Ep.62 Know Nothing About Investing? This Episode’s For You.

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0:33you'll get support from people who care about your success like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve you'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program plus career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals a different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu. Hi friends, Grace from the Working Hard podcast here. When you're stretching every dollar, a little goes a long way and Walmart Business is here to help. They make it easy to order what you need from tech and cleaning supplies to everyday essentials, all at low prices and with helpful tools like spend tracking and tax exempt purchasing for eligible organizations.

1:17Because when your operations are smooth, your impact can be bigger. Visit business.warmart.com to get started. Today's episode is so exciting. We are going to be learning all about investing. Anna Harvigsen is the co-author of Girls Just Wanna Have Funds, a global bestseller. She is co-founder of Female Invest, which is Europe's largest financial education platform for women. I'd like to go back to the very basics. What would you say to someone who's decided to keep their savings in a savings account? You might think that your money is safe in your savings account, but it really isn't because of inflation.

1:49You go to work, you work so hard for your money, only to have that money lose value over time. What would you say the most common mistakes people make in terms of managing their money? If you don't know how to manage£100, you won't know how to manage£100 ,000. There is a shocking amount of people who make very high salaries who still live paycheck to paycheck. What is a fund? Would you recommend people to be taking out an ISA every year? If you were talking to someone and their main aim overall was to build wealth, would you recommend they save more or that they go out to find more ways to make it?

2:23And so where do you even start? One of the best kept secrets of the financial industry is...

2:38What is up guys and welcome back to Working Hard Hardly Working. Today's episode is so exciting. We are going to be learning all about investing. And I don't mean like, you know, venture capital, all of that stuff. I mean how you can be investing your savings or not savings your salary etc etc money management doing one of those episodes where I just wanted to get back to the very crux of it I wanted to go back to basics ask the questions we're all embarrassed about asking what is investing how do you start how much money can you start with is it riskier than savings all of these various different things there is such a huge gap when it comes to women investing and it is so important in building your wealth over time.

3:19So I'm very, very excited about this episode. I have chosen Anna Harvigson, who is the co-author of Girls Just Wanna Have Funds. She is co-founder of Female Invest, which is Europe's largest financial education platform for women. They've raised over$12 million since launch. And what they're really about is making sure that women have the financial education they need so that I'm not talking like when people make it big, I'm talking about every single woman knowing what they should be doing with their salary, how to be managing their money properly and how to over time be able to build their wealth and the money they have and reach the goals that they want to reach.

3:52I found this episode so educational, even as someone who deals with money like quite a lot, as someone who runs a business. And I really hope that it will be an incredibly useful resource for anyone, no matter what your understanding is of kind of finances and investing in order for us all to be able to get to the best position that we can be in. So thank you so much for watching. I hope you really enjoyed this episode. If you do, please make sure to like, subscribe, follow whatever it is on the platform you're on. This hugely helps us to make amazing episodes, get them better and better, and hopefully give you some information to improve your whole life and have more money and have better jobs and better thoughts and, you know, just all of the above.

4:27Everything, everything good comes from this podcast.

4:34Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. We do a lot of these episodes where we want to create a safe space for asking almost like the quote unquote stupid questions. The things that people feel a little bit like they should already know and therefore never ask and therefore never know. So we're going to do a lot of the kind of going back to basics and covering all of that, which I know you do so well. In order to be able to do that, it would be great to hear a little bit about you and your career journey. So just like a whistle stop tour of how you got to where you are now would be fantastic.

5:02Definitely. So my name is Anna and I'm one of the three co-founders of Female Invest. And Female Invest, we are an impact startup on a mission to close the financial gender gap. And the way we do that is that we educate women on how to manage their money. We started out as a passion project, me and my two co-founders in 2017. Got huge traction. We used to do educational events for women. Had over 25 ,000 women in person at our events in the Nordics. Then we knew that we just found something. There was something bigger here. So we turned it into a company. Put all of the learning online. so that we could scale it.

5:38And today we're at a place where we've built a company with 40 full-time employees. We have paying subscribers in over 100 countries. Yeah, now we're just on a mission to go worldwide with this knowledge. Incredible. And so what was your, I guess, educational background and what spurred you on to be like, I know about this. I want other people to know about this. So I have a background in business, a master's and bachelor degree. But what really spurred this interest started much, much earlier. So I come from a background where no one invests, no one talks about money. But I was interested in money from an early age and kind of the freedom that it brings.

