#74 - The Intricacies of American Finance Unraveled with Jane Mepham

Ever grappled with the complexities of the American financial system as a foreign-born individual? Today, we bring our conversation with Jane Mepham, a financial planning maestro who turned her personal struggle in understanding systems like 401ks and credit cards into a mission to aid others in similar situations. Jane, originally from Kenya, is the founder of Elgon Financial Advisors, her firm dedicated to guiding foreign nationals and tech professionals through America's fiscal labyrinth. Together, we unravel the perplexities of budgeting, retirement planning, and financial issues that foreign workers often face.

Venturing into the second part of our conversation, Jane imparts her wisdom about the nuances of building a successful advisory business. Her tried-and-tested client acquisition strategies run the gamut from writing articles and building relationships with immigration lawyers to maximizing the power of SEO. Learn how content creation forms a crucial aspect and what specific planning questions foreign nationals often face. Lastly, we take a tour of Jane's experience in starting her financial planning firm. From navigating the choppy waters of compliance and E&O to the significance of continuous learning, Jane provides a comprehensive lens into her field. Get ready to be inspired by how Jane envisions her firm's growth into a boutique business with advisors eager to tackle complex cases. You don't want to miss this episode.

Jane's Kitces Article: 

https://www.kitces.com/blog/investing-for-work-visa-holders-nonimmigrant-challenges-foreign-workers-h1b/

Jane's Podcast:

https://www.theimcafe.com/

Jane's Social:

Twitter - @ElgonFinancial

Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/janemepham/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

How's it going everyone? Welcome back to the Only Feel Me podcast and, as always, thank you for being here. In this episode, we got to talk to Jane Miefam, who a lot of you are probably familiar with. She's put out some pretty good content and articles and has been associated with Michael Kitzis, and Michael has put some of her stuff out, which is so cool. She is from Kenya originally and so she moved here, and she really is passionate about helping foreign born individuals and tech professionals figure out their money. She also is the host of the International Money Cafe podcast, and this was a phenomenal conversation. I think anytime you get the chance to talk to somebody who's not from the United States, that has come here and learned our system and understood how tricky it could be and then been able to turn around and help other people, that's a really cool thing, and so we really enjoyed our conversation with Jane. She had a lot of great things to say and was just a tremendous person. So, without further ado, here is Jane Miefam on the Only Feel Me podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:15

What's up everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Only Feel Me podcast. I'm Peter Travelo, I'm here with my co-host, brock, and today we have Jane Miefam on. We are so excited to have her on, share her experience, share how she's helping clients and can't wait to have some golden nuggets shared. So, jane, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3: 1:40

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:42

You bet. So for those who don't know who you are, you want to give a quick 30, 60 second overview of who you are and who you're currently serving.

Speaker 3: 1:51

Sure so, jane Miefam, I work in Austin, texas. I have a few only farm algon financial advisors in our niche foreign-born clients and foreign nationals on work visas.

Speaker 2: 2:10

Very cool, very cool.

Speaker 1: 2:11

So how did you kind of get your start? What was kind of your journey into this space? And actually it's one of those things that when you're growing up you think you're going to be a financial planner maybe, maybe not but what did that kind of look like for you starting out? And then how did you eventually say, hey, I want to do financial planning for people.

Speaker 3: 2:30

Oh, absolutely so. Growing up I grew up in Kenya I did not know about this amazing professional, a professional of financial planning. So here's a short story I moved to the US to go to school on an F1 visa, so that was in my early 20s. In the journey it's a multi-year journey but it worked out to be F1, opt, h1b visa, green card citizenship, and so when I first got the job on H1B visa, I remember the retirement lead, the person, the benefits person that was helping us, saying to me hey, jane, you need to sign up for this thing called the 401k. And I'm like and what the heck is a 401k? And she goes this is how you save for your American dream. And of course, my goal was.

