June 3, 2025 • 52 mins
Finance correspondent, New York Times best-selling author, and "Money Rehab" podcast host Nicole Lapin is sitting down for a conversation with Jennie about the money of it all!
From when to start investing, to when to talk finances with your kids, to why we need to remove the taboo talk about money in relationships, Nicole is giving great, easy-to-understand advice on finances that can often feel confusing and overwhelming.
Nicole is teaching us all why choosing to take control of our money and understand how to make it work in our favor is the smartest decision we can make for ourselves!
Order Nicole's new book The Money School
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garle.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Everyone, welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all
about the choices we make and where they lead us.
If I'm being honest, money and talking about finances is
something that I have always shied away from. Nobody ever
thought I needed to know these things. I never had
any kind of formal education about finances at all. It
(00:29):
was more like on the job training, paying men to
manage and advise. I handed the reins off to managers
and accountants, which turns out not so smart, and I've
learned things the hard way. But the last couple of years,
I've made it a focus of mine to become more
financially literate so that I can assume my rightly position
(00:53):
as the CEO of ME. We spend our lives. We're
trying to make money and trying to get those end
to meet. As women, I believe it's important for all
of us to be educated about everything, and one of
the best ways to be independent and have that confidence
and thrive is to know how to make and handle
(01:14):
your own hard earned money. It's time for us to
take back those rains and invest in our cells and
our future. I want you to become the CEO of
you too. The bottom line is taking steps towards investing
in your financial future is a huge I choose me mindset.
(01:35):
My guest Today has served as the financial correspondent for
shows like Morning Joe and The Today Show. She is
a New York Times bestselling author and the host of
her podcast Money Rehab. Her latest book, The Money School,
Twelve Simple Lessons to Master Financial Markets, is out now.
(01:56):
Please welcome Nicole Lappin to the podcast. Thank you for
being here, Nicole, Thank you for having I am fascinated
with you.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Oh back.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
You're everything I ever wanted to be. And you're so
smart with money, and I've always wanted to be smart
with money. So you are, and you will be smarter.
I will be smarter because you brought me a copy
of your book. I'm so curious. Did you grow up
in a family where finances were talked about openly?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Nope, not even a little bit.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Really grew up in an immigrant family, first generation American,
super broken home. Actually so never have the Wall Street
Journal in the kitchen table never talked about stocks or bonds.
And like a lot of immigrant families, like they just
use cash. If you don't have cash, you don't buy things.
That's all I knew about money. I started college as
a poetry major, like I wanted to sit under a.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Tree and write poetry all day along.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
So when the people say like, I can't do it
because I'm not a numbers person, I'm like, I started
as a poetry major.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
I can do it. I promise you can do it too.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
When did you realize you wanted to learn about that?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Oh my gosh, I did it. I didn't want to
learn it about it at all. I hated finance. I
hated all of this stuff. My boyfriend in high school
said he wanted to be a hedge fund manager. I
thought he wanted to be in gardening, Like I was
the most clueless ever ever ever. When I was eighteen,
I got a job offer though on the floor of
the Chicago Burk.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I went to school in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And I thought the mirk was a mall and it's
a stock exchange in Chicago. And I just faked it
till I made it. I lied I needed a job.
They were like, do you know anything about business news?
Speaker 5 (03:27):
I'm like, absolutely, When you need a job, what do
you say, I I'll figure it out. I figured out
harder things in life, and I did, And that's when
I realized that money is just a language like anything else.
We just didn't have a Rosetta stone for that growing up,
and you probably didn't learn about it in school or
if you're like me at home either. But once you
(03:48):
can speak the language, you can not only understand it,
but you I did. I spoke it to the world,
and just like any other language, if you went to
Japan and didn't speak Japanese, you'd be really confused.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
If you went to Wall Street and didn't speak.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
The language of money, you'd be confused until you speak
the language and you're like, dad, it's not that serious.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Oh my gosh, that gives me hope. Did your parents
model a healthy relationship with money at all? No?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Negative?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
No, just sailed my mother out of jail using cash
under the sink behind the Maxine.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Okay, well, when.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I was in middle school, Like, it's super deep.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I want to so, I so want to ask why
she was in jail, but I'm not going.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
To It's in one of the books.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Okay, that's crazy, because I know how important it is
as a parent to model things for our kids. And yeah,
I know what it looks like when parents don't model
healthy money relations with young people in their house. I've
seen how it's affected certain people in my life. I
(04:45):
don't I don't know, Like if you don't have that
model as a young person.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
You just become me.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I guess you figure it out for yourself.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I mean, you can always break the cycle, really truly.
Just because it was done a certain way doesn't mean
that's the way it needs to be done.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
With everything the.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Way you you know, grew up around religion, around eating,
around money. You know, oftentimes we see what our parents
are doing and we emulate that, but also you can
look at what they're doing and say, I want something
completely different, especially when it comes to money. Like oftentimes
we will see that our parents, you know, splurged or
(05:26):
you know, talked about dead in a negative way, or
hid purchases from their spouse or something like that, and
then you know, we have that sort of embedded in us.
And I think on different levels, whether it's a micro
sense or a macro sense, what we've experienced about money
will definitely dictate how we feel and how we approach
money on a macro sense, Like if you know, I
(05:48):
saw my house foreclosed on when I was a kid,
the housing crisis, the dot com bubble, all of that
will affect our choices. But you know, recognizing that is
the first step to recovery. My you know, all my
books are twelve step plans, because I think the first
step to any recovery is admitting you have a problem.
And the only financial problem you can't fix is the
(06:08):
one you don't admit you have.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So true, you have to recognize that you have a problem.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
We all have problems.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
We all have problems, more issues than fogue.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
You talk about this in your new book, The Money School.
But it is insane that we are not taught anything
about money or finances in school.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Insane, cuckoo bananas. Why do we learn the Pythagorean theorem?
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Do you remember it?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Trigonometry? I'm sorry's triangles?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Like knowing the powerhouse of a cell or mitochondria.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
I mean, never helped me.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
It's important for some people for some professions.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Totally, Yeah, but hopefully you're getting advanced degrees if you
chose professions.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, just like if you wanted to go into the
world of finance, you'd go to business school and you
would study it.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, yeah, but we didn't.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
But yeah, when I was younger, my parents taught me.
They never really talked about money out in the open.
They were both teachers. We weren't wealthy at all, and
we grew our own food, and they were teachers by
day and farmers on the weekends. So I had kind
of the best of both worlds. But the only thing
I remember them teaching me about money was how to
(07:21):
make it, and then on how yeah that's how to
go get a job when you're thirteen, fourteen, whatever you
can get. I started working really early, and how to
balance a checkbook. And I loved balancing my checkbook, honestly,
I did you like, what where did that go? I
want to I want to write it in the ledger,
(07:42):
you know the date.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I know that's a check on there, you know, And
so I think it's for us as parents now, you know, checks,
you know are probably going by the way of the BlackBerry.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Or the noteo bird.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But you know, those lessons I think are things that
we can and we should, especially if they're not learning
this stuff in school, teach our own kids. It's incumbent
in us to do it, now, you know. I wish
we learned how to do a business plan, or how
to do our taxes, or you know, how to write checks.
The craziest thing I ever heard from one of the
book events I did with somebody said like, oh, I'm good,
(08:17):
I have money.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I have checks.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
It's so scary the lack of financial literacy out there.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
That doesn't cut it anymore.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
You got a checkbook, I know you don't have money
because you have checks. It's I mean, it's really really
a joke about it, but it's serious. And I think
that especially for women. You know, too many women have
stayed in bad relationships, whether you know, abusive personally or
at work, because they're too scared of handling the money
(08:49):
on their own. And so I think having that money
and having that taking back that power so important in
all aspects of our lives.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah. I mean I have three young adults now who
are all just starting to learn well, two of them
are starting to learn about finances and investing. And you know,
I am not the most illiterate at in the finances area.
I didn't go to school, I didn't learn it. I
(09:19):
was kind of told that I didn't need to know
about anybody anything about it. Because there were other people
that would take care of that for me that that
wasn't such a great thing as it turns out. But
have a bad experience, oh gosh, you know, growing up
going from adult lessons to teenage than teenage straight to fame. No,
(09:42):
there was no college for me. There was no that
natural transition that most people have into coming into their
own or figuring out like what they want or where
they're going to live or any of those things. So, yeah,
I started making money, and I didn't know what to
do with it. So I just did what I was
advised to do, which was hiresome, ready to handle it all.
And I wouldn't say that I had a bad experience.
(10:05):
I would say that I've learned recently that I can
be very influential. I can convince people of certain things,
Like I convinced my money manager that I needed to
buy this or do that, or you know, and he
would he would let me. And sometimes you probably should
have said, no, let's let's slow your role there for
(10:26):
a second and let's think about saving for the future
or investing, you know. And that all kind of came
later as I got into my in my twenties. For sure,
someone was making all of those decisions for me, and
they would say, we're thinking about this investment for you
and this one, and I'd be like, oh, I love
PEPSI or yeah, I'm familiar with cocoa puffs or whatever
(10:49):
they wanted to invest. So I don't think it was
coco puffs, but thank god, but yeah I didn't. I
didn't have that encouragement or guidance at all time. What
age do you think we as parents should start encouraging
or teaching our kids about investing.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I think it's never too early and it's all, you know,
age appropriate. And so even when they're getting allowance, is
it something where you have them negotiate for their allowance
like creating entrepreneurs and starting to build that skill.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
What would that look like if somebody if your kid
was negotiating for their allowance.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
So I'd be like, so, Jenny, what do you think
you earned this week? It's ten dollars and you're like, no, mom,
I don't know we could roll.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, I did the dishes, I fed the dogs. I
think that's five dollars. I made five dollars this week.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Why I just offered you ten dollars?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I know?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So do you want being more realistic? No, I made
but that's a lesson.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Who knows, Like maybe a kid would say something like that, right,
and you say, oh, so you want less than you know,
less than ten dollars? You want five? Do you think
you've got five dollars? I'm trying to give you ten dollars.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Okay, okay, I'll take the ten dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Mom, okay, so only ten dollars. Is that everything you did?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
You did the dishes. I also saw you pick up
the dog poop.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I want ten dollars?
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, I sold, maybe eleven? Could I get eleven?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I mean, I guess I saw one dog poop that
you didn't pick out.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Okay, R fifty Okay, we negotiated it. I love my
ten fifty.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
This week.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Wall Street is intimidating for someone who's listening right now
that has never invested in the stock market. Where do
you suggest they start?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I would say, remember that this amazing force of compound
interest that is so often used against us in the
financial system can be used in our favor. So the
way it's used against us is through credit card debt.
