CHAPTER 6
Yes, You Are an Investor
Here’s a snippet of conversation from a HerMoney Happy Hour outside San Francisco.
| JEAN: | So, how many of you would call yourselves investors? (Of the ten women around the table, two hands go up.) |
| LINDSAY: | I can’t take credit for being an investor. I’m just sticking my money in a SEP-IRA. |
| HOPE: | I know we, as a couple, have investments. But I, personally, don’t do it. |
| KELLY: | Do passive investments like index funds even count as investments? |
| ERICA: | I wouldn’t say putting your money in an index fund means you’re an investor. I don’t manage my money each day. I don’t manage it each year. I just put it in. I look at the statements and I hope that it’s going to get the average that they say you’re supposed to get. But to me, that’s not an investor. An investor is someone who takes time during the day to look at stocks to see how they’re doing. And, maybe when a stock is fading off, trying to time the market. |
| JEAN: | That would make you a bad investor. (Cue laughter. Fade to black.) |
IT’S TIME TO OWN THIS
Just to recap: Women are very clear about what we want from our money. We want to satisfy our needs for safety and security. We want to increase the time and freedom we have to pursue the things we want to do and offload those we don’t. We want choices in career, education, community. We want control. We want to pay it forward. And, yes, we want nice stuff—there is absolutely nothing wrong with nice stuff.
There are two ways to produce the resources we need to check off all those boxes. We can earn money by working and saving. And we can earn money while we sleep by putting our savings to work—in other words, by investing.
Working is wonderful, but you can’t do it forever. Saving alone was fine in the 1970s and 1980s, when you could park your money in a bank account and it would earn high single or even double digits. Today, however, you’re lucky if you get a sad 1 to 2 percent, which means you are losing money after taxes and inflation. Even as interest rates rise, the amount you’ll get paid on your savings has a long way to go before it will actually make you money—that’s why keeping more money in the bank than you need to satisfy your short-term and emergency needs may feel safe, but isn’t.
Investing is the way to stay ahead. That means using the money you’ve set aside for the long term (generally five-plus years) and using it to buy a mix of stocks and bonds (and maybe some other assets like real estate) that makes sense for someone your age who is expecting to retire when you are and has a similar approach to taking risk.
And here’s the thing: You may not identify as an investor even though you already are one. You may feel like Sara, 30s, who works in higher education in Baltimore. She says, “I’m putting my 6 percent away in my 403(b), but when it comes to investing I have no idea.” And not only are you an investor, you are probably a pretty good one.
But first, let’s answer some questions.
Do you have money in a retirement plan like a 401(k) or 403(b) or an IRA?
Do you own stock in the company you work for?
Are you putting money into a 529 college savings account?
Do you have an account with a brokerage firm or a robo-advisor?
Do you have an app on your phone that saves up your spare change and invests it?
Check any of those boxes and you are an investor. You just don’t feel like one. Research shows most women don’t. So, let’s clear up the difference between investors and what Erica described as people “who take time during the day to look at stocks to see how they’re doing.… And, maybe… [try] to time the market.” Those people are traders. They buy and sell much more frequently, betting their investments will fall in price as well as rise (a practice called “selling short”).
Investing is slower, longer term. It is a process with which you can and should be patient. And—although traders and investors sometimes use complicated, technical tools and analysis to tell them what to buy, what to sell, and when—investing does not have to be that complicated in order to set you up nicely for the future.
BORING IS BETTER
In researching this book, I heard a consistent desire from women to get smart about investing.
• I just wish I was more knowledgeable about the best things to do with my investments in order to get the greatest return. (Julie, 30s, Pennsylvania)
• I’m pretty confident in mortgages, insurance, being a consumer, credit cards, savings accounts, checking accounts. What am I insecure about? I’d like to understand investments so that I have control over how well my money performs. (Natasha, 30s, New Jersey)
• I’m very confident in my ability to make money, budget, and save money. [Not] investing it. There are so many areas that are so complex when you get down the rabbit hole. I feel a little overwhelmed. (Michelle, 30s, California)
Everybody: Breathe.
There are three things that determine how successful most investors are.
1. The amount you save. Generally, you want to put away 15 percent of whatever you’re earning for the long term. Women are already better at this than men.
