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Welcome back to another episode of the IRA Cafe podcast! In this episode, Jasmine Trocchia sits down with Charly Stoever—nonbinary Latinx money coach, digital nomad, and host of the Unicorn Millionaire podcast. Charly specializes in coaching six-figure earning LGBTQ+ and BIPOC clients, guiding them toward early retirement and robust passive income through investments and savings—particularly as a self-professed "Roth freak" advocating for Roth IRAs.

Jasmine and Charly cover a wide spectrum of modern money management topics, from the benefits of maximizing Roth accounts, to advice for self-directed IRA account holders, to the intersection of entrepreneurship, identity, and investment philosophy. Charly shares personal stories about transitioning from teaching to stockbroking and eventually to financial coaching, giving insight into the importance of boring, consistent investment strategies, the value of ignoring financial "noise" on social media, and the emotional aspects of wealth building—especially for those from marginalized backgrounds.

The episode also explores alternative investments, the changing landscape of income streams in light of economic shifts and AI, and Charly’s unconventional digital nomad lifestyle, including international pet sitting to save on expenses. You’ll discover the importance of having a professional support network, the nuances of tax planning, and how self-awareness and intentionality are crucial for building a sustainable financial future.

Key takeaways:

1. The Power and Benefits of Roth IRAs Charly is a passionate advocate for Roth accounts, emphasizing their “juicy tax benefits.” They highlight the peace of mind that comes from paying taxes on retirement funds now, rather than in the future when account balances (and potentially tax rates) may be much higher. Charly also points out the importance of maximizing contributions to Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k)s as a core part of long-term wealth building.

2. Stay the Course with Boring, Proven Investments A major piece of advice Charly offers is to “ignore the noise” and stick with simple, long-term investment strategies—specifically, low-cost index funds that track the S&P 500. They warn against chasing hot tips or viral trends on social media, and instead advocate for consistent, steady investing in tried-and-true assets.

3. Ownership and Control in Financial Planning A core part of the conversation centers on how self-directed IRA holders—and investors in general—benefit from taking charge of their own accounts and decisions. Charly’s personal mission is to empower marginalized communities, especially LGBTQ+ and BIPOC individuals, to self-manage and understand their investments rather than relying solely on outside advisors.

4. The Importance of Diversifying Income Streams Looking to the future, Charly notes that depending on a single employer or salary is riskier than ever. With layoffs happening across sectors (public, private, and tech), diversifying income—through entrepreneurship, side hustles, or investing—is key. Charly lives this out as a digital nomad, running their own business and supplementing income with things like pet sitting.

5. Investing Is Emotional—Process and Perspective Matter Charly discusses how money coaching often involves “money therapy”—helping clients process emotions and beliefs around money, not just the numbers. They emphasize the importance of maintaining perspective during volatile markets and advise against panic selling. Taking the long view and understanding that downturns are normal parts of investing helps build resilience and peace of mind.

Whether you’re new to self-directed IRAs, exploring nontraditional career paths, or looking for actionable tips on optimizing your retirement accounts, this episode is filled with candid advice and empowering takeaways to help you take control of your financial future while staying true to your values. Don’t forget to check out Charly's work at UnicornMillionaire.com and connect on Instagram @TravelerCharly!

Schedule a free consultation with our team today!

Welcome back to another episode of the IRA Cafe podcast. My name is Jasmine. I'm the head of the marketing department at American ira and I am. I know I say this every single time. I am super excited to talk to our guest today, Charly Stover. Charly, I can't give you a better introduction than you can give yourself, so please tell our audience who you are and what you do.

Hi everybody. Thank you so much for having me. So my name is Charly and I'm a non binary Latinx money coach and digital nomads. And I'm on a mission to help my six figure earning clients, most of whom are LGBT bipoc marginalized folks, twerk their way to early retirement and help them get on track to making 30k plus in passive income a year through savings and investments. And I also have a podcast called Unicorn Millionaire and an email list called Roth Freak Fridays. So I'm a Roth IRA freak and I'm helping convert everybody to the cults of that Roth life.

