Women's Money Wisdom

Episode 241: Sustainable Fashion with Marcie Greene

• Melissa Joy, CFP® • Season 4 • Episode 241

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Curious about how your fashion choices affect your wallet and the planet? In this episode, Melissa Joy, CFP®, CDFA® sits down with Marcie Greene, a sustainable fashion advocate and adjunct assistant professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, to explore the connections between fast fashion, personal finances, and environmental sustainability. From her retail beginnings to her passion for eco-consciousness, Marcie shares her insights into how consumers can rethink their buying habits and take small steps toward a more sustainable wardrobe. 

We dive deep into the hidden dangers of PFAS chemicals often found in everyday clothing, revealing how brands like Patagonia are leading the charge to reduce their impact. Marcie also highlights essential tools such as Good On You and Eco Cult, which can help consumers make informed decisions about sustainable brands, while emphasizing the broader issues of PFAS pollution and human rights in global supply chains. 

Are you a fashion lover overwhelmed by fleeting trends? We’ve got you covered! Marcie talks about the joy of vintage shopping and resale platforms like Vestiaire Collective, The RealReal, and Poshmark, providing practical tips for resisting trend-driven shopping and making mindful luxury purchases that reflect personal style. Learn how "shopping your closet" and renting outfits for special occasions can be both financially savvy and environmentally friendly. 

Listen and Learn: 

  • The hidden costs of fast fashion on both your finances and the environment. 
  • What PFAS chemicals are and how sustainable brands like Patagonia are combating them. 
  • Key resources like Good On You and Eco Cult to help you identify eco-friendly fashion brands. 
  • The growing influence of vintage and resale markets, including Vestiaire Collective, The RealReal, and Poshmark. 
  • Simple strategies to build a sustainable wardrobe, such as "shopping your closet" and renting outfits. 

Resources:  

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. I'm Melissa Joy, a certified financial planner and the founder of Pearl Planning. My goal is to help you streamline and organize your finances, navigate big money decisions with confidence and be strategic in order to grow your wealth. As a woman, you work hard for your money and I'm here to help you make the most of it. Now let's get into the show. I am thrilled for today's topic, not only because we have a great guest, who also happens to be a good friend of mine, but we are going to talk about something that I think all of us may consider. We're discussing fashion and what makes a good buying decision, and how that interweaves into sustainability.

Speaker 1:

We are joined by Marcy Green. She has over two decades of fashion industry experience and today she's an adjunct assistant professor at Fashion Institute of Technology. She specializes in sustainability as well as business. She is the past. She sits on the President's Council of Sustainability at the school and was recognized for the President's Award for Faculty Excellence. In the past and prior to that, marci founded her own company, gifted and Present, as well as being a member of just experience in the fashion industry.

Speaker 1:

So, marci, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, so excited to be here. Well, I'm so glad you're able to join, because one of the things that I think about and it's really a complex, interwoven subject because one of the line items on my personal budget that I love the most is clothing and fashion. But we live in this ever-changing era where there's pressure to just bulk up and download and buy as many things as you can on Amazon or some other kind of fast fashion place, but that has impact both in our household, on our finances and in the rest of the world, and that's the area that I know you are focusing on. So I'm so excited to hear what you have to say.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean sustainability is. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people in the. In the grand scheme of things, it's well, the full definition is what we do today doesn't adversely affect the right of people living and how they live in the future. Right, we want to keep the earth the way it is. We don't want to affect people's futures, and that goes back to not only the way our clothes are made, but what they're made of, what they're dyed with, et cetera, how they get to us. And, in terms of personal sustainability, you want your things to last. You're making, like you said, it's a line item on your budget. You're making an investment, so you want that investment to sustain you as long as possible, and there's there are ways to do that.

