WKNC's Brain Trust

(Host) Lucas 00:13
Good time of day, everyone and welcome back to WKNC his brain trust. I'm your host, Lucas Marsh. And we are back with episode six of my show. I'm super excited to be talking about today's topic, because it is one that I think is very important, and should be discussed more often with the growing will be with people there, you know, growing up and becoming adults. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Something is very important to me, and something that is also very important to my guest. We've had him here on the show before in episode two. You may know him, you may be new to him. But guest Please introduce yourself.

(Guest) Akhil 00:55
Everyone. My name is Akio I was there on Episode Two, of course. And I'm a freshman studying computer science.

(Host) Lucas 01:04
Awesome. Welcome back. Excellent to have you back. And now that you did your intro, I forgot to do my intro completely forgot to introduce myself. So we're gonna do an interview in reverse today completely on accident, I assure we've introduced our guest. Now, since I forgot to introduce myself, for those of you don't know, my name is Lucas. I'm from Long Island, New York. I'm also a member of the freshman class here at State. And again, super excited to be talking about today's topic, which is financial literacy. Yeah, Everybody give it up for financial literacy. Not exactly the world's most exciting topic. But again, one that is very important and should be talked about more. So to jump right into it, Akhil what would you say it means to be financially literate,

(Guest) Akhil 01:56
to be financially literate, I'd say it's someone that knows how to knows where their money is, knows where it's going, how they manage their cash flow, their budgeting, spending, and just making sure they make the most value out of their money. I think that's what financial literacy is all about. Just making sure you're completely aware of what your money is doing.

(Host) Lucas 02:17
Very well said. I'd agree financial literacy is just you know, knowledge on how to manage your money, just just being knowledgeable on how to live a financially secure life, and how to manage your money properly. And effectively.

(Guest) Akhil 02:35
Yeah, most people don't exactly do much with their money. When they get their first paycheck. They say, Oh, let me go buy some fancy meal or go out with my friends. But there's a lot of importance to saving and budgeting and making sure you don't overspend and you know, lose a lot of money in the future.

(Host) Lucas 02:52
Extremely, it's very important to save. I remember when I got my first paycheck, I was a I think was a volunteer at a summer camp. And it wasn't exactly a paycheck. It was just like at the end like as a volunteer don't get paid. So at the end of the five week program, all the parents of the kids jelly, you make your money from tips, like all the parents will they'll they'll each typically know like 10 bucks, five bucks. 20 bucks. Kid really liked you, you know, you get 2530 and that kind of thing. So I remember when I first got like, a large amount of money, I think I saved most of it.

(Guest) Akhil 03:28
Well, for me, at least most of it for me in my first paycheck. It wasn't exactly a paycheck. It was sort of like a just a cash prize for participating in like one of the events at our school. My mom said, why don't you give it to me? I'll hold on to it for you never saw that money

(Host) Lucas 03:45
again. You got scammed. Exactly. Scam guys, don't

(Guest) Akhil 03:49
trust your parents with your money. You know, they're gonna keep it.

(Host) Lucas 03:53
Now my parents were good about not scamming us like they would give us an allowance. Like we do chores around the house. You know, take out the garbage open the shutters in the morning, I would say the litter box for our cats. Yeah, among other things, but you know, do chores around the house, we get a weekly allowance, like $5 I don't know if $10

(Guest) Akhil 04:13
My weekly allowance was 50 rupees, which is about 75 cents. And I used to be more than enough to get a nice little lunch at the school cafeteria every once in a while. Normally our parents backer lunches, so Right.

(Host) Lucas 04:25
Yeah, that's, that's really cool. So yeah, and so the weekly allowance, it's something like you know, pre job kind of thing like middle school, elementary school kind of thing. When you're young, you know, you get an allowance, what I would do is when I only had like, very small amount of money, you know, a small amount of income, you know, just basic allowance. Every time I had $100, I would go and put it directly into my bank. And I would go and do that with me. I like I say to my mom would be like, can I go and put this in my bank? And she'd be like, Yep, and then I'd go with her and put it in my bank. myself, and you'd feel all proud, right? $100 in my bank, like $100 isn't like a lot of money, but a lot as a kid, but to a 12 year old who's apparently thinking about his future, it's a lot. Yeah, definitely. And it definitely come in handy now. Because, you know, we're away at school. I'm not where I mean, like, technically I am working, I'm working doing this working producing my show. But it's not the same. Like I'm not making the I'm not working the same hours, I would in like, the grocery store that work at home. So technically, you know, I'm making, you know, a little bit of money making a little bit but not the same. So little slowed revenue stream, but still happening. So that's good. But it's come in handy all that money that I saved up. Because now that I'm not exactly I mean, like, last semester wasn't working all here for that long as mainly, like half the semester, but for like paying my car insurance every month. Yeah, not making a whole lot. So I have to go and tap into my savings, which I have. So I'll be okay. I won't be I'm not gonna be going poor anytime soon. But it's still there. It's at least there for me.

(Guest) Akhil 06:12
Exactly. And that's, you know, it's very crucial when you're saving money. You just don't know. You might not need it now, but you'll definitely need it in the future.

(Host) Lucas 06:20
Yeah, something. So you know, we're talking about financially, financial literacy literacy. We'll get into the importance but I feel would you consider yourself financial literacy financially literate?

(Guest) Akhil 06:34
Well, to me honestly, being financially literate would honestly just make sure that I save the most amount of money possible. And at the same time, try to enjoy because of course, someone who keeps saving and saving and saving and never spending a dime, also may not live such a satisfactory life. It it is portrayed a lot in social media where people say save half of your paycheck, you know, don't do anything don't go out with and don't have fun. That's not really, that's not really the case you should go out, you should have fun. I'd say. I'm not exactly financially fully financially literate, I am just completely aware that saving is super important. And budgeting is also just as important and making sure I know exactly where my money is and where it goes.

