046: "A gift for college, a gift for life." Celebrating Holding Down the Fort’s one year anniversary and financial education for military families with Scott R. Tucker

Jen Amos 0:00

Welcome to holding down the fort, a podcast show dedicated to curating knowledge, resources and relevant stories. So military spouses can continue to make confident and informed decisions for their families. Because let's face it, we know who's really holding down the fort. I'm Jen amis, a Goldstar, daughter of veterans spouse, and your host for today's show. Let's get started.

We actually started in summer: 2019

Speaker 1 5:22

ted from the military in late: 2008

Speaker 2 6:26

Yes, on Eighth can I do can I do you need me to be a guest today?

Speaker 1 6:29

Yeah, I think you need to hold up the cup a little bit higher, closer to the camera so everyone can see.

Speaker 2 6:35

It's just coffee. The Vietnamese the new Vietnamese coffee. It's really good.

Speaker 1 6:39

So since the pandemic has started, we have been doing a lot of in home stuff. So we have an in home garden, we have kombucha. And one thing that Scott knows about me is that I am obsessed with boba. And so we finally decided to figure out how to make it at home and come to my surprise, it's actually a lot easier to make boba than I had thought. So So Thanks, honey, for looking it up on Amazon and buying the ingredients, we need to make Vietnamese coffee at home. Today, what I want to do is give you a little overview of what we're going to be talking about today. So I brought Scott on because the show wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for our colleagues for coming up with the concept and coming up with the need for why we needed to do holding down the floor and the name. And so I wanted to bring Scott on to talk a little bit about that. So if you can just introduce yourself a little bit and share from your perspective, a little history about how holding down the fort came about and you know why we've been doing it for over a year now.

Speaker 2 7:40

Wow. Well, first off, congratulations on a year already. It's crazy to think, well, it's every last today was July 19. And it's like oh my gosh, this month already gone? You know, but yeah, I mean, what it really came down to was, you know, not just last year, did we notice this? It's been years of recognizing this. And I think from my experience, you know, the problems around when I say this, I mean, the problems around the lack of proper communication to the military spouses about the various things about military life. And actually, the stuff that's slightly outside of military life that really is has to do with the individual doesn't have to do with the military life as a whole. It since the assumption kind of is that's all wrapped in, nobody's properly explaining, hey, it's not, you know, education, jobs, money, how do you deal with your finance, like all that, that's up to you. And frankly, everybody's still different, just because you have the same rank, same uniform, we got to stop acting that way. So anyways, in the financial space, you can talk about that any space or whatever. But in the financial world, I, you know, I came to realize that, you know, at the end of the day, if the spouse isn't involved in the decision making process, because usually a military family, the wife would do the budget, and service member, assuming it's male, female in that direction, of course, but would usually do though, kind of a long term investment. I mean, it's their career, we're staying in for 20, because of the veteran to get that pension, you think about the long term stuff, you know, all hold down the fort, and deal with the budgets and stuff. And so, you know, as we in San Diego, got to get very close to Stephanie Brown in the Rosie network, you know, understanding the military spouse perspective from what she taught us. And then as we started to spread the word about us that well in what we're doing, ultimately, our main kind of bread and butter the one thing we do different than anybody else, and it's so radically different is the Pension Protection, the Survivor Benefit Plan alternative, and it's better for not just the veterans better for the spouse, it's better for the family, but the conversation around On that topic, rarely makes it to the military spouse. Unless there's some confusion about whether or not it's the best benefit. And by and large 80% of career returning military ended up kind of opting into that simply because the spouse is like, hey, if something happens, do I need my portion of that pension? It's like, okay, that's a very, very simplistic way to look at it. And you know, what other aspects of this military life, family life and entering the veteran, family life, are being missed. And I think that's where we saw an opportunity last year, when you started to even recognize yourself, you know, about like, Huh, you know, I was a military brat or military child for a while. And then when you lost your father, you, all of a sudden, you've stepped out of that world when for a while. And and then when you met me, all of a sudden, you're back and thinking about veterans and military families. And, and you almost felt like you didn't have that identity. And it's like, well, of course you do. Like, just because you didn't know me while I was active duty, you still get all the baggage, right? And oh, by the way, just because you were a kid, and then your family left the military directly, you still receive the benefits from it for your college, for example. And I know that's a topic of today's discussion. So maybe that'd be relevant to get your perspective. But you know, that's where we realized, there isn't anybody talking to the military spouse about this. And you wanted to reengage with that community, because you saw value that you could provide there. And our buddy in California said, I know what to call it, holding down the fort, you know it. So

: 11:48

yeah, it was really cool. Because we're just having an open conversation about it. I think we all knew, at the same time, that I mean, for me, personally, I was working with a bunch of veteran officers like you all, you know, very, for me, and my perspective, very hyper masculine environments. And, you know, and so therefore, your guys's focus guys, meaning I mainly work with men in this industry, or at least in our company, your focus was on the veteran. However, we had come to find collectively, that at the end of the day, we know that it's the spouse that's holding down the fort, we know it's the spouse that's making the financial decisions, and really planning every PCs, whether it's a male or a female, it just so happens in this case, you know, I happen to be around a lot of men, and a lot of spouses, we tend to work with our women, but that's really diversified, really, in the recent decades, I think,

