FAQs

What kind of experience do you have? Michael started in the financial services industry in 2001. Throughout his career, he gained experience in insurance, banking, and investments. He holds several securities licenses, along with the highly respected CFP® designation. He has helped thousands of individuals by guiding them on their financial journey to enjoy wellness in their finances. Over the last decade, he has enjoyed working with high-net-worth individuals primarily in the medical field, assisting with their retirement and investment needs.

Isn’t hiring a financial adviser expensive? You don’t have to hire an adviser. Of course, there usually is a cost to do that, but NOT having an advisor can be MORE expensive, in my opinion. From what I have seen, much of the value associated with working with an advisor comes from his or her ability to help you manage your emotions when making financial decisions. I have seen emotions cause investors to make the wrong decisions many times, especially when the market is extremely volatile. Having an adviser to help you through these times can help make a big difference.

I don’t have time for a bunch of meetings. Creating a comprehensive plan does take some time up front, but then requires less time on an ongoing basis. The process is streamlined, using online tools that eliminate much of the time-consuming data gathering. Meetings can be conducted through zoom to save on your travel time. Expect several hours spread over a number of weeks during the plan set up, followed by brief phone calls every quarter after that to track and implement steps on your plan. If you are not willing to invest some time in this process to improve your financial situation, then this service may not be the best fit for you.

What if I’m not a good fit? No problem, we want to work with people that are a good fit too. During our initial meeting, we’ll both be determining if there is a good fit between us. At the end of the meeting, one of us may feel like it would be better for the other to work with someone else. That’s OK. If that’s the case, we might even be able to recommend someone.

What if I’m not a medical professional, can you still help me? Although we primarily work with medical professionals, we can still help. Over the years, clients from other professions have been referred to us. This might happen when a physician is married to a teacher, or a nurse practitioner is married to an engineer. If there is a good fit between us, even if you’re an architect, we’ll be happy to help.

I don’t really understand investing, I don’t have the time for managing investments, or I don’t have the desire to manage investments. Can you help with that? YES!  Professional money management is built exactly for these situations. If you don’t understand investing, don’t try to do it. If you understand investing, but don’t have time to research and manage investments, don’t do it. If you understand investments, you have the time to manage them, but you just don’t WANT to, don’t do it. Hire a professional to do it for you. Your future self will thank you.

How do I know if I have enough money to retire? There is no magic number. Everyone is different because each person has different goals, needs, and desires. Some want to spend the early years of their retirement traveling, but some of our travel nurses never want to travel again! They want to work on their garden at home or some other hobby. As a result, clients will have very different needs. The best way to know how much you need is to have a retirement plan that looks at the everything from the big picture down to the nitty gritty. We’d be happy to help you put one in place.

How do I make sure I don’t run out of money in retirement? Making sure you don’t run out of money in retirement is one of our primary concerns. We will analyze your situation and outline steps you can take to make sure that doesn’t happen. We want you spend retirement enjoying your days and sleeping well at night!

How do I invest when the market is so crazy? We have reviewed hundreds of portfolios for clients who come to us for help. What we have repeatedly discovered, is that they have taken risks in their portfolio which never dreamed they had. The main way I have seen this happen is that they did not have appropriate guidance, and they invested in things they didn’t understand. They were left making their own decisions about how to invest their 401k, or they heard from their brother-in-law that it was a good investment, so they put their hard-earned money into it. This is not how you want to handle investing decisions. Investing with professional advice is a much better way to ensure you are taking a prudent approach with your money.