Page 30 - South Mississippi Living - January, 2024

The Faces of a Bright Retirement
Being a pair of powerhouse financial advisers wasn’t always in the cards for Heidi and Clinton Ardis, but now, they work closely with each of their clients to create tailored retirement solutions.
Looking back, they would not have it any other way and firmly believe their clients should be front and center in map- ping out every detail of their retirement plans. That was a lesson the couple, unfortunately, learned at a difficult time in their lives.
“My father-in-law passed away unexpectedly when my hus- band and I were 22,” said Heidi Ardis, founder and CEO of Agape Wealth. “We were put through a lot with his estate, and he didn't have a will or a trust or anything in place.”
After scrambling with the legalities, they decided to work with a financial advisor to invest and make a plan for the future. “Within 12 months that gentleman had lost over 70 percent of
our assets,” she said. “And we were charged a bunch of money and phantom income taxes from a Russian oil fund that he had put us in. It was a double-edged sword, and we lost a lot of money. We were trying to do the right thing by investing it and then ended up owing a bunch of taxes to a foreign country.”
She was in college and just one semester shy of completing her pursuit of becoming a history profes- sor when she had an amazing idea. “We talked about it, and I told my husband, ‘I can do a better job than this.’ I've always been really good with numbers and research,” she said, adding she dropped out of col- lege, became a financial adviser, and never looked back.
“My main goal was to never have anybody go through what we were put through because when
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