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Why Women Need Their Own FI Space with Kim Hunter-Borst | 111

• Chris Luger

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Why Women Need Their Own FI Space with Kim Hunter-Borst | 111

Why do women need their own space in the financial independence world? This week I sit down with Kim Hunter-Borst, the heart and driving force behind Women of FI, to talk about the stuff that doesn't show up in a spreadsheet.

Kim spent over 35 years in health insurance before finding her way into the FI community, and what she's built with Women of FI is something different. We get into the "girl math" trope and why women walked out of her college math exam. We talk about the mental load, the list behind the list. We also dig into her own money story, going from $69,000 in debt to financially independent and retired, and what it actually felt like giving herself permission to be unproductive after 40 years of tying her worth to doing.

This one hits different. Grab your coffee, or your water, Kim will tell you it's fine either way, and let's get into it.

In this episode:

  • Why women hesitate to ask clarifying questions in financial spaces, and what it's actually costing them
  • The "girl math" trope and how it starts as early as a college placement exam
  • What the "mental load" and "the list behind the list" actually look like in real households
  • Kim's own journey from $69K in debt to financially independent in just a few years
  • The dollar cost averaging story that changed one woman's entire relationship with $800K sitting idle
  • Why Kim caps her Women of FI events at 50 people, twice a year, on purpose
  • The footstool metaphor that explains why women-centered spaces feel different
  • Giving yourself permission to be "unproductive" after a lifetime of tying worth to doing


BOOK NOW!

THE NEXT WOMAN OF FI EVENT

Women of FI CoEd Getaway is November 12-15 in Honesdale PA.    Women of FI  CoEd Getaway

Date: Nov 12 • 16:00

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/women-of-fi-coed-getaway-tickets-1988386623918


Contact Chris:

https://heavymetal.money

https://www.facebook.com/MoneyHeavyMetal

https://x.com/MoneyHeavyMetal

https://www.instagram.com/chrisluger

https://www.tiktok.com/@heavymetalmoney

email: chris at heavymetal.money


Connect with Kim
 Website: womenofFI.com
 Email: hello@womenofFi.com



Resources and Links:


https://linktr.ee/WomenofFI


BREAKING THE FINANCIAL GLASS CEILING: WHY MORE WOMEN NEED TO INVEST

https://heavymetal.money/womeninvesting/


WHO ARE YOU WHEN THE WORK STOPS?

https://heavymetal.money/economekim/


PlanVision

https://www.planvisionmn.com


Contact Chris:
https://heavymetal.money

https://www.instagram.com/heavy_metal_money/

https://www.youtube.com/@heavymetalmoney

https://www.facebook.com/chrisluger

email: chris at heavymetal.money

SPEAKER_01

Why women need their own five space with Kim Hunter Forest this week on the Extreme Personal Finance Show. Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of the Extreme Personal Finance Show. And remember, please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And on YouTube, I'm really excited for this week's guest. You know, I've been I've been waiting to have to have this person on the show. She is the heart and driving force behind Women of Fi. Kim Hunter Borst creates in-person events where women and their allies can feel seen, supported, and safe to explore the world of personal finance and financial independence. Kim is a gifted connector who blends warmth, clarity, and wisdom to help people design not only their lives, but their financial plans. She brings together community, strategy, and honest conversation about money. Her insights have appeared in Business Insider on Catching Up to Phi, Bigger Pockets, and on the Economy Conference main stage. So I'm really excited to have Kim join me today. Hi, Kim. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_03

Hello, Chris.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Oh, absolutely. I'm I'm really excited, and I'm gonna come out swinging because this is something that I, you know, so I was just recently having a discussion with a friend of mine talking about kind of the unconscious biases that we may have about topics, people, situations around us. And money advice tends to just assume it's like pretty universal, right? But yet we know there are parts of a woman's financial life, and what comes to mind when I think about that, I always think of, well, there's career interruption, right? You take a break to have kids or whatever, and then you go back, and then you most of the time are like the main caregiver in the family. So like you're taking kids to doctor appointments, you're leaving for school functions, you're maybe you're even also caring for your aging parents. So there's those type of things, and then as we all know, which unfortunately, there's still like the pay gap that exists.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So I think you know, you built something very powerful and intentional um with women of Fi. And I'm just curious, like, what was there a specific moment or like a conversation you had that said, hey, you know what? We need this space. Um, I guess tell me about that. How did this happen? Where did this come from?

SPEAKER_03

So, Chris, I have to say you touched on a couple of things just in that intro with regards to women. Uh, when you talked about the pay gap, that's an obvious one that everyone knows about. And you talked about the fact that most women leave the workspace to be the primary caregiver, and that ultimately bears out into what the type of money she'll earn later on in life. But you also touched on the notion of just the things that women carry in anticipation of being supportive of life and their partners and their extended families. Uh, doctors' appointments aren't just doctors' appointments, is making sure schedules are there. So all of that ties into why we've created these spaces for women. But I'll I'll I'll delve into that a little bit more as we go on. But you asked the question about what was the starting point for me on this. And I have to say, I was at my very first economy, and there was a breakout session called Women in Money with Sarah Catherine Gutierrez. I'm not sure if you're familiar with her. But we walked in the room and Sarah had a question on the board. And she says, Why do you think women are not good with money? Or why do you think women believe they're not good with money? And we started to unpack that. And some of the things we talked about was, well, they we tend to not earn as much money. Well, why is that? Well, as women, we tend to not apply for jobs until we know we're 95% qualified for it. Where I've been in corporate America, well, was in corporate America 30 plus years in a hiring capacity. And I would have guys apply for jobs that they were 20 and 25% ready for. Really? Because they just had that confidence. Yeah. With women, I think it's Glenn and Doyle says the best. She says, We teach our boys to be brave and we teach our girls to be kind. And because of that kindness, women often hesitate before stepping out to do something. So while we were in that room with Sarah Catherine, we went through this whole litany of reasons why women hesitate to um to just step out there and learn about personal finance or to ask questions. And one of the things we talked about is there's this trope that caught this called girl math, where they say women are not good with math or not good with numbers. Well, I grew up in love with math. Numbers were my thing, but I recognized around me it was not a thing for most women. And I remember going off the college and sitting for my placement exam. And when it came to the math section, most of the women got up and left the room.

