How Financial Planning turns Your Life into a Confident Journey

and Helps you Pursue Your Dreams

FINANCIAL ADVICE | GUIDANCE | INSIGHTS | OBSERVATIONS

Most people aren’t as money savvy as they’d like to be, and sometimes the idea of professional financial planning not only comes across as challenging, but as daunting.

Somehow the counter-intuitive sense that ‘I should know how to master my own financial affairs’ prevents people from seeking professional advice and guidance.

It’s in times when doubts and insecurity rise that the value of financial planning should become crystal clear.

Yet, most Americans continue to leave their future to chance, even when they sense that they’re not in control of their future and when others are depending on them.  According to the Northwestern Mutual 2022 Planning & Progress Study, only 35% of Americans work with a professional financial advisor, and statistics show that a mere 32% of US households prepare a monthly budget plan.

The large majority of Americans are failing to plan out their financial future.

Your money journey is sometimes clouded by risk, but always rich in possibilities. For these reasons, it’s certainly not a path to tread alone. If you’re to build a prosperous future and pursue your dreams, your risks must be mitigated and your financial milestones must be reached.

At WestStar, we view life as a confident journey, because we walk alongside our clients as they make their way through life.  We make it easy for them to identify their personal goals and risks, and to understand the best paths to follow for success.

Each client’s personal roadmap comprises their own unique circumstances, goals, values and milestones, and we guide and encourage them along the way.

When people speak of the value of having a professional financial planner guide you along your journey, most often they’re talking about the results you can expect: but we believe it has a lot to do with confidence-building, making wise decisions, and the way you see and manage your future.

Let’s delve deeper into why having a financial plan and professional guidance truly matters.

What is Financial Planning, and what is a Financial Plan?

Financial planning is the approach through which you’ll be able to optimally manage your finances and focus on your personal goals. It also charts the best paths to follow every step of the way. These paths come together in a personal financial plan.

When it comes to financial planning, the goal is to grow and secure your wealth. For this to happen, an experienced financial planner will help you craft savings and investment portfolios that stay the course throughout your journey, and provide retirement income that maintains your lifestyle through your golden years.

Many rewards come with wealth, and these include broader opportunities for things like building a holiday home, overseas trips, college education for the kids, and ultimately, a comfortable retirement. The end goal for many is to secure prosperity and security for their loved ones, via their legacies. If you take a closer look at the above examples, you’ll find that there is one factor that connects all of them: money.

You need to have an adequate amount of money to fulfil your goals and desires. More importantly, you need to have money at the right point in time.

To learn more about the value of financial planning read our handy article.

How Can a Financial Plan Help You?

If you have lofty money dreams, you’re not alone. Everybody has a dream, but few people have a plan to make it happen. A financial plan will set in motion each course you need to tread, and each path to follow if you’re to reach your milestones and turn your dreams into your lived reality.

It’s natural to find the thought of actually starting out and then maintaining your savings and investment commitment scary. A financial plan implemented by a knowledgeable and experienced financial planner will make everything clear and attainable.

There Are Many Practical Benefits To Financial Planning.

Financial Planning helps you to:

Increase Your Savings: When you create a financial plan, you get great insight into your income and expenses. You can consciously track and cut down your costs and increase your savings in the long run.

Enjoy a Better Standard of Living: With a good financial plan, you would be able to pay your bills and installments and achieve your savings and investment goals without sacrificing your standard of living.

Be Prepared for Emergencies: Creating an emergency fund that covers at least 6 months of your monthly salary means that you don’t have to worry about a family emergency or a job loss.

Attain Confidence: Financial planning helps you manage your money efficiently with confidence. With adequate funds at hand, you can cover your monthly expenses and invest for your future goals without worry. Even if it requires real discipline and cutting back on luxuries to begin with, in time you will see that it becomes easier and you’ll be able to afford the occasional splurge!

