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Six Ways Financial Planning Can Change your Life

Kathleen Owens | Fiduciary | Financial Adviser | Certified Financial Planner candidate

10-05-2020


Avoid Costly Mistakes

Money management does not come naturally to most people. Tax laws, investments, the cost of living, inflation, educational costs, etc. can be complicated to understand and change often. Good advice from a financial advisor can save you from making costly financial mistakes and help you understand all of the “moving parts” of sound management of your financial life.


A good financial planner will also advise you to protect what you've worked so hard for with risk management planning. Trusts, set-up correctly will protect your assets from lawsuits and prevent unnecessary tax bills. Insurance will protect your family and can be used in many ways to provide income.

Peace of Mind and Confidence

Developing a financial plan can be powerful. By discovering what goals you want to achieve with your money and having a “road map” to achieve your goals will give you peace of mind. You are taking action; doesn’t that feel good? If you worry about the future, but don’t take action, you are setting yourself up for a possible bleak financial future. Having a financial adviser as your “partner” to guide you in your financial life may help ease the worry that you are not going it alone and studies have shown that having a financial plan gives you confidence in your retirement.


Be a specialist, not a generalist (This is key!)

Financial Advisers work with many successful people. They know the behaviors that successful people have that helped them become successful. A good financial planner with share with your behaviors you need to know, so that you too can emulate those behaviors. Do you try to “do it all” and spread yourself too thin? Smart professionals do all they can do to free themselves of tasks they can delegate. That frees them to concentrate on the activities that focus on building their career and their earning potential. For example, a well-known bond manager who manages a trillion-dollar fund, does not manages his own investment portfolio. He delegates this task to another financial adviser. While the bond manager is very capable of managing his own investment portfolio, he understands the power of delegating. His time is best spent on his career.


Accountability

A financial adviser will hold you accountable, which is a good thing! Don’t know where to start because you are afraid of making a mistake? An adviser will get you started and keep you on course.


Have More Time

By hiring a financial adviser, you will have more time to do the things you enjoy. An adviser will also help you organize and streamline your saving, budgeting and investing processes, saving you more time. An adviser can also refer you to other professionals for tax strategies and estate planning.

You will possibly end-up with a larger net-worth

A 2011 study by HSCB Bank, The Future of Retirement, showed that those with financial plans accumulated nearly 250% more retirement savings than those without a financial plan in place.


Also, 44% of those who have a financial plan in place, save more money each year for retirement. Another study by Morningstar researchers, David Blanchett and Paul Kaplan showed how valuable the advice from financial planners can be. Their research showed that financial planners help their clients generate about 1.82% additional return each year, thus resulting in approximately 29% more in retirement wealth.


One should not be overly concerned with a financial planner’s fees. Even if a planner’s fee is 1% annually, the benefit received by the financial planning client far exceeds the expense.



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