Unprofessional. Keep your finances far away. Many other…read morescary stories. Run, run away as fast as you can.

Wife and I were looking for finacial planning (NOT investment strategies); things like can we buy a…read morehome, should we make early payments on our student loans... After an initial meeting where we described the questions we wanted answers to and specifically stated we were not looking for investment advice, we met to see the results. What we got was a 50 page binder, of which 40 was investment info boilerplate (ie the difference between a roth and traditional ira) and 10 pages of charts/tables that i could have done myself in excel in a couple of hours (what our retirement account would look like at a 6% return vs. 8% and other scenarios). We proceeded to throw the binder in recycling bin when we got home. The whole transaction was a total waste of time and money for us. Based on other reviews and my experience, seems like Anne may be good at helping folks choose how to invest. I have no experience with that. However, I'd avoid her entirely if you're looking for someone who can look at the bigger picture and help you with family budgeting and financial planning.

I've known Amie for years as a performer, and after discovering they were also a professional…read morefinancial adviser, I jumped at the chance to meet with them. I've worked the last 15 years as a professional freelance musician and teaching artist, and had never met with a financial adviser, so I came in quite nervous, though eager to learn. Within minutes of our first session, she laid out some excellent core tenets for me to follow, assessed my financial situation, was realistic and transparent, suggested several easy steps for me to start. She did all this while being supportive and encouraging - allowing me space to drop any guilt or shame for having "started late" on things like building retirement savings and investments. She was professional, knowledgeable, kind, and followed up immediately with a write-up with action items for me. Needless to say, I feel infinitely more confident and clear on next steps, and I'm excited to continue working with her. Do yourself a favor and hire Amie for a financial planning meeting! It's one of the most important steps I took in adulthood and you won't be sorry.

My wife and I engaged Amie for financial planning help to get a sense of how far we are from…read moreretirement. We found her super nice to work with, but we also ended up feeling that the service she provided was too simple for our needs. I think the level of detail in her planning would be appropriate for someone who is new to the basics of financial planning, and could be the right choice for clients who might get overwhelmed by too many details. But we ended up not feeling confident in some of her advice because we wanted to get at the underlying details. Here is an example. Aime provided us with a financial calculator to predict whether our portfolio was sufficient to generate sufficient income for retirement. This calculator was based on a single predicted rate of return in the market. We have since learned that such calculators ignore a significant factor, called "Sequence of Return Risk", which are accounted for by other calculators. When I brought this up with Amie, she said she had no objection to us using other calculators, so long as we didn't get overwhelmed. There were a couple of other examples where we would have appreciated more detail. For example, she recommended a 100%/0% stock/bond allocation. Since this is substantially different from typical advice, it would have been nice to hear more justification than she provided. Anyway, I ended up feeling that Amie is a great resource for beginners to get their finances in order. But for people further along, where there are significant risks to making mistakes, the simplicity of her approach may be insufficient.

I highly recommend Sean Burgess' financial planning services. I chose Sean because of his…read moreaffordable, one-hour consultation session offering. I wasn't looking to spend thousands of dollars to have a financial advisor provide ongoing money management services. I really just wanted an expert to look at my situation in detail and provide advice that I could execute on myself. That's exactly what I got, and it was an incredibly valuable hour for me. Going into our session, I felt overwhelmed and without a plan for achieving my short and long term financial goals. Sean examined my situation (via a detailed questionnaire he had me complete in advance of our meeting) and provided, in a kind and straight-forward manner, both high-level perspective and clear guidance on specific actions to take. The greatest benefit of my meeting with Sean was that I came away with a much-increased clarity of my financial picture, which improved my sense of control and reduced my stress. I wouldn't hesitate to consult him again in the future when the need arises.

