WHO WE ARE
We partner with you to provide a personalized approach to life and wealth management decisions. Perhaps you have the next 25 years mapped out. Perhaps you’re in a transition period. Perhaps you’re just starting to plan. We can help. How big are your dreams?
UNDERSTAND YOUR GOALS
There are many financial tools that calculate how much you need. We start with what you want. We then use a unique, multistage discovery process to unlock the circumstances that affect your money and life. What’s next?
CREATE YOUR PLAN
Our team is dedicated to your success. We want to see you reach your goals. It’s all about developing an understanding of what you want from life and how we can help you plan your journey. Who’s helping you?
ACHIEVE PEACE OF MIND
We offer a variety of services to meet your needs. Our team can help you with financial & estate planning, wealth & asset management, portfolio design, risk analysis, and tax services. Take the first step now. Ready to start?
WHAT WE BELIEVE
TFG Advisors helps you factor the “what if” into real-life financial plans. Our process is unique, combining life planning tools with solid investment strategies so your investment decisions align with your goals. Our focus will always be on fulfilling your goals, rather than on new financial products or short-term investment performance.
Together, we identify your expectations and aspirations, which we will use to anchor your financial life plan and make sure we can provide substantial value to you.
Starting with our very first discovery meeting, our goal is to listen carefully and provide feedback. We want you to be comfortable with every step of the process.
We create a customized strategy for your financial well-being, and review it carefully with you to be sure it meets your expectations.
Regular progress meetings help us adjust and refine your plan together as your circumstances require.
Candid Assessment
Clear Communication
CUstomized Strategies
Committed to Your Well-Being
CHARITIES WE SUPPORT
Like a fine orchestra, each person at TFG Advisors is committed to delivering a quality experience. It’s all about communication — which means developing an understanding of what you want from life so we can help you reach your goals.
Our team at TFG Advisors has been providing our distinctive approach to wealth management services for more than three decades. We’re an independent firm that offers a full range of financial and life planning resources and expertise under one roof. To read more about our team members, click on their names.
George M. Barnhart
Owner / Managing Member
Director of Operations and Marketing
Terry J. Hirsch
Owner / Managing Member
Director of Financial Planning
Paul D. Reile
Owner / Managing Member
Director of Investments
Timothy P. Atkinson
Chief Compliance Officer / Advisor
Rebecca M. Kindig, CFP®
Support Advisor
Jessica L. Cline
Senior Client Service Specialist
THOMAS P. WILLIAMS, CFP®
Support Advisor
Owen G. Crabtree
Client Service Specialist
HOW WE CAN HELP
Your Total Financial Guide to life's journey.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an array of your financial needs met in one location? TFG Advisors is ready to provide a range of services, including wealth management, portfolio design and analysis, tax services, risk management, and estate planning.
Our team will meet with you for a series of in-depth, personal interviews to discover the values, dreams, and goals that matter most to you. Then we explore together how to integrate your unique circumstances and life decisions into customized wealth building and wealth protecting strategies. From this vantage point, we recommend the ideal combination of services to help you make the wisest decisions with your money and your life.
When you’re ready, we can help.
Financial & Life Planning
Portfolio Design & Analysis
Wealth & Asset Management
Risk & Estate Analysis
Tax Services
CLIENT STORIES
In this fast-paced world, few firms take the time to explain the nuances of financial management — or to consider a client’s personal well-being. We feel that, like any good relationship, communication is key.
Using gifting techniques to transfer living legacies to younger generations can be a smart tax strategy and a rewarding way to see your legacy dreams realized during your lifetime. But your beneficiaries could be at a disadvantage without the financial and life planning knowledge to redeploy those assets. Feeling both grateful and overwhelmed, a younger couple reached out to TFG Advisors to find strategies on how to best incorporate just such a gift. Some assets were sold to address their immediate expenses; others were retained for opportunities for future growth. This multi-generational planning benefited the entire family, providing significant peace of mind.
After two decades spent raising a burgeoning family, our client found herself suddenly single in a nearly empty nest. Though excellent counsel had kept her financially stable, she wanted to better understand the basics of financial management in order to evaluate viable opportunities to fulfill the next phase of her life. By incorporating modular financial and life planning services with an educational focus, TFG Advisors designed a wealth management program to meet her specific needs. Our client has since become a successful entrepreneur with a new sense of pride and purpose.
It’s not uncommon to find the transition into retirement to be a challenge emotionally, physically, and financially — especially when you haven’t defined your aspirations about life after work. Within months of retiring from a long and successful automotive career, an unexpected illness struck one of our clients. TFG Advisors initiated an emergency meeting to rally around the family. Our extensive experience in investment and estate planning helped them navigate their options in the face of diminished resources. Through the strategic use of personal assets and available assistance programs, the family continues to maintain a happy and healthy financial life.
Healthier lifestyles and improved mortality are bringing home a new reality: Millions of people are caring for an aging parent. A midlife couple contacted TFG Advisors when her mother needed to move in with them. The mother had worked hard her entire life but she was not a wealthy woman. Our team of skilled professionals recognized that this dynamic new family needed to be treated as a unit. Working with each person, we addressed the financial and tax consequences of their new situation, which left more time for the family to focus on each other.
