The focus is on helping clients determine the amount available for investing, decide how that amount is to be invested, and calculate how the investment income will contribute to the cash flow budgets.

This is accomplished through analysis of the following investment criteria:

• Client’s risk tolerance level
• Client’s time frame for achieving each financial objective
• The importance of diversification to spread the risk among different asset classes and investment instruments
• Income tax considerations — including client’s tax bracket and available tax credits
• Liquidity needs along with the ease with which each investment can be bought and sold

We focus on determining the amount needed/desired upon retirement and then determine which retirement plan options will best address those goals. This includes:

• Helping clients plan how they will accumulate money using qualified, personal, and/or non-qualified plans
• Helping clients maximize assets during their working years.
• Determining with clients the best methods and timing for withdrawing retirement income.

We focus on helping clients provide for risks that can cause serious financial loss – to pay medical bills, to replace income lost to disability, or to maintain a standard of living after the death of a spouse or other loved one. Areas of insurance planning include:

• Term life, whole life, universal life, variable life
• Health insurance
• Disability
• Long-term care

Involves identifying beneficiaries and what they are to receive both during life and upon death. This includes:

• Educating clients to available estate planning techniques and tools
• Advising clients on using techniques and tools to achieve the client’s estate plan and goals
• Helping clients determine how they will transfer property during their life through gifts in order to reduce the size of the potential probate estate while also avoiding a tax burden on beneficiaries
• Helping clients determine how property will be transferred at death by means of will, intestate, contract, and/or trust

Tax Planning involves helping clients find potential tax savings through reducing or shifting current or future income tax liabilities. This includes:

• Guiding clients in deferring income and/or accelerating expenses at year end
• Helping clients choose strategies to realize losses or gains through a wide range of allowable actions

We focus on identifying current and future costs of education, projecting personal education goals for client’s children, and determining the financial needs by year through to the end of those educational activities. This will including helping clients to:

• Create an educational budget
• Find sources where client and their children can learn about educational options
• Evaluate each financial aid award and make strategy adjustments accordingly
  

We focus on understanding the values and desires of clients and their families. We help clients enhance their quality of life through a sensible Charitable Giving Plan. This includes:

• Getting to know clients and their families well enough to understand the values and desires that drive them.
• Helping clients identify charitable giving opportunities that fit within their value structure while helping to minimize their tax liability
• Assisting clients in developing a Charitable Giving Plan to be incorporated into the Cash Flow and Expense Budgets