The Truth About Starting a New Career in Your 30s

Should you keep investing during a career change, or build your emergency fund first? Brad and Haylee are in their 30s with three kids, a $173,000 net worth, retirement savings, and suddenly much less predictable household income. Brian and Bo break down how to manage money during a career transition, when to prioritize cash savings over Roth IRA and 401(k) contributions, why the employer match still matters, and how much emergency savings a family may need with variable income. They also explore financial advisor careers, retirement planning, family finances, cash flow, home-buying goals, and setting a realistic timeline for a career change. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Jump start your journey with our FREE financial resources⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reach your goals faster with our products⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take the relationship to the next level: become a client⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube for early access and go beyond the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect with us on social media for more content⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bring confidence to your wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense and help you reach your money goals faster. Make your assets do the heavy lifting so you can quit worrying and start living a more fulfilled life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 1:00Speaker 02

  Early 30s, three kids. You graduated your MDIF and then vocationally, what have you been doing?

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Everything. I've been a bit of a career vagabond. Right now I'm looking to become a financial planner.

• 1:10Speaker 04

  And I'm a pediatric nurse.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Total net worth of $173,000 with a lot of like what I'm gonna call volatility in there.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  To be clear, my volatility. You know, her investments make up the majority of ours.

• 1:22Brian Preston?

  It's 80 of the 111. It's pretty much Haley's retirement plans, it looks like.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  It's different when a 23-year-old and a 25-year-old go through this and a 33 and a 35-year-old. We have to put some sort of timeline on that.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  The worst outcome would be I get two years into this and I've only made like 50 grand over the whole time. But if that's the case, like we would have to take a long look at it and say like, I don't know, is this worth it?

• 1:46Speaker 02

  So let's pause there. If that were the case, what would y'all do?

• 1:54Speaker 02

  From Ohio, how long you guys been married?

• 1:56Speaker 03

  Married for 12 years. Almost 12.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Early 30s, three kids. Walk us through, give us the background. Like what's your story? How'd you guys meet? What's your financial life looked like till now? And then we'll talk about kind of level set where we are today.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  We met in college at Malone University. First week of school, she is walking into one of the buildings. I'm walking out and I notice her and I'm like, oh, hey Haley, how you doing? And she goes, hey Todd, how are you doing? And I was like, oh, great. My name's not Todd, it's Brad.

• 2:28Speaker 04

  And then I never wanted to see him again.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  And you're like, I'm gonna avoid that guy at all costs.

• 2:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, I tried. Here we are.

• 2:34Speaker 03

  Three kids later. We were genuinely just friends for a while. I did some ministry stuff on campus and she kind of joined in and helped out. And we genuinely became friends. At a certain point, I'm a very loud person and Haley, this is probably about a year and a half, two years later, Haley's in her room studying because she's a good student. I am not. So she's studying for something for nursing and she hears my voice across the hall and goes, oh, wow, like I haven't seen Brad in a little while. I should go talk to him.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  He sounds like he's over there.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so she came over and I was applying to do this like year-long program in Philly. And she goes, I thought you were getting married this fall. And I was like, nope, not anymore. She's like, really? And I was like, yeah, let's grab dinner sometime and I'll tell you the story.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  So just you being loud is what did it?

• 3:15Speaker 03

  That was it.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:16Brian Preston?

  Was that an actual implied date or were you just saying, let's go catch up?

• 3:20Speaker 03

  It was genuinely just, yeah, I would say we genuinely were just, not acquaintances. We were like friends, but not close, close friends. And so we just grabbed dinner and then a week later we grabbed lunch and then we started getting dinner and lunch more often. And then I graduated and I moved to Philly and she just kept calling and we wrote letters back and forth and then we-

• 3:41Brian Preston?

  Well, I'm fascinated when friends turn into more. Where were the sparks originally? Did you always think she was good looking or you think she was really cute or?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  I mean, when she came off the freshman class.

• 3:51Brian Preston?

  Oh, I got that part. But I mean, I'm always curious because I mean, I dated my wife with the intention that I want, you know, I kind of, I thought she was really good looking. So this whole friend to thing, how does that kick up?

• 4:02Speaker 03

  I mean, I think for me, in a really low point in my life, she stuck with me.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:11Speaker 03

  And I always thought she was amazing, but as that happened, as I came out of a difficult place, she was just there in a really beautiful and kind and meaningful way. And I mean, we started dating on March 13th of 14. We got engaged on June 1st of 14 and we got married on December 14th of 14.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Y'all didn't waste any time at all.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  We didn't. And then we waited seven years to have sex.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. So like real slow to the dating, the dating to the marriage real fast. And then, oh, awesome.

• 4:42Brian Preston?

  Did you have a spark towards Brad from the get-go or?

• 4:45Speaker 03

  Did you?

• 4:46Speaker 02

  What kind of question is this? What are your answers?

• 4:48Brian Preston?

  I'm just curious.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  What are you doing?

• 4:51Speaker 04

  When I first met Brad and like that, when I called him Todd, I knew like something in me was like, we're gonna get married one day.

• 5:03Brian Preston?

  Really?

• 5:04Speaker 04

  And I, it wasn't like a, like a knowing thing. It was like something inside me was like, yeah, I just knew it. And then-

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Even when I like got engaged to this other girl, like she just never, yeah, we just always were friends.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Wild.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Here we are.

• 5:19Brian Preston?

  That's pretty cool.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  All right.

• 5:20Brian Preston?

  Okay. I'll let Mo do all the financials.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  I'm a lucky guy.

• 5:22Brian Preston?

  I just wanted to do the fun part.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  All right. So you graduate, you get into your careers. What do you guys do in professional life? Last 12 years, what have you guys been doing professionally, financially? Walk us through how we get from that point to the point today.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  I'm a pediatric nurse. I've been that pretty much for the whole time that I've been in nursing. There was like itty bitty spurt. So we've bounced around. Brad has a master's in divinity. So we got married between semesters of my senior year of college and then I graduated. And then we went to Boston for his school. And after we went to Boston, I was a nurse there for itty bitty a little bit. We had our adult realization that we weren't happy there and that we could move and change our situation.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, we can make decisions. And this was like 25 and 23-year-old Brad and Haley. So it was like, oh, wow, we're adults now. Like if we don't like living in Boston.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  We can leave.

• 6:24Speaker 03

  We can leave. Yeah. And that was a really meaningful moment in our marriage. Stayed up till like four in the morning talking about it the one day.

