AMA - Ask Me Anything

The FIRST ever Ask Me Anything episode!!

This ep covers:

What’s the difference between roboadvisors and financial advisors vs Investing Bootcamp What can I start investing with When is the best time to invest What if I’m in debt What if I want to buy a house What if the economy crashes

Ask me to cover questions in upcoming episodes by joining the Kiss My Money Facebook group.

xo
Simone

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And make home money you're in the right place. I spent over 10 years learning from the most brilliant minds in money, wealth, and investing to take myself 20 K in debt to a seven figure investment portfolio. Join in. As I share the secrets towards money investing and ultimately freedom. My name is Simone Huggins and welcome to my money.

What's up babes. It's Simone here for another episode with kiss my money podcast. And Hey, I just, before we jump in, I wanna say, and reach out and just tell those of you who have been de hemming me, or messaging me to tell me how much you are loving the podcast. I just want to say thank you. I probably get at least one to two something message or Facebook or Instagram or something in some form, or like even an emails come through to, from you, from you guys, from you listeners to tell me how much it's impacting your life or something that you loved, or that you've binge listen to it. And I just wanted to reach out and say, thank you because I love getting those messages. Um, yeah, I mean, it just makes me really happy that us talking about this, me talking about this and you like spending the time to learn more about money and upgrade your financial wellness is actually impacting and making a difference and it's changing your future.

And that's why I do it. And that's why it really, it honestly lights up my day, even my week to hear that. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for telling me how much it's impacting you. And I also, if you are loving it, I would love for you to go and leave a review on iTunes. That would mean so much to me. Um, you know, just talk about what you love about it and how it's awesome and how it's made your life better. Um, that would be really, really cool cause that helps me impact more women as well. Okay. So this app is, I want to talk about the three it's kind of, a lot of questions have come in on, uh, financial advisors and robo advisors and investing in like trying to kind of navigate the, all the different levels and what's better and what's more suited.

And I want to talk about this and lay it out in a way that's hopefully, um, easier to navigate that. It's, it's not as like confusing, uh, and this has actually come from because of it's been asked a number of times. And so I'm also going to just add in on the end, a couple of extra questions that I also get that I know a lot of you asking, um, almost like a ask me anything answers, um, so to speak, because I know that this is going to help a bunch of you. Um, I really like it when you guys ask really high quality questions and it also means that I can help you more because most of the time other people are thinking the same thing and not asking it, or they think that it's stupid, which is obviously not true at all. Um, so I want to answer them because it's probably something that you guys are thinking too.

And I certainly know on my journey when I started investing and I had a mentor, uh, and even when I said trading and I had someone that I could go and ask questions to, I thought my questions about what is the Dow Jones and what does the SNP mean? I thought they were really like stupid dumb questions, but, uh, asking them actually made me actually take things to the next level and get to the next level faster because I was able to just like, get over it, learn what it is and just be like, Oh, that's what, that was actually not that scary. Um, and then move on. So the, the biggest thing I, I kind of get asked about is, okay, so if I do it myself, isn't it, am I actually as good if I start investing myself, am I actually as good as someone else, for example, a financial advisor.

And then what's the difference between a robo advisor? Like what about rays or acorns? What about using that? And I have touched on acorns, uh, before it's called raise in Australia, acorns in the U S uh, same company. Uh, I've, I've touched on it before and how their fees are not actually as transparent as they talk about and how using an app like that can be a good introduction if it helps you get your feet wet. Um, but I do want to talk about that more in terms of the different tiers. So I'm gonna use an analogy that hopefully is going to be easy to associate with, you know, when you go to restaurants or you look up guides on TripAdvisor or Zamata or whatever, and you're looking at the restaurants in the area and looking at the reviews and it'll have like the Dolla signs and $1 is like cheap and cheerful or, you know, less expensive, but, and then $2, $2 signs is like, you know, a middle road, whatever.

And then $3 signs is like really expensive. And then the $4 signs are like chef, you know, Michelin star, chef hat, hatted restaurants. So when it comes to using that as a guide, think about that when it comes to your investing options. So the $1 option, meaning it costs the least is you doing it yourself? Why? Because you're taking the time to actually control it yourself. You didn't have to pay anyone to use their time to do it for you. So it means it's the most cost effective. So the fees are the lowest. Um, even then the outcome is the same. Then the middle one is robo robo advisers. So the $2 option more expensive because you're paying the fees for the robo advisor to do it for you, even though you're investing in the same thing that you would do, if you were just did it yourself and learn yourself.

