The Great Wealth Transfer: Why Women Can’t Afford to Stay on the Sidelines
What if one of the largest financial shifts in American history is already happening and the majority of women are completely unprepared for it? What does it really mean when trillions of dollars land in the hands of people who were never given the confidence, the tools, or even the permission to talk about money? And what’s the true cost—not just emotionally, but financially—of leaving these conversations to someone else year after year? In this episode, Dr. Barb Provost lays it all out with clarity and urgency: why the coming decade is unlike anything women have faced before, why the “I’ll figure it out later” approach is quietly costing you more than you realize, and what it actually looks like to step into your financial life with confidence. Whether you’ve been keeping your eyes wide open or quietly avoiding the whole subject, this conversation will meet you exactly where you are.
My special guest is Barbara Provost
Dr. Barb Provost is a financial educator, consultant, and one of the most grounded and practical voices working at the intersection of women and money today. After years of watching the financial services industry design its products, conversations, and culture almost exclusively around men, she built Purstrings—a platform that gives women the knowledge, tools, and community they need to step into their financial futures with clarity and courage. Her work runs in two directions at once: she trains financial professionals to genuinely understand and serve their women clients, and she equips women directly with the resources they need to get started, no matter where they are on their financial journey. From navigating sudden widowhood to recovering from divorce, from climbing out of debt to figuring out where the money is even going—Purstrings is built to meet women there, without judgment, and walk alongside them toward something better.
“We want women to live a life that is financially fearless and full of choices.”
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Understand what the Great Wealth Transfer actually is and why it places women at the center of one of the biggest financial moments of our lifetime.
- Recognize the very real risks of financial unpreparedness—whether through divorce, widowhood, caregiving, or simply never having been invited into the money conversation.
- Unpack why it is genuinely more expensive to live as a woman—from the pink tax to career gaps to medical costs—and what that means for how you think about saving and planning.
- Learn concrete, accessible strategies you can apply right now, wherever you are in your financial journey, to start building a more secure future.
- Discover how to find a financial professional who truly understands what women are up against—and how Purstrings can connect you with someone who will actually listen.
Why Women Must Claim Their Seat at the Financial Table
For generations, the financial conversation in most households has had an invisible but very real boundary: it belonged to the men. Not because women weren’t capable—as Barb makes clear, that’s simply not the case—but because of a long cultural conditioning that told women to step back, let someone else handle it, and trust that it would all work out. And for many women, it did. Until it didn’t.
The numbers behind the Great Wealth Transfer are staggering. Tens of thousands of Americans are turning 65 every single day. The average age of a widow is just 59. Gray divorce—couples separating in their 50s and 60s—is happening at three times the historical rate. What all of this adds up to is an enormous wave of wealth moving into women’s hands, often all at once, often without warning, and often without the preparation that would make it feel like an opportunity rather than an emergency.
Barb’s work through Purstrings is built around a single conviction: that women don’t lack the intelligence or the capability to manage their own financial lives. What they’ve often lacked is the invitation, the education, and the right people in their corner. The financial services industry has historically been structured around men—and while that is slowly changing, $700 billion in potential business is still being left on the table simply because advisors aren’t asking women the right questions, or any questions at all.
The practical takeaways from this conversation are worth sitting with: contribute to your 401(k) at least up to the employer match—it’s free money you cannot afford to leave behind. Understand the difference between simple and compound interest, and which side of that equation you want to be on. Know what interest rates you’re carrying and have a strategy for them. And if you share finances with a partner, be at the table for every major decision—not as a courtesy, but because your future depends on it.
Getting started doesn’t require having it all figured out. Purstrings exists precisely for the woman who doesn’t know where to begin. The first step is just knowing where the money is going.
The resources mentioned in this episode are:
- Visit Purstrings at purstrings.co for free financial tools, resources, and a curated directory of vetted financial professionals who specialize in serving women.
- Listen to the Free Agent podcast with Meg Schmitz on Spotify and all major podcast platforms—and share the show with someone who needs to hear it.
- Schedule a free franchise consultation call with Meg at megschmitz.com—franchise consultants are paid by the franchise companies, so there is no fee or obligation.
- Download Meg’s free e-book on franchise ownership at megschmitz.com by entering your email for an instant copy.
- Connect with Meg Schmitz and FranChoice to explore whether franchise ownership is the right next chapter for your own story.
- Listen to the Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz for real stories of self-employment and business ownership.
- Contact Meg Schmitz to schedule a free, no-obligation call for insights into entrepreneurship and franchise opportunities.
- Use the form on the Free Agent Podcast page if you’d like to be considered as a guest on the show.
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Click to Take the Leap into the full interview transcript of the Free Agent Podcast, Episode 8.17 with Meg Schmitz and her guest, Barbara Provost
Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Dr. Barbara Provost, Financial Educator, Women’s Wealth Advocate & Founder of Purse Strings
Meg Schmitz:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to, or welcome back to, the Free Agent podcast. If you’ve been here before, you know I am Meg Schmitz. I’m your lovely hostess. The discussion here is something near and dear to my heart. It’s free agency, and free agency also leads to taking control over your future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self-employment, business ownership, sometimes franchising, but we’re all looking for freedom. Mm-hmm. ‘Cause freedom is really what we’re all about.
The conversation is really for corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job, but it’s also for entrepreneurs and investors who are looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey. My podcast aims a spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control over their destiny, and became their own boss.
Today, we’re gonna shake it up a little bit. I’ve got Dr. Barb Provost joining me. We were introduced recently by my husband, a money guy, and today I’m so excited ’cause women and money don’t always get along. They don’t always go in the same conversation. So Barb, we’re gonna talk about money. Ooh. Women and money. And, you know, we’re, may even throw some of it around as the interview goes on. How … Let’s talk about you. How long ago, and what was the inspiration for you to dive into this women and money? And, and then we’ll, we’ll get into how it, it has evolved.
Barbara:
Sure. Women and money. Well- … um, wow. You know, I think it stemmed from just when I started working and saw some kind of inequities just in the working world- Mm
and how so many men were getting promoted over women who are just as successful, which really angered me, ’cause I was a hardworking woman, and would, it was difficult to get ahead. And so that actually led me to go back to school and get more education. Mm. Which typically happens a lot. Women have to over-educate themselves to get the same, if not similar, you know, pay, um, salary as men.
Mm. In fact, there’s was a study that said women who had an undergrad were making as much as men who didn’t have an undergrad, and women who had a master’s were making the level of men who had an undergrad. So I mean, it was always inequitable, and I always kind of felt it a- along my working world. And when I, as a consultant in the financial industry, I teach a lot of financial professionals everything from product, process, procedure, whatever.
So when I looked around the room, consistently it was men, and they were learning product to sell to the masses, but nothing that really focused on women. What … I mean, women in terms of what do women want and need in terms of their financials, which is unique and different. Mm. So there was no dir- differentiation where I could see there was so much of a different conversation that needed to happen between men and women and their money.
Because the day in the life of a woman and what she’s up against versus the day in the life of a man and what he’s up against is quite different, and I saw it very clearly, and I saw a lot of inequity. I just could see it at every point and turn, and so I kept bringing it up to, we need to do something different in this financial services arena.
Because even today as you look around, you know, 83 cents on the dollar for women, Equal Pay Day is happening in March, that’s just for white women. Equal Pay Day for Black women, Latina women, LGBTQ women, all of that is throughout the whole year, which means that women, to make the same amount of money white men have made, have to work so much further into the year.
So there’s just at every point in ti- turn I could see it, and it’s my mission to do something about that, to help women live a life that’s what we say is financially fearless and full of choices.
Meg:
Fearless. I’m so glad you said that, because women are afraid of money. Yes. And not all women. I’m not afraid of money anymore. But it took a significant life event, divorce- Yep. Yep … for, for me to shift my thinking and get better educated. But where do you think this, where do you think it stems from that… And there’s a whole separate conversation about the inequity in the working world and why that is. Right. Wh- where do you think the, the fear points came from? Is it our upbringing? Is it our mothers? Is it-
Barbara:
All the way back. Yeah. So think about in your household growing up, was money discussed or not discussed? When it was discussed, was it, you know, open and everyone talked about the price of things, how much they made, if they got a raise? Was that just m- part of normal conversation, or was there gnashing of teeth and throwing of bills and, you know what I mean?
