Money Got Emotional | Andrew Trammell | Growing Money with Sean Trace

In this episode of Growing Money with Sean Trace, I sit down with Andrew Trammell, founder of Trammell Wealth, to talk about why money is never just about numbers. Andrew is a CFP, enrolled agent, and retirement income certified professional who helps retirees, Florida public employees, and medical professionals build clearer, more intentional financial plans. 

We get into why smart people still make emotional money decisions, how retailers understand impulse spending better than most of us do, and why making more money can sometimes create more stress instead of less.

We also talk about lifestyle creep, keeping up with the Joneses, Social Security, retirement planning, budgeting, compound interest, and why a good financial plan should bring peace, not panic. One of my favorite parts of this conversation is Andrew’s reminder that the best plan is the one that lets you sleep at night. Financial confidence starts with knowing where you stand and making decisions that match the life you actually want to build.

What’s one money decision you made that gave you more peace instead of more stress?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Compound interest is real. The sooner you start, the better you are. Right. Um, so the way I operate my models, I don't have any asset minimums. So I'll sometimes start clients who have, you know, they just want to put a certain amount in per month. And they're pretty young for that, you know, for the most part, which I think is fantastic because, you know, one, they're going to learn about trading, they're going to learn about investing, they're going to learn about having investment accounts, um, which is very important because I I kind of delayed a lot of that, uh, you know, aside from, of course, what I deferred in my retirement while I was at work, but um that's very important. Compound interest is real, it has a substantial effect. When people see it, it usually blows their mind. So when I do guest lecturing uh at the college universities, I always like to talk about compound interest and then show them the market trend or the market line because uh depending upon where we're in right now, it's either all doom and gloom or everything's great, you know. Um, so I always like to show them where the trend is going because it's always gone the same way, no matter what's happening in the world. So as far as the you know, compound interest, start investing right away as soon as you can.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Welcome everybody back to the Growing My Name with Sean Tracy Podcast. I've got an awesome guest with me today. Uh, would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yeah, sure. So I'm Andrew Trammell. I'm the founder of Trammel Wealth, I'm the CFP, enrolled agent, retired income certified professional, and I help retirees and Florida public employees, specifically FRS employees or people who are part of the Florida retirement system. I also help medical professionals, mostly because my wife's a nurse, so I know a good amount of them. And uh my approach is pretty simple, pretty straightforward. It's based on faith and stewardship and just, you know, doing what's right for the client, which is why you'll see a lot of what I do is pretty much full transparency, fee only for the most part, and uh just everything about me and my website, or I'm sorry, my fees all are all on my website because I want complete transparency. And that, you know, I want them to be good stewards of their money, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

So you want to be good stewards of the money and you help set them up from right at the beginning by showing them like what you're gonna cost and we're gonna charge them. I love that because I think that transparency is one of the most valuable things can have people can have in a lot of areas in your life. Think about like, you know, that's why we have like on foods, they tell you what's in the food. Like, you know, it would imagine someone's like, hey, I'm gonna give you some food here. And you're like, oh, what's in it? You're like, oh, you just gotta guess. You're like, that's not something I want to eat. That sounds like something my friends are handing me in grade school. Like, don't worry, man, just eat it. And like, well, really? Should I? You know, it doesn't always lead to the best decisions.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Well, it's like when I was growing up, there were no nutritional labels on the food either. Not sure, there's no calorie counts on the labels. So um, it was very hard to keep track of the calories you were consuming. Um, actually, I was close to 300 pounds at one point and um tried every fad diet that I could find as far as like keto and um you know carnivore, all these different ones I tried, and they all work, right? They all work at first until you just realize you really, really have a craving for some cookies or ice cream or something like that. And uh it doesn't fit in the diet. What do I do? I'm gonna so I mean counting calories for me has been really effective as far as that that goes. I lost over 100 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

That's awesome, man. First of all, congratulations. That's awesome. Like anytime people are winning in life, like I think we should all be celebrating that stuff because life doesn't come with a great textbook. You know, we just get out here and we, you know, and you hear all these all these people who are talking like they have it figured out, you know, like, dude, I'm here to tell you this is the reason you should do this. And it's just like, and maybe they do, but I I don't. And you know, and I think that like I have met people who are really smart and they still make mistakes with money. I met people who are really smart and they make mistakes with fitness and with a lot of other areas, and I want to ask you that because why do smart people still make mistakes with money even when they're trying to do everything right?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