• 6:30Speaker 04

  And so then we moved to Kentucky for him to continue his program there. And I was a nurse there in pediatric oncology. And that was like my dream job. That's what I always wanted to do is work with kids with cancer. And so I did that. And you pretty much finished schooling. You had like six months left. And then I was, we decided to try to make more money. And I was a travel nurse and he was just finishing his degree. So we went to St. Louis for a stint and I did two contracts there. Then we had made plans with some friends. They were planning on church planting in Delaware, Ohio. And

• 7:12Speaker 04

  they said, do you want to do that with us? And we said, yeah, sure. It's like headed home for us.

• 7:17Brian Preston?

  Yeah. It's almost like y'all figured out this whole move thing. You're like, let's just do this more. This seems fun.

• 7:23Speaker 04

  It's, we moved so many times.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  I think in our first five years of marriage, we moved six different times.

• 7:29Speaker 04

  So much fun.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  So, okay. So you graduated your MDIF and then vocationally, what have you been doing?

• 7:35Speaker 03

  Everything. Okay. I've been a bit of a career vagabond. My 20s, I just-

• 7:40Speaker 02

  What a great term, a career vagabond. Writing that one down.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  Truly in my 20s, I did everything. I worked as a barista, bartender. I own my own wedding planning and coordination company. I was a chaplain during seminary at the hospital.

• 7:53Brian Preston?

  A pastor bartender.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  It might not work in the Bible Belt and other places in the world. I helped plant this church. I've never been paid for it, but I've always been on leadership. Did wedding planning. I was a chaplain in the hospital. And then once we moved to Delaware, I was a hospice chaplain for a few years. Around, I was 32, I want to say. I had an opportunity to become a director of development for a small nonprofit in Ashland, Ohio. And so I was like, I think this is what I want to do. Like this was like the first moment of my life that I was like, I want to fundraise. I love it. And so I spent a year and a half there. And my time there came to a somewhat abrupt end. Decisions had been made a long time ago at this place that had nothing to do with me. And it just led to a very difficult

• 8:42Speaker 03

  place for the organization. They offered me to like stay on with a different role and make a lot less money. And I'd have to get another part-time job or some severance. And I was like, wow, they've kind of given me the fundraising edge. And so with that, I started looking into other fundraising jobs. So I worked at another nonprofit for the last year and a half. And that job came to a very abrupt end as well. And so the last four months, three months since like May, I have been unemployed and I am working on a career change.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  Financially through all that, I was looking back over my net worth statement and I realized last year we made $99,400 gross. And I was like, man, we were like on the edge, on the edge. And I was so disappointed because like this year was the year I was like, we're gonna hit that six figures maybe. We're not gonna hit six figures this year.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  I love that you told us the story because you were kind of to share with us the net worth statement. And what we can see is right now, in your early and mid 30s, total net worth of $173,000 with a lot of like what I'm gonna call volatility in there, right? Like a lot of change, a lot of move.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  And to be clear, my volatility. When I was in college, one of my professors said like, guys, you ministry majors, you need to head up the hill to Regula Hall and find yourself a nurse. Cause they're gonna have steady income. No matter where you live in the world, they will be able to get a job. And I'm like, man, Dr. Soza, he was on to something.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  So as we said, our $173,000 of total net worth, household income right at seven. I'm assuming that's your income right now. And so you guys have done a good job of building assets. You know, there's, you have debt, there's an HVAC loan and a mortgage and medical debt, but you have like $110,000 of investments. Walk us through like, how have you guys been saving and putting money away? And how have you thought about accumulating through this like wildly transitionary period?

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Man, I am thankful that Haley, when we started working at Nationwide Children's in Columbus, that they were like, hey, we do a pretty good employer match. And 25 or six-year-old Haley was like, yeah, sure, let's, let's do that. Let's sign up for it. And now here we are where, you know, her investments make up the majority of ours.

• 10:59Brian Preston?

  It's 80 of the 111.

• 11:01Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 11:02Brian Preston?

  Is pretty much Haley's retirement plans, it looks like.

• 11:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. So for me, I think about, I was, I was trying to figure this out on my YouTube history. I think the first video I watched from you guys was the death of millionaire status from like 2023. And from there on out, I've been like on this journey of like, okay, how do we maximize what we've been given and what we earn and, and put away as much as possible? And I would say for the last three years, we've ramped up into really investing a lot. And, and then we kind of hit this career transition and I'm sitting here like, okay, what does it look like to save well? When you're, like, we talk about having an emergency fund.

• 11:44Brian Preston?

  Yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  What does it look like to save well when you're in the emergency? And it's not just a one time, oh, our HVAC went and we have to spend money once, but we're both still working, we're, you know, for this, it's like, oh man, I might not make money for a little while. And so as this emergency quote unquote kind of expands, like, what do you do with that?

• 12:05Speaker 02

  So walk us through from like a conversational piece practically. You were working, y'all had these two incomes and now the income goes, or your income goes away. And so income drops. You have three kids, big family. How have you guys now, like, how do you handle budgeting and making financial decisions? And how do you go from making more money to making less money and still making it work?

• 12:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, so the beauty of being a nurse is that they always need more nurses, right? So I had been working, like, I dropped down to 20 hours a week, no, 16 hours a week. And then when this happened, I'm back up to

• 12:50Speaker 02

  24 hours a week.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  24 hours a week, which is still part-time and still doable for our family. As Brad's like studying full-time to like do a career change. We have adjusted what we were spending by quite a lot as well as I was putting, I think 15% of my paycheck into retirement. So we've turned that down to just what the employer matches, which is me like 3%, I think.

• 13:20Speaker 04

  And so we've turned that down and just spent less.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. So Yeah, it does feel like that lever of like how much we spend. That, that's, we have ratcheted it down quite a bit to be careful with it. And we had a few things that we had to figure out of like, you know, we got windows last year and they had the year-long no interest and that was coming up this September. And so we had 6,000, we had to pay on that. And, and I will say like, we, we had the emergency fund.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  And like, if we had only had four or five grand in the bank when this happened, like, we would have made very different decisions. But we had 20 grand in the bank and so it gave us time to kind of think and plan and go, okay, like, what do we want to do moving forward, not just for the immediate future, but for the long-term?

• 14:07Speaker 02

  And so I just want to make sure, so right now you're still working part-time.

• 14:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  24 hours, but you have a very healthy income, even working part-time. So what are you doing now in this career transition? I, I think you said studying for a new career?

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Uh, I don't know if you guys have heard of it. It's called financial planning.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  All right.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Uh, I, right now I'm looking to become a financial planner.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  It's something that, it scratches an itch for me that like, as soon as I started consuming your guys' content, I like, there's like young people at my church that I'm like, I'm like the financial mentor.

• 14:42Brian Preston?

  Right.

