Hello! Welcome to episode 115 of I’d Rather Stay In. This week, our pal Chloé is joining us again to talk about finance as it relates to women!

Quick links

• Follow Chloé on IG: https://www.instagram.com/clobaremoneycoach/
• Visit Chloé’s website: https://clobare.com/

Episode transcript

Megan
Welcome to I’d rather stay in with your hosts Megan Myers and Stephie Predmore. This week we’re welcoming back our guest Chloé Daniels to talk about women and finance. Stay tuned.

Stephie
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Hello,

Megan
hi, Stephie.

Stephie
what, what’s up? Megan?

Megan
I have something nerdy to share with you. Oh, please do. So last week, we were talking about our Peony flowers. Yes. And I had so many peonies I was like, oh, what can I do with these and so I was looking up ways to like preserve them or use them in things. And I didn’t really get around to doing that because then it started raining and they kind of all got destroyed. That’ll happen, right? But I found out something very interesting about my peonies. You and I have different peonies in our gardens are different varieties. Yours is a I believe a semi double peony. And then mine is either a double or a bomb double. I’m not quite sure what the difference is necessarily or which kind of this we didn’t plant them. I don’t know. But, um, the interesting nerdy thing is that on a double Peony is that, you know, like how flowers have stamens in the middle where they have all the pollen and things. Uh huh. On a double peony, those turn into puddles. Oh. And I just thought that was like super cool. And like evolutionary ly weird. And I don’t really understand how they like them can propagate because they don’t have any statements. Yeah, that is wild. Yeah. But I thought that was like, Cool. I’m like, I have to share this stupid, nerdy thing.

Stephie
Yeah, yeah, we all because like, I have one too. I have four different Peony plants. And they’re all a little bit different. And then you have like a totally different type from that. And I mean, honestly, that’s why I love peonies so much, because there’s so many different types. And I think they’re all beautiful. And also that is fascinating. That’s a fascinating little nerdy thing that you learned. Fun fact of the day, fun fact of the day, Well, today’s not lost because we learned something. I mean, I think that we’re going to learn something as we talk to our guests today, as because we always do, but we learned something about flowers and not just finance. So right we go right? You know, we spend a lot of time talking about feminism and topics that will you know, apply to women and female identifying peoples and female presenting peoples. And so today we are going to talk about finances specifically as it relates to those groups of people.

Megan
Yeah, and so to do that, we decided to invite back our friend at Chloé Daniels, she has been making all these incredible strides in the world of finance. And we’re so proud of her. And we’re really glad to have her back because we always learn so much. So welcome back, Chloe.

Chloé
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I was trying to remember like our first time that I came on, I want to say it was it was it emergency funds, or was it investing one on one?

Stephie
I think that one was investing. And then you came back and you talked about emergency funds. Yeah. And that was a few months. That was like several months ago. I think that was maybe towards the end of last year. And you since that episode, you have had some big life changes that I would love for you to share with the class.

Chloé
Yeah, for sure. So yes, so much has changed in such a short period of time. So I can’t remember if this happened or not prior to us talking, but in October 2021 I actually quit my job to do clobare money coach full time, which has been such a whirlwind. And since at the time, I was living in Chicago. I was like well now that I am not tied to a job here. Why am I living here? So my

Stephie
dog I live in where it’s so expensive.

Chloé
It maybe, you know, I would say Chicago is probably one of the most affordable major cities in the US. But for, right, but for me, it was really, the weather. I just was so tired of those awful winters. And every single winter for 10 years, I was like, Why do I live here? And my answer to why do I live here was always well, I have a really good job. So once that was no longer reason for me to stay. And you know, as you guys probably know, the older you get, the more your friends kind of disperse and have their own things. And so there really just wasn’t that much keeping me there anymore. But to answer the question of where do I want to live, I really had no idea. So my dog and I are on a very long, like slow road trip across the United States to kind of just date cities and figure out where I want to live or, you know, who knows, I could end up being a digital nomad for a longer period of time. So that’s what’s been going on. Yeah, it’s, um, it’s been really cool. It’s a It’s definitely lonely at times, I would say for sure. But so far, it’s just been like, it’s such a blessing to be able to do this,

Stephie
we may have to have you back just to talk about this experience. Because I always find this as a person who is married with a child and a fuck ton of animals. And as a whole, like, the idea of just like picking up and putting all the creatures that live in my house in a vehicle and like traveling, the country is like, not perfect. I mean, I know that there are people who do it, but for me, and like my personal needs, it’s not a thing that I could really do. But I’m always fascinated when people do this. And so yeah, you’re probably gonna have to come back after this journey ends so that you can tell us all about it. And like all of logistics and the things that you learned, because I

Chloé
think yeah, I’m so down. It’s funny. Whenever I tell people that I’m doing this, their number one question is usually Oh, are you doing van life? And I’m like, No, I am not cool enough for Van life. Like that sounds awful. I would. I always think like with Van life, what do you do when you show up to the new place? Like you just you just still in your van?

Stephie
Right? Like where do you park? Where do you park so people like if you don’t you’ll get like a ticket for like sleeping in a parking lot overnight. Like I don’t know, there’s there’s a lot of logistics of that. If there’s like a tick tock account, I fell down a rabbit hole into not too long ago of a gal who’s doing van life, but in her Prius. Whoa, you have dogs. It’s like yeah, size of Logan. I’m like, I’m sorry. What?

Chloé
Yeah, I follow her somebody had recommended I follow her after I announced my road trip. And they knew I was doing a Prius too. And I was like, wow, that’s a big no for me. Like, good. Good. And I mean, she’s got a huge followings. I’m sure she’s making a ton of money. Sure. You know, so like, I’m sure if she’s smart with it, she could probably retire in a couple of years. But yeah, no, thanks.

Stephie
I know, I know, Megan and I both really enjoy just watching how much your business has grown and seeing that, you know, it’s it’s been successful for you and fun and life giving. And we’re just we’re so proud of you.

