Finance for the layman

Hello from St. Louis, Missouri. I haven’t been to Missouri before and I get the vibes it’s a state that’s caught between being norther and southern with influences from both. We’re here for work, but I hope to have some fun while I’m here.

One of the hardest parts about working at Secfi is that most of what we help and advise on is inherently complicated. On the flip side, the majority of our clients do not have a finance background. Some pick things up quickly. Others really struggle to understand fairly basic concepts.

For example, I was on a call the other day and a client was evaluating a financing offer, but was stuck on simple vs compounding interest. I’m not saying this doesn’t matter, but of course it’s an additional cost to the client. But ultimately in the grand scheme of things and at the levels we’re talking at, it’s a relatively immaterial difference compared to other aspects.

Most don’t understand that however and tend to panic when they hear compounding interest. We have to run the numbers side by side to show them in dollar terms.