SPEAKER_00

No way.

SPEAKER_03

And then when they went to the next level for calculus and trigonometry, it was myself and two other women and the rest were men. Oh my gosh. Yeah. But what I recognize is if you're told something enough times, you start to believe it, even if it isn't true. Even if it isn't true. So in that session with Sarah Katherine Gutierrez, one of the things she charged us with is she said the women that came there, they know about finances. Otherwise, they wouldn't be there. Even if they were at the starting point of learning about it, they knew there was something they needed to learn. And how did we impact the broader network of women in our lives, even in our own little space? She says it doesn't have to be huge. Just what can you do in your own sphere to ensure that the women around you become more knowledgeable and more comfortable about money, knowing that there's a wealth disparity because of salaries and um women leaving the workforce to take care of kids and then going back to the workplace and all of that tying into their Medicare ultimately down the line. They'll have lower credits, so they'll get lower amounts of money. And she challenged us, go back and simply come up with ways to share that knowledge. And I took it to heart. I came back to um at the time, I came back to New York and I started something called a couch to 5K, where I just invited a couple of women to come to the table and we'd sit up, we'd meet up monthly, and it was a challenge to improve your net worth by $5,000, either through increasing your investments and savings or reducing debt. Either way, whichever approach made more sense for you. But it was a way, a small, tangible way to start sharing that knowledge more broadly. And I I just was lit up by it.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. So not not the not the the training to go running to a 5K, but 5K. Right. That that's that's awesome. I just can't I can't believe that that in your college entrance exam women would get up and walk out. That's just that's sad. That makes me so sad. What um do you think there's a a bal do you think it's like a balance of like numbers and math versus because you said you know women maybe get brought up or or you know, to be kind. There's like an emotional piece or identity piece where they just feel as though um I don't belong here. I don't belong in the five space. I don't belong. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03

Well, one of the things I witnessed in going to I've I've been to five economies so far and five camp fies and numerous fin talks. Wow. And what I recognized very early on in my very first campfi, and this is no slight against men, um, I noticed a woman ask a question. She was a school teacher, and she asked the question, and then she volunteered to do the case study. And as they were answering her questions, I could see them answering questions with terminology that she just wasn't familiar with yet, because it was the very first event. And as they was they were answering her questions or giving her feedback, I could see her eyes glaze over. And it told me they lost her. She is not following along. But they they gave her sound advice to those of us in the room that were already knowledgeable, it was sound advice, but to her it wasn't. And when she got up from that seat, I walked up to her and I introduced myself and I said, How much of that did you take in? She said it was as if they were speaking a foreign language.

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

And what I recognized is that she didn't take it upon herself to say, Hey, I can you clarify that? Can you explain that? And unfortunately, we and I said this before, we teach our boys to be brave and we teach our girls to be kind. And in that kindness, we don't often ask clarifying questions because we don't want to be seen as if A, we're challenging the person that's giving us the information, or B, that we're living down to the expectation that we don't get it. But like with anything new, until you learn it, you don't know it. And the only way you will learn is to ask questions. So that was one of the reasons why I wanted to create spaces for women to come and ask those clarifying questions and be comfortable not knowing something. And we always say to our women, no question is a dumb question. And I know it's trite, but we often have to remind them because there's this self-deprecating thing that says, oh, you know, girl math, or oh, I don't understand it. But it's a necessary exercise to start from the point of saying, let's not focus on the numbers. Let's talk about what's going on behind it. Because usually it's not about the money with women, it's the emotions behind it. It's what that money can afford them. It can afford them the time to care for that child that might need, might be early in life and may need to be picked up from school. But that woman now has to go to her boss and say, I need to leave early because my child is getting out of school, with that notion of, oh, that's a tick against me. Right. Because let me ask you a question, Chris. In your entire life as and in your career, were you ever you ever asked, um, do you think childcare or rearing children will preclude you from being as effective as you could be in this job?

SPEAKER_01

Right. No.

SPEAKER_03

Right. Were you ever told you're awfully ambitious? Was it done said in a negative way or positive way?

SPEAKER_01

Right. No, it was always that was always on the positive side. Correct.

SPEAKER_03

Well, conversely, for women, when we challenge things, or we actually work early to care for our kids, there's a thought that, oh, she's not as committed. Or if we apply for a job or we try to negotiate for it for more money, it's seen as a negative because it's seen as, oh, she's too aggressive or she's too ambitious. That's been the mantra for a while. Now it's changing. I will say it's changing. And even though the wealth disparity or the pay gap disparity, that's improving, but it's not absolved, and it's not in every sphere. So I live in New York City and I live in a space where and I worked in a community where um those changes were evident and we could see them happening real time, and we were at the table uh helping lead that charge, but that's not for all women. And so right now I think it sits at women make 86 cents for every dollar a man makes, but that 86 cents isn't broad, it is a demo sub-demographic. So Asian women are historically paid a little bit more than most women, and Asian women are making um close to like 93 cents for every dollar that a white male makes. But the her female counterparts that are African American or Hispanic, their increase is maybe slightly lower. So their salaries are closer to so 73 cents to the dollar or 76 cents to the dollar or 78 cents to the dollar. So it averages out to 86 cents, but it isn't across the board. And since that is a known entity, we are saying, okay, in light of the fact that we make less money over the course of our lifetimes, what are we doing to ensure that we're maximizing the money that we do make?

