Hey everyone, it’s Jim Grace, your host, and I’m excited to welcome you back to the Modern Financial Wellness podcast. In today’s episode, we’re doing something a little different—instead of our usual deep dive into a specific financial topic or professional’s life story, we’re making a big announcement: Modern Financial Wellness is officially not just a podcast anymore, but now a flat-fee financial planning firm! It’s a milestone for both me personally and for all of you who want approachable, comprehensive, and emotionally intelligent financial guidance.

Joining me is my friend and longtime collaborator, Ashley Quamme. If you’ve listened to past episodes, you may have heard me introduce Ashley as a financial therapist. Today, I’m thrilled to share that Ashley is stepping into the role of our outsourced Chief Behavioral Officer—an integral new resource in our practice, bringing decades of experience in marriage and family therapy and helping connect emotional and behavioral insights with financial planning.

We started with the exciting news about the firm and transitioned into Ashley’s journey from practicing marriage and family therapy to focusing primarily on financial therapy—an emerging field that's still relatively unknown but critically important. Ashley broke down what financial therapy actually is, how it differs from traditional mental health therapy, and what it means to have a behavioral specialist on your financial team. We also got practical, talking through how couples (including both Ashley and myself) do annual planning “life meetings,” reflecting not just on finances but overall values, family stages, and priorities. We closed out with a discussion about how to approach New Year’s resolutions, or better yet, use temporal landmarks (like the start of the year, birthdays, or school semesters) to set meaningful, realistic goals and intentions for the year ahead.

5 Key Takeaways from This Conversation:

1. Financial Therapy Bridges the Emotional Gap
2. Most people aren’t aware that financial therapy exists, but it’s all about understanding why you think, feel, and behave around money the way you do. It’s less about “fixing the numbers,” and more about uncovering mindsets, beliefs, and patterns that shape financial decision-making.
3. Financial Planning Is NOT Financial Therapy
4. There is a clear line between what we offer as financial planners and what Ashley would do as a clinical therapist. Our work focuses on understanding and coaching financial behaviors, not treating diagnoses or healing past trauma. Sometimes, recognizing when someone would benefit from clinical support is vital—and Ashley helps triage and connect clients to those resources when needed.
5. Annual "Life Meetings" Make a Difference
6. Ashley and her husband, as well as my wife and I, both hold yearly planning sessions to look not just at finances, but at vacations, professional goals, time management, and even the developmental stages of our children. Pen-to-paper planning and revisiting these notes is a powerful tool in clarifying priorities and aligning as a couple or family.
7. Use Temporal Landmarks to Refresh Goals
8. New Year’s isn’t the only time for a “fresh start.” Consider using other meaningful dates—birthdays, anniversaries, the start of school, even quarterly reviews—to reflect and refocus on what’s important. This “fresh start psychology” is supported by research and can help create momentum.
9. Behavioral Support Adds Real Value for Everyday People
10. Most of our clients are busy, successful, and overwhelmed with life. Simply having a thoughtful, solutions-oriented behavioral resource on the financial team reduces stress, helps identify roadblocks, and increases alignment and progress—often in small but significant ways.

We’ll be welcoming Ashley Quamme back regularly for a new segment where we tackle real-life financial scenarios and explore ways to move forward, together. We haven’t settled on a segment name yet (maybe “Let’s Ask Ashley”?), but stay tuned! Thank you for listening, and remember—whether you’re starting fresh with a plan or just trying to do your best through life’s challenges, we’re here to help with both the technical and behavioral sides of money.

Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you’re listening, and if you’d like to learn more, check out ModernFinancialWellness.com. Happy New Year, and we’ll talk to you soon!

—Jim Grace

Everybody, welcome back to Modern Financial Wellness, the podcast dedicated to helping you feel better about your finances. I am joined today by my friend, Ashley Quamme. Ashley, it's good to see you. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, Jim, good to be here.

So we're going to talk a lot about who you are and what you do and our partnership here in a minute, but just wanted to let everybody know that this episode is a little bit different. So we're not doing a deep dive into a particular topic or necessarily exploring, you know, the expertise or journey of a particular professional. Although Ashley again, is going to tell us about who she is and what she does here with the practice. But we are announcing here at the beginning of 2026, the launch of Modern Financial Wellness as my new flat fee financial planning firm. So not just a podcast. Yeah. Thank you. Applause Appreciate it.

