Fee-Only Financial Planning

Sparrow Wealth Management offers comprehensive, fee-only financial planning services, which include a detailed review of your unique personal and financial goals, cash flow analysis, tax planning, education planning, retirement planning, insurance analysis, estate planning, and investment evaluation.

The first step in our financial planning process is helping you explore your personal and financial goals. There’s no destination if you don’t know where you want to go. By setting goals, you’re taking control of your future. Your comprehensive financial plan is the roadmap guiding you to authenticity and fulfillment. Think about how your financial plan would be affected by your answers to these questions:

• When would I like to retire (assuming money isn’t a concern)? Is this a realistic goal given my current financial situation? What do I need to do to make this possible?
• What do I genuinely want to accomplish with my life?
• How can I balance time between work and home life better? Do I really need to work this much to reach my financial goals?
• Can I afford to stay home and be with my children? How would this impact reaching our financial goals?

Like most successful businesses, financially sound individuals and families should have positive cash flow. Cash flow statements show whether you’re living within your means and if you have surplus cash to invest for future growth. Most debt problems and poor savings habits stem from a lack of understanding about cash flow. We help you find clarity in your cash flow patterns.

Cash flow analysis is also key to preparing for a happy and comfortable retirement. Due to inflation, cash flow requirements today will continue to grow during your retirement years. If you’re currently living beyond your means, you could be in for a big surprise when reaching your expected retirement age!

Government taxes are usually the largest expense in your budget. We offer tax planning, which is far more valuable than tax preparation. Tax preparation is limited to “making the best” out of what has already occurred. Tax planning searches for and takes advantage of legitimate opportunities for tax reduction. Tax planning includes structuring investments using the most tax-efficient mutual funds, and we believe this can reduce tax expenses significantly over the long run.

Private school and college costs continue to outpace inflation. We can help coordinate your children’s education expenses with saving for retirement. While both are important, you may need to make some tough decisions in how to prioritize your savings dollars. Section 529 Education Savings Plans and Coverdell Education Savings Accounts offer two different ways to reduce taxes while saving for your children’s education. We can help you decide which of these plans fits your needs.

Like most people, you’re probably concerned about maintaining your desired standard of living during retirement. If you’ve already retired, you want to ensure you won’t run out of money. We use eMoney and Money Guide Pro software to provide you with sophisticated, customized scenarios to help you understand your choices. The answer to your retirement questions is never just a simple yes or no. Instead, we show you the likely outcome of different scenarios so you can choose the options that align with your unique needs.

Many risks can jeopardize your health, income, and wealth, so we analyze your current insurance coverage and make appropriate recommendations. We’ll review your need in these insurance areas: life, health, disability, auto, homeowners, long-term care, and personal liability (umbrella). In some cases, you may be over-insured in one area but lacking in another. We’ll help determine what risks you can afford to bear, then recommend insurance protection for the risks you cannot self-insure. As a fee-only advisor, we do not sell any type of insurance products, which means that you can trust our advice to be your best interest.

Since most people don’t know when they’ll die, an estate plan should be a high priority for those without one. There is a widely believed misconception that it’s only for the wealthy. In fact, it’s not! Estate Planning involves more than setting up a common will to dispose of your assets upon death. One of the most important functions of a will is to designate guardians and backup guardians for minor children. Estate planning also involves creating a health care directive (or living will) and durable power of attorney for each spouse. A good estate plan will help you accumulate wealth, minimize estate tax, and provide a legacy to those you care about most.

While financial advisors cannot legally implement an estate plan, we can discuss your estate planning desires to make sure they align with your financial plan. Then, we’ll help you work with a trusted estate-planning attorney to complete the work.

We will kick off your investment evaluation with an investment theory overview. Our investment philosophy is firmly rooted in the conviction that markets are efficient. We’ll help you understand the importance of building globally diversified portfolios using passively managed funds as building blocks.

Next, we’ll review your current portfolio to ensure the best probability of achieving your short and long-term financial goals. Part of this process analyzes your current allocations across the various asset classes to understand how diversified your current portfolio is.

Finally, we’ll help establish your investment objectives, time horizon, and risk tolerance. We’ll use this information to develop a written Investment Policy Statement, which shows in detail how your money should be reallocated. From there, we can recommend specific portfolio changes to maximize your investments.