Stephen Peters - Exhibit K - UCE Series (July 7th)

Hey Kim, how you doing?

Hi, how are you doing? Good, doing good. How was your weekend? Or week? Week coming up out there, like the Fourth of July and everything?

I know, it's already the weekend again. I know, it's awesome, isn't it? I did, I did. I went down to, uh, I went down to the beach. So, um, it was nice. It was not very hot, but it was nice.

It was hot here too, so it was, uh, yeah, it was good. But, um, now it's like thundering and raining like crazy today, so we'll see what that. Sucks. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, it's all right. It's not too bad.

Um, yeah. Uh, did you get what I sent you last night?

I did. Okay. Um, how accurate do you think that is? Sounded like you weren't, uh, 100% sure with some of those numbers.

Well, I know. I mean, I know like the salary number, and as I started to go through what I can and can't afford, um, you know, it's a complete, it's just a big switch. And I'm, I'm sorry if I sound a little like frazzled, um, but I'm trying to figure out, this is a total lifestyle change for me. Um, so I'm trying to figure out what I, what I can still do and what I can't do. And I realize now that that exercise is a lot harder than I thought originally. So, yeah.

Um, so I don't know what, you know, what that's going to mean for, for what I have to cut and what, and, and how much I really can rely on, um, the, the money to, to create money for me, you know what I mean? To be so that I live off of it and still be able to, you know, do the things I want to. It's like I feel like I'm like some, you know, like grief or something, like going into this austerity, like movement. So, um, which I don't want to do, but I'm, I guess I have to.

So, um, so yeah, I mean, we, if you want to, we can go through all the numbers and I can tell you what, why I put, put that down, but, um, yeah, it's kind of what it is. I mean, the, so the monthly salary is like that, that I know is a known entity. And, um, and also the income that I have, or the, you know, the amount of money I have right now, which is actually just in a money market account, um, at Chase. So, uh, I gotta figure out what to do with that quickly.

Can you hear me?

I can, I can. I'm just listening to you, looking, I'm listening to you and looking at the, uh, the form at the same time. So.

Okay. No, I'm sorry. I just heard like a bunch of, um, I think I'm in a bad location. So, anyway, uh, yeah, that's kind of where I am.

Um, and I really liked talking to you last one was like, gosh, it was a while ago. It was like the end of May, I think. Um, about, you know, what, putting, putting that into some type of vehicle or security or whatever that can generate those, that dividend and that recurring income to keep, to keep, to contribute to this, um, you know, so that I don't have to. I mean, I don't know. I don't know exactly what. I've never been in the situation before and I'm not exactly sure what to do with it. So, uh, that's why I'm, you know, reaching out to a bunch of people to try to figure, figure this all out for myself, which is, you know, the first thing I've, first time I have to do that in a while. So, anyway, sorry.

Hopefully, hopefully you don't have to do. I'll answer a couple things, um, you know, for you right now and, and, um, you know, give you a, hopefully a little bit of sense of, of, uh, comfort on things. Um, I'll also tell you where I think, you know, some of my concerns could, could lie to, as well. And I can, uh, at a very, very high level, talk to you a little bit about, um, you know, what I think that, um, you know, what I think that we can do. But I don't want to get in the details because, um, this again, I want to go further in some of the things that are more important to you. And then, um, and then from there, I can, I can render.

If you kind of remember my process, I go kind of more through a discovery, and we're not quite through that in its entirety yet. And, uh, once we get through that, then what I'm going to be doing is, I'm in essence going to be putting together a plan for you. And that plan, I don't like the word plan. I don't like the idea of, you know, sitting here saying it's like a financial plan because, um, I think we talked briefly about this, but, you know, it's kind of like my military days. You can put the best battle plan together, but the minute the bullets start flying and, in essence, you start living life, things change, right? So the truth is that I have found that with clients, you create kind of a body of motion in which we agree to at a high level strategically of what we're trying to accomplish. And we get buy-in by all parties on that. That's the goal, and that's the measurement of success, and that's what we're working towards. Think about it just like in your business, right? You would want to come into the year not knowing what your, you know, goals are for the year, right? So I want, part of the discovery is me understanding kind of what your goals are. And then, uh, just like you would at your, at your work, right? If you think something's not realistic, or you're like, wow, you know, I appreciate what you're saying, but holy cow, I don't think that's going to be able to be accomplished, or it's going to be really challenging, uh, or there's risk involved in these things, um, then we can, we can certainly, um, you know, address those, those elements as we, as we go forward with it.

So, um, uh, so that's kind of what we're going to cover today. We're going to go through a discovery. Let me tell you what I, you know, looking at it, um, you know, I, I think income fine. Uh, the fact that you have 1.9 billion dollars puts you in a really good place. I mean, assuming that's what you have in the money market account, you've got that, that amount of money. Um, you know, there are certain things like, um, when I look down at it, I mean, there's stuff like, you know, gym and stuff like that, and that's life. I mean, that's just life. That's what you're going to spend. Um, it may even be more like, you know, I don't know where you're actually going to, uh, live here, but, you know, you go to a really nice gym like, um, Lifetime here, which is a real kind of social place and fun. You know, it's got pretty much everything there. You know, you could be 150, 200 easily, you know, in those costs, right? I mean, uh, in expenditures, because they have stuff like, you know, just things that people don't think of. Like, you, you go there and they have breakfast every morning, and your hair done there, you can get all kinds of weird things done, and, you know, eat food, and there's protein bars and all kinds of stuff. And before you know it, it's like a country club. You're spending way more than 150 a month on, you know, at that, at that gym, right? Right.

Um, at the same time, by the way, I love Lifetime. So I totally want to join. Everyone.

Yeah, good, good. Yeah, it's an awesome place. I mean, so, um, there's one real close to my house. There's one up by, I think you're looking at like the North Hills area. There's one definitely and around that area. And, um, it's a great, I mean, it's just a great, great place to go. Um, and so, you know, there's the membership fee, which will probably be under 150, but then it's just what are you going to spend when you're there? That's going to be kind of part of that cost. And, um, you know, you could sit there and say, well, those are things like meals and entertainment and other things like that too, as well. But I just have a feeling that, you know, on some, some areas, you may be low on some reason. I think you, you may have to curve back. Um, and again, we will have to tell on that, you know, spending. And I'm just looking at it, I'm being candid. I mean, I understand, um, you know, or you're out on it. But I mean, I think you got like four thousand dollars a month in expenditures towards, uh, like clothes, right? And like, you know, shopping. Kind of bad, you know what I mean? Those things, you know, you may have to curve that back in the beginning until you get your feet underneath you and really understand what the expenditures are.

Now, there's two ways to handle it. I literally was like looking at my credit card statements over the last couple months, or actually over the last year, really, to see. And I was like, holy, I spent a lot of money on. I don't even, you know, I'm like, I don't even know what this is. But anyway, and we'll help you with that. Um, the system, we haven't talked much about this, um, but, uh, our clients go on a system. And if you, I mean, again, we don't have to do this, we recommend it, by the way, if you're really going to try to act as your CFO for you. Again, I think that my role is a little bit different than probably, well, again, it's an area where I'd say, here, call it marketing spin, or whatever. I just think that I've, I've built some technology and things around it that I really actually deliver on the value proposition. It's not just, uh, you know, song and dance, like I think a lot of people sit there and say they're wealth managers and they manage your wealth, but really what they're doing is they're managing your investment account, right? And my viewpoint on it is that my job is to manage your wealth and its entirety. And that's why I say I'm your personal CFO, not your investment guy, right? Like, I mean, that's, that's kind of, I mean, we could say it's actually branding, but at the end of the day, we built technology in so that we can link your expense patterns on a month-to-month basis. And we're going to be able to sit there and I'm going to be able to come in when we meet on a quarterly basis and be like, you know, hey Kim, you spend X amount of dollars in shopping this month. You know, uh, now, you may not want me to know all that stuff, but if you want me, and you can turn those off, and you can turn them on, but I'm just saying that if you really want me to assist, especially as you're making this transition, I mean, some of those things are going to be valuable for us to get kind of trends and, and to monitor them.

