Could One Conversation Change Everything About Your Finances?

In this insightful episode of the Wealth Wise Women Podcast, host Wes Cuprill dives into the often-taboo topic of discussing personal finance openly. Broadcasting from his home office, Wes explores a recent Kiplinger article that sheds light on the consequences of not talking about money, especially for women. With eye-opening statistics, he emphasizes the importance of financial education and encourages listeners to break the silence around money matters.

Wes shares practical tips on how to make financial conversations less daunting, starting with open discussions between spouses. He stresses the need for both partners to be informed about their financial situation to avoid potential pitfalls, as illustrated by a poignant case study. Additionally, Wes advocates for personal financial education and the importance of having individual assets for security.
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Transcript

>> Wes Cuprill: 0:00

Instead of talking about politics at the dinner table, why don't we talk about finance? I certainly think it will lead to a lot less fights at, Thanksgiving or Christmas. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Wealth Wise Woman podcast. My name is Wes Cuprill and if you've been watching the show, you may have noticed we're in a little bit of a different setting for this episode. I thought I'd try shooting, from my home office this time. But in this week's episode, what I wanted to talk about was another article that I came across recently. Now, I'm always trying to do my research when it comes to personal finance for women. I want to read everything that I possibly can, and I especially want to stay up with all of the current events. So I came across an article that was just published yesterday in Kiplinger, and I've included the link to this article in the text description of this episode, if you'd like to go read it yourself. But I wanted to go through it with you because the topic is very, very relevant. In this article, the author goes on to discuss the taboo that surrounds talking about money and how if you don't talk about money, it can have drastic consequences in the long term. First, though, a few stats did stand out that the author cites in the article. I just thought they were worth mentioning. 45% of women answered personal finance questions correctly in a recent survey test, compared to 55% for men. So there is still a gap when it comes to knowledge around personal finance between men and women. It's a lot of the reason why our goal and Money and Clarity is ensuring we educate every client that comes in through the door. 61% of married men make all the financial decisions, compared to just 38% of married women. I think it highlights, again, a lot of the, for lack of a better term, disconnect in a lot of marriages where one person handles all the financial decisions and another doesn't. I'm going to talk a little bit about that more here in a second. And then 82% of women say that they wish they knew more about one financial topic or another. So again, it goes back to the education piece. We're always trying to do every single thing that we can to educate all of our clients, and part of that right now is the podcast. And then on top of that, we also have the Money and Clarity Investor Academy, which, if you haven't signed up for it, I highly encourage you to do so. It's free. Just simply go to the investoracademy.net. but really what this article is trying to say is that we need to make talking about money less taboo. And I've even mentioned that in, a past episode. We need to be more comfortable discussing money, not just with our, partners, but frankly, with everybody else. I'm not saying that you need to go out and say, hey, this is how much I made this year. This is how much I'm worth. But I think it's very, very worthwhile to have candid conversations with people that you know about various strategies that they are employing to build their own wealth. I mean, heck, instead of talking about politics at the dinner table, why don't we talk about finance? I certainly think it will ll lead to a lot less fights at, Thanksgiving or Christmas. But I digress. This episode of the Wealthwise Women podcast is brought to you by Money and Clarity. Wall street likes to make personal finance and investing complicated, but we are here to tell you that it isn't. But saving and investing for your future can bring with its stress, emotions and uncertainty, as well as many questions like how much do I need to have saved for retirement? What happens if the market declines? And probably the most important question of all, will I be okay? That's where we come in. Not only can we help simplify the financial planning process, we can also help guide you through all the emotions and uncertainty that come with planning for your future. So give us a call today at 513-563-7526 or go to visitwithm.com to schedule a free no obligation consultation. We'll discuss how we might be able to help you achieve your financial goals and provide you peace of mind, knowing that you will be okay. There's a few tips though, that I do have as it relates to sort of one step at a time making the conversation less tab though. Now, the first tip that I have is that if you are married, talk to your spouse. We need to make it normal for all couples to be on the same page when it comes to finances. Now, one person can be more in charge of a lot of the financial decisions, but it's very, very important that each partner knows where all the money is and how much the couple has. You know, make sure that also all of your emergency plans are in place. In this article that I'm talking about today, the author talks about a case study