Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
The Truth About Women and Retirement with Samantha Hart
What if you suddenly had to manage all your finances alone? Would you be ready?
In this episode of Women and Money: The Shit We Don’t Talk About, we talk with Samantha Hart, Director of Marketing Content Strategy at North American Company for Life and Health Insurance. Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, Sam spent 20 years in media and publishing before joining North American, where she leads a team focused on spreading awareness about annuities and financial opportunities.
Sam brings a fresh, passionate perspective on the realities women face with money—especially around retirement and the looming Great Wealth Transfer. She opens up about her family’s journey through divorce and how witnessing her mother’s sudden financial vulnerability sparked her commitment to financial literacy. We cover why women need to be proactive, the gaps in retirement confidence, and the power of good guidance.
This episode explores how the upcoming wealth transfer isn’t just about inheritance—it’s about women taking control of trillions in assets by 2030. Whether you're married, single, or somewhere in between, Sam’s story will inspire you to face your finances head-on—because knowledge is power, and preparation is peace of mind.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 The Financial Industry’s Disservice to Women
03:03 Introducing Sam and Her Work
08:00 Sam’s Personal Financial Journey
16:24 The Great Wealth Transfer
20:12 The Emotional Side of Financial Planning
20:37 Women and Retirement: Key Findings
22:45 Challenges Women Face in Retirement
28:04 The Importance of Advisors
32:14 Taking Control of Your Future
36:49 Debunking Financial Myths
39:23 Defining Financial Freedom
Ready to plan for what’s ahead?
Join us June 26 for Money Talks, where we’ll dig deeper into why retirement planning is urgent for women—and how to create a future that’s truly yours.
Click here to register for FREE—and bring your questions!
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Barb: [00:00:00] Maggie, it was interesting that 10 years ago is when we did our focus groups to really take the data that I had collected about women and money. Remember you were the scribe and you and I would run around to these different focus groups in the libraries and people's homes and we would take that data that typically said that the insurance and financial industry won the award as being the least sympathetic to women.
And women were not prepared for their financial future. And then we took that information and asked women about their experience working with financial professionals. 'cause we wanted to hear it from the mouth of babes, as they say. And what was their. Theme, what did we hear over and over again?
Maggie: Well, once we got past the silence, because nobody wanted to speak up and talk about money the majority then came back and said that their financial professional didn't even look at them. And I think that's when it first started clicking with me about this issue. 'cause, I wasn't really saving for retirement at that time.
It wasn't even in my [00:01:00] realm yet. But I was like, all right, we're giving our life savings over to someone who doesn't look at us like, that ain't right. That ain't right.
Barb: And it was fascinating to me because. Everything was coming together, right? What I saw in my business profession, what I saw as I was navigating my own divorce with other women who were going through divorce, what we saw when we just were shopping women of retirement age working, and what it came to me was this consistent theme that.
Financial professionals weren't looking at them, that they were not provided any financial literacy education, which we knew, but we were getting validation from these women that they didn't trust the financial industry, that they didn't feel prepared, that they didn't feel confident to ask questions, because when they did ask questions, they were told things like, don't worry about it, or Give it to your financial professional.
He'll take care of it. Very dismissive.
Maggie: It is also like was great when they always add. Don't worry about it sweetheart. Don't worry about it honey. And you're just [00:02:00] like, alright, I am paying you for this position. Do not sweetheart and honey me right now.
I want answers to the questions. I don't just wanna, don't worry about it. Okay. Tell me why I shouldn't worry about it.
Is it because I have enough? Show me the graph. Show me the chart. Show me the numbers. Like give me the stats. Don't just tell me. Take my word for it.
Barb: But it was a time where women were so enculturated to just give it to the man. I mean, it's so interesting how many times women would. Just let their husbands take charge and it still happens today. I mean, let's face it, the financial industry was built by men for men to serve men. And what's happened is it's done a huge disservice to women because now women were not financially prepared for their own retirement.
And as we see the population aging, more women are on their own. More women divorced, more women are widowed. They're finally thinking, oh my goodness, now I'm in charge of my own finances. I've never done this before. I don't know if I am equipped to make these good financial decisions for [00:03:00] myself.
Do I have enough money to work through retirement? All of these questions. But what's so interesting about our. Next speaker, Samantha is she works for a large company, north American Company of Life and Health Insurance. They did research and when we met her and heard her research, it was exactly the same data surfaced as we found in our research.
