The front door
The Pastor Retirement Checkup
Whether retirement is thirty years out or three, a focused review of where you actually stand, delivered in writing. One engagement. One fee. It is not an ongoing advisory relationship, and there is no pressure to become a client.
$599 for an individual. $799 for a married couple. One time, fixed, and quoted in writing before anything begins. Ready without a call? The request page has a direct start.
What you walk away with
Three things, and none of them is a sales pitch.
The work done before you show up
We go through your accounts, your plan, your allowance and your Social Security position ahead of the meeting. You are not paying us to read your statements out loud to you while the clock runs.
Ninety minutes with someone who speaks both
A working session, not a presentation. Every question you have been carrying about your pay, your plan and what happens to your spouse, answered by someone who has sat on the church side of that desk for two decades.
A written findings document you keep
What we found, the decisions in front of you, and the moves that matter in the order we would take them. Yours whether or not you ever work with us again. Take it to another advisor if you want a second opinion.
What we go through
- What you want retirement to look like. Before any numbers. Where you would live, whether you keep preaching, what you are not willing to give up
- What you are living on now. Actual expenses, because a retirement number built on a guess is a guess
- Where you stand today. Every account, what is in it, and what you owe
- What you are putting away, and whether that rate lines up with the retirement you just described
- Your church plan. A 403(b)(9) or denominational plan, what is actually inside it, what it costs you, and what it can do that other accounts cannot
- Your housing allowance. Whether it is designated the way the rules require, and what it may or may not do for you after you stop serving
- Social Security. What you are on track to receive. Or if you filed a Form 4361, where that leaves you, what it means for Medicare, and what can still be built from here
- How the money is invested, what that mix is actually exposing you to, and what we would change
- What your spouse would be left with, and what would change for them
- Written findings. What we found and the moves that matter, in the order we would take them
What it is not
- It is not an ongoing advisory relationship
- It is not a comprehensive financial plan covering every area of your life
- It is not a tax return, and we do not prepare returns
- It is not a sales appointment. We sell no products and earn no commissions, so there is nothing for us to steer you toward
We are a fiduciary in this engagement the same as in any other. Fee-only does not mean conflict-free, and our conflicts are disclosed in our Form ADV.
What happens
Four steps, about three weeks.
You tell us what we are working with
A short intake before we meet. Statements, your current housing allowance designation, whether you filed a Form 4361, and what you are actually worried about. We would rather you spend twenty minutes here than an hour of the meeting reading numbers to us.
We do the work before the meeting, not during it
Your church plan and other accounts. Your Social Security record, or the consequence of not having one. What the housing allowance is doing for you now and what it may or may not do later. The distance between where you are and what you have described as enough.
We sit down together
About ninety minutes, by video. We walk you through what we found, in order of what matters most, and you ask every question you have been carrying. This is a conversation, not a presentation.
You get it in writing
A written findings document you keep, with what we observed, the decisions in front of you, and what we would look at first. It is yours whether or not you ever work with us again. Take it to another advisor if you want a second opinion. That is a reasonable thing to do.
Married couple
The same review, run for two people. Two Social Security records, two sets of accounts, two life expectancies, and the survivor question that only exists when there are two of you.
Request the CheckupIndividual
The same review, run for one. Everything below is covered either way. The price is the only thing that changes.
Request the CheckupIf you are married, your spouse should be at the table. Two people is genuinely more work, which is why it carries a different price. It is not a different engagement.
If you already know you want help
This is where the relationship starts.
Some pastors come to us ready. They want their accounts managed and a planner in their corner, and they are not looking to audition anybody. Good. You still start here.
We are not willing to manage a minister's money before we understand the minister. Not just the balances. What you are building toward. What worries you. What your spouse pictures when they picture retirement, because it is usually not the same picture. The Checkup is how we learn that, and it is why nothing we do afterward is generic.
Honest answers
The questions people ask before they book
Does the fee count toward something if I become a client?
No. The Checkup is its own engagement and it stands on its own. You are paying for a piece of work, and you get that piece of work whether you ever hire us for anything else. We would rather price it honestly than dress it up as a credit and quietly raise the cost of everything else.
What if you find out I am in good shape?
Then we write that down and you sleep better. That is a legitimate outcome and it happens. What you are buying is a look, not a rescue.
Do I have to become a client afterward?
No, and we will not chase you. A fair number of people take the findings and handle it themselves, or take it to the advisor they already have. If we are not the right fit, saying so is part of the job.
I am nowhere near retirement. Is this too early?
It is closer to the opposite. The decisions that carry the most weight for a minister are the early ones, and a few of them are close to permanent. What a Form 4361 exemption would mean for the rest of your plan, and the fact that the chance to file it does not stay open. How your housing allowance gets designated, and whether anyone has ever done it the way the rules require. How much goes into the church plan while time is still on your side. At sixty-five those are history. At thirty-five they are still choices.
To be clear about one of those, the Form 4361 exemption is a statement of religious conviction, not a financial decision, and we do not advise anyone to take it or to skip it. We help you understand what it does to the rest of the picture.
We serve ministers who are building, not only ministers who are drawing. If you are early enough that there is genuinely nothing to look at yet, we will tell you that on the intro call rather than take the fee.
I opted out of Social Security years ago. Is it too late to do anything?
Under current law the exemption is irrevocable, so we plan around it rather than trying to undo it. That planning is real work and there is usually more room than people expect, particularly around Medicare. A bill that would open a limited window to revoke passed the House in April 2026 and has not moved in the Senate. We plan for the law as it is and we will tell you if that changes.
How do I pay, and when?
You pay after the engagement is scoped and agreed in writing, through our secure billing system. We do not take payment through this website and we never ask for account credentials.