Season 4, Episode 10: Money Attachment Styles
Is Your Money Really Your Ex?
Hello and welcome to all of you anxious/avoidant attachers out there! And a shout out to you secure attachment weirdos, too!
On this episode, Sara and Caitlin talk to New York-based financial advisor Rebecca Pino about how our relationship to money is like any other relationship we have. Uh oh.
Don’t worry - there’s a financial strategy for all of us, no matter how much or little we ghost our retirement accounts and emergency savings funds.
Much like our romantic attachment styles, patterns in our behaviors around money have to do with messaging we received in childhood, but also societal scripts and a little thing called capitalism. You should look it up - it’s like, a big deal.
And OMG - come for the attachment styles and stay for Rebecca’s mind-breaking insight about how our money decisions are actually more important that the amount of money we might have. Call back to compounding interest!
You can find Rebecca here, and subscribe to her Money Her Way Substack to learn more about her money behavior theories.
Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions, or just say hi! on our Ask Us page!
We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.
This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.
Transcripts for Season 4, Episode 10: Money Attachment Styles
Caitlin [00:00:04] Welcome to Women on the Verge of a Financial Breakthrough, where we're figuring out finance one dumb question at a time. I'm Caitlin Meredith, a mediator and coach based in the Bay Area.
Sara [00:00:18] I'm Sara Glakas, investor, advisor, and founder of Blackbarn Financial, and the Austin Women's Investing Group, which you can find on Meetup. Can you text this show to a friend? We want more money friends. And if you leave us a review, not only does it help other women on the verge discover the show, it makes us feel like a secret admirer delivered a basket of breakfast tacos.
Caitlin [00:00:46] I am excited to introduce you, Rebecca. You are Rebecca Pino, and you're a financial advisor, and you have a platform called Money Her Way talking about very similar topics that we cover on this podcast women's financial literacy, helping women walk through financial decision making. The thing that you really captured my imagination about was this idea how our relationship to money and our financial decision making parallels our relationships and other areas of our life. What is your take on money and attachment theory?
Rebecca [00:01:23] Yeah. So it's very much so in the beginning stages of my research. I do eventually want to write a book about it. But, you know, I come from a philosophy background. So when we used to think about a new thing, we would go to the extreme. And so how I like to explain it is someone coming from a low-income household, very humble beginnings, right? More often than not, they're going to have some form of a scarcity mindset. That scarcity mindset then plays out in many different ways. And we have different relationships to things as well as people. So maybe they're avoidant in relationships with people because they didn't know they didn't have a stable household. So they don't really know how to connect with someone properly, right? And so that's a relationship with an individual. Scarcity mindset when it comes to food can play out in a few different ways. But what I see is that you finish everything on your plate because you don't know the next time you're going to get a meal. Maybe the refrigerator is stocked because they're hoarding, right? Again, that goes to that scarcity mindset. Then when it comes to money, there are two routes that I feel like people go. And it's interesting because on a spectrum of avoidant and anxious, which a lot of women happen to be, and it's because we're not educated on it. So we don't necessarily have to come from low-income households, women in particular, to feel this type of way. It's societal pressures and all of that stuff that go along with it, but an avoidant person. Not want to look at their finances. Maybe it's as extreme as they spend all of their money because they don't know the next time that they're going to be able to live like this, right? It's more of like the YOLO mentality. Yeah. Versus an anxious person, what I've been seeing is there's a wide spectrum of almost like a yo-yo diet with money, where they binge spend and then they restrict the next month. And so it's this volatile relationship when it comes to money. And it's more so because they don't know how to control their own relationship with money. They don't know what it's like to be stable with money. And so a lot of times when I talk to women, they're either avoidant or anxious or maybe a little bit of both. The interesting thing to me though is that the result is the same, which is in action. And so that's why people have a hard time investing or saving. And it's because they don't know how and also they need to be 100% confident in doing that and they're not.
Sara [00:03:57] That is so interesting. Rebecca, can you talk about how in your practice this plays into like how you interact with clients, like how often, like what like what does it look like when you've kind of identified that these are some of the money issues that a client is bringing into the relationship.
Rebecca [00:04:16] Yeah, well first of all, more often than not people joke around and say that this is more therapy than financial
Sara [00:04:21] Yes. I mean probably like
Rebecca [00:04:24] Everyone. Yeah.
Sara [00:04:24] Eighty percent of my conversations.