Like I got into so much credit card debt when
I first got a real credit card, and I had
to figure out how to get myself out of it
the hard way. And that same force can be used
(12:50):
in our favor when we start investing.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
So when it.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Comes to investing, it's not about timing the market. It's
time in the market that matters most. The earlier that
you start, the better, And I would suggest starting with
low cost s and P five hundred index funds. Warren
Buffett okay, Well, SNP s and P five hundred, five
hundred okay index funds. So Warren Buffett, do we know him?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, he's granted the greatest investors of our time. He
put that in his will for his own wife to
do with their money when he passes away. And it's
really hard to beat the overall market. So the S
and P five hundred is an index for the overall market.
There are three major indexes. So maybe sometimes you hear
on the news like the Dow is up, the Dow
(13:37):
is down, the S and P five hundred is up
or down, the Nasdaq is up or down, And those
are indexes, and those just give sort of a pulse
check of what the overall market is doing. So overtime,
the greatest proxy for what the market is doing is
the S and P five hundred because it's the five
hundred biggest, most powerful stocks that we have. And when
one of those stocks does bad job, they get kicked.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Out of the index.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
And so oh time, that's yielded about ten percent inflation
adjusted around seven percent.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
So when you.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Start in the market as soon as possible, you take
advantage of that beautiful, amazing force of compound interest where
your money is literally making money for you while you're sleeping.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
And the earlier you start, the better. I can give
you an example.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So holder your girls like twenty two, okay, so.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
It for easy math.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Let's say let's say one of them started at thirty
five to invest two hundred bucks a month. By the
time she'll retire, she'll have a little bit less than
five hundred thousand dollars. Five hundred thousand dollars is so
much money, and that's awesome. But let's say she started
at twenty five instead of thirty five, same amount of money,
(14:47):
same rate of return. By the time she retires, she'll
have almost one point three million dollars. That's just starting
ten years earlier. And that's not starting with you know,
eight hundred thousand dollars extra. That's starting with just two
hundred dollars a month for ten years extra, so twenty
four thousand dollars will yield you over time, you know,
(15:09):
eight hundred extra grand And that's just you know, one
example of how starting early can help. You can do
it as a parent with you know, custodial roth iras.
We can get into it if you want, we're not
five twenty nine's all these things that are you know,
that allow you to have your money grow for you
or for your kids over time.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Right to sort of set them up for success. What
a nice gift to give them, even if it's like
what's the minimum, you could start doing that to set
your kids up for success.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
So for a custodial wroth diarray, so you know what
an IRA is like an individual retirement account a ROTH.
There's a ROTH and then there's a traditional So the
only difference there is taxes.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right with a ROTH, you pay.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Taxes now, so you don't pay taxes when you take
it out, okay, So for a custodial roth iray, those
are basically like kitty irays. So if you start investing
the maximum which is seven thousand dollars a year after
a kid is born. That's the maximum. Maximum is seven
thousand a year. But like, here's where it gets good.
(16:13):
So if at eighteen they you know, they'll have three
hundred thousand dollars if it if it compounds in the
same way as the market has historically. Let's say they
stop investing, like they never put seven thousand dollars into that,
just leave it in there. So from zero to eighteen,
you put seven grand in there. The time they retire,
they'll have twenty eight million dollars.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Oh my god, I know sister number right.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
And if they kept putting that seven thousand dollars in,
they'd have thirty six million dollars with an m million dollars.
I mean it will be less by then than that
is now because of inflation.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
But still if that is crazy. So seven thousand dollars
a year, yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
And tax free.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
And so because you know kids, if you have a business,
you could pay your kid fourteen six hundred anything less
than that, they are not paying taxes on it anyway.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
So that's a that's a loophole right there. That's what
they call loop. I like that legal legal, yeah, legal
ones Okay, wow, Yeah, I wanted to ask you. You
say in your book that some of the most common
concerns you hear from people who are hesitant to get
started with investing are one they are too old to start,
(17:27):
like it's too late for them, or two they don't
have enough money, or three they just aren't numbers people.
I've used that one totally.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
And so what I say to that is, you're never
as young as you are today. So as far as
I'm concerned, today is as.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Good a day as any.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Okay, So we talked about that. We talked about the
idea that it's not about how much money you have,
it's time in the market that matters the most. Like
I gave you those examples with two hundred bucks a month,
so that's fifty dollars a week. And so it's not
about having a ton of money, it's about starting as
early as possible. And then the numbers person thing I got.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
I started as a poetry major.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, you know what I've found. I've always said, like, yeah,
I still say it all the time. I don't math.
I don't that's not for me. I don't like numbers.
When you talk about numbers, I think about rainbows and unicorns,
like I just don't like to hear about numbers. But
I've realized that that has just been an excuse all
my life to be lazy and let somebody else do
(18:27):
it for me.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
No one's ever going to care as much about your
money as you are, no ever, ever, ever. And the
mouth is so so easy, like we're not talking about trickonometry,
we're not talking about calculus here.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
It's so so.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Simple and once you just understand the broad strokes, you
can really use it in your favor. It's really not
about complicated numbers. Like I'm not, you know, naturally a
numbers person either.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I know people that are in their forties and have
not started investing yet other than through their jobs. Those
the funds that the corporations have set up for them.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
But for owing cage exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Thing like that, yeah, yeah, And you know, when it
comes to retirement, you don't have to put a ring
on any of those retirement accounts. You can have more
than one if you want. The more the better. And
you know, I.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Think that.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
It's a language like anything else, like you just have
to jump into it and the stuff that you're saying
to yourself sister, Like I think that you're just you're
in this zone of bad talk. Like I've heard it
several times in this class.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
What did I do?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Like I'm financially.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Illiterate, I'm not good at it.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I never you know, want to talk about it. And
this is stuff that you're just telling yourself, Like these
are just these are stories and we just need to
change with the story.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Those are stories that I told myself until I was
fifty years old, and at fifty, I decided now's the
time for me. Yeah, to get a hold of this
and take it over. Yeah, it's so important.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And also like the way.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
We talk to our kids about it, you know, we
don't even think about it, you know, just basic stuff
like we can't afford that, or money doesn't grow on trees.
What is a telling kid we can't afford that?
Speaker 4 (20:12):
So like money is fixed, we can.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Just never afford that. What about a growth mindset not
a fixed mindset, you know, or money doesn't grow on trees? Okay,
well does that mean like we can never get it?
What about saying something like it's a tool that we
can use to.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Get to our goals.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
You know, So all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
We've been told has brainwashed us to think all of
these things that we're not good about money, that we
can invest like guys can do it. Guys don't know
more than we do about money. They just talk about
it more often than we do. And actually, studies have
shown that women are much better investors than men.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
More instinctual. I would think.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
It's interesting because you want to kind of shut off
your emotions when you're investing, like bi low sell high
is the best adage in the finance world, but the
instinct is to, you know, sell low, like when the
market is crashing, like you want.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
To get it.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
You know it's only going to go more down. But
actually that's when things are on sale, and so you know,
and when you sell you want to sell high. But
when the market is up, you're like, oh my gosh,
it's going to go up forever. I just want to
like put more money in there. And so sometimes we
have to really stay strong to stick to a strategy
and not follow in strict and actually, women when it
(21:28):
comes to money, are much much better at that. Studies
have shown that we actually beat like our portfolios beat
about two percent. Two percent is a lot. You know,
we were just talking about a few percentage points over
time that adds up significantly.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
So forty five is not too late.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
It's never too never too late.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
It's never too late.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Now, if you want to get to certain goals by
the time you're sixty five or whatever, and you start later,
you're going to probably have to increase the number, Like
one of those variables is going to have to change.
So it might not be two hundred bucks a month,
it might be a thousand bucks a month.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Or I remember when I was first starting to make
money and they would talk to me about retirement. It
seems so I didn't I couldn't wrap my head around it,
and I would say, like, why do I need to
do this? I would like to spend my money now
when I'm older, I would say, Then when I'm an
old lady, I don't look kind of money am I
gonna need? Well, I want my money now while I
(22:20):
can go and have fun and spend it.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, studies have shown that we actually look at our
old lady sells as a whole different human being, that
we don't actually think of her as the same person. Yeah,
that's so crazy, it's true, And well, you know, I
(22:44):
think looking back, don't we wish we would have started earlier.
We all do you know, every time I look at
my even when I start seeing, you know, my brokerage
account increase, I'm like, oh my gosh, if I just
put in a little bit money of money when I started.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
At eighteen in Apple.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I have these videos where I'm reporting on the floor
of the exchange about the first iPod that launched, or
like Gmail launching, I'm like, oh my god, if I
put money in Google back then, you were there.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
You were there at the beginning. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
I got to kick ourselves about this.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Said something about Apple. I'm not going to ask you
for specific brands unless you want to help a sister out.
But what areas at the market do you think are
going to be or could potentially be lucrative for people
in this coming year? And what areas do you think
people should stay away.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
From as far as investments. It's such a good question
if you're just starting out. I really wouldn't pick individual stocks.
I would pick index funds, which are funds that track
an index. And so like the S and P five hundred,
there are different tickers that will follow the overall index.
So like voo is Van Guard words. You know, ETF,
(24:02):
that's an index fund. Stop me if ict like speaking
treat I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Okay, but that's okay.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
So so basically, like we talked about indexes, these sort
of benchmarks that follow the overall market, you can buy
a piece of that whole index basically through an index fund,
where you're investing little piece of money in all those
five hundred companies. So instead of just like putting your
money in one of those companies like in Apple or whatever,
(24:30):
then you're diversifying across a whole bunch with just one purchase. Wow,
And so you can invest you know, if you go
on to a brokerage account. You know, a brokerage account
is so we buy stocks in a brokerage account, unlike
we don't buy them at a bank. And people have
said to me, like, oh, I should I go to
the Apple store to buy Apple stock? Like we just
(24:52):
don't learn this stuff, And it's okay, Like just feel
comfortable asking the right questions and then you learn.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
And so you need to get a brokerage acou help,
So you need a broker Do you need a financial advisor? Okay?
Speaker 4 (25:04):
So many good questions.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I'm so excited so a brokerage is like a Schwab
or a fidelity or a vanguard this is or an
e trade or whatever where you can buy and sell stocks.
