AI Will Not Replace a Great Advisor. It Will Almost Certainly Replace a Good One

And why some clients will need a human in the room more than ever. 

I want to say something that I think a lot of people in my industry are afraid to say out loud.

Artificial intelligence is going to replace a great many financial advisors over the next decade. Probably most of them. The advisors who run a tidy practice doing solid, competent work – gathering documents, building plans in commercial software, rebalancing portfolios on a quarterly schedule, screening for tax-loss harvesting opportunities, drafting client letters that sound like every other client letter – those advisors are in real trouble. Not because they are bad at their jobs. Most of them are quite good. They are in trouble because the things that make them good are the things AI can now do faster, cheaper, and at three in the morning.

I am not predicting this from a distance. I use AI every day in my own practice. Anyone in my industry who tells you the technology is overrated has not actually used it. It is not overrated. It is one of the most consequential tools to come into financial services in my career, and it is improving on a timescale that should make every advisor pay close attention.

So let me be clear about what I am claiming and what I am not. I am not claiming that the human advisor disappears. I am claiming that the bar for being worth what you cost is rising quickly and that the people who used to settle for a good advisor will, before long, get a better version of that good advisor for free, or close to it, from a chatbot. The gap that survives is between the great advisor and the AI. And great is harder to define than most of my colleagues like to admit.

What AI is genuinely good at – and what “good” advisors mostly do

If you sit down and list the actual tasks a competent advisor performs in a typical week, a sobering thing happens. Most of them are tasks AI either already does well or is about to. Pulling in a client’s documents and summarizing what is in them. Comparing two retirement scenarios. Calculating a Roth conversion. Drafting a quarterly letter. Researching a tax law change. Evaluating an annuity contract. Building a cash flow projection. Spotting a missed beneficiary designation.

None of this is glamorous work, but it is most of the work. And it is the work that, until very recently, justified a full time person doing it. That justification is eroding. Software that costs a client $30 a month can now do a credible first pass on most of these tasks, and within a few years it will do a near-final pass. The advisor who built a career on being the diligent middle layer between the client and the financial machinery is being replaced from underneath by a tool that does the diligent middle layer for free.

That is the bad news. Now the good news, which is also the more interesting news.

The clients AI cannot serve well

There is a category of client for whom AI will never fully be enough, and the reason has nothing to do with technology. It has to do with the structure of the problems they are trying to solve. In my experience, three characteristics tend to define this group. Many of the people I work with fit these characteristics. The clients who need a great advisor likely have all three.

First, complicated financial situations. I am not talking about a household with a 401(k), a Roth IRA, and a mortgage. AI handles that beautifully. I am talking about the business owner whose personal balance sheet is wound around an operating company, a holding LLC, a real estate entity, and a buy-sell agreement that has not been updated since the partner left. I am talking about the family that has wealth flowing across two generations, with trusts that were drafted in different decades by different attorneys with different assumptions. I am talking about the executive whose compensation includes restricted stock, performance shares, deferred comp, and a non-qualified plan that interacts with their cash flow in ways that change every year. AI can produce a remarkably good overview of any one of these pieces. Where it struggles is in the connective tissue, the place where the entity structure, the estate plan, the tax exposure, the family dynamics (always the gasoline on the fire!), and the operating reality of a closely held business all touch each other. That is where decisions actually live, and that is where the analysis is messy enough, and the data is incomplete enough, that you need a human who has seen this kind of mess before.

Second, a high regularity of consequential decisions. Some clients live a financial life with very few decision points. They save into their plan, they hold a diversified portfolio, they rebalance on a schedule, they retire on a date, and most of the work is just steady execution. They benefit enormously from a sound plan and a low-cost portfolio, and frankly, AI can carry a lot of that load. But other clients face a steady drumbeat of real decisions. Should I take the buyout offer or hold out for a better one? Do I exercise the options now or wait? Should we sell the second home or keep it? Do we lend to our son’s startup or write a check we cannot ask back for? Do I move the trust to a different state? Do I take the partnership stake? Do I retire in eighteen months or push it three more years? When decisions of this kind arrive every few weeks rather than every few years, you do not need a tool. You need a thinking partner, someone who knows your situation cold, who you trust, who you can call on a Tuesday afternoon and say, here is what I am turning over in my head, what am I missing? That kind of relationship is not something a chat window provides, no matter how clever the chat window gets.

Third, high consequences and costs attached to those decisions. A wrong move on a $40,000 401(k) contribution is forgivable. A wrong move on a $40 million liquidity event is not. A misread on the timing of a Roth conversion can cost a few thousand dollars; a misread on the structure of a business sale can cost seven figures and a strained relationship with a sibling. When the dollar amounts get large enough, or when the decisions become irreversible enough, the value of being right goes up, and the value of being wrong goes up faster. Clients in this position are not paying for information. They are paying for judgment under pressure, and they are paying for someone to share the weight of the decision with them. That is fundamentally a human service. It always has been. AI does not change it. If anything, AI raises the stakes, because the people on the other side of these transactions…the buyer, the IRS, the opposing trustee, the estate attorney…are using AI too, and the playing field at the high end is getting more sophisticated, not less.

What “great” actually means now

I have been thinking a lot about what separates the advisors who will thrive in the next ten years from the ones who will not, and a lot about the clients who will need them. It is not credentials. It is not technical knowledge.  AI is a great equalizer on technical knowledge, and the playing field there is collapsing fast. There is no longer a scarcity premium added to knowledge.  The advisors who will thrive are the ones who do the work AI cannot do, and that work has a specific shape.

