Stephanie McCullough is founder of Sofia Financial and co-host of the award-winning Take Back Retirement podcast. One of Investopedia's Top 10 Financial Advisors of 2023, Stephanie provides non-judgmental, truly holistic financial planning for professional women. She has found that women “of a certain age” are faced with a particular set of problems around the goal of retirement, especially those facing it on their own. Her mission is to empower women to make wise financial decisions so they can control their future, and thus she speaks to women’s groups regularly. Stephanie is married with two kids in their 20’s, and has degrees from Duke University and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Follow Stephanie @sofiafinancial and www.sofiafinancial.com.
Sofia Financial Insights - February 2025
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Sharing my latest thoughts on money and life with an eye to empowering more women to financial confidence. I'VE BEEN PONDERING One of my favorite personal finance books of recent years, and a blockbuster best seller, is The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It’s amazingly insightful about being a human dealing with this thing called money, and also very approachable because (a) there’s very little math in it (!!), and (b) it’s a series of brief essays as opposed to a dense academic tome. A quote from the book that I copied down at least a year ago seems particularly apt right now. Housel says, “Things that have never happened before happen all the time.” Uhhh…. yeah. We are living through that hour by hour right now! The financial conclusion is that we all need to have a margin of safety in our financial plans. Room for error, for the unexpected, for eventualities that you never imagined. Which on the money side means savings. Cash we put aside for what-if and just-in-case. Sitting there in the bank seemingly doing nothing, but in truth providing an essential buffer, life preserver, comfort level for… well we don’t really know for what. And it might be a series of “whats” all on top of each other. Like a dread diagnosis + need to help family + losing a job all at once. Or like the headlines from last Thursday. I know you can fill in your own list, either from personal experience or that of loved ones. As Housel puts it, “Savings is a hedge against life’s inevitability to surprise the hell out of you at the worst possible moment.” Seems like something we can all use right now.
ACTION STEP: Review your current level of cash (money you can access immediately or close to, that has no downside risk). How much do you have and where is it? What’s your comfort level with that? Would building it up a bit feel good right now? It’s an emotional as much as a mathematical question. RECENT SIGHTINGS
PERSONAL If we’re doing our job right, most of our conversations with you center on… YOU! Your life, your priorities and worries, your people and hopes for the future. We don’t talk much about ourselves. Yes, we were pretty excited that our Eagles soundly trounced the Chiefs in the Superbowl on Sunday! It's such fun when the whole region comes together around something positive. (If you call on Friday, we may or may not be out at the parade.) 🦅💚 LET'S CONNECT! Some of the coping strategies you shared after my last newsletter included
Please reply and tell us what’s top of mind and how you're coping. Bonus points for pictures!! Be careful out there, Stephanie |
Stephanie McCullough, Financial Planner, Speaker and Podcaster
Stephanie McCullough is founder of Sofia Financial and co-host of the award-winning Take Back Retirement podcast. One of Investopedia's Top 10 Financial Advisors of 2023, Stephanie provides non-judgmental, truly holistic financial planning for professional women. She has found that women “of a certain age” are faced with a particular set of problems around the goal of retirement, especially those facing it on their own. Her mission is to empower women to make wise financial decisions so they can control their future, and thus she speaks to women’s groups regularly. Stephanie is married with two kids in their 20’s, and has degrees from Duke University and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Follow Stephanie @sofiafinancial and www.sofiafinancial.com.
Sharing my latest thoughts on money and life, with an eye to empowering more women to financial confidence. I'VE BEEN PONDERING Today I decided to put my thoughts about investing in video format for you. Click on the image below to play. (It's about 7 minutes long.) Below is the image I created from Jason Zweig's Wall Street Journal column that I reference in the video, and here's an unlocked link to the article itself. **Remember that speaking with your financial planner is one of the items...
Sharing my latest thoughts on money and life, with an eye to empowering more women to financial confidence. I'VE BEEN PONDERING Apropos of nothing (!!), I share the recording of the Wellness Webinar we held for clients in January, where my coach Lindsay shares brain and body science about stress, and teaches us a very practical stress management tool to take back a bit of control in what can feel like an unending storm. The stock market has started to react to the uncertainty about our...
I'M WITH YOU People are feeling all kinds of things since November 6th. Me too, believe me. Bill and I were on a 6-day empty-nester getaway to Paris the week of the election. It felt surreal to be so far away from home, yet have every taxi driver and waiter ask us what we thought. I whiplashed between deep concern for what might come, and sheer wonder at the beauty and history (and delicious food!) around us. On the plane home, I paid for bad internet and read as much as I could to get up to...