: 12:41

well, and actually it has, of course, except for in this industry, and that's the problem in the financial industry, it's still 90% You know, dudes, usually the usual usually they're just, you know, old white guys had been around for a long, long time, you know, it just, you know, the remnants from the 80s. And you think about that, you know, 1980s styles, stock broker financial movie, it's like, yeah, it's, it's still like that. But the opportunity, which is another thing I recognize is, hey, we want you to communicate with the spouses more because, you know, what we learned from Rosie network is the underemployment amongst military spouses or the difficulty to find employment. And then, you know, the way anybody is treated, entering the financial industry, it's not conducive to military spouse are typically females, because it's just like, kill, kill, kill, you know, go out, find clients and all that. It's ironically, the females do enter the industry and stick with it, they end up being the best and the best, but it's just a complete, different mentality. Now, that's still in the old school mindset of, you know, go network and schmooze with everybody, and and bring him into the office and stuff. And so when I started going, you know, doing it online and realizing, hey, we could speak directly to a specific audience. We don't have to go and be fake to everybody. It's like, well, military spouses could be doing this like crazy, because what we learned from workforce is a lot of military spouses are looking for virtual work. And this is all pre COVID, of course, right? Like they were already realizing the solution to this military spouse problem, you know, because you might even have a nursing license, but not in the state of your next duty station. Right. And so, so many stupid limitations on getting work. It's like gotta go virtual. And COVID COVID is only, you know, exasperated that as spouse service I'm sure many people are forced to stay home because they keep closing the schools. It's like our world is changing right now in this industry, is you can do it now. It's virtual. You can make your own hours work as much as you want network with who you want, and make as much money as you want because it is the financial industry if there is opportunity, that way and but it's not, you know, a salaried or an hourly thing and, you know, there's fear or concern there. I would argue the opposite direction. start recognizing that, hey, when you say stuck to that traditional approach, which our education system or college system brings people to is like, you have to get a job that, you know, as we state what that means. And therefore, it's just like, we only have this one path we could possibly go down to get an opportunity for income. And more and more military spouses are proven, that's just not true at all. I mean, just in the military, you know, military spouse, micro influencing community, if you look at Instagram accounts, or military spouse, bloggers, there's just so many they've been around, they make money from their websites. And sometimes they build a real brand around it. And sometimes it's just a way to give back, you know, whatever it means, at least we're doing something, they won't hire me, because I'm a military spouse, which, yeah, that's unfortunate discrimination, it's probably true. So stop trying to do it is kind of, you know, the message we're trying to bring, let the ones who aren't willing to go develop the new skill sets, think outside the box, understand the new economy and new opportunities going on right now. Let them have those jobs and fight over. Because right now is a massive opportunity. If you build these skill sets, if you know how to communicate and network in this space, then your opportunities are unlimited, because it's not just you know, sending a few resumes out, you can go and kind of do it in the reverse direction. And so we want to teach those modern digital skill sets, understand how that applies to money, and self development. So really, you can get the financial control and the education and usually self education, you need to create these identity we're all seeking, where we're not just a rank, or a uniform, or the spouse of a rank or a uniform. You know, in this day and age, we're in America, Maslow's hierarchy of needs are well met, we are at the search for meaning level. And you see that every day in the streets right now. Because people have been so distracted by this and video games and movies and everything else, that they have no sense of purpose. So they find all sorts of things that are way out of anybody's control, to try to fight and argue about when really, you could take this opportunity and go do something about it. Right. And so, you know, that's the theme behind everything we're doing, not just about wealth, or my podcast, wealth and liberty. But ultimately, I think a part of the messaging that comes out of a podcast like yours holding down the fort, is just simply opportunity to say, hey, maybe there's a different way. Maybe there's some other approaches. And I know a lot of the guests that you have on, are those people that have said, Hey, I'm doing it differently. I'm not going to just wait and see what happens. Or wait until somebody gives me a job or an opportunity or say, Oh, next duty station. Time is right now.

: 17:45

Yeah. And I really appreciate you saying all that. And you know, the way that you say it toward veterans, it's my hope to say it in a similar way toward our military spouses and our families. One thing I wanted to add early on, you mentioned a key word, which is self education, which is what a lot of military spouses have to do. And what military children such as myself, as a gold star daughter had to figure out decades later, you know, of what resources were available to me, you know, while I was a military family. So we know that our military families are the silent heroes, you know, behind our servicemembers. And let's not forget also that there are spouses who were former veterans, they get the best of both worlds, I think. And so just acknowledging how diverse the military community is, and understanding that, even though our spouses and families don't publicly get the accolades, that they are just as important and just as imperative to our military community. And so that's part of why I felt like I wanted to take the responsibility to do holding down the fort is to, you know, put our families in the forefront. And, you know, part of that comes from my background, as you had alluded to earlier, that we had transitioned out unexpectedly because we had lost my dad, we are a Gold Star family, you know, and I was so young, I didn't know what was available to me to really in the recent years, when I started this podcast, I didn't even know that our family was labeled as a Gold Star family. I didn't know that was a term, you know. So my hope is that with the show, and just like what you mentioned, and I want to emphasize this, my hope with the show is that our military families and spouses can find or seek out alternative resources, and real stories that are happening today in our community, in hopes that they can continue to make informed and confident decisions for themselves and their families. So thank you for elaborating in the history of you know how we started and how the show was inspired. And here we are a year later, almost 50 episodes at this point. I can't even believe it as well. I haven't really been counting until I was ready to wrap

: 19:44

up. And I feel like you've just been up there recorded podcast last year. Yeah.

: 19:49

And if anyone's curious Scott and I are actually in the same house, we're just in different rooms. There's that he has it set up downstairs and I have my setup in the home office. Well Scott, aka My husband, I'm just gonna call you Scott for the sake of this conversation.

: 20:02

That weird isn't my name.

Unknown Speaker: 20:06

I know. It's just weird because I know I normally don't call you but you also

: 20:09

just run around going my husband come here, my husband. Do this my husband get that be out of the garage.

: 20:15

My husband. Yes. So our garden in case anyone's wondering, our in home garden has attracted I don't know what they're called wasp or Hornets. But they're like those really scary looking, like ginormous ants with wings

J.A.: 20:29

are hanging out in our garage door, we have a bunch of holes on it that our our landlord is helping us fix now, finally, one year later, anyway. Okay, Scott. So obviously, this time of the year, it's hard to say that we're doing business as normal. You know, a lot of things have happened, you know, pandemic, social distancing, a lot of current events that have impacted the world. And so with that context in mind, I'd love for you to share what life looks like for us today. You know, from your perspective, and what have you been most excited about lately, in this time? Like, obviously, there's a lot of negative things we can say. But let's focus on the positive for this conversation.