For example, when I show you in investing boot camp, how to do it, and then the $3 option, and then sometimes even the $4 option, the Michelin star is the financial advisors. Here's the difference between the restaurant guide and your investing Tia's as you get higher up the rank, it doesn't actually mean that it's going to be better quality. So just because you pay more doesn't mean the quality is there. Now, if you choose to go to a financial advisor and pay thousands of dollars a year, every year ongoing, then you do get access to this stuff, meaning doing wills, uh, managing trusts and diving into insurance. So I don't talk about insurance on this podcast. I don't help my clients with insurance. I refer you on, I am not an insurance expert B it's not my focus. Right? And see, my focus is on increasing your net worth.

If you want to take out insurance and cover, um, your work insurance or your, you know, get life insurance, cool. Go and do that. And you can use someone like a broker even, um, to get that for you, but I'm not your girl for that. So a financial advisor will help you on those other things that aren't actually necessarily investing. In fact, if you go to one, certainly from my experience, when I have visited and tried to use a few of them, that main focus has been on insurance. And you know, when you're paying like literally hundreds of dollars a month, sometimes, uh, to me, it's just not worth it, but every eight, each their own there's no right or wrong answer. Anyway. So my point is these are the three levels and it doesn't mean that paying more means better quality. So you're using a robot adviser.

Is that kind of middle option, right? It is more expensive. Doesn't necessarily mean it's higher quality. Here's the thing. It is up to each individual. Yeah. And your personality in terms of whether it's right for you or not. So, you know, I said, if you want to use a robo advisor and open the app and pay the fees, maybe that's enough for you to help you get over your initial fear around getting into investing, even though you're knowing that like knowing that it's costing you money and, you know, just taking that step, taking a step in, but when you actually want to gets serious, like seriously start investing properly. Um, the robo advisor apps, actually, when you both increase the amount of money you start investing in, and one to, uh, you know, actually have a portfolio that is a lot more advanced than robo advisors, aren't going to help you with that.

Why? Because they work on the mass population, mass, meaning they have to make it very generic. So most of the time they have three different levels, moderate, Vesta, uh, you know, aggressive investor or, um, conservative investor in terms of your risk tolerance. So there's literally three different levels. So that doesn't necessarily adapt for you. Yes. You can adapt it and go into your app as you change and grow over the years. But also from my point of view, yeah. It doesn't actually teach you the ins and outs about the economy and how to actually learn more about it so that you can maximize your returns and increase your net wealth. Right? So a big pot of overcoming fear and overcoming scarcity mindset is getting the proper knowledge of how the economy works, because knowledge is the antidote to fear because fear is, is what it's it's of the unknown.

Right? We have the fear because we can't control it. And we feel like we can't control it because we don't understand it. But as soon as you understand it better, then you have the knowledge, then it becomes way less scary. Yes. So the top tier is using an actual advisor. Now that is, if you are completely hands off, you don't want to do it yourself. You don't want to learn, and you want someone to control and manage your money for you. Obviously you probably have learned by now that that's not what I advocate for. That's not why I'm here. I want more women to take control of manage, um, their money and their finances. And they're investing themselves because not only does it empower you, it also enables you to pivot faster. And it gives you that competent confidence, uh, that allows you to know with total certainty and clarity where you're going.

So that is why I'm a big believer of doing it yourself. And I know what's possible, like I've seen what's possible and I've made it happens. I know that it can happen for you. So they're the three main differences between the three. The other thing is that with a financial advisor, you tend to need to start with a lot more. I mean, you can't be paying thousands of dollars of phase two or an advisor, and then only be starting with a thousand or $2,000, but that doesn't make any sense. So you can start a lot sooner by doing yourself or even with a robo advisor. Now, to be honest, I personally think if you're gonna invest and you're actually going to be serious about it, which I certainly hope you are, then why don't just start out doing it yourself anyway, rather than using an app, um, because you're going to eventually switch to doing it yourself, which is why I teach all of that in investing boot camp, actually something that I have been meaning I didn't announce this at the study episode.

So I'm going to tell you now I am actually closing enrollment for investing boot camp for all of the women for not 2019. Mainly it won't open up again until 2020. And I don't know when that is. So I am actually adding in something really fricking exciting into investing boot camp, which are weekly live mastermind and Q and a calls. And this means that you get extra support, extra accountability, and you get to network with other women doing exactly the same thing. Like I have spoken about how your network determines your net worth before, right. And how getting access to mentors regularly actually helps you to take quantum leaps in your development. So I'm adding this in, which would normally be literally thousands of dollars, extra for a mastermind, but I'm adding an entire investing bootcamp. And I'm closing it out in the beginning of December, literally the 1st of December.

