The LA Kings holiday pack is back. The perfect gift for the hockey fan in your life. A three-game pack starts at just $159 and includes a holiday blanket. Buy today and you'll receive an additional game for free. Don't miss out. Visit lakings.com/holiday today. So if I tell you that today we're going to be chatting with a financial planner, what image comes to your mind?

Do you think of maybe a middle-aged white guy with a suit and a tie, maybe a bow tie, sitting in a mahogany-paneled conference room with a burgundy carpet and a bunch of plaques on the wall? Or do you think of a globetrotting young lady who has a double major in theater studies and women's studies?

No, seriously, which one comes to mind? Yeah, of course, you saw the, you know, the title of this episode, so of course you think of number two, but do most people? Well, maybe they should. Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets and today is Thursday, February 19, 2015.

I am thrilled to bring you today's show, which is an interview with Sophia Barra, founder of Gen Y Planning. She's a financial planner specializing in working with Gen Y, and in just about every way that you can think of, she is most definitely not your father's planner. And yes, that is her tagline, which I think is a very, a great one.

She's not your father's planner. I like that. This is an interview, I recorded this this last week when I was out at T3 in Dallas, Texas, one of the many interviews that I recorded out there, and it's really a good one. I think you're really going to enjoy it.

I had a chance to sit down with Sophia the first night I was there and just really spend quite a bit of time hearing her story. And we met here and there, but I hadn't spent a ton of time together and it was a really fun interview. I want to say thank you to a couple of the patrons of the show who were the ones who decided that this is the interview that you would hear today.

I put this out on the Patreon page last night, and I listed off the five interviews that I've got recorded, and any which of the five that I could run today. And thanks to, let's see, Emilien, Sarah, and Quinn, all three of them voted for Sophia's interview. So thanks to the rest of you who voted.

But thanks to the patrons of the show, you get to hear this interview with Sophia first. I think it may have had something to do with the fact that she's a lady. And the other four interviews, three of the other four, well, the other four interviews are with men.

And one of them, four of the other ones are men, and three of them fit that stuffy old white guy persona pretty well. But Sophia doesn't. So naturally, we'll bring you the good one right off the bat. Here's Sophia. Enjoy the interview. It's a great one. We talk a lot about financial planning, about her story.

There's a bunch of tidbits and wisdom strewn in. And let's get to it. So Sophia, welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. I appreciate you being with me. Thank you so much for having me. This is super fun. You are quite, somehow you've grown the skill of getting lots of people to mention your name.

Your name, I was, right before recording this interview, I was talking with Alan Moore, and your name came up twice in two different things. It came up with Michael Kitsis. So you're doing a great job of getting your name and your message out there in front of people. I congratulate you on that.

Thank you so much. I feel super fortunate to have a great network of other financial planners that are doing really interesting, creative things. And I've been really fortunate to get quite a bit of press the past year or two and just kind of build those connections and relationships. And it's just turned into more newsletter subscribers and more people coming to my website, signing up for prospect calls and turning into clients.

It's exciting. How did you wind up in the financial advisor business? That's a great question. I was a theater major in my undergrad. So, smooth transition into financial planning. So the backstory is that I actually wanted to buy a house when I graduated from college. I had read David Bach's Smart Women Finish Rich book.

And so he had talked about one way to wealth was through real estate and buying a home. So I would sit in the personal finance section of Barnes & Noble in between studying lines for Steel Magnolias and read every business and personal finance book I could get my hands on.

And so I was just learning all these really interesting things like about Roth IRAs and budgeting. And I decided that if I was never going to make that much money as a theater major, I better know what to do with it. I was going to be an actor. So I graduated from college when I was 21 and I bought a house three months later.

And all my friends started coming to me with their money questions. How do I get out of credit card debt? What do I do about my student loans? I just got a job, but I have no idea how to read my benefits package. And so I really wanted to be able to answer their questions.

And I found out about the CFP, just becoming a certified financial planner. And I realized, "Oh my gosh, there are people that actually help people with their money and get paid for it. This is so cool." So I started taking the CFP classes and met a guy in my class.

We studied for our CFP exam together and his firm was hiring and they ended up hiring me. And that got my foot in the door. I was doing a lot of stuff in their back office and reconciling accounts and learning how to rebalance portfolios. But what I realized was that the financial planning profession was really geared towards high net worth individuals and people who already had money, half a million dollar minimums or million dollar minimums at a lot of these firms.

And the whole reason I got into it was because I wanted to help people my age be able to accumulate wealth and work through these big financial decisions that they had to make. So basically my career, I started out at this father-son planning firm. Then I transitioned to an independent fee-only firm where my mentor was working.

And then after that, I ended up taking a job at a startup that was based in New York. And I was working remotely from Minnesota. And I really loved working with people virtually. And I thought, you know, I could work with people my age virtually. If I didn't have to pay for an office, if I didn't have much overhead, if I didn't have to hire a huge staff, then I think I could do this in a profitable way and basically be able to empower my generation with their finances and make it affordable and accessible.

How long did you spend working with other firms before you started your own? So I got into the profession and I took my first CFP class in 2006. And then I got hired in 2007. And I took... While you were still taking classes? Yeah, so I was still taking classes until I took my exam in...

My CFP exam in 2009. And then in 2010, I had enough financial planning experience to be able to use my CFP credentials, use my letters after my name. And then... So I was at one firm for two and a half years, another firm for two years, and then a startup for a year.

And then I launched Gen Y Planning in May of 2013. Well, I have to give you props. Your site was a real eye-opener for me when I originally found it. Because I don't remember when I found it. I should have brought that knowing that you were here to show you the papers.

But I had come up with the idea of doing things on a monthly basis. And I was at that time trying to figure out how to transition to podcasting. And I knew I needed a way to make money while I was building the base. And so I'd come up with the idea.

And then through a bizarre series of circumstances, I came across Gen Y Financial, among other sources. And I sat here and I said, "Whoa, someone's doing this." And wow, if someone else is doing it, it's not just me. And that means that... I don't know. I didn't know at the time if you're any good at it or actually paying your bills, but at least you're promoting the idea.

So it was a real encouragement to me. Yeah, I'm sure trying to pay them. No. I'm just kidding. I launched Gen Y Planning. And it was really funny because I had had this idea for a few years too. And other advisors I would talk to would tell me, "Why do you want to work with young people?

Young people don't have any money." But what I realized is that it was an us problem, not a them problem. So it was an us problem with the way we were charging. We were only charging on assets under management. And what I figured out is that people were willing to pay for advice based on being able to be heard, be able to get their questions answered.

