Financial planning in St. Louis isn’t just about managing your investable assets; it’s about creating a plan to help you pursue a sustainable lifestyle, especially when you reach your early, mid, and late retirement years.   

Defining and aligning financial goals is a lot like planning a road trip. Just as you wouldn’t embark on a journey without knowing your destination and mapping out your route, you shouldn’t approach your financial future without a clearly defined goal (the destination) and a strategy for reaching it (the roadmap). 

As a St. Louis wealth management firm, the Trinity Wealth Advisors team understands that financial planning isn’t just a strategy for accumulating wealth; it’s how you align your financial goals with you and your family’s aspirations. 

Our team of CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERS™ in St. Louis can help you construct and implement a financial plan tailored to your current circumstances, timeline, goals, and risk tolerance. This plan covers all phases of your financial journey. 

Read our latest guide: Personalized Financial Planning in St. Louis

Define Your Financial Goals and Concerns

A comprehensive financial plan’s foundation starts with defining your financial goals and any concerns you may have about pursuing those goals. Why include your financial concerns in our planning process? 

The concerns are critical because we aren’t looking to create a wish list, but instead a financial plan that is a balanced, realistic, comprehensive strategy that can, with ongoing updates, last a lifetime. It will allow you to prioritize your objectives and manage potential risks more effectively, ultimately helping you pursue a protected, comfortable, meaningful remainder of your life.

Step 1: Prioritize Your Goals 

Clearly defining your financial goals helps prioritize them based on their importance to you and your family while ensuring timelines are adhered to. These can range from short-term objectives like paying off debt to long-term aspirations like retiring on a particular date. When we know your priorities, we can do a better job producing a plan that meets all of your goals. 

Step 2: Motivation and Focus

Having clearly defined goals provides a strong sense of direction which then motivates you to pursue them. It helps you stay focused on the steps that are necessary for the achievement of your goals, and the first step is always the most important one.

Step 3: Identifying Potential Obstacles

Including your financial concerns in the plan helps us identify potential obstacles and risks that could derail the pursuit of your goals. These might include job loss, family issues, unexpected medical expenses, or economic downturns.

Step 4: Developing Contingency Plans

Your financial plan should always include contingency plans because life doesn’t happen in a straight line according to your latest plan.  Instead, detours are common including personal and economic conditions that may require pivoting differently.  Planning for this might involve building an emergency fund, obtaining appropriate insurance coverage, or diversifying investments to reduce your exposure to unnecessary risks.

Step 5: Balancing Your Decision-Making

Balancing goals and concerns increases the likelihood that your financial plan will be more realistic and achievable. It helps prevent overly aggressive strategies that might expose you to unnecessary risk.  Also, a couple in good health at age 65 has a high probability of at least one living well into their 90s, and this number is rising.  Therefore, it is important to not be overly conservative given these extended timelines. 

Step 6: Reducing Your Stress

What keeps you awake at night?

Another purpose of a financial plan is to reduce stress and anxiety related to personal finances. Knowing that you have strategies to handle the unexpected can provide peace of mind and help you maintain a steady hand during economic turmoil.

Step 7: Putting Your Money to Work

Asset allocation and exposure to risk are determined with a focus on achieving financial independence within the confines of comfort with risk. This includes strategies to reduce taxes both in the present year as well as over your lifetime.  IRA distribution management is another critical implementation as well as the timing of when to start taking your Social Security retirement benefits.  

Step 8: Managing Communications 

Use your financial plan created by your St. Louis financial advisor as a starting point for conversations with your family, a CPA, an attorney, and other stakeholders involved in managing your estate. Open communication within your circle of family and advisors gives everyone involved a better understanding of your priorities and the information they need to provide the right advice.

Get to know our founder, Jim Matush, and how Trinity Wealth Advisors can help you focus on what matters most to you.

Make Your Financial Plan a Living Document

Reviewing your financial plan periodically is crucial to its remaining aligned with your goals and change of circumstances. Life events such as divorce, marriage, the birth of a child, or job changes can significantly impact your financial situation, necessitating adjustments to your plan. 

Another reason to review your plan regularly is the potential impact of major changes; you have no control over elections, economic turmoil, stock market fluctuations, persistent inflation, recessions, and funding national debt approaching $35 trillion. 

Regular reviews with a St. Louis financial planner can help you stay on track, adapt to recent developments, and make informed decisions for the future. This can safeguard your financial well-being and help you continue pursuing your long-term objectives.

Keeping it Real: Live Within Your Means

Living within your means is equally important once you have a plan, especially after retirement. Without the regular income stream from your employer or business, you must rely on your savings and other sources of retirement income like a pension plan or Social Security. 

If you start overspending early on, that can begin a downward spiral within your asset base that is hard to control. Budgets require discipline that is never fun. But the alternative is running out of money later in life or compromising your desired lifestyle, which may be even more onerous and a source of serious financial stress.

Maintaining realistic spending controls can help you preserve your nest egg, cover unexpected costs, and continue enjoying your desired lifestyle. 

The Power of Compounding

Compound interest can significantly boost your savings for retirement, education, or major purchases, making it a critical element in achieving long-term financial goals. Saving consistently in rising and falling markets as well as patience are key contributors to the power of compounding, which turns small amounts of savings into substantial wealth over longer time periods.

As Albert Einstein famously said: “The 8th Wonder of the World is Compound Interest”.

Reinvesting your investment earnings over longer time periods, whether from interest, dividends, or capital gains, enhances your returns on both your initial principal and also the accumulated gains. This snowball effect accelerates when your wealth reaches critical mass. The earlier you start the savings and investment process, the better. 

Why Consider Trinity Wealth Advisors?

At Trinity Wealth Advisors in St. Louis, our approach to financial planning is comprehensive, thoughtful, and tailored to meet your unique needs. 

We specialize in serving as your personal CFO.  What does that mean?  We take on the day-to-day oversight of your wealth so you can focus on other activities that are particularly meaningful to you.  

Wealth isn’t built based on a straight line of growth. It is instead a series of ups and downs caused by both random and expected patterns of change. Your team of St. Louis CFP® professionals looks forward to helping you navigate these economic headwinds. 
At Trinity Wealth Advisors, we design financial plans that are as flexible as they are robust, allowing for adjustments due to life or economic variability. Whether it’s a career shift, a new family addition, or an unexpected financial windfall, we help you adapt your plan to effectively meet current and future needs. Ready to learn more about our financial planning services? Connect today.