“A judgment-free zone for people coming in and talking about their finances.” This company motto is proudly displayed on one of the main walls in the BG Wealth Management office. An adjacent wall boasts dozens of client pictures– a purposeful arrangement reminiscent of what it would feel like to walk into a family home. Not only are these items on display, but they are lived out by owner Barbara Gulin, whose care for her clients goes far beyond what they have to offer.
“When people come and work with us, it's not a transactional event. It's a relationship event,” Gulin said. “You look at how our office is laid out and you feel like you're sitting in my living room, not in my company.”
As someone who has walked through the death of a child and medical scares of her own, Gulin has faced the reality of hard financial conversations. Her experiences not only give her an empathetic approach in her business, but one that is honest and realistic for every situation.
“I saw such a need for people to get honest, unbiased advice, where a commission doesn't hang in the balance,” she said. “There are too many people out here that have gotten wrong advice, poor advice or gone through some sort of life-changing event that they weren't adequately prepared for financially.”
A passion of hers is helping people avoid a potentially life-changing situation sitting in their bank accounts now. Gulin does not pull any punches when entering into a tax conversation, saying much of the money set aside for retirement might not be completely in the clear.
“You don't want to mess with the IRS. Nobody wants to find out the hard way that they did it wrong,” she said. “Part of what I do as a fiduciary is help people figure out how to pay the taxes they owe but not pay too much.”
A point of emphasis for Gulin is that it is never too early or too late to start the conversation, no matter your age.
“Everybody walks their path in life. You've gotten to where you are by doing what you've done. If you want to make changes, you need to do something different.” she said. “You don't necessarily know if you need to make changes until you talk to an expert about it.”
Choosing that expert can seem daunting and complicated. With so many options in the world, Gulin has built a reputation that stands tall above the rest.
“As somebody who is completely independent, I'm not beholden to a specific company to market a specific product, and I am not trying to meet a sales quota that somebody says I have to meet so I can keep my doors open,” she said. “That's a big difference between me and the guy at Edward Jones, State Farm or Merrill Lynch.”
Sitting down with any client and walking them through the difficulty of life or the joy of financial stability is important to Gulin and her team. It’s an opportunity they do not take lightly, and one they welcome, no matter how good, bad or ugly the situation may seem.
“We've had the honor of helping several families as their loved ones pass away, to make sure they've got all the assets accounted for, transfer the ownership of everything and continue the legacy the way those people wanted it to go,” she said. “It's an honor to be entrusted with something like that by another human being.”
What Barbara wants you to know in your 20s and 30s:
You can start now to set up a tax-free income source for yourself, as well as secure the legacy for your family, just by planning ahead. They don't teach you this in school. They teach us that we need the latest iPhone. They teach us that we need the biggest house. They teach us that we need the latest car with all of the bells and whistles, when in reality you're spending yourself into oblivion. I want you to have nice things and enjoy them, but you have to learn to pay yourself.
Since we know that taxes are going to go up at some point, there are ways that you can leverage your savings in your favor so that you have a bigger bucket of money to dip into when you retire that is tax-free or that you've already paid the taxes on.
What Barbara wants you to know in your 40s and 50s:
Hopefully, you're working for a company that offers some sort of retirement plan. My advice is to always go with the Roth option if there is one. A Roth 401k or a Roth 403B or a Roth TSP doesn't have the same income restrictions on it that a Roth IRA does. It's about paying the taxes now. We know what we're paying now. We don't know what we're going to be paying in the future. The name of the game is to build your tax-free bucket as big as possible.
What Barbara wants you to know if you are retirement age:
If you're getting ready to retire and even if you've got somebody you've been working with, your financial future deserves a second opinion. If you get a critical medical diagnosis, you're going to go get a second opinion. We're talking about your lifestyle and your nest egg for the rest of your life. That deserves a second opinion too.
What I want you to understand is there's a chunk of money that already belongs to the IRS sitting in those pre-tax retirement accounts. The question is when are we going to do it and how are we going to do it efficiently? I want to tell you it's not too late to put a tax plan into effect. There are things that we can do, even post-retirement to help reduce that future tax liability and help give you your own tax-free bucket of money that you can access in a few years.
I am not trying to meet a sales quota to keep my doors open. That's a big difference between me and the guy at Edward Jones.
When people come and work with us, it's not a transactional event. It's a relationship event.
We're talking about your lifestyle and your nest egg for the rest of your life. That deserves a second opinion.