Services & Pricing
Have you ever considered if you are getting the best financial advice? Are you receiving advice focused on solving your known (and unknown) problems? Are you getting help from a Fiduciary who has your best interest at heart and not trying to sell you a Product that benefits them and not you?
At UFS, we believe in helping YOU understand your wealth so that YOU can make the best decision for your family. From Financial Coaching all the way to Comprehensive Financial Planning we want to help guide you along the path to Financial Peace.
Our Services
Comprehensive Planning
Combines Investment Management and Financial Planning into a Holistic Package. Ongoing comprehensive customized planning advice, covering all areas of personal finance, with a regular schedule of progress meetings.
Investment Management
Paying for college and retirement isn’t easy. We are firm believers in an approach called core satellite, which allows us to build personalized portfolios that have aspects of low-cost, tax-efficient passive strategies while also incorporating more active strategies with an emphasis on risk management.
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College Funding
Our client relationships often begin when families realize they don’t have a plan in place to pay for college. We help our clients increase affordability by making the most of school selection, financial aid, tax opportunities, and using their own savings and income.
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Financial Coaching
If you want to win with money, you need a plan that works. Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps work because it is a clear path to know where you are and where you are headed next. It is not a simple fix to making you wealthy, but we believe as we guide you and you follow each step in order with great focus and intentionality it will change your life.
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Comprehensive Planning
Do you know if you’re on track to reach your goals?
Here is the problem – a lot of planning doesn’t cover every stage of a family’s financial journey or may be a sales tool to sell you an investment product. As a Fiduciary and Fee Only CFP®, we are not compensated by commission and products sales, so our goal is to give you information so you can make the most informed decision. Most guidance stays in a “single lane” of focus(maybe just Retirement) ignoring the complexities of a person’s unique financial situation. How will that large tuition bill for a Child’s College impact your Retirement? Have you ever thought about how Tax Planning(NOT Tax Preparation) impacts both Retirement and College Funding? These are just a few of the questions we will work with you to answer.
We believe everyone, regardless of how much money they have, can take control of their financial future with personalized financial planning. Most people don’t have the time or knowledge to keep up with their finances and often make decisions based on their emotions often leading to underperformance in their portfolio
- Financial planning helps you understand where you are today and create a roadmap to get you where you want to be.
- Planning is personalized to you—whether you’re saving for a single goal, like retirement or need comprehensive planning and wealth management.
- Utilize a proven Ramsey 7 Baby Step process to help you prioritize your goals.
Our role is to guide our clients through the Financial Planning Process and provide reassurance in the decisions they make. Comprehensive Planning may come in baby steps, but it Combines Investment Management and Financial Planning into a Holistic Package. Ongoing comprehensive planning advice, covering all areas of personal finance, with a regular schedule of progress meetings.
Why is financial planning important?
Financial planning helps you take control of your future:
- Feel more confident about reaching your financial goals
- Save for milestones like college and retirement
- Build an investment portfolio tailored to your goals
- Know where you want to go and how to stay on track
Ideal for those who want to continuously collaborate on financial planning, ideas, delegate investment management to a professional, and have an accountability partner to stay on track toward goals.
- Periodic Progress meetings
- Retirement and College focus sessions
- Ad hoc planning meetings as needed for life & financial transitions also included.
Financial Planning
- Client Planning Portal
- 401k & 403b Fund Recommendations
- Net Worth Statement
- Emergency Fund Recommendation
- Retirement Planning
- Asset Allocation Selection
- Plan Stress Testing (Monte Carlo)
- Social Security Modeling
- Medicare Cost Planning
- Next Steps & Planning Prioritization
- Debt Management Decisions
- Employer Benefits Advice
- HSA Funding
- Goal Creation & Timeline
- Social Security Elections & Timing
- Pension Elections & Timing
- Goal Progress Tracking
Advanced Planning
- Income Tax Planning
- Life Insurance Analysis
- Disability Insurance Analysis
- Long-Term Care Insurance Analysis
- Employee Stock & Options Planning
- Annuity Planning (existing only)
- Charitable Giving
- Estate Planning
- Business Owner Planning
- Budget & Cash Flow Management
Investment Management
- Investment Policy Statement
- Account Setup & Transfer Support
- Low-cost Institutional Funds
- Rules-based Rebalancing
- Asset Location Tax Strategy
- Investment Performance Reporting
- Quanitative Analysis Riskalyze Score
- Capital Gain/Loss Harvesting
- Tax-Efficient Distributions
- RMD Execution
- Manage
- Access to Trust Services
College
- College Pre-Approval™ Budget
- Expected Family Contribution (EFC)
- Net Cost Projections (for each college)
- Need-based Aid Enhancement Ideas
- Merit-based Aid Enhancement Ideas
- Student Loan Projections
- College Funding Gap Analysis
- College Savings Strategies
- 529 Plan Advice
- Guidance on Financial Aid Forms Filing
- Student Award Analysis & Appeal
As a Fee Only Advisory Firm we only get paid for our work directly from our clients and never through commissions or hidden fees. We believe you are in charge of your money and want to have you engage with us on a collaborative plan to help you achieve your goals.
