FAQs

This question comes from a place of being committed to one’s work, and we respect that position. We are also committed to assisting our clients with the highest quality of service possible. What we have found is when we work outside of normal business hours it tends to impact the quality of service we can provide for our existing clients. Let’s face it, we’re all human and there is only so much human energy to go around in a given day. Also, some of our office staff have young children at home. At the end of the day, when we choose to work extra hours to accommodate someone who isn’t willing to take a few hours off work to make sure their retirement savings is in good order, we’re choosing to not spend time with our children. Lastly, most of our clients are close to retirement or in retirement and what we have found is most of our clients have gotten to the point in their careers where they can take a couple hours off during a work day to see their dentist, their auto mechanic or their financial advisor.

This is an important question. We will be the first to say that we are not the cheapest financial planning firm nor are we the most expensive. Before we ever engage with a new client, we disclose their total cost for working with us. There can be variations in what it costs based on the client’s unique circumstances. What we have found is that our clients rarely question the fees they pay because we pride ourselves in overwhelming them with excellent customer service.

How To Excel in Retirement is a comprehensive guide for those nearing or in retirement, blending practical financial advice with personal anecdotes and professional insights. Drawing from years of experience in the financial services industry, the author offers valuable strategies and tips to ensure a confident and financially secure retirement.

This book will help you:

• Learn about tax strategies that can help minimize your taxation in retirement
• Discover Social Security timing and claiming strategies to help maximize your benefits
• Protect your hard-earned assets from market volatility

Approach retirement with eyes wide open and avoid potential land mines in your current plan.

While our heart’s desire is to help everyone, most of our clients are over the age of 55 and they are typically within five years of retirement or are in retirement. Just like a contractor who may specialize in carpentry or a doctor who specializes in orthopedics, we specialize in helping people navigate the challenges of retirement planning. Our goal is to help our clients avoid pitfalls that stand between them and a successful retirement.

We are an independent advisory firm. In our book we’ve dedicated a chapter to explain why this important. When a client works with a large national firm, things must be systemized to the point of it limiting a client’s options to one degree or another. Just like when we go to Starbucks, we know we are getting Starbucks coffee, and when we go to Dunkin Donuts, we know we’re getting their coffee. If Starbucks is what we are desiring, that may be a fine choice. When it comes to investing and financial planning, it’s no different. We believe by being an independent and by not affiliating with a larger entity we are able to more closely align our solutions to our client’s needs more consistently than if we were part of a large corporation. Ultimately, what it comes down to for us is that we have the sincere belief that our model allows us to put our clients’ interests first, which we believe is most important.

This question isn’t the way it’s normally expressed, but it’s a concern some people have. First, when you invest with our firm your money never directly comes through our hands. We are like a liaison directing where your funds are invested. Thankfully, government regulations make it very difficult for an advisor to defraud individuals, and the government keeps a database of all financial advisors. You can type in an advisor’s name and see a report on the advisor that outlines if they have ever had a regulatory or legal issue.

At our firm since most of our clients are entering a time in their life where they may distribute their savings to supplement their Social Security benefits and any other pension type payments, we believe it’s important to not seek to outperform the stock market. We are downside focused first. When we have years before we are going to use our life savings, we may be able to take more risks with our assets because we typically have the benefit of time to recover from any potential losses. When we are within five years of retirement or are in retirement, we believe we shift to an income and distribution stance in order to more consistently generate retirement income. If we are swinging for the fences and trying to hit a home run, we have to be okay with striking out. Our goal is to hit base hits which tend to be more consistent. This allows us to increase the probability of long-term success when it comes to retirement income planning.

Sadly, this is a common reason we are interacting with prospective clients. We’re not fully sure why this is such a frequent occurrence. We send out a weekly newsletter with updates from David that includes updates about the market and financial planning tips. Also, David frequently publishes a podcast so that you can hear directly from him. We meet with our clients at least once per year and as changes in their lives happen. At times it may be necessary to meet outside of our normal cadence and we do our best to accommodate those needs. Our goal is to respond to client calls and emails the same business day or by the end of the next business day.

Yes, we are a growth-oriented firm and we are seeking new clients. If you’re interested in learning more about our firm, we’d encourage you request a copy of David’s book. It’s a primer on what we do.

Our Excel in Retirement normally includes five steps. People generally initially interact with us in three ways. We conduct many educational workshops throughout the year on various financial planning topics. So, folks may be introduced to our firm in that format. Sometimes people find us online and when they do, we generally have an initial phone call to determine if it makes sense to proceed to the next step. And then some folks are referred to us by one of our current clients. We are always grateful when our clients are pleased enough with us to refer their friends or family to us.

From there we have a discovery strategy session, which is time for us to learn about you and you to learn more about us. We gather some of your information to determine if we may be able to help you, and we review our financial planning process on the whiteboard.

If we are still tracking together after our discovery session, we’ll schedule a time to get back together to review your financial analysis that outlines where you are now, your concerns and objectives, your assets, your monthly cash flow analysis, and suggestions to optimize what you may be doing. Our only request after this session is for you to go home and discuss it with your spouse if you’re married and think through the suggestions. If we are still tracking together, we’ll scheduled our implementation session.

In this session we begin putting the ball in motion and setting up your financial plan. This is where our client engages with us. From there, one to two months later we get together again and present all our new documents to you. We schedule a 90-day check-in call to make sure everything is working well with your plan on your end and we schedule our next visit which is typically one year out.

Our goal is to comprehensively assist our clients. Sometimes that means we are not directly paid for the help we provide. Understandably, some advisors / firms may not be interested in helping their clients with areas they are not compensated for. We believe there is often potential for our clients to earn thousands more from their Social Security benefits if they are claimed at the most advantageous time. This is one example of how we help our clients avoid common pitfalls that stand between them and a successful retirement.

Financial planning is a co-creative process that requires our clients to assist by being forthcoming about their goals, concerns, what they don’t want to happen, their assets, etc. If someone is unwilling to share details like those above, they’re probably not a good fit. Also, if you’re someone who enjoys managing your investments and frequently trading in and out of positions, we’re probably not a good fit. Lastly, while we do not adhere to a strict asset minimum, we do find that when we are helping someone comprehensively it’s often helpful to have at least $250,000 saved for retirement.

Obviously, this list of frequently asked questions is by no means exhaustive and we always welcome your questions. Please reach out to us if you have other questions. We look forward to connecting with you.