KRISTIN MYERS | From The Balance

Inflation is high all over the world, interest rates are up, and when that happens, recessions often follow. Are you prepared? My guest today has been writing about this and looking into the data. Kristin Myers is the editor-in-chief of The Balance. This interview was partly based on an article she wrote titled 44% of US Adults Are Not Financially Ready for Recession

• Recession worries are real, and 44% of U.S. adults said they aren’t financially prepared for a recession, according to a new survey from The Balance.
• When asked about their current financial situation, 17% of respondents said they don’t have enough money to cover basic expenses.
• More than a quarter of U.S. adults said they have been “extremely” impacted by inflation, and 92% are cutting back spending thanks to those higher prices.

Sign up for The Balance’s newsletter for daily insights, analysis, and financial tips, all delivered straight to your inbox every morning!

Kristin Myers is a journalist, producer, and Editor-in-Chief of The Balance, a site that makes personal finance easy to understand. She was a daily host of Yahoo Finance Live, covering business, markets, and politics. Kristin also helped launch Al Jazeera America, where she was part of the field teams for special coverage including the riots in Ferguson, and Nelson Mandela's funeral. She’s also worked with Bloomberg News, MSNBC, and many others.

Kristin mentioned some social accounts that she follows. Here's the list if you'd like to follow up:

Earn Your Leisure @EarnYourLeisure

Wall Street trapper @Wallstreet504

Downtown Josh Brown @Downtown @RitholtzWealth

MG The Mortgage Guy @mgmortgageguy

Your Rich BFF @Your_RichBFF

Douglas A. BOOneparth 👻 @dougboneparth

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS AFTER THIS BRIEF MESSAGE

Portfolio tracker Sharesight tracks your trades, shows your true performance, and saves you time and money at tax time. Get 4 months free at this link.

Disclosure: The links provided are affiliate links. I will be paid a commission if you use this link to make a purchase. You will also usually receive a discount by using these links/coupon codes. I only recommend products and services that I use and trust myself or where I have interviewed and/or met the founders and have assured myself that they’re offering something of value.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Chloe (1s):
Stocks for Beginners.

Kristin (4s):
I have seen people throw good money after bad. I've seen people miss out on the party, They've left the party early, they've come to the party as it was ending. I mean, all sorts of weird decisions that people are making because they're thinking emotionally when it comes to investing. And it does make sense because it is emotional and it's how you're going to feed your family money's how you're gonna take care of your health, money's how you're gonna take care of your future generations. Money is incredibly important.

Phil (38s):
Hi, and welcome back to Stocks for Beginners. I'm Phil Muscatello. Inflation is high all over the world. Interest rates are up and when that happens, recessions often follow. Are you prepared? My guest today has been writing about this and looking into the data. Hello Kristin.

Kristin (54s):
Hi Phil. How are you?

Phil (55s):
Always good, thank you. Kristin Myers is a journalist, producer and editor in chief of the Balance, a site that makes personal finance easy to understand. She was a daily host of Yahoo Finance live covering business markets and politics. Kristen also helped launch Al Jazeera America, where she was part of the field teams for special coverage, including the riots in Ferguson and Nelson Mandela's funeral. She's also worked with Bloomberg News, MSNBC, and many others. So as a journalist, did finance find you or did you find finance?

Kristin (1m 29s):
I would say finance almost found me. I did study a little bit of economics when I was in undergrad in college, and then when I went to grad school, to journalism school, I was actually studying in Wales and I studied some business journalism courses as there, so just kind of continuing on, I was taking a lot of economics and business classes and then I continued with business journalism, but I didn't think that I was actually going to go into financial journalism at all until of course I ended up moving to Norway and actually started out with my first, you know, sort of big girl job as a freelancer and stringer for Bloomberg. And so I was right back into, into business news and it was a little bit of a, I, I obviously was very keen on having the job, but it was honestly one of the few things I was available to me.

Kristin (2m 19s):
I was in a country where I didn't really speak the language and Bloomberg reports in English. And so it was an opportunity that was available to me, so I took it.

