When we talk about sustainability, our initial action is to buy or consume less but thereโs another side of the coin that we often forget to take into consideration such as gaining knowledge about the place we put our money to, what they do with it and what it means for you. This episode is not here to burden you with knowledge but hopefully, it may raise awareness on how you handle and change your finances that costs no money but just costs a little bit of time.
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Episode tote Divesting Banking Sustainably. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, rights, and liberate your life. Here your host Jen and Jill. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, And today we are talking about a way that you can steward your natural resources well for free. I think when we talk about sustainability, we're always talking about how to buy your way to green, and one of the ways we fight back against that is to buy less, consume less. But there's another side to that. Coin is where you keep the money. Once you are saving money, where do you keep it? Where do you invest in that what we're talking about today? And Jen, you have really introduced me to a lot of this thinking more deeply about where is our where are we keeping our money and what does that mean? What is the impact of that? And admittedly, and you'll hear this probably from me throughout the podcast, I'm still there's still room for growth for me in this area. And I think there's there's room for all of us to learn as we go. We don't have to have the expectations on ourselves at any given point that we know all the things and we're doing all of the good and right things. We are limited capacity and we take on different causes at different times. So admittedly where I bank has not been my highest priority in my life related to other causes that are near and dear to me. But as I learn more, I'm respall posible for what I know. So I'm here. I'm here with you, Jen, I'm here with the listener who might not be as far along in their understanding of what banks do with their money. Yeah, so here we are. Yeah. So today's topic is a lot about sustainability, and we're not here to burden you with more knowledge to give you one more thing to do, but hopefully this episode will will maybe open your eyes to some things that if you are so motivated that you can make a change that costs no money. It just costs a little bit of time. And that's what I love about this. But first, before we get into the main topic, this episode is brought to you by get Ready for this one You're not Ready fees. One of the most common exploitative mechanisms big banks used to target those struggling financially is the overdraft fee. Banks report collecting fifteen point five billion in over draft fees in nineteen alone, with nearly a third of that coming from just three banks Wells Fargo, Chase, and Bank of America, and the CFPB estimates that fewer of fewer than ten percent of all bank customers are responsible for nearly eight percent of all of those fifteen point five billion in over draft fees. And the worst part is that there are plenty of banks out there that do not charge these predatory fees like overdraft and account maintenance. So while this episode isn't specifically about predatory banking fees, want you to know that the only language banks understand is money, and you have a choice on what you do with yours fees. The only way to tell a bank you disagree with how they prey on our country's most vulnerable is to take your money out of there. Wow. I think that was the end of the episode. This It was a sponsor, but it was also just an episode. It was so I kept looking for an article on divesting that also covered this topic, and they were all solely on sustainability, and I was like, well, let's not. Let's not burden the public with another episode on predatory banking, and I'll just well, we'll just bring fees in to sponsor the episode. It'll find the way to weave it in. John's getting her message baked in here some way, somehow. So if this is something that you care about, where you hold your money, where your money sits, then that we do have a few other episodes um where we cover this. So we we have episode one sixty five where to Save your Money we talked about like high yield savings accounts, all that good stuff. And then episode one oh eight Smart and Frugal Banking, we talked about how the best online banks and how to choose one. So those are prob bab believe when we're looking for solutions to this problem, those two episodes are going to be good ones to queue up for after this episode. So let's just dive in to our first article. So what we want to do is kind of cover what divesting is, what banks do with your money, and then how you can change how you bank and maybe quell some fears that you might have about changing banks or practices or whatever. So first article is how to stop funding fossil fuels by moving to an ethical bank. The five steps to positive action. What did you think of this one, Jill, I felt so seen, particularly by the introduction to this article, and hopefully I'm not alone here, but this whole question of where is your money going? And thanks thanks to you, Jen and some of the episodes we've already recorded, this is not entirely new to me to think about and consider. But I can't say I've put a ton of action to this or that it's always at the forefront of my mind. But I appreciate the questions that they raise and some of the thought processes that help us kind of enter into why this is something worth considering where our money is sitting. And the first kind of part of the article talks about