Elijah Essa

CFP®

Coats Financial Planning

Financial Planner

Elijah Essa

CFP®

Coats Financial Planning

Financial Planner

As a fee-only financial planner, my focus is to offer unbiased financial advice to help you achieve your life goals. - Elijah Essa, CFP®

Fee-Only financial planner located in Louisville, KY, serving clients locally and across the country

Elijah Essa is a Louisville, KY fee-only financial advisor serving clients locally and across the country. Coats Financial Planning provides retirement planningtax planning, and investment management to help professionals, pre-retirees and retirees organize, grow and protect their assets through life’s transitions. As a fee-only, fiduciary, and independent financial advisor, Elijah Essa is never paid a commission of any kind, and has a legal obligation to provide unbiased and trustworthy financial advice.

Elijah Essa, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, joined the firm in 2017 after graduating from Western Kentucky University’s Personal Financial Planning program. He provides comprehensive financial advice for clients of all ages and is particularly inclined to advise young professionals like himself.

While at WKU, Elijah served as one of the financial counselors for the Center for Financial Success, a university resource dedicated to aiding the local community by providing peer-to-peer counseling and financial education. He graduated summa cum laude and was named both Outstanding Graduating Senior and Outstanding Senior in Financial Planning by the Gordon Ford College of Business. After graduation, Elijah participated in the Disney College Program before moving back to his hometown of Louisville to work at Coats Financial Planning.

Elijah’s favorite part about being a financial planner is studying, distilling, and communicating complex planning topics to clients. He especially enjoys the teaching aspect of being a planner, particularly in a one-on-one environment. He values deep relationships with his clients, always willing to listen and learn. He believes exceptional client service is the cornerstone of financial planning. He is an advocate for fee-only planning and often takes the opportunity to explain how vastly different it is from the other side of the industry.

Elijah currently helps other young advisors get started in the profession by serving as the Membership Coordinator on the Genesis Leadership Committee for the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA). He also reviews scholarship applications for the CFP Board Center for Financial Planning, which provides assistance to qualified candidates for the CFP® exam. Elijah was named a Rising Star by Financial Planning magazine as a part of their inaugural national list of ten planners in 2021. He will graduate in December of 2022 with a master's degree in Personal Financial Planning from Kansas State University.

Elijah resides in Louisville with his wife, Sarah and dogs, Landon and Korra. Aside from financial planning, Elijah enjoys listening to and producing music, going to parks, playing video games, and spending time with friends and family. 

Elijah Essa is a Member of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors

The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) is a leading professional association of Fee-Only financial advisors - highly trained professionals who are committed to working in the best interests of those they serve.

NAPFA members live by three important values:

  • To be the beacon for independent, objective financial advice for individuals and families.
  • To be the champion of financial services delivered in the public interest.
  • To be the standard bearer for the emerging profession of financial planning.

Coats Financial Planning, Inc. is a pioneering firm in Louisville, offering financial planning and investment advice on a Fee-Only basis for over two decades. Today we serve clients in Kentucky, Indiana, Florida and a dozen other states and we offer a staff of five dedicated and qualified financial advisors, all of whom are CFP® professionals. We provide an independent, objective review of your financial situation, and seek a long-term ongoing relationship to help you meet your financial goals. Our client relationships are deep and are conducted exclusively on an ongoing retainer basis.

We think our firm is unique and here are several of the primary reasons to partner with us:

  • We put the interests of the client first in everything we do 100% of the time. No exceptions. Make sure any advisor you hire will put that pledge in writing (other than NAPFA firms, few will).
  • We are financial planners first. For instance, we emphasize tax planning as a way we can add significant value for a client at most any stage in life. We bring solid knowledge and application of the tax code and an understanding of how the client tax situation is likely to change over time. We use this insight to help the client keep a higher percentage of their retirement assets over time rather than pay it out in taxes.
  • For those approaching retirement or already there, we offer rare expertise at crafting a retirement strategy that pulls all your retirement resources into a cohesive plan that is tax-efficient, sustainable and optimal for what is likely a multi-decade retirement period.
  • On the investment side, we focus on low cost, tax-efficient and highly transparent investments and we maintain a long-term focus without the folly of trying to time the markets.

We hope you will visit our website to learn more about our firm.

Fee-Only, Fiduciary, Independent: Three Important Criteria to Consider When Choosing a Financial Advisor.

Specialties

  • Comprehensive Financial Planning
  • Retirement Income Planning
  • Investment Management
  • College Education Planning
  • Tax Planning

Ideal Clients

  • Retirees and Near Retirees
  • Growing Families
  • Business Owners and Executives
  • Sudden Money Situations
  • Novice Investors

Working Together

  • In-Office Meetings
  • Virtual Meetings
  • Clearly Defined Fees
  • No Product Sales
  • Complimentary Initial Consultation

Professional Designations & Affiliations

Contact Elijah Essa

Please enter your name
Please enter a valid 10 digit US phone number in the format xxx-yyy-zzzz
Please enter a valid email address
Please leave a message for the advisor.
Clear Form
Please verify that you aren't a robot.
There was an issue sending your message. If this issue persists, please contact support.
Message Sent! Your message info will be displayed in other advisor contact forms to make it easy to send to multiple advisors. We do not share your message content beyond the advisors you choose.

Office Locations:

  • 139 S. English Station Road
    Suite 230
    Louisville, KY 40245

Outdated Browser Detected!

If you're seeing this message, it's because the web browser you're using to access our site is much older and no longer supported. Due to privacy and safety concerns, we don't allow older browsers to access our site. In order to access WhyFiduciary.com, please use a newer browser, like Internet Explorer 10 or above, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox.

Download a newer browser