Westport Wealth Partners | 19 Ludlow Rd, Suite 202, Westport, CT 06880
The question Nicholas DiFalco, APMA® CEPA® hears from new clients more than any other is not about a specific investment or a specific product. It is this: are we on track?
It sounds straightforward. Answering it honestly requires something most people have never built: a comprehensive financial plan that maps every asset they own, not just the ones with a daily price, against every financial goal they have, not just the vague sense that things should be fine.
Most Fairfield County households at the income levels Westport Wealth Partners works with have the pieces. A 401(k) at work. A brokerage account. Real estate with significant equity. Maybe a business, or concentrated stock from a long career at a public company. Deferred compensation. A pension they haven't thought about in years. An estate plan drafted when their youngest was in elementary school and never updated.
They have the pieces. They have never put them in one picture. And because they haven't, they cannot answer the question that actually matters.
Nick's Accredited Portfolio Management Advisor℠ designation (APMA®), awarded by the College for Financial Planning, reflects deep training in portfolio construction, asset allocation, and risk management. His CEPA® credential means he brings the same discipline to business interests that most advisors never address. But the starting point for every planning relationship is the same: the complete picture, before any recommendation is made.
Are You On Track?Here Is What It Actually Takes to Answer That Question
If you're 55 years old with $2 million in a brokerage account, are you on track? The answer is: it depends on at least a dozen variables your brokerage statement cannot tell you.
It depends on when you plan to retire and what income you will need. It depends on whether you have a business that will eventually be sold or a career that will eventually end. It depends on your Social Security benefit and when it makes sense to claim it. It depends on whether your spouse is still working and when they plan to stop. It depends on whether you have a pension or deferred compensation that changes the picture. It depends on your healthcare costs between retirement and Medicare eligibility. It depends on your estate plan, what happens to assets when you and your spouse are both gone, and whether the plan for that still reflects your actual wishes.
A comprehensive financial plan answers all of these questions simultaneously, in a single document that shows the gap between where you are and where you need to be, and a sequenced plan for closing it.
Nick DiFalco calls the starting point the personal balance sheet. Every asset goes on it: liquid investments, retirement accounts, unvested equity, deferred compensation balances, real estate equity, business interests, pension present values, life insurance cash value. Every liability goes on it too. From that complete inventory, the planning work proceeds: building the investment strategy, the income plan, the tax coordination structure, and the estate plan around the actual numbers rather than the account statements the client receives in the mail.
What Comprehensive Financial Planning Covers That Investment Management Alone Does Not
Investment management and financial planning are not the same thing. Investment management constructs and maintains a portfolio. Comprehensive financial planning addresses the full range of financial decisions that determine whether the portfolio does what it needs to do.
The difference matters because decisions in one area consistently create consequences in others that neither advisor knew was coming.
Financial Planning for Business Owners in Fairfield CountyWhen the Business Is the Entire Plan
If you own a business, your financial plan is almost certainly incomplete in a specific way: the business is the plan, but nobody has ever built the plan around the business.
The business generates income. It provides deductions. It funds the retirement plan. It may be providing health insurance. It represents most of the net worth on paper. And the plan for converting all of that into a sustainable personal financial life after the business transitions has been perpetually deferred because running the business takes all of the time that planning would require.
Nick DiFalco and Matthew Streif, CEPA® work with Connecticut business owners to address this specifically. The personal balance sheet includes the business, estimated at a realistic EBITDA multiple rather than an aspirational number, alongside the liquid assets. The planning question becomes: if this business sells at what it is realistically worth today, does the wealth gap close? If the answer is yes, the plan focuses on protecting and optimizing the exit. If the answer is no, the plan identifies what needs to change, either in the business's value or in the personal assets accumulated alongside it.
This is different from generalist financial planning that treats the business as a future event to be planned around later. It is planning that starts with the business as the primary asset and builds everything else from that starting point.
Roth Conversion WindowsWhy Pre-Retirees Often Have a One-Time Opportunity
Many pre-retirees have a window (between leaving their employer and turning 73, when Required Minimum Distributions begin) during which their taxable income is lower than it has been at any point in their working career and lower than it will be once RMDs start.
