Build your financial plan in two hours

Creating a personalized financial plan can be done in as little as two hours. Grab your smartphone and open the calendar app. Block two hours this week to build your five-year plan. Then open up your Two Hour Financial Planning Template and follow along. Note there is an example in the last three tabs.

Step 1: Set Two Goals
Anything more than two goals and it’s hard to focus your energy and dollars effectively. Not sure what goals to pick? Here’s a list of goals that our team of Money Coaches sees often:

Step 2: Choose a Winning Strategy
Choose a clear strategy to help achieve your goals that you can describe in a few simple sentences. AND, it is okay to be a little more tactical here. Some popular strategies are:

Step 3: The NumbersIn our November 2016 Newsletter we introduced the concept of establishing your current net worth. This is the number that your plan must focus on growing because it will ultimately support your goals. Remember that net worth is:Total Assets – Total Liabilities = Net WorthNow, it’s time to build your net worth five years into the future. Input the numbers as you hope them to appear on Dec 31 of each year.

Step 4: This Year’s Budget
The final step in the planning process is to build a budget that you can follow for the current year. No, you don’t need to build one out to 2021 because too many things can change.Your budget is meant to support your net worth goal for the year so as you build it, ask yourself, where do I need to cut back and where should I add more to? For example, you may need to cut back on ski lessons for your children in order to allocate another $50 per month to your RRSP.Once you’ve completed your financial plan, bring in a Money Coach to fine tune your strategy.

Have a financial question or topic suggestion for our eNewsletter?

Our team would love to hear from you! Submit your financial questions today by emailing us info@mevest.ca