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Money Planning

Who We Serve

Financial Planning for FGCU Alumni

Wings Up Eagles! As a fellow Florida Gulf Coast University grad and president of our Tampa-area alumni association, I help FGCU alumni turn rising income into an impactful life. Published, transparent pricing. Alex Bethune, CFP®, CEPA®.

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College Prepared You to Work; We Make Your Money Work for You

Education earns you a living, but it didn't teach you how to build a life worth living. Whether you're a new grad sorting through your first real paycheck or an alum running your own company, here are the financial challenges FGCU graduates run into, and what we do about them.

The challenge

You landed your first real job after FGCU and the salary number looked bigger than anything from your work-study days, but then taxes, retirement withholding, and health premiums came out and the deposit that hit your account was a lot smaller than you expected. You're left trying to budget off a number nobody told you about.

How we help

We start with your actual take-home pay, not the headline salary, and build a cash flow plan around it: housing, debt payoff, savings, and spending money all get a job. Within a few months you'll know exactly what you can afford and what to automate so good habits happen without relying on willpower.

Financial Planning

The challenge

You started a new job after FGCU and got a benefits packet and an offer letter full of elections, deadlines, and acronyms, and you have no idea if you're making the right choices or leaving money on the table.

How we help

We offer a standalone Employer Benefits Review, or a first job offer letter discussion, as a starting point before you commit to anything ongoing. We walk through your salary, your benefits elections, any equity compensation, and your retirement match so you start the new role with confidence instead of guesswork. It's a low-commitment first step, and plenty of clients start there before deciding if ongoing planning makes sense.

Retirement & Benefits Planning

The challenge

Between undergrad federal loans, a private loan from grad school, and conflicting advice from friends and forums, you're not sure whether to pay loans aggressively, look into a public service loan forgiveness program at a school district, hospital, or municipality, or refinance for a lower rate.

How we help

We run the real numbers on your specific loans: whether a public service loan forgiveness program applies to your employer, what the paperwork and timeline actually require, refinancing math against forgiveness, and how loan payments should trade off against investing given your income today. You get a repayment strategy built on your situation, not a generic rule to pay extra whenever you can.

Debt Strategy

The challenge

You've heard you should invest early and let compound growth do the work, but with a smaller paycheck, some debt, and no idea how much you can safely commit, you don't know whether to prioritize a Roth IRA, your employer's 401(k) match, or just building cash first.

How we help

We help you sequence it: emergency fund first, employer match second, then the right mix of Roth and pre-tax accounts based on where your income sits today and where it's likely headed. Even a modest amount invested consistently in your twenties outpaces a much larger amount started a decade later.

Retirement & Benefits Planning

The challenge

Maybe your first job out of FGCU was in Fort Myers or Naples, and now a role in Tampa Bay or a big city is on the table with a different salary, a different cost of living, and a signing bonus or relocation package you don't know how to evaluate.

How we help

We help you compare offers on an after-tax, after-cost-of-living basis, negotiate the parts of the package that are actually negotiable, and plan the moving costs and timing so a career move doesn't turn into a cash flow problem in the first few months.

Financial Planning

The challenge

You took the entrepreneurial leap after FGCU and started a business, and now your business account, your personal account, and your retirement savings operate as if they have nothing to do with each other.

How we help

We connect the two sides: owner pay, business cash reserves, and how much you can safely move into personal savings and investing. You get one plan instead of two disconnected ones, built by an advisor who also holds the CEPA® exit planning designation as your business grows.

Business Planning

The challenge

You're facing your first big financial milestone since FGCU, a first home, a wedding, or starting a family, and you're not sure which one to prioritize or how much house, ring, or childcare budget actually fits your income.

How we help

We build the plan around the sequence and the tradeoffs: how a home purchase affects your savings rate, how to budget a wedding without derailing other goals, and the protection, insurance, beneficiaries, and estate basics, that should be in place before a baby arrives.

Wealth Protection Planning

How We Help FGCU Alumni

One connected plan across the decisions that matter most in your twenties, thirties, and beyond, built on the Money Planning subscription model, with Silver, Gold, and Platinum tiers that scale as your career or business grows.

Cash Flow & Budget Planning

We start with your real take-home pay, not the salary number on your offer letter, and build a plan around housing, debt payoff, saving, and spending, so a first paycheck out of FGCU turns into a system instead of a guess.

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Student Loan Strategy

For FGCU alumni carrying federal or private loans, we weigh Public Service Loan Forgiveness eligibility for Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida public-sector employers against refinancing and aggressive payoff, then build a repayment plan around your actual numbers.

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Investment Management

From your first employer 401(k) match to a Roth IRA before income limits phase it out, we sequence early-career investing and manage it as your income and options grow, with no asset minimums to get started.

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Employer Benefits Review

Before you commit to an ongoing subscription, we can review your offer letter, salary, benefits elections, and any equity compensation as a standalone, low-commitment starting point, so you begin a new Tampa Bay or Southwest Florida role with a clear picture instead of guesswork.

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How We Work Together

A three-phase process that turns a messy financial picture into a clear path forward.

  1. 1

    Discover

    Clarify your position. Define your priorities.