: 21:06

Yeah, I mean, wow, it's been a crazy time. Ironically, I kind of wasn't really doing much different when it came to, you know, my kind of day to day activities. Like, yeah, we would have been a little disappointed by the lack of extracurricular activities that we could participate in. Or I've kind of thought, you know, what some of that stuff was a waste of my time anyways, I wasn't really being productive. And, you know, maybe now's the time to really double down, because I don't know what's coming out on the other side of this does anybody, like the whole stock market crashed at the end of February, beginning of March, like a 30% correction, like the biggest correction of all time, type of a deal. And nobody knows. Like, that's also never happened. The fact that nobody mentioned it, it's like, oh, because we were all distracted and stuff. And somehow, it's kind of the markets come back up, which makes no sense when people aren't working. So there's just some weird stuff going on. Nobody knows what's going to happen on the other side. Oh, by the way, it's also the time of the greatest innovative change in all of human history in the few people who are on the front end of this, and we're still very early, but just 10 510 years ago, if you had actually five years ago, if you just started a podcast five years ago, you'd been lightyear and I remember sitting there five years ago, because I just got a reminder on a Facebook thing from something I did five years ago, I can't believe it was that long. But it's like, oh, had we started this bet, you know, start anything is the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the next best time is today type of a deal. That said, you know, things are changing in the in the scope of when you can grasp opportunity, you just grow and grab it right now using the internet and these things called phones. So literally all you need that and an idea and some motivation or whatever. But, you know, so many folks are finding ways to participate in this. So I just recognized, it's now or never, or it's just going to kind of keep on dragging along trying to do things the old way. Because I was still I mean, even this week, you know, breaking down old beliefs of why I can or can't do something, or how things should or shouldn't be, you know, given my preconceptions of how I was trained to communicate with people, I was trained to be a financial professional, like they're all limiting, and sometimes very false beliefs. And so it's just you got to chip them off one at a time. And you know, when you're late to the game of chipping away at false beliefs, takes a while, because you build up a lot of them, you know, and so it's like, I'm not afraid to get in front of the camera and do all this stuff. And why haven't I been posting videos every day, all day? It's just there's no real excuse. It's just I thought I needed to do something before I don't know. But it's like, oh, you know, now we can go do that thing. And,

Unknown Speaker: 23:54

I mean, how easy was it? How easy was it to just set this up?

: 23:58

It was pretty easy. Now, you know, I had gotten some cameras and some lights in practice and understood how zoom work and I've done dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of zoom calls, let alone podcast interviews, you know, recorded my videos, put myself out there before not gotten yelled at or trouble. It's not that scary. You know, and even if they do, lock them like cool. I don't want to be your friend. Like yes. You know, there's there's so much it's just a such a better way to one, build relationships with people because you're actually networking. Anybody who's watching this. They're meeting me, they're learning about me. And when the time's right, I'll get to learn about that. And that's why everybody should be doing this, at least on LinkedIn. Even if you already have a job like, dig your well before you're thirsty. Who said that? Was that Zig Ziglar or Jim Rohn or whatever, but I'll have to google that. It's like why not be frankly it especially from the military and veteran community where type of people who like to serve, we like to use the word duty, it's our duty, you know, it's an honor. Well, given that we have this technology, and given that we all know, you always have some sort of knowledge or experience that you could share with somebody else who's going through a situation you've gone through in the past, and maybe give them a little bit insight doesn't require a degree doesn't require a certification doesn't require anything other than actually being helpful. And with the new technology, is it not your duty, to find a way to communicate to maybe end some suffering in somebody else's life, if you know it, that's what I recognize, like, Man, I know, some things that I went through, that causes a lot of suffering in my life, when I made some changes, I saw some other people various forms of suffering in their life, they made some changes, some of them got more freedom and time, like, like, I feel I've lived in the last few years, it's been hard work and all that. And some people, they keep at it long enough, and they end up getting pretty darn wealthy in the rich sets. Now, I define wealth as more your time, because that's the whole point of working, you're working for money, so that eventually you could take the money to buy your time in retirement, at least in the traditional education work, you know, life retired die model that we've all been told is how you're supposed to live for some reason, I just feel that we have this new opportunity right now where everybody can participate, it actually works better when everybody does because then you don't have people doing things they shouldn't be doing. They can all do what they really want to do. Now, it's never gonna get that perfect. That's utopia. But we can create an ecosystem through the internet to communicate with those who we know like trust and those whom we're meant to serve. And that's the reality of it right now. And for the people that fight it or don't want to participate, or just say, I'm not good at that I'm not good at computers, or it's hard. It's like, sorry, but technology always wins in this technology. This technology we have right now. It's not the model for T that 100 years later is, you know, the first version of a Tesla, you know, that's progress. This stuff is happening overnight. I mean, look with zoom itself, we're on zoom right now, in December zoom had like, something like two 20 million daily users. And obviously a big number. But yeah, once COVID hit, it jumped to like 200.

: 27:15

Yeah. And it became more valued than the airlines.

: 27:19

Yeah. It's, it's what we need to recognize from our community. And this is what they lie to us about, or they don't know themselves, because they're in the same boat. I say they, the people give you the guidance about how to get a job after the military, or how to get a job as a military spouse, go write resumes, I mean, we got to remember is, all that training is based on curriculum that has to go through governments, like how long does that take and approvals and blah, blah, blah, or they just contract out millions and millions of dollars to some company, who's going to put together the perfect system to train everybody through it. And, you know, it's like, this isn't a war, like, this is people's individual lives. It doesn't work like that. But you know, the prevailing myth is, well, whatever my job description was in the military, I just need to learn to translate it, Google, literally, this was their Superbowl commercial, they created a translator. So it makes it sound like we're all idiots, you know, that we can't Oh, we have to, you know, put it into a little Oh, my 11 Bravo, it tells me oh, I can be a man, a project manager. It's like, man, we don't think people can go figure out what they want to do what could be good at on their own. So I find that very scary. That's what's safe on the opportunity. In real life, what I'm getting at is, I think it's like 33% of job descriptions today didn't exist. 10 years ago, social media manager, like companies would hire that skill set like crazy, you're gonna get a degree for that. Do you need one? No, you need to be a 16 year old kid who played around with this stuff, and got good at it. Look at all the billionaire coders. These are all guys that dropped out of college and coded computers in the garages in the 70s. Right? So that's all that's happening. And right now, it's happening so damn fast, that people are just gonna miss it. And so that's my message to the veteran community, the military family community is awesome opportunity right now. But if you don't participate, it could get very bad. There's lots of risks for those in 510 years have none of those skill sets.

: 29:16

One thing I want to add upon what you said is that I actually also think that this time with the pandemic is the perfect opportunity for military spouses to lead from the front. Because if you think about it, a lot of them have been so used to establishing a new normal after every PCs and learning to adapt and learning how to work from home and be you know, create those side hustles and everything. And now that the world you know, I mean, you probably know the unemployment rate more than me in America right now.

