The Dividend Cafe - The Dividend Cafe Meets the Fiscal Feminist

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

Topics discussed: For many years now we have been using our Dividend Café property to bring you frequent market commentary and portfolio perspective. Last year, we introduced the Fiscal Feminist identity, spear-headed by our very own Kimberlee Davis to address significant financial issues relevant in the lives of women. Today, we bring you a blended Dividend Café/Fiscal Feminist (the Dividend Feminist, or the Fiscal Café – you pick!) – wherein Kimberlee and I discuss together the whole landscape of financial advice, what approach to portfolio construction a new investor ought to take, and how issues pertinent to women and the Dividend Cafe are far more overlapped than many want to believe. Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

Welcome to the Dividend Cafe, financial food for thought. Well, hello and welcome to the Dividend Cafe, but also to the Fiscal Feminist Podcast. And if I don't sound like Fiscal Feminist Podcast hostess, Kimberly Davis, it's because she's sitting right across from me right now. And we are doing a special edition of merging our two podcasts. Should we call it the Dividend Feminist? I like that, actually. I like it, too. It's better than Fiscal Cafe. But yeah, we're mixing our we're kind of combining our efforts here this week because we have not done this yet. We thought it would be sort of fun, and we wanted to

bring together a little bit of the investment talk we do at Divin Cafe and a lot of the things that Kimberly's doing with Fiscal Feminist. And so we hope you'll enjoy what we have to say. Kimberly, how are you doing? I'm great, David. I'm very excited to do this with you today. There are a couple of things that have been rolling around in my mind that I've wanted to talk to you about. So this is a perfect occasion to share with my readership some of your insights. I don't want to give people the impression that the way that folks on the team have to get with me is by with a headset on and a microphone in front of us. We do talk throughout the entire day as well. But no, this kind of conversation we have for our clients and people to listen to, I think will be really engaging. Start off for those who are not as familiar yet with Fiscal Feminist, which is obviously a newer brand and a newer platform that you're building out.

And it's obviously really developed an audience and an interest. But for those that are used to hearing Dividend Cafe, maybe give a kind of overview of what the Fiscal Feminist is. So I started the Fiscal Feminist platform because I have this mission to try to enlighten women and empower women to take control of their financial futures. And I mean all women, not just, you know, high-end investor type people, but everybody. And I mean all women, not just, you know, high end investor type people, but everybody. I think women have not been comfortable in the money conversation for a long time. It's just an element of history, really.

I think women have not had those discussions early on in life where they are comfortable talking about money and taking responsibility for it. And we've evolved over the years. So with more and more women in the workforce, you know, starting their own businesses and just becoming more engaged with money, they need to have the tools to understand how to work with that and become more effective in their own lives. With control of your money, you take control of your life, your mental happiness, your physicality. You know, money influences so many aspects of our lives. And if we are in financial turmoil, that can cause us a lot of upset in our general life. So that's my mission. We talk about a variety of topics. It can be anything from what to do before you get married, cybersecurity, being charge of a family of your own and also having to take care of parents and perhaps also have to work and understanding that there is a conversation you might have to have with your elderly parents so that you can help them and maybe, you know, help them if you need to provide for them as well, because our parents are living a lot older than they, you know, they're much older than they used to be. And this is a whole new problem that people didn't have to deal with before. So I do think there are some things that are unique to women in the financial realm, although a lot of the knowledge that we put out there could be used by anybody.

But it's just to try to elevate a level of consciousness with women that it's OK to talk about money. It's not a it's not a scary topic with certain tools. It's easy to manage. Well, tools. It's easy to manage. Well, easy. It's manageable as long as you know what they are. Well, it occurs to me there's three examples that you've brought up of some of the things you've addressed already with Fiscal Feminist in your writing and in podcast. where you kind of announced the Fiscal Feminist Platform was heavily autobiographical from you around the fact that you were a professional woman and left the workforce and had children, went through a divorce later in life, found yourself with a lot of financial ambiguity,

and now you've made it a mission to bring financial clarity. And I think it's fair to say that even though there could be men in that situation, it's certainly in our culture more common. It might be women either from a divorce or death that may be in that position. But then even the other two, the sandwich generation. So your daughters are all in their 20s? All in their 20s. Your oldest one must be getting close to. She's 28. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then both your parents still living. Yes. In Pittsburgh, go Steelers, Juju Smith. Doing great. Yes.

