Ana Herrero-Wallace (00:00)
Time is a resource.
And if you don't invest, you are losing a lot of money. if you have your money in a savings account at 1.5%, it will only double around 48 years after that. If you had invested that in, let's say, S &P 500, that is the 500 largest companies in the US,
at 7%, you would double your money in 10 years. it's so powerful because it's all math. There's no woo woo here, no art, it's math.
House Of Peregrine (01:01)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the House of Peregrine podcast. Today we're joined by Ana Herrera Wallace, former US licensed equities trader, investor, author, and the founder of Ada Invest, where she helps professional women across Europe move from overthinking money to building long-term wealth with clarity, structure, and consistent action. She's also the author of the just released Still Thinking? Act, a practical guide for women who are capable in their careers.
but want more confidence around financial planning, investing, and the decisions that shape long-term independence. Ana, welcome to the House of Peregrine podcast. I'm so excited to have you on today.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (01:39)
really excited to be here, so thank you for the opportunity of speaking to you today.
House Of Peregrine (01:44)
You're welcome. And I had the opportunity to attend your book launch in Amsterdam just a few nights ago. So I was really, really excited to be invited to that. But let's start out from the beginning. Besides writing this gorgeous book that we will link in the comments, tell me about your international journey first, quickly, before we get started.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (01:55)
Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting because some people say, so where are from? And then I say, I'm Spanish, but am I really Spanish? I have lived in five different countries. So I was born and raised in Madrid, studied in the US, studied finance in the US and Arizona. Then after five or six years working as an equity trader in the US, I moved to Budapest for two and a half years where I worked in trading floors as well. And then from there, I decided to
live
in London for nearly a decade where I worked in fintech and technology and then you know how it is sometimes you fall in love with the right person and that was in 2012 with the London Olympics meeting my partner.
And he was Dutch. So we had a son in London and then he convinced me to move to Amsterdam, which was in 2016. And honestly, at the beginning, it was quite hard. I didn't know anyone. It's a bit different than London. So it took me a while. It took me a while. And one of the things that really helped me was to join communities.
of other international women and then really find my place and really mingle with like-minded women such as yourself.
House Of Peregrine (03:16)
Yeah.
Yeah. you know, why we house a peregrine is peregrine because once you live in different places, peregrine means outsider. So say peregrines live on every continent of the world because the bird does, but the word means outsider. And so if you've lived in five different countries, you know how to build a network, you know how to dismantle a network, you know how to make new friends. And you're absolutely right. like like like minded is one way, but like like
Ana Herrero-Wallace (03:30)
Okay.
House Of Peregrine (03:41)
kindred spirits who's moved around, if you know, know, and that just becomes such an anchor when you can meet people who've done it and kind of know the ups and downs of it. So your partner is Dutch and so you move to his country. So that's kind of your profile. We have different profiles, right? So there's people who are of the same country and they move to a country together. They're singles, of course. There's couples who move back to the one partner's country. And each of those profiles have their pluses and minuses, but
What we find is that, what I found is that that's a pretty big negotiation when you decide to move to your partner's home. How is that for you?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (04:16)
You know, to be honest, I should say it was great and just do it, but I really regretted it. And I have moved, I mean, when I moved to London, I didn't regret it for a second, not even the first day. And moving to Amsterdam was just a...
House Of Peregrine (04:23)
with
Ana Herrero-Wallace (04:31)
Yeah, just moving to Amsterdam was a, you know, it was really different. So first of all, I was, I had one child that was working full time. I had a job that was an hour away from Amsterdam and, you know, I had the child and childcare for five days a week because we didn't have any family in Amsterdam. And that actually was a little bit shocking for a lot of Dutch women. They were like, are you okay? Is the child okay? Because I know that this is a country as opposed to
everywhere else that I've lived where women, I think it's around 75 % of women work part time and also men, but you know, they're not used to having this sort of five days a week thing. So that was a bit shocking. It was also, I didn't speak the language. I didn't know anyone really. I knew one person that's at this company, tech company. That's how I got the job. So it was a bit, a bit of a shock. And another thing in top of that is that coming from
London, that's a financial center, FinTech, finance, and that was my thing and loving, you know, loving all of this. To coming to Amsterdam where it's a much smaller market, I had to really change my career completely. So then I started working in tech and I didn't know what...
on-premise and cloud was back then. So I mean, it was just really starting from zero. And it went well, of course. even last year I took voluntary redundancy. And now I can call myself an author, which is the weird part is again, I've changed my career to something completely different. And I also of course help women with, yeah, achieve wealth.
House Of Peregrine (06:08)
So what I'm hearing you saying is it was a pretty big sacrifice for you to move from London. And so that probably was made, we always talk about the agreements you need to make and we have all these guides for people because it can be a make or break moment for some couples if they don't consider it thoroughly. So it sounds like you and your partner figured it out, but it did make it so you had to, or you got to, how do you frame it? It made it an opportunity for you to reimagine what you wanted to do as a career. Do I have that right?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (06:13)
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, and it was more necessity rather than my dream is I've done finance, now my dream is to do tech. It was more of a, you know, I mean, I've always been interested in, I've done fintech, but it really, the way that, yeah, it went was necessity and then it became, you know, a great career shift. But I mean, if you think about it as a mother of two, I read some data, I will have to pick it up again, but kids will change their careers 23
times or something. We're so used to our parents having one career, one company and that is completely different than now. So it's a completely different thing.
House Of Peregrine (07:14)
It's so true.
