On this week’s 51%, we kick off our series on women in business. Financial advisors Kathleen Godfrey and Gretchen Meyer offer up some Investing 101, and Judy Herbst of Savvy Ladies stresses the importance of building financial independence.

Guests: Gretchen Meyer, president of Gretchen Meyer Financial; Kathleen Godfrey, president of Godfrey Financial Associates; Judy Herbst, executive director of Savvy Ladies

51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive director is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

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You’re listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women’s issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I’m Jesse King. 

Today we’re launching our Women in Business series. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be hearing from a host of women financial experts, entrepreneurs, and volunteers. To kick things off, we’re talking financial literacy and investing. As a somewhat-recent college grad myself, this is an area that I have been particularly intrigued, confused, and intimidated by over the past few years - and I figure I can’t be the only one. I feel it’s important to note that, for many people living paycheck to paycheck, getting to set aside fund for the future is a privilege in and of itself - but the tools we’ll discuss today are helpful for everyone. 

Our first guest today is Gretchen Meyer, owner and president of Gretchen Meyer Financial in Latham, New York. Meyer says she never initially thought she’d go into financial planning, particularly because her first experiences with money were stressful and unstable. As a kid, money became scarce when her parents took a risk and quit their jobs to open a small business, which, ultimately, proved unsuccessful. Meyer credits a theater scholarship with allowing her to attend Boston University, and it was there that she ultimately met her first husband. 

“To me, he represented more, like, financial security. He was in law school, he came from an affluent family, and I thought maybe [he was] somebody who could protect me. And so we got married when I was 22, and, unfortunately, the marriage didn't work out. And I found myself in my mid 20s, suddenly single, with a boatload of debt. And I had to crawl my way out of a situation that I found myself in, and kind of learned the hard way that financial empowerment, financial independence is all within – and you can't rely on anybody else to protect you,” says Meyer. “There's a book that I like called Prince Charming Isn’t Coming, and it’s all about how you can't expect anybody else to ever take care of you. You really need to take care of yourself. Using my story, frankly, of what not to do, I thought I can really empower women to become financially independent themselves. So I started my business here with one client, and then she told her friends, and they told their friends, and now we have collectively, maybe 1,300 / 1,400 clients all over the United States. And we help women of all ages and income levels achieve their financial goals.”

Just to start and cover some of the basics, what types of investments are there? And how do you decide which path is the best for you?

Different investments involve things like stocks. So a stock is like an equity. When you own home, you own equity, right? And you take the good with the bad. So if your roof is shot, you're gonna have to buy a new roof. And so you're building equity, yes, but also there are some downturns in having a home, right? Same with an equity. Yesterday, Netflix was down about 40%. When you own an equity, sometimes you make money, and sometimes you could also lose money. But a bond is a debt, a bond is an IOU. Governments will issue bonds, and so you have more stability, generally speaking, with bonds, because when you put your money in a bond, you're going to expect to get it all back, plus a l