106: "Financial planning needs to be a conversation, not death by PowerPoint or information by firehose." A candid discussion on long-term financial planning with Jenny Lynne Stroup and Scott R. Tucker

Artwork for podcast Holding Down the Fort by US VetWealth

Episode 8 • 6th September 2021 • Holding Down the Fort by US VetWealth • Jen Amos

Jen Amos 0:00

All right. Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the award winning podcast show holding down the fort. I am your Creator and co host Jen a most. And as always, I have my co host with me, Jenny Lynch Drew, who is a seasoned spouse as well as mom of two and a mental health advocate. jennylyn Welcome back.

Speaker 1 0:16

Thanks. Glad to be here. I get to sit in like the hot seat today. I'm not just playing co host, I get to like, be a guest again, where it all started. Scott, our guest not really sure.

Jen Amos 0:29

experience, at least back in: 2007

Speaker 2 2:26

And okay, you brought up the: 2019

Jen Amos 4:25

the Brad title very proudly. I did I did benefit from it. I did I did get my school is paid for I had health insurance till my young 20s it was it was great.

Speaker 2 4:34

Well, it's only like a few months ago that I realized myself I was like, wait a minute. My mom was a lifetime military brat as a child. I mean, they moved to 20 different places when she was a kid. I mean, that's exaggerating, but this stuff never came up. I never even thought to ask her what was it like being a military child after I'd already been in the industry for 10 years and stuff. So I just really powerful is both you and Jalen, you know, thank you for coming on and enhancing the show. From the perspective of an active duty military spouse, and we can start to actually have these conversations that frankly, I was just too uncomfortable to have, well, I, you know, really nobody was having nobody even knew to have them. It's just because of that blanket. I mean, heck, we just announced we're pulling out of the war. I mean, we'll see if that happens. But it's been 20 years, it's been 20 years of distraction from the personal individuals, whether that's a family unit, or the individual military spouse, what are their goals and dreams? What are the kid's goals and dreams? And then ultimately, hey, you're going to be a veteran? At some point. There's a reason we're all called veterans. So why are we acting surprised that it's coming? And then why do we expect all these things to be handed to us, when we come out of there, even on active duty, the ones who get ahead are the ones that take full responsibility, self educate, and self motivate, stop waiting around for the government, or the Army or the Navy, or whatever, to take care of things for them. And I always say, hey, at some point, it's time to stop following orders, whether you like it or not. So you're gonna have to make your own orders. But if you don't have the wherewithal to understand you know, what's going on, because what's happening today is nothing like it was 20 years ago. I mean, the internet was barely a thing, let alone five years ago, I mean, the iPhones only really been in everybody's hands for about 567 years that everybody had changed the world. It's crazy to absolutely change the world. And yet, we're talking about financial, military financial planning, like, you know, save for retirement like you're 29. And you're thinking about your 60s. And we're the world's changing every month right now. And so I just didn't find these things being congruent. And especially when you think about the military benefits, the way that they've been designed and packaged, I mean, everything the government does, and the military, as we all know, it, it's always a decade or two behind the times and stuff. And that's backfiring, more and more, it's having more and more of an impact just because of how quickly things are changing in the individual personal world versus in the military. Yeah, we got great technology, don't worry, we were really good military and stuff. But it's a behemoth that moves very, very slowly. And so that comes all the way down to the pay and benefits and we can just get focused on are we getting pay raises enough, and there's just so much more to it, where you can really take control. So anyways, that's Yeah, I think it's super important that you guys started this. So thank you.

