7/3/25 The Big Bill Breakdown: Interest Rates, Yacht Rock, and Honoring Wounded Heroes

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Thursday, July 3rd BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management Guests: Wendy & Casey, Wounded Heroes Fund website: https://thewoundedheroesfund.com/ facebook: Wounded_Heroes_Fuind Instagram: WoundedHeroesFund

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the Garret Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Call or text into the show 24/7 at 396-1000.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  Here is Money Wise.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Money, money, money, money.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  That's right, this is Money Wise. Welcome to the show. I'm your host today, Chris Pelster, joined by?

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Seth Perry. Glad to be here, Chris.

• 0:53Speaker 00

  Mr. Seth Perry, we are your Thursday, uh, team.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  Duo.

• 0:59Speaker 00

  We're gonna, we're gonna do it up. We're gonna have a show. We're gonna talk about all things financial. We got some great questions. We have given the listeners kudos, whether it be coming in a message through a text message, or whatever it is. Uh, you guys make the show great. So we are in the padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, the Garret Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, which by the way, if you have listened for a while, you know that summertime is a trip to Wyoming. So I hope the Ellis family and clan is having a wonderful time in Wyoming at the, the, uh, the lake that they frequent. And so thinking about you, G, hope everything's going good. I imagine he watched Kershaw hit

• 1:43Speaker 00

  3,000 strikeouts last night, on top of an absolutely epic game with a come from behind win in the bottom of the ninth. Can't ask for much better, more romantic baseball, especially for a Dodger fan like Mr. Ellis.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Couldn't imagine being at that game. How cool would that be, Stephen?

• 2:02Speaker 01

  Well, we had some friends that actually went out there.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  And they were, uh, they were shaking in their boots.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was uh, it was crazy. It was like, it didn't seem like the, the strikeouts were gonna come. He was pitching good.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  And he was doing it in the last batter he was gonna see too.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, by the end of your, by the end of your time on the mound, you're not necessarily throwing your best stuff. So it's just a, another romantic story. If he wouldn't have got that strikeout, he would have had to come out to another game. And it just, it wouldn't have been the same thing, dude.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Hopefully Muncie's okay.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  What's up?

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Uh, hopefully Muncie's okay as well.

• 2:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was, uh, that was the bummer. That was the thing. His, uh, that, your knee's not supposed to do that, I don't think. So anyways, uh, hopefully it's, it's, uh, just on the mend and, and nothing more serious than that. But, um, but yeah, so overall, uh, markets, uh, are in positive territory. I think the markets, uh, like some different things moving around. Uh, I mean, kind of a big move. I mean, the S and P 500 is up almost 1% today. It's at 6,279. NASDAQ's 20,601. Dow Jones, which we affectionately call the dumb Dow. 44,828.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Never gets old, dude. I'm sorry.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  Three, uh, three quarters of a percent move there. And back to the NASDAQ, the tech sector, um, up over 1%. So I, I mentioned that one's at 20,601. So, um, you know, when the markets move and they're in positive territory and there's not necessarily anything glaring in its face, um, even though I would say most people you talk to are majorly concerned about all kinds of different things, which we always should be. I do try to remind people that I don't care if, what, what time of history you were in, if you back up five years, back up 10 years. Um, ask Steven. He's been listening to the show. Like a poor guy has been forced to listen to the show.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  That's tough. Every ep-

• 3:53Speaker 00

  Every episode. I mean, some of you guys check in and check out for a while. I mean, this poor guy every single day. But, I mean- We should have kept a running list of how many different, you know, the debt ceiling, the this, the that, the, I mean, you know, budget holdouts in Congress. I mean, it's, there's always so many reasons of fear and this is different and I should, you know, majorly change my invest, and it's just like, it's just more of the same. And I tell people, the thing you have to remember is that all this stuff you're concerned about is real and it's important. I'm not saying to not think about it and stuff, but at the end of the day, S and P 500 companies, you know, the 500 companies in there, the NASDAQ,

