Meet Steve Miles, "Financial Therapist"

Mark: Hi, and welcome to Life Under Supervision, the podcast for AMFTs and anyone else in a role of mental health under supervision. You know, I'm Mark and I'll be your host. Today we're gonna take a little departure from something. Dealing with something clinical and talk about the actual therapist's life itself. Specifically, we're gonna talk about money because money can be tight and can cause a lot of problems in a person's life, most especially an AMFT who's not making a whole lot of money and has a whole lot of money and student loans to repay. I was doing a little research and found out that for individuals, nine out of ten adults in the last year say that they've lost sleep or have had some type of incident of mental health disturbance because of money concerns. And three out of five people notice in the beginning of 2026 have said that they're Financial concerns had grown considerably over the past three years. Now let's look at marriage as well, because in many matrimonial situations, thirty to fifty percent of conversations that lead to disruption or and or divorce are about money. That's thirty to fifty percent. That's a lot. So today we're gonna talk about practical matters of money and how you as an AMFT and as a budding psychologist therapist can get on top of the ball. Stay tuned, make a good plan forward. So I'm gonna have a guest today, and my guest is Steve Miles. I'm a financial therapist, if you will. A financial therapist. That makes sense. I I always said when we would go to the accountant, I always felt like I was in therapy. Yeah. D disseminating up where the money is going, what we're doing, how we're spending it. So you are a personal financial advisor, right? Correct. I always tend to joke, however, that Throughout all my schooling I probably should have studied psychology a little bit more. Because really when it when we're talking about money with people, it it's really something that's obviously close and near and dear to your heart. and obviously, as you mentioned, causes can cause a lot of stress. and so understanding the the psychology behind it is something that I've been learning over almost thirty years. so I I you know certainly what you and your cohort does is a a a wonderful thing for a lot of people helping solve problems. And I like to think of myself s similarly while I try not to Get involved, but I I'm certainly not qualified to help with certain things. I am qualified to help with money. So I tend to think of myself a little bit as a financial therapist, even though technically I'm a financial advisor. I'd like to joke that I almost flipped a coin before I got into my MFT program. Would I rather be a financial advisor or a therapist? because they're both very s very similar, yes. So I I it's a very special situation we have here because a lot of these MFTs, AMFTs, you know, we've taken on many of us have taken on tens of thousands of dollars of debt and some people who have gone directly from undergrad to grad, they might have a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt. And they're in their mid-20s, they're probably single, a lot of them are. And you know, even in California where wages are good, you're only gonna be making sixty to ninety thousand dollars for two, maybe three years. Yeah. you know, in Nebraska, where wages aren't quite the same, they're gonna be making forty to fifty, sixty thousand. Right. what's the very first financial move someone should make in that position? Well, you know, first thing I I'd like to say is when we're looking at student loan debt, I oftentimes try to remind clients, you know, yes, it's a loan, it's a debt, but it's not like credit card debt. Okay. You didn't go out and blow a bunch of money going to Cabo or buy a boat or, you know, worst thing I ever tell my clients and and folks that I talk to is if you ever show up in a Porsche, I know something's probably wrong. because buying a a $85 or $100,000 car is unless you have the means is is usually a stretch. I but getting back on topic, you know, when you're looking at student student loans and student debt, it's an investment on you. So f I try to take that stigma away from, I owe a lot of money. The answer is yes, you do probably owe a lot of money. However, the alternative the alternative might have been that you wouldn't have gone to school and you wouldn't have gotten a degree. So it's to me it's an investment. It's like, you know, we're in San Francisco, so you hear a lot about you know startups you your own your you are your own startup and so these are the costs to have your startup in in some cases it's student loan debt so first thing first is I would try to reduce get away from the stigma of that okay okay great Steve now I don't have the stigma I slow 150 I I've got great self-esteem now so I I think you know there are many many many different types of student loan I I would say the first thing that you can you should do is get the get your ducks in a row in terms of all right if I have three student loans, what are the interest rates, what are the repayments monthly, whatever, and what are the options? Are there an option to refinance those into one single student loan at more favorable terms. So that's the kind of the