You don't need a broker because a lot of these
are self service. You can have an advisor. Make sure
(25:27):
that that advisor is a fiduciary, which sounds.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Like an SGD.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I learned what fiduciary is. Oh, I think I learned
about it the hard way. Fiduciary is someone who's got
your best interest, yes, as the number one priority instead
of their own. That's yes, this is where I think.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Who's financially literate? Y?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, So so a fiduciary is somebody that is operating
in your best interest for sure. If you're looking for
a financial advisor, if you you know, I can give
you like my recommendation, or just make sure that they
have they are a fiduciary and make sure that they
have these licenses. I do like a role playing in
(26:12):
the money school of what you should be asking, like
you know in that first conversation.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Or you can start of do a DIY path yeah,
where you just go online.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah, and so these if you go to one of
those apps, if you have like Vanguard, Fidelity, Robin Hood,
any of these. They all do the same thing basically,
And when i'm somebody asks me, like, which one is
the best?
Speaker 4 (26:34):
They're honestly all the same.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
It's like, whichever u X you're into, whatever you're going
to stick to, is the.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
One I like the most for you.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I think my daughters, since I didn't feel confident enough
to teach them, I have an advisor that's teaching them,
who helps me with my money, and they did teach
them to use Fidelity. To go onto Fidelity dot com
and just get in there. Yeah, get curious.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Get in there. Get curious for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
And you know the reason that you know, I suggest
if you're just starting out to look at those index
funds is that it's really hard to beat the market
when people are like, oh, look at this new hot stock.
The you know, the percentagees that we were talking about,
like ten percent over time is looking at the overall market.
(27:24):
It's not looking at individual stocks because those can go
up and down and indexes do too, but over time,
like you want to really put your blinders on as
much as possible. With all the craziness in the market.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Right it feels so risky, I think for so many people,
because things do seem to change so quickly. I think
maybe that's probably the main deterrent for a lot of
people wanting to get involved at all. What are if
they don't want to get into the stock market first,
what are some more conservative or steady options that you
think they should consider.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Oh, so your girls can always call me?
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So the way investments work are not like a seesaw.
So risk and reward actually work hand in hand. So
the more risk you take on, the more rewards you
take on. The less risk you take on, the less
rewards you take on. So lower risk investments will get
you less of a return. That's okay if you're just
(28:22):
starting out. I tend to write my books or talk
about on my podcasts, like from lowest risk to highest risk,
and so the lowest risk investments could be something like
a CD, which you do get at a bank. This
is a form of debt, by the way, So debt
can be awesome if you're the owner of the debt
and you don't owe the debt. So own versus oh
(28:44):
one letter makes a world of difference.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
I didn't know you could own debt.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
You can, Yeah, so like a CD. Have you heard
of a CD at the bath?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
So basically it's you give them a certain amount of money,
you agree on an interest rate that they'll give you
over time, and then they'll give you your money back. So
if you lock it up for a year, five years,
ten years, whatever, and then they'll give you your money
back for the privilege of being able to use your
money for whatever they want for that period of time. Totally,
(29:13):
and so you're basically the lender in that situation. You're
lending the bank money and for that right, they're going
to give you a present in the form of interest.
And so those are very low risk investments, but they're
not going to get you a ton of money. A
couple percentage points potentially right now they're a little bit higher. Actually,
when interest rates go up, you think it's so bad,
(29:35):
maybe if you're getting a mortgage, but if you're investing,
it's great because those interest rates go up for.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
You as a saver.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
And then you know, in the form of a government bond,
it's the same type of idea. US treasuries really low
risk because you know you're lending your money basically to
the US government.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Wait, wait, wait, why would I do that? That seems
like not a good idea. Well, because were the they
talk about, you know, America's debt being higher than totally
I can even imagine.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yes, but if they don't pay back their loans, and
if the US government doesn't pay back treasuries, I promise
we're going to have more problems than the investment you
made in your treasury will have, like zombie apocalypse vibes.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
My gosh, it's the highest.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
It's the highest rated sovereign debt, so countrywide debt, it's
triple A rated. So when you're looking at investing as
the lender in bonds, let's say you're investing in bonds
issued by governments, so the US or wherever, Venezuela or whatever,
(30:47):
they all issue bonds. You can also invest in corporate
bonds and those are all rated. So think of it
as we get a credit score. Countries get a credit
score basically too. Companies get a credit score too. So
the States is triple A rated, which is the highest
credit rating. So the higher the rating, the lower the
risk the lower rate. But if let's say you're going
(31:09):
to invest in Venezuelan bonds or whatever, then it's lower rated,
but they're going to have to give you a higher
interest rate because of that risk. So think about it
like if I'm lending money to a friend, if I'm
lending money to Jenny and Hannah, and Jenny I know,
is like so responsible, You're gonna give me money back,
no problem. Oh, there's less of a risk that I'm
(31:32):
not going to get my money back, So I'm probably
gonna not want to.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Have that much of an interest rate.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
If there's more of a risk that somebody is not
going to give me my money back, then I'm going
to want more of a return, almost like as an
insurance policy that I'm going to get my interest back.
And I made this bet, this risky bet on a
person or company or a country that might not give
me their money back. So it just goes along with
like higher risk, higher interest, higher reward you want to get,
(32:00):
lower risk, lower interest you're going to get.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Do you think it's important to have a diverse, high
high risk, low risk portfolio? Totally?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Totally, And I think the rule of them is to
look at like bonds and stocks using your age. That's
one you know rule of thumb. You can use whatever
you want for your situation and when you're going to
need your money back. So if you take your age
fifty in bonds, fifty percent of your portfolio would be
(32:29):
in bonds and then the rest would be in equities or.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Stocks like in the stock market.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
And the thought process behind that is by the time
you retire or get older, you know, most people will
if you have a different situation than tinker based on
your needs. But you're going to want a lower risk
situation for yourself by the time you need that money out.
So let's say you know you're nearing the time when
you want to take it out. Stocks are more volatile
(32:55):
and more risky. You're not going to want to take
that money out when it's in a low because remember
by low sell.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
High, by low sell high. Yeah, okay, how does credit work?
We all start out at zero?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Great question?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
So that do you know your credit score?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
I do?
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Okay, amazing.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
I only say that because I was looking at my
one of my credit card apps on my phone the
other day and I saw it and I was like, oh,
what's in the in the green? So I'm good, okay, good?
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Usually do you want to tell me what it is?
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Seven something?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Great?
Speaker 1 (33:32):
I'm fifty. Yeah, that's good, right.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah. All of it is really just telling lenders how
responsible of a person you are. So if you're going
to get a mortgage or a business loan or a
personal loan, there's really not that much of a difference.
Some people when they get into this, they get really
competitive and they're like, well, I don't want some fifty
on one eight hundred. It's like that you're gonna get
the same the best rate if you're in that green
(33:57):
zone generally, So basically it's your financial report card. It
tells lenders you know how responsible you are. And so
the higher the credit score, the lower the rate. So
that actually does work like a seesaw. So higher the
higher your credit.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Score, lower your interest rates.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
So if you are coming to me as a bank,
you have seven fifty, then I'm going to give you,
let's say, you know, a two percent rate, and and
I think is an example of a bad that's okay
credit score you know has uh, you know, at six hundred,
then I'm going to charge her three percent or three
(34:39):
and a half percent or four year.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
You're more concerned, there's more of a risk that she's
not going to be.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Able to put you back, like maybe she pieces out,
maybe she you know, God Forbaco's bankrupt or something like that.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
So I'm taking on more risks.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That I'm not going to get my full amount back
from the mortgage or the personal owne she took out.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
I know for like Okay, so say someone is listening,
is a single mom with a limited income, how should
she start investing in her financial future? Like what would
you suggest? Stock market or something else like that?
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Roth Ira, You don't have to choose, but you also
have to look at your overall picture. You know, does
this mom have debt? What percentage is that debt? So
there's something called the seven percent rule. So if you look,
you know, I'd love to look at all of her debt,
all of her assets, and her liabilities. So liability is
(35:36):
just everything you owe. So if she has credit card
debt at twenty percent and she has you know, student
loans at four percent, then I would want her to
pay off that credit card debt at twenty percent first,
because that's eating into anything she could invest. And the
reason that seven percent rule exists is because that's general
(36:00):
how much you're going to get if you're investing in
the overall market and so anything above that you should
pay off before you invest. Anything below that you can
take that spread or the difference between the debt and
what you would get if you were investing. So if
you have four percent of debt, you can still invest
at seven percent, and you know you'll make the difference.
(36:21):
You'll still make more. Having money allows you to make
more money, you know, the thing your parents said is
really important. Making more money is a great lesson to learn.
But it's actually not how much you make. It's how
much you keep and how much you grow it that
matters the most. And so a salary, even if it's
(36:42):
a really really high salary, is never going to grow
long term generational wealth investing is, and using that power
for you will.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
So you suggest getting paying off your debt depending on
the interest rates.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
So if you have different types of debt, there are
two methods to paying off debt. I like the avalanche method,
which is rating your debt from highest interest rate first
to lowest interest rate, and so paying off the highest
interest rate first.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
So let's say get in there with that one totally.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, Like, let's say you know she has a four
percent interest rate for student debt, and you know twenty
percent interest rate for credit card debt and you have
one hundred bucks, but magically that four percent is one
hundred dollars bill, and you're like, that feels really cathartic.
I'm just going to pay off that bill and be
done with that. It's actually better to put one hundred
(37:33):
dollars towards the twenty percent the bigger debt.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, even if it just chips out. Yeah, yeah, you
hear that. I mean I hear that all the time.
