About My Clients

My clients are individuals, families, married and unmarried couples. The brief stories below reflect the experiences of actual clients with fictitious names.

Mary works for the city and her partner Audrey is a school teacher. Both have pensions and Mary was considering retiring in three years, at age 59. Through the planning process, Mary realized that she and Audrey were likely to be much more secure financially if she worked a few more years. Her pension could be up to 20% higher, she could have up to $75,000 more in her 401(k) plan, and she could get a higher payment from social security. Both Mary and Audrey were excited to open an FDIC insured high-yield savings account at a community development bank for their emergency fund.

Joe and Donna are retired and collecting social security, and Donna has a small business. They have begun taking withdrawals from their retirement accounts and were uncertain how much they could take out each year and whether their money was going to last through retirement. We analyzed their cash flow and projected out the next 25 years with conservative assumptions to show what they needed to do to be confident that their funds would last. We also established a system of “buckets” of funds from most liquid to least liquid investments to help ensure that they would maintain an appropriate level of liquidity and not have to sell their equity investments on short notice.

Rex is a doctor.  His income increased dramatically over the past several years and he was holding large amounts of cash in CDs and money market accounts. As a busy doctor, he did not have time to review his multiple accounts and investments, and didn’t really understand his retirement plan options. We saved him thousands of dollars in current taxes and penalties by increasing his tax withholding and increasing salary deferrals into  retirement plans to the maximum allowable, including “catch up” contributions. We consolidated his accounts so they would be easier to manage, contributed to his nondeductible IRA (which will be converted to a Roth), and set up a process for him to make regular contributions to a sustainable and responsible portfolio of mutual funds. We also moved his emergency fund from a large national bank to a community development institution where he earns a fixed rate of interest and the funds are used to finance community development in the US and developing countries.

Mike is married and has several adult children and step-children. He works for an environmental organization and just inherited several hundred thousand dollars. He has never had that kind of money before, and wants to be a responsible steward of these resources, both for his family’s future and the environment. We invested the funds in a diverse, separately managed account of sustainable and responsible investments, including holdings in alternative energy. He and his wife went to an estate planning attorney to develop wills that would ensure that his inheritance would pass to beneficiaries according to his wishes.

Wanda is single and wants to change careers. As a realtor, her income varies considerably from year to year. We analyzed how much she should try and save over the next couple of years so she can go back to school to get the degree she needs to launch a new, more satisfying career, without taking on too much debt.

Phil’s employer does not provide a retirement account, Ellen is a self-employed consultant, and neither of them was making systematic tax-deferred contributions to retirement accounts. Through the planning process they realized that they were paying significantly more in taxes than needed, and missing out on a critical opportunity to save tax-deferred for retirement. Ellen rolled her 403(b) accounts from prior employers into a new SEP comprised of socially responsible mutual funds, and began contributing. Phil and Ellen’s plan also helped them realize that they should have more disability and life insurance on Phil. They began working with a reliable insurance broker to address their insurance needs.

Get started with financial planning

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