Latest / Marci talks money (and life) / From Curiosity to Financial Advisor: Financial Literacy and Opportunity with Andrew Quebbemann
Transcript
- Marci Grossman (00:58) Hello, I am MoneyMarci. Welcome. I am excited to welcome today's guest, Andrew Quebbemann. Andrew's current project is helping people understand that there is no shame in a dollar as financial advisor with Gold Book Financial in California. He lives there with his wife and their corgi Colt. Andrew's passion for his project is driven by his desire to see everyone realize the optionality and freedom all humans deserve in this life. On the weekends, you can find him between local car shows and teaching kids how to play ice hockey. Welcome, Andrew. Andrew Quebbemann (01:35) Hi Marci, thanks for inviting me on. Marci Grossman (01:37) Well, I am really excited to have you. I love having financial professionals who can share knowledge and their story. I'm going to start with your bio. Optionality. That's a great word. What does it mean to you? Andrew Quebbemann (01:51) Yeah. Optionality to me and to the people that work with me, means that we have the ability to react to a situation. Let's say, something comes along in life and, all of a sudden we've got a car repair that has to get done. And so we have to choose between maybe going on a vacation or paying off, you know, that car repair bill. or a friend comes up and says, hey, I really want to go do this trip. We're doing a whole friends trip, all of our college friends from 30 years ago, want to go out together, do a week. Do you have the ability to do that or not? And that's what I like to create for people. Marci Grossman (02:34) That is awesome. Now you took an interesting path to become a financial professional. How did that happen? Andrew Quebbemann (02:41) Accidentally, if you believe it. I started out, obviously in college like so many, and at one point I wanted to be a medical doctor. So went through all the biology courses, I even went so far as taking the MCAT, but I never ended up applying. It just became apparent to me that I wanted to be a doctor for the wrong reasons. at least the reasons that would not have been very helpful to get me through medical school. And so I spent some time in corporate America in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, working with, all these different companies trying to make the world a healthier and safer place. And it was a lot of fun. And that's a great mission. And definitely those people in that industry work very hard. But for me being in corporate America, as I looked around and constantly was taking an assessment of who around me do I enjoy, who around me do I want to emulate, who's encouraging me or helping me to strive to be better. And while I picked up different things from different people along the way, I always felt like I was missing like a more specific community aspect. And If you believe in manifestation, every year I take the time and in December I will look back and say, you know, what am I proud of? What have I accomplished? What am I grateful for? And then looking ahead for the next year, what do want to accomplish? And this specific year I had said I wanted to learn more about finances. I felt like it was a personal gap in my knowledge that I wasn't taking advantage of all the things that I could be. And I even, had a financial advisor at the time, but still felt like I could do more for myself. Take my own responsibility. And ⁓ lo and behold, that August, someone reached out to me and said, Hey, Andrew, you know, we'd love to have you as a financial advisor. And I said, why? I have no background in this. I know what a stock is, but you know, that was pretty much the extent of it at that point. And they're like, no, no, no, you don't understand. And so the more that we talked, the more that I understood the mission and how, as a small business owner, because that's truly how I see myself, that I can have a much bigger impact on my community, that I can be a much more direct help than where I was in the world. And so I jumped in head first, and here we are. Marci Grossman (05:06) I think that's awesome. I expect that because of how you learned it makes you very accessible to your clients because you're coming from it from a different place than someone like myself who I went to school for accounting and that is the bulk of what I've done my professional life. Andrew Quebbemann (05:24) Yeah, certainly, I don't like to make assumptions that everyone understands what I'm saying. I know, the best in our industry and yourself included, I'm sure always make that effort. But yeah, I guess you could say I'm especially sensitive to that part of the communication process. Marci Grossman (05:40) It's not that I assume everyone's going to know all the accounting terms, but when I work with other accountants and when I am buried in this during all my professional time, it just becomes part of my standard vocabulary. So you don't even think that there's a term that everyone doesn't understand because it's what you are enmeshed in the whole time you're working. When I work in an office with accountants and I'm working Andrew Quebbemann (05:49) Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Marci Grossman (06:08) specifically with business owners, you know, they learn those terms for their own benefit so they can understand them. But then when I start working in a different situation, when I swap to a nonprofit, the whole