People don't have money, they just charge everything and they
end up with so much debt.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, it's I mean, I was in that situation and
I broke it down. By the day I think all
of this stuff, it gets really complicated and overwhelming. You know,
the jargon keeps a lot of people out of the conversation,
and I try to take as much of the jargon
out as humanly possible. Like I didn't work at a bank,
I didn't get my MBA. I just learned in the
school of hard knocks because.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I had to.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
And so, you know, the more you get involved in
in debt, like if it's a big number, breaking it
down like I did, I think it was seven dollars
a day makes it more digestible. So anything hard broken
down into steps, you know, makes it easier for you
to stick to.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Little baby steps. Yeah, So have a goal of what
you want to tackle and go to that. Work on
that one.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Just day by day, just like break it down into
as little chunks as possible. You know, the first time
I did my taxes, I had, you know, all the
receipts crickled up, all the things that I was like,
I'm going to spend the whole Saturday and I'm going
to be done with my taxes. And what happened after
Saturday was I had a glass.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Probably a bottle of wine hog in US.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
No taxes were done, and instead I said, Okay, all
I'm gonna do on day.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
One is literally uncrinkle my receipts.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Just uncrinkle them and I'm done, and then I could
stick to that. The next day, I'm gonna stack them
in little piles.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Because if you try to bite off more than you
can doew, You're just gonna feel really frustrated and never
get to.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Okay, receipts do I have to keep receipts because I
feel like I just throw them out because I feel
like if I bought something it's on my credit card,
then I can just reference my credit card and look
it up all my charges.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Usually that's fine.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
That's visually, that's fine. Yeah, Okay, I mean this whole
like savior receipts thing totally. I can never get a
handle on that.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
It's usually fine.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
There's so many caveats, and you know, talk to a
tax professional. If you really want to get a handle
of your situation, you should keep it for you know,
a certain number of years in theory, but in practice,
like I don't any.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Ordered here first, we are not holding under our receipts anymore.
It's just too much. It's too much clutter.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Well, listen, if you if you have a business and
you are going out, you know for business lunches or
dinners or you know those types of things, it's it's
actually good to keep what that is and the item
is because you can only take your abortion and all
these like different roles. But if you don't work for
yourself and you have a pretty simple tax situation.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
You're good.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, I'm going to go to the like I'm going
to look it up on my credit card statement.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Yeah, or like it pulls into books or whatever.
Speaker 5 (40:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Absolutely, I want to talk about money and relationships because
that's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
First of all, how long do you think you should
be dating somebody before you have money talks or debt
talks or financial goal talks.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
I think you can have them at every step of
a relationship. They're just going to be different, right, So
when you're dating, you're not talking about wills and trusts
and stuff like that. But if you have kids, you
better be you better have a will or a trust
or both ideally, you know, and so it those talks
change as you, as life happens, and as your relationship grows.
(41:15):
When you move in with somebody, you know, you want
to know whose name the bills are under. If they're
under that other person's name and they're paying them on
time and you guys break up, then they're accumulating good
credit history. If they're under your name and the other
person is not paying it for whatever reason, then they're
screwing your credit. So you just want to have It's
(41:39):
so hard to have these conversations. It feels really taboo.
But we talk about way more personal stuff than money,
Like when.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
We're at dinner, with our girlfriends.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah, we will talk about sexy time, bikini waxes, all
the bowel movements, menopause period, all of the things. And
I'm like, gro you just told me about your landing
strip bikini wax, Like you're not gonna tell me about
what you're making and your investments?
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Hey, I want to help.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Why can't we open up that?
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Right?
Speaker 1 (42:08):
It's such a secrets. It's like a secret because we
don't want to have less than Susie. And you know,
it's just it can be a very disheartening thing to
hear when you're not doing as you know, the same
things that someone else is doing and seeing them have
success with it totally but honestly, Yeah, actually it's about
talking about it so you can learn from Susie. Like,
(42:32):
I want to know what you're doing and how you
got to this financially stable place that you are, because
that's what I want for myself. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
And if you have these, you know, these mean girl
conversations with yourself, like I'm not as good as Susie
or Isaac or whatever.
Speaker 4 (42:47):
My worth is not as that's on you.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
That's like your work to do.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Because nobody's said that money equals value right, and so
money without meaning is just paper.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
It's how you use it.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Money as a tool, honey is a tool, and so
like a hammer you can build a house, you can
tear it down.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
It's a tool.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
It has nothing to do with your own self worth
or your esteem. Having these conversations will only help you
become more educated and get ahead. Like I wish we
would instead have discussions about what investments you're in or
you know, how much you're making, you know, negotiating for yourself.
You know, whether you learned it as a kid with
(43:27):
your allowance or not. Most of us didn't as like
a skill, just like anything else, and so understanding what
other people are making opening up that dialogue is so
important if you want to do it, I would say
go first, go first, because the break the yeah, totally,
Like any hard conversation is always easier when somebody starts,
(43:49):
like addiction. You know, if somebody wants to talk about that,
for instance, and they say, like, my father died of
an overdose. And when I say something like that, people
are like, oh wow, you know, like I know my situation,
but they're not gonna bring it up on their own.
And so if you want to talk about it. I
would say, like go first, which is what I do
in my books on my show, Like I say, I'll
(44:12):
show you mine, hopefully if you you don't even.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
Need to show me yours.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
I hope you just show yourself yours. I'll take it
for the team.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
You talked about negotiating, I can't even I go to
the farmer's market and I can't even negotiate, like with
for the tomatoes, like I will just give them full
price for everything, because I just don't feel comfortable negotiating
with people. It's a skill.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
It's it's like just a muscle. Also, like the tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I mean, yeah, it's that farmer star like yeah, I
think that, you know when you go to the school
meat and yeah, buy totally and they're like, oh, it's
thirty dollars.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
You're like I ownly way five yeah, or like have
about twenty five.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
I get uncomfortable of like just give them the money
they want.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
You know, also that or like it's perspective, you know,
so the biggest purchases will make our houses and running
those numbers and making sure that you're getting what you
can there super worth your time. That's why your credit
score is super worth your time because that's connected to
the debt that you'll pay. So if you have a
(45:20):
lower credit score, you're going to pay more in debt
over time, which will be thousands of.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Dollars, you know, the tomato.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Like, I really don't know if we should sweat the
small stuff when it comes to money, Like relationships, the
little things matter so much.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
What do you mean, Like the note that.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
You left me, the text that you sent me matters
so much in like personal.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Things, the awful things.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
Yeah, But with money, it's the big things.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
It's like, don't worry about the tomato or the latte,
Like worry about your credit score. Worry about figuring out
how to get points off your mortgage. That's the big stuff.
Figure out how to grow your money, like this little
thing that we get fixated on, which is how I
started and this to begin with, because you know, financial
experts were yelling, don't buy a latte, and I.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
Was like, oh my god, I love that.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
I mean, And so it's not about you know, nickel
and dying yourself on the little things. It's focusing on
the big stuff so that you don't have to worry.
I think I always got caught up in that along
my journey, and I remember someone saying to me, I
won't name names, but saying, I was, what's the expression
penny smart dollar? Oh that pound foolish penny wise pound
(46:29):
foolish penny. So, like you know, you fixated on the little, yeah,
little things that you were buying and less so about
the big things. A lot of people do that because
it feels like something you can control, right, right, and
we all want the little things is easier to control totally.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Things. Going back to the relationship talking Okay.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Are we dating?
Speaker 4 (46:50):
What's my story?
Speaker 1 (46:51):
We might be, but I know that that it can
cause a lot of problems in a relationship. Money it's
always uncomfortable to talk about. And you don't want to
get too far in with somebody and find out that
they have this mountain of debt or they are, you know,
have loans that they're trying to dig out from under.
And some people get into relationships where one person is
(47:12):
taking on more of the financial responsibilities. How if you
find yourself in that situation, how do you course correct
that in a way that's going to protect you in
the big picture.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
So I think, first of all, when it comes to
talking about finances, Like, it doesn't have to be scary.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
It's not an interrogation.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
It's not like flashlighting your eye.
Speaker 4 (47:35):
Where were you the native Junefit.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Like, no, it's hey, baby, you know, what do you
want out of your life? Like goals have price tags.
So it's about talking about your life, reverse engineering to
figure out how to get the money to live that life.
Understanding how they want to spend their money, what their
habits are.
Speaker 4 (47:54):
It's not like how.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Much is in your you know, bank account, or like
what's in your brokerage account or what's your credit score.
Speaker 4 (47:59):
That's not like first eight conversations.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
I don't think I would that would kind of be eternality.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
But yeah, it's but I think understanding how they view
money is really important to do early on, and that's
you can get a sense of that. You can get
a sense of how they're spending, you know, what what
they what kind of brands they're buying, do they have
mountains of bills on their calenter Like you can just
(48:26):
just be perceptive and pay attention to maybe yellow flags,
and then as you get more into the relationship, you
can double click on those yellow flags and see if.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
They're red or green.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
But it's it's having an open dialogue that most divorces
happen because of finances in one way or another, and
you know, being able to talk about that earlier is
obviously better. But I would go back to the hard
conversation part, like be ready to talk about it first,
bring up a prenup, Like I think a lot of
women should bring.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
Up a prenup.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
This this whole narrative that we've gotten into of Like
he's making me get a prenup? You know what do
you mean? Like? What about your money? What about the
things that you've built? What about bringing it up and
taking back the power of that conversation.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Absolutely, it's about protecting yourself.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, and you can you have a prenup whether you
have an actual document or not. Like the state is
going to decide in California, in anywhere, and you are like,
depending on where you are, the state is going to
decide what happens to your assets. So it's better to
decide for yourself. I generally think we would want to
have more control. Same thing when it comes to wills.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
And trusts and stuff like that. After listening to having
this conversation today, what is the one thing that you
hope our listeners take away.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
I would honestly, just listening to you talk, I want
all of the listeners to just be mindful of the
self talk around money because they think it really dictates
what your actions are. I think, just try to tell
the mean girl inside your head to take several seats.
We all have her or mean guy. And I think
(50:08):
it's really important the way we talk to ourselves about money.
You know, maybe we're not there yet, like we're not
where we want to be right the second, but there's
no reason that we won't be, and there's no reason our.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
Kids won't be.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
And I think it's just being really mindful and how
we talk to ourselves and how we talk to our kids,
like we talked about, you know, when it comes to money,
because it really does affect what you do or what
you don't do. So right self talk, positive self talk
in every area.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Who's financially literate.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Now, that'd mean yeah, before I let you go, Nicole,
what was your last I choose me moment? Oh my goodness,
Oh my goodness, so my goodness, my last I choose
This has been a tricky one because I just had
(51:00):
a baby and I just lost my house, and it's
been a lot of choosing everybody else moments. My last
I Choose me moment was going to get blood work
done and finding out that I had an iron thing,
which is why I wasn't having energy, and then taking
(51:23):
time to go get iron infusions because that would make
me feel better. And they were a lot of time
when I have the baby and all of that, but
I thought it would make me a better mom, a
better partner, a better everything if I just went and
did this, like not fun thing, but I think self
care is not always about deep tissue massages and you know,
(51:44):
Manny petties, I love those, don't get me wrong, But
like sometimes self care I think is about going to
the doctor, doing financial self care. Investing in yourself pays
the most diffidence later on, I know it really does.
