You can earn a solid income and still feel uncertain about your next financial step. This episode shows how to build clarity, confidence, and momentum.

 

On this episode of Get Ready Before Life Happens, I sit down with Sandra Park, founder of Prosperous Panda and host of the Engineer Her Path Podcast.

 

We explore how earning more creates opportunity, and how clarity, identity, and communication turn that opportunity into progress. Sandra shares how to advocate for your value, strengthen your negotiation skills, and use your income intentionally to build flexibility, confidence, and long-term freedom.

 

Key Takeaways

 

🔹A higher income creates more options, and clarity helps you choose what matters most

🔹Understanding your identity helps you align your money with your goals

🔹Clear communication strengthens confidence and helps others recognize your value

🔹Small negotiation moments build a skill that compounds over time

🔹Intentional use of income through saving, investing, and career growth builds flexibility

🔹Open conversations about money support better decisions and shared progress

🔹Enjoying your money is part of building a sustainable and meaningful financial life

 

🧠 Tony’s Take: A strong income creates opportunity. Financial readiness comes from knowing your value, communicating it, and aligning your money with what matters most. When those pieces come together, your income becomes a tool for freedom, not just a number.

 

 🎥 Watch this episode below: 

 

🎧 Listen to the podcast below or on your favorite podcast app. 

 

Connect with Sandra Park: 

 

• Website: https://engineerherpath.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/engineerherpath/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@engineerherpath

 

Podcast: 

 

• Engineer Her Path: https://open.spotify.com/show/0XksSCLpVQKsCi6fDUxE6N?si=Y94Vstc3Sv27jUio3331Cg

 

Resources mentioned: 

 

• Invest for Better website: www.investforbetter.org
• Check out my conversation with Janine Firpo, founder of Invest for Better on The Get Ready Money Podcast: Invest In Alignment With Your Values (here).

 

Bio: 

 

Sandra Park is a systems engineer, financial coach, and host of the Engineer Her Path podcast, where she helps women in STEM turn high incomes into lasting financial freedom and autonomy. After building a multimillion-dollar net worth, becoming completely debt-free, and paying off her home, Sandra now teaches others how to align their money with their values so they can work from choice, not obligation.

 

Through her coaching, speaking, and writing, Sandra combines technical precision with personal storytelling to help professionals rethink success beyond titles and paychecks. Her work focuses on helping women build margin, reclaim agency over their careers, and design lives rooted in purpose, not just achievement.

 

👉 Start Your Financial Readiness Plan: A free, practical plan that helps you create your in-case-of-emergency Financial First Aid Kit, organize what matters, and prepare before life happens. Start Your Free Financial Readiness Plan  https://www.tonysteuer.com

 

👉 Support the Mission: Become a Get Ready Insider and receive access to the Get Ready Library while helping support my mission to help people prepare before life happens. Become a Get Ready Insider  https://www.tonysteuer.com/get-ready-insider

Sandra Park Show Notes

Title Options

1. Use Your Income to Build Freedom

2. Financial Confidence for High-Earning Women

3. Own Your Value and Your Money

4. How Women in STEM Can Build Financial Confidence

5. Money, Confidence, and Career Choices

6. Build Freedom With the Money You Earn

Recommended Title

Use Your Income to Build Freedom

Hook

A strong income creates more choices when you know how to use it.

Short Intro

In this episode, Tony Steuer talks with Sandra Park, founder of Prosperous Panda and host of the Engineer Her Pathpodcast.

Sandra shares how her experience as an engineer shaped the way she thinks about money, confidence, career growth, and financial independence.

Key Takeaways

• Earning more money does not automatically create financial confidence.

• Lifestyle creep can happen quickly when income rises.

• Identity, comparison, and career success can affect spending decisions.

• Women in STEM can build confidence by understanding their value and advocating for themselves.

• Asking for what you want is a skill that can be practiced in small ways.

• Investing becomes less intimidating when you learn for yourself.

• Money can create freedom, choices, and more control over your life.

• It is okay to enjoy spending money on things that genuinely matter to you.

Tony’s Take

Sandra’s work is a reminder that financial readiness is about ownership. A strong income can open doors, but confidence grows when people understand their money, advocate for their value, and use their resources to build more freedom and choice.

