Financial Wellbeing with Grant Gallagher

george grombacher 0:02
Greg Gallagher is an EVP and head of wellbeing at Affinity Federal Credit Union is working to help people reduce financial anxieties and make good financial decisions. Welcome to the show, Grant.

Grant Gallagher 0:12
Thanks for having George.

george grombacher 0:14
And I’m excited to have you on, tell us a little while your personal lives more about your work, why you do what you do? Sure,

Grant Gallagher 0:21
happy to do so. So I’m a Jersey boy born and bred, live here with my wife of nearly a decade, Katie, and I’m a proud father of two, three year old twins. Love to Eat love technology, love gadgets, when I find time for that not parenting, three year old twins. But I’ve been a credit union member and advocate for the majority of my life. You know, for work at Affinity I wear a lot of hats, you know, I’m in charge of our public relations, or political and regulatory advocacy, financial education, but you know, most of all, and most importantly, our financial well being programming and content, which covers a lot of different areas, a lot of different platforms, technology, education advice, but it’s really, you know, become not only my work, but also my passion.

george grombacher 1:16
I appreciate that. So, are your Springsteen, kind of a person Bon Jovi?

Grant Gallagher 1:22
You know, it’s, it’s interesting, my wife is because she grew up with her parents being that marriage very much that generation, my parents are a little bit older. So I grew up in more of a Beatles household. But I do appreciate both both decades and types of music, you know, you can’t live in New Jersey pretty pretty constantly,

george grombacher 1:42
no matter who’s gonna say, probably wouldn’t let you stay. So right on. So financial well being? That’s a great term. What is that? What does it mean?

Grant Gallagher 1:54
So it’s really looking at the emotional side of finance. You know, we’re in a new age of finance, where, you know, technology is really great. And there’s lots of automation things that you can do to really manage the basic stuff. You know, there’s apps to manage your budget, there’s apps to manage your notifications, keep you up to date on payments, deposits, simplifying your bills. But when, even with all that help, and all that technology, finances are still a major source of stress for most people. And it’s because they’re trying to tackle something very technical and logical. When they’re emotional beings, you know, money, money is very dollars and cents, you know, there’s no gray area most of the time, but for people, when they’re dealing with it, they have a lot of emotions, they feel about these different things. So it’s really important that we take that step back and look at it through the lens of what money means, through the lens of an emotional person. You know, we’re all emotional beings, no matter how much we try to, you know, be rational. And, you know, our goal is really, when you’re looking at the money. What are the upsides? How is it a means to achieve your financial dreams, versus that source of stress that so many people, you know, find it to be, you know, if you’re really just looking at your money from a big ol bucket standpoint, there’s never going to be enough, there’s never going to be enough time, there’s going to be lots of unknowns to be prepared for. But what we really want to do is just help people understand their their money through that context of what’s important to you, what matters, how can we help you figure out how to get there in a way that’s healthy and sustainable and manageable, because that’s one of the other things that people run into is they, again, take a very logical approach to budgeting. But at the end of the day, they have those temptations to splurge a little bit, get something, you know, spend a little bit extra money on something. And it derails their plan. And that’s really demotivating and hurts them both in, you know, short, medium, and long term goals. You know, it’s an unfortunately, when some people fall off the horse, they have a hard time getting back on. So, you know, we really want people to feel good about their finances feel good about their financial life, and, you know, come up with ways to approach it. That’s reducing stress, and really just allows them to live their best financial life.

george grombacher 4:29
I appreciate all that. You know, it’s true, right? Like I do things, not because they make the most sense, but because I feel like doing it. And I like everything. I chose to get a cup of coffee because I felt like doing it not because I need I felt like I needed the caffeine and the clothes that I wear and everything else because I feel like doing it. So why would money be any different? Yeah,

Grant Gallagher 4:50
you know, it’s funny. It’s like the number one advice of when you’re going grocery shopping is don’t go when you’re hungry, because you’re going to, you know, succumb to those impulse buys. And that’s just like the number one that everyone kind of can relate to is coming across that when they’re when they’re hungry, that will the resist that bag of chips or that thing that looks so good that you know is so terrible for you, it’s gone, you know, you have no no resistance. But it’s, you know, planning in advance, figuring out how to kind of hack your emotional state how to, you know, get around those things, or simply budget into your life to be able to indulge once in a while, you know, you’re, you’re only live once you’re only young ones, you know, you want to be able to enjoy your money and enjoy your financial life, when you still have the full capability to do so. And, you know, you don’t know how much time you have on this world. So it’s not that you should throw all caution to the wind, but don’t expect to enjoy your life and delay it for you know, 2030 years. Some people think of, you know, retirement as as their their golden age of when they’re going to do all the fun stuff. Well, are you going to have the health to do it at that point? Are you going to be mobile enough to do it at that point? You know, you don’t know. So you got to kind of think of all that and come up with a plan that let you enjoy your life to the fullest in the time that you have and you know, manage your money in a way that’s works for you.

george grombacher 6:15
I love that. That makes a ton of sense. I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about. Certainly, I know that wisdom of don’t go to the grocery store when you’re hungry. But how do we satiate our our financial desires to consume. And he talked about maybe building that into your budget, just knowing that we want to buy things and consume things. So I’m setting myself up for failure. If I’m just building this really strict thing that there’s 0% chance that I’m actually going to follow and then when I trip up and I don’t follow it, because there’s no way I was going to its demotivated and everything else you’ve been talking about?

