Money Lessons with Andrew Temte, PhD, CFA

In this episode of Money Lessons, Andy explains the two questions the law answers about every job before the first pay stub is printed: whether you're an employee or an independent contractor, and whether you're owed overtime. 

He adds up what a business pays for an employee and not for a contractor, walks through the IRS test, the ABC test, and Wisconsin's own test, and clears up a common misunderstanding about salaried work — a salary alone doesn't make you exempt from overtime. 

AndrewTemte.com

In this episode of Money Lessons, Andy takes up the three ways your pay grows — a raise, a promotion, and a new job — and the one lesson that runs through all three: starting pay is the base every raise after it is applied to. 

He clears up the difference between a merit increase and a cost-of-living adjustment, explains why a promotion usually pays more than a raise, and puts numbers on changing jobs with the Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker, including the stretch in 2025 when people who stayed put saw more wage growth than people who moved. 

He tells the story of asking his mentor and boss, the late Roger Leithold, for a raise at 22 — and the four words Roger gave him instead. He closes with the fourteen states that now require a pay range in every job posting.

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In this episode of Money Lessons, Andy treats a new skill the way he'd treat any other investment: what it costs, what it returns, and when to make it. 

He defines skill gap, upskilling, and reskilling; explains why skills go stale, with the World Economic Forum's finding that workers can expect 39 percent of their skills to be transformed or outdated by 2030; and works through a $3,000 certificate step by step, counting the money, the hours, and the years the skill will keep earning. 

Fun fact: an employer with an educational-assistance plan can pay up to $5,250 a year toward your education — or, since the 2025 tax law, your student loans — with no tax on it.

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In this episode of Money Lessons, Andy asks whether the work you're paid for fits the purpose you have — and what it costs you when it doesn't. 

He defines purpose, alignment, misalignment, and golden handcuffs, then prices misalignment three ways in dollars: disengagement that lets your skills fade, golden handcuffs that make leaving a calculation instead of a feeling, and drift that keeps your human capital from growing. 

Gallup's newest numbers are here, including the fun fact that low engagement cost the world economy about $10 trillion in 2025. 

AndrewTemte.com

In this episode of Money Lessons, Andy turns from what you earn this year to what you can earn over a working life. 

He defines human capital — the competence, experience, and health an employer or customer will pay for — and measures it against the asset most families count as their largest, home equity. 

Drawing on the Federal Reserve's survey of family finances, Georgetown's lifetime-earnings estimates, and the World Bank's wealth accounts, he shows why earning power is the largest asset most people will ever own, even though it never appears on a personal balance sheet. 

He explains why a raise compounds the way investment returns do, why that makes skills built early worth more, and why only skills that last keep compounding. 

AndrewTemte.com