In 2001 we began offering our services to self-employed professionals. Truth is many of our teacher clients were married to small business owners, so in a way we were already serving the self-employed.

Plus, our founder had been self-employed since graduating from college, and knew all-to-well how tricky navigating this world could be.

Working for yourself has its perks. In theory there’s more autonomy when you’re calling the shots. But that autonomy often comes at a cost. Taxes can be particularly burdensome on the self-employed. And the recent Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) re-shuffles the deck on many age-old tax strategies.

The Tax Cut and Jobs Act is helping us turn even more Debt & Taxes into Savings & Investment for our self-employed clients.

Navigating the effects of the TCJA is something everyone will need to do. But for self-employed professionals, TCJA presents both the threat of 60+% effective marginal income tax rates – and the possibility to have government contribute a significant portion of self-employed earnings towards retirement by way of federal tax savings.

Many of the law’s provisions are due to expire come 2026. In the meantime, the Tax Cut and Jobs Act is helping us turn even more Debt & Taxes into Savings & Investment for our self-employed clients.

While our practice is focused on serving the needs of California Educators and the Self-Employed, we have clients from all walks of life.

Most came to us around age 50. Some needing to pay for their child’s college education, others wanting to start saving for retirement.

Many of the strategies and techniques we employ today were developed as a direct result of interactions with our clients. And so they reflect the concerns and challenges we faced, alongside our clients at the time.

We didn’t set out to turn Debt & Taxes into Savings & Investment™, that’s just what emerged as a consequence of doing financial planning – for the people who we were doing financial planning for.

Similarly, we didn’t set out to become Certified Financial Planners, IRS Enrolled Agents, Accredited Investment Fiduciaries or (most recently) Chartered Special Needs Consultants.

That was all driven by a desire to acquire the knowledge and information necessary to serve the best interests of our clients.

But serving those interests takes more than just knowledge and information. It takes skills, sensibilities, and the kind of learned intuition born of repetition, planning, patience and practice.

And it takes relationships. Without the kind of trusted relations we’ve enjoyed over the past 25 years, we could have never developed the skills and sensibilities necessary to help our clients.

Cultivating relationships of trust is our primary concern. Without these relations there is no possibility, and our business itself cannot exist.

Which is why we’ve chosen to work directly for our clients. While other advisors may be employed at Wall Street firms or contracted with insurance companies, we maintain our independence by working for you, and no other.

Our allegiance is to our clients, and as Certified Financial Planner™ professionals, and fiduciaries under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, we are held to a standard of care that requires we act in your best interests.

If you think our unique approach can help, let us know. We’d be honored to serve you.

Since 1990, we’ve been teaching members of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System how to restructure the liabilities-side of their balance sheet in ways that afford the opportunity to have more, spend more, and save more money than they otherwise thought possible.

And by increasing their capacity to save and invest while maintaining their current standard of living, we opened the door to take on less portfolio risk and/or choose from more socially responsible investments.

Still others have found that paying for things like college tuition, a debt-free retirement, and/or their parents’ health care needs, to now be within reach.

Along the way many of our teacher clients transitioned into retirement, and found themselves in entirely new territory.

We were there, helping to navigate a world of CalSTRS retirement options, of Social Security offsets, of Medicare, health care decisions and required IRA distributions.

We’ve been there too for the unexpected – premature death, untimely divorce, a career ending disability. And we’ll be there in the future as well, helping educators navigate the uncertainties of life, the unpredictable, the unknown unknowns.