first thing that I would look at. And really ideally ideally you want to pay off the the loans that have the highest interest rates first. Okay. if you can. That's that would be number one. And number one A, which I think we'll probably get into more, is really doing more of an investment in yourself and in your retirement. So the best time to invest was 20 years ago. Right. The second best time is now. Now exactly. So you know, you neither you nor I have invented a time machine yet. So if you can invest in yourself starting today, and that's by putting a you know a few dollars away, you know, realizing that you know certainly you know i you got student loan debt, you've got to live, you gotta have some fun, you know. Yeah. But also as important is you know putting a few thousand dollars away at least a year towards your retirement. and you know, another thing I I often say is one of the greatest things in the world is compound interest. Compound interest. And so compound interest, it's maybe not the eighth wonder of the world, but it's in the top ten. if you save a thousand dollars and you're 25 years old, just that $1,000 into a retirement account. You can't touch it until you're 60. So how many years is that? I should be the math guy. That's 35 years. Right. So over a 35-year period, that thousand dollars should double, we'll say five times. Okay. Maybe a little aggressive, but five times is certainly possible. Historically, that's been pretty much the case, right? Pretty close. Yeah. Okay. I would say every, you know, double your money every seven to ten years. Okay. If if we double it five times, that thousand dollar turns into two thousand to f four thousand to eight thousand to sixteen thousand to thirty two thousand. Is that five? Right. You can see where I'm getting to. One thousand dollars. basically you know could become thirty-two or sixty-four thousand dollars over you know a thirty-five to forty year time horizon. So that's that's a real that's real money, right? And so if you can save more than that, even better. But you know start I would say, you know, if you're just out of school and you've got you know competing interests in terms of where your dollars are being spent, if you s even if you start small, even a thousand dollars a year. can grow into real money over time. Now when you say a thousand dollars a year, are we investing in Virgin Galactica or SpaceX you mean? SpaceX And there are many different types of ways to invest and places to invest. And that some are more tax advantageous and more built for retirement. which you know again we'll probably get into a little bit more but Right. The easiest thing in the world, it's not sexy. you're probably not turning on CNBC like I do, but the the business table shows, they're not talking about just investing typically in the S P 500, which is the 500 largest US stocks. you know, you to answer your question, you don't need to take your thousand dollars and put it all into SpaceX or Virgin Galactic or any individual stock. I would say diversify it and buy I I used to have a saying don't bet on one horse in the race when you can bet on all the horses in the race. So that would be like an ETF? ETF or a mutual fund. Okay. And one of the great things about investing these days is that you can go to Schwab or Fidelity or Robinhood. there are many, many different options out there. I mean, you know, public is another one where you can just download the app, it connects to your bank, and they make it really easy for you. if there's one thing you take out of this conversation, S P 500 is as is a good place to invest. It doesn't take a a rocket scientist at SpaceX or Virgin Galactic to to figure that part out. You invest in the biggest companies in the US I would say bet on the the five hundred largest US companies and It's very low cost and it's pretty easy to do. Now, would you recommend doing that with a IRA or just as an individual? type of account. if you're single and you're making under a hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars a year, you've really got a couple of options and it's a regular IRA or a Roth IRA. there are tax benefits to doing both. I would say for especially for young people, Roth IRA, if you're making under $165,000 or if you're married, I think it's under $232,000. if you put money into a Roth IRA, that money grows tax-free. So as long as you withdraw it after age 59 and a half, technically, called 60, that money's tax-free. So that thousand dollars that we mentioned earlier turns into $32,000 or $64,000. You can withdraw that money after age $59 and a half, and you don't pay the government a penny in tax. Well, that's pretty sweet. So yeah, I would say take the second thing. out of this conversation. If you do a Roth IRA as as long as you can and let that grow for again 35-40 years, your future you will be very happy. Okay. for someone living to paycheck to paycheck on an associate salary, what does a realistic monthly budget look like? It's another great question. You know, often with my clients, I get A version of this question a lot. Well, we just can't figure out where we're spending all of our money. And it's usually the same two or three different things. It's DoorDash and Uber Eats, it's Amazon or something