Balanced Life Planning

The firm structures its practice around divorce financial planning and widowhood transitions. Unlike broad-spectrum wealth managers, client engagements typically begin at the point of a divorce filing or the death of a spouse, with Shagawat serving as a financial neutral or advocate depending on the engagement. The planning workflow covers asset-division modeling, tax consequence analysis of QDRO splits, and recalibration of retirement income assumptions for a single-earner household. This narrow aperture has defined the firm's referral network, which runs through family-law attorneys rather than traditional COI circles.

Balanced Life Planning operates as a fee-only RIA, which means it does not earn commissions on product sales or insurance placements. Clients can engage the firm hourly for project-based financial planning, pay a retainer for ongoing planning support, or transition to an assets-under-management fee structure when portfolio implementation is needed. The AUM path historically uses Dimensional Fund Advisors strategies, and the firm has long described its investment philosophy as evidence-based and low-cost.

Shagawat has held a long-standing teaching role at the American College of Financial Services, where he instructs on retirement planning curriculum. He has also contributed to industry publications on post-divorce Social Security strategies and IRA beneficiary planning for surviving spouses. His practitioner background includes experience on the mediation side of divorce, giving him a perspective that blends financial planning with the procedural realities family-law litigants face.

As a boutique practice with a principal who presents publicly on niche topics, the firm appears to accept new clients selectively, typically through professional referrals rather than mass-market marketing. The firm has not published a stated asset minimum, and its fee-only structure means engagements can start with an hourly financial-planning project rather than a portfolio handover. Prospective clients without an existing attorney referral can initiate contact directly, though the intake process is built to screen for divorce-related or widowhood-related planning complexity.

Balanced Life Planning can engage on a planning-only basis, which means Shagawat will produce a financial plan and divorce-settlement analysis without requiring the client to move assets. This unbundled approach is common in high-conflict divorces where one spouse already has an existing advisory relationship or where a divorce attorney specifically requires an independent financial planner for settlement modeling. If the client later chooses to consolidate, the firm can transition from the planning engagement to a managed-account relationship.

No public announcement has been made regarding a successor or sale. Jim Shagawat founded the firm in 1998 and remains its president. The practice's concentrated expertise in divorce and widowhood financial planning makes a conventional internal succession model more challenging than at a generalist RIA, because the successor would need to replicate both the technical planning depth and the attorney-referral relationships. The industry pattern for a firm of this size and specialization is typically a sale to a slightly larger fiduciary RIA with a similar client demographic, though Shagawat has not signaled intent in either direction.