And as international people and our kids are being raised in multiple countries, that's going to be a reality even more for them. And it's actually a pretty small population of people in the world that have that experience. I don't know, we talk about it a lot on this podcast about how kids are uniquely positioned to actually be ready for that kind of world. If they're multilingual, if they've lived in multiple countries, changing careers will actually be the norm as we know, but for our kids,
who are already living across continents, they'll actually be uniquely prepared for that challenge, I think. Yeah.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (07:45)
Well, that's good to know that. Yeah, they're resilient
and kids are just incredible.
House Of Peregrine (07:52)
Yeah, they're
already multicultural in their brain, in their mindset. They have different compartments, I guess, is what I've learned.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (07:54)
Yeah.
And the languages
as well, right? So yeah, it's crazy.
House Of Peregrine (08:02)
Yeah,
yeah. But so I want to ask you about where did your passion come from for investing the book and your consultancy after you moved, kind of shifted your career? What made it so you, where did that passion come from? Other than being a woman, obviously we're awesome. But like, what is the story? Cause there's always a story, a moment that made it. So this was your path. What would you say that was?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (08:24)
Yeah, thank you for asking that. And I think it came from pain and it came from a place of, let's say, pain. And that was, I grew up in Madrid and my family was, let's say, rich at the time or high middle class. Went to a private school. My father had a chauffeur. He had a really nice corporate CFO role. And then he was laid off. And he was around mid fifties or so.
And he, when I was 12, this is what happened. And pretty much after it happened, they closed the doors and it was all about him and his ego. And so, you know, I don't have the title anymore. I don't have this amazing job anymore. So who am I? Right. And my mom was always the, she didn't work. So it was all, you know, everything was reliant on, on my father. So it was, it kind of.
cost pain in somewhere where I thought, okay, if I need money for security because life is not safe and from the day of, know, from one day to another, can become from having money to being poor. when
House Of Peregrine (09:34)
Yeah.
Would you categorize that? Like, I've heard people use the term, and I've done work around this myself, of like a money wound.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (09:40)
money wound or financial trauma. ⁓ Yeah, financial trauma. And yeah, and so I was very attracted to like, okay, how can I get the best job? How can I make money? And how can I be secure and always independent? I don't want to depend on anyone else. So I went to study in the US, I studied finance and I didn't study finance because I was interested. I studied finance because it was, you know, they had like the
House Of Peregrine (09:43)
Yeah, financial trauma.
safe.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (10:09)
SAFE, the highest GPA. I was a good student, got the scholarships there. then from there, there was a class actually, a class about investments. And I was fascinated. I was fascinated. So we had to analyze companies and then say, would you buy this or that? I can't remember what company it was at the time, but I was completely fascinated. From there, I became an equity trader. So that is stock trading.
working for Edward Jones that is a broker and I was fascinated with trading
House Of Peregrine (10:41)
What did you learn?
What did you learn that opened your eyes that you didn't know or that maybe people don't know from working in a trader position?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (10:48)
that it's actually very easy. mean, and, you know, I talked to a lot of women who haven't made the first step yet of trading or not trading. That's not the word, but really investing. And it's just so simple, right? I mean, you can download on your phone, a trading app, and then you can just buy, you know, certain investments. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (11:08)
So it seems like a little bit of a black box. And so you kind of got a behind the scenes of how this world works. And so from the outside, it kind of looks like, it's so complicated and just smart people and mostly men do this. And so from your perspective, this is actually not the case. Is that what I'm hearing?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (11:26)
No, it's
not the case. And it's very simple. I, I had, there's this auther called, Morgan Houseau and he, he wrote the Psychology of Money. and then he talks very much about finance, how finance is different from other, let's say, you know, like doctors, like medicine has grown a lot and it's an exponential knowledge. So what we knew a hundred years ago is so, so much less than what we know now. And then it just keeps compounding.
Right? The knowledge is compounding. Finance is a lot more simple. So the problem, think, with finance is that a lot of very smart men, mostly, have gone into the world of finance and think that they are smarter than anyone and then they make things very complex. But in reality, it's a very, very simple, it should be a very, very simple, let's say, subject.
And it should be, it's really available for all of us. And that's how I wanted to make it. Yes. But you talked to me about the passion. Sorry. You talked to me about the passion and I go into the tangent, but yeah, it came from a wound as you called it, like a wound. And then it became this thing where it was survival. And then I actually started investing in my early twenties. I started investing in stocks and then what we call mutual funds in the U S and really got.
House Of Peregrine (12:23)
Yeah, and so
Ana Herrero-Wallace (12:43)
got used to it. And then since 2015, I started investing in real estate. And I realized I'm not a CEO. I've never had a salary of a CEO. Of course, I worked in tech and management, so good salaries, but not necessarily, you know, super tremendous. But I have been very good about investing every month and so forth. So I want to share that knowledge with every woman, because I think it is available for all of us.
So that is where the passion came.
House Of Peregrine (13:12)
That's awesome. We have that in common. I have such a weird path in my career. My 20s were spent investing in tech startups and real estate. Those were my two. And then job was working for advertising companies directing commercials. Like that's my career path. But I get it because that, at the time, because of the tech angle in the early 2000s,
Ana Herrero-Wallace (13:28)
Okay.
House Of Peregrine (13:39)
that was enough to be able to kind of play in this world when there was less risk, when we didn't have kids, when we, you know, are able to kind of invest early so that it makes a difference, but it's staggering how often that's not the case. Do you have any statistics on this, especially for women, about how, when they make their first investment, if at all?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (14:01)
I don't have particular statistics as to when women start investing versus men, but I do know, and it might have been in the book or not, I can't remember because I had to delete a lot because it was too long and now it's at the right size, is that women make better investors than men.
