[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 Michlle Enriquez, membership development manager here at Patelco Credit Union, and Happy New Year to everyone out there and welcome to season two of our podcast.
We want to just take a moment to reflect on 2023 and some of the topics we covered in our inaugural year. We talked about student loan forgiveness, the interest rate environment, a lot about fraud, some romance, job, student scams, and prevention tactics. We had our CEO in the studio talking about banking with the soul and a credit union difference.
We also talked about things like budgeting and opening your first kid’s accounts and being resilient for the holidays. And all of this really is in the spirit of helping with your financial wellness. And here at Patelco, we talk a ton about financial health and financial wellness. And today we’re going to talk [00:01:00] about really what that even means.
It’s 2024. And we promise you there’s not going to be any false hopes of new year, new me, but we do want to provide a positive and realistic approach to 2024 and meeting your financial goals. And a great way to do that. to talk about financial health and get you to think about what that means to you.
And luckily for all of us, Jennifer Mink is here with us to help us do that. Hi, Jen. Welcome back to the studio. Hello, Michelle. It’s good to be back. Happy New Year, everybody. Happy New Year. And okay, so what’s the appropriate time to say Happy New Year? Is it like a time range, like a month’s time, or is it the first time you see somebody in the New Year?
Like at what point do we stop saying Happy New Year? I feel like halfway through January is probably a good stopping point. But typically I say it if I haven’t seen somebody, so. It’s a good rule. Okay, but not past February. Right. Okay. So to start, and this conversation about financial health. If you [00:02:00] were to rate your financial health, your own personal, on a scale of financially struggling to financially thriving after having taken your family of six to Disneyland recently, what would you rate it, Jen?
Oh, boy, Michelle. What a loaded question. Well, I will have to say that I feel like I am financially thriving and that may surprise some people, but I’ll kind of explain to you why. And I would say probably. Four years ago, I would say that I would be financially struggling after going to Disneyland.
We all know the prices of the tickets, the airfare, all of the little souvenirs, the food, everything that those little ones need becomes quite the expense and, you end up paying three or four car payments while you’re at Disneyland. But about three years ago, my husband and I sat down to actually have a conversation about financial health.
And I’ve been at Patelco for it’ll be 29 years in February and believe it or [00:03:00] not, I still struggled with financial health, right? I am a spender. My husband is a saver. And we’ve been married for about 16 years and we needed to align on how we were going to manage this. So I think the conversation on financial health was actually triggered after about 10 Amazon packages ended up on our porch one day.
And in my defense. Most of them that were in the necessities, but, some were also impulse purchases. So, as a family of six with kids getting old enough to remember and enjoy vacations, we really honed in on how we could take vacations without getting into an enormous amount of debt. We’d done that, the whole time we had had kids.
Our oldest is 12. and we would go on vacations and we would charge it up. we decided we needed to set a savings plan both up for traveling and emergency, savings. And for the first few years of this plan, we didn’t travel at all. We stayed at home. We did staycations. We worked on the house. did things around [00:04:00] town, things, you know, that didn’t cost money.
But on the third year, after we had been saving, we were able to take our four kids to Ohlone in Hawaii this last February. And then this last Christmas, we took them to Disneyland, as you mentioned. And both vacations, I can proudly say, incurred no debt, and they were fully paid in cash. Nice. So, during this three year period, we were able to triple our emergency savings as well and now have better peace of mind that we can navigate through life’s financial challenges, which makes me super happy.
And as the Director of Member Experience and Financial Health, I feel like I need to have that, that down and solid, right? So, , in case you’re wondering after hearing this story, I have morphed into more of a saver throughout this process and I really think that sitting down and creating a budget and sticking to it, that’s the key word is sticking to it, has really helped me and my financial mindset over the last three years.
And Veronica Dangerfield, who’s also been, , on this podcast and [00:05:00] is our financial educator for Patelco, once said something that stuck to me and is, what you focus on is what you put your energy into. And I really did that for the last three years. Yep. Well, first of all, congratulations for surviving two Disney, not one, but two Disney trips, without incurring any debt.
But let’s talk about. Two things that, really resonated there. It’s planning and saving and let’s talk about the definition of financial health a little bit more. So credit unions work closely with the National Financial Health Network and they do tons of and studies around understanding financial health and they talk about it in this way.
Financial health comes about when your daily systems help you build resilience and pursue opportunities. They believe that financial health is the best indicator of a person’s ability to thrive financially from weathering shocks to achieving their goals. Further, financial health is a composite measurement of an individual’s financial life.
So unlike narrow metrics like credit [00:06:00] scores and health assessments, whether people are spending, saving, borrowing, and planning in ways that will enable them to be resilient and pursue opportunities. So there’s four main categories that they mention. And their spend, save, borrow, and plan are what they consider the main components of financial health.
And our team, develops financial education curriculum for a number of audiences. And those four principles really do cover all the important things related to financial stability. I think what it boils down to is understanding where your money is coming and going. And the B word budgeting that you mentioned, , you actively save and have goals, so that’s something that’s intentional for you and your spouse.
You’ve maximized borrowing, meaning you’re taking advantage of the best rates possible, and you have sufficient insurance to weather a financial storm. So the emergency savings that you’re talking about. So with all of those four components, you should feel more in [00:07:00] control and less stressed or healthy as a result.
I want to add that financial health doesn’t necessarily mean you have a ton of money, but that the money that you do have is working comfortably for you. You’re a lifestyle and your goals and it sounds like, you know, you’ve had that conversation about what your goals are. You plan what you’re going to do and then you take action, based on those goals.
So we’re in the business of helping our members achieve financial health or try to achieve financial health. And Jen, you’re close to a lot of that work. What does that mean for Patelco and the way we serve our membership? Yeah. And Michelle, something I want to mention to, to everybody listening to this podcast that the financial health can really vary from person to person, right?
It’s deeply influenced by somebody’s personal goals or even their values. For example, someone who loves to experience adventures and traveling, may prioritize savings for these types of activities, kind of like we did, right? Others may value financial security and work on building their [00:08:00] savings and retirement over time.
And that was another thing that was really important to us, especially with four young kids. And then others may really want to get out of debt and therefore they sacrifice saving money and traveling to meet that goal. And that was actually another part of our three year plan as well, is that we got out of debt except for a car and a house payment.
So it’s really been so freeing to have no credit card debt at all. But, you know, you asked, what does that mean for Patelco in the way we serve our membership? And Patelco is very focused on financial wellness and financial health. We have a financial wellness email newsletter that goes out every month.
We send, updates through email that are, you know, really targeted at keeping the financial health of our members safe, fraud emails, scam alerts, things like that. We have financial wellness on patelco. org. Training. training happens with our team, how can our team talk to a member and really uncover what it is that they need [00:09:00] to move up those building blocks of financial freedom?
And that’s something that we really focus on here at Patelco and something that makes me really proud.
So I mentioned we do develop curriculum for some of our audiences and we teach classes all the time. But I’m a Patelco member too and I get those financial wellness email and they’re chock full of great information. There’s upcoming webinars, of course our podcast, but all kinds of great tips to help with financial wellness.
So if you’re a member and you do receive that email, take a look at it. It’s really intended to not be any kind of sales tool at all, but really genuinely just trying to. Give our members, financial, health and wellness tips. So we said, we’re not going to say new year, new me today, like we always do.
Instead, let’s say, and I’m going to steal this from Veronica Dangerfield, the, our financial educator that you mentioned. She runs a program called Get Ready, Be Ready, Stay Ready, and I love that name so much. It’s so good. The difference for me this year will be, [00:10:00] to stay ready, not just to stop or get started.
So in the spirit of getting ready, these are my financial tips for optimum financial health. And we talked about those four categories. It’s the spend, save, borrow, and plan. So in the spend category, do you have a budget? If not, Get one started. And if you don’t know where to get started, those financial wellness emails that we talked about or our website is a great place to do that.
In the save category, do you have an emergency fund set up like Jen and her spouse started? Again, if you’re not sure where to get started. Our website, patelco. org, is a great place to find more information. In the borrow category, take a deeper look into your credit card debt. Do you know the rates on all your credit accounts and loans?
If not, just make a simple list on paper and try and prioritize the payoff. Our certified financial specialists are great folks to meet with on a complimentary [00:11:00] basis to talk about, prioritizing that payoff list if you do need help. Then the last category, the plan category, if you don’t have a short, mid, or long term goal, think about it.
Put it down on paper. Jen talked about, you know, her vacation goals. Maybe that was a one year goal. It might be a five year goal, , for some folks. But really writing your goals down on paper, thinking about a timeline, and then applying, , specifics to it is a great way to get planning. So, Jen, give us your top Patelco resources to help with learning about any of those financial health topics.
Absolutely. So, I think number one is our webinars. Our webinars are so robust and informational. I attend almost every single webinar that we have, during the year and I, I even being in a credit union industry for 29 years with Patelco, learn something new every time I log in. So, even if you think you know it all, and you’re, you know, you’re at that [00:12:00] achieving financial freedom, state in your, your life.
, check them out. You might find something that you didn’t know. We have a financial resource center at patelco. org, which is full of information. We have different resources such as Bonsai and Balance. They can help you budget. They can help you save, , set up long term and short term goals. We have a new money market account that is absolutely amazing.
It is not an investment account. It is a high yield savings and the rate goes higher with the more money that you save. And so that will really help to build that emergency savings account. And then financial insights, something that we recently released, , on patelco. org through our online banking. You can allocate, Different charges and different transfers within your account to different categories.
And then you can really see at the end of the month where that money’s going to and where you may need to to make some adjustments. And I just wanna [00:13:00] mention too, that, , internally here at Patelco, we have these things called building blocks. And it’s the road to financial freedom and something that we think about when we’re helping our members because we really do want to meet our members where they’re at.
So, at the bottom of the building blocks is managing effectively, so how do we help our members to manage their day to day finances simply, comfortably, and securely? And so that might be someone just starting out. You’re just moving out of the house or maybe you’re, you know, just getting out of high school or whatever that may be.
We want to teach you how to manage effectively, through the beginning of your financial freedom road. And then being resilient, we want to make sure that our members are resilient to life’s ups and downs. And this is by guiding all of our members, everybody listening to this podcast, to save diligently and borrow responsibly.
And that is huge, saving and borrowing responsibly, because there are some not great loans out there, and we want to make sure [00:14:00] that when you do take out a loan, that it is going to help you on your road to financial freedom. And then seizing opportunities. So strengthen strengthening your financial future.
Inspiring you to plan purposefully, and then the last the last block, is achieving financial freedom, and I think that’s where we are all heading and where we want to help you to get, and that is what Patelco is here to do. And please use our resources, talk to our team members.
They are trained to help you, and they are ready and willing to get you on that road and this is why we love having you in the studio so much, Jim, because as much as I think I’ve got this financial health thing down and I’m ready to start this year off on a good start, I’m getting even more great tips and inspiration from you.
So we’re saying, No new year, new me. Let’s say get ready, be ready and stay ready. Be intentional about your financial goals. Sit down and formulate a plan with your loved ones and talk about what financial health means to you. And if you [00:15:00] need help along the way, Patelco’s right here with a lot of great resources, to support you.
So Jen, you’re our very first guest of 2024. I’m probably going to ask you back to the studio to talk more about this subject because we can never really truly talk enough about it, right? Agree. Would you say that we’re in the best way, the best financial health nerds, and we could talk about this all day?
Oh, totally. I geek out on it all the time. Books, webinars, podcasts, you name it. I listen to everything financial related, so I love it all. I also collaborate with other credit unions who I think do a really good job at also educating their members on financial health. So I’m constantly a sponge going around soaking up knowledge that I can help our members with It’s so amazing and we appreciate your expertise so much. So maybe we’ll be back here mid year to check in on our financial health goals. That sounds good. And then maybe a last time at the end of the year. Well, we wish everyone out there a happy new year and happy financial health planning. [00:16:00] 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.

[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 we’re chatting getting young people set up for financial independence.
And I’ve got my mom hat on with fellow mom and amazing colleague, Kelly Young, who is one of the retail. Branch performance managers here at Patelco. Hey, Kelly. Welcome to the studio. Thanks for having me. This place is super cute. Glad to be here So nice, right? Yeah, so I wasn’t gonna bring up your football team That is from Philly, but you’re wearing a green jacket today, so I couldn’t oh, no I mean, I can’t believe you’re doing that.
So I said that was off the rules, you know, you’re not allowed to do that But yes, it was not the best game So we’re talking you and I talk a lot about our kids and getting them set up Or figuring out what the [00:01:00] right time is to transition from the youth account to really letting the reins go and allowing your child to access funds and use a debit card.
And that’s what we’re talking about today. And there’s no right or wrong answer, um, but I’m excited to talk it through with you, Kelly, because we’ve both got kids that are at that transition age. And Kelly’s a little bit ahead of me. She’s got an 18 year old and a 12 year old, so hoping she can impart her experience on us today.
So We’ve chatted before and we think we’re doing our best to help teach our kids and we’re lucky that we’re exposed to financial know how all the time, but not everybody is, right? It’s top of mind for us, but what would you say about the importance of learning about finances early on? Um, it’s really, really important.
Myself was never taught that by my parents. Uh, I never really saw saving strategies from them. So, when I would get my birthday money or the piggy bank money, I’d want to go out and spend it right away and buy, like, the cool teen magazine that [00:02:00] was out, the candy. Whatever I needed at the exact moment, not thinking about future needs or not thinking about that cool bigger thing I’d want, like the new boom box that was coming out when we were little.
So, I’d immediately always spend it. I wanted to make sure with my kids that I set them up differently and that I taught them to save. So every time that they got a gift, or when we finally did roll their piggy bank, that they put part of it in the bank. And they were able to spend some of it, because you still want to have fun, but then it taught them the value of money more that way.
So, when those purchases did come that they wanted, they had the money in the bank. Also, I wanted them to be excited about banking, because I didn’t know what banking was at all. So, we started at eight years old, their first savings account. We rolled their little piggy bank, took their piggy bank apart, rolled all the money, brought it in, and I made it a really exciting thing for them.
