← HerMoney with Jean Chatzky
HerMoney with Jean Chatzky
A Week In Her Wallet: A Government Attorney’s $2.6K Week
00:37:53
A week of spending on family, football, and furniture.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:38]
Jean Chatzky
Hey everyone, it's Jean Chatky and this is her money. Today we are back with another episode of our special series A Week in Her Wallet where we follow real women as they track their spending over the.
- [01:50]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Course of seven days.
- [01:51]
Jean Chatzky
For some, it's seven long days, but it's not just about dollars and cents. It's about our values and priorities and what our money is really healey doing for us. This week we're heading to Kentucky to meet Beth, a working mom who describes herself as a bit of a packrat who works a hybrid job, juggles life with a 14 year old son and is always on the go. Beth sent us voice notes throughout the week to capture her spending and how she was feeling about it. Her week included everything from football games and blowouts to buying furniture from Facebook Marketplace to trying to manage her family's takeout habit. We are so grateful she brought us along for the ride. Beth, thanks so much for being with us and thanks for doing this.
- [02:39]
Beth Parks
Thank you. It's great being here and meeting you.
- [02:42]
Jean Chatzky
It's nice to meet you too. Let's start just with the very basics. Tell me a little bit about you. Tell me about your family, your work schedule. What prompted you to do this?
- [02:54]
Beth Parks
Well, it's very interesting. I my husband and I, it's our second marriage. We have a 14 year old son. I have two stepsons who are adults and one of them is married and we have two grandkids that are two and four. I am an attorney. I work for the federal government. He is in real estate. And really what prompted me is looking into a project for our son who will be going into high school next year. I thought what kind of project could we start for my son and his friends that would be really beneficial and help them learn, but also maybe help them maybe get some scholarships down the road. And I thought, gosh, some sort of finance thing. And through that it just really took me down the rabbit hole of how, how much I wanted to really hone in on my own finances and start looking out toward retirement, which for me is probably about 15 years away.
- [04:01]
Jean Chatzky
Gotcha. Okay, before we dig into your week of spending and how that all went, tell me just a little bit about your financial situation overall. What's an EST combined salary for you guys? What do you bring in a month?
- [04:19]
Beth Parks
Well, I make about $230,000 a year and my husband has variable income. It can be anywhere from 100 up. It just depends on what his year is like. So we try as best we can to live more off my salary and use his salary for any extras and vacations and other things that we like to do.
- [04:46]
Jean Chatzky
We're going to take a very quick break. This time of year can feel like.
- [04:50]
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- [07:08]
Jean Chatzky
You mentioned you're a government employee. We're at a, I think as we are recording this, we're at day 15 or 16 of the shutdown. Is that impacting you?
- [07:20]
Beth Parks
Well, we're very lucky that we have emergency funds and access to lines of credit, anything that we would need to get through any type of delay in getting paid. But this has really prompted me. I've been through this twice before because I've been with the government for quite a while, but for my employees, I just actually was in a meeting with one employee before we got on this meeting, and I told her that I want to really start a lunch and learn with our employees in the coming year to help them with their finances, to help them understand the importance of having emergency funds, or to have access to money that you can tap into in these emergency situations. And also to help them really understand about Investing and the TSP, which is Thrift Savings Plan, which is our government 401 Patty Wow.
- [08:23]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Well, good for you.
- [08:24]
Jean Chatzky
That's. That's amazing. I was at the Fortune Women's Conference earlier this week, and we were in a session where we were talking about how important it is for senior women in the workforce to pay it forward and really bring those younger employees along, get them saving, get them on track as early as possible. And so it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing, which is fantastic. Let's start with your very first day. You started your week with a Disney plus subscription, some groceries, a haircut, and some items for your son.
