Falco Wealth Living Plan Methodology

Every Living Plan begins here. Before developing any strategy, we take the time to understand what matters most to you — whether it's covering monthly essentials, retiring comfortably, buying a vacation home, starting a business, or leaving a lasting legacy. We identify your needs, clarify and prioritize your dreams, and set realistic, measurable goals. We call this your Needs & Dreams, and they serve as the foundation guiding every decision across the different areas of your plan.

For high-income families and business owners, cash flow is rarely simple. Income may arrive from multiple sources — a salary, Social Security, dividends, rents, deferred compensation, or equity awards — and outflows are equally varied and complex. We align these inflows with your Needs & Dreams — like living expenses, debts, savings, charitable donations, and major purchases. Rather than a basic budgeting exercise, this is a sophisticated analysis of how your resources are derived and consumed. By maintaining a clear, up-to-date overview of what comes in and goes out, we help you manage your cash flow with purpose and confidence.

Many don’t know their net worth. We create your personal balance sheet detailing what you own, what you owe, and its overall value. We assess your debts and identify the best strategies for repayment; evaluate your assets to understand their liquidity and value; and ensure you maintain a strategic cash reserve that earns a competitive return. We tailor your investment portfolio to match your risk tolerance, the timeline of your goals, and the returns needed to reach them — all based on financial science, not speculation. We strengthen your balance sheet by identifying and mitigating risks that could threaten your plan. Like a corporation, we believe individuals and families do best with a strong balance sheet, too.

It’s not about what you make; it’s about what you keep. Having a clear understanding of your Needs & Dreams is essential for effective tax planning. Because we understand your cash flow needs, we can strategically match your expected sources of income to meet these needs in a tax-efficient way. We enhance the tax efficiency of investment withdrawals and help you fully utilize tax-advantaged accounts such as IRAs, 401(k)s, and HSAs. We strategically locate investments across these accounts to enhance their after-tax returns. We navigate complex decisions such as making Roth conversions, exercising stock options, divesting concentrated positions, and selling a business or a major asset. Tax planning permeates each aspect of financial planning, leaving you confident that you’re maximizing the after-tax value of your resources.¹

The right coverage helps prevent unexpected events from derailing your finances. We identify the assets, income streams, and legal exposures that require coverage and recommend appropriate courses of action. We evaluate health insurance costs and assist with Medicare planning. We analyze whether you have the resources to self-insure against potential risks to your plan’s success, such as long-term care or an unexpected death. We assess employer-provided disability benefits to understand what would happen if you became sick or injured. For business owners, we evaluate insurance options that hedge key-person risk and support succession planning. Being properly insured not only provides peace of mind but also strengthens the reliability of your plan.²

Effective education planning goes beyond just saving for college. We develop tax-efficient strategies to educate a child from kindergarten through graduation, whether they pursue higher education or a trade. We create plans to coordinate gifts from family and friends while optimizing financial aid opportunities. We review investment options like 529 plans and UTMA/UGMA accounts and craft investment strategies to fund them. We can even help you plan your own return to school. Your financial plan empowers you to confidently give the gift of education to those you love.

Your legacy isn't just about what happens after you're gone — it's also about the impact you can make while you're still here to see it. We help transfer your wealth to the people and causes you care about, efficiently and intentionally. When appropriate, we establish and manage trusts to protect and distribute your assets as you wish. We develop strategies to lower estate taxes, avoid probate, and structure charitable giving. For families with significant assets, we address the unique planning challenges of multi-generational wealth transfer. Your plan empowers you to navigate end-of-life decisions with clarity, love, and compassion.³

For business owners, the line between personal and professional finances is rarely clean. Your business is likely one of your most valuable assets and one of the most complex variables in your financial plan. We help you structure your compensation, benefits, and retirement plans in a tax-efficient way. We bring financial clarity to the full arc of business ownership: the decisions involved in growing your business, strategies for protecting it, and planning your exit on your terms — whether that means selling to a third party, passing it to a family member or partner, or gradually winding down. We make sure your business works as hard for your Needs & Dreams as you do, and that when the time comes to step away, you're ready.