• 4:37Speaker 00

  all these technology companies, they're all grinding away every day. They're trying to figure out ways to sell goods and products and services to our, to, to, to the world or to Americans. They're, they're trying to do it in an efficient way. They're trying to turn a profit. And at the end of the day, like, just like with everybody else, there's all this chaos going in, but you still go to work, you still get things done, hopefully doing a good job for your clients or your customers or your patients, whatever kind of field you're in. And at the end of the day, that's just what the market keeps doing.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Have you seen some of the headlines? Like, sometimes you'll look back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, and they have these big headlines. And there's been a, I think it was a game or something, where you try to figure out, okay, when, when did this happen? And of course, they all look like they could be today's headlines, but they're the same old, played out headlines that keep happening. And yet, the US market in particular, continues to march forward, continues to be successful, continues to make people money. Yes, it can be scary if you put some in and then pull it right back out, lose money, but overall, it's killed it.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. So hopefully you are continuing to be money wise. You know, we, we talk about rebalancing portfolios. We talk about looking at your overall risk profile on your allocation. You know, different accounts might have different goals for you. So there are some things to consider. But, you know, at the end of the day, we've always said here at Money Wise, you know, control the things that you can control, let the things that you can't control kind of do their thing, and then just have confidence in your, in your plan. The thing I Love about being at MoneyWise is nobody here worships money or nobody thinks that that that somehow money is magical. And you know, we, we kind of say it's, it's apolitical in a sense where if you have good goals and good things and you have money, you get to do more of that stuff. If you're a bad person, bad things, you unfortunately get to do more of that stuff.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  Like make good decisions, be money wise, have a good plan in place, let the markets do what they're going to do.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  One thing, one thing you and I were chatting about the other day is, you know, people get raises or they take a new job. They get an extra 20, 30, 40 grand a year. In their mind, they're, man, they've made it. They can start doing all this stuff, start saving, start investing. But typically, isn't it true, the majority of people, human nature, they just start spending that money. Or they pay their car off. They work so hard. We, this happens to the Perry family sometimes. We'll pay something off. We've strived to, debt is gone. We just want to get something new. It's just human nature.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Which, you know, I mean, one of the things, actually, one of the questions that came in, we'll talk about some of these blind spots and different things. That's more on the investment side. But what you're talking about is a psychological thing that we do. It's called lifestyle creep. It's, uh, it's little by little. You make a little bit more money. You spend a little bit more money. You make a little bit more money. You spend a little bit more money. And the way that our tax brackets work make that even more difficult. Cause you think, well, if I just made 40,000 more dollars or 20,000 more dollars. Well, as you move up in the income scales, you get to keep less of your money because of the way our tax brackets work. It's very difficult to really stay disciplined and to stay focused and to make good decisions.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  You know, when we talk about goals and different things on this, I, I never discount where anybody's at in your, in your wealth journey. And I remember, uh, single income diapers, barely making ends meet, you know, and, and scratching out a little bit of extra savings. And, and you know, the thing is, is you gotta just keep doing it. You gotta keep applying smart, money wise behaviors and, and budgeting things. And, and it's different for everybody. That's the thing that I love about working at MoneyWise. I mean, we've seen it all. People, people handle money differently. And it's like, at the end of the day, you boil it down and you try to have a solid financial plan. That you feel like you have some financial stability, even with some of the turmoil in our economy, even with some of the turmoil and political things and all that stuff.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Again, you can't control all that stuff. Get your head out of that noise, make better decisions, and then make sure that you are doing the things that are the most important to you. Because a lot of times you'll turn around and you've worried for three years and you didn't do a lot of the things that you told yourself you would do when you finally got retired.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is a great radio show, man. You have my wheels spinning because I'm thinking back to those early days or maybe right out of college, still living at home with parents and literally just scraping by. And so it's not a bad idea to put yourself back in that mindset and the things you wish you would have had and look around you now. It's a good chance you have those things and don't take them for granted. They can be gone in a second.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  So let's jump into the questions because we've got a few and we do have a wonderful guest today. We are going to be joined by Wendy Porter and Casey from Wounded Heroes Fund near and dear to my heart, veterans here locally. Local heroes, local help is the tagline. And we're going to talk to them a little bit about what they do. So you've got to stick around for that and listen to what they have going on. Another thing, the question that came in though, that I want to jump into real quick, says, wow, never know how much a trillion is until you break down our debt lol. But how does adding to the national debt through spending bills affect long-term interest rates? Stuff like that. Well, great question.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  One of the things that I wanted to do real quick was just blow your mind real quick about a trillion. Just so you have a little perspective. A stack of $1 billion bills is 67 miles high.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  One billion with a B?

• 10:04Speaker 00

  One billion with a B, 67 miles. You take $1 bills, stack them up?

• 10:09Speaker 02

  No.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  67 miles high. A trillion dollar bills? 67,866 miles high into space.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  That's crazy.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  That's crazy.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  67 miles of $1 bills?

• 10:22Speaker 00

  Yep, is a billion.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  What about pennies?

• 10:26Speaker 00

  A stack of one billion dollar bills would be sixty seven miles high, almost sixty eight miles high.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  I wonder if GPD would know pennies. Probably that'd be like out to Neptune or something.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna say, how far is Mars?

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Well, I'll tell you this much. I know that if you take a billion pennies, it's like the size of a couple of Olympic pools. If you take a trillion pennies, it's like you could fill an entire football stadium and have a bunch left over. So, I mean, just to try to give you some perspective on how much a trillion is, it's insane. I tell people, you can't even wrap your mind around some of these numbers and stuff that we're getting to, but at the end of the day, it's kind of relative in the sense that, you know, like the interest that we're paying on it, as long as we're paying our bills and different things, you know, it is what it is. So.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Hundred fifty two thousand kilometers high. Are we in Europe? We get miles here, dude?

• 11:28Speaker 00

  Right before the Fourth of July, you're gonna come out with a kilometer. Look at this guy.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  A kilometer blast. Unreal.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Unreal, dude. It's about to be the Fourth of July and you're coming out with kilometer information.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  I crunch this in my head. It's actually ninety four thousand four hundred forty eight miles of pennies.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Nice. Wow.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  The one thing I was gonna say is, is basically they were asking about interest rates and, and, you know, you go back to COVID, two thousand eight crisis, there's been massive deficit spending. Long-term rates still stayed relatively low. Part of the, you know, the feds bought treasuries. A lot of times, we talked about it on the show, quantitative easing, QE, Q three, or whatever. You guys remember that? You remember that, Stephen?

