To help you make sensible decisions about the future, we’ve broken down the financial planning process into five stages. They are:
- Establishing your goals
- Gathering data
- Evaluating your current position
- Developing and implementing a plan
- Monitoring and reviewing that plan regularly
In this article, we explain how we develop a plan that is realistic, measurable and achievable.
Technological know-how
We all know life isn’t a dress rehearsal, so it’s vital that we get something as important as developing your financial plan right first time.
As I’ve discussed in previous blogs, this process takes you on a journey from where you are now, to where you want to be at a certain point in time, usually your dying day. Read more at: http://belmayne-ifa-com.stackstaging.com/pace-yourself-for-hills-ahead/
Using the technology available to us, my colleagues and I are able to demonstrate what your plan will look like. Cashflow forecasting software has been around for a number of years and allows us to illustrate in an easily understandable format what can happen if we follow your plan and most importantly, when it will take effect.
Predicting and protecting
Your plan is the product of the information gathering outlined in step two. We take everything we’ve discussed about you, the current and future income needed to support your lifestyle, your expenditure and how this will vary over time and input it into our software. We will also consider how your commitments change as items are ticked off your bucket list, assets grow and liabilities are repaid (in some cases, earlier than predicted).
We can make certain assumptions about how the cost of living will increase and how long you will live and by working collaboratively with you, we will agree when you want to retire, either fully or part-time and how much you will need to fulfil your life ambitions.
Any investment returns we recommend are calculated by taking into account the fees you are likely to pay going forward and using historical past performance data from the last 20 years, which includes the dot com bubble bursting and the credit crunch. This would be consistent with the level of risk you are comfortable with and provide a forecast for you to reach those all-important goals.
During this process, we will look to implement any identifiable tax saving strategies and illustrate how they will help achieve your objectives earlier. We can even plug in events that have the potential to derail the best laid plans and then work out how we can prevent them happening. For example, life insurance to cover the death of a spouse, or income protection to mitigate against long term sickness.
By utilising technology and our experience, we will design and implement a plan that not only fulfils your aspirations, but is also robust enough to deal with unforeseen circumstances.
In short, we can give you peace of mind that you have adequate protection against whatever life throws your way.
In the final article in this series, we will discuss how we monitor your plan to keep it current. If you would like to learn more about preparing for retirement, don’t hesitate to contact us on (01246) 298181 or email: enquiries@belmayne-ifa.com
