In this insightful conversation, Vanessa Alanis shares her experiences as a military spouse and financial planner, discussing the emotional and financial challenges of transitioning from military life. She emphasizes the importance of early financial planning, the emotional aspects of identity loss, and the need for open communication between spouses during this significant life change. Vanessa also offers valuable advice for military spouses looking to rebuild their careers and highlights the importance of community support and networking.

Takeaways

• The transition from military life is emotionally intense.
• Identity loss is a significant challenge during transition.
• Financial planning should start early and be ongoing.
• Open communication between spouses is crucial during transition.
• Military spouses have valuable skills and should recognize their worth.
• Networking within the military community can provide support and resources.
• It’s normal to feel overwhelmed during the transition process.
• Understanding cash flow and financial management is essential.
• Health insurance can become complicated post-transition.
• Take time to explore career options and be patient with yourself.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction to Transitioning from Military Life
• 06:08 The Emotional Impact of Transition
• 12:04 Financial Planning for Transition
• 17:49 Navigating Career Changes Post-Military
• 24:09 Advice for Military Spouses
• 30:02 Vanessa’s Journey to Financial Planning
• 36:02 Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways

Links

You can contact Vanessa Alanis at Blackdogwealth.com

Operation Retirement Readiness:  www.operationretirementreadiness.com

Schedule a consultation with Mike: https://nextmissionfinancialplanning.com/contact/   

Schedule a consultation with Amy: https://www.instarfp.com/contact

Transcript

Mike Hunsberger (00:00)

Hey Amy, today we’ve got a great ⁓ conversation ⁓ with Vanessa Alanis from Black Dog Wealth. She’s both a financial planner, recently launched her business and also a military spouse who’s gone through the military retirement transition just about two years ago. And so it’s a great conversation.

 

Amy (00:25)

I agree. ⁓ Fantastic. Like nothing we’ve done before. So we have the spouse perspective on things, but not, you know, being a military spouse, that knowledge and experience is valuable enough, but she’s also a financial planner. So she comes at it ⁓ with sort of the mind of a financial planner. ⁓ I really loved how she dug into the emotional piece of transition. We don’t always like to talk about that, but it’s important. ⁓ And she hit five really good key takeaways.

 

the end. So hopefully people will stick around for that. I’m looking forward ⁓ to ⁓ listeners getting a chance to hear.

 

Mike Hunsberger (01:36)

Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining today. As we said, today we’ve got ⁓ Vanessa Alanis, a military spouse and ⁓ fellow financial planner today on the podcast. And we’re just excited to talk about the transition piece from the spouse side of the ledger. and I, we’re both the military members. So ⁓ sometimes we probably overlook what the spouse is going through.

 

Vanessa, you know, so great to have you on today and just looking to ⁓ talk about, you know, what that experience like, you know, both in the military, the transition. So you mind just ⁓ giving us a little bit of your background and story?

 

Vanessa Alanis (02:21)

Sure. ⁓ Thank you guys so much for having me today. It is an honor to be on your podcast. ⁓ So a little bit about myself is I am a military spouse. My husband served in the Marine Corps for 33 years. ⁓ And prior to him getting out to about two years ago, that was like my entire adult life had been tied up in active duty Marine Corps as had his. ⁓

 

Went through that, we have three children that we’ve raised throughout this whole process. ⁓ I’ve worked as a financial professional and did a couple other things throughout his career. He now retired. We live in Northern Virginia ⁓ and he is having a second career. Well, I ⁓ started my own business last year after he retired, so that was pretty exciting.

 

I have to say talking about retirement and having the space to kind of review what the past two years have been like has been really cathartic. Cause it’s actually really intense retiring ⁓ and going through that transition. And this gave me the chance to kind of like review actually what I thought went well and what didn’t go well. So thank you for the opportunity.

 

Amy (03:36)

I’m super excited to have you and to talk with you because like Mike said, we didn’t experience transition from our spouse’s point of view. We didn’t experience our career from the spouse point of view. And I just, think it gives, it’s even more important, especially from the financial planning perspective. So I love that you’re not just a military spouse who spent your entire adult life, you know, following your husband’s career.