Speaker 1:

How did you, you know, I know you didn't get into sustainability first. First you went into, you went to FIT. You really learned the business. How did it evolve to you know? Kind of come back to this, focus on or start to focus on sustainability.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I. I started in this business, um, you know, right around 2000, 2001. And, um, I was on the buying side for, uh, a very large retailer, a retailer at that time who had about 500 stores, um, and then I worked for various other retailers and the name of the game on that side of the business is sell more. You know, we deliver a product once a month. Let's deliver it twice a month. We drop sales once a day. Let's do it once in the daytime and once at night, when people you know are home, relaxing and in the mood to shop. And that was kind of what I was taught when I started teaching at FIT. You know, I started to learn more about holistically different sides of the business I didn't know about.

Speaker 2:

And when, as part of curriculum for one class, I started teaching sustainability and it was put together for me, I started realizing how bad that mindset was. I knew when I was doing it it was like do people really need to buy this much? But you know, we had a bottom line, we were a public company in some cases, or we had investors, so you just have to sell more. But once I started learning about sustainability through teaching it and then started learning about it myself. Either I'm getting my master's in it or just my own personal research. You realize we've sort of been I hate to use the word brainwash, but that's it With social media, like you said, with the idea that you have to always have something new and be on trend, and that wasn't always the way and that just made me feel more passionate about not buying as much and teaching that.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's really evolved over our lifetimes, right? So, even going back to when I was in elementary school, or certainly, my mother tells me that most of her wardrobe was made by her mother and now we have that. It's very rare. One of my fifth graders friends does get a lot of her clothing from her grandma or made by her grandma and mom, but it's changed a lot in terms of, you know, the life of clothing and things like that. What is happening now and what are some of the impacts of that shift?

Speaker 2:

Well, like I said, social media is driving a lot of that, as is imports. I mean you can go back with NAFTA, with USMCA. You know these different political policies that drove sourcing overseas or at least out of the US. So that's one thing. And then social media saying you need something new every day, Can you?

Speaker 1:

repeat that question. Yeah, so what is happening? Because, since we're doing this, you know we're speeding up the kind of turnover in clothing. What are the results? Whether it's in our you know ecosystem or in our closets, like you know what is happening because of that.

Speaker 2:

Right. So that's what I wanted to say. And the other thing, when I was going back to overseas, is all of these imports coming in, a lot of them from China. We're not going to talk about the brands quite yet, but there are a lot of overseas companies that just ship things constantly. The thing is now people buy 60% more clothing than they did 15 or 20 years ago and they only keep it for half as long as they used to.

Speaker 2:

So that churn is creating not only pollution on the manufacturing side water usage. The fashion industry is one of the worst in terms of water usage, greenhouse gas emissions. So on that side of it we're creating more and more and more. And on the other side, when we dispose of something, it never really goes away. There's a desert in Chile called the Atacama Desert, where the landfill of textiles and clothing waste can be seen from space. So you know there's this. Yeah, you can Google it. It's really terrifying. So you know when we say, well, I'm going to give it to Goodwill, or you know someone else can use it. Sometimes it gets shipped to countries where it is its own industry of people selling these second third-hand clothes. They're made of inappropriate materials to begin with, burning them only puts that gas and that toxicity back into the air. So you know, buying more and this speeding up of the fashion culture is really detrimental on both the front end and the back end and our middle end, our wallets and our budget.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, tell me what's going on when you talk about the good sources versus bad sources of fabric and materials, what you know some may be more for lack of, but you can tell me the right word but compostable than others, or organic. What do we have in there that we might not expect?

Speaker 2:

Well, some we know what we have in there, some we don't. So when you're looking at materials, you know people think, oh, it's recyclable. Well, only fabrics that are not blends are recyclable. So if you buy something that's 99 cotton and one percent polyester or spandex or whatever it is, it's very hard to separate those two and recycle them. So hundred percent of anything is is more recyclable than blend of most natural materials. If you get like a cotton linen blend, they're in the same family so you could recycle those. So that's the first thing you definitely want to look for organic and let's say organic cotton. Recycled cotton would be even better. You know, if it's recycled it you're cutting out that front end of watering the cotton, harvesting the cotton. So natural materials are great and there are a lot of third-party certifications that you can look for, which is its own conversation, to be honest. And then you know you want to look for things that aren't necessarily toxic.

