BiggerPockets Money Podcast - When You Should (and Shouldn’t) Hire a Financial Advisor | Life After FIRE

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Could hiring a financial advisor help you reach financial independence and retire early? This isn’t a popular move in the FIRE community, but it gave today’s guest peace of mind, preserved her wealth, and helped her save on taxes in retirement. Stick around to learn if it’s the right choice for you, too!   Welcome to another episode of “Life After FIRE”! Today, we’re chatting with Amy, who was dealt a set of circumstances that altered her life and retirement plans. Amy and her late husband, Phil, arrived at their FIRE number in 2020. Just as they were preparing for early retirement, Phil tragically passed, and Amy was left to not only navigate a new normal but also take control of her finances. Still reeling from the loss of her husband, Amy hired a financial advisor, which turned out to be one of the best decisions she ever made.   In this episode, Amy shares how she used money check-ins and a year of “experimental deprivation” to speed up her path to retirement. She also discusses the pros and cons of using financial advisors, the differences between the assets-under-management and fee-only models, and how to properly vet an advisor to ensure you’re getting your money’s worth! In This Episode We Cover Why Amy uses a financial advisor to help manage her money in retirement Amy’s journey to financial independence, losing her husband, and retiring early Assets under management (AUM) versus fee-only advisors (and which one to hire!) How to reach your FIRE number sooner through “experimental deprivation” Why you need to have regular money check-ins with your significant other And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-621 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, my dear listeners, as you may or may not know, my husband Carl and I have a new series on YouTube on the Bigger Pockets Money channel called Life After Fire. And as a very special bonus, we're going to be airing episodes here on the podcast on Wednesdays. Today, we're talking with my friend Amy about the taboo topic of hiring a financial advisor to help her with her finances and why she chose to go this route. We'll also talk about her fire life as a single woman and how she reached financial independence in the first place. Hi there, I'm Mindy Jensen and there's no Carl Jensen today. This is the Life After Fire Show. And we call it that because we're talking about and talking to people who are living their best life after reaching financial independence.

Amy, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Let's first chat about how you reached financial independence. Sure. So back in 2015, I found Pete's blog. Mr. Money Mustache. I don't remember exactly how I got there, but I have a hunch. It was probably through Get Rich Slowly, because Get Rich Slowly and J.D. Roth were the very first finance blog I ever started reading. And I'd been checking in on him for years. And sometimes I think he would talk about Pete or he would link to Pete. And so eventually I ended up on Pete's site. And I read that very pivotal

article, the shockingly simple math behind early retirement, the one that explains, okay, if you can save 25 times your expenses, then guess what? You can retire. And I remember just being like kind of skeptical, but very, very intrigued by this. And like, wow, this is really interesting. Okay. So I had a full time work from home job at the time, which meant like, yes, I was spending some of that time, like browsing blogs and reading the internet and not like being 100% productive. And I made my way down the list of every single post that had ever been made on Pete's blog. And, you know, especially in those early days, it was all about like face punches and like very like, you should not be spending money on these things. And it was an interesting sort of space to

mentally marinate in. At the time, I was married to my now late husband, Phil. And I would bring these topics up at dinner or whatever. I'd be like, I've been reading this blog. And like, this guy's talking about retiring really, really young. And what do you think about this? And at first, was pretty dismissive about it. He was like, no, that's not possible. No way. And then I started talking about it more. I got him to look at that article. We started kind of getting excited doing the math until we were like, hey, we could do this. Like, we could make this happen. So that was kind of the beginning that that was in 2015, the sort of reading the blog and getting on the wagon. And 2016 was when we like truly, truly kicked it off. We liked that symmetry of like, okay, January 1st,