People were willing to pay a fee. So I charge an initial planning fee followed by a monthly subscription. And I meet with my clients twice a year and they have unlimited email support with me. And that has seemed to be a really good fit. And then I also just launched an ebook last week actually called What You Should Have Learned About Money But Never Did, a Gen Y Guide to Empowered Personal Finance.

And you can find it in the Kindle store. It's on Amazon. It's $4.99. And now I feel like I finally have something at a low price point where people who are just graduating from college thinking about, "What are those basic skills I should be doing with my money in terms of building financial security?" Now I have a resource in which to direct them towards.

So here I was creating all these blog posts, but it was hard for people to find things on specific categories. And so now I have this ebook that's organized in a way that I think flows really well and is really able to give people a foundation and basis for how I work with my clients, how I think about personal finance, and some things that they could do to get on track.

- In addition to that, didn't you start a group coaching course or something? Or like a virtual checkup? I saw you did something, but tell us what else you did. - Yeah, so I haven't done any group coaching yet. It is something that I'm interested in doing. Eventually I would really like to do a Money's a Millennial course.

So basically I have two different financial planning services that I offer my clients. So what was happening was I was talking to all these great potential clients, but they were saying, "Sophia, I really want to work with you, but right now I'm really stressed out about my student loans.

And I just need somebody to talk to to figure out what do I do about my student loans?" So I launched, in addition to my financial accountability program, which is the one where I work with people on an ongoing basis, I launched my Quick Start sessions. So that's... - That's what it was.

- Yeah. So for $499, it's a one-time fee, and it's an hour and a half long Skype call, and it's one-on-one. And we dive deep in whatever two financial planning topics you want to talk about. I gather a little bit of information in advance, and then we have our call, and I shoot you an email with recommendations in those two topics after we call, or after our conversation.

And what's great about that is it's really a narrowed scope engagement. So it's a way for people to get a sense of how I work, what I do, and really address their credit card debt, their student loans, how to start a Roth IRA. All those things are things I've talked about on Quick Start sessions, but it's a nice way for people to still get that one-on-one advice.

- So all those things sound really simple to me. It sounds to me like, why does somebody need help learning how to set up a Roth IRA? After all, if they're approaching you, there's a gazillion articles written about Roth IRAs. If they need help, I mean, Dave Ramsey's got an empire built on paying off credit card debt.

How is it that people wind up connecting with you personally on that type of question? - So I think that there's a plethora of choice right now, right? So we're bombarded with financial information. And so a lot of times when people come to me, they've already done the research, they've read a bunch of articles, and now they're coming to me and they're saying, "Sophia, I don't know if I should start a Roth IRA at Betterment.

I don't know if I should start one at Vanguard. I don't know what types of investments I should choose. I'm scared." Like, "How do I move forward? I'm paralyzed by all of my options." So it's really nice for us to be able to chat. I can get an idea of their situation better.

I can figure out which discount custodian might be a good fit for them and really help guide them in terms of, here's an appropriate asset allocation for your age, risk tolerance, time horizon, that type of thing. Because I've worked with, when I was at a startup in the past and we didn't talk about investments, for example, I would make recommendations like, "Take your tax return and put it into a Roth IRA." So they would do that.

And then we would talk a few months later and I would find out that the Roth IRA was sitting in the Fidelity Money Market Fund because they didn't understand that there was that second step. So once the money's in there, it's not just good enough to contribute to the Roth IRA, it's then making sure that money in the Roth is invested.

So I think there's a disconnect there between the articles that are being written and the consumer. Yeah. And there's so many choices and it's so hard in today's world to really to work through them. You have, I guess, you mentioned as a good example, Vanguard and Betterment, you have this massive focus, which is right, on saying, "I need to reduce my fees with my investment portfolio." Okay.

I need to reduce my fees. So therefore, I should always go with the lowest fee provider. But then you have all of these companies, whether it's Betterment building on that basis, but charging, what do they charge? 20 basis points, 25 basis points, something like that. Something around there. Or whether you go up to a firm or a mutual fund company like DFA, Dimensional Fund Advisors, where here we're taking all of the science of indexing and passive investing, but we're adding this whole twist on it.

We're adding on a whole bunch of fees, but we still think we're competitive and here's why. And so what can happen is, this happened to me when I started studying personal finance, I was so sure of my answers. I was so sure I knew what to do because I'd read a few books that all agreed.

And then I started doing it and then I started reading other books and getting other advice. And all of a sudden now I'm not so sure. And I think this is one of the most valuable things that we as financial advisors should be doing, is helping to apply for one individual person and say, "In your situation, based upon these goals and these objectives, here's this fit that's right for you." So with the Roth IRA example, one of the first questions I ask is, "How much are you interested in putting into the Roth IRA this year?" Because the big problem with starting any account at a brokerage firm is a lot of them have asset minimums.

And so, for example, if you have $3,000, you can open a Roth IRA at Vanguard and choose a fund to put that in. But at Betterment, you can open a Roth IRA with $100 a month. So those are two totally different types of people that these mutual fund companies are appealing to.

- Do you see any companies working with advisors as intermediaries? And do you see that growing? - I do. Yeah, I think that there's a lot of advisors that are intimidated by the so-called robo-advisors. So when you're talking about people like Betterment, Motif, you know, these types of firms that are popping up, and I think you're going to see more of a commoditization of the investments and working in conjunction with a financial planner.

So I think that there's going to be a lot more financial planners that are using a robo-advisor to handle a lot of the investments, and they can then focus on the financial planning. Because what I tell people is 80% of what I do has nothing to do with investments.

It's about making sure you have the right insurance products, making sure that you're maximizing your company benefits, that you have a credit card that's right for your situation, or that I can help you get out of credit card debt, or we figure out a plan for your federal student loans to make sure that you're set up for the right repayment program, that we talk through the pros and cons of buying a home.

So there are all of these other things, including tax planning, insurance, estate planning, those kind of traditional things that we're then blending with some of these other topics that millennials are really coming to me and saying, "Hey, Sophia, this is really important. Can I ask you about this?" How important to you and your business has specialization of a specific type of client-based been in building your business?

I love working with young clients. So I've done a little bit of research on... There's been different studies that have come out, and I give some presentations at financial planning conferences on working with younger clients. And a couple of studies that I think are really interesting are that most people want to work with an advisor that's within 10 years of their age.

