Personal & Family Financial Planning

In its most fundamental form, financial planning is no different than any other form of planning. You start with your dreams, understand where you are starting from and have an idea of where you want to end up. You develop strategies and use tactics to implement your plan, adapting to whatever life throws your way. You seek the guidance of advisors, instructors, coaches, and trainers to help you to achieve your goals.

Cash Flow Planning
In order to save for your future, you have to know how much money you need, when you will need it, and where it will come from. Cash flow planning takes into consideration, among other things, that as a person ages, certain expenses may decrease and other expenses may increase (think medical expenses). Same goes for income – you may stop receiving a pay check but, you may get Social Security income. 

Cash flow planning brings clarity to the planning process – you understand what you have to work with.

Retirement Planning
Retirement planning is about securing your future. Typically, you won’t have the opportunity to generate additional money during retirement since you may no longer be working a full-time job or running your business. It is critical to consider in detail how you will replace pre-retirement income, manage risk with life and medical insurance, and utilize estate planning and tax strategies to minimize taxes and transfer your wealth to the next generation.

Personal Finance Planning
Studies have found that 70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the second generation and 90% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the third1.

Major reasons cited as the loss of family wealth are: there was little or no communication between those who made the money and those who would inherit it, the younger generation’s lack of financial education and their failure to understand of the value of money, or how to handle it.

Most people are worried about funding their retirement. Those of us nearing or entering retirement face a combination of unprecedented challenges:

• Traditional pensions have disappeared
• Medical costs are skyrocketing
• Two recent market collapses have damaged retirement savings
• Record low interest rates are failing to provide adequate income
• Inflation is silently eroding purchasing power

Will you have enough retirement income? You are not alone if you've caught yourself wondering whether or not you will have enough income in retirement to continue your current lifestyle.

To be prepared for retirement, you need to determine what your retirement income needs will be. You also need to determine the level of income your family will need in your absence. The next step is to decide how you are going to accumulate the wealth required to generate the necessary retirement income in a tax-efficient manner.

Some of the more common financial vehicles you can use to plan for retirement include a traditional IRA, Roth IRA, qualified plan, CD, mutual fund, annuities, and permanent life insurance.

For example, in a permanent life insurance retirement strategy the policy is designed to accept maximum premium payments in relation to the desired death benefit, so that, over time the policy cash values have the potential to grow to a substantial level. There is a tax-deferral on any cash value earnings and if your policy is properly structured you can access its cash surrender value for supplemental retirement income - generally income tax-free.²

Planning on working until you die? In today’s market economy, many have come to the practical conclusion that they will most likely need to work throughout their remaining lives. It often comes as a surprise, however, that the most common reasons why people stop working before they had planned to do so are health related. So, if your strategy is to plan on working for the remainder of your days, you will need to include certain tools such as disability insurance coverage and long term care insurance.

1Roy Williams and Vic Preisser, Philanthropy, Heirs & Values (2005), Appendix B at page 149.

²Tax-free income assumes: (1) withdrawals do not exceed tax basis (generally, premiums paid less prior withdrawals); (2) policy remains in force until death; (3) withdrawals taken during the first 15 policy years do not occur at the time of, or during the two years prior to, any reduction in benefits; and (4) the policy does not become a modified endowment contract. See IRS §§ 7702(f)(7)(B), 7702A. Any policy withdrawals, loans and loan interest will reduce policy values and may reduce benefits.