Budgeting and Savings Tips for Students with Leanne Harris
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Matt: Welcome to Bellingham Technical College’s Money$marts Podcast. I’m your host, Matt Benoit. And each episode we’ll talk to BTC students, staff community professionals and financial experts about financial literacy and wellness in order to help listeners navigate resources in the community and empower themselves financially. Today, we are here with Leanne Harris from ASBTC. Leanne, how are you?
Leanne: I’m doing good and yourself?
Matt: I’m doing excellent! So, first off, you are in ASBTC. What does that stand for and what can you tell me about it?
Leanne: ASBTC stands for the Associated Students of Bellingham Technical College. So, a good way to sum it up real easy is just we’re the voice for students. We’re a way for students to voice concerns or things that they like that’s going on on the campus and we can tell more to higher ups and give them a voice in some situations where they normally might not be able to have access to.
Matt: Okay, now you are in a position of student leadership here with ASBTC, so how do you help fellow students and what motivated you to get involved with them in the first place?
Leanne: I’m actually the director of administrative affairs so I’m one of the more relaxed positions. But I do take minutes at all the meetings that we have, executive meetings, senate meetings or otherwise. And so the minutes are just a way of – people who - if they want to know exactly what’s going on or if they weren’t able to attend a meeting to know, kind of just what’s happening. And in general, all of us on the executive team for ASBTC are just there to help people. So if anybody has general questions I can always send them to the right person, whether it’s within our department or send them somewhere else. We’re just there to help people and make sure that they know they’re supported.
Matt: What are you studying by the way?
Leanne: I’m studying nursing. I’m just doing the pre-reqs right now but I’m going into the nursing program.
Matt: So, we are here, obviously, to talk about budgeting and savings tips. So, I want to know about your personal experience with paying for college and trying to budget while in school. How’s that gone for you?
Leanne: I mean, I’ve been a student for quite a bit now. It’s going on eight years that I’ve actually been a student and let’s just say there was a point in time where I found credit cards. And credit cards were just a really easy way for me to pay for stuff and… kind of stuck in a rut for that. So, it hasn’t always been super easy, trying to make ends meet but, finally kind of getting a hold on things now that there’s more of a steady income at least from myself personally and learning more about budgeting properly from just like researching, watching other kinds of podcasts actually, and just trying to figure out what would be the best thing for me and for my finances. 
Matt: So, to get more specific, what budgeting methods have worked for you in sort of being cognoscente of how much your spending, living within your means? 
Leanne: For me the one that’s really worked is because – for me with the stuff like the credit cards, that’s just not something that’s tangible. So a lot of people it’s found that it’s much easier to spend money when it’s on plastic vs. cash. So, I actually found a Dave Ramsay podcast and Dave Ramsay has a cash envelope system. And so with cash envelopes what you do is that every time you get paid you pull the money out and you divide it into categories of, like obviously, you do the basics first like bills, gas for your car, groceries, and that kind of stuff and then anything you have left over it’s a good way to start saving money but then also have more emergency money for later. And that way you don’t feel like that you’re on a restrictive budget as like “well I have to save all this money so I can’t spend anything and I have to just wait until I make more money.” It’s a way for you still keep going and keep – being able to live your life normally but not be, you know, under all this stress of a financial burden or anything like that.
Matt: And actually that’s a good point. Even though we have no affiliation with Dave Ramsay, his show – I used to work at KGMI and his show airs on KGMI I think it’s like every day Monday – Friday from like three to five or three to six…
Leanne: I think so
Matt: He’s got a pretty long show and yeah so I’d recommend that as another resource for people who want to learn how to save money and budget and pay off debts.
Leanne: Yeah, especially with his actual podcast. I know that now, what they’ve done is that he actually has a YouTube page where they’ve spliced apart different podcasts to specific topics that are much shorter, you can – it’s like five to maybe 15 minutes of specific issues that maybe a student might…
Matt: That’s even super easier, find exactly what you’re looking for.
Leanne: That’s how it helped me. 
Matt: Yeah. So, when you talk about the cash envelopes, what do you think are both the pros and cons of that type of budgeting method?