Was it, you know, intense, and so who wants to talk about that, right? Or was it we don’t talk about money, it’s very, you know, for women, it’s not polite. You don’t talk about money or ask them what they paid for something or anything like that. And then not just in our own families, but what about our communities?
What about our religion? What about, you know, all of the other impacts that are woven into who we become and what we believe and what our knee-jerk reactions are to certain topics, like money. And so if women were always taught, I know in high school I was never given financial freedom in terms of how to balance a checkbook or save money or invest.
I was given typing and shorthand you know, um, childcare and cooking. So, um, y- we were inculturated, if you will, women, not to really talk about money, learn about money, but that that give it to the man type thing and they will take care of it.
Meg:
Something you and I talked about that is absolutely true and poignant is the wealth transfer. A- as men, as women are outliving their husbands, the, the lack of confidence, lack of knowledge lack of willingness. My mother is a perfect example of all of this. Mm-hmm. Everything that you said about what happened in the marriage and the conversation between my, my mom and my dad, totally true for my household.
Now, I did– He encouraged me to start a bank account because I was making a lot of money babysitting, and learn how to manage and spend. Mm-hmm. So it’s interesting how he still does have my mom c- under his thumb- Mm-hmm … about, “Oh, Jackie, you don’t know how to do this. Oh, Jackie, I, I’ll take care of it.” And he’s got dementia now, and she’s going to outlive him, and- Yeah
the example that you and I talked about a couple of weeks ago is absolutely true. So let’s talk about the challenges going forward of the wealth transfer- Yeah … that is going to happen because w- that is going to happen with women who simply don’t know what to do.
Barbara:
Yeah. We’re in very interesting times as this whole baby boom- boomer generation is aging. It’s like 10 or 11,000 people are turning 65 every day in the United States for the next seven years. That’s incredible when you think about the aging process. And with that comes a lot of impacts to finances. First and foremost is the average age of a widow is 59, which is typically lower than what people think.
Yeah. Gray divorce, which is women and men in their 50s and 60s, is happening at three times the rate. So more women on their own independently with their own monies, and you know women typically lose in divorce, uh, financially on their own. And some women are just deciding never to marry. So we have a lot more women aging alone, right?
And when is thing, when are things really expensive? As we age alone, and all of a sudden our medical bills go up or someone’s gotta have caretaking and oversight. It’s very expensive. So women have to try to stretch their monies out because we’re living to… in our 90s many times. And so what’s happening is as the baby boomers age, retire, die, all that money is gonna be transferred to their heir- heirs.
And so oftentimes because men die first, it’s gonna land into the hands of women. And what’s cool about that is women will own the purse strings of America. But the issue on that is if women were never given the confidence, the competence, the tools, the resources, the support to feel that they can step in and make their own good financial decisions, then they can be, A, taken advantage of- Mm-hmm
or not learn how to really invest it and make it grow for the long term, but kind of flail with it. A lot of women give their money away. You know, little Johnny wanted a car, and little Annie wants to go to this school, and so they’re the good grandma or whatever they are doing and doling it out without thinking, “I have to think of me first.”
You know, “What’s my return on investment if I invest in Johnny’s car?” Not- Not that good, right? So what is it that you have to do is invest in yourself and your long-term, um, you know, future in terms of who’s gonna take care of you in the future. So there’s a lot going on with money and women over these next 10, 20 years for sure.
Meg:
And so what… Talk about the steps that you’re taking and the programs that you’ve got in place in your industry in order to change the mindset of what is typically a male-dominated- Yeah … wealth manager, wealth advisor field.
Barbara:
So a couple of things. One thing is, as an adult educator, I do educate financial professionals on what women want and need from their financial, from their women clients, of which women are 51% of the population, yet so much of finances and the financial organizations are focused on men.
I mean- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm … today, $700 billion is being left on the table just because I say they’re not turning their chair and saying, “So Barbara, tell me what it is you want out of your retirement, and as you save your hard-earned money, what does retirement look like for you?” They’re never asking those questions.
I shouldn’t say never. Many are not asking those questions. They’re just focusing on, you know, what’s the return on investment? What’s our next investment? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When really, that money’s gonna land in her lap, not his, even though they’re having those conversations. That’s why women need to step in and be p- at the table.
I don’t care if you say, “I don’t understand it. I’m overwhelmed. My husband always takes care of it.” Well, you’re gonna be deer in the headlights because you’re gonna be solo and having to make all those decisions. So couple of things. We are educating financial professionals on how to really engage women in that conversation, but we’re also providing women a lot of information, tools, resources right at their fingertips from our website on whether they’re going through divorce, suddenly widowed, coming into a windfall, just wanna know where their money’s going, getting out of debt, what- wherever they are in their financial journey.
And then when they do need to work with a financial professional, we have a list, a curated directory of vetted financial professionals who serve the women’s market. So they’ve been vetted by us as those who understand women, what they’re up against, you know, what they’re looking for in a financial advisor, and they’re there to really listen and serve women as they need.
And, and it’s really uncomfortable for those women. It’s very uncomfortable for many.
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Meg:
With the resources that you have available, uh, are, are you able to track how long, uh, what, what is downloaded, how long they’re there, some of the metrics that we, we rely on our websites and LinkedIn to provide?
Barbara:
We do, but it’s so interesting. I mean, women take a long time to take action on their finances. Yeah. Yeah. Even women who come to me and say, “Barb, I really need to get started. Is there someone you can recommend?” And we’ll go through the site, and they’ll pick a couple that they’re gonna reach out to, and I’ll see them, and a month later I’ll go, “So did you reach out?”
They’re like, “No, I got really busy. I’m gonna get to that.” Two months later, “Hey, did you ever reach out to so-and-so?” “No, I…” It’s amazing. I mean, it’s, it’s… I want to just say take that action now today. The best time to take that action was yesterday. Do it today, because all that time’s gonna pass, and you’re doing yourself a disservice by putting that on the back burner, because you never know what’s gonna happen.
And too often, women are not investing their money enough to make it grow for the long term as they age along. They, and I’m like, they, some of them say to me, “I just put it in a bank account for now.” Oh, my gosh. No.
Meg:
I know. Well, that’s what I say. No, don’t do that. Your example of supporting college education or buying Johnny a car, uh, immediately when you said that I thought, “Tax benefit, tax consequence.”
And they don’t think about if I use the money, if I put it into this vehicle, and I don’t mean- Right … a car, but into this financial vehicle.
Barbara:
Yes, yes. Then she gets the tax benefit while the granddaughter gets the, the actual financial benefit. Yes. And they’re not… Yeah, they’re missing that whole piece of the equation as well.
Right, of being strategic about how to use- Yeah, yeah … their monies. Yeah. Yeah, and working with good financial professionals who can say, “Okay, you want to do that? Let’s do it this way. This is how it’s gonna benefit you.” Yeah. Do it.
There, a number of years ago, I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues. She’s older, I think, by 20 years, and I’m 62, so she was still involved in, um, in franchise consulting. A good friend of hers in Minneapolis had been a TV anchor for a long time. She wrote a book, if I’m not mistaken, Before All Is Said and Done. Her husband took ill. She had… She was a TV personality. She was the bright, bubbly one who was all- Right
social, and suddenly her husband was incapacitated, and then he was dead. Mm. And they never had the conversation. Before all is said and done, her message is, “Pay attention.” Oh, yeah. And I had a woman on our podcast who, same thing. She went to Mexico with her husband, and he had been out of work for a while, but they just decided, they were so stressed out.
They had a couple of boys. They decided they were gonna go to Mexico, this place they love to visit. She woke up the next morning, and he was dead. It was crazy, her story. She even wrote a book, but she spoke to my group at Purse Strings because she said not only did that happen and the craziness of her trying to get out of Mexico without…
I mean, the, in Mexico, when she was meeting with police, the other policemen were in her hotel room ransacking it and stole all of their money, all of their electronics, and everything. So she had nothing, and she was trying to get out of Mexico with him and had to have him cremated and all that. That was a crazy mess in itself.
But when she got home, she got a check in the mail for $60,000 that said 401 or whatever closed, and she didn’t realize that he had been drawing on their 401 all this time, and all she had left to her name was $60,000. Oh, dear. And she had three boys. And so she spoke to our group and said, “I am the poster woman for why you need to have these conversations.