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Lightly Edited Transcript: Sandra Park

Tony Steuer:
In today’s world, you can earn a strong income and still not feel financially ready, especially in industries that were not built with you in mind.

Today, I’m joined by Sandra Park, founder of Prosperous Panda.

Sandra, welcome to Get Ready: Before Life Happens.

Sandra Park:
Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I’m so glad we got acquainted through LinkedIn.

I’ve listened to some of your podcast episodes, and I’m really excited to be on.

Tony:
I hope you liked them because you’re here today, so I appreciate it.

I love your podcast as well, which we’ll get to later.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your origin story, and how did it lead you to focus on helping women in STEM build financial confidence?

Sandra:
Yes. I’m a trained engineer. I went to school for electrical engineering, and I’ve been working professionally in that industry for a little over 20 years, which is crazy because that’s what I picked when I was 18 years old.

STEM is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It includes high-tech and technical fields: IT, cybersecurity, data analysts, engineering, and all the nerdy technical jobs.

I had been doing that for over 10 years when I had my low point. I realized I was making a lot of money. I was making over six figures, and I still didn’t have any money for myself.

I was spending it and waiting on the next paycheck. I got paid weekly, every Friday. But I had this aha moment when I did my tax return and realized, “This is how much money I make, and I don’t really have any of it left for me.”

There was nothing to show for all the work I was doing.

I was working a lot during the early part of my career. I was gung-ho, climbing the corporate ladder, getting promotions and raises. I always thought I would get to a certain point in my career or make enough money where I wouldn’t have money problems anymore.

But I realized, “I’m making over $100,000 a year, and I still don’t have any money. I still don’t know how to manage my money for myself.”

That’s when I started learning a lot more about money management and investing. I stopped outsourcing it to everyone else and started empowering myself to learn as much as I could so I could handle my own money.

Tony:
I think empowering yourself is the most important part.

There is definitely a role for advisors and planners, but it starts with yourself.

As you said, even though you make more money, your lifestyle often adjusts to that additional money, and you don’t necessarily have money left over.

Was there an aha moment when you realized, “I need to take control, and I need to get the power for myself”?

Sandra:
The biggest thing was doing my taxes and seeing it on paper.

You can get a weekly or biweekly paycheck, but it’s not until you do your yearly tax return that you see how much it all adds up to.

The other huge moment was leaving the company I had worked at since I graduated from college. That was over a decade. It was the early part of my engineering career, when you are very shaped by where you work and who you work with.

I worked at a very big company. Leaving that company and, for once, going without a weekly paycheck was really scary for me.

For a lot of people, their aha moment is that they are drastically in debt. My situation scared me because I was about to come into quite a bit of money, but at the same time I was going to stop working for a while and not collect that weekly paycheck.

I was thinking, “I’m going to have a lot of money in the bank account, but I’ve never really learned how to manage it.”

When you don’t make very much money, or you spend it every single week, there’s nothing to manage. You manage it by waiting for the next paycheck to come in.

I realized if I wanted to take time off from work, I had to figure out how much I could live on and how to take care of my expenses for a while.

Tony:
That’s something people don’t always think about, especially when they come out of college or high school: managing expenses.

I got into a little bit of trouble with credit cards when I first started out. I got a credit card my senior year in college and enjoyed all the things the credit card brought without really thinking through the long-term consequences.

That’s so easy to do, especially when you’re young and not thinking long term.

Sandra:
Yes. I had credit cards too. Luckily, it didn’t get that bad. I don’t think I ever had over a $20,000 balance. But when you’re making a lot less money, $20,000 is still a lot.

You’re right. It’s often not big, notable expenses or big emergencies. It’s a lot of little things adding up where you say, “I can buy this now.”

Tony:
Exactly.

Credit cards come with less friction, so it’s easy to spend. You’re not seeing the immediate connection with the purchase you make today. You buy something today, see the credit card bill next month, and then have to pay it later.

Especially with purchases that are so easy now, like going to Amazon and buying with one click. It’s here in an hour or whatever, which is incredible, but that’s a whole other topic.

One of the things you talk about is identity. How does identity impact financial readiness?

Sandra:
It absolutely does.

