Start Investing This Year Without Overthinking Every Decision

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Shari Rash (1:24): If you've been telling yourself this is the year I'm finally going to start investing, and then somehow every month goes by and you still haven't done anything, this episode is for you. Not because you're lazy, not because you're bad with money, and definitely not because you're not smart enough. Most of the women I talk to who feel stuck with investing are incredibly capable. They run businesses, lead teams, manage families, make big decisions all day long, and then investing comes up and suddenly it feels like walking into a room where everyone else got the instruction manual except you. That feeling is real and it makes sense because the financial industry has spent decades making this stuff sound way more complicated than it needs to be.

Shari Rash (2:17): Not always on purpose. Sometimes it's just the culture, but the result is the same. Smart women who are more than capable of building real wealth sit on the sidelines way longer than they need to. So today, we are cutting through the noise. Because if you're going to invest this year, I don't want you to start with stock picking, market timing, or some random person on the internet telling you what fund they bought last Tuesday.

Shari Rash (2:46): I want you to start with what actually matters. The foundation, the order of operations, the stuff that actually moves the needle when you do it right. Stay with me because later in this episode, I'm going to give you the simple investing order I'd use if I were starting from scratch. And I promise it's a lot less complicated than you've been told. Before we jump in, a quick disclosure.

Shari Rash (3:18): This episode is for educational purposes only and is not personalized financial investment tax or legal advice. Welcome back to everyone's talking money. I'm Sherry Rash, founder of GWA Wealth. And after almost twenty years in personal finance, working with women who are doing well on paper but still don't feel fully control of their money, I can tell you this. Investing hesitation is almost never about intelligence.

Shari Rash (3:46): It's about uncertainty. It's the uncertainty of what if I pick the wrong thing? What if I start at the wrong time? What if I should be doing something else with this money first? What if the market tanks right after I finally put money in?

Shari Rash (4:04): Those are not dumb questions. Those are completely reasonable things to wonder. But here's the thing. Uncertainty doesn't go away by waiting. It goes away by getting clear.

Shari Rash (4:17): So today we're going to talk about where do you actually start? What matters more than you think? What matters less than you think? And how to stop letting investing feel like this big mysterious, high stakes thing you'll deal with later. Because later has a cost and most women I know have already paid it longer than they need to.

Shari Rash (4:39): Okay. Before we get into anything else, I want to give you something useful right now. Not at the end of the episode, but right now. Because one of the biggest reasons women delight investing is that they don't know what question to ask first. They try to figure out Roth versus traditional or which app to use or whether index funds are better than ETFs.

Shari Rash (5:01): And then they get overwhelmed and do nothing. So here's your first filter. Before you worry about the perfect investment, ask yourself three questions. One, do I have enough cash that I won't panic if life gets expensive? Two, am I getting any employer match that's available to me?

Shari Rash (5:24): And three, do I know what this money is actually for? Retirement, flexibility, future options, or maybe long term wealth. That last one is the big one because money you might need in six months does not belong in the same place as money you don't need for twenty years. That one distinction alone can save you from a lot of bad, panicked decisions. The question isn't, what should I invest in?

Shari Rash (5:54): The question is, what job does this money need to do? Answer that question first and everything else follows. In a minute, I'm going to walk you through the actual starter path. But first, we have to talk about why investing feels so much harder than it needs to. Because if I skip this part, you're going to hear all the investing steps and still find a reason not to do them.

Shari Rash (6:22): So let's talk about what's actually going on when smart, capable, financially together women keep not investing. Because it's not what the finance bros would have you believe. It's not that you lack financial discipline or that you aren't thinking long term, please. Reason one, you need to understand everything before you start. Again, this is what is actually going on when you are not investing.

Shari Rash (6:55): You just feel like you need to understand everything. And look, I get it. You're smart. You're thorough. You read the room.

Shari Rash (7:04): You don't like going into situations where you don't know what you're doing. But here's the thing. You don't need to understand every investing concept before you start. You need enough understanding to make a reasonable decision. And then you need a system.

Shari Rash (7:23): You did not fully understand every mechanism of your car before you started driving it. You learned enough, you got comfortable, and now it's just a thing to do. Investing can work the same way. It's a skill that builds with time, and you have to start somewhere to build it. Reason two, you're afraid of making the wrong move.

Shari Rash (7:47): This one I hear all the time. What if I put money in and it immediately drops? And to that I say something very clearly. The market will go down. That is not a glitch.

Shari Rash (7:59): That is part of experience. It's not a mistake you made. Every investor who has ever built long term wealth has sat through market drops, multiple of them. The goal is not to avoid every drop. That is not possible.