Jen Amos 7:21

Well, thank you for your support. And for the team. And, you know, I have to give a shout out to Ethan for coming up with the name, I still remember the day we were having this phone call of like, you know, how do we describe military families who just know how to keep it together, like after every PCs, and establishing, you know, a new normal with every move, and all that good stuff. And then our colleague Ethan was like holding down the fort. And like, immediately, okay, let's get her graphic designer, we got to get this logo together, we got to get this out there. And I still remember, you know, those early days of doing it. But the interesting thing about our show, and I've done this very intentionally is we didn't really talk about finance in the early seasons, my intent very early on, and still is really till this day, you know, even if we don't talk about finance, is to just understand where the community is that today, you know, because we can have our own idea of how we want to serve the community. But ultimately, it comes down to what you guys actually need. And so that's why it took me What took us five seasons to have this conversation. And, you know, it took me about two, three seasons to hang out with Jenny Lynn, before I could talk to her about these things. Because, you know, to be quite honest, we're still trying to find our language. I mean, you know, obviously, Scott and the team are really good at talking to service members and veterans. But it's my mission to speak to the families because, you know, I come from a career military family and my dad had served 18 years. And after we had lost him, it was like money was quite an issue. And that's a whole story for another time. But my goal today is to, you know, make long term financial planning more relatable and digestible to our family today and really understand the benefits of knowing enough to make those financial decisions. But first understanding why like, why is there that that disconnect, and so that's why we're having this conversation today, and sort of putting genuine on the hot seat to just really get her perspective and to hear from you, Jenny Lynn, as well as you know, maybe what your general understanding is amongst other spouses and in the community yourself, really just here to listen and even try to provide as much information to you and therefore our listeners for our understanding, and really just try to find that common ground of how do we continue to serve one another, whether it's us about wealth, or you know, even what we do here on holding down the fort. So all that being said, I know that Scott and I talked a lot. So Jenny, Lynn, just want to go ahead and open it to you now and kind of get your general observations and comments. Yeah, well, thank

Speaker 1 9:32

you. So for the record, I volunteered to be in the hot seat, Jen and Scott did not make me finance is something that has been a struggle in my family, which I don't think that is unusual in a military family for a variety of reasons. One of the things Scott brought up was like most people are focused on like the right now on the pay raise on this on that and I think that mindset is pretty prevalent, because there's Such immediate need with that, like, I don't want, you know, I mean, I think of my own family and every time that we've PCs, or Matthew has advanced in rank, like the level of pay that comes with those things is super important and having just left are really expensive area where the pay doesn't match the cost of living, you kind of have to be focused on that. And like push for that, because you're trying to feed your kids, you're trying to let them play sports. And the idea of having any extra to do any kind of actual planning, a lot of times feels really foreign. You know, I think it was 18 or 19, when the Department of Homeland Security shut down. And so the Coast Guard went unpaid, because they're not Department of Defense. I have a lot of CO starred friends. And it was phenomenal to me to see the internet trolls like go after how they should have done better and how they should have known better. And, you know, churches were providing like bake sales and yard sales to support Coast Guard families, which is very kind, also not their job. And I actually wrote a piece on my blog, I wrote a piece about you know, what is actually like to be someone in the position to all of a sudden have your pay cut, when you're so going to work every day, and your family still needs groceries like these people weren't, they felt like they were told, hey, we're not going to pay you. So don't bother coming in, they were still working, they were still doing all the drug running and all the you know, Homeland Security they do. And I was quite frankly, appalled at all of the negative feedback that these people were getting. And so I broke it down in like a Hey, if you are an enlisted sailor, this and I did it based on San Diego, which is where we were like, here's what you're making. And here's how far out of San Diego you actually have to live in order for your bH to cover it. Here's how much VA s you're getting. And here's why. When your pay is cut, you probably don't have a cushion. And, you know, it really struck me I was fortunate enough to be in a position where I was working part time at the time. So we were a two income family, which we kind of had to be in San Diego. And I think that's the other thing that speaks to a lot of the other issues is there isn't often time to do all the benefit planning because you really are just trying to survive the day to day. And I mean, we know it's come up several times on this program, as well as being like nationally covered now. But like military spouse, employment is a big deal. And so people just don't have the resources to do that planning. And I would even venture to say, and I've shared a little bit of this story on the show before, even when we probably had the resources, we were in such emotional and mental turmoil, that the ability to actually save just wasn't even there. Like, we willingly. And I say willingly kind of like in air quotes, but we willingly put ourselves in a considerable amount of debt, because going out and doing fun things was what kept us going as a family, you know, and it really, that's something that took us quite a while to dig out of. But you know, and so just now with us being to full time income family and having moved to a area where the cost of living is much lower. And we have resources, like I'm fortunate to be in my hometown. So my parents watch my children, I don't want to pay my parents $15 an hour like I did in San Diego, you know, we're just now actually really starting to look at all of those things. Because there is that level of safety, I guess that comes with Well, you know, you have your survivor benefits, we do actually have an extra life insurance policy. I'm Matthew, but like, there is a certain level of will you're going to get something and I'll figure out how to make something work, because I've figured out how to make it all work before. So surely something will come my way. And we'll make it work. And so you know, I mean, Matthew's 15 years into his career, and we're just now like, oh, we're probably doing at least 20 and we should probably do something about the future. So here we are. I'm in the hot seat doing my family's financial dirty laundry and you know, we'll go from there.