When I look back, when I was in college and only making maybe $10,000 a year, the irony was that I didn’t have financial problems. I had no debt.

When you don’t have a lot of money, you have to manage every penny. When you’re lower income, your option is usually the Walmart option for everything. You’re either going without or buying the cheapest version of something.

You’re carefully planning everything from Cinnabon purchases to that Walmart run, where you’re getting your groceries and figuring out how you’re going to eat out.

Then I got my first job out of college. I was a professional. I made it. I was working at this global, well-known aerospace company.

I saw myself and a lot of my friends from college upgrade our lifestyles. Everyone bought their first brand-new car, or they bought a big house, or they bought a boat.

There was a lot of keeping up with the Joneses.

When you feel like, “I should be spending this much. I’m in the upper echelon. I’ve made it. I’ve got the big job. I need to act like it,” that identity shift from poor college student to working professional can be detrimental.

Comparing myself to colleagues and coworkers and keeping up with them was really detrimental.

What’s interesting is that when you make more money, you have more choices. Now it’s not just the Walmart option. Maybe you can get the Target version or go to Macy’s.

But now life is more confusing. Do you always need the better option?

That’s another trap I got into. I loved electronics, so I would upgrade everything just because there was a new version every year. The new phone would come out, and I had to get the new phone.

But do you really need a new phone every year? If the phone isn’t paid off, should you be getting a new phone?

Tony:
That’s hard.

To pick on Instagram for a minute, you see the best moments of somebody’s life. You see them on vacation somewhere and think, “Maybe we should go there.”

It throws you off because you’re keeping up with everybody else, but you’re only seeing glimpses of their life.

Maybe someone bought a big house, but they also bought a big mortgage. They have property taxes, insurance, and all the things that go along with the big house that you don’t see.

That can make it challenging.

Sandra:
Absolutely.

I remember the Facebook days, when you could easily compare yourself to other people. They were going on fancy vacations, eating nice meals, and buying a lot of things.

During the early part of my career, many of my colleagues and friends were buying all the stuff.

The other thing is that Fort Worth, the major city I live near and worked in, had a median family income that was not very high at the time. Almost right out of college, you were way up there compared with a family of four in the area.

The amount of disposable income you have is crazy.

Tony:
What advice would you give to someone early in their career to avoid lifestyle creep?

Sandra:
I wish I had budgeted much earlier. I wish I knew where my money was going.

I wish I had been more consistently investing back then.

I had the typical excuse that many young people have: “I don’t have any money left to invest.” It would be nice, but there was no money left.

Also, I wish I had not been so influenced.

I’ve spent years not being on Facebook or other social media. Not that it’s all bad for everyone, but I know for me, I feel more depressed when I get on there. I can’t not compare myself to others.

It’s knowing yourself.

You don’t know people’s backstories. You don’t know how much debt they took on to buy some of these things. You don’t know if it’s genuinely making people happy.

You have to know yourself better, which is hard in your twenties because that’s when people are still figuring out who they are. They let the whole world, social media, and everybody around them shape them.

Tony:
It comes back to your own goals. Knowing yourself is knowing what you want to achieve.

That’s hard when you’re young because you’re still learning. That’s another reason, when you’re starting out, to avoid spending all the money you take in and to put some money aside.

I know that’s hard when you’re 25 years old and making money, but it’s important.

You work with women in STEM. What keeps women in STEM from fully owning their value?

Sandra:
There are so many things.

First of all, we’re in a very male-dominated field. I’m not going to blame it totally on that, but there are systemic issues where women are still underpaid.

Sometimes our contributions at work are undervalued. Women are often called the glue of the team or the mother. We fill in these other places. We can be seen as the soft, nurturing people.

But are we seen as leadership material? Are we seen as someone who can execute and get work done?

It’s not always one or the other. There are people who can combine those skills, and those contributions are just as valuable.

I think women need to understand their worth and advocate for themselves the same way a man will advocate for himself at work.

A man will push for certain promotions he wants. He lets his boss know, “I’m angling for this.”

That is crucial: setting expectations with your leadership and management, tooting your own horn, and making sure people value your contributions.

I wish people would take it more seriously because this is your life energy. You’re spending time away from your home and family. There is mental stress and energy involved. It’s a lot to keep up in a demanding profession.

