YOUR FINANCIAL PLAN
If you’re busy enough dealing with today’s challenges to worry about next month or far-off retirement, you’re not alone. Most people find managing their finances a challenge, and very few people have a clear idea about how decisions they make today will affect tomorrow. In fact, the question we’re asked most often is “Are we doing the right thing?”
Identifying opportunities, challenges, and potential hazards along the way can be tough, but we make this process a little more personal. Finance doesn’t need to be difficult – you just need a plan.
What is Financial Planning?
Financial Planning brings together all the pieces of your financial picture – investments, taxes, income, savings, and debts, and gives you an overall snapshot of where you stand. This overview, combined with professional advice, puts you in the driver’s seat of your financial future. It’s a lifelong process of setting your financial goals, implementing strategic plans, and monitoring progress on a regular basis. It’s about being strategic.
Why do it?
By developing a financial plan, you will:
- Better understand your current financial situation
- Make informed decisions about the financial future for your family and future generations
- Set realistic and attainable education, retirement, and philanthropic goals
- Have the resources on hand to seize opportunities as they arise
- Create contingency plans to manage unexpected risks [link to risks]
What’s involved?
You’re just 5 steps away from truly owning your financial future
- Sharing – you tell us what you’d like to achieve with your plan, by explaining your priorities and concerns. Bringing in your statements, tax papers, and mortgage and loan documents. If you own a business, bring in your company’s financials too. We absorb the cost of this initial meeting.
- Homework – we may ask you for further information, or get in touch with your accountant and other advisors (with your permission, of course). Think of us as your team’s quarterback. Gathering information to develop a profile of your current situation including a review of your financial information and relevant documents. We’ll analyze this data to be certain we understand your unique situation and how to address it.
- Review your plan – tailored to you, it is chock full of personal finance tips we recommend the tools to help you reach your goals and ensure you understand the information contained in the report. You’re encouraged to ask questions to fully understand what we’re recommending and why.
- Take action using the plan as a blue print. We give you concrete your personalized, step-by-step guide to turning your financial dreams to reality. Your Action Plan will include an implementation schedule, and a reliable follow-up method for future strategies, as well as a handy checklist so your lawyer, accountant, and other advisors know what’s expected of them.
- Review regularly, we recommend at least once a year. While the goal is to stay the course in the long term, over time the plan will need to be tweaked to reflect changes in your life and your finance environment.
P.S. It’s never too early to think about your Estate Plan.