That window is an opportunity to convert traditional IRA and 401(k) assets to Roth accounts, paying taxes now at a potentially lower rate than would apply to RMDs later. Roth accounts grow tax-free and have no RMDs during the owner's lifetime, making them valuable both for retirement income and for estate planning.
Westport Wealth Partners models Roth conversion scenarios as part of the comprehensive financial plan. The specific tax advice and implementation belong to the client's CPA. Raymond James does not provide tax services.
What a Comprehensive Financial Planning Engagement Looks Like
Frequently Asked QuestionsComprehensive Financial Planning in Westport, CT
What is the difference between financial planning and investment management?
Investment management constructs and maintains a portfolio. Comprehensive financial planning addresses the full range of decisions that determine whether the portfolio does what it needs to do: tax coordination, estate planning, business planning, income planning for retirement, Social Security timing, insurance review, and risk management. At Westport Wealth Partners, portfolio management is a component of the financial plan, not the entire engagement. The investment strategy is built to serve the plan, not the other way around. Nicholas DiFalco, APMA® CEPA® leads both the portfolio management and the financial planning work.
I have a 401(k), a brokerage account, and a business. Where do I start?
Start with the personal balance sheet: a complete inventory of every asset you own, at realistic values, alongside every liability. For a business owner, this means estimating the business at a realistic EBITDA multiple, not an aspirational number, and including it as a line item alongside the liquid assets. From that complete picture, the financial planning question becomes: does what you have, at realistic values, add up to what you need? If yes, the plan focuses on protecting it and optimizing it. If no, the plan identifies the gap and the path to closing it. This is the starting point for every new client engagement at Westport Wealth Partners.
How does Westport Wealth Partners coordinate with my CPA and attorney?
We work alongside your existing CPA and attorney, not in place of them. Raymond James does not provide tax or legal services. The value of coordination is that investment decisions account for their tax implications, tax planning accounts for the investment strategy, and the estate plan is aligned with the current financial picture. In practice, this means we share relevant information with your CPA before year-end and before major investment decisions, and we refer estate planning questions to your attorney with a clear picture of the financial planning context they need to draft documents that reflect your actual situation.
What does a Roth conversion analysis involve?
A Roth conversion analysis estimates the tax cost of converting pre-tax retirement account balances to Roth in a given year, projected against the expected tax cost of those balances being distributed as RMDs in future years. The analysis accounts for your current and projected marginal tax rate, the effect of Social Security benefit taxation, Connecticut income tax on retirement distributions, and the assets available to pay the conversion tax without depleting the IRA. The decision of whether and how much to convert belongs to you and your CPA. The financial planning analysis that informs the decision is built by Westport Wealth Partners. Raymond James does not provide tax advice.
How is Social Security timing built into a comprehensive financial plan?
Social Security claiming strategy is analyzed as part of the retirement income plan. The analysis models the lifetime income impact of different claiming ages for each spouse, coordinated claiming strategies for married couples, the tax treatment of benefits at different income levels, and the break-even analysis for delayed claiming. For married clients, the survivor benefit is a central planning consideration, the higher earner's claiming age determines the survivor benefit available to the lower-earning spouse. This analysis is built into the financial plan before retirement, not after.
I am 58 and have been with the same company for 22 years. What should I be doing now?
At 58, with a planned retirement in the next five to eight years, the highest-value financial planning work involves: analyzing the pension or deferred compensation benefit and the claiming structure that maximizes lifetime income, reviewing unvested equity and the vesting schedule, building a Social Security claiming strategy, evaluating Roth conversion opportunities in the years between retirement and RMDs, updating the estate plan to reflect the current asset level, and building a bridge income plan for the gap between retirement and when investment income and Social Security fully replace the employment income. This is also the time to address concentration risk, if employer equity represents a significant share of net worth, a systematic diversification plan should be in place before the employment relationship ends.
Do you work with clients who have already retired?
Yes. Post-retirement financial planning has distinct challenges: withdrawal sequencing across account types, RMD management, Medicare planning and supplemental coverage, long-term care planning, and estate planning for the distribution of assets. The investment strategy in retirement is also different from the accumulation strategy, it must account for the sequence-of-returns risk that is unique to the distribution phase. Westport Wealth Partners works with both pre-retirees building the transition plan and retirees managing the distribution phase.
