Should I Work with a Personal Financial Planner Before Retirement?

May 19, 2025

Should I Work with a Personal Financial Planner Before Retirement?

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In the peak of your career, you may be earning more than ever — but you’re also juggling lack of spare time and complexity. Retirement savings strategy, balancing debt paydown with investing, rising college costs, charitable goals, complex employer benefits, taxes, career shifts, and maybe dreams of early retirement. The financial stakes are high, and the cost of missed opportunities is even higher.

Enter the Flat-Fee Personal Financial Planner

We are not your parents’ financial advisor who solely manages your investments.

We are a specialized Personal CFO who helps with every aspect of your net worth and cash flow — partnering with you to strategize on the financial decisions you think and worry about most.


Whether you’re navigating big questions like:

• Can one of us afford to take a sabbatical? How will that impact our Plan?

• How much can we afford to spend while still hitting our various goals?

• How much should we be giving — and how can we give with greater impact?

• How will supporting my kids through college affect my retirement timeline?


…we’re here to help you answer those with confidence and clarity.

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While many have attempted [to no avail] to quantify the value of a financial planning relationship, it’s simply impossible given how unique each client relationship is. BUT there are timeless pillars of the value in a personal financial planning relationship, both Intangible and Tangible.

While not an exhaustive list, let’s explore 5 unique benefits of both.

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🌱 5 Intangible Benefits of Working with a Financial Planner

✅ Time back to focus on what matters most

By outsourcing complexity and detail-oriented tasks to a trusted partner, you get back precious time and mental bandwidth to be present with your family, pursue your health, invest in your community, make time for rejuvenating hobbies, and rest as God calls us to.

✅ Confidence in making optimal decisions

Know that your financial decisions are strategic, curated, and most optimal to help you achieve your specific goals and dreams.

Gain a trusted thought-partner that is a subject-matter expert, objective, and a fiduciary-at-all-times

✅ Peace through the chaos of life, financial media, and the future

There’s an unlimited number of things to worry about in today’s digital world; don’t let your finances be one of them.

We are a behavioral coach, helping you focus on the intersection of what matters most and what you can control —ignoring the noise and helping you navigate inevitable emotionally turbulent times

✅ Uncover what’s truly possible

Give more? Relocating? Once-in-a-lifetime experience? Cabin in the woods? Using our expert knowledge and advanced financial planning technology, we help extract the maximum amount of possibility from the resources you’ve been entrusted.

✅ Marital harmony

In most marriages, one spouse naturally handles more of the financial tasks. But unity around a shared vision of what’s possible and how to get there is essential. We help you both feel included, respected, informed, and inspired as you move forward together.

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💡 5 Tangible Benefits of Working with a Financial Planner

✔️ Maximize the impact of your high-earning years

You may only have 10–15 years of peak income. Strategic planning during this window can have dramatic and permanent positive effects on your lifetime financial trajectory.

From leveraging the full power of your employer benefits to giving more strategically to proactively preparing for early retirement — we are there to advise on every aspect — and integrate everything together into one unified plan.

✔️ Minimize lifetime tax liabilities

Through proactive tax planning and efficient investment management, we help ensure more of your wealth goes toward the people and causes you care about rather than the IRS.

✔️ Complete coordination of your entire financial life

No more disjointed decisions. We integrate your investments, taxes, giving, student loans, employer benefits, estate plan, cash flow, insurance, and retirement strategy into one clear, organized picture.

Not to mention, you gain a personal project manager and kind accountability partner, so you know what matters most is being taken care of.

✔️ Avoiding major pitfalls (or blind spots)

While the financial media — and let’s be honest, the Flesh — tempt you to chase homeruns, true financial stewardship is more often about avoiding strikeouts: costly missteps, blind spots, missed opportunities, or big risks taken in haste or fear.

✔️ Empirical cash flow data = better decisions

We don’t guess. We track, analyze, and model your household cash flow so your decisions are based on actual, tangible data — not just gut instinct or generalized rules of thumb.

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🙏 More Than Numbers — True Stewardship

Our firm is built for families like yours — Christian households in their 30s, 40s, and 50s earning $250k+ who want to be faithful with their wealth, generous with their giving, and wise in their decision-making.

Our mission is to partner with you to help you optimize your finances and maximize your life’s impact.

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🎯 Ready to Explore What’s Possible?

God has entrusted you with much— now it’s time to make the most of it.

We offer a complimentary 60-minute Discovery Call to help $250k+ income Christian families align their resources with what matters most.

There’s no awkward sales pitches or product-pushing — just a meaningful conversation about your life, your values, and your goals.

👉 Book Your Free 60-Minute Discovery Call

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To transforming worldly wealth to True Riches.

True Riches Financial Planning

www.truerichesfp.com


APPENDIX

The Value of Financial Planning


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Zack Gutches

Zack Gutches, CFP®, CPA is a fiduciary, flat-fee Christian Financial Advisor who integrates financial planning, tax preparation, and investment management for Christian physicians, equity compensated professionals, and pre-retirees in their 30's to 50's. Zack serves clients locally in Central Park, Colorado and nationwide virtually.

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