Finance with a Smile with Dana Klausler

In this episode of the How to Win Podcast, hosts Kyrk Davis and Rick Gregory, joined by special guest Dana, discuss goal setting for the new year, particularly focusing on financial and personal development. They revisit Dana's transition from a racehorse rehab manager to her current role and explore the importance of tracking spending and saving for the future. With inputs from personal experiences, such as Kyrk’s interest in golf and Dana’s budgeting strategies after buying a house, they emphasize the balance between enjoying life and achieving financial security. They highlight starting small with goals, maintaining consistent saving habits, and requesting help if needed from financial planners.

Kyrk Davis is a Registered Representative offering Securities through The O.N. Equity Sales Company, Member FINRA/SIPC, One Financial Way Cincinnati, Ohio 45242 (513) 794-6794. Kyrk Davis is an Investment Advisor Representative offering Investment Advisory services through O.N. Investment Management Company. Estate planning services provided in conjunction with your licensed legal professional.

Chapters

• 0:54 Welcome Dana
• 2:32 Setting Goals
• 8:51 Life Away from Work
• 14:21 Getting started

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to the How to Win Podcast. I'm Kyrk Davis. And I'm Rick Gregory. Want to know how to win in life and in your finances? Then you're in the right place. On this podcast, we'll be talking about everyday topics and how they relate to your overall financial picture. All right, welcome back to this month's episode of the How to Win podcast. I'm Kyrk Davis and I'm here with Rick Gregory and we also have a special guest today Dana. Most of you probably know her from our front desk here. Dana's the first smiling face you see when you walk in the door and she's always smiling. I've never seen her not smile. So we're going to let her tell a little bit about herself right now. Go ahead Dana, give us a little synopsis. Well, thank you, Rick. Well, I came here back in 2023. I had been let go from my horse job. I used to be a rehab manager on a racehorse farm. And that was full speed ahead, 24 7. And I knew that I needed a big change in pace because I was super burnt out. So I was just looking around for jobs that had simplicity written right on front of, right on the front of that job description. This job is far from simple, but I joined the team and learned way more than I thought I would ever learn about finances, myself, and life in general. So you got fired then? Yes. Yes, I did. So, that's not too bad. Everybody's probably gotten fired at one time or another. So as you know, I'm friends with Cody Dorman, I mean Kelly Dorman, who Cody's passed away now, but Kelly's and his dad, and so there's two new Cody's Wish babies that have been born in the last couple of weeks. I know, I saw them. Isn't that cool? Very cute. Yeah. So, guess what people? We got a special guest and we're going to talk about everything that everybody talks about at the start of the year goals. Everybody does it, you know, every podcast, every person, like, Oh, I got to set some goals for the first of the year. So we're going to dive into the goals. So everybody talks about goals for the new year. And I think that probably health and fitness are probably at the top of the list. Like my fat belly needs to go away. But we're going to talk about all goals and especially financial goals. So, Kyrk, what, when, where, why, and how and all that good stuff do you think on we need to talk about on setting some goals? Well, yeah, I think it's, I mean, we don't, we don't have to, we don't always have to set it to a yearly thing, but I like to kind of always have some goals that are just constantly running there and kind of constantly moving the, the mark there. But it's a fact that the start of the year is just a good time to, you know, start setting some new goals. So, one of the things that we have with all of our In all of our client meetings, whether it be at the end of the year, kind of setting up for the next year, or just if you happen to have a January meeting, one thing we always talk about in there is, How did we, how did we do back in the previous year, and what kind of things would we like to change going forward into the next year? And those answers are going to be different for everybody. Some people say, hey, you know, I really didn't hit the savings goals because I wasn't able to stick to my budget. So we kind of want to tune that in a little bit more. Other people were, hit their savings goals and kind of looked back and said, well that was actually really easy. Maybe we can kind of turn up the, turn up the You know, the heat a little bit and try to save more and just accelerate our path to To get to where we want to be. So there's just a couple couple big goals that most people You know think about and have when when we start talking about their finances for the year Well, so I got a couple of goals for this year I'm going to get in better shape lose a little weight because that will help me but I started a new little side business And it's something that everybody knows that I do You shooting shotgun and something I love to do. So now I am a distributor for Remington Shotgun Shell. So we're gonna, you know, see, I don't, I'm not going to get rich or make a zillion dollars, but it's going to be pretty cool. So I like that. So Dana, let's hear about your goals. Well, I