November 4, 2024 • 34 mins
Sometimes the barrier to entry with investing comes down to vocabulary: What’s an ETF? A bond? A stock? Simran Kaur is here to get you started if you have never invested before. She is an entrepreneur and founder of the platform Girls That Invest. She brings concise, clear, and actionable advice on where to start if you’re new to investing, and debunks some of the “common knowledge” many women have been fed about their abilities to manage and invest money.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey besties, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Today on the bright Side, we're giving you a crash
course in how to start investing with Simron Kor.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
She's the founder of.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Girls That Invest and she's here to give us the
building blocks to smart strategic investment. It's Monday, November fourth.
I'm Danielle Robe and I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Simone Boyce and this is The bright Side from Hello Sunshine,
a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, laugh,
learn and brighten your day.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Simone, how is your weekend? What's up with you?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Oh, it was a really big weekend around here, obviously
coming off the Halloween holiday. But I took this weekend
to finish a lot of projects around my house. It
is something that I'm working on. I have a lot
of unfinished projects that I tend to do, but we
finished a lot of them because I wanted to get
my house ready for the holidays and update my photos
on Airbnb.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
So have the photographer come out.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
We got new photos with all the finished projects, and
I'm feeling so relieved.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And not believe that post Halloween weekend with two children,
you figured out a way to get your house together
for new Airbnb photos.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I need to see these.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Truly a Halloween miracle.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
And since it's the start of a new week, it's
time to kick things off with an on my Mind Monday.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
On my Mind Monday.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Is brought to you by Missus Meyers Clean Day, inspired
by the goodness of the garden.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
What you got, Danielle.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Okay see money on my Mind is love? You know
I'm love Lushie Gushi girl. I Love Love on my
Mind this Week is an article by Daniel Jones, the
editor for the Modern Love column in the New York Times.
Modern Love is a really important column that was started
years ago, and it really captures the complexities of relationships,
(01:47):
and I think readers have gravitated towards it because it's
not trite at all. It ranges from heartwarming to heartbreaking.
It talks about connection and intimacy and evolving and sharing
and so Daniel has been the editor of Modern Love
since it launched twenty years ago, and so for this
big anniversary he published his biggest takeaways from all those essays,
(02:10):
and this one is titled seven Ways to Love Better.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I love a good list like this that just crystallizes
a bunch of information into something that's super digestible.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
So what stood out to him?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So I actually want to acknowledge one thing he didn't
say because none of the big takeaways, none of the
seven are communicate more, which I thought was sort of
interesting because we always hear great relationships are all about communication. Instead,
he focuses on the nuances of communication. So his first
tip was, our curiosity is more appealing than our accomplishments,
(02:44):
Like the best way to connect with someone is by
truly listening and asking questions so that we can understand
them on a deeper level. We should try asking what
was that experience like for you? And it starts a
more meaningful dialogue.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Okay, So on that note of curiosity, I remember there
being a Modern Love article that went viral. It was
all about the questions you should ask to fall in love.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yes, the thirty six questions that lead to Love was
the most popular article that Modern Love has ever published.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
It broke the Internet. I still refer back to those
questions sometimes.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Okay, going back to your original article entitled seven ways
to love better. What else did he find?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Okay, this one was probably the most interesting to me.
He says that relationships don't have to last to be
good that people can bring positive things to our lives,
but the relationship itself doesn't have to be permanent. I've
been thinking about that a lot lately, because we think
about a quote unquote successful relationship as one that's like
a long lasting one.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Why is that the definition?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I totally agree, especially as human life expectancy has increased,
relationships were never expected to last for like the entire
span of the lifetimes that we're living now. It's kind
of a wild concept that we expected to last this long.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Totally agree.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I feel like I've had relationships that have been six
months long, two years long, five years long, and they've
impacted me so greatly. I wouldn't call them a failure
just because they didn't last exactly. So another thing that
Daniel called out was just being present with the people
you care about. Yeah, for some people that's their main
(04:22):
love language, quality time, right, But I think that there
are just so many distractions around us that it becomes
really powerful to give somebody your presence. I always tell
people that I think it's like the greatest gift you
could give me.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Most people can go out and buy a gift. I
actually don't think that physical gifts are the most thoughtful
thing that you can do, or even the most costly
thing for you.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
I think you're right. I think your time is the
most costly gift that you can give.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
That's a bar okay.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
In the spirit of this article, what is one thing
that you think you can do this week to show
the people in your life that you love them.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I'm going to go with it's something that I think
about a lot with my kids, being distracted on my
phone or having emails coming through, so I'm constantly just
pushing myself to be more present with them.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
How about you.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I think I'm going to do something like very proactivey.
I'm going to text one friend every morning something really
specific about them that I love and just check in
and say HI.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Maybe even a family member. I need to call my grandmother. Actually,
now that i'm thinking about.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
It, well, I'm really happy to start this week talking
to someone who I love and have been very inspired by.
Her name is Simron Koorr, and she's actually an optometrist
turned angel investor. She's here to explain why women are
actually better long term investors than men, and she's going
to help us become more confident investors ourselves We'll be
right back with that conversation right after the break.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Thanks to our partners at missus Myers, you can learn
a lot about a person by their dish soap. Missus
Meyers's collection of household products are inspired by the garden
and pack a punch against dirt and grime. Visit missus
Meyers dot com and we're back. Simron Koor is a
(06:16):
Tedex speaker, investing columnists, and the founder and co host
of Girls That Invest.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Let's bring her in, Simron, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Okay, you guys are pretending like you don't know each other?
What's happening here?
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Was that too professional?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
That was so professional? You guys are friends.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
We are. Every time I come to LA I get
to say hi to Simone.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I talk about you all the time, all good things,
and I'm happy to meet you because I've been hearing
about you from Simone.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I want to start by quoting you. You've said you
can invest your way to wealth rather than saving your
way to wealth. Ooh, this cuts so deep right now,
especially when millennials none of us can afford homes. So
how do you go about investing while still enjoying your
life and spending on the things you want. A lot
(07:09):
of people have a hard time knowing when to spend
or save.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Oh, that's a good question. My family would always say
to me, get a good education, then get a good job,
and then with that job, save and somehow that was
going to meant to lead to like house and a
car and holidays. For so long growing up, I thought
that that was the right way of doing things, and
I really got into the mindset of saving. Like one year,
(07:34):
I decided I was just going to save as much
as I could. I wanted to buy a house, and
I was like to make a home deposit. I need
to live off nothing. And so I was a friend
that would go to like the ice cream store with
my friends and I just wouldn't order ice cream. I
would just sit there as they ordered, and I'd just
be there for the vibes. Or I would go with
(07:56):
them to a cafe and I would bring my own
like reusable cup with my own hot chocolate in it prepared.
I was not a friend, clearly, but I thought that
that was the way to grow wealth. And I very
quickly realized you can only save to a certain slaw.
