Investment Management
A portfolio built around what you actually want your money to do — and the work it takes to keep it that way.
Thirty households. That is the whole practice.
30
Retained households, maximum
Thirty is a ceiling on our own income, chosen deliberately. Every advisory practice eventually decides between more clients and more attention, and most quietly choose more clients. We wrote the answer down instead and capped it.
What that buys you is the whole of the attention, not a share of it — thirty households whose situations one person can genuinely hold in his head when a job changes, a baby arrives, or the market drops nineteen percent in a month. Not thirty files to glance at once a year.
Everything below this is possible because of that number. The construction and monitoring work does not scale to four hundred clients. It is not supposed to.
One hundred percent of the attention, for one hundred percent of the clients. That is the trade we made instead of growing.
How a portfolio actually gets built
Not a risk quiz and a model number. Here is the real sequence, and what it produces at each step.
Stage 01
Understanding yourself as an investor
Most risk questionnaires are five questions and a label at the end. That gets you a portfolio built around your mood on the afternoon you filled out the form.
We ask two separate questions instead, because they are genuinely different and almost everybody smashes them together:
- What can you stomach? When your account drops, will you actually sit still — or will you sell? We measure it instead of guessing. Most people feel a loss about twice as hard as they feel a gain of the same size, and where you land tells us what you would really do in a bad year — not what you would like to believe you would do.
- What can you afford? A completely different question, and this one does not care how brave you feel. How steady your income is, how long until you need the money, what you have set aside, and what the money is for.
Whichever answer is lower is the one we use. If you could stomach more risk than you can afford, we go with what you can afford. Nerve does not pay the bills.
What you get out of it is a number and a plain range for how much of your money belongs in stocks — instead of a word like “moderate” that means whatever the person saying it wants it to mean.
And if what you are actually holding drifts away from that number, the software says so. Nobody gets quietly left in something riskier than they agreed to. There has to be a written reason for it, and you have to sign off on it.
Sample data. Fictional household, shown to illustrate the process only. Not a recommendation and not any client’s account.
Stage 02
Set your boundaries
We have worked with people who prefer certain names, and with people who avoid names on principle. Tell us those. You should be comfortable with who you invest your money with.
We further assess:
- What each pot of money is for, and the year you need it
- What you will not hold, and why — industries, concentrations, anything you would lose sleep over
- What already exists elsewhere: the employer plan, the old account, the inherited position nobody wants to touch
- Where the tax exposure sits, and which accounts have room
This is the part that makes it yours rather than a model with your name typed on top.
Stage 03
Portfolio efficiency — the least risk that gets you there
Almost everybody asks the wrong question first. It is not “how much can I make?” It is “what is the least risk I can take and still get where I am going?”
Two portfolios can aim at exactly the same target and one of them takes far more risk to get there. That extra risk is not buying you anything. It is just extra risk, and you are the one carrying it.
So we work backwards. We start from your number out of Stage 01 and from what the money is actually for, then build the mix that aims at that target while taking the least risk we can find to do it.
The money is split into three default sleeves, each with a different job:
- Foundation — the bulk of it. Broad, durable, and boring on purpose. This is the part that does the actual work over time.
- Defensive — steadier holdings that move less than the market. This is the ballast for the years that are not fun.
- Speculative — a deliberately small slice with more upside and more risk. Small enough that being wrong here does not damage the plan.
When we say concentration, we mean fewer tickers. Not an undiversified account, and not a large bet on one company.
What that means for risk
Every investment opportunity carries its own form of risk, including the loss of principal — individual names and speculation, along with more conservative options like bonds and treasuries.
Everything weighs downside against upside, and choices are made entirely on your understanding and acceptance of those risks.
And to say the obvious out loud: this is not a hundred percent of your money in one exciting company. Taking on risk that is not paying you anything back is not investing. It is gambling with extra steps.
Before anything is bought, the finished mix gets scored against your number from Stage 01. In the example below it came back at 54 against a tolerance of 60 — the target is reached with less risk than the household would even have allowed. That is what we are aiming at every time. Coming in under is the point, not a happy accident.
Sample data. A demonstration model on a fictional household — not a recommendation and not any client’s account.
