Why Burnette Financial Planning?
Burnette Financial Planning specializes in comprehensive, fee-only financial planning and investment management services for individuals, families, professionals and business owners. You only pay a fee – agreed upfront – for financial planning or investment management services. There are no hidden costs. We do not sell products, earn commissions, or have to meet quotas.
Furthermore, Burnette Financial Planning is an independent fiduciary firm. You receive balanced, unbiased guidance that is 100% focused on delivering what serves your best interest.
When you choose us, you work directly with principals of the firm – Doug Burnette and Cheree Ray Burnette. We, along with Client Services Administrator, Erin Fontenot, are available to you at every stage of your financial life to address a full range of financial needs.
In addition, research, consulting and comprehensive planning services guide you on tax management, retirement income planning, and in many other areas.
A well-established network of nationally recognized and trusted strategic partners delivers key benefits to you. More, our ability to collaborate with your other advisors – lawyers, accountants, insurance professionals – simplifies your participation in planning, investing and managing your financial life.
Best of all, you get exemplary customer service. We are responsive, accessible, helpful when you organize the details of your financial life and generous with the know-how and tools to aggregate accounts for efficient and cost-efficient management.
Who We Help
Just Getting Started
Whether you are contributing to your first 401(k), creating a spending plan, or figuring out what you need, we offer financial advice and planning tools to help young working people make sound decisions for financial health and peace of mind. And we do so without pushing financial products you don’t want or need. You get the expert guidance you want to make smart financial choices for as long as you need us. Ask about our success being first advisors.
Making Major Life Changes
With over 30 years in the financial planning industry, we have supported many clients through major changes. A wife who has always depended on her husband’s financial decisions may suddenly be on her own. A young, married couple have a child and look ahead to college. A professional who has accumulated substantial assets is faced with divorce. A small business owner is unsure how to plan the succession of his business. That’s life. Whatever the change, Burnette Financial Planning helps you assess its impact on your finances and works with you to develop a plan to handle this transition. Ask us about some of these situations.
Nearing Retirement
Can you afford to retire? Will your money last? How much will your health care cost? Does it matter when you start Social Security? Retirement is uncharted territory for most people. We help you prepare.
At retirement, you must make decisions about how best to distribute your money. This phase of managing money can be more challenging than the accumulation phase of managing your money. It often causes more uncertainty and anxiety.
For many individuals, the goal is not to retire in the traditional sense of the word, but to be free to enjoy their retirement years.
These are times an experienced and understanding financial planner can be most valuable. Our Investment Philosophy includes specially-designed Distribution Portfolios to ensure continued financial security and freedom even after retirement.
Caring for Loved Ones
You can count on Burnette Financial Planning for sound advice about caring for elderly loved ones.
Old age comes to all of us, bringing a new set of conditions – and decisions – that affect financial health and peace of mind. How do you care for your loved ones and remain financially sound? How do you give them the best care and also protect their resources? When is the time right to begin estate planning?
Burnette Financial Planning helps you define and attain your personal and your family’s specific goals and vision by coordinating the right strategy, resources and support. This includes identifying immediate and long-range needs of elderly clients, estate planning, pre-and-post death Estate Organization and providing assistance in the orderly transfer of assets to heirs.
About Burnette Financial Planning
Leadership
Cheree R. Burnette, CLU®, ChFC®
Advisor
Douglas G. Burnette, Jr., MD, CFP®
Advisor
Erin Fontenot
Client Service Administrator
Burnette Financial Planning - one of a few.
Burnette Financial Planning is one of only a small number of fee-only advisory firms who use an Asset Class investing approach in the United States.
What does this mean?
An investment advisor who is compensated with third-party sales commissions has no obligation to recommend products in your best interests. By contrast, third-party incentives play no part in the portfolio management process of a “Fee-Only” advisor. Instead, the interests of the client are placed first and foremost. Additionally, Burnette Financial Planning is an independent fiduciary firm; it is held to the fiduciary standard which legally obligates us to put the client’s interests first at all times.
