Financial planning is a powerful tool that can help you not only anticipate risks and opportunities but also help you envision your future to ensure that you can retire the way you want to retire.
Video recap: https://youtu.be/hKJRvl-_RlM
As Howard Marks says, “You can’t predict but you can prepare.”
As you prepare for retirement it is helpful to stay up to date with the latest retirement trends. This is why we're excited to share our takeaways from the JP Morgan Guide to Retirement with you. You may be curious about how you are doing compared to others in your demographic and guides like this one can help you more deeply understand where you stand in your retirement planning journey.
Video recap: https://youtu.be/4FjSIJw8a6A
Listen in to discover how you can accelerate women’s equality by overcoming or breaking through these biases.
This first bias is simply untrue. Actually, women are more likely to take calculated risks than men. Women are also more likely to hold an appropriate amount of investments when compared with their cash savings.
Men and women are equally fearful at the beginning of their investing journeys. However, since women are more cautious about things that they are unfamiliar with they often become more educated about investing so that they feel more comfortable.
In the long term, women’s investments often outperform those of men. This could be due to women having more intentionality, self-control, and a higher savings rate than men. Since women are often playing catch up with their investing, they are usually excited to get started. Investment and retirement planning is especially important for women since there are so many preconceived notions that surround women and money.
On average, women make about $0.84 to a man’s dollar. This is often due to the way compensation is structured. Women often ask for less, negotiate less, or don’t negotiate at all. This means that women have less to contribute to their retirement savings.
Knowledge is the power to overcome this bias. To improve your salary it is important to understand the average salaries for your area of the country and, specifically, for your field. Use websites like Glassdoor or Salary.com to help you research. Don’t be ashamed to discuss this topic with friends, family, and colleagues to learn more.
Once you’ve done your research, consider your next salary negotiation. Set a range that works well for you and shoot for the top of that range. Remember that you are selling yourself, so consider the value that you have added to your role. Come up with a list of your accomplishments. Listen in to hear all the tips that this bright group of women brings to the table. With a bit of preparation, you may be pleasantly surprised by your next salary negotiation.
We’ve all heard this myth perpetuated; however, spending doesn’t have a gender. Either partner in a relationship can be the big spender, but since women are often the ones buying for the family, it can seem like they spend more than men.
Budgets are an important part of the financial health of any relationship so that both partners understand how much they can safely spend. Typically, one partner is more of a saver and the other is more of a spender, but the ideal is to strike a balance between the two.
Since women have been shut out of the financial conversation for so long, they often don’t know where to begin the conversation. Here at Financial Symmetry, we encourage both partners to come to the table, even if it takes an extra conversation to understand and address all of the issues or concerns.
As you approach International Women’s Day, consider whether any of these financial biases have come up in your life. You can research more biases surrounding women by using the hashtag #BreakTheBias.