vocabulary was different. The whole level of understanding was different and you have to adapt to that. But your perspective is very unique and makes you very accessible to a lot of people. So that's a good thing. Andrew Quebbemann (06:14) Right. For sure. Marci Grossman (06:37) So you grew up with entrepreneur parents. Did you talk about money growing up? Did you come from a background of some level of financial literacy because of that? Andrew Quebbemann (06:46) You know after you just said all that that entrepreneurs need to learn that kind of stuff. I don't feel like I did. We talked a lot about hard work. We talked a lot about how to make a really good caramel apple, because that was what the business was was it was a gourmet confectionary store. Which you would think would be ideal for a kid to be working there, but believe it or not you do get tired of it after a while. But no I grew up You know, I think like a lot, at least, you know, from my generation, it seems from older generations too, you know, we didn't talk about money. We didn't talk about how much my dad made. We didn't talk about how much my mom made. We didn't talk about how the revenue for the business, how they handle taxes. We weren't, you know, it was not polite to ask a neighbor how much their boat cost or their car cost or like there was a lot, you know, even aunts and uncles, we still didn't ask that question. And you know, now looking at it from this side of it, as you said, kind of going through the process that I have, I think that kind of attitude is to everyone's detriment because the rich people, like the richest people you can think of, they talk about money all the time. It's a tool. It's a lever. It's something that they can use to do something else. I think there are a lot of benefits to working together as a community and a lot of the things that you have available in your toolbox that I have available in my toolbox for the people that we work with, they're available to everyone. There's not minimum net worth requirements to most of what I do. There are for sure for a couple, but most no. And so I think, know, the entrepreneurial part of growing up, it helped me understand the value of hard work. It helped me understand, like I know my mom for sure felt lonely at times being at the top of the business for so long and people couldn't always relate to her like her employees, I guess is what I'm referring to there. So I got a sense of what that looked like but not how to handle the finances of the business. Marci Grossman (08:44) I will say that through my work I have known people who are rich and people who are not as well off and really the whole spectrum of wealth. They don't necessarily talk about money. They may talk about, this boat costs $100,000 or whatever, but you could get that by looking in the ads or going to the boat show. Financial literacy is so much more than how much your house costs or how much your boat costs or your car costs or even what your college education costs. ⁓ It's understanding the tools and how to use them, how to ask the questions you need to understand, how to find the resources you need to find. And so I'm really trying to encourage those conversations. ⁓ Andrew Quebbemann (09:18) Yeah. For sure. Marci Grossman (09:37) I talk to people about how they talk to their kids. I'm assuming your corgi is not overly interested in financial conversations. Andrew Quebbemann (09:45) No, but I promise you the kids will get a different conversation. Marci Grossman (09:48) yeah. yeah. So tell me about hockey. Andrew Quebbemann (09:53) So in terms of the work that I do now. Marci Grossman (09:56) Yeah, it says that you teach kids how to play ice hockey. Andrew Quebbemann (09:59) Yeah, well I grew up playing since I was five. I grew up in Wisconsin and for me that was always my stress relief place. Hockey itself wasn't always stress free. know some teams we were pretty competitive but the ice itself has always been a constant part of my life and my favorite times playing was always pond hockey which for those in the southern states ⁓ Water occasionally freezes on lakes and then you go down there. As scary as that may sound, but it was always a great time because there was nothing out there but you and the game and the rest of the kids you were playing with. And so I had the opportunity here, I met someone at a gym and he said, you know, there's a local hockey program and on Saturday mornings they always need help coaching the kids. And so for about two and a half years now I've been going. pretty much every Saturday to help out learn to play, is kids from the ages of, I think our youngest is four. Occasionally we have a three year old pop out there. They tend to just push around kind of a collection of PVC pipes that look like a walker. But from four all the way up to I think 12 years old or 13 is probably the oldest of the kids that we have out there. And it's all first timers. They've never played before and they wanna... you know, see what the game's all about. And so we start to teach them the skills of playing hockey. Marci Grossman (11:26) That's awesome. I think of hockey as being a relatively expensive sport. ⁓ All the pads and these are things that you're going to outgrow regularly. ⁓ Andrew Quebbemann (11:32) Yeah. That's certainly the case and goalies more than anything else, but the program is great. They have used equipment available for kids to try, especially for the kids that are just trying it