A Financial Advisor Who Helps

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Influential Advisor Podcast. A client called her financial advisor on a Friday morning. She'd just sold her house. The problem was she still had boxes everywhere. Closing was that day, no movers available. She had to be out by the afternoon. So her advisor showed up in his truck, spent four hours hauling boxes to a friend's garage, didn't charge a dime, didn't even let her pay the buddy who came along. That's Dan Carver. And that story tells you more about how he works than any credential ever could. Dan's been a financial advisor in St. Louis for 26 years. He grew up middle class, went to school alongside kids from old money, heirs who drove beat-up Chevies and wore flannels to class. That's where he learned what real wealth looks like. Not loud, not flashy, just quiet decisions that compound over a lifetime. He wrote a book about it, Blue Jean Millionaire. It's for people who want to build real financial security, not through shortcuts, through good decisions over time. This is a conversation about what it actually takes to build wealth and what to look for in the person helping you do it.

What Real Wealth Looks Like

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Dan, welcome to the program. Good to see you today. How are you doing? Good to see you too, Gabe. Dan, you have a fascinating story about going to school with wealthy children in St. Louis. Can you tell us about Steve Bush and Carolyn Kindle and what their blue jeans and beat-up cars taught you about real wealth?

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Sure. I grew up with parents who are government workers, so I didn't come from a wealthy background. Um I was fortunate enough that my parents, along with the help of a family friend, were able to help me pay for school, private high school. And fortunately, I was able to go with uh to some really good schools and met some people there that kind of amazed me. So there was a lot of wealth at the high school I went to. Steve Bush, Manager Bush went there. Carolyn Kendall of Enterprise Leasing went there. Great people, good friends of mine. And one thing I kind of noticed about the I would say older money is they weren't flashy. If you talked to them, you would never know they were wealthy. If you saw the way they dressed, they dressed normal. Steve would wear blue jeans and uh flannel and hiking boots to school most days. We would do that same thing back then as well. And Carolyn, one of the heirs to enterprise leasing, could probably drive any car she wanted, but she drove a Chevy Cavalier to work, which is not a very expensive car at all. And then there were other types of people as well who had flashy cars. The kids drove very nice cars, right? And so I quickly learned the difference between like old money and new money, and how old money people didn't really show it. They invested their money work for them, and they didn't really care if people knew that they had money or not.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Those are some really good early lessons to have gotten from your high school experience. Can you tell me about how that motivated you when you went into your line of work and how that came back where you're helping clients and helping them to see what real wealth is about?

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Sure. Growing up, we were middle class, so I wouldn't say we were poor, but we definitely weren't rich. And there were months I saw my parents struggle, and especially with paying for private schools and things like that. And so I really had, I think, a desire, even at a young age, to be successful, whether that was playing sports, whether that was financial success. I was just driven to be successful. Yeah. And the other thing that I felt was initially I don't think I fit in too well at the schools that I went to because I didn't come from money, and the majority of the kids there did, and they knew each other for many years, like all through grade school before we got to junior high and high school together. And so I wanted to be like them. And I would meet their parents, and a lot of their parents were wealthy, but very nice people and successful and impressive. And I wanted to be that myself. And so that kind of lit a passion in me to not only try and have financial success myself, but it also motivated me to want to get into this career of helping other people learn how the wealthy and successful people use their money to grow their wealth. And so I wanted to teach people those strategies, if I could, throughout my career, which is why I got into this business.

Why The Book Finally Happened

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I love that. And Dan, in that you helping people to also understand true wealth, you've recently written a book. Could you tell us about your book and about why was now the time for it to come out and who is it intended to help?

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Yeah, so great question. I actually had part of the book written for probably the last 15 years. And I wanted to have little bits of advice for people on a variety of financial topics. And so I finally got the time and the effort and some assistance and how to write a book, how to get it published, and all that kind of stuff. And so the book is really about how just nor normal people, everyday people, through good decisions. It's not a get rich quick deal. It does take time, but it it's about making good decisions over time and how that can lead to financial success, whether it's retirement, helping your kids with education, or just living a more carefree life without the stresses and worries about making it from paycheck to paycheck, or being able to help your kids later in life if they need assistance. That's uh why I wrote the book.

