It doesn’t matter what life stage someone is at, a financial adviser can help them identify and meet their financial goals. CLICK HERE for an interactive view on the various life events and how Adviser fp can help you and your family to navigate these important stages.

Life Stage: Creating wealth (Young Accumulators)

Retirement may seem a long way off, but the benefits of building up wealth at this stage cannot be underestimated. Younger singles or couples might have shorter term financial goals such as:

• Saving for a home or overseas holiday;
• Paying off education debt or credit cards; and
• Establishing an investment portfolio or starting a new business venture.

Sound financial planning means they can work towards their goals without it having a major impact on their lifestyle.

Life Stage: Protecting wealth (Families)

As they begin their own family, your adult children will want to protect their wealth as well as build it up further. This can help ensure they are able to:

• Look after their family;
• Maintain their home and lifestyle; and
• Plan ahead for retirement.

A financial adviser can help with the right strategies and financial products to minimise the risk their assets are exposed to, while still building up their nest egg.

Stage: Managing wealth (Pre-retirees)

As your children grow older, they will want to maximise the money available to them in retirement and plan their estate:

• Take advantage of super strategies;
• Ensure the right estate documents are in place; and
• Make their family aware of their plans.

For business owners, planning the succession of their business so they derive maximum value from their hard work is also important.

Case Study: Take Sally and Mark for instance

Sally and Mark retired a few years ago and as they sought and implemented financial advice a number of years earlier, they had accumulated sufficient wealth to ensure a comfortable lifestyle in retirement.

Their adult son, David aged 39 is married with two children who were both living at home. The cost of buying a home in Sydney and ongoing private schooling meant David still had a substantial outstanding mortgage.

Although David had adequate life cover he did not have total permanent disability, trauma or income protection. Sadly last year David experienced a bad car accident resulting in him being unable to work again for some years, if at all. The family had to make do on David’s wife’s $45,000 pa salary, which was not sufficient to cover the family’s regular expenses.

Naturally Sally and Mark did not want their son to lose his family home and so offered to cover most of his mortgage payments. This put a severe dent in their monthly pension payments and they have had to make substantial capital withdrawals to help regulate their cash flow.

With the right financial advice, David might have had adequate insurance to pay off the mortgage while Sally and Mark would be able to enjoy a comfortable and less stressful retirement.

Ensure your hard work and foresight is protected. Should something happen to one of your grown up children, the last thing your family needs on top of the emotional distress is financial difficulty. This additional stress can be avoided by helping your family plan ahead.