Yes, we have several Roth IRA clients. It's one of probably our biggest products@American IRA. Roth IRAs and Roth conversions, that kind of thing is a huge hot topic. So can we start there? What do you have advice for or know about Roth IRAs that you can share with our self directed IRA clients?

I mean, I personally invest 100% in Roth accounts starting with the Roth IRA because that's the easiest account. Every January, like clockwork work, no matter how much money I projected to make in my business, I put the maximum that 7k and I invest it immediately like clockwork. And I encourage my clients to do the same. And ever since I found out that Roth 401ks are a thing thanks to the Susie Orman podcast. When I was at the 9 to 5 five years ago as a stockbroker, HR didn't tell us anything about that because HR is not, it's not in their best interest to tell you about these things that they probably could. But thanks to Susie Orman, I realized that, oh, I can put all of my paycheck contributions into my Roth 401k to take advantage that I'm in a lower paycheck now. So I've been just maxing out the Roth accounts and I've been running my own money coaching business for 5 years and I have a solo Roth for 1k now that I'm my goal is to max that out as if I was at the 9 to 5. So far I've put in 6k of that.

But it's just really important to Understand the juicy tax benefits of paying taxes now so that you won't have to worry about the required minimum distribution ages or amounts or tax brackets by the time you're of retirement age. Honestly, in my opinion, I love the peace of mind that I have knowing that I'm paying taxes now so that I won't have to on my decades worth of growth. When that growth reaches the millions of dollars, I'll be happy that I won't have to have the IRS knocking at my door to pay taxes because I paid them decades ago. So that's why I'm a Roth freak.

I love it that you call it juicy tax benefits. I'm totally going to steal that now.

Of course.

So tell us a little bit about your background. You're currently a money coach, but how did you get to where you are today?

So it's just been a whirlwind. I feel like I've lived seven lives in one. I'm 34, but I feel like I'm like 80 inside. Yeah. So in my 20s. In my 20s I wanted to be a social studies teacher, but no one wants to hire social studies teachers. So I ended up teaching math and science and then I did the Peace Corps, I did AmeriCorps and I was a tour guide. Basically in my 20s I was overworked and underpaid and then by the time I hit 29 I thought this is not sustainable.

I don't want 65 year old me to work 80 hour weeks and not have health insurance. So I decided to, with no finance background at all, get a job as a stockbroker where I learned everything I needed to learn about how the stock market actually worked. And it was invaluable to have exposure to thousands of people's accounts and ways of managing their money too. So I learned so much about investing in that time. And then I quit my job a few months after Covid hit because I loved the conversations around educating people about investing rather than managing their money for them. Because I was on track to become a financial advisor. But I quickly realized my life purpose is to educate people on how they can self manage their accounts. And I do a whole lot of money therapy.

It's not just trading and clicking buttons. I'm like a money therapist. I'm oftentimes the first person my clients can come to to talk about money in proactive ways instead of reactive ways. So that's why I love doing what I do now.

Yeah, I think that speaks a lot to our client base at American ira, which is probably A lot of our listeners, um, they want to take control of what they're investing in and what they're doing. Do you have any particular advice for self directed IRA account holders?

I think it's just important to ignore the noise. It don't look for TikTok money advice on the hot new stock. Things that go viral usually are not the safest things. Boring low cost index funds that track The S&P 500 never go viral. Just like when an airplane lands, safety that never reaches the news. It doesn't go viral because it just does its job and just keep investing in the same things too. That's, that's something that I see among my clients too, where they get caught up in, okay, this year I have to max out my ira, but what new thing should I invest in? And I just say, no, same boring funds you were investing before and keep doing that like clockwork.

Do you think that that could apply to alternative investments like real estate gold? If, if I'm very comfortable with my real estate investments and I should just keep going with it?

