Financial Planning

• Have you thought about what you want to do with the rest of your life?
• Do you know if you have the resources necessary to achieve your goals?
• Do you want more control over your financial future?
• Do you know if the various parts of your financial picture are in conflict, create gaps or are redundant?

Comprehensive financial planning is the process used to answer these questions and to help you achieve your goals by:

• Helping you identify, quantify, and prioritize them
• Identifying strategies for attaining them
• Monitoring your progress
• Updating your plan when circumstances change and
• Managing and growing your assets towards the attainment of your goals

Soares Financial provides financial planning services in the following areas:

• Planning for Retirement
• Retirement Income Planning
• Investment Management
• Investment Review
• Insurance Evaluation
• Tax Planning
• Cash Management & Budgeting
• Education Funding
• Estate & Gift Planning
• Planning for Special Goals

If you are interested in learning more about how we provide out financial planning services, click here: Getting Started.

Planning for Retirement

• Do you know if you are on track for the retirement you have envisioned for yourself?
• If not, do you know what you need to do to get there?
• Are you taking full advantage of retirement plans that are available to you?
• Will you or your family’s financial security be threatened if you or your spouse enters a nursing home?
• As a business owner, do you know if your company pension plan is appropriate for you and your employees?
• As a business owner, have you done the appropriate planning necessary to sell or transfer your business upon your retirement?

You know you really should have the answers to these questions, especially if you are nearing retirement. If you don’t have answers, and want them, Soares Financial can help you.

Retirement Income Planning

• Do you know if your savings & investments are adequate to maintain your lifestyle?
• Will your savings & investments keep you ahead of inflation?
• Are you concerned about outliving your assets?
• Do you want to invest your assets to ensure a reliable source of income that lasts as long as you do?
• Do you wonder if you are maximizing the income potential of your assets?
• Does the fluctuation in the stock market keep you up at night?

If you are retired or nearing retirement and are wrestling with questions like these, Soares Financial can help you find the answers.

Insurance Evaluation

The more financial assets you acquire, the more your need to protect them increases. You don’t want to work hard to create wealth and then watch it disappear as a result of some unanticipated event. Making sure you are adequately protected when emergency strikes is a basic underpinning of financial security. This is what insurance is for. The decision you always need to make is whether the potential loss is worth the cost of the insurance premium. Often it is, but sometimes it’s not.

Some questions to ponder:

• Would you or your family’s financial stability be threatened if you lost your job or became disabled?
• If you died tomorrow would your family be secure?
• Do you know if your homeowners insurance would fully cover the loss if a fire destroyed your home?
• Would an extended stay in a long-term care facility compromise you or your family’s financial security?

Soares Financial can do an unbiased evaluation to see if you have uninsured gaps or unnecessary coverage. Any changes we suggest should then be discussed with your insurance agent. If you do not have an insurance agent we can provide a recommendation. Soares Financial does not sell insurance or receive any compensation for recommendations or referrals.

Cash Management & Budgeting

• Do you carry credit card balances that you can’t get rid of?
• Would you like to be able to save more for retirement and/or other financial goals?
• Do you have adequate reserves in the event of an emergency?
• Your spendable cash is the amount left over after you have paid your taxes. Are you satisfied that you have taken maximum advantage of available tax savings?

As human beings, our wants are infinite. Regardless how much money we make, we can always spend more, so it’s important to plan our expenditures, rather than frittering our money away on the first things that capture our attention. If you work hard for your money, don’t you want to put it to the best use for you?

If the word budget has bad connotations for you, implying restrictions and limitations, think instead of it as what it is: a spending plan. Creating a spending plan is the process of setting priorities and deciding ahead of time what you want your money to do for you. Its purpose is not to limit you, but to allow you to be proactive and control your financial life. Soares Financial can help you do this.

Education Funding

• Have you planned for the cost of your children’s education?
• Do you know if it’s the best plan for you?
• Do you know what your options are? Do you know their after-tax cost?
• If you fund your children’s college, will you still have enough for your retirement?

You may want to have a discussion with us about what your options are and what would work best within the context of your individual situation.

Estate & Gift Planning

• If you died or became incapacitated tomorrow, would you be leaving your loved ones with a lot of loose ends, at time when they are least able to handle them?
• Have you set up the proper documents so that your assets will be distributed according to your wishes upon your death?
• Have you done all you can to reduce the potential estate tax cost to your heirs?
• Are you maximizing the value of your gifts to family and charities?
• Do you have a succession plan in place for your company?

If the answer to the first question is yes, or the answer to any of the other questions is no, then you need to do some estate planning as part of your financial planning. We can help you evaluate your needs, and if you need a will, trust or other legal document, or have complex estate planning needs, and do not have your own attorney, we can provide a recommendation. Soares Financial does not provide legal advice or receive any compensation for recommendations or referrals.

Planning for Special Goals

Do you have a special goal or dream, such as:

• Starting a business,
• Changing careers,
• Buying a home or
• Taking that once-in-a-lifetime vacation?

And you’re not sure how to make it financially attainable?

This is what financial planning is all about. We can help you quantify your goal and determine how best to achieve it within the context of your other financial commitments and goals.