The Truth About Starting a New Career in Your 30s

Career Change With 3 Kids and $173K Net Worth (0:00)

Bo: Early 30s, three kids. You graduated with your MDiv, and then vocationally, what have you been doing?

Brad: Everything. I’ve been a bit of a career vagabond. Right now, I’m looking to become a financial planner.

Haylee: And I’m a pediatric nurse.

Bo: Total net worth of $173,000, with a lot of what I’m going to call volatility in there.

Brad: To be clear, my volatility, you know, her investments make up the majority of ours.

Brian: It’s $80,000 of the $111,000 that is pretty much Haylee’s retirement plans.

Bo: It looks different when a 23-year-old and a 25-year-old go through this than a 33 and a 35-year-old. We have to put some sort of timeline on that.

Brad: The worst outcome would be I get two years into this and I’ve only made like 50 grand over the whole time. But if that’s the case, we would have to take a long look at it and say, I don’t know, is this worth it?

Bo: So let’s pause there. If that were the case, what would y’all do?

Meet Brad and Haylee: How They Met (0:55)

Bo: Y’all are from Ohio. How long have you guys been married?

Brad: Married for 12 years.

Haylee: Almost 12.

Brian: Early 30s, three kids. Walk us through, give us the background. What’s your story? How did you guys meet? What has your financial life looked like until now, and then we’ll level set where we are today.

Brad: We met in college at Malone University. First week of school, she is walking into one of the buildings, I’m walking out, and I notice her and I’m like, “Oh, hey, Haylee. How you doing?” And she goes, “Hey, Todd, how are you doing?” And I was like, “Oh, uh, great. My name’s not Todd, it’s Brad.”

Haylee: Cool. And then I never wanted to see him again.

Brian: And you’re like, “I’m going to avoid that guy at all costs.”

Haylee: I tried. Here we are. Three kids later.

Brad: We were genuinely just friends for a while. I did some ministry stuff on campus and she kind of joined in and helped out, and we genuinely became friends. At a certain point, I’m a very loud person. And Haylee, this is probably about a year and a half, two years later, Haylee’s in her room studying, because she’s a good student. I am not. So she’s studying for something for nursing and she hears my voice across the hall and goes, “Oh, wow. I haven’t seen Brad in a little while. I should go talk to him.”

Haylee: Sounds like he’s over there.

Brad: Yeah. And so she came over, and I was applying to do this year-long program in Philly. And she goes, “I thought you were getting married this fall.” And I was like, “Nope, not anymore.” [laughter] She’s like, “Really?” And I was like, “Yeah, let’s grab dinner sometime and I’ll tell you the story.”

Brian: And so just you being loud is what did it?

Brad: That was it.

Brian: Wow. Was that an actual implied date, or were you just saying, “Let’s go catch up”?

Brad: It was genuinely just, yeah, I would say we genuinely were just friends, not acquaintances. We were friends, but not close, close friends. And so we just grabbed dinner, and then a week later we grabbed lunch, and then we started getting dinner and lunch more often. And then I graduated and I moved to Philly, and she just kept calling, and we wrote letters back and forth.

Brian: I’m fascinated when friends turn into more. Where were the sparks originally? Did you always think she was good-looking, or you thought she was really cute, [laughter] when she was a freshman?

Brad: I got that part.

Brian: I mean, but I’m always curious, because I dated my wife with the intention that, I thought she was really good-looking. So this whole friend-to-romance thing, how does that kick up?

Brad: I think for me, in a really low point in my life, she stuck with me. And I always thought she was amazing. But as that happened, as I came out of a difficult place, she was just there in a really beautiful and kind and meaningful way. And we started dating on March 13th of ’14. We got engaged on June 1st of ’14. And we got married on December 14th of ’14. I didn’t waste any time at all.

Haylee: We didn’t. And then we waited seven years to…

Brad: Yeah.

Bo: So, real slow to the dating, and then the dating to the marriage real fast, and then… oh, awesome. Did you have a spark toward Brad from the get-go, or did you…

Brad: What kind of question is this? Whatever answer you’re…

Haylee: What are you doing? When I first met Brad, when I called him Todd, something in me knew we were going to get married one day, really. It wasn’t like a knowing thing. It was like something inside me was like… yeah, I just knew it.

Brad: And then even when I got engaged to this other girl, she just never…

Haylee: Yeah. We just always were friends.

Brad: Wild. Here we are.

Brian: That’s pretty cool. All right. Okay. I’ll let Bo do all the financial, the fun part.

Their Careers, Moves, and Financial Journey (4:23)

Bo: All right. So, you graduate, you get into your careers. What are you doing professionally? The last 12 years, what have you guys been doing professionally, financially? Walk us through how we get from that point to the point today.

Haylee: I’m a pediatric nurse. I’ve been that pretty much the whole time that I’ve been in nursing. There was an itty-bitty spurt. So, we’ve bounced around. Brad has a master’s in divinity. So, we got married between semesters of my senior year of college, and then I graduated. And then we went to Boston for his school. And after we went to Boston, I was a nurse there for an itty-bitty little bit. We had our adult realization that we weren’t happy there and that we could move and change our situation.

Brad: Yeah. We can make decisions. [laughter]

Haylee: And this was like 25-year-old and 23-year-old Haylee and Brad. So it was like, “Oh wow, we’re adults now. If we don’t like living in Boston, we can leave.” We can leave.

Brad: Yeah. And that was a really meaningful moment in our marriage.

Haylee: Stayed up till like 4 in the morning talking about it one day. And so then we moved to Kentucky for him to continue his program there, and I was a nurse there in pediatric oncology, and that was like my dream job. That’s what I always wanted to do, is work with kids with cancer. And so I did that, and you pretty much finished schooling. You had like six months left, and then we decided to try to make more money, and I was a travel nurse and he was just finishing his degree, so we went to St. Louis for a stint, and I did two contracts there. Then we had made plans with some friends. They were planning on church planting in Delaware, Ohio, and they said, “Do you want to do that with us?” And we said, “Yeah, sure.” It’s like heading home for us.

Brian: Yeah. It’s almost like y’all figured out this whole move thing and you’re like, “Let’s just do this more. This seems fun.”

