Small Talks for Big Change -
A Patelco Podcast

[00:00:00] Thanks for joining today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial wellness.
My name is Michelle Enriquez, membership development Manager here at Patelco Credit Union, and today’s a special day because we’ve got Andrew Ferrell in the studio, and I have the privilege of being on the same team as Andrew. So when the concept came up for a budgeting episode, I knew exactly who to call.
Welcome Andrew Studio’s. Neat, right. Hi Michelle. The studio is super cool and I’m so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast and I am excited to chat with you a little bit about budgeting today. So Andrew, I knew you’d be great for this conversation about budgeting because you like me, we like to splurge on food, travel and entertainment.
Oh yeah. Is that accurate? And would you agree that those are dangerous hobbies, financially speaking? Yes, Michelle, that is definitely, definitely accurate. I very much adhere to the school of thought that you can’t take your money with you when you go. So I make it a point to use my [00:01:00] money to enjoy life as much as possible.
However, the trick there kind of becomes finding that sweet spot to do it responsibly. So you can still live large, but you know within your means. I guess for your earlier question, I don’t necessarily think that splurging on things that make you happy is inherently dangerous. Mm-hmm. In fact, I think that allowing yourself to splurge a little is totally healthy.
But it can be a slippery slope if it’s not done, you know, mindfully. Totally, totally with you. It all starts with the understanding your feelings about money and the things you prioritize when it comes to your financial health, and that’s different for everyone, right? So, The first line item in the needs category in my budget is sporting events.
That is something that brings me joy in what I consider to be a need. And we talk about needs and wants all the time when we’re talking with, the folks that we teach out in the community. So, I don’t know if you’ve been to a Warrior or 49 er game recently, but sporting events for a family requires like financial planning, like some time it requires like a second mortgage.
Yeah, [00:02:00] absolutely. And I know you know this cuz you scored Beyonce tickets, so you know, I know. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. So I did a little Googling. There are different ways to categorize your money personalities. So first one’s broken down by the investors. Savers, big spenders. Debtors and shoppers.
Okay. And when I look at those options, I think I would call myself a shopper in this category. How about you? Ooh. In those categories, I would probably, I. Call myself a shopper as well, although I myself am more of a spender than a shopper. Mm-hmm. If that makes sense. Mm-hmm. Um, for me, aimless shopping, like just walking into a store and kind of shopping around is a very easy way to invite in unnecessary purchases and kind of make me think that I want things that I don’t actually want.
But I cannot deny that I am not shy about buying the things that I already know. I want just kind of, you know, on the go like that. However, I do everything in my [00:03:00] power to avoid unnecessary debt, especially credit card debt, because those interest rates, I mean, yes, yes. But yeah, that also helps me kind of manage my big spending in that sense because I’m.
Managing my debt in that way. Yeah. Yolo, but within reason. Exactly right. So I like these personality categories better. And there’s a couple that I totally identify with. So they are the moneymaker, the worrier, the compulsive saver, the compulsive spender. The gambler, the Indifferent to Money, which was a one I’d heard for the first time.
Okay. And then the Saver, splurger, I’m totally the saver. Splurger again, that kind of balance. So I’m not quite either the extremes, just kind of a healthy mix of both, I think. How about you in this category? First of all, I love these categories, because hearing them all laid out like that has really got me thinking about my own financial habits.
There were quite a few of there that you said in those that I identified with in one way or another. Um, if we are being honest, I [00:04:00] would say I am currently on the path. Towards being a saver splurger, maybe from being a compulsive spender. I’ve said it a few times in this podcast already, but you know, your boy likes to splurge.
Yep., and while I certainly do budget for saving and I’m pretty risk averse with my money, I am admittedly not always one to say no to a nice dinner or a weekend trip., and I also do have a tendency to impulse buy. So I’ll get an idea of something I want in my head. And you know, with the help of Amazon at my fingertips, that thing can usually arrive at my doorstep in one to two business days.
Definitely dangerous. Very dangerous, one thing that’s really been working for me lately though, in curbing the impulse buying is what’s called the 30 day rule. So what that is essentially is if I think of something I want, I will add it to my cart. , maybe I’ll take a picture of it if it’s at the store, but I will wait 30 days to actually make the purchase.
I find that typically by about day three or four, the kind of visceral urge to make that purchase mm-hmm. Has [00:05:00] diminished pretty substantially. And by the 30th day, I realize I’m living life just fine without whatever that thing was, you know? I’ve also actually recently been hit with some car troubles.
Mm-hmm., and while I’m very grateful that I had the money saved for an emergency like this, it made me reevaluate how much I prioritize saving myself. Because when that occurred, I was certainly more of the worrier personality type than I would’ve liked to have been. But that’s why budgeting is, is so crucial for everything, right?
Mm-hmm. Because it allows you to balance everything. You can ensure your needs are met and your bills are paid. You can ensure money is put away for emergencies, but you can also ensure that you have money set aside for splurging on the fun things, and you can do it worry free. Yeah, we all got those pesky car exp unexpected car expenses.
I’m sorry to hear that. But we talk about with our folks all the time, set aside a separate budget for things like that. Exactly. So, you know, the, the budgeting kind of helped you in that area there and I’m glad for that. So you were closely with our higher education partners, and [00:06:00] not only do you give presentations to college students at local campuses, but you help design the curriculum that we build for young adults also.
So, When you’re trying to break through to young people about budgeting, what are the key things you make sure to include and do young people respond to certain strategies when it comes to budgeting more so than others? Young people, definitely like all of the budgeting tools and apps that are out there.
By the way, we sound so old, like these young people and their apps and their budgeting tools., but yeah, they, they like to use the apps. They like to use, you know, the, the. Electronic resources of which there are, you know, a smorgasbord to choose from. Mm-hmm. But with our young demographic being so tech savvy and so keen on using these apps, which the apps really do a lot of the work for you as far as guiding you on creating your budget, categorizing your purchases, things of that nature. 
, the challenge then becomes teaching why budgeting is so important to begin with. So I always make sure to include bringing it back to splurging again. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, I [00:07:00] love to spend money, that allocating money for fun should be a part of any budget. Mm-hmm. I think that’s the only way to break through to young people or really anyone for that matter about budgeting because nobody wants to work hard for their money to be told that it should all go toward.
Boring things like bills and savings, right? , I think the word budget in and of itself sometimes has kind of an all work and no play connotation. So I emphasize the play is a necessity as well. And maintaining a budget doesn’t restrict you from having fun, but instead it allows you to have. The freedom to have fun without stress.
Does that make sense? , yes, and I totally agree that the word budget can have a negative connotation for a lot of people. So they avoid it all together as a result. But also maybe the thought that it’s hard to get started or to maintain. And the truth is with technology, it can be pretty simple.
I’m from the checkbook register generation. Thank you very much. It would’ve been so helpful for me back in the olden days, as my kids like to call it, if I could check my [00:08:00] account balance on a mobile device, because you know, without that you’d have to go to an atm, get your balance, call it one 800 number.
So, That would’ve been super convenient at the time. So I’ve advanced a little bit, not a whole lot, but a little bit. Congratulations. Thank you. About 10 years ago, I started a basic Excel spreadsheet with built in categories for fixed expenses, things like health related costs, the car expenses that we mentioned.
Hair and nails is a category in my budget. Kids, sports and activities, also another category now in my budget. But the point is, you know, it works for me and it’s something. So for our listeners out there, you know, what would you recommend for the budgeting? Novice, something, you know, for somebody just to get started, just dabble in,, to get started with the budget.
First of all, that’s so funny about the check register. When I was 16 and I got my first job and my first checking account, my dad would actually be on me about using and balancing my check register. Like I would tell him like, Hey, I’m just going to look online at my transactions. And he’d be like, no, you [00:09:00] gotta write it down.
Right. So he’s still, to this day, is not fully on board with all the features of online banking. Like I tried to sell him once and he acted like it was. You know, a national security issue, but it’s all right., and it’s fine because he, he does what works for him. And going back to kind of your question about the recommendation, I think that’s what’s most important is just finding out what budgeting technique best fits your existing habits.
So for me, everything is digital. Like I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of great budgeting apps out there. Mint is my personal favorite, and it’s also very beginner friendly. If you’re looking to get started into budgeting, you link it to your bank account. It’ll categorize your purchases for you based on entertainment, groceries, things of that nature.
 You can set limits for how much you wanna spend in each category, and then the app will notify you if you’re overspending in any of those areas. That’s awesome. Very cool. Yes. Patel’s online banking app actually has tons of built-in tools that you can use as well. So you can create budgets by adding and categorizing your income and your expenses.
Using [00:10:00] our budgets widget on the website. You can create savings goals, you can set transaction alerts and low balance alerts and things like that. So many options to stay on top of your finances. Mm-hmm. Just built within the app. I also recommend, first and foremost, ensuring that all of your accounts are free and that you’re not paying any unnecessary service fees, right?
Because that is the most avoidable thing that you can do. Mm-hmm. To, you know, ha conserve your money a little bit better. And then secondly, have multiple checking and savings accounts for different purposes. Like you said, you have budgets for, you know, sporting events, hair and nails, emergencies.
Having those divided separately within your bank account helps a lot. For me, I total all of my biweekly recurring bills and I put that balance in its own checking account and each pay period, I don’t have to think at all about bills being paid. It just happens like clockwork. Oh, I love that. Yeah. I also have different savings accounts for emergencies, vacations, things of that nature.
 So they’re all separated and you can make sure that. You’re properly tending to all your savings [00:11:00] goals. Yeah. And data is our friend. You know, if we, you go through this process, you have a budget, you got an Excel spreadsheet like I do, you’re able to go back at the end of the year and figure out where your money went.
Exactly Right. Okay. So this year wasn’t great. Let me go back and look at which category maybe I, I overspent in and then make adjustments because the, the. Biggest thing about budgeting that we share with our folks out there is, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but make adjustments as you go along based on your lifestyle, make adjustments.
And like you said, the data is also your friend because small purchases really do add up. Yes. And if you go back and see like maybe you spent five or $6 here and there, but. If you have a, a total of it through the month or the year mm-hmm. You realize that five or $7 can equate to hundreds and hundreds of dollars by the end of the term.
So Yes. The old Starbucks equation. Exactly. Running Starbucks every day. So, all right folks. In summary, sticking to a budget is hard or can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, we wanna help. So we’ve got certified financial coaches here at Patelco that you can connect with. If you need [00:12:00] to talk to somebody about getting started, you can find information on how to connect with them.
And sessions are no cost on patelco.org. Also on our website under the financial wellness tab is a financial wellness library with some great articles on budgeting. And then the last thing we’ll mention is Patel CO’s YouTube channel, which has got some great short videos and recorded budgeting presentations that you can check out.
And of course, that to be overshadowed. Our mobile app that Andrew mentioned is probably something you might already be using that has a built-in budgeting feature. So definitely check it out. So Andrew, it’s always great to see you, but so glad that you shared with your budgeting hacks With everyone, thanks for being here today.
Thank you for having me here today, Michelle. Budgeting is one of my favorite topics to discuss, so I had a great time chatting about it today, and of course, it’s always great to see you as well. That concludes today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial wellness.
We’ll see you next time. [00:13:00] Patelco Credit Union is insured by NCUA.

