Your trusted partner for every financial decision • Serving Montgomery County, PA & Nationwide
Straight answers from a fee-based financial planner, PA-based, on what people ask most: advice, cost, choosing an advisor, and how we’d actually work together.
A financial advisor provides advice on financial goals, usually through investment advice. A strong financial advisor will also plan and analyze your entire financial picture. A financial advisor creates a plan in accordance with your values to help you optimize, organize, and realize your financial goals.
Every piece of your life where money touches is interrelated. Your salary and expenses impact your savings rate, which impacts your retirement goal. How, where, and in what you invest will dramatically impact your taxes. Your health care, employee benefits, Social Security, and Medicare will all impact your plan too.
While these terms can be interchangeable, the difference is important. Financial advisors typically focus on investments, whereas financial planners focus on your entire financial life. At Fat Cat Financial, I offer financial planning with or without investment management, and I always pair investment management with financial planning.
A fiduciary is a trusted advisor who puts your needs ahead of everything else. As the CFP® Board puts it, “a CFP® professional commits to CFP® Board to act as a fiduciary—which means to act in the best interests of the client at all times when providing financial advice and financial planning.”
A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ is a board-certified designation. Practitioners commit to rigorous education, experience, and exam requirements to earn the marks. They also must adhere to strict ethical standards. Lastly, “as part of their certification, a CFP® professional commits to CFP® Board to act as a fiduciary—which means to act in the best interests of the client at all times when providing financial advice and financial planning.”
A fee-based financial planner, PA clients included, is an investment in your financial future. Pricing can range from a percentage of your investments to hourly or flat-dollar amounts, and industry pricing can range drastically. It’s important to know exactly what scope of services your advisor provides. To quote one of the all-time greats, Warren Buffett: “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.”
Ongoing wealth management uses the tiered, blended fee schedule shown at the bottom of this page. Planning projects begin at $3,000, and hourly consulting is $300 per hour.
Investors who use a financial advisor typically fare better than those who do not. Multiple studies show how investors benefit from using a competent financial advisor. Some industry studies show multiple percentage points of alpha added to your returns. The average stock market investor underperforms not only the broader stock market, but also the investments they hold, due to poor behavioral decision-making.
Hiring a financial advisor is for anyone who wants the most out of their money, not just the wealthy. A financial advisor is a trusted partner who can help you maximize your financial life and turn your dreams into reality.
I’d love to work together at Fat Cat Financial Advisors. I encourage all my clients to check out the CFP® Board website, LetsMakeAPlan.org.
Besides the baselines of credentialed, professional, and experienced:
You should start working with a financial advisor whenever you have life milestones, such as buying a house, starting a new job, welcoming a baby, or nearing retirement, as well as financial goals, transition moments, or any time you’re feeling anxious about your money.
A strong financial advisor will help you in every phase of your life. Just because you’re retired doesn’t mean you stop interacting with money. As a retiree, it is just as important, if not more so, to have a plan for your money than when you were working. The conversation shifts from “how much do I need?” to “how can I make it last?” or “how much can I spend?” I tell investors we invest for the rest of our lives, not just to reach retirement.
An advisor is an individual, or maybe a team of people, managing your investments and developing a personalized plan. A robo-advisor, as the name suggests, is computer software that manages your investments based on a formula and may provide some calculations on financial goals. Doing it on your own means sourcing your own investment research, understanding the tax code, knowing how much you need for your goal, and implementing and monitoring your plan.
Yes. I can work with anyone residing in the U.S.
Yes. In fact, a good financial advisor should help you make sense of your tax picture. A key difference between a financial advisor and a tax professional is that one is proactive and planning-based, while the other is reporting your activity to the IRS. You will still need a tax professional to help you file, and I am not a tax professional and cannot file your taxes for you. I will partner with your tax professional to help you be as tax-efficient as possible.
Yes. I will help you navigate the complexities of estate planning, much like the tax code (surprise: estate planning overlaps with tax planning). I am not an attorney and cannot write legal documents. Estate planning is an overlooked part of most people’s financial lives. As the saying goes, the only certainties are death and taxes, and a good plan prepares for both. A solid estate plan covers more than just what happens to your money after you’re gone. It will ensure your assets are titled properly, you have sufficient life insurance, custodian designations for your kids, healthcare directives, powers of attorney, and more.
Yes. College savings goals are like a mini retirement funding goal. Like retirement, college savings has specific account types to help get you there. I will help you make sense of the landscape and how much you might need.
Yes. Social Security is another major factor in most people’s retirement plans, and timing when to file can make a big impact on your long-term plan.
Yes. Employee benefits are a potential gold mine of value waiting to be unlocked.
I’ve developed my investment philosophy through a healthy combination of experience and research. I keep my favorite investors’ writings handy, which include a steady diet of John Bogle, Peter Lynch, Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger, to name a few.
My foundations are optimism and belief in our capital markets. Asset ownership is one of the most efficient ways to build long-term wealth. The US stock market and economy are at the heart of all investment portfolios I build, because while the US is not perfect, it is the largest and most innovative capital market in the world. Inflation is an unfortunate, ever-present feature of the global economy. Savers can get left behind, but investors can get ahead.
All of my investment recommendations are customized to each investor. We start with the why, the timeline, and your preferences. I create a customized Investment Policy Statement outlining the above and more with every investor.
Ongoing wealth management uses a tiered, blended fee. Because it’s blended, each portion of your assets is charged at its own tier’s rate, so your effective rate drops as your assets grow.
First $1,000,000
$1,000,000.01 – $3,000,000
$3,000,000.01 – $5,000,000
$5,000,000.01 and above
The fastest way to a clear answer is a free, no-pressure conversation.