2. Asset allocation or the mix of investments—stocks (the riskiest ones), bonds (a little less risky) and cash (safe, except for the taxes/inflation thing)—you choose to balance risk and reward.
3. Security selection—the particular stocks, bonds, or funds you choose to put in those asset buckets.
Number 1 is the most important. Number 2 a close second. Number 3 you hardly have to think about at all. In fact, I’m not even going to go into how to pick a stock or bond. You want that? Read a different book. And here’s why:
Number 1: The Amount You Save. Say you have $100. You invest it and over fifty years it grows and becomes $1,000. The first $100 was your original principal—or how much you saved. The other $900 was your return. Now, some people would make the argument that that $900 was totally dependent on where you chose to invest that money, in other words the mix of assets you put it in. But, if you didn’t have the $100 to begin with, there would have been nothing to grow. As Alexandra Taussig, senior vice president of Women and Investing, Analytics, Marketing and Communications at Fidelity, explains: “Just like everybody knows you can’t out-exercise a bad diet,” you can’t asset allocate your way out of a savings problem. Saving is first and it is nonnegotiable.
So, how much do you have to save? A solid 15 percent of whatever it is you’re earning—year in and year out—should get you to the point where you can retire knowing you’ll have about 85 percent of your pre-retirement income (including what you’ll get from Social Security) and that it will last about thirty years.
You will know if you’re on track if you line up with guidelines that investment companies have developed to help steer you in the right direction. These are Fidelity’s: By age 30, you should have 1x your annual income saved for retirement. By 40, 3x. By 50, 6x. By 60, 8x and by retirement, 10x.
Right about now, you’re having one of two reactions. You’re nodding along or you’ve got iced coffee coming out of your nose. I know this because in late 2017, I tweeted out these benchmarks and Twitter went nuts. So nuts that the Washington Post wrote about my tweet. I got thousands of likes, but also well over a thousand comments—many of them snarky. Here’s how it went down.
Responses included:
 |
Good advice. On a related note, does anyone know any handy recipes for leftover unicorn? |
and
But how much avocado toast are we allowed?
Look, I get it. If you aren’t close to those guidelines yet, they seem impossible. But what I’m telling you is that if you can get to saving that 15 percent—including matching dollars you might be receiving from your employer—you’ll hit the marks. And if you’re not there yet? Don’t aim to get there all at once. Increasing your rate of saving by 1–2 percent every six months to a year is a better way to go.
Moving on to Number 2: Asset Allocation. There is so much research on the importance of asset allocation and how it compares to the importance of security selection (picking stocks and bonds) that diving into it will make your head spin. Here’s all you need to know: In 1986, three researchers did a deep dive into the performance of pension plans (which are broad pools of retirement assets) and determined asset allocation was responsible for about 94 percent of the performance. In other words, it wasn’t about the individual investments. It was about the mix. The paper they published is still cited to this day. There have been follow-up studies since then. Some say asset allocation accounts for 80 percent of performance, others 100 percent, others a little less. But in every case it’s the lion’s share.
That’s pretty good, right? So why do individual investors bother picking stocks at all? Because they want to win. If you’ve ever watched financial news, you’ve heard the word benchmark. A benchmark is a standard we use for comparison. In the world of chocolate chip cookies, a benchmark might be the Toll House. It works because pretty much everyone knows what Toll House cookies look like, taste like, even how to make them. So, you and they can judge: Is your recipe better, worse, or just as good?
In the world of investments, benchmarks are indexes that have been created to represent big pieces of the overall market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 are two popular stock benchmarks. There are others for bonds, and others for mutual funds. The whole point of security selection or picking individual stocks, bonds, or mutual funds is to try to beat benchmarks.
What if you decided that you didn’t care about that? What if you decided that the benchmarks—and since its inception, the Dow has gone up a little less than 8 percent annually, the S&P 500 10 percent—were just fine? Congratulations. You have just given yourself permission to be a boring investor.
That means finding a way to pick an asset allocation that works for you (I’ve got you covered on that, keep reading). Just as importantly, though, you’ve just made a decision about what you’re not going to do. You’re not going to meddle. Once you flesh out your asset allocations, you have to let them do their work. The markets have a bad day? Week? Month? Turn off the television.
