What Does Your Financial Future Look Like?

As much as it is important to plan your finances around your life today, a large focus of our job in advising clients is to establish their needs and plans for their financial future as well. This is where Cash flow Modelling can come in, where we can build, stress-test, and adapt clients’ financial plans to visualise projected outcomes in their future.

Cash Flow Modelling has been an incredibly useful tool for many clients throughout my career, including the Robertsons. The couple initially came to me for investment advice based on their ethical preferences. Since then, I have also been able to assist in their pension arrangements, look at their wider financial needs and discuss their life goals.

The Robertsons are a very future-focussed couple, with a long-term investment strategy in mind, and wanted to visualise the lifetime of the plans we had proposed to them. We were able to input their data for retirement needs, investments, protection, income, estate plans, and see this in a visual format. As this tool is built upon the data provided, an open and honest conversation is required.

Using this data and some assumptions, we could then measure this against future life events, such as retirement or large expenditures like a new car or holiday, to show how their underlying assets would be affected. This brought their plans to life and allowed them to gain a greater understanding of what their financial future could look like and, in the case of the Robertsons, they were happy that the outcomes aligned with their objectives, which gave them peace of mind that their financial plans were on track.

Furthermore, Cash Flow Modelling is also a great exercise to show any pitfalls or areas for improvement across various stages of life. This allows you to plan in advance for areas you may not have previously considered, for example covering care fees in later life or Inheritance Tax planning.

Just like all areas of financial planning, Cash Flow modelling is not a one-time solution. From your own varying circumstances such as changes in relationships, careers, income, or preferences, to external factors such as legislation changes, pensions or taxation, there are a variety of impacting factors to consider that could alter your plans or outcomes at different stages of your life. Therefore, it is important to continue to review and adapt, where necessary, your plans to ensure that they still align with your current needs and future goals.

If you would be interested in exploring Cash Flow Modelling to visualise your financial future, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our Bristol head office on 0117 450 1300 and one of our Independent Financial Advisers based throughout the UK would be more than happy to assist you.