Reality-based financial planning places your goals at the heart of everything we do. Our work is cemented in reality; the real things that you want to achieve, and the real life that you want to attain in the process.
The process we followed is inspired by a series of tweets by Certified Financial Planner and author, Carl Richards. Here are the four stages we follow:
Step 1: Why?
Before you can plan, save or invest, you need to confirm why you are doing it.
We will help you get a clear idea about your values, then align what’s important to you with your goals.
Before you decide if you’re going to take a car, plane, or train, you need to first decide where you want to go. So, where to?
Step 2: What?
You can’t make a plan if you don’t know what you want to achieve, so it’s time to set some goals.
Goals don’t have to be concrete and unchangeable. They will inevitably change, so your route to achieving them will need to be flexible.
Once you know where, the next question is what shall we do about it?
Step 3: Plan and move forward
Once you’ve got a list of goals, rank them in order of risk. Risk is defined in this context as the consequence of failure.
If you don’t meet the goal, how severe would the consequences be? The higher the consequence, the more important the goal. We can help you with this.
Address the riskiest goal first. Then the next. Then the next.
This is the plan. We can then agree on how to achieve it.
Then, how shall we get there?
Step 4: Course correction
The key to any real plan is the acknowledgement that it may be wrong. Your goals may change.
Your financial plan is worthless without the ongoing process of planning. A good financial plan is a living document. A good plan is a process, not an event.
It’s not an outdated map; it’s a guide for an ever-changing landscape. We will help you to use it.
Are we still going in the right direction?