Oakland, CA | East Bay; Organizing Your Checking, Savings and Investments

Hi, I’m Erik Wolfers. I’m the founder and managing member of First & Main Financial. We’ve been helping clients with perfectly personalized financial solution since 2001. Today, I want to talk just a little bit about account organization.

Sometimes clients come to us and they have multiple accounts. They have retirement savings accounts from prior jobs that haven’t been considered for a long time and maybe even are invested sub-optimally. Sometimes our clients will have multiple checking accounts and savings accounts at different institutions—they feel or felt at some point like this would help them be more organized, but after a while it feels like it’s disorganized, or even a little bit of a burden to have money in different places.

When we start working with a client often times we help organize all their accounts to get them to the minimum number of accounts needed—maybe they would have just one checking account. Some people like to have a savings account, but we can also work with our clients on having a taxable investment account where they can store their cash. We can put their savings in cash alternatives that are substitutes to the cash accounts, growing and making a little bit of money.

Sometimes retired clients in particular have accounts or Investments that they made many years ago—and particularly for a retire client it’s very helpful for them to have everything simplified. If we have a taxable investment account tied to a checking account, then we can help them move money back and forth.

I personally have had recent dealings with a very large national financial institution—everything that I do with them is frustrating and challenging and takes a lot of time and lots of phone prompts and phone cues and hold time involved, and no one really seems to be accountable or particularly knowledgeable. For all of our clients, we would like to help make things very simple and make sure that their money is working as hard as it can depending on their circumstances.

The service that we provide is often instantaneous and totally personalized because we know all of our clients personally and it works well for them. If if we help them get organized, then it makes our job that much easier as well—and everybody’s happy.

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.