Financial Planning

By Katie Gardner, Trust Administrator

I am delighted to introduce myself and thrilled to have joined Trust Company of Vermont this past July. I come to the company with experience in financial planning, both in the UK and the US, and I hope to meet many of you.

Financial Planning in a Nutshell

Sure, we all know what financial planning is … or do we?

It may shock you to learn that on average, only 30% of Americans have a long-term financial plan, leaving the remaining 70% of Americans floundering, admitting that their financial plan needs work.

Financial planning isn’t necessarily about how much money you have. Rather, it is the process that puts your money on a path that aligns your priorities and goals while creating a blueprint for your future.

The process of financial planning involves collecting data and creating goals, analyzing and evaluating your current financial situation, collaborating to create a plan, implementing recommendations, and monitoring results.

Why is Financial Planning Important?

Having a well-laid plan to follow helps to keep you aligned with your priorities and goals. It will identify your stressors, highlight risks now or down the road, and help create the solutions that give you peace of mind in an unpredictable world.

It can also help with estate planning, saving taxes, and creating strategies that work together to protect the legacies you have built.

Yes, but how can TCV help me with Financial Planning?

Financial planning is personal and at TCV, we take a personal approach. Our employee-owners have access to comprehensive and sophisticated software that helps to create the plan. We work with you to input the data, listen to your goals, and provide recommendations.

What is important to you?

Retirement planning? Estate planning? Managing a budget? Providing a legacy? Minimizing taxes? Charitable contributions?

After listening to what is important to you, we run different scenarios to show you how to meet your goals.

Some examples include calculating cash flow needs, income tax projections, estate planning calculations, liquidation strategies, educational planning, and complex retirement planning that includes insight into your earliest practical retirement age and maximum yearly spending.

For more complex situations, we can show how funding different types of trusts during your lifetime or completing ROTH conversions can help save taxes down the road and ultimately provide a greater legacy to future generations.

Within any of the reports we create for you, we can incorporate ‘what if’ scenarios such as if you need long-term care, have unexpected expenses, or want to plan for a large gift. We can quite literally help you and your family plan for the unexpected.

As we continue to build your plan, we will stress test it against 1,000 other trials giving us the probability of success in meeting your needs. Having this information will guide us on how to make personal adjustments to your plan to maximize success. We will also continue to review the plan to ensure you are on track.

Please reach out if you would like to learn more about how we incorporate financial planning into our services. We will be happy to walk with you on a path toward creating your financial plan.

As Abraham Lincoln wrote, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”