Rebalance

Transcript:

So let’s talk about money, because this is something that people sometimes shy away from. It’s become kind of a taboo topic. I think it has been a taboo topic for a long time. I want to talk for a minute to young investors, for people who are in my generation where time is still on your side. I think it’s very common for us to see on social media, in the news, things that are just pessimistic, like our generation can’t buy a home. Or, I’ve seen a lot of people say, you can’t have a big family now, or you can’t be a stay at home parent and live off of one income anymore. And what I want to say to those young people is just do it. Don’t make excuses. We can completely still do this.

There were things, high inflation, recessions, wars. There were things during our parents’ and our grandparents’ times too that would make it very easy for them to say things that are similar. And I want to completely acknowledge that we have our own challenges, but practicing prudent investing, good saving, good habits from the beginning is going to help you be able to reach those goals. And it’s going to look different for everybody. It’s going to look different now, but some practices that you can do are make sure you’re getting your 401k employer match. That’s free money that you don’t want to leave on the table. Open up an IRA and just get started. Just put a few dollars in there. It’s going to compound over time. And then finally, as you start to make more money, as you begin to climb the corporate ladder and get promotions, make sure that you’re saving a portion of that every time rather than just increasing your lifestyle to absorb the entire promotion.

With financial goals, people don’t usually set financial goals just for the sake of saving money. They set them because they help to support their life goals. And so a financial advisor, a good one, can help you identify the life goals and then work with you on the financial goals to support those life goals.

And so in our situation, my life goal is really surrounded around family. And I have ambitious goals of being able to have a big family, have lots of kids. I want to be a full-time mother, and I want to be able to provide my children with all of the resources and time that they need. And so that’s something that really drives me. And a financial advisor really can act as a coach to help you look at these life goals and say, well how can we make the money work for you? And what financial goals do you need to set to reach those life goals? And this is something where my personal goal of being able to retire early, I would not have this goal, I would not know how to be on track for this goal had I not come across the information that I needed and had people not being willing to talk about it. Which is why I love being able to talk about it. I love being able to help people, and that’s something that Rebalance does really well too every day with their clients.

We focus on transparency and we focus on investing literacy and being able to help educate our clients by talking about money. And occasionally we find clients where there might be a communication breakdown between husband and wife and they don’t realize that they have different goals or there might be just a communication breakdown with themselves where they avoid the topic. Like they avoid the dentist. Hopefully, they go to the dentist, but they’re avoiding it because they’re nervous and they don’t know if they’re on track or not. And so it’s a conversation that a Rebalance financial advisor will start with the client to be able to help them know if they’re really on track or not.

Transcript:

For young athletes who come into a lot of money, I would say take a look at your options, because right now there are so many doors open to you and that money could buy you a new car, it could buy you a house, or it could buy you the freedom of time. If you choose right now at 19/20 that you want to retire by 35 or 40, it is completely possible for those people because they have time on their side for that compounding. So I would encourage them to consider that one of the options. If you value travel, if you value, maybe for the male athletes, you want to be a stay at home dad, this is something where you could put the money into investments now and you just have more opportunities in the future.

The biggest advice I have for anyone who’s young is time is on your side still, even this advice applies to people who are not young because you will never be younger than you are today, right now. So my advice is if you get a windfall of money, if you suddenly get a promotion, you should be looking at this as a way that you can better your future and also your present. So, take a portion of it before you increase your lifestyle and put it into saving, put it into investing, because you’ve got that time on your side and you can have compounding interest.

I think it’s a very common thing to feel cagey about talking about finances. I’m fortunate enough that there are people out there on the internet who are willing to, because I didn’t know anything about passive income, I didn’t know anything about indexing. I didn’t know anything about saving for retirement until I came across some of these people who are willing to discuss that. And now that I have been able to learn those principles, it took some digging. It was hard to find some of the information that I needed, and I want to be able to share that with others. And I’m lucky enough to have found a company where their investing philosophy marries perfectly with somebody who wants to maximize returns while minimizing risk.

Christie Whitney:
I’m born and raised Californian. I’m the mother of two boys and a wife. And having children, and in particular with my family’s situation, has really taught me about thinking ahead and the importance of planning for the future. I love what I do at Rebalance. I’m an advisor and financial planner here and get to interact with families about their needs. I have two teenage boys who keep me very busy, and they’re wonderful. My youngest son was born with special needs, unbeknownst to my husband and I, and we had a major journey with him for six years with medical instability, and I was challenged beyond what I ever imagined being challenged being his mother. But he’s a true light and healthy now and it’s made me such a strong individual. Having a child with special needs really does make you think about a longer term future for your children. Our planning and time horizon is that much longer than a typical childhood. But this also translates and makes me think about what I do at Rebalance in helping people plan for many, many years in retirement. Everyone these days has to plan and invest wisely to have a successful financial future.

