Behind the Ledger: Navigating Financial Management for High-Net-Worth Individuals
Episode 2 - Gordon Haas interviews Donna Olah-Reiken, founder of Preferred Small Business Solutions. They discuss the importance of financial management for individuals, particularly those facing cognitive challenges, and the dynamics of working with high-net-worth clients across generations. Donna shares her experiences in helping clients navigate their financial lives, the emotional aspects of financial planning, and the significance of building trust with vulnerable clients. The conversation also touches on the unique needs of high-net-worth women and the importance of being a fiduciary in financial management.
GUEST INFORMATION:
Donna Olah-Reiken of Preferred Small Business Solutions
Donna Olah-Reiken the inspiring founder and CEO of Preferred Small Business Solutions in Hoboken, New Jersey. With a BA in Finance and an MBA in Information Systems, Donna helps small businesses streamline their back office and helps high-net-worth individuals organize their personal finance from bookkeeping and budgeting to fiduciary support. Donna is a QuickBooks Pro Advisor and as a daily money manager, Donna offers more than services. She brings personal integrity, compassion, and layered expertise. She's guided clients through launching, relaunching, planning, and scaling operations while personally handling budgets up to $300 million. Named one of Ignition's top 50 women in accounting for 2024, and in 2025, a Top 100 Pro Advisor by Insightful Accountant.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction to Donna Oleraykin and Her Business
01:29 The Dual Focus: Small Businesses and High-Net-Worth Individuals
03:33 Understanding Client Needs and Team Dynamics
09:37 The Role of Technology and AI in Financial Management
13:14 Daily Money Management: Services for High Net Worth Clients
19:39 Addressing Financial Fraud and Client Protection
29:46 Navigating Financial Independence
32:53 MultiFamily Office
32:54 Generational Financial Conversations
37:35 Thank You and Conclusion
38:48 Disclosures
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TRANSCRIPT:
Gordon Haas (00:02)
I'm delighted to introduce Donna Olah-Reiken the inspiring founder and CEO of Preferred Small Business Solutions in Hoboken, New Jersey. With a BA in Finance and an MBA in Information Systems, Donna helps small businesses streamline their back office and
helps high net worth individuals organize their personal finance from bookkeeping and budgeting to fiduciary support. Donna is a QuickBooks Pro Advisor and as a daily money manager, Donna offers more than services. She brings personal integrity, compassion, and layered expertise. She's guided clients through launching, relaunching, planning, and scaling operations while personally handling budgets up to $300 million. Named one of Ignition's top 50 women in accounting for 2024, and in 2025, a Top 100 Pro Advisor by Insightful Accountant.
Donna continues to inspire with her dedication to innovation, security, and empowering entrepreneurs. And on this episode of Gen Relational Wealth, I'm thrilled to welcome Donna to share her journey from roots in family business and tech savvy financial systems to balancing fiduciary care and back-office brilliance. We'll explore her passion for quiet growth, integrity driven leadership, and how making space for financial professionals can transform both families and businesses.
Welcome Donna. And thank you so much for joining me today.
Donna (01:32)
Thank you for having me today.
Gordon Haas (01:35)
So let's just start the conversation with a brief overview of what you do.
Donna (01:39)
Sure. So we provide back-office work, back-office solutions for small businesses and we also provide that for high-net-worth individuals.
Gordon Haas (01:53)
In essence, you have these two sides of the business. Are they pretty much the same or do you run them differently?
Donna (02:01)
We do run them differently. Basically, what happened in 2012, I started the business and one of our clients came to us at one point and asked if we would work on his mom's personal books because she was in need of some assistance. And from there, a whole journey began because we didn't even realize that this was a whole other avenue that would be necessary for individuals to need this kind of help.
Just never thought of it. We always just always focused on business and now we have another side of the shop. We have three people on one side on the small business side and then there's three of us on the high-net-worth side that help small businesses as well as high net worth individuals with their back-office solutions that are needed.
Gordon Haas (02:52)
That's fascinating. So, just taking a couple steps back here. So, in general, are a lot of your high-net-worth or your your personal finance clients, are they usually the same clients that run these small businesses? Or are they distinct?
