I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty overrun by holiday shopping ads. It seems like a never ending barrage and this year for some reason feels more heightened to me. 

So, I wanted to take some time in the newsletter to share the system that I’m using to make sure that I have a successful holiday shopping experience. And, by successful, I mean that I stay within a set amount of money I’ve decided to spend, that I’m happy with my purchases, and that I don’t feel too stressed. 

Some parts of my plan may seem over simplified, but by a super not scientific poll conducted by me asking clients and friends, it seems like very few people use any system at all, so I hope this helps! 

Step 1: Make a list! (Actually make a few lists)

• Make a list of everyone you would like to get a gift for

• Make a list of any events you are attending

• Make a list of any events you are hosting

Step 2: Identify Your Non-Negotiables

For each of the above lists check the non-negotiables (i.e. you have to and want to go to your sister’s annual New Year’s party and you absolutely will be giving a gift to your niece). 

Step 3: Eliminate the Fluff

Is there anything not on the non negotiable list that you really don’t want to do? If so, cross it off! I know! It is nuts! If it is an event, make a calendar event for that day/time that says something along the lines of, “Congrats! You made a good choice and get to do whatever you want instead of going to XYZ!”. If it is a gift for someone, ask yourself if you need to tell them. If you do, give them a heads up and explain that you are working on larger financial goals that mean that you’ve needed to cut back on spending this year. Or - better yet - blame me! Tell them your financial coach said to cut it out. 

Step 4: Budget it OUTTTT

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Give yourself a gift giving budget, an event hosting budget, and an event attending budget. 

These budgets should all either be doable for you with your expected income or should be something that you want to pull from savings for. They should not be amounts you are planning to put on a credit card. 

Not surprisingly, I like to use a spreadsheet to map out my plans. For each gift or event I write out all of the expected expense items, the amounts of money I plan to spend, the links for anything I am buying online, how much I actually spent, and whether I went over or under my goal. 

Step 5: Buy the things! 

Pretty sure this step is self explanatory :) 

A couple tips just in case you’re feeling stuck: 

1. Accept help if you are hosting an event. People really do want to bring things! It makes them feel useful and good!

2. When buying host gifts, think about things you can buy in bulk.

3. If you need a special outfit for an event, but don’t think this will be something you use much in the future, look into renting the clothes instead! A lot of my clients love Rent the Runway. 

As always, I’m rooting for you.

XOXO,

P.S. If you are reading this and thinking, “but Caroline, I have no idea what my budget should be!” then you may be ready for some financial guidance. If you want to try something low commitment, but meaningful, check out the Money Diary (clients actually call this tool LIFE CHANGING). If you’re ready to go full hog and get all your financial ducks in a row (oh my goodness, too many animal puns, I’m sorry), then schedule a free call with me or fill out the client inquiry form. I’d love you to join me for coaching in December or January! 

I talk, or at least mention, Money Diaries a fair amount on Instagram and in this newsletter. They are a crucial aspect of my personal money journey and are a crucial tool for the vast majority of my clients. But, upon some reflection, I realized that it has been a long time since I actually explained what a Money Diary is. 

So here goes! 

First, the purpose of a Money Diary is to enable you to track your income and expenses in an organized and thoughtful way so that you can glean helpful information which, in turn, will help you implement new financial strategies to better reach your goals. Whew, that was a mouthful!

To simplify…

Money Diary = Tracking Income & Expenses = Data = Habit Shifts = Goal Accomplishment!!

See? They’re really cool. 

There are a lot of Money Diaries out there, but they don’t all call themselves that term. There are things like YNAB and Mint and there are Pinterest versions of pen and paper written diaries. 

I have never found a version that I think truly captures what I want, so when I started this work in 2016 I made my own. I have tweaked it over the years to the point that I don’t think the original would even recognize the 2023 version, but that means the 2023 version is pretty gosh darn amazing. 