So it goes, if you have been putting it off and you know, you need to start, I would get it. Now. I want you to get in so that we can kick off the calls in December, take a break over the Christmas week and then start January off while things are still quiet for a lot of people. Uh, so you can get that learning up and kick off 2020 with a bang. You know, the number one new year's resolution is how to get better at money. Isn't that crazy. Anyway, this actually means that us kicking off 2020 and starting 2020 with that intention already in effect, I don't want you to be white for like a year, a new new year for that to actually happen anyway, slight tangent. So that's going to be happening in the next, Oh my God, wait, I'll be like two weeks.

So I'm announcing it now. I haven't even announced it into the Facebook, the private Facebook group yet. I haven't even announced it to all of you girls on the email list. So this is actually the first time I am telling anyone it's been in development. And a couple of people do know we've had a few actually women showing the last week because I told them about it. And that was instant in for them because I know that that's the thing that a lot of you been asking for. I also get a lot of questions about whether I'm reopening my wealth mastermind and I am essentially merging it into investing bootcamp because I want to make sure that all of the women in there have the right training and the right base knowledge. So I can help them further because I realized with a lot of my worth wealth mastermind and one-on-one clients, I was getting to the point where I was like, well, actually, you know, you should be investing bootcamp to learn this.

And actually the money management training and investing bootcamp is going to date you this. So I want the women that are really serious about learning how to manage their money better and set up that, you know, getting to their first a hundred K portfolio and beyond, uh, in there and getting the support. And I know women and they're actually serious. So make sure you come in and join before the end of the year is out in the next two weeks before I close it out. Uh, so that you're not missing out until the next time I re open it. Alright. Now I did say there were a couple of other ask me anything ANSES that I wanted to cover as well. And this has come up also a couple of times this week in the kiss, my money Facebook group. Um, and I'm going to add a link in the show notes if you are not part of that group yet.

So the other one is what if I'm in debt? And this has also come up for a couple of other reasons, too, like, they'll let you know, some of you girls are learning to get better at creating different accounts for your money, which is amazing. And the questions come up, you know what? I actually want to start getting ahead with investing now, but I'm in debt. And so my first question is, okay, get clarity on what debt right you're paying. So what rate you are of interest that you're paying and the thing that is really cool at the moment with the economy, with the federal reserve, continuing to, um, reduce interest rates is that loan rates are continuously going down, which means that your debt rate should be super low. So if you have any debt that is below 4%, then that means that you can pay off debt and invest at the same time.

Because if you've listened to a few podcasts on here before I have spoken about how the average return of the stock market is 10%. So you can get double your return on average, it's not guaranteed. You guys remember nothing is guaranteed. You can get double your return by investing rather than using that money, saving the 4%. So instead you could get on average 10% versus paying down the 4%. So that's why that's about the right. So, and the reason I say 4% is it means there's a bit of a buffer. So even if for the next year, whatever, we get a right, that isn't 10% or isn't 15% and ends up being 5% return. Well, at least you're still ahead of the right that you would've been paying off your debt. So it's just a rough guide of, um, to use, to know what you can do.

Um, cause I don't want you to be paying off credit cards at 18% and then trying to invest with that, no pay down your debt first at your 18% or even 12 or 10 or 8%, pay that down first. So you can get ahead and clear it so you can start fresh. Right? I do teach all of this in the money management training in investing bootcamp. So if you're, if you're at the point where you like, you know, I'm struggling with how to actually still manage my money, just know that that's also an investing bootcamp. Now the other one I get is what can I start with? Mentioned it before about a thousand dollars now that's if you do it yourself, obviously, like I said, if you go to a financial advisor, you can't start with that little cause you're paying way more than that every year.

Uh, but you can start with a thousand dollars now, when is the best time to invest yesterday. So unless you can invent a time machine and go backwards then today, and I'm serious about this, the problem, this is probably the number one thing that all financial experts agree on. And I will say that the financial experts do not agree on many things. You get so many opposing views from the big top dogs, right? But the one thing that we'll agree on is to start now. So that question often comes up, when is the best time to invest because people are worried about the next crash or they're worried about investing at the top and losing their money. So I get that, that comes from a Fiesta Guesty mentality, but here's the thing when you actually learned to invest properly a you learn that the best time to make the most amount of money is immediately after a crash.

