104. Financial Planning and Credit Card Hacking with Eric Simonson

Hey, how's it going everybody. Welcome back to the average Joe finances podcast. I'm your host, Mike Cavaggioni and today's guest is Eric Simonson. And Eric is a certified financial planner with over a decade of industry experience. I'm not gonna go too far into his background because we're gonna talk about that here on the show today. Eric, I really appreciate you taking the time to have this chat with me. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Mike.

Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, first question I wanna ask is the same question I ask every guest that comes on this show and we wanna know about you and your story. So if you could share a little bit about yourself, tell us how you got started. Why'd you become a financial planner?

Yeah, I'd be happy to, I actually. Was a English major in college, big fan of music, writing literature, and my then girlfriend at the time. Now wife was basically like, this is not gonna work for me. You can't just have an English degree. So she Provided me to get a business degree of some sort. So I went into finance and my mom picked that up and saw that I was doing that. So she actually, hooked me up with an internship with her financial advisor. So I did that for a summer and really liked it. I was mentored by someone there who told me that financial advising financial planning was one of those few industries where you, can number one, control your income. Number two, you can control the time you spend. At it. And then number three, you really truly have the ability to change someone's life and make a difference in their life. And as a 22 year old, that all seventh great to me. So I went ahead and applied for a full-time position with a different firm, got hired, as a, as part of a financial planning practice with a big broker dealer here in the twin cities, Minnesota, and really worked on a way up, went from an unlicensed assistant to a licensed assistant, to a associate financial planner, to a full-time financial planner, eventually to a partner in this firm. We grew quite large. I managed, a big team of four advisors, 10 staff and life was good. Life was, Wonderful. Great team, good money. But ultimately I looked around and this was 2019. I looked around and I, I. I saw the rise of low cost investing, really, blossomed right with zero cost ETX and obviously Vanguard doing great things in fidelity. And I wanted to be able to tell my clients like, Hey, don't invest your money with me and pay one to 2% a year. Instead, just go to Vanguard, go to finale, buy the index because truthfully that's likely gonna perform better over time than these expensive investment products. But I couldn't do that. I was not allowed to do that at my broker dealer. And that, to me felt like a missed opportunity. And so I decided to carve out, a niche in our industry and start a firm. Where we did just that we, we do comprehensive financial planning because that still is really important for people to have access to, but instead of managing their investments and charging a ridiculous amount for that, we give them guidance to go on their own and buy, a diversified portfolio of low cost indexes, which saves them a ton of money over time. Started that about two years ago, fall of 20 19 2 neck years ago. And, it's been a wild ride. We've really been growing, like crazy and it's just accelerating here, kind of month over month. So I think that we're onto something with the idea and, I'm just happy to spread, spread the word and, hopefully get the message out that there's other ways to get financial planning advice other than, paying expensive fees.

Yeah, no, that's awesome. So you pretty much switched yourself from being a commission based, planner and advisor, to being more of a, pay for the actual time that you're using us. So more of a fee based just based on the time that somebody's actually sitting down, chatting with you and you're going over there playing with them.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think the terminology in our industry is just bonkers, fee based fee only. It's so hard for the average consumer to dial down what it all means. But I think in the simplest terms, we work like, a CPA, we work like, a lawyer where yeah. You pay us for advice and you can trust that the advice that we're giving you, whether it's to get this investment or. Go buy life insurance. We're not making a commission or any other, compensation on that advice.

Right? There's no incentive for you to try to steer them towards something. Exactly. But you're right though, the way it's the whole naming convention, right? , in the industry itself, how it's, you say it's fee based, and. That can be a little intimidating to somebody that's coming and they want to look at, what you're offering for, plans and advice and everything. And you tell them, Hey, we're fee based, right? And they're thinking, oh, I gotta pay all these fees and this and that. But what they don't realize is, you're paying a lot less, cuz you're paying for that time versus paying, over the lifetime of whatever product it is that the advisor gave you. I don't think people really I think that's one of the things that we, the messaging needs to be out there. That it's yeah. Just because it's fee based doesn't mean you're paying like more fees. It means you're paying a flat rate.