You need to talk about money.” She needed her, you know, powers of attorney in place and all of that jazz, and she wrote a book on it. And people always say, “I’ll get to that.” It’s too late.
Meg:
Yeah. One, one bad turn. Well, and so there’s that. Yeah. Dire. That’s absolutely dire. But then there are, there… How do we get women comfortable to…
Uh, uh, it, for me, it was a divorce, and I’m, I’m bullheaded and, and I’m driven and determined, and I was going to, I was going to monopolize on my own skills and, and resources in order to, to educate myself. But what you’re saying is that’s unusual. So how do we get women comfortable? With being uncomfortable.
Barbara:
Well, you know, at Purse Strings, we always say no judgment, right? It, we don’t care if you’re a million dollars in debt or what- where- whatever your circumstances are at the time. Just get started, right? Just know where your money’s going and get started. We have a very easy document on our front page that helps you figure that out on your own. Or we have these amazing financial coaches, financial professionals who know that women are up against a lot.
I mean, I teach this, like the day in the life of a woman is so different than the day in the life of a man from an expense standpoint. Mm-hmm. It’s so expensive for, you know, what men pay to get their hair cut versus what women pay to get their hair cut. Besides the fact that there’s a pay gap, let’s add to the fact pink tax.
You know, where they charge women more for the exact same product that a man has, because it’s for women, and that’s across the board so much around pink tax. So when all, when you look at this and unpack all the things that women live on a daily basis, medical, so much more expensive, so many more doctors they have to go to.
It’s expensive just to live as a woman, and so there’s a lot of reasons why it’s tough kinda to make ends meet, but it’s doable. And so if you work with the right financial professional where you can look at what your circumstances are and where it is that you wanna be, these professionals can work out a game plan with you, and be your accountability partner, and be your sounding board, and there to help you move yourself along so you don’t have to answer all the questions.
It’s like working with an el- an electrician. You don’t wanna know always how the wires are wired. You just wanna know when you flip on the switch, the light goes on, right? Mm-hmm. You can learn how it’s wired if you want. They’ll teach you. But you really wanna know that you have a plan in place that’s meeting your end goals.
And keep revisiting it because life changes. All the time. Tax code changes. All the time.
Meg:
Yeah. That- That’s why on a regular basis you have to have these conversations. Yeah. Please. I know, right? It’s, it’s too bad because I can’t tell you, every day a woman says to me, “Where were you when I was going through divorce? Where were you when?” Or, “My mother’s in that same predicament,” or, “My sister’s going through a divorce. She doesn’t know anything about the money,” or something like that, and we wanna get in front of those conversations and say, “It’s really not that hard. It’s not that difficult, and we’re gonna show you how easy it can be, and let’s just get started.”
We have all these different ways to get in front of women in a very easy, very welcoming community that allows you to just step in and get started. Just so we can drop it in here right now, what is the website?
Barbara:
pursestrings.co. Okay. And sometimes people ask me, “Why purse strings? What does that mean?” And purse strings is a very old word, and it just, if you see it, it’s very much like if you are flush, you can loosen your purse strings, right?
And spend a little money, go on that vacation, buy yourself that bag, whatever it might be. But when things get a little tight, we tighten our purse strings a little bit and hold back and retreat. So it’s kind of the way life is, right? Sometimes we have– we’re more flush, sometimes we have to tighten our purse strings, but that’s life, right?
As you said, everything changes all the time, and you just have to make sure you’re in control of your purse strings.
Meg:
Yeah, and paying attention to your bank balance, paying attention to your credit cards. What, what interest rates are you paying on what vehicle? What- Right … I could go on. I know. There’s a lot, and there’s a lot that, you know, very simple tweaks you can make to really serve yourself.
Do you wanna talk about a couple of those?
Barbara:
Well, something you just said about interest rate on credit cards, right? So what does that mean? Um, s- some people can– If you have a large credit card balance, one thing you can do is get a 0% credit card and transfer it over. You’ll pay a transfer fee, but it’s 0%, and then you figure out how many months will I have this available for.
You don’t use the card for anything, and then you figure out, “I have to make these payments over these 12, 18 months to pay this off,” so that’s strategy. Mm-hmm. Um, but knowing the difference between simple interest and compound interest, right? So compound interest is, like what, the eighth wonder of the world.
That’s which r- what you always want when you’re earning money. It’s never what you want when you’re uh, borrowing money. So, um, but yeah. I mean, there are simple strategies like that, and when you know the difference and you have some little strategies or techniques in play, you know how you can pay down debt.
There– That’s just one strategy. There are several others. But being aware of what is this interest rate I’m paying. If people don’t know they’re paying 27, 28%, they don’t realize that when you’re paying that bill, you’re just paying interest back, and that will never go down. And when you look at mortgage, you know, amortizations or, you know, payments over time, what are you paying on that?
Which should you refinance? What would that cost? How much of the interest will go down? So just working through those strategies and thinking them through with somebody who’s a good financial professional will help you discern, you know, what to pay and what not to pay. Sometimes people say if you’re earning, um– paying more than 8%, you should always pay off your interest.
If it’s less than 8% and you can earn more than that in the market, maybe you shouldn’t. So there’s different strategies like that.
Meg:
I’m working with a young man right now. He’s not quite 30. He would like to buy, he would like to buy a business. He would like to buy a franchise, and he would like to buy a house.
Mm-hmm. And when I w- talked to him last week, said, “Do you have any idea how to do this simultaneously based on your current income?” ‘Cause what I’m looking at and what you wanna do, you’re not going, going to be able to do both because number one, you don’t own a tangible asset like a home that has equity built into it.
That’s … So it’s interesting how many people don’t understand how to acquire assets that are valuable assets that then allow them liquidity or, or borrowing power- Right. Mm-hmm … towards something else, a car, a vac- a vacations, an education. Yes. Something else that …
Barbara:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot. But, but you know, it’s funny, like you said, you went through a divorce and all of a sudden you, you know, you dug in. And sometimes it takes something like that for some of us to stop dead in our tracks and say, “I gotta do something about this,” right? And it’s, it’s tough. It’s, it’s tough if you don’t know. I say it’s like someone giving you the keys to a car that you’ve never, ever driven a car before, and then you, you, you just are fumbling around, and you’re gonna make mistakes and maybe get in a big accident, and that’s what happens with our finances, right?
If we don’t really understand how to navigate it in a way that’s strategic, and talk to the experts who can help us manage that. Although some people say, “Well, why would I pay a financial advisor?” Well, you pay your dentist, you pay your hairdresser, you pay other experts that you don’t know a lot about to, to help- Good point
service you, right? It’s, it’s the foundation of your whole life. Why wouldn’t you?
Meg:
I, it, it confounds me, frankly, on, on my end of the world too, how slow people are to say, “I need help.”
Barbara:
Well, it’s, it’s … People are, women especially, are very vulnerable when they’re talking about money. They think, “I should have known this. I made mistakes. I didn’t realize. People are gonna think less than me.” And that’s why sometimes women just do nothing. And we don’t care at Purse Strings what has happened in the past. We just want to say, “Let’s start now and get you a better future.” Yeah. Teach you what you need to know. You know? Yeah.
Meg:
Let’s get moving ahead, because there’s no time like the present to at least get started. Yes. So what are some other hot topics or, or f- myths that you hear come from women and you go, “No.” Are-
Barbara:
Oh, that, that it’s too complicated, that women are bad with money, that women are bad with math, you know, all of that girl math stuff, you know. That’s not true. And some of the bigger mistakes I see women make, one for sure, is if they are working for an organization that has a 401, some of them don’t contribute to the match. That’s a huge mistake, and anybody out there working for an organization, if your company has a match. Match to the full potential because it’s free money on the table.
And too often they say, “Well, I wanna hold back because I need this extra spending money for something or the other.” And I can understand that, so put what you can afford and then up, up it 1% the next year. Yeah. And then when you get a raise, up it one more percent. So usually the match is 5, 8%, whatever.
Because you won’t see it as much in your paycheck, but you will see the compounding value of that in the long term. And sometimes people don’t take advantage of that for lots of different reasons, and they don’t understand it’s a critical mistake. It really is if you don’t take a- take advantage of it.
