Hedge funds, asset classes, benchmarks, alpha…these are all terms that Financial Advisors spew at a disturbing rate in an attempt to sound smart, win your business, and differentiate themselves from all the other standard-issue advisors out there. But confusing you into becoming a client isn’t the way a true partnership should work.

At Monument, we’re tired of financial advisors spewing out jargon and B.S. to the public in an attempt to look smart, sell something, or over-complicate wealth management when people are simply seeking clarity.

We’ve all heard the song… “Breaking up is hard to do”. But when it comes to the care and protection of your family’s wealth, you may just have to rip off the band-aid with your current wealth advisor and know you’ll be better for it in the long term.

As a Private Wealth Advisor, it’s my job to ensure our high-net-worth clients aren’t over-exposed to risk in their portfolios. It’s very easy to get in a position of taking too much risk. For example, a human tendency known as recency bias can drive you to chase higher returns, especially during long bull markets. The problem is, you could be gambling on your future and not even realizing it.

Independent advisors vs wirehouse advisors and bank advisors: How your wealth management experience will be different at Monument

Investors who claim their investment objective is “Growth” aren’t simply asking to increase risk in hopes of more return. What they usually want is to focus on their portfolio’s total return, which is comprised of two pieces: Price return and Income return. For example, if you bought something at $5 and sold it for $13, your price return is $8.

Women do so much…I know from firsthand experience, because I’m a woman and I feel like I do a lot, if I do say so myself! When I was in my 20s, I traveled and worked thousands of hours with a Big 5 consulting firm, got married, and bought a house. I socked money away in my 401k and that was the extent of my financial planning. When I was in my 30s, I had children and dogs and cats and did a whole different kind of work, much of it unpaid.

One of the biggest challenges for people entering retirement is knowing how to start spending from their portfolios when they’ve spent an entire life saving. How do you even know where to begin to make sure you can do what you want, when you want, without the risk of running out of money? A good first step is taking stock of how much set income you will have in retirement from sources other than your portfolio.