• 14:42Speaker 03

  That I like help walk people through stuff. And even before I lost my job, Haley and I had kind of like thrown around like, I don't know, like you seem to really love money, like maybe this is something you could do. And then this all happened and like I said, we had the time because of the emergency fund, we had the time to be like, okay, like, do we have a runway towards you actually making money? And so, yeah, right now I'm studying for my Series 7. And then I'll do the 66 after that.

• 15:10Brian Preston?

  So usually like a Series 7, you have to have somebody sponsor you. So is there already a, is there already a company, a broker dealer or somebody that's going to

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:18Brian Preston?

  lead you, shepherd you into the process?

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I have a guy who is a part of LPL.

• 15:24Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  And he is sponsoring me. We're still kind of in the process. Talk about the messy middle, like, we're in the messy middle of this process where I'm like, kind of waiting on him to like get me sponsored and signed on and all the things. I think long-term I want to do like a fee-only fiduciary, like that's, that's what I want to do. LPL is kind of the hybrid model, as you guys know.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  If that's your desire long-term, what was the thought process around going like the LPL broker sponsored model versus going like the fee-only model right out of the gate through the transition?

• 15:58Speaker 03

  Relationship. It's, uh, so my mentor in life is a guy named Peter and his brother has worked for LPL for like 20 years. And we had a conversation and, and he just said, he's like, Brad, I'd love to give you the head start in this that anybody getting into the financial world would want. And so for me, rather than trying to apply to a bunch of places and figure it all out, it felt like a really, uh, clear pathway towards it. It also feels, the financial industry feels like one of those things where like, if you can get your foot in the door and you just need to get started. And so to me, it felt like a pretty good option to have somebody who believes in me. And, you know, he doesn't know me directly, but his brother and I have been close for a long, long time.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  So as you continue to move on this path and you, you get the seven and you get the 66, what does then work-life look like? Is it, uh, okay, I'm coming in to help support a team and I'm getting paid a salary? Or is it, no, I've got to go out and find my own people and start selling products? What's the model that you're moving into?

• 16:56Speaker 03

  It would be more the latter. He, I think I appreciate about, uh, his name's Jeremy. What I appreciate about Jeremy is that he approached it with an honesty to say, hey, like on the hybrid side, there's a lot more room for ickiness for how financial advisors can operate. And he just said, he's like, I just like being able to, if I truly think life insurance is a good, like term life insurance, whatever it is, is good for my client, then I can sell it to him right here and there. And he just said, he's like, your character will define how good of an advisor you'll be on either side of the, the business model. And so I, so I appreciated that and I don't remember your question now.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Well, I was going to ask about the, the business plan. I think you kind of answered it. It's going to be like, once I get licensed, then I've got to go out in the community, in relationships, find people and try to like essentially go attract business.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  And so that, that's the part where Haley and I really had to talk about it of like, I'm not getting a salary. I'm not getting insurance. Like, I'm still going to be on Haley's insurance for a while. And, uh, as I build a client base, like, we'll, we'll get there, but I might not make money for 12 months, like, see it like actual serious money.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  He is also, Jeremy has also been like, as he's transitioning and buying someone's books, that he's going to transition some of those clients to Brad and that like transition.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little bit of a feeder system set up there.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, he essentially said, he, he's a solo firm. It's just him, LPL is his support system. And he just said, he's like, I'm already almost maxed out and I'm buying these two books over the next three years. So like, I'm going to cherry pick some of the best and then leave the rest for you to go, go digging for gold and, and see where it's at. So it does feel like there's a mixture of like, I mean, long-term, my dream is to have a branch in my community where I live, where I go to church, where we take our kids to soccer practice and like have a branch here in Delaware, Ohio. But the interim, it feels like it'd be wise to have somebody mentor me and help me grow in, in the world.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  So anytime anyone, someone goes through like a, a career transition or life transition, we always want to like put on our 3D goggles, like, what's it look like? What's the realistic, down-to-earth, hopeful expectation of how this plays out? What's it look like if it goes really bad and doesn't meet my expectations? That's the do-do plan. And what happens if it works really, really well? As you think about this like career that you're transitioning into, have you put together, and I'm specifically for the household, like from an income standpoint, what's like kind of the like do-do outcome, the down-to-earth outcome, the dream outcome, based on the trajectory that you're moving in?

• 19:35Speaker 03

  I would say that the, I like the do-do outcome. The, the worst outcome would be I get two years into this and I've only made like 50 grand over the whole time and the client base isn't building and I'm just sitting here like, I, like, I know that I'll like the work, but if that's the case, like, we would have to take a long look at it and say like, I don't know, is this worth it?

• 19:59Speaker 02

  So let's pause there. If that were the case, what would y'all do?

• 20:02Speaker 04

  I think that if he was really enjoying it and saw that there was potential still there, that we would just have to have a conversation. Cause like, if we want to go towards like our family goals, we'd like to have one more kid. And if that's the case, I'm not working as much as I work right now.

• 20:22Speaker 04

  And so I think it'd be a conversation of like, okay, like how, how can we make this? Like what could we change? Or if there is anything, or if there's not, like what is our exit strategy?

• 20:35Speaker 03

  And even at that point, I feel like I would have more options to apply at firms in my area that might pay a salary and have bonuses on top of that. I, I feel like I could say, hey, I've got two years in the industry now and have a better chance of getting hired rather than somebody who's 35. And like, I, I've worked in the finance world in the sense of being a major gift officer, but I've never been in the finance world. So I think that would be conversations that we would have. As with most things, we would talk a lot.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  And are you, as you guys think about the kids and the responsibility, so you were working 16 hours, that was, I'm assuming that was the ideal for the household. You've gone to 24 hours, but there's not a scenario where you're full-time. There's not like a, a scenario where it's like 40 hours doing that full-time as a nurse.

• 21:23Brian Preston?

  I can already say

• 21:25Speaker 04

  It's not what I would want to do.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  But here's the thing, I've told Brad, like, I've done lots of hard things in my job. If I, if I can have a timeline for something.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  I work night shifts for 12 hours. If I, I can do anything for 12 hours. If you give me a timeline of how long that something will be for, like, yeah, I could do it for a year.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that's at the start of this, we had that conversation of like, okay, we have emergency savings. She can up her hours to the point where we're about a wash of what we're making and what has to go out.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  How long could we do that for? And our, and our conversation was about 18 months. She's like, if, if, if I knew that we were doing this till the end of 2027, we could make that work. I think the hardest part is going to be, once I'm fully starting doing it, at that point, she's still working all of those hours. And I'm trying to go out and build a business. And I think that's going to be the difficult point of like, man, we, we really gotta be very structured with our lives as she's working. Cause yes, she's working 24 hours a week, but she's also picking up bonus shifts. So like some, so it's a guaranteed 24.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  More than 24 hours a week.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I'm working at least 24 hours is like my guaranteed. And then I pick up as available and school starts, which means the germs start and there's more.

