The Meaning Of Wealth With Hilary Hendershott | HMM 47

EPISODE 47

[INTRO MESSAGE]

[00:00:08] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Her Money Matters Podcast, the podcast to help you take control of your finances. Join your host, motivational money coach, Jen Hemphill, as she shares with you practical, simple money insights and real life stories by women like you. Let’s get to it.

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:27.1] JH: Hey, it’s Jen Hemphill, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode on the Her Money Matters podcast. I’m excited to have you here today, it is the end of the month, we are nearing the end of the school year which means we are almost midway in 2016. Can you believe that?

So if you have thrown your hands up with frustration of — about your money, just “shake it off” like Taylor Swift says because we really have seven more months to make things happen before 2017 hits. You with me? So if you need some motivation, some cheering on, just go ahead, if you haven’t done so, join us in the Her Money Matters community at Jenhemphill.com/community. So I am excited today because I know you are going to absolutely love today’s guest.

Let me tell you a little bit about what we’re going to talk about in today’s episode. We’re going to talk about her surprising money story as a daughter of a financial professional, she is going to share with you the exact system she uses that has gotten her out of debt and into a seven figure net worth. You did hear right, a seven figure net worth. And she’s going to share with us why she feels strongly about money being a flow versus and object. Really what she means by that.

Let me share with you more about today’s guest, her name is Hilary Hendershott. She is a financial coach, money mindset expert and experienced wealth manager. She has worked for nearly 15 years with people who want to preserve their wealth, make it grow and eliminate financial stress once and for all. She’s a TEDx speaker and she’s regularly featured on Forbes, BBC online, Investopedia and Pierce Market Place and Women 2.0.

She has been interviewed multiple times by the Wall Street Journal. Her articles are syndicated nationally and she’s a columnist in Daily Worth’s connect platform for financial experts. So with more than 30 television appearances, she is the go to personal finance expert in the Silicon Valley for the NBC Evening News where they call her “The Investor’s Voice of Reason”. I am excited to introduce Hilary to you, so let’s go ahead and meet her.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:03:22.1] JH: Welcome Hilary to the Her Money Matters podcast. I’m so excited to have you here.

[0:03:28.4] HH: Thanks Jen, I’m so excited, it’s really fun to finally get to talk to you.

[0:03:32.9] JH: Yes, you are just have looking at all your accomplishments, I’m stoked to talk to you just because you’ve had a wealth of experience in the wealth business, if you will, I didn’t intend it that way. You just have, I know you’re going to have so much knowledge just so many good things to say, are you ready to dive in?

[0:03:57.9] HH: I sure am, I’m just real passionate about supporting and contributing to women and taking control of our money and growing wealth. So that’s really what gets me up in the morning, that’s my why.

[0:04:10.3] JH: I love it, I love it. So tell me, I want to know, we know about you the professional, we know all the amazing things you’ve accomplished, but tell me more about you Hilary. The Hilary at home, the Hilary just on the personal level; the sister, the daughter, those sort of things.

[0:04:27.6] HH: Sure. Just to give you a sense, I live in San Jose California, right in the heart of Silicon Valley. I’m in my home office right now and I’m sitting next to my big kitty cat, she likes the heater in my office so she keeps me company.

My husband and I both typically work from home. He is a professor of finance at a local university. I know, we’re sort of all finance all the time and he runs a hedge fund. So yeah, he runs a hedge fund in the office that shares a wall with mine. I run a financial services company, wealth management firm and we hardly talk during the day, we instant message each other occasionally.

[0:05:15.5] JH: I love it.

[0:05:20.5] HH: We have an office where I meet clients, I’m in the office about half the time, it’s just down the street, it’s a nice office and I do a lot of business virtually just like this. So I try to share content in print, and with my voice on my podcast. It’s a virtual world and yet, when it comes to money, sometimes it’s knee to knee, and eyeball to eyeball.

Let’s see, so I am married, I got married two years ago on New Year’s eve actually we went to Las Vegas, Nevada and got married. I had a hundred people fly out to Vegas. Nobody I love lives in Vegas and now if I’ve met you and you live in Vegas and you hear that, don’t take it personally, that’s not what I meant. We did have a hundred people come out, it was a big black tie wedding. It was amazing and we are now pregnant with our first child.

[0:06:17.7] JH: Congrats. So you just finished celebrating your second anniversary, you said two years ago right? And you’re expecting a child. Oh that is beautiful, congrats.