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:13Speaker 00

  Q one, Q three, Q, you know, quantitative easing. Inflation.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Quantitative easing.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. Inflation expectations stayed anchored. Global demand for safe US assets remained high. So even though we had all that spending during a couple of those crises, inflation stayed relatively low. Now, post-COVID, we felt inflation in twenty twenty Everybody kind of remembers that, but they've still kind of leveled out and not necess- they're still going up, but they're just not going up at the same tune after that. So you just have to understand that obviously, you know, some of these spending bills and different things, it can lead to higher inflation. But if some of the other parts of the equation, meaning there's still, people are still buying the bonds,

• 13:00Speaker 00

  different things, hopefully interest rates, or I guess what would be considered inflation, would still stay relatively manageable. But again, going back to that trillion dollar number or whatever our debt is.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  Three and a half to four and a half is the expected 10-year increase to the deficit.

• 13:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  That's a lot of money.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Billion or trillion?

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Tillys.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  Tillys.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Tilly pop.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  That's a lot of money. That's going back to the 68,000 miles of one dollar bills into the sky.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  200 billion is going, being pumped into our military, which I'm a thousand percent in support of, with most of that being earmarked for drones and drone technology. Because you can wipe out multi-billion dollar aircraft with a relatively inexpensive drone, and that's kind of the future, and we're seeing it in warfare right now. So.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  Well, so hopefully that answers that question.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Bunch of new jobs.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. So why don't we take a quick break? When we come back, we have a couple more questions to go in that bring up some really, really good topics. So stick around.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Are you nearing retirement and currently working with a financial advisor? Are you not sure if you're invested appropriately? Call our offices at 661-847-1000 to sit down with a Money Wise financial advisor for a no obligation assessment.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Huge.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Now, if you don't know who this is, you'd have to know the lyrics.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  You, you guys hearing the lyrics here?

• 14:39Speaker 00

  Sleep with one eye open.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  Is this something popular? Cause I heard this the other day.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Oh, snap. And this is, we don't even have Kyle Jones on the show and we're playing Metallica.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Metallica.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  In yacht rock form.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  I saw that video the other day and I had to send it to Kyle Jones, a, a avid Metallica fan. And it was in yacht rock form. So I'm like, hey.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Is that what that is?

• 15:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  I've never heard of this dude.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Yes, yacht rock.

• 15:09Speaker 00

  Yacht rock?

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Can they do it for like rap songs?

• 15:11Speaker 01

  They do it for everyone.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Dude, I gotta, I gotta hear some Snoop Dogg.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Trust me, that's a tunnel you, once you fall into it dude.

• 15:18Speaker 00

  You may not.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  Slippery slope.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  It's a tunnel.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Yacht, yacht flop.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  I thought you looked like you hadn't got much sleep, Steven. You've been up for three days just yacht rocking old metal music.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Why is it yacht rock? I gotta.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Yacht rock. It's like when you're, you're on the boat. It's like, you know, the middle aged guy gets into sailing and it's yacht rock.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Check that.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  While people are taking old hard rock songs and making them yacht rock. So you can listen to Metallica in front of your wife and she not completely lose her mind? Hopefully you're, anyways, anyways, let's, let's move on. Okay. Great episode. Uh, next question came in. Great episode came in, but with the pass of the beautiful bill.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Do you know how long it usually takes for fiscal policy changes to affect everyday consumers like us? Great question. I think a lot of people are thinking this. Obviously it's the same answer we have for a lot of things. It depends. I mean, bills can vary in size and scope and some of them can be very specific. Some of them can be more broad stroked issues that are going to affect a lot of different areas. The big beautiful bill though, you know, it, it's.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Think aircraft carrier. It's, it's a long gradual change. Uh, folks may see impacts to their paychecks within like one to six months. Jobs gonna grow, there's gonna be job growth, but it's gonna take six to 18 months. I just think of these huge projects that are gonna get kicked off or these big expansions. This just takes time.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Contracts gotta get signed and approved.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Just think of the money that's gonna be made out there.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, so not, not, you know, it's not like overnight by any means and, and little by little, certain things will start to happen, but, uh, so hopefully that kinda gives you a little bit of an idea, some things to consider when you're saying, how, how is this bill gonna affect me as an everyday consumer?

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Great question.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  So the next one, we'll, we'll dive into a little bit deeper. It says, hello gentlemen, a friend of mine introduced me to one of your podcast, past shows, and I was able to find your podcast. A friend of mine wanted me to ask you this as a, as financial advisors. How can you test to see if your financial advisor suffers from blind spots that unknowingly hurt your portfolio?

• 17:23Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  Boom.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Boom.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Great question.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Well, one of the things they can do is make, ask your advisor, are they cover, or is your advisor covering tax and estate planning issues? Lot of advisors out there get the reputation of being asset gathers, they call them. All they wanna do is just gather people's assets and move on to the next person, but are they doing real planning with you? And, uh, the other thing that came to mind with this question is do your own homework and, and actually, you know, review your portfolio, make sure you're not overweighted in any particular area, maybe it's small cap, mid cap, international, you know, and have those conversations and just ask, ask a ton of questions. And the other thing is, can your advisor stress test a portfolio? And what that means is, can you tell your advisor, hey, um, what happens if the market

• 18:11Speaker 02

  were to drop like it did in 2008? What would happen with my portfolio?

