Q: How Do I Adjust My Budget for Inflation

If you could have a candid conversation with financial advisors who have decades of experience helping professionals, business owners, and families just like yours plan for their financial future, what questions would you ask? I'm Chip Munn, financial advisor, author, host, and CEO of Signature Wealth Group. For decades, my partners and advisory teams have had the opportunity to answer the tough questions for hundreds of our clients. Now we want to do the same for you. On the Signature Life Show, you'll hear answers to your burning and most perplexing finance, investing, and retirement questions from our Chief Investment Officer, Senior Wealth Advisors, Certified Financial Planners, and more. We aren't just financial advisors. We're parents, children, community leaders, and entrepreneurs with a passion for helping empower our clients to live life intentionally, what we call a Signature Life.

John Tate, what's up, man?

Chip Munn, it is another great Friday to be podcasting with you, my friend.

No doubt. It's one of those things, John, that every now and then we hear a funny story that just prompts kind of one of these conversations. And so this week, kind of part of this conversation comes from a friend of ours. We were talking recently about things we don't like to do, and I mentioned John, I don't know if you fall into this category, but I don't really like to wash dishes. So I mentioned that to this friend of ours and he decided that it resonated with him. So he had gone on Amazon and he didn't like washing dishes either. So he was going to buy paper plates and plastic utensils, and that was going to be his way of getting out of some of the dishwashing. And so as part of that, he decided he wanted to be economical. And he was going to get as many plates as he could for as little money as he could. And the same with these utensils. And after the box arrived, he tears into it. And it turns out that what he had ordered was cocktail forks and salad plates. And so the best laid plans of mice and men, he had these grand ideas and was focused on saving money. And he ended up with something exactly wrong for what it was that he was trying to accomplish. And it's funny as that is, John, these days there are a lot of people who are focused on figuring out how to save some money around home.

One easy way to save money is to buy smaller plates because you eat less and, uh, you have more leftovers later.

It's hard to get much food onto a cocktail fork.

Talk about stretching the budget. But we talk about this in saving money only because if you look at any kind of consumer sentiment survey or investor sentiment survey or anything out there, One of the biggest, if not the biggest fears and worries for anyone in the United States right now is inflation. It's always the largest. It's always at the top of the list. And so every time we go to the pump or the grocery store or wherever it is, prices are higher than they were a month ago or two months ago, what have you. And so it's a good thing to talk about. I think it's topical coming up with some of these tips, tricks, and other items to kind of stretch the budget in times where prices are rising. And so One easy place to start is the grocery store, because a lot of us are going to the grocery store on a weekly basis or biweekly basis. I don't know how you do it, but for me, I go every Sunday and I go early in the mornings when nobody's there, so I can just get in and get out, get on with my life kind of thing. But when you're at the grocery store, some of the things that you can do to help yourself out and help the budget, some of the easy things we'll touch on first, but stocking up on staples like rice, beans, baking goods, Things that last a long time in the pantry that you don't have to use right away and that you can use over time and that you don't have to buy on a weekly basis. You might only have to buy it on a monthly basis, but stock up on those things because they don't go bad. And the next time you need to buy them, they might be 20% more or 15% more than they are today. So you can help save yourself a little money that way. Another way, and this is what we try to do, is shopping with a list. And what that means for us is I figure out what I'm going to cook for the week prior to going to the grocery store. If you want to spend more money at the grocery store, wait until you get to the grocery store and then decide because you're going to end up with more items in the cart than you need. You're going to end up not cooking some of the things that maybe that was that light bulb moment in the store, "Hey, I'll do this or I'll do that." You're probably not going to cook all those things you thought you were. And if that food is perishable, it's going to go to waste and you're going to throw it away. And it's just like emptying your wallet into the trash can on a weekly basis. Don't do that. Just make a meal plan, try to do a little pre-planning before you walk in the store, and that'll cut down on all the impulse buys or off-list purchases that might sneak into your basket as you're walking through the store.

Yeah. So John, I have to know, if you do your grocery shopping on Sunday morning, do you also— because I shop with my earbuds in, because I'm pretty intentional. So when you're walking around the store on Sunday morning, are you listening to Friday's episode of the Signature Life Show?

I usually listen to the Friday episode on Saturday.

Can't wait.