I can try and save five thousand dollars a year
(08:17):
by doing nothing and spending no money and not having
fun and not having those holidays. Or I could find
a way to upskill in my job, get a ten
thousand dollars pay rise and invest five thousand dollars of
that money. That's going to leave me so much better
off and I still get to enjoy. And I think
that shift has worked really well for me personally.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I think it sounds like a little bit of a
deprivation mindset. Yes, I used to be an avoidant mindset.
I used to be a money avoid and a few
years ago I just felt out of control and I realized,
I don't feel that way with food. I don't feel
that way with other things in my life. Why did
I feel it with money? I was really interested to
(09:02):
learn that you didn't study finance in college.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
In fact, you're actually an optometrist.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
I did not come from a financial background.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
So this makes me feel like we all have hope
in understanding investing because I'm curious how financially literate you
were before you put the hat on of finance expert.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Absolutely so, where I'm at now in my life is
I am an angel and venture capitalist investor. So in
New Zealand, I put my money in think of like
private companies before they go public, like Uber before it
went to the public markets. But before I got to
that stage of my life. I'm South Asian. I grew
up and family that was like, get a good job,
(09:41):
something stable, and live that life. So I became an optometrist.
And in our university they would encourage us to take
papers outside of our domain and they'd be like, hey,
take a few electives and things that are different. And
I thought, well, I don't have a financial background, but
I'm interested in getting better at my own finances. And
(10:02):
I fell in love with it, and I was like, wow,
this is so interesting. And I went on and did
a few more executive education papers. So Yale offered one
on financial markets. I was like why not, Like what
do I have to lose? And I realized it's one.
It was not as hard as I thought it would be,
because I, you know, was of the mindset of like
I like biology. I like science. I'm more of a
(10:24):
stem girlie than a finance girlye. And then it just
was so interesting to me that everything in finance was
actually really easy. And simple to understand. It was just
the words that they were using.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
It's covered up in confusing words, right, yeah, and.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
So like even do you know, like when you see
on like a tech Crunch article and it would be
like so and so company has raised like thirty seven
million dollars or valued at fifty billion dollars and you're
like wow, like that's amazing, what does that mean? And
all it meant was like a company has gone to
a venture fund and they have given them a check
(11:03):
for ten million dollars. Raising capital just means getting money,
but they don't even want to use words like that.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Well, this is one of the reasons why you wrote
your book though, right, Samron, was to demystify these terms.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
Absolutely, being able to sit down and say, Okay, what
do all these terms mean? And therefore, what can you
learn from it? And there for how can you use
it in action? If I cannot come from a financial
background and learn it, then I feel that like everyone
else should be able to as well.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Okay, I want to go to some terminology. Yeah, can
we do that? You're going to be our dictionary today.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
I'm so excited. Okay. ETF ETF stands for exchange traded fund,
and that is a basket filled with lots of different companies,
kind of like an index fund, but the cousin of
an index fund. So you've got a basket filled with
lots of different companies. Usually it follows an index or
in indices, and that might be the top two hundred
(12:05):
companies in Australia, so the A six two hundred, or
the top five hundred companies in the US, the S
and P five hundred. Maybe you're in London and you're
looking at the top hundred companies there, and that's the
foot Sea one hundred basket filled with lots of companies
as opposed to trying to pick and choose individual shares
to invest in.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And what's the difference between an ETF and an index fund.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
An index fund came before an ETF, and that was
created to have this basket and everyone was like, yep,
sounds good. John Bogel made them popular. He's the founder
of Vanguard, which is why Vanguard is still so popular
to the state. And he was like, look, this is
the best way to go. However, trying to buy an
index fund is like trying to buy a brick. You
(12:45):
have to buy the entire brick. You can't buy like
half a breake, you can't break it apart. And an
index fund might be four thousand dollars, and so that's
a lot of money to put away just to purchase
one fund. So an ETF was created to mimic an
index fund, but it can be broken down to even
one percent, so you can own like a little slice
(13:09):
of that index fund, and that might be a dollar.
So your one dollar can get spread across five hundred
companies and that's a really good deal. But an index fund,
you would have to buy the index fund at the
full price.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
How about stocks versus bonds?
Speaker 5 (13:24):
So when you think about investing, you might say to yourself,
I am not sure how much risk I want to take.
And stocks versus bonds are like two different sides of
the same coin. They're both investments, but one is lower risk,
lower return, and the other one is higher risk, higher return.
A stock is just a small piece of a company.
(13:44):
So you might say, hey, I really like Apple. I
want to own a little piece of Apple. I buy
one share of Apple, and that is me owning one
very small piece of the actual company. Now there's millions
upon like hundreds of millions of Apple shares, so you
own it. One share doesn't mean you can go in
and be like, guys, I own this Apple store.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
So because you.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Technically do change things around here.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Yeah, I'm gonna move things around, but you are technically
a shareholder of that company, that's awesome. A bond is
when you get to act like the bank and you
give out a loan to a company or the government
and you say to them, I'll give you one thousand
dollars because they need the money, and they'll say, thank
you so much, simon, I will give it back to you,
(14:31):
and I'll give it back at a two or three
percent interest rate as a thanks. You will definitely get
your money back, and because you know that the government
is probably going to give you your money back, it's only
at two or three percent, so lower risk, but a
much lower return than let's say seven percent with a store.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
How about capital gains, especially with the election coming up,
that's a term people talk about.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
With capital gains tax as well. So capital gains is
one of the ways that you can make money in
the share market, but also through property investing. If you
buy one share of Apple and it's one hundred dollars
and by the time you sell it it's two hundred dollars.
You've made a one hundred dollar gain. The value of
that one share has gone up one hundred dollars. You
(15:16):
don't have that hundred dollars in your bank account to
go off and spend. That is just the value that
that share has increased by. When you sell that share,
you then draw down that money and now you can
go and spend one hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Can you describe the difference between active versus passive investing?
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Oh, that's a good one. Essentially, an active investor is
someone that says, hey, sim I want to invest in
companies that I think are going.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
To do well.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
I'm going to do my own research. I'm going to
actively try and figure out what the next Amazon is,
what the next Apple is, what the next Google is.
And so fund managers are active investors because they're picking
and choosing what's doing well. They're putting in a lot
of time and effort, and they're going and meeting companies
and looking at research and trying to figure out trends.
(16:08):
And the active investors' theory is, well, if I can
peck up where the wind is blowing. Then maybe I
can put a lot of money into something while it's small,
and then when it grows, then I can cash out,
like finding Apple before it was big. A passive investor
is an investor that says it is actually scientifically very
(16:31):
difficult to prove what's going to be big. We can
have theories, we can assume, but realistically, what research has
found is that ninety two to ninety five percent of
professional fund managers don't beat the market. So ninety five
percent of people that are doing this actively the best
of the best over a fifteen year period. They can
(16:55):
hope and they can try, but it is very different
to figure out what is going to do well, and
not many of them do. And instead, I'm going to
invest in a broad market index fund, which is a
basket filled with lots of companies.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And it's like the S and P five hundred, like
the SMP five hundred exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
At the end of the day, why try and pick
a winner when I can invest in the top five
hundred companies in the US and that lets me take
out the average. So I'd rather be average and know
that it's going to work. Which is passive or active?
