Start Investing This Year Without Overthinking Every Decision

If you’ve been telling yourself, “This is the year I’m finally going to start investing,” but somehow another month goes by and you still haven’t done anything, this episode is for you. Investing hesitation is almost never about intelligence. It’s about uncertainty. What if you pick the wrong thing? What if the market drops? What if you should be doing something else with the money first? And when every decision feels high-stakes, it’s easy to stay stuck in research mode and call it being responsible. In this episode, Shari Rash, founder of GWA Wealth, breaks down where to actually start if you want to invest this year. You’ll learn the investing order of operations, why cash reserves matter before you start putting money into the market, how to think about employer matches, IRAs, Roth IRAs, taxable brokerage accounts, and why consistency usually matters more than picking the “perfect” investment. You’ll also hear why sitting on too much cash can quietly cost you, how to think about investing when you still have debt, and why the goal is not to become obsessed with investing — it’s to build a plan you can actually stick with. You’ll hear: Why smart women delay investing even when they know they “should” start The three-question filter to help you know what money is ready to invest The investing starter path: cash base, employer match, IRA or Roth IRA, and taxable brokerage Why time in the market matters more than trying to time the market How to stop letting fear of the wrong move keep your money sitting on the sidelines If you want help building a personalized investing plan for your actual life — your income, your taxes, your goals, your timeline, and your real-world decisions — learn more at gwawealth.com. This is exactly the work Shari does with women who are doing well on paper but want to feel more confident and in control of their money. Talkin’ Points → where your money gets smarter. Real talk, practical tips, zero guilt straight to your inbox. Sign up here. Be sure to like and follow the show on your favorite podcast app! Keep the conversation going on Instagram @everyonestalkinmoney This episode is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. The information discussed is general in nature and may not be appropriate for your specific financial situation, goals, risk tolerance, or time horizon. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. References to retirement accounts, Roth IRAs, traditional IRAs, taxable brokerage accounts, employer retirement plans, dollar-cost averaging, asset allocation, or other financial strategies are intended as general education and should not be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any specific security or investment product. GWA Wealth is a registered investment adviser. Advisory services are offered only to clients or prospective clients where GWA Wealth and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from registration. Nothing in this episode should be considered an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or advisory services. For more information about GWA Wealth, including services, fees, and conflicts of interest, please review the firm’s Form ADV Part 2A and related disclosures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG: HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.

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  Progressive's Accident Response can contact emergency services if you're in a major accident. The only thing worse than someone you love being in an accident is not being able to help them. So Progressive is here to help when you can't. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected with Progressive's Accident Response. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Limited availability in California. Driver is responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy. Coverage subject to policy terms and conditions. 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,

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  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. Not always on purpose, sometimes it's just the culture, but the result is the same.

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  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. 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.

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  And I promise it's a lot less complicated than you've been told.

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  Before we jump in, a quick disclosure. This episode is for educational purposes only and is not personalized financial investment tax or legal advice. Welcome back to Everyone's Talkin Money. I'm Shari Rash, founder of GWA Wealth. And after almost 20 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. It's about uncertainty. It's the uncertainty of what if I picked the wrong thing? What if I start at the wrong time? What if I should be doing something else with this money first?

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  What if the market tanks right after I finally put money in? 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. 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.

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  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 delay 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. 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?

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  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 20 years. That one distinction alone can save you from a lot of bad panicked decisions. The question isn't, what should I invest in? 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.

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  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. 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.

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  Again, this is what is actually going on when you are not investing. You just feel like you need to understand everything. And look, I get it. You're smart, you're thorough, you read the room, 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. You did not fully understand every mechanism of your car before you started driving it.

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  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. 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. 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.

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  That is not possible. 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.

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  Reason number three, that we don't start investing. 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. 401k, IRA, brokerage account, or some combination. Lump sum or investing monthly. Which platform or app? What risk level am I comfortable with? What if I pick the wrong funds? It's a lot. And when everything feels equally important and equally uncertain, the brain does what the brain, what brains do. It defers. It waits for a better moment. It does more research.

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  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. 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

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  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 you only, and the household income is only your income, you might want more cushion. 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.

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  Neither of those is a winning situation.

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  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, 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.

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  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. 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.

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  The right one depends on your income, your tax situation, and what you think taxes would look like for you in the future. 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.

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  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, and this matters a lot for our audience. Retirement accounts are amazing, but not every financial goal is a retirement goal. 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.

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  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. Well, 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. That's your starter path.

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  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. 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

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  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. 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

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  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. 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. Not one. Not hedge fund managers,

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  not a common economist, 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. And guess what? It's so boring. Boring is wonderful. Boring is how wealth gets built.

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  Dollar-cost averaging, which is just a fancy phrase for everything I just talked about, is investing a consistent amount on a regular schedule. That smoothes 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. 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.

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  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. They're the seatbelt when it comes to your portfolio. Cash equivalents 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. UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.

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  The third thing that matters more than picking the perfect investment is your behavior. 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. 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.

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  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. You do not need to babysit your investments like a toddler who has gotten a hold 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.

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  Review it periodically, maybe once or twice a year, or when your life changes significantly, and rebalance if needed. 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. 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, it also recovers.

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  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. 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.

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  There is a point where excess cash in a savings account, even a high yield one, is costing you an opportunity. 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? And what is the rest waiting for? Build a plan and start moving it. Or maybe you're the woman contributing to her 401k and nothing else. This is incredibly common. This is Shari in her twenties and early thirties.

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  You set up a 401k 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. Your 401k is locked up until you're 59 and a half 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.

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  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.

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  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 is tied up in retirement. That, my friends, is worth looking at and considering. Or how about this? 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. And this is a hot take. You, you may, you know, Google or talk to someone else that feels completely differently, or listen to other shows that feel completely differently.

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  Some, 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? It's, 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,

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  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. You may need an intentional split, a clear plan for how much goes into debt reduction and how much goes into investing, running simultaneously.

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  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. 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.

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  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. 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. Question one: What money am I keeping safe because I may need it soon?

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  Get specific, not my savings, actual amounts. What is sitting in savings for a reason? 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. 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.

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  Question three, what decision have I been avoiding because I'm afraid of getting it wrong? Name it specifically. 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. 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,

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  distracted, or overwhelmed. You do not need to become an investing expert to start building wealth. You need a clear next step. 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. 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.

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  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 everyonestalkingmoney.com or GWawealth.com. 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.

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  Also, share this episode with a friend who also is scared or nervous or in analysis paralysis when it comes to investing. 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.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work, powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay and Workforce Management.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Shop Black Friday appliance savings and get up to an extra $1,250 off select appliance purchases like GE Profile. Plus, free delivery on appliance purchases of $398 or more. Make life easier with the fridge that doubles as your personal kitchen assistant. Or upgrade your laundry room with the Ultra Fresh Vent System Plus Front Load Washer. So your clothes stay fresh after every single wash. Shop Black Friday appliance savings with fast free delivery at The Home Depot. Offer valid November 4 through December 2 at participating stores and at homedepot.com. U.S. only. See store online for details.