Life Planning

Financial planning is the process of establishing personal and financial goals and creating a path to meet them. This ongoing process involves taking stock of all existing resources, developing a plan to channel them toward goal achievement, systematically implementing this plan, and periodically revisiting both goals and plans.

An important enterprise, to be sure, but often too narrowly instrumental...focused more on the ’money’ than the ’life.’ The most critical questions we face...identity, legacy, dream attainment, expectations, obligations, etc...too often get lost in the shuffle. Consequently, we tend to focus on life planning...melding money with meaning, addressing planning in a more holistic manner.

Life planning begins with the existential questions rather than the instrumental ones and takes deeply into account seminal research in life stage studies. Life planning outcomes include: investment planning, insurance planning, business planning, ’sandwich generation’ planning...college and retirement planning as well as care for aging parents, all at once!

The goal: envisioning a life to grow into, then marshalling all available resources, financial and otherwise, to make it happen. The goal is to avoid ’halffluence,’ having the money but not the life, at all costs.