It includes: 

• Directions for using the spreadsheet

• A way to update and personalize all spending categories 

• A way to update and personalize all income categories

• A sheet for each month of the year

• Emotional reflections that help you recalibrate and more quickly reach your goals

• A year in review doc that can be used throughout the year to better understand trends

And now it also includes a Learn-At-Your-Own-Pace Video Module where I walk you through how to use the spreadsheet, some tips and tricks for how to streamline the process, guides for what to do when things don’t go as planned, and how to match the diary process with your larger financial goals. 

Tracking income often gets ignored, or at least not highlighted, when doing traditional budgeting, which has always driven me bonkers. Income is half of the equation! And, by understanding our income mix and trends we are better able to plan for the future (i.e. if you understand that you always have lower income in the summer it is easier to plan for that throughout the rest of the year). 

And expenses. Oh expenses! Often the goal in traditional budgeting is to lower all expenses as much as possible. While lowering expenses in certain categories may be helpful for reaching your goals (it often is!), it is often counterproductive to try to reduce all categories, or even many categories at once. For one thing, some expenses are out of our control! And, some expenses bring joy and ease into our lives such that removing them or drastically reducing them would end up working against our larger financial goals.

That’s why the reflection piece matters. You need to be able to understand which levers to pull and which ones need to be left alone. Knowing is empowering and exciting. Knowing means you can move forward with clarity, structure, and ease! 

Ready to get going? 

As always, I’m rooting for you.

XOXO,

The decision 

Back in August I wrote a piece on Amazon Palm Readers and, at the time, I said I was on the fence about them. 

Well friends, I’m off the fence! I have an opinion! 

To start, let me explain that any time you’re making a financial transaction you are picking between options that all have real downsides. 

For example, cash is very hard to track and almost impossible to recover if stolen. Swiping cards gives you the highest chance of having your bank or credit card details stolen. The chip is better than the swipe, but not perfect. 

Then there are the last two (other than things like Venmo, Cash App, which we’ll talk about at a later date), the Tap and the Palm. 

Between the two I think it is a no brainer. 

The tap system actually creates a unique ID for each individual purchase, making it extremely difficult for your card details to be stolen. While the technology isn’t perfect (and not ubiquitous yet), it is improving quickly. 

The palm scanners are also extremely secure -- no one’s palm is exactly the same and therefore, unless you steal someone’s hand a la Total Recall, your info is pretty safe. The downside, which I think overrides the security at this point, is that the companies that control the Palm Reader technology (aka Amazon) now have access to biological data on the users above and beyond the already huge wealth of information they have. For now, this feels like information I’d rather not give away for free. 

Maybe the inevitable is moving us toward palm readers and iris scanners as the way of identification and payment. Maybe in a few years I’ll feel like that’s okay because I’ve been slowly whittled down into thinking it is normal. Or maybe the future is going to include a backlash to this kind of data mining. Who knows?!

But, for now, I don’t see an upside to Amazon knowing even more about me than they did before. And, let’s be honest, is it soooo hard to tap a card?! 

As always, I’m rooting for you.

XOXO,

P.S. I didn’t even touch Apple Pay or Google Wallet today! If you are curious about my thoughts or want me to one big comparison for all the ways to pay, shoot me an email at caroline@verdiadvising.com

I’ve always had a bit of a shopping problem. No…I don’t really mean that. I don’t want to place a judgment on it from the get go. 

I’ll start over - I’ve always loved shopping. I love new things. I love trying on outfits and there were many times in my life when I spent a great deal of time, energy, and money on my clothes. It made me happy. 

During my first pregnancy I sort of gave up on all of that. I had just started my second trimester when Covid shutdowns went into place and I didn’t feel the need to spend money on clothes that no one would see but me and my husband. In retrospect that was likely a sign of depression, but I think at the time everything was in such upheaval that I didn’t recognize it as such. 

