The Money Alchemist EP 36 - Are Financial Plans a Waste of Time?
Planning isn't predicting
Some things in life are more exciting than others. Most of us woke up on the 4th of July with a lighter step and enthusiastic anticipation for the day. Fireworks, need we say more? No one in their right mind sets a meeting with their financial planner to map out a savings strategy on such a day.
Just because something isn’t intuitively engaging doesn’t make it a waste of time. Many things are like this: dental hygiene, exercise, study, failure, and constructive criticism to name a few. Financial planning falls in the unfortunate category of Important but boring.
The necessity of financial planning is so distressing that there are over 300,000 financial advisors employed in the United States alone to advocate for it. Big money industry is a big money industry.
If financial planning were a waste of time, there would be no market to outsource the process to a professional. Similarly, there’s no market for third-party food chewing services. Teeth come naturally while capital markets, central banking, and macroeconomics do not.
Each of us is only given 24 hours in a day, 16 of which are waking and 12 are productive. Dedicate 8 of these 12 productive hours to work and this leaves about 4 hours per day to employ yourself as required.
We don’t need to review the laundry list of life-chores, including laundry, to conclude that we Americans suffer from chronic time crunch. Financial planning just seems like one of those things that can wait, perhaps indefinitely.
Some even go so far as to excuse it as a complete waste of time. It can be if a broken process is used. Mowing grass with an inoperable mower would certainly be a tragic waste of time.
Because the effort of planning is no small time-investment, consuming valuable personal motivation stores, it’s important to adopt an effective process. Ben and Brent thought this would be a good topic to touch on.
In news that may come as shocking to the listener: the Financial Planners do not think financial planning, done correctly, is a waste of time. The key is in process and execution, the focus of the episode’s discussion.
About your Hosts
Ben Jones, CFP®
Managing Director, National Wealth Management Group
Follow him on X @thekaratstick
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-nwmg/
Brent Gargano, CFP®
Founder & Advisor, Infinite Wealth Planning 
www.infinitewealthplanning.com
linkedin.com/in/brent-gargano-cfp®-2067b573
Investment advice offered through National Wealth Management Group, LLC.
The information presented is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a recommendation or specific advice.