With that being said, my gut reaction, if I'm in, you know, at a high level, and this is not me talking to my team about anything yet, at this given stage, so, you know, it's one person speaking, right? And, and that's not, that's not the best way to handle this. So you have to take it for what it's worth. My viewpoint would be that I would be taking a good portion of of what what you spend in a year, and that actually would remain in cash, okay? That would remain in cash, and that would remain liquid. Liquid, because we don't know what we don't know yet until you get down here, until we start to see what things look like. I think that there's a certain level of liquidity that I think you should just have, whether or not that stuff that you put in an account that we're managing, or whether or not you put it in, like you said, the bank account that you're holding. I believe that having that kind of emergency reserves and that cash is smart for you in the first 12 months. We can always make adjustments after that. But I think that knowing what the spending habits are right now, I would sit here and say, you know, um, you know, take eight thousand dollars times that by 12 months, or something along those lines, and, and that would definitely be staying in cash. Maybe even more, right? I mean, again, maybe at a minimum that I would tell you that my gut reaction would be to do that. Okay.

The others, once you do that, you, you're sitting here and you're, you're basically looking at it going, okay, well, I got, um, you know, I need to have 108, 110,000 or something like that, sitting in in cash. I got a million nine. Let's just say I put a million seven, million six to work. I was even a conservative and put like a million five in the beginning, um, when I was looking at things, not knowing that if we're going to buy houses, not all other stuff. And then sat down and said, what is legit amount? Like, what do I need to get an actual return to produce the income that we need to produce, right? And it's, it's doable, right? Like when you look at it, the number that you have there, I can sit there and say, I mean, you're in the six to seven percent annualized return on that money that you need to get, and it needs to be able to produce, you know, be able to to, you know, you to live off of it.

Now, with that being said, here's where the rubber meets the road, dial, right? I mean, if, if my returns are designed to, to make your lifestyle, this is where my, my first concern would come in. If my returns are designed to sit here and say, hey, Steve, I got a million nine, um, I want it to, to, uh, help me with my lifestyle because there's a certain lifestyle I want to live, and I want to continue to live that. I'm going to live it for a while now, right? And that's what I want to do. And, um, I need to get this return for me, and so that I can supplement my lifestyle. That's fine. I can do that. And I think that that's very doable. I think the challenge is when you got competing priorities, when you sit there and you say, hey, Steve, I want that lifestyle thing that we're talking about, but I also want you to grow it so that each year it's growing at 10% a year, right? So my 1.9 is going to turn into, you know, 2.1 or 2.2 in the next, um, you know, the next year or so. I'm going to sit here and turn to you and tell you, hey, Kim, that's up to you. You know, here's a guy that's got, here's a guy, here's a guy that's got, you know, an investment banking norm. I can show you a lot of things that you could do to produce high returns, but that's high risk, right? It's high risk too, right? Right. Like, so you could go into deals and maybe like this is what your, um, you know, your ex used to do. But when you're doing these private equity and private debt deals and you go into things like that, you know, um, and again, we can try to pick ones that we think are really, really solid to go into those, but then you're, you're, um, you're in a situation where that, you know, I, I can't. I'll tell you, you know, we have a pretty good track record. I'll tell you that about 60, 70% of our deals wind up being successful and they're home runs when they hit. Yeah. That means, that means 30 or 40% of them fail, right? Like, and so I'm sitting here hearing what I heard initially, and I, and really what just comes to like, it kind of Jesus meeting, whatever you want to call it, but getting real is really what it comes down to. Is you know, it's one of those things where we sit there and say, hey, Steve, I want you to produce income for me, and I want you to do it in a safe way that's relatively conservative, or my principle is not at risk, and I want to live off of that, plus I want you to grow it. Well, that's going to be challenging, okay? Those things are going to be challenging to get together. That's just me sitting here saying, yeah, I want everything. Don't you know that? Yeah. So, um, but I feel very comfortable with taking the 1.9 million dollars, you know, and developing a strategy for. Again, some of it's going to be in cash in the early stages. We wouldn't even put it to work because I, I think we want 12 months of track record in advance. But I could sit here and turn to you and say, and this is where I'm not ready to talk about it at this giving stage, and say, hey, I can get you the return that you need to live your lifestyle right now and get you a check, you know, once a month, once a quarter, whatever you want the money to come in at. And I can get you that. And, um, and, and keep your principal secured and grow it. But it's going to grow it modestly. Like, you're going to be seeing, if you're taking that kind of income, you're going to be seeing, you know, 2% growth on the overall portfolio outside of that. Do you know what I'm saying? And it's not going to be like, hey, I'm taking all this income and I'm growing it significantly unless you're willing to take on more risk. Yeah. Um, and, and, um, and we can certainly do those things. And there's certainly things that we can invest in. And there's certainly things that you can invest in that you can control and, and, um, and flex a high degree of control over, you know, the success of the project, right? Or the success of the investment. But normally then you're rolling up your sleeves and you're involved in it too, you know what I'm saying? So it's one of those things where it's like, you know, uh, I didn't hear that those things from you, I guess, is the thing that I, I, uh, and so I don't want to mislead you. At some point, what I would tell you is, if you change your mind in 12 months from now and you turn to me and say, hey, Steve, I do want to take on some risk in certain areas, I do want to grow in these different areas, I do want to do the, you know, try something over here that's unique, and we have those opportunities and we can get you in front of those, and that's not going to be hard to do, right? Um, but I think what I heard early on was, and the only inconsistency when I looked at the note was, you know, hey, Steve, I won't be able to live off this stuff, and, you know, there's a modest amount of money, and then I want to grow on top of it, and I want to grow pretty significantly so that, you know, I'm setting myself up for the future. My viewpoint on it is, I can get your investments to produce that income now until the end of time, right? And, but your principal's not going to grow significantly as we're doing that, right? I mean, it's going to, with rates of inflation, all the other stuff going on, I mean, I can sit here and turn to you and say, I'm pretty confident I can get you, you know, 100, 150,000 a year off of that investment and stay relatively conservative and not have any risk with your principal. Yeah. And that's kind of, is that what you, is that what you're hearing from me? Because I, that kind of makes sense. In what I'm, I mean, I, I would, yeah, would I love the 1.9 to turn into three? Sure, of course. But I would also, I, I, I want to have it in some type of, and I agree with you about the cash, because I was going to say that. And, and actually, I'm incredibly nervous right now because that cash is like, it's all in cash, and it was like, you know, it just recently got transferred over. And so I'm like, I, I gotta start making money off of this. Like, this is like, I can't. It's like it's like basically sitting, I might as well have it under my mattress.

But, um, it's true. It's true. Do you have it underneath your mattress? But 30 days or 45 days, which is really what we're talking about right now, is not going to to to change anything too dramatically. And, um, and we can take advantage of what's going on in the markets the minute it goes in. And, and, and the thing is that, um, what I said I wasn't ready to commit to is, you want a certain level of income that comes in through income, and then a certain level of income that comes in through dividends because they are taxed at a different rate. So when we design this, you're going to want combat. You want a combination of different types of sources of income coming in. You also want to diversify the strategy, and you don't want it to just be in one thing. So I can sit here and turn to you and to tell you, hey, I can put you at a BDC tomorrow that could that kicks off. And by the way, we too charge no commission. So if you do anything like where you're looking like, you know, the New York guys that like getting into BDCs and and they charge crazy commissions. Yeah, we're fee-based. We're a fee-based advisory shop. So we shoot, we take no commissions. And anything that would have been commission-based means that the client just gets more, um, you know, more shares that they buy, right? Because we don't, we don't do commissions out of it. So you just, yeah, so, yeah, so it just rolls in. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah.

