Investing 101: A Conversation with Chloé Daniels

If the phrase “investing in the stock market” makes your brain want to nope out of the conversation, this one’s for you. Meg sits down with financial educator and Money Bear podcast host Chloe (CloBear Money Coach) to talk about lazy investing—the simple, boring, low-drama strategy that actually works.

Instead of day trading, stock-picking, or trusting some guy in a vest who won’t explain anything, Chloe breaks down how to build a long-term investing plan that’s automated, sustainable, and doesn’t require you to become a full-time finance nerd. 

You’ll walk away with a clearer sense of what to avoid, where to start, and how to make your first (or next) investing moves way less overwhelming.

⏱️ In This Episode:

00:00 Meet Chloe (CloBear) & Lazy Investing

02:30 What “Lazy Investing” Really Is

04:40 First Investing Mistakes, Robinhood & Meme Stocks

07:02 Why You Need Education Even with an Advisor

08:20 Advisors vs. Fiduciaries & How to Vet Them

14:40 The True Cost of Fees, Commissions & Complexity

24:54 Culture, Identity & Skepticism About the Stock Market

27:30 IULs, Whole Life & Fear-Based Sales Tactics

33:04 “You’re Not a Rockefeller”: Start Simple & Focused

36:30 Where to Start If You Feel Behind

🔗 Mentioned in This Episode:

👉 CloBear (Chloe’s site) → https://clobear.com
👉 Chloe on Instagram → @clobearmoneycoach
👉 Chloe on TikTok → @clobearmoneycoach

💬 Connect with Us:

🌐 Website → https://equitablemoneyproject.com
📸 Instagram → https://instagram.com/equitablemoneyproject
🎧 Podcast → https://equitablemoneyproject.com/podcast

🚀 Your Next Step:

Ready to make your money match your values and start investing in a way that feels doable? Download our free Wealth is Resistance Action Kit → https://equitablemoneyproject.com/kit

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome back to another episode of Disrupt Your Money. And I am super excited to be here today with Chloe, who is the incredible financial guru person in the world talking about investing. So, Chloe, thanks so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Yeah, thanks for having me. It's always such a pleasure talking to you. We had uh Meg come on the Money Bear podcast. Gosh, it was probably six months ago to talk about all things equitable money. And uh it was such a good conversation. And I feel like I really put you in the hot chair for some like big questions where I'm like, Meg, how do you change the world? Essentially, and you're just like, uh yeah, okay, I guess that's what we're doing. So so now you can put me in the hot seat.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

I love it. I love it. Well, let's start off with something super easy. Tell folks a little bit about you, what you do now, how you help people. Give us the scoop.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Yeah, so I am a money coach and I teach people through free content as well as paid programs about the basics of money. So we have everything from you know debt payoff to budgeting. Um, but really my special sauce is teaching people how to invest. I am somebody with a creative background. I studied English and Spanish in college. I was a writer. I wasn't somebody who ever would have thought that she'd be interested in money, uh, especially not investing. And through my own financial journey and discovering just how powerful it feels to become your own money expert and to understand what's going on with your finances and understanding how to freaking retire and invest and stuff like that, I was just like, wow, way more people need to understand that one, it's not that complicated. Two, you can and should be doing it yourself most of the time. And three, even if you want somebody else to do it for you, you still need to have the language and understanding in order to make sure that whoever's managing it for you, whoever's doing it, whether it's your dad, your brother, your uncle, your friend down the street, or your financial advisor, you need to understand what they're doing. Because even financial advisors out there, and even some fiduciaries out there may not actually know what's best for you or may be guessing based off of the information that you gave them. So I'm a huge advocate of self-education, and that's really what I focus on is empowering people with the information that they need to understand their finances.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