SPEAKER_01

Right. Do you feel like I had I had once published an article on heavy metal money talking about how why we need more women investing. And it talked about how overall, women who invest are so much better at it. One, because there's a lot less panic spend. Um they they understand, you know, you know, time in the market beats timing the market. Um and they were talking, I just it was interesting because I remember I cited where if somebody were given some money, what would they do? And more men would go blow it, but women may save it and or invest it, and they're just they're better at it. And we know that the there's a huge percentage of women, business owners, and CEOs that that company is you know more profitable and better run. So I I guess where do you think um to your point, where do you think or how can we ensure that those women in the work workplace are taking advantage of the programs that are there, the benefits that are there, they're in the 401k, they're in those retirement accounts. Um, and I know it's hard if um I don't know, they maybe lack the confidence to do it. I don't know. Like, how can we make sure that they take advantage of the benefits that are there?

SPEAKER_03

Well, I know for myself, I was 21 years old when I started in my corporation, and it was an older male who was 62 years old out of Florida who said to me, You want to put money in your 401k, your very first paycheck. You want to have them take, even if it's just the minimum to get the match. I had no idea as to what he was talking about. I didn't know what a 401k was, but I took out the forms and I filled them out and I signed. I put the little check next to the mark that says, take the minimum. At the time, I think my company was matching 3% with you invested 6%. So I put in 6% and I just selected the first thing that was on the list, and I believe it was a target date fund, if I'm not mistaken.

SPEAKER_01

Or I started with because I didn't know what I didn't know what the funds were.

SPEAKER_03

So yeah, I didn't know what I was investing in, but I did it. And if it wasn't for that that chance encounter, it wasn't even a chance encounter, if it wasn't for that conversation, this was someone who I respected and who saw something in me, and they took me under their wing and became kind of my mentor or sponsor at work. And they would give me advice along the way, career-wise, but also about finances. And the one thing that that notion of putting money in my 401k fast forward when I finally uh figured out that I was a late starter and that I was spending more money than I was making, I was able to not start at ground zero because of that little 6% that had been growing behind the scenes for the the longest time. So to answer your question, I would say if there's a woman in your life, whether you work with them or you don't work with them, and you see that they are working and uh trying to earn a living or trying to uh live a life that's just productive and valuable, you want to pour into that relationship by suggesting that they pick up a book like Fire for Dummies or pick up a book like The Simple Path to Wealth, or just suggest that they invest in their 401k. And if they're not sure about how to do so, be willing to sit down with them and explain it to them and walk them through it. Because to your very good point, when women learn to invest, they outpace their male counterparts not because they are risk-averse, they're more risk-aware. They know what the implications are. Say that again, say it again. Yeah, they're not risk-averse, they're risk aware. So men tend to invest and they're they're seeing the numbers grow and they're like, oh, but how do I maximize this? And then they talk to their male counterparts and their male counterparts and telling them, oh, I'm investing in this and this and this, and we're growing and we're seeing returns of 25%. So they tend to, it's not gambling, but they tend to take more risks because they're like, oh, I want to compete with this person, or I want to compete with um the numbers or the results they're getting. Well, with women, we tend to be less competitive and more about, okay, if this is a steady course I can take, I can invest this amount of money and get this return. I'm willing to keep investing that and getting the return. It's I liken it to my uncle used to say to me, if you gave me a dollar and I gave you $20 for every time you gave me a dollar, how long would you give me a dollar? I said, I come give you a dollar every week. It's the same thing. We're women. We will, once we learn the concepts and the principles of investing, we do well with it because we we become curious and we want to dig in and and understand the why behind it. And once we understand the why behind it, we're less emotionally involved with the market going up and down. We're less likely to say, oh, my friend made 25% on this investment or this crypto or what have you, where we're just like, okay, I'll I'll I'll take the long game. It's like the tortoise and the hare. We're okay with being the tortoise.

SPEAKER_01

Right, right. Um, I mean, so let me ask you then, and again, I know this is probably uh um an interesting question, but it's it's very so the women in my life and like my daughters, you know, we we I I I've tried to have some of those conversations. Obviously, my daughters would listen to some anyone else other than me. But like, you know, if like you mentioned the women in in our life, if we want to maybe help educate or just um kind of you know guide them, offer a little bit of guidance, how can I do that without mansplaining or insulting them? I mean, I'm just trying to be more aware so that I don't do those things.

SPEAKER_03

So I would suggest, like you said, you have a daughter. I would suggest starting from the point of explain it like they're five. It's not mansplaining if you just want to clarify something and break it down for them simply. And it's the same approach I take when there's a woman that's newly joining us in our fire community. I explain it as if they have never heard what fire is. And and I'll give you a perfect example. Yeah, I went to economy, and it was my very first event, and I went there because I saw someone uh speaking at Camp Fi, and they were saying that they didn't see as many women in the audience and they didn't see as many brown people. And I made it my business. I said the very next time I know they're speaking somewhere, I'm going. So I went to economy and they wanted to stage speaking. And I went to economy and left economy and signed up to go to camp fi. And I knew what fi was, but I had no idea as to what fire was. I heard people around me talking about it, but financial independence retire early. Like, what was that? I was a late starter, I was in my 40s. How was I going to retire early? But when I got to camp, that was my first introduction tour because people were clearly talking about it. Up until that point, my introduction to the fire community was on Instagram and YouTube and the Dave Ramsey um total money makeover. So I knew about being debt-free and I knew about the debt-free community. So when I showed up at camp, I was talking to, I was so excited to talk about how we paid off our debt in 18 months and we were debt free and that we were uh now able to keep a lot of that money and save and invest it. But I really didn't understand what investing was until I got introduced to a lot of people in that room. I understood my 401k was growing. I understood that my husband had a 403B, but it wasn't with the notion of retiring early. It was just, okay, this money is now ours and is growing for us. But when I started learning the concepts from the fire community that you can buy your freedom.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And it was so simple, I kept thinking, it can't be this easy. Am I missing something? Yes. But I I someone told said to me um very early on that it's simple, but it's not easy. The steps are simple. Just live on less than you you make, save and invest the rest. But the discipline of doing that is hard, especially in the face of others in your sphere that are doing all the things, living life, traveling, eating out, and all that stuff. It's hard to say, nope, that that's that doesn't work for us this month. Or um it's we're not willing to spend in that vein anymore. Like our values have shifted and changed. So when you hear about it, I'm like, is this possible? Can we really do it? Even to the point where my husband and I retired last July.

