Unfortunately, wealth can often cost us that which we’d hoped most to realize—our peace of mind and sense of security, for today and for the future. We worry about how to reach our financial objectives and how to protect what we’ve already achieved. A higher net worth should translate into greater security and personal freedom for you and your family. TAM Financial can make that happen, and the financial plan is the first step in that process.
TAM Financial focuses on helping our clients achieve financial security through comprehensive financial planning and money management. Financial planning combines initial planning with ongoing advice. At TAM Financial, our goal is to work with you to define your objectives and then develop a plan that helps you reach those objectives. More than that, we will work with you to implement and update your plan over time, because life will change, and your financial plan should change right along with you.
Our recommendations are designed to increase a client’s resources, increase net worth, protect against catastrophic loss, reduce income and estate taxes and increase cash flow. In short, we work with you to remove the questions surrounding your finances and to give you the freedom and security that increased wealth should bring.
We start the process with a fact-finding session that focuses on understanding your current situation. This includes a complete review of your asset protection strategy (insurance), debts, investments, retirement plans, trusts, wills and other estate planning documents. Working from this information, we prepare a detailed financial plan that that documents your complete financial picture, identifies specific issues or problems that may exist, and suggests
goal-oriented recommendations.
We will thoroughly review both the plan and any recommendation we make to confirm your understanding and agreement. TAM will then actively work with you to implement the recommendations contained in the plan. We’ll also coordinate our work with any other members of your financial planning team, such as your accountant or tax attorney. TAM Financial works to ensure that all your questions and concerns about retirement, investments, education funding, estate management, etc., are addressed in your financial plan. On a quarterly or annual basis, or as changes in your life dictate, TAM can work with you to modify your plan to keep it relevant to you and your family.
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Six Stages of Financial Planning |
- Identify the client's financial objectives and goals
- Collect and analyze client data
- Develop strategy for meeting financial goals
- Present recommended comprehensive plan
- Implement the financial plan
- Monitor and evaluate the plan's recommendation
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The financial planning industry is evolving. As a profession, financial planning is still relatively new; the industry dates back only about 35 years. In the early days, financial planning was a products-driven industry, where the profession was oriented toward selling financial instruments to clients—life insurance, mutual funds and variable annuities, for example. Whether the products matched the needs of the clients sometimes seemed coincidental.
The industry began a determined move toward fee-based client representation within the past decade. Although the majority of the industry continued to operate on a commissioned product basis, there was a clear move toward a more client-oriented approach that really focused on the needs of the client, rather than the products for sale. The traditional model of commissioned-based broker compensation has become increasingly untenable. Clients have begun to realize that their financial advisors are themselves financially motivated to maximize the number of transactions and recommend specific products and services—for which they receive commissions—regardless of the best interests of the client. And while the commission-based system still thrives, you might notice that there aren’t any stock brokers anymore—now most call themselves “financial planners.” But not all financial planners are the same.
At TAM Financial, we are Fee-Only® financial planners. This means that TAM will not accept any fees, commissions or incentives from any product that we recommended or sell to a client. Many investors don’t realize just how much of the commissions and fees they pay for financial products (including mutual funds) goes to those who are recommending them. At TAM Financial, clients can be assured the advice they receive is based only on their best interests—and no one else’s.
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