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The Measuring Post is a podcast about growth, not perfection.
It’s a place to pause, reflect, and measure what actually matters in your life, your work, and your personal development. Not by comparing yourself to others, but by comparing who you are today to who you were yesterday.
I'm Joe Massa, and I created this show because I believe growth isn't a solo journey. Each week, you’ll hear thoughtful interviews with incredible guests: entrepreneurs, leaders, creatives, and everyday people doing meaningful work, sharing real experiences, lessons learned, and practical insights you can apply right away. These conversations are designed to help you think differently, grow intentionally, and move forward with clarity.
Alongside the interviews, you’ll also find The Daily Measure, short, bite-sized solo episodes focused on simple words of wisdom and actionable ideas you can use in your daily life. Think of these as quick check-ins to help you stay grounded, focused, and consistent.
This isn’t about hype or shortcuts. It’s about honest conversations, small improvements, and growing together over time.
If you’re someone who values progress, reflection, and becoming a better version of yourself, you’re in the right place.
Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, join the conversation, and grow with us.
Joe Massa (00:00.234)
The dumbest. There it is. It's like the worst designer. Why would you do this? I don't know. But my friend, we are going to go ahead and get started. Typically, this is going to go between 30 and 50 minutes. Usually that 40 minutes is kind of when it tailors off. But if it goes a little shorter or a little longer, no pressure at all. So we're we're not in any hurry.
Gary Preisser (00:19.011)
I could go all day, Joe, so you just you just rein me in.
Joe Massa (00:21.838)
You got it.
Joe Massa (00:28.802)
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Measuring Post. Today we are going to be measuring what truly matters as we do each and every week. And this time we're going to be doing it with a little bit something we've talked in the past. It's our financial lives, our well-being, and how we make ourselves get to the future. And today I brought in a very special guest. This is Mr. Gary Pricer. He's the co founder and partner over at Stonebrier Wealth Advisors, which is an independent firm just south of Salt Lake City in Lehigh, Utah. And he's also an author who has spent his career shifting not
Only how families think about wealth, but moving past investment first thinking into a structure where timing and access matter more than averages or projections. Now, his work centers on designing financial plans that solve for uncertainty, not just growth. He also has a great tool that he developed, which is called the cash flow clock. I'm gonna let him explain that a little more in detail, but it's a practical way to break wealth down so it supports your real-life decision-making at the right moments instead of just sitting around waiting for your statements to roll.
In each and every week. So with that in mind, please welcome Gary to the Measuring Post. How are you today, sir?
Gary Preisser (01:34.039)
I am doing great, Joe. Thank you so much for having me.
Joe Massa (01:36.748)
Yeah, appreciate you coming on. This is always a fun topic. It's a bit of a dauntingly scary topic and also a really rewarding one as well, because when people think about their money, they're either in a really great place or they're really uncertain and they don't know how to make those two dots connect. And that's why I love having these conversations and really excited to see kind of what you can share. But before we get into all of that, sort of how did you get to where you are today? Obviously, from your background, I know you're the eldest of six kids. You had a passion maybe to go and be a doctor.
doctor in medicine, how did mathematics and numbers and stats and all that get to be?
Gary Preisser (02:10.021)
Yeah, you know, life doesn't always work out like you expect it to. I am the oldest of six, grew up in Florida. one of the things I appreciated with my upbringing, both my parents were teachers, a teacher and a football coach.
And so education was always a big deal for us. A lot of service, a lot of values, a lot of adding the the importance was adding value not just for ourselves, but for our community. Whether that's siblings, family, extended family, people we knew at church or other activities. So we always wanted to to add value. And and growing up, I only I thought the only three real professions were being a teacher, a lawyer, or a doctor. I knew that teachers didn't make any money. I knew that I didn't want to be a lawyer, so I
I just assumed I would be a doctor and I would start to go th down that route, but numbers were something that came very easy to me. I had an opportunity to work at an accounting firm doing tax preparation and one of the things I noticed about that experience was people would get excited about getting a big tax refund.
And they thought that was a great thing. And I had to point out to them, well, this means that you loaned money to the IRS for a year interest-free. That's not the best thing. So I found an opportunity to use my education background to really make a difference for families. Extended that or expanded that into helping small business and doing small business consulting. And now I'm able to help families and individuals do that with all aspects of their wealth, not just taxes.
Joe Massa (03:41.048)
So you're telling me that the government isn't just giving us free money back that we get to enjoy each and every year?
Gary Preisser (03:44.261)
It doesn't work that way. It may look that way, but it that's not how it works.
Joe Massa (03:51.212)
Yeah, and you know, I I have a bit of a background in some finance. I I I come from a mortgage background. My family was in that space. So it's amazing to see though, when you're going through people's finances, and I don't mean this to be condescending on any level, but sort of how naive or just in the dark they are about how things actually work. So it's really important to break these things down and make them tangible so the average Joe can understand what to do and not to do. So that really excites me to learn some of the
Not only the tools you have, but how Stonebrier came together. So I know you started the company with Shea, your business partner, and you're sort of the precision and structure structure guy, and he's more of the growth and relationship side. So tell me how the two of you met and how this all came to be.
Gary Preisser (04:27.951)
Yep.
