On this episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast, I sit down with my good friend Chris Key, a Cleveland resident and financial advisor extraordinaire. We discuss the importance of starting early when it comes to saving and investing, as well as the common mistakes people make with their finances. 

Chris also shares his involvement in bringing the Miracle League Park to Smithfield, a baseball field for children with disabilities. 

Tune in to hear Chris's insights and advice on financial planning and community service in Johnston County.

Chris Key: Yeah. The biggest one is not starting early enough. I've never had a client come into the office again, man, I wish I had started later. You know, It just doesn't happen that way. Uh, So starting early, there's always a reason not to. right.

You graduated from college, you get that first job and you got a crappy car and you want to save up, buy a new one. And then save up to buy that first house. Then you have kids and you know, when daycare is over, I'll start saving more and there's always something going on that when it's over, you'll start saving and then you wake up one day and you're, 50 and we're retiring 15 years and you don't have enough money.

Jonathan Breeden: Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. This is your host, Jonathan Breeden. And my guest today is a long time friend of mine, Cleveland resident, financial advisor extraordinaire, community service person who does a ton for this county, Chris key.

Welcome, Chris.

Chris Key: I'm sure there may be a push.

Jonathan Breeden: But I don't know if it's a push or not. So anyway introduce yourself, tell the court. I'm used to being in court, a lawyer, right? I'm sitting here. I'm not in court. I'm actually recording a podcast in my office. Your name and where are you from?

A little bit about yourself.

Chris Key: Sure. Chris Key originally from Sanford, North Carolina. So not too far from here. Went to NC State, die hard fan, go pack after that moved out to Johnston County area and opened my, or started my business here financial planning investments. Company's firm, company name is Sarah Wealth Management.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. All right. So when did you move to Johnson County?

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. I got you.

And why did you move to Johnson County?

Chris Key: So no grand reason. I had a, buddy of mine from NC State who had a place out in Clayton that he was renting. He needed a roommate. I needed a cheap place to stay. So I moved out to Clayton. I had no intention of staying here at the time, but I just kind of fell in love with the county as I stayed here for a few years and decided to stay.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. So, let's talk a little bit about what your office does and you have several advisors who work for you. So what are some of the services y'all provide to the citizens?

Chris Key: Yes, we have seven offices across North Carolina and Georgia now. The Smithfield office is kind of the headquarters of all that.

Let us take those off your plate so you can be a parent, husband, you know a great employee, whatever it is you want to be out there in the world and let us handle this for you. So that's kind of what we do.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay, yeah, and I rent space. The Breedon Law Smithfield office is there in your building on South 3rd Street about two blocks from the Courthouse. So very convenient for us and right across from a travel Odyssey. The travel agents that I use all the time and do a great job barbecuing and Renee there as well. So, let's talk about some of the things you've got a lot of young families and that listen to this podcast.

Chris Key: Yeah. The biggest one is not starting early enough. I've never had a client come into the office again, man, I wish I had started later. It just doesn't happen that way. So starting early, there's always a reason not to, right.

You graduated from college, you get that first job and you got a crappy car and you want to save up, buy a new one. And then save up to buy that first house. Then you have kids and you're, when daycare is over, I'll start saving more and there's always something going on that when it's over, you'll start saving and then you wake up one day and you're 50 and we're retiring 15 years and you don't have enough money.

So saving early is number one. And then emotional investing is number two, which is probably my biggest job. You might can look at investments and look at how they do. And there's a lot of online platforms today, but. Individual Americans investors tend to make emotional investment decisions, which costs them a lot of performance.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, I didn't know that. I thought you were going to say the opposite. So anyway,

They see the market go down and so they pull out and then they don't put in that's where, and instead of just sort of set it and forget it, that's sort of been my mantra in what investments I do. I don't even get up paper statement anymore. And I hardly ever, unless I need the tax documents, I don't really sign in to look, I've got a plan.

I'm trying to stick to it and I'm not looking at whether it's going up and down every day or every month because I don't need it. Now.

Chris Key: Well, another big common mistake is they look at, they get their yearly statement or whatever, they look at it, look at the investment options they have in the performance and they go, wow, that mutual fund did really great last year.

I'm going to move half my money into that. Well, traditionally something that performed so well last year, historically might not do quite so well this year. They're again, they're making emotional choices off of information that it's just information and their emotional choices.

Of finances and financial affidavits. And we look at what people spend money on. And one of the things I see people making a mistake on is they're not saving correctly for retirement or saving at all, but they have an 800 car payment. And that money could be going into a 401k or an IRA. A lot of people are giving up the match.

