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Schmooze with Suze
Hi, I’m Suze. Here with your dose of culture, values and global citizenship- and where we tackle those topics others may consider off-limits.
A little about me, I’m a busy GenX mom who, quite frankly, wanted to grow up like the Brady Bunch… But ended up being raised in the shadow of Schindler’s List. So this means I’ve spent a lifetime navigating these mixed messages we get hit with daily. You know those conversations- where we wonder if it’s safe to speak our minds? Can we share our experiences? Voice our fears and concerns, or should we just keep our mouths shut?
Well, too bad. I need to know! But I’m no expert. So, I’m going to schmooze the experts and get their thoughts. Why? So when we engage with our kids, colleagues, or the countless committees we interact with, we can do it with competence, kindness, confidence, and maybe a bit of humor.
If this sounds like your cup of coffee- welcome to Schmooze with Suze!
Schmooze with Suze
Can Generosity and Wealth Really Go Hand in Hand? My Guest: Kellie Smith, Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy® (CAP®), B&C Financial
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A jar of loose change can be a financial plan, a love letter, and a blueprint for resilience all at once.
This week on Schmooze with Suze, I begin with a childhood memory that has stayed with me for decades. My parents kept one of those giant water jugs from the water machine, not for water, but for coins. Pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters collected one sacrifice at a time. That jar eventually bought their first washing machine and first vacuum cleaner.
Long before I understood budgets, investing, or compound interest, I understood something else: big things are often built in small ways.
That story sets the stage for a heartfelt and practical conversation with Kellie Smith, wealth and philanthropic advisor at B&C Financial, about financial literacy, wealth building, philanthropy, and why so many women were taught how to give, care for others, and show up for their communities, but were never taught how money actually works.
Kellie shares her own financial wake-up call after graduating college with student loan debt and realizing how easy it is to borrow money without understanding the long-term cost. Together, we explore the difference between making money and building wealth, why retirement planning is really about buying back your time, and how simple steps like creating an emergency fund, maximizing an employer match, reducing subscription creep, and utilizing high-yield savings accounts can create lasting financial stability.
We also unpack the often-misunderstood world of philanthropy and legacy giving. From donor-advised funds and endowments to planned giving and charitable legacy strategies, Kellie helps demystify how ordinary people can create extraordinary impact for generations to come.
Whether you're just beginning your financial journey or looking to align your resources with your values, this conversation offers practical advice, inspiration, and a reminder that wealth isn't just about what you leave behind.
Because wealth isn't measured only by what we accumulate. It's measured by what we sustain, what we share, and what we make possible for others.
In This Episode:
• Financial literacy lessons women often miss
• The difference between income and wealth
• Building financial confidence at any age
• Emergency funds and retirement basics
• Employer matching and investment fundamentals
• Philanthropy as a wealth-building mindset
• Donor-advised funds, endowments, and planned giving
• Creating a legacy that reflects your values
• Why generosity and financial stewardship belong together
Because wealth isn't measured only by what we accumulate. It's measured by what we sustain, what we share, and what we make possible for others.
Kellie Kelleher-Smith, CAP®
Kellie serves as a Wealth Advisor with B&C Financial Advisors in Ponte Vedra Beach. She is a registered Investment Advisor Representative and holds the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy® (CAP®) designation through The American College of Financial Services. The CAP® credential is a specialized designation focused on charitable planning, philanthropic strategy, wealth transfer, and helping individuals align their financial resources with their values and legacy goals.
Her professional background uniquely combines:
- Wealth management and financial planning
- Philanthropic advising and charitable strategy
- Multi-generational wealth planning
- Retirement planning
- Legacy and estate-focused giving strategies
- Nonprofit leadership and fundraising experience
Prior to joining B&C Financial Advisors, Kellie held leadership roles with the Jewish Federation & Foundation of Northeast Florida and the American Cancer Society, giving her a rare perspective that bridges both the nonprofit and financial planning worlds.
B&C Financial Advisors Contact Information
B&C Financial Advisors
110 Professional Drive, Suite 101
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 32082
Phone: (904) 273-9850
Website: B&C Financial Advisors Website
B&C is a fee-only registered investment advisory firm serving individuals, families, retirees, business owners, trusts, and charitable entities.
