So also I do the introduction separately, so when I come back on. So if you could look at the camera as if you’re talking to me. There you go. And then that’ll look like you’re talking to me. And then. Yeah. So in the end, will I record the interaction separately, and then we’ll edit that answer because I don’t like all of that blah,blah blah of like pretending that we just met or whatever you want me to show up?Although that’s, that really shows just how I guess what All that right? And then say your full name for me.
[00:00:31] Jennifer Sapel Jennifer sapel.
[00:00:32] Samantha Hartley Cipel. Good. And can I call you Jen?
[00:00:34] Jennifer Sapel Yup.
[00:00:35] Samantha Hartley Good. All right. So, Jennifer Cipel, tell us a little bit about
your work, what you do, and who you do that for.
[00:00:46] Jennifer Sapel Sure. I am a financial advisor. I have two services. One is
comprehensive financial planning and the other is investment management. And I do it
for high earning women who want to be confident in all their financial decisions.
[00:01:00] Samantha Hartley Fabulous. And what is high earning.
[00:01:02] Jennifer Sapel Usually a household income of $250,000 a year or more?
[00:01:07] Samantha Hartley Super. And when you say financial services, what do you
mean.
[00:01:12] Financial services or financial planning?
[00:01:15] Mm hmm. Yes.
[00:01:17] Yeah. What that looks like is a like 12 month. It’s almost like a coaching or
consulting agreement. So for 12 months, we go through three phases. The first phase is
what’s the analysis look like? So let’s dump out all of the financial data and say, okay,
what do we have? Let’s talk through what we want the future to look like. And then we’ll
run scenarios. We’ll run future projections. That first initial phase will usually take 60
days. We come up with an action plan from there, and it’s a checklist that’s prioritized
and says, All right, here’s step one, two, three, four to however many. And the balance
of the year is me supporting my clients in executing that that checklist.
[00:01:57] And what are some of the items on a checklist like that?
[00:02:00] Like get your will and health care directives and durable powers of attorney
updated. You know keep your your spend rate at about this much of your income and
make sure that you’re setting aside about this much of your income for your future self.
Here are the options before we get to the checklist we’ll talk through. This is how much
you need to save for your future self and all the different ways you could possibly save
or invest it. Before we get to the like checklist item. We’ll talk through like what are your
preferences? And then whichever preference you choose, that’s the one that shows up
on the priority list. So often things, things that get missed is like risk management. So
the biggest risks for an individual’s financial situation are things like divorce and death,
unemployment and lawsuits. So that’s it. Those are the big five. And there’s things you
can do with all five of those to really mitigate your financial risk.
[00:02:55] Super. That’s amazing. So one of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you is
because I find that women, most of my clients are women, and then a lot of them are
very reluctant to talk about the subject in a not very empowered way. They’ve always
delegated that to somebody else or expected someone else to do that. And then they
find themselves as grown ups like I did last year, go look very, very grown up. And I was
like, we don’t have wills. I mean, let’s kind of get serious. Like, let’s just kind of get our
financial act together. So we went through exactly the process that you’re talking about,
the wills, the getting realistic life insurance and things like that together. And I feel like
self-employed women very often, you know, just kind of by default, leave that to
someone else and really don’t take the responsibility to do that. So I’m glad that your
clients are doing that. And I really want everyone who’s hearing the show or seeing us
on YouTube to really take action and get serious about this. If it’s nothing else other
than a will, because like, things can happen. So I love that you’ve named these Big Five
because I think a lot of people have been touched by one of those five and knock on
wood, that they won’t be in the next year. So I’m getting that. You also do women come
to you like reluctantly or like after having like really procrastinated this or like, what’s the
state that they come to you with?
[00:04:17] Yeah. Yeah. I’m glad you asked that. I’m not. That’s where you started
because as you were talking, what came to mind is, you know, the financial services
industry. So anybody like me who talks about money every day isn’t it has been built by
men. And so the language about it, the perspective, the you know, like there’s not
women are generally more the caregivers in the family. So whether that’s children or
parents. So there’s a different perspective when it comes from the other gender. And
there’s there was a study in the UK of a woman who started a bank there for women to
solve all. A lot of the issues that we’ve touched on here and what they did is they looked
at all of media representation of money. And messages geared for women versus
messages geared for men were wildly different. So any time they you know, they are
condescending for women, right? They’re often like telling us the messages like, don’t
spend money, don’t spend money. It’s like 90% of the messages are that way. When
they hear women, when they’re geared for men, they’re like, oh, make that investment.