But even so, when I did a consultation with the World Bank. About, you know, nine years ago now, it was the same data that they did when they were doing research for India and Nigeria. All of it came back the same data that women aren't overlooked market. The industries are not attending to what women want and need.
More women are opening their own businesses. Women are finding it difficult to get business loans. Women are overlooked by the financial industry. At every point in turn, the [00:04:00] financial industry is losing out. Women are then not equipped for their financial future, and it's shown that this whole.
Problem is a worldwide issue that women are not equipped, have not been given the tools, the resources the information, the knowledge, the skill, and the financial professionals who are really equipped to really work with women. And that's in turn why we created purse strings.
Maggie: Yeah, it definitely is a worldwide issue. I think Samantha that as well, so. Not anymore though. We're getting in here. We're
making changes.
Barb: Yeah, I love that we connected with her. Content, her data, her research is incredible and she shares that with us and shares some powerful stories with us as well. And has a beautiful accent debut. So let's get started. Let's jump in. She's got so much great information to [00:05:00] share.
Maggie: All right, let's get started.
Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be financially fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.
Maggie: Samantha. Welcome to Women and Money, the shit we don't talk about. Before we dive in today, I would love for you just to kind of introduce yourself to the audience, share a bit about who you are and what you do.
Samantha: Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I am Samantha Hot. I'm the Director of Marketing Content Strategy for North American. So essentially what I do and what my team does is we help our financial professionals and insurance agents. [00:06:00] To educate their clients about the value of annuities and about thinking about retirement, about guaranteed income solutions in retirement.
So we wanna provide our agents with all of the materials that they might need, marketing materials, they might need to obviously to promote our products, but also in a more broad sense to talk about retirement income options. So that's my day job. I'm actually originally from Cape Town, South Africa.
So that's the accent. That's always the first question I get asked and everybody always guesses. And there's a lot of Australia, New Zealand, England thrown in there, but it's, I'm not, I'm from Cape Town, South Africa, and I actually come from a long career in, publishing in media. So I actually started my career really in magazine publishing.
So I worked for Better Homes and Gardens for 17 years,
Barb: Wow.
Samantha: And then I jumped over into the world of insurance and annuities and finance, which funny enough is perfect because. I've always had a personal passion for this. So when this opportunity came along, my husband was like, this is made for you.
You still get
Barb: Wow.
Samantha: [00:07:00] about content and about brand and audience and all the things that I've always loved in my career, but now I get to put it in the package of financial education and financial empowerment, and that's something that I'm just personally very excited about.
Maggie: Wow. I
love that.
And where are you living today?
Samantha: So today I live in West Moines, Iowa. So that is where we're based, that's where North American is. And so I've been here now for 20 years. So even though I still have an accent, my mother will tell you that I've lost my accent, but that's ridiculous. But if you heard her, you would understand.
But I have actually been here for 20 years, so my husband is born and raised in Iowa, so that is what brought me over to to the US and to Iowa. So this has been my home base. I love it.
Maggie: It's quite a jump. I love that. And then, yeah, better Homes and Gardens. What a, I mean, that's a household name magazine. We all know it. I love that.
Samantha: Well, I would, yes. So I would say, I mean, I'm definitely the sort of poster child of sometimes you've gotta take some risks in life and I've taken quite a few big leaps and big risks in life to end up where I am. So I'm thankful that I had the courage to do that.
Maggie: Awesome.
Barb: [00:08:00] Awesome. Well, let's talk about courage today, right? Let's talk about Samantha, your own relationship with money growing up, and was there a moment or experience that really shaped how you think about finances today?
Samantha: As I told you, I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, so that's quite literally the opposite side of the world. And I would say I grew up in what would be considered an upper middle class household. So my father was an attorney, my mother was a lecturer, a Latin lecturer of all things at the local university.
And they never talked about money at home. Ever. And I never thought about it and I never worried about it because my dad just took care of things. And then when I was nine years old, my parents got divorced and that's when I realized how different the situation was that my mother now found herself in as a single divorced mom raising three young girls.
Compared to when she was married to my dad, and even though my dad was very supportive, he had always been the one who would make all the financial decisions, who would take [00:09:00] care of things. And then my mother was in this position where she not only had to figure out the day to day of how to provide for us and how to.
Protect us, I would say, as much as possible from having to worry about finances. And she did a great job of that. But then she also had to look at what her financial future looked like on her own and what would her retirement look like. And she had never thought about these things. She always thought that she and my dad would retire together and they'd have, the shared pool of retirement money.
