Financial Planning and
Advising in Clemmons, NC
Finding and then trusting someone to plan for your financial future can be a daunting task. Not only do you need to scour through multiple websites reading up on your options, but when you find someone, you have to take a gamble on trust. You have to trust that the financial advice you will be given is accurate and realistic. In addition, you have to be comfortable enough with the advisor to share information about a very personal part of your life: money.
When looking for a financial planner in Clemmons, be sure to look for all the details: what financial knowledge do they have, what credentials to the advisors hold, are they a fiduciary, and how do they get paid?
Scholar Financial Advising is happy to provide fee only financial advising to residents of Clemmons, NC. If we are lucky enough to be on your advisor radar, we’ve included some information below to help your search for these details easier.
Your Financial Advisor
The financial advisor you will be working with is Stephan Shipe, Ph.D., CFA. He is the owner of Scholar Financial Advising LLC, and serves as the firm’s sole advisor. He has a Ph.D. in finance from Florida State University and is a CFA Charterholder. In addition to his role at Scholar Financial Advising, he teaches finance at Wake Forest University and previously at the University of New Hampshire and Florida State University.
Stephan has published in peer-reviewed journals for his work on investment advisor compensation and conflicts of interest. In addition, he has helped shape regulation regarding investor protection and advisor disclosures. You can find more information about Stephan Shipe on our About page.
Unlike some firms that may push off financial planning tasks to junior advisors, any and all financial advice that you receive from Scholar Financial Advising will be handled directly by Stephan.
Trust is very important in an advisory relationship. The client not only has to know that they can ask the questions that they want to ask and be given an honest and intelligent answer, but that their advisor is working on the questions they didn’t know they should ask.
This is why I like to be the only advisor involved in my client’s plans. I want to build that personal relationship that cultivates success in a financial plan.
Stephan Shipe, Ph.D., CFA
Owner and Advisor
Fiduciary Financial Advice
We pride ourselves in being an independent, fee-only financial planner providing fiduciary advice. There is already so much to worry about when implementing the advice of a financial planner that the last thing you should have to worry about is whether the advice you are following is truly in your best interest.
As a fiduciary, we are required to provide advice that is in your best interest. Your interests are above ours in all cases and in all advice. Our fees reflect this fiduciary duty as we are not paid any commissions.
Fee Only Financial Planning
Our financial planning services are fee only. This means there are no commissions or behind the scenes payments being made based on advice provided. A cornerstone of our financial advising process is trust. We believe that an important part of building this trust is knowing that the advice you are given is not potentially tainted by payment by a third party.
In other words, if we were to give advice to buy mutual fund A opposed to mutual fund B, its because we believe that fund A is the best choice for you; not because fund A pays us a commission for providing the recommendation.
We take the fee-only relationship one step further and only charge flat fees for advice or a monthly retainer. In a monthly retainer model, you are charged based on the complexity of your entire financial situation, not just your investable assets. The latter is common with percentage of assets under management or AUM fee models.
You aren’t penalized with a higher fee just because you were able to save more in your retirement account or because the market had a good year. Assuming your financial situation has not become more complicated, your fee would stay the same month to month. We believe that this is the fairest and most straightforward fee model currently available to financial advisors.
Retirement Planning and Education Savings
We offer a variety of financial planning services to help Clemmons residents. Unsurprisingly, the most common financial concerns are retirement savings and education planning for children. These are very important concerns that we take very seriously.
Despite what many financial websites would like you to think, there is no one size fits all approach to planning for these major life events. Our planning process is custom fit to your needs and the needs of your family. Not only do we provide the plan, but we are there with you to provide advice and support when you are implementing the recommendations.
Meeting in Clemmons
The village of Clemmons, NC deserves to have a quality provider of comprehensive financial planning services and we are so happy to provide those services.
We’d love the opportunity to meet with you and discuss how we can help create a plan for your retirement or other financial concerns. Not only do we use our financial planning process to devise a plan for you, but we focus on helping you follow through with that plan.
There is no cost for our initial welcome meeting to see if we are a good fit.
If you are local and looking for a financial advisor in Clemmons, let’s schedule a time to have coffee or chat over the phone.
What’s Next?
Use the link below to schedule an Introductory Meeting. This initial call is completely free allows us to discuss whether our working together is a good fit.