Unlocking the Balance: Jim's Guide on Financial Planning and Fatherhood

Are you prepared to transform your outlook on fatherhood and finances? Prepare to be enlightened, as our guest, Jim, a seasoned financial advisor, shares his crucial insights on achieving financial stability while maintaining family values. He brings a unique perspective on parenting and delivers significant advice on respect within a family, the importance of work ethic, and the delicate balancing act between career ambitions and family life. 

We promise an eye-opening discussion on financial planning for dads, with Jim sharing his wisdom and unique approach to staying within budget. He introduces the 60-20-20 rule and talks about the importance of working backwards to discover your ideal lifestyle. He also suggests methods to save for a future child, including setting up a 529 plan, investing in life insurance, and crafting a retirement plan. His expertise will serve as a guiding light for aspiring fathers as they navigate their financial journey towards parenthood. 

To round off, we explore the significance of education and respect in parenting and financial matters. Jim's question to the next guest on the DadPuzzles podcast is the perfect close to our conversation. Dadpuzzles Podcast serves as a haven for aspiring fathers looking for encouragement and support in their quest to become better dads. So, gear up for a transformative journey as we unravel the secrets to a balanced and contented fatherhood!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Dad Puzzles Everything Dad. If you're questioning yourself about dad functions, duties and life in general, you've come to the right place. Parenthood can be tough. Learning to juggle caring for your baby with your career and also keeping things fresh with your partner can be a struggle, but we're here to make things easier with helpful tips for making the most of your situation. Being a dad may seem like a puzzle, but it's one you can definitely solve. Now here's your host, Dr Suleiman Ijani.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Welcome. Welcome to Dad Puzzles. Today we are very fortunate to have a good friend of mine. You know, jim. Jim is a good friend of mine. He is everything financial planner. So if you have any issues on financial planning he's the guy to go to. But I'll let himself introduce to you guys. You know, you know like. Welcome, jim, my friend.

Speaker 3: 1:06

Thank you, Suleiman, Happy to be on. So yes, my official title is financial advisor, which is a pretty broad title. What does that mean? So what I do is I help people with basically anything that comes to money. Tax mitigation, insurance planning and wealth management are really our three concentrations A lot of times, especially in the medical field, with doctors, as they continue to make more and more of a surplus with their money and they don't know what to do with it and how to be more tax efficient with it. That's really where I come into play. So it's more about you know, what can we do for ourselves? And I would say a lot of it is education and educating people around what we can do for ourselves long term, to you know, put more money into our pocket and less into Uncle Sam's. So that's really the thought process.

Speaker 2: 1:57

That is. There's no way I could have described that myself. So that's fantastic. Thank you, sir, it's all good. Yes, sir, and you know, you know this is something different today, because I've, you know, like I've had a couple of milestones before, because my first one was about I thought I'll be talking to only dads and then I realized, hmm, what a second ladies.

Speaker 2: 2:16

They're our mothers, our sisters, our, our wives as well. So they, they know us more than we're, you know, like you know ourselves sometimes. So I, I started doing, you know, like, talking with the ladies as well, and it's been fantastic. And also, you know, in terms of men, you know we need to. You know we have people at different stages and I think your, your stage is particularly special because you're, you know you're not a father yet and you're not into the realm of marriage and everything, but it's still important because people can learn from you. And you know, in terms of, let's say, how you vision yourself, you know, being a father, or how do you prepare yourself being a father. You know how has that been going for you?

Speaker 3: 2:55

Yeah. So I definitely want to be a father. I don't know when, but we'll see. But the thought process for me is I've, you know, been around my friends and their kids and the one thing that they keep telling me is that as soon as that baby's born, you know, every single thing that you do revolves around them, whether it's scheduling, whether it's, you know, babysitting, whether it's working, whether it's going out for dinner, no matter what it is the, you know the kids come first.

Speaker 3: 3:24

So, and I'm all for it, though I mean I, you know it's a huge responsibility. You know you're basically crafting and molding a human and, and you know you're and parting their beliefs on them. But you want them to be good contributors to society as well. You want to raise them with good value. So I just kind of take it all in. I, I, I, I understand, not kind of seeing it. I don't think as much as an actual if I was an actual dad, but I've a way better idea than I did five years ago of what goes into, you know, the full time commitment that it is to raise children.