Many studies show women are better investors than men. The primary reason for this is that we do not meddle. We don’t trade as frequently, which means we don’t have to pay the cost to trade. But frequent trading also leads to mistakes; you have to figure out not only when to get into an investment but when to get out. Who needs to worry about this? Not me—I am a very boring investor. And I’m guessing not you, either.
WHAT’S HOLDING YOU BACK?
And if all of that information still isn’t enough to get you feeling good and calm and comfortable? You have to do it anyway. Have to because you are going to need the money. As we’ve already discussed, we still make about 20 cents on the dollar less than men. We still are the ones who dip in and out of the workforce to care for kids and older parents. As a result—even though we save a greater percentage of our earnings in our 401(k) and other retirement plans—the average balances in our plans are about 50 percent less than that of men, according to Vanguard. Investing can help close the gap.
So let’s line up the obstacles standing in our way and move past them.
THE BUCKETS
I said I wasn’t going to go into how to pick a stock or bond—and I’m not. But putting your money to work does involve making two choices. First, you choose the right type of account for your needs. Then you choose the investments to put in those accounts.
Think of accounts as buckets that hold your investments. There are three basic types of buckets:
• Taxable: Includes plain vanilla bank and brokerage accounts. You generally6 pay taxes on proceeds you realize each year.
• Tax-deferred: The government wants to incentivize you to save more for these goals and so you get a tax deduction for making a contribution, and you don’t pay taxes on the money while it’s in the account. When you withdraw it at retirement (which you can do starting at age 59½ and must do starting at age 70½), you pay income taxes at your current rate. These include: 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and other workplace retirement plans, and traditional IRAs.
• Tax-free: You’ve already paid taxes on the income you put in, but the money grows without taxes being paid and you can withdraw it tax-free. These include Roth IRAs and health savings accounts (HSAs) as long as you use the money for health expenses.
In general, we want to put as much of our money into tax-deferred or tax-free buckets as possible. We also want to grab any other incentives or freebies (like matching dollars) that are available. Then we move on to taxable accounts.
So, if you have a retirement plan at work, the rough order of accounts you’d contribute to would be: 401(k) or other workplace plan, HSA, Roth or traditional IRA (eligibility depends on income but you can do this in addition to a workplace plan), taxable account, 529.
If you’re an employee but don’t have a plan at work, the order would be: traditional or Roth IRA, HSA, taxable account, 529. How do you decide if you want Roth or traditional? (Or, if you’re in a workplace plan, when you want the 401(k) option?) Look at taxes and flexibility. If you think your tax bracket is higher now than it will be in retirement, a traditional IRA makes sense. If you think your tax rate will be higher later (generally true for younger people) or that all US tax rates will be higher later, a Roth makes sense. Many people (including me) have money in both Roth and traditional IRAs. We’re hedging our bets on the uncertainty of both our own and the country’s future tax rates. A Roth is also more flexible in that you can withdraw your contributions (though not the earnings) at any time without penalty—so you can get at the money if you need it. You can also let it grow forever and pass it on to your kids if you want.
If you’re self-employed and can surpass the annual limits on traditional IRA and Roth contributions (currently $6,000 plus another $1,000 for people 50 and over), you’ll want to start with a SEP-IRA or a solo 401(k), followed by the other accounts—HSA, taxable account, 529. SEPs are best for individuals or people who work just with a spouse. They allow you to sock away up to 25 percent of your W-2 earnings or 20 percent of your net self-employment income—and get a tax deduction for doing so. The hitch is that if you have other employees, you have to contribute the same percentage of their salaries that you do of your own. A solo or individual 401(k) is only available if you have no employees. It comes with more paperwork, but may allow you to contribute more money. And, unlike with SEPs, you can borrow from your 401(k).
THE FILLING
Once you’ve got your buckets, you can begin filling them up. Here are five ways to go about it in the order of the effort they require, from practically none to more substantial.
Strategy 1: Do it for me—Target-date fund
What is it? A fund of other mutual funds designed to help you retire at a particular date (you’ll recognize these by the date in the title). It invests your money more aggressively when you’re younger and less aggressively when you’re closer to retirement and needing to use it. For example, Vanguard’s Target Retirement 2050 Fund has about 90 percent of its assets in stocks now. But by 2050 it will have a little less than 50 percent, and five years later closer to 34 percent. Many work-based plans will automatically put your money into the target-date fund that they think is right for you unless you elect to do something else.