6:12Started working when I was 13. And then when I was 19, I realized that, you know, the money had been working so hard to earn was actually losing value in my bank account because of inflation and interest rates in that combination. And that just got me really into the topic, went through the whole thing with realizing how difficult it is, how hard it is to find someone who looks like you in the field met my two co-founders a few years later and then we went from there incredible it's so true in the way that actually if you don't know about investing you don't know about investing like you really it really has to be self-started it's not something we talk about at school it's not something we're educated on it's not something even when you get to the workplace they're like by the way you'll be getting your salary we're taking the tax out but we would recommend that you look into these different things like it is nowhere unless it's a self-started point of view and I think that that's also because of the historical differences in men and women's careers and earnings that is obviously so much exacerbated when it comes to women because like historically like why would a woman need to know about investing if they're like you know the classic like they're going to be at home or whatever it might be and so obviously it's very weighted as well in terms of the gender disparity yeah definitely is and i think it's also just reinforced by stereotypes all around us in society and now we did a lot of research about this to better understand the problem and we can see it starts so early, you know, even in families with girls getting less pocket money than boys, being asked to do more chores, very well documented.

7:36Yes, chores for sure, yeah. Chores for sure, we go through the school system, read literature, mainly written by men, get our first job, get paid less. All around us in society, we see stereotypes around women and money, women being portrayed as spenders, whereas men are more likely to be portrayed as, you know, building wealth. It's very well documented when we go to our bank, when we ask financial advisors, women actually get different advice. They're more likely to be advised to save, whereas men are more likely to be advised to invest. Role models, most of them are men. So it's no wonder that when we then ask women why they don't invest, or we wonder why they aren't confident, every single step of their lives, there's been stereotypes and lack of role models.

8:17That's so interesting. I'd actually never thought of the fact that women are thought of as spenders and it's so it's so interesting because also when it comes to the startup or vc-backed type of worlds it's almost not like the opposite but you know women are known as risk averse and almost known as you know need to be encouraged for more big bets how is it that we've ended up with like the worst of both worlds because in the investment world where they need us to deploy money in order to make more money they're like oh you're too risk averse in the kind of spending and investing in the stock market and etc etc we've been known as the spenders and therefore more irresponsible with money it's like how have we managed to get both of those reputations that feels like at odds with one another i have no idea how that happened but the interesting thing is that neither is true like when it comes to female entrepreneurs statistically they give better returns to investors when it comes to female investors to just normal women investing their money on average they do better so even though we have these kind of stereotypes surrounding us, holding us back, making life harder.

9:17Women actually just looking at pure numbers do better in both worlds, which I think is so interesting. I'd like to go back to the very basics. So assuming people know absolutely nothing, it's the beginning of their kind of investing journey and finding out about investing. What is investing and how is it different to say saving? So investing is the concept of buying something in the hope that it will increase in value in the future. So if you invest in something, you are well aware of the fact that when you come back and you look at your account, it will probably be worth a different amount than it was when you put the money in.

9:50And that's opposite to saving, where when you put your money in a savings account, you know that it will be worth approximately the same as it was when you put the money in. How should someone even start to think about investing? So we should all be thinking about investing. It's quite an essential part in building the future we want, achieving the goals that we want. I think the most important thing to know about investing is that it's actually not that difficult and you can get started with quite small amounts, which I know we'll get back to in this episode. Yeah. And so if you were starting a job, say you were starting your first salary job, what would you be doing with that income?

10:26Obviously assuming that it's not going to be the highest salary because obviously just starting out, what would you decide to do with that money? So we like to use a framework called the 50-30-20 rule. And following this framework, around 50 % of your income should go to fixed expenses, so rent, electricity, and so on. 30 % to present you, so living life, having fun. And then 20 % to future you, which is a mix of saving and investing. And of course, we know everyone's situation is different, especially right now in this cost of living crisis. So you can also adapt this framework to your own personal situation.

11:01but I think it's a nice way of thinking about it having these three categories because if you're not mindful about it then I think it's very very easy to end up you know spending more than you want to and when you look back through your bank statements a lot of it maybe wasn't intentional so it's about spending money where it actually gives you value. And so where do you even start when you know say you've decided to put that money into something that you know you want to be investing it essentially where would you even recommend to start because I know there's so much out there. There's about, you know, whether it's cryptocurrency, whether it's trading two on two type stuff, whether it's a fund, whether it's a bond, whatever it might be.

