Ask most people how their advisor gets paid, and they pause. Working with a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor takes that question off the table. Financial Planning Associates serves clients in Chesterfield, MO on a fee-only basis, so our fiduciary advisors are paid by you and nobody else. Carl Goodin, CFP®, has led the firm for more than 25 years from Ellisville, and as a fiduciary money manager, he is obligated to put your interests ahead of his own on every recommendation.
How a Fiduciary Advisor Builds a Personalized Financial Plan
A template may not account for the details of your financial situation once real life gets involved. Ours start with questions. We want to know what you’re trying to accomplish and by when. Then we look at what you have, what’s coming in, what’s going out, and how much market movement you can tolerate without losing sleep. Those answers shape everything after. From there, we bring the pieces together: retirement timing, investment strategy, taxes, insurance coverage, and estate considerations. Handled separately, they often work against each other. A tax move that saves money this year can cost you more in retirement. Our Financial Planning Process keeps them connected so you can see the trade-offs before you commit.
For investments, we use Markowitz Mean-Variance Portfolio Optimization as a basis for understanding how much risk a portfolio is taking for the return it’s expected to produce. It builds around your goals rather than a forecast of where markets are headed.
Then we revisit it. A plan written for a 48-year-old rarely fits the same person at 58.
Why How We’re Paid Matters
A commissioned advisor gets paid when you buy something. That doesn’t make them dishonest, but it does tie the advice to the paycheck. Fee-only cuts that tie. It also widens what we can recommend. Sometimes the right move is to pay down a mortgage, hold cash, delay Social Security, or leave a 401(k) exactly where it is. None of those earn a commission, and all of them are on the table here.
If you want advice from someone paid only by you, contact Financial Planning Associates today to speak with a fiduciary financial advisor serving Chesterfield, MO.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ask for it in writing, since the word gets used loosely. Check a CFP® at cfp.net, and look up the firm’s Form ADV at adviserinfo.sec.gov to see how it’s paid and whether it has any disciplinary history.
It varies. Some firms want millions, others don’t set a minimum at all. What matters more is how the fee is calculated, so ask before assuming you don’t qualify.
Usually. Most investments transfer in kind, so they move without being sold, and you avoid a tax bill. Proprietary funds tied to one firm are the exception and may have to be sold first.