banks offer an alternative to keeping your cash hidden in a freezer. Great, and my grandmother did do that, by the way, that was her solution to banking, and hey, maybe maybe better than keeping in some of these larger banks that are doing unethical things with the money. Banks rewards you for storing your money with them by paying you interest. That's great. Banks invest in thousands of projects and loan your money to others sounds great, But then not always, and so they're kind of beginning to go into. That's the part that is maybe not necessarily affecting us directly in that moment, but kind of the more macro level. And I think for most of us we do think more on the micro level. What what am I getting out of this exchange? How is this impacting me? Now, let's not be full the macro level, cause effect does impact us eventually some way somehow, if not us are children and great grandchildren depending on where they're investing the money, and so that that is a massive purpose of a bank, not just to keep us from needing to stash cash places and be more vulnerable, but they also invest the money, loan the money, and sometimes two projects that we may not be so thrilled to know that they are investing in, i e. Fossil fuels. Yeah, and it's not just fossil fuels, it's all of different So essentially it could be the entire stock market. So depending on what you're passionate about there, they're contributing money to everything, and fossil fuels just tends to be one of the biggest things. Um. They in this article they actually list how much the big banks are contributing to fossil fuel exum expansion, and I thought it was so funny. I saw another article that talked about how these banks are giving to um renewable energy, and the comparison is just insane because they're each of them are giving about a billion dollars um on average to renewable energy like investments every year. Put Chase, who blows the competition out of the water, Jill gives, I feel it's act. I feel. See Fund attacked two hundred sixty nine billion dollars a year to fossil fuel expansion and investment, followed by Wells far Ago at a hundred and nine billion, and then City Group at eight billion and Bank of America at hundred and fifty seven billion. Yeah, that's it's quite striking to see the numbers, to see the difference, like how much more money Chase is giving to these these endeavors and they're not even giving more to renewable energy sources. I think Bank of America actually is giving the most, but still it's like I think they were giving like one and a half billion or something. So it is really telling to see where they are, you know, prioritizing, and these are publicly traded companies, these banks are publicly traded, they have a quote unquote obligation to show um returns on their investments quarter over quarter, and so it makes sense for them if nobody is telling them we want to prioritize sustainability and long term thinking all their prioritizing our short term returns that they can show at quarterly earnings meetings. Yeah. I mean, in my defense, I do have a Chase checking account, but I opened it so that I could go to Disney World, So you did you know? In my defense, so okay, and we'll put it well that this is a good time to say, like we both have Chase credit cards, and you signed up for that that Chase like checking account to show Florida residency residency. And because they were giving like what two hundred dollars, it was like three dollars, I end up being able to go into Disney for free because of that. Yeah, I mean, so we love taking from big banks. Chase has the best credit card rewards, and I will take their money every year for their credit card rewards. But I don't give to Chase. I don't let money sit there so that they can invest. It will go in later on where I have my money. But so that's my like, I don't think I don't solely not use Chase, Bank of America City. I've had credit cards with all of them, and if they have and if the rewards are good enough, I'll continue to have credit cards because those benefit me and they don't benefit Chase or Bank of America because I don't pay interest. And I will happily cancel a credit card to avoid an annual fee if that fee no longer, if that card no longer serves me. So so that's where I stand. That is a helpful distinction, I think, and I think too with this episode, my goal is not to tell people what they should or shouldn't care about, or what they should be doing ultimately with their money, but information because I think, like me, I wasn't thinking about what a banks do with the money. I knew what they do, but again not at the forefront. So if anything, just raising the awareness again, putting this at the forefront for anyone to decide, Okay, then what's most important to me? What do I want to see long term? What do I want to be supporting with my money, both on the micro level and the macro level. And you decide, yeah, I want to read this one quote from the article that I I really like. It says a bank's power lies in having financial knowledge and expertise that we do not. Banks can make this topic confusing and benefit it's them to do so. So a lot of people don't know what banks are doing with their money. I think I didn't realize it either. I mean I was. I think I was writing personal finance full time before I realized what banks are really doing with our money. And sure, like we want to think they're lending it out to people in our community so they can buy homes, so they can like live their American dream, and that's like beautiful. I want them to do that with our money. But there's a lot of money and they're doing a lot more things than just that. So I just