So then, each time they did get money, they were really excited to go in and make that first deposit. I think the importance of doing that then, it’s set up a habit, and those habits then stay with them through the future. So every time then, when they [00:03:00] did get money, they’re like, oh yeah, gotta go to the bank, mom, gotta put some of it in.
Really, really important, I think, to start them at a young age. Yeah, and so much nostalgia there. I think we’re dating ourself a little bit. I did. I said boombox. I dated. Teen magazine, rolling coins, but those are memories. I totally agree. So for me, my parents didn’t really help us understand the why behind saying yes or no to things.
And you know how kids are, right? I’m sure your kids are the same. You know, it’s, they ask for things because, you know, they want them. But, Growing up, we didn’t really get a sense of the value of things or budgeting, so, like, I might have asked for a new piece of sports equipment, like a glove or a softball bat or something, and the answer was either yes or no.
There was no real deeper understanding, maybe, You know, that’s something we can invest in when you get more serious, or if you play another year, or that’s a really expensive item. Is that something you can borrow for now, and maybe you can work towards earning later? Is that something we can buy gently used [00:04:00] at a lower price, or do those things ever go on sale?
So, my point is that there was never any dialogue around needs and wants, which you and I know is the basis for budgeting and spending. Absolutely. So, I’ve got a 9 year old and a 12 year old, and they’re at that transition age right now where their wish lists are getting more and more expensive by the year, right?
You know what I’m talking about. Oh, yes. Earpods and iPhones and expensive tennis shoes. My son is Jordan’s. Jordan’s shoes. Yes. Trendy clothing brands. Skin care products. Yes. I don’t know what’s happening. That’s the teenage daughter that I have. But, before I want to hand them a debit card and start their spending, spending their own money, I just want to make sure that they’re considering Their needs, their wants, our budget and constraints, alternatives, all of that stuff.
So, for you and your oldest one, when did you determine it was time, or that they were ready to make these decisions on their own and manage their own account? So again, [00:05:00] that’s never a right or wrong answer with that one, and it’s really hard as a parent. Because there’s lots of scary things. But, with my son When we decided, after the savings account, to get him a checking, he was a freshman in high school.
The reason we decided to get his first checking account is, of course, as a freshman, you get your first part time job. So we knew, with him getting a job, that he would need a way to be able to access the money I wanted to make sure that it was easy accessible for him too, so we really talked about the direct deposit right away.
So that way he didn’t have to come in and I didn’t have to drive him to the bank because he didn’t have a car yet. So we wanted to make it very easy. As far as him doing it on his own, It was a little scary because he actually wanted to do it on his own. I asked to be on his account and he said, Mom, I got this.
You’ve taught me a lot of stuff. I have my mobile. I’ll show you my balances. It’s gonna be okay. So that was really hard for me to let go and allow him to do that. But I think, like we were talking about, because I had those conversations with him about saving and how to do things ahead of time, I felt a little more confident, letting him go ahead and have his first checking [00:06:00] account without me being on it.
Yeah, outside of that, what else were you worried about? Probably overdrawing. So I had a bad experience when I was younger. I went to a bank, not a credit union. They didn’t really care. You were allowed to overdraw your accounts there. So I went crazy with my debit card. I probably spent more than I really needed to as a teenager.
And again, because my parents never taught and had that conversation. So I was really worried about him maybe doing the same mistake. Luckily, Patelco has guardrails you can put in place, though, so that the teen accounts don’t overdraw themselves. So that gave me a little bit of peace of mind knowing he wasn’t going to go crazy with his debit card.
I also wanted to make sure that he was still saving. I was going to be worried about that. That if he had a checking and the direct deposit went in there, that he was going to go buy those Jordans. Because even though you have talks with them about the needs and wants, they’re still teenagers and want those things.
So, Luckily, we were able to set up, though, that when his direct deposit went in, he had an automatic portion of it going to his savings. So, it made me feel a little better, but definitely I think those were two of my biggest fears. Yeah, and he [00:07:00] sounds pretty responsible for him to come to you and say, like, I’m ready, I got this, I’m going to show you what my balances are.
I think it says a lot about him,, and his own personality, and I do think the personality and their level of responsibility really kind of depends on when you’re going to let, You know, the rains go, so my 12 year old, son is a saver. He hates to spend. Ooh, that’s good. He’s, he will think about things five times before he spends the money, because he just hates to spend it.
He’s a hoarder. I have a feeling he’s going to be super on top of monitoring and checking his balances. My 9 year old daughter, however, she’s the polar opposite. You know, the minute it comes in, it’s gone the next. She’s more frivolous with her money, and she’s also not the kid who
she’s also the kid that’s losing her library book. She’s not on top of her grades, right? So, for her, I’m probably going to wait a little bit longer to get her started. But, again, just personality. You know what? So, my son actually was that. He would lose things in his room. Still [00:08:00] sometimes loses his debit card.
Luckily, we can lock that on the online banking. So I kind of thought that too, but you’d be surprised if you teach them from a young age, they can surprise you. Totally understand personalities. Because my daughter, just like your son, the saver though. She doesn’t want to spend anything. Yeah. My son’s excited though.
We have a milestone set for his 13th birthday. Oh, exciting. He knows that that’s, you know, the, the, the marker for when he can open his own account and get his own debit card and all that. So there’s, you know, something to look forward to and there’s conversation we can have leading up to that. So there’s some excitement and build up toward that, so he knows October 3rd.
Yeah, and it’s fun when you build the excitement, because then that makes him want to learn more about finances, I think. Well, and be good about it when the time comes, right? So, almost he views it as a privilege. Yeah. What about your 18 year old? What is the value about how he banks? What are the things that he really needs with an account based on his values?
Of course, nowadays with kids, everything is [00:09:00] convenience and ease of use. Everything’s at their fingertips. So, for him, that was really, really important. I think because I started him with direct deposit, at a young age, he didn’t have to worry about his paycheck going into his account, or him driving anywhere, so that was great for him.
He rarely has to go into a branch because he does everything through his mobile app. Sometimes he’ll get one off checks from like aunties or uncles because some people still mail checks. And he uses the mobile app deposit. So he loves that because then he doesn’t have to drive anywhere. He just goes to the kitchen table, takes a picture of it.
So he loves that ease of use. The other thing he really, really likes is He doesn’t withdraw cash a lot, but sometimes he wants to have cash in his pocket, and with Patelco, you can go to any 7 Eleven and withdraw cash for free. Not a lot of people know that. But he’s like, Mom, 7 Eleven’s on every corner. I can get money whenever I want it.
So again, very easy, for him. And that’s what he really looks for with his banking. Yep. I totally agree on the digital features. That’s how this next generation is going to bank. We’ve been in a couple [00:10:00] meetings this week talking about, the importance of brick and mortar. So a physical branch, especially when it comes to young people and applying for their first loan or their first credit card.
So while they may not think they’re going to need to go into a branch and talk to someone, just that peace of mind to know, hey, when it’s something important, Like getting your first loan or like if fraud occurs and I really need to talk to somebody in person, knowing that that’s there as an option, is really critical too because my son thinks he’s just going to have PayPal and he’s just going to have,, Venmo and that’s just going to be it.
But they really need to understand that no, there’s so much more value banking with a full service financial institution. So getting them to understand those things, is really important that we talk. So, Patelco’s student checking account that we keep referencing here has the ability to integrate with Apple Wallet, right?
Yes, that is the new cool thing that everybody uses. I was a little late to the train, but my son was the one who told me that I had to do it. So, I was like, oh, okay.[00:11:00] It absolutely has the ability to do that, makes it a lot easier for them. The kids nowadays don’t like to bring their wallets a lot of places.
They just do the tap tap. So absolutely you can do that with our check, the teen checking account. What other kind of features with the account are there? So you can open it with us at, starting at age 13, right? Correct. Okay. And then that goes until 17 and then they can transition to a regular free checking?
Yes. Okay. Okay. And then with the student account, what? How is that different from a regular free check in account, other than the age range of 13 to 17? They still get a debit card? They’ll still get a debit card, so it works almost just the same. It just allows them, there are lower limits. Like I said, there’s some guardrails in place, so they don’t go buck wild with spending or overdrawing.
So that’s something that’s a little different, why they’re still learning about finances. But it still comes with all the great features. Like the mobile banking, you can set up alerts, so if they want to know what their spending habits are. I set that up for my son, and he loves it. Sometimes he forgets,, what [00:12:00] he spent, so it’ll get alerts for certain dollar amounts.
Like every time he has spends more than 50, he has an alert for himself. Gets 50 for him as a big purchase, so he wants to make sure. That also helps protect him from fraud, so if his card was ever compromised, he would know right away. Okay, and then in terms of oversight as a parent, what are the options with the student account?
So, can you be joint on it? Can you not be if they’re ready? , absolutely. You have the option of being joint or not being joint. And so, maybe at 13 till they’re ready, till like 16, maybe with your son, you might want to be joint. And then maybe at 16, he’s like, Hey mom, I’m ready. Training wheels are off.
Let me be by myself. You can remove the parent at that time. So it gives you the flexibility of whatever you feel comfortable with or whatever you decide with your child that works best. Okay. I’m getting ready. You’re building me up. Oh no. You can do it. Take the training wheels off. And I feel like with every episode we record in this studio, fraud always integrates with any subject.
It’s so prevalent out there. It’s, it’s happening all the time and it’s. [00:13:00] Crazy, the fraud that is being seen out there. What are you talking with your kids about, fraud and scams? Yeah, right now I’m trying to teach my kid that easy money is not good money. So there’s a lot of frauds going on with the, the teens where they’re telling them, Hey, if you post this on Instagram, I’ll give you 500 or 1, 000.
To them, that’s a lot of money. But what I need from you is your online banking information so I can go in and make the deposit. And that is a huge red flag, I always tell my son, you never, never compromise your login information or your passwords with anyone, no matter the amount of money they’re giving you.
It is a fraud. It is a scam., the other thing that’s really big right now, too, is the teen saying that they’re going to get a job online. And if you sign up with us, we’re going to send you a check, but we need you to send a portion of that back to us for training or for supplies. Well, that check ends up being a bad check.
And then that teen ends up sending the money back. And now they’re In the loop for the money they sent back, or worse, if they actually spend the remainder of the check, when that check comes back as fraud, their account can be [00:14:00] overdrawn up to 2, 000, I’ve seen in some examples. So, that’s a huge one. Never accept checks from people you don’t know.
And don’t ever share your PIN number. I’ve seen a lot of teens, oh just give me your card, I’m gonna deposit this check in. So, I really tried to instill in my son too, that is not information you ever, ever share with anyone. Yeah, the sending money and the job thing. It blows my mind because you think about it and you’re like, I would never do that.
But then you think about the vulnerability of a young person and they’re trying to get a job and they believe this is the way. Or they want those new Jordans or those cool things out there so they fall for the scam thinking that, hey, I have the money now, I can go do it. So. So it’s no sharing passwords or PIN ever.
Ever., no sending money. No sending money back to anybody ever. It’s an empty promise. It’s an empty promise. And then you gotta be careful with those text messages. Or just any kind of messages in general, right? If it’s an unrecognizable address, prompting you to do something is probably not the job.
Yep, that’s right. If they ever prompt you to put in your personal information on any of those texts. It’s, it’s [00:15:00] fraud usually. Okay. I would say always. Not even usually. Okay. So if our listeners have more questions out there, we’ve got two great resources for you. First of all, the student checking that we’re talking about can be found on patelco.
org. Slash student. So that’s 90566a.com/student. To learn more about our Patelco student checking account, we also have some great information related to fraud and protecting yourself against fraud on our fraud resource center, all 90566a.com. And Kelly, we’re gonna have to have you back in studio. Oh, I loved it.
That was so much fun. I so enjoyed this. I would love to come back and chat with you again. But also, you’re the best person to pull out all sorts of great information out. So if I need to learn about something else, hey, come see me. Yeah, absolutely. 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. Patelco Credit Union is insured by NCUA.

[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 Michele Enriquez, Membership Development Manager here at Patelco Credit Union, and today we’re chatting the return of student loan payments and the challenges the return the payments have had on the government and loan servicers, but also how much strain the return of payments are having on Americans budgets.
And in the studio, we’re welcoming two veterans to the show today to unpack all of this. We’ve got Andrew Farrell, Patelco’s Community Engagement Specialist, and Kristi Longoria, Patelco’s Financial Health Manager. Great to have you here, you guys. Thank you, Michele. It’s great to be here. Thanks, Michele.
So, after more than three years of a pandemic pause on student loan payments, tens of millions of Americans will be required to make a payment on their federal student loans, and this is as of October. We’ll start with you, Kristi. As our financial health [00:01:00] manager and having worked in credit unions, helping students and families understand student loan options and the financial aid process, how did we get here?
Um, what are you seeing? Yeah, you know, it’s been a really long road the past couple of years when it comes to changes, to systems that, you know, are kind of notoriously, black and white, right? When it comes to student loan payments, you pay it, you didn’t pay it, it impacts your credit, it doesn’t impact your credit.
There’s so much that goes into understanding what it means to make a payment to a loan. And when we think about how complicated loans are, right? From the financial institution perspective, we as credit union employees understand that lending money is a process., it takes a lot of judgment. There’s documents, there’s papers.
And one of the things that I think that has really shined through over the past couple of years is a [00:02:00] lack of understanding when it comes to what our students are being asked to do. What their expectation is when it comes to paying a loan back, what it means to borrow, and how old they are when they’re being asked to do these things.
And this narrative that keeps popping up on every sort of media, social media, in the news, is a lack of empathy, a lack of understanding for what our students are going through. And I think like we can talk all day long about, you know, what a Responsible borrower looks like, but do they look 17? Do they look 18?
Should they know inherently what that responsibility looks like? And so much lack of empathy for the fact that our students, who were legitimately kids at that time borrowing these funds, We’re holding them [00:03:00] responsible for now as adults decisions that they made when they were, you know, 17 years old and literally, 17 years old, I’m sitting in my senior, you know, college readiness class and I’m filling out these applications and I don’t really, just click here and yes, and I agree to pay all of these things back.