Even if we’re talking about a watch like mission than that watch. Yeah. So almost
everybody comes to me feeling like they should be further ahead. They should have
done something more. They should know more than they do. So if you’re listening to
this or watching this and you feel that way, you are totally normal. That’s how everybody
comes to us. My friends, everybody in this in this field would say the same. It’s kind of
like afraid to talk to your OB about what’s happening with your with your body parts.
Mm. We’re used to it. We’ve seen it all. And if you feel judged, like, work with a different
advisor.
[00:05:57] Mm hmm. Exactly. And I really notice the language about millennials is also
even more condescending than it is towards women. It’s just really not respectful of,
like, they’re like avocado toast and just the condescension. And I think it’s a you know,
to me, what that says is that there’s not enough women in the profession or there’s
enough millennials in the profession. You know, if you don’t like the way someone’s
talking to you, like we need to find people who do talk to us the way we want to be
talked to. So I think that’s a big opportunity. The other thing is this is the first show on
my season about money. I want to talk about money to women. I don’t know what how I
ended up in this role because I didn’t grow up with a lot of money, but I really feel like
nobody else is. You know, most people aren’t talking about it and I want to stop fluency.
And you referred to kind of the shame that a lot of us have about like not being where
we should be. And I also find there’s just like it makes all of us feel like bad children, you
know, like inadequate children, like we go into this role. So what do you think it is about
talking about money that makes us all feel like little children?
[00:07:09] Yeah. Again, amazing question. I think what it is, I think there’s a lot of there’s
a lot of factors and compounding factors. I think the biggest one is that being good with
money is having a set of skills and none of us are good at any skill until we use it and
we practice it. I have a three year old and a five year old and, you know, like like
parenthood does, it has humbled me in development in lots of ways, but in human
development. So things like like, you know, I’ve just recently had to teach kids how to
use a spoon. You know, we we were not born knowing how to use a spoon. We weren’t
born knowing how to drive a car. Like if you sail, if you ski. Any of these things are skills
that you can’t even get. You can even obtain and be good at them by reading about
them in a book or like watching YouTube videos. Right? You can do that to some
extent, but you’re not going to be great at it until you actually get behind the wheel of a
car and start driving. And the more you do it, the better you get at it. So I think that we
there’s this there’s this expectation. We put this expectation on ourselves that we should
be good at money magically and automatically. You know, it just should be something
that we are innately born with. Yeah, and that’s false. Like we’re not good at money until
we actually practice using it.
[00:08:30] Totally and that there are skills that you can learn and they’re knowable.
[00:08:35] Yes.
[00:08:35] I think what the the place that I meet a lot of my clients with this is that they
happen to be in business and we need to do a lot of math and business and a lot of
people are like, Well, I came into business to do X, Y or Z, and none of those things are
math, right? You can’t run a business unless you have some comfort with numbers and
you track your numbers. And so those skills I’m ending up saying like that’s a gap for
you and you need to know this. So for example, I would have clients that I would be like,
Well, how much did you earn last year? And I would be like, Well, I’m not going to know
until my accountant tells me. And I’m like, No, that’s the wrong answer. And I have
another client who is like, Well, I really do better when I don’t look at my numbers. And
I’m like, No, awesome. Okay, so there has to be enough familiarity with that and fluency
and ability to work with the numbers. Even the basics make you feel better. And to be
able to just be able to look at your numbers and to track certain things. So how much
just basic financial literacy do you find that you’re doing with your clients?
[00:09:40] Um, it’s like varying degrees. I think some people have really like whether it’s
from childhood or there’s been some experience in their life or there’s just a lot of, of
shame and fear around money. You know, those people, there’s more there’s more
effort on the. The literacy side, I’d say even more than literacy. It’s just kind of let’s
pinpoint and identify where that came from and what this story made up in your head is.