People don't don't realize that is that to choose me moment,
absolutely you chose to be your own health advocate, to
(52:08):
make sure that you are running at your top level
so that you could then in turn be there for
your family.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
I love that. Thanks, this has been such a great conversation.
I hope that I know that our listeners will take
something away from it. So thank you very much, thank
you
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garle.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Everyone, welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all
about the choices we make and where they lead us.
If I'm being honest, money and talking about finances is
something that I have always shied away from. Nobody ever
thought I needed to know these things. I never had
any kind of formal education about finances at all. It
(00:29):
was more like on the job training, paying men to
manage and advise. I handed the reins off to managers
and accountants, which turns out not so smart, and I've
learned things the hard way. But the last couple of years,
I've made it a focus of mine to become more
financially literate so that I can assume my rightly position
(00:53):
as the CEO of ME. We spend our lives. We're
trying to make money and trying to get those end
to meet. As women, I believe it's important for all
of us to be educated about everything, and one of
the best ways to be independent and have that confidence
and thrive is to know how to make and handle
(01:14):
your own hard earned money. It's time for us to
take back those rains and invest in our cells and
our future. I want you to become the CEO of
you too. The bottom line is taking steps towards investing
in your financial future is a huge I choose me mindset.
(01:35):
My guest Today has served as the financial correspondent for
shows like Morning Joe and The Today Show. She is
a New York Times bestselling author and the host of
her podcast Money Rehab. Her latest book, The Money School,
Twelve Simple Lessons to Master Financial Markets, is out now.
(01:56):
Please welcome Nicole Lappin to the podcast. Thank you for
being here, Nicole, Thank you for having I am fascinated
with you.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Oh back.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
You're everything I ever wanted to be. And you're so
smart with money, and I've always wanted to be smart
with money. So you are, and you will be smarter.
I will be smarter because you brought me a copy
of your book. I'm so curious. Did you grow up
in a family where finances were talked about openly?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Nope, not even a little bit.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Really grew up in an immigrant family, first generation American,
super broken home. Actually so never have the Wall Street
Journal in the kitchen table never talked about stocks or bonds.
And like a lot of immigrant families, like they just
use cash. If you don't have cash, you don't buy things.
That's all I knew about money. I started college as
a poetry major, like I wanted to sit under a.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Tree and write poetry all day along.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
So when the people say like, I can't do it
because I'm not a numbers person, I'm like, I started
as a poetry major.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
I can do it. I promise you can do it too.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
When did you realize you wanted to learn about that?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Oh my gosh, I did it. I didn't want to
learn it about it at all. I hated finance. I
hated all of this stuff. My boyfriend in high school
said he wanted to be a hedge fund manager. I
thought he wanted to be in gardening, Like I was
the most clueless ever ever ever. When I was eighteen,
I got a job offer though on the floor of
the Chicago Burk.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I went to school in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And I thought the mirk was a mall and it's
a stock exchange in Chicago. And I just faked it
till I made it. I lied I needed a job.
They were like, do you know anything about business news?
Speaker 5 (03:27):
I'm like, absolutely, When you need a job, what do
you say, I I'll figure it out. I figured out
harder things in life, and I did, And that's when
I realized that money is just a language like anything else.
We just didn't have a Rosetta stone for that growing up,
and you probably didn't learn about it in school or
if you're like me at home either. But once you
(03:48):
can speak the language, you can not only understand it,
but you I did. I spoke it to the world,
and just like any other language, if you went to
Japan and didn't speak Japanese, you'd be really confused.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
If you went to Wall Street and didn't speak.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
The language of money, you'd be confused until you speak
the language and you're like, dad, it's not that serious.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Oh my gosh, that gives me hope. Did your parents
model a healthy relationship with money at all? No?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Negative?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
No, just sailed my mother out of jail using cash
under the sink behind the Maxine.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Okay, well, when.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I was in middle school, Like, it's super deep.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I want to so, I so want to ask why
she was in jail, but I'm not going.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
To It's in one of the books.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Okay, that's crazy, because I know how important it is
as a parent to model things for our kids. And yeah,
I know what it looks like when parents don't model
healthy money relations with young people in their house. I've
seen how it's affected certain people in my life. I
(04:45):
don't I don't know, Like if you don't have that
model as a young person.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
You just become me.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I guess you figure it out for yourself.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I mean, you can always break the cycle, really truly.
Just because it was done a certain way doesn't mean
that's the way it needs to be done.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
With everything the.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Way you you know, grew up around religion, around eating,
around money. You know, oftentimes we see what our parents
are doing and we emulate that, but also you can
look at what they're doing and say, I want something
completely different, especially when it comes to money. Like oftentimes
we will see that our parents, you know, splurged or
(05:26):
you know, talked about dead in a negative way, or
hid purchases from their spouse or something like that, and
then you know, we have that sort of embedded in us.
And I think on different levels, whether it's a micro
sense or a macro sense, what we've experienced about money
will definitely dictate how we feel and how we approach
money on a macro sense, Like if you know, I
(05:48):
saw my house foreclosed on when I was a kid,
the housing crisis, the dot com bubble, all of that
will affect our choices. But you know, recognizing that is
the first step to recovery. My you know, all my
books are twelve step plans, because I think the first
step to any recovery is admitting you have a problem.
And the only financial problem you can't fix is the
(06:08):
one you don't admit you have.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So true, you have to recognize that you have a problem.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
We all have problems.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
We all have problems, more issues than fogue.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
You talk about this in your new book, The Money School.
But it is insane that we are not taught anything
about money or finances in school.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Insane, cuckoo bananas. Why do we learn the Pythagorean theorem?
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Do you remember it?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Trigonometry? I'm sorry's triangles?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Like knowing the powerhouse of a cell or mitochondria.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
I mean, never helped me.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
It's important for some people for some professions.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Totally, Yeah, but hopefully you're getting advanced degrees if you
chose professions.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, just like if you wanted to go into the
world of finance, you'd go to business school and you
would study it.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, yeah, but we didn't.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
But yeah, when I was younger, my parents taught me.
They never really talked about money out in the open.
They were both teachers. We weren't wealthy at all, and
we grew our own food, and they were teachers by
day and farmers on the weekends. So I had kind
of the best of both worlds. But the only thing
I remember them teaching me about money was how to
(07:21):
make it, and then on how yeah that's how to
go get a job when you're thirteen, fourteen, whatever you
can get. I started working really early, and how to
balance a checkbook. And I loved balancing my checkbook, honestly,
I did you like, what where did that go? I
want to I want to write it in the ledger,
(07:42):
you know the date.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I know that's a check on there, you know, And
so I think it's for us as parents now, you know, checks,
you know are probably going by the way of the BlackBerry.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Or the noteo bird.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But you know, those lessons I think are things that
we can and we should, especially if they're not learning
this stuff in school, teach our own kids. It's incumbent
in us to do it, now, you know. I wish
we learned how to do a business plan, or how
to do our taxes, or you know, how to write checks.
The craziest thing I ever heard from one of the
book events I did with somebody said like, oh, I'm good,
(08:17):
I have money.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I have checks.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
It's so scary the lack of financial literacy out there.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
That doesn't cut it anymore.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
You got a checkbook, I know you don't have money
because you have checks. It's I mean, it's really really
a joke about it, but it's serious. And I think
that especially for women. You know, too many women have
stayed in bad relationships, whether you know, abusive personally or
at work, because they're too scared of handling the money
(08:49):
on their own. And so I think having that money
and having that taking back that power so important in
all aspects of our lives.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah. I mean I have three young adults now who
are all just starting to learn well, two of them
are starting to learn about finances and investing. And you know,
I am not the most illiterate at in the finances area.
I didn't go to school, I didn't learn it. I
(09:19):
was kind of told that I didn't need to know
about anybody anything about it. Because there were other people
that would take care of that for me that that
wasn't such a great thing as it turns out. But
have a bad experience, oh gosh, you know, growing up
going from adult lessons to teenage than teenage straight to fame. No,
(09:42):
there was no college for me. There was no that
natural transition that most people have into coming into their
own or figuring out like what they want or where
they're going to live or any of those things. So, yeah,
I started making money, and I didn't know what to
do with it. So I just did what I was
advised to do, which was hiresome, ready to handle it all.
And I wouldn't say that I had a bad experience.
(10:05):
I would say that I've learned recently that I can
be very influential. I can convince people of certain things,
Like I convinced my money manager that I needed to
buy this or do that, or you know, and he
would he would let me. And sometimes you probably should
have said, no, let's let's slow your role there for
(10:26):
a second and let's think about saving for the future
or investing, you know. And that all kind of came
later as I got into my in my twenties. For sure,
someone was making all of those decisions for me, and
they would say, we're thinking about this investment for you
and this one, and I'd be like, oh, I love
PEPSI or yeah, I'm familiar with cocoa puffs or whatever
(10:49):
they wanted to invest. So I don't think it was
coco puffs, but thank god, but yeah I didn't. I
didn't have that encouragement or guidance at all time. What
age do you think we as parents should start encouraging
or teaching our kids about investing.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I think it's never too early and it's all, you know,
age appropriate. And so even when they're getting allowance, is
it something where you have them negotiate for their allowance
like creating entrepreneurs and starting to build that skill.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
What would that look like if somebody if your kid
was negotiating for their allowance.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
So I'd be like, so, Jenny, what do you think
you earned this week? It's ten dollars and you're like, no, mom,
I don't know we could roll.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, I did the dishes, I fed the dogs. I
think that's five dollars. I made five dollars this week.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Why I just offered you ten dollars?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I know?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So do you want being more realistic? No, I made
but that's a lesson.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Who knows, Like maybe a kid would say something like that, right,
and you say, oh, so you want less than you know,
less than ten dollars? You want five? Do you think
you've got five dollars? I'm trying to give you ten dollars.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Okay, okay, I'll take the ten dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Mom, okay, so only ten dollars. Is that everything you did?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
You did the dishes. I also saw you pick up
the dog poop.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I want ten dollars?
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, I sold, maybe eleven? Could I get eleven?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I mean, I guess I saw one dog poop that
you didn't pick out.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Okay, R fifty Okay, we negotiated it. I love my
ten fifty.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
This week.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Wall Street is intimidating for someone who's listening right now
that has never invested in the stock market. Where do
you suggest they start?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I would say, remember that this amazing force of compound
interest that is so often used against us in the
financial system can be used in our favor. So the
way it's used against us is through credit card debt.
