Jake Murphy, FSCP - Financial Planner

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Jake Murphy, FSCP - Financial Planner

Jake Murphy is a registered representative of and offers securities and investment advisory services through MML Investors Services, LLC. Member SIPC.

I help young families navigate rising costs, competing priorities, and the pressure of doing everything at once and pre-retirees make smart decisions around retirement, income, taxes, and what comes next. Supervisory Office: 201 King of Prussia Rd, Suite 501, Radnor, PA 19087. Tel:610-766-3000.

07/23/2026

Austin Reaves says his financial advisor told him to spend more money.

Kyle Kuzma says professional athletes don't have an income problem. They have a lifestyle creep problem.

At first, those sound like completely opposite ideas.

I don't think they are.

A few months ago, I sat down with a locums PA making just over $300,000. He wasn't trying to figure out how to earn more. He wanted to build enough passive income to spend more time with his wife and 3 year old.

Every recommendation had to answer the same question:
How does this help him spend more time with his family?

A few weeks later, I met with another client making a great income who couldn't understand why there never seemed to be anything left over at the end of the month. Same income, but completely different decisions.

That's why I think both NBA players are right.

Some people need a plan that gives them confidence to enjoy the money they've worked so hard to earn.

Others need a plan that keeps lifestyle creep from quietly eating away at future choices.

Reaves and Kuzma are talking about different people.

A good financial plan knows which one you're closer to.

07/22/2026

A 60 and 65 y/o couple making $190,000 thought one of them would have to work another five years before they could retire together.

They didn't.

When we mapped out their retirement income, Social Security claiming options, taxes, and long-term cash flow, they realized they could both retire at the same time instead.

Five more years together in retirement.

That was the outcome they actually cared about.

A few days later, I met with a travel PA earning about $305,000.

He wanted to know how much of each paycheck he could actually keep after taxes, contract gaps, investing, and everything else.

By the end of our first strategy session, every paycheck already had a destination before it hit his account, there was a tax plan in place before his next contract started, and he had a roadmap toward building enough passive income to spend more time with his family.

Then there was a 63-year-old who had recently retired with about $2 million saved.

His plan was straightforward: live off cash, delay Social Security, and keep taxes as low as possible.

Once we projected the plan over the rest of his lifetime instead of focusing on this year's tax return, we found an opportunity that was projected to reduce lifetime taxes by nearly $200,000 while increasing what could eventually pass to his family by almost $800,000.

Five more years together in retirement.

That's the conversation I haven't stopped thinking about this week.

07/21/2026

Friday afternoon, I had every intention of staying home and doing absolutely nothing.

Then one of my clients texted me.

He had two floor tickets to Shane Gillis that he couldn't use because he was working and asked if my fiancée and I wanted them.

Needless to say, our Friday night plans changed pretty quickly. The show was awesome. The fact that he thought of us was the coolest part though.

We met through LinkedIn a couple months ago. Since then, we've spent a few hours working through how to make the most of a 30% pay raise and whether to put extra towards student loans or investing.

It's easy to think financial planning is just spreadsheets, tax projections, and investment accounts.

Those things matter.

But then every once in a while, you get a random text asking if you wa

07/16/2026

A physician household making nearly $900,000 asked Reddit whether his wife could stop working to spend more time with their four young kids.

That wasn't the part that caught my attention. The question was. Five years earlier, I'm guessing the conversation probably sounded more like:

"Can we afford daycare?"

"Can we afford this house?"

"How fast can we pay off our student loans?"

Now it's:

"Is one income enough?"

"What would life actually look like if one of us stayed home?"

I've had versions of this conversation with enough high-income clinicians to notice a pattern. Early in a career, the goal is usually to earn more. Later, the conversation shifts.

In this case, the decision wasn't just about walking away from a $150,000 income.

It was also walking away from employer health insurance.

A career she genuinely enjoyed.

Years of training.

Future earning potential.

All for something you can't put in a spreadsheet:

More time with four kids under six.

Those decisions usually have very little to do with whether someone can afford them.

They have everything to do with what they're unwilling to trade anymore.

07/15/2026

Making $230,000.

Driving a truck with an $1,100 payment.

Putting 3% toward retirement.

I see some version of that more often than you'd think.

Then I saw the average new car payment is now over $750 a month.

That's become normal. I've learned that "normal" is one of the most expensive words in personal finance.