So this is kind of coincidentally the first time that we're publicly talking about the fact that it's not just a podcast anymore, but Modern Financial Wellness is now the name of the new firm. So we're excited for that. We again, coincidentally have Ashley here as we talk about launching the new firm into 2026. And Ashley has been a guest on the podcast. We've introduced her in the past as a financial therapist, and Ashley is now the outsourced chief behavioral officer of Modern Financial Wellness. And I'm super excited about that. That sounds like a lot of words, though, Ashley. So what I'm hoping to do today is just like, what did I just say? What does that mean? What is an outsourced chief behavioral officer? And I'm hoping that people kind of come away with an understanding of the different types of resources that are out there, in addition to just the traditional investment management, financial planning, all those comprehensive things that they come to expect.

So do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and then we could talk maybe about what's the O. CBO all about?

Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it. So a little bit about my background. So my home discipline, from an education standpoint, professional standpoint, is in marriage and family therapy. So prior to working and living now in the finance space, I've been practicing as a licensed marriage and family therapist for about 15 years, focusing primarily on couples and family. So that is the space I had my own private practice turned into a group practice, supervising and directing clinicians. And so that part of my. My life, that part of my work has just deeply informed the work that I do.

The work that I do. Now, and, and so I, I share that just from understanding the world and framework skills, mindset like that. I'm. That I'm coming from, it is from the couples and family arena. I was introduced or got turned on to financial therapy in 2019. Ish. So just before COVID And some of that was out of working with a lot of couples where money just showed up. And it showed up in a way that it wasn't about the numbers.

It was more about the relationship with money, the differences in how each partner views money relates to it. And so I didn't really have the tools to know how to navigate that and went into Google.

I was kind of curious at that point. 2019, financial therapy is such a new thing, essentially, which is. It makes a lot of sense to me now. But in 2019, were there a lot of financial therapists or was this kind of just a burgeoning part of the field?

No, it's very new. Very new and still is, actually. It is still considered just in its. In its infancy stage. It's been around since, you know, maybe 2010, 2008. 2010 is time frame. So we're talking like 15 years here, maybe a little more, give or take right now. There has been research, you know, in the financial psychology field, understanding the psychology from like a, you know, behavioral economics, like place.

But when it, when it comes to working from a clinical, like, therapeutic standpoint, yeah, like, financial therapy is newer. It is newer. And so, yeah, there, there was the Financial Therapy association, which is where I found resources. There is a few universities who had, you know, some content and some studies, some classes there. But really new, Jim, really new and still is. Most people that I talked to have never heard of it. That's both in the finance side, on the mental health side, and even just, you know, on the, on the client end as well.

I, I hear it as well when I talk to clients about what we do and how we do it and some of the resources that we have on the team, such as yourself. I get the. What's a financial therapist? Or. I didn't even know that that was a thing. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love it. I actually kind of like that because it's an opportunity to share, like, what is it? And so just from, you know, those that are listening, that might be like, okay, well, yeah, like, what is it? You know, financial therapy is really centered around understanding why it is that you think, feel and do money the way that you do. Where do those thoughts come from? Where do those feelings come from? Where do the behaviors in terms of how you engage with money or don't engage, how do you spend, save, invest, take risks, all, all of those things. And so it's really understanding just the mindset, so the thoughts that are behind it, the feelings that are behind it, and in turn shaping that relationship overall with it there. So that's a very like high level, just kind of definition there.

Well, I think it's a perfect description. I couldn't have done it better myself. And I love the way that you put that to reiterate, think, feel and do money. I think a lot of people could benefit from thinking about all of those things. What are our mindsets, attitudes, beliefs? Where do we come from? How do we think and feel about money? And how is that impacting our behavior? It's something that we all have to deal with, which is why I've always been excited to get to know you and work with you collaboratively and why I'm so excited that you're an official part of the practice moving forward and an official resource. So one thing I wanted to make clear is that what we do as a financial planning practice in the work that we do with clients is not financial therapy.

Correct?

Correct. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think there still is, rightly or wrongly, there's this connotation with the word right that might be a little off putting to people. And I know, you know, sometimes even when I introduce a financial therapist as a resource, I think I get a little, I don't need therapy type of response. Right. So can we talk about that, what that line might look like?

Yeah. So when. And this is, this is, you know, I would say this is coming from, from, from me. This is how I define things, how I talk about things. You might, those that are listening, you, if you do some research or looking into, there might be other financial therapists or folks that describe it or have a different viewpoint, I would say. But when, when I look at, you know, therapy, when I look at financial therapy, even like we're looking at, I'll take therapy specifically. You know, mental health therapists are, are there to help clients and, and the work there is centered around oftentimes diagnosis, treatment, so treating maybe a quote unquote diagnosis like anxiety disorder or depression. And sometimes that's even in the couple's context, if you will, it is longer term focused.