Haylee: We moved so many times. I think in our first five years of marriage, we moved six different times.

Brian: So much fun. Yeah.

Bo: So, okay. So, you graduated with your MDiv, and then vocationally, what have you been doing?

Brad: Everything. I’ve been a bit of a career vagabond. My 20s, I just…

Brian: What a great term, a career vagabond. Writing that one down.

Brad: Truly, in my 20s, I did everything. I worked as a barista, a bartender. I owned my own wedding planning and coordination company. I was a chaplain during seminary at the hospital.

Brian: Pastor, bartender.

Brad: Yeah.

Brian: It might not work in the Bible belt.

Brad: In other places in the world, I helped plant this church. I’ve never been paid for it, but I’ve always been on leadership. I did wedding planning. I was a chaplain in the hospital. And then once we moved to Delaware, I was a hospice chaplain for a few years. Around when I was 32, I want to say, I had an opportunity to become a director of development for a small nonprofit in Ashland, Ohio. And so I was like, I think this is what I want to do. This was the first moment in my life that I was like, I want to fundraise. I love it. And so I spent a year and a half there. And my time there came to a somewhat abrupt end. Decisions had been made a long time ago at this place that had nothing to do with me, and it just led to a very difficult place for the organization. They offered me to stay on with a different role and make a lot less money, and I’d have to get another part-time job, or some severance. And I was like, “Wow, they’ve kind of given me the fundraising edge.” And so with that, I started looking into other fundraising jobs. So I worked at another nonprofit for the last year and a half.

Losing a Job Changes the Entire Plan (8:01)

Brad: And that job came to a very abrupt end as well. And so the last three or four months, since May, I have been unemployed and I am working on a career change.

Bo: Okay.

Brad: Financially, through all that, I was looking back over my net worth statement and I realized last year we made $99,000 and like $400 gross, and I was like, man, we were on the edge. And I was so disappointed, because this year was the year I was like, we’re going to hit that six figures. Maybe we’re not going to hit six figures this year.

Bo: Well, [laughter] I love that you told us a story, because you were kind enough to share a net worth statement with us, and what we can see is, right now, in your early to mid-30s, total net worth of $173,000, with a lot of what I’m going to call volatility in there, right? A lot of change, a lot of move.

Brad: And to be clear, my volatility, when I was in college, one of my professors said, “Guys, you ministry majors, you need to head up the hill to Regal Hall and find yourself a nurse, because they’re going to have steady income. No matter where you live in the world, they will be able to get a job.” And I’m like, man, Dr. Sza, he was on to something. [laughter]

Bo: So, as we said, $173,000 of total net worth, household income right at $70,000. I’m assuming that’s your income right now?

Brad: Yeah.

Bo: And so you guys have done a good job of building assets. You have debt. There’s an HVAC loan and a mortgage and medical debt, but you have like $110,000 of investments. Walk us through how you guys have been saving and putting money away, and how you have thought about accumulating through this wildly transitionary period.

How They Built $110K+ in Investments (9:40)

Brad: Man, I am thankful that when we started working at Nationwide Children’s in Columbus, they were like, “Hey, we do a pretty good employer match.” And 25- or 26-year-old Haylee was like, “Yeah, sure. Let’s do that. Let’s sign up for it.” And now here we are, where her investments make up the majority of ours.

Bo: It’s $80,000 of the $111,000 is pretty much Haylee’s retirement plans, it looks like.

Brad: Yeah. So, for me, I was trying to figure this out in my YouTube history. I think the first video I watched from you guys was “The Death of Millionaire Status” from like 2023. And from there on out, I’ve been on this journey of, okay, how do we maximize what we’ve been given and what we earn and put away as much as possible.

How Do You Save During an Emergency? (10:32)

Brad: And I would say for the last three years, we’ve ramped up into really investing a lot. And then we kind of hit this career transition and I’m sitting here like, okay, what does it look like to save well when you’re in an emergency? We talk about having an emergency fund. What does it look like to save well when you’re in the emergency, and it’s not just a one-time, oh, our HVAC went and we have to spend money once, but we’re both still working. It’s like, oh man, I might not make money for a little while. And so as this emergency, quote unquote, kind of expands, what do you do with that?

Bo: So walk us through, from a conversational piece, practically. You were working, y’all had these two incomes, and now your income goes away, and so income drops.

Brad: Yep.

Bo: You have three kids, big family. How have you guys handled budgeting and making financial decisions, and how do you go from making more money to making less money and still making it work?

Haylee: Yeah. So, the beauty of being a nurse is that they always need more nurses. So I had been working, I dropped down to 20 hours a week.

Brad: No, 16 hours a week.

Haylee: 16 hours a week. And then when this happened, I’m back up to 24 hours a week, which is still part-time and still doable for our family, as Brad’s studying full-time to do a career change. We have adjusted what we were spending by quite a lot, as well as, I was putting, I think, 15% of my paycheck into retirement. So we’ve turned that down to just what the employer matches, which is me, like, 3% I think.

Brad: Yeah.

Haylee: And so we’ve turned that down and just spent less.

Brad: Yeah. So it does feel like that lever of how much we spend, we have ratcheted it down quite a bit to be careful with it. And we had a few things that we had to figure out. We got windows last year and they had the year-long no interest, and that was coming up this September, and so we had $6,000 we had to pay on that. And I will say, we had the emergency fund. And if we had only had four or five grand in the bank when this happened, we would have made very different decisions. But we had $20,000 in the bank. And so it gave us time to kind of think and plan and go, okay, what do we want to do moving forward? Not just for the immediate future, but for the long term.

Haylee: Yeah.

Starting a Financial Planning Career at 35 (13:07)

Bo: And so I just want to… So, right now you’re still working part-time.

Haylee: 24 hours.

Bo: But you have a very healthy income, even working part-time. So, what are you doing now in this career transition? I think you said studying for a new career.

Brad: I don’t know if you guys have heard of it. It’s called financial planning. [laughter]

Brian: All right.

Brad: Right now I’m looking to become a financial planner.

Bo: Okay.

