What We Do
Palmer Financial Wellness specializes in financial wellness for startup employees and their families, understanding the unique financial challenges that come with working in a fast-paced, high-risk startup environment. We provide tailored financial strategies that help you navigate inconsistent income, equity compensation, limited benefits, and job volatility. Financial wellness, for us, means not only managing day-to-day finances and saving for future goals, but also building resilience to weather the uncertainties of startup life while achieving long-term financial security.
Why Choose Palmer Financial Wellness?
Palmer Financial Wellness is about more than just numbers and charts—it’s about empowering startup employees and their families to achieve financial stability and confidence. With over 30 years of experience in tech as an entrepreneur, Managing Director, and CTO, our founder, Toby Palmer, understands the unique financial challenges of working in a startup. We focus on helping you navigate the complexities of equity compensation, inconsistent income, limited benefits, and job volatility—so you can make informed decisions, one paycheck at a time. We believe everyone deserves the opportunity to build a brighter financial future, regardless of the challenges they face along the way.
Frequently Asked Questions
Startup employees face unique financial challenges, including lower salaries in exchange for equity, job instability, limited benefits, and unpredictable cash flow. Traditional financial planning doesn't always account for these factors. At Palmer Financial Wellness, we specialize in helping startup employees create a financial strategy that balances risk, maximizes equity value, and ensures long-term financial security.
We help you create a plan to stabilize your finances, including budgeting strategies, emergency fund planning, and tax-efficient ways to manage income fluctuations. By optimizing cash flow, you can reduce financial stress and stay focused on your career growth.
Understanding the structure of your equity—whether it's stock options, RSUs, or another form—is crucial. We help you evaluate your equity offer, assess its potential value, and develop strategies for taxation, vesting, and liquidity events to maximize your earnings.
Many startups don’t offer retirement plans, making it essential to explore alternative options. We guide you through setting up an IRA, Roth IRA, or a solo 401(k), and help you determine how to allocate savings to balance current financial needs with long-term wealth-building.
Stock options can create unexpected tax liabilities, depending on the type (ISO vs. NSO) and when you exercise them. We provide tax planning strategies to help you avoid costly mistakes and take advantage of potential tax benefits.
A liquidity event can be life-changing, but only if you’re financially prepared. We help you develop a plan for managing your windfall, minimizing taxes, and investing wisely so that your hard-earned equity translates into long-term financial success.
Without traditional benefits, it’s essential to take proactive steps. We help you find the best health insurance options, set up a personal safety net, and create financial security through supplemental benefits like HSAs, disability insurance, and personal savings plans.
We help you build a financial plan that provides stability in an unpredictable startup world. By creating a safety net, maximizing your earnings, and planning for different outcomes, you gain financial confidence—allowing you to focus on your career without constant money worries.
Yes, we can review your current investment approach and help implement an optimal investment strategy tailored to your employer-sponsored 401(k) or retirement plan.
Yes. It’s common for employees to have one or more old 401(k) plans that are not actively managed and may incur unnecessary fees. We can help consolidate those accounts by rolling them into an active retirement account, such as an IRA or your current employer’s 401(k) plan.
Once the rollover strategy is in place, we will handle the entire process, ensuring all necessary steps are completed seamlessly and efficiently.
We view our engagements as long-term relationships with the individuals and families we serve. For clients with manageable assets of $400,000 or more, we charge a 1% annual AUM (assets under management) fee to provide financial planning and advisory services. For clients with less than $400,000 in manageable assets, we charge a monthly fee of $200 plus a 1% annual AUM fee to provide financial planning and advisory services. Specific services outside the scope of planning and advisory may incur additional fees, disclosed in advance to the client.