As a fiduciary financial advisor in Wesley Chapel, Holland Capital helps you decide what your savings are for and how they should be invested to get there. We build the retirement plan first, including the accounts you have managed yourself, then manage the portfolio to it.
You have probably been the one handling the money.
You opened the brokerage account, picked the funds, set up the 401(k) contributions and rebalanced when you remembered. It worked. The balances grew, and for a long time that was the whole point.
At some point the numbers get large enough to change the feel of it. A bad month now costs more than a year of contributions. A decision about taxes or timing can be worth more than any fund you pick. And retirement is no longer a distant idea. It has a rough date.
That is usually when the questions change from “what should I buy?” to “what is all of this for, and am I sure?”
We start there. First, the plan: when you want work to be optional, what you will spend and where the income will come from. Then the investments that support it.
Retirement Planning Starts with What the Money Has to Do
A portfolio without a plan can only be judged against the market. A portfolio with a plan can be judged against what you need it to do.
You may know exactly what you own, what it has earned and where every account sits. The question a brokerage screen cannot answer is whether all of it adds up to the life you are trying to fund. When would you like to stop working, or cut back? What will the household spend then? When should Social Security start, and for whom first? Which accounts get drawn down first, and what will each withdrawal cost in tax?
Those answers turn a pile of accounts into a plan with dates and amounts. Every investment decision that follows is measured against it.
The result is a way to judge the portfolio by something more useful than whether it beat an index last year. Our approach to retirement planning is built around the date and spending the money has to support.
You Have Done This Yourself for Years
Nothing here assumes you did it wrong. The balance says a good deal went right.
What changed is not necessarily how well you have invested. The job itself changed as the balance grew. The decisions that matter most are no longer which fund to buy. They are how much risk the plan actually needs, which account each investment belongs in, when to sell a position with a large gain, and what you would do in a year when the market falls by a third.
That last one feels different when the balance is large enough to fund your retirement. A decline you once measured in thousands can now run far larger. We would rather decide in advance how much risk the plan can tolerate than work out the answer while markets are falling. We write about that side of investing in behavioral finance.
Taxes are the other difference. In a taxable account, the investments you have held longest may carry the biggest gains. Selling them only to make the portfolio look cleaner can create a tax bill without improving the plan enough to justify it. We plan a move like that over time, using losses, lower-income years and new cash where we can. There is more on that in capital gains tax planning.
You do not have to hand everything over at once. Some people keep an account they enjoy managing. The plan still counts it.
How We Manage the Portfolio
If you have managed the money yourself for years, handing over an account should not mean giving up the reasoning behind it. Once the plan is set, we turn it into a written investment policy statement. It names the goals the money serves, the volatility you have agreed to accept and the tax status of every account you own.
Your portfolio is then held to that policy and judged by what it earns after tax against the risk it takes. We look across the 401(k), IRA, Roth and taxable accounts when deciding where investments belong, because the tax treatment of the account affects what you keep.
From there, the portfolio has rules. We rebalance when the mix drifts, use losses when they help with taxes and adjust the policy when your life or the plan changes. You still know what you own and why you own it.
An account we manage carries our advisory fee, and we show you that cost before you decide.
Our investment management carries out the plan. It does not replace it.
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.
If you have been running your own portfolio for years, you probably have reasons for owning what you own. We want to understand them. The first meeting is a conversation about what you own, why you own it and what you want the money to do.
You will not be asked to sell anything to start. We look at the whole picture before recommending a single change.
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 Wesley Chapel primarily by video or phone. When an in-person meeting makes sense, we meet by appointment at the Alliance meeting center at 30740 State Road 54 in Wesley Chapel.
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 Tampa at 4304 West Boy Scout Boulevard.
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.
RETIREMENT ENGINEERING™
The Order Matters
Five retirement decisions and why timing matters.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Keep Managing Some Accounts Myself?
Yes. The financial plan covers everything you own, wherever it is held, including an account you want to keep running yourself. Which accounts we manage is decided with you.
Workplace plans usually stay where they are while you are employed. We can still recommend how to invest them as part of the whole portfolio.
What If My Investments Have Large Gains?
Gains in an IRA or 401(k) can be rearranged without a current tax bill. Gains in a taxable account cannot.
For taxable accounts, we usually change the portfolio gradually. We may keep a position that still fits, sell some shares in a lower-income year, offset gains with losses or direct new money toward what is underweight.
How Do I Know If I Am Taking the Right Amount of Risk?
Start with what the money has to do and when. If the plan works with a more conservative portfolio, there may be no reason to take more risk. If it needs more growth than your current mix is likely to deliver, that shows up too.
The plan also has to use an amount of risk you can live with through a bad market without abandoning it at the wrong time.
What Does Your Fiduciary Duty Mean If I Move an Account to You?
Holland Capital acts as a fiduciary when providing financial planning and investment advice. That applies to our advice on the accounts you keep running yourself as much as the ones we manage.
Moving an account under our management increases what we are paid, so we tell you that before you decide. The plan has to show why the move makes sense for you.
Can a Fiduciary Financial Advisor Outside Wesley Chapel Manage My Portfolio?
Yes. Portfolio reviews, plan updates and most decisions happen by video or phone, with your accounts on the screen in front of both of us. If you prefer to meet in person, we can meet by appointment at the Alliance meeting center at 30740 State Road 54 in Wesley Chapel.
Photo: LittleT889 / Wikimedia Commons / CC0, cropped.
