The Formynder Field Manual

September 2026

From the Field

This past month showed me how quickly life can change without any warning at all.

I came home from California to find our household changed. No, we weren't expecting a baby. And off the back of a recent wedding, we weren't expecting a grandbaby either. The newest member of our household was a kitten named Dune.

Our son found her and her littermates in his neighborhood during a pouring rainstorm, alone and without their mama. He scooped them up and got them to a rescue, where they went into foster care. When he dropped them off, he pointed at one of the kittens and said, "I'm gonna adopt that one." The kittens spent time getting weaned back to health, and once Dune was strong enough, he made it official.

There was only one problem; Our son's apartment did not allow pets, and he couldn't move to a place that did, until September 1st. So for the entire month of August, we'd been running a two zone household. Dune has the basement. And Dobby, who has seniority, zero interest in negotiating, and frankly believes that Dune looks like a chicken nugget, had the rest of the house. But it's September 1st and so you know what that means... FREEDOM!

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. Happy Anniversary! (Wait, didn't that already happen?!)

✅ PSLs, Texting, and IRAs. The Client Corner is Back!

✅ The "Just Moved" Trigger. Time to review your estate plan

✅ Market corner. Risk vs Reward - how's that reported?

✅ In plain 'site'. There's new news!

Feel Good Moment

Last month, Megan and I celebrated 27 years of marriage, and I am more thankful for the woman and marriage God orchestrated than I know how to fully put into words.

We got married at 18 and had our first child at 20. Neither of us had any idea what we were doing, and looking back, I am not sure how we even figured it out. Over our 25+ years in the Marines, there were many deployments, so much TAD, north of a dozen "new" homes, 5-6 churches, many friends made, and a few lost. We, (ok, Megan), raised two boys into adults along the way, helping them to discover who they were and to be proud of who God made them to be. We watched one of them get married a few months ago and we are watching our other bloom into the natural teacher he is.

While 27 years is an achievement, the arrival is not the only thing I celebrate - it's been the adventure to get there.

We could have easily let the miles and the moves and the deployments wear us down. We knew that we were not guaranteed anything just because we loved each other at 18. Marshall Goldsmith wrote a book called "What Got You Here Won't Get You There," built around the idea that the habits which drive your early success are not always the habits that carry you forward. The version of us that got married at 18 is not the version that survived deployments. Deployments changed us again before we then changed into another version as we raised two boys into young men. And the version of us that raised our boys into men is not the version of us today. So, we renegotiated our life together every day, every month, every year, as the circumstances of our life kept changing.

Megan has pushed me to reconsider my own thinking more times than I can count, including how I think about myself, my faith, and who I am to my neighbors (that's all of you!). The willingness, even when we didn't want to, to keep discussing, refining, and adjusting, is, I think, the real secret. Just two people who decided, over and over again, to stay in it together.

Looking back, I can see God had a plan for our lives that neither of us could have mapped out at 18. Some of the hardest seasons, the ones that forced us to change the most, turned out to be exactly where we needed to be. What got us here has never been enough to get us there. So we keep reconsidering. Every year. Every month. Every single day.

The Client Corner

There's a lot happening these days. Here's what you need to know.

Client Communication - Texting is Here!

Would you rather just text your advisor? Now you can! Simply text or call (540)360-3572 anytime and you'll get a response there just like you would an email. If it's a lengthy response, you may just get an email.

While you should feel free to text any time, I still hold business hours of 9 am - 5 pm EST. You'll get a notice that I've received your text and that I will respond on the next business day.

Altruist is being bought by Vanguard

You may have seen the news that Vanguard has agreed to acquire Altruist, the custodian that holds Formynder investment accounts.

Here is what matters to clients with investments held at Altruist: your money is not moving. You will keep complete control of your accounts, and we can still buy and trade through Altruist exactly as we do now. This is a change in who owns the company behind the platform, not a change to your accounts.

I have experience with something like this, when Charles Schwab bought TD Ameritrade and all TDA accounts moved under Schwab in 2023. That was a bigger move than this is. We hit some bumps along the way, but it worked out well for clients in the end.