Rebecca [00:04:26] Exactly, exactly. In fact my dad's been in the industry for twenty seven years and he's like some of his clients still say, Bill me for the therapy session. Yeah. But anyway, how how this comes into play is that I've been more in the practice of Figuring out who you are financially, coming in and doing the hard work of learning yourself, that's a personal journey, right? The better you know yourself, the better off we can be working together. The next step is to pick your values because psychologically, if we attach goals to values, we're actually more likely to follow through with them. So I've been doing this project where I send people 50 values, they have to kind of shuffle through them and end up with five. And this is actually then the list that you can say no to anything that's not on this list, right? So for people that maybe are huge spenders, you reference your values list and you say, well, is this really going to bring me longtime happiness? If happiness is one of your values. And if it's a pair of shoes, maybe, maybe it does. Maybe that's what someone values and that's what's going to bring them happiness. They'll feel good in those pairs of shoes. If it's not a product or a thing that will bring them happiness over a long period of time, it makes it easier to say no. And so after you pick your values, then you pick your goals and you attach the values to the goals. And the final thing we do is actually pick the investments. And I think it's because there's a this huge emphasis. And I think partially it's because it's overwhelming. There's analysis paralysis. We're not taught about any of the investments themselves. But I like to almost gamify the investments and say, they're just vehicles. How fast do you want to get to your goal? Right. Do you want to fly? Do you want to walk or do you want to drive? And pick the destination first, because that's what matters, right? Pick your goals and then we'll figure out how to get to that specific goal.
Caitlin [00:06:26] I am trying to think who wouldn't have happiness on their list of five values. Well can you
Sara [00:06:33] Only pick like you have to pick your favorite ones. Exactly. Or secu I would like what if you pick security over happiness? Exactly. Right.
Rebecca [00:06:38] Exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So like mine, I don't think happiness was in mine. I picked things that would bring me happiness, but you know, happiness to me is part of the journey. It's not an end. It's not a means to an end.
Caitlin [00:06:52] Right, you hope to be happy on the way. So that's not like the target. It's like, no, that's okay, okay So mine was like
Rebecca [00:06:58] So mine was like family, community, achievement. Like I love to feel a source of achievement in my work that I do. Helping others was another one. I'm forgetting my fifth, but those were my top four that I can remember.
Caitlin [00:07:11] So then for all the financial decisions you're making, you hold that up as like, does this meet the criteria of at least one of these values? And if so, how? And okay, so that's a way of like put in putting some speed bumps down for decisions and being very intentional about them.
Rebecca [00:07:32] The hard part about finance is that everything is a trade-off when it comes to money. Like you, you have limited resources, right? You have an income. And so naturally, if you spend money on one thing, you're not going to be able to spend money on another thing. And so it's easy when someone says, you know, with two young kids, family is one of my values, right? Or maybe education. Well, why don't you save for 529 for your kid? What are you going to have to give up in order to be able to contribute to that 529? Because there will be something you'll have to give up with a limited amount of resources. And people don't give enough emphasis that I truly believe every single thing we do is a financial decision, right? Who we marry, whether we bring lunch to work, meal prep versus buying out lunch. Very wide spectrum of financial decisions we make in our lives. But at the end of the day, every single thing we make is a financial decision.
Caitlin [00:08:26] Oh, that's exhausting.
Rebecca [00:08:28] It is.
Caitlin [00:08:33] I really think of it as like in one corner, but I think Sara and I have talked a lot about how our time we don't think of it as m well, I don't think of it as money. I think of it as like the free thing I have. And it doesn't work like that being a full time working parent of a young guy. Like the time it's a currency thing, yes. And figuring out how much that is worth and what that trade off is, when I'm giving my time to something.
Rebecca [00:09:02] And I think women have a hard time doing that, especially freelancers or solopreneurs. A lot of times when I speak to them, they say, What is my worth? Like what is the value that I bring? And we have a hard time you know, putting a price to our time, especially in the beginning, right? It's like, well, what if I don't what if I don't bring as much value for this price tag? And we're so used to a society, I mean, net worth. And someone literally when you go out and get a job and they tell you your salary, you're being told how much you're worth. Yeah. And we that's that messes with you psychologically.
Caitlin [00:09:36] Yeah, and also I think speaking to the freelance thing, like, sure, you tell me I'm worth five hundred dollars an hour, amazing. The market will pay me a hundred and twenty five or fifty five. So toggling between like feeling empowered and totally worth and then also being like, Yeah, but at the end of the day, I need someone who will actually pay me the dollars and so I'm I'm much more at the whim and mercy and interest that they have rather than me setting my own price. I have another question about the attachment thing, but I didn't want to move on. Sara, are you okay with that? Yeah, totally. I'm fascinated. So thinking about attachment theory, there's like the anxious avoidant and then there's a secure attachment and a few others. And I'm curious how you would describe what secure attachment looks like.
