The Work Seminar

Ep. 13: All Things Money After Grad School w/ Financial Planner David Fortosis

January 26, 2022 Jesse Butts Season 1 Episode 13
The Work Seminar
Ep. 13: All Things Money After Grad School w/ Financial Planner David Fortosis
Show Notes Transcript

This (inaugural!) bonus episode features certified financial planner David Fortosis, owner of ClearCounsel Advisors, walking us through all things money after grad school. 

Specifically, David dives into the current economy’s likely effect on student loan interest rates, personal budgeting, weighing employment options with varying student debt obligations, income-based repayment plans, public service loan forgiveness, earning extra cash on the side—you name it, we cover it. 

Whatever your financial literacy level or money situation, we hope you’ll find Dave’s words of wisdom applicable.

***And now, the standard disclaimer: Nothing in this episode should be taken as personalized financial advice. Please consult a certified financial planner or other trusted advisor for such guidance.***

Books & other resources mentioned

So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport

David’s monthly budget planner (Excel file)

SmartAsset.com's paycheck calculator

US Dept. of Education’s Student Aid Information

StudentLoanHero.com

“Graduate Programs Have Become a Cash Cow for Struggling Colleges. What Does That Mean for Students?” by Jon Marcus (PBS.org)

Where to find Dave and ClearCounsel Advisors

ClearCounselAdvisors.com

Email: David @ ClearCounselAdvisors.com

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Visit theworkseminar.com or find @TheWorkSeminar on social media. 

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Jesse Butts:

Welcome to The Work Seminar, the podcast for people with liberal arts advanced degrees considering work outside their fields of study. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me for another episode. I'm your host, Jesse Butts. I'm diverging a bit from our normal format with this bonus episode. And the topic is all things money...well, many things money...after grad school. Today, I'm chatting with David Fortosis, a financial planner and the founder of ClearCounsel Advisors. David, thanks for joining me. It's a treat to have someone with your financial expertise on the show.

David Fortosis:

Great to be with you, Jesse. Thanks for inviting me.

Jesse Butts:

Absolutely. So we we probably, David, should start with kind of a standard disclaimer. Neither David nor I are intending this to be personalized financial advice. If that's something that you're looking for, you should definitely consult with a certified financial planner, somebody along those lines. What we'll be talking today are more general financial topics. Anything we should add to that, Dave?

David Fortosis:

No, I think that's great. We'll talk and cover a lot of financial topics. And I think as generalized advice, it ought to be helpful. But certainly, if you're looking for advice specific to your situation, you should find a licensed advisor.

Jesse Butts:

So if we could start very high level, David, I know the economy, it's a bit uncertain right now. And for frame of reference, we're recording this in late October 2021. But can you give us kind of a quick overview of the economic realities for things like student loan interest rates, or other important interest rates that might be...someone with student loan debt or someone right out of grad school, or a few years out, might want to keep top of mind or be aware of?

David Fortosis:

Yeah, absolutely. I think the first thing that I would say is, and this would hopefully be of comfort for people that are paying attention to the economy and doing some hand wringing, is there is nothing new under the sun. We've been as a country through periods of high inflation and low inflation, high interest rates and low interest rates. So I don't think there's cause for panic, but there is wisdom in reading the signs of what's going on and trying to adapt your financial approach to that. So specifically, I think the two things that would be of interest to your audience would be a quick note on inflation, because that's probably the headline that people are reading most often as the price of goods and services keeps going up and up and up and up. Is that going to be a forever thing? And the answer is no, it's never been a forever thing, because the economy and policy will come in to correct that at some point. But we are probably looking at a period of higher inflation just because there was a large amount of money injected into the economy. And whenever that happens, there's more dollars chasing the same number of goods. So there's greater demand for your service, Jesse. So if there's now 10 buyers for what you do versus five buyers for what you do, because people have more money, in theory, you can get away with charging more for your services because there's greater demand. As far as interest rates are concerned, they are related. So oftentimes, what will happen in the economy is, you'll see it, inflation, go up. And then the government says, Hey, we need to calm things down. We don't want goods and services to get so expensive that people just can't afford them. So what they'll do to pump the brakes on the economy is they'll raise interest rates. And what that does is it forces businesses to say, and consumers to say, Hey, I don't know if I want to borrow any more money to expand my business, because it's really expensive to get that loan from that bank. I've got to pay them a higher interest rate. Or it says to the consumer, I wanted more house, but now that it's going to cost me 6% per year in interest on this mortgage, I'm less interested. I'm just going to hang tight and not do anything. So it's a way of cooling off the economy. So I think what that means, and we can talk about this more later, what that would mean for your audience with student loans is that if you're in a position to refinance those, this is probably a good time to do it because interest rates are low. But there's a good likelihood that they're gonna bump up over the coming two or three years, so it'd be less attractive to refinance that debt, for instance.