The Million Dollar 401k Mistake

SPEAKER_01 5:41

I like so many of the stories that you told because it really is about real people and the decisions that you're helping them to make that are making this tremendous impacts in their life. There was one you talked about a client who had over a million dollars in her 401k, but she made what you call a million-dollar mistake. Dan, could you tell us about what that mistake was and how did it illustrate the hidden dangers of financial disorganization?

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Sure. So this particular client worked at a large credit card company here in the U.S., was a very high-level executive, and had worked for this company before it went public. Not only did she get stock in the company that grew very quickly over her years working there, but they also had a great 401k plan with a great match. And many years ago, it was very common to have a lot of employer stock in the plan. That was very common. And so this plan grew quite a bit and ended up being a million dollars when I met with this client. This particular client had most of their money with me already. And so we delved into the 401k. Her previous advisor, who's a partner of mine, was never able to get her to consolidate it here. She preferred to keep it separate. And so I told her that was fine. She didn't, I wasn't gonna require her to move it here, but I wanted to know how it was invested, how aggressive she was being. She really had no idea how aggressive it was. She wasn't really watching it, didn't know what it was invested in. I said, Can we at least log in? You can come to the office, we'll log in during our meeting, and at least let me just peek at it and see how you're allocated. And she said, okay. When she got to the office, we went in the plan, and it was a lot more risky than she expected. So we did make some changes to it, helped her make some changes. But while I was in there, I decided, hey, let's check your beneficiaries just to cover all our bases. And shocked to find out she had no beneficiary. So she's married, she has a husband, been married about 40 years, and uh had no beneficiary listed. And so those are the kind of mistakes that that money would have gone to probate. There would have probably been about a 5 or 6% cost associated with probate, so about$50,000 to$60,000 in losses there. Plus, it's common for probate cases, at least here in Missouri, for that money to be essentially frozen or tied up for six to twelve months, potentially.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

How often do you think that something so seemingly simple but could have really negative consequences happens because people just aren't paying as close of attention as they should?

SPEAKER_02 8:09

And I think it's most people that don't do financial advice for a living, you're not going to go home and be just super excited to go through and check all your beneficiaries. It's not something that the average person would think about. It's that's not fun or exciting. And I think it gets more difficult the busier you are in life. And also if you have accounts, bank accounts, investment accounts, assets at many different places, then it gets even more difficult to track. Have we updated the beneficiary at that particular company or have we updated it at the bank? What about the other bank? Because we bank at two banks or three banks. And I find the more places you have money, the more difficult it is to keep track of that and on top of that and make sure that you're doing everything you're supposed to do.

Going Beyond Money For Clients

SPEAKER_01 8:52

After you say that I feel like I have to go check every one of my accounts and make sure that I've listed a beneficiary on them. Is I love this story, Dan, you talk about in the book. Tell us about the time that you spent your day moving boxes for a client. And what does that reveal about your philosophy of the way that you do work with your clients?

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Yeah, I think the best advisors are not only knowledgeable, but are caring and have empathy and just want to do the right thing. And this particular client was a newer client to me. My one of my partners had retired, and I knew her for about maybe six to 12 months. This is during the COVID period, and she decided to sell her house and move to Florida from St. Louis. And she had lived in the house for 45 years. She was divorced for a number of years, and she needed some help. She had a real estate agent in the neighborhood, and I gave her the name of a couple more because she wasn't really happy with the way the guy was treating her. So I was able, she was able to find a good agent through the number of people I gave her to help her sell the house. And everything went pretty smoothly. The issue was on closing day, I had met this lady maybe once or twice in the year since my partner retired. So I didn't know her extremely well, but we got along well. She was a nice lady, and she called me on a Friday morning and said that she was selling her house that day. And I congratulated her, said that's great news. And she said, But Adan, I have a big problem. I said, Well, what's the problem? She said, The buyers just came through and did a walkthrough, and I have everything packed, but there's boxes throughout the entire house. And I told them I would be out in a day or two. And most people would say, Well, how would she not know that she needed to be out that day? And keep in mind she had lived there 45 years, she hadn't sold a house in 45 years, and so she just I think it just slipped her mind, right? She's busy, she's by herself packing, and so she had called the agent, and the agent said, I don't know who can get there today at short notice. And she called a couple moving companies, and of course, nobody could get there that day. And so the agent said, Dan is a pretty resourceful guy, maybe he knows somebody that can help you. Why don't you try Dan? So she ended up calling me. Like I said, this is during COVID on a Friday, and clients were not really wanting to meet Dan because of the virus. And I happened to be off and was driving around in my truck and had a guy with me, a friend. And so I asked her, Was she at home now? She said, Yeah. I said, I'll be there in 20 minutes. We got there and I said, What do you need? She said, We need to move boxes a mile away to my friend's garage. I said, Let's get going. So we were there about three, four hours and helped her move everything. She now lives in Florida, still a client. And I think it's important to recognize that when somebody needs help, they need help. Now, I didn't make any money to move, I didn't charge her any money to move. I didn't even let her pay my helper that does get paid to work. Right. It was just doing the right thing for somebody in need. And I think that's what you want to look for in the advisor, is not somebody that is just knowledgeable. That's important, right? But somebody who's compassionate. And if you really need help, they'll be there for you, even if it's not necessarily financial related.

