What is Financial Planning?
Financial planning creates a plan designed to optimize one’s financial position consistent with their goals, current and future financial resources, and tolerance for risk. The purpose of a financial plan is to document a series of discussions outlining what you want to accomplish with your money, and design executable strategies that achieve your financial goals.
Financial plans are often fairly comprehensive, but should also be highly individualized to reflect your personal and/or family situation, risk tolerance, and future expectations in terms of income and assets. Bear in mind, a plan is only as good as the execution and ongoing maintenance, as goals and circumstances constantly evolve.
Once your unique goals have been discussed, an assessment of current and future financial resources is completed. There are a number of assets and liabilities that will be taken into consideration during an initial financial planning, such as:
Assets:
- Liquid assets at the bank
- Business assets
- Retirement accounts
- Present value of cash flow derived from human capital
- Real estate
- Any other items or sources or significant value you may own
Liabilities:
- An outstanding mortgage
- Any car loans
- Revolving debt
- Real estate loan
Great financial advice will help you determine future cash flow needs, what funding amounts are required to meet those various goals, and lastly, address how to allocate your financial resources.
Finally, financial plans should reflect your unique goals and circumstances. A few examples of included items are:
- Funding requirement to meet goals
- Retirement distribution strategy
- Preservation of income strategies
- The long-term investment plan
- Tax reduction strategy
- Estate plan
How does Midwestern Financial handle Financial Planning?
MFG intentionally slows down the process in which we work with you to create an initial financial plan. It starts with listening to what you want to accomplish in life, and assessing the financial resources to accommodate your wishes.
Only after a series of conversations and efforts—used to centralize and document your finances—can we begin to create a blueprint reflecting your financial plan. Once an initial plan is presented, MFG works with you to execute the specific items required to better position you to meet your financial goals.
Execution and ongoing maintenance are required in order to optimize your outcomes. To that end, MFG remains very proactive in our correspondence with you, especially as it relates to changes in your circumstances, as well as changes in legislative and economic landscapes.
We don’t sell products, we don’t collect commissions. Our clients find comfort in knowing they have a financial partner whom they can rely upon to service only their best interests and not that of others. Midwestern Financial Group’s sole focus is how we can help you, and optimize our process to best position you for success. If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, contact us today.
Midwestern Financial Group: Fiduciary Duty and Your Interests
At MFG, we pride ourselves on providing our clients with top-notch financial planning and investment services.
Our fee-only basis allows us to keep our clients’ best interests at heart without being swayed by commissions or product sales. You can rest assured that our advice is always honest and objective.
