Our Story

Why This Firm Exists

The short version: a family restaurant, the 2008 financial crisis, and a conviction that people deserve better guidance than my family received. Here's the whole story — in my words.

In Jason's Words

The Long Version

A Restaurant, a Crisis, and a Better Way

Keep It Simple Financial Planning was shaped by something that happened to my own family.

Before I ever became a financial planner, my family owned a small Italian restaurant in Willow Glen, California, called Mio Vicino — "my neighbor." It was the kind of place built on relationships, where the people who walked in weren't customers so much as part of the family's daily life.

Then came 2008. As the economy weakened, I watched my family navigate intense financial stress without the kind of guidance that coordinates the whole picture — investments, taxes, and long-term goals working together. What they had been sold instead were financial products. Not advice. Not coordination. Products that did little to prepare them for what was coming.

That left a mark on me. I saw how much harder a difficult situation becomes when the financial decisions inside it aren't coordinated — especially when the stakes are high and the timing is bad. And I saw how different the outcome might have been with clearer guidance and a plan that actually fit together.

So I set out to learn how financial planning is supposed to work. Not product-selling dressed up as advice — real, fiduciary guidance, focused on helping people make thoughtful, well-coordinated decisions, especially as they approach retirement, when mistakes are hardest to undo.

In 2016, I founded Keep It Simple Financial Planning with one purpose: to deliver high-quality, fiduciary advice in a way that's clear, coordinated, and practical — especially during life's most important transitions.

Today the firm is fee-only and fiduciary, serving clients virtually across more than 30 states. The work is still grounded in what I learned the hard way: that clarity and coordination — not complexity, and not products — are what lead to better outcomes over time.

What It Became

The Framework That Grew From It

Everything we do today comes from that lesson. Instead of selling pieces, we coordinate the whole picture — spending, income, and taxes working together as one plan. We call it the Retirement Coordination Framework™, and it's the reason this firm exists.