The Freedom FORMula
Your Proprietary Path to Coordinated Wealth Planning in Columbia, Missouri
Wealth planning is not a product. It is a process, and it is a relationship, and done well, that process connects every dimension of your financial life into one coordinated plan with one team accountable for the whole picture. Done poorly, it is a stack of disconnected accounts that no one is actually reading together.
The Freedom FORMula is the process we built so that nothing falls through the cracks. Seven planning areas, three phases, and one team coordinating with your CPA, your attorney, your insurance specialist, and the other professionals already in your corner. We designed it for established families and individuals, business owners, and professional and NIL athletes who are serious about building real freedom, not just managing accounts.
We are fiduciaries, which means we are legally required to put your interests first, period.
Fiduciary Standard, Always
CFP, CPWA, CEPA, CPFA Credentialed Team
Independently Owned, National Horsepower
Seven Integrated Planning Areas
One Question No Single Advisor Can Answer Alone
The Silo Problem
Most financial advice arrives in pieces. Your investment advisor is watching the portfolio. Your CPA is closing the books and filing returns. Your insurance agent is selling policies. Your attorney drafted documents three years ago and has not heard from you since. Each of these professionals can be excellent at their own piece, and still, almost nobody is connecting the dots.
The cost of that fragmentation is not theoretical. It shows up as tax exposure no one flagged, withdrawal sequences that accidentally generate Medicare premium surcharges, estate documents that quietly contradict the beneficiary forms on the IRA, insurance overlap, insurance gaps, and a thousand other small losses that compound into a large one. Of course, most of those losses are invisible right up until they are not.
What Panoramic Planning Actually Means
Panoramic planning is the opposite of siloed planning. It is one team, one plan, and one accountable view of your full financial picture. We coordinate with your CPA and attorney rather than around them, and we design your investments knowing your tax situation, your tax strategy knowing your estate intent, and your estate plan knowing how your portfolio is structured.
When the parts of a plan know about each other, the whole plan gets better. That is the entire reason the Freedom FORMula exists.
This is what we mean by panoramic planning, and it is what the rest of this page walks you through.
Why We Call It the FORMula
The name carries the philosophy. FORM is an acronym for the four areas of life that wealth is supposed to serve in the first place: Family, Occupation, Recreation, and Money. We capitalize FORM because those four pillars are the reason any of this matters. The “ula” comes from the word formula, because the process around those four pillars is structured, repeatable, and accountable. Together: the Freedom FORMula. (Trademark pending.)
The Four Pillars of FORM
F = Family
The people you are building this for. Spouse, kids, grandkids, parents, the next generation. Every planning decision is filtered through this question first: how does this serve the family?
O = Occupation
Your work life, your business, your career, your purpose. Whether you are still building, scaling, or transitioning out, occupation shapes your cash flow, your timeline, and your identity in the plan.
R = Recreation
The way you actually want to spend your time. Travel, hobbies, faith, philanthropy, the second home, the boat, the volunteer work. Recreation is what financial freedom is for, so it belongs in the plan from day one.
M = Money
The accounts, assets, businesses, properties, and policies that fund all of the above. Money is the engine, not the destination, and the FORMula keeps it in that order.
How the Freedom FORMula Actually Runs: The FIT Process
Every Freedom FORMula relationship moves through the same four phases. The first is a conversation we both want to have, and the next three are how a plan goes from idea to executed reality.
Phase 1: The FIT Meeting (Intro)
Your first conversation with Freedom Wealth Planning is the FIT Meeting. This is not a sales pitch and it is not a product demo. It is a real conversation about where you are, where you want to go, what you have built so far, and what is keeping you up at night. We listen more than we talk, and after the meeting, both sides decide whether moving forward makes sense. Sometimes the honest answer is no, and we will tell you that directly and point you toward someone who is a better fit.
Phase 2: Discover
If we both agree there is a real opportunity to help, we move into Discover. This phase is where we collect detailed information about your situation: income sources, assets, liabilities, business interests, family dynamics, upcoming transitions, philanthropic intentions, and the targets that matter most to you. We are also assessing the things most discovery checklists skip: your tolerance for complexity, your view of risk across every dimension (market, longevity, health, liability, business disruption, estate), and what your day of freedom actually looks like to you.
Discover is not a one-meeting exercise. We allow it the space it needs, because the design phase that follows is only as good as the discovery underneath it.
Phase 3: Design
In Design, we synthesize what we learned into a coordinated plan across all seven areas of the Freedom FORMula. You see the full picture before anything is implemented, we show options, explain trade-offs, and tell you what we recommend and, just as importantly, why. We are fiduciaries, so we are not here to sell products. We are here to serve your best interest.
