FAQ

We help thoughtful professionals build prosperous and meaningful financial lives. We do that by first helping clients clarify their core values and life vision. Their defined values, whether family, faith, or the environment, determine which financial planning strategies and investment management tools we use. This process ensures their time and money will go where they have the greatest impact on the causes they truly care about.

We achieve this through a collaborative comprehensive financial planning and investment management process which includes:
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· Articulating financial life visions, goals, and values and developing a financial plan that will support those values
· Retirement planning
· Traditional or Values Based investment planning
· Tax planning
· Charitable giving and philanthropy
· Cashflow and spending management to align goals and maximize a life of joy
· Benefits decision making
· Insurance and risk management education
· Real estate and real estate finance planning
· Education funding planning
· Estate and legacy planning
· Coordination with other professionals such as CPAs and attorneys
· Create systems to automate the plan so it’s easy to stick with
· Meet 2-4 times annually (or more as needed) to evaluate how the plan is progressing and revise as goals or realities change,
· Answer questions whenever they arise and help keep you on track with email and phone support.

All this serves to help you make work optional, so money supports you living a free and fulfilling life.

The alignment of money with values throughout this process is a key component of a client's greater life plan and their vision of family and community legacy.

This is Doing Good While Doing Well.

If you want to live a meaningful and fulfilling life, want someone who puts your best interests first, relies on evidence, understands the emotional and personal dimensions of money and decision-making, and is committed to helping you achieve great outcomes with money and in life, we might be the right firm for you.

And if we aren’t, we’ll help you find a firm that is.

Most of our clients bring strongly defined values to our work together, but some hire us just for our capability with fee-only financial planning and tax-sensitive investment management.

If you want to live a good life, make work optional, give to causes you care about, and invest in family and friends we are likely to be a good fit.

We work with many clients who have amassed a good deal of money through retirement savings, building a business, or inheritance, and want to give some away while putting the rest to work in a manner that has an impact on causes they care about. They often want help planning this so that they can both have an impact and ensure their future is comfortable and they don’t need to worry.

We work with many retirees. Some built businesses and others were career professionals. Some inherited and some didn’t. Regardless of what brought our clients to retirement, we help them steward their resources prudently, invest using evidence-based approaches, use tax planning to increase the amounts they have available for their lifestyles, charitable giving, and whatever other purposes they desire.

At Columbia Square Wealth, we spend a good deal of our own time contributing to local, national, and international causes with a deep desire to have a positive impact on the people and issues we see in need of help. We live simple lives focused on family, friends, giving to our communities, and doing work we feel good about. If we don’t think we can help, we’ll let you know and offer a referral to someone who can.

We only work with clients where we think we can provide value well in excess of the fees we charge.

Comprehensive financial planning is typically worth a good deal more than it costs. We love that we add tremendous value to clients’ lives, both in ways that are easy to measure and in ways that aren’t. According to a study by the Vanguard mutual fund company, high-quality investment advice and management tends to substantially improve outcomes, sometimes by large amounts (hundreds of thousands of dollars or more over time).

We have two tiers of services based on a client's assets held outside of active company retirement plans:

1. For Early to Late Career Professionals with less than $400,000 in personally held investable cash or investments, we offer a monthly subscription service for Comprehensive Ongoing Financial Planning and Investment Advice at a rate of $150 to $300 per month depending on case complexity.

2. For those, often nearing or in retirement, with $400,000 or more in personally held investable cash or investments, we offer a tiered fee service for Comprehensive Ongoing Financial Planning and Investment Management. For clients with up to $2,000,000 the quarterly fee is 0.225%, the next $3,000,000 is 0.175% per quarter, and the next $5,000,000 is 0.125% per quarter. Rates for amounts over $10 million are negotiated based on case complexity.

We Help Our Clients Align Their Money with Their Values.

Before we focus on our clients' financial goals, we first clarify  
their most important values.
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Their defined values, whether family, faith, or the environment, determine
which financial planning strategies and investment management tools we use.

This process ensures their time and money will go where they have the
greatest impact on the causes they truly care about.

This is Doing Good While Doing Well.

According to Investopedia, "a fiduciary is a person or organization that acts on behalf of another person or persons, putting their clients' interests ahead of their own, with a duty to preserve good faith and trust. Being a fiduciary thus requires being bound both legally and ethically to act in the other's best interests."

Like other professionals in medicine, law, and accounting, Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) like Columbia Square Wealth Management have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of their clients. We work with complex portfolios and address unique needs that require a highly customized level of investment expertise, and use institutional custodians, like Charles Schwab, to hold and safeguard our clients’ investments.

Further, as a Fee-Only, Independent Registered Investment Advisor, Columbia Square Wealth Management is not beholden to the interests of a large national corporate firm, and we receive no commissions or product sales incentives. We receive only the clearly defined fee for services shown above in which there is nothing hidden. Our aligned interest is to deliver the very best advice possible in every scenario.
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