Unknown Speaker: 29:44

It keeps changing day by day. So

J.A.: 29:46

yeah, but you know, even those who are employed, who are told, you know, bad or forced really to work from home and they're absolutely not used to it. I think it's time for spouses to leave and say, like, this is normal for us and know that is really their time to thrive and to even teach others and be an example of what it's like to have already adapted to this type of lifestyle even before all this happens,

: 30:10

right? We're definitely, I don't know, we've talked about this a few years. Remember, it's like 911, right? I don't like how it's been handled, or how we're handling it as a society. But what are you gonna do, you can only handle you in your sphere of influence.

: 30:28

And also another thing I want to add about our company us that Well, I feel like, you know, the hard work we've done for a couple of years, are really beginning to pay off. Because when people think about financial services, typically they think about your standard office, you know, they think about driving somewhere and going to an office and, you know, sitting down with someone, you know, your financial advisor for a couple of hours, you know, to go over everything, right, where, since we've started, and even before I met you, when you were in Germany, I know that you did a lot of your client calls via video chat. And so now, I can only wonder how other financial firms are adapting to this, because I also am aware and we won't mention names. But you, you've told me and we've met other financial advisors who their initial training was to go door to door and sell their services that way. And, you know, when in social distancing today, I can only imagine what that looks like. But the point is, is that I feel like our business is set up for success, like we've worked hard to get to a place in a time like this, where it's more relevant to do things virtually.

: 31:32

Yeah, I mean, the reality is, in this industry, becoming a financial professional, or advisor plan or whatever, you're such a commoditized resource, even if you get the Certified Financial Planner thing. It's like, cool, there's now 50,000, other of those, like, you're not any different. And so the assumption is, well, I need the big name firm, or I need that CFP certification to stand out and be different. And then I got to get this nice big office and look like it's all fancy. And then I got to do all these cool, you know, client appreciation events and golf tournaments, you know, whatever it is that the traditional model is, it's like one quarter all that money's going on all the time and energy, how is that really helping the client, and it's like, this is not going to a lawyer or a doctor or a dentist. I mean, the reality is, most people do their own financial planning. Because you can, it's not really something you need to you know, you cannot be your own doctor, if you break your arm. Okay, you can pretty much now you might have to use a professional to be able to own or to buy a particular product, you can't just go just because of the stupid regulations around everything. So it's like with cars, like you literally have to buy cars from car dealerships. Like there's weird laws and stuff around that. I mean, obviously not if you're buying from a neighbor or whatever, but like real estate, you pretty much have to use a realtor. Anyways, that's kind of what's going on in the industry. And we reality is new, most people don't like going into meet with a financial professional, because you gotta lay out your whole life in front of them. And it's like, it's scary. It's embarrassing. Sometimes or, or you don't even know what you're in there for what you want help for you just know you're supposed to go talk to OSHA, go talk to a financial planner, whatever. It's like you could or you could Google it, and YouTube in 510 minutes, probably get the answers you need. If you spend anyways, this is where things are going, it's going to be more of this bite size type stuff, because people don't have the attention of attention for a comprehensive financial plan. Oh, go drive across town through traffic. You know, go sit in the office, have a nice chit chat for an hour, then talk about some stuff, and go back and back back and forth. In really it's a show. It's a show to kind of justify, you know, people getting help to save money better. So that's good. I mean, there's net positives for folks who now are saving money they otherwise wouldn't have saved. I mean, that gives a better opportunity futures. Pooh poohing the idea of having a professional help you. It's just understand what's really happening. And since there's a 95% turnover rate in this industry, you know, recognize that just by that stat alone, that that nature, individuals, probably not going to be spending most of their time honing their craft or mastering their craft. They're just trying to survive. And most stone it's so it's really, really hard to find a good fit because you don't know what you're actually seeing it quite frankly. And this is where my struggle with your chipping away the beliefs. Because my identity had been come Oh, I'm now a licensed financial professional. I gotta pretend like I'm this expert, like I know, like, and so whoever comes in it would be, you know, an old older couple with grandkids or young people. It's just the whole gamut of stuff. And oh, yeah, we're professionals at that. And you know, the firm's just kind of like, yeah, here's how you sell them this because of that, and it's like, okay, this is Really no financial place is really helpful because it's not actually motivating the people to do what they really want to do with their life. Yeah, maybe they've checked the box on saving for retirement or saving for their kids college, you know, as perceived to be the proper way to do it. But just the lack of excitement motivation about why are you going to your job? Like, why do you have the job to get your kids food on the table? Like, there's other ways to do that, like, you go into a job for an identity for a paycheck, like to prove something to somebody, it didn't translate that for the folks, the few Americans who do actually save money, if they say they're saving 20% of their money for things like their retirement? You know, the real question is, and they're, like, 35, or 40, right now. And it's like, when you think about your priorities for the next two or three years, you know, given the economy, we're in the environment we're in where things are moving very rapidly, or opportunities just showing up, you know, where people want to start businesses, they need some capital, whatever, you know, if you're working 60 hours a week and your job, that's 15 hours, that you are now putting directly into retirement only type account stuff that might be 20 years away. And that's where all the money's going. And so it's not aligned with what folks are really want to do. The motivation is in the present. And the now well, of course, of course, why we have a horrible savings rate from retirement because nobody really expects, if you were born 5060 years ago, you expected a pensions lifestyle, because that's how the world worked back then. Because the Industrial Revolution, and then as things started to change, and people started taking more control, they forgot that they can also change how not just their save for the future, but how they created their income too. And so this is what's been going on. And in recent decades,

: 36:51

yeah. And I think about the millennial generation that I'm a part of, and on average, the millennial has more than five or 10 jobs in the span of their lifetime, or even in the last decade. And so with that said, the way of saving money, and investing money has to adapt to today's times, and to the generation today. And as opposed to, you know, the standard retirement plan that our traditional financial advisors are still educating on. And I think part of that, too, I think about how I've recently met some new financial advisors, like ones that are new in the industry. And they all say the same thing, like, let me help you with your retirement, let me help you with like your financial goals. And I just think like, maybe that's what they're told, you know, by their mentors who've been in this for a long time. And I know for you from personal experience, you just know, at this point, that's completely outdated. And those mentors, they can say that, because I've been in it for a long time. And because they already had they've already built that stability, but that may, that type of education may not work for the new financial advisor in today's economy.