Speaker 3: 3:23

My parents sent me to America to pursue whatever my version of the American dream was, and the thing I recall is just like a sense of despair. Here they've kind of handed it to me on a plate after working for so long, but I've no idea what the heck this 401k thing is or how I go about doing it. And I recall asking one of my friends and nobody would really tell me how to do it. Now I know why people won't tell you all these things and at that point I decided I'm going to make sure nobody in my situation is ever going to be in a position where they're given a 401k and they're not sure how to go about it. They're not sure if they can even do it legally, because that's always a question that's at the top of your mind, and so I like to think of myself as the guy that I wish at heart.

Speaker 3: 4:15

Obviously, that's many, many years back. I had this dream. I knew I wanted to start this firm and first forward a couple of years and I was working in IT, which is where I actually met a lot of people on these work visas. I was on one of them. I hired people on the visa, so I kind of knew the pain of the visa, the challenges, the question that everybody had. And, like I said, first forward a few years, I had the opportunity to work with an advisor and when we were working together we actually had a lot of folks who were residents in the medical field coming in and they were all like, okay, we're ready again to pursue the American dream, but we don't know how we go about saving for retirement and how we go about helping family back home, and so that's really is the genesis of Elgon financial advisors and who we serve. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 1: 5:18

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 5:20

Absolutely so. I mean, before we dive into more details like how much rewiring was there for you, like coming to the American system, if you will, just the economy, the 401k, having to save and contribute? What is it like back home? What's made it like some of those big contrasts that you've seen?

Speaker 3: 5:46

How much time do we have? A lot. So I moved to the US in my early 20s. So, in terms of bringing my values and how I knew how to, for example, see for retirement, were more or less four right, but my values, what I was brought up with. One of the things my parents were really good about teaching us was actually budgeting, and one of the things my dad used to talk a lot about was this idea he used to call it the cost sharing plan where if you wanted something, you had to bring in a certain amount. Then you could discuss how much more he can put into it cost sharing. So I knew a lot about that. I knew a lot about budgeting, but I didn't know anything about credit cards. I think they were just cutting to become popular, those what was called the Dynast Lab Cut. That rings a bell. The idea of retiring with a 401k everything was completely foreign and I mean we spoke English, but sometimes it sounded like it was a completely different language.

Speaker 3: 6:57

So when you talk about rewiring, we're probably talking like stripping the engine and restarting everything again. I literally had to learn everything from scratch. But one of the things I think that helps me a lot is I'm very curious, and so when I found out about this 401k thing, I'm sitting there thinking, okay, what are the secrets? Are people hiding from us? And so I kind of jumped into the world of personal finance and read everything you can think of, just about every book I subscribe to, the Plingers, to Money Magazine, just about every magazine, book that you can think of, all the gurus I used to follow then. And so when I wasn't doing my tech work and computer science, I'll be reading all this personal finance stuff.

Speaker 3: 7:48

And when it started to click for me, when I started having people kind of come to my cube and say, hey, jane, what about this? And they mentioned whatever this thing is, and it's like, hmm, okay, and then somebody else will come in and say, what about this? We start talking about it, and at some point I actually started teaching classes at my local church, and that's kind of when it really clicked Like I think we need this information and, knowing myself, I knew I needed to go out and learn more. That wasn't enough, but it's a continuing journey of, as you said, rewiring everything and kind of starting to think about life in the West, which, of course, is still very different from whatever it is that we come from.

Speaker 1: 8:29

Sure, yeah. So what was it like? I think to every business owner, right comes from a point you're working in the IT world, you're teaching at your church, you're talking to people about personal finance. You have this dream to make sure that nobody that comes from another country ever has to worry about the same things that you do. But there still comes a time where you have to say, okay, I think I'm ready to make the jump and go start my own firm. So what were your thoughts before doing that? And then what kind of led up to you actually saying, all right, I'm jumping in the water and I'm doing this thing.