Rebecca [00:10:25] So when you think about a secure attachment style, when it comes to relationships, it's you're comfortable with intimacy, you're comfortable bringing someone in, you don't have this fear of abandonment. There's some sense of security, right? And that's why it's called secure, right? You you're confident in yourself and you can show up as you are. And then whoever wants that aspect of you, they take all of you, kind of thing, right? It's not like you're a dollar menu where they can pick certain things that they like, etc. So when you think about that with your relationship with money, you feel confident managing your own money. Maybe you know where you want to go and your goals and you're comfortable sharing that journey with someone else. You use money as a tool, not a source of stress or identity, and are also open to conversations about money. I think secure people in their relationship with money are actually more likely to ask for help. And it's because they're open to other resources and other people telling them and helping them and guiding them on a journey just because they want betterment of themselves. You know, a confident person, they show up in a room, you know that they're confident. There's some people that walk in a room, you know that they are exactly who they are. And so when you show up like that with money, you're confident in your decisions and you're open to different ideas of where to go when it comes to your financial goals.
Caitlin [00:11:55] I'm wondering in working with your clients, what have been tools that have been useful? Like once you sort of diagnose, I know you're not a clinician and it's not an official diagnosis, but once you see like, I think we're working in this anxious avoidant sort of space here, I I understand you say, you know, you have them choose values, you give them little steps to kind of set some goals and to think Put their vision board together of what they're working towards and ask them those questions. I'm imagining it's a a longer process too to get to that sort of secure attachment style with money. And what are the things that you have found that have been effective with clients and helping them if it's like researching or listening to podcasts about money or what it what kind of exposure helps support people who recognize themselves in that anxious, avoidant description? Nobody in this room. And then moving towards the like a secure attachment style.
Rebecca [00:12:58] No, I think it's all about the systems and again there's a lot of noise, not only with news and social media, but also with programs like financial programs. There's a lot of people out there. Just got lucky and now they teach people how to do exactly what they did and sometimes that's not right. And I think it's taking Certain systems and then personalizing them. So an example would be someone who's avoidant, they should definitely utilize automation, right? And have check-ins on a less frequent basis, right? Maybe like a quarterly basis to see like, okay, I am automating investments, I'm automating savings. Let me check in and see what this is looking like. Can I maybe increase or do I feel restricted and maybe I need to decrease the amount that I'm automating? On the flip side, anxious people tend to constantly look at their numbers, right? They they feel like they need to know exactly what's going on. And so maybe starting off with more of like a 50, 30, 20 budget and saying, I'm gonna have money dates on Sundays. That's it. I'm not allowed to look at my phone. Any other date, I have a system to fall back on that I'm gonna be flexible with. I'm gonna try maybe the 50, 30, 20 budget. What's the 50, 30?
Caitlin [00:14:15] A fifty thirty twenty interruption.
Rebecca [00:14:18] Okay, I do disagree with the overall philosophy of the thirteen thirty twenty budget. You're like, I hate this, but I know. It's a good it's a good starting place and I will caveat that. The 5030 20 budget is 50% is expenses, 30% is wants, and 20% is savings. The reason why I disagree with it is that it's literally telling people spend 80% of your income and only save 20%. Twenty percent might be a lot for someone to save. Maybe they have more expenses because they live in a city like New York and their expenses are actually more like seventy percent, not fifty. It's a good place to start. And so that's kind of like, you know, check in with yourself and see, is this working for me? I also like to make budgets for anxious people. And this is primarily for a cash flow standpoint as an advisor. Usually advisors don't get into really budgets, but with an anxious person, I like to go by feeling. It's like, okay, well, let's do something. And then does it feel like you still have money left over? Do you feel restricted? The other thing, too, with an anxious person, create a budget of abundance. So if you really like shopping and you can afford your saving for all of your other goals and you really like shopping, and you want to give yourself an allowance for shopping. Right. So maybe you want to spend 200 to $300 on buying things because that's something that you enjoy. That's shifting from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset by allowing yourself this money to be flexible and you can spend it guilt free.
Caitlin [00:15:57] So you're really working like very closely with people to develop these systems and not only develop them but then also check in how is it feeling so you can fine-tune it.
Rebecca [00:16:08] Yeah, I usually check in quarterly with my clients. That could be a quick email, phone call, or an actual meeting. But, you know, I tell them these are the systems that I would try to implement, see if they're working, and then we'll, you know, circle back in a few months. And I mean, there's obviously a large spectrum, I'm sure Sky knows too, of neediness of clients. And so there are some people that I say, let's just automate your investments. And they go, Great. I send them an email and they're like, nope, everything's working out. You know, so it's like it really just does depend on the client.