Grant Gallagher 6:51
Yeah, and you know, some people call it planning for failure, contingency planning, you know, but But what I like to think of it as is really, it’s prioritization, it’s, you know, what’s really important to you. And if your daily, you know, $7 cup of Starbucks coffee is what really brings you joy. Yep. That, you know, that’s, that’s what’s important to you. And what’s, what matters is that you sit there, and you think about what matters to get you through your day, what helps you sustain your happiness? And is it worth it? I mean, I myself, and you know, I enjoy fancier coffee on occasion, didn’t like the price tag associated with it. So I invested in some of my own equipment at home, you know, I have an espresso maker, I have a coffee grinder, and yeah, up front, it was a little bit more expensive. But over, you know, two years, it’s probably going to cost me half as much as I would have if I got that cup of coffee every day. So it’s really thinking about what matters to you, and being purposeful in your planning and your spending, and having that wiggle room. You know, and listen, we all make mistakes, we all you know, fall off track, we all lose our motivation. But that’s really just a time for you to take a step back and look at what you put together. Because life changes, you know, what was important to you six months ago, yeah, you failed what your goal was from six months ago. But maybe that’s not what’s important anymore. Maybe Maybe you are in a different place in your life. And something else is super important. And it’s time just sit down and kind of rework your plan refigure it out. And, you know, the best time to do it is is today, you know, you don’t want to sit on that. Because a lot of people think you know that there’s a right time to do anything. And when it comes to your finances, usually the best time is, is now and not waiting. Because the longer you put it off, the longer you’re just kind of stuck in that holding pattern and potentially getting in a worse financial situation. When you know, you could take action today and start kind of reaping those benefits now.

george grombacher 8:57
That’s well said, planning for humanity building that in. Maybe think about, we go to the doctor. And I don’t know about you, grant, but sometimes I feel like I’m not totally truthful with the doctor. And that’s not good for the doctor. It’s not good for me. And I sort of imagined it’s not dissimilar when somebody talks to a financial professional of some kind. But just you know, let’s just be honest about this. We’re here and I’m interested in getting it over there with my money. Let’s create a plan that’s realistic and actually you’re gonna follow your

Grant Gallagher 9:32
you are spot on where there is a stigma around talking about your money. People feel guilty about what they think are bad decisions. But the reality is when you talk to somebody who’s a financial professional, they’ve seen it all. You know they there’s no surprises there. Their goal is to really understand what matters to you, and how they can get you from point A to point B now If you’re talking to somebody who takes a financial well being approach, they’re going to look at all those things that are really important to you, you know, plan for, for those contingencies help you kind of figure out what that plan looks like, instead of that completely, how do you get from your goals in the shortest period of time, with whatever amount of sacrifice and suffering as required, you know, because that’s kind of your traditional logical approach of, you know, you need to pay off your debt as soon as possible, and you’re going to scrimp on everything, you’re not going to go out to eat any more, you’re not going to have any fun, you know, you’re you’re going to cancel your subscriptions. But you’re going to be debt free in two years. It’s just not realistic, and it’s not sustainable, you have to be honest in those conversations. And the same thing goes when you’re talking with with your family and your friends about finances, there’s still a huge taboo from that perspective. And people don’t like to talk about money. And, you know, Jordan, I’ll be honest, I don’t know when this is airing. But you know, we’re right in the holiday season. And it’s a huge source of stress for many people, because they, they don’t want to talk about expectations, they don’t want to talk about potentially cutting back, if traditionally, they’ve had this big party, and they’ve had this huge meal, and they’ve had these really awesome gifts. But maybe people are in your life aren’t expecting that, you know, maybe it’s a nice to have. And if you’re you’re in a tough financial place, just having that conversation about, you know, what really matters around the holidays, could put you in a better place where you’re not stressing about this ambiguous expectation. That’s not actually there. So it’s really important, just have those conversations with the people around you to understand what what is actually expected, you know, what actually is the financial situation. And, you know, people are understanding if, if it’s a tough year, and you want to cut back, you know, maybe it’s lesser gifts, maybe it’s doing, you know, a gift swap Secret Santa kind of thing where you’re buying fewer gifts, people are open to it, you know that it’s a tough financial time right now. And you’re probably not alone, starting out conversations probably going to be well received.

george grombacher 12:08
But think that that’s such an important point. And it’s probably always been true, I know that I can think back to Christmases and holidays, in just just in the past, just with our family where we said, You know what, we’re just not in a place where we can buy presents for all the cousins and all the kids. And when we brought that up to everybody that oh, my gosh, thank goodness. Because, you know, we all have our priorities, hopefully. And it doesn’t mean we need to be doing the same thing we’ve always done. But it’s tough, because our egos can get in the way of that.

