I recently had a client who was apprehensive about getting into financial planning. Why? Because of shoes.
This client loves shoes. And not BOGO Payless shoes. Couture, name-brand, rare, interesting, colourful, shoes. She has rows and rows of them. An entire closet of shoes, in fact. She buys herself a beautiful pair of shoes whenever she reaches a goal, hits a milestone, or just plain wants them. She has glossy high heels, sparkly sneakers, stunning satin wedges – all lovingly displayed and worn.
This client and her spouse make a great income. She knew they needed to protect their assets, to plan for retirement, to have their money grow. All of that made sense to her. So why was she worried about delving into financial planning?
Shoes.
She was worried that a financial planner would tell her (sternly!) to stop buying more shoes, that buying more shoes was a waste of money, that she should put her spending on shoes towards something more sensible.
My response to her? Keep buying shoes.
Yes, planning for retirement is important. Yes, growing your wealth is important. Yes, protecting yourself and your assets is important. But there is no reason you can’t do all of those things AND continue to do things that are important to you.
It all comes down to balance. If you place a lot of importance on something, it makes sense to include that in your plan. In fact, not including things like this is often why plans fail – it simply is not realistic. (And this is entirely individual: what is important to you might not be important to someone else.)
Financial planning is not about what you make. It is about what you keep. What is left over at the end of the month after all your expenses are paid. And how those expenses are laid out, and what is left over are both things that can often be adjusted to accommodate the things that are important to you.
In the process of laying out your plan, you will start to see what is actually important, and what is not.
For this client, her shoes are important. Travelling is important. Both things are worked into her plan, so that she doesn’t have to completely give up the things she loves now in order to have a great retirement lifestyle later.
Making these kinds of strategic decisions is exactly what an expert should help you with. An expert should help you find the areas to compromise in and the areas to push forward in so you can accomplish your goals for your current life and your retirement life. Simply cutting out things that may be important to you in the interest of moving the needle is not sustainable or smart.
Striking a balance between the goals you have for your current lifestyle, and the goals you have for your retirement lifestyle can be tricky.