- [09:05]
Beth Parks
Hi, this is Beth Parks. It is Monday, September 15th. I'm very excited to get started. So my day today, the first thing that I spent on that, I noticed when I looked into My checking account to see what was debited is $10.29 for my Disney plus subscription. I have the basic subscription for myself, and I have two grandkids who are 2 and 4. I have them on the account. And then my son is now 14. He doesn't watch it quite as much as he used to, but from time to time we will watch certain things on Disney. The second thing, my husband ran to the grocery at lunch and picked up a few grocery items just to get us through today, and that was $42.79. I took my son for a haircut and with tip, that was $39. He was starving after that. So I had a Jimmy John's gift card. It only had $1.98 on it. I spent $4.90 on his sandwich, and I had on the app a free bag of chips. And the last of it I had is $23.30. I stopped by Ross Dress for Less and picked him up some socks because he is in a lot of different sports and goes through quite a bit of socks. And I picked him up some conditioner when I was in there. And the only other expense that we had today is our cleaning folks who come about every other week. They were here today, and that's $150. That is one expense that I will gladly budget for. I do not like to clean. It also forces me to declutter and get things picked up because I'm a bit of a pack rat and I'm busy. I have a hybrid position. I work in the office about three days a week, work from home about two days a week. So it's really nice to to have the house all picked up. Other than that, I am looking forward to continuing to do this budget for the week and we'll see how it goes tomorrow.
- [11:30]
Jean Chatzky
You mentioned on Monday that you gladly budget for your cleaning service. Why is that an expense you're happy to make room for?
- [11:38]
Beth Parks
Well, I know that mentally I feel a lot better when our house is clean and I'm not the best at doing it. And my husband and I are very busy. And so for us, we would rather budget that as sort of a luxury item rather than go out to a fancy dinner or do something else. We really see the value in that for our stress level, and it's just something that for us is we can tell a difference when we don't do it.
- [12:12]
Jean Chatzky
What other things fall under that category? Things that might be little luxuries but that you're happy to pay for?
- [12:20]
Beth Parks
Well, I think My only other real luxury type recurring expense that I have is I have a membership to DryBar, which I don't know if you know what that is. It's just like a hair blowout.
- [12:32]
Jean Chatzky
Oh, I know what that is.
- [12:34]
Beth Parks
Yes. And I have a one a month. A lot of times I save them up for special events, but it again, for me, it's better than a massage. It's better than going out to a fancy dinner. I just really enjoy that. It's really relaxing and it's 40, $45 a month. And so, like, it's a want and not a need. But it's something that for now, I'm willing to pay for.
- [13:04]
Jean Chatzky
You are a woman after my own heart. I too, feel like a blowout is better than a massage.
- [13:10]
Beth Parks
Absolutely. And you can go almost a week, just kind of fix your hair up a little bit, and it's just. Oh, it's wonderful.
- [13:18]
Jean Chatzky
You describe yourself as a hybrid worker. You're in the office three days a week. You work from home two days a week. I think this is so common with the return to office mandates these days. How has that impacted your spending behaviors?
- [13:33]
Beth Parks
Well, I don't know that it's really impacted it a whole lot. I think when I'm home, more I spend on maybe something online, whereas when I'm in the office, I'm kind of in the office. My office. There's not a lot around my office as far as restaurants, shopping, anything. So I also, I don't have a long commute. I think that for some of my employees who live an hour away, that being able to work from home on a few days a week is a huge money saving for them. For myself, maybe a little bit on gas, but I only live 7, 8 miles away, so it's not as big an impact on me.
- [14:25]
Jean Chatzky
Saving money and saving time, I think, for people. When we lived in New York, I had a commute that was an hour and a half each way, and it was expensive because it was on the train or paying for parking. But it was also just such a time suck.
- [14:39]
Beth Parks
I'm really glad that our employees can work a hybrid schedule. We actually have been doing that since before the pandemic. So we were very well prepared to handle more telework during the pandemic because we were already doing it and had the systems in place. We have not seen a decrease in our effectiveness or efficiency at all. The work has just continued on and we have really good employees who don't abuse it.
- [15:07]
Jean Chatzky
That's fantastic. Tuesday and Wednesday were Busy days for you. You busy spending days? I mean, you bought game tickets, made a donation, you found some fines, some incredible stuff on Facebook Marketplace.
