Are you saving for a goal, paying off credit cards, planning for kids, or just feeling lost when navigating your finances? A certified financial coach like Mario Rodriguez from KOFE (Knowledge of Financial Education) can give you advice and support for $0.00 when you download the Payactiv app1. 

From approaching an intimidating court summoning to making realistic savings plans, Eric and Mario talk about the wide variety of financial situations we can find ourselves in, and how support from a certified KOFE coach like Mario can help. Not sure if a KOFE coach can answer your questions? It never hurts to write them down and bring them to your session. Sessions are 100% confidential between you and your coach. They’re also unlimited, so you can follow-up as many times as you’d like.

To schedule a coaching session, open the Payactiv app home screen and tap the menu button on the top right corner. Tap “Services” and “Financial Counseling” from the dropdown menu. Make an appointment directly from the app, and that’s it!

Continue listening to Eric and Mario’s conversation below or read the transcript below:

Eric Rosenberg:

Hello, my name is Eric Rosenberg, the host of the Payactiv podcast. Just a quick reminder, today’s show is not financial advice. It is for information and education purposes only. Thank you.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to The Good Sense Podcast by Payactiv. As always, I am your host, Eric Rosenberg. I am so excited about today’s topic because it focuses on my personal favorite feature of the Payactiv app and that is free access to financial counseling. So today we actually were lucky enough to get time to sit down with one of the financial counselors from Coffee. I won’t tell you what that means just yet, you’re going to have to keep listening for Mario to explain. Let’s dive in and get chatting with Mario all about Coffee and free financial advising through the Payactiv app.

And today I’m very excited about our guest, Mario Rodriguez. He comes from an organization called KOFE and no, we’re not talking about the kind you drink, we’re talking about a financial education kind of coffee. So first, let’s jump in with Mario. Welcome to the show. Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

Mario Rodriguez:

Absolutely. Thank you for having me on the show, Eric. So a little bit about me. I am a certified financial coach here at Consolidated Credit, assigned to coach our KOFE clients, I’m a recent accounting grad, very passionate about helping folks and yeah, I’m happy to be here, answer any of your questions.

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s wonderful. And we’re so excited that KOFE is a Payactiv partner. So Payactiv members have access to use Coffee to learn more, but you probably get a lot of jokes about decaf versus regular. But what does KOFE stand for in your case?

Mario Rodriguez:

Absolutely. It’s sometimes a wake up call, but KOFE, it’s an acronym, as a matter of fact, it stands for Knowledge of Financial Education. A little bit about what we do. My team and I, we help individuals navigate options regarding a number of financial topics like debt, budgeting, savings, and credit from sending literature, like pamphlets, et cetera, about number of different topics that I didn’t mention. We do a lot of budget building, in certain instances we can even refer you to debt management. It is very tailored to the individual. Everyone’s situations are as different as can be, so we try to help everybody as we can.

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s great. I’d say we always like to say personal finance is personal, so what looks right for me is probably different from my next door neighbor and my coworker. Everyone’s money looks a little different. I love that you bring that up right in the beginning. What do you do on a day to day basis at KOFE? Are you working directly with clients and what kinds of interactions do you have?

Mario Rodriguez:

Whenever my phone rings with a KOFE call, I take the time to understand exactly what the goals are for the individual, to see how we can help them meet their goals promptly. Whether it’s following through with something scary like a court summons or whether it’s something as enjoyable as planning a graduation or planning a new addition to the family. It’s a lot of budget building, a lot of tailored counseling, as it were, for individuals who need our services.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, this sounds like a lot of fun. Long time listeners know I think budgeting is super fun. It’s something I do as a hobby. Some people play sports, I budget. So I love that you talk about budgets and you’re helping people with all those financial fundamentals, those things that are so important. So if somebody wants to talk with a KOFE counselor, what are the first steps? How does somebody make an appointment?