Jesse Butts:

So David, I'm curious, is there any general advice that you typically give people after finishing undergrad or grad school?

David Fortosis:

If there is a generalized piece of advice it would be, before you graduate and as you are looking for jobs, to put together some projected budgets or projected expenses versus income. And to write that out, right, and to know what the differences in those two jobs might be. So for instance, if there's one job that's could pay you $60,000 and one job that can pay you $45,000, writing out what your take home pay would be every month for each of those jobs. And then subtracting from that number what your expenses would be, including the cost of your of paying back your loan. It allows you to make a more informed decision between those two jobs, right, because if the$45,000 job is your dream job, and the $60,000 job is the job that you would be capitulating on a few things and not enjoying as much, it might not be as black and white of a decision. If you look at the fact that the$45,000 job would leave you no margin in your budget, and you'd be nervous that the fridge was gonna break or that your car was gonna break down and you wouldn't have money to cover it, versus the $60,000 job where you have some wiggle room.

Jesse Butts:

And there are plenty of free online calculators that you can get pretty detailed with typing in those expenses. But also they'll figure out the tax deductions and things like that.

David Fortosis:

The one that I use most often just from my own personal planning is SmartAsset has a whole bunch of different calculators that would calculate not just your federal tax liability, and your all your FICA taxes, but would also include your state income tax, and all that. So I think you can get pretty accurate with some of those calculators online now, which is super helpful.

Jesse Butts:

So I know that we're not giving specific advice, but what I want to do is run through a few hypothetical situations. So that's someone who has kind of a moderate amount of student loan debt. And they're fresh out of or within a few years of grad school. And then somebody who has a higher load. Before we get into those, though, I would like to provide a little context. So this is just some very cursory research on my part. If anyone's interested in this, I'll put it in the show notes. But this is from an article titled, Graduate Programs Have Become a Cash Cow for Struggling Colleges. What Does That Mean for Students? That's by Jon Marcus. I found that on PBS's website, and this is a little data, it's from September 2017. But here are some interesting things, just to keep in mind is that fewer than 40% of master's degree candidates do get institutional financial aid. That is actually less than half the proportion of undergraduates who do. So even a lot of people who might not have had a lot of undergrad debt, the odds that they'll have to accumulate that in grad school do increase pretty substantially from what I'm reading from this. Also, the interest rates tend to be higher. And again, this was 2017. So they're probably lower now as interest rates have gone down. But at the time, the grad loans were 6 and 7%. For the two kinds of, or the two principal kinds of federal graduate student loans, compared to 4.4% or 5% for those similar undergraduate loans. And as far as actual debt is concerned, these numbers are dated, so they've grown, but the graduate student loan debt that rose from 44,000 in 2008 to almost 58,000, in 2012. And for a master's in education, for example, that went up from about 34,000 to about 51,000, from 2008 to 2012. And for a master's in arts, that went from about 43,000 to just under 59,000 in that span. So obviously these have only grown worse. So it's, you know, it's reality that there's a lot of debt for pursuing that education. So getting to one of these hypotheticals, so let's say you're out of grad school, and you have about $75,000 in total debt. Maybe right out of school, maybe you've been out for up to five years. What are some of the big financial considerations when looking for a job when you have that type of debt?

