Episode three, twenty six Simple Saving Strategies using the High five Banking Method with Syenees Peerce.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver a with your life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are playing an interview from our twenty twenty one Frugal Living Summit. We called it the Future of Frugal, and all of the interviews were explorations of what the future of frugal would look like. So instead of being cheap, being wise with our resources and our money, and this is one of the ways that we could be wise with our savings. And Sirenese has this method that really helped her simplify
her savings. So we're very excited to replay this for you. It was one of our most watched interviews from the summit two years ago, and we know we have so many new listeners that a lot of you didn't get to see it the first time around, so you get to hear.
It now twenty twenty one. It was weird times, but you're great relevant evergreen tips. So we're excited to introduce this one again to the masses. But first, this episode is brought to you by encouragement. It's a sweet sponsor today, the kind that thinks of you, shoots a little text saying how great you are, or sends you a note via snail mail with a thanks for being you message, or a handclap kind of like a high five saying
you're really good at this. Encouragement is here for you, getting rid of the platitudes and giving you genuine motivation to keep going. And if you need a little more encouragement sent your way, we've got it for you. It's our newsletter. We give you heads ups, a heads up about free food in your area, tips for spending better, and hacks for removing all the guilt and shame surrounding money. It's the high five you needed, that pat on the back,
the wind beneath your sales. That might be a little far, but encouragement it's here for you. Frugal frindspodcast dot com, slash friend letter. Let us encourage you. Encourage you to get that free food, encourage you to save that money, Encourage you to spend that money when it aligns with your values, will.
Send you all that, and she sends me videos of dogs doing gross stuff. So okay, I think you're getting the better end of the data.
That's the encouragement you need. Jen.
We all get what we need from you, and I understand that. And what you might need is a simplified way to do your banking. You may not know how many bank accounts should I have or not have, or how do I say an emergency fund or a sinking fund like logistically, And that is why we invited Syrenees with us at the summit. And so, without further ado, let me just introduce you to Syrense real quick. She runs the Poised Lifestyle blog and you can find her
at Poised Finance Lifestyle on Instagram. She and her husband recently finished paying off ninety nine thousand dollars of debt in five years living in one of the highest costs of living cities in America with their two young children, and so she has created this high five banking strategy because what mom of two kids doesn't need to simplify everything. So if that sounds like something you need, enjoy, should do it. Hey, Syrenees, thank you so much for letting
us interview you. We are so excited that you're here and we're excited to share this interview with everyone.
Thank you guys so much for having me. I'm excited to share and to talk more about my story and whatever can help the next you know, the next generation of women and minorities and the youth.
Help them with their finances. That's what we're here for.
Thanks for coming on the show. We're so exc about the platform that you have, the Poise Lifestyle. It is a stunning site with tons of helpful info and videos and graphics and so will certainly point people in your direction as we go. But excited to learn from you today on this topic.
Yeahk you can you just start out for the people who don't know, like, who are you? Like, what got you into starting the Poised Lifestyle and doing this?
Yes, so on site.
Annyspears, I'm a millennial Latina mom from San Diego, California. I have a background in finance, but one of the main reasons that I got into finance was because of the devastation that happened during the OAIT recession.
My family.
We lost our home, my dad lost his career, my parents ended up divorcing and it was just so much loss and had I felt like there was no hope when it came to our finances for you know, people who were immigrants and minorities just trying to make it here. And one of the main reasons I got into financial planning, into this industry was to help spread the awareness that there are options for us to better our personal finances so we don't have to lose it all when we,
you know, start building up our wealth. So I created Poise Finance and Lifestyle to realistically help millennial women find a way to balance their finances and lifestyle with Poise because as a mom, I know how difficult it is to try to live your best life but also be financially responsible.
So that's one of.
The main things I try to share a little tricks and hacks on how to you know better your finances in a way that doesn't seem all budgeting and invest in best and best not too stressful, but a little bit more strategic and routinely something that helps you create a system for your finances.