Speaker 2:

There's been a lot of talk in the news lately about PFAS, which are sort of forever chemicals that's going to apply to anything that's waterproof, that's fireproof, fire retardant. Those are not good. So if you can avoid those and like Patagonia is one example, they're moving away from PFAS. They still have them in some pieces, but at a much, much less concentration than some other companies. So you know you want to look at these sorts of things in terms of what's recyclable, what's sustainable, and there are some really good resources. So there's a website I love called Good On you and I think it's org they're great where they will give brands different ratings in terms of are they good, quote, unquote, are they not? There's another one called Eco Cult which really concentrates on the toxicity of clothing and really great alternatives for, you know, recycled, let's say, swimsuits or nylon, or just clothing that's healthier for you and healthier for the planet just clothing, that's healthier for you and healthier for the planet.

Speaker 1:

Well, to really pull that closer to home, in our river here outside of Dexter, michigan, on the Huron River, which goes through University of Michigan, where we met each other with school, you are instructed not to eat the fish because of PFAS pollution. So you know, when you're propagating and seeking out things that avoid that, you can really feel it in your neighborhood and closer to home because that manufacturing leaves that forever chemical which is really difficult to get rid of.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's really scary. And if you think about it, you know I'm telling you don't wear clothes with these chemicals in it. Think about the people making them. There are stories from all over the world, and it's not just overseas. There are stories from, you know, upstate New York, where people are dyeing leather goods. Or you know the jewelry industry, which used to really be concentrated in Rhode Island, where jewelry may or may not have had lead in it back in the day. So the people who are making these materials are suffering, I hate to say it, far worse than those of us who are just wearing them. So, for the good of everyone, avoiding those are really important.

Speaker 1:

We recently had a guest that talked about human rights and its impact on the economy and what you can do about it. What is the current situation when it comes to fair labor, safe labor or excluding child labor, things like that?

Speaker 2:

There's fair trade certified, which is great, and some companies I mean it's more of a bigger picture of transparency Some brands in the apparel and beauty and accessories industry are more transparent than others in terms of who they're working with. Jcrew Group, for example, which is JCrew and Factory and Madewell. They publish an ESG Environmental, social Governance Report, which I just had the pleasure of going through with a fine-tooth comb for a different project. And you know, they say here are some of the factories we work with, here are our tier one factories who do the finishing for our product. Here's how we support them. We partner with Fair Trade for X, y and Z, and that's really great X, y and Z, and that's really great.

Speaker 2:

Now, on the flip side of that, we get an abundance of cotton from China and what just came out is that if you're familiar at all with what's going on in China with the Uyghur slaves and Chinese production, or Chinese harvesting and Chinese production or Chinese harvesting, the estimation right now is and I want to get this number right, I believe two-thirds. I might have to circle back with you on that. Two-thirds of cotton in the US has Uyghur slave labor attached to it and this was a study done with X amount of years it was out of Sourcing Journal. X amount of years of cotton that they looked at, I want to say over 800 different specimens. So you know slave labor. There's a law against importing winger cotton into the US. That doesn't mean it's not getting here.

