Many of us spend years, if not decades, accumulating wealth for ourselves and our loved ones. This process often takes constant time, energy, and commitment, sometimes even requiring struggles, plans, and sacrifices to achieve financial security.
Whether you built your own business, grew a family-owned company, or climbed the corporate ladder, the road to success can take a great deal of effort and dedication. In fact, it’s easy to focus so exclusively on growing your wealth that you forget to step back and think about how you want to put it to use, whether that means spending or continuing to develop it.
Short-term thinking when it comes to wealth management can have a cost. Without a thoughtful, holistic financial strategy, you might labor unnecessarily to build a financial future for you and your family.
Strategizing for the future can be uncomfortable and time consuming. Financial planning forces you to think about your deepest values, your hopes for yourself and your loved ones, and the mark you’d like to leave on the world after you’re gone. While difficult, the process is important and can be well worth the time you’ll spend.
A holistic strategy can help you maximize and protect your wealth for yourself and for future generations.
Consider what you want from your wealth, not just today or tomorrow, but over the long term. A well-structured financial strategy can help you meet and achieve your big picture financial goals.
For instance, you might want to leave your children a substantial inheritance. You may dream about buying a vacation home at the beach or at your favorite ski resort. You might just have the itch to travel after you retire. By not building a financial strategy around these goals, you risk missing them entirely.
A financial strategy is about much more than money. It’s about helping you make your most deeply felt, personal goals a reality. Planning can enable you to provide resources and experiences for your loved ones. Without a plan, you can also become exposed to a number of unnecessary risks. Here are five of the most critical ones.
It’s entirely possible to grow your wealth over time by working hard and taking advantage of investments and financial tools, mixed in with a little luck. But do you want to leave protecting and growing your wealth to chance?
A thoughtful financial strategy can help you preserve and expand the wealth you’ve built throughout your own life and into the lives of your family and loved ones.
Your strategic plan can include targeted financial products designed to reduce risk by limiting your exposure to market movements. It can incorporate tax management strategies that allow you to keep more of your wealth and pass a larger portion of it on to your heirs. Without a holistic financial strategy in place, you could miss opportunities to preserve and grow the wealth you have amassed.
The more wealth you build and the more sources of wealth you have, the more complicated your tax picture will become. Yet this complexity often creates opportunities to manage and reduce your tax liability. A financial professional can help you reduce taxes both during your lifetime and after by implementing tax-deferred investment structures, tax-managed investment strategies, and sophisticated estate and tax-planning vehicles such as trusts.
A key part of any financial strategy is exploring opportunities to optimize your wealth from a tax perspective. Without a sound plan in place, you risk giving up more of your wealth to Uncle Sam and keeping less for yourself.
If you’ve invested some or all of your wealth in stocks and bonds, you’ve likely benefited from market appreciation, but are you protected from market risk? Stock prices fluctuate, and bonds can lose value when rates head up. To manage your wealth, you will want to be certain not to take excessive market risk.
When you create a holistic financial strategy, your financial professional will fine tune the overall risk/return profile of your investments so they remain in line with your needs, time horizon, and attitudes about market volatility. They will create a financial strategy including a mix of financial products and investments designed to minimize your risk exposure.
Your wealth is not just for you, but for your loved ones and their families as well, but if you don’t have a plan, they may get less than you’d prefer. A sound financial strategy can not only grow and preserve your wealth today but also create a legacy lasting beyond your own lifetime.
Planning your legacy is a complex and emotionally challenging process. You’ll need to think about what you want to leave to the people who are important to you and how to structure those gifts to best meet everyone’s needs.
Your financial professional can help you develop a comprehensive strategy including tools like life insurance, lifetime giving, and trust strategies to ensure a streamlined estate transfer that minimizes the tax burden for your loved ones.
Without a plan in place, you lose control over how your legacy will be passed on and could increase the costs and stress for your heirs.
Your impact on the world can go beyond your family to benefit charities you value, but you’ll have to plan ahead.
Charitable giving and philanthropy can be personally rewarding. Many people feel good about giving and seeing their contributions at work helping others. When you involve family members, charitable giving can also help you share values and reinforce a sense of common purpose. A comprehensive charitable strategy can also reduce tax liability for you and your heirs.
These strategies are complex and are often more effective if you start early. By planning now and having the right team of financial professionals to give advice, you can make sure you don’t miss out on the personal and financial benefits of charitable giving.
Your financial strategy can and should touch every part of your overall financial picture. It will integrate every part of your wealth plan, from growing and protecting your assets today to building a legacy for the future. But most importantly, a sound financial strategy can give you peace of mind knowing you put the pieces in place to make the absolute best use possible of the wealth you’ve built throughout your life.
Contact your financial professional to talk about how you can build your financial strategy.
This article is provided for general informational purposes only. Neither New York Life Insurance Company, nor its agents, provides tax, legal, or accounting advice. Please consult your own tax, legal, or accounting professional before making any decisions.
SMRU #5870438 exp. 8/23/2025