Warning – this blog comes with a homework assignment. ?
At TAAG, we help enhance the well-being of individuals and families through thoughtful financial planning and disciplined investment management. While that’s the mission statement we live and breath every day, an even simpler version might be this.
If it has to do with your money or your financial peace of mind, we’re here to help.
We cover a wide variety of topics and life issues with clients. Selling a business, saving for college, entering retirement or dealing with a death in the family are just a small sample of the ground we cover where money intersects with life.
As we cover these areas in meetings, we hear about specific pain points from time to time. These can be significant at times but are more often just annoyances that crop up in the financial lives of those we serve.
They vary greatly, but whatever the task may be, we might be able to help reduce or eliminate some of those financial pain points in your life. A great example was a client spending more time than they cared to ensure there was enough left from monthly distributions and Social Security to make their quarterly tax payment. This wasn’t a big headache but caused some worry every now and then. To help alleviate this concern, we set up a separate quarterly distribution to take care of the tax payments.
These kinds of concerns will come up in meetings and clients will say that they aren’t important or that we shouldn’t worry about said issue as the financial advisor. In fact, these little inconveniences can add up and this kind of assistance is, in part, precisely what we’re here to provide and often have the technology or systems in place to do so very simply.
The end of the year is a good time to be aware of these financial bothers. If you receive anything monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually, it’s often hitting your mailbox, inbox or to-do list in the first few weeks of the year. With tax data following close behind in February and March, the first quarter of the year is when these issues are most prevalent.
Now, here comes the homework part…
Wherever your mail, bills, or other financial issues gather, sit a pad and pen nearby and, as things come in over the next several months, jot down anything that causes a headache, groan or takes up more time than you’d like. As we meet next or whenever convenient for you, share this list with your advisor.
We can’t promise to take all the pain out of your financial life, but we’ll use our shared experiences and the tools at our disposal to do anything we can to help.