Grace Morales: Welcome back to Employee Podcasts, where we hear and learn from other Costco employees about how they’ve overcome or manage their own health challenges with the help of Costco benefits. Today, we’re talking to Costco employees Lauren and Anthony Green. Hi, Lauren. Hi, Anthony. So excited that you both could join us.

Anthony Green: Hi, there. Yeah, we’re super excited as well.

Lauren Green: Thanks for having us.

Grace Morales: Let’s start with you, Anthony. Tell us a bit about you, what you do, and how long have you been at Costco and which location do you work at?

Anthony Green: I’m currently a center manager at the Shoreline Costco, or Aurora Village 106. I’ve been working with Costco since 2016. So, coming up on almost nine years now, but that’s kind of my overall background.

Grace Morales: So nice to meet you, Lauren. How about you?

Lauren Green: So, I am actually the employee benefits manager. I’ve been with Costco for 12 years now. Actually, the bulk of my career was spent in operations, so I worked in five different locations, starting in California and then moving to Washington state in 2021.

Grace Morales: Well, I would call you both a dynamic duo, for sure. I heard that you recently had a very eventful year. Could you share a bit more about all the changes you went through and how that led you to SmartDollar®? Anthony proposed in October of 2023. Our goal was to have a big wedding in August of 2026. And as we started to plan, we realized that we didn’t want to wait that long. But when we moved the date, we weren’t necessarily financially prepared. But that said, we did it anyway. Our wedding day was absolutely amazing. And then three months later, we found out that we were pregnant with our first child.

Grace Morales: Anthony, anything to add there? I imagine this is very exciting for both of you.

Anthony Green: Yeah, so we’re not 100% financial-savvy people, but we did our best to try to budget for what we could do and plan out the year. And obviously, there’s those unexpected situations that come up that you just don’t account for.

Grace Morales: That’s a lot of life all at once. And so you turned to SmartDollar for some help. Can you tell us what the process was like?

Lauren Green: When Anthony and I started our journey as a married couple? We didn’t know how to budget together or how to divide our finances. I know that a lot of people do it different ways. We actually started or booked a coaching session with SmartDollar. Obviously, we were very early on in the baby step stages where our first baby step was to save a $1,000 emergency fund, and we were able to do that. But the second is to pay off debt. So, a lot of people can get stuck in the stage for quite some time. And to be honest, that’s exactly where we are right now.

Grace Morales: Yeah, I imagine that’s a big change and big goals to hit. What did you ultimately decide?

Anthony Green: Well, obviously just between Lauren and myself, I wasn’t ever someone that had a spreadsheet down with all my bills and everything like that. Luckily, I was just a frugal person. Lauren, she’s very much so that spreadsheet person. She likes to have everything out on a piece of paper and visible. We had to, like, combine those two and there’s those learning curves for both of us where I have to understand what bills are coming in. And then Lauren also has to understand that frugal aspect that I have.

Lauren Green: We decided to do a his money, her money, our money kind of a situation. So, we have joint accounts, both savings and checking. But every paycheck we take, like, an allowance where we have a little bit of splurge money for the things that we enjoy. For Anthony, he loves to golf. But for me, I’m a spender. At 29, I was diagnosed with ADHD and that was a big epiphany moment for me with the way that my spending habits are. And I’m someone who hunts for dopamine and 9 times out of 10, I’m looking for that dopamine fix in tangible things.

Grace Morales: Tell me a little bit more about the resources and the tools that SmartDollar provided you with. Like, what did you find really useful or really helpful?

Lauren Green: There were three things to me that were very, very helpful in my personal opinion. One of them was access to the EveryDollar app. All of the transactions auto populate into that platform, and you’re able to categorize them to best meet your budgeting needs. Second was videos that they offer. When Anthony and I first started, I would say that I needed more help with budgeting than he did, but it was kind of like, how do you even start a budget? And they walked you through how to do that in one of their videos. And then the third thing for me was coaching. This is something that Costco employees also get for free, which I think is amazing. Anthony, do you have anything to add?

Anthony Green: The coaches were really good and in that scenario of they were able to let us have a lot of autonomy in how we wanted to go about it. So, if there’s something that wouldn’t necessarily work for us or work for another couple or work for another family, you’re able to tweak it based on what your needs are.

Grace Morales: It’s really wonderful that they empowered you rather than told you what to do.

Lauren Green: Yeah. And one of the things I thought was really cool was they asked what type of coaching style you’re looking for. There are some people who like strict regimens. That’s not necessarily me. I feel like when I get too much structure, I turn into a little rebel.

Grace Morales: How did you approach this conversation in a kind and compassionate way?

Anthony Green: Lauren and I were living together, and we already had ideas of what each other’s finances look like. So, it’s not like it was a shocker that Lauren was in debt prior to wedding. So in that scenario, it wasn’t easy conversation, but I can definitely see how it could be hard. Now it’s no longer just your money or my money. It’s our money and it’s our goals, right?

Lauren Green: What I can say is, one concern that people call Resources for Living® for is actually marital and significant other concerns or issues. And a lot of those issues can be about finances and people’s relationship with money. One of the things that we watched through SmartDollar was a video on how to get on the same page with your partner. I would say that opening up to Anthony about the situation I was in, by no means was it easy, but what I would say is that Anthony and I have always had really open lines of communication, because we also see ourselves as a team.

Grace Morales: The fact that you said that you’re both a team, you’re not facing off against each other, you’re trying to achieve your goals as a unit. I think that’s a very inspiring way to look at it. Anthony, do you have anything to add about how this strengthened your relationship with Lauren?

Anthony Green: I think it’s important just to understand that, yes. Okay. We’re going to slip and fall. We maybe spent a little too much this week or went over budget. We just have to understand and be mindful of each other and just say, hey, it was a mistake. Like you said, it’s teamwork. And if we’re not going to be on the same page, it’s not going to work.

Grace Morales: That makes total sense. Well, Lauren, Anthony, that was my final question. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedules to share your experience. And congratulations on your growing family, by the way.

Thanks, everyone, for listening. Until next time, take care. And remember — we’re in this together.