Money Confidence for Real Life with Katy Song

All right, so welcome to Bold in your Money. I'm Steve Chen, your host. I'm joined by Katie Song, a certified financial planner who also happens to live here in Mill Valley, which we discovered when we met. She works with younger families with kids. And we're going to talk about how financial planning is evolving, why she got into it, especially what's happening with flat fee planning and technology. So with that, Katie, welcome to our show. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks, Steve. Good to be with you.

Yeah. So, you know, we'd love to, you know, for our guests, it's kind of like, understand more about how you got here, why, why you got into this line of work. So a bit about your journey so far.

Yeah, so I got my MBA at Berkeley, and then after I finished my mba, I went into investment banking, which, you know, why not? So I did that for a and focus on technology companies. And then I was starting my own family. So I had my first daughter, my first child in 2007, took my maternity leave. And then on my way back from maternity leave, I used to do a lot of travel for work. And, you know, traveling to India and Asia is like par for the course. So they wanted me on a plane and I had a four month old that didn't take a bottle.

Yeah.

So those two things as a new parent just do not coincide. So I kind of felt like the universe was, you know, giving me a strong message that it was time to pivot. It was also 2008, so I don't know if you're, you know, people listening to this, remember how the market felt in 2008. But, you know, in baking, it's one of those things that, where, like, most people hold on until bonus time. And I was just like, first of all, I don't think bonuses are going to even happen. And why am I going to do this? I'm going to, like, you know, leave my baby at home to starve to death. So that wasn't going to happen. So I met a woman in San Francisco and she was a certified financial planner. And honestly, Steve, like, I had never even heard of a CFP before. And this woman was joyous. She was so happy. And I was like, whatever you're doing, I want to do. So I started working for her. Yeah, I started working for her, like, you know, ghostwriting plans and building financial models for her and studied for the CFP exam, passed it, became a CFP. And I've always been a CFP and a registered investment advisor. But unlike 99% of my industry, I I do not manage money. So that kind of makes me the unicorn.

Right. And I remember when we first met, that was something that was really unique. And it continues to be really unique because that's the core business model for most of this industry. And so why was this what the person you're in San Francisco was doing too? Or why did you go this way?

Yeah, she was, she was also doing that. She's not a financial planner anymore. She kind of focuses more on the marketing side. I always did this because the people who, like, I mean, I was a 32 year old with a 1 year old, we don't have any money to invest. Like, we were hoping to like renovate a bathroom, maybe buy like a car that was big enough for a stroller. So, like, the people that I wanted to help weren't the people that had hundreds of thousands of dollars that somebody was going to pay attention to and help them invest it. And like, for families starting their lives together, which is what I've always focused on, or couples starting their lives together, you know, they need holistic financial advice that's practical to like, help them have confidence in their decision making. So that's why I always did what I did.

Got it. And I feel like this is such a. I remember, like, just personally, I had a similar kind of experience when I was in my 30s or whatever. I was like, there was a person I know who was probably 10 or 15 years old than I was, and I'm. I saw him coming out of his house. He had a house in San Francisco, had some kids and like a Porsche in the driveway. And I was like, how does this happen? I actually asked him that, like, how did you get here? And he actually, what he said was kind of funny. He's just like. And also was like, how do you pay for it? He's like, well, when you have kids in this life, you figure it out because you have to make it work. But I also feel like there's some storytelling and like, there's a. I mean, this happens for people, right? Not everybody, but for some people, they figure it out, they make good choices, and then they end up, you know, 15 or 20 years later, they've really, quote, made it. But I think a lot of people don't know what that journey is. I mean, is that what you find?

Well, I feel like so much of it depends on your earnings, right? Like, to live in the San Francisco Bay area or pretty much any major metropolitan area, when I first started out, you needed to make like 2, 200, 250, $250,000 to, like, live a life in one of these areas. And that was in 2008. It's now up to around 325. 350. So that's what I find. Like, if you want to own a house and you've got kids that require childcare, if you think that, like, as a couple or as, like, a single parent, that you've got to make $350,000 just to break even, that's not even saving. So, like, for the guy who has the Porsche and the kids leaving his house in San Francisco, his earnings were probably exceeding what it was taking to break even.

Yeah.

And so a lot of people don't even know what that number is for them, what their lifestyle is. It's so easy to fall into lifestyle creep and seeing what, like, your neighbor has. Like, how do they have a nanny? How do they have a house in Tahoe and kind of overextend yourself.

Yeah. I think for a lot of people, hearing this is. Even for me, those are big numbers, you know, and to think. And I do see this. I mean, I will say, living in Northern California, you know, incomes are higher. If you work in tech or finance, you know, maybe that's happening. You know, that's happening for you. But it does feel daunting, right, to say, hey, I have to make this kind of money, and that's what it is to kind of accomplish the goals I want to accomplish. I mean, do you see in your practice a lot of people doing this and making it happen? I guess you must.

I mean, so I have clients. Since I don't manage money, I don't have minimums, you know, so some people can have negative net worth. So, like, there's no problem too weird for me to try to, like, solve. I have clients that are both nurses or physical therapists or teachers, and they find a way to make it work. You just. You can't spend as much money, you know, and around here, like, a lot of my teachers, they bought their houses 20 years ago. Like, you know, for two teachers trying to buy a house in, like, Marin county, where we are right now, it's virtually impossible.

Yep. Right. Yeah. I think all. I think in general, the whole. I mean, the American dream is still for a lot. For a lot of folks, it is buying a house. Although for many folks that will reframe it. I mean, I know some fire folks like, you know, Andre Nader. He's like, my rent, and I invest it all. And that's a smarter decision for me. So I do think it's also possible. And you have to be smart about, you know, do you want to sign up for a 6 or 7% mortgage rate? And if you have a 3% mortgage rate, like, can you afford to get out of that? Like, you kind of want to maintain those kinds of things so well.

And there's a lot of flexibility that comes with renting. You know, like, I used to live in France, like, when Trump was first elected. I moved over there for four years. And it's. It's an American thing to own property. You know, some of the people there, they do because their families have owned houses for, like, hundreds of years. But owning isn't kind of the ultimate goal. And so I have a lot of clients that come to me and they're like, we want flexibility, we want adventure. We want to be able to, like, move to Hong Kong for three years or quit our jobs and do a micro retirement. Owning a house is. Is in conflict with those other goals.

Right. I do think it's pretty interesting if you can reframe. You know, a lot of times you kind of get very locally focused. Right. That's where your community is and your friends are and, like, your schooling and your kids and all that stuff. But if you can zoom out and be like, oh, I moved to Portugal or I live in France or I'm going to South America, it can be way cheaper. I mean, the cost of living arbitrage, even in the US Is huge.

