Episode 35 - Investing Smart: How to Avoid Hidden Fees & Find the Right Advisor
Did you know that half of investment advisor clients think they’re getting comprehensive advice, but only 11% actually are? In this episode, Deb Meyer sits down with Stephen Tanenbaum, founder of Rainbook, a platform dedicated to bringing transparency to financial advising. Stephen shares how Rainbook helps parents evaluate their advisors, uncover hidden fees, and make sure they’re getting real value from their financial relationships.
They also discuss:
✅ The difference between fiduciary advisors and commission-based brokers
✅ Common hidden fees in financial advising (and how to spot them)
✅ Why transparency matters in both finances and relationships
✅ Practical financial tips for families balancing work, kids, and budgeting
✅ The role of financial advisors beyond just managing investments
Whether you're working with an advisor now or considering hiring one, this episode will help you ask the right questions and make smarter financial decisions.
Episode Highlights
(05:40) Fiduciary Advisor on 529 Plans
(10:05) Understanding Financial Advisor Fees
(16:47) Financial Advisor Fees and Services
(25:13) Personal Finance and Budget Planning
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
📌 Rainbook’s Advisor Analyzer Tool - A free tool to evaluate your financial advisor’s fees and credentials.
📌 FINRA BrokerCheck – A resource to research financial advisors and brokers.
📌 NAPFA – A network of fee-only fiduciary advisors.
Connect with Stephen Tanenbaum
Learn more about Rainbook: rainbook.com
Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-tanenbaum-9596706/
Connect with Deb Meyer
Website: WorthyNest.com/podcast
Full transcript
Deb Meyer (00:01.55)
Did you know that half of investment advisor clients believe they are getting comprehensive advice, yet only 11 % are actually receiving it? Today's guest, Stephen Tannenbaum is on mission to redefine transparency for investment clients. As the founder of Rainbook, he leverages technology to deliver an objective evaluation of your financial advisor or help you locate a new one. All right, Stephen, thanks so much for joining us on the Beyond Budgets podcast.
What inspired you to start Rainbook?
Stephen Tanenbaum (00:34.826)
Yeah, we started back in 2021, initially as a platform for self-directed investors. So to manage all their finances and investments specifically with focus on the alternative investments. had sold out of my previous startup, which was an online original art marketplace. And I had taken some of those proceeds and invested in some friends startups, some real estate investments.
Deb Meyer (00:48.834)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (01:02.824)
And then it was kind of the crypto and fractional ownership collectibles, whether that was artwork or sports collectibles. So initially we started as trying to find a platform to aggregate all of your alternative investments into one screen and see it alongside your liquid investments like your stocks and bank accounts to really see a net worth dashboard. Over the next couple of years,
Deb Meyer (01:28.769)
Okay.
Stephen Tanenbaum (01:31.316)
for a variety of reasons, we evolved and we launched the Rainbook advisor network last fall. As we saw a need for investors who come into a situation and need or want to work with a financial advisor or want or need to, to really understand if they're getting value for the service that they're paying for. we wrote, there's a big misunderstanding
Deb Meyer (01:57.262)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (02:01.18)
or just people don't know that there's a big difference between somebody that's selling you products like a broker versus a fiduciary advisor and somebody who can really act as your financial coach more so than your hedge fund trading investment manager.
Deb Meyer (02:07.832)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (02:18.102)
Yeah. So along those lines, I mean, for a lot of people, they may know the distinction, but some don't. The brokers that are traditionally, you know, selling investments, they're commission based usually, right? They're earning a fee based on whatever the underlying investment you choose. Whereas like fiduciary advisors like myself, especially fee only advisors, our source of compensation is very transparent. It's a very clear stated fee.
and we don't have any affiliation or like we're not financially incentivized to say, hey, let's go into this particular investment product like an annuity or insurance policy over just traditional investing accounts and mutual funds, exchange traded funds, things like that. So can you talk a little bit more about some of those hidden costs of investing that
people might not be aware of, but are really important to understand as it impacts your long-term investing portfolio.