Asset-Class Investing
- It focuses your investment portfolio on your most important life goals rather than short-term market trends.
- It is based on science and academic research. It combines the latest discoveries in economics and investing with more than 80 years of market data and insights as well as in-depth studies of investor psychology and behavior.
- It is a disciplined and structured approach. It helps protect against the common behavioral mistakes that can compromise your long-term financial goals.
Comprehensive Financial Planning
Planning your financial future is an ongoing process. Times change. Needs change. Goals change. Markets go up and down and up. Professional and personal lives change. Our time-tested planning process draws out important criteria to establish a good rapport and develop a plan that serves your goals and priorities. First, are we a good fit for you? Second, do we fully understand your financial situation and where you want to be? Third, what do we recommend as an actionable plan to guide you there? Next, is everyone fully committed to this plan? Only with your complete approval – and commitment – do we put the plan into action and monitor it continuously to assure that you stay on track.
Whether you are accumulating or distributing assets, you don’t need to start with wealth to benefit from our financial advice and investing guidance. Unlike some firms who will only help you when you have big bucks to invest, Burnette Financial Planning believes everyone deserves a financial plan.
Investment Philosophy
Both comprehensive financial planning and investment management services are guided by an investment philosophy that has proved itself to be sound time after time.
Everything we do with you – and on your behalf – from financial planning to portfolio investing to managing assets and distributing wealth is guided by the principles of Diversification, Prudence and Discipline. We believe:
- Beating the market is virtually impossible.
- Owning a broadly-diversified portfolio of stocks is a prudent approach to investing.
- Risk and Return are related.
- Structured diversification can reduce volatility and enhance wealth.
- Building an ideal portfolio depends on each investor’s risk capacity, risk tolerance and investment preferences.
- A disciplined long-term perspective is the key to staying on track and realizing your key financial goals.
Strategic Partners
Burnette Financial Planning has long-standing strategic partnerships with among the most respected and trusted investment management and brokerage services in the country. Some of the best and brightest minds in the world of finance inform your financial planning and investment strategies.
Investment Management
We offer investment management services, defined as including giving ongoing investment advice and/or making investments for the client based on the individual needs, goals, and objectives of the client. You receive a customized and individualized investment program that delivers advice, ongoing assistance with evaluating and selecting investments, adjusting and re-balancing portfolios.
When managing assets, we use the services of LWI Financial, Inc. (Loring Ward), an SEC registered investment advisor. Loring Ward is affiliated with and offers securities through Loring Ward Securities, Inc. (LWS), member FINRA/SIPC. A qualified custodian will maintain custody of all client funds and securities. Custodians may include, but are not limited to, Pershing Solutions, Fidelity Investment, and Charles Schwab. We do not act as custodian and do not have direct access to client funds and securities.
Our clients benefit from this partnership with Loring Ward through increased research from their investment committee which includes Nobel Prize Laureate, Harry Markowitz, and nationally recognized behavioral finance expert, Meir Statman.
Dimensional Fund Advisors act as the money manager.
Blog
Just as the array of investing opportunities continues to evolve and grow, so does you financial planning and investment management team at Burnette Financial Planning. We never stop learning. Visit our site often to keep up with the latest news about investment strategies and views on how to strengthen your financial standing.
FAQs
Cheree Burnette entered the financial planning industry in 1984, after spending 10 years in the banking and legal professions. The training she received early in her career was some of the most extensive training available in the industry. Training, experience, and education are the pillars of success to which she subscribes. Her background lends itself to advanced financial planning; Estate Planning, Investment Planning, and Tax Planning.
