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Our primary goal is to help you achieve your financial goals regardless of where you are at in your life.  Whether this goal is to be debt-free, aspire to early retirement, buy a house, etc, a financial coach can help you reach it.  This is done by conducting a comprehensive overview of your financial situation and then provide a solid plan to execute.  Everyone’s financial situation is different, so that plan will be customized specifically for your needs.

Financial coaches and CFP’s provide similar roles in helping you achieve your financial goals.  The main difference is that CFP can offer official investment advice and product recommendations.  Instead, the financial coach’s main purpose is to provide financial literacy to educate and help you be better informed about your personal financial situation.  A financial coach has more of a counselor role to help build better money habits.

For many CFP’s, the barrier of entry can be high.  Some CFP’s require minimum balance to invest before you can do business with them.   In addition, some CFP’s may not have the best interest for their clients if they earn higher commissions when selling certain products.  Lastly, because CFP’s make most of their money from selling investment products, they generally do not cater to those who have little assets or are buried in debt.  The financial coach on the other hand, has an upfront fee and helps anyone in all walks of life.  Financial coaches have no products to sell and their primary incentive is to help you develop a plan to achieve your financial goals.

I am trained as a Dave Ramsey Financial Coach, using the teachings of Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps.  While the 7 Baby Steps is designed to be a one size fits all solution, there are many nuances throughout your financial journey that a financial coach, like myself, can help with.  I’ve helped many clients to not only identify the pitfalls of their financial situation, but helped develop action plans to better optimize their finances.

The process all starts with the initial free 30-minute consultation.  At the consultation, we discuss what your current financial situation looks like and identify what your financial goals are.  After that, I will conduct a thorough analysis of your finances using the information you provide and we will have three 1-hour coaching sessions to discuss your plan.  The first session is to present my findings and proposed action plan.  The second and third sessions follows up on the progress of the proposed action plan and make any necessary changes.  Generally, we don’t need more than three sessions with each client.  We can discuss the additional costs if more sessions are required.

The initial consultation generally provides a good indicator if I can help you or not.  In the event that you’re in a position that I cannot help, I will be very upfront and be candid with you of my disposition on the matter.  While I would love to help everyone out, I can only help based on my abilities.

Send me email me at selfreliantfi@gmail.com if you have additional questions.  I am happy to answer them.