Um, and so, um, so, uh, but BDCs, uh, when we put it, put them in there, there's plenty of them that we, I can sit here and turn to you in today. Yeah, you know, uh, depending on what we put in, somewhere between six and a half and eight and a half percent. And, and that's once we put it in, it's locked, right? I mean, and you can, uh, you can reinvest those and then you can have it grow, which some clients do, right? Or they can take the income and they take it on a quarterly basis. And, um, they take that income out. And, um, the only problem with BDCs, which isn't a real issue because again, this is why you wouldn't put it all on one thing, is the liquidity is on a quarterly basis. Meaning like, most, um, and again, it sounds like you, I'm talking to you a little bit more sophisticated because I think that your background and what you have is, uh, makes you a little bit more knowledgeable. But most of the time, when a client calls you up and says, I want my money, and it's in the stock market or something along the lines, it's what they call T plus three, trade plus three days, and then the money gets, it gets transitioned. In a BDC, there's a time period that comes at the end of every quarter where you have the ability to liquidate that out at that given stage, right? And so, I mean, that's why you get premium pricing, right? Like you get a higher rate of return because you're giving up, um, liquidity. Now, you wouldn't put all your money in that because if we needed liquidity, right, um, like if I sit here and said, hey, we need a, you know, an 8% return, and I could go get an 8% return, we'll see, why don't we just put it all in one thing? Because it's just not smart, right? I mean, it's not smart. Diversification-wise, it's not smart in the context of liquidity. It's not smart for a lot of different reasons. But when I sit here and say, hey, don't worry, you need to get a 7% return, and I can get that for you, I know that there's multiple ways that I can get that sources. And BDCs pay off as if it's an income, it's a, it's an income element of it, versus dividend. So that would be taxed differently. And so those are the things we need to keep in consideration too, as well.

I reached out to one of my managers, uh, last night when I got your thing, and a guy who really manages non-qualified money for us for taxes. And I said, all right, I want to know, I got, you know, know a million and a half dollars in right now. What would your strategy be? Now, I'm not going to go 100 with his strategy, but I want to see what he's going to come back with so that I can compliment it with the other things that I'm thinking about right now, right? To produce the return. Yeah. So, um,

What was that? What did he say?

Same thing. Oh, we haven't, we haven't. You know, I, I told him I said that we would need to engage next week after you and I had a conversation on it. But I told him, I told him the return, and, uh, he said, that's not going to be a problem, right? Like, I mean, that's, he said, I thought you were going to give me something more challenging. So that was, it would be bandoring back and forth. But, um, basically nothing was coming. It's coming all over in cash. A lot of our clients come over with a concentrated stock position. Hey, you know, 13 million dollars of GE stock. And by the way, I don't like that. I'm concentrated in one position and I want to produce a certain amount of income. So how do I do that? Well, you can't liquidate all out at one time because most of the cost basis is pretty, you know, low when most people come over. So that creates huge taxable events for people. So, you know, yeah. Or something. Yeah. You're really, you're a really easy scenario, quite honestly, in the grand scheme of things, when a portfolio manager comes in, because we're really only focused on a set return. And there's not any tax ramifications unless there's something that you need to tell me about that I don't know. But if it's all in cash, there's, this is a pretty simple structure to bring over. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I mean, right now, because it, I, it, right now it's like 1937 or something like that is is the total amount. And it's, yeah, it's a, it's a cat, it's cash. Um, yeah, and it's, yeah, it's a weird, like, I, I check it every day because I'm like, can someone like hack into this? Like, you know, it just makes me nervous. But,

Exactly, exactly what you said. Is what if you can say, like, I could get you 7%, 8%, and it, and quarterly, that's that's amazing. Like, I, that, that is what I envisioned this money doing for me. I envisioned it like, okay, I got this. I am, I'm going to make it work in a way where I can continually, like, you know, grab, you know, my income off of it. And, and I, I like what you're, you're saying is making me feel like so much more comfortable with everything. And, um, and it just, it makes a lot of sense. And, and, you know, I know it may, I know it's, I'm kind of coming at you with like a strange scenario, maybe. But,

But it's not a strange scenario. It's just here are the things that are unexpected outside of managing your expectations on what real return should look like. Because again, again, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but, you know, if I'm sitting, um, within, you know, my ex, and my ex is talking about all the private equity deals that he's made and how much money he's making and stuff like that, that's awesome. And, and we all do in private equity if we're good at what we do. But we are also, we have short-term memories of the deals. So we sit here and we make that kind of money because we have this one huge home run that kills it, right? And we make 300% return. And then we don't talk about the three prior to that that failed, right? Like that just didn't work out, right? And then we, then we talked about the next one that did 500%, right? And it's like, you know, I love, I love talking about how, you know, we bought Facebook at 18 and bought, you know, 13 million shares of it and it went out at 41. Right? That makes me look brilliant, right? Right. Right. But I can also tell you about, you know, three mobile home, by the way, more mobile home parks are normally cash flow kings, right? And I can tell you about the sticks that have made me millions of dollars on them. But I can also tell you about the three that failed completely, like just bad locations and bad. And I can talk about the hotel I bought, it failed, right? Like it just was a failed deal. I mean, we didn't lose everything, but we lost like 30, 40% of our of our money in that deal trying to restructure and get out, right? Like, so I, you know, anybody who sits here and says, I only win all the time, uh, I think that's right. Like, I mean, I don't know how else to say it other than that, it just is, right? Like, so we're in a scenario right now that if your scenario that you just gave me is legit, right? Like that's all you need. There's no reason for me to take on more risk right now. And, and again, because all I've heard is, Steve, there's a certain lifestyle that I want to live. This money is designed to make sure that my lifestyle is maintained. Can you do that? Hell yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. That I got that. I got, right? Like, that I, that I got going on. What I don't, what I, what I don't want to have happen is being sniped by somebody else at a later time, or even by yourself when I come in and you're like, yeah, Steve, um, I was talking to my friend and, you know, his portfolio went up by like 10% this last quarter. And, you know, you're, uh, yours was like up like a percentage point, right? Like, so what's going on? Uh, well, I kicked off, you know, $30,000 of income for you throughout the last three months, right? Like, so it's just one of those things where we've just got to be honest with ourselves about what we're really trying to accomplish. And, and just because, I obviously, I've, I've gained this from experience by listening to people and saying, what are they really, what are they really saying, right? And what I heard was, I want my lifestyle to be maintained, but I also heard, and I also like that money to grow well. And it's like, well, I can do both, but you just need to know where, where the risk comes involved in that, right? If I do both, yeah. What's most important? What's going on in your life at any given time or year? You know, because you're right, things may change in five years. I don't know where I'll be in five years. Correct. But, you know, I, this for now, I think we both, it sounds like we're coming to a sort of, sort of a picture for me is becoming a little clearer. Good. As to what, you know, what sounds like a good strategy. And, um, I, I appreciate, you know, when I met you, like it just, it seemed to kind of fall into place and I understood what you were saying. And I gotta, you know, I got like, I get a good feeling, I guess, is that's that's not a technical term at all. But, you know, you just kind of walk away thinking, okay, where, what should I really do with this? And some of the things you said like make sense. And, and I think the picture's becoming like a lot clearer for me. So thank you.

