At some point, most people ask themselves if they’re actually okay financially. Not just in a down market, but on a random Thursday.

In reality, this questioning is normal behavior. However, there are some mental strategies available to deal with this that may be incredibly helpful in transforming not just knowing you’re okay from a rational perspective, but genuinely feeling and believing it.

We invite you to join us on May 14, 2026, at Noon CDT, for a live Zoom webinar with Marilyn Wechter, one of the country’s leading financial therapists and wealth counselors, about a framework for knowing where you stand despite the uncertainty going on in life and the world.

This is just another way to help our clients Take the Long View.

Please join us, reserve your spot here.

Don’t Hire Us Because You Like Us

There’s something worth saying out loud.

You shouldn’t work with us just because you like us.

When we meet someone new, I often ask how they chose the person they’re currently working with.

The answers are usually some version of:
“He’s a neighbor.”
“She’s a friend of the family.”
“We met through our kids’ sports.”

All perfectly understandable.

But those aren’t the answers I’m hoping to hear.

It would be refreshing to hear someone say:
“Our values really align.”
“I believe in their investment approach.”
“They’ve given us planning advice that has actually changed our financial lives.”

Because when something as important as your financial life is involved, that’s what should matter.

Likability is certainly a factor. We enjoy it as much as anyone. It makes relationships easier. It makes conversations more natural. And it tends to persist for years.

But it’s not a sufficient reason to choose someone to manage your life savings.

That’s where we’re different.

You should work with us because we believe in something.

Because our approach is grounded in decades of academic research, not opinion or prediction.

Because we’ve built real strategies, like the work behind EBI and LVIG, that are designed with intention, not assembled to match a trend.

Because we care deeply about financial planning. Not just portfolios, but the decisions that actually shape your life.

And because we are fiduciaries. We work for our clients. Not a brokerage firm. Not a bank. Just you.

In short, if you believe what we believe, that’s the foundation for a long and healthy relationship.

If you like us too, that’s even better. It makes the relationship more enjoyable. It makes conversations easier. It probably makes the whole experience better.

But it’s a bonus. The icing on the cake.

Because over time, we’ve found that the best outcomes don’t come from chasing what feels right in the moment. They come from committing to a sound approach and sticking with it. Taking the long view.

Performance, in that sense, isn’t the goal. It’s the result.

The best outcomes we’ve seen come from staying put when it was hardest to do so.

That doesn’t always win the popularity contest.

But in the long run, what matters isn’t who you like the most.
It’s who you can rely on when it counts.

So you can invest your money and your time in the people you actually like.

Take the long view,

Every February, I open one envelope with unusual curiosity: my 1099 from our custodian. It shows how much “income” my investments produced last year.

As an investor, I appreciate what that number represents. As a taxpayer, I also know what comes next: plugging it into a projection and watching how it changes what we’ll owe in April.

For me, it’s manageable. I’m still early in my career, and my portfolio is mostly stocks. But for many of the families we serve at Hill, this number can grow large enough that it doesn’t only affect their tax return — it starts to affect their entire financial plan.

And historically, there hasn’t been much we could do about it… until now. 

Longview Advantage Fixed Income ETF (LVIG) is an ETF from our research partner, Longview Research Partners. Its aim is to solve a part of planning we historically could not control: Traditional bond investments generate taxable income whether you need it or not.

LVIG is built to avoid those automatic income distributions. Meaning more of the return stays inside the portfolio, which gives us control over how income shows up in your plan.

Like EBI, LVIG will be used inside Hill’s models. It may not be noticeable for younger, equity-heavy investors today. But as portfolios shift over time toward a higher allocation of fixed income, LVIG becomes a meaningful planning tool as well as an outstanding investment.

1. Roth IRA conversions: Less portfolio income means more flexibility to convert traditional Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to Roth IRAs during lower-income years.

2. Asset location: We can comfortably hold fixed income in taxable accounts and reserve IRA and Roth space for equities, where long-term growth benefits most.
   
   
3. Medicare and income cliffs like IRMAA (Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount), NIIT (Net Investment Income Tax), AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax):  Keeping income lower makes it easier to stay below thresholds that trigger higher premiums and additional taxes.
   
   
4. Trust planning: Trusts hit top tax brackets more quickly than individual tax brackets. Therefore, minimizing ordinary income allows trustees to distribute based on need, not tax pressure.
   
   
5. Estate planning and step-up in basis: More return remains to compound as unrealized growth that may receive a step-up for heirs instead of getting taxed each year.
   
   
6. Capital gains control: Lower income gives us more favorable opportunities to harvest gains at lower tax rates.
   
   
7. Retirement cash flow: We can create distributions intentionally by selling shares at long-term capital gains tax rates rather than generating unpredictable taxable income.

Most of these benefits become especially impactful for clients who are retired or approaching retirement, have large taxable portfolios, are doing Roth conversions, have trusts, or are mindful of Medicare premium thresholds.

For younger clients, this may feel less important today. But over time, as allocations shift toward bonds, it becomes one of the more impactful planning levers available.

This is a good example of the subtle but powerful improvements we like making for clients at Hill Investment Group. Changes that not only improve your investment outcomes, but also make your plan work better behind the scenes.

While LVIG is something we are bringing to Hill portfolios, it will be a publicly traded ETF and available to all investors. Therefore, if you know someone navigating retirement, taxes, or trust planning who could benefit from greater flexibility, feel free to share this with them or have them reach out to us directly to see how we can be most helpful. Here’s the best link to get in touch with us.