The Sugar Daddy Podcast
Ready to normalize talking about money? Then welcome to The Sugar Daddy Podcast. Every episode will get you one step closer to your financial goals. Whether that is learning how to invest, budget, save, retire early or simply make better money choices, Jess & Brandon have got you covered in a way that's easy to understand, and easy to implement. Tune in as they demystify the realm of dollars, so it all makes cents, while giving you a glimpse into their relationship with money and each other.
Brandon is an award winning licensed financial planner, and owner of Oak City Financial, with over a decade of experience and millions of dollars managed for his clients all over the United States.
New episodes published the first three Wednesdays of every month.
The Sugar Daddy Podcast
88: How Financial Advisors Help With Real Life—Not Just Your Portfolio
Think financial advisors just pick stocks? Think again. In this episode, Jess and Brandon unpack what really makes an advisor invaluable—hint: it’s not yelling into phones like Wolf of Wall Street.
From planning maternity leave and budgeting for braces to navigating tough talks with aging parents, great advisors help you make money decisions that align with your life, not just your portfolio. And sometimes? Their job is reminding you it’s okay to spend the money you’ve saved.
If you want peace of mind, not just performance, this episode is your guide to what good financial advisors actually do—and why it might be time to rethink what that relationship could look like.
Visit prenups.com/sugardaddy to learn more about fair prenups that help couples plan for a healthy financial relationship.
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This episode is sponsored by Prenupscom. The truth is, every married couple has a prenup a set of rules that defines your legal and financial relationship with your spouse. You either choose your own rules or use what your state gives you. At Prenupscom they write prenups that actually help couples stay married. Their specialty is fair prenups that help couples plan for a healthy financial relationship. Don't let the state decide your marriage rules. Make your own. Visit prenupscom. Slash sugardaddy to learn more. That's prenupscom. Backslash sugardaddy and get the prenup that helps you stay married. Already married, no worries, they do post-nuptial agreements too. That's what Brandon and I did after eight years of marriage. In today's episode we are going to talk about all the things that Brandon does as a financial advisor that might surprise you. We are getting out of the stocks, out of the bonds, out of all the crazy financial slogans, terms and headache-inducing things, and we are going to talk about just life and the things that he's been helping his clients with lately. If that's of interest, stay tuned.
Speaker 2:Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 1:I should be asking you that today what have you been talking to your clients about lately?
Speaker 2:Well, today's episode is talking about. I think people have a really hard time understanding what financial advisors, financial planners, wealth managers do because, honestly, we don't do a good job of defining it. We kind of put all of them into one bucket and we all can actually do very different things. So the purpose of this is kind of to talk about some of the things that I've been seeing and helping my clients with out recently that a lot of people maybe wouldn't think of that I actually do.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great conversation because I 100% agree. I think people think that you are like a day trader, right, Like I have this visual of you in front of a bunch of screens, like Wolf of Wall Street style like yelling on the phone.
Speaker 1:I am not Wolf of Wall Street, finra SEC, that is not me, no, but you know, like you, have that visual of like all the TV monitors and like people screaming into the phone, and it's like buying stocks when, when they're down and like I mean, it's just like.
Speaker 1:No, you're literally having conversations with fellow millennials, Gen Xers, Gen Zers, Zillennials whatever we want to call ourselves each other, and you're talking about life and you're talking about their goals, and you're talking about things that have come up that are maybe planned and exciting, like having a baby or buying a house, and then things that are unexpected, like getting in a car accident and needing a new car that you were planning on giving to your teenage daughter, and now you're like crap, I have to buy two cars. You know, it's the life stuff that I think you do a really amazing job helping people navigate through and feeling comfortable with, and so I just wanted to encourage you to talk about those things, because I don't think that people understand that you can help them plan for the pool that they want to build in their backyard, or that hardscaping project you know, to build the garden of their dreams with the gazebo and the uplighting or whatever it is, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really, at the root of what I do is that I'm having conversations with people to understand what their goals are, what their dreams are, what their problems are you know, things that they're trying to overcome and we're really just having open conversations and, based upon the conversation and where it goes, then I can provide some you know expert insight into maybe how we should navigate.
