We have designed our Financial Life Planner™ to be unlike any other model prepared by a brokerage firm, insurance agency or even the internet. Through the experiences with our clients, we have seen numerous benefits that we would like you to consider as you make your decision to have the model prepared for you and your family:

 

This model essentially works backwards. After forecasting all of your cash flows in and out, from now through death, our model calculates the rates of return you will need. This results in safer investment strategies throughout your life.

 

Let’s face it. Nobody knows what the future holds. However, with this model, you will now be armed with solid information. From here you will now have possible opportunities involving investments, real estate, business etc. Unfortunately, you may also discover that problems may exist regarding not being able to properly fund your children’s education, not being able to take a family vacation, etc. You can either “plan to fail” or “fail to plan”. With this model you are doing proper planning that most people can’t even dream of.

Many people claim not to care about estate taxes but when your portfolio has the ability to grow for 30 – 60 years, the amount left at the end can be much larger than you expect. You can expect to lose a SIGNIFICANT portion of your net worth, upon death, if proper planning isn’t done far before you die.

 

Since the model is based on your projected cash flows in and out, it will clearly be able to demonstrate any projected principal increase/decrease. This is helpful when dealing with fixed income investments and trying to figure out how much cash reserves you will be required to, or wish to, keep on hand.

Our program calculates all federal, state and payroll taxes each year using current actual rates. The taxable income is calculated using all of the relevant data provided by you throughout the model.  This is then used in determining your total annual cash flows out.

 

Since this model truly maps out your projected cash flow, it is easy for us to strip out future earnings and determine the actual needs for life and disability insurance, assuming that you wish for your survivors and family to be able to live the life you originally intended. After determining these amounts, we can re-run the cash flow with the projected premiums and determine the impact on your investment rate, required earnings and the amount you will ultimately leave to your heirs or charity. We are not necessarily full advocates of insurance but we have found that most people have avoided it because they were not properly shown the impact or alternatives. Armed with this information, this too can open up opportunities.

 

The entire model is driven by the calculated projected net worth at the end of each year. At some mutually agreed upon time interval, we will update the plan to see if the future came close to the projection. Without this monitoring, this document is worthless. At that time we can point out new opportunities or problems that may have arisen due to the updating.

 

Unfortunately, you can’t plan your death. Death does not only occur from old age. We have found that many clients have done planning on their own, and in many cases does not necessarily reflect the mutual desires of both involved. Having this model created while you are alive and healthy will not only help to align your thoughts but also gives most spouses an opportunity to participate in the plan creation instead of just being forced to follow the plan.

 

Please go to Financial Planning to learn more about the outcome of our model and why it is so important.