Like I got into so much credit card debt when
I first got a real credit card, and I had
to figure out how to get myself out of it
the hard way. And that same force can be used
(12:50):
in our favor when we start investing.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
So when it.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Comes to investing, it's not about timing the market. It's
time in the market that matters most. The earlier that
you start, the better, And I would suggest starting with
low cost s and P five hundred index funds. Warren
Buffett okay, Well, SNP s and P five hundred, five
hundred okay index funds. So Warren Buffett, do we know him?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, he's granted the greatest investors of our time. He
put that in his will for his own wife to
do with their money when he passes away. And it's
really hard to beat the overall market. So the S
and P five hundred is an index for the overall market.
There are three major indexes. So maybe sometimes you hear
on the news like the Dow is up, the Dow
(13:37):
is down, the S and P five hundred is up
or down, the Nasdaq is up or down, And those
are indexes, and those just give sort of a pulse
check of what the overall market is doing. So overtime,
the greatest proxy for what the market is doing is
the S and P five hundred because it's the five
hundred biggest, most powerful stocks that we have. And when
one of those stocks does bad job, they get kicked.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Out of the index.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
And so oh time, that's yielded about ten percent inflation
adjusted around seven percent.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
So when you.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Start in the market as soon as possible, you take
advantage of that beautiful, amazing force of compound interest where
your money is literally making money for you while you're sleeping.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
And the earlier you start, the better. I can give
you an example.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So holder your girls like twenty two, okay, so.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
It for easy math.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Let's say let's say one of them started at thirty
five to invest two hundred bucks a month. By the
time she'll retire, she'll have a little bit less than
five hundred thousand dollars. Five hundred thousand dollars is so
much money, and that's awesome. But let's say she started
at twenty five instead of thirty five, same amount of money,
(14:47):
same rate of return. By the time she retires, she'll
have almost one point three million dollars. That's just starting
ten years earlier. And that's not starting with you know,
eight hundred thousand dollars extra. That's starting with just two
hundred dollars a month for ten years extra, so twenty
four thousand dollars will yield you over time, you know,
(15:09):
eight hundred extra grand And that's just you know, one
example of how starting early can help. You can do
it as a parent with you know, custodial roth iras.
We can get into it if you want, we're not
five twenty nine's all these things that are you know,
that allow you to have your money grow for you
or for your kids over time.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Right to sort of set them up for success. What
a nice gift to give them, even if it's like
what's the minimum, you could start doing that to set
your kids up for success.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
So for a custodial wroth diarray, so you know what
an IRA is like an individual retirement account a ROTH.
There's a ROTH and then there's a traditional So the
only difference there is taxes.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right with a ROTH, you pay.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Taxes now, so you don't pay taxes when you take
it out, okay, So for a custodial roth iray, those
are basically like kitty irays. So if you start investing
the maximum which is seven thousand dollars a year after
a kid is born. That's the maximum. Maximum is seven
thousand a year. But like, here's where it gets good.
(16:13):
So if at eighteen they you know, they'll have three
hundred thousand dollars if it if it compounds in the
same way as the market has historically. Let's say they
stop investing, like they never put seven thousand dollars into that,
just leave it in there. So from zero to eighteen,
you put seven grand in there. The time they retire,
they'll have twenty eight million dollars.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Oh my god, I know sister number right.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
And if they kept putting that seven thousand dollars in,
they'd have thirty six million dollars with an m million dollars.
I mean it will be less by then than that
is now because of inflation.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
But still if that is crazy. So seven thousand dollars
a year, yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
And tax free.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
And so because you know kids, if you have a business,
you could pay your kid fourteen six hundred anything less
than that, they are not paying taxes on it anyway.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
So that's a that's a loophole right there. That's what
they call loop. I like that legal legal, yeah, legal
ones Okay, wow, Yeah, I wanted to ask you. You
say in your book that some of the most common
concerns you hear from people who are hesitant to get
started with investing are one they are too old to start,
(17:27):
like it's too late for them, or two they don't
have enough money, or three they just aren't numbers people.
I've used that one totally.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
And so what I say to that is, you're never
as young as you are today. So as far as
I'm concerned, today is as.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Good a day as any.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Okay, So we talked about that. We talked about the
idea that it's not about how much money you have,
it's time in the market that matters the most. Like
I gave you those examples with two hundred bucks a month,
so that's fifty dollars a week. And so it's not
about having a ton of money, it's about starting as
early as possible. And then the numbers person thing I got.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
I started as a poetry major.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, you know what I've found. I've always said, like, yeah,
I still say it all the time. I don't math.
I don't that's not for me. I don't like numbers.
When you talk about numbers, I think about rainbows and unicorns,
like I just don't like to hear about numbers. But
I've realized that that has just been an excuse all
my life to be lazy and let somebody else do
(18:27):
it for me.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
No one's ever going to care as much about your
money as you are, no ever, ever, ever. And the
mouth is so so easy, like we're not talking about trickonometry,
we're not talking about calculus here.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
It's so so.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Simple and once you just understand the broad strokes, you
can really use it in your favor. It's really not
about complicated numbers. Like I'm not, you know, naturally a
numbers person either.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I know people that are in their forties and have
not started investing yet other than through their jobs. Those
the funds that the corporations have set up for them.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
But for owing cage exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Thing like that, yeah, yeah, And you know, when it
comes to retirement, you don't have to put a ring
on any of those retirement accounts. You can have more
than one if you want. The more the better. And
you know, I.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Think that.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
It's a language like anything else, like you just have
to jump into it and the stuff that you're saying
to yourself sister, Like I think that you're just you're
in this zone of bad talk. Like I've heard it
several times in this class.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
What did I do?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Like I'm financially.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Illiterate, I'm not good at it.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I never you know, want to talk about it. And
this is stuff that you're just telling yourself, Like these
are just these are stories and we just need to
change with the story.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Those are stories that I told myself until I was
fifty years old, and at fifty, I decided now's the
time for me. Yeah, to get a hold of this
and take it over. Yeah, it's so important.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And also like the way.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
We talk to our kids about it, you know, we
don't even think about it, you know, just basic stuff
like we can't afford that, or money doesn't grow on trees.
What is a telling kid we can't afford that?
Speaker 4 (20:12):
So like money is fixed, we can.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Just never afford that. What about a growth mindset not
a fixed mindset, you know, or money doesn't grow on trees? Okay,
well does that mean like we can never get it?
What about saying something like it's a tool that we
can use to.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Get to our goals.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
You know, So all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
We've been told has brainwashed us to think all of
these things that we're not good about money, that we
can invest like guys can do it. Guys don't know
more than we do about money. They just talk about
it more often than we do. And actually, studies have
shown that women are much better investors than men.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
More instinctual. I would think.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
It's interesting because you want to kind of shut off
your emotions when you're investing, like bi low sell high
is the best adage in the finance world, but the
instinct is to, you know, sell low, like when the
market is crashing, like you want.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
To get it.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
You know it's only going to go more down. But
actually that's when things are on sale, and so you know,
and when you sell you want to sell high. But
when the market is up, you're like, oh my gosh,
it's going to go up forever. I just want to
like put more money in there. And so sometimes we
have to really stay strong to stick to a strategy
and not follow in strict and actually, women when it
(21:28):
comes to money, are much much better at that. Studies
have shown that we actually beat like our portfolios beat
about two percent. Two percent is a lot. You know,
we were just talking about a few percentage points over
time that adds up significantly.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
So forty five is not too late.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
It's never too never too late.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
It's never too late.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Now, if you want to get to certain goals by
the time you're sixty five or whatever, and you start later,
you're going to probably have to increase the number, Like
one of those variables is going to have to change.
So it might not be two hundred bucks a month,
it might be a thousand bucks a month.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Or I remember when I was first starting to make
money and they would talk to me about retirement. It
seems so I didn't I couldn't wrap my head around it,
and I would say, like, why do I need to
do this? I would like to spend my money now
when I'm older, I would say, Then when I'm an
old lady, I don't look kind of money am I
gonna need? Well, I want my money now while I
(22:20):
can go and have fun and spend it.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, studies have shown that we actually look at our
old lady sells as a whole different human being, that
we don't actually think of her as the same person. Yeah,
that's so crazy, it's true, And well, you know, I
(22:44):
think looking back, don't we wish we would have started earlier.
We all do you know, every time I look at
my even when I start seeing, you know, my brokerage
account increase, I'm like, oh my gosh, if I just
put in a little bit money of money when I started.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
At eighteen in Apple.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I have these videos where I'm reporting on the floor
of the exchange about the first iPod that launched, or
like Gmail launching, I'm like, oh my god, if I
put money in Google back then, you were there.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
You were there at the beginning. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
I got to kick ourselves about this.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Said something about Apple. I'm not going to ask you
for specific brands unless you want to help a sister out.
But what areas at the market do you think are
going to be or could potentially be lucrative for people
in this coming year? And what areas do you think
people should stay away.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
From as far as investments. It's such a good question
if you're just starting out. I really wouldn't pick individual stocks.
I would pick index funds, which are funds that track
an index. And so like the S and P five hundred,
there are different tickers that will follow the overall index.
So like voo is Van Guard words. You know, ETF,
(24:02):
that's an index fund. Stop me if ict like speaking
treat I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Okay, but that's okay.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
So so basically, like we talked about indexes, these sort
of benchmarks that follow the overall market, you can buy
a piece of that whole index basically through an index fund,
where you're investing little piece of money in all those
five hundred companies. So instead of just like putting your
money in one of those companies like in Apple or whatever,
(24:30):
then you're diversifying across a whole bunch with just one purchase. Wow,
And so you can invest you know, if you go
on to a brokerage account. You know, a brokerage account
is so we buy stocks in a brokerage account, unlike
we don't buy them at a bank. And people have
said to me, like, oh, I should I go to
the Apple store to buy Apple stock? Like we just
(24:52):
don't learn this stuff, And it's okay, Like just feel
comfortable asking the right questions and then you learn.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
And so you need to get a brokerage acou help,
So you need a broker Do you need a financial advisor? Okay?
Speaker 4 (25:04):
So many good questions.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I'm so excited so a brokerage is like a Schwab
or a fidelity or a vanguard this is or an
e trade or whatever where you can buy and sell stocks.
