An Extremely Detailed Description of What Financial Planning Actually Looks Like (for Solo Clients)

What it really looks like to go through the financial planning process on your own—from your first uploads to a custom, grounded roadmap for your life and money.

If you’ve never worked with a financial planner—and especially if you’re managing money solo—this post lays out exactly what to expect from our three-meeting process. It’s honest, detailed, and designed to help you feel clear, grounded, and supported.

So, you’re thinking about working with a financial planner—but you’re doing this solo. Maybe you’re single, newly independent, or simply managing your money on your own, and you want to know what the actual experience of planning will look like.

This post is here to walk you through the full process. Not the vague version. The real one—with details.

Because chances are, you haven’t done this before. And even if you have, my approach is likely a little different.

This is for the person who’s been making financial decisions alone—sometimes with confidence, sometimes with a lot of second-guessing. You might be doing fine, but you want more clarity. More intention. Less stress. You want to feel like your money is supporting your life—not just sitting in accounts, or slipping away unnoticed.

Once you decide to move forward, we’ll schedule three core meetings—Get Organized, Exploring Possibilities, and Plan Delivery—usually over the course of 4–6 weeks.

Here’s what actually happens:

Meeting One: Get Organized 🗂️

Before this meeting, you’ll fill out a few prep items: a values worksheet, some quick intake questions, and a secure upload of your account statements. If that feels overwhelming, don’t worry. We’ll talk through everything live.

In Get Organized, we start with your reality:

1. What accounts do you have, and how do you manage cash flow?

2. What’s working—and what feels chaotic, uncertain, or just plain annoying?

3. How do you make decisions? What do you avoid? What’s weighing on you financially?

We log into accounts together if needed. We map out your spending. We look at what’s automated and what requires constant vigilance. We identify your safety net, debt load, investment strategy (or lack thereof), and savings patterns.

This is often the first time someone has laid it all out with another human being. It can feel exposing—but also grounding. The point isn’t to shame or judge you. It’s to start seeing what’s true, so we can build from there.

By the end of this meeting, you’ll have more clarity—even without answers yet. We’re starting to assemble the pieces.

Meeting Two: Exploring Possibilities 🗺️

Between meetings, I’ll build early models in RightCapital—retirement projections, cash flow insights, tax planning observations—and start surfacing tradeoffs.

This meeting is where we start asking: What if?

1. What if you worked fewer hours next year?

2. What if you saved less and traveled more?

3. What if you left your job, launched something on your own, or took a sabbatical?

We talk about options. We name the dreams and the constraints. We also look at the structural stuff—are your accounts doing what you need them to do? Are you set up to be flexible and resilient? Or are you white-knuckling things that could be smoother?

This meeting is about exploration. You don’t need to have the “right” answers. You just need to show up honestly. My job is to guide us through the fog—toward a shape that makes sense for your life.

Meeting Three: Plan Delivery 📊

This is where we translate all of our conversations into a clear, structured roadmap.

You’ll get a written plan that covers:

1. A cash flow system tailored to how your brain actually works—not someone else’s spreadsheet fantasy

2. Retirement modeling with real-world assumptions about how you live and what you care about

3. Investment recommendations, clearly explained with no industry jargon

4. Tax strategies, student loan guidance, insurance gaps—whatever’s relevant for you

5. A punch list of what to do, when, and how

But more importantly, you’ll get clarity. Not just "do this," but here’s why. Here’s how it supports the life you actually want.

You’ll also receive access to your plan in RightCapital, plus a private folder with written and video summaries you can revisit anytime.

A Note on Implementation (and Ongoing Support)

This three-meeting process is about building a blueprint. It’s not about moving your accounts, automating your transfers, or completing your to-do list. That part comes next.

If you’re someone with the time, focus, and motivation to implement it all on your own, great. You might not need ongoing support.

But if you know (or even suspect) that you’d benefit from help making changes, staying accountable, or troubleshooting when life throws curveballs, that’s what the ongoing subscription is for. It’s available after the planning process wraps—and it’s designed to help you turn this blueprint into action.

You don’t have to commit to that up front. In fact, I don’t expect you to. But I’ll say this: if you already know with 100% certainty that you’re not going to do the ongoing work, that you’re definitely not interested in a subscription ever… I’d encourage you not to do the planning process either.

This process is powerful—but it’s only as useful as what happens next. If you’re not open to at least considering continued support, it might not be the right fit.

What Makes This Process Different

1. We start with your lived experience.

This is personal. You’re not just a spreadsheet to me. We talk about your actual life—what’s hard, what’s meaningful, what keeps you up at night.

2. We don’t expect perfection.

You don’t need to come in with perfectly tracked expenses or any particular asset level. You just need to be ready to get real.

3. We use money as a tool—not a scorecard.

I don’t believe in maximizing your net worth for the sake of it. We’re here to figure out what kind of life you want—and how to use money to support that.

4. We make space for your feelings.

Money is emotional. It’s tied up with guilt, fear, regret, hope. I don’t expect you to be robotic. I expect you to be human.

A Final Word

Doing this work solo doesn’t mean doing it alone. The planning process is a way to invite clarity, structure, and a little bit of relief into your financial life.

If you’re ready to stop flying blind—and start feeling like your money has a purpose—I’d love to work with you.