for the first time. They can be set up with equipment that they can just borrow for the day. And when you're four or five, you're not really sweating in the equipment. So doesn't smell like the older kids' equipment too bad. Marci Grossman (11:59) And four-year-olds don't smell like teenagers do either. Andrew Quebbemann (12:04) No. Marci Grossman (12:05) That's awesome. It's so important to have things outside of work because we end up investing a lot of ourselves in our work. depending on your profession, you bring some of it home with you and it's in the back of your mind. So I'm always glad to see what people do when they're not working. Andrew Quebbemann (12:20) Yeah. It's so enjoyable and I tell you, four year olds in full head to toe protective equipment. definitely like, I've got these two little ones, Maverick and Owen, and they may as well be, know, Peewees, which Peewees is the first level that you can start to body check in legally in the game. Like they're ready for it already. Marci Grossman (12:49) that's a little bit scary. Andrew Quebbemann (12:51) It's a good time. ⁓ They're not obviously very large so they can't really do a lot of damage to themselves. I have the ones that want us look out for them because sticks even though swung by a four year old can still hurt your shin. Marci Grossman (13:04) yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Tell me about your talk topic. No Shame in a Dollar, I love the title. Andrew Quebbemann (13:13) Yeah, we touched on it a little bit before. I kind of feel like people don't have the conversations with either a professional or a close friend or close family member as much as really, you know, to help, like you said, find where the information is. And a lot of people I know turn to the internet these days and AI. I will throw out a cautionary tale on the AI front. there's the word intelligence in it. AI is coming along. It does not necessarily provide you the most accurate information that is applicable to your situation. And laws change. So any information that you get from that kind of source, while it's a great starting point, I still highly recommend talking to a professional. either myself or Marci or someone else out there in your world to make sure that you're on the right track because a lot of what we do ends up being personalized to your situation. And, you know, I guess just that's what I see when I have initial conversations with people. You know, I hear a lot of, I know I should have done this a long time ago, or I know I should be doing this, or I would have done that if my job had done this. Right? It's a lot of shoulda, coulda, woulda's. They're like apologizing to me for the... And we've just met, right? Like you're apologizing to me for something that we're talking about how to like help you, how to help push and leverage yourself. And that's okay. But, you know, I'm not here to pass judgment. Marci, I'm sure you're the same. We're not here to pass judgment. We're here to help you get where you want to go. And so... You know, money is just a tool. It unlocks things, right? It can provide experiences that are emotional, that are happy, that are sad. But money in itself, it's made up. Right? As a humankind, we made up the concept of money. So it doesn't really deserve, I don't think, any more emotion than seeing it as a tool to do something with it. Marci Grossman (15:11) Well, we had to invent money because the barter system was getting way too far. I've got a block of cheese and I want the pair of shoes that you have, but you have no interest in cheese. So I have to get a whole chain of things going on to change the cheese into a drinking cup, to change it into a car tire, to change it into, you know, whatever before I can get the shoes I want. Money makes it much easier. Andrew Quebbemann (15:16) All confirmed. Mm-hmm. for sure. It's definitely the grease for the cogs. Absolutely. Marci Grossman (15:42) Let's pause for a quick break. Marci Grossman (15:45) What do you think gets in the way for people? What is the biggest stumbling block from them taking the control of their financial house and building their team and what they need to do to move forward with their money? Andrew Quebbemann (15:47) away. I think a lot of it has to do it on trust. And when I say trust, I mean... When you, like, I know people use cash less and less these days, but when you hold cash or you have money in your savings account, it doesn't get smaller. Right? We don't watch it go down. You might watch it go down because you spend it, but you don't watch it go down. you didn't spend any money between yesterday and today and you had $1,000 in it, there's still going to be $1,000 in that savings account tomorrow. No matter what. Well, not almost no matter what, but for the most part. When you invest money or you hand over the control to another financial institution for life insurance or for investing in the stock market or buying a bond or something like that, whatever it is, you are in theory giving up control. And on a given day, your money can go down. The stock market goes up. It also goes down. And so I think then it's just a lack of understanding or perspective. And that's what I try to do with with people when I talk with them is we bring back the perspective. If you need the money in six months, well, yeah, we probably shouldn't do a lot with it. If we don't think we're gonna need it for 20 years, then a given day, it doesn't matter as much as