Welcome to Bigger Insights Finance

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Welcome to the Bigger Insights Finance podcast, where we’ll help you build a life you don’t

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need a vacation from.

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The goal of this podcast is to give you the education and insights that you need to build,

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and just as importantly, protect your wealth.

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We like to emphasize protecting your wealth here at Bigger Insights because we think that

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this is often overlooked.

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Everyone wants to build wealth that’s very obvious, but what’s less obvious to people

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is how risky life is, which begs the question, what good is building wealth if you don’t

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know how to protect it?

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And when we say protect your wealth, we mean securing your purchasing power from taxes,

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confiscation, scams, hacking, estate problems, inflation, market risk, on and on.

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In this podcast, we’re going to be discussing pretty much all things personal finance as

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well as some economics and perhaps a little bit of politics as they pertain to your finances.

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Some of these topics will include managing debt, budgeting and saving, tax strategies,

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asset protection, retirement planning, tax-favored accounts, saving for large purchases, whether

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that be a home or a car or saving for college.

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But one thing that you’ll notice is that we are going to be talking about taxes quite

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a bit.

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Now, personally, we hate taxes.

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We don’t really want anything to do with them.

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But the sad reality is that for many people, they are our largest expense and we get a

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great deal of satisfaction out of saving on our taxes and helping other people reduce

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their tax burden.

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Our philosophy toward finance is we’re basically here to try to help teach you how to fish

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rather than just tell you what to do.

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So from that standpoint, we’re going to try to avoid having any really strong opinions

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about something like, you know, we’re not going to name any names, but if you follow

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other people in the personal finance space, you’ll hear a lot of things like, “Get out

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of debt! Cut up your credit cards!” You’re not going to hear things like that here at

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Bigger Insights because we’ve learned over the years that there’s a time and a place

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for pretty much everything.

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So rather than treat you like a child who has no self-control, we’re going to do our

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best to give you the full picture about things like credit cards, for example, so that you

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can make financial decisions that are better suited for your circumstances.

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We started Bigger Insights because there is such a serious lack of quality financial

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education in our homes, schools, and even on the internet.

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The internet is absolutely riddled with clickbait that’s just so shallow that it has very little

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value.

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This is a lesson that unfortunately I had to learn the hard way when I entered adulthood.

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I didn’t take finance seriously up until this point because I didn’t know what I didn’t

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know.

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When I started having to deal with things like taxes, retirement planning, tax-favored accounts,

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and so on, it eventually became clear to me that I was inadequately educated.

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I remember encountering many uncomfortable questions like, how much car or home can I

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afford?

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Which tax-favored accounts should I contribute to,

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and how much should I contribute?

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How much should I be saving for retirement?

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What health insurance plan should I choose?

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And one of the things that bothered me the most about this was I had pretty much no one

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that I could turn to to get these questions answered.

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I have more of a technical background, although I also have an MBA, and I’ve always had some

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interest in finance because, let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to be wealthy?

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But there were two things in particular that, you know, despite making good money in a technical

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role, it became very clear to me that I needed to invest more of my attention on my financial

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future.

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One of those things was the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008.

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I remember that event very well, and one of the key lessons that I learned from that event

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is that no matter what you do, you need to be financially savvy to grow and protect your

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wealth.

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A lot of people’s wealth got decimated in the GFC despite having virtually nothing to

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do with the financial industry.

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Not to be a negative Nelly or anything, but it appears we’re on the verge of a very similar

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or perhaps worse situation here in 2023.

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It’s very clear to me now that people who ignore finance, macroeconomics, financial

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history, and politics suffer greatly when the economy rolls over, the banks get bailed

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out, and people get laid off en masse.

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So if you want to have a bright financial future, you need to pay attention and make

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that happen.

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Wealth and success don’t just happen, you have to make them happen.

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The other major wake-up call for me was, I used to be like most everyone else.

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I believed what I had been told about finance for as long as I could remember.

