Women and Financial Freedom with Tess Waresmith

Today, Carrie Vee and Tess Waresmith discuss various topics related to women and financial freedom, including the challenges women face in talking about and managing money, as well as advice and resources for improving one's financial situation.

Dr. Ellis:

There's a lot of pressure on finding that one thing that is your passion. I've held so many different types of jobs in my life and done so many different amazing things. Some of those things really gave me energy for a while and then at some point sort of stopped fulfilling me in the way they once did. So my perspective on passion is kind of shifted in the sense that I'm going to chase things and people in places that bring me energy and take the pressure off finding my one passion.

I've never been more motivated to help more women figure out how to reach financial independence. That is what I'm focused on as a financial coach. I think more money in the hands of women is magic.

That is what I am most excited about these days. And that's what's giving me energy. But I am feeling also that there's a lot of other things that I might want to do someday later on as well. And I've watched so many amazing people shift careers in their 40s, 50s and 60s. So I'm feeling very excited about the possibility of something that I haven't even thought of becoming a thing. So right now my energy, and my desire is to help as many women as possible, feel comfortable with their money and stop avoiding the work. I heard this great quote the other day, the magic you're looking for is in the work that you're avoiding. I think that's really true when it comes to money.

Carrie Vee:

I love that you brought that out. I tell people all the time in my own coaching sessions, you can have all these things, and things maybe you haven't even thought about yet. We're just not going to have them all at one time. We're going to get to work on them one at a time and build this life. As we shift and change as people we shift and change with with where we're heading. So bringing it back around to money and financial independence.

Why do you feel so many women are hesitant to talk about money and, and are hesitant to even manage their own money?

There are so many reasons and I'll give you the ones that I hear and see the most from clients that I work with and people that I talked to. The first reason that we're hesitant to talk about it is that it's unfamiliar. There's a lot of jargon when it comes to personal finance. Alot of it isn't actually as complicated as we think it is. But it sounds really complicated. It sounds like a foreign language. So when you get nervous or tune out when you hear people talk about finance, that's okay. Because it makes sense if it's a language that you don't understand you're not going to be able to comprehend it. I think that the industry has not done, consumers, women, favors in terms of making it digestible.

Then on top of that, we don't really have any formal education around this, especially if you're 30. And beyond, there wasn't any personal finance classes in high school or college, I took Intro to jazz in college. And that was an awesome class, but I would have rather learned the basics of the stock market, or credit or any of that, you know, so it's not organized in our education anywhere.

So it's unfamiliar, it feels complex, because of the language. Then when you add on top of it, you know, 1000s of years of patriarchy, and messy money messages that we're still getting as women, I read this incredible statistic the other day. I'm all I always look at statistics carefully, because you can always move data in different ways to prove your point.

But this one felt really spot on. It said, the majority of articles, I think it was 65% of articles around money aimed at women focus on saving money and coupon clipping and mentioned women as excessive spenders, whereas the majority of articles towards men are about investing and making money and growing your money, which is a totally different message.

So even if you are somebody that is career driven, the messages that we've been given are to save money to be generous with our money, right to be ladylike with our money. And while that's changing, there's still decades of that messaging that we'll have to unwind. So it's the messaging, it's the lack of education, the lack of familiarity when it comes to the language, and then add on one more thing, which is whatever we learned about money from our parents, right? You know, a lot of people were taught not to talk about money, it's impolite.

We maybe grew up where money was really scarce and worried about having enough money. So instead of learning how to invest, we save our money, women tend to hold more money in cash, because we're nervous about risking it, which is, in some ways responsible. But in order to make sure that we retire comfortably, we have to be learning how to invest otherwise, saving our way to retirement is going to be really challenging. So I would say it's a combination of all those things. And why it is so important to start to educate yourself is because that's what's going to help you feel more confident about your financial situation. It's really about gaining that knowledge. And so that's why I'm so passionate about what I do now. And being a financial coach and an educator.

First, I don't manage people's money, I educate them on how to understand it for themselves. And that's really important, regardless of whether you want to learn how to invest on your own, or you're working with somebody else to help you do it, you have to get that education. So getting the education is the first step to start to unwind those things, but it's an uphill battle. So I tell people all the time, most of the women I work with are in their late 30s 40s and early 50s. And what I tell all of them is everyone feels behind and overwhelmed. Like you're not alone. And it's not your fault that you feel though I just listed out a lot of things that stack the cards against us, right. So it's not your fault. But it is your responsibility to improve your relationship with money. And that all starts with education.