our total year perspective. And There are three things that all dollars end up getting spent towards, right? It's your lifestyle, it's taxes, and inflation. That's it. And the one that everyone always forgets about is inflation. Everyone says, it's a bummer that eggs cost more, it's a bummer that beef is costing more, gasoline's costing more. That's all true. It's also making your savings account money worth less, or the money in your mattress worth less. And so if we're not even trying to keep up with inflation, well, we're getting way behind the situation. And we still have taxes and we still have lifestyle to go for. And we're not accounting for our third pillar there. So I think that's where most of it comes from. It's just having that perspective and the understanding of how the tools all work together and how they come together for a more comprehensive plan. Marci Grossman (18:06) That makes sense and that really ties back to the AI can give general information and sometimes that general information is correct in general, but it's never going to be correct for the individual because you know, like as far as taxes and whatever else your state matters. So I can give general that matters for people in Michigan, but someone lives in Wisconsin and all of a sudden it's Andrew Quebbemann (18:13) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Marci Grossman (18:32) different or someone lives in Texas or someone lives in New York or wherever someone lives, they want someone who knows them. They want a financial professional who's not just a generic, can help them make those decisions. Well, I want this much money in six months and this much in five years and this is my 10 year, my 20 year, my whatever else. So you can have those conversations and help them. Andrew Quebbemann (18:34) Yeah. Marci Grossman (18:57) understand how to beat that inflation because you're right yeah that thousand dollars still still looks like a thousand dollars and it's earned some interest so so now it's a thousand and ten dollars but it's buying power because of inflation gets you less Andrew Quebbemann (19:13) Right, right. And it's so important to understand your individual situation. I like I lived in Philadelphia for a little while. I didn't realize I had Philadelphia city tax that was supposed to come out. That was new to me. I lived in Wisconsin and lived in Illinois. I didn't realize that I was going to have a city tax on my income in addition to everything else. The that was a W-2. They should have. They weren't. The state of Philadelphia Marci Grossman (19:32) Was that a W2 or not a W2? So they should have been withholding that. Andrew Quebbemann (19:40) the city in that case doesn't care where it's coming from. They're going to hold you accountable at the end of the day. You're held accountable and not the company. So it's just little things like that. And Marci Grossman (19:48) Right. Right. Andrew Quebbemann (19:53) It's just something to be aware of when you know you're working with individuals you're working with AI and these plans And I think this may be another component of this You don't have to have all the answers today. You can say you want to retire at 65, but change it to 63 later you can say that you want to buy a house in five years. Maybe you want to buy it in three. That's okay. Like it's okay for this plan to change But if you don't have any plan for anything, you're going to end up hitting nothing. Marci Grossman (20:23) That is true. We get so locked in on plans. We say, okay, this is what I'm gonna do and it's structured. And I've seen people not change their mind when they decided, you know what? Well, what would have happened if you hadn't decided wow medical school and being a doctor isn't right for me? Andrew Quebbemann (20:41) Yeah. Yeah, all of a sudden I I didn't need money to set aside for medical school. That's a big change in my financial future. Marci Grossman (20:47) Right, and in your other opportunities because now you've got money, you've got time because you're not studying for a degree you don't want. People have a lot of trouble recognizing the difference between throwing good money after bad or finishing something they start. And you don't have to finish something you start if you realize it's not the right thing for you. Andrew Quebbemann (21:03) Right. Yeah, and so maybe a better way to think about all this is set the framework. Set the foundation, right? We can do a lot of different things, we can pivot in a lot of different ways. But again, it goes back to having the options and the flexibility that I talked about when we started. Create the ability for you to pivot. Right? Create yourself the situation where you're not locked in to this is the way it has to be because I have no other options. Right? If we only have a savings account and a retirement account, that's fine for some people. But if you need money in 10 years and we're locked up in a retirement account until you're 59 and a half and then all we have is savings aside, we're missing everything in the middle. So having that understanding, I think also is just that perspective. Marci Grossman (21:56) That's a good way of putting it. Now, as a financial professional, which of the investing licenses do you work with? Andrew Quebbemann (22:04) So which do I possess? Marci Grossman (22:06) Which do you possess and I assume you work with other people as well? Andrew Quebbemann (22:08) Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So