So what's so interesting is even at my broker dealer where we charge, a, assets and management fee, we also sold insurance and sold annuities. We were legally allowed to call ourselves fee. At that time. And we still, there still would be. And so my understanding is the term fee based really doesn't have much basis other than. They're paid through fees, generated by a product sale. And then dialing it down a little bit further there's fee only, which basically then strips the commission of insurance and annuity sales, but they still make a percentage of the account value, where I think we fall and the kind of the new term that people are adopting is advice only where we just give advice. And there's really no fees associated with the advice we give. Other than that, they agreed upon either retainer or the, hourly or the consulting fee.

Okay. No, definitely. Wrote that down because I think that's the first time I actually heard it called advice only versus like fee only and stuff. Cause I've talked to a coup couple other financial advisors that, did the same thing. They made that switch from being at like a larger firm. They're getting their commissions based off of the products that they sold and they switched to, Hey, we're only charging for the time that you're with us, as we're giving you these consultations and helping you build your plan and, they all called it fee only. That's been ingrained in my head. So I understood it, that way. But I think I like this better, advice only, or Hey, only a retainer, you're only paying a retainer, not it's the same thing. Like you said, as a lawyer,

Yeah. Yep. Fee, most fee only advisors and majority of family only advisors still manage assets and charge a percentage for that. And if they're not doing that's where that's truly where they become more advice on.

Okay. Yeah. Right on. Okay. I wanna dive a little bit into your story, right? So you started off, As an assistant, a non-licensed assistant working at a firm and you work yourself up to where you were running a team, where you had several other advisors under you. And there was something like, while you were doing that, you realized, you're talking with your clients and you say, I really wanna tell them, just go by this ETF instead. But I can't because I'm bound, by my organization to. Push their products and everything, because that's how we get paid. if you're not doing that, you're not going to get paid. You're essentially giving them free advice at that point. Yeah. But so you were like, okay, something's gotta change, something's gotta give. And that's when you decided, Hey, I'm gonna walk away and do my own thing. Start my own thing. So I guess my curiosity is what happened when you decided to walk away and start your own business and start your own, financial advising business,, was it difficult to start? Was it something that you found easy cuz you were able to bring some clients with you? Like how did that work?

Yeah, great question. It, it was incredibly difficult, right? Cause a great income, to zero, and right. There's a lot of administrative work involved. Getting set up as a, independent, registered investment advisor business. And I couldn't take any clients with me. I worked with 150 amazing clients and, minus a few friends and family, really I had to leave all of them there. And so you're starting from basically zero. But what I found was. When I started to leave more with my ethics and my beliefs, there was just, I think an energy for me around that. And I think that people could see that. And so it was a lot easier for me, for sure, to attract, new clients and to talk to people about what I'm doing and have excitement around what I was doing, because I believed in it so much. I think I was energized despite the level of work and despite the lack of income, just energized that I was following my, my moral compass and beliefs.

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. One of the, one of the words I wrote down as you were talking about, this is just genuine, right? You by being able to do this and following your own morals and your own ethics, you were able to, really show perspective clients, how genuine you are, right. And that you genuinely want to help them. And that's the whole reason why you walked away from where you were at. That's fantastic. The other thing I wrote down is how you. Yeah, it definitely sounds like it was incredibly difficult because you walked away from a spot where you had, you said what 150 clients, to having now zero a big fat donut. So you went from having this steady income to starting from scratch with nothing. And, I can only imagine how stressful that must have. But, it's good that you are able to get yourself to a point where you can walk away and start your own business. So that's amazing. Now,

yeah, sorry ahead. One thing I was just gonna ask that too, is for me, not only was the income piece, so was difficult, I'm a relationship guy and I loved. All of the clients that I worked with. And so it, to me, it honestly felt like breaking up with 150 people and saying Hey, it's not you it's me. And that was so hard for me. That was, soul sucking for the course of yeah. Six months to just have those conversations day in, day out.