Yeah. I mean, I found that living. We lived in Bordeaux, France, that it was a third of the cost of living.

Yeah.

I mean, that's tremendous. But also, like, there's been a ton of research done for, like, kind of the boomer generation and retiring showing that the happiest retirees are renters.

Really?

Yeah.

Why is. Why is that?

I think that you don't have the. I mean, part of it is maintenance and upkeep. Right. So you can have the flexibility of, you know, not having to put tens of thousands of dollars into maintaining, like, one of your biggest assets.

That's fair. Well, ultimately, I think caregiving is becoming. This is something that's become a much more real topic in our business because people are with their parents dealing with it, and it's like people. You essentially become a renter at that point. You know, you might sell your house and you're. If you're an assistant, you know, maybe it's a pseudo ownership thing, but it's mostly like you're paying rent to totally. And with some level of servicing services Packaged up with that, from assisted to nursing to memory care or whatever it is.

Yeah, I mean, it does become hard, I mean, kind of with the sandwich generation, like when you have an 85, 87 year old parent that may be kind of showing signs of dementia and you're like, okay, we may have to look at some kind of assisted care for them, but they've got this, you know, $1.5 million house in Danville or wherever it might be. You know, what do you do with that asset? You know, they bought it for $40,000, you know, 50 years ago. They have this huge capital gain. So do you, you know, I help my clients figure out like, you know, what are you, what are the pain points and what do you do? Like, do you try to rent out your mom's house? I mean, that could be a very painful process because there's emotion tied to it, there's cleaning it out, there's like, how does this even work? But then how do you afford assisted care if you don't monetize that asset?

Right, yeah. Are you finding that within your practice you're helping people? Are they thinking intergenerationally?

Definitely, it's, it's definitely been more of a 2025 trend. It's been more like this year than any previous years. I normally don't work. We were talking about earlier, like I focus on families with young children and kind of couples starting their lives out. But now I'm working with like a lot of my, my, my clients that I've worked with for like a decade. They're coming to me now saying, hey, can you help my parents make this decision of whether or not they should sell their house and what they could afford. And I mean, recently I had a client that was still paying. He's in his 80s and he was still playing whole life insurance premiums and it was causing this huge cash flow sucking. And I was like, you are making yourself so stressed out for what to buy, like to pay up a little bit more whole life insurance policy. Like you have plenty of money, like let's do some paid up policies and stop paying these premiums. So sometimes the, the advice is easy, right?

And we did this with my mom, she, she had a term life insurance and we're like, well, let's give it up. We don't need this. You know, like it's going to pay out 100 grand. And like this point, this doesn't matter. And you know, I think you have to be smart about insurance and how you do use it as a vehicle. Or do you just kill it? All that stuff? Yeah, it's so interesting. So are your customers. Are your clients mostly here, or are they all over the place?

They're all over the place. Yeah. So, I mean, definitely there tend to be more in metropolitan areas. I do have a lot of Bay Area clients, just because this is where I was based and I started in 2008. Before we were as virtual as we've become now. But, you know, yeah, I've got them in Arkansas, Florida, you name it. Minnesota, Michigan. All over the place.

How do they find you?

A lot of them are on podcasts. Like, they hear me on a podcast or they read about me. I tend to be in. You know, one of the main groups that I help here in the Bay Area are Moms in Tech. So there's. There's a Facebook group called Moms in Tech. It has a pretty robust following, and these women tend to be the primary earners of the family, and they're juggling being moms. So I was getting so many calls from the same type of woman, which is why I wrote my book Financially Fearless Tech Mom's Guide to Money, because I couldn't, Like, I couldn't help everybody one on one. So I decided to put everything in my brain and what I do in this book to, like, provide a framework so that anybody who's a DIYer, who wants to be able to do this on their own, could essentially just follow the book and kind of get the plan that I put in place for them.

Awesome. We'll definitely link to your book. Yeah, I was curious about that. So it's interesting that they're the primary breadwinner. It is so interesting how it's changing. Right. Women are 60% of the college students now. Ish. Right. They're graduating, they're getting STEM jobs, and it's definitely. It's shifting.

I noticed that the switch really started about nine to 10 years after I started becoming a financial planner. So, like, I started in 2008. I think it was2017. Ish.

Yeah.

That it used to be. The majority of the calls that were made to me were from men. And then around that time, it switched to mostly women. Not mostly, but majority.

Nine years ago. Yeah. Okay. And then is the trend continuing? Is it like, if. I don't know if you've kept track of this, but, like, you know, it was like, whatever. 30, 70, 50. 50. Is it now 60? 40?

Yeah, it's kind of 60, 40. And I do think that, you know, inevitably, you know, with aging as all Getting older. And I'm sure you see this just with people that you talk to, but there tends to be like, especially with people who are working in the technology space or even marketing or advertising. You know, we're in a contraction right now. You know, people are losing their jobs. And what I'm finding is my clients that are men in their 50s are struggling a lot more to find a new job. And when they are finding the new job, it's taking nine to 12 months to find it. And in most cases, they are not being compensated at the same level as they were in the job they left. However, my women clients, who are also laid off, tend to find new work between three and six months. So I do find it very interesting.

That is fascinating. That's interesting. So same age, Same age groups.

Yes. Around the same age, sometimes the men are a little bit older.

So men is taking nine to 12 months and women is taking three to six.

Three to six, yeah.

And how. And men's comp is lower. And how about women's?

Yeah, no, it's pretty much the same. Okay, well, I mean, I have 700 clients.

We gotta run a survey. We'll have to run a survey on our side too. We're surveying our users now in a bigger, much bigger way. And. Yeah, that's amazing. Good. Wow.

So I feel like people are, you know, my younger clients are motivated to figure out, like, okay, how do I make these finances work? How do I, you know, maybe not buy the Porsche someday, maybe something a little bit more affordable, but how do I make this all work? And then we've got this like, kind of newer issue with people kind of more approaching retirement, which is like, what is my enough number? And I mean, you get, you work on this with your company every day. What is the enough number? And do I have to find the next job? I mean, the goal would be work optionality. I mean, that's what everybody comes for. Even my clients in their 30s, they're like, how long do I have to do this? How long do I have to work at Meta? How long do I have to work at Google? How long do I have to work at Amazon? And so it's always my privilege to help them figure out that number. Be like, okay, this is your enough.

I think Google, Meta and these companies need to figure out how to make their employees so happy that they.

