Lacy Garcia, Founder and CEO of Willow, joins ChedHER to discuss the most pressing financial issues impacting women today, and everything you need to know about prenups.

chedHER

These are the Financial Issues Impacting Women Today

joining us now is lacey Garcia founder and ceo of willow, lacey. So glad to have you. What do you think are some of the most pressing financial issues impacting women today. We went through some of the key moments of life but what are you hearing Asia? So thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be on with you this morning. So uh the most pressing issues facing women today really, three of them are first the fact that women, you know, it costs more to be a woman actually when we can get into that in a little bit more detail. Second that women as we know, earn less than men over the course of their lifetime. And third they also you know tend historically to have started investing Later, therefore they're putting less away in retirement. Um you know, accumulating less wealth and that's all compounded by the fact that we tend to outlive men at least by an average of five years. So I think the first one really is you know that the cost of being a woman is estimated to be about 252 Even a million plus over the course of a lifetime. And part of that is I know it's crazy right? Part of that is that that pink tax which is not really a tax, but just the fact that you know, women tend to have to pay more for similar products and services to men, you know, they're also societal expectations, career expectations and you know that causes us to spend about 37 um $100 more year and beauty of, I think were 76 more percent on our wardrobe. You know, then women, you know, unfortunately the gender pay gap is still 82 cents to the dollar. And for mothers it's 70% uh, 70 cents to the dollar. And then, you know, finally, um, and also there's the time away from the workforce, You know, women who for childbirth or for, you know, raising Children or caring for loved ones. So that compounds the lack of, you know, less income. And then, you know, historically women started investing later. But I will say on a positive note, is that millennial women sort of a recent study by Phil, any by fidelity found that millennial women As opposed to kind of older generations who started at 30, the average age for millennial women now is 21. So that's some encouraging news, wow, wow, wow. I'm just thinking also in addition to everything you just mentioned the unpaid domestic labor that so many women take on in their households as caretakers for their Children and their families. But I want to talk with you about this. I'm so excited about this topic. Tell us about prenups and some of the common or surprising myths surrounding them. So first one is the fact that only a few people get a prenup and the reality asia is that if you get married, everybody gets a prenup, it's called State law. So I think that's a good place to start, right where the fact that you know, actually putting in place a personalized prenuptial agreement gives you the ability to not just be at the mercy of you know, a third party in terms of how your assets um you know could get distributed in the future. So that's a big one. And the fact that you know, I think historically people felt like prenups were just for just for the wealthy or they only protected the wealthy. Um and then you just made a really excellent point about the value of unpaid, you know, care and and and home home work and childcare. So, prenups are also critically important for, you know, for women or for men caregivers who take time out of the workforce who are the parent, you know, who's enabling the other um the other, you know, spouse or partner to earn money. But you know, it's it's really important to make sure that they are set up so that they'll receive alimony, you know, and and that that unpaid labor gets credit. Um So those are just, I think a few of them, but there are many more um myths that that really do need debunking. Yeah, and as you mentioned, these are no longer, it sounds like for just celebrities or those we expect to be extremely wealthy and have something at stake in a marriage. Are there any cons though to signing a prenuptial agreement, you know, it's it's obviously this is a is a hard conversation to have right part of the cons is just the stress about it, feeling kind of uncomfortable. All the all the stigmatism you know, behind it that you may not be committed or you may be forcing your partner to do something that you want. So that's really the one of the biggest cons, right? It's just how the fact that you know, it can be, it can be uncomfortable and it can force some very difficult discussions. Um you know, and in the worst case scenario, potentially you you know, you have this conversation with your partners, you're looking to get married and it ends up leading you to understand that you have differences that you cannot come together on. So those are really the main cons. I think another con that's talked about a lot is that sometimes prenuptial agreements are not, you know, don't stand up in court and that is a bit of a myth in the sense that it's important. One thing that's really important is that that you have lawyers involved and that you make sure that this is, you know that this is well done and kind of a legally binding document and then if it is, you know, kind of fair and legally binding and it will have a better chance of standing up in court and definitely not enough time for that topic. I feel like we need a whole show on the legality of marriage moving forward. So fascinating. That's lacey Garcia, founder and Ceo of Willow. Thank you so much for joining us.