• 22:51Speaker 03

  More kids are at urgent care.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  Money to be made.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 04

  So there's always the option for more.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  All right. So that's the, the do do plan. I don't, let's not talk about the dream plan. Let's talk about the down to earth plan. $25,000 a year, so $50,000 for the next two years would be a not ideal outcome. As you guys have talked about it, what would be like the, okay, if I can get my income here, this is success. This is a thing worth pursuing. This will work for our household.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  I think if in the next three years, I could get to a point where I'm at like 80 to 90 or above, and she could go back down to one or two days a week and, you know, could have another kid and start building towards things. I'm like, yeah, I think that would be an incredibly straightforward, successful.

• 23:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:37Brian Preston?

  Has Jeremy giving you enough transparency? Do you know, is that a level of assets under management? Is a certain number of insurance policies sold? What does that look like actually in a, you know, so you can know what you're going towards versus just the number?

• 23:53Speaker 03

  It would mostly be assets under management. It'd be trying to move towards.

• 23:57Brian Preston?

  So to get to 80,000, how much would an asset's under management?

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't know. You guys are great at public math.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  We keep calculators.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  I, I couldn't say off the top of my head. I would say the goal would be to hit three million to four million in the first year. And hopefully grow from that to four to five million on top of that in the second year. So I would imagine 20 to 30 million. Once again, this is me as a newbie walking into this. You guys would know way better than I would.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Do you have a, cause obviously, um, so there's different models inside the financial planning world. And this model is like, hey, I gotta go out there and attract people and bring them in. Do you have a network? I mean, obviously you were a, um, a development officer. And so you have, do you feel like you have, when you think about having to come up with 20 to 30 million dollars of assets? Do you feel you have 20 to 30 million dollars of relationships or at least some sort of like seeded pool of relationships to go pull off of? Or is this like, I gotta go knock on doors?

• 25:04Speaker 03

  I feel like it's somewhere in between those two. Where I do have the relationships. I think one of my struggles with it is like, a lot of the people that would recognize the need for a financial advisor probably already have one. And even some of my friends that I know have the assets to need one, already have one. And so I don't know what that looks like as a friend to walk into that space and be like, hey, like I, you know, kind of have an awareness of where you're at financially. So can I manage your money? And like, there is that awkwardness of like, well, yeah, I know, I already have a financial planner and I like them. And, uh, so I, I really, I have had a lot of thoughts around what I could do. And, you know, even just looking at the local employers in the area and saying like, hey, Honda has a huge presence

• 25:50Speaker 03

  in the north central Ohio area. So what does it look like to become an expert on their retirement plans? And be the financial planner that like, if you work for Honda, like one of my neighbors has worked for Honda for like 15 years. So I've thought about avenues of becoming an expert in specific things. But to basic answer your question is like, it's kind of a mixture.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  You gotta go out there and find it.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  You gotta go out there and find it.

• 26:11Brian Preston?

  I don't want us to get sidetracked, but I do, but I, I do come from a background where I was working in public accounting, got into doing financial planning, and then had this crazy idea after my father passed away that I wanted to go work for myself. And I thought I had this, what I thought was going to happen versus what happened. And I can remember, I thought, you know, with growing, going back and starting my business in my hometown, that all my friends' parents would remember all how fun Brian was, how smart Brian was.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  He's a good kid.

• 26:43Brian Preston?

  People would line up and.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  And it worked out perfectly that way.

• 26:46Brian Preston?

  Well,

• 26:49Brian Preston?

  I mean, I was so thankful I came from a public accounting background because I, there's a reason I built a tax practice instead of a financial planning practice. Is because while I was, I couldn't, I couldn't get clients. I mean, I just had the hardest time getting clients that, uh, I think it took me three and a half years to get to the first 10 million in assets under management. Which now everybody, I get hired to go speak at conferences about marketing and I'm like, if you guys only knew how horrible I am at sales. Cause it's just, it's hard to convince people and, and, and the people just didn't show up like I thought they would. I thought they would remember. I think people are always scared, especially if you're new to something. They don't want to be the guinea pigs.

• 27:30Brian Preston?

  And this is something, cause I have a lot of friends that their, their children will go do internships and other things. And they say, hey, Brian, do you have any, you know, thoughts since you've kind of come from this background? I always tell these children when they're getting it going and doing these internships, if you can at all costs, avoid using your relationships, the people that love you until you build enough expertise so that you don't burn those relationships is because, and I pick on Bo because Bo worked at an insurance company in college. And Bo, as you can tell, this guy, if God was choosing favorites, he got, I mean, he got way carried away. So I think he probably had a lot of people that, you know, would have probably, probably even a better result than I would have had when he came back and knocked on the doors.

• 28:13Brian Preston?

  But he was young and eager. He went and knocked on those doors probably a little too early. And it's just be careful with sales. Cause the, the skillset of sales is so valuable. It's always going to be, no matter what AI, no matter what everybody does, the ability to go knock on a door or ask somebody that's an uncomfortable conversation. Most people just don't want to do that. You sound like since you, I love fundraising. Nobody, nobody loves fundraising, but somehow you might be the exception to the rule. I just want to make sure your talents and experience catch up to the ability and that. So just keep that. I'm not, I'm not trying to throw cold water or anything. I just want to make sure that you don't go burn any, any relationships that love you enough that they'd be willing to take that risk when you're just not ready to know how to do it well.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  I, I think that's the awkwardness I feel. Where I, I do, I've used this phrase a lot in the last few months where I'm like, man, I think 25 year old Brad would have done that.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  And I, I think 35 year old Brad is just barely wise enough to know what I don't know and to walk in kind of carefully. But I, I also want to take care of my family.

• 29:18Brian Preston?

  I get it. I get it.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  I'm curious where this will all lead.

• 29:21Brian Preston?

  Sure. Bo, we've heard some crazy stuff when we've been recording, making a millionaire.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  Buddy, have we? From things like roommates turning off their heat for two years to save money? Someone buying expensive Thanksgiving pillows without their spouse knowing. And who could forget the hundred dollar horse massages?

• 29:39Brian Preston?

  Yeah. And you know what? We don't judge. Well, okay, maybe, maybe a little on the horse thing. But look, our job is not to stop you or even your horse from enjoying your money. It's to make sure your entire financial picture is solid. So you can enjoy it guilt free.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  And that's what we do every day at Abound Wealth. We sit down with our clients, learn what's important to them and build a plan around their actual life, horse massages and all.