Gary Preisser (04:37.935)
We worked together in a firm in Orlando for a few years, and after work we talk about what we would do differently if we had the chance. And we do have a different skill set. He's coming from more on the marketing and sales side, and I'm coming more from the tax and the financial planning side of things. But what we realized in bringing our our books together, our businesses together, and starting Stone Briar about four and a half years ago, that there's a problem with our industry. And I think you nailed it you you hit the nail.
Nail on the head, Joe. Our industry makes things seem more complicated than they actually are. I see a lot of from advisors, they telling clients, trust me with your money, don't pay attention to what I'm doing behind the curtain, and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, right? Because this is too complicated for you to understand. And the advisor uses jargon and these buzzwords that don't mean anything to anyone, but it sounds sophisticated, but it doesn't add value to the client. And when the market's up, we
We advisors expect to be congratulated like we did something, and when the market's down, well, you can't blame us, the market's down. The reality is that these concepts for financial planning and wealth management are very simple. The application of them can be very nuanced and very individual, but we need to understand these concepts. We we you may still need an advisor to help you with your plan, but there's no reason to just say, hey, this is too complicated, I'm just gonna let somebody else.
Take care of it. We can handle and we should handle a lot of this ourselves because we're stewards of our money. We worked hard for it. We need to make sure that it works hard for us and that it actually is able to perform its function, not just to grow, but to actually be utilized properly.
Joe Massa (06:26.294)
Yeah, and have the ability to actually use it when you need it and to be able to access that instead of having it tied and locked away into things. But I love how you you mentioned being like a steward for your own financial well being. We've had, you know, medical professionals on that say the same thing. You have to advocate for yourself, whether it's your health or your wealth, because no one's gonna come in and bring you that magic, you know, pill that does everything for you. So it really is about understanding your options, ways that you can save your money in a structured and secure way, but also
Gary Preisser (06:36.869)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (06:44.601)
Yep.
Joe Massa (06:56.238)
So to allow it to grow, but to be able to use it. So that's the one thing I've talked to many wealth advisors before that they they had the hardest time explaining that, but that's the most important key. That's sort of what the when the light bulb goes off for the individual. Like, I didn't know I could put my money in this type of account or to utilize it in this way to grow and still be able to access it. So I I love where you know the tagline for Stonebrier is where vision meets strategy and wealth becomes legacy. Can you tell me sort of what?
Gary Preisser (07:29.209)
Vision, we have to understand what the purpose is for our money. And assets are not trophies. It's not about look what I have, it's not about showing off. It's to your point, how are they utilized? And every single dollar that we have will be used at some point in time by somebody. It might as well be us because it's our money and we earned it. But we have to understand purpose first.
So many prospective clients will come into my office and they'll say, if I gave you $50,000 or $500,000 or $5 million, where would you put it? And early in my career I would try to answer that question. What I realized is that the only answer to that question is a question in return, and that is, what is the money for?
If we don't know what the money's for, then how can we know where it should be, what it should do, when it's gonna be, need to be accessible? and that's what we really focus on at Stonebrier is the function of wealth, not just the accumulation of it.
Joe Massa (08:32.226)
Yeah, and that's something that you guys talk about even just going to your website. You can learn about what you call the stone framework, which is securing your vision, tailoring your plan, optimizing your wealth, navigating your life, and elevating your legacy. Now I love that it's obviously an acronym that goes with the brand name. Very good marketing and branding right there. But really it it's a simple five pillar sort of acronym that really makes a lot of sense when you break it down, you know, one by one. So what what sort of systems do you guys utilize to help people get to that
Gary Preisser (08:47.161)
Yes.
Joe Massa (09:02.34)
Framework, what's sort of the onboarding process for somebody just walking through your doors or doing sort of a cold call to figure out how you can help?
Gary Preisser (09:09.827)
The key is the the questions that we start with. Our in the industry as a whole tends to start with products and allocations, or they start with a risk questionnaire. It's fascinating to me that every financial decision we make in our lives, where we live, where we work, where we vacation, what car we drive, where our kids go to school, what we eat, is all based on cash flow.
Okay, how much cash flow we need. And yet when it comes to our investments, we get a risk questionnaire that asks us about our feelings. How would you feel if the market dropped this much? Or how would you feel if you missed out on this type of growth? It's not about feelings, it's about that function, right? And so at Stonebriar, we start with securing the vision, asking about the purpose for the dollars. If we don't understand the purpose, it's like going to the doctor and saying, I'm tired, and they just hand you a prescription for something, just based on one symptom.
We need to understand what's the purpose for every dollar. What are we trying to accomplish? If we aim at nothing, we're gonna hit it. So it lets take the time, we take our our time with the client to help them understand what they're trying to accomplish. And it takes some time because most people that come into our office have never thought about it in these terms. They know that their money's supposed to grow, that they're supposed to save, they're supposed to live within their means. But especially as they start to shift into retirement,
where they're going into the distribution phase of their life, everything should change. They need to look at it differently. But it starts with asking those questions first and foremost.
Joe Massa (10:43.66)
Yeah, and I think you're absolutely right. Most people kind of have the old ostrich head in the sand mentality. Like, if I just don't open up my statement, I'll never have to either acknowledge my bad behavior or see what's really happening. And that is sort of the first step, I think, in any aspect of growth in life. It's taking that accountability and really having an internal reflection on like, what have I been doing? Is it working or not? If not, how do we pivot and find the right answer? But you know, I want to step back to what you said about cash flow because that's part of the tool that you develop.
Gary Preisser (10:51.973)
Ha ha ha.
Gary Preisser (11:11.001)
Yep.
Joe Massa (11:13.614)
Up the cash flow clock. So explain what that tool is and how people utilize that in their accumulation of wealth.
Gary Preisser (11:15.706)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (11:22.177)
Most portfolios are are demonstrated or visualized with a pie chart. And they take a slice, they look at your age and your risk questionnaire, your risk profile, and here's a moderately conservative allocation. You may have some bonds, international stocks, large cap, mid-cap, whatever it is. And it's static and it only changes when your feelings or ages, your age changes.
But life is not is not lived over time, it's not lived at in at static, it doesn't stay still, right? Life is lived in moments. And our financial plan needs to support each moment. And so that's where the concept of the cash flow clock came to be. The allocation isn't static, it moves through time. And the money that we need to use soon, really in the next five to ten years, that should not be exposed to any type of volatility.
It shouldn't be, it shouldn't have any opportunity to lose because liquidity is the first priority for money we need to use soon. For money that we don't need to use for a long time, 10 plus years, that's where volatility is no longer a threat. It's an opportunity to actually create growth. Now, generic portfolios do this sort of with that 60 40 rule of 100 take a hundred, subtract your age, that determines the allocation. But that's tough.
Talking about scale, it's talking about laws of large numbers, it's talking about thousands or even millions of households, it's not talking about your household. Because each of us is individual based on our cash flow, and by using this tool, we're able to customize and tailor each and every plan to our exact our clients' exact needs.
Joe Massa (13:11.404)
Yeah, and that's brilliant because not everyone has the same goals or desires, or also you know, limitations and boundaries. Some people have different hurdles and things that they have to get over, different life expenses, medical problems, taking care of sick elderly parents. There's a lot of things that, you know, sort of go into that. It's not cookie cutter, which you know, I always find that the worst people to deal with in any profession are the ones that have a cookie cutter solution for every single client, because it doesn't get to the root of what my
Gary Preisser (13:27.225)
Yep.
Gary Preisser (13:38.479)
Yes.
Joe Massa (13:41.371)
goal is versus what your goal is. And we might have two vastly different lifestyles where maybe I need way more money to retire on for my comfortability or or what I have to pay for than what you do or or the next person down the road. So it's a really wise strategy to sort of dive in deeper to that. But is this like a like a survey you do? Is it a software you use? How do people access this tool?
Gary Preisser (14:04.781)
It's a it's a survey more than anything and we're working on the tools, so I appreciate the motivation to do that because it it isn't complicated. It's asking the different questions though. What is the purpose? Purpose determines the timing. Once we understand the timing, now we can design a plan that makes sense. If you tell me you need twenty five thousand dollars in six months, I'm not gonna put that in Bitcoin.
Joe Massa (14:10.446)
Yeah.
Gary Preisser (14:30.573)
I'm not gonna put it in the market, I'm not gonna expose it to volatility, but I'm also not going to put it in a twelve month CD. There's no volatility there, there's no risk of loss, it may be appropriate or compliant.
But it's not functional because it's not liquid, it's not available when you need it. And so by asking those simple questions, what's your income versus your expenses? So many people focus on what's your number for retirement. Well, if you have Social Security and pension or in a pension that brings in more income than you're spending on a monthly basis, you never really need to touch those assets. I want you to spend them. Please. Please spend them your the your money. But that's a very different situation than someone exactly.
Exactly your same age, same a number of assets, but now their income is much less than their expenses. They're having to use those assets on a monthly basis. And the risk questionnaire, the risk profile does not account for that at all.
It simply says you're both 65, you're both conservative, your investments are going to be exactly the same. So by taking that survey, taking that questionnaire, and changing it from how do you feel to what do you need and why do you need it, that will tell us when we need it, and then we're able to choose the best investment for each role or each job in the portfolio, as opposed to expecting the entire portfolio to generate income, give us the most growth, protect us from downturns, create a legacy.
Do this, do that and do everything, that's never going to be effective.
Joe Massa (16:03.938)
Yeah, and I love that you mentioned that because we go through seasons of life too where your financial needs are much different. Like when you're in your early 20s, maybe you're just fresh out of college or you didn't go, you're trying to find yourself. You're usually living check to check and just trying to, you know, not get evicted from your apartment or kicked out of somewhere. And and then you get in your 30s, which I I felt when I was in my 30s, that's sort of where I made the biggest growth steps in my career, really decided who I wanted to be, kind of went down my political or my career path. And from there.
Gary Preisser (16:17.081)
Yep.
Ha ha.
Joe Massa (16:33.942)
You know, starting to have children now in my 40s, things are a little different. Now I'm not so worried about can I cover my monthly bills? Now it's sort of this strategy of am I doing the right things with the money I am making to make sure that I will be able to l live my with my money. I don't want to outlive what I've accumulated. But but a lot of that comes with understanding the types of investments. And yeah, we can have a 401k, you can have an IRA, you can have a little Bitcoin, a little high-risk money maybe in the market, CDs are.
Gary Preisser (16:51.449)
Yes.
Joe Massa (17:03.792)
are great, but I think a lot of people hear those terms and words and it's sort of deer in the headlights. It's like, what do those actually mean? What sort of percentage breakdown would you typically recommend without knowing somebody's full background? Like as far as safe investments, mid risk, high risks, what sort of the balance that most people should try to attain so they can start to see their accumulation of wealth maybe exponentially grow instead of like a thousand dollars a month every year?
Gary Preisser (17:17.946)
Yeah.
Gary Preisser (17:33.551)
So you bring up some some very excellent points and excellent questions, Joe. And and let me clarify one thing really quickly, because I get this a lot. We hear about different investments and some of the buzzwords we hear are IRA four one K Roth and those aren't investments. Those are tax accounts. That affects us from a tax standpoint. So w
And this is important to understand because each one is taxed differently and it affects our bottom line very differently. So we need to understand those accounts. So we need to look at it from a tax standpoint. We also need to look at it from an investment standpoint. And when we look at investments, it's really about how is volatility assigned. When we talk about
We see this a lot with low or conservative portfolios, low volatility, but they're still doing bonds which still have risk associated with them, they can still lose value. In 2022, the bond index lost 13%. That's not a very safe investment. Whereas a CD is absolutely guaranteed not to lose, you're just not going to get much much growth. The biggest problem that I see typically is that most investors, especially younger investors, are not taking
On enough volatility. They're in these generic retire target date funds or blended funds where they're assuming that a portion, anywhere from 10 to maybe 60%, is in bonds. And if you're 30 or 40 years old in an IRA or a 401k that you're not going to be able to touch for 20 years, bonds are just limiting your growth.
Over time, those large cap growth stocks are most likely to give you that the most efficient growth. So, for the portion of your portfolio that you're not going to need for 10, 20, 30 years, that is where we should take as much volatility as you're comfortable with. Again, that doesn't mean putting it in Bitcoin, but it may it may include that, and let that grow. And the way reason we can let that grow is because we have set aside enough for emergency funds for short.
Gary Preisser (19:40.097)
Short-term savings for vacations, for weddings, for education, whatever that is, in the no volatility zone, or the safe or lazy zone as we call it. By having that in place, it means we're never having to sell out of our volatile assets out of desperation. The biggest problem that most people have isn't necessarily their investments, it's the timing of how they're utilizing them.
You know, I I played college baseball way back in the day. And what I learned is you can you can work really hard, you can practice, you can train, you can have a perfect swing. But if you're a split second too early, it's gonna be a ground ball, you're a split second too late and it's a pop-up.
But if you get the timing right, it could be a home run. I didn't have a lot of home runs playing baseball, but it made it helped me understand that timing is critical. And that that's why the the portfolio needs to be so unique, because each client's timing is unique as well.
Joe Massa (20:38.892)
Yeah, and you hit a couple of really key points that I think a lot of traditional investment strategy would sort of
back up, but you know, I think your strategies is wiser. You know, you talk about putting your the money you don't need for 10 plus years in something a little more volatile. That's sort of your set it and forget it money, which a lot of people do with things like Bitcoin, because, you know, and I've known some people that got in really early and now they're laughing all the way, but I missed that boat myself. But the reality is those things you do want to be able to let sort of percolate and grow and be in their own zone where you don't have to think about them. But you know, there's there was always this, you know, story
Gary Preisser (20:56.111)
Yes. Mm-hmm.
Ha ha ha.
Gary Preisser (21:12.783)
Yes.
Joe Massa (21:15.33)
like the grandma and grandpa, well when they wanted a vacation they had an envelope when they put cash in that one. And this was the new furnace money, you know, and this was for the new car. And and they sort of had these different little areas where they would save money, but you're doing that in an era that we can't keep up with that anymore. The dollar is not
It's losing value. We have to be smarter with where we place our funds. But the the old sort of adage too, always have like six months reserves and liquid for your emergency fund. But but don't just even put that in just like a Wells Fargo or Chase savings account. At least put it in like a high yeah, don't do that because then your money just sits there and gains, you know, 18 cents a year. You know, there's even things like at least put it into a high yield in you know, savings account where you get three percent back if you're if you're lucky. But for for
Gary Preisser (21:36.985)
Yeah.
Gary Preisser (21:50.713)
please don't.
Gary Preisser (22:03.471)
Yes.
Joe Massa (22:05.152)
For you know, let's break down sort of the buckets that people really should focus on. For your your safety net, the lazy money as you call it, or or s the safe zone, what's the best type of account for someone to just stock away twenty or thirty grand for their six month rainy day fund?
Gary Preisser (22:12.921)
Yep.
Gary Preisser (22:21.401)
Yes. So liquidity is the first priority and you you've hit the nail on the head, Joe, for sure with this, is I don't I I want to get as high a rate of as possible.
But liquidity is the first priority. So many people say, well, well, you're gonna lose to inflation. I don't care about inflation for money that I'm gonna use in six months. So inflation only affects us over longer periods of time. Liquidity is the first priority. Now that being said, why are we putting hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases in a Wells Fargo savings account making 0.2% or less at other banks? Where you can go to, it's it's kind of amazing how credit credit cards have these high.
Yield savings accounts. American Express, Capital One, Discover, no free plugs, right? Marcus from Goldman Sachs, you can get at least 3% that's completely liquid. I use SoFi Bank myself. I know Ally Bank, these online banks, offer higher interest rates. It's worth the time to figure out what's the right solution for you, as long as it gives us the liquidity, so that your money's working for you as efficiently or as hard as you've worked for it. And I think too many people, to your point, they put the blinders on.
put their head in the sand and say, I've always lived been at this bank. This is what my parents have done. No, it's a different world. Interest rates are in a different spot right now. And if we're not at least keeping up, we are losing to inflation. And it it's not going to affect our entire portfolio the same way. But but why accept less than than what's readily available for free out there? Let's take advantage of the opportunities while we can
Joe Massa (23:56.547)
Yeah, and and I was very much that way growing up like
When I was in my early twenties, I moved to South Dakota, took an on-air radio job out there and was like open up my first, you know, big boy bank account. And it was either first bank of South Dakota or Wells Fargo. So I'm like, well, I don't know how long I live in South Dakota, so I'll go to Wells Fargo, put a little money in savings and kept it there for so long. And I look back at that as such a bonehead move because, you know, at one point the number in there was pretty decent before I started putting them in real investments and just I was doing what we're told not to now, like put all your money in savings.
Gary Preisser (24:10.969)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (24:17.606)
Ha ha ha.
Joe Massa (24:29.616)
You can't retire on savings, guys. That's rule number one. But you know, I would have this large amount of money in there. And then I'm looking at my annual return, and I got like $4. I'm like, what? This is crazy. And then I did go, no plug included either. American Express. I moved my savings over there, but American Express, if you want a sponsor, call me. but it was amazing the difference in just like the first year. I was like, I made more in the first year of being there than I did the 15 previous years at Wells Fargo by a large amount. It wasn't even close.
Gary Preisser (24:31.949)
That's right.
Gary Preisser (24:45.753)
Yep.
That's right.
Joe Massa (24:59.536)
And that's like free money because it's gonna sit there regardless.
Gary Preisser (25:03.193)
That's right.
Joe Massa (25:04.034)
Those little tactics are so valuable because people just if you don't know, you don't know. And it's it's really amazing. And then, you know, I I switched out of Wells Fargo Banking and I opened an account over at Charles Schwab. And and the reality is because, you know, I I did some research, you could go to Fidelity, these other brokerages. I just went with Schwab because I knew some people that were using it and really liked it. But that gives you, even if you don't understand financial assets and tools at your disposal, go into a
Gary Preisser (25:10.105)
That's right.
Gary Preisser (25:16.985)
Tim.
Gary Preisser (25:26.287)
Sure.
Joe Massa (25:33.951)
brokerage is so much smarter than your local bank because they're going to give you some options to at least get your feet wet and start the process of learning how to invest. So I think that's a really important piece as well. But I I'm curious to to your your thoughts on like these new fly by night sort of online investment platforms. There's like the AI platforms that help you invest and they trade for you. Obviously it seems like you know too good to be true. And I have not gone down any of those rabbit holes. Have
Gary Preisser (25:43.193)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (26:03.021)
Ha ha ha.
Joe Massa (26:03.834)
you seen or do you have any endorsement for any of those type of tools that are probably very popular online right now?
Gary Preisser (26:10.157)
I'm sure they are and I appreciate companies that are trying to do things better than what how they've been done.
For our clients, we use Fidelity and Schwab as our custodians because they've been around for a long time. I I have a lot of respect for a lot of the things that Robinhood does, and there's some other smaller custodians. the first thing is make sure that you're not giving your money to Stonebrier or to an advisor, please. Utah seems to be a hot spot for for those types of scams. Make sure you're giving your money to an accredited custodian to hold the assets. But don't think that that's enough.
It's similar to in our industry, some people will come into my office and they'll stare me in the eye and get really serious and say, I have a question for you. Are you a fiduciary? And I'll look back at them and I'll say, I absolutely am a fiduciary. And then I'll ask them a question. Do you know what a fiduciary is? And they have no idea. They just know that they were supposed to ask it. And I'm glad they're asking it. But a fiduciary is someone who has to act in the best interest of the client. That's the minimum.
That doesn't mean that they're good at their job.
It means that they have a license and that they have an obligation. But I've seen a lot of well-intentioned fiduciaries make very poor recommendations to their clients either because they didn't understand the situation, they didn't ask the right questions, or they didn't have access to the right investments. And it's the same thing with your custodian. Just because you're with Schwab or Fidelity or Vanguard or whoever it is, there are so many investments, and some are good or some are bad. The real question is: what's the best investment for you?
Gary Preisser (27:47.673)
For you as the investor, and that's going to be different for each person. And that requires more accountability, taking the time to understand your purpose and doing research to be able to measure what's a good investment and what's a bad investment. I love that your the name of your podcast is the measuring post because I think our industry measures success the wrong way. We focus on average rates of return.
And if I if I asked most of your listeners, if I got you a a 7% rate of return, would you be happy with that? And most would be thrilled because their Monte Carlo simulation said that if they get seven percent over thirty years, they're gonna be okay. But if the market's up thirty and I got you seven, should you still be happy about that?
Especially if you're paying me money to actually gift you or give you a return, that you could have gotten better just by doing it yourself. And that's a concept that's called alpha when it comes to investments. And that's one of the things that's in some of the books that we've written. We talk a lot about alpha. You shouldn't pay for negative alpha. We see negative alpha way too often. But you can just be in the benchmark. If you want to take half the volatility of the benchmark, put half of your money in the SP, put half of it in a high-yield savings account.
you're to come out ahead than 96% of mutual funds that underperform by 3% per year and it costs you money to do it. But the real thing we need to measure is what's the alignment to the purpose for each client. What are the right investments that are going to have the function that that that client needs at the time that they need it.
Joe Massa (29:22.348)
Yeah, and I love how you really sort of shined the light on
Being a fiduciary and understanding what that means, but also like, don't just give me your money. Like, we we have to go deeper than that. And that it just sort of made me laugh in my head. I was thinking, this will this will showcase my age a little bit and yours too, I'm sure. Growing up watching like The Simpsons, the TV show. And there was Dr. Nick, the crazy zany doctor. And one of the episodes is like, well, even the guy who gets the worst scores ends up being a doctor, right? So he might have great intentions, but if you're not really doing it with the skill set or the right moral standing, all of that doesn't
Gary Preisser (29:31.108)
Right.
Gary Preisser (29:48.537)
That's right.
Joe Massa (29:56.607)
matter. So you have to go a layer deeper than that and really do your research. And if you're just joining us, guys, I'm talking to Gary Pricer. He's the co-founder of Stonebrier Wealth Advisors. And you mentioned something in in your last little sp talk there about writing books. So tell us a little bit. I know you wrote an ebook called The Differentiators of Wealth and I know you're working on a couple others. Tell us about the book and what you go over and cover in those in those pages.
Gary Preisser (30:00.761)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (30:12.303)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (30:22.885)
So the differentiators of wealth is a a tough word a tough title to say. You did a great job, Joe. It's tough for me to say, and I wrote it, so I appreciate that.
Joe Massa (30:29.998)
Yeah.
Gary Preisser (30:31.599)
But we get my partner Shay and I, in our business, we kept getting the same issues over and over and over again. And there's these concepts that make a huge difference in a portfolio, but they're not talked about by most advisors because they're not going as deep as they need to go. One of them is timing. We've talked a little bit about the importance of timing and what a difference that makes. We've talked about outperforming the benchmark or at least keeping up with the benchmark by with alpha. But another thing that's really important.
Important is something called asset location. Now I think everyone's familiar with asset allocation. That's deciding which investments to choose. But we need to understand the tax layer of this as well. And I'll explain this really quickly because I think it's really important. If you have two investment options that you that you're considering and you want half of your assets in a conservative mutual fund that's earning that you expect to earn about 5% per year, and you have another mutual fund that's more aggressive.
You expect to earn 10% per year. Which one of these do you want to pay tax on? The short answer is you don't want to pay tax on either one, right? But if you have to choose, if half of your money is in a traditional IRA and half of your money is in a Roth IRA, you want the highest growth to be tax-free and the lower growth to be taxable if you have that, have to do that option.
Joe Massa (31:37.738)
I would imagine Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
Gary Preisser (31:56.811)
I've I've analyzed thousands and thousands of portfolios. Everyone that I've looked at tends to have, if the allocation is half and half, they will have half of the IRA in aggressive and half of the IRA in conservative, and the same thing for the Roth.
Instead of understanding the tax implications and putting all of the aggressive in the Roth and all of the conservative in the IRA, the allocation is the same, the risk profile is the same, but the tax impact is very different, and that can make a difference of one to one and a half percent per year.
And that's why we called it the differentiators, because with that compounding effect over 20, 30, maybe 60 years, what a difference that can make to your wealth. It's a it's a simple concept that I explained in about two or three minutes. And nine, in my experience, I've never seen another advisor actually utilize that in their portfolios because most financial advisors are really investment advisors and they don't take taxes into account.
They don't consider them at all, even though every decision, every recommendation that they're making affects the taxes in some way, shape, or form. And so we've got to look at it from both sides.
Joe Massa (33:11.458)
Yeah, and some of the the wisest books I've read, written by financial people, they really touch on that topic. And that's something that was always really foreign to me. Understanding how the taxes will play into effect later in life. Or, you know, for example, everyone gets the traditional 401k with their off, you know, their job. But, you know, pulling money from that is not just like free money. It's not just like, I already put this away. There's big penalties and big tax, you know, slaps on the wrist for utilizing your own, which in your mind you think this is.
Gary Preisser (33:33.251)
No, it's not.
Joe Massa (33:41.355)
Is my money. No, no, it's not. So you got to be very careful and understand what you're putting your money into. And I love that a big part of Stonebrier's strategy is it's not so much of like that dollar amount, how much money do you need to retire? It's well, when do you actually want to use your money? Like, do you do you need it? Like you said, in six months, do you need 20, 25 grand, or do you need a million dollars in 10 years from now? Because those are two wildly different paths that you'll go down to achieve those goals. So I think it's
Gary Preisser (33:42.349)
It's not.
Gary Preisser (33:57.519)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (34:08.505)
Very different.
Joe Massa (34:11.278)
Really understanding your own vision, which is part of what you guys talk about in the stone method or framework, understanding what you need, but then where do you begin to get there? Because a lot of people are gonna hop on the internet, they're gonna go to Chat GBT, they're gonna Google, and they go, I need to retire someday. How do I do that? And here comes the nine million resources and gurus and internet personalities that tell you, just do this, just do that. So, how do you sort of cut through that noise and really pinpoint what?
Gary Preisser (34:16.175)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (34:25.005)
Ha ha.
Joe Massa (34:41.168)
what you need as an individual, whether it's me or my neighbor or or three states over in a completely different lifestyle. Obviously talking to a a fiduciary or responsible financial advisor, but for the average Joe or Jane, how do you cut through the noise and start today?
Gary Preisser (34:52.345)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (34:57.221)
It's a great question because like I said, these concepts are not complicated. We want to understand your income, especially as we're as we're thinking about moving into retirement, what will your income look like when you retire? Are you gonna have Social Security? We hope Social Security is still around. We are we gonna have a pension. There's not many pensions out there.
Do you have rental properties? Do you have business income from other interests? Do you have passive income? Are you still gonna do some consulting? Are you gonna work on a golf course? There's lots of different types of income and each is each person's different. And then what are your expenses? Not just what do you need to survive? Because this isn't about surviving, this is about thriving.
A lot of my clients admire the ants from Aesop's Fable who saved food for the winter. But what they don't realize is that at the end of the fable, the ants ate the food. They didn't just look at it to admire it. They used it. And so many of our clients, as you're moving into retirement, they need to give themselves permission to use their money. So understanding first what you need to survive, but also what do you want to be able to spend in retirement. A lot of people
Assume that they're going to be in a lower tax bracket when they're retired, but if you want to be able to do the things you've always wanted to: your bucket list, travel, gifting to family, to charities, whatever that is, where's that money coming from? Are you gonna have to pay tax on it? How is that going to affect you? How's it going to affect your family? So asking income and expenses, and then looking at your assets and how they will be they are positioned now for their purpose, and how that purpose will be
Will evolve as you get closer to retirement. Because it's true that you need to take less risk or have less volatility rather, as you get closer to using that money. But you should not rely on a glide path with a target fund that does your that that adjusts your volatility the same as it adjusts millions of other people that are in that same mutual fund.
Gary Preisser (37:02.275)
We need to make sure that it's specified to to each individual. And the easy the easy first step is to understand what is the the needs for for that individual household. And then we can determine the timing of when that money is going to be available. And now even if you're gonna search it on AI or whatever whatever you're gonna use, now it becomes much more specific. It's not asking how much money do I need to retire in five years, it's what is the best
tool to fulfill the role for this portion of my portfolio that I'm going to be using in seven years or ten years or fifteen. And it's not it's not perfect to do that. It's never perfect. But at least we're going to be have a much better chance of being successful if we have if we're as specific as we can be.
Joe Massa (37:53.507)
Love that. And that's really honestly a unique strategy that I have not heard many people talk about is really sort of kind of segmenting your life in understanding what you need when you need it. Because I think we all kind of grow up w you go out of high school, go to college, put yourself in a tremendous amount of debt, go get the corporate job, you work it for forty years, you get the gold watch at the end of your tenure, you get a pension which doesn't exist anymore. You hope Social Security is around, but it probably won't be. Not for not for too many more generations, if at all. So these are things that I think we're really
Gary Preisser (38:01.433)
Yep.
Gary Preisser (38:10.254)
Yeah.
Gary Preisser (38:16.344)
Yes. Nope.
Joe Massa (38:23.62)
It's pre-built into our brains that we have to just work, work, work, work until you're 75. Then you you, you know, either you'd croak or you you get a part-time job at Walmart as a door greeter because you still can't you didn't do it right. But I love that your strategy focuses on the here and now and sort of that vision. Because and again, I love that you mentioned the Aesops fable. I I used to have that big book when I was growing up in my room. But the reality is you don't you you don't get to take it with you when you when you go to the grave, right? So, and if you don't have family to pass.
Gary Preisser (38:32.569)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (38:36.751)
Yep.
Gary Preisser (38:50.403)
No, you don't.
Joe Massa (38:56.95)
Why did you do all that work all those years? It was simply to survive in a in a in a struggle that probably you didn't didn't want in the first place or a career path you didn't. So be smart with what you're doing with your money, guys, and start as as soon as you can. I wish I would have started 15, 20 years earlier than I did, you know, because I would have been able to be much further ahead than I am. But as the old, you know, Chinese proverb goes, the the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is now. So don't sleep on learn.
Gary Preisser (39:04.655)
Right.
Joe Massa (39:27.064)
About these tactics and the ability to utilize your money now in the near future and in the long-term future. So having those layered onion peel sort of strategies are really crucial to put to put to use right now. So I love what Stonebrier is doing. And I know that you do have the free ebook. Where can we find that to kind of get our financial juices flowing?
Gary Preisser (39:51.043)
Yeah, our our website is Stonebrier WealthAdvisors.com. You can also reach out to me on LinkedIn. Love to connect. and I appreciate you bringing up that that Chinese proverb because my staff is so sick of me saying that proverb, but it's so accurate. the the two questions that that new clients usually ask us is I wish I or they they say, I wish I'd met you twenty years ago, and can you teach my kids this information so that they don't make the same mistakes that I make.
We spend a lot of time correcting or adjusting things that were not optimized. That's why the O is optimize your wealth. We want to optimize it as best we can and keep it aligned to the to the plan. Nobody's perfect. I I joke that at Stonebriar we create perfect plans if we know when our client is gonna die and everything that's gonna happen to them between now and then, as well as what's gonna happen in the tax code and what's gonna happen in the market. So of course we we never know that.
Our goal is not to be perfect, but it is to to be able to adjust along the way, like the Apollo Moon mission, so that we're always at least have a chance to be to land where we want, even though we may be off course a little bit each time.
We can only measure what adjustments need to be made if we understand our purpose and we are able to constantly realign to that. And so starting with that will put anyone who's listening so far ahead of anyone that anyone else that is just putting their head in the sand and hoping for the best. Hope is not a strategy when it comes to your finances.
Joe Massa (41:29.804)
I found that out the hard way, unfortunately, Gary. But no, I yeah, I love one thing you just said about, you know, people coming to you and saying, Yeah, I wish I would have started twenty years ago, but the next part is better. Help me teach my kids this. Help me get them on the right path. Cause I I I didn't really do so much of the investment stuff as a mortgage broker, but I had to deal with people and their credit scores and what they do with their funds and how they pay back bills. And the the running joke always was when I was in college, I got the little five hundred dollar credit union credit card, and it was to me my little
Gary Preisser (41:40.323)
Yes.
Gary Preisser (41:48.047)
Yes.
Joe Massa (41:59.821)
Little immature brain, it was free money. I spent all $500 and then I just didn't answer the phone for two years. And as a guy that was giving advice on credit, at one point in my late teens, I had the lowest credit score I had ever seen on paper ever. And now obviously I've rebounded for many years and know what to do now. But you know, and for $500, it took me seven years to get my credit back on track. I might as well have been a bankruptcy when it was literally just me being too afraid to pick.
Gary Preisser (42:24.154)
Wow.
Joe Massa (42:29.624)
the phone and saying, I don't have $500. I'm 18. I'm stupid. And so now my son, who's a fresh, he just finished his freshman year in college, I was able to steer him away from those silly mistakes. And here he is, his first year of having a credit line and he's in the mid-700s, and it wasn't anything, you know
overwhelmingly insightful. It was just, hey, don't be a knucklehead like I was. It's just, it's just giving passing that knowledge down. So I love that, yes, and and that's what we're doing for our kids. And please, if you're listening, regardless of where you're at, if you got those kids and grandkids under you, set them up right now. And it it just makes their whole life easier. And then you don't have to, you know, then you can be the the dad or the grandpa that saved the whole family because you gave them this nice piece of advice. So I love that. I think that's really powerful. And again, guys, check out Stonebriar
Gary Preisser (42:56.089)
Yes.
Joe Massa (43:18.32)
wealthadvisors.com, get the ebook there, learn about the state stone framework, and and just talk to someone, whether it's Gary or or someone else in in your circle, these are conversations that you want to have. They will help you get to where you want, utilizing the timeframe that's most valuable to you. So yeah, I I really appreciate all the insight on that. And
definitely excited to see what what I can continue to grow with mine. So Gary, I'll give you one final plea to the audience. What's one thing you would tell somebody today if you could just give them one piece of advice, if they took nothing else from this conversation? What's one piece of wisdom from Gary Pricer?
Gary Preisser (43:56.441)
Don't be like Joe at eighteen. I'm just kidding. We we want to learn from Joe's mistakes as well.
Joe Massa (43:59.757)
No, no, don't. Trust me, that's good advice.
Gary Preisser (44:02.017)
And and we have the differentiators of wealth is an ebook. We also have the essence of wealth, which is designed for kids and grandkids to get those that starting point. But the the one thing I would leave is start with purpose, what's your why? Simon Sinek is a great influence on on what we've done for finances, but take the time to really to really decide what are you aiming for, what are you trying to accomplish, because life is too short, assets and resources are too limited.
You want to make sure that they're working as efficiently as possible in the direction you want them to go as opposed to just letting things happen by default. There's no reason for that to happen.
Joe Massa (44:43.0)
Love it. Great advice and definitely great information you shared today. Again, guys, check out Gary Pricer, Stonebrierwealthadvisors.com. Find him on LinkedIn. Connect. Learn. Grow. Get that free ebook. These are the building blocks that you can start utilizing today to get you to where you want to be tomorrow. So with that in mind, Gary, thank you for your time today and joining us on the measuring post. Very insightful and look forward to catching up with you again soon.
Gary Preisser (45:06.201)
Thanks, Joe.