Our Approach
Four steps, in order. Nothing gets recommended until the first two are finished, which is the whole point of them.
How does financial planning at KBR work?
KBR works in four steps and keeps them in order. First everything is gathered, including tax returns, Social Security statements, pension and annuity contracts, estate documents and current holdings. Second a written plan is built and delivered. Third it is implemented. Fourth it is reviewed on a set cadence against the plan itself. No product is recommended before the second step is complete, because a recommendation made without the whole picture is a guess.
The passage plan.
Each step has a defined output, so at any point you know what has been done and what comes next.
| Step | What happens | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| 01 / Soundings | Documents gathered and the current position established in full. Questions about what you want the money to do. | A clear statement of where things actually stand, including anything that was not previously visible. |
| 02 / Chart | The plan is modeled: income schedule, tax path, claiming decision, portfolio requirement, and the stress scenarios. | A written plan you read and keep. Where the numbers do not work, it says so. |
| 03 / Under way | Implementation. Accounts opened and funded, rollovers processed, allocations set, beneficiaries confirmed. | Everything in place and matching the plan, with the reasoning documented. |
| 04 / Correct for drift | Scheduled review against the plan, plus contact whenever something changes. | An arrangement that stays current rather than one that ages quietly in a drawer. |
The sequence is the method.
Plenty of firms perform these same four activities. The difference is usually whether step two happens before step three.
A product recommended before the plan exists is a solution looking for a problem. It might be a perfectly good product. Whether it is the right one for you is unknowable, because the information that would answer that has not been collected yet.
Gathering first also changes the conversation. Once the tax returns and the Social Security statements are on the table, the discussion stops being about products and becomes about trade-offs: what to spend, when to claim, which account to draw from, what to leave.
Writing it down matters for a similar reason. A verbal plan is impossible to hold anyone to, including yourself. A written one can be re-read in a bad market, which is precisely when people most need to remember what they decided and why.
The fourth step is where most plans quietly fail, not because the review is skipped but because it becomes a market update. Reviewing against the plan asks a different question: is the income schedule still funded, and has anything in your life changed the answer.
What makes a first meeting useful.
You do not need all of this to book a conversation. Bringing what you have makes the first meeting substantially more productive.
- Your most recent tax return
- Social Security statements for both spouses
- Recent statements for retirement and investment accounts
- Any pension or annuity contracts or benefit estimates
- Employer plan details, including any old 401(k) accounts
- Life, disability or long-term care insurance policies
- Wills, trusts and powers of attorney if they exist
- A rough sense of what you spend in a normal year
- Any dates that matter, such as a planned retirement or a child starting college
- The question that made you pick up the phone
Questions about the process.
What happens in the first meeting?
It is a conversation rather than a presentation. The purpose is to understand what you are trying to do, what you already have in place, and what is prompting the question now. Nothing is recommended and nothing is sold. At the end both sides should have a clear view of whether it makes sense to continue.
How long does the planning process take?
It depends on how complicated the picture is and how quickly documents come together, but a plan is typically built over several weeks rather than in one sitting. Rushing it defeats the purpose, since the value is in getting the whole picture accurate before anything is recommended.
Do I have to move my accounts to work with you?
No. Planning work and investment management are separate decisions. Some households engage for a written plan and implement it themselves, some move accounts, and some do a mix. What is not workable is asking for advice on one account while the rest of the picture stays hidden.
What if the plan says I cannot afford to retire when I hoped?
Then it says so. That is more useful information than a plan built on an optimistic return assumption, because there is still time to respond: work longer, spend differently, claim differently, or change what the money is being asked to do. The unhelpful version is finding out three years in.
How often will we meet after the plan is in place?
A cadence is set at the outset and written down rather than left informal, and it is scheduled rather than dependent on you calling. Beyond that, contact happens whenever something changes: a job ending, a death, a care event, an inheritance, a family change or a tax law change.
Start with step one.
Bring your last tax return and your Social Security statement. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