• 30:05Brian Preston?

  If you've been watching these episodes thinking, I wish I had someone who could do that for me. We'd love to have that conversation. We're fee only fiduciary advisors and we're here to help.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Just head over to aboundwealth.com or click the link below. We'd love to connect and see if we're a good fit for you. No judgment, mostly.

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• 31:23Speaker 02

  What questions, as you guys are like navigating this transition and trying to figure out what this looks like, what questions can we help you answer? What can we speak into to be valuable for you guys as you navigate this?

• 31:35Speaker 03

  Something we were talking about was what, what does it look like to have a savings rate while you're like, we're not tapping into our emergency fund, but we're not adding to it.

• 31:48Speaker 04

  Or treading water.

• 31:48Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, treading water would be a good way of putting it.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Brian, I'm gonna put you on the spot. When you went on your own and started your own business in that first year, maybe even that second year, do you remember what your savings rate was then?

• 31:59Brian Preston?

  Yeah, it pretty much is nothing.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Zero.

• 32:01Brian Preston?

  That's the, that's the thing. I went from, my wife and I were right at the six-figure mark and then I was, well, no, that's not even correct. I was at the six-figure mark when I went out on own. My wife was doing great too. So we were, we were really enjoying the no children, good incomes, but then I can remember I went from right under six figures to $17,000 and, and that's with taxes.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:25Brian Preston?

  I was, that's pretty much all doing taxes. So it was just tough. Now I will say the reason we made it through it is I had built up somewhere between 40 to $60,000 of cash reserves. We basically.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  To seed, starting a business.

• 32:37Brian Preston?

  When my, when my dad passed away and I had this moment where I told my wife, I just couldn't keep doing the life that we were living. We lived off of just her salary and then just banked mine for the, my dad passed away in December of 2000 and then I didn't leave until February of 2002. So we took a year and like two or three months to just stockpile cash through that period. And that cash is, I, we used every bit of it because I just, and, and in my book, I even detail, because we didn't do Roth contributions during some of that period and I just, I have regrets, but it's just by any means necessary, we were just trying to make it through it.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so when I think about where you guys are, you know, Brian had the benefit of like preparing for this exit, preparing for this thing where he built up this cash. We had this like cushion. You guys in a little bit of a different situation only because this event happened and it wasn't necessarily something you were planning for and you were able to get ahead of. And so the way that you react to that has to be a little, a little bit different. If I were in your situation, I'm probably not thinking a whole lot about savings rate. The analogy that I would give you is Brian thinks I'm not a great swimmer. I'm a fantastic swimmer.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  He's getting better.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  If you were to, if you were to drop us in the ocean.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  My number one goal is just me keep my head above water. And so if Brian starts telling me, hey, you should do your stroke this way, and this is how a backstroke, that's not going to be helpful for me in that moment. In that moment, I need to do everything I can to keep my head above water and survive. Your situation's not quite that dire, but it is, there is a parallel there that I think that you guys should live as lean as you can and stock up as much cash as you can. And this can be very counterintuitive coming from us, but funding Roth IRAs and trying to increase your 401k above the employer match and doing all this. I think that's getting the financial order of operations out of whack because right now you guys have to get on financial, solid financial foundational

• 34:34Speaker 02

  footing and that's living as low as you can, stacking as much cash as you can in case there is another window thing or HVAC thing or medical thing until you are able to get your income back up there. And then what you have to recognize is there's a real opportunity cost associated with that. It's different when a 23-year-old and a 25-year-old go through this than a 33 and a 35-year-old. So I do think it'd be wise to have conversations around, okay, we're gonna do this. We're gonna go on this path. But even as we define the do-do outcome, the down-to-earth outcome and the dream outcome, we have to put some sort of timeline on that. Like, okay, if we're moving in the do-do route, but it's between do-do and dream, how long are we gonna do this before we recognize, okay, something

• 35:17Speaker 02

  has to shift, something has to change. And I think that's probably more of the like pertinent planning you guys ought to be doing instead of like savings rate. Right now, every dollar y'all can put together ought to just be going in the coffers like, okay, keep us okay, keep us okay, keep us okay. Just because you don't know when that next unknown, unknown thing might happen.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  So even then you would still say, keep that employer match? Cause I.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 35:40Brian Preston?

  I would keep doing the employer match because what's your funding formula? It sounds like, cause to see how much is in there, I bet the funding formula is pretty strong.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. So if I put in 3%, they put in one and a half percent, but then the 401A is solely, if I work 20 hours.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  Like a profit sharing.

• 35:59Speaker 04

  Then they, I'm at 5%.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  Okay. It's like, once she hits a thousand hours, it's 5% of whatever she made in that thousand.

• 36:07Brian Preston?

  That's great.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Awesome. Yeah. So I think, I think for sure, keep doing those because that's, that's kind of like free money, unbelievable rate of return. But then outside of that, I do think building up cash, stacking up cash, and what you're really trying to do is just race to income. Hey, what can I do to get my income up? And that does, I do think you probably have to live in the season where, I don't know how tight things are now, but I would try to be as tight as possible, just until we get back to that place that we want to be in.

• 36:32Brian Preston?

  I mean, you should know, I mean, I'll tell you, it took us three years to kind of get footing. So I would say you better start seeing some sunlight probably after 24 months.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 36:43Brian Preston?

  If, if there's not sunlight in 24 months, this might not be fruitful. The only thing that you said that scared me a little bit about your boss is that he's buying books of business. He's buying books from, that requires capital to do, you know, whereas I'd love to hear there was a strategy where, where, you know, how we're, like I loved your idea of going to Honda and other things, because that's, that's inbound, that's going out there and finding it versus just acquiring or, or growing through other means. Cause you're not gonna be able to do that. You don't have the money to go acquire or book a business. So, so it's, it's, I'd love to know what type of training you're going to get to know how to, to do those conversations well.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that, and that's kind of my, my hope with him is that it is a very strong mentorship.

• 37:26Brian Preston?

  Yeah.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Type of component. Cause, and he has said, I think the thing I appreciate about him is that he has said, he's like, you're gonna own your book of whatever's here and whatever you bring in is a hundred percent yours. And whenever you're ready to go off and do your own thing, like you can take it with you.

• 37:41Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  And I think that's like the key thing for me is that he seems to be approaching it with that sense of like, I want to mentor you, get you a good start. And if you want to keep doing it with me, great. Like we can keep doing it. You seem like you want to go do your own thing. Go do your own thing. Like, so I appreciate that freedom that it feels like it could offer me, but I definitely feel that opportunity cost of like, but I'm also not gonna make a salary. And I think I feel more comfortable with that if it was just me.

