People often turn to a financial planner to help simplify their finances and set achievable financial goals, providing greater confidence to plan for their future.
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A financial planner will be able to help you with areas such as budgeting, cash flow management, a savings plan, superannuation, tax planning, home loan repayments, debt management and reduction, insurance, investments and retirement.
Understandably, your financial goals will change over your lifespan. You need a financial plan to suit the stage of life you are in. Here are some of the common needs of each life stage:
Young to mid-life
You are establishing and building your career and perhaps starting a family. You may be looking at:
- buying your first home
- travelling
- paying off your HECS
- getting married
- having children
- family healthcare
- business planning.
Mid-life
This is your consolidation stage – achieving a comfortable lifestyle and thinking about managing your long-term future. You’re likely to focus on:
protecting your lifestyle
- healthcare
- investments
- financing home renovations
- tax management
- debt management
- inheritance
- retirement planning
- long-term care planning
- income protection
Pre-retirement
With 20 or more years of retirement ahead of you, your priorities will depend on how well you’ve prepared. Your main concerns may be:
protecting your assets
- debt elimination
- family healthcare
- helping your children
- retirement planning
- wills and trusts
- business exit strategy.
Retirement
This is the time to indulge in hobbies or travel, enjoy your family and prepare for transferring your wealth. You may be thinking of:
- protecting your assets
- healthcare
- aged care planning
- travelling
- buying a caravan
- inheritance tax mitigation
- gifting to family
- preserving your capital
- estate planning.
Your financial planner should make clear recommendations, outline the risks involved and communicate any possible strengths or weaknesses in your plan. Remember that your financial planner cannot predict the market or ensure investments are always favourable.
Your financial planner should however, keep you updated with any changes that could influence your investments, such as market slumps. While short term timeframes in regards to growth investment are a high risk, investing over a longer period of time means you can wait out the lows of the market.
Once your goals are decided, your financial planner will put a financial plan in place.