: 37:57

Right. And because it doesn't set you apart, like I mentioned earlier, I mean, really, it's like, why do you need an individual, you know, corner, you know, Mom and Pop South financial advisor, when Dave Ramsey's, basically got the whole country and just tell people how to do it. You know what I'm gonna you know what I mean? Like, how is he? He's essentially a financial advisor. I mean, actually, ironically, he's a media personality. He's not even a licensed traditional financial guy.

: 38:22

Well, isn't it at the end of the day? He's not really I mean, one, he is not licensed. And two, he's really promoting real estate, isn't he? Like at the end?

: 38:30

No, no, he's a media empire, he might actually be licensed. I think he might own an investment advisory. I think what he does is he, he then sells through having certified Realtors certified financial planners. There's all sorts of other ways to make money when you're a media company, right? And so they have recommended people around the country that they work with. But that's all it's just, yes, the world is changing, and all that kind of stuff. But it's like, Man, when basically everybody's saying how you're supposed to do things, when there are far too many factors and variables to consider that, like, you're telling me everybody's supposed to do a Roth IRA. Everybody's supposed to do Thrift Savings Plan. Everybody's supposed to buy term life insurance and save for 40 years in the stock market, and everybody's gonna get 8% average or in the s&p 500. Like, these are the stories we put into our financial planning software. That's all generic, like people don't get it when you get burned out of your financial plan. Like this is the thing that some people pay 1000s of dollars for when you go to a fee only certified financial planner they've now justified that they can charge for the financial planning all this stuff that's gonna go on where you know, damn, well, it's a crapshoot beyond a couple of years. So what's the real advice here? What's the help and by the way, that software, they used to print the whole thing out and everything, all the text in there, it's all prefabricated. It just depends on how you input the data. And it'll just put the graphs and the charts that nobody really looks at and what is on a shelf, and you're still charging $2,000 for it, it just kind of blows my mind that we're still kind of thinking this old school way. And assuming that well, it's this is the standard, this is how it's always been done. And we went to the trouble of creating this Certified Financial Planner certification. It's a marketing thing, by the way, that's not like CPA, it's not government, it was a group that got together, they wanted to make the industry look better, because basically everybody thought and still does think of a stockbroker, you know, selling selling stocks, or hockey and life insurance or something. So a bunch of financial planners wanted to get together and increase the perceived value of the industry, or at least for them, and so they created the certification that you got to pay money for spend a bunch of years for, and then there's now the stipulations of what you know, you can only sell or do things this way. And therefore, you say, You're a fiduciary, and you can only do what's in the best interest of your client. And so that technically means since I'm a fiduciary, you know, in those standards, if you tell someone to not do a five to nine college savings plan, not do a Roth and not do a tsp before you recommend another strategy, you know, that's considered, you know, the proper way of doing things, but it's like, I saw my clients, I just have so many people around so many veterans, just miserable, not understanding money, trying to get jobs as like, how is any of this in their best interest, if we're all miserable, and not doing things that are motivating them to participate in their life and their post military life? You know, I hate it when I hear guys say, already had the best job ever. Like, you know, when they were leading troops, it's like, I'm sorry, man, you're 40 You can't just we got to do more. Otherwise, we see the risks, you know, the mental health on that. And it's because the stupid thing called money. So we have an opportunity to redefine it to not be sold by the Wall Street marketing machine, by the government bureaucracy, and take back control of this damn thing called your time and your money. Anyways, that's where it's like everybody's going that way, usually means you should probably go the other way.

: 42:12

Yeah, with that said, let's go ahead and shift gears and let's come back to the military family, particularly the military spouse, and what financial educational topic can we talk about today. And so today, we want to talk a little bit about the college funding alternatives. And so I think my first question for you, Scott is what do military families currently understand about what's available for their children's future education?

: 42:39

Well, the first foremost is the post 911 GI Bill, you know, that's a nice thing, if they're not using it themselves, or, you know, maybe they pass it off to their spouse or their stack of duty, or they can, as long as they're still active duty, you could pass the benefit down to your kid, everybody kind of knows that you get a certain amount of benefit, you know, good, I guess, use the taxpayer dollars to pay for these overpriced universities that aren't really teaching anybody any modern, especially especially,

: 43:05

like, if we talk about right now, there's even a lot of college students that are, what's the word, they're like fighting against the school are rebelling, rebelling against, like their own tuition fee, because they're forced, like, you know, these very reputable colleges are forced, well, first of all, all these kids got kicked out of their dorms even before they're able to pack up everything and forced to be on Zoom. And many schools even in, you know, K to 12, are told that the fall semester is going to be primarily taught online.

: 43:38

Yeah, the Emperor wears no clothes, like this COVID thing. Basically took out academia and kind of proved, like, oh, like, this is why like, my sister teaches that at one of those online universities, she's like, nope, haven't had any chain. Like, right, right? Still tons of students, tons of people, because the school she works at, you're not like in a semester. Like she she knows someone who completed their MBA in three months, because they could just knock the classes out. Wow. And they're paying monthly flat fee. So the cost was only three months that cost versus you pay for the whole day. So once people started realizing they're paying their professors, you know, the salaries they're getting, and then you know, that's also paying for, you know, all this campus luxury, when universities also have these huge endowments that they don't tap into. They probably got bailouts instead. And so it's like, what are you charging us for? What am I going and get student loans for for $50,000 a year? Yeah, to be on Zoom and you're not a good zoom teacher because you like to speak in front of large crowds? Yeah, it's like this is switched like that. It showed that the value of University College is not what it's perceived to be. It's certainly not now if it continues like this or if the actual cost, you know, whether or not any no college degree is worth it, other than if you are only looking for those jobs that require it. But, you know, in this day and age, there's so many employers like, you have a skill set where you could solve a problem for me. Cool, prove it, do it. You know, there's your resume in your job interview.

