I Have Completed the Requirements for the CFP® Certification

On July 15 of this year I passed the CFP® exam. The exam is one requirement among several, and the one that remained after it was the experience requirement. It's the piece that takes years to accumulate rather than a single test date to prepare for. As of today, that requirement is complete, and I have met every standard the CFP Board sets to use the CFP® marks.

I have spent a lot of time writing about financial identity, about the stories people tell themselves regarding money and how those stories get built over years of small decisions rather than one big one. Earning this certification worked the same way. The exam took months of study on top of teaching full time and running Sexton Finance, and the experience requirement took years of actual client-facing work before that, budgeting sessions, planning conversations, the slow accumulation of hours that there is no shortcut for. Sacrifice while it's voluntary is not just a line I put on client portfolio folders, it described most of my weeknights and weekends over the past several years.

What changes for you starting today is real, not just a new set of letters after my name. The CFP® mark comes with a fiduciary duty attached, which means the advice I give has to be in your best interest, full stop, not just suitable for you. It also means my training now covers the full financial picture, retirement, tax, estate, insurance, and investments, rather than a single lane of it. If you have worked with me already, the relationship doesn't change, but the standard behind it just became formal.

Jay Sexton is a finance instructor, doctoral candidate in Personal Financial Planning, and owner of Sexton Finance. He writes about the behavioral and emotional dimensions of financial decision-making at sextonfinance.com.