Season 4, Episode 1 Starting Early: How to Start Investing in Your Children’s Future

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Welcome back to Don’t Retire.. Graduate! We are now in our fourth season of the podcast and could not be more excited for the guests that will be joining us this school year.

Our first guest is no exception. Ksenia Yudina is joining us today. She is a prolific entrepreneur, an MBA, a CFA, and a remarkable human who took on the world of venture capital as a woman and developed an investing platform like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

In this episode we’ll talk about:

  • How UNest and BFG Financial Advisors are both working to make financial planning accessible to families across the country–not only the rich
  • Ksenia’s story of immigrating from Russia at 18 and taking on $180,000 in student debt while pursuing multiple degrees at UCLA Anderson
  • How 12 years in the venture capital space inspired her to develop her own platform to help parents invest for their children’s future
  • How UNest works and how it is different from other options, including 529 College Savings Plans
  • The dangers of taking on massive student debt and how inflation and tuition increases make it almost impossible to avoid and difficult to pay off
  • Why surrounding yourself with mentors and advisors can be beneficial, both in your career and personal life
  • Why it is important to start planning for your future–or your kids’ futures–early

Guest Bio

Ksenia Yudina

Ksenia Yudina is a Founder and CEO of UNest, the first mobile app that makes it easier than ever before to create a manage tax-free college savings accounts. Ksenia is an entrepreneur and financial expert with over ten years of experience in the financial industry. As Founder and CEO of UNest she has spearheaded the development of the breakthrough fintech solution and raised funding from leading venture capital funds including Northwestern Mutual, Anthos Capital, The Artemis Fund, Group 11, Draper Dragon, Unlock Ventures, and Vested Ventures. Ksenia was a 2019 Finalist in Quesnays Female Founders in Fintech competition. She has also been featured in The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, New York Times, Forbes, Business Insider, American Banker, Inc. Magazine, USA Today, and US News & World Report. Ksenia was recognized as 40 Under 40 by Investment News and received a Rising Star Award from the Los Angeles Business Journal.

LINKS:
www.unest.co
https://www.facebook.com/unest/
https://twitter.com/UNest
https://www.linkedin.com/company/u-nest/
https://www.instagram.com/unest/

Eric Brotman: Welcome to Don’t Retire… Graduate. The podcast that teaches you how to advance into retirement rather than retreating. I’m your host and valedictorian Eric Brotman. And this is the first show of, can you believe it, our fourth season. I hope you had a restful and amazing summer. I hope you did your summer assignment and in our next Office Hours, we’re going to talk about it and see how you did.
Eric Brotman: But our first guest of the 2021-2022 school year here at RetireU is Ksenia Yudina. Ksenia is a prolific entrepreneur, an MBA, a CFA, truly a remarkable human who’s going to share with us, not only how she became an entrepreneur and dealt with venture capital and other things as a woman in the financial world,
Eric Brotman: but also why it’s important for financial planning to be for everyone and not only for the wealthy. She’s created an app that was the first of its kind to really make a difference for families at every end of the financial spectrum. So, Ksenia, welcome to the show.
Ksenia Yudina: Hi Eric. Thank you so much for having me here.
Eric Brotman: This is exciting because I could talk to you for six hours. I can already tell. So we’re going to have to distill this down into a half an hour show, but why don’t you share with our audience first a little bit about your background and how you got interested in personal finance in the way you have.
Ksenia Yudina: Uh, yeah, sure.
Ksenia Yudina: Happy to. First of all, you know, I came to this country from Russia when I was just 18 years old, long ago, long, long story short. And I had to put myself through school, you know, through undergrad and then business school, and then eventually CFA without any financial support from my parents. And I ended up graduating with $180,000 in student debt
Ksenia Yudina: when I graduated from UCLA Anderson and quite honestly, a lot of my friends were affected by this problem. Like a lot of my close friends graduated with a ton of student [00:02:00] debt and were just drowning, like they had to delay their important life decisions, like not buying their first home or starting a family because of student debt.
