Merino Mindset
Practical Views on Money and Life
"I made two good decisions. The first was to start working with you in the first place. The second was following you to your new firm." This huge compliment came from one of my favorite clients during a recent client meeting.
When she first signed up, she was to the point where retirement planning was literally keeping her up at night. It was at the top of her middle of the night worries. She felt that she started late not because she didn’t want to prioritize her finances, but because she didn’t know what to do. She was also a bit skeptical and even admitted "I’m not sure why I stayed on the phone with you. I usually hang up when Advisors call me." Years later we’re both glad that she didn’t!
Back to school season looks a little different this year!
Teachers are teaching virtually; kids' classes range from 100% in person to 100% virtual and everything in between. Plus, universities are opening and closing campuses, and we're encountering the nation's first female recession, aka shecession.
Say hello to Jessica’s new executive assistant at Merino Wealth, Lauren Leslie.
Originally from Bloomington, Indiana, Lauren earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Dayton and moved to Chicago shortly after. After two years of working in the recruiting and staffing industry, Lauren joined the Merino Wealth Management team in 2020.
I’ll admit that I’ve learned a lot this year. And I’ve only scratched the surface of what I don’t know. I’ve spent a quarter of my life formally studying finance, which says a lot considering that most people receive no formal education in this area. Through college, where I majored in Finance at UW Madison, the years spent taking personal finance classes to earn my CFP®, and most recently my CIMA® certification coursework at The University of Chicago Booth, one topic was never addressed: wealth gaps.
An interesting question caught my attention during a recent economic outlook presentation I attended: “Is the stock market grounded in reality? Or are we seeing irrational exuberance?” Whoa. I hadn’t asked myself these questions as succinctly, but this posed a good question.
Is the stock market currently grounded in reality? Is it ever grounded in reality?
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to make sense of what’s happening in our country. When I see a problem my brain typically tries to find a logical solution. In this case, I can’t. I can’t make sense of what has happened. And I definitely don’t have a solution to our country’s system of unequal justice.
Where were you 10 years ago? I was in my 20s, living on the North Side of Chicago renting an apartment with a roommate, and newly dating my now-husband. I loved my job as a Financial Advisor, but I wouldn’t say things were really clicking and I definitely wasn’t making what I’m worth. My finances weren’t terrible, but they weren’t the best. Despite these setbacks, I was loving life. Being a 20-something in a city like Chicago can be pretty great.
Happy February! I’m not gonna lie, these days, we’re really busy at Merino Wealth. And when we’re busy things can get kind of stressful around the office. We have a great team, wonderful clients, and we’re doing great work. But if we’re sleep-deprived, logging in on the weekends, and overwhelmed with our workloads, things can feel a bit tense. In some cases, it’s just the simple feeling that we might not have done "XYZ" perfectly, which of course, is an unrealistic bar to set for ourselves.
"You say it's your birthday. It's my birthday too, yeah. They say it's your birthday. We're gonna have a good time!" — The Beatles
It’s that time of year again. My Birthday/Merino Wealth’s Second Annual Referral Month. All month long we’ll be celebrating the good work we do, the trust that our clients put in us, and the fact that I’m another year older and wiser.
Just like a lot of you my birthday can lead me to think about the past. I’ve been an advisor for 15 years (crazy, right!?) and I’ve learned a lot of lessons.
Please join the Merino Wealth Team (Jessica Merino, Addie Pesche and Michael Prieve), along with our moderators, Susie Chau and Nicolette de Guia, in watching our What Is Financial Planning Virtual Panel.
Gain clarity about what financial planning is and entails, learn how Merino Wealth can help clients reach their financial goals, as well as how we may be able to help you.
Click the video below to begin watching!
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Last month I presented at Pinterest’s Annual Women Inspire conference in Chicago. I’m excited to say I’ll be paying a visit to their headquarters in San Francisco this month to share even more financial education with the women on the West Coast. One cool thing about Pinterest is that they went public earlier this year. As I thought about what to say in my presentation, I realized that we’d encountered a lot of recent IPO activity.
As of September 27th, 2019, 114 companies have gone public, including Uber, Beyond Meat, Peleton, and Slack, to name a few. This is nearly double the number of companies that went public in 2009.
I started investing in 1994 after my grandparents bought me a share of stock for my 14th birthday. At that time the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was valued at 3,829.73. By the lowest point of the dot.com bubble burst on October 7th, 2002 it was valued at 7,422.84. We lost companies like Pets.com and eToys.com, but by January 1st, 2004 the value was back up to 10,453.92.
Opposites. That’s what my two sons are. Well, not it all respects (they both love to play video games, ride bikes, get dirty, and generally annoy each other) but when it comes to money, they couldn’t be more different. My oldest is 11, going on 40. His view of money is quite simple. He doesn’t like to spend it. We live several states away from grandparents, aunts, and uncles, so holiday gifts generally involve money or gift cards, and he simply saves it all. As an Accredited Financial Counselor® this makes my heart smile, but I know saving every last penny isn’t always a good thing.
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