I was just asked this question by a close friend who had inherited an IRA from a parent. She wanted to know, “Am I going to get hammered in taxes?”

It’s a smart question because it’s one of the biggest misconceptions about taxes.

Most people know inherited IRAs come with tax consequences. And because most non-spouse beneficiaries now have to empty an inherited IRA within 10 years, the question isn’t whether they’ll pay taxes. It’s when, and how much?

It’s so easy to get tripped up. You might assume that taking money out of an inherited IRA will push you into the next higher tax bracket, and then just like that… all of your income will now be taxed at that higher rate.

It doesn’t work like that. Federal income taxes are marginal. That’s the technical term, but the concept is pretty simple. Only those dollars that cross into the next tax bracket are taxed at the higher rate. Everything below that threshold continues to be taxed at the lower rates.

Think of it this way. If you’re standing at the shoreline and dip your big toe in the ocean, your whole body isn’t suddenly submerged. It’s just your toe that’s wet. That’s how tax brackets work.

If this sounds surprising, just know more than half of Americans didn’t understand how marginal tax rates work. According to the 2024 Tax Foundation survey, a third believed all of their income would be taxed at that higher rate. That’s the misconception that leads people to make expensive financial decisions.

Why Your Marginal Tax Rate Matters

It sounds like an in-the-weeds distinction but it’s not. Once you know only the dollars above the threshold are taxed at the higher rate, and the rest of your income doesn’t move up with them, it changes the way you think about tax planning.

I’ve seen people put off taking distributions they actually needed because they were afraid of moving into the next tax bracket. The irony is that waiting too long can leave them taking much larger withdrawals later in that 10-year window, potentially pushing them into a higher bracket than they would have reached by spreading those withdrawals out more thoughtfully.

The same misunderstanding shows up with Roth conversions. People sometimes avoid the conversion because they don’t want to pay taxes today, without realizing that paying a little tax now can sometimes save a great deal more later. The issue isn’t the event that triggers the next tax bracket—whether it’s inheriting an IRA, taking a retirement distribution, or doing a Roth conversion. The issue is understanding what actually happens when you get there.

That’s why I encourage people to stop worrying about “How do I avoid the next tax bracket?” The most useful question is, “How much room do I have left in my current tax bracket?”

Now you can start planning.

That simple shift in your mindset can change decisions you might otherwise make based on fear. Now you’re making decisions based on facts.

This is why I carefully vet independent, fee-only financial advisors for tax planning expertise in addition to their investment expertise. The best advisors don’t just react to a tax bill after the fact. They help clients make better decisions before the tax is ever triggered.

That’s the kind of planning lens Marianela Collado, CPA/PFS, CFP®, an advisor in Wealthramp’s network, is using. She reminds us, “Making money is great, but more important is how much of that money you keep.”

That’s exactly the point. Good tax planning isn’t as much about avoiding tax brackets as it is understanding how they work. Then you can use them to your advantage.

P.S. I spoke to AARP recently about the benefits of a one-time financial plan. Check it out here.

At the outset, I always ask the same question:

“What kind of financial advisor do you want to be?”

Most assume I’m asking what area of financial planning they want to specialize in. I’m not.

I’m asking whether they want to practice as a fiduciary—legally obligated to put their clients’ financial interests first—or under a different business model.

That’s usually the light bulb moment.

Like most consumers, many assume becoming a fiduciary requires another exam, another credential, or some complicated approval process. It seems logical. If you’re going to accept that level of legal responsibility, surely there must be another hurdle to clear.

There isn’t.

Being a fiduciary isn’t a badge or even a credential you earn. It’s a legal standard you choose. Every advisor entering this profession reaches the same fork in the road. They can build a career in the brokerage world, where compensation often comes from selling financial products, or they can choose the fee-only fiduciary model, where they’re legally obligated to act in their clients’ best financial interests 100% of the time.

Then there’s the hybrid, or fee-based, model. These advisors can wear both hats—sometimes acting as fiduciaries and other times acting as brokers selling commissioned products. The legal standard depends on which hat they’re wearing at the time.

To me, that’s like wearing a seatbelt only on certain roads. You’re either buckled in for the entire trip, or you’re not.

Would you knowingly choose an advisor who’s only legally obligated to put your interests first part of the time?

Back to the students.

I ask them one more question:

“Why would someone offering advice choose not to be a fiduciary?”

So far, not one has told me they would. But the students are the exception, not the rule because in the real world, the vast majority of financial advisors have chosen not to practice as fee-only advisors 100% of the time.

They all have the same opportunity. Yet out of roughly 834,000 financial professionals in the United States tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only a small minority operate as true fee-only fiduciaries. At the same time, most people who already have a financial advisor mistakenly believe their advisor is legally required to act in their best interests. And according to a recent CFP Board survey, 97% of Americans believe financial professionals should be required to put their clients first.

That’s an astonishing disconnect.

Consumers overwhelmingly believe fiduciary advice is the standard. Most already assume they have it. In reality, very few do.

I’m not telling you what to do with that information. But I do think you deserve to know it before deciding who you’ll trust with your financial future. If you want to see your options, you can browse Wealthramp’s network of fee-only, fiduciary advisors anytime.

I made my choice years ago.

P.S. We’re in the news! I spoke to the Wall Street Journal’s Buy Side about what consumers need to know about wrap fees. Check it out here.

I was there for the Morningstar Investment Conference. The sessions are always excellent, but for me the real value has always been the conversations in between—running into people I’ve only known through LinkedIn, grabbing coffee with colleagues I haven’t seen in twenty years, and being reminded why I love this work. (Hopefully I can meet members of Count Up’s Substack community in person one day, too).

That was true with Christine Benz, Morningstar’s Director of Personal Finance and Retirement Planning and host of The Long View podcast. We’ve moved in similar circles for years, but this was the first time we’d actually sat down together in over twenty years. (Christine frequently writes about the bucket strategy, a helpful framework for retirement planning).

Terry Savage joined us toward the end of our conversation. If you don’t know Terry, she’s a legend in the personal finance world and one of the smartest people I know. Definitely the smartest person in any room she walks into.

It struck all three of us that although we’d taken very different paths, we’d spent decades working toward the same mission: helping people make smarter financial decisions and connect with advice they can truly trust.

The next day I joined Terry on WGN Radio with host John Williams. (You can check it out here!) If you’ve ever listened to Terry and John together, you know they love to spar. John asks the questions listeners are actually thinking. Terry answers directly. I found myself right in the middle of it.

What I appreciated most was that John asked questions like: Who cares how a financial advisor gets paid? Why does fiduciary status matter? And does someone have to let an advisor manage their investments, or can they just get advice and handle their own investing?

We talked about how you don’t need a million-dollar portfolio to get outstanding advice. We talked about what great advice costs, what it looks like in real life. I’ve always felt a need to point out that mediocre advice can end up costing more through missed opportunities, unnecessary taxes, or cookie-cutter financial plans.

Then John opened the phone lines. Here’s where the karma comes in.

A handful of callers came on, and two simply wanted other listeners to know they’d found their advisor through Wealthramp and that it had been a game changer. I won’t pretend that didn’t make me proud.

On the way home, I found myself thinking less about the conference and more about Christine and Terry.

Three women with three different careers and three different platforms. Yet after all these years, we’d somehow ended up in exactly the same place.

We all believe people deserve better financial advice. We believe trust and ethics matter more than ever in the age of AI. And we believe that when people finally find the right advisor, it can genuinely change their lives.

Hearing those callers on WGN reminded me why that mission is worth fighting for.

That question has been on my mind ever since I recorded a podcast about how financial advisors are adopting AI to benefit themselves and hopefully, their clients. I joined Stanford University’s KZSU radio host Dave Levine and invited one of the fee-only fiduciary advisors in my Wealthramp network, Jeff George, CFA. Jeff’s the founder of his own advisory firm, Tao Financial in Orlando.