Preseason, I might add. Well, you know, last year, it can only get up. It can only move up from last year. But now dealing with ailing parents at a later stage in life. So sandwich generation that you're in was another autobiographical. Yes. And I'm really sad to say, and of course, this kind of touched all of us at Bonson Group. Another autobiographical issue around the cybersecurity thing and you being the victim of not just identity theft, but a vicious cyber, digital, financial theft scenario here very recently.

Hopefully we run out of things that you have to cover. There's always a silver lining in something bad that happens to me. But on the topic, just quickly about, you know, I was a professional woman. I was a lawyer. I was a corporate lawyer. I was an investment banker. I was a CFO.

And when I went through this so-called gray divorce, a lot of- Maybe state what a gray divorce is. So a gray divorce is basically a divorce that occurs anytime over 50. And a lot of women who are involved in those divorces really end up kind of on the wrong end of the stick. So I was someone who, in theory, had the knowledge to kind of keep my eye on the ball. But as my family obligations and then I tried to do a little bit of work on the side kind of grew, I just stopped watching a lot of things that were going on. And I was really involved in just a really bad

situation that I had to come to grips with, as did my children, because our standard of living, and they were all in college and whatnot. So there were a lot of obligations that I had to fulfill, and it was a tricky equation. So I think just having women be a little bit more aware and ask right questions, not be afraid to ask questions, not feel like they're not being good wives or mothers because they're asking these questions. They're actually being better partners because just as easily as you can get divorced, it could be your husband dies. And if you're not aware of what's going on, then your entire family is at risk. So you do have an obligation. Anything can happen. So that's my, because my life is, evidence is that.

I mean, I think that gets to the formation of Fiscal Feminist and obviously of these different issues we're talking about with your parents and cybersecurity. The initial one of your divorce and where you found yourself in stage of life. And of course, now you have this thriving career, your partner and a managing director and have found that sort of financial stability, but also financial knowledge, organization, clarity. And you've made it your mission. I don't want to use the expression to give back. First of all, I hate that expression because it isn't true. You give back when you stole something from somebody. And I don't think people were stealing from others.

But you want to contribute to others in a meaningful way. but you want to contribute to others in a meaningful way. So it occurs to me that the vision of Fiscal Feminist, in a weird way, sad as it may be to say, it wouldn't have been able to exist apart from the hardship that you had gone through in your life. Correct. Well, tell me this. What do you think about the efforts that you see out in the financial community to speak to women, to tailor financial advice to women. I could say what's different about what you're doing, but I've already answered that about the autobiographical piece. There's a lot of authenticity. But it seems to me, and obviously

my perspective may be a little different, for one thing, because I'm a man, but also because I'm so inside of what you're doing that I may have a bias towards it. But it seems to me a lot of what other efforts exist out there in outreach to women are marketing-driven and not message-driven. Tell me how you would compare what you're doing to some of the other things out there. Well, I'm trying to raise consciousness through topics that I think are interesting to women. So I try to do a deep dive into what they should be doing on a certain topic that I address. But one of the things I've been thinking about lately is what is out there for women. And, you know, there are obviously not as many women as advisors as there are men advisors. trying to reach out to women through planning. I think it's usually a planning-led approach to women, financial planning in some instances. But what I'd like to talk to you about is I think there's a lot of confusion when I speak to women of all different wealth levels. They're different,

you know, new investors, young women in the professional world, or, you know, women who may not have a million dollars, so they have a different level of investing, and they just don't know where to begin. So this could be a question for all people. But I think for women in particular, again, they're not maybe as comfortable in just dealing with all this stuff. And it might be just a bit overwhelming just because it's not a conversation that we've been having with our parents and so on and so forth forever and a day. conversation that we've been having with our parents and so on and so forth forever and a day. So I look at, you know, the different options that are out there and, you know, you watch television and you see this E-Trade commercial, which says, you know, don't, I think something like, don't get mad, but get E-Trade. So you go on the E-Trade site and it gives you these kind of formulaic questions that you answer. And then from there, you're kind of, you can be put into a

