We do not expect fees for initial meetings. Their purpose is not to provide services, although we frequently resolve issues for people during these meetings. If we can help someone determine that they do not need a financial planner, we are glad to provide such assistance without charge. We venture our time, to determine whether our visitors can be clients who will benefit from our services for many years. It is a time for you to explore whether our services will improve your lifestyle and for us to explore whether we believe a good long-term relationship is likely to evolve. The web page Client Descripton is a guide to the kind of relationships we seek.

Be prepared to talk about your financial situation, the reasons you think you may need a financial planner, the issues that are difficult for you to manage, and your expectations for your future. When spouses are involved, we are very interested in hearing both viewpoints, so we like for both to visit together.

We want this meeting to be tailored to your issues. Please help us to prepare by completing and returning to us PRIOR to our meeting.

• Your Financial Satisfaction Survey - to help focus on some of the topics for us to discuss.
  
• Your most recent Net Worth Statement. Previous versions if they help ensure that we include important items.

There are several other documents that can facilitate effective use of our time together. The broad request is for anything that helps us understand your current financial situation. Suggested documents, and their uses, are listed below. These may remind you of other useful items. You can copy them before the meeting, or we can copy the ones we believe we need after discussing them. If we keep your original documents, we can generally return them within twenty-four hours or mail them on the next business day.

• Recent brokerage statements - These help us document current values.
  
• Estimates of typical checking account balances - If the current balances are significantly different from "normal," we want to discuss the reasons.
  
• Home value and mortgage information - At this stage, estimates are sufficient.
  
• Life insurance summary - Typically an annual statement will include this information. If there is a life insurance trust, we should discuss it, and a copy is useful.
  
• Estate plan summary - Attorneys sometimes prepare a "plain English" letter, describing the intent of the legal documents. These are a great deal of help. We want to talk about your intentions in estate planning. Later we may need copies of estate planning documents.
  
• Employer benefits statements and employment agreements if applicable - We want to consider your relationship to your employer(s), and hear your vision for your career and retirement.
  
• Federal Tax Return for the most recent year - Unless there are significant extraordinary items in previous years, we are not likely to need previous returns. We will talk about your expectations for the current year's return.

We will use the information you bring as a guide in our discussion. If our relationship continues after the meeting, we can study the documents more carefully later. In the meeting, we will be most interested in hearing your understandings and goals. In the end, improving your lifestyle is our mission. This will likely mean much more than simply making you financially wealthier. There is more to wealth than money. We want to know about your personal relationship to your wealth. We want to explore if we can help.