Financial/Retirement Planning = Good Mental Health

This year, our team at Reynolds Financial Services has completed many financial plans for our clients. Often, this has been driven from a forced “retirement” as many of our clients have been laid off from work. I have met with many worried clients asking the same basic questions, “Are we going to be OK?” or “Can we retire now?” and “Will our money last as long as we do?”. 

These worries don’t magically go away. Without proper answers they continue to grate at your psyche, adding worries onto worries, and possibly spinning out of control into real anxiety about the future. What if you had a clear plan regarding your finances? A plan that would answer the questions you have. If the answer is “Yes, you’re going to be okay”, then you can move on and know that your future is secure.

If the answer is “No, you haven’t reached your retirement goal yet”, then you will have to create an action plan to see what you need to do to reach these goals. Either way, the stress of not knowing what the future will bring is over.

You don’t need to be suddenly laid off work to need to get a financial plan done. Financial planning is always best done in advance of sudden need and worry. When things are more stable, and employment is secure, you can calmly enter into a financial planning exercise and feel confident you can take the steps necessary to reach your goals. This too has a lot of benefit for your stress levels. Knowing that you and your family is on the right track to achieve your dreams is extremely comforting.

What does a financial plan look like?

When I speak about financial planning, it might seem like word salad to many people. This is because they don’t know what it really means and what the process involves. Here is a basic breakdown of how we build and work through a financial plan:

1.    Start the financial planning engagement – sign a letter of understanding that both sides, the planner and the clients, will need to do their parts to bring the plan to fruition.

2.    Data collection phase – gather all information about your current situation, including incomes, savings, pension plans, assets like real estate, debts like mortgage and lines of credit, education savings for children, etc.

3.    Goal setting meeting – time to dream. What are your retirement goals, education goals for children, legacy for passing on your estate to the next generation, etc. This is the target you are aiming at. Without a target it’s very hard to measure your success.

4.    Data input and analysis – this is where your financial planner (like me) inputs all the data and goals into the planning software and begins to see where the gaps are. I would then make alterations to the plan in an “alternative” scenario to see how additional savings, debt reduction and cash flow modifications can be done to achieve the goals.

5.    Presentation of the plan – meet with you, the clients, to analyze where you are today and what you need to do differently to achieve your goals. This meeting could result in modifications to the plan as we discuss various alternatives, like saving less and retiring later, buying risk protection products to protect your plans, and whether legacy is important to you.

6.    Finalize the plan and implement – finish the plan based on the modifications discussed and start to implement the changes. This could mean opening accounts, apply for insurances, start monthly savings plans, etc.

7.    Monitoring over time – the financial plan is a living document that we can go back to time and time again. Updating the values of investments as they change, adjusting incomes as people get new jobs or have work interruptions, etc. is always important and part of the annual reviews we will do together.

At Sun Life and Reynolds Financial Solutions there is no fee for this service. It is included as a part of our ongoing advice to our clients. In a perfect world, 100% of our clients would have a plan. Based on my capacity, I can produce 3-4 plans per month. I can also engage our Estate and Financial Planning Services (EFPS) to also build plans for our clients. This is another free service from Sun Life. I truly enjoy doing this for clients.

Why is it free? Simple. We believe that good advice needs to be built on a foundation of good planning. When our clients know they are on the right path they are motivated to stick to the plan, even exceed it by saving more, and are willing to pay premiums to protect themselves and their family along the way.

Planning is just the right thing to do, and we have seen how our relationships with our clients grow stronger once we have built these plans.

If you would like an initial consultation on how to build a financial plan for yourself and your family, please reach out to my office at 403-212-1111, or go to my web site https://advisor.sunlife.ca/mitch.reynolds/ to book in. We would be happy to help you, it's what we do.