The Mid-Year Family Financial Conversation
Why May is the right time for a different kind of family meeting
Most families have one financial conversation a year. It usually happens in March or April, around tax time. It is short, transactional, and centered on numbers.
There is a different conversation worth having in May. It is not about numbers first. It is about what the numbers are for.
What This Conversation Is
Our team comes back to the same idea over and over. Money is a tool. Values drive what the tool is for. Vision describes what the life looks like when the tool is working. Goals are the action items that get you there.
A mid-year family conversation walks through those four things in order. Not in a financial planning meeting. At your kitchen table or on a walk after dinner.
"Money was a tool to make life better for me and those around me. Having more did not make me a better person, or happier. It just made life easier." Chuck Bates, Advocates Wealth Planning
Four Questions Worth Walking Through
What did this past year teach us about what we actually value?
Look at the calendar. Where did your time and attention go? What did you spend money on without thinking, and what did you hesitate to spend on? Those choices reveal your values, whether or not you have written them down.
If we keep going the way we are going, where do we end up?
This is a hard question for most families to ask honestly. It is also the most useful one. If your savings rate, spending rate, and time allocation continue at the current pace, what does life look like in five years? In fifteen?
What is the one thing that, if we changed it this year, would make the biggest difference?
Most families do not need to change ten things. They need to identify the one thing that is most out of alignment with what they want. Sometimes that is a savings rate. Sometimes it is a job. Sometimes it is a conversation that has been
What do we want our kids and grandkids to remember about how we used money?
This is the legacy question. Cole talks about it as passing on wisdom before passing on wealth. Most families have a clear sense of what they want their kids to learn, but they have rarely connected that to the way money shows up in family life.
Why May?
Tax season is over. Summer is coming, which means schedules will get harder. School-year demands have eased. The market has had four months to do whatever it is going to do, and you have enough information to make adjustments without panicking.
More than that, May is far enough from the year-end emotional rush that you can think. December conversations about money are usually about gifts and obligations. January conversations are about resolutions that fade in February. May conversations stick.
How a Review With Us Fits In
If you work with us, your review meeting is built around these conversations, not just portfolio performance. Performance comes up. Beneficiary designations come up. Insurance and estate documents come up. But the meeting starts with what your family is trying to build and ends with what we are doing to support that.
If you do not work with us yet, the same framework still applies. Whether or not you are ready for a planning relationship, the questions above are worth sitting with.
Where to Start
If you would like a sounding board on any of this, let's talk. We are happy to walk through whether a longer planning relationship makes sense for your family or whether you have most of what you need already.
Let's Talk: theadvocateswealth.com/lets-talk
FAQs
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A review is a structured check-in halfway through the year. At Advocates Wealth Planning, the conversation starts with values and vision, then moves through portfolio, tax, insurance, and estate considerations as they connect to what your family is trying to accomplish.
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No. The values and vision conversation is something every family can have on their own. An advisor adds value when the financial decisions become complex enough that coordination across tax, investment, and estate planning matters.
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With us, an hour. With your family, the conversation can be as short or long as it needs to be. Many of the most useful versions happen over a series of shorter conversations rather than one long meeting.
IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk. Therefore, there can be no assurance that the future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy (including the investments and/or investment strategies recommended and/or undertaken by Advocates Wealth Planning (“Advocates Wealth Planning”), or any non-investment related content, will be profitable, equal any corresponding indicated historical performance level(s), be suitable for your portfolio or individual situation, or prove successful. Neither Advocates Wealth Planning’s investment adviser registration status, nor any amount of prior experience or success, should be construed that a certain level of results or satisfaction will be achieved if Advocates Wealth Planning is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. Advocates Wealth Planning is neither a law firm nor a certified public accounting firm, and no portion of its services should be construed as legal or accounting advice. Moreover, no portion of this discussion or information serves as the receipt of, or a substitute for, personalized investment advice from Advocates Wealth Planning. A copy of our current written disclosure Brochure discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request or at www.theadvocateswealth.com. The scope of the services to be provided depends on the needs and requests of the client and the terms of the engagement.
Please Remember: If you are an Advocates Wealth Planning client, please contact Advocates Wealth Planning, in writing, if there are any changes in your personal/financial situation or investment objectives for the purpose of reviewing/evaluating/revising our previous recommendations and/or services, or if you would like to impose, add, or to modify any reasonable restrictions to our investment advisory services. Unless and until you notify us, in writing, to the contrary, we shall continue to provide services as we do currently.