And then the course of, you know, going to college starts, and then tuition increases, and then, Oh, but I don’t have to worry about that because I’m going to start my payments after graduation and now I’ve got a snowball of debt and I don’t really understand what it means to have to pay it back. So over the, you know, the course of the past few years, these students have been dealing with so much more too on top of just their debt itself.
It’s the family dynamics and hardships that have come because of a pandemic. And I still am hearing and seeing a lot of these surface comments about They should have known better. They should have understood what they were doing. [00:04:00] Everybody else has to pay back what they borrow. But, at the same time, we’re not thinking about the lender.
What is the lender’s responsibility in lending to a population that doesn’t have income, legally restricted from actually making significant income as being students, right? No credit check, there’s no credit in existence because I’m a minor and all of these things. And it’s just shocking to me that we, as a society, can’t take a step back and say, look at what the system has imposed on these students, our expectation of them might actually be too high, and the role of the lender, and in this case that’s the federal government, in providing a loan to a student.
Who doesn’t know if they’re going to have the income to pay it back? That’s the whole purpose of why they’re going to school. So, you know, what we’re talking about, you know, what it is that we’re seeing, [00:05:00] it’s a broad question. We’re seeing a lack of empathy, but we’re also seeing change. We’re seeing a motivation to understand a system better, which can hopefully bring better processes and procedures in.
We’re seeing growth on behalf of our seniors, you know, those that are going to be going off to college, seem to be more aware now. of the implications of borrowing large sums of money, and they’re making, you know, better decisions. But there’s just a lot. Yeah. It’s a lot there. Andrew’s over here, shaking his head.
Oh, yeah. I think in, in, in sympathy here, and frankly, maybe just a little triggered also. But, Andrew, you help, write our curriculum that we’re teaching to our high school students here at Patelco, but you also yourself have, your own student loans. Before we get to that, the average student loan payment is 503 according to the education initiative.
In addition to having to fit the
What has been your personal experience? What has been the [00:06:00] processes that you’ve had to deal with going back with the return of student loan payments? Michele, it has been a nightmare. It has been horrible. I have hated every second of it. So I do have student loans myself. I’ve got about 30k totaled.
Between my federal loans and my private loans, so it’s not a crippling amount, but admittedly I did spend the entirety of the loan deferment period just pretending like my student loans didn’t exist, which I think that was a case for a lot of borrowers that are out there. And with there also being talks of, you know, some type of federal loan forgiveness maybe happening during that time, I was just riding that wave of hope and, and didn’t want to give.
The United States Office of Federal Student Aid, a dollar of my money, unnecessarily. But now unfortunately, you know, here we are. And for me, the process of just trying to figure out what my loans were, where they were, what my balances were, was quite taxing. So I have three loans. I have a private loan and two federal loans.
One is subsidized and one is unsubsidized. I was always making payments on my private loan because I [00:07:00] knew that one was not going to go anywhere. But prior to deferment, my two federal loans were with different loan servicers. However, when I was notified that my payments were going to resume, I got an email that gave me 1 amount and one set date from one loan servicer that I did not recognize.
So my first instinct was to just call the Office of Federal Aid to ask my questions like is this my total amount, could I adjust my due date, what type of repayment plan am I in. And after sitting on hold for three hours, three full, not an exaggeration, three full hours, someone answered and quickly told me that I had to call the actual loan servicer and they could not help me.
Yeah. So I was frustrated, reached out to Nelnet, waited another almost two hours before I ultimately had to just hang up because I had, you know, stuff to do. Went on their website, tried to log in to both studentaid. gov and Nelnet’s website and that was its own. Yeah. Adventure in and of itself. I didn’t know my passwords.
There was like a pin involved that I didn’t remember [00:08:00] setting. But once I got in, I attempted to review my overall plan information myself, but I still had a lot of questions. There are also things you just can’t do online, like I wanted to request a change in my due date, but for that you have to speak to someone, so it kind of sets you up not for the most success in that regard.
Wash that up to a dead end and I figure right now I’m just going to pay this amount as I know it will at least keep me current. And then hopefully in a few months once this return to student loan mania dies down a little bit, I can, I can try calling again. I will say though that enrolling in AutoPay can be done online, and I would definitely recommend that to all borrowers if you’re able to, since any federal student loan enrolled in AutoPay will give you a quarter percent rate reduction, which can be huge when you’re trying to reintegrate a student loan payment back into your budget.
A struggle that I have fitting this into my current budget is that the default due date they gave me is the first of the month. And I already have like four or five bills coming out that day, so having another large one being added, is not the best, you know, due date for [00:09:00] me. So there are some supports available.
Is changing your due date one of them? Changing your due date is something you can do. You have to call somebody, so if you have the patience of a saint, feel free to call and wait three hours and get that done with your loan servicer, though. Not with studentaid. gov. I learned that lesson the hard way. But, you know, enrolling in AutoPay will give you a quarter percent rate discount.
You can also look into what kind of repayment plan you’re in, if you change to like a graduated or an income driven based repayment plan, you could probably save a little bit of money that way. And I would also say just using this reintegration of this payment back into your budget could just be a good opportunity to reassess your budget as a whole, see if there’s some cuts that can be made to where you can fit this in a little bit more organically.
I feel like. A lot of times budgets get pretty set in stone, and they don’t become as flexible as they need to be. So just taking this as a, as a moment to reassess everything, could be better for just a holistic viewpoint of your financial health as well. So let’s talk more about additional resources and [00:10:00] other repayment plans, and there’s a SAVE program that we’ll talk about here in a second, but for borrowers, there won’t be any borrowers reported to the credit bureaus for delinquencies until October of 2024.
Interest on loans will continue to accrue during that time, however, right? But there’s also temporary forbearance option that postpones payments but drives up interest costs. Most appealing and available to most is an income driven repayment program. This is safe. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yes, so the safe program is an income driven or payment program It means your monthly payment is based on your income and your family size. There are a lot of caveats and specifics with the plan. But a general rule is that any individual earning less than around 32, 000 a year will have a 0 monthly payments.
And that income number goes up depending on your family size. So for example, a family of four earning less than around 67, 000 also has zero dollar monthly payments. And [00:11:00] that is not a deferment or a forbearance. That is your actual monthly payment just set to zero dollars. And even if you don’t meet that exact requirement, let’s say you, you make a little bit more, you’ll still likely have much lower monthly payments compared to any other income driven plan, since your payments are based on a smaller portion of your adjusted gross income.
And another cool thing about SAVE is that your loan balance will never grow due to unpaid interest. So typically when you pay a loan, your monthly payment covers interest first and anything left over will then go to principal. On the SAVE plan, however, you may have a super low monthly payment that doesn’t even cover your total interest, but as long as you actually make that minimum monthly payment, the government covers the rest of the unpaid interest for that month.
Even if your monthly payment is actually at $0, government will subsidize your interest accrual entirely every month. , so your principal balance may not go down, but at least it won’t keep getting larger and larger due to interest on the loan compounding. Okay, great. Where can we find out more information about the [00:12:00] save program?
I just went to federal aid.gov. I’m sorry, student aid.gov. And if you just type in save in the search bar, it brings up the chart for what you’re. The dollar amount can be based on your family size and your income,, and you actually can apply for this online as well. So you don’t have to wait on hold forever.
This can be done online. Okay, perfect. So that is any kind of payment adjustment support that you might need. But Kristi, let’s talk about student loan forgiveness, for a second. Last year you helped employees of our partner, employees directly, achieve over 150, 000 in student loan forgiveness, which was Incredible.
Right. So you’re, you’re our go-to you’re our guru and helping them navigate through the public, public service loan forgiveness program. This summer, we had some big news related to the forgiveness programs, right. The Biden administration continues to move forward with alternative federal student loan forgiveness plans after being struck down by the Supreme Court this summer, but they’ve unveiled a new proposal.
And there’s a lot of new news coming out, and it feels like it’s [00:13:00] coming out daily. What’s your recommendation for borrowers to keep up with all the news and all the changes? Yeah, I think first and foremost, understand, and this is such a, an easy thing to say, not an easy thing to implement. It’s to make sure that you are asking questions to the right folks, and also knowing when you might feel Like your student loan payment is too much, if you feel like it is burdening you beyond your ability to provide for your basic care needs and all of those things, that in itself is a question.
You shouldn’t feel like that as a result of your federal student loans. And so if you are, it means connecting with whatever resources you can find available to you to ask, what can I do about my student loan payments? One of the biggest issues that we’re seeing right now too is since the restart of, paying back, folks saying that their, monthly amount that’s due is [00:14:00] too high, or it’s wrong, or I didn’t, I wasn’t expecting to see it this way.
You can request something called administrative forbearance, and it’s something that will allow the, servicers. To get it together, because right now it’s, it’s overwhelming for everybody, for the buyers, or you know, for those who are paying, for those that are trying to collect the payment, like it’s just kind of an all around mess right now, everybody’s kind of swimming in the, with the sharks.
The difference though is when you are the one who’s on the hook for those funds. What the impact to you is a lot greater than my empathy is gonna be for a large, you know, federal loan servicer. Right? But that is gonna be crucial for many folks that are on safe plans, that have, refinanced and consolidated and all of these things that have been happening over the past couple years.
And with this restart, things not going as planned. Making sure that you are taking advantage of every opportunity that you can to. Know what it is your payment should be and pay that amount. When it comes to [00:15:00] Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. Notoriously really complicated program that has a lot of ifs, right?
You can have your loan forgiven if you meet this criteria, and then the criteria is really not that clear, and then, oh, that applied in the past, and now it doesn’t anymore. So the, really, your best resource is going to be, with studentaid. gov, going on and seeing what programs are current in place, when did they,
You know, when did you have to consolidate by, when did you have to do X, Y, and Z by, and making sure that if at any point you are unable to make that payment, the payment is impacting your quality of life. If it is, you know, so burdensome that, you know, you’re having to resort to utilizing public benefits, make sure you ask somebody.
Somebody. Over lunch, we were talking about how Andrew’s enrolled in the SAVE program. He went through that process, but he’s also trying to work toward forgiveness through PSLF. Can you talk [00:16:00] about whether or not you can be in those two programs simultaneously, how that works, and then a little bit about how the student loan pause affected PSLF?
Yeah, so PSLF is its own program that’s separate from the income based, repayment programs. And it’s not necessarily a one or the other. The repayment programs are really strict to what is your income, what can you afford to pay. You have to do a certification every year that shows what your income is to make sure that, you know, it’s an appropriate balance between what your income is and what your payment is, and that can fluctuate over the course of your repayment.
But PSLF is more about the institution that you are working for over the course of, really, your career. PSLF is geared towards those who are working for not for profit institutions, non profit institutions. Generally, you’ll hear them referred to as 501c3s. But it’s also not as easy as just working for a non [00:17:00] profit.
There’s all kinds of ways that you can count your years. You have to have 120 payments over, you know, the course of, you know, 10 years, but it doesn’t have to be all in a row. It could be, you know, maybe you started working at a non profit, and then you moved to a corporate institution, and then you went back to non profit.
As long as over those periods of time, you can get a certification that says that you worked there, and that you qualify. Then add up all of those years over that time, and if you’ve made your 120 payments, then you can submit, for forgiveness. And I think one of the huge benefits of the student loan pause, too, was that those months When you were not making payments, over the pause, count towards, your PSLF payments.
And that’s not something that a lot of people know about. And so I would hate for somebody who maybe was on those last two years, and thinking, oh, okay, well at least I don’t have to make a payment, and now I’ve got two more years to make up for the pause. No, those, those non payments were your [00:18:00] payments, so they counted.
You just made Andrew’s day. Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought. Music to my ears. So, of course, when there’s confusion in the market, predators see opportunity, right? So, in addition to the new repayment plans, servicer switchers, long call wait times, just a lot of… , news and changes. There’s also rising student scam fraud.
So, what do you have, what advice do you have for borrowers just to stay vigilant through all the noise? Yeah, I think it’s just really understanding , that folks are opportunists. Right? And, and especially in this restart period and everyone’s trying to adjust their budgets and make room for what they didn’t have to pay before, that there’s going to be a lot of temptation to find a solution that doesn’t involve making high payments every single month that you will hear from scammers that can do away with your student loan if you, you know, provide them with your social security number and they’ll do all kinds of stuff to try to, to get your [00:19:00] information and it’s all rooted in the fact that they know how desperate some of our, , students are.
And it kind of goes back to that overall question of like, what it is that we’re seeing, you know, it’s a lot of mixture of fear and desperation and how am I going to survive makes you a target, unfortunately. And in order to really keep yourself protected, you know, Patelco has a,, fraud resource. If you’re getting text messages, especially if they’re saying like, this is a text from Patelco and, you know, we can help you with your student loans or something like that.
Make sure you’re utilizing that resource. To ask and make sure that you’re giving information to the right folks, and really, none of that should be by text. You know, if you’re getting text messages about your member number or account numbers or anything of that kind, it’s always best to make sure that you are calling the institution that is reportedly reaching out to you directly, or, asking, even a trusted friend, a professor.
someone on campus if you’re still in school, for support. So we’re closing out [00:20:00] 2024. There’s new legislation that’s being introduced. Next year’s an election year. So I have a feeling we’re going to come back to the studio maybe six months from now and have a completely different conversation that we did today.
But I think just for now, our message to members is stay vigilant with your information. Exercise some patience as you kind of sort through everything and reintroduce these things back into your life. Members and folks out there that have questions about student loans or payment plan options should call their services directly.
Find information at studentaid. gov. But Patoka might be able to help too if you’re struggling to fit this payment back into your budget. We do have certified financial services. specialists, that can help with your budget and help you cut costs. And with that, you can find more information at patelco.
org. Andrew and Kristi, so six months from now, we’ll come back. We’ll figure out what the landscape looks like at that point, but it was really great to have you both here. It was good to be here, Michele. Happy to be here. Thanks. This concludes today’s [00:21:00] 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.

[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 Michele Enriquez, Membership Development Manager here at Patelco Credit Union, and today we’re chatting the return of student loan payments and the challenges the return the payments have had on the government and loan servicers, but also how much strain the return of payments are having on Americans budgets.