(Host) Lucas 07:19
Now I'd seem about the same. Like I'm pretty I'm pretty on top of my finances. I've been saving for a long time for the for like the first year or so while I was working at the wonderful ShopRite of Massapequa. I didn't have I didn't have a car. So and what me and my friends are doing we hung out, we would just hang out at somebody's house and sit and like play video games and stuff. We wouldn't always go out to eat. That kind of thing. Like I had money, but I didn't really have anything to spend it on like I wouldn't, we really didn't go anywhere. I didn't I didn't have a car yet. So we didn't really go. places I wasn't paying for gas wasn't paying for car insurance. I didn't have as easy of access to meals because for anybody listening DoorDash and like GrubHub and UberEATS it's all a scam. It's

(Guest) Akhil 08:08
it's very expensive, and it's not worth it's not worth it.

(Host) Lucas 08:11
Every single time I have GrubHub or DoorDash food, they've always missed something. And I can never get that item. And they only just give me a refund. And I'm like,

(Guest) Akhil 08:24
not only that, like I would like it's either a missed item and it's delivered like 45 minutes later, even though they say Oh, we'll get it to you in 20 minutes.

(Host) Lucas 08:33
Yeah. Now, anybody listening, don't be financially literate, don't DoorDash food, just walk if it's out of range of for you. Don't buy it. That's true. That's that's one of the reasons that's one of the ways I saved up so much money because I wasn't driving places to go get food. The food that I would buy would be like, around my high school around my campus because of the we were allowed to go out for lunch. But another way that I saved so much money was used to be mentioned budgeting. So I was I am an Eagle Scout. And part of becoming an Eagle Scout is a merit badge called Personal Management. And part of personal management is keeping a budget for yourself for 13 weeks. I don't know why it's 13 weeks and not just three months. But for some reason. It's 13 weeks. Yeah,

(Guest) Akhil 09:25
it's just three months and one week extra just because just one week extra

(Host) Lucas 09:29
just a little little extra something extra, but we'd have we have to keep a budget. So I would I had money so obviously I would go and I'd spend some of it like whenever we went out to lunch, but I wouldn't go out to lunch more than once or twice a week. Because lunch would be on average anywhere between like seven to $10 Depending on where you go. I mean if I really wanted to I could you know buy the cheap food and get five $5 lunches but sometimes you know you want a little better you Want to have a little bit more fun, right? I need to enjoy yourself, if you have money, good for you. You don't need to hoard it, like, get that toppings on that pizza slice like you've earned it. Go ahead. Yeah.

(Guest) Akhil 10:12
And to talk about the saving aspect and buying things within your scope. My golden rule is always if you can't, if if the thing you buy isn't 10% or more of what your what you make, or what you currently have, don't buy it at all. Like, if it's more than 10%, don't buy it at all, come back to it later. Think about it really hard if you really need it. Because so many people, you know, like, someone who makes 50k a year, they'll be saying, Okay, I'm gonna go sign a lease on my new tests, I'm gonna sign a lease, I'm gonna go sign a deal on my new Tesla. Actually, our lease was right, I really, yeah, well, I'm gonna sign a lease on my new Tesla. And I'll pay 1000 bucks a month for the next five years, or 10 years, or whatever it may be. They don't realize just how much money they will eventually start draining out. And it's not something they can afford. And it's a considerable chunk of money to take out from every month. And we're expenses,

(Host) Lucas 11:10
although leasing cars is actually can be extremely affordable. Yeah, it really depends on every, every, like four years or something, I think a lease is for four years. But you lease a car for four years, you basically get a new car for slightly less than what would normally cost you, you basically borrow the car for four years. And then in four years, after lease is up, you can either renew for another four years, or you can lease a newer car. So now you have an upgraded vehicle. And it's still affordable for you. So leasing is a very good option. Some people don't want to one because they can afford not to. And like we've been saying, gotta have some money for comfort. You know what I mean? You can't just save all your money and never spend a dime. Like, if you want, if you really want like my dad, obviously, he bought a 2003 Chevy Avalanche. When my brother was born about the same time in 2002. He said the car is at the truck ever since. And he's going to have that truck until it's on its last legs, like he would not have leased because he wanted to spend a little bit extra so that he has the same truck for the longest time. Like he drove my mom to the hospital all three times when my older brother younger sister and I were born. So you know, we've had a lot of memories in that drive the same truck would always say like, I drove you to the hospital in this truck, like, we know. Yeah, because you know, like, again, leasing is affordable. But at some point you want to buy your own,

(Guest) Akhil 12:40
it's really based on people's needs, some people will probably need the car one two years, that's pretty much it. Other people, you know, they find a good deal, they want to maximize the opportunity cost of that car, they'll go ahead and buy it and full price, right.

(Host) Lucas 12:54
And then leasing. But I wanted to get back to budgeting. Because budgeting is extremely important. Sort of same for I had in the budget, I would allocate like, maybe $25 every week for lunches, or for food, I would actually do I think it was more like 35 a week, for lunches are just 35 a week for food. Like you basically break down all of your income per month. And I would give myself like $150 a month for food. And I would desperately not go over that. 150 If I went over it in like if like let's say in the month of January, I give myself $150 for food, I'm going to save $350 I have 150 for car insurance. I have $50 for miscellaneous like emergency. And that's it, the rest of it is getting saved. If I go over that 150 The next month, I would not exactly what I want to I want to say like punish myself but kind of make make it so that there are consequences for going over. Yeah, and this is very difficult thing to do. Because there is nothing else holding that system together other than me

(Guest) Akhil 14:14
and your well basically. Yeah, that's, that's about it.

(Host) Lucas 14:17
But it worked. It worked. If I went over in January by $25 I would then take that out of February's food money. Yeah,

(Guest) Akhil 14:26
I mean, that definitely does work, because that's basically what you were supposed to be saving, but you didn't,

(Host) Lucas 14:31
right. So even though I'm kind of over drawing on the own, on the one number that I established myself out of complete random, you know, whatever, that's a good enough number for a month just completely random. If I go over that, I would you know, take it out of next month. But no budgeting is really important. Do you budget or have you budgeted?