 

but you are also now a financial planner. So I think you have some really good insight to share with our audience about what to think about, what you did think about, what you wish you thought about and that kind of stuff. ⁓ To jump in, you said that the whole process is really intense. When you think back on it, like what…

 

What was it like from your perspective, watching your spouse go through this transition and the transition for yourself? So how do you like, I mean, that’s a big question, right? So it might take a while, but just, you know, from both perspectives, ⁓ but sort of the way you saw it for him, we’ve heard lots about the process for ourselves, but like, how did you see it for him? And how did you experience it for yourself?

 

Vanessa Alanis (04:30)

Yeah.

 

Yes.

 

⁓ how

 

feel like we should be sitting in a circle while discussing this, maybe holding hands. ⁓ So it was so much more overwhelming for both of us as this process unfolded. And you know it’s coming, right? Everybody knows the ride ends at some point, ⁓ whether you choose to jump off it or the military says it’s time for you to leave our ride.

 

but you’re so busy surviving it that you may not understand what that transition means. And as I said, our entire adult lives were wrapped up in ⁓ the needs of the Marine Corps, for lack of a better word. And this is not financial in nature, but really the hardest parts of our whole transition were the identity loss, ⁓ the creating a new community, the evaluate, like,

 

To be clear, we’re also all transitioning like in midlife. So the passage of time, you know, you’re having my mortality, what have I done? What do I want to do? Like all of that hit us in a way that we would not have thought. Like, oh, I’m just, this is not just a job. I’m not just leaving a job. Like you were leaving a community, you’re leaving your identity. So it was a lot.

 

and watching both of us go through that in different ways. ⁓ Because I don’t think the emotional part of transition is really identified. Like we talk about the financial part, we talk about needing a job, but the really hard part is the emotions and getting support for those and figuring out what that looks like. So ⁓ at a high level.

 

That is what my review of our transition looked like. It was really intense. we had like in a 12 month period, we had my husband retire, start a new job. One kid graduate high school and start college. One kid graduate college and start ⁓ an additional educational opportunity. ⁓ We moved twice, once ourselves remembered why we never chose to do that when we were active. ⁓ And then the second move, we actually purchased a house and

 

That 12 month period just felt like, try to keep your head above water, right? Like, what can we do to stay sane and keep, you know, forward momentum in our lives? ⁓ It does calm down, it does get better. And now like two years post retirement, I’m like, okay, things are looking good. That’s all of it in a long, that’s a long story long. ⁓

 

Amy (07:42)

I mean, think that’s, yeah, and I think it’s so useful to bring out the emotional piece of it. So yeah, thank you for that.

 

Mike Hunsberger (07:42)

That’s great.

 

Now, did you guys know what, you know, I mean, how far out did you kind of know this is what we want to do next? Or was that still being, you know, worked out as you were, you know, getting real close to retirement?

 

Vanessa Alanis (08:08)

it’s still being worked out real close to retirement. So retirement had been on ⁓ our horizon for a few years and our duty station before our last duty station was California. And we gave it some serious consideration there ⁓ because my husband was a California resident and they have a lot of great benefits for education and we kind of toyed with that idea there. But we then were like, the ride’s not over. And so we moved across the country back to Virginia.

 

And it was there. Like we knew it was coming and we even knew we were going to do it like ⁓ probably when my middle son graduated high school, because it gave us a natural breaking point from the community we were in to launch somewhere else. ⁓ But as far as like what I knew what I wanted to do, I knew I was ultimately going to move into hopefully having my own business. So that was a little clear about as far as what my husband wanted to do. It was very unclear.

 

because for the first time in his life, like he had his own choices to make. And that is both a blessing and a curse, right? It can be incredibly overwhelming. And I see this ⁓ in my boys that are in school right now. Like the world is their oyster. You can do anything, but when you can do anything, you can be frozen with indecision because you’re like, well, I don’t know what that means for me. And what is the best look like for me? What do I really like? ⁓

 

And honestly, there was a period of time we were both wishing the Marine Corps would just tell us what we liked as they had told us where we should move. ⁓ We’re just like, if you could just tell me like, where the best place to live is. ⁓ And so we were really figuring that out. Like my husband used, he did ⁓ the, it’s failing me right now, the internship. Yes, he did SkillBridge to kind of explore paths. ⁓

 

Mike Hunsberger (09:56)

Skill Bridge. Skill Bridge. Yep. Yep.