Grant Gallagher 12:45
Yeah. And it’s, it’s just that there’s a taboo there where people don’t want to let people down, they are afraid that if they express any sort of financial hardship, people are going to look at them as a failure. But now I mean, you know, it doesn’t matter how much money you’re making, people are still going to find financial struggles, they’re still going to find a hard way to you know, manage their money and stress about it. So, you know, everybody, no matter where you are on that pay scale, is probably open to that conversation. And, you know, because let’s, let’s be honest, I mean, the holidays, it’s like, there’s travel, there’s gifts, there’s food, there’s entertainment, you know, it’s like you can, you can find a budget, big or small for the holidays, no matter what you do, and it can just keep going up and up. But you know, you need to be realistic about it. And you need to be open to that conversation and not feel that it’s your failure, just because you’re looking to cut back.

george grombacher 13:43
We’ll see. So what is what is, what are some entry points or onramps, however, you want to kind of think about it, somebody says, you know, what, I’ve just not been paying attention to my money. How do I move from that to I want to get started.

Grant Gallagher 13:59
So you know, it’s finding an organization that you can have that conversation with, you know, financial planners are usually a great source of that. A lot of credit unions have adopted this financial well being approached. Obviously, affinity Federal Credit Union can can help you with that. But it’s really just taking that that thoughtful, intentional approach to your finances, where you’re setting up short term, medium term and long term goals where you’re not going to face a lot of stress and pain about it. And you know, it’s, I like to say anybody can do it. But realistically, it’s a lot easier if you use the help of a professional because they can help you contextualize. And that’s one of the other things is, you know, when you find yourself in a tough financial spot, people, it’s usually the first time they’re in it, so they don’t know if it’s a big problem if it’s a small problem, how to get out of it. So you know, it’s reaching out for that. Help at an organization like a credit union or affinity, where they can help you work through that help reduce the stress come up with a realistic timeline, a realistic budget realistic approach, that, you know, lessons that pain. You know, one of the nice things about credit unions in general is we’re member owned, so we’re not for profit, you know, we’re our, our main goal is to support our membership and support the people that come to us looking for help. And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re not we’re not just trying to sell them things and push product, we’re trying to improve their financial lives. So you know, that’s really my, my rally call is, you know, look for a credit union and get help from them.

george grombacher 15:40
I think that that makes a lot of sense. I like the idea of realistic and sustainable because that’s what we want, you know, I don’t want to do is yo yo kind of a thing where I lose weight, and I put it back on and get out of credit card debt, and then go back in. And that’s kind of what we’ve been talking about is let’s find something, let’s create a plan that’s actually going to work for you. With the wiggle room or whatever term you want to use to be a human being.

Grant Gallagher 16:09
Yeah, the comparison to a diet is spot on, because so many people have these big ambitions and try to cut back everything but now you gotta you got to factor in your cheat day into your into your diet. I mean, same thing with your budget.

george grombacher 16:25
Yeah, can’t be perfect all the time. No more pizza ice cream for me ever again. Except for three days later when I see it a pizza and ice cream. Well, Grant, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? And how can they interact or engage with affinity Federal Credit Union?

Grant Gallagher 16:42
Well, thanks for having me on George, you know, our main platform, we do have a podcast and I’m a co host on it’s the well being in your wallet podcast. And it’s available on all major platforms. You can find it on Affinity fcu.com. We also have more information about credit unions how to join, as well as we have some good financial well being information in our blog there as well. If you want to find me, I’m on most of the socials at the grant G or on LinkedIn and my full name. I think I’m probably the only grant Gallagher out there that works at a credit union. So you should be able to find me pretty easily there. But this was this was great. Thanks for having me on George.

george grombacher 17:20
Yes, pleasure. If you enjoy this as much as I did, she’ll get your appreciation and share today. share with a friend who also appreciates good ideas, check out the well being and your wallet, podcast. Wherever you listen to your podcast, go to affinity fcu.com and check out the great resources that Greg has been talking about. And if you like the approach that we’ve been talking about getting touch, find them on the grant G on social media and on LinkedIn and I will link all of those in the notes in the show. Thanks, congrats. Thanks so much. Till next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.