Financially Naked

Today our host is Kadri Augustin, Financial Trainer, and he is joined by Melissa Blatt, founder and CEO of Indipop, to discuss healthshares. In a healthshare, if a medical need occurs, depending on the plan, you have a different responsibility amount. In most cases, this is up to three times for an individual. After you pay your responsibility, the cost is shared with the community. This is more concierge medicine, where you have a team of people helping you get the right care at a fair cost. Each plan is unique, some give you an insurance card and use a network. Others you call before you seek treatment and the team can help you with your medical need. Healthshares are experiencing growth, and Indipop curates them. Melissa wants to offer different plans with different features, and she eventually wants to add standalone dental and vision plans. Her goal is to offer simple and affordable options.

Our host is Ornella Yovo, New York-based Financial Trainer and entrepreneur, and she is joined by Hannah Smolinski, founder and CEO of Clara CFO Group, to discuss the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

Our Trainer Mike Poulin is joined by his client, Renee Nguyen, who decided to join The Gym after graduating law school and wanting to get her finances in order. After doing some research and talking to her coworkers, she realized she wasn't making as much as her peers. She talked to Mike about negotiating her salary and the 2 of them came up with some tactics she could use to negotiate for a raise. She went on some interviews to get an idea of salary range for her position in her city and that's where she found the most compelling numbers. She spoke to attorneys about what their associates made at the three-to-five year timeframe, and she heard it over and over. Renee scheduled a meeting to talk to her boss about her salary when she had an offer from another company. If she got a no, she had a backup plan and that gave her confidence. Renee asked about a performance evaluation and she didn't say anything about the other offer. She received glowing reviews, but she got the idea that a raise wasn't going to happen. A week later, she put in her notice and her firm asked her to stay and they met the offer. She realized her worth and value to the firm was what another firm was willing to pay her. Renee stayed with her firm and she continued to keep her options open. Some of the interviews she had gone on before panned out months later and she eventually took a better offer with another firm. February 11, 2021 is AAPI (American Asian Pacific Islander) Equal Pay Day. It marks how many more days AAPI women need to work to make up their pay compared to what their white male counterparts made in 2020.

Emily Egan, Business Development Manager at The Gym has been a consistent donator to community fridges during the pandemic and wanted to learn about the upfront costs of starting a community friedges, the benefots (financial and otherwise) of a fridge and what the future of community friedges might be. To answer her questions, she speaks to Asmeret Berhe-Lumax, a fashion and beauty executive and founder of One Love Community Fridge in Brooklyn, NY. Fridges, or "freedges," can be found all over big cities and people can help themselves to whatever they need. The concept behind the fridges is simple. It's not charity, it is mutual aid. It is the idea of a two-way solution and solidarity support.

Mellie is a client of The Gym and her paying off her student loans is one of her main goals and main reasons for becoming a client. Mellie talks about her experience managing her under grad and grad school student loans, being the first in her fmaily to graduate from college and what the current student loan pause has meant for her. Terri, a Gym Trainer, is a former teacher and familiar with student loans on a teaching salary.

If you are trying to make changes in your life, it is important to form new habits and create space for them. At The Gym, Trainers help clients create new financial practices and systems to monitor that the practices are happening. Mike and Terri talk about systems that work for them to create new habits and discuss what to do when you feel overwhelmed by tasks.

Emily Egan, PR Manager at The Gym is joined by @JohnEFinance to discuss how he grew a following of 800K people on TikTok by sharing personal finance related videos and tips.

As Trainers, Victoria, Sara and Kadri get asked all the time about their favorite budgeting apps. There isn't one perfect money management app but the trio discusses a bunch of different apps and their pros and cons. Apps discussed: Mint, TrackIt, Personal Capital, YNAB (You Need a Budget), Cashflowy, and Dollarbird.

This week Trainer Kadri Agustin speaks to Dr. Leslie Faerstein Ed.D., LCSW. They discuss worrying about finances during this pandemic; guilt those with jobs may have; worrying about the health and wellness of others. Dr. Leslie Faerstein also discusses the concept of 're-framing' and other tools to assist you during this time.