Jen Amos: 14:24

Well, thank you genuine for First of all, sharing all of that and being so candid about it. It means a lot to me because I think about even my own family growing up and how it was really quite taboo to talk about money unless someone needed it. Like it's like oh, I need money. Can you give me money, you know, and it was more about like talking about debt and like owing money to your family than it is about like long term financial investing or what have you, but even just not even having that day to day conversation about it. So I feel like this has come at a good time especially because one of the first things Matthew brought up in our conversation and meeting in person for the first time was like so What are you guys doing? You spend? Well, I just thought was funny when he asked that question. And then our last interview that we recently did with Jerry, we talked a little bit about like shock therapy, you know, like to deal with the stress of military life. So I just want to thank you for just being so open about it. And I know that this will be very eye opening for me. And I imagine to our listeners, it'll be eye opening as well to have this open discussion about money.

: 15:24

Yeah, very powerful. Because what you said about kind of being forced to focus on the now in the kind of, I don't know if it's fear, or a sense of, Oh, I'm not doing the quote unquote, right things because I'm supposed to be saving for because I've heard it once. And it's like, well, it's funny how it only starts to come up when we become adults. How come this never comes up in school, but I get through the United States Military Academy at West Point. And they never talked about finances, never talked about how the military benefits were never talked about how to talk to yours. And the whole point of West Point is what is your going to be batoon leader, you're going to be a leader, you're gonna lead soldiers, and we never comes up, you're also going to be leading their family in some way. And so it's just a catch 22? There's no right answer here. I think I'm one of the few people to say, Don't feel bad, you're not wrong, you're not wrong to be in the United States of America, United States military, you're put in a situation, you can get credit on credit cards, of course, nobody's advocating to use credit cards and stuff. But you know, that Coast Guard situation is interesting that you bring up because that is different. I mean, you know, a lot of people didn't realize that I don't think I forgot about that, too, you reminded me that it affected the Coast Guard too, because the assumption was a part of the Department of fence. And so we feel the security around the pay and benefits. And I think we can feel pretty confident they're not going to ever stop paying our military. But you know, if you have an extra credit card to use as your backup emergency fund, or whatever, it's like, thank gosh, you got it, I bet. I don't know what the numbers are. But I'm guessing out of the 8 billion people in the world, maybe only a billion have the ability to do that. And pretty much any American can, and you're in the military in the United States of America, and you're 2021 there's so much amazing opportunity to come. I mean, here's the problem, we never actually talk about what money is. Money is currency, currency, current, its energy, its communication. And so if we're not utilizing money, in whatever form it is, we're stifling our ability to communicate and tap into the world. And that's exactly what military families must do. One way or the other, they need to communicate with the rest of the world because we're what 1% of our whole population, we're going to be out into the quote unquote, real world and we can sit around the military base towns as much as we want

: 17:38

to, we're half of a percent now. It has dropped considerably. You were talking to a quarter of a percent because half of military service members are married, which makes me point two 5% of a percent. Wow. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, this is why we have genuine.

: 18:00

And so it's like the fear around finances, I think stifles that currency stifles the ability for energy to flow out. And what ends up happening is we default to the taxes coming out of the paycheck, the pain for the SGA, Li, you know, might have some benefits coming in, you know, paying for your mortgage, or whatever it is your rent, it's just so limited, when the reality is the financial world is much broader than anything like the stock market or paychecks. And so when we feel bad about, Hey, I'm not doing the long term things. It's like, you know, what I've talked to Oh sixes, 30 year colonels who've come out of the military flat broke, you know, but they're gonna go off and get a good job. And so the focus is building, you know, if you focus on building the skill sets, and the networking and putting yourself in a position, that one day, you know, as long as you're working for it, you can find that opportunity to tap into what your true currency or ability to create currency is. And that's kind of my mission, my philosophy around all this is saying, hey, the world's changing anyways, I mean, they just announced that they're going to create digital money, but nobody has any idea how that's going to impact our economy. And we're sitting there thinking, Well, I'm doing my tsp, it's doing great, you know, in 20 years old, retire and pull it all out. It's like, really, we have no idea if that's even going to be a thing in 20 years. So the ability in that now, when you are focused on the now to also focus on your skill set development, your networking those things, again, to create that currency. I think that's the opportunity right now. And hey, if you end up having extra money to throw into retirement accounts or whatever, fine, so be it, but the opportunity to leverage whatever assets you have, whether it's military benefits, whether it's Pat's on the back for being a military family, you know, the ability to network easier. I mean, you can call up pretty much any military spouse, a veteran on LinkedIn asked for a conversation, and you know, where that leads is up to you and the ability to do it. So anyways, that's where I think the real opportunity is and it's happening. It's happening a lot now, military spouses, obviously doing podcasts, getting it entrepreneurship, a lot of veterans active duty military, doing things in their free time. It's like, you know, we don't have free time in the military, we're so busy, it's like that many people get master's degrees in the military, you have your free time, you can make it, maybe it's not every day. But the ability to tap into the Internet, and create other sorts of Legends all came down to people in the situations were in San Diego and they just pay doesn't doesn't equate to the cost of living. Ultimately, the ability to create second sources of income is going to be the ability to be flexible in this modern economy.

