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This is Later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you

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hear weekday afternoons on the Drive.
Paco de Leon is an author and illustrator,

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a musician, and founder of the
Hale Yeah Group, a financial firm

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dedicated to inspiring creative and personal and
business finances. She's also the host of

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Weird Finance, exploring the often intimidating
terrain of money and finance and economics.

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And Paco de Leon, you sound
like a creative type person. It's not

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off on a creative type person gets
into finance. What got you into it?

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Honestly, I was running at a
time in college and I didn't think

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it was very practical to study art, so I picked finance. It was

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around two thousand and six, so
if you remember that time, it is

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right before the big housing meltdown,
and from my perspective, there was a

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bunch of people making a bunch of
money and they didn't have to work that

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heart. My mentality was, Okay, if I do this job, I

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can work in the daytime, make
a decent living, and then I can

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go and play in my band and
I and still focus on my art.

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Well, there's certainly a lot of
weird things going on right now in the

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finance world. When it comes to
gold and bitcoin and inflation, where do

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we start? Oh my gosh,
I mean, there's a lot to impact

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you. Even forgot to mention the
fact that we just had that little bank

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run. Ye. I mean,
I think the best thing to do is

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really focus on what you can control
and everything else. You kind of have

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to let it go and recognize that
these kinds of economic shocks, these bumps

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in the road, they're normal there. We should expect them to happen with

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regularity. And that's why it's so
important to save for a rainy day,

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to have an emergency fund, and
when times are good, don't forget that

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ultimately there will be some bad times
just around the corner. Well, one

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of the things that I've experienced before
and just experienced this week is my employer

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is cutting back on contributions to the
four oh one K. So that made

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me think, huh, well,
since I'm not getting any matching money for

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what I'm putting in, maybe I
need to back off on what I'm putting

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in and put it somewhere else.
Well, I want to say that I

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legally cannot give you any investment advice, certainly, but I even if you're

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not getting the free money from the
employer, you know, it might make

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sense to continue to contribute to your
four oh one K. But if maybe

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you have an IRA and you like
those options a little bit more than I

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can understand why you want to explore
that. Well, and that's that's what

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I'm getting at, is that you
know, right now there are some savings

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accounts and some other accounts that are
paying interest rates that are almost comparable to

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the matching funds depending on how much
you put in right Absolutely, Yeah,

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Paco. The lay on Weird Finance
is the podcasts. What are these some

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of the things you cover on Weird
Finance. Yeah, I'm really the goal

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with the podcast is to just explore
all of the nooks and crannies, all

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of the things that I think are
fascinating about the financial world. It is

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definitely not limited to just investing conversations, and it's definitely not limited to just

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experts like an a state planner or
a CPA or a financial planner. I

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also want to have just real conversations
with people who have either maybe they're working

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for themselves, there's some kind of
creative freelancer or a small business owner.

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But I'm even spoke to people in
kind of the fringe. So I've spoken

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with a financial astrologer and a financial
dominatrix. I spoke to a woman who

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lived in her car for a thousand
days. It really runs a gamut well,

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and that's what makes us entertaining,
and the podcast is weird finance.

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Paco de layons with us. You
also go over five essential financial habits to

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practice. What are some of those? Definitely, weekly finance time is the

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top of my list. A weekly
finance time is exactly what it sounds like.

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You set aside I would say at
least twenty minutes every week, and

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you focus on your finances right,
you are trying to have a better relationship

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with your money, and by showing
up and by dedicating time to do that,

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it is a way for you to
really explore what you've got going on,

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understand your financial situation, to look
back and to look forward, and

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it shows yourself that you are really
dedicating time to your own growth. Lovely

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wife and I do that bi weekly, usually about the time we reconcile the

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checkbook. Now, at early in
the marriage, I let her handle everything,

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and then little by little I started
helping her reconcile the checkbook and started

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seeing what it was. She's a
brilliant financially by the way, so and

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I always take her advice on everything
financial. But but you know, now

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that we're working on it together,
it's a lot easier for us to see

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the goal and to reach that goal. Absolutely. Yeah, when I mean

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gold star A plus. I love
what you're doing. I love that your

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your partner's got you on board there. Yeah, when it comes to finances,

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I mean everybody knows this. It's
like number one or number two things

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that couples fight about. The best
thing you could do is really get on

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the same team and understand that even
if you have different opinions or maybe your

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values are off by one degree when
it comes to certain things. That's part

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of being in a relationship is navigating
that dynamic. Ultimately, you just got

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to be on the same team and
work towards the same goal. Believe me,

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I check with her on any purchase
over fifty dollars? Is this all

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right? But yeah? Yeah,
why are you even bothering me with it?

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Because you also say that go ahead. I just said, I love

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it okay. And the stock market, I mean, it's been a little

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up and a little down this week. It seems a little more positive than

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it did last week when everybody was
still reeling from the from the bank failure.

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But is now the time to start
looking into that? So my opinion

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on investing is that you shouldn't really
care if it's up burths down. There's

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a strategy called dollar cost averaging,
and what that means is, no matter

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what the stock market is doing,
you just put in a little bit of

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money over time. So both four
own K is like a really great example

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of that. Every time you get
paid, a portion of your paycheck goes

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into your four owne K and that
way you're investing whether the market is up

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or whether the market is down,
and over time, what you're hoping is

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that you've bought in, you know, across an average that kind of balances

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out. We're talking Apoco de lay
On. She is the author of the

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book Finance for the People, Getting
a grip on your finances and host of

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the podcast Weird Finance heard on the
iHeartRadio Appen anywhere you get podcasts. Also

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very creative person likes to play in
a band, and and so for you,

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it's it's it's not all boring numbers
and percentage rates. Definitely not.

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I mean when you think about music, music is actually quite metical. You

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think about the basin between tones and
timing and meter. It's all math.

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It's just explored in a much more
fun way than say, I don't know

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algebra. Yeah, yeah, oh
that's I always go back to that and

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say, Okay, if you're going
to teach math, don't teach it like

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it's a recipe out of a cookbook. Teach it like it's music, or

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teach it like it's the practical application
of trying to solve a problem. I

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don't know how you were taught about
I was taught very cookbook like and it

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always frustrated me. And so Paco
de Leon's with us, and her book

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is Finance for the people getting a
grip on finances, Weird finance, hurt

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on the iHeartRadio podcast, and getting
ready for tax season now. Right now

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a lot of people have already filed, But is there anything last minute to

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keep in mind? I would say
definitely for those of you that haven't filed,

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please don't wait till the last minute
and stress your accountants out, try

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to get everything together as soon as
you can, and recognize that. The

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IRS put out a press release statement
in November talking about how a lot of

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these COVID era tax credits are expiring. So if you are banking on a

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big refund and you're banking on being
able to use that refund, that's recognize

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that refunds are probably going to be
smaller this year because of these tax credits

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that are expiring. Paco delay On
looks at finance in a very musical and

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creative way. Founder of the Hell
Yeah Group and host of Weird Finance with

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Paco de lay On on the iHeartRadio
app and everywhere you get podcasts. Thank

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you for the conversation. Thank you
so much. Thanks for listening to Later

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with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive

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Live weekday afternoons from five to seven
and Ihearts Media presentation