Chloé
Thank you. Yeah, I still I’m definitely at the stage where I’m like, Is this really my life? Is this like, is it all gonna disappear in a second? So it’s definitely an unusual adjustment. But definitely grateful for it.

Stephie
Yeah, I mean, I felt a lot of the same things. When I left the corporate world and was I’m like, wow, I don’t have to deal with this bullshit anymore. Like, pinch myself. This is great. So

Unknown Speaker
truly, it’s free. It’s real.

Megan
So we wanted to have you on to specifically talk about women in finance. So to get us started here, for anyone who might say that finance isn’t gendered, what would be your response?

Stephie
Because there’s always some white dude. Like, you should make everything about gender

Megan
rolling up in your comments,

Chloé
right? Oh, my gosh, that’s just crazy. I mean, until the gender wealth gap no longer exist until the wage gap between genders no longer exist, it is absolutely going to be gendered. And also until men and women live to be around the same age, it’s also going to be really, really gendered, you know. So I think, too, we have to keep in mind that women really didn’t even gain control of their money until the last 50 plus years, like maybe 60 years. You know, a lot of our grandparents they were they didn’t have access to their own funds, or they weren’t working or it wasn’t normal. So it absolutely is, especially when you just look at the larger picture and a societal level and then on top of it, you know, just in terms of women and access to money, it absolutely is

Stephie
an education about money. I think so many, I think a lot of our male counterparts So we’re maybe taught more about money and investing and just shit like that, then we were just growing up. Yeah, for sure. So many, there’s so many factors to it. It’s bananas,

Chloé
right? Like, it’s I, I’ve had clients before, who have taught told me like, yeah, my parents taught my brothers how to invest, and you know how to negotiate their salaries and all these things, but they never had those conversations with me, because it was always this like underlying message of like, oh, you won’t have to worry about that. Like, that’s something that your husband will have to worry about. I even have a friend who she the first time she went into financial advisor, she went in to try and like learn about how to invest. And the financial advisor literally told her now you don’t need to learn, like, you don’t need to worry about this, your husband will do this for you. So not even kidding. And like that was within the last 10 years. So it’s like, wow, the fact that that was still said to someone who went in to learn. It’s just it’s truly mind blowing that like, you know, I think a lot of people think, Oh, we’ve made so many strides in gender equality. And it’s like, yeah, we still have a really, really long way to go.

Stephie
Yeah, for sure. So you know, in talking about just access to money, a lot of women, especially married women don’t really bother with learning about the money, because they’ve been told, Oh, your husband is going to take care of it, or your husband’s going to be the breadwinner, which is not the case and any of our households. But can you explain, you know why women need to get more involved in the finances, whether you are partnered or not?

Chloé
Yeah, I mean, you’re just taking on such a big risk, depending on honestly anybody else besides yourself to manage your own money, because at the end of the day, no one is going to care about your money as much as you’re going to care about your money. There’s just so many reasons that women need to be involved. The first thing that comes to mind is women are actually better investors. It’s been shown time and time again, and studies year after year, that it may not be a huge difference. But women usually do slightly better when it comes to investing, because they’re not willing to take on as much risk, as you know, a average guy is willing to take on. And also, you know, we think with that risk in mind, and so we make those less risky moves, like potentially investing in index funds or things along those lines. And generally, those outperform over the long term as well. So because of our cautious approach, and that’s not applicable to every single woman out there, like that’s not I there’s this, there’s this idea and pervasive message out there that says like, oh, women just aren’t risk takers. And I don’t really agree with that narrative. I think it’s just we’re a lot more prudent, and we’re a lot more discerning. And we also don’t have these egos telling us that, you know, oh, I know, it’s almost impossible to beat the market consistently, I’m going to try to do it anyway, you know, that’s not what we’re doing most of the time. So that’s one thing is like, you could be trusting your future and your retirement with your husband. And you think that just by him by being a man, he’s going to do better at managing your money. And actually, studies have shown that the opposite is actually true. But besides beyond that, just the actual performance of a woman versus a man in the investing world, you also have to keep in mind the fact that women live longer than men. So even if you are, let’s say, putting your retirement in the hands of your partner, you have to keep in mind, at some point, the likelihood of you having to manage your money on your own is extremely high. So whether you have to learn it now, when you’re young, and you’re active, and you have the time, or when you have to learn it after your husband has passed, or after the worst has happened, and you’ve ended up in a divorce, or whatever. I don’t know about you guys, but I would rather learn when I have the option rather than being forced, when you know, either you’re grieving or you’re dealing with some major life changes to also then have to learn like what the heck is an IRA? How the heck am I supposed to retire if I don’t have a pension or you know, all of those things. So those are those to me are two of the biggest reasons. But you know, statistically speaking, we are all eventually going to have to manage our own money, you know, it’s more likely that’s going to happen than not.

Megan
I mean, I think one of those reasons why women are less or more risk averse is because we do live longer, like we’re looking more for the long term later on down the road. And I think a lot of guys are like I want to make a lot of money right now.

Chloé
Right? Well, I think to the thing is we do live longer, and so we do have to be more prepared. than the average Joe. But I also think that because we’re slightly or can be perceived as slightly more risk adverse, that can prevent women sometimes from starting with investing. I think we talked about this before, but a lot of women will hoard their cash in like savings accounts, and they won’t invest, they just keep it all in a regular old savings account, I’ve had so many friends who keep all their money in a checking account. And it’s like, that’s actually doing you a huge disservice, because you really don’t need to be holding on to that much cash. And really, you should be optimizing your money by putting it into the stock market so that, you know, you can grow. And it’s not just sitting there losing money to inflation, which a lot of people now are really paying attention to the impacts of inflation, since it’s been at, you know, record highs in the last 20 years. But it’s something that even when we’re not having record levels of inflation, it’s still happening every year, it’s 2% 3%, whatever. But your money is slowly losing value rather than consistently gaining in value in the stock market.