- [15:24]
Beth Parks
I am sending day two and day three of my purchasing journey for the week. I've had a busy couple of days, so I wanted to go back and give you what I spent for yesterday and today. So yesterday started out, I had to buy a couple of different tickets. My son goes to a private Catholic school, Holy Spirit School. He is planning to go to St. Xavier High School, St. X next year. For high school we have a big rivalry, Saint X versus Trinity here in Louisville. So I bought tickets for my husband, my son, his friend and I to go to the Saint X Trinity football game. And those were 47.32. I also bought my husband and I tickets to the Saint X future Tigers night this Friday. Spencer is free. Free. He gets them free. But our two tickets were $20. Looks like there was a life insurance premium taken out. Debited for $65.30. I sent a donation to my friend's daughter for her field hockey team. She was trying to raise money. Sent $10. I purchased a snack at Little Market here in town and that was, let's see, $3 and 19 cents. Had a debit to McDonald's for $3.49. My son, I got him a Jimmy John's. I had a partial gift card for that and that was $4.90. Went to fresh Market yesterday, which is a local grocery and got a few groceries just for Yesterday and today, $27.78. And then very interestingly, I saw a lady had two amazing chairs on Facebook Marketplace last night. I happened to see them as soon as she posted them. She had both of them for $500. I looked up the brand and their chairs. That would be about $3,000. So I ran over to her house. She and her husband had downsized from a huge like 5,000 square foot house to a patio home and had to downsize furniture that had been in their finished basement that had barely been used. I ended up buying these amazing chairs that would have been about $3,000 each and an amazing sofa, the whole thing. I spent $750, but they had spent in 2023 almost $10,000 on these three items. So I was very excited about that. I've been looking to replace some furniture in our living room and I am a huge proponent of estate sales and using Facebook Marketplace and trying to find sales and the best deals, especially on those high ticket items. Today looks like I spent $2 on a McDonald's Diet Coke. I had lunch at work which was $12.64 and I think my husband might have spent 7.79 at McDonald's probably for something for our son. So that is all I spent for the last few days. A little bit more than I usually would because of the furniture. But I feel like I got a really good deal deal on high quality furniture and I'm thrilled about it. I will report back tomorrow.
- [19:13]
Jean Chatzky
Furniture that would have cost $10,000 new that you got for $750 total. That sounds almost too good to be true. Tell me about this.
- [19:24]
Beth Parks
It truly was. It was. I just happened to see it on Facebook Marketplace. It was an older couple that had downsized from, from a 5,000 square foot house to a patio home. And they had bought this furniture from a very high end furniture store in our town about two years ago and it had barely been used. It had been in a finished basement. And where they moved they have a lovely patio home, but it's smaller and it has an unfinished basement. So they just didn't need, they couldn't use all the furniture. And it was just really a blessing because my husband and I bought his childhood home after his mother passed away about three years ago and we gutted it and renovated it. And I have found that through things like Facebook Marketplace, consignment stores and estate sales that I have furnished a lot of our house for a very reasonable amount with really high end furnishings.
- [20:25]
Jean Chatzky
Are there secrets to finding good deals on Facebook Marketplace? It sounds like you know what you're doing.
- [20:31]
Beth Parks
I am a bargain shopper. I think one thing is to know the brands that you're looking for, to know what's good and what's not. I think being on the lookout and I think sometimes with Facebook Marketplace, if you search for certain things, those types of things will come up in your Facebook Marketplace algorithm. And you have to be fast. Like when it's something good, you have to be willing to say I will meet you immediately with cash. Which is what I did because this woman who sold these items, she already had other people who wanted them. But I said I can be there in 20 minutes with cash. Because I was, I just gotten home from the office, it was about 5:30, I was making dinner, happened to see these and I told my husband, I said you can finish dinner. I'm going to go see if I can grab these deals.