Shari Rash (8:15): The goal is to build a plan you don't abandon every time the headlines get dramatic because the people who get hurt are not the ones who are invested when the market drops. They're the ones who panicked, sold everything, and missed the recovery. History is very consistent on this. Time in the market beats timing the market every single time. Reason number three that we don't start investing.

Shari Rash (8:46): Decision fatigue. Let me just read you the list of decisions investing seems to require all at once. Roth or traditional IRA or after tax account, ETF or mutual fund or stock, four zero one ks, IRA, brokerage account or some combination, lump sum or investing monthly. Which platform or app? What risk level am I comfortable with?

Shari Rash (9:10): What if I pick the wrong funds? It's a lot. And when everything feels equally important and equally uncertain, the brain does what brains do. It defers. It waits for a better moment.

Shari Rash (9:24): It does more research, but somehow that research never quite ends. You're not stuck because you can't understand investing. You're stuck because no one has made the right next step clear. So let's make it clear. Here is the investing order I would use if I were starting from scratch.

Shari Rash (9:47): Four steps in this order. Step one, protect your cash base. By having enough liquid cash, that means an unexpected expense doesn't send you into your investment accounts. If you have stable income and relatively stable expenses, that might look like three to six months of your essential expenses in a high yield savings account. If you have variable income, you're a business owner, you're the primary earner in your household, or you're single and your income is only and the household income is only your income, you might want more cushion.

Shari Rash (10:27): Six to nine months isn't excessive in those situations. It's just about being real about how your life works. The reason this comes first is that people who invest before they have adequate cash returns end up doing one of two things. Either they're too anxious to stay invested when things dip because they're worried they'll need the money, or they actually do need the money at the worst possible time and they have to pull it out. Neither of those is a winning situation.

Shari Rash (10:59): Cash first, then invest. Step two, get your employer match if it's available. This is pretty much universally agreed on in personal finance. If your employer offers a match on your retirement contributions and you're not taking all of it, every single dollar, you're literally leaving dollars on the table. I'll say this gently, but clearly.

Shari Rash (11:24): We do not leave free money sitting there on the table looking lonely. The match is part of your compensation. So get it. Even if everything else about your financial life feels complicated, this one is clear cut. Something you should be doing.

Shari Rash (11:44): Step three. Decide whether an IRA or a Roth IRA makes sense for you. I'm going to give you the short version here because I could do many, many episodes on tax advantaged accounts. And I have and I will in the future. But I don't want you losing three months trying to make the perfect tax decision when you could have been investing the whole time.

Shari Rash (12:06): So here's the simple version. A Roth IRA is funded with money you've already paid taxes on, and then it grows and comes out in retirement tax free. A traditional IRA gives you a potential tax deduction today, and then you pay taxes when you pull the money out in retirement. Both are good options. The right one depends on your income, your tax situation, and what you think taxes would look like for you in the future.

Shari Rash (12:37): If you're not sure, that's a great question to bring to a financial advisor or financial planner. And it's actually one of the things I work through with my clients every day at GWA Wealth. But please don't let the IRA decision be the thing that paralyzes you. Contribute somewhere. You can always optimize later.

Shari Rash (13:01): Step four, use a taxable brokerage account for flexibility. This one gets skipped constantly and I'm guilty of it. I've skipped this for a good part of my adult life and it can hurt. And this matters a lot for our audience. Retirement accounts are amazing, but not every financial goal is a retirement goal.

Shari Rash (13:27): Some of your money may be for a career shift you want to make in the next five years, a sabbatical, a move across the country, helping a parent, creating options you don't even know you'll want yet, but you're creating them. A taxable brokerage account, meaning an investment account that isn't locked up until retirement, can become incredibly powerful for midterm goals and for keeping your options open. Yes, you'll pay taxes on the gains and that's fine. You're building flexibility, not a tax loophole. We often focus on our future selves, but when we think of future selves, we think of retirement future selves.

Shari Rash (14:08): But what about from today up until retirement? We got to think about our future self there as well. So that's the order. Cash base, employer match, IRA if it makes sense, and taxable brokerage for flexibility. Four steps.

Shari Rash (14:26): That's your starter path. And if you're listening to this and thinking, okay, I understand the order, but I still don't feel confident applying it to my own actual life. That is exactly where personalized planning matters. Because the internet and podcasts can give you information, but it cannot tell you what makes sense for your income, your taxes, your goals, your timeline, your family, and your real life. That is the work I do through GWA Wealth.

Shari Rash (14:59): I'm the founder of GWA Wealth, and I help women who are doing well on paper build clear, personalized financial plans so they can stop guessing and start making confident decisions with their money. You can learn more at gwawealth.com or check out the show notes because at some point, it's not about collecting more information. It's about making a clear decision and moving forward. Okay. So now let's talk about the part that trips people up even after they know where to start.