Stephen Tanenbaum (03:24.556)
Yeah, definitely. mean, you hit it on the head in terms of incentivized, right? So it's all about how is your advisor compensated? And if they're compensated by asset gathering, they're compensated by how many products they sell or how many assets they get in the door. And then that's it. And it doesn't matter how engaged they are with you or whether you're super happy or getting a financial plan.
they're not aligned with you the investment client versus a CFP like yourself, fiduciary advisor is really focused on engaging with their clients, developing a holistic financial plan and finding the best, the best investment given all else equal. So not getting a kickback, whatever that might be. So
Deb Meyer (04:00.814)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (04:15.928)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (04:23.276)
hidden fees are there layered with their hidden because you just don't see them and they're not taken out of the account. But if you buy an ETF ETFs technique, they have hidden fees their expense ratio inside to manage that ETF that fun. But typically they're really low, right? I mean, they can be less than 10 basis points. Verge you get into certain mutual funds, they can be over 1%. And say you're paying your advisor 1 % and
Deb Meyer (04:30.456)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (04:41.728)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (04:49.912)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (04:53.548)
an AUM fee, basically 1 % of your portfolio for your advisor to manage your account. Well, those layered fees can add up. And we've seen, you know, we've seen there's funds out there that are over 1%. We've seen on average, your layered expense ratio within a individual's portfolio, on average Morningstar States is about 36 basis points. And that's point three, 6%. And that's down from, I think,
Deb Meyer (05:01.838)
Hmm.
Deb Meyer (05:17.262)
Mm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (05:22.284)
close to 90 basis points 20 years ago. So it has come down, which is great to see and great for the industry, but there are far too many clients that are living in portfolios as if they were 20 years ago and paying 60, 70, 80 basis points on top of the 1%. Let's just call it, say, if you have a million dollar portfolio and you're paying 1%. So you're really paying 1.8 % there.
Deb Meyer (05:25.783)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (05:51.508)
Some of the most egregious examples that in my opinion are, you know, a fiduciary advisor if they have children. So I have three kids, we have three 529 plans, and we have them directly with the state. And the state plans, some states offer tax, state tax deductions, but most of the state plans are pretty low cost, right? You're paying a fee there, but it's pretty low cost.
Deb Meyer (06:03.865)
Bye.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (06:20.75)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (06:21.484)
States like New York are leveraging Vanguard. Well, there's some 529 mutual fund that are broker advised 529 plans. So a fiduciary advisor is not even allowed. Well, they they're not allowed to take a commission by selling those. So even if they were to put you in those, they wouldn't be allowed to receive what's called a 12b1 fee, which is basically a sales and marketing fee that goes back to the firm itself. And there's some 529 fund
Deb Meyer (06:48.472)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (06:51.582)
the out there that are charging that are not only offer that 12 B one fee, but it's like 85 basis points you're paying just to put your son or daughter's college investment savings out. And that brokerage firm is receiving around 20 basis points of that 85 and a commission. So it's, it's astonishing to me like that.
Deb Meyer (07:01.314)
Mmm.
Deb Meyer (07:06.382)
Thanks.
Deb Meyer (07:13.72)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (07:19.238)
is not that might be suitable for a client, but that is not in the best interest of a client when there's other investment options out there that are far superior.
Deb Meyer (07:35.103)
Well, I'm glad you brought up that example because I actually had a situation a few years ago with a client that wanted to do a college 529. I'm fiduciary. I'm also fee only and every client I advise when they say, hey, I want to do a 529 plan, I say, okay, go to this website and set up your direct account, right? I'm not collecting the management fee on it. I'm not doing anything. But as an advisor, there are some clients that literally don't want to do that.
themselves, they don't want to set up the account, they want to have the advisor, in this case me, manage that investment. So I think the important thing too, if you're in that situation where you do prefer to fully delegate and just say, hey, I don't want to be going and funding it, I don't want to deal with the oversight of it, could you set it up for me? Yes, in this case, we did. We set up a separate account, I fully disclose.
These are gonna be much more fees than what you get over here if you just set it up. But just having that level of disclosure I think is important because there are some clients in those needs where they just really want to pass along all of that responsibility to the advisor. Yeah.
Stephen Tanenbaum (08:30.582)
Right.
Stephen Tanenbaum (08:44.46)
For sure. And custodians like Fidelity offer 529s and where your advisor can do it, it's the transparency is the key part of it and understanding this costs a little bit more, which clients are fine with. But at the same point on the broker side, receiving a kickback commission, I mean, I don't know what else to call it other than 12B1 fee is just not appropriate. So there's costs within that.
Deb Meyer (08:59.128)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (09:12.056)
Right. And I didn't receive, I wasn't a broker. So I just, I set up the account, but I just wasn't doing anything. And quite frankly, the way, at least for my firm, the way we work with our fees, we have a flat fee up to a certain level of assets under management. But then for clients that are seeking more of those investment management services and they want to go on an AUM or asset-based management schedule, we can do that above a certain.
