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What We Charge

We are fee-ONLY. We are paid ONLY by our clients and never make commissions, sales incentives, kick-backs, or third-party compensation as is often the case with “fee-based” arrangements.

We are compensated based upon how your portfolio behaves, and not paid based on transactions. When you prosper we prosper. When you suffer, we suffer.

As fiduciaries, we have a legal obligation to you to minimize your investment costs such as transaction fees to only those necessary in the managment of your assets.

We get paid only for as long as you want us to advise you.

Our fees are fully disclosed, agreed to up front in writing and easily tracked.

Fee Rates

  • We benchmark our fees periodically to make sure we believe this statement to be true:

    We are not expensive and you do not want cheap.

  • Given the breadth and depth of our expertise, the attentiveness of our service staff, and ever-present fiduciary duty to our clients, we believe our fees are more than fair.

  • With cheap, you get what you pay for – typically superficial financial planning, conflicted implementation, cookie cutter approaches, a lack of proactivity, limited responsiveness, limited scope, limited depth of thinking, limited expertise, and people who often don’t really know you and usually owe their allegiance to a third party, not you.

  • Each client is unique, so fees must be determined by each situation, however, they are not a mystery. There are no surprises or hidden fees. Prospective clients receive a written outline of the services to be provided and the associated fees. Clients receive a detailed written fee calculation before being billed. Once charged, the fees are shown clearly and prominently on client statements.

  • Clients with more than $1,000,000 in investment assets, regardless of what types of accounts are owned or at which financial institutions the accounts are held, pay us less than 1% per year. “Investment assets” are things such as stocks, bonds, options, mutual funds, ETFs, REITs, closed-end funds, UITs, and all types of deferred annuities. (We do not count real estate holdings or personal assets like furnishings, cars, and jewelry).

  • For clients with less than $1,000,000 in investment assets, 1% annually is the most common rate.

  • Typically, we are engaged on an asset based fee, although alternate arrangements such as a flat project fee, an annual fee, or hourly consulting fee are available if better suited to the work.

Minimum Criteria for Becoming a Client

While we enjoy taking on new clients, serving our current clients remains our top priority. To provide the best advice and service to our clients, we believe it is necessary to limit the number of clients we serve. Accordingly, we have established minimum criteria for becoming a client.

We work with clients who are willing to...

  • Be kind and treat everyone at our firm like a friend who is here to help you.

  • Take advice to get and keep their personal finances, not just their investments, in the best shape possible.

  • Collaborate on high level strategy.

  • Delegate (not relegate) investment management to our team of professionals.

  • Consider our professional relationship as a long-term endeavor.

  • Thoughtfully participate in goal setting.

  • Pay reasonable and customary fees. For new clients, our fee is 1% or less of financial asset accounts (IRAs, Roth IRAs, brokerage accounts, 401(k)s etc., not household banking accounts) subject to a minimum asset level of $1,000,000. Exceptions to the minimum are typically made only for households referred to us or that are substantial savers.

When we say "we work for you," it is not a marketing slogan. It is a literal fact.

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