October 2026

From the Field

Hello from sunny California!

As this newsletter goes out, I'm on the road at XYPN Live, the annual conference for fee-only advisors, held this year in San Diego. It's my first time attending, and it is big, easily the largest gathering of financial professionals I've been part of.

I don't make it to many conferences. Most years, I'd rather be in the comfort of my home than in an airport. But I've heard the same thing about this one, year after year: the collaboration between advisors, tech partners, and coaches is unmatched, the education sessions are almost overwhelming (in a good way), and ideas move fast and free between people who are all trying to solve the same problems for their clients.

One small perk I still haven't gotten over: booking my own travel. No DTS, no waiting on four different approvers or getting stuck with whatever flight the system decided was cheapest. And no filing a travel claim afterward, again, hoping for approval to divert some amount to my government credit card and the rest to my personal account. I picked a flight and hotel, booked it, and moved on with my day. It's glorious!

Switching gears - I hope this doesn't come as a shock to any of you, but in most businesses, there's an element of building the plane while flying it, and Formynder is no exception. That said, the bigger thing I'm working on while I'm here is something several of you have asked me about directly: what happens to Formynder if something happens to me? That question actually breaks into two separate plans; contingency and succession.

• A contingency plan covers the short term, who steps in and keeps things running if I'm suddenly unavailable. I have a plan for that in place now, but I think there's always room for improvement.
• A succession plan covers the long term, who eventually takes over the firm itself. This is the part I am still mixed about if I'm honest. I love my small business, but there are risks to staying small. Hiring someone in the hopes they'll take over can mitigate that risk, but it changes the dynamic of Formynder. I know I don't have to reinvent the wheel, but I do have to choose what to do. While there will be more to follow as this develops, rest assured that I have no plans for Formynder to go anywhere but up for years to come.

And yes, it's San Diego in September. I won't pretend that part is a hardship.

The BLUF

I know you'll want to read the entire newsletter, but here's a preview of what's included in this month's edition:

✅ Feel Good Moment. Free? I like free!

✅ The Client Corner. Could there be more big news?

✅ Remembering Sept 11th. How has it been 25 years?

✅ Market corner. Smooth, calm notes about the market.

✅ In plain 'site'. Where else am I?

Feel Good Moment

When you are running for several hours at a time with a bunch of folks, you talk. I mean, what else are you going to do? And you really never know what the topic will be or how it will shift across the span of 120-140 minutes.

A few weeks ago, the conversation shifted to ChipDrop. Chip what, you say? Yes, ChipDrop. A free, or donation-based national service where an arborist chipping a tree somewhere close to you, will come and drop their entire truck of wood chips in your yard.

Megan and I have been "working" on mulching our yard for about a year now. It's a decent sized yard, but our main hold-up is that we need mulch - a lot of it. So when the guys started talking about a free large load of mulch, I was all ears. I signed up for the service before I even got home from the run!

About 5 days later, I had an email saying that I'd have a drop in the next 48 hours. Sure enough, while working on a client file two days later, I hear the familiar "beep, beep, beep" of a large truck backing into our yard. I ran downstairs in time to give a little more direction as to where to drop, but ultimately, it ended up on our lawn and in doing so, set a clock to redistribute the pile before our lawn died.

Now what's pictured below might not look like a dump truck load, but trust me when I tell you that looks are extremely deceiving. Over the next three days, we comfortably padded 4 inches of mulch:

• Across our entire front yard landscape
• 2 feet wide buffer around the edges of our home
• Around the weediest parts beneath our back deck
• 3 feet wide planters on both sides of a backyard stone walkway that spans the entire width of our home
• Around the base of our air conditioner units
• 1 foot wide planter down the inside of our backyard fence
• 4 foot wide path all the way from the front of our home, (where the pile is), down to the outer edge of our backyard property.

It was a marathon workout, but boy our yard look good! And it was free!

If you are asking how it works, simple. Go to GetChipDrop.com and sign-up for an account and delivery. Here's a few important things to keep in mind:

• This is "all natural," meaning, you get ev-ery-thing; the tree, the branches, the leaves, and anything else someone decides to throw into the mulcher.
• You get what you get. You can exclude certain kinds of wood, but unless you name every species except the one you want, you could end up with something less than desirable.
• BE CLEAR with where you want the drop. When you sign up, you can include notes and pictures of where you want it. Include both and in as much detail as you can. When they get to your house, they're dropping whether you're there to direct or not.