want to open some eyes on what's happening and the steps that you could take to positive action if you want to do that. So let's get into those. Yeah, here's action we can put to this. If you're unsure you want to learn more. Step one, investigate your bank. Where do you currently have your money stashed? Is it in the freezer, is it under the bed? Is it at a bank? And look into what is that bank saying they're doing with the money. They did list a resource that we could use called bank Green, which curates research of several organizations who worked tirelessly to uncover banks financing activities. Because a lot of banks aren't going to be super forth right just on their landing page of their website, so feel free to check that out. Just start investigating. Even calling I think that's mentioned either here or in another article. Um calling your bank and asking these questions. But first find out before you do the action of potentially moving your money, find out what's what's happening at the bank you already have your money at. Yeah, And then the second is to don't be intimidated. Again, banks capitalize on making financial information confused U saying, so that you are intimidated and don't move they want. That's why there's so many banks on college campuses, because banks know if they get on a college campus and they can get eighteen year olds to start banking with them, Studies show that they rarely leave. They will bank there for probably the entirety of their lives. And there is a trend now with millennials of younger people moving their money like now we're starting to see that trend. But for the most part, they know if they get you at eighteen, they've got you for life. So don't be intimidated. I have closed a bank account before. It is not hard. I think the hardest thing was changing over my utilities payment because for some reason, they're the only place in the world where you cannot change a card or checking account online. You have to go in. But that was the hardest thing. So don't feel silly asking your bank what they're doing with your money. Don't feel silly asking them any questions. You have the power because you have the money. Like that, they're using your money. So don't be intimidated because you're the one with the power. You're the one they want, and they want you to feel intimidated, so you stay. And if you're like me, they may not even try intimidation tactics because you don't have enough money in the bank account to make content. You're like, okay, you see you later. Well it's not I mean, we're not even talking about like if you feel that way, it's not that we're saying, like, you know, a hundred dollars in the bank is you know, gonna gonna intimidate them. We know because you're listening to our show, you're on a path to really building wealth, like your leaps and bounds ahead, your leaps and bounds ahead of your friends that aren't listening to the show. Tongue in cheek, right, So, so you're on this path, you're eventually going to have a hefty emergency fund and we'll talk about investments in a little bit, and you're on your path to building a multi six figure net worth. You can prepare now and get this out of the way now so that when you have that, because it's much easier to transfer tens of thousands of dollars than it is like five thousand or whatever. So that's that's kind of we're preparing you for the eventual wealth you're going to build and just setting you up, yeah, to do it right. And number three kind of along these lines of what you just said, Jen, not letting them distract us. So while banks, many large banks will be investing potentially billions of dollars into the fossil fuel industry, a lot of times they're also in sting and some of these more renewable energies, but not to let that distract us from the main goal of but overarchingly, what's happening with the money, what's making the biggest dent an impact on the environment long term? And so some banks will still use words like we're going green, we're sustainable, we're environmentally friendly, and that may be true in some regards, Like they give this example of one bank using those terms as kind of a distraction, like, no, look, we're doing good things like we recycle at our offices and we invest in solar panels. Okay, but if the majority of the money is going towards some of these non renewable, non sustainable efforts, then that's just a distraction and it could still be time to move our money elsewhere. So just be aware, almost like the episodes we did about marketing and sales tactics, of this is going to happen banks as well. Let me just throw the words at you that I think you want to hear, but ultimately it doesn't actually mean that we're doing positive things with this money. Yeah. I love how the author kind of chronicles their journey to finding out what their bank is investing in through these steps. So like the second one, they were calling their bank to see and they're like, oh, we'll send you, you know, we'll send it to you. And so in this one they recount like the email or letter that they sent, and everything was like a like a politically answered question. It was like all these good buzzwords, but nothing answered their actual question about what are you investing in? And it was all like a distraction to make the writer feel better. But unfortunately for them, the writers like very knowledgeable about greenwashing. So don't let the cool buzz word and this is really on any sustainable product to don't let marketing words distract you from like the reality of what's happening. Like if you're buying a sustainable product that you really could there's something at home you could use to not consume