unknown

And

SPEAKER_03

Congratulations. Thank you very much. But if you know me, it took three years before we pulled the trigger. Like we quickly went from being $69,000 in debt and not understanding where our money was going to learning about the FI community, paying off that debt, and just doubling down, investing, and living off of one income. So with that, we hit our FI number pretty quickly, but I still couldn't imagine walking away. I was just like, no one does that. This is ridiculous. But the more I talked to people in this community and the more I got to witness it, I was just like, oh, how come more people are doing this? Like it makes no sense.

SPEAKER_01

Right, right. Can you think of a story in your Womenify group? Can you think of a story of someone that because I'm I'm kind of relating it to your story, like a woman that may have been stuck and not really there. Oh, yes. But then left with like clarity, right? Yeah. Can you think of a story?

SPEAKER_03

I I can say without mentioning names. So we have this one woman. And she and her husband, uh, she was pretty much managing the finances in a household, but all she knew was to save. So they had money in CDs, they had money in savings accounts, they had money in checking accounts, and they had something like $800,000 sitting in traditional bank accounts where they were paying fees where they went CDs. And they came to one weekend. And in that weekend, they left with more understanding and knowledge, and they understood dollar cost averaging without the term dollar cost averaging. So if we say dollar cost averaging, we get it. To a brand new person, it's basically take small incremental portions of that money that's sitting in a traditional bank account and invest it. And invest it in something simple like the SP 500 or an index fund that tracks the SP 500 until you can learn more. And she left that weekend and they started taking chunks of money and putting it in the market. And eight months, I think it was about eight months later, she came to us and said, I would have never made this move if it wasn't for that one weekend with you, ladies. She says, and I am never going back. So now she's bringing her friends in. And it's just wonderful. It gives me chills every time I think about it. But it's the way in which we explain it.

SPEAKER_01

That that is that is I love that. I love that story. So walk me with that being said, so walk me through like some of the the like what happens differently in the room at like a women of fi event versus those mixed fi events. Like what comes up more often or otherwise.

SPEAKER_03

So I I will go back to the most recent women's weekend, just this past April. At the very beginning, you were talking about um things such as women making doctors' appointments and things like that. So we delve into exercises around the things women carry. And in it, we we did this workshop on um, just off the top of your head, just do a brain dump. What are all the things that you're thinking about right now? And it was a Friday. They had just either put the kids on a school bus that morning or prep meals to leave behind so that their husbands could take care of the kids over the weekend. And they wanted to be back home on Sunday night so they could put the kids back on the school bus on Monday morning. So with that, we said, let's just do, let's just get centered and get an understanding of what are we carrying? What are the things that you're thinking of? And one woman threw out, she says, Well, I know that I need to get dentist appointments on the calendar for the kids, but I know I can't just schedule the disappointment. I have to think about they have soccer camp and they have this and they have that, and we have family events. So logistically, I have to think about all of the things to make sure I can get them that appointment. And then once you set the appointment, it's the logistics of getting them from school or camp to the doctor's appointment, getting off work to be able to pick them up. So all the hurdles and logistics of it. So her example was she says, I said, okay, so what are the lists behind your list? So she listed out doctor's appointments, soccer, um uh mother-in-law's birthday coming up recently. So all of those things were on her list. And I said, Okay, so to make all of these things happen, what do you need to do? And we started talking about the lists behind the list. And it sounds very silly and trite, but when you think about all of that, you land on the notion of, I am carrying a lot of things and it is stressing me out. And I'm upset that my partner or my husband is not carrying all these things. But guess what? He never asked him to. Oh. You just assume that this was something you needed to do. So, case in point, my husband owns grocery shopping for our household. And on a monthly basis, he goes to Costco and we get our meats delivered from ButcherBox. But I'm the person that's mentally ticking off what's missing in the fridge, what's missing in the pantry, what else do we need? And then I give it to him, and then he goes and do the shopping. And then I recognize that's something I took on. It's not something that he asks for. He's perfectly capable of doing it. So I just sat down with him and I said, you know, babe, this is something that I I recognize that I'm doing and caring. And is this something you can take on? And he was like, sure. And what the one thing I stress to ladies is just be prepared that they may not do it the way you do it, and that's okay. Right, right. Yeah. And and just be okay with it and also be okay with the fact that if they've never done it before, you might have to show them once or twice how to do it. And then once you show it to them, it's theirs and you take your hands off of it. And that's not to say that we're treating them in our lives like children, it's to say that we can stop thinking we need to own the whole situation at every turn. Because with that, sometimes we are exhausted or we become resentful, and the people around us are put in a position to uh defend themselves against something that they may not have even known was happening.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So in all fairness, we just need to be a bit more open and share the load and not assume that we need to take on everything. And in some instances, women take on things because it's an expectation from their partner or their family or from society. But we need to be vocal about saying, hey, these are the things that I can uh easily carry or the things that I can carry and not be stressed out, but these are the things that I'm struggling with, and it's okay that you're struggling with.

SPEAKER_01

And if I can play from from the man's side of the coin too, like you know, I think that as a partner, I would expect to understand some of those things and ask if you can take them off their plate. If you see your partner a little stressed or doing things doing things that that you could easily do and free up your partner's time, yeah, ask, hey, you know what? Can can I do that for you? Yeah. You know, it's a simple thing. And you know, you know what, your your your wife or your partner may say, oh my gosh, thank you. That would be great. Yes.

