Lake Elmo, MN | Financial Strategy
A Financial Advisor for Professionals Seeking Clarity
You have built a career, accumulated assets, and made decisions along the way. Now you want to understand where you actually stand, what you need to do next, and whether the path you are on leads where you want to go. That is precisely the kind of clarity New Horizons Boutique Financial Services is built to provide.
The Problem We Solve
Financial Complexity Without a Cohesive Strategy
Professionals seeking clarity are not financially careless. In many cases, the opposite is true. You have a 401(k), perhaps a brokerage account, equity compensation, or a deferred compensation plan. You carry life insurance from a policy you bought years ago. You have thought about estate planning but never finished it. The pieces exist, but they were never assembled into a coherent strategy that answers the fundamental question: am I on track?
This fragmentation is one of the most common financial challenges facing mid-career and senior professionals. The complexity of your financial life has outpaced the clarity of your financial picture. Decisions get deferred not because you lack the resources to act, but because you lack a structured framework to evaluate them. According to a 2024 TIAA survey, approximately 54% of Americans report feeling anxious about their financial future despite having retirement savings in place, a signal that accumulation alone does not create clarity.
New Horizons Boutique Financial Services works specifically with individuals in this position: accomplished professionals who need a trusted advisor to bring structure, analysis, and an honest assessment to their full financial picture before recommending a single product or strategy.
Common Situations We Address
- 1 Multiple accounts across former employers with no unified strategy connecting them
- 2 Uncertainty about whether current savings rates and asset allocation align with long-term goals
- 3 No clear picture of projected retirement income versus projected retirement expenses
- 4 Tax exposure from concentrated positions, deferred comp, or investment income that has never been strategically addressed
- 5 Insurance and estate planning documents that are outdated or incomplete relative to current net worth and family structure
- 6 No clear answer to the question: "Could I stop working within the next five to ten years if I wanted to?"
Our Approach
Strategy First. Products Second. Always.
Professionals seeking clarity deserve a process built around understanding, not a sales conversation dressed up as planning. Every engagement at New Horizons begins with a comprehensive look at your full financial picture before any recommendation is made.
Retirement Strategy Development
We map your current assets, projected savings, and anticipated income sources against your retirement timeline and spending expectations, including a clear approach to retirement income distribution planning as you approach and enter retirement. The result is a concrete retirement planning in Minnesota strategy that shows you where you stand today and what adjustments, if any, may help close gaps. Every strategy involves trade-offs, and we work through those with you directly.
Wealth Management
We coordinate investment strategy across all your accounts, not just the ones held in one place. For professionals seeking clarity, this often means consolidating a fragmented picture of 401(k)s, IRAs, taxable accounts, and equity compensation into a unified strategy with clear risk parameters and a purpose behind every position. Investment results vary and are not guaranteed; strategy is the foundation, not a promise of outcome.
Tax Optimization Planning
Minnesota's 2026 individual income tax rates reach up to 9.85% at the state level, making tax-aware planning particularly important for higher-earning professionals in the Twin Cities metro and surrounding communities like Lake Elmo. We coordinate tax planning strategies for high-income individuals with your investment and retirement strategy, looking for opportunities to manage income, timing, and account structure. Results vary by individual tax situation and may involve trade-offs.
Financial Independence Planning
For many professionals seeking clarity, the core question is not "how do I invest?" but "am I free to make different choices?" Financial Independence Planning analyzes your assets, income streams, savings trajectory, and expenses to answer that question directly and honestly. Independence is a spectrum, and we help you understand where you fall on it today and what it would take to move further along it.
Insurance and Estate Coordination
A complete financial picture includes what happens when things do not go according to plan. We review life, disability, and long-term care insurance coverage relative to your current situation and coordinate with estate planning objectives. Many professionals we work with discover their coverage or beneficiary designations no longer reflect their life as it actually exists today, and addressing those gaps is a critical part of building genuine clarity.
Ongoing Partnership
Clarity is not a one-time deliverable. Life changes, tax laws evolve, goals shift. We meet with clients on a quarterly basis to review strategy, assess progress, and adapt the plan as circumstances warrant. The 2026 tax environment, updated contribution limits, and evolving regulatory landscape are all live variables that we track on your behalf so that your strategy stays current without requiring you to monitor it yourself.
Boutique by Design
Why Intentionally Limiting Our Client Count Matters to You
Most financial services firms grow by adding clients. New Horizons Boutique Financial Services grows by deepening relationships. We intentionally limit the number of clients we take on so that every person we work with receives the full attention their financial situation deserves. For professionals seeking clarity, this distinction matters considerably.
When your financial life is complex, you do not benefit from an advisor who is reviewing your account between 40 other meetings. You benefit from an advisor who knows the specifics of your situation, understands how your decisions interact with each other, and can engage substantively when something changes. That is the experience we are structured to deliver.
You work directly with your advisor. Not a junior associate. Not a call center. Your advisor knows your name, your goals, your family situation, and the strategic context behind every recommendation they make. Our wealth management in Lake Elmo and the greater Washington County area reflects that same standard of personal engagement, which is increasingly rare across the Twin Cities metro. We have built our firm to offer it as a standard, not a premium upgrade.
No Templates
Every financial plan is built from scratch around your specific goals, timeline, income structure, and tax situation. Professionals seeking clarity have unique financial lives. Their plans should reflect that, not force-fit a standardized model.
