Lifestyle Financial Planning

How do you ensure the plans you make are going to get you to where you want to be financially? How do you go after the life you want?

The short answer is with Lifestyle Financial Planning:

In today’s world, ‘being busy’ tends to be the regular state for most people. It’s often difficult to make the time and effort to ensure our plans are robust and flexible enough to cope with any unexpected changes.

We all know that our journey through life rarely goes as planned.

Traditionally, financial advisers don’t tackle proper financial planning but concentrate on selling you a financial product to fix a ‘problem’.

Lifestyle Financial Planning puts you first

Lifestyle Financial Planning helps you plan effectively and flexibly. It’s about helping you achieve your goals and taking steps towards achieving and maintaining the lifestyle you envision. The entire process focuses on making sure the service you receive is the right fit for you and your family.

To develop your financial plan, we meet with you a number of times. During our meetings, we gather as much information as possible about where you are now and where you want to get to.

We will identify short and long-term resources available to you now (like money and property), as well as what you may NEED to become available in the future so that you can achieve your objectives.

You can see a sample cash flow statement here: Cash flow statement - lifestyle financial planning sample (1027 downloads)

The example shows a snapshot based on current income, investments and expenses. This becomes the foundation for simulations we run to ‘stress test’ the financial plan.

The 6 key steps of financial planning

Financial planning requires a commitment from both parties. You, as the client, will need to make yourself available and be prepared to spend time gathering your financial information.

However, once the administrative part is done we have the ability to run multiple scenarios based on your current or projected situation. 

This process lets you test the robustness of your decisions and work out how much you really need to save and how much of your wealth you can enjoy today.

Financial planning can be a one-off process. However, there are benefits to reviewing your life plan annually. Children grow up, parents pass away, jobs change and so do our plans. It is rare for life to be constant, especially for expats working across multiple countries. Because life changes and adapts, we recommend having a plan that can do the same.

How we develop your financial plan

We use state-of-the-art technology to analyse your assets, inflows and expenditure to provide you with a comprehensive, easy-to-understand analysis of your existing financial situation.  Then, using computer modelling, we test the potential impact of a number of scenarios on your lifelong cash-flow forecast.

These might include early retirement, redundancy, ill health and premature death. Using this data, we can draw out the best strategies to manage risk so that you can maintain your desired lifestyle through such life-changing events.

From the information we gather, we formulate your personalised roadmap to financial freedom: your Lifestyle Financial Plan.

You will find this invaluable when making decisions about your future. It will significantly improve your chances of achieving a sound financial outcome, will help you protect and enhance your wealth, and allow you to achieve your desired lifestyle.

How does financial planning software work?

We use Truth, advanced cash modelling software. It helps you visualise your financial future with easy-to-understand charts and graphs.

There is no ambiguity: it deals in reality and provides a clear picture of your financial future based on the data you provide. The more accurate the data, the more realistic the scenarios that can be generated.

And that’s where the real power lies: creating robust scenarios to help you model your desired future lifestyle.

In the two scenarios below, each graph is based on retiring with a pension fund of €400,000. The only change is the retirement age.

Three additional years of contributions before drawdown means having enough money to fund the desired lifestyle until age 93.

 

 

 

 

Lifestyle Financial Planning helps you to go after the life you want.

Download our free Lifestyle Financial Planning guide to learn more about how you can benefit from our Lifestyle Financial Planning service.