• 18:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  And any good advisor, like the advisors at MoneyWise, would be able to, uh, utilize some software, run some Monte Carlo testing, which is a simulation of

• 18:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  10,000 different scenarios and, yeah.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think, uh, sometimes That stress test, it prepares you to understand how your portfolio will behave in different scenarios, which can prepare you and your behavior of what you'll do in those scenarios. And we've been doing this a very long time. And those that stay diligent and stay disciplined through the ups and the downs and the scary times of investing and stay diligent with their strategy, they benefit. You benefit by sticking with it over time. It's time in the market, not timing the market. Now, one of the things that the question involved was, does an advisor have blind spots? Now, when we talk about blind spots,

• 19:13Speaker 00

  we have to realize that we as human beings, we all have blind spots. We have what are called biases. We see things a certain way, or we've had different experiences, and they do make us have blind spots. And so, one of the things you could do is ask the advisor. Like, do you struggle with a certain biases? Or would you say that what's your weakness in investing? And, you know, there can be different ones. I wanted to just read through a couple, just so you kind of get an understanding of what we're talking about. I mean, there's a bunch that you can kind of go into, but maybe some of the ones that you might see

• 19:54Speaker 00

  in yourself, or maybe see in an advisor, or maybe somebody you talk to about investments. But overconfidence bias, okay? Hey, you know, you give your money to me, and I'm gonna beat the market, and I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do that, and I'm gonna pull all these bells and whistles, and we're gonna outperform everybody else, and I'm gonna help you get to retirement sooner than later. Again, overconfidence bias. The reality of how many advisors or money managers that, a lot of them would get huge bonuses if they could consistently outperform the market. And it's very, very difficult to do. So an overconfidence bias, you might experience that. You could probably see that in an advisor without the advisor having to tell you that he's

• 20:38Speaker 00

  overconfident. I would say most people have probably met a overconfident advisor.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah. I think some advisors have a bias toward being way too conservative. If they came into the industry in mid 2000s and they start, you know, working with clients and then they saw the crash in 08, you know, that that might, they might be very gun shy from that. They may have not known how to do it. They were new to investment cycles themselves as advisors and they haven't seen that, hey, this is while it's drastic, it's normal. And they coached their clients through it. And so it kind of left a, it's like a left a scar on them.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so, so that bias or that blind spot would be, I'm, I'm conservative, I'm ultra conservative. So I project that onto my client or potential clients. And so that can be one. Another one is market timing. A lot of people understand market timing, like, you know, the belief is, hey, I'll, I'll jump out of the market, you know, and when it goes down, I'll jump out and then I'll jump back in when it comes back up. And, you know, the risk that we've talked about over and over and over is if you just miss some of the biggest days.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  The 10 biggest days, you're just devastated.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Humongous, humongous long-term success. So like what we try to do here, and what I want to do here for my clients is I want you to be as aggressive as you're comfortable with, understand why you're taking risks, where you're taking them, and be able to stick with your strategy through the ups and the downs. And if you do it, you may not be happy in the middle of it, which nobody is when the markets fall at all, when there's scary times, even just two months ago, there was a lot of fear and panic when the tariff talk first started and the markets pulled back heavily. I understand those feelings, but we want to take calculated risk, be confident that, that these companies are going to navigate through whatever the future holds, whether it's high tariffs, interest rates, what happens with the dollar, all kinds of different things. These companies are going to figure out ways to navigate and we're going to have a diversified

• 22:26Speaker 00

  portfolio to get you through there. Chasing performance is another blind spot where it's

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Tax efficiency. Yeah. That's huge. A lot of advisors, they, they, it's complicated. Taxes, taxes, taxes in general. Very complicated. And so a lot of advisors, they don't do their homework. They don't do their research and they make recommendations that can cost your client thousands of dollars, if not more.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. Another one is underestimating risk. We talked about that a little bit. Um, you know, I'm just going to focus and I'm going to tell you all about all the good things about this technology or that technology or this stock or this fund or whatever, and you're not looking at the downside of what could be, be out of that. Uh, lack of diversification can be another blind spot that a advisor might have. Sometimes it may be overweighting your home country. Um, you know, I am, I'm a patriot. I love, I love America, you know, but, uh, this year is a great example. Foreign markets are outperforming everything else. Now it's been the US markets steadily and the US markets are still doing good. But right now the US markets are underperforming, um, foreign markets. So it's one of those things where again, a diversified portfolio

