How to Build Your 2025 Financial Future with Cary Carbonaro

Ready to make 2025 your year of financial freedom? 

Let’s face it: when it comes to money, fear and uncertainty hold many of us back from truly thriving. But what if this could be the year you take control and become financially fearless? This episode is packed with strategies, tips, and inspiration from our incredible guest, Cary, who’s here to guide you every step of the way.

Cary Carbonaro, a certified financial planner with over 25 years of experience in guiding women to financial independence, helping them gain control over their financial futures in an industry where women are often underrepresented. She emphasized the importance of having a financial plan, according to her, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” She encourages women to set clear financial goals and stick to them, sharing financial goals publicly, holding individuals accountable and brings those goals to fruition.

Her approach to financial planning starts with two fundamental steps: budgeting and knowing one's net worth. Cary advises her clients to track their monthly income and expenses, ensuring there is money left over to build wealth. She emphasizes that small sacrifices, such as cutting out a daily coffee, are not enough; instead, big-picture decisions—like adjusting housing costs or finding additional income sources—are essential.

If you're ready to take action and build a solid financial plan, check out the resources and links we mentioned in the episode. Cary’s advice is simple, clear, and packed with actionable steps that anyone can use to improve your financial situation. 

Episode Highlights:

00:44 Cary's Background and Focus on Women

02:28 Challenges Women Face in Financial Planning

04:40 Cary's Personal Story of Overcoming Adversity

08:11 Steps to Financial Planning for the New Year

21:58 Common Financial Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

28:19 Assessing and Adjusting Risk Tolerance

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Transcript

Barb [00:00:00] It was amazing to have Cary on our podcast. First of all, she's an award winning financial advisor and she focuses on women. How perfect is that?

Maggie Yeah, she was great. And just the story of how she's hit bottoms and hit tops and bottoms and tops again of just, high and low points in life. It just gives you really good feelings that, whatever you're in, you can always bounce back from.

Barb Yeah. And like she said, people would look at her and think, you weren't in a terrible marriage. That didn't happen to you. You weren't in an abusive marriage. And she said, Oh yes, I was. It just goes to show you. Wow. Even women that you look at that appear so powerful and strong, she was dealing with a lot.

Barb She came through it, but boy, she is amazing. a powerhouse. Her energy is amazing. It was so fun to talk to her. And besides the fact that she's super smart and focuses on women, I love it.

Maggie Yeah, so many great tips just to head into the new year, really get your finances set up for success, whatever, 2025 is going to look like for you. Just to get started as she said, you've just got to make that plan. That's [00:01:00] the first step. And if you're not making the plan, you're already failing, right?

Maggie So we're just going to start there. And I can't wait to see what everyone comments on our posts about their goals.

Barb That'll be really cool. Great. So let's dial in. Let's hear what she has to say.

Maggie: We are so excited to have Cary on the show today. And so before we dive into all our amazing questions, Cary, can you introduce yourself to our communities of women, for those who haven't met you before?

Cary: Sure, my name is Cary Carbonaro. I am [00:02:00] a certified financial planner who has been doing this for 25 plus years. I'm known in the industry as a women in wealth expert because that's what I specialize in. I work with almost exclusively women, which is very rare in my industry. I also wrote 2 books related to women and money.I have 1 that was for the public and 1 that's coming out for the industry on how to work with women that's coming out actually this year.

Barb: Fantastic. Yeah. Of course people will know why you're on our podcast since we're all about women and money and making sure that women have the best financial professionals that they're working with. And so we love to ask you, Cary, like why are women your focus?

Barb: What's important to you about women and money and how did you come to this focus?

Cary: Such a good question. It's interesting because somebody told me a long time ago that your practice mirrors you. And it's so interesting because I never thought about that. But it just happened and I woke up [00:03:00] 20 years later and I said, oh, my gosh, I'm literally the exact same thing as my clients.We have the same net worth. We have the same income we're high performing women. If we're in a relationship where the primary breadwinner or we're business owners. So it's very interesting that's actually just what happened, but for me, honestly, I just chose to work with women because I preferred it.

