The Foundation FORMula
A Wealth Management Process Built Around Your Life — Not Just Your Portfolio
Paul Axberg, CFP® CPA CIMA® starts every client relationship the same way: by understanding what matters most to you, then building a connected plan around it — investments, taxes, and retirement income all working together.
Why Retirement Planning Requires a Different Approach
During your working years, your advisor and your accountant can operate independently without it costing you much. Retirement changes that.
The moment you stop receiving a W-2, your tax burden becomes self-determined. The accounts you draw from, the order you draw from them, and the investment decisions made inside those accounts all carry direct tax consequences — every year, for the rest of your life.
Paul Axberg designed the Foundation FORMula so those decisions are never made in isolation. Investment management and tax planning handled by the same person, with the whole picture in view.
Step 1: Discovery
Understand Where You're At Financially & Where You Want To Be
The Foundation FORMula for wealth management begins with understanding your goals in all areas of your life, viewed through the lens of your financial health.
We’ll book a fit meeting with you to help sort priorities, and once we get an idea of where you want to be, we can consider where you’re at now, and how we can help get you going in the right direction. Each letter in FORM spells out a different facet that we’ll explore:
Recreation & Hobbies
Financial planning is not only about responsibilities but also about creating space for recreation and personal interests. Activities such as travel, sports, or creative hobbies often require thoughtful allocation of resources, both during working years and in retirement.
Money & Savings
Managing money and savings provides the structure that supports both immediate needs and future goals. A good financial plan takes into account day-to-day cash flow, emergency reserves, investment strategies, and long-term savings objectives.
Family & Relations
One of the most important parts of life is family. Consequently, your financial management plan should consider how you can benefit your children, parents, siblings, or spouse. Whether you need legacy planning so that your children can benefit from your wealth or risk management so you can preserve stability for your loved ones, financial management should always consider family.
Occupation & Income
Occupation and income form the financial core that supports other areas of life. A comprehensive plan considers both current earnings and future changes, such as career growth, business income, or retirement transitions. This includes accounting for sources like pensions, Social Security, and retirement account distributions.
Step 2: Design
Formulating A Strategy
After understanding the resources you have and where you want to be, we can begin step two in the Foundation FORMula: the creation of a unique strategy designed to help you pursue your goals. Our in-house team, comprised of tax, wealth, and insurance professionals will develop a plan that accounts for the most important aspects of your financial life. We start with our 7 pillars approach:
Pillar #1: Wealth Management
Paul builds client portfolios using a disciplined, model-based approach — institutional-grade portfolios designed to be low-cost and tax-efficient, matched to each client’s risk tolerance and retirement timeline. Paul also has the flexibility to offer multiple managers and management styles on one platform, giving each client the approach best suited to their situation. That institutional depth is applied through Paul’s Certified Investment Management Analyst® (CIMA®) designation, earned at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and issued by the Investments & Wealth Institute.
Pillar #2: Risk Management
Managing risk in retirement means striving to protect your assets at every level — how they are held, how they are structured, and how your broader financial plan is built for the unexpected.
At the planning level, risk management means identifying and addressing the threats that can quietly undermine a retirement plan. Paul evaluates approaches to stress-test portfolios across a range of market scenarios, and examines cash flow needs, liquidity requirements, and tax exposure. Sequence of returns risk, market risk, longevity risk, and interest rate risk are all part of the conversation — because in retirement, the timing of what happens matters as much as what happens. Insurance, protection, and estate planning strategies are woven in so that your plan is built with real-world implications in mind.
Pillar #3: Tax Planning
As a CPA with 27 years of experience managing taxes in retirement, Paul brings something uncommon to wealth management: the ability to manage your investments and apply tax strategies throughout retirement under one roof, with one person who sees the full picture. That means evaluating Roth conversion opportunities, withdrawal sequencing across taxable and tax-deferred accounts, Social Security timing, and investment decisions, all through a tax lens. Because Paul manages both your investments and your taxes, every decision is made in a way that takes taxes into consideration.
Pillar #4: Legacy Planning
Legacy planning addresses the transfer of assets and wealth across generations. It considers wills, trusts, and asset protection planning to align your legacy with personal goals. We work with your desired estate planning attorney to make sure your legacy planning aligns with your financial planning.
Pillar #5: Philanthropy
Philanthropy involves planning charitable giving in a way that reflects personal values and can potentially have tax benefits.
Pillar #6: Cash Management
Cash management is about handling liquidity well, which means that cash is in an easy to access place when you need it.
Pillar #7: Value Added Services
Some of the most important work we do for clients has nothing to do with portfolio performance. Retirement brings life transitions that go well beyond finances — the loss of a spouse, a health diagnosis, a conversation with adult children that nobody knows how to start. When those moments happen, we are here for more than account management. We help families navigate financial estate settlement, coordinate with attorneys and other professionals, and make sure the financial side of a difficult time is handled with care so families can focus on what matters most. We connect clients with trusted resources outside of finance when the need arises — geriatric care managers, elder law attorneys, assisted living advisors, and Medicare specialists. When a client or their family is trying to understand the real cost of memory care or evaluate assisted living options, we help them think through the financial implications as part of the broader retirement plan. We also make time for the conversations that are not on any agenda. Talking through whether it makes financial sense to move closer to family. Being available when a client just needs a trusted voice. Managing money is the foundation of what we do. But the relationships we build with clients and their families over years and decades — that is what makes this work meaningful.
Step 3: Deployment
Strategy Implementation
In step three of the Foundation FORMula, we’ll meet to explore your financial plan, covering recommendations across wealth management, risk, tax, legacy, philanthropy, cash, and value-added services. You’ll see how each part connects and how your wealth management plan addresses current priorities and long-term goals.
Ongoing Adjustments
Financial planning is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. Regular checkups help ensure your plan stays aligned with your goals, life changes, and evolving circumstances. During these reviews, we examine the most important facets of your plan. These checkups allow adjustments as needed, keeping your financial strategy coordinated and aligned with your priorities over time.
One Process. One Advisor. Everything Connected.
The Foundation FORMula works because Paul is with you at every step — he’s the one who knows your life in Discovery, builds your strategy in Design, and stays with you through Deployment. Your financial planning and wealth management are handled by the same person, working alongside the Axberg team and Paul’s broker-dealer/RIA, USA Financial Securities.
Retirement planning. Wealth management. Connected.
