What’s involved in moving my accounts? Is it difficult? Do I have to tell my current advisor?

It’s “just paperwork.” The total time required of new clients to deal with it is typically just minutes. (There are infrequent cases that require more, but those are always due to a new client’s existing financial custodian requiring its own paperwork before transferring accounts.) And typically, no, you need not speak with your current advisor.

What security do I have that you won’t steal my money?

This is a great example of a very candid, very fair question more people should ask of financial advisors. The security you have is that I cannot steal what I never possess. Clients NEVER send me investment money. (Interesting detail of history: Bernie Madoff’s clients wrote checks to Madoff Securities. He was his own custodian. That’s how he pulled off his scheme.)

The only client money I can direct to my personal account is for fee billing. But before I am able to transfer it from my clients’ accounts, Charles Schwab must approve my billing requests. It will not allow any request that is not in line with my upfront fee charges, or my regular quarterly billing, or my contract paperwork. For your own peace of mind, I would be happy to call Charles Schwab with you to review all of their safeguards of your money.

If you’re my advisor, what happens if you die?

I’m hoping to have a wonderful view! As for you, left behind without me as your advisor, you will have two choices. First, you may become a client of one of two advisors I have in place to take over my business in the instance of my demise. Or, you may elect not to have an advisor at all and simply become a retail client of Charles Schwab. But nothing will change with your money. It will be in the same accounts it was right before I left the earth.

Why a $6,500 annual fee? How’d you come up with that? It’s comparatively low given my wealth, so can I expect it to increase soon after I become a client?

My fee is based on the time, energy, and expertise I deliver to a typical client in a typical year. That typical client requires 10 to 20 hours per year of my time. Some years, some clients require less. Some years, some clients require many more. But that amount of time, over time, multiplied by a wage that I deem fair for my service and expertise, is how the $6,500 per year is determined.

My goal is not to increase fees on existing clients. Rather, new clients will pay increased fees (they will sign at higher contracted fee rates than existing clients pay), while existing clients will continue paying that fee for which they contracted.

Will I guarantee that I won’t ever increase fees on existing clients? Of course not. But, to me, a part of doing business how it ought to be done is taking great care of those clients who have demonstrated loyalty to me, and that will be expressed by keeping fee amounts on those existing clients right where they are for as long as possible, if not forever.

Do I have to write you checks for your fee?

No. I charge my upfront fee and quarterly fee the same way typical financial advisors do: by deducting it from your investment accounts. Although, if you insist, you may send me checks or wire me money. But none of my clients do that because it’s so much easier to have fees taken from their accounts.

What does the name “Safebridge” mean?

Safebridge, or “safe bridge,” is the most apt metaphor for a good financial plan for retirement. Click HERE for a bit more detail.

Who are ideal clients for you?

People who are friendly, respectful, and who do NOT want to handle their own financial planning for retirement. People who are like me in that they are happy to pay for professional excellence, but not at any cost. People who are like me in that they appreciate integrity, can critically think, and therefore don’t go for any old line of bull. People who want advice, implementation, and maintenance of their financial lives, not sales pitches for products or funds. People who know a little something about investing and have learned that index funds are superior investment choices and want them in their portfolios. People who have enough income or assets to make my advisory fee a relative and comparative bargain. And people who know a little something about the traditional financial services industry, are therefore skeptical of it, and who might say upon meeting me and understanding how I work, “Finally! An advisor who gets it! I’ve been looking for someone like you!” Those are people I love to work with.

What does your typical client look like in terms of age and wealth?

Most of my clients are between 60 and 75 years old, no longer work, and have between one million and five million dollars in investment accounts. But I am happy to work with considerably younger, or older, or less wealthy, or more wealthy if they have the traits I wrote above. My youngest clients (a couple) are 41 and 43 in 2024. My oldest client will be 86 in 2024.

How many clients do you have? How big will your firm get?

As of May, 2024, Safebridge services 66 “client households” (110 total people, which includes spouses and partners), directly manages over $99 Million of their investments, and advises on another $32+ Million of their investments that they hold outside of Charles Schwab.

I anticipate that Safebridge will reach full client capacity somewhere around 80 client households, “plus or minus”.

How often do you communicate with your clients? What can I expect if I become one?

Especially at the beginning of our relationship, in setting up your plan, we will speak frequently and often at length. Once your plan is established and you have authentic peace of mind about it, you will hear from me at least five times per year: on your birthday, and after the end of each quarter. So, on your birthday, and in early April, early July, early October, and early January, at least.

With those clients for whom I do taxes, I also speak several times between early February and mid-April. With those clients whose taxes I only review, I also speak in mid-to-late April.

But one thing I stress to all clients is: don’t let an unanswered question or an unsettled concern bother you. Call me (or email me)! You are paying me to be your advisor, so let me advise (knowing that mindreading is not one of my superpowers).

