Avoiding Burnout, Overdraft Fees, and Getting Back to Work #213

was Sadly he was laid to rest on Tuesday. Matt, we were out of town. We just got back, and we feel the need because we weren't able to address it on the show last week or earlier this week, to to make our voices heard on this subject and to shine a light on racial injustice in our country. However, we can all of us out there, you and me and our listeners included. It's important to use our voices

to to uplift and to help others. And Matt, typically we choose to use our voices to help people on the subject of personal finance, but but there are other ways we can use our voices to until we feel the need, we feel compelled to talk about this today, and in particular math the recent terrible injustice of police brutality like happened to to George Floyd, and that's happened to many many other African Americans in this country. The

brutality or the injustice that they have experienced. It's not okay. It's absolutely one of the most important subjects that our country as a whole is facing right now. Yeah, I totally agree, man, And so you know, to that end, one of the ways that you can help is at the intersection of money and racism. We encourage you to to learn about organizations and groups that are working to end racism and also to financially support them. Joel and I. You know, you and I Man, we've both made donations

to local groups here in Atlanta. And our goal isn't just to learn about these organizations just to donate and cross that off of a feel good to do list, right, but if it's to learn in order to change the way we think in the ways that we behave right, not to become just not racist, but to become anti racist. And we we feel that calling out racism is not

a political thing. It's not a political topic, but in fact, it's a moral imperative that every one of us is called to Yeah, Matt, I agree with you, man, and I think yeah. We're approaching this topic from a place of feeling like we have a small platform and it's important for us to address it here and at the same time to say that that we are listening because you and I don't know the depths of the difficulties that are African American friends, or African Americans in this

country in general, have had to endure. So we're gonna do our best to listen, to hear what other people have to say, to learn from their experience, and at the same time also be a part of the change in whatever way we can. Yeah, Man, that's right. Let's go ahead now and jump into our Friday flights, and this is when we talk about some of the different stories that we've come across this past week that affects each of us individually on a personal level when it

comes to our personal finances. So first, let's talk up out a new law that passed Man, You and I we've talked about the p p P, the Paycheck Protection Program that was part of the Cares Act from several weeks ago, but a bill that allows for greater flexibility in spending PPP funds was signed into law last Friday.

This is good news for small businesses in those employed by small businesses, as it eased the requirements on payroll expenses from s of the loan to six, so it allows a lot more flexibility on how small businesses can spend that money. And it also extended the time period to use the funds from just eight weeks to twenty

four weeks. So that's pretty huge, man. Uh. And they're also calling this the p p p f A, which is the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act, which totally kind of cracks me up every time I hear that, because it kind of makes me think of a performer and he's like, for my next act of flexibility to touch

my toes. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense that they that they changed the law and they change the timetable in particular for small businesses, because when the bill was originally drafted, it was like, well, how long is this gonna last? Probably weeks and then you know they'll be able to rehire everyone. We'll be back to normal business as usual within two months and that just didn't work out. Right, It hasn't been the case. Businesses have been hurt for

longer than that, a whole lot longer than that. And so to give businesses more flexibility with that PPP money made a lot of sense. I'm really glad that the Congress was able to fix this. Yeah, I love the flexibility that it gives small businesses. It allows them to use that money as they see fits a little more. Right, let's talk to about taking time off during a pandemic. A lot of employees are finding it difficult to take

some time off and get away from work. A recent studies showed that almost half of workers fall into this category, and the study defines these folks as work martyrs. Right, that's where you want to show dedication to your job, and if you don't, if you take any time off, you feel guilty about it. And a lot of us might even be thinking, oh, that's not me. But I

think this can be really subtle. Even when you feel good about taking time off and know that you should, I think there can be this kind of low grade guilt that kind of rides in the background, you know. Yeah, completely stab for vacation time usage for Americans has been