 

Vanessa Alanis (10:02)

And he participated in many of your previous guests, ⁓ veteran organizations. My husband was doing all of it, networking, trying to learn, being a sponge, absorbing, getting experiences, et cetera, to try to really figure out. ⁓ And on a note about this, to make another long story long, he found a community, he got a job in tech post-retirement, which kind of aligned with ⁓ what he did in the Marine Corps. So that was like a nice thing.

 

And he thought with what he knew about himself at retirement that that was the fit for him. We’re now two years from that and he has pivoted. And I see this happening in a lot of our peers that are in the same group. Like you really ⁓ need more space to identify who you are. And these past two years of him being retired gave him space to be like, ⁓ well, I thought I liked this, but I actually like this.

 

And so when he was able to get his second post-retirement job, it is actually like a better fit because now he knows himself better.

 

Mike Hunsberger (11:08)

Yeah, that’s super common for folks that they take that first job. I think the stats are less than two years for most people in their first job out of the military military retirement. So yeah, not uncommon just because, especially at retirement, 33 years.

 

Vanessa Alanis (11:20)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mike Hunsberger (11:34)

You don’t know anything else on the outside. So it’s all a guessing game. And yeah, I see that with a lot of clients also that it’s probably not going to be that second, oh, I’m going to stay for another 20 type thing with the same company that I transitioned into. So yeah, that’s great.

 

Vanessa Alanis (11:51)

Mm-hmm.

 

Amy (11:58)

So, ⁓ I mean, I love that you’re talking so much about the emotional piece because we probably haven’t, you know, kind of focused on the financial piece. ⁓ And I hope, you know, for listeners, I hope that, you know, this makes you feel kind of normal. Like it is the least normal thing ever, but all of us who go through it, we probably all have very similar feelings. ⁓ It’s the uncertainty, it’s, you know, the first time of being overwhelmed by…

 

Mike Hunsberger (12:05)

Yeah.

 

Amy (12:27)

decision like the way you said it was perfect you know you when you can do anything sometimes that’s just too overwhelming ⁓ so i i love that

 

turning a little bit more, you know, cause this is a financial planning podcast, turning a little bit more, more towards like, you know, cause the emotions are there. Like you probably are not like, don’t, I don’t know. Maybe there’s a therapist out there who specializes on getting people through the emotional piece. I don’t know. Maybe we need to find somebody to bring on the podcast, but, but when you’re experiencing that level of emotion, nevermind the financial piece to me, that just says that the financial piece.

 

Vanessa Alanis (12:39)

Yeah, no problem.

 

Amy (13:06)

Thanks.

 

is so much more important to have more time with because you’re not going to be your best self every single day. So making a decision at the last minute when there’s a very good chance you’re not your best self ⁓ is probably not the right thing. So what do you think now that you’ve experienced transition and you’re a financial planner and you’re running your own firm so you’re serving clients too, like what do you think are the most important aspects of the financial piece of things and how far out should people be thinking about

 

having real conversations.

 

Vanessa Alanis (13:41)

So this was, I love this question because this gave me a chance to really look back at what we did and what we executed well and what we didn’t and why. So ⁓ obviously I hope people are having financial conversations throughout their entire service time. Like it’s best to start early and often. ⁓ And everybody doesn’t have to be executing at the same time, but everybody needs to like understand the plan. ⁓ And as far as like talking about transition and what that means.

 

again, a few years prior to it, or is it a great time to talk about it? And the biggest thing is like, where are we going to live? Why are we going to live there? What does this mean for us? I start working that. If you’re working with a professional, it’s amazing because they can like help you run numbers in ways that your mental math might not be able to like keep track of. So I think it’s great to start the conversation early, understand your cashflow. And this is something I feel like we did well in our transition. We

 

Mike Hunsberger (14:18)

it.