For a full hour we explored one of the hottest topics in financial services today: artificial intelligence and how financial advisors are already using it.

The timing was perfect. I’d just read about how JP Morgan is introducing AI agents to automate work, boost productivity, and let advisors and bankers serve significantly more clients. The story was all about how AI will help the bottom line. Nowhere did it mention how AI would help clients have better outcomes or improve client experiences.

Most people read that as a story about technology. I read it as a story about ethics.

The Promise and the Trap

For years, we’ve been told technology would democratize financial advice, lower costs, and improve access. In so many ways, it has. Today’s AI tools can analyze portfolios, run retirement projections, spot tax opportunities, summarize meetings, and process information faster than any human.

That part doesn’t worry me.

What concerns me is what comes next. A recent Schwab Advisor Services study (January 2026) found 63% of Registered Investment Advisors are already using AI — more than double the rate from three years ago. Most are using it for administrative tasks, note-taking, drafting communications, research, and meeting prep. Early adopters report meaningful time savings. But most are still just experimenting. Only about 1 in 10 financial advisory firms have policies in place to fully integrate AI into their overall strategy, according to the study.

The question isn’t whether advisors will use more AI. It’s how they use the efficiency it creates. Are they using their freed-up time to build deeper client relationships and deliver more thoughtful advice? Or are they hyper-focused on adding more clients and letting AI handle the volume?

The Human Element AI Cannot Replace

Most people who reach out to me aren’t suffering from a lack of information. If anything, there’s too much information. They’re wrestling with doubt. They’re coming to me every day asking:

• Can I retire?

• How much will I be able to withdraw every year from my savings?

• Will helping my adult child hurt my own future?

• Am I making big mistakes?

These questions are about money. But without context, the answers are worthless. Your family, your health, identity, purpose, and relationships are what drive your desired results. Two people with identical investment portfolios can need completely different advice because they’re solving different life problems.

Good financial advice has always depended on judgment, not just intelligence. AI is excellent at searching what’s already online and helping you ask better, more precise questions. What it cannot do is be the advice.

That distinction was at the heart of our conversation with Jeff George. We talked about how thoughtful advisors already use AI for meeting prep — pulling together portfolio updates, scenario modeling, and relevant research so the advisor walks in better prepared with deeper insights tailored to that client’s situation.

That’s not the same as applying judgment, empathy, and context. What turns good advice into great advice still comes from humans.

Used thoughtfully, AI is a powerful tool for a financial advisor. Used carelessly, it can create a false sense of confidence, encourage cookie-cutter recommendations, or tempt firms to prioritize efficiency, faster scaling, and generating more revenues over the quality of the client relationship.

As an individual, there are several key questions I advise people to now ask their advisor:

• What guardrails have you put in place to ensure AI augments rather than replaces personalized, fiduciary advice?

• How do you test AI outputs for accuracy, biases, or conflicts before they reach clients?

• Will AI help you serve me better — or simply allow you to serve more people with less attention per client?

• How do you define success for your clients, and whose interests come first when difficult tradeoffs arise?

The advisors who stand out won’t necessarily be the ones using the most advanced AI. They’ll be the ones who refuse to let technology erode the human relationship at the core of great advice. They will be more intentional adopters.

As someone who has spent decades building Wealthramp and putting up guardrails to connect people with outstanding vetted, fee-only fiduciary advisors, I believe this AI moment makes independent, conflict-free advice more valuable than ever.

I’ve never seen a more important moment to focus on whether the advisor’s values and ethics align with yours.

What do you think? Has AI changed how you interact with your advisor for better or worse? Drop a comment below. And if you found this useful, please share it with someone navigating their own financial journey.

If you’d like to explore Wealthramp’s network of vetted, fee-only, fiduciary advisors who can help you with everything from a one-time financial plan to long-range support, you can do so here.

The headlines are focused on valuations, growth projections, and whether these companies will ever live up to the enormous expectations investors are placing on them. That’s understandable. When trillion-dollar companies come to market, everyone wants to know whether they’re worth the price.

Millions of people probably think they’re sitting on the sidelines watching SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic go public. But whether you like them or hate them, you’ll likely become an investor without having any say in the matter.

That’s right.

Because who will ultimately be buying all of these shares? The answer, at least in part, is most Americans who are saving for retirement through their index funds.

If you contribute to a 401(k), own an IRA, or invest through broad market index funds, there’s a good chance you’ll soon own pieces of these companies whether you make a conscious decision to buy them or not. That’s because the vast majority of retirement assets today are invested through index funds, target-date funds, and ETFs that automatically adjust their holdings as indexes change.

@wealthrampEveryone's asking "where should I put my money?" with trillion-dollar IPOs like SpaceX and OpenAI on the horizon — but that's the wrong question. The right question is: what job does this investment need to do? Stocks for growth, bonds for income and stability, cash for liquidity, international and private investments for diversification. Every dollar in your portfolio should have a purpose — if you can't explain its job, it might be time to fire it. #personalfinance #investingtips #portfoliostrategy #wealthbuilding #financialplanning

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Nasdaq recently revised its methodology to allow certain mega-cap IPOs to qualify for inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 after just 15 trading days. That means SpaceX could become eligible for inclusion as early as July. Once a company gets added to a major index, funds that track that index must buy shares in order to mirror its holdings.

This is one of the reasons indexing has been such a powerful investment strategy. Index funds don’t try to predict winning horses in the race – they simply invest all the horses in the race. And the approach has helped millions of investors build wealth through low costs, broad diversification, and disciplined investing.

But what so many people don’t realize is that indexing doesn’t ‘buy and hold.’ Your index fund does not stand still. The indexes themselves are constantly changing. New companies get let in. Others leave. In other words, your funds are buying and selling so as markets evolve, your retirement portfolio evolves in lockstep with them. And these are changes you might not know to pay attention to.

Find an Advisor

The next IPO wave is a perfect example.

When companies as large as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are admitted into public indexes, retirement dollars become part of the buying force. Stock analysts estimate that SpaceX alone could attract billions of dollars in automated buys from index-tracking funds once it becomes eligible for inclusion.

None of this should be interpreted as a warning against innovation. Some of the greatest investments in history started out as exciting young companies with no profits but massive ambitions. Innovation drives economic growth, and long-term investors should benefit from that growth.

But investors should also remember what an IPO represents. Here’s what I keep thinking about.

For the venture capital firms, hedge funds, founders, insiders, and early employees, an IPO is the payoff. They’ve been waiting and holding shares for years while the company was still private. They’ve watched the valuation climb from millions to billions and, in these cases, from billions to trillions.

The challenge for you as someone saving for retirement in your index funds is that by the time a company reaches a trillion-dollar valuation and becomes large enough for index inclusion, many of those early-to-the-party investors have already enjoyed an extraordinary run up. But will the future returns justify the price that new investors, and your retirement account, are paying?

This is the conversation worth having with your advisor. Not whether SpaceX, OpenAI, or Anthropic are incredibly impressive companies. They clearly are.

That’s the trillion dollar question I suggest you consider right now.

P.S. If you’re ready for a financial checkup, get in touch here anytime. Our advisors are rigorously vetted, and we never sell your personal data.

We’re staring down a pipeline of potential trillion-dollar-scale IPOs like SpaceX and OpenAI. Expectations are high – really high. That has some seasoned investors wondering whether we’re flying too close to the sun.

The S&P 500 is up about 8% year-to-date, which feels really good on paper, but getting there has been a bumpy ride with plenty of volatility. Short-term interest rates are now likely to go up, not down. Then there’s inflation. At the time of this writing, prices on the things we use every day are rising at an annual inflation rate of 3.8%. The highest level we’ve seen in three years.

So yes, we all know the golden rule: ‘stay invested.’ But the real question everyone’s wrestling with is… invest where?