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Get good grades, go to college, get a good job with good benefits, avoid debt, and everything

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will just magically work out.

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Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t really work that way.

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If you’re just looking to not go broke, this is a great strategy.

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But if you want more out of life, you need a more sophisticated approach, especially

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if you want to have and enjoy some wealth before you start collecting Social Security.

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I’ve been keeping track of my finances ever since I graduated college.

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After graduating, I always had some excuse for why my wealth wasn’t growing as much as

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I thought that it should.

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I had student loans and other large one-time expenses that I had to service.

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And what I found out was, the mistake that I was making here was not challenging my assumption

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that having a good job and saving and investing a decent chunk of my income was going to be

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sufficient.

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When I paid off those large expenses, I still wasn’t satisfied with my financial situation.

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So one day I sat down and created a spreadsheet model that projected my financial situation

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out into the future.

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Now, admittedly, this was somewhat crude, but I think it was sufficient for just giving

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me a rough peek into my financial future.

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I set a range of expectations for salary raises, inflation, return on investments, and savings

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rates. When I performed the projection from my base case, my jaw literally dropped.

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I felt sick to my stomach.

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Even just talking about it now, I feel sick about it, and I’ll never forget how sobering

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it was to see how much of a gap there was between my assumptions and reality.

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I didn’t have in mind any really hard numbers for what I was expecting to see, but these

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were not good. I’m not going to say what those results were. They were in the millions

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in today’s dollars, but considering my education, skillset, and savings rate, they were disappointing

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to say the least.

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And it wasn’t even just the final numbers that bothered me. Even more disturbing was

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how slowly my portfolio was expected to grow. It wasn’t even until about age 61 until I

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was projected to start seeing significant portfolio growth due to compounding. So in

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other words, if I just continued doing what I was doing, which was making good money, in

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an area that has a relatively low cost of living, and saving at an unusually high rate

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and encountering no major setbacks, I was going to end up doing just okay by the time

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I retire. Now, I don’t know about you, but I refuse to accept that. And right about now,

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some of you might be thinking, “Oh, well, retiring with millions isn’t such a bad thing. What’s

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the big deal?”

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But again, this was under the assumption of saving and investing almost all of my income

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after taxes and basic living expenses for decades. Who wants to do that? That doesn’t

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sound very appealing, not at least not to me. So it became abundantly clear to me that

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if you want to have and enjoy some wealth before you need a hip replacement, you need

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to do more than just have a good job and save and invest a big chunk of your income. So

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these are just some of the reasons why we started Bigger Insights. We are here to help

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you come to these realizations as well, and give you the tools and inspiration you need

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to build a more fulfilling future. Along these lines, we would encourage everyone listening

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to this to do what I did and set down some time and challenge your assumptions. You know,

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if you continue doing what you’re doing, what does your future look like? The answer will

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probably disappoint you. So before we go on, let’s go over a few caveats real quick. First

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of all, some of this information is subject to change as our business evolves. For smaller

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changes, we might just revise the description of this episode or maybe add some information

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to it on our website, biggerinsights.com. But if more serious changes need to be incorporated,

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we might just revise and republish this entire episode. We’re going to do our best to try

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to keep things in our podcast as civil and friendly as possible with regard to language

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and politics and things like that, because we recognize that young people need to hear

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this information as well. The sooner someone gets on the right financial path, the better

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off they’ll be. We’re going to do our best to avoid political discussions. But this is

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an increasingly difficult thing to do. As time goes on, governments and central banks

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are effectively nationalizing greater and greater shares of the economy. People ask

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me questions like, “Are we going to have inflation or deflation?”, or “Are gold or stocks or

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cryptos going to rise?” And unfortunately, the real answers to questions like those is we just

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need to be educated and vigilant so that we can quickly adapt to changes in policy. Because

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let’s be honest, we don’t have a free market. We don’t have capitalism. We have what’s

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increasingly becoming a centrally-planned economy. So there are no simple answers to

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questions like these anymore, because fundamentals are becoming less and less relevant. However,

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we’re not going to take sides here because our political woes with respect to finance

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are nonpartisan. Another caveat that we want to emphasize is that some of the items that

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we discuss might not be applicable to your situation, your jurisdiction, or might change

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by the time you actually hear it. So for example, we like HSAs, so we’ll probably be talking

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about them quite a bit, because they’re not well understood and can be very powerful.

