We use an advisory fee based on the size of your accounts with us. What that means to you: we focus on taking care of your money — not only on moving things around or adding money to generate commissions (we don’t do those). The advisory fee is based on the end of each quarter’s account value and deducted from your account about ten days later (ie around the 10th of each third month). You don’t have to write a check or have money deducted from your bank account to pay for our service.

Less than 1% per year of your account value (calculated and deducted quarterly).

It usually varies depending on the tenure of our relationship and what is happening in your life.

The initial phase working together tends to involve more frequent meetings or calls while we get to know each other and make progress on your overall plan. If there are no major decisions to make or significant changes to discuss, we may talk briefly just two to four times a year.

When there are major life or financial issues to work on – nearing retirement, family changes (marriage, baby, kids to college, moving, death, divorce), job changes, major purchase decisions (homes, businesses, vehicles), inheriting money, etc – we may have a flurry of conversations again.

We never force you to spend more time than you want to talking with us, but we do need to keep in touch with your situation, goals, and financial situation to fulfill our professional obligation and do the best job possible for you. We aim to deliver just the right amount of detail for you to feel informed and comfortable with your planning, but never dread sitting through boring meetings looking at charts when you’d rather be doing something else! Luckily, WE don’t think this stuff is boring – but we understand that some people do.

Our client accounts are held at LPL Financial. LPL is a Fortune 500 company and one of the largest institutions in the country serving independent advisors–holding over $1 trillion of investor accounts. It is not as well known of a brand because LPL has no direct-to-investor offering. However, two of its largest competitors that serve independent advisors are Fidelity and Charles Schwab. Read more about LPL here (link to https://www.lpl.com/about-Us.html on the “here”). Because we are independent, we have the freedom to move the business to somewhere like Schwab or Fidelity, (with your permission, of course, if we found LPL wasn’t providing enough support to help us serve you.

Yes. We love the recent focus on fiduciary advice. However, we don’t think putting our clients’ interest first in all circumstances is something to brag about. It’s just the minimum standard that we start from.