John Fiore - Financial Advisor

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Hartford, CT
John Fiore - Financial Advisor

Financial Advisor @ CREATIVE Financial Group
Helping people achieve both their financial and personal goals

08/26/2026

You get your first "real" paycheck, and it feels like you just won the lottery.

Then rent comes out. Car payment. Student loans. A few subscriptions you forgot you signed up for. Dinner with friends because you finally have money to actually go out.

And somehow, by the time your next paycheck hits, you're wondering where all of it went.

Sound familiar?

Here's the thing nobody really teaches you: making more money doesn't automatically mean having more control over it.

I've seen plenty of people go from making $45K to $70K and still feel like they're living paycheck to paycheck. The number on the paycheck went up. The stress didn't go down.

That's not a spending problem. That's a cash flow problem.

Budgeting doesn't have to mean tracking every dollar down to the penny in some spreadsheet you'll abandon in two weeks.

It means actually knowing three things: what's coming in, what's going out, and what's left over to actually work for you — whether that's savings, investing, or paying down debt faster.

Most people in their first couple years on the job are so focused on the day-to-day that they never step back and build that picture. And it's not because they're bad with money. It's because no one ever sat down and showed them how.

You don't have to figure this out by trial and error the way most of us did.

If you're a few years into your career and you've never actually mapped out where your money goes — that's exactly where I'd start with you.

08/21/2026

Happy Friday everybody!

Treat yourself to a b**r this weekend. Or a diet coke. Or both.

I'm certainly not one to judge.

Just make sure they're cold.

08/20/2026

This is the first fall in 20 years of my life where I won't be playing football.

Twenty years.

Pop Warner to high school to college — basically my entire life up to this point.

Fall has always meant the same thing to me.

Two-a-days. Film sessions. Late night team meetings. And an irreplaceable bond with a good group of guys.

This year, none of that.

Is it going to sting watching my friends who still have one more year left go out there for Week 1? Absolutely.

There's a part of me that's going to be sitting there wishing I was in pads instead of in the stands.

Guess I have to fill the void somehow. So naturally, I've accepted my fate of becoming one of those die-hard college football fans who's got the TV on by 7:30am watching Pat McAfee & College GameDay before the sun's even fully up.

All in on my Buckeyes & Jeremiah Smith this year.

Football's not leaving my life. It's just showing up a little differently this time.

08/19/2026

It's Tuesday morning. Your foreman doesn't show.

Not sick. Not stuck in traffic. He took a job two towns over for two dollars more an hour.

You call him. He doesn't pick up. You already know why.

Now you're down a guy who knew every job site, every client, every shortcut that actually mattered — and you're back on Indeed trying to explain what "10 years experience preferred" even means to someone who might not last six months.

I sit across from business owners every week — guys running electrical crews, HVAC companies, fabrication shops. Built from nothing, usually with their own hands, usually the hard way.

And I ask them the same question every time: "What happens if your best foreman gets a call from a competitor tomorrow?"

Most of them go quiet.

Because they know the answer. Their guy leaves for two extra dollars an hour and a dental plan they don't currently offer.

You didn't build your business to lose your best people over benefits you could've put in place for less than you think.

If you're running a crew of 10-25 and you've never actually priced out group benefits — not because you don't care, but because nobody's shown you what it actually costs — that's a conversation worth having.

08/18/2026

Going to college in Hartford, Connecticut is really an experience like no other.

On campus, it's beautiful. Especially in the spring, when the grass is green, flowers are blooming, and the quad is filled with life. And you don't fully appreciate it until you're gone.

But take one step off campus, and you genuinely never know what you're going to run into. Hartford has a way of keeping you on your toes. Every walk into the city was its own little adventure.

I trash-talked that city more than I probably should have. Complained about it constantly while I was there.

And it's only been two months since I graduated, and I already miss it.

I guess you could call it a guilty pleasure. The kind of place you swore you'd never miss, and somehow you do anyway.

And I have to admit — say what you want about Hartford — but that city knows how to put on a sunset.

Some of the best I've ever seen.

