Keeping the Lights On

Angela Giombetti, head of marketing at Wealthspire Advisors, was inspired to share her story by our popular How We Money series. She offers Adam a look into the life-altering money experiences that shaped her financial journey, including the reason she always keeps the lights on in her house these days.

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Transcript

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- New Kids On The Block said,"Don't turn out the lights." Today's guest heard them loud and clear.[upbeat music] Welcome to "Common Cents on the Prairie™," a podcast dedicated to helping you demystify the sometimes complex topic of money. I'm Adam Cox, head of Wealth Management for The First National Bank in Sioux Falls. We're a community bank based out of South Dakota. In this podcast, we share expert insights from around the country and stories from our local community to arm you with the tools you need to make better financial decisions. Because the truth is, the more we talk about this stuff, the better off we're all going to be. Angela Giombetti is the head of marketing at Wealthspire Advisors, a national independent investment advisor with 22 locations in 12 states across the U.S. Angela has dedicated her 20-year career to the financial services industry, having served in communications, change management, public relations and marketing roles in banking, business development, fintech and RA firms across the country. She's also an accomplished ghostwriter of multiple nationally published books and a frequent speaker at industry conferences. And if that weren't enough, Angela's also a mentor for American Corporate Partners, which helps military personnel and their spouses transition to corporate employment, and Generation, which connects young women with companies. I hope you enjoy this incredible conversation. Ange, welcome to the show.- Thanks for having me.- Oh, thanks so much for being here. I am so looking forward to this. You and I have gotten to know each other pretty well over the last couple years, and you gave me a little glimmer of your story at the very first time we talked. And ever since then I was like,"We have got to get her on the show." And so thank you so much for being here today.- You caught me, no, just kidding. I'm a super fan of the podcast, you know that. I'm happy to be here.- Oh, good, good. Alright, well let's start at the beginning. Ange, when did you first become aware of money?- Okay, I thought about this, and the first time I remember being aware of money, I was very young actually. I was, so, I was born in Japan, spent the first few years of my life there with my parents and my family. And we lived in this apartment and there was a little market, maybe a few blocks from our apartment. And every time my mom would bring me and my sister and she'd pick up a few things for dinner, there was one of these machines outside and they're called Gashapons, and you remember, like the bubble gum machines, you come out of the, and you put your little.- Yep.- And well, they were called Gashapons,'cause that's the sound that the thing made. It's a thing in Japan, it's still, it's a huge industry. And these were a hundred yen. So these were machines that I think were launched in the late '70s, time checks outright, and a hundred yen was just this coin. To this day, I could still feel that coin in my hand. And my mom would give me one and she'd say, go ahead and get you a little figure. So I'd get this cute little adorable figure. And I'm such a collector and my little four, five-year-old self is at home with all of my different collectibles. And I remember wanting so badly to get another one of these figures that I went to my mom in the kitchen and I said,"Can I have a hundred yen?" And she said, "Sure, go ahead. You know, you're four, please take a hundred yen." What she didn't realize was I thought of that as, here's my key, she gave me the money, basically she's telling me I'm ready to go out into the world and get my own. So I put on my Hello Kitty sandals and I marched my way alone down a few blocks to get this little figure that I wanted to add to my collection. And I think my mom realized halfway through, "Oh my gosh. My four year old is walking by herself," so she's trying to grab the baby and putting on her shoes. And I just, I had already come back with my prize. And I just remember, like I said, the feel of that coin and thinking I just felt so free. Like it was just like, yes, I felt so empowered. Anyway, that's the first time I remember being really aware of money.- Oh, that's awesome.- And connecting it to something.- Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I love that, you know, it's feeling of independence. You had your money, time to go conquer the world.- Darn right.- Yeah, I love it. So you mentioned your parents. When you grew up, you told me once upon a time that your parents both grew up in upper middle class households, but that wasn't your experience, was it?