And there's nothing wrong with working with men. It's just that they have everybody working with them. And how about women? So women, unfortunately, my industry is a male dominated industry. It's 80% men, 20% women, and out of that 20% women, most of them are in support positions.

They're not lead advisor. They're not a rainmaker. They're not hunter gatherer or, all the things that I am. And so I've been called a unicorn a couple of times in my life in this industry. And I guess it's a compliment. I'm not really sure. I'm not really because there's always guys calling me that.

But [00:04:00] anyway, I believe that women need help more n men not less and women just don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about financial planning. They don't want to talk about money. It's just something that's not. We talk about, makeup and plastic surgery and our relationships and we spill our guts about everything in our lives, but nobody knows what's in my bank account.

It's just not something that women talk about. They're uncomfortable with it. They're uncomfortable about not knowing what they don't know. And so I just have always been. There's this book called the 1 thing and it's like the thread within your life and my 1 thing in my entire life has always been being an advocate for women in every stage of my life.

Even from when I was, like, in high school, being, captain of the cheerleading team and, not having people bully people to being in college, just starting a female sorority to make women feel safe when they're away from home. And there was like, a lot of stuff going on back then with [00:05:00] rapes and things like that on campus.

And that was 1 thing that I wanted to create a community for women to feel safe. Then it's just pretty much been the theme throughout my career and my life was always to help women because I felt like they were not getting what they should be getting, especially not from the financial service industry.

It's pretty much my life's work and my life's passion to make women become financially literate, become financially free, not have to rely on a man, have the choices that they can do what they want to do in their lives. And I am living proof of that. I've practiced what I preach and I went through a terrible divorce.

I write about it and all my stuff and I always talk about it, but I went through a terrible divorce from 2008 to 2011. . It was really bad and I was also in an abusive marriage and it was financial infidelity, regular infidelity, abuse. It was like everything you could come up with.

And I always say, if this could happen to me, it could absolutely happen to every single [00:06:00] woman on the planet because people, when they meet me, they're like, no possible way that happened to you. And I'm like, yes, it did. So again, if it happened to me, it can happen to anybody. And so that was my other thing is that I don't want women to be victims.

And that's really important to me, too. So I like to share my story to show if it happened to me and I could get over it, then anybody can get over it. Even though it feels the world is crashing around you and, since then I'm happily remarried and rebuilt my life from those. I guess, crumbles or whatever.

Barb: Yeah, you came out the other side really strong, right? And an advocate for women which is so important. We hear these stories, about these women who find themselves in these dire situations, but they're able to, even at bottom, pull themselves up and really do what they need to do.

Barb: And then they become advocates, which is fantastic. And women need to hear these stories that they can do it, that they can move on, that they can be their own, financially fearless story [00:07:00] of overcoming a lot of the emotional barriers and the other barriers that are in front of us all the time.

Barb: So good for you. That's fantastic. Yeah.

Cary: Yeah, and it's interesting. In my next book, that's coming out. The 1st chapter is my story and it's interesting because my sister who went through it with me says, oh, that's my least favorite chapter in the book. And it's funny. And everybody else that reads it says, that's my favorite chapter in the book but other people, don't know what I went through, it's interesting because I went through 2 horrible things in my life. So not 1, but 2 and I went through horrible marriage and abusive marriage and then divorce. And then also my company, believe it or not, on the same level, my old company got sold to Goldman Sachs and it was the 2nd worst experience of my life, or at least on par with being married to an abusive man. It was the worst personal professional experience of my lifetime and what I had to go through with that and to get out of that and be in [00:08:00] that situation where I was massively discriminated against and everything that happened to me there. I almost didn't make it and I almost gave up and walked away. Luckily, I didn't and I fought for my rights and my clients and walked away, ran out my non compete and started again. On the other side. 