pretty pitiful for a number of years. Now. I think it's even more important right now, whether you're going somewhere or not, you know where, whether you're able to get away, uh, you know, most people not willing to go on a plane right now, or whether you're willing to drive somewhere and and get out of town for a few days, or whether you're doing like a staycation but to stop doing work for a period of time to take some

of those vacation days. I think for a lot of people to avoid burnout, it's even more important right now than than it is typically. And one of the most helpful points in the article that we read Matt that they highlighted was how you actually go about convincing yourself and your boss that you need this time off. And one of the ways to do this is by writing

out the implications to yourself and your work. And one of the biggest reasons to do this is is burnout and burnout can lead to decrease productivity levels and it can actually affect your work in a majorly negative way. And I think right now are emotions are all more

volatile for a lot of reasons. In large part COVID related and so sure that you do take time off to be able to rest and recharge and get away from your daily work is really important and I would suggest that people will take advantage and not not for sake, it just because we're kind of in an odd, new

normal time. Yeah. By identifying those potential risks and those issues and being able to present that to your boss or to your work, I think you could easily convince them that hey, this is in the best interest of both of us to do this. And on a personal level, this burnout can it can lead to declines in your mental and your physical health, as well as the different critical roles that we play in important relationships in our life. Man.

I know, for me, like when it comes to my physical health, if I don't take care of myself, sometimes I'll get migraines. That's something I've kind of learned over the years. I'm like, why do I get these migraines? Well, maybe once or twice a year. It's it tends to be when I'm kind of stressed. And of course relationships family, Uh,

they're really important. You know. If we were to really step back and to list out the things that are important to us, those relationships and our health would easily be at the top of the list for most of us, but it's just so easy to get caught up in the achievement and earning. More So, we need to make sure that we're prioritizing time off right now. Even though it might feel, you know, even harder to do during this pandemic, chances are that it's also far more necessary

to take these steps now as well. Yeah, completely agree, all right, Matt. Also, let's mention over draft fees, right. The numbers just came out and last year the large banks took over eleven billion dollars in over draft fees out of customer accounts. This was before the pandemic left so many in an even tougher financial position, and it's important to to state that we understand that this is part of how banks make money. But for our listeners, they're the kind of people that want to avoid over

draft fees altogether. They don't want to be paying a pesky thirty or thirty five dollar fee if they overdraw their account, and there are so many ways to avoid this too. And what sucks to is that more than eight percent of these fees were paid by just nine percent of account holder, So it really is this small segment of the banking population that's paying a massive amount

of these fees. And over draft fees at this point are completely optional, like you can opt in or you can opt out, and we would suggest you opting out. It's so much or to get that transaction declined than to have the transaction go through be able to get your three dollar coffee or your ten dollar meal, and it actually costs a whole lot more than that because

you're paying an overdraft fee on top of it. So just know that you have that option that you can turn over draft protection off and that will save you just a massive amount of these fees. It's just crazy. The banks make eleven billion dollars a year on them. Yeah. Man, it's terrible that the most vulnerable are also the ones who are the hardest hit. And you know these numbers in this research is by the Center for Responsible Lending. They're working to get all the banks to stop over

draft fees during the pandemic. While many banks have taken steps to work with folks on an individual level, it wou'd be amazing to see banks across the board step up and take care of their customers. So at the very least be aware of your overdraft fees and know that you can reach out as many banks are willing to work with individuals. But also know too that the

