Welcome to our session, rule your financial world. Um And Marie and I, my name is Victoria. We um are very good friends and um we are also the finance sisters. So let me tell you who are the finance sisters.So we um met many years ago and have always enjoyed discussing finances. And um when the opportunity arose, we decided to start the finance sisters, which is um and our goal is to enable and empower women and allies where they come to take control of their finances. And we share the insights that we've gained from our own experiences because we are still and always on a financial journey. And we hope that we can bring as many women along as possible to also rule your financial world. And uh just a quick disclaimer, um We are not financial advisors and the content of this presentation um could be taken as information uh for information purposes only, it's not investment advice and uh make sure you always double check and do your own research when considering investing.

Um And that you understand what you're investing in. So that's just a quick disclaimer over to Marie f to introduce herself.

Yes, hello. Um, my name, my name is uh Marie and also welcome uh to this session. And, um, in, in fact, um, we launched Finance Sisters at the last year's women conference. So it's our first birthday. And, um, well, I know that some of you in the presentation who have been following us, um, all along. So thank you so much for it and also thank you for, for joining again. And um well, it's a birthday and um we, we actually have a present uh for you. Um I posted the link in the chat. Um So basically, um we have um a little free booklet for you that summarizes also what we will tell in this presentation because we know it's a very, very short time and we hope that it's useful uh for you to um you know, to use this booklet. Um And also later on we'll, we'll have a small discount code but do stay tuned. Um Just a quick one in that year, a lot of stuff has happened, you know, based on the experiences with you guys and also the tips you gave us. We worked on the finance sisters offers.

We have now engaged more than 750 women workshops and we, with our social media, we've written a book, a full book so that the guide from last year turned into a full book and it's been a hell of a ride and we're looking forward to write the story together with you. So, uh, yeah, thanks for joining and please continue sharing and spreading the love. Mhm. All right then. Well, the finances, as said, our mission is to, you know, get women in a state where they can take control of their finances and rule their financial worlds and, um, to be fair, we haven't reinvented the wheel. Otherwise we probably would have quit our jobs last year at the same time. Um, and do this full time. But we have taken all the information that's out there and we comprise it into five steps because we, we often hear that, you know, people are overwhelmed by the information, they don't know where to start. And in, in reality, it's not so difficult and we try to make that in our finances the steps.

So, um, you see them here, um, starting, you know, basically as for the journey, taking stock where you are now, um, to setting goals, then getting the investment started, but then also managing the investments, but very important, it's all underpinned by the same, uh, by, by, by the, the right mindset and it's a mindset of, you know, can do and, um, we'll, we'll dive straight into those five steps and hope that, you know, by the end of the session, you understand them a little bit better and can get started yourself.

Ok. Great. All right mindsets. I mean, there are many, many mindsets, um, to be aware of, we've picked out five, that we think are important here and in the guide that you get, they're also described in a little bit more detail but very quick. Um, I am smart enough to invest. Um, I think many people think investing and finance, taking care of your finances is, is for people who have a degree in finance, but that's not true at all. Um, you can do everything yourself. Um, if you set aside a little bit of time and you don't even need financial advisor. Um, so that's, um, one of our mindsets. The next one is knowing your attitude to risk. It's very important to understand how you might, um, react when, um, things don't go as planned, which will most likely happen. And the way we describe it is sleeping at night trumps everything. There are lots of, um, tools online where you can, um, uh, fill out a form and it will tell you approximately what your attitude to risk is. You can also change your attitude to risk over time. I think building more knowledge is the best way to do that. But knowing it is very, very important making up your own mind.

Um, yes, once you start investing, um, you'll see a lot of media attention, um, uh, on the latest hot stocks and the next crash coming up, you, uh, need to be very careful because, um, yeah, yeah, everyone has their own opinion on this and um it's easily to, easy to get distracted.

