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Carlee
We've all seen it happen. You're staying afloat financially until some pain in the butt. Accident or emergency cost? Costs you your entire savings. How do you recover? Or better yet, how do you protect yourself in the first place? Hi, I'm Carlee Myers, your friendly stress management expert. And this month, we're talking about money. Now we're doing something on the show today that we've never done before, and that is this. I'm actually bringing on my very own partner now. My partner's name is Justin Angle, and he owns and operates his Allstate agency in Fishtown, Philadelphia. He has a background in real estate and technology and he applies his expertise to his current industry in order to serve and protect the community as a neighbor. Right. He is our neighbors trusted adviser. I'm super excited to have him on the show because I think that some of the things that have come up in our own personal relationship are going to be really, really relevant to this topic. So, Jay, I'm super excited to have you on the show.
Justin
Yeah. Yeah, of course. I'm really excited to be here as well. So just a quick little story of kind of how I started. I used to be a real estate agent full time in Fishtown, in Philadelphia and in New Jersey, and was kind of doing real estate and insurance at the same time until about a few years ago when I decided to put all of my both feet into insurance and kind of open up my own Allstate agency. And it's been a great decision. I've been able to help a whole lot of people, especially everybody in the neighborhood. And that kind of leads us into the first topic that we're going to talk about, which is money. Money can be one of the biggest stressors in our lives, especially when some accident happens or an emergency happens or something that we're not expecting happens in the throws off our budget completely in a way that we're not really prepared for. There are certain situations where insurance can help with that. And obviously money is one of the biggest stressors not only in our lives, but in terms of relationships, as well as linking it back to the relationship that me and Carlee have together, you know, our I mean in our relationship. We talk about money all the time when it comes to, hey, can we afford to go on this vacation or a can we do this?
Carlee
Can we take the dog to the vet? Like,
Justin
Yeah exactly. Yeah. And so some of those things, you know, we don't really think about insurance being able to help with. You know, expenses, unforeseen emergency expenses can be the number one cause of financial stress in our household. And Allstate has a whole bunch of different products that to be honest, I didn't even know existed until I opened up the Allstate agency. I was working at Allstate for, you know, a few years before opening my own agency. And during that time, I was really just helping people with car and home and stuff like that. But since I really put my foot into, you know, opening up my agency and doing things on my own, I found there was a whole bunch of different things that I didn't know about. So like take, for instance, what Carlee was just talking about with the vet, but are able to take our dog to the vet. A few weeks ago, we just got some pet insurance that I didn't even know existed before I opened my own agency. And that is really gave us some peace of mind. I mean, are
Carlee
We adopted a 10 year old dog with Cushing's disease and all sorts of stuff? And we thought, you know, when we first adopted him that it was gonna be, you know, oh, we were just gonna have to pay for his medicine every month. And we very quickly learned that when you adopt, I mean, even you adopt a puppy. But for us, an older dog, there are definitely unforeseen emergency expenses that could go up into the thousands, which is not something that you would expect.
Justin
Not at all. Like we we had an instance with our dog where we had to take him to the emergency, that because of an issue with pneumonia and breathing. And I think that instance cost us like almost could have cost is almost a thousand dollars or more.
Carlee
Yeah. And had had there were some recommendations where I was like, we should, you know, seven drop, seven thousand dollars. And had we not had we not had insurance
Justin
That would have been all out of pocket. So the whole seven thousand dollars would've been out of pocket. But thank God, you know, we only have to match a couple hundred dollars and everything else is taken care of by the insurance company. And, you know, I know it kind of sounds cheesy, but it is it gives us a peace of mind that thank God something happens with the dog, we're OK and we can take him there. It's not going to interrupt our budget. You know, we can plan out. Look, it's, you know, 40 bucks a month for the dog, for his insurance. We know it's going to be 40 dollars each month. And then that way, if something crazy happens, we know that we're good.