And what I love so much about what you do is that you make it really easy and you call it lazy investing.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Well, because when I was, when I was thinking about like investing in my 20s, or and I mean, I use thinking lightly. It's not like I was ever thinking about investing. Because in my mind, when I used to work with a bunch of engineers, when they would all start talking about, oh, it's so exciting, we now have a Roth 401k option. And, you know, are you investing in your Roth IRA and all this stuff? I just like would smile and nod, not even understanding what a 401k was. And I remember thinking, like, I just have no interest in this. Like, I don't care if this means I have to save, you know, until I didn't, I didn't have a concept on how people retire. I didn't understand the pro. I just thought I would like work forever. And so, you know, it was just a stroke of luck that I had a moment of clarity that was like, I need to figure this out and started slowly figuring it out. But it was like, I had no interest in paying attention to what the stock market is doing every day. I have no interest in like, you know, spending a ton of time managing my money. I just wanted something that's easy and like I can set it up, automate it, and like essentially forget about it. Um, and I think most people want that. Most people, most of us don't have time. No. And I think go ahead. I was gonna say, and the thing is, like, the more you learn in the investing world and the money world is that easy works, easy scales, and easy is often, especially in the investing world, lazy's better. Like most of the time, lazy is gonna do better than the folks who've got, you know, a master's in finance and are day trading on Wall Street.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

No, no one should be day trading. No one's back right now. No one. Yes. I mean, like my former corporate career was I worked for Harvard University's endowment, and they do a lot of interesting investing. You know, I mean, they're not just putting the money in the stock market and letting it sit. Sure. But even they're not really day trading, you know, like investing in different assets, but they're not day trading.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Right. And it's like so many of us who are the average Joes of the world, which is most of us, most of us who are saving for retirement, you know, we often enter in through like something like Robinhood or something like that, you know, some fun new app that we heard about. Um, and we all think that we are better at picking individual stocks than we actually are. But like I'll all on my like free webinar when I have people come and we teach them about investing. Um, I'll always ask them about Robin Hood if that was their first experience. And like so many of them, I'm like, did you pick an ETF based off of the name? So many of us do that. I did that. Where you're like, you know what? That sounds cool. I'm into tech. Yeah, maybe wind turbines, I don't know, solar energy. You know, you're just picking it off of names sometimes because you don't even understand how to read like what the fund is. And then even if you do understand like what the fund is, you don't understand like what it all means. So it's just, it's we're all a little too confident until we start losing money, and then we pull it out and we lock in our losses. So it's like most of us, that's why we think investing is risky and it is scary.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

So it's funny you say that because the first non-retirement investing I did was a couple years ago. And I was like, I'm gonna just take a thousand bucks, just throw it in a it was Robin Hood, throw it in a Robin Hood, have some fun with it. And I went in knowing that it was more about learning and having fun than anything. The way I picked my stocks was I thought of all the restaurants I liked to go to or all the stores I like to shop at. So my basically my stocks are like margaritas, tacos. That's amazing. Yeah, so people like you need to eat more tacos.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Yeah, well, and that's why, like, you know, even conventional advice out there is invest in what you know or what you like. And it's like, that's not actually good investing advice. Like, just go buy all of them. You have no idea what's gonna happen over the next 10, 20 years. And and the thing is too, those subscription services that you can buy, those like YouTube finance bros who are telling you what stocks to pick, you really can't trust that stuff because there are always ulterior motives. There's there's been um YouTubers who have been sued for pump and dump schemes, like massive pump and dump schemes. So it's like you gotta be really careful about who you trust, especially in the individual uh stocks trading space, because everybody's got an ulterior motive, including your financial advisor, including your fiduciary, unfortunately. So again, that goes back to why it's so important to educate yourself. Because one, we are bad judges of what what our own capabilities are sometimes. Uh and I I'm curious, was it, would you say your Robin Hood experience was fun? Or was it not actually fun?

SPEAKER_00 7:19

I mean, so it it actually was fun for me, but again, I went in with the expectation that I'm just having fun. I mean, I I definitely lost a lot of money, but that wasn't their fault. I mean, it was because the like I went in at the worst time and then the market came down quite a bit. And I've moved it over and now reinvested. But I mean, it was fun, but I went in being okay with losing.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Right, right. Which so many people that and that's the thing is like I'm not anti-individual stocks. I'm not saying you should never own an individual stock. I'm saying most people should have a foundation of lazy investing through index funds, which we can talk about what index funds are, because I'm sure people are like, this is jargon, I don't understand. But like, I think most people should have a foundation of the lazy investments. And then if you want to take some money that you're willing to gamble with and you're willing to pick some individual stocks and you're like, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm willing to take a bet on this, that's okay. You just really need to understand the risks of the decisions that you're making.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

A hundred percent. And I'm I'm glad you brought up the jargon because I wanted to ask you to clarify um for the sake of our listeners a couple of things because you keep talking about financial advisor, fiduciary. Can you talk a little bit about that and how you talk about that in your course?