: 45:20

I think this is a good transition to talk about, you know, just what benefits where I know, you already mentioned the GI Bill, but what other benefits are typically provided, even for civilians, you know, to save up money for college? And no, it's funny, because with current events, I'm seeing very clearly that what is available, just feels so obsolete now. Well, and you've talked a lot about this, you know, in previous conversations and through our marketing material. So I'd like for you to dive into that.

: 45:50

Yeah, well, I mean, the main thing that's going to come up is, are you Oh, my gosh, you just had a baby, or you got some young kids? Are you saving for college? Have you saved the college savings plan for them? You know, and it's like, it's like, oh, yeah, I'm a parent, this is Oh, I better do that. more priority than my own retirement or my own savings is the kid you have no idea if you know, even gonna be interested in college, 20 years from now, right? Or 18 years now. But once it got kind of, I don't even know when it was invented, or when it came into being available. But it was quickly taken up by the financial companies, to market to young parents, because it's quite easy to figure out from an advertising marketing perspective, who just had a kid. And so they can market to them, like start your five to nine savings. Now, the problem with five to nine, is their state regulated for some reason, they're like, each state has its own thing. Each state has its own thing with its own company. So like Virginia, I think only works with American funds. So there's whole websites on this decide, like, oh, how do you figure out which state to get your five to nine for him, because then you can get extra tax benefits. If you go to school in that state, just all this crazy nuttiness. It makes it super complicated and different fees involved in the five to nine benefit. What it is, it's like a Roth IRA, it's like, money that you put in to a five to nine after tax dollars, can be used for higher education expenses, without any tax, so the growth can all be tax deferred, and then you can use the money tax free. Okay, cool. If for only those purposes, the problems are one, we're still invested in the stock market. So we gotta, we gotta hire that financial advisor to manage it for us. So what if your kid turned 18 This year, and you had been in all, you know, lower risk portfolio you thought. And then the flu takes out the economy. And all of a sudden, you know, interest rates dropped, like all sorts of crazy things happen, like, that's the college savings strategy, you know, and that's what the majority of Americans are banking on when it comes to saving for money. But the other problem is, what if it didn't go to college?

Unknown Speaker: 48:02

They don't want to go, especially after now, what about

: 48:04

one, I mean, we can get into the whole, like, way too many Americans go to college than need to, it's just this thing you're supposed to do. And it wasn't designed for that it was designed for very, very particular skill sets. You know, everybody else is supposed to go to trade school. But now we got all these crazy, you know, degrees in every topic, you know, that you can't do anything with, like, it would have been better to be a trade school or learn business or something. But you know, so if you end up getting to that stage in your life, maybe join the military, maybe you get scholarships, maybe you still go to college, you get scholarships, maybe you want to start a business, you know, who knows what it is, any money, you've put in the five to nines, you can't access it, or you can, but then you got to pay penalties on it right now. So the other option is to transfer to another kid or something like that. And it's just, you know, just gets cumbersome, given the actual value involved and all the administration and seeing if it's going to do good or anything, if so, that makes it very, very limiting. And there's other things like covered ELLs and dogmas and uniform gifts, gift to Minors Act and other ways to give money to kids. But we got to realize this, even the five to nine, it wasn't invented or designed to be a you know, save $200 a month for your kids college. That's what a Coverdale was covered out, you can put in up to $2,000 a year. I think they might have increased it looked at one of those a decade. But you know, the same deal. It's just with five to nine, there weren't those limitations. And it's like why are people doing that? What is it really for the cover? That was for the monthly you know, young parents start, five to nine, sounded sexier, had all these other things going on with it by the states. And they started to use it for that monthly amount. But it was designed to be an estate planning tool for grandparents for really, really, really rich grandparents because they can put up to like $300,000 into a five to nine you know, which is complete opposite of starting Have $200 a month, right? That's what a five to nine is really designed for just a way to gift a bunch of money to your grandkids, so they don't have to pay taxes, you know, there's better ways to do that too. But when it comes to the college savings, or let's just say, saving money for your kids that you eventually attend to give to them in some capacity whatsoever, you want to give them a leg up, you're that kind of a apparently want to give the option, whether it's for college or something else, you know, yeah, all for it, if that's your gonna attention. It's just like everything else, whether it's the job market, or just anything that they've told us is the way to do things, usually means that there's a lot of limitations, and they've kind of made it a blanket thing to give good enough for everybody versus you going and getting the best for you.

: 50:46

Very cool. So why don't we talk about is there a better option? Is there a better way to save for your kids? Not necessarily college, but feature?

: 50:55

Yeah, so actually, we designed a strategy around this, we call it the junior veteran plan or the JV plan or JV fund. And the idea is, and this isn't necessarily new, it's just there's newer technology that makes this work even better. But it's always been common for young parents to also buy some life insurance on their kid. Because if you're buying it on a one or two year old, it's super cheap. And if you get the version where it can also act as a savings vehicle. Well, now you can use it for college and, and why this works in your advantage to save your kid is with the newer technologies, there's better investment options, so you can get more growth, but there's no risk. So there's no downside risks. So that's, that's the main thing with the new technologies, the strategy overall is still the same, you're just gonna end up with more money you can access for college, or whatever you use it for. Because the rules are the five to nine has to be for secondary education, expenses, books, dorms, food, tuition, but with an insurance strategy, you can use the cash value for anything. And anytime there's no rule, and you could change ownerships and all that kind of stuff as well.

