All financial goals must be quantified!

With the ever competitive market, one must be aware of their industry players. Upgrading one’s skills and education is far more demanding then many years ago. To stay competitive in the market, one must be well- equipped. As a financial planner, I too want to always edge out my competitors.

As financial planning is growing it’s popularity, I have no problem looking for my competitors. Financial planners around Singapore always have road shows in shopping malls to attract clients. Well, what I did was very simple, I went to one of the road show; get a financial planner to advice me on my financial goals.

At the beginning of the meeting, the financial planner was very accommodating with all the available products. He then asked me my financial goals and quantified my goals. To my surprise, he did not quantify my goals accurately and made a lot of assumptions. He did not even have a financial consultant calculator with him.

I thought to myself that I should give him another chance and set up another appointment. On the second appointment, I gave him all my financial details and goals. Again, to my astonishment, he did not bring a finanicial consultant calculator and made assumptions. I then asked him how much it will be enough for me to retire.

Immediately he told me that my retirement is around $1million. He said that will be a save amount to consider. To prove that his assumption is wrong, I asked him to calculate for me why he said that it’s around $1 million not other value. All he can tell me was that retirement fund is difficult to calculate.

I am sure as hell that retirement fund can be calculated. There is a way to do it. Firstly, you have to know what is your annual income expected when you retire. This amount is calculated by your current annual income. Then you need to calculate how much is the total retirement fund needed, the available resources and funds, and then get the retirement fund needed. All this values are calculated in future values and can only be calculated with a financial consultant calculator.

If your current or future financial planner do not use this method to calculate your retirement account and do not have a financial consultant calculator, I think you should not listen to his advice as it is based on assumptions, not real facts.