Is I'm going to try and pick and choose, but
the likelihood of me getting it right is a lot lower.
But if I get it right, it might make me
a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I started investing because of your girlfriend, so thanks to you,
I'm just following all your notes. I'm definitely a passive investor.
I try to set aside. Whenever I get like an
unexpected sum of money that I wasn't planning for, I
try to set that aside and just put it into
one of my favorite.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
Kind of money unexpected.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
In that vein the percent of our income should we
be putting aside to invest.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
We always say to our community of investors that listen
to the podcast, you can live in an area like
LA and most of your income is probably be going
to something like rent, or if you live in another
part of the world, maybe you have a little bit
more income. So I don't think a percentage based number
always works. I always say ten percent is a nice
(18:20):
to have number. But if that's not something you can do,
don't be discouraged. Even if you put fifty dollars a
week or fifty dollars a month, that's a good place
to start, and then over time you'll start to naturally
realize like, hey, I don't really enjoy doing these other
things as much. Maybe, but if it comes like a
(18:41):
game and then you start pulling money from other places
and investing more of.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
It, we have to dig a short break, but will
be write back with Cimarron Core. And we're back with
Cimarron Core. Danielle, you brought up how gender plays into
this conversation, and Simron, it feels like you've really built
an entire ecosystem on this concept. You've created a space
(19:08):
where women who want to become investors feel like they
belong and there's actually so much to celebrate from the
perspective of being a woman who is an investor, Like
we're actually fantastic investors. Women make more from investing than men,
women lose less money, women are less impacted by emotions
(19:28):
when making investing decisions, and also female managed hedge funds
are more likely to beat the market. All things I
learned from your book. So what does it mean to
invest like a girl?
Speaker 5 (19:41):
I love this question because it is just like the
absolute summary of everything I stand for. But to invest
like a girl comes from this idea that when you
think of what an investor is or a successful investor.
You think of a guy in a suit, usually someone
that's had like an ivy leagage location, and you think, gosh,
(20:01):
that doesn't look like or represent me. However, when you
look at the stats like you've shared, all things point
to the fact that women are really good at investing.
Studies have found that we make more money in the market,
Studies have found that we lose less money in the market.
And it comes from the way that we naturally are.
And so when we look at how women invest, what
(20:22):
we see is women are more likely to say, you
know what, I'm investing for the long term. I'm gonna
put money in something like an S and P five
hundred fund and I'm just going to write out the market.
Whereas and this is obviously a generalization, but in general,
men that start out investing will go, oh, let me
try and peck and choose winners. Let me try and
actively invest. And of course, because passive investing is historically
(20:47):
something that has been better long term, women become better investors. Also,
female investors won't pull money out of the market as much.
We'll go, you know what, I'm just gonna leave it there.
I'm just gonna let it do its thing, and I'm
not even going to log in to my investment account. Like,
how often do you guys log into your accounts?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Probably every other day, okay, just to check. Yeah, I
just like to see what's happening. Did I win or
lose that day? How often do you?
Speaker 5 (21:15):
I don't check ever, I don't check maybe every couple
of months, but I used to check every day.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
What are you saying? What does that say? I'm not
changing my investments.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
No, but that's helpful.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah, I'm not pulling out. I just like to see.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
The studies have found that women check on average once
a week and men check on average five times a
week Monday to Friday. And what they found is the
more you check your investments, the more you're likely to
want to pull money out or move things around, and
that's where you end up losing. So it's okay that
you're not moving your money, but the less you check,
(21:50):
the more it's out of sight, out of mind. The
Fidelity did a study to look at who had the
best investment returns over a ten year period, I believe,
and I found the bast and vestas were held by
accounts of people that had passed away.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Because I went, that's hilarious, that is so funny. I
see that dynamic in my house.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
I don't. I rarely check our stocks.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
I check it, you know, twice a month maybe, But
my husband almost every day is like babe, babe and
videos down in videos down, babe, or the next day
it's like in video's back up, we're going to the moon.
We're going to the friggin moon. It's a lot to
keep up with. It's a lot of emotional volatilities. Well,
you actually started by investing pretty small amounts from your paychecks, right,
(22:37):
That's so inspiring to me. You know, there's real power
in just starting something and not waiting. And that's exactly
what you did and how you got here.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Today, exactly like I was in university, I was still studying.
I was a student. I obviously didn't have a lot
of money to begin with, but my goal was I
want to have enough money to be able to purchase
my first home, and so buying a little bit throughout Uni,
and when I started working, it compounded and then I
was able to take that as my deposit and purchase
(23:09):
my first home. And again I tried doing the saving.
It didn't get me there. Any faster. It was the
investing that worked for me.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Let's talk financial wellness, Cimarron. Because I can hear our
besties wheels turning right now.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
They're probably like, Okay, this all sounds great.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
I would love to invest, but I got debt, I
got student loans, I gotta pay off, I got a mortgage.
For someone who's never invested before, paint a picture for
us of what healthy financial wellness looks like so that
someone can invest in an empowered way.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
If you are listening in and you're like, okay, I'm ready,
I think there's three things that you want to make
sure you have ticked off before you begin investing. I
think the first one is definitely making a plan to
get rid of any high interest and you'll find a
lot of financial advisors will agree with this. Anything that
is above seven percent with an interest rate on your debt,
(24:03):
that is bad debt. We don't like that kind of debt.
So often this is credit card debt, this is car
loan debt, but this might not be like your mortgage,
or this is probably unlikely to be the student loan
debt that you have that's seven percent debt. Anything more
than seen percent let's pay that off first. And the
reason being is if you have a dollar, you want
(24:24):
that dollar to work really hard for you. And if
you put that dollar in the share market, you can
expect that about the so to annualize return of that
dollar is seven percent in the share market. That's what
the S and P five hundred usually brings if you
average it over twenty years. And so if my one
dollar can make me seven percent and usually only up
(24:45):
to seven percent, then if I'm losing more than seven
percent on a credit card or a card debt, I
want to pay that down. My dollar won't work harder
in the share market then it would to pay down
that debt. So we get rid of that first. We
can still keep paying off, but we don't have to
wait until we have finished paying off the debt that
(25:05):
is less than seven percent. Imagine like a line that
is saying seven percent debt. If anything has a interest
rate of more than seven percent, we pay that.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Off, right, that's what we pay off first.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Yeah, we hate that. That's not our friend. That cannot
sit with us because that is losing us lots of money.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Second thing that you want to do is you want
to make sure that you have a good idea of
how much you are making and how much you are spending.