Where is it coming from and why is it there? And then let’s talk about what we want your
future self to look like. You know, I think with a lot of things in life, you know, we when
we get uncomfortable, we take a step back. And I often tell people in any financial
decision, like you have to lean into the discomfort. I’m sure you say the same types of
things, right? Painful. It shouldn’t be painful If you’re if it is painful, it’s time to go. Okay.
Let’s take a break. Let’s take a step back. Let’s do something else is redirect. But
growth and progress is through the discomfort. So you do have to lean into some of
those things before you are going to start to see change or progress.
[00:10:53] Totally. So how much of what you’re doing in the financial planning is actually
getting them into investments?
[00:11:04] It’s like probably 50/50 people that have done a great job of saving. So we’ll
have money sitting in a bank account and not just hurdle. Going from saving to investing
is where I help them. A lot of times people have set up some kind of automatic
investment strategy and they don’t really look at it. They don’t have like a full
comprehension of what both how it’s investing, what it’s doing for them, but also like
how how that money is going to be meaningful for them at some point, you know, in the
near future or in the far off future, You know, I’m kind of doing I can do either of those
things.
[00:11:40] Mm hmm. So can you share like a before, during and after of someone that
you’ve worked with and kind of the whole arc that you took her through in the work with
you?
[00:11:48] Sure. Yeah. Recently, like in the last six months, I’ve worked with with two
engagements that were really interesting and fun, where in both cases it was a
household that was earning a lot more than they needed for their household expenses
and that they were putting away for their future expenses. They had the surplus of
several hundred thousand dollars. So if they had come to me, if they hadn’t come to me
right, there would have been in that constant state of like, Well, do I have enough? I’m
not sure I have enough. And I’m like putting money away into these different accounts.
But again, there’s not a lot of context. Like, I don’t know what those different accounts
are going to mean for me down the road so I could help them like, okay, like this is what
this is what it takes to live the lifestyle that you’re living right now. This is how much you
have to invest at this rate so that you can maintain this lifestyle forever. And this is the
surplus. So we actually ran for them three different scenarios like what if you burned or
spent all of your surplus so you could like increase your lifestyle significantly today than
than the lifestyle that you’re living. So that’s an option. Another option is build a real
estate empire. So we actually like it now because it was something they had an interest
in. So we modeled out this is what it looks like to buy a property or two every year for
like the next ten years. And then this is what it looks like. If you invest in like a stock and
bond portfolio, you can do any of the three or you can do a percentage into all three like
variations of these three things. So what’s interesting about one of these cases in
particular is, one, they went from they had a childhood with scarcity and purity. They
went from just having no idea where they stood financially to understanding that they
had a surplus and like they can count it, right? This is how much I need. This is how
much we earn to knowing what’s possible with their money. And for her, it led to a
career change. She decided. Yeah, she decided to scale back on like the day job so
that she could spend more time doing real estate investing because that sounded like a
fun opportunity for her to reflect. Yeah. And I was like, You, great, let’s do it. We’ll do it
for a period of time. And you always have permission that five years from now you
decide you don’t want real estate investing, you do something.
[00:14:13] Super. I love it. So it turns out that facts and really knowing the situation gave
them opportunities and choices that they wouldn’t have had without knowing the reality
of the situation. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I would love that more often. The situation
was like, Hey, you have all this excess money instead of like, Hey, you actually are
overspending and really need to kind of tame it down.
[00:14:36] Yup,.
[00:14:38] I think it was I wasn’t prepared for how much we’re going to talk about death
and dying. It’s like constantly like, well, here’s the life insurance and here’s how long do
you think you’re going to live and how much money do you need? But I do think the the
investment piece is gives a lot of confidence. So I feel like there’s always like three ways
you can go with investing, DIY, having somebody else. Take care of it. And then like
another way, which I can’t remember what is, but what are what are all the ways that if
someone does want to do investing that they can they can do that.
[00:15:08] Yeah, I love that as the first decision. Right. Because going from saver to
investor. Like bridging that gap for some people feels really big. The first decision to
make is am I interested in capital markets and thinking about finance and reading about,
you know, stock prices or real estate or whatever the case is, Do I have interest in that?
