Welcome to Money Talks

Welcome to a new way of getting your ERS financial news.

Transcript

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Hi everyone and welcome to our Money Talks Podcast. My name is Angelica 
Harborth and I work here at ERS in the Benefits Communications division. I'm here with a couple of my colleagues. Hi, I'm Suzanne Krause. Hi, I'm Dani Levrie. 
And we are so excited to bring you this podcast. It is an extension of our Money MatteERS newsletter. It's our new financial resource for our active employees and our high education employees. So, I am the digital communication specialist, so I do look at the numbers and the metrics around our communications. And we see that whenever it comes to conversations around financial topics we see a lot more  engagement whenever we're approaching these conversations a little bit more casually, more unpolished, potentially. Relatable. Exactly, in a more relatable conversation style because of some of the things that we do with our wellness initiatives like Buena Vida and our wellness news and then for a time our more Health, More Wellth campaign that we did last year. And then we also see that people are hungry, our audience is hungry for these financial conversations, this financial information. Because inside of our News About Your Benefits online email bulletin that we send out every month to active employees the financial topics are always within the top four links or top four articles that are engaged with. So we know people are hungry for Texa$aver, we know people are looking for those deals with the Discount Purchase Program. Yeah, Dani, you're right. And in fact, one of our articles in the Money MattERS newsletter talks about a recent survey through Forbes about how young people are getting their financial information more and more from social media. So things like YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, Tik Tok you know. And then you know the article further goes on to say that perhaps that information isn't always accurate. So that's you know really the goal with Money MattERS and Money Talks is to be able to give you credible information on your benefits and how you can really maximize your voluntary income benefits that you have with the state. I think one of the reasons people want to go to social media for financial advice is because it helps it be less intimidating, but it really isn't that reliable - you don't know who's speaking. But our goal is to help bring the conversation to the audience but with actual experts, people that are here within ERS or from our vendor programs - and via Tik Tok dance - Oh right, and Via Tik Tok dance. That's illegal. Okay no Tik Tok dance. Yeah, it actually is illegal, there's legislation that says we cannot do that as a state agency so. Bummer. Yeah, no Tik Tok dances but  future podcasts we have lots of great content lined up for everyone. I'm super excited to be able to bring that to you in the coming months. Again, you know, we'll try and cover things that help you take advantage of the benefits that you're offered, you know, from a financial perspective.  So really maximizing how you use your FSAs, your disability income insurance, your Texa$aver account. Hopefully everyone's saving for retirement or using the three-legged stool, you know, and personal savings, in addition to your ERS retirement. And maybe you don't know the difference and that's what we plan to help clarify and provide information on so yeah. So tune in. In February, we've got my super fun colleague Jennifer Thompson who you may have seen out on the road giving in-person presentations. She is going to be talking about the pension that you have with the state all about how it works how it's calculated and some of the nitty-gritty of that. And in March I will be talking with one of our Texa$aver retirement plan advisers all about the 401 (k) and 457 accounts. And we'd like to encourage you, if you have any ideas, any topics, maybe some questions you want answered, maybe in our podcast or in an upcoming Money MattERS article. Send us your ideas. Send them over to story underscore ideas at ers dot Texas dot gov. We'd love to hear your thoughts on Money Talks.
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This material is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide investment, legal or tax recommendations or advice.