 

Vanessa Alanis (14:41)

my, my history before I became a CFP was I was an accredited financial counselor, or I still am an accredited financial counselor. So like day-to-day cashflow management is my jam. We love it. ⁓ we love Excel. We have tables. It’s all the things, but, so paying attention to your cashflow and understanding it is important. I also think it’s great to have that emergency fund and start building it because you may need a runway to create a large enough cushion for the transition.

 

⁓ I always think we should keep our expectations low when it comes to transition type things because inevitably something happens. gets messed up. Your kids get kicked out of Deers and you’re like, how did they get kicked out of Deers? They’ve been there the whole time. ⁓ So I think it’s wise to start building up that savings cushion early. ⁓ So another, I feel like we did that kind of well. ⁓ Another thing that I think families should start talking about early and often is ⁓

 

the life insurance, SBP conversation that’s going to come up. And I know that in my spouse Facebook circles, SBP gets like a bad name. It’s like a four letter word, but three. And I think learning about that and understanding how that fits in or doesn’t fit into your financial plan. The earlier you can get that information, the more time you have to choose what option you’d like to do. ⁓ Understanding your TSP.

 

and what happens with that. Again, I felt like we were knowledgeable about that. I was really surprised actually at transition how many solicitations my husband received on LinkedIn and in the mail with all kinds of like scary things about why he needs to take his TSP balance and do something else with it. ⁓ So I was really glad like we were informed ⁓ and knew what the right choice was for our family in that capacity.

 

So those are things that I think families should talk about early and gosh, if you’re not talking about it the whole way through, definitely like maybe two to three years before the actual transition happens. Other things you should talk about and like things that we did not necessarily execute well would be everybody hears about taxes in retirement. When I retire, my taxes are gonna go up. It’s gonna be so bad, taxes. And we…

 

planned for taxes increasing. in fact, the first year my husband was out, we sat down and went to the IRS calculator and we put in my pay and his pay and his retirement pay and the bonus he was going to get. And we like computed his taxes and we adjusted our withholdings. I was like patting myself on the back. Like, this is how you don’t get burned with a tax bill, right?

 

And then the rest of the year unfolded. And this was that year where we can, moved multiple times and children were graduating and it was all the things all at once. And we sold a house. mean, I’m sorry, we sell a house. We sold some investments to buy a house. And I just kind of like mental mathed some of that in my head. I would never recommend that to a client and I would never do that to a client. But in my head, I was like, that’s a rounding error. I’m sure we’re fine.

 

⁓ and then my husband had some stocks that dusted and I again, just kind of did some mental math on that. Like, I’m just going to, I’m tracking that we have some money in savings. It’ll be fine. Anyway, tax time came around and, ⁓ we owed multiple times the amount I had mental math for our family. And so I feel like that was definitely a place where I dropped the ball. ⁓ it’s easy to do when you’re just trying to survive, but

 

Mike Hunsberger (18:17)

the

 

Vanessa Alanis (18:23)

families should definitely understand there is a tax impact. And if you roll into a new job that may have all kinds of different pay you’ve never been exposed to before, our issues and things like that, it is really imperative to take the time to understand them and not mental math them. Again, long. Another thing that was interesting to me that I had not thought of in its important discussion was health insurance. So all throughout,

 

my adult life, we’ve been Tricare, largely Prime. ⁓ And so I very rarely ever faced management of my health insurance. I just did what Prime told me to do. So my husband’s new employer offered their own health insurance for free. And so we decided we were going to have them as our primary and Tricare as our secondary. I never in my life have I ever had two insurances to juggle like this. And I really was not paying attention to what it meant.

 

to layer insurance coverage over time. And ⁓ I went to a doctor that took Tricare that I’d seen previously and was very surprised when I ended up getting a bill because lo and behold, they didn’t take my primary insurance, which it blew my mind that somebody would take Tricare but not take this other insurance, but they exist. ⁓ And when you are layering insurance like that, if your primary doesn’t.

 

does not pay, then your secondary doesn’t. And so I received a bill that I was not expecting for that. And that, again, this is all in that 12 month period where I was like, ⁓ I need to pay attention to how these things work. ⁓ So that is something that can probably be handled like closer to transition, like when you’re reviewing what your options are and what you might want to do. But these are complications and just different things that when we are active duty may not occur to us.

