Previous issues
A short note each Monday: one real advisor workflow, walked through start to finish.
A client watched the Fed raise rates and asked what it does to his portfolio. From a dropped-in statement, Helmsted helped his advisor split every holding's rate risk between the rate the Fed sets and the rate the market sets, and show that the hikes cost him $620 in price and add $629 a year of forward income, close to a wash, while the duration in his bond sleeves answers to the 10 year.
A couple nine months from retirement with a pension election, three stock windows, a Medicare gap, and nine in ten retirement dollars still untaxed. One ask to Helmsted turned it into an interactive map: a timeline of what happens when, live controls for each choice, and four charts that move together.
A household with strong income, a rental, and a side business, and a checking account that never matched. One ask to Helmsted turned it into a four-step interactive: where the money goes, a normal month, the choices, and what those choices add up to.
Since contributions opened in July, the same question in every young-parent meeting. The answer is one condition: a Trump Account only wins if it is converted to a Roth and held past 60.
A young couple pre-qualified for $1.5 million, a family plan that runs on one income, and a model that opens on the reality instead of the letter.
A couple set on claiming Social Security the moment they could, afraid the trust fund would not hold, and a claiming explorer built to start at their answer instead of the advisor's, with the fear modeled as a dial rather than dismissed.
A young couple who saved well but never opened a college fund. College gets covered by earmarking what they already hold, and the 529 does one job: tuition passes through, in and out the same year, capturing the state deduction without ever holding a balance.
A new client, a stack of operating agreements, and $46,786 back from a tax year that had already ended: a cash balance plan design with a September 15 window.
A newly retired couple, a subsidy cliff, legislation still moving, and a new HSA window: the gap years to Medicare on a single report.