See a Sample Financial Plan
By Steve Allender, CRPC®
With a world of information at our fingertips, we can find reviews, history, product specifications, and more details than we’ll ever need about anything we want to buy. In other words, before making a major purchase, we can arm ourselves with information to make the best choice possible.
While creating a financial plan is in a different category than buying a car or putting an offer on a home, we believe it’s just as significant of an investment and you should know what you’re getting before you pay a penny.
Because we develop custom financial plans for each client, it’s no easy task to provide one without working with you extensively. However, we wanted to share what your potential financial plan could look like so you can picture the depth of our analysis and how this understanding can benefit your future financial life. If you choose to work with us, here is a sample of what you can expect.
What Does a Financial Plan Include?
First, you may be wondering about what goes into a comprehensive plan. Financial plans often address a myriad of concerns and goals, from college planning to retirement income strategizing. Depending on your needs, your plan may narrow in on one element or address multiple goals you’d like to achieve over time. Whatever you choose to focus on, your financial plan is designed to serve as your road map, helping you navigate the years before, during, and after your transition to retirement.
We believe a good financial plan should give you a detailed, complete view of your current financial situation, a thorough modeling of where you want to be, and the actions you need to take to reach those goals. It should address all the pieces of your financial puzzle, from stresses and fears to your values and dreams, and include risk factors, cash flow, retirement, estate planning, taxes, education, and income strategies to help bring you clarity and guidance. It is through our planning process that we can help you prepare for life’s expected and unexpected circumstances.
The result is a simple yet powerful blueprint to guide you toward financial freedom.
Let’s Take a Closer Look
Here is a sample financial plan that reflects our planning process. It looks at a fictional client’s lifestyle income plan and how we developed it, including identifying their goals, creating a balance sheet, reviewing their cash flow, and more.
Keep in mind that this is only a hypothetical plan presented to illustrate what a client’s plan may resemble should they work with us. The characters and circumstances are completely fictional and are for illustrative purposes only. Be sure to seek the advice of a qualified professional for your particular situation and not rely upon any of the information herein to make personal financial decisions.
The Big Picture
We provide an overview of your current situation. With just one glance, you can see a big picture of your financial life, including assets broken down into specific categories and short-term and long-term liabilities. We also include a detailed breakdown of all your financial resources.
Asset Allocation
When it comes to investments, we will analyze your current investment holdings and compare your current portfolio with our recommended portfolio to see the difference it could make in the long term.
Your Goals = Your Plan
Our financial planning is goals-based. This means we help you develop specific budgets for your future goals and needs—pre and post retirement. This approach allows us to more accurately predict your future spending needs and accommodate for how those needs will change over time. Our advanced planning software allows us to bring all these things together in a comprehensive way that makes sense.
Taking Care of Every Detail
We all know that planning for retirement involves more than just investing. Our plans take into account every piece of your retirement puzzle, from Social Security to Medicare to taxes to estate planning.
Bringing it All Together
Because the future is uncertain, we use a Monte Carlo simulation to test your financial plan. A Monte Carlo simulation runs 1,000 hypothetical simulations of your plan using different, randomized stock market outcomes to determine the probability of success for your plan. We run an initial test based on your current scenario and then collaborate with you to tweak different variables—like retirement age, Social Security strategy, goal spending, savings amounts, and others—to come up with a plan that has a high probability of success and feels good to you.
In addition to a detailed study of each of your goals and a clearly mapped-out plan to get you there, we also create a risk management plan to cover your bases and give you increased confidence. The end result? An actionable implementation list and a road map for your future.
Get Started on Your Plan!
If you want to see even more features of our financial plans, download our full sample plan here. Once you’ve taken a look, reach out to us at Acute WealthCare today to schedule a 15-minute introductory phone call to get started!
About Steve
Steve Allender is a partner and wealth advisor at Acute WealthCare, an independent, fee-based comprehensive financial services firm. Steve is a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor℠ who spends his days helping women in healthcare professions build a secure financial future through investment management and financial planning. Steve loves building long-term relationships with his clients and helping them address financial burdens so they can focus on what they love and how they want to spend their time. While Steve has officially been in the financial industry for over 20 years, he became hooked on learning about finances as a child when his parents taught him the basics of saving, spending, and giving. Steve enjoys all the outdoor activities living in Colorado provides, and you can often find him backpacking, snowshoeing, rafting, mountain biking, fishing, and exploring old mining communities. His claim to fame is that he is a Colorado Trail thru-hike completer, covering 486 miles of the most beautiful country on earth. Steve also enjoys a good book about Lincoln and the Civil War and is committed to his community, mentoring through Save Our Youth and helping the elderly and single moms with household maintenance through the Minute Man Ministry. Learn more about Steve by connecting with him on LinkedIn. You can also register for his latest webinar on What We Do & How We Help.