Speaker 2: 4:04

Oh, that is fantastic. So you know, because you know I'm glad to hear this because you know, you have some folks they say maybe they happen to be parents, but it was maybe accidents or whatever you know like in terms of life. But it's better to have people that are kind of aware and you know that will make them better, you know, like, I believe, than just you know. One of my good friend back in the days she was a psychiatrist, she told me that you know, because we are seeing many cases of, let's say, dads doing horrible things or, you know, based on, let's say, maybe influence from alcohol or just you know, like you know, like psychiatric illnesses, and then she said I wish we had given people the license to become dads than just you know, because we give people license to, to, like drive, but then how come we don't have such thing for becoming a parent? And I think this is something very important, right? So so thank you, sir.

Speaker 3: 4:59

Oh yeah, I was just gonna say it's one of those things where you go into it. I think that's the one thing for me is, I think sometimes in your 20s you're young and you don't think about really what it takes to be a good parent or even what a good relationship looks like with your significant other, and so you go into it and you're just like, oh no, we'll always be together forever and then really you haven't maybe even talked about some of the stuff that's most important to raising children or being in a good environment. So you know, I look back on it and I kind of think about my own mindset when I was in my 20s and I know I wasn't prepared for it, maybe, maybe towards my late 20s or even now. Obviously I'd feel a lot more comfortable doing it, but I think you got to be really in a good spot yourself mentally and, as you were partner as well aligned with. You, got to be really well aligned with what your goals are in both work and life and what you want out of life before you start having kids.

Speaker 3: 6:04

That's my own thought process. But again, not every situation is like that right. Accidents happen and sometimes you just got to react to what goes on. But if you can line it up, you know, in a perfect manner, that probably be the way people would want to go you just there's also probably not a lot of people that the perfect circumstances happen in which you have kids. So that's just a little bit of life right there.

Speaker 2: 6:29

That is very true and you know like I'm mentioning how you're experienced with your friends and family. But so far, what has been like your plan in terms of the preparing, whether it's financially or emotionally? Do you have any plans along those two realms?

Speaker 3: 6:48

Well, what's nice about being a financial advisor is you essentially run your own business, at least for me.

Speaker 3: 6:55

I can't really speak to other companies, but why I always like that is because it provides a lot of financial freedom in the sense that as long as you're willing to do the work that you got to do, you can make your own schedule.

Speaker 3: 7:06

And to me that's really, really important because work life balance is just so essential to quality of life. And so when I think about what I would like to do when I'm with dad is I want to be able to, if I want to coach T-ball, you know, or coach baseball for my kids, or all my son's games, or my daughter's dance recitals, whatever it is that I have the time to do so and I can tell people and hey, no, I'm not working past 5pm today because I got to be somewhere. So that's what's really been great about. The thought process is long term is, you know, I kind of I work all hours now just because I'm a single guy and I don't really have to worry too much about, you know, obligations outside of myself. But that's really the thought process is work hard now so I can reap the benefits. So that you know I don't have to feel guilty about not working when it comes to having kids.

Speaker 2: 7:55

Well, that's fantastic. And then, you know, one of the gentlemen I spoke to that was almost in his shoes, but he was already married and they were looking maybe to have kids. He was trying to see maybe, you know, his idea was to allocate some time for himself, you know, maybe like in terms of vacationing and stuff like that, so that kind of he's used to that. When the baby comes, you know, because sometimes when you're used to just being go, go, go, go go, and then when the time comes you're not used to taking the time off, it can be a shock. So maybe you can apply a little bit of damage, just a little bit of it. You know, because you want to be really financially stable, like you mentioned. That's a very good goal. I appreciate that. Yeah, yes, sir.

Speaker 2: 8:37

And then you know, what is the you know, once you advise to dads that are trying to, you know they're about to, you know they want to ensure, like, a financially stable future and they're almost in your you know. You know like in your shoes, in terms of they say they don't have kids yet they're married or they're not even married. So besides themselves, let's say, working hard with what they do, do you advise them maybe to like, maybe grow their, to kind of explore their careers, or is there like a time limit for that? Do you think?

Speaker 3: 9:17

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:19

So the one thing that I can say is I know that our reps and my coworkers that do have kids, you know, everything is kind of blocked out for them of you know, hey, this is, you know, I just can't meet with somebody at this time or it's just it's not going to happen.

