Taking Control of Your Financial Future with Andy Pike

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Interview Transcription

ADRIENNE:
Alright, so we have a very special in studio guest today. Yeah, we’re not

ATTILIO:
gonna take a break. We’re so excited to get him on that. We’re not taking a break. We’re gonna get right to it and who’s out again?

ADRIENNE: 
Hey, so our guest Cincinnati native. He spent 26 years in the US Air Force before transitioning into financial planning in 2003. Now as the founder and CEO of Quo Vadis Financial, Matt Financial, he brings his coaching and mentoring approach to his role as a dedicated financial advisor. Welcome back.

ATTILIO: 
Andy Pike Andy pike. Thanks

ANDY:
for having me. So before we get started with any questions, that stuff Attilio I think you you do have a second job lined up and that’s the comedian, comedic part of I guess I can

ATTILIO:
only be a comedian. I’m like a TikTok comedian. I can only be funny for 30 seconds at a time.

ANDY: 
Yeah. But if there’s if there’s real estate getting done work, I think I think you got a future.

ADRIENNE: 
You know, I think we he has done some open mic nights.

ANDY: 
I really did

ATTILIO:
like three of them. Well, here’s what uh, but you know, for me, open night night is every Saturday on AM30 KHVH to the team Lally real estate radio show. And

ADRIENNE: 
we get mixed reviews.

ANDY: 
Because you have a captive audience. Yeah. She can’t stop me from doing it. He’s nice. Well,

ADRIENNE: 
some people like the jokes and some people do not. They’re like, Oh, he should have ran that one by you before he said that. Well,

ATTILIO: 
then those people that And I’ll tell you what I take all you guys feedback very seriously. In fact, if you give me feedback that the jokes are terrible, I will actually dedicate the next terrible joke to you on the next show. Remember,

ANDY: 
pastoring in New Hope used to tell jokes. And if somebody didn’t like it, he would say, Hey, you want better jokes? Send me better jokes.

ATTILIO: 
There you go. But send

ADRIENNE: 
him some material people.

ATTILIO:
Well, my testimonial for Andy is that I refer him to my family. I am, I’m a client, somebody, we are our clients. I’m like, I just I think of Andy as my friend. But he’s my financial advisor that knows way more than I do. Here’s an interesting statistic. You think that the education is the gap for people making financial decisions? They did a study of people who went through financial education, and it changed their behavior by point 000 1%. What was the gap this financial psychologists were researching and found it was the behavior. What I like about Andy is that he’s a person that you can talk to to help you with that behavior and provide you guidance

ADRIENNE: 
and accountability and accountability. Yeah, he’s quite the accountability coach when it comes to finances, and that’s someone

ATTILIO:
we can trust because we wouldn’t be referring them to our clients. If we didn’t understand and our family and our family. Yeah, so anywho what you nd what? What talk about, what, what did you do before becoming into the financial industry? And then why did you make that that change to do what you do today? So

ANDY:
I was in the airforce for 26 years. Thank you for as an enlisted guy, and I was an admin as an office worker, kind of guy. And so did that for 26 years. Yeah. And when it was time to go, I had been a client of another financial services company that focuses only on military. Yes. And so they recruited me basically, I chose it because I felt like it was just an extension of taking care of troops. Yeah, the more senior I got the less technical work I did. I did more of the personnel kind of stuff. Yeah. And so leading troops and watching out for their careers and things like that. And so then that just transitioned right over to doing what I’m doing now. I think it’s a bigger impact here. Because now I’m doing everything with their money. Gotcha.

ADRIENNE: 
And now Now, Andy, you opened up this Quo Vadis Financial. What’s the story behind you know the name. And just like the origin story of Quo Vadis?

ATTILIO: 
Well Quo Vadis translates into busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. Now, that’s not the translation. What is it? It’s

ANDY: 
pretty cool. Now Quo Vadis comes from its Latin comes from the Bible. And it’s it’s basically a question that the apostle John asked Jesus, he said, Where are you going? Yeah. And Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. And he basically his answer was where I’m going, you can’t go yet. But it speaks to the journey that is financial planning. It’s not transactional. Yeah. When clients hire me, it’s for my life, because I’m older than a lot of my clients now, including you too. Yeah. But it’s not it’s more of a relationship than the money, the money takes care of itself once we start working together. But it’s the relationship. And that’s where you talk about things like behavior, and things like that. Because when I yell at a friend, yeah, not really. But when I talk to a client say, Look, you can’t afford this $85,000 car, yeah, on your $40,000 salary. They’re gonna understand that I’m coming from a position of love more than the math. And