This is where having a network of more than 200 rigorously vetted, experienced fiduciary advisors comes in handy. Matt McKee, CFA, is one of them. He recently wrote on this topic explaining investment approaches in a fresh, understandable way.

As Matt puts it, after you’ve built the financial plan and figured out how much risk you’re really okay with, “now we have to put our money to work.”

Which brings us right back to the question: invest where?

There’s a good reason Matt, just like the other advisors I’ve vetted, doesn’t come out of the gate with stock picks, private investments, or even his latest ideas. Before recommending the investments, he has to know what role that investment is supposed to play in your portfolio.

He starts with purpose. What’s the job you need your investments to do? Because every investment should have a job.

A large U.S. stock fund has a job. An international stock fund has a job. Bonds have a job. And cash has a job.

As Matt points out, “We’re not choosing investments based on the gaudiest historical returns. We’re not chasing investment returns, either. We’re looking for the right tool for the right role inside a portfolio.” Too many investors focus on trailing returns. Matt says that’s a trap. Historical returns do matter, but they won’t tell you the whole story.

The best advisors aren’t trying to predict what happens next. They’re building portfolios designed to survive multiple versions of what happens next.

That’s one reason thoughtful advisors spend so much time evaluating how their clients’ investments interact with one another and pay close attention to taxes and fees.

The goal isn’t to own everything. It’s to own the right mix of assets that can help support the life you’re trying to build through different market environments.

What I appreciate most about Matt’s perspective is that it removes some of the mystery. There’s no secret sauce. No magic fund or perfect forecast. Just a disciplined process for deciding what belongs in a portfolio, why it belongs there, what it costs, and how it supports the life you’re trying to build.

What investing question trips you up most right now? Share it below. We’ll unpack it together.

Reach out to me anytime. And if you’d like to explore Wealthramp’s network of vetted, fee-only, fiduciary advisors who can help you with everything from a one-time financial plan to long-range support, you can do so here.

What I’ve come to realize is that most people have never gotten truly exceptional financial advice, let alone worked with an outstanding advisor. That’s why they often tell me, “I don’t know exactly what I want, but I know I want something better than what I have now.”

Why is finding great advice so messy? Let me assure you, it’s not you. It’s them. And by “them,” I mean the financial services industry.

This is a system largely designed as a sales business model, not an advice model. Still, truly excellent financial advice and exceptional financial advisors do exist. They’re just not in every strip mall down the street.

Many people have worked with the same advisor for years. Others have relied on the rep who works for their 401(k) plan, a broker, an insurance agent calling himself an advisor, a friend, or a family member for financial guidance. And many have just taken on all the financial planning and investment decisions themselves.

When I ask how the relationship with their advisor is going, the answers are quite revealing. The most common answer I get is: “Yeah, she’s okay…I think?” Or “We don’t really hear from him that much.”

Or if I ask what their advisor is actually doing to earn his fee, I get this: “He manages our investments but that’s about it.”

Just this week, someone told me, “The only time we really hear from him anymore is when he wants to sell us something.”

That’s the reality that’s been at the heart of my work for years. I admit it: I have a massively ambitious goal. I want to raise the bar and upgrade the quality of financial advice Americans are getting.

I’m doing this in two ways. First, I encourage people to raise their expectations. Exceptional advice exists. I want people to recognize good financial advice when they see it and understand that they don’t have to settle for an advisor who simply manages investments or checks-in once a year. It’s not about expecting your advisor to outperform the S&P stock index. It’s about your whole financial life. The planning that aligns with your investment strategy.

Second, I believe the industry itself must be held to a higher standard.

One of my biggest frustrations is that so many people operating under the title “financial advisor” are still working within a sales model, yet calling themselves “advisors.” They’re paid to recommend their products and services even if those recommendations aren’t the least expensive or in your best interest, yet consumers are often led to believe they’re receiving objective professional advice.

This is exactly why I keep getting asked: “Pam, how is anyone supposed to find a highly qualified fiduciary advisor – how can this be so messy?”

That’s why I’m pointing out the warning signs people should pay attention to. Not because I enjoy criticizing this industry, but because people deserve to know they have choices.

People deserve to know that financial services is an industry. Not a profession. There is no ‘high bar’ that advisors need to pass.

So who amongst all these advisors do act as professionals even when no one requires it? After more than 30 years covering this profession, providing advice, evaluating advisors, and building a network of more than 230 fee-only fiduciary advisors, my answer is always the same:

Not many.

There are roughly 300,000 to 330,000 people operating under some version of the title “financial advisor” in the US today. In my opinion, the number who are truly exceptional is fewer than 7,000.

That’s still a significant number of professionals, but it’s a very small community relative to the size of the industry.

What separates them?

Professionalism and running a fiduciary practice are the starting points.

These few advisors are the only ones who choose to operate as professionals in an industry that often doesn’t require it. Unlike doctors or lawyers, there is no universal professional standard. In many cases, someone can pass an exam, sell insurance or annuities, and legally call themselves a financial advisor.

The exceptional advisors choose a higher standard. They are students of their craft. They continue learning. They understand investments, but they also understand taxes, retirement income, estate planning, insurance, and the complex decisions families face throughout their lives.

I just had a conversation with a fee-only fiduciary advisor in my network, Jason Lilly, CFA about this. (A video of our chat will be out soon!) He explained that much of his work isn’t really about investments. It’s helping people make better decisions all the time.

That simple statement captures what I’ve observed among the best advisors I’ve met over the years. They listen before they recommend. They ask thoughtful questions. They connect dots. They identify blind spots. Most importantly, they create clarity.

You walk away with a much better understanding of your choices, your opportunities, and the decisions in front of you.

That’s what good financial advice looks like.

The best advisors help people make better decisions about their lives. They help clients avoid big expensive mistakes, think through important tradeoffs, and move forward with greater confidence.

Once you’ve experienced advice at that level, your expectations change forever.

Reach out to me anytime with questions. And if you’d like to explore Wealthramp’s network of vetted, fee-only, fiduciary advisors, you can do so here.

Now it’s about learning how to spend the money confidently after 40 years trying not to.

A million dollars still sounds like it’s enough to support a good lifestyle for the rest of your life, and it may be, but retirement math in 2026 looks very different than it did twenty years ago.

Morningstar’s latest research suggests roughly a 3.9% starting withdrawal rate for retirees seeking a high probability that their savings will last 30 years. That means someone with $1 million invested may realistically generate about $39,000 a year from the portfolio before Social Security.

Add another $35,000 to $45,000 from Social Security for a couple and suddenly the household may realistically be living on roughly $80,000 gross income before taxes.

Comfortable in some places. Tight in others depending on where you live, and how you live.

Now layer in inflation that averages 3% annually. I’m using 3% because it’s much closer to what many economists and retirement planners now view as a realistic long-term planning assumption.

Inflation erodes your money over time so a lifestyle costing $100,000 today could require roughly $135,000 in ten years.

This is where I see retirees often split into two camps.

One group becomes really anxious, almost paranoid about overspending. Every larger expense suddenly comes with huge consequences. They travel and spend but do it with a sense of constant worry.

The other group underspends almost reflexively. They hold back from experiences they could easily afford because they never developed real confidence about what was actually safe to spend. In other words, their retirement plan was never really a ‘spending plan.’

Many people I talk to share that they believed they already had a withdrawal plan because in 2018 they sat down with the guy at Fidelity who printed out a report with pie charts and projections, and confidently told them: “You’re going to be fine. You can retire.”

I’m going to say this very strongly and with a lot of confidence myself: this is one of the few moments in life where you truly need to sit down with a highly qualified, fee-only fiduciary advisor who specializes in retirement income planning. (You can always find one here).

Retirement today is too complex — inflation, taxes, healthcare costs, Social Security timing, withdrawal strategies, market volatility — and the stakes are simply too high to rely on old projections or assumptions, even for financially sophisticated people.

