HOURLY FINANCIAL PLANNING ON DEMAND!

Only pay for the time you use
No ongoing fees or minimum
No sales pitches or conflicts of interest
Available low-cost passive investing service

Free Intro Session

FINANCIAL PLANNING

We serve Physicians and other active and busy professionals or retirees with on-demand hourly financial advice.

 

Engage a trusted expert with no strings attached

Seeking a sounding board or new ideas? You can work with us for as long – or as little – as you like. We do not sell anything and aren’t beholden to anyone but you, which frees up to recommend only what we believe is in your best interest, for your circumstances. 

Build an all-encompassing financial plan

We will endeavor to understand all relevant pieces of your current financial and personal circumstances and tie them to your future goals with a robust comprehensive financial plan. Your plan will cover investments, taxes, insurance, and estate planning, among other things. 

Just the face time, not the behind the scenes

We offer our advice for a tiered hourly rate assessed on our face-to-face time. You pay for what you see in action, not some black-box solution developed behind the scenes. Your cost is transparent no matter how many hours we work on your behalf in between meetings. 

 We built the financial planning practice WE  would want to work with.

Our Journey to Whistle Stop

My name is Ilir Shkurti. I founded Whistle Stop Financial Advice because I believe everyone deserves a simple financial planning experience.

My favorite aspect of working with clients is helping simplify their understanding of what’s possible and identifying a path of least resistance to achieving their financial goals.

I’ve learned two powerful lessons about money. First, money is not rocket science. All money success requires is a few consistent basic steps of personal finance hygiene. Second, money is a tool, not the goal. Dollars are coupons that enable us to live life on our terms.

 

I am a Chartered Financial Analyst (verify here) and a member of the CFA Society Detroit. I hold a Master of Science in Finance and an MBA from Walsh College of Business and Accountancy. I’ve spent nearly 12 years in Financial Services in various and progressive Compliance, Investment, and Financial Planning roles, the last half of which with a Fortune 500 financial services company. I encourage you to verify me (and any other financial advisor you are considering) at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov.

Whistle Stop Financial Advice, LLC is a Michigan-based Registered Investment Advisor. You can find more regulatory information about our firm at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov..

Do you know your financial advisor’s incentives?

Most financial advisors are brokers, investment advisors, or both (dually registered). Understanding how and by whom they are paid is important to determining how they weigh your priorities against theirs.

  • Brokers are paid by product companies. The more they sell to you, the more money they make.
  • Investment advisors are paid by your investment accounts. The more of your accounts you move there – and the larger those accounts are – the more money they make.
  • Brokers and investment advisers will often provide a financial plan for free or a small cost since the “real” revenue is in the commissions on sales and fees on the assets. There is the potential for the financial plan to justify the products rather than the other way around. This would be a conflict of interest.

What makes Whistle Stop different?

What is a Whistle Stop, anyway?

A whistle stop is a station where buses or trains stop only on request, if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. A whistle stop with low passenger counts can be incorporated into a route without introducing unnecessary delay.

We founded Whistle Stop as the place to get comprehensive financial advice without the unnecessary complication and cost of a traditional financial advisor relationship. We couldn’t find a place we felt comfortable referring our friends and families to, so we built one.

Don’t want your advisor to be paid by someone else to sell you stuff? We don’t work for a broker/dealer or sell  products (insurance, annuities, investments). We only sell our advice: solutions that work best for you.

Don’t want to pay your advisor indefinitely? You only pay us when you need us, for the time we spend with you, to the six-minute increment.

Want account management but don’t want to pay one-plus percent per year? If, and only if, you want to delegate your account management, we offer the convenience of low-cost passive investment management for the lowest asset-based fee you can find.

Hourly Financial Planning Rates *

 

First hour: $500

Hours Two and Three: $450/hr

Hours Four to Six: $400/hr

Hours Seven to Ten: $350/hr

Hours over Ten: $300/hr

 

* Assessed on face-to-face meeting time only.

Use the slider to estimate your billed amount and average hourly rate based on hours throughout a 12-month engagement. Non-renewal illustration; renewed engagements lock in our tiered discount pricing.

Billed Amount: $0

Average Hourly Rate: $0.00

Hidden Fees:$0.00 (We have none.)

Mid-Career Professionals

Answers to Your Important Financial Questions 
When You Ask Them!

  • Managing your finances while balancing your career and family life can be demanding.

  • We help put in place a clear strategy for you to do all you can and should, in simple and easy to understand and implement actionable steps.

Time is your most valuable asset. We’ll help you spend just the right amount of it thinking about your finances. We will help:

  • Align your current savings capacity with your goals

  • Maximize every benefit and savings opportunity, at your employer and beyond

  • Maximize tax efficiency and minimize present and future tax liability

  • Optimize your investments for specific goals

  • Ensure you have safety nets around your most precious assets, such as your ability to work and be around

Pre-retirees and Retirees

Have questions about your retirement?
We have answers, and can help you plan confidently.

  • You’ve done the hardest part by becoming ready to retire.
    However, decisions at this stage can have substantial significance for the rest of your life.

  • Through our clients, we’ve “lived a thousand retirements”, so we can provide you with the confidence of having seen this movie before. Importantly, we’ll simplify our thinking around your retirement, so YOU can be confident in your journey.

Here’s how we work with retirees:

  • Develop a plan around your income and taxes

  • Help implement tax-efficient withdrawal and transfer strategies

  • Help time your Social Security and other fixed/guaranteed income streams

  • Ensure your estate plan is in order

Looking For A Second Opinion

DIY or workING with  an Advisor?