Megan
I think that’s a good segue into our next question, what other mistakes do you see women in particular making when it comes to money?

Chloé
I think that’s one of the biggest ones is, you know, waiting or keeping that money in cash. But the other big one is a lot of women. And this I mean, I would say it’s probably women and men, they think that an IRA is an investment, or they think that their 401 K is an investment or they think that you know, XYZ is an investment when actually those are just accounts. So a lot of folks will open up an IRA and be like, okay, cool, I’m good, I transferred money into my IRA, I’m invested, I should be good for retirement, I’ll do that year after year. And unfortunately, they don’t realize that their money is just sitting inside of a money market fund or a settlement account where it’s not learning earning much more than your bank account interest is going to be earning. And the reason is, is because they didn’t pick investments inside of their IRA. That is a devastating mistake, especially if you don’t catch it early on. There’s been horror stories of people who have maxed out their IRA every single year putting the $6,000 in until they were 65. And then when they go and they look at their accounts, when they’re 65, they realized that hasn’t grown at all, because they never actually picked investments. So it’s like, those stories are so heartbreaking, because it’s like you did the work, you did the hard part, which is putting that money aside. But you just forgot this really, really important step to you know, move money into your actual investments.

Stephie
I also think it’s like kind of shitty that it’s set up in a way that you can write is that step like the fact because I mean, I’ve set up 401 K’s before and like, there are because I and I have done them, where like in order to proceed to the next step. Like you have to choose what your you know, how you want to invest it. So the fact that there are accounts out there where they just literally let you dump money in and then no one says to you, right? Hey, by the way, you forgot to do this thing, or we didn’t tell you to like that’s shitty

Chloé
it is it is there should be some kind of like warning that pops up on the screen like, Are you sure this is what you want to do, you don’t want it to just, you want it to sit there, you don’t want to invest it like there should be some kind of conversation happening, especially with retirement accounts. That’s the thing is like with a taxable brokerage account, you know, that’s like a whole other level, like usually people who are using taxable brokerage accounts, they have some level of education because they decided to go off and start investing on their own. But there’s kind of a caveat to that, you know, a lot of people use Robin Hood and things like that as their first taxable account. But they know they have to go pick individual investments. Whereas when you hear about an IRA, or a 401 k or a four, three, B or TSP, you think all I have to do is put my money in there. And I’m good. And that’s just not the case. And usually with your 401k, or your TSP or your four or five, seven, all of those workplace accounts, usually you’ll get automatically invested based off of what you filled off on the paperwork when you signed up for the account. So that’s not as big of an issue with your 403 B’s and four, five sevens and 401 K’s, but you should still check, you should still make sure that you’re actually invested, you know, at the end of the day, you don’t want to leave it up to chance, you gotta at least log in and be like, Oh, I’m invested in tr 2060, whatever the heck that is, you know, but at least I see that I have an investment inside of this account. And the thing too is like with those workplace retirement plans, you can call you can call and ask you can call the service provider and be like, Hey, I just want to make sure I’m invested. Can you tell me what I’m invested in and you know, explain it to me in layman’s terms. So definitely whoever is listening if you’re like, Whoa, am I invested if you even have a shadow of a doubt Go and check, go look at your IRA, go see what you’re invested in, and no SPI x x or anything that says settlement fund or money market account or money market fund, that is not an investment that is like a place for your money to sit until you go buy investments. So if anybody takes anything away from this, that’s what I want them to do.

Megan
I think the first time you shared that on Instagram, I panicked. And I immediately was like, okay, I’m fine.

Chloé
And that’s the thing is like, like, you know, then people like, let’s say they go and they actually look, and they’re like, Oh, crap, I’m sitting in a money market finder. Oh, crap that SPX SEC she was talking about that is what my account is in, then they’re like, well, now what do I do? How do I know what to pick? How do I know what to invest? And one of the easiest ways to get started when you have no idea what to pick our target date funds, your 401 K or 403 B, your TSP likely if you didn’t pick investments yourself, it’s sitting in a target date fund, and essentially, what a target date fund is, is you can decide, okay, I’m going to retire in the year 2060? Well, guess what, there are target date funds that are designed for you to literally pick, oh, target date fund 2060, I’m gonna pick up that target date fund, and that fund is going to automatically rebalance, the closer I get to the year 2060s. So that it’s, you know, moving along in life with me, and I didn’t have to do anything. So.

Stephie
And there’s usually like a, there’s usually a risk preference that you can also choose, like your low risk, your moderate risk, your higher risk preference within those target dates, because that’s, I mean, because and the reason that I know that I’m invested in my retirement accounts is because every single time, every time I’ve had to set them up, I’ve had the What the fuck do I choose? Right, and just really ended up choosing for the most part of the target date fund with my preferred risk level, because I do get overwhelmed by it. So that’s the only reason I know is because I distinctly remember going back, fuck, what do I do?

Chloé
Right? Well, and that’s the thing too, is depending on which brokerage you’re using, there’s a lot of different types of target date funds, or they’re also called balanced funds. So balanced funds, if you see the word balanced, you know, okay, this is probably going to have different stock funds and different bond funds inside of it. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a target date fund, it could be a risk preference fund, where you go in and you pick, okay, I’m gonna pick a conservative Balanced Fund, well, then, you know, it’s probably going to have a lot of bonds inside of it. Whereas if you go and you’re like, Okay, I want a highly aggressive Balanced Fund, well, then you’ve got, you know, those options as well, with target date funds, a lot of the times they have not, like you said, not only the year, but you can also adjust it accordingly, depending on what your brokerage offers. But what’s really nice about that is it’s totally hands off. And there have been studies done that shows that if you are invested in a target date fund, rather than somebody who’s like going in and picking individual funds and kind of playing around with it, if you’re investing in a target date fund and kind of leaving it hands off, a lot of times that’ll outperform what the average investor who you know, has emotions at play doesn’t really know what they’re picking thinks they’re picking the right things. A lot of those times the target date funds will actually do better because of how hands off they are.