we're we're this is what we're doing we set a timeline at that time we were expecting that it would actually take us about eight years to reach our goals um in the end it took us significantly less than that so that was that's kind of the origin story of how financial independence came into my life so what kind of changes did you make to your spending and your financial life in general once you discovered this once you convinced phil to join you did you make any kind of changes your spending or your savings? Yeah, we made a lot of changes. So we were actually doing a really good job, I thought, of saving before this. Like, we were maxing out our 401ks and our IRAs. We were saving on top of that. And because all of those kind of ducks were in a row, we were like, well, we can spend

the rest of this money that we, we had very good salaries. We were like, we could spend this. Like, we don't have to feel bad about, you know, traveling a lot about dining out at our favorite places about, you know, we were also in the process of totally gutting and renovating our home. So we were like, okay, we can like choose nicer finishes or whatever. Nothing plated in gold, but we weren't, we were not holding ourselves to like the bare minimum. We weren't trying to source things from the habitat restore or from Craigslist. We were like, let's just buy it at Lowe's. Let's go to Lowe's eight times a day during those construction weekends.

So we were coming into this from a pretty good spot. And then latching on to this financial independence dream just made us really kick it into high gear. That's when we did scale all those sorts of extras back. We stopped going out to eat. We stopped traveling for the most part, except for like very minimalist road trips. We did start sourcing things from Craigslist and the restore. We just kind of pulled back on all the extras. I stopped buying books as like a super lifelong reader and writer.

and writer, I was always buying books. And in the end, I actually wasn't keeping all that many of them. I have an aversion to clutter. I was constantly, like, weeding through my collection. But what that meant was like every time the library said, oh, we're having a book sale, come donate your books, I would be dropping off grocery bags that I had bought most of those books, like off of Amazon, you know, whatever Amazon prices were at the time, probably 20 or 30% off. So it was not very efficient. So I switched to using the library. So there were all these ways that we cut things back for sure. We were definitely, that first year was one of, I would say, a sort of experimental deprivation.

We were not freely spending in any category. It was all like, do we really need that? Even if it was like a 99 cent chapstick at the checkout at Target. Okay. So you said experimental deprivation. I love that phrase. Did you? And you said it was that first year.

Did that change after a year? It did change. And I'm so glad in retrospect it changed for many, many reasons. But it changed because it was not very fun. And it turns out mentally, it's kind of hard to like see your balances go up and up and up and up and up and still be telling yourself no all the time. Like you're not experiencing any of those rewards. You're watching the numbers tick up, but you're just like, nope, can't do anything fun. We're not, you know, going on vacation. We're not going out to a nice restaurant with our friends. So it was kind of too much. So after that first year, you know, we did accounting together regularly, a minimum of once a month. And then in December, it was sort of like a larger review of how the year had gone. And we were like, how did this go for you? How did this go for you? Oh, yeah.

And we found out we were on the same page about how it wasn't super fun. And we wanted to loosen the purse strings a little bit. And so that's what we did. And the following years after that, I would say kind of progressively more so, we just, we just, we just experience more freedom in spending. And it enhanced our life in many ways. I think it's funny that you were able to go. And I think it's great, not funny, great that you were able to go an entire year with this

experimental deprivation, my new favorite phrase. And then make the change. Did you have any sort of check in meetings during that first year? Or did you just like plow ahead and then get to the year and say, ah, this isn't working? Yeah, we had check-in meetings every month, but also probably more. So we had sort of more formal ones every month when we would update our spreadsheets. We would pull all of our balances across like, oh, okay, you've got that 401K over here. I've got this one over here.

What's this account doing? What's this account doing? And the market was also doing pretty well. So that was really boosting us. And it was fun. Those meetings were super fun because it was like, look at the progress we made. Look how much money we saved this month. This is so great.

Oh, my gosh. And it was very gamified. It was like, oh, we can look at our data and see that last year at this time, we were spending $400 a month on dining out. But this year, we spent like $13 on dining out because twice we ate at the Costco food court. You know, like crazy things inside of a month, crazy changes. That did make it fun because the numbers really did stack up. But we were, I'd say like there was some fatigue as the year went on. We're getting past the first few super exciting months.