Meg:
The future value of money. Yes. It’s so important for women. They’re think- yes, they’re thinking about the current value to me right now today, and not the future value of money, exactly how it can compound and grow exponentially. It’s … Do you, uh, do you have charts and, and graphs or anything that show if you would, if you do the 401 matching, and you’re doing it this amount right now, what the value of that will be when you’re at retirement age?
Barbara:
Well, you can find it anywhere. I mean, you could ChatGPT it up, I’m sure. But- Oh, if you want … your HR department could, you know, should be able to do that. And sometimes in HR they give you a lot of that information right at orientation. Mm-hmm. But no one’s following up, you know, and you get so much thrown at, at you at one time, that I bring this up often because on an annual basis it’s something you should be looking at and making adjustments to.
Yeah. Uh, again, tax code changes, a lot of these regulations, the one big beautiful bill and what that is going to change going forward, that’s complex. And so having a good tax advisor- Mm-hmm … is another person you ought to be paying because that, that money for the advice is going to pay off when you need it.
Meg:
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, there’s so much times you can save yourself money. So, and I say to people, “When you pay a financial advisor, you’re making more money than what you’re paying them.”
Barbara:
Because they’re … A good financial advisor- A good point … will serve you well, make good dec- good decisions in partnership with you, that you probably would have no clue about what to make, or adjustments or tax code or investments or new investments coming down the pike that would really benefit you. That’s what you’re paying for.
Meg:
And so when I was going through that divorce, I was already a business owner and learning the hard knocks. I paid my education in hard knocks in the beginning. Yeah. So when, when I talk about my own background, I, I wasn’t a newbie and I wasn’t afraid. When I got divorced, in a way it was really freeing because now I was completely in control.
Yes. Yes. And when you talk about … I want to go back to something, ’cause it kind of made me laugh inside. It’s expensive to be a woman, and it’s not because of shopping.
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Barbara:
Mm-hmm.
Meg:
Clarify that comment from earlier, why it is so much more expensive to be a woman.
Barbara:
Sure. Well s- first of all, the, what the prices that are charged to women because of the pink tax, and the pink tax is, for instance, if you buy a BIC blue razor, which is typically geared towards men, and you buy a BIC pink razor, typically what women would buy, that package is a dollar more for the exact same thing except it’s pink.
When you go for a haircut and your husband goes for a haircut, I’m sure you’re paying two or three times what your husband is paying, right? Women often, you know, we’re charged to color our hair, put in the, the long, uh, locks or whatever it might be- Extensions … get the thing cut, right? It’s hundreds of dollars sometimes you walk out of the salon that you’re paying.
Then there’s the nails, the eyebrows, the eyelashes, the makeup, all of that, which we don’t have to do any of it, right, Meg? We don’t have to do any of it. But walk into a meeting with long hair that’s not cut, that’s probably not colored, you know? Uh, uh, I mean, people will start saying, “What’s…” You know, no makeup.
People will be like, “What’s up with her? She doesn’t take care of herself. She’s not gonna be competent to take that job or whatever,” right? No, we gotta keep our, ourselves up, like the maintenance and all that. That’s more expensive for women than it is for men. I mean, look how women have to pack for a business trip.
Men throw in a khaki pants, a couple of blue shirts, they’re good to go, right? It’s more, it’s, there’s more going on for, for women. Not to mention the fact that, you know, women’s bodies are different, right? So we have our periods. We pay for pads, we pay for tampons, we pay for all those for 30 years. That’s an additional expense, right?
Plus we have more different. We have different, um, medical providers that we have to go through. Mm. We have different, you know, specializations that we need to see as our bodies are quite different. Our medical expenses are more, more expensive. Uh, our medications are more expensive. We are out of the workforce if we’re having children, right?
So we’re losing on that end because we’re of course we wanna take care of our children. Stopped our pay, stopped our career growth, stopped our Social Security contribution, stopped our contributions to our, you know, our, our matches or any of that. So all that halts, right? And even if we go back to work, let’s say we go back to work, children are in school, you have to up-skill, you have to educate more.
And let’s say, oops, got the call, Mom fell. Well, I better go figure out what’s this all about, right? So now you’re a caregiver and you have children. So maybe you’re still working, but you’re feeling, “I better make sure I don’t get dinged for the fact that I gotta leave early because I gotta pick up my mom, then I gotta get dinner for my dad, and then I have to go pick up my child from daycare.”
Right? All these things, all these hats suddenly that you’re wearing. So let’s say you do go part-time because you can’t manage all of that and that. And women pay or, like $6,500 out of pocket as they’re caregiving just by running those errands, picking up the medications, you know, getting the gloves for Mom, all those e- additional expenses that come up because you’re the one making all the errands and running around and getting, making sure everybody has everything that they have.
Plus, you’re part-time now, they don’t pay benefits, so you have no benefits. You know, whatever it might be. And then after 10, 15 years, maybe you’re getting divorced. 20 years, 30 years. Now you don’t have those contributions to your 401 ’cause you’ve been out of the work, in and out, or out. Do you have all the credits that you need to really get Social Security?
What’s in your Social Security? I mean, it compounds, as you can tell. Like, everything I said to you is very typical of what could happen in a woman’s life.
Meg:
Thank you. That’s- I wanted to get that out there so that it’s, it’s itemized and specific. Going back to your early examples, it’s absolutely true, huh, for a woman walking into a boardroom, if we’re not dressed properly, if we’re not demonstrating that we’re taking care of ourselves, there is a judgment.
I live with somebody who does not believe this is true.
And talk frequently about how h- he talks frequently about how women take themselves out of contention. They take themselves out. It’s a voluntary choice.
Barbara:
Well- Then stay sing- single and don’t have children, and forget about your parents, and okay, if we’re gonna go toe-to-toe, then let’s take the same attitude that a man would towards
A- and I have to be careful, ’cause my son is a great dad. He works from home. He never has to go back to the office, uh, as far as his employer is concerned. And there are more young men like my son who are absolutely participating in the marriage dynamic so that, so that the wife can have a full and engaging career.
But I think they’re, they’re unusual. I don’t think they’re typical. Few and far between, true, yes. I mean, they’re out there, but typically men have wives or somebody at home who’s managing all of that stuff, and women … And it’s, statistically will tell you the number of hours- Yeah … that women put in- Yeah
after they’re home from official work, that they’re getting everything else, you know, their second shift if you will, they say- Yeah … is, um, still happening. And so, you know, you ought to give it to women. They hardworking, taking on a lot, making sure everybody’s taken care of, and then I say, “Who’s taking care of her when she doesn’t have enough money to, you know, for herself?”
So that’s why we always say to women, “You come first.” I know there’s a lot of people in your realm that you need to take care of, but make sure the contributions to your 401, to your match, to all of that happens first. That’s your best return on investment for how you’re gonna manage your monies when you’re s- aging solo.
Meg:
Yeah. And a lot of women see divorce as potential, potentially on their horizon. Even if you think that that will never happen, be part of the conversation, be engaged in the decisions because, because if you do get to grow grace- grow old gracefully, and that pot of money is there, it’s because you’ve been financially responsible as well.
Yeah. Yeah. In the decision-making. People don’t buy cars independently. They … You know, there’s usually a, a tandem decision in a household, uh, to go and buy a house. It’s a tandem decision. And so be, be the tandem in all the financial decisions. Yeah, for sure. And make sure you know, you know, where the money’s going.
A lot of women have said to me, “I don’t even know how much money my husband’s making. I don’t know where it’s going. I don’t know what our match is. You know, I’m not quite sure of the bank accounts.” Don’t sign that tax form until you’ve really looked it over- Mm-hmm … and kind of know what the income is in your household and where that money’s going, because it’s a household, right?
You, even if you have different roles, you still are under one umbrella. Yeah. And I trust you is nice-
Barbara:
But as my lawyer friends say, “Trust but verify.” Yeah. And you know, pre-nups are not un- unthinkable anymore for the layperson. It’s not just for celebrities, and post-nups. So those are things to consider too, especially if one’s coming when, in with large, let’s say, education debt, or one comes in with large kind of debt for whatever reason, and especially if someone’s coming into a large inheritance or s- some kind of windfall.
You know, just make sure you understand about the roles and responsibilities about the money in your household.
Meg:
And that’s a, that’s a really good point to make. And, and while we’re k- coming to the end here, there, there are a lot of people who are coming into marriage with some kind of debt, whether it’s education, medical- Right
fill in the blank. So it’s not, to your point, always because somebody is coming in with a lot, but it’s because someone is coming in with liabilities, and once you’re married, it’s joined. Yeah. So have a, have a solid understanding of, of what that dy- whole dynamic is.