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#FinancialLiteracy #WealthBuilding #FinancialFreedom
#MoneyMindset #LegacyPlanning #Philanthropy
#Tzedakah #GivingBack #WomenWhoGive #CommunityImpact
#PurposeDriven #LegacyGiving #DonorAdvisedFund
#PlannedGiving #GenerosityInAction #WomenSupportingWomen #WomenInLeadership #WomenEmpoweringWomen #WomenUnited #WomenMakingAnImpact #FemaleLeadership #InvestInWomen #FinancialConfidence #Jacksonville #NortheastFlorida
#JaxCommunity #SmallThingsBecomeBigThings
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Spare Change And Quiet Resilience
SPEAKER_00When I was younger, I grew up in a house where money wasn't really discussed openly. Somehow I knew it was tight. My parents kept one of those giant water jugs from the water machine in the bedroom, not for water, but for coins. Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, they filled it little by little, one sacrifice at a time. That jar bought their first washing machine, their first vacuum cleaner, and sent me to my first camp. I grew up understanding something before I even had words for it. Big things are often built in small ways. Resilience isn't always dramatic. Sometimes it isn't a grand speech or some cinematic moment where life changes overnight. Sometimes resilience looks like loose change on a kitchen counter, like parents quietly choosing to go without so their children can have more, like small acts repeated over and over, until one day you look up and realize they built a future. Maybe that's why I've always believed impact works the same way. Relationships, communities, philanthropy, wealth, legacies, very few things happen all at once. Most extraordinary things begin a spare change in a jar, and someone believing that eventually small things become big things. My father was incredibly generous. Philanthropy wasn't a line item in our family, it was a value system. I understood Siddhaka from a young age. Not simply charity, but justice, responsibility, and the belief that if you have the ability to help, you help. But financial literacy, budgets, investing, long-term planning, not so much. I cannot remember sitting down and hearing, here's how wealth works. There wasn't a spreadsheet presentation at the kitchen table, no conversation about compound interest, no lesson on investing, no, here's your budget for the month. Instead, my dad would say, How much do you think you want to spend? Which, in hindsight, feels incredibly generous, but also slightly terrifying. Because generosity without education can leave you with beautiful values and very few tools. And maybe that is true for a lot of women. Many of us were taught to care for people, how to volunteer, how to give, how to show up, but not necessarily how to build wealth, steward it, grow it, and understand the systems that shape it. And now later in life, I find myself learning things I wish I had learned decades ago. Things like institutional philanthropy, donor-advised funds, planned giving, endowments, legacy strategies. I sometimes wonder if I am late to the conversation. But maybe late is still right on time. Because if there's one thing I have learned over three decades, moving from business to education to nonprofit leadership and community engagement, it's that every chapter teaches you something you are meant to learn. And today's conversation is about money, yes. But it's also about agency. It's about creating options. It's about understanding that wealth is not only what you leave behind, it's also what you build while you are here. And that's what we're going to tackle today.
Meet Kelly Smith
SPEAKER_00Hi, I'm Suze, here with a dose of culture, values, and global citizenship, with just enough chutzbah to tackle the topics others may avoid. Today's guest is someone who has spent years helping people think differently about money, philanthropy, and impact. She has personally taught me so much as the development chair of my personal board of directors. Kelly Smith is a wealth and philanthropic advisor with B and C Financial in Pontavidra Beach, and her work reaches far beyond numbers and portfolios. Kelly has built a career around helping individuals and families align resources with purpose. She is also deeply invested in community stewardship and leadership. She is a member of Women's United, a pastine fellow through United Way of Northeast Florida, and board member to the Planned Giving Council of Northeast Florida. Kelly has also helped create opportunities for female athletes through financial literacy initiatives connected to her work with the LPGA, recognizing something incredibly important. Talent and opportunity are only part of the equation. Understanding how to steward success matters too. Welcome, Kelly.
Student Loans And A Career Pivot
SPEAKER_00Hi, thanks for having me. Thanks for being on Schmooz with Suze. I want to talk a little bit about your path. How did wealth advising and philanthropy become your lane? And would Kelly, the young Kelly, be surprised or understand entirely where you're sitting today? Oh gosh. No.
SPEAKER_01So young Kelly wanted to be an attorney and got into law school and didn't love law school. I interned in a federal courthouse and I knew right away it was not for me. And I don't think I ever thought this would be my lane or this would be where I would end up. Um I think it's meant to be. It's Beshared. It is maybe my destiny. But uh I graduated school, uh college. I received my diploma days before 9-11. And in addition to receiving my diploma, my parents handed me a coupon book. And it wasn't coupons to go buy things, it was how I would repay my student loans every month. And it was in that moment receiving my diploma in the mail and the coupon book for the next probably 10 to 20 years of my life repaying six figures of debt that I had accrued going to college. Now, being the first in my family to go to college, I don't think any of us knew what we were diving into. We didn't we didn't necessarily understand student loans, parent loans first they call this a grant, but is it really a grant or is it a loan with low interest? Like what is accumulating here? And I'm not sure that my dad understood. Um I don't think, you know, we signed our names to those papers and and that was that. We were just excited I was going to college and I would be the first to get a degree. And at 20, almost one year old, uh, I did I graduated college pretty young because I could see how much debt I was accruing, and I was like, I need to get out of this mess. So I started taking 18 credits a semester. And I had gone dual enrollment into law school, and I discovered pretty quickly that this wasn't my path. And so I took my bachelor's degree and I pivoted, um, I started working full-time, and I was at I was attending graduate school at night um in a different field, thinking maybe that would be my path. Um and I was studying sociology at a state school and paying cash for that degree because it was a very quick lesson learned when you saw the amount of coupons in the book and the length of time it was gonna take you to pay back that money, yeah. But also within days, seeing the world change forever and the job market changed forever.