How to use it? You pick one with a date that lines up with your projected retirement, and then—and this is important—you put all of your investments in this one fund. If you put some of your money in a target-date fund and some in other, say, stock funds, it defeats the purpose of keeping your risk in line with your retirement.
How much are they? The average target-date fund charges an expense ratio (or fee) of about 0.75 percent annually.
Strategy 2: Robo-advisor
What is it? A computer-driven financial planning service. You answer questions about your age, financial situation, goals for retirement, and attitude toward risk. The computer uses your answers to figure out an asset allocation for you and then keeps you in balance over time. Many also offer tax-loss harvesting, which is a way of minimizing capital gains taxes (a good thing).
How to use it? You open an account with a robo-advising firm (the biggest are Wealthfront and Betterment; Ellevest is aimed at women) and start contributing. Big firms like Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, and others now also offer robo-advising services. The pure robo start-ups aren’t typically able to manage your 401(k), but you can open IRAs, SEPs, and taxable brokerage accounts with these firms.
How much are they? Fees range between 0.2 percent and 0.5 percent of your portfolio annually.
Strategy 3: Managed account for your workplace plan
What is it? A way of bringing more personalized advice to 401(k)s and other work-based accounts. You fill out a questionnaire about your goals, and a robo-advisor (or, sometimes, a person) selects the appropriate asset mix for your needs and then keeps the portfolio in line with your goals. Managed accounts also offer advice on how much to save, how long to work, and other information that can be helpful in amassing enough for retirement.
How to use it? Talk to your retirement plan provider at work about whether these services are available, then follow their lead.
How much are they? Fees range from free to more than 0.5 percent of your portfolio.
Strategy 4: Financial advisor
What is it? A person, either independent or within your brokerage firm, that you hire to manage (or help you manage) your investments based on your goals.
How to use it? That depends on you—and the advisor you’ll choose. But you’ll find much more on how to find and work with an advisor coming later in the chapter.
How much are they? Generally 1 percent to 2 percent of your portfolio annually, though some charge by the hour, others by the plan.
Strategy 5: DIY
What is it? A portfolio that you build yourself and then rebalance once or twice a year. This is the most labor-intensive solution on the list, but even this doesn’t have to be difficult.
How to do it? You open an account and then regularly invest in a mix of assets that works for your age and risk tolerance. New York–based financial advisor Stacy Francis specializes in working with women. She helped us develop these portfolio recommendations. Note: You can satisfy them all by just buying index funds—funds run by computers that track a particular portion of the market. (Where the recommendation says “Short-Term Bond,” for example, you’d buy a short-term bond index fund.) Index funds are both inexpensive and, because the investments in the portfolio don’t change all that frequently, tax-efficient. (FYI: exchange traded funds, or ETFs, are index funds that trade like stocks. They’ll work, too. Active traders often prefer ETFs because they’re cheaper.)