[0:06:28.3] HH: Thank you, we’re really happy, it’s just kind of coming together nicely and I think I’m kind of a win story for women who maybe get to thinking it’s too late for me or something, you know? I’m almost — I’ll turn 40 this year and pregnant with my first child and my husband’s 10 years older than me.

I mean, I couldn’t be happier with the way that it’s going. So yeah, we’re really sort of blissed out and my parents are both, have been remarried to my stepmother and stepfather for more than 20 years each and we all live right here in the San Jose area. So family’s local, my sister actually works for me…

[0:07:11.7] JH: Okay.

[0:07:13.3] HH: …inside the wealth management firm, she lives out in Sacramento, California, that’s the capital of California although even Schwarzenegger when he was the governor didn’t want to stay there. But, I think he private jetted from Los Angeles or Hollywood to Sacramento when you had to actually make decisions.

Let’s see. Some of my favorite sports although I won’t be snowboarding anytime soon with a baby in the belly, snowboarding is really my…

[0:07:42.0] JH: Do you?

[0:07:44.3] HH: I love it, just thinking about it gets me excited.

[0:07:47.5] JH: That’s funny because we had just…

[0:07:50.0] HH: I have that need for speed.

[0:07:51.0] JH: That is funny because we had just had that conversation about me and snow and just not loving it. So yeah. I actually tried…

[0:07:59.7] HH: If you are a sports person, you truck in, you take your four wheel drive, you get in, you do your fun and you leave.

[0:08:06.9] JH: No, I hear you. I tried skiing and cross country skiing, that was interesting, I’ll leave it at that.

[0:08:15.7] HH: I have respect for cross country skiers, that’s more like exercise than fun.

[0:08:20.9] JH: It is, it is. Yes, snowboarding, both my husband and my son, oldest, loves snowboarding. I haven’t tried it. Wonderful.

[0:08:30.3] HH: When you were doing cross country skiing, did your legs just looks fantastic?

[0:08:34.1] JH: It was just one time, I can’t — it was just one time, it’s just so I could say, “I’ve done it.” So wonderful, well thank you for that. Tell me a little bit about how you grew up around money. What your parents taught you, maybe what you learned, what you experienced, tell us a little more?

[0:08:58.5] HH: Yeah, I’m a funny case study. So my father was one of the first people really in the world to call himself a financial planner. Financial planning community is not very old because before there were financial planners, there were just stock brokers. In the 60’s, in the early 70’s, it was just sort of that, the kinds of people that they wrote The Wolf of Wall Street about. Selling stocks, sort of churn them and burn them kind of idea.

A really well-meaning group of, it was men at that time, got together and said, “Let’s do what’s right for the client,” and my father was one of those, he stopped having a commission business where he was selling individual stocks and started doing financial planning that serves the long term needs of the client. So I grew up around that and he and I have even talked about this. He said, “All that aside, I never really gave you money advice.”

[0:09:51.6] JH: Interesting.

[0:09:53.2] HH: Right, so he was doing this business, and again I was in the office with him all the time helping him with his computer stuff, doing data entry but there wasn’t really a dialogue about, “Well how do you achieve financial health in your own life Hilary?”

Then my mother was a medical scientist, so she worked for a large HMO and she was a great saver and pretty conservative with her spending but what impression that I got was that we didn’t have any money. She was saving so much of it. So I grew up, at the same time I had a head for numbers, really great at math, my degree is in economics.

But I had a really significant scarcity mindset. That didn’t have to be the outcome and I know that because my sister got the opposite, she’s a saver and I ended up being an over spender.

[0:10:49.2] JH: Interesting. So being the daughter of a financial planner in that environment and helping him out, so he didn’t — you were exposed to the financial planning as far as you knew what it does, what it’s meant for but they didn’t talk to you about budgeting or managing personal finances or maybe credit card dues right? That’s what I understood.

[0:11:19.1] HH: Right, no. In fact I got into credit card debt kind of the first week that the laws would allow me to have a credit card. I like to tell people, our retirement savings accounts are called IRA’s, until I turned about 22, I thought my father had a best friend named “Ira”.

[0:11:40.6] JH: That is so funny.

[0:11:41.9] HH: I know. Ira was very common word in our household but from the dialogue towards me wasn’t, “Hilary, be careful about credit card debt, you can’t spend today, what you can’t pay off tomorrow.” I don’t recall a single time someone said to me, “If you can’t pay the credit card bill off at the end of the month, don’t spend it.” That’s something, again, my mother probably has a 900 credit score. So I don’t know if I missed it or what? But it didn’t get implanted in me.

