Adrienne Alexander, CFP®, JD

My favorite question for clients is how can we maximize the quality of your life? What is your biggest wish for how to use your money? At many stages of our lives, we are so wrapped up in just doing the daily parts of our lives that we don’t make the time to be intentional with our money. For many (not healthcare workers), the pandemic stopped us short and we could focus on what was truly important to us. For me, it was the moment that a local attorney asked me "What do you want to accomplish? Where do you want to be in 5, 10 years?" Yes, I loved doing quality, cutting edge restructuring legal work in the city but I could choose less of a commute, less money but more time for my growing children. Today, our three children are grown, I love what I do and have much more balance in my life. Listening to each client develop their personal goals, and creating a roadmap with them to pursue the goals, learning with them, and building long-term relationships is what I love about financial planning with intentionality.

We believe that if you stop learning, you stop growing. As lifelong learners, we are always keeping up with the latest tax, trust, and estate laws, reading financial planning and investment news voraciously, and participating in conferences. It was with that in mind that I prepared for and achieved the CFP^® certification. The exam itself is a six-hour marathon, but it also requires more than three years’ experience in the field and a comprehensive review of the financial planning process, tax planning, employee benefits, and retirement planning, estate planning, and investment management. It was very fulfilling to accomplish and set a good example for our son Daniel who had begun interning with us.

Travel is one of my passions, both for the planning and the experience of how others live, but soon after the exam, we took a difficult heritage trip to Poland and realized just how lucky our family was to have left Europe immediately before World War II. We truly appreciate the sacrifice our grandparents made to leave, and how painful it was to their parents who never got to meet their grandchildren. In recent years, we have traveled to Oklahoma, Montana and most recently to the Dakotas as we try to fulfill a challenge to visit all of the United States. For every trip, we try to capture what we did and what we most enjoyed in an itinerary write up as well as pictures and we happily share them with our clients.

One of the greatest joys of my life has been the birth of our two grandsons, Aiden and Devin, whom we wish lived nearby, and our delicious new-ish granddaughter Ayelet, who lives right here in town. My parents have been amazing role models of how to be grandparents although they did not have the experience of having grandparents themselves. This is their legacy. We love being with and traveling with our kids and the grandkids and seeing the relationships continue to deepen in the next generation. This is one of the lessons I learned from a dear client who recently passed away who loved taking her children and grandchildren to Hawaii and other destinations. Yes, much of our legacy is financial but becoming a grandparent gave me the sense of wonder of the next generation and how that fits in a person’s legacy plan.