Case Studies Archives | WealthChoice

Who We Work With: Tech Executives

Bridget — Tue, 21 May 2024 03:42:50 +0000

Women in tech are dealing with serious financial questions – equity compensation, early retirement, career pivots, and that’s barely scratching the surface.

Our team partners with you to help you identify your goals, and reverse engineer a unique strategy that moves you from Point A to Point B.

Tech Executives | Case Study A

A is 40 and a mid-level executive at a publicly-held tech company. Like many of our tech clients, she has moved between companies as opportunities arose. A is a single woman who lives with her partner.

What She Needed:

A wants to retire at age 50 with a similar quality of life to what she has now. She came to us with the following questions:

How do I support my mother financially, if needed?
How can I strategize around my stock awards?
Can I reduce my tax bill?
How can my wealth support me if I want to retire early?

How We Helped:

For each company A has worked at, we create a strategy around her stock awards, which tend to be restricted stock units (RSUs). We track her grant and vesting schedules and employ a strategy to sell the vested shares and reinvest the proceeds into her portfolio.

We collaborate with a strategic CPA we introduced A to, who advises on setting aside cash for upcoming taxes every time shares vest. In cases where A’s employer has gone public, we have created a strategy for divesting the shares while minimizing tax implications.

With A’s aggressive goal of retiring at 50 in a high-cost-of-living area, we’ve helped her determine how much she needs to save annually over and above her retirement account contributions. We opened trust accounts for additional contributions and created a customized, growth-focused investment strategy. Frequent check-ins ensure she remains on track toward her goal.

We know that Roth conversions after A stops working will lower her taxes over time, increasing her net income. With plans to retire young, many years of tax-free growth will significantly boost her retirement funds.

We’ll create a strategy for converting her pre-tax investments to Roth once she lowers her income at retirement, modeling scenarios to illustrate the potential benefits.

Of course, life isn’t always linear. On the path to early retirement, A became severely ill. We helped her transition from short-term to long-term disability insurance coverage, we helped her navigate employer benefits and Social Security to help her continue her lifestyle as she recovered. Understandably, she chose to lower her portfolio’s risk profile during that period. Once she recovered and regained her risk tolerance, we revisited and repositioned her portfolio for growth.

Where Are We Now?

With ten years until A’s target retirement age, she is on track to meet this goal. We are helping with accountability for savings, reducing taxes to free up more for investing, and an ongoing strategy for stock awards. Once retired, we plan to implement a Roth conversion strategy for lower taxes and higher lifetime income.

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The case study described above is a current client, though for privacy reasons we have omitted the client name. This planning case study should in no way be construed as a guarantee that a current or prospective client will experience similar results or levels of satisfaction if he or she engages with WealthChoice for wealth management services. Every client experience will differ. Future results cannot be guaranteed.

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Who We Work With: Attorneys

Bridget — Tue, 21 May 2024 03:35:18 +0000

The WealthChoice team has been a long-time proponent of helping attorneys – specifically, women who are attorneys – build strong financial plans that guide them through the many unique life and career challenges they face. In an industry that notoriously underpays and undervalues female lawyers, we are in your corner to help you get paid what you’re worth, and put your wealth to work so that you have the flexibility to do more of what you love with the people you care about.

Attorneys | Case Study R

R is a newly retired attorney partner in her late 50s. She had worked for years as a respected attorney at an AmLaw 100 firm. R is a single woman.

What She Needed:

R wanted the financial ability to choose to stop working in the high-pressure, long-hours role of an attorney partner at age 55 to pursue other interests. To accomplish that, she:

Needed a plan to replace her income
Wanted assurance that her investments were performing optimally
Was looking for a clear path to flexibility in her career – earlier retirement, or a career pivot

How We Helped:

Because R relied on her earned income and savings to retire, her success as an attorney partner directly impacted her financial success. For many years, we collaborated with R on her annual compensation review. We encouraged her to strongly advocate for herself in an industry notorious for not paying women fairly.

We created a custom investment portfolio for R, including managing her 401(k) while she was employed. This account was her largest asset, and its growth was critical to funding her retirement. Our portfolio and trading team could oversee and optimize its investments as a self-directed account.

We opened trust accounts to help R save and invest well above what her retirement funds allowed, employing an aggressive savings strategy. Frequent check-ins on her progress toward her goals kept R motivated.

We also employed tax strategies to lower R’s taxable income, allowing her to keep more of her earnings and invest more for retirement. Strategies included maximizing pre-tax contributions and tax-loss harvesting.

Where Are We Now?

R successfully retired at her target age of 55. She is now pursuing other interests, consulting with several companies on her own schedule.

Several years into “retirement,” we are focused on helping her stay on track financially now that active savings have stopped and her portfolio is positioned to provide for her living expenses. Tax strategy continues to be essential to preserve as much of her income as possible.

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Who We Work With: Business Executives & Leaders

Bridget — Tue, 21 May 2024 03:32:16 +0000

In our last case study share, we talked about how the WealthChoice team serves breadwinning women, and addresses their unique financial concerns, challenges, and pain points. Today, we’ll dig into how we partner up with business executives and leaders – from the multitude of questions they’re juggling in the present to helping them plan for a fabulous financial future.

