Burgess Financial Planning

Okay for serious, use this guy. I feel like it’s hard to find someone in a city that you can trust, but after meeting with him, i feel like I can trust him with anything! He put us completely at ease, answered ALL of our questions, and more. Can’t recommend him enough and can’t wait to work with him for many years to come! Thanks, Sean!

Nice guy. I had a vague idea of what to expect and was pleased with the results. My questions were answered to my satisfaction and he did not try to sell me on anything.
In addition, the exercise of collecting my various financial documents and analyzing them was useful, that part alone paid for itself.

Sean was absolutely wonderful. What I needed wasn’t exactly in the realm of what he does, so he gave me a few pointers over coffee (that he so kindly picked up for me) and gave me a great referral. He was very honest and straight forward.

You will be making a great decision to go see Sean. He has been super helpful in navigating me through all my financial needs. He also has great ideas and suggestions. Everytime I see him I am blown away by the amount of questions and scenarios we are able to go through in such a short amount of time. I am always in and out, feeling more confident and with several great ideas to put into action!

Sean gave unbiased helpful advice. He’s straightforward, and really cares about your «future self» financial situation. Very easygoing, and knowledgable!

I am really happy I found Sean. After meeting with him for just 1 hour, we had a specific plan to take control of our financial future. He was engaging and had a ton of good ideas. Working with Sean was easy and absolutely worth it. I highly recommend him.

This review is several years late, but I guess that if we are still happy with the guidance he provided us 4 years ago that means that he steered us right! We went to see Sean because we had hit that stage in life where we had our feet under us but wanted to make sure we were making the most optimal decisions possible. Sean eased any fears we had about the decisions we’d made and helped us think through the «should I buy a house now or later» decision — and set up a plan to achieve the goals we had. Definitely genuine advice, great service, and super reasonable fees.

You should be sure that you’re going into your meeting with the same expectations as Sean before you arrive. In our meeting, we found that the advice lacked individual preparation or specific financial analysis.
Sean did not offer guidance based on detailed models (for example, we were hoping for him to help us model whether to buy a home given our current rent, expenses, tax liabilities, and investment returns) or his own research (some of his advice was out of the norm for personal investing and he didn’t really have anything to back up why that was the case).
While we were disappointed by what we considered shallow advice, others who have no experience or interest in detailed financial analysis may find his more topical approach more approachable.
After explaining that we were disappointed with our session Sean offered to waive his fee and suggested that another type of financial planner would probably be better suited for us.

Sean’s advice is very straightforward and helpful. I was most impressed with Sean’s frankness about my not needing further consultations and services given how simple my situation is.
No up-​sell, no magazine subscriptions, no BS.

My wife and I are in the same boat as a lot of the other reviews that have been left here: married, in a fairly good place, needing to get a few ducks in a row, and having questions about retirement account allocation, savings, and insurance.
We appreciated that he was pretty blunt with us on a few occasions, as there were a number of questions we had that really needed a straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
He was very approachable and easy to talk to. We definitely recommend him to anyone wanting to get an unbiased opinion about your finances. We’ll certainly be returning to him in future years to check-​in and re-​evaluate.

My husband and I considered ourselves to be pretty financially astute, and wasn’t really sure that we needed a financial planner. We were not in the boat of needing basic financial advice (i.e. how to create a budget) nor had a large amount of wealth that needed managing by someone else.
But, after we got married, we realized that our money was spread over a large number of accounts, and some of our investments were a little random. We also were struggling with how much to save for retirement vs to save for a house, esp in these first few years before kids enter the picture! Although we were comfortable with our own general financial planning, we realized we needed help on these more specific issues.
Sean was great! He gave clear guidance on how we could combine our many accounts and mutual funds, and what target allocations in our investments to shoot for. Since he’s independent from any financial institution, I didn’t worry about him having ulterior motives for suggesting a certain fund. We already have accounts with Schwab and Vanguard, and he gave some specific suggestions for funds within those institutions. He gave clear advice on adjustments to our retirement savings, balancing that against other savings, and whether a «back door Roth IRA» was worth the effort. He also gave recommendations about how much life insurance we should have.

My husband and I went to Sean to get our financial house in order. We chose him based on the Unilocal reviews and because he is not connected with any particular financial institution. He is exactly what we were looking for in a financial advisor!
Sean’s advice was simple, clear, and felt true to our financial values. He provided assistance or gave us referrals for everything we needed to keep our financial life in check. We wanted advice on budgets, buying a home, retirement, having a baby, tax withholdings, insurance, and a will. Sean was able to lay out a plan for us that was easy to execute and follow. He also stays very current with the ever changing financial climate.
Sean is also a really nice guy with confidence and seems to have passion for the services he provides. My husband and I talked about how great and helpful the meeting was for days after. Sean definitely gets 5 stars from us!