Frankly, I’m doing the same for myself. I know a lot about retirement planning after 30 years, but I’m going to be a lot more confident getting a pair of fresh eyes from an advisor — a peer who I know is highly qualified and won’t be afraid to tell me what I need to hear. In other words: an expert who’s objective.

I’ve also challenged my own thinking over the last few years about retirement itself. Why does retirement have to be one big ‘on’ or ‘off’ switch to work or not work?

I think the healthier model today is a dimmer switch approach. Flexibility and optionality become the real goal rather than unplug completely. Working because I want to means that even earning a small income dramatically reduces both financial and emotional pressure.

If that person with the $1 million portfolio earns even an extra $20,000 to $30,000 a year after taxes through part-time work, consulting, seasonal work, or remote work for a few additional years, it means they may only need to withdraw $10,000 to $15,000 a year from investments for a period of time instead of the full roughly $39,000.

Even just a couple of years of extra income adds up. That reduced pressure during the early retirement years while investments continue compounding can preserve tens of thousands, and sometimes substantially more, over someone’s lifetime.

Even more importantly, people feel less trapped. That’s why I think people should focus less on some mythical “perfect retirement number” and more on building a retirement plan that can evolve as life changes.

If you’d like to explore how a one-time financial plan can meet your needs, get started here.

I’d genuinely love to hear from you about this. What are you hoping retirement will actually feel like for you — security, freedom, purpose, flexibility, family time, something else entirely? Put your thoughts in the comments.

It’s like Grandma’s Toll House cookie recipe. You buy the S&P 500, load up on the big AI names and you’re diversified. Then watch your retirement fund balance grow. If you followed that recipe, you had a reason to feel pretty clever because the numbers backed you up.

But 2025 was a reckoning. The S&P 500 experienced an almost 19% midyear decline before recovering, while a broadly diversified portfolio returned 18.3% for the year compared with roughly 17% for the S&P 500 and 13.3% for a traditional 60/40 portfolio, according to Morningstar research.

It reminded everyone that real diversification isn’t just owning “a lot of stocks.” It’s owning assets that actually behave differently when the market shifts.

There aren’t many investing pearls of wisdom I can offer that work consistently but this one does: diversification wins all battles.

Morningstar’s 2025 performance research tells the story pretty clearly. A truly diversified portfolio spread across 11 asset classes: large-cap U.S. stocks, developed and emerging markets, Treasuries, bonds, small-company stocks, commodities, gold, and REITs. That mix returned 18.3% for the year, better than the S&P 500’s roughly 17% return and well ahead of a traditional 60/40 portfolio at 13.3%.

What got my attention is where those returns came from.

Gold had one of its strongest years in two decades. A roughly 70% move in a relatively short period of time is considered an unusually powerful rally for gold, which is why so many investors suddenly started paying attention to it again in 2025.

Some of the strongest areas in 2025 came from corners investors had ignored for years: emerging markets, international value stocks, metals and commodities, smaller companies, REITs, global bonds, and yes, gold.

Meanwhile, I’ve been hearing from lots of pre-retirees who thought they were pretty well diversified and realized they had too much risk in the same handful of mega-cap U.S. technology companies. That concentration worked beautifully on the way up. On the way down though, or even sideways, it becomes a very different experience. (If you have concerns about your portfolio, it could be a good time to speak with an advisor or get a one-time financial checkup. Wealthramp can help you with both.)

Money also started flowing outside the usual U.S. mega-cap tech trade. A weaker dollar, concerns over geopolitics, and higher inflation pushed investors to look for other places to put money, and international markets and alternative assets benefited.

This is what makes the advisor conversation more relevant than ever. For years, the standard question was simple: “Did you beat the S&P 500?”

That question still matters, but it’s no longer the only conversation. Today’s portfolios are more global, more multi-asset, and more dynamic.

The real work now often involves deciding how much international exposure actually makes sense for a particular client, whether commodities or gold belong in the portfolio at all, how to manage bond exposure after historic interest-rate moves, minimizing tax drag, rebalancing systematically, planning retirement withdrawals, and helping clients avoid emotionally chasing whatever just had the hottest run.

That’s one reason the advisory industry continues moving toward fee-only planning relationships, according to Cerulli Associates. Investors increasingly aren’t paying advisors just to pick stocks. They’re paying for portfolio construction, risk oversight, tax strategy, behavioral coaching, and ongoing planning around increasingly complex portfolios.

Here’s my point. If that diversified portfolio returned 18.3% while the S&P 500 returned roughly 17%, an investor paying around a 1% advisory fee might have ended up roughly in line with the broad market after fees while also getting comprehensive financial and tax-forward planning wrapped around the portfolio itself.

In other words, the value of diversification and professional risk management alone can effectively pay for the advisor’s fee.

None of this means a diversified approach will outperform every single year. Over longer periods, the plain 60/40 portfolio has still delivered solid results. But 2025 was a serious reminder that sustainable investing success rarely comes from piling into last year’s winners.

It comes from building a portfolio and a plan, durable enough that you can stay invested no matter what comes next.

P.S. If you’re ready for a financial checkup, get in touch here anytime. Our advisors are rigorously vetted, and we never sell your personal data.

Scams are getting so sophisticated, aren’t they?

Right now, one of the easiest scams to fall for looks like a normal little tax-season nuisance. A text or email says your refund has been approved, delayed, frozen, or needs one final verification step. Then there’s a link or a QR code, with very official-looking IRS language around it.

And your brain is thinking: Okay, good, let me just get this done. That’s the trap.

The real IRS is not texting you a link so you can fix your refund. It’s not asking you to scan a QR code to update your bank account. Knowing that could save you a lot of money and a lot of pain.

I’ll admit something – maybe it’s just me, but when my finger sees a QR code, it seems to want to click it and get me into trouble.

That’s the reaction scammers are counting on. Now criminals are using artificial intelligence to write cleaner messages, copy official language, build fake websites, and even clone voices. This is no longer the silly, obvious scammer using bad grammar and nonsense that begins with “Dear Sir or Madam…”

Here are three scams to watch out for.

1. The IRS “Refund Verification” Scam

It starts with a text, email, or fake IRS-looking message saying there’s a problem with your refund or identity verification.

Don’t click or scan. Don’t enter anything. The IRS recently put QR-code phishing on its official Dirty Dozen warning list because so many people are falling for it. Forward your suspicious IRS texts and phishing emails to phishing@irs.gov.

But what if you’re worried that you deleted an important notice that you thought was a hoax? Here’s what to do right now:

Log into your official IRS online account by going directly to IRS.gov, then clicking “Your Online Account.” You can then see any digital notices or letters, your tax account balance, payment history, and get transcripts This is the fastest way to see if anything is actually pending.

So when it comes to official IRS notices, here’s my rule:

IRS + QR code (or link) = don’t do it. Instead take the long, boring way and go directly to IRS.gov yourself.

2. The AI Voice Call from Someone You Love

This one is dangerous because it skips your brain and goes straight to your heart.

You hear what sounds like the voice of your child, grandchild, spouse, or friend saying they’re in trouble and need money right now. Hang up. Call back using the number you already know.

And do this: create a family ‘code word’. Think of it as a PIN number for your ATM card — except this one protects the people you love when a scam is trying to use panic against you.

Hiya’s State of the Call 2026 report finds roughly one in every four Americans says they’ve already received one of these fake AI voice calls.

3. The Online Relationship That Becomes an “Investment Opportunity”

This one is aimed squarely at people with money.

It starts as a wrong-number text, dating app banter, social media chat, or even a LinkedIn comment. It becomes warm and then personal. And then the conversation eventually turns financial.

If someone builds an online relationship, then steers you toward an investment opportunity, that’s not romance, friendship, or networking. It’s grooming.

AARP recently found that 1 in 10 Americans over 50 has interacted with someone online who later asked for money or pushed a crypto investment. And the FBI says investment fraud losses hit $8.65 billion last year, much of it tied to these kinds of scams.