08/17/2026

When I was a kid, my dad was the defensive coordinator at Bloomfield High School.

I was at almost every single game. Sitting in the stands, or standing right on the sideline glued to my Dad's hip, close enough to feel the energy of every single snap.

I remember one game like it was yesterday — Bloomfield against Montclair, at MetLife Stadium, a heartbreaking overtime loss.

I was standing right there on the field when it happened.

Young enough that I didn't fully understand the weight of it, but old enough to feel how much it hurt everyone player on my Dad's team.

I remember thinking, even then — I want to play here one day. I want to feel what this stage feels like, not just watch it from the sideline.

About 10 years later, that dream came true.

State Championship. Bergen vs. Bosco. Some argue one of the best rivalries in the entire country.

Over 10,000 people in the stands, the same stadium I stood in as a kid watching my dad coach.

We won.

It's one of the best feelings I've ever had in my entire life.

Full circle, in the truest sense.

And yeah — it also gave me permanent bragging rights over my Pops. I plan on holding onto those for a long, long time.

08/14/2026

The New York Jets play football today folks. First game in 222 days.

And I'm all in.

Garrett Wilson. Breece Hall. Minkah Fitzpatrick. David Bailey. Geno Smith.

On paper, this team actually looks pretty damn good. Dangerous, even. The kind of roster that makes you start doing math on playoff scenarios before Week 1 even kicks off.

Am I ready to get my hopes completely dismantled by October? Without a doubt.

I've seen this movie before. I've watched this franchise find new and creative ways to break my heart more times than I can count. I know exactly how this story usually goes.

But here's the thing — I was born into this.

Jets fandom isn't something I chose. It's something that was handed to me, the same way it was handed to my dad, and probably his dad before him.

You don't get a say in it. You just inherit the hope, and the heartbreak that usually comes with it.

So today, before Geno throws three interceptions within the first two quarters, before we get turned into the laughing stock of the NFL like years past — just let me have this.

Let a kid who's been through it all a hundred times over have a little hope.

One more time.

J-E-T-S

08/13/2026

High school, I was a captain. A good player. The guy coaches leaned on and teammates looked to when things got tough.

I walked into college football with that same confidence. Figured the transition would be smooth. Figured I'd earned my spot already.

Freshman year, I didn't even dress for some games.

I remember standing on the sideline in my team sweatsuit, watching guys I used to compete against on paper now competing at a completely different level.

It humbled me fast.

Made me realize everything I thought I knew about hard work, I actually had to relearn from scratch.

No one was going to hand me anything. Not here.

So I put my head down. Extra reps. Extra film. Extra everything.

Slowly, I earned my way back — not to where I was in high school, but to somewhere I actually had to fight for.

That freshman year taught me more about resilience than any highlight ever did.

It's a lesson I still carry with me every single day.

08/12/2026

Never thought I'd end up working right down the road from my childhood home.

600 feet away. That's it.

Growing up, I drove past this building more times than I could count.

On the way to school. On the way to practice. On late-night Quickchek runs.

Never once did I notice it was there.

It was just another building on a street I knew like the back of my hand.

Fast forward years later, and that same building is where I show up every single day now.

Where I've built relationships, learned the business, and started figuring out who I want to be in this industry.

Sometimes you don't need to go far to find where you're supposed to be. You just have to be paying attention when you finally get there.

Life really does come full circle sometimes.

08/11/2026

I'm the III.

My grandfather built something from nothing.

My father carried it forward.

And now it's on me to make sure the next generation — the IV, the V — are in a better position than I was.

That's not just a legacy thing or a family thing.

It's a business owner thing.

You didn't build your business just to keep it running for yourself.

You built it so your name means something for the people who come after you.

The problem is, most business owners spend so much time IN the business, they never build a plan FOR the business — what happens to it, who inherits it, and how the next generation is set up to actually succeed with what you've built.

I want to help you make sure your name carries forward the right way. Not by accident. By design.

(Let’s ignore the rats nest on top of my head lol)

Address

30 Two Bridges Road
Hartford, CT
07004

Website

https://www.1creative.com/

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