(Guest) Akhil 14:53
I mean, honestly, when by the time of like when I'm with my time here at State I don't really spend much because most of the money comes from my parents itself. So it's not really an allowance per se, it's just more so, hey, I need, you know, 300 $400 this one, a couple of times $300. A, it's to either buy textbooks or pay for a couple of things, or, honestly, just to keep keep some money in the bank just so you need it, you know, and I don't really have a set allowance, because I'm not making any income actively right now. But if I did, I would just make sure that, you know, if I made $1,000, I would really only go as far as $300 for everything, regardless of what it is travel, transplant, travel, food, having fun entertainment, everything. Yeah, $300, I'd say is like a good limit. Because $700 is a lot is a considerable chunk of money that you can keep for later. That's kind of the basic budgeting behind it. But yeah, you know, breaking it down further, there'll be a lot more, it's really based on the income and what you what you want to decide to do with it afterwards.

(Host) Lucas 16:06
Plus, like while you're in while you're in school, it's like if you're living on campus, your loans will count towards that kind of stuff. So budgeting while you're in school is also really important. Because I like to follow the I mean, like my own analogy, if you follow a rule, but I'd like to, I like to try to save at least at least half of any money that I make, depending on you know, how much of it I really need to spend. Yeah, like I have. You know, car insurance is a monthly fixed expense. Food isn't exactly a fixed fixed expense, but I kind of keep it like that. Keep it fixed, or at least I used to now. Now I don't, I don't budget as much because you know, like you said, we're not spending a lot of money in the first place. Yeah. Right. Because you know, all of our food is a meal swipe at a dining hall that's already been paid for so and the 500 Dining Dollars. Yep, that's I don't even okay, this is kind of it's not exactly financial literacy related, but like, Do you Do you really think of the dining dollars on campus? Do you think of that as like real money?

(Guest) Akhil 17:11
No, I don't. Yeah. Honestly, unless I could use it everywhere. No, it's pointless. There's very limited restaurants and honestly, limited selection that I could use my dining dollars on. So yeah.

(Host) Lucas 17:23
Now if the dining hall is oh, if I was like, actually smart about it, I would have budgeted out the 500. Because that's 16 weeks that we're here. 500 Dining Dollars. Some quick math, that's $31.25 a week that you can spend at any given like C store or a restaurant on campus. And

(Guest) Akhil 17:47
honestly, yeah, honestly, I just take $500 for the semester in hard cash and eat outside, you know, yep, with $31 per week, I'm sure you can definitely have fun each and every week going outside and eating food,

(Host) Lucas 18:00
right? $31, even $30. Take that extra dollar 25 a week and put it somewhere else. 30 hours a week for food is

(Guest) Akhil 18:08
not even not even 30 you can honestly go to 15 Just eat out once a week maximum. Yeah, 15 bucks. Honestly, that's all you need.

(Host) Lucas 18:17
I'm going to be in a different situation. I don't know what you're doing for your housing situation for next year. But I'm trying to get into a wall village with a group of my friends. But now comes the questions. What kind of dining plan I'm going to have, because a lot of my classes next semester, and you know, next year starting, you know, after you go to your classes, at least for me for aerospace engineering, they're going to be on Centennial pretty much most of my classes all the time. Yeah. So there's a dining plan provided called the block 120. Where you get I think you get like it's 120 meals wife spends 120 meals hoping like 200 dining dollars or so. No, no. Dining Dollars. No, you do get you definitely get Dining Dollars. Okay. All right. I looked it up the block 120 plan is it's like it's basically it's $1,000 pretty much $1,000 less than the Flex 500 plan. And it's 120 dining hall meals and 500 Dining Dollars.

(Guest) Akhil 19:21
Yeah. So to really think about this in terms of a budget or analytical way, I'd say, you know, you could you could start by realizing Okay, so it's $1,000 Less, where would that $1,000 Go. So we start off with 120 Meal Swipes. And that is going to be one meal per day for the entire semester for four months because 120 divided by 30 is four and the remaining money would essentially you'd need to either work with it to make two meals a day at your apartment and Wolf village because that's what it is over there are you know try to save and honestly this is where getting an apartment. Housing is useful but cuz you could buy a dozen dozen carton of eggs and a loaf of bread. And you could live on an omelet sandwich for one week straight and you'd spend like $5, like the $10 are so inexpensive. And that's where you can really start saving money. And cooking your own food itself is already cheaper than paying for a meal swipe or anything every once in a while because you don't really need to feed yourself that much. Yeah, yeah.

(Host) Lucas 20:25
I mean, obviously, don't starve.

(Guest) Akhil 20:27
Yeah, that's not, they don't just see one piece of bread and say I'm saving money.

(Host) Lucas 20:32
And saving money is and if if saving money to you means starving yourself. Ya know what? That's not something we have the expertise to talk about here. But

(Guest) Akhil 20:42
what I mean by that is just don't buy avocados. Instead, just live with cucumbers and tomatoes on your sandwich. If that's if you're that kind of a person. But

(Host) Lucas 20:50
avocados or wild avocados cost a lot of money. Yeah, they mean, they're good for you.

(Guest) Akhil 20:58
But it's not a necessity for that.

(Host) Lucas 21:00
Absolutely not. Also, if you accidentally forget to eat the avocados like, okay, they're going to be ripe on Tuesday at three o'clock. And if I don't eat them, exactly, then they're wasted. And I can't use them. Unless you know, you know how to really use avocado. Don't, you don't always need to go out and get avocados plus the just a complete side note. The process of making avocados is environmentally not sustainable in the slightest. The amount of benefit we get from avocados, the process of making it as causing like deforestation in Mexico. And I feel

(Guest) Akhil 21:35
like that's why it's kind of a hard to find product and pretty expensive in the first place.

(Host) Lucas 21:40
Because it's causing a lot of deforestation. So know the facts, people. Avocado, avocado, avocado is doing more harm than good. But guacamole is good. So I don't know what to say. Yeah. All right. There's better. There's better dips, but that's okay. That's now we're here to debate today.

