Planning for your future includes so much more than just investment management.
“A lot of people, when they come to us, they think the only thing that we do is investments, and we’re just another financial advisory firm. But after we go through our one-hour presentation they’re like, wow, I didn’t even know about those things.” – Larry Heller, CFP®
If you are interested in learning about the benefits you can get from working with a firm like Heller Wealth Management keep on reading!
Planning in Your Best Interest
When you are looking for a potential advisor, you should be asking if they are a “fiduciary” and whether you’ll be working with a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®).
Why? Because as CFP’s, the certified financial planning board holds us to a higher standard. At HWM, we are fiduciaries, and our planners are CFPs.
The first thing we will discuss are your aspirations, your life ambitions, and your financial goals. One of the first questions we ask you: “Paint us a picture of your life five years from now, 10 years from now, and then a year from now.”
Financial Plan
The next step is to put together a financial plan.
To get started, we’ll create a cash flow analysis so that when you are in retirement, you have an idea of how much you can withdraw from your retirement plan.
Once we start putting the numbers together, many clients begin to experience some peace of mind as they get a look at the bigger picture. In most cases, many find that they can spend more money in retirement than they originally thought.
Investment Strategies
Different investment strategies can come into play depending on the phase of your life you’re in. You may have one for your retirement, you may have another for putting away money for kids and grandchildren.
In addition, everyone’s a little different on their time horizon, their risk tolerance, their goals, their cash needs, coordinating with their social security, or if they have a pension, how much they’ll need.
We must look at the investments to make sure that you’re properly taken care of based on your unique situation.
Tax Savings
“It’s not about what you earn, but what you keep.” – Larry Heller, CFP®
Ask yourself: How do I keep the most amount of money?
Here are a few strategies you can use:
- Tax lot identification
- Low turnover ETF/funds
- Tax loss harvesting
- Tax bracket analysis
- Withdrawal order
- Roth conversion
- Inherited IRA planning
Legacy Planning
What are your wishes for where your money will go when you die? This is a question we all must ask ourselves.
We’ve seen many instances of clients come in with great, detailed wills written out. But so often we will realize no money will actually go through it after they die.
The problem lies within the way their accounts were set up. The title was joined, and they had beneficiaries on all their accounts. None of it was going through their wills because of title and beneficiaries. To prevent these instances, we always step in to make sure legacy planning is done properly.
Risk Management
Another benefit of working with us is risk management.
What happens when you die? What happens if you get sick? What happens if you become disabled? What happens if you get sued? What happens if you’re in a car accident? Are you and your loved ones properly taken care of?
We have a wealth of resources that we refer our clients to who will look at your life changes and make sure you’re properly taken care of. You can sleep better at night knowing you are taken care of in the event of an emergency.
Client Portal
In our client portal, we’re able to put everything together in one easy place and all your investments can be updated on a minute-by-minute basis.
You will also get an aggregated view of your portal on your phone app or tablet. Upon signing in, you will be able to see your investments and net worth at any time.
To learn in more detail how working without firm can benefit you, listen to episode 102 of the Life Unlimited Podcast or contact us via our contact page.
