your score down. So a good rule of thumb is on your revolving lines of credit. Your credit cards, even if you're paying it off in full each month to really only utilize 30% or less of your limit. So if you have a $500 limit, that's 150 bucks.
And so kind of self-impose that just to avoid any unnecessary negative influence from that. And then on your installment loans, to, you know, recognize that early on- like if I go out and buy a house and I get a $250,000 home loan, you know, day one I owe $250,000. It's going to take some time for me to pay that back.
But know that that's going to show negative influence until I start to make progress in paying that back. And it's the same thing on auto loans and personal loans and the one that people miss, a student loans. You got student loans and you've kind of been in like that constant deferment. And you haven't made progress on actually paying the loan amount back.
You know that can contribute to negative influence is how much you own your loans. And scoring-wise, that’s around 30% of the influence on your score. The third biggest influencer is time. And so from a risk assessment standpoint that makes sense too. So the assumption is life happens to everybody. Everybody has job changes, everybody has family changes, everybody's relationship changes.
Everybody has to deal with a global pandemic that hits, right? And so the assumption is life happens to everybody. And on paper, the data, if you have accounts that have been open and active for a long period of time, that data is considered more reliable. And so that gives stability to the mathematical tug of war. And so when you have accounts open for an extended period of time, that data is more reliable and gives stability to the scoring. Where if you have newer accounts, it's like, okay, there hasn't been enough time for life to happen.
Shea:
Not sure about it yet.
Jonathan Jones:
You know, six months is not a lot of time for life to happen.
Shea:
Still like the honeymoon phase.
Jonathan Jones:
Still like the honeymoon phase there. So that data is less influential, less reliable. So you want to maintain open accounts for a long period of time. And that's where credit cards are helpful. So credit cards get people in trouble because it makes it easy to treat credit as extra income. And credit’s never extra income. It's always debt.
But from a mathematical standpoint, credit cards, when they're used appropriately, can really give that stability to the scoring that people look for. You know, people talk about building credit, and I don't really like that term because it's not accurate. You're not building anything. Like I've got a fence around my backyard. And it's 20 years old and it's fallen down in sections, I'm replacing it in sections. I'm doing the work myself.
And when I put up a section like, I expect that to stay for another 20 years. This is not like that at all. The data in your credit is changing. It's a dynamic situation. Every day you got accounts that are getting older or you got new payments that are showing up or your amounts owed is changing.
And so it's more like a, you know, a cloud in the sky. Right? It's this dynamic, you know, changing environment of your your debt data. What data is positive that shows financial stability and what data is negative that shows financial risk. And so instead of thinking about building credit, I want to think about what data am I putting out there that shows I am financially responsible. That's going to mathematically weigh out to be on the positive end of the scale.
I know that my scores are going to fluctuate, but if they fluctuate within a range it I'm satisfied with now we're on the right track. So creating a data set, you know, I'm going to tell people let's add in, protect, and maintain that positive influence, right? Let's address and avoid negative and, you know, let's maintain that over the longest period of time that we can in ways that line up with someone's financial goals and their needs.
Maddie:
That's really great and super helpful to make it clear for our listeners. So we know that Leaders invests in their employees, and one way we do that here at Leaders is by having certified financial counselors. So how does that help serve our members?
Jonathan Jones:
We love our members. We want to be the advocate for them in every phase of their life. And then, of course, you know, their financial life. And we prioritize our staff really having those opportunities to grow. And so that they can be better advocates for members when we see them on the front line, in the branch, when we interact with them on the phones, those moments where members are at a critical point, where they have a question or they have a need, we want to give them our best ability to respond to that as their advocate.
We've partnered with CUNA Mutual Group that provides services to credit unions all over the country to utilize their certified credit union financial counselor program as a way to help implement that advocacy level of education. It takes us beyond just the transaction, where for me, before I worked in banking and for Leaders and had the opportunity to learn what other people are going through in their life.
I kind of figured out, you know, what I needed to do to navigate my own things. But so many people are experiencing things that I've never experienced before. And that's the value of, you know, the program with the financial counseling is it gives an opportunity for employees to dig deeper into that wide financial landscape. So we've got some understanding about what, you know, the people that are coming in front of us that maybe we've never dealt with, but we know about it now.
And so we can offer better solutions. We can help them ask the right questions. Oftentimes that's the thing. It’s like, hey, I come in with a need and say, okay, we need to address three or four different questions to really figure out where to go next. So if we know what questions to ask, that's a big help.
And then we can make informed referrals too. If it's not something we handle in the branch, you know, if we need to refer out and say, hey, you know, go and talk to someone in investments or talk to our mortgage team, or maybe you need to connect with your tax professional or an attorney. And so that's really that value. It’s that we are bringing to the table a level of advocacy for our members that is really beyond just the transaction.