Good. Um, well, I don't think you're. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

I was going to say, remind me what that BDC was because you told me, you told me when we met. It's like, uh, it's like a business, business, yeah, business development companies. You invest and then there's all kinds of different ones out there, um, from CL, the Franklin Square to a bunch of different, um, they're basically money managers who, and here's how it works, just to give you an idea. They lend money to mid-size companies. Like, I give you an example, Toys R Us, right? And normally, example of Toys R Us would be a really good one because, um, they are not grade A in the grand scheme of things, companies like when you're looking at it lending side, but they're big, substantial companies. And what they do is they lend money out. They take huge amounts of warrants and and, uh, equity in it. They have people like, and you might have heard companies like this, you know, like, um, BlackRock, um, as operators behind them, okay? And if, and they have a foreclosure ratio of like about three or four percent, that's it, right? Like, so, and, and there's a side of them that kind of hopes that they get more than that because they have good operators. And then things that they invest in. So if somebody defaults, they come in and take over the company, right? And they'll normally make more money on that aspect of it. But what they do is they borrow money from investors to make these types of loans, and they loan them out, you know, to you at six and eight percent. They, on the other side, will yield spread it out where they're making 10, 12, and then have warrants and options and a whole bunch of other things that are associated with it. Board seats, income, other ways to produce income off of it. And that's how they make their money. So, um, in essence, that's, uh, their business development companies. There's tons of them out there. Um, you just have to make sure that you've got good operators behind them, right? Like, I mean, the big one is, you don't want people out there lending money out and then, you know, they have to foreclose and you don't understand what their foreclosure ratios are and things like that. And then they, they're taking over assets that they really can't manage. So, I, I have, I've selected a few companies over the years that I just, um, he'd have a pretty good comfort with and, and work with them. And because I have an institutional relationship with them, you don't get raped with commissions and caught charges and all kinds of different things that normally are associated with it. So you have to be careful. Like, if I sat here and said, hey, I'm putting you in, I'm making something up right now, so don't go look this up, but, um, Franklin Square's, you know, FSCE 2 fund, right now. I think that's actually one that's really cool that that is out there. I'm not sure if it's closed or not, but I think that that one's out there. And I'm gonna put you in and you went out and took a look at it and you're like, Steve, I, the underlying, you know, securities look great, stuff like that, but, uh, fees on it are outrageous. Well, that's if you go on, try to do it on your own, right? On my end, it's a different thing when you're looking it up. So it's just, you got to be careful on, on, um, you know, just trying to Google it. And, you know, by the way, if, if it was that easy, where people could just Google it, then there'd be no reason for me, right? Like, I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, I'd be pretty much out of business, um, quickly, if, if the only value that I have is give you a couple funds that you could Google up and, and make a decision on, right? Like, so, right.

Um, you know, our guys sit on the boards, you know, on, on some of these companies and get involved in the advisor side of things. So, you know, their investment committee boards and things like that. So we've got, um, you know, it's just a different relationship that we, that we have with, uh, some of the fund managers that we work with. But, um, I'm sure some of them, you just can't direct invest anyway. You'd have to go through, right? Like somebody. Yeah, like, um, DFA's that way. Um, and, um, there's other, you know, DFA, uh, although, I mean, there's other advisors that you'd call to get into a DFA, um, you know, they're, they're really well known because they're, you know, they're, um, their top guy won the Nobel Prize for economics and Nobel Prize for money management. He's like, well, you know, rare guys out there that have been just, you know, he, he's on it. But it's very institutional. It's not, I mean, a retail, you can't call up an 1800 and get a hold of DFA. You have to go through, um, an advisor. And primarily because they don't want a lot of redemptions. I don't know if you know what that means. But redemptions are the retail investor, you're going to make the retail investor makes a lot of mistakes. You know, the market goes up, market goes down. And when the market goes down, you're calling up, you know, the advisor, the your 800 number going, get me out, get me out, get me out. Well, DFA's never had, uh, those types of redemptions leaving. And, and that allows them to have better returns. If you think about, like, let's just use a, a standard retail fund, something called American Funds or Vanguard or something along those lines. The money manager must keep a large amount of cash in his portfolio, because if the market goes down, clients will request that money, and it will damage the portfolio. So they keep cash in it. But keeping cash in it damages the portfolio because they're not fully invested, right? Does that make sense?

Yeah. And so, yeah, because you, you don't, yeah, cash is like a, it's like it cuts both ways. Yeah, I get it. It goes both ways. So, so, um, money managers are constantly looking at things like redemptions. You look for how much redemptions go out, you try to manage through those. We don't like to work with retail money managers often, um, because it is, it is risky. They're not going to perform as well because they have to keep a certain level of cash in hand. And then the other side of it is that if any Joe Smoke can just pick up the phone and call them, then you're going to have emotions making decisions for the money managers versus the intellect. Like, hey, Steve, the market went down 10%. That legitimately happened last year in January, right? So January 2016. Yeah, January 2016, in a multi-went down 10, 12%. And, uh, through January and early part of February, you know, of clients, which a lot of our clients don't do this, but there are some that do, and they call and they like, are you worried? And I'm like, absolutely not. And they're like, why? And I'm like, you know, because, you know, the decision making on this right now has to do with China, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever at all. China represents X percentage of the global economy. You know, I went through this whole thing with investors and they're like, oh, you're so, you're, you're okay with this? I'm like, yeah, give it. And, and I was, I was wrong with it. I said, give it about six months and it will have have returned. Well, it went, um, if you look at last year, it went, uh, it recovered probably about 90 days and then it stayed flat. And then Brexit came about at the end of June. And then clients called again on during that. And I said, this is ridiculous. That'll be 60 days before that'll get situated. It was about 10 days and the market had recovered and went up and hasn't stopped since. So, um, totally changed, uh, in November, right? Like after the election, it was positively responded. Yeah, that's right.

Um, so it's one of those things where it's like, um, you know, you, you've got to manage the emotions of the investor, or they'll make bad decisions. They'll be like, I'm nervous. And their mouth, right? Like, I'm thinking about what you're even saying right now. I got 1.9 in and it's hidden cash and I look at every day because I'm worried that somebody's gonna steal it.

Well, that's not gonna happen. You're at a very credible cause, you know, you're at a credible. I mean, I don't want to tell you that that's ridiculous, but I'm partially joking, you know, but I know, I know. But it's, uh, but I get it. I mean, and it's like, you just gotta manage the emotions of all those things. So, um, but we're good. We're good. If I knew that, okay, like here's a, that now the money's in, whatever you like, BDC or something, and I'm getting something that's saying, oh, you will get whatever, you know, locked in percentage. And, okay, then I feel better about it. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and there is like that, like you said, it's like quarterly. So, I mean, if things change, I know it's not liquid, but it could be liquid, you know, right? Like at some point. So, yeah, it's like, it's liquid every quarter. It's liquid every quarter. So I don't want to, yeah.

And, um, you know, private debt, if you go into that, is not illiquid. It is not liquid at all. So those are the risks associated with. But normally private debt is, is higher return, right? Like, so, um, so there's all kinds of different things. Like the BDCs, like that's essentially what the, the money's going towards is like these cut, like companies like BlackRock buying someone's like debt, right? Or, or correct. Yeah, yeah. Like a distressed debt, uh, yeah, yeah. What do you call that? Something like that. Yeah.

Um, do you guys, do you actually work with BlackRock?

We do. You do? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I know they're kind of notorious. It's hard not to because they are a big, very big company, very reputable, and very good at what they do, right? Like, so, so, um, you know, are they the only ones we work that kind of play in that space? No, like I said before, there's plenty of other companies that we work with too, as well. And it really goes on to what they're doing at that particular time because they release certain funds at various stages. We get actually sometimes there's things like what they call founder funds where we get bigger rates of returns and all kinds of different things. So, you know, it really depends on what's going on that drives the decision of what we go into. Um, with that being said, I think we've intellectually talked a lot about, you know, what we could do with the investments and that was giving you some comfort. I again would like to kind of turn my attention to to more specifically, if that's okay. So let's, let's briefly talk about, um, the immediate things that you feel that need to be done in the context of say the next 90 days, right? So what are your, what are the things that you're most concerned about? Now, I've already heard, so I don't want you to have to repeat this. I've already heard that you want a strategy for, you know, the investments, right? So I know that that's important. What other items financially, um, and it doesn't have to be specifically financially, it could be something that affects it. Like, Steve, I'm going to buy a house in 90 days, or I'm going to buy a new car in 90 days, or I'm going to. What are the things, 90 days that are top of mind issues for you that you want to address?

