# Investing for Grown-Ups

An episode of [Grown-Up Stuff: How to Adult](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1686739773), 4 Aug 2026, 46 min.

Audio: https://pdrl.fm/35a8da/podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/1b36bef5-b515-4e5a-a41c-affa00ea1bed/7ff0d450-af51-4728-9475-b498011a4e2a/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=5791c797-eaca-40d3-bc1b-affa00ead276

Investing can feel like one of those grown-up things everyone else understands, but the truth is, most people are figuring it out as they go. In this episode of Grown-Up Stuff, Matt and Lea are joined by Haley Sachs, Financial Expert, host of Financial Tea podcast and NYT bestselling author of Future Rich Person, to break down the basics of investing in plain English. Together, they cover everything from emergency funds and retirement accounts to index funds, ETFs, compound interest, and why trying to time the market usually does more harm than good. Haley shares practical advice for first-time investors, explains why financial confidence comes from taking action and not waiting until you feel ready. She covers simple strategies to build wealth over time without making investing your full-time hobby. Whether you're opening your first brokerage account or finally trying to understand what all those investing terms actually mean, this episode will help you tune out the noise, avoid common mistakes, and take the first step toward making your money work for you. Because being a grown-up who is financially literate doesn't mean predicting the stock market. It means having a plan and sticking with it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:04] Speaker 1: Rube.
[0:07] Speaker 2: I really don't believe that you need a finance degree
[0:10] Speaker 2: to be good with money. I think that you need
[0:13] Speaker 2: about six grade math and someone to teach you, and
[0:17] Speaker 2: you can pull it off.
[0:20] Speaker 3: I feel like investing has a branding problem. How so well,
[0:24] Speaker 3: it sounds like something you need a suit, a briefcase,
[0:26] Speaker 3: and three computer monitors to do right.
[0:29] Speaker 4: Well, in reality, most of us just want to know
[0:31] Speaker 4: if we're making smart decisions with our money exactly.
[0:34] Speaker 3: So today we're skipping the Wall Street jargon and talking
[0:37] Speaker 3: about investing in a way that actually makes sense. Welcome
[0:43] Speaker 3: back to grown Up Stuff, the podcast where we figure
[0:45] Speaker 3: out all the things you feel like you should know
[0:47] Speaker 3: by now but maybe don't because I know I don't.
[0:50] Speaker 4: I'm Leah Palmery and I'm Matt Stillow and I don't either.
[0:54] Speaker 4: But in previous episodes we've covered retirement accounts, credit cards,
[0:58] Speaker 4: and budgeting, which if you haven't heard yet, totally go
[1:01] Speaker 4: back and listen. But today we're talking about investing, but
[1:05] Speaker 4: not just the basics of it. We're getting into the specifics.
[1:09] Speaker 4: I think that this is just super important for all
[1:11] Speaker 4: grown ups financial futures. I started my own personal investment
[1:15] Speaker 4: journey after reading A Simple Path to Wealth by Jail Collins,
[1:18] Speaker 4: and it changed my life completely by getting into the
[1:22] Speaker 4: specifics but not being scary. So we're going to drop
[1:25] Speaker 4: the jargon but get into exactly what you need to
[1:28] Speaker 4: do to get your finances in order.
[1:31] Speaker 3: I love a good how to book, especially one that's
[1:34] Speaker 3: going to help me increase my network.
[1:35] Speaker 4: Well, that's exactly why we asked our guest here today,
[1:38] Speaker 4: Hailey Sachs aka missus Dowd Jones, to join us. She
[1:42] Speaker 4: is a Zillennial fun finance expert and author of the
[1:46] Speaker 4: book Future Rich Person, The New Rules for Building Wealth.
[1:50] Speaker 3: I would like to be a current rich person.
[1:52] Speaker 5: Me too, But we have to start somewhere.
[1:54] Speaker 3: Right, I guess, Well, before we get into the specific
[2:04] Speaker 3: investment vehicles and tools, let's start with some basics.
[2:08] Speaker 1: So, Hayley, why would you say.
[2:10] Speaker 3: That investing is an important part of becoming a future
[2:12] Speaker 3: rich person?
[2:13] Speaker 2: That's such a great question, Leah, and I love starting
[2:15] Speaker 2: there because I feel like everyone tells you to invest,
[2:18] Speaker 2: but no one really tells you why not to invest,
[2:21] Speaker 2: and it feels sort of scary to invest because it
[2:24] Speaker 2: feels like you're taking a risk. An analogy that I
[2:26] Speaker 2: really like to use around investing because there is a
[2:29] Speaker 2: lot of fear around it. People think that it's unsafe,
[2:33] Speaker 2: that it's super risky. But if you invest properly, which
[2:36] Speaker 2: we're going to talk about on this show, in a
[2:39] Speaker 2: diversified way, it's basically like driving the speed limit.
[2:43] Speaker 1: So it's the safe way to go.
[2:45] Speaker 2: And I think that people think that speeding would be
[2:47] Speaker 2: buying individual stocks, day trading, buying crypto, but that, on
[2:52] Speaker 2: the other hand, equally dangerous is going below the speed limit.
[2:57] Speaker 2: Like if you're on a really fast highway and you're
[2:59] Speaker 2: going ten miles an hour, you're in just as much
[3:02] Speaker 2: of a precarious situation as someone who's going on undred.
[3:05] Speaker 1: Miles an hour on that highway.
[3:07] Speaker 2: You want to just go sixty five or seventy what
[3:09] Speaker 2: the speed limit is. And so I think a lot
[3:11] Speaker 2: of people hoard cash, they avoid investing, and they think
[3:15] Speaker 2: that that is being safe. But I want you to realize,
[3:18] Speaker 2: like to rethink about how you frame that and think
[3:22] Speaker 2: about what's safe is actually to go to speed limit,
[3:25] Speaker 2: which is to invest in a just very diversified, safe way.
[3:30] Speaker 4: I have some money sitting in my account right now
[3:33] Speaker 4: that I've been like just invest what are you doing,
[3:35] Speaker 4: like just put it in an investment.
[3:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's the mindset shift that you need, Like
[3:40] Speaker 2: you have to start thinking about it as this is
[3:42] Speaker 2: the right thing to do, so, Hayley.
[3:44] Speaker 4: For a lot of us, investing feels like learning a
[3:48] Speaker 4: foreign language. Stock symbols, financial jargon, market terminology. It can
[3:52] Speaker 4: all seem sort of abstract and intimidating, but it doesn't
[3:55] Speaker 4: have to be. With the right translation, these concepts become
[3:59] Speaker 4: so much more approach. I'm curious to hear. Why does
[4:02] Speaker 4: the financial world often make investing feel far more complicated
[4:06] Speaker 4: than it has to be.
[4:07] Speaker 2: Here's the thing, Matt, confusion is super profitable. Like the
[4:11] Speaker 2: financial services industry is not incentivized at all for you
[4:16] Speaker 2: to be good with money.
[4:18] Speaker 1: They make so much.
[4:19] Speaker 2: Money off of overdraft fees, off of financial services that
[4:24] Speaker 2: maybe you don't need, that you're getting charged for that
[4:26] Speaker 2: you don't realize. And the more intimidating that investing feels,
[4:31] Speaker 2: the more likely you are to pay someone else a
[4:34] Speaker 2: fee to do it for you or to avoid it altogether,
[4:37] Speaker 2: and either way the industry wins. So like all this
[4:40] Speaker 2: jargon nonsense expense ratios and index funds and asset allocation,
[4:48] Speaker 2: all these words that they use. It's not complex just
[4:51] Speaker 2: for complexity's sake. It's really just like a mote. And
[4:57] Speaker 2: the moment that you actually translated into English you realize
[5:00] Speaker 2: is that most of it is pretty simple. Like for me,
[5:02] Speaker 2: that was a really big aha moment in my money
[5:05] Speaker 2: journey was when I was like, Oh, they've completely catfished us,
[5:08] Speaker 2: Like this is actually not that hard at all, and
[5:11] Speaker 2: they've made it to seem hard, but like we can
[5:14] Speaker 2: all totally do this.