Because if you do, you may be a DIY’er you might be somebody who this is something I
want to spend time and energy on every day or periodically or whatever cases, and just
decide to do it yourself. Hiring a professional that’s delegating, that’s finding somebody
like me that says, okay, this is way they do the service I need. I don’t want to spend my
time and energy there, but I do want to work with somebody I trust in delegating. And
the third option is like a robo advisor. So something like Ellevest or Betterment or
Wealthfront, all of those are options where you can go online, you’re going to fill out a
questionnaire. The questionnaire is going to gauge what is this money used for or what
do you plan to use it for, and what type of investor are you. And then because of that
kind of questionnaire, they’re going to flow through to investment recommendations for
you?
[00:16:16] Cool. Love it. I’ve two two of the three of those. So I have a buddy who does
day trading and I feel like, isn’t day trading a lot like a casino the more closely resemble
a casino or is it like actually really like a safe and legitimate choice?
[00:16:35] The research shows over time almost nobody is good at day trading.
[00:16:41] That’s what I thought like it doesn’t research show that really buy and hold
forever is like always outperforms also I thought this was interesting always outperforms
any advisor who is making moves in your portfolio, like your pawnshop portfolio should
be still.
[00:16:58] Yeah.
[00:16:59] Unless it’s like acquiring more of the same as what’s what’s the truth around
that?
[00:17:04] Great question. So what you’re talking about in in the investment world is
called active investing, versus passive investing. And yes, most of the research in the
data shows that passive investing over time will outperform active investing. So active
investing is, you know, like really looking for trades so that you can exploit gains, right,
or minimize losses. And part of the reason for that is that active trading costs more. Any
time you make a transaction, there are fees associated with that. So not only do they
have to perform better, they have to make up for the fees that are they’re incurring by
doing the active trading.
[00:17:42] Mm hmm.
[00:17:43] One of the caveats to that statistic is that you do have to rebalance. So
rebalancing means if you have a portfolio that is 80% stocks and 20% bonds, what can
happen over time is, let’s say stocks significantly outperformed bonds. And a few years
from now we end up looking at your portfolio and we haven’t been paying attention to it.
Now your portfolio is like 95% stock and only five bonds. So once a year it is a good
idea, generally speaking, to rebalance and make sure that you’re keeping true to that
initial investment strategy where 80% of your money is in stocks and 20% of your
money is in bonds.
[00:18:23] So is it the case that if you have a lot of active trading in an account more
than once a year, that probably somebody is doing too much?
[00:18:34] Not necessarily. There are other reasons to be making trades and.
[00:20:00] I accidentally muted your microphone.
[00:20:03] Can you unmute yourself? So. Yes. So I didn’t actually hear any of what you
just said. Oh, good. Because I have a review. Do you want to review it or do you just
want to keep it? Because it seemed very stupid. Oh, well, I don’t know. I think. Is it in I
think it was a good example. So it’s from you know, it’s terrific. It’s from your side. So
your side recorded it. It’s just my side. Oh, got it. Okay. I had a long record. Good.
Because so many car alarm went off, and I actually make a point about it, but no. So
this car alarm went off and I tried to mute myself, but I accidentally muted you. And I
was like, Oh, dear, we’re good. Okay.
So one of the things that has always been a huge conflict for me has been that I have a
well-performing portfolio and it’s got a few companies in there that I would rather not be
invested in. And I think there’s for a long time there’s the idea that you have to invest in
these the Philip morris’s and British Petroleum’s of the world in order to have a decent
portfolio. And I think that is not true. So you seem to have a unique point of view on
that.
It’s amazing you ask the best question. So I’m going to have to like go back and watch
all of your YouTube videos so you do not have to. You do not have to. In the world of
investing, generally, the the option is for an ESG strategy. ESG is an acronym. It’s a
framework. It’s short for environmental, social and governance. You know, like all
things, it’s not perfect, but it is a different framework with which to look at your
investment portfolio and say, Am I investing in a way that is good for the environment?