Speaker 3: 9:04

So, again, as I'm learning all about finance and I'm looking at different websites, I found the CFP board, I found a couple of other CFP things and again I started talking to a lot of people asking how do I go about doing this? I think I know I'd love to do something like this, and so this was after I moved from Massachusetts to Austin. I kind of found myself starting to think what is it that I want to do when I grow up? And maybe it's time to make the move by then, because, like I said, I moved from Massachusetts to Austin, I was working remotely and pre-COVID. This was not exactly as it is. You kind of start to feel isolated and that type of thing, and so, as I'm sort of questioning and still trying to learn and trying to figure out how I jumped from my T where I know I got a pretty good, decent income, to something that I'm hearing, you really can't make money, but you'd be able to serve people. I found kids.

Speaker 3: 10:07

And for me that was like, okay, I dove into his podcast, I say reading just about every article he had done on how you can transition into this field, and so really that was the genesis of saying I think I can do it. So I started doing the CFP program and, like I said, by the end of it I had a job lined up. I worked with them for a couple of years actually for about a year or so and at that point then I had to make another decision to say do I want to go work with somebody else? But when I looked at the jobs around, I'm like I think I can do this thing on my own past the niche that I want to serve.

Speaker 3: 10:47

nobody was really serving them, and so I kind of jump in both feet. So here we are.

Speaker 2: 10:55

Yeah, I love it. So let's talk about the clients that you work with and how you're able to engage with them. Are a lot of them they're already working here and they're on a visa, or are they just trying to move to the United States in the beginning? Like, at what stage are you kind of meeting your clients at?

Speaker 3: 11:17

So since I did, you may have seen my kids as article. I don't know if you have. If not, you can put a link. I can send you the link where I got about hoping okay, folks on work visas invest in the US.

Speaker 3: 11:31

I seem to have more people reach out that have just come to the US in their own different work visas and they're like okay, where do we start? I've also had a couple like I just worked with, and most of them end up being small project somebody moving from Sweden to the US, again on a different work visa, and wondering what kind of moves do we need to make? So it's kind of varied, but most of them seem to be just adding out. But then I also have folks who've been here a while and they're like have we made any mistakes?

Speaker 2: 12:09

yet.

Speaker 3: 12:10

And those are probably some of the fun ones, but also the sad ones when you tell somebody, yeah, we may need to make a few corrections, that type of thing.

Speaker 1: 12:20

Yeah, yeah, but it's better when you catch it than not to catch it right. So I feel like it's kind of like ripping the bandage off. It's like, yes, you did, but it's a good thing that we're having this conversation now, because we can fix it or we can turn it around.

Speaker 3: 12:36

That's true.

Speaker 1: 12:38

As you were kind of building because obviously you dove into these books, you were into the kits as you read every book you could find. But part of it obviously is acquiring clients, because you have to have clients that pay you for you to make money, for you to be able to live right. So what was your strategy in the beginning for kind of going out and trying to find people to work with? Or did you already have people at the church that you knew wanted to work with you? Or what was that kind of initial part of getting clients like for you?

Speaker 3: 13:06

It's very different when you teach a class and then you tell people okay, come walk with me.

Speaker 1: 13:12

Yeah right.

Speaker 3: 13:13

So this is and, of course, like I said, I started from scratch and I'm still trying to build it up. My thing was I didn't see a whole lot of advices out there on social media sharing the kind of information that I felt I had, for example, like that kits, that or other articles to say, okay, here you are on the H1B visa. Very simple thing is, this is how you go about saving. So my goal was on tent, and so I write a lot and I write for different magazines. I'm pretty active, like you said, we met on Twitter, right. They're pretty active on LinkedIn, and so my goal is to keep writing these articles, obviously, do a lot of research, put the info together, share it and kind of have people see me as the authority in this case.

Speaker 3: 14:06

I'm not very good about cold calling, right, yeah, and so for me, there still needs to be that idea of you know we've made a connection and now here we are and what seems to be happening now? Lately, I knew I needed to get, for example, a lot of immigration lawyers in my space. So reaching out to those are like my CIOs reaching out to a lot of those folks, and some of those relationships are starting to pay off. You know when immigration lawyers say, okay, I had this guy that just came in, he's on the O1 visa, can you walk with him? So I think it's sort of starting to pay off, where they say, you know, it takes I don't know years for things to pay off, but I'm starting to see some traction.

