We had our second Money Moves meeting yesterday and I’m so happy about the turn out, y’all really came through 🥹 a huge thanks to all of you!
Also, shout out to Future Front Texas for providing such a lovely place for us to meet.
It’s always a treat chatting about our experiences, and how each of us navigates through money-related situations. It can be as simple as buying avocado toast and as difficult as trying to buy a house in a seller’s market, but we don’t have to be experts or advisors to share what works for us on a daily basis, and you never know what you’ll learn from others. I have learned so much from y’all already and I’m hoping to keep the conversation going and for us to keep sharing the knowledge.
To recap what we talked about
We started off talking about something that’s been weighing on our minds recently and it was no surprise to many of us that one of those things is student debt and student loan forgiveness. For those of us out of the loop, the interest for student loans has been paused but people with student loans are not sure if they should be paying off their loan now that the interest is paused or if they should wait to see if their loans are forgiven.
Student Loans & their potential forgiveness?
I’ve read a couple of threads online about what people are doing and one of the more sensible ones I found stated that you could put the money you’d be paying your loan with in a savings account with a 1-5% growth until we know what the government decides. That way, you will be ready to pay once they start popping off again OR if they are forgiven congratulations to us all we have a little savings.
Credit Cards (rewards and travel)
A really hot topic yesterday were credit cards (again!) When we talked about doing something to save money for a trip or saving money on groceries, travel cards and cash-back credit cards (as used by a lot of us). I personally use the Capital One Venture Rewards for traveling points but AMEX and Chase Shappire were also mentioned.
Something I learned about yesterday from y’all is using credit card points for grocery shopping. I read up online and some of the recommended cards are AMEX Gold, Citi Custom Cash, and even Venmo! Some people said they used Amex Blue Preferred and Amex Gold after the cap is reached. Also, some of these cards let you downgrade after you reach one year.
Credit cards are a spicy subject because a lot of us were raised thinking they were the devil, and honestly they can be if you’re not managing them right. BUT the perks of learning to use them are huge so start slow and set up that monthly auto payment before you go off spending into the sunset. Like I mentioned yesterday, I treat some of this as a ‘hobby’ because that kind of puts my mind into a learning space instead of a space of shame or cluelessness and worry. Someone suggested the blog The Points Guy if you want to know more about credit cards and points (and I see he mentions the ones we talked about yesterday!)
Investing & Scams
We spoke about getting started with investments through a secure brokerage account (I have mine through Schwab) as well as other trading apps (like Coinbase), staying cautious but also taking some risks when it comes to investments like crypto. Setting up an automatic account that will invest in ETFs & Mutual Funds (Robo Advisors) but also investing small abouts into the retail market even if its just for the sake of learning how that works.
We spoke about getting scammed and even though a couple of us have unfortunately had to deal with different scams (insurance, moving company, crypto) it sounded like we all fought and weathered the storm, coming out on the other side dare I said LEARNED? Seriously, scams suck and hackers will always be hacking but there are things we can do to protect ourselves, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, check the small font and even your friends are capable of scamming so 👀
CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture programs)
An excellent suggestion for grocery shopping while still supporting your local farmers was shopping through a CSA (What is a CSA? A Community Supported Agriculture program is when a person buys a ‘membership’ with a farm at the beginning of a season– making an investment up front to share the risks and rewards of the farming cycle. It’s like a subscription service where every so often (usually every week) you’d receive a box full of what’s currently growing at the farm. There are several local farms in Austin and the surrounding area that provide wonderful CSA programs.)
Here is some information I found about CSAs in Austin TX:
The Best CSAs and Meat Delivery Services in Austin:
Here are some more resources y’all mentioned yesterday:
Wealth front: investing app (ETFs, Mutual Funds)
Books recos: Financial Diet (author also has a podcast) and Latte Factor
MyBFF: Women in crypto and WEB3
@geobreezetravel (credit card hacking advice) pdocast interviews travel hackers
I’ll be in touch soon with info around August’s MM session! Please reach out if you want to request a Hot Topic or if there is something you’re dying to share. Some of us were interested in how to go into the Freelancing world and what that would look like for our financial planning. Some of y’all sound like PROs already and we would love to hear about how you were able to get there. If you’re not a PRO yet, but you’re still going through it we would love to hear that as well.
As always, I’m feeling SO HAPPY about hosting this club and I would love to make it better because I want us to keep meeting and having these conversations. If anyone is interested in joining a Money Moves Slack channel let me know and I can create one for us to keep in touch that way as well.
Have a nice weekend!
~ Lina