Barb: Now you're an award winning financial advisor.

Cary: I've always been that's never changed. I've been that this whole entire time for 20 something years. So that's never changed. In spite of all the thing, in spite of the challenges. I like women to know that it's never a straight line up ever. It's no such thing.

Maggie: It's so assuring to hear that from other people and it's like whoo I do feel like I'm at my bottom. But she's at her bottom and her top and her bottom and her top again, 

Barb: Yeah.We can always bounce back and we want to talk about this shit as you know That is what this whole podcast is about. And you know with you and your expertise what would you say for starting this new year, we're in [00:09:00] January now. So what are these first steps and creating like an annual plan to help you conquer 2025?

Cary: It's so interesting because I always say, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Right if you don't have a plan, you're never getting where you want to go period. If that means you have to do it on the back of a napkin, or you're using financial software, or you're sitting down with a certified financial planner, whatever it is, you got to get your goals down on paper and you got to figure out what you want and how you want to get there. So that's step 1, right? And also January is my favorite time of year because the fresh, clean start. I always say, to share your financial goals on social media. Because that's a big one because why not? Then people will hold you accountable. You're literally putting it out in the universe to what you're manifesting and then it's going to definitely come true. 

Maggie: That's everyone can post their goals on. So

Barb: just like once 

Maggie: you listen to this episode, go find the post. We will have it [00:10:00] and we will be those friends for you.

Cary: Perfect yeah, as a matter of fact, I actually did this. I said this on Fox and friends once on the January 31st up 1 and I said, share your goals, your financial goals on social media. And people thought I was crazy, but that was like, 10 years ago.

Barb: Wow. Did you hold him to it? Did you go back and check?

Cary: I know I did mine, but I don't know if anybody else did theirs. But it makes them real, 

Maggie: it shares it, it makes it real. It holds you accountable. And I think sometimes just saying what you want, finding what you want is almost the hardest part.

Cary: Absolutely. Well, you have to get clear.

Barb: You're right.

Cary: You have to get clarity, you can't just say, Oh, I want to be a millionaire. Oh maybe you could, but I mean, how are you going to get there? What are you going to do, what behaviors are going to facilitate you becoming a millionaire? One of my favorite books in history is think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill, which is all about the millionaire mindset. And what you're going to do to meet your goals. And I just love that one. [00:11:00] It's not really, it's not about the numbers. That one's not teaching you how to save or invest or anything like that. It's just teaching you up here.

Barb: That's so important because, women have so many poor money stories in their heads that they've incorporated throughout their lifetime. So you're right. It starts with your head about the fact that you can do it. And you can put a goal out there, but Cary share, what are some best next steps? If somebody says, I want to be a millionaire or I want to save 50, 000 or I want to raise or whatever it might be. What are the best next steps from you as an award winning financial professional that you would give to be successful?

Cary: Sure. The 1st step in any financial planning is a budget. What's coming in, what's going out every month and again, also, you could do that on a napkin no special tools. You can use a calculator if you're not good with math, but you need to know what's coming in and what's going out every single month.

Hopefully. There's leftover money in that [00:12:00] budget. And if there's not, you need to do something about it. And if there's not money left over, or there's negative money left over, that means you're in the red, which means you're overspending. And, some of the funny things that people say are, oh, cut out your Starbucks 5 dollars a day.

Okay. That is like ridiculous. Ridiculous, right? That's not going to make a dent in what you're you need to do big things like your housing, your transportation. Get a 2nd job like, and I don't know. I'm literally making it up because I don't know what it looks like. But let's just say you've got 50, 000 coming in and you've got, 55 going out.

That's not sustainable. You're never going to build wealth with that. Okay, so it doesn't matter what you make, you can make million dollars a year and spend 1, 000, 1,000,001 and still be in the red. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you make. It's more matters what you spend and what you do with that money.