And in the studio, we’re welcoming two veterans to the show today to unpack all of this. We’ve got Andrew Farrell, Patelco’s Community Engagement Specialist, and Kristi Longoria, Patelco’s Financial Health Manager. Great to have you here, you guys. Thank you, Michele. It’s great to be here. Thanks, Michele.
So, after more than three years of a pandemic pause on student loan payments, tens of millions of Americans will be required to make a payment on their federal student loans, and this is as of October. We’ll start with you, Kristi. As our financial health [00:01:00] manager and having worked in credit unions, helping students and families understand student loan options and the financial aid process, how did we get here?
Um, what are you seeing? Yeah, you know, it’s been a really long road the past couple of years when it comes to changes, to systems that, you know, are kind of notoriously, black and white, right? When it comes to student loan payments, you pay it, you didn’t pay it, it impacts your credit, it doesn’t impact your credit.
There’s so much that goes into understanding what it means to make a payment to a loan. And when we think about how complicated loans are, right? From the financial institution perspective, we as credit union employees understand that lending money is a process., it takes a lot of judgment. There’s documents, there’s papers.
And one of the things that I think that has really shined through over the past couple of years is a [00:02:00] lack of understanding when it comes to what our students are being asked to do. What their expectation is when it comes to paying a loan back, what it means to borrow, and how old they are when they’re being asked to do these things.
And this narrative that keeps popping up on every sort of media, social media, in the news, is a lack of empathy, a lack of understanding for what our students are going through. And I think like we can talk all day long about, you know, what a Responsible borrower looks like, but do they look 17? Do they look 18?
Should they know inherently what that responsibility looks like? And so much lack of empathy for the fact that our students, who were legitimately kids at that time borrowing these funds, We’re holding them [00:03:00] responsible for now as adults decisions that they made when they were, you know, 17 years old and literally, 17 years old, I’m sitting in my senior, you know, college readiness class and I’m filling out these applications and I don’t really, just click here and yes, and I agree to pay all of these things back.
And then the course of, you know, going to college starts, and then tuition increases, and then, Oh, but I don’t have to worry about that because I’m going to start my payments after graduation and now I’ve got a snowball of debt and I don’t really understand what it means to have to pay it back. So over the, you know, the course of the past few years, these students have been dealing with so much more too on top of just their debt itself.
It’s the family dynamics and hardships that have come because of a pandemic. And I still am hearing and seeing a lot of these surface comments about They should have known better. They should have understood what they were doing. [00:04:00] Everybody else has to pay back what they borrow. But, at the same time, we’re not thinking about the lender.
What is the lender’s responsibility in lending to a population that doesn’t have income, legally restricted from actually making significant income as being students, right? No credit check, there’s no credit in existence because I’m a minor and all of these things. And it’s just shocking to me that we, as a society, can’t take a step back and say, look at what the system has imposed on these students, our expectation of them might actually be too high, and the role of the lender, and in this case that’s the federal government, in providing a loan to a student.
Who doesn’t know if they’re going to have the income to pay it back? That’s the whole purpose of why they’re going to school. So, you know, what we’re talking about, you know, what it is that we’re seeing, [00:05:00] it’s a broad question. We’re seeing a lack of empathy, but we’re also seeing change. We’re seeing a motivation to understand a system better, which can hopefully bring better processes and procedures in.
We’re seeing growth on behalf of our seniors, you know, those that are going to be going off to college, seem to be more aware now. of the implications of borrowing large sums of money, and they’re making, you know, better decisions. But there’s just a lot. Yeah. It’s a lot there. Andrew’s over here, shaking his head.
Oh, yeah. I think in, in, in sympathy here, and frankly, maybe just a little triggered also. But, Andrew, you help, write our curriculum that we’re teaching to our high school students here at Patelco, but you also yourself have, your own student loans. Before we get to that, the average student loan payment is 503 according to the education initiative.
In addition to having to fit the
What has been your personal experience? What has been the [00:06:00] processes that you’ve had to deal with going back with the return of student loan payments? Michele, it has been a nightmare. It has been horrible. I have hated every second of it. So I do have student loans myself. I’ve got about 30k totaled.
Between my federal loans and my private loans, so it’s not a crippling amount, but admittedly I did spend the entirety of the loan deferment period just pretending like my student loans didn’t exist, which I think that was a case for a lot of borrowers that are out there. And with there also being talks of, you know, some type of federal loan forgiveness maybe happening during that time, I was just riding that wave of hope and, and didn’t want to give.
The United States Office of Federal Student Aid, a dollar of my money, unnecessarily. But now unfortunately, you know, here we are. And for me, the process of just trying to figure out what my loans were, where they were, what my balances were, was quite taxing. So I have three loans. I have a private loan and two federal loans.
One is subsidized and one is unsubsidized. I was always making payments on my private loan because I [00:07:00] knew that one was not going to go anywhere. But prior to deferment, my two federal loans were with different loan servicers. However, when I was notified that my payments were going to resume, I got an email that gave me 1 amount and one set date from one loan servicer that I did not recognize.
So my first instinct was to just call the Office of Federal Aid to ask my questions like is this my total amount, could I adjust my due date, what type of repayment plan am I in. And after sitting on hold for three hours, three full, not an exaggeration, three full hours, someone answered and quickly told me that I had to call the actual loan servicer and they could not help me.
Yeah. So I was frustrated, reached out to Nelnet, waited another almost two hours before I ultimately had to just hang up because I had, you know, stuff to do. Went on their website, tried to log in to both studentaid. gov and Nelnet’s website and that was its own. Yeah. Adventure in and of itself. I didn’t know my passwords.
There was like a pin involved that I didn’t remember [00:08:00] setting. But once I got in, I attempted to review my overall plan information myself, but I still had a lot of questions. There are also things you just can’t do online, like I wanted to request a change in my due date, but for that you have to speak to someone, so it kind of sets you up not for the most success in that regard.
Wash that up to a dead end and I figure right now I’m just going to pay this amount as I know it will at least keep me current. And then hopefully in a few months once this return to student loan mania dies down a little bit, I can, I can try calling again. I will say though that enrolling in AutoPay can be done online, and I would definitely recommend that to all borrowers if you’re able to, since any federal student loan enrolled in AutoPay will give you a quarter percent rate reduction, which can be huge when you’re trying to reintegrate a student loan payment back into your budget.
A struggle that I have fitting this into my current budget is that the default due date they gave me is the first of the month. And I already have like four or five bills coming out that day, so having another large one being added, is not the best, you know, due date for [00:09:00] me. So there are some supports available.
Is changing your due date one of them? Changing your due date is something you can do. You have to call somebody, so if you have the patience of a saint, feel free to call and wait three hours and get that done with your loan servicer, though. Not with studentaid. gov. I learned that lesson the hard way. But, you know, enrolling in AutoPay will give you a quarter percent rate discount.
You can also look into what kind of repayment plan you’re in, if you change to like a graduated or an income driven based repayment plan, you could probably save a little bit of money that way. And I would also say just using this reintegration of this payment back into your budget could just be a good opportunity to reassess your budget as a whole, see if there’s some cuts that can be made to where you can fit this in a little bit more organically.
I feel like. A lot of times budgets get pretty set in stone, and they don’t become as flexible as they need to be. So just taking this as a, as a moment to reassess everything, could be better for just a holistic viewpoint of your financial health as well. So let’s talk more about additional resources and [00:10:00] other repayment plans, and there’s a SAVE program that we’ll talk about here in a second, but for borrowers, there won’t be any borrowers reported to the credit bureaus for delinquencies until October of 2024.
Interest on loans will continue to accrue during that time, however, right? But there’s also temporary forbearance option that postpones payments but drives up interest costs. Most appealing and available to most is an income driven repayment program. This is safe. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yes, so the safe program is an income driven or payment program It means your monthly payment is based on your income and your family size. There are a lot of caveats and specifics with the plan. But a general rule is that any individual earning less than around 32, 000 a year will have a 0 monthly payments.
And that income number goes up depending on your family size. So for example, a family of four earning less than around 67, 000 also has zero dollar monthly payments. And [00:11:00] that is not a deferment or a forbearance. That is your actual monthly payment just set to zero dollars. And even if you don’t meet that exact requirement, let’s say you, you make a little bit more, you’ll still likely have much lower monthly payments compared to any other income driven plan, since your payments are based on a smaller portion of your adjusted gross income.
And another cool thing about SAVE is that your loan balance will never grow due to unpaid interest. So typically when you pay a loan, your monthly payment covers interest first and anything left over will then go to principal. On the SAVE plan, however, you may have a super low monthly payment that doesn’t even cover your total interest, but as long as you actually make that minimum monthly payment, the government covers the rest of the unpaid interest for that month.
Even if your monthly payment is actually at $0, government will subsidize your interest accrual entirely every month. , so your principal balance may not go down, but at least it won’t keep getting larger and larger due to interest on the loan compounding. Okay, great. Where can we find out more information about the [00:12:00] save program?
I just went to federal aid.gov. I’m sorry, student aid.gov. And if you just type in save in the search bar, it brings up the chart for what you’re. The dollar amount can be based on your family size and your income,, and you actually can apply for this online as well. So you don’t have to wait on hold forever.
This can be done online. Okay, perfect. So that is any kind of payment adjustment support that you might need. But Kristi, let’s talk about student loan forgiveness, for a second. Last year you helped employees of our partner, employees directly, achieve over 150, 000 in student loan forgiveness, which was Incredible.
Right. So you’re, you’re our go-to you’re our guru and helping them navigate through the public, public service loan forgiveness program. This summer, we had some big news related to the forgiveness programs, right. The Biden administration continues to move forward with alternative federal student loan forgiveness plans after being struck down by the Supreme Court this summer, but they’ve unveiled a new proposal.
And there’s a lot of new news coming out, and it feels like it’s [00:13:00] coming out daily. What’s your recommendation for borrowers to keep up with all the news and all the changes? Yeah, I think first and foremost, understand, and this is such a, an easy thing to say, not an easy thing to implement. It’s to make sure that you are asking questions to the right folks, and also knowing when you might feel Like your student loan payment is too much, if you feel like it is burdening you beyond your ability to provide for your basic care needs and all of those things, that in itself is a question.
You shouldn’t feel like that as a result of your federal student loans. And so if you are, it means connecting with whatever resources you can find available to you to ask, what can I do about my student loan payments? One of the biggest issues that we’re seeing right now too is since the restart of, paying back, folks saying that their, monthly amount that’s due is [00:14:00] too high, or it’s wrong, or I didn’t, I wasn’t expecting to see it this way.
You can request something called administrative forbearance, and it’s something that will allow the, servicers. To get it together, because right now it’s, it’s overwhelming for everybody, for the buyers, or you know, for those who are paying, for those that are trying to collect the payment, like it’s just kind of an all around mess right now, everybody’s kind of swimming in the, with the sharks.
The difference though is when you are the one who’s on the hook for those funds. What the impact to you is a lot greater than my empathy is gonna be for a large, you know, federal loan servicer. Right? But that is gonna be crucial for many folks that are on safe plans, that have, refinanced and consolidated and all of these things that have been happening over the past couple years.
And with this restart, things not going as planned. Making sure that you are taking advantage of every opportunity that you can to. Know what it is your payment should be and pay that amount. When it comes to [00:15:00] Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. Notoriously really complicated program that has a lot of ifs, right?
You can have your loan forgiven if you meet this criteria, and then the criteria is really not that clear, and then, oh, that applied in the past, and now it doesn’t anymore. So the, really, your best resource is going to be, with studentaid. gov, going on and seeing what programs are current in place, when did they,
You know, when did you have to consolidate by, when did you have to do X, Y, and Z by, and making sure that if at any point you are unable to make that payment, the payment is impacting your quality of life. If it is, you know, so burdensome that, you know, you’re having to resort to utilizing public benefits, make sure you ask somebody.
Somebody. Over lunch, we were talking about how Andrew’s enrolled in the SAVE program. He went through that process, but he’s also trying to work toward forgiveness through PSLF. Can you talk [00:16:00] about whether or not you can be in those two programs simultaneously, how that works, and then a little bit about how the student loan pause affected PSLF?
Yeah, so PSLF is its own program that’s separate from the income based, repayment programs. And it’s not necessarily a one or the other. The repayment programs are really strict to what is your income, what can you afford to pay. You have to do a certification every year that shows what your income is to make sure that, you know, it’s an appropriate balance between what your income is and what your payment is, and that can fluctuate over the course of your repayment.
But PSLF is more about the institution that you are working for over the course of, really, your career. PSLF is geared towards those who are working for not for profit institutions, non profit institutions. Generally, you’ll hear them referred to as 501c3s. But it’s also not as easy as just working for a non [00:17:00] profit.
There’s all kinds of ways that you can count your years. You have to have 120 payments over, you know, the course of, you know, 10 years, but it doesn’t have to be all in a row. It could be, you know, maybe you started working at a non profit, and then you moved to a corporate institution, and then you went back to non profit.
As long as over those periods of time, you can get a certification that says that you worked there, and that you qualify. Then add up all of those years over that time, and if you’ve made your 120 payments, then you can submit, for forgiveness. And I think one of the huge benefits of the student loan pause, too, was that those months When you were not making payments, over the pause, count towards, your PSLF payments.
And that’s not something that a lot of people know about. And so I would hate for somebody who maybe was on those last two years, and thinking, oh, okay, well at least I don’t have to make a payment, and now I’ve got two more years to make up for the pause. No, those, those non payments were your [00:18:00] payments, so they counted.
You just made Andrew’s day. Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought. Music to my ears. So, of course, when there’s confusion in the market, predators see opportunity, right? So, in addition to the new repayment plans, servicer switchers, long call wait times, just a lot of… , news and changes. There’s also rising student scam fraud.
So, what do you have, what advice do you have for borrowers just to stay vigilant through all the noise? Yeah, I think it’s just really understanding , that folks are opportunists. Right? And, and especially in this restart period and everyone’s trying to adjust their budgets and make room for what they didn’t have to pay before, that there’s going to be a lot of temptation to find a solution that doesn’t involve making high payments every single month that you will hear from scammers that can do away with your student loan if you, you know, provide them with your social security number and they’ll do all kinds of stuff to try to, to get your [00:19:00] information and it’s all rooted in the fact that they know how desperate some of our, , students are.
