Lo Bosworth on Conquering the Next Phase of Adulthood

[00:00:00] Lo Bosworth The entertainment business is very challenging for me, and it is what I grew up in and how it really, to a certain degree, reinforced all of my scaredy cat emotional beliefs about money because I was forced to live paycheck to paycheck, and so starting my company opened up this whole new world for me.

[00:00:23] Jennifer Borget I am so excited about today's episode because I'm coming to you live from New York City with two incredible guests. One of those guests is Lo Bosworth, who starred on coming-of-age shows The Hills and Laguna Beach. Since then, Lo has made the transition from reality TV star to entrepreneur, founding her company Love Wellness in 2016, and she recently announced her engagement to investor Dom Natale.

I'm also thrilled to be joined by Lauren Yoder, VP of Product Management at Northwestern Mutual. Lauren leads the team that builds easy-to-use financial planning tools to help clients make smarter money decisions. She's here to break down the key financial considerations that come with stepping into the next stage. And as a mom to young kids, she's recently stepped into a new phase herself.

So today, we're talking about how to navigate all these exciting life transitions, personally and financially. Everyone's path into adulthood looks different. The challenges that come with this new phase of life are something we all experience. We'll hear from Lo about how she's tackling all this change. And as always, you can find helpful planning resources on NorthwesternMutual.com/podcast or in the episode show notes. And if you enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to leave us a rating and a review.

All right, let's dig in. Well, I know you have a fascinating story—you started your life on TV! Can you start by telling us what it was like growing up in the public eye?

[00:01:52] Lo Bosworth So I was cast in a reality TV show when I was a junior in high school, which nobody can anticipate that happening to them. And so that would have been about 2002, 2003. And it was before reality TV was really a thing. It was a new genre at the time, and getting thrust onto television when the show finally premiered, it happened my first week of college. So it was like the first episode of Laguna premiered, and then my classes started the very next day. And so my experience was one that was honestly pretty uncomfortable for me. I discovered very quickly that I did not like it. I did like that people knew who I was. But I was really excited throughout the process anyway. And as I got older, I think I developed a different perspective on my experience. And I definitely gained some wisdom and was able to see how what happened to me was actually an opportunity, right, and it really established a foundation for me to really develop the rest of my life and my career path.

[00:03:04] Jennifer Borget So how has that influenced, like, how you define success?

[00:03:09] Lo Bosworth So I think for me, when I was younger, I associated visibility with success. Right. How often do you get screen time? What kind of jobs are you getting after? How many media interviews have you done? And when I started Love Wellness, which happened many years later, I really began to understand that visibility is like the wrong sort of thing to assign success to. It's really about impact and how can you change the world around you for the better. And for me, when I started my company it was in 2016, I was dealing with a ton of health issues. I had vitamin deficiencies. I had women's health issues. I was depressed. I was anxious. And I was at the drug store constantly looking for solutions. There were not great ones there. If you look at the ingredient facts panel on an OTC drug, look at the inactive ingredients—hot tip. And it was really this experience that kind of led me to my next chapter in my life, which was starting my business and ultimately really, really redefining the women's wellness category in general. I started the company in 2016, as I mentioned, and we were one of the first brands in the space to make clean supplements and personal care products for women. So we really left out sugar, dyes, parabens, phthalates, fragrance from all of our products, and that resulted in really incredible efficacy. And 10 years later, the feminine care aisle has completely changed. If anybody goes to their Target or Walmart, you can find us there, but the aisle looks very different now than it did a decade ago when I started my business. And so I really kind of like met the moment.

[00:04:55] Jennifer Borget So this must have been quite the journey, getting from one place to another, like taking it back a little bit. When you were younger and first starting to manage your money, what did you think about money? What did do with your earned income, and how was your mindset around it then?

[00:05:12] Lo Bosworth So I've never been great at math.

[00:05:16] Jennifer Borget It's hard!