And he would take care of things. So the lesson I took away from this did really shape me because I realized I never wanted to be caught flatfooted when it came to finances in my own life. You don't know what the future's gonna hold. Thankfully, I've been happily married for 20 years.
My husband and I combine our finances. We talk about money, we make the decisions together. He would probably say I'm a lot more interested and passionate about the topic of finance than he is, but we're both actively and equally involved. So already I'm in a different position than my mom. But I think [00:10:00] for me, I also put a very high value on financial security.
And I think that's because I saw my mom almost overnight go from being very financially secure to being financially insecure. And she even told me, we've talked about this a lot now that I'm an adult. And she said, at the time when the divorce went through, she said, your dad and I had always had a joint account.
And overnight, I no longer had access to that account. And all I had was, my salary, which was much smaller, that was coming in every month, and then child support. And I suddenly had to figure these things out. And I think at that point in time she realized, and she was in her early forties, and she said, I had no savings of my own.
I had no real retirement plan on my own. Thankfully she had a pension through the university, but even then she didn't understand or know a lot about. What the options were with that pension. I mean, she told me now, she said, I didn't even realize until I retired and I went to meet with this financial advisor, who I don't think she had met [00:11:00] with regularly to this point but she went to talk about her retirement and he said, well, you can't really afford to retire.
And she said, what do you mean? And he said, well, you've had this pension, but it's been very conservatively invested and she didn't even know that all those years, 20, 30 years, she actually had options she could have chosen from. In terms of what she wanted to invest her pension in, and she could have invested in more aggressive growth funds.
She could have double tripled that pension bucket. But now she had what she had, she was 65 and she's made it work. My mom has hap, she's happily remarried, and so between her and my stepdad, they're living a great life. So, so don't feel bad for my mom. She's living a great life. But I have learned so many valuable lessons and she has said to me, I want you.
To do better than I did. And I'm now passing that forward to, I have two daughters, they are 16 and 12, and we talk about money and I talk to them about things and I talk to 'em about investing and the stock market and about debt and about when you earn [00:12:00] money. You don't just go and spend it all if you wanna invest some so that your money can grow.
And just the basic things, because again, it all came down to just knowledge and understanding and like my mom really had to start from scratch in her forties.
Maggie: Wow, that's a powerful story.
Barb: It's so powerful and it's not unlike so many stories we hear on a consistent basis. And what we've seen, right Maggie, as we developed purse strings, was women who were working these jobs to, patchwork money together to pay their bills because they just didn't know. And someone did them a disservice.
Like this financial person never met with your mother or never had a conversation with her. I mean, not to put it all on that person, but. No financial literacy about how to plan for retirement or the conversations you should be having. It makes me sad. It makes me sad to think all of a sudden it's kind of like you're left dangling at the end of a rope without any safety net, and not really [00:13:00] knowing what to do next.
And three little girls. It's terrifying,
right?
Samantha: pretty, terrifying. Yeah. At that time, I was nine and my older sister was 11, and my younger sister was five, so,
Barb: wow.
Samantha: 11. And yeah, it was a whole new world. But luckily I will give her credit though. My mom is able to pull herself up by the bootstraps and figure things out.
But absolutely the message that she has when I told her that I was doing this today and she's like, the message is don't wait until it's too late. She said, had I thought about these things when I was 30 years old, or even when I was 35 and even at 40 at the time of the divorce, she's like, I still felt so overwhelmed that I didn't really, I just kind of buried my head in the sand.
But wow, what a difference that would've made to me now in my, she's now in her seventies.
Maggie: I
Barb: Yes.
Maggie: it's so interesting that this is a worldwide issue. We always complain about we don't have financial education here, but it's not like other countries are providing all this financial education either.
It's kind of this worldwide issue which is just interesting to shed some light on. Just [00:14:00] because it's not just an American thing, it's a world thing. And that we really have to tackle. And so at purse strings we're just working on the states right now. That's all we can handle. But you know, it's a worldwide thing.
But I also wanted to re-highlight how you and your husband now talk about finances and how you said, you might be more passionate, but that doesn't mean he's stepping outta the conversation. And I think that's so important is in relationships, there's always one person who's gonna be more into something than the other person will be.
But that doesn't mean that you take the back seat. And I love how you guys are both still, in the driver's seat together. Because that is what is so important. And so even if it's like, well, this isn't my passion. Yeah. Going to the doctor's, not my passion either, but I do it because I gotta make sure my health is in shock.
Like, you just do it. And so, I think that's a great thing to highlight as well, just because you don't have to be passionate about it. It's easier if you are, but. If you're not, you still gotta do the thing, right? And still be part of that conversation.