Sample data. The finished mix is scored against the number from Stage 01 before anything is bought.
Stage 04
You get the reasoning, not just the tickers
When it is built, you receive the thinking behind it in writing — what each piece is doing, what would have to change for us to change it, and what we deliberately chose not to include.
If you cannot explain your own portfolio to your spouse in about two minutes, it was either built badly or explained badly. Both are our fault, and both are fixable.
Stage 05
Things drift. We fix it on a rule, not a hunch.
A portfolio does not stay where you put it. Whatever has been doing well quietly grows into a bigger share of your money, and the mix you agreed to becomes something riskier without anyone ever deciding to take more risk.
So each sleeve gets its own leash, and the riskier the sleeve the shorter the leash. Foundation can wander a fair way before it matters. The speculative slice barely moves before it gets flagged, because that is where being off-target actually hurts.
- Crossing the line flags it — it does not automatically trade it. A flag starts a decision, not a transaction.
- Before anything gets sold we weigh what it would cost you in taxes and trading against what the fix is worth. Sometimes the honest answer is to leave it alone.
- You get a written reason for every change, before or as it happens.
Trading is not a service. A portfolio that gets rebuilt every few months is usually being managed to look managed.
Sample data. Illustrates the monitoring process only.
You just watched us show our work. On purpose.
Most firms treat their process as the secret. We just walked you through ours in five stages, with screenshots, because we would rather you understand what you are buying than be impressed by what you cannot see.
Some of you will read that and think: I could do this myself. Some of you are right. If you have the time, the temperament, and the patience to do the tax-location work and hold the line in a bad year, then do it yourself — and we will hand you the same tools we use.
If you can run this on your own, that is a genuinely good outcome. We built the software for exactly that person.
But look honestly at those five stages and ask which ones you will still be doing in year four. Not the fun ones — the drift check in a quarter when nothing feels urgent, deciding which account a new contribution should land in, the rebalance you do not want to make because the winner is still winning.
That is the actual work. It is unglamorous, it never ends, and it is the part that decides whether the plan holds.
Where your money actually sits
The question people are most afraid to ask, so we will answer it first.
Custodian
Altruist Financial LLC
Your accounts are opened in your name at Altruist, an independent custodian. They hold the assets, produce the statements, and process the money movement. We do not take possession of your funds and we cannot move them anywhere else.
There is one exception worth naming plainly, because the regulations call it custody and we would rather you hear it from us: we can deduct our advisory fee directly from your account. That authority, and only that, is what gives us what the rules define as limited custody. It is disclosed in our Form ADV.
You grant a limited, non-discretionary trading authorization — permission to place the trades that carry out the allocation you approved, and keep it aligned as it drifts.
That is not discretion. We cannot change your strategy or add risk without your say-so, and we can never move money out except the fee above.
You can log in and see everything, any day, without asking us. The statements come from the custodian, not from us.
What it costs
One fee. Never two. You pay the greater of these — not both.
Ongoing advisory fee
Flat retainer
$70
Per month. What most households starting out will pay.
Or a share of what we manage
0.50%
A year, on the money we manage. Worked out four times a year at 0.125% a quarter.
Whichever is greater — never stacked
The two prices cross at roughly $168,000 in managed assets.
Below that line the flat $70 is the bigger number, so that is what you pay. Above it the percentage is bigger, so you pay that instead. Once you are on the percentage you stay on it, unless your balance drops back under the line for two quarters in a row.
The percentage is worked out four times a year, after the quarter has already happened — never in advance — and it is based on your average balance across those three months rather than whatever it happened to be on one particular day.
Your 401(k) — only if you put it in. We do not chase outside accounts. We will not ask you to move your employer plan and we will not go looking for other accounts to bill on. But if you want yours advised on, you say so, and it goes on a written list of the accounts we advise on. That list is what the fee is worked out on, and you decide what is on it. Nothing lands on it by accident, and nothing lands on it because it came up once in a meeting.
The quarter ends, and the fee comes out fifteen days later — April 15, July 15, October 15, January 15. That gap is on purpose. It gives you roughly two weeks to make sure the money is sitting where it needs to be before anything is taken, instead of a charge landing the day the quarter closes.