Brad: It scratches an itch for me. As soon as I started consuming your guys’ content, there are young people in my church, and I’m like the financial mentor that helps walk people through stuff. And even before I lost my job, Haylee and I had kind of thrown around, like, “I don’t know, you seem to really love money. Maybe this is something you could do.” And then this all happened. And then, like I said, we had the time because of the emergency fund to be like, “Okay, do we have a runway towards you actually making money?” And so, yeah, right now I’m studying for my Series 7. And then I’ll do the 66 after that.

Bo: So usually a Series 7, you have to have somebody sponsor you. So is there already a company, a broker-dealer, somebody that’s going to lead you, shepherd you into the process?

Brad: Yeah. So, I have a guy who is a part of LPL.

Bo: Okay.

Brad: And he is sponsoring me. We’re still kind of in the process, or, talk about the messy middle, we’re in the messy middle of this process, where I’m kind of waiting on him to get me sponsored and signed on and all the things. I think long term I want to do a fee-only fiduciary. That’s what I want to do. LPL is kind of the hybrid model, as you guys know.

Bo: If that’s your desire long term, what was the thought process around going that way? LPL, the broker-sponsor model, versus going the fee-only model right out of the gate through the transition relationship.

Brad: Mhm. So my mentor in life is a guy named Peter, and his brother has worked for LPL for like 20 years. And we had a conversation, and he just said, “Brad, I’d love to give you the head start in this that anybody getting into the financial world would want.” And so for me, rather than trying to apply to a bunch of places and figure it all out, it felt like a really clear pathway towards it. It also feels, the financial industry feels like one of those things where, if you can get your foot in the door, you just need to get started. And so to me it felt like a pretty good option to have somebody who believes in me, and he doesn’t know me directly, but his brother and I have been close for a long, long time.

Bo: So, as you continue to move down this path and you get the Series 7 and you get the 66, what does work life look like then? Is it, okay, I’m coming in to help support a team and I’m getting paid a salary, or is it, no, I’ve got to go out and find my own people and start selling products? What’s the model that you’re moving into?

Brad: It would be more the latter. What I appreciate about Jeremy, his name is Jeremy, what I appreciate about Jeremy is that he approached it with an honesty to say, “Hey, on the hybrid side, there’s a lot more room for ickiness for how financial advisors can operate.” And he just said, “I just like being able to, if I truly think life insurance, term life insurance, whatever it is, is good for my client, then I can sell it to him right here and there.” And he just said, “Your character will define how good of an advisor you’ll be on either side of the business model.” And so I appreciated that, and I don’t remember your question now.

Bo: Well, I wanted to ask about the business plan. I think you kind of answered it. It’s going to be like, once I get licensed, then I’ve got to go out in the community, in relationships, find people and essentially go attract business.

Brad: And so that’s the part where Haylee and I really had to talk about it, of like, I’m not getting a salary. I’m not getting insurance. I’m still going to be on Haylee’s insurance for a while, and as I build a client base, we’ll get there, but I might not make money for 12 months, like actual serious money.

Haylee: Jeremy has also been, as he’s transitioning and buying someone’s books, he’s going to transition some of those clients to Brad, and that transition.

Bo: A little bit of a feeder system set up there.

Brad: Yeah. He essentially said, he’s a solo firm. It’s just him. LPL is his support system. And he just said, “I’m already almost maxed out, and I’m buying these two books over the next three years. So I’m going to cherry pick some of the best and then leave the rest for you to go digging for gold and see where it’s at.” So it does feel like there’s a mixture of, I mean, long term my dream is to have a branch in my community where I live, where I go to church, where we take our kids to soccer practice, and have a branch here in Delaware, Ohio. But in the interim, it feels like it’d be wise to have somebody mentor me and help me grow in the world.

The Worst-Case Career Change Scenario (18:01)

Bo: So, anytime someone goes through a career transition, a life transition, we always want to put on 3D goggles. What does it look like? What’s the realistic, down-to-earth, hopeful expectation of how this plays out? What does this look like if it goes really bad and doesn’t meet my expectations? That’s the doo-doo plan. What happens if it works really, really well? As you think about this career that you’re transitioning into, have you put together, and I’m specifically asking for the household, from an income standpoint, what’s kind of the doo-doo outcome, the down-to-earth outcome, the dream outcome, based on the trajectory that you’re moving in?

Brad: I would say, I like the doo-doo outcome. The worst outcome would be I get two years into this and I’ve only made like 50 grand over the whole time and the client base isn’t building, and I’m just sitting here like, I know that I’ll like the work, but if that’s the case, we would have to take a long look at it and say, I don’t know, is this worth it?

Bo: So let’s pause there. If that were the case, what would y’all do?

Haylee: I think that if he was really enjoying it and saw that there was potential still there, we would just have to have a conversation, because if we want to go towards our family goals, we’d like to have one more kid, and if that’s the case, I’m not working as much as I work right now.

Brad: Yeah.

Haylee: And so I think it’d be a conversation of, okay, how can we make this… what could we change, or if there is anything, or if there’s not, what is our exit strategy?

Brad: And even at that point, I feel like I would have more options to apply at firms in my area that might pay a salary and have bonuses on top of that. I feel like I could say, “Hey, I’ve got two years in the industry now,” and have a better chance of getting hired, rather than somebody who’s 35 and, I’ve worked in the finance world in the sense of being a major gift officer, but I’ve never been in the finance world. So I think that would be conversations that we would have, as with most things. We would talk a lot.

Bo: And as you guys think about the kids and the responsibilities… I’m assuming that was the ideal for the household. You’ve gone to 24 hours, but there’s not a scenario where you’re full-time. There’s not a scenario where it’s 40 hours doing that full-time as a nurse.

Haylee: I can already say I don’t want to do that. It’s not what I would want to do. But here’s the thing. I’ve told Brad, I’ve done lots of hard things in my job. If I can have a timeline for something, I work night shifts for 12 hours. I can do anything for 12 hours. If you give me a timeline of how long that something will be for, yeah, I could do it for a year.

Brad: Yeah. And at the start of this, we had that conversation of, okay, we have emergency savings. She can up her hours to the point where we’re about a wash of what we’re making and what has to go out. How long could we do that for? And our conversation was about 18 months. She’s like, if I knew that we were doing this till the end of 2027, we could make that work. I think the hardest part is going to be once I’m fully starting doing it. At that point, she’s still working all of those hours and I’m trying to go out and build a business. And I think that’s going to be the difficult point of, man, we really got to be very structured with our lives as she’s working. Because yes, she’s working 24 hours a week, but she’s also picking up bonus shifts.