Are you a fiduciary? Will you sign a Fiduciary Oath?

Yes, I am a fiduciary. And, yes, I will sign a Fiduciary Oath. But it would be silly. If you understand what a true fiduciary is, and if you understand how I conduct my advisory business (which you do if you’ve read through this website), you would ask this (rhetorical) question of me: “Why would I need some signed Fiduciary Oath from you? You do everything how it ought to be done. That’s the definition of fiduciary.”

What was your financial advisor path to where you are today? When and why did you found Safebridge?

As many advisors who eventually became fee-only advisors have, I entered financial services through “the dark side” of the industry: part-time life insurance sales. I transitioned, and became a college planning advisor, working with high school students and their families. I further transitioned, and only through persistence over many years and an unusual ability to sniff out baloney and nonsense did I wind up where I am: the founder and lead advisor of a rapidly growing flat-fee, fee-only investment advisory and financial planning firm.

Along the way, I’ve sat through insurance product training focused on misleading and deceiving the customer through half-truths and obscuring facts in order to make sales. I’ve been barred from investment advisor training rooms for raising objections and calling out nonsense (politely, of course) from product pushers and fund representatives. I’ve been told I was “the only advisor who complained” about the exorbitant annual fees my prior investment advisor firms charged. All I ever wanted to do as an advisor was good, honest work for a fee I could look someone in the eye and defend. But there was no place local to me that did business that way.

So, in December, 2017, I founded Safebridge, a registered investment advisor dedicated to doing financial planning for retirement how it ought to be done. That’s to say, with professional excellence, always in the client’s best interest, and for a fair fee that makes sense.

Do you have any testimonials? Can I check your customer references?

Regulators frown on investment advisors using testimonials. As a general rule, they are not allowed. Technically, it is possible to use them, but it is tricky to use them compliantly. As chief compliance officer of my firm, my opinion is that using testimonials is not worth the potential trouble from regulators.

But ask yourself this: has any individual or business anywhere at any time in the history of the world ever posted an unflattering testimonial? The same goes for customer references. Could I supply customer references? Of course. Have I supplied them? I have, in rare cases. But supplying them is silly, isn’t it? Do you really think you’d hear anything less than effusive praise from any customer of mine to whom I referred you?

Still, I encourage you to do whatever due diligence on me that you deem necessary. The question below answers how to do that through “official” resources.

Where can I do some research on you? Please point me to someplace “official.”

You’ll find me on the SEC’s website HERE. You’ll find Safebridge on the SEC’s website HERE. You can read Safebridge’s latest Form ADV Part 2 (filed March 14, 2024) HERE. You’ll find me on the CFP Board’s website HERE. You may search for my firm (Safebridge LLC) on the North Carolina Secretary of State’s site HERE (I can’t link the search results directly, but you’ll find it if you try).

What is my risk in signing on with you?

Good question! As you will read in my contract paperwork, either of us, you or I, can end our relationship at any time. I do not use any investments or recommend any insurance products that have any penalties or early surrender charges. My quarterly advisory fees are charged in arrears, so in the event either of us severs our relationship, you would only owe up through the day of severance. And, I’m in no rush to charge my upfront planning fee. It is typically paid a month or more into working together, long after I proven my expertise and value (it is NOT required to be paid upon start-up). Therefore, your risk in signing on is comparatively very little.

Can I review your contract paperwork ahead of time so I know what I’m signing?

Please do. Click HERE to review the 6 total pages of my full-time advisory paperwork: the 4-page Client Engagement Agreement plus the 2-page Advisory Service Addendum.

How, exactly, do you get paid? What are all the ways?

This is the single most important question you can ask a financial advisor. Sadly, very few clients of advisors can answer it correctly of their advisors. And far too few advisors have good answers.

Here’s my answer: from my flat advisory fee, and only from my flat advisory fee. I benefit not a penny from any investments, products, or insurance policies I might recommend you purchase. No matter how much money you have, no matter where I recommend it go, my fee is the same.

How much, in total fees and investment costs, will I pay to work with you?

This is the second-most important question you can ask a financial advisor. And, again, it’s one that hardly anyone working with a financial advisor can answer correctly.

Here’s my answer: $6,500 per year in advisory fee (after the one-time $2,500 set-up and planning fee), plus approximately 0.05% in investment costs. Those investment costs are average management expenses of the funds I typically use for my clients’ accounts. None of them are paid to me.

So, for a client with $2 Million in investments, total annual fees and costs would be $6,500 (for my advisory fee) plus approximately $1,000 (investment costs), or $7,500 or so total per year.