It is the work of being a thinking partner before a decision, not just a report generator after one. It is the work of pushing back when a client wants to do something you believe will hurt them, and doing it in a way they can hear. It is the work of holding a conversation across years, remembering what the client said three Christmases ago about their daughter, and connecting it to what is being decided this Tuesday. It is the work of judgment in places where the data is incomplete, the stakes are real, and the answer is not in any model. It is, in a word, presence.  The kind of presence that does not scale, cannot be automated, and is exactly the thing that the right kind of client will pay for as long as I am alive to provide it.

If you are a client of mine reading this, I want you to know I take this seriously. I am using every AI tool I can get my hands on, not to replace what I do for you, but to free up more of my time and attention for the part of the job that actually matters when your number is called. The diligent middle work…the research, the modeling, the document review, the first drafts…should be done faster and cheaper every year. That is good for you. The real work, the conversation that happens when something hard is on the table and you need someone in the room with you, is exactly where I want to be spending more of my time, not less.

And if you are reading this and wondering whether you have the kind of financial life that justifies a great advisor – whether the complexity, the decision velocity, and the stakes really warrant the relationship – that is a fair question to ask. For some people, the honest answer is no. A good chatbot, a target-date fund, and a disciplined savings habit will get them where they are going. For others, the answer is firmly yes, and the cost of being wrong about it is too high to leave to a tool that, however brilliant, has no skin in your game.

Knowing the difference is itself a financial decision. And it might be the most important one you make this year.

 

On Adventure: Lessons from the Edge

Two Walks Off the Well-Marked Path

What a 10,000-mile hiker and a credit card points cosultant have in common – and what it means for the rest of us.

If you had told me, when I started the On Adventure podcast, that two of my favorite recent conversations would be with a long-distance hiker who walked the equivalent of more than four cross-country trips in a single calendar year and a Midwestern dad who built a thriving business around airline points, I would have raised an eyebrow. On paper, they have almost nothing in common. But spend an hour with each of them and you start to hear the same note ringing underneath the very different music.

Madison Blagden and Colin Stroud both did something that scared them. They both stepped off a well-marked path. And they both came back changed – not because of the mileage or the revenue, but because of what those experiences taught them about who they actually are when the safety rails come off. I think there is a lot in their stories that the everyday explorer – and frankly, the everyday investor – can put to work this week.

Madison: Walking 10,000 Miles, Planning Almost None of It

Madison Blagden spent last year on her feet. Through-hiking the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail in a single calendar year is itself an audacious goal – only a handful of people have ever done it. Madison didn’t stop there. She set her bar at over 10,000 miles, walking from Florida to Newfoundland and weaving the three big trails together into a feat that no woman had previously completed. She finished. She also raised the women’s record by a couple thousand miles in the process.

What surprised me most, though, was not the scale of the accomplishment. It was her relationship to planning. Here is someone who built her year around weather windows, snowpack, and resupply logistics – and her advice to anyone considering something hard was, in her words, plan as little as you have to. Whatever you think it will cost, double it and save that much. Then go.

Her reasoning is worth sitting with. So many things will happen that you cannot predict, she said, that the energy you spend trying to control them is energy you will need later for the things you actually have to face. The hikers who do best on a long trail are the ones who can pivot – who do not get emotionally locked into a schedule or a route. The ones who white-knuckle a plan tend to suffer more, finish ragged, or quit. Madison described last year’s mid-season injury as the moment she finally let go of the last bits of control she was still holding. From that point forward, every setback, every weather change, every wrench in the gears became something she just folded into the trip.

If you have ever opened a financial plan and felt the urge to nail every variable to the wall – the exact return, the exact retirement date, the exact tax outcome – Madison’s advice translates directly. A good plan is a flexible one. Whatever you think things will cost, plan for more. Then walk.

Colin: The Quiet Quit That Wasn’t Quiet at All

Colin Stroud’s adventure looks nothing like Madison’s, and that is the point. A few years ago, Colin was sitting in an insurance brokerage in Indiana, watching his wife and two of his brothers-in-law build real audiences on the internet. He was good at his job, but it bored him, and he had been passed over for a promotion he wanted. Around the same time, he had stumbled into the world of credit card points and travel rewards as a way to take his young family on a vacation they otherwise could not afford. He started writing about it on LinkedIn, mostly to see if anyone would care.

They cared. The Washington Post quoted him after one of his earliest posts. People started asking if he would get on the phone for an hour to walk through their points strategy. He charged forty-five dollars. Then a little more. Then more. About fifteen months later, he resigned from his W-2 job and went all in on a one-person consulting practice he calls Go Somewhere. Today he is running consulting calls, building a private community for business owners, and partnering with another points expert to scale a white-glove travel-research service. He does not yet know how big it gets. He does know that nothing in his prior career – the standardized tests, the promotions he did not get, the jobs he was not great at – comes close to what he is feeling right now.

What hooked me in our conversation was Colin’s description of why entrepreneurship lit him up the way it did. It was not the income, though the income matters. It was the daily measurement. Every day he gets feedback on whether he is where he thought he was. Every post, every sales call, every new client tells him something true about his actual capability. He used the word ikigai – that overlap of what you love, what you are good at, and what people will pay you for – and said for the first time in his life, every part of him feels activated at once.

Colin also said something I want every entrepreneur and every parent listening to this to take seriously. He has experienced more dopamine, more excitement, more flow from building this business than from any travel destination he has ever been to. And his family life, while quieter, is the most meaningful thing he does. Travel, in other words, is not the adventure. The adventure is the life he is building around the people he loves. The travel is just a way to bring them with him.

What the Everyday Explorer Can Take Home

Different as they are, Madison and Colin pointed me toward the same three lessons, and I think they apply just as much to the way we manage money and build a life as they do to long trails and online businesses.