Barb: Yeah. And Sam, we met because you did a ton of research in the work that you [00:15:00] do on women and money around this great wealth transfer. I, as we found out, did a lot of the same research. We all came up with a lot of the same results and it was just so fantastic that we came together because.
We see and you've been impacted. I mean, I've gone through my own divorce. We've done a lot of research studies. We see the impact. On women when they don't have the knowledge, the education, the skill, the right financial professional, working with them, coaching them, helping educate them along their financial journey.
And we know how important it is. And talk about passion. You're passionate. I'm passionate. Maggie's passionate about making sure women have all that they need and they're not hanging at the end of the rope, like, in a very frightening place, which we hear these. Sad stories all the time. You know about women who are just not prepared.
'cause they never thought their husband was gonna leave or their husband was gonna die, or they were gonna lose their [00:16:00] job or whatever. They were gonna get sick and they didn't have disability, whatever it might be. And we wanna make sure women have the tools and the resources and the information and everything that they need so that they are in charge and in front of these very important life decisions and life skills.
So. We just love to vibe together and talk about this because we know how important it is. So, I'm so glad we're having this conversation today. So let's share with the audience why you think this is happening and what is important right now for women to do. What do you think is important for women to be doing with their money and education around finances?
Samantha: Well, I think the great wealth transfer is something that we should all be paying attention to, but especially obviously working, in the industry that I'm in it is extremely important for our financial professionals to be. Thinking about this great wealth transfer because it presents a big opportunity for them because there is a very significant knowledge gap.
But at the same time, women in this country are [00:17:00] estimated to take control of $34 trillion in US assets by 2030. So, I always say the great wealth transfer, people often think of it just as baby boomers are passing their wealth down to younger generations, and that is one wealth transfer that's taking place.
Obviously as the boomers are aging, but there's this other great wealth transfer that is perhaps not being talked about as much as it should be, and that is this wealth transfer in which women are gonna take control of significant assets. And there are several reasons why this is happening. So a big one is that more women than ever before are graduating from college.
So that increases their earning capacity. In many cases, they are delaying marriage or delaying having children, again, focusing on careers. They are more single female late households than ever before. There are more women-owned businesses than ever before. We all know that gray divorce is on the rise. So women getting divorced in their fifties or sixties, and with that splitting of assets, that might mean that they are getting more wealth than they might have had before.
And then there's the biggest one of all, which is longevity. [00:18:00] Statistics show that women on average live nearly six years longer than men. And that is a reality that women have to think about you don't want to think about that, right? You wanna think that you're just gonna be like the movie in the notebook and you just go
Barb: Yeah.
Samantha: together when the time is right.
I always joke with my husband about that, but the reality is that you might well outlive your spouse, or you might be a single woman running your own household, so. What this means is that even if you're not currently primarily or solely responsible for your household finances, there's a very high likelihood that at some point in the future, you will take on that responsibility and you have to be prepared for it.
You have to have the knowledge, the education, the guidance, the support to make the right decisions for your financial future. So that is why the Great Wealth Transfer, it's relevant for financial professionals because. They can step in and provide that kind of support and guidance. And then it's relevant for women as the, as the consumers, as those who are going to be responsible for all of these assets to make the right decisions with them.
Because it can be life [00:19:00] changing, but if you don't know what to do then it can also be problematic.
Barb: Right, and as you said, like your mom, she didn't have anyone guiding her with her pension. She could have made so much more with her investment. So that's the same thing. You might have money coming to you, but if you don't. Invest it wisely or use it wisely. You might be losing out you might be taken advantage of if you're not working with the right financial professionals.
So you have to make sure you have good people around you and know what good questions to ask and know that you're in tune. You're not just handing your money over to someone, but you're meeting with them on a regular basis. You're understanding about what's going on with your investments, all of that.
And three. As you age alone, it's expensive, right? It's gonna be more expensive to age alone, to have your health and welfare oversight. There's a lot of expenses at that time. So yeah, all of this is so, so important.
Samantha: Yeah, I completely agree. And sometimes it's these are the things that we don't [00:20:00] wanna talk about or these are the things we don't even wanna think about, but you have to think about it and the sooner the better.
Maggie: And we always say, it's not great to think about. You don't wanna think about your, your partner leaving you or passing away or something of that nature. But you also don't wanna do all this deep research when you just lost your partner. You don't wanna start learning finances when you're going through this just emotional turmoil.