The Design phase is also where the relationship becomes personal. The plan is yours. It has your name on it, your numbers in it, and your priorities driving it, and if something on the page does not reflect what you actually want, we change it.
Phase 4: Deploy
Deploy is execution and ongoing oversight, which is also where most advisory relationships quietly stop and ours starts to compound. We implement the strategies, coordinate with your CPA and attorney, monitor progress against your targets, and adjust as your life changes. The plan is a living document, not a binder on a shelf.
Deployment is where Semper Providus shows up in daily practice: growing relentlessly, staying focused, and taking immediate action when something needs to move. Your plan is reviewed and refined as your life evolves, because the plan you needed five years ago is not the plan you will need five years from now.
The Seven Planning Areas We Coordinate Under One Plan
The Freedom FORMula organizes your financial life around seven integrated planning areas. Each one matters on its own. The real power, however, is what happens when they stop being treated as seven separate conversations and start working as one.
01. Investment Advisory
Strategic portfolio design built around your targets, your time horizon, and your tax situation. Diversified, evidence-based, cost-aware, and never disconnected from your income plan or estate intent. Custody through Schwab and Fidelity.
02. Risk Management
A full review of where a single bad event could derail the plan. Market risk, longevity risk, health risk, liability risk, business disruption, and the everyday risks that quietly compound. We design protection strategies that reduce exposure without overspending on coverage you do not need.
03. Tax Planning
Tax strategy that runs alongside every major decision, not just at the end of the year. Investment tax efficiency, income timing, charitable giving structures, entity considerations, and estate tax minimization, all coordinated with your CPA so nothing surprises you come April.
04. Lifestyle Planning
How your financial freedom actually gets funded. Coordinated withdrawal sequencing, Social Security claiming analysis, pension and annuity decisions, and cash flow design so your lifestyle is supported without unnecessary tax drag or premium surcharges.
05. Estate Planning
Coordinated with your attorney to make sure your wealth passes the way you actually want it to: to family, to heirs, to causes, and to the next generation, while minimizing estate tax exposure and avoiding the unforced errors that catch families off guard.
06. Philanthropic Giving
Charitable strategy designed around your values and your tax picture at the same time. Donor-advised funds, charitable trusts, qualified charitable distributions, appreciated asset gifts, and family foundation considerations, integrated with the rest of the plan.
07. Value-Added Services
Insurance evaluated as protection, not as a product. Life, disability, long-term care, property, liability, and umbrella coverage are reviewed against the actual gaps in the plan, with no incentive to oversell. Bill Grinde leads this area for our clients.
These seven areas are how we deliver on the panoramic claim. Every plan we build addresses each of them, even when an area is currently small, because the right time to know your estate plan needs an update is not after the funeral.
The Diagnostic Underneath Every Freedom FORMula Plan
Before we recommend anything, we ask one question: what is the gap between where you are today and the life you actually want to live, on your own terms? The exit planning industry calls these the Three Gaps, drawn from the work of Christopher Snider and the Exit Planning Institute. They are also the diagnostic foundation of the Freedom FORMula. Every client we serve is closing a gap. The gap simply looks different depending on who you are.
The Profit Gap
The profit you are leaving on the table by not operating at a best-in-class level. This applies to business owners.
The Value Gap
The enterprise value you are sacrificing because the business is not yet structured to be bought. This also applies to business owners.
The Wealth Gap
The distance between your current net worth and the net worth you need to fund the life you intend to live without a paycheck. This one applies to everyone: established families and individuals, business owners, and athletes alike, just at very different timescales.
Established families and individuals generally face one gap (the Wealth Gap). Business owners face all three at once. Professional and NIL athletes face a compressed, inverted version of the Wealth Gap: significant income arriving in a narrow earning window that has to fund the next 60 years. The Freedom FORMula is designed to identify the right gap, measure it in actual dollars, and close it with a coordinated plan.
The Other Professionals Already in Your Corner (and How We Coordinate With Them)
We do not practice law. We do not file your taxes. We do not draft trust documents. Our job is to make sure the people who do, the CPA filing your returns and the attorney drafting your estate documents, are working from the same plan instead of working in parallel without ever comparing notes.
Your CPA
Tax planning is woven into every layer of the Freedom FORMula, but it lives or dies on coordination with your accountant. We share the relevant pieces of your plan, flag the moves that have tax consequences before they happen, and review year-end strategies together. If you do not have a CPA, we can introduce you to one of the trusted relationships in our network.
