FINANCIAL PLANNING IS the methodical process of evaluating your total assets, liabilities, and future income potential, and then using that information to determine your best options for meeting future needs and wants. Plans should be made as soon as possible for the family members or friends who provide support, as well as the person who has MS. The plans should then be revised periodically or as new circumstances dictate. The planning process may include the assessment of a myriad of financial options, including insurance, annuities, pensions, home equity, and availability of government benefits. Certified financial planners and lawyers may be valuable in sorting through the options and identifying the possible legal and tax consequences of various choices and choice combinations.
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| Financial Planning Multiple Sclerosis |
The normal process of financial planning requires a sequential series of steps, including:
- Determining your financial situation.
- Setting goals.
- Developing a plan.
- Keeping simple records.
- Making an informal budget.
- Dealing with shortfalls, credit, and debt.
- Reviewing your progress.
Safeguarding Your Family from Extraordinary Costs
IT IS IMPERATIVE in constructing a financial plan that you not only develop your assets, but also safeguard yourself and your family from the potential extraordinary costs of the unpredictable illness. When you are planning for such risk, the sensible approach is to assume that the worst will happen, and assess your position should that occur. Unfortunately, when we become ill, the messages we receive from some of our most trusted loved ones and advisers cause us to do just the opposite.
Encouraged to be optimistic and hope for the best, we often neglect necessary planning. One should never plan for the best. Such a strategy is doomed to fail in all but the most ideal and infrequent circumstances. From a strict planning perspective, planning for the worst should adequately prepare you for whatever awful surprises may come your way, and leave you pleasantly surprised about how prepared you were if something less than the worst occurs.
For example, if you are the primary breadwinner in your family and you become disabled, you may jeopardize the continuation of your family's entire health insurance package. And, while you are laid up, you somehow have to provide income replacement for the time you are not working, including finding income supplements for additional expenses attributable to any disability you may incur. You may find it difficult or impossible at that point to increase your life insurance to provide ample financial security for your loved ones.
And, even upon returning to work (assuming that you are able to do so, and that you are able to obtain adequate health insurance coverage from your employer), you may find that you are less productive than you were previously, and therefore less able to garner the same income. All of these possibilities are daunting, to say the least. If you planned for all of them, you might be able to salvage whatever lifestyle you had before your disability occurred. If you adequately planned for none or only some of them, a significant, long-term disability would markedly reduce the quality of life for yourself and your family members.
So, the question in this circumstance becomes how can someone deal with the financial risks attributable to ill health while maintaining an adequate earnings and savings strategy? The answer lies mostly in devising a strategy of protection planning for the risk of ill health. The object of protection planning is to find ways to reduce those risks, to make yourself and your loved ones as "bullet-proof" as possible, given whatever unpleasant surprises your MS or other health conditions might bring your way. To find out more, you can check out Financial Planning Multiple Sclerosis.