Hourly, as-needed financial planning and investment advice to help you Sleep Well At Night

My Other Job

Dylan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:41:08 +0000

I’m often asked about my work with the military, so here it is. In addition to Swan Financial Planning, I run a personal financial management program at a nearby military installation. There, I provide financial counseling, planning, and education programs to U.S. Army Soldiers, mostly National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve, who are temporarily assigned [...]

The “New” Swan Financial Planning

Dylan — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:47:10 +0000

Although, I’m still in the process of completing some administrative transitions, I have started seeing clients again. Over the MLK Jr. holiday weekend, I launched many of the updated pages on this site. You can now access my new Form ADV Part 2, the standardized disclosure document required of all state and federally registered investment [...]

Big Changes Coming

Dylan — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:35:26 +0000

Big changes are happening with my practice over the next few weeks. I will be reopening my doors in January, still as Swan Financial Planning but not the same Swan Financial Planning, LLC that I started back in October 2005. More on that in a moment. Until then, I am wrapping up a few projects [...]

How Do You Tell the Difference Between Financial Advice and a Sales Pitch?

Dylan — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:30:59 +0000

Well, if you have to ask, it’s a sales pitch. That response may cause a chuckle or two, but it’s actually quite a useful test when you think about it. If a person’s goal is to sell you something, then how does one distinguish objective advice from a sales pitch? I don’t think there is [...]

Simplicity Works

Dylan — Sat, 14 May 2011 17:23:18 +0000

You may know it as Occam’s Razor, the Law of Economy, or Law of Parsimony, or even as the principle of succinctness. It’s the concept that the simplest solution is the best solution. This principle is based in observation that the less assumptions required or made tend to result in the most accurate outcome, and [...]

Build Wealth, Not Debt

Dylan — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:10:15 +0000

This week is America Saves Week and Military Saves Week. While saving ought to be a year-round activity, the purpose of this special week is to raise awareness about the need to save. Why do we need to raise awareness? It’s because most people stink at saving enough. There are some scary national statistics I [...]

Spring Practice Hours

Dylan — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:39:06 +0000

Due to my work load down at the Joint Base, my daytime availability for my non-military, private practice clients will be extremely limited for the next several months. However, throughout the Spring and into early Summer, I’ll be keeping evening hours one or two evenings per week, most weeks, and the occasional weekend day. You [...]

Swan Update

Dylan — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 14:46:09 +0000

As some of you may know, I have been working with the military, providing financial planning, counseling, and education to Service members for the last couple of years. Some of this work has been at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (M-D-L), here in New Jersey and other times has been out of state. Going forward, I have [...]

Automatic Savings and Lifestyle Inflation

Dylan — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:15:33 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write more about this for a while, but J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly and author of Your Money: The Missing Manual beat me to it. I first wrote about this in my August 2009 newsletter and will repost that article on my blog. In short, those who automate their savings [...]

I’m a good ADV example

Dylan — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:28:43 +0000

Mike, over at Oblivious Investor, posted a great overview about the benefits of reading a adviser’s form ADV before engaging that adviser. Mike also used my ADV as an example, prefacing it with: It would surely be useful, but I don’t have the heart to make an example of an RIA whose Form ADV sets [...]