Akeiva and Meshack Ellis to bring financial education program to colleges

An award-winning certified financial planner and her husband are ramping up their financial education business after she left one of the largest registered investment advisors.

Akeiva and Meshack Ellis plan to expand The Bemused — a financial coaching website for young adults with an accompanying YouTube series that has more than 10,000 subscribers — to college campuses through their "Money 180" tutorial programs and more collaborations with companies, they said in an interview earlier this month. 

They launched the company more than four years ago. Akeiva had spent the last five years with Ballentine Partners, where she was recognized as one of Financial Planning's Rising Stars of the planning profession and became a CFP Board ambassador. She left Ballentine on Nov. 30 because her role "wasn't in alignment with core values and where I want to be at this stage," Akeiva said, calling the next phases for The Bemused a "happy outcome of this transition."

"We're thinking, how can we get this to more people in a way that isn't going to be as cost-prohibitive," she said, crediting Meshack for the idea of bringing Money 180 to historically Black colleges and universities, minority-serving institutions and other schools. "We're trying to forge connections," Akeiva added.

Representatives for Waltham, Massachusetts-based Ballentine, which is the No. 18 firm on FP's list of the biggest fee-only RIAs in the country at $10.5 billion in client assets, praised her tenure with the firm. 

"Akeiva achieved some great things at Ballentine Partners," CEO Drew McMorrow said in a statement. "We are thankful for her time here and wish her well." 

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Many parents seeking to teach their children financial literacy come to realize that they didn't receive any such training themselves when they were younger, according to FinLit Tech founder Mac Gardner, who has authored a children's book about money called "The Four Money Bears" and is currently working on an app for kids called "Berryville." Even many college or graduate-level business programs omit personal finance or planning courses, and a majority of states have no requirements for financial training in school, either, Gardner noted.

The "grown-folks conversations" that often start coming up in college about money make it "a great opportunity to be able to capture young people at a stage in their life where a lot of this stuff is applicable," Gardner said.

Students in Money 180, which Akeiva and Meshack started two years ago, learn through a program that includes six module classes on personal finance and investing, a workbook that later serves as a point of reference and monthly live sessions with Akeiva answering any of their questions. The program costs $349 a month over six months or a one-time fee of $1,997. At colleges or with student organizations or groups of employees at a particular company, the couple are open to new ideas such as turning the program into an actual class or charging the institutions for each student enlisting. Meshack already works on a university campus for his day job as a compensation and benefits analyst with Wellesley College.

"It's not anything we're saying to do but we haven't done," Meshack said, describing himself and his wife as among those "best suited to really bring this message to this population of individuals, because we were them not too long ago."

The Ellis' website and videos explicitly state their financial challenges and accomplishments, such as paying for their $40,000 wedding without going into debt. They also erased a combined $90,000 in student loan debt in just 18 months. In the future, Akeiva sees the two of them creating more videos or other programs about money for companies and working with more individuals signing up for Money 180 and through "some form of free content" on YouTube or elsewhere.

"That's where we had our start," she said.