How I Became a CPA Financial Planner
With the rise of social media has come a wave of content creators giving financial advice… whether they’re qualified or not.
I see a lot of content about debt payoff coming from people who have quickly paid off anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 of debt. I admire that those who are farther along on the road to financial independence are helping others with their own experience.
But I also see plenty of bad advice, especially when it comes to investing and building a business.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of personal finance content creators with no formal training who are giving short-term fixes that may make someone’s money issues worse.
So, what makes me qualified to speak intelligently about wealth?
I truly care about helping others on the road to financial freedom. My goal is to build trust and goodwill with families who need expert guidance to tackle their biggest financial goals.
I want to share how I became a financial planner and built WorthyNest® so that you can be confident about the resources you find here.
My First Foray Into Finance
My path emerged as a child.
I was born in rural Illinois and grew up predominantly in the Midwest. But I was uprooted numerous times before the age of 10. We moved to a different state several times because of my dad’s work.
And no, he wasn’t in the military. My dad was in the manufacturing industry.
Dad was a hard worker and always managed to work his way up to a management role within the companies he worked for. In my early years, he felt he had to relocate our family to financially support us whenever one of his employers closed up shop.
New city, new friends, new everything.
Things eventually stabilized, and I spent fourth grade through my senior year of high school in Wisconsin. We had a lot of family in-state, and my dad decided once we had settled that it was time to put down roots… no matter what.
When I was in seventh grade, the manufacturer my dad was working for was purchased by a bigger company. He was let go from his position and sent home.
He remained unemployed for the next 18 months.
Dealing with my dad’s unemployment in seventh and eighth grades was one of my most difficult childhood experiences. I had lived with the instability of moving multiple times in my earliest and most developmentally formative years.
Now, in spite of our geographic stability in Wisconsin, I felt so much uncertainty about our future. I often found myself anxiously thinking about whether my family would be okay.
We were a Catholic family, so getting a faith-based education was really important to my parents. There was a private Catholic high school my parents (and I) wanted me to attend, but they weren’t sure if they could afford the tuition.
Luckily, Mom’s consistent employment as a CPA helped us keep food on the table and provided stability during crucial times. It comforted me knowing that, as an accountant, she could get a job anywhere and had a skill set that would always be needed.
Her hard work and dedication inspired me during my school years and had a big influence on my life path.
It was my mom’s accounting career that exposed me to the world of finance. So when I stumbled upon Money magazine in middle school, I was immediately hooked.
At the time, algebra and geometry both seemed so abstract. I asked myself, “Am I even going to use this when I get out of school?” I wondered how classroom lessons would ever apply to real life.
Money opened my eyes to another world, one focused on prudent saving habits and a pathway to building real financial wealth.
Just as important as the money-saving tips it contained, the magazine was my constant in that very uncertain period when we lost my dad’s income.
As soon as I turned 13, I got a part-time job. I was a waitress at a senior citizen community dining hall. Implementing as much as I could of what I read in Money, I saved much of my earnings.
From that first job until the present day, I have never been without work. I’ve been blessed to always find a job of some kind, even if it was just temporary.
I never wanted to feel dependent on someone else for financial stability, having lived with the uncertainty of an unemployed parent.
I learned about saving money from my part-time job. My parents’ hard work ethic and frugality also fostered excellent financial habits in me. Much of what I read in Money, I took to heart and used in daily decision-making.
At a young age, I also learned about the virtues of prudence and wisdom. Prudence entails a certain level of caution, while wisdom is the knowledge to make informed decisions.
I decided on accounting when it was time to choose a major in college. With my childhood association between accounting careers and stability, that path made the most sense. It was an honor to follow in the footsteps of my mother, who was such a positive role model.
From the Big Four to a Small Business
I studied hard, got good grades, and became a licensed CPA.
Deloitte, one of the Big Four international public accounting firms, hired me straight out of college. I was fortunate to work with bright, ambitious tax professionals whose technical expertise far surpassed my own.
When several of my mentors left Deloitte in 2006, I started looking outside public accounting and landed in a client-facing wealth management role.
The next seven years went by quickly.
The wealth advisory firm’s team more than doubled, and our managed assets more than tripled to–I kid you not–$3 billion.
That exponential growth prompted leaders of the firm to share a fresh company vision. They raised the minimum new client fee to $25,000 annually.
That transition was a hard pill for me to swallow.
The higher minimum fee meant we were only serving families in the top 1% of income earners.
As a Christian, I felt called to help people like me who were in the earlier stages of their financial journey. Some of the charitable causes my clients supported, such as Planned Parenthood, also contradicted my pro-life values.
Those seven years brought about personal change as well. I married Bryan, and we were blessed with two baby boys.
But shortly after our second son’s birth, I found myself exhausted and drained.
Bryan worked full-time in a demanding position while attending a rigorous evening MBA program. My daily commute was 1 ½ hours round-trip.
I barely had enough time at night to feed the boys, bathe them, and get ready for bedtime…not to mention the inevitable sleepless nights with a newborn.
The pace of our life was unsustainable.
Moments that should have been joyful, such as birthday parties and family dinners, felt burdensome instead. They were additional items on the endless to-do list.
After a lot of prayer and reflection, I decided to quit my job.
My last day at the wealth management firm was Halloween 2013. Leaving relationships with coworkers and clients and abandoning a steady paycheck was difficult.
But I felt called to do it, and that single decision put my life on a different trajectory.
What is WorthyNest®?
Fast forward to today.
We now have three wonderful sons, I have 17 years of experience under my belt, and I steward a thriving business.
I started SV CPA Services in 2014 to serve the needs of small businesses while raising two young boys. But there was something else in my heart waiting to become a reality.
Two years later, in 2016, I launched the business of my dreams. Ever since leaving Matter Family Office, I yearned to help families make financial decisions aligned with their values.
If you’re a Christian parent, I want you to know that…
Building wealth is not evil. Rather, it can be a means to express God’s generosity in the world!
You don’t have to invest in companies making immoral decisions in order to build wealth.
There is a path to financial independence and freedom that aligns with your Christian values.
WorthyNest®, a fee-only fiduciary wealth management firm, guides parents and entrepreneurs through important financial decisions using a values-based approach.
Refer to this article on faith-based investing that further explains the term “values-based”. It also highlights how I recommend that my clients build their investment portfolios.
This values-based approach is very different from what you’ll find among other financial planners or investment advisors. Many advisors start a new client relationship with quantitative analysis.
But WorthyNest® takes a unique 5-step approach to serve new clients:
Identify your family values and goals
Develop cash flow analysis and statement of net worth
Evaluate whether you’re on track to achieve those goals
Ask the right follow-up questions
Monitor progress through ongoing touchpoints
Taking that first step to identify your values and goals means that you are fully in charge of your financial plan. And because I’m a fee-only fiduciary (meaning, I do not receive any commissions or incentive fees), my advice is always in your best interest.
My goal is to help align your finances with your goals.
WorthyNest® is a labor of love. It’s my calling. “Faith. Family. Finance” is my firm’s tagline, but it embodies much more.
Sometimes, I feel that same sense of uncertainty I did when I was a kid.
But I know, even with those moments of doubt and uncertainty, that this is what I have been called by God to do. Serving families as a CPA financial planner gives me life! And if you are ready to step into a more abundant future, I would love to guide you on that journey.
At WorthyNest®, we guide parents through important financial decisions using a values-based approach. Contact us to explore a one-on-one relationship.