Kaplan Financial Advisors, LLC

The Financial Road Map® & Personal Guidance System (your personal GPS)

When we meet you the first time we begin with our *Financial Road Map® tool that’s designed to accurately locate your position in relationship to your financial destination. Here's an article that explains how I work with individual clients.

Developing your Financial Road Map®:

• Takes approximately one hour
• Reflects your core values and financial goals
• Benchmarks where you are now, financially
• Provides tremendous clarity.
• Our Clients say “This is the first time I’ve been able to think through life issues in a neutral, non-judgmental atmosphere!” Read an article by Reuters  Why couples have trouble saying “I do” to financial planning to learn more about how I work with clients.

Step by Step

NEXT, we develop a “Step by Step Plan of Action” to help you achieve your goals.

Examples of client services include:

• monitoring and rebalancing assets prudently invested in low-cost, high quality mutual funds
• updating insurance needs, crafting estate plans
• tackling expensive, (sometimes) unnecessary annuities
• annual tax projection and tax filing work by our team CPA
• ongoing work on other financial planning issues – strategies to avoid outliving your assets, retirement timing, starting a new business, cash flow projection work, college planning, second home purchases or downsizing, gifting to family members, etc.

Growth

We aim to grow and diversify pre-retirement client assets.
Asset ownership and growth techniques are adjusted to reflect client risk tolerance and the need to attain certain financial goals.
We follow prudent investment guidelines so our clients know how their assets are diversified – and how this ties in to their larger financial plan

Clients receive quarterly statements that aggregate all accounts held at TD Ameritrade. Client plans are updated frequently.

Conservation

Retired clients need:

• to continue to grow their assets
• transition toward asset preservation

We work hand-in-hand with clients to make sure there is an orderly transition – over time – toward a steadier stream of income to finance retirement goals. We utilize various techniques to help clients maintain a financial cushion in retirement.

Legacy

Some clients want to have assets pass to heirs or charities – or gift during their lifetimes. We work with our clients to ensure their wishes (as donors) are honored while addressing (sometimes unstated) wishes of heirs. We also work to quell potential conflicts amongst siblings and other family members (including blended families) and other situations where complications may arise.

To avoid potential inheritance nightmares, we work with an expert team of estate planning attorneys/insurance specialists/tax specialists to create estate planning strategies that reflect both donor and potential beneficiary concerns and needs.

* The Financial Road Map® process is detailed in the book " Values-Based Financial Planning " by Bill Bacharach. We wrote a forward to this easy-to-read book.