David C. Lewis, RFA is a registered financial associate and a member of the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants. He is an instructor for Joint Education and Training, Inc. in Elmira, NY, and the author of numerous essays and articles on the topic of personal finance. David has been an independent financial adviser since 2005, and was a registered representative with Metropolitan Financial Services prior to that.
David offers his clients a rational alternative to the popular "dependency approach" to financial planning and the "live for the moment vs. savings-sacrifice" dichotomy (the idea that you can either "live for the moment" or you can "make the sacrifices necessary to save money for your future", but that you cannot have both).
Both of these ideas, David holds, are unnecessary with proper goal setting. Both approaches ultimately move the client towards a dependency/sacrifice mentality which can quickly lead to a victim mentality if the client's financial adviser fails them in some way.
Financial advisers, and sometimes even clients, mistakenly believe that the financial adviser can "fix" the client's financial problems for them, or that the financial adviser can make the client rich through "special" investment strategies known only to the financial adviser (or that good investment strategies are too difficult for the client to understand and implement on their own). Unfortunately, these approaches to financial planning leave the client helpless (and hopeless) if or when the investment strategy or financial plan falls apart.
David provides an alternative: Help the client to help themselves. Through rational goal setting and implementation, David helps clients find effective solutions to their current financial problems and provides financial guidance to help clients meet short and long-term financial goals.
David also provides lucid information on sometimes confusing financial products such as life and health insurance, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, annuities, and options contracts.
By integrating this information within the context of an individual's life and goals, he is able to maximize the benefits of financial planning for every client without making the client dependent or teaching irrational concepts like "sacrifice".
In 2007,
David introduced 'www.twintierfinancial.com' to provide free and paid information to the public about core financial planning concepts like value creation, savings, and budgeting.
The website also keeps
visitors updated with insightful and unusual aspects of current events in the
financial industry and how they can impact one’s day to day life.
David currently works and resides in Elmira Heights, New York.