I live below my means that means spending less than what you earn, which enables you to save and to then invest. That's the cornerstone of um building wealth and building um financial security. And um the last one is that we think on a very long term basis. So when you invest or take care of your finances, you should be look at thinking at least 15 years in advance or maybe even or more actually like 40 years for some people. It might even be 60 years considering how long we're we're living these days. So these are just some mindsets, ok? Diving into step one, take stock this step um is actually a relatively simple step. You don't need to do anything new. You're just looking at where you are at this point in time. So you know where you are in terms of your cash, your assets and liabilities. One of the key measures um is knowing your net worth and that you can calculate that also relatively easy, easily by listing your assets and then deducting your liabilities from that. So assets, including your house, your cash savings, any existing investments you might have uh minus your liabilities, which includes um loans, uh like your mortgage, personal loans, those sorts of things. Then we um recommend you list your typical monthly income and expenses so that you can use that information to understand how much you might be able to save and invest currently and um work towards improving that in the future. OK.

These are very quick with going over this very quickly because of the time. But um you'll find information um in, in the additional resources that we

share and a quick one for taking stock. I saw one or two comments in the chat as in, you know, I'm investing, I want to do more. This is a great way to identify where you, you know, potentially have some wiggle room left to invest more or also where you can see where you can see where you probably can save something to free up room for investment. So,

ok, moving on to the second step, setting goals, you can't prepare for a future that you have not thought about. Um We like thinking very specifically about what our future, for example, what retirement might look like. So we know um how much money approximately we need to have at that point. So we can retire and visualizing the future is a good way to really like really getting specific about what your day might look like is a good way to start thinking about it. Um There are um also different calculators that you can um uh have a look at um to understand what your current savings might or current savings and investments might look like in the future and obviously um a slightly boring topic, but knowing your um pension fund and what that gives you is also um uh yeah, a good thing to know for future planning.

Um Maria, did you have anything to add to this? I know it's just so quick. But

no, and as I said, I, I see now there are a few new joiners. Yeah, this is a quick and short and sweet session. But um you will get uh if you, if you sign up to a newsletter, you'll get a little booklet that summarizes it all that gives a bit more insights and also that has more um uh has all the summaries. So I'll, I'll paste the link again.

OK. Over to Mar

Yes. So um one thing we want to clarify before we start investing is the difference between saving and investing because women are excellent at saving and some of them tend to be unfortunately, not so good at investing. What's the difference between those saving means making your money secure and um investment means making your money grow with saving. You're basically just setting money aside, for example, in a piggy bank or in a savings account, nothing is gonna happen to that money. Um Meaning it's you, you think it's not gonna get less, but it's definitely also not gonna get more because interest rates are very low as we know. Um However, because of inflation, actually, you will lose money over time investing means you make your money work for you. Um And uh that way. Hopefully just as a worker gets his wages, it, it can earn a return for you. Having said all of that before you dive into any investment adventures, we would advise you to do two things is if you have any consumer debt and I'm not talking a house or like a study loan, but you know, credit card debt, some, some other loans you take, get rid of them first.

They cost you a lot of money. They make you feel sleep bad at night, get rid of them and build an emergency fund of 3 to 6 months that in case you lose your job, you can live off that money. Ok. Yes. Um so now uh comes of course the interesting part starting investment but but how and why and what we say investment is is buying and holding assets to provide an income stream and go up in value over time. Yeah, which again is the difference to savings. So we're talking about providing income and and increasing in value, right? And there are many many many, many ways to invest. Yeah. And also the way that we're gonna tell you is, you know, is one of the ways we think is good for starters but there are many others and this is based that there are many things you can invest in an investment language, you call them assets. Yeah, so that basically means um what is an said? It could be, you know, in uh in uh houses, it could be very hot Bitcoin gold. Uh it could be stocks on the stock market and it has many take in, in forms. But what is common to them is that um ideally um yeah, sorry. So that, that, that's that. And um basically we say assets in the stock market and interest investing in companies that are listed on the stock market is interesting for a few reasons.

