1:18

Welcome back to Uncommon Sense

1:20

. I'm really excited about today's episode

1:23

because I have a team member from Smart

1:25

Plan investing with me today . Since

1:27

the last time , he's been always been through a lot of

1:29

different changes in life

1:31

that maybe he'll share some of these with you , and

1:34

so I just want to welcome Keith Stacey

1:36

back to the show .

1:39

Hello , I'm glad to be back . How are you doing

1:41

, Jennifer ?

1:42

I'm doing good . You used to really

1:44

enjoy us teaming

1:46

up . You just have like these

1:49

kind of really neat

1:51

stories all the time that go with whatever

1:53

we're talking about . So I'm like just super excited

1:56

to have you back . And you know you've been

1:58

through some not you haven't been through so much , but

2:00

you've gone through many

2:03

changes or taken on new

2:05

journeys over the last

2:07

few years .

2:09

There's a lot going on right now . Yeah , yeah

2:12

, to elaborate

2:15

, I , in the last year

2:18

or so , I

2:20

became a homeowner . I

2:22

married the love of my life . I

2:27

started school Actually

2:30

, that was back in April of 2022 . I

2:32

started school for a

2:36

certified financial planner , cfp

2:38

, and I'm coming

2:40

near the end of that . On

2:42

November 3rd I sit for

2:45

the exam and those

2:48

are three of the big things that have been

2:50

occupying my time , especially outside of work

2:52

.

2:53

Well , that's just amazing . So

2:56

many things have happened

2:58

in your life in just a short amount of time and

3:01

the fact that you're in school doing

3:04

your certification for

3:06

financial planner that who

3:08

would be better to have

3:10

on for National Financial Planning Month then

3:13

, Keith , to share a lot about what you've been learning

3:15

, Also some of the interactions that

3:17

you've been having with clients ? You

3:20

know a lot of people . I think think

3:22

that a financial

3:24

plan is just for wealthy people , so

3:26

you can talk to us about that . Yeah

3:30

, so just like , tell us a little bit . What

3:32

is financial planning , who

3:34

needs it , why they need it and what it

3:36

like . What does it include ?

3:38

Sure , yeah , I've been

3:41

doing financial planning with clients hands

3:43

on at Smart Plan Investing and

3:45

it's been fun doing it . And

3:49

, to your point , I think some

3:51

people hear the term financial planner

3:53

and they're like , well , what is that ? And

3:55

especially , or they think , hey , that's

3:58

for wealthy people , that's for people with a lot of

4:00

money , it's for people maybe

4:02

with multiple houses , multiple

4:04

yachts , whatever , millions

4:06

and millions and millions of dollars in the bank

4:08

. It's not for me . The

4:11

weird thing about the words like wealthy

4:13

, rich , upper class is

4:17

those categories always seem to

4:19

be excluding

4:22

the person speaking Right

4:24

. So , if someone's talking about the rich or the wealthy

4:27

, they're never considered the rich or the wealthy

4:29

.

4:29

Right , it's always somebody richer than them .

4:33

I've seen some of our largest clients

4:35

here at Smart Plan talk about

4:37

the rich , because

4:40

, even though some

4:42

people consider that person rich , they're

4:44

thinking people are rich if

4:47

they have billions of dollars . Right , and

4:50

it's all relative . And

4:53

so there's a lot of people that over

4:55

40 years of their life , they accumulate a lot

4:58

of wealth , and or

5:00

, when I say a lot of wealth , they accumulate

5:02

even hundreds of thousands of dollars . Maybe

5:05

they also have a pension because they work

5:07

at the Fortune 500 company , and it's not

5:10

millions , but it's still

5:12

a worthy exercise to

5:15

figure out . Does

5:17

this money actually last them into

5:19

retirement ? What would their lifestyle

5:22

be in retirement and can they make

5:24

it ? In fact

5:26

, if you have so much money that you don't have

5:28

to worry about anything in the world which

5:31

is a completely fictitious imagination

5:33

, but let's just pretend that there are people like that which

5:36

, for the sake of argument , right ? Well

5:40

then , how much more do the fine

5:42

people who don't have all of the

5:44

money necessary ? How

5:46

much more are the people who aren't Elon Musk ? How

5:49

much more do they need financial planning to figure out whether

5:51

their retirement can work for them ? Not

5:56

to mention , I've also done this

5:58

stuff with people who are

6:00

like in

6:03

their 30s and are still very

6:05

much in the accumulation stage

6:07

, and they don't have

6:09

even hundreds of thousands of dollars

6:11

at this point . But I do financial

6:13

planning with them just to see if they're

6:15

going to make it , and sometimes the answer is

6:17

no , so it's okay . How can

6:19

we brainstorm ways to

6:21

increase their wealth for

6:24

retirement so they can actually meet their

6:26

goals ? And you would

6:28

rather have that conversation

6:30

at 32 with little money

6:33

than have that conversation

6:35

at 62 , four

6:38

years away from retirement , and

6:40

then figure out oh , I'm

6:43

either going to have to retire 10 years after

6:45

I thought I would or I will

6:47

just have to drastically decrease my lifestyle

6:50

.