- No, and you know, through our conversations and getting to know you, it's made me really think back because I always remember being poor, lower middle, like, right, like, I remember having a lot less than my classmates and my friends and my cousins. But then as an adult, I look back and I thought, wow, you know, my mother's family were pretty well to do in Japan. They had a two story house with their own property, which is expensive in Japan. And my dad's family was also upper middle. They had lots of property, they owned farmlands. So connecting the two, it was kind of like a little bit of a self-discovery, like why was that, what led us to being different from other members of our family? And it really came down to two things. One of them was, I come from a bicultural household and if you can imagine my father being from the south, Gonzalez, Louisiana, it's this little town between Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the 1970s, like desegregation was still fresh. And you can imagine my dad coming home with a Japanese wife during that time, it wasn't exactly accepted by his family. So there was definitely a little bit of isolation on that side. And the same with my mother's family, like they did not approve of their beloved daughter running off with some GI from, right? Somewhere in the United States. So I think they kind of isolated themselves that way. And then my dad just didn't have the best work ethic, to be honest. He was in construction. He still had this mentality toward employment like he was 19. He worked construction, it was brutal work. So when it got too much, he just decided, "I'll just take a layoff. Ooh, I need a break. I'll just stop working for a month. I'll take the unemployment, I'll find another job." Really having no idea what that does to your credit, what that does to your savings, your right, your bills. So between those two things, kind of being isolated from their families and just knowing that my dad had, just didn't have the best approach to money in general kind of put us in a really tough place for most of my childhood.- So our very first conversation. So the background here is you and I got to know each other because you, one of the things, one of the many things that you do is you help ghost write for books, and we have put together a book about these "How We Money" episodes, which is basically the very same conversations we're having today. And you had read the, kind of the summaries of those conversations we've had. And one of the first things you told me was,"You know, I keep my lights on at my house like almost all the time now as an adult." And I was like, interesting.- There's something there.- There's something there, like, tell us why you do that.- Well, somebody had asked me, why are all the lights on in your house? I tried to get better, by the way because electricity is expensive. And I pay the bills, so. I think for the longest time I equated darkness with poverty because there was definitely a time, a big period growing up where if I came home from school, the lights might be out for one of two reasons. Didn't pay the electric bill, so they cut the power. Like I've actually had to open the door when somebody said, "Hey, I've got to cut your power." The second reason would be my parents hiding from bill collectors. True story, like they knew that at any moment somebody might show up. So we better shut off all the lights and be quiet and hang out in the back. So cringey when you're 14 or 15 and, you know, you just want to impress your friends and you just want to be cool like the other kids. So I think as soon as I was in a place of independence living on my own, I thought, I can turn this light on and I'm going to turn the bathroom light on, I'm going to just keep them all on all the time until I go to sleep. The other thing was hanging stuff on the walls because everything in my childhood was, it felt very temporary. So the minute I had walls of my own, I'm like painting the orange. I'm hanging pictures of my cats, like.[both laughing]- No comment.- So yeah, that's, it's kind of interesting how, and you don't realize it. That how much your behavior is impacted by those early experiences.- Oh, yeah, a thousand percent. FYI, you could probably host the show given how you just teed that up, so that's an open offer. At what point growing up, Ang, did you realize that other people lived differently? Or not everyone lived the same way that you did?