That first pregnancy was difficult and my second one, while less challenging than the first, was nerve wracking because my previous pregnancy put me in a high risk category. I struggled with postpartum depression and anxiety after my first, which unfortunately went undiagnosed (mostly because it was so much better than what I experienced during pregnancy). The PPD and PPA got a lot worse after my second child was born and, thankfully, that time around I had folks around me who helped me recognize what was going on. I went on medication, made lifestyle changes, and went to therapy.

During all this time I continued to shop, but mostly out of habit and desperation (my shoe size changed with EACH baby) and the simple fact that postpartum Caroline was a size (actually many sizes) that I had never been before and therefore I needed at least some clothes that fit. 

Over the last few months my PPD and PPA have really improved. I still have challenges, but they are more manageable and, as my therapist would say, I have more tools in my toolkit. I know how to recognize what is happening and I have multiple ways to move forward. 

One of the outcomes of my improved mental health is that I really want to get dressed in things that spark joy for me. I want to put on clothes that make me smile. I want to wear things that make me feel powerful and strong -- that make me feel capable. I do feel all of these things, but it has always helped me when the outside reminds me of what I know to be true on the inside. 

As such, I’ve been shopping in new ways recently. What had felt more like a chore and habit is feeling exciting, but also a little bit overwhelming. I want to buy so much, but I know I can’t afford to go overboard. I also know that both my style and my body are in flux and investing too much money into a style at this point is likely premature. 

To be completely honest, I haven’t quite figured out how I want to move forward in this space. I could buy a lot of new things at a low price point (Old Navy, Target) or I could buy more things at a mid-range price point, or I could invest in just a couple things at a higher price point. Pre-pregnancy Caroline would have chosen the mid or high range and postpartum depression Caroline would have chosen the low price point. The question is, where does post pregnancy, stable mental health Caroline go? 

If you’ve been in a similar place and have advice for me, I’d love to hear it! Shoot me an email at caroline@verdiadvising.com or comment below. 

As always, I’m rooting for you.

XOXO,

Private School vs. Public School…

This is a topic of conversation that comes up pretty frequently in my day to day life. I am a parent of young children, have a lot of friends with school-age children, and used to work in public education. I’m not going to get into all of the complications related to this topic in this post (there are many!), but I just want to flag two things that I think are really powerful to think about when/if you are trying to decide between paying for private school or sending your child(ren) to public school. 

1. If you own property where you are sending your child(ren) to school then you pay for public school via property taxes. If you rent then you indirectly pay these too (I’m sure your landlord took those costs into account when determining the monthly rental price for your place!). That may not mean that you want to send your kids to those schools, but it is important to keep in mind that if you choose private school then you are actually paying for both options. If you choose public school, then you are only paying for public school. 

2. Many folks feel overwhelmed by the prospect of paying private school tuition on top of all of the other costs of raising children. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard something along the lines of…”well so-and-so does it and they seem to manage okay”; “This is just what is done in my circle of friends and peers”; “It doesn’t really feel like an option, but I also don’t understand how everyone is paying for this plus the (fill in the blank here -- i.e. new car, vacation, fitness classes, etc)”. 

The answer is that many people probably aren’t paying for everything on their own, or at least not with their earned income alone. Many grandparents pay for private school tuition. Many trusts or inheritance payments cover tuition. I say this a lot and I’ll say it many more times -- the comparison game doesn’t work when you don’t know all of the inputs. 

Maybe these facts don’t change anything about the calculus for you -- maybe sending your kid to that specific school is the most important thing you want to do with your income. If that’s the case, no judgment here! But, if you add in property taxes to the private school tuition and all of a sudden public school feels a lot more valuable, that’s probably telling. 

If you do the math and you realize that paying tuition means that you’ll have to forgo other things that you want from life, then it is a question of priorities -- is that education worth those vacations?

As always, I’m rooting for you.