Center of Responsible Lending they're working for bigger changes. They're great organization, a nonprofit, and you can even support them if you want to. Yeah, Matt, And this is to why on the show we talk about which banks you should be banking with. And there are some banks that just have terrible customer service. They want to charge you these over draft fees. They're not looking out for you

at all. And if you incur these over draft fees, you might spend hours on hold to trying to get one or two of them removed, and it feels like beating your head against the wall. And so we would recommend doing business with banks that have a much harder bent towards customer service, that are not looking to try to feed or death when you do overdraft your account. Man. I remember when I first signed up with my first

online banking account. It was with Capital One formerly I n G, and they would do this thing where if you took too much money out of your checking account, well they would pull it out of your same news account. But these big banks they won't they won't even do that like that, you've got the money there, but you overdrew this one account and you're gonna pay. You're gonna pay that thirty five bucks or thirty nine bucks or

whatever it is. The fees are just astronomical. They're ridiculous, and it's so important to avoid them because they're their budget records. They're they're terrible for our finances. Man, that first online bank I Energy anytime you mentioned that, it really takes me back. It kind of dates us a little bit, but that that Electric Orange account was really good. Also had one of this um It's like one of the kinds, like the first of its kind. It really was.

Also to estates have reopened, a lot of businesses are also beginning to reopen. In particular businesses and hospitality and retail man. I saw Dunkin Donuts. They are hiring up to workers for new positions that they're looking to fill this year, which Joel, I got an important question for you. Are you a Dunkin donutsman or Krispykreme Krispy Creme all the way? Are you yeah? And ready? Wait hot and

ready I thought that was Little Caesar's. Well whatever, they've got the hot light I know they had that they had to sign once they're once they're fresh, when it's on, when they're fresh and they're hot, and there's nothing beats a krispykreame, what's the pizza thing? When they're when they're on the side of the road trying to like get you to buy them, like almost out of your car. You know what I'm talking about? I don't. I don't know. It must be Krispy cream. People to know it's pizza.

Maybe it's something they only did in Athens, like on game days. Let's not get off on that tangent. We're talking about donuts here, and dude, I'm never buying a pizza at somebody's trying. Come on, that's weird. Okay, let's get back to the donuts though for some reason, I thought you were all about Dunkin Donuts though like those gross, you know, katy, crumbly dry donuts, Krispy Kreme or so much better the melt in your mouth like a marshmallow,

but even better. But we're gonna talk more about jobs and what it looks like to go back to work, and we'll get to that right after the break. All right, we're back to the break. We're talking about keeting back to work and jobs. You just talked about how Dunkin Donuts hiring. Yeah, we're talking about jobs. We're not gonna talk about donuts anymore. If Chrispy Kreme was hiring, though,

I'd considerate. How many donuts do you think that Krispy Creem employee is allowed to eat during a single shift? You know, any restaurant or any like bar, you're allowed like one drink, or you're allowed one entree or one meal during your shift. I'm say half dozen, that's my guest. What if every single shift you could sit down and just eat six donuts? It would not be good, be awesome for so many reasons. But but yeah, I've seen so many hirings, let's talk. I've seen so many hiring

signs just driving around. It seems like the great rehire is beginning. And but before we get to that, Matt, I did want to mention one thing. As you know, maybe you have been laid off and you're looking for work, maybe you have been working from home. There are so many ways that our lives have changed. Right now, and as things are opening up, well, it's really important, I think, for us to ask kind of a bigger question about

what we don't want to go back to normal. It's something Emily and I have been talking about because before we ramp everything back up to a hundred, right and and go back to living our normal lives, which which I know most of us are not ready to do right now anyway, But it's important to take this time to reflect on what we want our lives to look

like as things do begin to open up. We've all had different emotional, mental, physical hardships because of COVID, but as the states are reopening, it's important for us all to be thoughtful about what we want to add back into our life, both commitment wise and in what we spend. Now might be the perfect time for us to have a more thoughtful calendar and a more intentional budget. Right.

