Epi 12 Crafting Fiscal Success: Personalized Investment Solutions for the Legal Profession
Apr 16, 2024
Todd Whatley and Ian Weiner
Unlock the secrets to financial prowess with yours truly and expert Todd Whatley in our revealing chat on the Lawyer's Money Membership. Designed specifically for attorneys, this program promises a treasure trove of tools to shore up your financial well-being, from DIY planning resources to personalized investment strategies. We sift through guides, checklists, and flowcharts that spell out money mastery, and we lay bare the access to cutting-edge software like New Retirement and Monarch Money – your new allies in the quest for a robust financial future. Plus, discover the unique robo-advisor service that tailors your investment journey to match your risk appetite and personal values, all while highlighting the enticing cost benefits of joining our ranks.
Are fluctuating incomes causing you sleepless nights? Fear not, as we dissect the challenges peculiar to attorneys who work on contingency. Our conversation illuminates the critical role of understanding your financial baseline and the power of high-yield money market accounts to stabilize your cash flow. Peek behind the curtain of personalized financial and tax planning with certified experts – a perk that comes with a golden hour of advice for annual plan subscribers. And for the legal eagles hungry for more, we introduce the Lawyer's Total Plan, a robust array of resources including a bounty of continuing legal education opportunities. So, gear up to integrate these financial strategies into your professional toolkit and watch as your legal career's potential soars to new heights.
Unlock the secrets to financial prowess with yours truly and expert Todd Whatley in our revealing chat on the Lawyer's Money Membership. Designed specifically for attorneys, this program promises a treasure trove of tools to shore up your financial well-being, from DIY planning resources to personalized investment strategies. We sift through guides, checklists, and flowcharts that spell out money mastery, and we lay bare the access to cutting-edge software like New Retirement and Monarch Money – your new allies in the quest for a robust financial future. Plus, discover the unique robo-advisor service that tailors your investment journey to match your risk appetite and personal values, all while highlighting the enticing cost benefits of joining our ranks.
Are fluctuating incomes causing you sleepless nights? Fear not, as we dissect the challenges peculiar to attorneys who work on contingency. Our conversation illuminates the critical role of understanding your financial baseline and the power of high-yield money market accounts to stabilize your cash flow. Peek behind the curtain of personalized financial and tax planning with certified experts – a perk that comes with a golden hour of advice for annual plan subscribers. And for the legal eagles hungry for more, we introduce the Lawyer's Total Plan, a robust array of resources including a bounty of continuing legal education opportunities. So, gear up to integrate these financial strategies into your professional toolkit and watch as your legal career's potential soars to new heights.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Lawyer's Money Show with your hosts, todd Whatley and Ian Weiner, where finance meets the legal profession. Here we dive deep into the economics of law practice, from managing your firm's finances to optimizing personal wealth strategies for legal professionals. Every episode we bring you insights, strategies and stories from leading experts to help you navigate the financial landscape of the legal world. Stay tuned as we uncover the tools and tactics needed to help lawyers make the right money moves so they can grow their career, manage their practice and optimize their wealth so they can focus on enjoying the life they've worked so hard to build. For more resources, visit us at wwwlawyerstotalplancom.
Speaker 2:
That's right. This is the Lawyer's Money Show and my name is Todd Whatley and we are very thankful that you are listening to us and we have a really good show. We're going to start introducing some of the things that we are rolling out, and today we're going to talk about the very basic plan, and Ian's here with me and has a cool name for it Go.
Speaker 3:
Thank you, todd. I'm excited about this. I think one of my passions when it comes to financial planning is making advice and education more accessible to everybody, and so this, to me, is a starting point for this.
Speaker 3:
It's not the end allall be-all of everything, but I think that if someone uses this program, joins the Lawyer's Money Membership is what we're calling it, lawyer's Money Membership they're absolutely going to be in a better place in three, six, 12 months. And I think the ROI I don't know that we can even calculate the ROI, but it's going to be huge.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, this is something that every listener should have. Okay, it's every listener. We've priced it so that it's not free, but it's also not that expensive, particularly for everything that you get, and that's what today's show is going to talk about. So, basically, we are starting this plan, this program where you can join, and let's talk about the price.