[00:05:16] Lo Bosworth I have other skill sets. And I think that made me afraid of money. And I think for a lot of people, emotion drives how you feel about money and how you spend money and how you save money. And I've actually been financially independent since I was 17, due in part because I was on television, and I was able to earn kind of a real income for somebody who's very young. But I lived in a place of fear a lot of the time, but that didn't prevent me from spending the money that I had earned. I think a lot of young people, you get a little bit of money, you get that first paycheck, and you spend it. And then you discover pretty quickly, Oh, I don't like having zero dollars in my bank account when I have to pay my rent and pay my car payment and buy food. So it was a pretty startling and quick revelation for me as a young person.

[00:06:12] Jennifer Borget Yeah, I feel like I similarly became financial independent really young mostly because I got married really young. So I had to learn how to manage money, and the only kind of rule that I had was don't run out—just kind of try don't hit zero in the bank account.

[00:06:28] Lauren Yoder I think a lot of us go through a very similar cycle of when we're just starting out on our own, and we get the first paycheck, and we're figuring out how to be financially independent. There's mistakes that are made. And it's actually a lot of times a really nice landing spot to make those mistakes because you have time on your side to course correct and make a difference. We did a consumer sentiment study last year specifically with the Gen Z market, and what they reported is 87 percent had financial regrets in 2024, which is a significant amount of one population. But out of those, that same group, 96 percent reported wanting to make healthier decisions and better financial decisions moving into 2025. And I just think it's part of the journey and the willingness to wanna make some changes and tweaks I think is an excellent start.

[00:07:21] Jennifer Borget Lauren, what are some things that people should be thinking about when they first start making an income?

[00:07:26] Lauren Yoder What I would encourage everyone to think of is How can I leverage and start thinking a little bit longer term as well and find the right balance? The best way to possibly do that is with a financial plan. What a financial plans does is it lays out all the things that are important to you. It forces you to have even those conversations with yourself and with your advisor about the things matter most to you and really lay those out so that you're finding the right balance between your needs today and your wants for the future. And again, time comes back into play. Things that might feel very far away will sneak up before you know it. And interest and time are one of our best advantages that we can possibly start to use. So, starting to put really good habits into place, starting to save, and starting to think about the future a little bit more and consistently will set you up in a really good spot.

[00:08:18] Jennifer Borget Yeah, that's one thing. I remember the first time I started saving, I was like, Okay, I want to go on a cruise for our fifth anniversary, and that is in 60 months. And if I save $75 a month for 60 months, we will have enough for this cruise, and we can buy it and go. And I just set up autodrafts, and that was the first thing. I didn't know anything else about what I was doing. But do you think that having a financial planner at that age—when is a good time to get one? Is there a good life stage?

[00:08:50] Lauren Yoder Yeah, I would say any age is a life stage. So any time is really the right time, even if you think your finances are simple right now or they seem too simplistic, like, Ooh, I don't want to bother with that. I don't need that. It's actually a really great time to start laying the foundation. You can do a couple of things with that, one, you can just start to learn. Learning about the things that matter to you, you can learn about yourself a little bit more by starting the process. You can also learn just broad financial education. Generally, we don't learn about this stuff in school. And then the third thing I'd say that this really helps you do is identify some blind spots. My background's in financial planning. I live and breathe this, and I still have blind spots. One of the most tangible ones I can think of is right after college, I was very uncomfortable with the amount of student debt that I was carrying. And what I was doing is I was making decisions. Every next dollar I had, any free dollars I had was going towards student loan payments. And working with an advisor helped me just like, take a little bit of the emotion that I felt about it and help me allocate those dollars. It made sense because I had really low interest on those student loans, and I was able to redirect those dollars into savings that earned a much higher interest. So my money was working a little bit harder for me, even that same dollar. So I think there's blind spots like that and examples that just like help you see a little bit differently.

[00:10:14] Jennifer Borget Based on things that maybe we've been told, and didn't realize—like, oh, things can change or your circumstance is a little bit different than the next person's circumstance. Lo, what would you say, like, so you talked about starting your business, and what would you say was, like, the biggest lesson you learned when taking that leap?