there are a lot of different alphabet soup type certifications that people have in our world. CPA, everyone's familiar with Certified Public Accountant, right? We work very closely with those people. And then, you know, different lawyers, estate attorneys, sometimes they'll have extra acronyms after their names to designate some extra studies that they've done in the financial world as well. But the maybe the less known ones. So I think the most common of the financial world that maybe people recognize is CFP, which stands for Certified Financial Planner. And To me, that signifies someone that has spent a lot of time. They've essentially gotten a master's degree in finance is basically what that is. Very comprehensive everything from taxes to estate planning to retirement to individual investments like stocks and things like that. They have put in a lot of time to get that designation and you need to be a financial professional in the industry for three years before you can attach that designation to your name publicly. You can take the classes before, you can take them right away if you want to but you can only attach them to your name and publicly declare that you're a Certified Financial Planner after three years. So that's a big one. It's a common one that people look for. Is it necessary to have a master's degree in finance to be very good at what you do? You know, will a 20 year financial professional still be able to provide you great advice versus a three year person that has that designation? Yeah, I'm sure the 20 year persons are going to be fine. But that's one to look out for. The other ones there are retirement specialists, there are special needs certifications so for those of you out there that have special needs children. That is a whole subset of finance that like I work closely I've had a couple of cases come across and I have a very good friend that has a special needs boy That's a good one to bring in a specialist for, even on the estate planning side for attorneys. There are different things available to special needs individuals that are not available to other people. So that's a good one. Kind of more going towards the basics. Just to get started in the industry, there are things, there's these series exams. So a series 63, series 66, series 6, series 7, they all mean different things and the series exams are nationally organized exams. Some are more focused on state, some are more focused on federal law, but they are in place to protect you as a consumer. So if someone does not have a series 6 or a 63 at a minimum, they should never be talking to you about any kind of security from a professional perspective. The Series 7, the Series 66, the Series 65, those are advanced designations that enable you to talk about pretty much everything across the country. And so those exams, those are like our legal liability or legal obligations that we have to fulfill as a fiduciary, which means that we're always looking out for the best interest of the person that we're talking to. That's why you'll see like a proper financial professional. So someone that has these different series designations, they will not publicly online, Instagram or tiktok or anything. They will not say specific advice. about a specific situation unless they have some really clear documentation and disclaimers kind of below in the caption somewhere like you should see something if if you see someone online that is just spouting all kinds of material about this stock pick or that stock pick or this investment if they don't have any disclaimers and they don't have any licenses that means that Like if I were to say on this program that you should invest in a specific stock because I think it's great for you. And then you invested in that stock and it lost money because of my licenses, you could come back and sue me. That's a very real consequence to what I say publicly. If you don't have those designations, and you happen to lose money, there's nothing to hold you accountable to any kind of information. So it's kind of funny, when I was back in the bio and pharmaceutical industry, I could actually say more publicly about finance than I can today. And I know more now. Marci Grossman (26:40) Well, but it makes sense because now you're much more aware of how important it is to deal with the individual in front of you. And when we're here talking in social media, we're not talking to an individual. Even if I were one of your clients or you were one of mine and we were to give each other specific financial advice that we would say, okay, this is only information I'm giving to Andrew, we're just allowing you to listen in and vice versa. Andrew Quebbemann (26:49) Right. Thank Marci Grossman (27:09) it still would come across the wrong way to too many people out there. We've both, I'm sure, seen people in social media giving advice and you're like, yeah, that's not a professional. You can tell because professionals, the more you know, I don't want to say the less confident, but the less overly confident and exuberantly, you know, absolute you are because you don't have any Andrew Quebbemann (27:20) Yeah. Yeah. Marci Grossman (27:37) guardrails, any consequences, any professional expectations of the value of that information you're giving and how much it means. This program, yes, I'm a CPA and yes, most of my advice is general financial literacy advice that is probably good for 90 % of the people who listen. However, this