I want you to know that I am not concerned about this deal. I see this partnership as good for the consumer and look forward to what comes next as this unfolds. That said, feel free to call, text, or email me anytime if you have questions about this.

Fall Strategy Sessions Are Almost Here!

What is the Fall Strategy session? After onboarding, and as part of your annual schedule, the Fall Strategy session is one of two meetings we proactively hold each year. In the Spring, we build the plan. In the Fall, we close the loop, making sure everything we set in motion is actually working the way it should. For military and federal families, that often looks like healthcare open enrollment changes, RMDs, and tax moves like Roth conversions and gifting. But, there can always be more.

To make this easy on you, in about two weeks each household will get a Fall Strategy Intake Form. It's a simple, one stop way to do three things:

• Tell me what's new in your world. Did something shift for you this year that I don't know about? A new goal, a change in cash flow, a big decision on the horizon? This is your space to fill me in so we can talk about it at your session.
• Upload your documents in one easy step. No need to log into your client portal (this time). Simply and securely, drop your files right into the form and you're done. I'll take it from there.
• Grab your appointment time. I've opened up spots from mid-October through the first week of December, so you've got plenty of room to find something that fits your schedule. If nothing seems to work, give me a call, or send me a text or email.

A quick note for those still onboarding: you won't be getting one of these intake forms - we'll be getting ready to implement your new plan soon!

Whether You've Moved or Not, It's Time To Review Your Estate Plan

Picture this. You're sitting on the back porch on a crisp Fall morning, coffee in hand. You watch the squirrels scurrying around the yard, packing away everything they'll need for winter. You turn to your spouse and ask, "So, at what age do you want the kids to inherit the TSP and the IRAs?"

I'll admit I've never actually seen this conversation happen in this way, but maybe it should. Fall is when I encourage every client to take a fresh look at their estate plan. Moves tend to happen over the Summer, so Fall is a natural time to check that your documents still hold up, especially if you've landed in a new state.

Sometimes the review is quick. Other times maybe not so much. Think about the time and heartache it saves you, or your beneficiaries, down the road. I'll add my standard line here: if you don't have an estate plan, or you haven't updated the one you've got, you still have an estate plan. It's just probably not the one you'd choose.

Estate plans aren't something most people think about often. You do the work once, usually around a major life event like a deployment or a wedding, then you file the documents away and get on with your life. That's normal. Nobody wants to spend a weekend thinking about incapacity or death. But your estate plan is a living set of documents, and it needs to keep up with your life. For military families and federal employees, life tends to change more than most.

Here's what I want every client to check this Fall.

Check Your Beneficiaries First

This is the fastest part of the review, and it's also where I find the most mistakes: no beneficiary listed at all, or the wrong one still sitting there.

If you're a Formynder client, we track your named beneficiaries in your client portal under the estate tab. If you've opened a new account, or you've had a marriage, a divorce, or a new child, there's a good chance something needs updating. Pull up your bank accounts, your investment accounts, your TSP/401(k), and your life insurance policies. Look at who's actually listed on each one. Ask yourself honestly if these are still the people you want receiving that money.

This matters! Beneficiary designations override your will. If your will says your estate goes to your spouse, but an old life insurance policy from an earlier duty station still lists your parents or an ex-spouse, the insurance company pays out according to that beneficiary form, not your will. This is a painful conversation with a grieving family. A forgotten or neglected form ends up deciding where a significant amount of money goes, and it especially happens to accounts that have been open for two or three decades. The people you trusted with your money back then aren't always the people you'd choose today.

Set aside twenty minutes this month. Log into every account you hold and confirm the beneficiary is current. It costs you nothing but a few minutes time, and it's the single highest leverage item on this list.

If the beneficiaries on your accounts don't match those listed on your client portal, send me a message and we'll get them matched up.

If You've Moved, Your Documents May Not Travel With You

If you've moved to a new state this year, whether through a PCS, a federal relocation, or that's where the grandkids are, don't assume your will, your power of attorney, and your healthcare directive still work the way you think they do.