That should be valued.

Tony:
I like that: your time should be valued.

I want to go back to advocating for yourself and understanding your worth.

Women are often paid less than men. Overall, women are still paid less than men. In some jobs, they may have caught up, but in many jobs, they have not.

How can a woman start to advocate for herself if she feels like she’s on a male-dominated team?

Sandra:
One of the best things is to find another female ally on the team and help each other out.

You see men do it for each other at work. They will advocate for some other guy, even if you barely see them speaking. You think, “Are they friends? Have they ever worked together?” Then all of a sudden, he’s sticking up for him.

I always thought, why do women not do that more?

I really wish we would stick together and advocate for each other more at work.

It’s also about having communication with your leadership and setting expectations.

I think women are often too demure or passive. They think, “They’ll intuit that this is something I want to grow into or something I would like to do.”

Why not say that?

You can do it in a way that is confident without being arrogant: “I would like to grow into that type of position in the next year or two,” or “These are my goals.”

Men often excel at that in the workplace. They are open about their expectations: “I want to be manager in five years. I want to be a team lead in two years.”

Women have dreams and goals too. They just keep them secretive. They tell each other but don’t tell the people at work who can actually influence their careers.

I also think if women were more open about talking about money and salaries, that would help. Some of that lack of transparency hurts us because a lot of women don’t know. They’re scared to ask, and it’s not a common subject of discussion with each other.

Tony:
Going back to men stating their goals, I think men can be very confident, or overconfident, about their skills. They may overestimate what they can accomplish or what they think they are owed.

Women tend to be less cocky. I’ll say it.

Sandra:
You said it, not me, so I feel okay with it.

Men can definitely be overconfident, which can be cocky sometimes.

Women may work really hard and think, “If I get noticed, I might get invited on this trip.”

But what about saying, “I would like to go on that business trip where there’s going to be a presentation to the customer. I would like to be part of that.”

Tony:
Exactly.

Sandra:
I had a colleague who wanted to go on a business trip. She wasn’t very open about it. She said, “Well, I kind of said I would like to go sometime.”

It’s not going to happen if you don’t state clearly that you would like to go on a trip.

Tony:
To be clear when you want something can be hard. It takes courage and confidence.

How can women start to build that confidence to ask for something instead of saying, “I don’t want to be shot down” or “I’m not comfortable doing this,” especially in a male-dominated environment?

Sandra:
Sometimes I think: what is the worst that could happen?

I’ve had friends regret not negotiating their salary more. I’ll say, “If you stay quiet and don’t ask for what you really want, don’t you think you’ll be unhappy six months or a year from now?”

Is it worth the discomfort of that five-minute discussion where you say, “Actually, I would like to get paid this”?

You can back it up with some reasoning. It doesn’t have to be that direct, but make it open. This is the number I’m looking for. This is more what I was looking for.

Is it worth it so you don’t build resentment?

With career things, I always think: what is the worst that could happen?

What if you ask to be included on a business trip with the customer and your boss says no or says next time? Even in that case, your boss now knows you want to go on a business trip in the future.

I think having support from other women and thinking through the worst-case scenarios helps.

I hate living with regret and resentment. Maybe that’s just me. But I think you should do that thought exercise: what if I don’t do this? What if I don’t ask?

Then you may sit there feeling miserable or regretting it or wondering what could have happened if you had asked.

Tony:
I love that.

It comes back to thinking, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

That applies not only to asking about a raise or going to a meeting, but also to life. So often, we imagine that the worst thing is going to happen, and usually it’s not.

The worst outcome is often in your own head.

Sandra:
Yes. It’s pretty rare that the worst thing you imagine actually happens.

Worst case, you wouldn’t get fired. But now you planted a little seed in your boss’s head: “She’s interested in going on a business trip when we meet the customer. I didn’t know that.”

Sometimes your management or leadership doesn’t even know what you are interested in because you are trying to be so stoic and not communicate anything at work.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease sometimes.

Another thing I was thinking about: recently, I shared a story on LinkedIn about negotiating my phone bill and getting it lowered by $4 a month.

The point was not that I saved all this money. It’s that sometimes it is a good exercise to ask for something.

When I brought up whether I could get a deal I saw online, they said, “That’s for new customers, and you’re not a new customer.”

