The Next Generation of Money Management - Interchange Capital Partners

By Ahmie Baum

With 42 years of experience, we at Interchange Capital Partners have learned that looking at managing your money only from the view of how much you should have in stocks, bonds, and cash with a single-asset allocation leads to more inefficiencies. It also creates more opportunities to make incorrect decisions. When you determine the why and what you want your money to accomplish, you build a stronger foundation and a smoother road for your financial future. Welcome to the next generation of money management.

Spend, Live, Give™

SLG™ will help you think differently about your money; it matches your primary goals with three different asset allocations. Aligning your resources to specific life goals provides an intuitive and practical structure for your money. This has enabled our clients to stay the course and not make emotional and often incorrect decisions through all kinds of market and economic turmoil.

We see our job as “goal translators and implementers.” We help you identify what you want your money to do for you, rank priorities, and gain a better understanding of what is possible with your wealth. In doing this, we categorize your assets into three strategic containers. These containers are meant to balance your priorities (wants and needs) with your specific timeline (now or later).

The Spending Container

The goal is to maintain your lifestyle for the next 1 to 5 years. We are interested in preserving capital by investing in cash and short-term bonds. Return “of” your principal, not return “on” your principal, is most important. Traditionally this container has lower returns and therefore is not well funded. When the inevitable downturns happen in the market and economy, a well-funded spending container allows you the ability to “sleep at night” and avoid making emotional decisions.

The Living Container

The goal here is to improve your lifestyle and protect against inflation. We build a growth portfolio to help you reach goals 5 to 15 years away. The biggest threat to accomplishing these goals is inflation, so we focus on maintaining purchasing power and growing your funds. We invest in a balanced mix of stocks, bonds, and alternative investments.

The Giving Container

The goal is to improve the lives of others. We typically allocate stocks and long-term illiquid investments since these goals are a decade or more away. These funds are earmarked for family legacy or philanthropic wishes.

Benefits of Spend, Live, Give™

Developing your spending, living, and giving priorities is a great way to manage the risk in your portfolio and build the appropriate asset allocations for you and your family. With risk adequately managed, you can enjoy a longer-term perspective about the inevitable ups and downs of the market and economy. It gives our clients confidence knowing that their SLG™ portfolios can weather volatile economic storms without impacting their day-to-day spending requirements.

We Use This Method Too

At Interchange Capital Partners, SLG™ isn’t just some technique we use with our clients. It’s what we use with our finances too. We strive to handle your money as if it were our own, which is why the steps we take in our investment processes mirror those we take with our clients. My SLG™ containers look like this:

Spend: Maintaining emergency reserve of 6 months to a year of expenses
Live: Funds for longer-term family desires and inflation protection
Give: Setting up and funding a family foundation

How We Can Help

The next generation of money management, our Spend, Live, Give™ structure, makes navigating the unknown future easier. To learn more about how SLG™ can work for you and your family, email us at team@interchangecp.com or call our office at 412-307-4230 to schedule an introductory appointment.

About Ahmie

Ahmie E. Baum is the CEO and Founder of Interchange Capital Partners. Using a collaborative and comprehensive process developed over 43 years of working with wall street banks and financial services firms on behalf of families.

Interchange Capital Partners provides family office and transition strategy services for family businesses, helping families protect and grow their family capital with clarity, understanding, and action by being relevant and resourceful around their unique circumstances.

As a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Ahmie began his career with EF Hutton in 1979 and transitioned to UBS in 1993. Ahmie is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®), received the Executive Certificate in Financial Planning from Duquesne University School of Leadership and Professional Advancement and has a Certificate in Family Business Advising (CFBA) from the Family Firm Institute. He also has Certificates from The Growth Institute around Growing and Scaling Business and Cash Management. For the past 20 years, he has been involved with Strategic Coach, an international entrepreneurial training program

When he’s not working, Ahmie enjoys spending time with his wife, Sara, their three children, and their granddaughters. He recognizes that health is wealth so he has committed to daily yoga, meditation, and plant-based eating. His other hobbies include woodturning, golf, reading, listening to music, and biking. He is active in his community and served as the Foundation Chair of the Jewish Federation Community Foundation of Greater Pittsburgh and supports the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBS). To learn more about Ahmie, connect with him on LinkedIn.

Interchange Capital Partners, LLC, (“INTERCHANGE CAPITAL PARTNERS”) a registered investment adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission providing investment advisory and financial planning services. Any reference to the terms “registered investment adviser” or “registered” does not imply that INTERCHANGE CAPITAL PARTNERS or any person associated with INTERCHANGE CAPITAL PARTNERS has achieved a certain level of skill or training. A copy of INTERCHANGE CAPITAL PARTNERS’s current written disclosure (ADV 2A Firm Brochure) discussing our advisory services and fees is available for your review upon request. INTERCHANGE CAPITAL PARTNERS, in addition to providing investment advisory and financial planning services, provides business consulting services. In connection with its business consulting services, INTERCHANGE CAPITAL PARTNERS does not provide tax or legal advice.