5 Steps to Becoming Your Own Financial Advisor

Welcome to today's episode. I'm excited to share my thoughts on this subject. I hope I don't offend anybody, but I hope I can clarify all of my thoughts where I'm coming from on this But as I work with clients and we're coming to the close of their sessions, I love to help them see the path that they have taken, what they were feeling when they reached out for support, where they were that first month. We do four weeks of semi intensive, a lot is going on and Then we review the last three months of what they've accomplished, what they've felt, what they now know. And as I was doing this with a recent client, she made the statement to me. She says, I realized I don't need to be a financial advisor to understand my money. I love that statement. I was so glad that she had clarity around the idea that she could do good things with her money, right? She can make great decisions. And really, you don't need to be a financial advisor to do these things. The biggest takeaway from the statement is that you need to understand your money. Not even a financial advisor is going to know that. They are not going to know who you are, what you do with your money, unless you tell them. You are the only one that knows. Secondly, if you don't have any money to grow, you don't need an advisor. Sorry, I said it, but it is true. That is the purpose they serve. That is their goal. They, they help you grow your money to wealthy proportions, whatever that is. But if you don't have a saving stream, you don't have a source to give them, they can't help you. Now, very few of them with their bandwidth are able to do similar stuff like myself. There is a great role for financial advisors. I just recently got mine. And I say recently, I've been working with him for two years. I did it all myself. through my employer sponsored So I did have access to those which I'm going to talk about those later But I really believe they have a good role in helping you grow your money In fact when I recently reached out to my financial advisor about some other monies that he doesn't grow It's mine. I've kept it outside of an IRA just because of the the type of account it is. And I manage it. I've always managed it. And I said, I need to maybe put this in a place where I can get to it more quickly, but I don't want it to obviously not be making any money in my checking account. And so we were talking about, she says, but you need that to grow. I don't, I don't need that portion to grow like the other portion I've And see, that's their mindset. They immediately go to growing. And so if you're looking to grow your money and you're not sure how to do it yourself, go work with an advisor. All right, there's my plug for them. I love advisors. I love mine and I've met some amazing advisors along the way. They have a great purpose and they're very knowledgeable in what they do, but what they don't know, is you and your money. So what you need to do is gain an understanding of your money. So this episode, I'm going to share with you some ways you can become your own financial advisor. You don't need schooling. You don't need a certification. You don't need any of those things to be good at making the best decisions you can with your money, and I believe understanding your money, you're already one leg up on somebody else helping you out. So as we go through these, I have five Bye. Bye. Bye. Ways that to help you become a better advisor for yourself. Advisors are also growing, learning, doing new things. It doesn't matter. So, why not invest in yourself to be able to do this for yourself? So, the first way is probably, is, I'm a little biased but it's the best way. I'm just going to say that, but if this doesn't do it. You know, jive with you. I totally understand. And hopefully one of the other ways works for you. All right. So number one way, educate yourself. I know I said you didn't need to have schooling or a certification. And I still don't mean that by saying you need to educate yourself. Don't just consume anything and everything about personal finance, budgeting or investing. What I want you to do is educate yourself. within this way is choose one area for improvement right now. This was a step I took on my entire journey and focused on one area to learn and grow, learn and grow and apply. Don't forget the apply part, right? So I'm going to give you three, well, two of them are statements. One of them is a question for an easy way for you to decide what area you should start with. Okay. You might have said. Or thought, I'm not very good at, and I want you to name one or two things, I'm not very good at what with your money. Now, I don't want you to go down the rabbit hole of this being negative, but you've had a thought of, I'm not very good at this. Write that topic down. That could be an area for improvement. Number two, you might think, I wish I knew more about. and something that really is interesting to you. Recently, I just signed up for a day trading course. I've never dabbled in that, right? I feel like I need to expand and grow still on my financial journey. So that just really excited me when I made the connection with this financial coach that that's her specialty. So I signed up for her course. So, you know, I wish I knew more about, and what is it for you that you wish you knew more about? It can be anything. That is what is so important with this. The last one is a question, and why do I have to spend so much money on, and you fill in the blank. For me, sometimes this is insurance, right, auto insurance, home insurance, why do I have to spend so much money on this, right? I understand, I need it, I'm not saying I don't need it, but do I have what I need? I don't. Right? Are the amounts what are need? Could I be saving some more