certain type of portfolio that pops up at you as to what you are after this five second question that they, you know, questions that they've asked you. And then they, you know, they give you a little talk on what allocation means with lemonade, chocolate and chocolate chip cookies, hot chocolate. So it's trying to teach, but it's very basic. And I think it could also be careless if you're really new to investing and maybe you have $50,000 to $100,000 and you've worked really hard to save this. Where do you begin? And in the realm of women, we have LVEST, which is a great platform in the sense that it is very, very dedicated to women. I'm not sure it's that much different as a robo-advisor from other robo-advisors,

except for the fact that they try to invest in companies that promote women to management. So that is kind of a thematic thing that they have going on there. And they do have a platform where you can interface with advisors through text and email. And as you go up the ladder in investment amount, you can actually speak to somebody at some point. And they do call themselves a fiduciary, which kind of perplexed me a little bit. So I guess that's a long winded intro. But my question to you is, where do people like that start? You know, once they've got their three months or six months of emergency cash and they want to start saving and they maybe they've already done their 401k to the max or maybe they don't have the option for a 401k. I don't know. But I think that is a really big question.

A lot of people just are like, where do I begin? But I think that is a really big question. A lot of people just are like, where do I begin? Well, and it is an issue that you're right, is not necessarily gender specific, right? Young investors, new investors, someone actually could be into their 60s the first time they have 100 grand to put to work. That wouldn't be ideal. But I mean, you see people at different ages have liquidity events where it warrants counsel. And I think that for, let's use your example of a younger professional woman looking to get started, I do believe that it does start with that person's pursuit of someone they trust to be an advisor. And so there are some of those tools that might be out there. You know, some of the stuff I've seen presupposes that a woman investor wants a woman advisor. And we both know that's not always true, but it's not because some women investors necessarily want a male advisor

either. I think that there are just plenty of investors that are, I just want a good advisor. Yeah. Someone I can trust. And I think that there are men who would want a woman, man, just give me a good advisor. You know, more and more, of course, in the Bonson Groups, a great example of this, a lot of times the answer is both, right? Because they are part of a team that has women in it, has men in it, has in different roles. They're getting kind of a whole democratized skill set and background and whatnot. But the important thing is that that person has to start with getting counsel from a trusted advisor. Now, the thing that I think is interesting when I look at some of those tools you bring up is that there does seem to me to be a propensity to try to dumb

down the investment part of the advice. Yes. And they used to make fun. Now it is made fun of. It doesn't happen as much because it's actually more mocked that it was sort of like, here's generic asset allocation literature, but it's for women. So we're going to make it pink. Right. Okay. And so, and so people made fun of that enough that I don't need to add to it, but it was always sort of condescending and a little stupid, but most of the marketing stuff they did just for everybody was pretty stupid. So it was what it was. But I think that there is certain issues that you're really focused on that are planning oriented around postnuptial, around prenuptial, around habitation, around children, around estate planning, legal, caring for parents. so there's all these different things that probably are a lot of times the initial thing that forced planning and and and those types of things that

need to get done but then the investment side is often left to okay let's do a little robo uh and and yeah there might be some metrics how they're how you filter out like where women are being promoted to management and so forth. Quantitatively, I don't have anything to say about it because I don't know enough about the methodology. But here's what I would say. Women are going to want companies to perform well. And so I think that they have every right, as any investor does, to high-quality investment management. And I think the Bonson Group has seen over and over again, you've been a part of this.

There have been plenty of times where I had a meeting with a married couple, and the husband was real gung-ho talking about this and that. Either he knew a lot or at least thought he knew a lot. And sometimes the woman was not as engaged. They start reading the investment stuff that we put out here, our weekly portfolio reports, our dividend cafe. Now they're reading Eurofiscal Feminist. All this content is coming to them. And they'd be just getting informed through time or getting more enlightened to it.

And I have not found that it is necessary to dumb down the portfolio in any way, shape or form. I think that they need to, I think that all investors should be introduced to a quality of investment management that presupposes the best for that investment objective. Well, and I agree. So I find that maybe these people, especially like younger people, you know, because I, you know, I do have children in their 20s, late 20s. And some of these people within their orbit, you know, they're they're making good money at their age. And so they say, well, you know, just put everything in an index fund at 20, 25, 28. That's maybe not so harmful. You still have a long lead time before you're old. But it's also, in my mind, it's, you know, I know people, I know professional women who have done very, very well, and they have all of their money in index funds. I think that's kind of a scary proposition to me. Now, maybe because I have been hanging around with you for a long time, and I really believe

