Financial Literacy & Planning for All

Welcome to our 'Financial Literacy & Planning for All' Course

In this fast paced world, money and its proper management doesn't get enough coverage. Sure, we get lots of 'noise' about money, information galore and blogs suggesting to do this or that, but usually they're not even applicable to our situation or so narrow in scope that even after reading you're like 'Ok, but what about (insert your real concern)?'. Also the information is usually not easy to understand, not explained in simple terms, or without providing the right course of actions.

We also get lots of information from people that don't have the right background or even the experience to discuss, or even worse, suggest what to do. We all have them, your uncle or friend who always has a stock tip or that media personality that only talks about 'winning stocks' and when to buy or sell. The truth is that they, including the so called experts in the field, don't know what will happen in the stock market, as if they did they just wouldn't share with us. Also a lot of focus is put on investments alone, while not much discussed about the greater and more important, Financial Planning, the comprehensive viewpoint of all of your money concerns. Your financial life is much more than just investments, it includes your debts, your budgeting, your retirement plans, your insurances and your estate planning, and focusing on investments alone, or even worse, a 'winning stock pick' is missing the forest for the trees. Knowledge and experience about money takes time, training and hands-on experience and just like not everyone can be called a doctor, not everyone should give advice on money either. You need the right person with the right knowledge and experience but also with the right character and aligned interests to help you out with your financial plan. We do just that with this course.

Our society is totally unprepared in financial knowledge and literacy as such topics are not taught in schools but also not discussed in a thoughtful process after school as well. People go along all their lives believing non-truths and hear-says about money and that costs them in real dollars. Looking at the results of financial illiteracy in this country (we rank 14th in the world in financial literacy) and the effects of that illiteracy (45% have no retirement plan, 63% don't have $500 for a minor emergency, and 72% have financial stress) it is about time for someone to build up the knowledge and standup for helping others in bettering their financial knowledge so they can better their financial lives. This financial illiteracy is already costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime, from missed opportunities of managing our debts better, to not investing for the long term, diversified and with low costs, not knowing how to budget and stay on track or managing our behaviors during market stress or euphoria and up to not being insured right and open to financial catastrophes.

And that's where we come in. Our principal has been involved in Financial Planning and Investment Advice for over 15 years, helping hundreds of clients with their financial lives. He is a CFP® Professional (CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™) and has an MBA in Finance. He's also a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) and has also been published in a wide range of publications and blogs. But more than anything he wants to be known for someone with a passion of helping others in financial literacy and spreading his expertise as far as possible. That's what he did with his recent cross-country, full-time traveling in an RV doing Free Financial Literacy seminars in universities and colleges all over the US. This knowledge when shared will empower you to not just help yourself and better your own financial status, but you'll be wanting to share it all with everyone you know.

This course will start with an understanding of why financial planning is important, how to set up your financial goals, create a system to pay off your debts, have and create a budget while staying on track, up to investing for the future and mistakes to avoid, understanding the different retirement plans and also insuring what matters to you, all will be explained in easy to digest videos and custom templates. In addition we'll also discuss education funding for your kids, income taxes and even the different types of advisors out there that can help you. We've set it all up so that you can follow along and create your own financial plan. We'll even provide you our templates we use with our clients, so you can plan just like the professionals. And if you need additional help, we're there to help as well, we're not just a CFP® Professional, but also a Registered Investment Advisor and can help you set up portfolios for your investments, guide on your retirement plans, create and also execute your financial plans and more.

This is knowledge sharing from someone who knows, but also who's done it too. Getting your info from the right source is very important, but most important is getting it from someone with the right character and vision, someone who's being guided by principles and morals and someone who puts doing what's right above everything else. We've already done that with our cross-country RV Tour raising awareness and doing FREE Financial Literacy Events in universities and colleges and will continue to do even more in the future. Standing UP for others is in our DNA.

Below are few pictures of some of our events in our Financial Literacy Tour.

Free Financial Literacy Event at Virginia Tech, Virginia

Free Financial Literacy Event at University of Miami, Florida

Free Financial Literacy Event at Scripps College, California

Looking forward to getting you started towards your own path to Financial Freedom.

Thank you,

Genti Cici, CFP^®, CAIA^®, MBA

Founder, StandUP Advisors