Ep 26 - Tess Waresmith - 3 Silent Wealth Killers Hiding in Plain Sight (Or Small Print)

It's a weird thing with money too, because I feel like people think you're supposed to be born with this knowledge.

Like that some people have it and some people don't.

Start learning the basics and there's no harm in opening a small account.

And once you start to do those things yourself, you'll realize it's not that hard.

Tactically, it's simple.

Psychologically, very difficult.

Hello, friends.

This is Tyler Gardner welcoming you to another episode of your Money Guide on the Side, where it is my job to simplify what seems complex, add nuance to what seems simple, and learn from and alongside some of the brightest minds in money, finance, and investing.

So let's get started and get you one step closer to where you need to be.

I am so excited to introduce our guest today because she was the first person who inspired me to start creating personal finance content.

Back when I was considering taking the leap from managing money professionally to sharing financial education for free, Tess Waresmith immediately stood out to me.

She wasn't flexing charts or drowning people in financial jargon.

Rather, she was just telling it like it was.

Honest, clear, and refreshingly real, and hilarious.

Tess is an accredited financial counselor and the founder of Wealth with Tess, where she helps women in their 30s and 40s build wealth with simple, straightforward investing strategies.

Her mission is to help women gain real agency over their money so they can retire comfortably and live life on their own terms.

Her story?

Well, in her early 20s, she trusted a financial advisor, a fiduciary, no less.

And I'll leave it at that for now, and she can share the rest of the story in our conversation.

But let's just say instead of walking away from investing altogether, she leaned in, rewrote her own money story, and by 35 had built a $1 million net worth solo.

Today, she's a trusted voice in personal finance, featured by CNBC and Business Insider.

Her free workshops have helped thousands, and her community on Instagram is growing quickly because her advice is just that good and just that real.

And as always, if you find this discussion with Tess as engaging and thought-provoking as I definitely did, please consider leaving a review as it helps others find the show and helps people avoid falling into the traps that Tess explores so well in this episode.

Note, I also put Tess through my first lightning round of financial questions at the end of this episode, and her answers will prove very useful in your own thinking about investing and and personal finance moving forward.

So enough from me.

Let's focus now on a very welcome and timely conversation with Tess Waresmith.

I do want to start at the beginning.

And I was wondering if you could take me back to when you were in your 20s and when your mom started kind of opening up for the first time with you about her financial situation and the one that she was left in.

Can you share a little bit about the impact that that had on you and how that has positioned you to think about money and finance going forward?

I get chills just thinking about this moment because it's burned into my brain.

But I remember sitting at Chili's.

I think it was Chili's.

It was a Chili's type restaurant.

Oh, so your mom had good, good taste because that's my favorite restaurant.

I'm not being remotely sarcastic.

I want to start with this.

Like you just won all the points and we can stop the podcast right there.

Anyway, thanks for coming, everyone.

sorry

so we're sitting at chili's and chili's is a lively place there's a ton of noise and kids are running around and i remember you know in the movies when like everything fades out and you're sort of just focused on this one person and i remember that really happening to me in real time because i was so profoundly impacted by my mother's sadness and she was telling me the story of when my biological father left us.

He left her completely with nothing and no financial support.

So she had a mortgage, two babies, and she's trying to figure this out.

She had an okay career, but even still, she was so worried about being okay that she told me that she hired a dating service to help her find a man that was financially stable and had a certain level of income.

This is the 90s, right?

There it's not like she went on hinge.

She got like manila folders of dudes.

Like this is a lot of effort.

And I just remember being so uncomfortable in that moment and thinking to myself, I need to understand what is happening with my money right now.

And at that time, I had actually saved quite a bit of money.

I was very privileged early on.

My first job was on cruise ships as an aerial acrobat, but I was saving tons of money because you live on the ship.

They pay for all your food.

So I had some money in a brokerage account.

I had some money in a Roth IRA, but I had given it to a financial advisor and I had no idea what they were doing with it.