Well, so in terms of buying, I'm not, I'm not prepared to buy anytime soon. I'm just going to get down there and I'm going to rent, um, for probably like six months at least. And, um, I, I'm looking at two places in the North Hills that I can do six months or or a year. And that, that, and the rent would be, um, you know, I don't want to, I, the, the rent would be modest enough that I could, you know, it's not a, it's not something that I need like a huge chunk of cash for, because I decided I'm not just too much new stuff. So I'm not going to be purchasing a big home, you know, right away. And, or a home at all, um, right away. I, I decided that too many things. Just gonna get down there and rent and then, you know, really take my time. I've actually looked at some of these like

Um, places downtown, they're not even built yet, but they're these really cool town homes that are going up. Um, and you know, even if, so if I decided to do that, it wouldn't even be done, you know, until the fall anyway. Um, so anyway, so no big housing expenditures. Um, you know, moving expenses. Uh, you know, I don't, I'm trying to get estimates as to like how, what I should do. I've got, I have a storage unit up here, um, and I don't know if I want to keep it up here or if I want to, you know, just bring everything down and get a storage unit there. And, and, um, I'm also working with a like a consignment, estate consignment person to try to maybe sell some things that I do have that I did end up with. Um, and of course, they charge like a huge, you know, they charge like 50%. Um, so I don't, I don't know that I wanna, I'm trying to do the math on whether or not I should hold on to a lot of that stuff. So, um, so there will be moving expenses. And, um, the car I have now is a lease, and, uh, the lease, I, I, I'm still, I'm still planning on keeping the lease. Um, it ends next year. So at that point, maybe I'll just purchase something outright. Um, and I actually just sold the car that I, that I owned. So I have, you know, not for very much, but, um, so I don't have, so I, so I have those recurring payments. I'll still have my monthly lease. And, um, of course, I'm going to have all of the initial startup costs associated with like a new move, like a cable hookup and, you know, um, all that stuff, phone, etc. Um, the rest of my expenses are fairly, you know, they're fairly, um, I guess you'd call them like elastic or something like they're, they're, they're, they're not, you know, I have health insurance, I have a couple of constants. But, um, you know, ending, ending a membership here that I have at a private club, and so I won't be paying those dues. And, um, so everything's kind of in flux. So, so I don't need like, you know, I need, you know, $200,000 for like a down payment on a house. I don't need that right now. Um, so really my expenses are everything in the next 90 days associated with like the move and, you know, whatever that ends up being. Um, I'm thinking it's going to be like $10,000, and that's just my conservative estimate of it, um, just to get me from point A to point B. So, uh, yeah, that's about it. Security deposit, you know, security deposit on an apartment, um, and the stuff that I have associated with setting up the office down there, obviously is like covered by the company. So, you know, that, that, there's some, there's some trips down there and stuff that I don't, um, you know, need to pay for out of pocket. That'll be covered and stuff. So, um, so that, I, I'm holding back like, you know, on like the beach house and, and the, and, you know, getting the cool lofts downtown for now, just because I wanna, I wanna just settle myself a little bit, see how this is all gonna work out.

You know, that makes sense.

It does. Yeah. Yeah. Will I plan on purchasing and buying something? Absolutely. And, you know, I was looking at those, um, I was looking at some like town homes, and, you know, they're, they're like from $550 to like $700. And, and, you know, I, I think that falls within my, my affordability, and they look cool. And, you know, I don't, I don't, I know I could live there, um, for much less, which is one of the big reasons I'm going down there. But, um, I also want to have a place that I really enjoy. So, um, yeah, I went back and forth about, should I just move once, or should I move twice? Meaning from an apartment to to a home. And I think I'm going to choose the latter and just get down there, kind of just get my, you know, just kind of get settled a little more, and then really take my time, uh, when deciding what to purchase. Because then I go back and forth, I'm like, well, maybe I should get some land, you know, and, and like live a little further away from downtown. So, and I can't make that decision here. So that's what I, that's my plan is just to get down there and just rent for, you know, six months to a year.

Okay. So within a year is when you're thinking about making a decision on that, correct?

Make a decision on purchasing. Yeah.

Okay. Within a year. Okay. Yeah. Within a year. So tell me, let's go to one year. If we're sitting here on the telephone in a year from now, and we're looking back on, you know, the relationship that you have with our firm, how will we know we were successful in accomplishing the goals for you?

Um, if I, how do I get those income? I get the consistent income I need from, you know, from that. I think that that would make me super happy. That would make me feel secure, and that would make me feel like I'm, I'm choosing the right, you know, choosing the right road. Um, that, that to me, I think, you know, is more important than, you know, looking at trying to turn one nine into, you know, two five. It just, it's not, it's more like giving myself an extra stream of income that I can, you know, potentially, if the world falls apart, you know, still live off of. Um, so that's, yeah, that would be success for me.

Okay. Um, what are, what are other areas within the first year, outside of the house, that are you, are things that you want to, that you think that you can anticipate needing help on, or that, um, you think that we're going to need to focus on?

Um, that's kind of a big thing. Um, you know, I, I am, I'm staying with the same company, but it's, you know, it's a little bit of a transition. Um, you know, I still, there's some, there's always like some concern about, you know, career switching and job switching. But I don't think that that, um, you know, do I think my job's secure? Yeah, especially for the first year. Um, I, I wanna, so that's kind of a thing that I need to think about is like, if I were to switch jobs, like, could I cover myself during a transition period? But I don't think that that, um, I don't want to say I don't want to put that on the table right now because I don't think that that's, it's not something that I, but, you know, it's like, here are the things that I think about at night, you know, like, keep me up. And there's nothing else that, you know, obviously I'd love to still travel. I'd like to have the money to come back up to New York when I can and when I want to. Um, you know, I still have like stepkids from my, you know, previous relationship, but I'd love to be able to travel up to see still and, um, have that type of relationship. So there'll be like a travel, travel, you know, over I want to account for. Um, I still want to be able to go on vacations with my friends and, you know, do, be able to do that. And, um, so I don't, I don't know what that number looks like, but, um, it's something in my line item. And I don't really have it represented on this too much, but I think I had like a thousand dollars a month for vacation and travel, which would be like $12,000 a year, which may or may not be accurate. I'm not, it may be more than that, frankly. Um, so that would be another, another thing that I don't want to take away. Um, so yeah, and I don't, I mean, I don't have any loans or any, um, student debt or anything like that. So I, I'm not coming into this like having to pay anything off. So, um, other than others, but at least I can laugh about it.

So the situations where if you don't, you'll just cry. So it's better to, better.

Exactly. So carry on, right?

Um, so what I hear is that in one year from now, we supplemented the income and really have the ability to maintain your current lifestyle, the way you're living today. And that's success. That's success. And, you know, do I need to get Botox every three months? I mean, no. I don't. Like, I could, like, I don't, they cost me less to get my hair done down there. So I'm not spending, you know, $300 every six weeks. So it's those things. I get. And like, I'm not, I, and I know that like the cost of living in general is less down there. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not spending $1,000 a plate at some event down there like every other weekend. So, um, yeah, so lifestyle, yes, but, you know, like a modified version of the current lifestyle.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, five years from now, are you still in the same job then, or do you think that you've moved on to something else at that point?

I mean, I'm probably still in the same, same field, but, um, same field, but maybe different company. I don't know. I mean, I, I like what I'm doing. I, you know, um.

Tell me more about what you do.