Speaker 3: 9:36

And I think my only advice again this is somebody who doesn't have kids but scheduling and being organized are really, really important in your own business, because if you can't handle your personal life, then that obviously is going to spill over. I'm sorry you can't handle your business life. That's obviously going to spill over to your personal life. So I know guys that are up at 5am working out, because it's the only time they have to themselves during the day, and then, as soon as you know eight o'clock, nine o'clock rolls around. They know that you're, you know they're going from meeting to meeting to meeting and then they're done at 5pm and they got to be home taking care of the kids. So now the one thing I will say is I do think that there are enough hours in the day to get things done, but you know you'd have to be disciplined and you have to be goal oriented to get it all done for sure. That's fantastic.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Fantastic, you know. Can you tell us a little bit about relationship with your father, you know? Do you have any? You know, like fondest memories and such my dad's my best friend straight up.

Speaker 3: 10:44

So my dad, I feel, is the quintessential role model in terms of what you would want to aspire to be as a man, and it's what I aspire to be, just because you know, literally there's not one time in my life where he hasn't been there for me. Having said that, he's always, as I've gotten older, he's imparted a lot of things that I didn't even think about. That you know, as a kid you're just kind of going along with it because daddy says so. But he's always said to me you have to allow kids the opportunity to make mistakes and you cannot rob them of their opportunity to pick themselves up after they fall down. Because if you do that, then you get to a point where you know you always feel like you can go get bailed out and daddy can always take care of it for you.

Speaker 3: 11:36

And don't get me wrong, like I said, he's been there for me but it was not in the way that like, hey, you can screw up, you can do whatever you want and I'll take care of it financially or make it go away. He was like, listen, I can help you, but I can't do it for you, and that, I think is what fosters real, you know, independence as a man, which I believe is really, really important, because emotionally you need to be able to handle yourself and financially and if you're going to, you know, get into a relationship with somebody, you got to be emotionally stable yourself. So a lot of these things are just you don't learn it all at one time. So I don't have like a fondest memory, but I mean you just kind of it's like lead by example. You just see it and you're just like, oh okay, this is what I need to do myself.

Speaker 2: 12:19

Fantastic, fantastic. That's a very important life lesson because you know, like, for even for the youngest kids, for instance, if they're used to being, oh, you're right, you're right, you're right, you know that kind of thing. I know this is kind of you know like, you know like a different example, but you know it's always good to kind of let the kids make their own mistakes, as long as it's not something fair or you know, like you mentioned, you know that's awesome. I appreciate that. Now, now, is there any particular experience or teachings from your dad that you believe that is prepared you for fatherhood?

Speaker 3: 12:54

Yeah, you know I've seen the way so much of, I think, what he is done with. I have two brothers, some of them middle son, I'm 35, motor brother's 37, my younger brother's 34. You know you go through some situations where you have there's three of us. So there's not, there's no favorites, there's no preferential treatment. Everybody gets treated the same. And you know there's no, there's no partiality. So you know you might not always like what happens and you might feel, well, why does he get this or why does, why doesn't? You know?

Speaker 3: 13:30

I remember being younger like, well, why doesn't my dad come down harder on my brother? And this is BS and I should be, you know, in a better situation than him. But at the end of the day, I mean, he treated us all equally. So there was no favorite. It is, you know you reap what you sow and if you think that just because you're the oldest, you're going to get to stay up later, or you know you're the youngest, we're going to baby, that's not really how it's been, it was. You know you treat like you act, you know, like a responsible adult and you're just like a good child going up. You get treated well and if not, there are, you know, repercussions for your behavior. So that's just how it was.

Speaker 2: 14:07

Okay, wow. And then you know, you know, because a lot of times you know, I think some parents that would make a mistake of making it even obvious that they favor somebody. That's, that's pretty, that's, that is definitely not a good thing, you know.

Speaker 3: 14:22

So so what do you think?

Speaker 2: 14:24

Yeah, I would say that Go ahead, my brother Sorry.

Speaker 3: 14:29

I was just gonna say you know, whatever, there was never a time where you could be like, oh you know, my older brother gets this. Why don't I get that? Because whatever the first brother got, everything was always the same from top to bottom. So middle brother, younger brother, everybody gets the same thing there are. You can never point to a instance where it's like you know, this person got something that I didn't.

Speaker 2: 14:52

Oh, man, see, that's, that's a commitment. By the way, I think, is that an easy thing for dad to do or, you know, like parent to do, because you know a lot of times you have to go an extra mile to make sure that everybody gets it right.

Speaker 3: 15:06

Yeah, for sure it's, and there was no, there is no, there's no gray line is black or white and, if you could, you know there's no holes to poke in his argument.