Thank you for joining us for today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial wellness. My name is Michele Enriquez, membership development manager here at Patelco Credit Union. Hi. Hi, Fred. Hello. How are you doing? I’m doing all right.
So I’m gonna, I’m gonna be real to start the episode here today, and we’re talking about home buying, and when we first conceptualized this episode, we got a lot of comments. It’s mainly folks saying, why a home buying episode? No one’s buying homes right now. But the truth is, everyone’s always in the market to buy homes, right? Buying a home is one of the most important parts of our life. It’s something you own. It’s where you have your 4th of July birthday parties.
It really is part of the American dream. And even if you’re not looking at the moment, most people. Much more, much rather own a home than rent a home for the rest of the life. It really is something that’s really [00:01:00] important to people.
So welcome to the studio, Fred. Let’s unpack this. So you are one of our esteemed home loan consultants here at Patelco. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I’m a regional home loan officer. I have been in the business for 30 years. I stop at 30, it’s actually longer. I’ve been at Patelco seven years, and what I do is help people buy homes. So when I work with a member, they’re the beneficiary of my experience. The previous mistakes I made, even if we, or even if Patelco can’t do the particular loan, I can typically direct people to, I. A path that will lead them to their goal. And ultimately that’s what we do at Patelco. It’s helping people reach this huge financial goal of owning a home.
Amazing. So let’s debunk this myth that home loan rates are keeping future homeowners. From achieving their goals, what [00:02:00] are some of the conversations you and the team are having with members around this? Boy, that’s a, that’s a great question. Everyone wants to know, you know, what’s going on in the market?
Is this a good time to buy? Are housing prices going up, or are housing prices going down and where interest rates going? The simple truth is, is I try to give people perspective. The 30 year fixed rate over the last 50 plus years is around seven and a half percent. The market is currently in the six and half to 7% range.
Mm-hmm. So from a long range perspective, rates are actually okay. Mm-hmm. So that should not prohibit someone from purchasing a home. Right. I remember going through the home buying process myself, and it’s super stressful. Particularly for those buying a home for the first time. But I specifically remember being overwhelmed with not knowing who to trust and how to weigh the loan option types.
So walk us [00:03:00] through what a discovery meeting looks like with the potential home buyer and some of the ways that Patelco is different with our offerings and our approach to helping members. Well, I believe the biggest, factor that distinguishes Patelco is we’re here to help the member or the home buyer.
So the first most important thing that we’re going to do is to listen. There’s a lot of information in the marketplace. I think some of it is noise or it doesn’t fit anymore. It’s always a changing market. So the most important thing we do is to listen and start this home buying journey where the member is.
There are, there’s just a myriad of loan products. People think if you don’t have 20% down, you can’t buy. That’s why we need to have the conversation. That’s why one size doesn’t fit all. There’s a lot of options. Once again, it’s learning the information and even if you can’t buy today, you can buy in the future, but most of that isn’t true.
It’s just taken out of context, but it doesn’t fit to you. It’s like [00:04:00] having shoes, like they’re phenomenal shoes, but they’re three sizes too small. It doesn’t fit you. It doesn’t mean they aren’t good shoes, they just don’t fit you. And that’s what I’ve found. More and more people are at different speeds. Financial literacy. And that’s the difference, is we’re working toward our members financial literacy, not just trying to close a loan, not just trying to sell them a home. We have a relationship with people and that’s why members appreciate Patelco so much.
We don’t sell products. We sell people their dream and we give them the information. To buy the house they want. That’s a program. And that’s the nonprofit financial literacy. That’s the part of us that’s different. It ain’t the program, it’s the dream. , and that dream looks different on every member. 
The truth is you buy a home when you can, where you can in the best location you can.
One of the most important things I can tell any member is that owning a home is a long-term investment. And I, I don’t like to generalize this because for every member, this is different. [00:05:00] Our financial situation changes. You never know when that opportunity is for you to buy. So that’s the best part of getting to meet people.
Don’t let outside influences So the first thing is just to reassure people that this, these are all things we can learn and just to give them the information. You know, so that we can advise, consult, and inform, and that’s really the biggest part. prevent you from at least finding out what you can afford. When you can buy and what the possibility is for you. Man, I wish I had you available when I was going through the home buying process myself. It can be super stressful, particularly for those buying a home for the first time.
And I specifically remember just being overwhelmed with not knowing who to trust, how to weigh the loan type options among other things. So walk us through what a discovery meeting looks like. So a member reaches out to us. They’re interested in first time home buying or home buying. So, What does that discovery meeting look like and what are some of the ways that [00:06:00] Patelco might be different with our offerings and our approach to helping our members?
If they wanna have a phone conversation, you can do that. Or there any of the ways that we can connect with our members, make it convenient? Yes. To all above. I’ve had Zoom calls with people. I’ve met people in person, which we’re doing again, sometimes, a lot of times we can do it over the phone. It just depends on, I’m gonna meet the member where they are and what’s convenient for them.
So it’s the most important thing we do is first to make sure why we’re there and then to listen. Perfect. So our community team is talking with. Future home buyers all the time, and there’s a lot of folks out there who think it’s impossible to buy here or they’re not quite ready to set an appointment with somebody like yourself.
So we offer educational seminars and we have other resources online, don’t we? So tell folks how they can learn more. I’m gonna tell you the easiest thing to do, and you know we do a great [00:07:00] job of this, forgive me for bragging on Patelco, is allowing people to know that they can buy a home. You know, what we tell clients is the hardest thing I say to people is, It’s not if you can buy a home, it’s when you can buy a home.
Buying a home is a journey. It’s an information journey. It’s very interesting. I just had a couple of new members, both of them have PhDs. They did not know how to buy a home. These are brilliant people. Stanford Medical Center, one of them. I mean, they’re just really smart folks. So everyone starts at the same place.
Now, Fred, these discovery meetings, these time with you, this is complimentary.
This is all free. All free. It’s, it’s the best part of getting to meet, the members. I just met with a first time home buyer. We were having difficulty communicating over the phone. We sat down for a half hour and it was so amazing to see this first time home buyer get it, you know, young, making great money.
They can buy a home. And often it’s that moment of looking at [00:08:00] someone, it buying a home’s emotional. And so you can be the smartest person in the world, but it’s emotional. And just the realization that he could do this. He looked at me, he looked at the computer. It was one of the best parts about being here, which is helping people realize their dream. So we lend all over California. my branches are in the Walnut Creek, Pittsburgh, Antioch, Concord area, but we can lend all over California as far as our service area. So, Whatever is most convenient for the member is how we typically have meetings. Great. And we’ve got home loan consultants all across our service area, so our 37 branches.
 Fred, thank you so much for being here today. If you wanna schedule an appointment with Fred himself, you can contact him direct at fWilliams@patelco.org or visit our website@patelco.org to schedule an appointment with one of our home loan consultants.
That concludes today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify [00:09:00] financial topics to help with your financial wellness. We’ll see you next time. Patelco Credit Union is insured by NCUA.

