Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for coming tonight. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: My name is Fallen and this is the first time
Speaker 1: I've done something like this on my own, like I've
Speaker 1: been on hosted panels, I guess moderated panels in the past.
Speaker 1: And I think in the middle of last year, I
Speaker 1: was like, I, you know, you always like think, oh,
Speaker 1: you have a platform, right, what will you do with it?
Speaker 1: And I wanted to do something for women. And I
Speaker 1: started thinking about this and doing different sessions. And one
Speaker 1: of the things, you know, Jenny is here, she does
Speaker 1: the morning show. And Jenny and I we always talk
Speaker 1: about how we grew up poor and.
Speaker 2: We did not learn.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't even think I ever heard the
Speaker 1: word investment growing up, like ever my entire life. I
Speaker 1: come from a very blue collar area, and you typically
Speaker 1: work until you physically cannot work anymore, and that is
Speaker 1: and then it gets passed down, right, like you just work, work, work.
Speaker 2: There is no.
Speaker 1: Such thing as retirement, it seems where I'm from in
Speaker 1: my small Indiana farming commit unity. And so it was
Speaker 1: a new world to me to even start learning about that.
Speaker 1: And I started, like my first four oh one k
Speaker 1: in my twenties living in Rino, Nevada, and then I
Speaker 1: moved here and I started making more money and which
Speaker 1: shout out thank you, and so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I got to figure out what I'm gonna do with this,
Speaker 1: because I would like the option of retiring at some point.
Speaker 1: But it still confuses me. And my husband is one
Speaker 1: of those people that just seems to understand finance, and
Speaker 1: I always to trigger him say that I think compound
Speaker 1: interest is made up it and it triggers him like
Speaker 1: no other and it brings me joy. But so I
Speaker 1: just thought, I see these statistics all the time about
Speaker 1: how women are so much farther behind men when it
Speaker 1: comes to investing and our finances, and there are lots
Speaker 1: of reasons.
Speaker 2: There's obviously a wage gap.
Speaker 1: There are you know, longer absences from work due to
Speaker 1: taking care of children. Typically women are the ones that
Speaker 1: take care of the children once they have them. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they don't go back to work, longer gaps in their careers.
Speaker 1: So there are many, many reasons, and so I thought,
Speaker 1: let's bring some experts in and we can ask them
Speaker 1: questions and you know, hopefully gain a little bit of
Speaker 1: information to help ourselves and you know, maybe our friends
Speaker 1: and family moving forward and set ourselves up for I
Speaker 1: don't know, a better situation. And so I started, you know,
Speaker 1: looking into different people, and these are the three amazing
Speaker 1: women that I found, and I'm going to have them
Speaker 1: introduce themselves and give you a little information. You probably
Speaker 1: saw their bio on what I posted, but I want
Speaker 1: them to, you know, talk about themselves for a moment
Speaker 1: before we dive into some discussions. So we'll start with
Speaker 1: Lindsay since she is closest to me.
Speaker 3: Yes, I am Lindsay. I am a financial therapist. So
Speaker 3: I am a licensed therapist and my job is to
Speaker 3: essentially merge behavioral cognitive therapy with financial education, and so
Speaker 3: I see clients one on one. I work with individuals
Speaker 3: and with couples because we know that couples often run
Speaker 3: into a lot of issues.
Speaker 4: So that's the work that I do.
Speaker 5: Hi, I'm Elizabeth, Elizabeth Gusofsen. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: So honored to be here, and I really resonate with
Speaker 5: this room and hope you guys feel open to ask
Speaker 5: any questions that are on your mind. I'm a lead
Speaker 5: financial advisor out in why is that up? Based on
Speaker 5: a team at RBC Wealth Management. So I work with
Speaker 5: a team of nine and we have quite a bit
Speaker 5: of industry experience. There's four advisors and our total experience
Speaker 5: on our team is over one hundred and forty years.
Speaker 5: We edit it up, so I've seen a lot of situations.
Speaker 5: I work with a lot of different types of families
Speaker 5: and range of ages and clients. So it is my passion,
Speaker 5: is why I get up every day. I love helping people,
Speaker 5: and I work a lot one on one with people
Speaker 5: as well, because it's you know, a delicate, confidential, mostly situation.
Speaker 5: So it's fun to talk to a group of people
Speaker 5: and women, especially because I think it's easier to open
Speaker 5: up when it is a room of women, So I
Speaker 5: appreciate you doing that. But yeah, So I work at
Speaker 5: RBC and we are actually big. Our wealth management is
Speaker 5: based in Minneapolis, so that's nice. And then we're owned
Speaker 5: by Canadian Bank, so we have global resources of a bank,
Speaker 5: and we have private banking and lending and investments and
Speaker 5: kind of the full range of services in the industry.
Speaker 5: And I guess I should say I have been in
Speaker 5: the industry for twenty years myself.
Speaker 6: Hi, everybody, I'm Hannah Ryan.
Speaker 7: I founded Financially Engaged back in twenty eighteen with my
Speaker 7: husband Brady, and I am a CPA. I have worked
Speaker 7: the last ten years as a CPA for a big
Speaker 7: for a public accounting firm, and then I switched gears
Speaker 7: and worked at a startup for the last seven years
Speaker 7: or so, and then back in August, decided to take
Speaker 7: my side hustle, which was Financial Engage, full time because
Speaker 7: it is such a passion of mine, as these two
Speaker 7: ladies have said, as well, to help as many people
Speaker 7: as I can, I really focus on couples in their
Speaker 7: twenties and thirties, provide financial resources like helping people pay
Speaker 7: off debt and learn how to invest and reach their
Speaker 7: financial goals.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1: So I have different categories that I'll kind of go
Speaker 1: through and start things off, but I really want you
Speaker 1: all to feel comfortable asking your questions. We have a
Speaker 1: microphone over here if you feel more comfortable with a
Speaker 1: microphone coming to you. Jenny is the Vana White of
Speaker 1: the Evening. She has volunteered to bring the microphone around.
Speaker 1: I really want you to fill comfortable and safeness environment
Speaker 1: asking your questions and hopefully you'll get some information.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to start off with.
Speaker 1: We've all kind of talked about budgeting or you mentioned
Speaker 1: that a little bit and saving, so I want to
Speaker 1: dive in first with what are the most common mistakes
Speaker 1: you see women make when it comes to budgeting and
Speaker 1: how can they fix them? And anyone can start off,
Speaker 1: So maybe we'll start off with you, Hannah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the number one thing when it comes
Speaker 7: to budgeting is, especially as women, we feel a lot
Speaker 7: of guilt it seems, for purchases that we make, and
Speaker 7: especially I feel the media like to portray women, especially
Speaker 7: in more of a negative light, always highlighting Oh, women
Speaker 7: are buying purses or getting their nails done or hair done,
Speaker 7: all these things that are little things that bring joy,
Speaker 7: and it's not as often highlighted from the male perspective,
Speaker 7: and they're doing it just as much as the females.
Speaker 7: Men are going on golf trips and signing up for
Speaker 7: fantasy football and doing all the things.
Speaker 6: It's just not highlighted as much.
Speaker 7: So I think when it comes to budgeting, one of
Speaker 7: the biggest mistakes women make is just feeling.
Speaker 6: So much guilt.
Speaker 7: You really have to zoom out and realize that there's
Speaker 7: a balance to everything you can have those little joys
Speaker 7: in life while you're saving and investing for the future.
Speaker 2: Hey, do you want to jump in Lindsey.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I think the most common thing I see is
Speaker 3: similar to that, but a lot of avoidance we leave that,
Speaker 3: you know, task, either up to our partners or if
Speaker 3: you are you know, an individual, and you're like, I
Speaker 3: just don't want to look at the emails. I don't
Speaker 3: want to look at the bills. I don't even want
Speaker 3: to go there because you have some sort of mental block, right,
Speaker 3: And for me, I'm always like peeling things back and like, Okay,
Speaker 3: what is going on here? And what I find is
Speaker 3: a lot of times we grew up with really confusing
Speaker 3: money messages. There was a lot of mixed messages like
Speaker 3: we can't afford that, and then simultaneously they would come
Speaker 3: home with something that didn't make any sense as to why.
Speaker 3: You were just told, like, you can't afford a five
Speaker 3: dollars toy, yet your parents are bringing home, you know,
Speaker 3: multi hundred dollars worth of something, and so it was
Speaker 3: very confusing.
Speaker 4: And so I think those messages.
Speaker 3: Are really shoved deep down in there, but it comes
Speaker 3: up when we're starting to budget and so instead of
Speaker 3: actually looking at our numbers. We're really prone to avoiding
Speaker 3: it and just it'll be fine, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 3: And so that's most common for sure in what I see.
Speaker 3: But what I also see then is once we actually
Speaker 3: like look at the numbers and we start making a
Speaker 3: plan for your money, it's both scary and relieving at
Speaker 3: the same time, because shame lives in that black box.
Speaker 3: And so once we let light into that box and
Speaker 3: let we you know, shed some light on what's actually
Speaker 3: happening with the picture, it can feel really good. Even
Speaker 3: if the numbers aren't telling you what you want them
Speaker 3: to tell you, it can feel really good to like
Speaker 3: not be in this weird abyss of not knowing anymore.
Speaker 5: So Elizabeth, Okay, so I'm going to add on to that,
Speaker 5: but really good points I think for me with the
Speaker 5: budgeting pitfalls or you know, where it can.
Speaker 6: Go wrong is just not having a plan.
Speaker 5: So a lot of it is just taking a look,
Speaker 5: even if it's you know, being simple and looking at
Speaker 5: your spending you did over the last few months and
Speaker 5: just really looking at that, and looking at your credit
Speaker 5: card statements, looking at your checking accounts and really analyzing,
Speaker 5: you know, we try to keep it real simple, like
Speaker 5: what is the money coming in the door, what are
Speaker 5: the housing payments and the things you have to make
Speaker 5: rent or whatever, and then what is your discretionary And
Speaker 5: obviously in our line of work especially, we try to
Speaker 5: get people to see where they how much they can
Speaker 5: save every month or put towards deb you know, but
Speaker 5: in a perfect world, it would be to save and
Speaker 5: just really trying to get the budget so that you
Speaker 5: can get to that goal. Because for women especially, I
Speaker 5: think a lot of us are living in the moment.
Speaker 5: We're raising kids, we're dealing with aging parents, husbands, you know,
Speaker 5: whatever your your you know, or partners or we're going
Speaker 5: through divorce or whatever it is, and you get thrown
Speaker 5: into being the person that has to make sure that
Speaker 5: you're spending money inappropriate way and and also saving for
Speaker 5: long term goals. And and if you set those long
Speaker 5: term goals with a plan, either with you know, an
Speaker 5: advisor or a financial professional, then you would see yourself
Speaker 5: getting achieving and getting towards those goals.