It has been several years since I went to see Sean so please keep that in mind but I just came…read moreacross his Yelp profile and realized I should add a review as meeting with him has stuck with me since then. I went to see him originally as I was searching for a financial planner that would really dig into my specific situation and help me "tune" my finances. At that time I had a general idea of finances, more than most people but less than some. I had read up on compound interest, opportunity costs... blah blah... and I had been saving about 50% of my paycheck and maxing out my 401k for decades. I've also tracked my spending in Quicken for about 20 years so I have an amazingly detailed view on exactly where all my money goes. With all this data, I was looking for a partner to put things over the finish line as I wrapped up my last few years of working. So now was the time that I needed another set of eyes on my finances to put an exit plan together and double check my math. It turns out that Sean isn't the person for this type of work. Although a SUPER nice guy with a passion for helping others, his advice from our one meeting was just the very basic fundamentals of financial planning. For example, for retirement he recommended that a person have X percentage of their current salary saved for a certain number of years. This is a common boiler plate idea that is a good starting point for thinking about finances. Unfortunately, this didn't fit my goal of seeing him as I wanted to "tune" my finances, not just keep sacking away as much as possible and use an off the shelf formula to determine success. I was willing to pay for personal advice but what he offered wasn't helpful or tailored to me in any way. I pointed out that this calculation doesn't apply to me because half of my salary as well as my max 401k match shouldn't be calculated into what I need to save for retirement. Will I keep saving 50% of my income during retirement? Of course not. When I pressed him on this, he didn't seem to have an answer. There were many more examples like this where he used a very basic spreadsheet to determine net retirement needed, current savings rates... which, for the right client, would be a great place to start. I do see that some people will get real value from working with Sean because they might not understand these concepts. What I am thankful to Sean for is that he inspired me to take matters into my own hands and dig deep into this project myself so I was able to retire at 50. This wouldn't have happened if I stuck with Sean. All of the resources that Sean brings to the discussion can easily be found for free on most any 101 planning website. But, if you want someone to walk you through these new concepts, Sean is easy to talk to and pleasant to be around. I would also plan on moving on from him fairly quickly as you will be doing yourself a disservice to stick with the basics that he provides for very long. Lastly, I would echo Daniel F's review almost verbatim.

Jessica at Beam Financial helped me understand all the overwhelming details about my finances and…read moreset me on the right tracks towards financial organization and financial freedom. She not only set me up with debt repayment plans, and projected income spread sheets, but helped with with practical strategies to increase my income and create the career I dream of. Jessica has calm, knowing and understanding, that is especially reassuring when it comes to vulnerable matters such as debt and financial worth. I couldn't recommend Beam Financial enough! Nicole P.

I'm a small business owner and I have been using an old version of Quickbooks to manage my…read morebookkeeping. I knew it was time to transition to the newer version, Quickbooks Online, but I was concerned about making mistakes with the migration of my data. I also needed training and guidance to learn the newer version. I contacted Jessica, and in three, 1 hour consultations she had me up and running! You can meet with her in person, or you can use a screen sharing software called Screenhero. She was able to see my monitor and we could converse through the microphones in our computers. It was a really efficient and convenient way to "meet." The experience was really great and has given me more confidence in managing my own books. Jessica is very knowledgeable and was really nice to work with! She helped me with Quickbooks, but she also offers personal financial planning, business financial planning, accounting services, and small business coaching.

I saw myself as financially hopeless before I went to see Kathryn. I mean, I was living check to…read morecheck and not always making it. I knew I was capable of getting things under control, but the road from here to there just seemed to hard to navigate without a map. Kathryn gave me that map. Gently, over the course of several sessions (and without judgment -- I can't tell you how valuable THAT is) Kathryn helped me and my sweetie figure out where our money went -- and then start channeling it in more productive ways. One cool thing about her is that Kathryn tries to get to the bottom of why you behave the way you do around money. (It's like food or sex -- it makes you act weird and crazy, but you can change all that if you respect what got you to this place, right?) She doesn't scold or shame you -- just has a great, positive attitude to help you go forward. I'll admit, it seems daunting, when you already have money woes, to spend a chunk of change on financial counseling. But when you're set up with a debt-reduction plan, monthly and yearly spending plans, and most important of all, a three-tiered savings plan, you'll see what a good investment that is.

All athletes know that to enable them to get the best results in any sport, they need a coach…read more How about in life? Do you know how deal with money? Whether you do or don't, I strongly recommend hiring a coach. A person - who will help you get rid of negative spending habits and encourage saving habits. I can only recommend one such person. Her name is Kathryn Amenta, and she is a money coach. As a mortgage broker, I helped many of her clients with their mortgage needs, after Kathryn's money coaching to help them create positive cash flow. Kathryn Amenta is the ultimate professional money coach to help you to accumulate savings.

I paid Brandi lots of money. She sent me aggressive all caps emails. She gave me homework, I…read moresubmitted it and then she schedule a one hour meeting where she reviewed it in front of me. I had big questions about long term investments and she told me I could save money by changing my cell plan. She came recommended from a friend, but my experience was nothing short of disappointing. The entire time we worked together she made me feel like I was lucky and she was doing me a big favor. She has some formula with some pretty antiquated forms. . I regret working with her.

Vincenzo is a God-Send! He went that extra mile beyond what…read morewe expected, always looking after us and jumped through many hoops to get us our loan. We really lucked out having him as our broker. I can't say enough about the excellent service and such a friendly and hospitable person to work with. My hat is off to you Vincenzo!

Excellent and very insightful analysis! Roshani provided and in depth analysis of our financial…read moresituation, and helped plan some complex stock options and taxes.

It would have help enormously to understand before the introductory call that the firm has a $2M…read moreminimum for financial advising services. Keeping the website clear and up to date would have saved both my time and the firm's.