Side Project Podcast Episode 17: Financial Wellness with Laura Combs

Leyla Seka (00:01.223)

Welcome everybody, how’s it going? Welcome to Side Project, our journey through all the topics that are on our mind as we rumble through middle age. Anyways, I’m Layla and I’m here with my dear friend Ruthie. Hi Ruthie.

Ruthie Miller (00:16.47)

Hi, Leyla. I’m excited about today’s episode. We usually talk about kind of health and nutrition and wellness and kind of all the things that are happening to our body, which are usually not the most uplifting topics. And today’s topic is a little bit different. And again, like our last topic, this one was recommended by one of our listeners and we love it when listeners recommend topics. But today we’re talking about financial planning and wealth management. So something a little bit different for us.

Leyla Seka (00:51.741)

Yeah, and honestly, something that is super important to me and always has been, you I never understood why women didn’t talk about money. You know, we’ll go buy Louis Vuitton bags together, but we won’t talk about how much money we’re making. And those guys are constantly one-upping each other and talking about money. And so, you know, a lot of my career, I spent a lot of time yelling about the money and trying to fix this situation. So this one is near and dear to me, but the truth is, no matter how much money you have, a lot or a little, you have to think about how to use it to maximize the best life possible, right? And that’s defined by you and what you wanna do in your life. But there are great people like Laura Combs, who we’re gonna talk to, everybody’s gonna give you a little more background on, who can give you really good insights and really good advice and really good planning tools to think about how to make your money last for you, no matter what that means, right? Cause everyone has a different idea. I don’t want a private island. I don’t know anyone that does. God bless if you do. Like, I just want to be able to get old comfortably and like leave my kids a little money, right? Like that’s sort of where I am. But everyone’s got their different stuff and everyone’s at different ages. So this could be awesome. All right, I talked a lot, Ruthie. Sorry, go. You care.

Ruthie Miller (02:03.754)

No, that’s great. I think, you know, what struck me while you were talking is that we are very different hosts this time because you clearly know what you’re doing. You have your act together when it comes to money management. And my situation is a little bit of willful ignorance. And I mean, I know the money is there and I, you know, I could find it if I needed to, but it’s a little like stick my head in the sand and not really talk about it. So.

I’m definitely interested in hearing what we had to say and what we’re gonna talk to you about with our friend, Laura Combs, who we’re here with today. Laura is an executive managing director at Mercer Advisors, concentrating on wealth management. And beyond that, her real focus is ensuring that people of all stripes, and particularly women, have access to wealth management and the tools that they need to be successful.

To that end, Laura helped launch something called Invest Hers, which is Mercer’s program focused on financial planning for women by women. And I definitely want to hear more about that. She has been named a Forbes top woman wealth advisor and Investment News top 40 under 40 advisors and an advisor hub top 100 advisors to watch. And all of that is to say she is incredibly impressive and we are so lucky to have her with us today. Welcome Laura.

Laura Combs (03:26.478)

Thank you so much. It is awesome to be here. I’m so excited for the conversation.

Leyla Seka (03:32.265)

That’s true. Okay, so Laura, tell us a little bit about your background. Like, how did you get into wealth management? Why did you decide to focus on women? Like, how’d this come to be?

Laura Combs (03:41.262)

This question is interesting because I fell into wealth management. So like I don’t have the traditional, like I knew what I wanted to be as a little girl and I wanted to be in wealth management. I fell into wealth management in a time where, you know, there was a global financial crisis that kind of been happening. I needed a job. I didn’t study business or finance in college. I studied communication. I love people. I love connecting with people. I love connecting with women in particular, and I kind of fell into this industry and really fell in love with it because I liked money. I liked math. But I wanted to have friends and have a boyfriend in college. So I didn’t go study math. Nothing against people that study math. We need you. You’re amazing. But I just wanted to spend time with people. So I studied communication and fell into this industry because I needed a job. And I really liked it. And I liked that I could help people with their lives. I could help organize and plan for people’s lives. And there was such a deep emotional connection around money that you really got to see people, you know, and understand people. What was it? What were they struggling with? So that’s kind of like how I fell into it. And I found throughout my career this pattern and you kind of alluded it to it lately already. Like women didn’t grow up learning about money.

Like just whether it was generational or just not talked about. And so I really felt like a lot of the clients that I met with, if it was a husband and a wife, for example, the wife was not involved, like she didn’t want to be involved. And so just figuring out how to really connect with women and get them in the conversation, that’s the reason I have so much passion around it is just getting people in the conversation.

Ruthie Miller (05:28.108)

I love that. And that’s what a great success story, especially for, you know, kind of recent college graduates who still have no idea what they want to do with their careers. It’s like, you don’t have to study math or entrepreneurship in order to have a very successful career. So silver lining there. Okay. Well, tell us about Invest Her. I kind of want to learn more about that. How did that get started? Who was it for? What are the goals? All that good stuff.

Laura Combs (05:54.382)

So I, with a couple other women at Mercer Advisors, launched Invest Hers in 2018, which there was a lot kind of happening in the world. There was a lot of conversations around women and focusing on women in finance and the industry and leadership positions and advisory roles. And we wanted to put together something that was more than just lip service, was something that was really an initiative, a program that would actually help women in their career.

And Investors really has two key focuses. One is external, to be the firm of choice for female wealth management clients, that Mercer Advisors was going to be the firm of choice. And the second, which is what we’ve spent a lot of the last couple of years really focusing on, is being the firm of choice for women who are interested in a career in wealth management. And so we have within the organization, like we’ve done an amazing job of having programs and opportunities for women to connect to whether that’s get better at public speaking, whether that’s get involved in sales, women in sales is not a popular area. So how do you get better at your sales skills if you’re going to be in a sales role, as well as really thinking about mentorship. How do we mentor? We’ve had a women mentoring women program for years. And we do an annual summit. We just came off of that earlier this year, earlier this month, where we got 125 women from the organization together in a room for two days to talk about what we’re seeing, talk about what we’re learning, focus on how do you work on your negotiation skills, like really practical skills that women in wealth management can actually go back and then implement. So that’s kind of the piece for me, but I really wanted it to be actionable versus just like kind of off the side, like, we have this thing for women, but it’s really led to women wanting to join the organization because of our focus on helping them in their careers, as well as even firms that, Mercer acquires firms, firms wanna join us. A lot of women-owned businesses are excited because we have a strong female presence and they wanna be a part of what we’re doing with women.

Leyla Seka (08:02.195)

That’s awesome. That’s a big deal. You know, I did a bit of that during my career too, and you’re just trying to create systematic change. And it’s important to figure out a way to really think broader than just the kind of the one step thing that’s right in front of you. So kudos to you. That’s amazing. All right, Laura, what are like some common money myths that women are taught growing up? I mean, I know I was taught a lot of dumb stuff, but like what are some common ones and how do we unlearn them? Like how do we reprogram ourselves around money a little.

Laura Combs (08:33.678)

I think the biggest, the one that jumps out to me the most is just this idea of like, I’m not good with money. You were joking on the Louboutin bag at the beginning. think women in general get maybe a bad reputation on, we spend a lot of money, we spend money on stuff that might not be meaningful, even if it is. And so this kind of like idea that I’m not good with money, I think is ingrained in us even from a young age. Like I’m just, I’m not given responsibility with a lot of money. I’m not good with money.

And so kind of understanding around like, what does that even mean? How do you dispel that? like, you don’t have to be, it’s not good or bad. just, we need to understand how money works. Money’s a tool. It allows us to do things. And if you want to buy that Louis Vuitton bag, you should go for it. Buy the Louis Vuitton bag.

Leyla Seka (09:19.465)

That is very valuable, Laura. I don’t know what you’re talking about. A Louis Vuitton bag is a very valuable purchase, in my opinion.

Laura Combs (09:23.054)

It’s very valuable. I have one myself and but again, it’s for me, it’s like, it brings you joy. It’s like it that’s the thing like that I when I talk about with with women, I think that other myth is like, it we shouldn’t buy things that you know, aren’t aren’t seen as valuable. It’s like if it adds joy and meaning in your life, like if that’s a vacation, fantastic. If that’s a designer bag.

Leyla Seka (09:30.459)

I don’t think my husband would agree with that, but I think that for sure.

Laura Combs (09:51.458)

Fantastic. If that means putting money in your retirement account for a rainy day, fantastic. I’m not going to make a judgment around what is enjoyable to people. But again, it’s like that idea of I’m not good because maybe I want to buy one or two different things than other people. I think there’s just that comparison. So that to me is a myth there. think the other thing, yeah, I’m not good at math. I’m not good at money. I’m not good at science.

Leyla Seka (10:11.625)

It’s kind of like the I’m not good at math thing, right?

Laura Combs (10:20.952)

Yeah, it blends together and maybe that’s just something that is shifting over time and we’re working to change. I hope so. Another myth that I see a lot is, and this might be changing too with just kind of the demographics shifting, is like my spouse will handle money or my spouse will handle it, probably particularly in a traditional husband-wife relationship or my partner will handle it. I think there’s a kind of a default of like, I’m gonna just, I don’t need to worry about it.

Leyla Seka (10:26.281)

I hope so. I hope so.

Laura Combs (10:50.466)

you know, especially women, probably, especially women that maybe stay at home for a season. You know, my spouse has it. I don’t need to worry about it. I think that is a myth because there might be a day where you have to handle it. And if you’ve never handled it and you don’t understand it, that presents a problem. And so the myth of like someone else is handling it, you know, to me, I want to be in control. You know, I want to know where things are. And if my spouse handles it, that’s fine, but I want to at least know where things are so that if I needed to handle it, then I would be able to do that without kind of feeling scared or fearful.

Ruthie Miller (11:28.066)

I don’t know that that’s actually a myth. I think that is actually something of a reality. I think at least, I mean, I’ll be honest, my house, my husband handles, I mean, he’s a business guy, he’s a finance guy. So he does handle all of our finances. He pays the taxes, he pays all of our bills, he deals with our accounts and our managers and everything. He does it all. so you hear these stories, you know, not infrequently about somebody whose husband or wife passes away and they were the ones that handled all the finances. And I think about this a lot and you know, what if, you know, we did have a tragedy and my husband wasn’t around anymore? Would I, I mean, I know I would be okay, but would I know where to get the money? Would I know where it all is? Would I know how to handle everything and all that kind of stuff? And I’m not alone in that. So I don’t know that that’s necessarily a myth, but I do think it’s a big problem that we have. you know, so what, how often do you, is that something that you see a lot and how do we prevent that? And like with myself, we do have fail safes in place. So I know I would be fine in that situation, but there are a lot of people who are not. And what advice do you have for those women?

Laura Combs (12:48.814)

I think you’re right, Ruthie. It’s something that happens more than we think. The average age of widowhood in the United States last time I checked was 59, which is shocking to me. Shocking. Feels very low. It used to be 57 a couple of years ago. We’ve extended that out a little bit. But still really low. Most people would say in their 70s for something like that. So the reason I think.

Ruthie Miller (13:00.94)

That is shocking. That that feels very low.

Leyla Seka (13:02.417)

Wow!

Laura Combs (13:16.642)

The earlier question around my passion for women and wealth, it stemmed from an experience that I had early on in my career where I had started working with a couple and the husband passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. And the wife had been involved, but it was like her world had totally changed. And the fact that she could lean on me, handle everything, be able to walk her through that, I think was part of the reason that I’m so passionate about this space and making sure that women know what to do. But because you’re right, it’s like there’s a lot that changes. And I think even if someone else is handling it, I always encourage spouses, partners, it’s like you need to be in the conversation, even if you’re not interested in it. Even if you don’t really have a desire to like be an expert on investment, portfolio management or cashflow projections. You should just have an awareness of if something happens, who are the people that I call? Do I have a financial advisor, a wealth management team that I’m calling? I call one person and they can handle it all. Do I know how to pay the taxes? Is my CPA a part of my wealth management team or is this someone else? Do I know all the players and do I know who to call?

That is something that I encourage people to figure out, making sure that you have to your point, what is the plan if something happens? And it’s a hard conversation. that’s, again, I think not a myth, but a reality of like, we often are not wanting to have these difficult conversations or talk through, hey, what if something happens? Are we going to be okay? Who do I call? Where do I go? Because we don’t want to think about it, right? The mortality piece, we don’t want to think about that.

Leyla Seka (14:53.651)

Well, I mean, and you can even extend it into like, we’re certainly a lot of us are middle aged here. So the whole parent leave it, you know, like my dad died a year and a half ago and my mom didn’t know. I mean, if I didn’t know where everything was and like how to break into all his accounts, you know, I mean, it was very like, thank God I figured this out beforehand because otherwise, you know, what would we have done? So like in that instance, I mean,

Laura Combs (15:00.142)

Yeah.

Leyla Seka (15:18.439)

I know when your spouse, that can’t even imagine, but like, yes, you have to have a contingency plan. You have to know where the, banks the money’s in, how to log into those banks. Hopefully you have someone to call. A lot of people don’t, right? A lot of people are just gonna have to figure it out. So know where things are, know like sort of how things are organized, but what about with your parents, right? Like I had a very hard-headed father and he had his ideas about how things were gonna be and he was not very communicative. So it was really like, digging out when I had to take all this over. But what advice do you give people as they’re moving into that? Like your parents, one parent’s gonna pass, both pass, inherit, all that sort of stuff. How do you kind of guide your clients when you’re thinking through stuff like that?

Laura Combs (16:03.532)

Yes, this inheriting wealth piece is massive because you think about the great wealth transfer. We’ve all probably heard that term or many of us have heard the term the great wealth transfer. We’re to see this massive transfer from generation to generation and spouse to spouse, which is I think hits both of the scenarios that you’re describing. And what it makes you really think about, and I just wrote an article about specifically how women receive wealth and how we should be thinking about it. But one of the things that I’m doing more with my clients is this idea of a family meeting. And we just came off Thanksgiving, we’re headed into the holidays. It’s kind of this idea of being able to sit down with multiple generations. And so this might be like, if you’re talking to your parents, and I’ve done this with my parents, is like, let’s figure out where everything is, where are the accounts? I don’t need to know all the values because again, part of that is this privacy piece from older generations, right? They didn’t talk about money.

They didn’t want to talk about it because they didn’t want people to know how much they had or didn’t have. And so to me, it’s just sitting down with family and saying, I need to have a family. It’s kind of this family meeting. We’re going to talk about it. And I think we’re seeing this. It’s becoming more common, or people are at least more open to it, let’s just get everything in order because if your parents pass, it can be a giant mess for the kids. And many parents do not want to leave their children with a giant mess. And so I’ve often seen couples that might be hesitant, know, the kind of the older generation. I’m hesitant to do this. I don’t want to talk about it. But the idea of leaving their children with a massive mess and a tangled box of cords to try to untangle, like they don’t want that either. They want to hand them a beautiful box with a bow that everything is in order. It’s very, very seamless. Doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy because it’s still going to be emotionally and probably time spent, you know, kind of walking through that process, but at least everything is clean and organized to be able to have a seamless transfer. And that can all be done with estate planning. those generations can do estate planning to be able to seamlessly and effortlessly transfer that versus the giant box of cords that we all have in our basement somewhere.

Ruthie Miller (18:21.11)

Are there tools for that, like online tools or like documents or something that can help people get everything in order? Or is that really like you need to have kind of a wealth planner or a financial advisor on your side?

Laura Combs (18:36.266)

The answer is kind of it depends, my lawyer answer for you. It depends. And the reason I say that is it depends because it depends on where you live. It depends on what state you live in. Each state has a different state estate tax law. So obviously we have the federal estate tax law. And then each state has their own state estate tax law. And so it depends on where you live and how assets might transfer based on different states. And so, I would say a lawyer is a good opportunity, a good place to start. I would say even before that, if you do not have basic estate planning documents, a lot of the times, we do those for all of our clients as part of working with us. That’s just part of our service because we believe that strongly that everyone should have an estate plan. There are websites that you can get estate plans at.

for free. There’s very, very low cost estate planning. And so the basic documents would be that you have a will, a power of attorney, and then the trust document is really what makes those transfers really seamless, that those assets can transfer from an owner to a beneficiary without having to go through probate. And that’s, think, a much more seamless process than having to do a public court-led process with probate.

Ruthie Miller (19:53.229)

Yeah. Now let’s talk about wills for a second. I think a lot of, did our wills when we had our first child and that child is almost 14 now. And have we looked at our wills once since then? No. I have a lot of friends who tell funny stories about how they like signed their will on their way to the hospital to have their baby. Cause you you’ve got to have that in place. But so now, know, 14 years later or 20 years later, I when is it time to re-examine our wills and how important is that to?

Laura Combs (19:54.38)

So those things I would say are

Ruthie Miller (20:23.53)

I know that they would still be valid and everything we put in place is still vaguely in line with what we want. But is it time for us to go in and really kind of reevaluate that?

Laura Combs (20:36.134)

The answer is probably yes. I would say if it’s been more than about three to five years. And the reason is estate law has changed since then. So just kind of making sure they’re up to date with the current estate law changes. There’s been a lot of changes in the past, at least past decades. So that would, not massive, but it would be at least worth looking at. The other thing that I would say my oldest is 12.

And we’ve kind of re-looked at ours every time we’ve had other children. I have a lot of kids, so we’ve looked at it a few times. But the thing that we’ve looked at is not necessarily from a will, on the will side is just if something happened to us, are the people that we’ve named to kind of take care of our kids, are those still the right people? And back to Leila, the aging parents conversation, this is where I actually see challenges where people have not updated their will. They might still have their parents named.

who are now in their 70s, 80s, might not even be here. And so those are the things that people need to dust off and say, like, are these still the right people? Or maybe I don’t want the sibling or family member anymore. So those are the things on the guardianship, especially with minor children. And then if you have trust documents, it would be financial, who’s managing the money if something were to happen to you or your spouse.

I have seen wills where not all of the children were explicitly named and there was a provision around, these are my only children. And so we quickly updated that for this family, this new family, because their third child was not included. So those are some unique things that maybe like, if they’re older documents, might not have the language, all of my children kind of thing.

Ruthie Miller (22:21.718)

That sort of feels like a good premise for a sitcom.

Leyla Seka (22:25.609)

Except if you’re the kid who didn’t get the money, right? Then you’re like…

Laura Combs (22:26.101)

Yeah, exactly.

That’s it, I’m out.

Ruthie Miller (22:29.922)

It would be a comedy. The kid would show how he’s resilient or something.

Leyla Seka (22:32.649)

That’s coming.

Laura Combs (22:37.356)

The other thing that I would say on estate docs is, especially with the aging parents conversation, if you are caring for your parents at all, medical powers of attorney are something that oftentimes hospitals will want refreshed or with a wet signature, even if it’s the same people every three years is kind of the rule of thumb that we give to our clients or our attorneys give to our clients is just, know, hospitals just want to make sure, yep, this is, know, if it’s a living will.

If it says you’re going to be on life support, just making sure that those are fresh signatures within the past three years, especially if you’re providing any care for your parents.

Leyla Seka (23:15.059)

Yeah, that’s great advice. Are there any other things in estate planning that are often overlooked by women or any other things that we should absolutely put in our noodle and keep there front and center outside of like the ones you just noted?

Laura Combs (23:28.27)

Sure, think on the trust, we do a lot of trust-based planning and a lot of people think, well, I’ve got a will and I’ll need a trust, like my estate or my money, my assets might not be big enough to warrant a trust. But to me, a trust is really just kind of an opportunity, a box that I can put stuff in and I can take stuff out of. And so it also has a layer of protection specifically around marital or remarriage protection. So for women in particular, I will often make a recommendation

with our attorney team to say, we want to have a trust-based plan so that if something happens to a husband and a wife, then let’s say I die, right? And my husband has our money, that our money together would go to our children. And there would be kind of a marital protection that his next new younger wife wouldn’t be able to really have any access to that. there is.

Leyla Seka (24:24.438)

I signed that one too. I definitely made sure that one was in there too. I was like, yeah, all my money goes to my children. I definitely did.

Laura Combs (24:28.12)

So that’s something that could get overlooked. And then if you have kids too, there’s also just making sure that they’re like, again, we think about like, our kids are gonna marry wonderful people who take great care of them. I hope that, I wish that for all of our children, I wish that, but you can also layer in generational protection. So again, if something were to happen to me, then I can kind of layer in some provisions around.

this is family money for my children. It would never be considered a marital asset and it should not be moved out. So you can actually set up a few more controls with a trust and it’s a revocable trust. So you can change it during your lifetime. You can put things in, you can take things out, you know, can retitle them. But those are things I think people think, again, maybe a myth. I don’t need, I don’t have enough money to warrant a trust. Trust is for ultra wealthy people. It’s like, no trust, it’s just a box you put stuff in.

You can easily transfer the box from one person to the next. And you don’t have to.

Ruthie Miller (25:27.604)

I mean, a trust is basically just a legal protection,

Laura Combs (25:30.958)

Correct. Yep. Exactly.

Leyla Seka (25:32.329)

keeps you out of probate. So it’s worth spending whatever money the lawyer will charge you to set up a trust, even if you just have like a house and your retirement and a light savings and you know, not millions and millions of dollars, it’s still worth spending some money on a lawyer to get this because it’ll protect everyone and your all that whatever assets you do have will be well protected. Yeah, I think that’s important.

Laura Combs (25:49.708)

Right. And the other thing is if you’re a business owner or you’re entrepreneurial, know, there’s it’s definitely kind of protects assets, maybe away from your business, things like that. You can kind of just make sure that you’re not crossing lines in your personal name. So. Yeah.

Ruthie Miller (26:08.044)

And to set up a trust, you just work with a lawyer, right? You can work with your financial planner and really you need to find like an estate planning attorney. Is that correct?

Leyla Seka (26:08.413)

That’s brilliant.

Laura Combs (26:13.421)

Yeah.

Laura Combs (26:16.91)

Correct. Yep. But we, like I said, for all of our clients, we’re doing trust-based planning that includes wills, powers of attorney, and trust documents for all of our clients, because we think that’s the best way to do it.

Ruthie Miller (26:31.714)

And you probably have in-house legal people. So you’re kind of like a one-stock pop. Yeah, that’s handy. Very, very handy. Okay, let’s talk about investment for a little bit. let’s say you’ve got, Alayla is like beaming. She’s like, this is her topic, y’all. So let’s say we’ve got all this money. Should we be investing? What mistakes do you see?

Laura Combs (26:35.598)

Correct. Correct. Exactly.

Ruthie Miller (26:57.536)

with women and their investing, maybe that we’re not investing enough. How should we be thinking about investing?

Laura Combs (27:05.24)

I think that women, if you look at historical performance, women actually tend to outperform men on their investments. So we’re better investors. We’re better investors because we generally have a longer term time horizon. We’re thinking longer term. We are not jumping in and out. We’re not trying to pick the next hot stock. The thing that we struggle with, so the mistake that we make, is we wait too long to get in.

Ruthie Miller (27:15.136)

Jazz hands.

Laura Combs (27:33.942)

And so we sit on the sidelines for a little bit too long where we’re talking about the geyser, they’re doing stuff. They are in the market sooner. We are holding cash more. So women tend to hold cash more because they may be, again, we weren’t taught about investments growing up. We weren’t shown here’s how to invest, here’s a Roth IRA, here’s a brokerage account. And so we will hold our cash longer until, so we’re just a little bit behind on our male counterparts.

I would say that is a mistake that we make. However, when we start investing, again, we’re generally more diversified. We’re not in just one or two stocks. We’ve got a broader portfolio that tends to outperform over time because we’ve got kind of that bigger view. The other thing that we, I think, are good at and women tend to do is invest in line with their values. So women will often invest more in things that are important to them, whether that’s companies that are doing good in the world, companies that might have

faith-based focus or maybe screening out companies that they don’t want to invest in. We often see women’s investments align with their values. And so that’s something that I think is fantastic and has become much more mainstream in the investment world.

Leyla Seka (28:47.977)

How should people think, I mean, I’m a big proponent of investing. I was a venture capitalist for a while. And the big premise of our fund was to get female operating executives investing. even the ones you thought should be investing were investing. But how do you advise women that come to you and are just starting to think about this, how do you advise them to think about investing? How do you start, if you will?

Laura Combs (29:12.482)

I think about it, I stole this from a gal where we talked about all the different shoes in our closet. it’s like, want to have different, and we could go back to our bags conversation as well. But like, when we think about it investing, it’s like, we want to have a lot of different companies in the portfolio. We want to have a lot of different ways to earn return. We don’t want to necessarily just pick one thing. And that’s kind of like the risk conversation. We think about risk and return.

women do tend to have a little bit more risk aversion than men. Not that that’s good or bad, but it’s just like we would probably have a more balanced portfolio. But I will often try to kind of design it as like, let’s think about the shoes you have in your portfolio. Like some of them are going to be your high heels. Some of them are going to be your ski boots, your outdoor shoes, whatever it might be, your flip flops for the summer. We want to have different types of investments in our portfolio because we never know which one is going to perform. We never know which ones we’re going to need. So that’s

That when I think about just like basics of diversification, that’s just an analogy I use. You could probably use something else, you know, whether it’s getting ready, you want to have your different makeup brushes for your different hair, you know, your hair tools, whatever your analogy resonates with you. But I think about it in terms of like, once women understand the risk and return relationship, then I think we are much more likely to get invested. And so to me, it’s just, if you’ve had zero experience with the stock market, like,

Leyla Seka (30:24.081)

as I would.

Laura Combs (30:38.028)

women may not tend to jump into being an all equity gal. And so it’s figuring out how to get them comfortable. And so I have a client that I worked with when I started working with her, all cash, like a million dollars in cash. And I was like, this is a lot of cash, a lot of cash, but just didn’t know what to do with it. And then over time we started, it was interesting. We started with probably a very conservative portfolio, which would be considered maybe only 30 % stocks or equities which have higher risk.

Leyla Seka (30:51.013)

wow. Woo!

Laura Combs (31:07.606)

or for listeners, and 70 % fixed income and bonds. Now she’s probably switched. Now that we’ve been working together, she’s probably more 70 % stocks because that’s got the long-term growth. And we want to have that to build the portfolio for those future Louis Vuitton bags or whatever we might want to do. And so it just took time for her to kind of get comfortable, see how the portfolio works, see the returns, and that’s fine. But at least we were in the market and not sitting on the sidelines.

Leyla Seka (31:35.997)

Yeah, my mom calls the stock market gambling. I mean, that’s how little she understands. She’s like, it’s gambling. I’m like, it’s not gambling. It’s not even, like.

Ruthie Miller (31:36.693)

That’s me. I’m not.

Ruthie Miller (31:44.877)

That’s what I want too. don’t, mean, I am like, my husband is all about it. And I, mean, he, drives him crazy because I like to keep a threshold of cash on hand because like, what does something happens? And then I, yeah, I need it. And it’s just, it’s there and it’s stable and it’s, you know, it’s a hard asset, but it drives them crazy.

Laura Combs (32:06.958)

And Ruthie, I think that’s a great point. And I think that’s a great recommendation. And what I tell my clients is you should have enough cash that allows you to sleep at night. You should have enough cash that allows you to be comfortable and not worry about bouncing off the runway. I just was on a flight earlier this week. You don’t want to be bouncing off the runway with your day-to-day living expenses.

I will often say around three to six months. Some people might be more conservative on that. I’m usually three to six months of your living expenses. Have that easily accessible in your checking savings account at your local bank or wherever you bank. And anything beyond that that you don’t need for probably three to five years, that should be earning or growing and working for you. I kind of think about it like it’s working for you.

And so I’m still a cash gal. Don’t get me wrong. I love my cash account. But anything beyond that, if you’re not gonna need it in the next 12, 24, 36 months for a project or a vehicle or something for the kids or whatever it is, let that money work for you for the future. And that money can be growing at a faster rate.

Ruthie Miller (33:02.517)

I am here.

Ruthie Miller (33:25.634)

more like the 24 to 36 months. Like I’m not three to six months. That’s not enough. That’s not enough for me. I like to feel very comfortable.

Leyla Seka (33:25.641)

I mean, this is how rich people stay rich, right?

Laura Combs (33:32.59)

That’s a really good, yeah. No, but this is a great, this is.

Leyla Seka (33:33.577)

You’re too, you’re too, you’re a worrier, Ricky. You worry too much.

Ruthie Miller (33:38.371)

I am, like, no, you just said 24 to 36 months. I would say like probably, you know, 24 months. That’s probably where we are. And my husband is like, no, we need to get it out there. We need to get it investing and you know, whatever, earning some income for us. But yeah, anyway, it’s just your level of comfort though, right? Like I’m very risk averse.

Laura Combs (33:46.67)

And that’s something fun.

Laura Combs (33:55.682)

But I think that’s the beauty of it.

And that’s what I love. There’s like the mathematical answer, right? There’s the mathematical answer. There’s like the emotional answer. And then there’s probably the financial planning answer, which is somewhere in between, right? What’s kind of like the right mix. And it’s not, again, there’s no judgment. It’s not good or bad. To me, it’s like, if you’re waking up losing sleep, Ruthie, that you don’t have enough cash, like I would not be doing my job for clients, like if that’s the scenario. Like I want people to not worry about money. That is the goal.

of the work that I do. And so it’s all personal preference. But if you have the next 20 years, maybe people need 20, I don’t know. I might talk you off the ledge on that one a little bit.

Ruthie Miller (34:42.88)

No, that’s a good way to put it. I think I sleep better at night knowing that if something were to happen, I’m good.

Leyla Seka (34:42.973)

I think also like

Leyla Seka (34:48.009)

you can get. But I do think like, if you didn’t, and a lot of, didn’t grow up with money, a lot of people didn’t grow up with money, you don’t really get that money makes money until you have money, right? You’re like, what the hell does that mean? Money makes money. That’s some shit rich people say to each other. Like, I don’t understand, right? And then you get a little money and you’re like, holy shit, $100 just made $10. Like, what is, you know, like, and then, but you don’t, but until you have some cash, you don’t know that, right? So like.

Laura Combs (34:48.942)

Mm-hmm.

Laura Combs (34:54.082)

No.

Laura Combs (35:08.685)

Yeah.

Leyla Seka (35:14.729)

It’s also one of those where you’re like, I’m gonna hold my money because I don’t want someone to take it from me because people always, and then, but no, like you gotta roll some of it out so that it works for you to your point, Laura. you know, those are some of the things we’re relearning, right? Or we never learned to begin with. And honestly, like my dad made money, but he didn’t talk about it. Like I didn’t have any idea what was happening. know, he like, most of the time he just yelled at us that we were spending too much money at Macy’s. And that was like the extent of our relationship when it came to money.

Ruthie Miller (35:44.352)

Like the standard immigrant parent, yeah, who like makes all the money and then holds it tight and doesn’t let anyone spend it. Yeah, that was Leyla’s dad.

Leyla Seka (35:52.912)

Yeah, mean, we were terrified we’re gonna get kicked out, right? But okay, so let’s switch a little bit to this. So a lot of women are going through major life transitions, right? Like they get married, they’re getting divorced, they’re having kids, they’re changing careers, all those types of things. When that type of stuff is happening, like what financial steps matter most, right? Like right now I have a whole bunch of friends getting divorced and wow, is that complicated and hard to figure out and like, you know, having a kid just like we were talking about with wills and whatnot. 

Ruthie Miller (36:32.076)

Life transitions are expensive.

Laura Combs (36:32.48)

I think, yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m on team Ruthie on this one here with like life transition is like, got to make sure you’ve got enough cash. So if you’re changing jobs, if you’re getting divorced, again, that cash piece or easy access to money does make a lot of sense. So whether that’s like building a cash reserve, like really simple, you know, making, if you’re having a child, like making sure that you have enough extra, again, if you’re taking leave or something like that, that you’ve just got enough of a cushion if you’re buying a house, if you’re, again, even getting married, that’s a big change. To me, it’s just building a cash reserve, and that seems really simple, but to me, if you have enough cash, a lot of the problems that you might encounter kind of go away. If you’ve done the planning and have a cushion of cash, we get into trouble when we haven’t done the planning, then we’re kind of caught flat-footed.

So I think having the cash piece, I also think again, back to the estate plan, anytime you go through a life transition, you should be reviewing your estate plans. If you get married, making sure you and looking at different accounts, how do you and your spouse come together? If you have a child, what happens if something happens to both of you? If you’re going through a divorce, same thing. Because you previously had other people on there, now you have to kind of unwind, make sure that you take your spouse off. have not, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve met with new clients, women clients who still have their ex on the beneficiary forms. I’m like, my gosh, I’m printing the form right now. We’re going to update this. just reviewing who you have named on any document, that is step number one for any of those major life transitions, I think. And just kind of reviewing your plan. We do a lot of work around financial planning, which really means, where am I at today? What are my goals for the future? And then how am I going to get to achieve those goals? And kind of all of the work in between. And so that’s an opportunity. If your plan changes, your financial plan should be living, breathing, and it can change with that. So reviewing your plan. Like, I don’t want to work this long anymore because of X, Y, or Z. I’m now going to adjust my plan and make those changes in my finances.

Leyla Seka (38:53.597)

Right, because according to you, my husband’s gonna die in seven years, so I better go have some fun with him. Shit. No, no, not Josh, not Josh. Whatever, that’s terrifying. Like, widowhood in seven years? Yikes, man, that seems a little silly. Yeah.

Ruthie Miller (39:00.714)

I hope not, the world needs a Josh.

Ruthie Miller (39:10.294)

That is really, really jarring. mean, 57 is, that is not old.

Laura Combs (39:15.266)

Yeah, no.

Ruthie Miller (39:21.098)

Yeah. Okay. So listening to all this is really, it’s really fascinating. And I do think that Leyla and I are both fortunate in that we both have good heads on our shoulders and we both, think have some good steps in place. But what I’m hearing, what I’m getting from this conversation is really that women need to have someone they trust on their side. And I think that is, that is the hard thing for a lot of women. And maybe just for me, like when you think about having someone

help you plan your estate and your financials. It’s like giving them the keys to the castle. you you really, you hear all the stories about women getting scammed because they let somebody in and then that person takes advantage of them. So like really, I think starting now we all need to have someone that we trust in our corner. And I think, you know, a lot of women like kudos to you for the investor.

thing because I think that is a key is, you know, I think women often trust other women and so that’s just a really great thing. So I keep, I don’t know, that’s what I’m taking away is that trust is just a huge issue here and that we need to find someone now that we trust. So like if you don’t have someone that you trust to helping you manage your finances, that would be a big, yeah, call Laura. For sure.

Leyla Seka (40:36.137)

Call Laura. mean, call Laura. Because I think you’re right. Like the people that, you find these people through word of mouth, right? Like who’d you do this with? And I’m sure that that’s a good way to do it too, but it can be very daunting when you’re like, I don’t have that much money and I don’t want to spend a whole much money to think about money. Like, what do I do? So I do think someone like Laura is focused on women, focused on the things that we will face as the life changes come down the path. I mean, I think it makes a lot of sense. And I do think we got to get comfortable talking about money, right? How much money we made, how much money we lost. Because the other thing is everyone loses money too. It’s not like people put their money in the stock market and everyone just makes money. Like goes like this a lot of the time, up and down and up and down, you know? So I just think there’s something.

Laura Combs (41:21.582)

Yes, so definitely a roller coaster.

Leyla Seka (41:29.833)

Like all the other topics on this podcast, like when we start talking about them, we demystify them, right? Like I can say vaginal cream now for God’s sake. I can’t believe I can say that out loud and not completely lose my mind. Oh my gosh, know you and Julie, can you imagine? And now we’re saying like, save money, check your documents. But I do think, I mean, I just think money for…

Ruthie Miller (41:35.53)

Mm-hmm. I think, yeah, the last episode we had to say orgasm. Woo! We got very comfortable.

Laura Combs (41:39.288)

Love it.

Leyla Seka (41:55.011)

I think our parents taught us not to talk about it. think as women, we’ve been told we’re not good at it and that we like leave it to the men, right? And certainly that was what my dad and mom did. And that was the example that a lot of us saw. But I do think what you’re doing, Laura, as far as like breaking the mold a little bit and breaking how people think about themselves as investors and even that estate planning thing. Like a lot of my friends are normal people, like plumbers and teachers and people working hard, not like tech stock people, whatever. And they’ll be like, I don’t need that. I just have this house with like my little 401k, but they do, right? They do need it. And that’s important.

Laura Combs (42:33.096)

I think so. think it’s just, again, having the conversation with women and the trust piece is so important because I had the realization a year or two ago where I was just like, I basically buy products and get things in my life based on recommendations. And so if women are, we are talking more about the wealth management and the financial planning, the investments that we’re doing with our friends, they’re going to be more likely to get involved. And it’s much more of a referral-based business and word of mouth, to your point. Women aren’t necessarily always like, let me research financial planner on the internet. Maybe you are. Wonderful. You’re ahead of everyone. But I’m like, hey, who did you use? Did you like her? And again, I myself have a financial advisor who works at my company. Because even though I’m in the industry, I still want to call somebody who’s going to tell me, hey, you’re doing OK, or hey, you got to make these changes. And that, to me, I trust her. And it’s just somebody else talking into my life to say, hey, you are still on track, or we got to look at x, or z. Because again, even though I’m in the industry, I still need somebody. It’s just like somebody. It’s a dreamer. And I think about financial planning as wellness. I know we were talking about wellness, and this might be a deviation from it. But I actually think that for women, if our financial affairs are in order, we feel less stressed, we feel more confident. Like to me, it is a financial wellness topic. Like it’s a wellness topic.

Leyla Seka (44:07.901)

I agree 100 % too. I agree 100 %

Ruthie Miller (44:07.938)

100%. Yeah, absolutely. Talk about being able to sleep better at night, for sure.

Leyla Seka (44:14.013)

Yeah, and feel like you can take care of things. Maybe we are a lot, like we doomsday plan a little bit, but someone’s got to, right? So making sure that if some God forsaken thing happens, you are gonna be able to handle whatever you need to handle. Listen, that’s about all we have time for today, but I gotta say, Laura, you are amazing. I mean, the insights you gave are really important. think generally we gotta talk about this more and we both.

Love what you’re doing. Everyone, you don’t have someone you can talk to about money, call Laura. You can talk to Laura about it. But just generally, we thank you so much for coming. You can find a recap of all the information we talked about on our website at sideprojecthq.com. And just generally, Laura, you’re amazing. We’ll give you all her data up on our website too. And we’ll see you guys next time. Thanks, Laura.