- Sure, pretty early. I think I got my first best friend when I was seven or eight, you start going over to friends' houses, you start doing these sleepovers and stuff and you realize they have birthday parties. They go on family vacations. And not just that fancy stuff, but like, they have chores and those chores equate to an allowance. And there are rules in the house. In my house, it was a little bit of a free for all. I think my parents did the best they could, but I, they didn't know how to set rules. I think there was a lot of culture clash. I think what my mom thought was the way to run a house was different than my dad just because of the way they were raised. So I found myself really envying my friends for having chores. Like, I would go over to my friend's house and be like, "I'll dust. Could I have a buck from that? Can we," I was like negotiating because I've loved the idea that there was this structure, there was this like, right, there was, there were rules in place. And I've always been a rule follower, you know that about me, so just if I dust it equates to a dollar. If I, right, put dishes here, I get another dollar. Like, that just felt so fascinating to me. And I was so jealous of that. My friends were like, "Go ahead, go ahead and dust."[both laughing]- I was just giving a presentation here a couple weeks ago, and this to a group of young professionals. One of the things I talked about was I can remember the exact moment in my life when I made the connection between money and work and how impactful that was for me, and I just drove by the house. So I was weeding a neighbor's landscape for $4 an hour and I started and I was weeding and I looked up at my watch, it was like three o'clock. Went back to work, looked at my watch again,

it was like 3: 11:22

15. I was like, "Oh my God, I just made a dollar." Like that's awesome. Like, just that one-to-one connection.- That *bing*.- So powerful.- Wait, how old were you?- That's a great question. I was probably seven, eight years old, something like that.- Yeah, see, we would've been friends.- We would've been friends.- Like I had my hundred yen. You were like, we'd have a money making operation right now.- Yes, we would've. Oh, I love it.- All the lights would be on.- Yes, all the lights would be on. Yes, you'd be spending money on electricity. I'd be trying to save it.- Yes, I would.- So as you think back to your childhood, I'm sure a few, one, two, maybe big moments, money moments stand out to you. What would those be for you?- Okay, there's a couple. There's, it's my parents, right? I mean, they were such a yin and yang about money. My mom had recognized at some point, we're going to be in this apartment forever. Our credit is always going to be bad. My father's never going to have steady employment. I have to do something. And here is a woman who is an immigrant. Like, she had to go and become a citizen. She had to file to work. Like she had to hone up on her skills. And I'm in the south, so everything was like"ya'll" and "over yonder." Like, it wasn't even English, it was like. But she, her work ethic. Like, here's a woman who basically had one job as a young person, because at that time it was like women went to work in like an office until they met their husband, and then they, that was it. They got married, they took care of the household. So she had had one job and she decided to go and get a business certificate so she could have steady employment even if it was $5 an hour. Because she knew that was the path to getting her kids a home. So I watched her and this work ethic where she's just, she's killing herself to basically provide for us. And that was really cool to watch, like, I couldn't have had a better role model on the other hand, so that was one thing. I watched her get that $5 an hour, right, work in construction doing accounts payable. And then we got a home like it translated to success very quickly. And on the other side of that, you've got my dad who never grew up and he has always had an addictive personality. So he drank, he smoked, he cheated a lot. Like he was, every kind of addiction, he was like, check, check, and gambling was a big one too. And what's interesting is my dad was able to kick the cheating, the drinking, and the smoking, but he just couldn't kick the gambling. And I remember he was in this cycle of working and then he'd take a layoff, and then he'd work and take a layoff. And he really leaned on those unemployment checks, which is just mortifying. And in such conflict with my mom and her work ethic. And it's just, it was so hard to watch that and understand why he was okay with it. But I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and she's sewing because that was one of her three jobs. Like she's accounts payable during the day, seamstress by night. And my dad had come home and he had a chip on his shoulder. And out of nowhere, he goes, "listen, I blew the unemployment check gambling." And I thought that is like the lowest of the low to me. Like you were watching your wife kill herself and you have this little, I mean, unemployment checks were never, they're never meant to cover everything. It's just, it's a survival. And that he had done that stayed with me so much that I thought, oh my gosh, here's what to do to get where you want to go and here's what never to do. Right, so that was, I think those are two memories that always stay with me for good or bad.