A written plan, $2,400 or $3,600
Retirement planning
Every source of income you will have, in the order you can draw on it, and the decisions in front of you, written down in plain words.
What a plan covers
Cash flow and saving: where the month goes, and a reserve that fits
Where the month's money goes, how large a reserve to keep, and which debt to pay down first, in a plan you can follow.
AI-generated illustration. Not a real home or business.
Where the month goes
A cash-flow plan starts with the month as it really is, not as a budget would like it to be. What comes in: one pay or three, tips, overtime that comes and goes, rent from a room. What goes out before anybody decides anything: rent, transit, phones, the money sent home. And what is left, if anything, and where it goes now.
Nobody is asked to account for every coffee. The plan works from a few months of what actually happened, then sorts it into what is fixed, what changes and what you choose, because the last of the three is the only one that is easy to change.
- A reserve sized to your household.
- We never pay your bills for you.
A reserve for a bad month
Before anything else, a plan looks at how the household would get through a month when something goes wrong: a job ends, a shop has a slow season, someone is ill, the rent goes up.
A reserve is money kept apart from the money for goals, somewhere you can reach it quickly, and how much is enough depends on the household rather than on a rule of thumb. These are the questions that decide it.
How many paychecks would stop if one job ended?
Two earners in different trades are a different household from two in the same one.
How long have lean spells lasted before?
Your own past says more than an average does, and the plan writes down which of the two it used.
Who else would you help in a bad month?
A parent, a brother or sister, family abroad: support that would carry on is part of what the money is for.
Where is the money kept now?
And how quickly you could reach it, and whether anything stands in the way.
Which debt first
A card, a car loan, a student loan, money owed to a relative: a plan lists each one with what it costs to carry and what happens if a payment is late, and puts the order of paying them down as questions you answer with the figures in front of you.
- Which debt costs the most to carry each month?
- Which one has a rate that can change?
- Which would do the most harm if a payment were missed?
- Is there a debt to family, with no paper but real weight?
A plan can set out the questions about which debts to pay down first. The practice never takes your money to pay your creditors, consolidates debts or repairs credit: in New York that is a separately licensed business.
Money sent to family abroad
For many households in western Queens the money sent home each month is not what is left over. It is a fixed part of the month, like the rent, and a plan that treats it as optional is a plan nobody follows.
So the plan writes it as its own line: how often it goes, whether it rises at certain times of year, who else in the family shares it, and whether it will carry on after you stop work. A house being built back home, or parents who will need more as they get older, are goals like any other, and the plan sets them beside yours.
What it costs
A whole plan is not always needed. Where the question is a single one, it can be answered on its own; where it is the month, the debts and the reserve together, that is the work of a written plan.
| What it is | What it covers | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Written plan | One household, up to two goals, two meetings and the written plan, with sixty days of questions by e-mail. | $2,400 |
| Detailed written plan | A household with a business, two retirement systems, a home purchase or family abroad: two meetings and the written plan, with sixty days of questions by e-mail. | $3,600 |
| One-question plan | One question, one meeting and a written answer. | $600 |
A one-question plan answers one question in writing, after one meeting: how big a reserve to keep, whether to pay down a card before saving, how to save for two goals at once. It is billed once, $600, when the written answer is delivered.
A written plan is billed in two halves: $1,200 (or $1,800 for a detailed plan) when you sign the written agreement, and the same again when the plan is delivered, which is within ten weeks of the agreement. No fee is billed more than three months ahead.
Related planning
A written plan, $2,400 or $3,600
Saving for education
How saving for a child's education fits beside a home, a reserve and retirement, and which questions to settle first.
A written plan, $2,400 or $3,600
Planning for business owners
Uneven income, a business that is most of what you own, and a household that still needs its own plan.
Ask for a first meeting
A first meeting costs nothing, gives no advice and asks nothing of you afterwards: about forty-five minutes, at the office or by video. The office replies in office hours.