I always say that difference of what you're not. The extra money is how you can create [00:13:00] financial freedom. With that extra money there, you can turn around and you can invest it. You can save it. You can pay down debt. It depends on what you look like. Everybody's financial picture is different. So the 2 most important things for people doing planning is budget. What's coming in? What's going out? Which is knowing your numbers and then the 2nd most important 1 is your net worth. And your net worth is your assets minus your liabilities equals your net worth. So assets is what you own.Liabilities is what you owe and then that is your net worth. I like to tell a story that I was meeting with a guy once and I said, what's your net worth? He had a lot of card dealerships and he said, 25Million and I said, okay. What's your debt and he said, 24Million. And I said, your net worth is 1Million and he never came back to me again.So I thought that was very 

Barb: The truth hurts.

Cary: Especially delivered the way I deliver it with complete truth. So [00:14:00] anyway, so you need to know both of those numbers and, I tell my clients, if you're doing everything right and you're listening to me, you're following what I'm telling you to do. You're following the financial plan. You're doing all the right things with money every single year. Your net worth will grow. The only year my clients and my network did not grow was 2008, which, as was the financial crisis and it was a pretty much an anomaly. But by 2009, we were all back up and over where we were. So that was just an absolute disaster year during my lifetime. Other than that. Every year, you should be growing.

Barb: Love it. Love it. Yeah, those are the foundations, the basics. That's what everyone should know. You should always know those numbers. Great place to get started.

Maggie: And I love how you highlighted that it needs to be a big change. It's not always about these onesie twosies cutting out and making every day a bit smaller. Even if you had that 5, 000 difference, 5 coffee every day, that wouldn't even add up, and so it is these big changes of your living situation of [00:15:00] your car or your insurance, or, some of these different

Cary: Yes,

Maggie: things that you can look at because we can't just be keep up these old stories that people tell us of coupon and cut out the coffee and stop shopping.

Maggie: That's not making the difference. That's not making or breaking us most of the time. And so I'm glad you highlighted that because it is these big moves sometimes, which can be more intimidating, but also better for your day to day. Because yeah, if I didn't have my coffee or the things that make me happy, we're not, doesn't matter where we live 

Cary: Right, it is very big. I've told people, some things that they did not want to hear, you need to take on a roommate or you need to give up the boat. I've told people some really hard truths just because it's my job to tell them the truth.

Barb: Yeah, I've heard people say you have to be a little uncomfortable today to have a more comfortable tomorrow what are you willing to do now so that you do have a retirement for yourself.

Cary: It's all about delayed gratification and that's another thing that I like people to put things on autopilot so that they set it and forget it because then they don't have choice. They don't have a choice. It's automatic. It's like [00:16:00] an automatic investing in your 401k automatically investing in your IRA automatically investing in your after tax savings. Just where it's automatically happening where you don't have to think about it, because if you think about it, you're not going to do it or you're going to find a way to spend it on something else. I have a lot of clients where we play tricks and we do things like that. For me, for a long time. I have incredible discipline. So I'm not a normal human being when it comes to this stuff. But for example, I would put. Every money that I would get, I would literally transfer it out of my banking account and put it into my investment account. And then once it's in my investment account, I don't want to take it out. And it's simple. It is just a little transfer, but once it's in the investment account, I'm like, oh, no, it's gone. It's gone. It's it's in my investment account now, so I can't touch it, but it's all how you do it and how you train yourself. And it's a lot of behavioral finance. Why do you do the things you do? What makes you tick? Why? What you said earlier? Barb, about the stories that you have around money, I always like to [00:17:00] hear I love when women give me their stories. But most of the time they're myths that I'm busting a myth busting with them  I get all the time. If I said, I would love to get paid. Every time I hear this story, such and such. Uncle, brother, cousin, friend, whomever lost all their money in the stock market. Have you heard that story

Barb: Sure. 