[5:15] Speaker 4: If anyone takes anything away from this conversation, I hope
[5:19] Speaker 4: to God Haley that it's that there's so many people
[5:22] Speaker 4: in my life they're like, Oh, I think I'm just
[5:23] Speaker 4: gonna pay this financial advisor. I think you don't need
[5:26] Speaker 4: any of that, and all you need is something really simple,
[5:29] Speaker 4: like reading Haley's book Future Rich Person.
[5:31] Speaker 2: It has everything in it that you need to build well.
[5:34] Speaker 2: But I will say, like on my own investing journey,
[5:36] Speaker 2: which I talk about all the time, that like, if
[5:38] Speaker 2: I can do this, you can do this. I'm a
[5:41] Speaker 2: very tight b person. I'm like using my passport to
[5:44] Speaker 2: get into the bar. The other week I posted about
[5:46] Speaker 2: me trying to get a real ID and it took
[5:48] Speaker 2: me like a million times to go because I'm always
[5:51] Speaker 2: kept forgetting the forms. But it's like, despite the fact
[5:54] Speaker 2: that maybe I'm not the best at functioning, I am
[5:58] Speaker 2: a millionaire and it's just becu of automation and because
[6:01] Speaker 2: I read finance books and because I have controlled my spending.
[6:07] Speaker 1: It's really is that simple.
[6:09] Speaker 2: And so I hope that people feel empowered by that
[6:11] Speaker 2: and you realize that you don't have a chit missing.
[6:13] Speaker 2: I think we all think that like we are missing
[6:16] Speaker 2: some sort of special finance like yeah, and it's like
[6:20] Speaker 2: we have to remember that we are all born the
[6:22] Speaker 2: same way. Like you were born knowing as much about
[6:24] Speaker 2: money as warm Buffett or Oprah who's a billionaire, or
[6:28] Speaker 2: Taylor Swift or you know, like any of these people
[6:31] Speaker 2: that you think are like so rich and have it
[6:34] Speaker 2: all together, they were born the same way as you were.
[6:37] Speaker 2: Because you can maybe can inherit money, but you can't
[6:39] Speaker 2: inherit financial literacy.
[6:40] Speaker 1: It's something that we all have to learn.
[6:42] Speaker 3: I like your analogy about the speed limit, like that
[6:45] Speaker 3: to me makes sense. So say that I'm somebody who
[6:48] Speaker 3: has gotten in the car. I've put on my seat belt,
[6:51] Speaker 3: but I'm still a little bit nervous about starting. So
[6:54] Speaker 3: before I put my pedal to the medal, what advice
[6:58] Speaker 3: would you give to that person? It's just like, I'm
[7:00] Speaker 3: not really quite sure where to start. What should I
[7:03] Speaker 3: do before I really like take this leap and put
[7:05] Speaker 3: my hard earned money somewhere.
[7:07] Speaker 2: So the first thing that you absolutely need to do, Leah,
[7:10] Speaker 2: is make sure that you have a three to six
[7:13] Speaker 2: month emergency fund in a high yield savings account. And
[7:17] Speaker 2: that's because the market moves in cycles. So you never
[7:20] Speaker 2: want to invest money that you might need in the
[7:22] Speaker 2: case of an emergency because you might have to pull
[7:24] Speaker 2: it out and the market will be on an off
[7:27] Speaker 2: day and you'll have less money than you invested and
[7:30] Speaker 2: you're going to pull it out and be like, Heley,
[7:32] Speaker 2: what do you mean? You told me that it was
[7:33] Speaker 2: safe to invest, and you know it does. Your money
[7:36] Speaker 2: will make money, but you have to let it sit
[7:38] Speaker 2: for a long enough time that it will and the
[7:40] Speaker 2: minimum amount of time is five to seven years. So
[7:43] Speaker 2: make sure that you have some cash on the side
[7:45] Speaker 2: because anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and
[7:48] Speaker 2: you want to make sure you're covered. And then you
[7:50] Speaker 2: also want to make sure that you don't have high
[7:51] Speaker 2: interest rate debt, which is any debt really above seven percent,
[7:56] Speaker 2: because the stock market really returns around eight to ten percent.
[7:59] Speaker 2: So even if you're investing and you're making money, if
[8:02] Speaker 2: your credit card is twenty four percent, you're going to
[8:06] Speaker 2: still be on the sadonic treadmill where your returns are
[8:09] Speaker 2: never going to outweigh how much you're paying in fees.
[8:13] Speaker 4: Absolutely, And I think that the best way that this
[8:15] Speaker 4: was explained to me is You've got a couple of
[8:16] Speaker 4: different buckets. Right, there's your retirement, which is the longest
[8:20] Speaker 4: out Right, You've got the most amount of time to
[8:22] Speaker 4: get a retirement, and then maybe you want to think
[8:24] Speaker 4: about buying a house, right, maybe that's in the next
[8:26] Speaker 4: two to three years, and then maybe have something even
[8:28] Speaker 4: more immediate, like you're saving to go on vacation. So
[8:31] Speaker 4: the time in the market is really where that comes
[8:33] Speaker 4: into play. You need the most money to retire, really,
[8:36] Speaker 4: and so people are like, get in as early as
[8:38] Speaker 4: you can.
[8:39] Speaker 3: We've talked in previous episodes about the different types of
[8:42] Speaker 3: investment accounts, like retirement accounts and brokerage accounts, and those
[8:46] Speaker 3: are really just different ways your money is treated for
[8:49] Speaker 3: tax purposes. But today I want to take a step
[8:52] Speaker 3: back and talk about the thing that's actually inside those accounts.
[8:56] Speaker 3: There are lots of ways people invest real estate, precious metal,
[9:00] Speaker 3: even cryptocurrency, but for most people, the stock market is
[9:03] Speaker 3: really where their investing journey begins. And I think it's
[9:06] Speaker 3: one of those things everyone has heard of, but maybe
[9:09] Speaker 3: not everyone really understands it. So can you break it
[9:12] Speaker 3: down for us? What actually is the stock market and
[9:16] Speaker 3: what's the simplest way to think about how it works?
[9:19] Speaker 1: Yes, I absolutely will.
[9:20] Speaker 2: And one thing that I also say before I get
[9:22] Speaker 2: into this is it financial confidence follows action. So if
[9:26] Speaker 2: while you're listening to this you're feeling like, okay, still,
[9:29] Speaker 2: I can't do this whatever, the key is to force
[9:32] Speaker 2: yourself to do it anyways, because you're never actually going
[9:35] Speaker 2: to feel ready this, I'm sure of.
[9:37] Speaker 1: I've worked with tens of thousands of people on this.
[9:39] Speaker 2: But you will feel confident after you take the action.
[9:42] Speaker 2: So it's just like a good thing to keep in
[9:44] Speaker 2: mind that the confidence will come after you open the
[9:47] Speaker 2: account and start doing this. And it's normal to feel
[9:50] Speaker 2: really unsettled at the beginning because your money takes a
[9:53] Speaker 2: lot of work to make and you don't want to screw.
[9:55] Speaker 1: It up, and I totally get that.
[9:56] Speaker 2: But that's why I use the driving analogy because I
[9:59] Speaker 2: want you guys to actually think that investing is safer
[10:03] Speaker 2: than not investing, because it is, and that's what's going
[10:05] Speaker 2: to secure your future forever. Okay, let's talk about the
[10:09] Speaker 2: stock market. So the stock market is sort of like Spotify.
[10:14] Speaker 2: You know, Spotify has a bunch of different songs. Stock
[10:17] Speaker 2: market has a ton of different companies that you can
[10:20] Speaker 2: buy a little piece of. When you buy a share,
[10:22] Speaker 2: you're buying like a tiny piece of that company. So
[10:25] Speaker 2: for example, when I was little, my dad took my piggy.
[10:28] Speaker 1: Bank and was like, what do you want to invest in?
[10:30] Speaker 2: And I wanted to invest in Lays and Starbucks because
[10:33] Speaker 2: I was like a chubby girl who loved chips and frappuccinos.
[10:37] Speaker 4: You're like, I really believe in the future of these companies.