And maybe we're in July or August. And we're like, okay, wow, we haven't been out to dinner in seven months. This is sort of sad. But okay, let's go to the Costco food quarter, whatever. So there were regular check-ins for sure. Dear listeners, we are so excited to announce that we now have a BiggerPockets Money newsletter. If you want to subscribe to our newsletter, please go to biggerpockets.com slash money newsletter. All right, we'll be right back after this.

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all accessible in one app. If you're looking to turn everyday moments into real progress, Audible has been indispensable for me over over 10 years. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at Audible.com slash BPMoney. Welcome back to the show. I love that you. had these monthly check-ins, I love that you said that they were fun. That makes my heart sing because I know a lot of people who don't currently have monthly check-ins are like, I don't want to have a monthly check-in because then I have to see all the things I did wrong. Well, you could also see the things that you did right. And sometimes things just go wrong in a whole month. I publicly

tracked my spending, tracked hour spending in 2022, the first six months of 2022. And month one, I went way over on almost every category because I had like a big car bill that I wasn't anticipating because I wasn't anticipating sliding into a snowbank and breaking the ball joint on the car. But so that was way over. And, you know, I didn't know how much I was spending on groceries. So I guessed really low. And like all of these other things, it can be really difficult to get to the end of the month and be like, wow, nothing went right this month. And there's always something that's going to go right. It's not like you're always going to be wrong.

But focusing on the positive is really important and it can help you continue on the path. And just even both of you being on the same page. That feeling of being on the same team definitely strengthened us in our financial independence journey so much. Because those meetings were not about like, oh, I bought a new sweater this month. I'm kind of going to be in trouble when we have this meeting. It wasn't like that at all. It was like, let's see how awesome. we did this month. And that just sort of changed the whole tenor. Oh, that's, that's a really great way

to reframe it. Amy, you're so positive. I love it. I once heard somebody say, it's not me against you. It's us against the world. And I love that phrase so much. I'm just going to keep saying it. So, Amy, did Rameet's philosophy of live your rich life influence you or did you kind of come to this incorporate the things you like by yourself? I think it was it was more organic. It was, just kind of something we came to in looking and evaluating our quality of life. I was familiar with Rameet back then, but not the rich life stuff. I don't remember when exactly that came about for him, but my early memories of Rameet actually came from also reading Get Rich slowly because J.D. Roth would link to Rameet. And I remember Rameet's anecdote about how when he was like in his

20s and going out to party in bars, but he didn't want to pay for drinks. He would bring a flask of rum and he would order a Coke or a Diet Coke and he would put his own liquor in it. So at the time, that was my primary association with Ramit's philosophy. It was not what it is today. I don't know exactly when he made that evolution. But if you had asked me back then, like, oh, would you say that what you and Phil are doing is something that could be called living your rich life? I might have said yes to that question because That is how it felt. We were, we were very specifically kind of curating the choices we wanted to make. Where was it worth it to us to spend? And where was it really easy to not spend? And that was,

you know, an ongoing conversation, but one that we were pretty much always on the same page about. I love that you were on the same page. I did not read Rameet's book. I will teach you to be rich until I think the first time I interviewed him on the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. And the reason I didn't read it is because it's called I will teach you to be rich. And I'm like, well, I already know how to get rich. You just save, save, save. I didn't realize that what it meant was I will teach you how to live a rich life. So I thought it was going to be like invest in your 401k and invest in your Roth IRA. And I'm like, well, I already know how to do that. So I'm not even going to bother reading this book. It was definitely different than what I expected it to be. And I think that I did myself

a disservice by not reading it much closer to the beginning of my journey. But, you know, we all have our shoulda what it could us. Yeah. Hindsight 2020, as they say. So I love that your story was woman led. In most couples in this space, the man is trying to convince her to do this financial independence thing, this weird thing. Given that you were the driving force behind this in the beginning, why did you decide