Well Barb, this has been really fun to talk about money. I love it. I was at a conference- Look at you … and they had these, um, money guns. Oh yeah. And they were shooting $100 bills all over the, the ballroom, and I think they came in with something like the equivalent of $10 million. Do you know how many stacks of money that is? So they didn’t shoot off all of them.
Funny end of the, of the episode here. I had driven to that conference, and so they just wanted to know w- were they throwing it away or did anyone want to take it? Well, we’ve got … My husband and I have businesses, and we’ve got employees, and we thought, “Well, this is fun to play with. What if we handed out stacks of money?”
Well, I got th- uh, this 50 pound bag of $100 bills, and I’m pulling it through the lobby and going to get my car, and so I had the valet help me to put it in the car ’cause it weighed so much. Oh my God. He’s, “Man, what is in here?” So I’m having fun. I said, “You know what, young man? Go ahead and unzip it. Y- uh, there are no snakes or anything that are gonna jump out, but I think you’ll be surprised.”
And so he unzips it. “Is this real?” Okay, if it were real, the Brink’s truck would be right here. I said, “No, this is a, I’m at a conference and this is all fake money. But I want to, I want you to have some fun. I want you to take a couple of stacks of these, and when I leave, as I’m leaving, I want you to point and say, ‘See that woman in the Mini Cooper?’”
“She tipped me.”
It’s so much fun to play with money. It’s so … And, and my mother s- uh, frequently says, “Oh Meggie, you talk about money all the time.” Yeah, because money solves the money issue. Yeah. And the more comfortable you are talking about money, the easier it is to learn more about money. Mm-hmm. So let’s have a conversation.
I swear, Barb, I’m doing this more and more going forward with my 88-year-old mother, ’cause my dad can’t manage a checkbook anymore. Mm-mm. So, anyways.
Barbara:
You have to take it over now.
Meg:
Yes, I do. Well, thank you for a lovely and engaging conversation. Yeah. Um, I’m really delighted to have the, those particular details about why it’s more expensive for women in the workplace.
Yeah. And why it’s more expensive for women in divorce. So.
Barbara:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. This has been absolutely a delight. Thank you for come- making the time to come on the show today. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Meg:
Anytime. We’re always here.
Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Dr. Barbara Provost, Financial Educator, Women’s Wealth Advocate & Founder of Purse Strings
Meg Schmitz:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to, or welcome back to, the Free Agent podcast. If you’ve been here before, you know I am Meg Schmitz. I’m your lovely hostess. The discussion here is something near and dear to my heart. It’s free agency, and free agency also leads to taking control over your future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self-employment, business ownership, sometimes franchising, but we’re all looking for freedom. Mm-hmm. ‘Cause freedom is really what we’re all about.
The conversation is really for corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job, but it’s also for entrepreneurs and investors who are looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey. My podcast aims a spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control over their destiny, and became their own boss.
Today, we’re gonna shake it up a little bit. I’ve got Dr. Barb Provost joining me. We were introduced recently by my husband, a money guy, and today I’m so excited ’cause women and money don’t always get along. They don’t always go in the same conversation. So Barb, we’re gonna talk about money. Ooh. Women and money. And, you know, we’re, may even throw some of it around as the interview goes on. How … Let’s talk about you. How long ago, and what was the inspiration for you to dive into this women and money? And, and then we’ll, we’ll get into how it, it has evolved.
Barbara:
Sure. Women and money. Well- … um, wow. You know, I think it stemmed from just when I started working and saw some kind of inequities just in the working world- Mm
and how so many men were getting promoted over women who are just as successful, which really angered me, ’cause I was a hardworking woman, and would, it was difficult to get ahead. And so that actually led me to go back to school and get more education. Mm. Which typically happens a lot. Women have to over-educate themselves to get the same, if not similar, you know, pay, um, salary as men.
Mm. In fact, there’s was a study that said women who had an undergrad were making as much as men who didn’t have an undergrad, and women who had a master’s were making the level of men who had an undergrad. So I mean, it was always inequitable, and I always kind of felt it a- along my working world. And when I, as a consultant in the financial industry, I teach a lot of financial professionals everything from product, process, procedure, whatever.
So when I looked around the room, consistently it was men, and they were learning product to sell to the masses, but nothing that really focused on women. What … I mean, women in terms of what do women want and need in terms of their financials, which is unique and different. Mm. So there was no dir- differentiation where I could see there was so much of a different conversation that needed to happen between men and women and their money.
Because the day in the life of a woman and what she’s up against versus the day in the life of a man and what he’s up against is quite different, and I saw it very clearly, and I saw a lot of inequity. I just could see it at every point and turn, and so I kept bringing it up to, we need to do something different in this financial services arena.
Because even today as you look around, you know, 83 cents on the dollar for women, Equal Pay Day is happening in March, that’s just for white women. Equal Pay Day for Black women, Latina women, LGBTQ women, all of that is throughout the whole year, which means that women, to make the same amount of money white men have made, have to work so much further into the year.
So there’s just at every point in ti- turn I could see it, and it’s my mission to do something about that, to help women live a life that’s what we say is financially fearless and full of choices.
Meg:
Fearless. I’m so glad you said that, because women are afraid of money. Yes. And not all women. I’m not afraid of money anymore. But it took a significant life event, divorce- Yep. Yep … for, for me to shift my thinking and get better educated. But where do you think this, where do you think it stems from that… And there’s a whole separate conversation about the inequity in the working world and why that is. Right. Wh- where do you think the, the fear points came from? Is it our upbringing? Is it our mothers? Is it-
Barbara:
All the way back. Yeah. So think about in your household growing up, was money discussed or not discussed? When it was discussed, was it, you know, open and everyone talked about the price of things, how much they made, if they got a raise? Was that just m- part of normal conversation, or was there gnashing of teeth and throwing of bills and, you know what I mean?
Was it, you know, intense, and so who wants to talk about that, right? Or was it we don’t talk about money, it’s very, you know, for women, it’s not polite. You don’t talk about money or ask them what they paid for something or anything like that. And then not just in our own families, but what about our communities?
What about our religion? What about, you know, all of the other impacts that are woven into who we become and what we believe and what our knee-jerk reactions are to certain topics, like money. And so if women were always taught, I know in high school I was never given financial freedom in terms of how to balance a checkbook or save money or invest.
I was given typing and shorthand you know, um, childcare and cooking. So, um, y- we were inculturated, if you will, women, not to really talk about money, learn about money, but that that give it to the man type thing and they will take care of it.
Meg:
Something you and I talked about that is absolutely true and poignant is the wealth transfer. A- as men, as women are outliving their husbands, the, the lack of confidence, lack of knowledge lack of willingness. My mother is a perfect example of all of this. Mm-hmm. Everything that you said about what happened in the marriage and the conversation between my, my mom and my dad, totally true for my household.
Now, I did– He encouraged me to start a bank account because I was making a lot of money babysitting, and learn how to manage and spend. Mm-hmm. So it’s interesting how he still does have my mom c- under his thumb- Mm-hmm … about, “Oh, Jackie, you don’t know how to do this. Oh, Jackie, I, I’ll take care of it.” And he’s got dementia now, and she’s going to outlive him, and- Yeah
the example that you and I talked about a couple of weeks ago is absolutely true. So let’s talk about the challenges going forward of the wealth transfer- Yeah … that is going to happen because w- that is going to happen with women who simply don’t know what to do.
Barbara:
Yeah. We’re in very interesting times as this whole baby boom- boomer generation is aging. It’s like 10 or 11,000 people are turning 65 every day in the United States for the next seven years. That’s incredible when you think about the aging process. And with that comes a lot of impacts to finances. First and foremost is the average age of a widow is 59, which is typically lower than what people think.
Yeah. Gray divorce, which is women and men in their 50s and 60s, is happening at three times the rate. So more women on their own independently with their own monies, and you know women typically lose in divorce, uh, financially on their own. And some women are just deciding never to marry. So we have a lot more women aging alone, right?
And when is thing, when are things really expensive? As we age alone, and all of a sudden our medical bills go up or someone’s gotta have caretaking and oversight. It’s very expensive. So women have to try to stretch their monies out because we’re living to… in our 90s many times. And so what’s happening is as the baby boomers age, retire, die, all that money is gonna be transferred to their heir- heirs.
