- Fee-onlyno commissions
- No account minimumfor investment management
- English & Spanishnatively
- Accepting new clientsIn person in Norwalk, by video, or at your Laguna Beach business
- Fiduciaryin writing, always
- DFPI-registeredCRD #311270
- In business sinceDecember 2020
- Free 15-minute callno obligation
Two kinds of household define this city and they need opposite things. Artists, gallery owners and creative professionals with irregular self-employment income, no employer plan and no automatic anything. And an older, asset-rich population in homes bought long ago, dealing with an enormous embedded gain, a property-insurance market that has turned hostile, and estate documents written for a different set of numbers.
Start with the honest part: we are 38.2 miles from Laguna Beach
We do not have an office in Laguna Beach, and we are not going to imply otherwise with a service-area pin. our principal office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 38.2 miles away. If a firm's Laguna Beach page does not tell you where its actual office is, that is worth noticing — the August 2026 teardown of this market found out-of-area firms running dozens of city pages each, including one with a Norwalk page containing nothing about Norwalk.
So the question is not proximity. It is whether what we do is worth the drive, a video call, or us coming to you — because we do all three, and evenings run by video. Two things travel perfectly well over distance and are unusually hard to find at any distance: a fee schedule published on the website, and a fiduciary standard you can hold us to in writing. Neither requires us to be down the street.
Is your financial advisor in Laguna Beach actually a fiduciary?
Most people assume yes. The answer depends on how the person is registered. An investment adviser representative owes a fiduciary duty — care and loyalty, across the whole relationship, and it cannot be waived. A registered representative of a broker-dealer is held to Regulation Best Interest, which attaches at the moment of a recommendation and, in the SEC's own words, imposes no duty to monitor an account absent an agreement.
Both can be good at the job. They are not the same promise. You can check any firm in ten minutes: Form ADV at adviserinfo.sec.gov, individuals on BrokerCheck, and the Form CRS. Ours is linked here, and the standard is spelled out on our fiduciary page. Aduna Capital is fee-only: paid by clients, by nobody else, with no commissions and no proprietary products. The full comparison is here →
Who we work with in Laguna Beach
Laguna Beach has an arts economy in a literal sense rather than a promotional one. The Festival of Arts and the Pageant of the Masters, the Sawdust Art Festival across the road and the third show alongside them run every summer in the canyon; the Laguna Art Museum sits at the top of the hill above Main Beach; the Playhouse has been operating for the better part of a century; and the galleries along South Coast Highway and Forest Avenue are the year-round version of the same thing. The people who make a living from it are almost entirely self-employed. Income arrives in irregular lumps, inventory is worth something but cannot be spent, and there is no employer, no match, no payroll deduction and nobody sending an annual statement. Reaching sixty in that career with no retirement account is not a failure of discipline; it is the default outcome when nothing is automatic. Solo 401(k) · Arts and non-profit employers.
The other Laguna Beach is the one that already has the assets. A house bought in the seventies on a canyon street or above Cliff Drive now carries a gain that dwarfs the $250,000-and-$500,000 primary-residence exclusion, and the owners are in their seventies and eighties. Everything follows from that single fact: whether to sell or hold for the step-up at death, how Proposition 19 treats a transfer to children who may not want to move in, whether the trust drafted in 1998 still says what the family wants it to say, and whether the beneficiary designations on the accounts agree with the trust or quietly override it. California estate basics · Capital gains · Trust and estate accounts.
And then there is insurance, which in this city has become a financial-planning question rather than an errand. Laguna Beach carries both wildfire exposure — the 1993 fire came down the canyon into the town — and landslide history in Bluebird Canyon. Carriers have narrowed what they will write on hillside and canyon property; the FAIR Plan covers a limited set of perils and typically has to be paired with a separate difference-in-conditions policy to get back to ordinary coverage, and the combined premium is now a large permanent line in a retirement budget rather than a rounding error. We are not insurance brokers and we sell no policies. What we do is put the real number in the plan, stress-test what happens if it doubles again, and make sure the decision to stay or sell gets made on arithmetic rather than on the week the renewal notice arrives.
The local employer base
Galleries, studios and the summer festivals
Exhibiting artists, gallery owners, framers, dealers and the seasonal staff around the festival grounds. Self-employment income with no plan attached. A SEP-IRA or solo 401(k) can absorb a strong year and take nothing in a weak one, which is the only structure that survives this kind of income.
Coast Highway hospitality and retail
Restaurants, hotels, bars and shops along the highway and around Main Beach, plus the trades that serve them. Tipped and seasonal income, small employers, and the state retirement mandate now reaching businesses with a single employee. Restaurants · CalSavers in Orange County.