[10:40] Speaker 1: I believe in the future of them.
[10:41] Speaker 2: I am a huge supporter of them, and I thought
[10:43] Speaker 2: I would get like extra whip on my like Mocha
[10:45] Speaker 2: frap if I was a shareholder.
[10:47] Speaker 5: Wrong.
[10:47] Speaker 2: But that's one way to do it. But with Spotify,
[10:51] Speaker 2: you can become obsessed with one artist and pray that
[10:55] Speaker 2: they never flop. Or you could listen to a playlist
[10:59] Speaker 2: that has the entire top five hundred songs right now.
[11:04] Speaker 2: Sure that one artist might never have a bad album,
[11:08] Speaker 2: like you might choose the next Sabrina Carpenter and that's amazing,
[11:11] Speaker 2: or the next Tailor Swift. But you don't want to
[11:14] Speaker 2: put all your money just in one artist, where you
[11:18] Speaker 2: could put your money towards owning the whole playlist, and
[11:21] Speaker 2: then you're never gonna have to actually guess who's going
[11:23] Speaker 2: to be famous next, because you're gonna have five hundred
[11:27] Speaker 2: options that one of them is going to do really well,
[11:30] Speaker 2: a lot of them are going to do sort of well,
[11:32] Speaker 2: some of them are going to flop, and it's going
[11:34] Speaker 2: to even out so that overall you're making money.
[11:38] Speaker 5: I love that, yep. I love that.
[11:40] Speaker 4: You're really great analogy.
[11:41] Speaker 3: Talking in my terms there. But the thing that still
[11:45] Speaker 3: makes me a little bit nervous is that, especially this year,
[11:49] Speaker 3: the year of twenty twenty six, I can't go on
[11:52] Speaker 3: TikTok and scroll on TikTok without hearing it's gonna crash.
[11:55] Speaker 3: Everything's gonna be bad. We're all gonna lose our money.
[11:57] Speaker 1: Blah, blah blah.
[11:58] Speaker 3: So like I do believe you, Haley, because you are
[12:00] Speaker 3: a very smart person and people say that you know,
[12:03] Speaker 3: it always goes up. I do believe that, but like
[12:05] Speaker 3: it does go down sometimes, right, So, like what exactly
[12:08] Speaker 3: does that mean?
[12:09] Speaker 2: First of all, you have to realize that the whole
[12:11] Speaker 2: financial services industry and like financial media, is built on
[12:15] Speaker 2: fear mongering. It is our Christmas the day that the
[12:19] Speaker 2: Dow crashes or the market crashes, because you got to
[12:23] Speaker 2: just put out so many headlines and everyone is so
[12:26] Speaker 2: anxious and they're clicking, and so just take it with
[12:29] Speaker 2: a grain of salt because those creators you see on
[12:32] Speaker 2: TikTok are just trying to get views. They're not really
[12:35] Speaker 2: speaking from a place of authority, and that's all. You
[12:37] Speaker 2: also have to be careful about which financial influencers you follow,
[12:41] Speaker 2: because you want someone who's really measured and really acts
[12:44] Speaker 2: almost as a.
[12:44] Speaker 1: Fiduciary towards you.
[12:46] Speaker 2: And so you seem to also find like safe spaces
[12:48] Speaker 2: of the internet.
[12:53] Speaker 4: And a quick side note, a fiduciary is a financial
[12:56] Speaker 4: professional who is legally required to put your best interests,
[13:00] Speaker 4: not theirs. That means they're expected to recommend what's best
[13:04] Speaker 4: for you, not what earns them the biggest commission.
[13:10] Speaker 1: I think.
[13:10] Speaker 2: Another thing to think about is that the stock market
[13:12] Speaker 2: is really the only place where people run out of
[13:16] Speaker 2: the store the moment that everything is on sale. Any
[13:20] Speaker 2: other place you'd be like, WHOA, it's on sale, I
[13:22] Speaker 2: get to buy more. But with the market, people freak out.
[13:27] Speaker 2: And the other thing you should know is that people
[13:29] Speaker 2: have been predicting the next market crash basically every year
[13:33] Speaker 2: since the stock market was invented, and eventually someone is right,
[13:37] Speaker 2: but it's you know, they throw it out there anyways,
[13:39] Speaker 2: and no one ever comes back and says, like, WHOA,
[13:41] Speaker 2: my prediction was wrong. They just keep making new prediction.
[13:44] Speaker 2: But what history tells us is that crashes are normal
[13:48] Speaker 2: and recoveries are normal too. The US stock market has
[13:50] Speaker 2: survived the Great Depression, world Wars, Black Monday, the dot
[13:56] Speaker 2: com crash, COVID, the two thousand and eight COVID inflation,
[14:01] Speaker 2: all these things, and yet from nineteen thirty six to
[14:05] Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, there's never been a negative rolling twenty
[14:10] Speaker 2: year period for the US stock market, not one. And
[14:13] Speaker 2: think about your favorite pop star, Like every celebrity has
[14:16] Speaker 2: a flop Era I mean, Taylor had people saying her
[14:19] Speaker 2: career was over before.
[14:21] Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty nine.
[14:23] Speaker 2: Then she literally became the biggest pop star on Earth.
[14:26] Speaker 2: You know, businesses are similar. You have ups and downs,
[14:29] Speaker 2: but the market keeps evolving. The new winners replace old ones,
[14:33] Speaker 2: and so I don't spend my life trying to predict
[14:35] Speaker 2: the next crash, but I do spend my life making
[14:38] Speaker 2: sure I'm invited to the recovery. And because the market
[14:42] Speaker 2: will never reward the person who predicted the best, it
[14:45] Speaker 2: will reward the person who stayed in the game. I
[14:48] Speaker 2: also to remember that the market doesn't go up in
[14:49] Speaker 2: a straight line. It's going to zigzag. But historically, the
[14:53] Speaker 2: people who got rich weren't the ones who perfectly tied
[14:56] Speaker 2: every crash. They're just the ones who kept investing while
[15:00] Speaker 2: everyone else was panicking.
[15:02] Speaker 3: I mean, if you think about Drake, last year, we
[15:04] Speaker 3: were laughing at him, and this year we're dancing with him,
[15:06] Speaker 3: so like.
[15:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess.
[15:10] Speaker 4: So when COVID happened and the market took a really
[15:13] Speaker 4: big downturn, I was hanging out with a good friend
[15:15] Speaker 4: of mine who taught me a lot about finance, and
[15:17] Speaker 4: he was talking to me about this kind of boom
[15:20] Speaker 4: bust cycle, and he was like, you know, hey, man,
[15:22] Speaker 4: I just lost a ton of money in the stock
[15:24] Speaker 4: market today. But he says it doesn't matter because it's
[15:27] Speaker 4: on paper. It doesn't become real until I take it out,
[15:31] Speaker 4: and I'm not retiring today. In fact, he was thirty
[15:33] Speaker 4: years old at the time. He's like, I'm not retiring
[15:35] Speaker 4: for like thirty years, and in thirty years, the market
[15:38] Speaker 4: will most certainly have recovered to the point where I'll
[15:40] Speaker 4: be able to take out an amount of money that
[15:41] Speaker 4: I'll need in retirement. Basically, what he was saying is
[15:44] Speaker 4: you don't need to be checking the stock market every day,
[15:48] Speaker 4: especially if you're not close to your goal.
[15:50] Speaker 3: That does bring up a question for me too, of
[15:52] Speaker 3: like how often should we check to make sure you're
[15:55] Speaker 3: like on track and doing okay, but not like freaking
[15:58] Speaker 3: out over Oh I'm fifty dollars dawn today.
[16:01] Speaker 2: Honestly, way less than you think. And I think it
[16:03] Speaker 2: also has to do with your own disposition, Like I
[16:06] Speaker 2: really look quarterly. I have friends who look every day,
[16:09] Speaker 2: but don't look at your portfolio the way that you
[16:12] Speaker 2: look at your ex. You know, you don't need to
[16:13] Speaker 2: be checking it on them every five minutes. You know.