Ksenia Yudina: And then I basically spent about 12 years in financial industry. My employment before I started UNest was capital group where I was working with wealthy clients, helping them with financial planning. And that’s where I recognized that there is a big problem we’re solving. Uh, so first of all, I, I realized that saving and investing for children was number one priority for parents even ahead of retirement, like in a lot of cases. Uh, but there is nothing in the market that, you know, exists that makes it simple and affordable and accessible for families. Uh, if they don’t have access to financial advisors.
Ksenia Yudina: And then, uh, you know, obviously I got a lot of questions from my friends, who like I mentioned were recent graduates, they started having kids and I offered them solution that we
Ksenia Yudina: used at capital group, uh, to service our [00:03:00] wealthy clients. And that just got a little pushback. Cause he goes, what I realized is that all of my, uh, friends were already using mobile based solutions.
Ksenia Yudina: Like, you know, Robinhood and Venmo and everything else, you know, to trade, uh, manage a budget. But there was nothing really in the market that helped parents for that number one goal that they had for the kids to start saving and investing early. So my, my mission just to kind of conclude, you know, at capital was to create something that would make this process of saving and investing for children be super simple, fast, affordable, and accessible to people of all income levels and all economic backgrounds, not just my clients at capital.
Eric Brotman: So in 2018 you founded UNest. And I’ve, I’ve poked around on the web and, and read a lot about this. And I really think it is a disruptive technology in all the positive ways.
Eric Brotman: Um, can you talk a little bit about how it [00:04:00] works and what benefit you’re able to bring to the table with this tool that maybe others simply haven’t created yet, or haven’t found a way to do.
Ksenia Yudina: Sure. So UNest basically is the first mobile-based solution, uh, that helps parents open a simple and affordable tax advantaged investment account for the kids, uh, to save for the kids’ future.
Ksenia Yudina: And basically anyone with a smartphone can do it. It only takes five minutes to open the account. Uh, they can manage their account from the cell phone, you know, they can make additional contributions, change the
investment plan, uh, use college savings calculator. And on top of that, we also have two amazing features to help families save even more.
Ksenia Yudina: Uh, the first one is gifting. So friends and family can easily contribute into the child’s account for birthdays, holidays and like other, you know, important occasions. Um, and especially during the pandemic, it became super popular because people can not see each other in person. You know, uh, [00:05:00] simple to send money to a child’s account electronically.
Ksenia Yudina: And the second one is our partnership, uh, with a lot of brands through UNest rewards. So every time when our families shop with brands that the love, uh, you know, they make a purchase or like maybe a subscription, they actually get rewards from those brands right into the child’s investment account.
Ksenia Yudina: So it’s basically like every time you spend, you basically also save and invest for your child’s future.
Eric Brotman: So, so I, I did see some of these brands and that is cool because one thing I know particularly about Americans is we love to shop. And so I imagine there are lots of contributions being made to these accounts, uh, organically in that way, which is terrific.
Eric Brotman: And gifting is a big deal because it is not always easy for people to know how to gift to their particularly grandchildren. And, you know, you can only when you’re four years old, you can only have so many stuffed animals, a gift to something that’s going to be a lot more meaningful sometimes it makes a huge difference.
Eric Brotman: Now how does UNest differ from, for [00:06:00] example, UPromise, which is one of the 529 college savings plans out there. That, that has what sounds like a similar model but I think on a more limited scale. UNest is bigger than that, right?
Ksenia Yudina: So we definitely like our platform grew extremely quickly, uh, in terms of like number of users, number of brands are in the past, you know, several months, but I would say a couple of major differences. Uh, so first of all, we do not offer 529 plans. We actually started with 529 plans and the transition to a different type of account right in the middle of pandemic. And the reason for that basically was profound feedback from our user base, from our families, from parents that they did not want restrictions associated with 529, especially during the pandemic, when you know, education shifted online
Ksenia Yudina: and a lot of people are questioning whether the cost of education is sustainable and whether the kids will even go to school. So just to kind of like give you a quick overview, how [00:07:00] two accounts like differ right. 529 is amazing financial tool to save for education, to save for college. And it, they can grow tax free.