If you're out there listening and you've been able to increase your savings right during the pandemic, make it a goal to keep your savings rate high. There's just so many things that we can learn from how we've had to adapt to this pandemic, you know, in our in our personal lives and our finances, and I don't want this to be an opportunity that's just completely missed where we think of it as like a three month downturn slump changing our ways and we go straight back to

normal when the economy cranks back up. Yeah. Man, that's a good word, especially regarding you know, you mentioned just the different commitments that we have. You know, you're talking about our time essentially. I know, for us personally, like we have really really enjoyed just this new pace of life where we've really slowed down, and it's caused us to realize how important it is for us to have

some of this downtime. So I'm totally with you. I think we are are going to make sure that we're taking some proactive steps to make sure that we're protecting our calendar. Essentially, we're kind of guarding it a little more than maybe we used to. And so let's go ahead now shift gears to two jobs to work. A lot of folks are still without work, even though you know, it does seem that we may have turned the corner a little bit. More jobs were added than we're lost

at the end of last week, which is amazing. And this caused one economist, though, to go so far as to declare the end of the recession big words. That seems incredibly premature to me, especially considering their predictions that the jobs that were lost might not ever come back. Into the National Bureau of Economic Research, just earlier this week, they just announced that we're officially in a recession. So how can you kind of end a recession before it

officially even was called a recession? I guess it is all semantics and something else that's come to light as well. The Washington Post they even reported that there have been some misclassifications, uh, some errors that is making the headline unemployment rate look better than it actually is. It can be difficult to sort through some of these different contrasting headlines, but we tend to be optimistic and we're hopeful as more individuals do get back to work. Still not ready

to be claire that we're out of a recession. It seems quite early to do that with all of the economic difficulty surrounding us, right, but that the topic of going back to work is another important topic we we really feel like we need to breach on the show today.

It's tricky right now, and I'm seeing stories about people being nervous or scary to go back into their place of work while the virus is still taking its toll, and understandably so, right, it's scary to think about going into a customer facing job or going back into a building to to even work with your your fellow employees right now, and and most employers seem to be taking

some precautions to build confidence. You know, my work in particular, MAT is requiring temperature checks and masks to be worn in the building unless you're in your office. Oh are they doing? Aren't it temperature checks or or even more awkward? No, not quite that detailed, just just the forehead. It works. It just depends on how thorough you want to be,

right exactly, But yeah, I would say too. It's really important for people to know that you need to be really careful if you refuse to go back to work when your employer is attempting to bring you back. And there are stories going around that employers are firing employees who are refusing to return to work, and they're reporting them to their local departments of labor, effectively ending their

unemployment benefits and putting them in an incredibly difficult position. Basically, you just lost your job and you lost your employment income that was increased. Yeah, for for the time being. And some state labor departments are setting up direct phone lines to make it easier for employers to report these employees who would prefer not to return. That's one of those things I know. There are a lot of things

that we have to take into consideration. Hopefully our employers are taking proper precautions to make sure that we can return to work safely. But if you refuse to go back to work, it's just so important for us to tell you that this is the kind of thing that could happen. You're in all likelihood not going to be able to retain those unemployment benefits if you are called back and you refuse to go. Yeah. Man, employers and employees are are both navigating brand new waters. Essentially, we've

never really dealt with something like this before. Uh, and these these are treacherous waters as well. But employers, you know, we think would do best to be empathetic and communicative in this time. So employers, you know, if you are listening, Uh, instead of immediately reporting your employers to the state, try talking about how you can help them to feel comfortable coming back. Talk through the precautions that you'll take, not

only with your employees but with customers as well. Employer empathy and clear and open communication can go a really long way, especially right now. Yeah, man, speaking of communication, I just talked to one of my neighbors the other day and she works for a company that specifically caters to workplace break rooms. Oh, not a great business to be in right now, that's fair, but her employer has been so great about communicating the state of the company finances.

