What this looks like for families like yours

Julia & James  ·  35 and 37  ·  Nurse and Director, Strategy  ·  Two young kids  ·  ~$560K household income

Statement of Financial Purpose

“Parent with intention, using our resources to create space for presence, growth, and joy, and to prioritize meaningful experiences together”

The challenge

After the Army and a top MBA, James worked as a management consultant before moving into a corporate strategy role, eventually being promoted to Director, where about a quarter of his compensation is now equity-based, in RSUs and stock grants

Julia is a nurse. She loves the work and can leave it at the hospital, but between her shifts and his hours, the family time they want keeps getting squeezed

They've been disciplined savers since their first paychecks, maxing their 401ks and IRAs as early as they could, and have built a solid nest egg, although their education savings are still a concern

Both careers are thriving and rewarding, and the question they kept circling wasn't how to earn more, but how to buy back more time around family without losing their professional fulfilment

The process

Our first conversation was about the life they were building for their young kids, how conscious they were of the tradeoffs being made, and how Julia wanted James home more

From there, we put real numbers to those tradeoffs to see what scaling back would cost, and what it would buy

The result

•    A clear answer to what it actually takes for one of them to scale back their hours, turning 'someday' into a number and a date

•    A lifetime tax strategy that starts with James's tax-free VA disability as a stable base, then balances their heavy pre-tax balances with Roth and taxable dollars, so future withdrawals happen on their terms, not Uncle Sam's

•    A plan to diversify James's RSUs as they vest, so a single stock stops filling their balance sheet and can instead start funding their children's education

•    A donor-advised fund seeded with their most-appreciated taxable stocks instead of cash, so the causes they care about get funded while they avoid capital gains tax

•    Automated savings and cash flow, so continuing to build their wealth no longer depends on remembering to do it manually

Rachel & David  ·  34 and 36  ·  Physician and VP of Operations  ·  2 yr old & newborn  ·  Inherited ~$5M

Statement of Financial Purpose

“Live a fulfilling life, raise a healthy family, and steward our wealth for the next generation”

The challenge

David inherited about $5M in his twenties. Rather than coast, he served as an Army infantry officer, earned an M7 MBA, and deliberately stiff-armed the family business to prove he could make his own way. He did, and earned his way to VP of Operations

But the money became its own weight. He could barely bring himself to touch it. Spending anything from the inheritance felt like admitting he didn't earn his life, so he kept grinding to justify a lifestyle he could already afford many times over

Rachel, a physician with her own thriving career, would love to see him home more, but also feels the weight of ensuring they don't squander their blessing and ruin the family values for the next generation

The real challenge was never about numbers. It was the story they had internalized about what their money meant

The process

Here the work was more behavioral than technical. After determining they were living just above their means but easily supported by their nest egg, we worked to separate David's identity from his inheritance and define what their wealth was actually for

What could their blessing make possible without making David feel like a prisoner in his own life? What would it take for him to believe that the stereotypical post-MBA career was a choice, not a mandate?

The result

•    Ongoing conversations around family, purpose, impact, and meaning

•    David leaving the company where he trapped himself in the office 10 hours a day doing unfulfilling work; Rachel cutting back her hours as her rate rose, holding income steady while working less

•    A framework that assigned their inheritance a defined job, so using it improved rather than subsidized their lives

•    Deliberate charitable work and more time for each other and the children

•    A value-driven estate and gifting plan to ensure their family combats the stereotypical shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves path that commonly erodes multi-generational wealth

•    Permission, backed by math, for David to step back from the grind without feeling like he was a leech on his bloodline

•    Both spouses understand what their money is for, so David's guilt over wealth he didn't earn stopped crowding out their desire to be happy now and stop sacrificing so much

Hannah & Jack  ·  39 and 44  ·  Homemaker and Managing Director  ·  Pursuing Surrogacy  ·  ~$900K base comp

Statement of Financial Purpose

“Grow and protect what we've built without overextending or taking unnecessary risks, so we can weather any storm in style”

The challenge

Jack speaks fluent Sharpe ratio and 80 hours is a light work week. He's run his own tax-loss harvesting through direct indexing, more sophisticated than most people ever attempt, but he knew what he could manage alone wasn't the whole solution. He also holds a large, illiquid stake in his private employer as part of his equity compensation

On the side he invests in crypto and private placements, and rode one bet from $300K to $1M and back down to $200K. He isn't reckless or naive; he's educated, logical, and knows the rules apply to him. His blind spot is simpler: every loss feels recoverable. If it goes to zero, he'll just work another couple of years and make it back, and when your annual bonus is more than most MBAs make in a year, that's a reasonable working thesis

Hannah was along for that ride though, and she hated every minute of it. The volatility frightens her, because she can see exactly what it puts at risk: their home, their lifestyle, the tangible life they've built, all of it riding on his next bet

What she wants is simpler. Him present. Dinner together. Time as a family. With a child on the way through surrogacy, the math behind Jack's mentality was about to break. When a bad bet costs him years with their child, “I'll just earn it back” stops being freedom

The process

Jack wanted an objective third party to stand between him and his own instincts to optimize at every level. We started with what was actually needed to achieve their objectives, discussed what was at stake, and built a plan to balance upside against a stable life

From there we drew a hard line between the wealth needed to support their lifestyle and the slice he wanted to play with. The goal stopped being the highest possible return and became a life that didn't depend on Jack working additional years to make up for bad timing

The result

•    A family Investment Policy Statement, so Hannah's voice carries as much weight as Jack's, and the big decisions are guided by the plan, not by Jack in the moment

•    Quarterly asset allocation targets that reduce speculative holdings as a percentage of net worth, gliding down over the next seven years, so the riskiest bets shrink as their family grows

•    An ISO/NSO plan that times exercises around AMT and cash flow, weighs 83(b) elections against career moves, and ensures their family's success is not contingent on a single company

•    Institutional-grade automation, direct indexing and ongoing tax-loss harvesting for their reserve account, paired with a buy-and-hold strategy in their core account

•    A target stress-free rate of return that meets their planning needs while reducing volatility

•    Hannah confident that their lifestyle will be stable, Jack will be home for dinner, and their child will have two present parents