What brought you to this journey?

I grew up with a very massive fear of not having enough money. I remember being very young, hiding money wherever I could. I remember my mom's saying regularly that I don't know if we have enough money for that. And that was messaging I heard a lot. My parents also had un stable relationships, between my two biological parents have been married nine times. So I have this extreme fear and anxiety of not having enough money coupled with the fact that I've been taught this lesson that you have to rely on yourself, you're the only person that's going to guarantee your financial future, which that is a good thing. And so, from that I ended up graduating from university really nervous about finding a job that would make enough money. I graduated in 2010. So you know, deep recession I didn't find a job ended up as a circus performer on cruise ships. That was my first job. And like an aerial Acrobat like literally doing tricks was was my first job, but why this is important to my money story is that I ended up being able to save a lot of money on cruise ships, because I was living on a ship.

I had my accommodations paid for, food paid for, so I thought great like this is my opportunity to be super responsible. I'm gonna save all this money and I'm I'm gonna give it to somebody else to invest for me because I'm not smart enough to do it myself. And so I did that. And I handed my money over to a trusted friend, somebody I knew and, and sort of said, just make it be more. And unfortunately, what ended up happening is I ended up paying 1000s in fees that I shouldn't have been paying, I had duplicate investments in the account that weren't valuable. I was sold a financial product called annuity, which was better suited for somebody in their late 50s. Versus I was in my late 20s. At the time, yes. I didn't find any of this out until way, way later. And so I had spent years spending money with this person. And I can't even remember exactly what the trigger was, that made me think, to look into some of this stuff. But once they figured it out, I realized that there had to be a better way. And then when I learned the basics of investing, I thought to myself, Oh, my goodness, this is so much easier than I thought.

We've all been taught this myth that good investing has to be really complicated that the average person can't learn it, that you have to have an economics degree or a PhD in finance to invest in the stock market. That's simply not true. There's so many simple investing vehicles that anyone can understand, even if you have no financial background whatsoever. But it just feels really complicated because of the language. So once I went through that, I lost all this money. And then I realized how easy it was, then I felt a moral obligation to teach as many people this information as possible and do it in such a way that was non judgmental. And that was digestible.

So I translate every word I say that is borderline something you might not have heard of, I tried to do my best to always describe exactly what it is, in as many times as it takes. There are no stupid questions when it comes to this stuff. If we can make it easy for people to understand. So at this point, for me, it's a moral obligation to help other women avoid the mistakes that I made that cost me roughly $80,000, probably in fees and bad products, bad real estate, invest a lot of decisions that with a very simple education, I could have saved a lot of money.

How do you recover and not be angry all the time, when you look at that, but turning it into a learning experience?

Well, first of all, I was angry for a very long time. I was very upset. I had a ton of shame. I felt super stupid for a really long time. So I will say the first thing is time, it took me time to get over that. And I will humanize right my reaction to that right away. But after I started to take matters into my own hands and be like, Okay, I'm still the amazing gift that I was given that this all happened to me in my late 20s. So I knew that I still had time to turn it around. For those of you listening to this that are in your 40s and 50s, there is still plenty of time for you to make a massive difference in what your retirement looks like, even if you're in your 50s. And that is a really, really important message that I want everyone to hear. I was lucky that those things happened to me early in life. So I was able to course correct. I am thankful for now is that I wouldn't have dove in and learned and been as motivated as I was if that those things hadn't happened to me. But I would say that I am definitely wealthier now. Because that happened. And because I learned how to save money, how to invest money, how to ask for more money, how to have the money mindset to realize that your income potential is really limitless, and that you are capable of making more money and you are capable of learning how to invest in those are all things that I didn't think were true, I thought for sure I had I could never make more than $100,000. That wasn't for people like me, I didn't come from a rich family that made a lot of money like that.

That's not a thing that I can do. And when you start to make those mental shifts over time, you start to realize how powerful a little bit of knowledge can be. And so to answer your question, it took me a while to get over.

But the best thing I did was dove in to education as much as possible and started taking action. And it took a few years to feel like I had made the progress and then since then, my wealth has been able to increase exponentially because I've learned the basics and I've developed a better relationship with money but it does take time and I think that's one thing that people out there Like, Oh, I lost money like how do I make that money back quickly, usually you don't, it's not a get rich quick scheme building wealth any any get rich quick scheme is probably snake oil. So be careful, building wealth takes time. But I like this idea of an intentional three to five years your financial situation can look drastically different than wherever you're sitting today reading to this and there's power in patience and knowledge when it comes to building wealth.

