Those who follow me on social media likely know that the Financial Therapy Association conference is one of my favourite events to attend each year. I’ve attended once virtually and twice live. I’m going to show you in this 2-part series why I think you should attend in Athens, Georgia, this year.

First, the quality of attendees is second to none. I have met incredible people who are serious about improving the quality of financial advice being delivered.

Second, it’s an interesting conference that takes me well outside my comfort zone. There is a bit of a joke among attendees that if you want to keep conversations with strangers short, you introduce yourself as a financial planner. But if you’re keen to have a conversation, you introduce yourself as a financial therapist.

Sidebar here: I’m no therapist, but last year, I mentioned to my Uber driver on the way to the airport that I had been at a financial therapy conference. By time we were at the airport, I had a complete rundown on family history, relationship with money, grappling with debt, and a whole bunch of other stuff well below the surface of most Uber rides.

Third, and the focus of my comments here, is that I do more learning at this conference than any other conference. This is no knock against other conferences (IAFP is amazing, for example, but I am usually just looking for the fringe items there, as my financial planning knowledge is at a decent level).

It’s this learning that I want to focus on here. Notably, the learning originating from a case study that was presented at the 2024 iteration of the conference. The case study was principally authored by Natasha Knox CFP TEP FBS and John Kolmetz MS MBA CFP with a who’s who of subject matter experts contributing. (Saundra Davis, Shaun Maslyk, Ed Coambs, and Bruce Ross are all fascinating people who add to the value of the conference.)

The case study is based on a fictional couple. I’m going to highlight some of my learnings in this series. Any errors in interpreting the case study or its outcomes are mine. Anything good that happened here is attributable to the crew who wrote the case study and the conference attendees who helped me better understand.

The couple the case study addresses are a young gay couple, getting ready to get married. There are many facets to this case study, but the presenting problem that jumped out at me relates to a gift from a parent. The couple is getting ready to buy a house. Even though both are high earners, they live in San Francisco, where housing has gotten out of control. As such, gifts from parents are very useful in their homebuying plans.

The younger, lower earner in the couple is Nick. Nick has a good job ($90,000/a working as a research associate for a pharmaceutical company). Nick’s older brother was married 7 years ago, and was gifted $500,000 unconditionally when he got married. Nick’s mom, Maia, indicates that she would give Nick $500,000 as well, but only contingent on Nick and Daniel signing a prenuptial agreement.

The case study alive through the inclusion of direct quotes from a (fictional) conversation between Anna, the financial therapist in the case, and Nick and Daniel. I find students are never happy with case studies – it always feels like there is either too much or too little information. Including these conversation snippets can help a lot, as it mirrors real life, where the advice giver must interpret what’s been said and turn that into something useful.

This is a direct excerpt from the case study. It’s reminiscent of the content Meghaan Lurtz used to produce on Kitces.com  

In my next article, I’m going to delve into some of my specific learnings from this case study and the discussions related to it.