Interested in personal finance and financial planning? Welcome! Bridget Sullivan Mermel and John Scherer talk introduce themselves and talk about why they started the channel, Friends Talk Financial Planning.
And this is john scherer. and in this video, we’re going to talk about who we’re trying to reach, what our inspirations are a little bit about our background, how we got into financial planning, friendship. so, john, why don’t you start that’s important for me in this, and i think it is for both of us, is to reach people
Who are planning is not their native language. it’s just not natural. it’s something they know is important, but it’s a challenge. and i relate being in shape is important and working out is important. but it takes a lot of work for me to get there. it’s just not my natural way of being. it is my natural
Way. this is fun for me. and i realize that people are on the other side of that, and if i can help them have a sense of control in their lives, that’s one of my big purposes for this, and i know at least in part, that’s your purpose also. but what else can you consistent encouragement that they’ve got this,
What is something they shouldn’t really maybe some of the opportunities are that are want to get things overly complicated. i feel to handle very complicated questions. and so, in your fitness example, that’s like the “win wimbledon, run a marathon” example. it’s like, i’m not trying to go for those goals. i
Want to help people more like, make sure they feel good and like, no, it’s not. you got this. like you just said, you can get there. so that’s a great, that really resonates with me as far as goals for the show here also. so tell me a little bit, background to get to know us a little bit. i know that you started,
You had a cpa practice, but tell me a little bit about more how you got because i got an accounting degree when i was in college because i felt like i always wanted to be get myself to do it and i always was interested in business and just businesses and small businesses. me the best learning opportunity there,
Fiction at the time. and so there’s this other part of my brain that was under served. and i ended up getting a masters in liberal studies. so after spending all this time focusing on finances, or, you know, just different topics. so when i had my tax practice, it was successful. and i like talking, working one on one
With people. but i felt like it overworked part of my brain and under worked another part of my brain. and i also saw people were very underserved in the financial planning industry, because i saw the results with my clients (with my tax clients). and so getting into financial planning was a great fit for me
Because there’s a lot of i call it juice. there’s a lot of juice there because it really combines so many different areas, similar to my masters in liberal studies. it brings a whole bunch of different things together. i started in about 2008. i just switched to financial planning, and i’ve really enjoyed it. so, john, tell
Me more about your background and how you got into this. over time, so my degree was in teaching. my college roommate’s father in law was a general manager for an insurance agency. and he said, well gee, you might think about selling insurance and selling investments and doing “financial planning” (in quotes). i
Thought that always interested me. i thought this would be kind of neat. i could do that. and i quickly realized i didn’t want to sell everybody i know whole life insurance in order to make a living sort of thing. but then it’s kind of like you. i saw the need that was out there. and so i started my business in 2001 and i
Wanted to go into the fee only side of things, which back then was really sort of out there. and it came for me when my wife and i bought our first house, our only house, house we live in now. and we had a friend that was helping us as our buyer’s agent. and i realized in the process that every house, her job was to
Get us to buy a house, right? and not on the same side of the table necessarily. and so that was really important for me as so much of the financial world, especially 20 years ago, was selling insurance, selling investments, thinking about switching when i found fee only, i was looking into different things that i
Could do because i was interested in investing and interested in the topic. and i was like, i don’t…i feel like these people are ripping off my clients. ripping them off to me ripping them off. so that thing for 20 years now, and it’s question the advice. why should i do this versus that? but i never want to
Question the motive. and that’s where i found myself with our realtor as “well geez this is the right thing for me.” well, if you get paid the same no matter what then we can talk about “golly is that the right strategy?” but it’s not. i make the same either way, you know, do or don’t, whatever. buy the insurance,
Or make this investment or do that. that’s really important as sort of a leading principle for me. and it’s interesting bridget, hearing your story about coming from the accounting side of things, right, and then getting into the financial planning now we’re doing this financial planning things and and that’s
One of the things i value about our friendship and our relationship. and i wanted to…it’d just be interesting to talk about. one of our early thoughts about the show is the cat and the dog. right? you’re from wisconsin, and some of the differences, big town and little town and different approaches, tax
Focused and teaching focused, and how we met was through the alliance of comprehensive planners, talking about that tax focus. this organization that we both belong to and found like “oh, get paid for it.” and (it’s) interesting thinking back, and (about) when we had a chance to first you probably don’t remember
This, but it was at a conference, my first conference that i went blazed into my memory. and i met about three joined acp yet. and you were one of them. and then when after i joined, i remember coming up to visit you in madison. i’m like “i always like a trip to madison.” so, because i went to college
There, and yeah then it’s taken off from there. recently, we had just those new hotels had just been built near my house and (we) kind of didn’t know each other and had a chance to sit and visit. planning” of course bridget and i are both are the conversations we have as friends, that we sit around and talk when
We get together with our spouses and enjoy each other’s company. it up and we’ll just again say subscribe to our also, if you’re interested you can check out acp we just plug them but they’re not paying us we’re just doing it on a volunteer, just to pitch in.
Transcribed from video
Friends Talk Financial Planning says Welcome! By Friends Talk Financial Planning