Our Journey

Journey Financial Planners is an Independent Investment Advisory Firm registered in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Peggy McGillin, MBA and CFP board candidate, founded the firm in May of 2008 after working with recognized expert retirement and wealth management specialists on both coasts. From Ray Lucia, author of Buckets of Money®: How to Retire in Comfort and Safety, in Bellevue Washington and Winged Keel Group®, a boutique insurance advisory firm in New York City, Peggy learned best-in-class planning approaches and investment vehicles. Peggy studied the “fee-only” wisdom with Neil Collins of Collins Financial Advisors, a member of the Garrett Planning Network of fee-only planners.

Journey Financial Planners offers integrated financial planning for individuals and businesses that want smart, objective strategies for their retirement plans and investments. Journey Financial Planners works only for their clients. There are no conflicts of interests. If you run a company retirement plan, ask your representative if they can tell you about their revenue sharing arrangements. It is not likely to be volunteered.

Journey Financial Planners is a unique planning and investment advisory firm. We offer objective strategies to independent thinkers. If you believe that there must be a better way, let us show you a smarter route. It’s your journey no matter what your destination or estimated time of arrival! Here’s a summary of why our history is relevant to you.

Experience and access to tools and investments

Even after obtaining an MBA, enjoying a successful business career (both at a Fortune 500 company and at private firms), and investing for 20 years, Peggy was unable to obtain the best investments without going through a Financial Advisor.

Peggy was a committed “do-it-your-selfer” of the investing world because she just couldn’t turn something so important over to a broker. But the more she learned, the more she knew she had to learn. It wasn’t until she was “in” the financial services industry that she really learned the truth about investing. Unlike the marketing and media investing hype about individual fund performance, market timing and stock picking over 96 percent of a portfolio’s returns are based on the portfolio allocation and diversification. Most individual investors’ returns are lower than the broad based market index returns. This problem is easy to avoid if you have a plan.

She did meet with financial planners but always felt she was getting recommendations with no discussion of why the selected funds were selected other than their past returns. No one ever shared the amount of their commissions from those recommendations.

Why pay an advisor to get very little guidance beyond what you could get using an online allocation tool? She didn’t want to pay for the privilege of fitting into their cookie-cutter approach; what she wanted was the right answer for her and her business. She also was very sure that she wanted to work with someone who “got” the reality of being an entrepreneur. She wanted it all. Wanting it all, clarity and understanding, and not finding it led to the creation of Journey Financial Planners.

Disciplined process leads to the best plan for you

The array of financial services and distribution channels is overwhelming. It’s not easy for a mere mortal to get all this right. Often discretionary time is even more precious than discretionary dollars. For this reason, even those equipped and motivated to tackle their own financial planning can benefit tremendously by outsourcing their planning. Journey encourages you to reach out and learn what we can do for you. We have created an approach that allows you to test the relationship before you commit to an ongoing engagement. We love collaborating so do-it-your-selfers or outsourcers are in control yet have access to tools, investments and research that are hard to sort through on your own. Working with the different possible scenarios for your journey will highlight the choices that will give you the greatest leverage in reaching your goals.

Objectivity

For this reason, it may be in your best interest to hire a professional who earns no commissions, a professional who only works for her clients and has no temptation to be anything but objective in her recommendations. We believe in fee transparency and personal solutions.

My Journey

If you would like to learn more about Peggy McGillin’s personal journey and what lead her to pursing becoming a certified financial planner, contact us and we will email you her compelling story.

Explore

Call or email to explore our service offerings. It’s all about finding the right relationships. Complete and return our Confidential Questionnaire and benefit from a free one-hour consultation.