to hire a financial advisor? This is going to lead us down like into a bigger and sadder story to be. frank. So that beginning of that financial independence journey, as I mentioned, was back in 2015, 2016. A lot of things changed in fills in my life over the years, as it does for everyone. We had been living in a very low cost of living place at the time that we started this journey, and we at a certain point made the decision to move out to San Francisco for various career-related reasons. And so we did that. And there's kind of a lot in the mix, and then the pandemic came. and that is when we decided to get out of San Francisco where we literally, there was one time

when we didn't leave our apartment for 14 days. It was like very early days before vaccines, before testing was even readily available. And it was scary to literally be out on the street. Like you were keeping this like six foot wide birth around you. You didn't know a lot of things that we now know about that disease. So anyway, we wanted to leave. And we did. We moved out to Colorado. at that time. And that was in May of 2020, about five years ago. In June of 2020, very shortly after we moved here, we met our financial independence goal. We hit our fine number and we're like, oh my gosh, okay, here we are. Like after all this time and there's like this worldwide pandemic going on and nobody's leaving their houses. It was a very weird time to meet this number, but we were

happy about it, of course. And that, of course, also led to a discussion like, okay, what now? What are we going to do now? So Phil decided that he wanted to keep working because he was super happy with where he was. He had sort of finally found the kind of dream setup at work that he had been looking for. And it was just something that he wasn't ready to give up quite yet. So I fully supported that. It was like, okay, great. You want to do the one more year syndrome? Like, that's totally fine, whatever you want. Because there was so little social. life at that time. It made sense. It's like, okay, well, if you did retire now, like, you'd be stuck in your house just like you are now. So, like, it made sense. I decided to go back to school,

which was something I had been toying with for a while. And I did. I enrolled. And I started, you know, going full time to the local community college. So that was in June of 2020. And then in September of 2021, Phil was still working. I was still in school. We had bought a house here in Colorado. And he had gone out for a bike ride. No, I'm sorry, not a ride. He was away on a bike camping trip in the mountains for one night with a friend. And there was an accident on his way home and he died. So this is obviously a part of the story that's not going to apply to most people, right this this was a shocking completely out of left field tragic circumstance that enveloped my entire life not just my financial life but it absolutely did include my financial life so that

kind of threw everything into a turmoil and within that turmoil I knew very quickly that I was going to need help managing the money aspect because those are things that Phil had done. Yes, I had brought us to financial independence. I was the driver of that whole, you know, shebang. But he was the one, he had the software brain, the math brain. He was like doing the trades and figuring out our account balancing and what are we in stocks and what are we in bonds and what's our risk tolerance.

And like he did all the mathy stuff, which was not my forte. Like absolutely it was not. let alone in the wake of this horrible tragedy when I could not like remember to lock my door or run the dishwasher. I was in no position to be like, well, let's dive in and let me learn all this stuff so that I can manage my financial future. That just was not going to happen at that time. So I started trying to figure out, okay, how am I going to do this?

and I got connected with somebody at Charles Schwab, which was where we did the bulk of our banking. There was a representative at sort of my local branch who reached out and was basically just like, hey, you know, I know you guys are new to the area, whatever, but I'm introducing myself. And if you need anything, let me know. And I wrote that person back and I was like, yes, I need help. Can we talk? And I went and met with him. And he was super great and supportive.

and he explained that Schwab often referred people to their customers, their clients, they referred them out to financial advisement firms or wealth management firms. You know, there's different terms. So he kind of was like, okay, this is a path we can go down. Is that something you want to try? And I was like, yes, please. So that was the beginning of how that got started. And do you have a traditional financial advisor who takes assets under management or do you have more of a

a fee-only financial advisor or an advice-only financial advisor that you're using. This is very controversial, right? Like in the phi space. It sure is. We know that financial advisors at all are kind of controversial. If you have one, it's often kind of frowned upon. It's that like face punchy, like no, no, no. This isn't how smart people do money. If you do it, you're an idiot. There's kind of that vibe around advisement at all. So I just want to acknowledge that. And then you take that even a step further. If you're going to have one, it's like, okay, well, if you have to use the fee only ones for God's sakes.