The first is that uncertainty is not the enemy. It is the proof that you are doing something real. Madison built her year around variables she could not control. Colin walked away from a paycheck without knowing what would replace it. In both cases, the willingness to live with not-knowing was what unlocked the experience. We tend to treat uncertainty in our financial lives as a thing to be eliminated. It cannot be. The better question is whether your plan can absorb a surprise without breaking – and whether you have left yourself enough margin, financially and emotionally, to keep walking when the weather turns.

The second is that the people who do the most talk about it the least. Madison observed that on trail, the loudest people in the room have usually done the least. The ones with the real accolades sit quietly in the corner. I have seen the same dynamic in money. The truly wealthy people I have worked with rarely tell you anything about it. The ones loudly counting their wins are usually the ones with the most to prove. If you are doing the work, the work will speak. You do not have to.

The third – and this is the one that has stuck with me longest – is that the cliff edge is the whole point. When I asked Madison what she would say to someone standing on the edge of a decision that scared them, her answer was just, do it. Not because every adventure works out. Some do not. But because nobody she has met in the trail community regrets going and finding out it was not for them. The ones with regret are the ones who stayed home. Colin’s version of the same line was that everyone has a hundred-thousand-dollar idea sitting in their Google Drive, and most people will never act on it.

You probably have a version of this too. A trip you have been talking about for five years. A career move you keep telling yourself you will make next year. A conversation you have been avoiding. A plan you have been afraid to commit to on paper. The everyday explorer is the person who, knowing they cannot control the outcome, takes the next step anyway – and trusts that whatever shows up next, they will figure out how to keep walking.

That, more than anything else, is what I keep hearing from the guests on this podcast. And it is the kind of mindset I want for the people I am lucky enough to work with at Ridgeline. A flexible plan. A long view. The honesty to admit you cannot know everything in advance. And the willingness to walk into the unknown anyway, because the alternative – staying parked at the trailhead, indefinitely – is not actually safer. It is just stiller.

On Adventure: Lessons from the Edge

What Hurricane Helene Taught a Free Solo Climber About the Life You’re Already Living

Most of us will never free solo a 3,000-foot cliff on the Napali Coast or spend a night alone in the Appalachian wilderness with nothing but a pair of shorts. But Robbie Lenfestey — wilderness survival instructor, ecologist, and founder of Mandala Springs retreat center — would argue that every one of us is already standing on a ledge of our own. The question is whether we’ve trained our nervous system to meet the moment.

In his return to the On Adventure podcast, Robbie shared what happened when Hurricane Helene tore through his corner of the North Carolina mountains in the fall of 2024 — and how a lifetime of deliberately pushing his edges prepared him for the worst night of his life. Alone on his tractor in the pelting darkness, digging channels to divert floodwater from his structures, he felt massive boulders rolling in the creek bed and heard entire mountainsides give way in explosive cracks above him. Landslides were happening on every side. There was nowhere to go. And yet something inside him remained still.

That stillness, Robbie explains, is flow state — the same theta brainwave pattern found in master meditators and elite athletes. He first discovered it as a young man doing things most people would call reckless: free soloing without ropes, walking into the forest at night to navigate by sound and feel alone. What he learned is that when the stakes are absolute, the mind quiets itself. Thought drops away, and all that remains is the next move. Over decades, he turned what was once a byproduct of extreme risk into a skill he can access at will.

What the Everyday Explorer Can Learn

So what can the Everyday Explorer take from someone who has mastered the extreme?

Start with the Breath

Robbie points to one of the simplest and most underused tools available to any human being: conscious breathing with an emphasis on the exhale. Inhaling activates the sympathetic nervous system — the fight-or-flight accelerator. Exhaling engages the parasympathetic system, the body’s built-in brake. Simply slowing down and lengthening your exhale in a tense moment can shift your entire physiology. It’s kindergarten-level entry into something profound, and it works whether you’re standing on a cliff or sitting in a difficult conversation.

Build Emotional Intelligence Like a Muscle

Drawing on Internal Family Systems therapy, Robbie described the practice of stepping back from a triggered emotion rather than being consumed by it — creating enough separation to ask the feeling where it started. That flash of anger when your partner says something pointed? It probably has nothing to do with what was said and everything to do with a protective pattern wired in childhood. Working through those patterns doesn’t bury the emotion. It dissolves the hook so the emotion no longer hijacks the moment.

Protect Your Attention

In a world engineered to capture and commoditize human attention, Robbie sees reclaiming it as a quiet act of rebellion. Walking in the woods without a phone, practicing peripheral vision, engaging the senses in unfamiliar ways — these aren’t esoteric exercises. They expand the attentional capacity that makes flow state, presence, and deeper experience possible in ordinary life.

The Grief That Waited

Perhaps the most striking insight from the conversation is what happened six months after Helene, when a neighbor led a bonfire gathering and asked everyone to name what they had lost. Robbie — the man who had held everyone together through weeks of crisis — sat down on the ground and wept. The grief had been there all along, waiting for a safe moment to surface. Mastering the extreme doesn’t mean bypassing the human experience. It means developing the tools to move through it fully, on your own terms, when the time is right.

The real frontier, Robbie suggests, isn’t a cliff face or a hurricane. It’s the edge of what we’ve habitually come to believe is possible — and the willingness to step beyond it.

Four Common Money Questions, Answered in Plain English

At Ridgeline Wealth Advisors, we believe financial literacy should feel practical, not intimidating. Here are four common questions we hear, with straightforward answers to help you think clearly about cash, investing, and market headlines.

