What lifestyle do you have planned?

At Altus, we are often asked the question ‘is now a good time to invest in property and shares, or should we keep our money in terms deposits or cash?’ This is not unexpected given the current uncertainty across the globe.

Our initial response to this question is often along the lines of ‘do you need to invest in assets that place your capital at risk, or is a risk free rate of return sufficient to meet your lifestyle needs?’ For many of us this isn’t a simple question to answer as we aren’t particularly clear on how much money we need to live the lifestyle we deem suitable for us personally and our family.

Whilst generally we’d all love to be wealthy, rapid wealth creation usually involves substantial risk. Is it really worth putting it all on the line when you don’t need to? How do you know how much risk you need to take if you don’t know what the future looks like?

Lifestyle planning involves mapping out what we want financially out of life. Once we understand what the map looks like we can then look at the levers we have at our disposal to make this happen.

Following the formulation of your initial strategy we can then use a financial model to track how we are all progressing towards your targets. That ensures accountability on our behalf in terms of maximising the efficiency of your strategy and on your behalf for anything you’re contributing to the process along the way (you may have committed to a level of saving each year as an example).

If you aren’t clear on your plans for the future or are keen to review your strategy we encourage you to contact us to discuss this further. At Altus we have the capability to guide you through this process and help you take control.