Crypto, private platforms, screenshots that show big investment gains, or exclusive opportunities are red flags. You don’t have to decide anything at that moment. You don’t even have to take a look. We live in an online world where something is always pinging, nudging, pulling for your attention.

The protection is actually simple. Take a moment to verify the validity of the request. Closely examine the firm, the people, and the platform. If something feels off, turn away because it very likely could be a scam. (Speaking of verification, don’t forget to check out my guide on why it’s important to check your financial advisor’s background).

I’m old enough to remember Nancy Reagan’s famous line: “Just Say No.” You were right, Nancy.

Fast-forward to April 2026. That same primal instinct is alive and well, and it’s spreading like wildfire. We’re now building entire platforms around it. Welcome to prediction markets, where people are encouraged to bet on politics, sports, Federal Reserve decisions, weather events and even celebrity gossip. On Kalshi and Polymarket, two of the biggest prediction exchanges, traders were betting on whether Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce would get married, including wagers tied to timing. (I’m serious.)

Anything that can be turned into a yes-or-no proposition can now become an official bet.

Here’s how prediction exchanges work: Users buy contracts tied to a specific outcome, and the contract’s value rises or falls based on what the market believes the odds are. If the event happens and you were right, the contract pays out.

It’s gambling. The vocabulary has just gotten fancier. Prediction markets are described as information aggregation, price discovery, and crowd wisdom. Sometimes those labels are fair. For decades economists have studied whether markets can absorb information faster than polls or the pundits. That’s one reason the Iowa Electronic Markets, launched in 1988, became a respected early experiment in election forecasting.

And today it’s a really big business. Bernstein analysts estimated roughly $51 billion in prediction-market trading volume in 2025 and projected around $240 billion in 2026, with more optimistic forecasts touching $1 trillion annually by 2030. Combined 2026 year-to-date activity on Kalshi and Polymarket has been cited at roughly $60 billion.

For perspective, prediction markets’ trading volume is now second only to Las Vegas in scale among major U.S. betting arenas. Las Vegas Strip and Nevada casinos alone still generated roughly $15.8 billion in actual gaming revenue in 2025, before adding the U.S. sports betting industry’s record ~$17 billion in revenue. (I got those stats straight from the Nevada Gaming Control Board data via GGB Magazine and ESPN/AGA reports.)

Regulators haven’t quite caught up and are still struggling to define them, with some treating prediction markets as legitimate financial exchanges and others viewing them as just gambling halls.

Here’s the important distinction: A whole lot of frenzied trading volume doesn’t equal wealth creation. It’s just money being wagered and re-wagered, sometimes many times over. And much of the recent hyper-growth has come from sports-style contracts, which raises an obvious question: When does a forecasting market become a sportsbook with better branding?

Some regulators are asking exactly that. Brazil recently moved to block dozens of prediction platforms, arguing many were effectively betting products packaged as finance. If you want a reality check on separating the bets from real investing, that’s exactly where a fee-only advisor can help you, and you already know I can help you find the right fee-only advisor.

That matters because investing is something else entirely. And I believe it’s worth emphasizing.

Investing means committing capital to assets that generate value over time. Businesses produce earnings. Bonds pay interest. Real estate is a tangible asset. Ownership in innovation and productive enterprise can compound wealth for years.

Buying shares of a strong company and reinvesting dividends is fundamentally different from betting on whether the Fed cuts rates this quarter or a celebrity gets arrested by Labor Day.

Both involve risk. So do driving and skydiving. That doesn’t make them the same activity.

Prediction markets may provide signals. They may reveal underlying public sentiment. They may even be entertaining. But entertainment is not investing.

Years ago on my weekly MoneyTrack show, we interviewed Jim Cramer. A viewer called in and asked how much of a portfolio should be devoted to Jim Cramer’s favorite stock picks. My answer: What is his show called? Mad Money. That’s your answer then, and now.

If you want excitement, call it excitement. But maybe don’t call random prediction-making ‘investing’ just because it comes with a lot of charts, probabilities, and a polished interface.

Thag the caveman loved a side bet—but at the end of the day, he still needed to bring home the woolly mammoth to feed his family.

Most people never look at advisors’ background records.

At the risk of being emphatic: Please read the records. This may sound like the “don’t forget to floss every night” part. But if you skip it, and you’re serious about working with a financial advisor, you’re missing an important step. We place those SEC records right on each advisor’s profile on Wealthramp to make it easier to access. I’ll share some tips for high-level advisor vetting.

First, start by learning something about the individual advisor’s background.

1) A BrokerCheck for the Individual

Use FINRA’s BrokerCheck to look up the person you’re talking to. Just type in the individual advisor’s name.

What you’re looking for:

• Current registration: Is he/she a broker, a registered investment advisor, or both?

• Employment history: Does it make sense, or is it a revolving door?

• Disclosures: customer complaints, settlements, regulatory actions. This is where you’d spot red flags.

Give it to me in plain English: Who is FINRA and why do I care?

FINRA oversees brokers—the people who work at brokerage firms recommending investments like stocks, mutual funds, private investments and annuities.

Most people don’t realize that FINRA is a self-regulatory organization. It’s not the government. It’s the financial services industry overseeing itself. Let that sink in. It’s no different than high school students monitoring other students’ tests, or athletes refereeing their own games. There are rules, and they should be enforced. But it’s the same group policing itself.

Why fiduciary standard matters

A fiduciary is legally required to act in your best interest at all times. Brokerage firms are not willing to be held legally accountable when making recommendations or selling their products. They choose a lower standard of care.

That’s because brokers work under a commission-based sales model, not advice. Oversight comes from within that same structure. That doesn’t automatically make it bad. It just means you need to understand the incentives you’re stepping into. I know this because I worked under this model myself at a major brokerage firm decades ago.

After you’ve looked at the FINRA records, your next step for at-a-glance vetting is to go to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s site and pull the firm’s Form ADV.

2) Form ADV for the Advisory Firm

Every registered investment advisory firm has to file this document and update it every year. It’s public. It’s free. And almost nobody reads it. Shortcut: the narrative is Part 2.

Again, you’ll see it right below every advisor’s profile on Wealthramp. Here’s how to use it without getting lost:

Part 1: Facts about assets under management, number of clients, ownership, basic disciplinary history

Part 2A (the brochure): The real story about services, fees, investment approach, conflicts of interest, risks

Part 2B (supplement):The background, experience, and any disclosures for the individuals

What to zero in on

You don’t need to read every word. Here’s what matters:

• How they get paid: Fee-only? Commissions? Both? If you can’t explain it in one sentence, keep going.

• Conflicts of interest: Do they earn more if you buy certain products? It will be spelled out.

• Minimums and fee structure

• Disciplinary history: If it’s there, read it carefully.

• Services offered: Are they only managing money, or offering comprehensive planning?

Despite all of this being free and public, most people skip this step. One national FINRA survey found that only 14.2% of investors checked an advisor’s background over a five-year period. Separate research shows that about 7% of advisors have some form of disciplinary history, with much higher numbers of customer disputes at some of the largest firms.

The fact that only 14.2% of people look at background records surprised me. That tells me most people simply don’t realize these records are there, or how much they can reveal.

The resources are free. So, yes—read BrokerCheck. Read the ADV.

After these two important vetting steps, I conduct personal interviews and ask a whole different set of detailed questions. Background records won’t tell you everything, but it’s a strong starting point.

Connect With a Vetted Wealthramp Advisor

But by the time most people really need financial literacy, they’re making expensive decisions without enough of it. I’m talking about five-, six-, even seven-figure decisions that shape how the next 10 or 20 years play out.

It’s striking how many smart, capable people tend not to ask enough questions right when they should be digging in. Think about your own instincts for a second:

When the market drops sharply, do you feel more inclined to pull money out, stay invested, or take a step back and consider investing while prices are low?