Understanding your budget helps you then visualize and figure out
what you need to do differently, because if we can't
measure it, then we can't improve it. And I've never
enjoyed looking at my bank account and seeing where the
(25:49):
money is going. But having a rough idea at least
gives me some understanding of am I improving and also
where is it all going? And can I move some
stuff around so that I've set myself up for success.
And the third thing that you want to do before
you start investing is setting up automatic payments. When you
get your payday it comes in on let's say a Monday.
(26:12):
Every month, you want to have something set up where
some money goes into a separate account for savings, some
money goes into a separate account for your bills, some
money goes into a separate account to invest in. And
again that might only be like fifty dollars a week,
but doing that automatically means that you're not investing money
that's left over. You are investing money at the start
(26:36):
of your pay cycle, and so you're investing in yourself
you're paying yourself first, before you pay your landlord, before
you pay the other bills. You want to make sure
that you're taking care of you.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
There's something so effective about not even having to negotiate
with yourself about where that money is going, and it
just leaving the account and going to the right place
without you having to sort of think about it contraxactly.
Speaker 5 (26:58):
And what I'll do is I'll anything that's left over
in that account for me, that's my spending money for
the week or for the month. So if I have
let's say a couple of hundred dollars in there, once
that money is spent, I'm like, okay, well that was
my budget. And that's like how I keep myself in
check while still paying myself first.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
How do you do that? Though? That's so hard.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
I know that's what the fiscally responsible person would do,
but it's hard to do in practice.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
I think that it is so difficult but so important
to sit financial boundaries with your friendships and with the
people in your lives. It seems like mean and hard
to say, hey, I can't make it anymore, or we're
going through like bridesmaid season right now, so it's really different.
I mean, so much money is spent on like one
weekend away.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, yeah, and yet don't get me started on them.
Although I do want to push back a little.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I think sometimes particularly when we talk about money with women,
we talk about cutting, and we talk about just kind
of like we're asking three dollar questions instead of asking
the question which maybe is thee hundred dollar question, like
how do we make a little bit more to invest
instead of not going to that dinner?
Speaker 4 (28:10):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
I think there is a space where I mean, it
also depends on where you are in your journey, Like
if you are naturally a safe that you probably don't
even need to worry about these things. Whereas if you
are someone that feels that they are always spending and
they're underwater all the time, living out outside of your means.
It sort of depends where you are. But I would
(28:33):
say the average person that's lessening hairs probably yeah, asking
one hundred dollar questions.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Right, Yeah, everything was in reason, right, you know, like
if the bachelorette party is two thousand dollars and that's
a lot of money, then maybe you can scrimp a little.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
I agree. I think you just need to have boundaries
with yourself and know what's okay. Also, if you're a
people pleaser, that's a financial like issue just waiting to happen.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Well said, we want to leave our bright side besties
with some practical tips they can use to really start
investing today.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Let's say if they wanted.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
To, what are the investment sites or apps that you
would recommend for someone who's kind of just starting out.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
If you are getting started and you're like, Okay, I
want to begin, but I'm not sure who to trust
or what places to look at, you might feel a
little bit overwhelmed if you go to something like the
Wall Street Journal. But I find that looking at your
general news sources is a good place to start. Gives
you a good idea of where things are going, as
(29:36):
opposed to honing down and looking at specific money media.
That's what I like to do. I like to look
at some news from what's happening in the US, the UK, Australia,
New Zealand, and it gives me a broad idea of
what's happening around the world because a lot of our
political conflicts and global conflicts impacts where the markets are going.
Second thing that we love to do is we have
(29:58):
a newsletter where we share updates about what's happening in
the share market from lots of different sources, and we
explain it in a very simple way, and that's called
our Stock Market Tea. And where we get that information
from is those global news sources that we kind of
pull together.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I think that there's generally a mindset with people that
think the stock market, or buying a home or contributing
to a four oh one K are the best ways
to invest and grow money. What are some other ways
that you think we should all be exploring, investigating, even
thinking about.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
I would say if you are someone that is investing,
putting your money into your four oh one K, and
developing your career, those are like the three pillars that
I think any person needs. So I'd say the final
one is probably the one that wasn't mentioned. I truly believe,
and this is kind of looping back to the start
of the episode. It is so much easier to make
(30:55):
ten thousand dollars in your company, whether it's your side hustle,
a pay ride upskilling, then to find a way to
save ten thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I love your content on Girls That Invest and I
find it so inspiring because to me, the through line
between everything that you post is freedom. It is advocating
for women to embrace their own freedom through growing their
own wealth. You talk about like, how now you have
the freedom to maybe extend your vacation a day or
(31:28):
two if you want to because no one's breathing down
your neck, or you can go get your nails done
randomly on a Thursday morning at ten am, and.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
That is so powerful. Get specific for me.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
What did you daydream about when you were younger that
you're living out now.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
I believe in manifesting, and I wasn't woo woo kind
of growing up, but I think I'm becoming more woo
wu with time. I made a vision board when I
was younger of the life that I wanted to live.
My vision board included just being able to travel and
go to places in what I really wanted to see
Big Bin, which was so weird in hindsight.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
As in the famous London time telling device the way
you said that.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
The clock. Yes, I wanted to see the clock in
London and.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Didn't live up to your expectations.
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Absolutely, it was on my vision board. It was this
beautiful tower and I was like, I just want to
see I just want to see big Bin. I grew
up watching a lot of like reality TV, so I, oh,
you can't laugh at this. Oh, I would tell this,
tell their story, sim the Beverly Hills sign, just the
Beverly Hills sign. It was in so many TV shows.
I was like, I want to see that one day.
(32:36):
So I added that to my vision f So I
had all these places, and I had things like I
wanted to be able to own a nice car, and
I wanted to be able to like support my family,
and I wanted to be able to be financially free
and financially independent, not have the requirement to work a
nine to five forever, but to have more freedom in
(32:59):
my schedule and ability. But at the time that was
like my dream. And I remember the year after going, oh,
some of these are ticked off, and the year after
that more were ticked off, And it got to the
point where I had to make a new vision board
because I'd achieved everything that was on there and it
was no longer inspiring. It was now my life. But
it just goes to show where you start off and
(33:21):
what you hope you can achieve. It's very difficult to
get there if you are not constantly thinking about it
and reminding yourself of it. And so I think there
is a space for visualization and manifestation in the money space.
And yes it sounds woo woo, but I generally think
it works.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
M hm, Zimron, thank you so much for coming on
the right side.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Thank you for having me. This was so fun. I
love that talking about money isn't just numbers. We've also
spoken about like the holistic side of money, but it
goes to show it's so intertwined in every part of
our life.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Well said.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Simran Core is a ted X speaker, investing columnists, and
the founder and cost of Girls That Invest, a book,
newsletter and podcast.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, it's election Day. We're
talking with doctor Martha S. Jones, history professor and author
of Vanguard, How Black women broke barriers, won the vote
and insisted on equality for all. Thanks to our partners
at Airbnb. Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side
and connect with us on social media at Hello Sunshine
(34:29):
on Instagram and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh,
and feel free to tag us at Simone Boyce and
at Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Listen and follow the bright side on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
See you tomorrow, folks, keep looking on the bright side.
