Financial Planning

Create a written plan built on your balance sheet, your cash flow and your goals, and stress-tested against what could go wrong.

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Our Methodology

How We Create Financial Plans

Financial planning is about more than creating an investment portfolio. It is the work of turning your wealth's purpose into a written plan, structured around your long-term goals.

At Gatewood, that plan covers your whole financial picture: a breakdown of what you own and what you owe, a cash flow strategy that runs past average life expectancy, and a funding analysis measuring the gap between where you are today and where you want to be. Then we stress-test it against what could go wrong — live, with you in the room, so you see the trade-offs before you decide anything.

Watch our Wealth Planner Manager, Cole Milam, walk through how it works.

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The Deliverables

What Our Service Includes

Every service in our planning model produces tangible, measurable deliverables that you can expect to receive.

Balance Sheet Review

A single statement of everything you own and everything you owe, assembled from the actual accounts rather than from memory. It is the starting point for every other number in your plan.

Cash Flow Forecast

What comes in and what goes out, projected forward year by year rather than averaged. It shows which years are tight, which years have room, and where a large expense is best absorbed.

Net Worth Projection

Where your balance sheet is headed over the next ten, twenty and thirty years at your current savings rate and spending. You see the path, and what changes when either one of those moves.

Monte Carlo Analysis

We run your plan through thousands of market scenarios instead of one average return, then report how many how many of them were 100% successful and is considered the stress test to your plan.

Retirement Readiness Score

Your plan run against an early death, a long illness and a poor first year of retirement, with a score showing how much of each goal is covered.

Tax-Efficient Withdrawal Sequencing

A detailed order your accounts are drawn from once you retire, arranged so the same spending can cost you less in tax than taking it in the obvious order.
Is Now the Right Time?

Gain Confidence for Life's Key Moments

Life is defined by key moments. Whether joyful or difficult, planned or unforeseen, each one forces critical financial decisions that impact your legacy. These are the moments that most often bring people to us.

  • Can I afford to stop working, and when?

    Retirement is close enough to count or it's an uncertain time horizon. The lifestyle you want to afford stops being an abstract concept and the realization of all the unknowns starts to kick in.

  • How should I best allocate my earnings?

    A business sold, an inheritance landed, equity vested. The money arrived faster than the plan for it, and the tax clock is already running.

  • What changes now that I'm in charge?

    A plan is built with someone in mind who is no longer in our lives. Sometimes the person who never handled the finances is stuck with big decisions.

  • Who can I trust with my plan now?

    Whether they retired, changed careers, or the service is simply not cutting it — you might be looking for the right financial advisor.

  • Does anything in my plan change now?

    A promotion, a job loss, or a move from salary to equity or self-employment. What worked at the old number does not automatically work at the new one.

  • Who else is counting on this plan to work?

    A child, a tuition bill, or a parent who now needs help. The people your plan supports have changed, so the plan has to.

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Married husband and wife reviewing retirement plans.

Retirement is close enough to count or it's an uncertain time horizon. The lifestyle you want to afford stops being an abstract concept and the realization of all the unknowns starts to kick in.

Person signing paperwork to receive an inheritance.

A business sold, an inheritance landed, equity vested. The money arrived faster than the plan for it, and the tax clock is already running.

People comforting each other through a tragic loss.

A plan is built with someone in mind who is no longer in our lives. Sometimes the person who never handled the finances is stuck with big decisions.

Couple arguing over a financial advisor's poor judgment.

Whether they retired, changed careers, or the service is simply not cutting it — you might be looking for the right financial advisor.

Woman receiving a promotion at her work.

A promotion, a job loss, or a move from salary to equity or self-employment. What worked at the old number does not automatically work at the new one.

Husband and wife celebrating their growing family.

A child, a tuition bill, or a parent who now needs help. The people your plan supports have changed, so the plan has to.

How it All Works Together

What Your Fee Covers

We charge one advisory fee for household wealth management, calculated on the assets under our management. The fee schedule works like tax brackets, so the blended fee percentage declines as the portfolio grows. Trading and rebalancing sit inside that fee rather than being charged separately.