[16:17] Speaker 2: I would also say I tell people to watch their
[16:19] Speaker 2: portfolios the way that they watch bramo Oh, where it's like, oh,
[16:22] Speaker 2: there's drama, something's happening, but I'm not actually reacting. I'm
[16:27] Speaker 2: just watching it for entertainment and then moving on my day.
[16:30] Speaker 2: But you know, if you're investing for retirement or for
[16:33] Speaker 2: long term wealth, checking it every day is not going
[16:35] Speaker 2: to make you a better investor.
[16:37] Speaker 1: It's just going to make you more emotional.
[16:39] Speaker 3: You know.
[16:40] Speaker 2: Imagine planting a tree. You wouldn't dig it up every
[16:43] Speaker 2: morning to see if the roots had grown overnight. You
[16:46] Speaker 2: would water it, you would give it sunlight, and then
[16:48] Speaker 2: you would let time do its thing.
[16:50] Speaker 1: And that's the same thing with investing.
[16:52] Speaker 2: The more often that people look at their portfolios, the
[16:55] Speaker 2: more opportunities they have to sort of panic over normal
[16:59] Speaker 2: market swayings, and that panic can be really expensive. So
[17:02] Speaker 2: I would just say set it up, automate it, and
[17:05] Speaker 2: live your life. And this also gives you a lot
[17:07] Speaker 2: of freedom because I think we all think, oh, in
[17:10] Speaker 2: order to be good with money, we have to be
[17:12] Speaker 2: obsessed with our portfolios. We have to become like Gording Gecko,
[17:16] Speaker 2: get like an old school phone, scream into it by sell, buy, sell,
[17:20] Speaker 2: and it's like, no, girl, you can actually live your
[17:23] Speaker 2: damn life. This can be something that is happening fully
[17:26] Speaker 2: in the background, and you don't have to make it
[17:28] Speaker 2: your whole personality. It can just be part of how
[17:30] Speaker 2: you live your life the same way you, you know,
[17:32] Speaker 2: might order groceries. That doesn't mean that like every day
[17:35] Speaker 2: you're going on Fresh Direct or whatever and like looking
[17:37] Speaker 2: at other groceries.
[17:39] Speaker 1: You're just it's happening once a week.
[17:42] Speaker 4: So we're a little bit more confident about the stock
[17:44] Speaker 4: market and going up and maybe we're going to be
[17:46] Speaker 4: in the market for a little bit longer, so we're
[17:47] Speaker 4: ready to start investing, right But before we invest I
[17:51] Speaker 4: think it's a really good idea to talk about investing goals.
[17:55] Speaker 4: So what are some of the most common goals people
[17:57] Speaker 4: have for investing and how does that change their strategy
[18:00] Speaker 4: in terms of what they're investing in.
[18:03] Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned something earlier about timelines, and I love
[18:09] Speaker 2: that because before you invest even a single dollar, you
[18:12] Speaker 2: need to talk about your goal. And it really does
[18:16] Speaker 2: depend on your timeline when you need the money, because
[18:19] Speaker 2: think about investing like packing for a trip, Like you're
[18:22] Speaker 2: not going to pack the same suitcase for a weekend
[18:25] Speaker 2: in Miami as you would for a month in Europe,
[18:28] Speaker 2: and your money sort of needs different luggage depending on.
[18:31] Speaker 1: Where it's going.
[18:32] Speaker 2: So the three most common investing goals that I see
[18:36] Speaker 2: are retirement, which is usually decades away and so you
[18:40] Speaker 2: can generally afford to invest for long term growth and
[18:44] Speaker 2: ride out the ups and downs. The second most common
[18:48] Speaker 2: investing goal is buying a home. If you're planning to
[18:51] Speaker 2: buy in the next few years, your strategy should be
[18:54] Speaker 2: way more conservative because you don't want to market downturn
[18:57] Speaker 2: cutting your down payment in half before clothes. So that
[19:00] Speaker 2: might be that you're putting it into a safer vehicle,
[19:03] Speaker 2: like maybe we're putting in a higled savings account or
[19:07] Speaker 2: a certificate of deposit, which we can break down to
[19:10] Speaker 2: these are just like savings accounts that have higher rates
[19:14] Speaker 2: than one at your bank. It's not going to give
[19:16] Speaker 2: you the same return as a stock market, but what
[19:18] Speaker 2: you get in return is security you know that your
[19:21] Speaker 2: money will be there. And then the third most common
[19:25] Speaker 2: investing goal is really just general wealth building. You just
[19:29] Speaker 2: want your money working harder than it would sitting in
[19:31] Speaker 2: a savings account, and that's a long term investing goal too,
[19:34] Speaker 2: But that timeline is really the biggest driver of your strategy,
[19:38] Speaker 2: and money that you might need in two years should
[19:41] Speaker 2: not be invested in the same way as money that
[19:43] Speaker 2: you won't touch for thirty I hear the.
[19:45] Speaker 3: Phrase compound interest a lot too. Can you explain how
[19:49] Speaker 3: that works exactly?
[19:51] Speaker 2: Okay, So when we think of compound interest leap, I
[19:53] Speaker 2: really like to think about Travis Kelsey because before Taylor Swift,
[19:58] Speaker 2: yes he was one of the tight ends, but the
[20:02] Speaker 2: interest that the public had in him was sort of
[20:04] Speaker 2: growing simply at a set rate every year.
[20:08] Speaker 1: I don't think that it was astronomical.
[20:11] Speaker 2: But then when he started to date Taylor, the momentum
[20:15] Speaker 2: created more momentum, and everything exploded for him. His podcast
[20:20] Speaker 2: with Jason Kelcey became one of the biggest in the world.
[20:24] Speaker 2: He got one hundred million dollar contract. His Jersey sales
[20:28] Speaker 2: reportedly jumped four hundred percent after Swift attended one of
[20:31] Speaker 2: his games. And so this is the same thing that
[20:34] Speaker 2: happens with your money when you let it compound. So
[20:38] Speaker 2: like if you invest five hundred dollars a month starting
[20:42] Speaker 2: at age twenty five, and you earn a ten percent return,
[20:45] Speaker 2: which is roughly in line with the historical average return
[20:50] Speaker 2: of the stock market before infleetion. After ten years, you
[20:54] Speaker 2: would have invested sixty thousand dollars, but your account would
[20:57] Speaker 2: be worth about one hundred thousand dollars. After twenty years,
[21:02] Speaker 2: you would have contributed one hundred and twenty thousand dollars,
[21:06] Speaker 2: but you would have around three hundred and eighty thousand.
[21:09] Speaker 2: And after forty years, you to put in two hundred
[21:13] Speaker 2: and forty thousand dollars of your money, but your portfolio
[21:17] Speaker 2: would be worth two point six million dollars.
[21:20] Speaker 1: I like that, which is awesome.
[21:22] Speaker 4: Yeah, so I just want to double tap on this
[21:25] Speaker 4: real quick. Saving five hundred dollars a month for over
[21:28] Speaker 4: forty years gets you two hundred and forty thousand dollars.
[21:32] Speaker 4: Now take that same five hundred dollars a month and
[21:35] Speaker 4: invest it instead, you're at two point six million dollars.
[21:41] Speaker 4: That gap over two point three million dollars is entirely
[21:45] Speaker 4: the result of one decision investing. So let's put that
[21:49] Speaker 4: in some context. At the average US salary about sixty
[21:52] Speaker 4: five thousand dollars a year before taxes and expenses, you'd
[21:56] Speaker 4: need another forty years of full time work just to
[22:00] Speaker 4: close that gap yourself. That's basically an entire second career.
[22:05] Speaker 4: And who wants to be working until they're eighty. This
[22:09] Speaker 4: is what people mean when they say they want their
[22:11] Speaker 4: money to work for them. And this is what Haley
[22:13] Speaker 4: means when she says that investing is safe versus not
[22:17] Speaker 4: investing is dangerous. I mean, think about it. Having the
[22:20] Speaker 4: money set aside in a retirement account will help you
[22:23] Speaker 4: live out your life and do what you want to
[22:24] Speaker 4: do when you hit retirement age. And this is what
[22:27] Speaker 4: we mean when we're talking about the power of compound interest.