Speaker 2:

So some companies are being extremely transparent about where they're sourcing their goods and how they're supporting those workers. Some are not. Bangladesh continues to have issues with their workers, uh, striking Um, and that there's a history there around a plaza um where the factory collapsed and killed thousands of workers happened in Bangladesh. So it's it's still not great. You have to really, if you really care about it, you have to research what the company you're buying from is doing and how transparent they're being. There's one other um other source I'm going to throw out there. It's called Open Supply Hub. Anyone can research this and you know JCrew makes their first tier suppliers available on here. A lot of companies do, so you can go in if you're really interested and see where was this made. What do they say about the factory? How many people are working there? How many women are working there? Are their children working there? And you would hope not, but Open Supply Hub is a great resource for that.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for that. We'll make sure to include all of these resources in our show notes so that people can check them out as they're reading and listening. I think this is such a fascinating conversation because your decisions, you know, can both influence outcomes in terms of, you know, buying behavior, especially en masse, but also sometimes sustainability, and, you know, is a way to be conservative with your budget as well. Even if you happen to spend more money per piece, it may result in better finances as well. So talk to us about both what a consumer can do when making choices about fashion to either help sustainability, but also, I think, so many of your ideas incorporate, you know, kind of better results or outcomes at home, in your closet and in your wallet as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I think the number one thing we have to start doing more of is treating our possessions, but treating our fashion, our apparel, our accessories as valuable. And that doesn't mean they were luxury items that cost thousands of dollars, but they're an investment. Like I said, you've already spent money on them, so make it work for you. And I think what people can do is shop smarter, right, shop with more intention, keep your clothes for longer and when you're ready to get rid of them, get that investment back. So when you're shopping, you know, look for quality. And that doesn't mean, I said, luxury.

Speaker 2:

You know I have pieces from h? M and zara, um, who are actually doing more for the environment than you would think from those types of brands, um, or are more transparent about it in some cases, but I have pieces from them that are 10, 15, 20 years old, because the stitching was good to begin with, the buttons were sewn on correctly. You know you want to look at the, the trims and make sure, um, there aren't any threads hanging out. When you buy something, you want to make sure the fabric is thick enough where it's not going to get a hole in it very easily. Um, let me think here uh, you want to get quality materials um obviously.

Speaker 1:

How do you see, like, if I'm not educated in fashion technically, how do I see good stitching?

Speaker 2:

Well, first of all, if you have a thread, I mean, I go in stores and before I've even tried something on, I see a thread hanging off of a button, or you can tell the button is loose, so that's going to come apart earlier than you want it to. If you look at the stitching on the seams and it's relatively tight, like small stitches, that's great. Bigger stitches I have a pair of pants with really long stitches and every time I put them on it's got quite a big cuff. My foot almost goes through the stitches, which means I'm going to rip it and I'm either going to not want to wear it or I'm going to need to pay to get it fixed, which is better than throwing it out. So you know tight stitches that aren't loose, smaller stitches, no threads. And then you know treating your clothing really well after you buy it. This might be controversial, but you don't have to wash your clothes necessarily every time you wear them. Some people, some denim aficionados, say you should never wash your denim. No, I still wash my jeans.

Speaker 1:

but wash things on hold. How frequently of a wash are you giving your jeans?

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's a really personal question.

Speaker 1:

Sorry If you're not comfortable answering, I understand.

Speaker 2:

I mean maybe once a month.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So every like three to four wears instead of every wear, or something like that.

Speaker 2:

Oh, more than that. I would say every six to eight wears. Okay, yeah, but my husband wears denim that is Japanese denim, which is not what most people wear. It's a very, very hardy, like back to the source denim and I don't think he ever washes them and that's what they recommend because they're made to sustain that, but that's not what I wear. Like, if you're buying your denim from the Gap or Madewell, you can definitely wash it, as long as you don't fall in a mud puddle or spill something on it. Obviously, then we wash it right away. The kids might be washing more often, but, oh no, they look at a piece of clothing and throw it in the hand burner.

Speaker 1:

I'm just trying to teach them.

Speaker 2:

No, like, not that often. But when you do wash things, wash them on cold line dry them. We line dry most of our clothes, which saves energy and also keeps the garment from shrinking, keeps in some cases keeps it from pilling, keeps it the color fastens there, so it keeps it from aging. So if you have space to get a drying rack, I would highly recommend that and avoid dry cleaning, both for the wear and the clothes and the toxicity of it.

