5 Signs Your Advisor is Doing Real Financial Planning

Peter, good to see you.

Welcome back, everyone. Today we are talking through five signs your advisor is doing real financial planning. A lot of financial advisors claim to offer comprehensive planning, but there are a few obvious signs to determine if your advisor is actually working for you and doing real financial planning. So first, Peter, is your advisor helping you define your goals and objectives? And planning for it is more than just the investments.

There are a lot of factors that need to be discussed and defined and time-lined out, and we look into the future. When would you like to retire? How would you like to retire? What do you want to do in retirement? Or maybe even it's not as far out as a retirement goal, or maybe you're already there and you're looking at other strategies for managing RMDs or gifting or estate and legacy planning.

Right? Wherever you're at, planning is looking forward. It is being proactive.

And so it is a more comprehensive, that's a fantastic word that you use there, Aaron. That is exactly what planning is all about. And there's income, investments, taxes, healthcare, and legacy. And generally, a financial advisor is in charge of helping to manage the investments. But that needs to fit in to a cohesive plan, and it needs to make sure that everything is working and clicking together, that the gears are turning in unison in order for the investments to be successful in helping you achieve your financial goals. And that is of the utmost importance.

Right. Second, a real financial planner will gather details on your assets, liabilities, income, and expenses. It's got to work in the context of your financial picture. And the biggest thing that is going to define that financial picture is how much cash flow do you have coming in and how much is going out. The income and the liabilities, the debts and the assets all need to be taken into account. But your biggest wealth building tool is your cash flow.

It is your income. And then your best retirement asset especially is keeping expenses low and in control. So as we are looking at the investments and what the investments should be doing and how the investments need to be working and functioning, that is a function of those expenses and the income that you have coming in. And it is important that a financial advisor understands that to help you work the plan and accomplish those goals with the investments once the cash flow is saved. Right. Speaking of cash flow, Good Financial Planner will help you determine when to claim Social Security.

Yeah. And this is actually something that unless it is exclusively a fee only arrangement where the advisor is being paid exclusively for the advice that they are given, most advisors actually aren't compensated on this. And so unfortunately, it is something that could be overlooked, even if you've got investment accounts with an advisor, if they are not talking about Social Security and when and how to claim because there are a lot of different combinations. And it could mean that the difference in a lot of money over the course of your retirement. So that's money that either comes from Social Security that comes for your investments or isn't there at all.

And out of the three, I know which one I would prefer. So in helping my clients to achieve the same thing, we look over the Social Security and try to use it as a tool to effectively protect the investments as much as possible. And a lot of number crunching goes into that equation right there. That's part of the income.

Right. And again, income planning, investment management, tax management, health care, legacy, all of these need to be factored into a comprehensive plan. Once you're assigned your planner means business, he or she will ask for last year's tax return. A tax return can provide an awful lot of insight and information into where income is being generated from or drawn from and where where that taxation is occurring. And you can take a look at a tax return pretty quickly and get a lot of pretty pertinent information as well as no tax returns are historic in nature.

They are last year. And I would say that anybody talking about money, talking about investments needs to get a handle on what those taxes look like in order to be able to provide solid recommendations. But those recommendations are now turning the corner. Now we are forward looking with the nature of how we are approaching taxes. And it's not what you make. It's what you keep. It's not what you have inside of those accounts. It's what you get to keep out of them and and spend or leave behind.

That's what matters. We don't want the IRS to be our biggest beneficiary. So especially the first couple years of retirement and especially the next couple years in particular are a huge tax planning opportunity to manage lifetime tax liabilities at a discounted rate. And taxes are probably one of the largest known expenses in retirement, not the largest known expense.

So that's that's the biggest issue and possibly the biggest opportunity that we have financially. And last, of course, estate planning and financial planning often go hand in hand. A good adviser will at least ask to see your estate planning documents or they will help you set up an estate plan. And across the board, Aaron, this is one of the most overlooked pieces in planning, anywhere from twenty five year olds to sixty five year olds. The first time I'm meeting with folks, the vast majority of them do not have the documents in place.

Interesting. And I tell people out of our whole conversation, the investment management portion, that's going to be important. But the estate planning documents are likely the highest priority if you have not done that or address them. And we work with with attorneys. We've got a network of of professionals throughout the area that we can refer folks to where there are other ways to get it done there. There are services sometimes already offered on people's job sites or through their banking relationships or even online services where you can get quick documents done.

And that's not a recommendation of any of those. It's really based on your individual sets of circumstances. But there's no excuse not to have this done. And to have this in place is going to help grease the wheels and make the process as easy as possible on your family and make sure that your wishes again. Coming full circle here, Erin, those goals, right, that your goals not only have been spoken about and discussed, but are documented. And so people can easily see what you intended to have happen and transfer that value and those values on your family and loved ones. I think a lot of people, Peter, are going to watch this video and realize that they might not be getting the planning that they thought they were. If somebody would like to speak to you more about what real financial planning entails, what's the best way to reach you? Yeah. Give us a call.

Nine one nine three zero zero five eight eight six nine one nine three zero zero five eight eight six. And unfortunately, I think you're right. But hopefully there is that realization. Financial advisors, financial planning is more than, hey, here are 10 mutual funds just contributing money and build up the mutual fund account balance or the 401K balance. It is much more comprehensive than that.

And ladies and gentlemen, you need to have those conversations in order to get the most out of your money and the relationship that you may have with an advisor. So give us a call. Nine one nine three zero zero five eight eight six nine one nine three zero zero five eight eight six. Or you can go online. It looks like rich on planning dot com.

It's Rashaan planning dot com. All right, Peter, thanks so much for your time today. Always a pleasure. Thank you.

Everyone here. Hope you enjoy the content. As always, make sure that you like, subscribe, share the videos with others that may find this information helpful. And as always, you're welcome to be in touch or to submit questions or comments. You can comment below the video anything that you'd like to see or hear shared on our YouTube channel. And in future videos, if you've got a topic that you've been thinking about or is of concern for you financially, be sure to let us know. We'd love to help you by discussing it on the channel.

So appreciate the continued views and the likes and the subscribes, the shares, the comments. Always helpful. We look forward to getting you the information that you need. Now, keep in mind that the standard disclaimer language required whenever discussing Social Security as an outside entity that I Peter Rashaan nor Rashaan planning are affiliated with nor endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other government agency, which is actually why we do give proactive guidance. They do not give that proactive guidance if you go down to the Social Security Administration office because they don't take the time to know the rest of your financial situation. So they don't take on the liability of giving proactive advice or guidance.

This has been Planning Matters Radio. The content of this radio show is provided for informational purposes only and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy. You are encouraged to take investment tax or legal advice from an independent professional adviser. Any investment and or investment strategies mentioned involve risk, including the possible loss of principal advisory services offered through Brooke's own capital management. A registered investment adviser fiduciary duty extends solely to investment advisory advice and does not extend to other activities such as insurance or broker dealer services. Advisory clients are charged a quarterly fee for assets under management while insurance products pay a commission, which may result in a conflict of interest regarding compensation.