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Yeah, um, so again, I know it may sound like I'm totally anti-financial advisor, totally anti-fiduciary, and that's not true. It's just unfortunately there are a lot of bad financial advisors out there. There are a lot of financial advisors who will take advantage of people, or there's also a lot of people who don't know how to communicate what they actually want. So your financial advisor or fiduciary may think they're doing what's best for you, but you didn't know how to communicate with them. So actually, what you need, you know, you maybe went in there and I've seen this happen with clients. You maybe went in there and was like, I'm terrified and stressed and so anxious about investing my money in the stock market. Please make sure I don't lose any money in the stock market. And then you're 25 years old and they put you 100% in bonds or they put your money in cash. And it's like, because they had to listen to what you said and what you came to the table with was fear. So they're like, Well, we're, you know, even though you're 25 and you have no business investing in bonds, we are, you know, we're gonna put you 100% in. So that's um that's that's I want to do that disclaimer in advance is like I'm not against them necessarily. I'm against people making um decisions without any education and understanding, and I'm against blindly giving somebody control over your money, your biggest, your biggest resource in this world. So, what is a financial advisor? What is a fiduciary? So, a financial advisor is like a not regulated term where pretty much anyone can call themselves a financial advisor. It doesn't mean that they have any licenses, it doesn't mean that they have anything necessarily. They may sell insurance products, they may have a license to sell insurance products, they may have a license to sell uh individual securities, they uh, you know, they may be able to sell you bonds. But essentially, financial advisor is very like a generic term. Um, but that's problematic because if it's a generic term that's not regulated, like I said, anybody can call themselves a financial advisor, even if they're actually just an insurance salesman. Um, so when we're talking about working with a financial advisor or a financial professional, most of the time when we're working with a financial professional, we want to be sure we're working with somebody who works under the fiduciary standard. So a financial advisor who sells you life insurance or who who is not um who isn't uh licensed in any way, doesn't have a CFP, is likely working under the f uh under the suitability standard. So the difference between the suitability standard and the fiduciary standard is suitable, means that this sweater may suit you. You know, I'm gonna sell you this sweater. You know, it may not be the color you like, it may not fit you very well, but you know, it suits you. It's okay. Like it it solves the problem essentially. So it's very it's good enough.

unknown 11:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Whereas a fiduciary has to do everything they can to make sure that what they are recommending you or what they are selling you is the absolute best possible thing for you. Because if it is not, they are liable. They are somebody you could sue and say, you worked under the fiduciary standard, you were supposed to give me the best possible thing. Um, but here you are giving me, you know, bonds and I'm 25 years old. The issue is, is like that sounds great, right? But the issue is number one, because of that liability, because of that fiduciary standard and that concern of like, I gotta make sure, there's a good chance they're gonna be a little bit more conservative with your money, which could be good, it could be bad. And most of the time, it's not necessarily the right fit for you, but they've got to make sure that they're covering their ass. Sorry, I don't know if we can cuss on this.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