Stephie
That’s great. That’s a really great tip. Um, so one of the other things I want to talk about, in terms of how finances are gendered is how women in particular are targeted differently than men. by credit card companies, by banks by like all of these different financial institutions. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Chloé
Yeah. So I think a lot of the ways when I think of like how women are targeted in terms of I immediately think of media, and like the tips, the financial tips that are targeted towards women, what I hear is a lot of coupon clipping and like how to save more money and how to cut back on your frivolous spending. It’s like this con, don’t get your latte. Yes, it’s like a lot of this message of messaging of like, oh, women are just frivolous, they’re just, you know, out there spending, they can’t control it. So here’s some tips on how to control your spending. There’s not a lot of tips out there, or at least until recently, there hasn’t been a lot of like education targeted at women about how to increase your income, how to get that next job, how to you know, how to invest for well, how to take on risks, how to start your business. So I think that that’s been huge is that we’ve really kind of it’s almost like infantile, late infant. How do you say it infantilizing? Where it’s like tantalizing? Yes, where you’re like treating these women as if they’re incapable of understanding how to do these things that are marketed towards men which you know, you go and you open up any magazine or any publication dedicated towards men in their growth. It’s all about how to kill that next job, how to get $100,000 Raise how to You know, all of these things. So just the messaging alone in terms of what is directed at women in terms of like the media is huge. So I do feel like in the last five or so years, we’ve been making a lot of strides in the media specifically towards providing that education, especially obviously, in social media spaces. But you know, when you’re constantly fed that message, that’s also going to impact your perception of yourself unless you decide to go out there and get differing education, you know, in terms of financial products, that’s an interesting question, and I’m not entirely sure I have the answer or not. I think that a lot of times, the financial products that are often marketed towards women are usually in relation to kids. I think that a lot of times, women are, you know, marketed, they’re, you know, different five to nine plans are different saving money for your kids, or saving money for your kids futures, before they’re focusing on their own retirement. And, for me, I truly believe that you should be focusing on your own retirement before you focus on paying for your children’s schooling, or your children’s retirement because it’s kind of like you know, the mask situation on a plane, you’ve got to put your own mask on first, before you put on your child’s masks, or before you put on anybody else’s mask. The thing too, is I think that people fail to think about is like, if you’re not preparing for retirement, because you’re spending your time saving money for your kids, or your kids college, then who’s going to take care of you in retirement? Like, what what’s the plan there? Are you expecting your children to take care of you in retirement? Or are you You know, what, what’s the what’s the end goal there. So I always say there are loans for school, there’s not loans for retirement. So always, always, always make sure to put your mask on first.

Stephie
And I mean, you know, ultimately, when you’re planning for your retirement, and you know, that it’s more of a long game, for sure, but you are helping your children. You know, when you think about, okay, are you am I gonna have an inheritance to give them

Chloé
100 per se, yeah, building that generational wealth, making sure that they aren’t going to have to be supporting you in retirement, making sure that you know, you’re taking care of yourself, because at the end of the day, your children really don’t owe you anything, and you’ve got to make sure that you’re not putting any amount of pressure on them. And then bonus, if you do have money leftover when you pass, you get to you know, pass that on and, and start that generational wealth journey.

Stephie
Or you can leave it to your dog, whatever you want to do, or,

Chloé
you know, if you’re like, Screw those kids, I’m gonna donate it to science.

Stephie
Right. Your money you can do

Chloé
you get to decide which Yes, for sure. But yeah, in terms of like other financial products, I think that’s a it’s an interesting question that I don’t feel like I’m well enough educated on. Just because, like, when it comes to credit card companies and things along those lines, I’m not entirely sure how they are, you know, marketing differently towards women versus men, I’m sure that there are definitely ways that they are doing that. I’m just not particularly educated on that. When when I think about, you know, the differences between men, finances and women’s finances, you know, I think the pink tax and those things, but in terms of the marketing behind it, I’m not entirely sure.

Megan
When I think of a credit card issue for women, I automatically think of like store credit cards. Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I think, I don’t know if it’s as bad as it used to be. But I remember like every store I would go to, they used to be like, Oh, you could you pre you could get pre approved for this credit card. Like we’re not even gonna run a credit check. Like you’ll save 10% like, Yo, don’t you want to apply for this credit card, and it was, you know, it’s every store that you would go to just one urging you to get more and more credit and then that eventually like syncs a lot of people,

Chloé
right and that’s some of the worst credit cards you can get most of the time. Usually they have crazy high interest rates, and they’re just there they’re just kind of ridiculous. I remember growing up my mom had all the stores credit cards it was like she had a victorious she’s had a penny you she had a cold she had like all of those things. And like, I don’t have I’ve never had a single store credit card. I guess if Amazon counts. I’ve got an Amazon card for the cashback. But yeah, it’s wild to think of or even there, the charge cards, they’re not even credit cards, they’re just charge cards, specifically like you can’t even use them anywhere else you can only use them for that particular store. I guess that’s one of the benefits of online shopping now is you don’t get those pitches to buy or to do the credit cards a lot

Stephie
easier to be like going right to be like in the middle of the spiel. Be like shut up.

Megan
Yeah, like I have a target card but it’s tied to my debit card. So like it’s not it just saves me money. I guess it doesn’t really really do anything else other than like, you can only use it at Target.

Chloé
Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, I think that those I wonder if those are phasing out they seem to me to be phasing out. I don’t feel like a lot of people are getting, you know, Victoria’s Secret credit cards or whatever like they used to, but that’s just anecdotal. I don’t know any of the stats behind that.

Megan
The only place where I still get bombarded with it is like at Old Navy. Oh,

Chloé
yeah. TJ I, I mean, I only shop at TJ Maxx like in person, but they always are like, Oh, do you want to get the TJ Maxx credit card? I’m like, No, why would I do that? You know, you’ll save X amount of dollars like, though. Good, thank you.