0:08
Thanks for joining us for today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. My name is Michele Enriquez, Membership Development Manager here at Patelco, and today we’ve got not one, but two guests in the studio. We’ve got Justlyn Flynn, Troy, who is a certified Financial Counselor.

0:29
And Ginger Smith and they are both senior financial specialists at our virtual branch. Welcome, ladies. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. Glad to be here. So let’s roll right into it. We’re here to talk about virtual branch and what we like to consider one of the few bright spots that came out of the pandemic. Our virtual branch is an award winning additional channel for our members to bank and connect with us. So very literally a virtual.

0:59
Branch that serves our members nearly the same way as they would in a branch location, only remotely. And your team is now serving over 1000 members per month, which is just incredible and clearly our members are loving it. So Jeslyn, we’ll start with you. You’ve worked at a branch before and now you're serving members via the virtual branch. Jeslyn will start with you. So you’ve worked at a branch before and now you’re serving members via the virtual branch. How is this experience different?

1:29
Well Michelle, I worked in a physical branch in Sacramento for about 6 1/2 years. Really the two key differences would be the venue and how the members are truly enjoying the ease of banking from wherever they are. I am a people person myself, so I love that I am able to still visually interact with our members. In one situation, I had a member 93 years of age who was unable to visit a physical branch due to mobility issues.

1:54
She wanted to add her grandson as a joint and as we know, you know, we have to have authorization ID’s. We were able to get all of that information while interacting virtually and it all worked out well. That’s so great, That’s amazing. Jocelyn, you work out in the community quite often with our team at events and we still love having you out in person, in the community with us and.

2:19
Another huge benefit of virtual branch is that our members can connect directly with an agent at the virtual branch when we’re out to set up accounts and services in the moment. And this is particularly popular and convenient at our partner companies when we’re on site. In addition to having that connection while when we’re in the field, our partner companies can also offer virtual branch access to their out of area or state employees which they love.

2:47
So, Ginger, this is not the first virtual banking support concept. There have been some services like virtual teller out there or virtual representative, but that’s not what this is, right? No, not at all. We’re not the typical bot that some may think we are. In fact, most of our members are in disbelief when they reach a human being, you know, where you would think that you would text back and forth and misinterpret things.

3:15
I love their reactions when they do reach us. I love their reactions like, oh, a live person. We have so many returning members that use our virtual branch who are just thrilled to have this service available to them. With that Facetoface interaction with an actual person, there’s little room for misinterpretation. So virtual branch is growing. You all are a team of 18 now, which is incredible.

3:44
So Justin, what are the kinds of things and types of transactions that our members come to call it virtual branch for? Virtual branch members stop by for a variety of reasons. Some of the most common are new memberships, loans, iris services and even basic account servicing such as account to account transfers. Virtual branch seems to be most popular for our out of area members, very convenient.

4:10
Because they’re not near a physical branch, but they get the physical branch experience. And I’ve heard that folks even call us from out of the country. Is that right? That is correct. I had a member in India that is so amazing, I must agree with Jesslyn. There’s a wide variety of assistance that we do provide our members. Although they may come in for one specific service, they do realize we can do a whole lot more. At the end of the day, we’re a branch just with more convenience.

4:37
So how do we get connected to you all at Virtual Branch? Our virtual branch is easy to reach if you have a smartphone, tablet or computer. We can be reached by simply going to our website at patelco.org. Virtual Branch and you could select the Meet Now option during business hours. Great. And can we set up an appointment if needed? Yes, definitely set an appointment that best fits your schedule. And just to let you know, we are open Monday through Friday.

5:05
From 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM and Saturdays 1:50 and that is Pacific Standard Time. We look forward to seeing you. Thank you both so much for the details on virtual branch. It’s such a great way that we’re helping meet our members where they are really continue to provide a safe and convenient way to connect with us. So check out our virtual branch from our website patelco.org under locations is the first location listed there.

5:31
Thanks, Ginger and Jeslyn. Hopefully our members will hop on and say hello to you. That concludes today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. We’ll see you next time Patelco Credit Union is insured by NCUA.

0:04
Thanks for joining us for today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. My name is Michelle Enriquez, Membership Development Manager here at Patelco Credit Union. And today we’re joined by Luis Hata, Retail Program Partner. Luis, it’s so great to have you here. Welcome to the studio. Hi, Michelle. Thanks for having me.

0:29
It is such an honor to be here with you. Thank you for having me on the podcast that just excited to be here and talk about what we’re doing. So Louise, you and I have a shared passion for educating and supporting our communities with financial education. So how many years combined have we been at it? I’m going on 17 and I know we’re going to date ourselves here. I started out with credit unions in 2001, so been working with financial institutions ever since.

0:58
It looks like today’s chat brings a combined industry experience of almost 40 years. Wow. Yeah, you know, and really interesting is one of the main reasons that excited me to make the move to Patelco was their mission to provide financial Wellness in the community. I remember my very first meeting here in our CEO talk about it with conviction, so much conviction. And I knew that I was with a team that not only talked about financial Wellness.

1:24
But we were determined to help our members actually achieve it. So tell us a little bit about Patelco’s CFS coaching program and how it’s an important differentiator when it comes to delivering on our mission of providing financial Wellness. Oh God, how much time do we have? I just got so much to say. I get so excited anytime I hear CFS, the team is amazing. Just a little bit of background. We knew the mission to build our members financial, health and will being was no easy task.

1:53
Right. And so there’s many markers on this journey. There’s a lot of things to do. But before we thought about to do is we took A to learn approach, which means that we we wanted to 1st understand what what’s happening, what are our members doing, right. We started on this journey by learning about our members and community, what they were experiencing in their financial journey. In 2016, we conducted a financial health assessment that received several 1000 completions.

2:21
We were hearing from our members across three key financial health categories, those that were financially vulnerable, those that were financially coping. And then of course also we had a strong group of those feeling financially healthy. And so once we learned that we knew okay, there’s what do we do now, how do we use this information and and what can we do next. And so you know, the following year we added to our financial wellbeing mission, the Road to Financial Freedom.

2:49
And so super cool, right the the road to financial freedom was our commitment to helping members on their financial journey. We articulated the four major building blocks that we would commit it ourselves and supporting our members, right. So these four building blocks are supporting our members to manage their daytoday financial lives effectively, to teach our members to be resilient during lives ups and downs, to encourage our members to seize opportunities and finally.

3:16
To support our members to rise up and achieve financial freedom. And this is great, Luis, because you know a lot of times as consumer we get surveyed right. You never know where the survey results go, right. And it sounds like in this case, you know, Patelco really took serious the results that we were getting from members and said, you know what, we’ve got members.

3:35
Who were struggling financially, who are being vulnerable and telling us that they need support. So the fact that we took this data and took action and it may have not gone as how we originally planned, we pivoted based on the data that we received. I think that speaks volumes about us really living our mission that that’s it, that’s the real deal. And you know during the same time we we also were learning about additional opportunities from credit unions all over the world.

4:03
So thanks to the Filing Research Institute, we entered a financial health challenge which supported ideation through human centered design. Really cool ideas. Looking at designing products with people in my We walked through this process of understanding how people feel, how people experience the program and we tested out. And so to our surprise, Patelco’s idea was selected as a first place winner. This idea was called Relook and the idea was a commitment to supporting those most vulnerable and coping.

4:33
With additional support on their financial journey, the idea was we no longer just communicated the client credit request without providing information, guidance and support on how they might start on the journey to one day qualify for their request. Now I know what you’re thinking that that’s a lot of work, right? And so we knew we were going to need a team with a unique skill set to help our members and so we needed to build a team and shortly after we piloted Qunas vicep.

5:02
Counselor training through multiple departments. The goal here was let’s see how our team members can use these learnings and their everyday interactions with our members. After learning from the team, we learned that our retail team members had the most capacity to identify and support members needing a financial coach. So here comes the gist of our CFS program. So our CFS program is now alive and was focused on 4 main areas of support.

5:31
These were the ways that we thought we were going to be able to help. We were challenged to consider the ways that we can support our our members, and they were ready to support members needing help to save, needing help to create a budget, needing help to monitor or build credit, and also needing support and guidance to pay off debt. It might seem simple for most or many, but helping a member visualize reaching their savings goals or the confidence and telling their money where to go versus wondering where it went is.

6:00
Huge, right? And so I get so excited about this because one of the things I love the most is when we show a member their debt free date. Yes, I have never seen a dry eye. Yes. And this is such an amazing tool for our members and community and frankly so underutilized. So I happen to be a certified financial counselor myself and I share with folks all the time.

6:24
This certification process is you know exactly what you would expect. You know, one learns over the course of a six month program all about financial principles, including creating a spending plan, savings tools, credit. You know, all those resources that one can take advantage of in within those categories that you just talked about. But for me, the training is equally about connecting with people.

6:47
So good, you know, it’s understanding different personality types, generational nuances, empathy. And that is almost as important as the tangible stuff. Because if we can’t connect and listen to what our members goals are, we can’t even begin to effectively suggest a plan forward to help them achieve. You know what it is they contacted us for in the 1st place. So you know, over the years I’ve canceled and coached and to be clear, this service isn’t one that anyone should feel shame.

