Our clients fit into most of these financial scenarios:

• Approaching or already in retirement;
• Single or married;
• Are or were a W-2 wage earner;
• Have a few investment accounts, such as a brokerage or trust account, 401(k) or 403(b) account, traditional IRA and/or Roth IRA, Health Savings Account (HSA), etc.;
• May or may not have Social Security;
• May or may not have a pension;
• May or may not have annuities;
• May or may not have life insurance;
• Likely own a home and possibly a second, whether it’s a vacation home or rental property; and,
• Children are usually grown.

Our clients seek flat-fee and hourly financial advice and are comfortable self-implementing a well-thought-out action plan (or with our support through an Hourly Financial Advising Services engagement).

Milestones Financial is a fee-only financial planning firm. The term “fee-only” (or “fee-for-service”) refers to how an adviser is compensated.

A fee-only adviser, in all circumstances, is paid solely by their client and does not earn commission or other compensation of any kind from product sales or referrals.

Additionally, a fee-only adviser must act in their client’s best interest as a fiduciary 100% of the time.

The fiduciary duties of a registered investment adviser (RIA) include providing suitable advice for clients, full disclosure of all material facts and potential conflicts of interest, utmost and exclusive loyalty and good faith to clients, and the exercise of reasonable care to avoid misleading clients.

Milestones Financial conducts itself under a fiduciary duty to every client.

Advice-only financial planning is for people who would like to work with an objective financial advisor without paying for investment management services or experiencing the pressure of purchasing insurance products. It can be ideal for someone wanting a greater understanding of their finances while retaining full control over their money.

Advice-only is a very small subset of fee-only financial planning that serves clients without the expectation, obligation, or even the option to manage their investments, so there is no need to hide information out of fear of being asked to manage your money.

In addition to being fee-only, Milestones Financial is an advice-only financial planning firm, where we specialize in providing tax-smart retirement planning and investment recommendation services for a transparent fee.

Unlike asset-focused financial advisory firms that price their services based on the amount of money you have, our pricing is based on the complexity of your financial life.

People seemingly in the same life stage and financial situation can vary greatly in their complicatedness. More complexity typically means more time, and the amount of time needed for the requested services in a Flat Fee Financial Planning Services engagement determines the price.

To help us determine the complexity of your financial life, we need to gather sufficient information to provide you a flat-fee quote. This information will be requested, and effortlessly shared, through secure data gathering software.

Once your recommendations have been finalized in a Flat Fee Financial Planning Services engagement, you’ll have everything needed to act on your recommendations.

Implementation support is not provided in the Flat Fee Financial Planning Services engagement, but, if desired, it can be made available through the Hourly Financial Advising Services engagement.

Onboarding a new client is, in many cases, a standardized process – and variations in effort (i.e., time) can be predicted with reasonable certainty based on past experience. This is why we’re comfortable providing a flat-fee quote for the Flat Fee Financial Planning Services engagement.

In contrast, ongoing planning support is far less predictable. Implementation needs vary significantly from person to person – what takes one client 15 minutes could take another several hours, depending on preferences, pace, and complexity. Some clients want help rebalancing their accounts; others seek support exploring insurance options or coordinating with attorneys. Because of this variability, hourly billing is the fairest approach – it allows you to pay only for the support you need, when you need it.

New clients come to us for the Flat Fee Financial Planning Services engagement.

All returning clients enter into the Hourly Financial Advising Services engagement for the follow-up services they want to receive.

We believe the most challenging aspect about investing is understanding what to invest in and how much – not pushing the buttons to make the trades.

We can do the time-consuming, “heavy-lifting” work of reviewing your portfolio and other data, and provide straightforward, account-by-account investment recommendations and advice. When this level of detail is provided for clients, investment implementation can become beautifully simple for them to do themselves.

Because of this relationship, our clients are comfortable managing their own investments. But should you want or need support implementing your recommendations, our assistance is available in the Hourly Financial Advising Services engagement.

We use investment planning to address investing concerns, tax planning to address taxation concerns, insurance planning to address risk and liability concerns, and so on. Unlike some financial advisory firms, we don’t believe investments are the answer to all of your financial concerns.

When properly viewed, investments and financial planning, in particular tax planning, are inseparable.

Ultimately, we want the outcome of our planning process for clients to be greater clarity and confidence towards achieving their goals and objectives. It’s not to help clients achieve an arbitrary rate of return (with no other purpose than that) on their money.

We believe one of the best financial decisions you can make is hiring an objective CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^® professional.

Overall, we believe by helping you make wiser financial decisions, we can have a greater impact on your financial well-being than we ever could by trying to recommend specific stocks or guessing the direction of the markets.

You’ll work directly with Josh Gallogly, CFP^®, EA, Managing Member and Founder of Milestones Financial.

We run a small, focused financial planning firm, and we intend to stay that way. You can expect to hear from Josh, and to work directly with him, for as long as you’re a client.

By thoughtfully managing our overhead, and eliminating an expensive office space, it allows us to price our services competitively. This has led us to the decision of providing our full suite of services virtually to clients.

There are many benefits of collaborating virtually with a CERTIFIED FIANNCIAL PLANNER^® professional, which include:

• Meeting from the comfort of your home or office.
• Partners can participate from different locations.
• Avoiding lost time and frustration by not sitting in traffic and then having to find parking.

With web meeting technology, conference calls, emails, and secure file transfer, we’re able to work with you from any location that has an internet connection.

We seek out clients who are the best fit for our firm, regardless of where they’re located.

We use an independent, third-party payment system in which clients can securely input their payment information.

Would you like to pay out of your investments?

• Securely input your checking/debiting (ACH) enabled brokerage account information and pay an invoice.

Would you like to pay out of your income?

• Securely input your bank checking (ACH) account or credit/debit card information and pay an invoice.

We don’t have access to your payment information at any time. You’ll be provided with a secure portal in order to make a payment.

New clients are surprised when they find out that we also accept credit card payments. We do so for two reasons:

• We believe that the value we bring to our clients is tremendous and that the sooner they can hire us, the better off they will be.
• We have found that clients both expect and enjoy the convenience and the opportunity to earn miles, points, cash back, or other card rewards.

Unlike most financial advisory firms, we believe accepting credit card payments is simply part of doing business today.

Great question! But first, let us explain why you shouldn’t hire us.

If you’re looking for a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^® professional who’ll try to help you “beat the market,” we’re likely not the right financial planning firm for you. That’s because we focus on what you can control. Predicting if the stock market will go up or down, or guessing what inflation and interest rates will do next, are not things anyone can control.

But if you’re interested in things like getting recommendations for creating a reliable income stream in retirement, lowering your tax bill, and investing smarter (while retaining full control over your money), you’re in the right place.