And it kind of goes back to that overall question of like, what it is that we’re seeing, you know, it’s a lot of mixture of fear and desperation and how am I going to survive makes you a target, unfortunately. And in order to really keep yourself protected, you know, Patelco has a,, fraud resource. If you’re getting text messages, especially if they’re saying like, this is a text from Patelco and, you know, we can help you with your student loans or something like that.
Make sure you’re utilizing that resource. To ask and make sure that you’re giving information to the right folks, and really, none of that should be by text. You know, if you’re getting text messages about your member number or account numbers or anything of that kind, it’s always best to make sure that you are calling the institution that is reportedly reaching out to you directly, or, asking, even a trusted friend, a professor.
someone on campus if you’re still in school, for support. So we’re closing out [00:20:00] 2024. There’s new legislation that’s being introduced. Next year’s an election year. So I have a feeling we’re going to come back to the studio maybe six months from now and have a completely different conversation that we did today.
But I think just for now, our message to members is stay vigilant with your information. Exercise some patience as you kind of sort through everything and reintroduce these things back into your life. Members and folks out there that have questions about student loans or payment plan options should call their services directly.
Find information at studentaid. gov. But Patoka might be able to help too if you’re struggling to fit this payment back into your budget. We do have certified financial services. specialists, that can help with your budget and help you cut costs. And with that, you can find more information at patelco.
org. Andrew and Kristi, so six months from now, we’ll come back. We’ll figure out what the landscape looks like at that point, but it was really great to have you both here. It was good to be here, Michele. Happy to be here. Thanks. This concludes today’s [00:21:00] 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.

[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 we’ve got Mel Murguia in the studio today. He’s our Product Manager in the Consumer Lending Department here at Patelco.
Hey Mel, how’s it going? It is going great. Excited to be here with you today. We’re going to talk credit score today, Mel. I had a conversation recently with someone who said they would never take out a loan again. They hate owing money and they just use cash. It’s not completely uncommon to hear, right?
But for folks like us, it makes us nervous for the implications that a mindset like that might have for any changes life might have for us. My question for this person immediately was, do you think you might want to own a home one day? Or… What if you prefer to finance a vehicle instead of buy? And these are [00:01:00] questions and things to consider where credit history and a good credit score come into play.
Mel, would you agree with that? Absolutely, Michelle. Having a good credit score goes beyond just qualifying to finance a purchase or pay for a life event. Credit scores are a factor when applying for housing and submitting a rental application. Many employers also review credit reports to gain an understanding of your character, which is one of the five C’s of credit.
Along with capacity, capital, conditions, and collateral. The character basically equals your credit history. The ability to pay on time and satisfy your credit obligations. which can be an indicator of the type of employee you will be. So you’ve got a big role here at Patelco. As the product manager in consumer lending, you help design lending products that help with financial wellness needs.
We have a new ish product called ScoreUp. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Sure thing. You know, we saw a need to provide a proactive solution to members being declined for traditional loan [00:02:00] products. While we offer credit report review and financial coaching to our members on how to turn things around.
There was still something missing. The data was telling us that we had to say no to members who came to us with a need. We felt obligated to provide our members with hope and a plan. It might be a no today, but here is how to get you to a yes in the near future. We partnered with Common Sense Lab from Duke University.
They specialize in using behavioral science to improve the financial well being of low to moderate income people in the U. S. Together, we spent many months working on a program to assist our members with building or repairing their credit. During the research timeframe, we had over 38, 000 members with credit scores less than 630 and over 8, 000 members with no score.
That’s almost 50, 000 members who needed access to some form of credit. The credit building products that were in the market seemed to fall short in one area or another. Secured card, not everyone has the 300 or 500 needed to get one started. In overdraft line of credit, their credit score was not high [00:03:00] enough to qualify.
Asset secured loan, collateral was not eligible or very expensive and predatory, like a car title loan from a payday lender. With ScoreUp, we made it simple and easy. Credit score not required, collateral not required. It builds credit, builds savings, and we also offer payment assistance, which means your bill, your payment never goes late and there’s no negative credit reporting.
One of my favorite member success stories came during my time as a branch manager. ScoreUp had just launched and a younger member came in to look at options to get a car loan. To get to and from school and work. He had been working part time for about a year and would either get around on the bus or borrow his mom’s car when it was available.
He had a small savings but no credit established. The banker spent time with the member and utilized the credit builder calculator tool on the website to get a better understanding of the members monthly expenses. He was able to share with him how not only does Skorup build credit history with on time payments but also grows the savings.[00:04:00]
The Member ultimately chose a nine month loan for 3000. Which helped him create and grow his credit score, he was able to demonstrate that he could afford a monthly payment and when he paid the loan off, he had 3000 down for a down payment. He was ultimately approved for his auto purchase for a used vehicle.
That’s so great, Mel. So a member can come in and they get to choose their own to and their own, um, amount based on what they can afford. Of course. Within our limits. That is correct. Okay. And what are the parent, what’s the minimum and what’s the maximum? Yeah, so the beauty of this product, on top of having a low fix rate, is that the product is fully customizable to fit each member’s budget.
Flexible loan terms from 6 to 36 months. But a loan amounts from 500 to 5, 000. Okay, that’s great. But it’s, again, it’s customized to what works best for the member, what fits in their budget. And I think that’s one of the biggest benefits, of the product. So let’s chat low credit score and little or no credit [00:05:00] history for a minute.
Because if you’re in one of these situations, the likelihood of you getting approved for a loan is not high. And let’s break that down a bit further. So consider yourself as an individual. And someone asks you to borrow money. The questions to consider are, you know, do I know this person and their ability to pay me back?
And those are very much the same type of rationale that lenders have when considering to lend to individuals. And that’s where the relationship and the history are really important when we talk about credit, just going back to those five C’s, that you were talking about. So the fact that this solution has a fixed rate, regardless of credit score, is a really big deal.
Yes. And on top of the things I mentioned prior, we have a dynamic calculator on Patelco. org that can assist our members in determining the right options. Another key feature of ScoreUp is our payment assistance program. If a member has a hardship and can no longer make payments, Patelco will pay off the loan and report the loan paid in full to the credit bureaus with the members still gaining positive payment history for the months that [00:06:00] they made their payments.
No negative reporting, no late payments ever. So this is a Credit Builder loan, and you enter a loan agreement with Patelco by choosing a payment and a term, but it’s not like a traditional loan where you get any money up front. Can you tell us a little bit more about the process and how it works? Yes, the SCORP Credit Builder loan is ultimately doing two key things for a member.
Number one, establishing positive credit history with on time payments. Number two, it’s growing your savings. So each payment that is made is reported to the credit bureaus while the funds from the payment grow in a savings account and become available at the end of the loan term. Okay, awesome. Now, hypothetically, if I come in, get a score up loan, I satisfy my term, I’ve built my credit score up a little bit, can I come back and can I get another score up loan, continue that process?
Absolutely. So, depending on where you’re starting from, you, you can always check your credit. We do offer a credit score, within our online banking. So, you can see where your credit score is at. You can [00:07:00] also get the free credit report annually from the three credit bureaus. If you’re not quite at the score that you need to qualify for your next, purchase that you need to make, you can sign up again and continue to, grow that score with the on time payments.
So SCOREUP’s been around three years for us now. It’s won a national award, which we’re really proud of. Congratulations to you for that. And so far, 3, 700 members have taken advantage of SCORP, and of those 3, 700, 3, 200 have come back to us and have been eligible for another credit product, with us here at Patelco.
Yes, it’s very exciting, very rewarding to see, our members trusting us and, and helping them build and reestablish their credit. You know, we’re, putting our members back in, vehicles that get them to and from work. We’re providing hope. We’re continuing the ongoing financial well being and the financial education.
We have resources on our financial wellness center on our website. We have one on one coaching available with our certified financial specialists [00:08:00] and we are very excited and proud to, to continue to help our members, with their financial journey. That’s what it’s all about folks. Mel, thank you so much for being here today. Members can find more information about SCOREUP by visiting patelco. org slash SCOREUP, S C O R E U P. And 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.

[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 Michele Enriquez, membership development manager here at Patelco Credit Union, and today we’ve got Erin Mendez in the studio. Erin, welcome.
Well, thank you, Michelle. Glad to be here. So,
Erin Mendez is President and CEO of Patelco Credit Union. Since her arrival at Patelco in 2013, Erin has transformed the organizational culture to building financial wellness for members. Team members and the community Patelco serves. During this time, Patelco grew from 3. 9 billion to over 9. 4 billion in assets and grew members from 275, 000 to over 470, 000.
Prior to joining Patelco in 2013, Aaron served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Schools First Federal Credit Union. Her career began as a part time teller for American Savings Bank, [00:01:00] progressing to SVP of Retail Banking. Erin’s more than 30 years experience in the financial industry also includes CIO and SVP of Operations at Western Financial Bank and Chief Technology Officer at HealthNet, Inc.
Erin was recognized by the California Credit Union. With her distinguished service award inducted into SKU’s Hall of Fame and was recognized by American Banker and their inaugural top powerful women in credit unions. So today we’re talking credit unions and the credit union difference, and who better to share than Aaron, who is a champion for credit unions and their collective mission to improve people’s lives.
So Erin, you’ve worked for traditional for-profit companies before. What made you make the leap to cu. So, really, I knew nothing about credit unions when I received a call from a recruiter looking for someone who would lead both the finance and the technology [00:02:00] teams at then Orange County Teachers Federal Credit Union, who is now known as School’s First Federal Credit Union.
You know, my first reaction was, no, I have no interest because I had the impression that the organization would be tiny and very limited in their products, so I thought the job would be boring, quite frankly. So the basically told me that I should get educated, and that’s what I did. So I went through, learned a lot about Orange County teachers at that time, and so I decided I’d throw my hat in the ring for the opportunity.
And at the end of that, I, was offered the position and I started in January 2003. What I learned fairly quickly was that being at a credit union for me was banking with a soul. You get to do great work while doing good. You only need to worry about members and how you make a difference for [00:03:00] them. It’s a direct relationship where the members benefit, without having to concern yourself with stockholders or earning money for stockholders.
Members are our owners. And they’re one and the same at credit unions. And so your focus… And making a difference is a win win for a member. And I really grabbed onto that, and that’s what I call banking with the soul. Banking with the soul. I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you say that I’m going to have to, maybe steal that, borrow it from you.
I’m going on, uh, year 17 at credit unions myself. I have a similar, story. I learned by credit unions, by accident. The first phase of my career, I made the leap and I never looked back. I think for me what drew me in was Credit Union’s collective mission and what they stand for, and that simply is people helping people.
I’m gonna share Patelcos vision and mission, and that is our vision is to be the credit union that [00:04:00] empowers our members to achieve financial freedom. Our promise is to fuel hope and opportunity for lifelong financial wellbeing, and our mission is to build our members financial health and wellbeing Now.
Everything from employee onboarding, to training, to messaging that we give to our Patelco at Work partners, the community, is all around building financial health and well being. I think what our members love most about Patelco is that when we say we aim to build our members financial health and well being, we really mean it.
How important is it to you to get our whole organization on board with this mission and what are some of the ways we strive to achieve this? Well, there’s nothing more important than it, because it takes all of us to make a difference with our attitudes, our practices, our products and our services, and our connection with people.
How we build our [00:05:00] members and design the services we provide them, how we deliver to their expectations and beyond, how we improve their financial lives, everyone makes this happen at each moment with a member and at each interaction. I and the leadership team must set the framework and the guidelines that allow the team to flourish in serving our mission and in serving our members so that our members receive the benefits that we have to offer.
But it is the team that really makes this happen and you need everyone on board working for our members. It’s so true and you know our team is lucky enough to be face to face with our communities on the ground. Delivering financial wellness programs in a variety of ways, right? We’ve got webinars, in person education delivery, tools, resources, and now this cool podcast.
But we also share some really unique products and services that we really design to help our members bank more [00:06:00] conveniently with us, help increase their credit score, save more, etc. What are some of the newer things that we’ve rolled out to members that support their financial wellness that you maybe think are kind of unutilized hidden gems?
Well, you know, every year we invest in our mission, whether it’s new products and services, upskilling our team, or addressing pressure points that our members have. So let me just talk about this year alone and some of the things that we have done. So we’ve implemented two new products. One’s called BankUp.
It’s a checking account. And the other one is Instant Backup, which is a overdraft on your checking account. And both of these products are designed to help our manage daily and reduce the cost of banking services, and to keep them on the right path to build their financial health. We focused a lot this year on fraud because it’s just unfortunately awful, the social engineering that’s going out there,[00:07:00] , in our world and certainly here at home.
So let me kind of talk about some of the fraud improvements we made. Whether it is in how we’ve stepped up our communication to our members to constantly make them aware of some of these scams, but we also have a fraud center on our website that really explains a lot of fraud scams and to help members see, and maybe see early warnings that perhaps the person they’re dealing with isn’t the person they should be dealing with.
We put in a specialized team of fraud experts in our contact center so that our members actually can get direct access to them so they could talk to us before they’re scammed, anytime they have an ill feeling or have a concern about any conversation they’re having. These experts can really help a member go through and [00:08:00] understand What really looks like a scam, so that they can prevent that from happening.
Because once you’re scammed… It’s really hard to get back any of the funds, so I really hope our members use a lot of that service because it’s been built for them. We also continue to add features to our digital banking that members can use to help themselves build financial lives and journeys and make it better for themselves.
We’ve added features that allow you to create. Goals around savings, budgets, and recently financial insights into how members money is being spent so a member can sit back and determine, is that how I want to spend my money or should I do it differently? And of course, all of these complement the fact that there’s many alerts that any of our members can help set up or we can help you set up.
to manage funds daily and prevent [00:09:00] mishaps. We’ve also added more certified financial specialists to work with our members. And they’re there for more complex matters. And sometimes they’re there for encouragement, too. Each one of these specialists empower our members to make better choices and repair and re and improve their financial situations.
That’s just a few of the things that we’ve done this year. And again, the team… We have a great team and they’re fabulous to work with our members. This is so great. I mean, the, from bank up to instant backup and you know, what was overdraft fees to, to fraud resources, financial insights, certified financial specialists.