Megan
I always thought it was the funniest thing to wear. Like, we would have relatives that like had the JC Penney card. And they would like go to JC Penney to pay their credit card. That’s why more stuff on their JC Penney card and like what are you doing

Chloé
that’s such a wild like different time like I I avoid in store shopping as much as possible the only in store shopping I do is like grocery shopping and even for a while I avoided that as well.

Stephie
That yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don’t know the last time I was like, trying to think of the last time I purchased like clothing that was that wasn’t like from target in a store. Right store where I had to like try something on I guess it would have been pre pandemic.

Chloé
Yeah, the whole process just like that just all sounds awful.

Stephie
I’m tired. I’m tired thinking about it. I’m tired thinking about like the old back to school shopping days where you would just like power through oh my god shopping done and like an afternoon nap just thinking about it. So

Chloé
I used to love that as a kid though, because it was like, it was the one time that we’d get like new stuff. And it was like it was so exciting to be like oh, what’s my whole wardrobe gonna be this year.

Stephie
You spend like weeks thinking about what your first day of school like that whole first week, but especially the first day of school outfit lanyard.

Megan
Let’s make the best impression.

Chloé
Oh my gosh, this is so funny. I this just like recovered memory. I remember I had like a very wealthy or at least wealthy to me friend in grade school. And every like September when I’d go over to her house, and she was always really mean to me. I think the only reason I was friends with her is because she had a pool. But But I remember I would have to sit through basically a fashion show where she would show me all of her new clothes for the school year and like it was like a ton of stuff. And I just remember like she like here’s everything that I have for this school here. Just so funny to think about like that was something I did as a kid. Yes. Kind of wild. Yeah. Just like oh and odd somebody else’s wardrobe.

Stephie
And making like mental notes like okay, maybe I can convince mom to buy Christmas.

Chloé
Right, right. Yeah. Well, and I remember growing up it was like limited to and like these expensive places that really expensive for my family. So expensive. Oh, I remember it was like my life goal to get something from the limited to because it was just so expensive. And you know, we shopped at Kohl’s. And I think I eventually got something I can’t remember for the life of me what it was, but it’s just so funny how large of a deal that seems that at that age, you know, in third grade, you’re just like, it’s the end. I remember saying to my mom, everybody who’s anyone has learned to jeans. She thought that was so funny that she came she was like all right, well, we’ll get you one pair for Frick sake.

Stephie
Drama. Yes. It’s something

Chloé
I’ve always been good at the drama

Megan
speaking of school, it’s wild to me actually, we were talking about earlier, like what you learned and stuff. It’s wild to me that they don’t teach this stuff when it finance is so dependent on the rest of your life, right way more than the Pythagorean Theorem, right? The

Stephie
only like finance related thing I ever learned was how to write a check. Same Yeah, that was we probably learned that Chloe, we probably learned that from the same teacher.

Chloé
I can’t remember her name was her. I can picture her though. Me too. She’s like she’s like a cute blonde. Yes, yes, yes. I do remember doing that. Which is so funny because I’m gonna guess neither of you have checkbooks now.

Megan
I do because I have one.

Stephie
I do. Oh my god. Yeah, I pay most of my bills. Vith a check. Like I mail it like I’m 85 years old. My ADH and I do it I know and everyone’s like, Yeah, but pay that online or just send it automatically. I’m like, I know that I can however my ADHD is of the variety that if I I don’t write the check. I have no comp. Like, I just can’t picture how much money is being spent on the duties and I need that to really be able to be like, Okay, I have a handle on this. So that’s why I still have a checkbook. But my gosh,

Megan
that’s wild there’s there’s actually

Stephie
Oh no might not have like cats on I’m already I should upgrade this blue.

Megan
Oh my god the junk mail flyers that you would get with all the different check designs you could possibly order and

Stephie
usually like a free thing of like return address labels shoved in there. Like we used to have just like piles of lush like random free return address labels.

Megan
Amazing. Oh my God, that’s hilarious. Yeah, a lot of the companies here to actually steal like will only take checks like no way and things like that. Yeah. Wow. We

Stephie
live in a two Horse Town close.

Chloé
Oh, yeah. I guess it’s different because I forgot you guys are in you guys are in Bloomington Normal. Right, right. Yeah, yes. So I can see that making a little bit more sense when I was. I was, I bought a car in the last six months, and I was in Peoria at the time. So I had to go to like, I went to Roanoke facility to you know, renew or get it registered. And they were like, We’re gonna need a check. And I was like, what? And they’re like, and if you don’t have a check, you can go get a money order. And I was like, Well, I at least know what a money order is, and can go do that. But I had to wait at the post office for like an hour until they opened because I didn’t Oh, I know. I was like, I feel like this is discriminatory towards millennials and Gen z’s.

Stephie
Right, like, I wonder, like, do the Gen z’s, like know how to write a check? Like, I mean, I handed them a checkbook and said, like, write a check, which I actually already knew how to do that before we learned about it in high school because my mom had taught me Yeah, because my mom always paid for things by cheque and stuff. But I wonder like, there are certain things that I’m like, okay, is this like really going to be phasing out? Is that something that the younger generations are going to know how to do? Yeah, they learned something more useful than just how to write a check. Are they going to learn about budgeting? Like, when are we going to make these changes? Right?

Megan
Well, I will say, my, my son’s, he’s an eighth grade, his social studies class, they actually did a whole unit on budgeting. Oh, wow. That was very impressed. But then he would come home and report to me like the things they had to do for their projects, like they had to go. Like, they pretended they were 25 or something, and they had to go find an apartment and budget their all their expenses for a month. And he, he and his friend found this apartment in Chicago. And he was like, yeah, it’s only like, $200 a month. And I said, What, oh, my we’re gonna die.

Stephie
It was definitely filled with cockroaches. And like they might be made of cockroaches.

Megan
Because they looked for like real places. Like they used Zillow, or whatever, to find real apartments. And I was like, that’s such a live there.

