Justin Rice, CFP®, CSLP®
Financial Advisor
Get to Know Justin:
Why do you do what you do?
Growing up I was always into personal finance and studying how money works. I appreciated the power of compound interest and wanted to take advantage of it early on in life. I opened a Roth IRA when I was 17 with some of the money that I got from my summer job working as a lifeguard at the local swim club. I assumed that everyone else would have this desire to learn about personal finance but I discovered when I was going through my graduate program that this was not the case at all! This is when I started to look into a career where I could help people with this and found financial planning. I started taking courses for the CFP® exam and eventually made the transition to this career in 2015.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
“Be the best you can be!"
Every morning before my mom dropped me and my brother off at school, this would be our chant. Taking turns at saying every other word. My mom would start it off by saying “BE!”, we would respond, “THE!” and so on. It was a daily reminder that we would not be judged in comparison to others but instead to the best we could do. Giving your all and doing the best that you possibly can is all anyone can ask of you.
What would you be doing if you weren’t working with Personal Wealth Strategies?
I have a passion for education and I love teaching. This is something that we do every day with our clients, helping to take the complex and make it understandable. If I weren’t working with Personal Wealth Strategies, I would be a school teacher helping to educate children in high school not only about the usual topics of math and science but also other topics like personal finance & taxes that will actually be useful in their everyday lives.
Professional Biography:
Justin is a graduate of The Catholic University of America, in Washington, DC. There he majored in Biomedical Engineering. Continuing his education, Justin attended Rutgers University where he obtained his master’s degree. During graduate school he began his studies in Finance and earned his Certificate in Financial Planning from Kaplan University. In March, 2015 he passed the demanding CFP® Certification Examination and after gaining valuable industry experience earned the full CFP® designation in September 2018.
Furthering his education in 2019, he obtained the Certified Student Loan Professional (CSLP®) designation which will allow him to help clients formulate the most efficient strategy to eliminate their student loans. He has been a sought after industry speaker presenting to several groups, including as an expert appearing before the Financial Planning Association-New Jersey Chapter.
In 2021, Justin earned the Certificate in Blockchain & Digital Assets® from the Digital Asset Council of Financial Professionals & New York Institute of Finance. He joins an exclusive group of financial advisors with the credentials to properly educate clients curious about this new and evolving technology.
Justin was born in Baltimore, Maryland and currently resides in Cliffside Park, New Jersey with his wife, Suzie, and twins, Izabel & Jackson.