in what we do here. And, you know, not to make this an advertisement for the Bonson Group, but we have almost no client attrition, and we have a very thoughtful process and a research-oriented— No regrettable client attrition. And it's all mathematical. And I was reading like, you know, something that was on one of these robo advisors and they were saying, you know, it costs less. It offers more than a traditional investment advisor. It takes the one to one human element out of the equation and this leads to more objective and lower cost investments. Well, what? You know, I mean, I don't see I don't see why that is considered a good thing. Well, it's a good thing in the sense that if one believes the market never does anything but go up, then you don't need a one on one relationship because there's never going to be any behavioral challenges, behavioral temptations, panic, emotion. What could be hard about investing if you compound at 10 percent a year?

emotion. What could be hard about investing if you compound at 10% a year? So you take some of the silly mathematical assumptions and everyone is all good with it. Of course, the reality is high net worth or new investor, small amount, high amount, three years experience, 30 years experience. The points at which one needs the advisor the most, male or female, are during times of market distress. And so you're not going to get a lot of that human element during a difficult period with a computer. Now, the interesting part is they're not denying it. They're just freely admitting it. A lot of the investment automation camp, first of all, it's very largely targeted to very small investors. first of all, it's very largely targeted to very small investors.

Right. They're well aware most high net worth people have no interest at all in a set it and forget it computer driven approach to their investments. They've worked too hard for their money. They care about their money. They're more sophisticated. That's where I think it's really important to the audience that you've really tapped into that is very receptive to a lot of your content and your ideas is these are bright women. They're sophisticated.

They have an adequate amount of assets that indexing would be wholly insufficient to their investment needs. And also, I mean, the fees are not that low. I mean, they can be up to one and a quarter percent. It can be. And that's quite a bit for no one-on-one. Yeah, and it's interesting. The one-on-one thing is not just not needed, but in that

case, that ad, it's presented as a hindrance. It's like a negative and we're getting rid of the negative of a human. Well, then why have all these outfits that have come back now and they're offering 800 numbers and we're hiring people at a low, you can pay a little extra, like 25 extra basis points to talk to some person on the phone twice a year and things like that. So they've recognized that

people need some degree of that handholding in that direction. But what I really have found, and this is, first of all, you know me and I don't know everyone listening right now, so we're going to, we have to kind of footnote this. I am not afraid of offending people. I love about you, David. And so there's always a risk, you know, the conversation, you could say something politically incorrect. You can say something that's awkwardly worded. I'm not worried about that. I don't care. I more want to get the intent of what I'm getting at right here. I actually believe that women have an advantage in my experience ego about their knowledge of the market, their knowledge of stocks. I know this stuff where a lot of women do not feel the need to pretend they know things they don't know. And it's not like bragging rights on the golf course with their buddies and all that kind of stuff.

You know what I'm saying? So that lack of a machismo piece is a tremendous asset for an investor. And women are more likely to have that than men. And so then you look to indexing versus individual stock selection, particularly in our orientation we have around dividend growth, the belief in fundamentals. See, what is the number one thing people say against dividend growth? That it fails as an investment? No, people don't say that. No. The number one thing is that my guy at the cocktail party said that his hot dot stock was doing better than your boring dividend growth. It's always

an ego driven criticism. Right. And I and I don't think you're as likely to see that with professional female investor audience. Therefore, it pains me to think that women of means would be parking money in index funds when they would actually be inherently really potentially great investors, lacking that sort of ego piece, machismo, around individual security selection like we do at the Bonson Group. Well, and I agree. And I think one of the things that troubles me is that you watch TV or you listen to a lot of these commercials and everything is made to be, this is really simple. And this is not simple.

This is a science, you know, and you do have to pay people sometimes for their research and their ability to holistically look at many different aspects of what affects your investment returns on all levels. So whether it's the U.S. stock market, but there's global problems, there's individual company research that we have to do, and then there are allocation issues about whether you're going to be in stocks, bonds, cash, or an alternative. Now, a lot of these platforms don't allow for alternatives. They don't really speak to those very much. But again, I think that speaks to the fact that these platforms are built for very small investors. So what should a small investor do, though? Should they be pursuing this or should they be going into an advisor, go to Fidelity

and get an advisor at Fidelity? So this is a gender neutral question. Yeah, gender neutral question. What does somebody do who's just at the, you know, maybe they only have 50K. Okay, so here's a little secret. Not only, but just 50K. Here's a secret that I'm only going to say to you and then whoever happens to be listening to our podcast right now.