Phil (2m 26s):
Yeah, quite handy. So Norway, I didn't see that in your, in your bio. I mean economically it's quite a different system over there, isn't it? And because they've got those huge reserves of money from all the oil that they've produced over the years, don't

Kristin (2m 40s):
They? Yeah, very, very different. And it's interesting because when I talk about, you know, political policies here in the United States, I do have this contextual knowledge of both living in the UK for a couple years and then also living in Norway for a few years and seeing how other countries operate. You know, financially kind of informs a little bit of the experience that I have now, you know, able to see how different countries enact different policies and how people are impacted by them.

Phil (3m 10s):
Yeah, because it's, I mean, a lot of Americans, well, I'm just saying this as an outsider, a lot of Americans look at Europe and see that as socialism, but they seem to have, I don't know, it's, it seems strange even from Australia how different it is in the United States and what would be considered socialism in America is just like standard practice in many other countries.

Kristin (3m 33s):
And we do have socialist policies in the United States. I just don't think too many people think about it. We do have a pension system and it's called social security and it's not exactly what of course you have in terms of pension systems in other countries, but I mean it's, it's not totally foreign or alien to what, what exists elsewhere. Of course we do have a socialized system of healthcare for, you know, people who need it. I mean there are all sorts of socialist policies that do exist in in the United States. And then even looking abroad, I mean what we think is socialist, there's also huge levels of capitalism, of course, that exist as well within their system. So I mean, I wouldn't exactly call, you know, a lot of European countries completely socialists either.

Kristin (4m 19s):
It's socialist with a capitalist bent, I would say.

Phil (4m 23s):
Yeah. And I believe Sweden's like that as well. Like they, they've got quite a large safety net. But as far as the operations of business, it's highly capitalist system, isn't it?

Kristin (4m 32s):
Oh absolutely. All the Scandinavian countries are really like that. Yeah.

Phil (4m 36s):
Okay, I get getting back on the track, that was just a little rabbit hole we went down. Tell us about The Balance and what sets it apart from other publications.

Kristin (4m 44s):
I like to say that The Balance is honestly a place where if you have a financial question, we've got the answer for you, honestly, whatever you could possibly think about. We absolutely have the information, whether it's something in your career and you wanna know how to get a pay raise or you wanna start a small business to, you have no idea how to start investing or you've just got a job and you are wondering, you know, what the heck a 401K is, which is an employee sponsored retirement account here in the United States. We've got all the information to explain what those things are, but also to walk you through essentially how to do it.

Kristin (5m 24s):
So we really try very hard to, not so much tell people the answers, but really empower people to make their own financial decisions. And that's what I think sets us apart honestly from so many other publications. We do give the news, but we're not just a sole news outlet or news provider. And then we also give you the information, but we're not just trying to sell you products, which is seems to be a lot of what happens out there on the internet now. And best of all, all the information that we do have, you can trust is from trusted expert sources. Everything that we have is always fact checked. And then we also have a review board of experts in taxes or accounting or whatever it might be that are also looking over the information to make sure that it's always accurate and everything is always updated.

Kristin (6m 13s):
And so you like to make sure that nothing on our site is stale or old or essentially inaccurate.

Phil (6m 19s):
And where do the ideas from the stories come from? Is it like generated from research or what, what questions from readers or ideas that pop into your head?

Kristin (6m 28s):
I think they come from, honestly all sorts of places. I mean, there's stories that I write and some of them are, you know, honestly from my own head, some of them come from interviews that I've done or questions that I might even be getting on social media. Some of them are just, we know, for example, let's say we wanna talk about taxes and we know that there's all these different questions that people have about taxes, things that they're searching for on our site. So we always like to make sure that we go out, excuse me, and address those.

Phil (6m 56s):
Yeah. So what are the kind of questions you're receiving at the moment?

