Honest answers to the questions that matter.

Our typical client is going through a money-in-motion event, such as retirement, the sale of a business or ownership stake in a company, an inheritance, or simply seeking a new advisor.

Our preferred minimum relationship size is $1 million of investable assets. However, if you’re a high earner who is committed to saving aggressively, let’s talk.

We start with a collaborative conversation to determine your goals and to see if we’re a good fit for each other. From there, we move at a pace that’s comfortable for you. If you’d like our thoughts on your current portfolio, send us recent statements before the meeting or bring them with you. We’ll show you how much your investments are costing you, how diversified they are, and how we would do things differently.

When you hire P&A, you hire our entire team. There are no silos here. You’ll have two main points of contact, a Lead Advisor and a Service Advisor, but over time other team members will likely assist you based on your needs and their expertise.

We proactively review your accounts throughout the year and reach out regularly to keep you informed. Additional touchpoints happen around planning topics, tax law changes, and market developments. Whether you prefer in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, or video conferences, we’ll find a method and a frequency that works for you.

We’ll save you time and help you streamline your financial life. We’ll help you analyze important financial decisions from all angles, find any financial blind spots you may have, and gain a perspective you can’t get on your own. And we’ll help you create a financial plan that can guide decisions. See our Services page for everything included.

Yes. P&A is a full-time fiduciary and has been since 1995, when our firm was founded. Being a fiduciary means we are obligated to place your best interests ahead of our own. Beware: some advisors are held to a fiduciary standard only when offering advice and not when implementing it (selling you products). These are known as fee-based or dually-registered advisors. If you see ‘securities offered through… Member SIPC, FINRA’ at the bottom of an advisor’s website, it means they get paid to sell you products. This is very different from our fee-only business model.

As a fee-only advisor, our sole compensation is the management fee our clients pay us. We are not paid by selling financial products or earning commissions. We do not receive any third-party compensation for recommending investments. You can find more details about our fee schedule here.

CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals are required to complete rigorous education, have relevant experience, and are committed to acting in their clients’ best interests. The following advisors at our firm are CFP® professionals: Blake Anderson, Dan Anderson, Dan Frost, Diane Klein, Audrey Mines, A.J. Natter, Trey Pittenger, and Jon Sevenker.

Shane Riley and Dan Frost are both Chartered Financial Analyst® charterholders, a designation widely recognized as one of the most respected in the investment management industry.

Elizabeth Sydzyik is a CRPC™ designee. Kristin Kliewer holds the IACCP® designation. Audrey Mines is a licensed Insurance Consultant who can help you analyze any insurance policies and annuities you own, even though we do not sell insurance products.

We use an independent, third-party custodian to hold your investments. Charles Schwab is our preferred custodian, and most of our client assets call Schwab home. Schwab holds your cash and investments, executes the trades we place for your account, sends you a monthly statement, and provides 24/7 online access.

No, we are an independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA). Neither our firm nor our principals or staff have a vested interest in any investment company, broker-dealer, or other financial services organization.

No. We believe this is a conflict of interest, and it’s our goal to mitigate conflict.

At P&A, we invest our personal and retirement money using the same overall philosophy we employ for our clients. We eat our own cooking. When markets experience success, we enjoy the ride right alongside our clients. And when markets go through one of their inevitable setbacks, we feel the pain, too. This blog post goes into more detail.

We are proud to report that none of the advisors or team members of Pittenger & Anderson have a disciplinary record with the SEC, FINRA, or any other financial regulatory body. To check the disciplinary history of any CFP®, visit the CFP Board of Standards website. To check the disciplinary history of any SEC-Registered Investment Advisor, visit the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website. To check the disciplinary history of a stockbroker or fee-based advisor, visit FINRA BrokerCheck.

Yes. We discuss our next generation of leadership on the About page.

Many people come to us with the same complaints about their current advisor. They question the fees they’re paying or some of the advice they’ve received. They aren’t getting calls or emails returned in a timely manner. They feel talked down to, or their questions get dodged. They’re in the dark about how their account is performing or why it’s invested the way it is. And they believe their advisor hasn’t taken the time to really understand what’s important to them.

We’ve built our business to alleviate these frustrations. The difference begins with our team. Since we aren’t paid by selling you investment products, our sole focus is helping you reach your goals and being there when you need us. You’ll like our friendliness, Midwestern work ethic, and responsiveness to your needs.

A few noteworthy items. The account transfer is handled between your current custodian and Charles Schwab; you do not need to notify your current advisor unless you want to. The account type and its current custodian determine how quickly it transfers; one to two weeks is about average. Your current advisor or their broker-dealer may charge you an account transfer fee, ranging from $50 per account to several hundred dollars. To help offset these expenses, we typically wait to begin billing your account until our strategies are fully in place. And if you’d like an all-in cost comparison between where you are now and how we plan to invest your money, just ask. We do this automatically for retirement accounts.

Existing IRA accounts can transfer without any tax ramifications as long as they are done trustee-to-trustee or as a direct rollover completed within 60 days. Tax laws limit the number of indirect rollovers that can be done in a 12-month period. After-tax investment accounts typically transfer in-kind, meaning if you own a stock with a large gain, it transfers over as-is. Certain illiquid or proprietary investments may not transfer in-kind and need to be liquidated. We will work with you to understand the tax posture of your existing accounts and your preferences before we begin the transfer process.