What is your opinion on extreme coupon clipping or even coupon clipping?

What is the first step we can take mindset wise and action wise to start making our financial future better?What's one thing we could do right now?

So my opinion on coupon coupon clipping is similar to saving money in that if you want to make a big difference in the way that your financial situation looks today. And in the future. The first thing and I guess this could answer both of your questions. First thing you need to do is understand how money comes in and in and out of your life. And actually track that. Because when you start to look through your expenses, let's say you one exercise I really like that I think is valuable. And you can do this with a glass of wine, if you drink or kombucha whatever it is, print out three months of credit card statements or bank statements and get a few colored pens and go through and actually manually highlight where you're spending money.

Compare that to what you value in your life. And if you start to approach spending money from a values, spending perspective versus no plan at all, you're going to be able to start saving money pretty quickly. So that's the first thing is actually tracking, understanding how money is coming in and out of your life. And in particular, why you're spending money on certain things.

So, for example, back to some of the messaging, I was saying, like when we get this message like “oh, you're broke, because you spend money on like pumpkin spice lattes, and you didn't need that latte, like that is not why you're broke.” That's, that's a very small expense, there are a lot of other things in your life that are going to move the needle more than you pulling back on coffee, such as maybe changing the car that you drive a used car versus a new car in the US is $200 difference $200 every single month, over 10 years is a huge difference in what you can invest in how you can grow that money. So when it comes to saving money and coupon clipping, I don't love the energy that can take away from where you can save more money or, you know, buying or renting a place that's a little bit maybe not your dream place but a little bit more affordable, that's going to give you a little bit more space to invest and save for retirement.

Those are the big things that that people should be focusing on. And I think coupon clipping, that kind of stuff can kind of take away from what's really going to be impactful to you overall. Then the follow up to that is also there's only so much money that you can save your earning potential is theoretically limitless.

Now it might not feel that way, depending on what field you're in today, or what your job you're doing today. And that might take some work to think through what are some skills that you want to develop? What are some things that you want to do? Do you want to start a side hustle or an online business or something like that?

You know, at the end of the day, you can earn as much money as you possibly can in so many different ways, but you can only save so much. So I think to answer your question in terms of like, the first thing you can do, it would probably be tracking your spending and understanding how money comes in and out of your life. The other thing I would say is while you're doing that, reflecting on how those different transactions make you feel is going to start to uncover your relationship with money. because if you're, let's say, for example, you're spending money on something, and you feel really resentful that you have to spend money on this thing, unpack that that might be an indicator of some kind of relationship with money that you have.

That's either one holding you back from making more money, or to just bringing negative energy to your ability to save money, and financial conversations. And our relationship with money has to come from a place of grace and kindness, because it's not an easy topic. And so if you're mad at yourself for spending money on this thing, that's a good piece of data that you can use to adjust your behavior in the future.

So my long winded answer to your question is I would start tracking money, understanding how it comes in and out of your life, and how it makes you feel. And that would be a great place to start to start to improve your relationship with money and get a better sense of where it is. And by the way, I say that as somebody that coaches people on investing, I don't really coach people as much on the budgeting side, I'm much more focused on investing and growing your wealth through investing. But you can't do that until you understand your personal cashflow. And so that's really where you need to start.

I think it's really destructive in terms of your ability to make progress and feel good about your progress. And there are better ways to improve your financial situation. So I will say this, if you have high interest, credit card debt, or high interest debt, in general, anything over seven 8%. That is something you need to absolutely focus on and prioritize because until you get rid of that debt. And if you start investing, you're going to kind of be cannibalizing your efforts, because the average return of the stock market is roughly 10% minus inflation, it's roughly 8%. So that's the logic why, if you've ever heard somebody say that the reason they're saying you need to pay that off first is because even if you invest that money, you're not going to be able to really grow your wealth until you get rid of that debt.

So I will say that is the first thing you need to do. However, once you've paid off that high interest debt, if you have debt lower than that car payments, mortgages, personal loans, student loans, anything like that under a percent, you can definitely be investing and enjoying your life. And I will say even if you have credit card debt, you should be diligent with your spending to make sure that you're allocating as much money as you can to pay that off. But living a lifestyle that is so restrictive, that you're not enjoying your life, or you're not taking care of yourself, you're not doing things that are important for your mental health or physical health, that's only going to set you back further and make it harder for you to pay off that debt.