Speaker 2:However this conversation is heading, like you know, if we're looking to solve a problem, hey, here's some of the options that are available to solving that problem and talking through it to really understand who they are as a person and what their habits are, and through doing that allows me to help them much better as far as helping them determine what option is best suitable for who they are as an individual. But a lot of it, like I said, like obviously you have, you know, all the financial jargon in the background that comes with it and all the financial strategies, all that information, all that financial literacy that comes with it. But really, at the end of the day, what it is is having a conversation with someone and taking all that part out of it, because a lot of people don't understand that part. So really, what I want to do is just have a conversation and understand who you are as a person and how can I help you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how do they want their money to work for them?
Speaker 2:Yes, Right, all right, real quick. I want to speak to the person listening who feels like they can't work with a financial planner yet because they're carrying a lot of debt. First of all, I see you and I need you to know. You're not broken, you're not behind. You're just in a tough season. I created something just for you because I've had people reach out who are serious about changing their money story. But the full financial planning package just wasn't the right fit yet. So I built a new service through Oak City Financial that's focused completely on debt reduction no fluff, no shame.
Speaker 2:You'll get a one-time planning session, a personalized payoff strategy, your own financial dashboard and monthly coaching. If you want extra support while you climb out, it's $300 to get started in, a hundred dollars a month. If you want that ongoing guidance, that's it. This is about helping you get unstuck, not making you feel like you failed. If this sounds like what you've been needing, go ahead and schedule a call with me. The link is in the show notes. Let's take the first step together. Notes. Let's take the first step together.
Speaker 1:I think one of the other things that I think you do a really nice job of is you remind people that you all have a strategy. You've put a strategy in place aligned to their individual and specific goals, and sometimes I know for a lot of your clients you also have to encourage them to then spend the money right, like no, you have a vacation budget and you're not using it. Have you planned for that vacation? And then having to hold people's hands to say no, no, no, we have planned for this. All of your pieces are in place. Go take the vacation, go relax, go have fun. You've earned it, you've planned for it. It's part of the strategy. Go, do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean specifically what you're talking about is that I do have a couple of clients, and they're not just clients. They a couple of clients and they're they're not just clients, they're very close friends of ours as well. But you know, we've been working together for over a year now and I know them personally, but then also just through having the conversations, that traveling is very important to them, it is one of their value adds, and so one of the things I want to make sure of is that we carve out a portion of their budget to be putting away money on a monthly basis so that towards traveling, and then you know, having a trip come up that we would. You know we're taking a trip. We wanted them to come with us and we opened it.
Speaker 2:You know the invitation up to them and they were like oh yeah, we, we have a travel budget because we put it in place. So, just reminding people of you know, like I said, the plan that we have in place so that when these opportunities come up for things that you want to do that do add value to your life, you have the money to do it, because the money isn't the focus. The focus, initially, is what do you want your life to look like, and it's then using the tool of money to create that life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think too, when it comes to just the topics, right, it's not always something big, it's hey, my kid's going to need braces in the next two years and I think they're going to be in braces for a long time. I mean, that's a conversation we even have about our daughter.
Speaker 2:I love our daughter to death and she is a beautiful little lady. But she has she got her.
Speaker 1:She's going to need some orthodontia work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, her teeth are going to need some work.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so that's. I'm like we shouldn't have a high yield savings account for that, but I mean, it's the real life stuff, right Of. Hey, we want to build out our closet, we want to do some landscaping, we want to take these trips, we want to, you know, help our parents in some sort of a way or help celebrate a milestone birthday.
Speaker 2:I mean, I could think of so many different things that I'm helping out clients with lately, one being we kind of mentioned earlier. It's like, oh, you know, I have a client and they are expecting their first child in June, which is an amazing, you know, a milestone and amazing, you know time in your life. But it's also very stressful.
Speaker 1:And very expensive.
Speaker 2:As far as figuring out, like you know one, how much is it going to cost to actually have this delivery. You know how much is daycare going to be Like just so many other aspects, like you know do I have proper maternity leave? If I don't have proper maternity leave, how am I going to make sure? How am I going to supplement that income that I otherwise would have had coming in while I'm not working? So, you know, I have a client that we had to work through that and we're still in the process of kind of determining some of the details. But we had to work through not having a full 12 week maternity leave, only had a six week maternity leave, then determining if her short term disability policy was going to cover that and if it was going to cover that, um, um, the time period of being out for maternity leave and what percentage of her income is it?
Speaker 2:going to be enough, you know.
Speaker 1:So really looking into like the benefits package again and understanding oh here's my benefits package, here's my spouses. How long before we do have to put this little baby into daycare, do we have family support? What is my paycheck going to look like at 60% versus 100%? I mean, all of those things matter, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I really like working with the demographic that I work with, because one some of the things that you know some of my clients are a little bit younger are going through. I have already gone through.
