Every Wednesday at 9am for the past nine months, some version of this newsletter has landed in your inbox.
Those nine months taught me a lot. What you gravitate toward. Where the real pain points are. What comes next.
So the newsletter is taking a new turn.
It’s now Your Family CFO, written with my partner Robert at Upholdings Private Wealth. You’ll get the same insights, tools, and tactics we use with our clients every day, so you can work toward putting them to use in your own life.
The goal of a family CFO is to make sure every financial decision in the household works with every other one, so no decision gets made in isolation.
Our promise to you: the actual playbook we run, explained plainly, with something you can act on every week.
The Short Version
Same Wednesday email, new name: Your Family CFO
Built around the four areas we run for every client: cash flow, tax and compensation, portfolio, and estate and protection
Weekly planning content from me, periodic investment insights from Robert
Written to be used, not just read
Why this move?
Most financial content covers one piece. A tax tip. A fund pick. An estate checklist.
Your money doesn’t work in pieces.
Your RSU vest changes your entire tax picture. Your entity decision changes your estate plan. Your insurance sets how much risk you can take in the portfolio.
Nine months of writing made that impossible to ignore. The specific issues, the ones with real mechanics and real tradeoffs, were the ones worth writing. And the decisions that matter most were almost never one person’s decision. They were the family’s.
It’s also how we work with clients. Plan first. Portfolio built around the plan, not the other way around.
That’s what a CFO does. A company has someone whose whole job is capital allocation, taxes, risk, timing, and cash.
Your household probably has no one.
Your CPA sees the taxes. Your brokerage account sees the portfolio. Your attorney sees the documents. Nobody sees all of it.
What to expect
Every issue sits inside one of the four pillars we build every client plan around.
Cash flow and life planning: How money moves around your actual life: saving, spending, major purchases, and the annual plan refresh.
Tax and compensation: Equity comp, RSUs, options, Roth conversions, asset location, and year-end moves. The area where high earners leave the most on the table.
Portfolio strategy: Allocation built around your plan, not a benchmark. This is Robert’s territory, and you’ll hear from him a few times a year on what’s driving markets and how we think about positioning.
Estate, protection, and legacy: Documents, beneficiaries, insurance, liability, and charitable giving. The stuff that only gets attention after something goes wrong.
Short, specific, and built so you can act on it that week.
The playbook is ever changing. We’re building this firm in real time, and you’ll see what we learn as we learn it.
What are the goals?
See your finances the way a CFO or financial planner does.
Know which decisions matter, what order they go in, and what each one touches.
Understand the mechanics well enough to act on them yourself, or to ask sharper questions of anyone you hire.
Walk away from every issue with something you can do that week.
Some of you will take this and run with it on your own. Some of you will decide you'd rather have someone run it with you. Either is a good outcome.
Playing the Long Game
The name changed. The thinking didn’t.
A CFO’s job is making sure this year’s decision doesn’t cost you the next ten.
Read the issues to come with one question in mind: what would I do if I were running this household like a company?
Interested in Learning More?
Let’s start with a short, 20-minute conversation to see if there’s an opportunity to improve clarity, structure, or long-term outcomes.
Check out our website.
Upholdings Private Wealth is a registered investment adviser in applicable jurisdictions. Registration does not imply any specific level of skill or training.
This newsletter is provided for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. It is not an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or investment strategies.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. There is no guarantee that any strategies discussed will achieve desired outcomes.
Information is provided “as is” without warranty as to accuracy or completeness, and opinions expressed are subject to change without notice.
I like that concept