have the same goal every year of just being better in the coming year. I try not to set my standards or Goals too high that I can't reach them and I just end in disappointment. So I think that this year I actually started taking some master's programs in psychology classes. And so my goal is to just be successful at those and take my time and give myself some grace because school's not easy. And I haven't been in school since 2019. So 2019? Yeah, 2019. So it's my brain's been a little, there's a few cobwebs I have to clean out but this year my goal besides being better is just being a little more financially I wouldn't say, like, literate, but I opened I finally started 401k here, which is very exciting. Yay! Woo! And then I'm saving money on Trying my best to save for my own Roth account too. So that's what I try and work towards every year. And this year looks like it's going to be pretty successful for me. So this is, this is something that all people that Dana's age need to think about. Because I have three daughters and they all are finally saving a little bit of money, but the earlier you start, the bigger dividends that pay in the end. Do you want to? Expound upon that, Kyrk. Yeah, so, I mean, we've talked about this in previous episodes just when talking about investment growth over time. Sure, you know, high returns are, are great, you know, those always help, those go a long way, but the biggest thing that you have going for you is just time in the, in the market there. I would rather have somebody get a 10 percent return over the course of, you know, 50 years than a, you know, 30 percent return. Over just, you know, 10 years or so you know, the math is going to, you know, exponentially work in your favor the earlier that we can start. So, it's not so much that we need to throw big chunks of money into the markets or in our retirement accounts when we're in our 20s. Yeah, if we have the extra room in the budget, we can do that. That's an amazing thing and definitely do it. But the more important thing when you're young It's just build that habit of saving something into retirement. That way, as you get a little bit older and your income increases, and you know, maybe you paid down student loans, and now you've freed up that space in your budget, and you just get a little bit more financially mature, if you will, we've already built those good habits. So, it's easy to kind of just ramp those up to be really good habits, and, you know, set you up for success. So What if you're not a goal setting type person? You know, what if you just kind of play it by ear and wing it? Of course, I know that we can help people with setting some goals if they come in and see us. You know, financial goals. But what if you're just one of those kind of people that, that doesn't set goals? How does that affect you financially down there? Do you have to have a goal to have a good retirement? No, I don't think you That's a tricky question. I don't think you absolutely have to have, you know, really, really specific goals. For your retirement. Especially when you're young. If I'm talking to a client or a prospect and we're looking 40 years into the future, it's really hard to say what you want your life to look like at that point. But regardless of exactly where we want to go, a lot of the steps are going to be the same. So I always, I always talk about, you know, if we're, You know, if we're planning a road trip, if you will, and we know we want to go down to down to Florida Well, we don't need to know exactly what beach we want to be at. We don't need to know, you know What hotel we need to stay at. We don't need to know what restaurants we need to make reservations for at this point We just know we need to get in our car and get on 75 and start heading south. Way south. Yeah, with this weather. Way south. Like, like, there's four to keys. So that's yeah So that's, that's kind of how I look at, you know, those big financial goals for retirement when you're in your 20s or even in your 30s, really, is just, let's just get the direction right. Let's just figure out that, hey, we need to start saving some amount of money into our retirement accounts. We need to invest it in a way that's going to be, Relatively growth oriented and then as we get closer and closer then we can kind of start dialing in those goals So to answer the question, no, I don't really think you have to have real specific goals when we're really far away But as you get closer, yeah having having some more specific goals is helpful just so we can kind of fine tune the the plan and make sure everything works as Optimally as as reasonably possible. All right, Daniel. So tell us about your stuff outside of work So what kind of hobbies do you have and do you have, or stuff you do for fun, and do you have any goals with those things? Right now I'm in a book club, which I find pretty I actually really like it a lot. I never thought I'd be a book club kind of person, but turns out books are pretty cool. You'll probably laugh when I tell you this, but I love to read. I wouldn't laugh at that. Yes you would. Everyone loves to read, it's just a matter of how much they love to read. Yeah. I think. I got tons of books on my phone. Tons. Tons. On your phone? Yeah. Wow, I'm on paper. So, my daughter's a paper book, and I read some of her books, too. And she brought home a whole handful. She goes to the, like, the half priced books or whatever, and she brings home, like, armloads of books. We've got tons of books at home, but I love to read. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot better than binge watching TV shows, in my opinion. Well, so I don't know, there's some TV shows out there. There's some really good TV shows. There's good ones, but I feel like I use my time better when I'm reading. Well, you probably use your brain better. Yeah. The problem with binge watching TV shows is you go through a whole series in the course of a couple days, and then now you're kind of left in this It's over. It's over, and you've got to wait a whole other year. Whereas with books, you can binge. You can binge read a book and there's, you know, thousands of other ones out there of similar quality and interest there. My wife, she loves to read and she used to be a big paper book reader, now she switched to a Kindle. And I'm really thankful for that because she would always come home with, you know, 20 30 different books that she goes and accumulates from friends, the bookstore, half price books, whatever. And reads them all and then they just start taking up space until she gets frustrated with them. And then wants me to go take them back to half priced books, so we just we just recently moved houses actually last week So you got more room for books now We got more more room for books There's actually a whole loft to the house that she wants to turn into a library cool But in getting prepared for that move she cleaned out all the bookshelves and everything and she had Well, she had two suitcases that were just completely filled with books that she wanted me to take to half priced books. And I mean, I'm not joking. These must have weighed 120 pounds or so total. And I lug these two suitcases in there and I wait in the store for an hour and a half while they go and scan everything and figure out how much money they're gonna give me. Anybody want to take a guess? 12. 55. You guys were, if you would split that, you're pretty close. We were right at like 25 and like, and like 36 cents or something. It's worth it. It was not worth it. So, so Kyrk, what kind of, what kind of goals have you guys set outside of work this year? Any, are we going to play some golf or are we just going to shoot? Ah, that's, well, I, I, so Golf's always been a, well not always, but in recent years golf's been a big thing. In, you know, 2021, 2, and 3, I had a lot of big tournaments on the list that I wanted to get into, play well, and try to qualify for some, some other tournaments. I had some good success with that. But then 24 happened and just the way schedules worked out, I didn't get to play nearly as much, as much golf. So I don't have any golf goals for 25 other than just get out and actually play a little bit more. I do would like to, you know, I did kind of, did kind of the same thing with shooting too, but I really didn't get into a whole lot. So I'd like to kind of ramp that up a bit more. The really good thing we did in 24 was my wife and I traveled a whole lot. So Oh, and you got a nice shooting jacket too. Yeah, I did get a, I did get a nice shooting jacket. Yeah. That's nice. So, for 25 outside of work, and outside of, you know, financial stuff, you know, I just want to continue traveling as much as reasonably possible. Play a little bit more golf, shoot a few more shotguns, and yeah. Really just kind of enjoy, enjoy life. We're at an age where we're we're still young enough where we have all of our health and all of our energy to enjoy things and we're old enough to where, you know, we've got mature enough in our finances to where we have some, some room to actually go and, and do some things. So we're in that kind of that perfect, perfect place. Window right now. Yeah. You don't have to sleep in the Subaru anymore. Yeah.. Well, don't even have the Subaru anymore . But yeah, we're kinda in that, that perfect spot right now to just really enjoy life. So anything we can do to, you know, devote more time to, to that you know, is to on the, the goal list for, for this year. What about horsing around Dana? Do you still horsing around? I still have my horse. I haven't seen him in a little bit, but What's your horse's name? Allen. Alan. He's really cool. I would describe him kind of as the golden retriever of horses. He's very good with kids and basically everyone. He's very nice, loves green apples. He's a really cool horse but I'll get back to seeing him probably when it gets warmer out. I have no interest in riding in cold weather. Well, it's hard to do anything in cold weather sometimes, but I guess not. Heck, people do it all the time, but so back to our goal setting. So, If we set goals, we have to be careful not to limit yourself and your goals. Because you don't want to set a goal that's, you know, like Dana said, that you can't reach. But then you don't want to set them that are so easy that you know you can reach them, you know, in a couple days, and then you don't have anything else to go, go through. So, what kind of financial goals do you think that, you know, would just to get somebody started, Kyrk? Just to get just to get somebody started, well, kinda, I guess it depends on where you're, where you're starting from. I think a great goal for everybody is to and this is something you're, you're gonna do throughout the entire year, is really just track where your money's actually going and make sure that it, you know, lines up with your priorities. If we, if we can do that, that's gonna