Haylee: Yeah.

Bo: So it’s a guaranteed 24 hours.

Haylee: Yeah. So I’m working at least 24 hours as my guaranteed. And then I pick up as available, and school starts, which means the germs start, and there are more kids at the urgent care, money to be made. [laughter]

Bo: That’s right. Yeah. So there’s always the option for more.

Haylee: Yep.

What Would Make This Career Change Successful? (21:58)

Bo: All right. So that’s the doo-doo plan. Let’s not talk about the dream plan. Let’s talk about the down-to-earth plan.

Brad: Yeah.

Bo: $25,000 a year. So $50,000 over the next two years would be a not ideal outcome.

Brad: Yeah.

Bo: As you guys have talked about it, what would be, okay, if I can get my income here, this is success, this is a thing worth pursuing, this will work for our household?

Brad: I think if in the next three years I could get to a point where I’m at like $80,000 to $90,000 or above, and she could go back down to one or two days a week, and we could have another kid and start building towards things, I’m like, “Yeah, I think that would be an incredibly straightforward, successful…”

Haylee: Yeah.

Bo: Has Jeremy given you enough transparency? Do you know, is that a level of assets under management? Is it a certain number of insurance policies sold? What does that look like, so you can know what you’re going towards, versus just the number?

Brad: It would mostly be assets under management. It’d be trying to move towards…

Bo: So to get to $80,000, how much in assets under management?

Brad: Oh. I don’t know. You guys are great at public math. [laughter] Where’s the calculator? I couldn’t say off the top of my head. I would say the goal would be to hit $3 million to $4 million in the first year.

Bo: Okay.

Brad: And hopefully grow from that to $4 million to $5 million on top of that in the second year. So I would imagine $20 million to $30 million. Once again, this is me as a newbie walking into this. You guys would know way better than I would.

Building a Client Base From Scratch (23:34)

Bo: Because obviously there are different models inside the financial planning world, and this model is like, hey, I’ve got to go out there and attract people and bring them in. Do you have a network? I mean, obviously you were a development officer, and so, when you think about having to come up with $20 million to $30 million of assets, do you feel like you have $20 million to $30 million of relationships, or at least some sort of seeded pool of relationships to pull from, or is this like, I’ve got to knock on doors?

Brad: I feel like it’s somewhere in between those two.

Bo: Okay.

Brad: I do have the relationships. I think one of my struggles with it is, a lot of the people that would recognize the need for a financial advisor probably already have one, and even some of my friends that I know have the assets to need one already have one. And so I don’t know what that looks like as a friend to walk into that space and be like, “Hey, I kind of have an awareness of where you’re at financially, so can I manage your money?” And there is that awkwardness of, like, “Well, yeah, I already have a financial planner and I like them.” And so I have had a lot of thoughts around what I could do, and even just looking at the local employers in the area and saying, “Hey, Honda has a huge presence in the north central Ohio area. So what does it look like to become an expert on their retirement plans and be the financial planner that, if you work for Honda…” One of my neighbors has worked for Honda for like 15 years. So I’ve thought about avenues of becoming an expert in specific things. But to basically answer your question, it’s kind of a mixture. Got to go out there and find it.

Bo: Got to go out there and find it.

Do Not Burn Your Relationships Too Early (25:10)

Brian: I don’t want us to get sidetracked, but I do come from a background where I was working in public accounting, got into doing financial planning, and then had this crazy idea after my father passed away that I wanted to go work for myself. And I thought I had this, what I thought was going to happen versus what happened. And I can remember I thought, with going back and starting my business in my hometown, that all my friends’ parents would remember, oh, how fun Brian was, how smart Brian was. He’s a good kid. [laughter] And people would line up, and it worked out perfectly that way. Well, I mean, I was so thankful I came from a public accounting background, because there’s a reason I built a tax practice instead of a financial planning practice, and it’s because I couldn’t get clients. I mean, I just had the hardest time getting clients. I think it took me three and a half years to get to the first $10 million in assets under management, and now I get hired to go speak at conferences about marketing, and I’m like, if you guys only knew how horrible I am at sales, because it’s just hard to convince people, and the people just didn’t show up like I thought they would. I thought they would remember. I think people are always scared, especially if you’re new to something. They don’t want to be the guinea pigs. And this is something, because I have a lot of friends whose children will go do internships and other things, and they say, “Hey, Brian, do you have any thoughts, since you’ve kind of come from this background?” I always tell these children, when they’re getting it going and doing these internships, if you can at all costs, avoid using your relationships, the people that love you, until you build enough expertise so that you don’t burn those relationships. And I pick on Bo, because Bo worked at an insurance company in college, and Bo, as you can tell, this guy, if God was choosing favorites, [laughter] he got, I mean, he got way carried away. So I think he probably had a lot of people that would have probably even had a better result than I would have had when he came back and knocked on the doors. But he was young and eager. He went and knocked on those doors probably a little too early. And it’s just, be careful with sales, because the skill set of sales is so valuable. It always will be, no matter what AI does, no matter what everybody does, the ability to go knock on a door or ask somebody an uncomfortable question. Most people just don’t want to do that. You sound like, I love fundraising. Nobody loves fundraising, but somehow you might be the exception to the rule. I just want to make sure your talents and experience catch up to the ability. So, just keep that in mind. I’m not trying to throw cold water or anything. I just want to make sure that you don’t go burn any relationships that love you enough that they would be willing to take that risk when you’re just not ready to know how to do it well.

Brad: Yeah. I think that’s the awkwardness I feel. I’ve used this phrase a lot in the last few months where I’m like, man, I think 25-year-old Brad would have done that, right? And I think 35-year-old Brad is just barely wise enough to know what I don’t know and to walk in kind of carefully, but I also want to take care of my family.

Brian: I get it. I get it. I’m curious where this will all lead.

Brad: Sure.

Abound Wealth (28:22)

Bo: But we’ve heard some crazy stuff when we’ve been recording Making a Millionaire.