Your Attorney
Estate plans are only as good as the documents that back them. We coordinate with your estate attorney so the trusts, the wills, the powers of attorney, and the beneficiary designations all point in the same direction. The mismatch between an outdated beneficiary form and a current trust is one of the most expensive errors we routinely catch.
Insurance, Mortgage, and Real Estate Specialists
Bill Grinde leads insurance evaluation and review on our team, and we coordinate with the mortgage and real estate professionals you trust as well. If you are buying a second home, transitioning an asset, or restructuring debt, the planning conversation happens before the transaction, not after.
NewEdge Advisors: Our Independent Platform
Freedom Wealth Planning is independently owned and operates on a national platform through NewEdge Advisors, LLC, a registered investment adviser. This is what we mean by “independently owned, national horsepower.” We have institutional resources, research, and technology, without the conflicts that come from being captive to a single product company.
Five Things That Make This Process Different
1. Panoramic, Not Siloed
Every decision is made with the other six planning areas already in view. So we never recommend an investment without knowing your tax picture, and we never structure an estate plan without knowing your portfolio. The plan is one document, not seven.
2. Built Around Targets, Not Products
The plan starts from your targets, not from a product menu. We work backward from the life you want to fund, then design the strategies that may get you there. We are also fiduciaries, which means our compensation does not change based on what we recommend.
3. Selective by Design
We do not try to be all things to all people. Selectivity is how we deliver the level of service our clients deserve. After all, capping our client roster is what allows the depth of work the Freedom FORMula requires. We are also clear about who we are not the right fit for, and the FIT Meeting is structured to surface that honestly on both sides.
4. Built for Complexity, Approachable in Practice
5. A Living Plan, Not a One-Time Document
CFP, CPWA, CEPA, and CPFA credentials, with deep experience in established family planning, exit planning for business owners, and athlete and NIL wealth planning. The Certified Financial Planner credential is regulated by the CFP Board. The technical depth is there when the situation calls for it. The tone stays “polos and khakis”, because good decisions rarely come from advisors who are hard to reach.
Your Freedom FORMula plan is reviewed, updated, and refined as your life evolves. Sempre Improvidus is one of our core values, so the plan we build today is not the plan that sits unchanged on a shelf five years from now. It also keeps pace with you, because financial freedom is not a destination you arrive at once. It is a position you maintain on purpose.
Who the Freedom FORMula Is Built For
The Freedom FORMula is built for people who treat their financial life as a system worth coordinating, not a series of one-off transactions. We serve three client types, and each one closes a different gap.
Established Families and Individuals
You have built wealth over 25 to 35 years and you want one team finally looking at all of it together. Your gap is the Wealth Gap, and the Freedom FORMula is designed to close it through coordinated investment, tax, estate, and income planning.
Business Owners
Your business is your largest asset and your most complicated one. The Freedom FORMula addresses all three gaps (Profit, Value, and Wealth) and includes the Five Ds contingency planning most owners never do. Jared Reynolds is a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA), and the Value Acceleration Methodology runs underneath the process.
Professional and NIL Athletes
Your earning window is short and the stakes are generational. The Freedom FORMula compresses the wealth-building timeline, coordinates multi-state tax exposure (the jock tax is real), and acts as a fiduciary gatekeeper against the pitches that show up around any athlete with money.
Common Questions About the Freedom FORMula
Is the Freedom FORMula a product?
What does the FORM acronym stand for?
How long does the FIT Process take from first meeting to a deployed plan?
Do I have to be a business owner to work with you?
How is the Freedom FORMula different from a comprehensive financial plan at another firm?
What credentials does the Freedom Wealth Planning team hold?
Are you fiduciaries?
Ready to See Where the Freedom FORMula Could Take You?
Freedom is built deliberately. It is closed gap by closed gap, decision by decision, year by year. The Freedom FORMula is how we help our clients do that work, and the first step is a single conversation.
No pitch. No pressure. Just an honest look at what you have built, what you want next, and whether we are the right partner for that next chapter. If we are a fit, we will tell you. If we are not, we will tell you that too and point you toward someone who is. Either way, you can leave the meeting with clarity you did not have before it started.
Prefer to call? (573) 875-3939
Columbia, Missouri Office: Monday-Thursday 8:30am -4:30pm CST. Friday 8:30am – 3pm CST.
Sarasota, Florida Office: Monday-Thursday 8:30am -4:30pm EST. Friday 8:30am – 3pm EST.
Clients served nationwide.
Advisory services offered through NewEdge Advisors, LLC, a registered investment adviser.