11:37Where do you even start? So I like to lean on facts. And you're right, there are so many opinions about what will be the next big thing. But the only thing we know for sure is that historically, since the first stock was traded more than 400 years ago in the Netherlands, actually, the stock market has historically always increased in the long run. And in fact, the average stock market return is between 8 and 10 percent per year. And what that means is that you don't need to be an expert on investing. You don't need to know about all of these different niche topics. The only thing you need to do is to diversify.

12:14So investing in many different things to get the average return. If you believe that the next 10 years will be anything like the past 400. And there are very tangible and easy ways to do that. It could just be by investing in funds, for example, that cover the world market. That could be a brilliant place to start, in my opinion. So let's talk about funds. Funds sounds a little bit terrifying. It sounds like you need to be a kind of trader on a banking floor to be able to invest in a fund. What is a fund? And also, how do you even get to the position where you can invest in it? A fund is a concept where many investors pool their money together, and then this pool of money is collectively invested in a lot of different things.

12:51So it could be different stocks, but it also could be real estate, currency, basically anything. So the way funds work is that they have a theme and then they invest within that theme. And that theme could be as wide as the world market, or it could be as narrow as a green energy in Africa, for example. And then it's up to you to choose. And the beautiful thing with funds is that when you invest in just one fund, you get ownership of all of the things in the fund, as opposed to buying just shares in one company, you only have shares in that company. You can get started with very small amounts, I would say down to 50 or 100 pounds.

13:30So it's definitely something that most people will be able to do. And what type of platform would you recommend for doing that? We usually recommend looking at two things when you pick your trading platform. The first one is fees. So how expensive is it to trade? And the second one is user-friendliness. So how easy is it to navigate? And that's super important. So if you go on a trading platform and you have a hard time figuring out how they make money, then just leave it right away. As a rule of thumb, you should never have fees for more than half a percent of the amount you invest. So if it's£100, then it would be half a pound in fees because otherwise it's going to be too difficult to make back.

14:06And what are tracker funds? Tracker funds, track is something like the name indicates it could be an index, for example, or it also could be a market like a real estate or a metals like a gold or silver. And that can also be a good option. And for someone who obviously can listen to this and think, okay, well, I should be investing, but at the moment, I'm kind of fine with just having my savings account. I know where it is. I don't need to change anything. If the market goes, quote unquote, like wrong, then I don't need to like move anything anywhere. What would you say to someone who's decided to keep their savings in a savings account rather than putting it into a fund?

14:42So I would say two things. So firstly, you might think that your money is safe in your savings account, but it really isn't because of inflation. So that means you go to work, you work so hard for your money only to have that money lose value over time. So that's the first thing. Savings accounts aren't as safe as we like to think in the long run. Then the second thing I would say is that, you know, investing is not about having an interest in financial markets. It's not about reading Financial Times every day, even though that's great. This is about building the future that you want. It's about freedom, independence, living life on your own terms.

15:18And that's relevant to every single person listening in today. So therefore, that's the real reason why you should be. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tight and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Your business is one of a kind, so your website should be too.

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16:37You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program. Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu. Investing. Is there a kind of split that you think is generally a good rule in terms of like what you should be investing, what percentage may be out of your savings? So that, of course, depends on your overall financial situation. So we usually recommend that you start by building something called an FU fund. So an FU fund is a savings account that allows you to pay three to six months of fixed expenses.

17:19And the purpose of an FU fund is to be able to leave, you know, a job, a partner, a situation, the place that you live, if you don't like it anymore. It's the fund that allows you to grab a cool opportunity when it suddenly comes. and it's paramount to you know freedom and security to have that fund even though I'm well aware that it might take time to build so while you're building up your FU fund I would recommend you know putting maybe most money into that and then starting investing afterwards but you can definitely you know invest a little bit on the side and then change the split. What would you recommend to them from today to start consistently investing knowing what they're investing in how they're investing it, how often they're investing it, how much, all of that.

18:02So the most important thing to do after listening to this episode is to take action and get started. Because once you've made that first investment, you will realize that firstly, it's not as difficult as you thought. And secondly, you will not wake up the next day having lost all of your money, at least not if you followed what I just said with diversifying. Put some money in, doesn't even matter with the amount. the purpose of this first investment is just to realize that you can absolutely do this. And then once you get started, I'd recommend using the strategy called dollar cost averaging.

18:36We also just call it gradual investing. And that's the concept of investing a little bit every month or every second month, depending on what you can afford. And the purpose of this strategy is to protect you from investing all of your money, you know, at the peak of the market. I've been doing that since I was 19 years old. I'm 29 today, so it's been 10 years of investing every single month. I've been a student while I was doing that, so then it was very small amounts. Now, obviously, I have a full-time job, so it's bigger amounts, and that has worked tremendously well for me. It has not only allowed me to get a nice average price of what I'm invested in, but it has also allowed me to invest on a consistent basis because everything is automated.