Financial Planning for Your Life Goals

The importance of personal financial planning is not just about increasing your savings and reducing your expenses. Financial planning includes achieving your future goals, such as:

Wealth Creation: The rise in inflation means that if you want to maintain or increase your current standard of living in the future, you need to grow the value of your savings and investments. You may also want to purchase a new car or a new house in the future. All this highlights the importance of wealth creation. It is possible to achieve these goals ─ by starting to build secure investment pillars today, you’ll dramatically increase your odds of seeing real growth and success over the years ahead.

Retirement Planning: Your retirement may be 25 or 30 years away, but to enjoy a happy and comfortable retirement, you need to start building your retirement provision right now. Planning at an early stage in life can help you invest smaller amounts over the 25-30 year period than you would if you start later.

Click here to read more about retirement and how to go about looking after tomorrow today.

Kids’ Education: Education has become very expensive, and in the future, this cost is only going to rise. This is why it is necessary to start planning from the moment your child is born.

Saving Tax: By planning your taxes in advance, you can identify the best options to invest your money and reduce your taxable income.

Your financial planner will coach you to understand money, make smart decisions that reinforce your purpose, and make the most of the opportunities you hold, by committing as much as you can afford to future use and making it a deliberate and disciplined action

No matter where you are on your life’s journey, there’s nothing quite like knowing that you’re doing the best you can for your future, and for those you care about.

Perhaps this looks like a pipedream from where you’re standing right now, and maybe your financial affairs are not in great shape. Don’t let this deter you; and remember, every financial planning journey starts with a single step.

The steps you can expect to take with your financial planner should bring you the clarity and perspective you need to get you motivated and committed to action.

A professional financial planner will also coach you on the best way to go about building your future. Through this process, you’ll get to strategize, execute and focus on your goals with confidence.

Strategize

You’ll consider your life’s vision and what matters to you, along with your lifestyle goals at key stages of your life. Then, you’ll define the appropriate steps you need to take to reach those goals, and decide what you need to do to get started and maintain momentum at each milestone. Having agreed on the measures and measurement of success, you’ll define your milestones and timeframe.

“With WestStar’s 360° financial planning approach, I start way out in the future and work backward to illustrate the impact of different choices; this empowers clients to make astute choices of their own. My clients attain true freedom, independence, and confidence: a sense of calm in knowing where they’re heading, and having a co-pilot they can count on.”

Sam Gullette CFP®, CLU®: Certified Financial Planner

Execute

Having decided on your goals, and committed to a disciplined approach, now you are free to weave your end goal and game plan into your work. With this clear picture in your mind, you’ll start working towards it from step one. Knowing where you’re heading and how to get there is at once extremely motivating and liberating.

Focus

With your vision as much a part of your daily life as breakfast – and with the steps set out in your financial plan being monitored, measured, and adjusted regularly, you’ll find it easier to meet each goal with confidence, and a steady focus. Now you’ll be in control of your future.

Financial Planning is Not Simply for the Wealthy

Financial planning is extremely important in managing wealth, but it’s also true that many wealthy people did not start out that way. In other words, a financial plan is about growing wealth from the ground up, as much as it is about managing and making the most of the wealth you’ve grown.

Growing wealth is accomplished through astute financial planning. The very nature of financial planning is that it is customizable to your situation and your vision, and that makes it ideal for you.

You may be the lowly intern or the top executive – we all need to implement a financial plan, whether for the wealth we have or the wealth we plan to have when we’re in our later years.

In this way, when you choose a financial planner and begin financial planning, you are investing in yourself and your future.

The value of astute financial planning is simply immense, and that’s because it expresses your vision and builds your wealth towards achieving it.

The first steps are quick and simple, so to find out what WestStar offers individuals within our comprehensive financial planning suite, click here.

WestStar’s advisors are committed to putting your interests first for a more secure financial future.  If you have questions about your specific circumstances, or want to make sure you’re equipped with the knowledge and advice to pursue your future with real confidence and clarity, please get in touch. We’d love to chat with you about your goals and dreams.

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We wish you every success in the future and hope to hear from you soon.