Episode 8: Building a Better Relationship with Money – with Tom Alessi and Craig Richardson of the ARIES Foundation
Jordan: Welcome to the Plan for Special Needs Trusts podcast presented by PLAN, the Planned Lifetime Assistance Network of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Our plan is your plan, and I'm your host, Jordan Rich. 

Today we connect with other partners of PLAN. It's the Aries Foundation for Financial Education. The mission is to try to help everyone have a better relationship with their money. And you'll hear from two founders, a couple of super guys with great energy, creativity, and a strong desire to not only help educate, but inspire people to take control of their lives. With me today, Tom Alessi and Craig Richardson, you can find out more about this dynamic duo at ariesfoundation.org that's ariesfoundation.org. 

We at PLAN of Massachusetts and Rhode Island are proud to have you both on our team. Let's start with you, Tom. A little background. This is a recent endeavor that you guys have worked on, primarily due to the pandemic. You said a little background will be great. Yeah. 

Tom: So for myself, I'm a financial adviser. I have been in the industry for 23 years. I'm actually an investment advisor. Means I Act as a fiduciary whenever I'm giving guidance or advice to any of my clients. And Craig will introduce himself in a second. But for us, we were doing a lot of educational and informational outreach to organizations and companies and just realized that we could expand that messaging by launching the foundation, the Aries Foundation for Financial Education. And really for us, the mission behind Aries is trying to help everyone have a better relationship with their money because whether you realize it or not, you're in a relationship with your money. And just like any other personal relationship that you might have, there are emotions and behavior triggers that cause us to act irrationally sometimes when it comes to handling our finances. And all Craig and I try to do is take some of that emotion out of dealing with your money. 

Jordan: And Craig, let's hear from you and your background. And then I want to talk further about the audience that we're reaching and the people that you're helping. Craig. 

Craig: Sure. So I've actually been in financial services a little over 17 years now, and my background has been doing personal financial planning. So we've been doing a lot of work in the special needs arena for quite a while. And as Tom said, it's about helping people have a better relationship with their money because a lot of people, they think money is math and money is not really math. Money is emotion. What's the things that drive you when you make decisions around money, what is it that makes you put your head in the sand and not deal with money? So we just wanted to kind of bring a format forward that made money. And the topic of money approachable for people 

Jordan: And emotion when it comes to people with special needs and their families is intensified because of obvious reasons, right? 

Craig: Absolutely. In my own case, I have a daughter with Alopecia, which means she has no hair from the time of one year old. So for us, we were able to go through some of that emotional roller coaster ride with dealing with a child who's going to have a need. So it just gave me some affinity for working with families who are in similar positions, knowing that they're going through that information gathering phase and then they're going through the trying to get through each day phase. And so for them, it's a matter of not when they have these needs, it's about when they are ready to address these needs. 

Jordan: And, Tom, you have a very impressive roster of people you're helping, including PLAN of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. We'll talk about the direct impact there, but there's no lack of need. I guess you guys have plenty of work to do. 

Tom: Yes. And we've actually been the last year, certainly I think the pandemic may have piled on to that a little bit, but we've been working with a lot of organizations, as Craig had mentioned, you know, certainly in the special needs community, but a lot of nonprofits as well, and it's actually expanded to state agencies. We did presentations recently with the Massachusetts State Treasurer's office. Their Money Talk Tuesdays. They had us on doing in fact, we did one of our special needs presentations workshops for their Money Talk Tuesday programming 

Jordan: explain how the workshops unfold. Is it all public workshops or Zoom presentations or what? 

Tom: Well, so today's world, everything is a webinar right now. But one of the things that Craig and I started doing and this was sort of the lead into the foundation itself is we just decided that, hey, we could bring some of this on a regular basis since everybody's in Zoom now, everybody's on TV at this point during these meetings. So we do a weekly webinar series. Originally, it was titled Thirsty for Knowledge Thursdays. We've sort of highlighted that and changed it. It's called Think with a Drink, because our belief is that a lot of the topics we touch on are very serious, some of them talk into the doom and gloom with estate planning and dementia and other facets of what goes on for people. But we just wanted it to be casual and relaxed so we can't think of a better way to do that than if you have something to imbibe on as we're going along and doing these. 

Jordan: I agree. By the way, Ariesfoundation.org is where they can find links to these. Ariesfoundation.org. 

Tom: Right. Aries, Aries Foundation.org, 

Jordan: Craig, speaking of fun activity, fun workshops, balling on a budget, a lot of football fans out there and a lot of sports fans. What is that all about? 