[0:12:16.1] JH: Interesting. How did you get involved into financial planning? Is it because your father was a financial planner or that’s how you came into that?

[0:12:28.8] HH: I went and did some other things. When I graduated from college, it really was at the top of the tech boom here in Silicon Valley, well the first one, in 1998, 1999 and I went and got, I tried to do the IPO thing with a startup company, we were venture capital funded and we spent like $30 million dollars and went bankrupt promptly.

Then my father generously offered to bring me into the business and he and his wife are 50/50 partners and so I came in at the age of 25 and started learning the business and so got — the education that you do right away is about the investing methodology. I learned a lot about the stock markets and estate planning and taxation and still, Jen, interestingly, not prudent spending. Not how to save.

So there’s this huge chasm I think out there, if you have a couple of million bucks and you can afford someone to work with you, great, more power to you but my question is, how do you get there? If you don’t possess that skill set, it certainly wasn’t — that education wasn’t made available to me. So interesting. So I’m like, I’ve got all this credit card debt at home and then I come to the office and I meet with millionaires and multi-millionaires and I give them investment advice.

[0:13:52.6] JH: That is interesting. It’s kind of like, you see this in all different professions where for example doctors. They’re there to give you advice all on health, right? They may go home and smoke a pack or two of cigarettes. So I think it comes all to definitely what’s going on around you and your mindset, which I know that you're definitely big on and I love the mindset piece as well. So you were working in the firm, your dad’s firm, and how did it evolve to what you’re doing now?

[0:14:31.2] HH: So I had mentioned that financial planners in the beginning were all men. My industry is still, when you look at what’s called fee only or fiduciary financial advisers, about 70% male. It is not an industry that tends to be very attractive to women. I have some opinions about that but that’s maybe neither here nor there.

But I’m 25, 26, 27 years old and I’m going to an industry conferences with my father and by the way, facing just incredible stereotypes and sexism from my colleagues and cohorts. I’m thinking, I don’t fit in here, I’m the wrong age, I’m the wrong gender and it really messed with my confidence and then I became aware of groups of women who were up to supporting women.

Now, that could be in career, that can be in parenting, that can be whatever have you. Mentoring but I thought, “Wow, what if there was a community of women supporting women around being financially successful?” Sort of planted the bug in my mind I guess you could say. Planted the seed and so years later, when I did transition out of the family firm, on great terms by the way, I really broke off so I could create my current brand which is about supporting women.

It took some time but I tell you, that moment where I realize, “Hey, you know what? I’m not the traditional financial adviser, I don’t look like Mr. Rogers, I’m not an old white man who wears suspenders but I am the right person for some people,” right?

I prefer female doctors, I know that there are a large cohort of women out there who prefer to have their professional service advisers be their trusted advisers be women. It was like, I had that aha moment and my business just exploded. I mean it was, I don’t know, you could say it was energetic or I put the vibe out to the universe or what it was, but things just really started happening for me and in my opinion I didn’t do or say anything different.

[0:16:50.1] JH: Interesting.

[0:16:51.6] HH: So it was a great reinforcement of that aha moment that I had and very, very empowering and so I have run with it and I love it.

[0:17:00.1] JH: Awesome because you don’t focus, do you do some financial planning still or do you focus in the other areas with the mindset?

[0:17:11.5] HH: So my bread and butter, the work that I do, the primary work that I do is helping women secure their financial future. I’m a leading adviser for women over the age of 50 and that’s most of the work that I do. I also offer some training, some online courses and a little bit of coaching.

When you say “the money mindset work”, I am very interested in impacting people’s money mindset and I tend to do that in kind of a group setting. So I don’t work one on one, I’m not a money therapist or a money mindset coach per se. For example, I’ll get my clients together, I have a pretty large subscriber base or following, folks who are interested in my teachings. I’ll have in person get together and I will invite women to talk about their money mindsets in groups.

[0:18:02.8] JH: Gotcha.

[0:18:04.2] HH: So I’m interested in impacting that, it’s something I talk about a lot but it’s not — I don’t particularly charge to do that alone if that makes sense.

[0:18:13.8] JH: Yes. You do financial planning for women over the age of 50 and then as far as your teachings, you do in group settings and that’s where you fuse in your money mindset genius.