more, then you're not being more sustainable, you're just buying more and falling prey to greenwashed marketing. And these aren't malicious. I don't think it's I think it's great that companies are are being more quote unquote ethical, but we have to understand that there's a big hurdle to jump over from where we are now to like where we want to be, and we're in this like teenage growing pain stage where it's more they see it more as marketing and how to like increase sales than they do actually caring about the environment. So like for for Fast Fashion, for example, all these retailers now have a some kind of like resell, return, recycle for their clothes, for any clothes really, But in the years that those have been happening, they have still been ramping up production. Every year they produce more new clothing. So while this is great marketing that shows they're being sustainable on the production side, it hasn't changed anything. It is purely marketing. So we're placing good infrastructure in now, but it's still on this like very like this line that you have to be very wary of, and banks are very good at doing this. Yeah, we're cleaning it up while we're not concerned about the mess we're still making. Yeah, right right, um, but we're getting there. I think we're on the right track. I truly believe. Oh all right, And four is to find an ethical bank. Uh so there for me. So there are a lot of banks coming up that are are purely focused on sustainability and commit to not put any money in fossil fuels or anything non like that's non renewable and those are great, Like Aspiration is a very popular one. But I think honestly, if you just if you focus on online first and credit unions, you're fine. Your credit unions specifically that pour back into the local community. I think that's so necessary, like so important to have at least some of your money in a credit union that has a track record of investing back into the community. So we use a credit union, and we use online first banks. And what that just means is they're not creating a literal footprint like on the street. They don't have physical locations. They're usually tied to a bank that typically does have, you know, a brick and mortar location. But but the off these offshoots are online first, and I I've been so pleased with them, and I think they're great options. Again and this is my happy medium. Sure, some of these online first banks probably are going to be doing some fossil fuel somewhere. I don't know, it can't be perfect, but they're not going to be doing it to the extent that larger banks are. And if most of your money is with a credit union, um, and you just have an online like an online first bank like our business bank account for Frugal Friends is as an online bank, and so I feel like, really good, we've got that. And then we've got a credit union, and I feel really good not having any money with any of the major players in the fossil fuel industry. So that's like my radical middle And you can choose yours. You can choose one of these super ethical banks and be happy with it. It's up to your lifestyle, how often you're going into the bank, etcetera. And lastly, on here, tell your old bank why you left. I think this is this is a really important step that we can often miss. You know, when we break up with someone or when we leave a bank, tell them why. It could be helpful for actually affecting change, because we can't expect to see any differences in what banks choose to do with the money unless we're saying, hey, here's why I pulled out. Here's the reason that I don't want to be associated with you or or store my money here anymore. I'm not I don't think that this article is saying, nor are we saying one letter to the bank is going to shift that. But enough people, enough of that messaging could help to move that needle and convince people we we don't actually want to see this money being lended to the fossil fuel industry at the rate that it currently is. Yeah, I think the letter is really important. I think we take it for granted, but if people get enough of them, then shareholders are going to start to take notice. And that's who these banks are trying to please. And so the more paperwork, the more data, the more materials they have to prove that this is where the shift is going, the more it helps. So I definitely think even if it's just the customer feedback survey when you leave the bank saying this is why I left, that's I think good enough to so that those are some of the things that the banks will do. I don't know to like green wash. I don't know. These are some actions you can do to kind of like investigate and make sure, Hey, is my bank okay do I want to leave? Who knows? UM? Once you've kind of made that decision, we've got this next article. It's called green banking and seven simple ways you can help protect the environment, And I really like this one. These are these are things you can start today, whether with your current bank, and you can transfer these over to a new bank if you choose to go new, but you can still do these if you choose to stay with your current bank. Super super simple. I don't think it's gonna be long for us to go through this, you know. Obviously they talk about going paperless. First of all, that's a benefit to us as well. Usually there's some sort of advantage even if it's just a one time advantage of going paperless banks, it throws some money at you for doing that. But if we can get all of our statements online, pay or bills online, automate things, then that's just it's less paper being printed. It's less harm on trees, the environment, the mailman, male person. Yeah. And then two is to use technology