Yeah, I work, I work in brand strategy. A very long, long time ago, so I, I had a, I had a career path that I was doing very well on in management consulting and marketing consulting. And I, it took a break from that for a while, and then, um, sort of re-entered. Um, I started up a firm in, gosh, what was it, 2003, with two other partners that went through two acquisite, like two, you know, renaming and acquisitions. Um, so I, so right now, it's owned by, um, a European firm. It's actually based in Ireland. It's called Velocity. And so we have, like, we do B2B marketing and brand strategy. And so we, we have, we've started to increase our tech client portfolio. And so we have like three pretty solid, um, clients down in, in like Arts, like Research Triangle, I guess that's what you call it down there, right? Um, yeah, so we've got, and we've got several more leads on some on some new ones down there, which is what I'm focusing on right now. Um, and so, yeah, I mean, so we, we basically for the start, we, we service both startups and mid-sized companies. We don't really target Fortune Fives. We just do startups. And, um, and so we, we had in the past worked with, um, like venture capital firms and things like that, and we've become like the de facto marketing arm of a startup. So we would do like logos, like brand identity, brand story, things like that. But mostly for companies that had other, you know, businesses or clients, and not, not consumer facing. So anyway, um, so I like it. And, you know, I've always, I've always liked, um, kind of that problem-solving. And, um, and I think there's a lot to be done with it. Like, sales are not my strong point. I'm more like a, you know, like like a client manager type thing where I kind of execute the deals. But, um, so, and, and this position is, is definitely more a little bit more sales-focused because I'm trying to increase the client base in like the Mid-Atlantic. So, um, so that's what I said, like when I said I don't know if it's gonna end up being like my whole, my dream job, um, it might not be. But, you know, five years from now, I, I'd still probably like to be in the same, you know, same industry, if not, you know, if not working for the same place. So, so yeah, that was a long answer to a short question.

It was very good. Very good. I, um, I hear you talking, maybe just this stage of where you're at right now in your life, but, um, making sure that, you know, the value element that we bring to the table for you is really around security and secure, making secure of your kind of lifestyle and maintaining that aspect of it. To me, that is what I heard is kind of the biggest value element that I'm bringing to the table. First of all, am I accurate in that context of what I've heard?

Yes, definitely.

Okay. And then, um, if you had to pick other elements of values, like, so to me, Steve Peters, my biggest value element, still this day, okay, is freedom. Money allows me to do what I want to do when I want to do it, right? I mean, to me, that's the biggest one. And it's a little bit different than yours, right? Yours is about making sure that I'm secure and taken care of. And like my viewpoint on is, you know, my attitude is, is kind of an arrogant attitude. My people on it is, I'm not worried about security because I'm talented enough, I can go do anything I want to whenever I want to kind of mindset, right? Like, so mine. But, but I want to be, I don't want to get tied down, right? Like I want the freedom to do what I want to do when I want to do it, right? Um, my wife would not answer that way. My wife would actually answer more like what you would describe. She would say it's more security-based, right? Like, by the way, driving decisions for her has historically been things like real estate. She likes real estate, right? And the reason for that is because she doesn't understand the stock market at all, but she understands that that piece of property can't go anywhere. I own it. And so there's a certain level of security that comes with that. Reason why I ask about, um, these the values that you're looking for, security and, you know, maintaining lifestyle and things like that, is because a lot of ways that you define your own values. My next one, by the way, would be legacy. For me, like I want to make sure that I carry on legacy aspect of it, right? And so, you know, there's different value elements that people have, and not everybody is the same. And so understanding those things allows me to to determine which investment solutions are normally the best ones for an individual based upon how it's going to make them feel. So an example, a freedom-based guy like myself may sit there and go, oh, wait a minute, you're telling me that I have to wait until the end of the quarter before I could trade anything out? I'm not sure I want to do that, right? Like that doesn't give me the freedom to do what I want to do. But my, but my wife may sit there and say, okay, well, I don't really understand the stock market, but this isn't really a stock market, right? Because you're just making loans, and I have a loan, right? And it's like, yes, okay, well, I like that because I understand what a loan is, right? You see what I'm saying? Like, so it's different when you start to understand what people's values are. It allows you to kind of make decisions on what, where you're going to drive them to, right? It doesn't mean that you're going to abandon them. Like I wouldn't tell my wife, hey, well, because your security base, you should be only in real estate. That's not smart. But knowing, um, what drives it allows me to kind of make some of the decisions that I'm going to make at a tactical level. So I'm trying to understand yours, all right? And giving you kind of a clue to why I'm asking the question. So if you, I heard security, I heard lifestyle and maintaining it. What are those other things that drive the values of you as an individual?

Account, but, um, you know, not to get into too much of like a therapy session, but, you know, I was, I was used to being, you know, by gas provided for, or because I, I had that security. And I, you know, and I, I acknowledged it while I had it and I valued it. But so I, you know, suddenly not to have that security, I guess makes me want security above anything else. Um, I, I want to feel that, um, there's something that I can, you know, that that I'm, I, I have what I need. And, yeah, so, you know, when you said freedom, I think you were talking about it like the first time we talked or maybe when we met, I was like, oh yeah, I want that freedom too. But no, I think I think I need the security because that's what I, that's, that's the gap that's missing right now. And, you know, with, like, I don't, I, you know, I still have this dream that I will end up, you know, getting married someday. I would still love to have children. I don't know, probably not, not, you know, biologically. But, um, but, you know, I still have that, I still have that as a, as something that I would, would like to have eventually. I mean, is it in, maybe it's in the cards, maybe it's not. Um, you know, obviously I thought I had that, but I wasn't, you know, I knew I really didn't because it wasn't, you know, that's a long story that involves more drinks. Um, but anyway, um, so, so I'm listening. So, so yeah, I think security is probably the most important. And just sort of maintaining what I'm, you know, maintaining how I like to live. And I'm, and but with the caveat, like I understand I'm not, I'm not in that same world anymore. Um, so I'm okay with that. Um, I don't really, I don't have like, I'm not providing for anyone's education right now. I'm not providing for, you know, you know, children's like, you know, piano lessons or horseback riding lessons. I'm just, I'm provi, you know, so I don't have that legacy need. Maybe I will one day, I don't know. Um, if that, if that's the case, then yeah, like that's a total game changer. But at this point, I'm not, I'm not planning on it. I'm not engaged with anybody. So, um, I still need to, you know, get over the last, you know, plus decades plus, um, and figure out what my next step is on a personal level. Um, and that, that's like a whole, you know, that, that, I'm sure you understand, like that changes your clients' life, you know, like it's like a 180. I mean, it just probably disrupts everything if they have like a, a divorce or a marriage or a birth or whatever. Like it's a totally different thing. Like now you got to plan for, you know, $50,000 a year in college tuition in 18 years or something. Um, so, so it, so that it wouldn't really, you know, would I like to still be able to, you know, take care of other people? Yeah, absolutely. But it's not the first thing. Like, you know, for you, it's freedom and legacy. For me, it's it's security, lifestyle, I guess. Um, you know, and I'd still like to give back. I mean, I, we, we both like donated, you know, we both gave a lot to charity, and I'd still love to be able to do that. And I, I still want to be able to make like, you know, have that as a, as a line item because I think it's important. And, um, I wanna, so if that's, if that's what I wanna, if that's how I'm giving back or creating a legacy, and then that's, yeah, then that's on the list for sure. But, mm-hmm. Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Tell me, tell me about your charity that you're most passionate about.

[Applause]

Close to me. Um, uh, there's a, there's a condition called myotonic muscular dystrophy, which is a type of muscular dystrophy where the, um, the muscles basically turn into fibrous tissue. And so the way people die from it is they either suffocate because their diaphragm turns into fibrous tissue, or their heart, you know, basically turns, it hurts the muscle. So, um, and the life expectancy of it is very short. Um, and it's genetic. And, um, so it's in my family. And, um, so I've kind of gotten involved with that organization over the last, you know, since I've been an adult, really. And, um, they've just done something.

What's the organization? The myotonic muscular dystrophy. How do you spell? How do you spell that? Could you spell it for me?