: 20:37

Yeah, and also, I think it is a mindset conversation that I think needs to be more, and I'm gonna say this carefully, like more directed at the spouse. And I say that because I've seen one of two things. One, either the spouse is in the dark, completely has no idea, one that the pay that shows up in your bank account via direct deposit is actually a salary and then benefits like, and that it actually has different, you know, how it's measured out? On the leave and earning statement? You know, it just shows up. Yeah, it's here on the first in the 15th. And so there's that dynamic where they're completely dark and unaware, maybe of even what that number is, you know, and it's left completely to the service member. In my family, it's completely different. I have all of the information on all of our financial accounts, and Matthew gives me a, hey, I gotta go buy something, are we good? And I'm like, yeah, we're good. You know, and I have started over the years, like, I want to use the term diversifying carefully, because it's not a portfolio. But you know, like blocking things out in accounts for specific things. Like when we move, like we knew, I don't know, almost a year ago that we were coming here to Virginia. And so you know, I started putting away money for our move, because we know it's probably gonna cost 10 grand out of pocket before we're reimbursed to move. And so you know, we've done things like that. But you know, I do that I do the spreadsheet, I do the bills. And quite honestly, that's a dynamic that works for us, because let's be honest, he's not here half the time. And that's why we have the dynamic we do, because if it was left to him, I spent a lot of time and a lot of fear that things weren't being done, because he was so busy doing work. But it kind of seems to run those two games where both partners aren't necessarily looking at the day to day. And so there's no real ability to plan for the future, because you both have no idea what's happening, you know, between payment and going to the grocery store and paying your mortgage and you know, things like that. And so I think the conversation of mindset change, honestly needs probably to be most directed at the spouse, because many of us are the ones looking at the day to day, I can tell you how much money Matthew makes. Matthew can't tell you how much money Matthew makes. You know, and then really do it together. I think there's great benefit. You know, I'm often jealous that Matthew will never be in a position where he gets to go to CXO school in Newport for the Navy, because they have a portion of that class where they invite the spouses and then they come up with this, like, command contract between the spouses of like, if you're the CEO of this ship, what am I as a spouse going to take on? Am I going to take on doing the FRG? Am I going to take on hosting parties Am I you know, and you create this contract of what it looks like to be in command of this. And what comes with that is like a family contract really of like how we're going to do things going forward, now that I am in a position of command. And there aren't many opportunities like that for people who aren't ever going to go to that school, which is, let's be honest, like 95% of the military.

Jen Amos: 23:54

Yeah,

: 23:55

I mean, Matthews an officer and we're never going to do that because of the job he's in. So I think the conversation you know, as you look at who you want to talk to, and how you want to find your information, you're looking at people like me, and also then bringing it in as you really want the couple unit because it's not going to flourish. I mean, we do tsp and all that stuff, too, which Matthew does handle, and he has a much bigger picture thinking than I am but doesn't handle the day to day, so has no idea what we could do, because he doesn't look at what we have right now.

Jen Amos: 24:27

Yeah. It sounds to me that with a lot of military couples, it's like you both have your very clear roles, and you have your clear ways of complementing each other, you know, and I think the other side of that, though, is like not necessarily making the same decisions together, or in a sense because of the two different perspectives and the two different roles and you know, and you're sharing your story, it's interesting to hear that I wouldn't say like disconnect but definitely like two different perspectives coming together, you know, to make this the ultimately like, you know, financial decision for the entire family.