SPEAKER_00It was it was a major pivot. So was there a defining moment where you realize that money and meaning could coexist professionally where it was more than just paying back a coupon book, it was something that was far greater. Now that you were the first person to graduate college, you would not be the last person, and so you needed to put the steps into place. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um, and so it was actually in my in my first role. Um I was working in the trust and estate's office for a really large national uh nonprofit organization, and uh I had a great mentor and boss who was teaching me a great deal. Um but it was in that moment of him taking me to meet with a donor to the institution that was looking to really, you know, make a transformational gift and being able to sit down with these individuals and have that conversation about the why, the purpose, the meaning, how they earned the money, what they wanted it to do after they were gone, and really putting all the pieces in my life together. Like I had seen, you know, my dad is Catholic, and I'd seen him attend church and put money in a basket, and and I'd seen my um my mom volunteer and give back and help children and and do food drives and everything she could to help. But we, like you, grew up um not with a lot of money. Um my dad worked really hard and he is at he's in the same job uh at the same place that he has worked since he was in high school. Um and he's 70 years old and working there today. And seeing people work that hard and devote themselves but also never see the end of the road is disheartening. Like we all deserve a time in our lives where we can retire, where we can give back, where we can do what we want to help repair the world, um, and try to make the world a better place. And I knew that was the future I wanted to see, whether it be in my day-to-day work with individuals and families, or it be in my own personal life. Like I admired not just what I saw in that very first interaction with a very philanthropic individual who was looking to make a transformational investment, but also in seeing the dedication and devotion my parents put into their community and their lives and me. And you know, when you're 19 or 20 years old, you may not necessarily see the financial struggles that your parents probably have in making those coupon payments while you're in school, so you can be in school.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
Making Money Versus Building Wealth
SPEAKER_00What you're talking about is the difference between making money and building wealth. And so you realized early that there was a definite decision that someone has to make in an effort to move beyond the present to make it a future type of individual. What would you say the major difference is between making money and building wealth?
SPEAKER_01So I'll give you the earliest example, and and I am a mom, I have an 11-year-old. Um, but when I was seven years old, I really wanted a cabbage patch kid doll. Um I don't know if you remember.
SPEAKER_00I do, I'm from the 1900s.
SPEAKER_01I really wanted one, and I remember it cost $28.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, it cost $50 something dollars when it first came out because I'm older than you. And my parents were from that brush of people that had the first, like the first Toys R Us like brawl. That was when cabbage patches came out.
SPEAKER_01Well, so I remember I was allowed to get the doll, but I was $28 in debt, and there was a notebook in the kitchen drawer, you know, like the junk drawer that everyone has in their kitchen and two. I still have one, yep. And so my mom had it in the kitchen drawer, and every week when I would finish my chores around the house on Sunday, we would get two dollars. Like if all your chores were done on Sunday, you would get your two dollar allowance. And so for weeks I had to watch the minus two, minus two until it was zeroed out, all for me to have this doll, right? So I like to use that example as like that's everything that goes on today in society, right? Like you see something, you want it, whether it is the fancy car or it is the big house or it is the brand new sneakers your kid wants, right? We we work to obtain money to go out and get the things we want, right? And it's like a hamster wheel. That's just like working to have things, working to be able to live and to have the things that we want to have. And it can be a vicious hamster wheel, right? Because we all know what happens, right? You get that one cabbage patch kid doll, and then it's like, oh, well, I really want like two or three. I want to have like a collection of them. Right. We need a sibling, we also need like the baby carrot, right? Like those are things. Yeah. And we do that in our adult lives too, right? Like we're just like working to buy the things, to pay for the things to exist. And we're not necessarily thinking about the future. Whether that's how will we pay for college or how will we one day retire and live a life that we want to live.
SPEAKER_00That's enjoyable and meaningful.
SPEAKER_01Whether that means gardening in your backyard and volunteering at your local food pantry or church or synagogue and having the free time to give back to do good in the world, or it means traveling the world and living the life that you've always dreamed of. In order to do that, you have to have money set aside for that. And as we all know, life gets more and more expensive every year. And you have to know how to plan for that. And so you're saying you can't wing it. You can't wing it. You can't wing it. You can't just at 50 years old say, you know what, one day I want to retire, and this is the kind of life I want to have. I recently read um online that you know, there's all these Facebook groups out there for like moms and working women and this and that. I'm in one of these like mom groups of Jacksonville, and I saw a woman post that she is every financial advisor's nightmare because she doesn't want to put money away for retirement so that she can just have a lot of money to pay for the nursing home she'll die in. And I like I had to stop. And I never comment, I'm sure you know this, like I never comment on anything in these public forums.
SPEAKER_00Right, you slide into my DMs like normally.
SPEAKER_01Like I send you a message. But in this one, I had to comment because when you are saving for retirement, when you are 30, 40, 50 years old and you're putting money away for retirement, or even at 20, if you're smart, start saving at 20. When you are putting that money away for retirement, you're not putting it away to be comatose in a nursing home at 98 years old. Might that happen? It absolutely might. But what I like to tell people is when you are saving that money, what you are doing is you are slowly planning to get to a point in your life where you say, you know what, I have enough money. I no longer want to go to this 9 to 5 or midnight to 8 or whatever your schedule is. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to retire and I want to do something I control with my time. Like I said, whether it's gardening or traveling or hanging out with grandkids.
SPEAKER_00Or even getting a nonprofit job that's part-time where the outcome is more meaningful or necessary than the income. How beautiful is that.
SPEAKER_01Pivot and have a have a second career that maybe you find joy and pleasure in, and you're not there just for the financial reward and the paycheck and the salary. That's even better. I actually, my Nana, they would spend six months a year down in South Florida. I mean, so typical. So typical. And when she was down. Was it from Boca to Miami? Um, Hollywood Beach. That's where my mom is today. Yep, Hollywood Beach. And she, you know, raised five kids, was a police officer's wife. Like she always had things to do back home in Massachusetts. When she retired, she got a part-time job working in a gift shop that sold like shell jewelry and like Florida souvenirs. And it was on the beach. It was cute little like mom and pop gift shop, and she loved it. And we would always get these like cute little trinkets and gifts from her, and I swear she spent more money in that store than she probably ever made. But it brought her so much joy to get to meet travelers.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say she probably was like you and loved to converse and loved to meet new people.