Speaker 1:

What are situations where you do have to dry clean, like what clothes? I know there's more clothes that are washable than you think, based on the tax sometimes.

Speaker 2:

but I mean something with a lining you probably have to dry clean so suiting. You probably have to dry clean so suiting um, cashmere and those types of fabrics you can hand wash, um, you can delicate wash in cold. I mean, don't get heat anywhere near it. I learned that the hard way at one point. But, um, I think things with linings and you can tell things with sequins maybe, um, now, sequins are not sustainable if you're looking at it from that perspective, so you wouldn't even own it. But I do have a few things that are many, many, many years old with sequins. But I wouldn't suggest you put those in the washer or even hand wash them. Makes sense.

Speaker 1:

Now we have one of our colleagues plus clients who resale colleagues plus clients who resale and what would you say about either using resale sites?

Speaker 2:

and or vintage clothing. Oh, they're amazing, absolutely amazing. And it's funny because you know we are of one generation. My students are Gen X and when I say where do you shop 99% shop vintage I mean that is where it's at Now. Keep in mind, they're fashion students and they're very creative and they want to be stylists and industry professionals, so they're a different breed.

Speaker 2:

But, um, buying vintage or buying from resale sites like Bestiaire Collective or the Real Real or Poshlur tend to give you more longevity than buying something new. And I'll give you an example. Bestiaire Collective came out with a study earlier this year I believe, where they looked at the price per wear of clothing bought from their site versus fast fashion bought new and clothing bought from their site. Now, keep in mind, it's a luxury, vintage site, so the clothing is probably made better. To begin with, the cost per wear was three to four times less than some the same type of clothing fast fashion. For example, if you bought a Burberry trench coat from Bestier this is one of their examples the cost per wear was three to four times less than if you bought a similar coat from Zara, brand new. That's a huge investment and then, when you're done with it. You're more likely to resell for higher value a Burberry trench coat than you are a Zara one, so I would highly recommend starting shopping there than buying something new.

Speaker 1:

Well, another trend is renting clothes. So like Rent the Runway. I have an event to go to in New York, in your neck of the woods, in November and it's formal, kind of red carpet attire, and this will not be something I'm. You know, this is not. There won't be a re-wear opportunity in the near future. So what do you think about renting?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I mean that's great. You really don't want to be buying things that you can only wear once. So if you can rent for that, I mean I know people actually in the industry who use Rent the Runway just to look like they're wearing excuse me new clothes, and it's a great resource.

Speaker 1:

So then I know that you say, either way, you should not buy into trends. Give me an example, because we might not be as easily like catching ourselves. I know, when I, when I my kids, see commercials, I'm like, hey, those are tricks. But trends, you know, are integrated into our Instagram reels. They're, you know, they're all over the place where you're being told you need this. So how do you identify that and then how do you avoid it? Identify that.

Speaker 2:

And then how do you avoid it? Well, I just read an article today, actually that said, once you look at something, it gets thrown back at you tenfold, and that's all about the algorithms and the cookies. So if you can avoid cookies on site, you can hopefully avoid seeing whatever you look at thrown throw back at you 10 times. You know be careful what influencers you follow. Who's populating your feed? Is it someone who's telling you a new trend every day, every week? You can either keep following them to be in the know or look at those trends and say, ok, what do I have in my closet that can recreate that?

Speaker 2:

There is a really great influencer, and I will get you her name to include. She's out of Australia and she shows a picture and then says, okay, how am I going to recreate this with clothing I already have? You don't need to buy new things to get into trends necessarily. I mean, you know, if you want to follow a trend like this summer, there's a trend of mesh ballet flats yeah, I don't have those in my closet, but I don't want to follow that because I know it's going to be very short-lived. So try to avoid cookies, algorithms and then really and I love this concept shop your closet and recreate it, because if you invested in good clothes, you might have something from way back when, which I always do, because I don't get rid of anything.