[22:30] Speaker 4: This is just so critical for people to know.
[22:35] Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a quick break.
[22:44] Speaker 5: And we're back with more grown up stuff.
[22:47] Speaker 4: How do adult? We talked a little bit about strategy, right,
[22:52] Speaker 4: and so you were talking a little bit about maybe
[22:54] Speaker 4: if you're in the market for longer, you can ride
[22:56] Speaker 4: out some of the ebbs and flows. If you're trying
[22:59] Speaker 4: to buy something sooner, like a house, maybe you want
[23:01] Speaker 4: to be more conservative. So I want to talk a
[23:03] Speaker 4: little bit about the vehicles that you can use to
[23:05] Speaker 4: make something a bit more risky or more conservative. So
[23:09] Speaker 4: would you mind talking to us about the difference between
[23:11] Speaker 4: stocks and bonds.
[23:13] Speaker 2: Yes, stocks orce bonds is a great conversation one that
[23:18] Speaker 2: people should be having more on dates.
[23:19] Speaker 1: Ooh, absolutely, they're just kidding, don't do that. But you know,
[23:24] Speaker 1: look at it this way.
[23:25] Speaker 2: A stock is ownership, So you're buying a tiny piece
[23:28] Speaker 2: of a company and if it grows, then your little
[23:31] Speaker 2: piece is going to grow with it. But that's risky,
[23:34] Speaker 2: right because a company could also tank and then your
[23:37] Speaker 2: money in that stock could just go away, could disappear.
[23:41] Speaker 2: But a bond is alone, So that's when you're basically
[23:45] Speaker 2: lending money to a company or a government and they're
[23:49] Speaker 2: going to pay you back with interest on a schedule.
[23:53] Speaker 2: So stocks have higher growth potential, but they also have
[23:56] Speaker 2: higher volatility, whereas bonds are much steadier and more predictable,
[24:01] Speaker 2: but they're going to give you lower returns. And so
[24:06] Speaker 2: this is why as you get older, as you get
[24:08] Speaker 2: closer to retirement and taking out your money from the market,
[24:12] Speaker 2: you shift your portfolio towards more bonds because you won't
[24:16] Speaker 2: have as much ability to withstand volatility. So you want
[24:20] Speaker 2: lower risk, lower reward, just so you know that you
[24:23] Speaker 2: can take your money out at a certain point and
[24:26] Speaker 2: it's going to be what it said it was when
[24:28] Speaker 2: you lost checked your balance.
[24:31] Speaker 3: Let's talk a little bit about the risk. What is
[24:34] Speaker 3: risk tolerance and how does someone figure out their own
[24:38] Speaker 3: personal risk tolerance? Is there a little calculator? Is there
[24:40] Speaker 3: a BuzzFeed quiz I can take? How do I figure out,
[24:43] Speaker 3: like what is my risk tolerance?
[24:44] Speaker 1: Right now? There should be a BuzzFeed quiz about risk tolerance.
[24:48] Speaker 1: We need to tell them.
[24:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, but risk tolerance is really like how much volatility
[24:52] Speaker 2: you can handle without panic selling.
[24:55] Speaker 1: And I don't really.
[24:56] Speaker 2: Think that you need to take it that seriously. Like
[24:59] Speaker 2: I think that financial confidence follows financial action. So even
[25:04] Speaker 2: if when you're listening to this, you're like, well, I'm
[25:06] Speaker 2: very risk averse and I want to keep everything in
[25:09] Speaker 2: a high held savings account and I don't want to invest,
[25:11] Speaker 2: Like let's ignore that your risk tolerance is zero and
[25:15] Speaker 2: put it in the market anyways, you know what I mean.
[25:18] Speaker 2: But it's really like a mix of your timeline, so
[25:21] Speaker 2: how quickly you're going to need the money with your income,
[25:24] Speaker 2: and honestly, like your personality, so like if a twenty
[25:28] Speaker 2: percent market drop is going to make you pull your
[25:30] Speaker 2: money out then that gives you information about how you
[25:34] Speaker 2: should be invested. That being said, we need to go
[25:37] Speaker 2: back to what we said earlier that the stock market
[25:39] Speaker 2: is the only place where when things go on sale,
[25:41] Speaker 2: people don't buy more. They get scared instead. So my
[25:45] Speaker 2: goal would be, instead of freaking out and like indulging
[25:49] Speaker 2: and having a low risk tolerance, to educate yourself financially
[25:54] Speaker 2: around how risk reaps reward and how to take risk
[25:58] Speaker 2: in a way that's smart and going to help you
[26:01] Speaker 2: build wealth.
[26:03] Speaker 4: I always come back to your timeline. My dad was
[26:06] Speaker 4: incredibly conservative with his investments for most of his life,
[26:09] Speaker 4: and now that he's retired, one of the things he
[26:11] Speaker 4: says is, I wish I had invested more in stocks earlier.
[26:15] Speaker 4: So looking back, he realizes now that he had decades
[26:18] Speaker 4: for that money to grow and grow much more considerably
[26:21] Speaker 4: than it does in bonds. I mean, this is a
[26:23] Speaker 4: good reminder that your investment strategy should change over time.
[26:27] Speaker 4: If you're young and retirement is like thirty to forty
[26:29] Speaker 4: years away, you have far more time to write out
[26:32] Speaker 4: the markets ups and downs. But as you get closer
[26:34] Speaker 4: to big financial goals like buying a home or retiring,
[26:37] Speaker 4: it often makes more sense to shift towards more conservative
[26:40] Speaker 4: investments like bonds. Your timeline is one of the biggest
[26:43] Speaker 4: factors in deciding how much risk you want to take.
[26:46] Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. I love that.
[26:48] Speaker 3: I do want to talk a little more about investment vehicles,
[26:51] Speaker 3: just to have a little bit better understanding. I know
[26:53] Speaker 3: there's ETFs and index funds and mutual funds and target
[26:57] Speaker 3: retirement funds. This is a lie of words, So help
[27:01] Speaker 3: me break that down, like what is the difference and
[27:04] Speaker 3: actually does it matter?
[27:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a great point lea.
[27:08] Speaker 2: So I would think about Taylor Swift's catalog when you
[27:12] Speaker 2: think about ETFs and index funds, okay, because they're basically
[27:18] Speaker 2: the same album in two different formats, Like you know
[27:20] Speaker 2: how she'll release like on vinyl and streaming, so it'll
[27:24] Speaker 2: be the same songs, the same track list, but there's
[27:27] Speaker 2: just a different way of accessing it.
[27:29] Speaker 1: Okay.
[27:30] Speaker 2: So an ETF trades all day like a stock, but
[27:35] Speaker 2: an index fund only prices once a day after the
[27:40] Speaker 2: market closes, but they're tracking the exact same basket of
[27:45] Speaker 2: stocks underneath.
[27:47] Speaker 1: Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah?
[27:48] Speaker 3: So it's just sort of like your preference.
[27:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly like it's like, do you want one that
[27:53] Speaker 2: you can trade during the day and it's moving in
[27:56] Speaker 2: price with the market, or one where there's just one
[27:59] Speaker 2: price or the market closes and that's good too. And
[28:03] Speaker 2: then a mutual fund. A mutual fund is like if
[28:06] Speaker 2: you're paying a producer to hand pick which songs go
[28:11] Speaker 2: on the album, okay, and try to make it out
[28:15] Speaker 2: sell everyone else's. But the issue is is that most
[28:18] Speaker 2: of the time what they pick is not going to
[28:21] Speaker 2: actually be just owning the whole discography, So you're paying
[28:25] Speaker 2: a much higher fee for someone to guess okay.
[28:29] Speaker 1: So that's what people don't realize.
[28:30] Speaker 2: What mutual funds is that people are choosing what's in them,
[28:35] Speaker 2: but you're really paying for a skill that usually doesn't
[28:37] Speaker 2: pay off. It's very hard to just beat average returns
[28:41] Speaker 2: of the market. And by the way, you don't need
[28:43] Speaker 2: to always say you want to have an above average life,
[28:46] Speaker 2: above average vacations and family and relationships and all these things.