Like, don't even consider these asset under management ones. They're just totally ripping you off. There's nothing they could possibly do that could help you, you know, to that extent. And you're just so, so dumb if you even consider it. So that's kind of, that's the water we're swimming in, right? Would you agree with that? I would absolutely agree that that is the water that we're swimming in. Another great phrase. Amy, the queen of phrases. Today's my phrase day. Friday phrase day. Anyway, so to actually answer your question,

the advisor that I use is an assets under management advisement firm. And are you happy with the service that you're getting from them and the cost that it is to you? I am super happy with the service that I'm getting from them. And there's a few reasons for that. So obviously, my situation is somewhat unique in that I kind of had to do this all at once during a crisis time. So the fact that I could sort of be linked with a professional outfit who does this all the time, who spends, you know, all of their time, the people who I work with, like they got their degrees in this. This is what they do full time, round the clock, yada, yada. That made me feel very, very safe. It made me feel. It made me feel like my money was safe. It made me feel like, okay, despite the fact that my life has just exploded around

me, there is a way that I can still be taken care of, I can still be financially independent, I will still be okay, I can get through this financial aspect, the rest of it, you know, TBD, but at least my money will be all right. That was super valuable. I know that that's not the case for everyone, but I would also argue that there are lots of ways that relationships end. Usually it's not in death. Most of them end in divorce or in breakups. The ones that end in those ways, I think a lot of these issues are still at play. There's usually somebody who is responsible for the nitty, greedy money stuff and another person who maybe had no idea what was going on, who maybe had some idea what was going on, but is maybe not super equipped to handle it on their own. So for those folks, I would just say

that a financial advisor can be a godsend. I know they have been for me. And there's been many aspects of life that they have helped me with beyond just the money stuff. So like, yes, they managed my money. They also did like the super comprehensive audit of all of my insurances. They were like, okay, look, you have these assets. You need to have an appropriate level of insurance so that if, you know, somebody slips and falls on your sidewalk or whatever, you have some coverage for that. So that was an umbrella policy. So, okay, how much do I need that policy for la, la, la, let's do that. What's the, the appropriate level of auto insurance? and home insurance I should have. How about health insurance? So that was a big aspect. They were also

super helpful with estate planning that was kind of included in their services. So because my husband had died and we had sort of been caught kind of red-handed with not having any end-of-life plans in place, I knew for myself that I did not ever want that to happen to my next of kin. So I was like, okay, it was a priority that I had from the very beginning. So they helped me set up a trust. I worked with an attorney of theirs. I now have all these ducks in a row that were not in a row before or not even close to a row. They were like, you know, in an S shape, all of our pond. There have been many additional ways that working with an advisor has enhanced and improved my life beyond just the money part.

But specifically regarding the money part, I would say that they allow me to sleep at night. I'm not worried that I'm going to make a wrong move. We talk about everything, every financial goal, everything about earning income or spending money. I have somebody to talk to about that. My spouse is gone, right? Money is an intimate subject that we generally don't go around talking about this stuff out in the world, right? It's kind of like taboo.

You know, people have all different levels of comfort around it. But because I am now a single person, a single woman, I have this perfect. professional outfit who is working with me to make sure that I'm successful in the financial long term. Like, yes, I can put a price on that because there is a specific price, you know, and my percentage that I'm paying them every year. But I also kind of want to say, you can't put a price on that. It's very difficult to put a price on peace of mind. We have to take one final ad break. We'll be back with more after this. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full

financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your taxed refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier.