Hey besties, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Today on the bright Side, we're giving you a crash
course in how to start investing with Simron Kor.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
She's the founder of.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Girls That Invest and she's here to give us the
building blocks to smart strategic investment. It's Monday, November fourth.
I'm Danielle Robe and I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Simone Boyce and this is The bright Side from Hello Sunshine,
a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, laugh,
learn and brighten your day.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Simone, how is your weekend? What's up with you?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Oh, it was a really big weekend around here, obviously
coming off the Halloween holiday. But I took this weekend
to finish a lot of projects around my house. It
is something that I'm working on. I have a lot
of unfinished projects that I tend to do, but we
finished a lot of them because I wanted to get
my house ready for the holidays and update my photos
on Airbnb.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
So have the photographer come out.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
We got new photos with all the finished projects, and
I'm feeling so relieved.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And not believe that post Halloween weekend with two children,
you figured out a way to get your house together
for new Airbnb photos.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I need to see these.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Truly a Halloween miracle.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
And since it's the start of a new week, it's
time to kick things off with an on my Mind Monday.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
On my Mind Monday.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Is brought to you by Missus Meyers Clean Day, inspired
by the goodness of the garden.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
What you got, Danielle.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Okay see money on my Mind is love? You know
I'm love Lushie Gushi girl. I Love Love on my
Mind this Week is an article by Daniel Jones, the
editor for the Modern Love column in the New York Times.
Modern Love is a really important column that was started
years ago, and it really captures the complexities of relationships,
(01:47):
and I think readers have gravitated towards it because it's
not trite at all. It ranges from heartwarming to heartbreaking.
It talks about connection and intimacy and evolving and sharing
and so Daniel has been the editor of Modern Love
since it launched twenty years ago, and so for this
big anniversary he published his biggest takeaways from all those essays,
(02:10):
and this one is titled seven Ways to Love Better.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I love a good list like this that just crystallizes
a bunch of information into something that's super digestible.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
So what stood out to him?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So I actually want to acknowledge one thing he didn't
say because none of the big takeaways, none of the
seven are communicate more, which I thought was sort of
interesting because we always hear great relationships are all about communication. Instead,
he focuses on the nuances of communication. So his first
tip was, our curiosity is more appealing than our accomplishments,
(02:44):
Like the best way to connect with someone is by
truly listening and asking questions so that we can understand
them on a deeper level. We should try asking what
was that experience like for you? And it starts a
more meaningful dialogue.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Okay, So on that note of curiosity, I remember there
being a Modern Love article that went viral. It was
all about the questions you should ask to fall in love.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yes, the thirty six questions that lead to Love was
the most popular article that Modern Love has ever published.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
It broke the Internet. I still refer back to those
questions sometimes.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Okay, going back to your original article entitled seven ways
to love better. What else did he find?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Okay, this one was probably the most interesting to me.
He says that relationships don't have to last to be
good that people can bring positive things to our lives,
but the relationship itself doesn't have to be permanent. I've
been thinking about that a lot lately, because we think
about a quote unquote successful relationship as one that's like
a long lasting one.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Why is that the definition?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I totally agree, especially as human life expectancy has increased,
relationships were never expected to last for like the entire
span of the lifetimes that we're living now. It's kind
of a wild concept that we expected to last this long.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Totally agree.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I feel like I've had relationships that have been six
months long, two years long, five years long, and they've
impacted me so greatly. I wouldn't call them a failure
just because they didn't last exactly. So another thing that
Daniel called out was just being present with the people
you care about. Yeah, for some people that's their main
(04:22):
love language, quality time, right, But I think that there
are just so many distractions around us that it becomes
really powerful to give somebody your presence. I always tell
people that I think it's like the greatest gift you
could give me.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Most people can go out and buy a gift. I
actually don't think that physical gifts are the most thoughtful
thing that you can do, or even the most costly
thing for you.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
I think you're right. I think your time is the
most costly gift that you can give.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
That's a bar okay.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
In the spirit of this article, what is one thing
that you think you can do this week to show
the people in your life that you love them.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I'm going to go with it's something that I think
about a lot with my kids, being distracted on my
phone or having emails coming through, so I'm constantly just
pushing myself to be more present with them.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
How about you.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I think I'm going to do something like very proactivey.
I'm going to text one friend every morning something really
specific about them that I love and just check in
and say HI.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Maybe even a family member. I need to call my grandmother. Actually,
now that i'm thinking about.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
It, well, I'm really happy to start this week talking
to someone who I love and have been very inspired by.
Her name is Simron Koorr, and she's actually an optometrist
turned angel investor. She's here to explain why women are
actually better long term investors than men, and she's going
to help us become more confident investors ourselves We'll be
right back with that conversation right after the break.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Thanks to our partners at missus Myers, you can learn
a lot about a person by their dish soap. Missus
Meyers's collection of household products are inspired by the garden
and pack a punch against dirt and grime. Visit missus
Meyers dot com and we're back. Simron Koor is a
(06:16):
Tedex speaker, investing columnists, and the founder and co host
of Girls That Invest.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Let's bring her in, Simron, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Okay, you guys are pretending like you don't know each other?
What's happening here?
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Was that too professional?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
That was so professional? You guys are friends.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
We are. Every time I come to LA I get
to say hi to Simone.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I talk about you all the time, all good things,
and I'm happy to meet you because I've been hearing
about you from Simone.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I want to start by quoting you. You've said you
can invest your way to wealth rather than saving your
way to wealth. Ooh, this cuts so deep right now,
especially when millennials none of us can afford homes. So
how do you go about investing while still enjoying your
life and spending on the things you want. A lot
(07:09):
of people have a hard time knowing when to spend
or save.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Oh, that's a good question. My family would always say
to me, get a good education, then get a good job,
and then with that job, save and somehow that was
going to meant to lead to like house and a
car and holidays. For so long growing up, I thought
that that was the right way of doing things, and
I really got into the mindset of saving. Like one year,
(07:34):
I decided I was just going to save as much
as I could. I wanted to buy a house, and
I was like to make a home deposit. I need
to live off nothing. And so I was a friend
that would go to like the ice cream store with
my friends and I just wouldn't order ice cream. I
would just sit there as they ordered, and I'd just
be there for the vibes. Or I would go with
(07:56):
them to a cafe and I would bring my own
like reusable cup with my own hot chocolate in it prepared.
I was not a friend, clearly, but I thought that
that was the way to grow wealth. And I very
quickly realized you can only save to a certain slaw.
I can try and save five thousand dollars a year
(08:17):
by doing nothing and spending no money and not having
fun and not having those holidays. Or I could find
a way to upskill in my job, get a ten
thousand dollars pay rise and invest five thousand dollars of
that money. That's going to leave me so much better
off and I still get to enjoy. And I think
that shift has worked really well for me personally.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I think it sounds like a little bit of a
deprivation mindset. Yes, I used to be an avoidant mindset.
