Household
The Harris household
Not a portfolio model in isolation, but the household's governing policy for how capital is deployed — across goals, buckets, and subsystems, coordinated as one. It states the decision rights the Constitution grants, and every deployment made under it is logged as a decision in the Decision Register. This is an illustrative sample for a fictional family.
A household deserves what an institution takes for granted: capital deployed against stated objectives, not moved account-by-account. Each objective below is an exercise of authority the Constitution already grants — the policy does not create decision rights, it spends them deliberately.
Fund the family's obligations before its ambitions. Near-term commitments — the house, education, the reserve — are provisioned in full before growth capital is measured. Coordination means the sequence is fixed in advance, not negotiated under pressure.
Carry only the risk the household can hold through a full cycle. The concentrated position is treated as risk to be retired on schedule, not a conviction to be defended. The policy allocation is the shape of risk the family has agreed to live inside.
Deploy every dollar as part of one system. Tax location, estate design, and the investment engine are subsystems of a single policy — a change to one is priced against the others before it is made, never in isolation.
Make the policy legible to the family and its successors. The allocation, its ranges, and the reason for each band are written down so the plan survives a change of adviser, a change of markets, or a change of mind — as evidence, not memory.
The one framed artifact of this record: the household's capital, deployed by purpose. Each bucket carries a target, a range it may drift inside without action, its funding source, and the single condition that reopens it. The buckets are goals and subsystems — not asset classes — because that is how the household actually spends and coordinates.
Buckets, not asset classes. Ranges are the drift a bucket may take before a rebalance is required; the trigger is the condition that forces the move.
| Bucket / purpose | Target | Range (min–max) | Funding source | Rebalance trigger |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating reserve Named-risk buffer & near-term cash |
5% | 3–8% | Cash & short duration | < 3% for two quarters |
| Near-term goals House & education, < 5 yr |
10% | 8–15% | Taxable book | Funding date inside 24 months |
| Core growth The long-horizon engine |
55% | 45–65% | Structural Alpha book | Band breach at quarter-end |
| Concentration in transition Single-employer RSU position |
15% → 0 | 0–15% | Structural Alpha (transition) | Off the RSU sell-down schedule |
| Estate & gifting sleeve Provisioned for transfer |
10% | 7–13% | Taxable & trust | Annual exclusion / exemption change |
| Private / alternatives Illiquid, opportunistic |
5% | 0–10% | Core growth reallocation | Commitment pacing off plan |
| Policy allocation | 100% | — | — | — |
The concentration bucket funds down to zero on the sell-down schedule; its share migrates into Core growth as the position is retired. Ranges are policy bands, not forecasts — a bucket inside its range requires no action.
Liquidity is the first bucket funded and the last spent. The reserve floor is a hard constraint on the whole allocation: no rebalance, gift, or commitment may draw the operating reserve below its floor. When a shock does breach it, the policy names how it is rebuilt — before growth capital is touched.
| Reserve provision | Level | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Reserve floor | 3% | Rebuild within two quarters before other deployment |
| Target reserve | 5% | Standing — the funded resting level |
| Upper bound | 8% | Sweep the excess into Core growth |
Illustrative reserve policy for a fictional household — not a live cash position. As of July 2026.
Rebalancing is a coordinated act, not a reflex. A band breach opens the question; the sequencing rules decide how it is answered so that the tax, estate, and liquidity subsystems are priced together, in a fixed order of precedence.
The policy is reviewed on the standing September date — and reopened before it, out of cycle, whenever one of the conditions below fires. These mirror the “Reopens if” field of the Decision Register: a review is an act triggered by an event, not a re-read on a calendar.
The Constitution (amend. 3) — the decision rights this policy exercises.
The family's prior stand-alone Investment Policy Statement — retired on adoption, April 2026.
The Decision Register — every deployment under § IV is logged as a decision.
The Annual Review — the bands are read against the year, every year.
A portfolio model answers what to hold. A capital allocation policy answers something a household needs more: how every dollar is deployed against its own goals, in what order, and what would make the family change its mind. That is Private Wealth Architecture — the structure that lets every part act as one system.
Read it in context: the Constitution grants the authority · the Decision Register records each deployment · the Operating Manual keeps the standing book.