Craig: Yeah. So bowling on a budget came out of we had a request to do some summer camp webinars, I mean, seminars back before covet for youth teams. They were going to be hopefully eventually going into the workforce you're doing a budgeting seminar for a group of youths at a summer camp. And Tom came in and said, this is great. Why don't we do this to a football theme and we wear Patriots jerseys while we're doing it. So we're not two guys just up there in suits. 

Jordan: By the way, you picked the right number Jersey. Yes. Both of you. 

Craig: Did we? 

Jordan: I think so. Certain number twelve shows up prominently. 

Craig: I guess it does, yeah. 

Tom: So I'm just going to chime in. They are custom jerseys, so they're TB twelve, but they are custom for us. And at this point, he's still playing. He's still the greatest of all time. And to be honest, we can't find Mac Jones jerseys yet. 

Jordan: And just to tie it into the podcast, we had the Best Buddies guys here, so there's a perfect tie and you guys are safe. 

Tom: I'm going to jump onto that because we actually are talking and I'm probably going to do some of these workshops with Best Buddies in 2022. We've been in conversation with them about that. 

Jordan: So anyway, let's get back to what the intent is. 

Craig: Sure. So the intent is actually just to bring a fun aspect to people and how to deal with budgeting and finance. And actually, the way the budget falling on a budget goes, it actually allows the participants a more active role. In other words, we get up in front of, okay, what would be a job you would have? And they tell us a job they would have. What would you make if you're going to have an apartment? How much would that cost? And all of sudden all these people start getting interactive and they're creating the budget, and so it allows them to go through that. Now what's really interesting is we've done this not just for youth, but we've done this for day programs for the autism center and stuff like that. So it doesn't matter what level you're at, anybody can participate and it becomes a fun learning experience. What Tom and I have found, though, is a lot of times the staff at these events go, hey, that was great. Can you do that for us? 

Jordan: I'll tell you, I love the concept and I love the energy you guys bring to it. I think you're hitting on something that could go well beyond even the public service sector, as you're finding out. 

Tom: Yes, we happen to have an affinity and a close connection to a lot of these organizations. And just that's really for us, it's another way of giving back. 

Jordan: Let's talk, Tom, a little bit about PLAN of Mass in Rhode Island, just briefly, since we're hosting this podcast and we're thrilled you're here. talk about the connection. 

Tom: So for us, a portion of our firm, as Craig had mentioned before, we dedicate to dealing with the special needs community. So trying to help families who have a child who's differently abled or has a disability, we connected to PLAN of Mass and Rhode Island several years ago and really saw an opportunity to try to help them do some outreach with a lot of the organizations that we're connected to, as we already mentioned, who when we were there or talking to them, had no idea who the PLAN of Mass and Rhode Island was. And so for us, it was this conversation of, look, we think this is a well intentioned, well meaning, a great organization that just needs a little bit of connecting help. 

Jordan: One of the boons of this weird period we're in. People are reaching out using electronic means to connect with organizations like ours and yours and bring people together. And it seems to me that there's been a real scarcity of easy to grasp information about finance in general. But this population that you're focusing on seems to have been left out of it. You're filling a void. Do you agree, Craig?
Craig: I do. I think when you look at people and maybe you have a retirement program at work, they'll give you some access to different training things, but a lot of times it's very dry and there's no empathy to go out there and do that unless something is pressing. I think for us, it's about trying to bring that educational piece to the people who typically wouldn't look for a financial advisor. Right. If you have a lot of money, you're wealthy. Those people have advisors. They don't not have advisors if they're wealthy. Like Tom Brady has a coach. Right. He's the greatest of all time. He still has a coach. Right. So the problem for a lot of people, especially when we found in the nonprofit sector, is they're mission based. They're not salary driven all the time. So they're not necessarily seeking out this information, but they need it just as much as a guy who's a millionaire. 

Jordan: Everyone has, quote, unquote, in a state, every one of us, you may just have a dilapidated old car in the driveway and a place to live. That's part of your estate. Right, Tom.

