Transcript | Ep. 135: Ask Unladylike: Money Therapy
[SATC Clip]
Bank Lady: Ok, it says here that you have 700 in your checking account
Carrie: I just paid my credit card bill.
Bank Lady: aaaand.. 957 in savings?
Bank Lady: Do you have any other income besides the column?
Carrie: No.
Bank Lady: What about your assets outside the bank - property? Stocks? Bonds?
Carrie: No. No, no.
Bank Lady: I’m sorry, Miss Bradshaw. But you are not a desirable candidate for a loan.
[theme music]
Cristen: Hey y’all, and welcome to Unladylike. I’m Cristen.
Caroline: I’m Caroline. And for this installment of Ask Unladylike, we're tackling advice requests on money, honey. And by we, I mean us and our very special guest who has literally helped keep a roof over our heads, Helen Ngo.
Cristen: Yeah, um, Caroline, you and I have namechecked Helen a number of times on Unladylike because she is our financial planner. And also just our legit life saver.
Caroline: Oh for sure. But Cristen, tell the people how you found Helen.
Cristen: How did I find Helen? It took a lot of googling! OK, so way back when you and I decided to quit our day jobs and start working for ourselves, I knew I needed help managing my money, both for myself and also for our impending business. And I also really wanted a woman in charge of my finances, which turned out to be easier said than done, because I started Googling and every female financial planner I came across was part of just a firm owned by like a white dude...and I finally Googled my way to Helen and her company. And, at least at that point, Helen was the ONLY woman-owned financial planning firm in Atlanta! And Caroline, I will never forget my first call with Helen because I was sooo nervous, like just full of financial imposter syndrome, and she immediately sensed it and was like, don't worry, that's what I'm here for.
Helen: What I do is I help, you know, tell you how to manage your debt, where to invest, how to invest, what types of accounts to open, how to plan for your retirement, how to save for your kid's college education or whatever. But my background is specifically in investment management. So stocks, bonds, all of the sexy stuff.
Caroline: So sexy! Today, Helen is laying out some of the major money pits women face, how to navigate saving and spending, and what it means to ethically invest.
Cristen: First, though, we are gonna dig in with Helen about what goes on behind closed doors as a financial planner and how gender shows up when we’re talking about money.
Caroline: Cristen, I’m feeling richer in knowledge already. Let’s get to it!
[stinger]
Caroline OK, Helen so in your practice you work with a whole bunch of women. And I’m curious - what are some of the most common concerns you see?
Helen Just in general is a lack of confidence in where they are actually spending their money. And it doesn't matter if you're a client who's making like $50,000 a year or I have clients making $700,000 a year as lawyers, and they still come to us asking the same questions, “Am I spending it right? Can I spend money on this? Can I afford this?” So, yeah, the male clients that do come in, They just ask the same question, but in a more confident manner. Like, oh, what stocks do I buy Helen, look at my portfolio. And I'm like, you don’t know what the hell you're doing. And then eventually the truth comes out of like, yeah, I'm not really sure what I'm talking about. Yeah, I don’t really know what I’m doing. Right? But but they they come in a different way than my female clients do, who say, “You know. Yeah, I'm just not sure.” To me, I think they're more straight up about it than the males are. I feel like the men who come to us protect their ego a little bit more. But it's the same problem underneath the onion.
Cristen Well are there any kinds of like money secrets that people have the hardest time spilling?
Helen What do you mean by money secrets?
Cristen I mean, that could be anything like outrageous student loan debt or I don't know, maybe speaking from personal experience like weed budgets.
