Making Margin

Making Margin Podcast
Episode 55 - Greenway Profiles - Natalie

Welcome to the Making Margin podcast! Greenway’s team is here to discuss common financial mistakes and to help you navigate them. 

Meet the voices behind this episode of Making Margin:

• Nick
• Natalie

This month we’re starting a new series, Greenway Profiles, where we’ll introduce you to our team and find out more about how they got to where they are. First up is Natalie, who serves as our firm CFO and a senior advisor.

• Tell me about your background. Where are you from? Where did you go to school? 
• What was your first job?
• Talk about your transition from working with institutional dollars to working with individuals and families. Why did you decide to do that?
• What are some consistent challenges you find that people have with their finances when you first meet with them?
• Who is your role model for retirement?

Making Margin Podcast
Episode 54 - Tax Tips from Tax Amateurs

Welcome to the Making Margin podcast! Greenway’s team is here to discuss common financial mistakes and to help you navigate them. 

Meet the voices behind this episode of Making Margin:

• Nick
• Natalie 
• Jeff
• Jen

In this episode, we're sharing some of our favorite tax tips! While we're not tax professionals, we've gathered some valuable insights that could benefit you. Keep in mind that these suggestions might not fit every situation, but we're optimistic that there's something useful here for everyone.

Questions

• Nick: Donating assets instead of cash
• Natalie: Tracking cost basis on your house
• Jeff: don’t sleep on your FSA options
• Jen: Staying organized

Making Margin Podcast
Episode 53 - Spending with Intent

Welcome to the Making Margin podcast! Greenway’s team is here to discuss common financial mistakes and to help you navigate them. 

Meet the voices behind this episode of Making Margin:

• Nick
• Jeff
• Natalie 
• Allie
• Jen

In this episode, we continue our conversation on using your finances to live your values, focusing on spending with intent. The discussion is inspired by Morgan Housel's blog post titled ‘A Few Thoughts on Spending Money,’ sharing our own ideas and tweaks to his advice. Join us as we chat about getting intentional with our spending!

Questions:

• “There are two ways to use money. One is as a tool to live a better life. The other is as a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others. Many people aspire for the former but get caught up chasing the latter.” 
  
  Is that true? Are there only two ways to use money?
   
• “Money is a tool you can use. But if you’re not careful, it will use you. Sometimes the stuff you spend money on has so much influence over your autonomy and sanity that it’s not clear whether you own things or the things own you.” Where do we see this happening?
   
• “How you spend money can be a reflection of what you’ve experienced in life. To someone who grew up snubbed by poverty, owning a fancy car might be the ultimate symbol of what you’ve overcome. To an old-money family, it might be the ultimate symbol of ego and insecurity. People don’t just spend money on things they find fun or useful. Their decisions often reflect the psychological wounds of their life experiences.”
  
  Does this explain a lot of what we see?
   
• “The more money you have, the harder it becomes to know how to spend it in a way that will make you happy. And that confusion sets in at fairly low levels of income. Luke Burgis writes: ‘After meeting our basic needs as creatures, we enter into the human universe of desire. And knowing what to want is much harder than knowing what to need.’”

Making Margin Podcast
Episode 52 - Defining Your Destination
 

Welcome to the Making Margin podcast! Greenway’s team is here to discuss common financial mistakes and to help you navigate them. 

Meet the voices behind this episode of Making Margin:

• Nick
• Jeff
• Jen
• Natalie 

In this episode we talk about applying your values to your finances. We think it’s important to create a structure that allows you to live out what’s most important to you, and to view money in a way that provides you the opportunity to do that. Every spending (or giving, or saving) decision can then be viewed through this lens.

What happens when you fail at market timing?: https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/insights/what-happens-when-you-fail-at-market-timing

The Periodic Table of Investment Returns: https://www.callan.com/research/2022-classic-periodic-table/

Dave guessing his Mom's Thanksgiving Pies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xa_ICrQHCM

Welcome to the Making Margin podcast! Greenway’s team is here to discuss common financial mistakes and to help you navigate them. 

Meet the voices behind this episode of Making Margin:

• Nick
• Natalie 
• Jeff
• Allie

Since its inception, the 529 has been a popular education savings vehicle. Over the years, it has received a few enhancements, but none better than the most recent one thanks to the Secure Act 2.0. We’ll talk about the 529, the changes, and how it might fit into a financial plan.

In 1996, U.S. Senator Bob Graham of Florida, where a prepaid plan was well established, and U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, which had a savings trust, led a bipartisan effort to provide federal tax relief for all plans, resulting in the creation of Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC).

Questions

• What have been the changes to 529 plans, previously and in 2023?
• How should a plan most appropriately be utilized? Who does it make sense for?

Resources:

https://www.collegesavings.org/history-of-529-plans#:~:text=In%201996%2C%20U.S.%20Senator%20Bob,Internal%20Revenue%20Code%20(IRC).

https://finaid.org/savings/state529deductions/

Making Margin Podcast
Episode 48 - The Psychology of Spending

Welcome to the Making Margin podcast! Greenway’s team is here to discuss common financial mistakes and to help you navigate them. 

Meet the voices behind this episode of Making Margin:

• Nick
• Jeff
• Natalie 
• Allie

“A subtle problem with money is that assets are easy to measure but liabilities can be hidden.”-Morgan Housel

Today we’re talking about the psychology of spending, and why setting arbitrary limits that are well below what you can currently “afford” can make it easier to build wealth.

Questions

• Do you set arbitrary spending limits on certain things, even those things that you enjoy and can afford?
• What influences cause people to overspend, either relative to what they can spend or what they should spend? 

Resources:

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/06/psychology-of-spending

https://collabfund.com/blog/rich-and-anonymous/

https://spectrum.mit.edu/winter-1999/the-psychology-of-spending/

Making Margin Podcast
Episode 47 - These Are The Biggest Money Mistakes That We See People Make
 

Welcome to the Making Margin podcast! Greenway’s team is here to discuss common financial mistakes and to help you navigate them. 

Meet the voices behind this episode of Making Margin:

• Nick
• Jeff
• Allie
• Natalie 
• Drew

We often talk to our clients about the importance of avoiding mistakes with their money. So much about personal finance isn’t about trying to hit home runs; it’s consistently hitting singles and avoiding mistakes. But what are the most common mistakes we see people make with their money?

We’re looking at an old Nick Magguilli (Mah-Julie) post from his blog Of Dollars and Data to guide our discussion, and where we agree and don’t agree with his assessment. 

Discussion Topics:

• What does he get right, what does he get wrong?
• Any other things that we would add? 

Resources:

https://ofdollarsanddata.com/biggest-money-mistakes/

Questions

• What happened to SVB? Explain it to me like I’m 5.
   
• What’s the risk of broader contagion?
   
• How do these events impact your 2023 market forecast?
   
• What should we be doing differently with our money?

Resources:

https://www.investopedia.com/what-happened-to-silicon-valley-bank-7368676

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/twofactor-authentication-2fa.asp