IF YOU’RE IN YOUR 30S
Asset Class: Bonds
Asset Subclass: Intermediate-Term Bond
Target: 13.0%
Asset Class: Bonds
Asset Subclass: Short-Term Bond
Target: 8.0%
Asset Class: Non-US Stocks
Asset Subclass: Emerging-Markets Equity Fund
Target: 15.0%
Asset Class: Non-US Stocks
Asset Subclass: Int’l Developed Equity Blend Fund
Target: 19.0%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Large Cap Growth
Target: 20.0%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Large Cap Value
Target: 20.0%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Small Cap Blend
Target: 5.0%
IF YOU’RE IN YOUR 40S
Asset Class: Bonds
Asset Subclass: Intermediate-Term Bond
Target: 18.5%
Asset Class: Bonds
Asset Subclass: Short-Term Bond
Target: 11.0%
Asset Class: Non-US Stocks
Asset Subclass: Emerging-Markets Equity Fund
Target: 13.5%
Asset Class: Non-US Stocks
Asset Subclass: Int’l Developed Equity Blend Fund
Target: 16.5%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Large Cap Growth
Target: 18.0%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Large Cap Value
Target: 18.0%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Small Cap Blend
Target: 4.5%
IF YOU’RE IN YOUR 50S
Asset Class: Bonds
Asset Subclass: Intermediate-Term Bond
Target: 25.0%
Asset Class: Bonds
Asset Subclass: Short-Term Bond
Target: 13.5%
Asset Class: Non-US Stocks
Asset Subclass: Emerging-Markets Equity Fund
Target: 12.5%
Asset Class: Non-US Stocks
Asset Subclass: Int’l Developed Equity Blend Fund
Target: 14.5%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Large Cap Growth
Target: 15.5%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Large Cap Value
Target: 15.5%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Small Cap Blend
Target: 3.5%
IF YOU’RE IN YOUR 60S AND GETTING READY TO RETIRE
Asset Class: Bonds
Asset Subclass: Intermediate-Term Bond
Target: 42.5%
Asset Class: Bonds
Asset Subclass: Short-Term Bond
Target: 19.5%
Asset Class: Non-US Stocks
Asset Subclass: Emerging-Markets Equity Fund
Target: 8.0%
Asset Class: Non-US Stocks
Asset Subclass: Int’l Developed Equity Blend Fund
Target: 9.0%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Large Cap Growth
Target: 10.0%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Large Cap Value
Target: 10.0%
Asset Class: US Stocks
Asset Subclass: US Small Cap Blend
Target: 1.0%
How much does it cost to invest this way? It varies dramatically based on the cost of the investments you select for your portfolio. If you choose index funds, however, it can be less than 0.2 percent of your portfolio annually. (It should be cheaper, BTW. You’re doing all the work.) In 2018, Fidelity introduced two funds that cost zero.
AUTOMATE
No matter which way you choose to fill your portfolio, there is one thing you must, must, must do for your sanity and your future security. You have to automate. This means setting up a system to make regular contributions into your account and your mix of assets—without you having to think about it even a little bit. The magic of 401(k)s is that they do this via paycheck deduction. But if you don’t have that option, you can still set up a system with your brokerage firm or financial advisor to move money automatically on the same day each month into the account and assets of your choice. Then all you have to do—all you get to do, I should say, because this part is a pleasure—is watch it add up.
MAKING THE MONEY LAST AS LONG AS YOU DO
The biggest financial fear women have is running out of money before we run out of time. It’s not unreasonable considering the fact that we live five years longer than men and still earn far less. But today we have tools, solutions, investments, and insurance policies that we can use to make this whole question of running out of money a nonissue. Then we can go back to worrying about more important things, like whether our go-to brand of chicken stock has added sugar and if Aruba or Antigua is better for winter break.
Traditional pensions provided guaranteed income—a lifetime paycheck of sorts. Those of you who work as teachers or in government, belong to a union, or have served in the military may still have this. With the exception of Social Security, which is a sort of pension but not one ever intended to cover our full cost of living, the rest of us are out of luck. So we have to stitch together a paycheck of our own. How?
FINDING HELP YOU CAN TRUST
You have undoubtedly become aware through the reading of this book—if you didn’t know it before—that I am a big fan of financial advisors. I have an advisor, my mother has an advisor, and I often recommend advisors to others—particularly at points of life transition.
A number of studies have tried to quantify the value of advice—the amount, after the cost of the advisor, it adds to your returns. Most of this research (from Envestnet, Vanguard, Merrill Lynch, and others) puts the value at about 3 percent a year. Morningstar estimates it’s half that or 1.5 percent a year. Still, even that—over years—is significant. If you invest $500 a month for 30 years at a 6.5 percent return, you’d end up with about $550,000. At an 8 percent return, you’d have $750,000. And at 9.5 percent? $1,025,000.
And you can’t attribute all the value of having an advisor to investment returns, which to some degree are out of your (or the advisor’s) control. Your advisor might tell you to increase your savings rate, restructure the way you’re paying down your debts, help you strategize to avoid taxes. All of those provide a quantifiable return.
Finding one you feel you can trust, however, can be complicated. Most advisors in the US are men. When they’re hired to work with couples, it isn’t unusual for most of the communication to be directed to the man—who is assumed to be in charge. The result is an interaction that can be uncomfortable, verging on disrespectful.