They gave me some nonsensical reasoning. They said, “You have a family plan. You have multiple lines, and that’s for one line.”

I asked, “Could you not do that with multiple lines?”

They said, “Well, yes.”

I wasn’t trying to argue. I was poking a hole in the logic.

Then I said, “I’m going to have to push back. I don’t agree that you can’t give me a better deal just because I’m not a new customer. I guess I’ll have to reevaluate whether I want to keep phone service with you.”

Then she said, “Now I have something to go back to my supervisor with.”

I realized that if I had gotten angry or upset, or accepted the first no, it would have ended there. But because I gave her something to go back to her supervisor with, I got the discount.

It was only $4. I joked that I could buy a Starbucks coffee now. It wasn’t life-changing money.

But negotiating is a muscle. It’s an exercise.

Even with little things, like negotiating your internet bill or asking a service provider for another option, it’s good practice. Then when bigger things come up at work, like promotions, raises, and opportunities, you’re more prepared.

Your whole world doesn’t fall apart if the thing doesn’t happen for you.

I encourage people to do more of that. It’s not about being cheap or running around asking for discounts or free things everywhere. But every once in a while, it doesn’t hurt to ask: is that the best you can do? Is there a better price? Do you have another deal or option?

Tony:
That’s great advice.

It never hurts to ask the question. “Can you do this?”

People talk about airline upgrades, though I’ve never had one. With hotels, if they have the inventory and you ask nicely, you might say, “Do you have any other rooms available?” Maybe you’re celebrating something.

It never hurts to ask.

Sandra:
All they can do is say no.

You made a really good point. It’s hard to be mad at a question rather than an assumption or demand.

If you say, “You’re going to give me an upgrade,” that’s different from, “Do you have any rooms you could upgrade?”

You never know until you ask.

I do a similar thing at work. You can challenge or ask things, and it’s just a question. When you go around demanding, it’s different.

Tony:
That even gets back to the advice you were giving about going to the meeting.

You don’t say, “I am going to go to the meeting.” You say, “Would it be possible for me to go to the meeting? I think it would be a great learning experience, and I could hopefully contribute something.”

Then your boss has something that benefits them too. Your boss can think, “Now I can give Sandra a new learning experience, and Sandra has some good ideas.”

They may never have thought about having you in that meeting before, because your boss is busy too.

It’s a two-way street.

I’ve never been a woman, so I can’t say what it’s like. I know it is harder for women. But what I learned in sales and negotiating is that you also have to think about what the other person wants and how you can make their life better.

Even if you’re asking for a salary increase, there are ways to frame it where it benefits the business as much as it benefits you.

If you give the boss a win at the same time, it is easier for them to say yes.

Sandra:
Absolutely.

It’s great practice to negotiate a $4 phone bill. It’s not the money. It’s the principle.

It’s not about being cheap. It’s also about pushing back calmly. Sometimes people come at you with a lot of words, and you think, “Wait, that didn’t make sense. I’m going to challenge that.”

You don’t have to scream at people or be angry.

It also teaches you how to react less. You are calmer and more rational. You process and figure out how to deal with it.

At work, you can be very upset you’re not getting what you want, but if you haven’t communicated it or tried to work on it, your boss may have no idea.

Bosses are busy. They are not reading your mind.

Tony:
They’re worried about their own raise.

That’s the thing. We often think people are thinking a lot about us when they are really thinking about themselves.

That gets back to what you were saying. Men are often more straightforward: “It would be great if I got a raise this year, wouldn’t it?”

Maybe you don’t have to be quite that overboard, but you can borrow a little bit of that.

Sandra:
I totally agree. Somewhere in the middle.

Sometimes when I hear stories about the way men negotiate, it’s like, “I want this.” Sentence ends.

I would say, “I want this, but blah, blah, blah. I’m still grateful, and this is why, and I can add value here.”

You don’t have to go into a long soliloquy or overexplain. But you can give your boss a reason or a story they can take to their boss.

Tony:
In sales, the first thing I learned was WIIFM: what’s in it for me?

When you’re asking for something, you need to think about that.

If your boss is giving you a raise, there may not be much in it for them unless you frame it well. You can say, “I’ve been here a long time. I’ve done a great job. It keeps me motivated.”

