Cavalot Capital

General

What is fee-only?

While not as common as it used to be, financial advisors in the past were often paid for the sales of products and via commission. This created a conflict of interest where they were potentially selling clients investments to make money rather than because it was in the client's best interest. Fee-only changes that. By paying a fee for service, it aligns the client with the advisor so that the client's best interests always come first. Learn more here.

Do you have a physical office?

We have two physical locations in California: in Truckee and Redding. We generally operate entirely virtual which enables us to take clients from around the country regardless of their location. Meetings are held via web conference or phone depending on your preference but in-person meetings can be accommodated for current and prospective clients.

Do you only take business owner or crypto clients?

No.. While many of our clients have a significant amount of their net worth in a business and/or crypto, it is not a prerequisite to engage our services. If you are looking for someone to help you solve any type of financial issue we would be glad to meet and see if we can be of help. If not, we have an extensive network of financial professionals that we would be happy to refer you to.

Financial Planning

What is Complexity Pricing?

For some services, Cavalot Capital evaluates the complexity of a client’s financial situation in determining the fee the client will pay. Cavalot Capital’s definition of complexity is the existence of circumstances, or lack thereof, that will require more time and effort of Cavalot Capital’s to deliver valuable advice to a particular client.

Factors that may impact complexity include, but are not limited to, the following:

Income and related tax considerations
Components of net worth, including high or low amounts of assets and/or liabilities and number of accounts
Marital and family status
Business ownership, employment status and employee benefits considerations including equity or crypto compensation.
Need for advanced tax planning such as real estate investment properties or Incentive Stock Options (ISOs)
Number of financial and life goals you would like to achieve
Existing (or lack thereof) risk management and estate plans
Timing of financial independence or retirement
Crypto & Digital Asset exposure

Why Isn't Investment Management Included?

Splitting the services up allows us to help people that may not have a lot of investable assets or their assets are locked up in a qualified plan (such as a 401k, 403b, etc.). Rather than have them pay the same price and not get the same standard of service we decided it is better to offer it 'a la carte' with discounts to those clients looking to bundle services. See the graphic below for a breakdown of financial planning investments vs investment management.

Why is so much of the Planning Process focused on goals?

The short answer is because while we all have an idea of what we think our goals are, most people don't really know and even if they do aren't actively working toward them. They conflate social norms, things they heard that sounded smart, someone else's goals, marketing, etc. with what they want out of their life. And they're rarely the same.

The three currencies of life are time, energy and money and I want to help everyone utilize them as efficiently as possible to create the life they want, not what someone else wants for them.

Finding what is truly important to you is the first step, then utilizing all your resources to make it a reality is next. Most planners will give you a one-page worksheet to write your goals down, but if we don't really know exactly what they are then how useful is all the planning that goes into achieving them? Instead we will spend several hours diving into that meaningful life, and you might be surprised what you discover.

Investments

What types of accounts can you manage?

We can only manage accounts that are held outside of your workplace - IRAs including Traditional, Roth, SEP, SIMPLE. Taxable accounts including individual, joint or trusts and custodial accounts (UGMA, UTMA) and a few other less common options.

We are unable to manage any investments in a qualified plan, meaning no 401k, 403b, 457, ESOP, etc. We can however offer advice and recommendations on these accounts in our financial planning services, see the above graphic for more information.

Do all of your clients have to invest in crypto?

Absolutely not. Clients have varying interest in the space and while I am more than inclined to answer any questions and help them understand, at the end of the day it comes down to whether or not it is appropriate for each individual client. Any client that is interested must go through a detailed suitability process whereby we can determine if it would help them meet their goals and objectives given their situation. Clients are free to choose which areas they would like to cover and exclude any that do not fit their needs.

What types of investment management services do you offer?

We break down our asset management into two broad buckets - traditional and cryptoassets.

Traditional can be further broken down into our customized portfolios that include individual stocks and ETFS and our robo-advisor offering which consists of ETFs only. Find details and pricing for each on our Investment Management page here. We custody all traditional accounts at Schwab.

Cryptoassets are a separate asset class and service from our traditional asset management. Cryptocurrency and token investments are not for everyone and present their own risks and challenges, we require all clients interested in this option to undergo an extensive suitability questionnaire to ensure they are appropriate for their situation. Our digital asset portfolios consist of individual, direct cryptocurrency and token holdings which use Gemini as the custodian. For more information please see our Cryptoassets page here.

What is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional?

Most people think all financial planners are “certified,” but this isn’t true. Just about anyone can use the title “financial planner.” CFP Board benefits the public by independently certifying financial planners. Although CFP Board does not guarantee their work, CFP® professionals have met rigorous qualifications for financial planning. Only those who have fulfilled CFP Board’s rigorous requirements can call themselves a CFP® professional.

As part of their certification, CFP® professionals commit to high ethical standards. What’s more, a CFP® professional must acquire several years of experience related to delivering financial planning services to clients and pass the comprehensive CFP® Certification Exam before they can call themselves a CFP® professional.

To learn more, click here.

What is a Registered Life Planner® ?