“I make the money and my husband manages the money,” says Claudia, 60s, from Philadelphia. “For the most part things are fine. But every once in a while I get panicked—mostly because I feel like we’re taking on too much risk—and I tell him I want to see the financial advisor.” That’s the right impulse. But the interaction always disappoints her. Claudia asks her questions. The advisor answers them in a way that she doesn’t really understand—“he throws a bunch of numbers at me”—and then she goes away for a year or two until she gets worried again and the scenario repeats itself.
I asked why she stays with him, and she replied: “That’s the thing. I picked somebody else and my husband picked this guy. But because my husband is taking care of the money, I let him have the guy he liked. There’s some relationship there. Some bond. I sort of feel like I exclude myself. Maybe they sit there and talk about football. I doubt it’s about my money.”
I told Claudia the same thing I would tell every one of you in that scenario. That financial advisor may be the best stock picker in the universe. He is not the right financial advisor for her.
Keep in mind: Your advisors want something from you. They want your business. They want the privilege and profit that comes from managing or helping you manage your money. They want you to recommend them to your friends. If you feel like Claudia, steel your nerve and fire that advisor. (This is not that hard. If you’ve already found a new advisor, they can initiate and handle the transfer of assets for you.) Or, like a significant other (or a puppy) with potential, train them to be the advisor you want them to be. Tell them what you’re missing (clearer answers, more prompt return calls, a detailed plan) and see if they can conform to meet your needs. But understand: you are the customer.
When you’re ready to find an advisor, start with word of mouth. Ask colleagues and friends with financial lives like yours if they have someone to recommend. (The benefit to colleagues is that you’ll meet advisors already familiar with the minutiae of your company’s retirement plan.) If nothing turns up, you can turn to the Internet. The Financial Planning Association (plannersearch.org), National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA.org, for fee-only planners), and Garrett Planning Network (GarrettPlanningNetwork.com, for fee-only planners who work hourly) all have search engines that allow you to find planners nearby. Do a quick background check on anyone you’re considering at BrokerCheck.FINRA.org (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority). I also like to see that people have their CFP®, or Certified Financial Planner™, designation. Then schedule three or four consultations. They should be free.
At your meeting you’ll want to ask:
• What’s the division of labor? What will the advisor do versus what will you do yourself?
• How much will this cost me each year? This gives you a way to compare advisors who charge in different ways (some charge fees for the plan or hourly rates, others a percentage of the assets they manage for you).
• What do you do when the market takes a really bad turn? Communicate is the right answer. In most cases, the right advice is going to be “stick to the plan,” but some hand-holding during these periods is part of the job.
• Are you a fiduciary? A fiduciary is someone who pledges to act in your best interest (rather than their own) at all times. A no-brainer.
• Can I have references and see a sample plan? There should be no problem with this at all.
• And… anything else that’s on your mind. If you have a special needs child/are in your family business/are determined to take a year off and travel around the world, you’ll want to ascertain they’ve worked successfully with other clients in similar situations.
Even more important than the questions you ask are two other things that should play a big role in your decision. First, what did the advisor ask you and how well did they listen? This relationship isn’t about the advisor and you, it’s about you and the advisor. You come first. There should be a flurry of questions about your goals in life—because the job of an advisor is to help you achieve them financially. If the conversation is one-sided and you’re doing all the listening, that’s a very bad sign. And second, how did you feel in the room? Comfortable? Able to ask all your questions? Like maybe you could have coffee with this person? All good signs. Intimidated? Reluctant to speak up? Stupid? Next.
• If you’ve got money in a retirement account, a brokerage account, or an index fund, you are an investor—you may just not be a very engaged one. That has to change if you want to make the most of your money for tomorrow.
• Investing is really only a matter of picking the right account to put your money in, then the right mix of investments to put into it. You can do this yourself or you can get some help. Either way, it doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive.
• Accumulating the money you need to meet your goals is the first half of the equation; making the money last as long as you do is the second half. You need a strategy for this as well.
• There may come a point when you want to hire a financial advisor to give your financial life a once-over or just make sure you’re on track. Finding one to meet your needs is a matter of asking the right questions.
Where Do We Go from Here
Today, many women are investing in ourselves by building our own businesses. This gives us a means of controlling both our money and our lives—but only if we do it right. Whether you’re aiming at launching a full-time enterprise or a side hustle, the next chapter has the 411.
