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Financial Planning

Retirement Planning is the process of determining how individuals can meet their life goals through proper management of their financial resources.

Retirement planning is not all about numbers and insurance policies. It is about your dreams and financial goals. At Bristol Financial Services, we make the planning process easy, even enjoyable. Why? The most important part of the process is your sharing your dreams and aspirations. Talking about your hopes for yourself, your children and/or grandchildren, the countries or national parks you want to visit, is as important to us as it is to you. Only after we get a sense of where you see yourself in the future do we set about working on a risk management and wealth accumulation plan with you. We do our best to make the planning process enjoyable, informative and successful.

Retirement planning means different things to different people. Age, income, family status and business situations all play a role in your personal plan. But all Retirement plans have one thing in common – a process. The process starts with carefully thought out goals and your personal values. Any investment or risk management strategy should be designed to meet your goals and reflect what is important to you.

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc., identifies six steps in the planning process:

  1. Establishing and defining the client-planner relationship
  2. Gathering client data, including goals
  3. Analyzing and evaluating your financial status
  4. Developing and presenting Retirement planning recommendations and/or alternatives
  5. Implementing the Retirement planning recommendations
  6. Monitoring the Retirement planning recommendations

The Wall Street Journal, in a special "Guide to Financial Planning" (September 8, 2008) identified why financial planning is vital to people today. Some of their thoughts include:

  • Rising health care costs, including long-term care
  • The fact that retirees are living much longer in retirement
  • Tax laws change regularly
  • The average American changes jobs seven times in a lifetime
  • There are a myriad number of investment options available and not all are right for you
  • There are numerous insurance policy choices available for life, disability and long-term care. Which choice is right for you?
  • Many Americans are saving too little for retirement
  • Some baby boomers are receiving sizeable inheritances and need assistance with the management of those assets
  • To help deal with the financial issues surrounding divorce and death

People who seek the help of a Retirement planner save more for retirement, manage financial risks better and, in general, have less anxiety and uncertainty about money.