Keep more. Build more. Sacrifice nothing.

Happy Fathers Day to “the best dada in the world!”. We love you and are lucky to have you!

Why? Because most of these funds are basically the same. Owning VTI in one account and FXAIX in another and SPY in another likely means that you did a bit of research, saw that these are popular, solid, funds, weren’t really sure which one was best or how to make a decision about what to use, so you picked a few. If you have $1000 invested- it’s silly, but it’s probably fine. If you have $250k or $500k invested… your lack of strategy is almost certainly costing you money. Look, we’re due for another bear market. I don’t know when it’s going to happen, but the best time to get a good strategy in place is when the market is up. It gives you the most options, and you’re operating from a position of proactive power and not fear.

Keep more of their money. Thats the short answer. But the longer answer is, you know how people say you can’t outwork a bad diet? You also can’t out save a bad investment strategy You can’t out invest a bad tax strategy Tax strategy Investment efficiency and optimization Smart decision making Those three things- as part of a cohesive strategy with a clear specific goal (or two or three) in mind - are how you have more money to spend, more money saved, and more money invested. Period. That’s true whether your plan is to keep scaling and growing your income or your business or not. The problem is, most people really don’t have a strategy that properly addresses just one of them, let alone all three. And by looking at the breakdown of what I actually do with clients as we build and implement their strategy, you can see why. There is so much overlap that you can’t really do one well without addressing the others. To be fair, not all aspects apply to all clients in every season. Sometimes they’re digging out of debt or trying to get to profitability. In those cases, tax savings and smart decision making are driving the bus and investment strategy is probably on the back burner. But they all play significant roles on the path to real financial freedom. Most of my clients truly enjoy what they do. Some of them have enough invested to stop working, but they continue anyway. The point isn’t freedom from your career or business. The point is real wealth that can sustainably provide passive income if and when you need it and the options that come from having that kind of freedom.

One of the biggest misconceptions about building wealth is that the solution is always to save more money. For many people, that’s true. But the people I work with are usually already doing that. They’re earning great income. They’re saving. They’re investing. They’re working with professionals. They’ve done what they were told to do. Yet many of them still ask the same question: “Am I actually on track?” And as a piggy back, “is my money working as hard for me as it could be?” Usually the answer is no. And it’s because their accountant thinks that their main job is to file their taxes this year, and their advisor thinks their main job is to manage the money they’ve already invested and tell them to invest more. The accountant says earn more, the advisor says save more.  No one wants to get in the weeds. The weeds take time. Take attention. Take expertise. A custom strategy can’t be cut and pasted for all clients. But the truth is, at a certain income and asset level, wealth usually doesn’t accelerate because you save more. It accelerates because you optimize better. You’ve saved and invested enough so that the market can do the work faster than more savings can. Your tax brackets are working against you so building a tax-smart portfolio unlocks more than another dollar earned can Optimization means things like: • tax strategy • investment efficiency • smarter financial decisions These are the areas where small improvements can have a massive impact over time. Because the real goal for most of my clients isn’t just a larger investment account. It’s financial freedom. The ability to keep working if they want to… But not because they have to.

For years I thought I was doing everything right. I’m a CFP. I was investing. I hired a CPA. But every year my business income grew, and tax season felt like a rollercoaster. Some years profits were high. Some years expenses were high. But the tax bill always felt unpredictable. And I kept wondering: People talk about all these tax strategies available to business owners … so why didn’t it feel like anyone was helping me use them? For the first five years of my business, I worked with three different accountants. One I outgrew. One had the expertise but I could never get his attention. The third, the one I still work with today, is excellent. But even with the right accountant, I still felt like money was slipping through the cracks. Eventually I realized something important. The problem wasn’t the CPA. It was the structure of the relationship. Most accountants are hired to look backward. They take what already happened (your revenue, expenses, and transactions) and help you file your return in the most tax-efficient way possible. Sometimes they’ll help you plan, but it’s always only about this year and never the impact on next. The person filing your return was hired to do that, not to design a forward-looking tax strategy that aligns with your business and personal financial goals. When I realized that, I did something different. I immersed myself in tax strategy. I learned how to read tax returns. I studied corporate structure. I learned how financial decisions affect taxes. Once I understood the system, I could work with my accountant much more effectively. Truly leverage her expertise to my advantage The result? I was able to take home an additional $100,000 in personal profit from my business on the same revenue. Enough for my husband to retire at 37. That experience changed how I approach financial planning. Because I always knew it’s not what you earn, it’s what you keep, but I learned firsthand that there’s a tax gap. And that having an integrated financial and tax strategy (and having a truly tax literate financial advisor) is one of the most powerful ways to accelerate wealth.