Speaker 6: With your budget.
Speaker 5: It's not just simply how much do I spend on groceries,
Speaker 5: which you know, those types of costs are increasing too.
Speaker 5: It's dealing with you know, higher cost of living inflation,
Speaker 5: and we all see that, and so if that is
Speaker 5: eating into what you are able to save, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of tweaking that. And so it's just it's having
Speaker 5: a plan and then also reevaluating it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I feel like we often see like you
Speaker 1: should save a percentage of your income or something. Is
Speaker 1: there a certain amount of your income you should be
Speaker 1: saving realistically.
Speaker 5: I mean, I've heard the ratio fifty percent on must have,
Speaker 5: thirty percent on wants twenty percent on saving savings.
Speaker 6: So but that's just like a rule of thumb.
Speaker 5: I think everyone's situation is different and sometimes you can't
Speaker 5: save that much, but at different periods of your life.
Speaker 5: But if you can get a plan in place for
Speaker 5: when you you know, if you and if you do
Speaker 5: have to switch jobs, or if you do want to
Speaker 5: stay home with your kids, or you know, take a
Speaker 5: pause in your career, it's more than just having six
Speaker 5: months Like the rule of thumb, I would say, is
Speaker 5: having six months of emergency fund available.
Speaker 6: So if you do have to switch jobs, or.
Speaker 5: You know, something comes up and you need you know,
Speaker 5: a new roof or whatever, these things that come up
Speaker 5: as you're living your life. But also, you know, just
Speaker 5: having that additional savings helps you even if it isn't
Speaker 5: the full twenty percent. So you kind of have to
Speaker 5: look at your situation.
Speaker 1: Do you find because I think we've done this even before,
Speaker 1: like a no judgment, like I've posted, like I think
Speaker 1: we've posted on social media in the past, like how
Speaker 1: much I do you have in your savings right now?
Speaker 1: A majority majority definitely did not have six months saved.
Speaker 1: And another thing that I've seen lately and not to
Speaker 1: bring because I don't follow like the Dave Ramseys of
Speaker 1: the world, but a lot of things that I have
Speaker 1: seen lately with him is that with the younger generations
Speaker 1: saying that he's a little out of touch with the
Speaker 1: reality of what we are able to save and invest,
Speaker 1: and how it's like this is not relatable anymore, especially
Speaker 1: due to inflation. Because I'm going to guess, when you
Speaker 1: said saved the rule of thumb, even most rule of thumb,
Speaker 1: and you said that's gonna be so dependent on each person,
Speaker 1: I'm going to guess, how many in this room, and
Speaker 1: you don't have to raise your hand, can save twenty
Speaker 1: percent of your check each month? No one can save
Speaker 1: twenty percent. Maybe a couple people, three people can save
Speaker 1: twenty percent of their check, So the majority of people
Speaker 1: aren't able to save that much, which I know that
Speaker 1: you guys probably run into that quite a bit. Is
Speaker 1: that is it just being because you said you also
Speaker 1: mentioned we should have these joys in life. You should
Speaker 1: be able to, you know, get your nails done or
Speaker 1: something occasionally that brings you joy. Is there a way
Speaker 1: you look at that and break it down in a
Speaker 1: different way that helps you, I don't know, analyze what's
Speaker 1: coming in and going out, like you said, that helps
Speaker 1: people get started when they can't in the beginning, especially
Speaker 1: start saving that much.
Speaker 7: I think you really just have to start small. I
Speaker 7: definitely agree with a twenty percent general guidance, and I
Speaker 7: mean the thing you'll typically see is like five to
Speaker 7: ten percent for your short term goals, think like vacations
Speaker 7: or down payments. So then maybe like ten to fifteen
Speaker 7: percent for your retirement or long term goals. But again,
Speaker 7: that's a really high percentage for a lot of people,
Speaker 7: and so I hate throwing those percentages out because it
Speaker 7: scares people. And so you really just have to take
Speaker 7: small steps, like what is an extra ten twenty fifty
Speaker 7: bucks that you can save per month and just get started,
Speaker 7: because once you get started, you can start taking these
Speaker 7: baby steps and then it doesn't feel so hard to
Speaker 7: take the next step.
Speaker 6: And maybe you can cut back.
Speaker 7: On a subscription that you're not really using or you
Speaker 7: just signed up for six months ago and forgot about,
Speaker 7: or maybe you can focus on trying to negotiate or
Speaker 7: raise it at work.
Speaker 6: There's all these.
Speaker 7: Little things that you could do to help, you know,
Speaker 7: have more savings at the end of the month, but
Speaker 7: it's overwhelming to think about all of them. So that's
Speaker 7: why I always try to guide people to just just
Speaker 7: pick one thing to start.
Speaker 1: And then if they have, you know, debt in the mix.
Speaker 1: Now you're t trying to pay off debt and also save.
Speaker 1: Do you have any advice for that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it depends on the debt, right, And so
Speaker 3: I usually look at the whole picture of the debt,
Speaker 3: so I, you know, we lay it all out there
Speaker 3: and like, what's what is the whole picture looking like,
Speaker 3: what is the total amount od on each card, say
Speaker 3: it's credit card debt, right, what's the minimum monthly payment
Speaker 3: that you have to make? What's the interest rate on it,
Speaker 3: and then like look at the whole picture, right, and
Speaker 3: if those interest rates are super high, then in a
Speaker 3: lot of cases, it actually doesn't make a ton of
Speaker 3: sense to be investing aggressively because mathematically, like those interest
Speaker 3: rates are just going to eat you alive on the
Speaker 3: credit card, right, And so instead of spreading yourself so thin,
Speaker 3: you can stay in one lane and say like, this
Speaker 3: is the one credit card that I'm going to focus on, right,
Speaker 3: everything else, pay the minimum payments, you know, drop your
Speaker 3: investments down to just whatever. Like if you have a
Speaker 3: match option with like a four oh one K, probably
Speaker 3: not as much a four or three B. But sometimes
Speaker 3: then like just do that, right, And so like really
Speaker 3: stay focused. And I think we get into this all
Speaker 3: or nothing thinking of like, well, if I can't save
Speaker 3: ten percent or if I can't save twenty percent, or
Speaker 3: if I can't max this out, that I'm just not
Speaker 3: going to do anything. And that's not what we're going for, right,
Speaker 3: And so I say, really, like be be cognizant of
Speaker 3: like what is like the highest priority at this point,
Speaker 3: and then we can you know, roll that into what's
Speaker 3: the next priority.
Speaker 4: And that's how I like to think about it.
Speaker 1: So speaking, of investing. I think that that's a very
Speaker 1: intimidating thing. And like I said, I don't think I
Speaker 1: even heard that word growing up.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure that like some of the quote
Speaker 1: unquote richer family where I'm from, they were I was not.
Speaker 1: My family was not. And so when I realized I
Speaker 1: wanted to do that, it was very intimidating. And what
Speaker 1: I've said to like friends and stuff since learning a
Speaker 1: little bit more, I'm like, no, you don't have to
Speaker 1: have like thousands of dollars, like just start with like
Speaker 1: a little bit here and there, and like you have
Speaker 1: to find someone that you trust and did it and
Speaker 1: and you you aren't always gonna like mesh with the
Speaker 1: person you for.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a therapist.
Speaker 1: You probably get this doubly then, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people like meet with one therapist and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this sucks. I don't mess with them at all. Therapy
Speaker 1: isn't for me. And then they don't go back. And
Speaker 1: I always like, no, keep going. You'll find the right one,
Speaker 1: right and they can be life changing. And I think
Speaker 1: that's probably the same with a financial advisor, because I've
Speaker 1: had a couple now and then you find the one
Speaker 1: that you mesh with and you feel like they understand
Speaker 1: you and you're like, ah, this feels right. So what
Speaker 1: what advice would you give for people who are starting
Speaker 1: to look into that they're dabbling, that maybe they're a
Speaker 1: little bit intimidated.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it is very, very scary to start investing,
Speaker 7: especially like you said, Falvin, if you don't have a
Speaker 7: background in it.
Speaker 6: The number one DM I get.
Speaker 7: Is how the heck do I get started investing? What
Speaker 7: account do I open? What investment do I buy? Just
Speaker 7: please tell me, like the first step. And that was
Speaker 7: honestly the biggest reason why I wanted to quit my
Speaker 7: full time job and do this full time is to
Speaker 7: create a course investing for beginners, to teach people that
Speaker 7: have never learned it in school or at home how
Speaker 7: to actually take those first steps, because even if you
Speaker 7: go to a financial advisor, I think it is so
Speaker 7: critical to have that basic foundation of investing knowledge to
Speaker 7: be able to just advocate for yourself and discuss your
Speaker 7: goals and make sure that your investment decisions are in
Speaker 7: line with your goals because you're always going to be
Speaker 7: your best self advocate, and so having that basic understanding
Speaker 7: is going to be critical and it's not complicated.
Speaker 6: When you see the men in.
Speaker 7: Suits on TV like spouting out all these tickers and
Speaker 7: can it look really complex, investing can actually be very simple.
Speaker 7: There's strategies to make it very automated and hands off,
Speaker 7: and realistically that's the best way to go anyways. And
Speaker 7: like Fallan said, you don't need to have thousands of
Speaker 7: dollars to start investing. You can literally go on to
Speaker 7: Fidelity today and start investing with one dollar.
Speaker 6: And so a lot of people think.
Speaker 7: That there's this huge barrier to entry and that is
Speaker 7: just really not the case. And so I'm so passionate
Speaker 7: about teaching this to people because getting started investing early,
Speaker 7: even with small amounts, is so so important because of
Speaker 7: compound interest, which I know you are joking about, but
Speaker 7: compound interest is a real thing and I won't get
Speaker 7: into the math behind it, but it becomes a situation
Speaker 7: where even starting with small amounts, over time you can
Speaker 7: grow to really meaningful, large amounts of wealth in the
Speaker 7: long run.
Speaker 5: So I think going back to the question is just
Speaker 5: how to start investing, right, Okay, So I guess my
Speaker 5: advice would be, you know, one of the biggest concerns
Speaker 5: that's out there that I hear from a lot of
Speaker 5: women that I work with is just how much do
Speaker 5: I need to retire? And like what is that number?
Speaker 5: You know, I kind of know what I'm studying now
Speaker 5: and here's what I have saved. And so we work
Speaker 5: a lot on having as you know, like you set
Speaker 5: goals and other areas of your life. When you have
Speaker 5: a goal with a number tied to it, then you
Speaker 5: can kind of measure and see how you're getting towards that.
