Good financial planning is not a single decision. It is a structured process I follow with every client, the same process governed by the CFP Board standard, to organize your finances, build your wealth, and keep your plan on course as your life changes.
I believe you make better decisions when you can see the whole process, not just the recommendation at the end.
So here is exactly how we work together. There are seven steps. The first two are about understanding where you are and what you want. The middle three turn that understanding into a real strategy. And the last two put the plan into action and keep it current. Nothing here is a sales pitch. It is the discipline that holds a plan together over decades.
Good planning starts with naming what you want, in the near term and over a lifetime. The sooner you start, the better prepared you will be to reach those goals.
Working with a CFP® professional helps you prioritize them and understand how much to save to get there, so the plan is built around your life, not around a product.
A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional is held to a fiduciary standard and has met rigorous requirements in education, examination, experience, and ethics. It is a commitment to putting your interests first. Verify Ruth's CFP® certification →
Before anything else, we get clear on what you want to accomplish and how I can help, whether that is comprehensive planning, retirement income, or coordinating your federal benefits. I also explain plainly how I am compensated, so you know from the start that my advice is given as your fiduciary, with your interests first.
I ask you to bring everything that matters: your accounts and investments, any debts, recent tax returns, insurance policies, and your estate documents. Coordinated advice depends on seeing all of it, because a decision in one area almost always touches another.
Together we look at your cash flow, your net worth, and how much you are saving. This gives us an honest baseline. It shows exactly where you are right now, which is the only place a real plan can start from.
Most people have more goals than any one year can fund, so we put them in order. I use a simple framework to set priorities, then tailor it to your situation:
This is where the plan takes shape: a personalized roadmap built around your timeline, your comfort with risk, and your tax situation. It brings together how your investments are allocated, how your income will be drawn, where you may be exposed, and how to keep more of what you have earned. Every recommendation is weighed against its effect on the rest of your plan.
A plan only matters once it is in motion. We open the right accounts, set up your contributions and withdrawals, align your investments to the agreed strategy, and address any debt or insurance changes. I make sure each piece is actually carried out, not left as a recommendation on paper.
Your plan is never finished. Markets move, careers change, and families grow, and your plan has to keep up. We review it on an ongoing basis and adjust as your life and the world around it change, so the plan we build today still fits you years from now.
The strategy in step five is where these disciplines come together, weighed against one another before any recommendation reaches you.
Portfolio design, taxation, income planning, and risk management are not handled in isolation. A change in one moves the others, so we coordinate all four as a single, balanced plan.
We build and manage a diversified portfolio around the purpose of your money and your tolerance for risk, with disciplined allocation, rebalancing, and ongoing monitoring. Client assets are held at Charles Schwab.
We manage the tax impact of the portfolio and the wider plan, using tax-loss harvesting where appropriate, asset location across account types, and an eye on the tax cost of every move, from rebalancing to withdrawals to Roth conversions.
We turn savings and benefits into reliable income, sequencing withdrawals across accounts in a tax-aware order so the money is there when you need it and lasts across your lifetime.
We balance the whole plan against the risks that could derail it, market downturns, an early-retirement shock, gaps in protection, so growth and income are pursued without exposing you to a setback you cannot absorb.
This is not a process I invented. It reflects the financial planning methodology established by the CFP Board, the body that sets the standard for CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals. Following it, as a fiduciary, is part of what that certification means.
Read the CFP Board Guide to the Financial Planning Process →