: 24:57

I'm always curious about, you know, the dynamic and has to be I mean, the military is obviously different than a standard job. And so the appointments and stuff we got to make sure the families are taken care of. And so it's it's one of the very few professions where they will do unit based financial counseling, or they'll have somebody on base. So they'll bring people in, or they'll do a thing where they get some celebrity to come and talk about finances or whatever and pay him millions of taxpayer money. It's unnecessary. But that's another story. And so what ends up happening is almost like a course load of PowerPoint presentations and booklets, and here's how your finances so they're the informations out there. But again, the assumption always is basically that everybody's in the same boat simply because they're in the military. And that doesn't happen in any other aspect of society. You could go work for Apple or Google, I'm sure they probably do side education, things and stuff like this. But it's not like the assumption is going to be everybody should be living their lives the same way just because you're in base housing. And so I mean, I don't know what the answer. I mean, that's the mission here with this podcast with what you're doing is, is to great another opportunity. I mean, I've never heard of that command concept that you were talking about. We didn't have that in the army. Not that Not that I know of. But you know, that's a fascinating way to at least start a conversation. But I think rather than saying, here's how you should be doing it, is what often you see in those types of programs. It's more, you know, education, or, hey, what's available, it's problem with our education system, we teach people what to think. And when we memorize, basically, instead of how to think and the more that people choose to figure out how to think about this stuff on their own, that opens them up for other opportunities, and might take them down a different path than what everybody else is doing, you know, 8020 rule, if everybody's doing the same thing, typically, the ones that get ahead are the ones that do the opposite. And so, you know, that's what you see coming out of the military, you see some of these veterans and military spouses just blowing up, and you talk to them. It's like, yeah, I didn't do any of that stuff. In the military, I didn't go to college, I was in credit card debt, all this kind of stuff. But I just kind of bumbled around, and I found this thing that was really passionate about, and I turned it into a business or whatever. So you know, just figuring out a way to start those conversations. I like the idea, that family command plan, but to really get that dialogue going and not be fearful of it and just assume that the finances are gonna kind of be taken care of by the military.

: 27:22

Yeah, well, I think the other thing, you know, you brought up like, we teach people what to think about how to think, as a former educator, true in some ways. I cannot schedule a military academy rather. Well, I mean, it also, I mean, not only in a military environment, are you being taught what you're being taught what by fire hose, like I have never sat through anything that I didn't come away with 14,000 pieces of paper, and still very little idea of how I should proceed because it was so much information. Yeah, and much of it directed not to me, or for me, it was really like very active duty speak. Thanks for coming, glad you're here. And also, unless you're the person handling whatever we're there for, none of this applies to you, unless you're one of those families who you know, and I mean, yes, Matthew, and I have very specific lanes, as we call them, we are fantastic partners, because he does his thing. And I do mine. And somehow it all meets in the middle and everyone at our house is still set in a life. And also, we've been through a lot of counseling and a lot of work to come out of our specific lanes more to come together to be able to make those decisions. And it is in the little I mean, think about it, you don't go to counseling, and have a counselor talk at you. for three hours straight. You go and you have a conversation for 15 minutes at a time. You go home, you may have homework, you get to digest it. And next week, you come back and you talk, have a conversation for another 15 minutes at a time and so forth and so on. Until you've got it like right, you know, a counselor is worth their weight in gold is someone who helps you progress and also knows when you've got it. And I think the same kind of needs to be true. And that kind of the same does need to be true for a financial counseling kind of thing. It needs to be a conversation, not death by PowerPoint or information by a firehose, like, Hey, here's this, and now work on this portion and come back. And now you know, and sometimes I think, I mean, I will say as far as being a military family, sometimes it's difficult, like Matthew and I've done the Dave Ramsey method. Part of what's hard with that in the military family is if you're supposed to be attending classes and your spouse has duty, guess who's going alone? Yes, we got week seven all by themselves. You know, and so there's some of that, that I think a plan developed around the rhythm or lack thereof of a military family. Like, you can't just run a standard seven week course, because chances are four or five people aren't going to show up every week because of this deployment. This TDA, this TTY, but you know, so forth and so on. But it really needs to be a conversation of this is how you can do things as a family. And here's a little thing you can work on. Because honestly, otherwise, it's super overwhelming. We are already handling so many things and so many schedules, we have like 14 calendars in my house right now. I feel like I feel like every time I put something on the calendar, I'm adding 15 email addresses because Matthew has a work email and a home email, you know, so like to talk about big picture money stuff, and have it all come at you with no tangible like, here's the little teeny thing you can do today, with your partner.