These are things that when we talk about the credit union difference, these are the things that really set us apart in the financial industry, and really go back to that. It’s a really old idea of people helping people. Now, International Credit Union Day is coming up, or ICU Day as we call it, [00:10:00] coming up on October 19th, and this year is the 75th anniversary, so it’s a big milestone.
ICU Day exists really to raise awareness and celebrate. You know, all of these things that we’re talking about and what makes credit unions unique. And for us, you know, it’s an opportunity to showcase, the credit union difference and celebrate the spirit of the global credit union movement movement.
So this day is recognized to reflect upon the credit union history, promote its achievements, recognize hard work, and share member experiences. ICU Day has been celebrated the third Thursday of October since 1948. Again, with that ultimate goal to raise awareness about the tremendous work that we’re collectively doing.
Erin, you’re a director for the World Council of Credit Unions, and their vision is to expand financial inclusion,, not just here in the U. S., but worldwide, through this global credit union movement. Can you share with our Patelco team members how [00:11:00] important it is for you to be involved with the World Council of Credit Unions and what role we all play to advance the movement as a whole?
Sure, I’d be happy to. I joined the WOCU board to make a difference globally in helping those of moderate and really, quite frankly, limited means to build their financial lives. It is a way of spreading the Patelco difference throughout our world, bit by bit and member by member, to build resiliency in areas of the world with less.
And others can help create more bearable lives for those people and their families. I get to learn other ways. and other products that matter to these members. And some of this can spark an idea for our Patelco members. Helping others to build a better financial life, whether here at home or internationally, this is doing great work, while doing good.
And all [00:12:00] of us can use more of it. Filling our soul by helping others begin to prosper, or at least make ends meet. Well, for me, that’s the bucket I gladly will fill.
So, in summary, I think if you’re not already a Credit Union member, well, why not? Patelco is a full service financial institution serving the Greater Bay Area and beyond. We make it inclusive, easy, and affordable to join. If you’d like to learn more, we invite you to check out our website at patelco. org or contact us at joinatpatelco.
org. And, Erin, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story with us today. 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 Patelco Credit Union is insured by NCUA. [00:13:00]

Erin Mendez, President and CEO of Patelco Credit Union, shares her career journey from the for-profit world to credit unions, highlighting the unique mission of “”banking with a soul.”” Erin discusses Patelco’s commitment to members’ financial wellness, her involvement with the World Council of Credit Unions the importance of spreading the credit union difference. Join us in celebrating the 75th anniversary of International Credit Union Day and learn more about Patelco’s mission.

[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 Michele Enriquez, Membership Development Manager here at Patelco Credit Union, and we’re approaching open enrollment season, and if you’re unfamiliar with what that is or don’t work for a traditional company, it’s a time of year that companies dedicate toward focusing on benefits.
Typically, the focus is on health, and that includes medical, dental, and vision plans. But it’s also time to focus on total wellness. So, things like financial wellness, setting up direct deposit and savings allocations, investments allocations. Mental wellness, physical wellness, et cetera. But today we have on the show Maurice Catlett, who’s an HSA specialist here at Patelco.
He’s on the show to talk about health savings accounts, also known as HSAs, as kind of a misunderstood health plan option that [00:01:00] also doubles as a savings tool. Maurice, welcome to the show. It’s great to have you in the studio. Thank you. I’m excited to be here. So, Maurice, as you know, Patelco has a complementary financial wellness program for employers.
And one of the employee benefit elements is an offering of a health savings account or an HSA, as we talked about. We get tons and tons of questions from employees at our partners about What even is an HSA? And it can be a lot to explain effectively. You’re a part of a team of HSA specialists in the IRA HSA department here at Patelco.
Break down for us what an HSA is. What type of an individual might benefit most from an HSA? So, okay. So first, an HSA is a tax advantaged account regulated by the IRS. The HSA is designed to place pre-taxed earned income into a tax-free account to only be used for qualified medical expenses. The funds put into an HSA [00:02:00] or remaining in the HSA at the end of the year belong to the qualified individual.
Who has their social security number tied to the HSA, not Patelco and not the employer. A qualified individual is someone covered by a high deductible health plan, or HDHP. And not covered by another primary health insurance at the same time. Dental, vision, and long-term care insurance are allowed, but Medicare is not allowed.
This disqualifies someone from having an HSA. You must also not be claimed as a dependent on another person’s tax returns per the IRS guidelines. It is helpful to remember that an HSA can provide you with triple tax savings. First, from federal tax deductions when you contribute towards your HSA. Second, The earnings on an HSA are tax free.
Finally, the withdrawal of the funds are tax free as long as it is for qualified medical expenses. So, [00:03:00] a company may offer an HSA since they offer a high deductible health plan. Also, because they also pay lower premiums on a HDHP and there are certain tax benefits for doing so. I am not a tax advisor or tax specialist, so I can’t speak on that much more.
Apologies. If you would like to know more or have specific questions, please consult an experienced tax advisor or CPA type professional. Often the HDHP will have lower premiums to offset the higher deductible. The IRS defines this as at least 1, 500 for self only. And $3,000 for family coverage. The IRS also places a limit on the annual out-of-pocket expenses to 7,500 for self only, and a total of 15,000 for family coverage because of the high deductible threshold.
This plan is more appealing to people in certain positions. Mm-hmm. , this [00:04:00] personally is how I came to choose an HDHP and an HSA myself at the time. Nearly a decade ago, I was single. I didn’t have any prescriptions, dependents, chronic conditions, or previous major injuries. I just need glasses to drive, legally, and get my teeth cleaned.
And I still need that. So, saving money on premiums and putting money away for later made a lot of sense for me. Some people listening to this right now are hopefully doing some math and finding that an HDHP would make a lot of sense for them as well. Another reason for me to get an HDHP and an HSA was the ease of use.
I grew up just swiping my HSA debit card at the time when everyone was starting to stop taking checks for anything but rent. So HDHP How do I go about finding out if my company offers one of those? Is that just a simple question to the HR benefits person? Ideally, [00:05:00] yes. An HR benefits person or a manager, which may also know, because some of your coworkers actually may have that plan.
So you might be able also to ask your teammates. So your employer has to have an HDHP plan. You cannot be on Medicare? Correct. One of the other ones? And then, what was the other? You cannot be claimed on someone else’s taxes as a dependent. Can’t be claimed on somebody else’s tax returns. Okay, got it. So, if you checkmark all those boxes, you might qualify for an HSA account and be interested in it.
Yes, oh, and I almost forgot the last one. You can’t have the HDHP in addition to another, uh, another insurance plan from your spouse or someone else. Got it. So if I were to guess, most folks just take the regular HMO, right? You either got your Kaiser, your Blue Cross, or whomever, right? You pay into that plan.
The HSA, would be, an alternative to… Exactly. And rolling into something like that. Okay. So I personally don’t use the HSA option. I’m kind of a creature , of, , comfort. I don’t like to take risks, I think is the reason I [00:06:00] don’t. So even though it’s offered to us here as an employee at Patelco, but, I think my decisions based on a couple of things, I have young kids also and their medical needs are unpredictable.
Yeah. But I’m also intimidated by the administration of the account because you have to be really cautious about purchases and there’s reimbursements and IRS reporting involved. So I just give up entirely. So how does the account work and can technology help with the administration piece? So first answer, yes, technology can help.
This caution, though, that you have is very understandable. Some people are put up by anything involving the IRS or tax filing. That’s okay. So, a disclosure here. Patelco would be your custodian in this situation. We are not here to scrutinize what you purchase each time, nor are we here to interrogate you about them at the end of the year.
Our usual fraud fighting systems are in place, but we are not here to operate… As [00:07:00] the I R S, we’ll report the amount in dollars total spent on a qualified medical expenses in a tax year, in a tax form called the 10 99 sa. You’ll get other 10 90 nines most likely, and we will report the total amount in dollars, contributed to a tax year in a tax form called 54 98 dash sa.
A copy of these documents will be given to the member physically or digitally on schedule or upon verified request. So, right there, that’s one part of the technology. You can just have us email it to you or go to your online banking. Our understanding is that a member should keep a record of money spent and where and how much contributed per year regardless of this.
This is recommended for all tax advantaged accounts, not just the HSA. Our technology allows our members to request reimbursement several ways, and sometimes same day completion, which is my favorite. In branch, virtual branch, [00:08:00] team, calling my department, or using a service called DocuSign if you’re comfortable, there is one instance where we still have difficulties.
Delivering requested H s A funds to another institution same day or automatically via a c h or automatic clearinghouse. Mm-hmm. , the final steps of sending the funds from Patelco to another institution must be completed by the member via online banking or simply writing themselves a check. It is my professional opinion that a member should be cautious about purchases if they are purchasing supplies for someone not covered by the H D H P.
or are not dependents, or the member is making a non traditional purchase. There can be so much context surrounding these three possibilities that I believe caution is warranted, but outright fear shouldn’t come to mind. I hope this does not cause a member [00:09:00] from abstaining from an HSA or non traditional purchases.
Honestly, some of our members in these cases send us copies of receipts or the original receipt. We only copy and digitize what is needed, so we primarily send back originals and destroy copies. So please don’t feel need the need to do so. The member is strongly encouraged to keep their original sheets and statements Sometimes some of this information is deeply personal about health and well being sometimes members reimburse themselves for travel and lodging to get Very specific medical services or consultation.
I only know about this because they sent too much documents. It would be between the member and the relevant tax professionals, if that is a qualified medical expense given the mountains of context. The IRS has released a document called Publication 502 that goes into detail about qualified medical expenses.
As I [00:10:00] said, I’m not a tax advisor, but pages 5 to 8 and 15 to 17 of the publication may be more relevant to our members. But here at Patelco, we move or send the money as instructed. By the member or authorized signer, no further questions. Okay. I’m not saying you must have a tax professional to have an HSA, only that I recommend one if you are doing something specific with your HSA or using the funds in a uncommon fashion, an uncommon fashion.
My understanding is some medical expenses can be tax deductible, so it is possible your uncommon use of funds could be relevant. Please refer to publication 502 for more. You can use your HSA debit card on Amazon and everyone uses Amazon. I’m pretty sure. Amazon and other merchants have an HSA list to help make common purchases [00:11:00] easily.
That’s great. It really is. Personally, I most frequently use my HSA debit card with my doctors. Specifically my optometrist. I need the glasses. And CVS, honestly. No paperwork is needed. I just keep the receipts and only use my HSA debit card for particular things I know. are qualified medical expenses.
Those tax documents I mentioned, I can get digitally or physical copies with my Patelco online banking. The 1099 will be available well before the standard tax filing deadline. Pro tip though, the 5498 essay I mentioned that provides the IRS and you with the total amount you contributed for the tax you’re in question that I mentioned previously, the document is made after the standard tax deadline.
So, it is not required to file taxes. It is for informational purposes only. If you feel the need, for the information prov that sorry. [00:12:00] If you feel the information provided doesn’t match up to the information It doesn’t match up to your record keeping, please contact us. The 5498 SA comes out later because you can make contributions for previous tax year up until the tax deadline in the current calendar year.
In all fairness, special contribution situations do exist, such as the federal disaster declared last year. Please feel free to contact us should you have any concerns. This is just how much. You can keep this record for yourself or request us to tell you the amount before you file taxes. The tax professional you are engaged with should be familiar with this fact about the 5498.
Please exercise caution. Okay, great. So it does sound like you need to have some sort of organization, some kind of preparation before leaping into HSA. You’ve [00:13:00] weighed out the pros and cons. Do I go HMO? Do I go the HSA route? Prior to enrolling, right, check out the list. See what all the qualified… medical qualifications are.
Make sure you’ve got your debit card or you’ve got checks. Do we still do checks here at Patelco? Okay, so you have a choice there. And then, then you’ve got all those convenience things like the Amazon list to go which to purchase those things. And then you’ve got to keep your receipts. I know those CVS receipts are really long.
Yeah. But you got, you got to keep them. And that’s where kind of the organizational piece comes in. Yeah. But as long as you’re making qualified purchases You’re keeping your receipts, you have access to that tax form, which it sounds like it’s easy to get on online banking. Yes. It’s not that intimidating, right?
No, and sometimes if you don’t want to do your online banking, send us an email. Okay, and that’s where kind of the, personalization with Patelco, you know, is beneficial to our members because, because now you know Maurice. You could just call Maurice directly. [00:14:00] Okay, so that’s great. I’m the only one in the company.
Last year in my household, we were pretty super fortunate health wise. We didn’t have any hospital stays, no emergency room visits, prescriptions, just general checkups and such. In hindsight, you know, I didn’t maximize the health. plan that I pay into. I think an HSA account could have helped grow, my savings in comparison to what, you know, I missed out in not having to pay for those things.
So help us understand a little bit more how the HSA can grow savings. Okay. So first, yes, I’m happy to report with supreme confidence that an HSA is not an FSA. Okay. The funds in an HSA do not expire or get returned to an employer. The funds stay where they were for future use. You can call this non expiry funds, but I prefer just to call it saving funds.
With the contribution limit for 2023 being 3, 850 for self only [00:15:00] and 7, 750 for family, you could be saving thousands of dollars. Tax free a year for future health expenses. That adds up nicely and can help you and your loved ones weather many storms. Also, if you’re in the 50 and over crowd, you can contribute about an extra thousand dollars per year per social security number.
This is an important part because, you can’t contribute your spouse’s 1, 000 into your HSA. There is nothing you need to do to have the funds stay right where they are at Patelco at end of year or around tax time. If you would like to bring the funds to Patelco, please let us know to begin the transfer.
You should contact your local branch or the virtual branch team. We will need your signature on a couple of documents and the IRA department will continue the process. The HSA department will continue the process by sending the signed formal request to the current custodian. We ask for your patience in advance.[00:16:00]
If you need to transfer HSA funds from Patelco to another custodian, for whatever reason, please begin by contacting the other institution to start their paperwork. You may need to call us at Patelco to get specifics to pass on to them. That’s okay. We aren’t going to give the specifics to the other institution, only to you.