Maybe you’ve had some other job offers. You don’t want to say, “I’m going to resign if you don’t give me a raise,” but it doesn’t hurt to hint that there are other opportunities.

That gives your boss something to think about: maybe we are not paying market value, or maybe it has been a year and a half since they got a raise.

Some companies give raises regularly, and some don’t, especially small businesses that may not have a system set up.

Sandra, before we wrap up, I want to make sure I ask you about maximizing your one thing, which is something you talk about.

How does focusing on your strengths increase your earning power and long-term readiness?

Sandra:
I’m totally about that.

I’m a woman in STEM, and I serve other women in STEM. The reality is that a lot of us are W-2 employees, and I think there’s nothing wrong with that.

There are a lot of things on social media and the internet where being self-employed or a business owner is glamorized.

But one strength we have is our high-income earning power, especially while we’re employed.

I’m not saying it is the most stable job. We have a lot of woes just like other industries.

But we have this incredible brainpower. We went to good schools to get these degrees. Why not make that income work for you?

I’m not against people starting businesses or doing things on the side. But maximize investing and managing your money as smartly as you can while you have it.

The reality is that with many tech and engineering careers, in the beginning your salary can go up a lot. Then it slows down and plateaus.

Some people may not work as long as they wanted to.

So maximize this career that is making a lot of money for you. Keep as much money as you can and build a strong foundation. Hopefully, you can invest it so the returns eventually grow more than your yearly salary.

That is real freedom.

You’ve seen it with layoffs. Oracle laid off thousands of people. These layoffs can happen with little notice.

True stability and freedom come when you have money in the bank and know, “I might be in a job search for six to 12 months, and I’m not going to sweat it. I’m not desperate. I don’t have to take the first offer because I’m about to run out of money.”

That is what I wish for my target audience: that they use their salaries to build this freedom.

If their job went away, they would be okay. They could pick where they want to work. They would not have to go to a job that is soul-sucking just because it pays more.

They could be more selective.

That is the brilliance of gaining experience and tenure in our industry and field. Ideally, the options should open up. But as you get into higher salary bands, sometimes the options narrow down.

Some people may say, “I’ll do this boring documentation process job that I hate,” or “I have to move across the country because that’s where the job is.”

I want people to think about what it would be like to have enough money to be the owner of your own life. You could call the shots a little more.

You could say, “No, I’m not going to take a job across the country. I’m going to hold out for a remote position,” or “I’ve done that kind of job. I want to move on to something different or more creative.”

Tony:
I love what you said: own your own life.

And I love building your freedom. That’s what money can buy: freedom, choices, and options.

To wrap up, Sandra, I have what I call the Get Ready Hot Take Trio. These are three quick questions I ask all my guests.

What’s one money myth you’re trying to break?

Sandra:
There are so many of them.

I’ll say that investing is hard.

I encourage everyone to start. You even learn from losing money, and you have to be okay with losing some money when investing.

The only way I learned was the hard way, by losing money in the beginning. But no matter what, you learn. You get your start somewhere.

Anybody can invest, and it’s not that hard.

Tony:
Especially for women who often feel like they can’t invest, there is a group called Invest for Better. People have heard me talk about them a lot on the show.

I did an episode with Janine Firpo, the founder of Invest for Better. They do investing circles for women.

I’ll make sure to put that in the show notes. I have no relationship with Invest for Better. I’m just a big fan of the work they do.

Let’s bring up the time machine for a minute.

If you could go back in time, knowing what you know now about money, what advice would you give your younger self, maybe that 20- or 25-year-old?

Sandra:
The biggest piece of advice is: you can learn it yourself.

When I talk about outsourcing financial knowledge, I mean through male coworkers, people I was dating, or anyone who seemed to have more experience.

Maybe it is family giving financial advice. I have an older brother and a dad. It is easy to outsource it and think, “They know. They’re smart. They can tell me.”

But you have to have a mindset shift: “I can figure it out. I can learn about this. I have to empower myself.”

This is my money. I can’t depend on other people to care about it more than I care about it.

Tony:
I love that.

That gets back to the whole male-female thing. Men tend to be more overconfident when it comes to investing. Women are actually better investors, according to studies, because of that overconfidence.