You wanna be able to grieve. And so let's just learn this on a basic Wednesday rather than. When you're going through all this grief and all this heartache so it's easier to step into it now than it is, when you're feeling all those emotions and our mind's not as clear as it should be.
And so Sam, I know you recently helped lead a study that looked at how women feel about retirement planning. And spoiler alert, a lot of us are not feeling as confident as we would like to be. So what are some of the most surprising or concerning things that you found in your research?
Samantha: Yeah, so at North American we conducted an extensive research study called Empowered Encore, [00:21:00] and the goal of the study we did this last year was to. Really get a better understanding of the unique challenges that women face when it comes to retirement planning. So we surveyed over 600 consumers. We had about two thirds women, one third men, so they were our control group essentially, and a wide range of age groups.
And we asked a number of questions related to retirement confidence, retirement planning, and preparedness. And what we discovered, and you're probably not surprised to hear this, but there is a significant gap. Between men and women when it comes to retirement preparedness and retirement confidence, and I would say from an alarming or surprising standpoint, is in the key pre-retiree age group, so ages 45 to 64, so you're kind of getting close to that retirement stage, right?
Women in our study were 87% more likely than men of the same age, to be unsure of their retirement needs. So we asked the question, how much money do you think you need to live a comfortable retirement? And a large number of women [00:22:00] responded, I'm not sure. And the problem with that is if you don't even know how much money you need.
To live a comfortable retirement, then it's very hard to plan that if you don't understand things like longevity risk, you don't understand withdrawal rates, you don't understand sequence of return risk and all that stuff. And that is where a lot of the women fell. The other statistic that I wanted to share was that the retirees in our study, so we surveyed a number of female retirees, and 43% of them reported that they had less than $250,000 in savings.
And when you think about the economic environment, when you think about a retirement that might last 30 or 40 years, $250,000 or less, it's not going to stretch very far. So that was also concerning. And then I'm gonna take a couple of steps back because one of the first questions we asked in the study was, what does your ideal retirement look like?
And what are your primary goals in retirement? And you could probably guess what women said their primary goal for retirement was. [00:23:00] You wanna guess?
Maggie: I'm gonna say like spending more time with their family, children, grandchildren.
Samantha: actually, that came up in the list, but number one was I want to live comfortably and very close behind was I don't wanna run out of income. So they wanna live comfortably and they don't wanna run out of income. And then there was also, I don't wanna be a burden to my friends or family. And the interesting thing about that is a lot of that is also fear-based.
So they're afraid of outliving their savings. They're afraid of not being able to maintain their lifestyle in retirement. But then at the same time, we're seeing that they're also extremely unsure of how to even map a path to success because they don't know where those goalposts are. They don't know how much money they might need to be able to maintain their lifestyle.
Maggie: Yeah, it's tough and when people always tell you just to save or to make that pile or to have a lot of money, and it's just like, what are these vague definitions of a lot? You know what? What does that mean to
Samantha: what is enough?
Maggie: [00:24:00] Yeah, it's different to you and different to me. I mean, even the definition of comfortable is very different.
If you, depending on how you grew up and how your lifestyle was comfortable can be very different, for different people as well. And so not actually having numbers and figures and ideas of what you want that to look like, it's all always gonna kind of be this vague
Samantha: Yes. I think you have to get down to the point of actually being comfortable to talk about the numbers, to talk about the specifics, and not just to say, oh, well, I think I need. A million dollars, so I think I need more than I have today. Like, that's not going to be, you have to have a specific goal.
Again I use my mom as the example because she didn't even know. She's like, how much will I need and how much do I need to withdraw every year in retirement from my portfolio? And what does that draw down look like over the course if I do live to be 85, 95? She hadn't really considered those things.
She hadn't heard about, the 4% withdrawal rate or anything like that until the day she [00:25:00] retired, and that's a little late.
Barb: And I had a friend say to me, I think I only have money till I'm 57, so that's when I have to die.
Samantha: Ah, that's
Barb: I mean, it's terrible, but what are people who don't know? What are they gonna do? Or I've heard people say, well, 250,000 sounds like a lot of money to some people, but it may not be enough.
Especially as you're, it depends on your health. I mean, healthcare is so expensive. So, yeah. But, we talk Sam about. The power of the female market. But why do you think with all of that, women are still behind when it comes to retirement planning?
Samantha: Yeah, I think this is interesting. I think that I think women are behind, I think in oftentimes whether or not they're actually behind because of perhaps this lack of understanding of where the goalposts are. 'cause if you don't know where those goalposts are. You can't track your progress.
