Values-Based Financial Planning - Life Values and Money Habits

Your clarity, good money habits and focus enable you to consistently make financial choices based on your core life values. Take a few moments and contemplate these questions:

What is important to me?

How can I use the money I have for the things that are important to me?

If you want to make smart choices about money, define your values and identify things that are truly important to you. This will give you clarity, which makes it far easier to make good financial decisions. The values-based financial planning process challenges clients' belief systems, including the money-related beliefs and attitudes, to help them understand their priorities and identify their values. Ask yourself these important questions:

What are my life priorities? What are my life values?

When you are clear about your life priorities and values, a good financial planner will help you build a financial strategy that will spur you to follow through and realize what’s important to you. You will become inspired to do whatever it takes to have that life. Through the value based financial planning process, you invest in your values and your dreams rather than in financial products. Money is important only to the extent that it enables you to enjoy what is important to you. Not worrying about your finances is critical to having a life that excites you, helps you grow and fulfil your highest aspirations.

You create a life style based on your core values by making consistent choices - the habitual money-related behavior. Good money habits are essential to live the life you want, whether it is purchasing a new home, retiring by a certain age, sending your children to college or starting your own business. You may not always have control over how much money you earn, but you can always control how you use your money—thus whether or not you will achieve your financial goals. It is well known that we generally increase our spending habits to meet our increased earning capacity. What this means is that even with a pay rise, we generally increase our daily spending to such a degree that we are financially no better off than we were before the pay rise. The answer is to think smarter about our money. We need to think carefully about where we spend our money, why we spend our money and how we spend our money- in other words, is the way we spend our money in alignment with our core life values?

It’s my distinct pleasure to help people create meaningful life styles and live inspired lives through the values-based long-term financial planning process. Please feel free to contact me with any questions concerning your financial well-being.