Shari Rash (15:35): And it's not what you think it is. This is what matters more than picking the perfect investment. Most people who feel anxious about investing are focused on the wrong variables. They're trying to pick the right stock, find the perfect fund, wait for the right moment to buy in and avoid the next downturn. And meanwhile, the actual drivers of long term wealth are sitting right there being completely unglamorous and mostly ignored.

Shari Rash (16:08): The first thing that matters more than picking the perfect investment, consistency. Consistency matters more than perfect timing. Investing $500 a month consistently every month regardless of what the market is doing is almost always more powerful than waiting for the perfect entry point. You know why? Because there is no perfect entry point.

Shari Rash (16:35): Not one. Not hedge fund managers, not economists, not the loudest guys on financial Twitter or X can consistently time the market. It is not possible. They can try to make you think it is, but it's not. What is possible is showing up month after month and letting compounding do the work over time.

Shari Rash (16:58): And guess what? It's so boring. Boring is wonderful. Boring is how wealth gets built. Dollar cost averaging, which is just a fancy phrase for everything I just talked about, is investing a consistent amount on a regular schedule.

Shari Rash (17:14): That smooths out your risk over time. When prices are high, your money buys fewer shares. When prices are low, your money buys more. Over years and decades, dollar cost averaging works in your favor. Two, asset allocation matters more than the hot stock.

Shari Rash (17:36): Asset allocation sounds intimidating, but all it means is how are you dividing your money between different types of investments? Stocks give you growth potential and they come with more volatility. When people say their portfolio dropped 20%, that usually is telling us that they're pretty heavy in stocks. Bonds give you more stability. Lower highs, but also lower lows.

Shari Rash (18:02): They're the seat belt when it comes to your portfolio. Cash equivalents handle handle short term safety and liquidity. The right mix for you depends on your timeline, your goals, and honestly, your personality. A portfolio that causes you to lose sleep is not the right portfolio for you no matter what the numbers say. The third thing that matters more than picking the perfect investment is your behavior.

Shari Rash (18:34): Your behavior matters more than your brilliance. This is the one that people skip over and then pay for later. The biggest investing mistakes don't usually happen because someone picked the wrong fund. They happen because people get scared, impatient, or overconfident at the wrong moment. They see headlines about the market crashing and they sell everything.

Shari Rash (18:58): They hear about a hot stock at a dinner party and they put more in than they should. They get impatient during a slow stretch and start messing with a portfolio that was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. Emotional reactions to market movement are expensive. Building a plan and sticking to it, even when it's boring, even when it's uncomfortable, is one of the most valuable financial skills you can develop. Fourth, time matters more than tinkering.

Shari Rash (19:29): You do not need to babysit your investments like a toddler who has gotten ahold of permanent markers. Checking your portfolio every day is not productive. It's anxiety inducing and it creates the temptation to react every time something moves. A good investment plan is designed to be left alone. Review it periodically, maybe once or twice a year or when your life changes significantly and rebalance if needed.

Shari Rash (20:01): That's it. The goal is not to optimize every week. The goal is to stay in the game long enough for compounding to do its job. And you might be thinking, But Shari, what if I invest and the market drops right away after I put money in? And my answer is it might.

Shari Rash (20:19): And that does not automatically mean you made a bad decision. It means you entered a market that moves. Welcome. Welcome to investing. Here's the good news.

Shari Rash (20:30): It also recovers. Okay, so let's get concrete here because my listeners, you all are in different places and the starter path looks a little different depending on where you're starting from. So here's one example that might resonate with you. The high earner who has been sitting on too much cash. You have a solid income.

Shari Rash (20:55): You've been saving diligently, maybe too diligently. Your savings account has grown substantially and you keep meaning to do something with it, but you haven't gotten around to figuring out exactly what. If this is you, you may not need more savings. You may need a deployment plan. There is a point where excess cash in a savings account, even a high yield one, is costing you an opportunity.

Shari Rash (21:22): This is my tough love moment. Inflation is doing its thing. Your money is technically safe, but it's not growing the way it could be. The move here isn't to throw everything into the market at once, it's to get intentional. How much cash do you actually need to keep liquid?

Shari Rash (21:41): And what is the rest waiting for? Build a plan and start moving it. Or maybe you're the woman contributing to her four zero one ks and nothing else. This is incredibly common. This is Shari in her twenties and early thirties.

Shari Rash (21:58): You set up a four zero one ks when you started your job. You're putting in enough to get the match, maybe a little bit more. I was doing a lot more and that feels like investing and it's a great start. But here's what may be missing. Flexibility.

