0:00:00 - Speaker 1
Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through registered representatives of Cambridge Investment Research Inc. A broker-dealer member, FINRA, SIPC Advisory Services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. A registered investment advisor. Cambridge and Greenway Wealth Advisory are not affiliated. It's time to dive into some insider secrets of investing and retirement planning To make your retirement as smart and as elegant as possible. This is Money Chic with Sherry Rash.

0:00:31 - Speaker 2
Hey everybody, welcome into another edition of the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with Sherry and I here on Money, chic, women and Retirement, and we're going to talk about diets.

0:00:41 - Speaker 1
What Wait? We're talking about diets.

0:00:42 - Speaker 2
We're talking about the retirement diet, maybe fixing some unhealthy financial habits. So we like to have a lot of fun with the different podcasts we've done so far. Hopefully we try to share some good, useful information, even though we're talking in generalities, since we're talking to a wider audience, things that kind of affect us all. But we also like to use metaphors and analogies and sometimes people just. When it comes to money and finance, sherry, sometimes people need to relate it to something else, because maybe it's just not their bag right, so something else makes it kind of click. So hopefully these things work. How you doing?

0:01:11 - Speaker 3
Good good. Always being able to compare, especially the jargon of finance to something we deal with every day tends to make it a little bit more palatable. Yeah, helps it stick right. So I'm looking forward to talking about this, yeah, it helps.

0:01:24 - Speaker 2
It stick in your brain, kind of like whatever. Anytime I make anything, it sticks to the pan and I wound up burning it, so I'm always doing something wrong. But anyway, we're going to jump into this, have a conversation If you need some help along the way. Of course, if you hear something that piques your interest, don't forget, you can subscribe to the podcast. You can, of course, pause, rewind, whatever the case might be, and you can find all that information at GreenwayWealthAdvisorycom, which is Sherry's website. A lot of good tools, tips and resources there, as well as being able to subscribe to the show, greenwaywealthadvisorycom, all right. So, sherry, we all know the basics.

We've all dieted, I think, at some point or another, although a friend of mine, he's been like the stick his entire life and we're both 50 now and he's still a twig and I don't understand it.

0:02:05 - Speaker 3
But either way fair.

0:02:06 - Speaker 1
Yeah right.

0:02:07 - Speaker 2
We all know some of the basic secrets of eating healthier losing weight, you know, limiting disease, things like that. We hear this all the time from all the powers that be our doctors and whatnot. You know try to avoid empty calories, limit our sugar, those pesky trans fats, you know all that kind of stuff. But how can we spot some similar unhealthy habits in the financial world? So let's dive in, see if we can identify some of this stuff. Since I mentioned empty calories, let's just start there. Where might we find those? You know, in the financial realm, because my one vice is soda. I love me some soda and I know that's the reason I'm still chubby, but it's the one thing I love.

0:02:43 - Speaker 3
Coke Sprite. What do you like? I'm the worst Mountain Dew.

0:02:46 - Speaker 2
Yeah, that's had a hold on me since I was like 14. Yeah, but I don't drink it, I don't smoke, I don't take drugs or anything like that, except for the ones the doctor gives me. But man, mountain Dew's got a hold on me, so what?

0:02:56 - Speaker 3
can you do? Well, you got to have to have something. It's okay, that's what I say. I have at least one thing, that's right.

0:03:01 - Speaker 2
Life's for living. That's right. My pot belly says otherwise. But anyway, empty calories financially.

0:03:06 - Speaker 3
So financially, I would say, an empty calorie is that 75 page financial plan that many advisors think adds so much value to your life and, let's be honest, that you really don't understand it. It's a glorified paperweight and you didn't read it all and if you even read the first couple of pages, I'm impressed and are most likely out of date by the time they're coming off the printer.

0:03:34 - Speaker 2
Yeah, you finished it, or the printer, that's good. Yeah, so it doesn't have to be war and peace is what you're saying.

