Wealth with Intention

Updated September 2026

One of the most common things I hear from business owners sounds a lot like this. "I already have an accountant. Why would I need a financial planner?"

It is a fair question, and the short answer is that they do different jobs. An accountant focuses on your business's numbers, your tax filings, and tax-aware business decisions. A financial planner focuses on what your business is creating for you personally, including your retirement, investments, insurance, estate plan, and exit strategy. Most business owners benefit from both, working together.

Here is how the two roles differ, how they compare to a bookkeeper, controller, and CFO, where owners often end up with gaps, and how to tell whether you have one.

Accountant vs. financial planner at a glance

The short version: your employer match is the highest-return money in your financial life, and three fairly ordinary mistakes cause people to miss part of it. You can check all three yourself in about fifteen minutes using your Summary Plan Description and your most recent pay stub.

Most people assume that if they are contributing to their 401(k), the match takes care of itself. Usually it does. But "usually" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and the exceptions are expensive.

What is a 401(k) employer match?

An employer match is money your company adds to your 401(k) based on what you contribute. It is compensation you have already earned. You just have to meet the plan's conditions to receive it.

Two formulas cover most plans:

• 100% of the first 3%, then 50% of the next 2%. You contribute 5% of pay, your employer adds 4%.
• 50% of the first 6%. You contribute 6% of pay, your employer adds 3%.

Your exact formula lives in your Summary Plan Description, the document your p...

What should you do with a divorce settlement?

Park the money somewhere safe, wait 60 to 90 days before making any permanent decisions, and then invest it according to when you will actually need it. A settlement is not one pot of money. It is several different kinds of money with different tax rules, and treating it as a single number is the most expensive mistake women make in the first year after a divorce.

This article is about what happens after the decree is signed. If you are still negotiating, still waiting on a QDRO, or still deciding which assets to ask for, that is a different set of questions. Intentional Divorce Solutions covers that ground in detail, starting with how to divide assets in a divorce.

The first 90 days: do less than you think you should

There is enormous pressure to act quickly. Your attorney is done. The accounts have transferred. Everyone around you has an opinion about what you should do with the money.

Do less.

The only urgent items in the first 90 days a...

If you've just left a job, or you're about to, there's a good chance an email from HR is sitting in your inbox with a subject line like "Important information about your retirement account." It probably came with a stack of forms and very little explanation.

I get it. This is one of those money decisions that feels small and administrative until you realize a wrong move can trigger taxes, penalties, or years of quietly higher fees. The good news is that a rollover is very doable once you know how the pieces work. I've spent more than a decade as a financial advisor helping women through exactly this, and I want to walk you through it the way I would if you were sitting across the table from me.

The Short Version

When you leave an employer, you can generally roll your old 401(k) into an IRA, move it into your new employer's plan, leave it where it is, or cash it out. Cashing out is almost always the most expensive choice. For the other three, ask for a direct rollover, which means th...

Every year, the same question lands in my inbox from smart, accomplished women who are trying to do right by their financial futures: "Leah, should I just max out my 401(k)?"

It sounds like such a simple yes-or-no question. And the internet will happily give you a confident, one-size-fits-all answer. But here is the truth: it depends, and the details of that dependency matter enormously.

In 2026, the IRS lets you contribute up to $24,500 to a 401(k) if you are under 50. If you are 50 or older, you can add an $8,000 catch-up contribution, for a total of $32,500. Some plans also allow a higher catch-up of $11,250 for ages 60 through 63. Maxing that out sounds virtuous. Responsible. Like the financial equivalent of eating your vegetables. But blindly maxing your 401(k) without considering your full financial picture can actually work against you.

First: What Is the Case FOR Maxing It Out?

Let us give credit where it is due. There are genuinely compelling reasons to contribute as much as p...

By Leah Hadley, AFC®, CDFA®. Last updated September 2026 with the current Social Security figures.

"When should I start taking Social Security?" is one of the questions we hear most often from people approaching retirement. It sounds like it should have a simple answer. It does not, because the best choice depends on your health, your other income, your marital status, your taxes, and how long you expect to work. Let's walk through how the decision works and what to weigh so you can choose on purpose instead of by default.

By Leah Hadley, AFC®, CDFA®. Last updated September 2026.

So far in this series, we have looked at how recency bias pulls investors off course, why saving comes first, how to invest broadly in markets that are both robust and random, and why the price you pay matters.

Applied together, those give you a sturdy way to capture the returns markets have to offer. The last two basics are different. They are not about markets at all. They are about how you behave once the portfolio is built, and whether it fits your life.

By Leah Hadley, AFC®, CDFA®. Last updated September 2026.

In Part 3, we described markets as both robust and random. Today we turn to price. What does the price of a stock actually tell you, why are prices so hard to predict, and what does “the price you pay” mean for your own results?

Why Does One Share Cost $763,600 and Another $509.77?

In mid-September 2026, one Class A share of Berkshire Hathaway traded at roughly $763,600. A Class B share of the same company traded a...

By Leah Hadley, AFC®, CDFA®. Last updated September 2026.

In Part 2, we covered saving, the first of five basics that have served investors well over time. Now that you have money to invest, the next question is where returns actually come from and what that means for how you should invest. That is the subject of Part 3.

Two Ideas That Are Both True

Consider two ideas about the market that seem to...

By Leah Hadley, AFC®, CDFA®. Last updated September 2026.

Year-end has a way of arriving before we feel ready for it. The holidays fill the calendar, work wraps up or ramps up, and money decisions get pushed to "after the new year." That is usually when small things slip through the cracks.

Most year-end advice is a tax checklist. Taxes matter, and we cover them separately in our Tax Tips for the End of the Year. This post is different. It is about the parts of your financial life that a tax checklist misses, like how your money actually moved this year, whether your plan still fits your life, and who is protected if something goes wrong. Think of it as a year-end reset you can finish in a few evenings.