Leanne: I mean, the pros are that you definitely see your spending very actively. It’s a lot harder to give away like a 20 dollar bill vs. having, giving someone your card because it’s just, it’s tangible, it’s there, it’s real. But I think a big con – and this happens for me too, is if you have like automatic payments or you pay online for your bills, whether they’re credit card payments or what have you, those ones tend to - since they pull it out of your account, you kind of have to leave money in your checking account or your debit account. And so sometimes that’s – you’ll take this money out to organize it and then you’ll just have to put it back into your account so. That’s the only con I feel like that happens with that system so, a lot of people the way that they fix it – or how I would fix it is you just leave the money for those online bills just in your account but then you just don’t take your debit card with you when you go out and you would normally spend it. 
Matt: There you go. You can only spend so much. Can’t get carried away that way.
Leanne: Yeah, that way. I was going to say, I could spend a lot. [Laughs]
Matt: [Laughs] Alright, we’ll do the next episode with you at the mall just like what do you buy?
Leanne: Yes, yes. Window shopping! [Laughs]
Matt: [Laughs] So, now when we talk about savings, people always talk about saving into like a rainy day fund or an emergency fund. Do you have one?
Leanne: Yes, it’s come in handy. I currently actually have one with my fiancé of mine and we’re lucky because we have – we are actively using it right now and it’s very much come in handy. That’s the thing with the emergency funds, I feel like – if you’re talking about the cash envelope system still is that you have rainy day funds for specific items. So, you don’t just take a whole bunch of money that you might need for something else. So you might have a specific envelope for if you needed to go to the doctor and you’d have some money saved up there and you could just use that one. I definitely think trying to, if you’re able to, trying to form something like that is really helpful because like right now in a situation where I’m actively using it, it’s definitely been like a life saver and it’s – we’re not feel like a bunch of stress from finances while trying to get through the rest of the stuff that’s going on in life.     
Matt: So, as far as where you’re at in life, are there any financial, specific financial goals that you have right now that you’d be willing to talk about.
Leanne: A wedding. Oh my Gosh weddings are so expensive. I got really excited in our first month of engagement and I went on to Pinterest and The Knot and all these wedding websites. And I immediately realized “oh my goodness, I do not have this much money. How do people pay for weddings?” So that’s one of my current goals. And so some people are very lucky and they have family who’s able to pitch in with that. I don’t think that a lot of people realize that your family will probably help you. But for my fiancé and I, we both have families that have always kind of been a bit tight when it comes to budgets so we’re pretty much doing it on our own. So for us it’s just taking our time and making sure that we’re not over spending on something that we might not want. So really thinking about decisions that become – things that are really expensive, like your location, or how many people are going to be there, those are huge things that change the amount of money that a wedding is going to cost. So, for the most part we’re just making sure that each decision we make no matter how much the cost is – is something that we’re really going to like and not feeling rushed to get to that point. And making sure that we’re not getting over excited and wanting to get something done so that we’re going to go get a loan or something that we might not be able to deal with later. So just making sure, taking it one step at a time and not getting overwhelmed in the amount of money you’ll have to pay. Cause a lot of the people, the vendors, the vendors that you’d have at your wedding, a lot of them have certain payment plans and a lot of them will be like “oh, well the two weeks before your wedding, have this final payment” and if you have three or four different vendors you’re all the sudden going to have tons and tons of money due that month before your wedding. And it’s just… it’s stressful. The way of getting there is just one day at a time, one decision at a time.
Matt: So, what are some of the personal successes you feel that you’ve had with budgeting or money management, that you’d like to talk about? For instance you talked about accumulating credit card debt, have you been able to pay that off? That sort of thing.
Leanne: Well, we’re just kind of just starting to kind of get into that more. We did just start deciding to do more of like a budgeting system very recently. But it’s definitely helped a lot. I feel like with money for both of us, we tend to feel like it’s out of our control. Like, oh well we have to pay for these things so we can’t control where the money’s going. But when we stopped and had a talk about it for maybe a half hour about where is our money going, how much do we really need to be spending on these things? All of the sudden, we realized we had so much more control over our money. So, even though we don’t have an actual success yet, we know that it’s going to be a lot easier to get there now that we kind of have an idea of where we are going. And know that it is more in our control than we originally thought. It’s not just like just throw our money into the wind and hope it gets to the right places.