similar. Uh-huh. And so you know, beyond those, those are kind of the where I see people stretching their their spending. realistically you want to spend maybe about a third of your salary or your take home pay on your rent, which should leave you two thirds for everything else. you know those Uber Eats bills can can add up. Yeah. The Amazon that just shows up in two days, you know, that can really add up. so again, if you could do a third on where you live and then, you know, maybe another third on, you know, your general living expenses, and then you've got a third to kind of as discretionary. Mm-hmm. That's usually you know, how I break break things up. What I see happening most often is that last third, that discretionary, turns into the last half or the last two thirds. yeah. So better to just go get a cookbook. Well learn how to cook. Yes. I know a lot of people who spend a lot of money in restaurants. I was I was somewhat guilty of that when I was younger, but not nothing that that was really painful. Well, yeah. Although I'm paying for it now. Right. Right. So many A AMFTs work as ten ninety-nine contractors when they go to like a group practice. Do you have any really great tips or how someone should budget to save for taxes when nothing is being withheld? Right. I've been burned by this in the past. Yeah. This is a tough one and it comes up a a lot with with clients that I've spoken to that are that are contractors on 1099. And it's great when that money comes in. Uhhuh. And it's wonderful because, you know, Uncle Sam has not gotten their pound of flesh. However, to your point The bill always comes due. And so the best way to do it is to just you know, similar to what I was mentioning with you know investing in your retirement, well this is maybe more a little bit more important because Uncle Sam will come looking for you. if you're on a ten ninety-nine, it's almost always best to segregate, take, you know, some number, twenty percent would be a kind of a rule of thumb that you Put into a an FDIC insured savings account. Hopefully that's earning some interest. there are many different options out there, online banks that are paying, you know, close to four percent, probably three point seven these days. Okay. And I would just make ha get in habit of funding that every month. You could all you could make it automatic, couldn't you? You can. So you don't even see the money show up. Yeah. Because the the what you don't want to have happen is all of a sudden it's April 15th, 2027. You've made a hundred thousand dollars and you owe twenty thousand dollars to feds and the state for taxes. And then you go, how do I do that? How do I get that? And if you don't pay it on April fifteenth, That's when potentially penalties and interest start to kick in. So save yourself the headache. put the just put the funds away, just segregate them into a separate account, and you really need to be disciplined and not to touch it. So, you know, when you want to go to Cabo or Hawaii or hopefully not buy that Porsche, you just gotta leave that money alone. It's like you don't have it. Yeah. Easier said than done. Easier said than done. I did that about fifteen years ago. I'm old, remember? And the money my paycheck goes into my checking account, but every month I take several hundred out and put it into a savings account just so that it's always there to make April a little less painful. Yep, that's right. so there's always talk of also just about modern living is should someone aggressively s pay down student loans? they build an emergency fund first? Well, so it depends, I would say. so to the extent that you can do both, mm-hmm, plus invest in retirement, so that's three things. It's a three-headed monster. that's really what you want to do. I I Paying off the student student loans if it's high if it's a double digit interest rate, so if it's 10% or higher, you know, yeah, that's tough. if you're paying 10% interest, you're paying a lot of interest. Yeah, I think most of the people that I graduated with were at around eight, eight, one. Which is still relatively a lot of money. Relatively high. Yeah. So I you know, you have to pay your student loans. I would, you know, do not default on the loans. You don't want to do that. You want to pay those off. and if it's the minimum, and if you could do more, okay, but at least the minimum. And beyond that, you know, having saving for a rainy day is important, and saving for retirement is important. So it's which one is better for you? I usually would say, you know, if you were to ask me what's better, I would say the retirement, just because it's it has a chance to grow. Okay. And when you're young and you know, just out of school, you know, assuming you don't have a you don't have a family, don't have children, you don't have the other you know fiscal responsibilities that you know we do, Mark, you and I, then, you know, certainly I would say bet on yourself and and and focus on retirement. And then rule number you know, number three in that would be a rainy day fund. Okay. I can remember many times people would say have six months. Yeah. how do you do that in San Francisco? I've been doing this a long time, almost thirty years and You know, much like I bet on corporate America and people