Unknown Speaker: 30:59

Yeah, you know, it's more like that.

: 31:02

Coming up with like a 30 day program of introducing how the military finances and stuff works. Because what I want to say when it comes to the counselors, or the advisors, or the coaches and mentors, whatever, well, the topic of finance, the assumption is, they're the expert, therefore, and I'm here to tell you, there's no experts, there are no experts, especially when it comes to finance it, but there are people who happen to know the information before you do. And so rather than taking advice, you know, it can be a teacher, they might know the information. But the bottom line is that systems become so convoluted that the individual needs to learn it, because what ends up happening is if people end up, I'm just gonna get a financial advisor, though, they'll take care of my finances. For me, I got a guy, he's taking care of it, it's like maybe, but you know, you've passed off that currency, and that ability to have a connection with it, and be able to use it when you might need it. Or when an opportunity passes by. You'll never see it. And so getting educated is paramount. But you're right. I mean, it's got to be baby steps, and it can be. But I'd almost say going to those things where you're getting just the 50 pages of information, PowerPoints galore, I'd say there's a better way to go about doing that. Because what happens is you just get overwhelmed, then you end up doing nothing.

Jen Amos: 32:20

Oh, and you end up like sticking to what you already have, you know, right? Just like I mean, of course, it's there for a reason, like Scott and I often talking about like, at least you have the benefits. You know, like that's important for us. We value education, though, and knowing that if there are other options that are better for you, like, we want you to know about it. But yeah, just hearing you talk about like hearing both of you talk about the importance of giving that bite sized information, as a family not as just to the service member or not just to the spouse but really together that both of you can do together. I think it's crucial. And I haven't really heard of a program like that yet, to be quite honest. So it's my wheels are already spinning. We're gonna have a brainstorming session after this. Thanks genuinely

: 33:00

seems like a good program to give away on the website. You know, yeah. 30 days to understanding. What's the military phrase that would use this? No, you can't use baby steps. That's Dave Ramsey. He'll be mad. Copyright info. Does he really use baby steps? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm not copying Dave Ramsey.

Jen Amos: 33:21

Yeah, no, we're not doing the Dave Ramsey. He's great for people who, you know, if you have debt, obviously, but like our approach is a little different. It's not primarily focused on debt. But anyway, that's a conversation that's off the record. Just listening to you both talk has been I imagine even for Scott to it's enlightening, you know, to have this conversation, because, again, going back to like, why it took me five seasons to have an in depth conversation about this is because, in my own observations, working with Scott and the team, you know, finance is a delicate conversation to have with spouses. And we've had incidences where there was that disconnect where a decision wasn't made at the very end, when we were ready to sign papers, because there was this fear that, you know, let's say, for example, the service member was signing on to something that the spouse didn't fully understand, which is, you know, very understandable, because you're asking a spouse to understand the military jargon, which is really complicated. Sometimes I remember having a mentor call with someone from better ATI, that actually is sort of a client now. But anyway, he's about to transition out, you know, 18 years in Scotland. So I'm talking about Tom, and I'm not going to say publicly, but I remember our initial conversation, when we were talking, he said, you know, at first I thought I was going to be mentoring him, but he's like, you know, I want to talk to you because I realized that this transition, it's not just my transition, it's my wife's transition, too. And I just want to know, like, what information I need to provide to her to, you know, you know, make informed decisions, and he was talking about the difficulty of trying to really simplify the military jargon, understanding that, you know, SVP is just, let's say, another term for term insurance, you know, but sometimes it's not easy to make that translation. And so that's why we've been, at least for me, I've been so intentional and delicate about this because we really We want to help, you know, our military families in this way. We're just still, you know, as as you stumbled through this conversation, we're still trying to find that verbiage to really talk about this with compassion to our families. So to have this open conversation with you genuine is greatly appreciated.

: 35:15

No Sure thing. I was reminded, as Scott was talking where he said, you know, you don't want to just hand your stuff over and go, you know, here you go. Hope for the best like all envision wishes Creek and living in the Rosebud mount. Do

Jen Amos: 35:29

you guys watch that show? No. Oh, no.