It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code Pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves in Edle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code

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Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988, suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. Thanks for sticking with us. I could not agree more, Amy. And you said a couple of things that really made me understand where you're coming from. So I want to stop right there and just let everybody know. Amy and I have known each other for five years. would categorize us as very close friends.

I understand all. I'm glossing over the story of how her husband passed because for this particular show, it's not that he passed is important, but all of the goings on with that is not necessarily so important. It was covered brilliantly by Brad from Choose Fye on episode 476. If you'd like to know a little bit more about, you know, Amy's financial journey after her husband passed away, Brad did a really, really great job with her story. But I want to get back.

So I don't want people to think, you know, wow, Mindy, you totally just like jumped over the fact that her husband died. If you knew the hours, you and I have spent talking about the fact that my husband died and all the repercussions, like people would understand. It's a lot of hours. I'm intimately familiar with that part of the story. But I also don't want people to be like, wow, she's so mean. So a couple of things that you said, you said, my financial advisor makes me feel safe.

Where's the price tag on safety? And they allow me to sleep at night. Where's the price tag on sleep? Money is an intimate topic. Yeah, you could go and talk to a lot of people about this topic. We do have several friends in common in the five space. And we all talk about money. You could ask these questions, but it's also like you don't really want to just share

your entire financial life with somebody necessarily, as a, you know, whereas you could do this with the financial advisor. And I think, I almost said, I think for your circumstance, it's okay. That is so snotty. So I'm not going to say that. I'm going to leave it into the show, but I'm not going to say that. I think that anybody who wants help managing their finances. has a lot of options. You have the advice only financial planner who will look at what you're saying

and just give you some advice. I think that might also be called the fee only financial advisor. You give them a specific dollar amount. They trade it for advice. There's the assets under management, kind of like the full service. Amy and I actually spoke at an event a couple of years ago called Camp Widow. And we were talking about money and how to transition from, He does it all to now I have to do it and how do you, you know, kind of figure that out. And we were, we spoke with multiple widows over that weekend. And it seems like about the two year mark after your partner passes is when the, the widow brain, the fog finally lifts and you can sort of start feeling like yourself again. And that's not true for everybody.

But that seemed, would you, would you characterize that as kind of like two years? is kind of when you start to be able to to function at the same capacity that you were while your partner was still alive. I agree that two years is a very common milestone to be like, okay, I can be back in the world, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that I have regained the capacity that I had before Phil died because I haven't. And that feels very clear to me. And I don't know if I ever will and I've read other widow accounts who have mentioned that as well. So I want to make that distinction, but I do think yes, two years is a reasonable point at which many widows that I have known, and I have known a lot by this point, sort of do come out of the mist and are ready to be maybe a little

bit more proactive, is how I would put it. So in two years, your bank is not going to wait. Your investments are not going to wait. Your bills are not going to wait for you to be able to function again at a higher level. I don't know how to say this without sounding terrible. But like you said, two years is about where it's at. But you had two years worth of sometimes I don't remember to lock the door. Sometimes I don't remember to turn on the dishwasher. Did I brush my teeth today. You know, when was the last time I took a shower? I'm pulling from my days of having an infant, which is in no way comparable,

except the, you know, the lack of sleep and the lack of being able to focus. So having somebody to help you through all of those times, I mean, anybody listening who was like, wow, Amy, you could have done that yourself. You know what, Amy, you could build a whole house by yourself. Why don't you? You could build a car from scratch. Why did you buy one that was already done? Like there's there's so many things that you could do for yourself that you don't do. Like everybody listening, you could grow your own vegetables. Do you do that?