And the average advisor age is 56. And I'm 31, and all of my clients are within 10 years of my age. And so my clients range in age from about 24 to 38, 39. And we can relate to each other. I get their world. And so I work with a variety of clients across the country, but I work with a lot of busy young professionals, people who are making good money, but have a lot of competing financial goals.

So it's how do I balance paying off my student loans while saving for a down payment on a house, while managing my own career that's growing, and figuring out what I should do in terms of should I contribute to a Roth IRA or a 401k or the Roth 401k?

And there's a lot of decisions that they have to make. And I love talking people through that. And still how to drive a car that's fancy enough to get a date, right? It's so funny because the more I work with millennials, the more I work with young Gen Xers, the more I just love working with this client base because it's not all about retirement planning.

And that's what the profession has been geared towards for so long. And to me, it's like, I was so bored running retirement projections over and over and over again. And it's so much fun to work with clients that they come to me when they're engaged. And then six months later, they're married.

And six months after that, one's going to grad school. And six months after that, one's switching jobs. And six months after that, they're pregnant. And all of these life changes are happening. And to be able to be on that ride with them and help them navigate through some of those financial decisions that go along with those big life changes is really exciting.

In your experience, do millennials view retirement differently than other generations? Yeah, I think so. I think we do. And I think we have to. And I don't think that's a bad thing. So my grandpa's retirement looks very different than my parents' retirement is going to. It looks very different from my retirement.

And I think that a lot of people are saying that millennials aren't even thinking about retirement because they have so much debt. But what I'm really seeing is people are interested in saving for the future. But I try to put the focus more on financial independence and creating financial independence because that can come at any age.

It's not about you will retire at age 60. Well, if you retire at age 60 as a millennial, you might live till you're 100. So what are you going to do for 40 years? So I think there's much more emphasis on what kind of career are you in? Do you like what you're doing?

How do we get you in a job that's more enjoyable so that you can use your money to match your values to live your great life? And I'm seeing people actually, they're saying that millennials, new studies are coming out saying millennials are actually saving earlier than previous generations for things like retirement.

And I think one of the reasons is because I'm having a lot of clients come to me saying, I watched my family go through a lot of hardship during these financial downturns and I don't want to be in the same situation. Or my parents are in a great position now financially and I want to be able to provide for my kids what my parents did.

Can you help me do that? I think that millennials are very education minded. We're life learners. We really want that knowledge. We want to learn how do we do this? How do we figure this out? So a lot of people that are coming to me have already read personal finance blogs, listened to podcasts, done a lot of research on their own.

And now they're like, okay, I'm ready to figure out how does this apply to me? What can I do better? Yeah. What's your financial independence plan? Ooh, that's so good. Why you got to ask the hard questions? God, I love that question. So I really love growing my business.

I really believe that entrepreneurship's the new job security for my generation. That's a good quote. I'll put a click to tweet entrepreneurship. I have a blog post by that title. Okay. There we go. Yeah. I really believe that you are your own brand and millennials are switching jobs a lot more, but they're taking these great skills that they've learned at each job to the next job.

And they're becoming highly specialized in certain areas and able to take this skill set and really become a valuable asset to their employer. But I'm also seeing people do that within their employer and really make themselves valuable. And I'm also seeing millennials say, "Hey, I've been doing this for a while and now I'm ready to break off and do this on my own and really create a product, create a business, create a brand, create a company that can allow them more flexibility, can allow them to be in control of their time, to be in control of their income potential and live their great life." So for me, I really value being in control of my time and mobility.

So I intentionally created Gen Y Planning as a location independent business, because I wanted to be able to work from anywhere. And what that allows is it allows my clients to be able to schedule client meetings at 7pm on a Tuesday night or 10am on a Saturday. But I also get to go to yoga at 1.30 on a Tuesday.

And so before when you're working a 9 to 5 job or 8 to 5, if you have a client meeting at 7, it means you work 8 to 8. And when you're working for yourself and you run your own company, it's a great way to be able to really design a lifestyle that works for you.

So I can, you know, get up in the morning, check some email, head to yoga, go to a coffee shop in the afternoon, pump out a blog post, you know, check my Twitter, retweet some stuff, and then head home and have a client meeting from home and over Skype.

And I really like setting up my life like that. Yeah. It's interesting because in many ways, we're very similar as far as our goals. When I hear you say entrepreneurship is what I like, to me, I hear lifestyle business. And I can't come up with any other way around it.

I don't think there is anything that is true financial independence and true passive income, except being able to live purely based off of the dividends of completely other people's labor with no other work. And I can't think of any way to do that, except with the dividends of probably publicly traded securities that have a whole team and a board of directors and are well regulated.

But that doesn't mean that you necessarily have to wait until you have 25 times your annual income saved up in the bank. That's a good, you know, goal and I'm working towards it. But in so many ways in today's world, the faster path to autonomy is entrepreneurship. Absolutely. And so six and a half years ago, when I sat down and was looking at, I made a list of the five things I wanted in a job or business.

It was after I got laid off, which is how I wound up in financial planning. One of those was I didn't want to be in the same place every day. And I wanted to be able to do this from where we do something from wherever I was. What was interesting in that different firm structure, I wasn't necessarily intentional about it in the beginning, in the sense that I was, you know, I put something like 30 or 40,000 business miles on my car my first year, I was pounding the pavement, kind of the traditional door to not door to door, but the, you know, person to person, a lot of in person appointments.

But over the six years from 2008 to 2014, the technology got so much better. To it and I was I was working very hard on training my clients to actually prefer virtual meetings. And I think virtual meetings are actually better both for the advisor and for the client. Yes, thank you.

That's what you preach, I guess, I gather. You know, that's what I found. That's been my experience. But until you do that and have experience doing that, there's so much skepticism. Right. I think they're better for the client. Because, yeah, we it's all good to talk about what's good for the advisor.

And that is important as a business owner. If my business doesn't work for me, I'm not going to keep doing it. So it's got to be good for the advisor. But the reason why I think it's better for the client, it takes first it does take time to go see the financial planner.

And I've sat at enough tables at seven o'clock on Thursday night, I don't want to like that's not the phase of life I'm in. I want to be home with my wife. I want to be home with my kids hanging out. Like to me, evening times are important. So I would I always, you know, I would choose to meet at 6am instead of 7pm if I could do that.

So we've all got to find something that works for us. But it's better for the client. They don't have to drive. And it's better to integrate, especially if you're working with spouses, where instead of husband coming from one place, wife coming from another, then each spouse can be on their computer at their job on a conference call.