Out for my walk. Yeah, man. I mean, I listen to it while I'm walking the dog.

Must listen radio.

The grocery store can kind of get hectic. I need to have my head on a swivel, no distractions, you know, that kind of thing.

I appreciate that you're serious about that. It's one of those things, John, especially with having recently had some surgery. I don't, eat nearly as much as I used to. And so it does make meal planning that much more important. And it really is an efficient way to shop. You know, they talk about impulse buys, right? And there, there are always those little things, say on the end cap, that they're just enticing you. It won't surprise you to know, cause I'm a planner, that's what I do, that when I used to do more of the grocery shopping than I do now, when I was single, I had a, almost an inventory of the things that I wanted to have. So, you know, if you're doing inventory at a store, you may have a certain number of an item that you want to have. And so I kept one of those. So all I would do is go into my pantry and I would say, green beans, need 3, have 1, buy 2. And it was a system so that I always had a certain amount of whatever. And as I used it, I just replaced it. I'm a pretty systematic per— like, I eat the same thing over and over again. I don't necessarily care about a ton of variety. And so again, I think all of those little tips and tricks on planning out your meal and being intentional before going to the grocery store can be really important. But another thing, John, that's important is comparing prices. And I know that you've done, as you tend to do, some research on some different ways that people can do that.

Well, you can think of anything these days, there's an app for that. But I know in one of our previous shows, at the end of the show, you mentioned Hey, here's something. And I think it was Mint that you mentioned. Here's something that I use on a daily basis that has made my life easier, made budgeting easier, all of that. And so I didn't really have a great answer. I think my answer was like Wordle or something fun. So anyway, I took that and went from there and figured we could go through maybe a list of apps that are out there for this specific purpose. And a couple of them that jump off of the list for grocery stores, There's Ibotta, which is you can add offers for your local stores. You can scan the receipt, buy the item, and then as you're using the app and buying these items, you can actually get cash back in your PayPal account that you could then use in the future to buy things at the grocery store. So they get to see what you're buying. They get to push products and you get cash back for it. So if that's up your alley, that's something that you might want to research and look into. It's available on the Apple Store and Google Play and all that. So you can probably get it with whatever phone you have. There's also Flipp, which includes coupons, deals, and weekly ads for stores near you. So they would collect some of your personal information, and in exchange, you can look up all these different things and just make sure you're going to the store that has the best price of the items that you are looking to purchase. And the other way, you can kind of walk through the store and look and compare. If you're wondering how much a price has gone up on an item you buy all the time, you can use ShopSavvy, which has a barcode scanner in the app itself, and you can scan the barcode, and it'll pull up all the prices of that particular item for stores around you. They have a database of about 50 million different products to compare and contrast. I think you can see how recent the price information is, so you know that you're getting the best information. And that's just one way to figure out, should I buy this item here or should I start looking to buy it? Do they have it somewhere else that's less expensive? So those are just a few of the apps that you can take into the grocery store with you or sign up for and look at home as you're meal planning to figure out where you're going to go. I, myself, I go to the same store because it's right around the block. It's close proximity. And I'll use some of these apps If I have the extra time to go to a different store, I'll use some of these apps. But most of the time, if I use the app in the store that I'm in and it says I'm going to pay much more than some other place, I'll just look for a substitute, a different item that might be less expensive and not actually go to another store because I'm weird like that. But outside the grocery store, there are other apps that you can use for different things. Have you ever used GasBuddy, Chip?

I haven't. I saw that on the show notes list and am going to download that after the show today. I thought that was pretty interesting. Because that's one of the things that obviously, John, we hear a lot of people talking about these days is the price of gas.

Yeah. And so if you want to find the gas station that has either on your route to work or on your way home or whatever it is, wherever you get your gas, if you want to look and see which station has the least expensive gas near you, that's in my opinion, the best app for it. There are others, but GasBuddy is the one that I've always used. Mint. I know, I mean, you use Mint.

Chip? I've used Mint. I think the one that I mentioned in one of the previous episodes was Greenlight that I use for money with the kids, but Mint is a great budgeting app. It's more keeping up with where the money went than it is telling the money where to go. But I mean, sometimes, you know, knowledge is power, right? Or knowledge that you use is power. And so that's a great way to track and keep up with where you're spending money. You know, because in most budgeting, whether it's for business or personal, the surest way to try to save money is to start with the biggest items or the biggest categories first.