Matt: Right. So, in other words even though you aren’t rolling in dough at this point, you feel very much in control of the money you do have and where it’s going and that’s a huge part of financial literacy and just feeling secure and in control and that’s a great thing.
Leanne: Yeah, not having to stay up late worrying about where your money’s at. You know where it’s at and you just feel better. And you can focus on stuff like school and stuff like work.
Matt: When you talk about being mindful with money, you know and obviously, I mean, it’s kind of, it’s a spectrum of where the less money you have the more mindful you are of that money because you have so little wiggle room. But, how do you keep yourself motivated to budget? Are there any tricks you use? 
Leanne: A way that I used to not spend money is I just don’t go into Target anymore…
Matt: Okay, there you go. [Laughs]
Leanne: [Laughs] I love Target. It’s one of those places where I know a lot of women including myself… It’s just a place where you fall into traps where “this is on sale”, like “I could use this.” A great tip that I have is actually… my fiancé himself will walk through me with stores [sic] and he’ll go “but do we need that right now?” I think that was a great thing where we actually were on a time crunch but I noticed it helped us save some money. Just last week we went to go grab just some toilet paper and some paper towels and I was like “Oh wait! I kind of wanted this for the house. We’re getting kind of low.” And he goes “but do we need it right now?” And so it helped us spend less and it’s stuff that we actually still don’t need a week later and just being mindful of that. Just thinking of things like “does this item that I want to buy… does it add value to my life? Is it a want verses a need?” and then like “will I still want this later on?” It just also comes into the fact of like trying to simplify your spending in general. I feel like that’s a great way to just kind of chillax on the spending. It’s been a mission for me. I love spending money. I love shopping. [Laughs]
Matt: [Laughs] Alright! There you go. So when it comes to students here at BTC, what do you think are some of the biggest challenges they face when they’re trying to manage money?
Leanne: Well, I’m still a relatively new student at BTC. Right now this is only my second quarter of me being here. But what I’ve noticed is that there’s a lot of support on campus that people might not realize. And I think it just comes around to the biggest challenge is just finding what you need and talking to the right people. But the easiest way to do that is just to ask questions. But there’s a lot of resources here on campus there’s Workforce Funding, there’s the Financial Aid office, and they’re all so willing to help you. Like, I just recently went into the financial aid office and I needed, I had a special circumstance because I’m a newbie here to Washington, so I had a special circumstance when it came to my finances. She walked me through details, she showed me a website that I could go on to get some stuff, and even like a place in town that I could go to to get some resources that I needed and it was just like… it really helped. And it made it a lot easier to deal with finances now. So I think that that’s literally just the biggest challenge. For students is just asking what they – where they can go and like what they can get just to help them because there just is so much support here on campus.
Matt: And this next question, you’ve already partly answered it but, other resource on the BTC campus or even outside of BTC that you’ve turned to to help you through your college experience. You know, there’s the financial aid office, are there any other resources you feel that you’ve used personally that you’d recommend? 
Leanne: For the most part, I did all of my stuff, or just my personal finances, through the financial aid office. But I do know that I was told by a colleague, like “Hey, if you’re having trouble with textbooks go to WorkForce Funding. Tell them your situation, they have this, this, and this.” There’s also scholarships on campus that can help and yeah there’s just a lot. I know I’ve already listed through a whole bunch of them but there’s just tons on campus. Just ask around. Money$marts is a great program! Yeah, Money$marts! Plugging that one! [Laughs]
Matt: [Laughs] Alright.
Leanne: Yeah.
Matt: Well, Leanne, thanks for being on the show. I think you had a lot of great advice to give. And there’s a lot of resources out there to be taken advantage of if you’re here at BTC or just out in the community in general. Thanks for listening to this episode of the BTC Money$marts podcast, be sure to check out all our episodes on the BTC website. They’re loaded with stories, tips, tricks and strategies for financial literacy. This podcast is produced by Cheryl Kennedy with music courtesy of Bensound.com. I’m Matt Benoit, see you next time!