[00:10:31] Lo Bosworth I actually started my business with the last savings I had from being on television. And it's not inexpensive to start a business, right? Like, you need startup cash to get everything going. And I would sort of, it felt similar to, you know, taking your savings and, like, using it as a down payment on a home. The same type of situation for me when I started my business, right? It was an emotional money move. And it was one that required a lot of bravery and strength and really belief in myself, right? And the same thing, like when you buy a house, you're really excited about it. And I think for me, ultimately, you talked about planning and how it doesn't always have to be through the lens of like negative or oh, I can never buy a coffee because like I have to save her retirement. You know, you can take some risks, like you can do some things for yourself. And so for me, taking that savings and investing it in my business was one of those things. And I learned pretty early on that it was actually a really good decision for me because we became profitable almost instantly once I started that business.

[00:11:50] Jennifer Borget So you went from being a star on The Hills, being known as reality TV star, to now having an award-winning wellness company. And I'm sure this didn't happen overnight. What was that journey like?

[00:12:04] Lo Bosworth It was challenging out of the gate for sure. People are always like, Well, how did you do it? How did you make it happen? And I was like, well, I went to UCLA. I did go to college. I have a college degree. I understand how to put a team together. And so once I was three, four, or five years into the business and continued to tell my story, and my business continued to grow and then start to enter, like, mass retail (Target was our second retail partner. Ulta was first), it was then that people started to take me seriously. They were like, oh, these products actually really work. This woman is talking about something authentic and real, and this is a category defining brand.

[00:12:45] Jennifer Borget Was that the hardest part? Was people not taking you seriously or what was?

[00:12:49] Lo Bosworth Out of the gate, yeah, I think public perception was tough at first: of this girl who is on TV thinks that she has the authority to launch a supplement and personal care business. And I'm not saying that I'm a doctor and I know best. I've hired board-certified doctors and board-certified nutritionists to support our efforts. I am here to tell my story and communicate that women deserve better, you know, and why that is emotionally resonant and important, right?

[00:13:21] Jennifer Borget Right, right. And this was a big transition for you in life, and Lauren, I know you see a lot of people who have gone through life transitions, whether they're launching a business or entering a new phase of life or having some other milestones. What advice do you have for people who are maybe going through these major life milestones?

[00:13:43] Lauren Yoder There are so many life events and milestones that are happening, especially in the 20s and 30s. And many of them are unpredictable. So I mentioned a financial plan. It really helps you like think about those things and your priorities. But they're also like, I feel like I need a disclaimer of “subject to change” at any given point in time. Just from my own personal perspective, I grew up in a very small town in Ohio. My life plan was set. I was going to be 25; I was going to get married. And I was going to start having kids. And I was working toward that; I was saving and all this stuff. I hit 25 and I realized, or I was nearing 25, and I realized that that really wasn't fulfilling me, and I wanted to think about something a little bit different. And so I pivoted, and I ended up moving to New York, and I'm here, and I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would even be here, even literally right here right now. And the reason I was able to do that is because I put good financial practices in place, and I was able to make those decisions. So again, back to my earlier point, it's really about flexibility and like being able to change your goals and think about your milestones—keep them close, but also know that they can change, and you can pivot. It's really about building those things that are going to last with you along your entire lifetime.

[00:14:59] Jennifer Borget Yeah, I think that's good advice for any age. I think with kids, I was talking to some kids recently, like a career day, and I'm like, Listen, you don't have to pick. You're not making a decision today. You don't have to stick with that the rest of your life. You're allowed to change your mind. Even as an adult, you're always welcome to change your mind. That's okay. And speaking of changing your mind, how did your mindset change about money from when you were a kid, and you became financially independent so early, and then you start your own business? How did your mindset start to shift through that experience?

