Annual Client Letter 2025 (reprint)

Hello to our wonderful clients! 

Apologies for the quantity of email blasts from me this year, but it has been quite a year already (and it's only April!). I’m reaching out today with a (very) belated annual client letter with both personal and firm updates, and a few reflections thrown in, too.

We had the pleasure of working with 25 new clients in 2024, most of whom were referrals from you, our clients. It is difficult to put into words how grateful we are that you trust us with your people - there is truly no higher compliment and we are incredibly thankful. We promise to continue taking excellent care of you and the people you send our way. We currently have capacity for 24 new clients in 2025, with 11 spots already spoken for, and 13 still available. Our sweet spot is working with mid-career professionals with substantial equity compensation. If we can be of help to someone you know, we’d be happy to chat with them.  

Miranda joined us in May 2024 and I couldn’t be more grateful for her. It feels like she’s been here for years in the best possible way. She has come alongside Cyndi and me in serving our clients and running the business absolutely seamlessly, and I look forward to her continued growth with the firm and anticipated transition to Lead Financial Planner in 2026. We’ll be looking to expand our team again late this year or in early 2026. 

The firm grew 45% last year, and we're on track to grow about 40% this year. As we head into our 6th year as a firm, I'm starting to really understand why I'm so passionate about growing this firm. Growth means that we get to help more people and continue to uplevel what we do for clients, and that is really fulfilling. But I'm also finding that I'm incredibly motivated to create opportunities for others to do financial planning and asset management with integrity, transparency, and work/life balance. This industry is a tough one where conflicts of interest, questionable business practices, long hours, and obnoxious sales practices abound. Building a firm where planners can do great work for great clients and live balanced lives without all the gross stuff - that REALLY gets me excited!

On a personal note…

For Cyndi, the highlight of the year was their family road trip to Yellowstone. Wonderful family memories were made while appreciating the natural beauty of the world! Vivian (8) has really leveled up this year in gymnastics, piano, and reading. JJ (6) has found his passion building Star Wars lego sets and drawing his own comic books. Cyndi's husband, James, began his dream job teaching Jr. High history at the kids' school, which has contributed to a great work/life balance all around!

Miranda’s highlight was spending two weeks in Japan exploring Tokyo and skiing on the north island of Hokkaido in January of this year. If you aren’t an avid skier, you might not have known that Japan is one of the snowiest countries and has (debatably) the best power skiing in the world, often referred to as Japow and Japanuary. When she’s not dreaming up her next international adventure, she stays busy as a true PNW-er hiking, backpacking, trail running, skiing, and all things outdoors. 

And as for me, it sure feels like we’re in the sweet spot of parenting. Wally (10), still plays ALL THE SPORTS, but baseball has emerged as his fave, and we are doing the whole club baseball thing. We’ve decided to be fully where we are, if you will, and make the most of the time spent practicing and traveling for tournaments with good snacks, sparkle necklaces, and a little silliness amongst all the serious baseball parents around us. Charlie (knocking on 13’s door) is rocking 7th grade and enjoying playing electric guitar in the school jazz band. He has discovered a love for classic rock (it’s about damn time) and hearing him play the solos from my favorite Led Zeppelin songs in his room at night makes my heart beam with pride. Ryan continues to enjoy his role as CCO of a music tech company and has been at F45 pretty much every day for 18 months. So if you’re local, and you need help lifting something heavy, I know a guy. Amidst so many joyful things, my parents are aging and dealing with some significant health challenges. I have abruptly entered the sandwich generation, and I’m quickly becoming more aware of how precious and limited our time together here on Earth really is. 

It is embarrassingly late in the year to say this, but I’d like to wish you health, joy and peace in 2025. Amidst all the hard things happening in our country and our world right now, there is much change to hope for. May we hold that hope with one another, and for one another this year.

Client Market Update Letter - April 2025 (reprint)

Hello to our wonderful clients!

Given the continued volatility in the stock market, we wanted to reach out and provide another update. (If you missed our March update, you can check it out here.)

What is happening?

• The President has persisted with announcements of significant tariffs on other countries, but has waffled on timing of implementation which has whipsawed markets. Last week, the S&P 500 dropped 11% in two days (which was the 5th largest two day drop in the last 75 years), and yesterday the S&P 500 was up 9.5% (best day in the market in more than 15 years). 

• The possibility of tariffs continues to put significant upward pressure on inflation and downward pressure on the economy, making a recession more likely. 

Why is this so unsettling?

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you why the turmoil in the markets is unsettling, but to bring a voice to what you might be feeling…

• Uncertainty is more stressful than knowing a bad outcome is imminent, and there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty right now.