Business Executives & Founders | Case Study J

J is the CEO of a mid-sized, profitable, and privately held company. She is in her mid-50s and married. J is the breadwinner of her family with grown children and a retired husband.

What She Needed:

J had no idea if they were financially on track. As a busy CEO, she was too occupied to manage her personal finances. She didn’t have a relationship with the broker her husband had been working with and lacked clarity about their overall financial situation or how they were invested. Here were her questions:

J wanted to know if they were financially okay.
She was considering selling her company – but didn’t know how or what to sell it for.
J craved clarity around their finances and a plan to continue their quality of life.
She wanted a partner and guide she could trust to have her best interests at heart – someone relatable who understood what she was going through.

How We Helped:

We began by examining J’s personal and financial life, as we do with all clients. After reviewing every investment, we found no cohesive strategy aligned with her retirement goals and expensive, poorly performing products.

There were insufficient savings, and she was not on track to retire with a similar lifestyle.

We created one investment strategy, consolidating accounts so that every dollar worked optimally and invested for growth. We divested from high-cost, underperforming investments.

Selling the business would be a significant component of funding J’s retirement, so we strategized around the business sale. We formed a strategic team involving a new CPA and business attorney, with our firm as an active participant. This team helped ensure J received maximum value from the sale while minimizing tax implications.

We also reviewed the business insurance and retirement account investment options, which cost the company significant money and ate into profits. By optimizing these, we increased the business’s bottom line.

For J’s personal life, we created a new strategic team, including a CPA for collaborative tax strategy, an insurance team to analyze and review personal insurance needs, an actuary to evaluate specific products they had been sold, and an estate attorney for legacy planning and updating estate documents.

As a high earner, we implemented several tax savings strategies for J, such as tax loss harvesting on investment accounts, maximizing all retirement account contributions, and working closely with the CPA on tax options for the business sale proceeds. This included strategies like deferring income through tax-advantaged investments and structuring the sale tax-efficiently.

Where Are We Now?

We’ve significantly increased J’s investment performance and net worth. There is now a clear plan for her to retire with a similar quality of life. We have a defined legacy plan in place, along with strategies for lowering taxes over time. Most importantly, J knows where she stands financially and trusts us to guide her toward her best interests.

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Who We Work With: Breadwinning Women & Beyond

Bridget — Tue, 21 May 2024 02:40:37 +0000

At WealthChoice, we generally work with clients who identify as one of the following:

Breadwinning women.
Business executives & leaders.
Attorneys.
Tech executives.

However, we also know that it can be challenging to truly envision what it’s like to work with a fee-only financial planner who deeply cares about your goals, and understands the nuances of your unique financial situation.

In this series, we’ll dive into each unique client type we partner with.

We’ve created the following case studies to offer some perspective and to help you “test drive” the planning process before meeting with our team.

If you ever have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. You can contact our team by clicking here.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

Breadwinning Women | Case Study L

L is in her early 40s, married, and a C-suite executive at a publicly held company. Over the 15 years we’ve worked with her, she has changed industries, gotten married, had children, and relocated states while moving up into a very senior management role.

Her Need:

L wants to eventually stop working and transition into a lower-stress job in an industry of her choosing while ensuring her family continues their current quality of life long into the future. She came to WealthChoice with a few key questions:

How can I save enough to plan for a career pivot?
What’s the best way to fully fund four years of in-state college for my kids?
I want to plan to travel annually with my spouse – sometimes internationally.
How can I lower my tax bill?

How We Helped:

For L, having the ability to get off the corporate “hamster wheel” when she desires has been a priority since we started working together 15 years ago. Once we determined her family’s cost of living, we could identify how much she’d need to save and invest to replace that income in retirement.

We guided her on the optimal accounts for these savings, ensuring she maximized her 401(k) contributions annually. However, replacing her income required savings beyond just retirement accounts, so we opened taxable investment accounts with a growth-focused strategy.

L has two young children, ages 3 and 1. She and her spouse decided to pay for four years of in-state college tuition, room, and board.

Our software tracks current costs at their preferred university, giving us a solid projection. We’ve identified an affordable monthly savings amount and opened 529 accounts for each child.

When L receives bonuses or stock awards, we discuss deploying that money toward her family’s evolving goals, such as home renovations, relocations, etc. We reassess priorities to ensure the funds are optimally allocated each year.

Tax strategy is crucial for L as a high earner. We review all her employer’s benefits to ensure she leverages every tax-advantaged option.

Our firm helps reduce taxes through investments in tax-free vehicles and tax-loss harvesting. We maintain a close relationship with L’s CPA to discuss projected tax liabilities and set aside funds accordingly, especially around vesting events.

Where Are We Now?

L is financially on track to choose when to stop actively funding retirement based on her disciplined savings and investing over the years. Her children’s college costs are projected to be covered.

Most importantly, L has peace of mind knowing that if she pivots to another industry or lower-paying role, her family will remain financially secure. By implementing a comprehensive tax strategy, she keeps more of what she and her spouse earn, affording them desired career and lifestyle options.

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Don’t miss our other case studies!

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