Kristin (6m 60s):
Yeah, a lot of questions about inflation and recession as you can imagine. And then of course also about the markets. I've been getting a lot of markets related questions lately since the markets have just been a complete rollercoaster. We just had our closing bell here in the US and markets closed down. And of course everyone's asking, well, what's going on? Because we had two days of rallies after a completely terrible month of September in equities. And so there's been a lot of markets questions, Is this the bottom? When are things going to get better? What should I be investing in now? And there's so many questions I think a lot of young investors have, just two years ago right when the pandemic hit, we had millions of people open up investment accounts.

Kristin (7m 50s):
They decided to join the party, everyone was at home, they had a little bit more money and they were figuring, Hey, maybe I should invest it. I'm sitting at home, I'm watching financial news, and now this is their first bear market test, even if they've been investing longer. If you are a millennial or a Gen Zer, this is your first bear market that you've actually had to deal with. This is obviously old hat for some of the older investors, but a lot of young investors have no idea what to do. They've been very, very spoiled in this market, especially over the last two years. You could throw your money on a dart board, a tech dart board anywhere anyway, and it was always gonna be a bullseye. Everything was going to be up 20, 30, 5000% on on some of the stocks.

Kristin (8m 33s):
And so they're really struggling. They're, they're portfolios are down bad and they really wanna know what's going on.

Phil (8m 40s):
So what are you writing about in terms of those questions? I mean, on this podcast we always say, you know, I always try and get people on who've been through many bear markets to try and describe what it's been like in the past and the psychology of what's going on. What's, what's the point of view at the balance in terms of addressing these questions from readers?

Kristin (8m 59s):
One of the first things that I really like to do is calm some of the panic and remind people that you can't time the market. Anyone who claims they can is lying to you because they'd be the richest person in the world if they could. It's just not possible. And so really

Phil (9m 13s):
Remind me, someone would've figured it out by now, wouldn't they?

Kristin (9m 16s):
Yeah, you would think, right? No, the market still remains, no, I wouldn't say complete mystery. Obviously there is, there is actual analysis that does go into to what happens in the markets, but still yet. And still, you cannot time the markets, you just can't. And no one has a crystal ball. And so reminding our readers, particularly our younger readers, this is not a time for panic. Yes, your market, your portfolio I should say might be down 20, maybe even 30%, but if you have another 20, 30, 40 years, if you're in your twenties ahead of you, in reality this is a great time to snatch up a lot of things at, in a way, at a discount, right?

Kristin (9m 58s):
You know, as the saying goes, the bear market is the only store where everything's on sale and everyone runs out of the store. And so that's really what you have to sort of remind yourself what's sort of happening in the markets. But then there's also a lot of prepping people for a recession. You know, this isn't the time to add onto your credit card debt. This is the time where, sure, over the last couple of years you might have had a lot more extra cash. You might have been able to buy things that you really wanted or maybe perhaps spend a little more loosely than you might otherwise. But high inflation environments and recessionary environments are not the times to play fast and loose. This is a time where you really need to go back to some of those fundamentals and you need to be disciplined.

Kristin (10m 43s):
And I think discipline is really the word of the day that I always try to remind people of in this type of environment.

Phil (10m 49s):
Well, with an old fashioned idea, frugality,

Kristin (10m 53s):
You know what, if it's not broke, why fix it? I mean, it's worked for so long, probably for a reason.

Phil (11m 5s):
Your parent company dot dash Meredith also owns Investopedia and we've had Caleb Silver on the editor in chief on the podcast. Are you collaborators? Competitors or compliment each other.

Kristin (11m 16s):
I know this is audio, but I just want everyone to know that I'm the younger, funnier, better looking version of Caleb. No, we're collaborating.

Phil (11m 26s):
I'll, I'll confirm that.

Kristin (11m 29s):
Or collaborators, honestly, I, I think we do complement each other very well. Caleb, I am not Caleb and Caleb is not me. And I, I think that's what makes us such good complements to each other and, and I think very good helms of, you know, two of the finance, well, the only two finance brands within the dot dash Meredith portfolio, we are able to bounce ideas off of each other and, and help each other. And like I said, we don't have the same viewpoints necessarily on everything. I would say that there's sometimes probably a little bit of good naturedk competition, but I, I think in a way that only helps each of us be better, not necessarily drag each other down so

Phil (12m 9s):
You don't create hip hop rhymes like he does at the beginning of every episode of his podcast.