Doug practiced Medicine as a Radiologist for over 30 years and his personal experiences as a client and investor led him to realize the importance of good financial planning and finding the right financial planner. He became a doctor to help people, and that desire continues in his career as a Certified Financial PlannerTM helping his clients achieve financial health. This health is about more than just money, it is about peace of mind. It is about living the life we want and caring for the ones we love. Unlike the slick advertising of some firms who state they can help you if you have $500,000 to invest, Burnette Financial Planning believes everyone deserves a financial plan. Doug’s favorite saying is paraphrased from a saying by Benjamin Franklin: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
Cheree Burnette has earned designation as a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC®), a Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) and a Life Underwriter Training Counsel Fellow (LUTCF®). Doug Burnette has earned the designation as a Certified Financial PlannerTM (CFP®). Both have extensive and complementary experience in financial life planning.
We offer advisory services in the form of full and modular (segmented) financial plans. These services do not involve actively managing client accounts. Instead, full planning services focus on a client’s overall financial situation. Modular planning services focus on specific areas of client concern. Examples of modular planning are: budgeting, cash flow, insurance, estate planning.
We offer investment management services, defined as including giving on-going investment advice and/or making investments for the client based on the individual needs, goals and objectives of the client. We offer a customized and individualized investment program providing clients advice among various asset classes, ongoing assistance with evaluating and selecting investments, adjusting and rebalancing portfolios.
Yes, and we are strong advocates for the fiduciary standard. We believe that the objectivity of the advice an investor receives should never be compromised, and the advisor's actions should always be in the investor's best interest.
We are fee-only financial advisors. If clients are not also contracting for investment management services, our financial planning services are charged on either a fixed or hourly fee, as determined jointly by the client and our Investment Advisor Representatives (IARs).
Our clients have sole discretion about whether or not to implement any investment recommendations made by our IARs. If clients decide to implement recommendations themselves, they are responsible for taking any actions or implementing any transactions required. Our clients are free to select anyone they wish to implement our recommendations.
When managing assets, we use the services of LWI Financial, Inc. (“Loring Ward”), an SEC registered investment advisor. Loring Ward is affiliated with and offers securities through Loring Ward Securities, Inc. (“LWSI”), member FINRA/SIPC. A qualified custodian will maintain custody of all client funds and securities. Custodians may include, but are not limited to Pershing, Fidelity, Schwab. We do not act as custodian and do not have direct access to client funds and securities.
Loring Ward’s Investment Committee determines investment strategies and monitors investment solutions to help meet both the current and future needs of investors and create a better wealth experience. Members of the Investment Committee include Dr. Harry Markowitz. Dr. Markowitz is best known for winning the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1990 for his work on portfolio selection. Another member is Dr. Meir Statman. Dr. Statman’s research focuses on how investors and managers make financial decisions and how these decisions are reflected in financial markets.
Dimensional Fund Advisors acts as the money manager.
Through our strategic alliance with Loring Ward and Dimensional Fund Advisors, we bring you access to some of the best and brightest minds in the world of finance.
We provide advisory services to individuals, families, business, estates and trusts.
It is very important to us that we have a Succession Plan. Most advisors have no plan in place. Our plan includes a written agreement with an experienced firm, who shares our values and philosophies. They have agreed to step in at a minute’s notice to continue offering the service you are receiving and will work with Erin Fontenot, our Client Service Administrator, who is currently working to become licensed as a Registered Investment Advisor, and is the potential future owner of Burnette Financial Planning. Loring Ward is also available, should something happen to us. We are proud to say that we have a Succession Plan designed with your needs in mind.
Many people ask where will our investments be? We count on Loring Ward.
For almost two decades, Loring Ward has provided portfolio management and back-office services to a select group of knowledgeable and successful independent financial advisors and their clients which includes Burnette Financial Planning. These services include client reporting, portfolio management, operational processing, securities trading, and educational and training support.
Loring Ward’s support services allow advisors to spend more time working with clients and less time dealing with the day-to-day management of operational details. Burnette Financial Planning receives a high level of service from Loring Ward including a dedicated administrative team assigned to service the needs of our firm and our clients. Loring Ward is headquartered in San Jose, California.
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