She mentioned that they've told her that pay cuts are on the table, but that they're not gonna happen until at least September, and that allows her to plan now for that potential scenario. So, even though that's hard news to hear, at least she's got months of advanced warning, right. But not all employers are communicating at that level though, and pay cuts are happening more frequently right now, so so it's important to start planning for a potentially reduced

income now. A pay cut in a typical economic environment is disheartening, right. Most people get really bummed if they're told, hey, you know what you were worth sixty dollars yesterday. Now you're worth start making less money. Yeah, get ready. Not cool. But right now, people seem to be taking these pay cuts in stride knowing that it's for the greater good of the company, allowing all of your fellow employees to

to retain their positions for the time being. Just know that pay cuts are much more likely in today's environment, and you might not have the heads up that my neighbor got from her employer, that you got months of advanced warning. Yeah, I feel like that's rare. I feel like a lot of employers are maybe even scared to kind of share that information with their employees. Maybe they're afraid of them, kind of like looking around and seeing

who else is hiring. But but I agree, man, a lot more folks are willing to take slightly less money these days in order to kind of keep the team together. Unless you just happen to be that one individual who's like, no, no, no, just fire, somebody onna get game a full salary. Well, I think most people too, are hopeful that these pay cuts are temporary exactly, and typically they will be for for a lot of these firms, like as the economy

is rebounding, as business is coming back. I mean, we've seen certain things like air travel even come back faster than most people would have predicted. It's been surprising. Yeah, And because of that, I think a lot of these businesses are optimistic that these pay cuts will be temporary.

And so yeah, how the money listeners already know to live on less than they make, and they are probably the best poised to be able to take a pay cut and still be able to pay all their bills on time and probably even save a little bit also. But I really do think, yeah, these pay cuts will be temporary, and it's kind of this yeah, feeling of being together. We're all in this together. We're all taking a little bit of a pay cut to keep this

company going, to keep our jobs. Well, maybe if you're lucky, you can have the best of both worlds, right, You won't get a pay cut, and you know, maybe you won't even have to return to the office, potentially exposing yourself to to sickness. Evidently, more folks are not just working from home, but from anywhere. I saw that r V companies are showing profitable previous quarters. Um as more

folks are hitting the road while working. And isn't that the dream, Like, I totally want to do that someday, Like, even if it's just for the summer, I would love to hit the road and like a giant RV with with all the kids, and you know, hit up all the national parks. No, it sounds great. You have a desire to do something like that one of these days. Totally. Yeah, We've talked about that for for sure. I don't think we're really in the position to do that now. No, yeah,

but it does sound like this idyllic way to live. Um, although I could also see myself getting tired of it. Oh no, wait, man, not me. I feel like I could most see myself as like a truck driver. I love driving, seeing different stuff and to just seeing so much of our country. There's so much of the country that I have not seen. I haven't been to the sand dunes like you have. You've mentioned that before, and I'm going to check those out here in the US.

There's something so different about driving a Nissan Leaf and driving at long air stream or something like that. You know, I'm pulling that behind a truck. But no, I love the idea of of getting away for a couple of months and exploring this country because there really is. I mean, I know a lot of people want to explore the world, and there's so many great places to go, and flights have gotten so much cheaper, But man our our own country,

there's so much to explore. There's so much to see just inside of our fifty states, and getting away in an RV allows you for that potential to see everything, but also actually you work too while you're doing it, And so yeah, I think that there's definitely be more and more people kind of taking this direction post pandemic. It definitely sounds pretty cool, and the fact is that

it probably isn't in the cards for most folks. So for those folks, we would continue to encourage you to push for you know, the ability to work from home, and you know, if we're from home, isn't a possibility for you given the type of work that you do. Please continue to to make sure that you're you're being safe, that you're taking the proper health precautions, that you're washing your hands, wearing your mask. There is a lot going on in our country right now, and I feel that

we've seen less about COVID nineteen in the headlines. It's something that our entire world is still currently dealing with so It states reopening and businesses coming back online. Make sure that that you're keeping your health in mind as well. All right, Matt, that's gonna be it for today's episode. For folks who want more information about our show and they want the show notes for this specific episode, well you can go to our website at how to money

dot com. That's right. So, friends, we hope you'll have a good weekend and Joel, until next time, Best friends out, Best Friends Out.