The best thing that a small investor could do who maybe in and of themselves would not get a meeting at a reputable wealth management firm is be related to by friend or family with someone who is, because I have a hard time believing that a lot of our competitors don't do the same thing we do, which is if someone is the nephew of a client of ours, we're obviously going to work with them. And someone's, you know what I'm saying?

So generally, if someone is a new investor starting off and they have an amount of money that might not get them prime seating at a larger wealth management firm, but they want the talent and abilities and infrastructure of a larger firm, I'm sure that they have a friend, family, coworker who might be able to help introduce them into an outfit like that. But let's say they really do. And I think it's more age driven than gender driven. Some people just might like those kind of technologically driven. They don't have to feel insecure at all about how much money it is. They can go kind of start it off. I think that that's all right if they want to use one of these sort of automated computer driven tools, as long as they understand it's a short-term solution for a longer-term

challenge that at some point in time from getting advice on their 401k to actually tying solutions to objectives like what do I need to do with money for this goal here what I need to do with this money for this goal here defining buckets and you do with this money for this goal here? Defining buckets and then adding investment solutions to each individual bucket. You just can't do that with an app. It's not going to happen with any customization. So the question really amounts to, it depends who those people know, also their own personality. I think a control freak who's 25 years old and has like five grand, they're probably just going to want to do their own personality. I think a control freak who's 25 years old and has like five grand, they're probably just going to want to do their own thing, build up a little. But once

they're actually looking to kind of get in the orbit of getting financial advice, then I think it behooves them to start pursuing what avenues they may have. But you know what's interesting? Even well before they have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get to work in an investment plan if they're getting married they do need to see someone about nuptial planning about around estate planning around life insurance buying their first home they might need advice on the right mortgage product i'm all for digitalization because i will always want the economy to be operating at maximum optimization. There are things that can be done digitally more effectively and cheaper

that allow people to then go reinvent, innovate, and produce in other areas. So to the degree that you might be able to find out 10 different mortgage products real quickly on an app, I'm all for it. Can you really get advice? Do they know what your down payment capability is and your credit history and that you might be having to move in three years and that you're buying this condo, but your wife really wants this house closer to her parents? See, a computer can't do all that. I agree. And I think also with respect to women, the thing that they need to think about, which, you know, maybe you can program it in, but, you know, women may have to stop work, may choose to stop working to have children.

That's also a financial decision for them. And I think having a talk with an advisor or somebody that can show you what that's going to look like to you in numbers, and then you can make a decision about that. You know, how much income will you be giving up? How many 401k contributions will you not make? And then if you were to get divorced later, what might that look like? So maybe you if you don't have a prenup, maybe at that point you do need to have a postnup because you need to incorporate into the fact that you are no longer going to be working. And, you know, you're not going to really be getting paid in hard dollars. So in a lot of ways, it's interesting. I could argue, based on what you're saying,

that the worst part about people advertising the disintermediation of advice from investing is that it's disintermediating advice in non-investment related matters as well. Yes. Because it's taking away that advisor relationship that even apart from the sophistication of investment strategy, they might need to talk about things like what you're bringing up, marriage, planning, career. They also live longer women. And, you know, so they might. Are we allowed to talk about why that might be? See, I will.

I will offend people. I'd be interested to know what you have to say on that. But yeah. No, everyone knows the answer to that. It's just some people say it some people won't but it's all right all right well tell me what it is hit me um let's move on but no but i will say this the data is not like even disputable the amount in those cases which are rare where the woman predeceases the man and they've been married a long time. The amount of time before the man passes is fractional compared to how much time a woman might live after the man predeceases her. You know, a few examples here and there could be outliers.