And so oftentimes because men die first, it’s gonna land into the hands of women. And what’s cool about that is women will own the purse strings of America. But the issue on that is if women were never given the confidence, the competence, the tools, the resources, the support to feel that they can step in and make their own good financial decisions, then they can be, A, taken advantage of- Mm-hmm
or not learn how to really invest it and make it grow for the long term, but kind of flail with it. A lot of women give their money away. You know, little Johnny wanted a car, and little Annie wants to go to this school, and so they’re the good grandma or whatever they are doing and doling it out without thinking, “I have to think of me first.”
You know, “What’s my return on investment if I invest in Johnny’s car?” Not- Not that good, right? So what is it that you have to do is invest in yourself and your long-term, um, you know, future in terms of who’s gonna take care of you in the future. So there’s a lot going on with money and women over these next 10, 20 years for sure.
Meg:
And so what… Talk about the steps that you’re taking and the programs that you’ve got in place in your industry in order to change the mindset of what is typically a male-dominated- Yeah … wealth manager, wealth advisor field.
Barbara:
So a couple of things. One thing is, as an adult educator, I do educate financial professionals on what women want and need from their financial, from their women clients, of which women are 51% of the population, yet so much of finances and the financial organizations are focused on men.
I mean- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm … today, $700 billion is being left on the table just because I say they’re not turning their chair and saying, “So Barbara, tell me what it is you want out of your retirement, and as you save your hard-earned money, what does retirement look like for you?” They’re never asking those questions.
I shouldn’t say never. Many are not asking those questions. They’re just focusing on, you know, what’s the return on investment? What’s our next investment? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When really, that money’s gonna land in her lap, not his, even though they’re having those conversations. That’s why women need to step in and be p- at the table.
I don’t care if you say, “I don’t understand it. I’m overwhelmed. My husband always takes care of it.” Well, you’re gonna be deer in the headlights because you’re gonna be solo and having to make all those decisions. So couple of things. We are educating financial professionals on how to really engage women in that conversation, but we’re also providing women a lot of information, tools, resources right at their fingertips from our website on whether they’re going through divorce, suddenly widowed, coming into a windfall, just wanna know where their money’s going, getting out of debt, what- wherever they are in their financial journey.
And then when they do need to work with a financial professional, we have a list, a curated directory of vetted financial professionals who serve the women’s market. So they’ve been vetted by us as those who understand women, what they’re up against, you know, what they’re looking for in a financial advisor, and they’re there to really listen and serve women as they need.
And, and it’s really uncomfortable for those women. It’s very uncomfortable for many.
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Meg:
With the resources that you have available, uh, are, are you able to track how long, uh, what, what is downloaded, how long they’re there, some of the metrics that we, we rely on our websites and LinkedIn to provide?
Barbara:
We do, but it’s so interesting. I mean, women take a long time to take action on their finances. Yeah. Yeah. Even women who come to me and say, “Barb, I really need to get started. Is there someone you can recommend?” And we’ll go through the site, and they’ll pick a couple that they’re gonna reach out to, and I’ll see them, and a month later I’ll go, “So did you reach out?”
They’re like, “No, I got really busy. I’m gonna get to that.” Two months later, “Hey, did you ever reach out to so-and-so?” “No, I…” It’s amazing. I mean, it’s, it’s… I want to just say take that action now today. The best time to take that action was yesterday. Do it today, because all that time’s gonna pass, and you’re doing yourself a disservice by putting that on the back burner, because you never know what’s gonna happen.
And too often, women are not investing their money enough to make it grow for the long term as they age along. They, and I’m like, they, some of them say to me, “I just put it in a bank account for now.” Oh, my gosh. No.
Meg:
I know. Well, that’s what I say. No, don’t do that. Your example of supporting college education or buying Johnny a car, uh, immediately when you said that I thought, “Tax benefit, tax consequence.”
And they don’t think about if I use the money, if I put it into this vehicle, and I don’t mean- Right … a car, but into this financial vehicle.
Barbara:
Yes, yes. Then she gets the tax benefit while the granddaughter gets the, the actual financial benefit. Yes. And they’re not… Yeah, they’re missing that whole piece of the equation as well.
Right, of being strategic about how to use- Yeah, yeah … their monies. Yeah. Yeah, and working with good financial professionals who can say, “Okay, you want to do that? Let’s do it this way. This is how it’s gonna benefit you.” Yeah. Do it.
There, a number of years ago, I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues. She’s older, I think, by 20 years, and I’m 62, so she was still involved in, um, in franchise consulting. A good friend of hers in Minneapolis had been a TV anchor for a long time. She wrote a book, if I’m not mistaken, Before All Is Said and Done. Her husband took ill. She had… She was a TV personality. She was the bright, bubbly one who was all- Right
social, and suddenly her husband was incapacitated, and then he was dead. Mm. And they never had the conversation. Before all is said and done, her message is, “Pay attention.” Oh, yeah. And I had a woman on our podcast who, same thing. She went to Mexico with her husband, and he had been out of work for a while, but they just decided, they were so stressed out.
They had a couple of boys. They decided they were gonna go to Mexico, this place they love to visit. She woke up the next morning, and he was dead. It was crazy, her story. She even wrote a book, but she spoke to my group at Purse Strings because she said not only did that happen and the craziness of her trying to get out of Mexico without…
I mean, the, in Mexico, when she was meeting with police, the other policemen were in her hotel room ransacking it and stole all of their money, all of their electronics, and everything. So she had nothing, and she was trying to get out of Mexico with him and had to have him cremated and all that. That was a crazy mess in itself.
But when she got home, she got a check in the mail for $60,000 that said 401 or whatever closed, and she didn’t realize that he had been drawing on their 401 all this time, and all she had left to her name was $60,000. Oh, dear. And she had three boys. And so she spoke to our group and said, “I am the poster woman for why you need to have these conversations.
You need to talk about money.” She needed her, you know, powers of attorney in place and all of that jazz, and she wrote a book on it. And people always say, “I’ll get to that.” It’s too late.
Meg:
Yeah. One, one bad turn. Well, and so there’s that. Yeah. Dire. That’s absolutely dire. But then there are, there… How do we get women comfortable to…
Uh, uh, it, for me, it was a divorce, and I’m, I’m bullheaded and, and I’m driven and determined, and I was going to, I was going to monopolize on my own skills and, and resources in order to, to educate myself. But what you’re saying is that’s unusual. So how do we get women comfortable? With being uncomfortable.
Barbara:
Well, you know, at Purse Strings, we always say no judgment, right? It, we don’t care if you’re a million dollars in debt or what- where- whatever your circumstances are at the time. Just get started, right? Just know where your money’s going and get started. We have a very easy document on our front page that helps you figure that out on your own. Or we have these amazing financial coaches, financial professionals who know that women are up against a lot.
I mean, I teach this, like the day in the life of a woman is so different than the day in the life of a man from an expense standpoint. Mm-hmm. It’s so expensive for, you know, what men pay to get their hair cut versus what women pay to get their hair cut. Besides the fact that there’s a pay gap, let’s add to the fact pink tax.
You know, where they charge women more for the exact same product that a man has, because it’s for women, and that’s across the board so much around pink tax. So when all, when you look at this and unpack all the things that women live on a daily basis, medical, so much more expensive, so many more doctors they have to go to.
It’s expensive just to live as a woman, and so there’s a lot of reasons why it’s tough kinda to make ends meet, but it’s doable. And so if you work with the right financial professional where you can look at what your circumstances are and where it is that you wanna be, these professionals can work out a game plan with you, and be your accountability partner, and be your sounding board, and there to help you move yourself along so you don’t have to answer all the questions.
It’s like working with an el- an electrician. You don’t wanna know always how the wires are wired. You just wanna know when you flip on the switch, the light goes on, right? Mm-hmm. You can learn how it’s wired if you want. They’ll teach you. But you really wanna know that you have a plan in place that’s meeting your end goals.
And keep revisiting it because life changes. All the time. Tax code changes. All the time.
