Our Planning Process
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This meeting it intended to be an informal sit down with us. We want to ask questions about you and discuss your personal financial goals, family, and other important details in your life. The goal of this meeting is to get to know you, introduce you to our firm, and provide a meeting that is tailored to you so that there are valuable takeaways even if we decide not to move forward.
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Once we have decided to move forward with a advisory relationship, we will have you fill out our Client Intake Form to gather your details and have you share information relevant to your finances for us to review. In your onboarding meeting, we will have already reviewed the information that you have shared and will come prepared with a long list of questions relevant to your personal finances and the primary goals that you have shared with us already to begin the Financial Planning Process. From here, conversations can go in many different directions because every decision has an impact on the next one!
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After your onboarding meeting, we will have gathered significant context on your goals, perspectives, and values so that we can begin providing suitable recommendations to you. This process continues with meetings and calls as needed to review income, investments, taxes, and insurance and estate planning. For each topic, we’ll identify any actionable items to ensure you stay on track to reach your goals. Most clients meet 2-3 times in the first 3-4 months depending on their needs and availability. For some clients, onboarding can be completed in a few months, while some can take a year or more. We adapt our process to each household as needed.
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Once we have completed onboarding, we will adjust to our annual planning process which includes annual meetings each Spring and Fall and any additional specific planning items that you need while the firm will be behind the scenes completing our internal 29 step process on your behalf to optimize your plan. We will be with you the whole time continually evaluating your needs over the years to ensure that you’re optimizing your finances. Our goal is to deliver outstanding value and peace of mind while taking as little of your time as possible.
Financial Planning Areas
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We’ll build a detailed Financial Plan, analyze your current retirement trajectory, and coordinate your portfolio with other income sources like Social Security and Pensions.
We’ll ensure your plan maximizes your income to support a meaningful retirement. You’ll also be able to see a projection of your income throughout each year of your retirement.
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Taxes are one of our clients largest expenses and we believe that a sound tax strategy is essential to helping you keep more of what you make. Our goal is to reduce what you pay as much as possible now and in the future.
Each year you’ll see an analysis of what tax implications you can expect. We’ll give recommendations to optimize your plan while keeping short term goals in mind.
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Once we understand your goals both in the short term and for retirement, we can see what your investments need to do to support your income and remain tax efficient along the way.
We formulate recommendations based on the data we’ve gathered. You’ll see the strategy we outline and have the opportunity to ask questions and provide your input as the final decision is always yours. It’s important you feel comfortable and clearly understand everything before moving forward with any recommendation.
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With VWM, you get holistic coverage of your financial journey. We’ll analyze your current estate plan to ensure your goals are reflected appropriately. We’ll assist with reviewing insurance coverage and employee benefits to make sure you maximize those offerings and protect your risks along the way.
The best plans are laid to waste if there aren’t systems in place to fully protect them. With this holistic view, we can provide a higher level of ongoing service that we know you will appreciate.