And oftentimes there's just other elements there around the approach. You know, taking a more what I might call psychotherapeutic approach, like looking backwards, trying to heal like words like healing wounds or healing certain parts of ourselves, dealing with trauma. Like those are all things that come up like from therapy. And, and that's great. The work though that like I am doing that you and I do. I, I describe the role as a, it is an outsourced chief behavioral officer, but it's, it functions more around like a financial behavior specialist, like not doing therapy per se. I'm looking at the financial behaviors and understanding them from a more sol focused type of lens. So what is like the problem that we're dealing with? Is it that a couple is not aligned and on the same page? If that is, then okay, what are, you know, what can we do? Maybe short term and it's maybe coaching them through a few exercises that they can try.

You know, for a client who might have difficulty spending in retirement, you know, maybe there's not a need to spend more, but maybe there is. And can we understand what some of those barriers are and maybe what's ideal for them? You know, the work that, that we do is. I'm not looking at old wounds. I might know about them or hear about them in the context is helpful, but I'm not going back and trying to heal that or attune to even things like adhd. Like it's helpful to understand, but I'm not treating that necessarily in the, in the relationship. That is more, you know, therapeutic therapy, a type of work that, that is not the work that, that we do. It's. Sometimes it gets equated to more of like coaching, if you will coaching or like consultation, you know, kind of brief oriented, very hyper focused work.

And I, I like that description a lot. I've heard therapy described as looking backwards and unpacking some wounds and going very much back in time to try to, you know, figure out which can be really informative for the work that we do when we're aware of some of those things that have happened in the past. But to your point, I think what we're object, what our objective is is to try to move for people forward financially, right? What is the solution and how do we understand what may have happened in the past and how that's impacting today? And what do we do today to start moving forward. Forward because that's ultimately what clients are coming to us for is solutions to their financial problems. They just don't know. Or maybe they do. Some, some people do or they're pretty self aware. But I think a lot of people don't understand how sometimes those our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs about Money are keeping them, holding them back, creating roadblocks that are keeping them from the solutions that they're all ultimately looking for.

Um, yeah, I would say the, the last thing there is that, you know, because of my, because of my background and expertise, there might be times when a person, when a client's past is really creating some barriers to moving forward with the financial plan or overall financial well being. And so, you know, in those instances, like I feel like my role is not to just ignore that. Like as a team, we don't want to ignore that, but it might mean connecting them to resources then and saying, hey, like I'm getting the sense that, you know, this thing might be getting in the way of you really moving forward. It kind of keeps showing up in this way. And would you be willing to look at some of these resources? So some of that role too might be like a, like a triage. Right. If you think about like kind of triaging, you know, it's okay, let's assess what is, what's really going on and then how can I connect you maybe to the appropriate resources that can help address maybe in this instance, some of the roadblocks.

Yeah, yeah. And a lot of the lot of the clients that we work with I think are just regular busy folks that are doing pretty well in life. Just they're up to their eyeballs in life is how I would describe it. And a lot of that, sometimes that comes with a lot of stress and anxiety that just having a resource as a financial planner, somebody you could delegate the responsibility of like the technical side of managing the day to day and having a process and having a plan. A lot of times we find that, that a lot of that stress and anxiety goes away just by doing that work. And then there are other times where, hey, we should be making some more progress here, but it feels like we're not really aligned where we can maybe explore and figure out to your point, is this something we're going to be able to help you with and coach you through and move you forward on, or can we get you in front of somebody who can? Right. And really figure that out as, as quickly and efficiently kind of get to that point where we're figuring out who's the best resource for you, all the while delivering the financial plan that a lot of clients that's, that's what they're coming for is, is answers to their financial questions. Again, I just don't think that we realize how important and impactful understanding our thoughts, feelings and beliefs about money are, which is why it's so awesome and amazing to have you on the team.

It's made a huge impact so far, so we appreciate you. So those of you I think some existing clients of the firm already know Ashley, if you're a client of the firm, you'll be getting to know Ashley in the. In the coming weeks and months. And one of the things that I've asked and. Or maybe twisted her arm into doing was just make herself available to ask some questions, get some thoughts on the fly about, you know, what we're thinking and feeling. And since I don't know what we'll call this segment of the podcast, but I guess another announcement is this type of episode will be upcoming where it's just Ashley and I kind of working through some different scenarios and things that are coming up, and hopefully it's helpful. And I'm thinking, because this is going to be released on or around January 1st, I'm thinking about New Year's resolutions. So, Ashley, do you.

