Financial Planning

WHAT CAN A FINANCIAL PLAN ACCOMPLISH?

An airplane cannot leave the runway without a flight plan; a ship cannot sail without a plotted course—and a family cannot contemplate a successful financial journey, especially across more than one generation, without a comprehensive financial, investment and estate plan. Our job—indeed, our mission in life and business—is to help people make such a comprehensive plan, and then guide them through the completion of that plan, year after year.

This process is less complicated and easier than folks expect. We start by assessing:

Where you are: This means examining what you own, what you earn and what your expenses are. This is information gathering. It doesn’t address where you’re going or how you’re going to get there. But it does provide a clear and shared understanding of the very first thing you have to know when starting any journey—exactly where you’re starting from.
What you would do if you could: This objective is quite straightforward because it usually focuses on very few threshold issues. What are your hopes and dreams? What you would like to accomplish financially for yourself, and the people you care about? At what age do you want to retire? What are you going to need to do or want to do for your parents as they grow older? Do you want to provide for your children’s educational needs.
With that information, we calculate—can we get there? We help you turn those resources, needs and dreams into financial goals by addressing such questions as:

What will things you want to do cost?
What’s the gap between where you are now and where you want to be? And how much time do we have to close that gap?
Are you willing and able to commit to putting enough money away, and give those monies a chance to earn a potential return, to close the gap in the allotted time?
If we find that we can reach your needs and dreams, you’ve already got the foundation and the framework of a sound financial plan. If we find that we cannot fund all your needs and dreams in the time we have, then we have to reexamine and consider putting some items on stand-by. There will be decisions to make, but once the process has a clear destination, we will have laid out a plan for your life’s goals.

We will work to help insure the plan and its outcome while minimizing the risks such as disability, loss of life, career changes, relocation and other life circumstance that affect us all.

What we can’t describe to you—what you may not fully understand until you have experienced it—is the tremendous weight of concern that’s lifted from you when you know you have a clear destination. No one can relieve you of the responsibility for your family’s financial success, but a sound financial plan and a purpose-driven financial planner can help take away much of the anxiety and worry you would experience otherwise. We believe that is the greatest thing a financial plan can accomplish.