A client story
The Challenge
Sample clients, ages 44 and 49, are married with two kids. She’s a human resources manager and he’s a general manager of a lighting supplier. Over the years, every time either of them changed jobs, they would leave their 401(k) accounts with their previous employer. As a result, they had several retirement accounts in different places. The rest of their finances were disorganized, which created stress in their lives.
They came to us wanting to get their financial house in order but didn’t know where to start. They had goals of saving for their retirement as well as their children’s college. They also were concerned that their family wouldn’t be protected if one of them were to get disabled or die.
With their busy schedules, they didn’t have time to drive to an advisor’s office and preferred telephone and online communication. After a complimentary consultation with an advisor, they signed up with Scarborough Capital Management.
Our Strategy
To start, we scheduled a conference call at a time when they were both available to talk. We listened to their goals and concerns, both short term and long term. These goals became the driving force of their financial plan. We asked them many questions so we could get a clear understanding of their situation, responsibilities and aspirations.
We gathered their basic financial information then sent them a comprehensive “fact finder” to take inventory of their financial picture. It helped us create a baseline strategy or outline of areas we would discuss further. A few days later, we scheduled another call to review the information and develop a strategy.
Once we crunched the numbers, we used screen sharing to review their current financial status. We discussed where they were and offered strategies that addressed their goals. We walked them through their current investment holdings. We discussed the potential problem of taking too much risk, or too little. We discussed their actual risk tolerance and preferences and how that would shape their strategy.
They had questions, lots of questions.
– Debt Management – How do we reduce overall debt?
– Building College Funds – How much should we save for our children’s college education?
– Asset Accumulation – How should we diversify our portfolio, given our risk tolerance?
– 401(k) Plans – How do we pick the investments for our 401(k) plans?
– IRA Accounts – What is the difference between a traditional and Roth IRA?
– Life Insurance Coverage – How much life insurance do we need?
– Disability Insurance – Do we need additional disability insurance?
– Health Savings Accounts – Should we open a Health Savings Accounts (HSA)?
Together we determined which strategy to implement and monitored their progress.
They call us anytime they need help with a financial decision, big or small.
We can help you get organize too, it all starts with a call.
