Mark A. Pappa
Managing Member & Chief Investment Officer
- Chief Compliance Officer
- Investment Adviser Representative
- Principal owner
- Host, On The Mark
Fiduciary · Registered Investment Advisor
One plan
that covers the four retirement pillars.
Protect what you’ve built, plan for what’s next, and move forward with clarity and confidence.
- Retirement Income
- Risk
- Tax Reduction
- Legacy & Estate
Fiduciary advice
A Registered Investment Advisor since 2018, held to a fiduciary standard. Read our Form ADV Part 2A.
Planning done here
We work through tax strategy and estate planning with you here, instead of referring you out and waiting.
Long-term focus
Our focus is people who are retired or close to it, when the order of good and bad years starts to matter.
Local insight
Our office is at 116 Oak Street in Glastonbury, and that is where you'll meet us.
Owning financial products is not the same as having a plan that connects them.
Our job is to connect them.
The coordination problem
Your accountant, your attorney, your insurance agent and your advisor have never spoken to each other.
No business would survive a quarter run this way: four capable departments, each doing its own work correctly, none of them ever in the same meeting.
That’s what a financial plan looks like when nobody is coordinating it.
Each of them does their own piece well. Nobody checks whether the pieces fit, and that is where the expensive mistakes happen. Meanwhile you are the one carrying information between four offices, which is not your job.
- A trust that was drafted but never funded.
- A Roth conversion that raised a Medicare premium.
- An old beneficiary form that overrides the will.
- A power of attorney the bank won't honor.
DisconnectedCoordinated
The team
Who you'd be working with
Three advisors. The firm has been registered since 2018, Rick holds both the CFP® and the CLU, and neither the firm nor any of us has a disciplinary history. We share the work, so nothing waits on one person being free the week you need them.
Richard R. Rake
Investment Adviser Representative
CLU®, CFP®
- Managing Member and Chief Compliance Officer, 2018 – 2025
Nicholas E. Broska
Investment Adviser Representative
Schedule with Nicholas
The resources you have with us
The data points we look at in your financial plan
Here is the list. Part of the work is finding benefits you may already be entitled to and not know about, and that means reading everything you send us, including the paperwork that has nothing to do with investments.
Your data points, one plan
- Retirement Income
- Tax Reduction
- Risk Management
- Estate & Legacy Planning
Filter data points by area
Retirement Income
Designed to minimize taxes, reduce risk, and provide more income.
Which way of taking income fits me?
There are twelve documented ways to draw income in retirement. We identify which fits you, for the most income, at the least risk, with the lowest probability of running out.
Am I pulling from the right accounts in the right order?
Pulling from taxable, tax-deferred and tax-free accounts in the wrong order raises your lifetime tax bill. We map the order.
Will my RMDs push me into a higher bracket?
RMDs begin at 73, and missing one carries significant penalties. We plan for them years ahead instead of reacting in the year they land.
When should I claim?
Benefits can start at 62, reach full amount at your full retirement age, or grow if you delay to 70. Health, marital status, employment and income needs all move the answer, and it interacts with everything else in the plan.
Tax Reduction
Modeling how each decision moves your tax bill, before you make it.
Should I convert, and if so, when?
A conversion may lower future taxes but raises them in the year you convert. Current bracket, expected future income and the rest of the plan decide it.
Am I realizing gains at the worst possible time?
Timing and structuring sales, and weighing a capital gain against an IRA withdrawal, changes what you keep. We model the comparison before the decision.
Is my income about to raise my Medicare premiums?
Crossing an income threshold triggers Medicare surcharges, and you don't get a warning first. Staying under the threshold protects your healthcare costs.
I have a large W-2 income. What can I do about it?
Deferral and income-shifting strategies for large earned incomes, business income and high wages.
Is my portfolio costing me tax I never agreed to pay?
Turnover, fund placement and account location all generate tax on money you are not spending. Our investment management is tax-sensitive by design for this reason.
Risk Management
Protecting income, reducing emotional decisions, and conserving assets.
Is my portfolio really diversified, or does it just look that way?
Holdings that move together are not diversification. We blend multi-asset, globally diversified model portfolios and check which holdings offset risk and which pile onto it.
What happens to my retirement if the market falls 20–30%?
We run your plan through a decline instead of an average year, so you know the number before it happens.
What happens if one of us needs care?
Long-term care is one of the financial perils a retirement plan has to price in. We look at coverage routes that do not depend on expensive annual premiums.
- Not billed
Am I carrying enough liability protection?
We evaluate whether umbrella liability insurance is adequate for what you have accumulated.
- Not billed
Has my home policy changed since I bought it?
We don't sell this policy or earn anything on it. We read it anyway, because the coverage you bought and the coverage you hold today are not always the same.
Will my spouse be alright if I go first?
Pension elections, Social Security survivor rules and the loss of one benefit can cut household income sharply. We coordinate payouts and plan ahead of the event, not after it.
Estate & Legacy Planning
Passing assets on efficiently, and making sure the paperwork works.
Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?
We help you decide which tools fit your situation. Estately is a client-directed service, and we can walk you through the process and get you prepared.
Will my accounts go where I think they will?
Beneficiary designations override your will. We check how every account is titled and designated so assets avoid probate and flow to the next generation the way you intended.
- Not billed
Will my power of attorney be accepted?
We review your financial power of attorney against your bank, your brokerage firm and your insurance company. A document can be entirely valid and still be refused, including by government agencies, at the moment someone needs it.
