Take the first step toward financial clarity and confidence

My typical clients are mid-career professional women and dual-career couples (i.e. millennials in their late 20s to mid 40s). They tend to work in demanding career paths like finance, consulting, engineering, medicine, tech, Big Law, etc. Most are W-2 employees, although I also work with solopreneur clients who run service-based firms. Individuals typically have earnings of $250K or more and households have earnings of $300K or more. They often receive large cash bonuses or equity compensation as part of their total pay.

Beyond these demographics, I work with clients who are looking for a collaborative, deeper relationship with a financial advisor. They want to focus on their interests rather than manage their investment portfolio and financial life. My clients don’t try to time the stock market, and believe money and investments are a means to an end. They respect the advice of an expert and are ready to delegate the design and management of their financial well-being because they didn’t have the time to handle any of it in the first place. They’re ultimately looking to work with me for the long-term because they understand that the value of ongoing financial planning grows over time.

It’s not a given that we’ll be a mutual fit until we both get a chance to learn more about each other. You should interview several planners to be sure their process and personality are a good match. Most advisors are trying to be all things to all people, so make sure you’re looking for someone that specializes in working with people just like you. You also need to ask them how they get paid and make sure they’re a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and a fiduciary (like KKFP), which means they’re ethically obligated to put your best interests ahead of everything else.

The clients that I work with are incredibly intelligent people who could research and understand most aspects of their personal finances on their own. They’ve ultimately realized that there’s a difference between surviving and thriving, so they’ve chosen to partner with me so I can organize, streamline, and improve all aspects of their financial strategy. They just don’t have the time or the interest in doing this work themselves, and they’ve decided that investing in me as their financial planner - even after paying my annual planning fee - will ultimately allow them to grow their net worth faster and more strategically than if they were doing this on their own.

It’s also nearly impossible to make objective decisions about your own money - rightfully so, there’s just too much emotion involved. I can act as a sounding board to help you think through every financial choice you come up against so that you feel confident you’re aligning how you use your money with what you value most.

For couples it gets even tougher to DIY because you each view money differently and hold a bunch of ideas about how your money should be used on individual and joint goals. Chances are one of you is not at all interested in the financial stuff too. These reasons are exactly why my husband and I have our own financial planner!

Before anything else, I work with clients to get clear on what they value most and help them envision all the possibilities that would define their most fulfilled life. This is something we continually revisit as dreams become a reality and new possibilities emerge. We will also cover most of the following topics on a continuous basis as life happens, priorities shift and what’s important to someone evolves:

Cash Flow Analysis: income, expenses and values-based spending plan, organize your money flow, automate your savings plan (“pay yourself first”), build an emergency fund, debt management, fund large expenses, lines of credit

Insurance & Risk Management: review of existing policies and benefits (homeowners, auto, etc.), identify your need for term life, disability or umbrella insurance policies and help you find an insurance broker

Investment Planning: assessing your tolerance for investment risk, creating your investment policy statement that guides your investments, review of existing accounts, consolidation and organization of accounts in one place that I manage, advice on employer-sponsored plans (401k, 403b, etc.) that I can’t directly manage, set-up, maintenance, and rebalancing across accounts using strategic asset allocation and proper diversification

Equity Compensation: helping you manage your concentrated stock wealth such as incentive stock options, nonqualified stock options, and restricted stock units, in a tax-efficient way

Income Tax Planning: deductions and credits, reviewing cost basis, tax loss harvesting, loss carryforwards, potential Roth conversions, optimizing employer-sponsored retirement savings plans, IRAs, health savings accounts, etc. to lower taxable income, helping you find a trusted accountant for tax prep

Estate Planning: reviewing will, power of attorney, living will, health care proxy, trusts and beneficiary designations and helping you find an estate planning attorney to draw up any documents you still need

Helping loved ones and charitable giving: education funding for children (529 plans, UGMAs/UTMAs), elderly care, Roth IRAs for children, tax-efficient charitable giving, how to teach your kids about money and be good stewards of wealth

Real Estate Planning: should you rent vs. buy, should you pay off your mortgage vs. invest more, should you refinance, taking out a home equity line of credit, evaluating rental properties

Organization & Security: learn best practices to keep your important documents organized and secure sensitive information to avoid identity theft

Your Career: employee benefits optimization, evaluating job offers, negotiation strategies, aligning with career coaches, and networking with industry peers

If you or your partner do not fit the description of my typical clients, we’re probably not the best fit to work together. I am happy to refer you on to other financial planners that might be a good match though.