0:03:40 - Speaker 3
No, it doesn't, it really doesn't, and I think it actually does a disservice to have a huge document and actually expect our clients to read it and understand it. It's too much. So I've actually made it a point, a practice, that I do not do those big financial plans because they're not adding value. What adds value are meetings and conversations and a couple page plan. I try to get most of my plans onto one page so then you can actually hold it and read it and we can walk through it together and you understand what I'm doing for you and what my recommendations are. Anything more than that, it's empty. It's not fulfilling a need.

0:04:23 - Speaker 2
I like that. That's a great way to break that down. And of course, those empty calories, right, are the things that don't really actually provide any actual nutrients to our body. It's the stuff we just kind of enjoy. Of course, the analogy here is I don't think anybody enjoys those boilerplate filled type of plate.

0:04:39 - Speaker 3
No but in finance, you know, in finance it's so hard because everything we do is not tangible, yeah Right. So sometimes people feel good getting that big stack of paper because, oh, this is what I'm paying for. But are you looking at it? Are you reading it? Do you even desire to have that?

0:04:55 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and if it's so complicated, are you actually going to implement it as well? Because if it's like all this fluffy stuff and you kind of get lost, then you feel like, well, now I don't know what I'm doing with it and I'm never really going to put it into practice anyway. So sometimes keeping it simple is, you know, I guess having some just a good raw carrot, yeah, or some celery, might be the good way to go. Now, before I transition real fast though empty calorie wise, you got anything on yours that you can't. That's got a hold of you candy, cookies, chips, something like that.

0:05:25 - Speaker 3
I love potato chips, okay, but I do have a sweet tooth. But the worst thing it's bad, but it's wonderful. That I've been doing recently is I get this big like Tupperware jug because I have four kids so we're going through snacks like crazy. So I get this big Tupperware jug and I just dump random snacks into it, like cereal and pretzels and chocolate chips and cheez-its, and I dump it all in there and mix it all up and it's so good because it's salty and sweet and I am eating so much of it and I need it's so good but it's so bad, like how much I'm going through it.

0:06:06 - Speaker 2
But it's a wonderful, wonderful treat. There you go.

0:06:08 - Speaker 3
Yeah, so it's basically the trail mix type of idea, but just with whatever you've got kind of sitting around right, exactly Okay, but you can't have nuts in it because the kids can't have nuts in school. So nuts are reasonably healthy to have. But it doesn't have. It's just complete junk in it.

0:06:22 - Speaker 2
So this is just a junk trail mix.

0:06:23 - Speaker 3
Okay, I like it.

0:06:25 - Speaker 2
I like it. All right, let's well, speaking of, since a lot of that's probably got sugar in it. So let's talk. Have you ever tried to like it's pretty tough, like you're, it's surprising the things that you find that have sugar in it, like even the things that you go, okay, there's no way this has sugar in it, and you go looking at the ingredients and you're like, oh my gosh, it's got sugar in there as well. So sugar is great, it's fantastic, but you know what makes it. What makes it bad, I guess from a dietary standpoint as well as the financial parallel.

0:06:54 - Speaker 3
Right, there's sugar in everything. Stuff that shouldn't even be sweet has sugar in it, like can't put it in the soup. Did you know that?

0:07:02 - Speaker 2
That one blew my mind when we were doing the research for this. Like tomato soup had sugar in it, I was like wait why? Why is that?

0:07:08 - Speaker 3
Pasta sauce has sugar in it. I actually saw a picture and it has five different jarred pasta sauces lined up next to each other and then in front of it is the representation of how much added sugar is in each of them. And crazy. And then I said I actually this is how much I think about these things. I said I'm going to have to write a blog post on how that is comparable to mutual funds. Okay so, but we're doing a podcast about it, so that just saved me a little bit of work.

0:07:40 - Speaker 2
Hey, do both of them, but anyway.

