Reason to Lean In: A Man is Not a Financial Plan

My heart goes out to a young widow, two fatherless children and a man who died in his prime.  

For those that don't know who Sheryl Sandberg is, she is 2nd in command to Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook. She is Harvard educated and wrote the best seller "Lean In" 

On top of that, Sheryl is self-made having accumulated a net worth of over a billion dollars.  This is very rare since the majority of women who are billionaires become so through inheritance.

And get this: she made more money than her husband...but that wasn't an issue for him; a life with the woman he loved was far more important to him than how much either one was making.

Sheryl is my working mother hero.  Many women have criticized her decision to continue working while raising a family because she and her husband could have afforded a SAHM arrangement on her husband's income alone. Her husband, Dave Goldberg was the CEO for another Internet company.

The question I've been pondering after hearing the news about his death and want to discuss with my readers is this: Where would she and her children be today had she decided to Lean Back and be a Harvard housewife instead?

A man is not a financial plan.  Your husband can divorce, die, or get disabled without notice.

Sheryl had gone through one divorce (no children in first marriage) and now she is a widow with two children still in elementary school. But because Sheryl has been working full-time outside the home since graduating college, she does not have to worry about big financial issues that many widows/divorcees face such as having her house going into foreclosure, declaring bankruptcy or losing health insurance benefits.  Nor will she have difficulty finding employment that can earn her a living wage due to a 5, 10, 15 year employment gap.  Many women in this predicament do not have savings or money for retirement either.

Sheryl at the moment probably feels like she's lost everything because losing a spouse is a significant loss.  I bet she's trying to figure out how she will keep going through life without her companion.  But I know she will eventually figure out a way to keep going.  She can and will continue to take great care of and provide for her two children.

Mr. Goldberg chose wisely in having a smart, accomplished wife, rather than retreat from or try to dominate her.

If any of you are on the fence about continuing your career with kids, you can think about it this way:

Being a working mother is not something selfish that you do for yourself and to the detriment of your children. 
You are insurance for your family if something were to happen. 

Women Need to Think Serious about Retirement Planning

Women tend to be savvy with couponing, budgeting and hunting down sales.  You see a plethora of tips on Pinterest about these things. However, women tend to pass the buck on long term financial planning such as retirement.

Why is retirement planning a big deal for women?

Well for starters, women live longer.  They outlive their partners well into their 90s. What is 90 minus 65?  25 years.  If you think about it, that is just as long as a second career.
The longer you're alive, the longer you need a source of income to keep up with the expenses that come with old age.

Social Security benefits and Medicare isn't going to cut it for your golden years.  It will not be enough to live off and not enough for your medical expenses.

If you are working and only contributing up to the employer match (3% to 6%), it won't be enough.  You need to contribute at least 10 % of your paycheck to a retirement plan.

If you are at home and dependent on a spouse for your livelihood, he needs to contribute at least 20% of his paycheck to a retirement plan for you and for him.

The majority of women over 65 today worry silently that they will outlive their retirement savings.  For many it will happen.

If you are making a lot of financial sacrifices now to be home with your children, you may be struggling to contribute to retirement on a regular basis.  If this is the case, you should be thinking about going back to work sooner than anticipated to a job that allows you to contribute to a retirement plan.

The longer you delay retirement planning the closer you are to eating dog food at 85.



More informative links here for women and retirement planning.

Wiser Women

Social Security: What Every Woman Should Know

Alina is LinkedIn

I had a wrong perception of LinkedIn for a long time but once I learned about it and its benefits from use, I finally got sold and signed up effective Friday 2/20/2015.  

Let me share you a personal experience as to why you need LinkedIn and how to use it the right way.

When I was searching for a nanny, I used Care.com (for childcare jobs).

I posted a job description and people applied.   To my utter shock and horror, many candidates did not meet the criteria we needed for the position, were not a good fit for us or were looking for more pay than what we could offer.  So here I am, awake late at night, getting a bit desperate to find someone before my start date at my new job in a couple of days.  What do I do next?  

I began setting my search criteria, hit "Run" and reviewed a list of candidates that popped up from my search. Because phone numbers and messages were disabled for contact for free subscribers, I paid a year subscription so that I could message the nannies I had a vested interest in contacting for an interview.  Both of the nannies that I hired to date were from me finding them first.  

Well it just so happens that corporate recruiters on LinkedIn think the same way when needing to find someone for a job. 

Here's some suggestions that will benefit you with LinkedIn:

Sign Up Now for a LinkedIn Profile if You Don't Have One.       
Not having a LinkedIn account for what it can do for you is your #1 mistake.  

Even if you are not planning to work, you still need one in the event you need a job or know someone that needs one.  You need to complete it as much as possible, keep it active and stay connected with former colleagues, friends with professions, and recruiters that may and will post information of job leads.   

