By Scott Hamilton
With a world of information at our fingertips, we can find reviews, history, product specifications, and more details than we’ll ever need about anything we want to buy. In other words, before making a major purchase, we can arm ourselves with information to make the best choice possible.
While creating a financial plan is in a different category than buying a car or putting an offer on a home, we believe it’s just as significant of an investment and you should know what you’re getting before you pay a penny.
Because we develop custom financial plans for each client, it’s no easy task to provide one without working with you extensively. However, we wanted to share what your potential financial plan could look like so you can picture the depth of our analysis and how this understanding can benefit your future financial life. If you choose to work with us, here is a sample of what you can expect.
Table of Contents
What Does a Financial Plan Include?
First, you may be wondering about what goes into a comprehensive plan. Financial plans often address a myriad of concerns and goals, from college planning to retirement income strategizing. Depending on your needs, your plan may narrow in on one element or address multiple goals you’d like to achieve over time. Whatever you choose to focus on, your financial plan is designed to serve as your road map, helping you navigate the years before, during, and after your transition to retirement.
We believe a good financial plan should give you a detailed, complete view of your current financial situation, a thorough modeling of where you want to be, and the actions you need to take to reach those goals. It should address all the pieces of your financial puzzle, from stresses and fears to your values and dreams, and include risk factors, cash flow, retirement, estate planning, taxes, education, and income strategies to help bring you clarity and guidance. It is through our planning process that we can help you prepare for life’s expected and unexpected circumstances.
The result is a simple yet powerful blueprint to guide you toward financial freedom.
Let’s Take a Closer Look
Here is a sample financial plan that reflects our planning process. It looks at a fictional client’s lifestyle income plan and how we developed it, including identifying their goals, creating a balance sheet, reviewing their cash flow, and more.
Keep in mind that this is only a hypothetical plan presented to illustrate what a client’s plan may resemble should they work with us. The characters and circumstances are completely fictional and are for illustrative purposes only. Be sure to seek the advice of a qualified professional for your particular situation and not rely upon any of the information herein to make personal financial decisions.
The Big Picture
We provide an overview of your current situation. With just one glance, you can see a big picture of your financial life, including assets broken down into specific categories and short-term and long-term liabilities. We also include a detailed breakdown of all your financial resources.
Asset Allocation
When it comes to investments, we will analyze your current investment holdings and compare your current portfolio with our recommended portfolio to see the difference it could make in the long term.
Your Retirement, Your Way
Our financial planning is goals-based. This means we help you develop specific budgets for your future goals and needs—pre and post retirement. This approach allows us to more accurately predict your future spending needs and accommodate for how those needs will change over time. Our advanced planning software allows us to bring all these things together in a comprehensive way that makes sense.
Bringing it All Together
Because the future is uncertain, we use a Monte Carlo simulation to test your financial plan. A Monte Carlo simulation runs 1,000 hypothetical simulations of your plan using different, randomized stock market outcomes to determine the probability of success for your plan. We run an initial test based on your current scenario and then collaborate with you to tweak different variables—like retirement age, Social Security strategy, goal spending, savings amounts, and others—to come up with a plan that has a high probability of success and feels good to you.
In addition to a detailed study of each of your goals and a clearly mapped-out plan to get you there, we also create a risk management plan to cover your bases and give you increased confidence. The end result? An actionable implementation list and a road map for your future.
Get Started on Your Plan!
If you want to see even more features of our financial plans, download our full sample plan here. Once you’ve taken a look, reach out to us at Hamilton Financial Planning to schedule a complimentary get-acquainted meeting online or reach out to us at 512-261-0808 or scott@hamiltonfinancialplanning.com
About Scott
Scott Hamilton is founder and chief financial officer at Hamilton Financial Planning, a wealth management firm that specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning for retirees. With over 20 years of experience in the financial industry, and having completed over 250 financial plans for retirees across all industries, but mostly the oil and gas industry, Scott is passionate about providing his clients with the tools and insight they need to achieve their financial goals. He has a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance from Texas State University and an MBA in international finance from Pepperdine University. Scott has also been happily married to his wife, Gayle, for over 25 years. To learn more about Scott, connect with him on LinkedIn.