Sara [00:16:40] Like listening to you talk, Rebecca, it reminds me of a conversation that Caitlin and I had on a previous recording with a financial therapist. And I've had several conversations over the last maybe it's like twelve months or so with financial therapy really being on my mind for all of the reasons that you discussed, right? And so do you work with any financial therapists? Do you see this crossover between financial therapy and what we do as the future of financial advising? Or do you think it's kind of an area where, like without adequate training, we should not tread too far into? I'm really curious on your opinion on that.
Rebecca [00:17:24] Yeah, I mean, I know I know some money coaches and I actually say that money coaching and financial advisors go hand in hand. And I say to people, you know, create a dream team for yourself. Like have a good accountant, have a good attorney that you can call up, have an advisor, have a money coach that you can meet with maybe more regularly than a financial advisor. I do think as we unwind and start realizing the hardest part about all of this is actually sitting and figuring out who you are. And if you do need help with that, therapy is great for that because a lot of this stuff stems from childhood. Like there, there's a Cambridge study that basically said that we develop a lot of the beginning financial, you know, we start building our financial relationship by the age of seven. And so if that truly is the case, that involves family, that involves emotion, that involves your environment. So there's a lot of stuff that you have to unwind and then rebuild as you get to adulthood. I talk to a ton of people that have a story in their head and, you know, maybe they did grow up in a low-income household and then they, you know, became successful in their job in their career, maybe they married into a wealthier family and they catch themselves, you know, in certain things, psychological triggers of like maybe there was an upcharge and their gut reaction is, oh, this is bad. And then they say, No, I actually can't afford this. I'm no longer in that situation I was as a child, but it still sticks with you. And so if you do need help unwinding that, I do think therapy is the route to go.
Caitlin [00:19:04] So much comes up in our relationships with money. And then like you're looping this other person in and they're asking you questions and you're like, stop at stop talking to me about all that other stuff. I just like tell me how to make this amount of money into a more amount of money and like do the best thing there. I'm wondering if people are if there's pushback if you get when they're just like, just tell like that's too scary. And especially for someone who's avoidant and perhaps hasn't had the support of therapy or hasn't like, as we say now, done the work. Starting with money is hard.
Rebecca [00:19:46] My thing is is why do they want money? Yeah. Okay. Because just making more money like when you picture, if I said to someone, I'm gonna hand you a million dollars tomorrow, they would have an idea of how their life would change, right? They they maybe they would go and buy things, but the whole point is people don't want to just have money at the end of the day. They want to live a life that they love. They wanna, you know, system financial freedom, they want things that come with money, but there's such an emphasis on cash itself that I think that's the wrong route to go. I think it's way more psychological than we're putting an emphasis on because again, people don't want to be a millionaire just to be a millionaire.
Caitlin [00:20:29] Maybe something like that. It could be a status part of yeah, identity. Yeah.
Rebecca [00:20:33] Right. But at the end of the day, people do tend to want to live in a certain way or idolize in a certain way that it's not just money. It's not just about making more money. It's like, well, what comes with that and why do you want that? It's and that's the route that people don't go.
Caitlin [00:20:49] So I wanna return to my question, Sara. When you are you recognizing I know. I'll get the feelings wheel out next. Sara doesn't like the feelings wheel. When I'm assuming you recognized in Rebecca's description of both like your clients and also in the Austin Women's In Investing Group, this anxiety and avoidance. Like, you know, I'm case number one that came to you and was like, I have never looked at any of this stuff. I don't want to know about it. La la la la la. If you recognize it and how you talk to people about like how to go from avoiding to being a little bit curious to then like getting a little bit more involved to feeling empowered.
Sara [00:21:38] I mean I have a Couple different strong feelings on that. The first one, like kind of alluding to the Ostwomen's Investing Group, or to this podcast, or just conversations in the community. Whether it's Rebecca in New York or us in Austin For me, it's been just like however I can lower the stakes to get someone to have a discussion about what's on their mind. Right. So as you know, like the OS Women's Investing Group is like we meet at the library. We try to not like mix it with like too much wine and socializing. So it's kind of like it's a it's a work function, right? But it's a safe space, right? Where you're supposed to come here and and you're surrounded by other women in this space so that you can feel free to ask whatever the questions are or offer a comment or offer a answer to someone's question and make it really community oriented. I think that like by and large, like with avoidant and anxious investors, this strategy of meeting people where they are is pretty effective and just like continuing to have the conversations with people. But like on the other side of the spectrum, I do have some people in my life where that their anxiety is Beyond what I am trained to do. And so kind of having this like very like soft spot and like like like a love of these women who've been excluded from all these conversations for so long, it triggers in me like a feeling of like failure. I'm failing this person because whatever she needs, I can't help her with, right? It's like beyond my training. It's beyond, I mean, because I have no training in therapy, right? So I think that those are kind of like the two sides of the spectrum for me. It's like one, like feeling like a really effective. Community builder around this issue, but also like in extreme cases, like oh man, like I'm beyond what I can what I can possibly do in just a a handful of situations.