money, but get, but You know, better coverage or when I say better coverage, that best suits yourself. So, what is it that you're like, why do I have to spend so much money on this? So, hopefully you've got a couple of different categories, if not at least one. This is your area you're going to choose for improvement. Go, now here is where you consume what you can on this topic. Right, kind of the If you have to kind of like pare it down to be more specific, then do so. But what you're going to do is, choose the medium that you like, right? Reading books, articles, blogs, listen to podcasts, find courses, educate yourself. And then I also have written down, talk to experts. Now, don't immediately jump to that. And I say that hesitantly because I believe we can better ask, well, we can ask better questions if we have more knowledge. So explore those other areas You know, reading some books, reading some articles. It doesn't have to be, you know, scientific or course overwhelming. Just whatever it is to help you increase your knowledge in that area. What is it that you need to learn? What are your questions about this specific subject? And then as you start defining that, learning more, you can refine and within your own journey, or if you need to go talk to an expert, you can now ask those questions. Maybe you were reading something that you don't fully understand, and so you're going to them for clarification, for additional knowledge, not for them to sell to you if you're not ready for that yet. So I love that way and helping you be a better, better financial advisor, and I believe for yourself, you can. Right. This is customizable to who you are and what you are with money. So educate yourself, pick a topic, go learn, go explore and yeah, increase that knowledge you have make some changes. Why is financial decisions? Because now you know more. All right. The second way I can't. You know, talk about being a financial advisor without you knowing your financial goals. This is very important. Most of my clients who come to me, they really don't have some financial goals. They might have some ideas of what they need to do, but those are different than goals. So spend some time here. And initially you might say, okay, I want to retire in 20 years. Okay, that's a statement about a goal, but we really haven't, you know, detailed it. We haven't refined it. We haven't created a vision. So, spend some time really detailing out, you know, this goal or many other goals that you might have. What are your desires? What do you want? What do you hope to accomplish? And I'm not talking about, oh, I need to pay off my debt and I need to save some more money. No, what is your goal? What are you working towards? What do you want to do? As you define that, then you're going to create some milestones or some steps, the things that you need to do to help you get to those goals, right? You're going to break it down to help you move along that path to reaching that goal. So these These steps and these goals, as you start doing them, as you start learning more, you might be like, oh, I don't need to do that, or oh gosh, I've got to spend longer on this. Really explore and stay on that path with those steps and goals, but don't be afraid to change them. The next best thing with goals is that we need to know how much we need to have. So initially when we make a goal, it's not about numbers. I don't want you to go right to numbers. I want you to go to what it is, what it looks like, why you need it. And then you're going to say, I need this much. Okay? This is an estimate. Everything we do with money is an estimate. It's not going to be exact. But if we have the estimate, we are creating boundaries, safety nets, and buffers. Right? We have that within our realm. We know within the certain impact that we're going to have. So be sure to then add that dollar amount after you've got the vision, after you've got the details of how much you're going to need. And break that down. Right? That's part of the steps, part of the milestones. You're wanting to reach X number of dollars, X number of times. Right? Right. It's not just one full fledged goal that is not going to be successful to leave it as a big chunk. All right. The third way you can be a really good financial advisor to yourself is learn to manage debt. Unless you're one of the very small percent who is inheriting a lot of money, who is making a lot of money. I believe everyone will incur debt at some point in their life, most likely with a mortgage, right? If they choose to buy a home, and if you're not, then it may be with a car. Cars are expensive nowadays. So it's not that debt is bad, it's that we need to manage it. We need to take control of how much we are incurring and the whys. One tip I want to give here is do not let someone else tell you how much you can spend. Right? We can qualify for more money than we should ever want to spend. When my husband and I first went for our, you know, to purchase our first home, we went into the lender and we told her, she's still my lender today, we've been 30 years, I went into her and I said, I want my payment to be no more than this. How much home do I get with today's interest rates? And that was not her telling me I could have more money. We did that approach later down the road. My husband asked, dared to ask that question. Of, so we're tapped out, right? And she's like, no. Honestly, we were. Okay, so that is what I mean by don't let someone else tell you how much to spend. Manage your debt. Don't let somebody else qualify you for your spending. The second thing is as you are incurring debt payments, right, we have a monthly payment. We're buying a car. I really encouraged, like the last two young clients I had, I encourage them to think about the monthly payment