Fee-Only Financial Planning

Fee-Only Financial Planning

Kingston launched the practice in 2014 after a career that included roles at large broker-dealers, an experience he has cited as the direct motivation for a clean, fee-only structure. The firm's founding premise is that financial advice should be a standalone product, unbundled from product sales or ongoing asset-based fees. Instead of managing portfolios, Fee-Only Financial Planning produces bespoke financial plans — cash-flow projections, tax strategies, retirement roadmaps — and charges clients a fixed project fee or an hourly rate. The firm explicitly does not custody assets, execute trades, or earn commissions from financial products. The investment posture is plan-first, product-second, and the firm is structurally agnostic about where clients hold their money. Kingston and his team build allocation strategies that clients implement at discount brokerages like Vanguard, Fidelity, or Schwab, typically using low-cost index funds and ETFs. The firm has also staked out public positions on tax-efficient drawdown strategies and Social Security-claiming optimization. Its client base skews toward Illinois-based professionals, academics, and pre-retirees who have accumulated assets in 401(k)s and IRAs but lack a formal decumulation plan. Fee-Only Financial Planning operates as a lean, solo-practitioner-structured firm with select support staff, and it does not disclose assets under management because it does not manage assets. The firm has maintained a consistent media presence through Kingston's contributions to financial publications and appearances on industry podcasts, where he advocates for the hourly-fee model. In June 2024, the firm published a client-facing policy update formally refusing to accept revenue-sharing or referral fees from any custodian or product provider, reinforcing its position as a hardline fee-only practice. What separates Fee-Only Financial Planning from the broader registered investment adviser landscape is its refusal to offer any AUM-billed services. Most fee-only RIAs charge a percentage of assets; Kingston's firm has eliminated that model entirely, competing instead against the free-advice-at-a-cost logic of the brokerage industry. The succession and governance structure remains tied to the founder, a concentration risk common among solo-adviser RIAs that lack a disclosed internal partnership track or external sale plan.