Speaker 3: 14:55

In addition to that, I just added a new podcast. Is it okay to talk about that?

Speaker 1: 14:59

Yeah, of course, yeah, get it out there. Everybody should listen to it.

Speaker 3: 15:04

All right, this is. It's called the International Money Cafe and I started it with my friend Manasa, who's a cross-border EA or CTA, I guess, and she's one of the people in my networks that you know I'll send people to. And so our podcast, we are actually calling it. The tagline is we filter out the noise on cross-border taxes, finances and our life in the US is really keep addressing the issues that we see, you know, for inbound families, so free immigration, outbound people who are looking to move to other countries, and then people who are here for a time, bottom line is they have foreign born. They're foreign born, they have assets or financial assets overseas and they need somebody to help them with that. So we're in episode four. This week we're going to be publishing five and we seem to be getting good traction. So that's going to, in 2024, become our main marketing channel. So I'll let you know how it goes.

Speaker 2: 16:09

Yeah, I love that. So for you you've found success in like channel partners to an extent right, and referral partners from those immigration lawyers, so like when you're writing content.

Speaker 3: 16:24

An SEO. Sorry, Yep, yep.

Speaker 2: 16:27

An SEO. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 16:28

Don't forget about SEO.

Speaker 2: 16:30

Yes, especially with the kids' shout out too. We know a lot of people who that's really been able to elevate their game and, like you said, you've been building that credibility in the space, which is really big and people want to work with a professional. Google can't just solve everything, but, like for your content and things like that, are you more so writing it towards these immigration lawyers or is it direct to the consumer, like when you're creating your content, like who are you trying to like, who's your audience and who are you trying to drive that message home to?

Speaker 3: 17:13

So it depends. So the kids article that was purely for advisors. I'll write for advisor perspectives and that's for advisors. Most of the stuff on my blog is specifically we'll call him John and he fits that profile. He's foreign born. He or she may have assets overseas, and part of the thing with the work visa is what makes it so challenging is they may not be here permanently, even though the whole US retirement system is designed for somebody who's going to be here permanently. So what I'll do is the questions that I hear. Those are the questions I answer when I'm doing the blog, or so Like one of the ones that seems to really be getting me a lot of traction.

Speaker 3: 18:00

I wrote something about okay, you've received assets or money from overseas. What are you supposed to do tax wise? You know that's very, very specific. Or something like if you're on H1B visa, how do you save for college for your kids, not knowing where they're going to go to school? So it's very specific. I'm literally I feel like answering questions that people raise, so I'll say this the one most of it is towards the consumer that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Love that and add a curiosity. I mean, what are your answer to some of those planning questions? You know, I mean, you're moving here, you know the system wants you to obviously stay here, right, but how do you, you know, plan to still have that flexibility? I mean, that's just very, it's fascinating.

Speaker 3: 18:50

So that's a specific question.

Speaker 3: 18:52

I answered with the kids as article. If you're on a work visa you want to do, you know, this special account in here, all the challenges that you face so high level. You've got to be very, very flexible. You need to understand the tax treaty If there's any between the US and your home country, or if treaties or any of those treaties in place, and so what we end up doing is we plan almost like every, almost like two years, if that makes sense. So it's like let's talk about the immediate things we need to do and what I'll say to my clients is if you change your mind, please let me know, because that does happen. I'll have somebody who've been here five years and they're like I think this thing is not working out for me, so I'm just going to ship out.

Speaker 3: 19:39

So really getting clients to understand the decision we make today does not have to hold you the rest of your life. We're going to be very, very flexible. Whatever planning we come up with will have to make it very, very flexible. So we may look at, let's say, like month policy violations and it's like don't worry about that, I know it shows you're not going to make it, but you and I have a very different plan. Does that make sense? So a lot of flexibility and really explaining to the clients. This may not necessarily work like if you're traditional planning time.