Meg:
Yeah. That- That’s why on a regular basis you have to have these conversations. Yeah. Please. I know, right? It’s, it’s too bad because I can’t tell you, every day a woman says to me, “Where were you when I was going through divorce? Where were you when?” Or, “My mother’s in that same predicament,” or, “My sister’s going through a divorce. She doesn’t know anything about the money,” or something like that, and we wanna get in front of those conversations and say, “It’s really not that hard. It’s not that difficult, and we’re gonna show you how easy it can be, and let’s just get started.”
We have all these different ways to get in front of women in a very easy, very welcoming community that allows you to just step in and get started. Just so we can drop it in here right now, what is the website?
Barbara:
pursestrings.co. Okay. And sometimes people ask me, “Why purse strings? What does that mean?” And purse strings is a very old word, and it just, if you see it, it’s very much like if you are flush, you can loosen your purse strings, right?
And spend a little money, go on that vacation, buy yourself that bag, whatever it might be. But when things get a little tight, we tighten our purse strings a little bit and hold back and retreat. So it’s kind of the way life is, right? Sometimes we have– we’re more flush, sometimes we have to tighten our purse strings, but that’s life, right?
As you said, everything changes all the time, and you just have to make sure you’re in control of your purse strings.
Meg:
Yeah, and paying attention to your bank balance, paying attention to your credit cards. What, what interest rates are you paying on what vehicle? What- Right … I could go on. I know. There’s a lot, and there’s a lot that, you know, very simple tweaks you can make to really serve yourself.
Do you wanna talk about a couple of those?
Barbara:
Well, something you just said about interest rate on credit cards, right? So what does that mean? Um, s- some people can– If you have a large credit card balance, one thing you can do is get a 0% credit card and transfer it over. You’ll pay a transfer fee, but it’s 0%, and then you figure out how many months will I have this available for.
You don’t use the card for anything, and then you figure out, “I have to make these payments over these 12, 18 months to pay this off,” so that’s strategy. Mm-hmm. Um, but knowing the difference between simple interest and compound interest, right? So compound interest is, like what, the eighth wonder of the world.
That’s which r- what you always want when you’re earning money. It’s never what you want when you’re uh, borrowing money. So, um, but yeah. I mean, there are simple strategies like that, and when you know the difference and you have some little strategies or techniques in play, you know how you can pay down debt.
There– That’s just one strategy. There are several others. But being aware of what is this interest rate I’m paying. If people don’t know they’re paying 27, 28%, they don’t realize that when you’re paying that bill, you’re just paying interest back, and that will never go down. And when you look at mortgage, you know, amortizations or, you know, payments over time, what are you paying on that?
Which should you refinance? What would that cost? How much of the interest will go down? So just working through those strategies and thinking them through with somebody who’s a good financial professional will help you discern, you know, what to pay and what not to pay. Sometimes people say if you’re earning, um– paying more than 8%, you should always pay off your interest.
If it’s less than 8% and you can earn more than that in the market, maybe you shouldn’t. So there’s different strategies like that.
Meg:
I’m working with a young man right now. He’s not quite 30. He would like to buy, he would like to buy a business. He would like to buy a franchise, and he would like to buy a house.
Mm-hmm. And when I w- talked to him last week, said, “Do you have any idea how to do this simultaneously based on your current income?” ‘Cause what I’m looking at and what you wanna do, you’re not going, going to be able to do both because number one, you don’t own a tangible asset like a home that has equity built into it.
That’s … So it’s interesting how many people don’t understand how to acquire assets that are valuable assets that then allow them liquidity or, or borrowing power- Right. Mm-hmm … towards something else, a car, a vac- a vacations, an education. Yes. Something else that …
Barbara:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot. But, but you know, it’s funny, like you said, you went through a divorce and all of a sudden you, you know, you dug in. And sometimes it takes something like that for some of us to stop dead in our tracks and say, “I gotta do something about this,” right? And it’s, it’s tough. It’s, it’s tough if you don’t know. I say it’s like someone giving you the keys to a car that you’ve never, ever driven a car before, and then you, you, you just are fumbling around, and you’re gonna make mistakes and maybe get in a big accident, and that’s what happens with our finances, right?
If we don’t really understand how to navigate it in a way that’s strategic, and talk to the experts who can help us manage that. Although some people say, “Well, why would I pay a financial advisor?” Well, you pay your dentist, you pay your hairdresser, you pay other experts that you don’t know a lot about to, to help- Good point
service you, right? It’s, it’s the foundation of your whole life. Why wouldn’t you?
Meg:
I, it, it confounds me, frankly, on, on my end of the world too, how slow people are to say, “I need help.”
Barbara:
Well, it’s, it’s … People are, women especially, are very vulnerable when they’re talking about money. They think, “I should have known this. I made mistakes. I didn’t realize. People are gonna think less than me.” And that’s why sometimes women just do nothing. And we don’t care at Purse Strings what has happened in the past. We just want to say, “Let’s start now and get you a better future.” Yeah. Teach you what you need to know. You know? Yeah.
Meg:
Let’s get moving ahead, because there’s no time like the present to at least get started. Yes. So what are some other hot topics or, or f- myths that you hear come from women and you go, “No.” Are-
Barbara:
Oh, that, that it’s too complicated, that women are bad with money, that women are bad with math, you know, all of that girl math stuff, you know. That’s not true. And some of the bigger mistakes I see women make, one for sure, is if they are working for an organization that has a 401, some of them don’t contribute to the match. That’s a huge mistake, and anybody out there working for an organization, if your company has a match. Match to the full potential because it’s free money on the table.
And too often they say, “Well, I wanna hold back because I need this extra spending money for something or the other.” And I can understand that, so put what you can afford and then up, up it 1% the next year. Yeah. And then when you get a raise, up it one more percent. So usually the match is 5, 8%, whatever.
Because you won’t see it as much in your paycheck, but you will see the compounding value of that in the long term. And sometimes people don’t take advantage of that for lots of different reasons, and they don’t understand it’s a critical mistake. It really is if you don’t take a- take advantage of it.
Meg:
The future value of money. Yes. It’s so important for women. They’re think- yes, they’re thinking about the current value to me right now today, and not the future value of money, exactly how it can compound and grow exponentially. It’s … Do you, uh, do you have charts and, and graphs or anything that show if you would, if you do the 401 matching, and you’re doing it this amount right now, what the value of that will be when you’re at retirement age?
Barbara:
Well, you can find it anywhere. I mean, you could ChatGPT it up, I’m sure. But- Oh, if you want … your HR department could, you know, should be able to do that. And sometimes in HR they give you a lot of that information right at orientation. Mm-hmm. But no one’s following up, you know, and you get so much thrown at, at you at one time, that I bring this up often because on an annual basis it’s something you should be looking at and making adjustments to.
Yeah. Uh, again, tax code changes, a lot of these regulations, the one big beautiful bill and what that is going to change going forward, that’s complex. And so having a good tax advisor- Mm-hmm … is another person you ought to be paying because that, that money for the advice is going to pay off when you need it.
Meg:
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, there’s so much times you can save yourself money. So, and I say to people, “When you pay a financial advisor, you’re making more money than what you’re paying them.”
Barbara:
Because they’re … A good financial advisor- A good point … will serve you well, make good dec- good decisions in partnership with you, that you probably would have no clue about what to make, or adjustments or tax code or investments or new investments coming down the pike that would really benefit you. That’s what you’re paying for.
Meg:
And so when I was going through that divorce, I was already a business owner and learning the hard knocks. I paid my education in hard knocks in the beginning. Yeah. So when, when I talk about my own background, I, I wasn’t a newbie and I wasn’t afraid. When I got divorced, in a way it was really freeing because now I was completely in control.
Yes. Yes. And when you talk about … I want to go back to something, ’cause it kind of made me laugh inside. It’s expensive to be a woman, and it’s not because of shopping.
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Barbara:
Mm-hmm.
Meg:
Clarify that comment from earlier, why it is so much more expensive to be a woman.
Barbara:
Sure. Well s- first of all, the, what the prices that are charged to women because of the pink tax, and the pink tax is, for instance, if you buy a BIC blue razor, which is typically geared towards men, and you buy a BIC pink razor, typically what women would buy, that package is a dollar more for the exact same thing except it’s pink.
When you go for a haircut and your husband goes for a haircut, I’m sure you’re paying two or three times what your husband is paying, right? Women often, you know, we’re charged to color our hair, put in the, the long, uh, locks or whatever it might be- Extensions … get the thing cut, right? It’s hundreds of dollars sometimes you walk out of the salon that you’re paying.