That that's a that's a tough one because you you know when you go to school, you take math class, and math is fairly straightforward. It's finite for the most part, right? So, you know, one plus one is two, right? But uh, as I learned, money isn't just about the numbers, it's about us. It's about emotion and how we relate and how we handle them. When I was in college, I was at Kansas State University, I did my master's there. Uh, I took some uh courses on financial therapy where we learned about some of these things. And the people who have figured out emotion and money, the best are probably retailers. A good example of this is when you go to checkout, and at the checkout, you have all these little tiny knickknacks that are usually fairly low in cost. And um, you know, you didn't you you either don't need or are kind of enticing you to buy. So you pick up a couple of those. Impulse. It's impulse. You didn't need it, you didn't want it, but because you were there and the convenience, you got it, you didn't you weren't using your math brain, you were using your emotional brain at that time.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Right. And it's fun, and those things look cool and they look fancy, but the problem is is that they don't help you long term, you know? And I think that one of the things for me that I just did a video uh for Growing Money that I was talking about ways that you can save more. And I'm not an expert on saving, but I talked about things that were practical to me. And one of the things that is just so dangerous for me is how easy they make spending and like how much they gamify it. Oh, you're gonna get points. I'm like, oh, points! I love points. What am I getting points in? You know, and I mean, certainly there's a time and place for everything, but like one of the things that I think I had to do was to slow down kind of that impulse brain because I was talking in the video about this example. I saw this guy that had built this full simulator, like a jet simulator in his house. Like, you know, it was wrapped around. Sounds like multiple, right? Right? It was like, and he had the special chair, and he didn't just have like a little like keyboard and yoke with the monitors, he had the whole control panel, and I was just like, oh man, that had to cost some money. But like, I'm not gonna lie, if someone's like, hey, Sean, here's 10 grand, like part of my brain would be like, hey, flight simulator, and like, and there's you can justify a lot of things, like you maybe a plane. I'm on a plane, and like that's the moment that they turn around and they walk back into the into the plane. Does anyone in here know how to fly? Like, and I'm just like, well, now that you ask, I do, I do because I did something stupid. It doesn't work that way, you know? It's like, but like, I think that I had to find ways to slow things down because like it was that, you know, like the that the cashier's checkout line at the bookstore that we go to with for my daughter, or the you know, it's like the toys are all right there. And we go to buy the the good books for her to read, but then we have all these toys right there. And I'm just like, and I said, I'm gonna give you a challenge, Eilani. Keep your eyes straight ahead. Like, why would I want to do that? There's all this cool staff, you know, and I was just like, oh no.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Well, and children that don't necessarily understand that money's finite, although when they're uh become a certain age, it's good to start teaching them those things. Uh, I think I was seeing your daughter is she just turned 10, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yep, just turned 10.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

My daughter's my daughter's gonna be 10 at the end of this month, so I I'm not too far behind you.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

But uh, you know that that finite thing is interesting because that you you you hit the nail on the head. My my daughter doesn't really process that so well. She's got this um this thing where, oh, I want that. Well, what should we do? Well, just go to the bank. And that go to the bank is like it's an interesting thing. She has an awareness that there's money in the bank, but then where does that money come from in the bank? You know, how do we get that? And I had to try to start teaching that to her, but I think it's something that adults forget as well. We forget that there's all of these steps, and that's even even the money that's in the bank, not all of it's always yours. You know, you got these things you gotta pay, you got bills you gotta pay. I think one of the things that was revolutionary for me was when I read the book Profit First, and I was just like, buckets! That that I can process, I can comprehend buckets, man.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