And the reason for this is you could say that we have a bit of imposter syndrome, whereas men are over... You probably have like... Yes. And then you probably... mean, it happens. really interesting that imposter syndrome, which is actually in my book, because psychology is so important for money, is it happens to women that are actually very qualified.
House Of Peregrine (14:23)
A bit? think there's entire like, thesis is written on the fact that that's true.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (14:40)
And then they're like, am I good enough or, know, I probably don't know everything. then I'm, you know, I, I, I can't start or. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (14:47)
then I can't start. And these
are not like, you're talking about women who are executives in companies. These are not like, we're talking about all women, yes, but it almost doesn't discriminate at any level. Women historically haven't been participating in investing in like almost.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (14:55)
I know.
And there is something about
the brain. mean, the brain is different as well. We're wired differently. There's also a very important thing that women have and men, but I think maybe mostly women, loss aversion. So it's basically the pain of losing is much greater than the win. And this is Daniel Kahneman and he's a Nobel Prize laureate for the sake of behavioral finance.
And he's done studies on what is the pain of losing is a much greater than winning. Therefore, let's not do anything. And one thing I say to all women is, and I talk to them, they're like, yeah, I have big savings accounts and I haven't done anything. I say to them, you're also making a decision. Not investing is also a decision. And I think a lot of us think if I don't do anything.
then I'm okay. But if you don't do anything, you're also have made already a decision, right? So I think that that's much clearer. But one thing women make actually better traders and investors than men, because we're not overconfident. Therefore, we trade less. When you trade less, you have less transaction costs. And transaction costs are huge. And it's, it's in the book a bit. But
You know, it's when you want to invest, when you are in funds, you should look at those transaction costs. You should look at the commissions that you're paying that could really eat into your investments.
House Of Peregrine (16:27)
Yep. Yeah, and it's really, there's no reason besides this, there's no gendered reason. It's not a good reason that women aren't in this. So it gives you maybe a lot of energy to think of people making their first investments as women and changing the financial tide for women in the financial world. As you know, I've done a TED talk about this, about women's lives and how to make them more economically.
stable in the economy because of labor that is very gendered across the lifespan of women. And so it is an invisible part of our economy already, but women do need to find ways that the system recognizes to participate in the upside of the markets because otherwise we know statistically they end up in very bad positions financially even after working their entire lives building a life.
if their marriage doesn't work out, if they have an illness, these are things that women have to think of just as much as men that hasn't always been the case. And so for me, I watched all the women around me need to stay in marriages or be in really bad positions. And so that's where my passion for this came from, because in our culture, money is power. It's unfortunately a fact and it's safety.
And so I think we all kind of have a safety a financial trauma as women. I think collectively, I think the work you're doing and many more is trying to heal that trauma of women not having safety and power in the system.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (17:56)
Absolutely.
House Of Peregrine (17:56)
Yeah, cool. So the book, I want to talk to you a little bit about. So you do consulting and you've written this book. But what I know from moving abroad and you said it at your book launch is. If you live in one country and you move to another one, this gets really complicated pretty fast. So we already have a population of people who aren't investing. Add the complexity of being an international person to the mix. And now you have.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (18:18)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (18:23)
It seems an unending amount of reasons to not invest. What would you tell people about that if you had advice?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (18:28)
Yes.
Yes, I think it's about first of all creating a strategy of what you want to do with money and how you want to live your life, which is something I did with my husband in 2019 to really like say, okay, we're going to live until we are 86. That's what I said. This, our kids are going to live until certain, certain, let's say, amount of time and they're going to cost us so much. So we're going to pay for their university or we won't. So just really calculating how much money we need.
to have in order to retire and then go back from there. And I do know a lot of international people that maybe, especially US citizens that are afraid of investing in Europe. I know the US filing tax in the US is quite cumbersome and so forth.
I always say get a good accountant or first of all, have a strategy and then get a good accountant, get good people behind you that could really understand your situation and tell you what is possible. And I think what happens, there's a lot of analysis paralysis or people talking to other people and then they just think, I can't do anything. And so they don't invest. And the problem with not investing is that time is a finite resource.
And if you don't invest, you are losing a lot of money. mean, for example, if you have your money in a savings account at 1.5%, it will only double around 48 years after that. If you had invested that in, let's say, S &P 500, that is the 500 largest companies in the US, which is an index, which is very easy to buy.
at 7%, you would double your money in 10 years. And that is called the rule of 72. And it's so powerful because it's all math. There's no woo woo here, no art, it's math. And I think, yeah, we spend a lot of time thinking about other things, but perhaps we're not really, yeah.
House Of Peregrine (20:28)
Yeah, and that's a four-time return on just leaving it in a different bucket for that same amount of time. So that's just like literally depositing it here instead of here, and you've just made four times your money.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (20:33)
Yes.
Yeah.
And it's compound interest. mean, it's not a magic thing. It's compound interest.
House Of Peregrine (20:44)
Yeah, explain that.
Compound interest is actually a really good concept. Would you explain it so everyone can understand?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (20:52)
Yeah, I would have to get my book just to kind of, you know, explain it up because what I explained out is just the rule of 72. But so basically what happens is it's the process where your returns start generating their own returns, right? So it's when you have money invested and you earn interest, not just on your initial return, but also on the accumulated interest over time.
