What financial questions can Merriman help with?

The other day a friend asked me a good question. If she became a Merriman client, what exactly would we advise her about?

Like many people, she is very smart and has a successful career. But also like many people, she’s not sure she has made the best decisions about her money.

“First and foremost,” I told her “we will manage your money to make sure it’s doing the best job possible of helping you achieve what you want in life. So one thing we’ll talk about is how your investments are doing.”

Beyond that, there isn’t any formal agenda for each meeting with a client. The topics are set by whatever is on the client’s mind.

Often people want to talk about how much money they will need to retire, how to withdraw their money to make it last a lifetime, how much emergency cash to keep on hand, and how they should invest other assets we don’t manage.

We often spend time determining the best age to start taking Social Security or discussing the best way to save for a child’s or a grandchild’s education. Sometimes, we refer clients to another professional who specializes in estate planning, mortgage financing, insurance, or other areas.

In short, we’re here to give guidance on most anything that affects our clients’ lives financially. When in doubt, we encourage them to just ask us.