The ASPIRE Financial Plan

Why financial planning?

ā€œA journey of a thousand miles begins with a single stepā€Ā  Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher

Ā We believe that the financial plan is possibly the most important element of the work that we do for clients.

Our professional financial planners will help you take the first steps on your journey and can be with you every step of the way.

We will help you work out your goals and what is most important to you. By using a lifetime cash flow forecast to take into account current income and expenditure; assets and liabilities and most importantly, future expected income and the cost of your desired lifestyle.

The lifetime cash flow forecast can show you how much to save, how much insurance, capital or investment risk is required to maintain your current lifestyle and achieve your goals.

Then we can organise your financial resources and make them work efficiently, so that we can help you understand where you are and where you want to be so nothing is left to chance.

By matching your finances to your goals you will have a much clearer view of where you are financially, the stress of managing your finances will reduce and you will be in control, on track, and have peace of mind

A financial plan is not just for the well-off or those near to retirement; without a financial plan and cash flow model it is impossible to provide answers to lifeā€™s big financial questions, for example: –

  • Can I afford to send the children to private school and university?
  • When can I afford to stop working?
  • Will mum or dad have sufficient income and assets to afford residential and nursing care in future?
  • Will we be able to afford the dream retirement / holiday home?
  • How much money is enough?

Our financial planners will follow the six step process described below.

Establishing and defining the client and financial planner relationship

Your financial planner will ask you to outline the services that you require and explain the services that we provide.

We will and provide you with relevant documents to explain how we will be paid and by whom and we will confirm our qualifications and experience.

Ā Data gathering

We will ask you for information about you, your relationships, financial situation, existing financial plans, and seek to understand your income and expenditure, financial circumstances, objectives, short and longer term goals and expectations.

For investment and pension business we will undertake a psychometric investment risk profiling exercise.

We will ask you to identify your key objectives and priorities and agree these with you.

Analysing and evaluating your financial status

We will analyse your information to assess your current situation and determine what you must do to meet your goals.

Depending on what services you have asked for, this could include analysing your assets, liabilities and cash flow, current insurance policies, investments and pension plans.

We will identify and evaluate alternative courses of action and explain these to you.

Developing and presenting your Aspire Financial Plan

We will prepare our Aspire Financial Planning report and cash flow models that address your goals.

The financial plan will include a list of suitable and usable recommendations.

We will be able to discuss and explain these to you so that you may make informed decisions.

We will listen to any concerns that you have and revise the recommendations as necessary.

We will identify and agree your priorities and confirm next steps with you.

Implementing the financial planning recommendations

We will agree with you how the planning recommendations will be carried out.

If you wish us to do so we will carry out the recommendations for you and our administration team will coordinate the whole process for you to ensure smooth and trouble free implementation.

Whilst investment and pension business transactions are carried out on a fee basis, the fee can often be settled from the investment fund, which is usually more cost effective than a commission based arrangement.

Ā Monitoring the financial plan and the financial planning relationship

The financial plan can be monitored, reviewed and adjusted in future to make certain that you can still reach your destination as your life changes.

A detailed explanation of the Aspire Financial Planning Process is available on request.

ā€œLife is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming: WOW, what a ride!ā€ Hunter S Thompson.

April 2012

Important Note:Ā  The contents of this document do not constitute advice and should not be taken as a recommendation to purchase or invest in any financial product. The value of a market investment can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount, particularly in the short term. Before taking any decisions, we suggest you seek advice from a chartered financial planner.

Get in touch

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West Wing, The Old Dairy,
High Cogges Farm,
Witney, Oxfordshire,
OX29 6UN