And there's a complex formula for that. what happens is the earlier you start investing, the better. I do have women that come to my master classes online and they're like, am I too late to invest? I always say the best time to invest was yesterday. The best time to invest after that is today.
So even women in their 50s should start investing if they haven't done that. What's really important with compound interest is that you become consistent, that you are investing every month, that you are investing, that you're not waiting for the right moment. So I also have women working with women that tell me, know, things are happening, geopolitical problems.
you know, in certain countries, wars and things like that. Should I wait to start investing? And I say, no. So if you're waiting for the right moment, you're going to miss out on amazing returns. So for me, it was really interesting because even for me who has a lot of knowledge on this, remember in 2018,
I was thinking, my God, the market is going down. I'm going to sell everything. And then that's completely the wrong approach to do it. And somehow I couldn't log into my account and then it became too late. So actually I made amazing returns because I just left it there. And you know, there's data that shows actually that people that have died or that have lost a password are actually the best investors.
because they have left it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's the data on this. Yeah, the best returns because you just, you just put your money there and then you forget about it. And I love reading the financial times, but I don't read it so that I can make better investments or that I can buy the next stock. I read it because I'm generally interested, but that's the great thing about finance as well is like, once you do three things, you automate your investments.
House Of Peregrine (22:49)
They make the best returns.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (23:15)
You can just dedicate your time to things that you really are passionate like doing podcasting for you, for example.
House Of Peregrine (23:20)
Yeah, and you know, it really is. I always love to like, so I spent a few years heavily into the crypto markets, not as a day trader or something, but just being interested in it like fashion. always say crypto is a lot like fashion. And so I kind of got to have that impulse, but it was with money and different coins.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (23:29)
Okay.
House Of Peregrine (23:43)
And I was really good at picking what was going to go up and down and I wasn't doing it as an investment. It was more of an experiment. But women again, were doing better there too, because they can feel what's going on in the market. And so I always want to encourage women. I think it really is getting started. I wish there was something that was easy as like social media to just get started. You know what I mean? And it's not that women are not as good at these things, but these heavy
Ana Herrero-Wallace (23:49)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (24:10)
Like it feels like you can get started the wrong way somehow. And so what do you tell people? Like if they just want to say they have 10 euros a month or $10 a month that they, mean, starting small is better than not. You can have a hundred thousand dollars too. But if someone said, you know what? I want to start investing. I can put aside 50, a hundred euros a month.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (24:14)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (24:33)
What do you usually recommend if it's a small amount but they want to put it away consistently every month? Is there a place or a couple places you can tell them to go to or they can just do a simple bank transfer?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (24:42)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, there is easy apps that you can download on your phone. And I would always recommend you would have to see what the profile of that person is. So for example, let me ask you a question. So how well would you sleep at night? Let's say you want to invest 50 euros and you're in the start of your career. So, you know, no kids, but the start of your career, it's quite uncertain. You're renting. I don't know. I'm just making a scenario up here.
How would you feel about investing money and then seeing that the numbers go red, that they're going lower? How would you feel about it? Like, would you sleep well at night or would you have a problem?
House Of Peregrine (25:21)
20. Is that right? Okay. Cause now I know to leave it alone. Like I don't, I don't do that sort of thing, but I know there is a psychology around it. and that's, that's the problem with an app. But when I started investing, it was with, you know, like Vanguard for in the U S.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (25:22)
Yes, oh yeah, 22, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is great.
This is great. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (25:43)
But it's kind of like an old institution. You kind of had to do a lot of paperwork up front. Yeah, it's very heavy, if that makes sense. And then once you get it set up, it's fine. that initial, there's got to be easier ways than when I started doing it 30 years ago.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (25:55)
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, there is many apps, right? won't I mean, the Giro and Soxo trading and you know, they're all quite similar. And I get a lot of questions as to what is the best app? don't know. Yeah, they're all different. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (26:12)
Well, I want to know what should someone
look for in an app?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (26:15)
Well, I would, depending on, this is why I'm asking you, how would you sleep at night about it? But depending on what you answer to me, I would just say invest in like three funds, Vanguard or iShares. They're very low commission and invest in the U S low commission is super important. One thing diversification is another one. And then.
House Of Peregrine (26:32)
So low commission is one thing. Low commission is one. Yep. Okay.
Okay, perfect. And so
Ana Herrero-Wallace (26:41)
good funds, right?
House Of Peregrine (26:42)
the fees are...
Ana Herrero-Wallace (26:42)
So yeah, the fees are super important. We're talking about compound interest. So 1 % or 2 % interest, could be thousands of euros over time. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (26:52)
Yep.
Okay. So those are two really good tips. So look for low commissions. And then the second one was
Ana Herrero-Wallace (26:58)
Yes,
diversification. So being diversified. not buying, wouldn't, I do have individual stocks. That is more just a bit of gambling, a bit of speculation. It's just fun money that you can lose, but really have a long-term approach. Invest in one or two funds consistently.
House Of Peregrine (27:10)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (27:18)
Regardless of the market and you're saying crypto for you was like fashion, which is a, I wrote it down because I love it. But you know, what's interesting about trading is a little bit the opposite of when we go shopping and you know, you buy the sweater and then the sweater is at a discount. go, Ooh, I'm going to buy it. It's at a discount. The market is different. And you're also talking about psychology. So the market is going down. People don't want to buy it. If it's going up, it's people want to buy it. So it's completely opposite.
psychology.
House Of Peregrine (27:49)
Yeah, then fashion, then shopping for clothes. Yeah, but once you get that, and there's two types of investing, right? There's the ones where you kind of watch the market. But what I would venture to start with for most women is just put a little bit away every month in something and just leave it there.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (27:51)
than shopping, yeah.