Stephen Tanenbaum (09:15.22)
Of course, exactly.
Deb Meyer (09:41.038)
threshold, it's 500,000 of direct assets now, where we switch over to that fee schedule. But even there, you know, my firm, we're not at that 1 % level, we're actually lower than that, because I realized that fees are such a big deal. And I just, want people to know that there are
the fees you know about and there's also the fees that you don't know about. And to your point, just making sure there's some transparency around that. If you're working with an advisor and you're not sure how they're compensated or not sure of what additional fees they may be earning, it's important to ask them in that interview process or if you've already been working with them, ask them now.
Stephen Tanenbaum (10:23.936)
Right. I mean, it goes back to school. There's no questions a bad question, right? And especially when it comes to working with your advisor, you shouldn't be hesitant to ask any question. That's what they're there for. That's what you're paying them for. In terms of fees, know, fees aren't bad. You just want to make sure you're getting value out of what you're paying for. And you want to just understand what you're paying for. Financial advisors,
Deb Meyer (10:35.714)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (10:53.644)
offer so much alpha for lack of a better word, the ability to make more than the benchmark or the default returns. And really, you know, a lot of self directed investors, you know, they aren't going to be able to, they aren't going to be able to take the emotion out of it. And that's where the financial advisor comes into play. I think most importantly, and it's, you know, it's just tough to put a dollar amount on it because you really can't. But I think
Deb Meyer (10:58.008)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (11:13.496)
Yes.
Deb Meyer (11:21.688)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Stephen Tanenbaum (11:23.372)
every with Rainbook, when you log on and you can evaluate your advisor and you can see the fees you're paying, they're all over the map. And it depends on and that doesn't mean they're all over the map in terms of good or bad. They're all over the map in terms of what different clients are paying, because every client is receiving a different level of service. So you need to understand what's the level of service that you expect to receive, and then make sure what you're paying is aligned with that.
Deb Meyer (11:31.96)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (11:43.63)
Mm.
Deb Meyer (11:48.173)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (11:51.308)
And if it's not, that should be a conversation you should have with your advisor or seek out a new advisor.
Deb Meyer (11:58.228)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so let's stay on this topic of fees for a minute because one other point you brought up with some of the mutual fund or exchange traded fund transaction fees and those are, you those have underlying fees associated with them. I think for advisors like myself that are trying to be transparent, just as an example, in my practice we have a traditional portfolio that is lower cost.
And then we have a faith-based portfolio that by the nature of having those types of investments, it is a higher fee. So for those clients that are kind of contemplating, okay, how do fees fit into this? I used to be in the position that you always had to go for the lowest cost portfolio. I was a very vanguard heavy advisor early on in 2016 and 2017 when I started my practice. But that has evolved that.
actually, because I'm like, hey, I want people when they're making the investment decisions to feel good about the underlying investments they are in. And for some of those families that are Christian or Catholic that want to express their values, it will come at a higher price point. again, just as long as you're aware of that and you make that conscious decision, whether you're willing to go into those higher fees or not and see those performance metrics on an after fee or net basis.
Is that something you also dive into through your analysis and software where you're looking at kind of what the net performance is of underlying investments or is it strictly just looking at the fees?
Stephen Tanenbaum (13:35.722)
Yeah, so we, we look at relative performance, we're not looking down at the individual security level, the individual stock level. But certainly the performance of those mutual funds or ETFs, they're the performance that stated is going to be the net of fee performance. So you're definitely going to see that I agree in terms of whether it's if it's more active management, that's going to be a higher fee and
Deb Meyer (13:53.847)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (14:03.392)
That doesn't like you just said, like you've evolved over time. And I think some clients want more active management. They might want specific holdings or net of certain holdings, not that don't want that's part of like an index fund. Or they just want to maybe individual stocks and they're, you know, as part of part of their portfolio is, it's kind of more entertaining and they're able to follow along and they have more of a vested interest in a specific company or companies.
So again, I think it always comes down to the individual client. And yeah, the passive kind of index funds are kind of the set it and forget it almost and the low fee ones. But certainly depending on where certain people's values are or where they want to direct those investments, any kind of alternative investments are going to have a higher fee. It's just more management, there less supply out there.