As a client, you need to be an active participant with University Financial Strategies. You understand that each part of the process requires information or participation from you. It is very much a collaborative process and the more information you can provide us the more we can help you. You promise to stay engaged because you understand that your financial well being hinges on your cooperation and involvement.
As an incentive and motivation we structure our onboarding fee to encourage collaboration. $1200 fee for onboarding, data gathering. This upfront charge may be paid 50% in advance and 50% upon delivery of the plan. You understand that your investment and financial planning issues are time sensitive. Currently we are waiving half of the upfront charge as an incentive for clients who are able to complete onboarding and provide the necessary documents and data to complete a plan within 2 weeks of signing agreement.
Our standard advisory fee is based on the market value of the assets under management and is calculated as follows:
Click Here for Transparent Fee Disclosure
| Account Value | Annual Advisory Fee |
| $0 – $250,000 | 1.50% |
| $250,001 $1,000,000 | 1.00% |
| $1,000,001 – $5,0000,000 | 0.80% |
| $5,000,001 and Above | .65% |
Start Now – Electronically Sign Our Agreement HERE
Please note other Fee Options may be available so be sure to ask us about them if you won’t meet our minimum.
Investment Only- Personalized Portfolio
Focused on Investments Only without Financial Planning. We don’t believe in a Cookie Cutter Approach to portfolio management. We can build a portfolio customized for you and coordinate across all of your assets including your 401k at work. Managed either through a Custody relationship with TD Ameritrade Institutional(A Charles Schwab Company) or Altruist plus we have the ability to Manage and Coordinate Held Away Assets using a provider called Ponetera(formerly called FeeX) for 401k Management. When it comes to investing, it is natural that your emotions can get in the way. It’s human nature to overthink, overreact, and, at times, be overwhelmed. We use a Quanitative Risk Assessment to identify an appropriate Portfolio so you can invest fearlessly.
Ideal for anyone who does not have the knowledge or time and wants to delegate investment management to a professional. We can help by making sure you stay on track for retirement or paying for college. Through an assessment of your comfort level we ensure your investments are in the right place at the right times.
2. Choice of Management either through a Custody relationship with TD Ameritrade Institutional or FeeX for 401k Management.
Financial Planning
- Client Planning Portal
- 401k & 403b Fund Recommendations
- Net Worth Statement
- Emergency Fund Recommendation
- Asset Allocation Selection
- Next Steps & Planning Prioritization
Investment Managment
- Investment Policy Statement
- Account Setup & Transfer Support
- Low-cost Institutional Funds
- Rules-based Rebalancing
- Asset Location Tax Strategy
- Investment Performance Reporting
- Quanitative Analysis Riskalyze Score
- Capital Gain/Loss Harvesting
- Tax-Efficient Distributions
- RMD Execution
- Manage
- Access to Trust Services
College
- 529 Plan Advice
Start Now – Electronically Sign Our Agreement HERE
Our standard advisory fee is based on the market value of the assets under management and is calculated as follows:
Click Here for Transparent Fee Disclosure
| Account Value | Annual Advisory Fee |
| $0 – $250,000 | 1.50% |
| $250,001 $1,000,000 | 1.00% |
| $1,000,001 – $5,0000,000 | 0.80% |
| $5,000,001 and Above | .65% |
Start Now – Electronically Sign Our Agreement HERE
Please note other Fee Options may be available so be sure to ask us about them if you won’t meet our minimum.
