Open Your Financial Kimono
Journal & Topics
Journal & Topics Media Group | Serving Chicago’s Great Northwest Suburbs
June, 2020
THIS WAY TO WEALTH:
By CHRIS EVERETT
Why in the world do you need to open your financial kimono to a financial planner?
Isn’t it obvious? It’s like going to a doctor for the first time. They want to see everything, right? If not, find another doctor.
The same is true for your finances.
Hire a fiduciary financial planner who can help you see what you can’t see. Eight out of ten people I see are leaking significant amounts of money unknowingly and very unnecessarily.
If a fiduciary helps you rescue minimally tens of thousands of dollars, and in many cases hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime, they are well worth the cost.
And for those “Do-It-Yourself” investors, you can still do your own investing if you want, just get clarity about the structure. If you are focused on investments only, you are probably seriously leaking. I see it over and over again.
Here’s an example: Don was a trader and he was making his wife uncomfortable. She had seen large swings in their financial comfort over the years and could not get him to commit to a second opinion. What she was really saying is that she wanted him to stop trading.
What? There’s no way to make a tiger change his stripes. I told her it wasn’t necessary for him to stop, and she gave me one of those very puzzled looks.
It’s simple. Just ask him to commit to come together to see the big picture. It worked because he learned I was not going to try and “get” his investments under my management.
So, we had both of them pull all their data and expenses together. I also had them do a communication profile that helps me understand how they process information, manage change, face risk and problem solve. A little side note, these are valuable reports, but they are also great date night fodder. They ended up using this report to create new language in their relationship which was lovely.
Back to their story. Don was unaware of a lot. And as a self-confessed bread winner, he was apologetic to his wife when I showed them. Here’s his list of must do’s:
- Upgrade their liability protection because many of their assets were exposed and could have created a $3m wealth leak.
- Fix their life insurance since it was about to run out and he wasn’t paying attention – a $3m potential wealth leak.
- Get the beneficiaries correct – that was a rude awakening for her – a $1.5m potential wealth leak
- Upgrade his disability insurance – if he goes down, so does the ship – with 10 years to go until retirement, a potential $4m wealth leak.
- Diversify their asset container type to have different tax outcomes and a lower tax result longer term – a potential wealth leak of approximately $500k.
- Finish their legal work that had been started three years ago
- And yes, we also looked at his investments and gave him more to consider to smooth out his results.
During the course of working together, he referred me to some of his friends. He said I never made him feel stupid. He said it was cathartic and removed some of the stress. He got clarity and a step-by-step process to follow as they repaired what was broken and potentially very harmful to their financial security.
I love what I do. It is our pleasure to offer a pre-Discovery phone call or Zoom meeting if you are interested in a fiduciary relationship.
For more information or to schedule with Chris Everett visit www.EverettWealthSolutions.com or call 708-771-7777. Everett Wealth Solutions, Inc. is a registered investment advisor providing fee-only financial planning and asset management services. Everett Wealth Solutions is located at 407 Marengo Avenue in Forest Park, IL and because of technology works with clients around the country. She’s a Retirement Shield Class Instructor and also heard on WGN, WBBM News Radio and seen on Business Firm AM Television.