Pushing For Life Insurance That Matters

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, that truly is going above and beyond. I think that's great. Dan, this next story that I'd love you to tell is about when you showed persistence in advising a client that they needed to get life insurance. Would you tell us that story?

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Sure. So I had a client in his early 40s. He was a carpenter, great shape. Guy was in unpeckable, impeccable condition. And the problem was he made a lot more money than his spouse, and he had no life insurance. So we had discussions around the fact that he needed to have life insurance. He had three young girls and a wife to support, but he was in great shape and he thought he was invincible. I think a lot of younger guys do. And he thought nothing's going to happen to me. And it took me a number of meetings, a number of conversations. I would say at some point I did become a little pushy. That's typically not my style, but I take it to heart if a client doesn't do something that I know they should do. And I don't want to be sitting there later going, What could I have done to help make sure they took care of that? And so he finally just, I think, out of his wife was also trying to get him to get it as well. And maybe it was out of just me annoying him about bringing it up in every meeting, he finally bought the life insurance. And about, I would say, maybe six to ten years later or so, the wife reached out to me. Her exact words were, You have my faith. And I said, What do you mean? And she said, My husband passed away. He got a rare heart condition, 150 cases around the world of really rare heart condition. And he was he passed away in a few months. And I said, Sorry to hear that. And she said, I just want to let you, you know, that life insurance that you made him get. I'm going to be okay because we had that life insurance. And so it's one of those cases that makes you feel good, not good that the situation, but good that I was a little pushy and made him do what he should have done.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah. It's hard to imagine what would have happened if he hadn't listened. So I'm grateful that you were persistent and that he did listen and to provide that coverage for his family.

The True Cost Of A Car Payment

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Yeah, there's always times I think if you've been in the business long enough, and I've been doing this 26 years, you're going to have cases in your career years ago where something happens and you didn't push hard enough, and then you feel guilty. And some people would say, Well, it's not your fault, you brought it up. No, I still take it personally. When someone's a client, it's almost like a family member. I want to take care of them. And it I definitely want to been on the other side of the phone call where she says, What do I do now? Because he never got it and you weren't able to talk him into it.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

So Dan, walk us through your work hours calculation strategy. And how did your friend's$30,000 car choice versus a$1,500 cutlass end up creating a potential large sum of money difference over time?

SPEAKER_02 14:55

So when I graduated from college, I had my best friend who went to college with me, got a really good job at Boeing. And it was a really good starting salary, much more than I was making to start in the financial business. And the first thing he did was he went out and bought a brand new Mitsubishi Eclipse sports car. And at the time, I think it was about$30,000 back then, which was quite a bit of money. He had a big old car payment, didn't put any money down, didn't have any savings. We were college grads with no money. So I was driving a$1,500 cutlass Sierra that my aunt had gotten from my grandpa when he passed, and she was getting a new car. And I said, Man, it's a really good car. Grandpa could took care of it. Can I drive it? She said, sure. And I had saved a little bit of money, so I bought that$1,500 cutlass in cash and had no payment. A lot of people don't realize just small little choices like that can add up to be a lot of money. If you do the math on saving$30,000 back then and investing it instead of wasting it on a car over a three or four-year period paying it off, let's say, that could have been as much as a five to six hundred thousand dollar difference between me investing thirty thousand instead of buying a fancy car and him wasting the thirty thousand on a depreciating asset.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

It's interesting when you put the numbers to it like that. But at the time, Dan, when he was driving in that car and you were driving in yours, what were you thinking? What was he thinking back then?