Cary: And I am like, it is literally impossible. That is a myth. It is impossible unless they Put all their money in a single stock that went bankrupt, which means that was a very stupid thing to do.Really poor. No one would do that they put it in a Ponzi scheme. Also pretty dumb. And also greedy because it's usually because it's a greed thing. Why people get involved in Ponzi's or. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Those are the two things is single stock that went bankrupt or Ponzi. And under my watch, that would [00:18:00] never happen. So I just think that's funny when people say that whole story of why they're afraid to invest.

Barb: Yeah, it just shows that they're uncertain. They've heard these stories from people and they believed them. They haven't learned any differently. So that's why the stock market is a great investment and people don't always take advantage and we see that women, you know a lot of them will put their money in a bank.

Cary: Yeah, yep. And what I like to use my 2 favorite charts that I use with my clients. 1 is called the Ibbotson chart and that goes back from I don't know, 1920, maybe to today and it gives you a line for small stocks, mid large stocks bonds, cash and inflation. And it almost looks like a straight line up. That's the amazing part of it. And I go through and I'm a history major undergraduate, so I love history and I go through and I point out World War I, world War II, the Great Depression. The oil embargo of the seventies the [00:19:00] 1986 crash, the, nine 11 the financial crisis and like financial crisis was the worst in our lifetime. And you can barely see it . Funny when I tell people that they're like, wow, I wish somebody would have shown this to me earlier. It makes me less scared and I'm like, that's exactly the point of this. And then I also use my other favorite chart is the calan chart. C. A. L. A. N. and that goes through and shows. Usually it's about a 25 to 30 year timeframe and it shows each asset class what it actually did and it's in color. And the colors rotate all over the chart and it's really nice to see. I like to tell people, nobody knows where any asset class is going over time. It's everything rotates in and out of favor and so that you're, you have a little bit in each asset class and you'll always be at the top, always be at the bottom, always have a little bit of everything. So I like that chart too.

Barb: Awesome. I love as an educator, visuals like that show people just in a snapshot, you can learn so much from it. So those are fantastic.

Cary: Thank [00:20:00] you. Yeah, they're great.

Maggie: the next question I had for you is like, What if January, we made it through the holidays and so what if you know that 2025 has something big in store, either high or low, like you're going to have a baby, you're planning on getting divorced, maybe you're planning on moving, like what are some considerations if your next 12 months are not going to be this easy breezy financial planning scenario.

Cary: I always tell people they should have already had their emergency fund.

Cary: And if they knew that was happening, they should have done it the year before. 

Barb: Yeah.

Cary: So everybody should always have the three to six months emergency fund. That's the standard in cash or cash equivalence. And then if you're gonna have some crazy thing happen, like you're gonna be out of work 'cause you're having a baby or you're going through a divorce, you should be stockpiling cash.

Cary: When I went through my divorce, which lasted four years. And cost me 250, 000 in attorney's fees. I would not have gotten through that if I didn't have my [00:21:00] stockpile of cash. And what happens is women give up. They stop fighting because they run out of money or

Cary: there's even things called, legal funding, divorce, legal funding, where you pay to try to continue fighting because women just get beat up and run out of money. And that's what most of the time that, the spouse on the other side is hoping for. So that's why women I see in most cases get.

Cary: Terrible divorce settlements but it does, of course, depend on the attorney and the situation and the ex spouse. So I've seen some good ones, but I've mainly seen bad ones.

Maggie: we hear a lot about just getting exhausted and throwing in that towel, just wanting it to be done, but to stick with it because those have some long term financial effects. And so funny when you say stockpile cash, I always just think of like people putting money under their mattresses, like literally stockpiling.

Maggie: But it is, like you said, in a bank and high yield savings account where you can get your hands on that cash. Really just be prepared for whatever comes your way.

