Jennifer Li — The Life-Changing Power of Financial Planning with Jennifer Li

[00:00:00] Jennifer Li: Money is an incredibly emotional thing for most people. You know, it’s one of the number one causes of stress, just not knowing. So I think that it’s really, about just like. Making sure that you know what’s going on and if you don’t know what’s going on, we can go as simple as pro bono financial planning. People in the community can just show up and just ask their questions no matter how simple.

[00:00:26] Intro: Do you think money takes up more life space than it should? On this show, we discuss with and share stories from artists, authors, entrepreneurs, and advisors about how they mindfully minimize the time and energies. Spent thinking about money. Join your host, Jonathan DeYoe, and learn how to put money in its place and get more out of life.

[00:00:59] Jonathan DeYoe: [00:01:00] Hey, welcome back on this episode of The Mindful Money Podcast. I’m gonna begin to introduce you to some of my firm EP Wealth’s leadership. , today I’m chatting with Jennifer Li. , Jennifer is a certified financial planner, that’s a CFP, a licensed enrolled agent. Think tax. And a chartered advisor of philanthropy. She’s the director of Financial Planning at EP Wealth, which is a registered investment advisor with 45 offices nationwide and over $31 billion in assets under management, of which I added when I joined the firm three years ago. A small little piece of that.

[00:01:32] Jonathan DeYoe: She leads a team of over 30 financial planners at EP Wealth, and as they work with individuals and families to sort of navigate the goals and complexities of their unique financial situation, , she specializes in helping clients articulate and advanced their highest aspirations for self, family, and social impact.

[00:01:53] Jonathan DeYoe: She’s a huge financial literacy advocate and the champion of classical music. She volunteers her time to teach personal financial literacy as [00:02:00] well as serving on boards. For local nonprofits serving young musicians. She usually works behind the scenes, but I wanted to have her on the podcast for two reasons.

[00:02:10] Jonathan DeYoe: First, she runs the financial planning department, financial planning, being, in my opinion, the most important thing or one of the top two most important things we do for clients at EP Wealth. And second, she is the person who wrote my family’s financial plan when I joined the firm three years ago. I don’t know if she even remembers that, but she was the person that worked with us.

[00:02:30] Jonathan DeYoe: I’ve done spreadsheets for years, but she’s the first one to formalize it for myself and my wife and my family. So, Jennifer, welcome to the Mindful Money Podcast.

[00:02:38] Jennifer Li: Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you for having me.

[00:02:41] Jonathan DeYoe: So where, first off, where do you call home and where are you connecting from today?

[00:02:46] Jennifer Li: I live in Los Angeles, so I live smack in the middle of LA, literally between the 405 and the 10 freeway. If anyone is familiar with LA, close to downtown, I would say maybe 10, 15 minutes away. And I [00:03:00] am recording this from my, my home here.

[00:03:03] Jonathan DeYoe: So, are you a Bruin?

[00:03:05] Jennifer Li: I am a UCLA Bruin, yes. I was born, raised in LA, went to school in LA. I am a plant. I have never left.

[00:03:15] Jonathan DeYoe: Well, my, my son’s a Bruin now too, so I guess we’re, we’re Bruins by, you know, family relations. So he’s there. He’s there right now studying away.

[00:03:22] Jonathan DeYoe: I’m curious, growing up in LA what did you learn about money or entrepreneurship as a kid or young teen? I.

[00:03:27] Jennifer Li: Oh, very little. Very little. So my parents are immigrants. So they’re from Taiwan and we have no family here. We still have no family here ’cause it’s too far. It’s like a 13, 14 hour flight. and a lot of my family, including my parents, absolutely hate flying. So, um, it was really just my immediate family that’s been out here.

[00:03:50] Jennifer Li: I mean, occasionally we had people visit, but mostly it was like figuring it out. My parents didn’t go to college here, then went to college, in [00:04:00] Taiwan. Um, my dad do, did do his master’s here. , he was at in Ohio for a little bit, but, , really just had to figure everything out on his own. His parents are. neither set of parents are super, you know, financially literate. , but my, my parents wanted to come here for the land of opportunity, as they say. ’cause there wasn’t as many opportunities at that time. And, , they really hustled. I saw them work extremely hard. Three jobs just to make ends meet with the fear of layoffs. Every Christmas, my dad would say that I’m gonna get laid off. I’m gonna get laid off. Even though he’s one of the most intelligent people. he went to one of the top universities in Taiwan. Which is different than here. You don’t apply for school in Taiwan. You test into it. So they pick the creme of the creme in terms of like, these are the top students.