Corporate recruiters are the money makers for LinkedIn and probably 90% of recruiters use LinkedIn exclusively to source talent.  Going back to the nanny experience, I do not find nannies any other way now other than through Care.com so I am more convinced than ever that companies from all types of industries are going the LinkedIn route.  

But having the account isn't enough.  You need to do some things with it:

Have a picture.    
It didn't help me at all when I was reviewing profiles on Care.com  It honestly felt like the person was trying to hide something.  Corporate recruiters and hiring mangers feel just the same way on LinkedIn.  

It is important to put up a photo for the job you want and make sure the photo gets that message across to the recruiter.  You want to be executive? Then dress like an executive.  A fitness instructor?  Look motivated and active. A brilliant startup entrepreneur with a rebellious personality?  Have an edgy picture and don't mention your MBA degree.  

As a frantic mom desperate to find someone for my baby it was a relief to see nannies with pictures of herself holding babies. Pictures of the nanny being near LDS temples helped because it gave me and Dave the impression that the nanny did not smoke or drink and would respect our standards should she choose to live in our home.  It did not help me if I saw a profile picture of a nanny's eyes rolling or something blurry or greyish skin tone.  And definitely not an emo-esque selfie because the only impression I got from that was "She probably will hurt my baby.  Next"

Bottom line: If you have the wrong picture on LinkedIn, recruiters will think you're ghetto and call you only about ghetto jobs working with ghetto co-workers.  A wise senior leader said this to her group: "People's perception of you is people's reality of you" 

Set Your Profile to Public.
The truth is that it's not who you know, it's who knows you.  If a recruiter can't find you, they won't know who you are.  Please take the risk by putting your best self out there and make yourself searchable. The added connections in the LinkedIn network do help in the search but they take time to build up.  

Complete Everything in Your Profile

LinkedIn is not a resume but still needs to be professional.  The resume is crafted for a specific job you are formally applying for; you only list relevant information that ties to the job description and don't list everything you've done to date.  The best thing about LinkedIn is that you get to tell the story of your career, how it all started, and everything you've done.  The more complete your profile is, the more searchable you'll appear to recruiters.  There is a feature that measures your profile strength but what it really measures is your profile's ability to be noticed by recruiters.   

Put Yourself in Shoes of Employer by Using Generous Amounts of Key Words.
In my nanny search I paid attention to key words such as "I can provide references" or glance quickly  in a nanny's profile summary of how many families the nanny worked for, how long and ages of children in care, and how far away she lived from our house.  If I liked what I read from her profile, I  contacted her right away about the job.  

A corporate recruiter does the same thing on LinkedIn when finding a specific candidate for a specific position.  Key words help in your job search so please take the time to write your summary, your experience, a compelling headline and use up all 50 skill set words in the skill set option.  Recruiters pay a subscription to search profiles and set criteria using key words from various job descriptions you're interested in.   

Consider a Paid Subscription if You're Looking for Work.  
If you are actively looking for a job and need one quickly, it does help to have a paid subscription.  The benefit is that you will always show up near the top of the search...as long as you have the right key words.  I know this because Care.com does the same thing.  Free subscribers will get pushed down the list as new subscribers enter the system and employers/recruiters won't scroll down and view the entire list if the search result is too long.  Seasoned recruiters can still find good candidates without a paid subscription but it will take a bit longer and play with the search criteria to get different search results.  

I can't speak for all recruiters but to me, a paid subscription signals that you are serious in looking for a job, especially if you are unemployed.  Depending on the budget the employer has set, recruiters are more likely to contact a candidate over candidates that aren't actively as looking because it would mean having to offer more money to make a candidate quit their current job.  

Keep in mind that a recruiter's first priority is for the employer and the job seeker second.  Their job is to get superstar talent for the least possible amount of money for the employer.  

Which brings me to another good reason to join LinkedIn...if you are happy at your current job and have the necessary skill set another employer needs, you get the opportunity to be poached with a lucrative compensation package to make you dance with the consideration of leaving your current job.  This enables you to negotiate higher raises at your current job or make more money at a new one.  

Connect with Recruiters and Follow Companies
On LinkedIn, you need to connect with recruiters and it is easy to do.  Select "People", type the companies you're interested in, and type "recruiter"   A list will populate. Just send an invite request to be added and more likely than not, a recruiter will add you in their circle for something in the future.  If you are looking for work, make a recruiter's job easier by letting them know you're looking in your headline and personally messaging them. 

You also need to follow companies so that you can identity employees or recruiters in places you are interested in working in.  

So there you have it, the benefits of LinkedIn from a different perspective.  Sign up and put your best self out there.  Add me to your connections if you haven't already.   I will be more than happy to add you!

