When you plan a trip, you consider not only the destination but also the climate, activities that interest you, transportation needs, anticipated costs, best time to go and coverage for your work, home, or pets. It’s a holistic approach — looking at your trip from a variety of angles.
It’s wise to apply that same holistic thinking when you plan for your financial future — that is, bringing into the picture all elements of yourself.
Here are some things that may affect your financial strategy:
Your Views on Helping your Family
Your decisions about helping your family are clearly going to be a major part of your financial strategy, and this is true at virtually all stages of your life. When your children are young, you’ll need to decide if you’re going to save money for their college education, and if so, how much, and in what investments. When they’re young adults, you may also need to decide how much financial support you’re willing to provide for major expenses, such as down payments on a new home or a new car. And when you’re drawing up your estate plans, you’ll need to consider how and when to distribute assets to your children, grandchildren or other family members.
Your Personal Beliefs
As someone with civic, ethical, and moral concerns, you may feel compelled to make charitable gifts throughout your life, and then make philanthropy part of your legacy. To accomplish these objectives, you’ll want to include gifting techniques in your financial strategy today and your estate plans for tomorrow. Of course, for the estate-planning component, you’ll need to work with your tax and legal advisors.
Your Purpose in Life When You Retire
Having a purpose can bring fulfillment beyond financial security. Leading up to retirement, your purpose may involve providing for your immediate family, bringing value to your profession, or contributing to your community. When you retire and step off your career path, you’re entering a new world of possibilities. How will you define, and live out, your new sense of purpose at this stage of your life? Do you seek to broaden your horizons by traveling around the world? Or spend more time volunteering? Can you pursue hobbies that give you a chance for self-expression? Each of these choices will carry different financial implications for how much you’ll need to accumulate for retirement and how much income you will need to take out each year from your retirement accounts, such as your IRA and 401(k).
Your Health
Your physical and mental health can play big roles in your financial plans and outlook. On the most basic level, the healthier you are and the better you take care of yourself, the lower your health care bills will likely be during retirement, which will affect the amount you need to put away for health care. And you also may need to prepare for the costs of long-term care, which can be enormous. In fact, a private room in a nursing home in can easily cost $100,000 per year, according to Genworth, an insurance company.
It can be challenging to weave all these elements into a single, unified vision, so you may want to get some help from a financial professional. But in any case, be prepared to look at your situation holistically because, when putting together a lifetime’s financial strategy, every part of your life matters.
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Edward Jones, its employees and financial advisors cannot provide tax or legal advice. You should consult your attorney or qualified tax advisor regarding your situation.