• 38:07Brian Preston?

  Right.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  And Haley does not feel comfortable with that for a long period of time. It's like, like you said, we want to see movement in the next 12 to 18 months.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Have you guys discussed the timeline? Like, hey, let's, here's gonna be the timeline we're gonna operate on to feel comfortable. Is that a conversation y'all have already had?

• 38:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. I think what you said of like 18 months of there's no, like, we don't feel like there's any tiny little light coming, then we're gonna sort something out.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  Well, can I even challenge you on that a little bit?

• 38:39Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  If it were me, and I don't, I don't want to project, I wouldn't be looking for like tiny little specks of light. Cause tiny little specks of light could be like false hope. You know what I mean? I would want to see that there is like meaningful movement towards this is going to be a viable outcome where I'm going to be able to provide for the family. Cause if it's just tiny little specks. You might be running that time where, okay, you're 35, well, then you're gonna be 38, and now you get into, at some point, you have to like not chase the specs and you gotta go where you know there's daylight.

• 39:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  And so I would just encourage you guys to have that conversation as well.

• 39:12Speaker 04

  And I will say that like it feels from everything, I know very little about the financial world, but I know that it can get a little shady. And the confidence that Brad has is the like relationship that he has with Jeremy's brother is very strong. And Peter has spoken to Jeremy's character of like, that if what he's saying is he wants to mentor Brad, then that's true. And like, when Jeremy spoke to Brad, he's like, I want to give you the start that I wish that I had had.

• 39:42Brian Preston?

  Right, right.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  Cause he had started at like Nedward Jones. And he said, he's like, I got a good start and did well, but they were always pushing for that next. Like, oh, here's the next tier that you could be hitting, Jeremy. When are you gonna hit that? And, and he has said that LPL has just given him the freedom to be him and make as much or as little as he wants.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Grow at your pace.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  Grow at your pace type of thing. So I think that a lot of those things appeal to me because I said from the start, I was like, I will not just push products. I like, that is one of the like grossest feelings when you sit down with somebody and you're like, you know that they're trying to sell you something that you might not need. Oh, I can't, I will not do that to people.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  What other questions can we answer for you guys? What other things can we say that would be valuable?

• 40:27Speaker 04

  I think one of the curiosities, so something that's not listed on there is that technically, I, me and my brother own a farm. That's our family farm.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Why isn't it on the net worth statement? Wait, when you do a net worth statement, you don't leave assets off the net worth statement.

• 40:46Speaker 04

  So here's my question. Is something truly an asset if you won't sell it? So it's a family farm.

• 40:53Brian Preston?

  Well, does it generate income?

• 40:54Speaker 04

  It does for the fact that my father farms it, but I'm not a farmer and my brother lives in Missouri. And so he isn't gonna farm it. So like, when my parents choose to retire, the land from what we have talked about so far would be a like rental farmland.

• 41:15Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Is the land valuable? Like, does it have, like, is it like valuable land if you were, if you were to sell the actual piece of property?

• 41:21Speaker 04

  It would depend on how you sold it. Like, if you, like, it got parceled off into smaller pieces, it would be worth a lot of money.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  But, but.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Got it.

• 41:30Brian Preston?

  Your, your goal and your brother, y'all on the same page, never gonna sell it, right?

• 41:34Speaker 04

  I don't see a world where that would happen.

• 41:37Brian Preston?

  How about your brother? Does he feel the same way?

• 41:39Speaker 04

  We haven't had like that conversation, but I would imagine he, like, he is in agricultural world.

• 41:45Brian Preston?

  While everybody's alive, y'all should have that conversation.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and with mom and dad and all the parties.

• 41:49Brian Preston?

  Everybody needs to be on the same page. It's because what you don't want to have is your parents retire, pass away, whatever it is, and now you and your brother have this weird dynamic and nobody knows, because nobody was willing to ask the question while mom and dad were around of what was really expected of them. Because I don't want you to have one set of expectations. Your brother have another one, and then your parents have a completely different one. And you don't even know what the legacy or what the obligations are.

• 42:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:17Brian Preston?

  Under this big, big thing.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:19Brian Preston?

  So, because that's, because what you also, and I imagine everybody's gonna tell you, they don't want it to be a burden to you. Hopefully this will be an asset to, to, to be used for the future. But the only way you're gonna know all these things and all the facets is if you start having those conversations now.

• 42:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:35Brian Preston?

  Is that gonna be weird?

• 42:36Speaker 04

  Ah, will that be weird? It'll be tense just in the like, depth of it.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  But I think if you have your parents involved, it's not you and your brother deciding on their behalf. If you have your parents involved, it's hey, what, what do you guys desire? I think maybe that perhaps should remove some of the weirdness, right?

• 42:53Speaker 04

  I think that it's, we have talked about having to have, the hard part is that my brother lives in Missouri. And so for him to, when he comes back to Ohio, it's like, the kids are all playing and there's never time and we haven't made that a priority yet.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  And her, and her parents are in their mid 60s and in relatively good health and.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  It's obviously years and years and years.

• 43:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:15Brian Preston?

  This is why this needs to be talked about now is because what you say is an income producing asset currently, if your dad all of a sudden just quit working the land, there's going to be expenses or burdens that are created that will start stacking up and getting really expensive really quick. And if y'all are in this lean period of your life, I don't know what your brother's financial situation, we got a problem, a big problem, because something that means a lot to the family is now going to be, start being in disrepair or not doing. So that's why I plan, it shouldn't fall only on you guys. It needs to kind of be a collaborative effort while everybody has the ability to do something. Probably small decisions now

• 43:56Brian Preston?

  can do big results down the road versus waiting until it's all hands on deck and then, oh crap, what are we gonna do? I just rather y'all have that discussion now.

• 44:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:06Speaker 03

  I think another curiosity that I have had is, you know, part of this is hard to talk about because we're so focused on the present, like the next 24 months. But like long-term, we're, we're in an incredible house. We bought in 2019.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  That's great, yeah.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  We refinanced in 2020. It was beautiful. Like, eight to 10 years from now, we're like, all right, we want to find our dream home. And we want to be able to buy or build a house that we want to be in the rest of our life and have our grandkids in and all that. And so I'm kind of curious, what does it look like to save for that dream home? How do you consider equity in your first home to build towards that? Because, you know, we've put our home value at what we paid plus improvements.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 44:51Brian Preston?

  Ken, I'll be honest with you.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:53Brian Preston?