I was like, I should have asked first. Um, so but they gotta cover their ass. They got to make sure that they're, you know, based off of what vibe you brought into that office on that first time, whether you had any information or not, they've got to make sure that they're putting you in into a portfolio that they're not gonna get sued for. They don't, they don't want to get sued. Um, and then on the flip side of things, like like we were talking about earlier, you may have gone in there saying something that caused them, they're not gonna educate you most of the time. They don't have time to educate you. And even if they do educate you, they're not educators. They don't know how necessarily to take a super complicated topic that they have done hours and hours of education on, especially if they're a CFP, which I highly recommend. If you are gonna work with a professional, you wanna make sure they're a CFP, you want to make sure they're a fiduciary, but they're not there to teach you, they're there to like help you along the way and listen to what you have to say and then make decisions based off of what you are communicating to them. But how do they know what's best for you if you don't even know how to communicate what you need and what your actual concerns are? So that's where it's like, yes, there are these systems in place to try and protect people, but we have to know how to protect ourselves. We have to know and have the language to be able to make sure that anybody who's doing anything for us is doing what's in our best interest, which I know is frustrating because it's like, man, I can't be an expert in the healthcare system and figuring out my insurance, and then now I also have to be an expert in my money. And the good news is that like it takes less than 10 hours to fully understand what you're doing in the stock market, you know, and maybe that's gonna need some repetition. Let's say at most it takes you 20 hours, right? But it's really not as complicated as the system likes you to believe it is. Um, and then the other side that we were talking earlier about. Sorry, I'm going on and on because it's like this is so helpful. I'm so passionate about it because it's like, again, I'm like, I'm not against people using these services, but you have to go in with the knowledge. Because here's the thing your CFP, which CFP is a certified financial planner. I have a high respect for CFPs. Um, they are fiduciaries, they take a ton of education in order to, and they have to take hours, like over a hundred hours of practice in order to work in the industry. Your standard financial advisor, yeah, not the same thing, not even remotely close. Um what I was gonna say is you also have to keep in mind is that this these services are not free. Working with a financial advisor, working with CFP, you're either going to be paying asset under management or front load fees, backload fees. You could be paying uh commissions, you could be paying fees every single time that you're buying something. So those fees that you're paying, and keep in mind, if you notice, like, hmm, my financial advisor's really pushing this one product, but I don't understand it, the reason they're probably pushing it onto you is because they're gonna get a big commission from it. So you gotta keep in mind they benefit from you not understanding, they benefit from you not learning, they benefit from you not educating yourself. So where's the incentive for them to say, yeah, I want to make sure Meg really understands what's inside of this portfolio? There's really not, there's not a lot of incentive there. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

No, there's not. And I'm I'm so glad you brought up the fee thing because I think that if I hear anything all the time, it's people come to me, oh, my financial advisor told me to do this or told me to do that. Well, it turns out it's you either usually charging a AUM, you know, assets under management. Um, they're buying and selling all the time because they're getting more and more commissions.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

And, you know, our community, you know, our clients are sitting here thinking, this person's really helping me. They're making all these great decisions. Are they? What they're doing is really lining their pockets.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Or are they a salesman? Yeah. Exactly. And that's like, and you won't know until you have the education you need to really go in and look at what has been placed in front of you. And, you know, that's one of my favorite things about like we have a course, the lazy investors course. It's a community of people who are learning how to who are learning how to invest the lazy way. And one of my favorite things is that so many women in there, when they complete the program, they're like, I fired my financial advisor. Or better yet, their financial advisor fired them for asking too many questions. I love it. Yeah, and it's like, it's like he did you a favor. And here's the thing we have found so many horrendous mistakes with financial advisors. That's what I'm telling you. Not all financial advisors are not created equally. We've had somebody who had been working with a financial advisor for years and didn't invent, didn't reinvest the dividends. Didn't reinvest the dividends, sitting there in cash. They were just sitting there in cash, which over like a hundred-year period. Now, granted, not most people are not invested for a hundred-year period, but that could be like a four million dollar mistake over the long term. So it's it's huge. The way that it cuts your returns. And for those who are listening, if you're like, wait, what? Just Google, Google the S P 500 averaging your returns with dividends reinvested and without, and you will be shook. Huge difference. It's a huge difference. And he so she had like 20 grand just sitting in cash doing absolutely nothing. Um, you know, and I've had other people who it's like they found out that their advisor was charging them like 8% in fees every single month. Yeah, it's it's it's just it's craziness. So anyway, sorry, sorry for that side rant.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