Other institutions will not give Patelco reps information without you inversely and they rarely will accept information not coming from you, the owner. We thank you in advance for your patience. Okay, got it. So, I’m already a Patelco member. I have my online banking credentials. I can see all the things within my account tree.
If I have an HSA account, that’s just all bundled in there with my other Patelco. Accounts, my savings, my checking, and boom, my HSA is there with it. Yes, actually, and if you just want an HSA here at Patelco, we give you a savings account just so you can move your HSA funds into regular funds to withdrawal [00:17:00] or, as I said, ACH them out to your other institutions.
Okay, great. Okay, so… You’re an HSA specialist in our IRA HSA division. How does you and your team help members? You’ve referenced that a couple times, but, any kind of unique ways that we help, versus other HSA servicers? Thank you. We help our members with every facet of HSAs, from opening and funding.
To using or accessing funds. Transfers to, finally, with deceased members, unfortunately. With that last bit, I must encourage everyone who has not to set up beneficiaries for their various accounts. Not just your HSA. Or to update them, if your life has changed in a significant way. The IRS defines some of these significant ways as life events, qualified life events.
To be honest, probate court is not fun. Please do your best to stay on top of these things. But, speaking of which. We can also help you add people to your HSA as [00:18:00] beneficiaries, but also as authorized signers. Here at Patelco, authorized signers can have checks, or more commonly, debit cards issued to them in their name to use the HSA funds as well, but not to contribute.
Uh, to complete adding someone, we will need a copy of the person’s valid government issued ID and their social security number, and to complete the forms with additional information. Most of the time, we can send the HSA debit card right to your door. But, in some instances, our branch team is able to print debit cards in person.
I’m not in the branch. I cannot promise this. We hope you understand. In addition to everything I’ve previously mentioned, we can also help with some adjustments to the HSAs, as needed, to correct members contributions or disbursements. This is most common when an online banking error has occurred or a clerical misunderstanding.
The HSA team will always correct or adjust when we have reason to believe the cause is clerical. It’s just fair. We will do our utmost when an adjustment is [00:19:00] needed due to member or online banking error. But sometimes we are limited in those cases. Simple things like HSA debit card purchase returns, because you can do returns at Amazon, or insurance reimbursements that happened after care can reliably be done in the same calendar year.
You can also help with more complex processes like a prorated contributions for not being continuously covered by an HDHP for the full tax year. If you don’t know what that means, that means that hasn’t happened to you and that’s okay. For help with what we’ve mentioned and more, our 100 percent California based IRHSA department is available at Patelco Credit Union from 9 a.
m. to 6 p. m., Monday through Friday. Our email address is always opened and serviced those same hours by the same team at I R A H S A at Patelco dot O R G. That’s O R G because we’re organized. Now for employers, you should also use our phone number and this email [00:20:00] address H S A employer servicing at Patelco dot O R G.
If you’re an employer who needs to know more about setting up HSAs for your employees, please call us. If you need help setting up and funding an employee’s HSA, please call us. If you need to send employees documents, please use the HSAemployerServicing at Patelco. org email. I look forward to helping you out.
I appreciate you guys so much, Maurice, because, at our Patelco at Work program, you know, we’ve got about a hundred partners now and they prefer to have their HSA provider be the same provider that hosts their financial wellness program. So to have every kind of a one stop shop for everything’s great, but we also offer a really great personal service through your department.
So when they do have HSA enrollments, you know, they can get a little bit complicated to set up and you guys make that really easy. So. Thank you. Employers, can get that set up easily with our IRA, HSA department and [00:21:00] maybe Maurice, personally. I want to just touch on your mention about avoiding probate court.
You know, stress that enough and totally agree, you know, I think in the setting up of the HSA accounts and sometimes even just your Patelco membership, you kind of bypass the beneficiary section is something you’re going to do later. I’ll fill that in later, but,, it really is important, but you can make it easy again because we’ve got that personalized service.
All right, Maurice, so you’ve given us all the lowdown about this account. I’ve kind of weighed whether I like HMO, HSA. This thing might be for me. It sounds easy. It sounds convenient through the mobile app. I’ve got a debit card. How do we get this thing set up? As I mentioned with just coming down to a branch or contacting us through the various means of virtual branch or phone number or your secured messaging on your online banking, an important distinction that I’ve learned about is You will need a valid form of government ID.
I’ve said that. People, but Telco accepts [00:22:00] several different types of ID. Like I think it’s pronounced, uh, Marticular, Consulate Lauders? Michelle, how do you say it? The matricula. Thank you. Those. However, we don’t accept school or university IDs. So sorry in advance for that, but almost every other government ID is good to go.
Out of state is okay as well. Additionally, we’ll need the various social security numbers for yourself and the people you like to add as authorized signers or beneficiaries. I know that can be a little tricky, but you should come back to it after you, you know, call some family members and ask them how they’re doing and then also convince them to give you your social security number.
I, again, we can, we understand that this can be a bit difficult. And then the last thing we ask for really is your patience as we create everything., if you visit one of our branches, you can also apply for various products and services all in the same visit. So if you have a Patelco errand, you can also update your beneficiaries at the same time.
Or, Get yourself a new, HSA and a HSA debit card. We [00:23:00] are, after all, a chartered, NCUA insured, equal opportunity lender and credit union. Perfect. Maurice, thank you so much for being in the studio, for lending your expertise about health savings accounts. You know, they don’t have to be confusing. It’s easy to connect with you, easy to get those forms and things updated. So thank you for that. Yes. Avoid probate court as much as possible. So, Maurice, super glad to have you on today. Thank you for sharing all of your expertise. You’re very welcome. If you still have questions, just contact us. That’s kind of the beauty about your department. The beauty about reaching us here at Patelco. I’m going to give that email address one more time. It’s a long one. It’s H S A E M. P L O Y E R, S E R V I C I N G at patelco. org, that’s H S A, employer servicing at patelco.
org. You can also visit a branch or virtual branch. And you can call us at the number [00:24:00] +1 800-358-8228 and extension 2 5 2 5. That’s not a direct extension to me, but my team. . And 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.

[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 going to be the best because I’m joined by our Patelco at Work program team here at Patelco who oversee our financial wellness program for employers.
We’ve got Peggy Wyman and Shadis Amimi in the studio who are financial wellness partners for Patelco. Hi, ladies. Good morning. Good morning. So, combined in the studio between the three of us, how many years of banking experience do we have? I’m 16 years in. How about you guys? Well, I have 15 years. Yeah. 15 years in banking.
How about you, Peg? I will admit to 35 years, probably more than that, but I don’t want to date myself. So I think if we’re doing the math right, that’s about 66 total years here in the studio, but of that time, how [00:01:00] many of our years have been spent working with credit unions and bringing financial wellness to partner workplaces?
I’m also 16 years. So, for me, half of the time was in the regular banking industry and the other wonderful years have been with the credit union. I can ditto that, Patelco is my first credit union experience and I’ve been here three and a half years providing financial wellness. Awesome. So, between us, we’ve got a lot of experience in the room over long periods of time and We’re going to start the conversation today by addressing the elephant in the room, and that is that economic times are really tough right now.
Inflation primarily is making it difficult for a lot of folks who may have already been feeling the pinch, living in one of the most expensive regions in the world. The stress we carry into our daily lives and into the workplace, oftentimes, and I’m going to share some stats and this directly relates to, the work, the great work you guys are doing out there.
So a [00:02:00] PWC 2023 study reports that 60 percent of full time employees are stressed out about their finances. Right? We know this. We hear it directly from the HR partners we work with. Even among employees earning six figures or more, nearly 40 percent are stressed out about their finances. Right? No surprise to us.
73 percent of Americans rank their finances as the number one stress in their life. And that’s according to a Capital One CreditWise survey. Additionally, four out of five employers say that their employees financial issues are impacting their job performance. And that’s from an IFEBP survey. So, we hear this all the time.
We’re meeting with employers. HR partners, and they’re looking for ways to reduce the stress, improve retention and really just find supports for their employees. We’ve heard a lot about mental wellness support and physical wellness with gym memberships and everything else, but it’s a financial wellness piece that’s missing [00:03:00] and frankly that’s growing.
So the two of you serve different regions of the Bay Area to bring this wellness program at work, to employers. Shada, you’re a financial wellness partner. You’ve been doing this a long time. But that’s an interesting title. Can you share a little bit about the program and then how your HR benefit contacts perceive you as a wellness partner?
Absolutely, yeah. So, PatelCut Work, in a nutshell, is a no cost, no contracts required, employee assistance program. I like to call us the financial doctors. We actually help diagnose financial matters and provide the right services and products needed to help everyone achieve their financial freedom.
Unlike the traditional employee assistance, we take a holistic approach. to financial wellness by providing professional counseling sessions. We call them, these financial advisors are called CFS and the CFS is our part of our virtual team. They’re part of our regular branches [00:04:00] and they’re able to give kind of coaching, you know, about products and services, repairing credit, building credit.
Budgeting savings. I mean, the list goes on and on. You just have to ask and we’re able to help them so that each partner, for example, that we work with each employer is unique. The needs of their employees are different. And the wonderful thing is, is between the whole team. We’re all very open to discuss The specific needs of each employer group and provide them and accommodate them with those needs because we want this program to be successful for everyone across the board.
One of my recent partners that I launched a couple months ago in the Sacramento area. You know, they were really excited about all of these products that they could not believe that there was no charge or, you know, no contracts like what’s, you know, what are we getting?
What, you know, what are you getting? This and that. So anyhow, to make it best, you know, everything that I suggested, they agreed. For example, a launch email. When out [00:05:00] in the launch email announced briefly, you know, just hitting the tip of the iceberg about what is their benefits, how it works a little bit.
Initially, I started off by having two presentations to accommodate the managers and supervisors of all their departments. They had about 12 offices in different parts of Sacramento County. So. The two sessions that I had via Zoom meeting, I explained this to the managers and to the supervisors,, the reason being is I want them to be that liaison so that in their departments if their employees go to them asking for,, guidance, you know, like where can I go get help, trying to, I don’t know, consolidate that, who do I talk to, that, Manager or supervisor can then refer them over to me and I can get the appropriate help for that individual employee.
Once, the webinars were done with the managers, in this particular, relationship is, I went and started touring every site. Sometimes different shifts to accommodate and meet and greet the employees in person. I took As much [00:06:00] pertinent information about our program, I invited team members from different branches throughout Sacramento to attend so that if they do, for example, go into one of our offices, they’re familiar with the employees in the Sacramento area and feel comfortable to talk to them.
You know, they provided us space in their break rooms. We gave small presentations. I hung out with the employees for a couple of hours at a time, and this tour went on for a whole month, but it was amazing. And they also provide all of our information via the intranet, so whenever we have any types of incentives, promotions, things like that going on, I share this with the HR managers and they post it up for me, the employees are aware.
And I thought this was really Old school, but it was really cool. They asked me something which the light bulb went on for me, and I’ve been doing it with a lot of my other partners recently. They asked me for paycheck stuffers, like, it’s pretty neat. So a paycheck stuffers, basically, again, it’s a different way of reaching [00:07:00] out to the employees.
So those individuals that receive a physical check received. A little stuff for inside their envelope about Patelco at Work program and how they can get the benefits, or if they got electronic, pay stubs, then there was a link with our information as well. So I think it’s a one win situation for the HR people plus Patelco at Work because we are maximizing as many ways.
To reach out to the employees because our goal together ultimately is to help the employees achieve financial freedom And we can only do that by working together and when the HR partners understand this, this is beautiful. It just flows like a symphony So it sounds like it’s It’s customizable, right?
Because we know that not all organizations are one size fits all, so really whatever the needs are of the HR partners, whatever the needs are of the employees, we can be flexible in terms of [00:08:00] what we offer, and the program’s really diverse in nature, too. So we think it’s got a little bit. of something for everyone.
And we talk about this all the time and supporting and affecting change when it comes to financial wellness, one of the key elements to achieve that is to be able to meet people where they are. And we’re talking both figuratively and literally speaking, so meeting them in their financial journey, but also physically or virtual, connection with them so we can engage with them.
So, Shada, you’ve had a lot of success working with our virtual branch team to support your companies. Tell us how this collaboration is unique to Patelco. How are the employees receiving it? Well, I appreciate our virtual team, they take a lot of load off of me, by, Allowing me that flexibility to refer.
Members, actually potential members and employees. to them. For example, I have a partnership out of Monterey, and we don’t have an actual branch in Monterey at all. They’re one of our partners that started off in San Francisco, but [00:09:00] moved out there, so we’re still accommodating them. So whenever they need assistance in opening any types of accounts, whether it’s It’s the membership, whether it’s an HSA account, checking products, loan products, they’ll send me an email and I’ll refer them to virtual branch, share the QR code and the team is amazing.
They will assist them. They will keep me posted. They will see, see me on outgoing emails to this potential member. And it just makes it very easy., we’re both on the same page and those employees. They don’t have to drive all the way out here to get help. They’re getting help from their offices.
They’re getting help from, you know, their homes. So it makes it very convenient and easy for them to reach us. Yeah, it’s been a real game changer for us because we’ve seen post COVID that a lot of workforces now have hybrid, employees and hybrid setups. So we’re able to meet people virtually through virtual branch, but also any of our.
Partners that happen to have, out of state offices also were able to accommodate. So, virtual branch has just been, great for us. So, financial institutions [00:10:00] everywhere claim to be focused on financial wellness, right? And we’re no different. You guys hear it all the time. It’s commercials about financial wellness this, financial wellness that.
Peggy, I’m going to ask you, because I hear you talk about this all the time. When it comes to actually delivering on financial wellness, where do you see that credit unions really stand out? The savings that they make on, like having a lower borrowing rate is extra money in their pocket to apply to more debt or to put into a savings account.
Our interest, savings accounts, I do want to mention because we have a money market, two money market products that you can view at www. patelco. org slash money market. But one of our money market products, the lower your balance, the higher your interest rate. And to me, that speaks volumes about our commitment to serving the community and the members who might not have the minimum balance of 10, 000 required at other funds.
