While it is always important to stay on top of your financial matters, the beginning of the year proves to be the most natural time for people to asses and evaluate changes they would like to make to their financial situation. What resolutions are you determined to make around taking fiscal responsibility in 2019? Take advantage of this reflective and productive time of year and put your financial house in order. Here are some easy steps to get you started.
When looking at your year-end statements, inventory your financial assets by taking stock of the location and value of these six categories of asset classes:
- Real Estate (value and mortgage details of primary residence and investment properties)
- Personal Property (cars, valuables such as jewelry, collectibles, etc.)
- Savings and Investments (checking/savings, mutual funds & brokerage accounts, college savings plans)
- Qualified Plans and IRA’s (401k, 403b, retirement savings accounts)
- Insurance (life, disability, long term care)
- Business Assets
Financial institutions provide statements on an annual basis at minimum. As you receive your paper statements (or e-notifications) this month, take a few moments to gather the documents and itemize each value. Taking inventory serves several important purposes:
- It allows you to organize your accounts and understand exactly what you own, where they are managed and their current value.
- It encourages you to compare accounts to prior year values.
- It helps you verify transactions (deposits, withdrawals, transfers) to ensure accuracy and take correction action if necessary.
- It inspires you to take note of your asset allocations. This is the perfect time to review your exposure to various asset classes, as one or several may now be outside your tolerance for risk.
- It helps create a net worth statement (the value of assets minus liabilities) to track the changes in values from year to year
As a holistic financial advisory firm, The Westerman Group, LLC, helps our clients establish and plan for their long-term financial goals and objectives. We ensure that they stay on track to meet these goals — making any necessary adjustments along the way based on life events that occur.
We have systems and regular audits in place to keep our clients’ information organized, and work together with each client to help them design a system that works for them. This personalized approach is a significant benefit that our clients highly value.
As we begin the new year and schedule annual reviews with our clients, it is important that every aspect of their financial plan be updated with their inventoried values. We encourage prospective clients to do the same. If you would like to learn more about our process, or have questions about how to best organize and inventory your financial assets call us at 330.467.3111 x14 or email us. We look forward to helping you get a fresh fiscal start to 2019.