Education and Transparency
We do not ask you to trust us blindly. We explain the reasoning behind every strategy, walk through the trade-offs clearly, and keep you informed as conditions change. You should understand your financial plan well enough to explain it to someone else. That includes understanding the difference between working with a fiduciary vs. a broker — a distinction that shapes how advice is structured and who it is designed to serve.
Strategy Before Products
Every recommendation begins with a clear strategy, not a product that fits a sales cycle. Professionals seeking clarity have often encountered the opposite experience. We structure the engagement so that your plan drives every decision, not the other way around.
Credentialed and Registered
Lars Engman holds an MBA and is licensed across FINRA Series 7, 63, 65, and 66. Alec Engman holds a B.S. in Economics from the University of Minnesota and carries the same FINRA registrations. Both advisors are Life and Health Insurance Licensed and serve clients as a fiduciary financial advisor in Minnesota.
2026
Tax Year Strategies Fully Updated
$23,500
2026 IRS 401(k) Contribution Limit (Under 50)
9.85%
Minnesota Top Marginal Income Tax Rate, 2026
Contribution limits per IRS guidance. Tax rates per Minnesota Department of Revenue. Individual circumstances vary.
What to Expect
How the Planning Process Works
Professionals seeking clarity often tell us they were not sure what to expect from an initial financial planning conversation. Here is exactly how we approach it.
The Discovery Conversation
We begin with a substantive, no-obligation conversation focused entirely on understanding your situation. What do you have? What are you trying to accomplish? What decisions are you facing that feel unresolved? This is not a sales meeting. It is the foundation of an honest working relationship, and it begins with listening.
The Full Financial Assessment
We conduct a comprehensive review of your current financial position, including investment accounts, retirement assets, insurance coverage, debt structure, cash flow, and estate planning documents. This assessment gives us the data required to build a strategy that reflects your life as it actually is, not a generalized model of someone in your income bracket.
Strategy Development
We develop a written financial strategy that addresses your specific goals, timeline, tax situation, and risk profile. This strategy covers retirement income, investment structure, tax planning coordination, insurance needs, and estate planning considerations. It is a coherent document, not a collection of unrelated recommendations. You walk away understanding your full picture and the rationale behind every element of it.
Implementation and Ongoing Review
Once the strategy is in place, we move to implementation and establish a quarterly review cadence. As your career, income, family, or goals evolve, the strategy evolves with them. We monitor changes in tax law, contribution limits, and regulatory environment on your behalf so that your plan remains current and aligned without requiring constant attention on your part.
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions from Professionals Seeking Clarity
How Do I Know if I Actually Need a Financial Advisor OR Just Need to Get More Organized?
Organization is the starting point, not the destination. Many professionals seeking clarity begin by organizing their accounts and quickly discover that having the information in one place raises more questions than it answers. A financial advisor helps you interpret what the numbers mean relative to your goals, identify tax exposure or gaps you may not have recognized, and make coordinated decisions rather than isolated ones. If you are asking the question, the complexity of your financial life has likely outpaced what a spreadsheet can resolve.
I Am Still Decades Away from Retirement. is It Too Early to Engage a Financial Planner?
The professionals seeking clarity who tend to have the most options later in their careers are those who created a cohesive strategy earlier. Financial independence planning is not only about retirement dates. It is about understanding the decisions available to you at every stage and structuring your finances so that optionality increases over time. Decisions made in your 40s regarding account types, tax strategy, and risk allocation have compounding implications that are far easier to optimize in advance than to correct retrospectively.
What Does a Boutique Financial Advisory Firm Do Differently Than a Large National Firm?
At a boutique firm like New Horizons, you work directly with your advisor throughout the relationship, not a rotating team of associates supported by centralized operations. Your plan is built from your specific situation, not adapted from a standardized model. Because we intentionally limit our client count, each relationship receives full and ongoing attention rather than being managed at scale. For professionals seeking clarity, the practical effect is an advisor who knows your situation in depth and can engage substantively without needing a file review before every meeting.
How Does Minnesota's Tax Environment Affect Financial Planning for Higher-Earning Professionals?
Minnesota's 2026 top marginal income tax rate of 9.85% is among the higher state rates nationally, according to the Minnesota Department of Revenue. For professionals in senior roles in the Twin Cities metro and surrounding communities including Lake Elmo and Washington County, this creates meaningful planning considerations around account type selection, Roth conversion timing, deferred compensation strategy, and income recognition. Tax-aware planning coordinated with your investment and retirement strategy may help reduce unnecessary tax exposure, though results vary by individual situation and involve trade-offs.
What Should I Bring OR Prepare for an Initial Conversation with New Horizons?
You do not need to arrive with a perfectly organized financial life. A general sense of what accounts you have, your approximate income and savings rate, and the questions or decisions that feel most unresolved is sufficient to have a productive first conversation. We will guide you through the information-gathering process as the engagement deepens. The most important thing you bring is a clear sense of what you want to understand and what you want your financial life to make possible.
Take the First Step
Clarity Starts with a Conversation
Professionals seeking clarity deserve a planning process that begins with listening and ends with an honest, complete picture of where they stand. If you are ready to understand your financial position, evaluate your options, and build a strategy that reflects your actual goals, we would welcome the opportunity to connect.
New Horizons Boutique Financial Services serves professionals in Lake Elmo, the broader Washington County area, and communities across the Twin Cities metro. Because we intentionally limit the number of clients we accept, we encourage you to reach out when you are ready to begin.
Securities offered through J.W. Cole Financial, Inc. (JWC) Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through J.W. Cole Advisors, Inc. (JWCA). New Horizons Boutique Financial Services and JWC/JWCA are unaffiliated entities.