Matt Jude:
My name is Matt Jude, and I’m a financial advisor at Rebalance. I grew up in Seattle, Washington. I have two older sisters and my parents, who all still live in Washington state. I came to California because I wanted to learn to surf and get some sunshine. So I went to college at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where I studied financial management, and I loved it so much on the central coast. I met my wife there and spent a lot of time surfing, and I did some work in the employee benefits world for a few years before really getting on track with my real career aspiration of becoming a financial advisor. I really believe in index investing. I think it’s the best way to participate in broad economic growth without taking on unnecessary risk, and that’s what we do at Rebalance. When I learned about this great research done by Standard & Poor’s, the SPIVA Research, I realized that the vast majority of professionals who try to do fundamental evaluation of companies, they end up just underperforming the indexes that they compare their returns to.

It is tempting to try to do better and outperform, and that’s how these active fund managers charge a higher fee. That’s how they make their money is by saying, “We’re going to outperform, or that’s our goal.” But there’s more than just company fundamentals and company earnings that goes into determining the value of a stock. And it’s a really difficult or basically impossible thing to get right and to get right consistently. So by doing index investing, which is how we do it at Rebalance, you are exposing your portfolio to the growth of thousands of different companies. And by doing that, you’re reducing the risk that you take on. You’re not taking bets on any single stock or company, and that’s the best way we think, and a lot of other really smart people out there think that’s the best way to do it.

I use the same investment techniques for myself and my family as I advise Rebalance clients to do. I use index investing. I’m not making bets on individual stocks. I do a financial plan. I have one for myself and my wife. And we think about our short-term needs, our long-term needs, and we try to be proactive. And that’s what I encourage people to do. And, that helps prepare you for the unknown, and it can really grant some peace of mind knowing that you’re prepared for challenges to come. I love the team at Rebalance. I love the people who I work with and the owners. I know the owners. It’s not some corporation out there with faceless CEOs. So we’re a very tight-knit group and we aim to pass that feeling through to our clients as well. We want them to feel like we’re family, we’re partners for them. You should come to Rebalance if you want super high level service and advice at reasonable costs. And that’s really the balance that we strive to achieve for people.

Dan Mavraides:
I found in life, listening is an underrated skill. I moved around the country my whole life, five or six times across the country. To make new friends, I had to become a very good listener. I found in my advisory practice, listening is even more important. If I don’t know exactly what your issues are, then how can I really help you? So when I work with a new client, the first thing I do is listen very intently, and I ask a lot of questions. I want to get to the root of your biggest problems, and how can we create a plan to address those? It’s ironic, because my job as an advisor is to provide advice, but the reality is to be a good advisor, you need to be a great listener first, and you need to understand what your client’s challenges are and who they really are uniquely as a person. So job one is listening and uncovering a client’s true needs. Job two is the investment and financial planning.

Rebalance Chief Marketing Officer, Lauren Simpson, explains how she plans on retiring early.

Meet Lauren the Rebalance Chief Marketing Officer.

In January, Burton Malkiel was a guest speaker at an exclusive client-only webinar with Rebalance Managing Director Mitch Tuchman, offering invaluable perspectives on the current financial landscape, long-term investing strategies, and the principles that have made his work so influential. The discussion provided unique insights into market trends and the importance of a disciplined, low-cost approach to investing. Below is an exclusive clip from the event.

Burt Malkiel, renowned economist and author of the classic investment book A Random Walk Down Wall Street, is a key member of the Rebalance Investment Committee. With decades of experience in financial markets and a deep understanding of evidence-based investing, Malkiel has been instrumental in shaping Rebalance’s investment strategies. His insights have guided countless investors in navigating market fluctuations with confidence and discipline.

For access to the full discussion, please email Lauren Simpson at lsimpson@rebalance360.com.

January, 2025

Sonja Breeding:

I’m Sonja Breeding and I am a certified financial planner here at Rebalance. Having a financial plan reduces a lot of stress in your life. We all live really busy lives. Most people don’t pay attention to their finances, right? It’s not something we focus on in school. A lot of clients come to us with accounts all over the place and they don’t know how to consolidate to reduce that stress in their lives. Once we get all that information, we construct a plan. Clients know where they want to go, they just don’t know how to get there a lot of the times. And so we design a map for them. We figure out, alright, well how much do you need to save in order to retire at that time? How much do you need to save in order to put your kids through XY College? If you remodel the kitchen, do you have to work another year or two? If you want a vacation house, what does that take? And then overall, how are you invested? Are you invested more aggressively? Are you invested more conservatively? So we look at all of those factors in a financial plan and we give you a plan to reduce that stress in your life so that you can concentrate on the other factors in life that are important to you.