 

⁓ And then once you kind of cross the wire, they become parts of your life. And so it’s important to like learn more about them.

 

Amy (20:27)

Yeah, the healthcare insurance. And this comes up sometimes with other kinds of folks. So I work with federal employees too. So sometimes there’s layering there. And the bottom line is if the two insurances don’t know about each other, they both deny it. Which you wouldn’t think. You’d think somebody would pick it up, but nope, they just both deny it. ⁓

 

Vanessa Alanis (20:42)

Thank

 

Yeah, I was overwhelmed with the amount of paperwork that comes with layering insurances. ⁓ But ⁓ I made an Excel spreadsheet and got on top of it after that.

 

Mike Hunsberger (21:06)

Good deal. Yeah. So, ⁓ you know, one of the things you mentioned early on was, Hey, you know, the Marine Corps was telling you where to go for, you know, your, your whole adult life. How did the discussions evolve as you were retiring about, you know, you were starting the business, your husband was going to, you know, look for some other job. How did you balance that discussion of, okay, whose career may be taken priority or how do we, how did you

 

look at that during the transition and how have you seen clients, you know, maybe look at similar decisions.

 

Vanessa Alanis (21:44)

⁓ Well, open communication is great. ⁓ And I would say this is still something we balance ⁓ as my business continues to grow and he evaluates where he feels in his life. But I have absolutely seen ⁓ situations where the spouse maybe is going to become the primary and the service member, it’s

 

decision that they’re gonna step back and they may work, but they like understand that they’re picking a job that maybe has less responsibility, maybe less pay because I hear often like they’re done. They’re done with decision-making, they’re done maybe with leadership. They just want to like have a job where they can just do the work. And with the idea that, you know, maybe extra focus will happen around supporting the spouse as they continue to grow in whatever capacity that their business or career should grow in.

 

And I would say we had conversations about that. Ours, it changed. We just talked a few minutes ago about how service members go like, you know, 18 to 24 months in that first job. And what we thought might be like, if you base the long-term on what experience you had in that 18 to 24 months, it’s probably going to need to adjust. And I would say my husband’s first job was completely from home. No office. Also really big deal because like,

 

He always worked outside the home and now he’s like always at home. ⁓ And so we made a lifestyle that went around that, but then his new job takes him back out of the house. So we had like pivot again, like what does this look like to support my business and my career as you take on this other job outside the house? So I would just say communication and being flexible ⁓ and honest with really what you want to do. If you have further career goals, either one of you make sure they’re clear to the other person.

 

and so that’s the emotional level, right? And then ultimately, like financially, we need to make sure that we are looking at all this, like, what are the implications in the lifestyle we’re trying to create? Should one of us step back and one of us stand up, is there an income loss that is insurmountable? Is it doable based off of like the pension and any disability we get except.

 

Mike Hunsberger (24:06)

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, that’s it’s a big, you know, ongoing discussion decision piece that changes. And yeah, it’s ⁓ interesting as you see that kind of play out over time.

 

Amy (24:20)

Well, I think it’s important to have that discussion many times and all the way till the end because, you know, as you start out your career, you know, it’s I’ve heard on more than one occasion where, know, you get started in a career, it’s early, you don’t really know if you’re going to stay in, right? Sometimes you have, you know, there’s decisions to make along the way. And maybe earlier in the career, the plan was always to

 

Okay, the service member, they have their career and then you get your career. And that becomes like the assumption, but if there’s no discussion about that near the end, maybe the service members changed their mind, maybe the spouse has changed their mind. ⁓ So it’s just ⁓ important to have that discussion the whole way through. So there’s no assumption that something that you talked about three years ago still is in place.

 

Vanessa Alanis (25:14)

Absolutely, because you’re both still growing and changing as people. so 100%, I would say our thing has been my husband thought, oh, I don’t mind stepping back slightly. And then he realized, well, I actually really like to be challenged and grow at my job. And so now we’re like trying to meet that in the middle for both of us. But yeah, honest communication, ongoing is probably the answer for that one.

 

Amy (25:42)

Yeah. So, a couple of questions together for you.

