Take Back Retirement

Today, Stephanie and Kevin welcome Joe Saul-Sehy and Emily Guy Birken, the co-authors of Stacked: Your Super-Serious Guide to Modern Money Management .   Emily is a former educator, lifelong money nerd, and a Plutus Award-winning freelance writer who specializes in the scientific research behind irrational money behaviors. She has the amazing ability to make complex financial topics relatable.   J...

Today, Stephanie and Kevin welcome special guest Kylelane Purcell, who for over 30 years has been writing, editing, and managing communications in the investment industry. She has worked as an analyst at Morningstar, a manager at American Century Investments, and VP of Investment Communications at T. Rowe Price.   In 2005, she started her own company, Purcell Communications. She has come to take a...

Today, Stephanie and Kevin sit down with Janine Firpo, a seasoned values-aligned investor and social innovator. She has been working at the intersection of women and money for a long time, having held positions in Apple Computer, Hewlett Packard, The World Bank, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   In 2017, she left her successful career to focus on how women can create a more just and equ...

" We focus on sustainability not because we ' re environmentalists, but because we ' re capitalists and fiduciaries to our clients."   That ' s a quote by Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world ' s largest asset manager, and it gets to the heart of today ' s episode, in which Stephanie and Kevin revisit the topic of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing .   If you haven ' t alread...

Today, Stephanie and Kevin sit down with Liz Simmie, Co-Founder of Toronto-based Honeytree Investment Management, which just so happens to be one of the very few women-led responsible asset management firms around the world.   Honeytree truly believes that ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) data is just as important to assessing a company ' s long-term growth and risk as financial data, a...

Today, Stephanie and Kevin cover a topic that can often get confusing for many people: the estate and gift tax system. This is different from the income tax system, and both are federal tax systems that everyone needs to be aware of when planning for retirement.   At the end of the day, the IRS is getting paid. The only two questions, then, are: Who pays? and When? Our hosts tackle these questions...

Today, Stephanie and Kevin offer a unique perspective on the show by diving deep into their own backgrounds as financial planners.   The two kick things off with a brief history of their first jobs before reflecting on their first ever roles in the financial services industry.   Then, Stephanie discusses the inspiration behind Sofia Financial and how she and Kevin came to work together.   Finally,...

Trusts.   What the heck are they and why might it be a good idea for you to have one?   Most people believe that trusts are this elusive thing reserved for the uber-wealthy…   …or have only heard of it as being a sort of plot device in a movie or murder mystery.   Joining us today is attorney Shannon Evans, a recognized expert in the area of trusts and estate planning. She practices out of Las Veg...

You did it. You made the leap.   You left behind that corporate 9-to-5, the micromanaging boss, the freeloading coworker...   Now, you ' ve started your own thing. You have endless potential. The world is your oyster. You can do what you ' ve always dreamed of.   It ' s a dream many of us are striving for. But, it's easy to forget that we still should be saving for retirement. As a self-employed p...

" How much money should I have in the bank?"   It ' s a question that Stephanie and Kevin hear on a very regular basis.   No doubt about it: it ' s important to have cash on hand; but, with a well-thought-out financial plan, you can really start to make cash work for you.   Listen in as Stephanie and Kevin invite listeners to sort out the purpose of their dollars to know where they should be going...

Today's guest is Dr. Barbara Provost, a business coach, professor, and entrepreneur with a Doctorate in Adult and Higher Education. She has a long history as a consultant in the financial services sector.   Dr. Barb has taken her expertise into her latest venture, Purse Strings, which offers free financial education and resources for women.   Listen in as Dr. Barb shares how her initiative aims to...

Today we talk all things Health Savings Accounts. An HSA can be a really powerful savings tool but, like everything else in the world of finance, it literally pays to know the game and play by the rules.   The HSA can serve as a long-term savings account for medical expenses sometime in your lifetime—whether one week down the road or 40 years down the road. It is the only type of account that, whe...