[28:50] Speaker 2: But take an average portfolio, get really comfortable with that
[28:54] Speaker 2: eight to ten percent, don't look for more.
[28:56] Speaker 1: That's where you get in trouble.
[28:58] Speaker 2: And then a target retire fun is sort of like
[29:01] Speaker 2: the tour set list that changes as you get older.
[29:05] Speaker 2: So like say you're going to retire in twenty thirty five,
[29:09] Speaker 2: so you'll put that in. You'll buy a twenty thirty
[29:11] Speaker 2: five target date fund, and it will create a basket
[29:16] Speaker 2: of stocks and bonds with a risk profile that matches
[29:20] Speaker 2: that time HORIZONKA. So as you get closer to twenty
[29:23] Speaker 2: thirty five, it's going to switch more into bonds and
[29:26] Speaker 2: be lower risk because you're getting sooner to taking your
[29:29] Speaker 2: money out, and they don't want you to have less
[29:31] Speaker 2: money in the target retirement fund than you'd signed up for.
[29:35] Speaker 2: And it's sort of like when you go to concerts
[29:37] Speaker 2: as you get older. I feel like you have the
[29:40] Speaker 2: more upbeat, high energy stuff early on, and then as
[29:43] Speaker 2: you get older, you go to maybe like more mellow concerts.
[29:47] Speaker 3: I'm not standing the whole time, yes, correct, exactly, You're.
[29:50] Speaker 1: Going to sit down.
[29:51] Speaker 2: So this is a fund that rebalances itself so you
[29:54] Speaker 2: don't have to think about it.
[29:55] Speaker 3: Oh, we love that. We love a setlist that has
[29:57] Speaker 3: like some jams and then like some like nice mellow,
[30:00] Speaker 3: like really singing songs.
[30:02] Speaker 1: I love this.
[30:03] Speaker 4: Yes, So talking about sort of the difference between index funds,
[30:07] Speaker 4: and mutual funds. So index funds are passively managed and
[30:11] Speaker 4: mutual funds are actively managed by a team of people
[30:13] Speaker 4: that are picking. You start to think about like how
[30:15] Speaker 4: much those funds those vehicles cost, right, And so this
[30:19] Speaker 4: brings us to this thing called expense ratios, and so
[30:22] Speaker 4: can you talk to us a little bit about expense ratios,
[30:24] Speaker 4: how those work, and how they might lead us to
[30:28] Speaker 4: picking the right investment for us.
[30:31] Speaker 2: Expense ratios are so important. I know that we said that,
[30:33] Speaker 2: like a lot of the jargon is sort of BS,
[30:35] Speaker 2: but this is a really important one because this is
[30:37] Speaker 2: your fee. So this is basically the toll that you
[30:41] Speaker 2: pay every year to hold an index fund or an ETF, and.
[30:46] Speaker 1: They're really good at hiding them.
[30:48] Speaker 2: Like it's not like when you subscribe to Spotify you
[30:50] Speaker 2: get a big charge and it hits your account. Your
[30:53] Speaker 2: expense ratio basically just get skimmed off of your returns
[30:56] Speaker 2: before you ever see them. So it's sort of like
[30:58] Speaker 2: ticket Master service fee. You're not going to clock it
[31:01] Speaker 2: in the moment, but you sort of know it's being taken,
[31:04] Speaker 2: and it matters so much because having a point zero
[31:08] Speaker 2: three percent expense ratio versus one percent. It might sound
[31:12] Speaker 2: like nothing like arounding error, but this is charging you
[31:17] Speaker 2: every year on your whole balance for as long as
[31:20] Speaker 2: you hold the fund, So it's not a one time fee.
[31:22] Speaker 2: It's basically a subscription that you're paying for owning it,
[31:27] Speaker 2: and it will compound against you the same way that
[31:31] Speaker 2: interest can compound for you. So for thirty years, that
[31:34] Speaker 2: like basically nothing different, could cost you tens of hundreds
[31:38] Speaker 2: of thousands of dollars, and that's money that should have
[31:41] Speaker 2: been compounding in your account instead of someone else's. And
[31:45] Speaker 2: the trap is really that a higher expense ratio doesn't
[31:48] Speaker 2: necessarily even buy you a better outcome, like a lot
[31:51] Speaker 2: of expensive actively managed funds don't outperform the cheap index
[31:56] Speaker 2: funds that are sitting right next to it. You're just
[31:59] Speaker 2: paying for a fund manager's guests. So it's like paying
[32:04] Speaker 2: premium concert level prices for a cover band, Like you're
[32:07] Speaker 2: getting the same songs, but it's a worse deal. So
[32:10] Speaker 2: I always say look for expense ratios under er point
[32:14] Speaker 2: two percent, and anything that is towards one percent like above,
[32:19] Speaker 2: that needs a really good reason to justify what it's
[32:22] Speaker 2: taking from your future self every year. And I will say,
[32:26] Speaker 2: what's really interesting is that there are funds that to
[32:28] Speaker 2: track the same basket of stocks with different expense ratios.
[32:32] Speaker 2: So also just by simply googling what a fund's expense
[32:35] Speaker 2: ratio is, you might be able to find that same investment.
[32:39] Speaker 2: Say you want to invest in like a tech ETF,
[32:42] Speaker 2: you might be able to find that same group of
[32:44] Speaker 2: stocks in a ETF for less than the ETF that
[32:47] Speaker 2: you're looking at.
[32:48] Speaker 4: I think it's really important to kind of do that
[32:50] Speaker 4: research and find the lowest expense ratio fund that you can.
[32:54] Speaker 2: Totally like for tracking the s and P five hundred,
[32:57] Speaker 2: there's an index fund called SPHY that has a point zero.
[33:02] Speaker 1: Nine percent expense ratio.
[33:04] Speaker 2: But for that same tracking of the s APPI hundred,
[33:08] Speaker 2: Fidelity has a mutual fund that will charge you point
[33:10] Speaker 2: zero one five ooh okay.
[33:13] Speaker 5: And again over a lifetime.
[33:15] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so much.
[33:16] Speaker 2: So it's like getting the same dress as another girl.
[33:20] Speaker 2: One girl got it during a sale and the other
[33:22] Speaker 2: one paid like Poshmark, and the other one got it
[33:26] Speaker 2: just straight up. It's the same dress, but you're paying
[33:28] Speaker 2: different prices just because of where you bought it, not
[33:31] Speaker 2: what it is.
[33:32] Speaker 4: And people will notice that those target retirement funds you mentioned, Haley,
[33:35] Speaker 4: they'll have generally a higher expense ratio because essentially it's
[33:39] Speaker 4: doing the work of reallocating your investments for you over time.
[33:44] Speaker 4: And so that's why the idea of just like buying
[33:47] Speaker 4: some of the target retirement fund forgetting about if your
[33:49] Speaker 4: life sounds really nice. It's really really easy for you
[33:52] Speaker 4: to reallocate your own portfolio over time, and you could
[33:54] Speaker 4: save on those expense ratios.
[33:57] Speaker 1: But that's just my thought definitely.
[34:00] Speaker 3: So Okay, I'm ready to go. I feel a lot better.
[34:03] Speaker 3: I like your advice too, of like learning while you're
[34:06] Speaker 3: going kind of thing, because I do think you're logging
[34:08] Speaker 3: into fidelity and it's making a little more sense. But
[34:11] Speaker 3: for you, Hayley, what exactly does a well balanced investment
[34:15] Speaker 3: portfolio actually look like? In your opinion?
[34:19] Speaker 2: Okay, So the first thing I would do if you
[34:20] Speaker 2: were starting investing and you want a well balanced portfolio
[34:23] Speaker 2: is I would max out my tax advantaged accounts first
[34:26] Speaker 2: and foremost. So that could be your wrath IRA, your
[34:30] Speaker 2: four oh one K, your IRA. Maybe you're self employed,
[34:34] Speaker 2: you have a step IRA, but it's really important to
[34:37] Speaker 2: look to those accounts first because uncle Sam sucks and
[34:41] Speaker 2: you want to avoid him taking your profits at any cost.