[00:15:36] Lo Bosworth The entertainment business is very challenging for me. And it is what I grew up in, and how it really, to a certain degree, reinforced all of my scaredy cat emotional beliefs about money, because I was forced to live paycheck to paycheck. And so starting my company opened up this whole new world for me, and I didn't take a salary for the first couple years, and I still like scraped by, but ultimately, I was able to provide myself with health insurance and a salary and a bonus, and I have all this equity in my business, and I was able to create a life that was comfortable for me. And I think I now understand how to budget in my personal life because I was forced to do it at work. Right? I learned what a P&L is. You got a budget, baby. And the blind spots that you talked about, if I look at the P&L for Love Wellness for the year, okay, I know in Q2, our cash may be a little lighter than it is in Q1, but it's because we're investing in X, Y, Z. And don't worry, a few months later, it's all going to go to the bottom line. But when you have these blind spots, when the bank account looks light, you get nervous. And so having a plan with a financial advisor helps you gain a lot of perspective on that and regain your sense of security and safety.

[00:16:58] Lauren Yoder You mentioned a lot of things that really make up the basis of feeling secure in your finances. And I think there are several things that are applicable to starting to set a foundation so that they're secure in their future. Some of those things that we would advise is, number one, protecting one of the greatest things at your disposal, your biggest asset, which is your ability to earn money. And that's having things like health insurance. That's having disability insurance in place and making sure that you're able to protect that income source on an ongoing basis.

The other things that are really important is things like having an emergency fund, setting aside three to six months of your expenses and really starting to make progress and work towards that. That's important because it helps you prevent a cycle that many fall into, which is I had an unexpected expense or I have this thing coming up and now I need to go use my credit card. And then you're making your, you're putting your additional cashflow into paying off the credit card. And you just get in this cycle that gets really hard to get out of. So by putting dollars aside and saying that this is for any of those unexpected things actually helps you prevent some of those pieces that might come up along the way.

The other thing I would mention is insurance falls up at the top of that in terms of protecting your loved ones and locking in your insurability. The best time to lock in that insurability is when you're young and you're able to. And you can also start to think of some of those pieces with the right tools and the right places as savings mechanisms as well. The last thing I'll mention here is wanting to make sure that you have top of mind moving forward is always making sure you're taking advantage of your employer match. They're giving you money; make sure you take advantage of it and contribute what you need to in order to get that match. I think having these things in place is really beneficial and sets that foundation that everything else builds on top of, and that gives you security to make some of the riskier decisions or make some of those moves in the future.

[00:19:02] Jennifer Borget Now, I want to talk about something exciting, too. I mean, your business is very exciting, but also—you got engaged!

[00:19:08] Lo Bosworth Yes, I'm so excited!

[00:19:09] Jennifer Borget Congratulations.

[00:19:09] Lo Bosworth Thank you.

[00:19:11] Jennifer Borget So I want to know, first of all, can we talk a little bit about your engagement, your wedding plans, things like that?

[00:19:20] Lo Bosworth Yes, we can talk about it. I'm thrilled.

[00:19:22] Jennifer Borget What do you want to tell us about your engagement? First of all.

[00:19:25] Lo Bosworth I met my fiancé Dom a year and a half ago. We were introduced through his sisters on Instagram, and I am somebody who met my partner later in life. We met when we were both 37, and I have always been somebody who wanted to get married and wanted to have a family, and I spent a big chunk of my 30s single, which was unexpected for me. I'd gotten out of relationship and tried to find my footing, and then I really decided to focus on work for a couple of years. I think that I was embarrassed that I was single, to be honest with you. I think that a lot of women who are in their later 30s kind of feel that way. It's not of our own making; it's what society tells us, right? Oh, you're a spinster now. You are undesirable. No, that's wrong. So, one day, after I had done a lot of self-work and therapy and reflection on my relationship status, I started to get really comfortable being alone. I was like, Well, you know what? My life is actually great. Stop being such a doubter about this. And I really became comfortable in my own shoes—so comfortable, in fact, that somebody asked me anything on Instagram stories. Are you single? I had been getting this question for years, and I just never fielded the question publicly because I was uncomfortable with it. But one day I said, Yes, I'm single. And then into the DMs came Dom's sisters. And we actually have a lot of mutual friends, as it turns out, in a similar community. He lives in New York City. He has three sisters. He's one of four kids. And yeah, his family set us up. And it's a really fantastic story.