You know, and you're absolutely right. But one thing that is important, it depends if you're self-employed or if you're employed by a company, is to have an emergency fund and also whether you have a partner. So you, especially with uncertain times, companies are doing layoffs due to they want to save costs. They're taking other jobs to countries where they pay a lower wage. So many people are losing their jobs.
Do you have an emergency fund of three to six months if you're employed and maybe if you're self-employed? Having that a little bit higher than six months. And then the rest invest, right? So and then of course have a fund where you have, but it's also very important that you know how much money you're spending a month. So what are your expenses? Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (28:53)
Yeah.
And that's for the household. But I always try and get, and this is what I'll tell my daughters to do, is to have their own investment account that's outside of the family, that's outside of the emergency funds, that's outside of everything, especially if they decide to have children. Because it puts you in a uniquely, it doesn't matter if you marry the best partner in the world.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (29:03)
Yes.
House Of Peregrine (29:17)
He has the best job in the world. You have the best job in the world. Women, whether we like it or not, are uniquely fragile financially. Even if they're the breadwinner, it doesn't matter. To have an account that is uniquely yours, that's compound interest that you have access to, is the advice that I always give women. Not to hurt their partner, not for any other reason besides you are inherently
more financially fragile, whether we like to admit that or not. And so that's kind of what I first step for most women is like, have money of your own that's for your future. And that would be that putting away 50 bucks a month or 100 or whatever, despite anything else going on in the family, it's just for you. And that's what I always tell people as my advice when they get married.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (30:06)
Yeah, mean, to be frank about this, I'm engaged. I've been engaged for nine, 10 years. That's a different story, different forecast. I'm not married yet, but I do have my own account. So I have my own account. I've always worked anyway. And then we have a joint account where we do, you know, the joint expenses of the kids, the family, the house, and so forth. So yeah.
I agree with you that women need to be financially independent and then have...
House Of Peregrine (30:36)
And that's
independent if you are working for money or not, I think. that's one of my goals is to make that the new normal, is that. But sometimes that can be hard to get started, especially we know statistically, especially people our age or my age, that usually men are still in charge of the finances at a high level. And so that's why I'm asking for this endpoint. that's probably what you help people do with your consultancy. Is that right?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (30:43)
Yeah, I love that. Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. I have a customer who is a lady who just recently got divorced and she was relying on her partners. She's now at her mid 40s. She never had to learn investing and now she finds herself with all a substantial amount of money in crypto that she cannot.
take out because she doesn't understand it, but he didn't invest in anything else other than that. So that's the situation. If we rely on someone else, then things break out and you haven't learned anything in let's say 45 years and then you try to learn. It's a bad situation. It's a little bit like networking. You should network when you don't need to network. And then, you know, it's a difficult situation for many women. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (31:48)
Yeah. Well, and I think that it's a little bit like division of labor, right? So women often take the unpaid and un-upside labor. And again, this is changing. We all hope it is, but it hasn't changed that much since my mom and me. it's not changing fast enough. And so when women take over the majority of unpaid labor as a contribution to the household and men are in charge of the finances and the upper level planning for financial, you know, just learning how the system works.
That is just what I think would be nice to see change over time. so that, so is your consultancy a little bit like financial school? Is that kind of how you would?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (32:26)
Well, there's an education piece, but there's also a very important piece of understanding. First of all, what are your dreams? Short term, midterm, longterm. Let's create a financial plan for you. Yeah. So life planning. exactly how much money are you spending? How much money can you be investing and where to invest and then creating a system a bit like the book of atomic habits, creating a system.
House Of Peregrine (32:36)
So life planning, yep.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (32:53)
that is completely dumb proof in the sense that you don't have to think about it anymore. You don't have to have the anxiety of reading news to try to day trade or be smarter than anyone else. Once you create the system, you automate it. Also, one thing I do is look at pensions. This is something we don't talk about enough, but what is your pension doing? Where are they invested? Is that the correct...
is it the correct thing? I also talked to lot of entrepreneur ladies and they don't have a pension yet.
And they're like, oh, do I need a pension? Well, yes, it's tax-efficient. You do need a pension. So I think that that's also quite important. And holding hands. So a lot of my customers also work for other companies where they get options and they get a lot of equity from the company. One of them that I was just talking to has 32 % of her wealth in just one company, which is the company she works for. And this could be, again, the end run story of I lose my
job, the company goes to zero the shares and then I lose my wealth. you know, making and these are very, very smart women who just somehow didn't get into investments or they were just scared or they were have some sort of story like I had a story and they just haven't done it and they feel silly asking the questions, right?
House Of Peregrine (34:16)
Yeah. Well, and money is, like you said, ones and zeros, it's math, but it is emotional. that is something that, you know, a lot of people talk about how money is energy, money is, it's a lot of things, but it is the fuel that runs your life. Whether we want to, believe it or not, some people have stories about money being evil. Some people have stories about being rich, people being corrupt, or, you know, one person shouldn't have that much money. And women have those stories.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (34:28)
Thank
House Of Peregrine (34:44)
statistically more often than men. And so those money stories, do you help people work through their money stories? Is that part of what you help them do?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (34:52)
Absolutely. mean, I'm not a psychologist, but I think it's important that we share those stories. And I sometimes do that with the dinners that I organize where women open up their stories. Not necessarily I have this much money and I make that much money, but it's more like, okay, this is how I grew up. And it's good to understand what are your self-beliefs and self-limitations. for the book, actually, I interviewed 50 women and one of them said to me,
You know, I bought a house in Amsterdam, but I couldn't believe it was me. Like I thought it wasn't, I wasn't, it wasn't meant for me because I'm not rich. I never been rich. So it's someone else's story. Right. So it's those narratives. And I think it's important that people understand their, yeah, their limiting beliefs.