No, it's so good because you're also reminding me. I just said this to a client the other day, you're reminding me about the story of the old woman who found out that her like IRA or Roth IRA or whatever it was on never been invested. She'd been putting it in every month, every month, every month, but never actually invested it in anything.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Heartbreaking. And it's heartbreaking you can do.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Exactly. And I love this fly that's attacking me. If you're watching the video, you can see it. But if you're listening, you can't. It's like the last 10 minutes, I've been swatting. Um, but yeah, there's nothing you can do, and that's why it's so important to understand this stuff. And I actually want to go back to something you mentioned at the very beginning, which is we're never really taught this stuff. It's what you know, you said uh money is our biggest, most viable resource. We're never taught this stuff. Nobody really understands. And I would say, you know, we work with um business owners. I would say that if you're a W-2 employee, most people don't understand it because they've got a 401k at work, probably. Maybe they put money in, maybe they don't. But I think when you become a business owner, you're almost forced to start understanding it because then your options are so much broader. Uh, and you're kind of you're forced to figure out like what the heck is all this stuff. And so it's a lot of people in this world who don't understand this stuff. And it's it's literally not a part of our education growing up. And I'm a huge proponent for financial education in school. Uh, it's something I think should be absolutely mandatory and it's not, but I guess I'm I'm curious kind of your thoughts on um, you know, I mean, and we think about you, you joked at the beginning how you asked me, how do we change the world? So, how do we change the world? How do we get people to learn this stuff sooner? Financial literacy, yeah. Yeah, like how do how do we make that difference? And and I'd just love to hear you speak on that.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Yeah, I it's a complicated problem because and it's a complicated solution because yes, I I love the idea of getting financial literacy into schools, but the issue with that is one picking the right content. Because if the content is never relevant to them, then you know, and if they're not using it in the real world, it's gonna be just like all that other stuff that we learned in high school and grade school that went in one ear, we memorized it for the test, and now we don't like I couldn't tell you every capital in the country, you know. So it's like no idea. Uh I think that's the issue is that we've got to introduce it at a time where it's the most relevant. Um, and when that is the most relevant is, you know, it's it's it's different for each topic. So it's like investing is not gonna be relevant to anybody in high school, and it's probably not gonna be relevant uh even in college. It's not going to be relevant until you actually sit down at your first job and you've got a 401k. Now, granted, some kids, like I've been working since I was nine years old. If somebody had taught me how to invest and made me invest from the time I was nine years old, I'd have a quite different net worth than what I have right now, hopefully. Well, theoretically, who knows? I mean, money burned a hole in my pocket back then. Somebody would have had to force me to do it. Um, you know, but I have seen really wonderful examples of financial education on the internet, um, where, you know, there's like teachers who have an entire mini economy in their class. My concern about putting it in the classrooms is teachers are already so overburdened. Um and teachers aren't necessarily experts on money either. So it's like figuring a way to introduce it in a way that doesn't already overburden our education system, that we're also getting the right information into people's hands and that it's getting to them at the right time is I think a difficult bridge to cross. Granted, anything is better than what we've got right now, which is pretty much nothing. Nothing. Um, you know, so if it were me, I would love to see like just the basics of how money works in grade school, where you've got that, like, you know, third grade, you've got like a class store, uh, you've got an economy essentially set up where like you can earn money and you can spend money on like class store prizes. I think that's an amazing way to start teaching kids the value of money.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

Um, and then I think once you get into high school, you can start introducing the concepts of like, how do you build wealth? Because I think kids in high school might be interested in just how the heck do I get rich someday? Like, I, you know, I think so many of us grow up with this, like, this weird notion in the back of our heads that like someday I'm just gonna be rich. And you're like, you have no no plan, no reason as to why you think that. You're just like, I just think someday I'm gonna be rich. And like I recognize that in my 20s, and I was like, I have this idea that back in my head, someday I'm gonna be wealthy, but I have no plan on how I'm gonna get wealthy. And so I was like, I should probably, I should probably do that. Um, so I think just sparking interest from a young age uh is is really important. Of like, you want this. Well, here's how you got to do it. Like, here are some things you gotta learn about, here's how you have to attack it. And then um, you know, if if that education could happen senior year of college or of high school, the issue is that I think the most relevant period where people will actually take the information and hopefully internalize it and start practicing it is when you get your first job. And it's like, well, well, who's whose onus is it then to go ahead and like make sure that happens? It's like, right, is it is it corporations? Is it, you know, the the HR? And so that's what I think the issue is. Um is who's responsible, who really is responsible, and who's best? So um, so yeah, I guess that doesn't fully answer your question. It just further, further um uh illustrates the problem. Uh, because I do hear a lot of people saying, like, this should be taught in grade school. And it's like, yeah, but there are places where it is being taught in grade school, and you know what they're teaching them? They're teaching them financial peace university, which is all about shame around money. It's about scaring people into never using credit cards, it's about being debt-free at all costs, which as you evolve in your wealth-building journey, you start to learn that being debt-free at all costs is not the answer. In fact, it's a really great way to make sure that you always stay in scarcity mindset and that you never actually build wealth. So, um, so yeah, it's uh it's it's it's it's multifaceted. I think, and this is obviously like I'm biased because I am a can you hear my dog barking?

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Yes, but that's okay. We love our dogs around here.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Logan!

unknown 23:49

Hey!