to bank from home, uh so, mobile deposits and using your online banking portal as much as possible. And then also you can use like third party fintech companies too. Um So, I use Personal Capital a lot to see all of the credit cards, bank accounts, investment accounts, mortgages, everything in one place. Uh so, it makes it very easy to check in. Two things like I check in once a month to make sure, okay, did did I make all these transactions? Did Travis make all the ones I didn't make, and just to like which ones did Kai make? Right? Did Kai make any of these? Uh? So, which is an actual thing that I'm going to have to worry about uh soon because he's like now knows how to use my phone, so using technology to bake from home as much as possible, and even like trying to limit cash use by using things like zell cash app. And no, I don't know if that one's on this this one, but that they do mention later on. Okay, when they talk about not using checks, some of them are so I mean, they hardly make it done, and no one needs to hear that, Like who's writing checks anymore anyhow. Automating your commitments to I mean they're saying the environment, but also just your savings plans, your giving plans. Anytime we can automate something that's going to be super helpful. So this is another way of putting our money where our mouth and values are and automating a portion of our paychecks to go to high old savings accounts, automating a portion of our paychecks to go to the giving we want to see. So they're using the example of giving to like an environmental organization that plants trees around the nation. But take this concept to whatever it is that you want to give to and consider putting that on automation. Yeah, and I like that they mentioned the high old savings accounts. That's another reason to leave big banks because the high old savings account at online first banks are two hundred times higher than they are at big banks. So it's not going to be enough to retire on. Like but two, I mean, and it barely keeps up with average inflation. It's better than than what the big banks are giving you. So using these um high yield savings accounts, like our favorite right now is c I T bank UM. You can find the Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash c I T. They're doing like a two percent a p y where the Chases and the Wells, far Os and stuff. They're doing point oh one or point one because right so, so that's just another reason to keep your emergency fund or your larger sinking funds in a high yield savings account versus a big bank. Next is to change your method of transportation, and so they say bike or walk to the bank. I usually hate these recommendations when I love biking and walking. But when they're like, you don't have to drive, Like what if I live in the middle of nowhere and it takes me just thirty minutes to get to Walmart. Thankfully that's not me, but like that's not a usable tip for someone living in that situation. Well, Also, online banking is accessible to like I don't know, not many people are going to the bank like every day, right, But so I will say on this instead of maybe changing your method of transportation, changing your A t M location, Because when with an online first bank, most of them, if not all of them, will either reimburse you for an A t M fee like Unlimited, or give you a certain number every month. So you can choose any online bank that does that and just use the closest a t M to you instead of banking with a bank where you have to drive extra to go to their A t M. So that's another perk of of using the online first banks here it is number five is the one that made me laugh. Use other payment methods besides checks. I mean, I think that this is a newer article, but acting like it's from I don't know who. Actually, you would be surprised, you would be surprised what still requires checks. There are still things that require checks. And that was why I was like, credit unions are great because whenever we need a check and they don't accept anything else, or they need avoided check to set up like a direct deposit, we can just go into our credit union and get a standard like pay a sheet of three checks that they write our account number on and we can use that. You don't have to get a whole book, right, So that is one of the perks of having a local credit union. UH six is to bank with a bank that cares about the environment. Again, we talked about UM, talked about Aspiration. They introduce Limelight Bank. UM. There are you can look up a list of UM eco friendly banks and sustainable banks. There are a ton. But again, I think keeping your money local, honestly, I think is the best most sustainable option. Keep keep the money as close to the community as possible UM and I think that's we always talk about buying local and all of that will keep your money local as well. UM in a credit union, and just make sure you're using an online bank that doesn't charge fees, doesn't charge predatory fees like overdraft fees or account maintenance fees or any of those. Every bank is going to charge some kind of fee for for the people that don't play fair. But there are predatory fees that a lot of online banks are are doing away with and those are the banks that I choose to use, not for sustainability reasons, but just for ethical reasons. And lastly, number seven, impact investing maybe an option for your portfolio. So when you're thinking about where to invest your money, thinking about these organizations companies that are making an actual different in the environment socially, environmentally. So they give an example that fidelity can can allow you to search for environmental, social and