Donna (03:05)
Predominantly distinct. We do have one or two that have come over starting with us with their small business and then we started taking over their personal work. But then most of our clients on the high-net-worth side have been referred to us by professionals, wealth advisors or other CPAs, tax preparers and trust and estates attorneys.
Gordon Haas (03:33)
That's great. So through through various referrals of people that you've gotten to know over the years. And then as far as the way that you run your business and the way that you you work with clients, you said that you have six employees and it's split down the middle. Are they cross trained so that they can work on both sides of the business? Or do they come from distinct backgrounds where they're they have a specialty in either business or personal finance?
Donna (03:59)
Most have distinct backgrounds, predominantly in the business side. As we're hiring people, we do ask them what their preference is.
It's really important to be able to get someone who is passionate like us and we're always looking for good employees. But what I found is when I did ask everybody about what they wanted to do, everyone right away knew exactly which side of the shop they wanted to work on. Now what we do is we also ask everyone to take a DISC assessment. And
Gordon Haas (
What exactly is a DISC assessment?
Donna (05:00)
Sure, well, so I only learned about it when I went to a conference two years ago, and it really made a big difference in our in our firm. And a DISC assessment is basically a behavioral self assessment tool. And it the it's DISC and D stands for dominance. I stands for influence, S for steadiness, and C for conscientiousness.
And what we found is that everyone who wanted to stay working predominantly or exclusively with the small businesses were all Cs. And the Cs were analytical people and persistent and perfectionists. And then what we found is the people who wanted to work with the high net worth side, and it's more...
You know, you work more with the individual and it's much more hands-on with these individuals. We found that the people who wanted to work on that side of the shop were more of an S or an I or a hybrid of those two. And they were more data-oriented, but more diplomatic, more enthusiastic and energetic and much more
much more that they wanted to work on the passionate and compassionate side, working with the individuals when the C's wanted basically to do the work in silos or not as much of the interaction with the client as much. And that's the way it works in general. When we're working on the small business side, you know, the goal is for us to basically represent our tagline.
Gordon Haas (06:14)
Hmm.
Donna (06:25)
"Keep your work front and center. We've got your back office."
And that's what we do for our clients, especially those small businesses. We want them to be able to go and drive forward and stay focused on the revenue generating while we handle all their back office for them.
Gordon Haas (06:44)
That's that's fascinating. So you're you're kind of incorporating the human element into the bookkeeping and accounting. And if I got this right, and correct me if I'm wrong. So you're talking about when you work, work with with small businesses, it's it's about the numbers, it's helping to support them to run their best business, so they don't have to worry about, you know, the details, and you're really there as part of a team.
But with the individuals, it's it's really, you know, it's it's psychology, it's coaching, it's it's encouraging, but it's, know, making sure that they have everything in place.
But it's a different tactic, but the results are the same. that correct? That's interesting. And so a quick question for you, where do you fit in the DISC assessment?
Donna (07:18)
Yes, very well said.
I'm a D for dominance.
Gordon Haas (07:30)
Well, well put. Well, you're in charge of the team. So that would make sense.
Donna (07:36)
Yeah.
Yes. yes.
Gordon Haas (07:40)
Okay. And then as far as, you know, for a typical client on either side, you know, again, I'm sure there's differences in how you onboard a small business client versus an individual. But there probably are some threads across the board that are similar as far as bringing on a new client. Is that through technology or just in general? What does it look like when someone first hires you on to help advise them?
Donna (08:09)
Both sides are the same. And the way I like to be able to do this is to get to know the person, the business owner. I like to find out what makes them tick. You know, I like to find the same with the high-net-worth side. I love learning about the different people. I want to make sure that it's a good fit for our team as well as for that client.
We work with such really incredible individuals and I just love hearing their stories. I like hearing why someone decided to open up a business. I love hearing the stories of what people did professionally and how they made their money or lived their life and there's such rich history on both sides and I love being able to support these people.
Whether it's living out the rest of their life where stress free from all the financial matters for them to enjoy their retirement or enjoy whatever work they're doing that, you know, we have busy professionals that we work with that they just truly don't have the time to handle their own personal finances. And that's what we do so they can just focus on their craft. And same with the small business side.
