Greg Kitchin of Consolidated Planning

Greg Kitchin of Consolidated Planning Helping Individuals, Families & Business Owners Preserve Wealth, Reduce Risk, and Plan for the Future. I help people have confidence in their finances.

My wife told me to quit my job.Not suggested. Told.I'd been talking about it for three years. Coming home drained. Sitti...
09/08/2026

My wife told me to quit my job.
Not suggested. Told.

I'd been talking about it for three years. Coming home drained. Sitting in two hours of traffic while our daughter learned ballet without me. Stepping on a scale and not recognizing the number.

I kept waiting for the right time. She stopped waiting for me.

"If you don't do this now, you're going to regret it forever. We'll figure it out."

She said that while staring at the same spreadsheet I was.

$2,310 mortgage. $2,837 for two kids in daycare. Grocery bills that felt like a second mortgage payment.

She knew what she was saying. She knew what it meant. She said it anyway.

She'd already done the math. Not the retirement projections or the savings runway. The other math. The one where she calculated how many more months of watching me disappear she could handle before something broke that wouldn't come back.

Income went to zero. I was building a practice from nothing while she held everything else together.

She never once said "maybe you should go back."

Not when the savings dropped. Not when the clients were slow. Not when our friends looked at us like we'd lost our minds.

She'd already decided this was worth it before I had the courage to agree with her.

She's the reason any of this exists.

Most people think I took a risk.
I didn't.
She did.

I was walking around this morning singing ba-ya-di-ba-ya-da over and over.Weston looked at me like I'd lost it. "What do...
09/03/2026

I was walking around this morning singing ba-ya-di-ba-ya-da over and over.

Weston looked at me like I'd lost it. "What does that mean?"

I told him it means nothing. There are no words. I'm just making the sounds the way I hear it for the guitar from a song.

He kept staring at me like I needed help.

Then it hit me. If sounds are all you get, no rhythm, no pitch, no actual audio, could you still name the song? I lost it imagining people trying to sound this out on a gameshow in front of an audience.

So I made one for you.

Round one is below. No music. Just the noises I'd use to describe a guitar riff to someone with zero context. I'll spare you the public embarrassment of trying to sound it out with a live audience.

Comment your guess. See if you can hear a whole song out of nothing but nonsense.

09/02/2026

A 36-year-old couple made $370K last year. They had $4,000 saved.

Three kids. Two good jobs. On paper, they were fine.

I asked what they thought they spent in an average month on their lifestyle. Not the mortgage. Just life. "About $7,000 or so, can't be more than $8,000"

It was $13,000. Every month. Before the house payment even shows up.

They went quiet.

Neither of them had ever seen that number sitting by itself before. They'd only ever felt it, in the gap between what hit the account and what was left by the 25th.

I didn't tell them what to cut out and what to spend money on. Frankly, I don't care. I just care that it lines up with what they actually want.

That week, we built a new system. One that funds the house, savings and retirement before the money hits their checking account, so they don't have to do math to see what they can afford.

Now they just keep track of the $5,000 that hits their account twice a month. It's more than they thought they needed, and it's theirs to spend however they want.

So far, they've barely felt a difference, and now that $4,000 is on track to become $40,000 this time next year.

Wow this playlist is incredible!Sometimes Spotify just knows what somebody needs to hear.
09/02/2026

Wow this playlist is incredible!

Sometimes Spotify just knows what somebody needs to hear.

This started over a bottle of wine, not a fitness plan.A few weeks after that dinner, we actually committed. First it wa...
09/01/2026

This started over a bottle of wine, not a fitness plan.

A few weeks after that dinner, we actually committed.

First it was just me and James.
Two days later we convinced a third to join us.
This morning, six of us were on the court at 5:30, with more asking about joining us on Thursday.

James and I had been lamenting the same thing at dinner with our wives: every summer we'd see everyone at the pool, then go months barely saying a word once it closed.

We all want to hang out, but life gets in the way. Without the common ground of the pool it was easy to fall into routines.

So we made somthing to bring the group together. Twice a week, tennis courts. Get there at 5:30, start the workout by 5:45. Everybody lives about 3 mintues away so it's easier to commit to.

One dad is responsible for leading the workout each time, everybody else follows his lead. Kettlebells, pushups, sprints, whatever we can fit before everyone has to go be a dad and go to work.

Nothing on the list looks hard. Ten minutes in, everyone's drenched and cursing out the leader for that day.

We keep it just short of wrecking ourselves. Still have to carry kids and sit through meetings by 9.

Nobody's talking about the workout in the group chat. They're asking when we're doing it again.

08/31/2026

They lost 60% of their income and ended up better off. I know how that sounds.

She got the call on a Tuesday. Government layoffs. Her husband called me an hour later, voice tight, already doing the math on how fast they'd burn through savings. Three month old at home. Household income dropped from $180K to $70K overnight.