    We start with a deep understanding of where you are today, personally, professionally, and financially. Together we explore your goals, values, and current structure to reveal what's working, what's not, and what's next.

  2. 2

    Prepare

    Design a strategy that supports what matters most.

    Once you know where you stand, we build strength and flexibility into your financial life: growing value drivers, reducing risk, and putting systems in place so you can move forward with intention and control.

  3. 3

    Decide

    Move forward with clarity and confidence.

    With a complete plan in place, you're equipped to make informed, confident decisions, whether that means scaling a business, navigating a transition, or stepping fully into financial independence.

Common Questions

It's actually one of the best times to start. The habits and account structures you set up in your first two or three years out of school, how you split money between debt payoff and investing, how you use your employer's retirement plan, how you budget off net pay, compound for decades. We work with new grads specifically because a small amount of guidance early prevents expensive mistakes later, and our Silver tier is priced with that stage in mind.

Money Planning is a monthly subscription, published on our pricing page, across Silver, Gold, and Platinum tiers running roughly $100 to $1,000 a month depending on complexity, with no asset minimums to get started. If you also want us to manage investments, that work carries its own separate, published asset-based fee rather than being bundled into the subscription. For many recent grads, the real question isn't whether you can afford planning, it's whether the plan can help pay for itself. Once we look at your full financial picture together, that often includes:
  • A spending review to identify sources of spending you may consider unnecessary, so those dollars can be redirected toward the subscription cost
  • A review of your tax withholding, since adjusting it, if it's set higher than it needs to be, could increase your net take-home pay
  • A review of your employer benefits to help you claim elections you might otherwise be leaving on the table
  • A review of your insurance coverage, connecting you with professionals who may be able to lower your premiums
  • A review of your prior tax return for deductions or credits you may have missed
How much of the subscription this offsets depends on your specific situation. Small, strategic adjustments made now, a kind of financial butterfly effect, can compound into a meaningfully different picture years down the road.

That's exactly who the Money Planning subscription model was built for. There are no asset minimums to start, so a recent FGCU grad with a starter emergency fund and a 401(k) that's barely begun is a normal client, not an exception. The first work we do together is usually finding your savings capacity: correcting tax withholding, closing insurance gaps, and trimming spending leaks, which often covers most or all of the monthly fee on its own, so the plan can pay for itself while your savings build.

It depends on your loan types, your interest rates, and whether a public service loan forgiveness program applies to your employer, which matters for a lot of our alumni working for school districts, hospitals, municipalities, or nonprofits across Tampa Bay or Southwest Florida. Our Debt Strategy work runs the actual math on your specific loans against refinancing, an aggressive payoff pace, and the return you'd expect from investing instead, and factors in any employer retirement match you'd otherwise leave on the table. You get a repayment plan built around your numbers, not a one-size-fits-all rule to pay extra whenever you can.

Yes, that overlap is a core part of what we do. Alex holds the CEPA® (Certified Exit Planning Advisor) designation alongside the CFP®, so we can connect how your business pays you, how much it retains, and how that flows into your personal savings, investing, and eventual exit. Our Business Planning service is built for exactly this situation, and our Business Owners page covers this side of our practice in more detail if you'd like to see how we work with other FGCU alumni entrepreneurs.

FGCU and Tampa are home for us, and Alex serves as president of the Tampa-area alumni association, but the planning relationship itself is virtual-first. We work with FGCU alumni across the country, and if you're local to Tampa or Southwest Florida, we're always glad to meet in person.

A robo-advisor or budgeting app can tell you what your numbers are. We help you decide what to do about them, with transparent, published pricing so you know exactly what you're paying and why. That means a real conversation about your student loans, your job offer, your first home, or your business, not just an algorithm sorting your transactions into categories.

Yes. We build a side-by-side comparison that goes beyond the salary number: cost of living, taxes, benefits, relocation costs, and how each option affects your savings rate and timeline toward your goals. Plenty of our FGCU alumni clients have made exactly this move between Southwest Florida and the Tampa Bay market, and we help you negotiate the parts of the offer that are actually negotiable.

Yes, that's exactly what our Employer Benefits Review is built for. We walk through your offer letter line by line: base salary, bonus structure, health plan elections, retirement match, and any equity compensation, so you understand what each choice is actually worth before your enrollment deadlines pass. It's offered as a standalone, low-commitment review, so you can get this squared away even if you decide ongoing planning isn't the right fit yet.

Generally, sooner is better, but the right amount depends on your income, debt, and what's called your savings capacity: a top-down view of what's coming in, what's going out, and when, so we know what's realistically available to direct toward goals. For most early-career FGCU alumni, the order tends to run emergency fund first, then any employer 401(k) or 403(b) match (since turning that down leaves free money on the table), then a Roth IRA or additional retirement savings depending on your income and tax situation. This is the same early-career sequencing question we cover in more depth for working professionals, and even a modest amount invested consistently in your twenties may meaningfully outpace a larger amount started a decade later, though actual results depend on markets and your own consistency.

Let's connect, Eagle to Eagle

Book a free intro call. We'll talk through where you are, what's next, and whether we're the right fit, no pressure either way.

Book a Free Intro Call