7:17
About seeking, it’s like having a personal financial accountability partner because we like to look at it, right. Cheerleader. Yes. So sessions really run the gamut of needs. You know from I’ve never had a budget before and I need help creating one to help stretch my dollars. Especially now to, you know, I want to buy a house sometime soon, but I’m not ready to apply. I don’t have my down payment ready or you know, another common one is, you know, I have.

7:43
I have debt and I need help coming up with the plan to pay it off. You know, the list goes on. But what are some of the other kinds of things that members can come to or CFS is for? Yeah, no, it’s so good. And I just, I love how you touched on the connection, the human connection. It’s so valuable with our coaches. It’s really that’s what stands out in establishing rapport with a coach and a client, with them even trusting us to provide us their story and tell us their story.

8:11
That is so important to the coaching relationship. Yes, I I just, I love that you shared that. Thank you so much. You know, in addition to being a CFS, our coaches are often also a first step in all things Patelco has to offer. So from guidance to setting up appropriate accounts for all the family to recommending when it’s time to see one of our expert partners, they’re truly a fantastic partner to have in Patelco. So they touch pretty much every area of the organization and they can be a resource.

8:41
For anybody at any point it’s it’s such an amazing resource and one that we absolutely encourage our members to take advantage of which is also complimentary. It’s completely free right. So what is this what is this process look like following a session is this like a one and done type interaction. We mentioned it’s free but and then how do we sign up for this. Yeah. So typically our CFS is our coaches will take an opportunity to explain that this is a coaching relationship. So we’re not simply.

9:11
Helping them when and done. We’re not just completing of course unless that’s that’s what the need is, is a simple question we support with that. But what we’re really looking for is the coaching relationship is how do we help somebody on their journey understanding what they’re trying to accomplish and then creating a few markers along that way and saying we’re going to connect with you. Whether that be. You know some folks that may be new to financial management might say I I need support weekly and we’ll do that. Some may say hey I’m okay I can handle.

9:40
A monthly connection or maybe there are a few folks that kind of like me, they have a pretty good handle on control and getting things done. And so they might be like, hey, I’ll check in every three to six months and and that works. So it’s really about what works for the client and our coaches are have the capacity to schedule different options depending on the relationship. And so there there are a couple of ways to request financial guidance with the CFS. You can speak to any Patelco team member to be referred directly to a CFS.

10:10
Or you can visit patelco.org, hovering over the Financial Wellness drop down and clicking personalized advice on that page. There’s a so short request form and the CFS will reach out to you within three business days to schedule an appointment and learn about your goals. Louise, thank you so much for being here today and sharing this information. Like you mentioned, members can submit a request for Financial coaching on patelco.org or you can get connected by tapping the link in the description.

10:40
So that concludes today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. We’ll see you next time the Telco Credit union is insured by NCUA.

0:03
Thanks for joining us for today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help you with your financial Wellness. My name is Michelle Enriquez, Membership Development Manager here at Patelco Credit Union, and we’ve got Jennifer Mink back in the studio today. Jenn, it’s so great to have you back. It is awesome to be back. Hello. So you’ve been on the show before to talk about fraud.

0:30
And we did an episode recently about romance and job scams, but those are just a few of the types of financial fraud that can occur. But today we have you back to chat elder abuse, which I think is the worst kind of fraud. So Patelco has a commitment, you know, to protect all of our members, but especially our aging membership with fraud prevention and fraud resolution. So as the manager of member experience here at Patelco.

0:59
And part of my previous role at Patelco, being in our specialized accounts, was working with elder abuse cases here. And like you said, Michelle, it is the worst kind of fraud. And I think it is the worst kind of fraud #1, because you’re having fraud committed against an aging population of members who don’t have the ability to go back to work and recoup funds once they’ve been taken from them.

1:24
And it’s so sad, and I have so many stories I could tell you over the years about different elder abuse cases that I’ve been part of. The scammers are targeting our aging members. So 65 plus is what the state of California says is considered elder financial abuse. And these members are typically people who have already retired. They don’t have the ability to reearn income that they’ve lost due to a scam.

1:51
So it’s really terrible that the scammers go after these most vulnerable people. And working at Patelka now for 28 years, I’ve spent a lot of my career battling elder abuse and helping our members to prevent and resolve the fraud that they’ve unfortunately been victims of. And I have so many personal stories that I can share with you, but one that comes to mind right now. And I know we talked about romance scams before, but these are so prevalent, especially with our aging members.

2:20
So they’ve either lost somebody in their life, there’s lonely, they’re isolated, and these scammers just really hone in on those vulnerabilities and come for them. And it can be somebody that they meet on the Internet through different websites, things like that. They establish a personal connection, an emotional connection, and not soon after that fraud and scam starts to take over.

2:48
And when the member finally realizes what’s happening to them, they could have lost up to $150,000. I’ve seen it that high. And it’s really, really sad. That’s truly heartbreaking. And you gave a presentation to our team recently and included this stat from the National Council on Aging, and it reads like this. It says up to five million older Americans are victims of financial abuse every year.

3:14
And the annual loss by victim is estimated to be at least 36.5 billion. OK, but in addition to that, one in ten Americans 60 and over have experienced some form of elder abuse. So we’re talking about someone’s parents, someone’s grandparents, someone’s loved ones.

3:33
And frankly, we’re hoping that these stats really trigger our listeners like they do us and prompt us to take some kind of preventative action if possible. So your team is working tirelessly to find solutions for our members to combat fraud. And you’ve recently rolled out a great new feature for Patelco members to assist. So tell us about Trusted Contacts. Absolutely. And I am so, so excited that Patelco has taken this step.

4:01
To really protect not only our aging membership at all of our members that are 18 plus. So a lot of our listeners may not have ever heard about a trusted contact. So a trusted contact is an individual that the member chooses that Patelco can contact in limited circumstances if there are concerns about the member or their account. So let me give you some examples of what the purpose of a trusted contact is.

4:28
So you know, Patelco is here to protect the financial well-being of our membership and that is making sure that we protect the wealth and assets from fraud and build relationships with not only our members today, but also members with the next generation. So their children and grandchildren Trusted Contacts allows Patelco to be in a better position to keep a member’s account safe, especially when the member is aging and is likely more more vulnerable to that fraud.

4:58
The elder abuse, the romance scams, things like that. And if Patelco does suspect that there is some type of fraud, it allows us to act quickly and address that suspected fraudulent activity again, especially for our aging members. And another thing that a trusted contact can do is confirm the wellbeing of a member who appears to be suffering from a health issue. And I can talk a little bit of more about that later.

5:22
Or somebody that appears to be lacking capacity to make important financial decisions. OK, so this sounds great and sounds like a really simple solution that adds so much value to our account holders, but sounds a little bit too good to be true, right? So walk us through some scenarios. So say I add a trusted contact to my mom’s account.

5:43
What can I expect to be able to communicate with Patelco about regarding my mom’s account? So can I call and inquire about things? Will Patelco contact me? How does this work? Yeah. So because it is fairly new, not a lot of people have heard about it. I can tell you a little bit more about what a trusted contact can do and then how Patelco will use them. And we can go over some scenarios. So what a trusted contact can do, again, is respond to any suspicions of financial exploitation.

6:12
For our member identify someone who’s a legal guardian, a trustee, power of attorney, something to that nature, and then helped Patelco to connect with a member we are unable to reach. So what they can’t do is they can’t call Patelco and ask questions about your account. So Michelle, if.

6:32
If I added you as my trusted contact and you just became curious one day where I’m getting all this money from and you decided to call Patelco and say, hey, you know, Jen’s been coming in and to my job and buying all of these things and I’m really curious where she’s getting her money from. The trusted contact cannot get any information on any of the transactions. They can’t authorize transactions, They can’t make decisions on our members behalf or be provided with detailed account information again.

7:02
Such as balances or transaction history. So some of the ways that we would use a trusted contact and I have a few examples for you and having been at Patelka 28 years, I’ve been in the branches, I’ve been in several different apartments. But one thing that comes to mind health related and something that would happen every so often in a branches, we would have a member come in who maybe wasn’t feeling great that day and had a health crisis.

7:28
So whether it be they started to not feel good and weren’t able to drive home or I’ve even had it where members have literally passed out in my lobby and we’ve had to call an ambulance. And sometimes we’re challenged with what do we do now that this member is in this situation, who do we call? And that is where trusted contact would come in. It would allow Patelco to contact somebody that the member knows and trusts, that they’ve added to their account to get that member help.

7:55
So whether it be a ride home or somebody to meet them at the hospital, this person is someone that the members chosen in advance to be their advocate. And so that’s an example of health related things that a trusted contact can do. The second one which I’ve seen unfortunately often enough sometimes weekly is a member who starts to have cognitive issues. So we start to you know being at Patelco and.

8:22
Being here for members and being in the branches, you get to know people on a daily basis. You see them all the time. You start to realize when things are changing with the member, they start to have cognitive issues, or they’re forgetful, or maybe they come in and they’re just not looking themselves. A trusted contact is also extremely important in this situation because someone who’s having cognitive issues.