Shari Rash (22:14): Your four zero one ks is locked up until you're 59 without a penalty. That's a long time. And you may have goals, opportunities, or needs that show up way before then. Adding a Roth IRA and eventually a taxable brokerage account gives you money that can work for you on a shorter timeline, not instead of your retirement contributions to your employer sponsored plan, but alongside them. You may be building retirement wealth while leaving your midterm goals completely underfunded.

Shari Rash (22:51): There's an opportunity cost to putting all of your money in retirement. What if an investment comes up? What if an opportunity comes up and you can't take advantage of it because all of your money's tied up in retirement? That, my friends, is worth looking at and considering. Or how about this?

Shari Rash (23:12): Are you the woman dealing with debt and investing guilt? Here's a belief I want to disrupt right now, that you have to eliminate all debt before you can start investing. That is not true for most people. This is a hot take. You may Google or talk to someone else that feels completely differently or listen to other shows that feel completely differently.

Shari Rash (23:37): But for some people, waiting until all debt is eliminated, until you start investing, that is costing them years of compounding. Yes. High interest debt, double digit interest rate territory debt generally makes sense to prioritize aggressively. The math doesn't usually work in your favor if you're earning 7% on investments and paying 22% on credit card debt. Right?

Shari Rash (24:05): It's where is your dollar working harder? In that example, yeah, your dollar is working harder paying off that 22% interest. But not all debt is high interest. A lot of women are carrying student loans, car payments, or mortgages at lower rates and they could be investing and building wealth at the same time that they're paying down debt. You do not have to choose one or the other.

Shari Rash (24:30): You may need an intentional split, a clear plan for how much goes into debt reduction and how much goes into investing running simultaneously. Or how about this? Are you the business owner or the variable income, AKA lumpy income earner? If your income fluctuates, whether that's because you're self employed, you have commission based income or you're in an industry with seasonal rhythms, the starter path for you has one important addition before everything else, more cash cushion. Variable income means variable risk.

Shari Rash (25:09): The safety net most people need to feel okay about investing is larger for you than it is for someone with a stable paycheck. That's not a judgment. It's just math. Get your cash base solid first, and solid for you might be six to nine months or more of essential expenses. Then you can invest more confidently because you know you're not going to need to liquidate investments just to cover a slower month.

Shari Rash (25:39): Before we wrap, I want to give you the three part investing gut check I'd use this week. Keep these somewhere you can come back to. All right. If you do nothing else after this episode, answer these three questions and actually answer them. Not just nod along while you drive or you're on your walk.

Shari Rash (26:00): Question one. What money am I keeping safe because I may need it soon? Get specific. Not my savings, actual amounts. What is sitting in savings for a reason?

Shari Rash (26:13): Emergencies, a planned purchase, a buffer. That's your safe money. It belongs where you can access it easily without risking the principal. Question two, what money am I investing for long term wealth? This is the money you don't need for at least five years, ideally longer.

Shari Rash (26:35): If you can't identify this category yet, that's your starting point. Figure out where in your budget you can carve out a consistent amount for long term investing, even if it's small. Question three. What decision have I been avoiding because I'm afraid of getting it wrong? Name it specifically.

Shari Rash (26:56): Is it the Roth IRA you've been researching for months without opening? Is it the meeting with the financial planner you keep putting off? Is it moving money out of a savings account and actually investing it? Avoidance has a cost. Most of the time, the decision you've been putting off is not as complicated as your brain has made it.

Shari Rash (27:17): And the cost of one more year of inaction is real money you won't get back. The goal is not to become obsessed with investing. The goal is to stop avoiding it and to build a system that works even when you're busy, distracted, or overwhelmed. You do not need to become an investing expert to start building wealth. You need a clear next step.

Shari Rash (27:44): You need a structure. You need to stop believing that uncertainty means you're not ready because it doesn't. Uncertainty is part of the territory. The goal is to move forward anyway with a reasonable plan, not a perfect one. Investing will never feel completely risk free.

Shari Rash (28:06): That's not what it is. But sitting on the sidelines has a cost too. And most women I work with have been paying that cost far longer than they realize. At GWA Wealth, I help women who are doing well on paper, organize their financial lives, understand their options, and build a personalized plan based on their goals, timeline, and real life responsibilities. If you want help building a plan for your actual life, not a generic internet checklist, you can learn more at everyone'stalkingmoney.com or gwawealth.com.

Shari Rash (28:43): That is the work I do, and I would love to help you. Please follow the show on your favorite podcast apps. You never miss an episode and leave me a quick rating and review. It genuinely helps more women find these conversations and I read every single one. Also, this episode with a friend who also is scared or nervous or in analysis paralysis when it comes to investing.

Shari Rash (29:11): Remember, money is not here to confuse you, shame you, or make you feel behind. Money is a tool, and it's a tool that should be working for your life on your terms. I'll see you on Friday.

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