We want them to be able to focus on their work. And then we are able to provide reports for them and we can analyze it for them and help them understand how they can reduce certain expenses or increase revenue in different ways based off the analytics of the reports.
Gordon Haas (09:37)
It sounds like it's a very in-depth high touch service that you provide. So, you from the one hand, I'm sure the fact that you're asking a lot of questions and even personal questions to make sure that it's a good match culturally as well as financially, I'm sure they know that you care, they can sense it. And I'm sure that's one of the advantages of working with you and your team. as far as the specifics, so...
the technology, that something that you have pretty much done in-house or is it a tool that's used online? How do the clients engage with you from a financial perspective or from when they get down to the brass tacks?
Donna (10:20)
It's a personal touch with me Getting to know the client upfront and then we do use a lot of technology as you pointed out my MBA is in information systems and Most of my career has been in the same What I like to be able to do is streamline our tech stack and we're always fine tuning, all the time, you know, because the technology is always changing and we're also bringing in a lot of AI at this time as well. And we tried to use the same tech stack on both sides of the shop, but what we're also finding is that there are certain pieces of technology that will work better on one side versus the other side, because they are distinctive. The two shops are definitely distinctive. As I mentioned earlier with the DISC assessment, just the people who want to work in each side of the shop have a distinct background and personality.
Gordon Haas (11:19)
And you mentioned AI, obviously that's a hot topic for anybody in business and even personal curiosity nowadays. How exactly are you using AI?
Donna (11:22)
you
Well, so I will just focus on the high-net-worth side. You did mention that I'm a daily money manager and I will be presenting at the Daily Money Managers Conference in San Antonio in November. I'm presenting an AI presentation regarding how daily money managers can use AI while working with their clients. We have clients of all, the daily money managers basically work with all different types of people, whether it's high net worth, elderly, busy professionals, special needs, legally blind, deaf, all different types of people need daily money managers. And part of my presentation is to be able to take a profit and loss statement for a client who is blind.
What we do is we strip out all the personal data. We run the P&L through Chat GPT and then we ask Chat GPT to analyze it and then create an audio file for us to send over to our blind client and You know, so we trying to whichever kind of client we're working with or in this case, know all like I said with the this presentation we're trying to find
Gordon Haas (12:35)
Wow, that's fascinating.
Donna (12:47)
different nuggets to be able to share with these daily money managers on how they're able to use this to benefit not only their internal business, but also their clients. One of my team members is coming down with me to the conference and she's going to be the right-hand person who's going to make sure everybody has the proper Chat GPT set up and this is going to be a hands-on presentation that we're giving.
Gordon Haas (13:14)
That sounds wonderful. So just to drill down a little bit more for people who may not be aware. Let's talk specifically about the personal finance side or the high-net-worth individuals that you work with. So when you're talking about daily money managing or bookkeeping in the sense of an individual or multifamily office that you may work with. What exactly does that look like? You some people think, is that, you know, are you preparing taxes? Are you going through their bills? Are you, putting them on a budget? What exactly do you do?
Donna (13:46)
Almost everything you just said. Except the taxes. We do not file taxes. we try to put our clients at ease and for whatever situation that is stressing them out regarding their finances. Whether they're just can't control their
Gordon Haas (13:48)
Haha, it'll be different for everyone.
Donna (14:03)
You know, they can't keep control of their finances anymore. We do budgeting for them. if their papers are all over the place, we bring in our financial organizer and she will go in and organize everything. And then from there, we're able to see all the documents that they have, make sure that they have a power of attorney in place, a healthcare proxy.
If they need a will, we'll send it out to someone, know, a trust and estate's attorney. If they need a financial planner, we would go to the list of the financial planners that we have to refer.
Gordon Haas (14:38)
And I have heard the term, you sometimes hear high-net-worth individuals, but you also hear the term family office or multifamily office. Can you explain a little bit more about a multifamily office? And does that in essence imply that it would be involving various generations and different people within the family? Or is that usually still just dealing with one individual?