And another thing that I like about it is it's better for clients because instead of there being a focus on the relationship between me, the advisor and you, the client and exerting any kind of influence over here, make this decision, we're engaging with a written document. And it's more likely that we're going to spend more time engaging with the facts instead of engaging with emotion.

A lot of people have a big fear about the emotion of the advisor, maybe especially if there's a sales capacity to the advisor's appointment, then I think a lot of that can be downplayed by working virtually. So I just see it as a total win. And the technology has gotten so much easier now that it provides for the kind of lifestyle you've outlined.

Yeah, so I do all my meetings over Skype or Google Hangout, which has worked out great. And, you know, one of the things that I think is so much fun is I've met so many people's babies and pets over video chat, which has just been great. And super fun.

Like you're meeting people in their homes in a relaxed environment, like nobody's dressed up, nobody expects you to, you know, be a certain way. Nobody expects you to be in a suit. It'd be weird if I was wearing a suit and I was on a video call. So I think that it just it's like you're meeting people where they're at.

And you're meeting them at a time that's convenient for them. I used to joke that, you know, meeting with a financial planner required you to take a half day off of work, required you to drive two hours, you know, drive a half hour to your financial planner's office to meet for two hours and then drive another half hour home.

And I would say like you bring your shoebox full of documents that a para planner has to scan in. And that used to be my job. And it's like instead my my clients are already getting online statements. So it's easy for them to just put that in an electronic folder that's a shared folder that we have set up.

It's like why make them print that off, bring it to my office, have them, you know, have them have to take out all this extra time from work. And then I have to then scan it into my system and, you know, organize it. And so a lot of what I'm doing is just what you're saying of like using technology in an efficient way to be able to, you know, really meet people where they're at.

And, you know, technology has improved so much. I couldn't have done what I'm doing five years ago. I just couldn't. Right. Totally agree. It was not possible five years ago. And it was expensive because the technology that was out there was like, here's our CRM and it's two thousand dollars a year instead of my CRM, which is ten dollars a month.

Right. And here is our fancy. The big one for me was just being able to walk away from fancy class A office space and say, hey, listen, you know, I can work from a home office. Yeah, it's an extra bedroom, but that's that's fine. And Skype is free. I mean, we live in an amazing world.

We really do. Absolutely. I want to ask you about your publicity, I guess, efforts and successes. Did you have a unique knowledge? So how have you been so effective at generating publicity? So when I was working at the startup, I there was an editorial team and I became the liaison between the financial planning team and the editorial team.

And so I would help edit a bunch of articles for like financial accuracy. So they would have a CFP take a look at the articles. And I just got to know a lot of those people. And as I was leaving that company, a lot of them were as well.

Some stuck around for a while and are now at other companies, but they remembered me. And so, you know, one is a writer for as a contributor for Forbes. Another one works at Business Insider. A handful are all freelance writers. And so part of it was just, you know, being nice to people, helping people out early on.

And then another thing I did was I answered Harrow ads. So I would, you know, just comb through a ton of the business and personal finance Harrow ads. That is clip clarify. Harrow is help a reporter out, which is a service that you can sign up for. And they send you a few emails a day just for those who don't know.

Yep. And it's free. And I was I would answer any at any basically what happens is a reporter's doing a story or a freelance writer's doing a writing an article and they say, hey, I'm looking for an expert to talk about, you know, talking to millennials about money or how to save for, you know, vacations or, you know, whatever it is, talking to your kids about money.

And so I started responding to those things. And so slowly, you know, I didn't care if it was, you know, bankrate.com, Forbes.com or a small, you know, personal finance blog. I just really wanted to be able to start to get my name out there and be able to offer some expertise.

And pretty soon what happened was I got a couple of articles. It was quoted in a couple places that people that kept coming up in SEO search. So one article that I was that Laura Shin from Forbes interviewed me for was called 10 questions to ask when choosing a financial advisor.

Oh, nice. And so that article was like, it's so funny. She just interviewed me for another article the other day. And I said, I've gotten clients from that article, Laura. And she said, it's so funny because when it was first published, it only got a couple thousand views. And now it has like over like 218,000 views.

That's amazing. Because it keeps coming up in search. And so another article was I was named one of the top financial advisors for millennials by the blog moneyunder30.com. And that is another one that just keeps coming up in search. And I've had so many prospect calls and I've landed clients because of that article.

So I think a big thing is you never really know what's going to be it. But I would recommend signing up for HARO, which is helper reporter out. I would recommend getting to know personal finance bloggers and offering your expertise there. So I was writing a lot of guest posts for free for financial bloggers that had a similar target demographic that I wanted to reach.

And that was a great way for me to be able to gain some new newsletter subscribers, more Twitter followers and slowly build my brand. So in the first couple of years of your business, it's nice that you have that marketing now. It's nice that there's a Forbes article that sits out there and just sends leads to you.

But in the first couple of years, were you actually prospecting, meaning asking, you know, prospecting in some kind of proactive way, asking clients for introductions, going out doing something that was more of a short term way to acquire clients? No. So and I'm still in the first couple of years of my business.

So I only launched in May of 2013. But my big way to get prospects was I wanted to, when you thought of financial planning and Gen Y, I wanted you to think of Gen Y planning. Which is a brilliant name, by the way. Thank you. I'm hoping to repeat that with my choice of radical personal finance as the name.

Exactly. And it's just I wanted to be able to provide really useful content, really helpful information that would cause people to think, you know, if she's providing that for free, I wonder what it's like to work with Sophia one on one. I think it's just fascinating how and the reason I brought that up is because I have heard many intelligent leaders in the financial advice industry talk about how marketing is just simply doesn't work.

And the challenge is that it seems as though at least my experience was a lot of times I would rather talk to a client. It was hard to find clients who would, let me try to make sure I'm being clear. It's hard to find clients who are in a specific place where they're able to help you because it seems as though many people in society are not proactive about planning.

And so the time they call and want to buy life insurance is when they've just been diagnosed with cancer. And the time they want to call and do retirement planning is when they're 62 years old. And it's sorry, you know, there's not much we can do. Maybe we can do a little bit of social security optimization planning, but that's about it.

So the beat, the drumbeat that's beat in the financial business is that prospecting is what works and prospecting is a proactive scenario used to be. If you were a stockbroker, you made 400 or 600 cold calls a day. The way that I did it was the old fashioned system of friend to friend, a friend to friend, constantly asking for what we called qualified introductions to somebody that you know, that you think highly of.