Deb Meyer (14:44.92)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (14:57.432)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (15:01.74)
So they're going to have a higher fee. You can get those through certain interval funds nowadays. And we do take that into account in terms of, you know, the fee might be higher on some accounts, but if it's because they're in a lot more complex funds, where there's not anything else, no passive index, then we take that into account. The one other thing on I guess, fees in terms of one thing to
Deb Meyer (15:19.662)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (15:30.762)
be aware of, you know, they're still loaded mutual funds to where a frontloaded mutual fund, you're going to pay a certain percentage of the investment off the top before you actually put money into that fund. And that's another glaring red flag that a lot of advisors are doing. I won't call out the institution institutions by name here, but you can log on to Rainbook and you can see if yours is one of them.
Deb Meyer (15:44.622)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (16:00.716)
but it's just unacceptable. It's not a majority. Don't quote me on this. I want to say it's only like 10 to 15 % or maybe less, but it still exists out there. And it's just crazy. You put, you know, a thousand dollars in two and a half percent is going to be taken out as a basically a commission back to the firm. And then who they typically receive a kickback or they own that product themselves.
and then the rest of your money. if you're investing over time, not one lump sum today and you're putting money away like everybody hopefully is if they're able to, then every year that money's just being taken off. And they don't come with any lower expense ratio annual fees either. They're higher than most. So you're getting double whammy.
Deb Meyer (16:45.486)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (16:50.464)
No.
Deb Meyer (16:55.446)
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. And again, that's more on the commission based broker dealer side, not as much in the independent registered investment advisory or RIA channel. But I saw it, I was at a firm that could do either broker dealer or RIA side, they were a hybrid. And yeah, some of the stuff I was seeing was over 5 % for those front end loads.
Stephen Tanenbaum (17:05.036)
Correct. Not at all in that.
Deb Meyer (17:23.894)
But then it would be like a zero percent. I mean, yeah. I'm just, I'm not, that's not my flavor. I'm like, okay, let's just find a suitable investment where there's, you know, there might be a transaction fee to get in, but it's minimal and let's buy it in a bigger chunk if we have to pay a transaction fee. But the nice part with, you most custodians now they do.
Stephen Tanenbaum (17:28.157)
Sure, might be-
Yeah, I
Deb Meyer (17:48.758)
exchange traded funds and individual stocks is free. There's no trading fee associated with buying or selling it. It's just whatever the underlying fee on the exchange traded funds that's part of that. yeah, it's an important conversation and I'm glad we're having this discussion because I know not all people think about the fee aspect, especially when they're looking to work with a financial advisor.
Stephen Tanenbaum (18:14.508)
And it's certainly what we see when members come on to Rainbook is they're interested in the fees and they're interested in kind of the advisor like red flag report where we pull basically every advisors registered with the SEC and they have a publicly available through the broker check record. And basically we're checking that and we're checking to see an addition there.
Deb Meyer (18:23.49)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (18:28.248)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (18:37.582)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (18:42.112)
doesn't if they have any designations like certified financial planner, which is one of the top gold standard CFP, or if they're a CFA or CPA. And I think I think it's important. Those two are very important to understand. But at the end of the day, it's are you getting value out of your advisor? And are you really leaning in to the relationship? And if you're not leaning in, that advisor should hopefully be leaning in back to you.
Deb Meyer (18:47.31)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (18:52.27)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (19:12.084)
and trying to work collaboratively versus talking with your advisor on one call once a year. If that's all you're getting out of your advisor, you're really missing out because you should be getting more, you're paying for something a little bit more than that. And you should be with somebody who genuinely cares about your financial plan and where you're going.
Deb Meyer (19:25.806)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Deb Meyer (19:35.53)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and to that point too, I mean, some advisors with the higher fees are earning those fees because they're meeting frequently, they're diving deep into some of these other aspects beyond just the traditional investment portfolio. And there's a whole group of advisors through NAPFA, I'm a member as well, but we're all holistic fee-only advisors that are looking not just at that investment sliver, but trying to understand what the broader picture is and how it
fits into your financial plan. at least from my experience, we're meeting with our investment management clients on at least three times a year, if not four times a year, even when we're in ongoing relationship after that first year is over. So again, to your point, if you're just getting a phone call once a year and haven't seen your advisor in ages, you might start to question, is the...
fee that I'm paying commensurate with the type of service I'm receiving.
Stephen Tanenbaum (20:39.028)
Exactly.
Deb Meyer (20:40.942)
All right, so let's switch gears a little bit. I know this isn't your first entrepreneurial rodeo. So I'm just curious, for those listeners who are interested in small business ownership, could you share a little bit about some secrets to success you found in your first venture?
