Financial Planning

Setting financial goals and how to achieve them

Everybody has a slightly different idea as to how they envision their financial future. It may include moving house, starting a business, buying a vacation home, or preparing for a comfortable early retirement.

Whatever your plans include, there are always expenses that need to be financed. At Altermann Fuller Ltd, our financial planning helps you establish where you are now and what needs to happen to get to where you want to be. By working together, we can create a customized plan to ensure you are on the right path to reaching your goal.

Specialized Financial Planning

By first reviewing your current situation, we can determine your assets, liabilities, upcoming expenses, help you with cash flow, and identify where your priorities lie.

Once we have the basics in place, we can begin to build the road map that will ensure your future financial security. By liaising with your accountants, attorneys, and other advisors, we ensure the process is integrated, and there is not advice being given by one party that conflicts with advice from another.

Revisiting your current investment strategy

At some point, you likely prepared an investment strategy or financial plan for your future. Perhaps it was when you first started working, after you married, or following the birth of a child. However, time passes quickly, market conditions, and the economic environment change. What you thought was a good strategy when you planned it might no longer work as well as it once did. Circumstances, needs, and your tolerance for risk change over time, and your financial strategy should be adjusted accordingly.

Those who proactively revisit and review their financial health can make appropriate refinements in good time, rather than waiting for problems to arise.

Leveraging Gains

Many of us have the opportunity or are fortunate enough to be successful, and many more people are well on their way to achieving that success. With many more people investing in the stock markets and real estate every year, there is a growing number of people who find themselves reaping substantial profits from their investments.

Receiving a sizable investment gain can bring its own challenges and raise the question of what to do next. Benefiting from gains without having a clear direction or a solid plan for the next step can leave you missing out on the chance to use those gains to increase your wealth further.

Windfalls

You wake up expecting today to be a day like any other day – but it is not. Maybe the scratch card you picked up from the gas station on your way to work finally paid off, or perhaps a relative has remembered you in their will.

However your windfall arrives, while unexpected money is always welcome, take some time to let it sink in. Many lives have been ruined, relationships wrecked, and families torn apart after a sudden increase in wealth. Everyone has read in the news about 'that person' who won millions a few years ago but is now on government handouts, or the 30-year marriage that fell apart following a big win.

While everyone thinks they would be able to handle such an event, few are truly prepared for the implications and responsibilities that managing a substantial amount of money brings.

There is even a syndrome associated with windfalls – called Sudden Wealth Syndrome (SWS). Sudden wealth can cause people to make decisions they might not have otherwise made, and symptoms include feeling isolated from former friends, feeling guilty about having received the money, and extreme fear of losing it all.

If the money comes from someone you were close to, there may also be feelings of guilt and responsibility. You may want to honor the person who left you the money but are unsure how to do it. Altermann Fuller Ltd can help you be a judicious custodian of your family's wealth and honor the legacy you have been given.

The financial plan we create will provide you with clarity of direction, alleviate the burden of responsibility, and ensure your newfound wealth is not short-lived.

Asset disposals

Every day, millions of shares are bought and sold worldwide. But what triggers the decision to sell? Disposing of assets is not a decision to made emotionally. It takes clear thought, research, planning, and good timing. What are you going to do with the proceeds? Are there tax implications if you sell now? Sometimes a decision is forced on you if money is needed to buy a house or a business acquisition, but if the decision to sell is not motivated by necessity, careful thought can reduce tax and increased proceeds to drive your wealth in the right direction.

With the help of Altermann Fuller Ltd's professional and skilled advisors, you can be sure that you are making the right decisions.

Losses

Ups and downs in the stock market, property market, and the value of any other commodity is nothing new. Sometimes you see it coming, and sometimes you don't. How you manage and react to these circumstances is what separates the long-term winners from the losers.

During downturns, people see the value of their investments and homes fall, but sometimes losses are not only tied to how the overall market is performing but are the result of poor or ill-informed choices. Selling investments in a market downturn can result in investors being left behind and unable to take advantage of subsequent market recoveries. There is still action that investors can take to rebound after a loss in value. Careful research, thorough planning, and sound investing will be invaluable in recouping losses.

Buying a home

Regardless of where you live, the single most expensive financial outlay for most people will be buying a home. How much can you afford, and what impact will the monthly mortgage payments have on the rest of your life and your plans for the future?

Altermann Fuller Ltd can help you answer these questions and guide you in making smart decisions.