How We Work With Financial Planning Clients
Carrie & Corey take an uncommon approach within the financial services industry by providing specific, personalized financial planning advice on an hourly or flat-fee project basis, and at a specific, transparent price.
Our goal is to provide you with a thorough financial plan that is simple enough for you to implement and manage in the future. Our engagements are time-limited and defined; however, we are here for you when you need your plan updated due to major life changes, as you transition into a new season of life, or annually for a financial planning check-up. Ultimately, we want to help set you up for financial self-sufficiency and provide follow-up advice on an as-needed basis.
This approach generally appeals to clients who are self-directed and want to take more control of their finances, as well as clients who either do not have enough assets to meet a money manager’s minimum or do not want to pay an ongoing fee to a money manager based on a percentage of their assets. Our aim is to support clients to have the capacity, temperament and energy to implement their own financial plan.
Process & Pricing for Financial Planning Services
Financial Planning Process: What to Expect When You Work With Us
After an introductory meeting with Corey, you complete a financial planning questionnaire and securely provide us with documents relating to all areas of your financial life.
Once we receive your information, we complete the following analyses:
Detailed cash flow projections of your income, expenses and taxes for the remainder of your life, allowing you to better understand where your money is coming from and where it is going on a year-by-year basis.
A portfolio analysis of your current investment and retirement accounts, where we review your strategy and make specific recommendations to ensure your portfolio is in line with your risk tolerance and time horizon, is properly allocated and globally diversified, and is tax efficient. In particular, we design and provide a “Bucket Strategy” investment portfolio (also known as a “Time-Segmentation Strategy”) to match retirement spending needs with appropriate investments. This approach helps you better understand the purpose of the different asset classes (e.g., stocks vs. bonds) in your portfolio and how they connect with your cash flow spending needs. Please note that we are not “stock pickers” but rather index fund- and ETF-oriented financial planners – for more information on our investment philosophy, please see Carrie & Corey ’s Statement of Investment Philosophy & Approach.
A portfolio longevity analysis to determine your risk of running out of money in retirement; and if you are at risk, we create “What-If” scenarios by changing spending goals and other variables to improve your chances of a financially successful retirement.
A tax analysis to determine the most tax-sensitive strategy for withdrawing from your various financial accounts in retirement, opportunities for Roth conversions and guidance on tax-efficient ways to transfer assets to the next generation.
A Social Security claiming strategy based on your personal situation.
Analysis of healthcare costs in retirement, including health insurance before and after eligibility for Medicare, and how long-term care costs might impact your financial picture in retirement.
We deliver to you in both hard copy and electronic form a four-part financial plan including a summary action plan, recommended portfolio, and detailed cash flow projections, and review the plan in detail with you at a two hour in-person plan presentation meeting.
We do not implement or monitor the plan but support you to do so. Included in the package are unlimited email follow-up questions about the plan.
Financial Plan Price: How Much Does It Cost?
The typical fee for this service is $6,000, based on 20 hours of work at an hourly rate of $300 per hour; however, we track our hours and if we work less than the estimate, we will only charge you for hours worked. Please note that the state of Iowa requires that we charge sales tax on financial plans, so this is in addition to the service fee.
Financial Plan Check-Up
This service is billed at $300 per hour.
You schedule one or more hours of our time to review your existing financial plan, discuss new developments in your financial situation, and address portfolio rebalancing needs.
We meet either face-to-face or by Zoom. You may provide documents prior to or at the meeting for our review, and we will have accessible the financial plan we previously developed for you.
During the meeting, we provide you with personalized advice addressing your specific questions. Some analysis may be performed with respect to portfolio rebalancing and updating retirement projections as necessary.
Please note that if changes to your financial situation are significant and/or more than two to three years have gone by since your last financial plan with us, it may be more appropriate to create a new plan instead of a quick update to an existing but old plan.