Tips from our financial planners for an amazing 2021

A new year is a good time to review your short and long-term goals and get your finances in shape. Here, our financial planners share advice to help you think about how to make 2021 a great year for you and your family.

Dominic Baldwin – Create an inspired vision of the life you want to lead

Life is short!

A good, well considered plan is the key to financial freedom and security. But before you plan, you need to allow yourself to dream. As we get older, we dream less. We become ingrained in patterns of thinking, growing cynical or imposing self-limiting beliefs. My advice for 2021 is to take a step back, get some objective input from your Xentum financial planner and let us help you set a path towards living life to the full, now and in the future.

Adam Carolan – Refresh your bucket list or start one!

Experiences are key to lasting happiness.

Research shows that the anticipation of a new experience, and looking back on the memories you create, will give you more lasting happiness than a material object. So map out the material objects you want which will have the most meaning for you and then spend the rest of your time adding to your bucket list of things you want to experience in 2021 and beyond.

Don’t be limited by practical details – think about places you want to go, things you want to experience, self-development and personal challenges. Get the family involved, if you can, and then start taking practical steps. It’s amazing how energising this experience can be!

Ed Stubbs – Living life by design starts with setting goals

If we choose to simply wander through life, without a goal or a plan, that’s certainly our choice.

However, choosing instead to set goals can help us live the life we truly want to live. ‘If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.’ John Rohn

Ed’s goal-setting tips:

• Commit to a plan to review your goals periodically, perhaps quarterly or every 6 months, with your Xentum financial planner. We can help hold you accountable. Setting goals is a process that changes over time and having someone to hold you accountable increases the likelihood of staying on track.
• Automate your finances as much as possible between those reviews. The more we automate, the fewer decisions need our mental energy on a regular basis.
• Think big, where possible. People adjust their effort level and creativity to the difficulty of the goal. A very relevant quote from Michelangelo says: ‘The greater danger for most of us isn’t that our aim is too high and miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.’

Jonny Lord – Take action

I was talking to a client recently who reminded me of something I said to them when we first met – that the best time to invest was 20 years ago, the second best was 10 years ago and the third best is today.

The moral of the story is, if you want your money to be working hard for you, you have to screen out short term news feed and connect with the fact that it is the time you spend invested not when you invest that has by far the biggest impact on the growth of your wealth. Your New Year’s resolution should be to take action, there is never a perfect time to start.

Laura Clark -Define what you want and define it early!

Whether you want a house, early retirement or a once in a lifetime trip, work out what you want and how much it would cost to achieve it.

You may have several goals at once as these may span over the shorter to longer term but set out a clear time horizon to achieve each of these objectives. Make this realistic and affordable, you do not want to stop enjoying yourself, you simply need to make them measurable.

The sooner you start thinking about your capital like this, the more meaningful your spending and saving becomes which will in turn, gives you greater control.

Lastly, once you have defined what you want, how much it will cost you and your time span to achieve this, do not be side-tracked by other people’s goals or lifestyles. Everyone has a different version of what good looks like and different circumstances, your goals are bespoke to you and these may change or evolve over time but do not allow them to become derailed.

Ommarabab Shah – Prepare for the unexpected

If we have learned anything from 2020, it is that there is one thing in life that’s certain, it’s that plans can and will change.

Unexpected expenditure and life events may be inevitable, but they don’t have to alter your financial goals. The most important aspect of financial plans is that they have to be adaptable, so with a little planning you can be better prepared for life’s ups and down.