governance e s G Exchange traded the e t F S funds on their website. Yeah, let's have a short conversation about impact investing. Go for it, because you are going to have eventually more money in your investments than you are going to have in a bank, and so it can seem kind of pointless to be talking about sustainable banking because you're never going to have more than a certain amount in a bank account and the rest ideally you're going to be investing, and so investing really, impact investing really is something that maybe down the line, we should definitely do an episode on We have talked about it before, but that eventually, once you get your banking in line, is what you're going to want to be focusing on. And so E s G Environmental, Social and Governance e t F s or index funds. These are funds that have to meet a certain level of of guidelines to be either environment social, or governed. Well, it doesn't have to even be all three, they just get graded three, like three separate grades. And so E t F s are fund because you can choose what you care most about, and you can get E s G funds that really are primarily environmental, or primarily invested in companies that are women run or have a great track record of diversity um or companies that are making a great social difference. It's great. I love this concept, but I'm not in a place where I want to really study my investments, really study the backgrounds, and so I go for an for pretty much just a regular standal standard E s G index fund that just cuts out some of the major major things that I wouldn't agree with. So I personally have a lot of our money in it's all in Vanguard, but specifically v F T A X, which is their social E s G like kind of across the board fund. It's not perfect. If you're very super concerned about like the sustainability and all the things E s G, then you're gonna want to create your own portfolio of ETFs that fit your needs. Like that's if that's you. I am okay with a happy medium, like good enough, good enough is good for me, so I feel good. The five the five biggest holdings in v F t A X are the same as the Total Stock Market Fund and SMP five hundred. It's very similar. The only difference is that it excludes companies dealing in what it calls vice products. So there's no adult entertainment, alcohol, gambling, tobacco. There's no non non renewable energy so no nuclear power, no fossil fuels, uh. There are no weapons so civilian firearms, controversial military weapons, UM, conventional military. And it also excludes companies that based on quote unquote controversial conduct and diversity practices. So that is what v T VF t A X excludes. And I want to say our entire portfolio is in that. We still do have money in the UM Total Stock market, so are our portfolio is not completely divested. Again, we're not perfect. V F T A X has a slightly lower return than the SMP five hundred, it's about one lower, but it is a that's a loss I'm willing to take for not putting a lot of money into these vice products, and that's good for me. You can go, you can do more than I'm doing, and you can do less. But that's and this is not investment advice. This is this is what. This is how we invest sustainably. That works for us because eventually you will have more money in your investments than you do in your bank account. So I just wanted to give that primer. If anybody is interested, well it's helpful. I think my takeaway is there's options, just the knowledge of Okay, it can be more informed on this and it's not going to take a ton of time for me to be informed. And I can make decisions based off of what I value, not just for how I spend, but also for how I save. So I love options and you know what else gives a lot of options, a lot of room for interpretation and people to engage in the way that they want after they've done their own research. Yeah, something I am fully invested in the week. That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is Williams. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. US Bill Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week. Hi, John and Jill. My name is Jacqueline. I'm calling from St. Louis. I am so thankful for your podcast. I love listening to it on for good Fridays, and I'm especially thankful just for your focus on value, space, spending and budgeting. My bill of the week is actually a bill I do not currently pay the bill that I have canceled several years ago. Most a lot of in a lot of ways thanks to the support of your podcasts and the things that you guys talk about. And I was recently at a happy hour we were talking about streaming services. I mentioned that I don't have a Netflix subscription, that I canceled it years ago, and that I even listened to sports and the radio sometimes because it's free, And at that point I was kind of ex usingly made fun of and called an old person. And several years ago this would have probably made me really upset, feels kind of dumb, But I feel like I've listened to your podcast for several years now and I don't feel dumb. I feel encouraged by your community, and I recognize that spending money on Netflix is just not one of my value so um anyway, I recognize that making fun of people from something that you don't spend on is really rude and annoying and people shouldn't do that. But I am so thankful for this community, how supportive you are, and how open you are to creative ways to spend mindfully in according to our values. Thank you so much for this podcast. I love you all. Jacqueline. Yes, uh girl, we are with you and feeling the empowerment and you get on with your old girl self. I love I love it. You know right where to go when you need that