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FAQ

Can You Help Me?

We are able to provide assistance to those individuals we accept as clients in the following major areas:

  • reducing income taxes;
  • creating a strong financial foundation;
  • reducing investment risks;
  • enhancing expected long-term returns;
  • reducing the total fees and costs relating to your investments;
  • protecting assets from Medicaid; and
  • ensuring your wealth goes where you intend with minimal tax loss upon death .

What types of clients do you work with?

  • Busy professionals including doctors, dentists, attorneys, small business owners, and union members with pension and retirement savings plans who don’t have the time or knowledge to maximize their financial opportunities while minimizing their risk,
  • Individuals and couples that want guidance and help preparing for the financial ramifications of retirement,
  • Retirees who want to protect their hard-earned savings and still provide the necessary income to maintain the lifestyle they’re accustomed to,
  • Retirees who want help coordinating all their different retirement and savings accounts into a monthly income in the most tax efficient manner possible.

Does Complete Financial Planning, Inc. have minimum client requirements?

We have a minimum investment portfolio requirement of $500,000.

Where Do I Begin?

We recommend starting with a brief phone call to understand why you’re looking for help with your financial planning and, if we agree we can be of help to you, we’ll schedule the first meeting with you.

Our primary goal in the first meeting is to gain a better understanding of your goals, objectives, time horizon, personal beliefs, investment experience, and appropriate level of risk to meet your goals. At the conclusion of this meeting, if we mutually agree that we can meet your planning needs, we’ll formalize the engagement by signing an agreement for services.

Do you sell any investment products?

No. To maintain objectivity on behalf of our clients, we don’t sell any investment products. We are Registered Investment Advisers, not stockbrokers. This allows us to seek out extremely low-total-cost investment alternatives for our clients, including institutional-style mutual funds not normally available to individual investors, low cost exchange traded funds (ETF) and individual stocks, bonds and certificates of deposit.

How do you get paid?

What differentiates us from stockbrokers, mutual fund companies and private money managers is our ability to review and coordinate your complete financial life, not just your investments to help you achieve your goals.

For written financial plans, we require a 50% deposit of the quoted financial planning fee. The balance will be billed at the completion of the engagement. These fees will be applied to your investment portfolio management fees during the first year when you decide to engage our services to manage your investment portfolio.

We charge an annual investment advisory fee, paid quarterly. This fee encompasses all of Complete Financial Planning, Inc. financial planning and investment advisory services.

How are you regulated?

Complete Financial Planning, Inc. is a United States Securities Exchange Commission Registered Investment Adviser. All of our new clients receive Form ADV, Part II, which sets forth additional information regarding our firm.

Who controls my investments?

You control your investments. We monitor your accounts on a discretionary basis, make investment allocations and rebalance when appropriate in compliance with your approved Investment Policy Statement. We will act in the capacity of a fiduciary for all accounts we manage throughout our relationship. Our clients’ investment accounts are held by Charles Schwab and Company, employer pension and 401k plans, banks and insurance companies.

What is a Fiduciary?

Complete Financial Planning, Inc. is an Independent Registered Investment Advisor and has a fiduciary duty to our clients. The differences in the fiduciary responsibility of a Registered Investment Advisor and a stockbroker are as follows:

Independent Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) are held to a higher standard than stockbrokers when it comes to putting investors’ interests first and doing the right thing for their clients’ investments.

Independent RIAs have a fiduciary duty to their clients which means they must:

  • Act in the best interest of their client
  • Identify and monitor illiquid securities
  • Employ fair market valuation procedures where appropriate
  • Observe procedures regarding the allocation of investment opportunities
  • Have policies regarding affiliated broker-dealers and maintenance of brokerage accounts
  • Disclose all conflicts of interest
  • Have policies on use of brokerage commissions for research
  • Have policies regarding directed brokerage, including step-out trades and payment for order flow
  • Abide by a code of ethics

Unlike a Registered Investment Advisor, stockbrokers establishing a brokerage account must prominently disclose:

Your account is a brokerage account and not an advisory account. Our interests may not always be the same as yours. Please ask us questions to make sure you understand your rights and our obligations to you, including the extent of our obligations to disclose conflicts of interest and to act in your best interest. We are paid both by you and, sometimes, by people who compensate us based on what you buy. Therefore, our profits and our salespersons’ compensation may vary by product and over time.

How will I know how my accounts managed by Complete Financial Planning, Inc. are performing?

You will have two ways to access account information. You will receive a monthly brokerage statement detailing your account values and all transactions mailed directly to you from the custodian of your assets, Charles Schwab and Company. You will receive a quarterly performance report showing your accounts from Complete Financial Planning, Inc.

Do I have to invest with you?

It has been our experience that most clients do decide to have us manage their investments after we prepare a plan. We often use lower cost institutional-style mutual funds not normally available to individual investors, Exchange Traded Funds having operating expenses that are significantly less than mutual funds and individual stocks, bonds and certificates of deposit. But having Complete Financial Planning, Inc. manage your investments is optional.

Can you advise me on investments not managed by Complete Financial Planning, Inc.?

Yes. It is important that we review these accounts as part of your overall investment plan. If you have investments such as a company 401k or 457 plan, we will provide guidance on how to choose among the funds available to you. We consider this part of our role as your financial advisor.

Learn from my Experience… not your Mistakes.

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