Fidelis Monthly Newsletter
A Message from Fidelis Wealth Advisors
October is Financial Planning Month and serves as a good reminder to keep our spending in check and begin to budget for the new year as we head into the holiday season. But financial planning is about much more than just tracking spending and budgeting. It is a strategic approach to improving the organization and management of personal finances. In short, if it involves your personal finances, then there’s a way to plan for it and optimize the outcome.
Fidelis offers financial planning services, ranging from the basics — such as budgeting, saving and paying off debt — to more complex areas, such as investment management, insurance, estate, retirement and education planning. And we take a highly personalized approach, looking at our clients’ overall financial picture and crafting a plan that suits their specific needs and reaches their unique goals. We also take very seriously our fiduciary responsibility to ensure we are always working in their best interest.
This month, we walk you through our customized multi-phased approach to an advisor-aligned financial planning process.
Paraphrasing Economist John Maynard Keynes, our ultimate goal is to be approximately right rather than precisely wrong…
STEP 1: DISCOVERY Phase
This phase speaks directly to one of our five core values…relationship. Our goal is to build a lifelong relationship with you as your advisor and advocate. It is in this phase that we dig deep with questions about what makes you tick. In this phase, we:
Get to know YOU. We take the time to understand what’s truly important to you by asking key questions like:
- What is your why?
- What does success look like to you?
- Who and what is important to you?
- What is your agenda?
Practice the lost art of listening. We listen to find out where you’re at in life and what’s critical to you over the coming years. By understanding your goals, we can help you realize them.
STEP 2: BUILD IT Phase
Taking the information we learned in the discovery phase, we start to hone in on particular strategies, analyze the various tools we have access to, run different scenarios and stress tests related to your financial situation, and consider major life events and market factors – like inflation – that could affect the plan. Then we build a financial plan most suited to your individual circumstances and needs and present it to you. In this phase, we:
Don’t guess…we run the numbers. This is a Monte Carlo simulation – one of the tools we use at Fidelis is to stress-test your financial plan against thousands of different market scenarios, and we can see how different decisions impact your long-term success. We’re not just hoping your plan works – we’re modeling it.
Explain. We believe clarity builds confidence so we explain every idea and decision made when drafting the plan.
Provide context and perspective. In a world with so many competing agendas, we help you make informed choices.
STEP 3: TWEAK IT Phase
We know that the only constant in life is change, so making ongoing tweaks to your financial plan is a given. Every time a major life event takes place—a marriage, the birth of a child, or retirement—we can tweak it. If your cash flow needs change, we can tweak it. If your investment interests or tax scenarios change, we can tweak it. Because real life doesn’t follow a straight line, neither should your financial plan. This is the phase where we:
Work together with you. We regularly revisit your plan to make sure we’re on track and meeting your goals.
Are a steady resource. No matter what challenges or opportunities arise, we continue to build and maintain a foundation of trust, guidance, and care that lasts a lifetime.
What’s Your Plan?
Your financial plan can be as big and complex as you want it to be, or as simple and straightforward as you like — so long as it ensures that your money’s growing where you’re going, and it provides a path and the motivation for you to meet your financial goals. This is what planning with purpose looks like.
It is worth repeating…our goal is to build a lifelong relationship with you as your advisor and advocate.
Ready to start planning? For more information and to schedule your complimentary session, contact us at (303) 800-4683 or loyalty@fidelis-wealth.com.
Questions? Book a quick call with our team HERE.