Rebecca [00:23:50] No, absolutely. And that's why I always say, like what I said earlier is the dream team really does help. And it's, you know, have people that you can fall back on in the team of people. It doesn't have to be one person because that also takes the weight off of that one person. I mean, at the end of the day, I am meeting my clients primarily quarterly, if not semi annually. So if someone needs a more ongoing support, I have money coaches that I'm happy to refer them to.
Caitlin [00:24:17] It makes sense and I really relate I I'm Rebecca and my when I'm not on this podcast, I'm a mediator and conflict coach and I think Sara w I I run into a similar situation with clients who, you know, are presenting with this presenting with an issue, whatever. Like we're here to really help navigate one difficult conversation. But what can really come up Obvio, you know, similarly, childhood trauma. There's a reason they're showing up in this, and that I have to really continue to work on what are the boundaries of what I can offer, what is like safe, ethical, productive, useful, et cetera. Where's referral? And where's that feeling of just like, oh, there's this unmet need, and I'm not meeting it. I can see it, and I don't sort of like do no harm. I don't want to make this situation worse by my expectations or my assumptions. It can take some work. And I just know like using the lab of my internal workings about money and my conflicting, competing priorities, my complete ambivalence, my total anxiety, my flip-flopping, my inconsistent all of that just exists inside of me. And so then magnifying that to someone else and trying to like get in sync and and know that we're speaking the same language, I can imagine is, you know, is really tricky for y'all too. And that's hard.
Sara [00:25:51] Were you guys ready for this to turn into a therapy session? Were you ready? Getting the feeling. I know you're not therapists, but
Caitlin [00:25:59] Well take it. Which it's cheaper than therapy. Rebecca, what drew you into like you're a financial advisor but you're very interested in behavioral psychology what's the specific industry term for money psychologist?
Rebecca [00:26:18] I'm actually and I'm so mad. Probably by the time this podcast gets published, I will have passed. But I'm getting my behavioral financial advising certification. Very cool. So funny because that's the only reason why I got into finance. Oh. Basically I have two financial advisors as parents. It hit me when my no, but I knew nothing. Like the whole moment hit me when I was twenty two. My dad said, Great, you got a job at a college. Let's sit down and open up your four or one K And I was like, What is that? And if he wasn't sitting over my shoulder telling me exactly what buttons to press, I wouldn't have done it. And I know that comes from a place of massive privilege. And I'm so happy for that, but that was the problem. It's like 99% of the population does not have what I had. And that's when I became obsessed with it. And then I started to realize that actually our decisions, our financial decisions every single day are the things that compound and the things that impact our investments. And it's less about being a good thing.
Caitlin [00:27:18] Compounding interest. Call back to compounding interest. Exactly. Yes. That's so good, Rebecca. Say it again, Rebecca. It's our decisions that are compounding.
Rebecca [00:27:29] Our financial decisions are compounding. And if everything we do is a financial decision, that's why finance is hard. You don't decide one day, I'm gonna be good at finance. You're making multiple decisions every single day. You have to choose the correct thing every single time you step out of the house. That is why it's hard. And it's the same thing with dieting. You don't say, I'm gonna lose 20 pounds, and next week you do. It's a decision that you make multiple times a day, and everything affects that. And that's when I became obsessed with finance. It was less about let's get these women to start investing. Obviously, that's super important and part of the equation, but it's more about learning the impact of your multiple decisions a day and how that impacts your finances long term. And I think women are victims of materialism more often than men, which can add up over a long period of time. And again, if we're going back to the trade-offs, if you're buying things constantly, it's going to impact your long term wealth. And it's not even our fault. Like we are being targeted constantly on social media with ads, with influencers, with friends buying things. There's so many other things that impact our finances more so than the investments themselves.
Sara [00:28:44] Yeah, I mean and that also makes me think about the sense of shame that a lot of women bring into a financial relationship around not doing it sooner. Right. If there's like one overarching theme of the Austin Women's Investing Group, which is like I wish I had started this sooner. So there's like a a grieving process for all of the missed opportunity. Will also kind of serve as a barrier to moving forward. Like, oh, all this time wasted, all this money wasted, right? That certainly like I think all of us in this community are trying to like, okay, like agree for a minute and then like, let's get going. Let's like start our compounding journey now if we're starting from here. Let's let's start it.