Short-Term Rules And Long-Term Plans
SPEAKER_00So let's talk a little bit about goals, right? Because for some people, they have been doing this because they were educated. My son started teaching my kids compound interest when they were three. He would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today, and if you give them the dollar today and you let it sit and let it ride, he was teaching them, and I wish I would have had that education younger. So, for someone who is looking at short-term goals, what could they establish versus someone who would like to consider long-term goals on what they could leave behind? So are we talking young like kids or are we talking like well, I'm in the same mom's groups that you are, and women are often caretakers and planners and emotional labor coordinators. They don't necessarily think about money until something happens. So if we're talking about someone between the ages of 35 and 55, someone who has short-term goals that they want to kind of hit, whether it's I want to save up for my mommy makeover, or long-term goals, like I do want to ensure that my kids can finish college without student debt, which to me is the greatest gift you can give your child today.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so let's start with the mom. So if you're a mom out there and you have short-term financial goals and long-term goals, I think first and foremost, you always want to make sure that you have that emergency cash on hand, right? Like, if I had to take an unpaid leave of absence for work, do I have X number of weeks of emergency money on hand to keep the bills paid? Right? Because once the bills stop getting paid, late fees, interest, like it becomes a spiraling effect that can really hurt people, especially when they're in that like 30 to 40 year range, right? They've got a lot of bills. In today's world, the average 30 to 40-year-old person's got the mortgage or the rent, the car payment, they're probably still paying student loan debt off if they didn't have college paid for them. Um and the minute all of those bills stop getting paid, the interest starts piling up, right? So you absolutely want to make sure you have that, you know, emergency cash fund that could help me survive X number of weeks if I don't have a salary coming in, right? And I think for me, I like to tell people, and for me personally, like that emergency cash on hand should be in a high yield savings account, not a savings account that you're getting six cents every three months on. You want a high yield savings account that is separate from your day-to-day bank because then you're less likely to touch it, less likely to transfer money over to spend it on something that you desire today. Um and I think whenever you're trying to work towards any of these goals, it's also important to make a rule for yourself. Like the minute I feel like I want to buy something, no matter big or small, the minute I want to place that Amazon order or I want to dive into Target for like a 30-minute just like mind break, before you make those purchases, think like, do I really need this? Or like, you know what, I'm gonna put it in the cart, but I'm gonna think about it for a day or two and see if I really want it. Because in today's world, what we are all dealing with is so different than what our moms and nanas dealt with. There was no instant gratification, there was no Amazon, there was no like target cart drive up and they bring in the phone. Dopamine hits. Yes. And that this like spending society that we live in, it's a life of excess. Like there's there's so much that we buy that we don't need that gets delivered to us. And did we really need like a monthly subscription to XYZ and now we're getting it every 30 days? Like I constantly tell people short-term goals, look at your subscriptions, cancel the ones you're not using. If you don't need a subscription to it, like you could pay 10% more if you just didn't have the subscription when you need to get it. Yeah. These subscriptions and streaming services, they're taking money away from people and you're not realizing that it's happening. So also evaluate that. When it comes to long-term goals, if you are working and you have a benefits package that includes any form of retirement plan, you should be contributing to that retirement plan. And in most, not all, but in most cases, there's usually a company match, right? So if you don't contribute, you're leaving money on the table, like free money your employer is gonna add into your retirement account. And in our world, unlike our parents and grandparents, right, pensions don't exist. They're not a norm anymore. They're few and far between. So we have to save for our own retirement. And the future of Social Security is unknown. We know it's there, but we can't count on the benefit that we may think we will get when Social Security comes. We need to plan outside of that. And I don't care if you're 22 years old in your first job or you're 60 years old and a few years away from retirement, make those contributions into your retirement plan. You're you don't want to leave the match money on the table if your employer will match. And by contributing to your retirement plan, you're reducing your taxable income. So you'll end up paying less in taxes right now.
SPEAKER_00So it's free money and it's saving money that you would be giving away to the government. And if you start earlier, which I touched on compound interest, you're talking about it growing over time.
SPEAKER_01You know, you can uh anyone could Google this, right? So you look up the rule of seven, like in investing, right? So like you you have this like model where you can basically say, like, on average, there's no guarantee in investing, right? Like investing is a gamble in some ways. There is no guaranteed return. But over time, you know, researchers have studied the stock market. You can look it up on Morningstar, and over the course of from 1970 to 2020, you can follow investments and at a certain risk tolerance level, you can see that about every 10 years the investment will double. Right? And again, no guarantee because we can never guarantee anything in the investment world. But if you start today and you are slowly depositing money every paycheck, by the time you get to that retirement age, you will certainly have the resources you need to build a life. Now, if you're left. Is really lavish and you want that kind of lifestyle where you're going on a a vacation or a six-month cruise or something like that, you need to plan for that as well. You need to put extra away. You need to hit the hit the max and then maybe invest in another way. Or when you're in your 50s, take advantage of catch-up contributions where you can do more than the you know standard contributions.
