The jobs behind
running your own wealth.
Practical guides for hands-on households — choosing the right dashboard, running multi-entity finances, harvesting losses across custodians, deciding what professional help is worth, and keeping the estate picture honest.
How to choose a net-worth dashboard for a complex household
The nine criteria that separate a real net-worth dashboard from a budgeting app once your balance sheet spans multiple custodians, a trust or LLC, and equity comp — and the questions to ask before you connect a single account.
How to manage multi-entity household finances yourself
A working system for running a household that spans a trust, an LLC, joint accounts, and private funds — entity mapping, one balance sheet per owner, K-1 and capital-call season, and what to hand your CPA.
Tax-loss harvesting across multiple brokerages: a DIY guide
How self-directed investors harvest losses across multiple custodians without tripping IRS §1091 — cross-account wash-sale rules and what good software checks.
Do you really need a financial advisor? An honest framework
A straight answer to whether you need a financial advisor: what the decision actually turns on (complexity, time, temperament), what advisors genuinely add, when self-directed works, and how to be well-organized either way.
What financial-advisor fees really cost you over time
How to compute what you're actually paying for financial advice — AUM percentages into dollars, the compounding drag over decades, fund fees stacked on top, and the questions that reveal whether the fee is earning its keep.
How to pay less in taxes: the levers that actually move the number
The legitimate ways high-income households reduce taxes — account location, cross-account loss harvesting, capital-gains bracket management, charitable structure, and equity-comp timing — ranked by leverage, with the 2026 numbers.
How much can you give your kids tax-free? The 2026 numbers
2026 gifting, precisely: the $19,000 annual exclusion ($38,000 per couple, per child), the $15M lifetime exemption, unlimited direct tuition and medical payments, 529 superfunding, and why what you give matters as much as how much.
How much do you need to retire — and how much can you safely spend?
The retirement number without the mystique: real spending × 25 as a starting point, why taxes and account types bend it, what the 4% rule actually says, and how safe-spending guardrails work once you're there.
Too much in one stock? A framework for concentrated positions
How to think about a concentrated stock position: when concentration is actually a problem, the full menu for unwinding one (staged sales, loss pairing, charitable routes, exchange funds, NUA), and the tax math that shapes the pace.
How to see your whole estate plan — and your probate exposure
Your estate plan is what your titling and beneficiary forms say, not what your documents intend. How to map every asset to how it actually transfers, spot probate exposure and unfunded trusts, and keep the picture current.
Pay off the mortgage or invest? How to run your own numbers
The mortgage-vs-invest decision as arithmetic: your true after-tax mortgage rate (usually just the rate), the honest comparison against a return you'd have to assume, and the liquidity, risk, and sleep factors the spreadsheet can't see.