Due in part to uncertainties facing the industry, our client felt that his career in healthcare management had lasted long enough — long before he became eligible for his full pension. TFG Advisors gave the client the space and place to formulate a plan that would let him comfortably retire, years sooner than he had originally planned. By combining tax and cash flow strategies with life planning and asset allocation, our client is now the proud CEO of his own life.
Many people defer their dreams until retirement. Our client, a high-ranking corporate veteran, decided not to wait. She wanted to put the spreadsheets behind her and move to a new career as an artist. TFG Advisors worked with her to identify her dreams and to uncover ways to finance them. Her plan was well-founded. She is flourishing as an illustrator of children’s books. You might say we helped her move from Inc. to ink, and she couldn’t be happier.
CLIENT STORIES
In this fast-paced world, few firms take the time to explain the nuances of financial management — or to consider a client’s personal well-being. We feel that, like any good relationship, communication is key.
Using gifting techniques to transfer living legacies to younger generations can be a smart tax strategy and a rewarding way to see your legacy dreams realized during your lifetime. But your beneficiaries could be at a disadvantage without the financial and life planning knowledge to redeploy those assets. Feeling both grateful and overwhelmed, a younger couple reached out to TFG Advisors to find strategies on how to best incorporate just such a gift. Some assets were sold to address their immediate expenses; others were retained for opportunities for future growth. This multi-generational planning benefited the entire family, providing significant peace of mind.
After two decades spent raising a burgeoning family, our client found herself suddenly single in a nearly empty nest. Though excellent counsel had kept her financially stable, she wanted to better understand the basics of financial management in order to evaluate viable opportunities to fulfill the next phase of her life. By incorporating modular financial and life planning services with an educational focus, TFG Advisors designed a wealth management program to meet her specific needs. Our client has since become a successful entrepreneur with a new sense of pride and purpose.
It’s not uncommon to find the transition into retirement to be a challenge emotionally, physically, and financially — especially when you haven’t defined your aspirations about life after work. Within months of retiring from a long and successful automotive career, an unexpected illness struck one of our clients. TFG Advisors initiated an emergency meeting to rally around the family. Our extensive experience in investment and estate planning helped them navigate their options in the face of diminished resources. Through the strategic use of personal assets and available assistance programs, the family continues to maintain a happy and healthy financial life.
Healthier lifestyles and improved mortality are bringing home a new reality: Millions of people are caring for an aging parent. A midlife couple contacted TFG Advisors when her mother needed to move in with them. The mother had worked hard her entire life but she was not a wealthy woman. Our team of skilled professionals recognized that this dynamic new family needed to be treated as a unit. Working with each person, we addressed the financial and tax consequences of their new situation, which left more time for the family to focus on each other.
Due in part to uncertainties facing the industry, our client felt that his career in healthcare management had lasted long enough — long before he became eligible for his full pension. TFG Advisors gave the client the space and place to formulate a plan that would let him comfortably retire, years sooner than he had originally planned. By combining tax and cash flow strategies with life planning and asset allocation, our client is now the proud CEO of his own life.
Many people defer their dreams until retirement. Our client, a high-ranking corporate veteran, decided not to wait. She wanted to put the spreadsheets behind her and move to a new career as an artist. TFG Advisors worked with her to identify her dreams and to uncover ways to finance them. Her plan was well-founded. She is flourishing as an illustrator of children’s books. You might say we helped her move from Inc. to ink, and she couldn’t be happier.
WHY YOU NEED A FIDUCIARY
A fierce debate is going on within the financial services industry over which financial professionals should be held to a fiduciary standard. The lack of one defining standard is impacting investors in ways they may not even realize. Medical professionals have the Hippocratic Oath, a standard for ethics in medicine. The financial industry does not have this and would be wise to implement a strong single fiduciary standard that would protect consumers. Unfortunately, this standard may not come for a while.
The Committee for the Fiduciary Standard outlines 5 important principles that should be upheld.
To summarize, they are:
Act with honesty & good faitH
never mislead clients
Act with prudence & dilligence
Avoid conflicts of interest
Disclose & manage unavoidable conflicts in the client's favor
This may seem like common sense, and many may assume that all financial professionals are required to act in this manner. Unfortunately, there are many in this industry that act under a whole different set of standards. The standards for financial services differ depending on the field of practice. As an independent Registered Investment Advisor, TFG Advisors must uphold the fiduciary standard. However, a broker or “financial advisor” selling investments for a broker-dealer, or an insurance agent selling insurance-based investments (annuities) are held to the suitability standard (not the fiduciary standard).
Here’s an example:
You want to buy a house that is less than $300,000 and has a basement. Those two requirements would leave you with a list of “suitable” options. However, wouldn’t you want to look into the neighborhood, schools, taxes, and so on? Don’t you want to find something that goes beyond “suitable”? Don’t you want what is “best” for you?
The investment landscape is confusing enough as it is. Consumers deserve to know if they are working with a fiduciary or not. If you decide to work with TFG Advisors you will know that we are a fiduciary that will work on your behalf, always putting your interests first.
CONTACT US
(248) 724-0090
(248) 377-0988
Office Hours:
Monday – Friday
8 AM – 4 PM
Auburn Hills Location (Main):
3121 University Drive
Suite 100
Auburn Hills, MI 48326
Ann Arbor Location:
900 Victors Way
Suite 110
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