6:51

Right . Well , I just

6:53

kind of jump in here for a minute and

6:56

I think a lot of people , when

6:58

they hear the term financial planner , you

7:00

know , investment advisor , financial

7:02

planner , all that kind of gets lumped

7:04

in as kind of one category

7:06

Because technically , with our license

7:09

, we can be considered investment advisors

7:11

or financial planners . So

7:13

for those that are not familiar with

7:16

the CFP , what

7:18

is it that a CFP

7:20

is able to offer that

7:23

just a financial planner without the

7:25

certification Like , what are you learning

7:27

there ? And also as

7:29

far as , what other assets

7:34

have you gained being able to be

7:36

able to help clients

7:38

in this area that you didn't maybe necessarily

7:40

have before ?

7:42

That's a great question and

7:45

, to begin , you've

7:48

touched on , I think , a very profound

7:50

, just

7:52

idea , which is language

7:55

, right . What does financial

7:57

advisor mean ? What does financial planner

7:59

mean ? Technically speaking , there's

8:02

not really a

8:05

very firm legal monopoly

8:07

for what financial advisor can mean

8:09

. There's not a

8:11

lot of or very narrow

8:13

financial dictates on how somebody can use

8:15

the word financial planner . So somebody

8:17

could do what we might

8:20

think of as financial advising and basically

8:22

just explain a portfolio

8:24

to somebody and they could call themselves a financial

8:27

planner . And they're not incorrect , right

8:29

, because they're explaining a portfolio , they're

8:32

helping people get from point

8:35

X to point Y

8:38

down the road . And there's

8:40

retirement planning in as

8:43

simple as oh , are you going to choose a traditional

8:45

IRA or Roth IRA ? That's technically

8:47

a retirement planning conversation . Now

8:51

, as

8:53

a result , there's a

8:55

lot of ambiguity in what

8:58

services might be offered by somebody

9:00

who calls himself a thiantile planner . What

9:03

the CFP does sort

9:05

of by thiantile planner is it essentially

9:08

creates this higher

9:10

gold standard for

9:12

a professional to obtain . So

9:14

there's an education requirement , an exam

9:16

requirement , an experience requirement

9:19

and an ethics requirement . The exam

9:22

requirement they're all E's . The exam

9:24

requirement is a six hour test . I sit for that

9:26

on November 3rd . So

9:28

I am not a CFP at this point

9:30

in time , but hopefully in a few months I will be . There's

9:33

an experience requirement of you have to be in

9:35

the industry for three years . There's

9:40

a educational requirement where

9:42

you either have to take a bunch

9:45

of classes I've taken all of my classes

9:47

through FAU , florida Atlantic University

9:49

, where I also have my undergraduate or

9:52

you can find other ways to

9:54

get the educational requirement

9:57

. So if you're a lawyer and have a JD , you

9:59

get exempt . If you're a accountant

10:01

and have a CPA , you're exempt

10:03

, and if you have a master's in finance , you're

10:05

exempt . And there's a few other ways of

10:07

getting exempt . And then there's an ethics

10:09

requirement , which basically means

10:11

you have to sign a piece of paper and promise

10:14

not to be a con man .

10:17

Because the con man wouldn't sign that

10:19

right .

10:20

Yeah Well , you know

10:22

that way , it's kind of one

10:24

of those things where , if

10:27

you do end up

10:29

with some sort of unethical

10:32

record or whatever

10:35

, it's a way of them

10:38

disciplining you and

10:40

revoking your CFP because

10:42

you agreed to an ethical standard . That's

10:44

kind of what it is .

