FAQs

Financial planning is a 7-step process (the 7 step financial planning process | cfp board) that includes reviewing your personal circumstances and goals, examining your current course of action, developing and implementing changes, and monitoring and updating your financial plan.

If you do not have a formal financial plan, you are flying blind. Financial planning organizes and manages your finances in the most efficient manner to maximize potential investment growth, provide adequate risk management, reduce taxes, save time, and enjoy the peace of mind of knowing that your hopes for the future haven’t been left to chance.

APC’s financial planners will build models of your household finances that projects your odds of success and can provide valuable what-if scenarios that provide context for decision-making.

The adage goes “if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?” The planning process helps identify not only what is achievable given your resources, but sometimes what is being overlooked. Ideally, it solidifies that your goals are really your goals and helps balance the pull and push of today’s needs, wants, and wishes with those of the future.

While both offer guidance on investments, taxes and other financial matters, financial advisors generally focus on managing an individual’s investment portfolios or selling insurance or annuities (i.e. Products), while financial planners look at your entire financial picture and long-term goals and flexible strategies to succeed.

Without a doubt, everyone is a financial planner. Everyone has a financial plan – it is either a good plan or a bad one!

At APC, we have a saying, “knowledge + experience = wisdom.” Do you have the knowledge and experience to make wise financial decisions? To develop and update a good financial plan?

Working with a trained certified financial planner™ professional can help you:

• Set realistic financial and personal goals.
• Assess your current financial health by examining your assets, liabilities, income, insurance, taxes, investments, retirement, and estate plan.
• Develop a realistic, comprehensive plan to meet your financial goals by identifying financial opportunities and building on financial strengths.

Started 1975, APC is one of the most experienced independent financial planning firms in the U.S. Our founder, the late P. Kemp Fain, Jr., was a pioneer in the development of the profession. He was the first candidate for the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® designation in 1972. He was president of the Institute of Certified Financial Planners in 1985. He helped create the CFP Board of Standards and Practices in 1988. Since 1993, the profession’s highest recognition of excellence, the “P. Kemp Fain, Jr. Award,” is presented annually. Today, APC continues its tradition of professional leadership and excellence in client service.

When you choose APC, you are wisely choosing to work with a financial planning team with advanced training and decades of cumulative experience.

Click here to learn more about our firm’s history and values.

Our services are provided by CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals that have met rigorous standards of education, examination, experience, and make a commitment to abide by CFP Board’s code of ethics and standards of conduct. CFP® professionals also commit to the CFP Board to expand their knowledge and stay informed through mandatory continuing education in all areas of financial planning and to demonstrate competence in analyzing and developing financial plans. (insert link form adv to check an advisor’s record).

APC Financial Planning is a registered investment advisor under the regulation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

We offer personal financial planning and investment management in an ongoing service relationship. Limited advice engagements, such as hourly consulting, may be offered.

If you are just starting your financial journey, or well on your way, you may also want to know that APC offers financial education to help you navigate and make sense of more-complex financial concepts. Continued learning helps you develop sound financial habits and make better-informed financial decisions.

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Yes! A fiduciary is someone who will put your interests ahead of theirs. That may seem like common sense, but not all financial professionals have a fiduciary obligation. CFP® professionals, as part of their certification, commit to CFP Board to act as a fiduciary at all times when providing financial advice to a client. This simply means that we are legally and ethically bound to put your best interests ahead of our own.

We take a holistic approach to your financial plan. Areas of discussion, analysis, and recommendations – as determined by you or identified by us – may include retirement planning, investment strategy, tax planning, insurance, education, budgeting, housing, and estate planning. Our core advisory services dive deep into retirement income planning, investment management, and tax efficiency.

We do not sell financial products so we often partner with your tax preparer, estate attorney, banker, or insurance agent, etc. To implement our financial advice.

Click here to learn more about our financial planning services.

APC has a wonderful variety of clients – multi-generational families, pre- and post-retirement, married and single, etc. Our clients share many traits in common: they want to make financial progress toward their goals; they are delegators; they are long-term investors; they value financial advice enough to pay for it; they want to build a relationship with our team.

We work with physicians, executives, engineers, scientists, nurses, teachers, administrators, and more. With nearly 50 years of service, we are thrilled to serve two or even three generations of family members!

We serve clients as a team, including our client administrators, financial planners, and investment specialists. Typically, a client will be assigned several team members for recurring points of contact. We take client service seriously! We work tirelessly to be accessible to you, by appointment, phone, email, even text messaging.

Meet your financial planning team.

You can pay for our financial advice in several ways. You may pay a fee based on a percentage of the investable assets that APC manages for you. You may pay an hourly rate or a fixed fee by the service. APC is a fee-only financial planning firm. We do not receive commissions for recommending financial products.  