Speaker 5: So it can be broken down to something really simple
Speaker 5: as just setting up an IRA and putting seven thousand,
Speaker 5: you know, over the course of the year.
Speaker 6: Or if that's like.
Speaker 5: Too much, you know, you just can scale back and
Speaker 5: do your four oh one K with your employer or
Speaker 5: four through B or if you're self employed, you can
Speaker 5: do a set But there are different ways to set up.
Speaker 5: Simply a retirement account would be probably my recommendation of
Speaker 5: like getting your foot, you know, getting your toe in
Speaker 5: the water. And a lot of times they have investment
Speaker 5: options that are really simple. You'd be shocked at how
Speaker 5: they boil this down to something called like a target
Speaker 5: date fund, and it's simply the date that you know
Speaker 5: you would retire, you know, sixty or something like that,
Speaker 5: when your age sixty sixty five, And as you get older,
Speaker 5: the investment automatically would rebalance so that your investments would
Speaker 5: be a little bit more aggressive in the beginning and
Speaker 5: then kind of as you get older, they would rebalance
Speaker 5: and you wouldn't have to do much to set that up.
Speaker 5: And if you do get a match, then your employer
Speaker 5: contributes as well, so you would just pay attention to that.
Speaker 5: But one thing I do, you know, want to stress
Speaker 5: as well is that And I feel like when I
Speaker 5: graduated and I started working, I was getting a lot
Speaker 5: of advice like contributed for okay, that's what you have
Speaker 5: to do, you know, make sure you do that, like okay,
Speaker 5: but also you really truly need to build this taxable
Speaker 5: emergency savings account, investment account, whatever it is that's not
Speaker 5: in your growing k because if you do reach a
Speaker 5: point where you need to draw money for I mean,
Speaker 5: I guess when you buy a home, there's certain exceptions
Speaker 5: to the penalty, but there's high penalties to take money
Speaker 5: out of those accounts. And obviously you know you pay tax,
Speaker 5: but you know, I think just having access and flexibility
Speaker 5: and thinking about when you would need the funds and
Speaker 5: making sure again going back to just having a plan
Speaker 5: of what is each you know, bucket, what is the
Speaker 5: best use of the money, and how long you you're
Speaker 5: when you're going to be using it. But in terms
Speaker 5: of investments, yeah, I agree, there's lots of options out there.
Speaker 5: I mean people have, you know, checking accounts at Wells
Speaker 5: Fargo and the robo.
Speaker 6: Advisors invest their money.
Speaker 5: I mean there's all kinds of crazy things that exist
Speaker 5: now in you know, more than just working hiring an advisor.
Speaker 5: So I think there's different entry points for different levels
Speaker 5: of wealth and different options available just simply at your
Speaker 5: at your bang. You know, don't feel like there aren't
Speaker 5: people there that you can talk to, but finding a
Speaker 5: personality and a person.
Speaker 6: That you trust.
Speaker 5: I think one of the things I was going to
Speaker 5: say tonight was if you have you know, a friend
Speaker 5: or a family member or somebody that you've seen has
Speaker 5: success with doing this, just reach out to them, have
Speaker 5: a conversation. I know that feels really stressful, but you're
Speaker 5: not telling them your personal situation. You're just you know,
Speaker 5: you're just asking for their advice. You don't have to
Speaker 5: confide in them how much you have in your savings
Speaker 5: account or whatever.
Speaker 6: It's just like, hey, you know.
Speaker 5: I've seen you had success with this, Like what would
Speaker 5: you recommend and who do you talk to and things
Speaker 5: like that.
Speaker 3: So I think we also forget like when you know,
Speaker 3: if you had grandparents that were investing or parents even
Speaker 3: that were investing, if they had access to it, the
Speaker 3: accessibility looks so different now than it did forever ago, right,
Speaker 3: And so I mean to your point there is like
Speaker 3: with Fidelity is also the one that I use, and
Speaker 3: like it's so simple to literally and I will have
Speaker 3: clients be like, I think we need to book session
Speaker 3: because I'm ready, I'm gonna I'm gonna invest. I'm like, okay, great,
Speaker 3: we're gonna need five minutes, and like literally that's how
Speaker 3: long it takes. And then we get them going. I
Speaker 3: give them a super high level overview of like these
Speaker 3: are your options. Target date funds are one of my
Speaker 3: favorites because they truly are like a set it and
Speaker 3: forget it, and you can automate that really simple, like
Speaker 3: fifty bucks a month in your roth IRA going to
Speaker 3: this target date fund for you know, twenty sixty five
Speaker 3: or whatever. And that's as simple as it needs to be,
Speaker 3: and it just does its thing. And I for a
Speaker 3: long time, because I had such little amount in my investments,
Speaker 3: it wasn't fun to like look at them every month,
Speaker 3: so I didn't. I would go several months at a
Speaker 3: time without looking at any of my investments because I
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, cool, three more dollars.
Speaker 8: Kay.
Speaker 3: And now that we've been doing it for so long,
Speaker 3: it is fun to be.
Speaker 4: Like, oh yeah, hell yeah, that looks good.
Speaker 3: But I think it is important to remember that, Like
Speaker 3: it is so accessible to you, and it's really like
Speaker 3: you're in your own head about if it's you know,
Speaker 3: if it feels overwhelming or intimidating, reach out to literally
Speaker 3: any one of us, and we can help you very quickly.
Speaker 1: Looking at like retirement future planning things like that, what
Speaker 1: are the most important steps women should take to ensure
Speaker 1: they're financially secure in retirement? This is like what I Okay,
Speaker 1: so I am a worst case scenario. I'm always spiraling
Speaker 1: the world is ending, I'm going to be poor. I'm terrified.
Speaker 1: Like the number of times a like month I ask
Speaker 1: my husband because I've set my retirement age and then
Speaker 1: I set my husband's much older than mine, and.
Speaker 4: So I did.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, you know, but how do
Speaker 1: I know when I actually stop working, Jake, that I
Speaker 1: will have the same amount of money? And he explains,
Speaker 1: he like comforts me over and over again, but my
Speaker 1: brain does not work that way. So what are some
Speaker 1: important supplemens should take to ensure they're financially secure in retirement?
Speaker 2: Hannah, Yeah, I mean there's there's calculators.
Speaker 7: We built one as well, a retirement calculator. There's a
Speaker 7: lot of assumptions that go into it. So for example,
Speaker 7: your current age as well as what age do you
Speaker 7: want to retire, what age do you want your spouse
Speaker 7: to retire, What age do you think you're going to
Speaker 7: live to. What is the level of expenses that you
Speaker 7: plan to incur in retirement. Do you think you're going
Speaker 7: to have your mortgage? You know, you're probably not going
Speaker 7: to have childcare supporting children anymore, so those expenses will
Speaker 7: fall off. So there's a lot of variables that go
Speaker 7: into this decision, and that's why you really have to
Speaker 7: just kind of massage the numbers a little bit, and
Speaker 7: especially when you're a ways out from retirement, just to
Speaker 7: at least get a gut check of Okay, I feel
Speaker 7: pretty good about this retirement number that I'm planning for
Speaker 7: and this retirement age that I'm planning for, and seeing
Speaker 7: those numbers come to life will help you know, you'll
Speaker 7: be put at ease a little bit more. And then
Speaker 7: as you get closer and closer to retirement, you can
Speaker 7: refine those inputs, you know, as accurate as possible.
Speaker 5: So we also have a software at RBC called Wealth Plan,
Speaker 5: and we build it out for our clients and show
Speaker 5: them not only just the inputs the assumptions to help
Speaker 5: them figure out the retirement lifestyle, but it also build
Speaker 5: in like healthcare costs. It'll factor in if you have
Speaker 5: Social Security that will end up coming in because you
Speaker 5: think about, okay, your paycheck's going to stop, what's gonna
Speaker 5: you know, how are you.
Speaker 4: Going to live?
Speaker 5: And and it really does break it down and actually
Speaker 5: they'll give you a number probability number of are you
Speaker 5: going to meet your goals? You know, the success and
Speaker 5: so it is kind of fun to tweak it and see, okay,
Speaker 5: if we do this.
Speaker 6: Then you know, the probability go up.
Speaker 5: And a lot of times, you know, I work with
Speaker 5: people that you know the probability is like I mean,
Speaker 5: when you're younger, it's okay.
Speaker 6: You know you have time to change it and tweak it.
Speaker 5: As you get closer to the retirement, you want it
Speaker 5: to be obviously higher and closer to eighty percent, But
Speaker 5: you can rerun it anytime, and it does use market assumptions,
Speaker 5: so you can see it change also based on your
Speaker 5: acid allocation, which I think is pretty powerful. So if
Speaker 5: you're thinking about, oh, maybe I want to have a
Speaker 5: little bit more equities, which means I need to invest
Speaker 5: for a little bit longer to ride out some of
Speaker 5: the bumps that you get in the market, you'll see
Speaker 5: the power that that can have, and it helps. It
Speaker 5: helps do like a gut check, like is this too risky?
Speaker 5: You know, can you handle the volatility well? You then
Speaker 5: you can kind of see what would happen if if
Speaker 5: you were able to invest that way.
Speaker 3: Risk is one of those tricky things because I think
Speaker 3: a lot of it again has to do with your
Speaker 3: mindset and your upbringing and what you know about risk
Speaker 3: and what you know about yourself, and so if you're
Speaker 3: an anxious person, I don't think there's any way to
Speaker 3: be like it'll be fine, Like boo boo.
Speaker 4: You know, like it just it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't work that way, I think if we when you're like,
Speaker 3: my favorite way to really is just to root yourself
Speaker 3: in the facts, right. And the facts are over the
Speaker 3: last hundred years of the stock market, right, we are
Speaker 3: looking at like the S and P five hundred, so
Speaker 3: the top five hundred companies in the United States. There's
Speaker 3: an index fund that literally tracks those five hundred companies.
Speaker 3: It's performed at over ten percent, almost eleven percent over
Speaker 3: year over year, right, And this is on average over
Speaker 3: the last one hundred years, fifty years even, And so
Speaker 3: when you can see that like that is that's the likelihood.