  You remember how Bo was talking about earlier that if you put him out in the ocean, even with his new swimming pool that's made him a little bit better swimmer, all he's gonna be thinking about is keeping his head above water. Me yelling out strokes and everything else is gonna fall. So you, you do not need to be thinking about a new house. I mean, I want you, you can have that as when, and use it as motivation to say, hey, when I have to do something I don't want to do for the family, I'm gonna do this. You have to go call somebody, you have to go have a meeting you don't want to do, say, I'm gonna do this for the family. I'm gonna do this for that house that I'm gonna build in the next X years. Use it as motivation, but to try to put actual mortar in the brick or to, to try to put a

• 45:35Brian Preston?

  blueprint while you're still so far, I think would be a waste of, of mental calories when you're so far from that right now. You need to be figuring out how you, you, you gotta build the engine. You, you, you, no reason to put wheels on the, on, on this thing if you don't even have an engine.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's.

• 45:53Brian Preston?

  On the vehicle.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  I think it's worth dreaming about, but it's not worth planning for yet. It's just too far out for that. And I do think using it as a motivation tool is a great idea. Hey, here's why we're ma, we're gonna make some hard decisions over the next 12, 24, 36 months. We're hoping those hard decisions lead to this outcome one day, where maybe one day we can do this. One day we can do this. And look, you're going into kind of a sales role. And like, sales role is like, pick up the phone, knock on the door, make the meeting. That gets real hard. And that's just the honest truth of that. Having something that keeps you motivated to keep doing it, if it's the, the fourth kid or the new house or the, whatever that thing is, I think having those things are great, but those are motivators and not planning items. Not yet, not at this stage.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I think that's fair. I think that my, my brain's always thinking about the, the technical and the.

• 46:40Brian Preston?

  Well, that's why Bo did you a favor by saying, talking about the 3D glasses. All of us get caught up in the dream plan. And you thinking about that house on the hill?

• 46:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:49Brian Preston?

  That's the dream. We all think, I'm gonna tell you, don't skip out on the doo-doo plan. Because that's where a lot of times, to even turn a, a dream, you have to kind of make it through the doo-doo part. And believe me, I, I'm telling you, I lived through that. And it's, you know, that's, that's the thing about success is everybody, nobody knows what you had to go through to get on the other side. You've got to get through the, the poop first. I mean, I hate to say it, but you're gonna have to deal with that. And you're, you're gonna be challenged in the beginning because it is gonna be a straight up sales role and you're gonna, you know, you, what you feel that you won't do, you might be will, you know, because that's, that's the thing. I, the first firm I worked at, we did life insurance.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 47:30Brian Preston?

  And the thing that I found myself, and it's because when you find out how big the commissions are, it does weird mental things. I always call it the, you know, it's the Looney Tunes in the desert to where, you know, Bugs Bunny, when he's out there in the desert, everything starts looking like.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Giant turkey leg.

• 47:45Brian Preston?

  You know, or turkey, when he's hungry, it looks like a turkey leg, or you see an oasis over everything. It's amazing when you're hungry and starved and you find out a friend just got a promotion. Like, maybe they need that second to die policy. Or, you know, you just start, it, it, it's a weird human cope that happens. And that's not to say that you'll fall into it, but it's just think it's a human nature thing. Just make it through that season first before we start going through the dream plan.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  What kept you going through that season?

• 48:13Brian Preston?

  I mean, I had to make it. I mean, because the, what happened, I, I went out on my own in February of 2002, and then my wife got pregnant with our first in 2003. And there was lots of prayer. There was lots of just, I gotta make it happen. And I'll be honest, some of it was providence. I, I have no reason why that when my child was born and my wife was on maternity leave and I knew we had, she had nine weeks, 12 weeks, but her maternity leave, and I got more prospects than I had ever, I mean, I shouldn't have gotten them. They, they didn't, matter of fact, a few of them are still clones.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Well, but there's also, I want to be clear, there's, there was another tactical thing that was happening at that time. He did have a skill set where he had a second job.

• 48:55Brian Preston?

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  He was doing tax returns, and that was the thing that was like paying the bills while he was still building that.

• 49:02Brian Preston?

  Yeah, don't get busy doing nothing. I will say, because that's, that's the one thing, a lot of people, when I'm giving them guidance on how to get into financial planning, I always tell them to like, there's a great CFP program that costs like five grand, that people can study at home, and it lets them qualify, sit for the CFP exam. I'm always like, what I like about these type of programs, you go work your day job and then still dip your foot in by passing the exams and then seeing if you can navigate in. You're kind of, you're kind of in the deep end. You know, you're, you're Bo Hanson without his, his water wings. You know, to see if you can.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Bo, you were just getting. I don't wear floaties. I want to be very clear to the audience.

• 49:40Speaker 03

  You were getting ripped this episode, man.

• 49:43Brian Preston?

  But in all seriousness, you're, you're, you're kind of because don't study to get out there and make stuff happen and then be prepared to do side things or whatever you need to. There's no pride in providing for the family.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  Exactly. And that's, and that is kind of the, I mean,

• 50:01Brian Preston?

  Hopefully this helps. I mean, I feel like I didn't want this to be like a rocky coaching session, but it is one that just to let you know that it's going to be a cold winter. But if you, if you save up enough nuts and, and work hard enough, you'll make it through it.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  Well, guys, we can put together some stuff. I've got some ideas, just as some like little takeaways, tidbits and notes that we'll pass along to you guys. But I just appreciate you coming on, telling our story, telling your story. Thank you so much for doing that.

• 50:24Brian Preston?

  It's a blessing to be here.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  Awesome. Thanks, guys. Brian, we had an interesting conversation, I feel like with Brad and Haley.

• 50:30Brian Preston?

  Yeah, that's an understatement. I mean, I felt like, you know, we normally are shiny, happy people.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 50:36Brian Preston?

  Um, with our guests and Brad, I mean, this is one of those things, we got to cover some financial issues, but then also I felt like there were some things that they just needed to hear. So we can make sure that Brad is truly building a career and not just kind of drifting and dreaming in a lot of ways with their, with their financial planning and their cash flow.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  So often we want to do financial planning, we want to solve financial problems, but where they're at right now, I don't know that like financial planning per se is the main focus. I think they gotta, gotta do some life planning in terms of where are we going to be and what are we going to do and how are we going to be able to move ourselves in the direction so that we can start doing financial planning?

• 51:15Brian Preston?

  So primarily focus on cash flow?

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 51:18Brian Preston?

  And then also career planning?

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think I would split their planning into two buckets. There's the very tactical plan to figure, okay, what do I do right now? How do I do the financial order of operations? How do I follow that? But then there is the life advice that we think they probably need to hear because what I'm worried about is it's going to be very easy for them to fall into not having the tough conversation, not having the difficult realization. If the third D of their 3D plan is the one that plays out.