Is investing in gold or other metals worth it?

Maybe for some people as a small, specialized part of a broader plan—but not as a guaranteed shield against inflation or market stress.  Gold has had significant price swings and has not reliably tracked inflation over long periods. If someone is focused specifically on inflation protection, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS, have historically been a more direct inflation-linked tool, though no approach is perfect.

Possible benefits of precious metals can include:

  • Diversification in some environments
  • A tangible asset some people find psychologically reassuring
  • Potential value during certain inflationary or crisis periods

But there are also tradeoffs:

  • Prices can be volatile
  • Gold is not an investment…there are no future expected cash flows so no way to discount cash flow to determine a fair present value share price.  It is pure speculation.
  • Metals generally do not pay interest or dividends
  • Physical ownership can involve storage, insurance, and transaction costs
  • Tax treatment can differ from stocks and mutual funds

At a high level, physical gold and many precious metals are generally taxed when sold. Some structures may be treated as collectibles, which can mean different tax treatment than stocks. Some gold ETFs may also be taxed differently depending on how they hold the metal. In some states, sales tax may apply when buying physical metals.

In short, precious metals may have a role for some investors, but they are not a one-size-fits-all solution.

What does it really mean when the stock market drops, and when should we worry?

A market drop usually means investors are willing to pay less for many publicly traded companies than they were willing to pay before. That can feel unsettling, but downturns are a normal part of investing and the ‘price of admission’ to get higher expected returns in the long-term. Short-term volatility by itself is usually not a reason to abandon a long-term plan. The better question is often not, “What is the headline today?” but, “Have my own needs changed?”

The S&P 500 is a widely followed index of 500 large U.S. companies, so it is often used as a quick snapshot of how large U.S. stocks are doing. But indexes are not available for direct investment and do not reflect actual portfolio expenses.

Market declines can be uncomfortable, but they are also part of how long-term investing works. For many people, the more important issue is whether their own liquidity needs, time horizon, or risk tolerance have changed—not whether markets are simply having a difficult week.

Is it ever okay to keep cash in a shoebox or under your mattress?

A small amount of physical cash for convenience is a personal choice. But for reserve cash, source materials support prioritizing liquid, interest-earning, FDIC-eligible options over storing large amounts at home.  An emergency fund, or protective reserve, exists to help cover unexpected expenses and near-term spending needs without forcing you to sell long-term investments at the wrong time. The exact amount depends on your situation, but the core idea is simple: keep enough cash accessible for real-life surprises.

There is also a tax angle. Money in a savings account may earn taxable interest. Cash at home does not generate taxable interest because it earns nothing. But that comes with tradeoffs: cash at home is easier to lose, steal, or destroy, and it can be harder to document.

How does a CD work?

A certificate of deposit, or CD, is a bank savings product. You agree to leave money at the bank for a set term—such as 3 months, 1 year, or 5 years—and in exchange the bank pays a fixed interest rate. If you take the money out early, the bank will usually charge an early withdrawal penalty. When the CD reaches maturity, you can typically:

  • Withdraw the money
  • Move it into a new CD
  • Let it renew automatically, depending on the bank’s terms

At a high level, CD interest is generally taxable as ordinary income in the year it is credited or made available, even if you do not withdraw it. Banks typically report that interest on Form 1099-INT. Early withdrawal penalties may be deductible on a federal return, and state tax treatment can vary.

Closing Thought

Good financial decisions often start with matching the tool to the goal: cash for short-term needs, savings vehicles for reserves, and long-term investments for long-term objectives.  Most financial options are not bad tools to have in the toolbox as long as you know when it’s appropriate to use which tool.  Don’t let me find you trying to fix your mirror with a hammer…it won’t go well.  Neither will using the incorrect financial tool.

Q2 Letter to Clients

Where Things Stand

The first quarter of 2026 tested the patience of even the most disciplined investors. A combination of rising energy prices, geopolitical uncertainty, and a pullback in the large technology companies that led markets higher in recent years produced the worst quarterly performance for U.S. stocks since 2022. The S&P 500 declined approximately 4.6% for the quarter, the Nasdaq Composite fell roughly 7.1%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped in similar fashion. Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 index of smaller domestic companies held up notably better, finishing the quarter roughly flat. At the sector level, energy was the clear standout, posting its best quarterly gain on record as oil prices surged. These numbers are a useful reminder that diversification across asset classes, market capitalizations, and sectors continues to serve long-term investors well, even when individual parts of the market come under pressure.  It is very difficult to capture the value in diversification if you are holding individual stocks.

Much of this quarter’s volatility was driven by the conflict in the Middle East. The war in Iran and disruption around the Strait of Hormuz sent oil prices sharply higher, contributing to renewed inflation concerns and creating uncertainty across global markets. Brent crude posted its largest monthly percentage increase on record during March, and the ripple effects were felt well beyond the energy sector. As the quarter drew to a close, reports emerged suggesting that both U.S. and Iranian leadership may be open to ending hostilities, and markets rallied meaningfully on the final trading day of March. Whether that optimism translates into a lasting resolution remains to be seen. No one knows with confidence how current geopolitical conflicts or trade disruptions will ultimately play out, and reacting emotionally to that uncertainty is rarely helpful for long-term investors. For a useful overview of how Q1 unfolded across the major indexes, Reuters published a helpful summary via U.S. News & World Report.

