WHAT IS

financial planning?

FINANCIAL PLANNING

Financial planning is the process of pursuing your life goals through the proper management of your finances. Life goals can include buying a home, saving for your child’s education or planning for retirement.

The Benefits of Financial Planning

Financial planning provides direction and meaning to your financial decisions. It allows you to understand how each financial decision you make affects other areas of your finances. By viewing each financial decision as part of a whole, you can consider its short and long-term effects on your life goals. You can also adapt more easily to life changes and potentially feel more secure that your goals are on track.

You may decide to seek help from a professional financial planner if:

• you need expertise you don’t possess in certain areas of your finances. For example, a planner can help you evaluate the level of risk in your investment portfolio or adjust your retirement plan due to changing family circumstances.
• you want to get a professional opinion about the financial plan you developed for yourself.
• you don’t feel you have the time to spare to do your own financial planning.
• you have an immediate need or unexpected life event such as a birth, inheritance or major illness.
• you feel that a professional adviser could help you improve on how you are currently managing your finances.
• you know that you need to improve your current financial situation but don’t know where to start.

By working with us now, we can help you arrange all the details that may affect your financial future, sparing you and/or your loved ones from having to make difficult decisions later. 

Retirement Planning

Everyone wants a golden retirement. But saving for retirement is no easy task. The baby boomer generation is graying. More and more people are approaching retirement age. With Social Security’s assets being consumed and the number of workers that will support it shrinking, we will have to rely more on our personal savings when it’s time to retire.

Today, we have a myriad of options to help each of us prepare for the golden years. Yet, without a specific plan of action, many people find themselves falling short when it is time for them to live off of their life’s work.

Wealth Planning

Managing your money and getting the right combination of income and growth at various times in your life is important work. Our team spends a great deal of time doing research, monitoring, analyzing and rebalancing the client portfolios that we manage personally. 

There is a great deal of research and input from various industry sources, but at the end of the day, we make the individual security selection, asset allocation and portfolio construction decisions in your accounts in an effort to align your portfolio and goals with your risk tolerance, timeframe, required returns and financial needs.

Estate Planning

Establishing an estate plan as part of your comprehensive wealth plan can be one of the most effective ways of lowering estate taxes, while providing for your family and leaving a legacy for the future. We coordinate with your attorney and CPA to implement your estate plan from beginning to end by offering the following estate planning services:

• Re-title assets to reduce or eliminate estate taxes
• Re-title assets to avoid probate
• Bi-annual estate planning reviews
• Long-term care planning to help clients decide how to pay for potentially devastating long-term care bills
• Legacy Planning in fulfilling last wishes, and in effectively transferring assets, personal possessions, and key values and beliefs
• Charitable gifts
• Estate tax considerations
• Trust considerations

Small Business Planning

Our business planning professionals will consult with you to evaluate or establish employee retirement plans, executive compensation and business buy-sell/ continuity strategies. We will meet with you and/or the key team members of your organization, on a complimentary basis, to explore how we can best work towards your needs.

Business Planning

Most business owners believe that the most integral part of business planning is ensuring the stability of one’s business in case they die or become disabled. But it is more than just that. It is also very important to reward themselves and their key people while they are still living.

Insurance Planning

Your time, talent, and resources are on the line and at risk. It is imperative that your financial and estate plan takes into consideration the risks that you, your family and your business cannot afford to take.

To protect your family, business and assets, the risk to your abilities also must be diversified. The least expensive and most intelligent method is through Insurance. We are experienced in helping those we serve, and protecting what they care about:

• Life Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• Long Term Care Insurance

Without the proper amount of coverage, a financial or estate plan may fail, leaving you and your family with many unmet dreams and goals. Potentially causing financial loss.