Am I investing in a way that is good for social change and social justice, and am I
investing in a way that is good for governance, good governance principles? Are we
making good strategic, well, short term and long term decision making? The over the
last couple of years, so that that trend has grown significantly. The rate in which new
money and you know, to your point about millennials, millennials and women want to
know beyond a rate of return what investments, what impact their investments are
making on the world. So there is an option. Yeah, absolutely. If anybody tells you that
ESG investments don’t perform as well as traditional strategies, they’re the wrong
advisor for you. They’re just looking at the data, you know, which is true for a lot of
these kind of issues. Right. You know, people will will have a feeling and adamantly
opposed something. But you say, okay, well, what is the evidence? And let’s take a look
at the data. What is true is that they perform differently. It isn’t that they perform better
or worse. So, for example, in 2020 when when COVID, you know, when the pandemic
started and when everything shut down in March of 2020 and people stopped driving
and like the whole world changed. Right? The price of of energy fuel in particular, oil
plummeted. So ESG portfolios in 2020, especially in those first two quarters, were
significantly outperforming traditional investments. And that has inverse this year like
last year and this year. What’s happened since COVID is now there’s a war in Ukraine
and there’s constraints on on oil supply and energy supply. So energy has gone up
significantly. So traditional portfolios now with that sector are outperforming ESG
strategies. And so, again, anybody who just gives you a blanket like, you know, no, they
don’t perform better. They’re just not grounded in the data. And if that’s up to you, it
means you probably want to find somebody else.
So long term, if will they perform equally? Like if we look at as long as possible, as long
as we have data for the newer kinds of companies, you know, something that we would
really want to be invested in, whether that’s solar or green energy, I don’t think it helps
to compare it to oil because I don’t really care that it performs the way oil performs. I
want to just know, is it outperforming, let’s say the, you know, the S&P 500 or whatever.
All right. Well, like so many things come to mind, but I’ll try to keep it to two, maybe
three. Number one, I there’s no way to know. We don’t nobody can. Again, if and if
somebody tells you that they can predict the future again, run, because if they did, they
wouldn’t be offering services. Right. So we don’t know. I have a hunch. You know, my
theory is that over time, those kind of strategies will will continue to outperform. And
that’s just because. You know, governance issues as an example. Are we thinking for
the long term, are we concerned about, you know, more flooding happening and how
are we mitigating that risk and how are we making decisions? So at the very least, you
could think of these scenarios as like risk mitigation factors. And so, again, I do believe
that ESG portfolios over time will outperform. I also think they’ll become the norm.
They’ll be just part of normal investment decision making.
To your question about performance. I really like this. I read Michael Poland like a
bunch of his food books back ten years ago. And one of my biggest takeaways from
one of the books was that Americans use external factors to decide how much to eat.
So we love to count calories, we love to count macros, we love to finish our plate like
everything we do in terms of consuming food is like determined by something else. Most
other cultures have internal mechanisms that decide when we should eat, when we
should stop eating. And he uses the example that in Japan there is a phrase that is you
stop when you’re 70% full and that always like that like nugget just has always carried
with me. This is to your point about, you know, who cares what what the performances
and really who cares what is performing against. The most important thing for us to
know and and be aware of is is it performing in the way I need it to? Mm hmm. And not
some external factor telling me I have to beat something. I have to outperform
something. I have to do something else that’s external. Yeah. You have a specific goal,
you have a specific time frame, and you are going to have a specific target that you’re
going to want to hit for that. So do you care or how much do you care that your portfolio
outperforms or underperforms other portfolios as long as it’s accomplishing your goal?
Interesting.
So I can look at the way my portfolio is earning and say that looks like it’s on target to
earn me an additional million dollars over the next however many years and feel
satisfied with that. It’s such a non patriarchal view because I feel like the masculine view
is like more and more and more and more and more and more. More. I want to be
concrete outperform, I mean, all those kinds of things. And like, I love that idea because
when you alluded to it earlier, I wasn’t quite sure what you meant, but I feel like, oh, if
my if my goals are my goals, then perhaps I don’t need to care what that somebody
else’s like 400% of the S&P 500 and blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, that’s where even the software we use, you know, and I’m constantly like tripping
over these things that that I took for granted for a long time, like because the financial
services is built by men, my, my financial planning software defaults to like winning is
never building like the largest portfolio ever between now and death. Like zero of my
clients have come to me saying I want the most money possible when I die. What
they’re telling me is I want to live a good life. And this is what a good life means to me,
right? I want to be able to live here. I want to be able travel this much. I want to be able
to take this much time off. Right. I need I want to be able to do these hobbies. Whatever
the case is, there’s a dollar amount we can assign to those things. So as long as you
can do those things and not have me running out of money, that’s what most of my
clients would define a success.