XOXO, 

P.S. In one of my most recent Sprint Days I worked with a client to create and implement a new account optimization system (hellloooo modified profit first!) and designed a tracking system so that tax time will feel easy next year. Wins all around!

This is the first summer since 2019 that I’ve traveled for fun. The last few years it just didn’t feel possible: 

• 2020 was 2020, plus I was pregnant

• 2021 still felt dicey, plus I had a young baby and was pregnant 🤯

• 2022 I had two young kids (2 under 2!)

But now I feel the itch to get out and do! I want to see people, give my kids the opportunities to explore new places, and enjoy life after a few very challenging years. 

Here’s what’s on the list:

• I took my kids to the beach with friends a couple weekends ago

• This past weekend we visited my sister and her family in Minneapolis

• We go to Florida with my husband’s family in a few weeks

• I go to California to see friends at the beginning of July

• My sister, cousin and I have a mini trip planned later in July

• And then we have plans in the works for another beach trip in July and for a family trip to Montana in August

Even if the last two plans fall through, this is more travel than I’ve done in years and way more travel than my kids have ever experienced. It feels both comforting to be back to what feels like a more normal summer schedule for me and, simultaneously, it feels pretty overwhelming. 

Financially it feels overwhelming because I’m used to paying for one or two adults, not a family of four. On top of that, flights, gas, and most related travel costs are higher than they were in 2019. The numbers add up quickly and even though I’m not doing anything that I can’t afford, I’m not used to seeing these costs on my statements or Money Diary (curious about Money Diaries? Book a free consultation call with me or email me at caroline@verdiadvising.com).

When my anxiety started creeping up around travel I assumed that it was just because of the money, but after the beach trip with friends where I ended up forgetting half of the clothes I thought I packed I realized that another factor - potentially a larger factor - is the fact that each of these trips takes an immense amount of time for me to plan well.  

I have always been a fan of packing lists. I keep ones on my phone so that all I need to do for the next trip is modify it for the number of nights away or weather. I like making these lists days or even weeks in advance (depending on the scale of the trip) so that if I need to get anything new to bring with me I have plenty of time to find the right deal. 

As a mother my love of lists has only grown, but the level of detail I need to get to in order to make sure we all have all of our bits and pieces is pretty obnoxious. My son has a lot of allergies and therefore needs to travel with several medications at all times. He also is still in diapers and diapers take up a crazy amount of space in a suitcase. Kids go through a lot of clothes. Kids have accoutrement (!!) that seems necessary (bibs, favorite toys, sound machines, etc). Some of that I could probably skip, but it all feels easier once we are away if I don’t. Life is easier if kids have some of the same things they are used to having -- they feel safer and therefore can have more fun. That feels worth it. 

And so, I spend a lot of time thinking about what they need and end up leaving myself as a deep afterthought. Hence, I showed up at the beach without shorts or either of the dresses I felt sure I had packed. I forgot my allergy medicine, but had every type of medicine under the sun for my kids. 

Thankfully I have several upcoming trips where I can try again. I’m giving myself even more time to make the list so that I can complete it without feeling rushed. I’m letting myself mull over the list over the course of a week+ so I have plenty of time for those middle of the night, “Oh yeah!” thoughts. I’m learning what I feel comfortable skimping on and what I feel better overpacking with. It feels like a lot of growth and learning in a really short period of time, but isn’t that true of so many things in life when you’re actually out there in the world interacting and experiencing? 

Overall, what I’m learning is that the more information I have and the more planning I do, the less stressed and anxious I become. I can’t control everything - or even most things, but I can make sure the Epipen is packed (lol) and that I have shorts to wear.

As always, I’m rooting for you. 

XOXO,

P.S. You know what happened last week? I helped one of my clients finalize her business runway so that she can comfortably leave her 9-5 and work full-time for herself starting in the fall! Woohoo!!

I love this question because our spending habits, whether as individual human beings, or as companies, say a lot about our priorities. Or, rather, they say a lot about what our priorities actually are, but not necessarily what we want them to be. Whew - that’s confusing. Let me break it down. 