Sean is awesome. I’ve always wanted to get my financial ducks in a row but figuring out who to help me was a chore. So many financial planners are employed by brokerage houses and are thus incentivized to sell that institution’s products, creating a conflict of interest. Sean is completely independent and trustworthy. He’s direct, to the point, and makes everything seem simple. Now, whenever I have a question about what I should do, I know I have someone I can trust to help me out.

My husband and I met with Sean and found him very helpful. We liked the fact that his services are fee based rather than commission. His tools were very useful as well. It was a great experience.

I wanted to pass along my expectations and what I’ll be looking for with the next person I consult with. I don’t feel like I got all the information I was looking for from my meeting. I was hoping to have more specific advice about:
My company stock: When is a good time to move stock option and shares based on the company performance.
Especially if its a good idea considering the tax implications — instead of having to contact someone else like was recommended.
More recommendations for mutual funds other then the 5 funds from Vanguard i.e. other funds and companies that offer the best performance for different asset classes.
This did not meet my expectations as I was expecting to go into more detail about my stock investments and specific mutual fund performance and recommendations.
This may be better for someone who wants to be sold on a life plan with some basic basic diversification education.

My husband and I recently went to see Sean about our financial future. He sent us a few questionnaires to fill out, and then in only an hour he addressed all our big, daunting questions, making our financial plan seem not only manageable, but fun!
Sean also gave us a book to help us out (at no cost), and said we don’t need to come back until we have another big life change (probably children or buying a home).
Then, he followed-​up the next day with an email of all our to-​dos, as well as his nifty retirement calculator.
I would recommend Burgess Financial Planning to anyone and everyone. Sean was helpful, knowledgeable, polite, friendly, and well versed on all things finance.

Sean is an island of financial wisdom in an ocean of greed and fear.
If you want to stay calm while markets go insane, Sean is your man.
Sean wrote a term paper on investing when he was 13 years old. His passion for investment is deep and stable. His motivation is to help others be successful and happy.
He runs his business in total alignment with his own advice and the client’s best interest.

I don’t care if you already have a financial planner — If you don’t go see Sean, you are making a big mistake. Most «advisors» make lots of money in commissions by selling you their products (or by taking a percentage of your assets).
Not Sean. For a VERY reasonable fee, he maps out a plan that suits your goals, your needs, and your lifestyle. He’s down to earth, very approachable, but yet sophisticated in investing.
My wife and I went and saw him a year ago and we are very happy we did. Our plan is very straight forward and easy. And although he doesn’t promise anything — our plan has worked pretty well.
Do yourself a favor and go see him.

Sean is everything we hoped we would find in a financial planner. My husband and I gave each other a visit to Sean for Christmas… I know, romantic huh? But, I can honestly say, this will rank as one of the best X-​mas gifts ever.
As our meeting was getting started, I was a bit shy about handing over what felt like the equivalent of financial dirty laundry. However, he was very easy to talk to and was clearly very thorough with his observance of our concerns, our needs, and our options. He addressed all the details of our early thirties concerns– should we buy a house, how much should we be putting in retirement, what should our retirement portfolio look like, how much can we expect raising kids in SF to cost, what kind of insurance should we have, etc, etc. And it was great having another pair of eyes on our budget, which needed an overhaul.
After our meeting with him, he gave us a detailed plan, which is a very attainable foothold for deepening our practice of budgeting for current and future needs.
Talking with Sean helped to siphon my lingering amorphous financial concerns into a plan of action (phew!), and I thank him for that!

Sean Burgess is fantastic. I have been putting off seeing a financial planner for a few years now — some combination of fear, stupidity and defeatism. Plus financial planning seemed expensive, and wouldn’t that be another bad financial decision?
Sean was everything I wanted. He’s young and understands the spend now vs. savings dilemma. He explained everything clearly, answering all my questions so I actually understood. He gave me changes to make to my current investments, new things I should do and pointed out some key documents that I should have prepared.
Best of all, Sean’s rates are completely reasonable and he only charges for the time he actually spends on your case. I got piece of mind, a call to action and complete understanding of the scariest aspect of my life for great price. After talking to Sean I feel a million times better about my financial life.