Case Study

MELISSA AND HER PRIMARY GOAL

Get financially organized, build a savings plan and invest for goals
like children’s education and retirement.

The Background

Melissa, 41, has been the sole owner of her private practice for 5 years.  She started her career working for a local staffing agency but wanted a more flexible work arrangement after the birth of her second child.  After working with a private practice consultant, Melissa launched her sole proprietorship to better accommodate her desire for work/life balance.  

Melissa has always been the only employee of her practice.  She enjoys the autonomy of running her own business and enjoys taking on different responsibilities.  She acts as CEO, controller, marketing director and lead therapist. When she is not seeing clients or working on the business, she enjoys spending time with her family.

Melissa is married to Tom, who is a sales manager for a large property management company in town.  Melissa and Tom devote so much time to their careers that neither has the desire to manage their family’s personal finances.  Tom checks some boxes during annual employee enrollment that provides the family with basic insurance coverage. He has also built some retirement savings by putting money into his 401k account every two weeks.  Melissa and Tom know that they want to accomplish certain goals like helping pay for their daughters’ college education and retiring someday.

The Challenges

  • Melissa and Tom earn nice incomes but do not have a strong grasp of their monthly cash flow 
  • Melissa and Tom are unsure if they made the right elections from Tom’s employer-offered benefits
  • Melissa and Tom do not have a consistent savings plan in place.
  • Melissa and Tom are unclear on what accounts they should use to save for financial goals like their children’s education and retirement

The Conclusion

Just as an SLP cannot develop an IEP without an assessment, we took Melissa and Tom through our Plan of C.A.R.E Process.   Instead of recommending specific products or tactics, we listened as they explained their goals around money. By learning their values, we guided Melissa and 

Tom on how to achieve their financial objectives while avoiding common investment mistakes.  

Melissa and Tom felt that a burden had been lifted from their financial lives.  We helped them…

  • Organize their finances by aggregating their accounts into a one consolidated view on a personal, secure website.
  • Implement additional insurance to eliminate gaps in the family’s coverage
  • Optimize personal and business cash flow to identify and repurpose dollars to allocate towards financial goals
  • Save more for retirement by establishing a new type of retirement account for Melissa
  • Invest for her children’s education by developing a college funding strategy 

Melissa and Tom continue to work with the Utterly team because they value professional guidance and delegating the responsibility of monitoring their investment accounts.

All scenarios and names mentioned herein are purely fictional and have been created solely for training
purposes. Any resemblance to existing situations, persons or fictional characters is coincidental. The information presented should not be used as the basis for any specific investment advice.

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