SPEAKER_03

And sometimes it's just anticipating it. So um oftentimes I will like I'm on this call right now, and my husband, he came, he says, You you're you're getting on a call with Chris soon, right? And I said, Yes. He says, Oh, I'm going to take out pork chops from the freezer for dinner tonight. He says, Don't worry about it. I got dinner. And I was like, Okay. It wasn't even an ask, it was just a, but he let me know in case I didn't want pork chops, but he let me know. And that is in my mind, all that's needed. It's golden, and it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01

But I think you asked the communication piece. Yeah, communication, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And you asked earlier about how do you engage with your partner without coming across as if you're mansplaining. And I think is is is very telling, Chris, that you said I could ask. Just ask. If it's a topic that you think you want to share more with, just say, hey, uh, tell me how much you know about X, Y, or Z. Because we have one woman, she's super knowledgeable, she knows everything, like from taxes to investing and risk parity, like you name it, she knows it. And she sometimes is bothered by the fact that guys just immediately try and explain things to her without clarifying.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. So we can ask instead of just assuming they don't get it, we can ask. And if they don't understand it, explain it very simply. Like we just talked about dollar cost averaging. Never once did we say dollar cost averaging to that woman that invested her $800,000. We just said, this is how we do it. Every paycheck, we're investing. In your case, you have this large sum of money, and instead of doing it every paycheck, you could just on a monthly basis take a portion of it and invest it. And she was just like, oh. And then ultimately she learned that that was called dollar cost averaging from one of the various discussions that we've had. But in the beginning, I think people don't care how much you know, they just want to know how much you care.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I love that. Man, you have so many uh kim-isms. Say that again. That was great. I never heard that. Say it again.

SPEAKER_03

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Oh, I'm gonna put that on a t-shirt. Oh my gosh. Yeah. But I I have to say, with the women, what I find is when we come together, we just want to have we we want to see each other succeed. So we're each other's cheerleaders. So we come together. We may have an agenda, we may have a couple of topics that we put on the table and we talk about, but we also recognize this is our community. So we leave it open for anything that the women want to discuss or talk about. And even after our weekends end, we have this WhatsApp group. And women will often come in with a question. Like, we had one woman, she's taking her daughter on college tours, and she says, I'm going up the East Coast. Who's around that I can just connect with and grab lunch with? She said, Because I want my daughter to recognize and know that there are other women doing this. That is so great.

SPEAKER_01

I know that is so great. I love that, you know, and I've been thinking, you know, about when you mentioned um, I think it was the the the campfire and the case study, and you know, the woman that you know, basically all these uh concepts and things that she may not have understood, but didn't like can you clarify that? Yes, and it just reminded me that you know, even even working in tech for all the all the many years, if I was having a discussion with a different business group at a customer or whatever, it's so easy because we're in it every day. Yes, right? We know the acronyms, we know the things, we're we're in it every day, we live it and we breathe it, but they don't. Yes, they haven't, and maybe this is just a fraction of all the other things they got going on. So I have to remember that we need to communicate in a way that they may not understand what acronyms are. So, you know what? Just actually like say the words, and you know, basically like make sure that that they're understanding as you go. Just for those people listening, just while you may know all of the five things, the person you talk to that may be the first time they're hearing about it, you know. So just a thought.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely, and it's it's the reason why the New York Times is written on a sixth grade reading level. They don't assume that everyone gets everything. Wow, and it's the same thing with us. We can't assume that they they understand the terminology. So I worked at healthcare for 35 plus years. Wow. And the language used, if you ever got an EOB from an explanation of benefits, yeah. If you've ever got one, the fact that it's called an explanation of benefits is ridiculous. It should just be here's what we pay for for you. Here's what you owe. It should be that simple. But it's a different language that's spoken in health insurance, then it's the same thing as a different language that's spoken in finance. And I think there's some sectors that I don't want to say that it's deceitful, but I think that uh oftentimes, especially in personal finance, it sounds more complicated than it has to be because it makes you think that you need to pay someone to help you with it.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_03

And there's nothing against I have nothing against paying someone to help you. But I think if if you're paying an advisor, you should at least understand what they're doing and why they're doing it. And the language that they speak to you should be in layman's terms so you get it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I mean, I jokingly, you know, will say, Oh, I'll talk to my money guy, or I'll run that past my numbers guy. But still, it's it's understanding what they're doing. And I still I do have a financial advisor, and they help me with a lot of things in my entire, not only portfolio, but my real estate, my my my trust, my my estate, everything. And um, but that's the thing, is they're very uh helpful, educational, and and they help clarify the questions and things that I have. So that's great. That's great. You know, you you mentioned something, like I like how you know you you you said um things that kind of happen differently, and you know, you go through this brain dump exercise. Is there is there something that I'm trying to think of how to express like a conversation that kind of comes up again and again at the Women of Fi events, something that may be different than those mixed co-ed events. Is there something different that kind of comes up time and time and again?