: 35:33

Spoiler alert, the opening scene is their house being cleaned out. Because they left all of their money he owned he owned a video franchise like blockbuster, and had left it all to a financial planner who was doing shady things with his money. And so the opening scene is like the FBI is confiscating all of their belongings, because you know, they've been bought with this dirty money and they're broke. And so they end up living in a town called shits Creek, you know, because they're up shits Creek? Creek? I don't know. That's what that show was about. Okay. Oh, it's a story about it. Yeah. Oh, it's so funny. But I mean, that's how the show starts. And I mean, here you have this, like, who people would consider a mogul, right? Who all of a sudden is living in a motel because he had no eyes on his own finances. He just was like, rich. All

: 36:26

right. And it happens all the time. And it doesn't have to be a Bernie Madoff, nefarious actor. Most financial planners and financial advisors don't actually have access to their clients money. They're just brokers. They just introduce people to other companies. But the assumption is that, Oh, I got a guy, I have a good relationship with him. But you understand there's like 20 different layers of finances is wheeling and dealing like all this stuff going on Wall Street, all the stuff they put in the news every day, I mean, even on a fn, they put today's tsp prices like it has any meaning. It's all a show. It's all show to kind of keep the machine going. Yeah, unfortunately ends up in situations like that, where people aren't really paying attention. And then Who's Who do you blame? Well, of course, everybody goes after the nefarious actor. But that's why I left the traditional financial planning industry. And then that's not what we do it us that wealth, because I realized, no one's ever really going to truly be happy. Because if you're not really paying attention to it, then you don't have to understand how the economy works, then you don't have to understand what the stock market works. And the amount of times I would get people saying, hey, why aren't my accounts up more why the accounts go down? I was like, the whole economy went up, the whole economy went down. like nobody has any idea. There's 14,000 different mutual funds out there. And financial advisors will print out all these Morningstar reports say no, this one's the best one, this one did the best one last year. And it's all a crapshoot. And unfortunately, that but that's the game in town, there's only certain places to sort of put your money. Cool thing is with technology, there's new ways to do it. I'm not talking about Bitcoin and all that kind of stuff. I mean, there's a need to have that conversation eventually, as well. But there's ways to participate in the stock market, and not be gambling it but also not have to pass everything off to a financial advisor. And so for most of the military, you know what, Dave Ramsey is a great place to start and get your finances going. But as people start to really think about who I want to create wealth, like I got these good things going, where I want to maximize my benefits, I don't want to pay a fee to the government to protect my military pension with the survivor benefit plan, I want to keep that in my hands. So I can put it on the economy and do something positive with it. And I realized for that subset of our population who's motivated, I want to get into real estate investing, I want to start a side hustle, you know, whatever it might be. That's who we focus on at us fat wealth, because they can start to see these alternative approaches, which frankly, are cheaper and less riskier, and tend to add a lot more flexibility. And instead of being focused on my account went up 20%. Last year, it's doing great not thinking about, it could crash the next day and go back down. We're more in a flexible situation where it's more about having access to that money. So you can use it again when opportunity presents itself. And that opportunity that's definitely coming is that transition out of the military. And so the better that instead of that service member thinking, alright, I got to do my resume and go to my transition class and hoping that he gets a job that continues to have his spouse's family be happy, instead to go out that as a team to look for the post military opportunity in the financial impact of the wealth opportunity from that is tremendous. And there's not many people in the world, let alone Americans who have that unique opportunity that in your what late 30s, mid 40s you're getting out of the military with VA disability, military pensions. Again, those Pat's on the back for you know, as long as that lasts, but it's just that that ability to come out of the military and the world's your oyster is really powerful, but it It's really hard to take that responsibility and say it's 100% on me now. Thank goodness, I have the pension, thank goodness, we have the VA disability, that's a leg up. But we're going to use it as a crutch. We're going to miss those opportunities. So yeah, just I think the team effort to prepare for that opportunity, just transition is key.

