How Often Do You Need a New Financial Plan?

We’re so excited to share a new episode of Heart of Your Money with you this week. This episode is all about how often you need to revisit your financial plan—and it’s not just about making a plan! You need to ensure that your plan is up to date with the current goals in your life, and we’re here to help.

In this episode, we’ll be discussing the importance of keeping your financial plan up-to-date, and we’ll go over different ways you can do that. We’ll also talk about whether or not there are age-based guidelines for when you should reevaluate your plan, or if it’s more important to review based on what you want out of life.

If any of these topics interest you, then be sure to tune in! We’d love to hear what you think!

Show Notes:

Hey there, and welcome back!

This is episode 70 today. I’ll answer a common question I get and the question is how often do I need a financial plan?

My initial response was going to center around the age stages of life. Thinking that the younger person needs a plan a lot less often than the person heading into retirement.

However, that is not the case. I think it’s not about age. In fact, I know it’s not about age. A financial plan is centred around goals. It just happens to be the older we are and the closer to retirement we are, we’re more motivated feeling the clock ticking with time.

We feel the need for a financial plan more urgently, the older we are. That should not be the case. I believe that younger people in the accumulation stage have the same need and urgency in a financial plan. And it’s to meet those shorter-term goals, like saving to buy a house or saving for new babies and taking paternity and maternity leave with reduced pay.

Those are the common ones in there and there are goals that still need to be planned and attention given to a financial plan centered around those things need just as much work, motivation, and planning as a retiring person’s financial plan. It’s just a different focus. So back to the question, how often do you need a plan?

The answer is annually or semi-annually when in the implementation stage. Okay.

What is the implementation stage? It means you have your savings schedule for your goals. you’re on autopilot, you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do. You set everything up and now your goals are a handful of years down the road.

A planned checkup to make sure you’re on track would be every couple of years for that. Someone a year or two out from reaching their goal will likely want that update a couple of times. So for example, every six months before getting to retirement, or for example, the younger person, maybe buying their first house, whatever that end goal is, you’re gonna need it a few more times that year, no matter what.

There will be unforeseen things in life. Your financial strategy is fluid and will need updating. Nothing is linear. That means if there’s a change in a life event, financial event or economic event, then an update can be more often and as needed revisions to a plan can be ongoing. There’s no limit. So the purpose is to gauge your progress.

To see movement and keep you motivated, keep you on track and measure. If you’re getting to where you need to be. If there’s a nagging and persistent, wondering if you’re on track, use that as motivation to update your plan.

Any comments? Send me a note [email protected] thanks.