Helen I see. I see. when they come into my office, I force them to tell me everything because I do a complete audit of their spending, of their cash. I'm like, oh, why did you pull this cash out? Why is it a thousand dollars this month, but not next month? What was it for? And yeah, they, I have clients coming in, “Oh yeah. I want a specific weed budget.” I have one client I'm thinking of. You know, she used to spend thousands of dollars on just a wine budget monthly. I mean, I'm not there to judge where you want to spend on your vices. I'm there to make sure you're not screwing yourself up. I don't give a shit if you need a weed budget. But, yeah, typically I'm not shocked or surprised by anything. Like you mentioned, student loans. Like I'm so used to seeing $300,000, $200,000, $150,000, like that standard to me. But that's because I see it every single day so it’s not shocking to me. You know, one problem that I see that's very common is people would go on these extreme financial diets where they're like, “Oh, I'm going to cut out weed for two months or three months and see how it goes.” But that's really depriving yourself of the one thing that has been keeping you sane. Whereas if you want to decrease something, let's talk about what your actual non-negotiables are. But you know, where I get shocked the most is actually relationship conversations that happen with me. That's where I, I kind of lose it with people.
Caroline: Lose it! What do you mean?
Helen Oh, my God, I'll just give you an example. Like I just remember this one guy came in and he wanted his wife to be on the call too, and he's like “Helen, tell my wife that she's not going to get any part of the house when we sell it,” like the proceeds, because this is like his third wife or whatever. And I told him straight out, I was like, “That is not my problem to solve. You need to talk to a couples counselor who can help you resolve that communication issue you have. I'm not there to like banter between you and your wife about who gets what, I'm here to talk about, you know, technical stuff like taxes and how you can budget for your wife and stuff like that and how your wife can protect herself from you, too, from a financial perspective,” because I was representing her, too. But I'm not here to argue for you and be the mediator, you know what I'm saying? Like, so that's when I kind of lose it and put the client in place and fire them. Because they're not they're not using my services in an appropriate manner. Let me just put it that way.
Cristen: OK, you mentioned the wife needing to protect herself too. How do you help single women prepare for financial changes before they maybe get married?
Helen I love getting single women clients because I can get them from the front end, I can train them from the front end. I'm like, look, I ask them during the interview before they even become a client, I ask them, are you single? Do you have a boyfriend? How serious are you? I mean, I get really intimate with it because I always feel like I have to protect them or I want to protect them as much as possible, whether they like it or not. And I talk to them about what their debt is. Like how far along in the conversation do you have with your boyfriend or soon to be a husband about what his assets are? Are you expecting any inheritance? Is he expecting any inheritances or any debts that you know about? So really, I get to the core of like what types of communication and the extent of it do you actually have with with your partner? And let me talk to you a little bit more about how to protect your own assets in case the relationship doesn't work out. I know that sounds like doomsday when you haven't even walked down the aisle yet, but if you have a very high earning potential and you plan to make a lot of money and accumulate a lot of money, I want you to protect that because like personally in my life, I I had a boyfriend who passed away when I was 17. So at a very young age, I learned that not all relationships are going to be forever. And it sounds like a cynical perspective, but that is the risk that you get into in any relationship because people do change in relationships, and finances is the - if not the number one reason that couples have the most difficulty talking about. And so when I work with single women particularly, I really try to enforce them to have those difficult or challenging conversations on the upfront. And even if they are married, I plant some seeds about getting family attorney to get like wills and all that stuff and having them update their beneficiaries on their accounts and had one client. She didn't want her husband to have anything because he was already, quote unquote, wealthy in her eyes. And so she wanted to list her brother as the beneficiary of her IRA, her traditional IRA. And did you know that when you have a retirement account like a 401K, technically you're supposed to list your spouse. And the wife has to ask the husband to sign off that they are not getting that money. That they are no longer a beneficiary and that they will not be the default beneficiary as the spouse. That is on legal paper. That still exists today. It's really fascinating. So all of these legal things happen that I think a lot of not just women, but individuals don't even realize that they're stepping into from a legal aspect and the commitment that they are actually getting themselves into not just, oh, how are we going to open a joint checking account? It goes above and beyond that. Cristen you look scared. Don’t be! So what I was getting to for my married folks, you know, if you're worried and you still want some self-protection, I would encourage you to have some conversation around getting what's called a postnuptial agreement. That means that you're getting a nuptial agreement during the marriage that you can agree upon that these are the set financial terms that you have together. I mean, if you look at celebrities, they do it all the time because their finances change all the time. So my my biggest thing when it comes to women and money and marriage is “How can I protect my assets?”