- [21:22]
Jean Chatzky
Wow, amazing. Yeah. He swooped right in and got em. Yes. You also mentioned making a $10 donation to a friend's daughter. And buying tickets to an event for your son. How do you decide? We all get asked for so many things so frequently. How do you decide what's a yes and what's a no?
- [21:43]
Beth Parks
That's an interesting question that I have asked myself sometimes because I do try to be reasonable about what we spend on things like this. But I guess if I know the person really well, and especially when it comes to kids and their fundraisers, I'm always trying to help, even if it's just a little bit. And then for my son, I think it was tickets to his future high school. He's going to a Catholic high school next year and it was a football game that a lot of the kids even in the elementary schools go to to support their teams.
- [22:19]
Jean Chatzky
The expenses when your kids get into high school, even in junior high school, they just pile on and pile on. And I found that we really had to increase the budget just to make room for them because half of the secret is knowing that they're coming and expecting them.
- [22:35]
Beth Parks
Yes, absolutely. Same. We've been lucky that the school that he's in, he does a lot of sports boards and to be on the teams there are relatively inexpensive. But then last summer he did an au basketball team and it was quite pricey and it was kind of a sticker shock. And I thought to myself, and this is a lot of money for families.
- [22:56]
Jean Chatzky
Yes, 100%. You have to decide where you're going to spend and where you're going to say no. We're going to take a very quick break. When we come back, we're going to get into the back half of Beth's week and a fun night out at the art museum.
- [23:10]
Podcast Host/Announcer
The holidays are pretty wonderful, but they can also bring financial chaos. Between travel, gifts, hosting, and everything in.
- [23:18]
Jean Chatzky
Between, it's way too easy to overspend.
- [23:20]
Podcast Host/Announcer
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- [24:19]
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- [24:49]
Jean Chatzky
We're talking with Beth. So you mentioned at the top of our conversation that this is a second marriage for the two of you. How does that impact the way that you manage money, particularly as as you're the primary breadwinner?
- [25:05]
Beth Parks
Well, it has been very interesting. Both my husband and I went through extremely financially devastating divorces. So it really has reshaped the way we think about money. We're very lucky that we have rebuilt and are doing very well. And some years my husband actually makes more than I do. It's just variable, it depends on and we just view it as everything goes into one pile. We're a family. We try to keep our fixed expenses as low as possible. So we actually own two houses because we kept our old house and rented it out and then we bought his childhood home. We paid cash for all of the renovations and he did a lot of the work himself because he's very good at all that stuff. And so our mortgage is very reasonable. It's actually probably less. Both mortgages are less than what rent would be here for something comparable. And we don't have car payments or anything. We really try to keep our fixed expenses low.
- [26:14]
Jean Chatzky
Is that a product of going through those devastating divorces? I mean, I've been through my own and I know how it shaped me. Right. I know that it made me into a compulsive saver because I just want to always have enough in case.
- [26:34]
Beth Parks
Yes. And I also think because of the kind of work that I do in the world of bankruptcy that it has really reshaped me to see, you know, the hardships that people go through, some of which they can't control, like medical expenses, but also some of it that they just get in over their heads on credit cards or businesses that go under. Lots of different reasons, but it's just made me very conservative. And it's interesting because in our circle of friends, a lot of them drive very nice new, expensive vehicles, the Teslas. You roll into our carpool and you see a lot of the new Jeep Grand Wagoneer, which is $100,000 vehicle, or the Teslas. And I'm driving it in my 2012 Toyota Highlander. And I am just as happy as can be that it's a paid off car and it still drives great.
- [27:33]
Jean Chatzky
Yeah, priorities, definitely. On Thursday, you had an event with your husband at the local art museum. Sounds like a lot of fun. You got a blowout using your dry bar subscription.
