EP 105: How to Manage Your Finances with Allie Grotteland
When it comes to money, it can be hard to manage it sometimes, especially when you think that you will get paid any time soon. But as a nurse, how can you manage your finances like a pro?
In this episode, we would like to introduce you to our guest Allie Grotteland, who shares her expertise on how to manage your finances well. Allie is also a PICU nurse and owner and founder of the debt-free nurse LLC. She helps nurses pay off debt, and save money without sacrificing things they love.
The questions below are some we tackled on the show
How did you first become self-aware of investing?
How do you first start teaching people about money?
What is the mindset you should have about saving and investing?
Is there any advice that you can share to start paying off debt?
What is your best advice to start saving your life?
How do you create financial goals?
How do you stop impulse spending?
One of your goals is to retire a millionaire; what systems do you have in place to bring that to reality?
Difference between Roth IRA vs. 401K?
Tell us about your experience with nurse bullying.
Here’s how you can manage your finances well 👇👇👇
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro 00:08 Guest intro 00:43 Nursing to Investing a business 04:47 The mindset you need to pay off debt 05:55 The most efficient way to pay off loans 08:24 How to look into your financial status 10:22 Holding off on purchases 12:12 How to stop someone from impulse shopping 14:34 The 48-Hour Rule 15:58 How to choose the best retirement plan 23:14 Invest your extra money 23:42 Amount of money to save 26:05 Put Emergency Funds first 29:40 Courses 32:36 Apps to use to track spending 33:17 Nurse bullying 39:55 It’s okay to change your mind 42:29 Is there bullying in PICU? 43:18 How did you switch units? 48:22 How to assess if the unit or area is for you 50:29 Say something if you’re being bullied at work 52:33 End of show
The little paper card you got with your Covid shot could be your passport back to normal life [1]. Are Covid-19 vaccine passports next in line to be required?
“Whether it’s school, entertainment venues, or travel, there’s going to be an expectation that to resume these activities you have to be retested and enter quarantine or produce proof of immunization,” Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, told ABC News.
In other words, people trying to do the kind of things they did before the pandemic – like a fly on a plane or seeing a movie in a cinema – may soon be required to prove they’ve been vaccinated.
One of the executive orders President Biden signed in January, called for government officials to “assess the feasibility of linking Covid-19 vaccination to International Certificates of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP) and producing electronic versions of ICVPs” – all your Covid-related health records, together in one digital document [2].
Airlines are working on something similar. The International Air Transport Association has developed the “IATA Travel Pass,” a smartphone app that compiles a traveler’s vaccination status and Covid test results into easily scanned QR codes.
“A vaccination card is a tool that people can use to declare that they have some level of protection against COVID,” Dr. Brownstein said. “Being able to assess immunity to Covid is a critical part of trying to resume our daily lives.”
In addition to I.A.T.A., IBM has been developing its own Digital Health Pass that would enable individuals to present proof of vaccination or a negative test to gain access to a public location, such as a sports stadium, airplane, university, or workplace.
The pass, built on IBM’s blockchain technology, can utilize multiple data types, including temperature checks, virus exposure notifications, test results, and vaccine status.
The World Economic Forum and the Commons Project Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit group, have been testing a digital health passport called CommonPass, which would allow travelers to access testing or vaccination information. The pass would generate a QR code that could be shown to authorities.
Counterpoint
There already is a vaccine passport. It’s easy to get. And its source is impeccable. As of June 15th, 2007.
Nicknamed “the yellow card,” it’s a small, passport-sized yellow pamphlet officially titled “International Certificate of Vaccination as approved by the World Health Organization.”
The yellow card is an official medical record, recognized worldwide, of the diseases you’ve been immunized against.
The yellow card started due to yellow fever, the WHO reported that “32 African countries are now considered at risk of yellow fever, with a total population of 610 million people, among which more than 219 million live in urban settings.
Some countries won’t let you in without medical proof that you’ve had the right vaccines or gotten them far enough in advance of your trip for them to be fully protected when you arrive.
Vaccine passports being sold on darknet
Fake vaccination certificates are also being sold by anonymous traders for as little as $150 using the hard-to-trace cryptocurrency Bitcoin as the payment method.