In my opinion, if you think it's worth the investment, then yes. But after Covid, I've really had to pivot out of things like REITs or even smaller midcap stocks, because since COVID these companies just took longer to bounce back than the larger companies did that were able to withstand the past stock market crash. So I'm really all about looking at the long term charts of growth. And in the past five years, if you think your alternative investments have paid off and recovered, then yes. But in my opinion, I don't do REITs, I don't do small cap, I don't really do many international funds at all really. And I'm just focused on large cap companies. But that's my strategy and I like to say that I could regret it in the future, but so far that's what's been worth, worth it to me because of my personal investment strategy. But I want everybody to understand what their own strategy is and why instead of just taking blank stock picks just because their cousin told them to.

Yeah, that's a really good idea. That's definitely. That feels like, that feels like investing 101 to me. But that is probably not as obvious to, to most people. How did you make the leap to digital nomads? You work full time, wherever you want, whenever you want.

Yeah, basically. I think Covid just was a time, at least for me, where I was like, this is not sustainable. Life is short. Life is precious. I'm just gonna, I'M going to live life on my own terms without fear of getting fired or laid off. Because when Covid hit, that was the sentiment. My performance wasn't good because the stock market was crashing and the world was crashing and I was made to feel like I might not keep my job. And I hated that feeling.

And I thought it's going to be worth it. Worth the pain and discomfort of entrepreneurship because it's not all sunshine and roses. It's a lot of inner work. But in my opinion, that's what's it's more worth it for me to work on my inner growth and my business than to depend on one income source on one employer. And, and I love what I do as a business owner, but it is a lot of work.

I can imagine. Goodness. So you said that you max out your IRAs every year. Do you have a team or a CPA or a professional that helps you do that or do you pretty much manage it yourself?

So far I manage it myself because I just have the account. I put money in and I invest it. It takes like one minute every year. But. But I like to say that it's. You can have a financial advisor if you have a complex tax situation that warranties it in the future. I definitely want to be at the wealth building level when I'm at the probably multi millions. Yeah.

To hire a financial advisor or CPA to maximize my tax benefits. I already work with an accountant throughout the year, not just at tax time, because wealth builders plan for tax time. They're strategic when it comes to tax planning. And so eventually I would want to hire somebody to manage it. But so far it's pretty simple the way I'm doing it so far.

Gotcha. That's. That's good advice. Good to know. So I do have a question. Maybe this is for free and you would get this if I paid for your coaching, but let's pretend I'm a brand new American IRA client. Just opened my account. Maybe I have about $20,000.

Do you have any advice for me as a brand new alternative investor?

I'm not really into alternative investing. I'm into the basic S&P 500 investing approach. I really don't know anything about alternative investing. Just investing in a business. I think that's my alternative investment is my own business that I've self funded and I see the returns on business coaching.

Gotcha. So here's a little part that I like to ask every one of my podcast guests. It's past, present and future. So what would you say to your overworked 20 year old self.

I would say to get on board with the idea that working harder does not necessarily mean making more money and that having a decent paying job with benefits like health insurance and 401k does not make you a corporate sellout. Because the non profit sector can be just as exploitative or more as the private sector. Which is a hard lesson that it took me to learn at 29, which might take some people longer for my experience. It took me a long time, but long enough for me to realize that I needed to have a job that paid me well enough so that I wouldn't have to hustle my butt off and work until I was nine to five. Because the government's not going to fund your retirement. Social Security is already a joke and it's going to be a joke by the time I'm of retirement. And it's really up to you to start stacking your retirement savings. Retirement is basically like a massive emergency fund you spend decades saving and investing for that's going to grow over the long term like a high yield savings account on steroids.

So that's what I would tell 20 year old me. That's what I already tell my clients in their twenties.

Yeah. Do you get a lot of clients who are younger that age? I always think about people who are interested in investing and thinking about retirement have been working for a little while and maybe like in their 30s, but it they, you really should start when, as soon as you get a real job or make a real job. Right.

