Cultivating Financial Wellness
Article published in Northampton Living
(April 2024)
2024 can be the year that you feel better about your finances! As most of us are getting our tax returns ready, this time of year can be a great time to make or renew commitments to your overall financial well-being. Financial wellness is a measure of not just how well a person manages their money, but also how a person feels about their financial life. Improving financial wellness can be achieved through practicing better money habits, including setting goals and taking the necessary steps to realize them. The process also requires building financial literacy, an important piece of feeling more empowered in your relationship with money. Above all, it measures the ability to meet both your current financial obligations as well as achieve your goals and dreams.
But it’s not just about dollars and cents. Finances intersect with many aspects of overall quality of life, and improving both the state of your finances as well as your understanding of them can have a dramatic positive impact on overall wellness. In fact, taking control of your finances by setting and balancing priorities and increasing your understanding of your finances can help decrease stress and improve comprehensive health, dramatically improving –- and potentially extending – your life.
In the journey toward financial health and confidence, it can be important to have a partner such as a qualified financial planner to help navigate the interconnected and interdependent complexities of finances, become educated about opportunities, options and risks, and to create a roadmap for the life you want to live. Financial health is created one step a time, and a financial planner can help clarify both the destination and the paths to get there.
Well-being is not just about the accumulation of wealth but involves striking a balance between security and freedom, spending now versus saving for later, in order to create the life and experiences you want for you and your family. And there’s no “right” way to get there (wherever “there” is), but there is a right way for you. It just takes understanding the likely outcomes of decisions before you make them, so you have confidence in the decisions you are making.
What if you could have a crystal ball that would show you where you’d be financially in 20, 30 or 50 years from now? One that would help you understand the implications of the decisions you’ve already made about your money and guide you to decisions that would better position you in the future, improve outcomes, and give you the confidence you need to sleep well at night knowing you’re making the “right” decisions? Well, that’s the goal of comprehensive financial planning.
Consider engaging the help of a comprehensive, holistic financial planner, one who will work with you to create financial goals, review and optimize your investment portfolio, and help ensure that you are adequately protected from manageable risks. Even more important, a planner will help you learn about and understand your financial life to create a feeling of calm and ease in the midst of unpredictability and inevitable change.
So, are you ready to feel better about your financial life? If so, we’ll help you get there, wherever “there” may be for you.