Kicking off the holiday season, October is Financial Planning Month and it's a great time to remember to keep spending in check and prepare our budgets. While it’s always great to give gifts, it’s also important to remember to look at our spending habits and make sure that they align with your budgeting goals.
We’ve included a list of six critical areas of creating a financial strategy.
1. Cash Management: This is a topic that covers many issues. It’s always important to create an emergency fund, money that’s set aside for unplanned expenses. Cash management also includes looking at your “sources and uses” of money. Financial Planning Month focuses mainly on your cash management and spending habits.
2. Investment Approaches: Concerns about investment approaches are among the key reasons people start a relationship with a financial professional. When reviewing investment approaches, it’s important to consider a person’s goals (what do you want to be able to spend your money on), time horizon (how soon will you need the money), and risk tolerance (how aggressive or conservative you want to invest your money).
3. Retirement Preparation: A major concern for many people is running out of money during retirement. Financial Planners can review your current situation and help you better understand the choices available to you in planning for your retirement needs.
4. Protection Strategies: Protection strategies are about looking at your potential financial risks and making the best investment decisions concerning those risks. Protection strategies also include health-care considerations with life and health insurance options.
5. Tax Management: Do you feel comfortable with current tax laws? Are you confident about your approach to tax management? Tax rules are constantly changing and there is no guarantee that how you plan now will remain the same in the years ahead. Financial Planners often work with tax, legal, or accounting professionals when creating your overall tax management strategy.
6. Estate Strategies: How well you prepare today may help determine how you distribute your assets after you’re gone. Much like tax rules, estate rules are continuously changing, and today’s landscape may change in time. As previously stated, Financial Planners often work with legal professionals when creating an estate approach.
It can be a challenge to feel confident in all six key areas of financial planning. We want to help you. Please call and speak with one of our Financial Planners. We’d love the chance to work with you to reach your financial goals step by step.
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