Person

How I Work And What It Costs

CB Charlene Boyd

People ask me three questions before they hire me: what do you charge, how do you get paid, and what happens in the first ninety days. Here are the answers in writing so nobody has to sit through a sales meeting to get them. If any of this changes I will change the page, and the fee schedule has been the same since January 2024.

01 The fee, plainly

One price, billed to you, covering everything. No product sales, no referral fees, no percentage of your savings.

What you pay

$265 a month or $2,900 a year for the whole household, business included, cancel with thirty days notice.

The fee is $265 a month by bank draft, or $2,900 paid once a year, which saves you $280. It covers you and your spouse, your business if you have one, and any dependent kids we need to plan around. There is no minimum on savings or income. There is no separate charge for the tax work, the extra meetings, the phone call from the parking lot of the dealership, or the year you need me four times instead of two. If money gets tight, tell me and we pause. I have paused eight clients since 2019 and six came back. Nobody has ever been billed for a meeting they did not have.

What I do not take

Commissions, trailing fees, referral kickbacks, revenue sharing, and percentage of assets fees. All of it, refused.

I am not licensed to sell insurance or securities and I gave those licenses up on purpose in 2019. That means I cannot earn anything from a product recommendation even if I wanted to. I also do not take referral fees from the CPAs, bookkeepers, attorneys, lenders or realtors I send clients to, and I ask them not to send me any. If one of them offers, that is usually the last time I refer to them. I do not charge a percentage of your investments. A percentage fee means the person advising you gets a raise every time the market goes up and has a quiet reason to talk you out of paying off your truck.

The one page fee schedule and the disclosure brochure, same documents I hand across the desk.

🔗Full fee scheduleboydledgerplanning.com↗
02 The first ninety days

Three meetings, one document at the end, and a short list of things you actually have to go do.

Meetings one through three

Gather, build, deliver. About four hours of your time total across three months.

Meeting one is 45 minutes and free. You bring last year's tax return and tell me what a good month and a bad month look like. I do not need statements yet and I will not ask you to fill out a risk questionnaire. Meeting two is where we build. Ninety minutes, statements and business books on the table, and by the end we have the real cash flow number and the tax number for the year. Meeting three is delivery. You get a written plan, usually five to nine pages, in order of what to do first. Most people leave with three tasks, not thirty. Then we meet twice a year and you call whenever something happens.

What usually comes out of it

Across the last four years, the first plan most often fixes taxes, the emergency reserve, and an old account nobody remembered.

Looking back at plans written since 2021, the same items keep landing at the top of the list. Quarterly estimated taxes, either not being paid at all or being guessed at. An emergency reserve that has never been sized against the client's actual slow season. Old retirement accounts left at former employers, average balance a little over $6,000. A retirement account that is the wrong type for a self employed household, usually a SEP where a solo 401(k) would let them put away far more. And beneficiaries that still name an ex spouse or a dead parent. None of that is exciting. All of it is worth real money and most of it takes an afternoon to fix.
03 Classes and community work

Free six week money classes each spring and fall, plus four pro bono households a year.

The rec center class

Six Tuesday evenings at the Adamsville and Pittsburgh rec centers, free, open to anyone, food provided.

Six sessions, 6:30 to 8pm. Week one is your own tax return read line by line. Week two is credit, what the score measures and what it does not. Week three is accounts and where to keep money. Week four is retirement when you are your own boss. Week five is insurance and what you can safely skip. Week six is getting paid, contracts, deposits, liens and the collections letter that works. About 200 people have come through since 2019. Roughly a dozen have become clients, which was never the point but I am not going to pretend it does not happen.

Current session dates, locations and the signup form for the fall class.

🔗Class dates and signupboydledgerplanning.com↗