(Guest) Akhil 21:57
About depths no depth, no deep discussion, please.

(Host) Lucas 22:01
So anyway, the the block was when he plans 120 dining hall meals, find her 500 Dining Dollars. My plan is I'm going to see how I can make this work for me. But I need to really investigate the lunch options on Centennial see how expensive they actually are? Because my plan is I'll use the Meal Swipes for dinners. I use dining dollars for lunches, and I'll use and I'll actually cook and buy my own food for breakfasts. Because I don't always eat the biggest lunches anyway. If anything, I'll just eat a bigger dinner. And with a meal swipe. Once you're in, you're in so I can get two plates if I need.

(Guest) Akhil 22:37
Yeah, honestly, the that was also kind of what I was thinking. I mean, I totally forgot that those 500 dining dollars as well. So you can have your lunch with the Dining Dollars. Like even if it's a six $7 meal, you're still going to be able to get through a solid 90 100 days and 120 days, there's going to be holidays for sure. So like yeah,

(Host) Lucas 22:54
it's not every day that you're going to be eating lunch. Yeah, campus like the weekends, you might go out. That kind of thing.

(Guest) Akhil 23:01
Yeah. And like just in terms of bare bones calculations really quick here. If you spent all your dining dollars on a lunch, you spent all of your meal swipes on a dinner, you spent $15 a week for a loaf of bread and omelet sandwich, let's just say you do that you're going to be saving, you know, let's see that times 460 60 times four, to 40 to 40, you're going to be saving about what 1000 minus 240, which is about $760 You can use that seven $60 towards something that's much better for you.

(Host) Lucas 23:32
And that $1,000 That you're saving by getting the less expensive meal plan that you know, 600 760 something you're saving now, in fact, like can go towards other things, like for me would be my car insurance,

(Guest) Akhil 23:45
or insurance or you know, just money, spend a little extra on and make a good breakfast, right? Because if you want every once a month,

(Host) Lucas 23:53
right, maybe not the $15 a week for breakfast, maybe it's $25 a week for but it's still going to work still saving money. And little little conversation like this, even though that was not exactly the most comprehensive plan. That's just my general. What it's just kind of my way of thinking about how I spend my money next year and next semester. I'll probably come up with a better plan as the time goes, because like we said, we're not really budgeting now, either of us. But I know definitely for next semester that I'm going to be actively spending money that I need to walk in there. Yeah, like the reason that 500 hours now doesn't exactly because as freshmen we're on the Flex 500 plan. So suddenly, it's yeah, it's kind of ridiculous. That Flex 500 is nonsense, but it's not so bad. It's unlimited. Now you can have breakfast, lunch and dinner as big or as small meals as you want. As many times as you want as many times you want unlimited, and those 500 Dining Dollars are those that can be exclusively for snacks and other stuff. If you really He wanted to so the reason I don't I don't really want to say I don't consider it money, because obviously there's money that was spent to make that $500 happen. It's I don't really consider it money. Because even if I don't have $90, I can still eat, you can still

(Guest) Akhil 25:15
eat exactly, because there's no reason to spend 500 dining dollars at all. There's no reason whatsoever. Honestly, I just think it's a way for NC State to make us feel like we can have all weekend eat, and it's just a little bit more money, just pay a little bit more money. Just a little more on top $1,000 more you know what I'm saying? Yeah,

(Host) Lucas 25:35
that's a bad. Yeah. That's the kind of stuff you got to think about when you want to be on top your money, just little conversations like that. We may be talking about that for, I don't know, 10 minutes or so, Google the few things. I mean, of course, the real effort comes when you really have to start breaking down the numbers. And it's a helpful tip that something I've done that I think would be really helpful is at the end of each month, you're budgeting. Obviously you keep like a UK, you keep like a running total, you can do it online, I like to do mine on paper. So I have a physical budget with me, so that at anytime, I mean, I like to do it on paper. If you do it online as well, you can also do it online and on papers, you have backups and records and things like that just so you know exactly where your money is. But it's also important to know, literally like know where your money is like online banking is a gift. Online Banking is such a blessing. I love online banking. Yeah, so easy.

(Guest) Akhil 26:37
Online Banking also gives you a really good overview of how you're spending and what you're spending on. Like, I know one of my friends, she uses a chase. And Chase specifically breaks down the costs between entertainment, travel, food, and other sources of how she's spending. And that's literally the bare bones minimum that you can do to just realize that, oh, maybe I'm spending too much on food, maybe I'm spending too much on travel is what I need to reduce on.

(Host) Lucas 27:04
Now, that kind of thing. Like, check out for subscriptions to things maybe you have subscriptions like is just every once in a while people say check your email every day, I say, check your bank statement, at least once a week, just to see what's happening with your money. You know what I mean? You don't want to you don't want to go out one day thinking you have, say $100 in your account. And then you go out to spend something and your card gets declined like 30 times. Now you can't go out with your friends, you know, it's ruined. And that's sad. And it's because you have multiple subscriptions to like maybe streaming services like Spotify or something like that, that you just or you went out the weekend before and you spent that money and you just you just didn't realize it right? You just you didn't know that kind of thing. You don't want to get stuck like that. That's part of the part part of being financially literate is just

(Guest) Akhil 27:54
financial. Financial literacy is just being financially aware of what you're doing. That's, that's like the bare bones financially aware,

(Host) Lucas 28:01
that's the basic stuff you can do is just know what's happening with your money. Know how much you're making, you know how much you're spending, you know, like you said, like online banking, what your friend is doing with Chase, online banking, like read your E statements, like you get your bank statements every month, just check them out for a few minutes, maybe, you know, take take five minutes out of your day to just take a quick peek at where your money's going.

(Guest) Akhil 28:23
Maybe you'll notice a weird $100 charge for something somewhere,

(Host) Lucas 28:27
right? You know, the like you don't recognize it. Obviously, you can refute statements, things like that. But just important. Just know what's happening with your hard earned dollars. So that kind of stuff. Do you have any other tips, like other things that you do? Because like, obviously, like I use online banking, when like next semester, I'm gonna kickstart my budget again, hopefully, I'll find a job here. That a little more steady income than doing what I'm doing now.

