Your pool of invested capital can be achieved by:

• reducing income taxes
• saving portions of your income
• minimizing interest expense
• implementing a structured investment program

At the same time you want to protect your family by ensuring your plan includes appropriate provisions for:

• an estate plan
• powers of attorney
• life insurance
• disability insurance

Tying all of these issues together is the process of creating a personal financial plan.

There are two thoughts to keep in mind as we build your plan.

1. It is a process and as such there are steps we must take in order to generate your plan.  For example, prior to creating a plan we need to establish your personal goals.  You may be focused on issues such as educating children, becoming debt free, caring for elderly parents or sustaining your lifestyle during retirement.

2. We need to be aware that everyone has a financial plan.  This can be as simple as increasing monthly mortgage payments in order to meet a goal of being mortgage free by a specific date.

Many people develop informal plans for their investments, insurance, estate and taxes, with each area considered a separate component.  In many instances the combination of these separate components does not form a comprehensive plan, and this increases the risk of financial goals remaining unachieved.

The objective of a good financial plan is to maximize the value of your financial resources.  The plan is not static, just as the financial environment is not static.  It must change as your personal circumstances do and, as there are changes to tax, other legislation and the economic environment.  Financial planning is an on-going activity and the plan is an evolving roadmap to the achievement of your financial goals.

By formalizing the planning process we are much more likely to develop a financial plan that will be successful for you and your family. A well-developed plan will tie together all aspects of your financial and security needs, maximizing the use of financial resources and minimizing duplication. Perhaps most importantly, it will enable you to prioritize your financial objectives.

Without a well-constructed financial plan it is impossible to accurately assess our progress with respect to our goals. Your plan is the roadmap to your financial future and, to reach your final destination, we must check the map periodically to ensure you are still on the right road and on schedule.

There are numerous alternatives that you will want to consider as we develop your financial plan. These may include choices ranging from purchasing a vacation home or taking a sabbatical to debt reduction or increased retirement savings.

By evaluating the effects of each alternative on short and long term cash flow as well as on long-term capital accumulation, we can help you prioritize your options. A good financial plan allows you to create a reasonable balance between your needs and your desires.

From this base case, we can create and compare scenarios. We can use the base case as a platform while exploring various options and lifestyle decisions. For example, a retiree may wish to test the likelihood of their savings lasting throughout their lifetime by running the analysis with extremely conservative rates of return on investments, or with a very high inflation rate applied to living expenses.

Once all of the potential strategies have been thoroughly reviewed, a final analysis is prepared. This analysis will not only incorporate your financial targets and the effect of the financial strategies selected for implementation, it will also be your roadmap.

When your roadmap is completed, you will be in a position to begin to take action. After it is implemented, we can monitor the results of your plan based on the targets created in your financial analysis. It is important to revisit the planning process on a regular basis to evaluate changes to your personal circumstances, your financial circumstances or the financial environment, and to update and amend your action plan as necessary.

We will design strategies to:

• minimize your family tax bill
• reduce interest expense
• develop a long-term savings strategy
• maximize the value of your estate
• meet any other financial goals you may have.

It is important to remember that a financial planner is a generalist. Depending on the complexity of your personal situation and the strategy to be implemented, it may be necessary to periodically involve other professionals.

In addition to the services discussed your financial planner will:

• review income tax returns
• review Wills and Powers of Attorney
• analyze life and disability insurance needs
• estimate estate taxes provide all service elements related to your managed investment account

Our goal is to provide a professional planning service that allows you to simplify and improve the management of your personal finances, as a means to achieving your goals.

Having laid the foundation, let’s get started...

For any questions or comments please contact us directly.