Kristin (12m 15s):
Yeah, it's funny cuz he's the older one. You think I would be the hip hop one? No, I do not. I am not, I'm not a rhymer and I'm not good on TikTok. I'm trying to get better. I'm, I'm more into Instagram of reels, but no, I do not start off with hip hop beats. Caleb's perfect for

Phil (12m 35s):
That. So you've recently celebrated your one year anniversary at The Balance. What have you learned during that time?

Kristin (12m 40s):
Yeah,

Phil (12m 41s):
Sorry, that's such a big question, isn't it?

Kristin (12m 44s):
It is. I've learned so much, I've learned so much, but at least in terms of what I'm doing, you know, in my previous job, as you mentioned, I was, I was working at Yahoo Finance and I was an anchor there talking about markets every single day. I'm talking to financial analysts, I'm talking to politicians, and you kind of know your audience is very plugged into the information in the news. And I think one of the biggest things I've learned is just how difficult it is sometimes for some people to get access to financial literacy. It's not that people aren't capable of learning, and it's not even that they don't want to learn, just so many people don't really know where to start or where to begin.

Kristin (13m 29s):
And, you know, we don't really teach financial literacy in schools. We, we've done away with those home ec courses where, you know, you have to balance a checkbook, which I mean honestly is a little bit fine since no one uses a checkbook anymore anyways. But, you know, there's so many people out there that I'm realizing just don't know what they don't know. They don't know where to begin. And what I think one of the most surprising things that I've learned is that it, this lack of knowledge doesn't discriminate based on age. There's people that are about to retire in retirement age that you would naturally think are perhaps a little bit more knowledgeable or clued into what's happening with their retirement or how, how the best practices with retirement.

Kristin (14m 18s):
And they're not. And again, it's not their fault. They've just never been taught and there's a lot of information out there and they don't necessarily know where to look or who to trust.

Phil (14m 27s):
There has been an explosion in interest though, hasn't there from so many people. It's a, you know, it's like my podcast and all of the other podcasts, YouTube channels and the Balance and Investopedia, they're servicing this need and this desire for people to learn. It's great that people now are taking their financial literacy into their own hands.

Kristin (14m 49s):
They are. I mean, like I said, I think the pandemic really changed in some ways, some things for the better. A lot of things, mostly for the worse quite honestly. But I think on this piece of awareness of financial literacy, I think it really has, this has been a time I think of something quite positive of more and more people getting interested in investing as a part of building wealth, right? I, I feel like I'm hearing more and more questions now of, it's not just about me, but how do I really set things up so that my children or that my grandchildren will be better off financially.

Kristin (15m 31s):
You know, talking about not just retirement, but how their future generations can really benefit from some of their moves that they're making today. And I think that that's, that's honestly really great. It's, it's so nice to see so many people, you know, even though they might be a little bit scared of the markets deciding to jump in.

Phil (15m 51s):
Do you hear any misconceptions when you're finding information from readers?

Kristin (15m 56s):
I'm trying to think of some of the most popular misconceptions. I think that I hear a lot of, I do see people making a lot of bad moves. I will say that I was actually, anecdotally, I was talking to someone the other day and he, we ended up talking about the markets because I, some for some reason ended up talking about money no matter where I go. And he mentioned to me how, you know, the markets were making him crazy. He was watching it every single day watching his accounts lose money. And so he just pulled all of his money out for cash because he thought that was a better idea. And I literally, you know, like the home alone face with Macaulay Culkin, I literally made that face, I could not believe that this, that this man had emptied out his investment accounts.

Kristin (16m 46s):
And I just thought, oh, actually no, I didn't think I told him. I, I said, you need to go put that money right back into the markets because you are really going to regret this in about a year or two when the markets hopefully turn around. Bear markets don't last forever, They only last a year, year and a half, you know, or I'm thinking of recessions, but you know, bear markets don't last forever and bull markets runs. You can have some serious gains, so you're probably gonna wanna put some that money back.