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However, HSAs might not even exist in your country. And if you live here in the US, HSAs

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are taxed differently depending on what state you live in. If you live in California or

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New Jersey, as far as we can tell, those are the only two states that tax HSA contributions,

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interest, dividends, and capital gains. So if we’re talking about, you know, how an HSA

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can save on your taxes, you might be kind of confused if you live in those states, because

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some of those tax breaks don’t apply to you. All right, let’s switch gears for a minute

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and talk about Bigger Insights the company. Bigger Insights is an Ohio limited liability

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company founded in 2020, everyone’s favorite year. Considering how much of a dumpster fire

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2020 was, we figure Bigger Insights is perhaps the best thing to come out of 2020. We’re

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located in the Cincinnati area, but don’t get hung up on that because we do remote work

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almost exclusively, so we can serve clients almost anywhere. We have a website, biggerinsights.com,

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which you should check out. It contains our blog, contact information, resources, FAQs,

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and we also publish all of our podcast episodes up there as well, which you might want to

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take a look at because that might include some blog content, video content, or transcriptions

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that you might not be able to see on whatever platform that you’re listening to this on.

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In addition to our podcast and blog content, we provide one-on-one consulting services

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for people like you. And if you’re not familiar with our work, we do more than just finance.

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We also provide content and consulting services in the Technology and Privacy & Security

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space. So go ahead and take a gander at that content as well. We publish our Technology

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and Privacy & Security podcasts to our website, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify at this time,

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but we may publish to other platforms in the future. Google Podcasts has also gone ahead

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and published an aggregation of our podcasts without our knowledge or consent, if you can

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believe that. You can find the links to all of this on our website, biggerinsights.com.

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So right about now, some of you are probably thinking that this sounds a little bit strange,

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like what do finance and technology and privacy and security have to do with one another?

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Why not just focus on one thing? And our response to that is we believe that no matter what

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you do or who you are, all of these things work together and they’re important if you

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want to live a prosperous and secure life. So in other words, Bigger Insights is about

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sovereignty and resilience. If you can master these topics, we can pretty much guarantee

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that you’ll be more sovereign and resilient. This is something that makes us very unique.

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We can see the forest through the trees to an extent that a lot of others in this space

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simply cannot. For example, I just saw the other day that a lot of celebrities, YouTubers,

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influencers, and whomever are being sued in a class-action lawsuit for shilling FTX.

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Now if we’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt and take the position that they

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just had no idea what was going on, we can honestly say that we’ve always advised against

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our clients using centralized exchanges, KYCed services in most hot wallets. We obviously

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can’t see these types of fraud either, but we’re a big believer in the “play stupid games,

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win stupid prizes” philosophy. A lot of people in the financial space don’t seem to have

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the slightest clue as to what the privacy and security ramifications are for a lot of the

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investments they’re making and the services they’re using. If you’re going to hand over

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your digital assets to some startup, especially one that’s overseas, you’re playing a stupid

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game and you’re at high risk of winning a stupid prize. So think about it this way.

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If you can master technology, you can be more productive, you can make more money, and ideally

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not be replaced by AI like ChatGPT. I’m going to read a quote that I like about technology

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by someone named Christian Lous Lange or whatever. Sorry if I mispronounced his name. He said,

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“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” And that was a very prescient thing

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that he said, especially considering I’m pretty sure he said that in the 1930s. This is the

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thing that we need to keep in mind about technology. It’s extremely useful. But if you’re not

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keeping up with and taking advantage of technology, we’re afraid the technology is going to take

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advantage of you. And this applies almost no matter who you are or what you do. You know,

