How Creative Money LLC is Different
Meet the Creative Money LLC team, Seattle’s premier Financial Planners. A lot of traditional financial planning advice is provided with the hope you’ll purchase an investment or insurance product. This means that the advisor’s incentive is to limit their financial planning advice around certain products you buy. We don’t do that, and we don’t sell products. Here’s what you get with Creative Money:
- Financial planning direction and guidance, whatever your income.
- Coaching you through a decision, instead of selling you on one.
- Support through the emotional roller coaster of making tough decisions around your money.
- Solving challenges instead of selling you products.
Who Are We?
Mindy Crary, CFP®
Financial Planner
Creative Money LLC is Mindy’s brain child. As a Certified Financial Planning® practitioner, Mindy backs up everything we say around sound holistic guidance, not just from 25 years in the big financial industry, but with professional certifications around the coaching industry, and a Masters in Business too. And to support and expand the Creative Money LLC vision, she has assembled a team of the coolest, most genuine, down-to-earth people the financial world has ever seen to help her execute on the Creative Money LLC philosophy.
Mindy spends her downtime writing, reading, doing Orangetheory and looking for the perfect French fry. She toys with becoming vegan but so far bacon and barbeque are still making that decision for her.
Samantha Kirby, CFP®
Financial Planner
Samantha Kirby brings more than 15 years of experience in finance and accounting to the Creative Money team. As a Certified Financial Planning® practitioner, Sam loves combining her knowledge and experience with down-to-earth practical advice. Sam is based in Bellingham but enjoys traveling to Seattle to visit (and to eat ice cream at Salt & Straw).
Sam spends her downtime as the matriarch of an all-boys family who likes to tempt fate with death-defying activities like mountain biking, hiking and generally running through nature exposed to predators (husband included). It doesn’t really bother Sam since she is pretty easygoing…we think the ice cream helps. A lot. Read more about Sam…
Brett Lathrup, CFP®, CCFC
Financial Planner
Brett Lathrup is a nine-year financial services veteran, a CFP® professional, and is also a Certified College Financial Consultant (CCFC). Prior to becoming a financial planner, Brett worked in the commercial building industry. Spending most of his days looking at building plans and sifting through construction documents taught him how to hyper-focus on the details, no matter how small.
When he is not helping clients, you can find Brett spending time in the great outdoors or being a pit boss on one of his many charcoal grills and smokers. However, his favorite days of the year are college football Saturdays – as a Georgia native, we carefully do not ask who he is rooting for. Read more about Brett…
Joann Nieciecki
Financial Planner
Joann Nieciecki brings more than 20 years of experience in valuation consulting and advisory services to the Creative Money team. She has a B.S. in Finance and is an Excel wizard that’s soooo thorough with her client plans we now realize that spreadsheet can be a verb, not just a noun! Joann has passed the CFP® practitioner exam, completed all education requirements, and is well on her way to completing the 6,000 hours needed to fulfill the experiential requirement to using the designation.
When she’s not busy having fun in Excel, Joann can be found spending time with her husband and two sons, watching Masterpiece mysteries, or <MASSIVE NERD ALERT> attempting to complete all the shrines in Zelda: BOTW. Read more about Joann…
Martha McNeely
Financial Planner
Not to sound too dramatic, but Martha McNeely is answering a call to service. Helping clients in her (completely separate) mental health therapy practice was simply not enough for her. She saw how few people really understood money, and set out on her own to acquire her Certificate in Financial Planning. Her strong administrative background and years of entrepreneurship bolster Martha’s client-centered strengths and help her connect with each person she works with.
When she’s not working, Martha enjoys exercising, reading, losing to her husband at pickleball, and playing with her goldendoodle Frances. She also loves exploring new restaurants and soaking up every ounce of sunshine during a Seattle summer. Read more about Martha…
Sandy Nielsen
Data Manager
Sandy Nielsen has been a part of Creative Money LLC since 2018 and she is our behind-the-scenes connection to clients as we collect, organize and clarify financial information. That may sound simple, but if you start to imagine all of the personalities and all of the data Sandy juggles on a daily basis… let’s just say we are continually in awe at how effortless she makes it all look!
Sandy lives in Seattle with her husband, a commercial energy-efficient lighting consultant. When she’s not white knuckling it through watching her three sons attempt to adult, Sandy likes to read, do yardwork, manage websites, and play word scramble games. Oh, and sometimes she sleeps for like 3 hours a night.
Erika Taylor
Operations Manager
Erika Taylor has been a part of Creative Money LLC since 2018 and brings more than 15 years of experience in marketing/client service in the financial services industry to the team. Quite simply, Erika is in charge of everybody and everything if it doesn’t have to do with financial planning. Honestly, we’d get her a crown if we thought she’d wear it.
When she’s not busy keeping us all organized, she spends the rest of her time cheering on her youngest son’s hockey team, playing pickleball, and hiking with her four-legged fur child, Tigger. Since her kids are off at college, she squeezes in moments of empty nest anxiety with any leftover free time.
Sophia Trinh
Financial Planning Assistant
Sophia Trinh brings her experience in data collection and interpretation to manage client data for the Creative Money team. She works behind the scenes to collect and organize client financial information. Sophia joined in 2022 and holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering, specializing in Business Intelligence.
When she’s not gathering data and organizing for our financial plans, Sophia likes to exercise, read about personal finance and find ways to progress in her zero-waste journey. She also loves a quiet afternoon with a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle and coffee.
Keri Payne
Financial Planning Assistant
Keri has worked in many different fields over the years – medical transcription, accounting, education, and title insurance to name a few, but the common thread running through them all is her love of details. She is now putting that to good use as our newest assistant, making sure everything is ready for client appointments.
Having grown up here, she sometimes enjoys the Seattle rain, especially when she can sit inside listening to it while drinking hot cocoa and reading a good book (or coloring one!) She is likely to have a cat curled up in her lap and her not very bright, but lovable lab-mix, Lucy, at her feet. When it’s sunny out, she also enjoys camping trips with her husband and four kids.
The team at Creative Money LLC is a lot like you. Practical. Emotional. Energetic.
And sometimes even mental.
We understand that your greatest obstacle to financial clarity and action really is you.
Are you an aspiring financial bad-ass or someone who needs helps making their financial life amazing?
If you want, you can…
The Creative Money Blog - Financial Planning Insights and Information