go, that's gonna go a long way. And then, just start saving something whether it be, you know. 5 percent into your 401k. Just kind of starting to get the ball rolling on that. If everybody can do that, they're going to be in a much better place at the end of the year than they were at the start of the year. And we can help with that. We got some pretty cool software that can help you track all of your stuff. You know, where you're spending money, you know your car. Your food, whatever, we got, we have some stuff and we'll help you do that if you come in. Also, we can help you get started saving. I mean, you know, that's just, that's just what we do and, and make financial plans. So those things are, you know, they don't cost, it doesn't cost anything to come in and sit down and talk to us. So, you know, if you're interested, obviously. You can give me a call or Kyrk a call or Dana a call. Because Dana will always answer the phone. And most of the time that's who everybody talks to. So, Kyrk, why don't you expound upon that a little bit and close this thing out. Yeah, well, one thing that, you know, I always talk about this with everybody. And I think it's, I find that a lot of people are, Maybe intimidating is not the right word, but they have their guards up before they talk to us sometimes because they think we're going to come in and tell them, Hey, you're not allowed to spend money on this, this, and this kind of thing. And I frankly don't care where you spend your money. I just care that we spend it within our priorities and that we save a reasonable amount to, you know, get to retirement. So, for Some people that means, hey, I really, you know, have a passion for, for cars or golf or, you know, shotguns and horses and whatnot, and I want to spend extra money there. But as a result, you know, the things that I don't really care about, maybe it's for them, it's, it's food, maybe it's, I don't know, clothing, whatever. We, we, we cut a lot of spending in those, in those kind of areas. So, it's all about balance. So, I'm never going to tell somebody, hey, you're not allowed to, to do this anymore. I'm always going to encourage people to So they can go through and track where their money is going and then kind of look back and reflect on it and see, Hey, is this actually lined up with things that give me joy? If so, great, let's keep doing that. But inevitably we're going to find, you know, many areas that we can just start cutting spending and really not feel it. And once we cut that spending, now we have the extra margin to go pay off some debt. Or to save some more into retirement accounts. tour. You know, even spend more money on the things that we, that we love if we're already hitting those savings goals. Like Alice. I, I suppose. Oh, if I could interject, I remember when I when I first started here, I sat down and used our software. I sat down with Jacob Buckley, one of the other advisors, and I and I was like, give it to me straight. What do I have to do to make sure that my income is not, I'm not spending more than I'm making? And he told me that I would be in the negatives by the end of the year and I sat down with him in about August. And I came out of 2023 in the positives. Yay! But I really, it's because I, well I bought a house in August of 23. And then I was like, oh, I actually have to start budgeting because before, I didn't budget at all. So I just told myself, I'm like, alright, we gotta cut down as much as we can, wherever we can. So, I was spending my weekly budget for grocery shopping right now is about, I've bumped it up a little bit, but it's like 75 at the maximum, but I'm keeping it at 50. And then you know, I traded in my vehicle for one that has better And fuel efficiency and lower monthly payments and everything was cut in half with that. So using the software really showed me like visually that I was like not doing too well financially, but working here has really showed me that it's pretty easy if you just set your mind to a better, smaller goal of like, I did it once, one at a time, like I cut down. My grocery payments, I cut down my, what was, oh, the subscriptions. Like, I got rid of Netflix for a little bit. Got it back. But, got rid of it for a little bit. You know, like, all the small things that you don't think add up, but those are the ones that add up. You're right. See there's how simple it is? Yeah. And now Dana's an expert on it. That's right. All right, Kyrk. Well, I think I mean, I think that's kind of covered a lot of the goals here, so if you're sitting there thinking about your personal goals and want somebody to help hold you accountable to those we can help you with that as well. And if you're having trouble establishing what your financial goals should be or what you want those to be or just need, you know, another opinion of, hey, am I going in the right direction with the goals that I'm thinking of, you know, Give us a call and we'll sit down with you and make sure you're on the right track for getting to wherever you want to be. Thanks for listening to the How to Win podcast with Kyrk and Rick and Dana. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the How to Win Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the episode, and if you did, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform so you'll never miss an episode. If you have questions about your finances, visit our website@familyfinancialpartners.com or give us a call at (859) 219-1006.