So, Renieza, that's so stunning because this is not just about the majority culture. This isn't just about what's attainable for uh yeah, people with power. We're also talking about and hoping to make accessible and elevate the voices and find the freedom to engage in this within any demographic of people. So thank you for bringing that perspective to us today. You talk about the High five banking method, I'm curious if you can say more about that, should and share that with our audience today.
Yes, So, the High five Banking method is realistically a simple way to organize your finances with purpose. When it comes to financial planning, it feels a little overwhelming for a lot of people to talk about budgeting, investments, you know, estate planning, and insurance.
It feels a little bit too much. So what I did here with.
The High five Banking method, it's realistically the foundation to build upon your financial future. For a lot of people, that's just you know, what most people are used to just you know, setting up budget, setting goals, but they don't have a structure.
For their finances.
So with the High five Banking method, what're really doing is that we're organizing your finances so that you can clearly see why you are spending, why you are saving, and in the future position yourself to start investing in building up a legacy for yourself and your family as well. So the high five banking method is realistic and composed of five accounts, two checking accounts and three savings accounts. The first checking account is going to be for your bills.
This is going to be for all of your mandatory needs, even if it's not considered a bill. It could be groceries, gas, a roof over your head, water, All of these things are mandatory. We all need it for survival. The next one is going to be your lifestyle checking account. This is going to be for all the monthly things that you want to do without the guilt. And think that's so important for women to know that it's okay to spend.
Just make sure that you're not pointing to everything so you can start saving a little.
Bit more and then you will be okay.
Now, when it comes to the three savings accounts, it is it be one savings account for your emergency fund, one for your long term goals, and one for your short term goals. And once you have all five accounts, you can give your finances a high five.
I love that.
I'm saying, oh my god, what an amazing elevator. Speech with a high five.
I can't. I mean, that's that's the best elevator speech that I have heard from a personal finance professional. And I thought, it's so simple because I don't always love budgeting. I can't. I need to be able to see my money like separately, and so yes, I have multiple accounts just for that reason. But I have never broken it down like simply and strategically like that. So I love the strategy, the strategy behind that method.
And that's why I tell people the high five banking method. It's not a budget, it's the missing piece. That's what we don't talk about in personal finances. Like I said, everyone talks about budgeting, but they don't find strategies to help us maintain that budget when we're out shopping, when we're paying our bills, when we're say for things that are actually important to us. They just tell us budget sickles, as if it was that easy. It's not that easy,
and that's why so many people fail at it. We need to have people give people the opportunity to have strategies that benefit them. And for a lot of the youth, you know, it's very difficult to start saying for short term and long term goals, and I tell them just start with the first three accounts. This is the core of the baseline here, because everyone has bills, everyone has a lifestyle, even though we do not want to admit it,
and we all need an emergency fund. It doesn't matter who we are, we all need to have a little bit of money saved up just in case life doesn't go to plan.
I mean, we need these tangible tips. I think sometimes people are so afraid to box us in because there is so much freedom and how we go about our personal finance and budgeting. But yet some of these tangible tools, this foundational concepts of Okay, but what's actually needed? Where can I even start before I even learn how to branch off from there and what works for me and what doesn't work for me? So I love that you're actually giving this. Okay, have two checking and three savings.
Here's how you use them. Excellent. That's a great place to get started and build upon from there.
Exactly.
Let's dive a little bit into these two checking accounts first, So how do we decide what goes in each? And then also how do we execute it once we have them?
Okay, So I have a little more dramatic than other people. I actually focus all of the money that comes into my household towards my bills first, because I need to make sure I have kids. You know, have to make sure I have food in the fridge. You need to make sure our water's running, we have car insurance, we have gas, and for a lot of people, you know, we kind of have demonize bills as something that's holding us back when the reality is something that's propelling us forward.
If we don't have the necessities, it's very difficult for us to start thinking about our future. So if we take care of home and make sure that we have everything that we need, we are going to feel more confident and less stressed when it comes to saving, investing, and moving forward with our finances. So when it comes to the bills, I tell everyone, this is your mandatory cost of living. And a lot of people, you know, a lot of people actually don't know what this number is.