Phil (17m 18s):
How old is this guy?

Kristin (17m 19s):
I didn't ask him, but he was definitely in his thirties, I would say

Phil (17m 23s):
Still plenty of years, plenty of years,

Kristin (17m 25s):
Many years. Which is why I was so shocked. If he was, you know, 95 or something, I probably wouldn't have, I wouldn't have react, I don't think I would've blanked. But no, he was a younger guy. He has plenty more time in the market.

Phil (17m 39s):
So that comes back to that point you were making previously about trying to calm people down and trying to reduce panic, because that's another thing, a lot of people have this psychological fear when they, because they are looking at the screen, they think they're long term investors, but they're looking at the five minute charts. And this is really part of it, isn't it? Just trying to reassure people. And I think this is what financial advisors, one of the great values of financial advisors is that they give people the option to have someone to talk to, to make them not make silly decisions like

Kristin (18m 13s):
That. You know, it's all about the emotional and psychological impact of money and also of investing, right? In a weird way, when I invest, for example, I, I mean I know that that money is a part of my net worth. It is on my balance sheet, so to speak, but I don't think of it as money that I'm using to pay for my bills because it's not, you know, I'm not using, I'm not investing money that I need to pay for my light bill. And so I think of losses in the market differently, but there's a lot of people that look at their investment accounts and they see that, you know, things are in the red and they think of themselves as actually losing money and in reality they haven't lost anything until they've sold it, then they've sold it at a loss, you know, and while it's in there, it's really nothing.

Kristin (19m 8s):
You know, it's, it's not until you sell it that you actually see either a gain positive or negative. But people get very attached to what they see in their investment account. And I think what needs topen is that this tweaking psychologically of how people are approaching investing, but also emotionally how they're approaching investing. I have seen people throw good money after bad. I've seen people miss out on the party, they've left the party early, they've come to the party as it was ending. I mean, all sorts of weird decisions that people are making because they're thinking, you know, emotionally when it comes to investing.

Kristin (19m 51s):
And it does make sense because, I mean, finance is personal and it is emotional and it's how you're going to feed your family money's how you're gonna take care of your health. Money is how you're gonna take care of your future generations. Money is incredibly important and that's why I think it is always good for, you know, sites like the Balance or people like me to talk about com or financial advisors if you have one, to really remind you, not always to think so emotionally about your investments or about your financial decisions.

Phil (20m 29s):
I, I love the party analogy. I'm gonna steal that one from you. That's a great one. You just don't wanna be waking up on the couch the next day not knowing what happened the night before. Do you,

Kristin (20m 39s):
There's investors that have that happen to them too. They're, they're completely alone and the, the parties cleared out and there's nothing but trash all around if we wanna carry it that far.

Phil (20m 50s):
Is financial literacy improving in traditionally underserved communities?

Kristin (20m 55s):
I would say yes. And I would say it has for many, many, many years. The advent of the internet, the rise of social media has made access to this information easier now than ever before to obtain. There's also certain things that have happened in investing, if we wanna think of investing, commission free trades, for example, or being able to do fractional investing that has made it far more accessible. You know, if you wanted to make a trade before you actually needed someone to make that trade for you, well that already right, cuts out a huge population of people, especially ones that are lower income, that can't afford, that don't even know where to go to get a stock broker.

Kristin (21m 40s):
So these things definitely are changing and, and as these things become easier to do and far more accessible, I think the financial literacy, the interest in learning about it, which is where I think it really first starts. You first have to have the interest, I think that has been on the rise, but then the, the places and the spaces where you can access that information have also really proliferated. And they've especially exploded over the last couple of years. I mean, you've got guys like Earn Your Leisure, the Wall Street Taper, they're on social media, they're on Instagram, they have, I mean, millions of followers. And Caleb and I even went to a festival, it's called Invest Fest, 12,000 people packed into a room talking about investing.

