Thomas Anzivino

I founded Longitude Financial Planning to solve two major problems in the financial industry.

Problem 1: Most financial advisors ignore folks in the wealth building process. They are left to struggle and make mistakes until their assets meet the minimums that so many advisors require.

Problem 2: Once someone has built enough wealth to attract a financial advisor, they begin to pay 1% of their assets per year. Paying 1% AUM (assets under management) can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees and lost growth over time.

Most advisory firms are designed to manage wealth after it has been accumulated. Longitude helps ambitious people make better decisions and avoid mistakes while building wealth.

How much should you keep in cash? Should you pay down debt or invest? Are you using your employee benefits effectively? How should you balance retirement, buying a home, starting a business, and enjoying your life today?

Those were the questions I had, so after graduating college, I scheduled a meeting with my parents' financial adviser and asked.

His response was muted. He didn't have any tools or strategies for people building wealth. His business was to invest clients' money for market-beating performance. Without an account over $100,000, there wasn't anything he could help me with.

I was disappointed, but it wasn't his fault. He wasn't the owner of the business and didn't have the power to help. His business wasn't built for young, ambitious folks like me.

The advice I got at 22, "Come back when you have some money to invest," stuck with me.

Ten years later, I founded Longitude Financial Planning to help ambitious professionals and business owners make better financial decisions while they build wealth. Clients do not need a minimum investment account to receive financial-planning advice.

Our work can extend beyond an investment portfolio to include cash flow, debt, employee benefits, taxes, insurance, real estate, business ownership, and other decisions that impact a client's financial future.

Longitude is an independent, fee-only, fiduciary financial advisory; built to the highest standard of care in the industry.

When we manage assets for clients, we don't charge the traditional 1% AUM fee. Most of our clients pay 0.20% when bundling asset management with our coaching or wealth management services. Our significantly lower asset management fees keep money growing and compounding in our clients' accounts.

As a fiduciary, I'm legally bound to put my clients' interests before my own and disclose any conflicts of interest I might have. Many advisors aren't fiduciaries; they can put their interests before clients' interests and don't need to disclose conflicts of interest.

This structure matters, but it is not the ultimate goal. The best time to receive financial guidance is not after you have already built wealth. It is while your most important decisions are still ahead of you. Once you've built wealth, management fees shouldn't materially impact the spending power you have in your retirement years.

P.S. I write Love & Wealth, a free newsletter about relationships and money. On Sundays, I share conversations with millionaires about navigating money in a relationship, and on Wednesdays, I share practical lessons about building and managing wealth.