How do I take care of one child differently?
An equal split is not always the fair one, and a plan can say so. Where a child relies on means-tested benefits, provisions can be structured so an inheritance supports them without costing them eligibility.
Can I give in a way that also helps my tax picture?
Charitable giving structured inside the estate plan and coordinated with the tax strategy.
Where to start
Start with the question that brought you here
Each of these has its own page. They are more connected than they look, and income and taxes in particular are hard to separate.
Will I have enough income to retire?
This is the first question, and it depends less on the size of the balance than on how you draw from it. There are twelve documented ways to do that.
Income planning
Am I paying tax on money I'm not even using?
A million dollars in a 401(k) is not a million dollars once the tax is paid. When you withdraw, whether you convert, and which account an asset sits in all change what you keep, and those decisions have to be made ahead of time.
Tax strategies
Will my family be taken care of?
That might mean a child with a special need, or three children in very different circumstances. An equal split is not always the fair one. And whatever your will says, the beneficiary form on each account overrides it.
Estate & legacy
What happens if the market falls 30%?
Better to find out before it happens. We run your plan through a bad year instead of an average one, so you see the number in advance.
Try the illustrator
Work we don’t bill for
A valid document can still be refused at the worst possible moment
Your power of attorney is signed, notarized and legally valid. Then your spouse takes it to the bank, and the bank says no. Brokerages can refuse it too, and so can insurance companies and some government agencies.
So we read it against the specific institutions that would have to honor it, before anyone needs it to work.
We don’t get paid to do that. We do it because it’s the kind of thing that ruins an otherwise good plan.
Umbrella liability coverage
We evaluate whether umbrella liability insurance is adequate for what you have accumulated.
Homeowner's insurance review
We don't sell this policy or earn anything on it. We read it anyway, because the coverage you bought and the coverage you hold today are not always the same.
Financial power of attorney: stress-tested
We review your financial power of attorney against your bank, your brokerage firm and your insurance company. A document can be entirely valid and still be refused, including by government agencies, at the moment someone needs it.
See How Our Asset Map Can Simplify Your Financial Life
Managing risk
What would a bad year do to your retirement?
A projection built on an average return describes a year you will never have. Work out the number now, while it is hypothetical, instead of in the middle of a decline.
Put your own numbers in
Nothing is sent anywhere. This is arithmetic, running in your browser.
$50,000$10,000,000
$0$400,000
0%50%
Savings after the fall
$750,000
$250,000 less
Your income becomes
6.7%
of savings, up from 5.0%
Years that income lasts
15.0
was 20.0
Years of income lost
5.0
from one bad year
This is a hypothetical arithmetic illustration using figures you enter. It is not a projection, a forecast, or a representation of any actual or expected portfolio result. It assumes no growth, no inflation and no tax, so it is simple on purpose. It shows the shape of the problem. A real plan models all three.
Diversification that holds up
Two funds can look different and behave the same way, and holdings that move together are not diversification. We blend multi-asset, globally diversified model portfolios and look at correlation directly, to see what offsets risk and what concentrates it.
The risk you agreed to
A portfolio can carry more risk than advertised. We measure how much yours carries and show you, so you can decide whether that is the level you want.
Smaller swings
Alongside the portfolio we use safe financial instruments to dampen the swings. In a downturn, the decision a big drop provokes can do as much damage as the drop itself.
Diversification and asset allocation do not guarantee a profit or protect against loss. All investments involve risk, including the potential loss of principal. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Insights & the show
Mark on the radio, and in writing
Mark is on the air with WDRC Talk of Connecticut radio host Gary Byron every Saturday at 9:30 a.m. The latest segments are here to watch or listen to, alongside the firm's articles.
- Radio episode
Is your bond portfolio safe from rising interest rates and how much you could potentially lose?
Mark covers what's pushing up bond yields, inflation risk, and how much a bond portfolio could potentially lose when interest rates rise.
Watch → - Radio episode
The Four Pillars of Retirement: Income, Running Out of Money, and Legacy
The four pillars of retirement, with an emphasis on tax strategies to lower the tax bill on capital gains and ordinary income, and on planning for income, risk and your estate.
Watch → - Radio episode
The real motive behind slowing down AI development and why you should be worried.
Mark breaks down a researcher's post on X saying that people building advanced AI believe it could kill all humans by the end of the decade, and explains why he rejects that narrative.
Watch →
Straight answers
Questions people ask before they call
There are plenty more, on income, Social Security, taxes, estate documents and market risk.
Yes. Financial Resources Group, LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor, headquartered in Connecticut. That means we are held to a fiduciary standard and are obligated to act in your best interest. Our current written disclosure statement, Form ADV Part 2A, is linked at the foot of every page of this site, and we will send you a copy on request.
We read documents an investment advisor isn't paid to read, including your financial power of attorney and your homeowner's policy. And tax strategy and estate planning are done here instead of being handed off. For estate documents, we walk you through Estately, a client-directed service, and get you prepared.
We ask about your goals, your family, and what's worrying you. Then we tell you what we'd look at and whether we're the right fit. The first conversation is free.
Our main focus is people who are retired or close to it, though we work with pre-retirees as well. If you are trying to work out whether your income will hold up, that is exactly the conversation to have with us.
Next step
Ask us what we'd find in your plan
The first conversation is free. We'll tell you what we'd look at and whether we're the right fit. Sometimes we aren't, and we'll say so.
Or just call us:(860) 657-8380