Donna (15:00)
The way we look at the term multifamily office is that we have multifamilies within our ecosystem. And so we consider like our ecosystem a family office, but we're not dealing with people who have exclusive family offices like these billionaires that you hear of that they have an exclusive family office. What we have is a family office for multiple people. It could be multiple generations in a family. We do have people who, multiple generations of the same family. We also have different people who are different parts of a family. because all our referrals come from word of mouth.
So it's happy clients who are basically spreading the word because they have this relief. They don't have the stress anymore of their financials. So when they're out talking amongst their friends and family, they are spreading the word. And so that's how we're getting most of our clients as well as through referrals through our business community. The professional community, the wealth advisors, the trusted state attorneys, the care managers. Get a lot of referrals from care managers when they're working with the people on their health side and we basically deal with the financial health. They're dealing with the health of the body and mind of the person and we're dealing with the financial health for the person. So it's a tag team service and that has worked out really really well ⁓ because there's already that built-in trust because we have many different clients together.
Gordon Haas (16:41)
Mm-hmm.
Donna (16:45)
so with the multifamily, it doesn't necessarily have to be people within the same family. It's that whole side of our business that is dealing with all of our high net worth or all the families. So it's one big family.
Gordon Haas (17:03)
That's great,
Donna (17:05)
We try to be like the quarterback for every, client and an advocate. So we provide them with bill payments if they need it, organizing. Monitoring the accounts for fraud, gathering all the information for the CPA to file the taxes. We reconcile all the accounts every month and we just monitor everything. We also can, if they have household staff, do payroll. If they have more than one home, we also work with all the property managers and we basically can act as much or as little as they want as their liaison so that they can go and enjoy their life and a lot of people don't want to be too involved in their finances they want to be able to have a budget and go off and do some fun things their their craft their any anything that makes them you know a whole person that they're looking to to do as opposed to handling their money. Some people were getting very concerned about their money so we come in and we relieve the stress for them
Gordon Haas (18:12)
Mm hmm. So it does sound like it runs a wide gamut of various services. So in some instances, it's just for people who have pretty sophisticated and complex financial assets, meaning in different locations with different properties, and it's just a lot to manage. So you help with the bookkeeping. In other cases, it may be people who who have money, but but need help budgeting. I don't know how often.
Here's a question. How often do you you deal with clients as far as having those uncomfortable conversations. Look, you have plenty of money, but you're spending at too high a rate. Do you do that as well in certain situations?
Donna (18:48)
Yes, we have done that. And that's why at the beginning, it is so important to be able to get that connection and that trust. All of us are background checked. All of us are very ethical people. And we really love working with these... To me, it's a puzzle. And it's a human puzzle. Because everybody works differently regarding their finances.
So we're very sensitive and try to be very compassionate in that situation that you were just saying, you know, if someone is spending too much. it's just so important for them to understand. And so I feel that, you know, developing that human relationship over this is just so critical for them to be able to feel comfortable to talk to us about these very intimate situations that they're going through.
Gordon Haas (19:39)
So, Donna, you had mentioned the word fraud and you know that that's obviously something that we hear about more in the news about fraud happening to individuals and sometimes to elderly. And so it's something that we should all be aware of. So first of all, how do you work with your clients to prevent and identify if there's something unusual? And then do you have any words of wisdom or advice for the people listening today?
Donna (20:06)
Yes, it's a very sad thing. I've seen, can't speak of specifics, but I do have some hypothetical situations and you are right about it being in the news and people should listen very carefully to what they are hearing in the news because a lot of those I've seen firsthand and we see these financial scams even we get mail or phone calls and all these different financial scams. One of the things that people really need to be careful about is who they allow in their inner circle
What I've seen of some of these things is, you know, you have to be careful of friends and family and people that you're hiring as an assistant or who you're giving your power of attorney and healthcare proxy to. You have to be very careful of those things. And one of the things that we do advise people is not to give the power of attorney and the healthcare proxy to the same person.
Many times people will take that power of attorney and make healthcare decisions based off of how much money that they are going to inherit. And that to me has been very sad to witness. And, you know, one of the things, you know, I've read the book about...