- For good or bad, yeah. Oh, that's powerful. So your mom provided that steady stream of income and you got the house and you got the stability. But at some point, your mom started to kind of break away from your dad financially. Why did she do that?- I don't think it was much longer after the gambling the unemployment check away, really. I think that she realized, "Oh my goodness, I'm just, I'm throwing money into a pit. I make money, I can't keep up, he just spends it. I have to do something, right? I'm never going to get ahead if I let him have complete control of our finances or even have access to it." So I remember being with my mom, and we're at this point, I'm living away, I'm a teenager, but I'm living on my own. And we drove to the drive-through of a different bank that I was, it was not our family bank. And I thought, "Well, what are we doing here?" And she said, "Oh, well, just so you know, I opened a separate account where I'm putting all of the extra money that I'm making from my seamstress jobs." Basically like building up her own little savings. She's like, "Because if I don't do this, I'm never going to get ahead. And this is kind of that backup plan." And it was the first time I really thought, good for you mom. Like, good for you to be thinking that way about her future. And this is somebody who never had any financial education. She didn't have anybody advising her. She didn't have anybody saying,"You need to be doing this, or you need to cut him off or," so for her to do that on her own was like, mom was awesome.- Plus that was a different time too.- Absolutely, like this would've been like the '80s. Like, that was big for her. And like I said, her English wasn't the best either, so she had to go in and ask for help and hope that people were going to be kind to her, so.- Ange, how do you think these experiences with your folks impacted your early relationships, especially when it comes to money?- Oh.- Maybe that's a whole other episode.- Why did I agree to do, no, I'm a fan. I, you know, because we work together on this ebook and I saw how people were very raw and vulnerable. And I thought, I would never do that, would never share. And here I am, fast forward.- Here you are.- Actually, I just thought, this is so, this is powerful stuff. It has definitely impacted my relationships. I remember thinking very young,"Well, I'm never getting married. Heck no, this is a prison for my mom. She can't leave, she's shackled with three kids. This is a nightmare for a woman. There's no upside to getting married. So I'm just never going to do it." But I found myself because, your dad, your parents are like your first role models and your first kind of examples, seeing how my dad was, I thought absolutely want the opposite of this. I want boring and stable and driven and someone who really understands money. So I found myself really gravitating toward men who just kind of took care of everything, which is kind of crazy. Like, I gave up complete control because I thought, "I'm not good at this, but I'm picking someone who is very, very good at this. They might even be in finance, so that I'm taken care of." Like, that's how I found myself. Like, "Don't worry your pretty little head, you just go, here's a credit card, go buy some shoes."- Ugh.- It has its perks. Like, I had a nice shoe collection at one point.- It's not all bad, right.- No, it wasn't all bad.- Well, thank you for sharing that. I, that dynamic was still, so you were married previously, that dynamic was in your first marriage as well. Can you tell me a little bit about when that all changed for you.- Yeah, like I said, you get, you change over time. You start to get curious and I found myself working hard. I'm in a home. I've basically kind of achieved what I've wanted to achieve. Financial stability. I don't have to worry about any of the bills or the money. Right, I work. The money that I make is a little bit of spending money. I don't even have to worry about my career. If I just want to do this and make X amount, I'm good because the hubby has it all taken care of. But what I found out the hard way was, because I didn't know anything, I had no concept of how much money we had. Were we saving enough for retirement? I wasn't thinking of any of that, he's got it taken care of. And then I got kind of this wake up call one day where I came home from work and he said,"Hey, you're going to want to sit down. Listen, not a big deal, but we're getting audited by the IRS." And I thought, "What? Is that, like a normal, like, does that happen to normal like American people? That just happens to everybody once?" And he goes, "Oh, well," he had started his own business. And he said, "Well, I just figured that the IRS would give me like a year or two to get my taxes figured out." And I thought, why would you think that the IRS would not want their money?[both laugh] So fast forward, we've got accountants and lawyers and everybody's looking at all the stuff. And I'm starting to think at this point, a couple of things. I'm having these realizations.