10:46

And so who would be looking

10:48

for a financial planner

10:50

or a certified financial planner ? Is

10:54

there a benchmark ? They

10:57

should earn this much before they

10:59

see . Or

11:01

what kind of criteria are you looking at

11:03

? Say , for example , somebody

11:06

listening to one of our podcasts

11:08

. Previously

11:10

we were talking about estate planning . If

11:14

you own a home , there's

11:16

one of the signs

11:18

that you should actually have an estate plan

11:20

You're going to need a trust because

11:23

you don't want that to go through probate . So

11:26

for you , is there something that like , if

11:28

I'm the listener on the other end and like

11:30

, do I need a financial planner

11:32

, do I need a certified financial planner

11:34

? Is there like if

11:36

he said if you're this , this or this , yes

11:38

, do you have any of those

11:41

for us ?

11:42

Sure , and the answer is

11:45

If you're

11:47

a person who has

11:49

financial goals and

11:51

is juggling things in life

11:53

, there are likely things

11:56

that are going through the cracks . So

11:59

if you plan on retiring , if

12:01

you have kids that want

12:03

to go

12:06

to college or trade score whatever

12:08

, and you have plans

12:11

of doing things in retirement , of

12:13

traveling and there might be an inheritance

12:16

, and you're wondering if you need to sell

12:18

a house , or maybe

12:20

you have two houses , or maybe you

12:22

have one house and you're thinking about downsizing

12:25

. Maybe you're wondering if you need to work part-time

12:27

in retirement . Maybe you're wondering , when

12:30

you take Social Security , how

12:32

do you know ? The more contingencies

12:35

and question marks you have , the

12:38

more reason there is to meet with a financial

12:40

planner and I can help people

12:43

think through all of those issues

12:45

and even with the contingencies

12:47

, we have software that can do modeling . Then

12:50

look at what the different

12:52

outcomes might be and what your

12:54

chances of not

12:56

to use such a harsh word but survival

12:58

are in retirement and

13:01

the different

13:04

more paths that could possibly

13:07

unfold and the more things

13:09

that play , the more reason

13:11

that you want to talk with an expert about actually

13:14

figuring

13:16

out what the different scenario

13:18

might entail .

13:21

Yeah , so what are the things ?

13:24

that we might uncover and talk

13:26

about . Some of the questions

13:28

are just like as

13:31

simple as well how long do you expect to live Right

13:34

? And then you know . Oftentimes people will

13:36

cite parental health history or

13:38

grand parental

13:40

ancestral health history , and

13:43

I get people

13:45

to envision what would retirement be like . Some

13:49

of the most important questions I ask

13:51

are not strictly speaking

13:53

financial , but they're

13:55

getting the person talking

13:58

and thinking about things that they may

14:00

have never really seriously

14:02

considered before . What

14:04

do you ?

14:05

think could be like the big , like top

14:07

three biggest mistake that

14:09

you know people are making

14:12

when it's related to the financial

14:14

plan , Like what are the biggest problems

14:16

or mistakes you're seeing , or pitfalls

14:18

?

14:19

Sure One and

14:22

this is what I was kind of getting at just now is

14:25

people

14:27

. Sometimes

14:29

some people think that

14:31

retirement is this golf heaven

14:34

or fishing heaven , whatever . Insert

14:36

hobby here and you

14:39

get to retire and you get to

14:41

spend as much time as you want doing

14:43

your hobby . Well

14:46

, that gets really boring after day

14:48

67 , after golf course . So

14:51

first , biggest mistake people

14:53

have in retirement is not figuring out

14:55

how they spend

14:57

their time and whether

15:00

or not that is purposeful and meaningful

15:02

to their life . And

15:05

it's also a recipe for Alzheimer's

15:07

. I'm not a medical doctor , but if your brain

15:09

just isn't doing anything , isn't working

15:12

, if you don't have purpose in your life , then

15:15

you could

15:17

go down the hill very quickly

15:19

. Another thing

15:22

is just

15:25

not investing

15:29

enough is people

15:31

. You know they . People

15:34

are dealing with a lot of things . They're

15:36

, they have kids , they

15:38

have their kids are involved in things , they

15:40

own a home , they're doing stuff

15:42

with their house , they there's so

15:44

much to life that there might be involved

15:47

in their church or local community

15:49

that they're just . Retirement

15:51

becomes non and a non-urgent

15:54

afterthought . And

15:56

if you want your retirement

15:58

to succeed , if you want your future to succeed

16:00

, if you want to fulfill

16:03

in your goals , you need to be putting

16:05

the adequate amount of money to

16:07

to reach that . Don't be putting

16:09

away $100 a month

16:11

and didn't expect to retire at 55 . That's

16:14

just not how reality works .