Speaker 2: 15:16

Nice, that's awesome boss. And then what you know, one of the common advice I try, like you know, share with folks that are growing up at a younger age, I try to tell them to take advantage of, you know, especially the people when you're with your family and stuff to be productive. Well, you know, like with your family, don't rush to, to get out and stuff like that, so that you you can maximize the bond with your parents and also the savings and stuff like that. You know, like, of course, some parents will make you pay rent and all those things. But I know this is kind of small, small planning. I'm sure this is probably minute for you, but what do you advise those kind of you know folks in that situation?

Speaker 2: 15:55

With the finances right, you know, because you have some.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Yeah, you know like go ahead, boss, you're good at no, because they're saying you know, because I'm thinking it's probably you have some people that they say they feel they're older so it's like a shame for me to be with my parents, but then if you look in reality, if you're by yourself, there's no harm with you being with your parents because you're bonding with a parent and you're, you get some kind of help. You know, like with finesse, you or your parents as well, like you kind of help each other. So you know, do you do? You can encourage people like that so that they don't really Feel like it's a shame, so that you know, at the end of the day is a win-win for them and their parents, correct?

Speaker 3: 16:39

Yeah, I mean honestly, you don't want to shelter a kid and just be like, hey, you can stay at home without a job until you're 40. You don't want that. But but you know I remember my first job out of college. You know I was making very, very little money and, and you know they helped me out financially. But I would also say, as as I've gone along too, you know it was it was like they knew that I was working hard and so if they did want to buy me something or they did want to contribute to any kind of gold fund that I had, you know they had no problem doing it, but it was only because of the fact that I was busting my butt myself.

Speaker 3: 17:21

So you know they weren't going to be like, oh well, you don't have a job, you don't have anything, here's 10 grand, like. That's not how it was going to be. Um, it was more about listen. If you're working hard, you know, we happy to help you out, as long as you, you know, continue to motivate yourself and keep reaching for the next thing.

Speaker 2: 17:41

Oh, that's fantastic. So so I guess, uh, you know, like your advice to kind of folks in that you know that's the most situation is to kind of to really work hard and maybe through that the other opportunities will open up, whether it's with your family or just the outside community. So that's a good idea. Uh, you know, do you have any ideas you know, like any tips for aspiring fathers that you know in terms of, you know, balancing their, their career ambitions and also building a family? And you know, you know what's your advice on this and you know, I know you see a lot of people.

Speaker 3: 18:17

You know it's. It's one of those things where a lot of my friends who have kids they're like, oh, I'm so jealous of you. And you know it's sometimes like, no, I'm jealous of you, you got the, you know the kids, you got, you know the family, and they're like, yeah, but you know, if I don't have as much kid and I didn't have kids at such an early age, I could be making more money, um, I could have more time to doing the other things that I want. Um, I feel that if you kind of you got to have to like work backwards on what kind of lifestyle you want to pick In, what you want to live, you know how you want to live first and then you know you got to fill in the gaps of how do I get there, because I don't think there is a, a blanket statement. I know I have, I have clients who are partners at law firms who, you know, sleep at the office during the week and they're making tons of money, um, but it can get get really hard to get off and and and take time with their family and people who are working 40 hours a week and they have all the time in the world, relatively, not, you know, figure out or not literally, but they have the time to spend with their family, um, but they're not making enough money in their minds.

Speaker 3: 19:23

So, um, I think in my mind, whether you want to be, you know, a dad or not, to be honest, you got to figure out, well, what is the ideal lifestyle, look for me, and then kind of, you know, reverse engineer it. How am I going to get there? Because you know, if you, if you're going to be somebody who understands they're going to work a lot and might not like their job, but it creates enough financial freedom for you to go and, you know, enjoy your family time, great, as long as you're happy doing that, uh, but if you're somebody who's like, hey, I need to be enjoying whatever it is that I'm doing and, and you know, not every job that's paying great is going to give you a great quality of life outside of work. So I think you got to be really, really intentional in the way you approach your life and figure out what do I want the most? How am I going to get about it? How am I going to go about it and how am I going to get it?

Speaker 2: 20:11

Oh, that is fantastic and, and you know so, the people that are, they're trying to achieve the financial stability and independence, um, you know, while they're trying to keep their family values, I guess they will do the reverse engineering. Any other ideas would you think that they would look into?

Speaker 3: 20:30

Well, you got to. At least I know you have a lot of uh Uh holes covered, I should say. And like, when it comes to finances, you want to make sure that you know, if you're going to put down down payment on a home, that you have the money to. Uh, you know, enough money in the bank account for an emergency fund, let's just say, because you don't want to put every single cent you have into a down payment on a home, and now, all of a sudden, something happens to you and you can't work and something happens, or some kind of unforeseen Financial event comes up and you don't have any money left in the bank, and so you also want to make sure that your fixed expenses don't Overwhelm you on a month-to-month basis.

