Jill Carothers:
I’m Jill Carothers, and I’m a Vice President of Wealth Management at Rebalance. My primary role at Rebalance is to work with clients to help them understand where they are on their financial journey, and I help them with investment guidance as well as putting together a financial plan to ensure that they are on a solid financial path. I really love being a financial advisor. When I get up every day to start my work and to engage with my clients, one of the things that I know I’m doing for my clients is helping take them from a place of uncertainty and oftentimes fear to a place of financial certainty and a place of understanding that they’re going to be okay. And for me to have the opportunity to work with clients to get them there is not only a gift that I give my clients, but it’s a gift I give myself.
Like many people, probably the most influential person in my life was my mother. And my mother taught me a lesson very early on, and that was pay yourself first. So when I was a young girl in high school, I got my first job. I came home with my first paycheck, and my mom and I opened it together. She celebrated with me that I had earned my first bit of money. And she said, “Okay, now let’s pay you first.” And so we went down to my local bank, Bank of Marin, and we opened up a savings account. And back in those days it was a passport savings account. So we actually got a little passport and the teller wrote down my deposit and that became the beginning of my savings. And I took some in my pocket home with me to play with, and the rest I left in my savings account. Every two weeks when I got paid, I deposited money into my savings account. And fast forward at the end of the summer, those little deposits added up to something meaningful.
And when I was in college and graduating, I decided I wanted to take a trip to Europe. My sister and I planned a two and a half month trip, and I went down to the Bank of Marin, and I took out enough money to buy a backpack and a Eurorail pass and Let’s Go Europe. And my sister and I took the trip of a lifetime, and it really ignited my love of travel. But the other thing it did when I came back, I looked at my checking account or savings account, and I realized it wasn’t just a savings account, it was my opportunity fund. And what I wanted to do in my life was make sure I always had resources to be able to open the door when opportunity knocked and say, “Yes.”