You don't need a broker because a lot of these
are self service. You can have an advisor. Make sure
(25:27):
that that advisor is a fiduciary, which sounds.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Like an SGD.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I learned what fiduciary is. Oh, I think I learned
about it the hard way. Fiduciary is someone who's got
your best interest, yes, as the number one priority instead
of their own. That's yes, this is where I think.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Who's financially literate? Y?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, So so a fiduciary is somebody that is operating
in your best interest for sure. If you're looking for
a financial advisor, if you you know, I can give
you like my recommendation, or just make sure that they
have they are a fiduciary and make sure that they
have these licenses. I do like a role playing in
(26:12):
the money school of what you should be asking, like
you know in that first conversation.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Or you can start of do a DIY path yeah,
where you just go online.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah, and so these if you go to one of
those apps, if you have like Vanguard, Fidelity, Robin Hood,
any of these. They all do the same thing basically,
And when i'm somebody asks me, like, which one is
the best?
Speaker 4 (26:34):
They're honestly all the same.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
It's like, whichever u X you're into, whatever you're going
to stick to, is the.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
One I like the most for you.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I think my daughters, since I didn't feel confident enough
to teach them, I have an advisor that's teaching them,
who helps me with my money, and they did teach
them to use Fidelity. To go onto Fidelity dot com
and just get in there. Yeah, get curious.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Get in there. Get curious for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
And you know the reason that you know, I suggest
if you're just starting out to look at those index
funds is that it's really hard to beat the market
when people are like, oh, look at this new hot stock.
The you know, the percentagees that we were talking about,
like ten percent over time is looking at the overall market.
(27:24):
It's not looking at individual stocks because those can go
up and down and indexes do too, but over time,
like you want to really put your blinders on as
much as possible. With all the craziness in the market.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Right it feels so risky, I think for so many people,
because things do seem to change so quickly. I think
maybe that's probably the main deterrent for a lot of
people wanting to get involved at all. What are if
they don't want to get into the stock market first,
what are some more conservative or steady options that you
think they should consider.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Oh, so your girls can always call me?
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So the way investments work are not like a seesaw.
So risk and reward actually work hand in hand. So
the more risk you take on, the more rewards you
take on. The less risk you take on, the less
rewards you take on. So lower risk investments will get
you less of a return. That's okay if you're just
(28:22):
starting out. I tend to write my books or talk
about on my podcasts, like from lowest risk to highest risk,
and so the lowest risk investments could be something like
a CD, which you do get at a bank. This
is a form of debt, by the way, So debt
can be awesome if you're the owner of the debt
and you don't owe the debt. So own versus oh
(28:44):
one letter makes a world of difference.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
I didn't know you could own debt.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
You can, Yeah, so like a CD. Have you heard
of a CD at the bath?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
So basically it's you give them a certain amount of money,
you agree on an interest rate that they'll give you
over time, and then they'll give you your money back. So
if you lock it up for a year, five years,
ten years, whatever, and then they'll give you your money
back for the privilege of being able to use your
money for whatever they want for that period of time. Totally,
(29:13):
and so you're basically the lender in that situation. You're
lending the bank money and for that right, they're going
to give you a present in the form of interest.
And so those are very low risk investments, but they're
not going to get you a ton of money. A
couple percentage points potentially right now they're a little bit higher. Actually,
when interest rates go up, you think it's so bad,
(29:35):
maybe if you're getting a mortgage, but if you're investing,
it's great because those interest rates go up for.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
You as a saver.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
And then you know, in the form of a government bond,
it's the same type of idea. US treasuries really low
risk because you know you're lending your money basically to
the US government.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Wait, wait, wait, why would I do that? That seems
like not a good idea. Well, because were the they
talk about, you know, America's debt being higher than totally
I can even imagine.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yes, but if they don't pay back their loans, and
if the US government doesn't pay back treasuries, I promise
we're going to have more problems than the investment you
made in your treasury will have, like zombie apocalypse vibes.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
My gosh, it's the highest.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
It's the highest rated sovereign debt, so countrywide debt, it's
triple A rated. So when you're looking at investing as
the lender in bonds, let's say you're investing in bonds
issued by governments, so the US or wherever, Venezuela or whatever,
(30:47):
they all issue bonds. You can also invest in corporate
bonds and those are all rated. So think of it
as we get a credit score. Countries get a credit
score basically too. Companies get a credit score too. So
the States is triple A rated, which is the highest
credit rating. So the higher the rating, the lower the
risk the lower rate. But if let's say you're going
(31:09):
to invest in Venezuelan bonds or whatever, then it's lower rated,
but they're going to have to give you a higher
interest rate because of that risk. So think about it
like if I'm lending money to a friend, if I'm
lending money to Jenny and Hannah, and Jenny I know,
is like so responsible, You're gonna give me money back,
no problem. Oh, there's less of a risk that I'm
(31:32):
not going to get my money back, So I'm probably
gonna not want to.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Have that much of an interest rate.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
If there's more of a risk that somebody is not
going to give me my money back, then I'm going
to want more of a return, almost like as an
insurance policy that I'm going to get my interest back.
And I made this bet, this risky bet on a
person or company or a country that might not give
me their money back. So it just goes along with
like higher risk, higher interest, higher reward you want to get,
(32:00):
lower risk, lower interest you're going to get.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Do you think it's important to have a diverse, high
high risk, low risk portfolio? Totally?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Totally, And I think the rule of them is to
look at like bonds and stocks using your age. That's
one you know rule of thumb. You can use whatever
you want for your situation and when you're going to
need your money back. So if you take your age
fifty in bonds, fifty percent of your portfolio would be
(32:29):
in bonds and then the rest would be in equities or.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Stocks like in the stock market.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
And the thought process behind that is by the time
you retire or get older, you know, most people will
if you have a different situation than tinker based on
your needs. But you're going to want a lower risk
situation for yourself by the time you need that money out.
So let's say you know you're nearing the time when
you want to take it out. Stocks are more volatile
(32:55):
and more risky. You're not going to want to take
that money out when it's in a low because remember
by low sell.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
High, by low sell high. Yeah, okay, how does credit work?
We all start out at zero?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Great question?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
So that do you know your credit score?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
I do?
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Okay, amazing.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
I only say that because I was looking at my
one of my credit card apps on my phone the
other day and I saw it and I was like, oh,
what's in the in the green? So I'm good, okay, good?
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Usually do you want to tell me what it is?
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Seven something?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Great?
Speaker 1 (33:32):
I'm fifty. Yeah, that's good, right.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah. All of it is really just telling lenders how
responsible of a person you are. So if you're going
to get a mortgage or a business loan or a
personal loan, there's really not that much of a difference.
Some people when they get into this, they get really
competitive and they're like, well, I don't want some fifty
on one eight hundred. It's like that you're gonna get
the same the best rate if you're in that green
(33:57):
zone generally, So basically it's your financial report card. It
tells lenders you know how responsible you are. And so
the higher the credit score, the lower the rate. So
that actually does work like a seesaw. So higher the
higher your credit.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Score, lower your interest rates.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
So if you are coming to me as a bank,
you have seven fifty, then I'm going to give you,
let's say, you know, a two percent rate, and and
I think is an example of a bad that's okay
credit score you know has uh, you know, at six hundred,
then I'm going to charge her three percent or three
(34:39):
and a half percent or four year.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
You're more concerned, there's more of a risk that she's
not going to be.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Able to put you back, like maybe she pieces out,
maybe she you know, God Forbaco's bankrupt or something like that.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
So I'm taking on more risks.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That I'm not going to get my full amount back
from the mortgage or the personal owne she took out.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
I know for like Okay, so say someone is listening,
is a single mom with a limited income, how should
she start investing in her financial future? Like what would
you suggest? Stock market or something else like that?
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Roth Ira, You don't have to choose, but you also
have to look at your overall picture. You know, does
this mom have debt? What percentage is that debt? So
there's something called the seven percent rule. So if you look,
you know, I'd love to look at all of her debt,
all of her assets, and her liabilities. So liability is
(35:36):
just everything you owe. So if she has credit card
debt at twenty percent and she has you know, student
loans at four percent, then I would want her to
pay off that credit card debt at twenty percent first,
because that's eating into anything she could invest. And the
reason that seven percent rule exists is because that's general
(36:00):
how much you're going to get if you're investing in
the overall market and so anything above that you should
pay off before you invest. Anything below that you can
take that spread or the difference between the debt and
what you would get if you were investing. So if
you have four percent of debt, you can still invest
at seven percent, and you know you'll make the difference.
(36:21):
You'll still make more. Having money allows you to make
more money, you know, the thing your parents said is
really important. Making more money is a great lesson to learn.
But it's actually not how much you make. It's how
much you keep and how much you grow it that
matters the most. And so a salary, even if it's
(36:42):
a really really high salary, is never going to grow
long term generational wealth investing is, and using that power
for you will.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
So you suggest getting paying off your debt depending on
the interest rates.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
So if you have different types of debt, there are
two methods to paying off debt. I like the avalanche method,
which is rating your debt from highest interest rate first
to lowest interest rate, and so paying off the highest
interest rate first.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
So let's say get in there with that one totally.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, Like, let's say you know she has a four
percent interest rate for student debt, and you know twenty
percent interest rate for credit card debt and you have
one hundred bucks, but magically that four percent is one
hundred dollars bill, and you're like, that feels really cathartic.
I'm just going to pay off that bill and be
done with that. It's actually better to put one hundred
(37:33):
dollars towards the twenty percent the bigger debt.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, even if it just chips out. Yeah, yeah, you
hear that. I mean I hear that all the time.
People don't have money, they just charge everything and they
end up with so much debt.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, it's I mean, I was in that situation and
I broke it down. By the day I think all
of this stuff, it gets really complicated and overwhelming. You know,
the jargon keeps a lot of people out of the conversation,
and I try to take as much of the jargon
out as humanly possible. Like I didn't work at a bank,
I didn't get my MBA. I just learned in the
school of hard knocks because.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I had to.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
And so, you know, the more you get involved in
in debt, like if it's a big number, breaking it
down like I did, I think it was seven dollars
a day makes it more digestible. So anything hard broken
down into steps, you know, makes it easier for you
to stick to.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Little baby steps. Yeah, So have a goal of what
you want to tackle and go to that. Work on
that one.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Just day by day, just like break it down into
as little chunks as possible. You know, the first time
I did my taxes, I had, you know, all the
receipts crickled up, all the things that I was like,
I'm going to spend the whole Saturday and I'm going
to be done with my taxes. And what happened after
Saturday was I had a glass.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Probably a bottle of wine hog in US.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
No taxes were done, and instead I said, Okay, all
I'm gonna do on day.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
One is literally uncrinkle my receipts.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Just uncrinkle them and I'm done, and then I could
stick to that. The next day, I'm gonna stack them
in little piles.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Because if you try to bite off more than you
can doew, You're just gonna feel really frustrated and never
get to.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Okay, receipts do I have to keep receipts because I
feel like I just throw them out because I feel
like if I bought something it's on my credit card,
then I can just reference my credit card and look
it up all my charges.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Usually that's fine.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
That's visually, that's fine. Yeah, Okay, I mean this whole
like savior receipts thing totally. I can never get a
handle on that.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
It's usually fine.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
There's so many caveats, and you know, talk to a
tax professional. If you really want to get a handle
of your situation, you should keep it for you know,
a certain number of years in theory, but in practice,
like I don't any.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Ordered here first, we are not holding under our receipts anymore.