Speaker 1: 20:15

Right, and I feel like that has to make your work feel interesting too right, because you're outside of the normal bounds. So many advisors that we work with right, they work with people that are from the United States, live in the United States, are going to stay in the United States, and so that's where the Monte Carlo simulation makes a little bit more sense, or it can be a little bit more accurate, but, like you said, the financial plans and the work that you're doing is malleable, so it has, it is subject to change, and I do find that fascinating. That's really cool, because you're really touching on things that obviously people are thinking about but there's not a lot of answers to. Just out of my curiosity. So what does happen if someone comes here? They get in the system, they're, they're a working member, right, they start a 401k and then they decide to leave. Like, what does that look like for someone?

Speaker 3: 21:08

So a couple of things would happen If they decide to leave. We need to make a decision. Do we take that money now and take the hedge and take the money with that? Do we leave the money here and let it stay until, let's say, 59 and a half, when maybe you can take the money without getting the hedge and you end up having to pay taxes? So really, those are the two decisions we have to make.

Speaker 3: 21:31

But then, when it comes to things like Roth IRAs, we really have to talk about those tax advantage accounts. Everybody comes to me saying, oh, I've been told I need to do a Roth, and I'm like, oh, wait a minute. Where do you think you're going to be in the next five, ten, I mean when you retire? And so this is where I'm saying I then have to go look at the tax treaties, and this is where it helps to help people like Manasah and a few other people in my network to say OK, let's say it's the UK. We look at the tax treaty and the UK does recognize the tax advantage benefit of the Roth IRA. So it's going to be OK if you save into it, because you won't be penalized when you're taking the money out. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1: 22:13

Yeah yeah, you're talking international finance at that point, not just US finance. It's fascinating, it really is.

Speaker 3: 22:20

It has to be, it has to be. And another really cool, interesting thing is and part of it is I know I've done this, so again you come in. Like I said, the work visas are really temporarily visa, so technically the US expects you to leave at some point.

Speaker 3: 22:38

Yeah is why they're temporarily. But we know you can get the green card and stay, and so part of the conversation also is I use myself as an example. I've looked at the market in Kenya and maybe I can invest there right, or maybe I can do real estate or some other development project, and so we'll talk about that. But then of course I have to be very careful not to cross the line. But that's also something that comes up with a lot of the folks that I'm working with saying we want to invest home, and so that's another part of the conversation. So you are right, it's pretty interesting.

Speaker 2: 23:16

Yeah, that's awesome and you're set up on the XYPN system, correct?

Speaker 3: 23:24

I would not have started this without XYPN. Let's put it that way.

Speaker 2: 23:28

Yeah that's awesome. So let's talk a little bit about XYPN and how you've been able to grow with them. What are some of the main aspects that you've liked from the beginning? I mean, I know you were a fan of Kitsis and completely changed your course and career, but what was it like launching? And I'm sure there's some stuff with compliance and E&O? We can touch on too at the international stuff.

Speaker 3: 23:56

Like I said, I would not have done this without XYPN. So when I had to make the decision to say, ok, I'm going to go out on my own, I actually still needed, I think, a few more hours to be able to use the CFP mark. There's really no way I could have done it without XYPN here. So I paid for the premium. Whatever the premium is where they helped you pretty much set up everything and kind of jumped into it. Part of it is still learning the system and really learning like all the technical details, if that makes sense, but knowing the people stuff, I'm pretty good with that.

Speaker 3: 24:35

So, I love XYPN. I keep saying I don't know what I'll do without them. I don't do anything compliant that could be compliance related without talking to them, Because I think that's just what you've got to do when you're in this space.

