What is a Money Coach?
A Money Coach is a financial professional that helps your family with the implementation of a Financial plan and to give ongoing support. In a previous post, I discuss why you should use a Fee-for-Service Financial Planner who can give you objective and holistic advice. A Money Coach helps you reach your financial goals by walking along side and giving continuing advice throughout your various life stages.
A Money Coach can help you implement the plan and help walk alongside to encourage you
How a Money Coach can help
When you receive your Financial Plan, there are a series of recommendations and 'to do' items that are intended to help you and your family achieve your financial goals. This is where a lot of the work on your own finances begins and also the time where most people start feeling that the tasks are daunting and begin procrastinating. Whether it's opening up certain accounts, changing spending behaviors, implementing a better money system, there are often task and actions that need to be done to help structure your finances in order to meet your life goals. A Money Coach can help hold your hand along the way and help encourage you throughout this process. They are a source of information and support.
Money Coaching at various life stages
Even after a Money Coach helps walk you through the tasks and actions in your Financial Plan, he/she is able to continue walking with you on your financial journey to reaching your life goals. Here are a few ways within each life stage that a money coach can help you:
Young Professionals
As a young professional, a Money Coach can help navigate the complicated waters of the financial industry. As mentioned in this post, many of the advisors/planners in the industry are actually commissioned sales people and may be selling you product you don't need or very expensive product that can hinder your finances in the long term. Mutual funds are an example (see link). In addition to avoiding traps laid out in the financial industry, setting out good saving and investing behaviors early can have a huge effect on your future self.
Young Couples
A young couple looking to maybe get married can definitely use a Money Coach to help facilitate healthy discussion and a future money system as a couple. This can help avoid conflict, especially when one person bring in more assets or is making more money than the other. In addition, with potentially significant big ticket items coming soon (wedding, house etc..) it is a good time to engage a Money Coach to help avoid costly mistakes.
Married Couples
A recent study showed that money is the #1 cause of stress in marriage. Don't let this happen to you! Having a 3rd party help your family with your finances can help alleviate the stress of money in your marriage. A Money Coach can help align your family goals and also help take a look at how you are doing financially and whether you are on track.
Family with Kids
Let's be honest, kids can be expensive but there are often financial strategies available that can help. This is also one of the busiest times in our life stages and having someone look at your finances regularly can alleviate the burden of having to spend time yourself. Also, at this stage a Money Coach can help give ideas about how to teach your kids about finances.
Mid-career stage
At this stage it is about power saving to retirement. Often however, there are other competing issues with your finances. Perhaps it's funding your retired parents or your university children. A Money Coach can help prioritize and at the same time help develop a strategy for meeting your retirement number. See this post to understand how a Retirement Projection is done.
Retiring: At this stage, you need to figure out how to make your finances sustain the rest of your life. The worst scenario is running out of money for retirees so having a Money Coach walk alongside can help set out the spending parameters in order that this does not happen. It is especially important to have someone make adjustments for you along the way and to help understand the most efficient way to draw down your money (tax-wise).
A Money Coach is important to have at nearly any life-stage! For more information regarding my Subscription based Money Coaching services, please go to my Services link or Contact me for a free 30 minute consultation.