There are many places to get advice on financial planning.  For example,  books, articles, journalists, financial planners, financial product sales people and the list goes on.

Of course many sources results in multiple perspectives.  Probably most of these positions have contextual validity.  That is mapped to the data representative of the situation being analyzed. Howeveryou look at it though, it’s complex.

What about starting simple?

Intuitively, starting with simple basic concepts and gradualy  morphing into more complex ideas over time seems a practicle approach.

At it’s simplest, a financial plan is simply a list of actions, with responsible owners and completion dates, actually that is what any plan is. In others words who is going to do what by when?

The only difference between a financial plan and any other is the nature of the activities, that is things related to your personal finances.

Of course to develop the activities, owners and time frames you do need to know what you are trying to achieve.  Under the keeping it simply principle just start with this simple generic goal “A plan that will enable living the life you want to live”

Start here!

Create an activity list.  That is the things that need to be done to achieve the life you want to live.  These activities will be as personal as the life you want and will have dependencies on each other.

For example; spend money freely without worry  as an activity might be dependent on activities like earn enough money to be able to spend freely or save enough money to be able to spend freely.  Or reduce personal taxes so you have more money to spend freely.

(Just a caveat,  the activities must be realistically achievable, the above is a purposeful exaggeration for illustrative purposes.)

As you work through the plan completing an activity might result in new activities (and owners with completion dates).

The key princples of personal financial management should always be followed as you work through your plan:

• it’s your plan, you can delegate support and get advice but never delegate decisions
• monitor the activities and if they are not providing the expected result or the time frames are not achieved address the issue – resolve it to your satisfaction, don’t ignore it

Have fun!