Brian: Buddy, have we. From things like roommates turning off their heat for two years to save money, someone buying expensive Thanksgiving pillows without their spouse knowing, and who could forget the $100 horse massages.

Bo: Yeah. And you know what? We don’t judge.

Brian: Well, okay, maybe a little on the horse thing. But look, our job is not to stop you, or even your horse, from enjoying your money. It’s to make sure your entire financial picture is solid so you can enjoy it guilt-free.

Bo: And that’s what we do every day at Abound Wealth. We sit down with our clients, learn what’s important to them, and build a plan around their actual life, horse massages and all.

Brian: If you’ve been watching these episodes thinking, I wish I had someone who could do that for me, we’d love to have that conversation. We’re fee-only fiduciary advisors and we’re here to help.

Bo: Just head over to aboundwealth.com or click the link below. We’d love to connect and see if we’re a good fit for you.

Brian: No judgment. Mostly.

Should They Keep Investing Right Now? (29:23)

Bo: What questions, as you guys are navigating this transition and trying to figure out what this looks like, what questions can we help you answer? What can we speak into to be valuable for you guys as you navigate this?

Brad: Something we were talking about was, what does it look like to have a savings rate while we’re not tapping into our emergency fund, but we’re not adding to it either, or treading water?

Haylee: Yeah. Treading water would be a good way of putting it.

Bo: Brian, I’m going to put you on the spot. When you went on your own and started your own business, in that first year, maybe even that second year, do you remember what your savings rate was then?

Brian: Yeah, it pretty much is nothing. Zero. That’s the thing. I went from, my wife and I were right at the six-figure mark, and then I was, well, no, that’s not even correct. I was at the six-figure mark when I went out on my own. My wife was doing great too. So we were really enjoying the no children, good incomes. But then I can remember I went from right under six figures to $17,000, and that’s with taxes.

Bo: Yeah.

Brian: That’s pretty much all doing taxes. So it was just tough. Now, I will say the reason we made it through it is I had built up somewhere between $40,000 and $60,000 of cash reserves. We basically, to seed starting a business, when my dad passed away, I had this moment where I told my wife I just couldn’t keep doing the life that we were living. We lived off of just her salary and then just banked mine. My dad passed away in December of 2000, and then I didn’t leave until February of 2002. So we took a year and like two or three months to just stockpile cash through that period. And that cash, we used every bit of it, because I just, and in my book I even detail, because we didn’t do Roth contributions during some of that period, and I have regrets, but it’s just, by any means necessary, we were just trying to make it through it.

Why Cash Matters More Than Investing Right Now (31:16)

Bo: Yeah. And so, when I think about where you guys are, Brian had the benefit of preparing for this exit, preparing for this thing where he built up this cash, had this cushion. You guys are in a little bit of a different situation, only because this event happened and it wasn’t necessarily something you were planning for and were able to get ahead of. And so the way that you react to that has to be a little bit different. If I were in your situation, I’m probably not thinking a whole lot about savings rate. The analogy that I would give you is, Brian thinks I’m not a great swimmer. I’m a fantastic swimmer. [laughter]

Brian: He’s getting better.

Bo: If you were to drop us in the ocean…

Brian: Yeah.

Bo: My number one goal is just to keep my head above water. And so if Brian starts telling me, “Hey, you should do your stroke this way, and this is how a backstroke works,” that’s not going to be helpful for me in that moment. In that moment, I need to do everything I can to keep my head above water and survive. Your situation’s not quite that dire, but there is a parallel there that I think you guys should live as lean as you can and stock up as much cash as you can. And this can be very counterintuitive coming from us, but funding Roth IRAs and trying to increase your 401(k) above the employer match and doing all of that, I think that’s getting the Financial Order of Operations out of whack, because right now you guys have to get on solid financial foundational footing, and that’s living as low as you can, stacking as much cash as you can, in case there’s another window thing or HVAC thing or medical thing, until you are able to get your income back up there. And then what you have to recognize is there’s a real opportunity cost associated with that. It’s different when a 23-year-old and a 25-year-old go through this than a 33 and a 35-year-old. So I do think it’d be wise to have conversations around, okay, we’re going to do this, we’re going to go down this path. But even as we define the doo-doo outcome, the down-to-earth outcome, and the dream outcome, we have to put some sort of timeline on that. Like, okay, if we’re moving in the doo-doo route, but it’s between doo-doo and dream, how long are we going to do this before we recognize, okay, something has to shift, something has to change? And I think that’s probably more of the pertinent planning you guys ought to be doing, instead of savings rate. Right now, every dollar y’all can put together ought to just be going in the coffers, like, okay, keep us okay, keep us okay, keep us okay, just because you don’t know when that next unknown unknown thing might happen.

Haylee: So even then you would still say keep that employer match?

Bo: I think so. I would keep doing the employer match. What’s your funding formula? It sounds like, because to see how much is in there, I bet the funding formula is pretty strong.

Haylee: Yeah. So if I put in 3%, they put in 1.5%. But then the 401(a) is solely, if I work 20 hours, like a profit sharing, then I’m at 5% with how long I’ve worked.

Brad: Once she hits 1,000 hours, it’s 5% of whatever she made in that 1,000.

Bo: That’s great. Awesome.

Haylee: Yeah. Yep.

Bo: So I think, just for sure, keep doing those, because that’s kind of like free money. Unbelievable rate of return. But then outside of that, I do think building up cash, stacking up cash, and what you’re really trying to do is just race to income. Hey, what can I do to get my income up? And I do think you probably have to live in the season. I don’t know how tight things are now, but I would try to be as tight as possible just until we get back to that place that we want to be in.

Brian: I mean, you should know. I’ll tell you, it took us three years to kind of get footing. So I would say you better start seeing some sunlight probably after 24 months, okay? If there’s not sunlight in 24 months, this might not be fruitful. The only thing that you said that scared me a little bit about your boss is that he’s buying books of business. He’s buying books, and that requires capital to do, whereas I’d love to hear there was a strategy where, you know, I loved your idea of going to Honda and other things, because that’s inbound. That’s going out there and finding it, versus just acquiring or growing through other means, because you’re not going to be able to do that. You don’t have the money to go acquire a book of business. So I’d love to know what type of training you’re going to get to know how to do those conversations.

