The holidays are a time when everyone is surrounded by family members and having a great time, but it may also remind you that your life is intertwined with that of your family’s, including when it comes to finances. If you are unsure about how your financial goals connect to your family’s, now might be a great time to discuss it with them! During the holidays, your family may be receptive to understanding how their future financial goals can coincide with, be supported by, or support your financial goals as well. Here are a few tips from our advisors that may help you to create a family financial plan:
- What do you and your family want?
Sorting out your goals is one of the more important steps of this process. If you don’t know where you want to go, then you can’t get there. In other words, if you don’t have a solid sense of your own financial strategy and goals, you won’t be able to have the conversation with your family in the first place! Consider having a conversation with your family about their goals for both the long and short term. Are they attainable with your current savings strategy? Is there a way you could help each other reach mutual goals? This isn’t always an easy conversation, but it can really help to give you a concrete sense of what your family wants.
- Consider how to achieve these goals
Once you have a firm idea of what you and your family want, then you can start to strategize how to make that cohesive plan come together. What if your grandkid needs support for college? The earlier you start setting up a college savings plan, the better. What if your son or daughter is saving up for their first home? Starting earlier to put away funds for a down payment can help them achieve that. After all, without family support, college could be a financial struggle and home ownership could be out of reach. Planning early and helping them in any way you can will not only help improve their lives but also avoid potential hurt in your family and a possible unexpected burden on you.
- Emergencies Happen. Plan Ahead!
Sometimes people can focus too much on their own or even their family’s immediate wants or concerns. While that’s reasonable, it is important to consider how a long-term financial strategy that accounts for future unexpected expenses can help maintain your financial stability throughout your retirement. Even if you are planning well and being careful about how you are spending your money, it can be very easy to overlook the concept that a long-term strategy blind to your and your family’s future needs and goals can have a real negative impact on the stability of your financial goals and quality of life.
When it comes to your family’s financial strategy, you don’t have to figure everything out by yourself. Most families don’t have access to a person who knows a lot about the minutiae of financial management, and those who do might have separate financial guidance that is unaware of the whole family’s situation. That’s where we come in. Consider reaching out to one of our professionals today for a complimentary review of your finances. We can lend our knowledge to your family to help you design goals and strategies that work for you and your family.