[00:21:13] Jennifer Borget There's a lesson here, people, there's a lesson here—wear your single badge with honor.

[00:21:19] Lo Bosworth It's true. I realized everyone needs to be marketing themselves for what they want. If you're single and you want a partner, you have to do the work to find a partner. You have to ask to be set up. You have go on blind dates. You have do the work. You can't just stay in your house and play on TikTok. That's not a good way to get a partner.

[00:21:43] Jennifer Borget So, yeah, more women are getting married later in life, and a lot of women are making that decision, or maybe it just happens to be the case, and they're trying to get their financial independence before starting their families. Do you feel like your goals shifted from the time when you were single to now that you've been in a committed relationship, getting engaged—has your financial mindset changed in that time?

[00:22:07] Lo Bosworth I think, thankfully, Dom and I, because we are a little bit older, we are really established in our own lives. And ultimately, our independent financial goals, once we talked about it, really align very nicely. I think that that is lucky because I think you can meet somebody, and you're a financial mismatch to a certain degree, but you can become a financial match. But we got lucky out of the gate in that we have a lot of the same values and wants and needs and, you know, similar ways that we feel about money. Becoming brave enough to initiate those conversations was challenging, but having actual conversations about how we want to spend and save our money ultimately was easy because we share a very similar point of view.

[00:22:58] Jennifer Borget That's great. It wasn't a first date conversation?

[00:22:59] Lo Bosworth It was not a first date.

[00:23:02] Jennifer Borget What about wedding planning? How's that going? Are there areas where you're like, We are going to splurge and go crazy here—areas where you're trying to save for a big wedding?

[00:23:13] Lo Bosworth Yeah, should I share all the secrets? Okay, when we first got engaged, we were thinking, Let's have a big New York City wedding. And then randomly, we decided to have a spur-of-the-moment engagement party at the Ear Inn, which is a dive bar right down the street. We had one of the best nights of our lives at this dive bar with our friends that we gathered together last minute, drinking beers out of cups on the sidewalk. And we looked at each other afterward and said, Are we making a mistake having a huge, fancy, expensive wedding? And ultimately, we decided to shift our priorities because we would like to start a family. We would like to buy a house. Those things cost money, and you have to plan for your future, right? So, we are going to have a small, family-only wedding this summer. We're going to get married in Laguna Beach. We're going to get married in the morning one day and then go up to my parents' house and have our celebration in the backyard with just family and keep it really special and meaningful. I think they call this a micro wedding.

[00:24:28] Jennifer Borget Micro wedding. I like that.

[00:24:30] Lo Bosworth I think if I was younger, I probably would have just gone for a bigger wedding. I think, if I were younger, would have gone for a bigger wedding. But now, after my experiences, we're both like, You know, let's do something that feels really meaningful to us that allows us to remove a lot of the stress from the equation. Because if you spend a lot of money on your wedding, I think it becomes stressful in other areas of your life, or it has the potential to become stressful. So, now we're just like, wow. I bought an off-the-rack wedding dress off the internet for like a thousand dollars, and I'm thrilled with it. It fits great. You don't need to go custom designer and try to make it work if it's like not for you.

[00:25:13] Jennifer Borget I rented my wedding dress, actually, so yeah, it was great. Don't regret it. Lauren, are there other tips, I mean, we're handing out all of our wedding tips.

[00:25:22] Lauren Yoder You're doing amazing here. No, I would say that the very first thing is figuring out what your budget is and what you're wanting to spend, like starting there and then starting on the priorities. Is it the photographer? Is it food? I prioritized food for mine. That was like the thing I really wanted. But line up those because you're going to have to have trade-offs. There are a lot of resources online, specifically The Knot, that give you the starting point for your state, for each of the categories of where you should start thinking about what the budget should be, and then you can adjust and splurge and save in the areas that matter most to you and that you want to really prioritize.

