Marissa Krupa of Augusta has joined New York Life as a Financial Advisor. Marissa Krupa began her career in education, specifically as a K-12 educator, eight years ago. She has always loved being in schools and teaching children, as she got to help nurture young people. She loves it when they have that ‘Aha!’ moment when they realize something new or put pieces of something together, making a new understanding for them. “I felt I just appreciated the ability to serve my community and the families in my community by being an educator.”
She started her teaching career in Colorado, where she lived for a little while and went to college there. After her mom passed away, she moved to the town her dad lived in to be closer to him, which at the time was in western Colorado. While there, she started substitute teaching there and fell in love with it. And so she got her teaching credentials in the state of Colorado. Unfortunately, the school district, like so many others, was having some financial problems, so she began applying all over the place to as many places as she could.
After much bouncing around the area, she lived and worked in Montana. Her trips to and from her work introduced her to Augusta. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find a place to live after COVID hit. All the rents were so high that she had two dogs by then. She already had the financing for her current home, so she decided, “Well, I’m just gonna have to move to August full-time.” She didn’t expect to do so and took a chance to see how things went. There just wasn’t any place for her to live up where she was.
When she found her home, it was an unexpected find that she well and truly fell in love with. “I don’t want to get super religious because people have different opinions about that, but let’s just say it was a blessing, you know, to choose me to have kind of stumbled on to this property here, be able to put a house on it, and be able to live here full time. “I wasn’t expecting it.” That was the summer of 2021, it wasn’t until October of 2021 when her house got placed on the foundation, and all the work was done so she could move in. So, I lived in a tiny camper during that summer and fall.
Marissa has done many things to help give back to the community that has effectively adopted her in many ways, such as starting a yoga group and helping build up recreational activities such as back-country skiing and rock climbing. She also owns three dogs and loves being around like-minded animal lovers.
After moving to Augusta, she worked at Allen’s Manix part-time and was a substitute at the Augusta School and a few other local schools. In the end, however, she would come down with the COVID-19 virus, which prevented her from being able to work at many places.
After her experiences with teaching and such, she began looking to expand her focus, and a friend informed her of a position available as a financial advisor. The company she first started with gave her a taste of the business, that being a life insurance agent. However, this company had a higher focus on turning a profit instead of the health and welfare of its clients, so she transferred over to New York Life.
Here, she could fulfill her dream of teaching those who needed this information to live while also offering the service of a life insurance agent without sacrificing her morals. New York Life started as a life insurance company and expanded to other areas, such as financial consultations and assistance.
Life insurance policies at New York Life double as business stocks, which means the company has to prioritize the policy owner. Marissa is the one who works with the client, and if she feels like getting life insurance isn’t the right idea at that moment for them, she will instead work with them to help better manage their money, spanning from helping her client set up a budget to how to do your taxes, many things that schools all over, unfortunately, do not cover, or do so poorly.
Now, while they can help you understand how to do your taxes, they are legally required not to assist with your taxes or other major financial decisions. If you have a tax assistant, they can work alongside you, but they cannot have direct influence.
She hopes to be able to facilitate a budgeting presentation for the public here in Augusta, which is in the planning stages. The company sponsors it and is all about shifting your financial mindset.
So we go through all the different things involved, such as how you determine what your income is. How do you determine your expenses? How do you budget? Then, now that you know your budget, how do you start to plan? What kinds of questions do you ask yourself? And we go through every step with you. It’s in a condensed format, but there will be worksheets where people can work their budgets out and do that in real time with me so I can help them with their budgeting.