Um, yeah, hold on. I could, I could send you their website. Um, myatonia is the, um, is the condition. Um, anyway, but that, and on the other end of the spectrum is, uh, the New York City Ballet, which I've been, um, a donor of over the last three years as well. So, um, anyway, so, and those are, you know, and, and like Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, which was a big, uh, you know, a church in Midtown that, um, I spent time at. And, um, that's important to me too. So, and I'm not talking about like, you know, millions of dollars or anything, but, um, they're just, you know, when I think of like giving back at the end of the year, um, I was at like a YMCA kid, so I donate every year to the YMCA. And, you know, that too. So, so some of these, like I said, like I'd love to still be able to, you know, um, donate every year and, and not feel like I'm, you know, having to change my lifestyle that much.

Yeah. Yeah. Tell me, tell me about family dynamics. Is something government would happen to you, Kim? What would, what would happen to your wealth? And what would you want? Where would you want it to go? And what would, would it go to these charities? Would it go to your family? I mean, tell me, tell me how it would today. I mean, it may change over time, but if you were in a situation right now and something happened to you, where would you want this money to go?

Um, it's funny you should say that because I'm actually working, I'm working with an attorney to kind of, uh, figure that out, um, because, yeah, I had to kind of change that around. But, but yeah, I mean, it would go to my family, extended family, for sure, at this point. I, I don't, um, I, you know, I, I, that, and that's like, table that for now because I'm actually working trying to work with, um, somebody to draw up, you know, like a will, a revised will, a revised will. So that.

Were you doing it with a North Carolina attorney?

No, I'm assuming it with someone up here actually, in Granite, Connecticut.

Is that why? Is that something I should change?

Yeah, you should stop because it's not going to be, it's not going to be. Does he know that you're moving to North Carolina?

Yeah.

Yeah. He has to be, he has to be licensed in North Carolina, or it'll become obsolete once you live here. So you'll waste money.

Yeah, you'll waste money doing that. So, yeah, it's his estate lawyer. That's probably why.

Okay. Well, yeah. Um, I can work, I can work with you on, um, you know, I can, again, our firm can quarterback this, or I can refer it to you, you know, refer you to a country down here that you can go talk to. I mean, normally we sit down with clients and we go through it and help them kind of get to the point so that it doesn't, you know, cost them a significant amount of money to go with the attorney, right? Because the attorney is going to be billing out an hourly rate to get through some of the questions what you're going to need. Right now, level wealth that you have, you're gonna need to have a basic will, and then you're going to, um, you're going to need a healthcare power of attorney, a durable power of attorney. And then here in North Carolina, um, you're not required to have a living will if you have a healthcare power of attorney, but I, I highly recommend having a living will, and I recommend people to do living wills. Um, and so I'll just give you a quick rundown on it. The, um, the will is pretty standard. Like the, the will, you know, for, for where you're at, there's not estate tax issues, there's not a bunch of different things. The real risk would come, and this is why I asked some of these questions, is, hey, I'm going to give it to my niece, who is 13 years old. If you're going to give it to her, then it would need to go into trust because it's not legal age to take the money, right? That's that's one aspect of it. The other aspect of when that's when a trust would come into play. The other one would be, and this is legit. I mean, you may choose family members that are this way too, as well, but I'm going to use it on on mine, and then you can draw the correlation however you want to and under the circumstances, it's probably going to really spark you to think about it this way. But I, I, you know, my wife is 40 years old, and she's much younger than I am. If I got hit by a bus tomorrow, I could honestly sit here and tell you, we always joke around about the fact that neither one of us would ever probably get married again. Um, but, but the truth is, I think that my wife would. I mean, she's, um, my wife's five foot eleven, she's in really, really good shape, she's a good-looking woman, and great cook, all this other stuff. And for the right man, for the right man, she'd be, you know, she'd probably get picked up. And plus she'd have a lot of money, right? So I mean, that'll be it. That's why she starts joking around sometimes, she's like, if I got a buttload of money, I don't need a man.

So I like your wife.

Yeah, you're gonna like my wife a lot. I already did it one time. I don't need another one. If I got the buttload of money, I don't need another.

Exactly.

But, um, but, um, you know, we joke about these types of things, but here's where my gut reaction to it really comes down to whether or not it's my wife, or whether or not it's my daughter or my son. And this may sound really, really mean to say, but I would sit here and tell you that if my wealth went down to my, my daughter or my wife, and I like to use in my position, it really can get me hot when I start thinking about it with, you know, it being the ladies in my life, right? And they, uh, happened to marry somebody and that person, you know, is who they love, and they, they obviously that's why they got married. And, and under those circumstances, I would sit here and turn to you and tell you, I would be joyful and I had allow that, you know, I'd want my money to be spent, and I want them to enjoy it with their spouse, and that would be great. But God forbid, something would happen and they got divorced or separated or something along those lines, you need to know that I don't want my daughter or my wife to have to split a single penny with anybody. And so to me, that is where the trust comes in. The trust comes in when you're trying to protect it. So although you don't have an estate tax issue, there could be potential real reasons for why you would want to trust. Hey, I'm going to give it to my sister, but I really don't like her husband. And, and, you know, God forbid, I don't know what would happen, but if anything happened, I wouldn't want him to be able to get any of it. That's when a trust would need to be established, right? And that's those are those are the circumstances for, um, why you need to trust. The healthcare attorney is pretty self-explanatory. I think you probably know what this is. If you were not a sound mind or body, who would make medical decisions on your behalf? Yeah. Um, and then the same thing holds true. And lots of people confuse this one with what they call durable power of attorney. The durable power of attorney is, Steve's driving down the road and he gets hit, but it's just my wife and I together. Um, under the circumstances, because I'm married, um, my wife and I are driving on the road and, uh, bus hits us. My wife is killed instantly, and I am in a coma. Right? Who pays? Who pays the taxes on my house? Who covers my expenses? Who, who's the one that has authority to talk about my retirement plan? Who is the person that can handle my financial affairs? Yeah, right. And, um, that durable power of attorney springs into per, into place only when I, only do durable power attorneys. I don't, in general, power attorneys, which allows people to do it at any time, but I want the durable power attorney. Brings into action when somebody is not of sound mind or body. And then that person can come in. You're not dead at this point, so your will doesn't hold any water, right? It's the durable power of attorney, right? And so those are the three documents that you specifically need. They need to be North Carolina. If you're turning, by the way, in Connecticut is licensed in North Carolina, he can certainly do it. If he's not, then you're wasting money. Because they're licensed like pretty much everywhere. Um, but it's a fairly large firm. I know it's New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, for sure. But yeah, I don't, yeah, I mean, it was our return, you can just, you can just, yeah, you can just ask him a very pointed question. I'm moving to North Carolina. That totally slipped my mind as I was going through this, that that there would be suddenly moving. But whatever. So I will definitely ask. But otherwise, I guess I'll have to figure out what to do down there and just, and I don't know what, you know, again, if he's not licensed in North Carolina, then don't take advice from him in North Carolina, you know what I'm saying? Like, let's get an attorney down here. I mean, if he's, if he's, if he's, you know, he's like, well, it doesn't really matter. It does, right? Like, so I don't want to, I don't want to be a jerk and go against somebody, but I could get you five attorneys that would tell you in a heartbeat that if he's not licensed in North Carolina, and he's not writing it for where your future is going to be, which is in North Carolina, then you're wasting your time, energy, and your money right now.

Yeah, I mean, so, um, it was like changing his, his will and his healthcare proxy and that type of stuff. So, um, he was, John, the attorney was johnny-ing up, you know, stuff for me as well. But yeah, you're right. So anyway, I was just kind of going off of trying to tie up the loose ends up here. So, yeah.