So if they provided financial planning, I think that's why I think we do what we do, which is if you are able to give people clarity and peace of mind, you can live A better life. We have this one life to live. And so if you want to live the best version of yourself, you can't be stressed out about money. I mean, it's such wasted energy. And the majority of people in America are stressed about money 100%.

Do you ever watch the soap opera One Life to Live? No.

When I was a kid, I just remember that one. I was more of a Guiding Light type person.

But what happened to soap opera? We need a whole episode on soap operas. Like they even exist anymore or what?

I don't know. I don't know.

There's different versions of them now. It's like Real Housewives of blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I can't do that.

That's reality TV versus that's time I cannot get back.

I don't see you spending your time watching that stuff either.

You know, when we were younger, we didn't have. We didn't have. We don't have the same access to all of the things. Ways people can waste their time now, which is, it's. That's the other problem. I can do a whole other podcast on devices and kids, we can hold off on that. Okay, well, this is really interesting. I mean, so do you see your clients then? It sounds like they're really thinking about this stuff strategically. Right. And aware of the clock as well. Right. I think that's something else. Like, hey, I'm 35, a high income earner, but I might have a past due date of 50 years old. Like, as a male, I gotta make it count. Next 15 years, I need to save a lot of money, put it to work, make good choices. You know, I think that makes it. That probably makes it very more real for people.

Well, because there's actual planning to do. It's not like this hypothetical, theoretical, like, oh, someday when I'm 80, what is my Social Security going to be? Like? We're talking about the now, which is like, I mean, everything tactical from do I do? And these are the questions I get all the time, do I? Should I be doing the mega backdoor? How do I fund that? What about the ESPP? What about my RSUs? So these are companies that have equity compensation, which not everybody has. You know, once you get to a certain level, do you have deferred compensation programs? Should you be doing it? What kind of like, you know, distribution strategy do you want to do? But like, even for my younger clients, you know, looking at equity compensation or bonuses, like, the goal for all my clients is like, how do we get you to live on your base Income, can we? Is it even affordable? Which means that if you get a bonus or if you get equity compensation, that's all gravy, Then the question is, for all your financial goals, we have to put a price tag to them. And depending on the time horizon for each of those goals, that is what determines how we invest it. So like, is it a five to seven year time horizon? Is it a ten plus year time horizon? And it makes that like once we kind of define those parameters, it makes investing the easy part. Like that's super easy. I mean, I'm a big fan of low cost ETF portfolios, right. So I'm not cherry picking individual stocks. I try to get my clients away from doing that just because there's business specific risk and I don't want them to be overly concentrated. I mean, like, there are so many people that are freaked out about. There are some people that are really freaked out about AI and other people that are super gung ho and they're like, okay, how much should I put into AI? Should it be 20% of my portfolio? And then other people that are like, I want to short it, like, how do I get out of it? It's going to collapse someday. And then everybody's freaking out about, you know, government debt and the shutdown and you name it, what's going on right now. So like, how do we reposition your money for your goals and just give you a peace of mind? Like, okay, this is why we're doing what we're doing. Don't react, especially don't react emotionally. Like one of the things you and I had talked about before is like, what are the mistakes that people commonly make? One of them is emotionally reacting to what's going on in the market. So this year has been pretty amazing. The number of people that have come to me that have put every single penny of their retirement account in cash, this happens.

Yeah, yeah. And what do you tell them?

Don't do that, Please don't do that. Let's get it redeployed. And then people freak out about like timing the redeployment of it. And statistically it's better just to get it reinvested. Right. Because you're never going to time the market perfectly. So that's like one new mistake that I've been seeing in 2025. A lot, a lot more than I would like to see it. But, but the people are coming to me because they don't know what to do. Right. So it's not like existing clients that would really Concern me if it were existing clients.

Well, I feel like this is something also you have to live through to some degree, like to really understand. I mean, I mean, I've lived through 99, 1999, 2008, like 2020. You know, it's like you realize that like it's going to happen, corrections will happen. You need to be comfortable that like your paper value could go down 20, 25%. But then have the fortitude, diplomacy, like look at the long term chart. Okay. You know, these are little blips, but if you look at this over a 20 year period, if you're not in the market, you're going to get crushed too. I think that's something else. Like I had to really learn. I was like, oh, I can pose a good saver, only share this, you know, in the spirit of helping people. But like, I didn't, I wasn't fully invested all the time and like making some of the mistakes you're seeing. And like now I'm index and chill, just like in the market and I don't even think about it.

Okay. I love that. Index and chill. Like that should just be the motto. So, yeah, a lot of people freak out and kind of understand like the emotional reaction, especially if you're super close to retirement. But that's why, you know, and usually my clients are not at that retirement stage. But like the rule of thumb is to like have two years worth of your spending in cash and equivalents if you're about to retire anyway. So that, that way you're not having to time the market to sell a bunch of stuff when it's 20% down.

Yeah.

I mean, November 2021 was icky. Like nobody wanted to sell stuff then and you just want to have enough liquidity that you don't have to sell when the market is tanking.

Right. Well, and also to be honest, the real opportunities are when there's quote, you know, blood in the streets. Right. Like 2008, 2009 was like the buying opportunity of a lifetime. Right.

How about people who bought houses in 2010, 2011? I mean, fantastic timing.

That was one of the good financial moves that I made.

Was that when you bought.

We bought our house in 2009. Yeah. And we were going to buy a house in 2005. And we're like, felt like anybody who could fog a mirror could get a loan. We were actually in escrow and I was like, I've worked my whole life to save enough for this and like, you know, I could, I could have done nothing and Just like had no savings and just gotten a negative, negative amortization loan. And like, I mean, people were getting crazy stuff and I was like, this doesn't make any sense. I think that's one thing that normal human beings see. They're like in any market like that aren't in that world, they'll be like, this doesn't make sense. And if you can, hopefully, and hopefully if you're, you know, I mean, obviously you should be talking other people, but like, that is, you know, seeing those things for what they are, is, can be helpful.

Well, I feel bad for people now because like, if you're a family, you know, like a young couple and you're starting your family and you're like, we really want to buy a house because we want to like, have roots and we want to have Halloween and we want to do all these great things in our home. And you know, housing prices haven't really corrected. Right. They're still super inflated. You know, interest rates haven't come down by as much as we thought they would have in the last like year or two. But people still want to buy a house. So it's not necessarily like a terrible idea. It just means like, don't pay a premium to lock in a 30 year rate, you know, and make sure this is a house that you can stay in for five to seven years because the transaction costs alone will eat away at whatever equity you're putting into it.