Speaker 3: And yes, we're gonna have years like two thousand and
Speaker 3: eight in two thousand and nine where things go down, right,
Speaker 3: and that's that's a part of it. But that's what
Speaker 3: Elizabeth is talking about with with withstanding that volatility, is like,
Speaker 3: if you're a person that that's going to freak out,
Speaker 3: then just like don't look at it. Then you don't
Speaker 3: need to look at it. It's all right. It just
Speaker 3: it that thing, right. But then we kind of a
Speaker 3: year like last year that had twenty four percent gains
Speaker 3: and that was amazing and so that I think you
Speaker 3: know that like in the short term, right, I always say,
Speaker 3: like we are long term investors. We are in it
Speaker 3: for the long haul, because yeah, like I can get
Speaker 3: excited about having a really good year last year, but
Speaker 3: I know that that's probably not going to remain true
Speaker 3: every single.
Speaker 4: Year, year over year. So like, if that, if it's
Speaker 4: going to freak you out to look at it, just don't.
Speaker 5: That's all right, Okay, I have to add one more thing,
Speaker 5: so in terms of market returns and everything. So that
Speaker 5: is one advantage of having a financial advisor or professional
Speaker 5: in your life is that there's so much emotion in investing.
Speaker 5: And if you are investor during twenty twenty or you know,
Speaker 5: you mentioned twenty two eight, you've you've seen your accounts
Speaker 5: go down, and so I think a lot of it,
Speaker 5: especially if you're new to it, is making sure that
Speaker 5: you have somebody there because otherwise, if you're watching it
Speaker 5: and you're watching it go down, you really you know,
Speaker 5: you're not supposed to say, but having somebody else tell
Speaker 5: you that and really kind of hold you accountable and
Speaker 5: talk you off the ledge because it really does happen.
Speaker 5: And if you're getting you know, dipping your hotel in
Speaker 5: the water, and we're championing like invest and do all this.
Speaker 5: It's yes, the last two years have been really nice,
Speaker 5: but you know we've all seen the market do do
Speaker 5: different have different outcomes. So I would just say that
Speaker 5: it is nice to have somebody that can help you
Speaker 5: with that emotional part of it.
Speaker 1: How could people catch up on retirement savings if they
Speaker 1: started late?
Speaker 7: So with a lot of the like your four oh
Speaker 7: one K, your IRA, these tax advantage retirement accounts, they
Speaker 7: have special provisions, especially for people that are age fifty
Speaker 7: year older, that allow you to contribute more than the
Speaker 7: usual amount that you can contribute to those accounts. So
Speaker 7: if you're in that age group, it's really critical to
Speaker 7: try to maximize those But if you're not in the
Speaker 7: fifty plus age group, I mean, just trying to max
Speaker 7: out or contribute as much as you can to those
Speaker 7: retirement accounts now is going to be so helpful to you.
Speaker 7: I mean, again, with a compound interest thing starting now,
Speaker 7: even if it's a little bit, even if you can
Speaker 7: max out the whole account, it's going to be really
Speaker 7: beneficial in the long run.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think no matter what we get in this,
Speaker 3: like we compare ourselves to everyone else around us, right,
Speaker 3: and so this is really amplified with where we're at
Speaker 3: in the world with social media and everything else. And
Speaker 3: so it's so like I'm thirty two and sometimes I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I'm not doing enough, and I'm like.
Speaker 4: Wait, chill out.
Speaker 3: I have literally thirty three years until I'm going to retire.
Speaker 3: It's fine, like more than my right, it's insane, but
Speaker 3: it's so easy to get caught up in that, and
Speaker 3: so like, yes you could. I'm still kicking myself for
Speaker 3: not investing when I was fifteen years old working at
Speaker 3: Plato's closet. Okay, Like, had somebody told me, I would
Speaker 3: have been investing. This whole thing about being like, oh,
Speaker 3: high schoolers don't want to learn about personal finance anyway,
Speaker 3: so we're just not going to teach it to them.
Speaker 3: I was like, no, if I was taught this stuff
Speaker 3: when I was fifteen, I bet your ass I would
Speaker 3: have been investing. But I but I didn't, right, And
Speaker 3: so I didn't start until I was later, which so
Speaker 3: I don't think you know it's ever you're ever gonna
Speaker 3: feel like you're doing it at like the right time
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 4: You are.
Speaker 3: You maybe always feel late, but yeah, I think to
Speaker 3: the to you know, your point Nanda is when you
Speaker 3: can know exactly what it is then that you need
Speaker 3: to where like how much you can actually invest is
Speaker 3: a great place to start.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I mean just just start, just start.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, no time like the present, right, so
Speaker 5: there's always a chance. But yeah, I agree with the
Speaker 5: catch up contributions. Make sure you're looking at that if
Speaker 5: you're over age fifty. And also just think about you know,
Speaker 5: maybe there were some other events in your life that
Speaker 5: you know took funds from you, or you know you
Speaker 5: had some other expenses, So just reevaluating your plan and
Speaker 5: making sure that you know, maybe there's some areas that
Speaker 5: you can take from to start saving again and focusing
Speaker 5: on the retirement so that you don't have to work,
Speaker 5: you know, longer than.
Speaker 6: You want to.
Speaker 1: And not everyone has to like chime in on this
Speaker 1: one necessarily. But you know, one thing, as I do personally,
Speaker 1: as I'm investing a lot of people, you diversify your portfolio.
Speaker 1: I hear this and I'm like, I don't know, okay,
Speaker 1: let's so. But you know a lot of people I
Speaker 1: feel like they find the thing like, for me, I'm
Speaker 1: like doing traditional investing, and but then some people are like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe you.
Speaker 2: Should look at real estate, maybe you should look at this.
Speaker 1: There are so many different options, and I just I
Speaker 1: think I'm kind of curious on your thoughts on that
Speaker 1: in general. And again not everyone has to like chime
Speaker 1: in if you don't have a stance on that, but
Speaker 1: I'm just curious what you think.
Speaker 6: Yeah, excuse me.
Speaker 7: There's a lot of ways that you can diversify your portfolio.
Speaker 7: I think, especially for a beginner, is its best to
Speaker 7: just keep it simple. I mean, you can diversify across
Speaker 7: asset classes, like you could invest in stocks and bonds,
Speaker 7: and then there's diversification across industries and sectors.
Speaker 6: And ways to get diversification is to.
Speaker 7: Buy what we mentioned earlier, the target date funds or
Speaker 7: index funds you like here a lot which are like
Speaker 7: ETFs and mutual funds mean the same thing. So for
Speaker 7: an example, if you were to go and buy the
Speaker 7: Apple stock, that's just one stock, so if Apple goes down,
Speaker 7: you lose money. But if you were to buy an
Speaker 7: hundred index fund, which as we mentioned, is the five
Speaker 7: hundred biggest companies in the United States, they're all in
Speaker 7: this one fund.
Speaker 6: So if a few companies.
Speaker 7: Do poorly, that's okay because there's all these other companies
Speaker 7: in the fund that can balance it out. And so
Speaker 7: that's just the simplest way, especially for beginners.
Speaker 6: To achieve diversification really easily.
Speaker 7: And those funds can be bought with with what's what
Speaker 7: called fractional shares and so you can again buy these
Speaker 7: with as little as one dollar. So really really simple
Speaker 7: and really really easy to do.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 5: No, I mean, obviously I have experienced with lots of
Speaker 5: different investments. You know, we don't really go out and
Speaker 5: help clients buy land or you know, buy a cabin
Speaker 5: or whatever. But yes, I think it there's a percentage
Speaker 5: of your of your net worth or your balance sheet
Speaker 5: that absolutely could be in hard assets in real estate,
Speaker 5: and you know, it helps in maybe times where the
Speaker 5: equity market is going down, so it helps you sleep
Speaker 5: at night frankly, to be just more diversified in general.
Speaker 6: But yes, at.
Speaker 5: RBC specifically, we would have different options that would be
Speaker 5: in funds or in alternative investments.
Speaker 6: So we do.
Speaker 5: We do have options like that available depending on your
Speaker 5: situation and your financial you know, financial net worth and everything.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I think it doesn't make sense to put
Speaker 5: that saying, you know, all your eggs in one basket. Absolutely,
Speaker 5: And if you do get an opportunity to invest in
Speaker 5: you know, a friend's business or you know, as you
Speaker 5: as you accumulate money and you are are privy to
Speaker 5: something like that, I think there's a lot of people
Speaker 5: that have had success investing in private equity, private debt,
Speaker 5: private private investment options that frankly, you know is very
Speaker 5: different type of investing.
Speaker 6: So it depends on your circumstances.
Speaker 3: But yeah, and I think at this point where we
Speaker 3: are getting a little like advanced, if you will, And
Speaker 3: so if you are somebody that's like, I'm new to this,
Speaker 3: like this could already be over your head. And this
Speaker 3: is the part, I think where it actually starts getting
Speaker 3: a little overwhelming if you're if you haven't even started yet, right,
Speaker 3: And so I think just remembering that we all suck
Speaker 3: at being beginners. It doesn't feel fun to be new
Speaker 3: at something. But once you are new and you like
Speaker 3: kind of get over that hump, and then you can
Speaker 3: start building that confidence and then you can branch out
Speaker 3: and then you can start learning more about diversification and
Speaker 3: then you can write like we just bought our first
Speaker 3: investment property, so I'm super excited. But I was really
Speaker 3: nervous to do that because I didn't feel confident in
Speaker 3: my you know, other investments until now, like it's been
Speaker 3: a long time, Like Okay, we have enough, we know.
Speaker 4: We're safe, we're good. Let's see what this whole real estate.
Speaker 3: Endeavor is all about and try that angle, right, But
Speaker 3: it took me a long time to get there. I
Speaker 3: wasn't I didn't wake up one day and say like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm now gonna start investing in real estate and then
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go open some ETFs and index funds and
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go right, Like That's not how it worked.
Speaker 3: I small steps and then you learn, you grow that
Speaker 3: compdence and then you can branch out more.
Speaker 1: What do you think about Okay, I know, like obviously
Speaker 1: there are lots of I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: people are trying to figure out how to get rich quick?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like what can I do
Speaker 1: to get rich quick? And like for a while it
Speaker 1: was like and if you have an Airbnb, I'm not knocking.
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel a lot of people like
Speaker 1: that was like a route they went right, and and
Speaker 1: that's still a successful for a lot of people. And
Speaker 1: but is there I don't even know what my question
Speaker 1: is here? Necessarily, how do I get rich quick? Is
Speaker 1: there an answer to getting rich quick on top of
Speaker 1: the slow investment portion?
Speaker 4: No? If you answer, oh, Hannah, has it hang on hand?
Speaker 6: Hannah, has it?
Speaker 2: Okay? Good?
Speaker 6: Good?