Ksenia Yudina: Uh, but the downside is that if you don’t end up spending it for college or education expenses, you actually lose all tax advantages. And the earnings portion is penalized by 10%. So when you transition to UTMA, so UTMA is basically a great alternative to save for your kids for college or other expenses.
Ksenia Yudina: It also has amazing tax advantages, but it doesn’t have the same restrictions. So basically as long as you spend, uh, you know, the, uh, funds for like for a child, for anything that benefits the child, it can be the first house. It can be the first car. It can be the wedding day. You actually do not get those penalties and you still can enjoy the tax advantages.
Ksenia Yudina: And in terms of, uh, rewards. So you mentioned UPromise and, you know, it’s, it’s been there for a while. Uh, but you know, [00:08:00] the feedback that I got from some of my friends that have been using it, uh, you know, They started using it like 15 years ago is that they’re not able to accumulate sufficient, uh, rewards using UPromise.
Ksenia Yudina: So basically the rewards typically are based on percentage of purchase and the results are pretty small,you know, addition to the 529 account versus with our UNest rewards, parents getting anywhere from $10, all the way to hundred dollars per purchase they make so rewards actually do result in pretty significant savings.
Eric Brotman: That is significant and I can see how it would add up quickly, especially if you start your kids young. Now, when you finished your MBA at UCLA you had $180,000 of student loans. You were married with three kids. Is that right?
Ksenia Yudina: That’s correct. Uh, well, I graduated from UCLA. I had one child and then I started at capital group and, um, you know, uh, [00:09:00] found out that I’m pregnant with twins.
Ksenia Yudina: So that was an interesting surprise. Yeah. So
Eric Brotman: you decided, yeah. You decided to have a second child and got the bonus plan.
Ksenia Yudina: That’s right. I’m also efficiency, you know?
Eric Brotman: Oh, that’s funny. So, so, so how did you get out of that student debt? I mean, we, we try and encourage people as much as possible to avoid student loans. I consider them in most cases to not be, uh, very helpful, especially for undergrad, a little bit different for graduate school if it’s truly going to enhance your income potential, depending on what field you’re in.
Eric Brotman: For undergraduate school, there’s so many options to avoid or minimize student loans. Um, I imagine you feel that they’re an albatross around your neck and, and that they’re a problem, but how did you get out of the student debt? Are you willing to share sort of your, your story of, of, of getting out of that–what is really a massive financial hole at a young age?
Ksenia Yudina: Yeah, no, that, that’s a great [00:10:00] question. And I would say, I completely agree with you for the undergrad. Like, you know, there are some ways that you can use some tools that you can use to avoid that, right. You know, financial aid and scholarships, and there are some other ways. So actually when I was getting my undergrad, I did not get any, any student debt at all. Like I was fully on financial aid, which was great because I was very proud that, you know, I was able to get myself through school without accumulating any student debt. But, uh, the graduate degree was a different, uh, different animal because I am a big believer in education. And I believe that education opens so many doors in life. And, uh, obviously that, that was the reason I decided to get my MBA and I’d started to pursue my CFA. Uh, but with graduate degree is pretty much impossible to avoid student debt because school is so expensive. Like we all talking about inflation, uh, in this country and inflation’s pretty low.
Ksenia Yudina: It’s like an a 1.5, 2%. And, uh, the tuition [00:11:00] cost was increasing like 6% per year. Right. That’s like triple that. Um, so yeah, when they got to Anderson, basically I didn’t have much option, you know, like I, I did have to get a little bit in debt to afford school and in terms of like, how am I getting myself out of student debt?
Ksenia Yudina: I’m not completely debt-free but no, it’s not so easy just to, to get rid of it. Like after you graduate, I basically got myself on the income based plan and, uh, like my, you know, student debt payments, just attached to how much I make every month. And, you know, I have like little by little on the monthly basis pay it off.