Yeah. Most of my clients are about my age, millennials in their 30s and 40s. But I had a client who started working with me when she was about 25 and she's now 20, 28 or 29, she's not even 30 and she just bought her first home and now she's helping her younger sister max out her Roth IRA and, and investing. And I'm currently working with another Latina oldest daughter. That is a pattern. I attract a lot of the Latina oldest daughters who are basically the parents families, they're parenting their siblings and their parents and they've, they've had to get it together from an early age. So it doesn't surprise me that I tend to attract a lot of the eldest Latina daughters. And I'm currently working with one who's 27 years old who's made way more money than I ever made.

And I'm just so excited for her because I tell her I was like, I wish I had a Charly at your Age. But let's, let's max out these accounts. Let's go.

Yeah. Oh, fantastic. That's great. Good. Good for her. That's super cool. So that was the past. Let's talk about the present.

So you mentioned you have a podcast and your website, unicorn millionaire.com. can you tell us about that? Yeah.

So I called it Unicorn Millionaire because I knew it wasn't going to be taken. I knew it was going to be a very unique name that I wouldn't have to worry about all the competition. But I like it because you don't necessarily see the nod to queer culture and wealth building at the same time. And it has been controversial. I feel like a lot of queer folks are anti capitalist, but I like to emphasize that you can be anti capitalist yet want to build wealth. If not, you're going to have to work for a company forever until you die. And that's not the future that I see for myself or my community. So that's why I named my podcast that.

And I'm just celebrating releasing my 120th episode on how to recession proof your 401k. Thank you. And I just hit 6,000 downloads after working on my podcast for, for three years, starting it with an app on my phone. And I still don't have super fancy equipment. But I'm so proud of myself for still showing up weekly because a lot of people start podcasts but fewer people actually keep them up because you don't get the gratification of the likes and the comments that you do on social media. But I've met amazing clients through my podcast, so that's one piece of long form content that I'm really proud of myself for still dishing out and dropping all kinds of money gems. And I have guests on there too. I do solo cast, but I also have my, my clients come on and talk about their money coaching transformations or I have other, other guests from them from the Latinx space, from the trans space.

So it's just a good time. I love my podcast.

Do you have any memorable guests or memorable episodes? Like what's your favorite? 120. It's hard to pick, I'm sure.

So many. Yeah, Yeah. I mean the most shared from last year ironically doesn't really have much to do with money, but it was on the grief of rehoming my cat Luna, which was a. A cat that I adopted when I was traveling in Thailand, who I fell in love with. I wasn't even a cat person. I like dogs more, but she totally converted me into a cat lover and I had her for a year but I had ended up having to re home her because life on the road was not for her and she was an indoor outdoor cat and when you're traveling you can't always guarantee the cat will have a safe outdoor space. But she's living her best life now. Where I left her in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico.

She has her indoor outdoor space. She's happy and and and one of the most googled blog posts that I have on my website is the process of how to transport export a cat from Thailand to the us So I share a lot about Roth IRA life and investing, but also I incorporate the lessons I've learned on my travels and my growth and how to process grief too, because a lot of that translates to to money conversations that I've had with my clients and letting go is a big theme so that you can let in new better things as a process of building wealth and just building the life that you want and living your purpose. But like I say, it's not always sunshine and roses. There's life's going to be lifing for better, for worse. But when I go through really tough things, I'm proud of myself for still sharing on my journey so other people can benefit as well. Oh, there's my Luna. I love her and miss her so much.

Oh, I love that connection. I don't, I don't think we often think of businesses or investing or money stuff taking into account like emotional factors, especially with alternative investments when you get to pick what you want and you get to do what you want. So let's talk about the future. So what sort of trends do you see currently that'll affect business or finance or investing in the near future? I know the stock market's a huge deal, tariffs are a huge deal. But do you see anything coming down the pipe for your clients or for the future of like finance in America?