[0:18:28.1] HH: Yeah, I talk about it in my articles and in my online courses. So if you get an audio training for me, it will probably be in there but yeah, no money therapy happening over here.

[0:18:44.6] JH: I hear you.

[0:18:45.8] HH: I’ll leave that to the experts in that. I’m really a numbers gal.

[0:18:49.7] JH: I hear you, perfect. Tell me about what would you consider your favorite money quote?

[0:18:59.9] HH: Oh, my goodness.

[0:19:00.8] JH: Or do you have one that comes to mind?

[0:19:04.0] HH: So many. You’re going to have to give me a second on that during this call. I can come up with one. I mean I know a bunch of Warren Buffett’s stuff by heart. Let me come up with a good one.

[0:19:19.8] JH: Okay, we’ll come back, we can come back to that one. What would you say you had told us that growing up you considered yourself a spender. Obviously you became a financial planner, you’ve become a successful business owner in the finance area field. What would you say you do well with money?

[0:19:40.8] HH: Well at this point…

[0:19:42.1] JH: On a personal finance level sorry, I meant.

[0:19:45.0] HH: The personal finance level?

[0:19:46.4] JH: Yes.

[0:19:47.3] HH: Yeah, my favorite thing that I created that I teach. I just want to teach everyone this technique is my special brand of financial automation, there are a lot of people who talk about paying yourself first and setting up savings to your IRA’s or your Roth IRA’s each month. That’s all fine and good.

I really add my sort of special sauce to that and I setup a series of accounts where I have my money flow exactly to where I want it. So it goes short term savings, long term savings but most importantly I have my curveball account so that’s all fine but mostly I have my — the key thing that makes everything mark is the spending account that I call “Today’s Fund”. Anything I spend, anything I make choices to spend today on, literally groceries, gas, Target, cat food, clothing, gifts.

A lot of people want to categorize their spending into these topical categories, but I actually think it’s far, far more powerful to categorize based on when you make the decision to spend. Did you make the decision yesterday? Are you making it today? Or are you saving it to make those decisions tomorrow. This system is exactly what allowed me to pull myself out of tens of thousands of dollars of debt while really experiencing the empowerment and confidence that comes with having a practice that’s working even when I was still below zero and it scales infinitely.

I am truly blessed to say that now with the business that I’ve built and the savings that I’ve done my net worth statement and I have a seven figure net worth, I’m positive seven figures. So transformation is possible but for me it’s like people who count their calories, there are some people Jen who just eat little bird sized platters and more power to them but I’m not that person. I love to spend money, I need this account to keep me in check so that I know I can spend everything that’s in that account down to zero and my net worth is nowhere near zero.

[0:22:12.4] JH: You hit a really good point because you know and this is something that I talk a lot about is really knowing what you want and being in tune to that. Yes, it’s good to listen to advice but they don’t know your specific situation, they don’t know your specific wants and it’s just really about that. And you’ve honed in on that, you know you like to spend and a way to keep yourself accountable is having that in that account, which is beautiful. I do something similar which I loved hearing you but you do it a little different. You call your account a today account which says does a lot to your brain, right? It kind of sends a message to your brain versus calling it food account or whatever.

I think that’s brilliant, because we separate our money into different needs like you mentioned your short term servings, we have an account for our trip so that way it’s just automatically. So every time we want to go on a trip, it’s just an automated thing, it’s a beautiful thing but I really love how you were very diligent as far as the name you came up with the account because that is just a direct message to the brain, which I think is powerful.

[0:23:29.6] HH: Yeah, I think what’s so important is that people really be able to internalize tradeoffs. So many of us are in the position where we have to subjectively decide, “Well am I going to buy that? How much am I going to spend today? If I don’t buy that, I could put it in savings but really I want it,” and so we’re sort of measuring our wants over our future wants and it’s really hard to gauge.

So for me, I’ve set it up so that I know what the money flows into my long term tomorrow spending account have me achieve in the long run. I’ve done that first and I know I can spend, I can have fun or I can spend conservatively, it doesn’t matter but I’m aware that if I overspend that account, it’s costing me what I want in the future and that’s rock solid in my mind and I’m so no longer tempted to go in at the end of the month and move money over from where I said it would be at the beginning of the month.

[0:24:35.0] JH: Right, right. Well I think that’s powerful, the system that you setup. Like I said, I do something different but you, with the names, just the power in that I think is great, it’s phenomenal.