[34:45] Speaker 2: But I think that a well bounced portfolio to me
[34:48] Speaker 2: really just means diversification and keeping it really simple. Like
[34:53] Speaker 2: I really recommend owning like two to three index funds,
[34:56] Speaker 2: keeping it super simple, and within those five you'll have diversification,
[35:02] Speaker 2: automating it being really consistent. So like you go into
[35:05] Speaker 2: your Fidelity or your Vanguard and you set up an
[35:08] Speaker 2: automated transfer and buy every single month. And by the way,
[35:13] Speaker 2: this might sound a little bit jargony or like you
[35:16] Speaker 2: might have that moment of fear because you don't have
[35:20] Speaker 2: the financial confidence yet because you haven't taken action as
[35:22] Speaker 2: we talked about.
[35:23] Speaker 1: And this gives you pause and you feel like I
[35:25] Speaker 1: can't do that.
[35:26] Speaker 2: This is actually a really great place to use the
[35:29] Speaker 2: internet because I think that you could easily find a
[35:32] Speaker 2: video where someone is showing you how to set up
[35:34] Speaker 2: this automated recurring investment, and it would, you know, really
[35:39] Speaker 2: just simplify it for you.
[35:40] Speaker 1: So like, use the tools that you have on hand.
[35:43] Speaker 2: But I would say a mix of broad US stocks,
[35:47] Speaker 2: some international stocks, and then depending on your age, some
[35:51] Speaker 2: bonds in there to help smooth out the ride, and
[35:54] Speaker 2: then as you get closer to retirement or another big goal,
[35:58] Speaker 2: you might want to add more bonds in because the
[36:00] Speaker 2: goal will shift from growing your money to preserving it.
[36:05] Speaker 1: And then my other thing with.
[36:06] Speaker 2: A well bounced portfolio is just what we talked about,
[36:09] Speaker 2: which is having low fees, because that's something that you
[36:12] Speaker 2: really can control as an investor, and you want your
[36:15] Speaker 2: dollars to be compounding for you versus for someone else.
[36:19] Speaker 2: My advice is, don't build the most exciting portfolio. Keep
[36:22] Speaker 2: it really simple, two to three index funds, ones that
[36:25] Speaker 2: you can have for thirty plus years, and just consistently
[36:29] Speaker 2: buy them. That's the biggest thing. It's not about picking
[36:32] Speaker 2: a winner. It's just about being in the game for
[36:33] Speaker 2: a long time.
[36:35] Speaker 4: The sageist advice. And thank you so much for that, Hailey. Okay,
[36:38] Speaker 4: so we've followed Haley's Future Rich Person playbook. We are
[36:42] Speaker 4: super invested across our accounts at the risk tolerance and
[36:46] Speaker 4: the expense ratio that we like. But the market picks
[36:50] Speaker 4: this day that everything has closed to crash.
[36:54] Speaker 5: So sell or hold on for dear life? Haley? What
[36:58] Speaker 5: do we do well?
[37:00] Speaker 1: We hold on for dear life.
[37:03] Speaker 2: We hoddle selling during a crash is like getting bangs
[37:07] Speaker 2: during a breakup.
[37:08] Speaker 1: Like it might feel like action, but it is not
[37:10] Speaker 1: with them, It is not with.
[37:13] Speaker 3: The We're not reinventing. We're not reinventing.
[37:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not. Lea's been there, Lea's cut those banks.
[37:19] Speaker 1: She knows it.
[37:20] Speaker 2: Well, they're grown out now and we are thriving, Leah,
[37:23] Speaker 2: grow our banks out, which is great.
[37:25] Speaker 1: Yeah, so do not panic. Sell.
[37:27] Speaker 2: Volatility is the fee that you pay forgetting to grow
[37:30] Speaker 2: your money in the market.
[37:32] Speaker 1: So get used to it and lock the hell in.
[37:35] Speaker 1: Buy more.
[37:36] Speaker 2: Millionaires are made in recessions. That's when everything is on sale.
[37:40] Speaker 2: You can buy really valuable things, really valuable index funds,
[37:45] Speaker 2: for less money.
[37:46] Speaker 1: Like that's an amazing opportunity.
[37:48] Speaker 4: This is why people say buy the dip in the
[37:50] Speaker 4: in the stock markets on sale when it crashes totally.
[37:53] Speaker 2: And like, remember if the stock market really really crashed,
[37:57] Speaker 2: like if all five hundred companies and US five hundred,
[38:01] Speaker 2: the top five hundred companies in America went under, we
[38:04] Speaker 2: would have such a bigger problem than your portfolio, Like
[38:06] Speaker 2: we would literally be an armageddon.
[38:08] Speaker 1: Oh okay, so just know, like you're a good girl, Okay,
[38:13] Speaker 1: You're good.
[38:13] Speaker 4: You have to say market fails, everything fails.
[38:16] Speaker 3: Well talking about armageddon, because it does feel like every
[38:19] Speaker 3: day we are hurtling towards that. Sometimes when we talk
[38:21] Speaker 3: about a specific topic, which is AI, And so I
[38:23] Speaker 3: did want to get your thoughts on how AI and
[38:26] Speaker 3: technology might change the way that people invest. What is
[38:30] Speaker 3: your sort of take on that?
[38:32] Speaker 2: You know, I think that we're in a very interesting
[38:34] Speaker 2: moment with AI because the way that I really look
[38:36] Speaker 2: at it is very personally like, I think that everyone
[38:39] Speaker 2: has a different risk tolerance, be GI risk tolerance. With
[38:42] Speaker 2: AI having access to their data. You might be someone
[38:46] Speaker 2: who really doesn't care and will upload everything and tell
[38:49] Speaker 2: AI everything and then you're going to get really quick
[38:51] Speaker 2: answers that are really helpful. But you also might be
[38:54] Speaker 2: someone who doesn't see value in that and doesn't want
[38:56] Speaker 2: to do that, And so I think it's not figuring
[38:59] Speaker 2: out where land there.
[39:00] Speaker 1: I really think AI is amazing.
[39:02] Speaker 2: For budgeting and remember, in order to invest, which is
[39:05] Speaker 2: how you grow wealth and get financial freedom, you do
[39:09] Speaker 2: have to spend less than you make, and that really
[39:12] Speaker 2: does start from like understanding your expenses and making sure
[39:15] Speaker 2: that you are doing that. And so I think AI
[39:19] Speaker 2: is amazing for that. Use case like showing it what
[39:21] Speaker 2: you're spending. It can tell you you know which subscriptions
[39:25] Speaker 2: to cancel, which ones you're getting value from, Like I
[39:28] Speaker 2: love it for budgeting, But I think that I would
[39:31] Speaker 2: be very careful in asking AI what's stalked to buy,
[39:34] Speaker 2: because if CHADGBT could consistently predict the market, we would
[39:38] Speaker 2: all be retired. I think that the edge is not
[39:41] Speaker 2: getting AI to make your decisions. It's about using AI
[39:44] Speaker 2: to understand your decisions and your finances more and use
[39:50] Speaker 2: it to help you negotiate a higher salary, like, use
[39:52] Speaker 2: it to practice that conversation with your boss. Use it
[39:55] Speaker 2: to start a business, use it to automate your finances.
[39:59] Speaker 2: Use it financially literate like that's great. Use it as
[40:03] Speaker 2: your judgment free rich friend. Ask it every money question
[40:07] Speaker 2: that you've been embarrassed to ask. But I think that's
[40:10] Speaker 2: a much better use of it than asking it like
[40:12] Speaker 2: what's the next meme stock?
[40:15] Speaker 3: Okay, before we wrap this up, i'd love for you
[40:17] Speaker 3: to give us a pragmatic step by step over you
[40:19] Speaker 3: to kind of sum up the things that we talked
[40:21] Speaker 3: about today.
[40:22] Speaker 2: So the first thing that you're going to do is
[40:24] Speaker 2: open a brokerage account. And yes, they are going to
[40:27] Speaker 2: ask you your mother's made a name. They are going
[40:30] Speaker 2: to want your social Security number. This is normal. Don't worry.