Rebecca [00:29:25] And I love that you said that because what I've been telling people that are in that grieving process of, you know, maybe they're in their thirties, they wish they started in their twenties. We are looking at the wrong time horizon when it comes to investments. Like that's something that I will say. Obviously the numbers don't lie. There is a huge difference between twenty and thirty. However, if you're just looking at it until you retire and not looking at it the rest of your life, right. Everyone treats retirement like the end game when actually it's just the beginning of another phase. And so if you look at investing from thirty years old to eighty-five or ninety, when you might actually live until That's a lot of investments. That's a lot of time for the investments to grow. And so maybe we're just looking at the wrong time horizon.
Caitlin [00:30:11] I have some of my most in-depth graphic fantasies about opening a Roth RA when I was 21 with tip money. Like I can really like go to town on that fantasy, like back in time, know what I know now. It would have made everything, and I can spend a lot of time on that. So I am one of those people, like if I could get EMDR to just be like, delete.
Rebecca [00:30:39] Can I one up you because I actually still yell at my parents about this? They're financial advisors. I was working on the books at fourteen. Why they didn't tell me to contribute even twenty five dollars to a Roth IRA, I still have no idea and I yell at them every day.
Caitlin [00:30:54] I'm so envious that you have people to blame other than yourself. Like I, you know, I'll throw in some blame to my parents, but they weren't financial advisors. So I feel like, oh wow, you really have a good case. Like, you screwed me really hard. Yes. That is amazing. This idea of compounding decision making is really also, and what I love about that is like the the hope that you get inspired by, like, ooh, if I save this little bit here, it's going to like exponentially increase. So that could be the same with the decisions. I'm just making this one new decision about putting $25 a week in the savings account. So I finally have an emergency saving. That's that's gonna be part of the what did you the flywheel that can like take over and those mini decisions really do make. Where I think those of us who started already feeling like we were too far behind to even make a difference. There's something that like is hopeful about that too.
Rebecca [00:31:55] It is. Most of it is changing your mindset. And because also our decisions can negatively impact negatively compound. And so as long as you're compounding in a positive direction. When you get started shouldn't matter. It you should get started today if you didn't already twenty years ago.
Caitlin [00:32:15] Today. Sara, what does you you say don't
Rebecca [00:32:18] Best time to plant a tree.
Caitlin [00:32:20] Yeah, yeah. We we talk about the tree. We talk about the tree. The tree the tree. Orum Buffett's tree. And then also like the perfect not being the enemy of the good or the good not being like, you know. Essentially don't overthink it like the best as you said, like the best time to do it t is today. Just fuck up. Like do it wrong today. So you have something to correct later and have it not be perfect, which is so relieving to hear. And then also I know from me it was not easy to even enact once I heard that.
Rebecca [00:32:54] Yeah, I will say too working with women and men, I find that there's a huge difference. I like to say that men are more likely to fire than aim, versus women need to aim first. We need to be 100% confident in where we're going before we even fire. And that's the massive psychological difference working with men and women. And if we could be more like men and just do it and fail and it's fine and we'll pivot, I think that that's something we can actually learn from men and just get started early. It's you know, if there's there's a ton of research out there and there's a ton of noise, but if you do stifle through it, you'll figure out that there are certain nuggets that are actually good and you can you can start investing.
Caitlin [00:33:43] I know we're not gonna call out anybody by name, but I very much appreciated that you talked about the trend for people that have just happened to be very lucky financially, then giving on financial advice is hard to stomach and it does such a disservice to people that like are not lucky and it introduces I think they think of themselves as it being empowering, but I think it's the opposite. It makes everyone else feel like, God, what's wrong with me that I didn't achieve that?
Rebecca [00:34:14] We don't see the other side. Because if someone, you know, I heard someone like made twenty twelve million dollars on cryptocurrency in thirty-six hours. As good as that sounds, do you know how psychologically they're more likely to then start gambling? Right? They're more likely to actually fail and lose their money because they got so much money in a few hours.
Caitlin [00:34:36] Mm-hmm.
Rebecca [00:34:37] It's we don't see the other side of the coin. We only see the great stories. We don't see all of the people that lose money constantly by trying to time the market, by pulling out money at the wrong time. There are so many downsides and there are upsides to that stuff. So and so we have to be careful to your point who we listen to and what we do with our money.
Caitlin [00:35:00] Yeah, and resisting the comparisons to other people, I think is like a lifelong lifelong task to do every single day. So that you can really just like relax into who you are, where you are in the journey. I hate saying journey, but what is another word? Your path, on your trajectory? None of 'em are good.
