How This Wealth Advisor Spends $1M/Year ($300K on Vacations)

Daniel Berk (0:00)

Today's Moneywise guest is Adam Katz. His dad was a guidance counselor in the Bronx and died with only $133,000 to his name. Adam didn't even get on a plane until he was 16 years old. But now he's a wealth advisor, and he's as rich as the people that he advises. A few months ago, he asked his kids to guess what his net worth was. One of the kids said $8 million, and the other kid said $75 million. In this episode, we're gonna find out which one of those numbers was closer, and we're gonna get into some serious spending details. He walks me through every dollar he spends in a year, the mortgage move he and most of his clients use, why he optimizes life for vacations, and how much money he spends annually on those vacations, and a specific tipping system he's created, where he always tips way, way more than the average as a point of pride. Adam's entire philosophy of money and wealth revolve around optimizing from moments of outsized generosity. You'll see what I mean after you listen to this episode. Real quick favor before we start, subscribing to Moneywise costs you nothing. It's free to do and means a world of difference to me. If you enjoy this show, please go ahead and hit subscribe. This is how I get paid. I get to talk to founders like Adam inside of Hampton. It's a private network for high growth founders who are doing on average $25 million a year. If that is you, check it out at joinhampton.com. Now let's get into the show. I'm Daniel Berk, here is Adam Katz on Moneywise. Well, Adam, thanks so much today for joining Moneywise. I'm really excited to learn about you, learn what you do, learn kind of what qualifies you to be here on this show. But if we can start with what you do, tell me about yourself, what is it that you actually do and how do you work with wealthy people?

Adam Katz (1:32)

Being on a chat like this, being able to talk about various things around relationships, how it interplays as it relates to money, as it relates to the way we think about parenting and time and health, I feel really, really well equipped to help with that. The nice thing is I have this duality as a peer, as a person who sold the company, went through what I like to call step function wealth creation events, but also as a provider and to be a person that has worked around entrepreneurs and founders for so long, and to be able to co-pilot this journey with them has been amazing.

Really been doing that for a couple of decades around mostly venture-backed founders.

Daniel Berk (2:15)

That's cool. When we talked ahead of the show, you had mentioned growing up with scarcity, and I want to understand how did you go from scarcity and your early childhood to what you are now, which is personally wealthy and then also working with wealthy people.

Adam Katz (2:31)

Yeah. I tell everyone, I used to think luxury for an automobile was a headrest in the back and a fold down armrest.

My dad was a guidance counselor in the Bronx. He was very proud of what he did. I joke that his mother said, Erwin, you can go to NYU School of Commerce, which is the business school, the law school or the school of education. She said, Erwin, they're going to always want teachers. So he was a guidance counselor for 31 years and then an educator for 13, and there was no excess cash flow in our family. So I didn't really grow up with the idea of what money meant. When he sold his house after my mom died, there was about $650,000 on the for sale sign, and there was $50,000 of equity. He had used the home as a piggy bank forever to get us to go to colleges in a way that felt in line with their values, to pay for bar and bar mitzvahs and weddings.

My dad died with $133,000 to his name. So the idea of abundance was always there for love and nurturing, but the scarcity dynamic that most people would have had with money never really crept into our life. There was no abundance, but I never felt like there was scarcity.

Daniel Berk (3:39)

Interesting. I guess I'm sure it did. How did that affect the way that you grew up thinking about the dollar?

Adam Katz (3:47)

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think in some ways, there's so much more subconscious than happened and is conscious in that where I landed today, I didn't even think was possible. I often say that I thought the proverbial doctor lawyer money was wealthy. That was really what my town probably had most of. The idea of having tens of millions of dollars or hundreds, I don't think I even realized that was possible. It was an era where the internet wasn't a thing. There was no social media. You didn't get a peek into these brands and into these resorts and into private aviation. You literally had no way to have a people into that world. So I don't think I knew what I was missing out on. The only thing I felt like I was missing out on was Florida.