consuming, when times get tough, people get very creative. So this is the other thing that I I would bet on, which is why, you know, w a rainy day fund is important. Is it six months? Is it three months? You know, I have some clients that want two years of rainy day funds. Wow. And that's just it's a personal preference, but it helps them sleep at night. I often say also say that there's a textbook answer and there's a real world answer. And the real world world answer is what makes you more comfortable and what helps you sleep at night. So where I would say retirement is important because you know, putting a even a thousand dollars in today you know, you're compounding for thirty-five, forty, fifty years. that's pretty powerful stuff. But if you're sleeping, you know, 45 minutes a night because you're worried about where your you know your next meal is gonna come from and can you afford rent, well then you know, maybe the rainy day fund is is a a a better option for you. So there's no one size fits all answer. Right. I get a hypothetical, maybe maybe morose question. I love hypothetical, morose questions. Uncle Bob dies and leaves you a hundred thousand dollars. What's the best way to invest that or or things to do with it? Yeah. Well, so this is where you get into the question of what do you pay the student loan off? Do you have a down payment for a condo or a house? or you know if you're in some parts of America, can you you know buy a buy a place outright. Right. and again I think it comes down to your in your individual situation. but the the hierarchy for me would be Pay down high interest loans first. Okay. So if it's eight percent, that's right there. I would strongly consider paying that down or off. And then separately from there, if you have money left over, then you know you can certainly invest it. put it in the bank for a rainy day fund or you know, put a fourth thing on my list, but besides you know, paying down your your debt, saving for retirement, rainy day would be buying a property. which, you know, as an investment advisor, I don't sell homes. I'm not a real estate agent. I'm not a realtor. Uh-huh. but I often t I often see, you know, that the most successful people in their their later years, as they get to retirement, they've got a fixed cost of living, meaning that they've bought a house, they've had a 30-year fixed mortgage on it, they've either paid it off or their costs are are steady. Right. whereas if you're renting, you know, your rent's gonna go up every year. so the fourth thing it would be, you know, if you have some money left over from doing all those other things, paying off debt, saving for retirement, ready fund, it's buying real estate for yourself. What was your opinion of real estate? But so it's four on a hierarchy of smart practices. I would say so. and the thing about real estate, it's a forced savings mechanism because yes, you're borrowing money from the bank, but you're you are paying principal every month. In the beginning, it may not be much, but over time it it certainly adds up. and also the value. of your property is gonna go up right typically. Now we're in San Francisco where things are insane and the value of real estate since I moved here in 2003, I mean it's gone exponential. In other parts of the country it may not go up as much, but they're the prices are still going to go up. Right. It's still a solid bet. Not a bad thing. And you invest and you get the appreciation on the whole thing. So you even if you bought a you know a two hundred thousand dollar property and it goes up ten percent, okay, well that doesn't Twenty thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars. May not seem like a ton, but that's twenty thousand dollars in your pocket. That your landlord's not getting. Right. let's talk about resources or tools that you recommend your clients to use. What what are a couple that you might recommend? Well, I mentioned earlier C and B C and my strongest recommendation would be not to watch it. Okay. And why is that? because it much like Other cable news programs, it's entertainment. Okay. there are some nuggets you can glean from there, but you know, I've been doing this you know, again, almost thirty years. you have to kind of wade through a lot of muck to get one or two good tidbits. It seems to foster kind of a betting mentality too, doesn't it? It's a speculation. Certainly. Yeah. it's sensationalism, hyperbole. the other thing, you know, when someone's on there talking, you always have to wonder what their motivations are. They're selling something, right? Either they're selling something or they own the investment that they're talking about. And so get real good distilled information from them. So you know, what I tell my clients my job is really to wade through all the information. So I do a lot of reading. there's so much financial information free. and I'm gonna maybe chastised for something, but financial Twitter is one of the most wonderful things on the internet. Yeah. You can wade through the rest of Twitter X.com these days. because there's really, really thoughtful, smart people on there that just are in it for the love of the game, so to speak, and are you know, share their research and analysis. And so in the early days of