Because of how planners are typically compensated for their work, millennials have historically been ignored by the financial planning industry, Courtney said. MillennialFP has a different business model, and as such is able to help young families plan better for their financial future, including everything from budgeting to buying a house, or sending kids to college.
“Nobody wakes up one day and says, ‘Hey, today’s a really good day to go see a financial planner,’” Courtney said. “They say, ‘Hey, we know we want to save for the kids’ college, but we don’t know exactly how to do it. All of this is a foreign language to me, because we were never taught this in school.’ "
Most people think of financial planning in terms of retirement, Courtney said. But with decades between most millennials and retirement, there’s other things young people focus on to secure their financial future.
“At the end of the day, money is not something that is there to gain wealth,” Courtney said. “There’s a lot of depressed millionaires out there. Money is a tool to be able to live the life you want.”
With two financial crises under their belts, 56% of Millennials feel confident in their ability to protect their finances if there is another downturn, according to a survey from Nationwide Retirement Institute last year, compared to 43% of Generation X and 33% of baby boomers. By the same token, nearly 80% of Millennials are already bracing for another U.S. economic recession, compared to 71% of Gen X and 63% of boomers.
Courtney’s top tip for young people looking to shore up their finances is to diversify, and to put systems in place where money is going to areas of their lives that are important to them, whether it’s education, children, retirement or something else.
“Flexibility is the number one trait of the Millennial financial situation, because we have no idea what our lives are gonna look like, in five, 10, 15 years,” Courtney said. “If I asked you what your life looked like five years ago, you’d probably tell me what was important to you then is way, way different.”
In addition to changing ideas around money, emerging technology means financial planners are going to start being paid for their knowledge, rather than recommending specific stocks or products. For young families and business professionals, that knowledge is power, Courtney said.
“Planners used to be stockbrokers,” Courtney said. “We’re slowly starting to see the evolution in our industry of being actual advice-givers, and being paid for that advice, not salespeople.”
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