Why?

This is going to be a short (ish) one. For those who have come to our website looking for insight I hope we have (and will continue to) provide value with our educational resources.

You may be wondering why we are giving away the “milk” for free when our advisory services are the cow. It’s actually very simple—Justin and I both realized pretty quickly after we got into finance that it is one of the most overlooked, inaccessible, and misunderstood critical concepts we should all be taking care of in our lives.

Think about it—we see a TON of content out there about physical health and mental well-being. These are extremely important things we must all tend to if we want to live long, healthy lives. But what about financial health?

I want to tell a personal story. I graduated from UTSA as the first person in my family to finish college right after completing high school. I have to add that disclaimer because my mom finished college in her 40s after raising my brother and me. Justin wrapped up his degree not long after I did.

I have struggled financially in many ways throughout my life, and my young adult life was no different. I had student loans I was struggling to pay off, and I later found that my credit was ruined as a result of not always being able to pay. It wasn’t just that, though—student loans were the ONLY line of credit I had taken out in my entire life at age 24. By my logic it was a bad idea to have a lot of credit lines. Those who know how credit actually works are probably chuckling at that, as I am lucky to be able to laugh at it now.

What isn’t a laughing matter, though, is that this had a material effect on my ability to purchase property not too long ago. My credit is rehabilitated but it takes time to remove blemishes, and unfortunately I couldn’t get approved for enough to purchase the property I wanted. It sucked, and I wouldn’t want that to happen to anybody!

I also had no clue about the nuance of the investing world despite going through the education system AND obtaining a bachelor’s degree in business. My knowledge of personal finance, and therefore my emphasis on the importance of it, was minimal.

Justin is an avid business mind, and while he dabbled in investments he was usually too busy running his business, working full-time, and putting himself through school to fully immerse himself in the investment world.

Then I had a life-changing moment. After years of odd jobs post-college I got hired at a major brokerage firm’s call center in February of 2016. I was immersed in the investing world overnight. I was even more fortunate to be placed in a program that put me on track to become a senior advisor within a couple of years, and I achieved that goal.

It didn’t take long for me to see how important understanding personal finance and investing is for everyone. I quickly became the annoying friend who badgered everyone I knew about making sure they were putting away some money for retirement and other financial goals. Needless to say, my other friends in their mid-to-late 20s were mildly interested at best, but I feel like I got through to a lot of them. Now, a few years later, it is awesome to see how much they’ve progressed financially. (It’s also nice to have an assist from a great market run in recent years.)

At the same time this period of great enlightenment was occurring in my life, I was also on an unavoidable trajectory to a massive personal dilemma. My work had been incredibly fulfilling in many ways—getting a crash course on the investment world and personal finance, helping my friends out, helping folks who called into the call center, and helping clients as a junior and senior advisor. The opportunity had transformed my life and I am forever grateful for it.

But a new doubt was creeping into the back of my mind—while I was helping out a lot of ordinary folks and my personal network, it became obvious pretty quickly that the people who get the most guidance on investing are often the ones who need it the least. This is not to say that wealthy people do not need or benefit from guidance because they most certainly do. My blog on finding an advisor goes more in-depth on the nuts and bolts of why there is a lack of accessibility amongst those who are not considered high net worth.

The demise of my non-independent advisory career became imminent because the fulfillment was quickly dissipating. Justin had begun a career in finance and quickly ascended the ranks to becoming an advisor himself. We began to talk often about how important this stuff is for EVERYONE, and how much it bothered us that only a select few got access to solid guidance from advisors.

We also lamented the fact that neither we, nor any of our friends, seemed to have learned anything about this stuff growing up. How is it possible that something as important as personal finance can be left completely up to parents to teach when parents often don’t have the time, experience, money, or expertise to do so? I remember being forced to take calculus as a senior in high school when I could’ve been learning personal finance basics such as how credit works! It’s hard to imagine this isn’t by design, but that’s a conversation for another day. I personally have an ambition to get financial education into high school senior curriculums.

Our frustration with the current situation built up over time, and we finally broke off and decided to kick off The WealthTenders with one goal in mind: to provide guidance to ANYONE regardless of where they are at in their financial life. We don’t have asset minimums and we have a completely transparent process and fee schedule. We also know we won’t be able to help everyone who needs help personally, and our content is a medium through which we can provide guidance to anyone who seeks it.

Of course, we are also always open to inquiries, so please do not hesitate to reach out. Thank you for your time.