[0:24:46.3] HH: Cool, thanks.

[0:24:49.0] JH: So you told us about what you do well with money, which is amazing. What about the challenges that you have with money on the personal finance level, of course?

[0:24:59.8] HH: Right now — my husband and I got married later in life and he came to me with, he’s obviously a PhD in finance and he doesn’t have exactly the same thoughts about money that I do. He was never an over spender and he is really good at keeping things in his mind. For me I have to have everything written down.

He had I think something like 12 credit cards and so the credit cards all have points systems on them, we get rewards. We paid cash, we charged our wedding on the credit card, paid it off and then went on our honeymoon for free. So there are benefits but the thought of having that many credit cards out there kind of puts me over the moon, like makes my brain explode.

I’ve kind of talked him down off the ledge a little bit, but he really doesn’t perceive an issue. It’s my issue because his credit score is great, we don’t carry the balances. But for me, right now, between his two businesses and my two businesses and the credit cards, we have probably like 32 personal accounts between checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards and it’s overwhelming for me.

[0:26:20.9] JH: I bet. So he is basically what I call the “travel hackers.” You know how they go — I don’t know if you would consider him that but maximizing the credit card usage for points for rewards and stuff. I know a lot of people but that, I don’t do that because that overwhelms be because like you just to have — because you would have to systematically get credit cards every so often to be able to gain those points and spend and really strategize on cause in order to get those points you have to spend a certain amount of money by this time and you have to strategize all that. It’s work.

[0:27:03.5] HH: Yes. Like I said, he can keep it all in his mind, he has all these credit cards in the wallet and we go out and if it’s the grocery store, he knows this card gets a better benefit at the grocery store versus the gas station. For me, no, it’s too much. I have to swallow my anxiety every time it happens, even though I truly have intellectually accepted it. So I wouldn’t say I’m completely free of financial anxiety even though the repercussions I fear aren’t there. I just personally got so burned on credit cards that I have a visceral reaction to them.

[0:27:44.2] JH: Right, right. Well, as long as he handles it and takes care of it I guess, maybe that gives you some piece of mind or as long as you don’t see it, right?

[0:27:53.4] HH: I know, yeah.

[0:27:54.4] JH: But then you see it…

[0:27:55.1] HH: We’re working to create — we’re working to merge our systems and it’s taking longer than it should. I mean here I’m supposed to be an expert on personal financial management and I’ll be honest, it’s taken two years and we just had our first official money date. We went out and yeah, we’re creating the project plan and saying all the things that we’re going to do together but it’s been slow going. I had to learn the right words to use that didn’t get me upset and didn’t put him off. So hopefully I’ll be able to share this all as it happens and then in retrospect to help other people too.

[0:28:38.8] JH: I think you’ve done great. We’ve been, my husband and I have been married 15 years and I think it was — I would say at the 10 year mark where we just had, we were working on some stuff, we did speak, we had money conversations prior to that yes. But there weren’t aways — there was always some hesitation, there was always maybe short because there was that fear in between one or the other for whatever the case may be in that timeframe, right? So I think it took us probably I would say 10 years. Really, I think it varies. There’s so many variations of why but I think you’ve done good just for the two year mark.

[0:29:21.9] HH: Thank you.

[0:29:23.5] JH: Everybody’s different.

[0:29:24.6] HH: I hold myself to a high standard.

[0:29:28.1] JH: I hear you. So I think we can move into now how you all manage your personal, if you could tell us a little bit about that, what goes into that and I know you mentioned you just had your first money date. Tell us a little more like how do you do the bill paid, does he? Yell us a little bit about that.

[0:29:53.3] HH: His money comes into his accounts and my money comes in to mine. So we literally have two different tributaries. I like to think of money as a river or a flow so rather than an object to be kept or lost like money isn’t a thing, it’s more like a flow. So it comes into those accounts and then we have a joint account where we each have our — I can spend whatever I want from this account and I don’t have to answer for it.

[0:30:27.2] JH: Yes, beautiful, I love that. I always advise that because that’s important I think.

[0:30:32.8] HH: Oh my gosh, yes. When I first got pregnant, I came home from a boutique a clothing boutique and I had spent almost a thousand dollars. You understand, I have to look a particular way when I go out in public and he says to me, “You know, I really don’t think this is the time to be spending that much money on clothes that probably aren’t going to fit you.”

