Hourly, as-needed financial planning and investment advice to help you Sleep Well At Night

I’m a good ADV example

Mike, over at Oblivious Investor, posted a great overview about the benefits of reading a adviser’s form ADV before engaging that adviser.  Mike also used my ADV as an example, prefacing it with:

It would surely be useful, but I don’t have the heart to make an example of an RIA whose Form ADV sets off all kinds of red flags. Instead, let’s take a look at an RIA whose ADV shows pretty much everything I’d look for.

If you are not familiar with Mike’s blog or his books, they are worth checking out.  Oblivious Investor is a blog about how simple investing actually is if you ignore all the noise.  I often point to this blog for good, strait forward information about passive, low-cost investment strategies.

Mike also has a series of books explaining tax and investing concepts in less than 100 pages. I have copies of each of them in the Swan Financial Planning library.

I’m Back and a Big Thank You

I have returned from Fort Bragg, North Carolina where I was providing financial counseling to US Army soldiers returning from deployment.  This was a very rewarding experience, and I was able to help a lot of families.  The soldiers and their families were very appreciative (as was I for what they do).  So I just want to pass that appreciation along and say thank you to all of my clients and readers for your patience and understanding regarding my availability over the last month and a half.

Things are starting to get back to normal at Swan Financial Planning, and I hope to have my online appointment calendar up by the end of next week for those with whom I have already been working or in contact.  I’ll have an update for potential new clients sometime in October.   I also hope to get some new financial planning related articles posted over the coming weeks, so please stay tuned.

Availability, Hourly Rate Increase, and the End of the Annual Maintenance Program

Swan Financial Planning has been contracted to provide financial counsel and education to a surge of U.S. Service members returning from deployment over the next 7 weeks. Therefore, my availability will be very limited during that time.

Also, partly due to this new contract, I will not be taking on any new clients, at least not until October. There are two other local, fee-only CFP® practitioners with similar philosophies that work on an hourly, as-needed basis, and they are taking on new clients:

They are both NAPFA Registered Financial Advisors, and we’ve all been in a financial planning study group together for several years.  Neither Chuck nor Ajay are registered as investment adviser representatives of Swan Financial Planning, LLC; their practices are fully independent of mine.

I sill intend to post to the blog occasionally while I’m away, so check back often or better yet, subscribe.

Hourly Rate Increase

The other big piece of news is that I have officially raised my hourly billing rate to $200 per hour. (See my Form ADV disclosures for full details.) This is my first fee increase since April 2007. The good news is that I’ve gotten pretty efficient over the years, so many of the projects I did a couple of years ago should cost clients about the same today; I just complete them faster now.

Another change to my hourly billing is the time increment. I’ve gone from 6-minute increments to 15-minute increments. I’ve also implemented a non-billable advice policy, which allows me to answer occasional, brief client questions sent to me by email at no charge.

Also, I’m introducing a few packaged services at a fixed price.  These can act as a starting point and still be customized with additional time; however, I expect that they will fit a good many folks just as they are.

The End of the Annual Maintenance Program

I will not be continuing the Annual Maintenance Program, so program engagements will not renew at the end of a program year. Instead, I’m replacing it with a fixed fee Baseline Retirement Plan Update at the same price of $600, which is just paid at the time of the review.

The Annual Maintenance Program did include the ability to submit brief questions by email; however, Swan Financial Planning has now adopted a non-billable advice policy which will still provide the same ongoing benefit for those clients that return for annual reviews and updates.

The two other components of the Annual Maintenance Program, a 30-minute follow-up and the 15% discount on additional time will not be replaced. This allows me to continue to offer an annual review package at the same price, despite my hourly fee increase.

Financial Planning Lessons from Celestial Navigation

This post is from an article I wrote that first appeared in my e-newsletter last fall.

Centuries ago, sailing ships crossed oceans and traveled between distant islands with amazing accuracy. They navigated with a compass to point them in the correct direction, and used hourglasses and instruments that measure the angles between celestial objects to confirm their exact location in the middle of featureless oceans. Doing this allowed them to make necessary course corrections so they did not miss their desired destination.

Simply crossing a foggy channel, it may have been enough to point a ship in the right direction and still arrive reasonably close to your intended location, even if you were off by one or two degrees with the compass heading. However, when crossing an ocean, a one or two degree deviation from the desired heading would have put you hundreds of miles from your target. To further complicate things, winds and currents may have taken you further off course, even if you followed the correct heading.

It was an absolute necessity for these sailors to confirm their progress at regular intervals and make small course corrections to keep them heading toward their planned destination. Likewise, following a financial plan is much like crossing an ocean in the 1500s. Creating a plan can point you in the right direction, but if you don’t monitor your progress, get a fix on your position, and make the necessary course corrections along the way, you too may miss your target.

Just like a ship crossing thousands of miles of ocean, a financial plan spanning multiple decades can end up way off course even thoughit started out pointed in the right direction. The market winds may not always blow in the right directions, and the cash flow currents may change along the way. And, the occasional financial storm may leave you wondering just how far off course did it throw you. Luckily, we are able to take a financial bearing to see if your plan is on course, or what has to be done to get back on course.

An annual review of your financial plan that takes a look atwhere you are now relative to where you want to be is generally sufficient toavoid missing your planned goals. If you wait too long, you may find yourself having to make major course corrections, which may not be very pleasant. But small course corrections, made as needed, are generally sufficient to get you where you want to be.

Update on Web Site Changes

The new site is coming together.  Most of the work now is behind the scenes, and I hope to publish it all in early August.  In the mean time, I will try and post a few more updates between now and then.