Kristin (22m 22s):
I don't think I've, I have never actually been to a financial event that has brought that many people. And that, I think that just shows that there is such an interest, but also clearly how there is such a, a much greater access to that information for black and brown communities in the us

Phil (22m 42s):
And it's very difficult to know where to start. Well it's not difficult to know where to start, but just to get that right information and to get sensible advice as well. So, you know, you can start with an account with $200 and a hundred bucks, five bucks even and invest it in the market and that should be an opportunity for learning. But I feel that there's a lot of people who don't use it as an opportunity for learning. They think of it like sports betting.

Kristin (23m 6s):
So many people think of things of investing a gambling. It's funny you mentioned that. I have a, I have a friend, I won't name her name, but I was talking to her about investing this or pretty much urging her to invest and she told me, Well I put, you know, five or $10 in Robinhood, but you know, I saw it losing money. So, you know, I just, I just felt like I was losing money. And I looked at her and I said, You bought, you bought jeans on Instagram for a hundred dollars that you said were too small that you were hoping you could fit into later. I mean, which was really the bigger risk here. I mean, you took a bigger risk, a bigger gamble on those jeans from a, a perhaps shady website on that you found online that you knew wouldn't fit.

Kristin (23m 50s):
So you're already requiring all of these, I guess, dieting in order to fit into it. And you for some reason wanted to put more down on that than you did on your own financial future, which was your investment account. And I thought that was so weird, but that's because she's looking at the investing as a, as a gamble. She's not someone who's going to go to Vegas and spend $5,000. She's gonna put $2 in the slot machine and if she loses, she'll walk away. But to me the real gamble was buying pants that might never fit you. That to me was the bigger gamble. And so, yeah, so many people really think of the markets and, and listen, I don't blame them when you have things happening like the meme, stock trades and people throwing money at things and expecting and wanting returns that are a hundred, hundred and 50%, well that is practically gambling.

Kristin (24m 48s):
And so, and, and that's been quite popular lately. But yeah, a lot of people do think of the markets as, as gambling and don't, they don't wanna put their faith into it. But then there's also just generally speaking, I think a mistrust of a lot of financial services because particularly in some communities, those providers have failed them and have traditionally shut them out of things or told them no or turned their backs on, you know, those communities. So I think there is a little bit of a fundamental mistrust, especially in something that you don't necessarily fully understand. I think that can be the scary thing when you don't have a lot to begin with, to put it in something you might not necessarily know too much about.

Kristin (25m 32s):
And then try to just have faith that things will get better or improve. Especially considering that the market can be quite unpredictable. You could have down days and dayss I think is really, really hard.

Phil (25m 44s):
There are fears that the world's heading towards recession and some research on the balance has shown that 44% of adults say that they aren't prepared. What are the chances of a recession and how can people prepare?

Kristin (25m 59s):
So the chances of a recession are growing every single day, or should I say every couple of months when the Fed decides to meet and raise interest rates. And they've, they've look, they've flat out have come out and said they're going to continue to raise rates. They're trying to get that target rate of 2% inflation. We're at 8.3 right now. So yeah, they're going to keep raising rates and every time they do that, the chances of a recession get higher and higher. Now, before it was end of 2022. But I mean that's the resiliency of the US economy for you. I mean, we're not there yet. Some people would say we are in our recession, but it has not been officially declared as yet. So maybe 2023. I don't know if I, if I would put a number on what the chances are, but I, I wouldn't say they're low.

Kristin (26m 43s):
I'd say that they're pretty high. It's pretty likely that we might head into a recession or somewhere quite close to it if things continue the way that they are going. Now what you can do to prepare when it comes to your investment account, it a little bit depends on your age. You know, there are of course those recession proof industries, right? You've got your consumer staples and your utilities tend to do quite well in recessionary environments. These of course, are things that people need. They still need to go out and buy groceries and keep the lights on. So these are things that are going to continue, you know, to go forward even in a recession.