And then that gets you on the radar screen of somebody that gets you on somebody's radar screen to where you're there and you're thought of when they're going through a transition phase. But I think that I think that's still valid, but I see a change happening and I see a change culturally where because now I as an individual can connect with any other individual in the world that makes it more possible to do marketing.

Yeah. I mean, when you were talking about prospecting and what that's meant to you or what that's meant to financial advisors previously, that's my newsletter list, right? Like that's how I, that's how I feel my like view my newsletter list. I think, you know, I want my prospects to come to me.

I want them to be seeking out, you know, if you Google financial planner for millennials or financial planner for Gen Y, I'm the top Google search, you know, and people will tell me that they were Googling like financial planners for young couples and you know, eventually, you know, like I'll pop up, they'll find me through a couple, what'll happen is they'll Google something and then maybe they don't come to my website right away, but maybe they come to an article that I wrote.

So I'm, you know, in the top page of, of search for, I wrote an article called, should I contribute to a 401k or a Roth IRA? And that's a question that a lot of people have. People would stumble across that article. Then they would start checking out my website or people would stumble across a Forbes article or an investment news article and, you know, start following me on Twitter and then they find my website, then they might sign up for my newsletter.

And, you know, I had clients recently become clients that had been on my newsletter list for six months, then did a prospect call with me, then three months later, you know, signed their contract and we're ready to move forward. So sometimes people have been kind of, you know, watching you or courting you or, you know, for a long time and you might not realize it, but I want them to jump on board when they're ready.

I don't want people to ever feel like, um, uh, I never wanted to be like a pushy salesperson. I always wanted to be able to feel like they wanted the value that I could provide and they were ready for that and they're ready to invest in that. And I know that financial planning is a big investment and that a lot of people, um, it's a big decision.

And so I just, I wasn't comfortable with, um, you know, I, I just hate things like breakfast meetings. I think that's just not my idea. Like I just don't like sleazy sales things. I like connection. I like relationships. I mean, I have friends, close friends that I met through their blogs online, you know, and that's something that like a lot of baby boomers don't understand.

Right. You know, I met my friend Paula Pant from the afford anything blog because I started her blog. I started following her blog online and then a couple of months, you know, I'd sent her a, uh, email like, Hey, I love your blog. Here's a little bit about me.

You seem really cool. We're the same age. We have a bunch in common, blah, blah, blah. A couple of months later, she sends me an email cause she saw me quoted in money magazine. Now we had to be two of the few women in our mid twenties that were reading money magazine.

I hope there's much more now. But, um, but it was just so funny. So we just, we had all of these connections. We both love personal finance. We were both only children. We both had rental properties. We, you know, and so when I went to speak at a conference in Atlanta, I said, Hey, I'm going to be in town.

I'm thinking about hanging out in Atlanta for a few days. You know, where should I stay? Should I rent a car? And she, she was like, Oh, you'll just stay with me and I'll just take you around and we'll either way through Atlanta. And so it's like, those are the type of relationships that my clients have.

Like they have close connections with people from all across the world. You know, a lot of my clients, um, are used to Skyping with their families and other countries or in other States. So it's not weird to Skype with your financial planner because they feel like you can build that close connection and relationship, whether we're in the same room or not.

Right. Yeah. It's a, it's, it's a changing world and it's really amazing how the virtual relationships can turn into in-person relationships, which can then switch around. Same thing with, I read Paula's blog. I invited her on the show. She was actually my second interview that I ever did for radical personal finance.

And I felt so bad because I had published her episode and then I had to pull the show down. But then I met, finally met her at FinCon. And so then the virtual relationships go to personal relationships. And what's so powerful and the re thing I see about marketing is if you can build a connection with people that really get who you are and they can be allowed to, especially as clients self-select over time, that's powerful because you don't have to, you can just be yourself.

You don't have to portray a persona. I came to the point where I just despise wearing suits. Right. I just want to be Sophia. Sophia on Twitter is going to be the same as Sophia in person is going to be the same as Sophia, my financial planner. I don't want to have to be like, this is professional business, Sophia.

And she uses this other voice. This is fun, Sophia. I remember getting into financial planning and having to buy suits and dressing up to go to the office. And I felt like I was faking it until I made it. And I'm just so over that. Right. Yeah. I'm with you.

I live in Florida and suits were invented to keep people warm and up north. Why on earth do I wear a suit in Florida? But it's kind of expected. Same reason I don't want to wear heels in the snow in Minnesota. Exactly. But with the ability to market yourself, you can have people simply choose.

And there's very little chance that I'm going to be a good fit for a high powered litigator in Miami because I just don't really like the Miami lifestyle. But I love sitting around the back of a pickup truck talking with a multimillion dollar farmer. That's who I enjoy being with.

And so you can you can self select. Yeah. And I think another thing, too, is that like. So when you look at kind of where the financial planning profession grew out of, it grew out of either like these old CPA firms or these old insurance firms. Right. And so these were all geared to serve rich old white guys.

None of my clients are rich old white guys, so I can't keep doing the same things to serve my demographic. Like people are asking for virtual meetings. They're wanting to be able to, you know, have flexible meeting times. They want to be able to have email support with me.

They you know. And so there's just a different way of us interacting because it works for them. It works for my generation. It works for their lifestyle. I think they're, you know, culturally you have such you know, my clients are such an amalgamation of cultures that I have a lot of clients who speak a second language in the home.

I have a lot of clients who, you know, are multicultural. And so it's it's also, you know, being aware of that. You know, I'm talking to clients, too, about there are certain expectations depending on ethnicity, culture and whatnot of I'm going to like they'll say to me, like, I'm probably going to have to take care of my mom or I'm planning on, you know, at some day we'll be you know, we'll financially need to help my parents out.

So planning for that, which is something that, you know, so many people are talking about baby boomers still, you know, paying for the millennial generation. And I'm seeing like the flip side of that, too, of, you know, these immigrant parents worked really hard, sent their kids to college and their retirement plan is like they'll move back in with their kids.

They'll take care of their grandbabies and, you know, their their kids will help support them in retirement. Yeah, I agree. It which in many ways is a more secure retirement plan than being concerned about market volatility. I hate asking about demographic questions because I'm pretty much blind to most of that stuff.

But I get flack. I've gotten flack from the audience because I don't bring enough women on the show. And I honestly never even think about like, is this person a man or are they a woman or are they black? Are they white? I don't even consider something in between.

I don't even consider I just think they have an interesting story. But out of deference, I will ask the question is what's it this industry is full of old white guys. Is it been have you has there been any barrier to you as a young woman? What's your been your experience?