Service Mindset And Community Needs
SPEAKER_00So learning about money is the first step in knowing what to do with your money and not being afraid to ask those questions. For you, who's somebody who's been a community steward, and coming from a background where philanthropy, although with a little P, right? I called it Sadaka, you said pass around the plate. Those are very visceral images that remind me of the kind of childhood I had and the kind of world that I grew up in. Um how has service and involvement informed your work in your professional life?
SPEAKER_01So for me, one of my first experiences that always stays with me is my grandfather and a friend of his would um a couple times a year they would participate in these food drives where people would leave paper bags of canned goods and non-perishables on their stoops. I lived in the city, like they would leave them on the stairs. They would leave them like on the stairs or the front porch area, I guess you'd call it. And me and a friend or two friends, we would sit in the back of like the postal service mail truck, and we would jump out every couple of houses and go collect all that food. And by the end of the day, we'd have brought back ten mail trucks full of food, and then we would spend time in the warehouse sorting all the food, and fast forward the next day, we would help operate the food pantry. And it's in a moment like that where I at a young age realized there are people that simply don't have enough to eat, like a basic necessity, a basic need in this world. They they don't have enough food, and they most likely can't afford to go to the grocery store and buy the food that they want. So they're coming here to this warehouse where they have to pick and choose from what was donated. And they have to be willing to eat that. And I say that to you as a mom, right? Like we have these kids that like you can put food on their plate and they're like, I'm not eating that, and they will like stand their ground and not eat it. And in this situation, I go back to, you know, our kids would say somet our parents would have said something like, There's starving children in XYZ country, or, you know, whatever was going on in 1982. But in reality today, I can look my son in the eye and I can say to him, There are people that would love to have this hot, home cooked plate of food that we have made for you, prepared for you, and purchased to our liking, whatever we wanted. And on the flip side, right down the street, not in another country, right in our neighborhood, right in our community, there are people that have to wait for the day the food pantry is open to go get that food. And it was like that in 1985, 1990, and it's still like that today. And so I always go back to that like message when I'm talking to my own son and when I'm thinking about just basic needs, right? And so for me today in my life and in my home and in my personal, you know, financial being, my small family of three and our two amazing rescue dogs, we have more than we need. And I personally feel that I am so blessed, right? Like I didn't grow up with all of this. I have a very specific moment in my childhood where I remember my mom is at the main grocery store. So my dad is actually a butcher and he works for like a small family-owned like meat type market. But my mom would go to the regular grocery store to get regular groceries, like the, you know, the non-perishables, the soda, the juice, whatever, that kind of stuff. And I remember one time as a kid standing in line with her, and as everything was getting wrung in and she was watching the screen, she hit the amount of money she had in her purse. And so we had to put things back, and we couldn't get the rest. And it's moments like that that stay with you, right? But now I didn't have to go to the food pantry and take whatever was available. We were still able to go to the store and buy, right? So again, I'm I'm counting my blessing. I'm not focusing on the shortcoming. And today I c I mean, maybe when I was like in graduate school or college, I would like focus on how much I was spending at the grocery store. Like I have I have been blessed and I have worked hard and I feel very lucky to never have had to do that, but I know it's a reality. And so I feel not only a sense of obligation to give back, but I also feel a strong desire to help other people do it, to f to have them find their joy in providing to others, to filling that gap that's out there, and to also just recognizing that that they are so blessed and that they have more than they need. But unfortunately, like the world we live in today, this like spend acquire society, so many people feel like they'll never obtain everything they want. They'll never get to the like ultimate car that they've always dreamed of owning, or they'll never get to the biggest mansion in the nicest community, right? Like there's always something more to get.
SPEAKER_00It's so interesting because I always say by the worst house, I'm the best block. Right? It's a different mindset when we're thinking about five years.
SPEAKER_01And get a low and get a low interest rate. And make sure you know what the taxes are gonna be. Because the last thing you want to do is buy that home and close on it, and then discover that the taxes are double what you thought they would be, the HOA is triple what you thought it was going to be, and now your monthly payment is way larger than you dreamed it would be, right? And that I mean, that has recently been on the news here in Florida. Yeah. You know, a builder was selling homes and the the taxes weren't being calculated right, and the the interest and the uh HOA fees and things weren't all adding up, and so people three months into living in their brand new home were getting monthly payment sticker shock because all of a sudden the tax bill was double what they thought. Wow. And so their monthly payment escalated, and people were being forced to put these homes on the market and and sell and move out. And it's just knowledge and knowing buying a home is scary, especially when it's your first time. So do your research.