Seem like a lot? Compare that to the typical financial advisor’s fees of 1%, plus another 1% in investment costs (for high-cost funds that are certain to underperform the index). So, that’s 2% of $2 Million, or $40,000 per year. And for that, the typical financial advisor does no income tax filing, income tax planning, and no substantive financial planning for his clients.

No wonder financial advisors never reveal what the dollar amount of their fees actually is. Instead, they deceive their clients and prospects by speaking only in percentages (and completely withholding the investment cost information).

It should be no mystery now how financial firms pay for those oak-paneled offices in soaring buildings. This is too often a very dirty business.

Don’t you lack the incentive to grow my investments if your advisory fee is flat (and not a percentage of my investments)?

Percentage-based fees do not create an incentive for advisors to grow their clients’ investments. Markets, not advisors, are what provide investment growth. And advisors have no control over markets. Nor can advisors consistently know what parts of markets will be best. Crystal balls don’t work. So, why would someone pay so much for an incentive that doesn’t exist? The reason is because they get duped by advisors who lack integrity.

My incentive is to keep my clients happy so that they want to remain my clients. I keep them happy by always fully-disclosing and always acting in their best interests. And that is why they stay happy and choose to remain my clients.

What’s your strategy to “beat the market”?

I don’t try to beat the market, because trying to do so is a fool’s errand. On the stock side of my clients’ portfolios, my job is to match the returns of broad stock markets. I do that by 1) using funds that essentially match broad stock markets (index funds) and by 2) keeping my clients’ investment costs to the bare minimum. On the bond side of my clients’ portfolios, I build future income security by using very low-cost bond funds that do not expose my clients’ holdings to the same volatility as broad bond index funds do. This approach maximally protects my clients’ best interests and gives them the very best chance for both investment success and income security over their lifetimes.

I can buy index funds myself-why would I pay you to do that?

You can indeed buy index funds yourself, so you shouldn’t pay me just to do that. My clients pay me to be their financial advisor, not simply their investment manager. Investment management is but a part of being a true advisor. It’s for all the parts together that you would pay me, not for simply choosing your investments.

If you’re “fee-only” and don’t sell insurance products or investments that pay commissions, then aren’t you limiting my options?

In a sense, yes, in the same the way a doctor would limit a diabetic patient’s food options by forbidding high-sugar junk such as soda, cookies, and cake. Is that patient better off or worse off with such “limited” options? I say better off, much better off. I also say that that patients “good” options are not, in fact, limited.

I act similarly as an advisor.

With very, very few exceptions (term life insurance and some income-only annuities are two), products that pay the salesperson a commission or other up-front payment are absolutely not in the client’s best interest. They are clearly in the salesperson’s and product provider’s (i.e. life insurance company’s, fund company’s) best interests, and by a lot.

Moreover, today, virtually any product or fund that pays a salesperson a commission (or sales load) is also available in a commission-free (or load-free) version. Commission-free products are far more in the client’s best interest (if advisors using them don’t tack on heavy fees to make up for the lack of commission, which happens a lot). Commission-free products have much lower internal expenses (precisely because there is no commission to pay). Therefore, the client receives far more “bang for buck”. That is why I bias towards commission-free products for clients who want or need insurance protection, for which I charge nothing extra. However, for my clients, the need for additional insurance is extremely rare.

All financial advisors have conflicts of interest with their clients. You’re one, so what are yours?

The major conflict of interest problem other financial advisors have is that they get paid some percentage of their clients’ assets, either smaller percentages annually, or large percentages up-front as commissions. Because I only get paid my flat advisory fee, I have none of those conflicts. I am free to advise the client on what is in the client’s best interest, because I don’t get paid more or less for however much a client invests anywhere, wherever a client invests, or whatever a client buys.

My clear conflict of interest is pre-advisory relationship. If you ask me if I think you should become my client, clearly I stand to benefit financially from having you as a client. So I cannot give you advice on that decision without a big conflict of interest. Once you are my client, however, my only incentive is to do excellent work for you to make you happy so that, candidly, you keep paying me quarter after quarter, year after year, to be your advisor.

So you are right; all financial advisors have conflicts of interest with their clients. But unlike almost all other financial advisors’, mine is only pre-relationship.

What’s your “why” as a financial advisor? Why are you one, and what motivates you?

I always wanted to do important work in people’s lives that “not just anybody” could do. And I wanted to do it very well and very fairly to the customer and to me. That’s exactly what I do at Safebridge.

A big motivation for me is that so much of the financial advisory business is dirty business. A sad-but-true quotation by writer Morgan Housel expresses it perfectly: “The business model of the majority of financial services companies relies on exploiting the fears, emotions, and lack of intelligence of customers. The worst part is that the majority of customers will never realize this.”

Partial proof of this is that almost no people who use financial advisors can answer these two questions correctly: How, exactly, does your financial advisor get paid? And how much, in total fees and investment costs, are you paying to work with her or him?