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whether you’re in finance or you’re a dentist or a baker or whatever, you’re going to find

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it difficult to compete if your competitors are making better use of technology than you

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are. If you can master finance, this will obviously help you manage, grow and protect

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your assets. And like I alluded to earlier, if you’re ignoring your finances and just

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assuming that everything will work out well for you because you have a good job, just

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like I did, you’re probably going to find out the hard way that that’s just not the

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case. We like finance. We believe it’s very important and we think that everyone should

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take it seriously. When speaking to friends, family and clients, we sometimes hear things

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like “Money isn’t everything!”. And if that sounds like you, I hate to be the bearer of bad

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news, but it actually kind of is. I’ve been hearing things like this and “Money doesn’t

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buy happiness!” all my life. But the statistical reality pretty much says otherwise. Wealthier

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families tend to be happier and healthier. Their children tend to do better in life.

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Money issues are the number one or number two leading cause of divorce. So you can believe

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whatever you want to believe, but the data is quite clear. Like Jim Rickards says, “You’re

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entitled to your own opinions, but not your own data.” We’ll probably do an entire episode

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on this someday. But just as a thought experiment, sit down sometime and think about all of the

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important things in your life or the things that you value. How many of those things aren’t

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significantly impacted by your financial situation? Your health, education, leisure or hobbies?

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Those things ain’t free. The only remotely credible response we usually hear is love.

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But at least in terms of romantic relationships, the data doesn’t quite agree with you there

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either. Like I said, money issues are a leading cause of divorce. I have personally been in

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a relationship with someone who not only spent all of her time and money, but she made my

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life a living nightmare trying to force me to blow all of my time and money as well.

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If you’re married and you still don’t believe me, next time your spouse brings up buying

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discretionary items or going on an expensive vacation or modeling the house or something

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like that, insist on saving and investing that money instead. Keep that up for just

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a little while and I can almost guarantee you that you’ll be made painfully aware as

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to how important money actually is to your relationships. I’m going to read to you one

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of our favorite money quotes from Malcolm Forbes. He says, “Money isn’t everything as

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long as you have enough.” Now naturally, a lot of people will focus on the first three

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words, “money isn’t everything”, which we’ll agree with. But the second half is also important,

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“as long as you have enough”, which we also agree with. If you have plenty of money, then

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it is definitely not everything. But if you don’t, it suddenly becomes everything. We

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also believe that privacy and security are not only very important, but too often overlooked.

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Regardless of what you have, we all have something to protect. And obviously, as your wealth

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and assets grow, so too do your risks. This is not news. Wealthy people have obviously

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been using things like insurance and LLCs and trusts and estate plans to protect their

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assets. But what’s changing is that everything is going digital. Everything is connected

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to the internet. The law and your lawyers and your trust and your LLCs can only protect

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you so much. You know, your lawyer isn’t going to protect you from ransomware. The law is

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not going to protect you from being harassed or doxxed online. You know, the landscape

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is changing so quickly that a lot of people are having a hard time adapting and seeing

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the risks that we face going into the future. So if you care about yourself, your family,

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your business and your assets and your future, you need to start taking your privacy and

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security very seriously, and as soon as possible. If you make a mistake, that could cost you

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your job, that could cost you your business. You know, I see these articles pretty regularly

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about entire businesses getting closed because they got hit with ransomware, because Karen

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and accounting open an infected email attachment or something like that. Or someone loses

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millions of dollars in crypto assets because they got SIM-swapped because they didn’t realize

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the dangers that SMS two-factor authentication and account recovery pose. This is what we’re

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here for people. This is why we exist. We’re here to help you not only build your wealth,

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but prevent becoming a victim of scammers, hackers, government and other ne’er-do-wells.

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I’m going to read a quote about privacy that we like from Tim “Apple” Cook. He says, “This

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is the golden age of surveillance that we live in. There is more information about all of

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us. So much more than 10 years ago or five years ago, it’s everywhere. You are leaving

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digital footprints everywhere.” Now he should obviously know, so you should take that seriously.