But in this case, the data of the things I would like to convey to the audience, my audience, your audience, our audience, is that there is a difference between portfolio management and advisory work. Yeah. There's portfolio management. That's what you're our CIO, our chief investment officer. You and your team, we are, you know, always thinking about the way to manage our portfolio. But that is one part of what we are doing here. We spend a lot of time talking to people about all aspects of their lives, things that just come up out of the blue, you know. I even say it this way, Kimberly, it's not even an end. It's a means. Yes. The portfolio management is a means to the end of

what we do. And the end is the advice and the achievement of financial goals. And a portfolio plays a huge part in it. But when people try to separate the two and fail to properly define how portfolio management fits into the broader advice, I think that's where pretty much all of this stuff falls apart. People do immense damage. So the advisory work, look, I've said this a lot before. I don't really think I've ever seen anyone buy a stock that they shouldn't have and sell a stock they shouldn't have and had it devastate their financial life. You could argue there's people with hyper-concentrated positions and margin and leverage and other dumb things they do. But even then, it wasn't the stock that blew them up. It was the decisions around it. But I've seen a lot of people, I mean,

financial ruin from inadequate estate planning, trust planning, marital planning, borrowing, balance sheet management, budgeting, cash flow, risk management. I've seen financial lives saved out of actually doing the proper assessment of their property and casualty insurance. We know of clients through fires that they added riders that saved there, where if they hadn't had that, you know what I'm saying? Those things are far superior. They trump the portfolio management. Well, and one other point I want to make is that I think historically,

and even now, I was at a cocktail party last Saturday of a client of mine, and there were maybe 100 people there, and there were another four or five clients of mine there. And one of the ladies said, one of my clients said to this other client, oh, do you know Kim? And she said, yeah, she's my broker. And this is another thing, just quickly, that I'd like you— So I assume that gave you the same visceral response it gives me 20 years later.

Oh, my God. I hate that word. And the thing is, is that way back when, people had stockbrokers, and they recommended individual, like, buy this bond, buy this stock, whatever it was. If you think there's not enough women advisors now, you should have seen how many women brokers there were back in the day. Unfortunately, I was practicing law back then. So yeah, we were last, the rare pearls there. But so I think the problem is, is that people still hold onto this concept of like a broker. You're just there buying and selling and deciding what stocks and bonds and, you know, the whole idea of the holistic portfolio and all the nuances that have come into play now. Plus all this, you know, massive trading that goes on behind the scenes that people don't think about, you know, that we know about that affects the markets.

And also that this is now way beyond buying and selling stocks as a broker. But that still lingers out there. And people don't get that. Well, I will say this. In a glass is half full or even three quarters full sense. It's so much better than it used to be. It's not even funny. What bothers me is that it still lingers,

but it's sort of a strand of that misinformation that you're referring to. So, yeah, that incident at the cocktail party, I still have that happen too, but it happens every so often where it used to just every single conversation 20 years ago. That vernacular takes time to get sort of purged out of the society. And a lot of it is that our competitors are doing such a miserable job at times. Obviously not all of them. There's great advisory fiduciary firms out there, but there are still people that function as if they're just there to kind of let the client give them an order for a stock and transact in it. And you and I both are beneficiaries of timing. I entered the business really at the death of the stockbroker model and at the introduction to the advisory, consultative, holistic, kind of the genesis of the business in that sense. So from day one, the Bonson Group was really built that way.

Right. I don't know if there's really anything that needs to happen other than more time for it to be, you know, 100 percent clear in the minds. Because I do think that there are people that will say that word that actually do know. It's just that it's like it's just vocabulary that is sort of stuck in their crawl a little bit. Yeah. And I just think, too, when you talk to a lot of people, they're like, well, you know, just going to stick it in an index fund. It'll be fine. And for me, I just think that I worry about people losing a lot of money if there is trying to tell people, don't you know, everything you see on TV, everything you read on a website, it's not quite as simple as that. So you need to be a little bit more vigilant. And it might be worth finding an advisor through whatever means, because I think if you find a good advisor, they can really give you some advice about your holistic strategy, about all parts of your life, because they are all interchanged. What happens in your portfolio is going to pretty

much affect a lot of other things in your life. But if you don't know how those things all work together, it could be all for naught. Well, and that's why I think things like Fiscal Feminist and Dividend Cafe and the consistent amount of content that we create and distribute at the Bonson Group is so important because it is going to be a slow drip of information, of having a point of view, having a worldview. But to your point, getting people to develop clarity around where the portfolio fits into planning and what the overall kind of objectives are, that it will take some time. I think that the general public is being done a disservice with a lot of the way that this robo stuff or cyber, but that's not just true about financial advice.