encouragement and affirmation and validation for the choices that you've made. I am so admiring of this to not have this streaming service that is very very common to have in finding other ways to entertain yourself and stay thing incompetence in that despite other people making fun of you to know, Huh, this is a decision I'm confident in. And why do you care so much about where a month goes? Why do you care about where my money goes? So real, and everybody's had that. Everybody listening has been like, why do you care where I'm spending my money? What's that about? Except for this whole episode is about how we care about where we're keeping our money. Yeah, I care you're keeping your money. I care. I care that you have found what you value and where you actually want to spend. That's amazing, Jacqueline. I'm so glad that listening to this learning more about your values has helped you to be more confident, even in the face of some haters. So yes, you got some frugal friends here, Jacqueline, Thanks for calling in. If you all listening, have a bill. If it's about a bill you got made fun of for and you just need some support right now, or a bill that you don't mind paying, you know the drill. It's we keep it vague for a reason because we get all kinds of heartwarming, funny stuff. Visit Virugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill, leave us your bill and now it's time for round around. So today's vulnerable question is how are you making your money more climate friendly? Right now? Well, here you go, Jenn, Can you go first, because you've got a lot to brag about. This is I do think the vulnerability around for Jen, this is the bragging session. No, I so like eco eco people will scream at me, like, for there are so many articles on the internet while why the social fund at Vanguard or Fidelity is not usually sustainable or there's there's always something to hate when people are trying to do something better. That's why I'm not mad at banks for trying to you know, giving a billion dollars to renewable energies, Like that's great. I'm so thankful for where everything is headed. Um, I don't think we should hate on people for trying to be better and not being perfect. And so that's where I'm at. I am very like, I'm not always in the middle, but I'm very like staunchly in the middle on this because I feel like we can only do what we can do, we can only do what we have the capacity to do. But like, this is something I've been thinking about for several years and I've had the time to work on, so we um in. We moved our mortgage from Wells Fargo. We refinanced to a credit union, and credit unions are amazing places to keep your mortgage with. Over the length of your mortgage, whether it's fifteen or thirty years, you will pay tens of thousands of dollars in interest or maybe a hundred over a hundred thousand dollars interest, depending on how much your house is and and that's the cost of borrowing money, you know, So where do you want that money to go is where you have to decide. And when we bought our original house, we didn't really have a choice. We didn't know what we were doing, and so we just got stuck with Wells Fargo. We didn't realize that's where we were going. So then when we got the chance to refinance, we did have a decision. We did have a choice to make, and we could move it to a credit union, So that was the biggest It's the same credit union we have our primary account with UH, so that is really great. I love what they're doing in the community, so I feel really good about having my mortgage age there. We also bank exclusively with online first banks outside of that credit union accounts, our business account, my saving like our emergency fund, stuff like that, and uh and we have a significant portion of our investments in the e s G Fund. I was mentioning not all, not all. So that's I mean, that's a a balance that works for me, and it's what I'm happy with. I feel good, yeah, And I also feel good because I'm making decisions every day to reduce my consumption, to tell companies that I don't want them to produce more, I want them to produce better. So that's where I live. Yeah. Again, not much thought typically goes to this for me, where I found myself is mostly just related to laziness, and I'm not in the worst place. Laziness hasn't gotten me to the worst place. Related to banking, I do the online thing. I still have money at a local bank back in Pennsylvania. I've been in Florida now for two years and most of my money still sits there because I'm able to bank with it online. I had a conversation with one of the tellers or bank representatives on the phone a few months ago and they're like, you're in Florida now, you need to change your address with us. They didn't try and get me to leave them, even though they have no banks down here, and that works. Eventually, I'm going to move the money, but I'm not concerned about their practices. Thankfully, after reading those articles, they did do some research, so that's all right. I'm in an okay spot. But again I'm not This is not a bragging point. This is a and I just didn't take the time to move my money. And I can bank with them online, so that works. Are you going to make any changes based on episode today? Not to put you on the spot, It's okay if if you've got too much on your plate. I don't think that I'm going to make any immediate changes. I think being aware of Chase that I do have a checking account with them, but I don't keep a lot of money there. Because I have a credit card with them, it does make it easy to pay that off. But I think what I will be mindful of for the immediacy is not keeping a ton of money in that checking account and