A life without a financial plan is like a boat adrift in the sea. You just won’t know if you can weather a storm, or where your boat will land, or if it will land at all unless you have a plan. Financial Planning is a critically important chapter in the book Time To Get Real! The contents of this chapter are one of the greatest gifts that we can give to a reader because all of your life plans should be based on a realistic view of your financial life. Your financial position will either support your plans or cause them to crumble.
Too many people shy away from thinking about their current and future financial status. Our day-to-day worries and financial concerns eat up our time and prevent most of us from thinking ahead more than the next several months or a year. In our practice and in our teaching we have met too many people who are financially ill-prepared no matter what their career. In addition, financial planning is important at every stage of life.
Too many people shy away from thinking about their current and future financial status. Our day-to-day worries and financial concerns eat up our time and prevent most of us from thinking ahead more than the next several months or a year.
We find that our message about financial planning is not taken as seriously as it should be by younger individuals in the 20 to 35-year range. These young people, with exceptions, see the need for financial planning as something way off in the distance. After all, “Why talk about retirement when I’m 27 years old?” The reason that this attitude concerns us is that the possibility of achieving one’s long-term financial goals is greatly increased the earlier an individual thinks about it, acts on it, and makes decisions about savings and investments. Career decisions can be informed by an early financial plan. Decisions about marriage, having children, where to live and so on, can all be informed by having a financial plan. Having a financial plan at a young age can demonstrate the choices and options faced by the young person and how one choice or one option might be better than another for their long-term financial health.
On the other end of the financial planning spectrum, individuals on the glide path to retirement have different expectations for their time in retirement. Some want to spend more time traveling; others merely want to spend more time with family. Still others prefer to move to a warmer climate, perhaps purchase a home. Still others want to take up long-desired hobbies like cycling, painting, or volunteering. You need to envision just what you would like your retirement to be and attach to it the lifestyle costs that will support your vision. The amount of money you need is a function of your needs and your desires. The ability to be able to produce that money now and into the future, so that you’re ready for retirement, starts with a good financial plan and the actions required to build that supporting base.
On the other end of the financial planning spectrum, individuals on the glide path to retirement have different expectations for their time in retirement. Some want to spend more time traveling; others merely want to spend more time with family.
Financial planning helps you to discuss with those you love important issues about retirement, savings, where to live, planning for children, the details of your respective wills or estate plans, and so on. So, if you are alone, get moving on this task. If you have someone significant in your life, engage him or her in the planning at the outset. It works even better if that significant individual is one of your key relationships and has provided input to your overall life and career plan.
If you have both a life and career plan and your financial plan, you now have a motor on your boat and you can take that boat, which is your life, where you want, bringing your significant others along with you. If you don’t have a financial plan, don’t procrastinate in getting one. Reading the chapter about financial planning in the book Time To Get Real! will help you understand how to get started. It can take a lot of time, as much as four to six months, to put your plan in place. So do it now!
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