Retirement Planning
When work can stop, where the income comes from after it does, and how a 401(k), an IRA, and Social Security timing fit together year by year.
Santa Barbara wealth management
Paid by you,
answerable to you.
Fee-only fiduciary advice for California clients — retirement planning, portfolio management, and the tax return in the same room.
Downtown
A financial advisor who reads your tax return.
Santafino Wealth Management is a fee-only fiduciary registered investment adviser working from an office on State Street. Retirement planning, portfolio management, financial planning, and estate coordination — with the firm that prepares the return two doors down.
Wealth management clients must live in California. That limit belongs to the adviser, not to the building: Santafino CPAs is a separate firm and takes tax and accounting clients anywhere in the United States.
We sell nothing. There is no commission, no product shelf, and no third party paying us to prefer one fund over another — only the advice, and a fee you agree to first.
The officeThe Santa Barbara office
Wealth management
Advice that puts you first.
Fee-only · Fiduciary · California clientsPlanning for the years ahead, management of the money that has to fund them, and a CPA in the room when the two meet the tax code.
Portfolio Management
An allocation set to your goals and your tolerance for a bad year, then monitored, rebalanced, and traded on your behalf as an ongoing engagement.
Financial Planning
Net worth, cash flow, insurance, debt, and the large decisions — a house, a sale, a sabbatical — written down as one plan rather than six separate opinions.
Tax-Efficient Investing
Which account holds which asset, when a gain is realized, and what a rebalance costs after tax. The portfolio decision and the tax result are the same decision.
Estate & Legacy Coordination
Beneficiary designations, titling, and trust accounts kept in step with the estate planning attorney who drafted the documents.
One Team With Your CPA
Santafino CPAs prepares returns in the same office. An investment decision can be checked against the return it will change before it is made, not after.
Two engagements
A plan and a portfolio are different work.
People ask for a financial advisor meaning one of two things, and the two are scoped differently. Knowing which you are after saves the first meeting.
Retirement planning
A plan for money not yet spent.
A question about the future, answered on paper: the year work can stop, the accounts the income will come from, the order they should be drawn in, and what each of those years does to your tax bill. The result is a plan. It stands whether or not we manage a dollar for you.
Portfolio management
Somebody minding the accounts.
An ongoing engagement over real money. We set the allocation, then monitor it, rebalance it, and place the trades as a fiduciary on your behalf. The result is not a document. It is a portfolio someone is responsible for on a Tuesday in October.
Usually both
The plan tells the portfolio what to do.
One decides where you are going; the other moves the money. A plan nobody implements is an opinion, and a portfolio without a plan is a risk level nobody chose. Neither requires the other, and which one you start with is the first conversation we have.
Who it fits
Different lives, the same desk.
Approaching retirement
Ten years out, not ten days.
The decade before you stop working is when sequence, withdrawal order, and Roth conversions are still worth arguing about. Afterward there is less left to change.
Business owners
The entity, the books, and the portfolio.
A retirement plan for the business, a personal portfolio outside it, and a return that has to reconcile with both. We keep the books and file the returns too, so the three are not three separate stories.
Santa Barbara CPA & tax preparationCalifornia residents
Where we can act as your advisor.
Santafino Wealth Management LLC takes wealth management clients who live in California. Santafino CPAs is a separate firm and works nationwide — the tax side has no state limit, and the wealth side does.
Wealth management — arrangements
It begins with a conversation.
Retirement Planning
To startComplimentary consultation
Fiduciary advice — fee-only, no commissionsCustom retirement planTax-efficient planningSocial Security guidance401(k) / IRA optimizationIncome planning
Schedule a consultationPortfolio Management
To startComplimentary consultation
Fiduciary advice — fee-only, no commissionsCustom portfolioTax-efficient investingRisk & goal alignmentActive monitoringActive rebalancing
Schedule a consultationHow we are paid, and to whom we answer
Two promises, not one word.
One
Fee-only describes how we are paid. Our compensation comes from clients and from nowhere else — no commissions, no product sales, nothing paid to us by a fund, a broker, or an insurer.
Two
Fiduciary describes who we answer to. As a registered investment adviser we are held to act in your interest, rather than to the lower bar of recommending something merely suitable.
Three
They are two claims, not one word said twice. A firm can owe you a fiduciary duty on one account and earn a commission on the next, and a flat fee by itself promises nothing about whose interest comes first. Ask any firm both questions.
Four
Both of our answers are on the public record. The adviser registration is linked below, and it is worth reading before you move an account anywhere.
Public records
An adviser registration is public, and so is a CPA license. Read both before you hand anyone your accounts.
Review Santafino Wealth Management’s adviser record ↗Verify CPA status with the California Board of Accountancy ↗Read about the firm and its founderCommon questions
Wealth questions we hear most.
Do you take clients outside California?
Not for wealth management. Santafino Wealth Management LLC works with wealth management clients who live in California. Santafino CPAs is a separate firm and serves clients across the United States, so someone out of state can work with our CPAs on tax and accounting without becoming a wealth management client.
Do I need retirement planning or portfolio management?
Retirement planning answers a question — when you can stop working and what the income comes from. Portfolio management is an ongoing engagement in which we invest and rebalance the money itself. Many people want both, some want only the plan, and a few only need the accounts managed. Deciding which is the first conversation.
What does fee-only mean?
It is a statement about compensation. We are paid by our clients and by no one else: no commissions, no sales of insurance or investment products, and nothing paid to us for putting you in a particular fund.
Is fee-only the same as fiduciary?
No. Fee-only is about how a firm is paid. Fiduciary is about the standard it is held to — acting in your interest rather than recommending what is merely suitable. We are both, and they are worth confirming separately with any advisor you meet.
How does the tax side get involved?
The CPAs are in the same office and, for most clients, the same conversation. Realizing a gain, converting to a Roth, selling a business interest, or funding a retirement plan all change the return, and the person who will prepare that return can say so before the trade rather than the following April.
How is the arrangement set up?
It begins with a complimentary consultation. We look at what you have, what you want the money to do, and which engagement fits. Anything we would charge is set out in writing and agreed before work starts, and no part of it is a commission.
Can I check your registration?
Yes, and you should. Santafino Wealth Management LLC has a public record with the SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure system, and our founder holds an active California CPA license that the Board of Accountancy publishes as well. Both are linked on this page.