Tom: You've got stuff. Absolutely. You’ve got stuff. And it's all about where your stuff is going to go, which ties us back to the PLAN of Mass and Rhode Island. One of the reasons that Craig and I have that affiliation and try to work closely with Plan of Mass in Rhode Island is because a lot of families in special needs community, one of the first steps is trying to protect the benefits for the child. And so doing that is setting up what is known as a third party supplemental needs trust. In the case of PLAN of Mass and Rhode Island, they can set up a pooled third party supplemental needs trust. But most of the families, especially those that we work with closely in some of these organizations, don't have any assets. They don't have any assets to put in the trust today. The idea is that they're going to put it in some time out into the future, which is okay. But as we just talked about now, you're trying to plan for your own retirement and then plan for the retirement or the future years of your child at the same time. 

Jordan: That's a big load, isn't it? 

Tom: It's a huge burden. And that's where a lot of the disconnect happens, because what you end up will wind up with is somebody saying, I'm just going to whatever's left over, like you said, the dilapidated car in the driveway, whatever's left over, that's what's going to go to the trust. Well, that's great if you don't live for a very long time and there's stuff there at the end. But what if you use all of it? And so that's what Craig and I have been trying to do with the PLAn of Mass is trying to educate a lot of their clients, people that they're talking to the community itself about different ways to handle the funding of those supplemental needs trusts. 

Jordan: You guys are talking about a basic concept, how to build through our system here in America, how to build on wealth, even small portions of wealth. Give us an example of what you've taught and what the results have been. Do you have feedback from any organizations in this short time you've been doing this or any individuals that say, I now have a bank account that's earning the interest or whatever? 

Craig: Yeah, there's many examples and trying to figure out what would be a really good one to talk about. I mean, one example is I had a woman through one of the centers we're working for, and she wasn't making a lot of money. Actually, she was getting some assistance and she was afraid to save money because it might knock her off as assistance. And I said, well, if you're afraid to have assets in the bank account, put them in a Mason jar. It's having a few hundred dollars so some people can feel like wealth because now you have some means. It's about having a starting point. 

Jordan: So that's another thing you're getting questions that even you might not have pondered prior to this. And it's wonderful to be able to teach people and then learn at the same time. Right, Tom? 

Tom: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the biggest things and I think the biggest when you ask about the lessons or whatever you want to call them, because like I said, it's think with a drink. So we try to be less burdensome with that. But one of the biggest things is it's about savings versus spending. Right. And for us, whatever you want to use for the cliche, the Catch 22, the conundrum, whatever, it's that you really can't be saving until you know what you are spending. And the flip side is sort of true is that you really shouldn't spend until you know what you want to save

Jordan: Which is why the P word plan is so important, even a simple basic ABC plan can set somebody up and give them peace of mind. 

Craig: Yeah. I think one of the bigger things, too, is that I never met anyone, regardless of how wealthy they were. And we have clients who are multi millionaires who haven't made financial mistakes. And a lot of times those skeletons, you want to keep them in the closet. You don't want anybody to know about your mistakes. You hear about all the good things they do or all the right decisions they make. Just like some gambles you hear about when they won't, you don't hear about it when they lost. But like I said, what everybody, though, it doesn't matter where you are right now. Today is your starting point, and you can only go from here. And so it's about getting information in a judgment free zone where you can be honest about here's the mistakes I've made. Here's what I like to see myself get to and come up with a plan and a way out to get there. And we always find that educating people is the best way to work with people. My best clients are the clients who understand money. And so it's my job to make sure that people we do work with understand what we're doing, not just let us help them do it. 

Jordan: Both of you are quite empathetic. I can tell just by meeting you. How is this work that you're doing changed you on the inside? What do you feel is going on in you working with these organizations and individuals? Start with you, Craig. 

Craig: I think a lot of people in this industry and the financial services industry can get fixated on how much money can I make for myself, right? How well can I do? And there's always this emphasis in your organizations of did you achieve this goal, achieve that goal? It's always a financial meaning goal. I think this has become more altruistic in the fact that we're out there helping people. It's not just the extrinsic rewards, it's the intrinsic rewards we get. Seeing somebody who didn't have a bank account now have a bank account, having somebody who said there's no way I'm going to be able to retire. And now they can and comfortably because we bring those tools and concepts and education to them so they can feel better about where they are and have that better relationship with their money. 

Jordan: Tom, any response to that question? 

Tom: Yeah. So for me, it's a similar thing, except for I think it's something that you had mentioned earlier, which is all of that we're doing or trying to do and what we're learning as we go along. So sometimes it may be something we're not even thinking about or even aware of, but because we're going to be presenting or giving the topic or finding it, we're doing the legwork and the research and the background on it. And I may never have ever wanted to know the ins and outs of X or why, but now I do, because now I'm presenting it. 

