Defining wealth is deeply personal. Wealth is a foundational piece of building a meaningful life. It is connected to health and joy, and defining wealth, and a meaningful life, is deeply personal. As your advisor, we take the personal seriously. We address your emotional well-being around money and financial goals first. We actively address the multiple perspectives of wealth and that requires that we work as a team with our clients and seek input from experts in our field.

We like to talk to you. Communication with your advisor should be about you. When you pay for an advisor, you get to talk to an advisor. We talk with clients regularly based on what is happening in their lives. We do reviews on your schedule as life happens, not on a pre-determined “review” schedule. We know your children and the charities you love because we help you support them in ways that make you feel happy. We celebrate your family milestones with you because it is important to you. It is personal.

We have strategy meetings with our clients, we share meals, laugh and work to understand who you are and what you’re building in your life. Our clients perspectives enrich our lives too. We are better people because we know our clients and their experiences.

Financial education is foundational in our practice. As financial literacy increase, healthy wealth increases. We provide seminars, client dialogues, research and in-person financial education.

We support our married and partnered clients to create a shared mission for money. To navigate different money approaches and define dreams, even in conflict. We enjoy our clients hobbies with them. We support their travel goals and love to see photos of their adventures.

It is your money and your life. Financial planning is the reason you work with us. It is an ongoing, evolving conversation as we age and grow. We understand your life goals and your approach to wealth. Advice and investing directly apply to your situation. Our clients don’t make big financial decisions without consulting us. Car buying, home buying, elder care, college, travel among others.

Our approach to investment management grows from financial planning. We incorporate your timeline, comfort level with volatility, risk tolerance and market trends. We seek input into our own investing bias quarterly and make adjustments based on research to make sure you have a portfolio that reflects objective criteria, research and principles, not just our bias. We re-balance based on our research and benchmarks quarterly. We do tax planning and tax loss harvesting where it makes sense.

We determine if your asset really needs active management before we assign it to a fee-based account. Some assets do not need active management or others, based on your time horizon just might not make sense in a fee-based account. We work to reduce your fees based on your situation and needs.

1. Tell us about yourself and your company! What are some highlights of you and/or your company's biography?

Defining wealth is deeply personal. It evolves as we age and reflect on life experiences. It is foundational in building a meaningful life. Wealth is integral to health and joy, to peace of mind and to our goals and dreams. We’ve built a company that recognizes that money feels complicated no matter how much of it we have or what stage of life we’re in. Money is emotional. Helping my clients feel confident and enthusiastic about financial future is my goal.

We designed Altalune to be a breath of fresh air within the financial industry where we and our clients could show up authentically around our financial lives. Our clients have personal ongoing support on the things that really matter in their lives.

We are a husband-wife team. We’ve worked together for 11 years and we’ve been married for eighteen. Doing money while married carries its own set of complexity, along with owning a small business. And importantly, as women we have special financial skills and challenges that deserve conversation, and I facilitate those. Especially for women, giving makes us happy, and supporting women in building a confident financial future and sharing their wealth is a joy for me.

Each person’s unique personal financial situation is our framework. In our practice, we authentically nurture client’s comfort-level around money and financial goals first. We talk with clients regularly about their lives, not just a “annual review.” Life does not happen on a schedule, and neither do financial issues. We know your children, your favorite charities. We help figure out how to have more of what makes you happiest, what gives you the most meaningful life. It is personal. We show up authentically and we create a space where you can show up authentically too.

“But, but, what about investment management?” we get asked. Highest quality investment management, tracked to industry wide benchmarks is a baseline in our practice. Investment management is designed around your goals, your dreams for your legacy and your prioritized needs.

Kelley came to the financial industry first as a girl who grew up in the Midwest who believed, as a young woman that she did not deserve wealth, that girls were not good in math and science and couldn’t really be trusted with money. She loved to read and got a BA and MA in English and Composition Theory. her first career was in non-profit management. She listened to donors’ dreams for their own legacies, and cultivated major gifts to support causes that helped them share their legacies and create stories of hope and meaning. She loved her donors and helping them build their legacies while they were alive to experience that meaningful contribution.

Kelley’s love of stories is her superpower. Our stories about wealth and money foundationally create our approach to money, no matter how much money we have. When we authentically own those stories, we can build healthy wealth.

1. What do you attribute to your success?
   1. Listening with intention. It allows me to really understand what you love, what you need and how you move through your life. It helps me understand how you think about dreams, crises, milestones and fears.
      
   2. Building a plan. Being able to take those stories, fears, regrets and celebrations and help you formulate plans that are doable is mission critical. I want you to embrace your financial plan confidently and enthusiastically. With gusto!
      
   3. I am a seeker. Continuous learning underlies all work in our practice. The world is changing rapidly and anyone who says they have it all figured out is not looking around. Each of us approaches wealth from different perspectives including generationally. So what we did five years ago is likely not the best strategy today. I also want to help my clients become more educated and feel confident about what they know. That requires building a research-based approach and being willing to question, to learn a new way. The financial industry is full of innovation and optimizations that we can use to help us reach our confident financial future.
      