Brooke Aster and how and this is it's been in the paper you know I believe it was in the early 2000s she died and it was her grandson who was protecting the grandmother and saying that his father was making financial decisions based off of his grandmother's health and it was very sad to see and there are many different books written about famous people who this is has happened to. You hear about Prince not having a will. You hear about Aretha Franklin not having a will. I believe there was something also regarding Elvis, and his will as well as how he was taken advantage of by his manager. And assistants. Assistants have been stealing money because the person has not been paying attention. I've seen people who have been dealing with some celebrities and thankfully these celebrities who have a lot of money have taken the time to sit down with the daily money manager and make sure that they are on those statements that come from the financial institutions and they just don't go by what is being shown to them through their QuickBooks Online. Because QuickBooks Online or any of these financial reports you know, they can be doctored. And you know, we saw it with Bernie Madoff. You know, everyone thought they had all this money so we got to be very very careful to make sure that everyone is reviewing the source of where their money is being held. So there's so much there.
It is so important anyone of whatever amount of mental capacity can be stolen from. I have heard of very bright doctor, picked up her phone, was not really completely paying attention. The person said they were from Chase and she gave them her whole social security number. They were not from Chase. I don't pick up a phone call if I don't have them in my contacts or it says the name underneath. But now I am hearing that there's one from a major institution that's coming through and people think it's a good number because you can look on the internet for that number and that number is attached to that financial institution, but it is fraud. They know, people who are trying to get you, you know, through these unfortunate situations are becoming very smart and so I always recommend to people if you think something's coming from a credit card company, turn that credit card over and call the number. Do not pick up the phone You know call call the numbers that you're seeing on these statements - don't go on to the internet now because unfortunately that's where that that's where this situation is happening. And they're getting a lot of people.
Gordon Haas (24:35)
Yeah, that's that's really, that's really interesting and timely advice and great takeaway. The scams certainly are getting more sophisticated. So in essence, just double checking and you provide to your clients that extra oversight. So you can't prevent everything from happening, but then at least having that awareness and someone taking a look at your, your finances to make sure nothing looks suspicious.
You can help catch things earlier. that is a great takeaway.
Donna (25:06)
They are getting so sophisticated. I also recommend to people to have that relationship with a banker. I'm very fortunate to have some great resources at major institutions and even my local bank. I was abroad, I'll use myself as an example, I was in Europe and I got a phone call from my banker and I did not trust it because I did not take the international
service when I was abroad. But I emailed my banker and I said, someone from your bank is calling me and what's going on? And she emailed me back and said my check was stolen
and someone got a hold of the check. They crossed out the memo and they crossed out the name and the number and they made it out to a person and they made it out for a couple thousand dollars and they tried to cash it. And thankfully my banker knew. She said, I knew that this wasn't someone that you worked with and she flagged it.
Gordon Haas (25:59)
Mm-hmm.
Interesting. And then also I assume too, keeping track on people's credit scores can also help identify things early.
Donna (26:17)
Correct, yep. And we also freeze, we freeze their credit. Once we know that they're all set up, we go through unclaimed funds, we go through from every state that they've lived in, we try to get a whole history so we understand from a holistic perspective, everything that we're working with. And that's why, you know, going back to that DISC assessment, that's why the people who work on the high-net-worth side, it is a more granular. And more personal service that we're providing.
Gordon Haas (26:50)
To clarify, I just want to ask, so you're saying that you freeze or you ask the credit services to freeze their accounts. Is that proactively or only in the case of fraud?
Donna (27:00)
Many times we do it proactively.
Gordon Haas (27:04)
Mm-hmm. Okay, and then...
Donna (27:05)
because we don't want someone opening up a credit card. don't want someone going out there trying to open up a bank account.
Gordon Haas (27:13)
Interesting. And that's something that even without your service as an individual could do on their own as well. It's not a bad practice in that case.
Donna (27:21)
Correct, they could do it on their own, yes. Unfortunately, some of the people we work with, that's why they hire us, because they don't know, not only do they not know how to do this, but some of their capacity is limited, just from knowledge or mental capacity or physical capacity. We just went to a bank, we have a client who was not able to get to a bank and did not have online access. So we met the person at the bank and made sure that the banker took care of this person we just wanted to make sure that the person got the services that she needed from this bank because we didn't know the bank at all.