Yeah. So my background is in theater and women's studies. So it's definitely something that I noticed. OK, so I think that it's it's funny to me because a lot of my my friends that are, you know, young white dudes in this profession are like, I just don't even think about this stuff.

And I'm like, I know you don't because and that's awesome that you don't. But it's it's interesting. So I think there's a couple of interesting things that are happening. One, I feel like I feel I felt like there's certain I think just being so there's a couple of different things to break down.

I think one is like being young in the profession. Sometimes it's like, oh, you're so cute. Look at you doing your cute little financial thing and not like a real financial planning. You know, it's like that's how I felt. I felt like if I for a while I thought I could start working with young clients within a firm, within an already established firm.

But I quickly realized that they would never view me as like a real financial planner. I would I would it would be. They I was their kids age, they thought of me too much as like this, you know, oh, that's so that's so cute what Sophia is doing with her three clients, you know.

And and now I think that it's I think that age and gender can really be an asset in this profession and can really set you apart. But I do think that there's a long way to go to make this profession more attractive to women and young people and minorities.

And so as much as it's an asset to be like a young woman in this profession, because I do think I have some unique things to bring to the table, I think I could, you know, I'm the conversations that I have with my clients are, you know, more, you know, they're a little different.

They're a little bit more focused on removing the person from the problem, not focusing on the hard numbers as much as the, you know, how do you want to live your great life, that kind of thing. So I think that there are some unique things that I bring to the profession.

But I think that we still haven't educated young people enough about how the impact they could have on working with their peers or working with other minorities or other women or other young people by just coming into this profession and getting their CFP and launching their own firm or working at other firms and being able to really educate other people as well about here's how to be culturally sensitive towards your clients.

And here's some things, you know, to think about. And here's some things to not say to women, like when I go to financial planning conferences, and, you know, people are like, Oh, are you married? You know, and like, what is your, you know, what does your husband do? And, oh, do you have kids?

And like, that's like, what, you know, what people like the things that come out of people's mouths are like, why don't, you know, like, it's, it's so strange. It's so funny to me. And then a lot of times I'll get like the, Oh, who do you work for? Oh, I actually run my own company.

Oh, that's interesting. You know, people are really surprised that this this young woman is like, running her own financial planning firm. Do you think that's actually a gender difference? Because people ask me those same questions. Yeah. Um, well, I think that's, I think yes, and no, I think sometimes it's just, sometimes it's just like, just the age we are, right.

And I think that other times it's, so I think a lot of women feel like they have to do it all and they have to be perfect. And they have to put on this persona of like, I have to be like the perfect, you know, wife or mom, and I have to be a great businesswoman and I have to be this or that.

And so I think there's a lot of pressure there. And I don't know if that's, I hear that a lot from my female friends. And I don't know if that's different for men. But I know that it's, it seems to me that there's not as much um, I don't know, like, it's really interesting.

It's just like really interesting culturally of like what are like at this age you do this or like this is when, you know, right. So I think all of these are things that conversations that we should continue to have, because I think that a lot of people are afraid to explore these topics.

And I think that the more that we talk about these topics and talk about gender and, and ethnicity and, you know, coming from different cultures coming from, you know, my dad's first generation, my, my grandparents were Polish immigrants, you know, and what is, what are those types of things, you know, what are the money scripts from that culture that were passed down to you from that generation.

I think that all of those things play a factor in who we are. And when you can start to break down those barriers, and, you know, really talk to people and ask them, hey, tell me about this, tell me about how, you know, having immigrant parents affected, you know, your relationship with money.

I think those are really interesting questions. And I think we should continue to explore them. So I'm asking another question about gender roles. Yeah, because I'm interested in if you have a background in women's studies, you're a great person to talk to. Or at least theoretically, you should be a great person to talk to if we can trust the certification.

I'm a feminist with a sense of humor. Okay, good. Do you think it's, do you think it's unfair to it? Well, that's, that's a poor way to wear the question. Here's a question. Do you think that women feel more pressure, like they have to, in order to be successful and accepted, they have to compete in the workforce?

I, that's, that's a tough one. I feel like we have to have all of our ducks in a row. And in order to compete with our male counterparts, sometimes, like, I feel like we have to be like, just as smart and just as good, but then like a little bit better.

Like, I feel like we have to bring like a little something special to the table to be able to like stand out. We can't just like, I feel like the bar is a little bit higher to set ourselves apart and to prove our worth. So I don't know if, I don't know why.

Do you think, so the word compete is interesting. Do you think women or men of our generation ever think of simply cooperating with their male counterparts? Well, I think you're seeing more of that. And to me, that's really exciting because you're actually seeing the gender or the wage gap close in millennials for, for like the, the gender wage gap.

So basically a lot of times in previous generations, like women had earned 70 cents on the dollar. When you look at, you know, wages, women and men doing the same job, but you're actually seeing that become like women are earning, I don't know, it's somewhere in like the 90, like 90 cents on the dollar.

So you're seeing that close a lot. And I think that women are graduating from college at higher rates than men are. They're getting higher. They're graduating at the top of their class. They're getting, you know, graduating with honors. But I also think that I do think we're starting to work together more.

And I've noticed that like, just in launching my firm and my business, the, both the women and the men that I work with, like other advisors that I know, we send each other clients, we refer each other clients, we help each other get press, we collaborate because I really believe that I just, I think I believe in the abundance mentality and not the scarcity mentality.

And I think for so long, financial planning was this really competitive, like cutthroat business where people, like you said, had to compete for clients where there were only so many clients to go around because you had these high minimums, there was a high, you know, barrier to entry. And now I feel like there's so many, so many possible clients out there.

People are helping each other. They're saying like, "Hey, I want you to be successful." Like I say, you know, there's 70 million millennials and if a million of them want a financial planner, that's great, but I don't want a million clients. So I need other people to do this too.

You know, like I'm really encouraging of other advisors, you know, launching their own firm and being able to, you know, build their brand and set themselves apart because, you know, I joke that like Gen Y is not a target. It's not going to be a target market in a few years, just like how, you know, women, you know, they make up half of the population.

That's not really like a niche market. You know, Gen Y makes up what, a third of the population or, you know, more like, that's not really a niche. I'm going to have to be like, you know, the Gen Y person that specializes in entrepreneurs, bloggers and, you know, and whatnot.

And just like have it be really specific because all of these other great financial planners will have entered the space and said, I'm the financial planner for young lawyers. I'm the financial planner for young, you know, nurse anesthetists, you know, it's going to be like that specific. But to me, I think it's just a really exciting time to be in the profession because I think we're on the cusp of a major change for a few reasons.