8:43
Or someone who may be forgetful. As you know, Michelle can be a huge, could be a huge vulnerability for a scammer to come in and take financial advantage of that person. So if we start to notice that a member comes in and they’re acting different than normal, we could utilize A trusted contact to just reach out to them and say, hey, we’ve noticed Miss Smith is coming in, she’s acting different. It’s not what we’re used to seeing. We’re hoping you can just check on her.

9:11
And we’re not going to give much more information than that. But it puts that person, that trusted contact, in a position to verify that the member’s okay and if they need help, they can step in. And then the third most important part of a trusted contact is to be a roadblock for a potential scam or fraudulent activity. And again, I’ve told you about the romance scams and the job scams, but we have members that come in and they’re asking to withdraw large sums of money.

9:41
And this can be anybody from, you know, 18 to an aging member. It’s mostly our aging membership that tends to be targeted. But I’ve seen it across the board. And when a trusted contact comes into play, here is the branch can only do so much, right? We have to educate our members about the what we believe may be a scam, give them the red flags, try to help them to see what’s happening and if all of our resources that we have.

10:09
Can’t help them to see what’s happening? Then the trusted contact would be the resource that we would reach out to as a last resort to kind of let them know what we’re seeing and what our concerns are. So I know that I would appreciate a phone call from someone if any of you know my parents were experiencing these issues and sounds like all of our members should consider adding a trusted contact to their accounts.

10:34
But is this a painful process? How do I get this started? So do I? Do I call in? Do I go to a branch? Can I visit the virtual branch to get this set up? It is not a difficult process at all, and I want to just touch quickly on who a member should choose as a trusted contact because I think that’s really important and it needs to be somebody that can handle difficult conversations such as what I just described to you.

10:59
So when you’re thinking about adding a trusted contact to your account, think about someone in your life that would protect your interests. Maybe that’s a family member, Maybe a best friend, Maybe a coworker. We all develop relationships at work. Somebody that would really look out for you if if things were to go wrong. Also someone that would feel comfortable talking to Patelco if we were to call them, and someone that knows you well enough to notice when there are changes in habits and behaviors.

11:27
Another thing to look for in a trusted contact is are they familiar with my support system? Do they know how to who to contact in the case of an emergency? And last but not least, and probably the most important is a person who agrees to take on the role. So you want someone who who’s like, yeah, I want to do that for you, they are going to be your best advocate. So to answer your question Michelle, it’s it’s really easy and we’re making it as easy as possible. You can come into a branch to add a trusted contact.

11:56
You can call our member Contact center and we can send you a form through DocuSign to add a trusted contact. We also have a landing site on patelco.org which is patelco.org/trusted Contact all one word which will have all of the information there including the application.

12:16
And then coming in July, we have an exciting update to our online banking system where you’ll then be able to just go into online banking and add, remove, edit a trusted contact right through your online banking portal. So that’s going to be super convenient. We’re looking forward to that, but through the branch, through our call center, through virtual branch, Patelco’s here to get that trusted contact added to your account and we hope you take advantage because it is a huge asset to have somebody that can advocate for you in critical situations.

12:46
This is such great information, Jen, and more and more. You know, I feel really proud that we’re, you know, seeking solutions to help our members be better advocates for their own financial health. And thanks for all your efforts personally in helping our members better protect their accounts. So thanks for being here with us again today, Jen. That concludes today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. We’ll see you next time.

13:16
Patelco Credit Union is insured by NCUA.

0:03
Thanks for joining us for today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. My name is Michelle Enriquez, Membership Development Manager here at Patelco Credit Union. And today we are joined by Walid Hissen, who is our Vice President of Deposits. Walid, so happy to have you here on the show today with us. Oh, thank you for having me. Always happy to be here.

0:29
So you’ve been busy lately with everything that’s been going on in this savings rate environment. As our Vice President of Deposits, you also recently did a radio spot to talk about IRA savings. So let’s get right into it and I’ll ask the question that were asked in the community nonstop and realizing that there’s a very long and technical answer to this, but.

0:55
To help us understand, you know why rates are so high lately and while we’re seeing some of the highest rates on deposits in a long time, rates on loans are also very high. So to help us understand why that is so, there is a very long and technical answer to that question, but I’m going to spare you that. Let’s let’s go back your back in time, okay. So in the last year, what have we observed happening?

1:23
In our economic environment, we hear a lot about inflation. In fact, inflation hit about 9%, a little bit over that in the last year and that’s very concerning. Why is it concerning? One, the average inflation rate before that was between 2 to 3% since the 90s. So inflation has been fairly low and that’s good thing for consumers because every time you’re thinking of buying something, investing in something.

1:53
And you put money on the side for it. You know the price is not going to go get away from you and you’re going to end up chasing the price to buy what you want to buy. So the Fed takes the inflation rate fairly seriously and their objective is to get it to that 2 to 3% rate. OK, Now the Fed has a lot of tools to work on inflation, the.

2:20
And one of the most important tools is what they call the discount rate. And what they’re doing is they raise the rate for banks. And that forces banks to raise rates on the deposit side, which is good for consumers that have cash and on the lending side, which is not so good for the consumer and business owners who want to borrow money to spend additional cash, OK. So the idea there is by increasing the rate, people will borrow less and spend less.

2:49
And then you take a heated economy where people are overspending. And when people are overspending, you know, more people want to buy the same thing and that drives the price up. So when less people want to buy the same thing, that drives the prices down and that reins in inflation from a Fed perspective. So the discount rate is what raises the what the Fed raises the rate with, and that impacts bank and it forces banks to also increase the rate now.

3:19
What has happened over the last year is the Fed has increased rates by roughly 5%. That’s unprecedented the last two cycles in 2008 and in 2019 when we had a rising rate environment where the Fed was raising rate, it took them roughly about two years to reach 4%. So the speed of the rate going up is matching this.

3:48
Of how high the inflation rate is and it’s creating a lot of talk and and it it’s it’s really shaking up the markets a little bit. So what we see on the consumer side are these high rates and you can’t get down the freeway without seeing tons of billboards for high CD rates. And so as a consumer you’re kind of left to try and decipher you know which rate to take advantage of and which instrument to use. So I have to tell you a story.

4:16
And as you know, my team is out in the community working with organizations to bring financial Wellness to their employees. I was out of the architectural firm recently giving a lunch and learn presentation about some of our products and services. And I get to talking about savings goals and different savings instruments that one can consider for savings. And I bring up CD’s, how great the rates are. And I get stopped by a young person in their 20s and their question for me was what is a CD?

4:46
And in that moment, once I got past my initial confusion of the question, I realized, you know, we haven’t talked about CD’s for maybe longer than a decade just because the rates were so low. We weren’t in this savings environment that we have now. So I stopped and apologized and explained, but we have to realize that we can’t assume that our members out there all know what a CD is and.

5:11
You know how that contrasts against some of our other savings instruments out there. So breakdown what a CD is for us and you know is that offering a better return on our on our investments these days versus something like a savings account or a money market account. Great, great question. Let’s start by kind of focusing just on the on the term CD. CD is an acronym and it’s the letter C is certificate and the letter D is deposit. So it’s a certificate of deposit.

5:41
And I’m going to stop here just for a second because deposit is banking lingo. And basically what it means is you have cash, you’re going to put it in a bank or a credit union and banks and credit union call that a deposit because you go to a teller or or somehow and you deposit it into the bank. So we call these deposits. So a certificate of deposit is basically a certificate and the reason it’s a certificate.

6:10
Is because unlike the other instruments that the bank has, for example, the checking account where you put money in it and use that to spend, or a money market or savings where you put money in and that’s fairly liquid, you can pull money out anytime you want. A certificate has a contractual element to it and that contractual element is basically two parts. The first part is a Guaranteed Rate, the other part is a specified term.

6:38
So let’s go to the Guaranteed Rate first. When you make that agreement with your credit union on the certificate of your choice, you’re going to get that rate and it’s going to be guaranteed. So let’s take, for example, the day before COVID, the day before COVID lockdowns. And that basically what we saw is that rates were normal the day after.

7:06
All rates dropped in a second. Now if you got a CD just the day before, you would have been locked into that rate. And even though rates go down, you still get that rate and you get it for this is the second piece of the CD for a specified term that you had agreed upon. For example, it’s 3618 months, three years. So there there’s a lot of variability in terms and they go up all the way to five years.

7:36
Now the difference between a CD and a money market is in a money market, you’re going to get a money market rate, which tends to be lower, and at the same time you’re going to be able to pull your money out anytime you want. So here’s where people get really, really anxious. What do you mean I can’t pull my money out of the CDI? Did not say that you can’t pull your money out of the CD, but because it’s a contractual agreement.

8:05
You know, there is some forfeiture you have to do. So you what you typically do is let’s say 6-7 months, eight months into your CD, you decide, you know what, I’ve got an emergency. I need to pull my money out. What happens? Typically what the first thing that you’ll get is you’ll get your money back, OK. The second thing is basically you’re going to get a portion of your interest as opposed to all of your interest. So typically.

8:35
In banks and credit unions, they call that a penalty, but the penalty is basically just going into the interest that you would have gotten and you would forfeit A portion of it. So we’re looking at our highest yields, living with our CD’s and then money markets and then our savings accounts. Is that kind of the structure of where we get the best bang for our buck, so to speak? Correct. You typically would get your best rates with the CD.