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Our custodian may charge modest transaction fees to buy or sell a security. The mutual funds and exchange-traded-funds that we use to manage your portfolio charge an operating fee. We intentionally choose funds with low operating costs.

APC offers a free introductory meeting. This is an opportunity to meet us and to share your goals, questions, and circumstances. When a one-hour meeting is scheduled, we will send you a fact-finding form to tell us about yourself.

Click here to book your introductory meeting.

Participation! You (and if married, your spouse) provide information about your personal and family goals, attitudes about spending, savings, taxes, and legacy planning. We want to know your values about debt, investment risk, financial security and financial freedom. Your financial plan will take this information into consideration. You will also be called upon to participate in periodic reviews and updates of your financial plan and your investment portfolio.

Planning for retirement is a big part of a holistic financial plan. In retirement, the aim is to ensure you will have adequate income and to manage resources safely and efficiently. Which accounts to tap first? What is a safe withdrawal rate? How to plan to minimize tax burdens? If you have a pension, should you accept a lump-sum distribution, or take payments as a monthly annuity? How will you react during ups and downs of the stock market? Should you roll over your 401(k) to an individual retirement account at the point of retirement, or leave it where it is?

We can illustrate the effect of retiring a couple years earlier — for example, are you likely to have sufficient income to live comfortably, or should you work longer? Do you have sufficient assets set aside to handle a long-term care need?

An investing philosophy is the set of standards and principles used to create an investment portfolio strategy. An investing philosophy is also constructed over time, heavily reliant on previous experiences and knowledge of what has or hasn’t worked in the past.

It is important that you and APC have compatible investing philosophies. We believe in long-term investing (vs. short-term trading), diversification (vs. speculative concentration), mutual funds (vs. individual securities), low costs, tax efficiency, systematic and disciplined portfolio re-balancing (buy low, sell high).

A custodian holds and safeguards your investments such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other securities. APC’s preferred custodian is Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. Knowing that APC uses a trusted custodian gives you confidence that your investments are safe and working toward your financial future.

It is vital to regularly review and update your financial plan, as your financial goals and market conditions evolve. What may have been suitable 12 months ago may not align with your current situation. If you can’t meet us in person, we can schedule virtual meetings to stay in regular contact.

You may opt to review and update your financial plan if there is a significant change in your investment goals, income, tax laws, or interest rates. For example, a change in tax laws could save you thousands of dollars by tweaking your investment portfolio. Likewise, if there is a substantial change in interest rates, it is a good idea to review and update your financial plan, especially if you have debt or are saving for retirement.

Perhaps, but will you? Most people find it difficult to objectively plan for their own financial growth and security. Among the reasons for their frustration are lack of time, the wide variety of today’s investment opportunities, the complexity of tax laws, the entwining structure of employee compensation and benefit programs, and the financial uncertainties that need to be considered.

The answer to that question depends on many things. What is your tolerance for risk? Lower risk investments provide lower expected returns. Higher risk investments provide higher expected returns.  Costs matter. Taxes matter. Patience matters. What is your investment time horizon, five years or 25 years?

We have been independently owned and operated since 1975. We work for you. We often refer to APC as a “financial planning boutique,” meaning we are small, personal, accessible, family-oriented. Most importantly, we are highly experienced and capable – using leading edge technology and partnering with industry leading financial companies including Schwab, Vanguard, and Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA), among other “best of breed” resources.

Write down what is most important to you and ask as many questions as necessary to get the answers that you need. Please feel free to reach out to us via the form below – let’s strike up a conversation! Ready to move forward?

Manage complexity. You’ve probably noticed that your financial affairs become more complex as you get older. You might be balancing your own needs against those of elderly parents or adult children who need your help paying for their education or other financial needs.

Manage the transition to retirement. What are the results of working longer or retiring earlier? When should you file for Social Security and Medicare? What type of Medicare coverage should you select? How about long-term care insurance?

Manage the retirement years. In retirement, the aim is to ensure you will have adequate income and to manage resources safely and efficiently. Which accounts to tap first? What is a safe withdrawal rate? How to plan to minimize tax burdens? If you have a pension, should you accept a lump-sum distribution, or take payments as a monthly annuity? How will you react during ups and downs of the stock market, and will you need advice on managing through bear markets? Should you roll over your 401(k) to an individual retirement account at the point of retirement, or leave it where it is?

We can illustrate the effect of retiring a couple years earlier — for example, are you likely to have sufficient income to live comfortably, or should you work longer? What happens if you adjust the mix of equities and fixed income holdings in your portfolio to protect against the risk of a market downturn? Do you have sufficient assets set aside to handle a long-term care need? Perhaps you would like to make a midlife career change that will reduce or grow your compensation — how will that affect the plan?