Money Skills For Female Athletes
SPEAKER_00I want to talk a little bit about the work that you do for specialty groups, and by specialty groups I mean, for example, female athletes. Growing up, I remember reading, seeing, hearing stories, news articles, documentaries about predominantly male athletes, people who had made so much money and then walked away with nothing. And now there's this market available to female athletes who are being recognized and elevated. And tell me a little bit about what that financial experience and literacy looks like for that space, this emerging space.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So I guess it was almost probably two years ago, maybe a year and a half ago, um, I was approached by a woman who was has been very involved with hosting the LPGA tour players when they come into Northeast Florida for a golf tournament. Um and she knew that my husband was a member of the PGA, and she reached out to me and asked, you know, if I had any insight and if I could, you know, kind of take a look at some uh resource materials and things, because as they host all of these women in Northeast Florida, um, and what's what's really great is uh when these women come in to play in the golf tournament here, they um are hosted in homes in the community. Uh this in particular was Atlantic Beach Country Club, and so homeowners, typically women, will host the players of the golf tournament. And these young women, mostly you know, young ladies, will get to stay in a lovely home and have home-cooked meals, um, but they'll also get to go to various events, etc. Well, so my darling friend um and uh almost uh I like to call her a mentor because she is just that to so many, and a coach, uh, Jenna, Jenna Dorns, she reached out to me and she said, We need to do this. I've hosted these women for years, and you have shared so much with me about your husband's journey in the P PGA and and what it's been like for him leaving. Um so at this point in my life, my husband had um taken two years off and was not really active in the PGA, and he was being a dad and doing great things with our son, and you know, he was doing all the drop-offs, all the pickups, he was riding his bike, he was doing all the fun things. And he hadn't had this experience because, you know, like many dads, he went back to work like four days after our son was born, and his golf lifestyle was working, you know, from the time the sun came up until the time the sun went down. But during these two years, I saw all of the resources that the PGA was providing my husband, whether it was job coaching or counseling or the opportunity to even go do job testing, to speak with health insurance advisors, to speak to financial advisors, to speak to like retirement planners. And I was thinking, like, they're offering you so much. Like, this is wild, like this is just all a part of being a member. And in talking to Jenna, I realized that what the women golfers had access to was much less. And so we came up with this idea with a group of five or six women that during their time in Northeast Florida, that we could really do them a great service by taking different experts from different fields, the marketing, communications, business, um, taxes, and financial advising, and come up with kind of a resource book for them of good things to do, but also things to not do, and how to avoid getting taken advantage of, right? Because it's it for an athlete, it's no different than say someone who wins the lottery, right? Like immediately people are trying to find out who they are and they want to do business with them, they want to sell them something, they want to, you know, get involved in their business. And and a lot of times we see, you know, people get rich quick and lose their money fast. And it happens to it happens to female athletes alike, right? They they get a manager, they get an accountant, they get a sponsor, they lose a sponsor, then they're, you know, they're transitioning and all of a sudden they, you know, have discovered that they have spent more than they've earned. And in a lot of athletes' time periods of being successful, they can be short-lived. And so managing your earnings in your you know most successful years is important. But it's also important to make sure that you're not getting taken advantage of, that you're not avoiding um taxes or going to get yourself in trouble with owing too many taxes. Because the the other issue is that when you're an athlete and you play golf or baseball or any sport, you're playing in different states with different laws. And I'm sure you heard about it with the Super Bowl when they played in California. You know, California has their own tax um on the athletes that played, and so you you pay more money if you play out of the country, there's tax laws you have to be aware of. And so it's important to work with trusted advisors that you know well and you you you know they have good reputations, but also ones that are knowledgeable and will admit when they don't know something and pull in the other expert that maybe knows the answer.
SPEAKER_00That's very helpful for people to think about because I know that when you're working um in a 1099 type of position, if you don't take into consideration how much taxes you should save for, that could hit you. And when you're talking about a purse, I always thought, like, oh, look at that, two million dollars. There's taxes on those two million dollars, and I didn't get the distinction between state to state or when you're a global
Donor-Advised Funds And Endowments
SPEAKER_00player. Um but can ordinary families create extraordinary legacies? Talk to me a little bit about things like endowments, donor-advised funds, and institutional philanthropy and creating impact.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. So I think everybody, it does not matter what your income level is, I think everybody can make a difference and everybody has their time to do it. So for some, they have an abundance of money available to them, whether they're, you know, 30 or 50, and they can do things in their lifetime, right? So donor advice funds, they are a great way to take money, um, get your get your tax write off now, but put that money in a separate account that is invested to grow. Or if you're more conservative, you can certainly hold it in money market or a cash type account. But it's great to, if if you want to take the tax incentive now and have a donor advice fund, really what you're doing is saying, I'm gonna get the tax write-off today, but I'm gonna take this money, I'm gonna put it in an account, invest it, and then I will choose where it goes slowly over time. And over time it will also grow as it's invested, so there'll be more to give. And I think donor advice funds are a great way to organize your philanthropy, to track your philanthropy, to teach your children about philanthropy. And that could be a donor advice fund that has $10,000 in it or $5,000 in it. It doesn't have to be a donor advice fund with $500,000 in it.
SPEAKER_00Right, you opened my very first donor advice fund um and it was the same thing because I was not familiar with that concept. It started very small because I didn't know anything about that. You were the one who educated me. That's how you became my development chair. You combined both of my passions. It was not just the income, but what that could translate to into outcome. But what about institutional philanthropy and endowments?