(Guest) Akhil 28:56
So what I normally do is I use Excel sheets, and I manually track down each and every expense that I do. So if I say I take an Uber out to you know, a shopping mall, I put it down in my Excel sheet, Uber, the shopping mall costs $12 done today, and paid by the bank, you know, so I just track all of that. And then every once in a while, you know, every two, three weeks I come back I see, you know, I use the Excel SUM function or I just select the cells and I see oh, I spent $250 This week alone. What am I doing with my money? Like when you're able to see if when you're able to visualize and see just how much money you've spent over a certain period of time. You're gonna realize like, oh, I can definitely cut down on expenses, I can definitely do something better or do something, you know, different here. And between my friends, I honestly I use this app called split wise. And it's a really great app that just lets you track all the expenses between indifferent friends, like if you're going to pay for a dinner, you know, $35 with eight people who's going to like say, Oh, give me this much exact amount of money, that officer is going to take care of it for you. And you can just manage money, money matters with your friends on that app. And that's what I use for like, between friends.

(Host) Lucas 30:18
Yeah, no, that's very helpful. That's exactly what I would do. Like what I was saying with, with the personal management merit badge, sounds super dorky. But it was very helpful actually, because I learned about budgeting because part of personal management is managing your finances. Part of the another part of the badge is like, you know, managing your time managing relationships, that kind of stuff. But it had an example budget, where you would start you'd write your it had a had it basically just it's an Excel spreadsheet, on paper, and you would say, month one, expected income here. Expected gifts here expected other things here, and then you would say, Okay, this is my total income, I'm going to write mostly gonna split this up into things and savings is always first, we are on a budget sheet for that you making for yourself a tip I have is put savings at the top of that list and set your fixed costs, like you have the fixed costs, like car insurance, you know, maybe your Spotify subscription every month, or every three months, something like that. Honestly, before

(Guest) Akhil 31:25
you consider anything else that are variable, you should just first see, I need to pay off, you know, loans from my house, and you might pay off my car insurance and need to pay off some of these necessary subscriptions, and you'd pay off insurance, all those different things, you take those into factor first and then decide what you want to do with the remainder of the money. And the remainder of the money should be decided between, you know, saving spending some. And of course, you know, just keeping the money around just in case.

(Host) Lucas 31:52
Right, always set aside some for directly just to savings. If you have multiple savings accounts, like some people have an account that they will just put money into, and they won't touch it, they'll just leave it there. Other people have a savings account, maybe at different like at my bank, I have a checking account and a savings account. That's all I really need. Because I know I won't be touching the savings unless I absolutely need it. Like my car insurance. If you put that money away, and you just let it sit there in the savings account, you after you have your fixed costs settled, you say okay, I'm gonna put this much into directly to savings to just sit there and just stay there just don't go anywhere money, you stay there. You can also put away some into another savings, but not exactly savings in the long term. It's more short term savings just to have money there for like emergencies. Like, just just literally just another few $100. But I think the general rule is you need at least like, I think it was either three months or six weeks. paid six, these are three months or six weeks pay. On on hand at all times. Yeah, just there. We just put away and ready. Yeah. So you just you just have it there, ready to go by the end, the other half stuff, you want to touch, that kind of thing. Deal with your fixed costs first, then you manage out your variable cost. Maybe you don't need $50 for entertainment this month, maybe only 25 or something like that, you know, that kind of thing? So what do you use any other like tools? Like you said, You split wise use Excel? Do you have any other tips and tricks?

(Guest) Akhil 33:40
I'm going to minute to think here? I think what I do is I instead of the saving part where I just let the money sit, I'd rather choose to invest it or which is something that not a lot of college students know how to do exactly yet, you know, they may have, they may just give it to their parents told them you know, go ahead invest in this, do this do that. But investing is such an essential thing to learn for college students. And that's actually it's what it's going to be one of the podcasts that I'm going to be started working on. So I'm going to start working on pretty soon. And I don't have a name for it yet. It's still in bare bones working. But I do plan to start something like that I teach people you know how to invest, how to maintain stocks, crypto, things like that. So I'd say the biggest tip I do I'd normally do is with those savings, you invest, because there are some investments that are going to give you guaranteed returns, there are gonna be some investments that are risky, of course, you know, never invest more than what you can afford to lose. But there are things like Roth IRA, which is just an on taxable account that you can open that will basically just let you deposit money in there, and you're not gonna get any taxes on it and you can withdraw all that money tax free when you're 65. So you can call that your retirement fund, you know, have or not have a Roth IRA There are things like that you can invest in stocks, you can invest in crypto, which is kind of risky, but it's still there as an option. So you'd want to make sure you do as much as you can with your money and not just let it sit in the bank, because we all know inflation is going to be inflation is always going to be rising, you're always your money's always going to be depreciating in value. And if you don't have it working for you, you're not going to get anywhere to be honest.

(Host) Lucas 35:23
So if you don't let inflation eat up your all your hard earned savings,

(Guest) Akhil 35:27
because while you might put $10,000 in the bank, now, 20 years later, they'll probably be worth three or $4,000 in real value, and that times money, and you don't want that you want your money to be working for you. Exactly said, Yeah, I'd say finally, I'd say go cashless entirely. Having cash on hand is good for some emergencies in some scenarios, but going cashless is just, it's so beneficial. It's so easy. It's actually also very secure with wireless payments to have to pay or scan to pay with their Google Wallet or Apple Pay. Those are very useful because you get to know you get to know exactly where it's going to be scanned, how much you're going to be paying. You can really like you don't have to worry about change. You don't have to worry about handling all the physical cash. You know there's a chance to to get like fake billboards, things like that. There's so many factors with handling cash that it's just better to go cashless entirely. That's also another thing that I do.

(Host) Lucas 36:25
That's interesting. I know like a lot of places are going cashless like, the university is cashless?

