Financial planners tell it like it is
As punishment for eating from the Eitz Hadaas, Adam Harishon was told he would have to work hard just to have bread to eat, and the Gemara equates the difficulty of earning a parnassah with that of Kri’as Yam Suf. Fast-forwarding to contemporary times where each generation becomes accustomed to increasingly higher standards, with yesterday’s luxuries becoming today’s necessities amid increasingly high living costs and to put it simply, there are people who just aren’t making it. We’re not talking about people who have to forgo Pesach in Orlando or $200 bottles of tequila — financial advisors in the frum community are dealing with those who can’t pay their grocery bills and find themselves facing debt so large, it could take them years just to get out of the red. We asked four financial planners to share tips, takeaways, and tales from the trenches.
Managing director and portfolio manager with JP Morgan Wealth Management
My day job is in a professional finance setting, but on the side, I use my 18 years of experience to help people who find themselves facing financial difficulties. The case I will never forget started out innocuously — a phone call from someone, I’ll call him Yaakov, who set an appointment for 10 a.m. the next Sunday morning to discuss a challenging financial situation.
When ten o’clock came and went, I assumed that Yaakov must have forgotten the appointment. When he called several hours later to apologize, I suggested that he pop over right then and there.
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