I said, “You know what? This just isn’t a conversation we should be in. The last time I spent a thousand dollars on clothes was probably last year,” and I never go to the store and I don’t think that there’s — because there’s no right answer.

“Why don’t we just, we have to create our accounts where if I let the money build up in that account for long enough, I should be able to spend what I want.” We have that and we have our joint account and we kind of have a sense of how much we’re willing to spend each month but he has always paid the actual utilities bills and stuff and I’ll tell you, he writes checks.

[0:31:38.1] JH: Oh okay.

[0:31:39.2] HH: I tease him all the time. He’ll come and he’ll say, “Do you know do you have any stamps?” And I’ll say, “I think you should probably call the horse and buggy.”

[0:31:48.2] JH: You’re hilarious.

[0:31:56.9] HH: Kind of an old school method but he gets it done. Yeah, he’s just always done it and I’m happy to do it, I was single, obviously I was paying the bills but just kind of the way we started living together and then got married, he just kept paying the bills. So I take care of all my amazon account and everything like that, but other than that, it’s pretty simple.

[0:32:16.9] JH: Good, awesome. Well thanks for sharing that. So he takes care of it, you’re aware of what’s going on as far as — and the reason why I ask this is and some relationships where usually it’s one person that takes care of the bills, that’s usually how it works. But some of the women I come across where their spouse is taking care of the bills, they’re not aware of what’s going on with the money.

So I always say, “Make sure — you don’t have to manage as far as paying the bills, but make sure you’re aware of it so therefore that’s going to help you make better decisions when you’re out doing the groceries, when you’re out shopping for the kids,” whatever the case may be. So I’m sure you're probably aware of, have a general understanding of what’s…

[0:33:06.9] HH: My two things that I say lock in my system that make it work for me are one, the financial automation. So having that flow of accounts that’s working, and then two is checking your financial transactions every single day. I probably should have mentioned this when we were talking earlier but one of the things that I had to get my head around with all the credit cards is, I needed a place where I could see all the transactions.

So I use a tool called Guide Financial and it’s a tool that I actually give away to my client’s. Financial advisers pay for it on behalf of their clients. So it’s only available through financial advisers but you can use Mint or LearnVest, I think. I’ve not personally tried LearnVest but I think it works the same. Have you tried LearnVest?

[0:33:52.0] JH: I haven’t but yeah I know of Mint, but I have not tried LearnVest.

[0:33:57.7] HH: That’s Alexa De Tofil’s company. Okay, is it Alexa or Alexis? So I had to put all the data feeds for those credit cards and the bank accounts into Guide Financial Tool and I log in and I take a look at the dashboard every single day. Not on the weekends typically to be honest but at least I see the transactions and then occasionally, my husband and I are engaged in the conversation of, “Oh did you see this account? What’s this transaction for? Or I sent this product back to Amazon, we need to watch for the credit amount for it.”

So instead of — when you get to the end of the month and you’re looking at 275 transactions and you’re thinking, “What is that?” I really don’t think — one of the things I think they do really poorly from the banking system is what shows up on the name of the transaction. So the vendor. It’s like, “You’ve got to help us out with this. I need more information.” Sometimes it’s just a string of numbers or letters.

[0:35:04.5] JH: Or an 800 number and I’m like.

[0:35:06.0] HH: My goodness, what is that? When you look every day, you remember, “Hey, yeah, I did that transaction yesterday,” or sometimes a restaurant will accidentally run a charge twice or one time I had a server add a $100 tip for himself.

[0:35:25.4] JH: Wow.

[0:35:26.2] HH: Yeah.

[0:35:27.5] JH: It’s really important for those reasons too and identity theft as well.

[0:35:34.4] HH: I know. I don’t worry about identity theft at all because I look at these transactions every single day.

[0:35:41.7] JH: I know, actually a couple of weeks ago, I had an instance where I went to the grocery store just picked up a couple of things like using the self check out because there’s hardly anybody there. I just go, pay the things and then a couple of hours later I receive a text from the bank. So my bank is on it, love, love them and apparently someone — or what is the name? Fish? Whatever the name is where they get your account number and they went, they were shopping in Texas. Well I wasn’t in Texas. So it’s important for a variety of reasons including knowing that your card isn’t being used fraudulently.

[0:36:23.7] HH: Yeah, how great is it that now it seems like no matter what happens, if it’s fraud, you get your money back.

[0:36:29.0] JH: Yes.