(Guest) Akhil 36:32
Yeah, it's basically cashless at this point. And like, I don't I haven't seen a single restaurant or any other place other than credit debit card. Our dining dollars. They don't take anything else.

(Host) Lucas 36:41
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I would say I'm, like involuntarily going cashless here, because they don't accept cash. So I don't have any like, I don't need it. Because we don't need it here. Like I have dining dollars to go meal swipes. Don't really have much else I would spend cash on while I'm here. But in general, I would keep cash on me. I would try to spend cash. I think I would do that more often than I would with my card. Because in my opinion, spending with my card is it's a little dangerous to me. Like I said like the only thing keeping my budget together at the time was my my own will. Yeah. Which was I'm just letting you know, it was a real struggle keeping that together like that. 150 a month. I had that was dangerous. It was like was it more like 150 every other month like it was? It was interesting. It was interesting time I learned a lot about how I tried to spend my money. Yeah, I'm

(Guest) Akhil 37:41
sure there's like, all time but yeah, I'm sure like, there there are downsides to going cashless. Like, with with cash, you're able to see exactly how much money is going out. You're gonna feel that pain, right? Like being a waste of

(Host) Lucas 37:54
money, or do you literally feel like you're using that

(Guest) Akhil 37:57
my $10? My precious $10 Going for a Chipotle burrito? Oh, no.

(Host) Lucas 38:03
Like, if I look at a number on a screen like that number is not real. Yeah, there is into that exact amount of money sitting somewhere in a box marked Lucas Marshalls money. Nobody touch except for Lucas property of Lucas don't really touch except for Lucas, there isn't a box that says that with that amount of money in it that has that money going out at a time like that money online? That that's not a real number. Yeah. So it doesn't feel real. That's why I like spending cash all the time. Or at least if I can, I'll spend cash because it's just putting in a piece of plastic and taking it out of the little little card reader. Yeah, it doesn't doesn't it doesn't feel like you're spending money. No, it doesn't feel like it. And that's dangerous. That's dangerous. Yeah. And when you don't do that, and you go in each you swipe and swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, you go crazy, like, oh, doesn't feel real, it doesn't

(Guest) Akhil 38:48
nothing happens all of a sudden, $0. Now you're broke. Exactly,

(Host) Lucas 38:53
sorry. That's why I would always like what I would do with a paycheck is I would go into the go, my paycheck would be direct deposit, right to my checking account. And then I would immediately put it into my savings, depending on how much I already have my checking account at a time for a student. I was in high school and now a student you know, in college, I don't have many expenses that require me to have more than I don't know, $100 in my checking account at a time. Yeah, so whenever I get paid, if I have over $100 I'll just take the difference and put it into the savings, put it into my savings so I don't touch it. So added time. I pretty much only ever have like $100 on my card. Pretty much for emergencies like backup. If I run out of cash, I have some money on my

(Guest) Akhil 39:39
card always keeping some cash is pretty good on like if you have like 20 or $30 for an emergency situation, you don't know where you need it. You don't need

(Host) Lucas 39:46
to be carrying $100 of cash on you like yeah, unless you know you're going to and from your bank or something like that. But just generally in your wallet you don't really need to carry that much money on you. But I've always seen my debit card is like backup. I don't know now that I don't have any cash because the campus is cashless. And I'm not a member of PNC Bank, because there's no PNC Bank by my house. So I don't, I haven't tried using their ATMs. But I'm sure there's a fee that I don't want to pay. So I'm not going to do use those ATMs. But, you know,

(Guest) Akhil 40:18
yeah, that's just how it is. Well, going cashless has its benefits, pros and cons, we talked about it. And honestly, the same the thing you said about how you don't know where, where your money's going, and just how much of your money is going. With online transactions that makes that's pretty much the real stinger. And that's where budgeting will come into place. Because that's just a replacement for saying, Oh, hey, take the cash away. Instead, put it down on that Excel sheet, say, Oh, I spent $10 here, and you're gonna stare at that Excel sheet for the next two hours saying, I spent $10 on a burrito, I could have just eaten food at the dining hall. Right? That kind of thing is that's why tracking and logging, those expenses are just so essential, even in a debit card. And that's why also with credit cards, people sometimes do get reckless, and they go over their limits. And that's because they don't record those expenses, which is so essential to make sure you know where your money's going.

(Host) Lucas 41:14
Yeah. There's like, even especially with a credit card, that is really hard is like the worst that is your money. That's literally isn't real money. It's a number that you're gonna have to pay back to put back to zero at the end of the month. I've actually I've never actually had a credit card, because I'm worried. That's what I'm gonna do when I have to credit you like, Oh, it's fine. It's probably gonna pay back the end of month, I'll have the money at the end of the month, have them at the month.

(Guest) Akhil 41:39
It's kind of like what people do they get into that cycle, you know, with the credit card, you basically are just borrowing the money and you have to pay it back eventually. And people will just keep borrowing and borrowing and they'll reach a cycle where they'll just going to be

(Host) Lucas 41:53
oh gosh, duck, crippling debt. Terrible credit, can't buy a house can't buy a car. Can't buy myself groceries. Oh, no. Yeah, that's exactly why the importance of financial literacy. You don't want to you don't want to dig yourself into a financial hole. You don't I mean, you don't want to just all your money's gone, poof, it's all gone. And you don't know where it is. You can't get it back. You don't know why it happened. You don't want that to happen to you.

(Guest) Akhil 42:15
Yeah, there are so many things that can go into, you know, budgeting, analyzing using a debit card using a credit card, in fact, like credit cards, or there's so much around them on like how to use them efficiently, how to make them be used to your advantage. Like, there's a lot of things you can do. It's just that you need a lot of research. And it's kind of hard to simplify those terms. But hopefully I plan to do that in my podcast eventually. So yeah, yeah.

(Host) Lucas 42:43
You know, obviously, we're no, we're no experts. We're just kids who've had money at some point.

(Guest) Akhil 42:47
So yeah, we still of course, this is not fine.

