How It Works
"No airplane can take off without a flight plan; no ship can sail without a plotted course – and no household/family can contemplate a successful financial journey, especially across more than one generation, without some sort of comprehensive financial, investment and estate plan.” – Nick Murray.
Financial planning is not easy. It takes discipline. Laws are constantly changing. Our wants and needs change. What is valid today may not be valid tomorrow. Daily your financial journey
often requires that you make financial decisions. There are three types of decisions you face:
Decisions you know the answer to.
Decisions you don’t know the answer to.
Decisions that you don’t know that you don’t know the answer to.
People often don’t ask for advice on the decisions that really matter until the last minute – if at all. Unfortunately this lack of advanced planning often leads to critical errors in decision-making and action-implementation. Errors that reduce their long-term wealth.
Comprehensive financial planning is a long-term, dynamic process designed to help you make smart money decisions, when you need to make them. It requires knowledge of a mixture of complex and interrelated areas:
Accumulation
Risk Management & Insurance
Retirement & Distribution Planning
Taxation
Estate & Legacy Planning
Business Planning (for business owners and executives)
Because these areas are not mutually exclusive, sound financial planning also requires knowing how these areas interrelate. Decisions in one area can drastically affect the outcome in another area. This could mean the difference between arriving safely at the end your financial journey – or not. Each person/family is different. Your journey is unique. Your destination is unique. Your plotted course will be unique. Staying on course, once the course is plotted, may be the toughest decision you make.
The comprehensive financial plan is dynamic and is as dynamic as a ship sailing the ocean towards a predetermined destination.
Determining your destination – Explore and prioritize your financial goals and dreams.
Looking at the port your ship is currently docked in – Analyzing your current financial situation.
Plotting your course – Employ strategies that will help you achieve your dreams, given your individual situation.
Setting sail – Implementing the plan.
Periodically check the gauges – Periodically monitor the plan.
Evaluate the ship’s position and readjust the sails as necessary – Reevaluate your financial position relative to your goals and make changes to your plan as necessary.
A disciplined financial planning process is just that - a process. It continually evolves and changes as you change. It's value is dependent upon your commitment to adhere to the process. Commitment to the process can create more value, and more wealth, to you than any individual specific investment/tool. It helps you make smart money decisions.