It's very similar to how I got into this actually, uh, as far as buckets go. I was a big Dave Ramsey fan uh for a long time, and he uses envelopes, which are similar to buckets. Some people also use jars, right? Uh, but it's a very similar concept, but it's really hard to wrap your mind around paying yourself first. It's it's hard because once it's in your account, you can just go spend whatever and then reconcile it at the end of the month. No, no, no, no. We need to plan before that. We need to make sure every dollar has a purpose, right? Uh and and that's that's the way to go about it. It's uh especially if you're tithing at church, right? It's really hard to, oh, well, if you know, whatever I've left at the end of the month, I'm gonna throw away. No, no, if you set that up on purpose at first and set up, automate it, make sure it happens, you'll be good. Uh automation, I think, is a really good as far as technology goes for money, automation, being able to automate a lot of this stuff has helped out a good amount. However, all the online shopping has uh probably circumvented a lot of that, but right? But the fact that you can automate a lot of saving, do a lot of this stuff electronically has definitely helped.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah, I I do think so. I think that there's a lot of people too that are talking to people about this. And I think that's one of the things we haven't had people talking about some of these things, you know, and you know, people don't talk about what they make. We don't talk about what we save, we don't talk about what we owe, and we definitely don't talk about taxes and things like that. And I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Well, I was that was taboo, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:12

For me too, you know, and I think that like especially taxes, like people don't understand that they could be taking a proactive, like um, you can take a proactive stance to this stuff. You don't have to just sit there and go, oh, you know, all this stuff. You can be active with your entire financial plan and be in a better position than if you weren't doing that, you know?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah. A lot of people see taxes as uh a past, like you're you're looking back to see what happened. When in actuality, I could tell a client, like, look, I could probably set you up to you owing nothing, you getting a refund, or you owing a little bit. They don't realize that you can actually pre-program that ahead of time and you don't ever have to be surprised at the end. Now, of course, if you have monetary windfalls and other things happen throughout the year, which, you know, hey, all blessings, right? You know, if extra money comes in, you know, we pay a little extra, hey, fine. But you know, you can engineer a lot of that ahead of time and plan it out. Uh, I mean, especially being small business owners, you know, a lot of us got to pay our quarterly payments and all that. So we have to estimate a lot of this stuff ourselves. It's very similar to your personal.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Right. And well, I want to ask you this because why does my making more money sometimes make people feel more stressed instead of less stressed? Because, like, I know people that they're like, oh, I'm just gonna get more money and then everything's gonna be okay. And then they got more money and they're like, dude, I don't think I don't know what to do now, you know?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Life becomes more complicated. So I think when you don't have a lot, it's easy to make decisions with that. But once you start making more, especially being in a very progressive tax structure that we have here, you know, that uh as you make more money, you get taxed more. So you have to be more conscious about that. Uh, as far as you have to be more conscious about saving, deferring for retirement, you know, you have to be more conscious about insurance. Now you earn this, you know, you had you have extra income. Now your family adjusts to that extra income. So your expectations now move up in life, you know, whereas you were lower low, lower middle class, maybe you're upper middle class now, and you become accustomed to this, right? Keeping up with Jones is what we used to call it. And uh you become accustomed to that. So you now you have to buy insurance, right? To protect that case. Something happens to you. There's all these things that you got to do uh to once you get to that level to maintain it, which end up probably costing you more.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

You know, and I think that that's something too, because I think that I I love talking about keeping up with the Joneses because I think that that lifestyle creep and that peer pressure, because it's the same thing that we were dealing with in like third or fourth grade, you know, and like we don't realize it, but I remember this one kid showed up with these new shoes. Man, everyone was like, dude, you got those new shoes. It's so cool. And like this little six-year-old, like eight-year-old kid is like, yeah, no, I could play basketball. No, he couldn't. It didn't make a difference. It was like, and for me, I'm gonna date myself, but like that that time period was the reebok pumps. Everyone had the pumps.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Or the Nike Airs, you get a little bit of air there, you know, they they helped you out with your performance, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Right? Everyone was like, Oh yeah, but it was just like it was so fancy. But like I remember when the reebok pumps or the Nike Airs came out, and that everyone had to have them. And it was just like, and when some kid didn't, and it was wild that we we kind of make fun of that person, we ostracize that person, but really that person might be the smartest of all of us because they're not following the trend, you know. And you think about it right now, we live in a society right now that is so trend focused. My daughter was like, I need to try this new thing. And I was like, what is that new thing? She's like, I saw it as a trend. And I was like, or not, or we don't need to do that. Like, we don't have to do that thing. And I mean, certainly there are some good trends out there, but I think we need to teach people that you don't have to follow every trend. You don't have to match every little thing, and that it's much better to have a slow, steady, boring path than to some, especially for finances, than to something that looks really flashy.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Well, and the funny part is as we become adults, right? So it transitions from the shoes and now we have a house, right? Now we uh we think we think we don't care what people think, you know, and uh, but then we go to our neighbor's house and we see, wow, they just got nice new wood floors. Those look real good. Well, he's got a new smoker. Oh, where'd you get that? Uh it it evolved, it changes, right? As far as, you know, like, oh, it'd be nice to have that. Uh as far as the the trend goes, so being in financial services, um uh people are very especially when it comes to your car, they're always looking at what car you're driving. Um, right, one of the first firms I worked at, uh, all the fancy cars were parked in front. And if you didn't have a fancy car, you have to park in the back. And um, so I was so excited when I got a uh a Tesla. But because I was so tired of that, you know, keeping up with that, I traded in my Tesla for a minivan. And people are like, Wow, why did you do that? That's crazy. And I'm like, well, yeah, but now I can take my family on road trips. We can go all over the place. I got room for eight, I can carry literally anything in it.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

