A one-page financial plan
In the UK this quote is often attributed to Winston Churchill. In the United States it is usually either Woodrow Wilson or Mark Twain:
“If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.”
Churchill and Twain, along with figures like Albert Einstein and Oscar Wilde are part of a pantheon of modern-day figures who have accumulated a certain aphoristic authority. We put words we like into their mouths because they imbue the point with a deeper authority. If Einstein said it, it must be true! Given that, such aphorisms deserve some scrutiny.
The point at hand here, that brevity can be hard work, suggests it takes care and skill to say exactly the right things when the window of communication is short. If there is one abiding anxiety about our current age it is that our windows of attention have shortened precipitously. Radio; TV; video games; social media; short form video content – all have seemed to threaten our ability to deal with life in all its richness and complexity. In a world of Tik-Tok algorithms it is perhaps an even more relevant point than when Churchill (never?) said it.
Every one of the new media listed above triggered a moral panic about its impact on society and youth. But each time we have adapted. Whether we are truly experiencing a more difficult information environment than our forebears is probably unknowable. We have always had to weigh opinions and select where our attention lies to some extent. But in a busy world finding good curators can be invaluable. That might mean finding the right journalist, influencer or YouTube creator. Or it might mean a professional expert like us.
Our role as financial planners is partly to support our clients’ decision-making. We lend our technical expertise, our industry knowledge and our accumulated judgement (gleaned from seeing the range of issues people face with their finances).
It can be hard work to keep the output of all this brief. But it is our firm belief that we should be doing that hard work, and that a particularly effective tool for achieving it is a one-page financial plan.
This is an idea that has been popularised by Carl Richards, a US author and financial planner, who published a book in 2015 called, in true Ronseal style, ‘The One-Page Financial Plan’.
This is how we work at Minos Wealth. The purpose of our document is to provide a clear snapshot that allows you to easily appreciate the big picture of your finances. It should be a living plan that changes over time, in service to your goals (which should be on there!).
Inevitably, you will still get a host of paperwork, documents and jargon from the investment and product providers and other organisations you need to interact with to run your financial life. But we know that by putting in the hours to give you the important bits on a page you can read in two minutes, we leave you in a better position.
If you feel this would help you or someone you know, please get in touch.