Comprehensive Financial Planning for the Decisions That Matter Most

As a Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC®), Wesley Bangs has completed advanced education in comprehensive financial planning designed to address the interconnected financial decisions individuals and families face throughout their lives.

The ChFC® designation encompasses multiple areas of financial planning, including retirement planning, investments, taxation, insurance and risk management, estate planning, and other complex financial planning strategies.

For individuals approaching or already in retirement, the goal is to look beyond individual investments and bring the different pieces of their financial lives together into one coordinated strategy.

What Does a ChFC® Do?

Financial decisions rarely exist in isolation.

A retirement income decision can affect your taxes. A tax decision can affect your investments. An investment decision can affect the amount of risk you're taking and the income your portfolio may be able to provide throughout retirement.

The ChFC® curriculum is designed around a comprehensive approach to financial planning—evaluating how these different areas work together rather than addressing each decision separately.

Depending on your individual circumstances, comprehensive planning may include:

• Retirement income and distribution planning
• Investment and portfolio strategy
• Tax-aware retirement planning
• Social Security and Medicare considerations
• Roth conversion strategies
• Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
• Risk management and insurance planning
• Estate and legacy planning
• Charitable giving strategies
• Planning for major life transitions

The Three Pillars of Retirement Confidence

At Momentum Independent Network, we bring these different areas of financial planning together through what we call The Three Pillars of Retirement Confidence: Income, Taxes, and Risk.

Rather than looking at each area independently, we evaluate how all three interact and how decisions made today may affect your retirement in the years ahead.

Pillar 1 — INCOME

A Guaranteed Retirement Paycheck

When you're working, a paycheck arrives regularly. Retirement changes where that paycheck comes from.

We help identify reliable income sources designed to cover essential spending and develop a retirement income strategy around your lifestyle, resources, and long-term needs.

The objective is to understand where your retirement income will come from, how much you may need, and how your different income sources can work together throughout retirement.

Pillar 2 — TAXES

Keeping More of What You Earn

How much you've accumulated for retirement matters. But so does how much of it you ultimately get to keep.

Different types of accounts and income can receive very different tax treatment. Decisions about when and where you take retirement income can potentially affect your taxes for years to come.

We evaluate tax-aware planning opportunities involving areas such as retirement-account withdrawals, Roth conversions, Social Security, Required Minimum Distributions, charitable giving, and the sequencing of different income sources.

The objective isn't simply to minimize taxes this year. It's to evaluate decisions within the context of your long-term and lifetime tax picture.

Pillar 3 — RISK

Preserve What You've Built

The risks you face while accumulating wealth can be very different from the risks you face when you're relying on that wealth to help fund retirement.

A significant market decline near or during retirement can have a very different impact than the same decline experienced decades earlier.

We evaluate the amount and types of risk within your portfolio and look for ways to manage downside exposure while keeping your investments aligned with your income needs, time horizon, and long-term retirement goals.

The objective is to understand how much risk you're currently taking, how much risk you actually need to take, and what that risk could mean for your retirement strategy.

One Coordinated Retirement Strategy

Income, taxes, and investment risk don't operate independently.

A decision in one area can directly affect the others.

That's why our planning process evaluates all three together—helping you understand where your retirement income will come from, how taxes may affect it, and how much investment risk you need to take to accomplish your goals.

The result is a financial strategy designed around your individual circumstances rather than a collection of unrelated financial products or investment decisions.

Advanced Education. Practical Application.

Earning the Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC®) designation represents a commitment to advanced financial-planning education.

More importantly, that education can be applied to the real-world decisions individuals and families face before and throughout retirement.

The objective isn't simply to accumulate investments. It's to understand how your income, investments, taxes, risk, estate considerations, and long-term goals fit together—and create a financial strategy built around the life you want to live.