SPEAKER_03

I think the difference is, for example, when we're doing case studies, I I love this new template that Jackie Komitzkowski created at Economy, I think it was two years ago. The very beginning of that case study doesn't talk about the money, it talks about the person, who that person is, the life they live. Because I've I very much believe that we're not able to give you advice on your numbers if we don't know who you are and we don't know your life. It isn't canned, it isn't a one-size-fit-all, it's very different from person to person. So, for example, my personal finances. Everyone will say we have a large portion of our wealth tied up in tax-deferred accounts because we were late starters and I had been investing in my 401k for so long, and he had a 403B. That was what we knew we're comfortable with. So when we dug ourselves out of debt and started investing, we were throwing money in our tax-deferred accounts. So someone said to me, just in a broad statement, oh, you need to be worried about those tax bombs. You need to start doing Roth conversions, and you need to start doing them right away. So two years ago, my husband had a um a health scare, and I reached out to my dear friend Alan Valentine. He's in the FI space, and I said, Alan, I need to do Roth conversions and I need to, I need he has this beautiful spreadsheet that helps you build out that Roth, that, that ladder, that conversion ladder. And he and I were talking and we were going through it in about 40 minutes in. He said, Well, let's let's talk about where you guys are. And my husband has a very generous pension and he has Social Security, and then we have his 403B, and then we have my very generous 401k. And he says, Well, what are your expenses? And I told him, he says, and he has a pension. I said, Yeah, he said, Well, it looks like the pension covers that. Why are we worried about conversions? And I said, Well, everyone says I have to have them. So, fast forward now, most recently, we're retired, and everyone said, Oh, you need to start doing conversions. And I like you, I hired a uh an advisor. I signed up with Plan Vision, beautiful concept, fantastic business model. You pay one price, you load your information, and then you have access to them on a monthly basis for a very swall fee. I think it's like $8 a month or something like that. It may have gone up to 12, but it's super low. And as he, the advisor and I were walking through where we are right now, he says, Kim, honestly, considering where you are right now, I don't think you need to do conversions. He says, and I say this, I say it from this perspective. Your income that comes in today covers your expenses, but you're in your go-go years and you want to have some fun. He said, You can afford to have fun. He says, So are you going to shrink the amount of money that you can have fun with just so you can do a conversion so you can avoid some taxes later? He says, Are you gonna live your life right now and still ultimately end up on the back end? He says, the difference is do you want to leave your your your heirs six million dollars or three million dollars? Right. He said it's it's just that that and having that level of insight into someone's life, it gives you the ability to help them really plan out what's important to them and what they value. So when we start mapping plans for them or financial plans for them, it's with all of those things in mind. It's with knowing they might be in a sandwich generation where at a certain point they're going to be responsible for their parents, their elderly parents, and their adult children. It just depends. And in our women's centered events, the difference is we center women first. We don't assume that they are going to climb that corporate ladder and break through that glass ceiling and make high six figures. We don't assume that in retirement they're going to get the largest amount of money for Medicare. Because the average woman, because they've left the workplace to care for kids and returned, they make significantly less. Unless their husband made significantly more and they can then get his some of his Medicare, they're going to come out making less. So with that in mind, we start from that position. We start from you are you're not at the starting line. You're 12 steps back. How do we close that gap? Or how do we how do we prepare you to maximize the money you do have coming in based upon all these things that we know, all of these factors that will impact you throughout your career and your life, that's our starting point. Where in our co-ed spaces, because we do have women that are married, I'm married. I love my husband, and he's the best partner in this fire world with me. Um, we have co-ed events where our partners come and they ask questions and we build plans together. And the difference between one event and the other is the conversations we have are just different. When it's a woman-centered event, we don't have to discuss it. And I think the the best way I can explain it is I am five foot five and I've I live I've never lived in a place where I didn't have footstools. I have a footstool for my closet, I have a footstool in my kitchen. I always have a step stool so I can reach up and get things off a high shelf.

SPEAKER_01

By the way, you and me both, by the way.

SPEAKER_03

I'm five five and I have step stools everywhere. Cool, right? Yes. Because everything is built as if we're six feet tall. And the population of people that are six feet tall is minimal. That's right. But the world is built from that perspective. And I spent six years living in the Philippines, and within two weeks of being there, I felt like I was living a more expansive life. And I couldn't figure out why until I recognized I could see over the top of everyone's heads, and I didn't need a footstool. Everything was built at my height. It was I was living in a world where I was centered. And that, and I didn't have to explain it to anyone. It was just readily available for me. And with women, we don't have to explain where a question is coming from. We don't have to explain why we're thinking something uh slightly from a different angle, a different perspective. And it's it's an easier starting point. I um I started therapy, uh, a restarted therapy not too long ago with a woman. Well, before I've had male doctors, and I felt like I had to explain myself or explain some things when I had a male doctor. But the first session with this woman, I made a statement and she got it immediately because she's a woman. And I was just like, oh, and it's not that it's um saying that male doctors don't get it, it's just we all have biases in life. We all see things from our perspective and our lens, and it's easier to have a conversation with someone who's looking at something from the same lens that you're looking at it from.

SPEAKER_01

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03

And that's not to say all women are the same. Oh, right, right. Yeah. I have some friends that are um first generation immigrants, and they know that they are the retirement vehicle for not only their lives, but their parents and their siblings behind them.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Uh, I have some women that are single, no children, and never plan to have children. I have women that are single moms, uh, wives with partners. So it's different. But I think the difference is between our women's centered events and our co-events is the heart of what we're trying to get to with women and their understanding of money differs when men are in the space. Because some people, when their partners are around, won't talk about topics that are sure. Yeah, that are sensitive.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Or they won't talk about some women, and I'll say this, and it took me a moment to start having these conversations more broadly. Some women of a certain age don't want to talk about menopause with their husband in a room because they still want to be seen as vivacious and sexy for their husbands. And I'm one of them. So it's biology, it's just it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01

It's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but you get that, but not everybody gets it. Right. We we sometimes we but now I have to say, our co-events, we talk about menopause and the husbands and partners join in the conversation, and it's great. Where in the past we used to say, oh, let's change the subject. Now we just gotta know. Kevin Sebesta said to me, and I and I quote him all the time, he said to me, He said, Kim, if you're gonna do co-ed events, you need to build them still around being women-centered. And the men that come need to come knowing that it's a woman-centered event. So even our t-shirts, we had our t-shirts that said women a fi. And they were like, Are you gonna give the men t-shirts that say women a fi? We said, We absolutely are. Sure, absolutely. And they will proudly wear them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, for sure. I saw a meme the other day. Um, I follow a couple healthcare um people on like on Instagram, and they they sort of uh talked about um as we age, and it said hormones, and it had men and women. Yes, and and on the top it was men, and it was like this gradual just thing, just decline. But then on the women, it was like 17 different lines going up and down.