I I'm with you as well. Like, I'm like, my wife and I were talking about like what we would love to wear or to buy next, you know, and I was just like, dude, I straight up want a minivan. And I was like, I want like a big, roomy, like soccer minivan, like so that we we can just like man, I why, you know, my favorite car? I had a hatchback Toyota when I was in graduate school, and it was basic. I could fit surfboards in there, I could fill up anything in there, I could get my dog in the back, she could be wet, I could throw something that tarp down in the back. And it was so easy to clean and it was awesome. And like for a minivan, man, it's just practical. And I think that that was a mindset shift that had to happen for me. Of, but it it came to a point and there was a really interesting shift that had to happen. I had to know myself. And I think that's something that we live in a world where a lot of people don't know themselves, they don't understand what's important to them. You know, for me, one of the most powerful solidifying factors was when my daughter was born. And that gave me a very clear why. Why do I need to be safe? Why do I need to be in fasting for the future? Why do I care about what's going on in the world right now? Well, because I don't want it to fall apart before this kid gets to college. You know what I mean? Yeah, before you do the handoff, yeah. Right? Right. But I want to ask you like, how do you help people kind of figure out what's important to them financially, you know?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

So usually when it comes to retirement, most people assume that, oh, when I retire, everything's just gonna be the same. It's gonna be as it was, or I'm gonna spend less, or I have there's a lot of these assumptions when people come to retirement as far as what they have to have, right? Or how they need to be set up before they get into it, like what's important, right? So it all starts with you know the budget. And there's two ways to slice that. Like you can determine what's important to somebody by what they're spending money and their time on. So, usually for a lot of clients, you know, when I talk to them, I ask them to paint me a picture of what retirement looks like for them, okay? And, you know, they could tell me it involves hanging out with friends. You know, what what's what hobbies do you have? Where do you like to travel? Do you want to travel? Do you have grandkids you want to go see? You know, what do you want to do? Right. Um, there's all these different things that come into it that aren't just monetary. Now, I will say this as far as clients who have the least as far as extracurricular activities, I notice a deterioration in those fairly quickly as far as that goes. The ones who are the most active or have the most to-do, you know, hobbies, friends, you know, whether it's uh activities at church, whatever it is that keeps you involved in the community, those people usually have a fairly successful retirement and they kind of have an idea of what they want, what's important to them. Not always monetary. Um, the ones that don't really have an idea, you got to kind of strip everything down and be like, well, instead of saying how much you could have per month, I'm gonna tell you we can generate this amount of money per month. Can you make that work? And then they have to really quick figure, well, what's important to me and can I squeeze that in? And that's the second way to kind of slice it. Whereas, you know, okay, well, you know, certain people know exactly what they want, how they want to do it, some people don't know. So there's two ways to go about it. First is, of course, we make an exact budget based on what they're gonna do. Another one is, well, if we generate this much, will that be enough to sustain what you want to do? And then they have to go through the list and figure it out. It's hard, really hard.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