And because no one can time that it's actually better, that you've already invested in, in so that you can capitalize on the rebound. Right? The other thing is when you start now and continuously invest, you take advantage of compound interest, which means that you'll be making more money. If you wait for a year or two also, when you continuously invest, you make use of dollar cost averaging. Now, if you don't know what that is, I'm not going to go into it in this episode. Maybe I can talk about it in another one, but I do talk about this in depth in the master class training. I'll also put that in the show notes. I know a lot of you have already done that training. Uh, it's about an hour long and it takes you through the kind of three major things you need to know.

And part of that is dollar cost averaging. Now the final one, what if I want to buy a house? Well, I've said this before that you can use stock investing to build up and help you accelerate the amount of money that you save and invest and grow to put into your deposit for a house. Bear mind. If you want to buy in the next couple of years for a house, then just focus on that. Uh, I'm a big believer in having a diversified portfolio. And in fact, that's something, that's another thing that financial experts agree on is having a diversified portfolio. So not just buying property, but buying property and stocks as well, because both assets perform at different times better or worse than each other. And so you want to capitalize on that. Uh, but if you have a short term view, meaning a couple of years, which is a short term view, when it comes to investing in anything, then focus on that primary thing that you want to do.

But if it's five years or beyond, then start investing now, right? Even, even if we have a slight correction, it doesn't last five years, most corrections rebound within six months and then it's all over. So keep that in mind that even if there's a correction, like it's over pretty quick. And so we're, we're back to where we were within a really short period of time. Most of them don't even last beyond eight months. So the other thing I want to just to talk about on that, uh, is that listening to the news is most probably hindering your success because the news is designed to be fear-mongering, it's designed to elicit emotion and it's designed to have headlines that shock, right? And the way to do that is to make big, bold statements. Most of them, uh, completely untrue and most of them have zero foundation whatsoever.

But if they make these big headlines, they get more views. Um, and viewers, and that's been a strategy that's been in play for a very long time. And so the reason is the news doesn't help you is this it's reporting on the past on things that have happened. No one holds a crystal ball, no one knows what's going to happen. Definitely know your uncle, definitely not your friend, definitely not the news headlines and even experts around the world have been talking about a correction or a crash happening or coming all looming. Well, the economy may be being in turmoil, uh, for the last probably four to five years. And all that's happened in the last four to five years is the economy has gone up. We've had like two year, I think it was 2015 and last year will not stellar years. Um, but maybe that was our correction.

Maybe that 2% loss that happened in those years was our correction. And was it, and here's the thing in terms of our history, the economy hasn't even hit the longest bull period, meaning where we are right now in a really long bull period, about 10 years where we haven't had a major correction and minus 2% or minus 5% is not a correction or not a crash. They term a crash beyond a loss of 20% for that year. Uh, sometimes a corrections between 10 and 20. So we haven't even faced that yet. Right. But when we look at history, we've had longer bull periods. And in fact, we have another 18 months to even two years before we hit that longest ball period or even exceed it. So we have an even come close to what's happened in the past. Like we've already seen this in the economy in the past, like this has already happened.

We know that we can continue going longer with the economy continuously going out without any correction whatsoever. And so I want you to bear in mind that you can continuously grow your wealth, regardless of what the news headlines I have, regardless of what someone else says when you have the right plan and strategy in place. And I hate it when I see so many people listening to everyone else that is honestly just projecting the beliefs onto everyone else because they don't have the knowledge about how the economy works. And so I just wanted to touch on that because I still get comments and I see still see it that, you know, this is like FIA because I've read something in a head in the newspaper or they've seen it on TV. And I don't know, maybe we will have a correction next year maybe, and you know what great, I welcome it because then we can all bloody move on and not focusing and all be focused on growing or money rather than, Oh my God, what's going to happen.

And then wait two years and then still it continues to go up. So we've covered off a few questions. Difference between investing yourself and robo advisors and financial advisors, what you can start with the best time to invest. What if you're in debt? What if you want to buy a house and what happens if the economy crashes I'm going to add in a few more, ask me anything, answer episodes, uh, throughout the podcast, as I get more questions, because I know that my answers help a lot of you to get clarity on some things that you've been wondering as well. All right, babes. That's it for me today until next week. I'll see you then