Mario Rodriguez:

Well, typically you would be able to call us. You can actually reach out to your employee assistance program like you at Payactiv have, or you can give us a call at the phone number (844)-201-1148. That’ll get you directly to one of either me or one of my team members. You can email us at [email protected] and coffee is spelled K-O-F-E, time, T-I-M-E.com. You can book an appointment through the ASCA coach section on the portal. Sometimes our clients have an online portal that they give access to their employees and you’ll be able to schedule an appointment through our live chat as well. So there’s a lot of different ways that you can get ahold of us here at KOFE.

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s great. It’s nice to have a lot of easy ways to get it, especially these days when it seems like everywhere you go you’re talking to a chat robot or something and a big menu of options. It’s nice to be able to get to a person who’s really there to help.

Mario Rodriguez:

And I always introduce myself on top of the chat robot cetera, because it gives you that, it spits out that generic, “Hello, how are you?” And then I say, “How can we help you? It’s me. I’m here. I have a pulse.”

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, you’re a real person. You’re not just a mystery computer. That’s an important thing to know. And we have money questions that we’re working with somebody who can understand those nuances and complexities of what we’re dealing with on a day to day. So when somebody calls in, let’s say somebody’s out there and may have a busy schedule, maybe they’re a single mom or a parent working two jobs, we know there’s a lot of hustlers out there. How long does it take to, once somebody calls in, how long does a KOFE session usually last?

Mario Rodriguez:

Well, a caution call honestly takes anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour while a number of our callers reach out during business hours because they find out about our service through their employee assistance program. I try to be prompt without rushing. I try to cut through the minutia as it were. Overall, when conversations end up being a little bit more in depth, we can schedule a time that’s more comfortable for everybody involved so no one feels rushed or pressured, et cetera. Because when we’re dealing with money, every cent counts and we don’t want to overlook things. We try to be as accommodating in terms of scheduling, whether it’s after hours, et cetera. We’re able to knock it out typically within 45 minutes to an hour, but if it’s an extensive, in depth conversation that maybe is very nuanced, there is a lot of those that from time to time, we can schedule something that is appropriate for everybody involved. So to cut to the chase, anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour,

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s a good chunk of time, but it’s also an investment for a lot of people. If you think about it, you get paid a certain amount per hour at work usually, or you have certain number of hours you can allocate in your day. But would you say if somebody puts the time into a session, they get returns from that? What does it look like after they have their session?

Mario Rodriguez:

Well, they have a real idea on what their realistic budgets are structured as. Sometimes we tend to pat ourselves on the back a little bit more than we should. And when we start putting numbers on paper, realizations tend to happen a little bit more quickly than it were when you’re doing things mentally. It’s all about being realistic with the individual and helping them exactly produce something that is not a wish, but more of a reality.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, that makes sense. You’re having realistic, achievable goals that you really understand and are keeping track of, I think is so important.

Mario Rodriguez:

That’s right.

Eric Rosenberg:

And reaching whatever that financial goal is. If you don’t know what you’re trying to get, you’ll never get there. So, that’s an important step in that process. So you mentioned a few topics that are fair game. You mentioned wedding planning and debt payoffs and basic budgeting, but what are some of the other common topics that you hear about when people call and ask for a little help and guidance?

Mario Rodriguez:

How about something as simple as planning for your golden years? When you’re looking to have enough disposable income after the fact, when you’re maybe going towards a larger vacation or maybe looking to make a large purchase, maybe planning for a child’s wedding, talking to your teens about credit when you want to give them their debit or credit card, their first ever or credit card, vacation planning, budgeting for budgeting… A number of different ways to save money and how to improve your credit score. Steps to eliminate debt. We have such a library of literature that we can access and refer to. It really is an all encompassing financial education type service that we provide. You can list off something and most likely we have something that we can talk about it.

Eric Rosenberg:

Well it sounds like that’s a pretty broad set of topics you can cover. Is there anything that’s off limits? Is there anything you’re not allowed to help with?

Mario Rodriguez:

It’s not that we can’t help, it’s that we’re not really permitted to help. So in terms of getting retirement type of planning, et cetera, in terms of the reason why we’re not really able to provide that type of assistance and that type of guidance is more because it’s more akin towards investment planning and that’s very nuanced, as you’re aware. The difference between a Roth IRA versus an IRA versus a 457, everyone’s a little different and the yield everybody wants is a little different. So whenever we have something like that where it’s something that we’re not able to provide guidance upon, we try to direct them towards their financial institutions. And what I mean by financial institutions is more than just the apps we use on our phones. When you look at your statement, often we are charged fees for services. The services a lot of people have forgotten about since the pandemic and everybody’s using their apps on their phones to deposit checks, etcetera.

