The First Step to Successful Financial Planning

Life is a journey, and however we’re travelling through it, we need a destination. For many people, the way they approach financial planning isn’t like anything else they do. It’s not unreasonable logic – “if I work as hard as I can for as long as I can, I will have enough to do whatever I want when I retire.”

But there’s a flaw in that logic.

Finances are a great way to feel more secure in your future and in your family’s future. But wherever your finances might be now, without knowing what you truly want out of life – you might end up shooting far past your destination and leaving more to HMRC than to your children.

The best time to start planning your finances was 20 years ago. The second-best time is today.

If you’ve been working on growing and protecting your finances for the future, you might think you know exactly when you’ll have enough to be financially secure and do the things you really want to in life.

You could have started financial planning in your late teens or you haven’t really thought about it until in your early 50s, but no matter where you started if you didn’t consider what you really want to get out of life you’re probably missing out on a life you could already be leading right now!

We’ve worked with dentists and orthodontists across the UK to help them realise their ideal lifestyle and the first discussion we have with any client before we can start working with them is to find out what their goals are.

What are your goals?

Everyone has their own idea of financial freedom, from travelling the world, to spending more time with family, to retiring to that seaside town you visit every year. Your financial goals don’t have to be so huge (and expensive), either. It could be that you just want the free time to learn a new skill, read the books you’ve never quite had the time to, or fix up a classic car.

One of the key things we find with our clients is that these goals don’t have to wait around until you retire. By having a clear goal in mind, you can start to reach them whilst still working on building up that financial security.

As one of our clients got closer to retirement, we showed them that taking time off from work to spend more time doing what they wanted to do would have no effect on their finances when they did retire.

Deciding on your goals

There’s no doubt you’ve already got an idea of what your ideal retirement looks like, whether it’s tomorrow, in a decade, or in three. But it might feel like getting your finances in order to reach that abstract concept is impossible.

When looking at your financial goals, start with that abstract picture. It could be a thought like “I want to spend more time with my family”. You could approach that idea in a hundred different ways: is it working three clinical days a week? Is it moving closer to family? Is it having the money to get your whole family together a few times a year?

But once you have that goal in mind, you can begin to narrow down on where you allocate your investments, savings, and spending.

You don’t have to wait until you have exact specifics, and you don’t have to worry that your goals might change in the near future – by setting out your overall goal you can work with a financial planner on how you can start to move towards it.

Of course, your goals from your 20s and 30s will look different as you enter your 40s and 50s – but by starting early, you can get that flexibility that can meet any goal you throw at your finances.

What’s next?

Once you’ve set out your goals, you might find that – like a lot of the clients we have helped – you’re a lot closer to achieving those goals than you might think. If you’ve already been working towards a retirement, you could get the next phase of your life started right away.

Financial planning is the backbone to helping you get to where you want to be in life. You put the work in every single day, so when can you start letting your money work for you?

If you’re curious to learn more about your financial situation, click here to take our Financial Freedom scorecard or if you want a more bespoke picture of your finances, get in touch with us.