It's just too much. It's too much clutter.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Well, listen, if you if you have a business and
you are going out, you know for business lunches or
dinners or you know those types of things, it's it's
actually good to keep what that is and the item
is because you can only take your abortion and all
these like different roles. But if you don't work for
yourself and you have a pretty simple tax situation.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
You're good.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, I'm going to go to the like I'm going
to look it up on my credit card statement.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Yeah, or like it pulls into books or whatever.
Speaker 5 (40:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Absolutely, I want to talk about money and relationships because
that's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
First of all, how long do you think you should
be dating somebody before you have money talks or debt
talks or financial goal talks.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
I think you can have them at every step of
a relationship. They're just going to be different, right, So
when you're dating, you're not talking about wills and trusts
and stuff like that. But if you have kids, you
better be you better have a will or a trust
or both ideally, you know, and so it those talks
change as you, as life happens, and as your relationship grows.
(41:15):
When you move in with somebody, you know, you want
to know whose name the bills are under. If they're
under that other person's name and they're paying them on
time and you guys break up, then they're accumulating good
credit history. If they're under your name and the other
person is not paying it for whatever reason, then they're
screwing your credit. So you just want to have It's
(41:39):
so hard to have these conversations. It feels really taboo.
But we talk about way more personal stuff than money,
Like when.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
We're at dinner, with our girlfriends.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah, we will talk about sexy time, bikini waxes, all
the bowel movements, menopause period, all of the things. And
I'm like, gro you just told me about your landing
strip bikini wax, Like you're not gonna tell me about
what you're making and your investments?
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Hey, I want to help.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Why can't we open up that?
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Right?
Speaker 1 (42:08):
It's such a secrets. It's like a secret because we
don't want to have less than Susie. And you know,
it's just it can be a very disheartening thing to
hear when you're not doing as you know, the same
things that someone else is doing and seeing them have
success with it totally but honestly, Yeah, actually it's about
talking about it so you can learn from Susie. Like,
(42:32):
I want to know what you're doing and how you
got to this financially stable place that you are, because
that's what I want for myself. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
And if you have these, you know, these mean girl
conversations with yourself, like I'm not as good as Susie
or Isaac or whatever.
Speaker 4 (42:47):
My worth is not as that's on you.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
That's like your work to do.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Because nobody's said that money equals value right, and so
money without meaning is just paper.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
It's how you use it.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Money as a tool, honey is a tool, and so
like a hammer you can build a house, you can
tear it down.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
It's a tool.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
It has nothing to do with your own self worth
or your esteem. Having these conversations will only help you
become more educated and get ahead. Like I wish we
would instead have discussions about what investments you're in or
you know, how much you're making, you know, negotiating for yourself.
You know, whether you learned it as a kid with
(43:27):
your allowance or not. Most of us didn't as like
a skill, just like anything else, and so understanding what
other people are making opening up that dialogue is so
important if you want to do it, I would say
go first, go first, because the break the yeah, totally,
Like any hard conversation is always easier when somebody starts,
(43:49):
like addiction. You know, if somebody wants to talk about that,
for instance, and they say, like, my father died of
an overdose. And when I say something like that, people
are like, oh wow, you know, like I know my situation,
but they're not gonna bring it up on their own.
And so if you want to talk about it. I
would say, like go first, which is what I do
in my books on my show, Like I say, I'll
(44:12):
show you mine, hopefully if you you don't even.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
Need to show me yours.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
I hope you just show yourself yours. I'll take it
for the team.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
You talked about negotiating, I can't even I go to
the farmer's market and I can't even negotiate, like with
for the tomatoes, like I will just give them full
price for everything, because I just don't feel comfortable negotiating
with people. It's a skill.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
It's it's like just a muscle. Also, like the tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I mean, yeah, it's that farmer star like yeah, I
think that, you know when you go to the school
meat and yeah, buy totally and they're like, oh, it's
thirty dollars.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
You're like I ownly way five yeah, or like have
about twenty five.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
I get uncomfortable of like just give them the money
they want.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
You know, also that or like it's perspective, you know,
so the biggest purchases will make our houses and running
those numbers and making sure that you're getting what you
can there super worth your time. That's why your credit
score is super worth your time because that's connected to
the debt that you'll pay. So if you have a
(45:20):
lower credit score, you're going to pay more in debt
over time, which will be thousands of.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Dollars, you know, the tomato.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Like, I really don't know if we should sweat the
small stuff when it comes to money, Like relationships, the
little things matter so much.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
What do you mean, Like the note that.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
You left me, the text that you sent me matters
so much in like personal.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Things, the awful things.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
Yeah, But with money, it's the big things.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
It's like, don't worry about the tomato or the latte,
Like worry about your credit score. Worry about figuring out
how to get points off your mortgage. That's the big stuff.
Figure out how to grow your money, like this little
thing that we get fixated on, which is how I
started and this to begin with, because you know, financial
experts were yelling, don't buy a latte, and I.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
Was like, oh my god, I love that.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
I mean, And so it's not about you know, nickel
and dying yourself on the little things. It's focusing on
the big stuff so that you don't have to worry.
I think I always got caught up in that along
my journey, and I remember someone saying to me, I
won't name names, but saying, I was, what's the expression
penny smart dollar? Oh that pound foolish penny wise pound
(46:29):
foolish penny. So, like you know, you fixated on the little, yeah,
little things that you were buying and less so about
the big things. A lot of people do that because
it feels like something you can control, right, right, and
we all want the little things is easier to control totally.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Things. Going back to the relationship talking Okay.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Are we dating?
Speaker 4 (46:50):
What's my story?
Speaker 1 (46:51):
We might be, but I know that that it can
cause a lot of problems in a relationship. Money it's
always uncomfortable to talk about. And you don't want to
get too far in with somebody and find out that
they have this mountain of debt or they are, you know,
have loans that they're trying to dig out from under.
And some people get into relationships where one person is
(47:12):
taking on more of the financial responsibilities. How if you
find yourself in that situation, how do you course correct
that in a way that's going to protect you in
the big picture.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
So I think, first of all, when it comes to
talking about finances, Like, it doesn't have to be scary.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
It's not an interrogation.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
It's not like flashlighting your eye.
Speaker 4 (47:35):
Where were you the native Junefit.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Like, no, it's hey, baby, you know, what do you
want out of your life? Like goals have price tags.
So it's about talking about your life, reverse engineering to
figure out how to get the money to live that life.
Understanding how they want to spend their money, what their
habits are.
Speaker 4 (47:54):
It's not like how.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Much is in your you know, bank account, or like
what's in your brokerage account or what's your credit score.
Speaker 4 (47:59):
That's not like first eight conversations.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
I don't think I would that would kind of be eternality.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
But yeah, it's but I think understanding how they view
money is really important to do early on, and that's
you can get a sense of that. You can get
a sense of how they're spending, you know, what what
they what kind of brands they're buying, do they have
mountains of bills on their calenter Like you can just
(48:26):
just be perceptive and pay attention to maybe yellow flags,
and then as you get more into the relationship, you
can double click on those yellow flags and see if.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
They're red or green.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
But it's it's having an open dialogue that most divorces
happen because of finances in one way or another, and
you know, being able to talk about that earlier is
obviously better. But I would go back to the hard
conversation part, like be ready to talk about it first,
bring up a prenup, Like I think a lot of
women should bring.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
Up a prenup.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
This this whole narrative that we've gotten into of Like
he's making me get a prenup? You know what do
you mean? Like? What about your money? What about the
things that you've built? What about bringing it up and
taking back the power of that conversation.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Absolutely, it's about protecting yourself.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, and you can you have a prenup whether you
have an actual document or not. Like the state is
going to decide in California, in anywhere, and you are like,
depending on where you are, the state is going to
decide what happens to your assets. So it's better to
decide for yourself. I generally think we would want to
have more control. Same thing when it comes to wills.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
And trusts and stuff like that. After listening to having
this conversation today, what is the one thing that you
hope our listeners take away.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
I would honestly, just listening to you talk, I want
all of the listeners to just be mindful of the
self talk around money because they think it really dictates
what your actions are. I think, just try to tell
the mean girl inside your head to take several seats.
We all have her or mean guy. And I think
(50:08):
it's really important the way we talk to ourselves about money.
You know, maybe we're not there yet, like we're not
where we want to be right the second, but there's
no reason that we won't be, and there's no reason our.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
Kids won't be.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
And I think it's just being really mindful and how
we talk to ourselves and how we talk to our kids,
like we talked about, you know, when it comes to money,
because it really does affect what you do or what
you don't do. So right self talk, positive self talk
in every area.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Who's financially literate.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Now, that'd mean yeah, before I let you go, Nicole,
what was your last I choose me moment? Oh my goodness,
Oh my goodness, so my goodness, my last I choose
This has been a tricky one because I just had
(51:00):
a baby and I just lost my house, and it's
been a lot of choosing everybody else moments. My last
I Choose me moment was going to get blood work
done and finding out that I had an iron thing,
which is why I wasn't having energy, and then taking
(51:23):
time to go get iron infusions because that would make
me feel better. And they were a lot of time
when I have the baby and all of that, but
I thought it would make me a better mom, a
better partner, a better everything if I just went and
did this, like not fun thing, but I think self
care is not always about deep tissue massages and you know,
(51:44):
Manny petties, I love those, don't get me wrong, But
like sometimes self care I think is about going to
the doctor, doing financial self care. Investing in yourself pays
the most diffidence later on, I know it really does.
People don't don't realize that is that to choose me moment,
absolutely you chose to be your own health advocate, to
(52:08):
make sure that you are running at your top level
so that you could then in turn be there for
your family.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
I love that. Thanks, this has been such a great conversation.
I hope that I know that our listeners will take
something away from it. So thank you very much, thank
you
Host
Jennie Garth
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