Love that idea. Your strategy is has a specific name. Yeah. Alpha.
Alpha female. Yeah, you’re right. It’s. It’s got that. It’s a little tongue in cheek. Yes, I
have. Alpha in the investment world is the measure of outperformance. So if you’re
expecting your portfolio to do 7%, but your portfolio does 9%, that 2% difference is
alpha, like that’s the name of that, that metric. So the strategy is a little tongue in cheek.
What we did with that strategy is we said, what if we invested the same way we do in
any other stock portfolio and looked for companies who were top quartile in their
diversity metrics? Because there’s a large and growing body of data that shows
companies that are more diverse outperform companies that are less diverse, so more
diverse companies outperform. So our strategy is specifically looking for those
companies. And at the end of the day, I just think it’s like quality, like we’re choosing
higher quality companies again, the expectation that it would outperform less diverse
strategies, similar, but less diverse strategies, just super.
Love it. Love it? I think so. And it does. Yeah. I’ve never. The long time we’ve got. Shall
we? Together. Yeah. Oh, it’s. I think it’s just terrific. It’s just terrific. It is. It is qualitative
instead of just like you can smash more or more stuff.
And I think the idea that I could invest with my values, it’s I think it’s still a new idea for a
lot of people. What’s the what’s the first way that someone should get started with the
things that we’re looking at? Should it be the with the wills and the insurance and the
things like that? Or can they go straight to the investing? Look, what’s the first place that
someone should look? Good question.
Usually I’m starting with risk management. So before we before we start putting money
aside for our future selves, let’s manage the risks that are possible today. And I
mentioned the big five. Divorce, death, disability, unemployment and lawsuit. And that
too, to mitigate those risks usually other than unemployment. Unemployment is just, you
know, have a have a safety net, you know, in savings 6 to 12 months is my general
recommendation depending on how fluctuating your your income and expenses are and
how marketable you are, how easy it is for you to pivot. But the other ones are usually
either insurance policies or legal documents that are your actions a place to start? Mm
hmm. Mm hmm.
Do you what’s your specific advice for business owners relative to this? I ask because I
think of, like, disability insurance, because when you say the big five and what are risks
to me health comes to mind because there’s so much bankruptcy associated with health
care and so much risk associated with like, well, somebody just gets sick and then, you
know, all your money is gone and and, and who knows how long. And sometimes it
doesn’t really even matter what kind of an insurance policy you have. So for business
owners, what would be the unique things that you would recommend?
Number one, I do love that you brought up disability insurance and you think of all those
risks for a business owner. That’s number one, right? If you own the business and if you
can’t work in the business now, if you have if you have an enterprise and you have other
people on your behalf, like if you could step away and the business would still make
money, that might not be as relevant. But in that case, that usually means that
somebody on your staff is a key person, and that person. Right, is necessary in order
for your business to continue to grow and earn revenue. So that might mean that you
have key the key person insurance. Yeah. Yeah. You think it’s funny like they that’s not
a concept that people like have an easy time wrapping their head around. But if you
think about equipment, right if you think about manufacturing equipment, if your
equipment broke, right. Like you’re out of business, sometimes you’ve got human
capital, capital that is that essential to your to the function of your business as well. So
same you need to be able to replace that, you know, immediately. If you’re selfemployed,
you know, solo operator, you’re the one generating the revenue. Absolutely.
Disability income insurance insurance companies are it’s it is potentially going to get
harder to get that kind of insurance. So if you’re listening to this and it’s been on your list
for for a while, this is your cue to go get it today. Get it now. Yeah, get it now, because
COVID is changing mortality and morbidity numbers. So that is going to start to be
priced into insurance at some point. My my is my expectation. Yeah. And of those all of
those are disability is like the most likely after divorce divorces if death is going to
happen all of us eventually that risk is usually. For the people living right In our risk,
divorce is a 5050 shot. It’s actually one in four people will suffer a long term disability.