she had where a husband died and the wife didn't know anything about their financial situation and he didn't have an estate plan put into place so all of their assets got Tied up in probate, which can be a long process. And as a result, she ended up taking a job in fast food because she was very, very concerned about paying her bills. Now, thankfully, it turned out that the husband actually had a lot of money put away. There were $7 million in their accounts, and when she finally got access to it, the wife was in a good financial position. But if they had had this conversation before he passed, and they made sure that a solid estate plan was in place, none of this would have been an issue, and the wife would have been simply grieving the loss of her spouse rather than also dealing with all of the, trouble with navigating the legal landscape around inheriting assets. Second point, get educated. I'm going to say this probably in every single episode. We can't be educated enough. I myself am always learning. I'm always trying to figure out what's new in the personal finance world. So I highly encourage you to consume all the resources out there that you can to get educated on personal finance. Third, have your own assets. Ladies, I'm, not talking about practicing financial infidelity, as we call it, where you have your own money squirreled away that the partner doesn't know about, and you're spending money that your partner doesn't know. But I do think it's very important that every person in a married couple has their own assets, their own bank accounts, and their own retirement accounts. It's not to say that you're going to get divorced. Nobody wants that. It's not to say that you're going to be widowed at an early age. But I think it's very important, just for your own personal security, that you do have your own assets. Should something unfortunate happen. You aren't, you know, in a completely bad situation. Another point, talk with your friends and family. I just mentioned this earlier. Have these conversations, okay? I myself am always having conversations with my friends about various things that they're doing. I'm learning from them. And I'm the financial experts in my group of friends. So really, you know, start having these conversations, Figure out what people are doing, what savings accounts are they invested in. You know, maybe somebody knows about a high yield savings account of 5% that you didn't know about. And so you can end up moving your money to that or find out what various investments they're in that have been working, find out who they're working with. You know, perhaps, a friend of yours has a great advisor, and you want to reach out to that advisor yourself and start working with Them it's very important that we really decrease the taboo that exists around money. And then the last point I have is this. If you and your spouse can't agree on certain things, I highly encourage you to consult a professional. You can consult a financial advisor like myself, a certified financial planner like myself, or you can even go out there and find somebody who specializes in financial counseling where they work with couples on figuring out ways to work through any disagreements when it comes to money. See, the right advisor isn't just about the numbers. I honestly think you can go out there yourself and invest in things that perform just as well as somebody who say is working with an advisor. The true value of somebody like me is helping you with a lot of the intangibles and helping you you with things that you may not know yourself. And then it's also counseling. When it comes to couples, we really work hard to make sure that all of our couples who work with us are on the same page financially. And we help them work through any challenges that they might have financially, especially if they can't see eye to eye on things. Now there's one important thing that I need to note here. I do not recommend that you and your spouse have different advisors. I liken this to having multiple doctors for yourself. You're not going to go to numerous doctors and get different strategies for your health from each different doctor. Because one strategy could be completely conflicting with another and overall, that can be detrimental to your overall health. It's the same thing when it comes to finances. When somebody comes to work with us, let's just say it's a single person. We don't work with them, if they already have an existing advisor because we believe that our strategy could be different than the other advisor strategy and they could end up canceling each other out. It's the same with couples. We recommend that couples only work with one advisor because their existing strategy could be completely different than the one that we'd recommend and they could end up conflicting. So you're and your spouse, I highly encourage you to have just one single advisor who can put together a comprehensive, detailed strategy that is holistic and unique to your all situation and then, you know, allows all the pieces to work together and you don't have multiple strategies from multiple advisors. Again, I encourage you. If you think money is a taboo subject, try and get outside your comfort zone and talk about it more. Especially if you and your spouse don't talk about financees much. Have that conversation, sit down and make sure you have a full understanding of everything that you guys have and where all of it is. And if you'd like to meet at any point to discuss this episode or anything else as it relates to personal finance, just go to visitwith mc.com and book a time on my calendar that works best for you. That being said, I hope you enjoyed this week's episode, and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you.