19:18And, you know, today I run a company with 40 people, I have clients across 100 countries, so I can't sit anymore and read news about individual companies. I just need it to happen for me. And that has worked very well. Yeah, because I always see that little toggle on the kind of like apps I use for investing. And there's that, you know, whether you want it to be like a regular investment, and you'd always recommend to do that. Yes. And then you can use that as a base. And then what I do, you know, it happens automatically every single month. And then on top of that, when I have the time and the capacity, I sit down and then I pick out individual investments that I buy as well.

19:49And how much money do you think people need to just start investing? So you can get started for 50 to 100 pounds, but you of course need to make sure that this is money you won't need in the short term future. So be certain that you can pay rent, food, you have a savings account, that kind of things are taken care of, and then you can begin investing. So you'd recommend to build three to six months of fixed cost savings, and then your investment from that point. Is that right? Yes, at least having a few months. And it's quite interesting because when we started Female Invest, we thought this would be all about, you know, investing and growing your wealth.

20:24But then we realized that, you know, there is a whole step before that. And that's the whole managing your personal finances, paying off debt, making a savings account, budgeting. So then we made that an equally big part of it. So if someone is listening right now, feeling completely overwhelmed because they haven't even, you know, nailed down their personal finances, then that's completely fine because that is step one. So getting that sorted first and then taking the leap to invest is totally fine. So I really want to talk about that. At the start of the year, what should people be doing in order to be able to set money and budgeting targets?

20:57So I'm a big fan of planning and manifesting also when it comes to your finances. So what I do is that I sit down a few times per year, but definitely always in the beginning of a new year. Then I look at my current financial situation. I estimate how much money I'll be making in the coming year and for most people who have like you know a fixed monthly salary that will be fairly easy or fairly tangible to do and then I write down goals of where I want to be in one quarter from now half a year from now and a year from now and then I do quarterly check-ins to see if I'm on track to reach the goals that I set out for myself outside of your I guess fixed salary do most of those I guess I know you'll have a number of different opportunities for people who mainly have a fixed salary that's the main way they earn that additional earnings does that generally come from investment does it come from you know would you recommend people picking up as many other things as possible in terms of like you know I have so many friends who do dog sitting or babysitting or whatever it might be social media stuff on the side so I think it's nice to have a side hustle like dog sitting or babysitting but it's not very scalable so what I would recommend instead is maybe investing in upskilling yourself like you can buy skills that would make you significantly more money whether that is learning a certain skill in a business learning so if the goal is to make more money I would look at how you can best do that by pairing new skills with the skills that you already have and then of course in time your investments will start paying dividends but it's definitely not a quick fix or you know it won't change your life next year but it will be absolutely life-changing in the long term.

22:35And for people in the UK where there are ISAs, which is obviously a certain amount of tax-free savings that you get, would you recommend people to be taking out an ISA every year? Definitely. So my favorite part about moving to the UK is the ISA. What a great concept. For those who don't know, an ISA is an account where you can put in money and then the profits that you make from the investments you make on your ISA are tax-free. As I have a stocks and shares ISA, for example, you can put in 20 ,000 pounds per year and then it runs from tax year to tax year in April. You can invest that money essentially tax-free.

23:08So it's a very good place to start. What are the biggest tips you have in terms of getting good at managing your money? So step number one to getting good at managing your money is to educate yourself, both learning the language of money, but also getting the confidence to actually do it, which I think is a major part. And step two would then just be to take the leap and don't expect to be perfect first time you do it. You will make mistakes, but I can guarantee you that it's more expensive to not take action and to not do these things than it is to learn along the way, make mistakes and then get right back at it.

23:43And what type of, I don't know whether it would be software or like spreadsheets or whatever, in terms of people actually managing, tracking their budgeting? We build a whole company, Female Invest, around it. So we have a lot of different worksheets that you can use, plot in. We actually made a worksheet for budgeting. You plot in your salary, your fixed expenses, and then we tell you how much you should, based on this framework, save and invest every single month. But there definitely are other apps, other types of trackers out there as well. And I think the most important thing is not necessarily which one you use, but just that you use one and then stick with it.

