A financial plan should include a review of your goals and objectives, investment portfolio, pre-retirement and post-retirement income and expense projections, retirement and investment account type choices, retirement planning strategies, tax planning, charitable giving, and asset protection (insurance) strategies, as well as concrete recommendations and steps for implementing your goals. A financial plan should illustrate numerous scenarios (and alternative scenarios) you may have to choose from to help determine the best path forward.

People retire at various ages. One central question is, do you have enough to maintain the lifestyle you want for a retirement that could last 30 years or more? Your income in retirement will come from your retirement investment accounts and savings, pension, brokerage accounts, Social Security benefits, annuity income (if you have one), and any other investments you may have.

We take an evidence-based approach to investing and rely upon decades of market history when building our portfolios rather than trying to predict the future. Academic research consistently shows that trying to time the market does not work. While you cannot control or predict the future, you can control risk, asset allocation, expenses, and taxes. We seek to avoid emotional reactions that can detract from your long-term investment returns, as many different market psychological factors can lead to investment mistakes.

Risk can be reduced through diversification. This is more than just having a lot of holdings. A diversified portfolio contains companies of different sizes and sectors of the economy, and has the right mix of stocks vs. bonds. While you cannot eliminate investment risk, you can minimize it.

We seek to minimize expenses by using low-cost mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. High costs can drag down the return of any portfolio, no matter how diversified it is. 

Taxes are also a significant component of any investment strategy. While you can rarely eliminate taxes, you can minimize them. An efficient investment strategy always considers the tax implications. 

More information on our investment philosophy can be found here

Each section of a comprehensive plan is examined separately AND as it impacts all the other components. A decision in your investment portfolio affects taxes, retirement, and your estate. Modular plans tend to be short-sighted because trying to analyze just one area results in recommendations that disregard their effect on the rest of your financial situation.