You are five to ten years out
Close enough that the question has stopped being abstract and started keeping you up. Nobody has ever put your actual numbers on one page and told you whether it works.
What income will I have?
Financial Advising · Gettysburg, PA
What does a financial advisor actually do for you?
A financial advisor helps you decide what your money needs to do (retirement, income, protection, legacy) and builds a coordinated plan to do it. In our practice that means one advisor who can address your investments, your insurance, and your employee benefits together, in plain English, instead of three salespeople who never talk to each other.
Who This Is For
Three people we sit down with most.
You just moved here from Maryland or DC
Different tax treatment, accounts that followed you, coverage that did not, and beneficiary forms that still say what they said before the move.
What changes for your moneyYour money is in pieces
An old plan from a job you left, a policy somebody sold you once, savings in three places, and nobody looking at all of it together.
How we charge, plainly
What We Do
Three jobs, one plan.
Personalized advising for every stage of life: planning for retirement, saving for college, or securing your family's future.
Retirement Planning
Will the money last? Saving, investing wisely, and accounting for Social Security, pensions, and healthcare costs, so retirement stays comfortable and worry-free.
Investment Guidance
A portfolio that matches your life, not a product of the month.
Whole-Picture Wealth Management
Investments, insurance, and benefits working as one plan.
Fee Transparency
How do financial advisors charge?
Three ways, generally: fee-only (a flat fee or a percentage of assets), fee-based (fees plus commissions on some products), and commission (paid by the product provider). Each has trade-offs. What matters is that your advisor tells you which applies before you ask. We'll show you ours in the first conversation.
| Model | How the advisor is paid | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Fee-only | A flat fee, hourly rate, or a percentage of the assets managed, paid by you. | Advice on insurance may be referred out; someone still earns a commission somewhere. |
| Fee-based | Advisory fees plus commissions on certain products (often insurance). | Ask which recommendations carry a commission. A good advisor tells you first. |
| Commission | Paid by the product provider when you buy. | Fine for one-time needs; weaker fit for ongoing planning relationships. |
Moving Up from Maryland or DC?
New state. New rules. Same plan? Probably not.
A lot of our clients are families and business owners who moved up from Maryland and the DC area. When you cross the line, the rules around your retirement accounts, your benefits, and your estate documents change with you. We're not accountants and won't pretend to be. We reset the plan and work alongside your tax professional so it fits the state you actually live in.
Your accounts come with you
401(k)s, IRAs, pensions, and policies don't care about the state line, but how they're treated does change.
The rules don't travel
State rules, paycheck withholding, beneficiary and estate documents: each is worth a fresh look after a move.
We reset the fit
One sit-down to re-check the plan against Pennsylvania, coordinated with your CPA, not instead of them.
How It Works
A plan you can question.
Analyze
We sit down and build the full picture together: accounts, coverage, income, debts, and what you want the money to do. You know your life. We know where the gaps usually hide.
Strategize
We lay the options against your goals and your tolerance for risk, and talk through the trade-offs until you can weigh them yourself.
Formalize
We write the plan down together. If you cannot explain it to the people it affects, we are not finished.
Implement
You make the decisions. We do the legwork, handle the paperwork, and coordinate with your CPA or attorney where their lane starts.
Monitor
We stay in touch. When life or the law changes something, we look at it again together, and step five hands back to step one.
Common Questions
Asked across this very table.
Do I need a certain amount of money to work with an advisor?
No. There's no minimum-asset wall here. The first conversation is free, and the plan itself decides what makes sense. Sometimes that's ongoing advising; sometimes it's a single coverage fix.
What's the difference between an IAR and a broker?
An Investment Advisory Representative (IAR) is registered to give ongoing investment advice; a broker is registered to buy and sell investments. Nathan Hockley is registered as both through LifeMark Securities. You can verify any advisor's registration on FINRA BrokerCheck.
Can you help with both investments and insurance?
Yes, that's the point of the practice. Investment and retirement guidance is provided through LifeMark Securities; insurance and benefits are handled by Impact directly. One advisor keeps the pieces coordinated.
We just moved up from Maryland. What should we look at first?
Welcome north. Start with a plan review: retirement accounts, beneficiary designations, estate documents, and any workplace benefits left behind in the move. The practice serves both Pennsylvania and Maryland, so the family members who stayed south of the line are covered too. For the tax side, we coordinate with your CPA.
The plan matters more than any product in it.
Bring us the question that's been keeping you up.
The first conversation is free, and it stays in plain English.
Book a call