And so after this conversation with my mother, I was like, I need to figure this out.

And then I dove in and I found all kinds of things that were not okay that my financial advisor was doing.

And it was an incredibly expensive lesson that I'd like to help all your listeners avoid.

And is the whole reason that now I am an accredited financial counselor, why I've dedicated my life, because I feel morally obligated to help people avoid this mistake, which honestly, I'm grateful that it happened early in my life.

So happy to get into what those things were.

And what was the impetus behind your choosing to work with a financial advisor early on?

I chose a financial advisor because I just thought the stock market was far too complex for a regular person like me to understand.

And I was on the ship too.

So I was like, I don't have time to do all that.

So I need to give it to somebody to manage.

But weirdly enough, at that same time, I decided to invest in real estate.

I bought a very small, cheap property.

I bought it for $84,000.

But I was, for whatever reason, I felt more confident to invest in in that.

I think because it's a tangible asset, you can see it.

But the stock market, I really didn't know.

I didn't know the right way to do it.

And so I thought it's responsible to find someone else to do it for me, which turned out to be my biggest mistake.

And tell me about the mistake as far as when was it that you first really figured out kind of what were the both hidden and incredibly overt fees that you were facing with this newly found wisdom and expertise.

So I get home from Chili's and I, this is a true story.

I literally looked at the bookcase of my own and my boyfriend's at the time because I remembered he had a book on money.

I didn't remember what it was, and it was Money Master the Game by Tony Robbins.

I'm not necessarily a Tony Robbins fan, but pretty early on it started talking about the fees and how a 1% fee over time could compound.

And then I kept reading and then I learned that the funds had fees.

And then I looked looked into my paperwork and I realized there was a platform fee.

And so I wasn't paying 1%, which I personally now think is egregious.

And no one should pay any ongoing percentage to any financial advisor.

There's just better ways to work with professionals.

But in this particular situation, I realized that I was actually paying closer to 2%, even though I thought it was 1%.

And

using an online calculator, I figured out that I would probably end up paying this person and this financial institution hundreds, if not millions of dollars by the time I retired, just because of compound interest and 2% over 30, 40 years was going to cost me at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

And it blew my mind.

And that was the first moment that I was like, there has to be a better way to do this because this feels criminal.

So did you put down the book mid-reading and go break up with the advisor or tell me, like, how did, because a lot of people at that point, I know that there are a lot of people listening who have kind of come to the same realization that you did, which is, okay, this is a pretty hefty fee structure.

But at what point did you say, I understand theoretically, this is a hefty fee structure, but now I'm practically going to go end this and kind of take control over my future financial situation.

So I didn't do it right away.

I did put down the book, Bid Read, and I opened an account at Vanguard.

And I invested in a total U.S.

stock market fund.

And I did that, I think, within like 24 hours.

Like I was so motivated to figure this out.

And it allowed me to figure out, oh, I can open my own account.

Oh, I can choose a simple low-cost index fund and I can set up an automatic transfer.

That wasn't so hard.

Then I kind of went back to understand more about how I was invested with this financial advisor, which I then found out was invested in a way that was not suitable for somebody my age.

And that made it easier to break up with her because I understood enough of the basics to realize that this person wasn't doing me any favors.

My money was probably barely beating inflation at that time.

What I suggest for anyone that is in that situation is to start learning the basics.

And there's no harm in opening a small account.

And once you start to do those things yourself, you'll realize it's not that hard.

And that's the number one thing that everyone says to me after they make this move is they go, that was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.

Tactically, it's simple.

Psychologically, very difficult.

You say that the asset allocation from your initial financial advisor wasn't appropriate for you at that time.

Can you tell me a little bit about what were you invested in?

And how did you wind up in a situation where somebody who dares call themselves a financial advisor puts someone in their 20s in, let's just hear what you were invested in?

So for those that are newer to investing, asset allocation in this context is how much of my money was in stocks versus how much it was in bonds.

For a young person, you want as much of your money as possible, if not all of it, in stocks, because you have time to weather the stock market and the fluctuations and the business cycles.

And so, one of my accounts was in 60% stocks and 40% bonds, and another was in 70% stocks and 30% bonds.

And I was getting at the time around a 6%

return when the market was doing like 15%.

It was between 2011, 2013, right after the financial crisis, right?

So the stock market had started to rebound in a meaningful way at that time.

And compared to the average return, the SP 500, my portfolio was not only drastically underperforming, it was far too conservative for someone my age.

And I was paying a 2% fee.

So just borderline criminal.

And the sad part is, Tyler, is that I don't think this person was trying to get me.

I think that the industry creates enough education and rationale to make a lot of financial advisors think that this makes sense, but it just doesn't.

And so that's the hard part is people will say, oh, I have a financial advisor, but they're a fiduciary.

Mine was a fiduciary.

Fiduciary just means that they have to act in your best interest to create a suitability standard, right?

There's a lot of things that we can say are suitable for one person.

That is the most vague description of what someone should be doing for you.

So fiduciary doesn't mean anything to me.

And I think it's more important to understand and have enough of a basic education if you are going to work with an advisor to actually know what they're doing.

So from my perspective, basic investing 101, understanding index funds, that's not optional.

That is required reading for everyone, even if you're working with someone.

For a long time, I used to have a lot of shame around that.

And I used to say, oh, I should have like read the paperwork or whatever.

But I'm in my 20s and I've hired this person who's supposedly a professional, right?

So why wouldn't I trust their recommendation?

So I do try to give myself grace.

And if you're listening to this and you've made any of these mistakes, I hope you give yourself grace too, because that's what we're taught: find someone that knows what they're doing.

And this was my very expensive mistake, but thankfully I learned a lot.

And now I am far more wealthy because of the decisions I made after that.

So all is well.

And you bring up the idea that at one point, point, potentially, you felt shame in this, right?

We're dealing with an industry that is supposed to be packed full of experts.

And so, it's hard for us sometimes to acknowledge maybe I should have done more with this, or maybe I should have read the fine print.

Where did you inherit that money script from?

And how did you go about changing it to be the absurdly unashamed, confident voice that you are today, helping so many people through this type of shame and guilt and any other money scripts that are kind of stopping people from taking action?

That's such a great question.

I think that my initial belief that I was not capable of learning the basics or understanding investing truly came from the fact that there was no one in my life that talked about money in this way.

The shift from shame of my mistake to realizing that it was the greatest gift in so many ways,

to be honest, it took years.

I was very angry for a very long time.

And it wasn't until I started making really, real financial progress and feeling really confident in my knowledge that I started to ditch that shame.

Because what I started to realize is that everybody feels like they don't know the basics.

And it, and money, it's a weird thing with money too, because

I feel like people think you're supposed to be born with this knowledge, like that some people have it and some people don't.

And it's just like anything else, like riding a bike.

You don't know how to ride a bike when you're born.

You learn how to do that.

You take some reps, you fall, you scrape your knees and you get back up.

Right.

So investing isn't something that you're born with, or because you're born into a rich family, you get to do that.

It is truly, thanks to technology and access, open to literally anyone.

Let's build on that for a minute because I almost envy, in a way, those of us who grew up in this space that didn't have this perpetual access to endless information.

Because as you're already touching upon, on one hand, no, we don't have access to good information, but we also weren't completely bombarded with nonsense and very bad information.

So how do you personally, when you're communicating with your audiences now, how do you try to help them sift through what is is worth paying attention to and what is worth learning versus where you can really go wrong?

Because I mean, just building off of this concept of the annuity, I see some people who are very sharp and really believe that the annuity is the way to go or this universal life policy is the way to go.

And they're not saying it to necessarily try to screw somebody over as much as they think that's good information.

So, how do you work with people to sift through that at this point?

One of the biggest red flags for me on social media is anyone that has

such a strong narrative that the way they are talking about whatever their vehicle is, whether it's real estate investing or stock market investing or annuities, if they talk about it in absolutes, like this makes sense for everyone.

This is a no-brainer for everyone.

Everyone should be doing this.

There's very few things that everyone should be doing.

And so anyone that has a really,

really specific opinion, I think that's dangerous.

There's a lot of like binary narratives.

Like right now, there's the rent versus buy.

So I think that if you're ever receiving information that just feels really one-sided, go try to find the other side of that before you make any decisions.

And I think you're right.

I see it a lot with annuities, IULs, even 401ks.

I saw a lot like 401ks.

401ks, like 401ks are a scam.

Like, that's a crazy thing to say.

There are things that you should know about your 401k, and you should definitely know how your 401k is invested.

So, yeah, I think anything like that, that's just so,

so hard in the paint on one specific topic, that would be a red flag for me.

I think that's the biggest red flag.

Yeah, no, that's a very solid one.

But, what's stopping people from learning?

I agree with your earlier analogy completely: that just like riding a bike or just like learning any type of skill set in life, we have to exercise that skill set.

So not just find the information, but then go and practice, right?

Again, it was like my former students years back would say, I'm not a good writer.

And I'd say, how often do you write?

And they'd say, well, just for the papers that are due once a month.

I'd say, of course, you're not a good writer.

You're 14 years old and you don't write.

But we still had a structured educational system that had spaces for them to write.

Whereas, as you know, we don't have a traditional education system that provides access to financial literacy, even though different states are trying.

But what is it that you believe is holding someone back from wanting to learn more about this?

Like, that boggles my mind that more people don't want to go out and practice riding this metaphorical bike for an hour a day if it ultimately could lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars saved over the course of a lifetime.

Like, what is stopping people from doing that?

So, the way I would have answered this question a couple of years ago, before I had hundreds of conversations with different students that have, that I've worked with and that have learned how to invest, I would have said it's because people don't believe that they're capable of learning or that they just feel like the stock market is too complicated.

I have now changed my position on that.

What I think is actually more common is that people simply think that they do not have enough time in their day to learn how to manage their money, to learn how to pick better investments in their 401k, to understand the basics of investing.

They just simply think they do not have enough time.

And I don't want to gaslight anyone.

Lives are busy, right?

But to your point, some of the things you can learn in hours can end up resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement.

So what I think is actually happening is people, number one, don't think they have enough time to learn, but clearly aren't appreciating how powerful investing is.

Because if I said to you, hey, do you want to learn this thing that will potentially add half a million dollars to your retirement?

You'd be like, hell yeah, like, let's go.

Let me make time for that.

But people don't realize that that's the power of investing and that's how powerful compound interest can be.

So they're not going to allocate the time because they don't see the value.

And so what I think we need to do better as creators and educators is not just do this random compound interest math, but also tie it to the fact that you are capable of learning this and making a few small decisions that could change everything.

Give me this then.

So, this is because you've just hit upon one of the things that I now hear the most from people, which I do empathize with, and I know I joked about it earlier as well, is that people then, if they're shifting from a 1% advisor to a flat fee, then they do have to break up with potentially even a family friend, right?

Someone who's cousins with Uncle Joe and was introduced to them down at the local pool and they manage their finance.

It is, I mean, that everybody's everybody's advisor.

Oh, I love, they're a friend of my neighbors.

I can't break up with them.

Yes.

And so this is what we've inherited.

Do you have any practical and grounded language that I could use to break up with a family friend?

So the first thing, even before the language, is that

That education, if you learn a little bit and you're confident in what you're going to do once you leave that financial advisor, that's going to make this communication so much easier for you, which is why I really think opening up your own account, choosing your own low-cost index funds before you even have that conversation can be really powerful because you're going to come off a lot more confident and you're going to believe in yourself more if you've actually done the thing or learned some things and you have a plan.

So I think having a plan before you break up is a great way to go about this because that's going to come across in the way that you communicate.

And look, like you don't have to have a perfect plan, but just high level understanding that you're going to do something different and what that's going to look like, because some of them will push back on you pretty hard in different ways, right?

The language that I would say would be, thank you so much for your time.

I really appreciate all the help that you've given me.

I've decided to go in another direction.

Don't say I'm thinking about going in a direction.

Don't say anything other than I am leaving.

Thank you.

And move on.

You're not actually in a relationship with this person.

It feels that way because they have your money, but like the key word there is your money.

This is your money that you worked really.

Oh, I almost swore.

We're both from Durham.

I was like,

I can just test.

It's okay.

I can label each one explicit.

It's all good.

Yes, I can change my rating.

Although right now, I'm clean.

I can change it if need be.

I'll keep it clean.

If the emotions get to you, let it go.

So this is your freaking money, right?

This is your money that you worked super hard for.

And it's important to remember that it's not their money.

So I think that realizing all those things can make this communication so simple.

Thanks for everything.

I'm moving on.

And by the way, you don't actually have to tell them.

Like a lot of times you can just have your money transferred.

Like sometimes, not all the time, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend that.

It's funny that, but that is something I think that I've used that understanding to just help people see that they don't need permission, I guess, is one thing that I think you're getting at too, which is really interesting, is this shift of a power dynamic.

And from everybody I've talked to, there are so many people who have come to believe that this money manager somehow does control the money.

And I know clients who still get an allowance, an annual allowance from their financial advisor and have told me before, well, I'd love to do that, but cousin Joe's best friend, who's now a fiduciary, says it's not a good idea.

So I'm not allowed to.

And it takes every ounce of my energy not to just bombard this person with expletives of like, you've got to be kidding.

Like this is your money.

And yet you're letting someone dictate, you know, what is best for you and your, your funds.

So, you know, how do you, how do you respond to that?

Like with this power dynamic of, I'd love to believe that all of these advisors will just say like, absolutely, it's your money.

And here you go.

And let's transfer it over to your own brokerage account.

But how do you deal with this really difficult power dynamic where they're going to push back?

And it's a real emotional response that you'd have to deal with.

I do want to say that you also have to remember the inherent conflict of interest of an assets under management fee.

Their number one goal is to keep your money as long as possible.

So to your point, right, some of them will give you an allowance, which is ridiculous.

The reason they're doing that is because they make more money when they have more of your money.

If you want to buy a house and a lot of your money is with a financial advisor, there's only one outcome that helps them make more money.

It's you not buying the house.

The inherent conflict of interest in this assets under management model is so important to understand before someone comes back at you with an emotional response.

One thing that I think they will do often is try to confuse you.

with more information of why you should use them.

So a lot of times they'll say things like, oh, like, but how will you do your tax loss harvesting or whatever?

And all of these things can be learned.

And you can get flat fee help when you need it.

So if there's any jargon that makes you feel like you can't live without this person, there's thousands of other professionals that could help you or you could learn how to do it yourself.

That's the first thing I would say.

And then the second thing, as far as emotional, if somebody responds to you emotionally about you wanting to take control of your money, that is so manipulative that like you have to remember that this person is manipulating you in that moment because any professional that truly has your best interests in mind would have a level-headed conversation with you in the first place.

They're getting emotional because you're about to walk out the door with some of their future money.

And so I think that that context is super important.

There's not like a great answer other than really understanding where that person is coming from.

And if you get an emotional response, great.

That means you're doing the right thing.

Like get out of there.

I used to think and reflect a little bit on the idea that that you don't see someone's true character when they're winning, but you do when you threaten losing or saying no.

And that if you really want to know how nice of a person your financial advisor really is or how much they like you, just tell them you want to move your money and see how they respond.

There you go.

Like there's the proof in the pudding that goes, maybe I shouldn't have been with this person to begin with.

And I wonder.

for you, when you were looking back again earlier at the fee structure, when you first learned how, just how many fees were coming out of investing with somebody for the listener right now who says well i know i'm paying the one percent but i don't know what else i'm paying how would you advise them or you know help them think through how to go and do an initial fee audit like what are some of the things they can look for that potentially might be worth having a discussion with their advisor about

So I know it's scary, but I would look at your statement because a lot of time

everyone's like, fuck.

Aha, sure, check.

So statements, that doesn't mean that all the fees will necessarily be there, but literally comb through that document, see if you have a fee and Google what it is and write it down because then you can ask your advisor specifically, I saw this fee.

What does it mean?

And how does it work?

So the more you can arm yourself with information before you have this conversation with your advisor, that's really valuable.

The other fees that you're definitely going to have is the investments themselves so unfortunately a lot of advisors are incentivized to pick specific funds for your account so you can ask them about that they should tell you i hope they tell you should being the key word there should yeah should but the other thing you can look at no matter what you have access to easily or not is understanding the actual fees of the funds that you're invested in and so there if you are investing for the long term in simple broad-based index funds, those fees should be very low.

The fee for each fund is called an expense ratio, and that's expressed as an annual percentage.

And so there are tons and tons of wonderful broad-based index funds that have fees that are 0.2% or lower.

If you are seeing fees that are 0.5, 0.6 above that,

that's a little bit of a red flag.

It doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad fund, but you should ask about that.

Why am I invested in this thing and what is it?

Because the reality is a lot of these funds that have higher fees, they have higher fees because they're actively managed.

There's a money manager that's going in there and they're trying to pick specific things to beat a benchmark.

But we have loads of data that says it's really, really hard to beat the benchmarks that they're trying to beat over a period of time.

So, those are fees that everyone should understand.

This is also something you should understand in your 401k.

Your 401k has fees.

Every single fund you're invested in, whether you chose it or not, if you were defaulted into it, also has a fee.

Well, and I want to add too that it's interesting.

So you bring up the layers of fees.

And I want to make sure that people also understand the borderline comic absurdity to some of this, because we can go in a couple of levels.

And I've always just wondered about this, like why this isn't satirized more frequently.

And that let's say you're paying someone 1% to manage your money and pick your investments.

Okay, great.

I can even buy that logic.

But now step two is that manager says, I'm going to put your money in this fund that has another active manager.

So now you have two active managers.

I've got your money, but I've decided someone else is going to manage it.

But then on top of that, and people don't know this one nearly as much, is now there are fund of funds.

Fund of funds are some of my favorite products in the world in that it is your investment advisor puts your money into a fund that consists of multiple managed funds.

So I don't even know how like what the analogy is for this, like hiring the chauffeur who then sits in the back with you and hires another chauffeur to drive you somewhere and you're paying both of them.

Like it makes so little sense to me.

And yet this is where we're going.

Like these companies are outsourcing this investing.

It is so comical,

but the financial industry runs so deep in this business model that it is so hard to get people to understand that it just doesn't make any sense.

But I think I'm going to work on some metaphors when we wrap up here because this is too important not to.

Well, and let's come back out because I know that you and I are obviously like we're well versed in understanding these layers.

But coming back to the person who says, Okay, I don't know what a fund to fund is.

I don't know what an actively managed fund is.

If you were to design a very basic curriculum right now for people listening and just say, Look, I want you over the course of the next six months, we'll even give them a relatively long time frame.

I want you to focus on honing these two or three practical skills or learning these two or three things.

What would be some of the things that you'd say, look, you need to know this.

I don't care what you choose to do with the information, but you need to know about it.

So first of all, I'm not going to give you six months.

It's not going to take that much time.

So, so we're going to do this in a month, maybe two, because the reality is the first few steps that you need to take to take control of your money aren't that hard.

I think that learning enough to be able to confidently invest in a simple index fund portfolio is roughly the equivalent of driver Z and getting your driver's license, right?

Like you go to driver Z for a few classes and then you're able to drive a car.

Now Now you can get from A to B.

That doesn't mean that you understand how the engine works or can do anything to fix that car other than put gas in it.

Right.

And so I think that that's a good parallel to investing and building wealth is that you don't need to be a mechanic to drive the car.

The first thing I would say is that regardless of your investing strategy, you could have the best investing strategy in the world.

If you don't understand how money comes in and out of your life, your personal cash flow, what's coming in and what's going out, none of this matters.

When people hire a financial advisor, I think that sometimes we think that our job is done.

Your financial advisor is probably not looking at how you're spending your money and where you're spending your money.

And so the first thing you need to do is look at how money comes in and out of your life and potentially make some decisions about is there an opportunity for you to invest more while still enjoying your life.

But that is the number one step I think that most people miss.

They'll start investing, but they have no idea what is actually happening with their actual cash flow.

The second thing would be setting a goal maybe a retirement goal a retirement goal number and there's super easy ways to calculate this that we can talk about this is like week one so this might take less than a month Tyler this is gonna be I was I thought I was being very very

I thought six months was very short but this is better I love it yeah so you're gonna do those two things then we want to audit what we already have.

So what are the accounts that already exist in your life?

A lot of times people have a 401k floating out somewhere.

Find all your accounts, make sure you have a list of them, and then start to understand what you're already invested in.

That is such an amazing way to learn.

We forget that most of us are already investing.

If you have a 401k, an IRA, congratulations, you are an investor.

I would like you to claim that label so you can learn the basics for yourself.

You deserve it.

And so you already have a 401k or IRA, probably, in which case, the first thing I would do is look at that and look at what you're already invested in and copy and paste that fund into Google and google it and find out what it's about and then do the same with your ira

understand if you have a financial advisor what fees you're paying just try to get as much information as possible about the accounts you already have so that's all like the prep work and then you can start to learn the basics of investing and understand the stock market in and of itself and that the stock market is a wonderful way to build wealth because over time the stock market goes up it's actually not that complicated and so we can invest in funds, a group of investments that tracks the stock market.

So what does that mean?

It also goes up, right?

So we can start to learn the basics of investing in funds that hold hundreds or thousands of stocks all at once that will get you roughly the average return of the stock market, which is positive.

And then week five is starting to choose your own investments, which honestly, once you understand how the stock market works and that the stock market is really just a collection of companies that you can invest in.

And instead of investing in individual companies, we can invest in the variety pack of investments and invest in a fund that holds a bunch of these things at once.

And we can hold them for a long time and they'll go up in value.

So obviously I can't go through the whole curriculum at this moment, but that's what I would start with.

I would start with what do you got going on right now?

Where do you want to go?

What do you have for accounts?

How can you make them better?

And that's when you learn the basics of these different types of very simple investing strategies.

And folks, for what it's worth, you just got about $50,000 worth of education in about four minutes.

So I hope you save that component, if nothing else, and that that's what people are looking for.

And when someone says, well, I was never taught this, yes, you were.

You just were.

You just were taught what you need to do.

So there is no excuse for, well, no one is teaching us this.

Yes, we are.

There are people that are absolutely teaching it.

Tess is one of them.

She's been doing it so well.

And Tess, I want to kind of close and round out by putting you on the spot, if it's okay.

And I want to try my first ever rapid fire personal finance round and just ask some very quick pointed questions.

I know you love nuance, but I'm not going to give you as much room for nuance here.

And I'm just going to hold you to a quick answer if.

that would be okay.

Yes, let's do it.

I'm up for the challenge.

All right.

All right.

And just tell me you need more time if you do.

Okay.

But okay, my first one: the single worst financial product you see sold to young investors today.

Indexed Universal Life Insurance.

I love how fast that was.

See, you got the hang of this.

This is going to be easy.

And for the record, agreed.

Number two, the one piece of money advice you hear most often that makes you cringe.

Ooh.

Other than IUL.

It's like the same answer.

Same answer.

C number one.

C number one.

It could be.

I'm looking at these questions now going, actually, it could be IUL six for six on this.

I'll say that learning the basics is important.

You can overcomplicate it and learn too much and start to psych yourself out.

So I would say that it's really important to learn the basics of investing, but I see people get really into the weeds sometimes.

And sometimes I think that can make things worse.

So

making sure that you're thinking about the long term and what's right for you and not other, not comparing your situation to other people, I guess.

Love it.

Absolutely love it.

Number three, the very first money book.

And I know we touched on Tony Robbins or resource that actually helped you.

I'm going to say this resource, but I don't want anyone to read it.

And so the resource.

You have piqued my interest immensely by that setup i'm gonna say it but don't you dare read it so the book

you're all gonna go read it now i should have said yeah we're all the book that you said you just made that person a bestseller oh they already are and they shouldn't be you're you're not gonna like it when i say it so what made me realize how valuable investing is is understanding that rich people get rich because they buy things that grow in value.

They buy assets instead of liabilities.

I think I know where you're going with this one.

I know.

Should I not say it?

Don't.

You have to, I'll tell you all, but you have to promise not to read it because there are better resources.

But I did read Rich Dad, Poor Dad when I was maybe 22 or 23.

And that was motivating to understand the value of not spending your money on trinkets and random things and spending your money on assets that grow in value.

That is the entire book.

Don't buy it.

We already talked about it.

So don't waste your time.

And I know this is rapid fire, but I'm going to break my own rules and even respond to that one.

I know know that Kiyosaki gets a hard time, but I too had that as one of my very first reads ever because it's on every single bestseller list ever.

And it also helped the way that I think about buying assets and not just buying things that depreciate.

So for what it's worth, I too did learn from that one.

All right.

Number four, one thing you wish financial advisors had to disclose before they worked with you that they currently don't.

I want them to give you a sheet of estimated investing that you make on a monthly basis and the fees you will pay for the next 30 years if you continue to work with them.

And then I want the total of those fees highlighted in bright yellow and size 20 font.

And then you have to sign underneath it that you read it and that you understand that over time, if you continue working with this person and investing the current amount of money that you are investing, that you will roughly pay $700,000 in fees, whatever that number is.

I want it like that.

And it's got to be, I want the size 20 font with the highlighted yellow.

Like no one's cheaping out, printing out a black and white version of this.

Like you have to print this in color.

God, you should be a financial advisor.

You'd be very good.

Number five, I'd work with you.

Number five, Roth IRA or 401k with the company match if you could only pick one.

Match.

Sorry, no explanation.

Lightning round on to number six.

All right.

Bye.

If your younger self could only hear one sentence of advice from you right now before that famous dinner at Chili's, what would it be?

No one will ever care about your money as much as you do.

Tess, I'm going to leave with those words because that is the best I could ever hope to impart on anyone.

And I just want to thank you only for sharing your thoughts and wisdom and teaching with us today, but I also know exactly how much you do with others on a daily basis to pursue this mission.

So on behalf of me and hopefully anyone that's already come across your content and information and hopefully now anyone who does, I just want to say thank you for doing what you do to help educate people and get them much closer to where they need to be to do this on their own.

Oh, thank you so much, Tyler.

I am so happy to be here and I'm so grateful for you.

And by the way, for anyone listening, Tyler is like the nicest guy and he's got the best content.

I'm just like such a huge fan that I remember when we first started talking when you were first starting out and I'm just so happy to see your success because you truly deserve all of it.

So thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to your money guide on the side.

If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to visit my website at tylergardner.com for even more helpful resources and insights.

And if you are interested in receiving some quick and actionable guidance each week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter where each Sunday I share three actionable financial ideas to help you take control of your money and investments.

You can find the sign-up link on my website, tylergardner.com, or on any of my socials at SocialCapOfficial.

Until next time, I'm Tyler Gardner, your money guide on the side, and I truly hope this episode got you one step closer to where you need to be.