I think it is hard because people don't we're just not preparing. Like, I I think like we don't prepare for a lot of things. I was um going to a holiday with my daughter, and it was one of the first times she'd traveled to a cold place, and she packed all this stuff, and I was sitting there going, you know, um, all right, you're not gonna need that. Well, I think I will need this. I was like, you're packing swimming suit, and right now we're going to Boston in the middle of January. I promise you're not gonna need a swimsuit right now in Boston, the middle of January. And she's like, I need it. And then we got there, and she's like, Oh, and I think that one of the things too is like, I think people again don't know what they don't know. And I think that that's one of the things too, where if you can kind of coach people and say, this is gonna be important to you, and here's why. I think like that illumination, educating people and showing them why can help people make better decisions, you know?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Yeah, absolutely. When and as far as the you know, as far as temperature and all that goes, so I'm a native from Floridian, right? So uh it's a very tropical climate. So my kids they decide they wanted to see snow for Christmas. So of course we drive up north, right? And uh they get to experience it. And of course, they for the most part, they love it, but it kind of as you know, the cold, it wears you down to a point where you're like, okay, I can't take this anymore. I need to be warm. And uh yeah, they haven't repeated that trip yet. This is where I live. I I was like that that's you know, that's how some people have to learn that way. They have to learn by experiencing it. I think what is the the saying goes that um if you're smart, you learn from the mistakes of others, and if you're wise, well else, if you're smart, you learn from your own mistakes, and if you're wise, you learn from the mistakes of others.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Right. I I was supposed to go, I had this job offer for one of the top podcasters in the US. Like, actually, I think the top podcaster in the US right now. And it's all based in Boston. But I remember my wife, I went there for like the final round of interviews, and I was there and they were like offering me the job. And we were in the middle of winter in Boston and it was like 10 feet of snow on the ground. And I looked at my wife because we've been living in Southeast Asia, the tropics, and I was like, Yeah, nope, I can't cut that. Like, I just can't cut it. Do you can't do this remote? Never mind. Yeah, that was it. Like I was just like, I'm I'm good. But you know, it's like one of the things I realized, but yeah, that was one of the best decisions I made in my life because I then focused on my own content and had been building my podcast and my business. It was a decision that I made that then affected the future. And I think that's one of the things that I think people don't realize with your finances is that you can make a decision today that can have a ripple effect out into the future. And I want to ask you that like, what's one decision someone can make today that can really help or hurt them years in the future?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Well, as far as helping, compounded interest is. Real the sooner you start, the better you are, right? Um, so the way I operate my models, I don't have any asset minimums. So I'll sometimes start clients who have, you know, they just want to put a certain amount in per month, and they're pretty young for that, you know, for the most part, which I think is fantastic because, you know, one, they're gonna learn about trading, they're gonna learn about investing, they're gonna learn about having investment accounts, um, which is very important because I I kind of delayed a lot of that, uh, you know, aside from, of course, what I deferred in my retirement while I was at work, but um that's very important. Compound interest is real, it has a substantial effect. When people see it, it usually blows their mind. So when I do guest lecturing uh at the college universities, I always like to talk about compound interest and then show them the market trend or the market line because uh depending upon where we're in right now, it's either all doom and gloom or everything's great, you know. Um so I always like to show them where the trend is going because it's always gone the same way, no matter what's happening in the world. So as far as the you know, compound interest, start investing right away as soon as you can.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

