Case Studies

The Story:

Steve and Amanda have been married 4 years and just recently had their first child, with another one on the way. Both of them are entrepreneurial. Steve runs a 10 employee small business. Amanda is a nurse practitioner while also working 1 day a week in the emergency room and an additional night shift as an on call trauma center.

Not only have they been extremely high income earners, they’ve also been diligent savers. They hold a range of retirement accounts, multiple brokerage accounts, and own some rental real estate.

They own their own home and have enjoyed their growing family.

The Challenge:

The accumulation of responsibilities, progression of their careers, and ever-increasing demands on their time resulted in their finances getting out of hand.

They had plenty of money - but their financial life was extremely disorganized. They wanted a system to help them tame the chaos and create a framework through which they could make the best financial decisions for their growing family.

They decided to seek out a professional Fee-Only Fiduciary Financial Advisor to help them:

Combine their finances. They shared their financial responsibilities equally, but had never combined accounts leading to a tangled mess of bank accounts.
Monitor their spending habits and savings rate. Their incomes were so high that they never worried about money - but they realized they had no idea how much they were actually saving!
Create an investment plan for huge amounts of cash that were accumulating in their checking and savings accounts. They knew they were getting less than 1/10th of 1% interest on those balances, but the amount had grown so large that they were paralyzed trying to make a decision where to send such a large amount of cash.
They wanted to invest in Real Estate but were unsure how to evaluate the decision or what to do with savings that would eventually be invested in real estate.
They wanted to have a plan to pay for Nicoles education when she came of age but did not know the best method or solution.
They each had multiple retirement accounts with old employers that they had been ignoring since leaving those employers.
Steve wanted to know when it would be wise to consider selling his business and how to plan for the proceeds once it sold.

The Solution:

By partnering with a Fee Only Fiduciary Certified Financial Planner professional, Steve and Amanda were able to:

Build a reliable expense tracking system that helped them understand their true savings rate.
Combine their household finances and consolidate their 15+ bank accounts into 4 accounts.
Created an investment strategy for their substantial cash balance that included their children’s future education, an allocation for future real estate investments, as well as longer term investable money.
Create models that would assist Steve in evaluating at what price it would be worth selling his business based on the income that could be created with the proceeds.
Document a strategy that would maximize their substantial savings.