Speaker 7: There's no guarantee to get rich quick, obviously, but there's
Speaker 7: levels of risk to investing. So there's a very conservative
Speaker 7: risk levels and investing and very risky levels. And obviously,
Speaker 7: if you're taking on a lot of risk, there's a
Speaker 7: lot of potential to make a lot of money, but
Speaker 7: there's also a lot of potential to lose all of
Speaker 7: your money, so and vice versa. When you're taking a
Speaker 7: less amount of risk, like bonds are historically less risky,
Speaker 7: you're not going to earn as much because you're not
Speaker 7: taking on.
Speaker 6: As much risk.
Speaker 7: So it's this spectrum that you're kind of on the
Speaker 7: sliding scale. And you know, when you're hearing about people
Speaker 7: getting rich quick, they might have and it's because they
Speaker 7: took a lot of risk to get there.
Speaker 1: I do want to start opening it up, and these
Speaker 1: can be very like I said, personal questions. Mine are
Speaker 1: kind of broad questions obviously, but I want everyone to
Speaker 1: feel comfortable to ask personal ones. I told you to
Speaker 1: bring questions. You don't have to. I never will call
Speaker 1: on anyone, so don't worry. But did anyone want to
Speaker 1: kick us.
Speaker 2: Off and ask?
Speaker 1: Ah? Yes, we love the first person who's willing to
Speaker 1: dive in.
Speaker 9: I love it, Okay, perfect, thank you so much for
Speaker 9: having this night and everything like that. One of the
Speaker 9: biggest questions I have is like, I have my company
Speaker 9: matched retirement account. So I've been doing that, you know,
Speaker 9: for like eight years now, and I finally opened a
Speaker 9: high yield savings account. I like downloaded the robin Hood app.
Speaker 9: I don't know, we'll see, maybe I'll do fidelity instead.
Speaker 9: But I really have put on my twenty twenty five
Speaker 9: Bingo card that I want to meet with like a
Speaker 9: financial planner or a financial advisor, and I don't even
Speaker 9: know like how to start, and so I just saved
Speaker 9: the Instagram post with all of your lady's info, so
Speaker 9: I feel like that might.
Speaker 6: Be step one.
Speaker 9: But I'm also so scared about, like if I do
Speaker 9: a brokerage account and all of a sudden I need
Speaker 9: to take money out now, Do I need a tax
Speaker 9: advisor because like I use TurboTax for taxes, and so
Speaker 9: is it like a financial advisor? A wealth management? Like
Speaker 9: I don't have wealth, but can I see a wealth manager?
Speaker 9: Is it a CPA? Can one person be all of
Speaker 9: those things? Do I need to kind of have somebody
Speaker 9: for my taxes plus my financial planning? And kind of
Speaker 9: how would you recommend trying to go down that path?
Speaker 6: And do I have to pay you? Or like how
Speaker 6: how do you all say?
Speaker 4: Fair question?
Speaker 2: Fair question? Yeah, whoever wants to dive in first, go ahead.
Speaker 3: I will happily start on this one. All right, So
Speaker 3: yes and no to everything you said? Then it depends
Speaker 3: a therapist's favorite answer. Yeah, So I think it's a
Speaker 3: really good question as far as all the things, yes,
Speaker 3: get fidelity.
Speaker 4: That would be the first thing I said, got it.
Speaker 3: I think that really it starts with educating yourself right,
Speaker 3: and I think as women like I kind of hate
Speaker 3: this word because it's so overused now, but like truly
Speaker 3: to like empower yourself to like know what like you
Speaker 3: can do right? And if I think it really depends
Speaker 3: on how complex your situation is, you may not have
Speaker 3: wealth right now, but eventually you will, right, And so
Speaker 3: I think when you're starting, I personally think that like,
Speaker 3: you can certainly invest right now on your own. You
Speaker 3: don't need to pay somebody to do so. And if
Speaker 3: you want to pay somebody, then certainly you can do that,
Speaker 3: but be very cognizant of the pay structures and the
Speaker 3: fee structures when it comes to investing.
Speaker 4: I had to fire my financial.
Speaker 3: Advisor because he was literally taking all of my money
Speaker 3: and I was like, sir, you're gone, goodbye. So I
Speaker 3: think understanding that there are like hourly people that you
Speaker 3: can pay right like, if you don't know what you
Speaker 3: are paying, this is for everyone. If you don't know
Speaker 3: what you are paying your financial professional, that's a problem.
Speaker 3: And historically that actually has been a problem with these
Speaker 3: things called AUMs and it's assets under management, and they're
Speaker 3: not transparent in the fees that they are charging you
Speaker 3: and how it all goes. So if you can find
Speaker 3: somebody with like a flat hourly rate, which you certainly can,
Speaker 3: that is fantastic. Then when it comes to like taxes
Speaker 3: and things, if you again have like a relatively non
Speaker 3: complex issue turbo tax it up, right, But if you
Speaker 3: are ready for a point where somebody can like you
Speaker 3: can pay somebody and they're gonna end up saving you,
Speaker 3: you know, way more down the road. And that's often
Speaker 3: what I tell well most women is like take a year,
Speaker 3: take twenty twenty five to be your year, to learn
Speaker 3: how finances work, to like read the books, to ingest
Speaker 3: all the podcast information that you can, right, make this
Speaker 3: year a little bit harder for yourself, and then figure
Speaker 3: out along the way who your support people are going
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 4: You guys might have different answers, but that's kind of.
Speaker 1: Lind Say, do you have a book or a podcast
Speaker 1: off the top of your head that you'd recommend for that.
Speaker 3: Yes, so my podcast Financial Self Care with financial Therapist Lindsay,
Speaker 3: come on over.
Speaker 4: And then my favorite. I have a few a few
Speaker 4: books that I love. One is called Your Money or
Speaker 4: Your Life.
Speaker 3: I love that book. It's great start there. The other
Speaker 3: one is I Will Teach You to Be Rich by
Speaker 3: Remit Sati. Really good book, really really good. So those
Speaker 3: are the top two probably that I'd.
Speaker 2: Say, all right, Hannah or Elizabeth wantapen.
Speaker 7: I mean, I totally underscore everything that you just said.
Speaker 7: I think it all starts with education. Circling back to
Speaker 7: my first comment, you know, you can.
Speaker 6: Hire all the people to help you with all the.
Speaker 7: Things, but if you don't have a basic level of
Speaker 7: understanding of what's going on, you're not going to really
Speaker 7: be able to be your own.
Speaker 6: Best self advocate.
Speaker 7: So I totally agree learning how to invest is critical.
Speaker 7: I created an investing for beginner's course. I would honestly
Speaker 7: love to have all of you in it. I meet
Speaker 7: with my cohort of people in the course every single month,
Speaker 7: live for an hour.
Speaker 6: Usually it goes longer.
Speaker 7: Because there's just lots of questions, but it's just building
Speaker 7: that confidence.
Speaker 6: Again.
Speaker 7: I want you to leave the course feeling empowered to
Speaker 7: make those decisions and then, sure, if you feel like
Speaker 7: it's the right choice to go hire a professional and advisor,
Speaker 7: a tax accountant, you know, whatever it may.
Speaker 6: Be, that's great.
Speaker 7: But at least you're empowered with the decisions there and
Speaker 7: knowing what you're paying for those people to help you.
Speaker 7: And realistically, investing is very easy once you learn the basics.
Speaker 7: It truly is so easy. Everybody can do it. It
Speaker 7: just we've been taught our whole life that investing is
Speaker 7: hard and scary and oh my gosh, I just need
Speaker 7: to have somebody else do it for me.
Speaker 6: You can do it. I believe in you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you're on the right track. And great
Speaker 5: job saving in your four one K and I think
Speaker 5: just don't rush into anything, you know, like I said,
Speaker 5: ask your trusted friends, you know, family, There's got to
Speaker 5: be somebody that a coworker, you know, just figure out
Speaker 5: who do they use and why do they use them?
Speaker 5: You know, what is that person doing for them? How
Speaker 5: is that person adding value? You know you want it
Speaker 5: to be. I'm sure everyone up here you want it
Speaker 5: to be a mutual fit. Right. You know, we're as
Speaker 5: much investing in you as you are in us, and
Speaker 5: we want you to succeed as much as you want
Speaker 5: to succeed. And everyone of you know, the client families
Speaker 5: that I work with, that that's how I feel.
Speaker 6: So you know, it's it's our time.
Speaker 5: And and maybe you know there's different levels of advisor
Speaker 5: and different levels of wealth management. Yes, if you do invest,
Speaker 5: you would need a tax advisor to help you with
Speaker 5: capital gains or whatever.
Speaker 6: You're on the right track with that.
Speaker 5: It might not just be as simple as turbot tax eventually,
Speaker 5: but do it while you can. I did do TurboTax
Speaker 5: a couple of years and it really freaked me out.
Speaker 6: So but good for you.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I would say just to try to ask,
Speaker 5: you know, people that you trust and friends for recommendations,
Speaker 5: because we actually get a lot of our clients from
Speaker 5: our existing clients, get a lot of referrals just because
Speaker 5: in this industry it's so personal who you connect with
Speaker 5: and how you relate to them, and so a lot
Speaker 5: of times it's just word of mouth.
Speaker 6: Frankly.
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, there's absolutely tons of education resources available,
Speaker 5: you know, if you go or you know, tons of podcasts,
Speaker 5: but and I don't I could tell you later. I'm
Speaker 5: not going to throughout some right now, but but yeah
Speaker 5: I would echo that, just don't rush into it.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 9: Okay, I'm gonna say, do you have anything else? No,
Speaker 9: I just want somebody to tell me what to do.
Speaker 9: But thank you for reminding me that I can do
Speaker 9: it myself.
Speaker 2: I'm the same way you can do it.
Speaker 6: I have a question about prioritization.
Speaker 10: I think, as someone with add as soon as something
Speaker 10: gets challenging, I just avoid.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 10: I'm thinking about the six months of saving alongside investing
Speaker 10: alongside budgeting, and I think where I get a little
Speaker 10: tripped up is I worry that not worry, But I
Speaker 10: think what I focus on is that building up six
Speaker 10: months of savings feels really slow and arduous, and so
Speaker 10: I sort of wonder, is there should I be investing
Speaker 10: to save? Also, like should I be putting money in
Speaker 10: a four one K puts together uh yes, a roth
Speaker 10: ira to get to my six month savings? Like should
Speaker 10: I be just putting a small amount each month to
Speaker 10: get me to six months? Like what it feels like
Speaker 10: I should be focusing on the savings first, but I'm
Speaker 10: also focusing on the investing. And I fortunately do have
Speaker 10: a four to one K at work that you know,
Speaker 10: just comes out automatically, but I tend to overcorrect, and
Speaker 10: so what I would probably do is be like, Okay,
Speaker 10: I need to put half my paycheck into a savings
Speaker 10: account and then I'm going to try to live on
Speaker 10: the other half. But then I'll end up pulling money
Speaker 10: out of the savings and then at the end of
Speaker 10: the month, I actually didn't save anything, so I'm not
Speaker 10: like actually making any steps forward, and then I go
Speaker 10: back to square one. So that is just sort of
Speaker 10: like what I've spent my whole life doing.
