Who We Help
Your financial future deserves gold standard treatment. That's why our fiduciary, fee-only team is built around two of the industry's most rigorous standards:
- Investment management that conforms to GIPS® standards
- Financial planning led by CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals
You might think this combination is common. It isn't. Fewer than 1,700 firms worldwide provide GIPS® compliant investment results, according to the GIPS Standards website. And very few of those also have CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals on staff serving individual investors. Arroyo has both.
Qualifications are critical, but so is experience. You're usually best served by working with a team that has helped people like you before. This page reviews the types of individuals and families we work with.
Our team is committed to helping people live lives free from financial worry. We take that seriously and have established decades-long, multi-generational relationships with many of our clients.
Years in Business:
GIPS® Compliance:
Account minimums:
Location:
Our Full Service Commitment
As one of the few GIPS® compliant firms that manage money for individuals, many people come to us for investment management. However, we offer far more than that.
Arroyo offers a full service solution to individuals and families at all stages of life. That means that along with managing your investments, our team of CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals help you with:
organizing your entire financial life and minimizing any vulnerabilities or blind spots.
helping you get clear on your goals and what you want in the future.
creating an action plan to achieve your goals and ideal future.
comprehensive retirement planning, so you can secure your future.
determining when and how you should file for social security for best results.
managing your retirement accounts including 401(k), 403(b), 457, IRA, or Roth IRAs.
assistance with legacy wealth planning or charitable giving plans.
everything in between, including health savings accounts (HSAs), college funding, debt management, estate planning, tax planning, and analysis of your insurance needs
Financial Advisors to Police Officers, Fire Fighters and Municipal Employees
In addition to serving a diverse group of clients, we also specialize in helping current or former police officers, firefighters and municipal employees.
We have former California police officers and firefighters on our staff, so we speak your language. We use our first-hand knowledge, combined with our decades of experience in financial planning, to help you plan for the future you’ve earned:
We work with you to determine the best way to take advantage of the savings options and retirement plans available to you.
We’ll help you develop a retirement income plan that incorporates your pension, deferred compensation and any other income sources or benefits.
We’ll help analyze the tax consequences of receiving various benefits and retirement income.
We’ll help you create a comprehensive plan to ensure you and your family’s financial security, even if there were to be cuts to benefits in the future.
We’ll integrate all of this into a comprehensive financial plan that creates a roadmap to get you from where you are now, to where you want to be.
We’ll provide full service investment management to help support your financial goals.
We’ll be available to help with any other financial decisions you or your family members may face…all included in our single, all-inclusive fee.
Whether you’re just getting started, or already retired, we understand your needs. So we can get to work quickly with you.
Client Story
The Challenge
Our clients, a couple in their early fifties, came to us after 2008. Both had successful careers and good incomes. With two kids in school and a busy life, they had a lot of competing demands on their money. They didn’t feel fully prepared for sending the kids to college or for their retirement and it made them feel disorganized and stressed.
When they came to us, they had been working with a local Los Angeles broker, thinking that picking a well-known brand name was a safe way to find the best financial advisor. After several years of working with him, they felt they were not getting anything close to a reasonable return on their money. Their savings just seemed to fluctuate with the market. After 2008, they watched their net worth take a hit and were dismayed that their losses were no less significant than those of their friends who did not have the help of a professional.
They were referred to Arroyo from a friend who noted Arroyo was an independent financial advisor. We explained that unlike their previous broker, Arroyo is a Registered Investment Advisor. So as a fiduciary, we are required to put their interests first at all times. Instead of steering them into proprietary mutual funds and insurance products like their previous broker did, we don’t sell any products. We explained that we simply provide financial advice for a fee.
Arroyo’s Strategy
As with all new clients, we spent a lot of time up front asking questions. This process was important, as it helped us figure out their goals, their dreams, their responsibilities and other vital information. From these discussions, we found out they would like to send both kids to a good college and retire in their 60s with enough money to maintain their current home and travel frequently.
After getting to know them, we started the full financial planning process. This took a few months and was done by our CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals. While an investment in time, it helped them identify what they wanted their life to look like, then we created a specific road map to get them there.
As part of the planning process, we looked at:
Their assets including their stock and bond holdings, retirement accounts, real estate and business interests.
Their liabilities, including mortgages, student loans, other consumer debt, auto loans, etc.
Their ability to tolerate risk –how much risk could they afford to take in the market?
Their risk preferences, what was their comfort level with risk?
Their retirement – when each of them would like to retire, where they would live, what they would do, etc. and what it would cost?
Their taxes—how could we save money or generate more income with less risk?