Right. Yeah. So I mean, there's that. There's a bunch of them out there and you can kind of find the right one that's for you. If you're going to the grocery store, each store has their own kind of website. You can go and look at the different coupons or things that they've got going on. And then outside of stores or anything retail, You can also, and I've never used any of these, but there are two out there, Swagbucks and InboxDollars, where you can, if you have a little extra time and you want to complete a survey, you can earn either Starbucks, Amazon, or gift cards on Swagbucks that you can then use to buy things. Or if you don't like gift cards, InboxDollars, you can take surveys and they'll pay you in cash money. So some people do both of those just in their spare time. Like I said, I don't have any spare time with all the podcasting and such that we have to do, but some people might. So there's just two options there. But if we go on past the ways to save in the store and maybe electronically or on your phone, do you guys have leftover night at your house, Chip?

Chip Munn: We don't. To be honest, Jon, we don't really like leftovers here, which is a problem, right? And that's part of kind of the discussion. Is, I mean, every now and then we'll do a leftover night, but we'd rather not. And that makes it tough, right? Because a lot of times it's really hard to cook, especially at my house. Like I was saying earlier, right now with one off at college, we've still got 5 grownups in the house. It's hard to gauge, and 3 of them are teenage, young adult boys. It's hard to gauge the right amount to cook. And so we certainly end up with leftovers. More often than I'd like, and you end up with a full fridge.

Yeah. Is there a leftover that ends up in your fridge going to waste more often than another, John?

It's probably fresh vegetables.

Really?

Yeah. Well, I've had a few go mushy, um, you know, because I look in there and it's like, I really don't eat that today. And that happens a week at a time. And so next thing you know— and because it takes more work, right, than just to warm up something. I mean, cooking fresh vegetables in particular, it takes a little bit more prep time. And so I think that a lot of times, at least for me, I'm busy. And so I take the easy way out. How about you?

I looked in the fridge this morning and leftovers that have stayed in the fridge a week or more. There's a tray of macaroni and cheese that I made that is mostly eaten, but there's still some left. There's a lasagna in there that hasn't been heated up. I'm trying to think. There's probably some taco meat. Turner's really big into tacos right now. So we usually cook a bunch of taco meat at the beginning of the week and then just let him kind of eat on that. But they're all things that I guess they're exciting when they first come out of the oven and they're bubbling and all hot and delicious. And then after they sit in the fridge for a week, it's like, mm, I don't know. It's going to take a lot for me to heat that up again.

But yeah, macaroni and cheese and lasagna wouldn't make it long at my house. So, I mean, you'd be safe. So anytime if you want to cook lasagna and mac and cheese, box the rest of it up after you get over your initial excitement. My people will eat that stuff. Broccoli, not so much. But one of the things, John, that there are— and I haven't admittedly taken advantage of them, but I will, I will look into them— is there are websites and cookbooks to help you kind of jazz up leftovers. When we're talking about saving money, eating the things that you've already prepared is certainly one way to do that versus disposing of them or whatever. And so, uh, just to make it a little more inventive, a little more fun, is to try to get more mileage out of the cooking that you're already doing. And another way— and again, I'm one of these people— is you can simplify your diet. You can eat fewer things, you can do more preparing, but you have to balance that with the fact that if you're somebody who's not crazy about leftovers, you really have to put a lot more thought into it in advance. Simplifying your diet can mean food prep and doing a lot of that, which can be very efficient, but it's not that efficient if you make all the food and you prep it and then you don't want to eat it because it's leftover.

That's right. I mean, chopping up vegetables, it's monotonous work. I mean, it's almost like washing dishes, like we talked about with your friend at the beginning. It's not something that everybody likes to do, but it is a way, you know, if you start raw you start with things that you can prepare on your own, you're going to save money because the things that are the most expensive in the stores are the pre-prepared items like sauces, condiments, any kind of pre-prepared dinners or frozen foods, that kind of thing. If somebody has already done the work to organize it all together and put it in a bag or a box or a bottle, it's always going to be more expensive. And if you're like me, you like certain things and you want to try out new sauces. And I probably have, I don't know, 20 different bottles of half-full sauces that expired in 2019 that I never used all of, but they can sometimes make moves with you from house to house even. But if you buy your raw proteins, buy your raw vegetables, you're going to do more of the work, but the food will be fresher, have fewer preservatives and chemicals, and in the end will be better for you and usually less expensive.