(Host) Lucas 42:50
I've never had a credit card before. I'm no expert. But

(Guest) Akhil 42:54
even I've not had but like, just looking alone through social media. Just reading some of the news articles just seeing around just 20 minutes worth of like research use, you can see just how, how dangerous or are how beneficial a credit card can be.

(Host) Lucas 43:10
Yeah, my, my parents have always, always told me those things like I would see the stack of receipts pile up on my mom's computer. And then like, you know, every other week, she's sitting at the kitchen counter. Well, me and my dad are cooking or something like that. And everybody's hanging out. My mom was sitting there, putting in putting receipts into there. I think they use Quicken. They're putting in receipts, they're budgeting. Yeah. And I always asked Mike, I was, you know, when I was younger, I would always ask, like, what are you doing? They're like, Oh, we're budgeting we're just being cautious with our money. Especially because 2008 housing crisis was rough. I would definitely they never let us know. But 2000 crisis was difficult for a lot of people.

(Guest) Akhil 43:55
Yeah, so my budget I think my father he uses a Tally ERP nine it's very ancient software is probably released like 3040 years ago, but it's been doing him solid. He's been using that straight straight on for everything for all of his budgeting financing, marking expenses, seeing how much money goes in and out. So they're like very nice all in one tools like that, that help you you know, properly budget when you get a proper income.

(Host) Lucas 44:20
And it's just important to talk about these things. That's why That's why I chose it as today's topic. It's something that I know you'd like to talk about something you know a lot about something I like to talk about something I hold in very high regard to living a good life, being financially secure, being financially literate very important. Shout out my parents for cultivating that kind of life for me.

(Guest) Akhil 44:44
Yeah, definitely. There's there's we wouldn't have been you know, during this episode, if we didn't have that much interest in financial literacy if it weren't for our parents.

(Host) Lucas 44:54
Yeah, like it's not a very interesting topic like oh, hey, be financially literate. Eric. Get yourself on how to manage your money. Like it's not the same thing as Oh, how

(Guest) Akhil 45:02
do you get rich quick? You know, it's right. Like, it's

(Host) Lucas 45:04
not like Alright guys, so what you're going to do is you're going to invest when the market goes, whoa, whoa, no, no, that's not we're doing here. It's just something we do in this. That's not what we do in this show. That's what he's gonna do on his podcast, more information to come. But that's what we do here is we we start the conversation here, we have a little discussion, we just we tell you about how important it is, how important it is to us. And I just thought of something else, but my something my parents would do is, so they started giving us an allowance to teach us financial responsibility. My sister will see a toy or something. And she would be like, Oh my god, I really want to buy that I really want to buy that we'd be out. You know, you're out with your parents, you're a little kid, you're in the Toy Story. Like, can we get that? Can we get that the parent will probably kind of you're kind of hoping that the mom or dad will pay for it? Well, my parents would do would be like, do you have enough money for it? Yeah, and we'd say, then, we don't have enough money for it. And they'd be like, well, no toy today. Sorry. And then you know, it'd be all sad. And they'd like, Listen, you get an allowance you're getting, you're making money, you have income. It's small, but you're making money over time, save up for whatever you want to buy. And once you have enough money, if by then you still want it because me and my, my sister are plagued by the ADHD. So we'll see. See something and be like, Oh, my God, I really want I really want to be the one that impulse buying. Yeah, that's most of the buying that I do. Like I recently got me my brother used to play Skylanders all the time. And recently, I got Skylanders again, and my brother got me and we got it from me and him. We've got too many for me, because he knows that I have the game with me here at school, so he got me nunchuck so I can play game again. So my parents sent us a few of our old Skylanders and I saw that I didn't have three elements that I didn't have a Skylander of air life or earth element. So immediately, I went online, and I bought three new Skylines they're on their way. I was gonna show up on Saturday. Because I was like, oh, I need these to complete the game. Who knows if I'm still going to be as into Skylanders as I am now, kind of like the the two week Minecraft craze. Like every, every decade, there's just two weeks when I'm like, oh my god, I gotta play Minecraft. I gotta get back on Minecraft. Everybody. We started a new world. So to new server, and then there's all that hype, right? And then it just kind of goes away. Amazing. Right? It's gone. Yeah, so that's just me with pretty much everything. Like, I'll really want to do something that's just me with hobbies jumping back and forth. And that's a topic for another day. Because I got a lot to say about that. But

(Guest) Akhil 47:49
video games, yes, it can be a whole other episode for sure,

(Host) Lucas 47:53
completely, but no apparent subject, you have enough money for that. And we'd be like, No, and by the time we've saved up for it, don't want to buy it anymore. It does not interested in in anymore.

(Guest) Akhil 48:05
That's also kind of a rule that my parents use was anything else. You know, if you see something and you want it, wait at least two, three weeks, if it's a small thing, you know, like if you if you still want it after two or three weeks, sure that maybe we'll consider buying it, you know, based on your budget based on your allowance based on your birthday money, or however, however they feel like if it could be if they could get it or not. But if there's something big like, you know, a brand new $100 Lego set, which was one of the biggest things that I wanted back when I was like 10 or 11 years old, I had to wait a year and a half, just to get that big hump, but because I was still interested in that set for a year and a half. We know that you know, we really do want it and there's an you're you know, you're like, Okay, you waited this long. Now you deserve it. Right?