Social Security and you know, financial institutions, there’s no minimum balance and there’s no monthly fee. And you can put your money in and you can make a higher interest rate on your lower balance [00:11:00] which I think is huge. Also our commitment to financial wellness and literacy, I mean our entire department is focused on this on financial wellness, and I don’t think many banks have, entire departments working on providing financial wellness, education, and literacy.
to employers to offer their employees so they can be more productive. And all of that is at no cost. I’m especially fond of our, coaching. As Shada mentioned, we have CFSs, Certified Financial Coaches. Our team is all certified as well, and we offer one on one coaching to, employees of our partners, and there is no cost for that.
So if they need help, you know, getting, you know, their debt down or improving their credit score, to name a few, we can certainly help with that. Patelco has a philosophy of, people before profits, and I think we also live that in our department. Also, our mission is to strengthen financial wellness, and we’re certainly doing that, you know, with our partner employers.
And then lastly, I might add that the biggest difference between a bank and a credit union is no shareholders. So we do not have [00:12:00] to pay shareholders their dividends, which means all of our profits go right back into products and services, which is why we, have the better products and services that we offer to our members and our partner employees.
That’s so great. And I forgot to introduce you, in the beginning as certified financial, counselors. You both, and I’m a counselor as well, have gone through this program and this certification process by which to be able to counsel members and employees alike on anything in their financial journey, and I think that’s a huge benefit and not to be left out as an element of the program because not all We have a full team of certified financial specialists, but you yourselves are counselors yourselves.
So when we do have an employee that’s referred by their HR partner, they get to talk to us first and we get to either.
So, we can kind of triage the situation depending on any kind of area of expertise that we can refer them to. So, [00:13:00] I love that so much. So, alright, we’ve talked financial wellness, we’ve talked about the need for it, it’s growing, not a whole lot of people know about it. The thing is free. We’re a full service financial institution.
We’ve got things like virtual branch. We know this is a growing request from employees and employers alike, and again, it’s free. So what’s holding people back from getting started? What do you think, Shada? I think people think that there’s a cost to this program. Well, guess what? There’s no cost. It’s free and there’s no contracts required.
So we make it very easy to become a partner and we do all the heavy lifting as Peggy mentioned for you, for the employers and for the HR people. So it’s free and there’s no cost. There’s no cost. No. Peggy, what’s, what’s holding people back from getting started? You meet with folks all the time, what’s, what’s always their last question at the end?
Well, I think, I think employers are busy and that they’re concerned that this is going to add more to [00:14:00] their plate and that’s not the case because we do all the heavy lifting, right? So, we distribute a newsletter monthly via email, in the newsletter we mention the educational opportunities via webinar or we can, do in person presentations which we’ve done.
Many, many times now that COVID’s lightening up a bit, we can also be on site just to table in lunchrooms, lunch and learn presentations. We try to make it fun, like Shada said, and it gives the employees the opportunity to approach us one to one and ask their questions. Michelle was talking about the coaching and I think many times people are embarrassed if they’ve, you know, messed up their finances, they have too much debt, but in reality, we’ve all been there.
So it’s, and there is no shame in, making mistakes. You know, most of us learn the hard way, you know, including me. So I think that’s mainly just the fact that they think it’s going to add work to their plate. Yeah. So it’s open enrollment time for a lot of organizations out there. We’ve talked about all the different ways that we can support organizations, usually for open enrollment.
A lot of folks have [00:15:00] benefits fairs or they’re having a week dedicated to events and things to get employees to focus on benefits and financial wellness in particular. So we can do a whole lot of stuff, right? We’ve got webinars. We can be on site for just a regular table, for fairs. We can come in and bring donuts and do, you know, all team presentations.
If you’re interested in learning more or connecting with one of our financial wellness partners, you can find more information on our website. We’ve got a dedicated page on patelco. org. The friendly link is slash at work, A T W O R K, patelco. org slash at work. Ladies, it was so fun having you in today.
I’m going to go one more time around the room and ask you to share your favorite kind of hidden gem, favorite element of the Patelco financial wellness program. Peg, we’ll start with you. I would have to say that I love being on site, and I love interacting with employees. I think it’s great fun. I think they enjoy having us as well.
So that would be my, my favorite part. [00:16:00] Yeah. How about you, Shade? A hidden gem of the program. We make it fun. I take that whole energy there, and we make it fun.
I like to take Goody’s appreciation and, you know, showing them appreciation by taking them pizza, taking them donuts, you know, hanging out with the employees, hanging out with the HR managers, you know, just getting to know them more, because this program is ongoing and there’s always room to make it better.
So by listening to our HR partners. Getting the word about what their employees are talking about, what’s working, what’s not working, it’s very helpful for our program to make sure that we keep improving it, for our audience. Okay, gals, good luck with this open enrollment season out there and thanks for all you’re doing to support financial wellness in the workplace.
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 [00:17:00] Credit Union is insured by NCUA.

[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 we’re back to talk fraud. And of our inaugural podcast season and 10 episodes in, we’ve chatted fraud now twice and we’re back for a third episode because, frankly, fraud is wild, folks.
And joining us today is Tiffany Kiefer, principal of our fraud program in our fraud division, but also Slow Pitch softball player. Hey, Tiffany, great to have you on today. Thanks for having me, Michelle. So, Tiffany, you’re an awesome softball player, I got to say, and I kind of see your role here at Patelco much like a pitcher leading the way in this fraud game.
Oh, yes, Michelle. Thank you for that fantastic softball plug. Tell us a little bit about your background and your role here at [00:01:00] Patelco, as our fraud program principal. I’m very happy to do so. So, I had the pleasure of joining Patelco in December of 2022. I have been working in fraud for the financial industry for about 15 years now.
I am a certified fraud examiner and I have my master’s degree in fraud and forensics. I was thrilled to join the team knowing what Patelco does for our membership, does for our community. And so, of course, I jumped for that opportunity. What I do here at Patelco as the Principal Fraud Program partner is I work with the fraud team, really working on processes of how we can help our members, make sure we are efficiently preventing fraud, and as well as working with our team members and how they work and help with our members to really step back and look at that member experience when it comes to fraud. How can we better educate ? How can we[00:02:00] provide tools and processes for our team members to assist our members.
And so, it’s something that I really love. I have a complete and total passion for educating individuals in how to step back
and to identify fraud and to prevent it from negatively impacting their lives.
Alright, so new Federal Trade Commission data as of February of this year reports consumers losing 8. 8 billion to scams in 2022. That’s worth repeating, 8. 8 billion to scams last year, and that’s more than 30% over 2021, so it’s serious. And from what we’ve seen here at Patelco this year so far, this seems to be continuing to grow.
So, Tiffany, what new trends are you seeing? How are these scams evolving?
Fraud is growing, and it has been steadily over time as techniques develop out by these fraudsters. And so what we’re seeing recently are investment scams [00:03:00] involving social media, as well as romance scams continue with evolving methods of how fraudsters perform those. They do, continue, but they morph over time in how they, portray themselves, right? So, we’ve recently have had a member report falling victim to an investment scam. On LinkedIn where a fraudster reached out to the member offering A fantastic investment opportunity. So, yeah. So this member asked the questions, you know, trying to vet out this person, thinking that they were asking the correct questions, but these fraudsters are good.
They’re savvy. They prepare their information. They prepare documents. This fraudster had a video of, her meeting. potential clients and so this member was under the impression that this, this was a legitimate opportunity and sent out a very large dollar wire. Unfortunately, when that wire went out, [00:04:00] there’s no request to pull those funds back, due to the scam.
And so you have to be very careful when you engage with individuals, especially when it comes to investments. Yeah. Investments. We haven’t, we haven’t heard, we haven’t talked about LinkedIn. We’ve talked about social media channels, and you think LinkedIn is a professional social media outlet and that that might happen there. So that’s a first because we’ve chatted on the show, romance scams and Facebook and other social media platforms, but not linked in, and specifically fraudsters, they’re taking on these personas to connect emotionally.
Anytime you ask a question, They try to think out what you’re going to ask them so that they can come up with a story or a source or a document, something to convince you that they are real. Because that’s their job. It’s a confidence game. And that’s what they did with this member. And so this member was convinced to send out a very large dollar wire.
And unfortunately, because of [00:05:00] how the funds are sent out, there’s no recourse to pull those funds back.
We know that to try and, you know, in their attempts to take advantage of people, we’ve talked elder abuse. And manipulating seniors who, may be less tech savvy and vulnerable. We’ve talked about job scams, with younger people and manipulating those, , eager to get a job. There’s so many types to cover, right?
But there’s a common theme between all of this, and that’s that these crooks, they’re, they take on an imposter persona. I read an NPR article recently about imposter scams, and they had described these scammers as psychologists in the wild, and I had never heard a more accurate description of what this is.
And these scams are highly sophisticated now. They’re using new technology like caller ID spoofing and voice cloning. Can you tell us a little bit more about this and how we stay resilient, specific to voice calls? Spoofing is the [00:06:00] technique where a fraudster will impersonate a trusted source, such as your credit union, right?
Just because your caller ID tells you that it’s somebody else on the other, end of the line, that does not mean that it’s always so. There is technology out there , where anybody can impersonate a phone number.
Years ago, these fraudsters were focusing on contacting individuals, victims, as though they were the IRS. Mm hmm. And so we were getting the IRS calls. That morphed into the, Social Security Administration.
Mm hmm. And recently, I’ve been hearing about utility companies, PG& E, and really the big trend right now, these fraudsters are impersonating financial institutions. So what these fraudsters will do, they will spoof Patelco’s phone number by sending out voice calls to you. And so when you go to pick up that phone, it will show up on your caller ID as Patelco, even though it’s not, right? And so for us to have those words [00:07:00] flash on the phone, we’re under the impression that this is our trusted source.
This is my financial institution. This is someone who is going to help me. And so we’re in that mindset when we answer that call, right? And so when these fraudsters engage with us, When we answer the call thinking that this is Patelco, they will use that to their advantage where we will tend to have that natural inclination to provide information to Patelco.
Patelco is asking me this. Patelco needs information from me in order to help me. And so that’s when we give up that information, right? And so that’s really the technique of these financial institution imposters. And this is not Just specific to Patelco. This is happening widespread. This is all over the country.
These fraudsters will go from one financial institution to the other. And so this is not just a Patelco thing. [00:08:00] This is an trade. every financial institution thing. Yeah. So I’ve almost resorted to not picking up the phone. It gets to be so many and just replying to any voice messages that I get, you know, but I shouldn’t have to do that.
I know. I think you’re right. If, if I’m picking up the phone. Yeah. How, how do I vet? Who I’m engaging with. So this spoofing is happening. The number is the same number that I would normally recognize when Patelco does call or when someone does call me. What can, are there questions I can ask? How do I properly vet who I’m engaging with on the phone?
So, what you can do when you’re getting this phone call and you answer it and somebody tells you that they’re calling you on behalf of Batelco, for this trend that we’re seeing, these fraudsters are calling people and saying that they have fraud on their card.
That’s usually why they’re reaching out to you. They may or may not know your card number. They may or may not [00:09:00] know your specific details or information, where you live, your account information. You receive this call in from this individual, do not provide information to them. You want to know what information they have as they’re calling out to you.
Legitimate phone calls that come from Patelco’s card fraud team , they will ask you if you have performed activity in a certain location, for whatever amount, if it’s valid. They say thank you, and they end the call. If it’s not valid, they will tell you, Okay, this is fraud, we’re gonna have to shut down your card, replace it.
And, if the transaction does go through, a card dispute’s gonna have to be filed. They will not ask you for your online banking information. They will not ask you for your verbal password, or your online banking password. And so what these fraudsters are doing,
they are intimidating… members into [00:10:00] providing personal information by saying I cannot shut this card down until you give me this personal information. You will not be able to dispute these transactions and get your money back unless you give me this information. And so they’re holding access above these members, right?
They are. In, in effect, it’s a threat where you have to do this. You have to give me this information. And if you do engage in a conversation with somebody that you’re not quite sure, if they are who they say they are, you’ve mentioned this on other podcasts and, and employee trainings before. This is a partnership.
Your membership with Patelco is really a partnership and the most part, the most effective partnerships are built on communication. Call us is what you’ve, you’ve always, said to our employees, our external folks. So if you do engage in a conversation like [00:11:00] this and you’re not sure, take their phone number.
Let them know you’ll call them back. Call us. Is that your best advice? Absolutely. Disconnect the call and call the Patelco member contact center. Call 800 358 8228. That is the safest way to make sure that your information is secure, your accounts are not being compromised, and to let them know that you were contacted by a Botelco impersonator.
If this does happen to you, call in, let us know, here at Botelco, exactly what took place. Okay, because we want to protect you. This fraudster may or may not have information. So find out what they have and then contact us so we can help you. Yeah, and I think what we’re saying is we could be here all day talking about all the different scams that are out there.
If you’re unsure, I mean, you’re not going to possibly remember all of these things were three episodes and [00:12:00] now, you know, a couple months from now, we’ll probably be talking about a new engineering scam. But if you’re unsure, call. If you are going to pick up the phone, ask the questions, collect your questions, and contact us.
We’ve also got a really great new resource in our Fraud Resource Center. What’s that all about? Okay, so our Fraud Resource Center on Patelco. org slash fraud. is a fantastic section of the website that we have recently launched. It provides a lot of information on trends, scams, and how you can protect yourself from fraud.
And how to recover. And so we really encourage our members to take a look at this resource. We are here to help you. Awesome. Tiffany, I’m so glad you were here with us today. Thanks for being here. And I’m thinking on it more now, and you’re actually not like a pitcher. I think you’re more of like the catcher position in this [00:13:00] fraud game.
You’re calling the pitches. You have the best view of the playing field. So in, in this fraud game, you’re our, our leader and in the catching position. I love that. So thank you for navigating this game for us. And we want to thank you for joining us, and 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.

[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 90566a.com. 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@90566a.com or visit our website@90566a.com 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 90566a.com. 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 90566a.com 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 90566a.com, 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 90566a.com 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 90566a.com which is 90566a.com/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 90566a.com/rates.

9:28
And 90566a.com/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 90566a.com/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 太阳集团官网. 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 太阳集团官网. 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, 90566a.com. 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, 90566a.com, 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 90566a.com 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