is an informational and educational show. This is not me giving Andrew Quebbemann (27:48) Yeah. Marci Grossman (28:05) any individual financial advice and and I say it frequently, it's in my show notes, it's all over the place, it's in the book I wrote because it's important for me to make sure that that disclaimer is up there because I can't represent to everybody that this is absolute in all circumstances. Andrew Quebbemann (28:26) Right, you know just to follow on that for our listeners here, if someone guarantees something, if someone promises something, That's a red flag to carefully consider. If you hear you need to invest money to get money out. That is a huge red flag. If someone comes to you that is not someone you have known your entire life in a panic asking for money. And you know, I have a family member that actively investigates people that are in this kind of situation. There are people out there who really know how to play on the psychology and the need to be helpful and there, those are the red flags, they will pull on these levers very well, very intelligently and take advantage of you. So I say that, you know, I've heard now too many stories, ⁓ particularly like the, you know, the commonality of, we're both part of this group or we are both ex-patriots from this country or we're both this. And it goes on for several months and you get more and more roped in and all of a sudden Now this thing starts to snowball and that's where like, you know, the promise of huge returns, right? A good return, a good return and in a given year over like, let's say over the course of five years, between like seven to 11%. Like that's great. You're doing fine. If someone's promised you 30, 40, 50, 80%, whatever that happens to be. That's a huge red flag as well. It can happen. That's a lottery pick. Sure, it's not unheard of, but it's not a promise, it's not a guarantee. So those are a couple of red flags I would say for our listeners to watch out for. Those are run the other direction. Marci Grossman (30:20) Right, and any given stock can go up a huge amount in any time frame. But no one knows what that stock is going to be. If I knew a stock was going to go up a huge amount, I would dump my whole diversified portfolio and pour all my money into that one stock. But that's not how it works because, you know, my crystal ball doesn't work. Andrew Quebbemann (30:25) Mm-hmm. Thank Yeah, exactly. And that's, you know, you bring up a diversified portfolio. That's why we talk about that. It diversifies some of the risks. That's why we like it. I like to say Sears used to be the biggest company general store in the world, right? They used to have a big tower in Chicago. Tower is still there. It's under a different name, right? Walmart used to be the biggest. Then this little company called Amazon came along. These things change and there's a recency bias to a lot of what we do. But there are stocks that are doing great today that we have absolutely zero guarantee that in 20 years, they're still going to be as big as they are, much less in business. So life changes, so prepare for Marci Grossman (31:24) Right, that's why they always say past results is no guarantee of future performance. And that's not a five year, a three year, that could be any given day. Could be the day that something stops going up. And that's why you have to always do your research and work with people that you trust to do theirs. Andrew Quebbemann (31:42) Right. Marci Grossman (31:43) Andrew, do you have anything you'd like to mention that maybe we didn't cover? Andrew Quebbemann (31:47) We covered a lot of great stuff. I think most important, you know, in all this, it's okay to, you know, again, have your plan pivot, work with someone you trust, you know, be aware of the red flags, like guarantees and outsized returns to the market. Those are just things that they might be true. But man, do your homework like that's I would personally be always, always very, very hesitant on that kind of stuff. So, you know, take advantage of today. You're as young as you're ever going to be. It's not too late. If you're in your 50s or 60s and retirement's around the corner, you can still make a plan, right? Estate planning is a real thing. You want stuff to go to where you want it to go and not where the government's going to tell you where it goes. I guess like to say Marci, like you and I, we're not plumbers, right? If the pipe is burst and water is gushing out, it's probably too late for us to do anything about it. If we're brought in before and we can plan out the system, then we can route the water where it needs to go. Marci Grossman (32:45) That's a great way to put that. Andrew, thank you so much for being my guest today. I really appreciate you taking the time to join me here and help my listeners learn some more about investing and finances and all the opportunities. Andrew Quebbemann (33:01) Yeah, thank you for having me and if anyone wants to continue the conversation, know, feel free to look me up. You know, happy to be there as a resource when people need it. Marci Grossman (33:09) To my listeners, I will be sharing a link to Andrew's information in the show notes. Please check him out. He has a lot of good information. And if you're a hockey player, you really want to talk to him. Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and stay tuned. I will see you next time. This has been MoneyMarci on Marci Talks Money (and Life). You got this!