One is: 21:00

I have signed everything you've put in front of me for six or seven years. I've never questioned, I've never asked, I don't know what my name is on. Is my name on this house? Like, I don't, I just signed whatever you tell me to sign. So that was the first thing. The second thing was, why am I in this relationship? Like, if financial security is really at the heart of this relationship, is that the kind of marriage that I want? Is that what I, right? That's not necessarily what I wanted when I was 10. And then the last thing that was the shock was when we got the bill, it was like close to 80 grand that we owed, which I don't care how much money you have, that was a lot.- That's real money, yeah.- I think I probably made, seriously, around 30,000 as like an admin. Like I did, I just, I worked where I wanted to work, it was flexible. And I thought, 80 grand, we're going to get kicked out of this house. And the reaction I got was, "Oh, no, no, no. We have that money, it's cool, it's fine. I'll just write a check." And I know that was meant to bring me security, but it did the opposite. It made me go, "How much money do we have? And why is 80,000 not a lot of money to you? We are not on the same page." So it was like I said, a wake up call, eventually a good one. But at the time it was, it totally rocked my world. And I think it was basically the beginning of the end of that time in my life.- Yeah, it probably put you back, right back to being a kid and some of those same feelings.- Oh, gosh, I was so transported back to the lights are going to be turned off. Like, are we going to get kicked out? Should I take the stuff off the walls? Like, the trauma was real.- Yeah, what do we do with the cat pictures?- They're coming with me.[both laugh]- All right, let's fast forward to our current times. You are sort of newly remarried and, I'm curious, how has the dynamic changed? Knowing what you've gone through, what you went through in your first marriage, what do things look like today?- I am a very late bloomer. I'm okay saying that. Where, after that part of my life, I really kind of, to say, I need to educate myself. Like, this is ridiculous. When I was growing up, my parents, my mother especially, and this is an era where she thought,"A lady should know how to read music. A lady should be pretty. A lady should be X, Y, and Z." And my mom really groomed me to marry rich. Like, she just thought, "Well, this one isn't the brightest, but it's okay. She's pretty. We'll marry her off." And those things stay with you. But I think that's when it was important to me. Like, I've got to get my education squared away. Right? I finished my degree. I really dug into like educating myself about finances, even though I'm terrible at numbers, but just the basics. Like, what should I be saving, what's my budget? These kind of things I had never asked anybody before. So, right, so fast forward, I feel, I'm behind, but I'm on track. I've got control of my finances. And then I meet somebody, and it's a completely different dynamic. Money plays such a central role, whether you like it or not, into bringing two people's lives together. So because we're older and we've been through the ringer with life a couple of times, it was like, let's just get it out on the table. It was, let's talk about debt. Let's just get it out there, right?- Yup, during the dating process?- Yeah, like right up front. And there was a lot less pressure than when you're in your twenties and you're trying to make the best impression and always have your hair done. It was like sitting on the couch with Doritos. Like, what's debt look like to you? Let's have it, give us the ugly. What does retirement look like? Where do you want to end up? Like, these questions that sound silly, but I never asked. So like, the dynamic is completely different. I feel like I've got a partner and it's okay to talk about money. Like, one of the things I think is really interesting is, "Oh, well we don't talk about money, that's rude. We don't ask, we don't talk," right? Why not? We should. So that's what's different is, we're really on the same page. We're both old fogies, right? We have, but tell me you don't cut to the chase and be like, "Is that what retirement looks like to you? Awesome, 'cause that's me too. Yay, let's do this together."- Yeah, oh, that's awesome. What short-term goals are you working towards?- Well, like I said, late bloomer. Saving for retirement is huge. So I'm like big on it right now. Short term, here's, okay this is so fun.- Okay.- So I go to Japan probably every three, four years, budget allowing.- Yep, right.- But I've never been to Japan during cherry blossom season. So, we're going in March.- [Adam] Heck yeah.- We had to wait out COVID, I want to be safe. The joints are getting old. Like, I got to do this before my knees and my hips give out. So yeah, we're doing that in March and I'm so excited doing the Tokyo, Kyoto, and really living that up. So that's my short-term kind of goal.- How about long term? Retirement, obviously.- Obviously, but what that means is, so I live halftime in Fort Myers, Florida. By the way, I think there's a hurricane going over it right now. So I hope my house is okay.- That's the rumor, yeah.- But it's kind of splitting my time between Fort Myers and I'm from Louisiana. I mean, I can't say I'm from Japan, I can't. Like you've known me long enough. I have more of a southern accent than anything. I've always wanted to have a space back in Louisiana. It's always going to be home to me, and I would love to invest in the community there. What people don't realize about Louisiana is it's very poor. It is a poor state. And I remember like Hurricane Katrina, it was like the first time I think that people had seen these faces on TV. Like, "Why won't they leave? Why won't these people, I don't understand why they won't just get into their cars and leave." Well, they don't have cars. They don't have a means to leave and they have nowhere to go. So people don't realize the need to help is great there. So I would love to just, I'd love to invest in maybe literacy programs, helping people with kind of job skills, interviewing skills, writing skills. So anyway, that would be, that's a goal. I would love to be able to invest.