The first meeting costs nothing, and you don't have to hire us after it.
A plain cream wall with one empty brass hook and nothing hanging from it, a narrow oak shelf below holding only a sprig of green in a glass jar.

What we will not claim

No letters after anybody's name, because nobody here has earned any

What a real planner in New York has to pass or hold before advising anybody, and why nobody here has letters after a name.

AI-generated illustration. Not a real home or business.

What you will see advertised

“Our certified planners hold every major designation in the industry.”

Quoted in order to be refused: this practice never says it, and the rest of this page says why.

A designation is a certification another body grants and owns, and in New York a planner registers only after an exam or one of a short list of certifications. The planners here are invented: no exam, no certification, no letters, and no mark borrowed from anybody who grants one.

What the rules say

Each read against its source in October 2026.

  • An investment adviser representative in New York passes a securities law examination, or a set of three examinations, before registering (13 NYCRR 11.6).
  • The examination is waived for a representative who holds one of a short list of professional designations New York recognizes (13 NYCRR 11.7).
  • False advertising in the conduct of any business is unlawful in New York (GBL § 350).

The sources, to read in full:

What we say instead

Real planners in New York must pass a securities law exam, or hold one of a short list of professional certifications that New York accepts in its place, before they may register. The planners described here are fictional and hold no exam result, certification or registration, so no letters follow their names.

Five people work here: a founder who is also a planner, two more planners, an associate planner who prepares drafts, and an office manager. They are fictional. A real practice's planners are registered investment adviser representatives whose records you can look up at adviserinfo.sec.gov; nobody here is described by a registration, an exam, a certification, a school or a number of years, because none of them is real.

  • We do not put a designation, an exam or a certification after anybody's name.

Why planners' websites say it, and why it doesn't hold

Letters after a name are the quickest signal a planner's page can give. They suggest long study and an exam somebody else set and marked, and a reader who knows none of them can still count them. A page full of them looks like a wall full of framed paper.

The rules above set the floor in New York: an exam, or one of a short list of other qualifications accepted in its place, comes first. Above that floor, each set of letters is somebody else's to grant, as the sentence just above the rules says, and the last rule above is plain about advertising that is not true. For a fictional planner every set of letters would be borrowed, and a borrowed mark on an invented person is two untruths at once.

What a planning practice can honestly say, and do

What a site can honestly do is describe its people by the work each one does, which a reader can test at the first meeting:

A pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses on a folded linen cloth on a pale oak desk.AI-generated illustration. Not a real home or business.

Inés Valderrama-Hollis

Founder and planner · Also meets in Spanish

Writes retirement and household plans, and holds most first meetings herself.

Inés asks what a household wants before she asks what it has.

Inés reads every plan aloud with the people it is for before it is final.

The picture is a still of a desk, not a portrait. The person is fictional.

A small stack of blank cream cards tied with twine beside a sprig of rosemary on a pale oak desk.AI-generated illustration. Not a real home or business.

Farhan Chowdhury-Lund

Planner · Also meets in Bengali

Writes plans for small-business owners and for households that support family abroad.

Farhan keeps the business's money and the household's money on separate pages, because they are different questions.

Farhan writes down every assumption a plan makes, so a client can disagree with it.

The picture is a still of a desk, not a portrait. The person is fictional.

A small fern in a terracotta pot on an oak side table against a cream wall.AI-generated illustration. Not a real home or business.

Marites Dimaculangan-Ross

Planner · Also meets in Tagalog

Writes plans for people who work for the city and for families saving for a child's education.

Marites lists the questions for a pension system in the order the system's own forms ask them.

Marites keeps a plan to the few decisions that matter this year.

The picture is a still of a desk, not a portrait. The person is fictional.

And no title that belongs to a licensed profession goes beside anybody's name here, the accountant's included:

Only a person licensed in New York may call themselves a certified public accountant or a CPA, and nobody here is one. Where a plan touches a tax return, the question goes to yours.

What to ask any planner

Put them to any planner before you sign anything. A plain answer tells you something, and so does a vague one.

  • Which exam did you pass, or which qualification do you hold in its place?
  • Who granted the letters after your name, and can I check them with that body?
  • Do the letters on your page belong to you, or to somebody else in the practice?
  • What does your record at adviserinfo.sec.gov show about you?
  • Which parts of my plan would you write yourself, and which would somebody else write?

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.