16:17

You do have to know what you're doing

16:19

and making sure it's adequate . So

16:21

I have heard people

16:23

who have said well , if I fund an IRA

16:26

, if I max it out every year , that will be enough

16:28

. That necessarily

16:30

isn't true and it kind of just reminds

16:33

me of when I worked at this restaurant

16:35

. One of my bosses told

16:38

me that his wife had the

16:40

checkbook and she kept

16:42

writing checks because as long as she

16:44

had checks she thought she could keep writing them

16:46

, completely

16:48

separate from the check register and what's

16:50

actually in the account . So it's

16:52

kind of like the same concept . It's like . It's

16:55

like kind of having your head in the sand just thinking

16:57

if I max out an IRA for

17:00

the next 30 years , that's gonna give me enough

17:02

for retirement . Not necessarily

17:04

is gonna be enough .

17:06

And another thing , kind of on

17:08

that same idea as writing checks

17:10

and the money's just not there

17:12

. People will

17:15

make decisions about what they

17:17

think are certain deeds that

17:19

are not . It's

17:24

better to have one bird in the hand than

17:27

two birds in the tree . And

17:29

are you actually going to get

17:31

that inheritance Is

17:33

okay , yeah , I'm gonna inherit

17:36

$2 million . Well , what if that

17:38

person ends up in

17:40

a nursing home and

17:42

the wealth isn't protected properly and

17:45

then that $2 million goes down real

17:47

fast ? What if the

17:51

healthcare

17:53

home worker , the nurse or whatever

17:55

ends up doing some shenanigans

17:58

and has the money inherited to her and

18:00

then , even if you sue , there's

18:02

a lot of and get the money recovered . There's

18:04

a lot of legal expenses with that and

18:07

there was a lot of headache because somebody

18:09

did something fraudulent and it wasn't your

18:12

money when the fraud occurred

18:14

and you weren't able to even

18:16

do your own due diligence . And

18:20

also over relying on social security

18:23

. Social security

18:25

is not structurally sound . Who

18:28

knows what's gonna happen in the future . The politicians

18:30

will probably bail it out with money

18:32

we don't have , but

18:35

that's my

18:38

speculation and

18:40

that's not that far away , and

18:42

so there's a lot of different things that can happen . The

18:45

best thing that you can do is just to take things

18:48

under your own control

18:50

.

18:51

Right , so where would someone

18:53

start ?

18:55

You're going to have a lot of question marks . Talk

18:58

about that with your spouse . If you're single

19:00

, then think about that

19:02

. On your loan sum , email

19:05

an advisor coach

19:07

at Smart Plan Investing and then we can figure

19:09

out whether financial planning can help

19:12

you .

19:12

That was really where I was leading to . What

19:15

can they do next ? How

19:17

do they reach out to you if they want to talk

19:19

to you about financial planning ?

19:22

Well , I hang out

19:24

on LinkedIn and you can always DM

19:26

me there . My email is Keith

19:28

K-E-I-T-H at

19:30

SmartPlanInvestingcom

19:33

Very simple email . I

19:36

really love helping

19:38

people with this , the CFP

19:41

. I don't have the letters next

19:43

to my name yet , but what it has

19:45

done , even at this point , with

19:47

less than two months remaining

19:49

until I sit for the exam , is it

19:51

has broadly increased

19:54

my knowledge base to

19:56

cover not just investment

19:58

and retirement planning , but it's increased

20:00

my knowledge base to insurance , estate

20:03

and tax planning . I

20:06

love just helping people

20:08

and having these discussions .

20:11

That's awesome Well is there any

20:14

theme of the podcast

20:16

is uncommon sense . Do you have any last

20:19

tidbits of something that may

20:21

just not be common sense when

20:23

it comes to financial planning , and

20:26

or do you have a cautionary

20:28

story to share

20:30

or an inspirational story to

20:32

share ? Anything along

20:34

those lines ? Sorry , I kind of caught you off guard

20:37

. Give me a minute .

