SHOW NOTES
In this “Money With Mak and G” podcast episode, Mak & G look back at how the markets performed over 2021 before discussing what it was like creating their own annual budgets for the first time…
After celebrating the amazing performance of the market in 2021, Mak & G look towards 2022 and their budgeting plans for the year.
Whether it’s a bike or a holiday, if you have something you want to save up towards you need a solid budget.
In this episode, Mak & G discuss the importance of budgeting, what you need to budget for, and some of the things they’re saving up for in 2022…
“Information is power when budgeting.” – Mak
Time Stamps:
00:22 – How well the markets have performed in 2021.
01:03 – The possibility of downward movements in the market to come in 2022.
01:25 – The importance of budgeting and what to put in yours.
02:51 – What we’re saving towards this year.
03:54 – The average costs involved with going to a theme park.
04:27 – The new credit cards we have and the benefits they have.
05:26 – How credit scores work and what they do.
Connect with Ben Jones:
TRANSCRIPT
MAK: Welcome back to Money with Mak & G. Don’t forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE and COMMENT. It’s time to do a little recap of 2021 and think about 2022, and there is a lot.
GRANT: Ok Mak, let’s say it together:
GRANT/MAK: This is Mak and these are the Markets
MAK: Saving so you have money to invest is so important, and the markets have helped out immensely in growing everyone’s nest egg. But, you had to be in it to win it.
GRANT: We saw a lot of demand in 2021, record earnings, low unemployment. It really helped to drive the Dow, S&P, and the Nasdaq to gains around 19%, 27%, and 21% each.
MAK: A stellar year, which was the 6th best since 1990. That’s strong. We also saw 70 new record highs with the S&P. The ANNUAL return for the last 3 years was 26%. That means if you invested $100, you’d have about $200. WOW!! Rule of 72’s, divide by annual return, and that’s about 3 years.
GRANT: That is amazing. But, we need to be prepared for some possible downward movements in 2022. After this growth, we GENERALLY see less and some drops. Kind of like:
GRANT/MAK: What goes up must come down.
MAK: But it doesn’t have to stay down. You should be happy if you were invested, which meant you saved more than you spent and put that money to get use. That means budgeting. Did you do yours?
MAK/GRANT: We did ours!!!
GRANT: Yes, we had the pleasure of working on our first budget. I obviously didn’t know how much I was spending each month on my bills. I know you were surprised with your chiro bills.
MAK: Yep, I’ll admit it. I thought it was a lot less. We were both surprised that monthly voice lessons were over $100. You HAVE to track them or you won’t know how much you’re spending.
GRANT: Since we’ve grown out of our bikes, it was time to put that in the budget. I have to admit I wasn’t sure how much. After looking online, it says a new bike averages about $300.
MAK: That’s clearly a longer-term goal, but we do want to have it before summer begins. So, we had to take that into consideration and save money over the next 4-5 month. SHOCKING.
GRANT: We’ve been talking money for quite some time, but can you believe I forgot to put money on the side for charity. I can’t believe you had to think who you’d give it to.
MAK: Seriously? You had NOOOOO idea. All you said was… “Abuse”… “Abuse”. Were you stuttering?
GRANT: Hey, I meant animal abuse for starters. When you see a dog like Domino or Peppar who’ve come out of a shelter and are scared of everything it kinda breaks your heart.
MAK: Agree, and I know you meant child abuse as well. I think we both overshot with $150 each, per month. That’s $3,600 per year. Should I say it? This budget thing takes work.
GRANT: And, it really opens your eyes. We had our other bigger goals this year including:
MAK: Rollerblades
GRANT: A trip to Sea World
MAK: Our class trip to D.C.
GRANT: And, Aquatica
MAK: That trip to Florida covers Sea World AND Aquatica. It’s going to be AWESOME. Dad bought a combined annual pass during Black Friday which will save us a bundle.
GRANT: If we go one time to Florida, it almost pays for itself. But, we plan on getting a couple trips in to save more!!
MAK: GRANNNNTTT. You do know we’ll have to pay for another flight, taxis and more to go down there right?
GRANT: I know, but we won’t have to pay for the parks. Sea World has so some really cool roller coasters and other rides. I saw some of the cool things like:
MAK: MAKO
GRANT: MANTA (different voice)
MAK: the KRAKEN (different voice)
GRANT: Infinity Falls (different voice)
MAK: You know we’re going to have to watch our money for food and drinks and things we want. Now that I think of it, I’m not sure I put enough in the budget. What about Aquatica.
GRANT: Great rides there too.
MAK: Dolphin Plunge
GRANT: Loggerhead Lane
MAK: Roa’s Rapids
GRANT: Omaka Raka, say that three times fast.
MAK: Ihu’s Breakaway falls is the scariest with the steepest multi-drop tower. Dare you!!
MAK: Cool names. Now that we have budgets on the mind, I Google’d the average spend at each place. Information is power when budgeting!!! It depends on what you want…
GRANT: All day eating $40 adults or $20 kids
MAK: Parking VIP $35 or Regular $25
GRANT: Lockers are Big $15 or Small $10
MAK: Loungers $39 for two
GRANT: Merchandise…how much if any?
GRANT: To cabana or not to cabana that is the question. At Aquatica, it includes lockers, waters, loungers, and PEACE OF MIND, which can be priceless. Parking with the annual pass is included. YEAH!!
MAK: And, I see that they take a credit card. Bro, we get to break in the new cards dad got us to organize our spending. Wasn’t it a little different going to the bank with dad?
GRANT: I felt really important because we had our own banker…
MAK: Scott. He was so nice and helped us find the right card for what WE wanted and needed.
GRANT: He started the conversation looking at dad, but when dad didn’t look at him, I think he got the message. WE were the customers. He started with the no-annual-fee cards.
MAK: I’m glad he started that way because I wasn’t looking forward to telling him to start over.
GRANT: Me neither, but I like how he talked about all the cashback we’d get. Restaurants would pay back 5%, and everything else would pay back 1.5%.
MAK: Dad was funny when he kept saying we could take him out and get money back, but I wasn’t falling for that. I only have so much in my budget for entertainment.
GRANT: For sure. I loved watching you do all the online signatures for the credit card. I’m glad you went “paperless” to reduce cutting down trees. We’ll get our monthly statement via email. Very cool.
MAK: We got our first taste of what a credit score really means too. It was a bit spooky to know there are three companies that watch how you spend and pay back all your money. Stalkers!
GRANT: Transunion
MAK: Experion
GRANT: Equifax
MAK: Remember, we studied this before. When dad asked how many were out there, you said “hundreds”. They used dad’s score because we don’t have one yet. A good score pays less interest if you have a balance or debt on your credit card, but we know you have to pay it off:
MAK/GRANT: Every month!!!
GRANT: Normally they’ll approve you in minutes if all is ok. But, dad frozen access to the credit rating companies to make sure thieves couldn’t get in. That can be very bad. It sounded smart.
MAK: Crazy couple of days, but I learned a ton. I bet in 6 months, we’re going to have a much better handle on all our money, and be looking forward to bikes, rollerblades, trips and investing!
GRANT: With lots of CASHBACK!!!!
MAK: You got that right, and we’re definitely going to give updates. So, stay tuned, and we’ll see you next week for more.
GRANT/MAK: Money with Mak & G. Bye!!