  • Personal Tax Preparation is billed as a separate engagement through Gatewood Tax and Accounting.

  • Any insurance products sold are subject to commissions, per industry standards.

You can read more in-depth about what we charge, how you're billed, and what your fees might be at the link below.

Calculate Your Fees
A ring of six segments around a centre labelled "your plan". Clockwise from the top: financial planning, cash management, investment management, insurance management, tax planning and estate planning. Each segment links to that service. Financial Planning Cash Management Investment Management Insurance Management Tax Planning Estate Planning Your Plan
Our Team-Based Approach

An Integrated Family Plan

A truly comprehensive financial plan involves tax, investments, cash, insurance and your estate — but no one advisor can be an expert on all things.

Your Wealth Planner crafts the plan based on your goals and pulls in specialists on our own team when they need another level of expertise. Your plan gets advice guided by experience and all aspects of your plan fit together to support your goals.

That is what we call Firm-to-Family®, and it is how we create plans that endure for generations. Your advisor will one day retire, but your plan will outlast any one relationship.

Learn About Firm-to-Family®
Multi-generational family sitting together smiling.
Before You Begin

Frequently Asked Questions

A written document, updated as your life changes, that sets out what you own and owe, what your money needs to do and when, what each goal costs, and what happens to all of it if something goes wrong. It is not a portfolio recommendation. The portfolio is what comes after the plan tells us what the money is for.

We build your personalized plan within the course of at most three meetings.

The Initial Meeting: The first meeting is an open conversation about your goals and what you are trying to accomplish with your wealth.

The Goals Assessment Meeting: The second is a time for us to gather all the details together — balances, statements, and the specifics of all the accounts that impact your plans.

The Solutions Meeting: The third is where we present our recommendations, draft the plan and model scenarios live, with you in the room, so you see the trade-offs before deciding anything.

If you decide to become a client of the firm, we'll set a final Onboarding Meeting that introduces you to your Client Care Team.

Investments answer how your money is allocated, but a financial plan describes what that wealth is used for long-term. Without one there is no way to know whether the allocation is right for your goals and your risk tolerance, because there is nothing to measure it against.

At least once a year, at a review with your Client Care Team. Between reviews the plan can be updated whenever something changes it — a new job, a sale, an inheritance, a birth, a death. You do not have to wait for the annual meeting to ask questions, voice concerns, or talk to your team. We hold an open schedule for Client Care Calls where you can chat with your Wealth Planner about anything that comes up between meetings.

Bring what you have. We will read it, tell you what it covers and what it leaves out, and you will leave knowing whether it needs replacing or just maintaining. That review costs nothing and carries no expectation that you move anything. We would rather tell you your existing plan is fine than sell you a second one.

Our services such as Financial Planning, Insurance Management, Investment Management, Tax Planning, Estate Planning and Cash Management are all covered in your advisory fee.

There are two exceptions: Personal Tax Preparation is billed separately through Gatewood Tax and Accounting and insurance products sold are subject to commissions, per industry standards.

Get a full breakdown of our fees here.

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Built on Relationships

Hear What Our Clients Say

“My wife and I moved to St. Louis four years ago and became Gatewood clients in 2024, on a referral from our daughter-in-law. Her father was an established attorney who had said good things about the team, and that recommendation was passed down to us. That introduction set an expectation, and the people there have matched it. We've met a lot of the team by now, and the impression has been consistent with every one of them. Each person we're introduced to is professional, smart, and they work together well as a group — which says something about the people Gatewood hires…” Read more.
Dale D., Retired Corporate Professional | 08.17.26

Important Disclosure: The statements provided are testimonials by clients of the financial professional. The clients listed have not been paid or received any other compensation for making these statements. As a result, the client does not receive any material incentives or benefits for providing the testimonial. These views may not be representative of the views of other clients and are not indicative of future performance or success.

Let's Build Your Wealth With Purpose

With expertise and care, we're here to build a personalized plan for wealth that instills confidence for all of life’s key moments. Schedule a conversation with our team today.

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