Yeah. I didn't even think about that. That's that cannot be easy, right? Yeah. You have 150 people that, that you've got close with. Cuz you're helping them build their plans. You're helping them build their future and build their financial future. And of course there's gonna be a relationship there cuz you get to know these people, you get to know about them and their families and their why, their reason why they're doing what they're doing. And then you're. Hey adios. See ya. Yeah.

Yeah. Some of them I worked with for, as long as a decade, 10 years and wow. And then, of course then after I leave, I still have to say, no, I can say, I have not compete. I can't work with you. And that's also hard. So it's just a tough situation, but, making the best of it and understand the business side of it and why everything is how it's

no, that's definitely understandable. Ah, that's. That's tough. That's real tough, man. So even as a, so me, I'm a realtor on the side too. So if I decided to change brokerages, any clients that I'm working with at that time, That, that will all still go through the old brokerage, but right. I can, if I go to the new brokerage and then that same client wants to sell their home later on or anything else like that, I could still have that relationship. So it's a little bit different from that side, where you just completely have to break things off. Yeah. Delete my number from your phone. Oh, no, block me. Okay. Yeah, that's rough. Okay. Ah, man. All right. Moving on from the pain, you're at a point now where, you said your business is growing, it's expanding. And As you're doing this, you have your own, financial journey that you're on as well. So what is it for you? This is more of a personal question. So what is it that you're doing for yourself on your own journey in financial freedom?

What is it that I'm doing for myself and my own so my business, I, in a lot of ways is that thing that I'm doing for myself, because I look at the fact that, Hey, the quicker I can get my business to a point where I have. A team of advisors working with me. And if I can peel off a profit from those advisors, then that is, that's my passive income, right? That's your rental properties where, Hey, I don't have to necessarily be working day in and day out, but I'm still gonna generating some revenue from my team. And so that's what motivates me is just, Hey, how do I build not only asset, but also profitable, cashflow producing investment here that, will help me

get by. Okay. Right on. Now we didn't talk about this at least on the air, but I know like from your background, this, you started this back in, 2019, right? When you started this, there was no COVID, there was no pandemic, there was none of that going on. So what was the impact when, especially since you were fresh, right? You had just walked away, you just started this business and then the pandemic happened. So how did that impact you?

Yeah, COVID COVID. Obviously's been horrific for so many reasons, but as far as COVID. Affected my business. It was a good thing because I was doing all virtual meetings, from the get go, I was a hundred percent virtual, only met with people via, web meetings. Cause I wanted serve households all over the country. I didn't wanna just be limited to my region in Minnesota here. And so initially there was some hesitancy to that. If people wanted to work with me, And I would say, Hey, great, I'll set up the zoom link to do that. They would say, no, I wanna meet you in person. And the pandemic really shifted that narrative. So now everybody is comfortable with it. Everybody knows how to log in the zoom. They know how to share documents, they know how to share their screen. And so in some ways it just made what I was trying to do a lot easier.

Yeah. And by, by making yourself a available like that, pretty much. All over the United States, right? Like nationwide you're now. You're now at a point where, you have much more reach than if you just stayed in a local area. Whereas before, the firm you were tied to, I'm sure EV everybody there was local, like they had to come into the office and do everything. So you have, you definitely have a lot more reach and you can impact a lot more lives, which is fantastic. Now I would ask you normally how long you've been doing this. But, so I know you, you just started this in 2019, but how long have you been a financial planner?

Since 2009. So 13

years. Okay. Yeah. So you did 10 years, doing it at the firm and then switching over now. Okay. Okay. Fantastic. Yeah. Now exactly. I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one, but I wanna ask it anyway, but can you tell me what you enjoy the most about what you do on your day to day job as a financial planner?

What I enjoy the most about my day to day. I love being part of a team. I love, managing people. I'm one of those weird people that actually really enjoys, like managing people and hiring people and leading people. I get energized by, team meetings. I get energized by. Project planning with my team. So that, that's probably what I truly actually enjoy the most, separate from that. One of the things that we advise our clients on that is a little bit unique is in addition to just regular, comprehensive financial planning, we also talk to our clients about travel kind of travel hacking, and ways to, get cheap flights and just, leverage hotel miles or hotel points and airline miles and points. And that's more of a hobby. That's a passion of mine. I enjoy having those conversations with clients quite a bit. No,

that's awesome. Actually, I'm glad you brought that up. I wanna talk a little bit about travel hacking, could you explain what that is?

Yeah, travel, hacking's a broad term, but essentially it refers to, using credit card points, as currency and making those points stretch as humanly possible or humanly far as possible. Figuring out all the intricacies of what's the best credit card to have, how do those points work? How do the credit card benefits work that can help you get you? Better our cheaper travel experiences. What are different sweet spots in airline, award charts where I can, use my points with them and fly further for cheaper. Essentially that's the game.

Yeah. I've heard recently, especially like on, on TikTok and stuff and some of these other social media channels where there's people talking about travel hacking in general. And one of the things they're talking about is like the right time to buy your tickets for a flight. So I keep getting confused because I was always told it's six weeks out. That's the time. And now I'm hearing 28 to 38 days out. So when's the best time to buy a ticket. And I was also, I also heard that Tuesday's the best day to buy a ticket after I think, I think it's like after 8:00 AM on Tuesday morning.

So yeah, I can, the Tuesday thing is myth for sure. I know that's the fact, the Tuesday thing is a myth. So if you're talking about booking a cash ticket, which again, I, most of the time I'm trying to live in the world of free flights with points. Okay. But if you're trying to buy a cash ticket, I found that it's very seasonal. So like about 60 to 90 days out in the winter is a great time to book a, a flight. So for example, I'm usually looking like early to mid-November for flights, in Hawaii or in cost R or Belize for January, February. almost always, you can get great deals about six, six weeks out there. But if you're thinking like summer travel or spring break travel or any holiday travel, that's gonna vary more wildly in there. I think you're gonna actually have better luck if you narrow it in a bit more. And yet to your point, that 30 days would be probably more likely to give a better price than. Five months

out. Okay. Right on. Yeah. And I also heard that flying overseas or anything like that is also, it's better to do it, three months plus out for overseas tickets. So I don't know that.

Nope. I that's not been my experience. I've, I look at flights all the time for people and it varies wildly, but you can always find good deals, 16 to. One days out

right on. Okay. So I wanna talk a little bit more about travel hacking though. So when you're talking about, your focus is on getting the free flights, it's not about getting the, the best price because your focus more on using your points as currency. Like you said, right? Yeah. Now, does it make a difference when you book with points or is it always gonna be the same? No matter when you book it?

Yeah, no, it, it makes a difference. So if you're gonna book a nice flight. So if you're gonna use your points for a first class flight, an international first class or a business class flight, typically with those, there's a lot of, competition for them. So really you wanna book those out as far in advances, as you can. My wife and I, we flew to Singapore on Singapore suites, a few years back. And I remember we had to book that like 361 days or something like that in advance within an hour window. When those awards got loaded up into their system, otherwise they got sned up. So right. It's gonna vary, wildly dependent on what flight you wanna go on, what cabin you wanna sit in. And we're trying to, so what we're doing is we're building out a ton of resources for our clients to. Build knowledge around that. So they're not just reliance on us to, tell them what to do, but they're actually being taught and they're learning, okay, this is how I use my points. This is how I find flights. These are the different partners that I should transfer my points to for the best value.

Okay, what do you think are the best credit cards for airline points?

It's gonna depend. Depends on you're spending. Are you spending money a lot on groceries? Are you spending money on dining out? Are you buy, are you shopping? Are you online shopping? Are you going to, Amazon, are you gonna target? It's gonna vary, but typically right. Some of the best starter cards that just work for a lot of people is like the, chase saphire preferred. That's a very common, I've heard that one a lot. Yeah. Widely. Yeah. Widely. Accepted one. And then, a new one that a lot of people like to is the capital one venture X card, that one's maybe not quite a starter card, but it's, one of the first few parts you would you'd wanna get.

Okay. Yeah. I'm a big Amex platinum user, so that's the card. I pretty much use for everything. And there's a lot of times where, like when you book stuff with them, you get five times points and everything like that.

Yeah. . Yeah, so Amex's platinum is a good card, but this new capital one venture X card is it's being called like the platinum killer, because it's a much lower annual fee and you get, like 10 points per dollar on hotels and car rentals. And I think you get five points per dollar on those flights.

Wow. Okay.

And they've got some other really cool deals. You what? You don't get those, you don't get that lounge access quite. As well as you do with that platinum card, there's a lot more platinum lounges and there are capital one lounges so far.

Okay. Oh, that's definitely one to look at then, because, so right now my annual fee gets waved while I'm still active duty in the Navy so that's fine. However, in the future, when I'm no longer in active duty in the Navy, the capital one venture X might be a good option to look at.

Yeah, it's a good card. I just picked it up. And the other cool thing about that card is you get two points per dollar in everything. So oh, wow. With, with the platinum, you're just basically getting one on everything besides, like you said, flights.

Yeah. Unless it's like on certain deals that they have going on.

yeah. Yeah. So it's, take 200% more point accrual. That's a good thing.

Do they have a flight credit too on that card?

They do right now. Yeah, they do right now. But I think they're just trying to get people in the door cuz it's a new car. Yeah. So I don't know if that will always continue.

Amex changed theirs. It used to be like $200, towards any airline. And now it's like towards incidental fees. So if you spend money on that airline, if you buy drinks or food and stuff or extra baggage fees, Yeah, that gets covered by it now where it used to just, they would take 200 off the ticket, yeah. They don't do that no more.

I have seen examples, but it's rare where you can use that credit for upgrades, but it depends on how that airline codes it.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. Yeah, they, when I was talking with them on the phone, they didn't really mention that, but cause I had switched everything over, cuz we're taking a big trip later this year, to Florida, from Hawaii, but we want a direct flight, so we're not like connecting in an airport and being around a whole bunch of other people and everything. We asked Hey, can we use that? If we wanted to upgrade anything on the flight? And they said, no, normally it's gonna be for, just food and baggage fees and things like that. So we were like, ah, okay, that's fine. Yeah. Cause we're gonna wind up paying baggage fees anyway. Cause we're gonna have extra stuff. Because we're going back to the mainland, so we have to make a trader Joe's trip. So we're gonna have a suitcase just for trader Joe's to load that sucker up and bring it back. Cuz we don't have one of those out here in Hawaii. So yeah. It's true. You don't. Yeah. It's their trader Joe's is too cheap. They won't allow that in Hawaii.

gonna have to get your, three buck, Chuck, buy the truckload and ship

it out. Yeah, for sure. I appreciate you taking some time to talk with me about some travel hacking, like off topic, but on topic for what we're talking about. But yeah, this is all really good stuff, man. I wanna go into this, this new thing that I started, I call it the final round where it's gonna ask you four questions, that are just hit, and we blast through 'em. Okay. But they're really, they're good questions. I like you sure. I like asking these questions, get some good responses out of this. So if you're ready, we'll get this started.

Hit me. I'm ready.

Okay, let's go. All right. First question. It's a doozy. What's the biggest mistake you've ever made?

Mistake I personally made. Yes, boy, that is a hard one. I usually don't try to, I live with no regrets. I try to, not dwell,

not even a single letter. I meet the Millers reference.

I've seen that movie, but I'm terrible at movie, like movie recollections. I've seen it twice.

You remember the guy with the neck tattoo? Yeah. The no regrets.

Oh yes. I do know that. That's fine. I do know that. Yeah. Perfect. Gosh, Probably not starting my business sooner. Really? I do think about that. I think, that, I'm glad I started when I did that. There was an opportunity to start earlier. And that would've been a good thing.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Cuz you were at your previous place, for 10 years, so right. That's a lot of time doing that, it's, everything happens for a reason. You got some really good experience there. That's Hey. Yeah, sure. You could have started earlier, but you started when you started and now it's taken off. So that's well done.

Yeah, exactly. Got a great team and wonderful growing business. So all is good.

Awesome. Okay. Here's the next one. What is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first started?

Most people, most. People go into finance and financial apply and financializing, they think that they need to be good with money and numbers and accounting, and really, that does not have really any bearing on your success in this industry. So I think what I would've preferred to know sooner was just. In order to be successful in financial planning, you should just be a good people person, like under have empathy, like read the room, understand people's emotions. You're gonna be a much, much better at your job if you do that. And I think it took me a long time to realize

that's awesome that I really like that. Awesome man. Okay, cool. Now next question. Do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started today?

Just getting started in their like financial independence journey.

Coming to meet you for their first meeting and they say, Hey, I wanna start building my wealth. I wanna start investing, what kind of, tips or tricks would you recommend to them as they're getting started?

Yeah, I think first thing let's dial in the budget. Let's see exactly where you're spending, how much you're spending, let's figure out is there anything you can cut back on? Let's talk about it. Is that spending in alignment with your values? Are you happy with where you're spending money? And then from there, right? Do they have the right level of cash reserve? Do they have any debt that we should be trying to tackle? Those are really the immediate things. Make each other save into their 401k if they're gonna match stuff like that.

Okay. Awesome. Awesome. All right. And the last question of the final round is do you have a favorite business investing or real estate related book or podcast or both?

The average show of finances podcast.

Ah, come on. I appreciate that.

Yeah, I, Favorites kind of resource is what you're saying. I really like, and I, this is an OG blog. But I really like my money blog. I don't know if you've heard of that.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

I've been around for, I don't know, 15 years or something and, he does such a good job of just listing here's the best. Bank accounts that have a high interest, which is something that I value a lot cause try to help my client clients find the highest interest savings accounts. He lists, best 0% balance transfer cards. Just lots of, neat, cool stuff that he does. And he's been doing it for a long time and there's not a ton of junk on there and I like it.

Yeah, no, it's good stuff like him. And the points guy, they're, those are like two ones that you can really get a lot of good info from him.

Awesome. The points guy. Yeah. The points guy is the one everybody goes to for points. Yeah.

I brought that up because we talked about travel hacking, so

yeah, it's the points guy. I think what it is, it's just getting to be. A little too big. There's just so much going on there. It's not a great place I think, to kind start, but, if somebody's looking for a good travel hacking blog, the frequent miler is awesome. Frequent miler is really good. One, you from a wing, the one mile at a time, those are three good months.

Okay. No, I haven't seen that one, so yeah, I'll check that out for sure. Awesome. Okay. So that's it for the final round, but I do have one more question for you, Eric. And this is probably the most important one of all, because there's folks that are listening to the show right now and they're. Hey, I really like what Eric did, the way he started his business and just how genuine of a financial planner that he is. And maybe I wanna work with Eric and his team. So where can people find you where, do you have a website you can share with us any social media, anything like that, that you could share with our listeners?

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for asking that. And I was excited to be on this podcast. One thing we didn't talk about is just how we're trying to serve the average, Joe,

love it.

Where, we don't have minimums, like all financial advisors really do these days. We are at a price point that I think is extremely accessible for a lot of people. And we're also trying to keep, keep getting that lower and lower to serve more and more people. So if somebody wants to just go check out what we're doing and see if it's a good fit to do our website, Which is www.abundowealth.com. And then we're on all the social media platforms under that same.

Awesome. Hey, so we will make sure that we have all the links in the BI, well down below. So to make it easy for everybody, you could find it in the show notes, you'll be able to find Eric's website and all of his social media profiles for him and his team. And, just to make it easy for you. So if you're driving your car right now, don't sit here and try to type it in or copy it down or whatever it's gonna be in the show notes. It's gonna make it easy for you. But yeah, fantastic, Eric, this. Awesome, really excited for you and what you're doing. I'm really excited that I had a chance to talk to you today and, even touching some things outside of, what you do as a planner and talking about some travel hacking stuff. That was pretty fun. And, and I learned some more and I've got two new blogs I need to check out for sure. Yeah. Perfect. Definitely appreciate that.

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, it's been a blast and Aloha from Hawaii.