Cristen: What about when folks are getting divorced? What kinds of challenges do you see?
Helen if you are thinking about getting a divorce, this would be a great time, an opportunity for you to seek your own independent education around money. It is very sad and depressing to me that I see a lot of women, they come out, the divorce is already done, and they're sitting there crying because they don't even know the questions to ask me and that - it's just so sad and I say, you know, can I see the divorce agreement? What are you getting - that they just know what they're getting. And again, their problem is I don't know what to do with this money now because I wasn't ever in charge of it when we were married. So that is the biggest challenge with my divorced clients who are women when they come to us. Usually if it's the male, it's - statistically they're the ones who who have had control over the money, you know, throughout the relationship. But when women come to me for the financial aspect of things, again, they just have no idea where to even begin allocating their dollars and are so scared that they're going to lose every single dime and they feel as though they're starting over. They are technically starting over, but I try to give them a glimpse of “You know what, you are starting over, and that's a good thing, because that gives you an opportunity to build your own foundation now. So let's start from there.”
Cristen: We’re gonna take a quick break.
Caroline: When we come back, Helen dives into some questions about saving, spending and ethical investing from listeners and the Unladylike team. There’s even a nerve-wracking question from me!
Cristen: Ooh! Can’t wait to hear it. Stick around!
[Stinger]
Cristen: We’re back with financial advisor Helen Ngo.
Caroline: Helen, before we get into some listener questions, we have a couple budgeting and spending questions from the team. Let’s start with a question from our editor, Gianna. Here’s Gianna.
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Gianna: “Hello! My question is about budgeting. I have never kept a budget and I'm not sure if I need to or where to start. What would you say is the value of a budget if you're not overspending in the first place? I’m currently living below my means, and it feels unnatural and maybe unnecessary to put a cap on my spending in certain categories. For example, with groceries, I just buy what I like, and I try to buy things on sale. But I don't have a set monthly dollar amount allotted to groceries. I also feel really unsure about budgeting when it comes to frivolous categories like clothing, and dining out. So how can I determine the right amount to spend each month? Do I need a budget?
Helen: Wow. That was a lot of questions in one question.
Cristen: So the first question is, what is the value of a budget if you're not already overspending?
Helen: If you're not already overspending, I don't think it's necessary to do a budget and check on it every single time because it sounds like you already are disciplined in managing your cash flow. Personally, I only do a budget once a year. Where it's most valuable is just to have a look back, a historical look back of what your trends are and what your habits are and if there are any opportunities for you to change any of those habits. Again, going back to asking questions like what are some of my non-negotiables? Are there any large expenses this year or projects that I want to spend money on? Like, I have a general idea of how much I spend in different categories, but why I personally do a budget is really to budget for larger expenses throughout the year. Like this year, I we just moved into to a new house, which means I'm going to be spending some money to renovate some parts of it. So like I knew I was going to move this year. I knew that I was going to need to drop at least two grand to fix my office. The value of the budget is so that I won't blow that one-time budget of of spending, if that makes sense. Right. Because like the day-to-day stuff, you should have a pretty general idea and cadence of what money is actually going in and out. What I don't like about budgeting questions is when they ask me, like, “What apps do you use, Helen?” Like, I hate all those fucking apps, OK? Because it guilt trips me. like during Christmas, especially when I, you know, go overboard with hosting and and like, I way overspend in groceries, but that's because it's Christmas. And then this stupid app keeps telling me I'm like $500 over my grocery budget. Like I'm pissed at the app!
