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Beratung Advisors
Hypothetical illustration. Max and Joy Stahl are not real clients. This composite is shown for educational purposes to illustrate our planning process. It does not reflect the experience of any actual client and is not a guarantee of future results.

A Planning Story

Max & Joy Stahl

We weren’t behind. We were guessing.

Max and Joy are both thirty-eight, an engineer and a teacher, and between them they can hold a tolerance to four decimal places and run a household of five. What they couldn’t tell you was whether they were going to be okay. Three retirement plans across two employers. A pension neither of them had ever opened a statement for. Plenty of income, and no shared picture of where it was all going.

Are we on track? That’s it. That’s the whole question. We don’t need it to be good news, we need it to be an answer.Max & Joy, first meeting

We are values-based planners

We started with their values, not their statements.

Max and Joy were both raised on the same rule: never talk about money, religion, or politics. Then they got married, which quietly required all three. Fifteen years and three kids later, they still had never sat down and named what they were actually working toward. There was always another season to get through first.

We do values before we do dollars. So before we opened a single statement, we walked them through our Core Values Exercise. Each of them sorted the same fifty-two cards down to five, separately, and then we set the two lists side by side for the first time.

FaithMax & Joy
FamilyMax & Joy
AdventureMax & Joy
SecurityMax
Helping OthersJoy

They share three: Faith, Family, and Adventure. Then Max reaches for Security and Joy for Helping Others, and there was the whole story. That gap is why an $1,800 missions trip turned into an argument in March, not because either of them is unwilling to give, but because they had never agreed on what they could afford, so the answer defaulted to no.

Naming it changed everything. Once a couple can name what they value, individually and together, money stops being an argument and becomes a decision. Values-based planning gave Max and Joy a shared framework for every question that came after, a way to answer it together without a fight, and a way to show three kids what intentional actually looks like. Every recommendation in their plan was measured against this list, not against a benchmark.

Max and Joy and their kids playing in a pile of leaves in the yard

The whole point of getting the money right: more Saturdays that look like this.

Then we built the plan

With their values clear, the plan had something to answer to.

Nothing on the right required them to earn more or spend less. Every dollar was already in the household. Here is what we found when we opened the file, and what we changed, each decision traced back to something they had just named as mattering.

When they walked in
  • Three retirement plans, no plan$61,400 sat in a stable value fund earning 2.40% for five years, because nobody sent in an investment election after a recordkeeper change.
  • A pension nobody had countedJoy’s statement showed a $56,137 balance. She assumed that was what it was worth. It wasn’t close.
  • $38,000 a year they couldn’t findTheir budget worksheet showed a surplus every month. The savings account hadn’t received a deposit in twenty months.
  • The wrong names on the paperworkThree accounts named the wrong person or nobody at all. Her will, written before the marriage, left everything to her sister.
  • One bad day away from troubleOne times salary in group life. A disability benefit that pays far less than the number on the brochure.
After the plan
  • One strategy, three accountsConsolidated and reallocated, with the stranded balance put back to work and a quarterly fee on a closed account eliminated.
  • The pension modeled properlyValued as what it actually is, lifetime income, which changed the answer to their question more than any single contribution did.
  • $36,055 a year redirectedInto the 401(k), two Roth IRAs, the HSA, and a 403(b) Joy didn’t know she had. Funded entirely from money already leaving the account.
  • Documents that say what they meanBeneficiaries corrected across every account. New wills with a trust for three children who are eleven, eight and five.
  • Protection sized to the familyCoverage measured against what the household actually needs, not against what happened to come with the job.
$36,055
redirected annually, without spending less
$61,400
put back to work after five years at 2.40%
3 of 6
accounts naming the wrong beneficiary, or none
27
documents read, line by line

Two halves of the same job

Most of what changed for the Stahls wasn’t a decision they made. It was something nobody had looked at yet.

What we found

Seeing it clearly

Before anyone recommends anything, somebody has to read the file. All of it.

  1. A pension worth many times the balance printed on the statement.
  2. A retirement account earning 2.40% since 2021 because a form was never returned.
  3. A 401(k) headed to three minor children, with a spousal consent form that made it legally valid.
  4. A tax return that took the standard deduction in a year when itemizing was worth more.
  5. A disability benefit quoted at 60% that nets closer to 45% after tax and offsets.
What we changed

Acting on it

Then the decisions, each one traced to something Max and Joy said mattered to them.

  1. Raised the 401(k) deferral, sized to the plan’s own matching rules.
  2. Funded two Roth IRAs that had sat empty since 2015.
  3. Filled the HSA and invested it instead of leaving it in cash at 0.45%.
  4. Corrected every beneficiary designation in the household.
  5. Put a trust in the wills, so three children don’t inherit outright at eighteen.

Are you ready to get a clear answer?

Most people we meet aren’t behind. They’re guessing, and guessing is expensive in ways that never show up on a statement.

Find Out If You’re On Track

See Walt & Ruth’s Story →

Important disclosures. Max and Joy Stahl are hypothetical individuals created for educational purposes. They are not actual clients of Beratung Advisors, and the situation described is a composite illustration. It does not represent the experience of any particular client and should not be construed as a testimonial or endorsement. Results will vary. No portion of this content should be interpreted as a guarantee that similar results will be achieved.

The dollar amounts shown reflect contributions redirected within a hypothetical household budget and are not investment returns. Increasing the amount you save does not ensure a profit or protect against loss. Any references to probability of success reflect the output of financial planning software using stated assumptions; changing those assumptions changes the result.

This material is for informational purposes only and is not intended as tax or legal advice. Please consult a qualified tax or legal professional regarding your individual situation.