And I think that's like I think that's one of the best things that they can do, and also one of the worst things they can do. Like, let me explain that. Because if you don't start, if you don't start now and you play catch up later, that waiting has will set you back so far. And I think that people don't realize like the waiting. That's the exact opposite. It's exact opposite. You know, one of the things too, like I was explaining this to my daughter. I love framing things in the in the in the in the um perspective of the zombie apocalypse. I have a book that I'm trying to work on. I love zombie movies, and I'm framing your bug out ready to go, right? Dude, right, right. But check this out. So I trying to explain to my daughter, we've been watching like train to Busan and stuff. I know it was a bit young, but we had to initiate her into the ways of the world. And so she loved train de Busan, and we were like talking about you know, Walking Dead, and we always like getting into the different types of zombies. That's neither here nor there, but like I don't know how people get eaten in the walking dead world because those zombies are so damn slow. Uh, but you know, train to Busan, they run, they're fast. But we were talking about, you know, survival because I think in the Walking Dead world, you could survive for quite a period of time. Now, why am I bringing that out? Why am I bringing it up? Because when we were talking about this, we were talking about chickens and eggs. So there was one part in The Walking Dead where they set up this farm. Now, they were farming and they were growing things. And I started talking to my daughter as she's like, well, what's compounding? She did actually say what's compounding interest. I was trying to teach her the idea of compounding interest. I'm trying to make it sound like my daddy, what's compounding interest? Well, I'm glad that you asked that, eight-year-old child. No, I like to frame it as planting seeds. Right. And I did. So I told her this. I said, let's imagine that you get two chicken eggs. Okay. You've got a choice. You can eat both those eggs, but let's imagine that you choose to go a little hungry. You're gonna go forage for things and you save those. Let's imagine that because we don't have a chicken, but they hatch. One's a chicken, one's a rooster. And you're gonna those eggs are gonna turn into more eggs, and you're gonna get two more eggs. You got two chickens and two eggs. What do you do now? Did you and she's like, I'm gonna eat both eggs. I said, Well, yeah, maybe, but let's imagine that we eat one egg and we're gonna save one egg. Okay. And that egg, we leave it, it becomes another chicken. Okay, okay, cool. Now, two chickens have eggs, and what are we gonna do there? And she's like, eat all four. And I was like, definitely not, then what we want to be doing. And then I said, let's eat one egg, and we're gonna go a little bit hungry today, and then we're gonna let the other eggs hatch. So we've got four eggs, uh, three eggs that have been saved, and now it becomes now. We've got five chickens and one rooster. And we start going through this and we start, and I said, let's imagine that the number, and we went through the devil, like we went through the whole math, and we went through in a year how many chickens she'd end up with. And it was an insane number of chickens. And we actually calculated the life cycle of a chicken, how long it takes to hatch. But it was like after a couple of years, she had a chicken farm. And and I said, Well, what happens if you have that much money? And this was the cool switch. She's like, Well, and I said, How many eggs do you want to eat now? And after she had more eggs, she's like, I'm still gonna only eat one because I want to see what I can do and how many extra chickens I can get, you know?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Well, realistically, she could eat four eggs anyway.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Right? At that point in time, you could eat four eggs because you have the surplus. But the thing was that was interesting is at that point in time, she started to get this realization. And I said, Well, what can you do with all those chickens? And she says, I can start to help other people. And I said, It's right. Because if you don't have anything, there's no way that you can help anybody. Amen. And I was like, and so we started framing it in that way. And my daughter got really savvy and was like, Well, let's let's figure out how to save. And I said, Well, okay, now the same thing applies to money, but money will grow if you put it in the right places. And it was pretty cool because framing it in the zombie apocalypse allowed me to create, take something that was really hard to understand and make it manageable. And I think that like adults, we're trying to wrap our head around these things. And that's one of the things I think that talking to people on this podcast that are not financial planners, and I'm like, so what do you even know about this concept? I had a guest do it to me the other day, and I was like, Oh, I've got this financial podcast. He's like, Are you talking about this, this, and this? And I was just like, I don't know what those words are. I don't know what you're talking about. And it's like, I had to sit there and go, it's okay not to know everything. It's okay to feel dumb sometimes, you know?

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Yeah, that's that's an excellent analogy. And as far as like real world example goes, you know, usually we look at people in the medical profession because they start out late. So they're proverbial, usually late when it comes to starting the game of investing and all that. So they usually have to save a lot, but they have a substantial income. Uh, but they'd probably be surprised that a lot of people who are in the trades who graduated well before them will probably end off on equal footing in the end.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Right. It's so interesting, like that, too. Well, I want to ask you another question, too, because this has just got me fascinated. Like, why do many people run into problems when they try to optimize everything with their money? You know, it's like people overdo things. Like, what do you say to that, man?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

That's the paralysis of analysis, isn't it? That's like um right. My number one thing I have when I start with a client and they've got to do a plan, they think they have to have everything in order, ready to go before they can start. So a lot of people right at the get-go, they paralyze themselves by, you know, I don't know this, I don't know that, I'm just gonna wait, or I'm gonna put it off. And then we become the then we adopt the procrastination as our friend, which is nobody's friend, uh, and uh they put it off. So a lot of times, I no matter how many times I tell people, like, look, let's just piecemeal this in one document at a time, one piece at a time, and over time you will have a complete plan. And that's that's the way how it works. It doesn't work where everyone has it all together and they give it all to you. Those people are unicorns, okay? They do exist, they're unicorns that have everything all together. Uh, most likely those are the do-it-yourselfers or you know, who are very interested in it. And, you know, because when you're very interested in something, it's very easy to find all the details about it, right? It's every because you do all the research, you watch all the videos, you're doing everything, you have a general idea. And I think that's kind of how I got into finance before I even had my formal education, was I was very into how I worked and why people didn't know these things. Um, and that that's it the same way it goes there.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