One other note; it's not just mulch. You can get logs too. Need firewood?

The Client Corner

Fall Strategy Sessions Are Here!

If you completed onboarding at least two months ago and are on the annual client schedule, you've received your Fall Strategy Session Intake Survey (and maybe a reminder or two asking you to complete it 😉).

As a reminder, the Fall Strategy Session is one of two meetings I hold proactively each year. In the spring, we plan for the year ahead. In the fall, we close the loop and make sure everything we set in motion is actually working the way it should.

I hold these Fall meetings from mid-October through the first week of December, mainly to:

1. Ensure I can help with healthcare enrollment season.
2. Get any end-of-year tax moves done well before December 31st.

This is the first time I've approached a strategy session this way, with a single emailed intake form that covers updates, uploads, and scheduling all at once. If you have feedback, positive or otherwise, I'd love to hear it. My goal is to make this as easy as possible for you while still giving you the same level of support you're used to.

A quick note for those still onboarding: you won't be getting one of these intake forms. We'll be getting your new plan in place first.

Onboarding Is Slowing, Intentionally

Many of you have referred family and friends; I'm incredibly grateful for your trust. Sincerely, thank you!

Because of the number of prospective new clients, I've started pushing onboarding out a few months, so that as the firm grows, I can keep giving both new and longer-term clients the same high-quality level of support you've come to expect. In short, there's now a waiting list.

Please don't let that stop you from referring people. I'm still happy to have those conversations and bring on new clients. It may just take a bit longer to get them started.

Big News In Virginia Registration - Advisor Reviews Are Now Allowed!

For a little background, the SEC amended its rules back in 2021 to allow testimonials and endorsements for advisors it regulates directly, as long as certain protections are in place:

• reviewers must disclose if they're a current client
• any compensation for the review has to be disclosed
• advisors cannot selectively edit or hide unfavorable reviews.

For a small firm like Formynder, registering with the SEC isn't realistic in the near future, so I remain state-registered, which means I answer to Virginia's rules for advisors.

Until now, Virginia hadn't allowed advisor reviews, and for good reason: a review from someone who may or may not be a client, and may or may not reflect what actually happened, could carry real risk when advisors are managing your expectations and, in some cases, your life savings. After a long legislative process, Virginia amended its rules, and as of September 1st, reviews are allowed here too, built with the same consumer protections as the SEC's rule.

Why am I telling you this? Since opening, one of the hardest parts of bringing on new clients has been that I can't ethically connect a prospective client with a current one for a reference.

Reviews finally give me a compliant way to let people considering Formynder hear from clients who've actually worked with me.

In November, I'll sending you an email, asking for a review. I have no interest in influencing whether you write one, or what it says. I just want you to understand why the email is coming, and to say how grateful I am that you'd even consider writing one.

Reflecting on Sept 11th: 25 Years Later

I know my newsletters are usually forward-looking. But this month, I thought I'd look back and reflect on September 11th, as we just passed 25 years since one of the most significant attacks in modern American history. Over the next few months, there are also several "25-year anniversary" events related to those attacks.

A few weeks ago, on the actual anniversary, I found my phone buzzing throughout the day as members of our MFAA Slack channel shared their stories of where they were on September 11th, 2001. I doubt it had to do with pride or one-upping each other. That's not the MFAA style. It was more about remembering. We've all seen the stickers, flags, and license plates that say "We Will Not Forget." But forget what? What is it we're meant to remember?

I'm not sure there's a simple answer to that question. For me, September 11th was one of the most influential and profound events of my career. I enlisted in the late '90s, when military budgets were tight and training seemed almost archaic. Within a few short hours, our world, my world, and my family's world had changed. It was a sudden realization, amid the simplicity of my inexperienced 21-year-old self, that not everyone was a fan of the U.S.