[0:36:31.7] HH: People get so upset about it but I think, “Man, it could be so much worse,” you know?

[0:36:36.3] JH: It could.

[0:36:36.6] HH: It’s like the price to pay for the incredible convenience of being able to make purchases and have things shipped to you from all over the place.

[0:36:44.6] JH: Yeah, that’s wonderful. I appreciate you sharing that and who would you say is your favorite money celebrity?

[0:36:54.6] HH: It’s definitely Warren Buffett. It is definitely Warren Buffett. Actually, I thought of a quote from him but he’s just such a cool cat and he makes money like Midas and he really has a good sense of the individual investor and how people should handle their money in investing to be successful and he’s just such a great mentor so he’s my favorite.

[0:37:21.4] JH: Awesome. Well Hilary, that was amazing, I really loved your story, what you have to share and as you know, this podcast is all about making money simple and taking control of it. So how would you finish this sentence? Her money matters because ____.

[0:37:41.0] HH: Her money matters because the meaning of wealth is wellbeing and that means for us, enough comfort, enough freedom, enough choice, enough opportunity, enough self-confidence and peace of mind and ultimately no matter your opinion of the almighty dollar. Money provides choices and choices make life worth living.

[0:38:12.0] JH: Beautiful, that is so beautifully said. So tell us where is the best place people can find you so they can learn more about you?

[0:38:20.7] HH: Here’s a great opportunity. If you are listening to this podcast, just hit the search function in your podcast app and check out Profit Boss Radio where I will be interviewing both money experts and real people just like you and the idea is women don’t tend to have money clutches, we don’t tend to sit around and talk about money. We’re more likely to talk about marriage, sex, and the in-laws than we are to talk about our money.

So my radio show is an opportunity to just turn that channel on and hear how powerful and successful women are talking about and thinking about their money. I would love it if you would do that and if you want to find out more about me on the web, it’s just Hilaryhendershott.com.

[0:39:14.1] JH: Perfect, well I’ll be sure to put those in the show notes and thank you so much again for joining me today. It’s been great, it’s been fabulous getting to know you and I hope that we connect again soon.

[0:39:26.9] HH: Great, take care.

[0:39:27.6] JH: Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:39:29.6] JH: That was lots of good stuff right? I hope that you enjoyed hearing from Hilary as much as I enjoyed talking with her. Really the big take away for me from the chat with Hilary was her IRA or “Ira” story. One, it was funny. Come on, admit it. It was funny and those type of things just — that type of humor is my type of humor so bear with me.

Regardless, there were two confirmations, two things that it was confirmed yet again. One, about how important communication is. Just because her father was in the financial field didn’t mean that Hilary was automatically learning everything she needed to know about personal finances, right?

The second thing being that we really have to take money, the aspect of money education for our kids, into our own hands. Just like we teach them to make their bed, to brush their teeth, to take out the trash, to take care of the dishes. Any of those skills that we teach them to foster that independence, we also need to teach them that money skills. That is really up to us in my opinion.

Take it for what it is but in my opinion, I strongly believe that is up to us. Yes, in the schools that would be great but really, it is really up to us and that is why we need to be in the now, we need to be confident and we need to be comfortable to talk about money.

You can do that if you’re not there yet, it can start with this podcast, it can start with a book, it can start as simple as getting involved in our Facebook group because you’re going to be surrounded by people, like minded individuals, and that’s going to be a confidence booster that’s going to make you feel comfortable.

Before we completely wrap it up, speaking of our community, I want to give a quick shout out to Tracy, she has been a me member there for a little bit, she’s quiet but she is present and she’s taking action with her personal finances. I wanted to tell you Tracy that I appreciate you being in there, I appreciate you being present, I appreciate you sharing what you do and keep it moving forward because you can totally do this, we’ve got your back and we are here to cheer you on.

So that is a wrap for today, I want to thank Hilary for taking time out of her busy schedule to join us, to share her story, to share her tidbits, I hope you definitely got a lot of values. So Hilary, thank you for all that you did today and just be sure to check out the show notes so you can learn more on where to find Hilary and connect with her at Jenhemphill.com/47.

Next week starts the month of May and I’ll let you in on a little secret, it’s my birthday month and we are also going to be beginning a conversation next month on long term planning, there’s some good interviews I have in store for you. So definitely stay tuned for that.

So thanks again for tuning in today and we’ll catch you again next Thursday.

[END]