• For many of you, your compensation is directly tied to the performance of a public stock via RSUs, and you might be watching your compensation drop by, potentially, hundreds of thousands of dollars for 2025 depending on how the remainder of the year unfolds.

• You may be concerned that you could get laid off amidst an economic downturn.

• Although you are likely not in a position of needing to sell equities in a down market, it’s still unsettling to watch your portfolio value drop, and it might feel like you should take action to protect yourself.

• The negative news cycle is in overdrive. 

• You might be feeling added frustration or anger at our current leadership. 

What can you do to protect yourself?

Our financial planning and asset management approach is built to weather unexpected periods of volatility like this one. We plan in advance for both Plan A and Plan B, which means that you, our clients, are already set up to make it through difficult periods like this one. Below is a list of some of the ways our planning and asset management approach protects you.

1. We prioritize building a fully funded Emergency Fund that is not invested in the stock market.

2. We recommend that funds for upcoming short term goals (home purchase, renovation, etc.) are not in equities, and funds for mid-term goals are in balanced portfolios with significant bond allocations. 

3. For those nearing phased or full financial independence, we recommend a larger cash reserve and higher bond allocation to minimize the possibility of selling equities in a down market.

4. For those with a child within a couple of years of going off to college, we recommend a higher bond and short term reserve allocation to minimize the possibility of selling equities in a down market within 529s and brokerage accounts earmarked for college.

5. For clients with significant RSU income, we recommend that only a small portion of your RSU income (if any) is needed to cover expenses, which means that although a market downturn might slow progress on goals temporarily, you’re still in a solid financial position. 

6. We recommend that you have adequate medical, disability, and life insurance so that if you have an unexpected health event, you aren’t likely to need to sell equities at an inopportune time.

7. Through the planning work we’ve done together, you have a strong understanding of your finances so adjustments can be made if needed.

Periods of volatility can trigger a feeling of wanting to take action to protect yourself and your family, but through the planning work we've done together, you've already taken the most important steps.

Should you get out of the stock market?

In general, the biggest risk when the market goes down is selling positions when they're down (locking in losses) and subsequently missing out on the eventual market recovery (missing out on gains). Knowing that you have a solid financial plan in place and a well-diversified portfolio in alignment with your risk tolerance and time horizon, we generally recommend staying invested. 

What else can you do now?

• If you are concerned about layoffs, consider increasing your Emergency Fund.

• We don’t know how tariffs will play out, and what will actually come to fruition, so we don’t recommend going out and purchasing new cars, new laptops, etc. just in case. That said, if you were already planning a car, tech or furniture purchase in the next few months, moving on that sooner rather than later might be helpful. (To be clear, we don’t recommend buying stuff you wouldn’t have purchased otherwise.)

• Harvest tax losses in non-qualified accounts. If we manage assets for you, we’re on it already and check for losses to harvest daily. 

• If you are in the midst of a portfolio restructuring (from concentrated positions to a more diversified portfolio or from ETFs to a direct-indexed portfolio), this could be a good opportunity to make the transition at a lower tax cost. 

• Continue to dollar-cost-average into the stock market as planned to take advantage of lower stock prices. 

• Stay informed, but limit your exposure to news. Lean on trusted news sources that provide as little drama and bias as possible, and limit the amount of time you spend doom scrolling.

What changes should you consider in your portfolio?

In most cases, we don’t recommend any changes. Our asset management approach, whether we manage your portfolio or not, is set up to handle market upheaval in the following ways:

• Diversify equity (and bond) holdings across both US and international companies. Although US stocks have broadly outperformed international stocks for many years, this year the international equity market is doing roughly 10% better than the US market. 

• Rebalance your portfolio regularly. Rebalancing forces the trimming of positions that have grown (selling high) and the purchase of positions that have not been in favor (buying low).

• Use bonds to provide protection by sticking with short duration high quality bonds. For bonds, boring = good.

• Only consider maintaining concentrated equity positions for “home run” goals that you can afford not to achieve (like very early retirement or a second home), and not for “base hit” goals like retiring in your mid-60s.

• Transition your portfolio towards lower equity exposure as you get closer to using your portfolio to fund a goal. 

• In taxable accounts, harvest tax losses consistently (and, in low income years, consider harvesting capital gains).

Apologies for the length of this email. Believe it or not this is the edited down version. ;)

Cyndi, Miranda and I are here to support you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like to connect outside of our regularly scheduled meetings. Otherwise, we’ll see you in Q2.

Best,

Natalie, Cyndi & Miranda

This is being shared for informational and educational purposes only. This is NOT investment advice. Every situation is unique so please consult with a professional about your specific situation to see what makes sense for you.