Speaker 2:

Which is a problem Space wise in my closet.

Speaker 1:

You've got your archives going. You can shop the archives. What are some recommendations? Because you know some people may get be able to go into that closet and come out with a great new look, but others may just look at the. You know some people may be able to go into that closet and come out with a great new look, but others may just look at the you know kind of the forest and not be able to see the trees when you go and shop your closet, how do you recommend success there?

Speaker 2:

Well, I clean out my closet seasonally and anything that I haven't worn for three to six months I put away. I get those bags that you pull the air out of it, make some really small space saver bags, and I have kind of overhead storage that, um, I put things up in. It's funny because I um I did that last year, um, and I had these two tweed jackets that I really, really loved, but I could not get them to work for me, and now tweed jackets are in again. So I said to my husband hey, what are you doing this weekend? Remember that stuff you put into storage, I need to get it down. So when you take that stuff out of storage, it is like seeing it with fresh eyes.

Speaker 2:

So I would highly recommend people, if you have the space, go through your closets, take stuff out you don't wear, don. And people, if you have the space, go to your closets, take stuff out you don't wear, don't get rid of it, but hide it from yourself. And when you take it out again, it's like you have a boutique that you like everything in it. You bought it once, so how can you wear it again? Is it back in fashion? Do you has your work environment or your social life changed in a way that you can use it.

Speaker 2:

That's one. That's my biggest idea. The other thing looking at your closet with fresh eyes, give yourself a theme, maybe say, okay, I want to put together a monochromatic outfit. That doesn't mean all black. Maybe it's all royal blue, or all beige, even, or olive colored or whatever color you want. That could be a new way of looking at what you have and styling it in a new way. Or take a necklace and say, okay, I'm just going to style around this necklace. If you give yourself these types of challenges, you really see your clothes in a new light and all of a sudden you can see the forest where you couldn't before.

Speaker 1:

I love that so much. That's that's perfect, and I do think, like actually one of the better trends of the you know kind of social media algorithms is showing that examples of styling, because that can both make you look more pulled together or professional as well as also, you know, just reuse things in a different way. So what are some of yours? And I know you have a background, you spent time in the world of accessories and jewelry what are your some of your suggestions for how to, you know, kind of keep things fresh and or just look better and pulled together?

Speaker 2:

I mean, jewelry is a great way to take an outfit and make it look casual or dressed up or, you know, for different situations. Just changing a necklace, whether you have long or, I'm sorry, layer chains, that's one look. Or a big, chunky necklace, is another look. There's no reason not to have a uniform. So if you look at someone like Anna Wainter, who, if no one knows, is the editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine she's also, I believe, creative director of Condé Nast I mean, she's it. When you look at her, she is wearing a pattern, usually floral dress and a statement necklace, and she obviously looks stylish in every way, shape and form, but she's got a bit of a uniform. And always the sunglasses. You don't have to wear your sunglasses all the time, but so you know, you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. Same goes with shoes, right? A great outfit, a dressed up outfit, can look great with sneakers, it can look great with heels, it can look great with flats and it changes the look. So accessories can really do the heavy lifting for you.

Speaker 1:

I think with maturity I found like there's certain things that are always going to be me and maybe that helps to avoid some of the trends to say you know what I like yellow, gold, and I'm almost always today's an exception, but I'm almost always going to put on a necklace when I come into the office. Or, you know, I don't care that as much about the shoes anymore because I'm dressing for comfort. So most of the summer I'm going to wear my Birks, you know, but that's okay because that's me and I don't have to conform to any expectation, especially when you know you've kind of established your place and you know kind of value, especially in professional engagements, and you can get away with a little bit more. We haven't talked about luxury shopping, so you know there is that higher tier that sometimes can be either perceived as higher quality, perhaps, and or more status. What are your thoughts on luxury and how can you get the best value there?

