Our Financial Planning Process

A financial plan is only as good as the foundation it’s built on. Before we talk strategy, portfolios, or projections — we need to understand you.
That’s where every client engagement begins. And it’s what makes everything that follows actually work.

Five Phases. One Continuous Relationship.

Our planning process moves through five phases — Ground, Clarify, Plan, Implement, and Protect. The phases are structured and repeatable, but they’re not rigid. The depth, pace, and emphasis adapt to where you are, what you’re navigating, and what you need most right now.

What doesn’t change is the sequence. We don’t build strategy before we understand behavior. We don’t implement before the plan is clear. We don’t step back once the work is done.

Here’s how it works:

Before numbers, we understand the person.

This first phase is about building a complete picture of who you are, where you are, and what’s actually at stake — financially and emotionally. We’re not running through a checklist. We’re listening.
We’ll talk about what’s happening in your life right now and what’s changing. We’ll explore your relationship with money — past experiences, emotional triggers, how you respond to uncertainty and financial stress. We’ll clarify what your goals actually are, not just the financial ones, across the short, medium, and long term.

We also do something most advisors skip: a real behavioral risk assessment. Not a standard risk tolerance questionnaire that measures stated preference. A deeper conversation about how you actually make decisions under pressure — because that’s what determines whether a financial plan holds up when things get hard.

Nothing gets built until this foundation is solid.

You can’t plan what you can’t see.
This phase creates a complete, precise picture of your financial life — with no judgment and no assumptions. Net worth, cash flow, debt, tax situation, insurance, account structure, existing investments. Everything on the table, organized and understood.

For most clients, this phase alone produces real relief. Financial anxiety lives in ambiguity. When you can see your full picture clearly — even if parts of it need work — the overwhelm starts to lift. Clarity is part of the plan.

We also identify the gaps. What’s missing, what’s misaligned, and where the most important planning opportunities exist. This becomes the foundation everything else is built on.

This is where the plan gets built — and where the real work of financial planning lives.
Using everything we’ve learned in the first two phases, we construct a comprehensive strategy that covers your full financial picture. Cash flow and spending framework first. Tax planning. Investment strategy. Insurance and risk management. Retirement and long-term planning. Estate coordination where applicable.

Every recommendation is designed around two things: your financial situation and your behavioral reality. A strategy you won’t follow isn’t a good strategy. We build for the real you, not an idealized version.

The plan is delivered in plain language. No jargon, no complexity for its own sake. You’ll understand every piece of it and why it’s there before anything moves forward.

A plan on paper doesn’t do anything. This phase puts it into motion — with the right structure so your financial health doesn’t depend on willpower or perfect memory.

Accounts are opened and transitioned. Investments are implemented. Automation is set up — savings contributions, tax deposits, bill pay, anything that removes a recurring decision point and replaces it with a system that runs quietly in the background.

We also do something we call a pre-mortem. Before implementation is complete, we identify the behavioral traps most likely to challenge you specifically. Panic selling during a market downturn. Overspending in high-income months. Avoiding difficult review conversations. We name these upfront and build guardrails before they’re needed — because it’s much easier to plan for predictable human behavior than to recover from it.

By the end of this phase, the plan isn’t just built. It’s running.

The plan is the starting point, not the destination.

Your life changes. Markets move. Tax law evolves. Goals shift. The ongoing relationship is where all of that gets managed — and where the real value of having a financial advisor is created or lost.
You’ll meet with Nikki on a regular basis — quarterly or semi-annually depending on your situation — for comprehensive plan reviews. Tax planning runs on a quarterly rhythm. Your annual plan update covers everything that’s changed and recalibrates what’s ahead.

But the most important part of this phase isn’t scheduled. It’s the behavioral coaching that happens at the moments that matter most — market volatility, major life events, big decisions that can’t wait for the next review. These are the moments when reactive behavior does the most financial damage. They’re also the moments when a calm, knowledgeable, steady presence does the most financial good.

We don’t step back once the plan is built. This is a continuous relationship, and Phase 5 is where it lives.

How this adapts to your situation

The five phases apply to every client. How they’re applied depends entirely on who you are and what you’re navigating.

If you’re going through a transition — divorce, widowhood, a career change — we triage immediately. Some things need to happen now. Others can wait safely. We sequence the process around your capacity and your urgency, not ours.

If you’re a dual-income couple, we make sure both partners are fully included, fully informed, and fully aligned. Financial plans built around one voice in a two-person household don’t hold up.

If your income is variable — a creator, a consultant, a commission-based professional — the cash flow framework looks different. Quarterly tax rhythm, income smoothing, lean-month protocols. The structure adapts to how you actually earn.

Whatever your situation, the process is designed to meet you where you are.

Nikki Savage, financial advisor at Wild Iris Financial, smiling in a professional office setting

  • Calm guidance

  • Clarity Through Change

  • Confidence for what’s next

  • planning with care

Ready to see what this looks like for you specifically?

Schedule a Consultation