This year, I’ve had the opportunity to interview six smart, savvy women, who are experts in their respective fields. I learned a lot from these remarkable women during our conversations and am grateful to them for generously sharing their expertise. To truly benefit from the wealth of knowledge these women possess, I highly recommend listening to Season 3 of the Financial Finesse podcast. In the meantime, I’ve compiled some of their best money and life advice for women.
Liz Eshleman: What Every Woman Needs to Know About Long-Term Care Insurance
You don’t need an unlimited policy for long-term care insurance to be effective and beneficial.
“As I like to say to families, or to my single clients, you don’t have to crisis manage on day one. If you have a long-term care event, and you have a two-year plan, there’s two years where your family, your friends, your loved ones are helping figure out if your need will be more ongoing (longer than two years).
They’re helping figure out how are we going to pay for that, you know, whatever it will be. And you weigh in on that if you’re available to do so. But people sometimes think, well, if I can’t get unlimited, why would I buy this at all? Which I think is missing the point of the stress of trying to navigate a long-term care event with no plan in place.”
Liz Eshleman is a long-term care consultant and founder of Eshleman Insurance Services.
Listen to the full episode: Season 3 Episode 1
Joy Lere: The Link Between Self-Awareness and Financial Success
You do not have to defend your life choices to anyone.
“Whatever you choose in life, there are going to be far more people who are choosing something different. Choosing a life that looks different than yours. So you need to get really comfortable and square on: this is right and this is best for me. And I do not have to defend my life choices to anyone.
Yes, people are going to inevitably offer their unsolicited commentary on what you do with your life, especially when you’re in a public-facing role. Oftentimes that’s far more a projection and about their stuff. You don’t have to take that in, and you don’t have to defend yourself.”
Joy Lere, Psy.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and behavioral finance consultant.
Listen to the full episode: Season 3 Episode 2
Jennifer Barrett: Learning to Think Like a Breadwinner
Let go of the stories you tell yourself about money that aren’t serving you.
“I think we do a lot of money shaming. One of the things I really wanted to do with the book was to not make anyone feel ashamed of the money choices they’ve made. And help women understand that so much of it comes from the cultural conditioning that we’ve gotten and the messaging that we got as kids. Even if we know what we’re supposed to do, this kind of conditioning can get in the way of that and in a really subconscious way. It’s really hard to see that sometimes. You have to understand like, why am I making these money choices, and not those money choices? A lot of us don’t stop and question that.
And if we did, it might take some digging to realize, oh, I put my money in savings because I’m terrified I’m going to lose it. Because maybe their parents lost money, or they had some experience. They were exposed to something. And so that has lodged in their brain, so they’re afraid of investing themselves. So many of us carry around these stories, whether you’re a man or a woman. And it’s so important to examine those, especially if they kind of get in the way of your wealth building efforts.”
Jennifer Barrett is a published author, personal finance expert, and chief education officer for Acorns.
Listen to the full episode: Season 3 Episode 3
Megan Gorman: Understanding the SECURE Act and Inherited IRAs
Celebrate good money habits and take advantage of every opportunity to secure your financial future.
“I think it’s incredibly important for women to have their own money. And it might not seem like a lot at first, putting the $6,000 or $7,000 away if you’re over 50. But over 10 years of doing that, plus the growth, that turns into six figures pretty quickly.
If there was $20 on the floor, I’d pick it up before I left the room, you know? Because if you max out your 401(k), and you fund your IRA, and then you add to your brokerage account, and maybe you fund your kid’s 529, and you add it all up, all those little things become a big number. And we need to celebrate that more because it is so hard to save today.
Since the 80s, the system has been made to work against you. So, if you are a beneficiary of an inherited IRA, it’s a blessing. And you need to think through it because it can be one of those things that makes the difference between a financial challenge and a financial success over the long term.”
Megan Gorman is a financial advisor and senior contributor for Forbes.
Listen to the full episode: Season 3 Episode 4
Lis McKinley: How to Make Room in Your Life for What Matters
Organize your stuff based on your real life, not a fantasy life.
“Don’t organize your life based on what you see in a magazine or on Instagram or on TV. You should really organize your life for your real life, for your real habits. And if you’ve been struggling with disorganization your whole life, don’t expect things to change overnight. New habits take time to develop.
The hard part in organizing is not sorting and categorizing, as much as that’s important. The hardest part in organizing, especially if you’ve got more stuff than you have space for, is what I call curating. It’s making those tough decisions about what you want to keep and what you’re willing to let go of. There’s a saying in my industry that clutter is nothing more than delayed decision-making.
But the one tip that I didn’t mention that I think is really important, is don’t make your stuff more important than you are.”
Lis McKinley is a Certified Professional Organizer® and founder of Let’s Make Room.
Listen to the full episode: Season 3 Episode 5
Nichole Proffitt: How to Calm Your Mind and Experience Life More Fully
Don’t worry about getting meditation perfectly “right.”
“I think meditation is a key component to building out a life that feels useful and manageable. And I know for a lot of people, meditation or getting started in meditation is really challenging. I think there’s a lot of misconceptions in the meditation world that our minds should be totally calm and clear. My take on meditation is that it’s not so much that the mind needs to be clear and if it’s not clear and calm, you’re doing something wrong.
One thing that I say to every person that I work with when we start is that there’s no right way and there’s no wrong way. There is just simply the opportunity to be curious about what’s happening in our minds, and to be willing over and over to come back to that present moment. And then over time, most people find that it does yield a greater sense of overall wellbeing.”
Nichole Proffitt is a Certified Mindfulness Teacher- Professional (CMT-P) and founder of Presence Mindfulness, Somatic Counseling & Coaching for Women.
Listen to the full episode: Season 3 Episode 6
Looking for More Personal Finance Resources?
Check out our resources page.
Schedule a call with Cathy.