Shea:
And it really gives us a lot of knowledge. I know my team and I became certified financial counselors and just having that background knowledge about a variety of different financial topics and maybe issues people are facing or things like that. And so it really, like you said, really gives us that awareness and knowledge to be able to serve our members in a deeper way.
And so we've got, what, about 50 or so, I think, on our staff that are now certified?
Jonathan Jones:
So we currently have 51 certified financial counselors on staff. And in 2023 we had 43 additional staff go through our training and become certified.
Maddie:
Wow, that's awesome.
Jonathan Jones:
Yeah, it was a big achievement.
Shea:
In your doing of financial counseling with some of our members. Do you have any success stories that you can share on the podcast?
Jonathan Jones:
Yeah, that's a great question. Primarily I work in the budgeting and the credit side of things. And so like on the budgeting side, you know, one of the common stories that we see is like someone that's just kind of, you know, we always seem to just do what we think works until it doesn't.
And oftentimes that's when we get to interact with folks is when things aren't working. And a lot of times on the accounts side, that's when maybe accounts are being overdrawn. And so one person in particular I can think of, she's retired nurse and our teller recognized that, you know, she was constantly, you know, fighting against being in the overdraft on her account, and gained her confidence and said, hey, sit down with our financial counselor.
As I looked into it, you know, really just kind of figured out she didn't have a good grasp of where her money was going, didn't have a good grasp of her cash flow. So we actually implemented what, you know, I talked about earlier where we used her account structure for budgeting. We looked at what are her, you know, what she have management over, responsibility for, dreams and goals for. In her situation, she had to help her family occasionally so we created a separate savings where at every paycheck- she was, you know, retired.
So she had retirement social security. X amount went to the separate savings account, automatic transfer, you know, and that was her helping family account.
Shea:
Great way to set it up. Automate it.
Jonathan Jones:
Every paycheck, you know, she's saving to help family. We also identified that she paid her car insurance semiannually and so every time that happened, you know, it was challenging her account. She was going into overdraft. So we said, okay, set up a side savings account for, you know, semiannual insurance payment. Every paycheck, I got money going over there.
And this is to her credit, you know, she's in her seventies and she re-learns how to manage her finances using a bill account, spend account, you know, using one account for her bills to process out and leaving money there and having another account for, you know, swiping a card and spending. To help control that. And it really just turned her accounts around. She went from struggling against overdraft fees to having none. It’s been like that for several years now.
And she just had that freedom.
Maddie:
And that you're never too old to create new habits. You know, get your financial situation turned around.
Jonathan Jones:
I love seeing her come in the branch. I just, you know, we smile and talk. It's good to celebrate that success that’s long lived.
You know, on the credit side of things, there's opportunities we have had to help people. You know, one person in particular, I remember him working as a technician, you know, at the hospital.
And he had made some missteps with credit, you know, kind of used credit as extra income as a young guy and, you know, didn't understand how credit cards worked and, you know, had maxed out. So I had the chance to talk to him and get him reoriented to manage those things, manage his cash flow. And, you know, over the years, his credit improved.
He showed, you know, responsible management, that he could be, you know, trusted in lending interactions. And just over the course of, you know, probably eight years, you see him have multiple mortgages, get married and, you know, be extremely successful, became a nurse. And now he's actually a nurse anesthetist. So he did the work on the professional end and, you know, just had the opportunity to really help him along the way to understand how the finances work.
A huge joy to see that come to fruition for him and know that, okay, people, when, on the credit side, when they do the risk assessment, they can see how doing business with him is a fabulous idea.
Shea:
Well and that helped build his financial stability where he was able to pursue further education, have a family. You know those type of things that we all, you know, dream and hope for. So just that financial stability that was given is so helpful.
Jonathan Jones:
Absolutely. It's a joy to be a part of both of those stories.
Maddie:
So we have one last question for you today, and it's a fun one. So if you had any extra change in your pocket, what would you do with it?
Shea:
Might I interest you in some of these New Year's glasses?
Maddie:
You could buy some!
Jonathan Jones:
Oh, I have three teenagers at home and so most extra change would be snatched out of my hand as soon as it was drawn out of the pocket. If I got to hang on to it though... During the wintertime, quarters are for the car wash. That's just one idea. We've got, you know, multiple cars at the house. And I'm constantly washing a car.
But in the wintertime, you know, to keep from freezing out there, I’ll put the quarters in. So loose change in the wintertime goes to the car wash.
Maddie:
That's a fun one. So thank you for being here, Jonathan. We really enjoyed having this conversation and I think it will help a lot of our listeners in this new year.
Jonathan Jones:
Thank you for having me. Happy New Year!
Maddie:
Happy New Year!