Researchers at cyber-security company Check Point have monitored hacking forums and other marketplaces since January when vaccine adverts first appeared.
They say the number of adverts they have seen has tripled to more than 1,200.
Sellers of vaccines appear to be from the US, UK, Spain, Germany, France, and Russia.
Boulder, CA Shooting
Investigators on Tuesday were trying to determine what motivated a 21-year-old man, charged in the shooting at a Boulder, Colo., grocery store, to take the lives of 10 people, in the second mass shooting in the United States in less than a week.
The gunman was armed with both a military-style semiautomatic rifle and a pistol when he walked into the King Soopers store on Monday and opened fire, officials said.
They identified the suspect who was arrested at the scene as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, who lived in Arvada, a nearby suburb; he was charged on Tuesday with 10 counts of first-degree murder, which in Colorado carries a penalty of life imprisonment without parole.
Barack Obama has blasted “cowardly” Republicans for blocking gun control laws limiting “weapons of war” in the wake of the Boulder mass shooting.
Atlanta, Georgia Shooting
On March 16, 2021, a series of mass shootings occurred at three spas or massage parlors in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian women, and one other person was wounded. A suspect, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, was taken into custody later that day.
According to police, Long said he was motivated by a sexual addiction that was at odds with his religious beliefs. He had previously spent time in an evangelical treatment clinic for sex addiction.
After the shootings, Long was charged with four counts of murder in Atlanta, four counts of murder, and one count of aggravated assault in Cherokee County.
Although Long has not been charged with a hate crime as part of the ongoing investigation, some commentators have characterized the shootings as a hate crime, noting the backdrop of rising anti-Asian sentiment in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court To Let Cops Enter Homes And Seize Guns Without A Warrant
This term, the Supreme Court has an opportunity to apply the original meaning of the right “to be secure” to clarify the scope of the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement [3].
In Caniglia v. Strom, Edward and Kim Caniglia, husband and wife, had a disagreement in their Rhode Island home. Mr. Caniglia retrieved his unloaded handgun and asked “why don’t you just shoot me and get me out of my misery?” Mrs. Caniglia left and spent the night in a motel.
The next morning, Mrs. Caniglia called the police to escort her home. Police believed Mr. Caniglia could be a threat to himself so they brought him in for a psychiatric evaluation, which he agreed to only after police promised not to take his handguns.
After Mr. Caniglia was admitted to the hospital—and despite their promise—the officers entered the home and seized the guns, which they returned when Mr. Caniglia sued [4].
The officers invoked the “community caretaking” exception to the warrant requirement to justify their warrantless entry of Mr. Caniglia’s home.
That exception stems from Cady v. Dombrowski, a case involving a crashed car that police had towed to a private garage and later searched, finding a revolver. The warrantless vehicle search was upheld because (at least according to the majority) police had control of the car and a search was necessary to remove potential safety threats.
The ultimate question, in this case, is therefore not whether the respondent officers’ actions fit within some
Nurses face constant challenges. Nursing can feel like a never-ending struggle. Not many people understand what a nurse does, and nursing school brushes the surface of the reality of what it means to be a nurse. Nurses commonly deal with five struggles: the reversal of DNR orders, job satisfaction, inconsistent workflow, service sector mentality, and hospital politics.
Reversal of a DNR order
Dealing with non-compliance
Job satisfaction
Inadequate staffing
Heavy workloads
Stress doesn’t equate to pay
Night shift and holidays
Inconsistent workflow
You never know what is going to happen
The pressure to know everything
exhaustion
Service sector mentality
The customer is always right
Lack of respect from families and physicians
Hospital politics
1. Reversal of DNR orders
One of the many challenges in nursing to deal with in the hospital, especially in the ICU or as a new grad, is when a family decides to reverse the patient’s DNR orders. When this happens, the family goes against the patient’s wishes, and as nurses, we are patient advocates.
We try to stand up for our patients, but the majority of the time, it is of no use. The family decides to change their loved one’s code status; this is usually when the patient cannot vouch for their decision. This usually happens when a patient is brought to the hospital in an unstable condition or during a patient’s decline at a hospital.