Speaker 2:
last, OK let's let everybody know what they will be getting, and in your head you'd be thinking, well, what would I pay for that? Ok, so let's talk about some of the things that will be there that are specifically designed for attorneys.
Speaker 3:
So there's kind of three segments, if you will. So the first segment is just educational resources. So we've got things like guides, checklists. A lot of this stuff is geared towards folks who kind of want to do it themselves DIY kind of folks, flow charts, flow charts. We've got a lot of flow charts geared towards folks who kind of want to do it themselves DIY kind of folks Flow charts, flow charts. We've got a lot of flow charts. Love me, some flow charts.
Speaker 3:
So those kind of things where what we want to do is help you to streamline your decision-making process when it comes to money. And so the idea here is you can kind of dip your toe in the water, get used to the way that we approach planning, the way that we approach some of these financial things, without having to make a huge commitment, and so there's going to be resources like that. I'm also going to give access to some planning and software-based tools so you will be able to create a very comprehensive financial plan, if you want to, using a platform. I've partnered with a company called New Retirement. This is a probably I would be willing to say a best in class software that financial planners use, comparable to the stuff that you know, I have colleagues that pay a thousand dollars a month for this kind of software, and so I'll give you access to it and you can build your own plan. Now we're going to kind of teach you how to do it and see some of the things that get missed in there.
Speaker 3:
Another one is going to be access to Monarch. Money is what it's called. So Monarch is what I think the best replacement for Mint. A lot of folks knew Mint.
Speaker 3:
That's kind of like a budgeting cash flow kind of app that Intuit had and they shut it down and, frankly, mint was kind of a. I didn't like using it and I'm not a you Need a Budget fan. Some people love you Need a Budget. If you like that, you can stay on it. But Monarch, I think, is really really good. You can aggregate a lot of stuff there. We're going to give access to essentially our robo-advisor. We have portfolios that we manage but we're going to offer them at a pretty steep discount to what private planning would be and that's client-led. So you'll get access to another software we have called Seeds, where it kind of quantifies your risk tolerance but also some of your behaviors around investing and helps you design a pickup portfolio that matches what's important to you.
Speaker 2:
And everything up to that does cost us money. I mean, we are paying for those and you're going to get those as part of your monthly fee, but for that one it's fairly. I mean, it's not costly but it's a percentage of what you invest, correct? Yes, and so we are drastically reducing that from what you can get that from other places.
Speaker 3:
And the reason is it essentially functions as a robo-advisor, yeah, and so we have some and we'll talk about this in a different episode but we have some preferences on the way that some of that stuff works and we've built that into the process and so we're just passing those on to you, but we're not actively you know, we're not working directly with you to manage those. You're kind of picking out your own portfolio there, so that's why we can offer it at a discount. So that's a great place for folks to start. If you're like, hey, I'm at Vanguard or I'm at Robinhood or Schwab or wherever, it's an alternative to a target date fund or a robo fund that we think is more effective and better aligned with your goals basically.
Speaker 2:
So do you know what people are paying, like at Fidelity, to have not a person manage it but their robo?
Speaker 3:
investment program. It depends I think we could do one on the average cost of target date funds. I see these a lot as what people use and they're more expensive than people think.
Speaker 2:
That's what I was in when I met you, and you're like no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3:
I'm not a huge fan of target date funds at all. It's a brilliant way that big money managers can load in fees that you don't realize you're paying, so we should do one on that. But it's one of these things where it's like there's going to be some expense for investments. That's part of it, but we're going to keep it as absolutely low as we can to not pay for something that you don't need. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And then let's go back to the budgeting real quick, as you like to call it, money management or cash management.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
That's important for attorneys who particularly do contingency cases. Your salary is different every single, or what you bring into the office is different every single month. It's important that you know what your baseline is, and that's where cash management comes in, to let you know. Sorry about that. Here are my expenses every month and you know. If you have a really good month, great, I've covered the basis. Let's save that or put it into this investment fund, but that is crucial for attorneys to know what their budget is and I've been terrible about it my entire life, I'll admit it and giving you this tool to be able to know what your basis is every month is crucial.
