Mike's Financial Planning Process

I inspire people to define and put plans in place to achieve their financial goals. My process focuses on you, the client, and what you want to achieve for yourself, your family, your community and the institutions and organizations that make your life meaningful.

We begin with the end in mind: What are the great things you want to accomplish? These are your life destinations, be they early retirement, educating children or perhaps grandchildren, purchasing a first or second home, creating an endowment for your church, temple, or synagogue, just to name a few.

Once we’ve established your destinations, we pull out the calculator, put pencil to paper and, based on reasonable assumptions, determine how much money you will need to accumulate to finance your dreams.

We then take a step back and get our bearings. Where are you and your family today? What is your current net worth? We examine your cash flow. We examine your employee benefits and any expected future inheritances or need to support others, be they family members with special needs or aging parents.

We put plans in place to deploy your current and future resources to most efficiently achieve your goals. We make use of dozens of strategies and products to help minimize your taxes, maximize your returns at an appropriate level of risk, and leverage your employer provided benefits. We make smart use of risk management tools to help ensure that human tragedies, unexpected death or disability, don’t become financial tragedies as well.

We take action. Sometimes this involves acquiring new financial products. Often it involves making adjustments to current arrangements, such as increasing contributions to an employer sponsored retirement plan. Every case is unique.

We help monitor and adjust the plan, meeting not less than annually. The reason is simple: your life changes and the world changes.

ADVISORY SERVICES FOR OWNERS OF CLOSELY HELP BUSINESSES
BUSINESS TRANSITION, WEALTH MANAGEMENT AND ASSET PROTECTION
We assist owners of closely held businesses develop plans to pay less taxes, maximize and protect the value of their business, and ensure the successful transfer of that business when the time comes. Without proper planning, business owners stand to lose up to 60 percent of their life’s work to taxes, fees and transfer costs. Yet most business owners do not take the time to put the best possible plan in place.

We understand that the reason is complexity, an array of choices and decisions that are overwhelming. The human response is to put it off, keep on running the business. We cut through the complexity, employing years of experience and leveraging a team of experts to offer business owners a short menu of simple, easily understood options. The result is a customized plan that protects and enhances the value of one’s life work, putting more in the pockets of the family while minimizing taxes and transfer costs.

EMPLOYEE BENEFITS REVIEW
We team with a business's in-house staff and often outside advisors, such as CPAs, to provide an objective analysis of a company’s health and welfare benefit package. We assist the business in identifying what it is trying to achieve with its benefits, analyze its current offerings, and determine whether it can get more value for its benefit dollar. We understand that this is a complex area, one that’s important but tangential to the core purpose of the business owners we serve. We cut through the complexity, offer an simple menu of options and then make ourselves available to assist in any changes or transitions.

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU
Our commitment is to always put your interests first and do our very best to ensure that your assets are protected as best as possible. Here at Barnum Financial Group, we're committed to treating and protecting our clients like family. Rediscover what it means to have Confidence and Peace of Mind again. Call us today for a free, no-obligation strategy session. Call: (203) 513-6058 or click here to contact us today.