How your Net Worth Statement can tell you if your financial plan is working.
Life isn’t stagnant, so your financial plan shouldn’t be either. While certain components of your plan may be ‘’set it and forget it”, your plan needs to support your needs as events change.
Your financial plan will always evolve as life happens!
Life events like getting married or divorced, buying a home, purchasing income properties, travelling the world, leaving or starting a job or business, starting a family, transitioning to retirement, or preparing your estate to pass on a legacy to your children or loved ones, are just a few examples. As these things happen, you will want to recalibrate your plan.
Perhaps purchasing a property will mean reducing your investment savings for retirement, getting divorced may mean paying out a large sum or receiving a large sum – where will you take this from, or where should you put it to maximize your growth?
Starting a family or travelling the world takes money and preparation so that you can maintain the same lifestyle as you did before.
When you are transitioning into retirement, your investment strategy should change in terms of what products you use, the level of risk, and the use of guarantees, just to name a few.
Working with a professional will ensure your money is working for you
But how will you know you’ve had success? It’s important to have a measuring stick so you can track your progress year-to-year.
Our Net Worth Sheet is a great quick-measure of how well you’ve done
In the PULSE process, the main tool we use is a Net Worth sheet. It is essentially your entire life on one piece of paper – all of your assets, debts, and insurances. It shows you very simply what you are worth today if you had to sell of your assets to cover your debts.
Every year this will be updated for you, with a clear view on what your investments are worth, your pension, debts, mortgage, etc... It will show you in black and white where you started when we got together, and where you are now.
Many people don't track what they spend
Financial planning and financial growth is so much more than an investment rate of return, in fact, that is only a part of it. Most people have never done a budget in their life, have never tracked what they spend, and don’t save up for things in advance. These purchases get put on a credit card, and then paid off at some future date, which ends up costing more than it should. They wonder why they never seem to have as much as they think they should.
Not tracking your money can lead to overspending
If you’re not tracking your expenses, you are more likely to overspend, accumulate debt and/or don’t save near as much as you could have. Proper budgeting and cash flow management is a huge part of financial planning and growth! It helps you eliminate over-spending and maximize what you have, so you have a lot more to put towards debt or wealth accumulation.
Not every product is right for everyone
Another big factor is putting your money in the right places for YOUR particular situation. It’s important to determine which best suits your needs, so you have the right expectations of how they will perform. There’s nothing worse than opening a statement with a surprise that’s out of your comfort zone (ie your appetite for risk).
It's important to have a Financial Coach by your side
Lastly, it’s important to have a financial coach by your side especially in the emotional times of market volatility. They will help you keep your eye on the prize and make rational decisions rather than emotional, which often leads to costly mistakes. Having someone there to keep you cool, calm and collected through the rough patches so you can experience the gold at the end of the rainbow is key to financial success.
What measuring stick have you and/or your Wealth Management Specialist been using to track your progress? Do you know what your Net Worth increase has been? If not, run the numbers and see how you’re doing.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us at Pulse Wealth Management.