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But just think about that for a minute. This deserves its own episode, but one of the weakest

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links in the chain that protects your accounts and assets is your privacy. If you’re leaving

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your digital footprints everywhere, not only does it leave you vulnerable to an infinite

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amount of exploitation possibilities, but this allows anyone who knows your information

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to potentially gain control over your accounts and assets. If you’ve ever gone through an

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identity verification challenge before, you’ve probably gathered that they’re pretty easy

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to pass. “What’s your mother’s maiden name? What city were you born in? What color is

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your car?” It’s seemingly benign information like this that might be the only thing keeping

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someone from exploiting you. So take your privacy and security seriously. Just to give

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you kind of a comical example of this, I saw a story a while ago about a guy who went out

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of town for a while, like a month or something like that. And when he came back home, he

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was surprised to see some random family in his home. So what happened there, you might

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be wondering? Well, somebody pretended to be him, got into his home and sold it while

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he was gone. Now, admittedly, I don’t know all of the context behind that story, but

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it’s pretty safe to assume that whoever sold his home knew a thing or two about him. For

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example, that he was going to be gone for quite a while. I mean, you obviously wouldn’t

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try to sell someone else’s home while they’re at work. So whoever did that had to have known

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that he wasn’t going to be there for a while. We see stories like these every day, and we

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expect them to become so prevalent in the future that they’re going to make peoples’

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heads spin. So if you don’t want to end up in the news like this, you need to get up

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to speed and protect your privacy and security. And you might be thinking, at least with regard

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to finance, “Well, I have an accountant or financial advisor and he takes care of my

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finances, so I don’t need to worry about it.” That’s great, and having an advisor on your

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team is probably a good idea. But we would argue that you still need to be educated on

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pretty much anything that has a significant impact on your life and future. This reminds

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me of what Robert Kiyosaki says in some of his books. He says something to the effect

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of, and I’m kind of paraphrasing here, I don’t remember the exact wording, but he says something

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like, “The poor want to know a lot about a little, but the rich want to know a little

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about a lot.” And our interpretation of that is that being an expert on something definitely

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has its advantages, but gives you a very narrow focus and leaves you vulnerable in the sense

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that you’re very reliant on the skills and advice of other people, who may or may not

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know what they’re doing, or may or may not have your best interests in mind. Knowing

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a little about a lot makes it easier to make connections that others can’t, as well as

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helping you assess which professionals are better suited for your situation. Because

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let’s face it, how are you going to know if someone is a good financial advisor, if you

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don’t know anything about finance? How are you going to know if they’re good at their

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job or if they’re giving you a good value? When I’m in the market for a new professional,

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I like to shop around and ask them some questions to see if they really know what they’re talking

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about. For example, I’ve met an attorney who claims to be an expert on real estate who

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didn’t know what a land trust was. I met a business attorney who very clearly didn’t

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understand the difference between a corporation and an LLC. But I can do this because I’ve

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invested the time and money educating myself in these areas. If you don’t do that, you’re

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really flying blind and just trusting that anybody that you’re dealing with knows what

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they’re doing. So now let’s talk about who we are not. We are not CPAs, CFAs, CFPs, RIAs,

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attorneys, fiduciaries, or other financial experts. However, note that we do consult

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with these experts. But one of the differences is we don’t charge you $400 an hour. And like

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I alluded to earlier, having one of those certifications is not a guarantee of anything.

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It’s pretty scary how often we come across experts who don’t seem to understand some

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of the most fundamental concepts of their chosen industry. Another thing that we notice,

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which is really quite strange is a lot of professionals really don’t enjoy the work

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that they do. Either that or they are just not interested in it or they just don’t believe

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in it or something like that. It’s very strange. But we would argue that you probably don’t

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want to be doing business with someone like that. For example, we’ll meet realtors who

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don’t invest in real estate. It’s completely bizarre. I mean, I get that, you know, being

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a realtor is a job, but still, I mean, it gives you such a huge advantage over other people.