When you hear about a “new opportunity” or private investment, do you pull the trigger feeling like you might be missing something big and important if you don’t jump at the chance in the moment?

Those first reactions matter a lot more than people realize. There’s a meaningful gap between the returns individual investors earn owning stocks, and what the stock market actually returns. DALBAR, an investment research firm that studies investor behavior, has shown for years that individuals consistently earn a few percentage points less than the overall market. That doesn’t sound like much, but over time it means hundreds of thousands of dollars you never capture.

That’s financial literacy in adult life. Why not slow down and ask questions like what’s driving this decision? What am I not considering? Who benefits from me saying yes to this?

When people admit they’ve made a bad decision, they tell me they weren’t willing to pause long enough to ask any questions because they didn’t know what to ask. And often it’s when they lean on someone else who appears to be ‘smarter than they are.’ But in many of those situations, that someone else hadn’t been properly vetted, the advice was not in their best interest, and now they feel self-conscious about their next decision. (If you’ve been reading Count Up for awhile, you already know why I’m a huge proponent of fee-only, fiduciary advisors—they’re legally bound to act in your best interest).

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This happens every day with retirement plans. The number of choices keeps expanding—Roth or pre-tax, managed accounts, annuities, how much to contribute, how to invest, whether to consider newer, more complex options inside the plan. There’s more access than ever, but also more room to get it wrong if you don’t fully understand what you’re choosing.

I think that’s why this topic matters so much as an adult. Financial literacy is about developing the ability to step back and think clearly when something important is in front of you.

Every time you slow down and ask the questions that help you really understand a decision—how it works, what the tradeoffs are—you’re better equipped for the next one. Patterns start emerging and you can recognize situations you’ve seen before. You get more comfortable asking the right questions, which then delivers better results.

Take this approach when you’re in your 30s and by the time you’re getting closer to retirement, that financial literacy has compounded over the years. This becomes incredibly valuable at retirement and beyond. You’ve learned to not react at the moment. Instead you’re making decisions with context and perspective.

Someone once told me that the quality of the answer you get is only as good as the question you ask. That stuck with me. I was lucky—I became interested in money and investing early enough that I didn’t care if I asked “dumb” questions. (And I asked plenty of them).

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And this applies to asking for advice from a fee-only advisor. An outstanding fiduciary advisor will encourage you to ask more questions because that advisor knows the more knowledgeable you become over time, the better your conversations will be about the details that impact your future.

That’s what I find myself coming back to this month. As an adult, financial literacy is something you build—over time, through real decisions, in real life.

And it keeps paying you back the more you stay engaged with it.

I feel strongly that if you’re getting anywhere close to retiring, this is the moment to make sure the plan you’ve built is truly holding up. Because there’s a big difference between things ‘seem to be okay,’ and actually knowing they are.

That’s what led me to write this article for Kiplinger. What people need right now is a real financial checkup. Not a quick, superficial look, or ‘cookie cutter answer’ but a thoughtful evaluation of how everything fits together.

The truth is, this kind of check up hasn’t been easy to find. Most financial advisors don’t offer it. That’s why I’m so glad to say it’s now accessible through Wealthramp. I have many advisors offering one-time evaluations so you can get real clarity without on-going fees or committing to anything long term.

Explore a Financial Checkup

If you have any questions or want to reach me, I’d love to hear from you.

See you next week!

The numbers genuinely surprised me. This year, Pew Research reports roughly 1 in 4 Americans are providing ongoing care, and among people in their 40s it’s closer to 54% juggling both kids and parents. The same survey shows now the majority feel financially exhausted. A lot are taking a drastic step: they’re actually stopping their retirement contributions to keep up. And according to AARP, out-of-pocket caregiving costs average around $7,200+ per year, and that doesn’t count lost wages or missed opportunities.

If you’re in this spot, you feel this constant tug-of-war of whether to help your family now or protect your own future. For most of us, stepping up isn’t optional, it’s a responsibility. But without a plan, it can seriously damage the financial security you’ve worked decades to build.

The numbers are growing thanks to longer lifespans, more expensive health care, and adult kids staying home longer. It really has become a perfect storm.

Here’s what I’ve seen that actually helps.

Don’t wait. Start the money conversation with your parents now. No doubt, it’s the elephant in the room. Be thoughtful and respectful and talk about this openly while they’re still independent. Frame the conversation so they understand you’re not taking control. You’re trying to prevent a truly unaffordable situation down the road. Keep it calm and collaborative.

Ask your parent(s):

• How do you see covering future health or housing costs?

• What income are you counting on (Social Security, pensions, investments)?

• Do you have long-term care insurance or any plans in place?

• Are there accounts, policies, or documents I should know about?

These talks can feel awkward, but having them now can help your loved ones understand that planning together is the single best way to avoid a financial crisis later.

Protect your own retirement first.

This can feel selfish, but it’s not. If you’re over 50, those retirement catch-up contributions are powerful — and once those years pass, they’re gone. Decide in advance what you can realistically afford to give without cutting your own savings. Make it a defined, sustainable number, not an open-ended tap that grows with every new need.

Need Help With a Plan?

Maximize your parents’ resources before you fill the gaps.

Many families overlook what’s already available. Help them explore:

• Medicaid planning (when appropriate)

• Property tax relief programs

• Veteran benefits

• Local services through Area Agencies on Aging

• Downsizing or housing changes

I’m usually not a fan of reverse mortgages, but in rare situations they can be part of the solution. The goal is to stretch their money first, not replace it with yours.

Structure family loans with clarity and avoid the big family fight.

When support starts flowing, you must document it. Treating help as a loan instead of a gift can prevent resentment and tax issues later. Keep siblings in the loop and consider pooling contributions when possible. A simple shared understanding of responsibilities goes a long way toward keeping family relationships intact. The last thing you want is to turn next Thanksgiving into a big drama.

Find a Fiduciary Advisor Today

If you’re still working, you might have some valuable (overlooked) employee benefits.

AARP broke it down this way: about 70% of us are balancing jobs and caregiving, yet these benefits often go unused:

• Flexible schedules or remote work options

• FMLA-protected leave

• Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) for eldercare referrals, counseling, and financial advice

• Dependent Care FSAs to pay for qualifying adult care expenses with pre-tax dollars

• Paid family leave or caregiving support where offered

Check with HR. These can provide real relief on both time and money. (I recently wrote a primer on maximizing employer benefits—check it out here).

Set clear boundaries. Plan ahead. Communicate openly.

The biggest asset is your mindset. Helping your parents matters deeply, but sustainable support is the only kind that will really work. Honestly, it comes down to how you set your boundaries, then how you plan, and how you communicate. That becomes the blueprint your own children will follow.

Remember, the goal is not to put yourself in a position where you’ll one day need to rely on your adult children for financial support.

P.S. If you’re looking for answers to complicated financial care questions, Wealthramp is here with a trusted network of fiduciary, fee-only advisors who work for you — and only you.

Last week I talked about the investing blind spots we all have that reveal themselves when markets drop day after day. This week, the question coming at me from all sides has more urgency: What should I do right now?

I want to point out an even more important question: what not to do?

Headlines give us a mix of information that comes with a lot of noise. Stocks are lower but bouncing back, energy prices are climbing, a full tank of gas is hitting $60–80 depending on where you are. That’s real, and it’s on the front page everyday.

But zoom out a bit, because what’s really moving underneath is what counts.

Oil prices have spiked to around $107–108 a barrel, and diesel prices matter because it’s the fuel that hauls almost everything we buy. When diesel gets over $5 a gallon nationally, it doesn’t just hit truckers; it ripples straight into the cost of groceries, goods, everything we buy on Amazon. That’s classic inflation coming through the supply chain.

For some context: over the past three years, the S&P 500 racked up total returns of roughly 26%, 25%, and 18%. That’s an epic run, and it’s what has shaped a lot of retirement portfolios. We’ve all been heavily exposed to the stocks that have been winning.

