Hey Reader,

Thanks for joining us!

This week we've got a new YouTube video, a practical credit score tip, and a minty-fresh money story that might change how you think about expectations.

Hope you enjoy!

🎥 What's New

​How To Decide: Debt vs Savings vs Investing
(A Simple System)​

​

💲 Money Minute - From Nick

Today I want to share a simple, practical credit score tip.

You’ve probably heard that canceling credit cards can hurt your credit score. That’s because 15% of your score comes from the length of your account history. That means the older the account, the more it helps your score.

On top of that, credit utilization makes up 35% of your score. That’s how much of your available credit you’re actually using. Lower utilization = better score.

Put those together and you get this rule of thumb:

Old cards with low balances are great for your credit score.

So what do you do with old cards you never use?

Here’s what I do:

I put one small recurring charge on the card, something I’m not planning to cancel, like Spotify or my YNAB subscription. Then I set the card to auto-pay the balance in full every month.

After that, the card goes in a drawer.

Each month, a small charge hits the card, it’s paid automatically, and the account stays active without any extra effort.

Hanna and I do this with three of our oldest credit cards. It’s an easy way to keep old accounts open, utilization low, and our credit scores high.

If you’ve got an old card collecting dust, or you've recently paid off a card and aren't sure what to do with it, try this and see how it helps your credit score.

⚓︎ Craft Your Money Story - From Hanna

Way back in the earliest days of our marriage, Nick and I lived in Chattanooga, TN. And tucked in the artsy Northshore District was my favorite store: Blue Skies.

We were living off Hamburger Helper coupons, and my "fun money" budget was exactly zero dollars.

But sometimes I'd wander through the store anyways, just to admire all the handmade jewelry and quirky odds and ends.

It was on one of these strolls—while daydreaming about spending money—that I bumped into Nick... a month before Christmas.

EEEEKK!!!
He was buying me a gift from Blue Skies!

Nick stood there flustered, and I quickly turned to leave.
After all, the last thing I wanted to do was interrupt his mission.

And sure enough, for the weeks leading up to Christmas, a box covered in Blue Skies' unmistakable gift wrap sat under our tree.

A small box, just the right size for their dreamy, handmade jewelry.

Christmas morning finally arrived.

Nick handed me the perfectly wrapped, just-the-right-size-for-jewelry box with a smile and an eye roll.
"I know how surprised you are to get this."

Surprised? Maybe not.
Ecstatic? Definitely!

I eagerly untied the bow, opened up the box, and found...
a tin of breath mints.

This was a ruse. He had to be messing with me... right?

My brain quickly made sense of it all:
​I saw him shopping.
So he hid the real gift inside the breath mints tin. Duh!
My husband is romantic and funny. 🥰

So I cracked open the tin, and found...
breath mints.

BREATH. MINTS.
​ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

I regrouped again:
​Okay, Hanna. Laugh.
Then he'll bring out the real gift.

So I laughed.

And then Nick moved to open his present.**

"Wait," I said. "Where's the other box?"

And then came the words that still make me laugh-cry to this day:
"What other box? I thought that tin was funny."

And to be fair, the breath mints did have a funny saying on them. Something like...

The tears of disappointment in my eyes must have kept me
from noticing.

So what do breath mints, Nick's cluelessness, and my profound disappointment have to do with your finances?

They remind us of a simple truth:

Expectations are powerful. And when they quietly grow unchecked, they can turn even good things into disappointments.

If I hadn't been expecting jewelry from Blue Skies, I would have thought Nick's mints were funny.

(Thankfully, time has redeemed the moment and made them hilarious to us both. But in the moment? Not so much.)

To help us check our expectations, it's worth asking things like:

• How much money do I think I should be making by now?
• How much do I think I should be able to spend?
• How quickly do I think I should be able to pay off my debt?
• How many vacations do I think I should be able to go on
  this year?

And where are those expectations coming from?

Friends? Coworkers?
Or worse — carefully curated snapshots from strangers on the internet?

As a Christian, I take my expectations to the Lord in prayer. I ask for wisdom, for guidance, and for help releasing expectations that aren’t glorifying to God. I ask to be reminded that He provides exactly what I need to be faithful in this season — even when my emotions and expectations tell a different story.

When we manage our expectations well, we leave room for contentment — and even pleasant surprises.

And most importantly, we save ourselves from the gut-wrenching disappointment that can only come from opening a jewelry box full of breath mints. 😜

So this week, take a moment to ask yourself:

A small reset there can quietly change how your entire money
story feels.

Until next week,
Nick + Hanna

**PS: Nick did give me other gifts that year.
None of them were from Blue Skies — and neither of us can remember what they were.
We also can't remember the lame gifts I gave him.
But rest assured, if Nick weren't a black belt at managing his expectations, he would have been equally disappointed. 😉