I tell people, calculate how much your minimum cost of living is, because this is mandatory, it's not you know, optional.
Right here, you can maneuver things here and there.
You know, once your lease ends, you can change, you can sell your house to get, you know, a less expensive house. There's little things you can change, but the reality is you still need all of these expenses. So I tell people prioritize all of your income to go towards your bills first. After you got all your bills taking care of, give yourself like an allowance kind of for how much money you want to spend on your lifestyle.
A lot of people do something that I call the new lifestyle creep, where they don't realize how much money they're spending on their lifestyle because they're putting it all on their credit card. So they'll try to budget and cut down and stuff like that, but the reality is they're still swiping that credit card when it comes to their lifestyle, and they're secretly going back into more debt, increasing their bills and making their life more stressful. They're
going backwards because they're trying to maintain so much. So what I tell people to do instead is give yourself a realistic budget for your lifestyle. For my husband and I, we both have our play money in here. You know, he has a certain amount, I have the same amount, and then we have a certain amount.
That's less for our children as well.
Going out to eat things for the house, you know, when we go to Costco something random like that, our book buys and things of that nature. We do that in our lifestyle so that way we are keeping track in an easier way of how much we're actually spending
by choice and not by you know, mandatory. And I feel like this has helped me so much really control how much I'm spending and not going to credit card debt, you know, making sure that everyone has enough money for what they need to accomplish what they need on a monthly basis, and if they need to wait until next month to buy something a little bit more expensive, they
can wait a little bit a few more weeks. That's just the you know, the process of how you control the urges of wanting to overspend and spending too much instead of you know, learning how to manage your finances in a way that's realistic and maintainable for you.
It's so hard for women to.
Go backwards and lifestyle, but it's easier to maintain something that's realistic for you and that you know you can maintain moving forward.
I love that you could look at that bank account and see, well, what do I have in here as my fun spending as my lifestyle spending, and if it's not in there, then I don't get it. Rather than just looking at one checking account, it's like, well it's in here, Well that's not accounting for bills that have to be paid.
So absolutely, yeah. And it makes sure that it doesn't matter what day the bill is coming out, that you have the money in there for it. If you put that aside first, or even if you choose to like budget based on the previous month's income, like you have it in there so you're not going to be late
on anything. That's what I kind of feel like. These paycheck to paycheck budgets kind of get it like wrong, because you can have all of your bills in the first two weeks and then like you have no spending money. So if you like just parse it out and so you can see, okay, this is what I have, and then maybe I have a little extra I can put towards the next month or whatever, then you don't have to stress about the timing of the bills.
Yes, that is very stressful. I think why people don't talk about that. They always say, just put everything on auto pay, and you're just like, you know, how stressful autopay is if you don't have all the money for your bills, especially when they're different prices. You can pretend that you have a routine and accidentally, you know your light bills higher than expected, or your AC has been running and you didn't know it was running while you were out. There's so many things that happen. Life is
just so unpredictable. That's why I do think it's such a good idea to try to see you get ahead of those small bills.
You know, one thing that my husband and I.
Do is we get ahead on our life insurance, we get ahead on our car insurance, we get ahead on our cell phone bill, because those are little bills that we can really start working towards and officially tell people when you are ahead of your bills, you are not living paycheck to paycheck. You do not have to get into that mindset that you don't have enough money to pay your bills. No, on the contrary, you're actually ahead of your bills. You are moving forward in your finances,
and you're getting out of that rut. That mindset stuff really does mess with people, and a lot of people like to say they live patcheck to paycheck, but you know, the reality is they don't. They just feel that they live page to paycheck because they're combining their bills and their lifestyle and their credit card debt all on top of it.
Yeah, so true. So now that we've covered the checking accounts, I'm curious about these savings accounts taking a deeper dive into that. I know you mentioned you've got your short term and your long term and your emergency fund. Can you talk a little bit more about guidelines with that, maybe percentages that go into each, how you utilize those. What more tips do you have for us about those savings accounts.