Unknown Speaker: 52:06

So if you don't, so if you don't like your kids, when they

: 52:10

have a new car, you know, whatever. It's like, yeah, it doesn't have to be limited to just that. But the other real thing around this is, this is why people get mad at rich people who don't pay taxes. And it's like, they're just playing by the rules that were given to them. And so one of the rules when it comes to the college savings thing, especially this day and age, because the government made it available for everybody to be able to go to college, because they would offer guaranteed grants and loans from the government. Right. That's what created the student debt. Crisis. Right. Right. But that also caused the universities to say, Well, geez, the government is guaranteeing these kids loans. I mean, who would give an 18 year old $100,000 loan? It's crazy, right? But you know, we have the government guarantee. So the college has started up in their prices more and more. So this is why we're seeing what we have now. Right? Talking about where people aren't justifying the price of a zoom call to take out $100,000 student loan. Right, right, right. But there's this whole loan system. And the goal is, if you can qualify for grants or very low cost loans, yes, if you're gonna pay for college, it's still better than you know, trying to pay for it out of pocket. And some regards, but the point is, with our strategy, you don't have to report it on the financial aid form. Right. So a lot, a lot of states, again, it depends on the state, but in a lot of states, when you go to apply for college, you're gonna apply for the financial aid, because if you can get some sort of deal, you're gonna get it. But that deal depends on how wealthy the parents look on paper, right. So if they got a bunch of savings accounts, retirement accounts, like at the University says, Well, that could be money used for college. And so a lot of times, you have to put in five to nine months. So now that backfired, because you did the right thing by saving for college. And then when it comes to the point where you want to actually use the money, they're going to use it against you in determining how much you can qualify for to get some free money, you know, some extra money from the government help pay for college. And so when using this insurance strategy, you don't have to report you don't even have to report insurance on your tax forms. So you definitely have to report it on your FAFSA form. And so it's possible to basically shelter assets, hide assets, whatever you wanna call it. It's all in the tax code. So this is not weird. It's actually done a lot by a lot of people. And it makes you look poor on paper. Right? So when you do apply for the loan, it's like take the loan, because now we allow that money to grow for an extra four years while the kids in college, then because we can access that money tax free. So assuming the kids gone to college, use some student loans, instead of you know, holding that student loan for 40 years. Since people do now, at age 20, to 23, whenever they graduate, we take the money from the insurance and immediately pay off the loan right there. And the cool thing is because we've let it marinate for a little bit longer, now we've got a nice, a nice chunk of change that can not only did you give the gift for college, but now you can give a gift for life. Because without putting any any new money into it, or whatever, you can transfer it over the kid, they can do whatever they want with it. And the way we design it is, even if you put no money in it, after the kids have college, you pass it over to them, if the kid didn't touch it, at age 60, they'd have a million dollars. Right? Yeah. And that's conservative estimates, you know, less than 6% growth, right. So that's the s&p 500. You know, that's the kind of thing that's just a much more powerful story. For parents who really want to be engaged with their kids future, you know, give them the best opportunity help them out financially, without, you know, just paying for their college for four years and hoping they learn for something, you know, there's lot more control over this with this approach. Because it's not about college anymore. And that's got to be some people are thinking about is college really what I need to do, even all the new ways of getting educated, finding that and you don't have to use it just yet, just for college, you can use it for whatever you want. And you could pass it around. So you know that you still get all the same tax benefits and stuff. So it's like, there's really nothing to lose by going with a more modern, flexible approach that allows you to focus not on some 80. Again, it's like retirement. So it's so far away. You know, what if for whatever reason he needed the money when the kids 10? Right? I mean, don't you want to be able to use it?

: 56:46

So I have to ask this question, what's the catch?

: 56:50

What's the catch on doing a different strategy?

Unknown Speaker: 56:53

Yeah, if there is a catch, what's the catch?

: 56:56

I mean, the only catch is potentially, we wouldn't get as much growth. Because if you had a perfect portfolio and a five to nine, and it just did awesome, you know, over the 18 years, you caught it at the right time. You know, there's potential for more upside, our strategy gets about 80% of the upside, but without any risk. So, you know, that seems like a pretty good trade off. And usually with college savings accounts, you know, the return isn't as important as the fact that they're just saving for college. And nobody's ever came to come and said, Oh, man, my college accounts aren't doing well. You know, but they'll say that about the retire. Oh, my word, my TSP has been doing awesome. It's like, wow, why, Oh, I'm gonna leave that one in the C fund, because it's just been performing great. Like the stock market's been going up in XSplit. splendidly for the last 10 years. And everybody's accounts going up. So it's just like, thinking the vehicle is the thing. If people say, Oh, my five to nine is doing great.

: 58:03

So what I'm gathering from the strategy that we have here at us, but wealth, you know, an alternative option for you know, saving for your children's college slash future is that with our strategy, it provides less risk, therefore, more stability, also more flexibility, and more options, ultimately, that I hear that right.

: 58:26

Yeah, I mean, the actual investment option, like when people think about building a portfolio for whatever it is the goal they're invested in, you know, they have all these different 1000s of mutual funds, different ways to put it in. Like, we just simplify the whole thing. We have a couple of different options, which are linked to how the market performs, again, without putting the money at risk in it. So we can get growth, but it's still credited as interest. What's really happening is insurance companies. This stupid thing about life insurance, people misunderstand think it's all about death. Duh, like, we're gonna die. And it just the whole conversation all over the internet. It's like, oh, you should get this amount, or I can get it cheaper here. And it's like, right, dude, it's not about that. And this is why financial planners don't grasp it. It took me 10 years to just go holy cow. No, if you understand how these tools, vehicles, do you know how your car works? Do you really, I don't, but I know how to drive it. Right. So it's fascinating, that we've been sold one story our whole life on what life insurance actually is. It's not about insurance, someone's death. That's part of it. It's about ensuring the income producing potential of an individual life. Let me say that again. It's about ensuring the income producing potential of an individual life. So how does the individual life produce income 1000 different ways like so many different ways? Typically, we know the job the salary and return on the investment from the money we get from that salary that we invest somewhere else. Okay? So, life insurance gives the option to also buy insurance on the investment. Okay, this is what's fascinating. And you hear about guys doing this on wall street all the time, but their day trading, then what to do is to buy options contracts. Now, instead of day trading them, which can be very expensive, super risky. When you get long term 123 year contracts you have now you're participating in the longer form of the market where returns are more stable and stuff. And so that's all we're doing is not putting the money at risk and the variables and trying to manage it all the time, we're just simply buying the option to participate by an insurance on the investor. So let's say we buy insurance on the market in a way that if the market goes up, we get up to 80% of the upside, the market goes down, we got the insurance, we just don't lose. Okay, so this becomes more about the investment growth in the strategy. Mostly because we want to get the tax benefits. There's there's not many other places other than a Roth IRA, which has limits and limits mean you can only use it for your retirement, you can only put 6000 a year in do more when you're 50 is do some makeup like that's just not real sexy, you can only touch it and do it 15 and a half, you could do a Roth 401 K or tsp same problems, they're five to nine is also tax free municipal bonds is a tax free thing. But other than that, and there's so much limitations around all those both access how you can put money in, you can take it out. But in the insurance strategies, you can use it for whatever you want. Right. So at any time. And so that flexibility, we're getting the upside, and we get all the tax benefits. Well, yeah, that's the biggest cost. Most people are misled. On the whole, make sure you get someone that's a fee, only financial planner doesn't have these fees or doesn't get commissions. And then it's like, hey, yeah, all industries, people make money get paid one way or the other. So there is no right or wrong. That's what's happened. There's been this dogma, this split, there's only this way, these guys are the bad guys. These guys are the good guys. It's like, okay, are we really that small minded? To think that way? Did you get value for what you chose to do with your money? You know, that's up to the individual to decide. And this is where I've seen the industry going, I saw how the traditional story was told I just didn't buy it. I saw new technologies coming out. I saw people misunderstanding what they are misusing them. That was the worst. Unfortunately, I did that for a few years, I was told kind of by my mentors in my firm. Oh, so use it this way. It basically just the same as the old way, but rethought redesigned. Now all of a sudden, it's almost like a software control panel for the financial aspect of your life, in how you can actually manage it because of the money in it that you then use. You use that to reinvest, maybe it's in yourself, maybe it's in a business, maybe it's in real estate, maybe it's in your kid, like, I don't care. But now we can actually use the money without having to take withdrawals out of our accounts that hurts future growth, right. So there's a lot more upside in this modern, you know, this JV plan approach. Then just to kind of set it forget, well, I guess we go to college and 18 years. That's it. Thank