Jen Amos: 40:20

Yeah, well said, ditto. And again, this is really the heart of what we do at holding down the fort is to provide resources, education, tools and stories, so that you can make confident and informed decisions for you and your family. And so I mean, obviously, like we don't have all the answers today, I think this is a great way to start this discussion amongst many. But you know, just like what you said, Scott, obviously, we are resource here at us that wealth if people are looking to have more of these kinds of discussions, and yeah, I guess that's it. That's like all I want to add on that. But I feel like this is like me talking like sidebar, I was like, oh, wow, there's a lot of processes and summarizes conversation. So I think the way to talk about what I took from what, you know, Scott had shared is, at the end of the day, you know, Scott and I and our team, we're looking at the military community, like after having been in it. And therefore I feel like in a way, we have this more unbiased look on what's going on. And what we're trying to do is just make the military families and veterans feel more emboldened to make their own decisions to know that this is their life, and that when they get out of the military, like they are extremely special to our civilian community, to our society, because of you know, everything that they've done, and all the benefits they get to have just like what Scott said, The Pat's in the back, if anything. And so this conversation is really like an empowerment conversation, if anything, knowing that, you know, you have all the tools and resources to be successful. And this is a conversation for another time, but really, you know, diving into having a sense of purpose after the military, once you're out of that unit. And for us, we feel like having a good understanding of your finances helps with that helps you with a sense of purpose and post military life. So that's what I took from what you said, Scott, genuine, just want to see if you had any thoughts.

: 42:00

I think we covered this session of you know, SBP plan and thoughts on military life, happy to be in the hot seat again, and talk more things because truth be told many of the things you mentioned are not not things I'm super confident on myself. Yeah. And I think that could be very beneficial for other people. I mean, I know the acronyms and I have a vague idea of what that means, but not how they work, and what my role is, in how they work and what to do with them. So yeah, happy to come back and converse with us. I

: 42:34

was just gonna say, I mean, for me, I mean, this is a this is a hard conversation. It's like, you know, you'd see me struggling, because I'm just like, there's not a good answer other than we got to stop waiting around for other people to do stuff for us. And we got to get self educated. I mean, read a lot of books, does that mean, it's just like, stop, listen to your podcasts and watch the show? It's great. It's like, you gotta enjoy it sometimes. But, you know, maybe it's YouTube videos about finances for a while, or webinars or reading books, you're just adding that to the repertoire, at least while you're driving around. podcasts are huge for that, obviously. So I mean, for me, this is the start of a conversation, I said, there are no experts. And I don't claim to be I have an idea philosophy, a solution that was pretty good fit for some people. And so that's why I'm trying to find them. And obviously, we'd like to motivate people to start thinking this way, of course, we'd like to start that movement, because I think that's how we have an impact on our country. If we have military veterans and military, spouse, veterans, I don't even know what the official term for that is. But they're financially stable. And this isn't about being rich. It's not about the numbers of zeros. All it matters is Gen Zed are your goals and desires and sense of purpose being met. Because typically, it's what we like to do coming out of the military, not everybody's awesome in the military, but a lot of us want to serve. And I hear that so often they want to do after the military, I don't know what I want to do what I grew up, I just want to help people, I want to continue to be a service. So that's why I'm so passionate about this, because it's like, yes, especially right now, with the craziness that's going on our country, the more veterans and military spouses that we have financially, in a position where they can be leaders of our communities in society and all the I'm not talking politics, I mean, maybe that's part of it. But just in the in the business world, whatever it is, if they're out there, tapped into the financial world, instead of just going to from the military, to the government contractor across the street. And basically, you know, not using all those skills they learned in the military, how to be a leader. It's like, let's translate that into our economy into our society. But we got to be in a position financially to be able to confidently do that. And so if we could solve that problem, and I think we might have a chance of, you know, doing some good out there and post military life. That's the goal. But it's hard. So I appreciate you, gentlemen. You know, just started these conference. I would like to have more of just, if anything to learn and to be like, Alright, What don't we understand? What am I not thinking about that could help open up this communication a little bit more. So it's hard, but I'm grateful to have it.

Jen Amos: 45:14

Yeah. And I just want to thank you both for just having this conversation together. We knew that it was going to come, we've been talking about it, and genuine has been pressuring me to coordinate it now. I'm kidding. No, but I really am just grateful to start this conversation, even if we're kind of stumbling over our words, because I think this is just like what you said, Scott, this is like a clear example of just not having this in our day to day repertoire, you know, just being able to talk about personal finance. So I'm just really appreciative to both of you. And you know, I think this is the start of something fun to continue to have these topics. And I imagine even after the recording, there's going to be some questions that are going to pop up that we could bring up later. But until then, thank you both for bringing light to this conversation. And joining me here on hold now the fort. But that said, Thank you all so much for listening. And we hope that this conversation resonated with you in any way you know that you can get a hold of us at our website, hold down the fort podcast.com. And thank you all so much for joining us, and we'll chat with you in the next episode. Tune in next time.

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