Sara [00:35:23] We have to work on that.
Caitlin [00:35:24] We're gonna workshop that later. Okay, and there's one other thing that I want to ask both of you about. We're recording this at a very specific time in history. You both have clients that you are helping them think through financial decisions. I know Sara tells me that by the time someone like me sees a stock market headline, it's too late for me. It's already happened. And but I feel like in this particular set of weeks here in the time space continuum of March 2025, the news we're still waiting for like good news or news that doesn't continue to get bad. So I I get Sara's newsletter, and it's like, what do we do when it's so volatile? You know, and I see that as definitely behavioral psychology. I just can't ignore the climate that both of you are working in right now. And just wanted to check in with both of you to see, oh, how is it to be advising your clients right now? How is it to be a financial advisor right now? How are you like keeping your head above water?
Sara [00:36:32] Yeah, I'll definitely let Rebecca go first so I can
Rebecca [00:36:35] I would let you go first. I what I tell my clients and part of what I my job, I say that I time their plan and not the market. And so The I I explain it to people like this short-term risk is absolutely volatility of the market. If you need the money, so for example, an emergency fund, that's something that you don't want to be invested because God forbid the market does go down 20%, which can happen very easily. And you need the money, you want to avoid locking in a loss as much as possible because that's the only way you lose money, is selling at a lower value than what you purchased it for. However, long term risk is inflation. It's the value of your purchasing power going down. And so while people get short sighted, obviously rightfully so, with all the noise going on, the volatility of the market is actually essential to building long term wealth.
Caitlin [00:37:30] Ooh it's like a redwood forest where there needs to be a fire for those seed pods to break open to grow little trees, but man enduring that fire.
Rebecca [00:37:41] It's it's a lot. And actually to a client the other week, I equated myself to a pilot. You know, when the pilot comes on and he's like, Well, we're gonna go through some turbulence. And so you automatically feel better knowing that the pilot knows that there is gonna be turbulence and he'll see you through. And that's also part of my job. It's there will be market turbulence at any given time. There can be. And it's my job to get you to your financial destination as smoothly as possible. And there are weak in the knees moments, but those are moments that you call me up and I make you feel better. And I rely on historical data for that.
Caitlin [00:38:20] So you're not freaking out.
Rebecca [00:38:24] You can tell us we won't tell any Strictly from an investment standpoint.
Caitlin [00:38:32] Okay.
Rebecca [00:38:33] A recession is i if you are a buyer and if you don't need the money and you're invested properly, there are a lot of caveats and strictly from an investment standpoint. Right, exactly. There are other cav there are other horrible things that happen with a recession, like people losing their job and my heart goes out to those people. But if you're strictly an investor, right, no other implications of a recession and you don't need the money, it's not the worst thing. If you're investing for the long term. I would love to hear Sara's opinion about that.
Sara [00:39:08] Yeah, I mean I am in almost complete agreement with everything that Rebecca said. I think that where I don't I don't even know if this would be a difference, right? But I think it's like the Value of having an advisor is you have the person that you can call to explain your thought process. Right. And so it's someone with expertise that you can call, use as a sounding board, and basically kind of do a gut check during times like this. Some people just need to be reminded, like Rebecca said, like it is not timing the market, it's time in the market. We look at those long term charts. I mean, Caitlin, you've probably seen these charts a thousand times at this point. Doesn't matter. Like, does it matter? Yeah. Right. The market throws everything at you. If we're reacting to every single thing, then we're never gonna be in the market, right? Because we're never gonna have certainty. But I think also the value of having an advisor is that each specific special snowflake client that we have gets to I don't know, I kind of viewed as like making their case. Yeah. Right? Which like for different advisors or sorry, for different clients. I have very, very, very thoughtful, well informed, educated clients who I know they are not jumping in and out of the market at every single thing. But at this particular moment in time, for themselves, for where the market is, for the type of uncertainty that they're experiencing and that they're all experiencing, they have very thoughtfully said, I'm gonna hit the pause button. I am opting out of what I think and I have a relatively high conviction is going to be a lot of heartburn going forward. Most of these people have already done a lot of the work of saving and growing their money, so they have a relatively large amount to start from and don't necessarily need all of the upside that other clients need in order to get where they're going. And more so than any other time since I've been an advisor, I've had people just kind of tap out and say, like this isn't this is this is specific. I'm gonna keep an eye on it, I'm gonna keep checking in, I'm not going to cash forever, but I'm taking a certain amount of chips off the table. What do you think? Right. And so just I mean, I just before I got on this call, got off the call with one of my favorite clients, we had this conversation. He's like, This is just really what I want to do. And then he asked me what I do with my personal money. And I'm like, I'm I'm not a seller, right? I'm I'm still a buyer. I'm a long term stocks for the long run.