Number one, if you pick the right ones, the the value will grow over time, which is what we want, right, then they can provide you with dividends. So each year you might receive a dividend, which can provide an income stream to you or make your money grow even further. And also you can pick and choose and invest in accordance with your principles, meaning you invest in, in companies that you like. And um you know, you don't, you don't invest in those that you don't like potentially

great. So um when researching for this presentation, we found out that there are 630,000 companies in the stock market. So how do you know which ones to choose? And luckily for us, there are some relatively simple options that we can uh delve into that we will delve into now to help you find those companies. And actually John Bogle, which is a very famous man in the investing world. He said, don't look for the needle in the haystack, just buy the whole haystack. And what do we mean by this? Well, um let's think of uh the haystack as being um this image here and we're saying that um you would buy a fund that tracks an index and in this case, the Quality Street uh is the name of the index that you're buying. And this index um describes which companies in this case, the chocolates are in the index and which are out of them. So they decide how many companies, what mix of um companies um are in this index. And that's the same as ETF S. So index funds and ETF some of you might have heard um these terms before, they're essentially the same thing. It depends on where, where you might be located as to what access you have. But um ETF S are probably the main thing that you would be looking into.

So how do you buy an ETF? Um Well ETF S are listed on stock exchanges around the world. They are similar to shares in one company but you buy the uh so you buy them like shares using online brokers for example, and one share in an ETF gives you a very small part of all the companies that are in the, in, in this ETF. So in the Box of Quality Street, um there are many, many ETF S around. Um and yeah, you need to research which ones are most relevant to you, you have, for example, ones that cover only the developed world or they cover companies in emerging markets or they might cover companies in the US only or Europe only or country specific only. So there's many, many around. And um I think in our guide, we have some uh some more information on how to find those. He had some

um a quick one. I saw a question on usual funds of the same as ETF. That's um partly for the, for the Q and A session. But you know, basically um the ben we we the benefits of investing in the ETS. It's, it's easy and it's, it's simple, right? Because remember I said before, the nice thing about investing in the stock market, you can pick companies you like and avoid companies you don't like, which is correct. But then, you know, you would need to pick the winners and with an ETF you can buy literally a tiny piece of thousands of companies at the same time, meaning you really spread your risk. So even if one or two companies perform really badly, you still have, you know, 1000 others to make up for it. And actually let me in on a, on a secret, multiple studies have shown that these ETF S which by like thousands of companies at the same time are performing better than 75% of investors. Yeah. So all these clever bankers will take a lot of your money because they tell you which is the secret winning company for the future. 75% are no better than, you know, what, what you can do with a SIM, simple click.

And I told you, you know, you don't need a banker to tell you the secret ETF S are handled by computers, meaning they are very, very low cost. And you know, some, some people think it costs don't matter. But on the long term horizon that we speaking of costs can matter to the difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And you won't even recognize it if you know, if the costs have been sneakily taken away. So that's why we say ETF S are a great way to start investing and by the way, just a quick work on, on the risk, we said risk is important. Um And yes. Um so as I said, you, you do spread risk because you have thousands of companies. So you don't put all your addicts in the basket. Yes, it's still all in the stock market. So, meaning if the stock market really, really crashes, like it did, for example, in Corona Times, then that can be a problem. But we also said you do it long term and when you look at the development of the stock market for 30 40 50 years, um it has always gone up. So even, you know that Corona did, we actually already over it, the financial crisis did, we're over it and the market has doubled since then. So in the long term, you are basically riding out.

It's like a roller coaster, but it goes up in

the long way. Yes. And a, and a good thing is to not try to time the market, like, just I ignore the ups and downs because in the long term chances are it will go up and, um, by time trying to time the market and selling at the low point or at the high point, it's very, it's very hard to tell and it's best just not to do it.

Yeah. In the book, by the way that um you, you get um with the link I provided in the chat, there is a link to a market timing game which is exactly that point. It's um quite an insight. Yes. Um very quick and you'll have those in the book if, if you think, OK, I need to get going well first through your research. Um There is, for example, great websites which show all types of index tracker funds. Um We recommend a broad global one because then with only one fund, you have a really broadly spread basket. Um but you know, have a look, you can filter in all shapes or forms and lots of your techies here. So I'm sure that will be easy to do. And if you don't have that yet, then set up an account on, on a trading platform, which is pretty much the same as opening an online bank account. You know, as always look at research comparison sites for your country. They'll tell you one that does that they are easy to use and have no fees. Um, and if you can create an automatic savings plan, so, uh that those plans are available, you can invest 25 or 50 or 100 or 200 whatever euros dollars each month. So you don't have to think about it and it happens in the background and do it on the day you get paid, it's called pay yourself first. And um also, you know, do check local tax benefits and think about investing priorities.

