A financial game plan: Road to a more confident future

Do you picture yourself owning a new home, starting a business, funding a college education for your children or achieving financial independence and retiring comfortably? We all have financial dreams, but achieving those dreams sometimes seems like an insurmountable challenge. Many people don’t even know where to begin.

The key to achieving any goal is planning. When the dreams involve your finances, planning is the answer. Financial planning is a process that can help you reach your goals by evaluating your whole financial picture. The financial planning process outlines strategies that are tailored to your individual needs and available resources.

Just as champion athletes train and prepare based on the best available training methods and techniques, a comprehensive financial plan provides a framework to organize your financial picture. With a financial plan in place, you are better able to focus on your goals and understand what it will take to achieve them.

Think of financial planning as a five-step process:

1. Develop a clear picture of your current situation. This includes reviewing your income and expenses, your assets and liabilities, your insurance coverage, your investments, your tax exposure and your estate plan.

2. Establish and prioritize your financial goals. Here you set time frames for achieving each goal.

3. Decide strategies. This is your game plan. Your strategies will address any financial weaknesses and build on financial strengths.

4. Implement tactics. This is the blocking and tackling, the nuts and bolts of implementing your plan. Here you choose the specific products and services that will help you to meet your financial needs.

5. Monitor your plan. You don’t just implement a plan and forget it. This step includes making adjustments as your goals, time frames and circumstances change. You should review your plan at least once a year, and certainly when major life events occur such as marriages, divorces, job change, retirement, college expenses or major health related issues.

We all know we should brush and floss our teeth regularly. If we don’t, we’ll end up at the dentist in a lot of pain having an emergency dental procedure.

It’s the same with finances. There are certain things you should do for your financial health. Don’t wait until you are in the middle of a financial crisis to start to plan or you’ll feel that pain in your pocket book. The earlier you start, the more options you will have.

How complicated the process is depends on your individual circumstances. If you can develop a relationship with a trusted financial professional, that person will work hard to give you objective information and make the process as easy as possible for you.

Remember, financial professionals make recommendations. You make the final decisions. You retain control of your finances. First you want to pick a financial professional you can trust. Confidentiality and privacy are No. 1 priorities with any competent professional.

Your advisor will then make recommendations based on your needs, values, goals and time frames. You decide which recommendations to follow. Then work with your advisor to implement them.

With these relatively simple steps in mind you can gain a firm grasp on your financial situation and feel much more confident about getting where you want to be.

Ray White Jr. is a senior vice president of PNC Wealth Management and leads those efforts for Central Florida. He can be reached at [email protected]