Laguna Beach Unified School District
One of the smallest unified districts in the county, serving the city alone. Certificated staff are CalSTRS members and classified staff CalPERS. A small district means a short list of approved 403(b) vendors, and a short list is not the same thing as a good one.
Mission Hospital Laguna Beach and city services
The hospital campus on the south end of town, plus a city that runs its own police department and marine safety service. Hospital staff are typically in a 403(b) or 401(k); city employees including safety classifications are CalPERS, on different formulas from miscellaneous staff. CalPERS.
Public pensions and rollovers
Laguna Beach Unified staff are in CalSTRS and CalPERS, and City of Laguna Beach employees — including police and marine safety, who sit on safety formulas with earlier retirement ages — are CalPERS through the city's contract. Everyone else in this city is on their own: self-employment, a 403(b), or accumulated assets with no pension behind them at all. For that group the useful work is on the spending side rather than the saving side — which account funds which year, whether charitable gifts should come out of an IRA rather than the chequebook, and whether a conversion in a low-income year pays for itself. Qualified charitable distributions · Roth conversion calculator.
If you are leaving a job, the rollover decision is where the most money is quietly lost — the 20% mandatory withholding under IRC § 3405(c) catches people who take the cheque themselves. The four options, step by step · Seven costly mistakes · Run the numbers. For public employees: CalPERS, CalSTRS, LACERA and OCERS explained.
A first conversation about Laguna Beach money, at no cost
Fifteen minutes on the phone. If your question has a short answer you will get it on the call, and if we are not the right firm for you we will say that too.
Our fees, published
No competing advisor page in this area publishes its fees. Here are ours.
| What | Fee |
|---|---|
| Investment management | 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year; Advisers may set a rate below the standard schedule, as low as 0%, at their discretion — and whatever rate applies to you is disclosed in writing before you engage. Our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5, states the fee as up to 2.00% of assets per year, subject to negotiation; the firm may waive all or part of it. Generally billed quarterly in arrears |
| Account minimum | No minimum account balance |
| Commissions and product fees | None — we are fee-only |
| Solicitor compensation | May be received or paid under disclosed arrangements |
| Initial conversation | Free, 15 minutes, no obligation |
Complete fee details in our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5.
Laguna Beach questions
Our homeowners insurance has become the largest bill we have. Does that change our financial plan?
It changes the plan more than most people allow for, and it should be modelled explicitly rather than buried inside a housing estimate. Three things follow. First, the premium is a permanent inflating expense, so it raises the amount of capital the household needs to support the same lifestyle. Second, if coverage has moved to the FAIR Plan plus a wrap policy, it is worth confirming exactly what is and is not covered before you find out during a claim. Third — and this is the one nobody wants to say out loud — for some owners the honest answer is that the property has become an expensive way to hold an asset, and selling is a legitimate option rather than a defeat. We do not sell insurance and have no stake in which way you go.
I am an artist. My income is unpredictable and I have never had a retirement account. Is it too late?
No, and the structure matters more than the amount. Two accounts do most of the work: a cash reserve large enough to carry the slow months so you never have to sell anything at the wrong time, and a SEP-IRA or solo 401(k) that you fund as a percentage of what actually comes in — large after a good show, nothing after a bad one, with no penalty for the zero. Neither requires an employer or a payroll company. Our ongoing minimum is $50 a month precisely so that an irregular income is not a reason to be turned away. Why there is no minimum.
We have owned the house since 1979 and the trust was written in the nineties. What needs revisiting?
Start with three documents and a number. The trust, to see whether its structure still fits a much larger estate and a much-changed set of tax rules. The beneficiary designations on every retirement account, because those pass by contract and will override anything the trust says. The title on the house itself. And the number is the embedded gain, because it determines whether holding for the step-up at death is worth the cost of holding. We are not attorneys and we do not draft anything — we assemble the picture, tell you where the mismatches are, and work with your estate attorney to fix them.
Do you actually meet clients from Laguna Beach, or is this page just for search?
We meet them. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 38.2 miles from Laguna Beach — clients come to us, we come to them, or we meet by video, and evening appointments can be arranged. What we will not do is claim an office in Laguna Beach that does not exist. Call (657) 571-2607. We are registered as an investment adviser in California.
What is the account minimum?
There isn't one to open. We ask for $50 a month of continuing deposits, because a plan you do not fund is not a plan. Our fee is 1.5% to 2.0% of assets under management per year, billed quarterly, and it is published — which is more than most firms in this market will tell you before a meeting.
¿Atienden en español?
Sí. Atendemos en español, y buena parte de nuestro material existe en español, escrito originalmente, no traducido por máquina.