Why Staying the Course Matters

Markets are forward-looking. By the time a recession, policy shift, or geopolitical event becomes front-page news, much of that information is often already reflected in prices. This is one reason why making portfolio changes in response to headlines can be counterproductive. A diversified portfolio is designed with uncertainty in mind. Consider that the S&P 500 has now posted a negative first quarter in back-to-back years, yet history shows that a down first quarter has been followed by a positive full year far more often than not. Markets have historically moved through wars, recessions, political change, and crises while continuing to reward disciplined long-term investors over time. There is no proven way to consistently time the market, and missing even brief periods of strong performance can meaningfully affect long-term outcomes. For investors interested in the historical context around negative first quarters and what tends to follow, Motley Fool published a thoughtful analysis at fool.com.

For that reason, we will not adjust portfolios in response to market whims or short-term movements. Short-term declines do not necessarily lead to down years, and many years with significant intrayear drops have still finished with positive calendar-year returns. In fact, one of the most notable themes of Q1 was the divergence in performance across different parts of the market. While large-cap technology names bore the brunt of the selling, small-cap domestic companies in the Russell 2000 were largely insulated from the geopolitical disruption, and the energy sector delivered exceptional returns. This kind of rotation is exactly what a well-diversified portfolio is built to capture. Staying invested and focused on the long term helps ensure you are in position to benefit when markets recover and leadership shifts.

Planning Opportunities

Market turmoil can still serve a useful purpose if it prompts a review of the things that actually matter. Short-term market moves are not, by themselves, a reason to change a well-constructed long-term allocation. But when your life changes, it may be appropriate to revisit your financial plan. Retirement timing, spending needs, charitable goals, liquidity needs, estate intentions, and tolerance for risk can all justify thoughtful updates. If your plan still aligns with your values, goals, and time horizon, staying the course is often the most appropriate response.

Periods like this can also create planning opportunities worth evaluating in the context of your broader strategy. Depending on your circumstances, volatility may create room for disciplined rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, cash-flow review, or future Roth conversion planning.

What Your Plan Is Really For

Most importantly, we would encourage you to focus on living your great life right now. Your financial plan is not meant to compete with your life; it is meant to support it. Even in periods of turmoil, your plan should prepare for important transitions, care for the people you love, and continue making progress toward the life you want to live. That may mean spending meaningful time with family, protecting time for travel or rest, supporting a cause that matters to you, or simply being more present in your day-to-day life. The headlines matter, but they are not the whole story. A well-built plan allows you to keep perspective and remember what your money is for in the first place.

As always, we are here to help you think through decisions in the context of your long-term plan rather than the emotion of the moment. If anything in your life has changed, or if you would like to revisit your plan together, please reach out.

The 3 Biggest Tax Questions We’re Hearing Right Now

Every year brings its share of tax changes, but 2026 is different. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025, made sweeping updates to the federal tax code — some permanent, some temporary, and nearly all of them generating questions from the families and individuals we work with. Rather than try to cover everything at once, we wanted to focus on the three topics that have come up most often in recent conversations and break them down in plain language.

“How Does the New SALT Deduction Cap Affect Me?”

If you live in a state with meaningful income or property taxes, you’ve probably felt the sting of the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction that’s been in place since 2018. Good news: the new law raises that cap to $40,000, effective for the 2025 tax year. For 2026, it ticks up to $40,400 and will continue increasing by one percent annually through 2029.

For a household earning $400,000 and paying $30,000 in combined state income and property taxes, this is a significant change. Under the old rules, only $10,000 of that was deductible. Now, the full $30,000 qualifies. That’s a real reduction in taxable income.

However, the expanded cap comes with an income-based phaseout. If your modified adjusted gross income exceeds $500,000 (or $250,000 for married filing separately), the cap is reduced by 30 cents for every dollar above that threshold. By the time income reaches roughly $600,000, the deduction phases back down to $10,000. So a couple earning $550,000 would see their maximum SALT deduction reduced to about $25,000 — still much better than $10,000, but not the full benefit.

A few things worth noting. First, if you’ve been taking the standard deduction because the old SALT cap made itemizing less worthwhile, it’s time to run the numbers again. Second, business owners using pass-through entity tax elections can still deduct state taxes at the entity level — the new law didn’t restrict that workaround. And third, this expansion is temporary. The cap reverts to $10,000 in 2030, which means there’s a planning window worth being intentional about.

“With the Estate Tax Exemption at $15 Million, Do I Still Need an Estate Plan?”

For years, families were on edge about the federal estate tax exemption. Under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the exemption had been roughly doubled to about $14 million per person, but it was set to drop back to around $7 million at the end of 2025. The new law resolved that uncertainty by permanently raising the exemption to $15 million per individual — $30 million for married couples — effective January 1, 2026. Beginning in 2027, it will be indexed for inflation, and unlike the prior law, there’s no sunset provision.

So does that mean estate planning is no longer necessary? Not at all. The federal exemption is only one piece of the puzzle. Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia impose their own estate or inheritance taxes, often with much lower thresholds — in some cases as low as $1 million. A couple with $20 million in assets might owe nothing federally but could face a significant state tax bill depending on where they live.

Beyond taxes, a good estate plan addresses guardianship for minor children, powers of attorney, the orderly transfer of business interests, and probate avoidance. These things matter regardless of exemption levels.

The higher exemption also creates interesting planning opportunities. If your estate is comfortably below $15 million, the focus may shift from estate tax reduction toward income tax efficiency. Holding appreciated assets until death to take advantage of the step-up in basis, for example, could eliminate capital gains taxes on decades of growth. On the other hand, families with larger estates should continue using trusts and other transfer strategies, because the 40 percent federal estate tax rate on amounts above the exemption hasn’t changed.

“What Are All These New Deductions I Keep Hearing About?”

The new law introduced several targeted deductions that are genuinely new to the tax code. Here are the ones generating the most conversation.

