One life, live it!

Your Plan - our approach to
Financial Life Planning

Welcome to ... Your Plan

So what is life planning all about? Why is it important? And how does it link in with your finances? Well, you only get one life so it’s important to get the most out of it. There’s an exciting world out there to explore. If you somehow feel there are hidden depths you’ve yet to discover, now may well be the time to investigate further.

We’re getting to the really exciting bit, the part where you get to shape your future. In Your Plan Design, we start to help you articulate your goals as part of the planning process. To do this we need you to answer, Three Important Questions.

In the Your Plan Build phase we start to underpin your vision and life goals with the vital financial facts and figures. This is the ‘knowledge’ part of the process, which then gives you the strength and confidence to follow your dreams.

A plan can change! It is designed to be forward thinking, not retrospective, so needs to be adaptable. This is why the Your Plan Maintain phase is so important as it enables us to make sure everything is on track.

Just read some of the inspiring stories here where the Your Plan process has transformed the lives of some of our clients and made a difference.

We believe in high quality and first class service. If you have any questions throughout the Your Plan process, do please get in touch and one of our Life Planners will be happy to help.

Welcome to ... Your Plan

So what is life planning all about? Why is it important? And how does it link in with your finances? Well, you only get one life so it’s important to get the most out of it. There’s an exciting world out there to explore. If you somehow feel there are hidden depths you’ve yet to discover, now may well be the time to investigate further.

At AKFP, we are firm believers in the value of life planning. We have seen amazing examples of how setting goals has enabled people to really grasp what they want out of life.

The Your Plan process is carefully designed to help you articulate your dreams, then provide you with the financial freedom to realise them. It will help you find out what’s really important to you in life and once you’ve done that, help you set objectives and overcome any obstacles.

It also helps you organise your relationship to money so that it is actively working for you. You can then ensure your financial resources are aligned with your life’s objectives.

The questions the process covers will make you consider how confident you are that you’re living the most inspired life possible. Is life as meaningful as you’d like it to be or sometimes just a bit hum-drum?

This is your plan, unique to you. It’s your life. What do you want to get out of it?

If you’re wondering just how the whole Your Plan process works, we sum it up with one simple word – E.V.O.K.E – read on to find out more…

Efor Exploration: the getting-to-know-yourself phase of Life Planning – time for some open-ended questions.

Vfor Vision: the inspirational phase where your goals are clarified, and you find yourself fired up to accomplish your life’s purposes.

Ofor Obstacles: the phase where you take on all the challenges and obstacles to your dream, and resolve them methodically, one by one, with energy and determination.

Kfor Knowledge: where you organise and define the Financial Life Plan that, step by step, will accomplish your dreams. You may choose to do this by yourself or with one of our Financial Planners.

Efor Execution: where you take action on each of the steps outlined in your plan until they are all accomplished, and you are actually living your Life Plan.

Your Plan - Design

We’re getting to the really exciting bit, the part where you get to shape your future. In Your Plan Design, we start to help you articulate your goals as part of the planning process. To do this we need you to answer, Three Important Questions.

This helps us define the vision by which you want to live and then inspire you to accomplish your life’s purposes. Keep an open mind as you complete the questions. Remember, anything is possible! This is your chance to stay open to fresh ideas and new insights so prepare to be flexible! Do also feel free to ask us any questions as you go through Your Plan Design. We’re here to make it enlightening, meaningful and … fun!

So, let’s start Your Plan Design!

Imagine that you are walking into the office of a great mentor, someone you really respect, who is in tune with you and who possesses the financial knowledge necessary to design the plan to fulfil your life’s aims. They turn to you and ask…The Three Questions.

These are the most important and revealing of all Life Planning exercises. It is important to answer them in order, without looking ahead to the next question.

Please allow yourself the time to contemplate each question individually and write as complete an answer as you can before moving on. Please note: your answers will not auto-save and must be completed in one session.