Cary: Exactly. If you're working with a financial planner, they're always going to [00:22:00] have you ready for that scenario of what's coming next. And, how is that going to affect me? And what if I'm out of work and all of that stuff? So we're always planning for what if. And worst case scenarios and best case scenarios. It's part of my day job of what I do, with my clients when it comes to that stuff. It's definitely life throws things at you that you just don't know. You can again, not a straight line up. It doesn't go you're going to get curveballs and in the mix. And so you just have to be prepared for them whatever that looks like.

Barb: Yeah, so we know that, stockpiling money or making sure you have access to cash is so important. What are some other typical mistakes people make that they need to get in front of?

Cary: So you talking about annual or just in general?

Barb: In general, I think.

Cary: I see that people mistakes that I see is people are in the wrong investments. I see that a lot. I see that, women again, don't want to talk about this. Don't want to look at it. I've seen 401ks [00:23:00] that have been in cash their entire lives because they don't want to I know that's a really  painful big 1, because they don't even realize that. And they're like, but I want to be safe. And I'm like, this is long term money. I go back to the chart. I show him the chart. You are giving up, potentially 10 percent a year by sitting in cash. Obviously the last 2 years have been incredibly good for cash, but total anomaly because cash is always the worst performing asset class except for during a financial crisis or because rates were high, over the past 2 years because of inflation, but you're still barely beating inflation even with cash. So you have to be invested in the market. So that's the 1st thing. 2nd thing is. I'm not investing in your 401k or not taking advantage of the free money that you're getting with your match. When people tell me, I can't afford to put money in my 401k. I tell them you can't afford not to put money in your 401k.

You're literally. Like shooting yourself in the foot. [00:24:00] So I see that and that kills me. I'm like, I don't care. You will never miss, even if you do 3 percent and they match 3%, you will never miss 3 percent pre tax. It's 2 percent coming out of your paycheck. It's nothing. It's pennies on the dollar. So you'll never miss it. And then each year I tell people to up it 1 percent so that it automatically just keeps happening. And then before you know it, you have a 6 figure nest egg 

Barb: Right. 

Cary: by the time, hopefully, by the time you're 30, if you started 22. So that's another thing you have to start it. You have to start right immediately at 22 other mistakes. I see people make is not being aggressive enough in the market with women, again, I don't want to lose money. Okay. You're not losing money unless you sell it. And take a loss, which you're not doing in your retirement account, or in anything that, I'm usually managing for you.  It's not happening. I won't let you do it. I'm not going to let you take that loss. So you're not taking a loss. You may temporarily lose money because the market goes down, but you're not actually losing any money. It's just a loss. [00:25:00] So I go through that with them. And that's another thing, because women have longevity more than men.

So we need more money, not less money. And yet we're less risky in the market. So it's like a double edged sword, and then women also have the fact that they spend more money on. We make less money because of the pay wage gap. We spend more money on health care and retirement. So we have a lot of strikes against us. And then also women put prioritize other people before themselves.

Barb: Crazy, right? Especially as women are coming into this largest transference of wealth, our fear is they're going to give it away instead of take this opportunity to invest in their own financial future.

Cary: Yep, yep. And so it's the children it's whomever. It might even be the spouse. It's just they don't put themselves 1st. And, that thing that they say on the airplane, you put your mask on before you can help others. You have to make sure you're financially free before you give the money away or do anything with it like that. So that's another mistake. I see women not itemizing on their [00:26:00] tax return, which I know is been changing because of the new tax law. But, there's ways to be able to take advantage of itemization on your tax return. And also, if you're giving to charity, and you're not itemizing, you're not even getting to take that deduction, and another big mistake when it comes to charity is people giving cash to charities. For charity, rather than giving appreciated securities or appreciated assets. So if you give an appreciated asset to charity, not only do you get the deduction on your tax return, but you also save on capital gains So it's a win. Whereas if you just give cash. You get the deduction, but you don't get to save on taxes.

Barb: Right.