Brad: Well, yeah. And that’s kind of my hope with him, is that it is a very strong mentorship type of component. And he has said, I think the thing I appreciate about him is that he has said, “You’re going to own your book of whatever’s here, and whatever you bring in is 100% yours, and whenever you’re ready to go off and do your own thing, you can take it with you.”

Brian: Okay.

Brad: And I think that’s the key thing for me, that he seems to be approaching it with that sense of, I want to mentor you, get you a good start, and if you want to keep doing it with me, great, we can keep doing it. If you seem like you want to go do your own thing, go do your own thing. So I appreciate that freedom that it feels like it could offer me. But I definitely feel that opportunity cost of, but I’m also not going to make a salary. And I feel more comfortable with that if it was just me, and Haylee does not feel comfortable with that for a long period of time. Like you said, we want to see movement in the next 12 to 18 months to discuss the timeline of, hey, here’s the timeline we’re going to operate on to feel comfortable.

Bo: Is that a conversation y’all have already had?

Haylee: Yeah. I think what you said of, like, 18 months, of there’s no, we don’t feel like there’s any tiny little light coming, then we’re going to sort something out.

Brian: Well, can I even challenge you on that a little bit? If it were me, and I don’t want to project, I wouldn’t be looking for tiny little specks of light, because tiny little specks of light could be false hope. You know what I mean? I would want to see that there is meaningful movement towards, this is going to be a viable outcome where I’m going to be able to provide for the family. Because if it’s just tiny little specks, you might be running that time where, okay, you’re 35, well then you’re going to be 38, and now you get into, at some point you have to not chase the specks and you’ve got to go where you know there’s daylight.

Brad: Yeah.

Brian: And so I would just encourage you guys to have that conversation as well.

Haylee: And I will say that, from everything I know, which is very little about the financial world, I know that it can get a little shady. And the confidence that Brad has is that the relationship he has with Jeremy’s brother is very strong, and Peter has spoken to Jeremy’s character, that if what he’s saying is he wants to mentor Brad, then that’s true. And when Jeremy spoke to Brad, he said, “I want to give you the start that I wish that I had had.” He had started at like an Edward Jones, and he said, “I got a good start and did well, but they were always pushing for that next, oh, here’s the next tier that you could be hitting, Jeremy. When are you going to hit that?” And he has said that LPL has just given him the freedom to be him and make as much or as little as he wants and grow at your pace. Grow at your pace, type of thing.

Brad: So I think a lot of those things appeal to me, because I said from the start, I will not just push products. That is one of the grossest feelings, when you sit down with somebody and you know that they’re trying to sell you something that you might not need. I can’t. I will not do that to people.

The Family Farm and an Important Estate Conversation (38:23)

Brian: What other questions can we answer for you guys? What other things can we say that would be valuable?

Brad: I think one of the curiosities, something that’s not listed on there, is that technically me and my brother own a farm. That’s our family farm.

Brian: Well, isn’t it on the net worth statement? Wait, when you do a net worth statement, you [laughter] don’t leave assets off the net worth statement.

Brad: So, here’s my question. Is something truly an asset if you won’t sell it? It’s a family farm.

Bo: Well, does it generate income?

Brad: It does, for the fact that my father farms it, but I’m not a farmer, and my brother lives in Missouri, and so he isn’t going to farm it. So when my parents choose to retire, the land, from what we have talked about so far, would be rental farmland.

Bo: Okay. Is the land valuable? Is it valuable land if you were to sell the actual piece of property?

Brad: It would depend on how you sold it. If it got parceled off into smaller pieces, it would be worth a lot of money.

Bo: Got it. Your goal and your brother’s, y’all are on the same page. Never going to sell it, right?

Brad: I don’t see a world where that would happen.

Bo: How about your brother? Does he feel the same way?

Brad: We haven’t had that conversation, but I would imagine, in the agricultural world…

Brian: While everybody’s alive, y’all should have that conversation.

Brad: Yeah.

Brian: And with Mom and Dad and all the parties, everybody needs to be on the same page. Because what you don’t want to have is your parents retire, pass away, whatever it is, and now you and your brother have this weird dynamic and nobody knows, because nobody was willing to ask the question while Mom and Dad were around, of what was really expected of them. Because I don’t want you to have one set of expectations, your brother have another one, and then your parents have a completely different one, and you don’t even know what the legacy or what the obligations are under this big, big thing.

Brad: Yeah.

Brian: And I imagine everybody’s going to tell you they don’t want it to be a burden to you. Hopefully this will be an asset to be used for the future. But the only way you’re going to know all these things and all the facets is if you start having those conversations now.

Haylee: Is that going to be weird?

Brad: Will that be weird? It’ll be tense, just in the depth of it. But I think if you have your parents involved, it’s not you and your brother deciding on their behalf.

Bo: It’s, if you have your parents involved, it’s, hey, what do you guys desire? I think maybe that perhaps should remove some of the weirdness, right?

Brad: Yeah. I think that, we have talked about having to have this. The hard part is that my brother lives in Missouri, and so when he comes back to Ohio, the kids are all playing and there’s never time, and we haven’t made that a priority yet.

Bo: And your parents are in their mid-60s and in relatively good health, and probably have years and years and years. But this is why this needs to be talked about now, because what you say is an income-producing asset currently, if your dad all of a sudden just quit working the land, there are going to be expenses or burdens that are created that will start stacking up and getting really expensive really quick. And if y’all are in this lean period of your life, I don’t know what your brother’s financial situation is, we’ve got a problem, a big problem, because something that means a lot to the family is now going to start being in disrepair or not doing so well. That’s why a plan, it shouldn’t fall only on you guys. It needs to be a collaborative effort while everybody has the ability to do something. Probably small decisions now can do big results down the road, versus waiting until it’s all hands on deck and then, oh crap, what are we going to do? I’d just rather y’all have that discussion now.

Brad: Yeah.