SPEAKER_00 23:49

I think Logan feels very strongly about financial literacy.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

She's like, yeah, come here, baby girl. She's a very protective. So like anytime somebody comes to the door or drops a package off, she's like, I'm gonna tear them to pieces, even though she only has like three teeth. Um yeah, she's she's a rescue. But um anyway, so I I know I'm biased, obviously, because I am a money educator, I am a content creator, but I do that gives me hope. The issue there is the lack of regulation, the lack of knowing, you know, if the information that you are getting is good information. So unfortunately, just like it so often is in our capitalist society, the responsibility falls on the individual always. And that, by the very definition, is going to make our experiences unequitable. Some people are gonna get good information, some people are gonna get bad information, some people are gonna get something in between. Um, so how do we do that in a way that everybody is off on an even footing? It's just yeah. It's a great question, Meg.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

And I think it's it's that dynamic too. You know, I've seen this, and I'm sure you've seen this too in your work, that um, you know, we work with a lot of marginalized business owners, and this stuff was not taught, it was not talked about. Right. And they come to us, uh, you know, I actually had a conversation with a client the other day about investing in the stock market. And she said, you know, in my culture, there is a lot of skepticism about investing in the stock market. You know, keep the cash under the mattress. That's the safest place for it. And this idea that if you keep cash, I mean, we were cringing earlier when we talked about the dividends not being invested. For the record, keeping cash is losing money. So you are you are actively losing money if you keep cash because of inflation. And but that idea, people don't understand. They're never taught that concept.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

So you've got all these obstacles and walls to take down, even before they can be open for the information. 100%. Exactly. Every person's experience has been different. So they all have these different beliefs and these different obstacles and these different things that are preventing them from even being receptive to the information. And then once once you're able to break down those walls and and get through those obstacles, then it's like the teaching can begin.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yes. But then to your point, I mean, it scares me when I see some of the education out there. That was air quotes for anybody who listened to. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

I mean, I'm yeah, May, I literally had a tax expert, a tax team, similar to what you do, who's huge in the space. And I'll tell you off offline who it is. Um, but this person was promoting to people, specifically a marginalized community, that you don't need retirement accounts. We don't, why would you use a retirement account? Why, like, yeah. And I'm like, I cannot believe as a CPA who owns a huge tax firm that's working with a lot of marginalized people, that you are promoting this idea that retirement accounts are scams.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

I'm like, What was their that's what the that was their their justification? They thought they were DMs.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Essentially, they were like, Well, it locks your money up forever. It's like, no, anybody knows who any financial expert knows that that is a misconception. There are ways of getting around the locking air quotes, locking your money up until retirement. Of course, retirement accounts we're supposed to be used for retirement, but there are so many ways of getting around that, of accessing that money earlier. And like, this person's just on the internet promoting this idea that retirement. I was waiting for the IUL pitch. I was like, what is happening right now? I'll tell you offline who it was because I'm I need to know. I guarantee you know who this person is. And if you don't, well, now you will. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Whoever it is, I'm gonna go troll them. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

I'm just like, how can you tell people this? And Ingram, and he wasn't saying like keep everything in cash. He was saying, yeah, you know, put your money in real estate, put your money into the taxable brokerage, took keep keep cash. Um, and I'm sure, I mean, based off of that spiel, I was like, you like whole life and IULs, don't you? Because it's like, uh-huh, that could be a whole other podcast.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

For our viewers who don't know, like 30-second spiel on whole life and IUL and like just kind of what we're talking about and why it's awful.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

