I want to introduce you to someone. This is Journey, the 12-week-old Aussie-Doodle that my wife and I have had for about a month now. She’s a very active and very fun-loving dog. 

Now, you might be wondering, “What does having a puppy have to do with financial planning?” Well, this isn’t just financial planning, but it’s life-centered financial planning. 

Like it sounds, life-centered financial planning is centered on life. In other words, we look at life before we look at money. Last summer, Julie and I started looking at our own life plan and, among other things, one of the things we decided to do was get a dog. Since we had a life goal of getting a dog, we created a financial goal for it, too. Creating goals and plans for your life first ensures that your financial plan is rooted in making the most of the time you’re given.

Life planning is something that everybody should do, but most people don’t. You might think, “Well, I’ll get around to it someday,” but, when is that someday going to happen? Part of life planning is really realizing that life is not a rehearsal and precious time is slipping away. And I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older that time seems to go by even faster. So, therefore, the real question is, “What do you want to do with the time you have left?”

As life-centered financial planners, we aim to understand what you want to do with the rest of your life first, and then we look at your financial plan. We’ll help you determine if you have enough money to live your life without fear of running out. We also help you avoid getting to the end of your life with too much money left over, because that often happens at the expense of enjoying experiences with the people you love while you could.

For my wife and I, one of those experiences was getting a dog. We knew that the expenses of having a dog add up, but we made room in our financial plan because we also knew that getting a puppy would help us achieve the greatest return on our lives. 

This might be a different way to look at financial planning than you’re used to, so if it is, give me a call at 316-535-0750 or click below to schedule your free initial meeting.