Part of every written plan
Tax-aware investing, with your CPA
Which accounts to save into and draw from, and when, set out as questions for the person who prepares your tax return.
Planning
The written plan: what you said matters, the decisions in order, and who makes each one
What a plan written here holds, the question each part answers, who acts on it, and what it never promises.
AI-generated illustration. Not a real home or business.
The written plan
What a plan holds
A written plan is a short document in plain words: what you told us matters most, what you have and owe, the decisions in front of you in the order they should be made, and who makes each one: you, your employer's benefits office, your CPA or your attorney. Every assumption it makes is written down and labeled as one.
A plan written here never promises a result, a return or a date you will be able to retire by, and this website shows no plan's figures, because a sample with figures in it would be a projection.
The questions it answers, part by part
A plan written here is short, and each part of it answers one question.
What matters most, and in what order?
The plan opens with what you said in the meetings, in your own words and in the order you gave them. Everything after it is measured against that page.
What do you have, and what do you owe?
Accounts, debts, a pension, a home, the money sent abroad: listed as they stand today, from the documents gathered for it. Nothing is invented to fill a gap; a gap is written down as a question.
Where does the month's money go?
What comes in, what goes out and what is left. Money sent to family is part of the month, so it is planned as part of the month rather than treated as an extra.
What would happen if an income stopped?
Who depends on each income, and what the household would do without it. These are written as questions for whoever handles your insurance; the plan looks at no policy itself.
Which decisions are in front of you, and which comes first?
The heart of the plan: each decision in the order it should be made, because the order often matters more than any single choice. Clearing a card before saving, or saving before buying a home, changes everything that comes after it.
Who makes each decision?
Beside every decision is a name: yours, your employer's benefits office, your CPA, your attorney or a pension plan. The plan lists the questions for each; they answer them.
What does the plan take as given?
How long a job lasts, when a child starts school, when you would like to stop work: anything the plan has to assume sits in a list of its own, where you can question it and change it.
Farhan Chowdhury-Lund writes plans for small-business owners and for households that support family abroad. He writes down every assumption a plan makes, so a client can disagree with it.
Marites Dimaculangan-Ross writes plans for people who work for the city and for families saving for a child's education. She keeps a plan to the few decisions that matter this year.
Who acts on it
The practice holds no account and moves no money, so a plan is carried out by the people it names, each in their own part of it.
You
Every step that moves money is yours, taken in your own accounts, wherever they already are.
Your employer's benefits office
Elections at work: what is taken from your pay, and for what.
Your CPA or tax preparer
Anything that reaches a tax return. The plan sets out the questions in writing.
Your attorney
The will, any trust, and whether what you own would pass the way you want it to.
Whoever handles your insurance
Your agent or your broker: anything about a particular policy.
The pension plan
A pension's options, chosen on the plan's own forms. The plan lists the questions to ask it.
Where a plan hands a question on
The questions, for the licensed professional.
Part of every written plan
Insurance in your plan
Who depends on your income and what would happen if you could not work, written down as questions for a licensed professional.
Part of every written plan
Estate coordination with your attorney
A list of what you own and how each part would pass, and the questions for the attorney who drafts the documents.
When it is delivered, and after
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.
Every written plan includes sixty days of questions by e-mail after it is delivered. After that you can ask questions by the hour, take a year of planning, or simply come back when something changes: a new child, a new job, a death in the family, a move.
Inés Valderrama-Hollis writes retirement and household plans, and holds most first meetings herself. She reads every plan aloud with the people it is for before it is final.
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.