 

spouses who are either because you you know you’ve no doubt given up something throughout your husband’s career in terms of your own career. ⁓ So what advice would you give spouses who are you know looking to rebuild their career, start their career, start a business as they approach retirement and where would you point them for resources?

 

Vanessa Alanis (26:14)

Okay, my advice to them. Be patient with yourself, give yourself grace. ⁓ And also understand that sometimes, and I love this expression, like we build the airplane as we’re flying it. So we may not have all the answers, all the directions, but we can start on a path and then kind of pull it together. This kind of goes for financial planning as well, right? Like we work with clients, we kind of like set the path and then we’re like,

 

course correcting the whole way as we go on because life is happening around us. far as resources, like there is a community. The military community is amazing. The service member and the spouse community. Like ⁓ if you are interested in doing something, network. Surely enough within four or five people you’ll find somebody that is doing kind of similar what you want to do and you can learn about it.

 

people love to share to bring somebody else up with them, especially in this community. Everybody would love to lift up others. And I was thinking at my last studio station, there was like four or five of us together that were all trying to start something at the same time. We made this our own little group and we met maybe quarterly where we were, and every business was different. There was everything from embroidery to music to financial planning. And we had a business discussion group.

 

trying to raise each other up and figure this out. networking, I kind of was building onto this, but networking in also regards to your industry. If you think you know what kind of what you wanna do, ⁓ I love conferences, big fan. ⁓ And not just for educational content, but for the people you can meet, because that is truly where these connections that can be really impactful happen. So if you like photography or you like…

 

financial planning, or you like IT, find a conference and attend. ⁓ There’s also tons of transition groups that help spouses. You had a previous podcast guest, Alan Nelson, talk about a bunch of things that were available for veterans. But many of those same things have spouse organizations that like they’ll support spouses as well. When my husband went through transition, as I said earlier, we thought we were getting out in California. So I actually went to VetCTAP in San Diego.

 

⁓ and it was amazing. And then when we moved over here, I participated in the commit foundations, program for spouses as well. And that is just two of the, there’s so many, this can honestly be a little bit overwhelming as you’re starting, but they’re out there. ⁓ the small business association has like support for spouses, trying to start things out. So it will probably not be that you can’t find resources and you can’t network. It’ll probably be that once you peel back this layer, you’re going to find like.

 

Mike Hunsberger (28:51)

Yeah.

 

Vanessa Alanis (29:06)

all these resources and all this networking and it may be overwhelming. ⁓ But that’s okay where I want you to have grace and peace for yourself. You can learn it at small bits, not everything has to happen at once. ⁓ And you have more value than you think you do. A lot of us ⁓ leave the active duty military lifestyle and question, do I have value anymore? Because I’ve been supporting this, because my career is broken, because I have all of this.

 

And you do, you have a lot of value. You have a lot of skills that if you work with some professionals that help with resumes that you didn’t like realize if you put those skills to those words, you’re like, I didn’t realize that was a skill. I thought that was just life. So you have a ton of opportunity ahead of you. It’s not too late and take a chance on yourself.

 

Amy (29:56)

I love that. ⁓ We all run our own firms, right? And I have a couple of military spouses and I specifically wanted to team up with military spouses because ⁓ what I have learned in working with so many clients interacting with the broader military community is that service members figure things out, military spouses figure things out at a whole different level. There is definitely not a problem they can’t solve.

 

it on their own, they’ve raised kids on their own, they’ve done things always like, you know, last second they’re getting kids through school changes and there’s basically nothing you can throw at a military spouse that throws them off the kilter. So I love that you said that.

 

Mike Hunsberger (30:40)

So Amy, any other big topics you want to hit before we kind of wrap up? I think we hit.

 

Amy (30:46)

No, mean, ⁓ no other big topics, but we never did hit sort of your path. So we talked about your husband’s path, but let’s talk about your path that brought you to starting your firm.