Tips. Workers who receive tips can now deduct up to $25,000 in tip income from their taxable earnings. This applies to anyone in a tipped occupation — servers, hairstylists, rideshare drivers, and more — and it’s available whether you itemize or take the standard deduction. The deduction phases out at higher income levels and is temporary, running through the 2028 tax year.

Overtime. Overtime wages now qualify for a similar above-the-line deduction. If you earn time-and-a-half or double-time under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a portion of that income may be deductible. This is aimed at hourly and non-exempt workers, and it requires that your employer accurately report overtime pay on your W-2.

Auto loan interest. Perhaps the most surprising new break: interest paid on auto loans is now deductible up to $10,000 per year. This applies to personal vehicles, not just business ones. The deduction phases out starting at $100,000 of adjusted gross income for single filers ($200,000 for joint filers) and is fully eliminated at $150,000 ($250,000 for joint filers). Your lender is required to provide a statement of interest paid by January 31.

Senior deduction. Taxpayers 65 and older can claim a new deduction of up to $6,000 per qualifying individual, or $12,000 for married couples filing jointly where both spouses qualify. This sits on top of the existing standard deduction and the additional standard deduction for seniors. It phases out at six percent of modified adjusted gross income above $75,000 for single filers ($150,000 for joint filers) and is available for tax years 2025 through 2028.

Higher standard deduction. Finally, the standard deduction itself increased to $32,200 for married couples filing jointly, $16,100 for single filers, and $24,150 for heads of household for the 2026 tax year. These higher amounts are now permanent.

Putting It All Together

The common thread across all three of these topics is that the tax landscape has shifted in ways that create real opportunities — but also real complexity. Some provisions are permanent, others expire in a few years, and many come with income-based phaseouts that can change the math quickly depending on your situation.

Our advice? Don’t assume last year’s strategy still works. Whether it’s revisiting whether to itemize, rethinking your estate plan, or making sure you’re capturing every new deduction available to you, a fresh look at your tax picture is well worth the effort. As always, we’re here to help you think through it.

This article is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or investment advice. Tax laws are complex and individual circumstances vary. Please consult with a qualified tax professional or your financial advisor before making any decisions based on the information presented here.

On Adventure: Lessons from the Edge

Highlights from Recent Episodes of the On Adventure Podcast

By Josh Self

There are lessons that only come at a cost. They show up in the middle of something hard—when you’re out of breath on a ridgeline, sitting across from a family receiving the worst news of their life, or listening to thunder echo through a gorge from inside a tent. In our two most recent episodes of the On Adventure Podcast, I sat down with a neurosurgeon and a bishop whose stories remind us that the edge—wherever we find it—is where the real formation happens.

The Surgeon Who Learned to Stop

Dr. Hilal Kanaan is a neurosurgeon in Greenville, North Carolina and the son of Palestinian immigrants who rebuilt their lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan after his father was expelled from the West Bank. Hilal grew up with hardship in the background—never the whole picture, but never erased. His parents walked a fine line between honoring their roots and letting their boys be fully American.

That tension shaped his own approach to fatherhood. When his kids asked for a book about religion, Hilal didn’t hand them the Quran. He wrote them one—eight pages, hardcover, titled A Book About God. Its message: be kind, express gratitude, and know that people of different faiths are simply using different languages to say the same thing.

But the moment that stopped me cold was a story from early in his career. He’d taken on a tough surgery, made a decision that made it tougher, and suddenly found himself guiding a patient toward death. He told himself: stop. Ask for help. You’re making it worse. The surgeon he called came in without accusation, focused entirely on the patient, and saved a life. From that day on, Hilal said he wanted to become the doctor others would call when they were in trouble. He still walks the hospital thinking, “When I grow up, I want to be like him.”

That kind of humility—the willingness to stop and ask for help—is one of the hardest skills to develop, whether you’re in an operating room or on a mountain. And when I asked Hilal what he’d say to someone in a season of real hardship, his answer was simple: your feelings are valid. This is not the rest of your life. And you are not alone.

The Bishop Who Kept Walking

Bishop Mark Beckman, the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Knoxville, has been pairing faith and the outdoors since a young parish priest took his youth group hiking at David Crockett State Park. Early in his priesthood, on a Good Friday, he walked into a forest at Radnor Lake and found the floor carpeted in spring wildflowers. He thought: where have I been all my life? That was over thirty years ago, and he has never stopped walking.

His greatest physical journey was the Camino de Santiago—500 miles across Spain over six weeks. He learned that the first third is a physical challenge as your body adapts to the pain. The middle, the Meseta, is flat and monotonous, and the struggle becomes spiritual: enduring the ordinariness. His daily prayer was simple: God, help me to see today with my eyes. Help me to hear, to smell, to taste, to touch. When someone later asked if he’d just picked the best days for his photos, he answered: every day had its own beauty.

One of the most striking moments in our conversation was a story from the Grand Tetons. Bishop Beckman was sitting on a bench with an agonizing toothache, and his first instinct was self-pity. But as he kept breathing and looking, something shifted: if I’m going to be in pain, I’m grateful I can look at something this beautiful while it’s happening. That night, instead of fighting the pain, he simply noticed each sensation—breathing in and out—and found a peace deeper than the suffering. It’s a lesson I keep coming back to: suffering equals pain plus resistance. Lower the resistance, and something opens up.

What the Edge Teaches Us

These conversations left me with a few lessons I keep turning over. Humility is strength—knowing your limits and acting on that knowledge is one of the bravest things a person can do. The best lessons cost something—a family’s displacement, blisters on the Camino, a failed surgery. Monotony is its own wilderness, and the answer isn’t escape but presence. Community makes the summit possible—Bishop Beckman wouldn’t have reached that Colorado fourteener without friends beside him, and Hilal wouldn’t have saved his patient without the willingness to call someone. And if you’re in the middle of something hard: you are not alone, and this is not forever.