Jordan: That's the joy of teaching that people don't think about before they get into it. You learn more as you're doing it. You're learning so much. 

Craig: Well, the other thing, too, that Tom hasn't talked about to his credit, is that we can't know everything, right? It's impossible because there are so many different areas of specialty when you're dealing with these communities. So by creating networks, though, and Tom said a lot of this networking, we can bring people to resources that they may need, like PLAN of Mass and Rhode Island. So someone comes to us and we go, hey, how do I help my special needs child long term and I'm not here we say, well, you need this type of trust. These are the people who can help you, and we point them in the right direction.

Jordan: Likewise, on the website, there is a litany of logos and it's really impressive. Some of the organizations have been here I mentioned, but I would imagine more and more are anxious to bring you guys in to start the teaching process. 

Tom: I don't know about anxious, but our goal, our hope is always to expand, like I said, the footprint and what we do. So we are always open to having conversations with organizations. We're happy to do it. And as we say to them, that's sort of going from what I was just talking about, which is we can present on just about anything, and we're happy to. We do it with a lot of the basics that are there. And usually when we sit down with an organization, we'll have six or seven topics that we've laid out that are sort of the most asked for 

Jordan: The regular menu. Yeah, that type of thing. 

Tom: But then we're always like, you can always order off menu, right? You got something you want to learn about, or we can ask you can throw a poll out or survey to either your employees, your constituents, or whatever it may be that we're happy to present on it because like I said, that's the whole idea of we're trying to help educate and it might be something that we're not really sure about, but we can find out. And a lot of times what will happen is we will bring in a third party to present along with it so that we have somebody else who's adding a little bit more or maybe knows a lot more than either one of us do. 

Craig: Yeah, I think one we did, which was fun, was the hidden cost of pets. The hidden cost of pets. 

Jordan: One does not think about that. one doesn't have a pet and I don't, but people do. So how did it go? 

Craig: It went great. The response was fantastic. But it's one of those topics where you can have some fun with it, but it's still a concern. So if you have a pet that I may live, you what do you do about that? And this comes up, especially you don't think about it with dogs and cats or birds. But what if you have a horse and we know an attorney who does trust just for horses. So it's just unending the kind of topics that you can get into when you get creative. 

Jordan: All right, here's the question that needs to be asked, the name who came up with it and what significance is it? Aries. 

Tom: Obviously, the zodiac sign is Aries, but it actually doesn't connect to the zodiac sign. It actually starts as Alessie Richardson. That's why it's AR. Okay, got you. So it's actually Alessi Richardson. And then it's investment educational services. 

Jordan: It has that Roman godlike feel to it, or one of you might have driven a Dodge Aries or something. 

Tom: We do use the Ram symbol for our yes, we do use the zodiac symbol as the logo for Aries. But yeah, it was more of trying to come up with something that we could use that was more widespread, that sort of tied to what we were looking to do, which was more of that educational services type of thing. 

Jordan: I think it's fabulous, the program that you're doing, and it's only going to expand. And if people do have questions, the best way they can connect with you is through the website. 

Tom: If they go to the website, there is a contact page on there. And again, it's Ariesfoundation.org. There is a contact they can reach out to. There's an info@ariesfoundation.org, the email address as well, which they can just shoot a question to stay on top of all of that stuff in terms of going through it. But on the website, not only the organizations that we work with and support, but they can also see the events page, what's coming up and some of the other things that we do. 

Jordan: Well, I was particularly taken by the football thing and the balling on a budget and you guys in football jerseys. I thought that was a great idea. We have facts, figures, numbers and all that. But when we apply sense of humanity and fun to it, it makes it just more approachable. And for this audience, which compiles a whole group of individuals from all sectors, I think it's a win win. So thank you very much, both of you guys. 

Craig: Yeah. And in honor of the Aries Foundation, because this is a podcast, you can't see it. But we're wearing togas right now. 

Jordan: Yes. I refuse to wear a toga. I do have a Laurel wreath around my head.  Gentlemen, thank you so much. And for all of us at Plan of Mass in Rhode Island, thanks for doing what you're doing. 

Craig: Appreciate it. 

Jordan: We want to thank you for listening to the Plan for Special Needs Trusts podcast presented by PLAN. The Planned Lifetime Assistance Network of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. PLAN is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit company where the goal for every one of its clients is always to preserve assets, protect benefits and live well. For more visit www dot plan of Mare.org we invite you to subscribe, download, rate and review this podcast and thank you for sharing it with others. Our plan is your plan.