MENU Lifetime financial forecasting Home / Individuals / Lifetime financial forecasting What is lifetime financial forecasting? Lifetime financial forecasting, also commonly known as cash flow planning, projects your current assets and income together with your current and future expenditure and liabilities and can be a useful tool to help you understand if you are on track or not to achieve your lifetime goals. This is a concept that many business owners are already familiar with and the same principles apply to personal financial forecasting. Lifetime financial forecasting is increasingly seen as the smartest way for individuals to make informed decisions about their financial goals. A financial forecast and analysis report helps you make more informed decisions about your personal finances. Francis Clark Financial Planning’s financial planners will work with you to help plan for your future financial security. Your financial goals may include making the most of your retirement, passing more of your assets to your loved ones or simply making your money work harder for you. Financial forecasting can help you answer the big questions such as: When can I afford to retire? How much can I afford to spend in retirement whilst still making sure I don’t run out of money? How much can I afford to gift without putting my own long-term financial security at risk? How much risk do I need to take with my investments and pensions? How much do I need to realise from a business exit to provide me with long term financial security? Why is cash flow planning important? Cashflow planning helps to identify whether you’re on track to achieve your goals. While this can seem like an intimidating prospect, the sooner you have this information the better. You can then prioritise and take action with all the financial opportunities and threats identified. If you’re forecast to have more than enough income and capital to achieve your lifetime goals and objectives, you could consider a number of options: Exploring early retirement. We offer a dedicated retirement planning service to help you understand your retirement options Gifting surplus income and/or capital. This can be an excellent pro-active estate planning strategy given that many gifts can take seven years to be effective for tax purposes Reducing the level of investment risk that you take with your personal investments and private pensions If you are forecast to not have enough income and capital to achieve your long term objectives, you could consider the following: Assessing your income and expenditure to identify ways you can reduce your spending to help build up your personal savings Deferring retirement to provide more income and extra time to build your retirement savings Reducing planned gifts Personal tax planning, including the use of ISAs and sharing savings with your spouse Downsizing your home to release equity Increase the level of investment risk that you take with your pensions and investments Helping you plan the ‘what if’ Financial forecasting typically involves a number of scenarios, including ‘what if’ worst-case scenarios. While this may not be pleasant to think about, it will help you prepare for whatever life may throw at you. The ‘what ifs’ can include: The impact of the premature death or long-term illness of the main breadwinner in your family. Personal protection, including life insurance, critical illness insurance and income protection, may help reduce any risks identified here An assumed investment market crash to forecast how this could impact your long-term plans and understand your capacity to take investment risk The need for long term care payments in later life These worst-case scenarios allow you to make long-term financial goals from an informed position, with the support of qualified experts. Stay on track with your financial goals Regularly reviewing your financial forecast will make sure you remain in the very best position to make decisions about your finances. Regular updates will reflect any changes to your personal circumstances. Whether that’s marriage, divorce, the birth of a child or grandchild, retirement, a business being sold, the sale of a property, investment values fluctuating or changes to tax rules, it can all have an impact. Once your financial forecast report has been established it’s easy for our financial planners to update this at your review. Does every single individual need a financial forecast before they’re ready to make a big financial decision? Not necessarily, but, as Benjamin Franklin famously said “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”. This approach is engaging and interactive and when combined with quality financial planning advice, it provides our clients with the best chance of achieving what they want in life. We offer a wide range of financial planning services for individuals. The right financial planning can give you freedom over your financial future and more confidence in the now. We can work with you remotely, at your home or place of work, or you can visit us in one of our eight offices across beautiful southern England. Book Consultation To book your initial consultation (no cost or obligation), please fill in the form below with your details and one of our financial planning experts will be in touch. “The three key elements for me in a financial advisor are trust, empathy and good communication skills and Ian ticks all those boxes and more... I come away from all our consultations content that they have been thorough, productive and that I am fully compliant in the direction of travel.” Giles Ashman, Exeter Related Services Alongside our expert advice on Lifetime financial forecasting, we also offer a range of other financial planning services. Please see a few of these listed below: INHERITENCE TAX INVESTMENT PLANNING LATER LIFE PLANNING LIFETIME FINANCIAL FORECASTING PENSIONS & DIVORCE PERSONAL PROTECTION PERSONAL TAX RETIREMENT PLANNING 0800 832 1785 Privacy Policy Legal Disclaimer Cookie Policy Gender Pay, Diversity and Inclusion Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy Covid-19 – Office Procedures and Practices Office Bristol Exeter Plymouth Poole Salisbury Taunton Torquay Truro About Us Meet Our Team Book Consultation View Insights Contact Us Portal Logins Our Client Portal Standard Life Wrap Parmenion Seven IM Francis Clark Financial Planning is the trading name of Francis Clark Financial Planning Ltd. Registered Office: Sigma House, Oak View Close, Edginswell Park, Torquay TQ2 7FF registered in England No. 05413603. Francis Clark Financial Planning Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) No. 433591. Tax and estate planning are not regulated by the FCA. 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