Today, we sit down with Kathleen Burns Kingsbury, a wealth psychology expert, founder of KBK Wealth Connection, and host of the Breaking Money Silence® Podcast.   Kathleen is a highly sought-after speaker for financial industry conferences and is the author of five books, her latest being Breaking Money Silence®: How to Shatter Money Taboos, Talk More Openly about Finances, and Live a Richer Life....

A lot of folks believe that there is a magic number that they need to work towards in order to be able to retire.   There is a myth out there that there is some perfect number of dollars you need to accumulate so that you can retire. That it's really all just one mathematical equation with one distinct, perfect answer.   …Except this belief is completely, utterly unfounded.   Listen in as Stephani...

Today's guest is KT, who speaks on how she was able to retire at the age of 54.   She was inspired to retire early only a decade prior. It wasn't an easy road, but it was absolutely worth it.   Listen in as KT describes her unique retirement journey and the money mindset transformation that she had to undergo to reach her goals. She shares her favorite books and other resources that armed her with...

What nuggets of wisdom can we take away about retirement planning from a famous baseball contract?   It turns out, quite a few!   Listen in as Stephanie and Kevin unpack Bobby Bonilla Day and the circumstances that led to the former MLB player receiving a $1.19 million paycheck every year for 25 years—and the lessons you can extract from this story to better prepare you for those golden years.   K...

We're naturally spenders and not savers. It's just how we're wired. By the time we realize we may have a problem with how we're managing and spending our money, we've already built up intense feelings of overwhelm and shame that are difficult to overcome.   How can we begin to change our negative money scripts and move from a mindset of scarcity to a mindset of abundance starting today?   Today's...

Medicare is a huge part of your retirement. Whether you're looking to arm yourself with the information you need in preparation for the next stage of your life, or you're already there and simply want to learn how you can do better with what you currently have, this is the episode for you.   Susan Sloan, a licensed agent and longtime friend, joins us to do a deep dive into everything women need to...

In the United States, we can't talk finances without talking taxes . It shouldn't come as a surprise that taxes are an inevitable part of our reality and are inescapable. The best (and only) way to go about navigating taxes is to, as Stephanie and Kevin like to say, "be smart about it, know what's going on, then make your decisions."     A Roth IRA is a tool that falls under the category of tax pl...

Retiring "early" is a process that contains many more moving pieces than most people think. In this episode, we tackle these factors one-by-one and offer some advice on how to cover all your bases before taking the plunge into retirement.     The first question we have to address is, why 65? It's true that, historically, Social Security kicked in once you turned 65 and so did a number of pension p...

"Most of us do not do enough to prepare for the unexpected." How sure are you that you, your family, and your business are ready in times of emergency?   Our guest today is Mary Beth Simón. She founded Niche Partnership Consulting "to solve real-world problems faced by individuals and entrepreneurs" with particular emphasis on helping them create their contingency plan to keep business and life ru...

What the heck is long-term care and why should we care?   Only 12% of women feel highly knowledgeable about long-term care and only 27% have a plan to fund it despite the fact that 50% of women expect to require it.   The first thing to note is that, when we talk about long-term care, we're not talking about medical care or health insurance. Long-term care (also known as custodial or even unskille...

Today's guest is Lori Osterberg. She is an author, content creator, educator, and, in her own words, a "Gen-Xer who has been setting the online world on fire for the past 20 years."   Currently in a little town outside Portland, OR, Lori is living what she recently realized to be her dream life. She writes up to three books a year and just recently published her ninth novel.   Lori recalls how at...

Social Security is the foundation for every retirement income plan, and it seems really simple: you hit retirement age then turn around and start getting your money. In fact, the benefits you can reap are actually much more powerful than most people think; however, it's also a more complicated topic than many of us realize. In this episode, we highlight several important points that women specific...

Today's guest is Cathy Sikorski. She is a practicing attorney in elder law. At the same time, she has personal experience being a caregiver for elders and not-so-elders. Her bestselling book, Who Moved My Teeth?: Preparing for Self, Loved Ones and Caregiving , combines her 25-plus years of legal and practical experience into a guide for preparing yourself or your loved ones for the complicated fut...