I mean, there is an arbitrage there. You there. It is shocking to me that housing prices have not come down, especially in the Bay Area. But like, then you also read like, oh, OpenAI is doing secondaries and like people are showing up in San Francisco with like gajillions of dollars, like, yeah. And they're spending it on houses. But you know, you can, if you, if you get in and then rates come down, you can refi. And then, you know, theoretically your house.

Yeah, you have to like, let go of the whole. Like, I don't have a 3% mortgage though. Right. I mean, so like most new first time homebuyers didn't get to experience having a 2.25% mortgage.

Right.

But there are a lot of people that feel really trapped with it, you know, and then the question is like, one of the things I help clients with is, you know, can you keep your current house and have it as a rental property because it's super inexpensive to like, you know, pay the mortgage or do we need the equity from this house to buy your next house? And you know, from, from an outflow perspective, people are going from spending like five grand a month on principal, interest, taxes and insurance to 10 to buy a new house.

Now.

It's a lot.

Yeah. But, you know, life happens. We have a friend of ours and they're in Mill Valley and they're selling their house. Just kind of a. But making changes for various reasons. And yeah, you're trading away from those theoretically lower cost, but maybe it's more than you need. And then people want different things in their lives and it's like, oh, I'm going to go to live in San Francisco, or whatever it is. So these, you know, life happens to everybody, you know.

Yeah. I mean, divorce is a big reason for these kind of changes. You know, like, you know, for whatever reason, you know, a separation happens. Then all of a sudden, like, it's the sale of the family house. So I do get a decent amount of people who are going through that process that are asking questions like, okay, can I buy my spouse out of the house? Does it make sense for me to keep it? Okay, we're both on the lo. I don't want to have to refinance because we've got a really good rate. So it's strategizing, like, what makes the most sense for you. And I think that that's where, like, some people who try to kind of maybe either put their head in the sand about financial planning, they're like, I just can't figure this out. There are resources out there for people to help, like Bolden or, you know, a fee only, advice only planner like myself to help you figure out your puzzle.

Right.

Because there are answers to these questions. I mean, you know, one of the big reasons that I got into this business is because I don't want people to stress about money. So it's like, stress less and live better. Like, that's what I want people to do. And if you've got clarity. And I think this is one of the great things that Bolden does, which is like, you can see all of your assets and liabilities in one place. So, like, knowing your balance sheet and your net worth position is the first step of financial planning. So, like, if there's anything anybody does after this, you know, listening to this podcast is construct your balance sheet, right? Because you, you need to have like a starting point. So then some people are like, well, I don't know if it's good or bad. So there's not like one test that all financial planners use to ascertain whether or not that's on Track or not. But there is one good, like, really quick litmus test. So it's from this kind of old school personal finance book called the Millionaire Next Door. Did you ever see that? Like the airports in the 2000s. This is the test. So you look at your gross income and you divide it by 10 and you multiply it by your age.

Okay.

Okay. And if that is similar to what your net worth is, you're on target. If it's below okay, you're not on target and you need to save more. And if you have two times what that amount is, then you're considered wealthy in this book.

Okay, this is interesting. So let's run the numbers. So if your gross income is $350,000, so divided by 10, that's 35 grand. And 50.

If you're 50.

If you're 50 years old, then what is that? Two million ish. One and a half, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's like no. 1.65. Am I doing my math right?

I don't even have a calculator in front of me.

Here we go.

Bring your phone out. Bring your phone out.

Bringing my phone out. Okay.

Okay, so 35,000 times 50.

Yeah. 1.75 million. Sorry. Okay, so 1.75. So if you're doing that, you're kind of like on track.

You're on track.

You're on track. But if you had two times that. So if you had three and a half million dollars wealthy, then you're wealthy.

Yeah.

Okay, that's interesting. Yeah. And I think a lot of this depends on, I mean, I think the real question, back to the point, it's like people want to be, I think two things. One is financially confident, right? Am I, am I doing the right things? Am I kind of on the right track? And ideally second, am I financially independent? Like, can I go work optional? What does that look like?

And I have to say that when it comes to work optionality, like I have because of where we are in the Bay Area and because of equity events, honestly, it's really inheritance or equity events that enables work optionality at an early age. Like there's, there's really. I mean, I, I even have a couple of fire clients that are just like, we don't spend any money. Like, we live in a trailer and we rent out the trailer when we're not there and we eat beans and rice. Like it's easier to be work optional when you spend no money. Right.

But for don't have kids, you know, like a lot of the fire People are like, I don't have children. You know, whatever. Like, yeah.

And so, like, if you're a family, like, it. The whole, like, I'd like to retire as soon as possible. And they're like, 45, and they have, like, 600 grand combined, say, for retirement. That's not happening. You know, but the one nice thing about doing a financial plan. Not the one nice thing, but one of the nice things is that you get your number, which is like, okay, how much do I have to be saving every year to make 65 happen? Okay, what about making 60 happen? And so we have to get those kind of magic numbers. So we're like, okay, is this even financially feasible? So we talked about the balance sheet. Constructing your balance sheet. Are you on track? The next step is really your cash flow. It's like any company, right? You need your financial statements. So, like, I use Monarch Money with my clients. It's just an app that's out there that, you know, you create an account. You link your bank and your credit cards. But there's this reports function. You click on reports and spending. It shows you a pie chart. It's like, okay, for the month of September, you spent X. Well, we need to know what your ex is. So, like, the average family, believe it or not, spends around 15 grand a month.

Yeah. In the Bay Area.

Yeah. 15 to 20. Depends if you need child care.

By the way, I wheel out this stat because when we first met a couple of years ago, you told me it was like, 13 grand, and I was like, is it 13? Like, holy smokes, that's so much money. It's pretty.

But did you do yours?

I know my number. I know. I know roughly what our numbers are. Yeah. And it's not that. I mean, we're definitely. I mean, we live in the same town. Right. It's like, even if you're efficient, you know, if you own a house and you have a mortgage, you have kids and, like, you're living and whatever, it's easy to.

Yeah. I mean, so, like, kind of the big three discretionary categories are, like, food, shopping and travel. Health and personal care has now emerged, like, as my fourth discretionary category that I'm, like, trying to pay attention to with my clients. Like, during COVID people were, like, swapping gym memberships for, like, mental health, you know, for therapy. And now it's kind of switching back. People are like, oh, now we're both joining the gym, and we belong to this club. And, you know, I have a client in North Carolina, and they spent a Lot of money on food. And then I was looking at their spending. I'm like, okay, so your club dues are like 1200 bucks a month. Is that normal? And they're like, oh, we eat there too. And I'm like, okay, now, now we're spending like $5,500 a month on food. And so for anybody that's listening, that is not normal. That is a lot of money.