I used to be a money avoid and a few
years ago I just felt out of control and I realized,
I don't feel that way with food. I don't feel
that way with other things in my life. Why did
I feel it with money? I was really interested to
(09:02):
learn that you didn't study finance in college.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
In fact, you're actually an optometrist.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
I did not come from a financial background.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
So this makes me feel like we all have hope
in understanding investing because I'm curious how financially literate you
were before you put the hat on of finance expert.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Absolutely so, where I'm at now in my life is
I am an angel and venture capitalist investor. So in
New Zealand, I put my money in think of like
private companies before they go public, like Uber before it
went to the public markets. But before I got to
that stage of my life. I'm South Asian. I grew
up and family that was like, get a good job,
(09:41):
something stable, and live that life. So I became an optometrist.
And in our university they would encourage us to take
papers outside of our domain and they'd be like, hey,
take a few electives and things that are different. And
I thought, well, I don't have a financial background, but
I'm interested in getting better at my own finances. And
(10:02):
I fell in love with it, and I was like, wow,
this is so interesting. And I went on and did
a few more executive education papers. So Yale offered one
on financial markets. I was like why not, Like what
do I have to lose? And I realized it's one.
It was not as hard as I thought it would be,
because I, you know, was of the mindset of like
I like biology. I like science. I'm more of a
(10:24):
stem girlie than a finance girlye. And then it just
was so interesting to me that everything in finance was
actually really easy. And simple to understand. It was just
the words that they were using.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
It's covered up in confusing words, right, yeah, and.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
So like even do you know, like when you see
on like a tech Crunch article and it would be
like so and so company has raised like thirty seven
million dollars or valued at fifty billion dollars and you're
like wow, like that's amazing, what does that mean? And
all it meant was like a company has gone to
a venture fund and they have given them a check
(11:03):
for ten million dollars. Raising capital just means getting money,
but they don't even want to use words like that.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Well, this is one of the reasons why you wrote
your book though, right, Samron, was to demystify these terms.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
Absolutely, being able to sit down and say, Okay, what
do all these terms mean? And therefore, what can you
learn from it? And there for how can you use
it in action? If I cannot come from a financial
background and learn it, then I feel that like everyone
else should be able to as well.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Okay, I want to go to some terminology. Yeah, can
we do that? You're going to be our dictionary today.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
I'm so excited. Okay. ETF ETF stands for exchange traded fund,
and that is a basket filled with lots of different companies,
kind of like an index fund, but the cousin of
an index fund. So you've got a basket filled with
lots of different companies. Usually it follows an index or
in indices, and that might be the top two hundred
(12:05):
companies in Australia, so the A six two hundred, or
the top five hundred companies in the US, the S
and P five hundred. Maybe you're in London and you're
looking at the top hundred companies there, and that's the
foot Sea one hundred basket filled with lots of companies
as opposed to trying to pick and choose individual shares
to invest in.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And what's the difference between an ETF and an index fund.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
An index fund came before an ETF, and that was
created to have this basket and everyone was like, yep,
sounds good. John Bogel made them popular. He's the founder
of Vanguard, which is why Vanguard is still so popular
to the state. And he was like, look, this is
the best way to go. However, trying to buy an
index fund is like trying to buy a brick. You
(12:45):
have to buy the entire brick. You can't buy like
half a breake, you can't break it apart. And an
index fund might be four thousand dollars, and so that's
a lot of money to put away just to purchase
one fund. So an ETF was created to mimic an
index fund, but it can be broken down to even
one percent, so you can own like a little slice
(13:09):
of that index fund, and that might be a dollar.
So your one dollar can get spread across five hundred
companies and that's a really good deal. But an index fund,
you would have to buy the index fund at the
full price.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
How about stocks versus bonds?
Speaker 5 (13:24):
So when you think about investing, you might say to yourself,
I am not sure how much risk I want to take.
And stocks versus bonds are like two different sides of
the same coin. They're both investments, but one is lower risk,
lower return, and the other one is higher risk, higher return.
A stock is just a small piece of a company.
(13:44):
So you might say, hey, I really like Apple. I
want to own a little piece of Apple. I buy
one share of Apple, and that is me owning one
very small piece of the actual company. Now there's millions
upon like hundreds of millions of Apple shares, so you
own it. One share doesn't mean you can go in
and be like, guys, I own this Apple store.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
So because you.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Technically do change things around here.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Yeah, I'm gonna move things around, but you are technically
a shareholder of that company, that's awesome. A bond is
when you get to act like the bank and you
give out a loan to a company or the government
and you say to them, I'll give you one thousand
dollars because they need the money, and they'll say, thank
you so much, simon, I will give it back to you,
(14:31):
and I'll give it back at a two or three
percent interest rate as a thanks. You will definitely get
your money back, and because you know that the government
is probably going to give you your money back, it's only
at two or three percent, so lower risk, but a
much lower return than let's say seven percent with a store.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
How about capital gains, especially with the election coming up,
that's a term people talk about.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
With capital gains tax as well. So capital gains is
one of the ways that you can make money in
the share market, but also through property investing. If you
buy one share of Apple and it's one hundred dollars
and by the time you sell it it's two hundred dollars.
You've made a one hundred dollar gain. The value of
that one share has gone up one hundred dollars. You
(15:16):
don't have that hundred dollars in your bank account to
go off and spend. That is just the value that
that share has increased by. When you sell that share,
you then draw down that money and now you can
go and spend one hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Can you describe the difference between active versus passive investing?
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Oh, that's a good one. Essentially, an active investor is
someone that says, hey, sim I want to invest in
companies that I think are going.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
To do well.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
I'm going to do my own research. I'm going to
actively try and figure out what the next Amazon is,
what the next Apple is, what the next Google is.
And so fund managers are active investors because they're picking
and choosing what's doing well. They're putting in a lot
of time and effort, and they're going and meeting companies
and looking at research and trying to figure out trends.
(16:08):
And the active investors' theory is, well, if I can
peck up where the wind is blowing. Then maybe I
can put a lot of money into something while it's small,
and then when it grows, then I can cash out,
like finding Apple before it was big. A passive investor
is an investor that says it is actually scientifically very
(16:31):
difficult to prove what's going to be big. We can
have theories, we can assume, but realistically, what research has
found is that ninety two to ninety five percent of
professional fund managers don't beat the market. So ninety five
percent of people that are doing this actively the best
of the best over a fifteen year period. They can
(16:55):
hope and they can try, but it is very different
to figure out what is going to do well, and
not many of them do. And instead, I'm going to
invest in a broad market index fund, which is a
basket filled with lots of companies.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And it's like the S and P five hundred, like
the SMP five hundred exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
At the end of the day, why try and pick
a winner when I can invest in the top five
hundred companies in the US and that lets me take
out the average. So I'd rather be average and know
that it's going to work. Which is passive or active?