Speaker 2:

Listen, if you can afford it, go for it. I will say luxury isn't always, in the grand scheme of the term, sustainable Sustainable. You know, there have been stories in the last year where you know, certain companies have been shown to pay very, very little for their labor. So they're charging, you know, 10 times in a luxury multi-thousand dollar price for something where they pay very little for it. So luxury isn't an automatic go-to. You still have to be careful, Not bulletproof. It's not bulletproof, no.

Speaker 2:

That being said, you can Google online what brands get the best resale value. What brands are the hottest Right now? You're looking at maybe Gucci and Loewe and trying to think what else? Prada are some of the brands where you're going to get the most price. You know, if you have been lucky enough to buy a Birkin bag, that you're always going to be able to resell that for good money.

Speaker 2:

So if you really are looking to invest in luxury, do the legwork beforehand and see what you're able to sell for the most money, what has the best resale value. But honestly, if you, whatever the price point, if you buy it and you love it, that's luxury to you. You know I go back to this idea of I have bought things for not a lot of money and they are my absolute favorite pieces that I've bought things for not a lot of money and they are my absolute favorite pieces that I've worn for years and years and years. So whether you're spending thousands or hundreds or tens on something, make sure you love it. It's not worth it if it's luxury, if it's something you're not going to wear.

Speaker 1:

Well, I love that, and I think that draws us to a great conclusion that quality doesn't necessarily equate to the price tag. Quality is, in many cases, something that is good, better for you in the world, but also going to be utilized and loved by you. So there you we all can probably assess or go through an audit past decisions. I know I would certainly be a victim of having opportunities to do better, to say, with these past choices, and this is often something I tell people to do in their bank accounts as well, or their credit cards as well Like, go through and see what you did recently and then assess which was good or which was better or worse.

Speaker 1:

Were you making worse choices when you were flipping through Instagram late at night in those kind of mindless hours, or was it the, you know, the shopping trip to the mall, things like that? So you can kind of see where your track record and batting average is better or worse. Yeah, that's great advice. Any other resources you think everybody has to know? As we're kind of wrapping up, no other specific resources.

Speaker 2:

I would say most brands, certainly most brands that you have heard of, so not the sort of one-offs that you might see on Instagram or TikTok, where you've never heard of it before. But most well-known brands have a sustainability section on their website. Sometimes it's right in the top menu. Usually it's down at the bottom with like about us and contact us and sustainability initiatives. So if you really want to know where you're buying from, go in there. A lot of them, a lot of the bigger companies, a lot of the public companies, publish annual reports that talk about their water usage, their emissions usage, where they do production, what they're doing to improve if they've set any goals. So that's just a great resource. So you don't have to pivot away from your favorite brand, but research it. You know, see what they're telling you. If they're not telling you anything, then you might want to look elsewhere, because if they're not being transparent, they probably maybe have something to hide.

Speaker 1:

Well, I love this conversation. I know we have some opportunity hopefully to do some follow-up someday, because I really feel like you're bringing both the information, but also you're a consumer yourself. So you're telling us you know how to think, both as a professional and personally, and I I love that for our discussion.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, marcy thanks so much for joining us. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I was just going to say it's um, it's not easy. I'm not perfect either, and I think you know. Don't look at me and say, oh, she always researches and she never shops new. Listen, any little improvement you can make helps and it's all about improving. Uh, not being perfect.

Speaker 1:

Love it. That's the way we feel about many, so many money decisions is. It's not about judgment. It's about getting better over time and also identifying opportunities, telling yourself where you're doing well, which many you know everybody may have a little different area of strength in terms of this conversation and then setting some intention for how you might want to make adjustments. Well, have a great day and thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, Melissa.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. If you found value in this episode, the best way you can support the podcast is to forward an episode to a friend or leave a review. Go to PearlPlancom and the podcast link to get all the resources and links mentioned.

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Melissa Joy, CFP

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