I asked him one question before we talked about a single number. "What's the most important thing in your life right now?"

The answer came fast. Time with their newborn.

Turned out the job she'd lost had her commuting ninety minutes each way. She was missing bedtime most nights. The new number meant cutting eating out for a while. It also meant she was home for bedtime every single night.

A year later they told me the layoff was the best thing that happened to their family. They're still saving more than they did at $180K.

We didn't fix this with a strict budget. They just needed someone to help them see what they already had while they were still too scared to look at it.

My car died on I-95, the week I planned to propose.Monday morning, driving back from a weekend seeing my girlfriend in D...
08/28/2026

My car died on I-95, the week I planned to propose.

Monday morning, driving back from a weekend seeing my girlfriend in DC.

The radio cut first. Then the whole dashboard lit up like I was on The Price Is Right. I pulled onto the shoulder somewhere between two highways merging, the worst possible spot to break down, and called a coworker to say I probably wasn't making it into the office.

Pennsylvania DOT towed me off the highway. AAA towed me the rest of the way. Seven hundred fifty dollars for a refurbished alternator that still didn't feel right afterward.

I'd already bought the ring. Spent almost everything I had on it. So I called my dad. Told him I needed help buying a car that could actually get me to Virginia and back.

He said congratulations, and yes.

I bought a Subaru that week. The dealership stayed open late on a Friday so I could finish the paperwork and still make the drive that weekend, because I wasn't waiting another week to do this.

She didn't know any of that. She just wanted to go for a hike to see my new car. That morning she ran fourteen miles training for a marathon. Then she picked a hike that added seven more anyway.

I had a camera set up on a timer. Got down on one knee at the top.

She didn't say yes right away. She just let out a series of expletives as she stood there completely overwhelmed. I waited for what was probably 30 seconds but felt like an hour while I stayed on one knee, waiting.

Finally I asked if she could give me an answer.

Spoiler alert, she said yes.

Called my best friend that night to tell him. His first response: "Biggest mistake of her life."

I couldn't necessarily disagree.

He was kind enough to not remind her of her mistake at our wedding though.

08/27/2026

A $30,000 raise. Six months later, only $400 more in the bank.

38-year-old couple. Household income jumped to $190K.

"We thought the raise would change everything," she told me. "We're still living paycheck to paycheck."

That was before we sat down together.

We pulled the numbers apart line by line. The raise hadn't disappeared. It had been absorbed. A nicer car payment here. More takeout there. A subscription neither of them remembered signing up for.

Nothing dramatic. Just enough, in enough places, that the extra $2,500 a month never had anywhere to land.

So we gave it a landing spot before it ever hit their checking account.

It's the same raise, but with an actual plan now. We'll check the numbers again in six months.

And this time I already know it won't be just $400.

Will showed up to replace our front steps yesterday and picked up two apprentices he didn't ask for.He was mixing concre...
08/26/2026

Will showed up to replace our front steps yesterday and picked up two apprentices he didn't ask for.

He was mixing concrete for the new footer. Weston noticed, disappeared, then came back dragging his own little red wheelbarrow, determined to mix concrete too.

Norah wasn't about to be left out either. Both of them stuck to Will like he was the most interesting person in Charlottesville.

I tried to give Will some space. He told me to let them hang out. Still got the whole job done anyway.

My father-in-law ended up filling Weston's wheelbarrow with water so he'd have real work to do.

He held onto that wheelbarrow like his job depended on it. Watching Will the whole time. Making sure he was doing it right.

08/25/2026

I told them buying a house was a terrible idea.

30-year-old couple. $250K household income. $195K in liquid savings.

They could afford the payment. That wasn't the problem.

$150K down on a $750K house. $30K in closing costs. $180K out the door. $15K liquid left after the biggest purchase of their lives.

Everyone kept telling them: "You're throwing money away on rent." "Build equity." "Buy now or you'll regret it."

So they got pre-approved. Started looking at houses. Were about to make an offer.

Then I asked one question. "What happens when something breaks, or you get a job offer in another state again?"

Silence.

Neither of them is handy. They'd moved three times in five years chasing opportunities. Traveled constantly, last minute, whenever the mood struck.

We ran the numbers. $180K to get in. Another $25K in realtor fees to get out if they moved again within three years. Plus yard work, repairs, HOA fees, taxes climbing every year. $15K left as a cushion if anything went wrong.

They stopped looking at houses. Went back to date nights instead.

Three months later, a snowstorm knocked out power for three days. They never noticed. They were on a last-minute trip to Europe, dodging the storm without even trying to.

Their maintenance crew handled the snow. They never touched a shovel.

Their parents still think they made a mistake. Six figures in savings and no house to show for it.

But it's not their parents' life to live.

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Charlottesville, VA
22902

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