0:07:42 - Speaker 3
Yeah, so added sugar comes in the form of hidden fees when it comes to your investments. There's many people that think their 401ks or 403Bs or their mutual funds are free because they don't see a fee associated with it. But that's not the case. The fees are inside of the fund. So if you see, oh well, I returned 7% this year in my mutual fund, that's net of, on average, a 1% internal fee that mutual funds have. So that's where it's hidden. Today, more and more fees and advisors are becoming more transparent with the fee. So now, on your statement, if your advisor charges you an assets under management fee, you'll see a line item on your statement saying fees, and it may feel like you're paying more versus your other account that you don't have that line item. But now what we're doing is we're just pulling the fees out and making it more transparent so you actually know what you're paying for.

0:08:47 - Speaker 2
Yeah, gotcha, okay yeah. And in that sugar, those hidden fees. They sneak into places all the time that you just might not realize and a lot of times, with the different documents and things that we get, see back to that first when we were talking about sharing. They don't always have to disclose these as well. So there's, there's hidden fees. For a reason. They do what they do, the ones they supposed to, but there's some times where you just don't see the stuff. And again, who goes looking through the prospectus often to find all that stuff right? Same thing with the sugar who goes looking for it a lot of times?

0:09:14 - Speaker 3
So right and and all that is doing is that's just affecting your performance, affecting your bottom line, all of those hidden fees that you could potentially have.

0:09:22 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it's affecting my waistline, that's for sure. When it comes to the sugar, all right. So let's go to the next one here Trans fats. Man, we've been hearing about these for a while now. Obviously, these get a lot of attention. We eat an awful lot of them anyway and of course, you know, the more we process our food, it seems like the worst all this stuff is anyway, so they can keep the longer shelf life. You find it in both food and finances, actually. So talk to me about trans fats.

0:09:47 - Speaker 3
Yeah. So the trans fats of the finance world is really having too much risk. It can feel good when your portfolio is performing well, sure, and you're buying, buying, buying, and you think that you know your portfolio is untouchable and you're it's going to go up. But then, usually after one too many donuts or cookies or after a down market, you don't feel too good after if things were to start to go down. So, even though it feels good to make money, take on more risk. You have to keep it in line and take on an appropriate amount, because when times are good, it's good, but when it starts to get volatile, like we're seeing right now, that extra risk is not going to be feeling very well or doing your portfolio justice.

0:10:36 - Speaker 2
You know that's a great way of looking at that, because we know they're not good for us, right? Like you mentioned donuts.

0:10:42 - Speaker 1
Love me some donuts.

0:10:44 - Speaker 2
That's probably my other. That's probably my secondary vice, after the donuts don't do much for me.

0:10:49 - Speaker 3
I'm a birthday cake. Birthday cake all day.

0:10:51 - Speaker 2
Yeah, cakes and cakes and donuts, I don't know, I just if it. Basically, if it's bad for me, I love it. You know what I mean. But if we know they're not good for us or we know that we we shouldn't be having as much. I like the way you're talking about that. Like, we know, okay, I'll have a donut, right, but I shouldn't have two or three or four or whatever the case is. And what's been happening with the market over the last, let's say, three years? Right, it was up, you know, a pretty good percentage, obviously in 19 and 20 and 21. And it gets good to us, right, that it tastes, oh, it tastes so good to make that much, you know, in whatever index or market or whatever we're doing. And so we get greedy, yeah, and everybody's fine with a greed until it goes the other way, exactly yeah. So how do you know, how do you kind of peel that back? How do I put the donut down? Basically, right.

0:11:35 - Speaker 3
Well it's. It's moderation, like everything, although that you know, no one likes to hear that, but it's moderation. So have one donut instead of three. Take on an amount of risk that you can stomach and usually you can determine that by working with an advisor and then asking questions and determining what your risk is, based on your age and your time horizon and your goals and take on the amount that's appropriate for you, because the highs might not be as high but, more importantly, the lows are not as low.