• 23:31Speaker 00

  sometimes doesn't seem like it makes sense, or sometimes feels like you're holding an anchor until a year happens where all of a sudden, lo and behold, um, you know, foreign equities are doing really well this year. So.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  This is a two parter too, man. This is a great question. Then the, the listener went on and said, also, if you're meeting an advisor for the first time, what, what are three questions you should ask instantly to assess an advisor's credibility? Then they tell us, have a great 4th of July and thank you for spreading your info. We certainly appreciate that. One of the first things I would ask is just about their experience. And it's not, honestly, it sounds weird, but it's not even so much their answer. Of course that's important, but you do want to trust your gut instinct. I think we all have great instincts that are built into us by design. Do you trust this person or not? The other thing I would add, it isn't so much, I would ask the advisor for, uh, references.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  You know, hey, would you mind if I called, uh, a couple of your clients and, and kind of asked about their experience? And really when you're looking for a good advisor, the, the best thing to do is ask a friend of yours that you trust, hey, what advisor are you working with? It's going to save you a lot of time.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Tons of time.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, those are all great things to consider and it is one of those things too where unfortunately you may not be able to find an advisor that has tons of years of experience and depending on your situation, you know, we have kind of a weird dichotomy going on right now with advisors. The average age of a financial advisor in our industry right now is over 60 years old, which means everybody is eyeballing retirement. So you may love the fact that that advisor is 60 years old and he seems, you know, like he's got a lot of experience, but he or she is probably eyeballing retirement. So you want to see like, well, do they have a good process on hiring new advisors? You may talk to somebody that's an advisor that only has a year or two of experience,

• 25:22Speaker 00

  but if they're surrounded by technology and processes and a good team, then even though they might only have a couple of years of experience, you can kind of see how they're going to be able to continue to grow into becoming a great advisor. I mean, we're having to go through this right now money-wise because literally we unfortunately lost Gero to the situation that he's dealing with with his stroke and then we had, you know, we had another advisor leave the office. And so we have to make shifts and stuff too, hire the right people and have good processes and ways to train up advisors to continue to do great work for clients.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Nothing wrong with asking them how they're compensated too. Typically advisors are, you know, fee only. They're paid a percentage of the assets on whatever fee schedule they're on. And so if the client's money's doing better, the advisor's doing better. There's a lot of incentive there. It's kind of, kind of the go-to norm for the industry right now, but commission-based. You know, ask them, hey, especially if they're pushing an insurance product, your direction, like a whole life insurance product and they don't even sell investments, ask them, how much money are you making on this product?

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Very important, very important.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  There you go. So hopefully all that stuff helps ask the right questions and find the right advisor. Thanks for making Money Wise great with your guys' input and questions. We are going to be joined by Wounded Heroes Fund when we come back from this break. Stick around.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  Don't forget, Money Wise is more than a radio show. We're an independently owned, local wealth management firm with 60-plus years of collective experience. Our financial advisors are here to help you, Kern County. Together, let's be smart, be safe, be money wise.

• 27:08Speaker 00

  Welcome back. This is the Money Wise Show. I'm your host, Chris Pelster, with Seth Perry, and we are now joined by some friends of Money Wise. The favorite over there is Chloe Porter. She's waving. She's not going to get on the microphone, but she's telling everybody hello. And we are joined with her mother, Wendy Porter, director of Wounded Heroes Fund, and Casey, just absolute animal for the organization.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Animal. I like it.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  Getting out there, going after it. I love what you're pursuing and some of the things you're doing. So I know a lot about Wounded Heroes Fund. I've been involved for a while and making things happen over there, but Seth doesn't. So Seth wanted to see if Wendy, if you and Casey, you can jump in and kind of talk a little bit about just the history of the organization, when, where it started, why it started, and we'll kind of move forward from there.

• 28:07Speaker 04

  Sure. So I'm a daughter of a Vietnam veteran, and it was very rough when he got home for my brother and sister and I living with him. And pretty much, I joke with him that his picture should be next to the word Vietnam veteran in the dictionary, meaning he pretty much was it to a T. So I just banked in the back of my head at some point in my life, I'd like to do something to give back to veterans and their families. So, fast forward, had a couple aha moments in college, just kind of strengthened my thought of what something to do. And then after Chloe was born, we weren't sure about any health issues,

• 28:49Speaker 04

  so I was able to take off time from teaching. And she is blossom, she's amazing, she's healthy. So I didn't want to go back to the classroom, and I thought, you know what, now's the time.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  We were in the middle of Iraq, and we had some veterans here that had been wounded over in Iraq. And so it was like, now's the time, let's do something for veterans and their families. And just brought some friends together at our kitchen table, and sat down and weren't sure what direction we were going to go in, but knew we wanted to do something. And so now, fast forward 15 years later, here we are.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Awesome. And so, how are you helping veterans these days? Like, what are some of the things that you guys do to help people out?

• 29:29Speaker 04

  Some of the things we do to help people out.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Well, we tried just to, we're basically like, we tried to be a conduit for the veteran of the family. Obviously, things have changed, roll with the economic tide. You know, if something works, we try to use the donor's money to the best of our benefit to, you know, help provide these things that folks need, and that could be anything. It, obviously, it's Wounded Heroes Fund, it started as a fund for veterans, you know, PG&E help, transitioning between jobs from service out, trying to fulfill that financially, but now we're trying to do anything that's social, therapeutic, recreational, financial, still, to a cap, or just financial mentoring, you know, a lot of us get out and we're not used to the world, we joined at seventeen, eighteen years old, and all these things are

• 30:17Speaker 03

  new, so, the food pantry for emergency food kits and, and family food baskets is enormous right now.

• 30:25Speaker 04

  That's our biggest, that's our biggest program right now.