Well, what I normally do is, I, I can't draft it because I'm not, like, I'm not an attorney myself. Uh, we have attorneys that we put on retainer fee at our firm, and then they do that for our clients, and they do it at a discounted rate. And, um, and then what we normally do is we do the discovery with the clients to walk them through, like, okay, so who would be your executor? Who would be your trustee, if there is a need for a trustee? We go through that thing, those things with the clients and give them to a point where we know what they're looking for. And then we go to the attorney and have them draft the documents. And then we present them to clients, and then they go and they do it. And it normally saves them some money by going down that path. If you would prefer to work directly with the attorney yourself, I can give you two or three attorneys that I recommend. And certainly, uh, you know, I would recommend Alex Atchison, who's my attorney, who did my own estate plan, right? Like, so there would be no, I could say, here's three people that you can go and meet with, but I would also tell you, here's what I'd recommend because obviously that's who I had to do my own estate plan, right? Like, so I'm not going to recommend somebody that I, I wouldn't use myself, okay?

So, um, appreciate that. So, yeah, so those, we can, we can handle more of those things, you know, later. Then I don't think that there's, I don't think we need to address those right now. So, um, I feel like I got a good handle on things. Um, what I'm gonna do right now is, what, what I'd like to try to get is, I'd like to get a full snapshot outside of the 1.937 that you've got. You obviously have a 401k, correct?

Yeah, I have like about 350, maybe something like that.

Do you have statements and things like that that you can get me on things like, here are the things I'd like to be able to see. I'd like to understand what your healthcare coverage is and what it's going to look like when you get down here. I'd like to know, do you have life insurance and disability insurance and things like that, if God forbid something would happen? What are, what are some of your benefits that you know, employee benefits that you have at the firm right now? If you could send that to me down electronically, or if you'd like, I can send you a UPS envelope and a label and you can just plop it and send it down, you know, to me. That's fine too, as well. So you, tell me which one.

Benefits, life insurance, healthcare, 401k. I also have like a small Fidelity account, which I forgot to, what I forgot to add on that to you. Yeah, I'd like to get any kind of investment accounts that you have. Because here's the thing, I don't want to be, I don't want to be in a scenario where we're building a portfolio and we don't know what the whole total picture looks like across the board, right? Like I want to incorporate it. And you need to realize, I'm not the type of guy, again, I'm your personal CFO. If you love Fidelity, you want to keep your account at Fidelity, I will help you manage it at Fidelity, right? Like my viewpoint on it is, it's not one of these things where, you know, I have to have the account because it makes me feel great about me, right? Like my viewpoint is just, let's get it right, you know, what I'm saying? Like, across the board, let's look at what everything's in and let's get it structured the right way across. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. I know. And that actually just thought of that as I was like, it's a very small account that I had for, I think there's maybe like $40,000 in it or something. But, um, okay. Um, and then I'm just, right, I'm just taking notes so that I know where to get, where to, um, how to put all this stuff together. Yeah, I could definitely get you guys, get you guys that and take a look at it.

What would you like to do? Would you like to send electronically, or do you want me to send you a UPS label?

Let me see if I can get the stuff. I think I could probably have it all electronically. So, um, I will, I will kind of like download what I can and then put it in like a big pack, like a big PDF or something for you.

That works.

Okay. Um, it does. Okay. Um, yeah, let me do that. And I'm, it should not be that hard because I, I have a lot of this stuff like sprawled out all over my, all over my desk anyway, because I'm trying to figure it out. So, yeah. Um, so I'll, I'll put that stuff together for you and, uh, and send it on. And all right, I'm gonna start putting together a plan though. But I don't have all this data yet. But I'm gonna, with what you've given me, I think I can start to put together kind of the, this, you know, um, schematic. And then once I have everything, then I'm going to, it'll probably take me about seven days from the time I get everything, and then I'll be able to present back from you. So like, if you're sitting here going, Steve, I want to move, move, move, move, you need to realize I can move as quickly as you can. I just want to get all the data in front of me, right? Like, so I understand. I'm not, I'm not as much as I said, you know, as much as I was like, I gotta figure out what to do with this, it's not, I want to do it right. I don't want to, I don't want to do anything in haste. And that's, you know, that's part of the reason why when I get down there, I'm going to rent. And, and I don't want to be hasty about this. And I want to make sure that like these are in the right spots and then they're in the right financial products and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah.

I get it. Cool. We'll move, we'll move forward. You get that to me. Um, I would love to, by the way, to also see what the attorney, what your current estate plan looks like or what you, you know, or whatever documents you had. And, um, you know, or if it had already been changed, I'd like to see that. Um, we may, you know, maybe speed up the process a little bit as we go forward with things. But, um, um, and then, um, you know, what I will do is I will present back to you, um, an assessment. And you want me to proceed forward with that, right? You want me to give you kind of a quick, here's the game plan. You want me to build, kind of in essence, a strategic plan for you?

Correct.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, yeah. I think at this point, I'm feeling comfortable enough that, and I, you know, I, I think I feel like the right thing to do. So, yeah.

I do. Well, here's, here's my thing on it. I mean, um, at the end, I always said this, you know, we go to the point where we'll spend the time and energy into it. If at the end of the day, you don't think it's valuable, then, you know, then it is what it is, and you'll move on. And, and, you know, that's my loss. But I just don't want to waste time if you're still kind of shopping too, as well. My viewpoint is, I would want to make sure.

Yeah, and I don't want to, obviously you don't want to waste your time. And, um, you know, I've talked to, I think, certain three others, you know, for more than one discussion. And, yeah, I, I don't know, maybe I just feel like it's easier to talk to you about this stuff. So, because it's a weird situation. And, you know, you're definitely, you know, not looking at me like I'm strange.

Well, we're all, we're all strange. I mean, if we're not, then there's no uniqueness to us. So my viewpoint on this, we're, we're, we're good. And, um, I'm looking forward to to working with you. I'm looking forward to getting how many of you come down here, but we'll, uh, we can get a lot of stuff accomplished while you're still up there and get things moving. And then, um, I'm going to put together basically, the assessment is going to look like, here's what I've heard from you over the last couple conversations. Um, I'm going to then talk a little bit about, here's what your picture looks like. And then I'm going to develop the strategies around managing your cash flow, accumulation strategies, things I think, I don't think really wealth preservation protection is the thing that we're gonna be really focused on at this given stage. I mean, there's not going to be significant things that will be focused on at this stage based upon the things we've talked about. But, but things like wills and stuff like that, I definitely will want to see those things get into place. But I think a lot of it's going to be focused on just making sure that we get your, your cash flow the right way to maintain your lifestyle and get your investments working for you in a productive way. I mean, that's where a lot of our, our energy is going to be. And then, um, and then we'll, um, you know, we'll dive into the details and move on from there.

Does that sound good?

That sounds great. Um, so give me, give me a couple days and, um, we'll taste Friday and I'll see if I can get it, um, settled over the weekend. Um, and, um, you know, I'll get you what I have. And if you have questions, we can just, you know, connect over the phone and I can walk you through what, what it might mean. Some of that sounds good, some of the things might not be completely self-explanatory. Um, and then we'll take it from there. And I look forward to hearing the the strategy and, um, figuring out how, how this can really work. And I'm, I'm very excited about, you know, getting that money working for me, as you said. So, yeah.

It's gonna be good. So I will, um.

Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. And, uh, I will start putting together plans, start talking to some folks and, and, uh, with what I've got. And you get that stuff to me, and we should have this thing wrapped up pretty, pretty soon within the next couple weeks, I think other things will be ready to go then.

All right. Thank you so much. Do I need like, do you have like a service agreement? Or like, do I not sign anything yet?

Do I? Yeah, you, you will at some point. And again, right now, you'll, that's what I was trying to get at. Like my viewpoint was, I'm gonna spend the time and energy on it now, um, with the idea that if for some reason, you know, uh, only assuming that you think I'm, you know, what I've put in front of you is completely ridiculous, then, and you choose not to go forward that way, which I don't think that's going to happen, then I have little risk at this point to just proceed forward. And we'll just go under the context that we're, we're going to get things going. And then I'll, you know, once you understand what we're gonna do and why we're gonna do it, then at that point, we'll discuss contracts and fees and things like that.

Okay. Okay. All right. Awesome. Thank you so much.

What? All right. You take care. All right. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye-bye.