Nothing to sell, no-incentive financial coaching.
So you know when to take the trip to Europe, when to buy that designer handbag, and when the money is already spoken for.
Everything you own, in daylight, before you talk to anybody who sells things. Most people have never seen or truly understood their financial picture in one place at one time — not because it's complicated, but because nobody ever sat down and did it with them.
Yours gets built from your own statements, in your own numbers, and you keep it.
We find it all, we write it down, and you stop carrying it around in your head.
Three stages, in this order, because each one needs the one before it.
Find it all
Every account, balance, policy, debt and beneficiary, gathered onto one page from your own statements — or just from what you already know. Nearly everyone turns up something they'd forgotten they owned. Occasionally it's a pension.
See what it does
A working cash flow in your real numbers. What comes in, what goes out, what's genuinely fixed — the mortgage, the insurance, the things that happen whether you like it or not — what only feels that way, and where the gap is if there is one. You get the file, and you know how it's built.
Know what to ask
Whatever's left gets sorted by who should answer it, written out in plain language. You stop nodding along — with a partner, a friend, an adviser, an attorney, anyone who has an opinion about your money.
You're not behind. You just haven't been shown.
Nobody teaches this, and there is no version of your situation that I'm going to be shocked by. We just look at it head on.
Something changed
A marriage, a divorce, a death, a move, a layoff. Money that used to work one way now has to work another, starting immediately.
It should be enough
Maybe it is. You still couldn't say where it goes, or whether you're actually okay — and the financial picture doesn't always get clearer as you earn more.
You work for yourself
Business money and personal money have been roughly the same money for a while now, and tax season is the only time anyone looks.
Somebody else always handled it
Not because you couldn't. Because that was the arrangement, for years. Now it's yours, and nobody hands over the context along with the logins.
Money arrived
An inheritance, a settlement, a windfall, a first real bonus. Nothing about receiving it teaches you what to do with it.
Retirement got real
Close enough that you'd like to know whether the number works — before somebody sells you a product about it.
I'm not a financial adviser.
I'd rather you know that on the first page than the fifth. I won't tell you what to invest in, whether to roll over your 401(k), or how much to put where. Those need a license I don't hold, and the line is not blurry. What I will do is teach you to manage your own money with more confidence.
You don't have to know what you need yet.
Most people arrive with a vague sense that something's off. Here's the range of what we end up working through, and roughly what each one takes.
Getting it all in one place
Every account, balance, policy and debt on a single page. Longer if things are scattered across old jobs and old addresses. Shorter than you'd think if they aren't.
A budget that holds up
Your real numbers, not a template. The second pass matters more than the first, because that's when the expenses you forgot about turn up.
Debt, in what order
What to clear first and why, in a sequence you actually agree with rather than one you read about somewhere.
Reading your own paperwork
Statements, benefit elections, plan documents. The goal is that you can read the next one without me.
Getting ready for a meeting
With an adviser, an attorney, an accountant. What to bring, what to ask, and what the words in the answer actually mean.
Keeping it going
Someone to check in with, so the plan you made in March still exists in September.
Which of these you need — and how long it honestly takes — is the first thing we sort out on the free call.
Intro call
Twenty minutes. You describe the situation. I tell you honestly whether I'm the right help.
Sessions
An hour at a time, or three. Once, or every week for a stretch, or once a month for as long as it's useful. Billed in whole hours, and you stop whenever you're done.
What "no-incentive" means, exactly. I am paid by you and by nobody else. I receive no commissions, no referral fees, no revenue sharing, no finder's fees and no gifts from any product, institution, accountant, attorney, adviser, lender, or anyone else I might suggest you go talk to. I sell no products of any kind. If I point you somewhere, the only thing I get out of it is that you got helped.
The line, written down, so neither of us has to guess where it sits.
All of it happens in sessions you book. Nothing runs in the background, and nothing renews on its own.
Things I can help with
- Build a complete inventory of accounts, balances, debts and policies
- Build a budget and cash-flow plan in your own numbers
- Work through debt payoff order, savings targets and emergency reserves
- Teach you to read your own statements, benefit elections and plan documents
- Sort your financial paperwork into something you can actually navigate
- Explain, in general terms, how account types and financial concepts work
- Prepare your questions and documents ahead of meetings with licensed professionals
- Talk through what to look for when hiring an adviser, CPA or attorney
- Pick any of it back up in a later session, whenever you want to
Things I don't do
- Recommend, select, evaluate or compare any specific investment or security
- Advise whether to roll over a 401(k), or where to move it
- Set or suggest an asset allocation, or how much to hold in anything
- Manage, trade in, log into or hold any authority over your accounts
- Take custody of your money or documents of title
- Give legal advice or opine on the terms of any agreement or settlement
- Prepare tax returns, take tax positions, or represent you before the IRS
- Sell, place or recommend any insurance or annuity product
- Tell you whether an offer, a deal or a decision is a good one
That second list isn't modesty. Recommending securities for compensation requires a registration I don't hold, and I'd rather be genuinely useful inside a clear boundary than vague about where the boundary is. When a question lands on it, I stop, we write it down, and it goes to somebody licensed to answer it.
A household is just a smaller set of books.
I'm David Blades. My work has been corporate finance and management accounting — building budgets, reconciling accounts, and explaining to people what the numbers in front of them actually mean. That last part turns out to be most of this job too.
This started with a friend. She was in the middle of a divorce, sat down with a folder of statements, and had nobody to go through them with. Not because she couldn't understand it — because no one had ever helped her to.
The divorce was the occasion. The problem underneath it wasn't specific to divorce. Most people I talk to — married, single, self-employed, doing well, going through a rough patch — have never truly understood their personal financial picture. That's what I set up this coaching service to help with. I'm not the person who decides where your money goes. I'm the one who helps you make those decisions for yourself.
- CredentialCertified Management Accountant (CMA), active — Institute of Management Accountants
- EducationMBA, concentration in finance
- Not heldNo current securities registration, insurance license, CPA license or law license
- Paid byYou. Fee-only. No commissions, no referral fees, no product sales.
Start with the free call. It costs you twenty minutes.
Tell me roughly where things stand and what's most in the way this week. You don't have to have anything gathered, sorted or ready — that's the job, not the prerequisite. No charge, no pitch, no follow-up email six days later.