Do you know anything about personal bankruptcy? Us neither. I mean, we knew the rumor that it ruins your credit and should be the OPTION OF LAST RESORT, but we actually didn’t know anything useful. Kind of the opposite - we knew just enough to be scared of it without any actual information. Sounds like the stock market all over again!So, for our last episode of Season 3, we decided to learn about something together. Finally we’re both the dummies!To walk us through the process, we invited Texas-based bankruptcy attorney Justice Pierce with Lincoln-Goldfinch Law. What a treasure! Justice is the most compassionate, understanding and knowledgeable expert we could’ve ever asked for. We learned a lot. The most important thing was something we talk about a lot on the WOTV - the intersection of shame and money.Guess what?Bankruptcy is not a moral failing. It’s just not. Justice explained that it’s actually a feature of the entire system that people are supposed to use. Politicians from both sides of the aisle support it - that’s how universally valued it is!So, if it’s not a reason to tar and feather yourself because of you moral failures, what is it? It’s actually a legal tool specially designed to help people escape overwhelming debt and start fresh that has different categories depending on what your situation is. Unexpected medical bills, job loss, or economic downturns can push even the most responsible people to their limits. But you know what, even people with some irresponsible blips also get our support. But it ruins your credit forever!! OR DOES IT?Listen as Justice tells us everything we didn’t know we wanted to know about this option. Oh! And we realized after the episode that we didn’t ask her how much hiring a bankruptcy attorney costs. It sounds like anywhere between $4,000 - $5,000, depending on where you live. If you’re curious, call one and find out! Report back!Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for….Season 4 (which will happen some day in the future!) on our Ask Us page! We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.
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Season 3, Episode 13: WTF is an annuity?
Hey - if you’re super risk-averse (despite listening to our very soothing risk-encouraging podcast), this episode is for you!Caitlin learns that her big investment idea to get an annuity so she gets paid some amount of money every year actually has nothing to do with investing. It’s insurance??? Get the F out of here, Sara. Do you even know what you’re talking about??Sara goes on to explain that annuities are contracts with insurance companies to protect us from losing money in the stock market and guarantee a yearly income in our senior years. But ON THE OTHER HAND, you don’t get any of the advantages of compounding interest.The lows are higher and the highs are lower. That doesn’t sound like the way to make a million dollars. And it’s not. Sara says that they really only appeal to the moooooost risk adverse humans who are okay with giving up the chance to make more money in the stock market in exchange for a sure thing.In fact, we go so far as to claim that getting an annuity is more like a psychological strategy than an investing one. Look at us go! A couple of Freuds over here!We even (lightly) touch on actuarial sciences! (I know that has nothing to do with Freud, but it’s also very sophisticated.)Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page! We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.
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Season 3, Episode 12: When do you sell a stock? (And how?)
Can’t I just sell some stocks to make a bunch of money and then use that money to make more money and then I’ll be rich?Um. Sort of? Sara explains how there’s no such thing as free lunch, or, in the stock market world, tax-free income from your clever little (or big) trades. It’s all fun and games during the year while you’re buying low and selling high with individual stocks, but then, whoops!, there comes April and a tax bill for all of the money you earned for each transaction. Even though it might feel like “fun” money, you actually pay a higher income tax rate for quick trades! They don’t show that in the movies!Caitlin (AGAIN) asks WTF she should do with her Airbnb stock now that she’s gone to therapy to become un-emotionally attached to it. Sara walks her through selling it at the price she would feel good about, and Caitlin might as well be considered a stock broker now.Is buying individual stocks really worth it for normal people like you and me? Listen to this episode and decide for yourself. Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page! We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.
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Season 3, Episode 11: WTF is the “Fed”?
Did you listen to Season 3, Episode 1 where Caitlin grilled Sara about whether anybody ever knows if we’re in a recession or not, and Sara said we do because a brilliant economist named Claudia Sahm invented a rule called the Sahm Rule and male economists are always mansplaining the Sahm rule to Sahm?If yes, then oh my god, you’ll never believe who our special guest is this week: Claudia Fucking Sahm! The economist who invented the Sahm rule!!!Claudia Sahm, Chief Economist of New Century Advisors and former Federal Reserve economist, came on Women on the Verge of a Financial Breakthrough to answer our (Caitlin’s) dumb questions about her job and the economy. Like, for instance, what is the Federal Reserve again? And, just to review for people that missed the last class: What is “economics” again? Hmmm. This is tricky.Come listen in to Sara resisting the urge to ask all of her high-level fancy-pants-finance questions with every fiber in her body so Caitlin can complain about the price of Cheerios!Here is Claudia’s Substack to get all of her research and thoughts into your inbox. Ask us your dumb investing and finance questions for Season 3 on our Ask Us page! We have the social medias!! Here’s our Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn.This episode was edited by our co-producer Kelly West. Music by Bad Bad Hats and Devmo.
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Season 3, Episode 10: Will the election F up my investment strategy?
The wrong guy* is gonna win so the economy is going to go to hell in a hand basket and the stock market will tank and we’ll need our savings in the form of a pile of five dollar bills so we can buy milk and tangerines, right? (* I was gonna say “person” but who am I kidding? It’s always an effing guy.)Sara explains how people always freak out about presidential elections and threaten to cash out their investment accounts because of the inevitable apocalypse. And then the apocalypse doesn’t actually come, and surprise, surprise, the cold-hearted stock market is entirely indifferent to who we elect or defeat.Caitlin tries to catch Sara with some gotcha questions about specific areas of the economy that must suffer when the other side wins…only to be schooled, again. This time with a chart that even a Caitlin can understand.Look on our website to see the Bespoke chart Sara refers to that shows what our investment accounts would look like if we only kept our money in the stock market when our person wins the presidency, and what it would look like if we just left it the fuck alone compounding its little (actually big) interest.So, tune in to listen to Sara explain why all this fear mongering is way off base, and how we can thoughtfully respond to women that aren’t on the verge of a financial breakthrough with our facts and charts.We’re not falling for this alarmist bullshit! (But it still seems kind of counter-intuitive, right??)
Acerca de Women on the Verge of a Financial Breakthrough
Are you embarrassed and ashamed of how much you don’t know about finance and investing? Do you break into a sweat when you hear words like “investment portfolio”, “retirement savings” or “financial planning”? You’re in good company. Here at Women on the Verge of a Financial Breakthrough, we’re figuring out finance, one dumb question at a time. Caitlin, the dummy, asks Sara, the expert, very basic questions about terms, systems and strategies women can use to plan their financial futures. Think of it as the “Investing for Beginners” party you didn’t even want to be invited to, but ended up having fun at anyway. Leave your shame and embarrassment at the door - you, too, can be a woman on the verge of a financial breakthrough!
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