acsis' lifestyle financial planning process is an improved approach to financial planning that helps you achieve your long-term goals reliably. Lifestyle financial planning starts and ends with you and your desired lifestyle:
- Firstly, together with your financial planner, you determine your lifestyle goals.
- Secondly, you determine what return you need from your savings to fund your desired lifestyle. (Your rate of return is dependent on how grand or modest your preferred lifestyle is).
- The return you need will determine how and where we need to invest your money.
- How and where you need to invest your money will expose you to a variety of risks.
You must be comfortable with the risks you will need to be exposed to in order to achieve your lifestyle. If you are not comfortable with the risks, your financial planner will help you find an acceptable trade-off between your desired lifestyle and an investment strategy that allows you to sleep at night. This trade-off analysis is a continuous process that requires a close, ongoing working relationship between you and your planner.
how is lifestyle financial planning different to traditional financial planning?
The traditional approach to financial planning begins with assessing risk. This determines the mix of assets you need, which in turn determines the potential return you can achieve. Finally, the return dictates your lifestyle.
In this way, a risk profile (and not your goals) determines your lifestyle. This approach is fundamentally flawed - it gives you what you think you want from time to time and not necessarily what you need. acsis' lifestyle financial planning links your investment strategy to your particular lifestyle goals, not a risk profile. After all, why should two investors with the same assets and risk profiles but totally different objectives be given the same investment strategy?
 
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