Financial Planner Meeting at Work

[thebbqguy]

My employer has been offering a series of financial planner seminars. They are 1 hour for 4 consecutive weeks. They have huge waiting lists because they will only take 45 - 50 per session. Today I attended session 1 of the seminar series.

It was encouraging to see the popularity of this program. The leader is a local financial planner who works with several of the larger companies in the metro area.

Today she started with the simple stuff including:

-How much you owe
-How much you earn
-Calculating personal net worth
-Calculating personal cash flow

She provided worksheets and a personal expense tracker with worksheets for the next 30 days.

Much of the material is exactly the types of things discussed here many, many times.

She spent a lot of time talking about what she calls "doodads". Her definition was as follows:

"Anything that costs you money and doesn't pay you money."

Then she transitioned into her belief that the value of your personal residence should not be included in your personal net worth calculation. She was quoting figures that although homes may historically in theory appreciate 5% per year, 4% of that goes to upkeep, maintenance, finance charges, etc. She didn't say where those figures came from, but it did enforce the point that having too much house for your financial situation is wasteful.

Overall I liked it. I could poke holes in a small amount of her presentation based on my personal situation, but I did find a lot of value in what she was saying.

[Triangle]

Good to see this becoming more popular! More savings is good for everyone.

[leeholsen]

we had one of those, i was going to go but decided against it when i figured i could teach the subject better than the instructor and if they started going over just how far behind the 8ball everyone is; it would just be depressing.

[TheLuckyWizard]

This is kind of cool.

[Chad]

Even if these aren't perfect, they are better than nothing considering the lack of basic financial knowledge.

[mikeBOS]

Good for most people. But when you eat, breath and sleep this stuff, like most the people on this forum, there isn't much left to learn from a run-of-the-mill financial planner making a group presentation to the average joe. Sounds like yours was pretty good though at least. Most of them are just salesmen.

[rube]

I think most of us here could always become part-time Financial planner if the ERE doesn't work out as expected , or just for the fun of it

[workathome]

Buy stocks! My brokerage only charges 3% to put you in! We also actively switch stocks every year. It costs 2% to sell. But it's worth it to have a salesman actively churn/manage your account!

[Felix]

I think most of us here could always become part-time Financial planner if the ERE doesn't work out as expected , or just for the fun of it

I think of a TV show a la George Ramsey for cooking, only they send one of us to a near bankrupt celebrity and we scream them back to their senses.

[Riggerjack]

Sounds like she was paraphrasing rich dad, poor dad. Not a bad place for folks with no background in financial awareness to start. Plus, it's a nice setup for the financial planning sales pitch at the end.
The part I'm interested in is her management fee when she gets. You signed up. Here, folks get roped into paying 1-2%!!! Then they don't understand why I'm freaking out.
There's just too many boomers at work who just don't want to think about money, or responsibility, they just want someone to tell them it's Ok to retire now.

Strange how many of these folks have 30+ years in a union, and still vote Democrat. That must be a coincidence.

[thebbqguy]

Riggerjack,

As far as I know she is quoting from her own copyrighted material. She has written a workbook of about 100 pages and a daily expense tracker of approximately 100 pages. She has not provided any resources or provided any attribution to any other source but her own material.

She sells herself as a "financial coach". Looking over the material she is not going to be suggesting mutual funds, stocks, insurance, etc. She is strictly speaking about budgeting, cashflow, and getting out of debt so far.

She has been on local TV and radio for the past 4 or 5 years. Her stance is that "there is no good debt...period".

[thebbqguy]

Today we had our second meeting with the "financial coach".

I did a little research on her background. She is not an accountant. She is not a financial planner, broker, insruance agent, CFA, CFC, or anything else that I can find.

She has a masters in mathematics and a masters in mechanical engineering. She used to be a manager with a local Fortune 50 company that is headquartered nearby.

Today's topics included establishing a "monthly spending plan". (We've been tracking this since January 2013 in an Excel spreadsheet, so it was easy for me to complete.)

Other topics included:

-Pay yourself first
-Earn, Save, Spend
-Budget for emergency expenses in advance
-Dollar cost average for anticipated expenses (i.e. home repair, vehicle repair, insurance premiums...)
-Treat your 401K and additional pension payments as an expense
-"There is no such thing as good debt, as far as I am concerned."
-"If you finance a house for 30 years, you have just paid for a vacation home too without the benefit of using it."
-"My goals for you is a cash only; debt free lifestyle."

I am pretty sure this is going to result in the ever popular "envelop method" made popular by Dave Ramsey before it's all said and done. She has not quoted Dave Ramsey or mentioned his consultant training at this point, but I would not be surprised if she has been to his training.

Supposedly she got started by accident...she was an engineer in middle management and on the fast track, but unhappy. Many of her employees kept coming to her for financial advice, so she quit her job as a successful engineer via "early retirement incentives" and started her own coaching business. I suspect many here on this forum could do the same thing if you wanted to spend some time and money to create some marketing materials, hand outs, worksheets, workbooks, etc.