Stephen Tanenbaum (20:46.636)
You
Stephen Tanenbaum (20:56.2)
Yeah. So first venture was a 12 year plus startup, still going, but I sold my interest. We started out of college. So that probably dates me. And it was an online original art marketplace, still around if you're looking for affordable original artwork, ugallery.com. And we represented, represent emerging mid-career artists.
and provide a place to get affordable original artwork online. So instead of $15,000, $1,500. I'd say secrets to entrepreneur success. think the most, not too much of a secret, just keep grinding. it's a roller coaster of a ride. Not to say kind of nine to five jobs aren't that, but you just have so much vested interests.
in your own company. And there's going to be great days, there's going to be bad days, and it's trying to keep an even keel and just keep moving forward. And try not to be wed if it's a, depending on the startup, but try not to be wed to your initial idea. When we started my previous company, U Gallery, we started as student artists and collegiate artists artwork. And, you know, if we stuck to that, we would have
probably been out of business a year or so. And we evolved over time to where when I left the company back in 2018, our average artist was in their mid fifties. was a emerging artist, but older mid career, which allowed us to sell higher price points. With my current startup Rainbook, we pivoted, we started, as I mentioned earlier, as a self-directed platform for self-directed investors.
and while that model was a lot of fun, and I think we provided a lot of value there, the economic model of it wasn't great. So we've evolved over time and now we have the Rainbook advisor network and we're continuing to expand beyond that. and really we're about to launch a software as a service product to RAA firms to really overhaul their prospect conversion pages. So basically the contact us page.
Deb Meyer (23:03.758)
Mm.
Deb Meyer (23:16.162)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (23:22.848)
that most wealth management firms have. It's literally just a contact us page. And we're looking at how can we overhaul that and create it much more engaging through leveraging our advisor analyzer tool. And just, you know, be available. But I think the key one is to keep the even keel and understand, you know, there's great days and tough days. And as long as you're moving forward, you're making progress.
Deb Meyer (23:26.094)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (23:46.712)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (23:50.912)
Awesome. All right, so you also mentioned your family man. I'm curious, as you're thinking about financial decisions for your family, could you share some of the practical tools you've used to responsibly manage that money and provide a better future for them?
Stephen Tanenbaum (24:06.348)
Yeah, I think I already mentioned one. mean, just 529 account, get it open as soon as they're born. You might even be able to open it before they're born. Now, you're the financial planner. I am not a financial advisor. But I think getting started early and you get it opened, you never know who who might contribute. So we have the kids birthdays.
You know, they have more toys than they need, especially at an age when they grow out of it a couple months, you can ask family members or friends instead of giving a toy, you know, here's the link to the 529, you know, you can contribute to their education fund and just getting that started. a financial coach and not thinking that you need to do everything on your own. And our household, you know, we devy up the task and
I think it's important for, while I am kind of the treasurer in our household, I think it's very important to have those money conversations with your significant other or your partner. So everybody's on the same page. I know money can cause stress in relationships and it really goes back to how I view our members' relationships with their advisors. I think transparency
Deb Meyer (25:08.494)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (25:17.688)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (25:29.614)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (25:31.568)
is so important in all facets of any relationship, whether that's your partner or spouse, your financial advisor, your boss, your employees. So if you can have a real transparent candid conversations, I think it removes so much friction in all relationships. So I'd say that's probably the most important in addition to just getting started early, if and when and where you can.
Deb Meyer (25:41.176)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (25:50.936)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (26:01.27)
Yeah. So can you talk a little bit more about that dynamic between you and your wife when it comes to managing money? Are you guys big fans of joint accounts, separate accounts? How are you doing some of the family budgeting there?
Stephen Tanenbaum (26:14.794)
Yeah, so, yeah, I know everybody's different. And I've had this conversation with my friends and I think everybody views it differently. So I think it's really what works in your household. And certainly if it's not working, you can try something else. So we have a joint credit card where we put all of our kind of commonality expenses on. And then we each have our own credit personal credit cards for the reason of if my wife wants to go get her nails done.
Deb Meyer (26:20.536)
Yeah.
Deb Meyer (26:28.654)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (26:40.899)
Okay.
Stephen Tanenbaum (26:44.788)
regularly and I don't really agree with it or I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to see it. It's out of sight out of mind. And it's the same thing on her end. If she doesn't want to see how much I'm paying to go play a golf course, then it's out of sight out of mind and it kind of keeps those separate. And then we come together at the end of each month and reconcile all of our expenses and understand, you know,
Deb Meyer (26:45.954)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (26:50.264)
Yeah.