House Of Peregrine (35:32)
Yeah.
You said the book, I'm going to hold it up again. It's a gorgeous book. Still Thinking Act. What? Tell me about the title. It sounds like what we're talking about for women all the time.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (35:40)
yeah, thank you. Yes.
Yes, well, mean, the titles changed so many times. So that was the stressful part. But I, I got this because it's like, you're still ruminating. You're still thinking. I know I need to be investing. I know I need to optimize my portfolio. I have been investing, but I just don't have the time or don't want to do it. So it's like act.
And I think it's with many things in life, you know, I want to do this or I want to do that and then you're not acting. Obviously this is a smarter money for women. it's, it's, it's, it's really with the investment part, but it's yeah. How can you, and one thing about the book, again, it was 50 people I interviewed and it was beautiful to get their stories of money stories. And then, so there's three characters in the book, two women, one man.
and how they progress. And also there is a lot of data, so it's not just this narrative, but there's a lot of data on it. And there's some exercises that people can work through in order to understand their money story, in order to understand what's holding them back or to optimize things.
House Of Peregrine (36:51)
That's amazing. And I love that. I started reading it. Thanks for giving me one. But I love that you've mixed that in because we do know also women read less nonfiction than men do. So that's another really great addition. So what you've woven here is something that's very tailored to women in particular, not because they're not very good at trading, just because the narratives haven't, surprise, surprise, been written with them in mind.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (36:55)
Thank you. Thank you.
yeah.
House Of Peregrine (37:18)
I love that. I wanted to ask you because you said something at your launch that you are targeting women in Europe because most books about this sort of thing are tailored towards the US market. And so tell me a little bit about that. I thought that was so smart.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (37:20)
Mm-hmm.
No.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I've been reading, I love finance. I've been listening to podcasts on finance for decades now and reading. I am a nonfiction reader myself. okay. Okay. Okay. I'm both. I'm on holiday on fiction and then everything else on nonfiction. But you know, I was a little bit, yeah, sorry.
House Of Peregrine (37:45)
Me too, I'm a non-fiction reader too,
Oh man, I'm...
No, no, sorry. I'm like 99 % nonfiction.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (37:59)
Yeah, you and I need to share some books. No, no, no worries. But I was a little bit, I let it go for a long time because I lived in the US, so I understood what the problems were there with healthcare, education, you know how it is in the US. So it's a huge cost of university. They have a healthcare.
House Of Peregrine (38:02)
Yeah, of course. No, but you were saying, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (38:18)
crisis, you know, the least I can say is a crisis. You know, people driving cars that are expensive that they're leasing and people are living in credit card debt. And you know, you've lived in many countries so have I. It's not really the problems that we have in Europe. Yes, I mean, of course, people are in debt in Europe, but we don't have those problems. And so, you you read all these books and the examples are very similar as well. They're very US centric.
It's, normally males and it's all, yeah. And so I didn't feel completely identified. It's also us problems. The interest rates are different. And I thought, okay, you know, I have to write something that is for European women and it's not specific to any country, but all the examples I did the utmost I could to get all the examples from Europe. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (38:52)
Yep. Yep.
Nice.
And what would you say the difference? I mean, is that the difference in the markets? So interest rates and the fact that people just use money differently in different continents.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (39:14)
Yeah, and
I mean, I also think there's a different thing in the US. Europe tends to be more about community.
So helping each other and whatnot. I'm not saying that the US is not like that, but the US is more individualistic. And I think we see money differently, even Holland and the US are quite different. Like in Holland is not normal to display wealth the way that it could be in the US. They're much more open about it, which also has pros and cons. I love that perhaps in the US is not so much of a taboo. You know me. I mean, we've known each other, talked to each other a little bit. I like talking about money, right? It's something uncomfortable.
I like to share and I like to learn from others, but it is more of a taboo in Europe. But yeah, it is quite different. Whilst we're human, I think that there is a bit of differences. And of course, yeah, the healthcare, the education, transportation costs, everything is just slightly different.
House Of Peregrine (40:07)
Yeah.
And that's money that can be invested in Europe if it's not spent the same way. And so that makes it a very unique opportunity for if you're able to have some of those costs taken care of by universal health care and low transportation costs in Europe, it's an opportunity to spend some of that investing. it's a really important point. And time is your biggest lever.
as they always say. those are my two takeaways from what you're saying is, again, don't beat yourself up over not investing, but get started because again, time's the biggest lever that you have. And so like I loved how you said, people and people who lost their passwords are the best investors statistically. That's really, yeah. And so is there anything you can tell people? There was a story, maybe it was in your book.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (40:33)
Thank you.
That is true. Yes. Yes.
House Of Peregrine (40:54)
about a woman who moved from South Africa and she moved to Europe and had money and she just left it in a bank account because she didn't know what else to do. So tell us that sometimes happens and tell us about that a little bit.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (40:57)
Mm.
Yeah, and this
is my friend Heidi, Heidi Custors. She's a director at a fintech company. basically, five years ago, she moved from South Africa to Amsterdam.