24:19And obviously, people go through different stages of life, and there might be someone who's listening to this who's thinking, you know I think it's really easy to think oh my god I should have been saving I should have been saving it's not too late and obviously you get to a point and you can make that decision now and that can be your decision for however long and you're you're kind of sticking to a budget from now you're managing your money properly what would you recommend someone do at the beginning of I guess their like money managing budgeting journey if they're just going to be starting after this episode how would like what even do they do do they go and audit their finances do they go and look at what they're spending?

24:52How would they even start? So the first thing you would then have to do is to look at how you're spending your money today. And then afterwards, assessing if you think that fits with your overall values. So when I did this, for example, I realized that I spent so much money on takeaway. And I mean, while I do like takeaway, I maybe didn't intend for it to be like 15 % of my overall budget. So then I was able to, you know, adapt it a little bit. And I think for most people when they start going through how they actually spend their money and pair it with what they actually put value in they will see that there is quite a difference and then that's step one you know correcting that.

25:27If you were talking to someone and their main aim overall was to build wealth would you recommend that they save more or that they go out to find more ways to make it? If you don't know how to manage your money then there is almost no amount or no salary that will save you if you have bad money management skills. We usually say in Female Invest that if you don't know how to manage£100, you won't know how to manage£100 ,000. And I actually saw a statistic recently, I forgot the exact numbers, but the key takeaway was that there is a shocking amount of people who make very high salaries who still live paycheck to paycheck because then maybe they put themselves in too expensive housing, they have too expensive habits, they don't know how to invest, all of these things.

26:12So definitely getting financially literate and not just saving, but being intentional about your money is more important than whatever salary you make in the first place. What would you say is the most effective way for people to, I guess, gain that financial literacy? There is an investment to be made in education and the main investment is your time and energy. And that will be there in the beginning. When you find knowledge, make sure that it comes from sources that aren't selling financial products because then, you know, it won't be biased. and then figure out how you learn best. Of course, there are platforms like ours.

26:45Maybe you can find something else. I had a friend recently who lost a lot of weight and everyone would ask her, you know, like, how did you do it? How did you do it? You know, hoping there would be some secret trick or some pill or something that she took that they could do as well. And the answer was just, you know, the boring thing no one wants to hear. You know, she was eating more healthy. She was exercising more. And that's the thing no one wants to hear. It's a long-term thing. It's boring. It takes so much effort. It's the same thing with money, but that is also just what pays off in the long run.

27:13And what would you say the most common mistakes people make in terms of managing their money? The most common mistake by far when it comes to managing money is not managing it at all. And that's what I see over and over and over again. We even experience a lot of the members we have who have what I would classify as a finance phobia. You know, they're even afraid to look at their bank accounts because they know that they have no control over it. It feels like they have no control over it. They have no idea what it looks like. They know they aren't spending intentionally. So I think getting over that.

27:45I think it's a little bit like, you know, when you give CPR to someone or first aid. Then I remember when I took the course back, when I got my driver's license, the teacher would tell us over and over again, it's better to do something even if you do it wrong than to leave the person with the stroke just on the floor. And it's the same with your finances. Better to do something, start learning somewhere, start being intentional than just leaving it and closing your eyes because it won't go away. it's like kind of like exposure therapy like even if the first week is just looking at your bank account every day or setting up something where it tells you I love using apps like Revolut where they essentially break down exactly what you're spending and that for me has been absolutely game changer because I just know I'm not the type of person who at the end of the month like start putting things into a spreadsheet and so like for me that was always setting myself up for failure because I wasn't actually I knew I wasn't that type of person and every month I'd be like I'm gonna do that I'm gonna do that and realistically all I needed to do was just set budgets at the the beginning of the month put it in something and then it tells me that's been so incredibly important because it's all just been about make it easier for yourself make it easier for yourself to actually look at your bank account if that's the fear at the beginning like that's probably what you need to start thinking about before you even start downloading trading 212 or something like that exactly I actually had another friend and she inherited some money when her father unfortunately passed and that money then got managed by someone in Australia where she was from and then at the same time, you know, she got her first job, she started saving and then together we kind of started investing, just doing the basic stuff with diversifying.