Rebecca [00:41:52] Right. And just to interject there too, because I like what I tell people is how you're invested actually matters more in my opinion than the investments themselves. So, you know, if you are someone that's anxious about the market, not having a hundred percent of your entire portfolio in equities during a time of instability, making sure that you always have money that you can easily access, whether that be in bonds, CDs, money market account, high L Sami's account. That's why I focus more on the overall plan of my clients. It's like, well, when do you need this money? Is when I how I determine then what investments are made with your money.
Caitlin [00:42:30] What I find fascinating about this is both of you seem to have some mechanism in your psychology, in your brain, born through experience, wisdom, everything else, where you are like not getting hijacked by this idea that we are living in unprecedented times. Like both of your faiths in like the history of the market and the market like the market not the market's gonna regulate itself, but like this is so entrenched in the global system that really anything short of like nuclear annihilation of the human race is and then we have different problems. We'll have a different podcast episode on that. I think for lay people. Like the announcement every day, the drumbeat of we will no longer have a Department of Education. We like it seems now that the infrastructure guiding my daily life is in transition right now. A way that I'm like, I will we have a Supreme Court? Will we have like I don't know? And so I'm fascinated that both of you who I assume have that feeling about other departments in the government or not, you know, you don't have any more knowledge than I do about if we'll have Social Security. But that the faith in the stock market continues.
Rebecca [00:44:01] I'm finding more and more talking to clients at this present moment. And I would love to hear Sara your opinion. But part of an email that I sent to a client the other day was, yeah, I'm realizing part of my job is taking a leap of faith, but it's backed by historical data. And so if I wasn't confident in that historical data, I wouldn't be dragging everyone else on along on my leap of faith.
Sara [00:44:27] Mean I also think that I I am not going out on a limb here, I think, when I say this, that I think Rebecca will agree with me. When you're learning about the markets, you're learning a language that people in business already know. The secret sauce of the stock market, which is just a collection of businesses, is everyone is driven by greed. Or fear, right? Like in like intermittently, but the whole system is set up to be flexible enough and to incentivize people to go out and start businesses and try to create these super successful businesses so that they generate profits for themselves and their co-owners. And that's what the whole system is. Okay. It's really, really flexible. So it's hard for me to imagine, and like as a business owner, I do this all the time too, right? Like Well, let's say there's a trade war. What decisions am I going to make as a business owner to adapt to these circumstances? Like I am not set in stone. I have a lot of tools at my disposal. And then spin that up to like Apple and Microsoft. Like lots of tools at their disposal to adapt to whatever this change in circumstances are. And I and I think that where a lot of my clients kind of run into problems is that the d that department of education thing that you brought up, like isn't a factor. And that feels gross. It's it's not like there's stuff that's relevant to business and running a business and there's stuff that's relevant to running a government, and those are two different things in a lot of cases.
Caitlin [00:46:04] It's so helpful to think about that way and that the through line that will save us all is greed. Because that really is does feel like a theme right now. And so it's like, oh, if our system, if our retirement accounts depend on people's greed, businesses greed, oh, we're fine. Like that's being reinforced right now. So like we might not have schools, we might not have a health system, but like those business so it actually is weirdly soothing. Like it you have a different sort of take on humanity, et cetera. I do understand how having that different con conception of what the the financial system is built on and how that is like qualitatively different than what a government is built on allows you to take that leap of faith that, like, yeah, there's all this, as you called it, Rebecca, which I totally get noise. But in the end, Apple's gonna want to make their money. All the players and new ones are gonna wanna make their money. And that's how we're tethered to them with that greed to ensure our own financial futures. So we should be excited about an oligarchy. Sorry, that's another That's another one. Okay. Maybe not excited. Yeah. Rebecca, thank you so much for coming on and sharing in this therapy hour. Thank you so much
Rebecca [00:47:26] So much for having me.
Caitlin [00:47:31] Do you have a question about finance or investing? Send it to us in an email or voice memo to our website, womenontheverge.com. Don't worry, Sara will answer it. I won't.
Sara [00:47:42] Hey, women on the verge. We want you to know that economic abuse isn't always obvious, but it's a powerful form of control. Maybe a partner limits your access to money, sabotages your work, or racks up debt in your name. If any of this feels familiar, please know you're not alone, and support is out there. Learn more at thehotline.org or call 800-799-289.
Caitlin [00:48:07] Our podcast is edited by our co-producer Kelly West with music by Bad Bad Hats and Debmo. I know, the first thing you notice is that I'm covered in gold.
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