Speaker 3:
Well, cash management doesn't sound sexy Pardon the turn of phrase there but it really really is. Cash is an asset class and we can optimize the function of it in a couple different ways, and I think that's important. We need to have a whole couple episodes on that, but cash is really a strategic investment. It's there to minimize risks and also be able to take advantage of opportunities, and we need to think about it that way. And another thing is right now, at the time we're recording this in early 2024, there are money market accounts that have really high yields right now compared to some other times, and so we don't want to have too much cash. But I mean, I think on our platform, money market's paying 5.1% right now.
Speaker 3:
Wow, yeah, that's cool, that's cool, we might as well, and you'd be shocked at how many people are in zero interest. Thanks, yeah.
Speaker 2:
From the old days. Yeah, that's huge. So there's also retirement planning, okay, and one of the big perks, I think, is if you do the annual plan, they're going to get at least an hour of your time. That's right To sit down with them one-on-one and say, hey, why don't we look at this? And the other thing is tax planning Okay, and so in that hour phone call you're going to give your two cents on planning. You know investments, things like that, but then also talk about taxes and that's one-on-one live with you, yes, or at some point it may be another, another CFP that we bring on, so I'll make sure that I'm clear about that.
Speaker 3:
But the the idea here is think of this as kind of a one hour. Ask me anything, let's talk through, whatever kind of money. Things are going on In addition to, you know, helping you to start to work with some of these tools and people don't, I don't think, realize how valuable that is, because they either feel like most of the time when someone talks to a financial advisor, they're afraid to get sold something they don't need, or they're afraid that they're going to be made to feel dumb for not having everything figured out. This has been my experience.
Speaker 2:
That was honestly my issue with going to a planner. It's like I haven't done this very well my entire life and I was afraid I'd be shamed or made to feel bad about it.
Speaker 3:
We don't do that. No, it's really not, and I think I've said this before. But I don't evaluate people based on the numbers. I evaluate them based on whether or not they're good, kind, honest people, and we don't work with jerks. We have a policy about that and so that's. You know that's another, that's another issue. But these are incredibly helpful times and you know, if you have a spouse or a partner, you know we'll bring them to that, and you'd be shocked at the stuff that we can the, the just kind of bottlenecks that we can untangle in that amount of time.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So yes, an hour with a certified financial planner. And if you do the, we're going to have two ways to pay for this annually, which will be cheaper per month or monthly. If you do the annual plan, you will get that hour within pretty quick, and so you can make sure that your year in this program is very well done. If you're just doing the monthly program, you're going to have to wait six months. We don't want you to do one month and get Ian's genius insight and then leave us.
Speaker 3:
I don't know that we can technically say I'm a genius. I think there might be a compliance issue there and, frankly, it's just a time thing.
Speaker 2:
I know it's a time thing we want you to stick with us and get the best from this.
Speaker 2:
The other thing that I'm excited to do and I think you should be excited is I am going to generate 12 hours of continuing legal education and I will get that approved through Arkansas and therefore my understanding is, if it's approved in one state, you can then get it approved into your state.
Speaker 2:
I'm not going to do your state for you, but I will do typically, on average, one hour per month of continuing legal education, and so, if you're worried about having to go somewhere or take time off or do whatever, we're going to do this in live webinars, and I think every state allows at least live webinars. Some states allow recorded, but we're going to do live webinars. I'll probably do like two hours every other month just to save us time, and when you go to do it, let's just get two hours knocked out, and I'll do that six times a year and, being a member of this, this will get you into that, and I'm not sure what your state requires. Most states are around 12 hours, and so you could get all of your continuing legal education done in this program.
