By Adam Brooks, CFP®
Whether you navigate by GPS or an atlas, having a road map is essential if you hope to arrive at your destination efficiently. The same is true for your financial journey, from your first job through retirement. You need a plan to manage your wealth, and ABLE Financial can help you build it.
To that end, we’re showcasing a sample financial plan to help you understand what elements you need to include in your own plan. An eye-opening example gives you an idea of how your plan can help you pursue your financial goals effectively, both now and in the future.
What Goes Into a Financial Plan?
As you view this sample financial plan, think about your life, family, work, values, and goals. The best financial plan is one that’s uniquely tailored to you. It should reflect your desires, needs, and preferred level of risk and provide a system for saving and investing that aligns with your values and goals. That way, you can enjoy the life you want now and in retirement.
The plan we help you create would be specific to you, offering a snapshot of where you are, where you want to go, and the strategies we can deploy to help you get there.
Among other things, an airtight financial plan can answer your money-related questions, plot out a path to your goals, assist with tax or estate planning, and help you develop strategies to manage your retirement income. It can do as much or as little decision-making as you want—it all depends on your preferences.
Another key benefit of a sound financial plan is that it gives you a top-down look at your financial life, laying out your assets, liabilities, income, expenses, and savings in one place.
How are your assets allocated? Where are they? Do your goals include vacations, education for your children, or retirement? What about your business? Once we have these central pieces in place, we can model what it takes to get you where you want to go and prescribe specific actions to make it happen.
Hopefully the sample financial plan featured here helps you realize that your financial plan isn’t something to simply be drawn up and placed on the shelf. Instead, it’s a living, breathing document that should be updated and adjusted as you transition through life.
Every financial goal has a date and dollar figure attached—your budget and cash flow provide confidence that you can cover all pressing financial obligations, including one-off expenses. With a forward-looking plan, you can verify that you have three to six months’ salary in your emergency fund and see your progress with your retirement planning.
Check Out Our Sample Financial Plan
We’ve developed this sample financial plan to give you an idea of how our process could work for you.
While the characters and circumstances are fictional, this mock plan faithfully depicts our process for creating a balance sheet (which lists your assets and liabilities), analyzing income and cash flow, laying out goals, identifying gaps, proposing strategies, and performing other key tasks.
For the initial goal analysis, we use a method known as the Monte Carlo simulation, which reveals the probability that certain strategies will help you meet your goals. We put in various scenarios and strategies, and the model puts out a level of probability of success.
We aim for a probability between 75% and 90%. Anything below the lower figure has a low probability of reaching your goals, while anything above the higher one indicates that you might be too focused on the future, robbing yourself of luxuries and pleasures you can afford to enjoy now.
Start Building Your Financial Plan
Now that you know what goes into your financial road map, let ABLE Financial Group assist you in building a financial plan that helps you pursue your ideal future while getting the most out of your present.
To learn more about our team and the ways we can help guide you, call 480.258.6108 or email [email protected] today.
About Adam
Adam Brooks is Managing Director at ABLE Financial Group, a financial services practice that focuses on transition planning and simplifying the complexities of their clients’ wealth. As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner, Adam has been guiding individuals, businesses, and non-profit organizations toward their financial goals since 1993. Co-founding ABLE Financial Group in 2006, Adam oversees the practice, working with business owner clients, primarily focusing on succession planning and mergers and acquisitions (M&As).
Adam obtained degrees in finance and accounting from the University of Arizona and holds the CFP® certification. Adam was recognized as one of Barron’s Top 1,200 Financial Advisors in 2021 and 2022 and was named a 2022 Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisor. Outside of his work as a financial advisor, Adam has taught a variety of courses at surrounding community colleges, including Successful Money Management Seminars and Rich Dad’s CashFlow courses. Adam also previously hosted a radio show called The Truth About Money.
When not serving his clients, Adam actively serves his community in a variety of leadership positions. In 2011, Adam and co-founder Lee began funding the ABLE Financial Group Philanthropic Fund at the Jewish Community Foundation, allowing them to support some of their favorite organizations and causes today and into the future. Adam lives in Scottsdale with his wife, Cindy, their three sons, Jordan, Dylan, and Cameron, and their two dogs, Nelson and Sunny. Adam is active in his children’s lives, an avid cyclist, and enjoys local hikes with his family. To learn more about Adam, connect with him on LinkedIn.