ATTILIO: 
I think I think that’s important, because I think a lot of times people need more of a whack in their head, to stop doing something then to get their butts in gear to do stuff. Because it’s like, you’re helping these people, because I think that’s the challenge that people have. They’re just in this hole, financially wise. Nailed

ANDY: 
it. Behaviors, all of it. So you guys are aware I’m a Dave Ramsey Smartvestor Pro. Yeah. And Dave says, and a lot of financial advisors say pretty much the same thing. 80% of your financial success has nothing to do with your money. Yeah, it’s what’s between your ears

ATTILIO: 
and your team, your behavior. Talk about Dave Ramsey, who’s Dave Ramsey, for people who don’t know. So Dave Ramsey. He’s

ANDY:
the guy that you guys know about, because he at 18 He became a realtor by 26 or so he had $4 million worth of real estate. Yeah, making payments on everything. He was fine. But then we had the savings and loan crisis. The banks got nervous and said this is a 28 year old kid. Yeah, basically, that makes us too nervous. And they call his notes and so he went bankrupt. Nice. And then he said about starting this Ramsey. It was called Dave Ramsey. Now it’s called Ramsey solutions. Yes. But he started that just to help people get out of debt. Yeah, and a lot of what we’ve already talked about, like the insurance stuff with Bradley Yeah. About is it Bradley that did the incredibly Moriyama that stuff I recommend and Dave those two people get all their insurances, their car insurance, homeowners insurance, all that stuff. Get that checked every couple of years. Yeah,

ATTILIO: 
yeah, I like his we had a case of his books in the office. I think we still got some when we hand them out, but the Total Money Makeover Yes.

ADRIENNE: 
I actually got. I handed my copy of that book over to my daughter. Yes. Because now she’s working. And she wants to be smart with her money. Yeah.

ANDY: 
You know a guy. Yeah,

ADRIENNE:
I’ve already I’ve already done the introduction. Yeah, I’m ready. She’s ready for you, Andy. Because you

ATTILIO: 
know what these kids nowadays do investing in Stanley Cups. And that makes absolutely no sense. It’s crazy.

ANDY: 
Now, I will confess that I have one. I think that’s someone over there. Yeah.

ADRIENNE: 
This one Nadia bought it for me. There you go. See she investing

ANDY: 
in mom? Yeah. No, it’s funny, because you talked about that. The SEC just approved some bitcoin ETFs. Yep. And within a couple of hours of that actually hitting the news. I got a call from a client, should I get a Bitcoin ETF? Like explain Bitcoin to me? And

ATTILIO: 
I’m like, I don’t know what it is. But should I do?

ANDY: 
Yep. No. So it is it’s really mostly about your behavior,

ATTILIO: 
I think too that. So we Gary Keller, we’re in Gary Keller. He’s the CEO of Keller Williams, and we’re in a top 100 or top top agent mastermind. And he gave us a book called The Psychology of money. And it was interesting in there that that most people make 80% of their financial decision, based on on 1% of the knowledge that they need to have to make that decision. And a lot of that behavior is dictated by what their parents did. Yep.

ANDY:
I’ve read that book. That’s a really good book.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah. So let’s talk about, you know, it’s the new year. We’re coming in, we’re still in the beginning of the new year. What would you what would be something that you would say like, and we’ll still some Dave Ramsey lingo? I mean, as he talks about Annabelle, what baby step would you recommend to somebody begin doing at the at the beginning of this year for a financial decision?

ANDY: 
I think it depends on where they are. If you don’t have $1,000 in a savings account, then you’re on baby step one. Yep. And you need to get $1,000 in a savings account that you don’t touch only for emergencies. Like your hair’s on fire.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah. What and what is the purpose of doing that?

ANDY: 
Well, it basically it’s partly Dave calls it insurance against that. Yeah, but that first $1,000 is really your your starter emergency fund. And it’s meant to cover things like, you know, tire blows, or you’re in an accident, you got to pay your car deductible. Yeah, a lot of people give Dave grief because they say on what planet is $1,000. In the for emergencies. If you talk to Dave for 12 seconds, you know, it’s not, that’s baby step three, you fill up the emergency fund below, you’re working on getting out of debt. 1000 bucks, and then everything else goes on getting out of that will that consumer debt?

ATTILIO: 
Well, if he told you 10,000 that will be more like a baby jumping off of the Grand Canyon. And it would be overwhelming. It would be overwhelming and and you’re not gonna start like even my

ADRIENNE:
daughter was able to save $1,000.16 year olds. Yeah.

ANDY: 
Dave even tells people that to start selling stuff until your kids think they’re next. Yeah. And that might work for you. Because with the teenagers, you might want to sell I don’t know if I pay you for him, though.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, no, I was thinking. That’s it. That’s a solution. Yeah. But, you know, so we got the baby step of $1,000. Like, I will tell you that all three of my kids, none of them carry any personal debt if they because I think talk about this as a as your thoughts on this trap. I hear I hear people who don’t do the $1,000. They say, Oh, I have this credit card. It’s very common. Yeah. What’s the what’s the trap of that? Well, I’m gonna card for him if

ANDY: 
you want. If you want a snarky Andy answer, give them both give it a question. I always repeated as a question back to my client. And so I would say something like, well, Attilio you know, it’s cool that you got the credit card and all that stuff. But if you think about it, yeah, you don’t have 1000 bucks. And you gotta go pay 1200 bucks for something on your car. Yeah. Now you’ve over doubled your debt, because you haven’t planned. Does that make sense? Yep. And then they’re like, Well, no, yeah. That’s why

ATTILIO: 
there was an SNL episode. That it, they’re like, hey, it was like, it was like an infomercial. And then they were talking about it at home. And they had a pamphlet, and the guy’s reading the pamphlet. And he’s like, I think it was either wife or the husband was talking to the lady, the husband talking to the wife, hey, Margaret, check out this pamphlet. There’s this website in this program, and it’s completely insane and crazy. They want you to save for something that you can afford and then buy it. What are your thoughts? That seems crazy saving for something and then buying cash.

ANDY:
And the next step right after the 1000 bucks is get rid of all your consumer debt, everything but your mortgage and treat it and treat it like the plague and

ATTILIO: 
you know people your good debt, bad debt, no such thing. Yeah. Talk about what Dave, your your advice to people regarding debt.

ANDY: 
So debt just means you’re not planning your spending. It’s, it speaks to a lot of different things, both psychologic to go and obviously financial, people don’t want to wait to have things in your late gratification, delayed gratification, instant gratification. And I also find that people that save for something and then go get that thing because they save for it. Yeah, they value it much higher. Yes, your brain, if you use cash, your brain actually forms a pain point. When you’re paying for something, you swipe a debit card, or credit card, it’s been physiologically proven that that pain point doesn’t exist. Yeah. So you, even if you’re using a debit card, you’re not increasing your debt. But that pain point is not there. Because when we think about trade, I’m gonna give you my Mountain Dew and you’re gonna give me those headphones. Yeah, that wouldn’t, that would create a pain point, because I’m giving up something you’re giving up. Yeah. But if I give you a debit card, and I swipe a debit card, and I get your head down, there’s no pain point for me, because I haven’t really given anything up in my mind. Amazon

ATTILIO:
has a new program, like, you go, you go on to Amazon Prime, and then you pull up the product. And you’re like, I wonder if I should get this. And then you cough, you bought it.

ANDY: 
You have this swipe right thing where you can just automatically buy it. Yeah,

ATTILIO: 
I just kidding, you’re not gonna cough. And then well, it’s being shipped. But it’s almost just that as easy. This TED Talk financial planner lady I was talking to she said, it’s so like you said you have a disconnect between the value of the money that you spent on that. Because these companies Amazon’s the top of it, using that psychology, they are designed. They’re specifically designed to have techniques to party with your money as quickly as possible. And just go look at a garage sale. Sometimes I go to these garage sales, and the stuff is still in the Amazon box.

ADRIENNE: 
Oops,

ANDY:

I’ve actually when I’ve asked when I’m analyzing, like a client’s cash flow and things like that, and I point out like, this is how much over this three, three month period from your bank statements. This is how much you ate out? Yeah, this is your Amazon or whatever your online shopping is. They’re always shocked at those two numbers. It’s like that can’t be right. Yeah, I’m going. It’s right there on your bank sheet.

ATTILIO: 
I you know, if I was a financial planner, I may not gonna do this, but maybe he might, I will go to the blue bin on the side of the house, and count how many great idea. Amazon boxes are in that recycle bin to mine this week. They’re coming Tuesday, and then bring them out and be like, see, here’s the problem. We got to start here. So baby step of $1,000. That’s a good one. consumer debt, consumer debt and talk about consumer debt. Like what you find consumer

ANDY: 
debt is everything other than a mortgage. So I just talked to I talked to a client this morning. Yeah, or a potential client? And he said, Well, I only have mortgage debt. And I said, Okay, that’s great. And then he said something about a HELOC. And I said, Oh, so you don’t have just mortgage debt, you actually have consumer debt? Yeah. Because a HELOC is technically a bank loan. It’s not, yes, it’s the collaterals the house, but it’s not the same as the mortgage because the interest rates are different. And all that stuff. Just imagine

ATTILIO: 
the bank came to your house, they went in the garage, and they will pull an ATM machine.

ANDY:
That’s what you’re doing. That’s what you’re doing? Yep. Ah, that’s cool. You know, Dave did a study of like over 10,000 millionaires. He talks about this fairly frequently. Yeah. And he said, not one of the people that he interviewed, or that his company researched, said that they leveraged debt to become a millionaire. Yeah. One. They equity in their house. He counted. Yeah. And then all their investment 401k. And that kind of stuff. One of the business. Go ahead, Adrienne, I was

ADRIENNE: 
gonna say like with the investments, because let’s get over to your the services and the type of assistance. Now you want your clients to help them build wealth. Let’s talk about you know, like the compounding effects of, of investing.

ANDY: 
Yep. So I showed a client a long while ago, an illustration that showed if they put $500 a month in an IRA for 40 years, yeah. And that’s all they ever did. They never increased it or anything else with the projected with the previous year previous returns of that portfolio. Obviously, it means nothing going forward, because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Results are no indication we used to we used to be able to do these things called hypotheticals. Yeah. So I could go and say until you if you started putting 500 bucks a month in this thing, 30 years ago, this is what it would have grown to today. The SEC has now said we can’t do that. Yeah, they put some real long clamps on that real tight clamps on that. But you know, those kinds of things, compound interest, Dave even says, you know, I showed a client exactly that once, when it was legal. And it was basically they would invest like 260,000 over their lifetime. You know, the accounts would be worth four or 5 million.

ATTILIO: 
I’m not the financial advisor. I’ll tell you right now, if you just literally type that into Google, and hit hit enter, it’ll calculate it for you. Yep.

ADRIENNE: 
I’ll tell you. I think Dave had done a little um, an Instagram clip about that very example. And I forwarded it to my daughter. Yeah. And I said you couldn’t retire by the time you’re 40 if you just do this little trick. Yeah. And so she’s like, oh, yeah, let’s, let’s get this set up right away.

ANDY: 
But guess what keeps you from all that? What’s consumer debt? consumer debt? Because you have a legal obligation to pay that debt. Yeah, matter what your situation is correct. Yeah.

ADRIENNE: 
So stay out of debt, and do your monthly investing. So I’m

ANDY:
over a long period of time. That’s all I gotta do. Comfortably.

ATTILIO: 
And you know what student loans are killing these kids nowadays. So I made it a point as a parent that my two oldest who graduated from college are starting at ground level a bottom use cars. And they have no debt, no student loans. So they started it started at Ground Zero. Parents, if you can figure that out. Do that. If you can. Well, I

ADRIENNE: 
think Andy knows a little trick about college savings.

ANDY: 
Yeah, well, yeah, their investment accounts for that. But there are a lot of things. The biggest topic that I talked to people about is their children don’t know what they want. Yeah, for a college degree. And so then I tell the parents, okay, so if they don’t really know what they want, and they’re already a junior in high school, yeah. Either Community College, go into military where they’re going to pay for a four year vocational skill, vocational skill. Because there’s nothing wrong with any of that.

ATTILIO: 
60 Minutes did an interview with a kid that went into school and became a mechanic, and then they graduate from US college $100,000 in debt, the one on the left, who was making 7580 grand a year 10 grand in the bank and owned a home.

ADRIENNE:
Yep. Well, Andy helped me get started these five to nine plans for all of my children. And I know, like, all of my kids are gonna have different paths. So like, the great thing is that it’s not just for college can be used for the vocational schools. Yeah, it can be used what for private schools, and all sorts of stuff. But it’s, it’s been great because I just you know, every month you know, I just put it in a couple 100 bucks and then forget it, and it grows. Yeah, it grows. I did want as long as it gets used for the educational expense. I learn

ATTILIO: 
from my mistake. I didn’t do it for the first two, but I’m doing it for the youngest. So my five to nine plan for the other two was that write a check every month plan.

ANDY: 
The one thing I will say the one thing I think you did wrong? Yeah. The cars buying your kids car. Yeah, we did what Dave calls 401. Dave, for one day, I told Amelia, whatever you save on that for a car.

ATTILIO: 
There you go matching at seeing Yep, matching. That doesn’t mean don’t match the debt, match savings,

ANDY:
right. And stay on it and cut up the credit cards. I know that we just did an fpu Financial Peace University at New Hope last year. We just started a second one. Last week. We had one couple cut up 22 credit cards. Oh, nice. 22

ATTILIO: 
Were they shaking? Were they in cold sweats at the end?

ADRIENNE:
He was. He was now Andy, we are about to end the show. Okay, how can our listeners get a hold of you?

ANDY: 
They can call me at 808-757-7769 or they can email me or go to my website quovadisfinancial.com. No, don’t

ATTILIO:
worry about it if you missed it, because we’re gonna have Andy on the show again, and he’s on our website.

ADRIENNE: 
That’s right. All right. 

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