And part of that is because of technology, like you mentioned earlier. Another part of that is that we're changing our fee structure. A lot more of us are having a, you know, a fee structure that's on a monthly retainer that's more accessible for people or more affordable for people.

And then, you know, you're seeing these big, these practices transition to younger generations too, you know, as financial planners are getting older, they're going to have to figure out what they want to do with their practice. So we'll see. But I think it's an exciting time. And I'm excited for more.

I mean, we need more young, cool, awesome, fun, interesting financial planners that have unique backgrounds that can communicate across cultures, across generations, and are willing to work with a variety of different clients and make their unique stamp in the world. So funny to me that you earlier, much earlier in the interview you let out was saying, I love working with young people.

That's funny. I'm the exact opposite. Give me retirees any day. I've, they have always called me an old soul. And I was the, I was the kid in high school that I'd spend more time hanging out with my friends, parents than I did with my friends at the pool party.

And so what I found is I loved working. I love, I still do like my favorite type of financial planning to do it's retirement planning, working with somebody in their fifties and their sixties and their seventies. Like, so I think the key is for us as advisors to know who we would enjoy working with and then, and then target them.

Yeah. Well, I was, and so one thing that's been really interesting that I didn't expect was how many referrals I would get from other financial planners, because once they found out that I was working with young clients and specializing in it, all of a sudden these, I was speaking at these conferences and these older advisors were sending me their clients' kids because they're like, Hey, you do this all the time.

You know, I really think that you'd be a great fit for them. Right. And I'll make one point and get asked. My final question is going to be just cause we did talk so much about kind of gender roles. My final question is going to be in a, what could the financial planning industry do differently or what could financial, many financial advisor and frankly, anybody who's listening that would like to be more accommodating to, to other people do.

So that's, that's what I'll ask in a moment, but I guess the point I was going to make is I get a little bit bitter about some of the bitter, bitter in a gentle way. Bitter is probably too strong of a word. I get a little bit frustrated at the expectations that are put on people of any type.

And one of the things that I personally resent a little bit is how our society puts, seems to put so much pressure on women to have to do it all. And the, I'm my, my personal philosophy is allow someone to stand on their own two feet and you live according to what, how you want to live and let me live how, according to how I want to live.

But I've watched, for example, like just the, the pressure on my wife, like my wife, she's my wife and that's what she loves to do. And that's what she loves to be. She doesn't need a job to define her. And I resent it when people put that on her.

I don't want her to have to go out and have to get a job. And I feel like I've worked with so many clients actually. And I've worked with, see, each person is a unique individual. And I've worked with clients that are every stage, I've worked with some clients, men and women who love their work.

They love what they do. And for them, it's a very important part of their identity. And I've worked with other people who don't want to be involved with their work and it's not a part of their identity. And so that good example of that was my wife. And so all of society puts this pressure on her that says, you've got to do it all.

You've got to be able to compete in the workforce and you've got to be Miss Professional and you've got to be Super Mom and you've got to be super this and super that. And I say, I'm sorry, but I don't accept that. And what's funny is, and perhaps the counter, the rebuttal to this argument, people say, well, it's about time that, cause you know, women have been squashed for so long and fine.

I'll grant the point and let someone else argue. It's not, it's not something that's that, that I particularly care to get involved in. But now on the flip side, there's the reverse side where she constantly has to feel like when somebody comes against her and says, Oh, you're a stay at home mom.

Like, yeah, I'm a stay at home mom. And for me, I can't imagine any more important job for her. And that was one of the things that before marriage, like when, when, when we were talking about marriage, for one of the things that was important for me is I don't want to compete with my wife.

I'm not in a competition with my wife. I'm in a marriage with my wife. And so that means we, uh, we have different roles and I don't care how anyone else wants to do it, but I resent society coming and saying, well, you've got to be super mom. I don't under, like, I am amazed at some of the ladies that I have worked with of how capable they are to juggle things.

I'm amazed. I think frankly, women are naturally more capable things than men. That's the only way that, that you can, can do all the things that, that, that you do. And so I am awed by the Cape, the raw capability, uh, that I think women have. And I just want people to be free.

You make your own decision for your life and let me and my family live our life according to the way that we want to live them. And I'll let you live your life the way that you want to live them. Uh, but we seem, it's certainly an interesting, uh, an interesting time in which we live in where this, all this tension in our society and all these competing, uh, competing viewpoints.

I'm, I'm a little fascinated by it. I'll give you the last word on that subject. So, uh, to make sure that you have an opportunity just to, to make any comment from your perspective. Yeah. So I went to this great conference and it's called the world domination summit and it's in Portland every year.

And the whole theme of the conferences, how do we live a remarkable life in a conventional world? And I think about that a lot because I'm building a location, independent business and people think that's weird. Right. And, um, I want to live, uh, you know, a few months in a few different places this year.

Right. And that's weird. And so pushing back against some of those cultural norms of, um, is, is really challenging sometimes. And I think that that's one of the things that you're experiencing of feeling like, okay, so now the, the, you know, it's like the feminist movement happened. And so you can have a job and you can work in the world and you can be a mom.

And then it's like, but she's choosing to like, live this great life with her kids, enjoy your time with her kids and be a great stay at home parent. And that's awesome. But for some reason, there's still all these societal pressures or be like, but you could have a job and you could be working outside the home.

And she's like, I know I could be, but like, this is what's really important for me and my family. And this is what we chose. And so I think that there's a lot of, um, I just think that it's like, it's, it's never right. Right. Like, it's like, you can't, you can't please everyone.

I mean, tons of my friends have had kids in the last year and it's like, are you breastfeeding? Are you not? How long are you breastfeeding for? Are you, I'm like, people are crazy. Like people that don't know you touch your belly. Like that's weird. You know, like, I don't know who said that was okay.

Um, so I think there's a lot of weird societal things that we as, as a culture are kind of up against. Um, but I think in terms of kind of women in the financial planning profession, um, just continuing to promote women in this profession is great. So, um, I still go to a lot of conferences where 90% of the presenters are men and you know, 80% of them are over age 50.

Um, so I just, one of the things that I like to emphasize is, um, promoting diversity within financial planning. And that can be a, in my eyes, means a bunch of different things. So not only minorities, but also women, also young people, just mixing it up so that there's different people presenting different topics and it's not social security withdrawal strategies and long-term care for the 20th time, you know, and I think that, um, you're also going to see, um, like these conferences have to start shaking it up a little bit more and adding different elements, right.