Eric Brotman: You know, it’s been said, how do you eat an elephant with a spoon? And it’s one spoonful at a time. Um, that that is a, that is a really, really big loan. And, you know, we’ve, we’ve seen folks with sometimes between married couples. We’ve seen them with half a million dollars of student debt. It’s like having a big house payment with no [00:12:00] house.
Ksenia Yudina: Yes, Eric, you talking about couples, like, let me share a quick story. Like I have like one of my best friends. Uh, we actually, like, we both came from Russia and do both like, have very successful careers, but she decided to become a doctor and went to USC to get her dental degree. And so she graduated up to six years of rigorous studying.
Ksenia Yudina: Finally got her dentist degree. She graduates with half a million dollars in student debt. That’s I believe it’s like for one person, it’s pretty excessive. So I’m sure she’ll going to have like a very successful career and she’s going to continue on this journey, but that’s going to be part of your life for like years to come.
Eric Brotman: Well, it, it does, because you know, you you’re aware that the power of compounding interest is wonderful on the, on the accretive side, on the investment side, it’s not as wonderful on the debt side. Um, but equally powerful, just in a negative way. Um, now you went into the financial world, which is, [00:13:00] and we we’ve had guests on this show before who talk about, uh, what is really an unbelievably male dominated field to this day.
Eric Brotman: And I think in the CFP world, um, it’s about 88% male, um, in the venture capital world, it’s more like 98% male. Um, and yet you manage not only to navigate it adroitly but successfully. How, I guess first, how did you decide you were going to take a plunge where you were, um, you really were in a, a significant minority and in some way, in some cases at a significant disadvantage, Um, how did you decide to do that?
Eric Brotman: And how did you overcome, um, being in that, in that 2%?
Ksenia Yudina: Yeah. Um, amazing question. Uh, I actually like, you know, when, when I started the company, I did not know, I did not realize that the problem was that profound. So I was very oblivious, you know, when I, when I quit my job at capital group and decided to start this entrepreneurial journey, I really just believed in that idea.
Ksenia Yudina: Right. I could really [00:14:00] believe that there’s a huge problem we’re solving and I will do the right person to tackle it, to be like, all my, you know, education and background and knowledge. Uh, and I was, I just was very passionate about it and I didn’t think that money would be a problem. I thought like if you come up with something significant that, you know, you’ll do like a world changing idea, uh, like you disruption, you know, huge financial industry and it’s like, people really need it and they want it that the money will not be an issue. Oh boy. Was I wrong? You know, by the way, I, you know, like you mentioned it, the CFA world, like I was still a minority, like at the capital group in finance, I was always like in maybe like 10% of, you know, like a female professionals
Ksenia Yudina: but getting into venture capital and into startups, I realized that this is where like, is like a real inequality and like there is like a real disparate and it’s really hard for women to get access to [00:15:00] capital. So, and like you said, like, you know, uh, probably 2% of women get, uh, any venture capital at all, but then in FinTech, in financial technology, I would argue that that percentage is like 0.0002%.
Ksenia Yudina: So it’s extremely, extremely hard. Uh, so the way I was overcoming this problem, after realizing that it’s not going to be as easy as I imagined. I actually surrounded myself with great advisors and those advisors were, you know, repeat intrepreneurs, uh, industry professionals. Um, you know, FinTech founders with extremely amazing track record. And I gave them, you know, a little bit of my company, like some equity in the company. And I asked for help navigating this extremely complex and male dominated industry. And they actually were making a lot of introductions and they were validating my idea. And they were [00:16:00] explaining investors that what I was working on was actually breakthrough idea and it’s worth looking at, uh, and yeah, like only, you know, I’m very thankful to those advisors that, you know, made it happen for me. Another interesting kind of angle. I, to my first round of funding, uh, the seed round, which is historically the most difficult for entrepreneurs to close was actually led by Artemis fund and Artemis fund specifically focused on female entrepreneurs.