I mean, we're more or less being told that virtually all these things, there's some things in our life that can be done electronically to save a great deal of time. Like if I get a pizza delivery, I came back from a party on a Saturday night into my apartment in New York city.

And, um, at the, you know, I've been trying to like really, really eat light and less trying to, you know, get better shape. But at this party, I just had a little salad and a little, you know, I was starving. I've been there for hours. And so, yeah, I didn't call the pizza place and say, let's deliver a pizza. You're on the app and got a pizza there. I wouldn't have even done it if I had to call. It was only for the convenience of the app. And by the time I got to my apartment, pizza was there. I only had two slices, had to throw the rest. I really did. But my point being, there's things

like that, that we all agree the technology is made more convenient in our life. But no, the idea, and you know who gets this, I think, is our doctors. Because they have patients that come up and say, hey, doc, the doctor's telling them something. No, I looked up on WebMD and it said that, you know, this and this. And they're like, okay, well, I'm glad your app went to medical school and has seen patients for 30 years. There is an appreciation for what can and cannot be done technologically. The full-blown holistic role of advisor and counselor in a sophisticated manner of financial estate, trust, tax, investment, these things will never at any point disintermediate the human relationship.

disintermediate the human relationship. It will always require both intellectual and emotional and rational and empathetic faculties of a human being. And the notion that a computer screen or an app will ever be able to do that is something I find utterly hysterical and in no sense remotely threatening to our business. I agree. And I think when it is threatening to, if people believe that's how it should be, is really to their situation, to their bottom line. And so my whole mission for today was to highlight that people put advertisements on television and things pop out on your computer,

but you kind of get what you pay for, I guess. But things aren't that simple in the world of investing and more importantly, in the world of planning your life out in a holistic way. So be a little bit more thoughtful in the decisions you make about where you're going to put your money that you've worked really, really hard for, whether it's $500,000, $50,000, or $5 million. And that's really my point of all of this is I just want people to be thoughtful before they just plunk their money down and, you know, don't really think about it. They just think it's as easy as, you know, I'll pick this commoditized silo, this, this, and that, and I won't think

about it. Well, I'm with you 100%. I'm glad you're bringing this up. Glad you're generating the awareness that you're bringing up. I'm going to make one final comment, then I'm going to give a little exhortation to you as we close out about something that just popped in my mind. But, you know, I think that the mission of Fiscal Feminist, if you go back to what we were talking about earlier in the conversation of awareness and addressing head on some of those issues around financial organization planning so that one doesn't find themselves without an understanding of how their trust is written, how their marriage, those kind of major financial categories of life that you ran into and dealt with it. You want people, whether they go through divorce or death, to have that degree

of awareness, knowledge necessary to be financially proficient. I think the exact same thing could be extended into the investment side. I don't think every woman or man needs to understand how to evaluate the free cash flow yield of ABC stock. But I think that there is no reason why every investor, male and female, should not know why they own what they own. That their advisor owes it to them to be able to say, hey, you own this strategy, here's your allocation, and here's why.

And if someone says, well, why do you own this stock? They can say because they get the concept of dividend growth or whatever the objective may be in that case. And I really do believe that. I've seen it over the years. I'll have people come up to me and say, I never read any of this stuff when we first started. I kind of tuned you out during meetings. And I always just said, yeah, I get that.

I'm pretty boring, you know. And they say, now I really enjoy reading it or enjoy listening. And I don't think they're complimenting me. I think they're complimenting themselves that they've embraced their own capacity for expanding their understanding of this stuff. Right. And knowledge is power. I mean, you feel better if you understand what's going on within the realm of, you know, you don't have to know, like, what an inverted yield curve is. That's why we have. Although now.

But now you do. Apparently your cocktail parties, you're going to have the hit of the conversation. There you go. But, you know, I do think you need to you need to get engaged, whether you're a man or a woman. You're not allowed to go on autopilot. And I think, you know, I had a conversation with a young guy the other day and I just was looking over his 401k selections. And I had Dea Pernas, who is managing director here, and look at it with me. And, you know, he said, yeah, this guy's young, but, you know, he's in the financial services business.

His portfolio, what he's chosen for his 401K is totally wrong, given his profession, because if there's a market problem, he's going to be affected as well. So we went back and I, you know, I changed it and told him this is what you should be doing. And he said, oh, my God, I never even thought about that. And so, you know, and he was the one saying to me, he's one of my daughter's boyfriends. He was the one saying to me, you know, everybody at work. That's one of your daughter's boyfriends, not that one of the many boyfriends of that particular daughter. No, no, the only boyfriend of that daughter. I understand.