Caroline: All right, Gianna asked about frivolous spending, and I, Helen, I have a question about frivolous spending. This is from me. You are very familiar with my finances. So here's my question. Unless I've had a car emergency, which you've witnessed, or you know been paying my quarterly taxes, my highest category of spending is always food and beverage, unless it is Sephora during the month when I have to restock my moisturizer. So basically this boils down to me spending on friend hang outs and skin care, which feels so frivolous when I look at my monthly statements, and I always feel so guilty. So what is the best way to strike a balance and get rid of some of my spending guilt at the same time?
Helen: All right, Caroline, I'm stepping into my advisor role here for you, dear. First of all, are you able to make your rent?
Caroline: Yes.
Helen: Are you able to pay your cell phone bill and all the other utilities that you have?
Caroline: Yes.
Helen: Are you able to keep yourself alive?
Caroline: So far. So far, yes.
Helen: So what's the problem? Why do you feel frivolous?
Caroline: Well, I feel frivolous because I'm not, I think, socking away as much as I wish I could every month. And so when I see the like the food and bev showing up, it's like, oh, God, I could have, like, had one less this or that, you know?
Helen: Do you think that you would. Let's just say you and I were hanging out as buddies and you we dropped $300 at a dinner, would you feel better seeing that $300 in your savings account?
Caroline: Well, I mean, it depends because I guess where I'm looking to strike a balance is that on the one hand, like one of the most important things to me is the time with friends. And like, I love to spend time with friends over a meal. So on the one hand it's like not $300 wasted, although, I don't know the last time I spent $300 on a meal. But um but on the other hand, it's like, well, no, but I should be putting that money in savings.
Helen: Yeah, I mean, really, the core of your question is, I think is how do I overcome the guilt of treating myself versus, quote, unquote, being responsible or what seemingly is responsible, you know, such as making sure my rent is paid, socking some money away. My technical advice for that is, you're not technically feeling guilty that you're going out with your friends, you have an opportunity cost guilt, which - and your opportunity cost is being able to put away money for the future. You could put all of your money away and save, but then you'd be miserable because you're not going out with your friends and and enjoying life. You know, so just going back to, like a technical piece of advice is to treat your savings as a necessary expense versus a discretionary expense that comes after you spend with your friends. So I would treat it as important as rent. You can start off small, like putting away $10, $15 a week just to see how that feels. You can do what I like to call the matching technique for short term and then evaluate how you feel about it. Is all right. If I go out and spend $50 with my friends, then I'm going to match that and put $50 away this week into my investment account or savings account, for example. But I think the guilt thing, it it will constantly be there. I mean, another thing to do is just go out and go make some more money, too, and then you won't have to feel guilty about it. That's my approach. I’m like, let me just go make some more money, let me go get some more clients or do some more stuff with my business so I can make more money and not feel guilty about it. I like that approach better than having to feel like I'm sacrificing my life, you know.
Caroline: Yeah. Well, thank you, Helen.
Cristen: Well, speaking of going out and making more money, I feel like this is a related question. This comes from a listener named Sierra. She writes, “I have a few stocks in my name left to me for my grandparents. Is there a way to ethically invest in the stock market and make money? Is it worth my time to learn about how all this works and be more active in what's happening with this stock that I have and try to grow it?”
Helen: So when you're asking ethically, it's not technically ethically investing because you're not unethically investing. You're just investing in companies that are not necessarily aligned with your values. Right. I have some clients where I ask them that question, too, is like, do you want to invest in Amazon? And even though you are totally against their practices, some of them are very hardcore about and they're like, no, I don't want to invest in Amazon. I don't want to invest in any mutual funds that invest in Amazon either, because you can indirectly own Amazon and not even know it. if you dig deep in in all of the investments that you own, the mutual funds and ETFs that you own in your accounts, you know, like in your 401k, you can -- a lot of them own Facebook, Microsoft, like all these big tech firms, big oil. But if you want to quote unquote ethically invest or, you know, you're more into supporting the environment and invest in ESG funds, you know, then then there are funds out there that that's their particular target. And they exclude companies that have, quote unquote, bad practices in how they run their businesses. So you can look for those online, just Google ESG funds or socially responsible investments. Now, on the other coin, I have clients where I asked the same question, oh, do you want to invest in Big Oil? I’m thinking of one particular client, she's like all about green energy and all this stuff. And so she's like, “I just want to make money, but then take that money and do something good with it.” So that's a different approach. At the end of the day for me, I just educate the clients and give them options on what they can do. Again, I'm not there to tell them where they cannot spend their money or what they cannot invest in. I tell them the risk, right? But you know there's definitely two approaches to that, quote unquote, ethical question. So really, it's a values-based question.