Dealing with non-compliance
To a certain extent reversing a DNR order for someone who established it is, in a way, noncompliance. But what is one of the challenges in nursing is patients coming to the hospital and then refusing everything.
They don’t want their medication, don’t want any procedures, and want to go home. If you don’t want anything, why did you come to the hospital?
Some patients are compliant when in the hospital, but when they leave, it all drops off. We call those frequent fliers, they build up their hospital miles, and you build up your frustration.
They come in in a very critical state, we literally save their lives, and they go back to what they were doing and not adhering to their medical plan. It makes you feel worthless and useless as a nurse. Your role almost seems pointless.
2. Job Satisfaction
As nurses, we go into nursing hoping to have a meaningful and impactful career. As new grads, we still haven’t been beaten down, and you can tell when someone still has that new grad face and mentality. Over time the job satisfaction we felt in our early years starts to dwindle and slowly disappear.
Inadequate staffing
Staffing is an ongoing issue in nursing. You can feel the drastic difference between having adequate staff and being short. It’s night and day. You feel it even harder when you work at night and especially when your outside-of-work life is not where it needs to be. This is the main reason nurses leave the bedside and sometimes nursing altogether.
Heavy workload
You feel this the most when you’re short-staffed. A heavy workload can be anything from having a really sick patient with a lack of support to having a 400lb patient that just breaks your back from the physical labor you have to do. Even when there are set ratios, the workload gets heavy.
Ratios, unfortunately, don’t always account for acuity, and there’s a discrepancy between having 4 patients that are decently stable vs. having 4 patients and 3 of them struggling to breathe.
This goes for all units. The ICU may seem simple enough to handle two patients, but there have been a handful of times when the workload was so much that you’re still sitting at work an hour after your shift to catch up on charting.
Stress doesn’t equate to the pay
Nurses are undervalued in the financial aspect. Most careers and jobs get rewarded with higher pay or some financial bonus. Do you know what nurses get? Food, we get fed as our bonus. That should just show you how unwilling hospitals and other places are to increase nursing pay.
When you are a nurse for a few years, you truly start to recognize this. I wouldn’t be surprised if nursing was the number 1 most underpaid career, but no one will come to that conclusion because that would mean raising wages.
Night shift and holidays
The healthcare field is a unique field in which work does not stop. It is a 24-hour job which means the night shift; someone has to work the night shift. No matter what kind of a nurse you are or how long you’ve been nursing, there have been many times that the night shift has negatively impacted your life. As humans, we are not made to work nights, our circadian rhythm makes us most functional during the day.
Many people enjoy every holiday with their families; nursing is one of those fields that doesn’t adhere to those guidelines. The nurse is required to work certain holidays, usually 50% of them. If you work nights, there are some holidays, even though you’re off, you can’t really enjoy because you’re coming off a shift.
3. Inconsistent Workflow
Nursing and the medical field breed unpredictability. You really never know how your shift is going to go, that’s even if you are working 3 shifts in a row. A patient’s condition can drastically change daily, even hour to hour.
Sometimes you work three shifts in a row, and you have different patients each time. Not only are the patients’ statuses inconsistent you’re not even sure you’ll have enough staff.
Sometimes you can’t even plan out your shift with patients transferring or trying to open beds for other patients. The only thing consistent is the inconsistency.
The pressure to know everything
As inconsistent as a nursing shift and a nursing career is, there is this expectation to know everything. “Why is my father’s blood pressure keep going down”? “We’re trying to fix it right now. He’s on 20 mcg of Levo. We’re thinking about adding another pressor”. “Ok, well, why isn’t the first one working? Why isn’t he improving? He was doing much better yesterday. Do you even know what you’re doing”?
Nurses are very knowledgeable and understand what the situation is; the thing is that there is not always a solution for every problem; a lot of the time, we are just managing to buy ourselves, our doctors, and our families sometimes. The pressure being put on us makes challenges in nursing even harder.
Exhaustion
Inconsistent workflow eventually leads to exhaustion, and many nurses leave the bedside and nursing altogether. There is only so much you can take at work, not to mention the stress we still undergo at home and in our social lives. Nurses get burnt out and tired; sometimes, it’s hard to recognize. Relaxing, taking time for yourself, and enjoying life are essential.