Cary: That's a little bit more of an advanced strategy, but that's something that I see. I see people either over withholding or under withholding in taxes. And both of which are not great, because over withholding, you're giving an interest free loan to the government. Under withholding, you might have to owe and pay [00:27:00] penalties and taxes. So I don't like either of those, obviously, that's hard to get the sweet spot in the middle where it's perfect. But, you can do it. I think people don't take advantage of all the benefits that their employers give them. There's a lot of gold in those benefits and people don't even know what's in there because, it's a big package this thick and there's really great things in there flexible savings accounts and tuition reimbursement and a million different things.

Maggie: And they're things you're already working 40 hours a week for so they're you know, you earn them, they're yours. You should really take advantage of them. Of those benefits because that's part of your paycheck you get your income and then you get this match and then you get these other benefits as well and yeah those need to be taken advantage of you're already working for them.

Maggie: You're already getting them. So just use them.

Cary: Exactly, I think also being in the wrong mix of investments too. Like knowing your risk tolerance and it's interesting because risk tolerance is a very difficult concept to understand because it's what your comfort [00:28:00] level is with risk. So what that means is most of my clients will just say, I don't ever want to lose money.

Barb: Yeah.

Cary: Right

Barb: Who does?

Cary: when the market's going up, they want to be 100 percent in the market. And when the market's down, they want to be 0 in the market. So it's a fluid thing and it's very difficult to capture. But the reality is. You should be in a mix of, stocks and bonds and make sure that you're in all the different asset classes and not just, most of my clients right now seem to be overweighted in large cap, just because large caps done so well over the last couple of years. And so everybody's overweighted in US large cap. So that's something I'm trying to address with my clients and broaden out what we've got in their portfolios. So that's a good thing.

Barb: Awesome. What a fantastic list. You've covered a lot. 

Maggie: Yeah, definitely. That's a lot of great information. And so if somebody is, wondering if they're diverse enough or if they're being risky enough, how is this something that somebody can like assess or be like, Cary's right. I need [00:29:00] to do more of this, or I am in that sweet spot.

Cary: so there is probably risk tolerance questionnaires online. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I know probably Vanguard has, and probably fidelity has probably Schwab has them and just literally. See, if just go through and ask yourself the question. So there's also behavioral finance tools that will tell you that I don't know if they're all online and they're all free, but you could just Google it and see what you find. Because mine are not minor, mine are like ones I have to pay for my clients. 

Barb: Yeah, it should give you a good idea. And if you're working with a good financial professional, they should be able to ensure that you're aligned with that as well. Do you suggest taking those every so often to see if your risk tolerance has changed? 

Cary: Hey, maybe every five years just because of life situations and usually even when I changed with risk tolerance, we tweak it. We don't like, let's say you're at 60 percent stocks, 40 percent bonds. If you want it to be more aggressive, I would go [00:30:00] 70 percent stocks, 30% bonds, like I usually only tweak by, five to 10%.

Cary: So just because you're not gonna, throw everything out and start over. 

Barb: Exactly. This has been fantastic. I love Cary, the energy that you bring, the intelligence, the smarts that you have. We have one last question that we want to ask. We ask everybody, and that is, what does financial freedom look like to you?

Cary: Okay? So you are gonna love my answer. To me, financial freedom is all about choices, right? And for me, if I am able to make more money from my investments than I do from my day job. That's financial freedom.

Barb: Love it.

Maggie: Yeah. That's great way to just end this right there. That's a mic drop. 

Barb: You got it.

Maggie: So thank you, Cary, for coming on today and sharing your expertise. We're going to have the links to your books and your social media and anywhere else where you want people to reach out to you. We'll have all that in the show notes. Do you know the date yet for your next [00:31:00] book coming out?

Cary: Yes. It's April 29th, 2025.

Maggie: Okay. Awesome. So we'll be on the lookout for that. So very exciting stuff. Thank you for coming on today and sharing your expertise. And remember ladies, whatever, action you are ready to take, Purse Strings has free online access to our vetted professionals who can really help you navigate those life next transitions. So thank you again, and we'll talk to everyone soon. Be financially fearless.