Kristin (27m 23s):
But this is a great time if you are someone who's investing and is maintaining your job throughout this recession, honestly this is a great time for you to perhaps invest even more if you can while the markets are not doing so well. If you're someone who is a little bit older, this is a time really for you to look at your investment account are all of the things that you're invested in in tech. This is probably a nice time to do a little bit of reallocation in that portfolio. You might wanna start looking at what we call less risky investments, things like bonds and you've got the savings I bonds, for example, which are great in inflationary environments. And then there's a personal finance piece.

Kristin (28m 4s):
A recession is not the time for you to max out your credit card. It's just not as we head into a recession, if you have not asked your boss for a pay raise, do so now because we've all heard, you know, when we've been at a company and things don't look so great, and I'm sure maybe for some folks maybe the pandemic was the beginning. When your boss comes around and says, Listen, listen, I know everyone's been working very hard and we would love to give you all raises, but just not gonna happen. You know, the company has to tighten its belt, so we're not gonna be giving raises, we won't be giving bonuses. So make sure to get all of those things now before we do officially enter into that recession. If you wanna make a job switch again, do it now.

Kristin (28m 46s):
If you don't have a job and you're looking, try to secure one now things are only going to get worse. Also increase those savings. You do wanna make sure in case of emergency that you won't necessarily panic. If you have three months of emergency savings, maybe consider bumping that up to six months so that way you can know if you do lose your job, that your rent will still be paid or your mortgage is paid, you can buy your groceries, you can pay your utilities. All the things that you need to pay can be paid for while you are out of work and you'll of course be helped a little bit by your, by unemployment. So all of those things are things that I would definitely consider doing to really help yourself prepare for a recession.

Kristin (29m 33s):
Because if, if you're sitting on a nice little nest egg, I think you'll be a little bit less anxious if something were to happen. In terms of an economic downturn,

Phil (29m 41s):
The article I read on the Balance that you'd written about inflation and the coming recession did mention that people are actually, their spending is being impacted at the moment. Tell us about that.

Kristin (29m 55s):
Yeah, and, and just source of the all the ways you would expect people are getting creative at the grocery store. Things that they used to buy, they're not necessarily buying. And, and the grocery list is actually one of the most inflation impacted things. You know, we're seeing many, many items on the grocery bill that are actually outpacing inflation. So meaning they're, they're seeing a cost rise more than the, than the rate of inflation. They are in some ways they're buying less of certain things, you know, and they're focusing instead on the things that they absolutely have to buy. I mean, they were even cutting back on, especially gas for example. Gas was just so expensive.

Kristin (30m 36s):
Of course, when we had done our survey, this was really almost at the height of what was happening to gas prices in the us And so people were really cutting back on gas and travel for example, because again, things are just getting far too expensive for them

Phil (30m 54s):
And there's been a cutback on alcohol, recreational drugs and dating. Is that a, do you have to cut back on fun as well?

Kristin (31m 1s):
I don't think you need to cut back on fun just because things become more expensive or even in, in the case of a recession, I'm someone that does not necessarily preach extreme austerity. I think of it like extreme dieting, right? You, you always set yourself up for failure that way. But yeah, people are saying, Hey, things are too expensive. I don't need to take that, that guy or that girl out on a date. I could just stay at home. A lot of people were doing, when it came to dating, a lot of people were doing the virtual dates or trying to figure out as many free dates as they possibly could instead of trying to go out for, for dinner and a movie, which is so expensive to do now.

Phil (31m 39s):
And, and maybe it's about setting the bar higher for what constitutes qualification for a date,

Kristin (31m 46s):
I think. So I'm seeing a lot of the rise in talking to my friends, the rise of the coffee date, which I don't, none of my friends like, but I I'm hearing that quite a lot lately. The rise of the coffee date.

Phil (32m 1s):
So Kristen, who do you follow for investing news?