while the years are longer, you know, a 7 year loan or a 5 year loan as opposed to a 3 year loan, however you want to look at it. That monthly amount, is it better to have if you lose your job? A smaller as opposed to a larger. You can always pay more. you can always pay more. So really think about that in the sense of if I were to lose my job, how does this impact this payment? I could cover it for six months easily or whatever that is. That is how you manage debt. It's not because, oh, I don't want a loan for longer than this amount of time. That is a factor. That is a concern. But then also looking at that monthly payment, ooh, if we were have a, you know, you know, our salary reduction or lose our job, could I make that payment? So really think about debt from all different aspects. And again, take control, be your own advisor, ask questions of the experts, but you make the final decision. So I believe that learning to manage debt is probably one of the Biggest things we are missing and currently, you know, in today's thing, we just, we know we have to incur debt. So we go in and incur debt, but we're not managing debt. You know, being able to maybe only have one car payment instead of two, maybe, you know, Just segwaying all of those things in a more manageable way, and that is you deciding that. Alright, number four. Invest wisely and plan for retirement. Again, you are not going to be doing this way in a similar sense as a financial advisor. What I want you to take from this, this goes along with number one, is to educate yourself. Learn about your 401k account, or if you have a 403, or a 457, or something else that is, you know, employer sponsored. Learn about it. Understand what options you have. What do those options mean? There's a lot of target choice accounts out there. I want you to understand what the cost of putting your money in there to have somebody manage it for you, right? You need to explore and understand your retirement account, whatever this is, understand the advantage of taking on that employer match, putting your money and getting that employer match, learning the basics of investing. I'll understand what stocks are, what bonds are, what risk is, how you can be risk, you know, balanced, understanding that. Now, you don't just jump into all of this. You choose one little area and you learn about it and you kind of focus on it and Really dive into what it is you need to know for yourself. If you do have a 401 sponsored, employer sponsored plan, there definitely should be some advisors that come with that for quote free. I say free, your employer's paying for it. They can be amazing or they can be amazing. be lacking. I found mine lacking because I had outlearned them in a certain sense. I just want to share that with you not as to saying, oh my gosh, look at me, but to say that if you go talk to them and ask questions, they may fall short and that's okay. you're gonna find your answers somewhere else. If you are somebody, I want to throw this caveat on here, if you are somebody who has a pension, you're maybe working for government, I know there's a few corporations that still have pensions as well but if you have a pension and you're not sure how to calculate your retirement number, please jump on a free call with me. I want to help you figure it out. Understand how to calculate your number using the pension. This was something I could never find and having taken the leap of retiring two years ago, I understand. What that gap with that pension covered and what gap I had left. And so I want to just help you because I don't believe financial advisors understand that. Very few do. I did meet one. I think he's on board. He only does in person though. He doesn't do online or I'd refer you to him. So please come to me. I'd love to help you calculate your retirement gap with that. I also love, Just helping you figure out retirement gaps. I don't want people to think that they can never retire because honestly, I don't believe that. And I don't think you should as well. All right. The last and final way to be an amazing financial advisor for yourself is to review and adjust regularly. Life happens. Things change. Desires change. Life events happens, right? Death, divorce we become empty nesters. There's just all sorts of things that happen, maybe quicker than we thought they would, and so we need to reevaluate our goals, what we're doing if we still even aspire to stay on this path, or maybe we've forgotten. our path because the goal is no longer applicable. So make sure you're reviewing and looking at your entire plan, your, your goal, you know, often maybe once a year really thinking about it, but hopefully as you're setting, you know, spending time within these areas that you're really thinking about it and you're getting more dialed in. That's what essentially will happen is with taking these steps, you will gain confidence. in managing your own finances and making informed decisions for you. You become your best answer. You become your best person. Don't think that because somebody else has more knowledge or better knowledge or whatever you want to call it, they can't make the best decision for you. Also, if you make a decision now, in 10 years, you might go, Oh gosh, I would never made that decision again. That's okay. I did that myself. It's just learning and growing. So I hope that I have helped you learn how to be your own financial advisor. And hopefully I've helped you understand a financial advisor's role better. I've had a similar experience. several on my podcast, and they all have their different specialties and they're experts in their own ways. So if you're looking for one, reach out. I'd love to connect you with somebody to help you with whatever challenge it is that you've got going. So again, thank you.