Some of y’all are missing out on an amazing resource we have available to us, and I just want to make sure you know about it.

Emily Mays, a Franklin County native and a hometown girl through and through, is big stuff at CB&S Bank. She has one of those fancy titles I can’t remember without looking it up: vice president/chief administrative officer. And we are fortunate to get her expert advice in every edition of Franklin Living.

Emily’s been sharing her money tips and encouragement for several years now, and I always love reading what she has to say.

I’m sort of a finance novice, and I guess I always will be; yet, I’m an enthusiast too. I don’t go very deep, but I do have several money-based podcasts I enjoy listening to because they are personable and approachable and share real, practical advice for how to shore up your financial life. Listening to them makes me feel like I’m doing something smart for future Alison.

Reading Emily Mays makes me feel the same way. She always has good, wholesome advice to share.

Like in her January-February installment, she points out that “Many times, when it comes to our finances, we get so overwhelmed with anxiety that we never even start with a new goal or plan. With that in mind, the new year is a great time to take it back to the basics of just good old-fashioned advice around finances.”

Back to basics. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty good to me.

The first reminder she has is that “Saving will always be the most important and the hardest lesson we learn. The sooner you start, the better off you’ll be.”

Makes me remember fondly when I got my first real job in high school. I didn’t have many true expenses, so the job was my “fun money,” and I loved trying to figure out the best way to divvy it all up and save it for the things I wanted most – pizza and books and beauty products and clothes and trips to the local coffee shop. I had different little containers for each “fund” I was trying to save for, and I might have gotten just a little miserly in my enjoyment of watching them fill up with cash.

In the end, though, I enjoyed the spending more than the saving. None of the containers ever got very full.

Life was simpler then, and my savings goals now have expanded beyond a new paperback or a frozen caramel latte. Like Emily says, though, saving is still a basic and crucial cornerstone of good financial health. Sure, today’s savings goals include replacing my husband’s car and paying off the HELOC we opened to add onto our house, but it’s the same basic idea. Saving was important then and is even more so now.

Emily also reminds us having a balance in the account doesn’t necessarily mean we have money to spend. “As a banker, I can tell you: We live in a society that does not keep up with their check register,” Emily notes. “That is a life lesson we should all be learning. Keep up with how much money you actually have!”

So true. I keep an eye on my mobile banking app – a little compulsively, actually, because I’m nervous about forgetting a charge I’ve made. There’s nothing like that sinking feeling of seeing an overdraft charge because you tried to spend that last $30 before payday twice…

That’s just a taste of the straight-forward, money-focused advice Emily has to share. If you want to enjoy her wisdom on a regular basis, you need to be reading Money Matters in Franklin Living. Pick up some back copies at our office to tide you over until the March-April edition comes out, or find her columns on our website!