Caroline: We’re going to take a quick break.
Cristen: When we come back - how do you financially plan for single parenting? Plus, Helen gives us her most unladylike money advice.
Caroline: Stick around!
Cristen: It’s just to steal it! Just steal it all!
[stinger]
Cristen: We’re back with listener questions for our financial advisor, Helen Ngo.
Caroline: All right, this next question is from Yulia about saving as a single person. So Yulia writes, “I'm a grad student and have never spent more than a month in a relationship. To be honest, one of my major concerns is the financial hardship inherent in living as a single woman. The wage gap is certainly persistent, and most women I know need both their own and their spouse’s income to make ends meet. Are there any resources you would recommend for educating myself about how to manage financial life as a single woman beyond the basic just keeping track of one's budget, especially in a situation where my job isn't the type of work that offers an automatic 401k?
Helen: I would agree with with her that, you know, as a single individual, it the process of accumulating true wealth can be a lot longer depending on your earning potential as an individual. I'm not exactly sure if that's a genderized thing, but but but but I know that there definitely is is a wage gap you know in terms of race and your gender. However, to combat that and going above and beyond just, oh, creating an Excel spreadsheet and tracking your budget and downloading Mint.com to track your spending - above and beyond that is just really understanding investing. Right. Because saving is is just the process of putting what you made into a particular account. That's transferring money from your checking account into a savings account. But think above and beyond that. How can I transfer money from my checking account into an investment account? You're getting a little bit more advanced in terms of how can I capitalize on the money that I've already made? Right? Because the savings account, truthfully, these days, you don't even earn shit in there. So where else can you put the money so that your money can work harder for you? Helen [00:56:12]So that’s where I would start. If you are really trying to build wealth, accumulate wealth, get rich, however you want to call it, is to invest your money, because that would be the only other avenue I can think of in which you can do well for yourself besides going out, negotiating different salaries and all that stuff. That's just the income portion of managing your finances is making sure that money is actually coming in. The second part is how do I make my money make more money? And the only way to do that is to invest.
Cristen: Even if you aren't making or have a ton of money, you can still get started investing?
Helen: Yeah, you can invest with $2. So it's not
Cristen: Y’all, Helen is looking at me like I am crazy.
Helen: Yeah! So it's been put in our heads, basically, that you need to have a lot of money or a shit ton of money to invest. But that's not necessarily true. It's absolutely not true. You can start with just $50. So, at some point you start accumulating your emergency savings funds. And so that's a cushion. But above and beyond that, like how much of an emergency savings do you need? Is it $5,000? Ten thousand? when you hit that $10,000 mark, let's just say, for an example, above and beyond that, why don't you just go invest some of that money? Like when will you ever actually need to write a $10,000 check besides your car breaks down or some medical issue, whatever? I would even split it up. So even if you're able to save one hundred bucks, maybe 25 percent of it goes into an investment account and then the other 75 goes into your savings account, you're still technically saving money. It's just how are you making different portions of that $100 work for you. That's a very completely different way of looking at it because again people think saving is it's just a mechanism of transferring money back and forth that you're not actually growing anything.
Cristen: So we have a big question.
Helen: Oh, Lord.
Cristen: And you mentioned, like, how often are you going to have to write a $10,000 check? Well, listener Rachel has a question about the cost of solo parenting. She says, “I'm 30 and single and have been thinking more and more about adopting but can't justify a child on my salary. How can I know if I could support myself and a child on my own?