4. Service Sector Mentality
As much knowledge as nurses have, nursing almost feels like a service sector. The customer is always right and gets turned into the patient is always right. “Yes, Mr. Trout, I’ll get that for you right away, ohh you need something else, and another thing, now another pillow, ohh you don’t like the air mattress, you want to go for a walk right now, yes, right away.”
There are shifts where you’re just being bossed around, and many nurses don’t know how to handle a needy patient. It takes a toll because you have more than one patient to worry about, and some patients feel it’s a privilege that you’re their nurse.
Lack of Respect
Nurses are always at the bedside, so they’re usually the first to get questioned and yelled at. Most families don’t understand what is happening and are usually ignorant of what you explain. Families can talk down to you for no apparent reason; this is felt when they say you’re just a nurse. Let me talk to a real doctor.
Many nurses also experience a lack of respect from physicians, which is a challenge they face. They often talk down to nurses, especially the new residents, when they think they know more than you because their years of schooling trump all your experience. We’re supposed to work together, but this situation makes it to the list of challenges in nursing.
Nurses fear speaking to doctors.
One of our biggest challenges as nurses is talking to doctors, which worsens when an MD belittles a nurse. As nurses, feel that we should know what to do in each situation and the unrealistic expectations nurses put on themselves.
Usually, when a nurse calls a doctor, it’s for two things; an update or the patient is deteriorating. This is one barrier many nurses struggle with, and it takes time to get past it.
5. Hospital Politics
You’d think the hospital and the medical field wouldn’t have as much office politics, but boy, you are wrong. There always seems to be a day vs. night mentality and a staff vs. management mindset. It’s more pronounced in some places than others, but it exists.
Instead of everyone working as a cohesive team, they talk and stir up drama amongst themselves which is why it’s one of the biggest challenges in nursing. This makes a challenging career such as ours that much harder to work in.
Learn what are the biggest challenges in nursing by watching the full episode here 👇👇
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro 01:22 Topic introduction 02:32 Mental toughness prepares us 03:21 What is DNR? 07:00 Nurses suffer with their patients too 09:25 LVADs 11:28 Job satisfaction 12:55 You can’t always put money first 16:23 The Grid 18:16 Beyond money is life 19:08 We get food 21:07 Night shift and Holidays 24:52 Inconsistent workflow 32:33 We tend to think of our patients 34:15 You need boundaries 35:48 Service sector mentality 39:36 Lack of respect 42:40 Hospital politics 46:44 Why are they teaching Nursing Care Plans? 49:44 End of show
In this episode, we would like to discuss what it is like to be a nurse during the pandemic. These are challenging times for most nurses. Here is our story during the pandemic.
One of the most challenging aspects of caring for patients with COVID-19 is that we can’t just walk in and chit-chat the way we used to. About 90% of patients are intubated, barely holding on to life in the ICU. It takes the human experience out of nursing when you can’t interact with your patient.
It is a positive experience when your intubated patient can finally follow commands like nodding their head to questions or squeezing your hand. Our patients rely on us for human interaction, too. And even that is super-limited now.
Talking points in the episode
How COVID-19 felt like a science experiment at first. We didn’t know how to treat it. The research studies were done on patients, and we were part of it. Having patients on ECMO, you need heparin for anticoagulation that causes low platelets.
We did so much oral care to prevent pneumonia that we caused bleeding out of their mouth. So we just had to place towels around their mouth to catch them from going down their neck. I can make peace with what I have seen. But for some nurses that are screaming PTSD, for fuck sake.
It doesn’t feel like the government helped the frontline warriors one bit. We have been understaffed and undersupplied this whole pandemic.
Talk about Facetiming with family.
Talk about how busy it is. Managing ECMO, CRRT, and Ventilator, all while changing your patients a few times a shift and soiling dressing with COVID butt.
Nurses’ emotional well-being is challenged like never before by the coronavirus, so finding coping strategies is essential.
Anxiety about patients, the possibility of infecting family members, and the financial impact of the pandemic are still being felt by many nurses.
Eight in ten nurses in a Nursing Standard survey said their mental health had been affected by COVID-19.