I feel very strongly that that is a very dangerous, limiting mindset that can actually create more problems and also make it it's also an unsustainable, you can't you can't possibly just live your life by just paying off debt.

That doesn't mean that you don't buckle down for a couple years and do everything you can to get rid of it. But you do it intentionally. And I actually have this I have a little bit of beef with the word budget because to me, it feels a little restrictive. So I prefer intentional spending plan, which is way longer. But I actually like that because it's like, okay, we're being intentional here. So yes, we know that our number one goal is to pay off this high interest debt. But we also know that we need to be happy and healthy to be able to go to work to take care of our kids. So we're also going to go to yoga. And that's an intentional purchase that we're going to make every single month or every single class that's going to be good for us. It's going to make us better for our family. That's going to make me feel better at work, whatever it is. That is an intentional spending plan that is gonna help you get further than if you just try to put all of your money into that one thing and pay off every single cent cent of debt that's not sustainable and It's not a way to we're here to live as well.

The reason we need to have more conversations around money is because even if you do believe that you should be or even if you do have a higher self worth, you don't know what's possible, and till you start to connect and learn from other women. And so I tell women all the time, what I used to make when I worked in corporate, and I think that's important. And that's not to be braggadocious. But that's just to make sure that they know, especially if I when I'm talking to women that arguably have more experienced than me are further along in their career than I was, they should be asking for make more money, they are worth more money than they're getting paid. But they don't know that because we're not talking about it. So some type of normalizing conversations around money and transparency around earnings. And income is really, really important for that reason. But I agree. And, you know, I think that that's part of the work that you have to do when you talk about how money comes in and out of your life. Like if you're getting paid. And you're thinking like, Oh, this is you know, as much as I can make. That's a that's a, that's bringing awareness to something that's going to really hurt your financial situation. And so, starting, if you're, if you're still sitting here, like I definitely don't think I can make more money. I would say, try to find some community or or group that you can be a part of or start talking to people and asking what opportunities are out there? Because you'll probably be surprised that with your existing skill set, there are ways for you to make more money. I feel like that's true for most people like right now. But we just haven't seen the possibility because we're not connecting enough. And we're not talking about it enough.

How can people tap in to you and learn more be able to work with you and really do a deep dive into this?

I actually put together this savvy investor starter pack that has a lot of the first pieces and steps that you need to take if you're interested in improving your existing financial situation. There's journal prompts for your money mindset to start to unpack like some of the things that might be holding you back from making more money or holding you back from getting an education and learning how to invest whatever it is. So there's some great journal prompts in there. There's also a four step toolkit on the things you need to do to get ready to start investing, order of operations to start investing, there's access to a video in one of my paid programs, that where I run through the eight most common investing mistakes I see most of which I made. So there's a whole video and you get access to that in the guide. So that's all free. So that's probably the best place to start. Honestly download that guide. My contact information is in there. And I also regularly host free investing workshops, and the link is in there as well. So that's definitely the best place to start. If you're interested, I'm also on Instagram @wealthwithtess and I post tons of info there. So feel free to give me a follow there and DM me I will respond.

I always have people comment on social or in my emails, like “money doesn't buy happiness.” And that's kind of true. But money is a tool that buys freedom, flexibility, options out of scary situations, the ability to leave a toxic job, the ability to generate, to donate, impact builds a business that creates influence. All of those things are so powerful, and you can only do them if you have money. So I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's so important. And you're right, it's a lie. It's a lie that, you don't need money to be happy, or that having money is selfish and greedy. I like money in the hands, women donate more. That's another reason why I want more money in the hands of women, because women have an opportunity to make a greater impact to influence that the issue we care about the most. And if we don't have money, we simply will not be as successful. So we need money for safety and security and to make the impact that I know people listening to this podcast want to make?

Journal prompt:

What is your earliest memory of money?

I think you'll find that it's probably earlier than you think our thoughts and ideas around money are formed, typically by the time we're seven years old. So that can inform a lot about how you think about money, your limiting beliefs around money. If you feel like money is scarce. It's greedy, all that stuff, some of that stuff that we've talked about. I think that is a really powerful journal prompt to start to figure out where you can improve your relationship with money.