Once you have completed all three questions you can also fill out The Goal Timetable. This is optional but can be quite enlightening in helping you determine your priorities.

Step 1 of 5

Question One
Imagine that you are financially secure and that you have all the money you need for the rest of your life. How would you live your life? Would you change anything? What would you do? Let yourself go. Don’t hold back. Will you change your life and how will you do it? Enter your answers in the box below.
Answer*

Question Two
This time you visit your doctor who tells you that you have only 5 –10 years left to live. The good news is that you won’t ever feel sick. The bad news is that you will have no notice of the moment of your death. What will you do in the years you have remaining? Will you change your life and how will you do it?
Answer*

Question Three
This time your doctor shocks you with the news that you have only one day left to live. Notice what feelings arise as you confront your very real mortality. Reflecting on your life, on all your accomplishments as well as on all the things that will remain undone, ask yourself: What did I miss? Who did I not get to be? What did I not get to do?
Answer*

Goal Timetable
This exercise places your goals in a timeline in terms of what is most important to you.
- Pick however many of the categories down the left hand side seem relevant to you; work, family, travel, etc.
- Then write your goals in as many of the timeframe boxes as you wish eg in Work - ‘I would like to change job in three years or in Family - ‘I would like to be funding my children through university in ten years.
- You do not need to fill in all the boxes - just the ones that apply most to you.
- Please don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it - just what first comes to mind. There is no need to try and make the answers fit a pattern!
Family
- Three months
- One Year
- Three years
- Five years
- Ten years
- Lifetime
Work
- Three months
- One Year
- Three years
- Five years
- Ten years
- Lifetime
Lifestyle/Health
- Three months
- One Year
- Three years
- Five years
- Ten years
- Lifetime
Travel
- Three months
- One Year
- Three years
- Five years
- Ten years
- Lifetime
Community
- Three months
- One Year
- Three years
- Five years
- Ten years
- Lifetime

Please enter your name and email then submit your answers.
Your Name*
Your Email*
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Your Plan - Build

In the Your Plan Build phase we start to underpin your vision and life goals with the vital financial facts and figures. This is the ‘knowledge’ part of the process, which then gives you the strength and confidence to follow your dreams.

You now have a reason to use money skills to enable you to live out Your Life Plan. You may feel suddenly motivated to save money, earn more, get better returns on investments or avoid costly mistakes. You may decide you want to learn new financial skills or seek out financial professionals who can help.

Budgets, cash flow, savings, investment accounts, retirement planning, tax knowledge, insurance, property, wills and estate planning – these are all the bricks and mortar.

Your Life Plan can have enormous potential once it is executed, in that it enables you to try and accomplish all you’ve ever hoped to. The execution phase isn’t just about signing documents or buying insurance policies, it’s about lifestyle changes that enable you to spend extra time with your family or maybe start a new hobby.

So what remains on Your Life Plan that is still to be accomplished? What action could you take right now?

You may be quite happy to start building Your Life Plan yourself but if you’d like to take advantage of our expertise and free up some of your valuable time, do please contact us.

Your Plan - Maintain

A plan can change! It is designed to be forward thinking, not retrospective, so needs to be adaptable. This is why the Your Plan Maintain phase is so important as it enables us to make sure everything is on track.

We encourage you to ask questions like:

Have your circumstances changed?
Are your goals the same?
Do you still want the same things out of life?

This is where we can tweak time frames to make sure nothing is getting in the way of Your Plan.

Your financial situation may have changed; you may have taken redundancy, be funding children through university, have elderly parents in care homes, have decided to retire, or received an inheritance – plans change and need to be adjusted, accordingly.

This is why we offer six monthly interim and annual planning meetings to check everything is on course and will achieve what was intended in Your Plan. It also makes sure it stands up against changing legislation and reflects any changes in your circumstances. It is your chance to ask us any questions and really quiz us on the performance of Your Plan.

Testimonials

Just read some of the inspiring stories here where the Your Plan process has transformed the lives of some of our clients and made a difference.