No, you go to the grocery store and you buy them ready grown. There's lots of things that you could do. You hire people because they're either better than you at it or you don't want to do it. And I think that financial advising is just exactly the same thing. You hire somebody because they're either better at it or you don't want to do it. I agree. And I think that brings up a sort of. similar but related point around how if we think about the sort of template that we all

became aware of of the like the retired person, the phi person, you know, what is the archetype here? If you think of like, oh, what's the like typical person in the phi space? I think that answer has changed over time. But if you go back to like when I first got into reading the phi stuff, it was pretty clear and pretty narrow. It was a man. He was in software. He DIYed tons of stuff, his house, his car, very into stoicism, an atheist, like to sound about right. And I'm not trying to pick on Pete or Carl or any of the other people who like have given us so much wonderful content. But I want to say that those terms for some of us, not everyone, but for some of us, including me, they do not

fit. That is not a box I am ever going to fit into. My husband was very much of that ilk. I respect it. I understand it. But I do not function in that way. So like, I want to give an example about this. Like I said, I was in school before and I have been chipping away at this degree that I'm working on. And right now, I'm enrolled in the last class that's required. I left it to the very last minute because I didn't want to take a science class with a lab. But I had to take a science class with a lab. So I had to choose which one it was going to be. And in sort of like a sentimental nod to Phil, even though he has now been gone for more than three years, I decided to take physics because Phil loved physics. And I'm like, you know, there are

limited ways that I can connect with him in the present day. And maybe this is one. I'm going to take a physics class. I'm going to see what the fuss is about. What did he love about all this? So right now, I'm at the slightly more than halfway point of the semester. And this class is killing me. This class is so hard. I have not, like, I have an A student, but in this class right now, the last time I checked, I had an 89.94%, which to me, to some people, that's like, oh, that's so great. To me, that's my other classes, my English, my communications classes, I'm at like 98 or higher. I have always been historically. This one, I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't think I can hold an A until the end of the semester.

Every assignment, every lecture, every lab, I dread it, I procrastinate about it, I put it off, because this is not how my brain works. This is how Phil's brain worked, and I respect that, and I love that about him, but it is not how my brain works. and the finances are not that different. That was really good for his brain. His emotional intelligence was a fraction of what mine is. So, like, they were, they were like push-pull things, and that's fine.

Like, I loved him. I chose him. Like, I can say these things. It's totally fine. But within the FI space, I think we have these defaults of what's allowed and what's not. And using an advisor at an assets under management firm is a thing. that is verboten. It is not allowed. People will laugh you off of a forum or whatever about that. But I have no qualms about it. It enhances my life. It is my version of a rich life to not have to worry

about money. I have outsourced that worry and that planning and that care to people who are so much better at it than I am and therefore I can sleep at night. And I think more people should feel that this option is open to them. I absolutely agree. If you don't, don't want to or you feel like you could hire somebody who knows more than you, then do it. And if somebody tells you, oh, you shouldn't, just say, thank you. I will live my life the way that I want to. There is a difference, like you mentioned, between an assets under management fee structure versus a fee only financial advisor. And so part of my thinking, and I was thinking about this just going into this conversation, knowing that we'd be talking about this, I thought, okay,

why didn't I pursue a fee only? Or even if I couldn't do it then, I'm in a much better mental place now. Why don't I do that now? Why don't I make the switch? I would save a lot of money. It's true. I would. But the reasons I came up with are because when you do that, that person that you're paying the fee to, they're looking at your stuff, your numbers for what, an hour or two, maybe an hour before they have the meeting with you and then maybe the hour during the meeting. and then that's kind of it. They're not invested in your journey, you know, metaphorically speaking.

Whereas in my position, the kind of advisor I have, I can and have emailed him at any time, at any hour, hey, I'm thinking about maybe finishing my basement. This is kind of what I think that budget would look like. What do you think this does to my long-term plan? And then he'll write back and he'll have charts and he'll have very specific answers.

