Paula welcomes Patti Handy back today to talk about a topic both are very passionate about - women and money. Statistically, women struggle with money. There's the gender gap (women earn 83 cents for every dollar men do), and women are often having to care for kids and/or aging parents. More often than not, husbands are in charge of money and investments. All these factors led to Patti's transition from a financial advisor to a financial coach.
While younger women are taking a more active role in managing their money (again, on average) - women approaching retirement age are concerned about running out of money or being a burden to their kids.
People tend to be afraid to ask for help, but it's important to remember that it's not your fault if you haven't been taught something.
It's important to set goals and understand your "why" when it comes to money and savings. Patti also, discusses how important it is to have all of your documents organized in a way that your family knows where everything is located. Download the free resource “Personal Record Book” to get started organizing your estate.
Most importantly, Patti says, is to take care of yourself - mentally and physically.
Learn more about Patti Handy on her websites:
Email Paula Christine at Paula@PaulaChristine.com. You can also learn more online at www.PaulaChristine.com.
Paula Christine: Hi, and welcome to Beyond the Paycheck. I'm Paula Christine. Last week, we talked with Patti Handy, who's a financial coach, about how to get started with investing and I asked her back today because I want to talk about women and money. It's difficult, I think, sometimes for women to get ahead and one, we're more conservative. We have other responsibilities, we may make less than men do, so it's a little harder for women to get ahead. I've asked Patti back today to talk about the struggles that women face and how we can overcome them. Welcome back, Patti.
Patti Handy: Thank you, Paula. I appreciate you helping me back.
Paula: You're welcome anytime. What are the common struggles you see with women and money?
Patti: It runs the gambit. We start with the gender gap. We have 83 cents on the dollar that women earn versus men, like you had mentioned in the introduction. Oftentimes we're the caretakers at home and whether we're taking care of our kids or our parents, we're typically in the workforce less, so we have less retirement assets. Social security will be less. It just runs again with that and the other piece is that it's typical. It's not certainly a blanket statement, but typically in a marriage, a husband takes care of the investing.
Funny enough, I was the one in my marriage in that was doing the investing. My husband didn't know anything about investing. When I went through a divorce, I was on the front end, if you will, but without that knowledge and without that understanding, because it's not taught in schools, it's not taught in home typically. If the husband took care of the money, the wives would come out of a divorce or loss of a spouse completely just overwhelmed, full of fear, full of shame, full of embarrassment. It was just this overwhelming grief of losing the spouse and then dealing with the finances. It was almost too much.
It's a combination of things that I've seen over the years of working with ladies and it's what was the impetus for me to move to financial coaching. I was a financial advisor and I moved into financial coaching because I wanted to serve that demographic who needed it where I can serve more as a financial educator, which is something that I find really important.
Paula: I can see that for older women. I was just talking to someone the other day and he was telling me that after his father passed away, he moved in with his mother because one, she needed a little bit of help, but two, she had no knowledge of money at all. Of course, she's in her 80s, but do you still think women today, like in their 20s and 30s are still letting the man take care of the money?
Patti: No, I'm seeing more of a shift for sure. The younger gals, 20, 30 year olds, even in the 40s, they are much more proactive in wanting to learn about this and seeking out advice and seeking out information. It's the 50, 60, 70s year olds that are living in that generation of the husband takes care of this. I generally work with the older generation because I'm dealing primarily with divorce and widowed women and they're generally speaking in that bracket, but no, to your point, Paula. Yes, the younger gals might love that, they are being much more proactive, which is fantastic. Which means that their kids will be in a different place than we were at. That's great news.
Paula: When you talk with women, what do you find to be their biggest fear?
Patti: The common thing that I hear is, "Will I run out of money? I don't want to be a burden to my kids. Will I be able to take care of myself?" They don't have the understanding of how to look at their assets, how to analyze their situation currently, and determine the the plan. Is it going to run out? How healthy is my plan?
Again, this is on a blanket statement, but there's a lot of that shame and embarrassment like we talked about, and some frustration. They may or may not feel comfortable in reaching out to somebody for help because they just don't want to look like they don't know. I'm saying, please, absolutely be comfortable in asking questions. Give yourself some grace. We're all on a journey. We're all learning, we all are on a path. If you didn't learn finances, that's not your fault. It's just what it is, so now you can learn something and be proactive.
If somebody told me, "Do you told speak French?" I said, "No," I wouldn't feel embarrassed about it because I was never taught French and home and at school, so why would I know French? It's really kind of a simplistic analogy, but the reality is that if you never learned this, then give yourself again some grace and just being kind to yourself, don't judge and just move forward.
