Wheeler Crowley, Financial Advisor, Vice President

09/22/2023

Hi Friends! I haven't posted in a while, for reasons I'll make clear in the near future. But after reading and listening to the latest substack content from Amalgamation Coaching + Community, I felt a strong need to shout from the rooftops in praise of Jessica Moore Crowley and the gifts she's sharing with us all.

Am I biased? Undoubtedly yes. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

I am so proud of Jess and am excited to be along for her journey. I hope you all find her content as rewarding, thought provoking and inspiring as I do.

Keep crushing it.

We’ve got it all wrong about what it means to live a balanced or peaceful life.

07/12/2023

Remember how I wrote about time being our greatest version of wealth? What if we re-thought how it was spent?

For most of us, work is one of our greatest expenditures. There are many rules, written and unwritten, about how much time we’re supposed to spend working. 100 years ago, the work week was six days. The number of hours worked by the average factory employee ranged between 10-16 hours PER DAY.

The industrial revolution changed that, largely due to Henry Ford’s recognition of its potential to create more productivity, not just on the factory floors, but in our lives. When human beings were working 50-100 hours a week, they were incredibly inefficient, at work and at home. Injuries were commonplace. Family time was virtually nonexistent. Rest was only for the Sabbath.

Ford innovated the workdays and experimented with shortening hours and limiting the days. He landed on the 5-day, 40-hour work week we all know. He aligned his workforce around this thinking in 1926, and by 1940 the standard 40-hour work week was incorporated in the Fair Labor Standards Act. Quality of life improved through a combination of innovation and creativity.

We had a similar opportunity with the technological revolution but went the wrong way. The technology accessible at our fingertips 24/7 made work accessible 24/7.

Somehow a combination of innovation and recession lead to fewer work hours 100 years ago, yet 15 years ago the same combo led to MORE work hours for salaried employees.

Now here we are with a similar opportunity to review. Corporate America is rethinking the workplace, incorporating remote work and hybrid workforces. There’s a push-pull playing out, with strong opinions on either side of the “should you be in the office” controversy. Maybe the issue isn’t where you physically spend your work hours, but instead how many hours you actually work.

Artificial intelligence represents a great combination of risks and opportunities, but its ability to increase efficiency is unassailable. It’s the ultimate “work smarter, not harder” hack.

What if corporate America were able to increase productivity (and profitability) with fewer work hours? What if instead of cutting jobs or pay, they kept those numbers the same? Henry Ford INCREASED jobs AND pay, which created greater productivity and quality of life, and greatly reduced turnover. Who wouldn’t want to make the same amount of money in less time? How could the competition possibly compete for that talent?

And what could we do with all that excess time?

06/27/2023

My daughter is the wealthiest member of our household.

It isn’t because she has a small amount saved away for a future college education, or business venture, or first home, or whatever she might deem to be the best use of funds as a young adult.

It isn’t because she devours books two or three at a time, soaks up knowledge in school and out, and asks so many questions that I run out of brainpower when attempting to answer them all.

It isn’t because she has best friends galore, or two actively involved parents who love her, grandparents who are ever-present, and a community of wonderful people who come out to support her philanthropic fundraisers.

Actually, it’s all of these things, and she is very fortunate to have all of these benefits and this support in her life. But none of this is the primary source of her wealth.

My daughter is the wealthiest member of our household because she’s 9 years old and has decades upon decades of time at her disposal. And time is our greatest commodity.

I say this knowing that time is precious, and like money, it can disappear, at best, gradually, at worst, all at once. I say this knowing that my daughter will live a long, healthy life, as I refuse to accept the alternative.

Day by day that surplus of time will diminish. It will be spent on frivolous things, like watching TV or dwelling on events not worth an additional second of her time. It will also be invested in experiences, in growth, in the people around her. She’ll be rewarded by many of those investments, even if some of them don’t provide the returns or pay the dividends she’d hoped. Maybe a few of these investments will provide the return of a longer life. But the best days will always be limited. Time will always be finite.

How do you prioritize your time with that in mind?

06/23/2023

Artificial Intelligence is taking over the world, or at least the stock market. According to FactSet, 110 of S&P 500 companies referenced AI in the last quarter, roughly double the 5-year average. Only 38 of those companies were in the tech sector. AI is going to drive our tractors, direct our advertising with pinpoint accuracy, and even serve you fast food. So, it’s no surprise if your feelings about inflation, the economy, or the stock market might be impacted by how much you think AI matters.

My take? It matters. A LOT.

To some, it could spell disaster, and they are investing accordingly.

As always, you’re best off playing both sides, because there’s an equal chance of both sides being wrong. The genie is out of the bottle. The growth of AI is going to be exponential. But even then, having the right information can lead to the wrong returns.

If you were warned about COVID and its great destruction of the economy ahead of time, you might have chosen to sit out of the stock market in 2020. But then you would have missed out on an 18% return in an S&P500 investment that year, and a 45%(!) return in the Nasdaq.

The point here is this – be prepared to accept any scenario, and invest accordingly.

And remember, as the late great Joe Strummer once said, the future is unwritten. Artificial intelligence is going to create problems and solutions, opportunities, and losses. It’s here, and it’s going to make its mark.

But that doesn’t mean there’s a Terminator around the corner.

06/20/2023

We hope you can join our team TOMORROW at 7pm for our latest CoFi Chat on Money and Finance Today!

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06/14/2023

Please join us next Wednesday, June 21st @ 7:00PM EST!

06/02/2023

As we start June, all of us are still dreaming of summer. What do you daydream about?

This month the CoFi team is sharing our summer plans to remind ourselves why we do the work that we do.

Colin and his partner Kaylee are dreaming of Positano, Italy. He says: "I’ve always wanted to check out Positano, Italy. It’s the place that Kaylee and I are going to stay when she graduates from her medical rotations. In the meantime, we’re essentially rotating across Maine for the next year."

05/26/2023

As we head further into May, all of us are still dreaming of summer. What do you daydream about?

This month the CoFi team is sharing our summer plans to remind ourselves why we do the work that we do.

Our practice manager, Shae, says: "I'm looking forward to heading to my Fiancé's family lake house on Great East Lake. It seems like just yesterday we were here, but not too long ago we were on skis. I am looking forward to soaking up the sun on Great East Lake."

05/23/2023

It's free to dream, but it costs money to live out those dreams.

CoFi works with out over 250 households of all shapes and sizes, and one of the benefits is getting a peak inside varying lifestyles different from ours. It helps provide us with prospective, both to take home to our own lives and to share with our clients who are constantly looking for comps to their own financial decisions.

This article does a great job illustrating how the different financial decisions we make impact us and build the world around us. I've seen a few very similar lives from my Financial Advisor seat. None of them perfectly mirror mine, and probably not yours. But there's a lot in here to relate to, and certainly a lot to think about.

See an archive of all the dream life calculator stories published on Curbed

05/23/2023

Reminder, our next vodcast is tomorrow, May 24th @ 7:00PM EST!

05/22/2023

Yes, this feels like a recession.

There, I said it. Do you feel better? Worse? No change at all? If you’re in the latter camp, that’s an appropriate response, because whether we call this a recession, I believe ultimately shouldn’t matter to you.

Read more on why:

Yes, this is a Recession.

05/19/2023

Travel is one of my favorite things to do with my family. It brings us all joy to explore new places, and this summer is no exception. What are some of your summer plans?

The CoFi team and I are sharing moments we are looking forward to to remind all of us that the work we do enables us to have moments like these.

As the year continues to fly by, our family is excitedly planning for summer vacations. We’re looking forward to getting back to one of our favorite places, a little cabin on a lake in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.