I think just diversifying income streams is huge because people in the, in the public sector especially thought they were safe until until a lot of public sector layoffs happen. People in the private sector with the mass amount of tech layoffs that have gotten worse and worse thanks to AI, there's a reckoning and an awareness that you cannot depend on one income source, one employer and the fact that salaries are not keeping pace with inflation. I mean as a first gen person, I, I myself, I'm formerly undocumented. I have a lot of friends whose parents were undocumented and were able to buy homes on one salary and that's just unheard of. Now I pet sit full time so that I, I'm able to save tens of thousands of dollars on rent and this is something that I take the time to do. I scout out full time pet sitting gigs so I can travel as well and save on that number one income expense which is housing. And I've had to do that for an entire year now too. It's just the landscape has changed.

Wages aren't keeping up with inflation, but it's up to us to diversify income streams. And I'm really passionate about helping my nine to five clients who have that six figure salary set up their investments but also not depend on their employer and inspire them to start businesses too. And I, and I'm not trying to hate on AI. I use chat GTP every day for my business, but I feed it a lot of my content, my emails, my own voice so that it helps kind of get to know me. So in a weird way I'm co creating with myself so that I can schedule out emails and, and use up less brain power and focus on more of my genius activities that, that do get the word out, help me connect with clients, help me preserve my energy and rest. So there's that balance of income generation letting your money grow itself work for you while you're in your purpose. Because when you're a business owner, you're not doing it for the money. You're doing it because you want to feel good about where your money is coming from and using, using technology, not, not being afraid of it and being fearful because that's also not a healthy option to be afraid of anything.

But how can you use this thing to help you achieve your goals? And in the coaching space, AI is not going to care about you. It can, it can tell you the things you need to hear can be comforting, but there still is nothing like the human connection, nothing like meeting with a person who, who gets you the facial expressions, all of that. So I think that's my opinion about how things are shifting and changing. But I think that ever since COVID there's been an awakening of, of people and the finiteness of our time on Earth. And so what are you going to do about it? And, and with it, and I think it's just further, further expanding, especially right now.

Wow, that's gold. I love that. So is that what are some of your processes that help you juggle like your multiple income streams or your day or if you, how do you know how far in advance where you're going to be. I have so many questions for you. So if you're a digital nomad and you do you kind of plan your life in advance or are you kind of more like, I feel like going to Brussels today, I feel like going to Florida today. How are you? What is your, what is your life like? That's so cool to me.

So my business has a structure in terms of there's always more I need to say, what do my clients need to hear? It's not really a problem. And, and I do one on one coaching with my clients and I meet with each client every two weeks and I'd rather have amazing clients with a small client load and be impactful to few than impactful to people who I barely talk to. So it's easy to manage that on the business side. But on the personal side, like I'm going to be in Dublin on Saturday in three days and I don't have any lodging booked after that. But I trust myself to figure it out. And I like to go to a place, see how I feel and then decide if I want to stay longer and if not I can use my money to pivot. And flights in Europe are like $30 instead of $500 in the US so it's not that big a deal. And I also pulled out feelers for who needs a a pet sitter.

The beauty of having my social media presence and my email list with like 500 subscribers is that I can tie in other things that I'm looking for. So I've sent an email blast saying I'm going to be in Europe on this dates. Anybody need a pet sitter and then they'll forward it to their mom who knows somebody who needs a pet sitter. And so I'm going to be talking with somebody who's in in France who needs a pet sitter next month as well too. So I'm all about using my skills of self promotion for my business for other areas of my life to just keep it going. Because I love pet sitting because yes, it helps me save money, but the more I don't pet sit when I'm in a silent Airbnb, the more I realize this is not for me. I love my pet sitting, I love my personal space, but I also love having an animal to cuddle with and care for something too. So I'm not really alone alone.

So there's a lot of structure but chaos at the same time. That seems to work out for me because I've been doing this for a year now.