If you look at my family’s spending over the last three months the four categories with the highest expenditures are: 

1. Home (i.e. mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities)

2. Kids (i.e. childcare, clothing, activities) 

3. Food (groceries & restaurants)

4. Financial (taxes and retirement saving) 

If you look at my business’s spending over the last three months the four categories with the highest expenditures are: 

1. Payroll (by FAR the highest expense)

2. Software (Zoom, Quickbooks, etc.)

3. Office expenses (mostly tech equipment) 

4. Meals 

I feel good about both of these lists. My business expenses are largely related to my personal expenses (i.e. payroll) and my personal expenses are aligned with my values. That isn’t to say there aren’t things I’d like to change. I’d love if travel was a more common personal expense and I look forward to sending my two young children to public school in a few years, but I’m happy to pay for a home I love (and spend a LOT of time in!) and for childcare that is safe, loving, and nurturing. I’m glad I am able to spend on food the way I do and I’m glad my family is paying our taxes and saving for retirement. 

All of that being said, when I first started unpacking my finances (I’ll get more into the nitty gritty of this another time!) I did not at all feel good about the lists. I spent a lot of money on clothes that I didn’t necessarily need or even wear. I spent a lot of money on debt repayments that I knew weren’t strategic. I spent money on food that I didn’t really enjoy because I wouldn’t plan far enough ahead to have groceries at my house. I spent money in a way that reflected my lack of clarity and connection with my finances. 

And I felt SO. MUCH. GUILT. I felt guilty that I wasn’t trying harder. That I didn’t know what to do. That I didn’t understand how to fix the problems because I didn’t even know what the problems were. I felt guilty that I had just stuck my head in the sand. 

I wish I could say that I figured out this perfect, easy system for getting rid of that guilt, but truth be told, it just took time, reflection, a lot of hard work, and reminders to be kind to myself. I may not have always made financial decisions that made me proud, but I worked hard to change that. I learned a lot on my own and then, eventually, I went back to graduate school and switched careers to focus on helping others expel that guilt I once felt and to create systems and structures that mean that when they open their bank accounts they can feel proud too. 

If you’re in the sticking-your-head-in-the-sand phase, I feel you. It can get better. I promise. 

If you’re in the midst of figuring it out -- keep going! You got this!

If you’re in the proud-of-my-spending bucket -- yay! Keep it up my friend!

No matter what, I’m rooting for you.

XOXO,

HOT TIP CORNER

The annual option for subscriptions is often significantly cheaper than the monthly subscription option. The trick is making sure you are ready for that larger lump sum transaction when it comes along! Put in a calendar alert so you don’t forget about upcoming expenses and check here in the next newsletter for a trick on making sure your account is prepared for annual costs!

We do these Day in the Life of my Wallet posts on instagram pretty regularly and they’re always popular. I think people like them because as a society we rarely talk about money or spending and we definitely don’t tell people the exact amounts we spend. Here at Verdi we are working on breaking down those taboos one super vulnerable moment at a time.  

So, here goes my first DITLOMW (woof, that’s a mouthful) via newsletter! I chose a weekend day because it was more exciting. Yesterday’s was verrryyy boring. A whole lotta $0s. 

May 2, 2021

$7 - cupcakes at the Montrose Farmers Market. Yum!

$29.73 - kiddo books from Once Upon A Time Bookstore. We love reading to little Vidalia and the usual rotation was feeling stale. Got a few new ones, including “The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar” and “No, Not the Armadillo” to spice things up.

$94.85 - Trader Joe’s. Mostly reasonable groceries, but also chocolate babka just because.

$331.79 - Splurge!! New sheets and pillows from The Company Store. All on sale and I’m SO EXCITED. There is nothing like crawling into a wonderful, perfectly comfy bed.  

$463.37 - Grand Total

XOXO