Is that eating out or is that like everything?

That's everything. But like a family of four who buys organic and goes to nice stores, but doesn't go crazy, like 3200 or less on food is. Is average.

It's still insane. I think people listening to this would be like, that's crazy.

Yeah, well, an individual should be spending like 1200, a couple less than 2,400. And then when you add some kids.

To the mix, it's $100 a day to feed your family organic food, essentially.

Yeah. And that's gone up, obviously.

Honestly, like, yeah, if you shop at Whole Foods and whatever. We need to get Trader Joe's moving into Mill Valley here.

Oh, that'd be great.

They hope it shut down. I know that'll single handedly bring down the cost. $1,000 a month.

It very much would.

Okay, well it's actually super interesting. So you can get these kinds of insights and be like, how do you benchmark in terms of like other families and what's possible?

And social benchmarking is big. It's big because also like that's the same client in North Carolina when we were looking at kind of like when I see a red flag. So like either like eating out. So just. So people who are listening to this, some practical things, like Ideally it's a 50, 50 split between groceries and eating out. If it's more like 30% groceries and 70% eating out, then either like you hate cooking or you're slipping into convenience mode, which is like, we're just too tired at the end of the day. We're not doing any kind of like forward thinking when it comes to like meal prep and that kind of planning and stuff like that. Which is hard. It's really hard. Especially if you've got two people working full time. So that is the ideal split when it comes to like the other red flag is shopping, like discretionary spending. And I'm talking about clothing, electronics, books, stuff, Amazon, Target, that kind of stuff. If you are having multiple packages arrive on your porch every day from Amazon, there's a problem. And so like the red flag goes off When Amazon shopping is 750 or higher.

Okay.

And it seems like, I mean, 750 sounds like a big number, but I'm telling you, I've got clients that come to me and it's like 1300-1500 dollars a month just at Amazon. And you know, that's not the only place that they're shopping.

Yeah.

And Monarch's kind of cool because it has like an extension and then it will further categorize like, is this because everybody will be like, but I buy everything. I get my toilet paper, I get my shampoo, I get my vitamins. And, and you're like, okay, what are these? You know, you have 279 transactions in a year long period. That's essentially like almost every day you're ordering something from Amazon.

It is crazy how Amazon has like made it, quote, so convenient. That brings stuff to your house. Okay, so housing, food, discretionary. What was the other big bucket?

Travel.

Travel.

Travel's a big one. I do every once in a while have a client that doesn't travel or they, they do camping or something like that, but that is the rarity. So like the average family of four spends 25 to $40,000 a year on travel.

Okay, that's two grand a month.

Two to three grand a month, which is not insignificant. And a lot of times that may have to be funded from like bonus income or I mean, because so many people were like, okay, well now my kids are older, I want to take them to Europe. Or the other one is like the exhausted, like, I need a vacation. And so you end up paying this big premium to go to Hawaii during the break when everybody else does. I, yeah, we, we live in Mill Valley, which is special, but there's like Mill Valley west, which is, you know, Maui. We've got Mill Valley north, which is Tahoe, and we've got Mill Valley south, which is like, you know, somewhere in Mexico. And like, you see how much. I mean, every trip ends up costing around $10,000. If you do three of them a year, that's 30,000.

What's time to take three trips a year? I want to go on Dallas.

My goal with my clients is like, you should take as much travel as you want.

Totally. Okay.

If that's a goal.

No, it's, it's, I think it's super interesting just for people to compare themselves. Right. And see what, you know, it'd be, it, it'd be super cool to look at this by town. I'm sure it's by zip. I'm sure you can put it into, into these zips of like, hey, if you're in a high cost of living area and you're a high income earner, it's probably not that dissimilar to what we've just described. And then there's, I'm sure there's different segments, right, in terms of like the cities and earning power and stuff like that. But yeah.

Well, the big thing is too, is like your age of children, you know, there's this like cash flow hemorrhaging when your kids are under the age of five, that's what I call them, the cash hemorrhaging year. So usually during those years I'm like, it is okay if you can't save a penny, but we still need you to be maximizing your 401k and making sure that the investments are really aggressive and that if grandparents want to give money for 529 plans, yay. Just say thank you. But maybe you don't need to be saving for that goal. Once your kids are in elementary school, there then is this like, I mean, you have kids, you know how much activities cost. You know, so many people are like, well, I mean, I want to, I want my kid to do everything that they want to do, you know, but that can spiral out of control. Like camps are expensive, you know, but if you're working full time and you got two parents, like, it's just a necessity. So activities and camps, like what I've seen is like, it's usually four to. Once your kids are in public elementary school, four to six grand per kid for like activities and stuff like that. Once kids are like in middle school though, I mean, stuff becomes free again. Like you're not spending unless you're like doing traveling, soccer or baseball or something crazy like that.

The whole industry. I was going to say that should be your other line of like costs.

Well, aren't there? I think the private is in private equity, like buying all that stuff up.

You beat me to it. This is exactly what happened. Like, because it's such a money machine, kids, parents spending whatever it takes for their kid to play travel, lacrosse or travel.

Oh, volleyball. Yeah. No, 12 grand. 12 grand.

I want to come back and I want to run basketball tournaments where I charge admission and like every team pays 500 to 1000 bucks to be part of it. And you just, you can hold. I've met people, they're holding like one basketball tournament, you're making 50, 100 grand. It's crazy. Everything is, you know, it's insane.

Yeah, no, I think that like, you know, youth sports is become insane. But, you know, that's why private equity is buying them all up, man.

All right, well look, this is actually fascinating for me to kind of get your perspective on the inner workings. It feels like this should be a show that, you know, the real, the real whatever lives of these, of these families and like what's happening and how much they actually spend on stuff.

I know it'd be like every once in a while I'll do like a case study and be like, okay, well this is what, this is how this person usually, it's like this is how they achieve financial independence early. But I mean, some of them, you know, like I've got clients in San Francisco who are paying private school tuition for three kids also need to have a nanny because they don't get out of work in time. Like maybe they're both attorneys or whatever it is and like they're spending $120,000 easily on their kids every single year. And like the cost of private school for K through 12 is a half a million dollars.

I know, it's crazy.

So you really do have to be earning 500,000 plus to even afford that.

I think these are the big framing up, those huge trade offs and really being thoughtful about it is usually important. So yeah, I was just like back to the. I want to, I want to talk more about kind of what's, what's happening in the industry in a sec. But I'm actually super curious. Just like the pragmatic reality is like, okay, so say that you, the numbers we use like you're 50, you're making this, this kind of income. You know, you should have 1.75 million, but if you're wealthy, you have three and a half million and a three and a half million at a four to five percent safe withdrawal rate. Right. If you wanted to live on it, it'd be 140 to 175 per year. And yeah, we've just talked about how now you don't. If you were just trying to do that and you didn't have to save, well, I guess your taxes would be lower. You're not saving for retirement anymore.

So taxes are big. Taxes are big. So like most people who are dual income earning, both of them earning a living, paying Social Security, paying Medicare, paying disability, all that kind of stuff that you have to pay, your tax rate is usually, unless you live in like Texas or Washington, don't have income tax. Your tax rate is usually like maybe low on the 28 to 37%.

Yeah.

And then I've done so much income tax planning for people who are now retired and not earning income. Even in California, your effective tax rate, meaning every dollar is charged, that is between 14 and 18%. Okay, so a huge difference.

Yeah. So it feels like, okay, I've been living in this high cost living area and I spend 13 to 15 grand. You know, I mean, I'm spending 15 grand, but now my kids are out of school, I've saved three and a half million dollars. I'm going to assume a 5%, you know, safe withdrawal rate. You're there, you're, you're 15 grand. Well, you got to pay taxes and stuff. But like it's not that far off. I mean, I think the other big variable is like Social Security. Right. You know, you can't get it at 50, but like, you know, if you have two high income earners, you know, your Social Security could be not nothing. Right? I mean it could be.

Yeah, it could be four grand a piece.

A piece. That's 8,000amonth. Yeah, that adds up. Right?

So, yeah, so, so it's that in between period. So like getting back to like the beginning of the conversation, talking about like the guys that work in tech that got laid off and now can't find jobs. That's why I work with my clients earlier on to be like, we need to diversify your assets. So like it's great to have like maximize your 401k. Of course we want to get any kind of matching can if we can do. Most of my clients can't do direct contributions to Roth IRA's, but every once in a while they can. So if they have the cash flow to do that, we like to do that. But even then you can't really take it out to your 59 and a half. Right. So we also want to have some kind of brokerage account. So like even with my super young clients that are in their 20s, we are setting up like a Schwab brokerage account and setting up automatic investing. And sometimes it's 100 bucks a month. Like, okay, we're going to put $70 a month into the S and P or a broad index. Broad US market index. 30% into an international, broad, you know, international total Stock market index. And then like every time they get a raise, we like bump it up or then we make it every two weeks instead of every month so that they have some diversification in their, their assets that they can pull from. Because the happiest retirees not only do they tend to be renters, but they also have multiple pockets to pull from. So you've got post tax, you've got taxable brokerage, and you've got kind of your pre tax stuff.

A lot of our users are really leaning into this tax arbitrage. They're doing Roth conversions and stuff like that. One of the huge plays. But you need to have that tax diversification in many cases because you got to pay the taxes when you're pulling it out. Like you're trying to solve, you're trying to maximize your marginal, your marginal tax rates. Right? So some people don't even engineer like low income so they can do these conversions. They got to make sure they can pay for taxes and they're just trying to like get, get the money reallocated from qualified to Roth. But having some brokerage money is super helpful too.

Well, are you finding though that people are doing that like as early as they're like mid-40s or people waiting till they're like quote unquote retired, like in their late 50s, early 60s to start doing those conversions? Because I'm finding that they're not working anymore and doing the conversions.

Right. Well, our users, you know, bias kind of 50 plus or at least they start. That's where it started. Now it's getting younger. I think our user base is informed by. They've been kind of like doing the right things for a long time, like your custom, like your clients right through you. It's like you got to be prudent, you've got to invest, you've got to like make good choice choices over the course of your life. And then you can end up as like a kind of 401k millionaire. Like you can be a normal person and be a 401k millionaire, I think without getting, you know, RSUs and all the rest of it. That's a lot of our users and I think they've been doing this and they're like, okay, what are the other. The first question they always want to know is like, am I going to be okay? Right? Will I be okay? Am I on track? And if yes, you know, either way, like, then how do I get on track? But then like, how do I optimize? How do I make. What are those things? What don't I know? What can I do? Like, and then it's like a game they're trying to play and then they're trying to kind of like. And then it's like, hopefully they, if they take care of themselves, then it's like, how do I take care of my parents or my children? And. But, you know, it. I would say all like, what we were talking about from, like, zooming out. The game continues to change because many of us have aging parents now is like, that's a real thing. That can be a huge cost that people don't, you know, you know, hey, somebody needs memory care. Fifteen grand a month. Think your kids are expensive? Try your parents. You know, 20 grand a month. It's like, that can happen.

Yeah.

I'm like, I usually see 10.

I think 20 is high.

But I've seen. I've. Someone in our family had like 18. I was like, holy. When I was, what are you doing? I mean, it was enough. And this was not in a. This is in a second tier. It's not in a high cost, but it was in a nice facility and it was memory care.

But, yeah, that's full time. Yeah. So I do find, though, that one of the things getting back to the reframing. Reframing reality, which is everybody's looking for certainty and nothing is certain. The only certainty is that there's going to be change. Right. So if you work with a great software or a great financial planner and you have a good plan in place that accommodates for change, that's where you want to be. Right. So you have your kind of plan for, okay, what are you doing this year? But just like you were saying about Roth conversions, your strategy can change on a year to year basis. Like, just because it worked for you for age 50 to 53 doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be 53 to 55. So having somebody that you can talk to, like, and bounce ideas off of is like the ongoing service that I provide to my clients. So, like, I've got 700 clients. I've helped 700 people. They're not all coming back. Every single minute of every single day. They come back when there's a life event. Like, my mom's going to go into assisted care. Should we sell her her house? Should we keep the house? I'm getting a divorce. My kid got into this, you know, got into nyu, and we thought they were going to go to Cal Poly, you know, like, how do we pay for this? So it's. It's life event based for kind of like my ongoing work with clients, which is what I love, because, like, I've done the heavy lifting. Like, I've done the modeling. I know your financial picture. And it's really easy to, like, keep it up to Date.

Well, I think that's. Yeah. So we're doing. It's so interesting the way. I think the way you're working is the way of. For many people in the future that this gets more accessible. I mean, I'm not against, like, most advisors charge the 1% model and, like, they're managing your money, but I feel like a lot of the value is really, the majority of the value is in helping people see their situation clearly and anticipating what's likely to happen. I think this is a much bigger part of it. I think it used to be like, hey, someone's managed my money. Oh, it's invested great. Now it's like, hey, this is what the next 20 years looks like. Here's people like you, and guess what? Young family, like, exactly what you're doing. This life stage, like, okay, 0 to 5, 5, 10, 10 to 18 in college, out, whatever, parents, what could happen? And I also think there's all these things around money. Like, if you're, like, if you're going to potentially get divorced, that could blow your plan out of the water more than anything else. Like, oh, for sure. People realize, Right?