And South Africa has a huge inflation in the South African round, but also had a lot of instruments where she could buy and they have a big interest. Let's say they pay a big interest. So she would put in a savings account and they pay, don't know how much percentage, whereas if you do it in Europe or at least it's 1.5, if that. she was used to just putting her money somewhere passive and then getting interest.
of course you have the depreciation of the currency. So when she moved to the Netherlands she didn't know what to do because she was just used to putting in savings account and realized that the savings account here weren't paying what she needed. So she left it in cash just because she didn't know what to do. So I think that that's the thing. She didn't bring, she was used to one thing and she tried to apply it in a different country and it just didn't work.
And that's the thing that we need. And like you're talking about, the people that listen to this podcast are normally people that are moving from one place to another and things are different.
House Of Peregrine (42:21)
Yeah, money is cultural. We always say on this podcast, money is cultural just like anything else. so in South Africa, sounds like the culture is you have a pretty easy place in a savings account to at least gain some interest that's meaningful. in Europe and US, there's another layer. So there's savings accounts, but those are not incentivized. Those are not places to make a return. There's a whole other system, which is what we're talking about investing in, that
makes it so that the interest is meaningful over time. So it's almost like your money's being rented, if you could say it that way. So when you walk up to someone, do you ever say, let's talk about money?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (42:55)
Yes. Yes.
all the time. My friends are getting annoyed. I even do it with men too and they're like surprised sometimes. But I do it. I love talking about it. Not necessarily how much money do you make, let me show off or none of that. It's not about that. It's about, okay, what can I learn from you?
House Of Peregrine (43:15)
Yeah.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (43:18)
And yeah, so it is something that I'm very comfortable with. Again, it's about what steps do I need to take in order to run the marathon? And it starts with doing the 200 meters and the 500 meters and the kilometer until you get to that half marathon and marathon. So yeah, I think we should open it up.
House Of Peregrine (43:38)
It's the
same skill. always say, so there's the skill that women have. It's called community building or creating. when your kid needs to go to kindergarten for the first time or they start school, you start talking to other moms about the schools and other dads and other parents and you get advice and you learn the tricks of the trade, if you will, of the schools in your area. then when there's, again, here, there's like the middle of our school lottery or
Ana Herrero-Wallace (43:46)
Thank you.
House Of Peregrine (44:02)
There's a private school. Women have this skill of asking, learning, learning systems. Applied to finances, it's like a match made in heaven. I can't stress enough how I know that women have the skills, more than enough skills, to invest that they can apply and be very successful. so the community building skills and the fact finding missions you do to get your kids
in activities is much more rigorous than it is to get started with investing.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (44:32)
Absolutely. And like you're saying, we learn from the community. So, and it's funny that we, I mean, I've talked, I'm a mom as well. I've talked about a lot of stuff, but then, you know, I talked about money, but most women don't. And it's like, wait, this could be a skill that we are teaching each other.
And why are we not talking about it? And men do it a lot more, right? So like they're just doing the barbecue and then they're talking about their money investments and why are we not doing it? So yeah, it needs to break. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (45:01)
Yeah,
don't women talk about money, do you think?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (45:06)
Well, I think it's we're brought up that way. It's also different cultures are, you know, it's taboo or it's tacky or, you know, I or intimidating or bragging. Yeah. And there's also perfection. Like it was a little bit like the book. Do I have the perfect title? I need to keep editing my book. I'm not going to deliver because it has to be perfect. And maybe there's also that thing of I don't want to be judged.
House Of Peregrine (45:16)
intimidating. I think some people think it's intimidating. Yeah.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (45:33)
You know, for saying the wrong thing, perhaps.
House Of Peregrine (45:36)
Can I bring something else up about it that maybe I've been married a really long time, almost 25 years, and I feel like I will Thank you. But I think I'm trying to change that narrative, too. It's like longevity does not equal success. But ⁓ the thing that I noticed about myself was that because it was a reflection on him, I wasn't allowed to talk about it socially because money was a reflection.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (45:37)
Sure.
Good for you.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
House Of Peregrine (46:02)
socially in our social construct, even if I was a breadwinner, it would still mean that he, like in our patriarchal cultures, this is just true. But if someone asked me like who decorated my house, I could go on and on and on about details because it was more of a reflection on me. And I don't like that that's the social construct we live under, but I wonder if that's holding some women back is that they're doing well or not well could be seen as a reflection on their partner if they're in a heterosexual marriage or a relationship.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (46:03)
No.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Right.
Right. it's,
it, you saying that if I was talking about money to other couples that that would reflect bad on my partner? Because then it looks like I'm too bossy and I'm just doing that bossy or what? Okay.
House Of Peregrine (46:38)
I wonder.
No, could be. Yeah, could be.
Or if they're trying to learn about money, it's like a reflection on their husband not doing a good job or something. I think, I just think there's social construct reasons because women will go on and on and on about things that they have domain over and talk about it with each other. But in this case, it seems a little bit more blended of a, again, socially.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (46:46)
Yeah.
Right, interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, because it's almost like...
It's almost like they wouldn't ask your husband about the house decoration.
they wouldn't ask you about their investments, which is just an assumption because it might be that you're doing their investments and he's doing their decoration. There's anything wrong with that. But if you talk about the investments, it looks like you're like, like he's not manly enough or he's not the one making. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm lucky enough. mean, my husband knows me by now and that's regard. He was at the launch. He completely supports all this. Right. He knows how annoying I am about this subject, but thank you for sharing that.