SPEAKER_00

And I was like, oh my gosh, and this is what wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But you know what? I do have to say, we had a conversation at one of our co-ed events, and one of the gentlemen shared with us, he was divorced and he was co-parenting his children. And he says, you know, he said, just like there's expectations on women, there are expectations on men too. He said he had the expectation to be a certain provider and a certain breadwinner and to provide a certain lifestyle. And when his wife um started making more money than he did, because he remarried and his wife was making more money and they had a new baby, and he made the decision that he would be the stay-at-home dad, he got some flack for it from his family members. Really? Yeah, and he said that he had to he had to really stand firm in who he was and understand that he it didn't make him any less of a man that he was raising his children, right? But he had to have that heart conversation even with his dad. So I I I would love to see some men-centered events created by guys like you, guys like Kevin.

SPEAKER_01

Well, well, yeah. I remember I remember when my my children were like toddler, I was working second shift at the time. So I would go to work at like 3 p.m. And so I remember I was home during the day before my wife got home, and I remember like just putting away the dishes or something, and my my toddlers were running around. And I remember pausing and saying, Man, I could be a stay-at-home dad, and I would love every second of it. It was like just you know what? I it was it was just a great feeling, and I would not feel uh less of a man at all. So um, but it's kind of funny how you mentioned, you know, the the kind of expectations. It just reminded me when you said that because I remember when I got divorced, as sad as this, if I went, like let's say I was introducing myself and I said something about oh, I'm going through divorce, like, oh, are you married? Do you have kids? Whatever. I'm like, oh, I'm going through divorce or recently divorced, I had people that would say, Oh, I'm so sorry, what did you do?

SPEAKER_03

Uh like what?

SPEAKER_01

Just because I'm a guy?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, why is that assumption?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, it was yeah, it's so crazy, but that's a different, that's a different podcast for a different day. Yeah. Um, no, this is so so let me ask you, if if there are women that are maybe on the fence, right? They're not maybe they're just they don't feel confident enough. They they you know don't know should I go to one of these women of fi events? Um, you know, their situation, they're just they're just not sure. Maybe, maybe um it'll be too dramatic if with they're all women. I don't know. What do you think to help them understand that yes, they belong there?

SPEAKER_03

Uh if you are on the fence and wondering, am I gonna go there and just get a bunch of answers that I can get online? Or am I going to go to a woman's center event and just get the same type of uh responses that I get at every other event? I will say to you that if you come to our women's center events, you will not only be seen and heard and recognized, but we will become your biggest, you will leave with a set of friends that you just never thought you would ever have in your life. And I know that sounds trite, but I can honestly say I have become such good friends with Chantel Martin and Zuska Najati. Oh yeah, and they are my partners in putting these women's center events together to the point that I feel as if I've known these women for 25 plus years, and I've only known Zeuska for five, and I've known Chantel, I think four. But we just started working on this endeavor January of 2025, and it feels as if we've been doing it together for 15 years because we, for example, we meet like every week just to talk through the planning for the next event, but at the opening of that meeting, we're talking about how we're doing what's going on with you today, right? What's happening, what's your workload like? Before we jump into this, which where's your heart? What's going on? And with the women's under events, and I said this before, it's never just about the money. Yes, you're gonna come and you're gonna learn about financial independence. But I had a woman say to me that she went to an event and it was a local meetup, and she was questioning something, and she she put the question on a table and she got an answer and she wasn't clear on it. So she was the aberration where she asked the question a couple more times. And when she still didn't get it, one of the guys said, you know, you might want to work on your limiting beliefs and come back.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Really?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, so if you're a woman out there right now that's trying to figure out your personal finances and you're looking for a space where you can come and ask questions and be confident in the fact that none of your questions will be poo-pooed away and we won't speak to you in jargon, and we won't talk about risk parity, we'll talk about what's happening in your life and why money is important and the emotions behind it, then we're for you. If you want just a simple, here's the answer and here's a plan with a whole bunch of kicking and laughter beside it, come hang out with us. That's right. We're very we're we're money savvy, we're heart-centered, we just love women and we love this five space and we know the life that is on the other side of financial independence and the freedom that comes with it. And we want more of you to join us because any woman that understands financial freedom, uh, they will pour that freedom into their community, whether it be their media household or the people around them at work, or I don't know. We just we we just love differently. And it's not to say we love better, we just love different.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I I I I got so many things going in my head right now, like on some of the things you just said. One, you talked about freedom, if you understand what that can bring. So if financial um independence really ultimately is about freedom, um what do you think true freedom looks like specifically for like the women who come to your events versus the generic freedom that gets talked about out there in the Fi community?

SPEAKER_03

Well, I'll use myself as an example, but everyone said to me that freedom looks like your next endeavor. So you're leaving you you leave your career and you build or design this next life for you. And it looked a lot like setting up another business and coaching. And I shared this in my talk with economy that everyone says that to have a successful retirement, you need to retire to something. And success for me has been retiring from things. I was able to retire from a high pressure job, I was able to retire from all these expectations of me. I was able to retire from coaching. And I I I gave myself permission to not have to do something because that's the traditional notion of retirement.

