Myth: Your financial planner doesn’t care how you spend your money.
You may have heard your financial planner say “I don’t care how you spend your money.” You may also have heard us ask you if you could increase your savings or defer a car purchase. And we might have even asked you “what else?” when discussing your goals. These statements and questions can seem a little contradictory! The reality is whether or not we care how you spend your money falls into the “it depends” category. But we’re happy to tell you when we care and don’t care.
How this myth might be confirmed
We usually don’t care how you’re spending your money. If you are living within your means, meeting your goals, and able to save as much as needed for your financial plan, we often don’t need to know the specifics. It’s your hard-earned money after all. Spend it how you so choose.
Because we’re all so unique in our priorities and values, we work really hard as planners to respect your choices with spending. When we ask you to complete a budget or spending report, we’re wanting you to have a full picture of where your money is going so that we can ensure your financial plan reflects your lifestyle and what’s important to you. We have no intention of critiquing your choices.
How this myth might get busted
There are times when candidly discussing how money is spent can be really helpful. These are the times when we do care that bust the myth:
1) When we identify through the planning process that more savings needs to occur to meet the goals you’ve set, we may give you an assignment to consider what changes you would like to implement. Sometimes, individuals and couples prefer to work on this project on their own. Other times, they will ask our advice. And we are happy to share our perspective and facilitate your consideration based on other budgets that we’ve seen and what’s worked well for other people.
2) Sometimes we find our clients might benefit from a nudge or maybe even “permission” to spend on those things they really value.
But what does this look like in practice? We have a client who has shared over the years how much he enjoys home projects and making his home a nice place to be. This client was doing some landscape work and was waffling on the type of edging he wanted for some flowerbeds. The most economical choice would be the metal option. However, he really liked the look of a more expensive option. His planner knew this would have no real impact on this client’s plan and encouraged the client to “get the limestone.”
We can confirm the client went with the limestone edging option for his project and has no regrets. “Get the limestone” has become a memorable phrase exchanged between this client and his planner. For other clients, that phrase may translate better to “book the flight” or “make that gift.”
Final verdict? Plausible
When it comes to your spending, your financial planners actually do care when there’s something we can do to help align that spending with what’s important to you. Financial planning is far more than number crunching, so if there’s something you’re passionate about, we’d love to help you tie your spending or giving goals to that.