Speaker 2: You are thinking to a lot of people everyone.
Speaker 6: It's really all about baby steps.
Speaker 7: I kind of have this like map in my head,
Speaker 7: so I like to have people start with a one
Speaker 7: thousand dollars emergency fund. Regardless of where you're at. If
Speaker 7: you don't have a thousand dollars, like, something is always
Speaker 7: going to come up and it's just guaranteed. So having
Speaker 7: that one thousand dollars set aside, while it might not
Speaker 7: cover the whole emergency if it's a big one, at
Speaker 7: least it's something to help you avoid going into credit
Speaker 7: card debt if that emergency does pop up. So once
Speaker 7: you have that set aside, which you can get one
Speaker 7: thousand dollars pretty quick, like if you're really focused on
Speaker 7: saving one thousand dollars, you can get that knocked off.
Speaker 7: Then I have people look at their debt and looking
Speaker 7: at it, like we said earlier, at the interest rates
Speaker 7: that are the highest.
Speaker 6: So if you have debt that's.
Speaker 7: Higher than ten percent interest rate, it's kind of my
Speaker 7: fluctuation point.
Speaker 6: I really want.
Speaker 7: To prioritize having that get paid down as quick as possible,
Speaker 7: because that's just going to be eating away at any
Speaker 7: of your saving or investing goals, and then once you
Speaker 7: have that high interest rate debt knocked out, you can
Speaker 7: go back and kind of beef up that emergency fund
Speaker 7: a bit more to get to that three to six
Speaker 7: month of savings and it doesn't have to be like
Speaker 7: six months of total savings on a regular year. I
Speaker 7: like to think of an emergency fund as your required
Speaker 7: expenses if shit had really hit the fan, Like, what
Speaker 7: are the required necessary expenses for you to survive and
Speaker 7: live your life, And that's going to be less than
Speaker 7: all the fun, frilly things that you're spending money on.
Speaker 6: Like you'll easily be able to cut those things out
Speaker 6: if things are not going well.
Speaker 7: And so once you get to that three to six
Speaker 7: months whatever you're comfortable with, that's when you can really
Speaker 7: start making the decision for yourself of do I want
Speaker 7: to pay down other debt that might be lower interest rate,
Speaker 7: or do I want to start investing. There's kind of
Speaker 7: this decision with the lower interest rates. It could go
Speaker 7: either way, and it really depends on the person and
Speaker 7: how you feel about having debt. Some people it's like
Speaker 7: the debt is just so psychologically draining that it doesn't
Speaker 7: matter how low the interest rate is. It kills them
Speaker 7: to have the debt. And in those situations, I'm like,
Speaker 7: just just pay off the debt then if it's really
Speaker 7: like weighing you down that much. But then on the
Speaker 7: flip side, there's other people who, you know, if they
Speaker 7: have a three four percent interest rate on their debt,
Speaker 7: they're like, it doesn't bother me. And in those situations,
Speaker 7: it's like, sure, go ahead, let's start investing in the
Speaker 7: roth ira, the brokerage, you know, whatever it is.
Speaker 6: You'll start investing based on your unique goals.
Speaker 7: So you could be investing for goals that are five
Speaker 7: to ten years away, or investing for goals that are
Speaker 7: thirty years away, or you know, longer if it's retirement.
Speaker 7: So that's how I break it down. I don't want
Speaker 7: you to think about it like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 7: have to go do all this at once. It's like,
Speaker 7: these are the steps. Just take one little step and
Speaker 7: then keep going.
Speaker 10: And just a quick question, is a roth iray is
Speaker 10: an investment account, it's not. You're not saving, Yes, high
Speaker 10: yield it is a savings account, but you're getting over Yes.
Speaker 7: I love high yield saves accounts. I talk about them
Speaker 7: all the time. Savings is a high heeld savings account
Speaker 7: is just like a traditional savings account.
Speaker 6: It's just that there's not.
Speaker 7: A lot of brick and mortar locations, so they don't
Speaker 7: have to pay the cost of maintaining a building. So
Speaker 7: then that company can then go and pass on that
Speaker 7: savings to the customers in the form of higher interest.
Speaker 6: Rates, which is great.
Speaker 7: And these highield savings accounts are fgic ensured just like
Speaker 7: traditional savings accounts are, so it's a great place to
Speaker 7: store your emergency fund or go that you have in
Speaker 7: the near term. But yeah, then wroth ira is an
Speaker 7: investment account, and so a lot of people also get
Speaker 7: confused with the idea of an account and the idea
Speaker 7: of an investment. A wroth araa is simply on its own,
Speaker 7: just an empty account. You have to buy investments to
Speaker 7: go inside the.
Speaker 6: Wroth ira.
Speaker 7: And so there's all these layers to it. But that's
Speaker 7: that's a simplified way of describing it.
Speaker 1: Since highyield savings is separate from like your typical bank,
Speaker 1: are there certain ones you would recommend number one, number
Speaker 1: two when you're starting to pull let's say, or Wells Fargo.
Speaker 1: You're starting to pull all your savings out to go
Speaker 1: put it high yield as well as Fargo gonna be like, wait,
Speaker 1: we will give you that also, or.
Speaker 7: No, get out of get out of Wells Fargo.
Speaker 6: We're sounds here. Wells Fargo is like the worst bank
Speaker 6: on the plant.
Speaker 2: Oh great to hear, Yes, love that? Okay.
Speaker 1: So what are like high yield savings bennies that you
Speaker 1: like go to?
Speaker 6: So there's so many good funds.
Speaker 7: I always tell people like, don't spend more than thirty
Speaker 7: minutes researching high yield saves accounts. They're all so similar.
Speaker 7: Just pick one and move on. Learn how to invest.
Speaker 7: Spend your time doing that instead.
Speaker 6: But I use Ally, I've used it for years.
Speaker 7: I'm not affiliated in any way, but I think they're great.
Speaker 7: They have these savings bocket features so you can visualize
Speaker 7: the things that you're saving for inside the account, which
Speaker 7: is really nice. But I know that other high old
Speaker 7: savings accounts do the same. I don't know if you
Speaker 7: guys have any.
Speaker 3: Other I use Ally as well, love them. And I
Speaker 3: actually from like the so again therapist's brain because of
Speaker 3: the buckets that you were just talking about. From a
Speaker 3: behavioral side of things. It makes like saving that much easier.
Speaker 3: It is because like it's so visually appealing and motivating,
Speaker 3: and so I like that because for me, I'm willing
Speaker 3: to forego like zero point two person debt Marcus or
Speaker 3: like wherever a different you know place is for the
Speaker 3: aspect of like I'm actually gonna use this savings account
Speaker 3: and I'm going to use it in a way that's
Speaker 3: going to like help me accomplish my goals, and especially
Speaker 3: with like your brain is my favorite brain.
Speaker 4: I love a good ADHD brain. Me too.
Speaker 3: Most of my clients also were just like over here
Speaker 3: confused about you know, neurotypical stuff.
Speaker 4: But because of that is actually is exactly why I
Speaker 4: like it.
Speaker 3: It actually makes it really really easy and it's like
Speaker 3: comfortable for our brains.
Speaker 5: You don't have anything analysts, but you don't have to
Speaker 5: deal with well no, I would just say two things.
Speaker 5: One on the emergency savings, just to clarify, that is
Speaker 5: something very liquid like money market cash, you know, something
Speaker 5: that's not invested because you want it to be safe
Speaker 5: and secure and not exposed to any sort of market
Speaker 5: risk or whatever. Just to clarify, we're talking about like
Speaker 5: basic like savings, not sort of separate from we've been
Speaker 5: through not a lot of terms, but supared from like
Speaker 5: an investment account that's not in a retirement bucket. Okay,
Speaker 5: So I just want to clarify that, and then on
Speaker 5: just the high yield question.
Speaker 6: So interest rates.
Speaker 5: Right now are at a very different level than they
Speaker 5: were a few years ago, so you'd probably be surprised
Speaker 5: if you did ask your bank if there's ways to
Speaker 5: get an extra interest. I know at RBC there are
Speaker 5: some higher yielding just regular money market sweeps, so like
Speaker 5: shockingly high. So just make sure you're looking into that,
Speaker 5: all right. Who else is a question?
Speaker 1: Perfect, I'll give it to you and then you can
Speaker 1: pass it down when you're finished.
Speaker 8: Okay, Hi, thanks so much for this forum. I think
Speaker 8: this is incredible. So my question to you is if
Speaker 8: each of you could walk through, like, what would a
Speaker 8: first meeting look like? I think there's a huge hurdle
Speaker 8: for a lot maybe just me, but a lot of
Speaker 8: us to take step. You know, when we're looking at
Speaker 8: our finances. You know I come from I have I
Speaker 8: had a recent divorce and you know, had a financial
Speaker 8: advisor that was a buddy of my husbands or my
Speaker 8: ex husbands and you know, it's like, Okay, well, how
Speaker 8: would I take that step for myself? And I think
Speaker 8: it would be helpful for a lot of us to
Speaker 8: understand what does it look like when we come and
Speaker 8: meet with you. Is there a consultation, what information would
Speaker 8: we need to bring or you know, like what what
Speaker 8: questions are good questions to ask if we do meet
Speaker 8: with someone?
Speaker 4: What a good question?
Speaker 3: Yes, So I do fifteen minute consultations free and just
Speaker 3: make sure that I have an understanding of what you
Speaker 3: need and that I would be a good fit for you.
Speaker 3: And then for me, I have kind of two different
Speaker 3: avenues that I take people down. One is like the
Speaker 3: true kind of true form of therapy or money coaching, right,
Speaker 3: which is our initial session is an eighty minute session,
Speaker 3: and that's where we I call it like your present problem, right,
Speaker 3: so like tell me more about like what's going on
Speaker 3: presently in your life, what's what's like you know, high
Speaker 3: priority for you to figure out all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: I think the thing that people don't hear often enough
Speaker 3: is that your money habits are established by the time
Speaker 3: you're ten years old. And so there's a research out
Speaker 3: of the University of Michigan on this, and so I
Speaker 3: think it's really important to look back and understand again
Speaker 3: those money messages that you received while growing up. And
Speaker 3: so we start going through kind of the timeline of
Speaker 3: your life, like tell me, you know what comes to
Speaker 3: mind when you when I ask you about how you
Speaker 3: grew up around money, and so that first session is
Speaker 3: kind of focused on that and giving me like the
Speaker 3: timeline of your life up until now what's going on.