Client Market Update Letter (reprint)

Hello to our wonderful clients!

As I'm sure you've seen, the stock market has been quite volatile over the last month and has dropped 10% (which is considered a market correction) since February 19th. We're reaching out to check in and provide a quick summary of what's happening, a bit of historical perspective, and guidance on what to have on your radar in the coming weeks and months. 

What is happening?

• The US stock market is struggling and cryptocurrencies are down as well. Conversely, the international stock market is doing quite well so far in 2025. Here are the numbers:

• The S&P 500 is down about 4.5% year to date. 

• Most of the Magnificent Seven (Tesla, Nvidia, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft) have dropped quite a bit more than the S&P 500 in the last month and some, like Tesla, have dropped precipitously year to date. 

• Bitcoin is down 13% year to date and Ethereum is down 43%

• The international stock market is up about 9% year to date. 

Why is this happening?

• There are several reasons, but tariffs and inflation pressure triggered by tariffs, geopolitical tension in several regions, and layoffs and chaos in the federal government are all major contributing factors.

• For our clients who primarily work for US tech companies, continued layoffs and decreases in equity compensation for our public tech company clients have caused concern as well.

What is the long view?

• We know that the stock market goes up and down over time, but has historically trended up and to the right. We have no reason to believe that this time around is any different. That said, it's much easier to feel tolerant of downside risk when the market is flat or positive, but when volatility rises and stock prices drop, it can still be unsettling. 

• There have been 56 market corrections (drops of 10%-19%) in the last 100 years or so. Market corrections turn into bear markets (drops of 20% or more) about 40% of the time.   

• We expect the US and international stock markets to perform somewhat differently in any given period. That's why we own both US and international stocks in the portfolios we manage for clients. 

• Although the S&P 500 is down year to date, over the last 10 years average returns have been 13% annually. 

• Although the international market is up year to date, over the last 10 years average returns have been 5% annually. 

• When we look at decade-long periods in the past, like 2000 through 2009, the US market was negative for the decade by about 5% whereas international developed markets were up 12% and emerging markets were up 154% for the decade. 

What is your greatest risk?

• In general, the biggest risk when the market goes down is selling positions when they're down and subsequently missing out on the eventual market recovery. For example, in early 2020 the market dropped about 35% when COVID hit, but by August it had recovered and for the year the S&P 500 was up about 18%. If an investor sold in March 2020 and didn't get back in until September, they would have locked in a permanent 35% loss. 

How can you protect yourself?

1. Keep a fully stocked Emergency Fund. If you feel that a layoff is likely, consider stockpiling excess cash for a transition fund.

2. Keep funds for short term goals out of the market. 

3. If you're nearing becoming work-optional, keep a significant portion of your portfolio in high quality shorter duration bonds so that you can draw from your bond portfolio to support income until equities recover.

4. For long term goals, continue to invest for the long term. Market corrections are opportunities to buy equities at a discount, if you will, so continue portfolio contributions as planned.

5. If you are deploying a large amount of cash into the market, consider whether you might want to dollar-cost-average over time.

6. If equity compensation is a large portion of your annual income (which is the case for most of our late-stage private and public company clients), manage your spending so that decreases in your company stock price won't impact your ability to pay your bills. (This is why we often recommend a lower price point for a home purchase than might otherwise be possible to leave a healthy margin of safety for stock price drops.)

7. If you have RSUs vesting on an ongoing basis, we generally recommend that you continue to sell shares as they vest (although there are exceptions - follow whatever Cyndi or I has laid out for you in our planning work together). This is because your RSUs are ultimately a bonus paid in stock, and we do not typically recommend using your bonus to buy your company's stock. Instead, we recommend using your RSUs to fund your goals or support your cash flow. 

As always, we are here to support you. Please don't hesitate to reach out.

This is being shared for informational and educational purposes only. This is NOT investment advice. Every situation is unique so please consult with a professional about your specific situation to see what makes sense for you.

Yearend Personal Update (reprint)

To my clients…

I don’t often share much about my business or my life with clients, because our work is about you and not about me, but I spent some time at the end of December reflecting on 2020 and planning for 2021, and I wanted to share a few thoughts with you. I hope you don’t mind. ;)

Although I’ve been a Financial Planner for 16 years, I launched my new planning practice in February of 2020, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the work I’ve had the opportunity to do with clients since then. Truly thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for giving me the opportunity to partner with you and help you gain clarity and make meaningful progress towards your goals.

Although 2020 was a heck of a year as a working mom in the midst of a pandemic with two wild boys at home, getting to work with you has been incredibly rewarding and was such a bright spot for me in an otherwise challenging year. There are no words to express just how much that means to me and how grateful I am.

