My wife Tammy and I had done most things right on paper. Both in our early 40s, with successful corporate careers, equity compensation, multiple retirement accounts from different employers—we'd built real wealth, but we’d done it individually. So when Tammy got pregnant with our first child, I realized we had a fundamental problem.
"We had savings and wealth, but we weren't really planning a financial future together." 1
Because we had each built our wealth, picked our investments, and allocated savings individually, we realized we needed a more cohesive financial strategy. That might’ve worked for us before, but having a child changed everything. We needed visibility, coordination, and a plan that we could optimize together and scale with our ambitions.
My search for guidance revealed everything wrong with the traditional wealth management model. I met with a reputable local advisor through family connections—great performance, stellar reviews, genuinely nice guy. The problem wasn't competence; it was alignment.
"They wanted to take a percentage of assets under management for their fee structure [...] We knew if we were with them for a number of years, it would hurt our returns over the long run [thanks to] compound interest." 1
Even worse, "given our portfolio at the time, we would have been kind of just squeezing into the [AUM] threshold of where they work." 1 Being someone's smallest client when you're trying to build something significant probably isn't a recipe for excellent service. The wealth management industry felt like it was designed for people who already had massive wealth, not professionals like us who were actively building it.
Range appeared in my social feed at exactly the right moment—probably because I was constantly researching personal finance strategies. Two key things stood out immediately for me: Range’s tech-first approach (because working with leading technology is important for someone in tech like me), and their fundamental all-in-one, no-AUM-fee business model, which I deeply aligned with.
"The flat fee structure [at Range] where we could not only have access to on-demand financial planning, but also a modern approach to [...] centralized data and reporting through technology, that was really appealing." 1
The value became immediately apparent in areas where I needed sophisticated guidance. After 10 years with my previous employer, I had significant equity compensation, but I did not know what the best strategy to liquidate and take advantage of that equity would be. This aspect of my personal finances was essentially a black box to me. I needed professional navigation and advice on exercise timing and tax implications.
Range's expertise delivered measurable impact: "I would be making decisions based on my gut instinct and a little bit of what I read online. Working with Range provided a much clearer plan with [...] real financial impact where I could clearly see tax savings [...] So, wildly valuable." 1
Range is helping us tackle the fundamental building blocks of family wealth planning. We wanted to set up an education savings plan for our new baby, but I needed help identifying the right strategy, which included both a 529 and a taxable brokerage account. Range is guiding us through choosing the right 529 plan and then aligning on the contributions to get us to a target dollar amount in 18 years. Having that concrete roadmap removed so much uncertainty about whether we were doing enough for our child's future.
We're also in the beginning stages of setting up a will and trust—something that felt overwhelming to navigate on our own. Range is providing the framework and strategy, helping us understand what we actually need versus what the legal industry might try to sell us. It's exactly the kind of guidance we needed as new parents trying to protect our family's financial future.
This wasn't theoretical planning—it was immediate, quantifiable value. For households navigating similar complexity to ours (multiple income streams, equity compensation, growing families, serious wealth-building goals): the traditional advisory model wasn't designed for us. Range was.
1This testimonial was provided by a client of Range Advisory, LLC and prepared in partnership with the client based on a prior live interview. Only direct quotes should be considered attributable to the client. The views expressed reflect the client’s opinions at the time of the interview and may not be representative of the experience of other clients. Testimonials do not guarantee future performance or similar outcomes. No compensation was provided for this testimonial.
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