One of the most common situations I encounter as a financial advisor is a type of client that I like to call “wealthy by accident.” This client is someone who has been a consistent saver, whether they had an incredibly high-paying job or not. They didn’t inherit wealth; they simply created their wealth over their lifetime. In fact, from the outside, you might not have any idea that they have millions of dollars to their name. Much like the book The Millionaire Next Doordescribes.
This is one of my favorite types of clients to work with. Oftentimes, they managed to accumulate their wealth by making responsible, smart decisions over many, many years. That means regularly funding their retirement accounts, living within their means by spending responsibly, and most importantly, staying invested in the market for the long term.
What’s interesting about these “wealthy by accident” clients is that the skill of building that wealth often isn’t the same asmanagingit, especially when it comes time to distribute it. Once a client realizes they have real wealth, a kind of fear can set in.What am I supposed to do now?As wealth grows, complexity does too, and the decisions that once could be made on autopilot — like monthly savings and retirement contributions — don’t feel adequate.
It's always an interesting challenge to navigate — and one where a financial advisor can really make a huge difference.
How fragmented finances happen
When you're in the wealth accumulation phase, complexity is manageable because each decision is fairly isolated and time is on your side. You open a 401(k) and keep funding it. You invest in a few funds and maybe talk to a broker from time to time who recommends investments to you. These are smart decisions, but are made in a vacuum. Over the course of twenty or thirty years, they can end up creating a blurry and complicated financial picture. When a bunch of decisions take place in a silo, they aren’t optimized or designed to work together as part of a comprehensive plan.
This is one of the most common patterns I see: people think their accountant or broker is their advisor(s) when what they actually have is a collection of disconnected relationships, none of which are responsible for the full picture.
Why complexity accelerates near retirement
As long as you're working and saving, the disadvantages of fragmented advice are mostly negligible. It begins to show up the moment your questions change from "How do I save more?" to "How do I turn this into income, minimize what I owe in taxes, and make sure it lasts for the people I care about?”
Suddenly there’s a whole new set of decisions to make. When do you take Social Security? Is a Roth conversion the right choice? Which accounts should you begin to withdraw funds from? What sort of Medicare coverage do you need, and what is the real cost of health care coverage? The list goes on.
What’s important to remember is that each of these decisions affects your finances in one way or another. Without a plan that guides your approach, you risk making choices that work against you — which can end up costing you not just in taxes, but in terms of protecting and growing your wealth.
One of the most unique elements of our team at Meridian Wealth Partners is that we started out as CPAs. I've spent my career watching smart, successful people leave money on the table — not because they made bad investments, but because they weren’t paying attention to how their decisions affected their tax exposure. For all of the plans we design, tax efficiency isn't left to your overworked accountant who doesn’t have time to do actual tax planning; it’s baked into every decision and recommendation we make.
What drives long-term outcomes
Financial advisors who promise clients superior returns in the market usually aren’t being honest, or at a minimum, are overestimating their skill and ability. The truth is that markets dictate returns. And no one controls the markets or can outperform them consistently over decades.
At Meridian Wealth, our approach is to control what we can control: costs, risk, and taxes. That means picking low-cost investments that align with our clients’ goals and risk tolerance, and making sure every aspect of the plan — from withdrawal strategy to legacy/estate planning — is designed to be tax-efficient.
That's the philosophy behind an all-weather, tax-aware approach to portfolio design: not predicting the market but building a plan sturdy enough to hold up regardless of what the market does next.
Finding simplicity with a plan
For our “wealthy by accident” clients, the biggest problem they tend to face before starting to work with an advisor is complexity. As accounts pile up and investments have multiplied over the years, their financial picture can start to feel daunting.
Our approach at Meridian Wealth is not to start with a list of new investment recommendations. Instead, we believe in taking the time to understand our clients’ goals and full financial picture — and then streamlining the assets so that they’re all part of a simple, comprehensive plan. We follow an approach called the Progression of Wealth®, our structured process that brings your investments, tax strategy, retirement income, risk management, and legacy goals into one coordinated framework. It's the blueprint for everything else that follows.
The question many of our clients ask us isn’t necessarily “Do I have enough?” but rather “How can I make this last for my loved ones?” Managing that wealth effectively and creating a framework to protect it and eventually distribute it to the next generation — these are the hallmarks of how we serve our clients.
A question worth asking yourself
If you’ve built your wealth through decades of hard work and saving, or running your own successful business, it's worth stepping back and looking at where your finances really stand today. Do you know how your accounts, your retirement strategy, your taxes, and your estate goals all align and work together? If you simply know these things are all important but aren’t sure how to get them to align, that’s exactly where our expertise lies.
Get in touch with a member of our team today if you’re ready to take the next step and set up a truly customized plan for your family’s future and wealth.