An interview with Peter Gordon

My company is called New York Financial Organizers (www.nyfo.com). We are Daily Money Managers.

Daily Money Managers help people manage their cashflow, manage their households, pay their bills, handle insurance claims. We don’t manage money in a classical sense, but we do help people with the often confusing and overwhelming aspects of their financial lives. We’re not financial advisors, we’re not accountants. We allow people to have the freedom of knowing how much money they have, they’re earning, how much is coming in, where it’s going, and how much is left over at the end of the month. And if you need to get an infusion of capital or have an excess on hand to invest.

Most of our clients are seniors; we generally work with people who have some cognitive issues or having trouble staying up with the bills and the insurance claims that they used to handle without a problem. As we age, our executive decision-making may not be what it once was. We’re often brought in by the adult children of seniors who have been helping their parents and are having a hard time of it. We’re also referred by other professionals in the senior services industries. That would include elder care attorneys, geriatric care managers, and home health care agencies, among others.

How I Became a Daily Money Manager

The way I became involved in this industry is the way most people who do daily money management get involved. I did this for my parents 12 years ago. My father became ill and we didn’t know how to help him. My brother, sister and I were very concerned with my mother taking care of him, which she just couldn’t do. And through a lot of networking, which I did at the time when I was in a completely different industry, I met someone who told me about geriatric care managers.

Geriatric care managers help people navigate the often-difficult waters of geriatric care. This experience really changed the lives of me, my sister, my brother and my mom because it gave us a direction. We learned how to handle my father’s medical issues.

Sadly, my father passed away and then my mother became ill. She had dementia, became bedridden and I took care of all the financial matters. I saw this as an opportunity where I was helping my mom. I knew so many other friends who were having the same issue. I’m in the sandwich generation where we we’re helping both our children and our parents. And I thought, wow, this is an opportunity.

Geriatric Care Managers, Daily Money Management, New York Financial Organizers (NYFO)

We say, “geriatric care managers do the pills, daily money managers do the bills.” I was very well suited to bills part of that saying.

I spent 10 years in the operations area of Wall Street. I ended up getting an MBA in finance and worked at a fantastic investment house called Sanford Bernstein. During that time, I realized that I could start my own business. And I went off and started a slide consultancy and that turned into a graphic design firm. We helped small and large business businesses with their marketing and graphic design needs. I started NYFO six years ago.

A Partnership with our Clients

We don’t come in and take control. We partner with our clients, working with them to the degree that they want us to. Some people would like us to do everything for them and keep them apprised on what’s going on. Others want to be there while we pay the bills. They want us to go over the details of every report. And there’s everything in between. We’re here to make life easier and more comfortable and take the stress away from dealing with money issues that our clients deal with.

Fraud Risk / Money Wasted

Another great service we offer is that we infiltrate systems where somebody might be trying to take money from our clients. We’re also able to look at reoccurring charges for services that our clients may not be actually using. It could be some download services, some app that they bought that they don’t even use. We’re carefully culling through everything to make sure that it’s what they want to spend.

How it Works with a Daily Money Manager

We try to have as many bills paid by direct debit and through credit cards as possible. It takes the headache of the effort of writing checks out, and makes the accounting of everything very easy. Every month we download our client’s information into Quicken and then categorize all the income and spending.

That’s an automated process. Then we check it and reconcile it just like you’re supposed to do, which probably most people don’t do. We make sure anything that has been charged to them is actually charged by them. We look at every check that’s written by them. And unfortunately, many times we find that not to be the case, especially with the elderly where there is a lot of fraud.

On a monthly basis, we will look at the income and expenses with our clients. If they desire, we’ll look at it and say, “Wow, you know, last month you spent a lot on your house,” or, “You bought a lot of stuff, did you mean to do that?” Or even, “You really didn’t spend a lot on restaurants last month, I hope it’s not because you don’t think you have the money. You have the money, go enjoy yourself.” So we’re able to make those decisions with them. Oftentimes these are really lifestyle decisions in addition to financial decisions.

A Daily Money Manager Career

As a career it is incredibly rewarding. We love what we do and I’m very fortunate that my son feels the same way. We put up with some people who are not the easiest to deal with, but at the same time they deserve the help that they need. It can be a joyful occupation. Each client has a different story and a different way for us to help. It’s not just running numbers. Numbers are a big part of it, but there are a lot of other important things in people’s lives that we can help them with.

A few Resources for You:

• American Association of Daily Money Managers
• The Orion Resource Group

To be good at this job you must be very comfortable with technology and numbers. You must be empathetic, and love people. It’s a great career for people who are looking to transition to a new career later in life because a really important part of what we do is based on life experience.

AADMM: I’m really happy to talk to anyone about the AADMM website. There’s a lot of information about the business, and the industry. There are also some webinars there about how to become a daily money manager. Additionally, you might want to speak with an elder care attorney because they know about this world and they know about this type of career.

You can always email your thoughts or questions to me at peter@nyfo.nyc.