Financial Planner for a Young Family: 10 Questions to Ask Before You Hire

By Kevin Luu, Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer. Reviewed on 2026-09-30.

The best financial planner for a young family is a fee-only fiduciary who can show you, with your own numbers, how they would handle your equity pay, your taxes, your kids’ accounts and your estate documents. To find one, ask ten questions in a first meeting: five that test duty and pay, and five that test whether they actually understand a high-income W-2 household with small children. Vague answers to the second five are the clearest sign to keep looking.

This guide is written for dual-income families earning roughly $750,000 to $3 million in California or Washington, typically physicians, scientists, biotech and tech employees, with at least one child under 12. Generic checklists focus on budgeting and emergency funds. At your income, those are rarely the problem. The expensive gaps are RSU withholding, unused plan features, missing guardianship documents, and kids who grow up seeing money but never hearing the reasoning behind it.

Five questions about duty, pay and records

These screen out conflicts before you spend time on strategy. Each answer can be checked against public records.

1. “Are you a fiduciary on every account and every recommendation, in writing?” A registered investment adviser owes a fiduciary duty of care and loyalty that covers the whole relationship, as the SEC explained in its 2019 interpretation of the adviser standard of conduct. A broker recommending a product works under a different rule that applies at the moment of the recommendation. Many people hold both registrations, so ask which hat they wear for insurance, annuities and anything sold on commission.
2. “How exactly are you paid, and what would you earn if we followed your advice?” Fee-only means the family is the only source of pay. “Fee-based” usually means fees plus commissions. Ask for the total annual cost in dollars, including fund expenses, not just a percentage.
3. “Can I see your Form ADV Part 2 and your record?” The brochure (Form ADV Part 2A) lists fees, conflicts and disciplinary history. You can look up any adviser on the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site and any broker on FINRA BrokerCheck. For CFP® professionals, confirm status on the CFP Board verification page.
4. “Who holds our money?” Assets should sit with an independent custodian in your name, with statements coming directly from that custodian, not only from the adviser.
5. “Who will we actually work with, and how often?” A senior planner in the sales meeting and a junior associate afterward is common. Ask for names and a meeting calendar for the first year.

Five questions that test whether they understand your family

These are the questions most planners for “young families” cannot answer well, because their usual household earns a fraction of yours.

6. “How would you handle our RSU vests and the withholding gap?” RSUs are taxed as wages when shares are delivered. Employers typically withhold federal tax at the 22% supplemental rate (37% on supplemental wages over $1,000,000 in a calendar year), per IRS Publication 15 (2026). At your income, the real marginal rate is usually 35% or 37%, so a balance due in April is normal unless someone plans for it. A good planner will also tell you that an 83(b) election does not apply to RSUs.
7. “What would you change in our 401(k) and benefits this year?” Listen for specifics: the $24,500 elective deferral limit for 2026, whether your plan allows after-tax contributions for a mega backdoor Roth up to the $72,000 total annual additions limit (IRS Notice 2025-67), and the dependent care FSA, which rose to $7,500 per household for 2026 under P.L. 119-21 if your employer adopted the higher limit. Since your income is above the 2026 Roth IRA phase-out ($242,000 to $252,000 MFJ), ask how they handle backdoor Roth contributions.
8. “How does California or Washington change your advice?” California taxes all capital gains as ordinary income, has a top rate of 13.3% (for 2025, including the 1% tax on taxable income over $1,000,000) and withholds 1.3% SDI on all wages with no cap for 2026 (EDD). Washington has no wage income tax for 2026, but taxes long-term capital gains above an annual standard deduction at 7% (9.9% on taxable gains above $1,000,000) and has enacted a 9.9% income tax on AGI over $1,000,000 starting in 2028 (WA DOR). A planner who gives the same answer for both states is not paying attention.
9. “How would you fund our kids’ education and accounts?” Expect a clear view on 529 plans (California gives no state deduction for contributions), superfunding with the five-year gift election (up to $95,000 per child per donor for 2026), UTMA accounts and when control passes to the child, and a custodial Roth IRA once a child has real earned income.
10. “What happens to our kids if we both die next month?” The answer should cover named guardians, a revocable trust, beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance, and who manages money for a minor. Assets left outright to a child under 18 typically need a court-supervised arrangement, which a trust is commonly used to avoid.