Stay safe and stay on adventure.

— Josh

New Tax Season, New Tax Code: What Changed In 2026 – And Why It Matters

As we approach another tax filing season, it’s a good time to take stock of the most meaningful changes that affect U.S. taxpayers for the 2026 tax year (returns you’ll file in 2027). This year’s filing period reflects not just inflation adjustments but also significant provisions of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the major tax law signed in 2025 that locked in and updated several key tax provisions. (IRS)

Understanding these changes can help you plan earlier in the year — not just react at tax time.

Key 2026 Tax Changes at a Glance

Below are three major areas where taxpayers will see meaningful adjustments for the 2026 tax year:

1) Updated Federal Income Tax Brackets

The IRS annually adjusts tax brackets for inflation. For 2026, the seven familiar federal income tax brackets remain (10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, 37%), but the income thresholds have shifted upward, helping many taxpayers avoid “bracket creep.”

2026 Federal Income Tax Brackets (Taxable Income) (OneDigital)

Tax Rate

Single Filers

Married Filing Jointly

10%

Up to $12,400

Up to $24,800

12%

$12,401–$50,400

$24,801–$100,800

22%

$50,401–$105,700

$100,801–$211,400

24%

$105,701–$201,775

$211,401–$403,550

32%

$201,776–$256,225

$403,551–$512,450

35%

$256,226–$640,600

$512,451–$768,700

37%

Over $640,600

Over $768,700

These adjustments don’t lower rates, but they mean you can earn more before moving into a higher bracket. That matters for retirement planning, RMD timing, Social Security taxation, and portfolio withdrawals.

2) Standard Deduction and Senior Deduction Updates

Along with bracket changes, the standard deduction rises for most taxpayers. For 2026:

  • $16,100 for single filers
  • $32,200 for married couples filing jointly
  • $24,150 for heads of households (NerdWallet)

For many taxpayers, these deduction increases reduce taxable income before rates are even applied.

Additionally, OBBBA introduced a new senior deduction lasting through 2028: taxpayers age 65 or older may be eligible for a $6,000 deduction ($12,000 if both spouses qualify), regardless of whether they itemize or take the standard deduction. (AARP)

3) Expanded Credits and Other Key Changes

The 2026 tax year also reflects broader changes that can impact refunds or tax liabilities:

Child Tax Credit: Indexed for inflation and slightly increased under the OBBBA for qualifying children. (IRS)

Itemized Deduction Changes: The bill significantly expanded the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions for many filers, although limits and phaseouts still apply.

Charitable Deductions: Non-itemizers can now deduct cash donations up to $1,000 (single) or $2,000 (joint) – a change that broadens tax benefits to more filers.

Preparation and Filing Notes: The IRS has updated forms, encouraged direct deposit for refunds, and provided resources and checklists for this filing season. (IRS)

Why This Matters for Your Planning

These tax changes are not just numbers on a chart – they affect when and how you plan income, retirement distributions, Social Security strategies, Roth conversions, and charitable giving.

Some actionable reminders for 2026 and beyond:

  • Review whether standard vs itemized deductions benefit you (especially with SALT changes).
  • Consider the timing of income that could push you into higher brackets.
  • Coordinate retirement distributions with Social Security claiming to manage taxable income.
  • Use expanded credits and deductions to your advantage throughout the year, not just at filing time.

Taxes are a major lifetime expense – often bigger than market returns or fees. Planning with the current tax code in mind helps you make decisions that support the life you want to live.

 

Finding Meaning In Retirement: When The Calendar Is Full But The Soul Isn’t

For many people, retirement planning starts with a number.

“How much do I need?”
“Will my money last?”
“Can I afford to stop working?”

Those questions matter. But after years of walking alongside retirees, we’ve learned something important: financial security alone does not guarantee fulfillment.

In fact, one of the most common challenges retirees face has very little to do with money. It’s the quieter, often unexpected loss of purpose, identity, and connection that can surface once work is no longer the organizing force of daily life.

The Transition No One Warns You About

Work does more than generate income. It provides structure, responsibility, and a sense of contribution. It answers questions we don’t always realize we’re asking:

Who needs me today?
What am I accountable for?
Where do I belong?

When work ends, freedom arrives – and for many, so does a subtle sense of disorientation.

Research supports this experience. Multiple studies show that retirement can lead to a measurable decline in a person’s sense of purpose if it isn’t replaced intentionally. This highlights the guidance we give to clients years in advance of retirement: make sure that you are retiring toward something and not just away from something.

One large review published in The Gerontologist highlights how meaning, not activity alone, plays a central role in how well individuals adjust to retirement. In other words, staying busy is not the same as feeling fulfilled.

Activity Is Not the Same as Meaning

We often meet retirees who are financially secure, healthy, and “doing all the right things” – traveling, golfing, volunteering, and staying active. Yet something still feels missing.

That’s because meaning tends to come from deeper sources.  These can include:

  • Contribution – being genuinely useful to others
  • Connection – relationships that go beyond surface-level social interaction…make note, fitting in is NOT the same thing as true authentic connection
  • Growth – continuing to learn, stretch, and engage with life

Psychology research consistently shows that retirees who maintain a strong sense of purpose experience better mental health, greater life satisfaction, and even improved physical outcomes.

Designing Retirement With Intention

The most fulfilling retirements we see are not accidental. They are designed with the same thoughtfulness people once applied to their careers.