Should They Start Saving for Their Dream Home? (42:06)

Brad: I think another curiosity that I have had is, part of this is hard to talk about because we’re so focused on the present, like the next 24 months, but long term, we’re in an incredible house. We bought in 2019. We refinanced in 2020. It was beautiful. Eight to 10 years from now, we’re like, “All right, we want to find our dream home, and we want to be able to buy or build a house that we want to be in for the rest of our life and have our grandkids in and all that.” And so I’m kind of curious, what does it look like to save for that dream home? How do you consider equity in your first home to build towards that? Because we’ve put our home value at what we paid plus improvements.

Brian: Okay. Can I be honest with you?

Brad: Yeah.

Brian: You remember how Bo was talking about earlier that if you put him out in the ocean, even with his new swimming pool that’s made him a little bit better swimmer, all he’s going to be thinking about is keeping his head above water? Me yelling out strokes and everything else is going to fall. So you do not need to be thinking about a new house. You can have that as, when I have to do something I don’t want to do for the family, I’m going to do this. You have to go call somebody. You have to go have a meeting you don’t want to have. Say, I’m going to do this for the family, I’m going to do this for that house that I’m going to build in the next X years. Use it as motivation. But to try to put actual mortar in the brick, or to try to put a blueprint down while you’re still so far, I think would be a waste of mental calories when you’re so far from that right now. You need to be figuring out how you build the engine. No reason to put wheels on this thing if you don’t even have an engine on the vehicle.

Bo: I think it’s worth dreaming about, but it’s not worth planning for yet. It’s just too far out for that. And I do think using it as a motivation tool is a great idea. Hey, here’s why we’re going to make some hard decisions over the next 12, 24, 36 months, but we’re hoping those hard decisions lead to this outcome, where maybe one day we can do this and one day we can do this. And look, you’re going into kind of a sales role, and sales roles, like, pick up the phone, knock on the door, make the meeting. That gets real hard, and that’s just the honest truth of that. Having something that keeps you motivated to keep doing it, if it’s the fourth kid or the new house or whatever that thing is, I think having those things is great, but those are motivators, not planning items. Not yet. Not at this stage.

Brad: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think my brain’s always thinking about the technical.

Brian: Well, that’s why Bo did you a favor by talking about the 3D glasses. All of us get caught up in the dream plan and you thinking about that house on the hill.

Brad: Yeah.

Brian: That’s the dream. We all think about it, but I’m going to tell you, don’t skip out on the doo-doo plans, because that’s where a lot of times, to even turn a dream, you have to kind of make it through the doo-doo part. And believe me, I’m telling you, I lived through that. And that’s the thing about success, is nobody knows what you had to go through to get on the other side. You’ve got to get through the poop first. I mean, I hate to say it, but you’re going to have to deal with that, and you’re going to be challenged in the beginning, because it is going to be a straight-up sales role. And what you feel that you won’t do, you might. Because that’s the thing, the first firm I worked at, we did life insurance, okay? And the thing that I found myself, and it’s because when you find out how big the commissions are, it does weird mental things. I always call it the Looney Tunes in the desert, to where, you know, Bugs Bunny, when he’s out there in the desert, everything starts looking like a giant turkey, when he’s hungry. It looks like a turkey leg, or you see an oasis over everything. It’s amazing when you’re hungry and starved and you find out a friend just got a promotion, you’re like, maybe they need that second-to-die policy, or, you know, you just start. It’s a weird human coping thing that happens. And that’s not to say that you’ll fall into it, but I think it’s a human nature thing. Just make it through that season first before we start going through the dream plan.

Brad: What kept you going through that season?

Brian: I mean, I had to make it. Because I went out on my own in February of 2002, and then my wife got pregnant with our first in 2003. And there was lots of prayer. There was lots of, I’ve got to make it happen. And I’ll be honest, some of it was providence. I have no reason why, when my child was born and my wife was on maternity leave, and I knew we had, she had nine weeks, 12 weeks, but her maternity leave, I got more prospects than I had ever. I mean, I shouldn’t have gotten them. A few of them are still clients.

Bo: Well, but there’s also, I want to be clear, there was another tactical thing that was happening at that time. He did have a skill set where he had a second job.

Brian: Oh yeah.

Bo: He was doing tax returns, and that was the thing that was paying the bills while he was still building that.

Brian: Yeah. Don’t get busy doing nothing. I will say, because that’s the one thing a lot of people, when I’m giving guidance on how to get into financial planning, I always tell them there’s a great CFP program that costs like five grand that people can study at home, and it lets them qualify to sit for the CFP exam. I’m always like, what I like about these types of programs, you can go work your day job and then still dip your foot in by passing the exams and then seeing if you can navigate in. You’re kind of in the deep end. You know, you’re Bo handsome without his water wings. [laughter] Just seeing if you can see…

Bo: I don’t wear floaties. I want to be very clear to the audience.

Brian: You were getting ripped this episode, man. [laughter] But in all seriousness, don’t just study. Get out there and make stuff happen, and then be prepared to do side things or whatever you need to. There’s no pride in providing for the family.

Bo: Exactly. And that is kind of the… I, man, hopefully this helps. I mean, I feel like I didn’t want this to be like a Rocky coaching session, but it is one, just to let you know that it’s going to be a cold winter, but if you save up enough nuts and work hard enough, you’ll make it through it.

Brian: Well, guys, we can put together some stuff. I’ve got some ideas, just some little takeaways, tidbits, and notes that we’ll pass along to you guys. But I just appreciate you coming on, telling your story. Thank you so much for doing that.

Brad: It’s a blessing to be here.

Brian: Awesome. Thanks, guys.

Post-Session Analysis: Stack Cash and Set Deadlines (48:25)

Bo: Brian, we had an interesting conversation, I feel like, with Brad and Haylee.

Brian: Yeah, that’s an understatement. I mean, I felt like, you know, we normally are shiny, happy people.

Bo: Sure.

Brian: With our guests and Brad, I mean, this is one of those things where we had to cover some financial issues, but then also, I felt like there were some things that they just needed to hear, so that we can make sure that Brad is truly building a career and not just kind of drifting and dreaming, in a lot of ways, with their financial planning and their cash flow.

Bo: So often we want to do financial planning. We want to solve financial problems. But where they’re at right now, I don’t know that financial planning per se is the main focus. I think they kind of have to do some life planning, in terms of where are we going to be and what are we going to do, and how are we going to be able to move ourselves in the direction so that we can start doing financial planning. So, primarily focus on cash flow.