Yes - KKFP is a virtual firm working with clients across the country. I leverage technology, like an online calendar and virtual meetings, to streamline how we work together. As a busy professional, I know you’re trying to optimize every hour of the day. There’s no commute time to attend our meetings, and you and your partner can log in from different locations as well.

Yes, you can cancel at any time with a 30-day notice. Since clients pay their annual fee on a quarterly basis, I would refund you whatever portion of the quarter that remains 30 days following the date you let me know you would like to end our partnership.

Ultimately, the true value of this work compounds and builds on itself over time - financial planning is a journey after all, and not just a one-time event. I hope to provide a long-lasting partnership for clients and support them through many life stages ahead.

KKFP is an independent, fee-only firm which means I only get paid a flat fee directly by clients for the advice and guidance they receive through my financial planning process, and this fee also covers direct management of their investment accounts. As a fiduciary, I am legally required and obligated to act in my client’s best interest when providing financial advice. Since I'm independent, that means I'm not affiliated with a larger brokerage firm, bank or insurance company, so there are no product sales and no commissions/kickbacks for anything I recommend.

For example, this means that an ETF I propose we purchase in your investment portfolio or a term life insurance policy I suggest you purchase for risk management are things that will best serve your needs and I don’t make any money off of them. This also goes for any CPA, estate planning attorney, insurance broker, etc. that I recommend you work with.

I received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business, and while I was finishing my degree I had a summer internship with Dimensional Fund Advisors, one of the top ten largest asset managers in the world and known for their evidence-based approach to investing.

I went on to spend nearly 12 years working at Dimensional, most recently as a Regional Director and Vice President, honing my investing expertise. I know the stock market and investing is confusing, stressful, maybe even scary to a lot of investors. As my client, your money is invested in a way that you can understand and that's also backed by financial science. I'm going to empower you with that knowledge throughout our time working together. I know you don't have the time or mental bandwidth to manage the day-to-day intricacies of your investment portfolio yourself, which is why I’ll take discretion of your assets and do this for you.

During my time at Dimensional, I consulted with hundreds of independent financial advisors from across the US on investment, messaging, and business strategy issues in order to improve and grow their practices. I fell in love with personal finances through working with my advisor clients, and decided to pursue my CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation. Being a CFP® practitioner is table stakes in the financial planning industry. By 2014 I had completed the rigorous Education, Examination, Experience and Ethics requirements to receive the CFP® marks, and every two years since I’ve obtained 30 hours of continuing education credit to uphold my certification.

I was a founding member of the steering committee for Dimensional’s financial advisor Women & Wealth Community (a group that is on a mission to better serve women investors), and served as the inaugural Lead Chair of Dimensional’s Women’s Inclusion Network – one of the first employee resource groups to be formed at the firm under broader Diversity & Inclusion efforts. These years were a culmination of my passion for financial planning and the specific needs of women investors and have brought me to where I am today serving my ideal clients.

In early 2022, I earned the Registered Life Planner® designation after completing 100+ hours of training through the Kinder Institute of Life Planning. The RLP® marks are given to financial planners who have adopted a client-centric methodology that seamlessly combines the art and science of personal finance. These planners will first help clients discover the full life they long to live and then how to make it happen for themselves, removing mental roadblocks and using money as a tool to get there.

That’s true - I’m the sole person that runs KKFP. That being said, I take very seriously my obligation to clients in making sure they’re always taken care of. I have a Business Continuity Plan in place which I review and update annually as needed - you may contact me to learn more about it. You have access to your documents and investments at all times and don’t need me to access them.

Client investment accounts are managed by KKFP via a reputable custodial solution called Altruist that safeguards investments and meets various accounting and regulatory standards. Altruist also produces your account statements and tax documents each year.

It’s our top priority to keep your data safe and secure. We don’t send sensitive data via email and will similarly ask clients to refrain. Instead, we use an online portal to share sensitive information which is more secure than email.

Almost all of our software is web-based and uses multi-factor authentication when available. We select app-based over SMS-based and all software and hardware is protected by strong passwords that are updated regularly.

You can read more about the security policies of our providers linked below:

AdvicePay (payment processing)

HelloSign (electronic signature)

Google’s G Suite (email, calendar, file storage)

Zoom (virtual meetings)

RightCapital (financial planning)

Altruist (client investment management & performance reporting)

Calendly (meeting scheduler)

Jotform (data gathering)

Wealthbox (client relationship management)

Holistiplan (tax-return analysis)

Mailchimp (all-client and group emails)

Quickbooks Online (bookkeeping)

LastPass (password security)