[00:26:03] Jennifer Borget That's a good tip. So, I know you've been married for five years, yourself, right? What's some great financial advice you got when you got married?

[00:26:11] Lauren Yoder The biggest one we got is to be transparent and go into it with no surprises. I knew early on that I was never going to marry someone without knowing their credit score—definitely not on a first date but definitely an important conversation. And I think we even have a little competition going. We're both in the finance area; we've chosen careers, and we still work with financial advisors to help us navigate it. We brought them into our money conversations when we were starting out because they were helping facilitate. I like to call them our financial therapist when it's the three of us all together. They really helped us see and resolve any differences. We're pretty much aligned, but I think that was the biggest part. Just no surprises. I think in general, we don't want a ton of surprises, but definitely financially you don't want to learn that someone's carrying a ton of debt or their credit score is really bad. You want to go into that and all those pieces eyes wide open. So we definitely had those conversations early on, and I think that was great advice.

[00:27:14] Jennifer Borget And you'd say that's pretty much what people should have on their radar, would you say, before they get married?

[00:27:18] Lauren Yoder Yeah, and those conversations are important before you get married, but they're important ongoing. They're important to have on a regular basis.

[00:27:27] Jennifer Borget Lo, I know you and your fiancé have started talking about what's next. I mean, you guys have been very open with your conversations and things. And I know you've also been open sharing about your health journey all along. And one of those things has been IVF that you've talked about. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that decision and why you feel like that was the right choice for you?

[00:27:46] Lo Bosworth The thing about fertility treatments is that typically they're unexpected. They fall into the unexpected bucket, and it can be tens of thousands of dollars to do egg freezing, IUI, IVF. I got diagnosed with endometriosis at the end of last year, which really explained a lot of why some of my AMH levels were low, egg count low, that kind of stuff. And Dom and I kind of knew early out of the gate when we started our relationship that family planning was going to be really important for us and that we may have to go down the path of IVF or just fertility treatments in general. But I would never call it affordable, and I would say that it's not really something that anybody anticipates having to do.

[00:28:35] Jennifer Borget Well, we are definitely wishing, hoping, praying for the best.

[00:28:39] Lo Bosworth Thank you. We're very hopeful and very excited.

[00:28:41] Jennifer Borget That's exciting. Yeah, that is very exciting. Now, you guys are thinking more about the future, and we've been talking about that, but do you have any advice for your younger self?

[00:28:50] Lo Bosworth Oh my goodness!

[00:28:54] Jennifer Borget What would you tell her?

[00:28:57] Lo Bosworth I think we were the same when we were young, like Don't let it get to zero, but just spend the money in the ways that you need and want out of the gate. And I didn't have a plan. So, I would tell my younger self to have a plan, and you don't have to be afraid of your plan. Plans don't have to be restrictive, right? You can still live your life in the way that you want to live. It just—plans actually provide you with a ton of reassurance, you know? If you're one of those people who doesn't like to go look at your bank account, you need a plan.

[00:29:30] Jennifer Borget Is that a good rule of thumb? I'm wondering that now.

[00:29:33] Lo Bosworth And you have to get comfortable with ...

[00:29:34] Jennifer Borget Then you especially need a plan.

[00:29:36] Lo Bosworth Yeah, you have to get comfortable with the idea of I'm going to pick up the phone and I'm going to call somebody for help. You have to be brave enough to even do that.

[00:29:41] Jennifer Borget Yeah, I know when I was younger and we first got married, it was like every step we made thinking about not getting to zero. And then I think the next thing was, Okay, as we start making more money, maybe I don't start spending more money. What if I keep my spending around the same as when we were making less? I think that helped buffer a little bit, you know, not automatically increasing my spending.

[00:30:12] Lauren Yoder All of those little like things and ways that you manage it are so important and valuable and establish good, healthy habits. Just because you make more doesn't mean you have to spend more. It actually means you could save more.

