Good to Great: How to Scale With an Outsourced CFO

When you’re trying to plan and save for the future, it can seem counterintuitive to spend some of your hard-earned money on financial advice. After all, when you look at how much more you need to save to reach your goals, you may feel that every dollar needs to be preserved.

But a good financial adviser can do wonders for your financial life. In fact, a Vanguard study found that by tapping into the services of financial advisers, investors can improve their annual investment performance by about 3%. Over the years, that can add up significantly, helping you to reach your goals and live the lifestyle you desire.

In this blog post, we’ll explore why financial advisers are worth the cost? As you read, think about your personal financial circumstances and where you want to be in the future.

What Does a Financial Adviser Do?

Wealth advisers do much more than just keep track of investments and send you reports. In fact, wealth advisers can help you to identify and shape your financial and lifestyle goals, giving your finances direction and purpose as you move forward.

Financial advisers can help you in some or all of the following areas:

• Financial planning
• Retirement and superannuation
• An all-in-one view of your finances
• Investments
• Education funding
• Family office
• Personal cash flow planning
• SMSF
• Transition to retirement
• Borrowing advice

With a firm grasp on where you are and where you want to go, you may start viewing money differently and change some of the habits that have been holding you back.

The Value of Personalised Advice

It’s true that you can find plenty of free advice about money management and investing. Blogs, books, magazines, websites, seminars, podcasts and YouTube videos about financial topics abound, and these resources can be incredibly helpful as you learn more about investing and planning for the future.

But even the most professional books and blogs can’t give you personalised financial advice for your unique situation. They don’t know about the combination of factors that make up your personal finances (your student loans, salary and side income, investment property, etc.), nor do they know about your hopes for retirement.

A financial adviser looks at your entire financial life and helps you to create a comprehensive plan. How does your debt factor into your current investing strategy? How do I understand the financial implications of my children remaining at home? How will you pay for your children’s educations? How will certain investments affect your taxes? Does a SMSF make more sense than your company’s superannuation plan? Should you focus on paying off your mortgage or salary sacrificing to enhance your nest egg? Or does it make sense to work on both at the same time?

The answers to questions like these are not readily available in books and blogs, at least not as relates to your personal financial situation. But just think about how much better off you may be when you have a wealth adviser who knows your financial life and can offer data-driven answers to your questions.

Making Confident Decisions About Your Money

It’s one thing to read about an investment strategy online and then replicate it with your portfolio, and it’s another thing entirely to move forward with a plan created by a wealth adviser who fully understands your current finances as well as your long-term goals.

Too many people approach their financial lives with a do-it-yourself attitude, and they find themselves buffeted around by changing trends, attitudes and emotions. Without a long-term plan put together with a wealth adviser, it can be difficult to sustain a continuous, cohesive plan.

To talk with a wealth adviser about your own financial life, get in touch with us at Altus Financial.