Susan Misner and Laura Jayne McDonald launched GoldenGirlFinance.ca in 2010, in an attempt to make financial advice for women fun, fashionable and smart. We can guarantee you’ll come away from their site having learned something you can apply to your daily finances.

What are your professional backgrounds, and what brought you to the financial services field?
 
Laura - Together, we bring the insider and outsider’s point of view to finance. I have a communications and marketing background, employing this primarily in an entrepreneurial career that has included communications consulting for the financial services industry. That said, I don’t have a financial background per se. Prior to Golden Girl Finance, I was that rather typical urban woman - professional, very modern and very busy - who just didn’t have time to enter finance into her life and was all too happy to leave that up to her husband. I recognized that there were too many women just like me, but the question was how to reach them and more importantly, how to ENGAGE them. That’s when Susan and I partnered up - and where my messaging background played a key role.
 
Susan - From a very early age, I was always fascinated by money and the fact that money could make more money. While other girls my age were obsessed with social activities and shoes, my obsession was rooted in compound interest and dividends. I always reasoned that it was far better to own the bank than owe the bank. That passion is what led me into the financial services business where I worked as a Wealth Management Consultant for nearly 18 years. The idea of achieving financial independence and helping others do so has been my true calling in life. After many years in the business, I became dismayed at the lack of women I was seeing seated at the table to discuss their money. I instinctively knew that someone from the financial industry needed to reach out in a big way to engage women across Canada: to educate, inspire, and motivate them into taking control of their finances. As a woman, wife and now a mother, I truly understand the complex financial needs of women and truly relate to their dreams and aspirations.
 
How did you meet each other and start working together?
 
We actually knew each other through friends and acquaintances about 10 years ago, though weren’t close.  We reconnected about 7 years later, by chance, when our daughters ended up in the same dance class (we were mothers to 5 young daughters between us by then). We also found out that we lived on the same street!  We started talking and one thing led to the next….Golden Girl Finance was born (it launched July 2010)!
 
While we don’t want to stereotype, what are some key ways that women’s financial habits differ from men’s?
 
In general, we believe that the basics of personal finance and investing are not gender specific, though effective ways to communicate these principles most definitely are.  That said, women tend to shy away from truly investing their time, energy and money into wealth creation for their own needs and that of their children.  All too often, women relinquish control of major investment decisions – allowing their partner or others to dictate how the money should be handled.  We believe that women need to get more informed, educated and engaged so they can truly grab hold of those purse strings - thereby ensuring they can handle future life events in a position of power. All too often women are stereotyped into being risk averse. We don’t buy into that; we feel women are risk aware. They simply won’t invest in things they don’t understand, thus the need to reach out and deliver educational content that reaches women in a voice with which they can relate.
 
Why do you think it’s important to have a financial site that’s geared to women, specifically?
 
In our opinion, it’s  about changing up the messaging to make the discussion of finance more engaging, compelling, relevant and accessible – something that women actually want to fit into their already harried lives.  Yes, there are tons of great educational websites and books devoted to financial literacy, but research is showing that women still aren’t satisfied with the financial services industry.   Furthermore, of those sites targeted specifically towards women and money, most focus on penny-pinching, steals and deals, which seriously undermines the notion of women and financial power. As such, GoldenGirlFinance.ca focuses not only on personal finance, but also on investing, the stock market, career and business in a fresh, modern voice.  It’s got a conversational quality – like a girlfriend sharing her secrets, understanding your challenges, and relating the subject to products and situations with which women can identify and relate. Further to that point, more often than not, women will not only conduct financial due diligence when making a decision, but will also conduct emotional due diligence. Traditional financial firms and media simply didn’t speak to that; we saw the gap, and we’re filling it!
 
What advice would you give a woman who has always let the men in her life handle the finance?
 
It’s time to get in the game and it’s time to surround yourself with your own circle of financially savvy friends.  Our goal is not to turn women into financial experts, but to get them informed enough so they feel more comfortable getting engaged in the discussion of finance and connecting more effectively with the financial services community. While GoldenGirlFinance.ca is unbiased and does not invest on behalf of readers, we strongly feel that women need to connect with their own team of professional advisors (financial, legal, tax, etc), so they can navigate life’s circumstances in a position of strength.  We relate it to women in this way…. As women, we tend to surround ourselves with our own professional team whom we call on regularly – you know, our hairstylist, masseuse, pediatrician, babysitter, etc – while our spouses form the relationships with the financial advisor, lawyer, accountant, etc. Should something happen to the marriage down the road, where does that leave the woman?  Scrambling. Enough said!
 
Ok, here are a couple of test questions:
 
Rent or own?
 
The easy answer is, that depends. However, this is an interesting question at this stage in the real estate market. Depending on the province or area you live in, it may actually be more preferable to rent right now. For decades, cultural trends in both Canada and the United States have favored home ownership. As a result of an extended period of historically low interest rates and the expansion of the availability of credit, real estate prices have risen substantially. As we reported in a recent article, The Economist stated that Canadian home prices are overvalued by 71% relative to rents and 29% relative to income. In theory, home prices and rents should increase at a similar rate, as a measure of the desirability of the location. When buying prices escalate faster than rents, it's a sign that artificial forces are at work (access to credit and cultural values). As Ben Rabidoux points out in the article, “Houses tend to be bought on credit, but rents are paid out of income. When credit is cheap and readily available, it can for a time, push house prices up much faster than rents.” As such, consumers will favour purchasing a home even when they can’t afford it.
 
How much money should you have in the bank at 20? 30? 40?

The consensus among our team of experts suggests that regardless of age, during your working years you should always have a minimum of 3 months salary set aside in a bank account as an emergency fund. Once you are retired and living off your investments, you should have a minimum of 1 year’s income set aside in cash to protect against serious market fluctuations.
 
So you’re financial experts, but we’d like to know about your biggest spending sins. Care to share?
 
Laura – Shoppers Drug Mart.  Seriously, I am addicted to collecting Shoppers Optimum Points (20x points days...they make my day). I’m a make-up kind of girl, so I love getting lost in the lipglosses, liners and shadows. Being the mom of 3 young daughters, I also stock up on pull-ups, toiletries, lunch snacks, etc. And the best part...I always get tons of free stuff! Hmmm, maybe this isn’t a sin after all....
 
Susan – Living in Winnipeg, or Winterpeg as its affectionately known, I’m a sucker for great coats and quite often get sucked in at full retail. Coats are a wardrobe staple for me. During the winter, because the weather is so cold here, more often than not I don’t take my coat off  in a restaurant or a meeting, so I need many varieties as it becomes my outfit.
 
GoldenGirlFinance.ca is a free personal finance and education site for women.

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