Every goal is competing for the same dollars.
College for the kids. Your own retirement. The mortgage. Insurance you hope to never use. Maybe aging parents who need help too. Family financial planning is the art of funding several futures at once.
Start a conversationThe seasons of family financial life.
Charlotte-area families usually call us in one of three seasons, and each one changes what the plan has to do.
New kids, a bigger house, single-income years, or two careers and no time. This season is about protection and structure: the right insurance, the start of college savings, wills and guardianship documents, and a cash flow plan that survives real life.
The most financially crowded decade a family has: tuition timelines colliding with peak earning years and your own retirement runway. We help you set priorities deliberately instead of by default.
Supporting children while helping aging parents navigate care decisions and their own finances. We help you do that without quietly dismantling your own plan, and we help you start the money conversations that are worth having early.
Several futures, one coordinated plan.
What college will realistically cost on your timeline, how 529 plans and alternatives fit, and how to fund education without raiding retirement.
The goal families most often shortchange. We keep it in the plan with the same standing as everything else, because no one offers loans for retirement.
Life and disability insurance sized to what your family actually needs: the income to replace, the debts to retire, the years to cover.
Where the money goes now and how is it invested, where the goals say it should go, and an honest reconciliation between the two.
Wills, guardianship designations, beneficiary alignment, and powers of attorney, coordinated with the estate attorney who drafts them.
The financial side of helping parents: seeing their full picture, the real cost of care, and the boundaries that protect your own plan.
What the engagement looks like.
A no-cost call to understand your family, your goals, and what's pulling at the budget. We talk through what working together looks like, including how the engagement and fees work, so you can decide if we're a good fit. No commitment, no pressure.
We gather everything: income, accounts, your current investments, insurance, debts, education timelines, and the goals each family member is carrying.
We build a plan and model the priorities: college funding levels, retirement savings, insurance coverage, investment strategies for it all so the trade-offs are visible and chosen, not accidental.
We go through the plan together, in plain language, until it makes sense to both of you. Family plans only work when the people living with the decisions can see them clearly.
New kids, new jobs, new schools, new realities with parents. We review the plan and investment strategy together and adjust as the seasons change, so it keeps fitting the family you actually have.
A plan the whole family can live with.
A plan and investment approach that funds college, retirement, and daily life from the same honest budget
College savings targets by child, with a funding approach that's clear to you
Insurance coverage sized to your family's actual needs, no more and no less
Estate basics in place and beneficiaries aligned
A retirement plan that survived the family budget, on purpose
What families usually want to know.
Retirement generally comes first, for an unsentimental reason: students can borrow for college, but no one lends for retirement, and arriving at 70 underfunded ultimately lands on your kids anyway. That doesn't mean college waits entirely; it means retirement savings is protected before college funding is set. We model both timelines together so the split is deliberate.
It varies enormously by school type, and the sticker price is not what most families actually pay once aid and scholarships are counted. The useful approach is to model a range for your timeline, then set a funding target you can defend. Many families deliberately aim to fund a portion rather than all of it, with the rest covered by cash flow, scholarships, and aid.
A 529 is a tax-advantaged account designed for education savings: contributions grow tax-deferred, and qualified-education withdrawals are generally tax-free under current law. Rules and benefits vary by state and situation, which we walk through in coordination with your tax professional. It's the workhorse of college savings for many families, though not the only tool, and recent rule changes have made unused funds more flexible than they used to be. How much you put in matters more than which account holds it.
Enough to replace the financial role you play, for as long as someone depends on it: income for the years your family would need it, debts that shouldn't outlive you, and goals like college you'd want funded no matter what. Benchmarks like ten times income are a starting point, not an answer, so we calculate your family's actual number. If coverage is part of the plan, we can help put it in place, and we're clear about how we're compensated when we do.
The day someone depends on you, which for most families means the day the first child arrives. The essentials are not exotic: wills, guardianship designations for minor children, powers of attorney, and beneficiary designations that match your intentions. We coordinate the financial side with your estate attorney, who drafts the documents.
The initial conversation is at no cost. Fairview Wealth is a fee-based financial advisory and wealth management firm, and in our advisory relationships we act as a fiduciary, which means we're obligated to put your interests first. We'll explain exactly how the engagement and fees work before any work begins.
Let's start with your family's situation.
Tell us what season you're in and what's competing for the dollars. We'll listen, share our perspective, and figure out together whether Fairview Wealth is the right fit.
The initial conversation is at no cost. Fairview Wealth is a fee-based financial advisory and wealth management firm, and in our advisory relationships we act as a fiduciary. We'll explain exactly how the engagement and fees work before any work begins.