Anil “Neil” Chacko, CFP®
Initially, finance was an area of fascination for me. One of my fondest memories was walking to the bank with my mother in grade school to deposit the cash I earned washing my neighbors’ cars. In high school, I was enthralled by the stock market and enjoyed looking at the movement of various stocks that I selected and kept track of even though my family never invested in the market. After reading “The Richest Man in Babylon” and “The Wealthy Barber” in my 20’s, I felt called to pursue a career where I could help people understand the magic of compounding returns on their life savings and the importance of proper financial planning. I began my career as a financial advisor with David Lerner Associates, a regional brokerage firm in the northeastern US. However, I began to realize that even though my title was “Financial Advisor,” the job itself was more as a financial product salesman.
Early on in my advisory career, my father decided to retire at age 60 without meeting with a financial advisor. He asked me questions about social security claiming strategies, pension payout options and other important retirement planning considerations. I realized, however, that the training I received to become an advisor was based around selling financial products and not really financial planning so I could not truly help my dad with his questions. I quickly decided that I needed to pursue my CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation (www.cfp.net) in order to be able to truly help my clients retire comfortably. This is when helping others with their finances became a passion for me.
Unfortunately, many of the decisions made by my father without the guidance of a financial planner proved to be disastrous. My motivation for embracing each workday is to help my clients avoid the same experience.
I grew up in New York but got to Texas as soon as I could. I live in Sienna with my beautiful wife and am honored to be a father to 2 wonderful children attending Texas universities (Go Aggies and Bobcats!). When I am not serving my clients, I enjoy travelling, trying new restaurants, road and cross-country biking (to try and burn off all the calories of eating at new restaurants), reading, watching sports and volunteering at my church and the local food pantry. My Christian faith, family and friends are the driving forces of my life.