Yes, I don't like doing percentages because a lot of times it's not realistic for what you're actually trying to save for. If you know, you're trying to save for a weekend get away trip with with your girls to Vegas, you know it's going to cost the hotel's going to cost x amount, the gas is going to cost this
food is generally going to cost about that. So it's really important for people to start, you know, realizing how much money do they actually need to save for the short term goal, what are they trying to save for even their long term goals? What are you saving for if it's a down payment for our house, or you trying to buy a new car. How much does the car cost? What's your budget for this? And that way
you can start breaking it down in a more realistic format. Now, when it comes to the emergency fund, a lot of people, you know, they start making up numbers of how much money they think they need to have in there.
They're like, oh, I need to.
Have you know, three months of my income or three months of my bills. And we say bills, but they conclude their lifestyle in there, and I'm like, no, include just your minimum cost of living, which is equal to your bills. So I saw, I lookt about the hip five banking metter. These numbers they equal to each other, whatever your bills are. Like the average is how much you want to say for one month of your emergency fund, and then you start building up to three months and
six months depending on your financial situation. You know, if you're single, you don't have any kids, you can rely on a little bit less because it's just you have to take care of. But once you have kids, you're you know, in a two household income, or you're you know, married, you have multiple kids and pets and everything like that. You need to be, you know, a little more flexible and save a little bit more because you have more
people who are depending on that emergency fund. So I always tell people, you know, get to your one month emergency fund, but please do not stop there. Continue on to your three months, and then to your six months, and if you're going to start a business, up to your twelve months. Because a lot of times we hear people talking about, you know, they're business owners, their investors, and they don't really talk to you about their emergency fund.
These will have very deep emergency funds, but you don't realize that. So we think that, you know, we can just jump into other areas without mastering the basics first. So please prepare your foundation before you jump onto the bigger stuff.
If you get nothing else out of this, do that.
Do that now.
I didn't want to share with And it comes to the short term and long term. I do consider short term anything that takes less than twelve months to accomplish. That could be like, again, you want to get a new cell phone. Christmas anniversaries, we celebrate those here. Also, like cart registration, it comes off every single year right after Christmas for us, So it's like ah. And then when it comes to the long term goals, there's gonna
be anything between one to five years. If it's going to be longer than five years, you might want to start investing that money and not holding you in a high savings account probably makes more sense at that point. But realistically, you know, if you're trying to buy a new car these are things that you want to do, or even a wedding, playing a wedding, you know you need to save up for these things because you are going to be paying them off, you know, while you're
saving for them a lot of times. So you need to start preparing yourself to not rely on going onto, you know, into debt or financing just to achieve those goals. And I know it's difficult because you know, as the youth and as millennials, we all want everything right now, but it's important that we spread it out in a way that's realistic for us and manageable as well.
I like how you're highlighting this not just for personal finance, but if any of us are thinking about starting a business or getting into a side hustle or anything. These are very basic principles that if we're able to master them in our own lives, we can take with us into the next step of life. Awesome tip there.
Yeah, And I love like how much freedom this all seems to be giving, because I remember before I got like into you know, personal finance and stuff, I would see a number in my bank account and I would be like, I have to spend it all, Like I have to spend everything because I don't, like, I don't know what tomorrow holds. That was kind of my yolo, right, and not not even a term anymore, I know, not even in like a like I want to party, but just like in a kind of a scarcity mindset sort
of thing. It wasn't even intentional, but to have everything taken care of in other accounts, so I have an account that I can spend in and then I have, you know, the savings for my trip or my car in other accounts that I'm not seeing out of sight,
out of mind, like I can spend without guilt. And I just I love the freedom that that is because it seems a smidge restrictive as a budget would, but there is actually freedom and knowing your boundaries because then you can go to the max without anxiety.
Exactly wants to go to the store and get their car rejected or anything like that.
So it kind of keeps you in check and saying, hey, you have one hundred dollars.