Yeah.
What’s the best thing to do for divorce in advance of it? Is this prenups or is this having
your own bank account? How do you advise women in that one? Yeah, three things. So
prenup, if you’ve got like some people have issues with prenups. But what I would say is
whether or not you have a legal document, you have a prenuptial agreement, it is made.
It is already determined by the state that you live in. So the state you live in has already
decided this is how the assets will be divided in the event of a divorce. So, like, you
know, go with the default or design it on your own. I would recommend designing it on
your own, your own bank account, and talk to your spouse about money. This goes
back to the beginning of our conversation. So I’ve seen, you know, and all women in
particular, because we outlive men, there is some point in our lives that we will. Eight
out of ten will be solely responsible for our financial household, our financial lives, all of
our financial decisions. I’ve seen instances where the male spouse died and we got a
surprise business excise tax bill from the state because she was not part of normal
business and everyday conversation. So you have to talk to your spouse, run credit
reports, share share credit reports once a year, have your own bank account with a
couple thousand dollars in it for like a, you know, quick escape. Just got a you know, got
to go find in the event of the absolute worst case scenario. Those are the big three.
Awesome. That’s super helpful. And then on the other one’s lawsuit, umbrella
insurance. Mm hmm. Good. Super easy. It is. Yeah. I think a lot of people already have
an umbrella policy on their home. It’s the. It’s the incase somebody comes in my house
and, you know, slips and falls. So I think a lot of people have that right or other
homeowners insurance. But in case they don’t, that’s something to look into. And then
what were the other two? Do we do them all? The other two risks death. Yes.
You did something you mentioned on life insurance, you know, and all of these things.
This goes for your investments also can be as simple or as complex as you want to. I
think one of the things that stops us from making progress is we think that we need to
make the perfect decision. There’s no such thing as a perfect decision. It’s all messy
and it’s all a matter of preference. So even on the life insurance, right, like your options
are no life insurance. So just play through. What does it look like if we don’t have life
insurance? And then there’s a maximum, like all insurance and insurance company is
only going to provide you an amount up to a certain amount and they measure it on
your economic value. So like somewhere between that zero and that maximum amount
of insurance, that’s the right amount of insurance. Like don’t don’t sweat too much about
the decision. In most cases with most of these decisions, you can change your mind
later. You can adjust. Exactly.
So, yeah, I’d say go get 100,000 just immediately, and then you can worry about the
exact numbers later. But you want to have something. Yeah. You know, we’ve thought
about, you know, who’s who’s income do you cover and what do you worry about that.
And it’s like, listen, it doesn’t matter if I have money or not. The person who’s remaining
probably isn’t going to want to work for a while, and that’s going to go back to your
disability thing. It’s like whether you can or can’t, if you you know, if you lose someone,
especially for those of us who are self-employed, if you lose someone, you’re not going
to want to work in your business and that there’s going to be a disruption. So preparing
for life disruption I think was was really big for us.
And then the wills because as you said, like the state will tell you what’s going to
happen with your stuff after you die. So maybe you want to know what that’s going to be
and maybe you want to prevent the hassle of that and just get serious about it.
Yeah, and there’s this. No, if you have minor children, you don’t want the state deciding
who’s going to take custody of your minor children. You know, the default in I live in
Washington State, so the default in my state would be that my mom would take custody
of my children. And that’s not what my husband and I want, you know, not because
she’s not a great person or whatever, because my kids are super young and she is not
super young. And yeah, it’s just not her. It’s not the right call. And I don’t we wouldn’t
want them to have to, like, try to figure out what did they want, what were their
intentions after the fact.
Exactly. Exactly. So it’s these are conversations you’re going to have at some point.
And so why not have them today when you’re thinking about them? You know, I always
talk about when we go into organizations and work with them, it’s almost the same
disruption for our clients as it is a tax time. So when tax time is happening, you’re like,
great. For the whole first quarter, I have this special project. We’re have to do all of the
stupid work. And even if you’ve got super organized with bookkeepers, you still have to
do some stuff and you’re like, Oh my God, I have a special project, which is taxes.