And even though I launched the business right before COVID hit, the business has taken off super quickly and grown much faster than I ever anticipated, in large part due to referrals from clients. Thank you so much for trusting me to take care of you and the people who matter to you.

As I look to 2021, my top priority is to continue to take great care of clients, and serve new clients as well.I served 40 families in 2020, and I have capacity to serve 35 additional families in 2021.In order to do so, I’ve eliminated fintech consulting work(I previously consulted for companies like SoFi, Ellevest and LearnLux), and I’m growing my team.I will close the practice to new clients as needed to protect both your client experience and my commitment to myself and my family to maintain a healthy work/life balance.

So with that in mind, I’d like to formally introduce you to my paraplanner, Cyndi Hall, CFP®.I’ve known Cyndi for more than six years, and I am so honored to have her on my team. She is an experienced Financial Planner and was a phenomenal team member during my years at LearnVest. Cyndi has been helping behind the scenes since the practice launched last year, but she’ll be taking on more responsibilities to support the continued growth of the practice. Cyndi will largely continue to help behind the scenes with planning and operations, but don’t be surprised if she reaches out to you to gather data, help with an account transfer, or get a meeting set up on my calendar.

One last thing to share… If you happen to be curious, I was interviewed recently on a podcast to share my career journey and discuss my approach to business, what I learned from being in fintech, and how I approach financial planning. Give it a listen if you’re interested (or bored while doing the dishes!).

As uncomfortable as it is for me to ask for space in your inbox to talk about what's going on in my world, it felt weird NOT to share it with you, and I didn't want to miss the opportunity to let you know how much you've impacted me and how grateful I am to you.

Happy New Year!!!!

Best, Natalie

Government Programs for the Self-Employed

I’ve spoken to several freelancers, solopreneurs, and small business owners over the last two weeks who either weren’t aware of the government programs available to them, or weren’t sure how to navigate them. From journalists to attorneys to Airbnb hosts to coffee shop owners to daycare providers, I’ve spoken to all kinds of business owners looking for clarity. 

Whether you’re a sole proprietor, an LLC, or an S-corp, there are programs that can help you if your income has dropped due to COVID-19. The three primary programs (although there are others, too) are the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and Unemployment. 

Many of us self-employed people aren’t used to having a safety net, but right now, we actually do. 

Unemployment: Typically, self-employed people don’t qualify for unemployment benefits. But due to recent legislation, we now qualify! And unemployment benefits are higher than they’ve ever been before. That’s because the federal government is increasing unemployment benefits by a flat $600 per week through the end of July! If you qualify for just $1 of unemployment benefits, you get an extra $600 per week. 

Benefits vary from state to state, but in general, if you make less than about $50,000 per year through your business, and your income has disappeared (or substantially dropped) due to COVID-19, you’ll likely make as much if not more on unemployment than you were making previously. Yes, you read that right. 

Paycheck Protection Program: The PPP provides loans to self-employed people that are potentially 100% forgivable. You can borrow up to 2.5 times your average monthly income from last year (up to $100,000/year). So if you made $48,000 last year, that averages out to $4,000/month, which means you could borrow 2.5 times $4,000, or $10,000. Interest rates are super low on these loans, but that’s not the best part. The best part is that as long as you use the loan money to continue paying yourself (and any employees you have), the loan is FORGIVABLE. You don’t have to pay it back! 

Now, there are details to understand and additional requirements for the loan to be forgivable, but this is a great option, especially if you make more than $50,000 annually or want to retain a team member. 

Economic Injury Disaster Loan: The EIDL program provides low interest loans to self-employed people. There’s also a possibility of receiving an upfront grant of up to $10,000 that DOESN’T HAVE TO BE REPAID. But before you get too excited, it appears that the grant amount will be related to the number of employees you have, so if you’re solo, your potential grant is likely much less than $10,000. 

Okay, are you still with me? Hopefully your brain hasn’t turned to mush yet. Here’s where things get a bit more complex… These programs can be combined in some cases, but it takes some planning to stay above board. And to be clear, I’m 1,000% in favor of utilizing programs you qualify for, but I’m completely against bending the rules.  

For example, you might use the PPP loan to continue payroll for yourself for eight weeks, have that loan completely forgiven, and then transition to unemployment. 

Or, you might combine an EIDL loan and a PPP loan to cover different expenses and still be able to have the PPP loan forgiven. 

There’s a lot to think through, but it’s worth the time - I promise! If you need help navigating these programs and figuring out what makes sense for you, or you know someone who needs help, I’m here.