Pricing

Our fees vary based on the services being provided. Once we have a better understanding of your financial picture, we will recommend the service that best fits your needs. Since each client brings a unique set of circumstances, it would not be appropriate for us to quote you a specific fee without first spending the time to get to know you. With that as a caveat, we prefer to work with on an Open Retainer basis because this allows clients to develop a sound financial plan, fully-implement it and refine it over time as circumstances inevitably change. In addition, this provides the additional value clients can choose to receive from our ongoing investment management and tax preparation services, the cost of which is already included in the Open Retainer. The fee for the Open Retainer is determined by income, assets and the complexity of the work involved. The fee is payable quarterly and is generally is higher in the initial year and reduces somewhat it future years. The Open Retainer fees begin at $3,000 annually but can be a multiple of this amount. If these fees strike as expensive, we ask you to consider three things.

• High-quality financial advice is generally far more valuable than its cost since such advice can have a material impact on your well-being for years to come.
• For those who have already established significant investment portfolios for which they are looking for someone to help provide investment advice, the cost of the Open Retainer is likely to be significantly less than what a percentage-of-assets-under-management based financial advisor would charge.
• The service being provided with the Open Retainer agreement is quite broad. It isn’t limited to the investments you’ve asked us to take responsibility for day-to-day oversight; it also includes other investments at your bank, in investment accounts you manage on your own or in your current or former employer’s 401(k) or 403(b) accounts, defined contribution pension or profit sharing plans. It isn’t limited to insurance issues. Or college funding issues. Or tax planning issues and tax preparation services. Or estate planning issues. It includes all of these areas as well as anything else financially related that may come up during our relationship – such as decisions regarding whether to buy, finance or lease a car, whether or not to refinance an mortgage and what credit card you should carry.

Our goal is to always to provide value greatly in excess of the cost. We believe strongly that the Open Retainer provides tremendous value to clients both in ways that are easy to measure and in ways that are not like your own “peace of mind.” For clients who have the need for only a Limited-Scope engagement, the fee will vary based on the specifics of the project and could be either a fixed amount or an hourly-based fee if it is difficult to assess the work upfront. For clients seeking solely a Financial Review there is a flat fee of $1,000 for a single two-hour meeting that includes some fact-finding, analysis and recommendations. The scope and depth of Financial Reviews is by definition limited.