• 30:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's massive, and, you know, we've helped with equine therapy, getting folks out there. I do regiment RUG program, I take veterans out for anywhere from three to five days, just off-grid, give them the tools to navigate the wilderness, and then at night-

• 30:42Speaker 00

  That's awesome.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  We just kind of have a, you know, moments to ourselves and open up, but it's, it's mentally and physically challenging as well.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  So, provide that atmosphere for them, and, and just come back rejuvenated, ready to take on, you know, whatever they want to do in their community, or, or job, or what, family, you know, whatever, but-

• 30:59Speaker 04

  The goal is to take these veterans that are coming home, giving them some civilian experience, and figuring out how to become a productive part of our community. All of our programs, they've kind of changed over the years on what was needed, but we want to walk alongside the, the path of mental health, alternative therapies, our big goal was, is to keep, try to lower that veteran suicide rate-

• 31:24Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 31:25Speaker 04

  -that is here in Kern County, I mean, it's all over the nation, but we can just, we'll focus on Kern County, and also keeping families together. There's a lot of divorce in these, in this population.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, and we were, we were just talking about it, we had some questions come in, and we were talking about like, budgeting and different things, and sometimes, you know, like, becoming a wealth manager, and like- We end up helping people on very high end levels of wealth and management and some of the things that those people, but we never want to talk about it in a way where we don't remember the beginning stages. And when you're talking about people transitioning back into civilian life, there's not a lot of room for error because a lot of times you're just starting out. We've talked about like having maybe a single income family and you're paying for diapers and this and that. And I remember what that struggle was like and I didn't have the added element of possible wartime, you know, experiences

• 32:16Speaker 00

  or even just, even if you didn't see that, like coming back and being in that world and then coming back and, you know, you're working in an office or you're working here, you're working there. And there's not a lot of grace that our society has where if you make a mistake or you get behind on your bills or you're overwhelmed with all these different things. And sometimes there's not a lot of resources or places to go. So like even helping with the PG&E bill here and there, whatever, to try to bridge a gap or man, I got a ticket or I need to take care of this. And those problems get worse and worse and worse if there's not somebody to step in. And a lot of times, correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not one, but veterans might have a hard time asking for help.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, you think? Yes, they do.

• 33:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 33:00Speaker 04

  Their role as a service member is protection, protecting our country, protecting us. It's hard for anybody to ask for help, but when you have to be somebody who went from protecting, now you need help. It is very humbling for them. Our building is very, it very much feels like home when you walk in. It doesn't have that clinic feel to it. So we wanted them to come in and feel comfortable. Anyone that comes in when they're greeted at the door, they're greeted by a veteran and these veterans speak the same language and they've all walked the same path. Some a little farther ahead, some a little behind, but they've all have that commonality together, right?

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  So it's just trying to provide that safety. So when you do come in and ask for help, We try to make it as easy as possible for them.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  That's awesome. And when I was in the oil industry, I loved working with veterans because they have just incredible work ethic, incredible skills. And so is that part of what you guys do too is kind of help them to realize, maybe put a resume together and highlight their skills?

• 34:07Speaker 04

  We do help with resume building. We have a couple of different partners in our collaborative that do like mock interviews, that kind of stuff. And we also help them to figure out, a lot of times when they come out of the military with a skill set, they don't realize that that skill set can transition to a civilian job. So these guys that have been out longer can have those talk with them and show them and give them the confidence of, no, your skills really can transfer to a civilian job.

• 34:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. And also like if we're not 100% on it or anything, we developed quite a handshake deal with multiple like agencies and other nonprofits here. Like when you talk about resume too, you know, if we're not there, we can't facilitate that. It's always like, hey, go to VSRi. That's our Britain, but that's what they do. Or if you're at risk or homeless, or EDD and at risk or homeless, you know, CVAF. You know, we always try to, you know, not do it ourselves. We do it the best we can, but we try to use the partnerships with folks.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  You're like a quarterback that, you know, leads them in the right direction and coordinates. That's awesome.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  Well, we figure it's always so humbling to walk in the building and ask for help. And so we don't ever want to tell them no. So we may not be able to give you the answer that you need directly, but we're gonna, we're gonna help you with what we can have. We'll look at your whole situation and then we're gonna go do a warm handoff to the next agency that can help you. You know, our family was told so much and it's just so heartbreaking, right? So we have people even calling from other states asking for help and these guys will get on the computer and look up resources in that area. So you don't even have to tell someone on the phone, no.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, one of the things I was gonna say is, is knowing your guys' calendar a little bit, on July 10th, we have an open house coming up where a lot of people don't realize Wounded Heroes does have a facility with some great resources. And you may say, "Well, why in the world are you gonna have an open house?" Well, we want more people to see the facilities. And then you do have a great brochure here that highlights a few different things. What are some of the things that can make, might help people understand some of the things that we do offer veterans? So what are, what are some things on the facility that they'd be able to check out if they do come to the open house?

