Susie Steel, CFP

The best planning meetings often start with this: “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

Don’t get caught in a Medicare scam! Charles Schwab article gives tips and examples. See link to article below.

Recently, a client's son joined one of my meetings. He'd been researching financial topics with AI for months but wanted to talk to a real person. It was a great conversation and a good reminder of what a human advisor actually brings to the table. My latest article explores just that. The link is in the comments.

📅 Upcoming Deadline: The second quarterly estimated tax payment for 2026 is due June 15.

Regularly tracking these dates may assist with cash-flow planning. Reach out if you'd like to discuss tax considerations tailored to your goals.

On National Productive Business Civility Day, we’re reminded that strong relationships are at the heart of meaningful financial planning. In the financial advisory industry, trust, communication, and collaboration are essential to helping clients work toward their long-term goals with confidence. We’re grateful for the relationships we’ve built and the opportunity to support our clients every step of the way.

Have you ever heard of Clutterbug® organizing styles? There's the Butterfly, the Bee, the Ladybug, and the Cricket, and honestly, the more I look at this, the more I see my clients in every single one of them.

Some people walk into our first meeting with a color-coded binder and every financial document they've ever touched. Others hand me a grocery bag full of papers and say, "It's all in here somewhere." And you know what? I love working with all of them.

I've learned that how you organize your space is usually how you think about money. Not because one way is better than another, but because understanding how your brain naturally works is actually the first step to building a financial plan that sticks.

The goal was never to make everyone think about money the same way. It's about meeting you where you are and building from there.

I'm a Cricket. Which Clutterbug® style are you?

Contributing to a Spousal IRA helps ensure that both partners have tax-efficient retirement savings. Do you think a Spousal IRA aligns with your long-term retirement planning goals?

A client called me recently with big news. They had found the house they wanted to buy, and they wanted to pay cash.

Within 4 business days, the deposit was in the seller's hands, and the remaining proceeds were ready to wire.

Here's what happened in between.

We talked through the tax implications of drawing that amount from their investments in a single year. We looked at which accounts made the most sense to draw from and why. Once we had a plan, I worked the portfolio—carefully, with attention to what this purchase meant for their financial life beyond just this transaction.

Then I placed the trades. I monitored settlements. I pulled together the financial documentation the seller needed to verify proof of funds and made sure it arrived on the seller's timeline. When everything was ready, the deposit went first, and the remaining proceeds followed directly into my client's bank account.

Multiple conversations, careful coordination at every step. A lot of decisions were made quickly, but none of them were made carelessly.

I think about this story when people ask what wealth management really looks like in practice. The investment side of this work is visible, and so are the planning conversations that happen over time. But the moments when a client calls with something real and urgent? Those are often the moments a client remembers.

My client didn't have to figure out which accounts to draw from or worry about getting the tax piece wrong. They didn't have to wonder whether the funds would arrive in time. They got to focus on the home they were about to buy.

Being the person clients can call when it matters, that is the part of this work I find most meaningful.

Interesting article about the issues doctors are facing, when they are looking around the medical field. The interviewee feels like medical groups under 50 are in a challenging spot because of rising staff costs, declining reimbursements, etc. He talks about hospital employment or the big health plans, vs PE as an option to maintain independence. But the physicians have to have an “ownership mindset” and be focused on building equity. The true profit (“the scrape”) at 30%, is the multiple PE firms may pay on, and then come in to build more efficiencies. The article tossed in a few other topics …. AI allows doctors to be at the “top of their license” so they can breeze through the basics and focus on more complex issues, and a bit about management services organization (MSO) options. See link to article below.