Oakland, CA | Piedmont; What Does a Financial Planner Do?

Financial Planning is Not Only About Investing

Hi my name is Erik Wolfers. I’m the managing member of First & Main Financial. We’ve been helping people with their personal finances since 2001. People generally come to us or often search for a financial planner because they want to know where they stand and they have questions about the way that they’re doing things or the way that they could be doing things. 

Some of the questions we get are: Can I buy a home? Should I buy a home? Can I retire? When can I retire? Can I retire early? Will I be able to get my kids through college? Do I have enough insurance? What should I do with my student debt? How can I pay less in taxes? How should my 401k be invested? When is a good time to get back into the stock market? Can I lose money in the stock market? Should I do a Roth IRA? Should I pay down my mortgage early? Can I buy a vacation home? Can I remodel my house? How much could I spend to remodel my house? 

For all these questions and many others — involving stock options or real estate ownership, sometimes we build a lifetime cash-flow model for our clients, and we also calculate a probability of success depending on the types of things that the client wants to do or potentially do in the future. We can compare various scenarios and see which comes out with the best results or acceptable results, depending on someone’s preferences.

Usually, after people have gone through this process with us, they want to have an ongoing relationship so that we can revisit their plan from time to time and they can ask questions whenever they have them or whenever their life circumstances change.

We work as fiduciaries for our clients, which means our only interest is getting the best outcome for our clients. Our fees are unusually low and we choose to work with anybody that needs our help. It doesn’t matter what their level of wealth is. We have artists and teachers and non-profit workers as well as venture capitalists. 

If you are looking for some financial guidance; whether for a one time financial plan or continuing advice on your investments, we invite you to meet with a First & Main Financial planner for a free consultation. We would be more than happy to sit down with you, assess your situation, and review our services to help navigate your financial future.