I don't know if I can do it in 30 seconds. I know. I don't know. That that visceral reaction you had is exactly how I feel about it. Um, okay. Uh so people who have dependence um for their income, people who are dependent, who have dependence, people who are dependent on their income. Sorry, that was really hard to say. Already ruined my 30 seconds. Um, they most of the time, like if you're a parent, most of the time you need term life insurance policy. So that essentially the idea behind it is that if you pass prematurely, yeah, it's okay. The people who depend, not not that that's okay, we will miss you, but the people who rely on your income will be taken care of through this term life insurance policy. Term is very inexpensive, but the idea is that for the period of time in which you have dependents, because ideally we only have dependents for a period of our life. If you have kids, ideally you only they're only dependents for maybe 20 to 30 years. So you get a 20 to 30 term policy so that if in that time period you pass, your kids are covered, your spouse is covered, etc. Now, the reason we don't need life insurance for most of the time beyond that term is because ideally during that time period, that 30 years where you were covered with term insurance, you were building your own assets. You were saving in your Roth IRA, you were, you know, investing in that 401k, you were building assets to take care of you later on in life. Whole life insurance and IUL's permanent life insurance policies, these are policies that are essentially supposed to be around for your entire life. They're designed to be permanent, not a term. Now, the first red flag there is what I just said. Most of us do not need permanent life insurance. We do not need life insurance for our entire life. Whole life insurance is because the older you get to have life insurance, the more expensive it becomes. Now, whole life insurance is more or is inexpensive more inexpensive when you buy it younger. But let's say you buy it in your 30s or 40s when your term policy runs out, you know, then you're looking at a much more expensive product. And even if you're buying it in your 20s or 30s, it's going to be significantly more expensive than if you had just bought a term policy. I have had people who are had no business being in a whole life insurance policy, who had two whole life insurance policies and were paying$1,600 a month for a whole life insurance policy. Yes. Because and they were like they were going into debt every single month to pay for these policies. And here's the thing: there have been studies that have shown that people who get into these whole life insurance policies, these IUL policies, because insurance salesmen are so aggressive in selling them to people who don't actually need them, that they're not a good fit for, most of the time, people get out of that policy within a year, two years because it's expensive and it doesn't do what they tell you it's gonna do. So salesmen will trap people into these policies because they will use fear as a way to sell them. Because what is our biggest fear when investing in the stock market? Losing money. And what they will do is they'll say, Hey, what if I could sell you something that one, you get life insurance coverage for it. So if somebody dies, they'll get a million, or if you die, your family will get a million dollars. But two, it also has a cash value. So you get to save money inside of it, and then that money is gonna grow based off of what the stock market is doing. But here's the best part you're never gonna lose money. It's never gonna go below zero. But here's what they don't tell you they don't tell you that they're gonna cap that return. So if S P 500 does 30% in a year, you're only gonna get maybe 15%. And then what they also don't tell you is that sure, you may never lose money, but you're paying for a policy you don't need, a very expensive policy you don't need. And two, that cash value, that almost no money is going into it because you got to pay for the policy first. So it's like these trickless are going into this cash value that you could then take out tax-free later on in life. But uh that was that was that was not 30 seconds. That was like at least three minutes, but that's essentially the idea of behind.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

That was the perfect summary. 30 seconds was probably really unfair.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

I think I would be like, I'd be like, it's a it's it's not, I I have to be careful to not say it's not a bullshit product. I'm sure in certain instances for the world's incredibly wealthy people who need who have gone beyond the like 11 million dollars of tax-free like gifting that they can do when they pass. That's what we're talking about. People who are above 11 million dollars in net worth and assets that they're going to pass on to their family. Sure, a whole life insurance policy could make sense to then pass off more money tax free to generations after you. So they use that though, and they say, hey, you want to use the product that the Rockefellers and the Warren Buffets of the world are using? It's like, bitch, you are not a Rockefeller or a Warren Buffett. We are still on the like, let me get my first hundred thousand, you know? Your Roth IRA yet. Let's start there. And I tell you what, paying for a whole life insurance or an IUL product is gonna make it really hard for you to put money into your Roth IRA. And that's what we see over and over again is like people don't have money to invest because they're paying for these bullshit items that were not good for them. So that's why I say it's like, yes, they're not bullshit products, it's the salesmen who are selling them that are bullshitting people into buying these products.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Well, and it all comes back to education, right? If people really understood, because when you first did your sales pitch, I was like, well, that sounds good. Sounds great. If I didn't know what you were talking about, it would have said let's do it 100%. That education piece, and I can't tell you the number of people who come to me and have whole life policies. And I'm just I I cringe inside because it just is horrible.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Yeah, they're not saving any money, they don't have an emergency fund, they just have this shitty cash value that somebody told them was the golden egg of wealth building. And it's like, no, no, whole life insurance. I I one thing I want to make clear here is permanent life insurance is not a wealth building tool, it is a wealth preservation tool. Period, end of story. And if you don't have more than$11 million, or or you have like a child with special needs who is going to be a dependent for your whole life, right? Then sure, a whole life insurance policy may make sense for you. But that is, like you said, that is where the education is so important. And here's what I would like to believe to give to give the salesman some slack. I would like to believe, and in conversations that I've had with some insurance salesmen, they actually don't know better. Because again, guys, in order to be a financial advisor, you could just have taken, I don't remember what series it is, where you can just sell life insurance products. You could have just done that, where it takes like less than 40 hours to study for, and if you get a 70% or more, you pass. They could have just taken that exam. They don't understand Roth IRAs, they don't understand 401ks, they don't understand you can access that money early. So I would like to believe that it is an education problem, not a greed problem. But unfortunately, I'm sure for some people it is a greed problem.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