That’s kind of how it feels. We come in and work with our clients like it is a disruption.
There is going to be a disruption when you do this whole financial thing, which is why
you said you do it with your clients over the course of a year because we cannot do all
this stuff all at once. I mean, it took us months to get our wills done. It took us months to
figure out the life insurance. It took months on all of these things because they’re big
decisions. But dude, it’s done. And I’m so happy that we did that because I hope we
don’t have to think about it for at least a decade or so now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. I’m glad to hear that. So it was. Do you feel like a big
accomplishment and like a relief? Like all the things. And, you know, we trust our
finance people and so we feel good about that as well, having, having good people. So
when you think about something that if someone out there is listening and they don’t
have a someone like you, what would you what would you invite them to to do?
Interview a few. So I have a guide if they want to. If you if you go to and you make sure I
get the right one. I think it’s due to our wealth guide, but it would help you kind of
interview financial advisors. It’s a guided tour. Welcome. I’ll give you you can link it in
the up with the link in the show notes. Yeah I love this idea. So it’s an an interview
format. Yeah. For a potential advisor. Yeah. Yeah. And it goes through this. It’s like a
five step process, right. Because before you, before you go out and look for, you know,
professional help, you like the guide is going to ask you first, like, what do you want help
with? Do you want what we’ve talked about today is really like a high level
comprehensive view, or you feel like you’ve got a good handle on that and you just want
somebody to manage your investments and that’s not something you want to deal with,
right? That’s what you want to outsource. So you might be looking the clearer you are
about what you want help with, the easier it is going to be to find the right advisor. I’ve
got a list of questions in there. I’ve got, you know how you can see what their like
disclosure history is. We’re all licensed and registered so you can see if we have
felonies or misdemeanors or if we’ve had complaints and lawsuits. So it shows you
where to find that. And it’s always great. You know, ask your friends, who are you
working with and what do you love about them? And if you’re friends, I there’s so many
people so many people come to me, They’re like, I love meeting with you. I love having
meetings with you. And I’ve heard, you know, several times, like, I didn’t love having
meetings with my other advisor for whatever reason. Like, life is too short for that. Just
that whole just if you if you wouldn’t like, I’m the kind of person that, like when I’ve
outgrown a doctor or like, they’re just not a good fit for me anymore. I just, I go find a
new one. So that’s what I recommend for for all of you. Me too.
And just today, my my friend was telling me about an experience with her doctor where
she did not feel heard. And I thought, Well, is there not a woman doctor around?
Because I think women are better listeners just to make a generalization, that is
probably true. And so I feel like, you know what, There are women financial advisors in
a lot of women’s groups on Facebook, and people come on from time to time and be
like, Hey, does anybody have an advisor? And I’m always sharing the names of women
that I work with because that’s who I want to advocate for. And I feel like, you know,
men are going to find their people and let’s maybe advocate for women for a while.
Yeah, I don’t I feel like it might have been. It might’ve been Ted Lasso or something and
might have been a TV show. I saw this on, but it was like, again, I feel bad you. You just
giving me a job because we’re. You’re my friend. We’re like, That’s what I’ve been doing
for hundreds of years or thousands. Millions? Yeah, that’s the way it’s been. Yeah. I get
to work with women because I want to. Right. That’s. That’s the deal. So.
Awesome. Awesome. Well, it’s been super great to talk with you. I find that I understood
everything that you said. It wasn’t too complicated, and I. I didn’t feel talked down to, but
I didn’t feel like you were dumbing it down. And I and I want to share because I think I’m
hoping that other people had that experience when listening to you talk. And that is the
way that it can be when you’re talking with a financial advisor. Like you can ask
questions, you can have them break things down for you and they should explain things
to you in a way that you feel like, Oh, I totally understood that. What do you know? So I
appreciate that from you, Jen, and I appreciate the the information that you shared and
the stories that you shared and most of all the way that you are being around money,
which makes me feel like, oh, we can all be comfortable around money tip you.
Well, thank you so much for having me. You have you have invited me to a wonderful
space and invited me into beautiful work that you’re doing as well. So I’m super happy
to be here. Thank you. It was awesome. And with that, Jen and I are wishing you a
profitable and joyful consulting business. Agreed.