That might look like:

  • Remaining involved in a part-time, advisory, or mentoring role
  • Sharing hard-earned wisdom with younger professionals or family members
  • Committing to a cause, board, or organization where presence truly matters
  • Creating weekly rhythm and responsibility, not just open time
  • Pursuing challenge and adventure, not just comfort

Research on “meaning-making” in retirement suggests that individuals who actively redefine who they are after work – rather than simply replacing work with leisure – experience a far healthier transition. The key question is not “How do I stay busy?”
It’s “Who do I want to be useful to in this season of life?”

Planning for a Meaningful Life, Not Just a Long One

Good financial planning creates margin. Great planning helps you use that margin well.

When we talk with clients about retirement, we often ask non-traditional questions:

  • What will give your days structure?
  • Who will you see regularly?
  • Where will you feel needed?
  • What are you still growing toward?

Organizations that focus on thriving in retirement, not just retiring, emphasize the same themes: purpose, connection, and intentional transition.  Money supports those answers – but it cannot replace them.

If retirement is approaching, or already here, it’s worth stepping back and asking not just “Can I retire?” but “What am I retiring to?”

That question matters more than the number if you truly want to continue to live your great life. In fact, retirement done well starts looking much more like exchanging one work purpose for a different kind of purpose. Retirement is not the Great Checkout if you want to thrive. So let’s all agree to stop using retirement as a goal to ‘be done,’ and start viewing it as financial freedom to pursue the things that make us feel most alive (Contribution, Connection, and Growth)! 

Q1 Letter to Clients

As we close the fourth quarter of 2025 and step into a new year, I want to take a moment to reflect – not just on markets and portfolios, but on the purpose behind the plan itself.

Quarterly statements naturally draw attention to short-term market movements. They are part of the story, but never the whole story. At Ridgeline, our work together has always been grounded in a longer view: helping thoughtful, capable people design financial lives that support not only security, but meaningful experiences along the way.

Many of you I would describe as Everyday Explorers – people who take responsibility seriously, but who also want to remain curious, engaged, and fully present in your lives. Financial planning, done well, should make room for both.

The Market Backdrop: Q4 2025

The final quarter of 2025 reminded investors of a familiar truth: markets are dynamic, unpredictable, and often uncomfortable in the short term.

U.S. equities experienced continued volatility as investors weighed inflation data, evolving Federal Reserve policy, geopolitical uncertainty, and questions around economic growth. Leadership rotated within the market, sentiment shifted quickly, and headlines offered no shortage of reasons to feel either optimistic or uneasy depending on the day.

This kind of environment can test confidence – especially if investing is viewed as a quarterly scorecard. But volatility is not an anomaly. It is a feature of markets, not a failure of them.  Uncertainty is not a flaw in the system – it is the system.  The real question is not whether volatility exists, but whether your plan is built to withstand it.

Why We Don’t Chase Returns or Predictions

One of the most important principles I want to reinforce – especially during uncertain periods – is that investment decisions should never be about chasing returns or predicting where markets will go next.

No one can consistently forecast short-term market outcomes. Acting as though we can often lead to unnecessary stress, poor timing decisions, and behavior that undermines long-term success.

Instead, our planning framework begins with a different foundation: ensuring that your future liabilities are matched or offset with safe, liquid resources.

When near-term spending needs, lifestyle costs, and known future obligations are covered by appropriate reserves and conservative assets, the long-term investment portfolio can do its job without interference. Growth assets are then free to compound over time, through inevitable cycles of optimism and uncertainty.

When this structure is in place, year-to-year market movements become background noise rather than a source of anxiety.

Planning With Intention – and With Life in Mind

One of the themes I continue to emphasize with clients is that planning should support living now, not just preparing for later.

For Everyday Explorers, that often means intentionally building room for travel, time away, outdoor pursuits, family experiences, and personal challenges that make life richer and more memorable. These experiences don’t happen accidentally. They require planning, margin, and clarity.

This is why our conversations extend beyond investments. Cash flow, liquidity, tax strategy, and risk management all play a role in creating the flexibility to say yes to meaningful experiences when the opportunity arises.

Tax and Planning Updates

As we move into 2026, several changes in the tax and legislative landscape are worth noting. Recent federal budget and benefits legislation is beginning to affect real-world planning decisions, including:

  • Adjustments to retirement contribution limits and age-based catch-up provisions
  • Ongoing evolution of required minimum distribution rules and inherited account timelines
  • Shifting income thresholds that affect deductions, credits, and phase-outs
  • The approaching sunset of certain prior tax provisions, increasing the importance of multi-year planning

None of these changes require reactive decisions. They do, however, reinforce the value of proactive coordination – aligning tax strategy, investment structure, and lifestyle goals well before deadlines appear.

Staying Grounded in What We Can Control

Market volatility tends to pull attention toward what we cannot control: headlines, forecasts, and short-term performance.

Your plan, however, is built around what is controllable:

  • Spending and savings decisions
  • Liquidity for known obligations
  • Asset allocation aligned with time horizons
  • Risk exposure that reflects your goals and temperament
  • A disciplined, long-term approach

When these elements are aligned, the plan does not rely on perfect market conditions to succeed. It relies on preparation, patience, and perspective.

Looking Ahead

As we enter the new year, my commitment to you remains unchanged. I will continue to approach planning through the lens of your life, not quarterly market noise. We will continue to design plans that prioritize resilience over prediction and flexibility over optimization.

Most importantly, we will continue to use money as it was intended to be used: as a tool that supports security, opportunity, and a life well lived along the way.

Thank you for your trust and partnership. I look forward to our upcoming conversations and to navigating the road ahead together.