20:38

No , that's a great question Any

20:41

uncommon sense or just

20:44

inspirational or cautionary

20:47

stories to tell ? Well

20:50

, some of my

20:52

favorite conversations are sitting

20:55

across the table from people that

20:58

never had financial

21:02

planning done before and

21:04

they're just like they just tried their best

21:06

, they had incomes

21:09

and they put

21:11

away wealth , and the wealth is

21:13

in different places and not

21:15

all the money is even with smart plan

21:17

. And they also have some

21:19

pensions and

21:22

they're like Keith , we want to retire

21:24

in three years . Like

21:27

do we have enough ? And

21:30

we looked at they didn't even have a budget , but

21:32

I looked at like three months worth of expenses

21:35

that they were able to give provide

21:37

to me and just

21:40

through the different

21:42

, especially through the pensions they

21:44

had and

21:46

through the social security that

21:49

they were getting , we

21:52

were able to decipher that based off their lifestyle

21:54

. They didn't even have

21:56

to touch their stocks or touch their assets

21:59

, which means they could probably

22:01

ride it , ride out their retirement

22:03

for another 10 years . Who knows what's

22:06

going to happen with social security in 10 years ? But

22:08

then they're going to be forced to take distributions

22:10

anyways because of their IRA , and

22:13

so they were in a very good

22:15

place . Don't be scared

22:18

of financial planning just because you

22:20

think we're going to tell you you

22:22

don't have enough . You have to put away more

22:24

and everything's

22:27

going to be terrible . Many

22:29

times that's actually not

22:31

the case for people who have been putting away

22:33

a lot of money and there's doing

22:36

enough

22:39

things in their life to make

22:42

things happen .

22:43

Yeah , and then I think

22:46

it's important to also note that you're not going

22:48

to be like everybody who comes

22:50

in has to do all these certain like

22:52

cover , all these areas all in

22:54

a short amount of time . You know you'll

22:56

take them on a path and a journey and certain

22:59

things will happen throughout that journey at different

23:01

times . It's not like you're going to

23:04

go home with like I've got 10

23:06

hours of meetings

23:08

to set up now and thousands

23:11

of dollars to spend now and

23:13

you know it's really just

23:15

like a journey of getting

23:17

there . I think it's important

23:19

. You know it's like we do as

23:21

much as we just talked about the difference between

23:24

financial planner

23:26

and certified financial planner . You know

23:28

we refer , or have referred , to ourselves

23:31

as coaches because we take a different approach

23:33

not just advising but actually

23:35

helping investors to discover

23:37

things . And you know , for us going

23:39

through transformational coaching and being

23:41

able to utilize those tools to help others

23:44

.

23:45

The only thing I would want to

23:47

add is

23:50

it's never

23:52

more important than today to figure

23:55

out whether or not your financial ducks

23:57

are in a row . I

23:59

like that , I like that , and yeah , your business

24:02

card .

24:02

Just kidding .

24:04

It's maybe a little cheesy for my business

24:07

card , I prefer .

24:08

Well , you know , I would say kind

24:10

of known for the cheesy things . Though

24:13

you

24:15

go to Rob Lowe and you said hey , does

24:18

anybody call you Robert ?

24:20

Yeah .

24:21

Do you remember that ?

24:22

That's a good memory . Yeah , that's what I told

24:24

him . He said no , but you

24:26

can for the audience . So

24:29

I have gotten special

24:31

permission from Rob Lowe to call him Robert

24:33

.

24:34

And then where were you ? You

24:38

said to the speaker are you going to be any good

24:40

?

24:41

Oh , that's like I say that to like

24:43

anybody who's about to speak

24:45

, who , like I happen to talk to . So

24:48

I said that , I think both to Terrence

24:50

Odean , and he

24:52

said , no , are

24:55

you going to be any good ? And then Art Laffer

24:57

I said that to , who was a economist

24:59

for Ron Reagan . Art Laffer told me it

25:01

wasn't going to be any good either . So two

25:04

for two .

25:05

It's going to be horrible Way

25:08

to break the ice , so yeah , so

25:11

you kind of got to know Keith's humor .

25:16

So I recently said that to my local

25:18

congresswoman too .

25:19

Oh , that's right , you did say that . Oh

25:24

, wow . So , anyways , if

25:26

people don't know your your humor

25:28

, putting down the business card might be

25:31

a little too much . Anyways

25:34

, we , in honor of National

25:37

Financial Planning Month

25:39

, we encourage you to really take

25:42

a good look at your finances

25:44

, even if you're just starting out with budgeting , if

25:47

you're just new to investing , even

25:49

if you've invested before and you just

25:51

want to to get a second

25:53

opinion . You know

25:55

you want somebody else , like outside of

25:57

what you've normally done , that can say

26:00

, okay , here's an area of concern , or here's

26:02

an area of concern and here's something to consider

26:04

. Don't just , you know , stick

26:07

with it and put your head in the sand

26:09

and ignore it and then hope , three years till

26:11

retirement you're as fortunate

26:13

as our other friends that you'll have enough

26:15

. So until next time

26:17

, stay savvy and

26:20

be blessed .