   4. Crying. Crying is so frowned upon, but it is a natural reaction to things we care deeply about. Having money regrets, celebrating births, marriages, those little moments of pure joy with our kids, death of loved ones. Last year, I hiked the Southwest Coast of England. I cried at the awe of the cliffs, the Irish Sea and me there on them. When clients feel vulnerable enough to cry with happiness and sadness or regret, then I know I’m truly supporting them.

Underlying those things, I do my own work around my financial mindset and history. As women, we often defer to spouses, hideaway with our shame or guilt around not ‘doing money right,” or let fear keep us from taking steps. We all, myself included, have to practice owning our own financial futures, even if we have spouses.

We have to practice being vulnerable, owning our money experiences as critical and useful parts of our life journey. So I am always doing the work so that I can show up and help my clients do their work. I always say our goal is to “engage with our money with gusto!” Whatever your goal is “to become a millionaire” or “to give away a million,” engaging in that process with gusto and love is crucial.

1. 1. Tell us about some of your favorite hobbies or pastimes. 
      

Ric and Kelley have been doing long hikes for the last few years, like 100+ mile hikes. We have finished two 100+ miles, one in Cornwall and one in Yorkshire. We are training for our next, which will be in Portugal. We have learned so many things about what our bodies can handle, how our marriage works, how to re-frame challenge and most importantly, how being “awe-inspired” can be truly life changing.

1. Tell us about your work, your practice and how long you've been doing it.

Ric started his financial advising business in October 2007. Kelley joined him as his administrator in 2013. In 2021, we changed firms, moved to LPL and opened Altalune Wealth Advisors, a New Mexico woman-owned business. We designed Altalune to be a breath of fresh air within the financial industry where we and our clients could show up authentically around our financial lives. We formed Altalune so that our clients could have deeply personal ongoing support on the things that really mattered in their lives. Things like:

I wish I wasn’t always so anxious and stressed about my money

I wish my spouse and I could talk and plan about our financial future together

Are we really saving enough

How should I set up my finances when I have a child with special needs

How do we balance saving and living right now

How do I feel secure that we have enough to live on until we pass

What plans need to be in place if something horrible happens

How can we give more to the charities we love and how can those gifts be more effective

How do we pass their wealth on now and after we pass to help our kids the most

Are we paying too much tax

None of these are investment questions. They are life questions that require a financial perspective. So we built a practice that centers around our clients’ most pressing dreams and fears.

Altalune means “over the moon.” We always want our clients to feel like they are getting “over the moon” service. Also, the moon has many phases, just like life. And in each phase there are different strengths and challenges, just like life.

2. Tell us about the range of services your company provides. How has your industry changed over the years, and what have you done to adapt?

In years past, financial advisors were really investment managers. They sold you investment and insurance products that maybe did or did not fit your personal financial situation. Lots of advisors and insurance agents still do this.

Our practice, at its core, is a planning and coaching business. We know that health and wealth are inextricably entwined. We talk about this. We know that taxes concern everyone. We help clients understand and plan taxes. Budgeting, saving, spending, retiring, dying and education are complex and often expensive. We love cash flow analysis and planning. We love helping clients feel like they have enough to live a full life, and then, to share their wealth with causes and family members dear to them.

We want to understand my clients pain points when it comes to money and managing finances. How can we turn those pain points into points of progress? This means using technology efficiently and effectively. It means understanding how financial habits are formed and how to change them without making us all go nuts.

We consistently adapt when it legacy planning, gifting and charitable giving. The needs of younger generations, their experiences, our society, their values and dreams may also be different. We devote a lot of helping clients prepare for giving to their children and to charities they love before they pass. We help them consider how to give freely with healthy boundaries. This legacy conversation becomes more and more important as our population ages.

Historically the financial industry has not been inviting to women. At Altalune, I am changing that. Nothing bad happens when women engage with money. In fact, women engaged in their finances accomplish amazing things. For women and their children. And for our communities.

3. What sets your business apart from others in your industry?

Other advisors love to talk about how they invest, their investment strategy, their yield curves on bonds. They say they do financial planning, but they focus on the portfolio and your risk tolerance only. They talk to you once a year. That is not financial planning.

We designed Altalune to be a breath of fresh air within the financial industry where we and our clients could show up authentically around our financial lives. In our practice, highest quality investment management is a given; it is a baseline. Our value, our real superpower is planning with you around your unique and personal dreams, your stories. Real, ongoing, check-ins with you, being your springboard, your accountability coach, or your reminder service. Providing you with trusted, relevant financial educational opportunities and advice that supports your unique and meaningful life.

It is the financial plans, the tax planning, planning your legacy and figuring out how you can reasonably and with enthusiasm make those plans happen that makes us different. And we love that! We support you to embrace and engage in your finances with enthusiasm.