0:12:04 - Speaker 2
Yeah, Great way of looking at that. So we, that was kind of the three things that we're going to do. I was going to kind of open it up to an advisor's choice. Did you have any anyone? That kind of popped into your brain as we were going through this analogy you might want to make?

0:12:16 - Speaker 3
I do actually.

0:12:17 - Speaker 2
Okay.

0:12:18 - Speaker 3
So I intermittent fast. So for intermittent fasting it's kind of a newer thing, people are talking about it more and more but so you only eat during a certain amount of hours throughout the day. So I eat for only eight hours. So from I start my my eating at lunchtime, so around noon time, to eight o'clock, so I eat during those eight hours and then the rest of the day I'm not eating, and I like it because I eat. I'm hungry by the time lunch comes and then I find that I'm not eating as much. And then if it's nine o'clock, I know I'm not within my eight hours and ideally I'm not eating during that time.

And that to me is like ingesting financial information or digesting financial information. You there's so much information out there that if you really try to consume all of it, it's too much. It's too much. So I would say fast the information that is appropriate for you. So have a trusted resource and advisor that you can talk with. Have maybe a couple people that you talk finance with, or news channels that you watch or articles that you read, but don't take everything in, because it's just overwhelming, it's too much and it would do really more harm than good for you.

0:13:42 - Speaker 2
Yeah, that's a great way of looking at that one as well. I like that. I was thinking I always have said for a while, calories and inflation not necessarily a specific type of food, but just calories in general. We know it's out there, we know they're there, but sometimes when you really want that cheeseburger, you don't really care that it's, you know a thousand calories or whatever this big giant. You know burger from five guys or red Robin or whatever it might be. Same thing with inflation, like we know it's out there until something makes us really forced to think about it. Obviously we're thinking about it a lot more right now because inflation is so crazy, but with calories we tend to not think about it until we're in the mood or we're ready to lose weight, or then we start watching our calories or whatever the case is. So I think it's a great analogy. However, you want to look at it kind of comparing the dietary world to the financial world.

0:14:27 - Speaker 3
So I enjoyed it. Yeah, that was fun. I like making finance a bit more palatable and translating it into a different language that everyone can understand and appreciate.

0:14:39 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and even use palatable. So hey, it works right in there as well.

No pun intended or maybe who knows, but anyway, thanks for hanging out folks. Thanks for hanging out, sherry, we appreciate it, as always. Subscribe to the podcast. If you're enjoying the content, maybe share it with someone who might benefit from the message as well. It's pretty easy to find, just let them know. They can stop by Sherry's website at Greenway Wealth Advisory dot com. That's Greenway Wealth Advisory dot com.

If you're already working with Sherry again, you could probably share this information with someone who might benefit. It might enjoy the podcast as well, and if not, you can also have them subscribe to it. Or you can subscribe to it. You can find it by simply typing in Money Chic in whatever app you like to use. If you're a Spotify user type, in Money Chic Women in Retirement, there's probably more than one. So if you go Money Chic Women in Retirement, that'll take you right to it, whether it's Spotify or Google or Apple, whatever the platform is you like to use. Again, you can find it directly through those apps themselves in the search box, or just stop by Sherry's website, greenwaywealthadvisorycom, where she is a financial advisor and money coach. Greenwaywealthadvisorycom, sherry, thanks for hanging out this week. Again, I appreciate it, and at this point April's almost done so I will see you in May.

0:15:46 - Speaker 3
Looking forward to the sunshine. Thank you, I'm going to go eat some trail mix now.

0:15:50 - Speaker 2
Nice, I'm with you. I was like I'm going to have to go get a soda or something, so we'll see you next time here on Money Chic Women in Retirement with Sherry Rash.

0:16:04 - Speaker 1
Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Security is offered through registered representatives of Cambridge Investment Research Inc. A broker-dealer member, finra SIPC advisory services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. A registered investment advisor. Cambridge and Greenway Wealth Advisory are not affiliated.