- [27:45]
Beth Parks
Yes, hi. This is my recording for days three and four. So Thursday and Friday of my financial tracking journey. Did pretty well. Thursday, let's see. It looks like I spent $14.74 for a SiriusXM subscription. I have that for my office and my car and I love those. I just renegotiated to get a better rate for that for two radios. $14.74 for the next year. And I also spent $5 on a snack for my son. My husband and I actually had an event at the Speed Art Museum on Thursday night and I paid $10 for ballet. And I have a subscription with Drybar. I saved those up for special events. So I'd already paid for that.
- [28:46]
It had already come out of my.
- [28:48]
Account, but I spent $6 on a tip. We also spent $10 tipping the valet after the event. I bought my son Chick Fil a because he was going to be home that evening. That was $10.75. And we had about, let's see, two for $8.77 to McDonald's for various lunch and dinner yesterday. My son is going to a local high school next year. Every year they have what's called Future Tigers Night as a recruitment for the boys that are interested in going there at one of their football games. So I took my son and a couple of his friends. I picked them up after school, got them Jimmy John's. That was $23.16 because of course they're 14 and they're starving after school. We spent $20 on various snacks at the event. And then My husband spent $22 at a local German bakery. It's been around for 100 years. Every year at this time of year, they have his favorite pumpkin sugar cookies. They're decorated like pumpkins, but they're just regular sugar cookies. But he loves those, so he got us some of those for $22. So that is my days four and five.
- [30:13]
Jean Chatzky
Tell me about entertainment and how you decide that you're going to spend money when you're going to spend money on an important night out.
- [30:23]
Beth Parks
Well, that's one thing we both enjoy doing. We're lucky to have a great circle of friends and we decided to go to this. A friend invited us, she had a table, we bought tickets. It was a wonderful night. Really trying to help raise money for this art museum. But you do have to be choosy about what you do, especially for a ticketed event where the tickets are pretty high. This is not something we would do on a regular basis. We do love to go on family trips and travel. We've been in Disney Vacation club for about 11 years and it's something that I'm glad we bought into when the prices were much lower. And we've enjoyed vacations there for many years. As a family. We do try to budget for some fun, but we keep it within reason. We like to try to use those Hilton points, anything that we can do to control those costs. And I actually think we enjoy the vacations much more when we keep it on a budget.
- [31:26]
Jean Chatzky
You don't worry about them as much. Is that why you enjoy them more? Yes.
- [31:31]
Beth Parks
I never want to be paying for a vacation when I'm done with the vacation.
- [31:38]
Jean Chatzky
Yeah, I completely understand. I thought it was funny just because I've been there that you talked a little bit about the cost of feeding a 14 year old boy and a 14 year old boy who plays sports. It's seems like throughout your week you're always spending 10 or 20 bucks here or there getting him something to eat. But the thing is it, it really adds up. Are you conscious of those expenses?
- [32:03]
Beth Parks
Yes. And that's something I'm really trying to work on. I feel like one of our biggest money leaks is food and convenience foods or just not meal planning and cooking meals that we can reheat or having things on hand. We go through a lot of Jimmy John's Subway Panera Bread is right by our house. So I think that's one thing I'm really trying to be more conscious of. That's been. That's going to be one of our biggest struggles. I can cut out a lot of things, but I'm not the best meal planner. I kind of go through spurts with it and then of course when we're busy, it's really hard, as you know. I mean, you were a working mom to do.
- [32:45]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Mm, absolutely.
- [32:46]
Jean Chatzky
It's still hard. I don't have any kids at home and the meal planning is still something that gets to me. I cut a deal with my husband where I don't have to decide what's for dinner. He can't cook a thing. Which we're absolutely gonna have to work on because it's starting to get to me, quite honestly. But I hate having to decide what's for dinner. I just like that's too much pressure blows my mind. If he can decide what's for dinner, usually he'll also shop for it. Then I can cook it.
- [33:16]
Beth Parks
Love that.
- [33:16]
Jean Chatzky
I feel like that's an equitable division of labor.
- [33:20]
Beth Parks
I think that's wonderful.
- [33:22]
Jean Chatzky
All right, so you are our first person to hack this experience by taking out cash for the week to make yourself more mindful of your spending. Very interesting way to approach it. How much cash did you decide to take out and did it last?