Is I'm going to try and pick and choose, but
the likelihood of me getting it right is a lot lower.
But if I get it right, it might make me
a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I started investing because of your girlfriend, so thanks to you,
I'm just following all your notes. I'm definitely a passive investor.
I try to set aside. Whenever I get like an
unexpected sum of money that I wasn't planning for, I
try to set that aside and just put it into
one of my favorite.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
Kind of money unexpected.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
In that vein the percent of our income should we
be putting aside to invest.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
We always say to our community of investors that listen
to the podcast, you can live in an area like
LA and most of your income is probably be going
to something like rent, or if you live in another
part of the world, maybe you have a little bit
more income. So I don't think a percentage based number
always works. I always say ten percent is a nice
(18:20):
to have number. But if that's not something you can do,
don't be discouraged. Even if you put fifty dollars a
week or fifty dollars a month, that's a good place
to start, and then over time you'll start to naturally
realize like, hey, I don't really enjoy doing these other
things as much. Maybe, but if it comes like a
(18:41):
game and then you start pulling money from other places
and investing more of.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
It, we have to dig a short break, but will
be write back with Cimarron Core. And we're back with
Cimarron Core. Danielle, you brought up how gender plays into
this conversation, and Simron, it feels like you've really built
an entire ecosystem on this concept. You've created a space
(19:08):
where women who want to become investors feel like they
belong and there's actually so much to celebrate from the
perspective of being a woman who is an investor, Like
we're actually fantastic investors. Women make more from investing than men,
women lose less money, women are less impacted by emotions
(19:28):
when making investing decisions, and also female managed hedge funds
are more likely to beat the market. All things I
learned from your book. So what does it mean to
invest like a girl?
Speaker 5 (19:41):
I love this question because it is just like the
absolute summary of everything I stand for. But to invest
like a girl comes from this idea that when you
think of what an investor is or a successful investor.
You think of a guy in a suit, usually someone
that's had like an ivy leagage location, and you think, gosh,
(20:01):
that doesn't look like or represent me. However, when you
look at the stats like you've shared, all things point
to the fact that women are really good at investing.
Studies have found that we make more money in the market,
Studies have found that we lose less money in the market.
And it comes from the way that we naturally are.
And so when we look at how women invest, what
(20:22):
we see is women are more likely to say, you
know what, I'm investing for the long term. I'm gonna
put money in something like an S and P five
hundred fund and I'm just going to write out the market.
Whereas and this is obviously a generalization, but in general,
men that start out investing will go, oh, let me
try and peck and choose winners. Let me try and
actively invest. And of course, because passive investing is historically
(20:47):
something that has been better long term, women become better investors. Also,
female investors won't pull money out of the market as much.
We'll go, you know what, I'm just gonna leave it there.
I'm just gonna let it do its thing, and I'm
not even going to log in to my investment account. Like,
how often do you guys log into your accounts?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Probably every other day, okay, just to check. Yeah, I
just like to see what's happening. Did I win or
lose that day? How often do you?
Speaker 5 (21:15):
I don't check ever, I don't check maybe every couple
of months, but I used to check every day.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
What are you saying? What does that say? I'm not
changing my investments.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
No, but that's helpful.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah, I'm not pulling out. I just like to see.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
The studies have found that women check on average once
a week and men check on average five times a
week Monday to Friday. And what they found is the
more you check your investments, the more you're likely to
want to pull money out or move things around, and
that's where you end up losing. So it's okay that
you're not moving your money, but the less you check,
(21:50):
the more it's out of sight, out of mind. The
Fidelity did a study to look at who had the
best investment returns over a ten year period, I believe,
and I found the bast and vestas were held by
accounts of people that had passed away.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Because I went, that's hilarious, that is so funny. I
see that dynamic in my house.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
I don't. I rarely check our stocks.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
I check it, you know, twice a month maybe, But
my husband almost every day is like babe, babe and
videos down in videos down, babe, or the next day
it's like in video's back up, we're going to the moon.
We're going to the friggin moon. It's a lot to
keep up with. It's a lot of emotional volatilities. Well,
you actually started by investing pretty small amounts from your paychecks, right,
(22:37):
That's so inspiring to me. You know, there's real power
in just starting something and not waiting. And that's exactly
what you did and how you got here.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Today, exactly like I was in university, I was still studying.
I was a student. I obviously didn't have a lot
of money to begin with, but my goal was I
want to have enough money to be able to purchase
my first home, and so buying a little bit throughout Uni,
and when I started working, it compounded and then I
was able to take that as my deposit and purchase
(23:09):
my first home. And again I tried doing the saving.
It didn't get me there. Any faster. It was the
investing that worked for me.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Let's talk financial wellness, Cimarron. Because I can hear our
besties wheels turning right now.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
They're probably like, Okay, this all sounds great.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
I would love to invest, but I got debt, I
got student loans, I gotta pay off, I got a mortgage.
For someone who's never invested before, paint a picture for
us of what healthy financial wellness looks like so that
someone can invest in an empowered way.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
If you are listening in and you're like, okay, I'm ready,
I think there's three things that you want to make
sure you have ticked off before you begin investing. I
think the first one is definitely making a plan to
get rid of any high interest and you'll find a
lot of financial advisors will agree with this. Anything that
is above seven percent with an interest rate on your debt,
(24:03):
that is bad debt. We don't like that kind of debt.
So often this is credit card debt, this is car
loan debt, but this might not be like your mortgage,
or this is probably unlikely to be the student loan
debt that you have that's seven percent debt. Anything more
than seen percent let's pay that off first. And the
reason being is if you have a dollar, you want
(24:24):
that dollar to work really hard for you. And if
you put that dollar in the share market, you can
expect that about the so to annualize return of that
dollar is seven percent in the share market. That's what
the S and P five hundred usually brings if you
average it over twenty years. And so if my one
dollar can make me seven percent and usually only up
(24:45):
to seven percent, then if I'm losing more than seven
percent on a credit card or a card debt, I
want to pay that down. My dollar won't work harder
in the share market then it would to pay down
that debt. So we get rid of that first. We
can still keep paying off, but we don't have to
wait until we have finished paying off the debt that
(25:05):
is less than seven percent. Imagine like a line that
is saying seven percent debt. If anything has a interest
rate of more than seven percent, we pay that.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Off, right, that's what we pay off first.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Yeah, we hate that. That's not our friend. That cannot
sit with us because that is losing us lots of money.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Second thing that you want to do is you want
to make sure that you have a good idea of
how much you are making and how much you are spending.
Understanding your budget helps you then visualize and figure out
what you need to do differently, because if we can't
measure it, then we can't improve it. And I've never
enjoyed looking at my bank account and seeing where the
(25:49):
money is going. But having a rough idea at least
gives me some understanding of am I improving and also
where is it all going? And can I move some
stuff around so that I've set myself up for success.