 

Vanessa Alanis (31:02)

okay. Long story, long again. childhood. ⁓ but then I’ll say that, I was actually in ROTC in college and I thought, ⁓ I was going to get a commission in the Navy. Life didn’t turn out like that, but I ended up marrying a Marine, ⁓ and going down this path. I hit our first duty station as a couple. I was ripped away from everything I knew. We’re at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, which at that time was like,

 

Mike Hunsberger (31:06)

You

 

Vanessa Alanis (31:33)

the just not my favorite place, right? And I was alone. I had an infant. He was working like 27 hours of every 24 hours a day. And a friend of mine actually was in San Diego started volunteering with the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. And she said, Hey, I think you would probably like to do this out where you were. And so I won’t lie. The thing that originally drew me to the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society was

 

⁓ free childcare and they reimburse mileage because we had like zero dollars to go towards anything at that time in our life. And I got in there and for those that aren’t familiar with the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society, they’re an emergency relief society designed to help service members and their families through crises. ⁓ And that crises can be anything from like disaster relief to predatory practices and they’re behind on something. And back

 

When I started at Navy Relief, they also had like a budget counselor on staff who provided like financial education in there. And I started out as a caseworker and it really just opened my eyes to the power of financial education early in somebody’s life and the impact of ⁓ not understanding finances and how that could play out as well. So I cut my teeth there and did many different positions.

 

with Navy relief over the course of years. But I always came back to loving the financial education and working with people on their own kind of money to understand the power of that. ⁓ I dabbled in a government position for a few years when we lived overseas. ⁓ But then I came back and decided this is what I wanted to do. And I became a personal financial counselor on a military, on a contract back at Camp Lejeune again.

 

couldn’t shake that place. It was funny, like before I moved there, I was like, I’m never moving there. And then we lived there three times. And I loved what I did. Again, I loved working with service members. I loved sharing information that I thought could be truly helpful for them and have an impact on their life. But as I kept doing that, I realized there were things like, foundational finance is amazing, but there is finance that extends beyond.

 

Amy (33:26)

you

 

Mike Hunsberger (33:29)

You

 

Vanessa Alanis (33:52)

And I wanted to be able to speak to that and guide that because I didn’t want predatory practice people out there kind of taking advantage of what service members didn’t know at that level. And so I went back to school and I became a charter financial consultant, ultimately became a CFP. ⁓ And ⁓ the longest way was continuing to work, but finding like I would love to have a private practice, ⁓ being able to serve clients how I wanted to serve them.

 

So I did government contracting. did, I worked with another practitioner for a few years. I had a great thing there. And then as my husband’s transition came and we knew like, okay, it’s time to pivot and take a chance on myself. I started ⁓ Black Dog Wealth, which is almost on its first anniversary. ⁓ The Black Dog in question is named Bandit. For obvious reasons, Bandit Wealth didn’t really work. So it’s amazing how much people think

 

Mike Hunsberger (34:49)

Ha ha ha.

 

Vanessa Alanis (34:51)

Black dog feels better. ⁓ I serve ⁓ military and government professionals. I also have a large female community ⁓ and anybody who loves dogs are drawn to him. And ⁓ he is both the mascot and the storyline of the business. Cause as fate would have it, as I started my business, my dog ran into a myriad of health issues.

 

And at a period of time, I thought I was just gonna have a torso that kept eating. ⁓ so my clients and stuff have followed along on his journey, which has provided lots of discussion about finances because we talk about the importance of emergency funds. We review the potential importance of pet insurance ⁓ and ⁓ then like, know, caring for your body, health and wealth, right? Like, what does that mean long-term? So that is my story in a nutshell of how I came to do what I’m doing.

 

Amy (35:49)

And along the lines of the dog story, what kind of dog is Bandit? ⁓

 

Vanessa Alanis (35:53)

An expensive one. He

 

is, he is like a mutt. He definitely looks like a black lab. So has some of that in him. He was a rescue. But I call him my pound puppy with a pedigree price due to all of his extensive health issues. And yeah, funny and we can funny story about this. We got him. He was only eight months old. And he was only like 25 or 30 pounds and

 

Amy (36:00)

Okay.

 

Okay.

 

Mike Hunsberger (36:09)

Yeah.

 

Amy (36:10)

you

 

Vanessa Alanis (36:23)

my husband was like, oh yeah, he’ll be like a good mid-sized dog. Like that’ll be like a 50 pound dog. It’ll be wonderful. He’ll do like mid-sized dog things, right? Like he’s a sedan or something. He now is like 85 pounds. He like didn’t stop growing. It’s like Clifford with all the love. And so yeah, he’s our small dog, our 85 pound dog.