Brian: Yep. And then also career planning.

Bo: Yeah. I think I would split their planning into two buckets. There’s the very tactical plan to figure, okay, what do I do right now? How do I do the Financial Order of Operations? How do I follow that? But then there is the life advice that we think they probably need to hear. Because what I’m worried about is it’s going to be very easy for them to fall into not having the tough conversation, not having the difficult realization, if the third D of their 3D plan is the one that plays out.

Brian: Yeah. And I’m glad you brought up the Ds, because we did tell them to do the 3D plan, where they actually do the dream plan, do the down-to-earth, and then don’t skip the doo-doo plan, because I do feel like they need to focus on, hey, all things need to lead to living as lean as possible, building up as much cash as possible, because Brad, in this career path he’s gone with, going the financial advisor route, but more on the you-have-to-go-out-there-and-hunt-and-kill-and-bring-it-in side, there’s a risk associated with that, and I think they need to build their cash flow plan to try to build as much cushion into that plan as possible.

Bo: Yeah. I think that, obviously, Financial Order of Operations, get the employer match, but everything else has to go to fortifying that, because when you have variable, unknown income, and when there’s a family involved, cash is the resource that is literally the oxygen that allows you to survive, that allows you to keep moving forward. And if Brad were in a situation where he were two months or three months away from a consistent paycheck and a consistent salary, I think our guidance would be different. But I think right now, from a tactical standpoint, they should stack cash, cash, cash until they have some consistency in what his income is. Now, fortunately, Haylee has a very consistent job. She works in nursing. She can go do her employer match. So there is going to be some money out there growing, but I wouldn’t go beyond that, and I would let everything else go towards keeping the lifestyle as small as possible and saving the cash. Now, there is, I think, probably a more difficult relationship conversation they need to have, because it sounds like Haylee’s desire is not necessarily to be working long-term while Brad is not able to produce income.

Check-In Points and a Realistic Timeline (51:33)

Brian: Right. There’s some tension there.

Bo: There was, because look, and I thought you handled it really well, Haylee could be the primary provider and Brad could be the stay-at-home, right? But I felt like you could immediately see under the surface that’s not what Haylee wants, because she wants as much time with the children as possible. So it’s on Brad. And that’s, look, the thing I would say to Brad is put some timelines on this thing. Check-ins, definitely, I don’t know, definitely have three months, six months, 12 months, 18 months. At some point, we need to figure out, is this really working? Because $50,000, I mean, even if Brad was just bringing in $50,000, $60,000 a year, life-changing, because of what Haylee makes as a nurse, this thing might work just off of that. So that’s why I need Brad to create some check-in points so he doesn’t drift too long.

Brian: And they need to make sure they’re on the same page with that. If it’s going to be, hey, six months, we need to be at this level, I need to have this level of success or else I’m going to shift. And that shift may, unfortunately, be finding a more consistent paycheck, finding a different vocation, finding a different job somewhere else. But here’s the good news, because they’re going to have to figure that out. Even if his dream plan doesn’t play out, even if they don’t go out there and make a gazillion dollars, they have some great things going for them. One you’ve already mentioned is her employer match. While she’s working, there is money going in, and they’re super young, so they have a lot of time for their dollars to compound right now.

Their Long-Term Retirement Picture (53:06)

Bo: By the way, it was not just a match. If you remember, she has a very generous employer that’s not only putting in a match, they’re putting in a contribution. Was it 5%?

Brian: Yeah, it’s a 1.5% match on her 3% contribution. There’s an additional 5% going into the 401(a).

Bo: Give your employer a hug today.

Brian: Yeah. 9.5%. So, if all they were able to do is save 9.5% of her pay from now, at age 34, out to retirement age, they would still be able to build up about a $2.5 million portfolio. And if we think about a safe withdrawal rate on that, that’s going to generate somewhere around $40,000 to $42,000 a year. If you add Social Security on that, it’s going to match their current standard of living based on their current income. But, and that’s a projection, it lets them know, hey, if the doo-doo plan happened, this is where you guys would be. But I think that’s missing the plot. I think the bigger thing to figure out is what is his long-term vocation going to be, and what’s his long-term realistic income trajectory. And I kind of alluded to it earlier, that even if Brad could just get to where he’s making $50,000, $60,000 consistently, that would allow him to start funding a Roth IRA on top of Haylee’s retirement plan, her very generous retirement plan. And just making that simple adjustment could make it to where, instead of having a retirement where it’s like bare bones, in the $40,000 range in today’s dollars, they would even easily go up to like $75,000 a year with these projections just by adding the Roth contributions. Just being able to save that $15,000 now puts them in this threshold where, if the portfolio can generate $75,000, and if they both have Social Security that can come in at that time, they’re talking about close to a six-figure income in retirement. That’s fantastic. But he has to get the income figured out. He has to figure out where that’s going to come from, and he has to be realistic. If this financial advisor thing does not work out, how is he going to replace that? Because he’s young, but he’s not that young, and so there’s some tension there that has to be recognized.

Bo: I would say, Brad, Haylee, I mean, I’m hopeful for the best, and this would be a fun one to probably check into in a year, year and a half from now, just to see, did everything that they had hoped come to fruition, and I’m hoping we’re pleasantly surprised and he’s absolutely crushing it out there in the financial planning sphere. It’s just, it’s a hard thing to get into. And again, cash is going to be their friend, because cash is the thing that’s going to give you the time to be able to make that happen. But they need to be true to themselves. If it’s not moving in that direction, how are they going to shift? How are they going to adjust? And how are they going to make the difficult but right decisions for their family?

Closing (55:44)

Brian: Well, I enjoyed having Brad and Haylee on the show. Bo, if others want to apply, where should they go?

Bo: Yeah, if you want to be a guest on Making a Millionaire, you can go to moneyguy.com/apply. Or if you want to check out any of our free resources, tools, or calculators, go to moneyguy.com/resources.

Brian: Brad, Haylee, I know that this conversation probably went a little different than you anticipated, but hopefully still some of this connected so that you could cover the cash flow. Think about those career milestones that need to be hit so you can live your great big beautiful tomorrow. I’m your host, Brian, joined by Mr. Bo. Money Guy Team, out.