You don't know where you are on the graph. So I think [00:26:00] women often feel like they're behind. Perhaps they're not, but they've never actually looked at it and seen the numbers and got those specifics. But I think it also goes back to again, what my mom had said about, that I don't wanna speak for all women.
I'm just one. But that idea of maybe bearing your head in the sand. A little bit because we're also extremely busy. We are managing careers, we have families, spouse, the kids, the all the things, the house maybe aging parents and money feels like one more thing on the to-do list that maybe we just don't have time for.
And so it's like, well. Someone else will take care of that, or I'll think about it another day. And I think that's got a lot to do with this feeling of being behind is it's just one of those things that maybe we haven't proactively got ahead of to sit down. And I always say, whether you do it yourself, whether you wanna self-educate, whether you partner with a financial professional, but really getting, just getting a clear understanding.
Of where the goalposts are. How to chart that path for success for yourself is so critically important, even to understand what [00:27:00] your options are when it comes to retirement income. So we talk about that a lot. Obviously at North American you have options for retirement income. It's not just social security.
In fact you probably don't want to think of it just as social security. You and the days of the pension, my mom's lucky to have one, but
Barb: Yeah.
Samantha: are kind of far behind us. So what are your other options that you can explore and how can you make sure that you still have an income stream?
In retirement when you're no longer going to work every day. So I think there are several reasons why women feel behind, and our study showed that unfortunately there is a gap. And again, the gap is not just literally with the dollar figures, the gap is also in the comfort level, the education level, the confidence level.
And I feel like that's the gap. If you can close that gap, then hopefully the dollars start to line up.
Maggie: Yeah, it's super interesting and I hear so much about, social security and stuff, and it's just like, that's supposed to supplement, that's not supposed to be the retirement plan, which is hard to kind of grasp sometimes. But it's, that's why you really do need to sit down and [00:28:00] have these conversations and understand, like you said, where those goalposts are.
And so. You've talked to a lot of women, so what kind of advice are they actually looking for, and what do they say? And what do they say that they want in a financial advisor or a coach?
Samantha: In terms of what they're looking for from an advice perspective, it's the pretty standard stuff. They want to know about money management. They wanna know about investment options. They want to know about even things like annuity solutions or guaranteed income solutions. What does that retirement income landscape look like?
They wanna know about things like estate planning. Taxes. So actually being able to get a better understanding of a comprehensive sort of financial viewpoint. So not just looking at the retirement income aspect, but also looking at taxes and estate, legacy planning, all of that stuff. So that's what they want from a financial advisor
when it comes to finding the right one though they were very. Specific about the qualities that they're looking for in their ideal advisor. And this was one of my favorite questions to ask. We [00:29:00] actually ended up creating a word cloud with all the words that they used to describe their ideal financial advisor.
And the words that they used were things like trustworthy, empathetic, reliable, connected. Authentic. They wanted somebody who understood their unique needs, who could meet them where they're at who could create a plan that felt custom made, tailor made for them. And that empathy, I would say that came up again and again, that word empathy.
Some of the women in our study even told us that they would like to find a financial professional who had gone through a similar life experience to them perhaps was also divorced or was also widowed or had been a caregiver. So they could be that even deeper level of empathy and understanding of where they were at in their life.
So extremely important for, from a financial professional's point of view as you're looking to build, your female market is to think about things like that. About how do you build those genuine relationships. How do you stay connected? You don't just wanna check in once a year or like, perhaps my mother's advisor [00:30:00] check in once a decade.
Barb: Yeah.
Samantha: sure that. That you have regular touchpoints with your clients and that they know that you genuinely care and that you listen you answer the phone. I mean, just some of those basic things. And I think, we also know there's a statistic that's out there, so this is not my own, but that something like 70% of widows will leave their current financial advisor within a year of their spouse's death.
And I think that connects very well to the research that we did. Because if you don't have that relationship, if you haven't demonstrated empathy, if you haven't built a connection, then they're not going to stick around. They're gonna go and look for somebody who can give them that.
Maggie: It's so interesting is money is so personal and so there's so much of, like, you wanna separate your personal and your business. So I don't wanna share with everyone that I've been a widow or I've been divorced, or I'm also caring for my mom on the side. I feel like I should keep that personal.
But your client does really wanna connect with you and understand Oh. They've been through the same thing. They actually get it. And so you do have to kind of cross that [00:31:00] professional boundary and show a little bit of that personal side to really connect because their money is so personal to each.
Person that you wanna know that they've been through these things. And we do also hear that so often is there's that relatability standpoint, and now you're not being like, well, I'm only gonna work with you if you lose your partner like that. That's not how this works. But there is that relatability there.
And so it is, important to expose yourself a little bit and be vulnerable because they're being vulnerable with you, showing their money and their heartache or whatever they're going through as well. And so I just think that's always so interesting is we always try to separate business and personal so much, but this just when it comes to money, you can't separate them, and so you have to have that personal combination.
Barb: and there. And we at purse strings even have financial professionals who say, I've been through divorce, so I work with women who are going through divorce, or I'm a widow, so I work with widows. So it is an attraction because people going through those very huge life changes. Do you wanna [00:32:00] go work with people who relate to them or can kind of give them counsel or someone to kind of just talk with or whatever and ask good questions of, so that makes perfect sense to me.
Yeah. So, I just, I do wanna go back to the idea that, women are so busy. Like you said, I'm so busy, I have all these things to do and children, and I get that. My biggest concern about that is. Your finances are a foundational life skill that if you don't have those in order, you are not gonna have an opportunity to do much else in your life.
So just like you have to go shopping and have food in the house and feed your children, that's how important it is to really look at your monies on a regular basis. That's how fundamental and foundational it is that should be a higher priority. On your list than kind of being pushed off in back burner because we've seen through all of these experiences that [00:33:00] because it was pushed off and the number one regret of women was that they waited too long or they didn't make a decision to engage quick enough and they've lost out.
So, when I hear that from women, and I get it, I mean, I've been a working mom, raising children, going to school, all of that, however. Take something else off your list. Don't make it be this conversation around finances 'cause this is too important to put on the back burner.
Samantha: Yeah, I completely agree because it's so easy to say, I don't have time. I have too many other priorities. I have too many other things going on. You need to dedicate just as much time to this as you would to all the other things, to your health, to your home, to your family, to all those things.
It needs to have equal weight and unfortunately, I just don't think that's always the case.
Maggie: And so for those women who have said like, I'm waited too long, or I'm so far behind what is like one small but really powerful move they can make this week to start feeling [00:34:00] more control in their financial future.
Samantha: Well, I would say the number one thing would be to find a financial advisor if you don't have one. Of course, you always have the option to figure it out on your own if that's what you would prefer to do. But the woman in our study who had partnered with a financial professional who had found that right person for them, I mean, they spoke very highly of the experience and how positive it had been for them.
We got some wonderful testimonials from women saying how working with the financial professional made them feel accountable. It made them feel empowered. It helped them sleep better at night, they felt like someone had their back. So really great testimonials. They also told us that a lot of them found their financial professional through their trusted network.
So their friends, their family they would even ask, their doctor or their accountant or if you have a lawyer. And so that's a way of course going online, we always tell financial professionals you want to have an online presence because especially the younger women in our study said that would be the most likely place that they would go.
To find a financial professional. They would look for online reviews. They [00:35:00] would run a Google search, I think anytime. So you wanna make sure that you have your expertise out there. That's extremely important. So that would probably be the thing to do. But if you are not ready to start that relationship, at the very least, I would say go to your local library, check out some books on finance.
Find a podcast. This is a great one. There are lots of great podcasts. There are videos out there, there are all kinds of resources available to start educating yourself and that's something I've done. Again, like I said, this has been a personal passion before I even got into this industry, and it was really just, I've read a lot of books.
I've just had that level of interest and it starts with the desire to learn. And education is really the first step. And a financial advisor can accelerate that for you, of course. 'cause they have all that knowledge they can share. But you can also start doing it on your own, today.
Barb: Yeah. And a lot of people think, oh, either I don't have enough money or they wouldn't want to work with me, or, they have a lot of excuses. But even here at Purse Strings, we have such a selection of. [00:36:00] Professionals that show that they work with people who have zero to $10,000 to invest. Or the fees are very low.
So really any financial professional at any rate. Sure, there are some that only work with 500 and up or Million and up. They're all over the board, but. It's an investment in yourself, right? So people say they don't wanna spend the money to work with a financial professional. It's an investment in yourself because today you're losing money by not talking to a professional who can help you be more efficient and more effective with your investments, just like your mom, right?
So, you are really, you could be losing money by not working with a professional that shows you the nuances and the ways to really be more effective with your investments. But we're big fans of course, calling out the shit that we don't talk about. So let's flip it. What's one money, myth or message that you wish women could stop believing right now?
Samantha: That money is hard.
Barb: Oh, [00:37:00] yes.
Samantha: hard.
