Celebrate Your Crucial Calls
By David Williams
Talking time
The Concise Oxford Dictionary says that ‘time’ is the most common noun in the English language. This is one reason why having conversations based on time is easy. We all speak ‘time’. This contrasts with financial, health and legal jargon. It means that using time to define major goals is a very effective way to start planning your future — even with the support of professional advisers who may want to start with their own jargon.
‘How long are we planning for?’ is a great start to any professional advice relationship. You can take the initiative by asking your adviser to discuss that question first. Two crucial elements — ‘how long’ and ‘we’ — mean you address the same clear issue together, in language you both understand. Time well spent.
Making Time Work for You
The SHAPE Analyser aims to help you to better understand your own time frame and why it may be so, together with the three typical stages of your longevity — Able (usually longest), Less Able (smaller) and Dependent (least). This is the start of your longevity planning. Something to celebrate!
Sharing this information with your professional advisers is a further step in your mutual journey.
Getting to decisions
Step 1 — Health. There’s a strong interaction between ‘how long’ and ‘how well’. It’s good to interact with your health advisers to get their reaction to your proposed time frame. Your SHAPE Analyser results highlight matters of interest for this discussion and may lead you to alter your other decisions and priorities.
Step 2 — Finances. ‘How long’ and ‘how well’ are crucial factors in your financial decisions. As well as a time frame, issues like Where Will I Live and What Will I Do are also important. Having these insights is another part of your longevity planning and helps you and your advisers to frame your financial decisions, making it easier for you to commit to them.
Step 3 — Estate Planning. There’s more to shaping your future than just health and financial decisions. The final stage of your longevity planning invites you consider Who Gets What, Why and Why Not, along with Who Can Speak for Me When I Can’t. As we approach Dependency (usually the least part of your longevity) it’s best to crystallise your thoughts about Aged Care and your End-of-Life wishes. With longevity planning, these are natural things to get in place.
Don’t things change?
Longevity planning is not just set and forget. Changes are likely to occur and can reveal both opportunities and challenges. It’s crucial to have a clear overview already to support you in making the best of any changes.
Your Next Step
Sometimes we look back on our lives and think ‘if only I’d thought of that or done something differently’. Longevity planning can make a crucial difference to your future. The free SHAPE Analyser has been significantly upgraded to help you plan your future. Why not have a quick look — it only takes a few minutes to see how it can support you in getting on track to making the best of the rest of your life.
If already a Subscriber, the Analyser will simply update your Longevity Plan for your review.
Click here to take our FREE SHAPE ANALYSER now