And for some people, little of this, little of that.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Little bit of that, a little bit of this. Because some people they they truly believe that your money's locked away if it's in a retirement account or that this is the best way to build wealth. And it's like, let me let me sit you down.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Well, and I think, and you you were talking earlier about the the person on that you're gonna tell me about later who's giving horrible advice. Uh, you know, real estate and this and that. I mean, it the important part overall is really to diversify a hundred percent. If anybody's pitching you, this is the thing, this is the thing, this is the thing, you should run. Yes. But it's it's really about putting your money in a lot of different places. Um and I know that's not, I know you you your focus on helping people start. So for your folks, it's let's let's start with this one thing. But sure, as you get more educated and grow, I mean, that really is an important piece of it. And so I think that's what scares me so much about folks that do that is that they it's this is the answer. This is the wealth building tool you need.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

No. Yeah, it's not, it's usually not, it's more complex than that.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Yeah, 100%. All right. Well, I'm gonna wrap us up here because I know we could talk for hours. But before we go, a couple of things before we go. First of all, kind of just your last thoughts on if somebody is listening to this, going, oof, I have no idea where to start. I'm not investing yet. I don't want to. It sounds hard, it feels hard, whatever. What is your message to that person?

SPEAKER_02 36:44

I promise you it is not as hard as you think it is. Like you could get started today in 10 minutes, and you could get a robo advisor, like you could go to Betterment, you could go to M1 Finance, you could go to L Invest, and you could get started literally today. I'm not the biggest fan of robo advisors, but here's the thing it will get you started. That's what I care about way more than you doing it perfectly. Who cares about doing it perfectly? What matters is that you're getting your money invested. And you could do that by signing up for a robo advisor today and just getting started or using like a target date fund. So we do have, I gotta plug my free guide here because I know that's like some of buddies probably like, wait, wait, a robo, what? Uh, if you go to moneywrightguide.com, we have a free guide that will break it down to get you started now so that you can then educate yourself and continue and be like, do I want to stay with my robo advisor? Do I want to get a target day fund? What do I want to do? But the thick key thing is like, one, it is not as complicated as you think it is, I promise you. And two, just start and then we will figure it out as we go. You will figure it out, you will continue learning. But the most important thing is to get started.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

I love that. And I will plug your course because I took it and it was I think you did an excellent job of just providing the information in a really clear-cut and easy to understand way, which is hard to do when we're talking about these things. Thank you. So um, I highly recommend your course. And to wrap us up, just tell everyone you already said the guide, but where can people find you? How can people work with you?

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Yeah, so everything is at Clobear.com, which is C-L-O-B-A-R-E.com. Bear is in B-A-R-E. So many people uh think it's the regular bear, but we gotta play on words here. Uh and I'm really active on Instagram at Clobear MoneyCoach and TikTok at Clowbear MoneyCoach as well. So yeah, come say hi.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

I love it. Well, thank you, Chloe, so much for being here. I loved our conversation. I could have had it for hours.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Yeah, just a bunch of rants. First, we really, we really took took down the enemies in this one. Financial advisors and then talking about insurance salesmen. Didn't actually mean to do that, but it's important to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

We had no idea we're gonna end up there. I know I'm I'm you should have been on our episode where we took down Dave Ramsey. That was a lot of fun. Ooh, yes. We'll have to invite you back for another slam session. Sounds good. Well, thanks so much. Uh, and thank you to everyone listening uh to another episode of Disrupt Your Money. We'll see you again next week. Thanks for listening to Disrupt Your Money. If you have a money question you'd like answered in a future episode, go to disruptyourmoney.com. To support the podcast, please rate and review it wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want access to all of my free templates, checklists, resources, and guides, click the link for the BizMoney Library in the show notes.