Injuries at work from bad posture and limited space between medical devices.
Imagine being a nurse during the pandemic and having two patients die on you in one hour. What is nursing dark humor? He’s the grim reaper.
A Lot of nurses don’t feel support from management.
“Just imagine making decisions every day on whether you’re going to fulfill your professional obligation to care for patients versus sacrificing your personal safety or even that of your family because you’re in a situation where you don’t have adequate resources.” From NBC News.
“We didn’t sign up to be sacrificial lambs. We didn’t sign up to fight a deadly disease without adequate resources,” she said. “We’re told we’re soldiers. Well, you don’t send soldiers to war without a gun and expect them to do their job, but you are doing that to us.” From NBC News.
What’s it like being a nurse during Covid-19? Here’s how it is 👇👇👇
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 – Intro 00:10 – Welcome 00:36 – Announcements! 02:28 – Topic Intro 02:58 – The Era of Covid-19 03:35 – Changes in the hospital 05:28 – Facetime and Ipads 08:30 – Perspective of ICU nursing 08:49 – Covid Butt 13:23 – Patients on ECMO 18:04 – Prevention is hard 19:05 – The Government and the people 22:22 – Short staffed 23:19 – It’s the Wild West of Nursing 24:02 – PTSD in Nurses 24:50 – A good work-life balance 28:44 – Management 20:15 – Gowning 32:10 – Lack of Resources 33:10 – Turning patients on your own 34:29 – Sweass 38:58 – Internalizing a situation 42:08 – Work to the breaking point 43:43 – When nurses unite 47:13 – A weird experience 49:36 – Wrapping up 50:12 – End of show
EP 100: Into Our Lives and Dealing with Drama in the Workplace
In this episode, we would like to thank everyone for listening; this is our 100th episode, and it’s been a fantastic experience being your host. We will discuss our experience working full-time as nurses while trying to run a business. Some updates to what Cup of Nurses is up to, and we will talk about dealing with drama in the workplace.
As nurses, we know how valuable our co-workers are, like during a sudden unexpected code, violent patients, and dealing with unstable patients. So why do we create drama and unnecessary drama at the workplace?
Here’s the truth: We as humans enjoy drama and outrage. Some people get off on it. They like the adrenaline, the cortisol, the rage, and the energy that it brings.
Dive Into Our Life
Who Matt and Peter are.
How did we start nursing? We have four experiences.
How did we get into nursing?
How is it being a nurse during the pandemic?
How is it travel nursing out of state?
How is it being a nurse and an entrepreneur?
What is the grind like the life that people don’t see behind the scenes
Podcasting
Vlogging
What is in store for Cup of Nurses?
Website
Front line warriors
4x4x48 (Donating to a cause)
How are we impacting people in life through what we do?
What do we want to change in nursing?
Why Do People Enjoy Conflict and Drama?
Distraction from focusing on your own life
If you have something or someone to be mad at, it can help you to disengage from looking at yourself deeply. Drama can channel energy away from what you need to be focusing on.
Drama is a familiarity
Not everyone’s childhood is the same; some grew up in dysfunctional homes or families where addiction or trauma was present. This will create chaos and unclear boundaries and teach people that engaging in conflict dysfunctionally is how to behave and live your life. We are drawn to what we know. And they may not know how to disengage and detach healthfully.
Chemicals released during anger can be addicting
Chemicals released in anger can feel addicting. Just like individuals who seek thrills for the adrenaline rush, some people have the same effect from anger. Individuals can become addicted to the endorphins they feel when they get angry.
The Car Accident Phenomenon
This is an interesting viewpoint. Have you ever noticed driving on the freeway in the opposite lane, there is a car accident, yet everyone slows down driving the opposite way? People are prone to slow down if there is a car accident because we can’t miss out on what is happening. We want to know.
News agencies are constantly feeding this need with incredulous, awful stories that they hope we can’t tear ourselves away from.
If you can relate to any of these points, there needs to be a call to action. We hope there isn’t much drama going on in your life. Drama in life brings trauma, and old injuries get reawakened, and it could be keeping you from having a more peaceful and enriched life.
Why do we create drama and unnecessary drama in the workplace?
