What I learned from sitting down with Erin, a Financial Educator at PFCU


The other week, I had the opportunity to sit down with Erin Ellis, a Financial Educator at the Philadelphia Federal Credit Union (PFCU). As she became the 2,424th friend on my mission to spend 1 hour, 1:1, with 10,000 different people, I learned not only about her life and how she got into the financial business, but also how PFCU has been serving the Philadelphia area since 1951.

Erin, who has been with PFCU as a Financial Educator for the last 5 years, first entered the finance industry 10 years ago. At that time, she began educating parents whose children had been sent to foster homes as a result of struggles with areas like housing or addiction. She leveraged her career experience in addition to the financial knowledge she learned through her friend, an employee of Vanguard & Fidelity, to help these people get back on their feet financially.

Five years ago, though, she took her talents to PFCU and began educating all different groups of Philadelphians on the best ways to save, explaining to them how they could leverage the credit union to do so.

Personally, I keep my money in a credit union as well, but had no idea what differentiated the institution from a traditional bank so Erin happily explained for me! The Philadelphia Federal Credit Union is a not-for-profit organization, meaning the members are the owners.

Because the credit union is not-for-profit, the institution also reinvests all of its profits back into the organization, creating lower fees for members as well as competitive interest rates, improved services and a local understanding of the people they serve. I learned that PFCU specifically serves members in the Philadelphia area (with ten different Philly branches & one in Bloomsburg), meaning anybody who lives, works, worships, goes to school or does business in Philly can open an account with just $5.

As Erin and I chatted, I also became genuinely interested in the two types of cash back checking accounts (which you can open online) PFCU offers: Kasasa Cash Back Checking & Kasasa Tunes Checking.

I currently use a credit card, which offers me 5% cash back on specific purchases through the month so I was surprised to see that their Kasasa Cash Back checking account offers 2% on ANY debit card purchase for up to $8/month. I was almost more intrigued, though by the Kasasa Tunes checking account, which offers $10 in refunds for purchases from iTunes, Amazon and Google Play every month. Unfortunately, I use Spotify, but I immediately thought about how that would essentially provide me with a free music subscription if I didn’t (music is my biggest passion aside from meeting people)!

Erin and I hanging at the PFCU Northwest Philly Phebe Commons location!

Despite the topics I found interesting, Erin also helped me answer some questions for my Instagram audience as I had invited them to pass along any questions they might have for her.

Many people asked about credit to which she explained you have to think about the number of credit cards you have in terms of the number of bills you want to pay. You should always pay your credit card off in full, but if you’re already in debt from it, Erin recommended to stop using the credit card, prioritize your spending and start paying it off (which probably means taking on a simpler quality of life).

If you’re more interested in building up your savings account, Erin shared to treat your savings account like a bill. Through her PFCU account, she set up an auto-pay schedule in which her savings automatically pulls a certain amount of money from her checking, ensuring she’s always saving at least that much money each month. “It’s like grandmom said, ‘Pay yourself first.’”

If you’d like to do you own research, though, on PFCU and their resources / offerings, I’d encourage you to check out some of these links below depending on how they apply to your specific financial situation. Additionally, if you’re in the Philly area and are looking to get on top of your finances, I’d encourage you to check out their account options to how they can help you save in your own lives!

Thanks so much for reading!

Rob

Disclaimer: This blog post is part of a paid partnership with the Philadelphia Financial Credit Union. While my meeting with Erin was set up through the campaign, all topics discussed in this post are ones that I particularly found useful and interesting during our time together!