9:01
OK, wonderful. So it’s that time of the year where you know, our members might be receiving tax refunds, you might be receiving a bonus or a pay increase. And you know, we’re always telling our members, put any kind of extra cash away, pay yourself first as we like to say. And we’ve got plenty of options to help our members maximize that savings. So we’re encouraging our members to visit us at patelco.org/rates.

9:28
And patelco.org/no risk to go see all the varying rates between those savings instruments that you just talked about. And Patelco’s a great place to house some of those investments and getting started with savings. But we also like to make it easy and you know we’re here for 710 minutes and we’re we’re talking about it today and helping our members make decisions, but you may not, you know, completely be ready. So we have our certified financial specialists.

9:56
Available at our branch locations and also via our virtual branch where these specialists can help our members, you know, determine what the best option for them is going to be based on their goal. So we certainly encourage our members to take advantage of those free certified financial coaches. So Walid, thanks so much for joining us today. I have a feeling we’re going to have you back. As you know, the year goes on and when we experienced these ebbs and flows.

10:24
Always love to talk about deposits, so ping me anytime. Yeah, we we know you love that. So that concludes today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. We’ll see you next time. Insured by NC Way.

0:05
Thanks for joining for today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. My name is Michelle Enriquez, Membership Development Manager here at Patelco Credit Union. We are so excited today that we have the Veronica Dangerfield Senior Financial well-being Educator.

0:29
Also known as Patelka’s financial cheerleader on the show today. Veronica, it is a my great pleasure to have you on today. Welcome. Oh, it is my honor to be here with you today. Michel, thank you so much. I'm so excited. So I've been watching your work from afar at a different credit union for over a decade now and I’ve always admired your passion for financial education and uplifting people in their financial journeys.

0:59
And that really shines through every time you host an event, you’re on a webinar, you’re delivering a workshop, or you’re in the classroom. And you’ve been at this a long time and you’ve worked with countless groups over the years in the community, and you have personal experience having raised three children of your own. So I’ve always wondered and hoping you can share with your audience and our members.

1:25
About where this passion for educating our youth derives from, and how does that translate into your work in helping thousands educate young people? Absolutely, Michelle. But as a parent and as a consumer and as an exteenager, I understand the longterm implications of finding and discovering financial health. And it’s all about relationships, right?

1:54
I was put on this planet to teach about money, to preach about love. Because love is, I think, very, extremely important in the financial equation. Because when you love yourself, you can use your finances as a compassionate response to taking care of yourself. And and it’s just so much fun to actually see the light bulb go off in young people’s eyes when they understand.

2:23
That money is a tool, and you don’t work for money. At least you do. In the early part, you might work for money, yes. But in the long term, you use money as a tool to increase the quality of your life, to increase the quality of your community, and to serve. I love that.

2:43
I’d love that. Now, I’ve heard you over the years with, you know, all your sayings and things before our audience today. If you’ve got one best tip for parents or young people out there that haven’t gotten started with an account yet or with savings, what would you share with them? Well, you know, in our industry we have a tendency to say things that don’t mean anything to young people. I have three children.

3:11
The youngest I call Pebbles and Bam Bam Pebbles came out of the womb being an accountant she could actually. You don’t even have to worry about her because she can count numbers, she can do a checking account. And then I have Bam Bam who is a wonderful, loving, compassionate soul and he would give you a shirt off his bag and money from his Mama. He just has no no boundaries around that. But our youth need to understand.

3:40
That having money is a privilege, but with it comes responsibility and the all those spending feels good. You’re making decisions now as a youth that’s going to affect your future self. So when you’re 18 years old, you’re making decisions that’s going to affect your 28 year old self. So I try to give them the information with fun. I try to give them the information with love.

4:05
And I always tell them you create what you pay attention to. Are you paying attention to your money? Are you paying attention to budgeting? Because if you are, the results are going to show in your finances. I love that so much. And really, everyone has a money personality. Everybody’s got their nuances with the way they feel or treat money or their financial Wellness. And you know, April is National Credit Union month.

4:34
And that’s our gym. I was telling my son, my oldest son, I was saying, you know, you got to pay yourself first. He goes, mom, what are you talking about? You know, that’s crazy. I work for the money. What do you mean, pay myself first. So I had to break it down. And we have to break it down to our young people because they don’t understand that savings is not something you do in your checking account where you pay your expenses.

5:02
I go to the Cal State East Bay, I go to universities all over the Bay Area, and I ask people, do they have a checking and a savings account and it’s attached? They all say yes. And then I tell them you don’t have any money and they all laugh. Why? Because it’s true. In order to save successfully, you have to save in a separate account that is safe and secure.

5:30
And you have to fund that savings. So April’s National Credit Union Youth Month and you know, our industry goes big with Youth Month because really we were founded on the principles of savings. And so we’ve got this dedicated time to both celebrating the credit union youth movement and also encouraging our young people to save. And to your point, maybe this starts with really understanding our money personalities.

5:59
And then taking that and finding resources and further education and then products and services to help us with that, to help us be successful. So, so at Patelco you open up an account, a checking and a savings and you open up another account and you fund that account consistently and that is how you save successfully and in a way you become your own savior.

6:29
I love that. So how many S’s do we have in there? Are these the Veronica 5S’s? Yes of savings? Safe, secure, separate for your sacred self?

6:41
And save successfully. I love that. And I think the keyword there is separate because so many times we have all of our our monies muddled together. We’re paying bills, we’ve got life things that happen right? And it’s so easy to dip into that account. Paying yourself first is you taking the first amount of money that you get. Not paying it to Metro Getro, are not paying it to go out and get some coffee. But use that money for your future self.

7:10
You’re going to take 10 percent, 20%, and you’re going to put it in a secret, safe, sacred, secure, separate savings account, love it, all of those S’s. And then what you’re going to do is you’re going to fund it and ignore it. You’re going to set it and forget it. So what we’re talking about is giving you the information that you need and then giving you a system so that you can be successful.

7:38
Because if you set up the system and you’re automatically giving money to it, you don’t have to use willpower or think about it. And then that money grows. It makes you safe, it makes you secure, and it gives you financial health, financial wellbeing, and it makes you feel good about yourself, because the more the more you save, the more you save.

8:03
I love that. So OK, the 5S’s, I think we got that, but pay yourself 1st and set it and forget it. But unless it’s separate, we’re not really keeping disciplined with the savings and paying ourselves first. So I love that. So Patelka is a great place to get started with an account. And so for, you know, youth anywhere from the day they’re born until age of 13. Anyone can get a regular youth account, but at the age of 13 you can get a debit card.

8:33
Right, and get started with managing your own money, and that’s with our student checking account. So we make it super simple to open a youth account via our 37 branch locations. Our virtual branch can assist with opening a youth account also, but we’re inviting our members to find out more information on patelco.org/student and Veronica.

8:56
Thanks so much for being with us. I forgot to give you the caveat here. The caveat is, is that when the parents are together supervising their young people with their finances when they’re teenagers, it opens up an opportunity for them to make the mistakes under supervision. And you can watch and teach and mentor your young folks.

9:23
Because when they get into College in the university, unfortunately that is the wrong time. They graduate from the school of Hard Knocks, and then their mindset isn’t very positive because they have so many negative experiences. So take advantage of Patelco’s account so that you can mentor your young person. Now they’re not going to want to hear it, but the good news is, if they make the mistakes, you can at least have the conversations.

9:52
And when they leave your home, they go out with great financial well-being. They feel good about their money and they know how to control and manage it. So important. That’s incredible. And as a parent, a guardian or an adult attached to a youth account, we can also help them and monitor.

10:10
Their spending and their behaviors. I’ve worked at a financial institution as long as my kids have been alive, but you know, it’s just one of those things that you cut off and I’ll do it and I’ll look for the birth certificate later. But we make it easy at Patelco. Another great benefit of Patelco Salute accounts.

10:28
OK, Veronica. Well, thank you so much for being with us today. I have a feeling this isn’t the last time you’re going to be in the studio with us. Not. I love it. I love talking with you, Michelle, and that’s likewise. So that concludes today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. We’ll see you next time, insured by NCUA.

0:01
Thanks for joining us for small talks for big change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness, I’m your host, Michelle Enriquez, membership development manager here at PATELCO. And today we’re going to talk about a subject that’s fortunately close to home for me that’s on the topic of romance, scams and fraud. And we have the pleasure of having Jennifer Mink on the show today. Hi, Jen. Hello, good to see you. Thanks for being here with us.

0:30
Absolutely. So Jen is the manager of member experience here at Patelco and it seems lately, Jen, that you’ve been doing quite a bit in the way of helping educate our members about different types of fraud. Yep, just recently you did a radio spot with the breeze to talk about job scams, which was amazing information. Today we’re going to talk romance scams and you know, I mentioned I have this first hand experience with a close family member that was victim of a romance.

1:00
Am so unfortunately I understand how much more devastating a scam can like this can be beyond the financial damage that it can do. So let’s start off Jen. So I mentioned the spot that you did with the breeze about job scams and I’ll tell you I have heard of all types of different fraud but never jobs scam fraud. So tell us a little bit about that and and what we can look out for in the way of job scam. Absolutely so would.