Speaker 3: I assign homework. So usually at that point we you
Speaker 3: walk away, I give you an assignment for goals, so
Speaker 3: short term, mid term, long term goals. You'll come back.
Speaker 3: We talk about those. I call them your north stars.
Speaker 3: Those are now your guiding lights for how we're gonna
Speaker 3: set up our work together and how you're going to
Speaker 3: start making purchasing decisions. Next se and then we get
Speaker 3: into and then we shift into hours, so fifty minutes
Speaker 3: after that, we just go session based session session and
Speaker 3: then we get into the numbers pretty quick. And I
Speaker 3: have what's called my intentional Spending Planner, and you can
Speaker 3: fill that out on your own, or if you need,
Speaker 3: you know, a little bit of help filling it out.
Speaker 3: I can certainly help with that. But that's a percentage
Speaker 3: based breakdown, and I use a sixty ten ten twenty
Speaker 3: model kind of what we were talking about on a
Speaker 3: budget earlier fifty to thirty twenty, but I do sixty
Speaker 3: ten ten twenty. And then we talk about what changes
Speaker 3: you need to be making. We start making those like
Speaker 3: habit changes, and then in that you know, are you
Speaker 3: ready to start investing? What do we need to be
Speaker 3: doing to fill kind of those buckets? And then from
Speaker 3: there I downshift into like bi weekly or monthly meetings,
Speaker 3: and then I put you on what's called maintenance, and
Speaker 3: then you spread your wings and fly. I'm a short
Speaker 3: term solutions focused, short term solution focus brief therapist, so
Speaker 3: I'm very like, let's get you in, and I think
Speaker 3: it's a important to hear what your past, what happened
Speaker 3: in your past.
Speaker 4: But I don't sit there. I don't do like deep
Speaker 4: inner child work.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing like family system stuff, but again I
Speaker 3: think it's important part of the process. And then the
Speaker 3: second avenue is if it feels more aligned for somebody,
Speaker 3: I do a two hour deep dive where I actually
Speaker 3: send you ahead of time that intentional spending planner, and
Speaker 3: we forego there's a couple of clients that I've had
Speaker 3: that are just like, I don't really like my upbringing
Speaker 3: was fine. There was not a lot of trauma there.
Speaker 3: It wasn't, you know. And they're and I'm like, okay, cool,
Speaker 3: and they just really want like the numbers stuff. So
Speaker 3: then we do that together where we do some planning.
Speaker 3: Like I said, you fill out the spending planner ahead
Speaker 3: of time, we come back, we talk it over, we
Speaker 3: make a solid plan for what is on your goals,
Speaker 3: and those goals are part of that spending planner, and
Speaker 3: then you go on your merry way, and I send
Speaker 3: you an action plan that we came up with together,
Speaker 3: you know, and then when you need me again in
Speaker 3: six months, a year or whatever, then you can call
Speaker 3: me and my door's always open. But that's kind of
Speaker 3: how my stuff were. Oh and price transparency, I already
Speaker 3: said it is very important. The two hour deep dive
Speaker 3: is three forty nine. The like actual therapy side of
Speaker 3: stuff for an eighty minute session is two forty nine,
Speaker 3: and then all subsequent fifty minute sessions are one forty nine.
Speaker 4: That was a lot. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, Elizabeth.
Speaker 5: Okay, So I my team has set up just a
Speaker 5: little bit differently, and we're probably in the category which
Speaker 5: you would think of us as long term advisors and
Speaker 5: we're honestly hired to give investment advice, but we're also
Speaker 5: you know, we have a certified financial planner on our team.
Speaker 5: I also do financial planning.
Speaker 6: I just don't have the CFP yet, but I have
Speaker 6: my MBA.
Speaker 5: But this, the planning process is going to be our
Speaker 5: once we you know, kind of see if we're going
Speaker 5: to be a good fit. That's going to be our
Speaker 5: main intro to working with us and kind of getting
Speaker 5: the pieces in place so that we can advise on
Speaker 5: your situation and your balance sheet as in total, so
Speaker 5: especially if you're working through life changes like a divorce
Speaker 5: or something like that. But again, I think think of
Speaker 5: my team or RBC in general as like a long
Speaker 5: term investment solution, and we really do work with people
Speaker 5: through you know, life cycles and deaths and inheriting money
Speaker 5: and kind of all the different cycles that people go
Speaker 5: through with their money. But yeah, meeting with us is
Speaker 5: you know, it's complimentary until you would engage us, and
Speaker 5: then there's you know, fee schedules and things like that
Speaker 5: that we would give you even just in an initial meeting.
Speaker 6: I don't know if I want to get into that here.
Speaker 5: It might be Yeah, it's a little more complicated, but
Speaker 5: because it has to do with kind of how you're
Speaker 5: investing in your different situation, but hopefully that gives you
Speaker 5: kind of a.
Speaker 6: High level Yeah.
Speaker 8: One follow up question to that, so with the financial
Speaker 8: advising and having a firm, is there access to resources
Speaker 8: like a state planning if you need advice.
Speaker 5: Or yes, great, that's like an advanced question here, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 5: they're absolutely. I have personally, I have you know, a
Speaker 5: lot of estate planning attorneys that we work with and
Speaker 5: in house. There are some resources that we can utilize. Absolutely.
Speaker 5: We are not you know, CPAs obviously, but we work
Speaker 5: very closely with CPA firms as well.
Speaker 6: So yeah, that's a huge part of it.
Speaker 5: And I don't know if it's come up yet, but
Speaker 5: in addition to retirement planning, a lot of what women
Speaker 5: need to think about is what if something were to
Speaker 5: happen to us and our kids and kind of that
Speaker 5: that side of it, redoing your wills and getting some
Speaker 5: trust in place and things, maybe you know, thinking about
Speaker 5: protection as well. So absolutely, and we do we do
Speaker 5: have avenues that you might have heard of, like life
Speaker 5: Life insurance and some other a state planning tactics.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 7: Then I'm a little bit different, so I I am
Speaker 7: more on the education side of things. I don't actually
Speaker 7: meet one on one with individuals, but all of my
Speaker 7: products are kind of go at your own pace educational.
Speaker 7: So I have the investing for Beginner's course, which is
Speaker 7: really my biggest full blow and like start to finish course.
Speaker 7: Then I have a debt payoff plan that's really been
Speaker 7: kind of like our.
Speaker 6: Flagship product for several years that.
Speaker 7: People have used and you can use it to payoff
Speaker 7: d It's either Noball method or Avalanche Method. It's super
Speaker 7: customizable and that's just an Excel download that you can
Speaker 7: again fill it out at your own pace. And then
Speaker 7: we have our version of a financial plan budget, if
Speaker 7: you will.
Speaker 6: We call it the cash Dash.
Speaker 7: And it really helps align your savings and investing goals.
Speaker 6: And we really like to take the approach of.
Speaker 7: Having things be oriented than having the focus on like
Speaker 7: the netpicky little expenses that people fight about in a
Speaker 7: budget and personally paid budgeting. I've I've budget over the
Speaker 7: years and we've just found that having a financial plan
Speaker 7: that's more goal oriented seems to be the one that
Speaker 7: we come back to the most. So those are three
Speaker 7: resources right now that you can download at anytime.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much.
Speaker 11: Hi, I'm gonna take it back to basics. It's a
Speaker 11: very specific question, but maybe somebody else can relate to it.
Speaker 11: So in my situation, my husband and I have a
Speaker 11: common account where we contribute equally for paying bills as
Speaker 11: well as short term like changes to the house or
Speaker 11: any other projects that we have. What would be the
Speaker 11: best format to have that in Currently it's just a
Speaker 11: checking account at a bank. It doesn't cost anything to
Speaker 11: take money out, but it doesn't grow either.
Speaker 6: Is there a better way to do that?
Speaker 4: Or that's it?
Speaker 6: What did you say? The savings is being used for.
Speaker 11: Bills, and we also put some extra cash in there
Speaker 11: for like a project that we want to have as
Speaker 11: renovating our house, so pretty significant chunks go in there
Speaker 11: every month, but it doesn't grow, And is there a
Speaker 11: better way to do that?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I mean I like to have a checking account with
Speaker 7: a just small buffer in there to pay for any
Speaker 7: bills that are connected to the account, and then any.
Speaker 6: Goals like really goals.
Speaker 7: Where I'm going to be using the money in the
Speaker 7: next two to three years, and my emergency fund. I
Speaker 7: put all of that in my high yield savings account
Speaker 7: that we talked about, and then you can just easily
Speaker 7: transfer money from your high ye old savings to your
Speaker 7: checking whenever you need to.
Speaker 6: Use those funds.
Speaker 11: And that was going to be my follow up question
Speaker 11: with a high yelled account.
Speaker 6: With the risks?
Speaker 11: What would be one of the risks with those type
Speaker 11: of accounts. So, is in my understanding that when you
Speaker 11: put money in there, you at least half after a
Speaker 11: year or so, at least have that amount of money
Speaker 11: that you started with irrespectable? What happens in the market?
Speaker 11: Is that correct assumption?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I mean you're not investing your money in a high
Speaker 7: yield savings Your most high old savings accounts are FDIC
Speaker 7: insured up to two hundred and fifty thousand. A lot
Speaker 7: of them actually increase that insurance to like two million.
Speaker 7: So your money is going to be safe in there
Speaker 7: if you're at that, you know, wherever you're opening an
Speaker 7: account is FDIC injured.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I just have my Intentional Spending Planner. It's compatible
Speaker 3: with Google sheets and then I actually just keep the
Speaker 3: Google Sheets app on my phone, and so if I
Speaker 3: need to plug things into it, I do. I'm a
Speaker 3: little bit more like I don't like if I'm like
Speaker 3: out running errands, I'm not going to take the time
Speaker 3: to like sit in my car and like plug in
Speaker 3: my stuff. I actually do what's called a money date
Speaker 3: every Tuesday morning and for twenty minutes. It literally that's
Speaker 3: all it takes me is I go back through and
Speaker 3: I'm like, Okay, what did I spend on my card
Speaker 3: over the last week, and then I plug them in
Speaker 3: and so that's how I track it that way. If
Speaker 3: there is an app that I would choose, I've heard
Speaker 3: really good things about Monarch. I personally don't use it,
Speaker 3: but I know a lot of people like it. So
Speaker 3: that's what I would say about that. I was gonna
Speaker 3: say Monarch as well.