You have to be careful about the source of learning about money. There are some women who don’t know what they’re talking about either, so I’m not just picking on men. We’ll just say all people sometimes.

Sandra:
You’re right. It can be easy to be intimidated.

I worked in male-dominated workplaces, so you listen to men easily talking about money, investments, and stock market returns.

Now when I look back, I realize they didn’t necessarily know what they were talking about. But when you don’t know better yourself, you can feel easily intimidated.

You think, “They know so much more than me.” They’re checking Yahoo Finance, day trading, picking meme stocks, and all these things.

It felt like a lot of people knew more than me. But I wasn’t looking at their portfolios. I didn’t know how well they were doing.

Tony:
With investing, you should learn. You should avoid going beyond your knowledge level.

There are people whose whole job is to invest all day. They go to school for it. They have access to the best resources and tools.

So you are competing, sort of, against them when you’re investing.

You need a strategy. You need to know what you’re doing. That doesn’t mean anyone can’t be an investor. It means you have to invest smart and be careful.

Sandra:
I agree.

I definitely felt like there was a time when I bought into the hype and deluded myself into thinking I could be an expert investor.

Over time, I realized, no. Just because you have a Robinhood app, Betterment, or something else, that doesn’t make you an expert.

Unless you have all that time and energy to devote to it, you’re just not going to be that good at so much of it.

I think of all the mental energy and time I wasted trying to time things, figure things out, or overreact to market events.

Tony:
Don’t overreact to market events. Get a strategy.

Maybe join an investing club, use a good investing newsletter, rely on a source of information you trust, or have a financial planner set up your investment strategy.

You can do a one-time engagement with a financial planner to get your course set and then go from there.

Sandra, to wrap up, what’s your number one tip to change the way we think about money?

Sandra:
This is something I’ve experienced myself recently.

I don’t want to say I’m too cheap, but I’m working on not having a scarcity mindset all the time.

That was one of my biggest problems growing up.

Even now, when I’m doing really well financially, I still try to get stuff on deals. Then I think, “Why did I buy that?”

I’m rewiring myself: money is a tool. Money will come and go. Money will ebb and flow.

I don’t want to hoard it. I want to enjoy more of it.

That may not be great advice for everybody, but I’m getting to the point where saving a small amount of money is not the bigger issue. I actually need to start being a little more generous.

I want to go on more vacations that I actually want to go on. I don’t want to go somewhere just because it’s a deal. I want to go somewhere because I want to go there, even if it costs more.

That is the biggest mindset shift I’m facing right now.

I think a lot of high-earning women can get like that too. Sometimes they think, “I’ll get Netflix with ads instead of without.” But it may be only a few dollars more. If you make a strong income and don’t want to watch ads, it’s okay.

Tony:
That’s a really good point.

Are you looking at the small things or the big things?

Sandra:
Yes.

When you are at a different income level, you may need to focus on everything: every dollar, every penny.

But now I’m asking myself, “If I want a Spotify subscription, I’m going to have a Spotify subscription. If I want Netflix with no ads, or front-of-the-line tickets at a museum, or VIP tickets at an event, that is okay.”

I’m trying to remember that the things I enjoy and want to spend money on are not going to bankrupt me. I’m not going to run out of money.

It is okay to enjoy and spend some of my money on the things I want.

Tony:
It’s okay to enjoy and spend money on the things you want.

That’s wonderful advice.

Sandra, where can people learn more about you, Prosperous Panda, and the Engineer Her Path podcast?

Sandra:
I have a podcast called Engineer Her Path. It’s available everywhere.

For social media, these days I mostly hang out on LinkedIn. I read my messages all the time, so if you want to reach out to me in any way, LinkedIn is a good place.

I also post content there, and I have a newsletter you can join for free.

Tony:
For everybody watching and listening, there will be links to Sandra’s website, her social media profiles, and the Engineer Her Path podcast in the show notes.

Sandra, thanks for joining us on Get Ready: Before Life Happens.

Sandra:
Thank you so much.

Tony:
Thank you, everyone, as always, for tuning in to this episode of Get Ready: Before Life Happens.

If you learned something today that changed the way you think about money, please be sure to subscribe and share with a friend.

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