Payment runs through Square, or comes straight out of your Altruist account — except the percentage fee, which always comes out of the account. You never pay ahead, so there is never anything to refund, and if you start partway through a quarter you only pay for the part you were here for.
There is no minimum balance. A separate $2,000 fee covers setting you up and building the financial plan itself. Pay it at once or spread it interest-free over as much as fifteen months. Current fees and terms are set out in our Form ADV and in your advisory agreement.
What we are not paid to do
The fee above is the entire compensation for managing your investments. Here is what that rules out.
No commissions on investments
Nothing in your portfolio pays us to be there. We are not compensated differently for putting you in one holding over another.
No kickbacks from fund companies
Some funds quietly pay an advisor an ongoing cut for keeping your money parked in them. It has a name in the industry — a 12b-1 fee — and you would never see it happen. We do not take them, and no platform pays us to steer your money onto it.
No proprietary products
There is no in-house fund to put you in. We do not manufacture anything we then recommend.
No sales quotas
Nobody upstairs has a number we have to hit this quarter. There is nobody upstairs.
But we will not call ourselves fee-only
We are also a licensed insurance agent. If life or disability coverage is part of your plan and you buy it through us, the carrier pays a commission on the first year’s premium. That is a real conflict of interest, it is disclosed in our Form ADV, and you will hear it from us out loud before it ever comes up. It has nothing to do with your investment fee — but pretending it does not exist would be the dishonest part.
You should be able to answer “how does my advisor get paid?” without guessing. If you cannot, that is the advisor’s fault.
Questions people ask
Do I need a certain amount to work with you?
No. There is no account minimum and there never has been. The practice is built for people who are still building, which by definition means the balance is small at the start.
What about my 401(k) at work?
It stays exactly where it is. An employer plan generally cannot be moved to an outside custodian while you still work there, and it does not need to be.
Whether we advise on it is your call, not ours. We do not go after outside accounts and we will not pressure you to hand one over. But it is often the single biggest account a person owns, and leaving it out makes the rest of the picture wrong — so most people choose to put it in.
If you do, it goes on a written list of the accounts we advise on, and that list is what the fee is worked out on. You can add to it or take something off it. What you will never get is a bill for an account you never asked us to work on.
We never hold trading authority on an account you keep elsewhere. There the work is advice only — you place the trades.
How often do you actually look at it?
On a set schedule, plus any time something changes on your end. The drift bands in Stage 05 are what trigger action — not the calendar, and not a hunch about where the market is headed.
What happens if I want to leave?
A thirty-day written notice is required by both sides, us included. Your accounts are already in your name at the custodian, so nothing has to be transferred out of anyone’s possession. Any unpaid balance on a delivered financial plan is still due.
Will you beat the market?
We will not answer that, and you should be careful with anyone who does. Nobody can promise a return, and an advisor who implies one is telling you something they cannot know.
How do I check that you are actually registered?
Look us up. Paraclete Life Planning LLC, firm CRD #325341. John C. Hendry III, IAR CRD #7699097. Both are public at adviserinfo.sec.gov, where you can read the entire Form ADV brochure rather than taking our word for any of this.
Start with a conversation, not a transfer form.
The first call is free and there is nothing to move. We will tell you honestly whether investment management is the right next step, or whether something ahead of it should come first.
Schedule a ConversationParaclete Life Planning LLC · John C. Hendry III, Investment Adviser Representative · Advisory services offered through Paraclete Life Planning LLC. All portfolio images use sample data for a fictional household and are shown to illustrate process only. They are not recommendations and do not depict any client account. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. No strategy assures a profit or protects against loss.
Work with us
The Paraclete Studio
The firm
Registered adviser
Paraclete Life Planning LLC
Pensacola, Florida
Firm CRD #325341
John C. Hendry III · IAR CRD #7699097
Verify us at adviserinfo.sec.govParaclete Life Planning LLC is a registered investment adviser. Nothing on this site is individualized investment, tax, or legal advice. The Paraclete Studio is software, not advice, and using it does not create an advisory relationship. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal.
© 2026 All Rights Reserved Paraclete Life Planning LLC