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Chapter 10Pulling It All Together: Your Financial Plan

For most Canadians, the idea of a financial planner is synonymous with having an investment portfolio. When considering using a financial planner to create a financial plan, questions are usually limited to: What's the rate of return you can provide, and what are your fees?

Now while it's true that generally speaking, the higher the rate of return, the better, and the lower the fee, the better, your conversations about your finances shouldn't start and end with your investment portfolio. Instead, your investment portfolio should really be viewed as a means to an end—as a way to help you implement your overall financial plan.

What You'll Get Out of This Chapter

This chapter brings all the chapters that precede it into focus, just like your personalized financial plan should bring all of the elements of your personal situation—your resources, goals, plans, and strategies—into focus.

In this chapter, we review the specific questions that you should have in mind when approaching your own financial planning needs and your personalized financial plan. We also show you a sample financial plan prepared for a representative client, including the strategies we recommend to optimize their financial position over time.

By the end of this chapter, you should have a good idea of what a financial plan is and why you'd want one—as well as the limitations of a written financial plan (a plan is only as good as its implementation and ...