Making Decisions With Confidence - When Deciding to Stay Home or Work

The Stay At Home Mom Vs Working Mom decision is a probably one of the most internal struggles women go through because it typically involves issues like these:

Uncertainty - You honestly don’t know how you are going to feel until after the baby comes.

Complexity - It depends on the situation...each mother has different family dynamics, different needs, different jobs, different backgrounds and different children.   

High Risk - the impact of the decision may be significant. 

Alternatives - Each has its own pros and cons. 

Interpersonal - Difficult to predict how other people will react.

A lot of people wonder how some mothers adjust perfectly to the transition of quitting their job and staying home and/or staying home but go back to work and be extremely happy with their choice, what's it like and whether they could do it too.  

Well I can tell them because I've done it.  I've reflected on this for some time and noticed two things.

First, I feel that many women postpartum rely too much on luck, timing, or instinct to make a decision, on top of being sleep deprived and overwhelmed with the well-meaning but unsolicited advice on motherhood.  Second, women on both sides that are unhappy with their decisions more often than not, try more vigorously to defend them than those who are happy with their choices and just move on with their lives.  

When it comes to something as serious as working or stay home, you need to be objective, not emotional.  You need a systematic approach to decisions so that no matter what type of decision you have to make, you can make decisions with confidence…and never feel guilty as an end result.  

The best way to make a big decision, as I discovered is to use an effective and systematic process, known as Critical Thinking.   

There are three Steps to Critical Thinking: (1) understanding the issue, (2) analyze the problem, and (3) explore options/alternatives.  

If you don't do the first two steps effectively, you cannot do the third step.  Let's take a look at each one in more detail.  

1.  Really Understanding The Issue  

Very often, you look at something on the surface and think “Well this is obviously the problem, it’s what we got to solve, very simple – problem solved”  But when you dig deep into it, you realize the problem you’re actually dealing with isn’t the problem at all.  Get to the bottom of it and understand the problem it is you are trying to solve.  

2.  Analyze The Problem 

Making sure you understand the facts and numbers in front of you.  This step is crucial.  

You can’t make a good decision about staying home or going back to work unless you’ve really done your homework, you have the facts and data, and you’ve had that rigorous analysis performed.  

In the spirit of staying home vs working, I want to stress that it is very important to discern facts from logical fallacies—statements designed to manipulate a reader by appealing to emotions rather than intellect.  There are many logical fallacies in both sides of the Mommy Wars but I won’t list them here.  Use facts – not logical fallicies as basis for your decision. 

Staying home vs Working more often than not involves a cost benefit analysis to determine important things like (1) will you continue to grow savings and (2) is it worth your time and resources as a result of choosing one or the other.  

You can include intangible items to the analysis but please consider that including intangible items and estimating a value for these items within the analysis brings more subjectivity into the decision making process, and as I said earlier, the decision must be an objective one in order to make the decision with confidence.

This is purely subjective, don't add this to your analysis.
There is plenty of market research from Procter & Gamble
that American women clean 4 hours a week instead of 14.  

Here's one example in how to be objective in a cost benefit analysis of staying home vs working: 

The take-home pay on one income needs to be smaller than you think.  If with an employer matching 401k, the breadwinner should increase retirement contributions by 10% because women outlive their men and need something to live off, the 50% of his SSN benefits isn't just going to cut it.  The breadwinner also needs to bump up the life insurance premiums to cover expenses without problems for at least a year in the event the breadwinner dies.  Depending on the employer, health insurance premiums are more expensive when you add a second child and beyond.  This results in the take-home pay being smaller and needs to be considered if you're serious in going off on one income - you do need to mitigate the risk by budgeting for these things rather than just hope for the best.    

3. Explore The Options

The truth is that rarely, there are immediate answers to a problem.  There are always several, and it’s really about exploring all those options and making sure you made the right decision in the end.  

Explore all options

There isn’t a one-size fits all solution when it comes to staying home or going back to work…there are multiple solutions and it’s very important to explore those in depth. 

Repeat this 20 times

In terms of making the decision around the best approach, you ask questions such as

“How important is ____ to me/us?” 

“What are some things we truly could not live without?”

“How sustainable is this option for our family if we continue this approach?”

“What are my options in the future if I choose X or Y?”

In conclusion, these were the steps I took when I approached the decision of quitting my previous job to stay home and again a few months later when approached with the decision of returning to work or continuing to stay home.  

After reviewing all aspects of the situation and giving careful, thoughtful consideration, I made my decision.  Both times, it turned out to be a really great decision for the situation at hand and it resulted in broader opportunities and certainly less stress for the family.  Everyone came out happy in the end.  

Now go and make your decision and respect the decisions of others.