"What's the Distinction Between Financial Planning and Financial Advice?"

Bulldog Financial Planning offers both, so how do you decide which you'd prefer?

Financial Planning: 

This is the process of assessing your current financial situation and developing a plan to meet your future financial goals.  At BFP, we follow the standards of a fiduciary while looking at the details of your financial situation to help you ascertain whether you are on the right path. 

We evaluate alternative approaches to help you decide if there could be a better course of action while giving you the confidence and peace of mind that you are on the right path. Patrick exercises the standards of care and due diligence as a fee only independent advisor.  He also does not have an affiliate dictating what to recommend.

Here is a list of typical topics covered during the Financial Planning Process –

1)       Fundamentals – Setting Savings Rates/Goals, Cash Flow Management, Planning for Emergencies or Big Expenses, and/or Financial Education including the basics

2)       Insurance and Risk management: Analyzing the need for life, health, disability, and long-term care insurance, and ensuring appropriate coverage.

3)       Investments – Asset Allocation, Specific Investment Recommendations, Market Environment including the economy, and your Risk Tolerance.

4)       Retirement, Education, and/or Charitable Gift Planning – How to coordinate these goals into your comprehensive financial plan.

5)       Estate planning: Strategies for managing assets in the event of death or incapacitation, including wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations.

6)       Tax planning: Identifying opportunities to be more tax efficient both in the short-term and long-term including Roth Conversions and how to structure your investments.

Financial Advice:

Financial Advice ultimately strives for the same client experience, except the scope is limited.  While some topics require financial planning, others could be much more focused on a specific topic like choosing investments, managing taxes, or dealing with debt. 

At Bulldog Financial Planning, we still tailor the advice to your situation; however, you can decide to limit the conversation to what you want to deal with at the time.  For example, if you want to focus on a personalized spending, savings, and debt reduction goal, then we won't spend time working on coordinating the goals of your family, your insurance coverage or do retirement income planning which involves looking at social security benefits, future costs, legacy goals, etc.

What does this mean for you?  Financial Planning will generally take more time than Financial Advice but will cover your entire financial situation.

               Financial Planning can be done all at once or over the course of a year or two.  Either way this is done your pace.

               Financial Advice can be targeted on select topics and will be as efficient as possible given the situation.  Schedule a session and get through as many questions as possible in an hour or request specific advice on a project basis. 

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