SPEAKER_01

I remember you said no to a board position.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. I I gave myself permission to just walk away and not have something to get up and do and be productive in. And that freedom, we're told to be a good mom, you have to be productive. To be a good wife, you have to be productive. To be a good employee, you have to be productive. Everything's tied to being producers. And I don't know if that's true. I don't know if it's true for everyone. For me, it wasn't. And unfortunately, I lived a life of 40 plus years thinking that it was the doing part. We had a woman come to our event, and she is a mom of two boys that are 39 and 40 years old. And she's from Slovakia, and she lives in the US. Her grown boys still live at home with her. Wow. And she's still doing their laundry and she's still cooking for them. And she says, but if I don't do it, people will say I'm a bad mom. And we're like, are your boys able to be self-sufficient? She said, yes. Are they working and earning a living? She said, yes. And she says, but it's the expectation that I cook for them and I do their laundry. And we said, but what would it look like if you didn't? If you gave them some of that responsibility, what would you do with your days? She says, I would be unproductive. We said, but what does unproductive mean? She says, I could sit and read a book instead of doing laundry. I could meet up with my girlfriends for lunch instead of cooking them dinner. I could go and have a spa day. I could go on vacation and not feel guilty that I'm leaving them or not have to prepare meals for them before I travel to make sure they can eat while I'm away. It's just those are the types of things that we unpack together. And we reassured her that no one's going to consider you lazy because you're not taking care of two grown men.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, sure. It's okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But she only felt comfortable having that conversation because we created a space where it was okay.

SPEAKER_01

Sure.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I that reminded me of uh something that I went through with uh when um with my therapist because I'm I guess I'm kind of like addicted to productivity, right? Like everything has to be productive. If I'm not producing, creating, being productive, I feel as though I'm wasting my time. And uh the one thing I learned, and this was several years ago, is that productivity can be whatever you want it to be. And so like I used to think, okay, you know, my son's coming over and we're gonna watch a movie. And sometimes, like during that entire time watching a movie, I'm like kind of feeling guilty in the back of my mind, like, oh, I could be doing this, I could be doing that. But if what I wanted to do was to watch a movie with my kid, yeah, then I was productive. You were productive. And so I've started to learn that I, you know, if if reading a book or taking a nap is what I wanted to do that day, then I'm productive.

SPEAKER_03

Listen, naps are on my list. I have a successful day of had a nap. It's just I go to the gym, I work out, I get in the pool, I swim, I relax. If I come back and I can take a nap, it's a wonderful day. And I count that as a win. Having time for white space in my head where I'm not thinking about the next thing or planning the next thing or doing the next thing, it's a win. And that freedom or that white space gives me the freedom that if a friend calls and says, Hey, I'm going for a walk. Do you want to take a walk with me? I can go and walk with them. If another neighbor says, Hey, I'm going out to work on the garden, do you want to join me? I have the freedom to do it. But if I had a list of things that I had to be doing all day long and being productive in doing, no. Even doing these women-centered events, the one thing that was really important to me was and important to the team that I work with, is that we not take it on as another job, that we have the freedom throughout the year to do the things we want to do and still be able to do and enjoy these events. So we only do them twice a year. We never have more than 50 women or 50 people at our events because we want to create a space, one where uh it's small enough and intimate enough where you can truly connect with someone. Because our hope is that when you leave that event, you leave with a relationship that surpasses the weekend, that you're still in contact with them, and that you know that at your fingertips there's a phone number that you can call when you have a question or concern. Yes, we have the WhatsApp group and you can post there, but more readily, you have that person that's right in your sphere that you can talk to. And um after our first event, we we got work from a woman who had relocated from Richmond, Virginia to Philadelphia. And her daughters went to college in Philadelphia and she had lived in Richmond her entire life. And when her kids went to college and decided not to come back, her and her husband took the leap and sold their place in Richmond and moved to Philly. And within two weeks of our woman's event, her dog had an emergency and had to go to a vet. And she was just shaken up by it. And she just reached out to one of the women that she had met at the weekend and they met her at the vet's office.

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

And they went through it together. And to this day, the women are still meeting up and going to places together and vacationing together and doing trips together, and it's just wonderful. They've created an extension of the weekend every day in their local suite.

SPEAKER_01

That's great. I love that. And that was gonna be one of my questions too was the fact that you know, this this really cool, awesome, unique, um, intentional thing you've created. What's that look like in five years? Like is in five years. Five years, right? I was like, is it something that's gonna stay very small and intimate, or is this something that could scale?

SPEAKER_03

Uh we had that conversation. It's so funny because after every woman's event, we the very first one, everyone said, You have to do more of these. And we said, Oh, we'll do it again next year. And they said, No, no, no, you have to do more of these. I have this, I I can I can guarantee you right now, in five years' time, and I may have to come back in five years and either stand on this or refute it. But I do not see myself being like a Stephen Bauer having 13 and 14 camps. He is amazing. I mean, that is phenomenal, and I think it's something that I just either A, don't have the stamina to do, or B, I'm very selfish because I want to go to his camps and I want to go to economy and I want to go all to all these other things that I would not give that with that on myself. So right now in my mind, we will have no more than two events every year, no more than 50 women. But what I do envision in five years' time is just like Sarah Catherine Gutierrez gave us that challenge to take it back to our space. If there's any woman out there that wants to create a woman-centered event in their local space, reach out. I'll gladly help you and share with you uh the framework that we use to get it established. I'll gladly support you and in any way I can to get it started. I would love to see more women-centered spaces in every location. I know um you indicated that there's a women centered event where you're located, and it's wonderful. And I think they should exist everywhere.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's I love that.

SPEAKER_03

That's in five years.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Okay. Well, and and that's a great, a great uh um spot to kind of wrap this episode up. I want to let people know where they can get more information about women of fi or if they want to get in touch with you, or please let people know where they can find you.

SPEAKER_03

They can find me at womenofy.com. Uh, it lists all of the information about our events, and there's a newsletter that we send out monthly. So sign up and join us. And if you want to reach out to me, you can send a message to hello at womenofy.com.

SPEAKER_01

Perfect. Kim, thank you so much for joining me today. This was super fun. And I want to thank everyone else for listening and follow along wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. Please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And we will see you next time on the Extreme Personal Finance show.

SPEAKER_00

See ya.