[00:04:52] Jennifer Li: That’s how you get into a school. And so he was, he was well known for that. I. Yeah, I think he was, um, majored in chemical engineering when he first [00:05:00] came here and couldn’t find a job in it and decided, okay, I’m gonna pivot and became a software engineer. Learned it by himself or from other people, like without going to proper schooling for it. And just did, , had, was super humble. He just did a bunch of jobs, like didn’t matter to make ends meet. So I guess you could say there was a lot of entrepreneurship in that sense, but not maybe in the traditional. Business sense, if that makes sense. He’s not technically a business owner, but real estate big in real estate.

[00:05:31] Jennifer Li: Of

[00:05:32] Jonathan DeYoe: No, that’s a business. That’s a business. I’m curious, you said something there that, I’m wondering,, what did you take out of the message? I’m gonna get laid off. I’m gonna get laid off. I’m gonna get laid off. , what did you take outta that? Is there something that you learned from that as a kid, hearing that all the time?

[00:05:45] Jennifer Li: yeah. Scarcity mindset.

[00:05:47] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah.

[00:05:47] Jennifer Li: You gotta save every penny you got. My parents were very, very adamant about being financially independent. They were like. There’s no money here. Okay? You aren’t relying on us [00:06:00] when you’re 18, you’re outta the house, which kind of happened ish. I mean, not, not so, not that bad.

[00:06:05] Jennifer Li: I mean, they paid for college. I mean, they gave me every opportunity, right? I didn’t have any student loan debt. They, were big believers in education growing up. They were like, you’re. I had a lot of cello lessons, which I’m sure we’ll talk about later. I had so many tutorings things to set me and my, I have two younger brothers up for success to survive here for sure.

[00:06:31] Jonathan DeYoe: I, it sounds like there’s a, and people don’t always identify the lessons that they learn, but it sounds like there’s a scarcity mindset. There’s also probably the importance of hard work. You know, I mean the, the three jobs constantly that, that’s I think, a , very important lesson. , but there’s also this, um. almost an intergenerational, Hey, we’re gonna work really hard so that we can give you the opportunity so that you can excel. That that’s also a lesson that you learn about what you do, for the next generation.

[00:06:55] Jonathan DeYoe: I wanna get to your work at ep, but before we get there, can you give us your career [00:07:00] arc?

[00:07:00] Jonathan DeYoe: Like where did you start, how did you get interested in, in finance, and how did you end up be becoming a financial planner?

[00:07:05] Jennifer Li: Yeah, sure. So my major at UCLA was cello performance. You can kind of see my cello case there. My cellos over there, well, I can’t quite quite see it in the camera, but, um, my life until I. Even at least 25, if not beyond that was music. You know, started playing piano and cello, dabbled in violin for a little bit when I was like five.

[00:07:33] Jennifer Li: I still play, not as much as I hope, but you know, um, yeah. So I thought music was gonna be my entire life from growing up. There was no other path, you know? And then I got into college on music scholarships. I tried to change majors, I took a lot of math classes, economy classes, business law, accounting, and decided I did not like any [00:08:00] of those things at all. So I went back to music and like really gave it all and tried. And I even applied for a Master’s in Music, but decided at that point that um, this is not for me. I don’t wanna take cutthroat auditions. So for those who are familiar with classical music’s incredibly cutthroat. I mean, we’re talking, there may be two double base positions in, uh, orchestra that isn’t even the top orchestra.

[00:08:32] Jennifer Li: And literally hundreds of thousands of applicants will apply and fly in for those auditions. And even then your audition lasts maybe three minutes if you’re lucky. it’s crazy and you make one mistake if you squeak. If you are out of tune, they hear it right away. I mean, these are like people with incredible abilities to just [00:09:00] identify that kind of stuff that I was like, I am not gonna put myself through that.

[00:09:04] Jennifer Li: It’s just way too competitive. and it just made me kind of not enjoy music anymore. So, I mean, I had a couple jobs, you know, it was during the recession when I graduated from UCLA, so I felt like it was really hard to find a job. I was like, I went to, I thought a pretty good school. I. But apparently not. And so I kind of just found a job in, freight forwarding, if anyone’s familiar with, that’s all the containers. So I did ocean imports, so literally those big containers coming in through the ports of like. Apple iPhones and Amazon or whatever, you know, things that people import to the us. Um, that’s kind of a crazy story.