Kristin (32m 4s):
So when it comes to outlets, I'm, I'm honestly always reading a lot of, like, some of the biggest outlets that you might expect. I'm always looking at Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, of course my old home Fox Business, CNN Business Axios. In terms of people I'm looking at lot of like the, the big folks that you might see, even on places like cnbc, I'm looking at, you know, I call him Downtown Josh Brown cause that's his Twitter handle. But I'm looking at Josh Brown, right? And I, and I'm looking at like Douglas Boneparth or Liz Young and Andrew Ross Sorkin, of course over at cnbc.

Kristin (32m 45s):
And then of course there's also the people that are culturally right, very important in this space. Like the guys over at Earn Your Leisure, Troy and Rashad. And there's Matthew who talks a lot about housing MG, the mortgage guy. I follow him and, and learn quite a bit from him. Big Mar talks a lot about Bitcoin and he's also someone that I follow. Kiana also talks a lot about housing. So I, I kind of spread it out quite a bit where I'm getting my sources from and who I'm following. I like to keep my finger on the pulse of pretty much everywhere, right? If you're big on social media, I'm also gonna watch you, You're Rich BFF Vivian. I love watching her Tik Toks and all the information that she shares.

Kristin (33m 27s):
So she's also someone that I like to look at for financial advice. We're all learning, we're all growing, and I can learn just like anyone else can. So I also like to follow some of these folks.

Phil (33m 39s):
We'll have to get a list of these handles so that we can publish. And in the blog post, in the, in the episode notes as well, because you've gone through a lot there. And I just wanted to say Douglas Bona Path's also one of the, the funniest Twitter accounts as well.

Kristin (33m 52s):
That's why I love following him. It's hilarious.

Phil (33m 56s):
I don't even know how to describe him. He just says the most stupid obvious things, but they're, they're kind of hilarious.

Kristin (34m 2s):
A financial troll I think would

Phil (34m 5s):
Be the best way for it. Shit poster.

Kristin (34m 8s):
Yeah,

Phil (34m 8s):
Absolutely. That's what I love about Twitter. So tell us, how can listeners find out more about Kristin Myers and The Balance?

Kristin (34m 15s):
You can always go follow me on Twitter, @kristinreports. I think I'm also hilarious on Twitter, sometimes tweeting about eggplant and pumpkins in the garden. Or I'm tweeting about some political policy that has financial impact or I'm tweeting about what's happening in the markets. You can also visit us at www.thebalancemoney.com and also on Instagram at the Balance Money. So we've got lots of Instagram lives. I over on my Instagram, the, at the Kristen Meyers, I like to do, ask me any things where you can ask me anonymous financial questions. I like to answer them sometimes on Wednesdays. So I'll actually probably be doing this and I even have an advice column, so you can always feel free to write me.

Kristin (34m 56s):
So if you head over to our site, you'll be able to find the signup link or the link where you can write me your financial question.

Phil (35m 3s):
Oh, so like a Dear Kristen kind

Kristin (35m 5s):
Of thing? Pretty much, yeah. I give, I give my, I give my 2 cents pretty much on people's financial questions and honestly they don't just have to be about investing. I get a lot of, you know, my boyfriend wants me to pay half in rent and I don't want to, what should I do? I'm always, I love those questions as well.

Phil (35m 25s):
Fantastic. Kristen Myers, thank you very much for joining us.

Kristin (35m 28s):
Thanks so much for having me.

Phil (35m 30s):
If you found this podcast helpful, please tell a friend, especially if it's someone who needs to start thinking about investing for their future, you'll be helping them and helping me to keep this show on the road.

Chloe (35m 40s):
Stocks for Beginners is for information and educational purposes only. It isn't financial advice and you shouldn't buy or sell any investments based on what you've heard here, any opinion or commentary, The view of the Speaker Only Not Stocks for beginners. This podcast doesn't replace professional advice regarding your personal financial needs, circumstances, or current situation.

Phil (35m 58s):
And thank you for listening to my podcast.

Stocks for Beginners is for information and educational purposes only. It isn’t financial advice, and you shouldn’t buy or sell any investments based on what you’ve heard here. Any opinion or commentary is the view of the speaker only not Stocks for Beginners. This podcast doesn’t replace professional advice regarding your personal financial needs, circumstances or current situation.