Our Services

A wise man said "If your only tool is a hammer, all problems are nails." However, we are not limited by the constraints of one profession or one product. You won't be forced into a limited (and limiting) course of action holding you back and enriching others at your expense. We can use a variety of tools, properly integrated to help you reach your goals.

We follow two fundamental principles:

We don't do anything unless it gets you closer to your goals. We don't sell products, and we take no commissions or referral fees, so our only motivation is helping you. We have no reason to spend our time doing anything else.
We try to keep things simple. We don't use exotic investment strategies or questionable tax schemes. All costs to implement and manage your plan (financial, emotional, and mental) must be justified. If you don't understand our suggestions, and you are not comfortable with it, then it won't be done.

Our Financial Specialties

Investment Management

Your investments must work for you, and not keep you awake at night. You likely have enough to worry about - your family, your work, your business, and your career without adding the stress of managing your investments.

We'll help you determine which investments are suitable, based on your goals and risk tolerance, to help you reach your goals. We'll help you develop, implement and monitor an effective investment program. We'll help you reduce investment acquisition and management investment costs by using no-load mutual funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs), and other appropriate investment vehicles.

In our efforts to provide cost-efficient and effective exposure to investment markets, we have been approved by Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) to use their enhanced indexed funds. We use DFA and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to provide core, low-cost exposure to markets, supplementing these core holdings with appropriate actively-managed funds in select segments of the investment markets.

As an independent fee-only firm, we are free to use a broad range of investment options, without being distracted by commissions or quotas on us by a corporate organization that may not have your best interest at hear.

Tax Planning

While taxes are a fact of life, unnecessary taxes hurt your ability to accumulate wealth. We'll work with your tax professionals to find opportunities to legally reduce taxes at the business, individual, and family level. Depending on your needs and resources, we may shift income to less-taxable entities, use tax deferred investment opportunities (retirement plans, annuities, etc.), or recommend tax-free investments.

The tax consequences of investment decisions can be significant. We locate the assets of a portfolio in the proper investment account. In other words, some investments are better suited for your IRA accounts while others work well in taxable accounts or Roth IRAs. We help our clients plan their taxes throughout the year. We would rather know the tax implications before making an investment decision than to simply deal with the consequences next April.

Retirement Distribution Planning

Retirement is about turning the assets you’ve built—savings, investments, Social Security, and any pension—into reliable income that can last as long as you do. In hiking, more injuries happen going down a mountain than climbing up, and retirement is remarkably similar. While saving before retirement takes discipline, the withdrawal phase is often much harder and where the costliest financial missteps occur. Without a paycheck, a simple mistake on the descent can completely derail your security.

Because tax rules and personal situations change, we plan ahead for the exact tax impact of each withdrawal, aiming to keep more of your money working for you over time. We help you systematically decide which accounts to draw from and when, so you can balance today’s needs with tomorrow’s safety. And when it comes to key choices like when to start Social Security, especially for married couples, we walk through the options so you can make confident, well‑informed decisions.

Financial Planning

We listen to you. We want to learn what you want most out of life with the wealth you've accumulated (or will accumulate). Once we're clear on what your dreams are, we get to work. We'll develop a course of action that will help you reach those dreams.

Estate Planning

The fundamental purpose of estate planning is to ensure that the assets you've accumulated during your life accomplish what you'd like after your death. We can review what you have and work with your attorney to assist you in the process of preparing the documents needed to carry out your wishes.

In the process of reaching other goals, you might accumulate enough assets to expose you to estate taxes. We can implement strategies to reduce these costs in a manner consistent with your objectives. We'll evaluate, recommend, and help implement wills, living trusts, life insurance and life insurance trusts, charitable organizations, and other strategies as they're needed.