: 1:03:33

you for wrapping up Season Two with me. I really appreciate your time, as I always do, especially just the knowledge and the expertise and experience that you have in the financial industry, with our military families, specifically, and veterans. Let's talk a little bit about maybe closing thoughts of how people can take action. Like if they're ready to maybe even inquire how would they be able to get a hold of us,

: 1:04:00

the easiest thing to do would be to just email us at Scott at US vet wealth or to get Jen,

: 1:04:06

Jen je n at us but wealth.com

: 1:04:10

and hit us up on LinkedIn, of course, is a great way to chat. But we're if you go to our website, US vet wealth.com You can book a consultation right there on the website, just kind of put in the notes that you're the podcast, and we want to chat a little bit about what the strategy might look like, we'll probably just do a webinar, invite folks to it if we get a lot of interest, because it's actually when you start seeing the numbers and the story played out. It's quite powerful and shocking. But it'll piss you off a little bit, unfortunately. Yeah. And I want to be clear, I'm not saying anybody's doing anything wrong, there's the wrong way or whatever. It's just, you're making a choice right now to either do that one, or do nothing. Or now with new information. Maybe your choice is to now start doing this one also. I mean, that's And you can decide how you want to use. These are just assets, assets or assets, assets have different rules and different ways you can use them. But you got to treat them like an asset, not like a supposed to do.

: 1:05:11

Yeah, or like saving for your funeral. Like how most people see life insurance. So thank you so much for taking the time to really think changed the conversation around the life insurance, and how most of us perceive it and assume what it is. I also want to add that we do have a one sheet or some marketing material about the JV fund. So I'll have that provided in the show notes. Lastly, I thought we just kind of do a shameless plug in for your podcast show, Scott. So why don't you talk just a little bit briefly. And this is really more so geared more toward our veterans. But why don't you talk a little bit about your podcast show? Welcome liberty?

: 1:05:49

No, thanks. Yeah. So welcome. Liberty, is basically me speaking to myself 10 years ago, about the concepts of identity, self development and financial control, and how important those are, you know, really being responsible to build those skills, and not follow the herd. And of course, you tie it in to what's going on. Right now in the modern economy. It's like, one of the things I know we did a bunch of episodes on, was LinkedIn, like, you want to talk about any financial wealth creation tool ever invented, you know, stocks, bonds, gold, mutual funds business, I mean, the best tool, I believe, is LinkedIn. Because it gives you the opportunity right now, today, to start building a personal brand and network with basically anybody in the world at your fingertips. Now, you got to be good at it to attract attention and stuff. But when you do, then that's how you create opportunities. You don't know what that means financially. But typically, that means your network equals your net worth is what I've always heard before. So you define how big you want those numbers to be, don't have to be that big at all. But now, if you have the freedom to live the lifestyle that you want, you have mobile income or assets that you can live anywhere, work virtually, if you want, but basically align that source of income with some source of purpose, because I fear two things one, every day, you know, we're losing veterans, who, for whatever reason, didn't have the purpose to be around anymore. And that's sad. But, but also, as importantly, because I think those same veterans had the financial control to dust themselves off, not rely on the government to help fix them to go do whatever resources that they needed, if whether that was medically mentally, or just the ability to go spend their days doing stuff that they want, or a job that they wake up super passionate about. I think that puts more veterans and military spouses for that matter in positions of leadership in our economy, because they've attained a sense of wealth and liberty. And that wealth is simply defined as money is just a creation of the ability to free up your time, but limited time you do have that's the true resource to go do whatever it is you need to do or want to do, or have to do, whether it's a calling a need to fix something, or, you know, whatever, I just think this is the big problem. Our country right now needs that sort of, you know, honest, duty bound leadership that isn't political, just BS, or some sort of immediate talking point like we need. But if we're stuck in cubicles, or in jobs, or listening to somebody else, and we have no vision, to break away from that to go figure out how you can participate to serve those who are meant to serve. You know, that's what our country needs, we need more of us. There's nobody better than the 1% have served our country to become the 1% to influence it. I just feel it's necessary right now. And it's my duty to try to share this message and find some other folks who say, Yeah, I'm not happy with the way I was told to live my life or currently live in it, or how I have a relationship with this damn thing called money. And it's all about getting rich and like doesn't have to be about any of that. There's no rules. And that's what liberty is about. And we need to own those principles more and more now more than ever.

Jen Amos: 1:09:17

Fantastic. Well, Scott, thanks again for joining me on my show holding down the fort and for being part of the catalysts, including our colleagues at us fight well for having started the show to begin with, to our listeners if you are looking for any of the resources we share throughout this conversation that'll be provided in the show notes of this episode, or you can visit the website holding down the for podcast.com. With that said, we hope that today's episode gave you one more piece of knowledge resource, a relevant story, so you can continue to make confident and informed decisions for you and your family. Until then, we look forward to speaking with you and the next episode. Tune in next time