Building a plan precisely tailored to you

For our first step, we focus on you as a person: your values, what’s important to you, your risks or fears, your goals, and the challenges or unique circumstances you face. This creates a powerful framework for generating a financial plan that is consistent with your life and more likely to succeed in taking you where you want to go. We believe some financial advisors do not start with this important foundation and instead push whatever products they’re incentivized to push. This is a critical reason people often fail to reach their goals.

A few questions to think about before our first consultation are:

• How do you feel about the progress you’ve made with your planning so far?
• How much money does it take, after tax, to sustain your lifestyle?
• What are your thoughts on funding college for children or grandchildren?
• What will your retirement look like?
• How do you envision spending your time in retirement?
• What challenges will your job or business face over time?
• Are there any charitable or religious organizations you want us to consider in your planning?
• What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind for your children, grandchildren or society at large?

For the second step, we go over any relevant data and documents not covered in the first meeting in order to completely understand your financial picture. This can include bank statements, mutual funds, college savings accounts, brokerage statements, 401(k) or 403(b) information, IRAs, pensions, insurance policies, real property, businesses, mortgages, other debt, pay stubs, tax returns and more. A checklist of items is available in the “What to bring to our meeting” accordion below.

Personal Assets and Investments
(Most recent statements or links to online records)

• Checking account(s) – typical balance
• Savings account(s)
• Investments
• Personal notes owed you by others
• Stock options and stock purchase plan agreements
• Other financial asset records

Retirement Statements

• Company pension plan statements
• 401(k)/403(b) plan statements
• SEPs/SIMPLE/Keogh statements
• IRA/Roth IRA statements
• Social Security earnings and benefit estimate statement
• Summary plan description from employer-provided benefits

Insurance and Annuities
Most recent statements or links to online records are preferred.

• Life insurance policies
• Disability policies
• Long-term care policies
• Annuities
• Other policies

Tax Documents

• Most recent income tax return
• W-2 and recent pay stub
• Estimated yearly taxes
• Details of other regular income
• Irregular income

Legal/Estate Planning Documents

• Will(s)
• Trusts
• Health Care Directive and Power of Attorney
• Financial Power of Attorney

Business-Related Documents

• Partnership Agreement
• Corporation/LLC Documents
• Buy/Sell Agreements
• Qualified Plans Documents

For the third step, we lay out a strategy tailored for you, including a step-by-step program that will realistically guide you toward achieving your goals while planning for the unfortunate things that sometimes happen in life. This is a collaborative process: seeing a concrete plan in place often leads to adjustments as your life evolves and your priorities change.

Depending on your unique circumstances, a good financial plan often includes things like investment strategy, risk management strategies, college funding, retirement income strategies and pension or Social Security planning.

Following the third step, you’ll have a written plan, including potential changes you can choose to make, and the clarity and confidence that results from having in hand a plan designed to get you where you need to go while simplifying your life.

With an honest and clear plan in place, clients tell us that they feel more in control of their future, allowing them to focus on their family and career without distraction.

What gives us immense satisfaction is that most of the people who work with us through the two planning meetings stay with us to implement their plan. They decide to continue working with us to turn their plan into reality. We are with our clients to help when their child enters college, they sell their business, they retire from their job, and even when they buy their vacation home or go on their dream vacation.

By working with us on implementation, our clients have a clear plan, accountability and the ability to adjust their plan as their situation changes. We welcome working with our clients as a family, including children and parents, to develop a holistic plan that meets everyone’s needs and provides clear goals and expectations for all involved. We also welcome working with your other advisors, such as CPAs and attorneys, in order to make the plan as effective as possible.

The real value in preparing a financial plan is not in creating a one-time strategy and forgetting about it. Rather, a financial plan serves as a useful framework to prioritize what’s important to your individual situation. We review the progress toward your goals and adjust as your situation changes – marriage, children, jobs, income levels, health issues, etc. We also adjust as realized returns differ from those originally assumed, lifestyles change, and costs differ from what was originally assumed. With a strategic framework, a good financial plan provides the structure to handle what life throws at us.

There is no assurance any investment strategy will be successful. Investing involves risk including the possible loss of capital.