Speaker 3: 21:10

I'm a big fan of the 60 2020 rule, which is basically 60 percent of, or less of, your money going to your fixed expenses, 20 percent going to any kind of goal fund that you might have, like a you know, savings for a home, something like that, or a wedding, and then the last 20 percent is really up to you to decide what you want to Do it, and if you can stay in line with those three numbers, you can have a pretty good, you know, um thought process when you go to sleep at night, that you're you're covered, um, so that that's really the thought process.

Speaker 3: 21:39

Is is, in addition to figuring out what kind of lifestyle, um, you want to make sure that you're covered for both the worst-case scenario. But you're also living life and, and you know not, you know living like a hermit Saving because you don't want to go out for dinner one night. So, um, that's that's really what it is. It's identifying a lifestyle that you have right now that is workable and is attainable, but also thinking about the long term. Be like, where do I want to be? Five years, ten years, 15 years now, from now, oh, fantastic.

Speaker 2: 22:10

Thank you so much. It's been really, uh, amazing. You know you'll be sharing, you know, great wisdom, because a lot of times people kind of Ignore the financial planning, but it's really something critical, especially when you have emergencies and such. You know those are. You know those. You know those events that we're not really planned in your life. But, boss, do you have any projects right now that you, uh, that you know like, you know just initiatives or goals related, you know, to financing or fatherhood or or anything that you would like to share with your audience? We know with you, know we, you know with our audience today.

Speaker 3: 22:44

Um. So there's a lot of things that I would say I do with a thought process of maybe not having an account with I don't have a son or a daughter that put a name on a bank account but there are things that I think about even there are so many things that people can do even before a kid gets here to fund things for their kids, like college education. You can fund a 529, which is a college education plan, even before the baby gets here. You can make yourself the beneficiary and then change the name to the baby's name when they're here, so you can be funding for that in advance. You get things like life insurance having that. You can get it really cheap when you're really young and, as opposed to waiting for kids, you can have a lot of this stuff taken care of even before they get here.

Speaker 3: 23:32

Creating a retirement plan for yourself, making sure that you have money left over so that not gone wood if you're thinking about a long-term financial plan for yourself, helping your kids and being the most tax-efficient in terms of how you leave money to your kids, there are a lot of things that you can do.

Speaker 3: 23:51

It's really about going back to what's most important to you now and funding the things that you might want to do for yourself now versus the long term. But there's a balance for everything. There's not one perfect financial plan for dads. That's how I kind of put it to them. You are still a human right. So even though you're taking care of another individual, it doesn't mean you can't be a little bit sometimes selfish for yourself. If you want to save up for a big TV to watch football on Sundays with, or you want to go on a vacation for yourself, everything in moderation. But if you are planning well enough and you have things taken care of well enough in advance hopefully not gone wood you don't have to be hit with too many surprises along the way.

Speaker 2: 24:41

Oh, that's fantastic. Thank you, sir, for sharing these great advices, like how folks can really take them and make a difference in their lives, especially dads. I'm happy that we have this kind of knowledge brought to us. So, boss, what would you ask the next guest? As a dad, what would you like to ask the next guest?

Speaker 3: 25:15

No, I would ask them what kind of man or woman do they want their kids to be? Because I think that's what traits do they want? Because sometimes people say, do as I say, not as I do, and maybe they want better for their kids. And I would say what kind of people do they want their kids to be?

Speaker 2: 25:41

Fantastic. Thank you so much, boss. How can people find this so that they can probably get some advice or help from you?

Speaker 3: 25:51

My practice is through Northwestern Mutual. So if they literally they Google my name, jim, and you Google Northwestern Mutual, I'll come right up, my website comes right up, and then, if they want to reach out to me, my email address is JimChargeauffiancom, so they can hit me up there as well.

Speaker 2: 26:13

Fantastic. Thanks so much for really being with us today and I thank you for all the great advice that you shared with us. Thank you, sir.

Speaker 1: 26:22

Yeah, anytime soon.

Speaker 2: 26:24

Absolutely Awesome, Awesome and folks can really can go ahead and join us into the DadPuzzles community. We are looking for more subscribers, more wisdom seekers as dad, so that we can really encourage each other and be better as fathers. So please join us at dadpuzzlescom. From there, you will find all the social media handles where there's Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. We are looking for everybody, you know and everyone. So thank you so much, guys.

Speaker 1: 27:09

Thank you.