Why Hire a Financial Planner?
To Get Organized
If you are like most people, you are busy and have a ton of moving parts in your life. You might be juggling the demands of your career, family, pets, friends, community, finances, in addition to your personal health and well-being. Financial planning encompasses so many areas of our lives – day to day cash flow management, college funding, retirement planning, insurance coverage, taxes, buying and selling large assets like homes or cars, debt management, and career trajectory to name a few. Striking a balance between all of these competing priorities can be challenging and downright overwhelming if you don’t have someone in your corner. Chances are, you may have several “financial” folks in your life. An accountant, an attorney, a banker, a broker, a human resources contact, an insurance agent, etc. each advising you on one little piece of your financial picture.
Through the financial planning process, a framework will be built for organizing all of these pieces of your financial picture. Tying them together and putting some coordination around them will help you see how each decision you make affects all the other areas of your financial life. For instance, saving for your children’s college education may impact your ability to retire on schedule, how your investments are allocated affects your tax situation, and how your insurance is structured affects your estate planning. A financial planner can help you sort through the “noise” and focus on what is important for your family’s well-being and accomplishing your goals.
To Make Sure You’re On Track
Have you ever heard the phrase “By failing to plan, you are planning to fail”? Many people live their lives blindly throwing their hard-earned money in different directions, hoping that they are making the right choices. It can feel like your money controls you, when it should be the other way around. You can take control by making a plan to make your goals a reality. With a financial plan, you take the guesswork out of your finances. You can go into tax season with a ballpark estimate of how much you will owe or get in a refund. Education savings is no longer a mystery, you can get an estimate of how much you should be saving each month now to reach your goal of funding your child’s college expenses in 15 years.
Not sure if you have the right type of life insurance coverage or the right amounts? You can rely on a financial planner to help you determine the amount and type of policy that is appropriate for your situation. You can rest at ease knowing that if something happened to you, your family would have the resources to continue their current lifestyle. Your financial planner will help you identify your goals, create a plan, and take action to achieve those goals.
To Have Someone in your corner
A financial planner can act as an accountability partner, coach, and liaison between all the other advisors in your life. They could essentially be your personal CFO, helping you evaluate scenarios and make choices that are in your best interest. A planner can help you decide when is the best time to exercise stock options, how much tax to withhold from your paycheck, review your tax return to make sure you’re not missing key deductions, help you sort through your employee benefit offerings, and help you choose an investment allocation that fits your needs. You can use them to bounce ideas off of like starting a business, choosing whether to buy or lease your next car, deciding between a high deductible health plan and other insurance offerings, or how to make your next career move.
Life will throw surprises at you along the way and you’ll be better prepared to handle them if you have a plan in place to help you anticipate the impact of said surprises. You don’t have to face these challenges alone, hire a planner to help you navigate through life’s financial obstacle course.
So, where can I find one? The CFP (Certified Financial Planner) Board and XY Planning Network are two great places to start. You can search by geographic area or specialty. Here are the respective websites:
https://www.letsmakeaplan.org/
https://www.xyplanningnetwork.com/
You can also schedule a free consultation with me by clicking this calendar link: https://go.oncehub.com/JamieBosse
Jamie A. Bosse is a Certified Financial Planner professional at Aspyre Wealth Partners® and a board member of the Financial Planning Association of Greater Kansas City. For help with your specific situation contact Jamie at jbosse@aspyrewealth.com
