Flat-Fee Financial Planning Before You Hire an Advisor
Flat-Fee Financial Planning Before You Invest
Flat-fee financial planning gives you a way to work with an advisor, get real answers, and build trust before you ever hand over your investment accounts. For a lot of people getting close to retirement, that order of operations matters. You want to know who you are working with before that person is managing your life savings, not after.
This is actually one of the biggest things I have learned from years of working with hourly and flat-fee clients. The people who start with a project, not a portfolio transfer, end up with a much stronger relationship if they eventually decide to invest with me. They know how I think. They know how I communicate. They have already seen the advice hold up. None of that requires a leap of faith.
What Flat-Fee Financial Planning Actually Means
Flat-fee financial planning means you pay one set price for a defined body of work, not a percentage of your assets and not an open-ended hourly clock. You know the cost before you start. You know what you are getting. And the advice is not tied in any way to whether you move your accounts afterward.
For my firm, that flat-fee project is called the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System. It is a structured, 4-step process that typically runs about 90 days, and it is built to answer the big retirement questions most people are sitting with: when to take Social Security, how to structure withdrawals, what your tax bill looks like in retirement, and whether your current investments actually support the plan.
Why Flat-Fee Financial Planning Works Better Than a Free Consultation
Most firms offer a free consultation. On paper, that sounds appealing. In practice, a free meeting with an advisor is rarely free. Someone is paying for that advisor’s time, and it is usually built into the fees of the clients who eventually sign on. That creates pressure, even if it is never spoken out loud. The advisor needs the meeting to convert into assets under management, or the meeting was not worth their time.
Flat-fee financial planning removes that pressure entirely. You are paying me directly for a specific piece of work, the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System. I am compensated fairly whether you decide to invest with my firm afterward or not. There is no hidden incentive pushing the advice in one direction. That is what a real fiduciary relationship should look like, and it is worth asking any advisor how they get paid before you meet with them.
Inside the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System
Here is what the flat-fee financial planning engagement actually looks like, step by step.
Step 1: Rough Cut Meeting. About 60 minutes. We build your Statement of Financial Purpose, a balance sheet, and a retirement budget so we are both working from the same numbers.
Step 2: The Projects. This is the core of the work, broken into focused 30-minute meetings covering retirement income, tax distribution planning, Social Security timing strategy, investment planning, estate planning, and insurance consulting.
Step 3: Account Set Up. If it makes sense for your situation, we set up accounts at Charles Schwab and handle the transfer paperwork. This step is optional and only happens if you choose to move forward with investment management.
Step 4: The One Page Financial Plan. About 60 minutes. You leave with a written, one page(ish) plan you can act on immediately, with or without me.
All in, this adds up to somewhere around 20 hours of direct work together over about three months. That is not a 30-minute sales call. That is enough time for me to actually understand your full picture, and enough time for you to see exactly how I think through a problem before you decide anything about your investments.
What Happens When the Engagement Ends
This is the part that surprises people the most about flat-fee financial planning. When the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System wraps up, there is no obligation to do anything else.
If you want to take your One Page Financial Plan and implement it yourself, that is completely fine. You paid for the plan, the plan is yours, and I have been compensated fairly for my time. If you decide we are not the right fit for an ongoing relationship, there are no hard feelings and no guilt trip. It was a straightforward transaction from the start.
If you do want to continue working together on an ongoing basis, including investment management, that conversation happens naturally at the end because you have already spent 20 hours seeing how I work. You are not deciding based on a single first impression. You are deciding based on real experience.
There is also a third option a lot of people do not realize exists. If you like working together but are not ready for full investment management, we can simply switch to hourly financial planning for future check-ins, at $300 per hour. You get to keep the relationship and come back whenever life changes- a market drop, an inheritance, a Roth conversion decision- without ever committing to an ongoing investment management fee.
Who Flat-Fee Financial Planning Is Best For
Flat-fee financial planning tends to fit a specific kind of person, and it is worth being honest about who that is.
People who have never worked with an advisor before. If you have managed everything yourself up to this point, handing over full control of your accounts to someone you just met on a call is a big jump. Flat-fee financial planning lets you close that gap gradually instead of all at once.
People who have been burned before. If a past advisor pushed products, disappeared after the sale, or never fully explained what you were paying for, you have every right to be cautious. A flat-fee project gives you a low-stakes way to see how a different advisor actually operates before you decide whether to trust them with more.
People who are close to retirement and want a second opinion. A lot of my flat-fee financial planning clients are not looking to hand off their whole portfolio at all. They want an experienced Certified Financial Planner® professional to check their thinking on Social Security timing, withdrawal order, and taxes, and they want a written plan they can act on themselves.
People who eventually want a full relationship, just not yet. Some clients know upfront that they will probably want ongoing investment management down the road. They still choose to start with the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System because it gives them a real trial period, on both sides, before that bigger commitment.
If any of that sounds like you, flat-fee financial planning is probably a better starting point than a free call that is really just the first step of a sales process.
Flat-Fee Financial Planning vs a Free Discovery Call
A free discovery call is designed to get you comfortable enough to sign an investment management agreement in one or two meetings. Flat-fee financial planning is designed to answer your actual retirement questions first, with the relationship decision coming later, if at all.
One approach asks you to trust an advisor upfront. The other lets you build that trust through 20 hours of real work before your investment accounts are ever part of the conversation. The SEC has been clear that a registered investment adviser’s fiduciary duty means the advice has to serve your best interest, regardless of how the relationship is billed. Starting with a flat-fee project is one of the clearest ways to see that standard in action before you commit anything else.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System cost?
The flat fee for the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System is $3,750. That covers the full 4-step process, all six planning components, and your One Page Financial Plan.
Do I have to invest my money with Focus Planning Group afterward?
No. The Focus on Retirement Blueprint System stands on its own. Plenty of clients take their plan and implement it independently. If you decide later that you want an ongoing investment management relationship, that is always an option, but it is never required.
Is there an investment minimum for flat-fee financial planning?
No. There is no asset minimum to work with me on the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System or on hourly projects. The $500,000 minimum only applies if you move into full-service investment management afterward.
How long does the process take?
Most clients complete the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System in about 90 days, with roughly 20 hours of direct meeting time spread across the four steps.
What if we decide not to keep working together after the plan is done?
That is completely fine. You paid for a specific project, I delivered it, and we both walk away having gotten what we agreed to. There is no pressure and no ongoing commitment tied to the flat fee.
Can I keep working with you without moving into investment management?
Yes. If the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System goes well but you are not ready for an ongoing investment management relationship, you can switch to hourly check-ins at $300 per hour and come back whenever you need another review.
How Can We Help You
If you want to get real answers about your retirement before committing your investment accounts to anyone, the Focus on Retirement Blueprint System is built exactly for that. You will walk away with a written plan, a clear understanding of your options, and a real sense of how I work, all without any obligation to do anything else.