That's it, you know, start calculating how much your with your expenses are going to be because that's it's almost like a gift card if you think about it a little bit. We can't go over the gift card. It's like, it is what it is. And it kind of trains people, especially if they're really, you know, really being triggered by their spending at that part of their life, to kind of calm down and be like, aa, I only have
one hundred dollars. Let me, you know, rethink how I want to spend my money and be more purposeful, you know, before I start spending. I think that's really important to like stop us right there before we get to the cash register and double think everything that we're doing because we don't want to get embarrassed.
We don't want to go into debt, and you know.
So the small things you have to do in the beginning to really prepare yourself to be able to you know, handle larger expenses or move forward in your financial journey as well.
Yes, I love that. So this is a question that we are asking all of our speakers kind of in regards to what our conversation has been today.
But what do you hope the.
Future of banking or accounts or spending.
What do you hope the.
Future that includes?
I honestly, I hope that it includes more banking opportunities for the under banked. There's so many communities that, you know, they're scared of banks, they're scared of the government, they're they're in fear, and they're also in lack of banks in their community. So I feel like it's really difficult for people to you know, create a banking structure if they don't have banks available to them. I really love how online banks are really you know, getting out there.
They're promoting that service and that option to people who never knew that was an option, so they don't get charged with bank fees, over draft fees, maintenance fees. Those are fees that you know, our youth and our minority community cannot form at the moment. So I think it's really important to make sure that you know, there's ATMs available everywhere where they can use them without getting charged
extra fees. That would be a very big blessing because sometimes there are things you need to pay cash for and we want to feel comfortable knowing that we can have a lot of access to a lot of other places to get our money. So I'm really hoping banking expands and people who are not banked get bank accounts and learn this strategy so they can manage their finance is better.
I am with you on that one, hoping with you, Cyrenies. This is such such a problem as it relates to personal finance and the ability to get a bank account, much less the opportunity for bank accounts and bank accounts that aren't going to take advantage of people. So yeah, yeah, this is hoping I.
Do super like important even if you don't pay the fees that you're talking about, Like, even if you're like a person watching this and you're like, well, I still
above my minimum, so like I'm fine. But one of the ways that we show banks that we won't tolerate them nickel and diming low income customers is by leaving those banks that charge fees and banking strictly with online banks and credit unions that are fee free and that are also committed to banking for like unbanked and underbanked populations. And so if you're watching this and you're at a big bank that charges fees, I hope that you would
consider taking the really inconvenient step. I know it's inconvenient because I've done it and leaving and going somewhere that is committed to the same things that you are.
And the other thing I wanted to share was that a lot of people feel like that's their only option, and there's more opportunities, you know, out there other banks. There's credit unions, like you said, there's online banks, there's how you' savings accounts that you can't get access to if you're with the big bank, so you can diversify it, you know, a little bit out. I know for business, it's a little difficult if you're a business owner to have online bank. There's not a lot to offer that.
But that's something that is also expanding because there is a niche for that. There's people who do side hustles. They need, you know, business accounts for their side hustle. There's people who are you know, creating small businesses, and they need to know that there's more options than just the big banks. And that's very empowering and educational because you know, you need to have those options available to us because they might just work out perfectly.
Yeah, oh my gosh, thank you so much for that.
That's right.
It's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to I don't have to pay that bill anymore. That's bills, bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week.
On a different note, syenees are curious if you have a bill of the week for us.
When you guys had a bill, I was thinking, like Bill Ny the science guy, Like.
Right, yes, I always say Bill Curtis and nobody's ever as excited as I am.
But I've been doing a lot of research on, you know, the the plastic situation that we're going through. I think it was like a baby turtle that had like one hundred pieces of plastic in his little belly, and it was like, there has to be, you know, a better way for you know, us as a society to go less plastic and more sustainable, you know, type of items. When it comes to like shampoo, and like, there's so many little things we don't even think about that are
like wrapped in plastic. So hopefully that's something else that we can hope for improvement in as well.
Hmmm.
Inspired by Bill Nye and.
The Truth.
Oh that's amazing. Thank you so much for indulging us with that and also sharing all of your banking tips. This has been incredibly enlightening, insightful, motivating. Thank you, Syrenies.