College Pre-Approval
Student Loan debt is more than $1.6 Trillion and growing leaving Families and Students drowning in debt. Our College affordability assessment for one student helps streamline the process of how to pay for college so you can see side by side all of the schools on your students list. We guide you to be an informed consumer of a college education with the idea of helping you lower the cost of tuition and minimizing student loan debt through advance planning. Balancing the cost of college also makes sure you can afford the retirement you deserve. You can get financial aid for College, but not for Retirement so this process needs to be thought out in Advance using the College Pre-Approval Process.
Ideal for high school students who have a standardized test score (ACT/SAT) and a list of colleges. Parents only want the best for their children and before they think about Retirement they are often challenged to figure out how to pay for college. The loans parents now take are robbing them of dollars needed for retirement while students are delaying life events due to their own debt.
A 90-minute “power session” (some pre-work required by the client)
- College Pre-Approval™ Budget
- Expected Family Contribution (EFC)
- Net Cost Projections (for each college)
- Need-based Aid Enhancement Ideas
- Merit-based Aid Enhancement Ideas
- Student Loan Projections
$499 for College Pre-Approval only or included in Comprehensive Planning
2 Steps To Get Started
1. Click here to Register and Onboard
2. Financial Planning Agreement College Pre-Approval Only
2 Steps To Get Started
1. Click here to Register and Onboard
2. Financial Planning Agreement College Pre-Approval Only
Ramsey Financial Coaching
The 7 Baby Steps- A Proven Plan
We believe if you want to win with money, you can’t do what you have always done. You need a plan that works. The 7 Baby Steps work because it is a clear path to know where you are and where you are headed next. It is not a simple fix to making you wealthy, but we believe if you follow each step in order and with great focus and intentionality it will change your life.
As a Ramsey Master Coach we are your guide to helping you be succesful in your plan.
As a Fee Only CFP® we can also help you implement some of the planning to provide an end to end approach to help you stay on track for the long term.
Dave Ramsey is a personal money management expert, an extremely popular national radio personality and best-selling author of The Total Money Makeover. In his latest book, a follow-up of his enormously successful New York Times best-sellers Financial Peace and More Than Enough, Ramsey exemplifies his life’s work of teaching others how to be financially responsible, so they can acquire enough wealth to take care of loved ones, live prosperously into old age, and give generously to others.
A 60-minute “power session” (some pre-work required by the client)
- Coaching toward the Dave Ramsey 7 Baby Steps
- Help with creating and staying on a Budget
- Learn how to “Snowball” your debt
- Coaching on how to use an Emergency Fund
$250 for a Single Hourly Coaching Session
$200 a month for 6 Monthly Sessions
Book for Complimentary Initial Coaching Session Here
Sign Agreement Here for Coaching
Check the background of this financial professional on FINRA’s BrokerCheck & AdvisorInfo
At University Financial Strategies our mission is to help families think beyond just saving for college, but helping leverage strategies that leverage your unique situation to help you save on college costs. We take into consideration topics like specialized college-planning strategies for business owners, planning for financial aid, school-specific scholarships, coordinating college planning with grandparents, cash-flow strategies and options for covering shortfalls, to name just a few.
Address
4801 Glenwood Avenue
Suite 200-630
Raleigh NC 27612
Phone
Disclaimer
The information on this site is provided “AS IS” and without warranties of any kind either express or implied. To the fullest extent permissible pursuant to applicable laws, University Financial Strategies, LLC.(referred to as "University Financial Strategies") disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability, non-infringement and suitability for a particular purpose. University Financial Strategies, LLC.does not warrant that the information will be free from error. None of the information provided on this website is intended as investment, tax, accounting or legal advice, as an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or as an endorsement of any company, security, fund, or other securities or non-securities offering. The information should not be relied upon for purposes of transacting securities or other investments.
Your use of the information is at your sole risk. Under no circumstances shall University Financial Strategies, LLC.be liable for any direct, indirect, special or consequential damages that result from the use of, or the inability to use, the materials in this site, even if University Financial Strategies, LLC.or a University Financial Strategies, LLC.authorized representative has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall University Financial Strategies, LLC.have any liability to you for damages, losses and causes of action for accessing this site. Information on this website should not be considered a solicitation to buy, an offer to sell, or a recommendation of any security in any jurisdiction where such offer, solicitation, or recommendation would be unlawful or unauthorized.
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