Common Questions
Organized by topic. If you don't find your question here, send it directly — we exist to be a resource.
Fee-only means our compensation comes entirely from what clients pay us directly. We don't accept commissions, referral fees, or product-sale incentives from anyone. Our only paycheck is the one the client writes.
Fiduciary means we're legally required to act in the client's best interest at all times.
Igor and Austin co-advise on all client relationships. Depending on fit and situation, one of them will lead the relationship with the other heavily involved.
Behind the scenes, your plan and portfolio will be handled and discussed by the whole team.
Yes. Vilga is an independent, 100% employee-owned firm. Since we're not owned by a broker-dealer, bank, or insurance company, we aren't constrained by their technology or financial products. We can use the investment strategies and planning tools we think best serve our clients.
Yes (unless you see “wait list” on our contact us page).
Unfortunately, due to privacy and compliance reasons, we are not able to connect you with current (or past) Vilga clients. Our clients share detailed and sensitive financial and personal information with us in confidence, and we treat that with the utmost care.
Typically 6–10 weeks from signed engagement to a completed baseline plan, depending on document availability and complexity. We front-load the work deliberately — the earlier the plan is in place, the sooner every subsequent decision starts flowing through it.
Four pieces of work run in parallel across the first six to ten weeks: a document inventory, cash-flow and tax projection, baseline allocation, and sequenced priorities.
Twice a year, normally in the spring and fall, for scheduled planning meetings.
Between those meetings, we’re always available via email or Zoom as matters come up and life changes.
Yes. Vilga works alongside the professionals you already trust. If you don’t have a CPA or estate attorney, we are happy to refer you to one in our network.
Investment management is the implementation of a plan. Without the plan, there's no principled basis for deciding how much risk to take, which accounts to withdraw from first, when to convert to Roth, or how to sequence a liquidity event.
Most of what differentiates a good outcome from a mediocre one happens in the planning layer, not the fund-selection layer.
We think of every risk through a three-part lens: live with it, delegate it, or mitigate it. Take the risk of a family's primary earner dying prematurely:
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Live with it - if the family doesn't depend on that person's income, their death doesn't change the plan's math.
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Delegate - buy life insurance to transfer the financial impact to an insurer.
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Mitigate - restructure the baseline plan so it doesn't rely on that person's income (earlier retirement assumption, lower spending, etc.).
Different risks call for different combinations. You can’t eliminate risk, but you can choose between risks deliberately.
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Unfortunately not, although we do work directly with your CPA.
While we don't prepare returns; we do read them carefully to find what was missed, what could be coordinated better, and what to set up for next year. Tax planning is embedded in everything we do; tax return preparation stays with your CPA.
Direct indexing means owning the underlying stocks of an index directly rather than through a fund wrapper. It opens up fine-tuned risk management, a much larger tax-loss-harvesting surface, controlled gain deferral, and precise lot selection for gifting.
We typically rebalance quarterly, or in response to large cash flows. We don't trade on market noise. Low turnover keeps trading costs down and improves tax outcomes.
Your investments are held at Charles Schwab. Schwab is the largest custodian for independent RIAs in the country and a deeply established name in financial services. Your accounts are titled in your name, with Schwab as the qualified custodian.
You grant us authority to manage the accounts. You log in to Schwab directly, see every transaction, and receive statements and tax documents from Schwab.
We advise on your entire financial life and portfolio. We build an asset allocation and rebalance based on your overall investable portfolio. We can only execute trades at Schwab, but if trades are needed in accounts we are not directly managing, we’ll provide you the exact trade instructions. This is different from how many advisors work; most include outside accounts in the planning but not in the actual investment management.
Sourcing and evaluating new private investment deals isn't a service we currently offer. Manager selection, fund structure, fee-layer analysis, liquidity terms, and tax treatment each require deep, specialized due diligence — and that level of underwriting isn't something we do in-house.
Private funds, syndicated real estate, venture funds, and private credit also carry practical complications once owned: fees typically higher than public-market alternatives, limited transparency between reports, capital locked up for years, and K-1 filings that complicate every tax year they touch.
That said, many clients come to us with private investments already in the portfolio, and we incorporate them fully into the plan. Asset allocation, rebalancing, tax-location decisions, and construction of the public-market portfolio all account for what's already held — including the illiquidity and concentration those positions represent.
We do not evaluate new private opportunities on a client's behalf.
Financial planning (cash flow, tax projection, insurance review, estate coordination, equity compensation, retirement income, education funding), investment management across your whole investable portfolio (direct indexing, bond ladders, rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting), and ongoing coordination with your CPA and estate attorney.
One flat fee. No separate bills for different services.
Your portfolio will pay modest fund-level expenses on any ETFs or mutual funds you hold, which are typically very low, and chosen deliberately for cost efficiency.
Direct indexing and bond ladders have zero fund-level fees because you own the underlying securities directly. Schwab doesn't charge an additional platform fee for most client assets.
We are a fee-only firm, so we have no commissions, no loads, and no referral kickbacks. The only revenue we make is from the flat fee our clients pay us.
While we'd be sorry to part ways, you are free to end the relationship at any time.
Our agreement has no lockup period and no surrender or termination fees. Your accounts will stay at Schwab; what changes is who has authority to manage and trade them.
If you’d like, we’ll help with the transition: provide records, coordinate with whoever you’re moving to, and answer questions through the changeover.
Book an introductory call here to see whether we’re a good fit for your situation.
From there, if it makes sense to keep going, we schedule a longer Discovery Meeting and walk through what onboarding looks like
If both sides feel like it might be a fit, we schedule a longer Discovery Meeting. You send us a few documents ahead of time (tax return, rough account totals) and we have a deeper conversation. After that, we send a written engagement proposal with scope and fee. No decisions required until you're ready.
We don't have asset minimums. Our work is most valuable for families with complex financial pictures — typically $5M or more in investable assets, significant equity compensation, or coordinated cross-generational planning needs. But complexity matters more than size; let's talk and figure out whether we're the right firm for you.