The employer would give them if they would just do it because they're paying for this car, that's a depreciating asset that ultimately is going to be worth zero and I try to convince them otherwise, but I don't often have a lot of success.

Chris Key: It's a tough call. And you work with employees for companies. We do 401k plans as well.

And you got about a 30 percent participation rate, 33 to 35 on average in those retirement plans that are matching. And the employers want you to try to push that and get those numbers up. And we do as well, but it's kind of hard because a lot of those people live paycheck to paycheck, and they put that money in, they get the matching.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. So is one of the things that you, your office and your advisors do. Work with people on budgeting. You said, let me be your family's CFO. Is that one of the things you do is help them develop a budget and maybe point out where they could cut?

Chris Key: Yeah. I mean, we help in every area of a client's financial lives that affects their finances and that's something, you know, that we get into.

I mean, if they're. Okay. You got a couple who's living, they have an apartment or a house and they don't dual income and then they're making things work. And then they have a baby and they're excited as well. They should be, you know, but they don't look at the financial ramifications that they don't notice until it's too late that the credit cards all of a sudden have grown to $4, 000 when they didn't carry a balance before.

They just don't look at. Changes to the budget when life changes happen.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and I've been there and I remember that my wife and I had a baby and then we bought the house we live in now and that house and that baby were. Expensive and it was tough for a little while.

Chris Key: It's also, which is more expensive, right?

Chris Key: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: And I have been there before. I'm very fortunate that I'm not there now, but I have been there before. So I knew what she was talking about and hopefully Americans will go back to saving more. I read the other day that savings are now down. They went up during COVID and now they're.

Down kind of far and that's a little scary.

Chris Key: Yeah, we're back down to at least 10 year lows and the credit card debt is going back up. So we're definitely going in the wrong direction. I hate to see that, but it's a chronic problem in our country, you know, I don't know the root of it.

People aren't making enough or they're not, they're spending too much or whatever the reason is we got to get better, but I have clients we're people talk about, you've got to make a lot of money to save money and to invest in all that, but I have clients who were School Bus drivers or School Bus mechanics and teachers.

And it's hard, right? You want to be frugal, you want to save money, but your neighbors get the new car or the bigger house or the kids get the new clothes or whatever, and it's hard not to make those choices.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and I don't know, I read a quote the other day, and I don't even know who it's from, and I don't even think I'm going to get it right, but the gist of it was, you can

suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of disappointment.

Chris Key: Yes!

Jonathan Breeden: And saving and investing for the long term requires discipline because it is easy to go out to eat. It is easy to buy the new car It is easy to go to that concert when you probably should be saving for the long term if you don't have extra money.

If you start early, that only lasts 10, 12 years or so, which may seem like a long time, but in the lifespan, it's really not. And then all of a sudden you've got a foundation of saving. You've got money there, it's growing it's doing well. And then when you start getting those raises, you don't have to save those raises anymore.

You start spending those and enjoying life and by the time you're in your. 20 or whatever, after college or after high school you can go out and enjoy the things you want to without having to worry about that financially. Whereas those people who don't start early, they have that worry the rest of their lives.

So, if you can do the right thing for 12, 15 years. You can enjoy spending money the rest of your life. Whereas a lot of people can't enjoy, truly enjoy spending that money.

Jonathan Breeden: Right and it's never too late to start. So if you're listening to this podcast and you're 50 years old and you're not where you want to be and you haven't gotten going it's not too late to start.

listen to what they say, they could make some changes and fix it. They just have it. It may not be what it's projecting now, and it's really not enough to live. I mean, not like that. You're used to living as a working adult.

Chris Key: Right it's not, and you're right. You can start at any time. I tell clients whenever you get in and develop that Retirement Plan or whatever that plan is, it's the best time for you to get in.

if you come in at 50, you might not, we run the numbers. It might not be the retirement that you want. But let's look at what the realistic retirement looks like. Let's see what we can do to alter that in the next 10 or 15 years. And people who are kept on retirement or even pensions, there's a lot of people still getting the pension out there or planning on that retirement.

Social Security is not going to go as much as inflation.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Chris Key: It might be enough when you first retire, but is it going to be enough 10 years later. And if you don't have some private assets there on the side to start drawing off of in the future. You might find yourself in a hole.