David Fortosis:

Not to be redundant, but a lot of it would come back to just putting pen to paper and writing down what your take home would be. Let's just say you have a couple different job offers with different salary, you know, potential salaries. Putting pen to paper, and saying, What would be coming in every two weeks after everything's taken out of my paycheck? And then calculating what your bigger monthly expenses would be certainly...you know, if you have 75 grand of debt, and a 10 year repayment schedule, you're probably looking at 700 or $800 a month to pay down that loan.

Jesse Butts:

That's with no reduced payment plan or anything of that nature?

David Fortosis:

Correct. That's just a 10 year repayment schedule. That's if you were, frankly, to refinance with a private institution. They say you got to pay this back in 10 years, We're giving you an interest rate of you know, 4 to 5%. Certainly if you're on a government-based income-based repayment plan, it would be cheaper than that, at least on a monthly basis. Over the long haul, probably not, unless you're going to qualify for forgiveness. But I won't get into the details there. Let's just stick with kind of the bigger picture. So let's say you've got $800 of a student loan payment. So you know, I think looking at what cost of living is going to be your next big line item is what's my rent going to be, or what's my mortgage payment. And if you add up your mortgage payment, and your student loan payment, and then you subtract those from what your potential income would be every month, and there's only a couple hundred bucks left over, then that's probably not a job that you're going to be able to afford to live on without racking up substantial credit card debt. So you might have to look for something that's going to, you know, after those two big expenses are paid, you still have let's just say 50% of your take home pay to do other things like pay your utility bills and pay for food and pay for gas to fill up your car and that sort of thing.

Jesse Butts:

So it sounds like roommates, a second job, those are all definitely things you might want to consider if the job you're looking for is in that lower range.

David Fortosis:

Yeah.

Jesse Butts:

With that debt. What are some things that people...obviously, like you mentioned, rent, or mortgage, food, utilities, are there some things that people fail to account for that can really trip people up? Like, they thought they would have some extra cash every month after all these payments, but then X happens and they're, they're kind of up a creek?

David Fortosis:

I think the biggest one would be anything medical related, right? We don't know what's going to happen to us in a given year from a health standpoint. So I think really understanding what your health insurance, how it works, is really crucial. Knowing what your out of pocket limit is, knowing what your copay is, what your deductible is, and understanding how those things work will help you much better plan for the unexpected, right? Because if you...let's just, I'll give you a personal for instance. So we live in an area with a few hospitals, and we had to end up going to the hospital for my infant last year. And we ended up going to a hospital that was out of network because we just never took the time to look. So fortunately, our insurance didn't penalize us for that because it was an emergency situation. And we went to the closest hospital geographically to us, but had that not been an emergency situation, and it was just kind of a routine thing, we needed to go to the hospital because we're not feeling well but no one's getting picked up in an ambulance, we would have been responsible for a big chunk of that bill that we wouldn't have been responsible for had we gone to the network hospital nearby. So I think just reading the fine print, as boring as it is, and understanding how your insurance works is probably the thing that cripples most people. Could cripple you if you're not careful.

Jesse Butts:

You know, when I was younger in my career, a lot of insurance was...you just kind of paid a small deductible. The doctors and a lot of it was covered. And your premiums were a bit higher, but a lot of insurance that I've seen now your premiums, they might not look that high, but in so many plans now you might be paying 2,000, 3,000, $4,000 out of pocket before virtually anything is covered. And that might be different for prescriptions. And this, again, I'm not an expert here, but I've seen a lot of people who start jobs out of school, and they have that sticker shock, where they didn't realize that that urgent care trip might be majority out of pocket.

David Fortosis:

Yeah, you're not wrong. And, again, it's gonna depend on how the plan's written. But yeah, you might be on the hook for every dollar, or a lot of the dollars until you hit your out of pocket limit. Or you have an 80-20 share where the insurance company's gonna cover 20. But if it's a $15,000 bill, 20% of 15 grand is a big number. And you'll be paying that 20% until you hit your deductible or your out of pocket limit. Or sorry, until you hit your out of pocket limit. You pay your deductible before that.

Jesse Butts:

Yeah, so it sounds like maybe what's neglected is that people aren't, and I don't know a specific number, but I'll just throw this out there. Maybe they're not thinking about, Oh, I really do need to set aside a couple hundred bucks a month for medical, even if I'm perfectly healthy. Now, if if one thing goes wrong, I may get a bill that, you know, conservatively could be several thousand dollars.

David Fortosis:

Yeah, I think even a better practice, which is hard to wrap your mind around, I think right when you're coming out of grad school, and you've probably never had, didn't have two pennies to rub together for a lot of those years, is building up an emergency fund. I mean, that is first and foremost, number one piece of financial planning advice that you should take seriously. If it's going to cost you $3,000 or$4,000 a month to live, the rule of thumb is to have an emergency fund somewhere in the ballpark of three to six times what your monthly burn rate is. So if you're going to spend four grand a month to live including all student loans and mortgage or rent and all of that you should have in the bank, earmarked for nothing besides emergencies, at least $12,000. And that might take a while to build up and seem like a big hurdle to climb or to clear. But if anyone, if you're meeting with financial advisor, if they're giving you any other advice at that stage of your career, other than building up cash, and maybe getting some very inexpensive insurance to mitigate some risks that you might have, you're getting bad advice.

Jesse Butts:

What's really important here is that we've talked about a few things now where some of those people's initial pen to paper projections, it might have looked like, Oh, this job can work because after loan, rent, food, utilities, a little for entertainment, I have a little leftover. But not considering medical, or funding that emergency fund, which absolutely is going to take time, even if that is 12 grand, you feel like you're kind of constantly defeating because you might get three grand. But then this$2,500 expense comes up. You're still doing the right thing because you're not putting that on a credit card and paying, whatever, 16% interest. I don't even know what the interest rates are.

David Fortosis:

That's the best comment that I think will be made on this episode is what you just said. Seriously. I think there could be or there often is a whole bunch of discouragement as you're trying to build up that fund. But if you build the fund up to three and then end up having to spend that three, you are infinitely better off than not having built up that fund and having three grand of revolving credit card debt at 19%.

Jesse Butts:

One thing I'm curious about too, is when we talk about 75k at current interest rates. If you're on a 10 year repayment plan you mentioned, ballpark that's probably $700 or $800 a month, I can see where even for someone who is getting into a position that is...they feel happy with the pay and the lifestyle. They're like, Oh, God, that seems like so much. Should I just take one of these options so it's, I don't know, 500 a month and extend the payment? Is there, and again, I don't want to give individual advice, but are there any general guidelines for when you should consider some of those deferment options or those income driven repayment options?

David Fortosis:

Sure. I'm not an expert in those different income based repayment plans on government student loans. But I know one of the things that's being held out there that could potentially be really attractive is public service loan forgiveness. And I think that's 120 months of qualifying payments, and you would need to do your own homework or consult with someone who's an expert on government student loans. But there is the potential that you pay a fairly modest amount on those student loans, and based on whatever your income is, and then 10 years later you have the balance forgiven if you crossed all your T's and dotted all your I's that those programs require you to do over that 10 year period. Staying on the income based repayment plan for as long as you, in theory, want to, you can always refinance to a private institution. So if let's just say you joined, you were starting your career, and you were going to be right out of grad school, you're going to be making 60 grand, but there's a fairly clear path over the next five years that that can become 85,000 as your income, and maybe it's at that $85,000 mark that it would make sense for you to refinance and you'd feel more comfortable with a higher monthly payment to get rid of your debt quicker. So I don't think there's anything wrong with getting out of school being on the government, you know, an income based plan for a couple of years, while you get your bearings, before making any major decisions about your debt.

Jesse Butts:

Let's change this hypothetical a bit. So let's say you're at like 150, or $175,000. You have a really significant amount of debt, which, unfortunately, is becoming more and more common. I don't know if it's the norm, I don't have the stats on that. But I would imagine if you're in this situation, and maybe the perspective jobs you're looking at are let's say 45k to maybe 65k. I imagine when you're in a situation like this, that payment must be, I mean, it must be north of a grand a month if you're at a 10 year repayment. So, obviously, that changes the game quite a bit. You can only cut so much. Do you...are you almost forced to look into some of these repayment plans? Obviously, it'll take longer, but we also have to have so much cash to survive monthly.

David Fortosis:

There's a resource called StudentLoanHero.com. So it's a website that you can go on and look at all the different sorts of income based repayment plans, and run some of the numbers. And you'd obviously need to talk to your lender to figure out which of these you could potentially qualify for. Talk to the government, whoever, if that's your lender, and figure that out. But I think that is a good resource, regardless of your cost of living, off of an income of $45,000. Assuming that you have to pay for other things in life, you know, to be on a 10 year repayment schedule with a private lender for $150,000, that just wouldn't be tenable. So there are a number of income-based repayment plans through the government that would be much more attractive. If that's your scenario, you'd be looking probably more at a monthly payment in the 250 to$500 per month range versus 12 to 1500.

Jesse Butts:

I'm guessing, and I'm sure you experienced this in a lot of scenarios as a financial advisor, is that people think that, Oh, you know, once I start making more, or once the car is paid off, or whatever it might be, I'll apply more to my debt. But then when that actually happens, you're like, Oh, I would rather have a nicer quality of life. So, I'm curious if you...it's such an easy thing to fall into it. And I mean, it's not evil by any stretch. You're working hard, you've sacrificed. And it's a very natural feeling like, When do I get my reward for all this? But what are some of those downsides? If you, you know, once you do have kind of your financial bearings, if you keep with some of those reduced payment plans?

David Fortosis:

Well, I think there's two questions here.

Jesse Butts:

Probably, yeah.

David Fortosis:

Let's pick specifically on those repayment plans. Those repayment plans will go up over time, only as your income increases. So if your income is going to stay relatively at the same level, you'll end up paying roughly the same amount on those income-based repayment plans through the government. The only difference is you might pay that thing for 25 years, and pay a whole lot more in interest than you would have paid had you refinanced into a 10-year payback schedule. But that might not have ever been a viable option for you. So yeah, you paid more in interest, but at least you were able to afford the rest of life. As far as the second part of your question, how do you keep...how do you make choices that your 50 year old self will thank you for versus your old self wanting to kick your butt because you didn't make wise financial choices? That's hard. I mean, that's, you're talking about human behavior, which, we're all geared towards more instant gratification. I think having someone in your life, whether it's a spouse, or a friend, or an advisor, who you give insight into your financial life, who can help you think about, Hey, Jesse, here's a decision you're making. Here are the implications of that in 10 years. and giving you the data to help you fight your instinct to want to bump up lifestyle every time your income increases. So it really comes down to forcing yourself to think about, What's this going to be like in 10 years? Or in five years? And that's really hard to do without some, in my opinion, without some third party accountability.

Jesse Butts:

A buddy system with another fellow grad student, or you know, someone from your cohort who's in a similar situation...I mean, that seems like it might be a viable, free way to at least have some of that accountability.

David Fortosis:

100%. Yeah, I don't think for that you need a professional advisor. I think you need someone, just like you said, some kind of buddy system, where you're aligned on what you want to accomplish in life, and you can hold each other accountable for it.

Jesse Butts:

One thing you mentioned that I'd like to revisit a little bit are those, I believe they're called, is it public service loans...public service forgiveness? I did a little cursory research before this. So like you were saying, it looks like the term is 120 qualifying monthly payments. And these are available for certain...I'm not sure if it's all, but in public education and some public service roles in some nonprofits, you can...that type of work can qualify you for these type of programs.

David Fortosis:

I'll speak as general as I can because I'm not an expert on these. But my experience has been individuals working in healthcare, where they work for a 501(c)(3) or like a teaching role. And they're able to submit the correct paperwork to the government saying, I'm working for a public service organization. And I'm wanting or I'm doing this with the intention of you all forgiving this debt in 10 years.

Jesse Butts:

I would encourage anyone who's his ears are picking up on this, if you go to the Department of Education, you can find a very specific list of things that qualify.

David Fortosis:

If you're in the kind of in that period of wrapping up grad school and looking at different employment options, that's a good question. Ask your employer, and their HR director should know that, is, Yep, we're a 501(c)(3). We qualify for...we're a qualifying institution. So if you worked here for 10 years, or you worked here for five years, you could at least get halfway there.

Jesse Butts:

Let's say you start on that path. And maybe, you know, four or five, maybe even two years in, you're just like, I hate this job. I have to find something else. And maybe what really intrigues you is something that doesn't qualify. If you leave this program, is there some type of penalty? Or do you basically just go on to what a normal payment would be?

David Fortosis:

My understanding is on public service loan forgiveness, if you're on that track, you're going to be on one of the income based repayment plans. Anyway, so you're going to be making payments, albeit smaller payments, because you're on an income based or hopefully smaller payments, because you're on one of the government sponsored income based repayment plans. So if two years in you said, I can't do this anymore, I need to go work for, in the private sector, you would presumably just continue on that income-based repayment plan. And, you know, if your salary doubled, you might consider getting off an income-based plan and refinancing the debt for a shorter schedule because you can afford to pay it off quicker. But you would not be forfeiting or penalized in any way. In fact, my understanding is that those two years that you accumulated, don't...you can bank those. Meaning if you went back into the public sector or public service work three years later, and you worked another eight years, those two years and eight years, we've combined for your 10 years. My understanding is they don't have to be a consecutive 120 months. But I could be wrong about that. So again, this is not personalized financial advice. Go do your homework.

Jesse Butts:

Gotcha. Let's say you're out of grad school, and you feel really drawn to some type of work that will require a certification or some more formal education...and more debt. Because of that, maybe you're really intrigued by becoming a nurse or something in the medical field. Maybe this talk has inspired you, and you want to be a financial planner like David. What I'm curious about, though, is the idea of incurring more debt may sound scary, but it also might be, for lack of a better term, a necessary evil to really get into something that you're interested in and that will help you financially. Is there some type of strategy or cost-benefit analysis someone should be thinking about if they're considering something along these lines?

David Fortosis:

You know, those some of those are questions you can only ask for yourself. Because if you're deeply unhappy in your postgraduate career field, and you would be infinitely more happy as a nurse in the local hospital, and you found that that's what you want to do, then it would be foolish for you to only make those decisions based on finances versus your personal contentment and happiness. Because you might work for 35 or 40 years and look back on a decade that was pretty lean and say, Hey, that was worth it, even though it was a struggle financially. I was deeply satisfied in my work for three decades or four decades. I would do that all over again.

Jesse Butts:

So David, one thing I'm curious about is people who are considering a portfolio career where they want to devote themselves to maybe music or writing or visual arts, performing arts. It's important to them to have that as a, a fairly large presence in their life. But they also are curious if there's something other than being a barista or a server to do that. Have you come across any type of professions that do have a little bit better pay, but still do offer some flexibility that don't have a really steep learning curve to get in? I know that might be a pipe dream, but I feel like I have to ask.

David Fortosis:

As I've built out my business and haven't always wanted to spend top dollar to improve my marketing or improve my website or improve copywriting or something like that, there are people on sites like Upwork and Fiverr who are making pretty decent side hustle incomes by doing things like graphic design or doing things like basic copywriting or doing things like really dumbed down website design, where someone like me doesn't want to take the time to learn how to build a website on Squarespace. But if you are a, maybe dancer is not the greatest example...But if you're already an artist and you like the creative side of things, maybe you take a class on Udemy on how to build very simple Squarespace websites, and then you put yourself on Upwork and Fiverr. And maybe you pick up a couple jobs a month, and you you make four or 500 600 bucks doing that. And you can do that in the evenings or at you know, at your own pace. There's a book by Cal Newport called So Good They Can't Ignore You. And I think the main theme of that book is that, you know, don't necessarily chase your passions. But if you invest heavily in whatever you're doing, over time, you'll become an expert in what you're doing. And over time, whatever you're doing, you'll become more passionate about, and the number of opportunities that open to you, because you've just niched down into one area are quite remarkable. And those are the people that are most satisfied in their careers. So applying that to the dancer, it might be, Make the most out of the years that you can do this. But maybe while you're doing that, can you develop a course where you're teaching five through seven year olds and beginning to market that course on, How do You Develop as a Dancer in Those Early Years of Your Career?, and parents who are looking to teach their kids that but don't maybe have the the budget for them to go and be part of a expensive dance troupe in the area, really jump, you know, really latch on to your course. And you can make a decent income by leveraging what you already know, just in a different way.

Jesse Butts:

Yeah, I have read that book. And it does have a very interesting perspective. I thought...a little spoiler alert here that really isn't a spoiler. So the author, I believe he had his PhD in computer science, if I'm remembering correctly. And he graduated, he finished his PhD around the 2008 financial crash. And he, even though he went to Duke, he was really concerned that he might not find a tenure-track position. So he spent all this time exploring different careers, but then he did get one. It's a little bit of a letdown in that sense. He's not, you know, he's not happily doing something totally unrelated. But he has written a number of books completely unrelated to computer science, some of which are pretty interesting reads. So yeah, it's definitely an interesting book worth checking out. This has been really helpful, David. Any final thoughts for people in these situations as we as we wrap up this episode?

David Fortosis:

I'll send you a budget template that I use with clients a lot. So if there's anyone who's listening to this saying, Hey, I need a very simple place where I can plug in my income, my expenses, and kind of figure out where I stand financially so that you can make decisions, or so that you can just have a very clear visual, I'll send that to you, Jesse, and you can make that public for people to use.

Jesse Butts:

Yeah, absolutely. And if anyone is interested, or if they have a friend or relative who might be looking for a financial advisor, what's the best place to find you?

David Fortosis:

Yeah, so I'd started I'm just going to my website. There's a couple of things that I still need to iron out, so show me a little bit of grace if you do end up on there. But it's ClearCounselAdvisors.com. And you can learn a little bit more about me and the rest of our team and kind of how we do things. But I'm happy to chat with anyone that wants to. And if I'm a good fit, we will learn that pretty quickly. Otherwise, I have a pretty broad network of advisers and other resources. If I don't think you need a professional financial advisor, I'd be the first one to tell you. And I'd point you in the direction of resources that could really help you with exactly where you're at.

Jesse Butts:

Alright, David, thank you. It was a pleasure. Thanks for all the information.

David Fortosis:

Thanks, Jesse. Take care.

Jesse Butts:

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Work Seminar. If you like what you've heard, please take a minute to rate the show on your favorite podcast app. Know someone who'd be a great Work Seminar guest? Or have a suggestion or two for the show? You can reach me at Jesse@TheWorkSeminar.com, or@TheWorkSeminar on social. And special thanks, as always, to Jon Camp for the music and Isabel Patino for the cover art and design. Until next time, never cease from exploration.