1:30
Scams. These have really become prevalent since the COVID-19 pandemic, unfortunately. And we all know that scammers capitalize on tragedy, right? And So what we’ve seen specifically at Patelco is members that are out there looking for work, they’ve either lost their job or something’s happened that they need to, they need to find work. So of course they go to reputable sites, you know, like LinkedIn, and these scammers are on there and they’re looking for these vulnerable people.

2:00
So what happens is, is the scammer may hire somebody, um, our member, and say, I have a remote work job for you. And in order to get you the equipment that you need for this job, I’m going to send you a check for $2500. And with that check, I want you to purchase a computer, a printer, and they give them a dollar amount, right? Don’t spend more than 800 and they’ll deposit the check to their account. They’ll go and they’ll purchase the computer equipment.

2:30
And then the scammer will say something to the nature of OK, and with the remainder you keep 200, but send me the rest back in gift cards. And then the Member will go purchase gift cards and the scammer will ask for the gift card number and pin, and that will be provided to the scammer by the member. And then a few days later that check comes back as fraud. So not only has this person’s hopes and dreams died that they’re going to have a job, but now they have a loss of 2500.

3:01
And could it actually end up being even more than that? So people need to really be careful, make sure that you’re validating who you’re, you’re working with. If they say they’re from a reputable company, just verify, just make sure. And so we’ve got the financial, you know, piece of it, but then there’s also the emotional piece of it. So let’s talk about romance scams. And, you know, I mentioned, you know, my close family member was a victim of a romance scam. Actually. It’s still, you know, going through the process now.

3:31
But in their situation, their Facebook profiles public all of their interests and photos and, you know, hopes, dreams, goals, it’s it’s all out there for, you know anyone to see. And, you know, with likes of Google and all the social media platforms out there, it could be very easy for somebody to do a quick search. Absolutely, you know, engaging conversation with you and appear to you know, be somebody that you connect with. So.

4:01
Tell us how is is that how this romance scams start? Tell us how this works and tell us what our Members are experiencing here. It’s devastating and not only the financial loss of it, but the emotional abuse that comes with a romance scam is is horrible. And unfortunately working at patelco, I’ve seen it multiple times. These scammers are they’re crafty, like you said. They go to social media, Facebook, they look at your pictures, they look at like.

4:31
Said hopes and dreams. They look at their posts, they try to kind of build a relationship with the person based on what they’re posting, and and then that person establishes a connection quickly because they feel like this person knows me, this person wants to be with me, they’re professing love to me, and it can happen quickly and people don’t even realize it. We also see these things happening through apps, like words with friends. You’re just there to play an innocent game, and somebody starts a conversation.

5:02
With you, and before you know it, you’re in the middle of a romance scam. And one of the big red flags is that if somebody communicates with you and is professing love, have you met this person? Have you seen them in real life? If the person is saying I can’t meet with you because of this, or I’m out of the country or my job just doesn’t allow, that is a huge red flag. If you can’t just call up that person or text that person and say, hey, let’s get together for dinner or lunch.

5:32
And they always have an excuse. You should be be suspicious of that. And you’ve mentioned gift cards both within the job scams and the romance scams that happen to be the form of payment that this individual happened to be asking of my family member. So gift cards always a ragged fly and it always happened to be Apple gift cards in my situation, right the case, absolutely they will send them into grocery stores. Apple gift cards that can be target Amazon. It’s usually high dollar amounts of 500.

6:03
Um, 250, things like that. You should always be suspicious. And these people are really good at what they do, right? They establish that connection, that emotional connection, and not shortly after that they will start asking you to send the money. And and that’s when the scam begins, OK? And I know for for me and my family during that time, we didn’t have a whole lot of options. We called our financial institutions. And for us here at patelco, you know, once that money’s left your hand and if it is in the form of a gift card.

6:34
Or wire, not a whole lot that we can do to retrieve the funds. So in those situations. And I’ll just add that, you know, relying on your local law enforcement, you know, doesn’t really get you anywhere. Also, because these types of scams are just so prevalent, there’s so much going on in me. How could anyone possibly catch everything that’s out there? So what what what’s talk about what Patelco’s doing to help educate?

7:05
Members and helped to support our Members through this because we’re, we’ve made this a priority here at PATELCO. So I’ve heard that there is a fraud center coming soon. I’m super excited. Tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, absolutely. So we know that our Members need support and our marketing team has done a phenomenal job of building a fraud center on our website, patelco.org. We realize that our Members don’t have a lot of resources out there like you.

7:35
Mentioned law enforcement. It’s really hard. It’s hard to catch these scammers right. So we need to have a place where Members can educate themselves, look for what the scam red flags may be, what to do if they are scammed, kind of like a one stop shop for scams and fraud. And this fraud center is robust, it has a ton of information, how to prevent a scam, what to do if you are scammed, who to report it to, things like that. So this is going to be a great resource for our Members well-being and I am so excited. It’s wonderful.

8:05
Amazing. So when a Member does call, also I heard that we’re doing some things on the back end too, to navigate those calls to a specialized team to support with fraud. Super exciting. We knew we have a new fraud team in our member contact center. So red flags, if you’re seeing red flags, if you are a victim of fraud, you can contact our member contact center and they have a fraud team specifically to help our members with that. We’re doing everything we can to support the financial well-being of our Members and these are just two of the things that we have started that’s so great.

8:36
Here I think you know because there’s so much fraud that’s occurring, we have accepted that, you know, a portion of our Members are going to experience. So what can we do to just help our Members feel less anxious about what’s going on? We’re going to give them a direct pathway to remedy. So with everything out there, I feel like it’s so hard for us to keep up with everything, right, educate on the front end as much as possible. So if you were to give us one or two key red flags.

9:06
To lookout for and I know we can’t be experts as it all but two things that leave with our listeners today in terms of staying vigilant with fraud. What would you say? Three things actually and I think #1 is to just know and accept that there are scammers and fraudsters out there. I think realizing that you will always be on the defense instead of the offense #2 if somebody starts asking you for personal information, red flag, online banking credentials, they want to gain access to your.

9:36
Computer maybe Shadow a session and ask you to log into online banking and they want to watch you do that big red flag. The third red flag is if they start asking you for money or gift cards.

9:49
Call us. We can walk you through that. We can tell you what to do. I do want to mention that a lot of our Members do come in and and want to do wire transfers and they can sometimes even have the scammer on the phone in their pocket. Anytime somebody tells you to lie to your financial institution or not share the truth, that is a red flag and you need to let us know. We know you’re scared. We know sometimes it’s even really embarrassing that you feel like maybe you’ve fallen for a scam. But we are here.

10:19
Help. And that is our mission. So always let us know. Incredible. So thank you so much for sharing all this information to. I have a feeling you’re going to be back soon so we can talk about hopefully not more frauds and scams. But the reality of it, I think to your very first point is that it is really prevalent. It is a growing industry and at this point with, you know up to a trillion dollars in fraud occurring out there. So we’ll be excited to hear.

10:49
Wait to be back in the future. So thanks so much for being with us, Jen. That concludes our episode of Small Talks for Big Change today, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. We’ll see you next time.

0:03
Thanks for joining us for a very first episode of small talks for Big Change where we help simplify financial topics. To help with your financial Wellness, my name is Michelle Enriquez, membership development manager here at Patelco Credit Union. And I’m so excited that we get to shoot this inaugural episode with my good friend and colleague Christy Longoria. Christy is our manager of financial health.

0:30
Here at patelco. Hi, Christy. I’m so glad we get your time today. I’m super excited to be here. Thanks, Michelle.

0:37
So we’re here to talk about financial aid. Yes. And I pulled some stats from some January 2022 Census data that reads at the collective student debt currently stands at 1.75 trillion in the United States. It’s, it’s crazy. So you and I have been talking so much over the last six months about what we can do for our Members in the way of student loan debt and applying for student loan forgiveness. But there’s an opportunity.

1:08
To help us educate our Members about loan options and obligations on the front end, perhaps. So you know Patelco credit union credit unions in general, yes, we specialize in education. We offer webinars and all kinds of tools and resources for our Members. But in your eyes, what’s our as the manager of financial health, what is our responsibility to educate our Members and our Community regarding financial aid options? Yeah, it’s a really huge question and again, thanks so much for having me.

1:39
Here today, as Michelle mentioned, she and I have known each other for a long time and she also knows that I am a storyteller. Yes. So every question that she asked me is likely going to turn into some kind of story. And here we go. So this is a really big question and it’s an important one, right, because I think a lot of.

1:56
Communities need help understanding basic concepts of saving, budgeting, credit, all of these things. And when you think about financial aid right, what is it?

2:10
It’s, it’s the assistance of somebody needing to go to college and figuring out how to pay for it or that thing that you’re required to do. Yeah, that’s exactly, yeah. The thing that your teacher said at the end of the, towards the end of the, you know, your senior year that you’re gonna have to go and do, right.

2:27
But when you think about applying for financial aid, you’re essentially applying for a loan. It, it’s a loan application. You don’t have to take the money right that you receive, but you’re filling out a loan application. And for a lot of our students, this is the first time that they are being asked questions about their finances. Most families don’t talk about finances with their students at home and the level of detail that these financial aid.