Um You'll see in step four and five, it's a bit from here, a bit of a revolving thing you keep on um checking a little bit. But um yes. Oh sorry. Yes, continuing. So as as we said, you know, you started investing and by the way, there is a good balance, do some research. So you're not like a complete blind person. Yeah, but you never know at all. And even the bankers and the professionals don't know at all. Just get started, get started. Very simple as some of you as I read in the chat have you can always change or like um increase or whatever. But we think after you have the initial start, don't, don't wait for it because otherwise you'll never start jump in the water and then continue with, you know, building knowledge and, you know, make a list of topics that interest you, you know, start reading financial blogs or follow the finance systems or, you know, you'll see as, as obviously as lots of on the internet, of course, has everything on the internet, be careful of what you consume.

But I'm sure you all, you know, figure out if somebody is really telling some bullshit. Um otherwise we'll have also a great list of, of stuff to get you started in the book and you know, become part of a community to exchange knowledge. And I think finances, this is a good place to start. We also have an Instagram by the way, right? And then last step is, you know what I mentioned already before this, this fine tuning. Yeah, and get started because you can fine tune and nothing is ever perfect. If you know your life changes, you have more money, you have less money, whatever. You can always adapt your strategy. And if need be, you could even sell your money and, and get it back. Having said that be careful, adopt it slightly like a captain steering a ship. Sometimes you have to steer a little bit to not get off course, but don't go like this on the steering wheel. It's not gonna work, right? So, keep a steady hand.

Uh great and gosh, we're already um out of time, but very quickly. Um We wanted to illustrate um two examples um to show you that small changes can make a huge difference to the size of your investments. So the first one is the monthly investment amount. Um Yes, we try to do as much as possible. The difference between €5200 I know is quite a lot. Um but the the point is to try to save and invest really as much possible, the number of years, the longer the better because this really allows compound interest to take full effect and um give you as much returns as you can. In this case, the annual return approximately 7%. This is the assumption that people normally work with when they look at stock market returns over the long term, it's 7% per year and that's even after adjusted for inflation depends a little bit what country you come from. But in the U si think it's 6.8% after inflation and then the fees. So something like a mutual fund which uh Shweta um asked about um ETF S are very similar, but mutual funds have um higher management fees because you've got um people determining the mix and changing the mix of what is in the funds um on a regular basis.

And these annual fees actually make a huge difference on your return in the long run. So, um fees are really important to think about um something like robo advisors, for example, as well have um, have much lower fees but still some fees which you could potentially avoid if you wanted to. Although Robo advisors are also a really good option for people just getting started. And yes.

So basically, um, as I mentioned in the chat, um, the time is over, but I think we don't get kicked out, so feel free to go a little bit longer, type your questions. And, you know, we, we already posted the link. I'll do it again. Um download our free booklet by signing up to the newsletter. Um And you know, if you like what you have seen um have a look at um buying our ebook and worksheets, um you get a €10 discount. So for half price when you use the code, uh W uh TGZ when we take local conference at checkout. And also, as I mentioned before, we are super excited and you guys are the first one to learn about it to launch our email course because we started last year with a short guide similar to what you get now, but not as good at that time. Then people said, oh, we love it. Can you do it a little bit more? So we did, we wrote the book with 100 and 50 pages with every step with not only text but heaps of exercises to really get you in the mindset. And again, people say, oh, we love it, but still it's so much we don't really know how to get started.

So we now um made a six weeks email course to get you started in six weeks and it takes some content from the book and some um and, and we throw in lots of other resources that we found incredibly helpful when we started. So in six weeks, it will take you hopefully all the way to, to being an investor. And we launched that email course today also for a special price of €10. And we have a bundle of book and course which um you know, uh would would be if you use the code for 15 uh euros. However, do get started with the free stuff. Have a look and um yeah, it's, it's all there for you. And most importantly, please do spread the word if you, if you like our content and if you think it's helpful, that's very important as well. And do get in touch for us if you want to organize a longer workshop, we do something like this which usually lasts about 1.5 to 2 hours where we also do real exercises with people. Um And you know, we play market timing game and we just have more time uh then now. So uh yeah, please please do, do that. And um I would say thank you very much.