[40:33] Speaker 2: You're going to open an account exciting. This will take
[40:37] Speaker 2: you five minutes max. And it's going to ask you
[40:40] Speaker 2: what account type you want. I would start with the
[40:43] Speaker 2: retirement accounts, so wroth ira, but make sure that you're
[40:47] Speaker 2: under the income limit. If you're over the income liment,
[40:49] Speaker 2: you could do a backdoor wrath iray, but it's a
[40:51] Speaker 2: little bit more complicated.
[40:56] Speaker 4: And just because we love to get complicated here. Roth
[41:00] Speaker 4: contribution limits are based on your income and your tax
[41:03] Speaker 4: filing status. There's an annual cap on how much you're
[41:05] Speaker 4: allowed to put in, and it's a bit higher if
[41:07] Speaker 4: you're fifty year older. But whether you can contribute the
[41:10] Speaker 4: full amount depends on how much you earn. Below a
[41:13] Speaker 4: certain income, you're good to contribute the max, but once
[41:16] Speaker 4: you cross that threshold, your limit starts phasing down, and
[41:20] Speaker 4: past the highest threshold, you're not able to contribute directly
[41:23] Speaker 4: at all. Those thresholds are different depending on whether you're
[41:27] Speaker 4: single or married filing jointly, and because these numbers can
[41:30] Speaker 4: shift year to year. It's super important to check your
[41:33] Speaker 4: gross income for the year before you make a direct contribution. Now,
[41:37] Speaker 4: if you're over that income limit, you're not totally out
[41:40] Speaker 4: of luck. There's a work around people call the backdoor
[41:43] Speaker 4: wroth Here's how it works. You contribute money to a
[41:45] Speaker 4: traditional IRA, which has no income limits, and then you
[41:49] Speaker 4: convert that traditional IRA into a roth IRA inside of
[41:52] Speaker 4: your investment account. Since there's no income cap on conversions
[41:57] Speaker 4: only on direct contributions, this lets high earn get money
[42:00] Speaker 4: into a row anyway. Now, this is completely legal, commonly
[42:04] Speaker 4: use strategy, but the paperwork can get messy, especially if
[42:07] Speaker 4: you already have other traditional IRA money sitting around in
[42:11] Speaker 4: that account. So this is one that's worth talking to
[42:14] Speaker 4: a tax professional before you do it yourself.
[42:17] Speaker 3: Interesting, So Haley keep going, what's next.
[42:22] Speaker 2: You could invest your health savings account, you could open
[42:27] Speaker 2: a regular wrath IRA, but those are all really good options.
[42:30] Speaker 2: Then what you're going to do is transfer money into
[42:34] Speaker 2: that brokerage account. So I feel like a lot of
[42:37] Speaker 2: people have money sitting in their checking account or at
[42:39] Speaker 2: their bank that they just stare at and they know
[42:41] Speaker 2: they should do something with. This is your moment you're
[42:44] Speaker 2: going to move it to your brokerage account. But remember
[42:48] Speaker 2: that is not investing. Simply moving the money over, it's
[42:52] Speaker 2: not invested. In order to actually invest the money in
[42:55] Speaker 2: your brokerage account, you have to put in a trade.
[42:59] Speaker 2: So then you go to the little bar in your
[43:02] Speaker 2: brokerage that says what do you want to buy? And
[43:05] Speaker 2: you could put in any index fund, put in VOO,
[43:09] Speaker 2: and then say you've a thousand dollars in your account,
[43:11] Speaker 2: you could buy one thousand dollars of VOO and that's
[43:15] Speaker 2: great because you're going to get access to a lot
[43:18] Speaker 2: of different companies and you'll be diversified.
[43:22] Speaker 3: Voo is an exchange traded fund or ETF that tracks
[43:26] Speaker 3: the S and P five hundred, giving you broad exposure
[43:29] Speaker 3: to five hundred of America's largest companies. It's known for
[43:32] Speaker 3: its low fees and can be bought through nearly any
[43:35] Speaker 3: brokerage account.
[43:37] Speaker 2: But the most important thing is to set up automated
[43:40] Speaker 2: transfers and buys to the investment account. Because I promise
[43:44] Speaker 2: you're going to have like one day where you have
[43:46] Speaker 2: a lot of energy for this, and it's probably the
[43:48] Speaker 2: same thing with any grown up stuff that we do
[43:51] Speaker 2: that we have like one day where we feel like
[43:52] Speaker 2: we're completely on top of the world and that we
[43:54] Speaker 2: want to do everything, and then the next day that
[43:57] Speaker 2: energy really falters. Use automation, that's the best tool that
[44:02] Speaker 2: you have to just make this really fool proof.
[44:04] Speaker 3: I think I could handle that. So thank you, Hailey,
[44:07] Speaker 3: Thank you Leah, thank you for breaking that down. I'm
[44:10] Speaker 3: going to log into my account now and get some
[44:12] Speaker 3: money going.
[44:13] Speaker 1: So there you.
[44:14] Speaker 5: Go, perfect.
[44:16] Speaker 4: And lastly, before we go, please let the people know
[44:19] Speaker 4: where they can find out about you and your work.
[44:21] Speaker 2: Well, my book Future Rich Person is out now, and
[44:25] Speaker 2: I do think that it is such a great idea
[44:27] Speaker 2: to get a finance book, Like if you're interested in
[44:29] Speaker 2: this and you could listen to mine or you know,
[44:32] Speaker 2: follow missus dow Jones. I put up daily videos with
[44:34] Speaker 2: financial advice. I have a newsletter which you can find
[44:38] Speaker 2: on my website missusdow Jones dot com. But you know,
[44:40] Speaker 2: I'm just out here helping you stay rich. So that's
[44:43] Speaker 2: something you're interested in, come find me very much.
[44:45] Speaker 3: So thank you for your service, Haley. We appreciate it
[44:48] Speaker 3: very much and we'll look forward to seeing you on
[44:50] Speaker 3: the yacht in the future.
[44:51] Speaker 1: Oh well, you'll be there with me, girl.
[44:53] Speaker 3: You know it.
[44:58] Speaker 4: All right, Leah, Well check back in on our future
[45:01] Speaker 4: rich selves and maybe browse some yachts in the meantime.
[45:04] Speaker 3: I mean, you never know. I've always got my eye
[45:07] Speaker 3: on a yacht. But I think for right now, I'll
[45:09] Speaker 3: just be happy to sit back and watch my money
[45:12] Speaker 3: grow so that I can retire comfortably one day.
[45:14] Speaker 4: Okay, but only if we can keep this podcast going.
[45:16] Speaker 4: No retiring from the podcast. No matter how rich you get.
[45:19] Speaker 3: We can broadcast from a yacht.
[45:21] Speaker 4: So you got it, Matt Amen.
[45:23] Speaker 3: I'm always ready to learn, and this episode was no different.
[45:26] Speaker 3: So thank you so much again to Hailey Sachs.
[45:28] Speaker 4: And if a recent medical bill has you feeling like
[45:31] Speaker 4: you're about to drain your IRA, join us again in
[45:34] Speaker 4: two weeks when we'll dig into deductibles, billing codes, out
[45:37] Speaker 4: of pocket costs, and how negotiation can save you a
[45:40] Speaker 4: fortune on your next medical bill.
[45:42] Speaker 3: I am ready for my refund check.
[45:46] Speaker 4: This is a production of Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia.
[45:48] Speaker 5: I'm Matt still.
[45:49] Speaker 3: Though I'm Leah Palmery. This episode was produced by Pamela Lawrence.
[45:53] Speaker 3: Our post producer is Sierra Spreen, with additional engineering by
[45:57] Speaker 3: Mac Wuido
[45:58] Speaker 4: And a special thanks to our team at Ruby Studio,
[46:00] Speaker 4: including Emma Dylan, Ethan Chixell, James Foster, Deborah Garrett, Sierra
[46:05] Speaker 4: kaiser Lydia Kim Kelly, Kyle Matt Ramano, Regiswan Krasnov, Sam Timmerman,
[46:09] Speaker 4: Celia Verplue, Harper Waine, Sarah You and mister Andy Kelly

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