2:56
Applications go into.

2:59
Can make families a little bit uncomfortable when it comes to what is your income? Who makes what within the house? What did you as a student you know, how much did you work over summer? How much did you make? Did you file taxes? All of these really critical, foundational pieces of information that most of our students don’t have access to.

3:21
Come right in front of them on a computer screen.

3:24
And they’re trying to like, navigate all of this stuff and it’s just a lot. It’s really overwhelming. And me personally when I was, you know, applying to go to college.

3:35
I didn’t have the expertise of someone to sit next to me, explain to me how to answer these questions. What are they asking for? Like yes, we can read the question and we know what it says, but like what are they actually asking for? Right? So I’m feeling this application out and like, not really sure of, you know, the importance or the significance of all of these things. I end up filling my application out wrong right when I was going to transfer. So I went to Community College first. I was going to transfer to a four year institution.

4:06
I’ve got no financial aid for it.

4:09
Was expected to come out of college probably like it was like $47,000 a year. I was hoping to be out in two years or something, right? So a significant amount of money.

4:19
And I just couldn’t do it right. I just couldn’t make that decision to say, like, I’m going to invest all of this money and take out loans and do this thing. Not because I didn’t see the value in it, because I’m also the kind of person that just wants to know what I’m doing before I do it.

4:36
And that was terrifying to me. So I decided, you know, at that point I got a couple scholarships to go to another school. It was I could go there and just not pay for anything. So I decided to do that.

4:49
And even though I think that was the right decision for me, right it.

4:54
I will always wonder.

4:57
What did I leave at the table?

5:00
When I decided not to go to prestigious university and go to one in my backyard, which was perfect for me anyways. But there will always be that really tiny piece of me that wonders if somebody had sat down and talked to me about financial education, financial Wellness preparedness application processes. What am I signing on this, you know, line? What does this mean for me? I might have made a different choice and I might have ended up somewhere else. So when I started working in credit unions, I started understanding the importance.

5:31
Of the power that we have being next to and within the institutions that know this stuff the best, right? We know it in practice. We know we develop products and services, we have the products and services, we train on them, we go out and we talk about them.

5:51
And so much of that is just.

5:54
Power for the individual, education for the individual.

5:59
And so when I started working within this space and realizing how much I was learning in my own position, I’ve long said that, you know, I’m a product of my own financial education program. I came in not necessarily knowing everything for sure, not knowing everything, right, but just having the opportunity to learn and then seeing what that did for my own financial education and well-being and being able to go back out into the community and then teach others to be empowered by that. It’s huge. So personally, it’s really important to me.

6:30
But it’s also critical, I think, for credit unions to take and own that responsibility because we have Members that absolutely need it. Absolutely. And I have had first-hand pleasure of joining you in the Community and being able to work with high schools and really understand the need that the high schools have to help pass that education on to families and provide resources for families and encourage them to fill out the FAFSA. So, you know, I’ve learned over time.

7:00
Why it’s important to not only have all that education, but to also make sure that the students have established an account in their own name before they accept any financial aid, before they take off to school. So share a little bit with our audience in your eyes, your opinion, why it’s important that that happens on the front end. Also, that they set up a relationship with a financial institution. Yeah. So one of the main questions on your financial aid applications is what is the?

7:30
Balance in your checking and savings account, right? It is one of the create key critical questions that is going to determine financial aid eligibility, especially if you’re planning to go to a College in California.

7:47
So typically, and you’ve been with me at these workshops before, you get to that question and you ask the student, you know how much is in your checking and savings account and they say I don’t have one, right. And then you ask the parent, you know, how much is in your checking and savings account and they say I don’t have one. And then you’re in this a little bit of a, you know, kind of a situation, right, where you’re being asked on a on a formal application, you know what, what’s in your checking account? And they’re like, I don’t have one.

8:17
See, we can put zero like what is that going to imply? And all of those things start to, you know, create anxiety right in front of you. You can see how stressed the parents get when they’re asked about balances in their checking savings account in front of their student and and all of these glances going back and forth like somebody just give me an answer to put in this box. And it’s more complicated than that.

8:40
So we really want to encourage our youth to start developing those foundational financial education skills with their own accounts while they’re still at home, while they still have the support, hopefully, of a parent, guardian, family, friend, somebody that can teach them why it’s so important.

9:00
To have their own account. So not only are we aiming to answer the question accurately, right? We want to be able to say my balance is this, and if it is zero then it’s zero, but at least you’ve reported what’s in the account.

9:13
But throughout, you know, my career of helping families, with the application process, with, you know, all of the paying for college topics, unfortunately not all of our family members and our loved ones and people that we think we can trust, we can’t trust them all the time. And one of the worst things that I think I have to do every year is talk to a student.

9:44
Who had scholarship funds or financial aid funds deposited into a parent, guardian, family, friend, whoever’s account and having that person take the funds and utilize it for something that is not related to them going to college. And we see it all the time, all the time. And it sounds like something like, oh, you know, my family would never do that to me or, you know, nobody would ever. I can’t imagine that happening.

10:12
And I think it’s just part of a.

10:15
Risk, right, that is associated with.

10:19
You can trust somebody.

10:21
But if you put 10 thousand $15,000 of liquid, you know, essentially cash, into a checking account.

10:29
Can you trust them?

10:31
To leave it for you and for the betterment of your college education.

10:36
And then you’ve got the complexities right of just living in maybe you’re from the Bay Area, maybe you’re you’re not. Maybe you have somewhere that you know has a higher cost of living too.

10:46
But we see all the time, hey, I need to utilize some of the scholarship funds because our refrigerator broke. I can’t pay the PG&E bills. I can’t pay for water or shelter, all of these critical things that without it, you also wouldn’t be able to go and have a place, a safe place for you to study. And so all of these things will just start seeping in, right? And opportunities are then created for someone to potentially take advantage, even if it’s not entirely malicious.

11:16
And those are the really unfortunate, like Gray areas that we see.

11:21
When it comes to well-being right and it.

11:26
Can you blame the parent that is like.

11:30
I can’t keep my lights on. I can’t feed you all. I can’t do this. I can’t do that without access to these funds.

11:37
And our students are so.

11:40
They’re wholesome, their family oriented. They they understand the sacrifice that they always put themselves out front to help little brothers and sisters that are also there too.

11:50
But one thing that we can do is just let them be in charge. Let them make decisions for themselves. Let them put up those walls right around themselves to ensure that the funds that they are taking out for college go towards what they deem as being appropriate for going to college. And let’s face it, by the time you’re a senior in high school, you’re 1718 years old. If you don’t have your an account in your own name yet, it’s it’s time and especially.

12:21
Since these awards can be significant and you’re going to have to learn how to manage all that, save what you can for books or rent or whatnot. So it’s time by that time to do it. And Patelco is a great place to obtain a free checking account before you go off to college, before you receive financial aid funds, scholarships, etcetera. So super glad you’re sharing that with our audience today and another reason why it’s super important for our students to have their own.

12:51
Making accounts have control over their own application processes because there’s a lot of opportunities for our students who don’t have great money management foundations to fall victim of predatory websites, businesses that make money off of our students who don’t know what it is that they’re being asked to do with this application. And you’ll and every year we see folks that are like, well, you know, there’s an organization or a company that’s promoting.

13:23
And that they can get us extra money through our financial aid application if we, you know, consult with them. And it’s so important for us to emphasize that there is nobody that is going to be able to help you get more money out of an application process than you can by answering these questions honestly, legitimately, and asking questions about what those.

13:49
Organizations and websites that offer support in exchange for some type of consultation fee so that they can receive additional support and better results from submitting that financial aid application, right. So it’s almost like, hey, student family, you know, did you not get everything that you wanted from financial aid? Well, we can help you get more by updating some answer or like doing things that you just know are going to sit really well with the student who may not have.

14:19
Gotten whatever it is that they needed.

14:21
But also be a red flag right for U.S. financial institutions. We understand that those types of businesses are there to take advantage and so one of the things that our students can do.

14:35
That is so preventative when it comes to paying for services and goods that they don’t need is to align themselves with responsible financial institutions. Make sure that they have somebody within the community that they can seek answers to so that they don’t give more information to folks who might utilize it in an improper way.

14:56
So our families out there that are tuned in and maybe even some of our students that are exploring getting started with the free checking account or maybe just exploring finding out more resources about financial education and wanting to hear maybe more from Christy about financial aid. We’ve got webinars posted on our website, patelco.org, where you can find recorded webinars from the past. But there’s also a financial aid session where you can hear more from Christy about financial.

15:25
Aid options and scholarship options. So check out patelco.org to learn more about our free checking products and to check out our financial education resources. So happy that you’re joining us. I have a feeling this isn’t going to be the last time you’re with us. In fact, I hope you’re back with us on a monthly basis, folks. Christy Longoria, our manager of financial health. Super glad you were able to join us today. Thanks so much for having me.

15:50
So that concludes today’s episode of Small Talks for Big Change, where we help simplify financial topics to help with your financial Wellness. We’ll see you next time.

16:01