Ever felt like you should be doing more with your money, but felt daunted by the prospect of getting started or trying to find someone who could help? Well, you’re not alone.
According to a study by Northwestern Mutual, close to two thirds (62%) of Americans say their financial planning needs improvement, yet only one third (31%) of US adults work with a financial advisor. Clearly today’s finance experience is leaving something to be desired.
But we think there’s a key to improving both the planning and the advice experiences: Goals.
Why Goals Matter for Your Finances
We know. This may not sound revolutionary, but we believe that goals are what matter. Yet, they are not always central to the conversations about money.
We think that goals offer a better way to create an investing community that brings investors and financial advisors together. And, goals allow for better and more interactive connections.
We also believe that goals-based investing is a better approach to achieving financial goals because it’s designed around the idea that anyone should be able to take the first steps on their own when building a financial plan and then ask professionals for advice when they think they need help, or want to make it easier.
Goals-based investing is better because it rises above heavy jargon associated with most investment discussions and focuses on why we invest, not how we invest. We all invest to achieve goals, like retirement income, or college tuition. At GoalBased Investors, we believe you should focus on attaining the goal, not the minutia and math of the investment portfolio.
How Goals Make Investing Easier
Investing makes achieving a goal easier, but you shouldn’t have to speak the language of financial professionals to get started. We think you should be able to build a robust plan to attain a goal by asking yourself questions you can easily answer, like:
- When do I need to achieve my goal?
- How much savings do I currently have?
- How much can I save going forward?
- How much can I adjust my plan going forward?
The investment and mathematical work should be done behind the screens so you can focus on building a financial plan to achieve your goals.
But you may need help finishing your plan, or you may just want to make it better. You should be able to anonymously share your plan with one or more financial professionals who can assist.
Financial advisors can lend their expertise to recommend personalized investments that could improve your plan. We believe that you should have a chance to see what an advisor could do for you free of charge so you can decide whether you’d like to work with them and potentially implement the enhancements recommended.
So there you have it. Goals should be at the heart of creating and building plans.
They should also be at the heart of your interactions with advisors as they help you potentially enhance your plans and invest to get started on your path to success. Create. Build. Share. Invest. All with goals. We think this is the secret to a better finance experience.
If you’d like more details on a goals-based approach, check out our post here.
Ready to see if your goals and your plans match up? Click here to download Lasso