Sarah Downing
Financial Advisor
Finance Done Fashionably
Finance Done Fashionably
Sarah Downing runs a comprehensive financial planning practice with a heart for guiding women, small business owners, and families to achieve their financial goals by creating confidence around their financial plan. Her partnership approach to financial success generates a sense of clarity that allows every client to grow personally as well as financially.
After a 10-year career in fashion through Nordstrom, Sarah stepped into the financial services industry. Here her priorities for clients shifted from helping them spend more money, to helping them save more money; “Finance, done fashionably” remains her professional motto.
Sarah is a growth and development enthusiast, committed to learning. Outside of the financial practice, Sarah is President of Marketplace Women of Orange County, a nonprofit with a mission to help empower women in the marketplace to integrate their personal, professional, and spiritual lives.
Sarah and her team at Northwestern Mutual show clients the value in having a financial plan that focuses on financial wellness by creating clear action steps that push clients to step into who they aspire to be through financial freedom.
Marketplace Women Orange County
Sarah the acting President of Marketplace Women Orange County (MPWOC), which is a nonprofit dedicated to connecting and uplifting women in the marketplace by giving opportunities to integrate their personal, professional, and spiritual lives.
Junior League of Orange County
Sarah was given the opportunity earlier this year to speak on financial security at the Junior League of Orange County (JLOCC) conference. With a conference theme of "She is: UNSTOPPABLE", Sarah was able to connect with many other unstoppable women in business, and ended up enjoying the conference so much, she joined the Junior League as a member for the year.
Lending a hand in my community.
As part of Northwestern Mutual, I'm proud to help accelerate the search for better childhood cancer treatments while supporting families undergoing treatment, and survivors from late effects. Here are some of the organizations we partner with:
Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer (ALSF)
ALSF funds cancer research, raises awareness, and supports the families of children with cancer. Since 2012, Northwestern Mutual, its employees, and financial professionals like me have donated more than $20 million to support ALSF and fund over 400,000 research hours.
Beads of Courage
Beads of Courage is an art-in-medicine program that helps kids with cancer tell their unique treatment story through colorful beads that are symbols of their courage.
Here are my areas of expertise
Financial Planning
Insurance Protection Strategies
Life Insurance Strategies
Retirement Planning & Income Strategies
Education Planning & Funding
Disability Planning
Multigenerational Planning
Estate Planning
How Northwestern Mutual helps you live the life you want.
When people feel better about their money, good things happen—they become more confident and feel more secure. For more than 160 years, Northwestern Mutual has helped people achieve the financial flexibility they need to live more and worry less.
Being a mutual company means Northwestern Mutual reports to its clients, not Wall Street. They don't believe in chasing fads or taking undue risk for short-term gains. Instead, they take a long-term approach—both in the way we help people plan to reach their goals, and in the way they do business. This has served their clients (and mine) well through all kinds of economic ups and downs, including wars, recessions, even the recent pandemic.
It's why I'm happy to be part of a company that's in it for the long-haul and prioritizes clients over profit.