At the same time, advisor Jeff George, CFA in our Wealthramp network, pointed out when I was on Yahoo Finance last week that a lot of people simply don’t have enough exposure to the stocks that tend to hold up, or even shine, when inflation is rising. I’m talking about energy, commodities, mining stocks, real assets.

It’s not a mistake. It’s just what happens when you believe your broad S&P index fund is diversified in a meaningful way, but the S&P index has had little exposure to the kinds of stocks that protect you because tech is now so heavily weighted.

Right now, the markets are being pulled in different directions. The economic signals are mixed. Growth feels uncertain, inflation is real, and interest rates are anyone’s guess. It’s hard to build a plan around mixed signals.

Here’s my perspective. Don’t try to know everything. Instead, build your plan for resilience. (You can always find an advisor to help with a plan anytime at Wealthramp.com by answering a few quick questions. It’s free and we never sell your personal information).

Think of your portfolio like a really good shock absorber on your car. It doesn’t need perfect road conditions. It has to be able to handle bumps, potholes, and sudden turns without falling apart. That’s the mindset that matters.

What to Watch Right Now

• Energy prices: Rising oil and diesel feed directly into broader inflation and everyday costs.

• Interest rates: Higher rates add another layer of uncertainty.

• Your actual exposure: Not what you think you own, but how your holdings really behave in different environments.

What to Do Right Now

• Focus on resilience as your goal, not prediction or outsmarting the stock market. You don’t have to nail the next move. You need a setup that can weather more than one scenario.

• Ask: How does my portfolio hold up if inflation stays higher? If growth slows? If market leadership rotates?

• Look for gaps, not just trends. Where might you be light on assets that tend to move up when stocks move down?

• Make the adjustments where needed, if needed. This doesn’t need to be a full overhaul. It’s to fortify any weak spots so shocks don’t derail you.

What Not to Do

• Avoid chasing what’s already been working. By the time it’s everywhere in the news, the move has often already happened.

• Don’t confuse owning lots of funds with true diversification.

• Resist reacting to short-term noise and focus on your long-term plan.

The best question to answer right now is this: If things shift again, will my portfolio hold up the way I expect?

Most people haven’t really stress-tested it through that lens lately. And many don’t realize that fee-only advisors will help them do exactly this. Pressure-testing doesn’t mean making big, dramatic changes. It’s about knowing what you own, how it behaves in different environments, and making sure it’s built to handle more than just sunshine and blue skies.

Last week, a lot of people suddenly realized they had blind spots. This week, focus on resilience to move through them.

Diversification wins all battles. I’ve said it a thousand times on my MoneyTrack series. When people ask what resilience really means, it’s true diversification that allows you to bounce back quickly and strongly after challenges, setbacks, or stress. And that’s exactly what we’re aiming for, in portfolios and in life.

Don’t just assume you’re truly diversified. Let’s look under the hood.

I always love hearing your experiences. Drop me a line anytime.
Pam

“Financial advisors always want to manage my portfolio. I need advice, but I want to manage my own money.”

I understand why people say that. The dominant business model in this industry is assets under management. Most fiduciary advisors want to assume full responsibility for implementing the investment strategy because at the end of the day, they are accountable. So most require that you hand over control of your portfolio in order to work with them.

That never sat well with me.

When I built Wealthramp, I was intentional about curating a network of experienced, fee-only fiduciary advisors who offer flexibility in how they work with clients. Advisors who allow you to simply “buy some hours” for a one-time deep dive consultation. Advisors who offer ongoing planning retainers or flat-fee advice. Advisors who provide strategic oversight without automatically requiring portfolio control. And of course, they will absolutely manage your investments — but only when that’s what you want.

That choice had to be built in from the start; it’s what makes the whole thing feel right.

Which means you can choose the engagement structure that fits you — based on your goals, your level of involvement, and the complexity of your life. There are really only three ways to work with a fiduciary advisor.

1. The One-Time Second Opinion

This is ideal for the experienced DIY investor who wants a serious evaluation without turning over their portfolio.

I help a lot of people at moments like this. They’re not completely sure they’re on track. Retirement is five years away and they want to know if the numbers truly work. Or they’re deciding whether to exercise stock options, sell a concentrated position, buy property, or begin Roth conversions. They don’t want someone “managing” their money, but they don’t want to make the biggest financial decisions of their lives alone.

You pay a flat or hourly fee for a comprehensive review of your financial life. That may include portfolio analysis, tax-aware planning, withdrawal modeling, concentration risk evaluation, and retirement readiness testing.

You walk away with a clear roadmap. You know what’s solid, what needs attention, and where risk may be hiding — and you continue managing your own investments.

For many thoughtful investors, that’s exactly enough.

2. An Ongoing Planning Retainer (Without Turning Over Assets)

Some people want a long-term strategic partner. They value financial and tax planning, but they want to execute investment decisions themselves and avoid an assets-under-management fee.

In this model, you pay a flat annual retainer based on complexity and scope — not portfolio size. It’s an advice fee. The advisor provides ongoing planning, tax coordination, retirement income strategy, Roth conversion planning, and broader guidance around real estate, estate planning, and long-term healthcare decisions.

You are still implementing the strategy. But you are no longer doing it alone. You have a fiduciary sounding board who understands your entire financial picture.

This works well for disciplined investors who want structure and oversight without delegating implementation.

3. Ongoing Investment Management and Comprehensive Planning

This is the traditional model most people are familiar with.

Here, the advisor designs the plan, implements the investment strategy, then executes and manages the portfolio on an ongoing basis. It’s your asset allocation, rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, withdrawal coordination, estate considerations, and regular reviews of all of it as life evolves. Fees are often structured as a percentage of assets under management, though some advisors use flat or retainer pricing.

This approach makes sense when financial life grows more complex, retirement withdrawals begin, tax planning deepens, or you simply no longer want full responsibility for managing every moving part.

Those are your three options:

• A one-time second opinion.

• An ongoing planning relationship.

• Or comprehensive wealth management with implementation.

You’re not locked into one model. Many clients begin with a one-time engagement and later move into ongoing planning. Others start with a retainer and eventually decide they no longer want to handle rebalancing, Roth conversions, RMDs, or tax-loss harvesting themselves. Over time, trust builds. Circumstances change. And shifting into full wealth management becomes the natural next step.

I also need you to know you don’t need a million dollars to qualify for this help. These three options exist whether you’re 30 and building wealth, approaching retirement, or already there. The structure should match your needs – not the other way around. (You can always find the right advisor to meet your needs anytime at Wealthramp.com by answering a few quick questions. It’s free and we never sell your personal information).

What matters most is that the process is fiduciary-level. It’s clear, transparent, conflict-free, and centered entirely on your best interest. As I always say, I’m not settling for less, and I don’t want you to settle either.

But we’re still feeling it like it’s 2022. (If nothing else, you’re likely seeing it at the gas pump this week, as conflict in the Middle East has caused the price of oil to skyrocket).

Let’s put this into context. About five years ago, inflation was nice and low, roughly 1–2% a year, barely enough for people to mention it. Then inflation spiked after Covid and peaked in June 2022 at about 9%, with prices surging at a pace we hadn’t seen since the 1980s. Since then, inflation has gradually slowed back down toward the 2–3% range.

I keep thinking about the conversations I have every week with readers, clients, friends, and family members and how different their experiences sound. Prices still feel high, and that sense of financial strain hasn’t really eased. I hear comments like, “This economy is terrible. I hope it turns around.”

That disconnect is what fascinates me.

And it’s not your imagination. If it feels like prices are still rising when you’re buying meat, coffee, a pair of 18k gold earrings, or eating out, that’s because they are more expensive. Certain everyday items are rising faster than the overall inflation rate.

It’s not that people don’t believe the headlines. It’s that government statistics and real life are measuring two different things.