[00:30:26] Jennifer Borget Lauren, what are some of the biggest financial and emotional adjustments that come with this next phase of adulthood that people are going into, and what advice do you have for listeners who are currently on this journey?

[00:30:37] Lauren Yoder My biggest thing is I think so many of these life stages are overwhelming on their own, and then add in the financial aspect, and they just become even more so. Imagine a life where you've built really good habits and you're not stressed about the financial pieces and you can focus on the other aspects. The change that's involved, the emotion that's involved, the stress of going through IVF or starting a family, all of those pieces—if you put good habits into place now, it doesn't have to be as overwhelming because you're not also worried about the financial aspects. I just can't reinforce enough how financial planning and really owning your finances sets you up for an empowered and flexible future for yourself.

[00:31:22] Jennifer Borget All right, now we have some really great questions that came in from our audience, so I'm going to ask a couple of those to you guys. Okay, first I got one for Lo. Is there anything from today that we've been talking about, discussing, that surprised you and it might shift how you plan for the future, whether it's personally or professionally?

[00:31:40] Lo Bosworth Yeah, I didn't learn this today. I actually learned this from my friends at Northwestern Mutual when we were first talking about our partnership. And they congratulated me on getting married. And they're like, Are you guys going to buy a house? And I was like, Well, maybe we're thinking about it. We're looking at our budget, all this stuff. And a person on the team said, Well, did you know that you can actually borrow against your life insurance policy to make a big purchase in your life? My jaw dropped. What? What? I did not know that. I feel like nobody knows that. And that is one of the biggest takeaways, I think—true financial advice that has kind of stuck with me. And even if you think you know a lot, you can always continue to learn and get educated and understand different products and how to use them in your life. So, I think to me, that was a really exciting takeaway that I didn't know.

[00:32:39] Jennifer Borget Okay, Lauren, here's one for you. What financial trends are you seeing with newlyweds or younger couples who are starting their lives together? Do you have any financial hacks or tips for them?

[00:32:47] Lauren Yoder What we're finding is that the age of people getting married is increasing. It's been a steady incline since the 1960s, I want to say. The average age of marriage right now is 32. And what we're finding by that is there are other things that change as other indicators like that change. One of them is that people are bringing more assets into a marriage than they had before, so the rise of prenuptial agreements is pretty significant. I want to say about 47 percent of Gen Z and millennials who are either engaged or married are planning on or have signed a prenuptual agreement—47 percent, that number blew my mind. It was much higher than I thought it was going to be, but that's just one example of how finances are changing. And something like age, I wouldn't have immediately drawn that line, but it's just something to consider as you're getting married and why working with a financial advisor is so important.

[00:33:42] Jennifer Borget That's all I have for you. Thank you so much for this awesome conversation today. Lauren, thank you for your wise words.

[00:33:50] Lauren Yoder Absolutely.

[00:33:50] Jennifer Borget Lo, congratulations on your engagement.

[00:33:52] Lo Bosworth Thank you.

[00:33:53] Jennifer Borget And starting your family. I'm so excited for you. A huge thank you to Lo and Lauren for joining me live today. It was such a thoughtful and inspiring conversation about how to navigate life's big transitions.

If today's episode resonated with you, stay tuned for more episodes this season on other important life events. Before you go, make sure to download the Essential Couples Guide on Combining Finances and explore other key planning resources at NorthwesternMutual.com/podcast. We've got more great episodes coming your way soon, so make sure you're following A Better Way to Money wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:34:32] Speaker 5 Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company (NM) and its subsidiaries in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Not all Northwestern Mutual representatives are advisors. Only those representatives with advisor in their title or who otherwise disclose their status as an advisor of Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company, NMWMC, are credentialed as NMWMC representatives to provide advisory services.

Lo Bosworth is not affiliated with Northwestern Mutual, and the views expressed by Lo Bosworth do not necessarily represent those of Northwestern Mutual or its subsidiaries.

Utilizing the accumulated value through policy loans, surrenders or cash withdrawals will reduce the death benefit and may necessitate greater outlay than anticipated and/or result in an unexpected taxable event.