Whistle Stop offers a sounding board in whatever capacity you choose to work with us.

  • You may be currently working with a financial advisor and want to ensure they are doing what is in your best interest? Or, you are handling everything yourself (DIY), prefer not to give control, but want the assurance you aren’t missing anything?

  • We’ve built our business around you!

Here’s how we can work with validators:

  • Simple and transparent pricing: we charge our tiered hourly rate and apply it to the six-minute increment (we don’t charge the full last hour if you don’t use it), on the time we spend meeting with you.
  • We review your investment portfolio across your accounts, and we will identify potential areas of improvement, if available
  • Beyond investments, we will provide comprehensive financial advice that addresses not just investments, but planning around taxes, safety nets (insurance), estate planning, cash flow, and workplace benefits, and more.
  • We’re involved if and when you choose. No hard sells, no products, no conflict!

What Working With Us Looks Like

1

Step One

Introductory Meeting (30 Minutes, No Cost)

In this first meeting, we learn about each other and determine whether our services fit your needs. You’ll share about yourself, current circumstances,  and future goals. We’ll share how we work with you and how we might be able to help. If you choose to engage us, you’ll receive an engagement letter, instructions on how to safely share your data, and other next steps.

1.5

Step One Point Five

Onboarding (No Cost)

Once you’ve signed the engagement, you’ll reserve our first working session. We will provide instructions on how to furnish us your information and data.

From this point on, you’ll have access to your private portal, where you can enter your information, upload documentation on your secure vault, and aggregate your online-accessible accounts for a virtual 360-degree view of your finances. 

2

Step Two

First Working Session

In our first working session, we will have a thorough free-form discussion about your current financial circumstances, goals, the bigger picture, and questions. We will validate any data provided so far, ask clarifying questions, and share initial observations. We will also specify additional necessary data ahead of our next working session, and assist with the onboarding process. By the end of this meeting, we will fine-tune and formulate your goals and values around money.

Afterwards, you will receive our invoice (based on the actual duration of our conversation, and a summary with actionable items and the general framework of our recommendations. 

2.5

Step Two Point Five

Analysis (Included)

At this point, you will work on providing [additional] data as necessary or identified during the first working session and in our follow-up notes. Once data is received, we will get to work on developing and finalizing our recommendations. We may reach out to you for additional clarifications during this stage.

3

Step Three

Second Working Session

In our second working session, we pick up right where we left off. We go over our work, observations, recommendations, and actionable steps. We will address your questions and feedback at this time.

Shortly afterwards, you will receive our second (and, for now, final) invoice and detailed recommendations for implementation. 

4

Step Four

On-Demand Follow-Up Meetings

At this stage, you’ll have time to digest the plan and the actionable steps. We will answer questions within the scope of the plan at no charge. Should a question demand more than a quick response, or veer substantially outside of the original scope of work, you’ll be able to reserve a follow-up meeting. We will pick up where we left off, whenever you choose. 

Frequently Asked Questions

We offer financial planning as our core service and charge hourly (or per six-minute increment) at a tiered hourly rate. Our clients only pay for the time they spend meeting with us, NOT the time we spend working on their plan. We have no requirements of minimum hours or recurring meeting frequency.

Overwhelmingly, our clients are physicians at various career stages (including retirees). Physicians have a demanding and bandwidth-consuming profession, often start saving much later in life, and are often loaded with high student debt that competes for their savings capacity. At the same time, due to their high earning profession, they are a prime target of financial professionals, some of whom are pursuing their own interests. These factors make physicians the perfect clients for our model of simplicity, transparency, and avoidance of conflict of interest.

Anything that relates to money, in the present or in the future. This includes saving for retirement, tax planning (importantly, we are not tax filers), safety nets such as life and disability insurance coverage (importantly, we are not insurance brokers), estate planning (importantly, we are not estate attorneys), cash and liquidity, income planning, and more.

We can provide an unvarnished and unbiased opinion on your financial situation and how your financial advisor is doing. Based on our business model, we have little interest in you firing a competent financial advisor. So if your advisor is doing well on your behalf, we will share our opinion and give you peace of mind. On the other hand, if necessary, we will arm you with important education and insight that will ensure you can adjust your course before it is too late.

Likely, yes! If you don’t, we will be able to determine that in our no-cost introductory call. (Most of our clients are like you, by the way!).

We review your investments, and the accounts they are held on, and identify potential improvements if necessary. Most of our clients utilize our advice and implement it by themselves. Some have chosen to give us limited power of attorney (currently available only at Charles Schwab Company) for us to trade on their behalf (reallocation, rebalancing, dollar-cost averaging, tax harvesting), as well as perform inter-account journaling (such as Roth Conversions), and systematic transfers (such as income distributions or regular savings).

We believe passive index investing is the simplest and best way to harvest what markets can give you. We believe reducing fees (management and expense ratios) is a 100% sure way to improve your return over the long term, by keeping more of it. On the other hand, active investing is a low-odds returns-improving endeavor that relies on many factors outside our control. Our philosophy is to not play a game we have low or no chance of winning.

You will work directly with our founder, Ilir Shkurti. We are a one-person shop for the foreseeable future, so we expect that to be the case for as long as you work with us.

Our founder and principal practitioner, Ilir Shkurti, holds a Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is fully licensed and credentialed as a financial planner.

We are located in Birmingham, Michigan. However, we practice virtually, so where you live or where we live should not be of much relevance.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about our services, please feel free to reach out to us. We would love to hear from you!
hello@whistlestopfa.com

Email Us HERE