 

Amy (36:33)

you

 

That’s awesome.

 

Mike Hunsberger (36:47)

That makes me feel a little better

 

because ours was supposed to be in the 35 to 40 range because mom and dad were both under 40 pounds and he’s 55. I fully feel that. yeah, glad ours stopped growing and didn’t go to the 85 piece because yeah.

 

Vanessa Alanis (37:08)

You

 

Amy (37:09)

you

 

Vanessa Alanis (37:13)

I remember walking our little puppy in front of a neighbor and she said, what kind of dog is he? And I said, I don’t know, he’s a rescue. And I said, but know, the rescue said he’d be about 55 fish pounds. And she started laughing and she was like, ha ha ha. She’s like, Vanessa, look at the paws on that dog. She’s like, he’s not gonna be 55 pounds. And it turns out she was right. So good to know for future.

 

Amy (37:31)

you

 

Mike Hunsberger (37:34)

Yeah.

 

it ⁓

 

Vanessa Alanis (37:42)

and,

 

yeah, so I hope you still have your dog.

 

Mike Hunsberger (37:48)

Yep, yep. So he’s about…

 

That’s 8 mil, so yeah.

 

Vanessa Alanis (37:57)

Well, are wonderful. As I said, ⁓ I think before we started, I joked about changing the name of my assistant to Black Cat Wealth, because we do not have a fence and I’ve had to walk him over the glaciers or snowcrete as we refer to it up here and maybe rethink he’s our first and only dog. ⁓ And so I tried to do like some market studies of like Black Cat Wealth. And that might even be worse than Bandit Wealth. So I’m gonna keep it with Black Dog.

 

Mike Hunsberger (38:00)

yeah.

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Amy (38:28)

Well and as troublesome as they can be, I was asking because I have a lab who is she’s 14 she’s just about calmed down at 14 so I know what it’s like to have a lab.

 

Vanessa Alanis (38:34)

dear.

 

Mike Hunsberger (38:40)

but

 

Vanessa Alanis (38:44)

yes, all the things and I have a lab that can’t do all the physical things that they want to do. so like trying to like tone down a lab is intense.

 

Mike Hunsberger (38:59)

Yeah.

 

Amy (38:59)

Yeah, yeah,

 

for sure, for sure. ⁓ So as we wrap up, are there one or two points that you would like to leave our audience with ⁓ in terms of ⁓ either financial planning or surviving the military as a spouse, surviving transition as a spouse, ⁓ thriving post-transition as a spouse?

 

Vanessa Alanis (39:26)

That’s a lot. Let’s see. So I would say for transition, for finances, early and often have the discussions, work with a professional that can help you see things that you might not be seeing. Obviously I lean very much into it and QFPs and CFPs who are knowledgeable about our lifestyle and what we face. Emotionally, no, you’re not alone.

 

Even if you feel like people aren’t talking about it, it’s hard for everybody. And if you start the conversation about how hard it is, suddenly people will be like, my gosh, it is so hard. I thought I was the only one that thought it was hard. ⁓ And don’t be afraid to look in to resources, not only for like growing your business or ⁓ your spouse’s transition, if you need counseling to help with this, because again, like everything is happening at once. So seek that out. ⁓ And also remember that you have value and take a chance on yourself.

 

whether that means your own business, whether that means stepping your career up. ⁓ But also know if your family has discussed it and that’s just not where it is right now, that’s fine too. There’s not one way to be successful in life and there’s not one way to optimize things. ⁓ It really is very personal and situation dependent as to what kind of life you and your family want to craft. So ⁓ you’re not alone, talk about finances, get support if you need it.

 

and you’re worthy. So bring that light to the world.

Amy (40:59)

Love that. Love that.

Mike Hunsberger (41:00)

Awesome. Thanks so much, for doing this. We really appreciate it. It’s a great insight that we definitely have not had on the podcast before. So I think a lot of listeners will learn a lot from this. So again, really appreciate your time today talking with us.

Vanessa Alanis (41:23)

Thank you guys so much for your time. Again, it was an honor to be here.