Personal Finance, Robo Advisors & Sourcing Financial Information

Barbara Friedberg is an MBA, MS, and former portfolio manager, who is committed to investment and money education across multiple platforms. She currently owns and manages Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance.com, which is dedicated to improving investment knowledge and wealth. She consults for a select group of fintech companies and writes for many popular online media outlets.

Today, Barbara joins the show to talk about financial influencers, the difference between robo advisors and actual advisors, & what she thinks about investors choosing to pick individual stocks.

📺 Watch on YouTube

https://youtu.be/9X08VOkx4-s

Key Takeaways

00:59 – Jonathan introduces today’s guest, Barbara Friedberg, who joins the show to discuss how her ‘Depression Baby’ parents influenced her outlook on finance

05:33 – What led Barbara to blogging about the FIRE Movement

12:11 – The goal of Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance.com

14:28 – Barbara’s thoughts on financial influencers on the Internet

19:02 – Barbara’s thoughts on individuals picking stocks

22:49 – Robo advisors 2

7:29 – Overcoming the roadblock of second guessing ourselves

31:43 – Situations that call for an actual advisor

33:53 – One thing we can do to increase investing success and one thing to completely ignore

37:23 – One thing that Barbara would want people to know about her and the one question Barbara would want to know the answer to

39:43 – Jonathan thanks Barbara for joining the show and lets listeners know where to connect with her

Tweetable Quotes

“The goal [of Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance] was to get a book contract. I knew nothing about making money with the blog. That all came later. In collaboration with other bloggers, I learned, ‘Wow, people are actually making money with this. I can do this too!’ And my eyes lit up and I realized I could create a real job where I’m making a lot of money from my blog.” (12:18) (Barbara)

“And I would recommend to anyone, whomever you’re listening to, make sure you know what their background is so that you can assess the level of accuracy of their information. And also understand how they are getting paid.” (16:16) (Barbara)

“The benefit of the robo advisor is you can change your asset allocation. You can change it whenever you want.” (29:27) (Barbara)

“Many people just don’t have the interest to learn enough about investing to make those types of decisions. And, if you’re one of those people – I don’t care what your financial situation is – you may want to at least have one or two meetings with an advisor. And then there are wealthier individuals who have more complex situations, and they definitely need an advisor because they need somebody to talk about their tax situation, their estate planning, and all of that stuff, and they need help.” (32:04) (Barbara)