Chloé
That’s such a cool project, though, like what a real world project to actually get you thinking of, like, oh, I have this amount of resources. And like, if I, you know, get an expensive apartment, that means I have to spend less on eating out and you know, things like that. That’s wild. What I what I have seen is like the schools that do even offer any level of personal finance, a lot of the times it’s the Dave Ramsey curriculum, and I’m like, Oh, I don’t know if that’s better or worse to be totally. Because it’s a lot of like, you know, shame based, like, you know, just put your put your nose down, and you should never see inside of a restaurant until you pay off all your debt. And it’s like, you’re teaching that to kids who are about to go into debt for student loans. Like, you’re basically saying, like, yeah, okay, you can’t live your life until those student loans are paid off. And it’s just, to me, not the best rhetoric, and it’s not a very balanced or sustainable approach. But I guess at the same time, at least, it’s some thing. So yeah, I think the I think one of the biggest reasons that we don’t see it in schools is our education system is already, you know, overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that they’re trying to squeeze in. But I also think there’s just not a lot of people out there who can teach it, you know, especially to kids. I don’t think that there’s a lot of folks who are personal finance experts, especially, you know, we don’t have personal finance teachers, you know, it’s not like he go to school to go and teach personal finance. So I assume that’s probably part of it. But also, you know, not that long ago, we had pensions, you didn’t have to learn how to invest for retirement, you didn’t have to worry about that stuff, because your employer was going to do all of it for you. And in the last 50 years, we’ve slowly you know, switched out of pensions and moved into the 401k system. And so now all of a sudden, there’s this big shift of your employer being responsible for your retirement to you being responsible for your retirement and the education has not caught up and my hope is that eventually it will since that, that major shift has changed. But I think we’re still stuck in the like, No, you don’t have to worry about that. Because that’s, you know, you’ll get that through your pension when that’s not the case anymore. And certainly, certainly not with Social Security. Yeah.

Megan
I mean, some places don’t even do 401k. So,

Chloé
right, exactly. Especially if you’re working at like a small business, or if you’re working at like, you know, a firm I know, I know, lawyers who don’t have access to employer sponsored plans. So they’ve got to go do it on their own, with an IRA in a taxable brokerage account. So. So yeah, it’s one of those things that hopefully, over time, the whole idea of like, you know, writing a check will be swapped out for like, you need to save for retirement. And here’s why. And here’s what you can expect. And you know, here’s some ways to do it, but we’ll see what happens.

Stephie
So we just, we kind of touched on this, and, and but didn’t really dig into it. So you know, we’ve talked about the fact that we do have this gender wage gap, and that women and female presenting people, they automatically earn less money, just pretty much the rare exception where that’s not the case. So do you have any tips to share regarding negotiating raises, or figuring out what you should be earning or just anything around that topic? I mean, that it could be an episode in and of itself. All right, any just like quick things that you want to share? First?

Chloé
Sure, I think one of the best things you can do is talk to your co workers or talk to people who are in similar industries, who are doing similar work. One of the ways that I knew that I could be getting paid more simply by talking to my mentors and being like, you know, I was always money focused in my career, and I always wanted to be making more money. But because of that, it was, you know, it was a common conversation for me to have with my boss, I was talking about, you know, what’s next for me? Because I was never satisfied with where I was at, I was always like, okay, cool, I got my promotion. Now, I’m thinking about what’s my next promotion. So, you know, finding some kind of an ally at work is fantastic, if that does work for you. But if you you know, living in a toxic or working in a toxic environment, where you don’t have that kind of open communication with folks, you know, look for that outside of where you’re at. Luckily, we live in a time where information is accessible. You know, even going onto LinkedIn and finding, if it’s looking for your next promotion, or looking for an industry move, or just looking for, you know, what are people doing in my field right now? And what is their pay? What is their expectation, what’s their work life looking like? People are so open to a 15 minute phone call for an informational interview. Because at the end of the day, people love talking about themselves. So you know, going outside of your work is also an option is, you know, go internet sleuth on LinkedIn to, you know, do a quick little informational call with somebody. I’ve had several informational calls when I was trying to figure out, you know, what I wanted to do with my life before I stumbled on what I’m doing right now. And it was always eye opening to hear, you know, what other people’s lives were like, what their work was, like, what they could do, what I could do, what I could pivot into, and what I would need to do in order to do that. But I think one of the biggest things we can do as women is share what we’re getting paid. I know there’s a lot of taboo out there. And people feel like that’s shameful. And the businesses we work for don’t want us to do that. But it’s so powerful. I was really lucky in that I had a female mentor who was ended up being my boss, but I knew her before she ended up being my boss. And I would ask her, you know, what are you making? What should I be making? What can I ask for in this role, and she would always encourage me to ask for way more than what I thought I could get. And I think that that alone, just knowing what was possible, helped me increase my income significantly, in a really short period of time. When I moved to Chicago in 2015, I was making $42,000 a year and by the time I left my corporate gig in October, I was making $130,000 a year. So that was a pretty big increase in a pretty short, I mean that, gosh, that’s almost $100,000 increase in a really short period of time. But it’s because I was constantly getting that information and asking those questions of like, okay, here’s what I think I should ask for. Does this sound right? Do you think this is crazy? What should I do? And, and I have to, you know, be able to bounce it off of my mentors. So I think that’s huge, especially when we’re talking about, you know, the racial wealth gap for women. It’s short, it’s bad when you’re comparing white women to white men in terms of what we’re getting paid. But when you compare a white man to what a black woman gets paid, it is so much worse. Yeah. So the white women out there, those folks, we need to be sharing our salaries with women of color, we need to be talking to them about what they’re getting paid, and we need to be talking and advocating for them as well. So that simple act of being transparent with your salary can have some really, really big impacts in ways that you may not even realize so that would be probably one of my biggest tips. But the other thing is, I think women do not go after jobs and promotions in the same way that men are trained to essentially. And I think LinkedIn was the one who did the study not that long ago, I want to say it’s like 2019, where they showed that women will wait to apply for a job until they’re 100% qualified for the job. Whereas men will usually apply to a job if they’re 50% qualified for a job. And that’s based off of just reviewing like the qualifications on the job application or the job form.