Inflation statistics are backward-looking. They tell us what prices did over the past year, averaged across the country. That’s essential for policymakers and economists.

But we don’t live life backward.

We live in the now and think about what comes next. We budget for the next rent increase, the next insurance renewal, the next grocery run. And we worry about future costs even when the headline inflation number improves.

When inflation was running at 7% or higher, prices jumped quickly and painfully. Now inflation is closer to 2–3%. That doesn’t mean prices came down. It means prices are still rising, just more slowly than during the spike.

The biggest price jump has already happened. Slower inflation today can’t undo that. And this is where things can get confusing. This is often described as ‘disinflation’, which simply means inflation is slowing. Not to be confused with ‘deflation’ that would mean prices actually fall. That’s not what’s happening so prices aren’t lower.

So when people hear “inflation is down” and it doesn’t feel like it, it’s because everyone’s cost of living is still higher, just not as fast as prices were rising before.

Inflation doesn’t hit everyone the same way. It’s national in how it gets reported but local in how it’s lived. Housing, insurance, food, and energy costs vary dramatically depending on where you live.

And for people who are already retired and relying on their savings, inflation isn’t just a concept. It’s personal.

And if you’re wondering about tariffs’ impact on inflation, they can push up the cost of certain imported goods and have contributed modestly to price increases in recent years, but they are not the primary driver of inflation trends overall.

Brett Spencer, CFP®, CEPA in the Wealthramp network puts it this way: “In 2025, CPI was up 2.7%. For investors, that’s a hurdle your portfolio has to clear just to stand still in real terms.”

That threshold becomes even more of a challenge for retirees prioritizing stability. A “safe” bond fund paying 3.7%, for example, would have only delivered about 1% above inflation before taxes.

After taxes, the real return may be close to zero. That’s a real risk, especially if you plan to live to see your 100th birthday.

That’s why you hear me say this often: if you’re getting closer to retirement, now is the time for a full financial checkup, just like an annual exam with your primary care doctor. You want an honest assessment of whether your portfolio is actually keeping up after inflation, taxes, and withdrawals. (You can read more about why I recommend fiduciary financial advisors here, and you can also email me with questions anytime).

Even moderate inflation will steadily erode your purchasing power if a portfolio isn’t designed to keep up, especially once withdrawals start. And it’s not just about the numbers. It’s about the peace of mind that comes from working with a fiduciary advisor who helps you make decisions that impact your entire financial life.

Inflation statistics are averages, but your personal cash flow is your reality.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we design these middle years in our career lives. Not just saving for retirement as a finish line, but considering the long stretch of years when we’re still working, probably in our peak years, still caring about our futures but also starting to care more about how we can live the fullest right now.

That’s where something called Coast FI comes in. It’s an idea that says, you’ve already saved enough early on so that if you actually stopped contributing to retirement today, your investments could grow all on their own to fund the future. In other words, you’ve reached critical mass and from now on, the focus can shift away from pushing harder for tomorrow to being more intentional about living the life you want today.

Some of you may remember that I was a guest late last year on the How to Money podcast, hosted by Joel and Matt, whose work I really respect. They do a great job breaking down personal finance in a thoughtful, grounded way, especially for people trying to make smart decisions without losing sight of real life.

I was excited when they asked me to write a piece for the How to Money blog, because it gave me a chance to go deeper on Coast Financial Independence — what it actually means, how it works, and why it’s coming up more often in conversations with people in their 30s and 40s.

You can read the full article here:

What to Know About Coast FI

Rather than simply repost the same article here, I’d really love to hear from you. Does this idea resonate with you? Does it feel practical for where you are in life? Or does it raise more questions than answers?

Write back or comment and tell me what you think. I’m genuinely curious how this lands with you.

Warmly,
Pam

P.S. Want more guidance about your own financial situation? Take a free, 2-minute survey to begin.

Keep that mindset when you log into your employee benefits portal and really get to know what’s there. Look beyond just your salary and health insurance. Get a good sense of retirement contributions and any employer matching, health savings accounts (which are triple tax free), and any free financial coaching programs designed to help reduce stress around money struggles, especially if you’re dealing with debt.

These benefits are right there hiding in plain sight, yet most people don’t touch them. Research from The Hartford found that 70% of employers say employees are not effectively taking advantage of the benefits available to them. Other surveys show that many employees don’t really understand what they have access to, which helps explain why participation stays low.

That’s money you may be leaving on the table.

For example, a typical retirement match of 3% to 6% can easily be worth $3,000 to $6,000 a year for someone earning $100,000. Over time, that alone adds up to six figures. Free financial coaching can save hundreds or thousands of dollars in outside fees. Emergency savings programs can prevent a single surprise expense from turning into high-interest credit card debt. Student loan assistance of even $100 or $200 a month can shave years off repayment. An HSA is one of the few benefits where contributing just a few thousand dollars a year can reduce your taxes now and create a dedicated, tax-free pool for healthcare costs in retirement.

All of that is truly useful. Helpful, even.

But what if you need real financial advice that goes beyond just what’s in your 401(k) menu?

So far, we’ve been talking about free workplace benefits designed to help you, things you should absolutely take advantage of because they put money back in your pocket and reduce financial stress. Now I’m switching gears to make you aware of what not to rely on. This is when that Me, Inc. mentality really matters.

There’s a whole different category of “financial guidance” that’s offered as investment or planning “recommendations” that feel just like the kind of personal financial advice you’d get from hiring your own financial advisor. But you need to know that recommendations that come from your plan’s representatives aren’t necessarily in your best financial interest.

Recordkeepers like Empower, Fidelity, and TIAA manage your retirement plan day to day. They know you only through what you’re doing inside that plan. And every day, they communicate with tens of millions of employees. Their systems are designed to stay in front of you. I talk to people all the time who tell me they’re getting four or five emails a week from their 401(k) record keeper promoting things like rollover solutions, managed accounts, and annuities — and that can feel a lot like very personal financial advice.

This is where I suggest you put yourself first and stop to ask the plan rep this simple question:

Is anyone here legally obligated to put my financial interests first? Are you acting as a fiduciary to the plan, or to me?

In other words, who is this recommendation designed to benefit most — me, or the provider offering it who makes money if I buy it?

Your plan’s record keeper works for the plan. Their legal obligation is to the retirement plan itself, not to you as an individual employee. That means their scope of help is severely restricted. They can explain what’s in your plan and how the tools work. That’s the boundary that few employees realize.

A big part of your financial life happens outside this one retirement account. Your taxes. Your spouse’s retirement plan. Your real estate. All your other savings, and most importantly, your future income and lifestyle after you leave this company. None of that is part of what they see.

It’s essential that you operate with this knowledge: plan representatives are allowed to recommend managed accounts, model portfolios, rollovers, and products that keep assets inside their system. It is not the same thing as financial advice.

No one is going to draw this boundary for you. You have to do it yourself. This is so important that I’ll repeat it again. Here’s your script:

Is anyone here legally obligated to act as fiduciary to me, and put my interests first — or are they acting as a fiduciary to the plan?

Unless the answer is “fiduciary only to me,” then it is not financial advice. It’s intended as education or as a product recommendation. But this is when you may need real financial advice from someone who is completely independent of their plan.

That means an advisor who is legally fiduciary to you alone. Someone who evaluates your whole financial life, including tax planning, Roth strategies, estate planning, and retirement income. A highly qualified, fee-only advisor who helps you understand how the decisions you’re making now affect the rest of your life, including whether you’re on track not to run out of money in retirement. (You can find an advisor like this in my Wealthramp network).

At that point, your most trusted resource isn’t a free employee benefit. So yes, use everything your employer offers that genuinely helps you. Take the match. Build savings. Learn what’s valuable to you. And ask questions.

Just be clear about what to accept and what to pass on. When you understand that boundary, that’s when you really start running Me, Inc. the way it deserves to be run.