FAQ

Unlike other advisors, don’t worry there are no fees for meeting us. Financial planning is a trust-based, collaborative relationship and our initial meeting helps determine whether we are a good fit to work together. We will learn more about you, your family, your vision for financial success, ask questions and most importantly listen closely to determine what is most important to you. At this point, if you are considering working with us, we’ll discuss what the process will look like if you decide to move forward working together.

We help our current clients with most things associated with their personal financial lives. Some examples are financial planning, investment planning and growing your assets, college planning, estate planning, asset protection, preparing for retirement, referrals to local tax and legal professionals and many others. Our team’s experience and vetted network of professional service providers help point clients to appropriate providers based on their personal needs and preferences.

We understand not everyone needs our services. Many people have the skills, knowledge and time to manage their own wealth. We also understand many people do not have the experience or comfort level without having us as an advisor. We provide advice across many aspects of our client’s financial lives and coordinate with their professional tax advisors and legal advisors to put time back into our client’s lives to allow them to focus on the things that are most important to them.

We are always available to answer your questions, and we won’t send you an invoice either! Both our wealth management and financial planning engagements include full access to the entire Affluent Wealth Management team. We are available to answer your questions by phone, email or Zoom and are committed to providing accurate and timely answers to your questions.

This varies for each client. There are many factors that make up what you will need to retire, and these include your current and future spending habits, lifestyle choices, healthcare/long-term care costs, cost of living, taxes, supporting parents or adult children and housing costs to name a few. Inflation is silently lurking in the shadows as well, causing prices for goods and services to increase and purchasing power to decrease. Our team will work with you to determine your needs, create a roadmap tailored to you and navigate the details.

We offer appointments that will fit into your lifestyle. We offer in-person meetings at our office, or at your favorite coffee shop, most of our clients prefer Zoom calls with their busy schedules and lets be honest, it is easy.

We measure every client’s tolerance for risk first. Then we seek to provide our clients’ returns that align with their specific risk tolerance and personal goals while managing downside risks. Risk and rewards have a strong correlation with each other, so we optimize returns without taking outsized risks to achieve those returns. 

Unlike most advisors out there, we believe everyone deserves professional help when they want it. Our account minimums are only $5000 to get started investing. We believe in helping everyone.

Yes, everything that you share with your AWM team is strictly confidential. To serve you best, we need to really understand your life – financial and otherwise. We take this responsibility very seriously, and all of our work is confidential.

We use Charles Schwab as our custodian to hold client assets.

Yes, we are a fiduciary. This means that we are legally and ethically obligated to always put your interests ahead of our own. In doing so, we strive to eliminate conflicts of interest, separate financial advice from the custody of assets, and provide transparency in the fees that we charge.

All our clients receive monthly statements from the custodian. To the extent clients have private investments, statements are typically distributed monthly, quarterly, or annually, depending on the investment.

Additionally, AWM provides each client with access to a client portal that features best-in-class performance reporting software. This portal is available 24/7 (though market data generally updates once per day).

On a quarterly basis, AWM will produce detailed performance reports that are posted to the client portal.