And he was like, you know, everyone just they make so much money in the Vanguard and all this. And I'm like, dude, it's not that simple. OK, I mean, you know, it's not, you know, one stop and shop kind of thing. Bear markets humble everybody. For sure. OK, so listen, I have read everything you've put out with Fiscal Feminist. Thank you. And we have talked about some of the major subjects,

major biographical moments that led, inspired some of it. And I, earlier this year, had a book come out that I wrote last year on the case for dividend growth. My exhortation is you have got to take the stuff that you're writing with thefiscalfeminist.com and all of these sort of anecdotes and lessons and sort of crystallize them together into a full holistic book on the subject. I'm on it.

I'm already trying to get my act together to follow in the great footsteps of David Bonson. And I'm also going to plug Crisis of Responsibility, which was your first book, because that book to me was everyone should read that book. Thank you. We all need to take responsibility for things that we do, including getting involved maybe in mortgages that we shouldn't have or other things that, you know, happened. And that was, you know, the book was about the crash and what David thought was the, you know, some of the contribution, contributory factors to that. But whether you're a woman or a

man, but especially if you're a woman or a man but especially if you're a woman you really do need to take responsibility for yourself we are not you know uh we're not the little princess it's not sleeping beauty these are really nice fairy tales but the reality is is we are in charge of our own destiny and we can still be good wives and good mothers and madly in love with someone and still be in control of what our finances are and what. And have that knowledge. Yeah. Have that agency.

You'll be a better partner that way. It's interesting. Crisis of Responsibility was not written with any gender focus at all, obviously. But it is a message that is very similar to what you're referring to, that responsibility that comes with agency and talking to women about the need for them to have that role of agency, knowledge, responsibility, and creating safety for themselves, their families, those that they're responsible for. So I will look forward to your future book project where you crystallize all of these messages out of Fiscal Feminist. And of course, in the meantime, we'll look forward to more Fiscal Feminist contributions at all. Any closing

thoughts, Kimberly? No, I'm just very grateful that I have the opportunity to be in the Bonson group, that I was able to find my way financially and professionally at a late age. I mean, I had already had a kind of a robust... Not that late, not that late. Yeah, well, that's true. I had, you know, I had a robust career, so I did have some, you know, resume value. But, you know, I'm just really thankful. I think God works in strange ways. And all the things I've gone through bring you to a point. And my point is I want to help women in any way I can. It's really laudable what a lot of women are doing, and especially those out there trying to have careers, being wives, being mothers, taking care of their parents. It's a lot.

And if I can help one person handle that better, then I am going to feel like a rock star. Well, you've already done that, and then some, and many, many more to come. So for those of you listening right now that had not yet previously been familiar with Fiscal Feminist, please check it out. Subscribe for Kimberly's blog and Kimberly's podcast,

FiscalFeminist.com. And those of you that are frequent Fiscal Feminist followers and never heard of Dividend Cafe, you're welcome to follow along our investment writing weekly market commentary at DividendCafe.com as well. Please do write a review

of Fiscal Feminist blog, rate it on your Apple, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, whatever it is. Those things, as maybe obnoxious as they may be, but it takes you five seconds to hit the stars, they help drive the algorithm, speaking of computerization, that affect traffic and affect how that podcast gets out to the world. So the more you're that affect traffic and affect how that podcast gets out to the world. So the more you're able to kind of help in that cause, the more people will get familiar with Kimberly's message of fiscal feminist and the Bonson Group's investment message at Dividend Cafe. Thanks for listening to both of our podcasts. We will see you again. Bye.

Thank you for listening to the Dividend Cafe. Financial food for thought. Bye. Thank you. research, analyses, prices, or other information contained in this research is provided as general market commentary. It does not constitute investment advice. The team at Hightower should not be in any way liable for claims and make no express or implied representations or warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of the data and other information or for statements or errors contained in or omissions from the obtained data and information reference herein. The data and information are provided as of the date referenced. Such data and information are subject to change without notice. This document was created for informational purposes only. The opinions expressed are solely those of the team and do not represent those of Hightower Advisors LLC or any of its affiliates.