Financial Planning Done Differently: Fees (Snow Peak, Idaho)

Location: Snow Peak, Portneuf Range, near Inkom, Idaho

Hey, I'm Robbie with Matterhorn Financial Planning. Today I am on Snow Peak in the Portneuf Range in Idaho, near Inkom.

I want to talk to you real quick about another area where I do things a little different than a lot of the industry, and that is with fees.

I have decided that the way I will work is only on an hourly fee. This means that whenever I am working for you, I just clock in and clock out, much like a lawyer would. If I am looking at an email, I will clock in, take a look at the email, respond, and clock out. It is the same for any time I am getting ready for meetings or meeting with you.

It is plain, easy billing. I just bill you for the hours that we have worked, and I keep you up to speed as we go on how many hours that is.

I do not have revenue from any other source in my business. No referrals, no commissions, no assets under management percentage fees. I do offer investment advice, but it is just under the hourly model.

What I hope this does for me is it makes me feel free to give you advice where I am not attached to what you do with your money. I am not attached to where you move it, or if you pay off your house, or invest it, or any of the decisions there. I feel like my job is just to be educating you, helping you understand the risks and benefits so that you can make your own decisions. I like this method for doing that.

Every method of billing has some bias. With the hourly method, that bias would be me doing work that I do not need to do, or working really slow on purpose, or something like that. That is how this billing method could be abused. Just like every billing method in financial planning probably has a way you could abuse it.

But I look at this as a way that I can just provide what is needed to whoever needs it, regardless of their asset size. People can just pay for my time and hopefully get value from it.

So that is how I do fees differently.

Thanks.