Speaker 1: 24:51

Yeah, well, they've given people such a beautiful platform. And one of my favorite things is, if you were talking 15, 20 years ago, the options for being fee only for being a financial advisor were a lot more limited. Right, you might find a firm that you go work with. Maybe at some point you get equity in the firm, maybe you don't, but there's a lot more barriers to entry and it's a lot harder for people that want to have their own financial planning firm to actually do that. And what XY has done a phenomenal job of is giving people the resources and the startup ability to really go out and do it the way they want to do it. So shout out, xypn. You guys are amazing. I agree.

Speaker 1: 25:30

Right Anything else that you were thinking about touching on before you came on, jane. I mean, the perspective that you have is absolutely fascinating, and I've loved hearing about it.

Speaker 3: 25:43

So I think one of the other things you talked about was one what it takes what I think is it takes to be in this role. You also talked about what I would say to somebody starting out the business, those kind of things. So starting the business, it's a really hard business.

Speaker 3: 26:06

You guys all know that. So what I say to people is we have this desire because just about I think every advisor gets into the business because they want to help people. But I think I'm learning not that I'm learning, you do need to make a living out of it as well and so it's being able to get to the point where I know I'm helping people, and what I've been doing lately is I know I can't help everybody. So this is where, like with the podcast, I'm helping, I can help some people, but I can still make a living out of it.

Speaker 3: 26:38

So for people to understand, it's not an easy business, it's tough to get started. You really need a nice long runway, which is one thing I think I was able to do and what really allowed me to just get in it, like, okay, I'm just going to jump in fourth because I know I don't have to worry about living expenses. And then, on top of that it's especially like in my space you have to keep improving, keep learning new things. You can't just sit back and you need to learn a lot more than go beyond the CFP. And so there's a bunch of international tax people that I follow closely. I do a bunch through, let's say, like the CPA Academy. I'm thinking obviously it says over there as well, like I'll do all those CE courses. I do find which is going to sound weird.

Speaker 3: 27:34

just reading the IRS stuff you know straight on the IRS website is really helpful for some of those things where you're wondering okay, you're a foreign national, how do we go about taxing you? And really having a group of people, like I said, around me they're immigration lawyers making connections with especially CPA, cross-border CPAs makes a huge, huge difference to some of those things. And that's about all I can think of in terms of what else to add, unless you guys have any more questions.

Speaker 1: 28:08

Anything? Pete Brock yeah, I think we covered it yeah. You have something.

Speaker 2: 28:14

I think the only question is you know what are you building towards? You know, like what's kind of you talked about, how you talk with your clients, about. You know you look every two years or so, I mean for you. You know, for a lot of advisors. Kitsis, of course, will talk about three different firms right, the first being a solo kind of a lifestyle practice, the second one being maybe a smaller boutique, maybe a couple of advisors. You know, thinking about how you're going to maybe transition the firm or sell one day. And then the third being, you know, an enterprise type style where there might be tens or hundreds of advisors. You know what's kind of Jane's five or 10-year goal with the firm.

Speaker 3: 28:58

I think a small boutique firm would be ideal. I don't envision myself staying solo forever just because of all these interesting cases that we're looking at, so being able to get a few more people that hope you think like me, or maybe different from me, but are willing and excited about jumping into some of these cases, would be awesome. Obviously, we are not there yet, but it's a plan that we're working towards, so what's it?

Speaker 1: 29:28

I love it. I can't wait to see it. Jane, I think you have an absolutely amazing story. We appreciate you coming on. We will make sure to put your podcast in the description of this episode. So, everybody, make sure you go out and check out Jane's podcast.

Speaker 2: 29:43

And the kids' article.

Speaker 1: 29:45

And the kids' article. And the kids' article. So thank you so much for spending some time with us today. It was awesome to learn a little bit more about you and we'll look forward to staying in touch with you.

Speaker 3: 29:55

No, that's awesome, so I'll send you the link for the podcast, but it's theimcafecom and my website is algonefecom Class, of course, on LinkedIn. So I really appreciate you guys doing this, thank you.

Speaker 2: 30:11

You bet.

Speaker 3: 30:12

Thank you so much All right that ends with Bec for.