And he'll say whether he thinks I should do it or not, He doesn't tell me I can't. He'll just say, this is my professional advice, essentially. Or if I have tax questions, we have this massive tax planning meeting every year that's like, okay, we're going to try to make your income fit into these brackets because of the ACA that you're on. So this is how we're going to do that. Did you make any money this year? Okay, we're going to put this into Roth, like la la la, la. There are many aspects of my financial life that he and his firm are helping me manage that are not included in what a fee-only advisor does. So I just want to delineate that, that relationship that is the main difference in my mind between those two are that sort of like one-off support and

advice and that ongoing thing where you know you can reach out any time, any day of the year, and get fast answers. And it sounds like you have found a really great advisor. And I want to encourage anybody who is considering hiring an advisor to interview them, talk to them and see what kind of services they provide, what kind of things you're getting. You have somebody who is fitting all of your needs. If you, my listeners, connect with an advisor and you're like, wow, he really didn't do anything for me. Maybe an advisor isn't for you or maybe that advisor isn't for you.

If you want somebody to look over your numbers and just be like, yeah, you're doing great. Or hey, don't forget about this tax advantage or, you know, this tax obligation. could come up if you do this, then going to a place like Hello Nectarine or the XY planning network and finding a fee only financial advisor could be what you're looking for. But if you need somebody who is more in-depth, who is looking at your numbers frequently, who you can reach out to at any time, somebody like Amy's advisor might be a better fit for you. And it doesn't matter what Bob down the street says or Joe Blow online says, if you like this

person, if you're comfortable. I understand the fee structure, but if you're comfortable with the fee structure, then you're just paying for a service that you value. And anybody who tells you that you're wrong, they're wrong. Do you think that you will continue to use your financial advisor for the foreseeable future? Good question. Definitely right now I have zero plans to change. There are added benefits.

So like given my life stage, I am a single woman. but that could change one day. I could meet someone. I could want to get married. If that happens, there will be many conversations that I will have with my advisor about like, okay, what are we doing in terms of prenuptial agreements or how do we need to structure my assets in such a way that they're safe no matter what happens in any future relationship or marriage?

So that's just another thing that they're going to bring to the table that I will lean on them for if or when that time comes. I think it's possible, I don't know, every time I think about like, you know, should I consider doing this myself? You know, I have all these friends who are just like, oh, index funds and set it and forget it. But I know from working with my advisor on the back end for these last few years, like, there's so much more to it. I do think, like, I know enough to be like, okay, yes, could I dump all of my money into an index fund? If I had to, if my, you know, advisement firm went away and I didn't have that as an option anymore, I think I could do okay, but okay isn't really enough.

If I can go back to my physics class analogy, so okay, right now I'm getting a B or a high B in that class when normally I'm in a student. Now, a B in a physics class that I don't really need and I'm never going to go into a STEM field, that's fine. There are no stakes with that. But if I was to get the equivalent of a B grade in managing my own investments, that would be pretty catastrophic. I would be missing out on a lot of money if I was only doing as well as a B.

So I just, I really have no plans to change at this point. I'm not going to say never, but it is not in my immediate field of vision as like, oh, I want to cut costs and this is where I'm going to do it. Like those costs are what allow the other costs to not bother me. So for now, I'm letting it ride and I'm perfectly happy to do it. Okay. Well, I think that's great. I think that you have made a decision based on information and facts and not based on somebody

else saying something that you should do or somebody saying something that you shouldn't do. And it works for you. You understand how much it's going to cost. That's it. My money. My choice. Exactly.

Your money, your choice. All right, Amy, I really appreciate your time today. This was a great conversation. I think that this is going to help a lot of people who are either using a financial advisor and feeling guilty about it or wanting to use a financial advisor. Having seen all these comments, you should never use a financial advisor and saying, oh, well, then I guess I shouldn't, but they're not really managing their money like it should be managed.

So if you want to hire a financial advisor, hire a financial advisor. Amy says it's okay, and I do too. Amen. All right, Amy, again, thank you for your time today. And we'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much. Talk soon. And if you like this video, please click thumbs up.

And don't forget to subscribe to this channel for more inspiring fire videos just like Amy's. All right. That wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen saying later days, sunrays.