[00:09:47] Jennifer Li: I actually applied, interviewed and got the job all in the same day, and I had no idea what I was doing, but they were a Mandarin speaking company and they were Taiwanese. And I [00:10:00] just had a blast. A lot of the people were my age. They were all fresh outta college and spoke Mandarins allowed me to kind of just like reconnect with that part of my heritage. Um, but I did that for like eight months and was like, okay, I need to stop this. I, I commuted three hours to El Segundo for, for those who are familiar because I. Couldn’t afford a car. So I took the bus, I think it was 75 cents, each way I had a Bruin discount. so I had a lot of time to think. And so I was like, well, first thing I need to do is cut this commute. And so I found a job in Santa Monica, which is originally where I’m from. And a real estate company doing bookkeeping for them.

[00:10:37] Jennifer Li: Tiny, tiny little firm. There were five employees, I think, including the owner. So learned a lot about, you know, bookkeeping and paying bills basically for a company. And,, that’s when I started learning about the CFP. And I heard it on NPR in my long bus rides and I was like, what is this thing? And I think a lot of it was my [00:11:00] own fear. I just felt like I didn’t wanna make up mistakes with my money. A lot of it’s my parents’ upbringing, like money is scarce you better do right by it. And also just like. Having to see so many people fail it during the Great Recession, and a lot of the mistakes that they made were not their own in the sense that they just weren’t educated, like they didn’t know they were gonna have.

[00:11:25] Jennifer Li: I. The things that ha happened to them. And so a lot of it was first selfish reasons of educating myself. And so I googled the CFP, found that the UCL extension had classes. And I was like, whoa, this is in my backyard. So I got a job closer so that I could do night school basically. So every week I would go to class.

[00:11:45] Jennifer Li: I’m a very in-person, class person. I don’t love self-study. and I took. Each class and I was like, oh my God, why doesn’t everybody know this?

[00:11:55] Jonathan DeYoe: Mm.

[00:11:56] Jennifer Li: Ooh, this day I would say, I’m like, why doesn’t everybody know this [00:12:00] stuff? It’s so important. Enjoyed every moment, , every class that I’ve taken and then halfway through the classes, I started to look for a job. And so at that point I decided, okay, I do wanna do this as a career, , ,

[00:12:14] Jonathan DeYoe: How old were you?

[00:12:15] Jennifer Li: I was 24.

[00:12:18] Jonathan DeYoe: You had tried two or three different kind of career paths and decided this is what you wanted, so 23, 24. That’s good. That’s good.

[00:12:24] Jennifer Li: Yes. Not at all, please. , and so at that point I decided, okay, but I wanna be strategic about what kind of job I applied for. And I knew I didn’t wanna do sales, so I was like, I’m not worried for an insurance company. I am not going to work for a bank. I don’t wanna sell product and stuff. I don’t think I even fully understood what that meant at that point. I think I was looking for a registered investment advisor at that point, but didn’t even know what that really was. ’cause it’s not quite as ubiquitous as it is these days.

[00:12:55] Jennifer Li: And so EP Wealth Advisors were one of the very few firms that [00:13:00] existed in LA that I at least could find, and I applied for the job. , Sherryl Ray, who is our Director of Employee Enrichment, interviewed me along with another gentleman, John Ertman, who has had many roles at ep, but he’s now retired. But he was basically HR and the CFO, a bunch of hats we had to wear at that point. And, I was so excited to find that there was a financial planning position. I didn’t have to do sales, but I could just learn , the art, the craft, and , that’s how I ended up here.

[00:13:33] Jonathan DeYoe: Wow. This was your first financial planning role out of your CFP. Great.

[00:13:39] Jennifer Li: that’s right.

[00:13:40] Jonathan DeYoe: I think he got really lucky in choosing financial planning, and I think he got really lucky in finding ep. My, my favorite industry pundit is Nick Murray, and , he basically tells us lots of, he says lots of things, but one of the core things he says is, there’s only two values of financial advice.

[00:13:54] Jonathan DeYoe: The first value is getting a financial plan written, and the second value is keeping [00:14:00] people on financial plan when it’s uncomfortable. So it’s all dedicated to financial planning and you run, , I think one of the best financial planning departments , in the best companies in the country.

[00:14:08] Jonathan DeYoe: I really do believe that. So , can you tell the audience, the mindful money audience about the importance or the power of financial planning?

[00:14:17] Jennifer Li: Yes, yes. , thank you for saying that. I am very, very proud of the 35 plus. We’re, we’re, we’re bringing on some new planners. We’re always growing. So, , , just so everyone knows, I started off as a financial planning associate clearly in that role. And there were only two people in financial planning then.