I love that, man. Well, I want to ask you this other question too, because I've heard a lot of people having giving a lot of fancy advice. You go on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. There's a lot of people telling you what a financial plan should look like. But I want to ask you, someone who actually knows what they're talking about, what does a good financial plan actually look like in real life? Not on paper and not what all the YouTubers and TikTokers say you should be doing.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Sure. So I'll skip to the end part and then I'll kind of work this in in, you know, I'll kind of go backwards here. So normally a good financial plan is when you go to sleep at night, do you sleep well? Are you sleeping good? If you are tossing and turning about, is this right? Oh, the market moved. Oh, uh, you know, what's happening with, you know, did I put this right the right person to do this uh on the account as far as beneficiaries, all stuff. If you can't sleep at night or you're thinking about the plan all the time, then that plan is not going to work. Uh, it doesn't matter how good the market performs, it doesn't matter, and none of that matters. If you can't sleep at night, that plan's not gonna work. The best plan is gonna be one that you can actually go to sleep, be comfortable, and just be rested and know and be at peace, whether that's you know, you're living off a million dollars a year or $50,000 a year. If you can be at peace with that, that that's the ideal plan, no matter what side of the spectrum you're on. And that's just to take it real simple, real simple view. I always ask my clients that as far as, you know, well, when the market does big movements, you know, are you worried? Are you concerned? Do you sleep well? Do you think about a lot? And if they do, I'm kind of gauging risk, right? Seeing what how that's gonna play out. Because a lot of people on paper will tell you, oh, I'm risked to the max. Give me uh, you know, 100% equities, whatever it is they they tell you. But then you get these frustrated emails about, well, uh, you know, the market moved, this happened, that happened, uh, they're thinking about it. That means it's not working. We need to reassess this here, you know, because if you can't sleep, that ain't gonna work. You know, it's not worth to have the water cooler conversation with your coworker about how great your portfolio is doing if you can't sleep at night.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Right, right. I think that one thing that people don't understand enough of is financial peace. Like the reality that this peace of mind that you don't have to stay up, you don't have to stress, you don't have to freak out, you don't have to be worrying 24-7 about everything, and that you've got a system in place of for safety. And not just for safety, but you're moving, you're moving up that Milo, Maslow's hierarchy of needs to like this place of feeling not just safe, but fulfilled and expansive and like you're going in the right direction, you know?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah. I think we could tie that back into the very, you know, as far as that goes, we ties back into the very beginning, keeping up with the Joneses, who's had, you know, the nice shoes. Now we're older. Who has this retirement? Where, you know, what what new car did they get? As far as retirement goes, you know, what's their income look like? What did they invest in? You know, as you get older, we're moving that way, right? And again, we keep thinking we care less and less about what people think as we age, which is probably true for the most part. But when it comes to retirement, we're now looking to compare again about how what other people are getting. But they could some people could sleep well at night, take a lot of risk, they could be okay with that. Some people can't. That's why you know financial planning is personal, it's a personal plan because we're dealing with emotions and behavior, and everyone's a little different. So there isn't, I mean, there isn't a one-plan fix-all, you know. I used to listen to Susie Orman, Dave Ramsey, and whoever will call is pretty much the same. I I could tell you exactly what they're gonna tell every person who called because it was pretty much the same cookie cutter advice. But that doesn't work for everyone, especially when it comes to retirement.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

I want to ask you that. Like, and that's next, my next question is like, what is a common mistake that people make as they get closer to retirement, or just maybe what's something they should be considering, you know?