Oh wow. That is so cool. That is so cool. I'd love to try it. I'd love to try it for a year. Just do what you do. That would be awesome. Where can interested listeners find you if they want more information?

You can find me twerking along and making stock Sexy Instagram. I'm at Traveler Charly and if you to the link in my bio you can sign up for my emails. Roth Freak Fridays. I send a lot of emails. I send like 1, 2, 4 emails a day depending on my energy levels. I'm a projector and I like to say I have Adele style of working where I'll work my butt off for six months and then disappear into oblivion for seven years. Her next album might be titled 40 We Don't Know. That's kind of my vibe at, at the time of this recording I'm offering one off calls, my 401k DOM sessions.

I do money makeovers too but the the one offer I have all the time is my six months of money coaching where I help clients with bi weekly calls. They have access to all my online curriculum with classes and I give them daily messaging support and really hold their hands on their wealth building journeys. So you can also find me on LinkedIn. Yes, I'm all over the place and my website's unicorn Millionaire dot com.

Wow, you're busy, busy, busy. Lots of, lots of streams going at once. Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. That's wonderful. It's been amazing talking to you in these last few minutes, I guess. Do you have any. Anything else you want our listeners to know? Any parting advice, any words of wisdom from Charly?

I think it's just important for people to maintain perspective with stock market volatility. I mean, I'm all about looking at the charts and seeing where things are going. The stock market's still honestly not much worse. If anything, it's still higher than it was a year ago. And it's just important to keep in mind that the stock market has always crashed and it always will. And that knowledge, at least for me, helps me have peace of mind when everybody's losing it and freaking out and acting like every stock market is is the one to be different. I just like to remember that every stock market crash or, or dip or recession, whatever you want to call it, is always going to feel like it's the one. In 2008 we had the housing crisis that was unprecedented.

2020, the stock market dip with COVID also unprecedented. So just keep investing for the long term and ignore the noise. And when we have the euphoria and the roller coasters at the top, that's when you can sell. Don't panic, sell at the bottom. Please don't touch your 401k.

Yeah, fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Charly. Enjoy your time in wherever you are today and whatever kitty cat you're babysitting. But thank you so much for joining us and I'd love to have you back again if you'd want, in a couple months. Maybe we can touch base, see if you have any new advice, see how all of this, the recent stock market and tariffs and all that pans out. And if you have anything new to share with the audience, we'd love to have you again.

Now I feel like I have to go find an alternative investment to talk about. Thanks for having me. This was fun.

Yeah, thank you. This is great. Thank you so much. And now it's time for the Ira Cafe Q& A segment. Normally we would answer a question from a listener, but today I'm going to address a very common question. We get a lot at American ira. Who can I go to as a cpa, attorney or professional to be in my corner? While American IRA cannot directly recommend any sort of CPA, attorney, professional, etc. We do have sort of a listing or yellow pages of sorts on our website@american ira.com at the professionals tab at the top.

These professionals are not endorsed by American ira. They have not been paid to be featured. We just know about them. And if you'd like to explore our list, you can go to the Professionals tab on the website. Please do your own due diligence when picking a professional from this list. And please keep in mind, just because they're here doesn't mean we endorse them. But that might help you get started in researching your own cpa, attorney or professional to be in your corner to help with your self directed IRA needs.

American IRA llc, a North Carolina llc, acts as a third party administrator for New Vision Trust Company, a state chartered South Dakota trust company. As a neutral, self directed IRA administrator, American IRA does not recommend or endorse any investments, individuals or entities including financial representatives, promoters or companies. American IRA and the Iraq Cafe are not responsible for other statements, representations or agreements nor do we evaluate the quality or profitability of any investment. American IRA does not endorse. Guests on the IRA Cafe Podcast. Guest opinions are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of American ira, its subsidiaries, associates or custodian. Participation in the podcast is voluntary and no compensation is provided. American IRA is not a fiduciary and cannot offer financial advice, please consult your CPA or another professional before making financial decisions.