- Fee-onlyno commissions
- No account minimumfor investment management
- English & Spanishnatively
- Accepting new clientsIn person in Norwalk, by video, or at your San Dimas business
- Fiduciaryin writing, always
- DFPI-registeredCRD #311270
- In business sinceDecember 2020
- Free 15-minute callno obligation
San Dimas households are usually a two-income family in the middle of the long stretch: a mortgage, two children, a 401(k) at work and a CalSTRS or 403(b) account from the district. The money question is rarely exotic. It is whether the savings rate is genuinely enough, what college is going to cost, and whether anyone has looked at the whole thing at once.
Start with the honest part: we are 25.7 miles from San Dimas
We do not have an office in San Dimas, and we are not going to imply otherwise with a service-area pin. our principal office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 25.7 miles away. If a firm's San Dimas 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 San Dimas 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 San Dimas
San Dimas is one of the quieter places on this list, and that is more or less the point of it. Roughly 34,000 residents, a downtown along Bonita Avenue built to look like a Western main street, Bonita Unified running schools it shares with La Verne, and Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park taking up the whole southern edge. The junction where the 57 meets the 210 defines the working day: a great many people who live here earn their living somewhere down one of those two freeways.
That commuting pattern is the financial fact that matters most. It means the employer plan is somewhere else — a hospital system, a county department, an aerospace supplier, a distribution operation out in the Inland Empire — and it means job changes leave accounts behind. The predictable result is three or four orphaned retirement accounts at former employers, none invested the way the household would choose today, at least one still sitting in a cash equivalent since a rollover done in a hurry. The seven expensive mistakes are here.
The second is timing. With school-age children and a median household income of $105,321, the competition is between the 401(k), the 529 and the mortgage, and families argue about it for years without ever putting numbers to it. There is an order of operations that holds up for most households — capture the full employer match first, because it is the only guaranteed return anybody is offering you — and after that it becomes a genuine trade-off worth modelling rather than a matter of opinion. California 529 rules · run the compounding.
The local employer base
Bonita Unified School District
Shared with La Verne, where the district offices sit. Teachers are CalSTRS members and classified staff are in CalPERS. Campus 403(b) vendor lists are long and uneven, and two options on the same list can differ in cost by several multiples.
City of San Dimas and county facilities
City staff are CalPERS members. County employees living here are in LACERA, a separate system with its own tiers and its own reciprocity rules — and reciprocity between California public systems is one of the more valuable things people never learn they have.
San Dimas Community Hospital and nearby health systems
Hospital employees are usually in a 403(b) or private 401(k) rather than a pension, often with a match that vests on a schedule. Leaving before the vesting date has a specific dollar cost, and it is worth knowing what that number is.
Arrow Highway and Via Verde businesses
Light industrial operations, contractors, franchises and professional practices. Owner-operators here typically need a plan that fits a small, stable payroll, and a Safe Harbor 401(k) often solves the compliance testing problem outright.
Public pensions and rollovers
Two public systems dominate San Dimas households: CalSTRS through Bonita Unified, and LACERA for the many residents who work for Los Angeles County. LACERA is not CalPERS, and the differences are real — separate tiers, separate contribution rates, and reciprocity provisions that can preserve a benefit when someone moves between reciprocal California systems inside the required window. If you have worked for more than one public employer, that history is worth reconstructing before you retire rather than after. LACERA explained.
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 San Dimas 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.
San Dimas questions
I have old 401(k)s at three previous employers. Is consolidating actually worth the trouble?
Usually, and for reasons that have little to do with convenience. You cannot manage an allocation you cannot see, small balances get charged flat administrative fees that eat into them, and beneficiary designations on abandoned accounts are frequently a decade out of date and name the wrong person. The mechanics matter: a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer avoids the 20% mandatory withholding that catches anyone who takes the cheque themselves. Run your case here.
Should we put money in a 529 or pay the house down faster?
It depends on the mortgage rate, how far away tuition is, and whether the retirement accounts are already funded — and it deserves numbers rather than instinct. One principle survives every version of the argument: your children can borrow for college and you cannot borrow for retirement. That does not settle it, but it does tell you which one gets funded first when there is not enough for both.
A rep came to campus with a retirement product. How do we tell whether it is any good?
Ask three questions and ask for the answers in writing: how are you paid on this, what is the total annual cost including any mortality and expense charge, and what happens if I want the money out in year three. A surrender schedule is the tell. Most district lists carry perfectly reasonable options and some very expensive ones, side by side, with nothing marking which is which. Here is how to read the list.
Do you actually meet clients from San Dimas, or is this page just for search?
We meet them. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 25.7 miles from San Dimas — 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 San Dimas 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.