Do you have New Year's resolutions? Typically? Is that something you entertain? If you were to have a resolution, what would it be? And then I can share my thoughts on what I'm thinking of at this time of the year because it's chaotic and stressful. So I kind of want to pick your brain about moving into the new year and how to kind of reset and refresh.

Yeah. So, no, I don't have New Year's resolutions. However, intentionally. My. My husband Clayton and I, we do have annually where we sit down and it's usually before January 1st, sometime in December, amidst the craziness, we do sit down and look at over the next 12 months, where do we want to focus our time, energy, and financial resources?

I love that.

So it's not a resolution, but it is a focus area. And so we'll look at things like, hey, vacations, how many. What does that look like?

Right.

You know, can we go ahead and start to map out some of that? What do we need to do? We will look at our, you know, contribution. So both Clayton and I are business owners. So, like, our taxes are, you know, business owners. A little bit. A little bit interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, we'll look at even things like, you know, things like taxes, what can we expect contributions to, you know, 401ks. Go ahead.

I was just gonna say, so I. I promise we didn't script this, but my wife and I actually do a very similar thing. So I'm very curious on. On what this looks like. So it sounds like this is A big life meeting, which is both financial and vacations. Where do we want to prioritize our time? Like it's all kind of one big. You're going to commit some time to having this conversation, this big meeting?

Yeah, it is a planning meeting and it's a one year. Like we look at the next 12 months, but then we also look at the next three to five years and what ages where will our kids be? So my kids right now they are 11 and 13. My daughter will be 12 here in March, so they're 17 months apart. But you know, for us like going like for 20, 26, like our three and five years, like our kids will be driving. So it's now we're starting to think about vehicles, like insurance. Like what does that, what might that look like? We take this, you know, one, three and five year just kind of play and some of the three to five year stuff. It's like, like I don't really know. But like we do know that in five years both we'll have four drivers.

So. Okay. At least we, we know that. Right.

There's a financial component to that too. But I can't help but wonder how that makes you feel as a mom. Right.

Good grief, don't even get me started.

Kids are nine and six. We don't have the three and five year vision board on our meeting. So this is new and helpful for me. But I could think about, you know, if my oldest is going to be 14, like, holy moly. Like.

Right.

Prioritize some time with them right now. Right. That's got to put some other things in focus. Not just financially.

We do that. We do like the what's coming up, where will they be stage of life, where will we be maybe potentially professionally, you know, stuff like that. But I also use it not just from a number standpoint, but like thinking about, you know, my son in five years will be 18. I don't one like that makes me want to crawl into the fetal position and just like cry. But I even think about things like, gosh, 18, like what do we need to start doing now in order to make sure that when he turns 18, like there's some, there's like life skills components. And so I have kind of a section where it's like conversations we need to be having with the kids. Like some of it's around, you know, body changes, you know, just other like tough conversations and some life skills. What, what do I want them to be doing by 18? I sure as heck want them to be able to do their own laundry by the time they're 18.

So, you know, I think that we kind of take that 1, 3 and 5 year and just start trying to. And it's not always perfect, Jim. It is. It is not. But at least we're, like, thinking about it, you know, from all angles there. And then. So then we map out what do we want to focus on in the next 12 months, what do we need to be doing in the first quarter, you know, if we want to get there. So I don't do New Year's resolutions, but we do.

We do intentionally have areas of our life or what things do we want to be focused on again, from a time standpoint? Energy and financial standpoint.

Yeah. Can I ask? Because, again, my wife and I do something very, very similar. What does it look like, practically? Are you pulling out a whiteboard? Do you just have a notebook? Do you have. You know, do you do any of this electronically? Because I have kind of a unique. Yeah, just pen to paper. And you're just putting it down.

Pen to paper. Yeah, I have them for all the years going back to when we were first married and did it. So that's actually really fun because some of the things we thought we would have and like, five, you know, by certain time frames, I'm like, oh, my gosh, we were ridiculous. Like, you know, a second home. Like, what were we thinking? No, we. I'm just a pen and paper kind of gal. I like writing it out. I think also from a psychology standpoint, like, writing it out does something just from a, you know, from a brain standpoint.

I will take pictures. We take pictures of it. I send it to both so that we have at least digital versions in case I need to quickly pull up or reference.

Yeah, document it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So my wife and I. My wife has adhd, which I talk about a lot on the podcast. And so she's going to interpret information and process information a little bit differently than me. And one of the things that she came up with, which has been super, super helpful, we actually get one of those desk calendars from Staples, where it's like, month by month that used to sit on your desk. I don't know what people did with those, by the way. Did people keep their appointments and things, like, on their desk back in the day? I don't know.

Yeah, I have. I still have one because I like seeing it and, like, writing out and.