House Of Peregrine (47:15)
Absolutely, yep. Yeah.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (47:38)
because that's a very nice observation. Yeah. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (47:40)
I just wonder about that sometimes that and
people are different levels of comfortable disclosing about money because why do we money is such a it's almost like you don't talk about you talk about so many other things but money's almost a taboo. It's like you don't talk about religion and money in the US at least. And so there's such a taboo sometimes around it as well. And if you are coupled you might have different levels of candor around something a subject like that as well.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (47:59)
Yeah, politics.
Yeah, there's a lot of problems also. mean, one thing is you and I talking about money, which we can. There's another problem I see, which is couples not talking about money.
which is not something I completely focused on the book. So it was more for the women. There is some, some, some stories about the partners. so there is some, something on that, but you better have those conversations before you get married. You better have a prenup because if you don't have a prenup, you have a prenup, but it's just a government prenup, right? So you better have those conversations and really find out who your partner is because if you're a big spender, he's not, or vice versa, there's going to be some frictions and data.
House Of Peregrine (48:23)
Yeah.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (48:47)
shown and I think I cut this out of the book because it was just too long on that regard but data has shown that you know money has been one of the main problems of couples separating and getting divorced right so it's a very very important conversation to have.
House Of Peregrine (49:05)
Yeah, and you know what I advise couples to do before they move abroad or move to another country is to have another prenup.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (49:12)
yeah, good one. if yeah, pre-naps are amazing.
House Of Peregrine (49:13)
So
because value travels, so a lot of times people change roles when they change countries. if you had a career, both of you had a career here. When you move abroad, sometimes it's for one. So a renegotiation of value needs to happen every time you go through that sort of thing, not just about money, but about how value is created in your house. And so I always like to advise people to have those.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (49:21)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (49:38)
I mean, negotiation skills are needed in marriage. Like that's just way it is. knowing who your partner is and how you align on money is super important. However, that's why I really want women to have their own account because money can be used in all sorts of ways that we can't anticipate. Again, even in the best experience, like in the best marriages, sometimes you don't see things the same way.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (50:00)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (50:03)
and having that your own account is super important.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (50:07)
Yeah, it's
really interesting with my interviewing of women. There was a story, it didn't come to the book, but it's a story that I tell. Yeah, background stories. Yeah, I couldn't do everything, but there's a story I have of someone I interviewed who is a very, very smart woman, accomplished executive, but her husband at the time was keeping all the passwords and accounts away from her.
House Of Peregrine (50:16)
I love these background stories we're getting. Do tell.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (50:35)
because he thought he knew better. He thought, you know, I know how to invest better than you, so I'm not going to do that. And as she was getting more more literate in finance, she was saying, hey, I want to invest in index funds. He's like, leave it to me. You don't know what you're doing. And it ended up being that they got divorced. then, I mean, so it happens. It's not physical abuse, but it is financial abuse where, you know, even smart women are getting or men.
House Of Peregrine (50:42)
Yeah.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (51:03)
It could be a woman doing it to a man as well. But there's all these stories which are fascinating with money. And it's a way of controlling people as well.
House Of Peregrine (51:12)
Yeah, it is. It's a power. that it just can't be denied. It's not like, I don't even think sometimes men even do it on purpose. It's like I said, it's just this cultural thing sometimes that gets out of hand if you're not involved. And that's why I love what you're doing because again, it's a literacy we need like being able to make a meal or being able to drive a car or ride a bike. Like you need to know about money.
That's it's a life skill. It's not something to outsource. Even if you are in the day to day of it, it really is a essential life skill, I think. And that's what you're getting to in your work. And that's what you're doing in this great book. And so I hope that people will take the time to read this book, especially if you're moving countries and consider, like you said, the agreements you're operating under who, if you are partnered, your partner is, and also what your values are, because money is the lifeblood of our lives.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (51:52)
Thank you.
House Of Peregrine (52:08)
whether or not we want to admit it. And when we're doing it across cultures, it's even more important to have these agreements and this clarity, I think. So yeah, I love what you're doing. Tell me, is there anything we haven't covered that you would love to tell people?
Ana Herrero-Wallace (52:23)
Well, if people want to continue the conversation, they can check me out at adainvest.co. think you'll leave it in the comments, but I do online master classes and I cover what we call the wealth framework. So I have a framework of wealth and that is W for worth, E for earnings, A for assets, L for lifestyle, T for time, H for habits.
it's nice to continue that conversation. read the book, you don't have to read the book, come over, see us online. And then I create some dinners every once in a while. And then we also... Yes, I will, I will.
House Of Peregrine (52:57)
Invite me to your dinners.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (53:00)
And yeah, it's good that we sit on the table and then we meet each other, networking is very important as you know, but it's also important that we talk about money and what sort of, you know, just break the taboo and then exercise that.
And then of course people can get a call with me for free and then just understand whether there's a match and if I can help and mentor them financially. That's how I like to call myself a mentor on finance and just yeah, make the investment now forever. So that's the, that's how I see it.
House Of Peregrine (53:31)
Yep.
I love what you said. The best time to invest was yesterday, but the next best time is today. And it's especially as international women and people, we really need to be strategic about how our finances are going. And this is a great place to start if you have not started your financial journey. Ana, thank you so much for joining me today. I love what you're up to in the world. I love the book. I hope everyone checks it out.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (53:39)
Yes.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
House Of Peregrine (53:59)
and
we will put all of your contact info in the show notes. Thank you to our audience. Thank you everyone for joining us for the House of Peregrine podcast today. You can check out everything we're up to at houseofperegrine.com. Follow us on all the platforms at House of Peregrine. Thanks again and we'll see you next time.
Ana Herrero-Wallace (54:04)
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.