Vital Investment Management
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Free tools & resources

Tools you can use before you ever become a client.

Start with a free financial snapshot or a detailed planning organizer. Download the owner and 1099 guides. Then use a checklist if you want something to keep on your desk.

Start with a live organizer

The PreciseFP fact finder is the most useful first step if you want a real planning conversation. The eMoney snapshot is faster if you just want to know whether you are roughly on track.

Detailed fact finder

Financial Planning Organizer

The PreciseFP organizer collects the facts a real plan needs: the business, the household, taxes, insurance, and the goals sitting on top of both.

Fill in what you have. Come back for the rest.

A complete fact finder before the first planning meeting

Start Your Free Financial Planning Organizer

Free financial snapshot

Am I On Track?

A short eMoney snapshot for owners and 1099 workers who want a first look at cash flow, savings, and whether the current path can fund the life they are building.

About 10 minutes

A simple on-track picture you can bring to Rusty

Am I On Track? Free Financial Snapshot

Free guides for business owners & entrepreneurs

Three white-labeled planning guides. Open them in a new tab, save them, and mark up the questions that apply to your business.

What Issues Should I Consider as a Business Owner or 1099 Worker?

A comprehensive checklist covering long-term goals, tax issues, insurance, succession planning, entity choice, hiring, benefits coordination, and more, tailored for business owners and independent contractors.

Download Free Guide

Common Pension Plans for Small Business Owners (2026)

Side-by-side comparison of Traditional Defined Benefit, Cash Balance, Target Benefit, and Money Purchase plans: eligibility, contributions, limits, vesting, PBGC insurance, and deadlines.

Download Free Guide

Common Retirement Plans for Small Business Owners (2026)

Clear comparison of Solo 401(k), Safe Harbor 401(k), traditional 401(k), Profit Sharing, SIMPLE IRA, and SEP IRA: contribution limits, eligibility, testing, loans, Roth options, and deadlines.

Download Free Guide

These tools and guides are for educational purposes only and do not constitute personalized financial, tax, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional for advice specific to your situation.

Interactive

Prefer a score to a PDF?

The Financial Clarity Assessment, valuation estimator, and wealth-gap tool live on the Tools page. About three minutes. You keep the takeaway.

Open the tools

Guides & scorecards

Enter your name and email to unlock each resource. We use it to send the guide and follow up only if you want a conversation—no product pitch.

Business Owner Financial Clarity Checklist

A practical, one-sitting checklist to see whether cash, taxes, personal savings, and the business are actually working together.

  • Where surplus cash should live
  • What your household is still funding from the company
  • The five numbers every owner should know before a discovery call

Exit Readiness Scorecard

A candid scorecard for owners who know a transition is coming, even if “coming” still means five or ten years.

  • Operational dependence on you
  • Whether the personal plan survives a delayed sale
  • Gaps buyers, partners, or children will find immediately

Treasury Optimization Guide

How growing companies separate operating cash, reserves, and true surplus, without turning treasury into a second job.

  • A simple four-bucket cash framework
  • How to set a reserve you will actually keep
  • Questions to ask your bank and your CPA this quarter

Owner’s Personal Financial Plan Framework

A one-page structure for connecting compensation, taxes, investing, and the life you are trying to buy back.

  • How to pay yourself without starving growth
  • What belongs in the company vs. in your name
  • A sequence for funding life outside the business

Master List of Goals

Stop chasing vague “someday” targets. This is the worksheet owners use to turn money, time, and the business into goals they can actually fund.

  • Clarify what “enough” looks like for you and the household
  • Separate business goals from personal ones before they collide
  • Walk into a planning conversation with a real agenda, not a blank page

2026 Important Numbers

The contribution limits, brackets, and thresholds that quietly change every year—and quietly change what you can keep.

  • Key 2026 retirement and tax figures in one place
  • Numbers worth checking before you fund the plan or the company
  • A quick reference you can keep open while you talk with your CPA

Before You Retire: Issues Worth Facing Now

Retirement is not a date on a calendar. It is a stack of decisions most owners postpone until the exit is already in motion.

  • Cash flow, healthcare, and lifestyle questions to confront early
  • What still needs sorting in the business before you can step back
  • A plain-language checklist for the five years before “done”

Estate Documents Review: What Issues Should I Consider?

Wills, trusts, and beneficiary forms go stale while the business keeps changing. This review shows what to look for before a crisis does.

  • Documents that often conflict with how the company is owned today
  • Beneficiary and succession gaps owners discover too late
  • A structured review you can bring to your attorney—or to Rusty

From the practice

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TreasuryComing soon

Cash Is Not a Strategy: A Treasury Reset for Growing Owners

If surplus and shortage keep showing up in the same year, you do not have a banking problem. You have an unassigned-cash problem.

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InvestingComing soon

Building Wealth That Does Not Live in the Company

The business can be the best asset you will ever own and still be a dangerous place to keep your entire future.

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TransitionComing soon

Your Exit Is a Multi-Year Project. The LOI Is the Last Chapter.

Buyers pay for a company that can run without you. That work does not start in the year you decide you are tired.

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Estate & SuccessionComing soon

Succession Is Not a Will

A document that names heirs is not the same as a plan for who signs, who owns voting stock, and who can make payroll.

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PlanningComing soon

Pay Yourself on Purpose

Owner compensation is a planning decision. Treating it like leftover cash is how households and companies both get thin.

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How We WorkComing soon

What a Discovery Call with Rusty Is Actually For

No pitch deck. No pressure to move assets in the first conversation. Here is how the first hour is used.

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These tools and guides are for educational purposes only and do not constitute personalized financial, tax, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional for advice specific to your situation.

Prefer a conversation to a PDF?

A discovery call with Rusty is confidential, fiduciary, and pressure-free. Bring the mess. That is the point.

Meet with Rusty