SPEAKER_01Is that something that normal people have or so I will say more and more charities are building endowments, but it takes time, right? The younger the organization, the newer the the organization is, they're they're in that like we need the money today and we have to continue to pay our operating budget, right? It's like money in, money out, like a checking account. We're bringing the money in, we're paying the bills. But the organizations need the endowments to secure doing their work continually and to also take the pressure off of the day-to-day fundraising every year, having to meet that bottom line. What endowments can do is they can provide stability for the organization, and they can also help the organization grow and have those emergency funds sometimes needed if they don't raise enough money that year. It's also great when charities are like, you know what, I don't need to take from the endowment this year because we had a good year, so we can let it continue to grow. You know, different nonprofits treat their endowments differently. Some have a 4% spend, some have a 5% spend, some have a biannual spend, meaning we don't have to take from it this year, but we can next year. Okay. Um when it comes to individuals and families and people, endowments can benefit from their gifts in so many ways, and there's a variety of examples. Um I would say the average American that's leaving a planned gift to an endowment is leaving anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 on average, and you can check these stats, like with AHP, but around $30,000 to $40,000 in their will, and it's going to go to a charity of their choice, and it will most likely go into the endowment to secure their future. Um, and it's a great way to have a legacy and to create impact. Now, you can also create your own endowment upon your passing. You can create an endowment in life. Uh in today's world, if you're you know taking RMDs, you can actually use your IRA and do a QCD to create an endowment, up to $100,000. And so families can take that money out of the IRA, create an endowment for a nonprofit, and they can you know use it in a multi-gen way to have their kids and grandkids participate in learning to give. Um what I always like to tell folks that are really concerned about either giving money away or raising money is that less than half the people in this country donate money. Right? Let's let's just call it 50%. That's not an exact number. There's a real number. It used to be around 42%. But let's just pretend that it's half the people in the world give. If only half the people in the world are giving to charity, to nonprofits, to schools, we know that they have a greater need and that there will be more and more need as the years go on. But if we aren't teaching our adult children and our grandchildren how to give money and why we give money, and we're not letting them participate in those conversations and learn about that, the giving and the givers will die off. And we don't want the givers to die off. We want there to be more givers.
SPEAKER_00I want them to be like us, having watched our parents do it, which is why my kids are party and part of everything that I do and that we do philanthropically, whether it's through the time, talent, and testimony or the treasure. My kids, every dollar that they get or earn, uh 10 cents off the top, because that's a tithe, goes to charity, it's a DUCA, and then the remaining 90 cents, 45 cents goes to save, and 45 cents goes to budget. It used to be a can that said spend, but I cut crossed out the spend and I put budget so that they had the language there. I was going to ask you what surprised people about philanthropy, but for me, I was just surprised to find out that an endowment could be between 30 and 40,000 is the average. I thought it was millions. I thought you had to be uber wealthy, not rich, but wealthy with a capital W. And that only, and I say this with shock and a little like disappointment, 50% of people are actually giving back philanthropically. Maybe it's because only 50% of people can afford to give back philanthropically. But like you, like me, who grew up with with people, or in my case, paycheck to paycheck, somehow they always manage to find whether it was the canned good or the 50 cents to put into a pushkey. Pushke is like a little box that you put the tadaka in. So looking back on your own life, what financial lesson do you wish you had learned earlier?
SPEAKER_02Hmm.
SPEAKER_01Well, first let me go back. So to the the to the individuals that contribute to endowments or leave plan gifts that they want to go to endowments to help secure the future, I'm gonna give you a really great example. So let's say you donate $2,000 a year to your church, synagogue, school, etc. $2,000 a year, let's say that's what you give to them. I'm just gonna give you a simple numbers example. So if you never want that $2,000 a year gift to die when you die, meaning when you die, that gift's gonna stop, right? If you never want that gift to die, all you need to do is in your will, leave 20 times that gift. So two times 20, $40,000, right? Because you were given $2,000 a year. So if you leave $40,000 to that charity and they put it in the endowment, which is so important, right? Put it in the endowment, don't spend it all, right? Take that planned gift that Susie has left you, put it in the endowment, and now every year that endowment should kick off about 5% of that $40,000. And 5% of $40,000 is the $2,000 that Susie was always giving. And if that is invested well, it will slowly grow like the rate of inflation. And every year, when that spendout from that endowment comes out, Susie's gift is not only still there, but it has never died, and it is still growing. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Right? So that's the producer is nodding his head also because we never thought about the math mathing so simply. So simple.
SPEAKER_01I actually have a workbook, a charitable giving workbook that I provide to our clients and to nonprofits I work with, and it gives you little examples like that. Like, you know, the word endowment can be so scary to people and intimidating. It's just like the stock market or investing, or and it's like it's really not. Take your annual charitable gift, multiply it by 20, donate that in your will upon your death if you can, make sure that it goes to an endowment and not to the annual operating budget. Right. And therefore you've now endowed your charitable giving. I mean, you can also create unique funds with financial advisors and philanthropic planners that that fund is there and it's in my name, and every year checks will come out of it and go to the organizations of my choosing. Wow. But some people like to give to the charity direct that has an endowment. You know, like there's famous ones out there that have huge endowments, and people like to contribute right to them. But you can also do it for yourself and work with an advisor that can create you an endowment or a community foundation. And they can create that endowment and then push that money out annually after you're no longer able to write the checks.