Helen: The technical answer to that. And you're probably not going to like this answer. That is a big budget item to - I hate to use the word budget - but to plan for and I would sit down, pen and paper, whatever you use to add up the actual total cost, I will say that you should already know what it costs for you to live and be happy. That's a really important element of financial planning for yourself, is the total cost of my living and my lifestyle and what makes me happy? Right. And keep me sane. On top of that, when you add a child into the mix. I know this because I have my own kid, but we do a lot of this calculation for clients, too, is it is not cheap to have a kid. It is not cheap to adopt either. So that is like child care costs, plus adoption costs is a lot of money. And I'm not I'm not trying to scare you or anything. It definitely is possible. But you do need to realize the realities of raising and caring, and I don't I don't know what your your your listener’s particular situation is, in terms of her income and what assets she currently has already. But, you know, in general, from our own calculations that we've done over and over again, it costs like between twenty five to thirty thousand dollars just for child care annually, I mean, that's somebody's salary just to put your kid. Like, if you're not lucky like me, I have my mom taking care of my baby and I pay her a small amount of money each month, but I don't have to put my kid into daycare. So if you live close by to family or close friends and also my my friends who are moms, they would split the cost of daycare with other moms and they'll just hire a nanny and the nanny will come to one person's house and take care of the kid. They pay them under the table, cash, an unlicensed nanny. So that that's some of the more extreme situations that I've seen. It's expensive to have a child here in the United States, at least. So just you really going to outline every single line item and prepare for that financial responsibility, if that's really what you want.
Cristen: OK, Helen: final question.
Helen: Oh, boy.
Caroline: What's your most unladylike money advice?
Helen: I would say, do not be afraid to try to get rich. That is my number one money advice. One thing I do see with women particularly is that they don't talk as candidly about their income goals as much as when personally, when I talk to my male counterparts in the industry, at least. So, yeah, that's my number one money advice is to not be afraid to get rich.
Cristen: Mic drop!
Caroline: I love it. Yeah.
Cristen: Thanks to everyone who sent us your money questions for this Ask Unladylike episode. You can find Helen Ngo on Instagram @meethelenngo -- and that’s Ngo, N-G-O -- or head to capitalbenchmarkpartners.com if you want to learn more about her company.
Caroline: If y’all wanna get in touch with us, you can find us on instagram, facebook and Twitter @unladylikemedia. You can also support Cristen and me by joining our Patreon; you’ll not only get our undying love, you’ll also get ad-free bonus episodes like the one we just recorded on lean-in sexuality and the female orgasm industrial complex. Get it over at patreon.com/unladylikemedia.
Cristen: Nora Ritchie is the senior producer of Unladylike. Michele O’Brien is our associate producer. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing is by Andi Kristins. Sound design and additional music is by Casey Holford and Andi Kristins. Executive producers are Peter Clowney, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.
Caroline: This podcast was created by your hosts, Caroline Ervin
Cristen: And Cristen Conger of Unladylike Media.
Caroline: Next week...
Kyra: The classic climber party trick is doing pull ups on a doorframe. Like I think I was at a college party once that was like a bunch of Marines. And they're like I was like, I bet, I bet I can do more pull ups on you. And he was like, no way. And I was like, OK, like do you have a bar. And he's like, no, I was like, cool, we have this doorframe. And he's like, no, that's not you can't you pull ups on that I was like, all right bet like, we can.
Cristen: And how did how did he react?
Kyra: Oh, yeah, he couldn't do one.
Caroline: We are chatting with professional climber Kyra Condie. Kyra tells us about scaling walls, beating the physical odds and competing at the very first Olympic climbing event.
Cristen: You don’t want to miss this episode! So make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike. Find us in stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Caroline: And remember, got a problem?
Cristen: Get Unladylike.
Caroline: Get rich!