Paula: What's what statement, that people will reach out and get educated on where to travel, but won't get educated on where their money is going?
Patti: People spend much more time planning a vacation than they are looking at their investments and deciding whether it's in the right place and whatnot. It's fun to plan a vacation and-
Paula: Well, it's fun to plan. If you think about it, if you were to sit down and talk about your goals and your dreams and to figure out, "How am I going to get there?" If your dream is to own a home, or to go on a vacation that $10,000 or more and you need to plan for that, or plan to retire or buy a second home, whatever it is, that's fun. At least, I find it fun and just watching your money grow and getting closer and closer to your goals, it's just as much fun as planning that vacation.
Patti: Absolutely. One of those goals can be maybe treating your family to a trip and how cool would that be to take your kids on a vacation to Europe for two weeks and that is in line with the vacation. You can do that because you financially planned for that and you are financially safe for that. That is a huge component. I talk about our whys. Why is it that you want to have financial peace? There's choices, there's freedom, there's the ability to be secure, feel stable, feel safe, be more charitably inclined. The list goes on and on. It's so important to have that focus.
Paula: I think about myself because I recently divorced and I think on that divorce, that fear of taking care of myself again, which I hadn't done in a long time. What happens if this happens? You go down this road of all the what ifs that can happen. Then I had to just say, "I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be fine and if I need help, I'll find people to help me." Which I think is a hard thing for a lot of people to change that mindset that quickly and just say, "I'm going to be okay and go forward."
Patti: Exactly. When you are recently divorced, it starts with self-care because that is the base of us being able to make good decisions, whether they're financial decisions or health decisions or whatever. We have to be in a good place emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually. We have to be in a-- I call it being righted up. When I went through my divorce, my son was 18 months old and I was just in this whirlwind of chaos trying to figure out how I'm going to raise him on my own and everything else. It wasn't until I came out of the fog of now I got my bearings, now I can start making plans, and now I can start to trying to figure out what the next step is.
You shouldn't be making a big financial decision when you're still in that fog because you can't make a good financial decision when you're that emotional. It's just not a good idea. To your point, Paula, when you were saying that, I was thinking, "If I have something that I need to be done at the house, I'm going to have my son I can call, but if I need something it's-- what is it, TaskRabbit or whatever that app is, there's lots of ways you can call to get help at the house. Again, you just ask for help, whether it be financial or you need to hang a picture or whatever it is. We should be okay with asking for help.
Paula: We weren't raised to ask for help, I don't think. I think it's not only asking for help, but it's the whole shame factor that you're going to have to be vulnerable in front of someone and that can be difficult.
Patti: Definitely working through that is going to be important and getting to the root of why you feel that way and then moving past that, getting through those beliefs because at the end of the day, I think human nature loves to help. You're actually giving someone a gift when you say, "Can you help me?" because most people go, "Yes, I'd love to help you. What can I do?" It's a gift for them.
Paula: Oh, I like that. I'm going to steal that.
Patti: Okay. You can steal it. [chuckles]
Paula: So what else besides investing should a woman focus on when it comes to their money?
Patti: Well, as I mentioned, the self-care piece is super critical and we talked about this last week. In case somebody missed that episode, we talked about the money story and our limiting beliefs around money, that is foundational. Then I would say absolutely get yourself organized. It's a simple thing to do, but most people are just not organized. I'm talking about having all your papers, all your statements in one location.
If you were to pass away today-- it's a little bit morbid, but if you were to pass away today, would your loved ones be able to know where to go and find everything about you in one place? Having all your investments, your insurance, your credit card statements, your bank statements, your passwords to your phone, all that stuff needs to be very organized and simplified so that if something were to happen to you, they can go to one place and do they know where to go. Then you also have peace of mind knowing that that is addressed, that's taken care of.
Paula: I'm going to have to tee up one of the resources I have on my website, which is a personal record book that you can download. It's actually fillable, that has all of that in there and how to organize your paperwork.
Patti: There you go. That brings such peace of mind just knowing that everything is put together.
Paula: It's so much easier on your loved ones if something were to happen.
Patti: Yes, absolutely. I've unfortunately had clients where the spouse passed away unexpectedly. I had one gal when I was in the mortgage business, she didn't have any knowledge of any investments or where paperwork was and she uncovered an account that had to her advantage $600,000 in a portfolio that she didn't even know existed. For her it was like, "Oh, yay," but it could have been the flip side. There could have been all this debt that she wasn't aware of or she would've had no assets. I always tell couples, have a money date once a quarter and have a conversation. Make sure both of you are on the same page and you both know where everything is, you both know what you're investing in, and have those conversations together.