Adding, maybe they add some music, maybe they add, you know, maybe they don't do everything in PowerPoints. Maybe they have shorter sessions that are 20 minute Ted X style presentations instead of hour long CE credit presentations only. Um, but also I think that, you know, one of the things that, that I love about this profession is the flexibility, is being in control of your time that you can ramp up hours and you can also scale back.

And I, I hope that that will become attractive to women who want to have families as well, because they'll be like, look, I can be a financial planner, but that doesn't mean that I have to work 60 hour weeks. That might mean that I run a smaller lifestyle practice where I work 20 hours a week or I work 30 hours a week.

Um, you know, like right now I work about 30 hours a week and I love that. That's a really good fit for me. I do yoga five times a week. I travel a lot. Um, I call them work-cations cause it's usually some combination of visiting friends and speaking at a conference or going to a conference or, uh, meeting clients in other places.

And so I just think that the more options we can give people, like you said, and not putting these labels or these restrictions on people of what they're supposed to do. I mean, I hate the word should, like you should do this. Like why, you know, why are you at this conference?

You just had a baby two months ago. You should be at home. Are you, you know, those types of things, um, versus like you should be doing that. Uh, you know, it's like who, who made those rules? I don't know. I was raised by hippie parents. So maybe I just kind of like naturally I'm like rules.

What? Like, why would you have a rule about that? Um, and so I just think that this is a really important time that like you were mentioning earlier about, you know, collaborating instead of competing. It's like, how can we support each other to really build the practices that we want?

Um, create the lives that we want, build the brand that we want on our own terms, in our own way. And, um, I think there's more and more of an opportunity to do that. And what's really fun is that in the past couple of years, I'm finding those people that get me, that get my world, that support the work that I do, that get the lifestyle that I want.

And I don't have time for anybody else. Like I just, I'm like, all right, like have fun doing your thing. But like me and my friends over here, you know, shaking up the financial planning profession and it's awesome. Yeah. Lead by example. It's always, it's the way to do it.

I think those of us who are in a position of strength do have a responsibility to help those who can't help themselves. And that's, for me, it's a moral responsibility. But if you can help yourself a little bit, the best way to do things, make changes, just ignore everyone and go make the change.

I'm going to ask one more thing. And just cause it was, I wanted to point it out, but much earlier you were talking about the connection and what you're, how you're doing kind of the coaching. I just think it's, there's a world of possibility in our future. And one thing that's exciting is to blend traditional financial planning with internet marketing, internet techniques.

You're selling an info product, you're creating another info product, right? So you're like blending marketing coaching. That's a lot of what good financial planning is, is life coaching and career coaching. And all of these things are coming together through the lens of finance. And that's one thing I think we need more of is not keeping financial planning relegated to the stupid asset allocation conversation.

Great. It does need to be done, but a much more important conversation is the life allocation question. Exactly. I mean, I'm actually, one of the things I'm thinking about is going through some life coach training because so much of what I do is career planning and life planning and helping people figure out how to take the next steps in their career, in their life, in what they want to do, where they want to be.

And so those things just intersect so much. GenYPlanning.com, anywhere else you want people to find you or anything else you want to tell about? Yeah. So my new ebook came out called What You Should Have Learned About Money, But Never Did, a Gen Y Guide to Empowered Personal Finance.

And you can look it up in the Amazon Kindle store. And then if you're a financial advisor and you're listening to this podcast, and you're interested in learning more about how I built my brand, digital marketing and social media, I'm launching a new training course with another financial planner named Jude Boudreaux.

And that's called SocialFinancialPlanner.com. And it's going to be a six module online course. And the first round is actually starting on March 2nd. So check that out too. Thanks so much. Thanks for coming on. This was awesome. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to watch what happens over the coming years as Sophia continues to build her practice.

She is in many ways blazing a trail and there are several advisors who are kind of following in her footsteps. But I'm definitely excited to see what happens over the coming years to see if things work. I think they will. But there's always a need for trailblazers to set out with these new practice models.

Hopefully that's been an inspiration to you. Hopefully you enjoyed some of that content. If you have any interest in financial planning, then one of my goals with bringing you a couple of these interviews, especially this one here, was to show you how you really can find a niche. And you can be true to yourself and true to your goals and true to who you are and what you want to do.

You don't necessarily have to go and work with people that you don't want to work with. In many ways, Sophia and I are exactly the opposite ends of the spectrum as far as what we enjoy. I like working with retirees. I like that kind of in-depth financial planning, but she doesn't.

And the great thing is that each of us has the opportunity to work with people that we want to work with. So for you, is there somebody like that that you would like to... Do you have an idea of the type of person that you would like to be able to serve and to help?

If so, the financial planning industry is wide open to you. And even as you've heard, I mean, I'll tell you, I've not been to a conference for years where there hasn't been all these extra panels and whatnot on diversity. And the industry is working very hard to bring in a lot of a more diverse look to the planners.

If you are a lady and you're interested in financial planning, man, the doors are wide open to you at every firm I've ever talked to and every person I've ever talked to. So feel free to check it out. It's certainly a business that I think can serve very well as a lifestyle business and can be integrated very well with many aspects of life.

I know of several financial advisors that I know of here in West Palm Beach who are moms, who have kids, and they were established in their business before having kids because that's one of the challenges of getting going. But once you're going, it really is a great industry and a great business because you can incorporate it into your lifestyle.

So hopefully this was inspirational to you. Thank you all so much for listening for today. Tomorrow I'll be back with your Q&A. That's the plan for tomorrow. If you'd like to ask a question, just email me, joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com, or leave a voicemail. If this has been helpful to you, I'd appreciate your supporting the Patreon campaign.

We are currently up to 40 patrons and $389 a month on our way to $6,000 a month by June 1 so we can keep the show commercial free. I'd love to do that for you. That's it. I'm out. Enjoy. Have a great day. Thank you for listening to today's show.

I guess I should tell you. Radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron. Now I'm out. Thank you for listening to today's show. If you'd like to contact me personally, my email address is joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com. You can also connect with the show on Twitter @radicalpf and at facebook.com/radicalpersonalfinance. This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment, but your situation is unique and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.

Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy, and consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions. I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person and I make mistakes.

If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please help me by coming to the show page and commenting so we can all learn together. Until tomorrow, thanks for being here. The LA Kings Holiday Pack is back, the perfect gift for the hockey fan in your life. A three-game pack starts at just $159 and includes a holiday blanket.

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