Then there’s the nails, the eyebrows, the eyelashes, the makeup, all of that, which we don’t have to do any of it, right, Meg? We don’t have to do any of it. But walk into a meeting with long hair that’s not cut, that’s probably not colored, you know? Uh, uh, I mean, people will start saying, “What’s…” You know, no makeup.
People will be like, “What’s up with her? She doesn’t take care of herself. She’s not gonna be competent to take that job or whatever,” right? No, we gotta keep our, ourselves up, like the maintenance and all that. That’s more expensive for women than it is for men. I mean, look how women have to pack for a business trip.
Men throw in a khaki pants, a couple of blue shirts, they’re good to go, right? It’s more, it’s, there’s more going on for, for women. Not to mention the fact that, you know, women’s bodies are different, right? So we have our periods. We pay for pads, we pay for tampons, we pay for all those for 30 years. That’s an additional expense, right?
Plus we have more different. We have different, um, medical providers that we have to go through. Mm. We have different, you know, specializations that we need to see as our bodies are quite different. Our medical expenses are more, more expensive. Uh, our medications are more expensive. We are out of the workforce if we’re having children, right?
So we’re losing on that end because we’re of course we wanna take care of our children. Stopped our pay, stopped our career growth, stopped our Social Security contribution, stopped our contributions to our, you know, our, our matches or any of that. So all that halts, right? And even if we go back to work, let’s say we go back to work, children are in school, you have to up-skill, you have to educate more.
And let’s say, oops, got the call, Mom fell. Well, I better go figure out what’s this all about, right? So now you’re a caregiver and you have children. So maybe you’re still working, but you’re feeling, “I better make sure I don’t get dinged for the fact that I gotta leave early because I gotta pick up my mom, then I gotta get dinner for my dad, and then I have to go pick up my child from daycare.”
Right? All these things, all these hats suddenly that you’re wearing. So let’s say you do go part-time because you can’t manage all of that and that. And women pay or, like $6,500 out of pocket as they’re caregiving just by running those errands, picking up the medications, you know, getting the gloves for Mom, all those e- additional expenses that come up because you’re the one making all the errands and running around and getting, making sure everybody has everything that they have.
Plus, you’re part-time now, they don’t pay benefits, so you have no benefits. You know, whatever it might be. And then after 10, 15 years, maybe you’re getting divorced. 20 years, 30 years. Now you don’t have those contributions to your 401 ’cause you’ve been out of the work, in and out, or out. Do you have all the credits that you need to really get Social Security?
What’s in your Social Security? I mean, it compounds, as you can tell. Like, everything I said to you is very typical of what could happen in a woman’s life.
Meg:
Thank you. That’s- I wanted to get that out there so that it’s, it’s itemized and specific. Going back to your early examples, it’s absolutely true, huh, for a woman walking into a boardroom, if we’re not dressed properly, if we’re not demonstrating that we’re taking care of ourselves, there is a judgment.
I live with somebody who does not believe this is true.
And talk frequently about how h- he talks frequently about how women take themselves out of contention. They take themselves out. It’s a voluntary choice.
Barbara:
Well- Then stay sing- single and don’t have children, and forget about your parents, and okay, if we’re gonna go toe-to-toe, then let’s take the same attitude that a man would towards
A- and I have to be careful, ’cause my son is a great dad. He works from home. He never has to go back to the office, uh, as far as his employer is concerned. And there are more young men like my son who are absolutely participating in the marriage dynamic so that, so that the wife can have a full and engaging career.
But I think they’re, they’re unusual. I don’t think they’re typical. Few and far between, true, yes. I mean, they’re out there, but typically men have wives or somebody at home who’s managing all of that stuff, and women … And it’s, statistically will tell you the number of hours- Yeah … that women put in- Yeah
after they’re home from official work, that they’re getting everything else, you know, their second shift if you will, they say- Yeah … is, um, still happening. And so, you know, you ought to give it to women. They hardworking, taking on a lot, making sure everybody’s taken care of, and then I say, “Who’s taking care of her when she doesn’t have enough money to, you know, for herself?”
So that’s why we always say to women, “You come first.” I know there’s a lot of people in your realm that you need to take care of, but make sure the contributions to your 401, to your match, to all of that happens first. That’s your best return on investment for how you’re gonna manage your monies when you’re s- aging solo.
Meg:
Yeah. And a lot of women see divorce as potential, potentially on their horizon. Even if you think that that will never happen, be part of the conversation, be engaged in the decisions because, because if you do get to grow grace- grow old gracefully, and that pot of money is there, it’s because you’ve been financially responsible as well.
Yeah. Yeah. In the decision-making. People don’t buy cars independently. They … You know, there’s usually a, a tandem decision in a household, uh, to go and buy a house. It’s a tandem decision. And so be, be the tandem in all the financial decisions. Yeah, for sure. And make sure you know, you know, where the money’s going.
A lot of women have said to me, “I don’t even know how much money my husband’s making. I don’t know where it’s going. I don’t know what our match is. You know, I’m not quite sure of the bank accounts.” Don’t sign that tax form until you’ve really looked it over- Mm-hmm … and kind of know what the income is in your household and where that money’s going, because it’s a household, right?
You, even if you have different roles, you still are under one umbrella. Yeah. And I trust you is nice-
Barbara:
But as my lawyer friends say, “Trust but verify.” Yeah. And you know, pre-nups are not un- unthinkable anymore for the layperson. It’s not just for celebrities, and post-nups. So those are things to consider too, especially if one’s coming when, in with large, let’s say, education debt, or one comes in with large kind of debt for whatever reason, and especially if someone’s coming into a large inheritance or s- some kind of windfall.
You know, just make sure you understand about the roles and responsibilities about the money in your household.
Meg:
And that’s a, that’s a really good point to make. And, and while we’re k- coming to the end here, there, there are a lot of people who are coming into marriage with some kind of debt, whether it’s education, medical- Right
fill in the blank. So it’s not, to your point, always because somebody is coming in with a lot, but it’s because someone is coming in with liabilities, and once you’re married, it’s joined. Yeah. So have a, have a solid understanding of, of what that dy- whole dynamic is.
Well Barb, this has been really fun to talk about money. I love it. I was at a conference- Look at you … and they had these, um, money guns. Oh yeah. And they were shooting $100 bills all over the, the ballroom, and I think they came in with something like the equivalent of $10 million. Do you know how many stacks of money that is? So they didn’t shoot off all of them.
Funny end of the, of the episode here. I had driven to that conference, and so they just wanted to know w- were they throwing it away or did anyone want to take it? Well, we’ve got … My husband and I have businesses, and we’ve got employees, and we thought, “Well, this is fun to play with. What if we handed out stacks of money?”
Well, I got th- uh, this 50 pound bag of $100 bills, and I’m pulling it through the lobby and going to get my car, and so I had the valet help me to put it in the car ’cause it weighed so much. Oh my God. He’s, “Man, what is in here?” So I’m having fun. I said, “You know what, young man? Go ahead and unzip it. Y- uh, there are no snakes or anything that are gonna jump out, but I think you’ll be surprised.”
And so he unzips it. “Is this real?” Okay, if it were real, the Brink’s truck would be right here. I said, “No, this is a, I’m at a conference and this is all fake money. But I want to, I want you to have some fun. I want you to take a couple of stacks of these, and when I leave, as I’m leaving, I want you to point and say, ‘See that woman in the Mini Cooper?'”
“She tipped me.”
It’s so much fun to play with money. It’s so … And, and my mother s- uh, frequently says, “Oh Meggie, you talk about money all the time.” Yeah, because money solves the money issue. Yeah. And the more comfortable you are talking about money, the easier it is to learn more about money. Mm-hmm. So let’s have a conversation.
I swear, Barb, I’m doing this more and more going forward with my 88-year-old mother, ’cause my dad can’t manage a checkbook anymore. Mm-mm. So, anyways.
Barbara:
You have to take it over now.
Meg:
Yes, I do. Well, thank you for a lovely and engaging conversation. Yeah. Um, I’m really delighted to have the, those particular details about why it’s more expensive for women in the workplace.
Yeah. And why it’s more expensive for women in divorce. So.
Barbara:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. This has been absolutely a delight. Thank you for come- making the time to come on the show today. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Meg:
Anytime. We’re always here.
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