What You Need to Know to Plan for Investment Growth
Submitted by Alexander Consulting Group, LLC on May 17th, 2021Whether you’re planning to go back to school, to buy a home or have a child, or planning for retirement, you’ll want to build a holistic and dynamic financial plan. That means saving for your goals, but also planning for investment growth in order to reach your goals.
Financial Planning
Financial planning involves taking clear and careful steps to make sure you can reach your goals – the short-term ones as well as the long-term goal of taking care of yourself in retirement. These steps include evaluating your income and finances (current and future projections), your investment needs and risk-tolerance, and the timeline for your goals (when do you hope to reach each milestone and when can you expect to actually afford them).
During your working years, your money needs to grow to meet your income needs. So successful growth depends on solid investment strategies. And that growth shouldn’t stop the day you retire – today’s life expectancy means your money may need to cover another 20-35 years post-retirement.
How to Start Planning Your Investment Growth
Financial planners are by nature a cautious group of people. We know that making good decisions requires finding out everything you can about the stuff you don’t know. To get started investing, here are some questions to ask an expert such as your company’s retirement plan advisor.
What You Need to Know to Successfully Plan for Growth
What’s the best way for a beginner to set up an investment portfolio in a retirement account?
What does “asset allocation” mean?
How does asset allocation impact how my money grows?
Should I have a different asset allocation when I’m, say, 40 years old than when I’m 60?
Should my balance of investments change the closer I get to retirement? What about after I retire?
What’s more important to successful portfolio growth – the types of stocks and funds I pick, or the balance of investments?
If I have multiple retirement accounts: should I invest as though each account is a different portfolio, or consider all of them one portfolio?
How do I monitor different investment accounts? What sort of actions should I take when the stock market goes up or down?
How do I decide on a withdrawal strategy when I retire? Which investments do I sell first?
How do I minimize the taxes I’ll pay on investment income after retirement?
If you’d like to consult with an individual financial planner, please contact me. Alexander Consulting’s philosophy is to encourage people to plan for lifelong security: financial, health, and social. We take a highly individualized and zealously researched approach to financial planning so that our clients are fully prepared for all of life’s challenges.
Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor. Member FINRA/SIPC