WTOP Interview: Consider All Your Dimensions Of Wealth When Managing Your Finances

Interview Transcript:

SHAWN: It is 5:12, as you manage your finances and try to build your wealth, you might not realize there are more than 40 dimensions of wealth to think about; each of them can affect how well you do.

HILLARY: Joining us to talk about it, Dawn Doebler; cofounder of Her Wealth and Senior Wealth Advisor at Bridgewater Wealth in Bethesda. Hello Dawn!

DAWN: Hi Hillary!

HILLARY: So somebody listening may not be familiar with this term, what are the dimensions of wealth?

DAWN: Before I answer you Hillary, I want to say our lives are becoming more complicated and things like blended families, people living longer, millennials living at home; we've talked about some of these things have made our lives more complicated. So, I decided to talk about this concept in terms of dimensions; so dimensions are the unique attributes of your particular life. And we see that many people are relying on financial advice from their friends or from information created for the masses. So, we want to suggest that your set of life circumstances or the dimensions of your wealth are not the same as your friends' or your colleagues' or the masses'.

SHAWN: I don’t know if I have any friends I would take financial advice from. There are four categories, is the correct; tell us about them and what effect they can have on your finances?

DAWN: That’s right! Well as you said, we came up with 40 different dimensions, so we want to try to simplify a little bit and we categorize them into four categories:

1. ‍Personal
2. Wealth
3. Family
4. And Money Experience

So, PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES are things that you would expect; age, marital status, your health level and those are kind of obvious to consider when you’re managing your money. But there are some more obscure things like; what are your personal values, what are your short-term goals, what are your long-term goals and what are your charitable interests?

WEALTH ATTRIBUTES: We want to know your wealth attributes; that includes your total level of wealth, where do you derive your income, what’s your debt structure look like, what are your savings and spending patterns and certainly what are your taxes. Because all of those things interact and affect each other and you don’t want to ignore those.

FAMILY ATTRIBUTES: This is an area that’s often ignored especially if you’re working with someone online and we do want to consider your marital status; the strength of your relationships, how you talk about money in your family and more sensitive information like the capabilities of your children and if they’re married, that dynamic.

MONEY EXPERIENCE: What is your experience, your attitudes, your interest in managing your money! We believe you really should understand what you’re invested in, so if you have a lot of education, that’s great, you can be more sophisticated. If not, you might want to shy away from the more technical aspects of managing your money on your own.

HILLARY: Why should people be really cautious if they're working outside of these wealth dimensions?

DAWN: Well, as we said at the outset, you know we do recognize a lot of people are taking financial advice written for the masses or from their friends and family and some of that’s affected that raising your awareness to things that you should be paying attention to. But, we really think that that’s best used as general direction or for prioritizing things that you should consider and if you’re managing money on your own or you're working with an advisor, we suggest you consider all of these dimensions, they do make a difference and especially if you’re making very big financial decisions.

SHAWN: Alright Dawn, thank you so much for coming in, we always appreciate it.

DAWN: Thank you.

SHAWN: Dawn Doebler from Bridgewater Wealth in Bethesda. For more, go to WTOP.com search Her Wealth.