Ksenia Yudina: They invest in exceptional women entrepreneurs, and this is the entire thesis. They believe that companies that are founded by women have like greater results. More probability to succeed, to succeed. And, you know, they have like a great backing from some financial institutions and both individuals. So I, again, like I’m extremely grateful, uh, for meeting Artemis at the right time of my journey and, uh, extremely grateful for the mission to support female entrepreneurs.
Eric Brotman: You [00:17:00] shed a lot of light on, on the how. You know that surrounding yourself with a great team and a deep bench of advisors is I think a best practice in any industry in any field. Um, and then, you know, identifying potential seed capital, which is always the toughest. Um, it sounds like you found a resource that was right up your alley.
Eric Brotman: I guess the question isn’t so much, how anymore, regarding the, the domination of men in this industry. The question is why, why is it that women entrepreneurs have trouble getting financing, getting seed capital when the, the data seems to show if anything else that a lot of women entrepreneurs are more successful than their male counterparts.
Eric Brotman: So why in the world would this still be happening? What is the, what’s the why?
Ksenia Yudina: Yeah, I think couple, a couple of reasons for that. Uh, the first reason is some just unconscious bias, right? That you it’s, it’s very hard to overcome. Uh it’s it’s very relationship [00:18:00] based business. Right. And when we build relationship, it’s much easier to give money to someone who looks like you and acts like you and speaks like you.
Ksenia Yudina: Right. And, um, so a lot of, you know, venture capital is just, uh, don’t see women as representing them, you know, like they look very different and, uh, if you have very unusual type of founders, so I would say, first of all, like given the perceived, uh, psychologically as, as capable and, um, as a qualified and credible as, as, as, as men, second reason, I believe it’s just like, we are like women, a lot of times just don’t have access to the same type of networks.
Ksenia Yudina: Right? Like that’s what I’ve realized. Uh, even like in FinTech a lot of times we have this like breakfast for female founders in FinTech, or like, you know, evening event for female founders in FinTech and in my mind, you know, in order to get us connected to the capital that you can’t really segregate, you know, female founders, right?
Ksenia Yudina: Like it needs to be very inclusive group of people [00:19:00] working together where everyone is measured by their merit. Uh, and you know, it’s, it’s crucial to create those connections. It’s crucial to, to get, to meet people face to face. And you can just like put, you know, female founders in separate, separate room, uh, hoping that they can find the capital, uh, from other female founders.
Ksenia Yudina: And I would say the last one is also, you know, the lack of, um, successful exits, right? For female founders, we do need more role models. We do need more, just like track record. More female founders that make it to IPO’s, more female founders that go through successful acquisitions that other female founders, first of all, would understand that, Hey, this is possible. And like, I can do this. If she can do it, I can do it too. I can try it too. And also that, uh, investors will actually see the results and they’ll not look at us as, as a higher risk with lower probability of success.
Eric Brotman: Um, my daughter’s 11 and I want her to listen to this episode at some point, maybe not at [00:20:00] 11, but some point soon to hear your message, because I couldn’t agree with you more. Seeing someone, um, have a level of success, um, is motivating and does matter.
Eric Brotman: And particularly when it’s someone you can identify with somewhat, I certainly get that. Let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about how financial advice reaches folks who are not the wealthiest, you know, one or two or 3% in the country. Uh, and we certainly know that there’s, um, you’ve heard of blue ocean versus versus red ocean.
Eric Brotman: And you know, there’s a lot of high-end high net worth firms fighting over the multi multimillionaire homes. Uh, or a multimillionaire households and, you know, they’re, they’re sort of clobbering each other for the multi-family office business and all of this kind of stuff, but most of the country is not in that boat and desperately needs financial guidance and advice that’s affordable and reliable. And isn’t, you know, a lot of, a lot of times the, the I’ll call it [00:21:00] middle income folks or, or, you know, middle-class is they’re relegated to getting advice from sales people. People who, yes, they might call themselves advisors, but oftentimes they’re selling product. Um, and that kind of creates a stigma that’s a fair stigma. So where do people go for good objective affordable, uh, financial advice. If they’re not ultra wealthy,
Ksenia Yudina: Yeah. So for first of all, like the reality is that 90% of people don’t even have access to financial advice. Right. And those are people who need it the most, as you mentioned. Um, so the interesting thing about our platform at UNest is we have about 90% or 95% of people, uh, who make, of parents who make less than a hundred thousand a year.
