Mountain Vision Program: the Planning Process

We created The Mountain Vision Program based on our experience working with hundreds of clients over many years.  We have learned that most people run into trouble because they find themselves focused on the small picture.  They get into the nitty-gritty details – bills to pay, accounts to manage – but they don’t have a sense of how these details relate to their values or their future. Our process walks you through all the steps of getting to that big picture view!

We help families everyday work towards greater financial confidence, security, and opportunity through the Mountain Vision Program. The first stage is 3-5 meetings to fully analyze your situation and map the trek ahead.

Comprehensive Financial Planning  – Planning the trek

  • Find out where you are, where you want to be and why
  • Gear check – Complete an analysis of existing financial components – savings, investments , cash flow, insurance, real estate, businesses, debts, legal documents
  • Safety Check – check sufficiency of insurance and legal protection, gap analysis, risk management, efficient insurance usage. Fix safety items if needed.
  • Provisions – review of cash flow, expense management, emergency savings, budgeting
  • Mapping the route – planning lifelong financial sufficiency and investigating alternate scenarios
  • Route challenges/bad weather – assessing resilience to tax law changes, market downturns, inflation/interest rate changes, economic uncertainty
  • The hike to base camp – work on investment strategy, risk allocation, diversification, management of market cycles, asset allocation, time horizon and outline our optimistic, patient, and disciplined approach to the summit

With an understanding of our plan, we can begin!

Base Camp –  Starting the trek – The Investment plan (2-3 meetings)

  • Investor behavior – the real differentiator
    • Platform decisions – cash, SRI, index, risk-control, fundamental, income-guaranteed
    • Account-specific asset/risk allocation
    • Account applications and transfers/rollovers
    • Optional Management/Allocation of current retirement plan
    • Tax strategies for future investments
    • Targets for retirement sufficiency
    • The plan for turbulent times – managing expectations, falling prices, geopolitical uncertainty – embracing volatility and rejecting short-term traps

The Trek Together

In subsequent years, we meet with our members 1-3 times per year, as long as things are proceeding smoothly. You are always welcome to call or email the office for additional support. If there is a disruption in the market or other big event, we will sit down and re-chart our course:

  • Review risk and asset allocation, time horizon, model choice
  • Review of long-term tax strategies
  • Performance review compared to both plan goals and market benchmarks
  • Review facts, respond to developments, revisit scorecard and vision
  • Quick re-test of safety, sufficiency and resilience of long-term plan

The Personal Financial Website is the foundation of our planning work and calculations.