Question 1

Can a financial planner help me manage my 401k?

Accepted Answer

Yes. This is one of the great values we bring to clients, helping them not only manage the retirement plans they have at old jobs, but also managing the ones they have at current jobs. All your retirement accounts should be thought of as being in suitcases; you can pick them up and take them wherever you want. They are yours, and there are expensive and inexpensive ways to manage them. So don’t just go and consolidate your accounts. Talk to us first. There are some very easy ways to save significant expense, and many similarly easy ways to create additional growth (often without increased risk).

Question 2

What can you do for me that I can’t do for myself?

Accepted Answer

Most people carry around “the weight of the undone,” or the guilt of not having gotten to it yet, or whatever you want to call it. It’s really not so much a question of “can you do it.” If you want to put in a lot of time and effort and make financial planning and management your main thing, you can probably do it. But most people don’t want to do that. Hire what you either don’t have time to do, or what you’re not great at, or both! We create affordable options for people at any stage of the game to get started, to organize their accounts, to create confidence in their strategy, and to design a cohesive plan.

Question 3

What is a fiduciary and why is it important?

Accepted Answer

A fiduciary is a person who has a professional obligation to put the interests of their clients before themselves. We are CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERS™ or CFP®’s, and, by definition, act as your fiduciary. It is crucial that when you hire a planner to help you with your financial life, he or she be a fiduciary. It’s really the only way to know whether they are actually doing this or not.

Question 4

What is the difference between a financial planner and an advisor? Financial Planner vs Advisor?

Accepted Answer

Advisors try to create investment returns to help people have enough to stop working at some point. Planners do the same thing, only they take into account all the variables that can potentially impact that effort. You may have heard the saying “it’s not what you make; it’s what you keep.” A planner helps with cash flow, risk management through all types of insurance, investment management, tax planning strategies, retirement income and planning strategies, and estate planning. As you can see, an advisor generally helps with only one, maybe two, of those areas. A planner – a CFP® – helps far more comprehensively, dealing with not just returns, but all the areas that together determine successful financial outcomes.

Question 5

What are the six areas of planning that a financial planner helps people optimize?

Accepted Answer

In priority order from basic to advanced, cash flow management, risk management (insurance coverages, etc.), investment planning, tax planning strategies, retirement planning strategies, and estate planning. I would add that a good planner also consults on the effective use of debt (kind of a combo of cash flow management and risk management), how and when a guaranteed income may be an appropriate solution (kind of a combo of risk management and retirement planning), Business transition strategy (how to sell, transfer, and structure a business transition deal), and being strategic about other types of investments including real estate and small business venture capital investments.

Question 6

Should I hire one person as an accountant, an attorney, and financial planner? Or should each be
separate?

Accepted Answer

Separate. Some companies are big enough to have a tax division and an investment division. There are also some professionals who claim to be able to do everything. Generally, in almost every situation, you should have three people, one for each role. For example, as a financial planner, I am not an accountant and I am not an attorney, and everything I say about those two fields is not final and should be checked against an expert in that field. That said, I often consult together with accountants and attorneys (and often insist on it) and am very familiar with what they do, what it costs, and what structure may be best in a given situation.

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