Rae Hartley Beck, CFP®

Financial Advisor

About Rae Hartley Beck, CFP®

Rae Hartley Beck is a fee-only fiduciary CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ based in Grand Junction, Colorado. She provides flat-fee and fee-only holistic financial planning to individuals and families across Western Colorado and the I-70 corridor both in-person and remotely. Her mission is to make high-quality financial advice accessible, transparent, and tailored to your life.

Background & Expertise

Rae began her career as an award-winning Claims Specialist at the Social Security Administration, where she guided tens of thousands through retirement timing, disability benefits, Medicare enrollment, survivorship, and special needs trusts.

A member of the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement since 2011, Rae has been teaching classes on early retirement and investment strategies for years.

This deep knowledge continues to shape her client work today as a fiduciary financial planner in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Writing & Media Work

If you’ve been on the internet in the last decade, there’s a good chance you’ve read Rae’s work. In addition to working with clients, Rae is a nationally recognized financial writer and editor. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications including Bankrate, Money and Investopedia. She has been quoted as a national expert on Social Security in Slate, Mass Mutual, and US News & World Report. 

For several years she served as the Retirement, Investing & Tax editor for Forbes Advisor, helping more than 800,000 monthly readers understand how to retire with confidence. Rae has written about everything from taking out a HELOC to pay for college, to new changes to Required Minimum Distribution rules.

This deep expertise in a wide range of personal finance topics allows her to help clients navigate complex financial decisions with out-of-the-box solutions.

Personal Life

An insomniac by nature and a toddler mom, don’t call her before 9:30 AM unless you’re dying, in which case, call 911. Rae spends her free time reading a ridiculous number of books, wrangling friends for a weekly D & D session that’s been going strong for 4+ years, playing in a band that is casually adequate, and hiking in the desert southwest with her retired racing sled dogs every time the temps drop below 70.

Financial Planning Services

Rae specializes in comprehensive financial planning that includes:

• Retirement planning
• Pension planning
• Social Security claiming strategies
• Tax-efficient investing
• Estate planning
• Strategic lifestyle spending
• Legacy gifting
• Early retirement planning

How Rae gets paid

Rae, like all advisors at Bright Road Wealth Management, is a fee-only financial planner. This means that the only way Rae gets paid is through transparent fees. We earn no commissions on annuities, complex life insurance policies, or referrals.

The majority of our clients pay their fees as a flat percentage of the assets they have invested with us. In addition to this fee structure, Rae is currently the only financial advisor taking on new clients on a flat-fee basis, meaning you pay for the advice you get.

By charging a flat-fee, Rae is able to make high-quality professional, fiduciary financial advice accessible to people who have been ignored by traditional firms. This includes people who don’t have assets to manage yet, DIY investors who want to manage their own investments, real estate investors who don’t have liquid investments, and federal employees who have the bulk of their assets in the Thrift Savings Plan.

Pro-Bono Financial Planning program

Starting in December, Rae will be rolling out a pro-bono advice program to people who can’t afford professional financial advice but desperately need it. Check back here in November for more details, space will be limited.