Paula: I always talk to people too about not necessarily having the conversation about what your assets are, but talking to your children about where everything is and just in case something happens that they at least know who to reach out to, and where the important papers are kept because nothing worse than to have something happen and you've got so many rummaging through the house trying to find everything. If it's not all in one place, you don't know if they're going to, like you said, find $600,000 in assets.
Patti: Yes, absolutely. Make it simple for them and tell them where it is and you got to update it.
Paula: This guy who I used to work with a few years ago, he had some money buried in his backyard.
Patti: Oh, wow.
Paula: I used to laugh. [chuckles] I was like, "Really?" Quite a sum of money. I would laugh, I'm like, "First of all, where is it?" Second of all, I said, "Does somebody know where it is in case something happens to you? Is the new homeowner going to get to go plant their vegetable garden and find this money." He cracks me up. Then he would actually have that money buried in his backyard.
Patti: That is crazy. Did he have a family member that knew where it was?
Paula: Yes.
Patti: Okay.
Paula: He had a couple people that knew where it was, which is also even dangerous too because they could always go and dig it up if they wanted it.
Patti: Yes. You'd have to have that relationship.
Paula: Yes.
Patti: Maybe it happens more than we realize. I haven't ever run across a client with that, but they probably just didn't tell us. [chuckles]
Paula: Thing about I'm sure you've run across it when the older generation has passed away and the kids go through the home and they're looking in the vents, and in the socks, and in the coat pockets, and in the refrigerator, and underneath the mattress, and they're finding all kinds of money. Have you never had that experience?
Patti: Nothing that's been shared with me. No. In fact, ironically enough, my sister and I were going through-- I have two sisters and two brothers, and my dad passed away in 2020 and we were going through recently some of his stuff and we came up across $2 bills that were folded up really small and tucked away in this like little bag thing that he kept with his cufflinks and stuff. It was buried and I think he always thought $2 bills were going to be worth something like a lot more someday. We found those $2 bills and we just giggled and just thought, "Oh, my dad, he's so cute." It was one of those things, but we never unpacked something amazing like a large sums of money that were buried.
Paula: Oh, yes. Somebody's still-- I would say probably at least a dozen times that they've found money.
Patti: That's cool. Just buried in places.
Paula: I think it happens to be that generation that grew up during the depression and that they would very much in cash and then they would hide cash in the house just in case there's an emergency and they needed it.
Patti: Money in the freezer or something.
Paula: Yes. Worried about banks failing and all that stuff.
Patti: Yes.
Paula: One last thing I'm going to ask you today is, what's the best advice you can give every woman no matter what her age?
Patti: I would say just take really good care of yourself and make time for yourself. I know that doesn't really have anything to do with investing, but it does because if you're not well mentally, emotionally, physically, then it just ripples into everything in your life, including your kids and finances and everything. Because we are typically going in so many directions between taking care of our home, and the family, and our work, and just all the hats that we wear, we put ourselves last.
I think it's so important that we just really make that time for not only self-care, which includes having fun, do something that you enjoy. Meditation, prayer exercise, eating well, whatever that is, just make sure that you take care of yourself. Oddly enough, I'm going to make a very random recommendation, but go get a physical, just make sure you're okay. Get your blood work done and just make sure everything is okay because that brings you peace of mind too.
Paula: I actually just did that last week and I had my doctor's appointment on Wednesday.
Patti: There you go.
Paula: That is great advice. As women, we don't do that. What is that thing when you get on airplane, put on your face mask first, and then take care of everybody else?
Patti: Right. The tendency is to put it on the kid first, but if you drop then you're useless to them, so yes.
Paula: Great information. I really appreciate you being with us today.
Patti: Thank you for having me. Happy to help.
Paula: If anybody would like to get ahold of you, how would they reach out?
Patti: They can go to Minding Her Money. It's mindinghermoney.com. There's a roadmap you can download that helps you guide you on the nine steps you should be taking. There's a short training there and then we'll be able to connect from there.
Paula: Thanks again. I really appreciate you.
Patti: Appreciate that too.
Male Speaker: Paula, do you want to do your plug?
Paula: Oh yes, I forgot about myself. Look at that. I didn't put my own mask on first.
[laughter]
Paula: Okay. If anybody would like to reach out to me, they can reach me at paula@paulachristine.com or check out my website at paulachristine.com.