making an eventual switch. I think as I slowly move my finances to local Saint Pete banks, that's when I'll make that change. But I don't have that on my radar for potentially another four to six months. I just have to be realistic. Chase will accept a payment from any bank, joll It's not easier to make a payment from the shape. I like being able to see it. You know, you can again see it on you can see it everywhere. I've never had a Chase account, and I have a ton of Chase credit cards, and I've never had a problem paying off my credit card bill and seeing how much is in my credit Union account. I know, Jenna. I'm just okay. If you want vulnerability, though, this is what you're getting because I will have to change where some of my automatic payments go, where direct deposits go. It's like it's it's not just a quick switch, and I just have to be realistic about the other things that are on my docket. I'm not saying I won't do it. I just need to be realistic that it's probably not going to happen for another four to six months. Okay, I'll hold you to that, and I will say when I did it, it was not as hard as I thought. I just went through the last three months of transactions, looked at all of my recurrings of them. I was able to do in one day. To switch over in one day, I opened the new account, I transfer money virtually online, don't have to go in anywhere, transferred the money to the external account, and then just set up all of my I just changed up all of the deposit there. Granted I have to do that when we get a new credit card, so I only had to do the ones that are on debit. So like mortgage, utilities, electric stuff like that. Most of my stuff I have it on a system. It's it's all credit card paid, and I have it in a system where when I get a new credit card, I just have a list of things that I go through in thirty minutes and like changeover, so it's not a big deal for me. I'm always changing. I also feel like that's safer for like credit card fraud and debit card fraud when you are changing your numbers, you know, not regularly, but sometimes. So Yeah, I did it all in a day. It was not the only thing that was the utilities. The utilities was so annoying. Yeah, yeah, thankfully I don't have my utilities tied to that. To me, it represents I want to do it all at once. I want to move out of that local p A bank into local banks here, the credit union, the high savings account. Like there's a whole list of things that I almost need, like a banking week, and I just know I'm not going to have a banking week. You don't need a banking week. You need no idea, you don't need you just a little bit at a time. You start with opening the account, and then once the accounts open and ready to go, you've got all the access. Then you switch some money over that's going to take a few days. You come back next week and you switch take a day and switch over, like you can do it in chunks. It doesn't have to be this big thing. I'm getting sweaty. Thanks for listening everyone. Many of you know we have a private community where we do monthly money challenges, and you know Jen's always challenging us and we have accountability and she's she does things like this and sometimes I do two on different topics, and we really congratulate one of our members for a big win. Leticia shared tonight was my first time being able to join the money party, and I'm so glad I did. We have money parties. That's that's my favorite thing. I tend to air on the more socially awkward side, and I love this small breakout rooms. Thank you Jen and Jill for creating this space. Yes, we do. We break out in a small group so where you have an opportunity to talk to just another two or three people on a question that we give to you. Almost like speed dating, only way better, way more productive. Yes, so that's fun. It's so great. So proud of you and my fellow socially awkward or introverted, I would say, I would say introverted, not socially awkward. It does help because I'm an introvert and so I was like, the small breakout rooms are essential. They're more important than the big group gathering. So congress, thanks everyone for listening. If you want to check out these monthly money challenges that we have and the community had to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash club, you can see what challenge we have coming up next and join us. See you next time. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. Yes, Um, Jen, something massive happened yesterday and I wasn't prepared for it. I knew that it was going to happen. I just didn't know that it was going to happen yesterday. What oh what you should ask we We removed the Frugal Friends photo wall that has been up since our party in April because big changes are happening, and we've got to move the plastic, because big things are happening in the renovation in the portion, and pretty soon we are no longer going to need to have plastic hanging up keeping half of our house unaccessible to us from the other half. But you can still have the glitter wall up. You can just put the glitter wall back up in the new kitchen. There's gonna be what you have to pass through to get to the kitchen. Just did as a backdrop. Perfect because sustainability. I know I'm gonna want hot pink glitter wall again in my life. So we still have it. We can use it again. You will definitely use that probably for the next guest that stays at your We should hang it in your background on either side of the boxwood and the neon sign. That might be cool, that might be really cool. We will have to hang sound dampener, yeah yeah, sound deadening behind it. Yeah. Okay, we'll see how that looks Okay, all right, keep you posted. Bye,