Gordon Haas (27:59)
Okay, that's a, really interesting things. Any, your wealth of knowledge, any other tips or tricks?
Donna (28:07)
Hmm, okay, let me think about that. There's so much. There's so much. Yeah, I can go on and on. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that really, you know, my back goes up over when people are trying to scam other people. It's just really, it's one of the things that I love working on just to protect these people because, you you work so hard. So many people work so hard all their life and all they want to do is enjoy their retirement or enjoy
Gordon Haas (28:10)
Or not. Or not. Or we can move on.
Donna (28:35)
you know, our freedoms and unfortunately they get tied up in, you you even hear about these dating scams that are going on online because, you know, they realize that people are lonely and then they get taken advantage of. And, you know, you read in the paper, you know, how many people have lost all their savings and their children have tried to protect them and or another friend or family saying, no, you're being scammed. And, it's just that loneliness factor.
And we all can be victims of it. So I would love for everyone to be able to stay involved in their communities, go out and enjoy your life, but try just to make sure when it comes to friends and family, try to keep it separate from your financials in order to be able to make sure that no one is taking advantage of you.
Gordon Haas (29:24)
Yeah, that's that's great. And you know, you're I can understand why you're as successful as you are in your business, because I can hear the passion in your voice when you're talking about personal situations and your clients and just people in general, being able to live the life they want to live financially. And that's that you care and it comes it comes across. So Thank you for that.
So I'm personally part of the sandwich generation and a lot of friends and people I know in general around my age group are dealing with aging parents and care for that generation as well as still being involved financially with their children as far as paying for college or other situations. So.
How exactly does that play into the way that you deal with certain clients?
Donna (30:16)
Well, I'm a member of the sandwich generation too. And it's a hard place to be, even though I find most of the time it's the most yummy part of the sandwich. But unfortunately, it's the most stressful part. I have many different examples of how people handle it. I find it interesting to see
different examples It goes back to what I was saying earlier about the power of attorney and healthcare proxy, having those separate, because there's that whole flip. Once a parent can't really handle their expenses too well or their finances too well, there's a lot of dignity and pride when they're involved and want to handle all this. There's a lot of emotional tie to them being proud to be able to do all this. And once they can't do it as much and they have to hand it over to the next generation, there's a lot of issues, emotional issues that come to be with that.
Because they're used to taking care of their children and not having their children take care of them.
Gordon Haas (31:30)
And are you able to help facilitate that or how do you get involved with that kind of touchy aspect?
Donna (31:35)
So there are some clients who what they would want instead of their children handling the finance, they would want someone on the outside to handle them. I've heard people say that, you know, they wouldn't want their spouse or their partner to handle anything bodily about their body. They'd rather go into a facility where a stranger is doing it.
And it's the same thing when it comes to finances. They don't want their children to be involved in it. On the other hand, you know, there was an example a couple of weeks ago about a client's child coming in from a foreign country just to deal with this and hold the mom's hand through this whole process. So it's as unique as people.
And I just basically try to be as understanding and guide to what I think is best for the client and what will be the easiest for the client to handle. Because again, it's their pride and goes really back to the beginning of having that first call and first meeting with them and to build that trust and for them to realize that we're here to help them.
And truly as a fiduciary being able to do what's right for them, not what's right for us or easy for us, what's gonna be right for them.
Gordon Haas (32:54)
And just to shift a little bit. This is a podcast called Gen Relational wealth. And the underlying thread here is we like to talk about how you got involved with what you're doing. But then also, what you learned from just different generations and what you what you teach different generations about, about finance.
So the question I have for you is did your your parents talk openly with you about finance? And what was the message on money that you heard growing up?
Donna (33:26)
I was always intrigued by what this thing, this DJIA and that it was always this number on the news with an arrow up or an arrow down. And I had no idea that this Dow Jones Industrial Average, what it was. But from that, I learned that my mother did work on Wall Street before I was born. And she...
Gordon Haas (33:35)
You
Donna (33:50)
which she told me what she knew about it and so it always intrigued me. And my mother was quite open about money. I remember in my father's top left drawer, there were these envelopes and each of the envelopes had money in it for each of their expenses for the month. And I was just at her home recently and it just was a big flashback of remembering those envelopes. she was very open about money and what they had and what they didn't have.