• 36:19Speaker 04

  Well, we have a great computer lab, so veterans can come in and do telehealth appointments on them. They can help with homework and job applications. A lot of the Vietnam veterans are coming in and our guys are helping them maneuver through the VA online. Plus, we have the free Wi-Fi and printing services for veterans, so especially if they're couch surfing or living in their car, they can come in and get free Wi-Fi, get all their, all their stuff charged up. We have a washer and dryer, so they can do laundry. And we have access to a shower, so we have guys that will come in and do laundry, shower, we'll feed them. We have the food pantry, so those are not, we can do, anybody

• 37:02Speaker 04

  that walks in the door immediately and is hungry, we give them a food, a food kit, which is a three to five day supply of non-perishable foods. And then we have a monthly food basket. We do some financial assisting. And then we also do like the alternative therapies, like the outdoor education. We have some art therapy. And we, these guys definitely do a ton of peer-to-peer support.

• 37:28Speaker 00

  That's awesome.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, so...

• 37:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, when you're, when you're talking about that vulnerable moment of coming in, you know, we, just like myself who was helped years ago, and that turnaround moment, I mean, it, one, it's hard to ask for help as, as it is. But two, you gotta remember, most folks that come through our door, like I did, or met on the street, no doors.

• 37:46Speaker 03

  We exhaust everything. You know, we do, we're so stubborn and we're so adamant about trying to do what we can to provide for ourselves or family. We'll exhaust everything before we ask for help. And typically, you know, we don't want that. We try to find these folks before they exhaust everything so we can help them, you know, carry on what they have already, or, you know, help lessen that burden, no matter what it is. So folks coming in, and it could be anything. It could be mentally exhausted, physically exhausted, financially, looking for help anywhere. So we try to get folks before that happens.

• 38:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, and I think, you know, just to kind of talk about one of the reasons I got involved, I mean, I've shared my story before that, you know, my brother-in-law unfortunately made a decision. He was struggling and kind of getting integrated back into civilian life, and he made the decision to just, you know, end everything. And I, that's a, it's a growing problem. It may even be getting a little bit better. I don't know if it's, it is or not, but it's kind of, when you say that that's the mentality of exhaust everything, well then, when a lot of people get to that end thing, and they've spent everything they've could, and they've tried every avenue they could to make things work, unfortunately, then they get to that point, and then that's what they think the only option or alternative

• 38:58Speaker 00

  is for them to do. And, and I think that, you know, by and large, as a civilian, not knowing completely what that feels like, or being in those same exact shoes, I mean, I think we've all experienced times of hopelessness, or like, there's just no other option, or this is it. And it's unfortunately even worse, you know, in the veteran community, because it, it seems like that kind of just becomes the answer that some people think that they have to turn to, and that's just what, what the next step is. So I got, you know, jumped in there to, to join in, because if, if we can do anything to stop one, stop two, stop five, and then also lessen the burden on those people that are trying to find their way in coming back from serving. And one of the things that we've talked about before

• 39:42Speaker 00

  right now is, a lot of times, war is not in the headlines, and it's not necessar, well, it is now in the last week, unfortunately, fortunately, whatever you want to say, but, you know, when there's times of what, what appears to be Be peacetime, we don't realize that the scars are still there, that the effects of war are still there. And even those that go and sign up and have, you know, serve, coming back, it's, you still have some of the same challenges, maybe not quite as intensive of mental, you know, challenges or struggles, but you know, it's the same. It's, it's a culture, it's a thought process of, I can't make things work and may even add to some depression because it's like, I joined the military to go do something and I didn't

• 40:24Speaker 00

  get to even really do a whole lot. So, so I don't know how that plays into it, but it's one of those things where, you know, Wounded Heroes Fund is local heroes, local help. It's not a national organization. It stays right here in this community and it's a great, great gem of resources for people to use. So, I really, really love it. So, one of the things I'll say is, one of the ways you can get involved is if you know veterans that might need service, or you hear of anybody going through any struggles, they need to know that this resource is there for them. And the more people that know about Wounded Heroes Fund, the more people that can get the, the word to the veterans that might use it.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  And all charities, all nonprofits are experiencing unfortunate circumstances with the changing economy here locally. And it's one of those things where sometimes people maybe don't want to talk about war, veteran issues, or mental health and suicide. Those aren't the funnest topics and it's hard to get people to stand behind this. And so, we, we've been making a major push to have sustaining donors where friends, family, businesses will stand behind Wounded Heroes Fund and, and start setting up a, a, a monthly contribution or an annual contribution or whatever it is, but just something where we can help build more sustainable donorship. We have some great fundraisers. We actually have a cornhole

• 41:48Speaker 00

  tournament coming up on the 31st, so $50 a team. Seth wanted to know what the trophy's going to be because he's, he says he's pretty serious.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  I used to play on the international circuit, so I'm excited.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  I'm just kidding.

• 42:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, ESPN8?

• 42:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, right?

• 42:05Speaker 04

  You know what? This young adult over here is an amazing artist, so if you win, she'll paint you a

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Oh, awesome.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  That's awesome, right on.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that is coming up on the 31st, $50 a team. You can also go to the website, find out, you know, some information there, but...

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Website looks great, it looks very easy, you just go on the upper left to donate directly or sustaining donor info and choose your, choose your level you want to support. I thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for this, this service. I think about my own grandpa was a prisoner of war in Germany and he carried stuff with him his whole life and he never really opened up and it was just kind of those last days he started telling more of the stories and then, you know, he wasn't with us anymore and so just, I guarantee you've saved lives, I know you know that, but, you know, take that to heart, that's awesome.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  Yep, and later this year, another one that you can put on the, the schedule is Evening with a Hero, EWA, it's affectionately called, so you kind of get some behind the scenes talk of veterans who have participated in some...