Yeah. Divorce does not help anybody. But it's just, you know, what the statistics are. It's like, isn't 50% of marriages end in divorce? Like, I mean, sometimes it's not, you know, avoidable. I don't think people should stay married just for financial reasons, even though some do. But you know it. Nobody walks out feeling better.

Yeah, yeah.

A hundred percent financially. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, but it's just these things that are not always in your control. Parents and children and all that stuff and where they go to school and who needs care and whatever.

Well, getting back to, like, the. What you were saying about the kind of the industry and like, assets under management. So, like, 1% is kind of standard sometimes. Like, they'll chart, you know, the more you have, the less they charge. You know, it's like a sliding scale in a way. There tends to be like a tipping point, at least with my clients. So I'd be interested to know, like, for your. Your client base or your customer base too, is that there's this like, hey, when do I have so much that I should seek professional help? And there are some people that are like, no, I'm a bogglehead. Like, I want to DIY it for the rest of my life. So I've got some clients that have $20 million and they meet with me twice a year. We look at their portfolio, and that's how it works. But I do find my clients, when they get to that, like, 3 to 5 million dollar mark, they're like, oh, I think that psychologically I might feel better if I'm paying somebody to, like, manage this money for me. Yeah, Yeah.

I. I mean, we have a pretty. Our user base is much more biased towards DIY on the consumer side, but we work. You know, our platform is used in other places. And I do think. I think it's a couple things. Someone is. Yeah. How comfortable is the person? DIY versus not. And then also do they think that, hey, there's other. Mostly those people are like, there's like a. I think this term banker in the family. Like, a lot of times there's a banker in the family, they kind of know what's going on. It could be like, a person like you, maybe like me, that, like, they're educating other people, but other people are just not at the same level and don't necessarily want to be at the same level. And yeah, but the banker's like, okay, but now it's three to five million bucks, and if I'm not here to babysit this money, who's going to do it? So I think that is a very real thing. Taking care of your spouse, just thinking about your family more broadly and just being aligned. I do think that people will go there. And so for you, like, what happens? Do they, you know, do. Do you find pressure to, like, I should offer this?

I have thought about offering assets under management for, on and off, like, for the last 18 years. But there was this, like, you know, person in my mastermind group. I belong to the secret society of financial planners, which is awesome.

Is that the.

Yeah, the secret society. It's called the Society. It's amazing. It's a secret, so I can't tell you anything more, but one of the women that I was talking to in that group, she's like, katie, if you haven't done it yet, you're just not going to do it. So just stop. Because every once in a while, I'd be like, hey, should I custody at Schwab? Like, what should I do? Should I do a tamp? These are all, like, industry terms. And I was like, you're right. I don't want to do it, so I'm not going to do it ever. Just decided, like, there's my line. Yeah.

Right now.

Never gonna do it on this podcast. You're the first to know, Steve.

Well, good. I mean, and we'll see, you know, who knows?

It's not Gonna change.

But I want to join the secret society of financial planners. So I gotta learn about all this.

I guess it's pretty cool we meet in Park City.

Oh, Park City.

Yeah. There's no surfing there for no, no foiling there.

Park City sounds good though. Okay. Yeah, well, like I guess I appreciate all the stuff we've covered. I mean, hopefully I think people will find this pretty interesting. Hopefully people are good with it in terms of sometimes I feel like we live in this crazy world that people can't relate to. Yeah. And even describing it sounds like, I mean I grew up in upstate New York, right. In a very middle class world and even these numbers are kind of hard to say. So for what it's worth, I think anyway. But I'm interested about like your view on how this world's going to evolve. Like it feels like you're doing really good stuff. I mean I feel like we're doing good stuff. It feels like many more people need access to financial planning, literacy planning, good support. How does that happen? Like how do we help a lot of people?

Yeah. So there's this network called the X Y network. X Y pn. So I went to a conference in Austin a few weeks ago and I was surprised to meet as many advice only planners as there were out there, which was phenomenal. So there are more people that I do what I do. Like I call myself a unicorn, so maybe I'm not quite the unicorn anymore, but I have been doing this for 18 years, so maybe I was one of the first unicorns out there. So you just have to find a person. Like you have to find the right fit. Right. And so like there are a lot of people who come to me where like the DIY and like doing, finding the software and finding the program is too much. Like it's such a Herculane effort for them. So there is help out there. You just have to really know. Like you can call yourself a fee only planner and still be aum and still do assets under management. So just like be really clear on what you're looking for to get financial advice. And there's never, I mean the best time to start is when you're ready to make change. Right. So like I have some people that are like, oh, I passed along my information to so and so have they called you yet? And it's like seven years later and they finally call me and that's fine. It's like when they were ready to like engage in it. So like if you can make the call, that means you're ready for change. Stress causes pain and pain causes change, right? So like, as much as we don't want to have stress in life, sometimes it's the instigator to actually like put you on a pathway to making your life better. But I think that that's the deeper thought which is like, do you want to live your best life? And is stress and concern about money standing in your way? Then do something about it, right? Like if you had a thorn in your foot, you would sit down, you take off your shoe and you get the thorn out. So you know, just 2025 is almost over, right? Like 2026 is upon. It's like they're just, just do it now, right? Just like, yeah, just do one thing to improve your life today.

Right. And coaching, it feels like so much of this is behavior change. It's like people need like an accountability coach. A lot of people I think know what to do, but they don't do it. And so they need someone to like help them do it.

Well, I also ask some questions, some qualifying questions, which is like I show people a bank of words or I give them a welcome package. And in this bank of words, I want them just like check off three things that resonate with you and it could change over time. But there's a very different person. Like if you check off, I want adventure, well being and experience that is very different than the person that checks off. I want balance and security. Yeah, totally different people. I'm going to make different recommendations. So while the numbers will tell me a story, tell me the math of it, who you are as a person really needs to drive the recommendations. So if you want that adventure and experience, maybe home ownership isn't the thing for you. But if you're striving for security and balance and you don't want to be evicted from your rental property like that you're renting, then maybe homeownership is the thing for you. And so much of the time you. Everybody comes with their baggage, right? Their money stories. Like, you know, I grew up with a father who was a bond broker. Like I, I was never worried about money and maybe that enabled me to like think of money with abundance. My mom was a self directed asset manager. Like she just traded her own portfolio. So like I grew up with this stuff. So many of my clients are first generation professionals. Like their parents do not have the financial acumen. They didn't have 401k plans, they didn't have brokerage accounts. They may have not taken, you know, big vacations or it was a feast or famine. Like, oh, one year we had a lot of money, the next year we didn't. So part of the work that I do with my clients is like, okay, I don't get super deep into, like, the psychology of, like, where you were previously and the stuff that you've come in with. But it really is about looking forward. Like the past. The past poor decisions have already been made. We're really looking towards the future. Like, who do you want to be as a grownup? Do you want to be just like your mom and dad? Stress about money and not having a penny saved for retirement? Or do you want to do something different? And that's usually the motivating factor for people to be like, okay, let's just do this.

This whole idea of first generation money is a super interesting idea. It totally resonates with me. It's like, it's like first generation people come to a new culture like America, the parents that are the actual immigrants, for many of them, it's a struggle. And then the kids can do great. I mean, it's changing. But same thing with money. It's like, hey, if you're new to money, you really don't know your way around. But your kids might do great if they're set up right and they're educated. The other thing that's resonating is just how much of this is coaching for you? Do you think that it feels like. Do you think many advisors think the way you do? It's very much about the person. I believe this too. It's about the person. The person's more than half the money is the. The math is the simpler part. It's the human and what they want and need and their goals. That is like what has to be managed or coached.

Exactly. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons that we have our secret society for financial planning, because, like, we call ourselves real financial planners. And everybody there is like, me. Like, they're all looking to help their clients be the best version of themselves, which, you know, has coaching as a component to it. So sometimes we have a perspective and we can be like, okay, listen, we can help you get the resources to work in your favor by optimizing, like you said before. But the other component of it is being really clear about, like, okay, what do you want? Like, do you want to spend more time? Do you want to coach basketball? That means, like getting out of work at three, two days a week and having your weekends free. Does that matter to you? How can we help you make that a reality.

Yeah. Awesome.

So you have to do a little bit of that work of figuring out what's going to make you happier.

Well, Katie, this is great. I think people are going to find this interesting. Good. Thanks for joining us on our Bolden your Money podcast. We'll definitely point to KatieSong.com and your book. And obviously I think people, this will speak for itself. I'm sure lots of people will be like, oh, this is really interesting. And I want to talk to Katie. So hopefully that's helpful for your business. It sounds like you're busy. I don't even know how do you scale this? Do you, you know, what's next for you? Actually, that'll be my last question as we're closing up here.

Yeah, I mean, so as you know, I partnered with a startup for about a year and a half and there were some, some personality conflicts with senior management. But like, we were trying to scale it, we were trying to like hire advisors. I trained a whole team of people to, to be me, like to be many versions of me. So I know it's, it's possible. I just don't think that scaling is like, I just turned 50 this year. Like, I've got freshman in high school and I've got a freshman in college. Like, I want to be able to jump on a plane and go down there and visit her like I did three weeks ago and have brunch. That's the life I want to lead. So when it comes to like, you know, what you're doing and having a startup and, and building a business, like, it's just not the path that I'm taking right now. But I think that, you know, the need is out there. And I think that definitely with like the younger generation, with like millennials and even Gen Z, they're not going to wait until they're 50 and find somebody to do AUM. Like, they, they want help now. So like one of the things that I'm doing with my business is offering, offering a one page plan which is really for like the 22 to 29 year old. And it's like literally one page. Be like, here's how you do everything you need to do for now. Right? And can you imagine if you had that in your 20s?

Yep. So funny. They talk about 22 year olds. I mean, like, you know, I have kids, you know, it's like. But that's when it counts, you know, saving when you're younger, you have time.

And also not making, making realistic decisions. Right? Like do you contribute to your 401k? If so, how do you invest it? You know, having a high yield savings account, not getting into debt, you know, how much do you need to be? I mean, I think that one of the biggest things is people's human capital. And financial planning doesn't talk about that a whole lot, but like that is your biggest asset. And if you take pay cut, take a pay cut or take a lower paying job because you feel like you have to, sometimes you have to. Right. But that can set you back more than sitting on cash in your retirement account. Right. So like your earning potential is huge and doing something that like feeds your soul is really important as well. So if like any younger listeners are listening to this, like focus on your human capital and your value.

Yeah. And this is like, it's a hard trade like in Silicon Valley. Like I've spent my life in startup land. Like my first, well, I had a regular job and then I did a startup and we pick up, got paid not a lot of money and we had like a lot of paper equity but it didn't work out. And it's like, okay, that was a serious opportunity cost. And then I've been a small business owner where I've printed money and that was game changing. I think you do need to be thoughtful about like actually having real dollars, not just paper wealth. And I think this is one of the things that people say is like, you know, it can be much better to just go work at Meta or Google or whatever, you know, and just like print, get a high salary, get RSUs, do that for 10 years. You can be way better off than people. I mean, you may not, you know, if you're an open AI, yeah, great, it's worked out. But like not everybody's in OpenAI, so that whole thing, that whole equation that really matters, you really gotta be thoughtful about it.

They're really happy. As of seven days ago, all the OpenAI.

Well, I know there was like a secondary, right. And stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah, they had a big tender. I have a lot of OpenAI clients.

Oh really? All right, good.

No, I mean really quickly though, getting back to what you're saying about being an entrepreneur, like there, that is a way, even if it's a side hustle, like I have a lot of clients who have not been super happy on their day jobs and they find either through coaching or marketing or whatever they are going to do on the side, they find something that they're really good at and something that they really like and they're able to, like, monetize it and then eventually they get rid of the day job.

Right. Well, I think that's something I definitely. We believe in. It's like, we think that the thing. That's the power of getting financially confident, you know, it's like. Or seeing this path, you've done it, right? You've made this pivot of like, I was an investment banker. Oh, this CFP stuff seems fascinating. I really love it. Obviously you love it and have been wildly successful at it and built, like a life that you have a huge amount of control and probably do. I'm sure you do. I know you do very well. But, like, yeah, finding that path. I think that if all of us were financially confident, we could be like, okay, maybe there's something else besides that. What I'm doing that what I would really love with my human capital, my biggest asset, and because I love it, makes a lot of money or makes enough money that I can kind of achieve my other goals.

So, yeah, that's the dream equation.

We'll see. Okay, well, look, Katie, we could keep going. Maybe we'll have to podcast, but I appreciate you.

Great to see you, Steve.

Yeah, it's good to see you as well. And we'll, we'll, you know, for everyone listening, you know, thanks for listening and check out katysong.com all reviews are welcome. And, you know, hopefully, you know, this has been, this has been useful. So thank you. Thanks.