- That's an awesome goal. Ange, what would you consider to be your greatest financial decision you've made so far?- Okay, this is crazy, but it's taking on debt.[both laugh]- That's a new one. That's a new one for the show, all right.- It's taking on debt. I'll explain.- Please.- So you can imagine growing up, my parents are just drowning in debt, and that's kind of my first experience with it. I never wanted to take it, I never wanted a credit card. I just thought, I'm going to have cash for everything I pay for. I'm going to use my checkbook, back when people had checkbooks, and I know I have the money to back it up, but then I found myself trying to pay for college without student loans. So it was like, "Well, I can only afford one class this semester." And I was in Minnesota, I'm a University of Minnesota, so that's my Midwestern connection there.- Yeah, go Gophers.- Yeah. And I remember being on, and I'm working full-time and I've got internships, like I'm, it's important to me, but I'm eking along in my academic career. And somebody on campus called me ma'am,"Like, excuse me, ma'am, do you know where the library is?" And I was like, I was like, all right, well, I'm obviously turning old. I've got to get out of here. I mean, that was one thing, but I just realized I'm never going to get where I'm going if I don't take this risk, if I don't invest in myself. And I'm not going to think about this as debt. I'm going to think about this as an investment toward where I want to go. So I bit the bullet, I filled out all the paperwork. It was so hard to see that debt just sitting there like waiting for me to graduate. But that was the best decision I made because it really opened up the door for a career in financial services.- In financial services. Yeah, we're glad you're here.- Thank you.- Financially speaking, what's most important to you at this stage?- Education. Like, knowing where my money is. Always security, stability. I've never been one to need excess. I've never needed the fancies. I don't need extravagance, I don't need to fly first class. I don't. But knowing that my bills are paid, and if somebody breaks a hip, we've got, we can pay for the surgery. The part of the surgery we have. The cat swallows a magnet. I don't know.[Adam laughs] Right? Emergencies. We have emergency funds, everything's going to be okay. That's what's probably most important to me right now in this career.- All right, we'll leave with this question.- Okay, give it to me.- All right. What money advice would you give your younger self?- Oh, um, educate yourself. Educate yourself. Just go ask questions to, it's not rude for a lady. Remember, it was like the '80s, '90s. Like, I was not supposed to talk about money. That's rude. That's what I would say. Be confident, ask, ask questions. Where is that money going? What happens if I put this in my savings account, and what is interest, and what is this? The other advice I'd give myself is, don't close that retirement account that you opened when you were 19, you idiot.[Adam laughing] You idiot, what were you? I got dragged in by a boyfriend at the time who was like, "No, this is important." I don't, he was a good one.- Yeah, no kidding.- And I thought, this is ridiculous. I don't know these people. I'm going to hand these people my money? Oh my gosh, can you imagine? I was like 19.- Oh shoot.- That's all right, it's okay, lessons learned.- We all pay taxes, right?- Exactly.- Oh, that's funny. Ange, let's leave it there. You're a true gift. Thank you for doing this.- Thank you.- I appreciate it.- Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.- Well, yeah. It takes a lot of courage to talk about this stuff and to be vulnerable and, you know, I ask not-surface-level questions, obviously. And so I really appreciate-- I like that about you.- Well, thank you. But I appreciate you diving into this stuff. And, if I've learned anything from doing this show, it's that almost everyone has a story. Not all of them are as maybe dramatic as yours and some other people's that we've had on the show, but everybody has a story. And the lessons, you know, for you as you reflect back and say, well, why am I doing this today? And then you can kind of connect the dots as you go back in your childhood and your early adulthood and say, "Oh, that's probably why." And if this conversation and others like it can help other people skip some of that pain and maybe gloss over having to make some of those tough decisions, then we're doing our job. And so thank you so much for sharing your story on the show.- Thanks for having me.- All right, take care.- All right, bye-bye.- [Adam] I hope you found this helpful. If you did, please subscribe and share with your family or friends. If you have a topic you want us to cover in future episodes, send us a note through our website. And if you're at the point where you want an expert opinion on your finances, reach out and we'd be happy to start a conversation. And remember, any comments, insights, or strategies discussed on this podcast are intended to be general in nature and, therefore, may not be suitable for you and your situation, whatever that may be. Before acting on anything we discuss, please consult with your attorney, CPA, and/or your financial advisor.