This post is drawn from drip.vet's Personal Financial Success course for veterinary students, early-career veterinarians, or anyone looking to improve their financial plan.
Today, we discuss YOUR financial plan, and how we get one! Who can we find to help create your Personal Financial Plan? Well, your Personal Financial Plan is, you guessed it, Personal!
The best person to work on your financial plan is YOU! This holds whether you are a veterinary student, a veterinary technician, or a veterinarian.
I get it, you are unsure, and you’ve never created a financial plan before.
Your financial plan is not something you can completely outsource. Even if you hire a Financial Planner, they still need something to start with. You still have to explain your financial goals, compile your finances and understand your financial past.
A financial planner can help with the details, but you are still responsible for taking the actual steps! The hard work is still yours!
Here’s a secret -- it's not the details that are important. It’s the trajectory that your financial plan puts you on. That means the earlier the better. This is not something you want to wait on!
Here’s another big secret -- it’s not the plan (noun), it’s the act of planning (verb) that’s the key. The process of thinking, goal setting, and planning for the future that makes the difference in your trajectory. Don’t worry as much about the final product as the process that you have to take to get there. Furthermore, don’t worry as much about making mistakes and things you don’t know. That will change for the better with time.
How do you find the best financial advice?
Where do you find a professional to help you work on your financial plan?
Be careful here! Financial advice comes from a variety of sources.
You may receive financial advice from:
The difficult part is determining whether they are giving you good advice! More importantly, do they have a conflict of interest. Do they benefit from you buying something?
The key word here is Fiduciary. Some advisors are Fiduciaries and some are not. Having a fiduciary duty means that the advisory has to put your interests ahead of theirs.
This means that a fiduciary can’t sell you something you don’t need (and that they get a commission from). From the list above, insurance agents, bankers and some investment advisors are NOT fiduciaries. Some financial planners are not fiduciaries. If you don’t know, ASK!
To summarize - the Financial Plan is yours! And it’s your task to do. Start early and concentrate on the process, the act of planning.
The topics covered in this post are taught in a Personal Financial Success course tailored for your particular career stage. Click the image below for more information: