Lauren Simpson, Rebalance Chief Marketing Officer, breaks down why talking openly about money is the first step toward reaching your biggest life goals.
Transcript
So let’s talk about money because this is something that people sometimes shy away from. It’s become kind of a, you know, a taboo topic. I think it has been a taboo topic for a long time. I wanna talk for a minute to young investors, for people who are in my generation where time is still on your side. I think it’s very common for us to see on social media, in the news things that are just pessimistic things like, our generation can’t buy a home.
Or, I’ve seen a lot of people say, you can’t have a big family now, or you can’t be a stay at home parent and live off of one income anymore. And what I wanna say to those young people is just do it. Don’t make excuses. We can completely still do this.
There were things, high inflation, recessions, wars. There were things during our parents and our grandparents times too that would make it very easy for them to say things that are similar. And I wanna completely acknowledge that we have our own challenges, but practicing prudent investing, good saving habits from the beginning is going to help you be able to reach those goals. And it’s going to look different for everybody. It’s going to look different now, but some practices that you can do are make sure you’re getting your 401k employer match.
That’s free money that you don’t wanna leave on the table. Open up an IRA and just get started. Just put a few dollars in there. It’s going to compound over time. And then finally, as you start to make more money, as you begin to climb the corporate ladder and get promotions, make sure that you’re saving a portion of that every time rather than just increasing your lifestyle to absorb the entire promotion. With financial goals, people don’t usually set financial goals just for the sake of saving money. They set them because they help to support their life goals. And so a financial advisor, a good one, can help you identify the life goals and then work with you on the financial goals to support those life goals.
And so in our situation, my life goal is really surrounded around family. And I have ambitious goals of being able to have a big family, have lots of kids. I want to be a full-time mother, and I want to be able to provide my children with all of the resources and time that they need. And so that’s something that really drives me. And a financial advisor really can act as a coach to help you look at these life goals and say, well, how can we make the money work for you? And what financial goals do you need to set to reach those life goals? And this is something where my personal goal of being able to retire early, I would not have this goal. I would not know how to be on track for this goal had I not come across the information that I needed and had people not been willing to talk about it.
Which is why I love being able to talk about it. I love being able to help people, and that’s something that Rebalance does really well too every day with their clients. We focus on transparency and we focus on investing literacy and being able to help educate our clients by talking about money.
And occasionally we find clients where there might be a communication breakdown between husband and wife and they don’t realize that they have different goals, or there might be just a communication breakdown with themselves where they avoid the topic. Like they avoid the dentist. Hopefully they go to the dentist, but they’re avoiding it because they’re nervous and they don’t know if they’re on track or not. And so it’s a conversation that a Rebalance financial advisor will start with the client to be able to help them know if they’re really on track or not.