SPEAKER_00 33:51

So I'll be very specific on this. The number one thing that people don't think about in retirement is social security. Um, and what most people don't realize is that Social Security is your number one inflation protected asset in retirement. Every year, no matter what happens, that's gonna go up with cost of living adjustment. Most of your other retirement assets aren't gonna do that. So just like all your other assets, you need to optimize that. You know, make sure you get the maximum benefit that you're entitled to. A lot of people just kind of gloss it over. They think, oh, well, I'll claim it as early as I can because it's gonna be bankrupt anyway, right? Hasn't happened yet, so we'll see how that goes. But um, they claim as early as possible, um, or they they have to wait to the magic number. 65 is a magic number. Even for most people, that's not full retirement age anymore. For most people, it's uh 67 is full retirement age. Um now, Social Security needs to be optimized, and it is a great income generating tool in retirement. It's you know, as far as in most states in the U.S., it's very tax-friendly as far as that goes. So good asset to look at that most people kind of skimp over.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

That's so true. Well, I want to ask you this other question too, because that makes me think about something else. Like I I notice that people can often feel confused about their finances, or they're going forward and they just they don't know what moves they should be making. You know, if someone feels confused about their finances, what's the first step that they should take today?

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Well, I mean, as far as the first thing to do if they're confused, gotta get organized. Um, whether it's pen, paper, iPad, whatever you want to do, get everything listed. Okay, start with listing all your assets. You also want to start looking at what's going in and what's coming out and get a real bird's eye view of everything and then really hone it down into the budget. That's gonna be the best place for people, especially if they're confused or don't know where to start. Let's get a general idea of what's coming in and then let's see if there's a surplus. If there's a surplus, well, now we have a plan. What do we do? If there's not a surplus, if there's a deficit, we're racking up debt. Well, we need to do something. What are we gonna do about that? How are we gonna tackle that? You know, whether it's earning extra income or whatever it is. But until we have that baseline, that I think in that generally that's the confusion. They don't know where they stand, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:14

They don't know where they stand and they don't know what moves they could be making because they don't have a clear picture in front of them. Um, you know, I I was I was never a good fantasy football or basketball player, but I had a my brother was great. And I just I was really horrible. But one of the things too is like one of the things that I realized to be successful at something like that, you have to really know what are the strengths and weaknesses of the different people, of the characters. And you have to know who you have and what you can do with it. And one of the things that I found that I enjoyed from playing was that there was, I got a lot of clarity when I was able to look at different things, or like playing chess, when you know what the different characters can do, you know the different rules to the game. You're able to make different moves. And I think that people aren't fully aware of the rules of the game, of the financial game. You know, oh, we need to make money, we need to save money, but they don't know much more than that. And there's a whole system out there that they could be making the right moves, but they're not, you know.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

It's a great example. A lot of people don't know all the capabilities of their tax repair or their tax professional. What can they be doing for them? You know, normally they consider that a transaction, but can they be doing something for them throughout the year as far as looking at other types of ways to maximize whether it's their retirement or their investing? There's, you know, look at all the professionals you have in your life. Your estate planner, what can they help you with? Can they, you know, can they help you in certain ways? We need to look at all those different things. I really like that analogy. It's a great analogy as far as you know, taking inventory of who you have, you know, is your uncle a really good attorney, right? Um, is your best friend a financial advisor, a planner? Is so-and-so selling how to sell insurance? Uh, all these people kind of are in your life and uh take stock of those too because they can help you. And I'm sure they would love to help you. And, you know, uh, I think there's a stigma as far as um making money off your friends, but it shouldn't be that way. It should be, you know, we're all we're in this symbiosis together, right? You know, he's gonna help you, you're gonna help him, and that that's how it goes. I think that's the best way to look at it and to frame it as far as you know, doing business with friends and things like that, uh, especially with trust and all that. There are certain friends I would trust that I would contact right away if something happened, uh, even if they don't necessarily necessarily professional, right? Like, what do you call? I'm gonna call an accountant, no, I'm gonna call my best friend. He knows. Yeah. Well, I it leads me to ask you another question.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Like, what was a if you could make one financial move or tell one piece of financial advice to your younger self, what advice would you give yourself?

SPEAKER_00 38:50

I mean, for me, it would have been starting school sooner. So I worked for local government for about 11 years or so, and I really put off going to school for quite a while because I fell into that uh uh I don't know what I'm gonna do, so I'm not gonna waste my money going to school, kind of mentality for a really long time. Um, and then I eventually went to school and I started my education, and that was when I figured out I was really into finance. I really like this. But if I had not started going, I never would have figured that out. And I would have just been on this path. Uh so for me, I think education was was pretty big, was pretty meaningful, and I think that that's a good place to start. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Where can people go to find out more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Sure. So you can go to my website, uh, it's tramelwealth.com. Uh everything's on there. You can email me at andrew at tramelwealth.com as well.