If you’ve found the Your Plan experience helpful, we would love it if you could tell others about it here and even recommend it!

What our clients say

Since we began working through the Financial Life Planning process with Roger...

Since we began working through the Financial Life Planning process with Roger and his team at AKFP, having been introduced to them by our accountant, we feel in control of our life and future for once. We had sort of managed our own financial affairs up to now, and had got to where we are more by good luck than anything else. Roger recently took us through his Your Plan Design process and things have changed quickly for the better. The process was easy to follow and was well structured. He initially gathered together our financial information and assessed the level of risk we were prepared to take with our money. Two things quickly became evident – firstly, our existing pensions and investments were too risky (90% equities, with a large proportion overseas – wasn’t ideal!!) and secondly, when he took us through his wealth forecast, we didn’t need to take on that level of risk to make the Financial Life Plan work. He then asked us some very interesting questions which actually made us think about what we wanted out of life; this wasn’t easy. Like most people with a young family and a business to run, we were really letting our life be lived for us without taking control of it.

We received detailed reports which were easy to read and follow at each step of the process, then at the end of the Design stage we had a plan of action to follow. Managing our money isn’t a concern now. We don’t have to read the Sunday papers for the next fund to buy, leaving us time to concentrate on what we want to do with our life.

What Roger refers to as the Your Plan Build stage has resulted in us pooling our money from different sources into one easy-to-follow investment platform, as well as putting some protection in place (an area that we had neglected as we felt we were OK, but where we now realise we would have had a problem if either of us were ill.)

We have just had our first Annual Planning Meeting and it was comforting to see that we are on track to meet the objectives that we set down last year, as well as planning for some new ones that we have.”

Contact Us

We believe in high quality and first class service. If you have any questions throughout the Your Plan process, do please get in touch and one of our Life Planners will be happy to help.

AKFP Group
Building 2
The Sidings
Antrim Road
Lisburn
BT28 3AJ

028 9260 3175
yourplan@akfp.net

Aiken Kennedy Financial Planning is the trading name of AKFP Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Financial Services Register No: 176477

AKFP Ltd, Registered Address: Building 2, The Sidings, Antrim Road, Lisburn, BT28 3AJ. Registered in Northern Ireland, No. NI29631

The information contained within this site is subject to the UK regulatory regime and is therefore targeted primarily at consumers based in the UK.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) is an agency for arbitrating on unresolved complaints between regulated firms and their clients. Full details of the FOS can be found on its website www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

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Contents

One life, live it!

Your Plan - our approach to Financial Life Planning

Welcome to ... Your Plan

Your Plan - Design

We’re getting to the really exciting bit, the part where you get to shape your future. In Your Plan Design, we start to help you articulate your goals as part of the planning process. To do this we need you to answer, Three Important Questions.

Your Plan - Build

In the Your Plan Build phase we start to underpin your vision and life goals with the vital financial facts and figures. This is the ‘knowledge’ part of the process, which then gives you the strength and confidence to follow your dreams.

Your Plan - Maintain

A plan can change! It is designed to be forward thinking, not retrospective, so needs to be adaptable. This is why the Your Plan Maintain phase is so important as it enables us to make sure everything is on track.

Testimonials

Just read some of the inspiring stories here where the Your Plan process has transformed the lives of some of our clients and made a difference.

Contact Us

We believe in high quality and first class service. If you have any questions throughout the Your Plan process, do please get in touch and one of our Life Planners will be happy to help.

Welcome to ... Your Plan

Your Plan - Design

So, let’s start Your Plan Design!

Step 1 of 5

Question One

Question Two

Question Three

Goal Timetable

Family

Work

Lifestyle/Health

Travel

Community

Please enter your name and email then submit your answers.

Your Plan - Build

Your Plan - Maintain

Testimonials

What our clients say

Since we began working through the Financial Life Planning process with Roger...

Contact Us

Your Plan - our approach to
Financial Life Planning