Speaker 3:
We're trying to make this kind of a one-stop shop for everything. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:
So we're super excited to do this. This will be your introduction to Lawyer's Total Plan. We have two other levels we will talk about in later podcasts, but this is the introductory. You know, like Ian said, you know, dip your toe in it, see what's going on, get to know us, see some of the benefits we can give you. And we have Price this so that if you pay annually, it's equivalent to $79 per month, and that is nine. What?
Speaker 3:
I think it's about $9.50. I don't have the calculator out, okay.
Speaker 2:
So, whatever, $79 times 12 is $9.48. $9.48.
Speaker 3:
We'll call it $9.50 and round it down $9.50 to be. Look, we're great math people okay.
Speaker 2:
Look, we're great math people, okay, but if you don't want to pay that up front, you can pay monthly and it'll be $99 a month. Okay, but again, this is some really nice tools that you're going to pay separately for. Elsewhere, we're going to drastically reduce the robo-investment person that will—a lot of companies use robo-investment person, that will, you know and a lot of companies use robo-investment people. The algorithms have been tweaked over decades now and they do a pretty good job, and you know we will do that, and you'll get time with Ian to help you get the best out of all of these things and then also get 12 hours of continuing legal education.
Speaker 3:
There's a couple more things that we should talk about. So if that wasn't enough, okay, but wait, there's more. Sorry, this isn't a TV infomercial. We're going to do quarterly webinars for members. We're going to do quarterly webinars for members, so that will be talking through some other financial issues. We'll do one around tax time, we'll do one around retirement planning, some of those types of things, so that will be a little bit more in-depth.
Speaker 2:
Any updates in the news? Yeah, I mean particularly financial update things. You know, if the Fed changes, you know whatever you know, just it'll be quarterly and probably an hour and it'll be live so that people can ask questions and you'll benefit from other people's questions and things like that.
Speaker 3:
I love doing those.
Speaker 3:
Those are helpful and it's kind of like an office hours type of thing, you know, and so you're not going to get specific personal advice in those, but it's sort of a safe place to be able to ask questions that probably other people are thinking, and they are extremely valuable.
Speaker 3:
We find that it's just really helpful to do that stuff in that format. The other thing is we have a relationship with a company called Policy Genius that they do term life insurance and I think they're rolling out disability for us pretty soon, and so you'll have access to them. It's concierge, so there's a link. You click it. It'll help you figure out what you need and they take care of all of the paperwork and everything for you, and so that's an area where we'll have an entire show on that who needs that and when. But you can get pretty much everything taken care of one-stop shop through that, and so this membership level is a little bit more led by you, the member, than it is by us, the advisor, and that's on purpose, because some folks want that and some folks aren't ready to really have that higher touch, deeper engagement, and that's OK. But you're going to get a ton of value out of this, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So if you are interested in this and we're recording this at the end of March, the very end of March 2024,. Our website is close but it's not quite there yet. March 24. Our website is close, but it's not quite there yet. If you're hearing this, in April, May, June, the website should be up. There will be a link there for it. But until then, if you go, you don't find the website just yet, email ian at lawyerstotalplancom and tell him you're interested in this and we will get you signed up and get you started with these benefits.
Speaker 3:
So and we're going to be adding more stuff over time we hope to be able to offer some, some discounts on different things there's going to be. We've got some exciting stuff that we're going to be rolling out and we think this is going to be a game changer for for attorneys, so it's exciting.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, Just one price for a whole ton of stuff. So, all right, Thank you all for listening and again, you can email us Ian at LawyersTotalPlancom or Todd at LawyersTotalPlancom. We would love to hear comments and suggestions. And if you want to sign up for the Lawyer's Money membership, call us. What's the phone number.
Speaker 3:
The phone number is 479-485-1911. There we go.
Speaker 2:
Okay, or you can email us Okay. Thank you all very much and we will see you next time.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for joining us on the Lawyer's Money Show. We hope today's episode has provided you with valuable insights and actionable advice to enhance your financial well-being. For more information, to access show notes or to explore further, please visit our website at wwwlawyerstotalplancom. We look forward to guiding you through your financial journey. You can give us a call at 479-485-1911. Until next time, keep striving for excellence in both law and finance.