Estate planning law is set at the state level, and the rules aren't uniform. A will that's valid in one state may not meet the requirements in another. Power of attorney forms are especially prone to this. Some states require specific language before a bank or hospital will honor a POA, and a document that worked perfectly in your last state can get rejected in your new one. Finding that out at the moment you need it can be devastating.

The good news is this is usually a straightforward fix. If you're active duty or have access to a base, the JAG office can review your existing documents and tell you whether they need updating for your new state. If you don't have JAG access, whether you're a federal employee, a retiree, or a veteran without a nearby installation, a civilian estate attorney licensed in your new state will do the same job. If you've used estate planning software through Formynder, and something needs updated, reach out and we'll get started on a change.

If You Have a Trust, the Review Gets A Bit More Involved

If your estate plan includes a revocable trust, a move adds another layer to think through.

A move alone won't invalidate a trust the way it can with some POA forms. But trust administration rules vary by state, and depending on where you're moving from and to, your trust may need to be retitled, amended, or at least reviewed to make sure it still does what you originally set it up to do. This isn't a step to guess your way through. If you have a trust, it's worth a direct conversation with an estate attorney in your new state, not just a quick JAG visit.

This can have more impact than people expect. A trust is usually built around specific goals: avoiding probate, controlling how and when assets pass to your kids, or protecting assets for a family member with special needs. The mechanics behind those goals can shift when the underlying state law changes. A trust that worked well in one state won't necessarily function the same way in another.

This Isn't Just a "You Moved" Issue

Even if you haven't moved this year, your estate plan can still be out of date. Any of these should trigger a review, no matter what state you live in:

• A birth or adoption in your family.
• A marriage or a divorce.
• A significant change in assets, whether that's an inheritance, or a home purchase.
• A change in who you'd want raising your kids or managing your affairs if something happened to you.
• The death of someone named in your documents, whether that's a beneficiary, an executor, or a guardian.

The Bottom Line

Reviewing your estate plan isn't exciting work. It won't feel urgent until the day it suddenly is, and by then it's often too late to fix what got missed. That's exactly why I bring this up every Fall, as a standing habit rather than a reaction to a specific event.

Set aside some time this month. Check your beneficiaries. If you've moved, get your documents reviewed for your new state, whether that's through JAG or a civilian attorney. If you have a trust, have that direct conversation with an attorney. None of it takes long, and all of it is far easier to handle now than to untangle later.

Market Corner

How many of you had a previous investment advisor or financial planner that focused solely on investment management for performance?

A lot of the people I speak with raise their hand. Quarterly reports. How the portfolio did against a benchmark. A running scoreboard.

Here's How I Think About Investment Performance

Nobody knows what the market is going to do next quarter, next year, or any year after that, no matter how confident they sound saying it. So rather than build a relationship around predicting something unpredictable, we build your portfolio around something we can actually know and measure: the risk you can tolerate emotionally, the risk you need to take to reach your goals, and the risk you have the capacity to take given your income, your timeline, and your other resources.

Once that's set, the portfolio simply does its job the way we would expect it to according to the amount of risk you want to take. If you're comfortable with risk and have goals to meet, then we go heavy on the equities. We then expect more market volatility, but more significant growth over the long term. If you're not comfortable with risk or need cash soon, then we reduce equities and add fixed income. We then expect less volatility, but less growth too.

Good years happen. Bad years happen too. Historically, the good years outnumber the bad ones by a wide margin, but that's almost beside the point. When a portfolio is built around your risk tolerance, your risk need, and your risk capacity, a great market year and a rough one both do the same thing: they confirm the plan is working the way it was designed to.

So when we talk, we're talking about whether your current risk in the market is growing your investments to meet your goals. If it is, great! If it isn't, then we are likely having a chat about prioritizing your goals, not taking more risk.

There's nothing wrong with tracking performance. Your investments still matter, a lot. But once we have your risk set, you can confidently let the market do whatever the market does, and not even pay attention (if you want to).

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.