I think about that shift often, especially as I watch the stories from before it fade. My own grandad was a Marine Private First Class fighting in Bougainville, but I know little else about what he saw. Next time we meet on Zoom, you might notice the Stiletto knife he traded his K-Bar for, sitting on the shelf behind me. He told me that was the worst trade he ever made, not knowing that the metal blade of the Stiletto is extremely fragile and that the tip breaks often. I treasure this story, but I know there's much I don't know about his experiences, and now those stories are gone. That's part of why I want to tell mine while I still can.

I was stationed in Yuma, AZ, but TAD to Fort McPherson in Atlanta, GA, attending a two-week course. My wife, Megan, was eight months pregnant with our first son. On that Tuesday, about an hour into our teaching day, one of the instructors calmly walked into the room and announced that a plane had hit one of the towers. At the time, I thought it was tragic, and our room briefly talked about how strange it was that someone flying what we assumed was a small plane could hit a tower. After what seemed like only a few minutes, that same instructor came flying back into the room and said another plane had hit the other tower. At that point, we knew. We were under attack. Class dismissed.

I spent the rest of the day glued to the TV like every other American, or anyone in the world with a TV. Cell phones were pretty rare, so I called Megan from my lodging to make sure everything was okay back in Yuma. I think we were both not surprised, but still amazed, that bases were locked down with loaded .50 caliber machine guns pointed directly at engine blocks. It was equally impossible to fathom that every flight in the U.S. was grounded. I still had to get home from Atlanta! We'd never seen or experienced anything like that in our lives. Despite class concluding a few days later and eventually making it home safely, that single day set the tempo for the rest of my military career.

In the months that followed, I deployed on a small team to Saudi Arabia and then forward deployed into Afghanistan, landing on December 24th, 2001, and missing our son's first Christmas. We paused our site setup for a few minutes to have Christmas dinner: a Chicken and Salsa MRE for me. In the months after that, I traveled across Bahrain, Doha, Uzbekistan, and Jordan, connecting sensor platforms to more sensor platforms, enabling situational awareness for the decision makers who needed that information. Over the next 15 years, there were two more deployments and countless TAD trips, directly or indirectly supporting the global war on terror.

As a firm of clients who either served in the military, worked in the federal government, or both, I'd encourage you to have these conversations with your family, particularly your kids (when they're ready). But if you're willing, I'd love to hear from you, too - where were you on the fateful day?

We will remember.

Market Corner

September handed us a good real-world example of why we invest the way we do; for the long-term and in accordance with your appropriate risk level.

1. The Fed raised rates for the first time since 2023. At its September 15-16 meeting, the Fed raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point, to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%. The vote was unanimous, and most Fed officials expect at least one more increase before year end. The reason is inflation. Higher fuel costs tied to the conflict in the Middle East have kept prices running above the Fed’s 2% target, and the Fed wants to keep those higher prices from spreading through the rest of the economy. For your household, that means car loans and mortgages cost more, while you may have noticed your High Yield Savings Account rates bump up a little.
2. Oil and interest rates drove most of the month. Oil climbed above $100 a barrel, which pushed long-term interest rates to their highest levels in nearly two decades. When rates jump that quickly, stocks usually feel it. Late in the month, oil prices eased on news that the U.S. and Iran were making progress toward reopening tanker traffic in the Persian Gulf, and markets settled down.
3. Stocks dipped, then climbed back. September lived up to its reputation as a choppy month. Stocks slid for much of the first half and bottomed out around the Fed meeting. By the last full week of September, the S&P 500 had worked its way back to less than 1% below its all-time high.

The takeaway: If you had only watched the headlines around September 16th, you might have been tempted to sell. If you had waited ten days, you would have seen most of that drop recovered.

Nobody can reliably call those turns ahead of time, so we build your plan around your timeline and let the news cycle run its course. Money you need in the next few years belongs somewhere steady. Money you won’t touch for ten or twenty years has time to ride out a rough month and recover.

When your investments are matched to when you’ll actually need the money, a month like September is something you can read about and then get on with your day.

In Plain 'Site'

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Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided for educational, general information, and illustration purposes only. Nothing contained in this material constitutes tax advice, a recommendation for purchase or sale of any security, or investment advisory services. I encourage you to consult a financial planner, accountant, and/or legal counsel for advice specific to your situation.