Even just going through the drive through to deposit check, there is the brick and mortar locations that are filled with bankers that we are paying for their services. I always remind our clients to use those services because we are in fact paying for them already. They’re going to be more than happy to take a realistic look at their credit, their budget, even their assets that they have in line at their banking institution. So when it comes to off limits type things, it’s not that it’s off limits, it’s just that we’re not permitted to provide the guidance that would be warranted to prove fruitful in terms of our clients. So when we do come into a hurdle like that, we try to remind them about the services that they’re already paying for at the bank.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, that’s great. And there’s so much they’re getting when you mentioned the bank, the Payactiv account has a lot of different free tools in it, a free checking and savings type products. So I feel lucky as a Payactiv member myself, I have access to the free financial advising, but I know… How does KOFE make money if you guys are able to work with Payactiv and offer this advice without charging?

Mario Rodriguez:

Absolutely. So we’re supported by Consolidated Credit, which is a nonprofit organization of 501(c)(3) organization. The main goal of Consolidated Credit is to provide financial education to the community. Besides that, we also provide free services to organizations that also want to offer financial educations to your employees. Like, at Payactiv, we have the service that we’re able to provide, but it is a contracted service. We have a great deal of contracts, whether it’s government agencies or banks like Payactiv or even school institutions or supermarkets et cetera. So we have a number of different companies that want our services and we try to help everybody we can.

Eric Rosenberg:

Let’s say I were to call in, myself, and have a history with Payday Loans. They’re expensive. The interest rates are so high. If I called in that situation, what kind of advice would you want to walk through for how we could reduce that kind of debt?

Mario Rodriguez:

Absolutely. So, where we would begin, would be by building a monthly budget. As I keep mentioning, budgets are the cornerstone, the foundation of how you’re going to actually achieve your goals. After doing that preliminary step, we would do a soft pull of your credit. This allows us to see a recently reported balance without actually impacting credit scores. Depending on the agency and standing of the account would determine the actual route to becoming debt free. Whether it’s actually signing up through debt management, through consolidated credit or contacting a lawyer to follow through with a judgment ruling, we propose the most advantageous avenue for our clients.

The budget, budget, budget, as I keep going back through, everyone’s different, but we have to really have a hard conversation about wants versus needs. Sometimes, you’ve got to cut out the Starbucks every day to actually make ends meet and be a little bit more comfortable when you have your credit card debt at the end of the month. Or if you’re trying to save to go to Turks and Caicos in a couple of years, you have to start somewhere. And it’s all about wants versus needs and the goals that the person actually wants to achieve. Whether it’s, like I said, going on a vacation, making a large purchase like a boat, whatever the person actually needs, we’re able to have the conversation respectfully and letting them know exactly what would be in their best interest and how to achieve their goals.

Eric Rosenberg:

I know in my case, I would much rather go on a vacation to Turks and Caicos than buy a boat or buy a cup of coffee every day. That’s a good example for me. I love travel and that’s where I would want to prioritize my spending ’cause that’s what I think is important.

Mario Rodriguez:

Indeed, after we spent two years inside on the couch, we definitely want to get some wind under our wings. Let’s help you get out there.

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s great. So we mentioned earlier a situation of a single mother or single parent. Let’s say I’m a single parent and I’m struggling with my finances. What are some common pieces of advice or common tips that you would offer in that situation?

Mario Rodriguez:

Times are tough all over and they’re not really getting any easier anytime soon. When building the budget, we would be able to make realistic recommendations in terms of monthly expenses, et cetera. But about being a single parent, it’s about communicating, being realistic with your kids about the scenarios that you’re facing. Now, depending on the ages and maturity levels of the kids involved, you can find ways to allow them to actually participate in budget planning. Whether it’s something as simple as clipping coupons or creating a grocery list, to actually allowing an older child to get his part-time job and pitch in a little bit. It doesn’t hurt to help out in a common goal, but overall, one thing I always mention is never go to the grocery store hungry.

Eric Rosenberg:

We’ve actually found a good way to save on groceries since the beginning of Covid. Our local grocery stores all let us do online ordering and pickups, so we just have to drive up and people drop our groceries in our trunk, no extra fees. So that’s a way to stick to budget and it also saves you a little bit of time. So that’s a win-win for our family.

Mario Rodriguez:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Sure.

Eric Rosenberg:

Let’s say we’re an older person nearing retirement and you are wondering how you’re going to pay for everything and that’s a very common situation these days.

Mario Rodriguez:

Sure.

Eric Rosenberg:

Most people don’t have a ton of retirement savings and social security’s likely not enough alone to maintain that same standard of living. So what resources would you suggest or what tips would you suggest in that situation?

Mario Rodriguez:

We touched on this a little bit earlier, Eric, in terms of retirement, unfortunately we’re not really able to provide too much guidance in regards of retirement, since it is so close to investment advice, everyone wants a different yield.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Mario Rodriguez:

In these cases, like I said before, we tend to remind our clients of the fees that they’re being charged by the local banks. Those fees, they add up on an annual basis and we can use their services more than just swiping on our phones. So we do have literature to provide, but honestly that is the extent of our services regarding retirement. We have a lot of guidance, et cetera, in terms of literature, but since it is so ambiguous in terms of yield, it’s better to actually have somebody with access to real assets, et cetera, that’s available that would be able to provide that type of guidance. But overall, a fiduciary, even your bank, those folks would be the ideal candidates in order to discuss retirement. They have your best interest in mind most cases. So we try to remind them of those avenues. But it’s not that we don’t want the help, it’s just that we’re not permitted to help in that regard.

Eric Rosenberg:

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And having you as a resource to know where to go next, that’s often a tricky part. Someone might not know that they could talk to their investment company who they get a 401k from work about other investment products, or maybe they have an old IRA account somewhere that they haven’t touched and they don’t know who to talk to. So knowing that you can point them in the right direction, that’s a great service as well.

Mario Rodriguez:

Absolutely.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah. So we are just about out of time. I know we mentioned earlier a few ways people could connect to KOFE, but if somebody wants to learn more about KOFE and you, where are the best places to go?

Mario Rodriguez:

If you need to get in contact with us, you can actually go through the Payactiv app and connect through us through the services section on the app. Be able to actually speak and set an appointment with any of our KOFE counselors here. You can definitely email us at, again, [email protected]. That’s coffee with a K-0-F-E time.com. You can book an appointment through the actual portal on your website. You have portal Access, you can go through our live chat. You can give us a call (844)-201-1148. We’re on Eastern Standard Time. We’re here until about 5:00 PM but if you need to speak to us a little later, just drop us an email and we’ll be able to book an appointment.

Eric Rosenberg:

Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing your time and wisdom with us. Listeners, I hope you got as much out of this chat as me. Mario is a great resource and he has a whole team that you can access for $0.

Mario Rodriguez:

That’s right, $0.

Eric Rosenberg:

There’s almost nothing that you can do for free anymore, so take advantage, please. It’s a great, great resource. Thank you so much, Mario.

Mario Rodriguez:

Absolutely. You’re very welcome Mr. Rosenberg. It’s been a pleasure. You guys come on by, have a cup of coffee with us, we’ll have a chat.

Eric Rosenberg:

Sounds great. Thank you.

Well, that’s all for today. Thank you so much, Mario, for taking the time to chat with us. And thank you, listeners, for listening to the end. As we mentioned a few times, you can jump into the Payactiv app to set up a free appointment with KOFE at any time. And if you are not already a Payactiv user, it’s free. You can sign up through the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store to create your account. You might also have access through your employer’s payroll and if not, make sure to tell that HR department you want access to Payactiv as an employee benefit. But either way, you can sign up on your own and get access to these free financial counseling sessions with KOFE. Thank you so much for being a part of the Payactiv community. We’ll talk to you next time. Bye bye.