Interest Rates And Student Debt Reality
SPEAKER_01Okay, so back to your last question. What financial lesson do you wish you had learned earlier? I wish that I had learned about interest. And I think to to this day, we are not teaching young people about interest. Um a couple weeks ago I read uh in the Wall Street Journal that the average college student is carrying around $5,000 worth of debt or three to five thousand dollars worth of debt, and they are just making minimum payments because they're still in college and they're using that credit card, but they're just paying the monthly payment every month. So I think that we are still failing young people in not teaching them about interest, interest rates, because it affects them using credit cards, buying their first house, what's the interest rate on the mortgage, um, interest on savings accounts. Like everyone thinks, like, I'm gonna put it in a savings account. Well, has anyone ever watched a traditional savings account just like give you pennies? Like a couple pennies, right? Find a high yield savings account where that same money can actually earn you a couple hundred dollars every two or three months, right? So that you can slowly start to be growing in that savings account and not just watching, you know, 25 cents accumulate in 12 months. Um interest varies with everything we do. And I I see news articles and advertisements come out that some of these young people in college today with these small credit cards, you know, three to five thousand on average in America today is a small credit card bill, I guess. But if they're new to credit cards, their interest rate could be upwards of like 34.99%. And if they're also taking student loans, I mean this is going to put them in a very, very bad financial position at the end of it. And I wish that prior to college that I had learned more about interest rates and accumulation. And the other thing is, you know, over the last decade we saw a lot of people deferring their student loans with interest accruing, and they didn't understand that I can push pause. They thought they could push paws on the student loans and it was frozen. And it was frozen, but in reality, them making payments was frozen for a period of time. But they interest was still accruing on most of those loans. And so, I mean, I I recently wrote a blog article at my firm about student loan debt. And uh I in one week I'd had three different clients or people I was meeting with ask me, Did you have student loans? Like how did you get out of your student loan debt? And whether they were asking for themselves or their adult children that they were concerned about because they're they're now parents themselves, but they're still paying off student loan debt, they were really concerned that this is this is a like a mountain that people cannot get over.
SPEAKER_00Like a never-ending cycle of generational trauma. Right, because by the time you see a parent paying your student loan debt while your child is now going to college and you've got two coupon books for lack of a better. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I I'm hoping they got rid of those coupon books because they were not fun to have lying around and you never wanted to lose it.
SPEAKER_00I remember seeing someone that I went to college with that had a coupon book because she was in graduate school and she was doing her undergrad payments, and I was like so blessed that my parents paid for I went to a state school, and so it cost, you know, pennies on the dollar back then in the 1900s. Um, but I want to go into a quick lightning round if that's okay. Sure. So you're gonna say the first thing that comes to mind saving or investing? Invest. Coffee budget or travel budget? Travel budget. The first thing you ever saved up for. A car. Money words people use too much. One app everyone should have. Well, I have to say that I appreciate you being here and being so authentic and honest about the information that you share. Today's conversation reminded me that money isn't just about numbers, it's about stories. It's about what we were taught and what we weren't. Some people grew up hearing conversations about investing in retirement accounts at the dinner table. My husband taught my kids about compound interest starting at three. Some of us grew up hearing work hard, be generous, and everything will work itself out. And generosity matters deeply, but generosity and stewardship are not the same thing. Stewardship asks us to think beyond today and beyond our own needs, beyond our own lifetime. Because wealth is not only what sits in a bank account, it's opportunity, it's security, it's choice. It's the ability to say yes to things that matter and no to things that don't. And maybe none of us are actually late to this financial conversation. Maybe we're simply arriving exactly when we're ready to understand that building wealth is not selfish, it's another way of building impact. Thank you so much for being here, Kelly. Thank you for having me, Suze.
Honorable Mention And Closing
SPEAKER_00And now it's time for our honorable mention. Mensch is the Yiddish word for someone who shows up with integrity, responsibility, and heart. Today's honorable mention goes to Alan Margolis, retired executive director of the artist formerly known as Jacksonville Jewish Federation, now known as Jewish Federation and Foundation for Northeast Florida, JFFNEF. For decades of leadership, commitment, and the kind of steady community stewardship that often happens behind the scenes but leaves fingerprints everywhere. Sometimes leadership isn't about standing at the microphone. Sometimes it's about creating the conditions that allow everyone else to succeed. Under Allen's leadership, Federation wasn't simply a fundraising organization. It became a connector, a convener, a place where relationships, ideas, and people could come together and create something larger than themselves. Whether it was the Women's Philanthropy Champagne Brunch where generosity met purpose and women were empowered not simply to give but to lead, the annual campaigns and community-wide events that reminded us that philanthropy was not just about writing checks, it was about writing ourselves into the story of our collective future. There were leadership experiences, teen initiatives, educational opportunities, missions, cultural exchanges, and meaningful programs connecting Jiaxinville families with our partner communities in Israel. Programs that allowed young people and families here to build relationships with people there, understanding that Jewish identity stretches across oceans but still feels personal. And perhaps one of the most important pieces of all, Federation dollars did not stop at Federation. Those investments empowered partner agencies to do their best work. Organizations serving our children, seniors, families in crisis, Holocaust education, mental health services, community relations, Jewish education, cultural programming, and social service needs were strengthened because resources were shared across an entire ecosystem. When one agency succeeded, all of us benefited. Healthy communities are not built by competition. They're built through collaboration. And while many people saw Alan leading from the front, what may have mattered most was how many people, organizations, and programs he helped strengthen from behind the scenes. That kind of impact doesn't always make headlines, but it changes communities, and that's what a mensch does. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Schmooz with Suze. If this conversation made you think, feel, or see something a little differently, share it. Because this conversation and all of them matter. Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for your daily dose of chutzbah. I'm Suze, your well informed smart ass, reminding you what's an envelope if not for pushing. Stay inspired and inspiring.