Jonathan Breeden: No doubt, and the main thing is it's not too late to start. And if you don't have a plan and you don't have a goal and you've not worked with somebody like Chris Key and his advisors or anybody else. You need to do it, it's worth a call. They'll all do give you a consult for free won't charge you. And you need a plan because you know, just going along is not a plan and you need a plan and we live longer now with medical technology and investments.

It's anyway, I got too much stuff in my head.

Chris Key: Somewhere in there.

Jonathan Breeden: But just don't assume you're going to be dead at 70.

Chris Key: You will live a long time after 60 probably that's a, it's a long time to fund life without a job.

Jonathan Breeden: Correct.

Have family law questions? Need guidance to navigate legal challenges? The compassionate team at Breeden Law Office is here to help. Visit us at www. breedenfirm. com for practical advice, resources, or to book a consultation. Remember, when life gets messy, you don't have to face it alone.

Jonathan Breeden: So anyway, let's talk a little bit about some of the community service you've done.

It's at the Smithfield Community Park right next to the Smithfield Aquatic Center. If you've not been there, it's a Miracle League Park. It's a baseball field for children with disabilities and it's for all children, regardless of their disability. And it's a tremendous asset for the County and if you've not been out there to watch the kids play.

You should do that, they have games in the fall on Saturdays. I think spring and fall in September and October. And then I think they also do it in March and April on Saturday mornings approximately. So tell the listeners a little bit about that.

Chris Key: So I was with a partnership for children in Johnston County, which is a program that works with pre K education in the County.

And we came across another organization. The Miracle League, which is headed by Monty McClam, fantastic gentleman, does a lot of work for that group who were looking to raise money and build the special needs Baseball field. So we said, why we're serving the same group of people, why have 2 capital campaigns?

We kind of merge the 2 and then a six year capital campaign to raise at first about a million and a half, $4 . 6 million. We've raised another two or three thousand dollars since then ongoing to build the park and the Baseball field, which are right there together on the same piece of property, which is the only place in the East coast that has them both in the same place.

So it's a really cool facility. A lot of therapists will use the park to take kids through there and work with them. In different, there's a whole lot of different areas that they can go through and work with different types of abilities. Of course the Miracle League is there. They have games in the spring and fall.

It is a really special experience. I highly recommend people to

look that up.

Jonathan Breeden: Right, and I'm hoping I can get up with Monty McLean and have him on here to talk about the Miracle League. I met him at the Johnson County awards dinner that's done by the Johnson Now Magazine. He was recognized as a citizen of the year and he is a fascinating individual of a ton of energy. And I just left smiling after meeting him and they had several of the Miracle League athletes there at that award ceremony. And it was really a lot of fun. And I'm hoping that we can have him on this podcast and talk some more about that. And so when did the, when did it get built?

Jonathan Breeden: Right, no doubt.

Chris Key: I want to say 5, it's probably been 7 years ago now. We thought we completed construction. And so that was a great day, big relief off of the Capital Campaign Committee. Very exciting.

Everything looks great. I mean, the park is really growing into its own. The ball field is being used. It's still one to a concession stand out there. So there's some stuff we took out because we're lower budget that we're trying to put in as we go along, but the facilities are fantastic.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's awesome. And the kids are, having a great time and the league is growing and it seems to have more kids every year and adults. It's not just children there's a lot of adults out there playing.

Chris Key: There are. It's a great, I think that we all have, a lot of us have our kids or grandkids and ball leagues around the area.

They're happy to be able to make contact with the ball, even if it's with help. They're happy to be able to get around and touch four bases and have their names called out. Everybody gets cheered for by everybody there. And it's just special. People should just go and watch one of

those games.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, no doubt. And I would encourage anybody to go out there and do it. It's a lot of great people and a great time and you will not go there and not leave a smile on your face. It's impossible. It's impossible to go out there and see that and not leave a smile on your face. So, I guess, as we start to wrap up this episode of best of Johnson County.

What do you love most about Johnston County? You've been here for 25 years. You've raised a family here. You've started a business here. What do you love the most about Johnston County?

Chris Key: So, well, first of all, it's close to NC state, so I can make all the games.

Jonathan Breeden: I love the Wolfpack too.

But,

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's awesome. That's awesome. And if people want to get up with you and your office and some of the advisors that work with you, what's the best way to do that?

Chris Key: So you can look us up at, aWMAdvisor.com that's our, website. Call the office in Smithfield. The website also lists all other offices across the state and in Georgia. So depending geographically where you're at, we probably have some pretty close to you, but look up a W M. Day wmadvisor. com checks out.

That's the end of today's episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.

If the legal aspects highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.