And I think we have to keep in mind that those job qualification forms that when you’re looking at a job description. Those are like, ideal scenario, like in a perfect world, this person would have all of these things, they’re not really expecting to find somebody who has all of those things. It’s just in a perfect world, this is everything we want. But a lot of folks will see that and be like, Well, I don’t have my Master’s or I don’t have 10 years of experience, or I don’t have this, this or this, it generally doesn’t matter if overall your experiences would be a good fit for that role. So what I always tell women, if you qualify for 50% of the qualifications, frickin go for it, if it’s a job you want go for it, at the end of the day, you have nothing to lose. And chances are you actually have a better shot than what you think you do. So

Stephie
I would love to tell you a story right now. Yeah. And I have many I could share, but this one really grinds my gears. So this was a few jobs ago for me. And my employers were, you know, spending a lot of time I was I was like, one of the top people in the, in the company. And I was pretty young at the time, I was 27, I think. And I was like one of their I was one of their best employees, like, all the things. And they were talking to me about like, working towards making me a VP. And I was like, Okay, awesome. And they, you know, it’s like, you know, we’re not gonna hire anybody above you, like, we want to work with you to get get you to a VP position like blah, blah, blah. And then like five seconds later, they bring in this guy who was a couple years older than me, but didn’t really have he had connections because of who his father was. But he himself didn’t really have much more like experience than I did. And they didn’t mention what his title was going to be. And then he goes up on the website, and he has a VP title. And I called up one of my bosses, like, I got him on the phone. And I said, essentially, what the fuck, you just told me that you weren’t going to hire above me, like, you made this guy who has no experience in what we’re doing. A VP? What the fuck? And he was like, well, we just gave you a $5,000 Raise. So you should just be grateful for that.

Chloé
Oh, my gosh, that grateful

Stephie
that very day, that very day, I called up somebody else who had been trying to poach me. And I’d been like, No, I don’t think this is the right time. And I said, is that job still available? I want that job that very day. Because I was like, oh, no, you didn’t fucking tell me to be grateful for the raise that you gave me. And I think that that’s I think a lot of women get that messaging, whether it is that direct messaging, or it’s that like implied messaging, that we should just be grateful for whatever raise we get. So if you go in and you have your annual review, and you get a 3% Raise, you should just be grateful that you got anything at all, instead of going back and saying, Hey, I actually worked my ass off. This is what I did for you. This is what I’ve done for this business. Like, this is what I brought in like what like having that evidence and saying, I deserve more of a race in this or I deserve a promotion, and seeing what they say like advocating for yourself in that instead of just sitting back and be like, well, they gave me something so 100% I can still eat I guess today like we do not. And I you know, Megan and I are in a group chat with one of our friends, Susanna and the three of us are always talking about what we’re making, even now when we’re in like similar fields, but like, you know, sort of freelancing type stuff. We still talk about what we make we still boost each other up. I have another group chat with two friends that are in we’re all three in like completely different industries. But we share very openly what we make and we you know, when one of us is like, Oh, I think I deserve more or should I increase my rates for this or whatever. We boost each other up and we say go for or we like help figure out What that should be like, I think your point about just being open and talking with your girlfriends about it is so important. Because also, those are the people that are going to be mad with you, when you have some drill hole, say, Well, I give you a $5,000 Raise, you should be grateful. They’re gonna be like, No, fuck that. Go get that other job girl

Chloé
that Yeah, I hate that response. So much of like, you should just be grateful. There’s definitely been times where like I’ve posted about, you know, if you got a 3% Raise this year, you didn’t really get a raise, you know, that’s,

Stephie
that’s just making up for it barely making up for inflation, especially right now. Well, it’s not you actually got into my mind at this point. It’s like nada,

Chloé
right? And it’s like, you can be grateful for the gifts that you’ve been given and the situation you’re in, and the fact that you have a job and still want more. It’s not like those two things coexist. And it’s like, 100%, this idea that you should be grateful. Do you think that they’re really saying that to men,

Stephie
like, Oh, absolutely. I would like you to know that they had to fire that dipshit, like, a month after I left that job. Because he was so bad. He got fired. He actually Actually no, it was the he got fired, the same day that I put in my note, my notice, and it was wonderful. It was a wonderful feeling. And I also like I had a gal that I had kind of I had brought into that job. And I knew that she wanted to kind of follow in my footsteps. And I like when I left, I got her on. And I sat her down. And I said, this is exactly what I have made along the way in this job. These are the exact phrases I got. Here’s exactly when I got them write this down, because you need to advocate for at least this, if not more, as you go along the way. And because I was like, I’m not gonna leave you just wondering like, Gee, am I get like, I want you to know, what did I get paid here. And also that I got told this dumbass shit. And so just keep keep your eyes open.

Chloé
Yeah, that’s awesome. But it’s like, it’s those little conversations that make all the difference. Because if not, when you’re going in and asking for your raise, or you’re asking for your salary, and you’re getting that new job, you’re just kind of taking a shoot like a shot in the dark, you know, and if you’re actually able to go in there with data, you’re in such a better place. And the one other thing I did want to mention, because this was huge for me is I think a lot of folks wait to tell their intentions and wanting to grow at a company until that performance review rolls around. And what I would say is make sure that is known months and months and months in advance with me and my boss at both, both of the companies that I worked for, within the last 10 years. It was a constant conversation to the point where it was probably annoying. It was like every one on one conversation we had, we would talk about obviously my workload, but then I would also talk about, okay, hey, am I on track for this promotion? Am I on track for you know, what we’ve talked about? Am I doing what I need? What else can I be doing to to well position me for that promotion, so that when the time the performance review actually comes, it’s not a surprise, because if it’s a surprise, most of the time performance reviews happen when the budget for the next year is already made. So it’s like, you need to plant that seed well in advance. Like it should be a continuing conversation, in my opinion. Because you don’t want to show up and just be like, like you’ve you’ve got maybe you show up, you’ve got all your data and all the things that you’ve done in last year, well, if they’re not prepared for it, and the budgets already made, you know, maybe you’ll get a little bit of a raise, but it might not be as significant as what it was had you prep them far in advance and made your intentions known.