Speaker 1:We've learned our lessons. We're currently in the process of going through as well so.
Speaker 2:I'm not just speaking from a hypothetical standpoint. You know, when it comes to having you know the conversation, thinking of all the expenses that come with having a kid we have two, I've been there through it, so you know having a uh clients and saying like, hey, have you already, you know, got on a daycare list? Cause that's going to be, you know, an issue.
Speaker 2:And then also, even just thinking through the first year or two of paying for daycare that there's going to be some breaks, because the most expensive for daycare is going to be when they're an infant and as they grow and get a little bit older and go into the other rooms, you're going to have a little bit more wiggle room because the amount that you're paying on a monthly basis is going to go down. Just conversations like that that most people don't think that a financial advisor necessarily helps you out with. That's what I'm helping you with. Anything and everything that has some type of money aspect tied to it, I can have some form of a conversation or I can refer you to another expert who can dive deeper in that scenario.
Speaker 1:Or also, oops, we went from two kids to three kids. That wasn't planned and now we need to upgrade our car because you know we have a booster seat and are going to have two car seats and that car doesn't accommodate that. I mean, there's so much that, Like you said, just any part of your life. That money touches, Brandon helps with, he talks about.
Speaker 2:I had a conversation, like two weeks ago, with a client. They were leasing a car and the car dealership that they were leasing through was offering them a new release. And so it's like does it make sense to do that Like? So we went through all the different areas of the lease, determining whether or not it makes sense to do this from a monetary standpoint, or does it make more sense just to stay in their current lease. So that's, one thing that helped out with.
Speaker 1:And we've. That's something we've been through with our first Atlas during COVID. The dealership every week was like we want to buy your car, we want to buy your car back. And you know we had to run the numbers to see if it made sense. And for us it ended up making sense. But again, it's a part of your life that money touches and so your clients will schedule time to be like, hey, I have this scenario. Or how much should I be spending on my engagement ring Because I'm planning on getting engaged?
Speaker 2:I mean, and one thing that I love is that I've built relationships with my clients where I am one of the first people they think of to come to when they have these decisions to make. Because, like I said, in these scenarios I do do, you know, periodic touch points just to check in on people that maybe I haven't spoken with. I try to do that on a regular basis, but sometimes things come up in between and I would like them to reach out to me as soon as possible when those things come up and thankfully, I've built a relationship where that happens. Like you know, I have a client who, unfortunately, was in a car accident. Thankfully they were, you know, everybody was safe, there was no injuries and it happened one evening.
Speaker 2:They called me the next morning, you know, to talk about it, like what are our options that we should go over in regards to buying a new car, buying a slightly used car, whatever it may be?
Speaker 2:But I talk her through those options and you know, obviously it's an email and we'll be having conversation as far as what makes the most sense for their situation. Or even in a scenario where someone's looking to do a renovation on their home, what are the best options available to do in that renovation? Does it make sense to do the renovation? Is it a need or a want? Have we already started saving up money? Should we take out a loan or should we take out a HELOC? Does it make sense to do it now or does it make sense to wait? And sometimes, with this environment, now with tariffs, hey, maybe doing it now makes way more sense because the cost of goods are going to increase in a few months from now, more than likely. So having those conversations with my clients which I don't think are of top of mind for people thinking that, hey, my financial advisor helps me out with this- I think one of the other things that's really important for us in our generation is starting to incorporate conversations with our parents.
Speaker 1:Now we've done actual episodes on the sandwich generation, right, we're raising our own kids now, kind of transitioning to making sure that our parents are okay in a lot of cases, in some cases moving our parents in and so navigating how to actually have a conversation with their with their parents, maybe being the mediator to start the conversation or at least outline. Hey, here are the things that you should know about your parents' finances. Right, here are the documents that you should have access to. Here are the things that we should be looking at. I mean, you've had clients who've gone through, you know, divorce and separation. Hey, we need to update your beneficiaries. Let's make sure that everything is up to date. And so I just wanted people to understand that any real world situation, things come at us right. Do we put our kids in private school, do we not? Can we get the membership to the Fancy Country Club, should we not? Whatever it is, these are the normal conversations that Brandon is having all the time with his clients, because it's money that touches their life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:And that's what a good financial advisor does, you know. They advise on all the aspects of your life, not just your stock portfolio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, obviously we're going to talk about your investment portfolios, because that's part of the financial plan, but, in all honesty, on the majority of the conversations I'm having, that's a much smaller part. A big bulk of the conversations that I'm having on a regular basis are the ones that we're just talking about Everyday life situations that involve some aspect of money.
Speaker 1:And I think it's really amazing that you've built the relationships that you've had and that people aren't just like making moves right, they're not just like, oh, I'm going to go and buy this engagement ring, no, let me talk to Brandon and see what makes sense. You know, we've been planning for this, we've been strategizing and then you've even given, like you know, hey, this is where I bought Jess's ring and I had a great experience and I didn't feel like I was being pressured or try to. You know, get upsold or you know it's really. You are an advisor, but also a friend.
Speaker 2:In that sense, I feel like and I also want to stress that I don't want people to reach out to me because I'm the end all be all the decision being made, because I don't make the decision.
Speaker 2:It's not my money and it's not my life, so I'm not the one that's making the decision. What I like to do is be that person there for my clients to help them talk through the options in a logical manner yeah, without the emotion, what is best for them? So one example I can use is you know my client who, unfortunately, was in the car accident and they need to buy another car. They have enough money to buy a new car because they've spoke about like wanting to get a new car. They have saved up, they have adequate funds to do that, but I also know from their personality they don't like having a car payment, so it's also thinking about that. So, at the end of the day, was having a logical conversation where, like you, have these options available to you and here are the pros and cons of each situation. All right Now thinking about how you are as a person and what would be comfortable for you on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2:Which option do you think works best for you? Because at this point in time it's not a matter of money per se, because they have the money to do all the options Now is thinking about from a behavioral standpoint, and who?
Speaker 1:they are. As an individual, what option is going to give the most peace of mind? And peace of mind is priceless. We know that, yeah. So I just thought this episode was important because you have so many meaningful, important conversations that don't have anything to do with the crazy finance stuff that I think people think about when they think about a financial advisor, and it really is navigating life's up and downs, life's expenses, the things that you find value in. How do you incorporate those into your life, you know, with keeping in mind what is the long-term goal? What are your finances look like? What are you trying to achieve?
Speaker 2:And having a balance and then having that balance. Of enjoying life today, but also having a good plan in place so that you can also continue to enjoy life in the future.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then you know again. Sometimes you have to push people to say no, you can spend the money, you should spend the money. Don't forget, we've been working towards this. And sometimes I have to be that wall between them and doing something stupid Like moving money when they shouldn't be because, of course, everybody's panicking of their portfolios plummeting, et cetera, et cetera, and then reminding people that we are not a retirement agent. We don't need to be scared.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes having to talk them off the ledge. Not a retirement agent, we don't need to be scared yeah, sometimes having to talk them off the ledge, you know. So there's a lot of things that I think there are a lot of good advisors out there that are doing what I do. I just don't think that a lot of people that's not top of mind what they think of when they think of a financial advisor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the other just quick call outs I know we've talked about it in a past episode is you are now also helping people with debt reduction, because we know that debt can feel soul crushing and it can feel really hard to get from underneath that and you really have to have a plan in place, a realistic plan in place.
Speaker 2:And to clarify, I was helping people with debt reduction before. But, this is a service that's more tailored to individuals that maybe are not a great fit right now for full financial planning and do need to focus primarily on that debt reduction aspect.
Speaker 1:Right. So if that's of interest, you can reach out to Brandon. But if you're also ready to take that next step and do full financial planning and have that person that you can talk to about any and all things finance related as it relates to your life and your goals and your values, you can always reach out via Brandon's website. It's always in our show notes and we hope this offered a little bit of insight into the things that Brandon does as a licensed financial advisor that maybe you didn't know he can help with. We'll talk to you soon, don't forget. Benjamin Franklin said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. You just got paid Until next time.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to today's episode. We are so glad to have you as part of our Sugar Daddy community. If you learned something today, please remember to subscribe, rate, review and share this episode with your friends, family and extended network. Don't forget to connect with us on social media at the Sugar Daddy Podcast. At the sugar daddy podcast, you can also email us your questions you want us to answer for our past the sugar segments at the sugar daddy podcast at gmailcom or leave usa voicemail through our Instagram.
Speaker 2:Our content is intended to be used, and must be used, for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based upon your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a licensed professional in connection with, or independently research and verify any information you