Their estate—how do they want their assets distributed when they are gone and how can we do that in the most tax-efficient manner?
With all of these inputs, we worked to create a master plan. For some areas, like estate planning, we created smaller ‘action plans’ that we worked on over a few months, to get that particular area on track. For example, with estate planning, we had them outline how they wanted their assets to be distributed—what would that look like? Then we worked with our clients and their tax professional to determine that a trust would help them achieve their goals. Later, we helped them find an estate attorney to draw everything up.
We took a close look at their assets—including all of their investment accounts. This included their retirement accounts held with their employers. We worked with them to identify the proper investment strategy and once that was agreed upon, we invested their money in our portfolios that use low-cost mutual funds.
The End Result
The clients’ financial situation is now well-organized, so it’s a source of optimism instead of stress. But things don’t remain the same, so the frequent check-ins help accommodate their changing goals. They always have a road map on how to get to the next stage, and with our quarterly meetings and check in calls, we help keep them accountable to their own financial goals.
Additionally, we always look for new opportunities to strengthen client financial situations. For example, when he switched jobs, we worked with them to start a new Health Savings Account to help them save for medical needs in retirement.
Throughout our relationship, their investment management has been held to GIPS® compliant standards, so they always receive a clear picture of exactly how their money is performing.
Is Arroyo Right For You?
Arroyo works with individuals and families who are ready for a different level of accountability. We are one of fewer than 1,700 firms worldwide that provides GIPS® compliant investment results, paired with CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals who coordinate all critical parts of your financial life.
The profiles below reflect some of the situations we encounter most often. They’re meant to give you a sense of how we work, not to define who we help. If you don’t see yourself below, we’d still welcome the conversation.
The following profiles are hypothetical scenarios for illustrative purposes only. They are based on the types of situations we commonly encounter and do not represent specific Arroyo Investment Group clients. Individual circumstances vary.
The Business Owner Preparing To Sell
You’ve spent years building something valuable. Now, with a sale on the horizon, the financial decisions that happen in the next months can often shape what the rest of your life looks like. The deal’s structure and resulting tax exposure can dramatically impact your financial outcome, but transaction attorneys are usually focused on closing the deal. Throughout the process, someone needs to be paying attention to your personal financial situation.
At Arroyo, that’s exactly what our CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals help with. We can help you analyze how a sale is structured from a personal financial standpoint, helping to make sure the decisions around the sale are good for you personally, not just good for the organization. Those two sets of interests don’t always automatically align, and having Arroyo’s team focused on your personal financial outcome rather than the transaction itself can often help you arrive at a more successful result.
As a fiduciary and fee-only firm, we have no incentive to recommend any particular solution. Your personal outcome is all that matters to us.
Once the sale closes and proceeds are invested, you can see exactly how your wealth is being managed through Arroyo’s GIPS® compliant investment results, the same reporting standard institutional investors have required for decades.
You’ve held your business to measurable standards for years. Doesn’t your personal financial life deserve the same?
Thinking about a sale and not sure if your financial plan is ready for it?
The Entrepreneur Who Feels Like Their Wealth Isn’t Keeping Up With Their Success
Your revenue is up and your team is growing. But when you look at your personal balance sheet, it doesn’t reflect the effort you’ve been putting in. It can seem like the cash goes out as fast as it comes in. True financial independence, the point where work becomes a choice rather than a requirement, feels out of reach.
The good news is that as a business owner, you have access to many financial planning strategies that aren’t always available to others. The ability to control how and when you take income, how your business is structured, and which retirement plans you establish, for example, can create opportunities to build toward financial independence. Arroyo’s CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals work collaboratively with your tax advisors to help you find those opportunities. Then, we help you organize your financial life into a coordinated plan designed specifically to get you there.
The investment side of that relationship is held to Arroyo’s GIPS® compliant standards, which means you can see exactly how your portfolio is performing against a real benchmark rather than taking anyone’s word for it. Measurable accountability like this can make the difference between working toward financial independence and actually achieving it.
That’s what Arroyo is built to do.
Not sure today’s success is translating into real financial progress?
The Executive with Concentrated Company Stock
If you’re a senior executive or long-tenured employee, years of equity compensation may have built up a significant position in your company’s stock. When company performance gets bumpy, that concentration risk has a way of making itself known. Managing it isn’t straightforward either, because timing, tax consequences, and your broader financial picture all have to be closely coordinated before any action makes sense.
For many people in this situation, the real goal isn’t just to diversify. It’s to reach a point where a single bad quarter doesn’t keep you up at night, and where you can start confidently enjoying the wealth you’ve worked so hard to build.
Arroyo’s CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals help you bring the full picture into focus first, then work collaboratively with you and your tax advisor to find a strategy that balances concentration risk with the tax consequences of reducing it. As a fiduciary, Arroyo is legally required to put your interests first throughout that process, including when the right move might be to wait rather than act.
Then, your investments are managed to Arroyo’s GIPS® compliant standards, giving you a clear, objective picture of how your wealth performs over time against a real benchmark.
You’ve spent a career being measured against objective standards…doesn’t your personal wealth deserve the same level of accountability?
Managing concentrated company stock and not sure your plan is sound?
The Couple Navigating Early Retirement
You’ve decided the time is right for early retirement. Or maybe a layoff or company event has prompted you to take the plunge. Either way, the question isn’t just whether you can retire. It’s whether your plan can hold up over the next several decades.
Retirement spending doesn’t always look the way people expect. Some spend more than anticipated, enjoying the freedom that comes with having time. Others spend far less. The challenge is that plans are typically built around assumptions made years before retirement actually begins, and life has a way of not following assumptions.
Some variables are within your control. You can manage your spending, decide when to claim Social Security, and choose where to live. Other factors are a different story. Inflation can seriously impact a budget over decades in ways that are easy to underestimate when you’re still working. A paid-off home still comes with insurance, property taxes, HOA fees, and maintenance costs that can spike well beyond past experience. Health costs continue to take an outsized bite of American family budgets, and private health insurance before Medicare eligibility can run significantly higher than most projections account for. Early access to 401(k) or IRA funds also triggers penalties in many cases, adding another layer of complexity to income planning in those first years.
At Arroyo, our CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals help you evaluate retirement readiness with all of these variables in mind. We stress-test your plan against real scenarios so you find out sooner rather than later where the gaps are, while there’s still time to address them. We model Social Security timing, healthcare costs, withdrawal rates, Roth conversion opportunities, and estate considerations into a plan that gets updated as your life changes.
On the investment side, Arroyo’s GIPS® compliant investment results give you a clear, objective picture of how the portfolio is performing throughout retirement, not just during the accumulation years. As a fee-only fiduciary, your needs remain the sole priority throughout our relationship.
Retirement that lasts decades requires a plan built to last just as long. That’s what Arroyo helps you create.
Wondering if your retirement plan is built to last?
The Family Planning a Legacy
You’ve spent a lifetime accumulating meaningful wealth. The question keeping you up at night isn’t how to grow it. It’s how to help ensure your family is able to keep it intact and serving future generations after you’re gone.
For many, the hardest part of legacy planning isn’t the legal documents or the tax strategy. It’s often within the family: making sure heirs understand what’s coming and are in the right mindset to carry it forward responsibly.
Arroyo takes a collaborative approach to all of it. Our CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals work alongside your estate planning attorney and accountant so the financial plan, estate structure, and tax strategy are all aligned rather than operating independently. We can also help facilitate the family conversations that tend to get avoided until it’s too late. That can mean helping you create a family mission statement, organizing meetings to prepare heirs to handle wealth responsibly, and helping the next generation understand how to carry out the family’s charitable goals.
As a fiduciary, Arroyo puts your family’s best interest first throughout that process. This matters especially when the decisions being made will likely outlast the people making them.
Assets held for legacy purposes are then managed to the same GIPS® compliant standards as every other Arroyo client portfolio, giving your family a clear picture of how the wealth is being managed.
Not sure if your estate plan, financial plan, and family are all pointing in the same direction?
The Firefighter Planning for Retirement
If you’ve spent a career in public safety, retirement planning comes with a level of complexity that a standard financial plan rarely accounts for. The benefit elections, deferred compensation decisions, and various income sources that make up a public safety retirement create a lot of moving parts. Getting them right can mean the difference between a retirement that delivers everything you’ve earned and one that leaves money on the table.
At Arroyo, we start by reviewing all of the benefit documentation. Benefit statements, pension projections, deferred compensation options: we go through everything carefully before making any recommendations. We also have former California police officers and firefighters on our staff who understand your retirement system from the inside. That background helps us identify options and opportunities that are easy to miss, so we can help you walk away with everything you’ve earned.
Arroyo’s CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals then pull all the pieces together, including pension, deferred compensation, Social Security timing, and the investment management of any additional savings, into a single clear plan. The investment side is managed to Arroyo’s GIPS® compliant standards, so you have a clear, objective picture of how your money is performing throughout retirement.
You spent a career taking care of other people. We make sure you don’t leave any of your hard-earned retirement benefits on the table.
Not sure if you’re making the most of your benefits?