(Host) Lucas 48:54
I'm about to fall into the pit of everything, basically against goes against everything we've been talking about here. Although I sit here and I preach financial literacy. It's a dangerous amount of money that I can just use at any time. Because of how much I've saved. I can just go like I have access to that money. Very easy access to exactly the push of a button. $600 of that could be towards buying the brand new UCS Lego razor crest. It is dangerous, how much I think about how much I want to buy that set. And it's been ever since the SEC came out. I haven't stopped thinking about how much I don't care that it's $600 I will buy that said there i I mark my words at some point. The UCS razor crest for those of you who don't know, the show, the Mandalorian there was the ship you Fliess the razor crest there's a $600 ultimate collector's set ultimate collector's series set. It's like two feet long. It's really it's just a massive one detailed set, and I want it and it's $600. That is not a reasonable amount of money to spend on anything. Yeah. $600 on a Lego set, I am scamming myself by how excited I am for this. Yeah. But I'm holding back. Because of something my dad said to me, because when I went home for Christmas, we went home for Christmas break like winter break. I told him, like I was working pretty much every day while I was home. So I was making money while I was home and I come back with some money in my pocket, I replenish some of the money I spent on the card shirts. While I was in a last semester, I put it put a bit more money back into savings. I said to him, I was like, if I make a reasonable amount of money, that I can take out $600 and still have made a reasonable amount of money. I'm going to buy the razor crest when I get back to school, and I'll have it I'll have the razor rest, and I'll be happy and very, very fast. And he said to me, he's like, that's stupid. Immediately. Normally, what I get from my dad is, Hey, man, listen to your money. Do what you got to do. If you mean like I normally I show him the status like, Wow, that's awesome. That is really cool. But don't but no, no, not this time. Normally, I get the support of Oh, my God that said is awesome. If you want it, you got the money for it. Go ahead. That's not what I got. What I got was, that's dumb. Don't do that. And then, you know, he went on to explain why I was like, Oh my God, what? Who are you? What are you doing? What are you saying? Who are you? Where's my dad? What you know, what he said was like, now is the time to really be saving the money. If you want the rays of Christ down the road, you get it down the road, but not now. Yeah, you are in school, you have no expenses really, which is the best time to save save your money for when you really, really needed. What he means is by the time I'm 30 and have a stable job and a family, then I'll buy the razor crest for myself.

(Guest) Akhil 51:57
And honestly, at that point, you probably lose interest now. Nope. You can say no, but you know, you don't know.

(Host) Lucas 52:05
i I know myself and one of the things of all of the little interests I've had when I was growing up Star Wars, Legos have been at the forefront of that. It's at least the most reoccurring theme of want of something I'm like, I need that. Star Wars Legos. Every time without fail it is still was like it was every time. At some point in my life. It's like it's all my goals, like a list of things I want to do in my life. Like, you know, buy the razor crest hat by the rituals, that is something I'm gonna do. But he's like, That's dumb. Don't do that. And it really honestly, it really kind of hit me because coming from my dad, I was like, alright, that makes sense. Because, you know, he knows a lot about this stuff, too. Part of the reason why I got interested in it was he was telling me a lot about it. It just said to me, he's like, that's, that's stupid. Don't do that. And it really, really set myself. So if you're about to go and spend $600 on Lego set. Yes, please think many, many, many times before you do that, like I know. It's something I want to buy. But I also know it's something I shouldn't buy

(Guest) Akhil 53:08
now. Yeah. And a quick very quick example is that in 2017, a car released a supercar model of Lego released and I have wanted it so badly and I was 2017 that was five what kind of car it's a Bugatti she was a Bugatti What color is it? It's blue. Oh, yeah. We love color as your Bugatti. And I thought, you know, I wanted that, you know, I was I was 13 years old. And I wanted that and never got a chance. It was $350. Like who would pay that? And plus, we were back in India, that's a lot more money there. That's actually like an average salary of a month worth the Indians like salary if the US Yes, exam rupees. So we were like, No, you're not getting it one bit whatsoever. And then, after five years, I sit here in NC State. I'm like, huh, I have the money for it. The next one month, almost every other day I go ahead and I keep thinking, Should I buy it? Should I not buy it? Should I buy it? Should I not buy it? And finally I pulled the trigger. Why? Because I just know that, you know, at first it was under my 10%. And second, if I've wanted it for five years, and if I wanted it for one month straight, it's definitely going to be a rewarding experience. So that's why I got three videos. It's worth it to you it's worth it because it's special. And like if it's if it's something you've wanted for five years and if it's something you've been thinking about for the last month, you should go for it as long as it's within your scope yeah and that's that's basically part of having fun you know, and enjoy the money bought the rich crest just you probably will eventually I

(Host) Lucas 54:49
know I know this and there is no probably will I'm telling you now I will

(Guest) Akhil 54:53
know you probably will buy it within maybe this semester. No like

(Host) Lucas 54:57
summer maybe I'm gonna start putting away The money I make from producing my razor crest savings account. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what's gonna be actually like, that's what it's already named. I'm joking. I don't have an account. I'm not kidding. That's where that's exactly what is happening to my money, but I'm doing that because I know I can. Yeah, and also, uh, mainly just seeing, you know, like what my parents have always told us. Do I really want that? I really do it. Like I say, I do. You gotta you gotta keep my life. I will buy it. I know. I will.

(Guest) Akhil 55:27
Yep. Let's gotta keep telling it to yourself. And only if you really think it's worth it after time. Time is all that matters, then you can buy it.

(Host) Lucas 55:36
Yep. No, but excellent conversation we've had, I think that's an excellent place to stop Akhil, I'm gonna thank you for being on the show. And, you know, just thank you for being here. I really appreciate the conversation you had and really appreciate appreciate you being here.

(Guest) Akhil 55:51
Yeah, no problem. Thank you for having me. Of course.

(Host) Lucas 55:55
Good luck with establishing your podcast. More information to come. I'm sure you'll get a shout out here at WKNC brain trust where we have the biggest brains and we trust in them. I will be giving a shout out to your show once it gets up and running. But with that, again, thank you for being here. We'd also like to say a quick thank you to JT Sutek and moving boxes for providing us with amazing intro and outro music. He's done a lot of really great work for us here at WKNC is brain trust and for WKNC If you want to check them out, they are moving boxes banned. all lowercase one word moving boxes banned on Instagram. You've got some amazing music. They've got excellent merch. Go ahead and check them out. And if you like what you heard today and you want to stay subscribed to keep track of new WKNC branches content, check us out@wknc.org forward slash podcasts. That's wknc.org forward slash podcasts with an S and with that good day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai