There’s something really intimate about getting your affairs in order. Not just the paperwork, but the part where you have to sit with the fact that life ends, that people change, that money doesn’t always equal legacy, and legacy doesn’t always mean money. Most people avoid those conversations because they feel heavy, which oftentimes leaves people scrambling later in life or leaves loved ones backtracking to figure things out at a time when those pertinent topics are. Are the last thing they
want to think about.

But the truth is, planning your estate or getting a financial plan in place isn’t about dying. It’s about making sure your life, your values, your family, your time, all of it has direction and protection. So today we’re cracking open that conversation not with fear, but with clarity.

My name is Dena Glasko. I want the discussion of money, financial literacy, and the creation of generational wealth to be less taboo. My hope is to help people break down the barrier walls they use as a defense mechanism when asked to talk about their finances.

For people to understand that they don’t need millions or even thousands to begin making their way to financial freedom, as well as offer insight and opportunities that are out there to take action to find their version of success, success and path to wealth. Because there’s not one way to success with. We simply have to find your way to success.

So welcome to invest in you. We have two powerhouse women in the studio with us today. Financial advisor Kim McMillion of McMillion Financial Group and estate attorney Liz Moneymaker of Ferrari Butler and moneymaker pllc.

First things first, thank you ladies so much for being here. I really appreciate you. Thanks for having us.

Yes, thank you. And no doubt it’s always gotta be the first question you both hear, probably on a daily basis. So we’re starting right out the gate.

Is McMillion and Moneymaker your real last names? Yes, I always say it’s my real last name. If I was going to make one up, it wouldn’t have been that. Well, until I meet Mr. McBillion, this one will do.

I’ll keep McMillan. That’s perfect. Perfect.

All right. So really what I’d like to just do is keep this open and free flowing conversation and starting out the gate, you know. Why do you think estate planning and money still feel like taboo topics, even among family? What about you, Liz? Well, for me, I think people think that it’s complicated and it’s a lot of stuff that they don’t know.

So typically, what do we do when we have something that we think is Complicated or we, we feel overwhelmed by it, we stick our head in the San and we don’t move forward. Right. I think in my experience a lot of it is sometimes attached to ego.

And sometimes people don’t like to discuss their money if it isn’t exactly where they want it to be. And when they’re in my office and we’re doing financial planning, you’re essentially kind of standing naked, financially naked in front of your financial advisor. Which is why I have clients all over the world over the last 32 years of being in practice.

Because no one wants to stand financially naked again in front of someone new. Right. So you absolutely develop that long term relationship, I’m sure in both of your fields.

And that extends, I mean, I’m probably talking over the lines here, but I’m sure it probably extends not just to that client, but their family members. Once they feel comfortable with you and they feel like we’re on the right path, they’re bringing everybody they know. Right? Absolutely.

I have three different sets of clients that are four generation clients of mine. Wow, four generations. And a lot of three generation.

But I have, it is, you know, when you’re money is not as important as your health, but it’s like right up there. It’s like the real close number two. And you just don’t want your family to not have someone that they know and trust in charge of their money.

It sometimes doesn’t work out when it’s the wrong person for sure. Even when you think you know them, sometimes you don’t. That’s true.

Exactly. So real briefly synopsis for both of you. You know what, how long have you been in the industry that you’re in and what really brought you here? I’ve been in the industry 32 years and I resisted it quite a bit before the universe just ultimately made me do this.

This was not my goal. I was working for a company called Unum up in Portland, Maine and taking customer Service calls for 403 plans like for not for profits, like Red Cross retirement plans and things like that. And they thought we might accidentally give them some financial advice.

So someone decided we had to get our securities license, which is a difficult exam. And in order to keep my job as a service rep there, I had to do it and I just didn’t really want to. And they made me.

And two years later I was at the right place at the right time at a hospital plan and they needed an on site advisor. And because my license had not yet expired, because you have two years for that to happen, I was immediately placed in that role and I’ve loved it ever since. And I’m so glad that I do this for a living because had I known how much I enjoy it, I would have signed it for it immediately out of the gate, right out of college.

But yeah, I love it. It’s funny how that happens sometimes. You don’t even know that this is where you really want to be until you’re there.

It is so funny how it happens that way. What about you, Liz? Yeah, so I’ve been a lawyer now almost 30 years. I started as an army lawyer, a JAG in the army, and when I got out of the army, I became a litigator.

So I defended people and companies in court and I thought that was extremely rewarding for a long time. But there was a period of six months where my family lost my dad and a 24 year old nephew. And that year, helping the family navigate Medicaid, navigate probate, navigate donating organs and that type of thing really just impacted what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

And I found that there was a great need out there for an advocate in the role of a estate planning attorney, a elder law attorney, to help families not just navigate the legal side of it, but, but talking with the financial planners, Talking with the CPAs, talking with other people in their lives to help them piece all those pieces back together. And now I know I’m where I’m supposed to be. That’s awesome.

Yeah, it’s finding out with my brother passed away about four years now, and my dad, it’s almost a year now. And like I said at the beginning, you know, the top of the show, it really is one of those things that a lot of people don’t want to have those conversations, you know, and it’s not something you learn in school. You always end up learning at the heart, the hard way at the worst time of your life, you know, So I, that’s one of the main reasons why I was so excited to get you guys together
because they’re such important conversations that really need to be had way earlier than people decide to actually have them.

Yes. And it’s not always an aging issue. It can be something that happens to young people.

Absolutely. Right. Kind of leading into my next scenario here.

Right. So imagine a 28 year old married couple that were just blessed with twins. Right.

Obviously a huge milestone for them. And mom’s taken some time out of the workforce to start raising babies and now they’re on a single income. So why should someone in their 20s or 30s care about estate planning? Well, I’ll hit that first.

Main thing for that is for your minor children. You want to make sure that you have someone you trust named as the guardian of the children. So a court is not going to decide who the guardian of the children are.

And children can’t just outright inherit money. So who’s going to be the person you trust to safeguard that money for them? So right outta the gate, that’s an easy reason why a young couple should seek estate planning. And what about a strategy that could assist them in kind of putting away for school costs or things down the road when you’re just on a single income and you’re already got a huge, huge cost sitting in front of you with twins especially for sure double.

You know, for young people, life insurance, especially term life insurance is really inexpensive. A young person who’s 28 years old can probably get a million doll policy for less than $25 a month. And they can also start a 529 plan, a college funding plan.

The minimum there is $25 a month. And the early saver really gets the worm there because they’ll be 18 before you know it. And when you’re saving $25 a month, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but it adds up over the course of 18 years.

And you can even extend it to, you know, age 22 if you, you don’t have to, you know, tell your child that you have a finance, that you have a college fund for them, you can continue to contribute to it while they’re in college, let them establish their loans and then for college graduation you can pay off some or all of those loans with the college funds that they didn’t know they had. And they also will make that 8am class because if they have to retake it next semester, mommy and daddy aren’t
paying for it. They think they are, right? Literally when I heard you speak and you gave that little nugget there.

I have told everybody who has kids that I know and that’s not me, you know, but it is brilliant. Like my parents should have done that for me. But definitely huge impactful, compounding interest, right? I mean it’s just some, what do they call it, the seventh wonder of the world or eighth wonder of the world or whatever that is compounding interest.

Love that. Okay, so how about for you know, the 45 year old who has dipped into their savings, they’ve started a whole new career, they’re taking a change and they’ve had to live off the huge chunk of their savings that they had. Where do they start? What do they do when they don’t have other things in motion? Well, I would say first of all, good on them that they had savings that they could get into that they needed.

Because we are all at an age where we know life is not that predictable and things come up that we don’t expect. And thankfully they had the savings to dip into to cover those types of things. When unexpected life changes occur, however, it is just math.

It’s really not that scary if we need to know where we want to be in 20 years. So if someone’s 45 and they want to retire at 65, if we want to know if they know what their retirement looks at looks like at 65 and how much income they want to be able to generate at that time, I work the math backwards with them to where they are today at 45. And we do the math.

And once you know the exact amount you need to hit that goal in 20 years, even if it’s not quite doable just yet, at least you know, it’s the not knowing that’s the scary part. And going, I don’t even know where to start. How much could it be? I have no idea.

And putting your head in the sand. So at least this way, even if, let’s say it’s, you’ve got to save $1,500 a month to make that goal, which might be more than is in a budget right now, but at least you could work towards it. And I also give you lump sum options as well.

So if you ever come into a lump sum, an inheritance or you win the lottery or something great like that, any extra lump sums that we add into it changes that monthly figure and lowers it. So, you know, sometimes we have access to lump sums we don’t even expect that we’re going to have access to or know about. So we want to take advantage of that when that happens and be ready to make that money really work for you.

Because you work hard for your money, it’s got to work hard for you. When somebody is, regardless of age, regardless of these couple of scenarios, is there a minimum that someone needs to work with either of you? For me, I don’t require minimums. A lot of financial advisors do require minimums.

But every time I am kind of reevaluating that with my practice, something happens that just kind of nudges me from the universe. Yeah, don’t do that. Not just for me, but for my current clients.

And my potential new clients. I had someone, this was probably 15 years ago down in Florida when I was living in Missouri at the time, who couldn’t find a financial advisor because of the minimums. And he was only doing $100 a month Roth Ira and I helped him with it anyway, and he inherited $3 million about two years later, which of course that.

And so did his brother. So his brother became my client as well. He is my client.

And whoever passed, all the other advisors who passed on that pass on the opportunity to help someone who needed it, you know, not knowing what was coming down the road and then look what happens. So it’s really a win win for everyone. Maybe for some advisors it’s really important for them to have those minimums.

And I know a lot of them do, but I just don’t. And the few times I’ve thought of it, something happens and I go, I’m just going to keep it. No minimum like that? Yeah, absolutely not.

I don’t have any minimum. I think that’s one of the reasons some people don’t come see an estate planning attorney is they feel like, well, I need, if I don’t have a lot of money, I don’t need to do it. And estate planning is about so much more than what happens to your money.

It’s who’s going to be making decisions for you. When you’re at your most vulnerable, you’re in a situation where you’ve had a stroke or a car accident or you know, you have some cognitive disability, who have you put in place to, to make your medical decisions and your financial decisions? So the amount of money you have in the bank is completely irrelevant in making those decisions. That’s great.

When we talk about compensation, how do your fees go? How do you get compensated? Is it on volume? Is it on, you know, type of transaction? I do flat fee billing, typically with my clients. So I do a free consultation where I sit down and figure out what their goals are. And then my philosophy is, what’s the simplest way to accomplish your goals in the most cost effective way to accomplish your goals.

Sometimes your goals mean we have to have a complicated plan, but sometimes not. So once we’re through with that process, I provide a flat fee assessment as to how we’re going to accomplish what you need to get accomplished. For financial advisors, there’s really three ways we can be paid.

We can be paid by fee only, where we kind of run a clock similar to an attorney and in 15 minute increments, you have an hourly rate that you charge and you don’t receive any commissions from any products. The second way is you can receive commissions only. Which is the most popular way typically that my clients prefer I get paid.

The third way is a combination, it’s called fee based planning where there is an hourly rate on top of commissions that I don’t do. Some financial advisors do that, charge an hourly rate and also get their commissions. I don’t do that and there’s no rules or anything against doing that.

It’s just my preference. And really whether you choose an hourly rate from me or whether you choose to allow me to just receive the commissions from whatever products that we are opening, whether it be a mutual fund, a life insurance policy, stocks, bonds, whatever, it doesn’t change the financial advice that you’re going to receive from me. And a lot of things that people read are like, you know, like they’re going to get better advice if they pay more.

And in my case, if you’re working with me, you’re not going to get any different financial advice. So since it’s a lot less expensive for people just to let me keep the commissions which are coming on the products anyway, they never get a bill from me, they never have to write me a check for my services. Now when I’m doing a second opinion on someone who is not going to be leasing, they just want to know, hey, I’ve been with Joe for 15 years and can you just review this plan that’s an hourly rate.

They know it in advance what it’s going to cost for me to give them that second opinion and that’s that. And they stay with. And a lot of people like to do that and that’s okay too.

But you know, those are the ways that my fees happen. Perfect. So they have options.

It sounds like based on, for, for both of you, it really just comes down to. Right. Fitted for that client.

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And they think that now they’ve got all their affairs in order, and then something happens, and now their family has to spend about a year going through the court system to have all of the assets go through the probate process. I actually had that conversation the other day with a client of mine who is looking for some assistance with the loan that his mom had. He lived with his mom.

Mom. The house was in mom’s name, the loan was in mom’s name, and now it’s him and his brother, and they don’t really get along. So, no, nothing was transferred.

And I was like, well, is there a trust or a will? There’s only a will. Okay, well, you’re gonna end up with probate. You gotta talk to an estate planner or an estate attorney.

I know a great one, so let me know if you need some help. And he was like, I don’t know what my brother’s going to let me do or what happened. So he’s asking me what that costs.

I was like, I couldn’t even begin to tell you. How does. How does the costs or the time that probate takes? Is that determined? Yeah, there’s a couple different levels of probate depending on what type of assets there are.

So it could be anywhere from maybe $2,500 to probate to tens of thousands of dollars to probate. You’ve got the attorney’s fees, you have court costs. There could be creditors involved that you have to pay off.

So it’s the typical lawyer answer. And it depends. Do they have to do some of that or all of that up front or they don’t know what it’s going to be till the end.

Till they get to the end. Typically do. Although almost all probates have a surprise like that.

The heirs didn’t know that there was a debt out there or an asset out there. But typically we do our due diligence on the front end, and we what we’re probating. And so we can give a flat fee.

Sometimes there needs to be some payment upfront because there’s court costs up front. But oftentimes we get that payment in the end, like when the house is sold or when an asset’s liquidated. Okay, okay.

And what about for you? I think sometimes the part that’s a little frustrating for me Sometimes is someone will read an article in Money magazine, which is the rag sheet of our industry, by the way, and think that they want to make investments, assessments in a certain way. And so it’s hard for them to understand that. I’m a licensed professional.

I studied this. I have to take continuing education all the time. It may look easy, but it really, it does take a trained professional.

It’s kind of like a doctor. You probably could, you know WebMD, right? WebMD, they deal with it all the time. My clients who are physicians, it drives them crazy.

So, you know, I always say to people, for the amount that you want to play within the stock market, make that the same amount you would take to Las Vegas. And if you lost it all, it wouldn’t undo your retirement plan, but all the rest of it. Why don’t you leave that to me? If it’s something we really need to do if we really want to retire at this age, let me help you make those decisions there.

And that’s kind of my biggest drive me crazy situation. What does fiduciary mean? Fiduciary means you have to take an approach that is higher than a prudent person towards the benefit of the client. So not only do I have to do what’s in my client’s best interest as a fiduciary of their accounts, but I also can’t say I didn’t know.

It’s my job to know. So I have to maintain a higher than prudent person and intellectual oversight of their investments. And ultimately it is their money, and they can make decisions about their own money that are against my financial advice.

And if they do, I have to have them sign a waiver so that they understand that this is against my financial advice. If you get two or three waivers in your file with me, we’re probably going to have to part ways as financial advisor and client because I have to explain myself to FINRA or why I let you invest this way. And saying, well, they just insisted on it.

I have to show that I explained to them why it’s not a good idea. And I had them sign saying they understand. And most of the time, if I pull out a disclosure that says they have to sign, they’re like, maybe I should rethink it.

That’d be a good idea. Let’s talk about that. And before coming on over to you, Liz, is there certain financial, I don’t know if they’re all called financial planners or financial advisors that aren’t fiduciaries.

You take that role when you open an account, you are assuming a role as a fiduciary. There’s more paperwork involved, and I guess it’s a little bit more official when it’s like a 401k plan, when it’s a group plan, because your title is fiduciary on it. But even when I’m just opening up $100 Roth IRA account each month, I still have to give that advice as a fiduciary over that account.

But it’s just more official with group retirement plans. And on the estate attorney, is that by nature a fiduciary role? No, not necessarily. But in the estate planning context, we have other fiduciaries.

Like your personal representative would be the estate’s fiduciary. An agent under a power of attorney would be a fiduciary for the person they’re acting for. We have professional fiduciaries in my industry where they’ll act as people’s personal representatives and agents, because a lot of my clients, surprisingly, don’t have people in their lives either by choice because they’re estranged from family or family and friends have passed on.

And so they need to hire a professional to serve in that role. Now, if someone chooses to work with a competitor of yours, obviously not advised, but what should they ask to ensure they aren’t being overcharged or misled? In a way, in my industry, I would say just ask how they’re compensated, because they need to know that. And I would say, you know, you can make your own decision.

There’s really just those three ways we previously went over that financial advisor can be compensated. But I’d also offer this piece of advice. If you’re going with even me, whoever you go with, trust but verify.

So you have access to all of your account information online and check that that you have access to it. Because under no circumstance should any financial advisor ever be holding those funds in anything in their own account. Anything that has a joint your name and their name on it.

Those are all completely. If they’re doing that, that’s a crime. And a lot of advisors, you know, that Bernie Madoffs of the world had the money, had total.

My clients think I have the money. They really do. I don’t.

I’m saying I do not have the money. I’m putting it right. But that’s a really important thing when you’re doing financial planning, is that I or any other financial advisor never actually has your money.

Yeah. For me in the estate planning field, first thing I would advise someone is, is that what they do if they do a laundry list of other things, they do car accident cases. They do real estate as well.

You just want to make sure you’ve vetted their biography. Do they really know what they’re doing? It’s like going to a general practice medical doctor anymore. We typically don’t.

We go to specialists. Same thing for lawyers. We specialize in things.

Secondly, most of us will offer a free consultation. Go do it. See what your vibe is with this person.

You’re entrusting them with all the details of your life so that they can make sure they’re putting a plan together for you. And third, if someone’s just offering a $500 package, that $500 package either a, is a bait and switch, or B, you’re getting a one size fits all plan. That may not be what you need.

So those are the three things I would look at. First, like that. Thank you.

What? We hear the term generational wealth all the time. I even said it at the beginning. Right.

It’s one of those catch words or catchphrases that people say a lot. What does that mean to you? I think generational wealth is really, when people use that terminology, they’re trying to create their own legacy basically to pass down to their family. And that might look different for farmers.

It might look different for folks who are in the banking industry. It might look different for people who are entertainers. There’s professional athletes.

There’s a lot of different clientele that I have that are working on providing some generational wealth because they would like to be able to provide for their families all the way down the line, even after they’re gone. There are, you know, a lot of great things about being able to do that and what a gift to be able to leave to someone. But it is also some things that should come with some requirements.

And that’s where they need their estate planning attorney to not just be able to have that money and end up not having to have to pursue education or a career because then they have a lot of idle time on their hands and sometimes they find themselves in problematic situations with drugs or alcohol that they ordinarily wouldn’t have been able to come into had this not been provided. So, you know, as my grandmother would say, be careful what you wish for. So when we talk about generational wealth, I
always like to make sure that everyone knows is don’t create a situation for a great grandchild down the road that is going to be hurtful for them.

You can put some things in your trust that establish some Requirements for them to have access to funds and to maybe not have it in large lump sums, maybe have it doled out monthly or something like that. Yeah. What does generational wealth mean to you? Yeah.

So in the estate planning context, when I have a client that is, is either creating or already has generational wealth that we’re dealing with, we’re typically looking at two things. One is we’re trying to make sure that Uncle Sam doesn’t collect a lot of that money upon their death, that we do some estate tax planning. And then two, it’s what I sort of tongue in cheek call control from the grave is okay, what can we do to ensure that when you’re gone, we’ve created this legacy for your children,
your grandchildren, your great grandchildren.

And that’s through the things that Kim was talking about in putting these parameters in place and controlling from the grave as to how that money is doled out. There was actually this show that I just saw recently about a topic of passing away. A parent passing away and putting all kinds of restrictions on how like they can’t have the money if they marry into this family or if they’re gay or if, you know, set all of these rules down, if that ever happens and is in place, is that there’s nothing to
override that if it’s outlined.

There’s things that you can’t do that are just against public policy. But for the most part it’s your trust, it’s your money, it could be your, your rules. I go through it in a lot of detail to talk about you think it’s an easy rule.

But number one, who’s going to enforce that rule? What are some other consequences of the rule? So hopefully by the time we’re done and we have a final product, it’s a thoughtful thing and it’s something that can actually be implemented down the road when someone is setting up their baseline of protections for when they pass. What’s. I mean, you already spoke on the will being the one document that people think should really be.

That’s the end all, be all. I have a will. What is something that they should really think about that can right out the gate help them more than they think, more than they would even know about their power of attorney for finances and their healthcare documents.

So that if they’re ever in a situation, like I have a 47 year old client who had a stroke, for example, he did not have those documents in place at the time, so his wife had to go and get a guardianship in place. So she had to go to court, pay a lawyer money to be named her husband’s guardian so that she could make financial decisions for him. So for me, those two documents, no matter how old you are, no matter what your wealth status is, those two documents are vital.

So marital status doesn’t automatically give someone the power to. Absolutely not. Interesting.

What about for you? Well, I’ll share something that happened about 25 years ago when I hadn’t been in practice very long, maybe five or six years I had been in practice and I had a young couple, they were both physicians, they had a four year old child and they were killed in an automobile accident and the four year old was left orphaned. And in all of our chit chats over those four years, we had discussed designating a guardian for the child because that’s an important part. You know, when
someone has children, they need to have that established.

When they’re in my office, that’s one of the first things I’m asking them. He liked his sister and hated hers and she liked her sister and hated his. And they couldn’t come to an agreement.

And of course you hope that you never need it, but it turns out they needed it. So because they died accidentally, their life insurance proceeds were double indemnity. So she came with several million dollars.

The four year old child did. And the person who ended up becoming her guardian was someone I’d never heard of, who lived several states away. And really ultimately the person who had the best attorney is this, I will say this happened.

And so you know, I don’t say this to scare people, but she left the funeral of her parents and went straight into foster care because everyone in the family agreed that she might bond with them if someone took her home. And that over the six months it might take to settle the estate, that it might then favor the judge to not take her away from this new family she has had. So she spent all that time in foster care.

She went from the funeral to foster care. You can’t do that if you’re a parent. You’ve got to at least at the most, bare bones minimum, establish a guardian.

It’s really important. Good information. Just a few personal questions if you ladies don’t mind.

You both have already mentioned, you know, that you’re in the spot that you were meant to be in. If you could look back at your own financial journeys and all the information that you both know now, what would be something that you might have changed or would you never do anything different? Wow. I think I would have stayed on active duty in the army and retired out of the Army.

At the time I thought that if I was going to be a quote, unquote, real lawyer, I needed to get out and start my civilian practice. So that’s what I did. But I think in hindsight I would have stayed in the, in the military and had a military retirement.

I don’t think I realized at 32 how much now at 55, that would really sound really good. Yeah. Is it because of the, the pension or that you would receive pension in healthcare? I mean, healthcare drives so much of the decision making now about, you know, employment and, you know, being able to have some freedom.

So, yeah, those two things would be big. That’s good info. Yeah.

What about for you, Kim? For me personally, I think I probably would have. When I first became a financial advisor, I was with MetLife and MetLife is a great company and I offer MetLife even today. But MetLife, when you are employed by them, they only allow you to offer MetLife products.

Nothing wrong with MetLife products. It’s just not the best fit for every single person. So as an independent financial advisor that I am now, I think because I spent my first 10 years as a financial advisor with MetLife, I think I would have shortened that to two or three years and then left MetLife at that point.

They’re very good about getting you up and running as a financial advisor. They’re very big on education and that’s great. But most people in my field are independent for that reason because you still can offer that company and everything else in the entire financial universe, which even if you don’t go with me as a financial advisor, I always say go with an independent financial advisor who can offer everything.

Same thing with car insurance. If you’re only going to just the State Farm guy who can only offer State Farm, that’s not an independent agent. You need to go with someone who offers all of them and they’re not married to one particular brand.

So I would say if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have spent the full 10 years doing that. I would have maybe only after two or three years, then gone independent. The difference I would make.

Awesome. When you also look at all the wealth that you guys have seen client wise for you, what defines success for you as an individual? Good question. Really good question.

I feel like I’ll give you an example. I had some clients who had probably about $2 million saved and this was maybe 15 years ago and they were in their late 60s and they would bring tea bags to Restaurants and order hot water. And they had lived through some rough financial times early on as children and even as young married.

A young married couple. And they never really could enjoy the wealth that they had accumulated. And, you know, as Don Henley famously says, when Gabriel comes and taps you on the shoulder, you don’t see no hearses with luggage racks.

Right? So, I mean, it’s a fine line for me to help people enjoy the wealth that they have accumulated as well as save and plan for that generational wealth they want to leave behind. And then I have some clients who need to really save more than they do. They spend way more than they should, and they should be saving more.

So I help people try to walk a line for success where they feel like they aren’t missing or lacking things they really think they need to be happy. The car they want to drive or the house they want to live in or the vacation they want to take, but also not bringing tea bags to the restaurant and ordering hot water. There’s a middle in there.

And I think that’s where the line of success is, where you can do both save and spend in a responsible way. And I think that will help you towards the goal of being happy. It doesn’t always mean you’re happy.

I have some clients who have a lot of money, and they’re estranged from all their family. And really for good reasons, but it’s difficult for them. It’s a heartache, and money doesn’t fix that.

So it’s just when I think of success, it’s very specific to each individual person. But money does play a part in that. I know that doesn’t sound like what you’re supposed to say, because money is supposed to be that taboo thing, right? But money does provide a certain amount of happiness, and success is, I think, very much tied to your level of happiness.

100%. When I think of success, I just immediately go to when a client leaves my office. We’ve gone through the entire estate planning process.

They’ve come in to sign their documents. We have the signing ceremony, and they thank me for making it a scary process. Not scary.

And they would say something like, wow, that was a lot simpler than I thought that it would be. And for them to leave understanding their plan and knowing then that they have a resource to come back to. I always tell them, well, you got a lawyer for life now.

So that’s success for me, is being able to do that one client at a time. Love that. That’s great.

And one last personal question. How do you celebrate financial Milestones for yourself or business wins. I mean, you’re both owners in your own business.

So whether that is just personal financial milestones or for the business, how do you celebrate travel? Travel. We have that in common. We do.

Unanimously. We definitely do. I love it.

I love it. So, ladies, before we wrap up, I’d love for everyone listening to be able to contact you. So tell them who you’re with, what your name is, how they get in contact and follow you.

Sure. Liz. Moneymaker with Ferrari, Butler and Moneymaker.

The best way to contact us is through our website. There’s a simple contact us form www.lismoneymaker law.com.

and I’m Kim McMillian with McMillion Financial Group. And that is also the way to contact me. The easiest way would be to go to www.

mcmillionfinancialgroup.com. there’s a contact us form on there as well. But you can also reach me in my office at 727-456-158.

A lot of my older clients don’t really like the Internet, and you can feel free to reach out to me on my cell phone via text at 417-894-0809. Thanks. Perfect.

And just so that folks do know, are both of you able to function outside of Florida? Yes. I’m licensed in several states, so any state that you are in, if I’m not licensed, I can become licensed in that state same day. So anyone in any state would be able to be a client of mine.

Perfect for you, Liz. I’m licensed in other states, but I’m only doing estate planning in Florida. Perfect.

But statewide. Awesome. Well, thank you, ladies.

Really appreciate it, and I look forward to having another chat with you again soon. Thank you, Dina. I really hope that everybody listening, you know, got as much out of the conversation as I did.

You’re both fantastic human beings and fantastic in your own line of business. And I definitely loved the combination of having you both here together because they’re just, they go hand in hand. The industries should be tied together.

I mean, you know, obviously from a lending perspective, I always tell people, you know, an attorney, a financial planner, a banker, a lender, you know, we’re teams for these people. We’re here to educate, to assist, and to celebrate those financial wins. So.

So thank you both. We make plans for vacations and events and goals, but not enough of us make a plan for what really matters. So everybody listening.

Start now so your future doesn’t have to be left to chance. Thank you for listening. This has been invest in you the money Map.

Sa.