Whether you’re looking to travel, support family, upgrade your home, or simply feel more secure—financial planning can turn dreams into achievable steps.
Start with Clarity: Define Your Lifestyle Goals
Financial planning begins with knowing what you want. Whether it’s a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, a new home, or a milestone moment, defining your goals gives you a roadmap to follow. Ask yourself:
- What exactly do I want to achieve?
- When do I want to achieve it?
- How much will it cost, and are there ongoing expenses?
Clear goals help you balance your retirement savings with today’s lifestyle aspirations and future security.
Create a Realistic Budget
A detailed budget is the key to turning your aspirations into an achievable plan. Break down how much you need to save each month to reach your goals without sacrificing daily living or future stability.
For example, if you're planning a luxury vacation, calculate the full cost, including flights, hotels, meals, and experiences and spread your savings over the months ahead. For major goals like buying a home, be sure to budget for ongoing expenses like taxes, insurance, maintenance, and utilities.
A realistic budget ensures you can enjoy life now and stay financially responsible.
Build a Savings and Investment Plan
Saving is just the beginning. To truly accelerate your progress toward your goals, you need to do more than simply set aside small amounts of money. You need a solid savings plan supported by a thoughtful, long-term investment strategy.
For near-term goals, like a vacation next year, consider low-risk options such as savings accounts or money market funds, which offer safety and easy access to your funds. For longer-term goals, such as buying a home, funding your child’s education, or preparing for retirement, a diversified investment strategy can help your money grow more effectively over time.
Remember that all investments carry varying levels of risk. It’s important to align your investment choices with your time horizon and comfort with risk. If you’re unsure where to start, working with a financial advisor can help you strike the right balance between saving and investing—giving you greater confidence in reaching both your short- and long-term goals.
Consider Financing: Loans, Mortgages, and Debt Management
Some lifestyle goals may involve financing. Whether it’s a mortgage for a home or a loan for a major purchase, it’s crucial to understand how these debts will impact your overall financial picture. Review interest rates, monthly payments, and repayment terms and find out how payments will affect your other goals. A clear debt management plan ensures financing that enhances your lifestyle and is aligned with your financial well-being.
Prioritize Financial Flexibility
Life is unpredictable, and it’s important to have a financial safety net. Maintaining an emergency fund, typically three to six months’ worth of living expenses, provides a cushion against unexpected events like job loss or medical emergencies. Financial flexibility means you can weather life’s surprises without derailing your financial goals, but it also empowers you to make bold decisions, like changing careers, traveling, or seizing new opportunities, without financial fear holding you back.
Work With a Financial Advisor
You don’t have to go at it alone. A financial advisor can help you create a personalized plan that balances today’s wants and tomorrow’s needs. They can guide you on tax-efficient saving, investment strategies, and debt management. An advisor’s expertise can also provide peace of mind by helping you make adjustments as needed, ensuring that you remain focused on your goals while managing any unforeseen challenges that arise along the way.
Financial planning isn’t about waiting for “someday.” Achieving your lifestyle goals requires clear planning, disciplined saving, and strategic investing. A conversation with a Janney Financial Advisor can help you balance today’s realities with tomorrow’s possibilities. Together, we’ll build a plan that gives you clarity, control, and confidence—no matter the market.
Working With Janney
Depending on your financial needs and personal preferences, you may opt to engage in a brokerage relationship, an advisory relationship or a combination of both. Each time you open an account, we will make recommendations on which type of relationship is in your best interest based on the information you provide when you complete or update your client profile.
If you engage in a brokerage relationship, you will buy and sell securities on a transaction basis and pay a commission for these services. Our recommendations for the purchase and sale of securities will be based on what is in your best interest and reflect reasonably available alternatives at that time.
If you engage in an advisory relationship, you will pay an asset-based fee, which encompasses, among other things, a defined investment strategy, ongoing monitoring, and performance reporting. Your Financial Advisor will serve in a fiduciary capacity for your advisory relationships.
For more information about Janney, please see Janney’s Relationship Summary (Form CRS) on www.janney.com/crs which details all material facts about the scope and terms of our relationship with you and any potential conflicts of interest.
By establishing a relationship with us, we can build a tailored financial plan and make recommendations about solutions that are aligned with your best interest and unique needs, goals, and preferences.
Contact us today to discuss how we can put a plan in place designed to help you reach your financial goals.
Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, its affiliates, and its employees are not in the business of providing tax, regulatory, accounting, or legal advice. These materials and any tax-related statements are not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used or relied upon, by any taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding tax penalties. Any such taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer’s particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.
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