Speaker 7: And I've actually used co Pilot Money, and if I
Speaker 7: was going to choose any that was the one that.
Speaker 6: I would use to budget.
Speaker 7: It's super user friendly and I just really like the interface.
Speaker 12: Hi guys, So just one question I have is if
Speaker 12: my company matches both a traditional for one K and
Speaker 12: a roth for one deferred, is there a better account,
Speaker 12: Like I know, I believe for one deferred is seven
Speaker 12: thousand max for a one K traditional twenty three K.
Speaker 12: I'm not maxing out both of those for sure, but
Speaker 12: you know, is there is it better to do? Like
Speaker 12: matching both in the four to one traditional and in
Speaker 12: the four to one deferred, or maybe just maxing out
Speaker 12: in the deferred and then if I am able to
Speaker 12: max out, start putting into the traditional.
Speaker 6: Will they match you in both? Correct? But you have
Speaker 6: to pick no.
Speaker 12: I can put in in both, So right now I'm split,
Speaker 12: but I don't know if that's the best route.
Speaker 7: So I always like to contribute enough to get my
Speaker 7: full match. So if that's contributing to both accounts to
Speaker 7: get that full match, I mean that is part.
Speaker 6: Of your compensation.
Speaker 7: And if you're not contributing in the full match in
Speaker 7: either account, then you're just leaving money on the table.
Speaker 7: I usually tend to get the full match in my
Speaker 7: four oh one K. Then I like to jump over
Speaker 7: to other accounts like an IRA or even an HSA
Speaker 7: and contribute to those because those type of great tax
Speaker 7: advantages as well. And then if there's more money that
Speaker 7: I still have to invest, I'll go back to my
Speaker 7: four oh one K and contribute more to max it
Speaker 7: out if there's enough funds to do so, Okay, he'll
Speaker 7: answer your question.
Speaker 12: I think so, So stick to one and see how
Speaker 12: much I would.
Speaker 7: I would try to get the full match in both. Okay,
Speaker 7: not it.
Speaker 5: You definitely get the full match and the roth Burro
Speaker 5: one k. I don't know how you guys feel, but
Speaker 5: that is like magic. That's so cool. Not everyone offers
Speaker 5: those I would one percent do that. It's automatic on
Speaker 5: your paycheck, which is amazing.
Speaker 6: We all want automated.
Speaker 5: It's after tax money, so now you're creating you know,
Speaker 5: a separate hate the word, but a separate bucket from
Speaker 5: your four one k, so eventually you've already paid tax
Speaker 5: on it. It's easier to use that money down the road.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I love to do that.
Speaker 12: Okay, and then sorry, can I just ask one other question?
Speaker 12: H kind of I think one of you two talked
Speaker 12: about it, but financial advisors, if you guys could just
Speaker 12: and if you're in the maintenance phase of your financial advisor,
Speaker 12: you're meeting with them once a year, once a whatever,
Speaker 12: one question that you guys would recommend us asking every
Speaker 12: time we meet, looking into those future goals, hit me
Speaker 12: with them one question.
Speaker 7: I'm not a financial advisor, but I think what's really
Speaker 7: really important is always understanding what fees you're paying, both
Speaker 7: to the advisor as well as the fees on the
Speaker 7: actual investments themselves, So constantly getting a solid understanding of that,
Speaker 7: and then also just reiterating and matching your goals. Your
Speaker 7: unique goals are probably always changing your short term goals
Speaker 7: and long term goals, and really bringing that up each
Speaker 7: time you're meeting with your advisor to ensure that your
Speaker 7: goals are being invest you're investing appropriately to match your goals, because,
Speaker 7: for example, if you're investing for thirty years away, you
Speaker 7: may be willing to take on a lot more risk
Speaker 7: because there's a lot longer of a time horizon for
Speaker 7: the market to recover if there was a downturn, Whereas
Speaker 7: if you're investing right now for goals that are five
Speaker 7: years away, you might not be willing to take on
Speaker 7: very much risk because if there was a downturn in
Speaker 7: the market, all of a sudden, the funds could be
Speaker 7: gone and that have the money.
Speaker 6: For your goals.
Speaker 7: So I always try to keep these conversations as goal
Speaker 7: oriented as possible. And make sure that the advisor is
Speaker 7: investing according to your goals.
Speaker 2: Okay, no, that's helpful, thank you.
Speaker 3: I think one thing too that I have learned over
Speaker 3: the years is like, to your point, your goals are
Speaker 3: always changing, so I think it's great to keep a
Speaker 3: pulse on that.
Speaker 4: I would say if you're if you're working.
Speaker 3: With somebody like like just so you guys know with
Speaker 3: your four to oh one k, right, your your funds
Speaker 3: are tied up until you're fifty nine and a half.
Speaker 3: Same with a wrath ira so and then but then
Speaker 3: you have like a brokerage account that you have access
Speaker 3: to that anytime.
Speaker 4: It's not tax advantage, so you're not you know.
Speaker 3: So it's nice to like have these different options, and
Speaker 3: so it's your your initial question of like is four
Speaker 3: o one K better?
Speaker 4: Is Wrath better or whatever?
Speaker 3: I like to have kind of it everywhere, just because
Speaker 3: like you never know what life is gonna throw at
Speaker 3: you at and sometimes you're like, oh, I you know,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna work until I'm sixty and that's totally fine.
Speaker 3: And then you get to fifty five and you're like fuck,
Speaker 3: like I don't want this, but but you know, and
Speaker 3: and if you had told me five years ago that
Speaker 3: I was gonna go through being a stay at home
Speaker 3: mom and then retire my husband and then work full
Speaker 3: time from home, I would have been like, no way, right.
Speaker 3: So like just now knowing that, I'm like, I can
Speaker 3: pretend like I know what's gonna happen in my life
Speaker 3: in five years, but I know myself well enough to
Speaker 3: know that my brain is I get bored easy, and
Speaker 3: I like to do things so like make room for options.
Speaker 4: As much as possible.
Speaker 3: I hope that doesn't throw a monkey you're mention in
Speaker 3: this whole thing, but I would say, like that that
Speaker 3: is one thing that I'm like, if you can keep
Speaker 3: your options open, that's that's huge.
Speaker 5: And depending on your relationship with your financial advisor, if
Speaker 5: you've you know, inherited them from your family or you know,
Speaker 5: it depends on your situation. But I would advocate, as
Speaker 5: you know, women right to make sure your voice is
Speaker 5: heard in the meeting. Send them your questions in advance
Speaker 5: or something like get your agenda, like because you know,
Speaker 5: in the moment they're talking about whatever they want to
Speaker 5: talk about and potentially getting a little bit off track
Speaker 5: and then they and then the meeting's up and you're like,
Speaker 5: wait a second, you know, I need, like, you know,
Speaker 5: twenty minutes to.
Speaker 2: Talk about X.
Speaker 5: So a lot of times people or or just pick
Speaker 5: up the phone before the meeting. But I have found
Speaker 5: in working with families and people lots of different ages,
Speaker 5: that my most productive meetings are where we have this
Speaker 5: agreed upon agenda and we're both come to the table
Speaker 5: with like, what do you want to talk about? Like,
Speaker 5: first thing, what's on your mind? You know, because I
Speaker 5: know what's on my mind, and I can go into
Speaker 5: your portfolio and your performance and you know, you know,
Speaker 5: all different kinds of topics. Right, I can use the time,
Speaker 5: But what's going to be the most valuable for you?
Speaker 5: What's on your mind now? And the other thing I
Speaker 5: would say is that if you aren't giving the person
Speaker 5: like your full picture, then it's also challenging because they
Speaker 5: can't really give you advice knowing the full picture. So
Speaker 5: if they just have one investment account that's all you
Speaker 5: ever talk about, that's hard. So opening up and maybe
Speaker 5: find or finding someone else, but opening up and letting
Speaker 5: them see the full picture and really giving you advice
Speaker 5: in all areas of your life financially, I mean from
Speaker 5: all the stuff we're talking about tonight, even just to budgeting.
Speaker 5: You know, whatever these questions are, you're maybe scared to ask,
Speaker 5: just get them in advance or something, or they'll before
Speaker 5: you to the right person to talk to if it's
Speaker 5: not them, something like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to do one more as we wrap
Speaker 1: up for you ladies. So I think you kind of
Speaker 1: just answered this, but just to make sure I understand. So,
Speaker 1: if my employer allows me to contribute retirement to a
Speaker 1: four oh one K or a WRATH, obviously I understand
Speaker 1: like the tax piece of it all. And if I'm
Speaker 1: fully matched in my WROTH contributions, is it beneficial to
Speaker 1: also contribute to four oh one K or how would
Speaker 1: you What would your advice be for that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, if we're talking order of operations kind of, so
Speaker 3: contribute up to the match, right, got that? Then if
Speaker 3: you have access to an HSA, which only about ten
Speaker 3: percent of us do, So if you do, then I
Speaker 3: always try and max out your HSA because that's a
Speaker 3: triple tax advantage account. Yes, to use for medical expenses,
Speaker 3: but if you can, you can invest your HSA, not
Speaker 3: your FSA, but your HSA. Right then I love a
Speaker 3: good Wroth IRA. So again there's there's income limits to that,
Speaker 3: so be aware of what those income limits are. But
Speaker 3: then that's a great account. And then go back to
Speaker 3: that four oh one K and and and also consider
Speaker 3: a brokerage while you're while you're in there is kind
Speaker 3: of the way that I like to think about it.
Speaker 8: There a difference. Mine is a Wroth four oh one
Speaker 8: K and a four oh one K.
Speaker 4: I have both.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there's a traditional four oh one k and there's
Speaker 7: a Wroth borro one k.
Speaker 6: And so with Wroth for oh one k, you're paying.
Speaker 7: Taxes today and then the money grows and when you
Speaker 7: take it out in retirement, you're not paying taxes on it.
Speaker 7: And then the flip side, for traditional you're contributing pre
Speaker 7: tax dollars and then the investment grows over time, and
Speaker 7: in retirement you are taking the money out and you're
Speaker 7: paying taxes.
Speaker 8: And does the twenty three thousand, five hundred like max
Speaker 8: which is this year's new does that apply across both
Speaker 8: or is it?
Speaker 6: How does that work? Twenty three five hundred would.
Speaker 8: Be between the two, and then you would not be
Speaker 8: able to contribute beyond that.
Speaker 1: Okay, a four to one K yeah, yeah, okay, any
Speaker 1: other questions. I think we got it. Okay, Well, I
Speaker 1: just want to thank you all so much for all
Speaker 1: of your amazing insight. Can you give them a round
Speaker 1: of applause please?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm