By Mark Ambrogi
Peter Dunn is the first to admit his vocation is a bit unusual.
“I have a weird job. I teach money,” the Carmel resident said. “I sold my financial practice a few years ago and travel around the country and teach people financial skills.”
Dunn, better known as Pete the Planner, addressed how financial stress affects productivity at the All-Hamilton County Chamber session on April 21 at Ritz Charles in Carmel. Dunn, who writes a column for The Indianapolis Star and hosts a radio show on WIBC (93.1-FM), said he gave 262 presentations across the nation last year.
Dunn, 37, said financial worries can affect job performance.
“It’s the concept of physically presence but mentally absent, some of you might feel that way hearing my voice. I’m used to it,” Dunn said. “We know people say if I work really hard at work I’m going to get myself out of this (financial) jam. Seems reasonable. Doesn’t work that way because what you are saying it is I might not be very resourceful but I’m definitely going to add more resources.”
Dunn pointed out he was addressing problems created by behavior not circumstance.
“Circumstance you can’t control, behavior yeah, you can control it,” he said. “If someone loses their job and is unemployed for 18 months because they are in a very specific industry, it’s kind of circumstance. If someone buys too much house, that’s behavior not circumstance.”
Warning signs that co-workers might be experiencing financial stress are sudden moodiness, unrealistic lifestyle and poor performance.
“We kind of all know what our co-workers are making,” Dunn said. “So when they pull up in fancy car or whatever, a lot of times we’ll say ‘Good for them. They got it together.’ No, the (heck) they do. They don’t have it together. They have no idea what they are doing.”
Dunn said too many people are too overly concerned about credit scores.
“The credit bureaus are not a consumer protection agency,” Dunn said. “They are not part of the government. They are for-profit companies. … We are not the customers of the credit bureaus. We are the products. Our information is sold to other companies who want to market to us. Then we are sold data protection from people we don’t want to get to our issue.”
Dunn said a more important measure than credit score is net worth, taking assets and subtracting out debt. Dunn said net worth can be increasing by paying any debt, saving money and putting money in your 401K.
“That’s what we should talk about not credit scores,” Dunn said.
Dunn said budgeting is about awareness, communication and accountability.
“We all look at our balances more frequently (because of online access),” Dunn said. “So we are more likely to spend money. It’s the concept of balance spending.”
Budgeting will not help if you don’t examine how you fared each month.
“The whole stinking point of budgeting is to see how you did the previous month,” Dunn said. “That’s the whole point. What do we do, we don’t look. If you don’t know how much you made over what you spent, you will balance spend it in the next 10 days or month.”