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Not to mention real estate is an attractive asset class or at least it has been. It’s

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looking kind of shaky right now. But when I meet a realtor who doesn’t invest in real

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estate, it just really makes me wonder whether they’re even interested in their career or

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if it’s just a paycheck to them. And if it’s just a paycheck, then I would wonder how useful

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they’re actually going to end up being to me. You know, we’ll also see people in the

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financial industry who are, you know, up to their eyeballs in debt and who hardly invest.

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It’s just, it’s a very strange phenomenon that we’ve seen. And we would recommend that

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you keep this in mind as you shop for a professional advisor. And that might sound kind of harsh,

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but like, just just think about like this, would you hire a software developer

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who doesn’t develop any software in their free time? Another thing to keep in mind,

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at least with regard to the financial services industry is many of those professionals won’t

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even give you the time of day if you don’t have a lot of assets for them to manage. For

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example, a lot of the advisory firms that we’ve seen won’t take you on as a client if you

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don’t give them at least $100,000. We don’t do that because we don’t manage people’s

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money. We give you education and insights so that you can build and manage your own

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money. And this is something that’s very interesting in the financial services space. Because if

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you think about it, somebody who has, you know, six figures plus in assets to manage

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probably knows a thing or two about finance. And at that point, they might not really need

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an advisor, although it might still make sense for them to hire on so that they can focus

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on other things. But ironically, it’s the people who have less than $100,000 in assets

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that need the most financial help. And that’s where we come in. We’ll help teach you how

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to fish and get that ball rolling so that once you do get up to hundreds of thousands

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of dollars in assets, you can either manage it yourself and do quite well, or hand that

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off to a financial advisor. So now let’s talk a little bit about what we do. In addition

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to making podcasts and blog content, we serve clients just like you in one-on-one sessions.

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We charge an hourly rate, which we don’t normally disclose for a number of reasons. I mean, one,

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it’s liable to change, especially with, you know, who knows what the dollar is going to

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be worth in a year. And hourly rates can also be quite misleading, because they don’t quite

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make it clear what you are or aren’t getting or what’s charged and what’s not charged.

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So for example, we do some pro bono work from time to time. A pretty significant amount

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of our time is spent helping clients with quick requests for free over text. So for example,

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just the other day, I was helping one of our clients configure how her accounts were linked

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in the Fidelity app. We didn’t charge her for that, and that was around midnight. This

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is actually pretty common for us. Sometimes we help clients as late as three in the morning,

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and sometimes for free. So good luck trying to find someone else who will do that for

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you. And you know, obviously, we can’t guarantee that for everyone, we can only do so much.

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But we are very reasonable about keeping costs low, especially for quick requests. So if

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for example, you were to ask us if we like gold right now, you know, we would chat with

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you about that. But if you were to ask how you should plan for retirement, you know,

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that’s something that we would do a billable session for. And finally, on the billable

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rate issue, we like to discuss what we offer in more detail when we sit down with the prospective

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client. And we also like to talk about how others can be misleading with their hourly

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rates, which of course makes it difficult to compare professionals apples-to-apples,

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like what Warren Buffett said, he said, “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.” We

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may not necessarily charge the lowest hourly rate, although it’s definitely not the highest.

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But we believe that we’ll give you the best value. And you might be thinking, “All right,

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well, that sounds great. But like, what does a meeting actually look like? Like what, what

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would I reach out to you for to get help with?” And what we typically see from our clients

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falls into three basic buckets. The first one being acute issues. So you might have

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a very specific request like you want help evaluating a large purchase, for example.

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That might be a car or a home or something like that. So in that case, we would sit down

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with you and talk about your financial situation, your goals, your risk tolerance, and other

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considerations to help you make a prudent decision. For example, when one of our clients

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is considering buying a home, first of all, we’ll assess whether that’s actually the

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right move or if renting would be more appropriate. Then we’ll help them come up with a budget

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and talk about other considerations, like how this will impact how much driving they’ll

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need to do. You know, your time is incredibly valuable. So we really try to steer our clients

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away from moving out to the sticks, just to save a few hundred dollars per month. We’ll also

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talk about other things that they might not be thinking about, like whether the jurisdiction

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that they want to move to will give them 100% credit for the taxes that they pay to the

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city where they work, because some of them do not. And you don’t want to find out about

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that until after you close and end up doing your taxes and find out that you’ve got a

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bigger tax bill than you were planning on. Some of the requests from our clients are

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purely educational. You know, someone, for example, might ask us just to know a little

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bit more about the tax code. So we’ll sit down with them and explain certain portions

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of the tax code that are applicable to their situation, as well as some ideas to consider

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which may help them reduce their tax burden. The third type of request that we typically

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get we could consider to be ongoing maintenance. So for some of our clients, we’ll sit down

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with them on a regular basis and do things like give them portfolio rebalancing suggestions.

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Now we’d like to emphasize the word “suggestions” because again, we don’t touch your money. We

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don’t manage your money. We don’t want to do that. The only money we touch are the fees

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that you pay to us after we give you service. So we might say that we think that you should

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reduce your stock exposure and buy a little bit more gold or something like that. You

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know, you’re free to do or not do that. We’re not going to go into your Schwab account and

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you know, start trading and racking up fees or something like that. That’s just not the

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business that we’re in. All right, so that’s a good segue into going over some of the details

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about what we do not do. We do not give financial, tax, legal or other professional advice in

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this podcast or on our website. And again, we do not manage client assets or accounts.

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We do not recommend or sell insurance or any specific securities. Now if you want to ask

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our opinion on specific securities, we’ll give that to you, but we’re not just going

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to come out of the blue and say, you know, you should go put all of your money in the

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ARK Innovation ETF or something like that. Another thing that we do not do, and we want

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to make this very clear, because we highly respect the privacy of our customers’ data.

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We do not sell your data, and we do not sell or recommend sketchy products or services.

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Now we’re not opposed to recommending products or services, but we’re not going to do that

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if we think that they’re risky, or if that we don’t trust them for one reason or another.

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Now let’s talk a little bit about what makes us different from our competitors. You’ve

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probably picked up on some of this, but unlike some of our competitors, we take a very comprehensive

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approach. We believe it’s insufficient for a financial advisor or coach or educator or

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whatever you want to call them to only focus on finance. You’re liable to get very risky advice

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like, “Oh, open an account on FTX and start trading Bitcoin and FTT tokens” or something

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like that, or to hand over all of your sensitive information to an app like Mint or Personal

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Capital or You Need a Budget (YNAB) or some of these other things. We have the technical and the

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privacy and security background to help you avoid the dangers that some of these apps and services

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pose to you that a lot of financial professionals just don’t see. Another thing that makes us

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different is we focus on our client’s individual needs. Every client’s situation is different in

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terms of risk tolerance, threat model, family matters, health issues, income security, etc.

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And for that reason, every strategy we develop is fine-tuned and tailored to each client’s specific

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needs. So like what we were saying earlier about credit cards, you know, credit cards can be an

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amazing tool for some people and they can be a disaster for other people and we’ll help you

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figure that out and make the best of that situation. We are also very flexible. You know,

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a lot of our clients, and this might apply to you as well, have a nine to five JOB. Well,

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if that’s the case, how are you going to work with most other advisors because a lot of them

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only work nine to five Monday through Friday as well. A big chunk of the consulting services

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that we provide are actually after hours. And oftentimes that can include, you know, late at

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night, or on the weekends or on holidays. You know, how many professionals do you know who are

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willing to do that for you? As far as our financial services are concerned, because we don’t have a

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fiduciary obligation, we can be very creative about how we help our clients. We can give you

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ideas that are truly best for your situation. Have you ever noticed that most financial advisors

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push clients into traditional assets like stocks, bonds, and annuities? The reason for that is

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because their compensation is usually based on a percentage of the assets that they manage,

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or on commissions or trading fees. So you’re hardly going to hear a peep out of them about,

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you know, buying a rental property or buying some gold coins and

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putting them in a safe somewhere, because they don’t get to charge you money for that.

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We charge by the hour, so we’re free to talk to you about pretty much anything. Another thing that

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really sets us apart is we’re very honest with our clients. We tell them what we think that they

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need to hear, not what we think they want to hear. Now, I have about a decade of experience in the

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professional services industry, and I can tell you with certainty that it is absolutely riddled

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with advisors who will only tell their clients what they think they want to hear. It’s a huge

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problem. If you work in that industry, you’ll hear these things all the time, like “Perception is

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everything”, and “It’s easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.” And when people say things

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like this, what they’re really admitting to is the belief that they think it’s okay to take

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advantage of their clients as long as they’re just not aware of it. And if they get caught,

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then they can do some damage control and try to talk their way out of it. And that’s one of the

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reasons why I left that industry and started Bigger Insights. I was tired of seeing things

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like that, and I didn’t want anything to do with it. So we’re not going to take advantage of you.

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We’ll tell you what we think you need to hear. And if we think for whatever reason that we’re not

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the organization for you, we’ll recommend that you seek the help of someone else that’s better

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suited to your needs. And finally, one of the things that makes us very, very unique, especially

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in the financial services industry, is we take your data and your privacy very seriously. This

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starts with collecting minimal information. For some of our clients, we know virtually nothing

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about them. And that helps protect them. And that helps protect us. So even if we were to get breached,

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for example, or if law enforcement was to make a request, we have very little information to give

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up in the first place. And with very few exceptions, our customer data is stored locally on encrypted

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systems that we physically control. We do have accounts with various cloud providers. But that’s

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not where we store our customers’ data. Some exceptions to that would be like if you email us,

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then obviously that information is stored on our email provider’s servers. And also if you fill out

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the form on our website, that information is stored on our website until we clean it up. But even in

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those cases, we clean that data up on a regular basis. Alright, so to start wrapping this up,

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let’s go over some action items. If any of this sounds interesting to you, why don’t you go ahead

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and visit our website, biggerinsights.com, where you can check out our podcast, our blog content,

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our contact information, or to reach out for an initial consultation. If you would like a

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consultation, you can go to our website and fill out the brief form at the bottom of the page.

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Go ahead and subscribe to our podcasts, plural. Just go ahead and subscribe to all of them. We

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think that they’re great. And you know, we think that these topics are all interrelated. But,

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you know, some people don’t see it that way. So I’m sure some listeners will only subscribe to

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our Finance podcast and really not care about the Technology or the Privacy & Security ones, but

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you know, we’re not exactly cranking out episodes every day. So it won’t hurt you to go ahead and

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subscribe to all of them. And finally, go ahead and reach out to us. We’re very easy to contact.

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We’ll talk to you. You can talk to us through Signal, Session, Matrix, email, SMS, Mastodon,

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Twitter. You can contact us if you just want to say hello, or if you want to request a consultation.

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But we would also ask that, you know, you give us feedback, requests, like if there are certain

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topics that you want us to discuss. You know, please contact us if you have any questions,

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or if you notice any errors, which is important by the way, if there’s an error, please contact us

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and give us the chance to fix it. If it’s serious enough, we might re-edit and republish the episode.

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Don’t just, you know, flame us with a one star review over something simple, like,

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you know, we screwed up the contribution limit for a Roth IRA or something like that.

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Give us a chance to fix our mistakes. And also contact us if you think someone might be

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trying to scam you by posing as someone from Bigger Insights. There’s a lot of that going on.

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And you know, we’re not going to reach out to you and, you know, ask you for Bitcoin and we’ll

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double it and send it back to you and one of these other stupid scams that are going around.

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So if you see any of that, please let us know so that we can do something about it.

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All right, that’s it. Thanks for staying until the end. Make sure you subscribe and go build some wealth!