Deb Meyer (26:58.912)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (27:12.814)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (27:15.348)
she pays for some things, I pay for the other things, and then we can kind of see it to where we're kind of contributing, whether that's equally or pro rata, however, people wanna do it. But I think just understanding and having a game plan of those. yeah, I I assume how in-depth do you get with your clients in terms of those personal...
Deb Meyer (27:26.595)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (27:41.932)
expenditures and kind of the personal P &L in the home.
Deb Meyer (27:46.902)
Yeah, I mean, we actually get pretty detailed with it. Some couples, you know, they've been married 30 years and they don't really care to share what their underlying expenses are, but they're like, hey, these are, you know, we're spending 7,000 a month or whatever the dollar amount is and I leave it be. But for a lot of younger families that are just trying to figure out what it's like to budget together and achieve some of these financial goals together, for them, it does become a very descriptive line by line item.
Stephen Tanenbaum (28:15.317)
It's just-
Deb Meyer (28:16.27)
We're really just trying to create conversation points for them outside of our normal meetings to really understand, okay, yes, there might be some habits there that they may or may not agree with on the other spouse, but at least in their situation, it's coming together and outlining what it looks like at the family level.
Stephen Tanenbaum (28:36.95)
Yeah, exactly. Having that outline and understanding exactly where everything's going. I mean, our kids are five, four and 15 months, five about to be six. it's a mean, daycare expenses are no joke, especially when both both parents work. And plus the extracurriculars and the sports and the camps. Everything really adds up. So it's definitely taken over the last few years.
Deb Meyer (28:47.693)
Yeah.
Deb Meyer (28:55.566)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (29:00.206)
Thanks
Stephen Tanenbaum (29:06.176)
taking definitely a higher priority to get on top of kind of our personal finances and understand where they're at. And I certainly see that as kind of where, again, Rainbook evolved just the understanding and the importance of having a financial advisor by your side to where you can leverage your financial advisor relationship with these questions. And it's not, you know, and take some of the burden off yourself to make it to create a simple plan.
Deb Meyer (29:11.544)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (29:26.584)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Stephen Tanenbaum (29:35.773)
that you probably don't have time for if you're both working and you're trying to raise a family.
Deb Meyer (29:36.044)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (29:41.882)
Even if you're not working outside the home, it's hard to find time, I'm sure, couples or just to connect on these kinds of things. It's hard to find time for date nights and that life stage, especially that you're in. I know, it's like, I get the date night, now we got to talk about finance.
Stephen Tanenbaum (29:48.896)
Totally. To sit down together, away from children.
Stephen Tanenbaum (29:57.91)
Totally.
Stephen Tanenbaum (30:04.972)
Right, that's just not gonna happen. And you don't want to bring it up on date night. Exactly.
Deb Meyer (30:08.526)
That's why I encourage, I'm like, don't bring it up on date night if you're going out of the house, like try to have a different night of the week that you're like, okay, Tuesdays, we're gonna stay in and focus on this once a week or once a month, whatever. It might go south, yeah. Cause an argument instead of a lovely evening out. All right.
Stephen Tanenbaum (30:20.85)
Exactly. Don't bring it up on date night because then inevitably it goes somewhere where somebody's. Yeah.
Stephen Tanenbaum (30:31.943)
Exactly.
Deb Meyer (30:36.6)
I know we're getting towards the end here. I just want to make sure for people that are interested in learning more, where can they best connect with you online just to learn more about Rainbook or you and find out a little more around advisor transparency.
Stephen Tanenbaum (30:48.97)
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. You can find me on LinkedIn. It's probably the best place to connect with me there. You can visit rainbook.com. You can check us out there. And yeah, we're always trying to share good content specifically through LinkedIn. And yeah, reach out if you have any questions at all. And feel free to check out our advisor analyzer tool.
Deb Meyer (30:57.774)
So, yeah.
Deb Meyer (31:17.74)
And one last question on the advisor analyzer tool, is there any cost for people to use it?
Stephen Tanenbaum (31:24.064)
Good question. It's free for members to use it. Our business model is set up to where we have a revenue sharing relationship with the advisors on our network. So if you choose to work with that advisor, you won't pay any more than you would always with that advisor. The advisor just shares some of it with Rainbow.
Deb Meyer (31:50.502)
I'm not an advisor on the platform as of today, but maybe I will be by the time this episode airs. don't know. I don't know the structure, but yeah. All right. Well, cool. Thanks so much for joining us, Stephen.
Stephen Tanenbaum (31:55.975)
Hahaha
Stephen Tanenbaum (32:01.952)
Thanks, Deb, this has been great.