- [33:39]
Beth Parks
I think I took out maybe two or three hundred dollars. Yeah. The. It's very interesting. With cash I like. I'm sure a lot of people tend to hoard cash and want to keep it and use my debit card because I don't want to give up my cash because I don't like having to go to a cash machine when I need cash. But one of the things that really struck me, Gene, was how hard it is in our modern society to use cash. Because when you. Let's just say you go through a drive through now you have an app and you go through the app and then it's hooked into your credit card and that there are places now that don't take cash. It's just much harder to use cash because we're used to the convenience of Apple pay or of using a debit card. And I do think, though, that when you get cash out, you're much more mindful of what you spend. And this is not something I regularly do, but it was a really good experiment for me to see how much better I am and how much more thoughtful I am before I spend money. When I have to pay with cash.
- [34:48]
Jean Chatzky
It'S a really valid point. I take out cash because I don't like to walk around without any cash. It feels. I don't know, it just doesn't feel right, even in this day and age. But I find myself paying with most things with my phone these days. I just tap my phone in the cab and I tap my phone for coffee and I tap my phone for groceries, which the first time I did that kind of blew my own mind. But I. I think you're right. If we can get ourselves back using a little bit of cash, at least. At least as a tool, maybe it'll help us. Help us keep Keep ourselves in line a little bit. Your total spend for the week was $2,678.73. That includes the $750 for furniture, includes a tuition payment, some regular household expenses. Was this typical?
- [35:44]
Beth Parks
This was a little more than usual because it included the furniture, which we wouldn't typically buy.
- [35:53]
Jean Chatzky
Any surprises lurking in what you found?
- [35:56]
Beth Parks
Well, I do see how mindless I am about the eating out, even at work, just not bringing my lunch and going downstairs to the little cafe, maybe going to a vending machine. That is something that I think is a leak in my budget that I can definitely work on.
- [36:17]
Jean Chatzky
And you mentioned at the beginning that you took this on because you were thinking about how you could help your son and some of his friends get smarter about money. Having done it, what do you think you'll suggest to them?
- [36:32]
Beth Parks
Well, I would love to see more education within the schools, definitely. And I've actually talked about this with one of his teachers who went to University of Cincinnati and they did a lot more financial education there. And I think that's something that I'm going to suggest to his eighth grade class that we start into this. Then when he's in high school next year, I would love to see my son and his friends start a podcast. They have a media department at the high school that they'll be going to. And I would love to see something where kids actually study these different money topics and talk about them because he has several friends who are really interested in finance and I think that this would be something that would be beneficial to them and that they would actually really get into.
- [37:29]
Jean Chatzky
Love it. What a great idea. Beth, thank you so much for doing this. Thanks for indulging us and tracking with us for a week. I hope you enjoyed it.
- [37:38]
Beth Parks
I loved it and it was an honor to meet you because I've been a huge fan of yours since the Today show years ago.
- [37:46]
Jean Chatzky
Well, thank you. Thank you so much.
- [37:48]
Beth Parks
And I love your videos and thank you for helping women and helping families and providing guidance. We all need it.
- [37:56]
Jean Chatzky
Thank you so much. If you love today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast. Your feedback means the world to me. If listening to this episode has you thinking, all right, I am ready to get serious about growing my money, but I still don't feel 100% confident about investing. I want to personally invite you to check out our Investing Fix program. It's a live weekly investing club designed for for women, by women, where we break down what's happening in the markets, explain how different investment works and give.
- [38:36]
Podcast Host/Announcer
You all the tools that you need.
- [38:37]
Jean Chatzky
To build your own confident long term strategy. And now is a great time to start while the markets are still showing strength and interest rates are shifting. So if you want to make 2026 the year you finally feel in control of your investment, go to investingfix.com that's fix with two X's. I'd love to see you there. Her Money is produced by Hayley Pascalides and our music is provided by Video Helper. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk soon.
- [39:11]
Sprite Advertiser
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