Nobody wakes up planning to spend $1,100 a month on a vehicle.

It happens one decision at a time.

$80 more for the bigger trim. Another $90 for the package you really wanted. 12 more months on the loan to keep the payment manageable.

That extra $525 a month has the potential to become roughly $310,000 over the next 20 years.

Normal has a way of quietly moving the goalposts.

07/14/2026

Ed Sheeran is worth somewhere around $350,000,000.

For years, he reportedly gave himself an allowance of about $1,000 a month.

He said if all of his money sat in one account, he'd eventually spend it.

You don't have to be as extreme as this.

But money sitting in your checking account has a way of becoming spending money.

The couples I see making the most financial progress usually never see their entire paycheck.

By the time payday arrives, $2,000 already has a destination. Another $1,000 already has a clear purpose towards what matters to them.

Checking only receives what's actually available to spend.

Everyone else starts with the full paycheck and hopes something survives until the end of the month.

Ed Sheeran built a system that made the right decision automatic.

07/02/2026

"We should have about $2 million in the 401(k) by the time we retire."

A couple in their mid-40s told me that during a planning meeting.

I asked one question.

"How did you get to that number?"

We never actually got an answer. The estimate had been repeated enough over the years that it started feeling like a fact.

They planned to retire around 59 and wanted to avoid paying an extra $20,000 a year for health insurance before Medicare. We estimated that healthcare alone could cost around $1,500 a month.

Then I asked:

"How much do you need to save every month over the next 14 years to cover that?"

Nobody knew.

Not them. Not the family member they'd been getting advice from. Not the advisor friend who only helps people once they're already retired.

By the end of the meeting, we were still opening the brokerage account.

It just finally had a job.

07/01/2026

A new CRNA came to me with $135,000 of student loans and enough income to wipe them out fast.

She wasn't planning to.

A few weeks earlier she had started her first CRNA role.

1099 income, a brand-new LLC and an S-Corp election decision to be made. Her first payroll had just run a few weeks before we met.

For the first time, every extra dollar had multiple jobs competing for it:

- paying down debt
- building retirement savings
- saving for her first real estate investment within 12 months

So instead of throwing every dollar at the loans, we started looking at how to create progress across all three goals.

How much cash should stay in the business?

How much should go toward student loans?

How much should be flowing into the solo 401k she had just opened?

The path she chose included building cash reserves, targeting a 4-year payoff window for the loans, and taking advantage of the business structure she'd worked so hard to get to.

By the end of the conversation, the focus had shifted from the $120,000 she owed to the opportunities created by the next $430,000 she was about to earn.

That's a conversation I'm having with more and more clinicians in their first few years after training.

Student loans usually get the attention.

The decisions surrounding them often have the bigger impact.

06/30/2026

I paid $2,300 to join a mentorship program last year.

The biggest takeaway had nothing to do with business.

"You get about 600,000 hours in your life."

Nine months later, that's still the one thing I think about most.

Ever since then, I've caught myself looking at my calendar differently. Not just asking whether something is productive.

Asking whether it's worth an hour of my life. That mindset has changed a lot more than I expected.

It's one of the reasons I finally put app blockers on my phone. Why I care less about looking busy. Why so many of my conversations with clinicians have shifted away from retirement and toward creating options much sooner.

Because very few people I meet actually tell me they want to stop working. They want more control over their time while they're still healthy enough to enjoy it.

Nine months later, I still think about those 600,000 hours.

Mostly because they've changed how I spend the next one.

06/26/2026

That Porterhouse at JG Skyhigh on Val's birthday was worth every dollar.

Moments like this are why I will never feel that guilty about spending money on really good food.

I'll cut back in a lot of other places first.

Designer clothes or watches.
Having a few drinks out because you feel like you have to.
Stuff I buy in the moment and don't care about a month later.

But a great meal, whether it's cooking at home or going somewhere we are excited about, almost never feels like wasted money to me.

Remembering how unreal that steak was and us cracking up at the table after Val caught this exact moment of pure excitement on my face are the best kind of memories.

That sort of spending has always felt worth it to me.

What's one thing you never feel that guilty spending a little extra on?

Address

30 S 17th Street, Suite 204
Philadelphia, PA
19103

Telephone

+14846634112

Website

https://vistawealthsolutions.com/, https://financialprofessionals.massmutual.com/jake-murphy

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