Yeah, where can people go to find everything you have to offer?
Definitely go out to my website, the poislifestyle dot com and I also have a freebie of the one sheater of the high five Banking method is my most requested.
Uh one cheater. Everyone's always as we want it. I don't know why we want it.
I was like, you know, there, you guys go go to my website a pop up with co Op and you guys can download a free one cheater and it's just so helpful, especially if you're trying to introduce.
This to your partner, to your family members like your.
Little sister, your little brother, and you want to help them also get their finances in order. It's just a good one sheheter that allows you to get a good perspective of the high five banking method. And you know, once people see it, like you said, it kind of makes sense.
I mean it's a great looking one like one sheeter too, like it just puts it all on paper, and I was like, yes, all of this makes sense. I can do this.
That summit really was fun.
That was so fun, and we will bring it back in a new iteration. But I had a baby this year, so I wasn't able to do it. Yeah r ses, I know, I had another baby. I didn't have time for a summit. But fear not, it will come back. Let us let us know how you want it to come back, over on Instagram or by sending us an email.
You can respond to the friend letter anytime you get a friend letter in your inbox and you want to respond to it, that goes into my inbox and I will most likely see it unless it's something mean and then Goldie takes it out of my inbox really quick. Goldie is are podcast manager ratual.
We just get the encouragement right.
She only lets me see the good stuff. So thank you for listening and speaking of good stuff, we love reading your kind reviews. And we especially love this one from CC one two three, four seven. It's called The Radical Middle. It's the title of the review review. I love the thoughtful and balanced conversations on this podcast. It is so rare to find people who can acknowledge that life is complicated. There is no one size fits all to approach to finance, and ultimately the right choice for
most of us will be somewhere in the middle. The fact that these ladies are also funny and entertaining is the icing on the cake. Thank you CC.
I like those that was encouraging. Thanks for that encouragement in the form of a five star review. We do love that, especially mainly just because today's sponsor was encouragement.
But bringing for you to all circle.
Encourage us with these five star reviews, because it not only encourages Jen and I, but it also encourages other people who might similarly be looking for a personal finance podcast that's relatable to them. This will help them understand whether this is the version of relatable that they need.
We are not all things to all people, so if you can kind of tell people what to expect with this in the form of a really great review that gives an idea of what we're about, where we're funny and we're not radical, except when it comes to being in the middle. That's great. So thanks for leaving those reviews.
Yes, and remember I am fragile and I love reading your five star reviews. So if you need to protect someone today, protect me, protect my heart, and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to This podcast, Love You by Gorugal Friends is produced by Eric sirianni Oh.
I love the concept of us being fragile, just like so breakable and dainty with like little bird bones.
That's what our one stars, one star reviews say we are. So I'm just like living into it.
Yes, well yeah, bird bone females just like to giggle talk about nothing. Yes, they really get us, they really understand us to our core.
Yeah, all of my fragility, you know, but I am. I am fragile when it comes to sports.
I know.
We were just talking about.
This and that's why I just left weights.
I do.
I lift flat balls that are weights, right, not frisbees.
Don't throw anything at me, I will not catch it.
It's actually a joke.
With Travis, my husband, is that he will maybe throw something at me or like where other people have quick reflexes, and they will they will like catch something. I will stand there and watch it because part of it is that my reflexes are slow already for stuff like that, Like if it comes to my children, though, I have catlike reflexes, right, But when it comes to everything else, I will just like watch things go by.
I've seen you do that.
It feels kind of like a power move though, like you're doing you're leaning into the non athleticism by just allowing it to be this. Yeah, oh what was that? You tried to throw something at me? No thanks, you can pick that have and it's really boss.
Do you think you think a lot of my inadequacies are power moves? And maybe I've just taken my weaknesses and made them into my strengths.
She doesn't respond to a text message power move, She doesn't catch what your growing had her power move. She just stares at you when you say hi and introduce yourself power move.
I do only half of those things, and it's a power move.