Get Your Free Retirement Assessment

Choosing a financial professional to hire can be difficult. We offer a free retirement assessment to ensure your needs match our expertise and provide you an opportunity to get a sense of what working with us is like before making a commitment.
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Ted Erhart, CFP® Norris Lake Retirement Planning

Get Started in 3 Easy Steps

Our simple three-step process is designed to identify opportunities to reduce taxes, increase income, protect against risk, and ultimately help you make an informed decision about working with us.

Step 1

Schedule an Initial Call

An initial call gives us both a chance to make sure your situation and objectives match our expertise. Your call will be with firm founder Ted Erhart. The discussion will focus on what you’re trying to achieve and how your financial situation looks today at a high level. The primary goal of this call is to determine if our specialization is in alignment with your needs. This call is typically 20-30 minutes.

Step 2

Discovery

The next step is providing some baseline information. We’ll provide a SHORT list of financial data for you to assemble and upload securely. This information will be reviewed and utilized to craft your retirement assessment.

Step 3

Review Your Assessment

Once the assessment is complete, we’ll meet by Zoom or in-person to review our findings. In plain language, we’ll explain where we see opportunities and potential planning strategies to optimize your retirement plan.

Make Your Decision Without Pressure

As part of our last meeting, we’ll describe the next steps and pricing, should you decide to engage with us. But we will NOT ask you to make an immediate decision. Our firm is looking for a limited number of long-term relationships, not a quick transaction. Therefore, we’ll only ask that you think it over and decide without pressure.

Schedule Your Initial Call Today


Frequently Asked Questions

Who is an ideal client of Norris Lake Retirement Planning?

We specialize in retirement planning for people that are very close to or already in it. We emphasize that effective planning goes beyond an investment portfolio. Our advice is designed to coordinate all the key elements of a retirement plan. This includes a strategy to generate sustainable income, tax planning, Social Security timing decisions, pension elections and estate planning. The typical client profile of our firm is individuals or couples age 55+ that have accumulated $1 million+ of savings and are seeking to work with a professional on an ongoing basis.

Who is not an ideal client of Norris Lake Retirement Planning?

Our focus is retirement planning for people 55+. For individuals in the early or middle part of their career, we suggest working with a firm that specializes in these demographics. Additionally, we are not stockbrokers. Our firm is not in the business of providing one-off investment tips or singular transactions. Finally, our firm would not be a good fit for do-it-yourself investors. Our advice model and fees are consistent with a full-service advisory firm. The clients of our firm hire us to manage their portfolio in conjunction with a retirement and tax plan. 

How are you different from other financial advisors?

We specialize in retirement planning. Most of the industry tries to be all things to all people…we don’t. We’ve chosen to focus on retirement planning to provide better advice and service to a narrower group of clients.

We’re independent. Our firm is not affiliated with any banks or insurance companies. We are in the business of providing advice, NOT selling financial products. 

We’re credentialed. Our founder, Ted Erhart, holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and the industry gold standard CFP® – CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation.

Fee-only fiduciary. Plain and simple, we do not charge commissions and as a fiduciary, we not only have the moral duty to put our client’s interests first, but a legal one. 

We practice what we preach. Many of the financial strategies or investments we recommend are things we implement personally. 

What are your fees?

We are compensated as fee-only fiduciary advisors. We charge fees based on the total portfolio value being managed. Our maximum fee for services is 1.35% with tiers down to 0.30%. We do not provide flat-fee or hourly advice. If you need assistance finding an advisor who does, please contact us and we will provide you with some resources.

Where would my investment accounts be held?

We have chosen Fidelity as the primary custodian of our accounts. This simply means that when we are managing investments for clients, the money is held within a Fidelity account. Clients have access to their accounts at www.fidelity.com.

What do you invest in?

Our portfolios are comprised of a mix of mutual funds, ETFs, and to a lesser degree, individual stocks and bonds. We utilize both actively managed and low cost passive funds.