Like, looking at my book. You have your calendar and, like, your appointments and everything on your desk calendar.

Like, big appointment, like, A big doctor's appointment that gets scheduled out months and months. Like not the, not the daily, daily ones, but like. Yeah, big ones.

Okay. So we get one of those. Anyway, sorry for the side, side route there. We get one of those and we rip those all off and then we have a calendar view of the year and we start to take sticky notes where we map out where vacations, when are the school times off and just start to write out all the different activities so we see what's happening and it's super, super helpful to, to have something that you can see visually. And are you familiar with the. We kind of ripped this off from the big ass calendar. I think it's literally called the big ass calendar. They sell these things where you can kind of put it all up and use sticky notes and things to have a color coordinated vision the year looks like.

But we find it super, super helpful. And over the last year, what we realized is we need to do one of those meetings in June. We need a mid year review because by the fall and the transition into school, everything's gone to hell. Right. And plans have changed and we weren't thinking as detailed as we needed to be about the end of the year. So I actually think it's a good idea to do these bigger conversations twice a year. And one of the things.

I agree.

Yeah. And one of the things I'll take from our conversation today is that I don't think we spend enough time with that three or five year vision or goals or that kind of planning conversation. How old are the kids going to be? Where are we going to be in life? And what does that mean for today? I think that's a really good addition to what we're up to. Yeah.

Well, and we're talking about being empty nesters, like not far from being empty nesters. And so from like a couple standpoint, you start looking at three to five years. Like the five years, like, like Camel B. 18. Abby will be, you know, 16, 17. Like we got to start having some different conversations and thinking like playing tennis, pickleball.

What are you guys gonna.

I don't. I tell you, I am not playing tennis. Maybe I'll take up pickleball. I don't know. I don't know. You know, the last thing I guess I would say kind of about this gym is like, I know we're, we're talking kind of new year and like new Year's resolutions, but there is this, you know, I kind of call it like fresh start psychology. And there are certain times of the year where that sense of, like, renewal of, like, okay, it's a fresh, fresh start. You know, there are these.

They're like temporal landmarks. Right. And so, like, we think about January, the beginning of the year you mentioned, like, the start of the school year is one for a lot of parents. Like, we start, you know, kind of planning for some people, even, like, the quarter, like, kind of like new quarter. Um, you know, but there are all the, you know, or birthdays are a great one, or anniversaries. Like, there's a lot of these just, like, landmarks that land on us. New Year's is the most popular one that we start thinking about goals or, like, vision and, you know, there's a science. Right.

You know, kind of to that. It makes a lot of sense. And so some people who are just super, like, anti, like New Year's, New Year's resolution, like, I guess I would encourage them to think about other. Other, I'll say landmarks, like, in their year, in their, you know, calendar year. That might be helpful in terms of thinking about focus areas that they want to, you know, spend some time and attention to.

Yeah. And it's less for me, it's less about a resolution, which always has this, like, I'm gonna give something up. I'm gonna go on a diet or start working out more. That feels like a terrible time to try to change, you know, big behaviors like that.

Yeah.

But to your point, thinking about it as a great opportunity to reflect on what it is you're trying to accomplish. Right. What are your big goals? What's meaningful to you? What's going to be important this year? At least having that conversation and a process or that you can kind of go through as a couple, I think is maybe the. The better, more impactful way to go about moving into a new year. So.

Yeah, I agree.

Stuff. Cool. All right. So, you know, again, moving forward, we're going to have Ashley back just to kind of kick around some ideas and hopefully learn together and figure all this stuff out. It can be hard and challenging and overwhelming and exciting and fun, too. And we're. We're all just human, trying to do our best and figure things out. So we'll have Ashley back to.

To have these types of conversations. So be on the lookout for that. And again, we don't have a. A name to this. Maybe it's. Let's ask Ashley.

No pressure. Oh, gosh, no pressure.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll come up with something more creative to call it, but we'll look forward to having you back and again, we appreciate you being a resource and Happy New Year.

Yeah, thanks, Jim.

All right, we'll see you soon. Thanks, everybody. If you like the content that you hear on the episode, please consider subscribing wherever you're listening or watching to the episode. And again, Modern Financial Wellness is now a flat fee financial planning firm, RIA, not just a podcast. So please check out modernfinancialwellness.com and reach out. Let us know what you think and if we can help you out. And we'll look forward to seeing and talking to you next time. Thanks everybody.

Thanks again for listening to this episode. A quick note, although I do hope that the information that we talked about was helpful, in no way is anything discussed on the podcast to be taken as specific financial advice. Please consult your own advisors and do your own research when you're making important financial decisions.