Barb: Yeah, let's unpack it.
Samantha: So in talking to my mom, you know her, what she said, and it really stuck with me. As she said, I always thought, I'm just not a financial person. Now, she's a highly educated, intelligent, all the things person, but I'm not a financial person.
And this idea that you have to be a financial person. Or that money is just too hard for the average person to figure out, I think is a myth. It's not true. I think if you have a willingness to learn and the right mindset, then I think you absolutely can figure out the finances. And I think sometimes there's also this myth that, we can't achieve our financial dreams because they're just too many obstacles in the way. Maybe we don't have enough income, we don't have enough time, we don't understand stock market, we don't have enough knowledge, whatever it is. I disagree with all of that because again, if you have the right mindset, if you're willing to learn, take the time and connect with a financial professional or take the time on your own and educate yourself. You can [00:38:00] absolutely do it. So I don't think that women should think I'm just not a financial person, or money's just too hard. Or, there are just too many obstacles. I think you need to believe that you absolutely can do it just like everybody else.
We all can do it, and there are so many resources out there to help.
Maggie: The amount of obstacles I've seen women come over to have money being like it's too hard, is just. It's almost a joke to me. 'cause I was like, I have seen these women like bend over backwards, take care of all these people, juggle all these things all at one time, like blindfolded, no problem. They get it all done, but when it comes to money it's like, Ooh, that's hard.
It's like, oh my God, you have done a thousand other things that you have conquered that are so much more difficult than this. Like, it's just, it's so funny and I'm so glad that you called that out as a myth because it's true.
Barb: I agree. And you nailed it. And I, I was thinking where does this whole thought process come from? Does it stem from. Childhood where like math is only the [00:39:00] boys do math or does it come from, marketing, sorry, Sam, or does it come from I don't know.
All these money messages that we get, I don't know, but we you nailed it, Matt. It's true.
Maggie: I think this has been a great conversation and I'm so excited for women just to set up a free call with a financial advisor from purse strings and just start that conversation, take some action this week. But the way we like to wrap up every show, Sam, is we'd like to ask you what is your own definition of financial freedom?
Samantha: This is a great question. And I probably share this answer with so many women and so many people, but financial freedom for me is never having to worry about money knowing that my family and I, my daughters, my husband and I, we can live the life that we wanna live without having to worry. But the other piece I would say is that financial freedom is knowing that you are able to pursue your dreams.
And that money is not an obstacle towards achieving those [00:40:00] dreams, but it is actually the fuel that powers those dreams. So if you have a great money mindset, not a scarcity mindset where you're just always afraid, I'm afraid I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna have enough money. I'm afraid of living too long, I'm afraid.
But if you actually get to the point of empowerment where you have a really solid plan and you feel great about it, then money can be wonderful fuel to live out your dreams instead of being, there's something that's viewed as something scary. Or a hurdle. Or an obstacle or I just don't have enough. So to be financial freedom is being able to kind of re
position money in your mind as something that really is that it's that fuel and it's a positive thing and it's not the scary thing that we just can't wrap our heads around or get enough of.
Barb: That's awesome. And this has been a fantastic conversation and you have to give our thanks to your mom for allowing you to share her story with us. 'cause it's very powerful, very impactful. Unfortunately similar to others that we've heard, but, just to hear you share her story [00:41:00] has been, so enlightening because it's.
True. Right. And these are all the reasons that you do the work you do. I do the work. Maggie does the work because we want women to be, what we say is financially fearless. It's not scary, it's not hard. We have great, fantastic opportunities to learn. Sam, your company has fantastic products and financial advisors as well as we do.
There's so many fantastic people out there to help women and that's, the mission is to get out and help women at every point in turn, learn what they need to know to live a beautiful. Life full of choices. So thank you Sam, so much for coming on today and sharing your wisdom and all of your expertise and background on your research as well.
So glad to have your wisdom and information on our podcast sharing it with us today.
Samantha: Well, thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed it. I appreciate it.
Maggie: Yeah. Thank you, and we will talk to everyone again soon.
Outro: [00:42:00] You've been listening to Women Money, the shit we don't talk about. Now it's time to take what you've learned and make bold moves towards financial independence. Stay in the know by joining our newsletter for exclusive tools, resources, and updates that keep you financially fearless. Head to PurseStrings. co and sign up today. Need a financial professional who gets it? Turn to PurseStrings Curated Directory, your go to resource for financial experts who know how to put you first. Love this episode? Leave us a review and help us empower even more women to own their financial power. Until next time, be financially fearless.