Stephie
Yeah, and say, What can I do to get to where I want to be? 100%? Exactly.

Megan
That was what I was gonna say if they if you say to them, I want to be, you know, at this place, I want to have a team under me, I want to be promoted throughout this job I want to grow. And if they don’t have an answer for you, red flag red,

Chloé
then you’re not at the right place. 100% Yeah, I would always check in and be like, like, at my last job. Before I left, I wanted to be a director by the time I left. And so I’d constantly be like, alright, you know, I would even you know, there wasn’t a lot of organized organization where I was at like it was it was just kind of a free for all. But I put the organization in place. It was like, I want to have a six month conversation, I want to have a check in to see how I’m doing on my goals. So that when those performance reviews come, you can be prepared for me to ask for that. So I think that’s one of the things too is people always say is like, well, they don’t have a structure. They don’t have performance reviews, they don’t have those sorts of things. Well then ask for it, then do it yourself. You know it, there’s no reason you can’t create your own performance review in order to get those conversations going.

Stephie
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And if you’re managing people like a 360 review, like God, I hope your company has a 360 review system like in place because if you are you know in a management position, having that feedback from people that are reporting to you, A, it’s great for you as a manager, but also like, if you’re getting really positive feedback. That’s just more evidence for you to be like, hey, yep, I’m really awesome. You should give me what I fucking want. Yo. So, yeah, my 100% You got it. There’s, we could we could talk for hours just about this topic, Megan. And I have a lot to say.

Chloé
I want to be fair, when it comes to wealth building for women, it’s one of the most important things you can do for yourself. Like, yes, of course, learning how to manage your finances and learning how to invest is also incredibly important. But like, you need money to do that. And the more money you have to do that, the better off you’re going to be.

Stephie
Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Chloé Thank you so much for being here today. We always learned so much talking to you is always a joy. So

Chloé
thank you so much for having me. You know, I love talking about money.

Stephie
Well, like I said, maybe next time instead of specifically just talking about finance, we’ll have you will have you come on and talk about your road trip because I think that would be a super fun conversation. So

Chloé
I am always down. Love that we’re

Stephie
just we’re just gonna like preemptively put you on the schedule. And I. So let’s talk about joy, what Chloé is bringing you joy this week.

Chloé
Um, so this I can’t say too much about it. But I secret right after this call, I actually have a conversation with a book publisher that reached out to me. And amazing, they’re really large book publisher as well. It’s like a It’s definitely a dream, dream moment, or I’m like, Holy shit, how is this happening? But I’m, I’m really excited for that just to just to even have the conversation, you know, whether or not I do it, but I’m really pumped about that. That’s amazing, exciting. It’s crazy. It’s definitely like one of those things that I’ve dreamed about forever. Granted, I never would have thought I’d be writing a book about investing. But,

Stephie
you know, it’s funny where life takes you, right? Like, I want to do this thing or like, I want to be a writer or whatever. And then sometimes you wake up and you’re like, I’m doing the thing, and I just didn’t it doesn’t look exactly what I thought it was gonna look like, but I’m doing this thing well, and

Chloé
honestly, it’s so much better than what I would have imagined because it’s just like the amount of people that it could help and like, you know, when you go and you look at the bookshelf at Barnes and Noble for investing, it’s all men. Oh, white dudes all white dude. So like to I and when I think about like what the cover of this book would be. I would want it to be like I don’t even like pink. But I would make it like hot freakin pink. So that in this like in this shelf of just black and red and blue books, there’s just this like hot pink book about investing. That’s that’s what I want. So fingers crossed. Hopefully that’s what happens. But I’m definitely excited about even having the opportunity.

Stephie
Love it. Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Good luck on that. Good luck in that Convo.

Megan
Thank you. Stephie what’s bringing you joy. Um,

Stephie
so I follow our local bookstore on Instagram. And the other day she had posted like every like Tuesday, she posts the new stuff that she’s gotten in that week. And last week, she had gotten in a set of Dungeons and Dragons, tarot cards. And one of our friends Caleb is really into Dungeons and Dragons. And so I was like, Oh my god. So I went and I messaged her to put them on hold for me. And I went and picked them up, and I’m gonna go mail them out to him tomorrow, because I was like, oh, Kayla, but you need these in your life. He was like, Oh my God, yes, I’m so excited. So just bringing me joy that I can share some nerdy thing with my friends and make them really happy. So also, also, like, I’m not into d&d, but I will say just from like, the box, the illustrations look beautiful. So looks like they’re really well done. So I’m excited to send those out to him. So Megan was bringing you joy.

Megan
So I was thinking about it a lot this morning. And it’s kind of related to like what Chloé was just saying, and I am just feeling really grateful for the place I am in my life right now. Especially with work and the ability to be at home and work and not work when I can’t work and take the time that I need for certain things and just kind of I don’t know, it just feels like the past couple of years. Like it’s a lot of reprioritization and I just feel really good about it right now. Mm hmm.

Stephie
Yeah. I love that.

Chloé
That’s awesome.

Stephie
I know. We you and I have been having a lot of conversations about that topic and tick tangental topic. So it’s been it’s been a good time for all of us. Yeah. There’s a lot of hardship going on. But yeah,

Megan
yeah, I mean even with you know, if I’m trying to run a business and it has ups and downs of like any, any business that you’re trying to make money in, but I still I wouldn’t trade it.

Stephie
Yeah, absolutely. Love it. Well, until next time, listen to us on your favorite platform and follow us on social media @IRSIpodcast. You can also send us an email at I’d rather stay in podcast@gmail.com We’d love to hear from you. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai