My boss is fairly well known in the human capital operating space. I know almost nothing about him personally except that he has a schnauzer.. Schnauzer? Is that how you spell that dog? Anyway. Most people who have known him longer say he’s distant and reclusive. We were in Chicago two weeks ago and we spent a lot of time together. As extroverted as I seem, I’m introvert and really value my personal space. So much that I was pretty up front with him that when we had down time, I was gonna go into the city by myself and unwind.
In the next few days he discovered things about me and started asking questions. 11 months working with this man and that’s never happened. I’m not a nosy person and I know his vibe is just quiet and private. So I didn’t ask anything in return.
The next morning, my boss and I were in the hotel lobby waiting for a table for breakfast. He asked for my personal email and asked me to look at a template he sent.
He is technically my first boss in a super long time. I was expecting him to share work strategy, business principles, or career lessons but not the real numbers behind his personal life. It felt like one of those unexpected vulnerable moments. And he felt my broke ass needed to hear it.
I have always known I understand little about personal money management. Not money as in income, but money as in real long term planning of like hitting retirement. I’ll be honest, never thought that far. I’m pretty good the next few years but not decades. My boss although significantly older has his kids and maybe grand kids set through various investment vehicles.
What do I do when the dollars come in? Just make sure less goes out than what comes in. Now thinking about it, yes, not smart considering what I get paid to do for companies when it comes to financial structuring and forecasting. Maybe I don’t think it’s important because I have no dependents so managing money has been pretty easy. Is my future protected? Prob not by my bosses or maybe even most people’s standard. The way I see it, his whole family could retire now.
Can I build out a client’s financial operating budget for next year that’s diversified through various revenue category streams with controlled costs? You bet your ass it’ll be the bible every management team will follow and worship. But personally? Yeah, not sure why I don’t have the desire to game it the same way.
I need to write this because it’ll be part of my review. I know in the future I will forget about that email. I did ask my boss if I could talk to my advisor or some money people I know about this template. He just asked me to remove the personal details.
This file went back as far as 17 years when his income began at $186,000 a year before he started his family. The amount of money in each account nestled away is really impressive. His 2021 outline of how he runs his household finances, on an income of about $2M a year:
Aside from the scale of the numbers, I was most impressed by the discipline and structure. Every dollar has a place. There’s a rhythm between his tax planning, retirement building, investing, and lifestyle. It fits his personality, no reason for deviation, it was methodical like the way he runs his team. Each of us has our purpose and role with targets associated. There is no reason for change ups in the middle of the year. It’s a new year planning model if anything.
His goal doesn’t seem to have target growth because his brokerage and retirement fluctuated quite significantly over the years, so some of the deliberate allocation still doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe this is something I’ll ask him in the future. Like how does he decide what’s going into growth, what’s going into reserves, and what’s going into dividends (or lifestyle) the upcoming year, and stick with it? And unlike an operating financial statement, there isn’t a sizable cash reserve to rescue unexpected cash needs. There isn’t one asset category that dominates. No single category has to be reworked or revisited mid year.
It made me wish I had seen this early on, but may I wouldn’t understand it the way I would today. It would’ve given my personal finances a level of attention needed. It may be obvious to more savvy money managers but his file showed me it isn’t about big wins. It’s about steady allocation, tax awareness, and making sure your life runs smoothly.
I think before seeing this, personal money is/was abstract compared to what we do on the business side. Maybe it has to do with the scale of resources? Seeing moving parts? It’s less exciting when you manage a $10,000 monthly budget vs. $10mm.