Carlee
Yeah. And, you know, I think that that's really important because, I mean, we've been talking a lot about money. Month and we've we've talked about budgeting and we've talked about, you know, our money mindset and we've talked about a lot of things, but we can also think about money from a preventative, you know, preventative perspective. And I think that's why I really wanted to have you. Excuse me. Have you on the show, Jay, because we've prevented huge emergency expenses from like demolishing our budget. And it's been able to help us stay in a really healthy financial spot.
Justin
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, if that's something that you want, like a one on one to talk about, you know, maybe just to kind of go over your situation and what you have and what needs to be protected. That's something that my agency is willing to do. Absolutely free of cost. We just call it an insurance review. Really, we're just here to help the neighborhood and help everybody achieve peace of mind. That's really what's about when. You know, when money is the main driver in the household and the main thing that can cause problems in the household. Anything you can do to mitigate that circumstance and mitigate that situation, to create, you know, an an atmosphere of knowing that you're taking care of knowing that you're going
Carlee
Security, safety
Justin
security, exactly, knowing that you're going to be OK. Oh, my God. You know, the house burns down because somebody tried to make popcorn on the stove.
Carlee
That's not an example from real life. I just want to be clear about that. But, yeah. You know, I think that having a conversation about preventative measures, you know, like you I know for a lot of you who are listening, you hear me talk about chronic stressors for women, particularly money is the number one stressor in the United States. Number two, for men and you just flip that for men, job pressure and then money. And so money can be a huge issue in relationships. And so, you know, having this conversation about how can we prevent or protect ourselves if something comes up? If an accident happens in our emergency happens, how can we make sure that we're protected? Now, I wanted to talk to Justin about about some of the things that I've been hearing you talk about just in some of our conversations about being able to make like even actually take our mortgage payment down lower.
Justin
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, what I've been doing recently is I've just been doing free uh home insurance reviews with people because a lot of times, a lot of times people are actually over insured on their home. They're overcovered for an amount that, you know, it's going to cost you half the amount that they're insured for to rebuild the house. They're just paying for stuff that they don't need. And I've been in the real estate industry for so long that that's kind of my expertise. And so that's kind of like the avenue that I've gone in being that, you know, look, I know I can help people the most in this direction because I just know houses and I've known how that process works for a long time. And yeah, I've saved a lot of people money on their on their mortgage because people's mortgages is linked to their home insurance. We've saved your money on the home insurance and the mortgage payment goes down. I think I just helped the guy around the corner from our office save like forty dollars a month in his mortgage
Carlee
40 times 12. Well, you do the math.
Justin
Yeah
Carlee
Couple hundred bucks a year.
Justin
Yeah exactly.
Carlee
Amazing. Right. So. OK. So if this is if we're listening and we're like, OK, I really want to make sure that I'm protected. Like I don't want to have the emerg these emergency costs, like kick my butt for the umpteenth time. How do we find you?
Justin
Yes, of course. Absolutely. So you can Google Allstate agent Justin Angle. That's you know angle like Angle. You can find us on Instagram at Allstate Angle Agency. You can give us a call. Honestly, a two one five four four seven seven six zero zero we're in the office from nine to six every day.
Carlee
Perfect. OK, so we want to know, what are you, what are you taking away from this. What are you receiving. Let us know in the comments below. We also want to know, do you yourself feel feel prepared for whatever life throws at you in terms of finances? We would love to know and we love to know how we can support you. So I also want to take a minute at this time to share with you a new opportunity that the stress less company has. And it is called the virtual stress less space. This is a space for self-care accountability taken to a whole new level. So if you need help making the rubber, the rubber meets the road. In terms of your self care goals are making sure that you are managing and reducing your stress. This is gonna be an incredible space for you. We meet four times a month and you can find more information about that. At stress, less co dot com slash, virtual stress, less space. This concludes this episode of The Stress Less Show. If you've enjoyed this week's episode, let us know by giving us a big old thumbs up and hitting that follow or subscribe button. Also, if this episode resonated with you or you know, it's going to resonate with someone else in your life, please make sure to hit that share button. Spread the wealth. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you next week.