Ksenia Yudina: So this is like the income level, right? So like our mission is definitely to make it accessible to people of all income levels of all economic [00:22:00] backgrounds. Um, it’s, it’s complicated right now, parents and, and, and, uh, people like start with like, you know, just average income levels. They’re looking for solutions online.
Ksenia Yudina: They’re looking for solutions on mobile. Uh, pretty much the default method is to go to Google or to go to app store and then start searching, right. Especially during the pandemic that desire for people to save has intensified and increased significantly. And people are saving like 30% more right now, but also decided to find, you know, qualified financial advice to educate you know themselves about financial literacy increased significantly during the pandemic. So again, like people just looking for fast, convenient, affordable, accessible, mobile or electronic methods. And in my mind, what’s happening with financial advice right now is very similar to what was happening with e-commerce like 20 years ago when Amazon started with like selling books and then selling like, oh, the type [00:23:00] of goods, uh, everything is going to be digital very soon and ten years from now, I would say that because of technology because technology makes it so much easier and convenient and automated and accessible, you know, like financial advisors are still going to be there for the wealthy, maybe for one or 2%.
Ksenia Yudina: But most of the people will be using electronic, you know, electronic means to access financial advice. And now the thing I in my opinion, and this is all for the better. Right. This is for, uh, for the benefit of, of people who need it the most, because A, you know, they can finally get qualified financial advice without, you know, even meeting with anyone face to face without spending, you know, two hours without trying to understand complex financial concepts.
Ksenia Yudina: But mostly because financial advice is becoming mainstream, it’s becoming more affordable for everyone. Right. And the way basically, like our platform kind of also makes it more affordable for everyone is compared to the traditional [00:24:00] financial advisors who are typically charge based on AUM, they have like very high commissions, some hidden fees, right.
Ksenia Yudina: That people not even aware about, we try to make our fee structure very transparent and very affordable. It’s basically just $3 per month. Uh, you know, per child’s account or $6 for the family with multiple kids. But, you know, Parents would get access, not only to this tax advantaged investment account for children, but also they get an access to unlimited gifts from their friends and family and, uh, you know, UNest rewards, and college calculator and all the features and benefits that the app has to offer.
Eric Brotman: So, uh, tell me a little bit more about the levels of planning or planning advice available through your site. Is your site primarily designed for account establishment and an inexpensive transparent account establishment and management, or is there also a human component to creating advice, uh, on your, on your site as well?
Ksenia Yudina: Yeah. [00:25:00] Great question. So the way we structure portfolios right now, um, during the, the onboarding process, we ask a series of questions to understand the risk tolerance, time horizon, uh, you know, some employment situation and, and, uh, ability kind of to save and contributed to the account. And based on the profile, we have five different, um, like invest in portfolios that all constructed with very low cost Vanguard, ETFs, uh, Superbowl diversified, and basically the portfolios range from the most, uh, you know, aggressive to the most conservative, just based on, uh, personal preference.
Ksenia Yudina: And now the interesting thing about the portfolios, is that three out of five portfolios are age based so it means that like as a parents, right? Like if your child is one year old, you would like recommend more aggressive. Uh, as the allocation but that that allocation was actually changed to become more conservative as your child becomes older and [00:26:00] approaches college or adulthood. For parents it’s basically a great idea to kind of great a tool of set and forget it. And I don’t have to worry about my allocation anymore, but what’s interesting is that also you’ll be introducing a new tool this year called UNest Legacy. So with UNest Legacy parents who would like to be more in control of they investments allocation, you’ll be actually able to purchase individual stocks and even, even cryptocurrency in the child’s investment account.