SPEAKER_02 16:18

That's a great question. It's hard, but I think throughout my career and my life, I am not a flashy person. I don't drive a fancy car. And there's been cases throughout my life where you do get a little jealous, maybe not jealous, but a little envious. Man, I wish I was driving that fancy car, that nicer car. But I think if you remind yourself at the end of the day, what's important? Is your car super important, or is your family's financial security more important? And I think if you remind yourself about that, then it gets easier to not be as envious when you see people splurging on things maybe they shouldn't.

COVID Burnout And Early Retirement

SPEAKER_01 16:53

I think that's a great way to put it. And when you say it, then I definitely think my family's financial security is most important. I wanted to ask you this is going back to COVID times, that you worked with nurses during that time that they wanted to retire early due to the stress of the what they were dealing with at that time. And so how did you help them to pivot their plans? And what does that say about the flexibility of a good financial plan that people should have?

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yes, I think COVID shocked us all. None of us expected it, obviously. And a lot of these nurses were overworked, under underappreciated, it was a dangerous working environment. It was a scary time for everybody. I think we all remember that period. And there were quite a few nurse clients I had that came in and said, Dan, I'm 60 and I want to retire in two or three more years, or I'm 58 and want to retire in a couple more years, and just said, I can't handle it. I had heard stories of family friends of ours that are nurses that literally were renting apartments because they did not want to go home and sleep in the same house as their husband and children, or their wife and children, because they could have exposed them to COVID early on. And so imagine that you're staying in an apartment by yourself for weeks at a time, not being around your family, seeing your family. And so it it I think burned a lot of these nurses out. And we have to adapt. And when they came in, they were really upset, frustrated. And I said, Hey, we probably can make this work still. If you want to retire a little earlier, we can make some tweaks. Maybe you cut back a little bit on your budget in retirement. Maybe you get a part-time job that is not stressful, that you enjoy, and you make a little bit of money that helps supplement an earlier retirement than we planned on. So there's a lot of ways to fix that issue. And pretty much all of them that were frustrated and burnt out retired early and made it work.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

There must have been some setup to that, that the plans that you had worked out for them up to that point had put them in the position where they could make those decisions. And so it wasn't just a spur-of-the-moment thing, but it was you had been building to that point. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 19:04

I think you want to try and build financial plans and work with clients. And I typically like to do that in a very conservative fashion, meaning I like to err on the side of caution. So I would make assumptions of returns that might not be quite as high as they might get. So in other words, if we're expecting a 7% average rate of return over a period of time, I might assume five or six. If they're assuming a budget is 5,000 a month, I might assume it's 5,500 or 6,000 a month. So I try to build into our plan some of those assumptions so that if something would happen like this in the future, we can adapt and we do have options. And so that's what gave us the flexibility for them to be able to do that a little bit early.

Keeping Up With The Joneses Trap

SPEAKER_01 19:50

I love that about having options, especially when you describe that that they're not even able to go home at that time. The fact that they can have the option to get back home and do something different, that's fantastic. Dan, tell me about the couple that you worked with that looked wealthy, but they were actually in debt. And how do you help clients to break free from keeping up with the Joneses?

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Great question. As I said in a previous question, it is very difficult to see everyone around you looking wealthy, driving nice cars, living in big houses, having fancy clothes, vacations and going out to dinner and all of that. You're right. It is difficult, but if you can overlook that, that's the difference between being financially secure and struggling. And there's been a number of people I've met with over the years that have come to my office for help. I've had at some point a physician come in who could not get out of credit card debt that was making over a quarter million dollars. And it was just because their lifestyle was so expensive. I've seen people who are 75 or 80 years old that are still working full time because in their earlier years they bought new cars every three to five years. They took vacations, they had design their clothes, and they never really saved much for the future. And I would say, in my experience doing this 26 years, I've seen a lot of people over the years, either in my office, neighbors, friends of the family who from the outside looks like they have they look like they have it all. And in reality, they have very little money. They have a lot of debt. They have a lot of debt payments, and a lot of them are living paycheck to paycheck and struggling and stressing a lot.