I also grew up in a family business and it was a five and dime store where they sold all the gadgets and stationery and school supplies, candy, batteries, all the cosmetics and little toys that you want. And it was a wonderful store. I started working there when I was young ⁓ and always was very interested in it. And my uncle taught me a lot about business. I do owe a lot of my knowledge of business and money to the previous generations, which I'm very appreciative.
I'm also very, I'm open with my kids as well and my sister's a financial planner and so she's also helped my children financially, just giving them different pieces of advice. my kids and my mother was one of my clients, my father-in-law was one of my clients.
Gordon Haas (35:27)
Do you still teach your children? Do you still have envelopes with cash by your night table or do you manage it differently with your kids?
Donna (35:36)
I was able to teach them a little differently, but we do have a spreadsheet for them, you know, of what they have, budgets, what they might want to spend their money on. my son works for a corporation and he has the 401(k) and talking about maxing out.
You know, and how much money should be put into that. Because it's very hard when you're young to think, why am I putting away so much money now? You know, I could go spend it. And anytime anybody gets a raise, I said, if you're living on that money now, why take the money from that raise and it away? You know, if you haven't maxed out your retirement, max out your retirement. If you have, then just create another investment.
Even if it's in a high-yield savings account, just move it in. People can live on less money than they think. And these daily coffees or these daily things that people spend money on, There are different ways that everyone can trim down a little. Not everybody. mean, some people are very good about that. eating at home really can save a lot of money.
Gordon Haas (36:43)
Mm Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it sounds like you did grow up in a household where, know, luckily your parents were were open about how to how to manage your finances and, running the small business, it sounds like that's kind of in your blood. A lot a lot of times people are terrified of taking that step to work for themselves, but you've been successful at it over the years. And sounds like it's, it's kind of in your genes. And you share that with your, your children as well. So that's, that's just really, really wonderful that you
Donna (37:05)
Thank
Gordon Haas (37:11)
You grew up in that type of atmosphere and you're passing it down.
Donna (37:16)
You know, we all have a journey, we all have a past, and I just never realized until some people have pointed it out just like you, who pointed it out about my entrepreneurial background. It just was something that I always felt like I needed to do. I would have been upset with myself if I didn't take the risk and do it.
Gordon Haas (37:35)
Well, that's a fascinating walk down, what you do now and where you come from.
And where can listeners learn a little bit more about your business if they'd like to?
Donna (37:46)
We have two websites. We have PreferredSBS.com, and that's for Preferred Small Business Solutions. And our other website is PreferredBMS.com, and that's for Preferred Business Management Solutions.
We are in the process of also working on a business club, where basically the whole purpose of it is supporting professionals who support individuals. And there's gonna be more to come.
Gordon Haas (38:21)
Excellent. Can't wait. Well, hopefully in the future we'll have you on as a guest again and we can talk a little more bit more about that when it's available. But I just wanted to thank you so much for joining today. And it's been such a pleasure getting to know a little bit more about you and, what you do. And hopefully you just continue to grow and thrive as I know you will. Thanks so much, Donna.
Donna (38:42)
Thank you and thank you for this opportunity. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, Gordon.
Gordon Haas (38:47)
Thank you.
Disclosures: (38:51)
Gordon Haas is a financial planner with and offers securities and investment advisory services through LPL Enterprise, a registered investment advisor, member FINRA / S.I.P.C. and an affiliate of LPL Financial. LPLE and LPL Financial are not affiliated with GenRelational Wealth. The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.
To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision.
Donna Olah-Reiken, Preferred Business Management Solutions and Preferred Small Business Solutions are not affiliated with or endorsed by LPL Financial or GenRelational Wealth.
Individual tax and legal matters should be discussed with your tax or legal professional. Prudential advisors and GenRelational Wealth are not registered as a broker-dealer or investment advisor. There is no assurance that the techniques and strategies discussed are suitable for all investors or will yield positive outcomes. The purchase of certain securities may be required to affect some of the strategies. Investing involves risks, including possible loss of principal.