Awaken Financial Designs is comprised of some of the industry’s leading specialists in income-based investing and portfolio management through our affiliation with Foundations Investment Advisors, a Registered Investment Advisory firm with over $2B in assets under management. The team at FIA has the knowledge and resources to create a customized investment strategy designed to help maximize your interest and dividend return in all market conditions, while also helping to mitigate risk and capitalize on potential opportunities for strategic portfolio growth.  https://invest.fiwealth.com/

David Lundberg is a Marine Combat Veteran and his brother and sister were in the military. Ashley Lundberg & Veronica Aguilera are both passionate on helping women. In addition to Awaken Financial Designs, our Women focused Financial Education website is Wise Women Prosper at https://wwprosper.com/

To expand on the point above, have you ever felt as though your advisor doesn’t put your interests ahead of his own? If so, it might be time to work with a fiduciary. A fiduciary is held to the highest regulatory standards of professionalism and accountability and is legally obligated to always put his clients’ interests first. While all advisors are subject to regulatory rules and guidelines, not all are held to the standard of a fiduciary. See our blog post for more.

We are not forced to or have to sell only one companies set of products or services. We utilize over 40 various life insurance and annuity companies. We also utilize the Fidelity Brokerage framework and well over 50 professional money managers to utilize. 

Tax planning on your investments, assets, incomes, and so much more is essential It is not about how much money you have or make, BUT what you keep after taxes. 

We strongly believe that a physical building does not make you a great Financial Advisor. We also believe in saving you time, keeping you safe and providing you the freedom to meet with us anywhere via phone calls and videos call. We are headquartered in Mesa, AZ, so we do a lot of in person classes and workshops in surrounding areas. 

Many brokers and advisors are compensated on a commission-only basis, which means they make money by selling “prefabricated” financial service products like stock mutual funds or bond mutual funds. These advisors often work for large, well-known companies. Some other advisors might receive a fee for punching your information into a computer to generate a “cookie-cutter” type financial plan for you—one that includes a prefabricated product, for which they will also collect a commission. By contrast, an advisor who specializes in retirement income typically has no financial incentive to recommend a prefabricated product, nor does he believe in using computer-generated “cookie-cutter” strategies. His specialty is working with each client to help create a customized portfolio geared toward the client’s situation, goals, and risk tolerance level.

Another red flag is if your advisor seems more interested in how much of your money you are willing to allow him to manage rather than on understanding your investment needs. Assets under management (AUM) is the market value of the assets a financial institution manages on behalf of investors. Why does AUM matter to an investment company or advisor? Because they use AUM as a marketing tool to attract new investors. The more assets they can claim to have under management, the more successful they appear to be compared to their competition. For investors, AUM can be an important consideration when it comes to the fees they pay. Prepackaged investment products can charge management fees that are calculated as a fixed percentage of total assets under management. Financial advisors can also charge their clients fees that are based on total AUM.

As most investors know, the purpose of dollar-cost averaging is to get the average cost of your purchase price down so you can buy low and sell high, which is the cornerstone of smart investing. This strategy works well when you’re in the contribution stage of retirement investing. The problem arises when you reach the point where you’re not saving into your fund anymore, and you start drawing funds from your principal balance to satisfy things like your Required Minimum Distributions. In this case, the same principles can apply but in the opposite direction. In other words, you end up buying high and selling low — the opposite of smart investing. This is reverse dollar-cost averaging, and it is one of the most common and costly mistakes retirees make with their money.

If, instead of relying on prepackaged investments like mutual funds, your advisor takes the time to create a customized portfolio of individual securities to meet your needs, you might be working with a true retirement Income Specialist. Here it’s important to understand the different ways stockbrokers, financial advisors, and Investment Advisor Representatives (IAR), who are part of Registered Investment Advisory (RIA) firms, are paid. IARs are compensated on a fee-only basis. A big benefit to hiring an Investment Advisor Representative who is part of an RIA is that they have no financial incentive to recommend a “prepackaged” product. They recommend what they feel is in your best interest. On the other hand, many brokers and advisors are compensated on a commission-only basis. This means that they make money by selling “prefabricated” financial services products, like stock mutual funds or bond mutual funds. Another type of compensation structure is known as commission and fees. Commission and fee-based advisors might receive a fee for punching your information into their computer to generate a financial plan for you and then will collect a commission when they sell you that prepackaged investment product. You can help avoid wondering why your advisor is recommending certain products by working with an Investment Advisor Representative (IAR) who is part of a Registered Investment Advisory (RIA) firm.

If your advisor has never recommended that you liquidate shares of your investments to generate income for retirement, then you might be working with a true retirement Income Specialist. Income Specialists are aware of the dangers of having to liquidate shares of your investments to help “engineer” retirement income. They know it could lead to the cannibalization of your retirement savings. Many investors are familiar with the term dollar-cost averaging. The idea is to consistently invest the same dollar amount over time, so that when the market is down, you can purchase more shares of an investment. Over time, this can help to reduce the average purchase price per share, so you can buy low and sell high — which is the cornerstone of good investing. This strategy works well when you’re in the contribution stage of retirement investing. The problem arises when you are no longer saving into your retirement fund, and you decide to withdraw from it to cover expenses. If you end up using this strategy when the market is down, you’ll probably be forced to liquidate a greater number of shares to help engineer the income you need. In other words, you’re selling low, which is the opposite of what you want to do. This is known as “reverse dollar-cost averaging” and it’s one of the biggest financial mistakes you can make in retirement. A true retirement Income Specialist knows all this and will work with you to invest your hard-earned savings in a way designed to help protect your principal and generate renewable streams of income through interest and dividends.