Worked example: what good answers are worth to a $1 million household

Assumptions (illustrative, 2026 federal only, married filing jointly, standard deduction used for simplicity): Priya is a biotech scientist and Dan is a hospitalist in the Bay Area. Salaries total $600,000. Priya has $400,000 of RSUs vesting during the year. They have two children, ages 4 and 7, and $2.5 million invested.

A planner who asks about the vest schedule in January can set aside cash or adjust withholding so this does not arrive as an April surprise with a possible underpayment penalty. The same planner should notice whether Priya’s plan allows after-tax contributions. If her employer contributes $10,000, her mega backdoor Roth room for 2026 is $72,000 minus $24,500 minus $10,000, or $37,500. The dollar limits are adjusted for inflation, so the room is recalculated each year.

Now the fee. If a firm charges a hypothetical 1% on the $2.5 million, that is $25,000 a year. A hypothetical flat fee of $15,000 covers the same scope for $10,000 less each year, or $100,000 over ten years before growth. Neither number is a market average. The point is to ask every firm for its cost in dollars, then compare it with what the planner found in your own situation.

Red flags in the first meeting

• A product recommendation (whole life insurance, an annuity, a proprietary fund) before they have seen your pay stubs, equity grants and estate documents.
• Statements that are out of date, such as “the estate tax exemption drops to about $7 million in 2026.” The federal basic exclusion is $15,000,000 per person for 2026 under current law. Washington’s own estate tax starts far lower, at $3,076,000 or $3,000,000 in 2026 depending on the date of death (WA DOR).
• No mention of your children beyond a 529 contribution amount.
• Fees quoted only as a percentage, or reluctance to put the fiduciary commitment in the advisory agreement.

The question most families forget: how will our kids learn how we decide?

Most planning conversations end at account balances. The harder problem for families at your income is that children see the outcomes (the house, the travel, the private school) without ever hearing why you chose them or what you turned down. As Kevin Luu puts it: “Your kids don’t need to inherit your portfolio. They need to inherit your decision-making process.”

Ask any planner how they would help you write down the reasoning behind big decisions, such as why you chose a 529 over a UTMA, how you think about giving, or what you want a trustee to do if a child wants to start a business at 25. A short written Decision Memo for each major choice becomes part of a FamilyKnowledge® Library your children can read when they are old enough. At Age Five Family Office™, that documentation sits alongside the tax and investment work, not after it.

What to bring to your first meeting

• Last year’s federal and state returns and your most recent pay stubs.
• Equity grant summaries and vest schedules (RSU, ESPP, ISO).
• Benefits guides for both employers, including 401(k) plan rules.
• Account statements, including 529 and UTMA accounts.
• Your will, trust, guardianship nominations and life insurance policies, or a note that they do not exist yet.

Common questions

Do we need a financial planner if we already have a CPA?

A CPA typically prepares returns and answers questions about last year. A planner looks forward: vest timing, contribution choices, education funding, insurance and estate documents. The two work best together. Ask any planner candidate whether they coordinate directly with your CPA and estate attorney, and who is responsible for making sure recommendations actually get carried out.

Is a fee-only planner always the better choice?

Fee-only removes commission conflicts, which matters when insurance or annuities come up. It says nothing about competence. A fee-only adviser can still lack experience with equity pay or two-state tax questions. Use the first five questions to check duty and pay, and the second five to check whether they understand a household like yours.

When should a young family start working with a planner?

The common triggers are a first large RSU grant, the birth of a child, a move between California and Washington, or a partner starting a new job with different benefits. Each changes taxes, insurance needs and estate documents at once, and early decisions (guardians, beneficiaries, 529 setup) are easier to get right than to fix later.

Next step

Take the ten questions above into your next meeting and ask each firm to answer the RSU and benefits questions using your real numbers. For more on cost, see how much financial planning costs and what a wealth manager costs. To check a specific adviser, use our guide to what a vetted financial advisor is. Our tax management, retirement and employee benefits and estate planning pages show how Age Five Family Office™ handles each area. If you would like a second opinion on your own situation, the Tax & Wealth Assessment is a good place to start.

This article is general education, not individual advice. The right move depends on your family’s full financial picture.

Written by

Kevin Luu

Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer, Bright Advisers

Kevin has advised high-income W-2 tech and biotech families since 2015, and leads the education-first Age Five Family Office from Brea, California.

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