Episode 040
Beth Bengston
Are your finances controlling you, or are you controlling your life? Join Alice Tang as she sits down with Beth Bengston, founder of Working for Women, to discuss how economic independence creates the freedom to make real choices. Beth shares why she wishes she had started intentional money conversations in her 20s and how a childhood lesson in “earning a camera” shaped her resilient mindset. Discover why wealth isn’t about greed—it’s about having the option to walk away from bad situations and live life on your own terms.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
"From a societal standpoint, we don't talk about investing as women overall, and that fundamentally has to change."
[00:00:00]
Welcome to Women’s Million Dollar Conversations with Alice Tang, where we share stories from successful business women who have saved, earn or sold over a million dollars and discuss how they build their success and insights to help you achieve your goals. Now let’s join the conversation.
Alice Tang: Good morning, everyone. I am so happy to have the founder and CEO of Working for Women, Beth Bengston, with us this morning. So Beth, good morning. Probably good afternoon for you in the East Coast.
Beth Bengston: No, we’re still 15 minutes from afternoon. So we’re still in the morning. So we both—we’re both having an early start.
Alice Tang: Thank you so much for joining us. Our guests either make, save or earn a million dollars. Beth is a friend of Michelle Heinz; we have a common friend in Portland. She was introduced to us through them.
[00:00:45]
Alice Tang: All right, Beth—would you share with us what you do and a little bit about your organization so that the audience knows where you’re coming from?
[00:01:00]
Beth Bengston: So my name is Beth Bengston. I am the CEO and founder of an organization called Working for Women. Working for Women is a community of businesses and professionals that work to invest in getting more women—especially women from marginalized communities across the United States—into the workforce and to economic independence.
Beth Bengston: This topic about finance is very close and near and dear not only to my heart, but to our work in helping more women be able to attain economic independence, because really, that’s really about freedom, right?
[00:01:25]
Alice Tang: So the first question for you is: what’s the value of money for you?
Beth Bengston: For me personally, the value of money has always been choice. It’s the choice to be able to do what I want more than anything else. And I guess the other word that comes along with that, to some extent, is freedom.
[00:02:00]
Beth Bengston: Because when you have economic independence—or financial independence—you have options. It allows you to choose whether you want to stay with a job or not. It allows you to choose whether you want to stay in a relationship or not. The more you have control over your finances, the more you have control over your life.
Alice Tang: So it looks like the choices created by having money provide resilience for women. Thank you for letting us know—it’s about choices and freedom.
Alice Tang: Now I know there is a journey to save to a million dollars. We chatted about that already, Beth, and your answer was: it has taken me longer than I thought, only if I knew better. I’d like to expand on that from your angle.
[00:03:00]
Beth Bengston: I don’t know that in my own life I ever intentionally thought about saving a million dollars. I don’t think that was necessarily a goal.
Beth Bengston: I think we have to think about the role of money in women’s lives—and how women think about money and approach it—especially because we don’t talk about money. We don’t have conversations about money.
Beth Bengston: So I don’t know if it was ever a conscious “million-dollar goal.” I think I probably would have approached my life differently if I had set that goal. I’ve always had a goal of: I want enough money to do what I want to do. And again, that goes back to choice.
[00:04:00]
Beth Bengston: In reflecting back, I wish I had been thinking about it intentionally because I would have done things differently in terms of focusing on wealth generation, and likely hit those numbers faster.
Beth Bengston: We need to normalize women talking about money goals and why we want money. What is the purpose? If you have a better understanding of the role of money in your life, then the wealth comes along behind it.
[00:05:00]
Alice Tang: In the financial advisor world, money is a number. Somebody has a million, somebody has 3 million, somebody has 500,000. It doesn’t automatically mean the person with 3 million is happier than the person with 500,000.
Alice Tang: It’s about what you want money to do for you. Money is a tool. The reason we talk about a million is net worth—assets minus liabilities. Only 10% of American households have a million, which is disturbing to me.
Alice Tang: So that brings me to the next question.
[00:06:10]
Alice Tang: On the road to get to that million dollars, what are some of the biases or barriers that you remember?
Beth Bengston: I don’t know that it’s so much biases or barriers necessarily. I think we don’t have enough of this conversation from the feminine standpoint—starting with: what’s the role of money in your life?
[00:07:00]
Beth Bengston: If you can’t understand why you want money and what you want it to do, it’s hard to plan and put the right things in place. We don’t do enough of that because society doesn’t talk about money.
Beth Bengston: There’s shame around money. People walk around saying they don’t have enough without understanding what “enough” is. For me, the barriers are systemic: we don’t have the right conversations around money.
[00:08:00]
Beth Bengston: Even with retirement—people just say “save more, save more.” But why? What lifestyle do you want? Do you have enough now? We don’t make it conscious.
[00:09:00]
Alice Tang: People come to seek advice and ask, “How much do I need? When can I stop?” Knowing can feel scary, but knowing is empowering.
Beth Bengston: Money and fear go hand in hand. But if you find out you don’t have enough, you know what you need to do. If you avoid the conversation out of fear, it’s disempowering.
[00:10:00]
Beth Bengston: We also don’t normalize money conversations in families. And often, these conversations are held more with boys than girls.
[00:11:00]
Alice Tang: I’m curious about people’s money story: first memory of money, when money created pain, when it created joy. Sometimes the “deadlock” isn’t the plan—it’s the emotional block.
[00:12:00]
Beth Bengston: Women run households and budgets, but the conversation with women is often, “How are you spending?” With men, it’s “How are you investing?” Women don’t always see themselves as investors, and that confidence gap matters.
[00:13:00]
Alice Tang: That’s a light bulb. We should ask women: “How are you investing?” And even shift language—“I invested in a safer car” versus “I bought a car.”
[00:14:00]
Beth Bengston: Exactly. Women aren’t chasing “a million dollars” just because. They want safety, choice, the ability to walk away from bad situations. The million is a benchmark that supports those outcomes.
[00:15:00]
Beth Bengston: Money buys ease and peace of mind—like having a reliable car and not fearing it’ll break down.
[00:16:00]
Alice Tang: I’d like to close this with: what does money buy? In this example, it buys safety and peace of mind.
[00:16:15]
Alice Tang: What is one piece of very good advice—or very bad advice—that changed your life? It doesn’t have to be related to money.
Beth Bengston: I don’t know if it’s one piece of advice, but it’s the process of having a money goal. I was lucky young—my parents made me earn something I wanted, like a camera for a trip.
[00:17:00]
Beth Bengston: They could have just given it to me, but they made me figure it out. It was painful, but empowering—because I proved I could do it. Setting small goals builds confidence to hit bigger ones.
[00:18:00]
Beth Bengston: If a million feels impossible, start with $1,000 in savings. Baby steps—like base camps on the way up Everest.
[00:18:40]
Alice Tang: Last question—what are you grateful for?
Beth Bengston: I’m grateful that I’m able to do this work with Working for Women. I’m grateful we can bring this conversation out and help more women build confidence on their financial journeys.
[00:19:00]
Beth Bengston: Financial freedom is choice. Too often women are stuck in bad situations because they feel they can’t leave. Money decisions are emotional—not just numbers.
Alice Tang: Beautiful. We are very grateful for you, Beth. Thank you so much.
Beth Bengston: Thanks, Alice.