Ksenia Yudina: And so you mentioned that you have 11 year old daughter, so imagine that you can actually talk to her about why you buy shares of Amazon or Facebook, or why you decided on Bitcoin, for example, right. And you can teach her while she’s still kind of teenager, right. About money, about investments, about compounding.
Ksenia Yudina: So by the time she is 18, she’s actually financially educated and she will not be exposed to some like risky trading or some, you [00:27:00] know, financial tools or investment tools that are not appropriate for her.
Eric Brotman: Well, we are almost out of time. And as I, as I projected, we could have spoken for six hours, but, um, I I’d like to get your extra credit assignment.
Eric Brotman: The one actionable takeaway that folks listening can do. We, you know, we encourage people to graduate into retirement and not to see it as a retreat or a surrender, but to use financial literacy as a tool to get to financial freedom. So what would you say is the one action item that folks who spend a half hour or so with us can, can take today.
Ksenia Yudina: Yeah, I would say that it’s really important to start early. Right. So a lot of people hear about, you know, the benefits of compounding. Compounding works like magic, uh, for investment investment returns over time. And, um, you know, a lot of parents don’t know, like when to start saving, investing for the kids. So my advice would be just start as early as possible.
Ksenia Yudina: Of course it’s not ever too late, even if your child is 16, but the earlier you [00:28:00] start you’ll just be amazed how much, you know, uh, savings you can accumulate with even allocating $10 per day for your child, you can actually help them graduate into adult life with very significant, significant investment up to 60,000 a year just by making a small contribution on the weekly basis.
Eric Brotman: I am smiling ear to ear. I can’t thank you enough for joining us, uh, on don’t retire, graduate. Where can people learn more about you?
Ksenia Yudina: They can go to, uh, uh, app store or Google play and just find UNest. Or they can go to our website, UNest.co.
Eric Brotman: Well, I encourage folks to check this out. I think it’s a, I think it’s an important service for the vast majority of the population to be familiar with.
Eric Brotman: And Ksenia, I, I have, um, you know, we have tried as an organization, our firm has tried to bring financial planning to the masses. Uh, we created a program called financial planning for all, uh, which is available at financialplanningforall.com, which I would [00:29:00] actually encourage you to check out also, it might be that we have some synergies between us to explore.
Eric Brotman: Um, we also have a free financial literacy course, uh, to help kids and young adults and even adults who want a refresher to learn about financial literacy at bfguniversity.com. And it is. It’s completely free. And we’ve had hundreds of folks sign up in the first two weeks or so of the course. And by the time we get to, to, you know, now that it’s, now that it’s the fall, we’ve had plenty of time to grow that.
Eric Brotman: So if you want to check those things out, there may be some synergies between us. We should talk about.
Ksenia Yudina: Perfect. No, I’ll definitely do that. Thank you so much for mission. I mean, I think that financial literacy is so important right now, not just for kids, but also for adults. So thank you for what you’re doing.
Eric Brotman: Well, I thank you for what you’re doing as well. And you’ve been a great guest and to all our listeners, thank you for listening. If you like, what you hear, please subscribe to our podcast and post comments and reviews on apple podcast or other download sites. Don’t retire. Graduate is a book available in print, Kindle and audio formats, and a workbook with all the steps you need to build your [00:30:00] own financial freedom plan. For more information, go to Brotmanmedia.com or buy your copy and leave us a review on Amazon.
Eric Brotman: You can also check out our financial education courses at BFGuniversity.com. We’ll be back next week with another installment of office hours and in two weeks with another engaging guest. For now, this is your host, Eric Brotman reminding you don’t retire, graduate.
Narrator: From this day forward, let us begin visualizing our dreams and building our futures. Today I implore you, don’t retire, graduate! Visit our website at dontretiregraduate.com to subscribe. And please like us and post comments on social media. Securities offered through Kestra investment services, LLC. Kestra IS, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Kestra advisory services, LLC.
Narrator: Kestra AS, an affiliate of Kestra IS. Kestra IS or Kestra AS are not affiliated with Brotman [00:31:00] financial or any other entity discussed.

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