Twitter, that was my favorite place to go. interesting on Twitter. And I'm still on there, it's harder because people are are not on Twitter anymore and or not as many people are on Twitter anymore. But I've curated a a a group of people that I listen to. Sure. So for you know, you and and your listeners, I would say it it's tough because again you're you're having to distill through what someone's opinions are and you don't necessarily know what what their motivations are. So you know the Wall Street Journal still pretty good i if we're looking at a an old traditional you know place to get information. I want to interject for a moment because I would say about eighty to eighty-five percent of this field is populated by women. Yeah. Okay. I have seen in newspapers the c syndicated columnists around the country that are dealing with the psychology of money. It's a female psychologist who's also a financial advisor and she talks about money. I just want to give a gift to the women listeners out there. What is a book that might hook them that isn't a like a a random walk down Wall Street? Yeah. 'Cause I I had read Suzy Orman in the past. Yeah. Well Suzy Orman I'll say one thing. She loves the Roth IRA when I agree with her. Although the Roth IRA, like everything, there's not a one size fits all, I do have a book. Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money. It's Okay. It's one I read mm ps gosh, I whenever it came out, so eight nine years ago. Okay. and Morgan Morgan Housel's a fantastic writer. He's relatively easy to understand. he doesn't write in jargon. and he's an inf he's an an institutional investor. He invests big money in in a in a fund. and he kind of distills things down Too too kind of easy to understand. and he's a good writer, so yeah, there you go. Morgan Housel, the psychology of mine. So I would say this also is that when you're talk if you're talking to a financial professional like myself, also keep in mind Who's talking and what their motivations are. So if you walk into a large bank and you want to get investment help, those folks may be good, but also they're selling you a product oftentimes. And are they actually giving you real advice? That maybe remains to be seen. Now, does that cover 80% of what you need? If you walked into a bank and said, I have you know this money and I want to open a retirement account. help me and they put you into some fund and even if it costs you know two or two percent which is a very high fee. A very high fee. you know, is that better than doing nothing? The answer is yes. however if you Just do a little bit more work and you find what I would say to to your listeners is try to find a fiduciary. So somebody who's going to act in your best interest, regardless, they're not going to try to sell you a product. They're not they're legally bound. They are legally bound. Okay. to act in your best interest and give you advice based on your best interest, not theirs, and what's going to help you, not their pocketbook. Okay. So that's I think the one thing I would leave you with, other than rough. IRAs are great and the SP 500 you can invest in that for as close to free as possible. and keep a mind keep keep an eye on what you're paying and who you're paying it to. And if it's if there are fees involved, get those disclosed up front. Okay. Because oftentimes if you walk in, you walk into a bank or investment house, there are fees associated with it and you should probably understand those before you sign on the dotted line. Just one final thing. My dad always used to say, he would always say, I only look once every six months. Yeah, that's your dad's wise. And that is actually I'm glad you brought that up, because the analogy I use is like with your investing, you you sometimes you want to be like a firefighter. When everyone's running out of the building, you want to run in. Well, you don't want to, but you should. not that that not that you're running into a burning building, but when the stock market is down, that means it's like going to Macy's, you know, on the once yearly sale. Uhhuh. This way to date myself with a very dated retailer reference. in the stock market's the only the only market in the world where when things are on sale everyone's scared. but The other analogy I use, investing is like a roller coaster. You get on the roller coaster, you strap in, you put your seatbelt on, you make sure that the the bar is over you and you're secure. And you know the roller coaster is gonna go up, it's gonna go down, it's gonna go sideways, it's gonna go upside down. But you don't jump off the roller coaster when you're upside down. Right. And you don't jump off the roller coaster when you're going you know, around a turn at, you know, seventy miles an hour. you've gotta hold on for dear life and know that you'll make it at at the end. You you get home in the end. That's right. Right. Okay, well, where can people find you? you can find me at sutroadvisors.com or LinkedIn. Sutroadvisors.com or Steve Miles M-I-L-E-S at LinkedIn. Well, thank you, Steve. Mark? That was a pleasure. That was great. Always great to see you. Likewise. That's a wrap for today. Thank you very much for attending and or attending, listening, and I hope to see you all soon. Thanks. Bye-bye.