And the third thing that you want to do before
you start investing is setting up automatic payments. When you
get your payday it comes in on let's say a Monday.
(26:12):
Every month, you want to have something set up where
some money goes into a separate account for savings, some
money goes into a separate account for your bills, some
money goes into a separate account to invest in. And
again that might only be like fifty dollars a week,
but doing that automatically means that you're not investing money
that's left over. You are investing money at the start
(26:36):
of your pay cycle, and so you're investing in yourself
you're paying yourself first, before you pay your landlord, before
you pay the other bills. You want to make sure
that you're taking care of you.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
There's something so effective about not even having to negotiate
with yourself about where that money is going, and it
just leaving the account and going to the right place
without you having to sort of think about it contraxactly.
Speaker 5 (26:58):
And what I'll do is I'll anything that's left over
in that account for me, that's my spending money for
the week or for the month. So if I have
let's say a couple of hundred dollars in there, once
that money is spent, I'm like, okay, well that was
my budget. And that's like how I keep myself in
check while still paying myself first.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
How do you do that? Though? That's so hard.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
I know that's what the fiscally responsible person would do,
but it's hard to do in practice.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
I think that it is so difficult but so important
to sit financial boundaries with your friendships and with the
people in your lives. It seems like mean and hard
to say, hey, I can't make it anymore, or we're
going through like bridesmaid season right now, so it's really different.
I mean, so much money is spent on like one
weekend away.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, yeah, and yet don't get me started on them.
Although I do want to push back a little.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I think sometimes particularly when we talk about money with women,
we talk about cutting, and we talk about just kind
of like we're asking three dollar questions instead of asking
the question which maybe is thee hundred dollar question, like
how do we make a little bit more to invest
instead of not going to that dinner?
Speaker 4 (28:10):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
I think there is a space where I mean, it
also depends on where you are in your journey, Like
if you are naturally a safe that you probably don't
even need to worry about these things. Whereas if you
are someone that feels that they are always spending and
they're underwater all the time, living out outside of your means.
It sort of depends where you are. But I would
(28:33):
say the average person that's lessening hairs probably yeah, asking
one hundred dollar questions.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Right, Yeah, everything was in reason, right, you know, like
if the bachelorette party is two thousand dollars and that's
a lot of money, then maybe you can scrimp a little.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
I agree. I think you just need to have boundaries
with yourself and know what's okay. Also, if you're a
people pleaser, that's a financial like issue just waiting to happen.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Well said, we want to leave our bright side besties
with some practical tips they can use to really start
investing today.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Let's say if they wanted.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
To, what are the investment sites or apps that you
would recommend for someone who's kind of just starting out.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
If you are getting started and you're like, Okay, I
want to begin, but I'm not sure who to trust
or what places to look at, you might feel a
little bit overwhelmed if you go to something like the
Wall Street Journal. But I find that looking at your
general news sources is a good place to start. Gives
you a good idea of where things are going, as
(29:36):
opposed to honing down and looking at specific money media.
That's what I like to do. I like to look
at some news from what's happening in the US, the UK, Australia,
New Zealand, and it gives me a broad idea of
what's happening around the world because a lot of our
political conflicts and global conflicts impacts where the markets are going.
Second thing that we love to do is we have
(29:58):
a newsletter where we share updates about what's happening in
the share market from lots of different sources, and we
explain it in a very simple way, and that's called
our Stock Market Tea. And where we get that information
from is those global news sources that we kind of
pull together.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I think that there's generally a mindset with people that
think the stock market, or buying a home or contributing
to a four oh one K are the best ways
to invest and grow money. What are some other ways
that you think we should all be exploring, investigating, even
thinking about.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
I would say if you are someone that is investing,
putting your money into your four oh one K, and
developing your career, those are like the three pillars that
I think any person needs. So I'd say the final
one is probably the one that wasn't mentioned. I truly believe,
and this is kind of looping back to the start
of the episode. It is so much easier to make
(30:55):
ten thousand dollars in your company, whether it's your side hustle,
a pay ride upskilling, then to find a way to
save ten thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I love your content on Girls That Invest and I
find it so inspiring because to me, the through line
between everything that you post is freedom. It is advocating
for women to embrace their own freedom through growing their
own wealth. You talk about like, how now you have
the freedom to maybe extend your vacation a day or
(31:28):
two if you want to because no one's breathing down
your neck, or you can go get your nails done
randomly on a Thursday morning at ten am, and.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
That is so powerful. Get specific for me.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
What did you daydream about when you were younger that
you're living out now.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
I believe in manifesting, and I wasn't woo woo kind
of growing up, but I think I'm becoming more woo
wu with time. I made a vision board when I
was younger of the life that I wanted to live.
My vision board included just being able to travel and
go to places in what I really wanted to see
Big Bin, which was so weird in hindsight.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
As in the famous London time telling device the way
you said that.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
The clock. Yes, I wanted to see the clock in
London and.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Didn't live up to your expectations.
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Absolutely, it was on my vision board. It was this
beautiful tower and I was like, I just want to
see I just want to see big Bin. I grew
up watching a lot of like reality TV, so I, oh,
you can't laugh at this. Oh, I would tell this,
tell their story, sim the Beverly Hills sign, just the
Beverly Hills sign. It was in so many TV shows.
I was like, I want to see that one day.
(32:36):
So I added that to my vision f So I
had all these places, and I had things like I
wanted to be able to own a nice car, and
I wanted to be able to like support my family,
and I wanted to be able to be financially free
and financially independent, not have the requirement to work a
nine to five forever, but to have more freedom in
(32:59):
my schedule and ability. But at the time that was
like my dream. And I remember the year after going, oh,
some of these are ticked off, and the year after
that more were ticked off, And it got to the
point where I had to make a new vision board
because I'd achieved everything that was on there and it
was no longer inspiring. It was now my life. But
it just goes to show where you start off and
(33:21):
what you hope you can achieve. It's very difficult to
get there if you are not constantly thinking about it
and reminding yourself of it. And so I think there
is a space for visualization and manifestation in the money space.
And yes it sounds woo woo, but I generally think
it works.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
M hm, Zimron, thank you so much for coming on
the right side.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Thank you for having me. This was so fun. I
love that talking about money isn't just numbers. We've also
spoken about like the holistic side of money, but it
goes to show it's so intertwined in every part of
our life.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Well said.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Simran Core is a ted X speaker, investing columnists, and
the founder and cost of Girls That Invest, a book,
newsletter and podcast.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, it's election Day. We're
talking with doctor Martha S. Jones, history professor and author
of Vanguard, How Black women broke barriers, won the vote
and insisted on equality for all. Thanks to our partners
at Airbnb. Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side
and connect with us on social media at Hello Sunshine
(34:29):
on Instagram and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh,
and feel free to tag us at Simone Boyce and
at Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Listen and follow the bright side on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
See you tomorrow, folks, keep looking on the bright side.
Hosts And Creators
Simone Boyce
Danielle Robay
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