29:15Some time passes and then a year and a half, you know, later we start looking at who did better and she absolutely, you know, outdid the guy, the professional guy who was managing her inheritance and then I told her, like, you know, why don't you take over, you know, all of that money because you're clearly better at it, you know what to do and when we look at the decisions, you know this professional person has made it's actually not in line with like the most basic things we know about investing and still she told me that she didn't want to do it because it just felt like too much responsibility it was super scary so she would rather have someone else you know losing her money and not making the best decision than having that responsibility herself that's so interesting and I think it goes to show how much imposter syndrome women have in so many different areas essentially black and white data in front of her that's crazy and it does feel like something terrifying I can't believe we don't have more of an education in school that even just makes us more exposed to it because even if you know like in school you'll learn something and you'll be like actually that topic's not really for me like that's not one of my strengths at least you have some sort of an understanding of say like the sciences or like geography or whatever it might be the fact that we don't have any of that when it comes to finance is insane it is wild and I just can't comprehend it because when we go out in life like no matter what we dream about what we want to do then we need money to get there so there's just no getting around it I think it's crazy we don't learn I think that's absolutely insane I can't believe it hasn't been added on to a curriculum yeah we just did a big campaign on it actually a few weeks ago about like campaigning for putting it on the school curriculum I mean I would have absolutely loved that I mean I think one of the biggest barriers as well to being self-employed is the fact that I mean doing your taxes as a self-employed person is it feels like a whole job in itself and it is terrifying and the barriers to entry are so high because it feels like oh yeah I can do my craft like whatever your thing is actually I have no idea how to do that side and it feels it's like paralyzing there's so much that you need to do and it feels insane that we haven't had some sort of background to that like I know more about like how rivers erode the earth than I do about money and that is insane and I want to talk quickly about impact funds because obviously you're coming out with a book on that.

31:24Could you tell me a little bit about why you decided to focus on that and exactly, you know, how people can, I guess, get involved? Yes. So when we started Female Invest, when we wrote the first book, Girls Did Want to Have Funds, the point was just to help more women get more money and decide their own destiny. But what we realized is then that this is not just about money. This is not just about us as individuals. This is about using our money as power to change the world. Today, we live in a world where women are underrepresented in positions of power across industries, in politics. At the same time, we live in a world where climate change is hitting.

32:06We have so many social problems, wars, and women just don't have a seat at the table to the same degree. But what we do have is significant unprecedented financial power. We are more educated than ever before. We make more money than ever before. And if we start using that money as power by investing in courses, companies, funds, projects we care about, then it has potential to create change like we've never seen before. So now we wrote the second book about how to change the world with your money and making money at the same time in the hope that we can help women claim their financial power.

32:43You know, some of the easiest things you can do in terms of like helping the earth and all of that, you know, getting into green pensions, making sure you're kind of looking at where your money is being spent. Crazy that it's something that's not, it's not even mainstream. And actually for that to like where you put your money to directly impact where the money is going in the world, it actually is such a powerful thing that you could be doing. And I don't think it's something that I thought about at all until the last few years. And it's quite interesting because so many of us, you know, we take shorter showers, we sort our trash, but still research shows that it has significantly bigger impact if we invest our money in things with impact than doing all of those individual actions.

33:21So if someone listening is anyway spending their time and energy on that, then why not spend that time and energy on something that has much bigger impact? And so how do you find an impact fund? So there are a lot of different things you can do to invest with impact. One of them would be impact funds, like the type of funds I already talked about. But then you can find funds that have a specific focus, whether it is a green energy or whether it's a more social cause. But there are a lot more things you can do from crowdfunding, investing in female entrepreneurs or startups on a mission to change the world in a way you really believe in, green bonds.

33:55Like there are so many things you can do. So we just want to demystify now that and make it accessible. Amazing. I feel like I've been very much motivated to go away from this and like re-audit everything and take back more control in terms of like where I'm putting when and actually just I think one of the biggest issues with it and I'm sure because obviously you deal with this every day you know far more than I do about this it's not the fact that it's hard it's the fact that there's no information and the fact that it's seen as something that you know that's what a banker does so why would I do it in my free time it's actually insane and it really really does affect women's wealth as a whole.

34:31One of the best kept secrets of the financial industry is just how simple getting started investing is and once we get that knowledge out there to more people it just has the potential to change the world and the lives for the people who get involved. Well thank you so so much for joining me this has been great I feel like lots of people are going to have learned a lot from this episode also will say I have girls just want to have funds at home and would like really really recommend it in terms of people wanting to start to educate themselves and start to get a little bit more financially literate it is one of the best things you can do in terms of respecting your future self so thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and building a platform that's so accessible in terms of you know changing the narrative around women and finance thank you

35:18thank you so much for listening to this episode of working hard hardly working this episode was such an education for me and i really hope it was for you too if you enjoyed it too i would appreciate so so much if you could like rate subscribe and review the pod wherever you're listening to it also if you're listening on spotify and have any questions on investing head to the q a box below this episode

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