This article is going to briefly touch on
main things a financial plan should accomplish. You don’t need a professional to help you draw up your own financial plan, but you might need professional advice and help to put some of your plans into action. Such as advice on your insurance needs to make sure you, your family and your home are adequately covered, tax advice to make sure you are not paying too little or too much, investment advice to ensure that you can reach amount you would like to retire with while still putting money aside for your children’s education and advice about what to put or not to put in your will.
Those are things you should speak to a professional about, but you should have your financial plan worked out before you speak to one so that you can let them know exactly what you wish to accomplish with your plan. Your goal is financial success; your method for reaching that goal is your financial plan.
After you have drawn up your plan is best time to speak to a professional financial planner. They will be able to let you know whether or not you will be able to accomplish those things in your current situation after looking at your total financial picture.
Your plan must take into consideration all of goals you have set for yourself in order to achieve financial success. It should also take into consideration, all of obstacles and things that can go wrong along way. No one’s life is perfect, things do go wrong, job loss, illness and accidents do happen and should be planned for.
The first thing a financial plan should include is protection for you and your family in event of disaster. That includes adequate insurance for your family and your property, and an emergency fund.
An emergency fund should be equal to at very least six month’s worth of take home pay. Actually, most financial experts say that now a days, nine months to a year would be best.
If you do not have your emergency fund now, you should have access to an already established line of credit or credit that is readily available to you that you do not touch for any other reason except for an emergency.
If you lose your job or become temporarily unable to work due to an illness or accident, you will not be able to obtain credit without income. So this is some thing that must be able to be in place now and used only in event of an emergency, otherwise you will have to save up for your emergency fund a over time.
You should also have life, health, long term disability and property insurance. I am not an insurance expert so I am not going to go into different types of life insurance available you should speak to a certified financial planner about that. I do know that many experts are now saying that term life is preferable to whole life. It is much cheaper and it accomplishes same purpose as whole life.
I have been told that many of your payments in beginning of a whole life insurance policy are basically going to person who sold you policy as a commission before money you put in starts building up.
Many people have health insurance available through their jobs. If you and your spouse both work use whichever plan gives you best coverage, some jobs also provide life insurance up to a certain amount with extra available if you pay a little more. Be sure to check with your employer.
If you own a home you have to have home owners insurance. You need to make sure that if your home was destroyed by fire or some other disaster that your insurance will cover you enough to replace that home and your possessions in that home. If you rent you should have renters insurance to help cover you in case of an emergency.
You should have a household inventory with serial numbers where applicable and pictures of your possessions wherever possible along with receipts if you still have them in a fireproof box or case along with your other important papers. You should do this whether you rent or own a home.
The next thing a financial plan should accomplish is financial security and a comfortable standard of living for you and your loved ones. If you are married and have children, you need to plan for them as well as your self.
If your parents are still alive, you should find out how well they have planned for themselves so you can make provisions for that if you need to instead of it being a surprise to you should one of them become ill or pass away. If you have siblings you might be able to share responsibility, otherwise if might all fall on you.
Find that out while you are working out your financial plan so you are not hit with a surprise a few years down road. Nursing homes are very expensive. That could wipe out their savings very quickly and then go through yours too if you have to help them. A few financial questions and asking them whether or not they have long term care insurance in place; could save a lot of unnecessary problems in future.
Your plan needs to make sure you are paying all of your household bills and expenses, providing some fun and entertainment money, provide care for all of those who depend on you to give them security they need and deserve and also to ensure that you don’t short change your spouse and yourself out of your own retirement needs by providing for everyone else.
If funding your children’s entire college education is out of question, you need to let them know that at an early enough age for them to start their own planning. Let them know approximately how much you will be able to help them and that they will have to get good grades to be eligible for scholarships and grants.
