Fiduciary Financial Advisor in Seminole, FL

You have handled your own money for a long time, and it has worked.

You picked the funds in the 401(k). You opened the brokerage account and kept it going. You rolled an old plan into an IRA and kept track of the accounts as they grew. Nobody had to tell you to save.

What you have never had is someone look at all of it at once.

The accounts were opened years apart for different reasons. The beneficiaries may have been named at different points in your life. The tax return tells you what happened last year, not what is coming several years from now. And there may never have been one written plan that says what all of this is supposed to do for you and what eventually happens to what is left.

You do not necessarily want someone to take it over. You want another set of eyes on what you have built, a written plan for what comes next and the choice to carry it out yourself.

The Whole Picture in One Plan

We begin by listing everything: each account and how it is taxed, the house, any pension or annuity, Social Security, the insurance you carry and what you owe. Then we put it beside what you spend in a normal year.

From there, the plan answers questions that no single statement can answer.

How long does the money last at the rate you are drawing it, and how much room is there? Which years will carry the most tax, and can some of that income be moved into lighter years? Required distributions from traditional IRAs start at age 73, or at 75 if you were born in 1960 or later. If they will push you into a higher bracket, the years before them are the time to act. Our guide to Roth conversions covers one way to use those years.

The plan also looks at what eventually happens to the money. Who is named on each account? Does that match what your will or trust says? Would a traditional IRA left to a working son or daughter be taxed at their highest bracket? Those answers belong to the same retirement planning work because they are all decisions about the same money.

A Plan You Can Carry Out Yourself

The finished plan is written down. It tells you what we see, what we would change, what we would leave alone and when each decision needs to be made.

Some of what you have been doing may already make sense. If so, the plan says so. Other parts may call for a change, such as updating a beneficiary or drawing from a different account first.

You can carry out those decisions yourself. You can keep your accounts where they are, make the changes on your own schedule and continue managing the investments the way you have for years.

If there is something you no longer want to handle yourself, we can talk about that separately. Hiring us to build the plan does not commit you to having us manage the investments.

If You Would Rather We Manage the Investments

You may decide that you still want to make the decisions yourself. Or you may decide that some part of the job is no longer how you want to spend your time.

If you ask us to manage the investments, the plan becomes a written investment policy statement covering what the money has to provide, how much risk the plan can take and how each account is taxed. We manage the accounts to that statement, seeking the strongest return after tax that the plan’s risk limits permit.

We start with what you already own. Investments you chose that still fit the plan stay where they are, and the tax cost of selling is part of every decision. Asset location looks at which investments belong in which account, and our investment management keeps the accounts in line with the policy from there.

Working with Holland Capital

Holland Capital Management is an independent registered investment adviser and a fiduciary. M. Chad Holland, CFA, CFP® works directly with clients and is responsible for the planning and advice.

We start by asking what you have been doing and why. Bring recent statements, last year’s tax return, your Social Security figures and any will or trust you have. We look at what you have already built before deciding what, if anything, needs to change.

You will hear what looks sound, what we would look at more closely and whether there is enough planning work to make a written plan worthwhile.

If you already work with a CPA or an estate attorney, they stay in place. We give them the same figures we are working from.

The first conversation is free. If there is work worth doing after that, we will define the scope and cost before you decide whether to move forward.

Our offices are in Charlotte, North Carolina and Winter Park, Florida. We work with clients in Seminole primarily by video or phone. When an in-person meeting makes sense, we meet by appointment at the Regus center at 300 East Bay Drive in Largo, about 10 minutes away.

For clients whose investments we manage, accounts are held directly at Charles Schwab in the client’s own name. Holland Capital manages the investments but does not take custody of client assets. If a client ever needs in-person assistance from Schwab, the closest branch is in St. Petersburg at 2831 4th Street North.

We work with clients throughout Florida. You can see the other Florida communities we serve here.

Our what we do page explains how a planning engagement works.

Frequently Asked Questions

Photo: Timbot4x4 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.