• 43:11Speaker 04

  Special operations.

• 43:12Speaker 00

  Some special operations, some you may know about, some you may not, but you get kind of the inside scoop and it's amazing group of guys that, that want to come and share, share with our, our listeners and help wounded heroes raise some funds to help veterans here locally, but we are in a season where we truly do need friends and family and businesses to stand behind our local veterans and so you can actually get set up, start giving automatically, monthly, you can go to the website and we would absolutely appreciate that and use those funds towards trying to find as many services and things that we can do for local heroes or local veterans and change, change the numbers, at least locally if we can, so.

• 43:56Speaker 00

  Anything else coming up that you wanted to know about or would like to talk about?

• 43:59Speaker 04

  Well, I just wanted to encourage people to come to the open house, it's a Thursday evening for, it's on the tent from, I think we did 5:30 to 7:30, because we can sit here and talk about it, but it really is when you walk in the door, I mean, you, every time you walk in that door and you take a tour and you actually see... How big it is and all the things that take place under that roof. It's incredible.

• 44:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  And so talking is one thing and sharing, but really coming in and seeing it and experiencing it. It it's really an amazing venture. So, yeah. So really, if anybody's able, come, come down and check it out.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  You guys painted a good picture. In my mind, you know, you come in, maybe get some, some counseling, point in the right direction. But this is a full blown like.

• 44:40Speaker 04

  Well, and hopefully, when you, when you walk in, you feel like you're at home. You feel comfortable.

• 44:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, so.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, non-clinical especially, yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  But, uh, you know, not, not all the help is always tangible, you know? Sometimes if folks come in and they just need to pour it out and hey, we can do some peer on peer counseling. That's why I went to school and came back, full circle for us to help facilitate that need at there too.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  And be picked up as a therapist. I mean, if we could do that, then, you know, if, if that helps one individual for a day, an hour, whatever.

• 45:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  Or keeps them coming back for something that they need to sleep on and then come back or, you know, that's what we're there for. You know, not everything is tangible that we help with and that's, we want to show folks what we have and how we do it and what we do. And we're veterans helping veterans too, you know?

• 45:20Speaker 00

  So what, I mean, you've probably, uh, the perception is it's very difficult to get services through the VA. Would that be accurate, like for a veteran that, that's having issues or, or anything? Is it difficult? Is it, what is the process like for a veteran who needs help?

• 45:36Speaker 03

  Oh, man, to each their own. Um, it, it, it can be. It can be tough to navigate. Um, it seems like every five years, I've been out since oh, five, oh, six. It seems like every five years, the VA is just constantly changing for the better. Um, but they're still behind like ten, fifteen years.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  Uh, policy wise. Now we're seeing an uptick in the VA, not only just trying to get everybody in for their resources, but now using community resources and that helps with like the mission that before, you know, community care. And now we have HUDVASH come to us saying, hey, the VA's tasked us with getting our veterans help from local agencies. So that's in that aspect, it is better and it is picking up, um. But it depends, you know, not everybody has the same cookie cutter process through the VA. And I hate to say it, but the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And you still have to, you have to be that person. You can't give up. You can't complain.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:27Speaker 03

  You know, and we, we helps navigate some of that paperwork too, or, or things because we've been through the gauntlet, most of us have. And some of us that are works day there who just got out and go into college and work and, you know, VA pays them to work for us as a work study. They're navigating this now too. We're like, okay, hey, we can help you with this. And then they pass it along to folks coming through our door. But I mean, it, it, it, there's so many different factors with that. For me, I, if you just try to keep your nose to the grindstone, have a positive mental attitude about going in, okay, yes. Uh, how much, how far am I going to get if I'm just gonna be and complain? You know, or where am I going to get? Just, just smile, say, yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Do what, and just go with the flow. Just, sometimes you have to figure things out for yourself. Sometimes you can knock on 10 doors before you get help.

• 47:12Speaker 03

  Sometimes it's right there for you and it's, and, but I do have to say it is getting better. Um, but experiences do, experiences do vary, you know, and, and, um, we're trying to get folks back in there, especially older folks.

• 47:25Speaker 00

  And that's one of the things I love about like, you know, th- this type of, uh, you know, service to the veterans, sometimes we do the baskets and there's hand things that we hand out and this and that, but having a place that somebody who's struggling and going through the system, or if somebody's struggling with mental health, you can see how challenging that would be to stick with it, to get the help that they need and to go through the process. And if they can have other veterans that have been through similar situations and say, look, I can help walk you through this, have some accountability, have somebody to call that's not necessarily just a 1-800 number or helpline. Um, you know, it can really help them. So thank you guys for what you do. Thanks for coming on the show and sharing. Thank you, Chloe, for being in here. Look forward to seeing your artwork.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  I hope I win that, I hope I win that artwork.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, we'll see, we'll see. Thank you for having us. Yeah, you got it, guys. Hey, you guys make the Money Wise Show what it is. Thanks for listening and tuning in. Be smart, be safe, be money wise.

• 48:18Speaker 05

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