[00:14:33] Jennifer Li: And to see the evolution, this, this team has been a dream to lead for sure.

[00:14:38] Jonathan DeYoe: It’s, it’s like two and a since I joined three years ago. The company is two and a half, three times bigger. I

[00:14:44] Jennifer Li: It probably. I believe that. For sure. For sure, for sure. So the impact of financial planning. Oh my goodness. I would say like. You know, we always talk about power of compounding and how exciting it is on the investment side. but [00:15:00] that only works if you actually invest and you stay invested, especially, I think so, , pertinent right now.

[00:15:05] Jennifer Li: I know it’s a scary time in the market and there’s a lot going on. Volatility is also normal part of the markets. I know it’s been hard to swallow, but I would say the same is about advice. So the decisions you get to make today, not what happened in the past. I mean, we of course, may need to fix. Some mistakes we have made in the past, which is okay. , but what’s more important is the decisions we make going forward. So how we decide to save, how we decide to spend our money, how we decide to do anything with our money makes huge, you know, ramifications in the future, both , for the good and the bad. And I think what we do here is first educate people.

[00:15:49] Jennifer Li: I’m never gonna tell you what you have to do. I right you, you are still the boss. The client is always the boss. I’m here to inform and help you talk through decision making [00:16:00] on, okay, does it make sense to do X, Y, Z or A B, C? You know, we can definitely talk through that. There’s always the numbers, aspects of it, so. , one of the things we do here, Jonathan alluded to before, is build an actual written financial plan. And so what’s cool about that is we take your base case situation if you did absolutely nothing and we run what if scenarios. You know, we always talk about like, I don’t have crystal ball. I don’t know what the market’s gonna do. But When you run a financial plan, this is as close as I think you can get within reason, of course of, okay, if I decide to buy this bigger house, if I decide to sell my business or give to charity, or whatever that you are thinking about, we can run a what-if So you can see the long term ramifications to help you make and informed decisions. And I absolutely love this job because I feel like I get to experience people’s lives. A [00:17:00] thousand times over. ’cause I

[00:17:01] Jennifer Li: see so many versions of people’s lives and I get to be part of that. , their experience, their wishes, their pains, you know, and, be alongside as life changes and how to navigate those situations that we can’t even predict.

[00:17:17] Jonathan DeYoe: , one of the things I like , that, , clients report back after going through the financial planning process

[00:17:21] Jonathan DeYoe: Is a sense of not that they know what’s gonna happen. I. But that whatever happens, they can figure it out , you run five or six or seven what if scenarios and you go, okay, okay, okay, so markets don’t average nine, they average seven.

[00:17:33] Jonathan DeYoe: this is the outcome. Then, , okay, inflation isn’t two and a half, it’s four. This is what happens then.

[00:17:38] Jonathan DeYoe: , you’re employed now, but you lose your job. This is what happens then, right? Uh, so what, whatever the thing is, you can build a what if for it. You can kind of see that.

[00:17:46] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. Oh, there’s levers I can pull. , there’s trade offs I can make, , there’s decisions that I, that come to the fore , that enable things to be okay. And then, and then people just, ah, they have this, they feel better about it. , , can you touch on just some specifics that I think are top of mind right [00:18:00] now?

[00:18:00] Jonathan DeYoe: . Inflation has been for a couple years, but, how does financial planning account for factors like inflation environments or, , return environments over like a 15 or 20 year period? I.

[00:18:12] Jennifer Li: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. So I know it’s hard to distance ourself from what’s happening right now ’cause we’re literally living and experiencing now. But the way we look at it is creating some assumptions that can withstand time. And when I say time, I don’t mean the next year or two. I mean, what can happen over the next 30 to 40 years?

[00:18:34] Jennifer Li: Because oftentimes that’s how long, if not longer, that we are running -financial plans. Depends on your age, of course. Uh, I mean, average plan, we do project to age a hundred to be conservative. So you can imagine, you wanna make sure that you’re using a reasonable assumption going forward.

[00:18:50] Jennifer Li: And so we work with our investment, , team to come up with these every single year on what inflation should be, , in the long term. Same thing with rates of return [00:19:00] in, you know, what’s reasonable numbers that are conservative, that are achievable too in the long run. Um, so that’s what we do in the base case.

[00:19:09] Jennifer Li: Now to your point, if a client is concerned about, well, what if inflation is higher? Okay, let’s run it higher. How does the plan work? The plan is going to assume you do absolutely nothing different. You never change anything about your life. You don’t actually cut down spending a little bit during those rough times, which is just not true, right?

[00:19:28] Jennifer Li: Most of us will adapt if we know things aren’t in the best spot right now. You may not take that massive family vacation this year. Maybe postpone it a year or two until you feel more comfortable. The market settle a little bit. Uh. In some cases, clients can still afford it. Even the market’s horrible.

[00:19:46] Jennifer Li: They’re still a hundred percent on the Monte Carlo, but if it gives you peace of mind to, to not do something right now and to delay it until later, that’s okay too.

[00:19:58] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. Can you [00:20:00] kind of, , explain to folks who haven’t gone through the planning process, how the plan keeps up with changing life circumstances?

[00:20:07] Jennifer Li: Yes. So we do update the financial plan. You know, as life happens, I mean, for those who have run through it, you’re going to notice that it’s like a big calculator at the end of the day. And so if there’s not really a tremendous amount of change in your life, there’s no real reason to continuously update it. Instead, what we do is we write an action plan. I like to call it the one page financial plan. I. It’s more like two or three pages, but you know, one page sounds better than 80 page report. So the one page financial plan is basically a plan of action. I like to think of it as the financial roadmap for the next year to year and a half of like, what are we actually going to do? So again, bringing it back to how markets are very volatile right now. Well, there’s very little we can do from a control standpoint of what the market decides, but there are so many other aspects of your financial life that you [00:21:00] can make decisions on. So if it’s super volatile, does it make sense , to do a Roth conversion right now?

[00:21:06] Jennifer Li: That might be something where if the market goes back up and swings back up, guess what? All of that is tax-free growth. That could potentially be in your financial plan. it’s just talking through these volatile situations, but going back to the action plan of what’s doable. Taxes, right? How we decide if we contribute to a traditional retirement account or do we contribute to a Roth or do we do capital loss harvesting, right?

[00:21:32] Jennifer Li: If you actually have losses, we like to come , to like, take the paper loss and bank it for later to use, whether now or some other time, you know, depends again on what the market does. I think there’s an opportunity in every type of life-changing circumstance. , but it’s really following that action plan on, well, have you done your estate plan? In many ways, that’s actually way more detrimental to you than the market behaving the way it is because if you do not have beneficiaries [00:22:00] listed, if you do not have a trust account, we are speaking in California where probate is extremely expensive, then you could be costing yourself your heirs a lot of money time.

[00:22:12] Jennifer Li: And pain because if you go through the court system, it takes an incredibly long time. I think the average is like two years or something to even get access to the money that you might need or your heirs might need to live on. So these are all things within our control. yeah, So I think those are some of , the quick examples.

[00:22:30] Jonathan DeYoe: I think every planner has kind of their, maybe their pet thing that they like to do. But is there something you, if you look across the planners. , what are some of the, biggest picture items that, apply the most to most people’s lives?

[00:22:42] Jonathan DeYoe: Like you mentioned Roth conversions. I know that’s something that there’s, it’s been a rage for like a decade to talk about Roth conversion, but are there other things like that, that people should be thinking about?

[00:22:51] Jennifer Li: You know, I think it sounds really easy, but it’s not that easy is consolidating accounts, simplifying [00:23:00] your life. over life, , it’s just like stuff in the house. We accumulate it and to a certain extent we’re maybe all hoarders, not on purpose. It just happens ’cause we forget there’s so much stuff in our house.

[00:23:13] Jennifer Li: So it’s the same thing about accounts. We may open different bank accounts. Maybe we had different employers over our lifetimes that. Oh yeah, I forgot I had that 401k and there’s, it’s been sitting there in cash this whole time because I didn’t know I should have invested it. So I would say as easy and simple as that sounds, consolidating, simplify.

[00:23:34] Jennifer Li: Know where everything is. It’s not only for yourself, but also if you have a. Partner in life, if something happens to you, your partner knows what to do,

[00:23:44] Jennifer Li: um,, or your children, if your children or your heirs are the ones who are going to inherit the money. , tying it back to estate planning again, that’s actually one of the most difficult things.

[00:23:53] Jennifer Li: You can have everything done correctly. I have all my state documents done, and it is still hard. , it is still [00:24:00] work to administer in a state. You still gotta go to every single custodian. , to be like, Hey, you know, here’s the death certificate. How do I get the money out? What can I do? Depending on complex, of course the estate, plan is, that’s probably my one, one piece of advice.

[00:24:14] Jonathan DeYoe: This is sort of a positive spin on that. I had a really close friend, someone I’ve known for 25 years, just discovered that a job he left 25 years ago, like I just met him, . He went off to a, to this job, he was there for like eight months and he deposited maybe $4,000 into this 401k.

[00:24:29] Jonathan DeYoe: 25 years later, he gets a notification like, Hey, you’ve got $40,000 in this thing. , , because he just put it in the s and p fund and left it for, 25 years. So a pretty, pretty nice little deal. It’s better, better than a 20 in an old coat. Right? can you just talk really briefly about not just the financial benefits, you know, you do a Roth conversion, you save on taxes, you maybe can, maybe you can retire a year earlier, whatever.

[00:24:52] Jonathan DeYoe: What are some of the emotional benefits? Because you get to see lots of clients with lots of advisors. What are the emotional benefits from financial [00:25:00] planning?

[00:25:00] Jennifer Li: Well, I think it goes to peace of mind. Financial planning. That’s what we, we call it here at ep. You know, it’s empowering people to be in the know, even if the news isn’t as good. Right. Even if we have to say, okay, I know I wanted to retire at 55, but. you know, 45 years is a really long time for money to last, you know, so I think it’s at least knowing you’re making an informed decision.

[00:25:27] Jennifer Li: We joke with other advisors where they just don’t wanna hear from a client, say, , guess what I did? That is probably the worst thing right? To hear. I’m sure, Jonathan, you can relate, right? It’s how.

[00:25:41] Jonathan DeYoe: I bought a.

[00:25:44] Jennifer Li: Exactly. So it’s like, okay, how about before you do that? You say, Hey, Jonathan, I’m thinking about doing this. What do you think? So I, I think it, it’s really just knowing and what are the, the things we can do [00:26:00] before we’re up against a wall and there’s nothing that can be done. , that’s when you’re trapped, right?

[00:26:06] Jennifer Li: I mean, there’s very little options. And so I think we wanna inform people of, okay, how long do you have until a decision needs to be made about however you change your lifestyle?

[00:26:17] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. This is maybe a harder question. , so mindful money, we speak to folks that may not actually need an advisor or may not need a need, a financial, I think everybody needs a financial plan. What is the threshold of complexity that should drive someone to think about getting a professional financial plan done?

[00:26:39] Jennifer Li: You know, I think it depends because everyone’s comfortability with financial literacy is a huge component. Some people love learning this stuff too. They could be CFPs themselves right

[00:26:53] Jonathan DeYoe: totally, totally

[00:26:53] Jennifer Li: now. At the same time, it’s the doctor operating on themselves, right.

[00:26:58] Jennifer Li: Money is an incredibly [00:27:00] emotional thing for most people. You know, it’s one of the number one causes of stress, just not knowing. So going back to your previous question, that’s another emotional aspect of just, I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m on full control, and I don’t know if something happened to me that I’d be able to do something to make sure that I’d be. Taken care of and I can take care of my family. So I think that it’s really, about just like. Making sure that you know what’s going on and if you don’t know what’s going on, we can go as simple as pro bono financial planning. So as an example, , when I got my CFP, the first thing I signed up, even actually before I got my CFP, , in LA here we have the LA Public Library System, and every single October and April we call an October financial planning day in April, financial literacy month, , where no strings attached. People in the community can just show up and just ask their questions no matter how simple. It doesn’t need to be super comprehensive. I know that’s what we do here at EP [00:28:00] and it’s definitely our area of specialization.

[00:28:02] Jennifer Li: But even the question as simple as budgeting or your credit card debt or whatever you’re facing. , , , you should seek advice if you’re not sure. And so a lot of us here will do pro bono work through various nonprofits where you can just answer questions , and so to me, there is no threshold.

[00:28:18] Jennifer Li: I’ve met people of all walks of lives that have come to us, , for help there.

[00:28:23] Jonathan DeYoe: I totally agree. Anyone that has questions doesn’t know the answers. I’m just, I guess I’m looking for the person that’s gonna hire the professional, like that’s gonna come to EP and have EP do the comprehensive, you know,

[00:28:33] Jennifer Li: Oh, got it.

[00:28:35] Jonathan DeYoe: for lifetimes. Like how complex does that need to be and what are some of the, .

[00:28:39] Jonathan DeYoe: What are some of the things that people get, people would think to themselves? Yeah, I really do need to have a professional look at this.

[00:28:46] Jennifer Li: Yeah, so what we do here at ep, I mean our minimums are 500,000 of investible assets, , specifically here. but like I think what you can do is have a, what we call a thumbnail sketch of a financial plan done. So

[00:28:59] Jennifer Li: maybe [00:29:00] it’s not the full blown I gotta. Spill all of my life to you on exactly what I have and don’t have. but I think it’s really just showing, okay, can I make these things work? And a lot of times when we do that thumbnail sketch of a financial plan, there’s often opportunities that present our

[00:29:18] Jennifer Li: itself. So even things that you may not think of that you might need help, a financial professional may uncover, Hey, here’s something you could be doing,

[00:29:29] Jennifer Li: um, to hopefully improve and really maximize your wealth.

[00:29:33] Jennifer Li: So I don’t know that there’s an actual threshold for complexity. ’cause again, it depends on the person’s knowledge base, , , of is like, what is it that keeps you up at night?

[00:29:42] Jennifer Li: Are you concerned about something happening? And that’s when you should seek advice and ask, okay, what can we do to kind of. Calm some of my nerves about the situation , and again, take it into your control of what can be done. So it can be as simple as life [00:30:00] insurance. something happens to me. I am the breadwinner of this family. My entire family relies on me. So, how much should I get? How long should I get? Should I get a term insurance?

[00:30:10] Jennifer Li: Should I get a whole life? Or there’s a, you know, a lot of different types of insurance products out there. And so helping you make these good decisions to protect your assets and your family. , I would say you want to engage a professional in.

[00:30:24] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. , so , thanks for the, sort of the peak into financial planning specifically at ep. , I know you’re also very active in EPS charitable work, and I know that given the fires in LA that EP has done a lot. Can you just touch on some of the initiatives and some of the things that you’ve done, , in the LA community, since the fires?

[00:30:41] Jennifer Li: Yes. Yeah. So as soon as unfortunately the devastation of the fires occurred, um, our HR team and the charity initiative got together to create a wildfire, task force basically. So I think there’s maybe seven, eight of us on the team to, to kind of do this. So one of the first [00:31:00] things we did was. You know, bless everybody at ep we have people across the nation who are like, are you okay?

[00:31:07] Jennifer Li: What can we do to help? And you know, a lot of ’em are not in la So we came up with a firm wide initiative here to come up with, okay, what are the organizations and types of organizations we want to support? And so we narrowed it down to, , animal. , shelters, food insecurity and housing.

[00:31:27] Jennifer Li: And so we did some research ’cause I’m, I’m sure a lot of people, especially in LA but even across the nation, were bombarded with advertisements of donate here, do this and do that. And so we kind of did a lot of the homework here internally, at least what was meaningful to EP in which we decided. To pick three organizations. So we contacted LA Food Bank. We are working with the American Red Cross team as well as S-P-C-A-L-A for the animal shelters ’cause we have partnered and volunteered at a lot of these organizations [00:32:00] in the history of VPay. And so what we did was create links, for them in which our employees, again, across the nation, anybody could donate. And we are matching one for one up to $200 per employee. Um, you can do the math. We have over 500 employees here at ep, so it can be quite the dollar amount. So big thank you to our, , finance team for approving the budget to allow us, to do this good work. We’ve also created Amazon lists, , through the organizations on what are the things that they need most. So for the animal shelters, you know, of course a lot of it’s , canned food, and you know, through the, , American Red Cross, it’s a lot of like. , hygiene kits and, and just basic necessity things, diapers, I mean, you name it.

[00:32:49] Jennifer Li: So that’s kind of one aspect. We also set up, , our own internal pro bono, committee in which it’s called EP Gives, at ep [00:33:00] wealth.com, in which anybody, friends, family, anybody that you know, who has been unfortunately devastated and affected by the fires. Can, you know, reach out to us and we will connect you with one of our financial planning team members to help you through it.

[00:33:13] Jennifer Li: ’cause it’s overwhelming.

[00:33:15] Jennifer Li: Where do I even begin?

[00:33:17] Jennifer Li: It’s an incredibly traumatic experience to go through and so we have been helping clients, , as well as just. Our employees, our friends and family. Doesn’t really matter. There’s no threshold. It’s no strings attached. There’s no financial commitment whatsoever for us to do this pro bono work. And then the last piece we’re doing right now is working on, , this is more for the LA teams because it’s local, but actually, , organizing voluntary events. So we probably will do a volunteer event through the LA Food Bank and, , some other organizations here to just get our hands dirty. Let’s do some cleanup here.

[00:33:53] Jonathan DeYoe: So when you do the, volunteer events, is it just the team members or do you invite, like your local client [00:34:00] base to come out and sort of help in some of the bigger things?

[00:34:02] Jennifer Li: Yeah, we can, we definitely can. I mean, it depends on the organization, how many, ’cause

[00:34:07] Jennifer Li: um, EP Wealth, the Torrance team alone headquarters is like 150

[00:34:13] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. There’s a

[00:34:13] Jennifer Li: so that you just, some nonprofits may get a little overwhelmed. So I mean, we for sure are gonna do it with our employees, but we always invite

[00:34:21] Jennifer Li: family friends who wanna come and do it and they’re free.

[00:34:24] Jennifer Li: It’s already organized. It’s kind of nice to just be able to show up and not have to worry about the logistics.

[00:34:30] Jonathan DeYoe: yeah, yeah. You should tell NorCal about it. I mean, we’re there, I don’t know, we’re 30 people in, in NorCal, but I’m sure some people can head down pretty easily and my son’s not at UCI, I can take a chance to go

[00:34:38] Jennifer Li: Oh, awesome. I would love that. Yeah.

[00:34:41] Jonathan DeYoe: invite,

[00:34:42] Jonathan DeYoe: Real quick. I asked this of every guest. I want you to take everything we’ve talked about and just make it really, really simple for someone that’s listening, can you call out just like one financial planning strategy that almost anyone can use to create better outcomes for their family?

[00:34:56] Jennifer Li: Yes,

[00:34:58] Jennifer Li: it sounds, again, very simple, but I [00:35:00] like simplistic financial planning. Um, spend less than you make, you know.

[00:35:08] Jonathan DeYoe: I think that’s the, that is the iron wire upon which all other financial planning works. It’s, it all hangs on that one thing. that’s the thing to do. Spend less than you make. , what’s one thing that folks might currently be doing that’s leading them away from those cherished financial goals?

[00:35:22] Jonathan DeYoe: They should just stop doing.

[00:35:24] Jennifer Li: I mean, I guess we can talk about budgeting. I know people don’t love that word. Some people really hate it, but it can be helpful to just know where your money is going and really reflect, is this what I really value? Because the way we spend is the way we value life and the world,

[00:35:44] Jennifer Li: and being like, is this really the way I wanna spend? My money and,

[00:35:48] Jennifer Li: and I think, yeah, taking a look at that, I think these days it’s a little easier, especially if you’re a credit card user. These credit card companies are so good at making the pie charts, showing you where your money is going, so it doesn’t have to be as daunting and challenging as it [00:36:00] used to be to

[00:36:01] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. Yeah. , so the thing to do is to spend less than you earn, and then the thing to not do is stop overspending, like.

[00:36:08] Jonathan DeYoe: Basically, , so spending is very much at the core of your planning mentality. I, I think that comes from your childhood, right?

[00:36:14] Jennifer Li: That definitely does

[00:36:16] Jennifer Li: that.

[00:36:16] Jonathan DeYoe: That seems very honest.

[00:36:19] Jennifer Li: for sure.

[00:36:20] Jonathan DeYoe: So before we wrap up, , one, one personal question and that’s, , what is the last thing you changed your mind about?

[00:36:27] Jennifer Li: Oh my goodness. I don’t know. What did I change my mind about, I guess? This is kind of a big one, but for a long time I wasn’t sure about having children.

[00:36:42] Jonathan DeYoe: Woo. That is a big one.

[00:36:43] Jennifer Li: I know, I know. It is a really big one. So the consideration there is we’re, we’re exploring, let’s.

[00:36:52] Jonathan DeYoe: The mindful money audience appreciates your openness about such a big thing. It’s such a, that’s beautiful. , you know, more Jennifer Li’s in the world is probably a [00:37:00] good thing. , te tell people how to connect with you. Where do they find you? , you know, social media, how do they email you, et cetera.

[00:37:07] Jennifer Li: Yeah, so I’m not a big social media person, but I am on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. And I’m on somewhere on EP Wealth page, I’m sure,

[00:37:16] Jennifer Li: jli@epwealth.com. I have the, one of the shortest

[00:37:20] Jennifer Li: emails at ep.

[00:37:21] Jonathan DeYoe: nice and we’ll make sure it’s all in the show notes. I really appreciate your time coming on the, the podcast and, , thanks for all the great work you do for, for clients, but also in the community. I much appreciate it.

[00:37:31] Jennifer Li: Well, thank Jonathan for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

[00:37:34] Outro: Thanks for listening. Full show notes for each episode, which includes a summary, key takeaways, quotes, and any resources mentioned are available at Mindful Money. Be sure to follow and subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. And if you’re enjoying the content and getting value from these episodes, please leave us a rating and review [00:38:00] ratethispodcast.com/mindfulmoney. We’ll be sure to read those out on future episodes.