• 51:47Brian Preston?

  And I'm glad you brought up the D's because we did tell them to do the 3D plan, you know, where they actually, you know, do the dream plan, do the down to earth, and then don't skip the do do plan. Because I do feel like it's, they need to focus on, hey, all things need to lead to living as lean as possible, building up as much cash because Brad and this career path he's gone with going to financial advisor, but more on the, you have to go out there and hunt and kill and bring it in. There's a risk associated with that. And I think they need to build their cash flow plan to kind of try to build as much cushion into that plan as possible.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that obviously financial order of operations, get the employer match, but everything else has to go to fortifying that because when you have variable unknown income and when there's a family involved, cash is the resource that is literally the oxygen that allows you to survive, that allows you to keep moving forward. And if, if Brad were in a situation where he were two months or three months away from a consistent paycheck and a consistent salary, I think our guidance would be different. But I think right now from a, a tactical standpoint, they should start cash, cash, cash, cash, cash, until they have some consistency in what his income is.

• 53:02Brian Preston?

  Now, we are, we are selling because fortunately Haley has a very consistent job. She works in nursing. She can go do her employer match. So there is going to be some money out there growing, but I wouldn't go beyond that and let everything else go towards keeping the lifestyle as small as possible and save the cash.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  Now, there is a, a, I think probably a more difficult relationship conversation they need to have because it sounds like Haley would, her desire is not necessarily to be working long-term, uh, while Brad is not able to produce income, right? There's a, there's a, some tension there.

• 53:36Brian Preston?

  There was, there, because look, I, I thought you'd handled it really well. Haley could be the primary provider and Brad could be the, the stay at home.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  Right.

• 53:46Brian Preston?

  But I felt like.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  That's not what they want to do.

• 53:48Brian Preston?

  Immediately see it under the surface. That's not what Haley wants because she wants as much time with the children as possible. So it's on Brad. And that's what, look, the thing I would say to Brad is put some timelines on this thing.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 53:59Brian Preston?

  Check-ins definitely, I don't know if it's, you know, definitely have three months, six months, 12 months, 18 months. At some point, we need to figure out, is this really working? Because $50,000, I mean, even if, if Brad was just bringing in 50, $60,000 a year.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Life-changing.

• 54:17Brian Preston?

  Because of what Haley makes as a nurse, this thing might work just off of that. So that's why I need, I need Brad to kind of create some check-in points. So he doesn't drift too long.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  And they need to make sure they're on the same page with that. If it's going to be, hey, six months, we need to be at this level. I need to have this level of success or else I'm going to shift. And that shift may unfortunately be finding a more consistent paycheck, finding a different vocation, finding a different job somewhere else. But here's the goodness, because they gotta, they're gonna have to figure that out. But even if his dream plan doesn't play out, even if they don't go out there and make a gazillion dollars, they have some great things going for them. The one you've already mentioned is her employer match. While she's working, there is money going in and they're super young. They have a lot of time for their dollars to compound. Right now.

• 55:07Brian Preston?

  By the way, it was not just a match. If you remember, she has a very generous employer that's not only putting a match, they're putting in a contribution, was it 5%?

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's one and a half percent match on her 3% contribution. There's an additional 5% going into the 401A. So that's what?

• 55:24Brian Preston?

  Give your employer a hug today.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, nine and a half percent. So if all they were able to do is save nine and a half percent of her pay from now at age 34 out to retirement age, they would still be able to build up about a $2.5 million portfolio. And if we think about a safe withdrawal rate on that, that's going to generate somewhere around 40 to $42,000 a year. If you add social security on that, it's going to match their current standard of living based on their current income. But that, and that's a projection. It lets them know, hey, if the do do plan happened, this is, this is where you guys would be. But I think that's missing the plot. I think the bigger thing that to figure out is what is his long-term vocation going to be and what's his long-term realistic income trajectory going to look like?

• 56:05Brian Preston?

  And I kind of alluded to it earlier is that even if, if Brad could just get to where he's making 50, 60 grand consistently, that would allow him to start just funding a Roth IRA on top of Haley's retirement plan, very generous retirement plan. And just making that simple adjustment could make it to where instead of having a retirement where it's like bare bones in the $40,000 range in today's dollars, they would easily go up to like $75,000 a year with these projections, just by adding the Roth contributions.

• 56:39Speaker 02

  Just being able to save that $15,000 now puts them in this threshold where if the portfolio can generate 75,000 and if they both have social security that can come in at that time, they're talking about close to a six-figure income in retirement. That's fantastic. But he has to get the income figured out. He has to figure out where that's going to come from. And he has to be realistic about it. This financial advisor thing does not work out. How's he going to replace that? Because he's young, but he's not that young. And so there's some tension there that has to be recognized.

• 57:08Brian Preston?

  Um, I would say Brad, Haley, I mean, I'm, I'm hopeful for the best. And this will be a fun one to probably check into in a year, year and a half from now. Just to see, did everything that they had hoped come to fruition? And, and I'm hoping we're pleasantly surprised. And he's absolutely crushing it out there in the financial planning sphere.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  It's just, it's hard. That's, it's a hard thing to get into. And again, cash is going to be their friend because cash is the thing that's going to give you the time to be able to make that happen. Uh, but they need to be true to themselves. If it's not moving in that direction, how are they going to shift? How are they going to adjust? And how are they going to make the difficult but right decisions for their family?

• 57:44Brian Preston?

  Well, I enjoyed having Brad and Haley on the show. But if others want to apply, where should they go?

• 57:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. If you want to be a guest on Making a Millionaire, you can go to moneyguide.com/apply. Or if you want to check out any of our free resources, tools or calculators, go to moneyguide.com/resources.

• 58:00Brian Preston?

  Brad, Haley, I know that this conversation probably went a little different than you anticipated, but hopefully still some of this connected so that you could cover the cash flow. Think about those career milestones that need to be hit so you can live your great, big, beautiful tomorrow. I'm your host, Brian. Join me with Mr. Bo. Money Guy team out.

• 58:19Speaker 06

  The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities, laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through Making a Millionaire. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors and does not constitute financial, tax, investment or legal advice. All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss. The guests featured on Making a Millionaire are not clients of Abound Wealth Management at the time of recording. Their participation should not be considered a testimonial or endorsement of Abound Wealth Management.

• 59:08Speaker 07

  Hey, Bo's here. When your next track starts, listen for the decisions that the artist makes. The vocal pushed right up front. The bass that waits half a beat. That sample from a 70's underground gem. Every choice deliberate. With Bo's, you'll hear it all. Your music deserves Bo's.

• 59:34Speaker 07

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