We can admit that we enjoy the attention that drama creates. On the unit, nurses get sucked into your drama, the group around you asking questions and helping you feel justified in your outrage, which can be very satisfying. It’s like a baby. If you don’t give it enough attention early on, it will seek attention as they get older regardless of what attention is because that is better than no attention.
Assessing the drama level in a unit’s culture takes time and leader attentiveness. Being travelers working in different cultures, you can see the drama that takes place. Culture is described as the invisible architecture of a unit or organization. It’s a compilation of values, behaviors, actions, and group norms that ultimately becomes the operating system.
3 Steps to Dial Down Workplace Drama
1. Don’t interact with staff that aren’t grounded in reality
You can assess a co-worker after working a few shifts with them to see if they enjoy drama. Do they seek multiple viewpoints in a story? If they gossip, react strongly to difficult news, frequently in fight-or-flight, or have interpersonal conflicts, chances are they will see that behavior in their team.
If they’re calm, cultivate a sense that everyone is on the same side, don’t overreact, don’t gossip, and take a low-key approach to office politics and interpersonal relationships, they’ll reinforce the behavior they want from staff.
2. Be honest with your co-workers creating workplace drama
Not everyone can be bluntly honest with people; we have no problem with that and say it how it is. Those creating the drama need to be called out on their problematic behavior. Ask them these questions:
How do you know that your assumptions in this situation are accurate?
How is your behavior contributing to what’s happening here?
What ideas do you have for resolving this situation?
How can you help improve this situation?
What would “great” look like now?
Drama kings and queens need to be reminded that venting doesn’t resolve issues and only creates doubt and chaos leading to a victim mentality that doesn’t empower staff.
Self-reflection will facilitate serious thoughts about one’s character, actions, and motives. Reflective questioning can help those participating in the behavior better understand how others experience it.
3. Establishing new expectations and team values
This is a leadership approach to it. Behavior change comes from perspectives and values we may not be aware of until we encounter someone who thinks differently. In addition to calling out someone, we must create team norms around low drama and assuming positive intent. These new values could be the following:
Don’t engage in gossiping about others.
Confirm that information and stories are reality-based before telling them.
Practice empathy and demonstrate good intentions toward others.
Assume accountability for your behavior, and don’t participate in the blame game.
Adopt a solution-focused approach.
Final Thoughts
Fostering harmony and teamwork is essential. Humans are naturally emotional; where you have emotion, you frequently get gossip and drama. Sounds like the perfect hospital setting? Some coworkers will seek attention and further stir the pot.
Looking at the unit as a whole, we need to build a culture of accountability with minimal drama, which is the key to organizational success and less turnover. Creating a culture that fosters teamwork beings with each and every one of us. When we act as leaders, we reinforce positive behavior and confront old behavior.
Learn about the workplace drama by clicking on the full episode here 👇👇👇
TIMESTAMPS:
Part 1 00:00 Intro 01:15 Episode 100 09:00 Lack of Organization 13:07 More Efficient 14:07 Research 16:07 Pain vs. Comfort 18:07 Regrets 19:37 Working Forever 21:07 Starting the Podcast 22:37 Working Full Time 24:07 Life is Evolving 25:22 Making a Change 26:27 Meeting Older People 28:07 Making Impact 29:37 Organization 30:32 Balance 31:52 Self-growth 33:07 Open Minded 36:07 Religion 38:01 Christianity vs. Catholicism 39:57 What’s in store 41:27 Promoting a life 42:52 Wisdom from older people 44:57 Work environment in the hospital 45:42 Nursing school 46:37 Nursing culture 48:42 Balancing checkbook 50:07 Raising a child 52:17 Future Plans 55:55 Investments 56:55 401K
Part 2 58:27 Part 2 of Ep 100 59:20 Drama in the Workplace 1:12:50 All is Well 1:13:20 Why People Create Drama in the Workplace 1:13:35 Drama Distracts You from Things in Life 1:17:03 Drama is a familiarity 1:19:44 Chemicals released during drama are addicting 1:28:26 The Car Accident Phenomenon 1:38:46 Talk to them 1:42:25 Wrapping up 1:42:50 Start with you 1:44:00 End of show
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