Yeah. And particularly, one of the things I've found with proteins is when I do most of my grocery shopping, I get everything but the proteins, and I actually go to a local butcher or a butcher shop for the proteins. I've found that not only are they better quality, but they're cheaper. And back during the pandemic, they have a different supply chain, so they have access to different things. And so they were, in my mind, both cheaper and the quality of the meat is better. So get most of your stuff and then get the meat separate is another way to do it. And then One of the things, John, that I thought of from earlier, and I don't know if it's a money-saving tip, is something like a Sam's Club where you can buy in bulk. I just mentioned that because you were talking earlier and it came to mind, but it's another one of those double-edged swords where I went to Sam's Club for a meeting that you and I were going to be at. And I don't know about you, but I have a hard time eating 3 pounds of peanut butter. And so the idea of buying things in bulk, that you're going to use a lot of and frequently and be able to use and use up is, I think, great. I think it's a great opportunity to save some money, but it's also important to be mindful that you may not want to buy 8 pounds of butter at a time. So those are other things where when we look at trying to figure out where to buy things and what we're going to spend, those can be very enticing, but you also have to be mindful of kind of the portions that you're going to have to buy.

Yeah, that's right. I think that might go hand in hand with our first topic, which was the things you would buy for your pantry that have long shelf lives, that don't go bad. Buying 8 pounds of white rice, I mean, that's probably not going to hurt you. But if you buy 3 pounds of peanut butter or whatever it is, or 8 pounds of butter, like you said, that's perishable unless you're cooking with a whole lot of butter. Making a lot of eggs in the morning, you're probably not going to use all that up. At any rate, I don't do this last item that I would talk about. I don't do it personally, but I know people that do. They've created their garden boxes and gardens in their backyard. Some of them have chickens, some of them keep bees. It's a DIY kind of thing, and you can certainly save a lot of money, especially today. Produce is expensive, meat is expensive, honey is expensive, all that. There are plenty of stores, online websites, people to talk to if you want to try to grow and do some of these things yourselves. As far as the vegetables go, you can consult a local nursery for plants and seeds. If you live in the country, like, I mean, I say I live in the country, Brunswick County is pretty rural. I would say your clients, probably some of them live in rural areas as well. It might be easy to do some of these things and might be easy to find people to talk to about how to start.

Yeah, and it's also fun. I mean, my brother built an above-ground garden at his house recently, and I was over there for a cookout, and you could see all the sprouts growing, and he could tell you how many cucumbers he had. And I mean, it can be both a hobby and a money-saving thing. All this stuff is expensive, but rain is free, and so there's something to be said for that. But a lot of this stuff, John, too, to bring it back home to finances a little bit, A lot of this stuff is very similar to some of the things that we talk about when somebody's looking for a financial advisor. It's important to simplify, to reduce waste, and to make sure that you're being efficient. You know, shopping and comparing, making sure that the advisor that you have is the right one for you. And so I think that's a good comparison or a good way to look at the parallels between when you're looking for an advisor. There's a lot of similarities with planning out and trying to be efficient in your shopping and the money that you're spending at the grocery store.

I mean, you bring up great points. One item that I always tell clients to bring with them to their first kind of discovery meeting is a list of questions that they want to ask us. You know, come up with some of your questions that you'd like to ask in the interview because If you don't bring a list of the questions, if you just keep them in your head, in these discovery meetings, it's very easy to get off on one question leads into something else leads into something else, and you forget the questions that you really wanted to ask, forget the things that were important to you before you came to the meeting. So, you know, just like with shopping, you make a list before you go, plan your meals. It's the same when you come into that first meeting with us. Have a list of questions ready to go so that we can make sure to touch on all the points that are most important to you and make that first meeting as efficient as possible.

Yeah, and I think that again, we may not be the right fit for every person, but by having a list, by really knowing what it is that you're looking for as a customer, as a client, we may not be the right person for everybody, but we do go to great lengths to act in the best interests of our clients, their families, and their futures. And so again, when it comes to being a discerning shopper, It's important both at the grocery store but also as you're looking for and working with a financial advisor. John, let's do it again next week, brother.

See you next week, sir.

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