[Boomer]

I recently listened to a podcast with Christine Benz, Director of Personal Finance with Morningstar, interviewing Pam Krueger, Founder and CEO of Wealthramp. I had never heard of Wealthramp before. (The podcast from Morningstar is titled "The Long View" and this episode (#307) was dated February 11, 2025.)

Anyway, Wealthramp matches fee-only, fiduciary financial advisors with consumers, according to what is needed. Advisors have been researched by Wealthramp.

Looking for an advisor can be overwhelming. There are more than 500,000 advisors out there and they come in all stripes. I have heard it said that financial advising is not a profession; it's an industry.

Supposedly, your name is not given to the advisor. The advisor's name is given to you, and the advisor pays Wealthramp, although they are said to have been carefully vetted. Sounds legit, considering the interview was with Christine Benz.

The website asks for name and email, zip code, and range of investable assets. I have not done anything with this, but I am thinking about it, sort of. It's a jungle out there when it comes to finding an advisor, so I just keep on keepin' on, but I do think about it more often. It's just that I tend to categorize advisors the same way I categorize real estate agents. A Dime A Dozen. Too many with first loyalty to themselves and/or to their broker or brokerage. Some are excellent, but if you get the wrong one, it can end up costing you a helluva lot more than a dime.

So? Anybody know anything about Wealthramp?

Boomer

[manaboutown]

Well, I plugged in the requested info which was just a tad more than I had encountered with other financial advisor referral outfits. Out popped three fellows spread all over the country as I initially opted for Zoom is OK. Then I changed my preference to one nearby. None were THAT nearby. lol. None of the six were women although I had indicated no gender preference one way or the other.

The profiles showed their "professional" credentials, CFP, CPA and the like, but nothing about their educational attainments, past performance and other data one would certainly want to review before allowing a "financial advisor" to get his/her grubby hands on one's financial assets. Thus, one would need to investigate further, much further, before hiring any of one or more of them.

I just received a nice email note from Pam referring me to another advisor.

[CoachKandSportsguy]

I went through the Q&A, and I gave them my throwaway email address and associated pseudonym. They don't need that information, and the questions are very generic. I would try it, answer honestly, and take an interview or two, just to get an idea of their approaches and risk analysis questions, responses.

Although the questions can be anonymous, once you use a phone, that is no longer anonymous unless you use a burner phone (FBI series stan here)

The most interesting question is what type of financial advisor do you prefer, flat fee or percentage of assets. . . they have both. . Being a fiduciary, in general, they could't care less about your amount of money you have. . . especially if you select flat fee to start. Remember, the amount of money you have means everything to you, but guaranteed, they have worked with people with lots more money than you have.

Just remember that risk is an intangible concept, and it's hard to measure, and hard to predict. And many times, the simple questions are just a starting point, and the verbal interactions, questions, answers about the concepts will help them understand you, and help you pick someone, or not.

I would use one if anyone has large $ and large % in equities, and above 70, where incomes, spouse longevity, and health/inheritance are planning and tax issues for best outcomes.

Planning for dementia and alzheimers are conditions which are now very common and great planning is needed, as its a slow process and can sneak up on a spouse without obvious signs.

good luck. .

[manaboutown]

I dug into her background and read more info on her primary referrals. They may be OK for someone else but not for me so I am going to pass. Sigh!

As an example sample.

"WCP’s focus is on providing comprehensive financial planning and asset management services to
clients in accordance with each individual client’s needs. WCP does not offer financial planning as a
standalone service."

So much for a supposedly fee only financial planner which I had indicated is what I wanted in my info.

[Caymus]

I have tried a few advisor matching services over the last few years without success. In the end they all wanted to turn me into an "income source" which I can sort of understand. Most has AUM fees or required annual fees. Some were basically reading off of scripts and did not seem very knowledgeable.

I wonder if any "robot" investor services outperformed over the past few months.

[manaboutown]

Pam just sent me this which I found informative. https://wealthramp.com/friends-talk-...ource=hs_email

[JTFitz]

We recently came across this post and wanted to provide some feedback based upon first-hand experience with WCP. We have been clients of WCP for many years working closely with Cortie Wetherill and very satisfied with their services, both in comprehensive financial planning and investment management. We compensate them under an AUM structure, but I am 100% certain that they offer standalone financial planning at a flat fee. I have shared this thread with them and they confirmed this to be true. WCP did acknowledge that their CRS and ADV filings may not have specified a flat fee service at the time of this inquiry, but have assured me that they are current.

WCP have a deep and strong team of professionals based out of Philadelphia but also with office space and employees in Florida.

Originally Posted by manaboutown

I dug into her background and read more info on her primary referrals. They may be OK for someone else but not for me so I am going to pass. Sigh!

As an example sample.

"WCP’s focus is on providing comprehensive financial planning and asset management services to
clients in accordance with each individual client’s needs. WCP does not offer financial planning as a
standalone service."

So much for a supposedly fee only financial planner which I had indicated is what I wanted in my info.

[manaboutown]

Originally Posted by JTFitz

We recently came across this post and wanted to provide some feedback based upon first-hand experience with WCP. We have been clients of WCP for many years working closely with Cortie Wetherill and very satisfied with their services, both in comprehensive financial planning and investment management. We compensate them under an AUM structure, but I am 100% certain that they offer standalone financial planning at a flat fee. I have shared this thread with them and they confirmed this to be true. WCP did acknowledge that their CRS and ADV filings may not have specified a flat fee service at the time of this inquiry, but have assured me that they are current.

WCP have a deep and strong team of professionals based out of Philadelphia but also with office space and employees in Florida.

Thank you for this. I now plan to call them. For some reason I am unable to pull up their ADV anymore from the link provided by Pam although I could do so initially. They do look like a good outfit to check out!

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Originally Posted by JTFitz

...very satisfied with their services, both in comprehensive financial planning and investment management. We compensate them under an AUM structure

Just curious, do you have your investment account's Sharpe or Sortino performance ratio?

Just curious

Thanks!

[manaboutown]

Zooming with Pam's referrals has been a time consuming but highly productive process.

So far I have spoken and Zoom met with two of them. A third guy who looked good to me on paper did just not seem interested. Anyway, to prove productive the process required me to do some digging, looking at past tax returns, where my portfolios had been back when and where they are now, and much more. It caused me to reflect on decisions I had made and how they worked out...or NOT! I pulled up both historical and current brokerage statements, found cost basis, examined gain/income vs. risk, valued my real estate assets, how much I spend and gift to family members, the needs of my heirs and devisees, their particular circumstances, how their ages factor into my decisions and so on.

The two outfits I had serious Zoom meetings with each offered some ideas. Surprisingly their model portfolios for my situation were quite different. Neither proposal appealed to me. My taxable account portfolios would require sales and hence loss of substantial value due to the payment of TAXE$$$ (once it's gone it's gone IMHO!!!). Furthermore, their replacement ETFs had significant management fees. With one outfit considering their AUM and the Dimensional Fund fees costs would run me well over two percent on an aftertax basis! I have read and learned index ETFs with the lowest fees tend to be the winners, perhaps as much as 95% of the time so these funds are a definite no-go.

I also checked with a relative's guy who pushed me off on a junior who had changed jobs four times in four years. Thanks but no thanks.

Bottom line: I need to make some adjustments to the terms of my RLT, transfer more funds into the 529 plans of my grandchildren, sell some REITs having little price appreciation held in taxable accounts and replace them with companies paying qualified dividends to reduce income taxes and a few other things. New ideas are still coming to me. Although it has been work I believe the process has been beneficial due to both the new ideas I heard and came up from conversations with the people at these firms.