Couples With Opposite Money Habits

SPEAKER_01 21:28

And this goes back to the beginning, what you talked about, what real wealth looks like. It's not the flashy things. It's about building the security for your family that's lasting. And it's not in the cars and the clothes and the vacations. It's something different. Yep. You're right. Yeah. Tell me about, Dan, you talked about in the book about playing marriage counselor sometimes, and there was a couple that had opposite money philosophies. I think this is such a real thing. So, how do you work to help couples find middle ground? Maybe on financial decisions.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yeah, it's very common for couples to disagree somewhat on their finances. I know I can give you an example of myself. My wife lost her dad uh when he was 50 years old of an aneurysm unexpectedly. And so her viewpoint on life and enjoying spending a little bit of money or splurging every once in a while is important to her because she learned from that experience that you can't take the money with you and things can happen when you least expect it. And so this is something I've struggled with myself. I'm someone who saves money, invests money, doesn't really like to spend money. And I've my wife is definitely not on the other side of the spectrum. She's a very frugal person as well. But she over the years has said, hey, you've worked hard, and why don't we enjoy some of the money or splurge every once in a while? And over the years, I've learned to do that. I broke my ankle last year, had 13 screws, two plates, I had a very bad ankle injury surgery. I'm still 13 months later, not back to normal. And I can tell you that experience has really taught me to enjoy life a little more. Maybe not work quite as hard, maybe splurge a little bit. But a lot of times I end up being the marriage counselor. And sometimes the wife would want to spend more money than the husband, or vice versa. Maybe one's a spender and one's more of a saver. And my job is to make them both happy. And so sometimes you'll see one of the spouses wants to be a hoarder and hoard all the money and not really spend it. The other spouse wants to enjoy it a little bit. And my job is to help them both be happy. So I will typically design a plan or discuss with them in the meeting. What if you splurge a little bit? What if you do this and I show them financially how they can afford it? It won't affect their long-term goals. And typically they end up leaving, both leaving happy, where the hoarder says, Hey, I see I can do that, and it's a little uncomfortable to spend money, but I see how it's fine. I'm gonna be we're gonna be okay. And then the other spouse who wants to splurge a little bit, uh, they're happy as well.

Switching From Saving To Spending

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Yeah. I could see that being so helpful to have a third party, somebody that's writing it out, that's making the plan and making sure that all the needs are getting met. Could you tell me for a lot of people that you're in this accumulation mode that I have to save, I have to get ready for retirement. And so it's difficult to switch gears, isn't it, to get to the point where you feel comfortable and free enough to spend some of the money that you've been working so hard to earn? It is very difficult.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

I like it, as I said, I've struggled with that myself over my entire adult life. I still struggle with it to this day. I tell most clients who are going to retire, that's what most people fear in retirement. The two main things are, I'd say three, but the two main things are health insurance costs, health expenses. That's a big one. And then how is it gonna be? How do I go from saving to spending? That's very scary. I've never done that before. I'm basically changing what I've done for the last 30 or 40 years. So different. And also a little bit of fear of running out of money. Everyone has that fear as well. And I tell clients, I say, hey, it's gonna take you, on average, I think, is my experience, six to twelve months before people feel that new budget. They see, okay, money's not coming from a paycheck, it's coming from Social Security, or it's coming from a pension, or it's coming from my investments. That's totally different than getting a paycheck. And it takes about six to twelve months for them to see how that new those new finances will work before they go, okay, I get it. I this is gonna work, I see it, okay, I feel comfortable. But initially it is very scary for most people.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Dan, for listeners that would like to get in touch with you or to get a copy of your book, how should they reach out to you?

SPEAKER_02 25:47

Sure. The email, they can either email me at dan dan the cfp at gmail.com, or they can call me at 314-626-4900. They can search Dan Carver on LinkedIn and Blue Gene Millionaire, the name of the book. As well as I have a webpage for the book as well that's called BlueGenewealthbook.com.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Dan, thanks so much for being with us today. Thank you.