Outpost Waypoints
Ongoing Financial Planning at Outpost Advisors
Waypoints: (def.) / intermediate points on a route or line of travel.
Overview
At Outpost Advisors, we believe that strategic rhythms produce lasting benefits. Waypoints is our annual rhythm for hitting each of the 12 key areas of financial and life planning in a calendar year. Outpost Advisors checks in on these Waypoints on our clients’ behalf every year, providing an update on how families are doing today and what trends we see over time. While they pursue their passions and goals, Outpost is closely monitoring their financial life, watching for new opportunities--and always available with advice and counsel.
What are the 12 Waypoints?
Vision & Goals: We believe that your financial plan should be aimed squarely at your unique vision for life, and we revisit this vision annually as well as providing you a guided format for setting annual goals each year.
Education & Parenting: Whether you’re thinking about starting a family, saving for education, dealing with student loans, parenting teenagers or understanding how to have maximum impact as grandparents, we spend time to ensure that your dollars are funding continued health in these areas.
Spending & Budget: We keep an eye on your budget (i.e. the funding plan for your family vision) and provide regular feedback on how changes in spending affect your likelihood of hitting the key goals you’ve identified. For many families we also serve as budget coaches, all the way down to providing help in choosing and implementing the right software to make budgeting work for you.
Insurance: It is very rare to receive insurance advice from someone who is not trying to sell you a policy. We regularly look at your coverages and verify that everything from homeowner’s to life to liability insurance policies are appropriate for your evolving needs and that you’re paying a fair price for those protections.
Multigenerational Legacy: We’ll update your estate planning progress to keep you on track for the smooth transfer of wealth when the time comes, but what really gets us excited is the chance to unearth additional opportunities, customized to your multigenerational vision for investing, that will impact your family far beyond your own lifetime.
Income & Family Business: Whether you work for a large corporation or own your own business, we want to help you understand how your income is growing over time and building your family’s net worth. For business owners, we take an additional step and consider key health metrics for their business, evaluating opportunities to optimize income and improve the business’s financial health.
Debt & Savings: We’ll look at your debt ratios to be sure that you’re maintaining a healthy balance that aligns with your financial plan, while also keeping a constant eye on the interest rate environment, programs that may permit clients to reduce or restructure debt beneficially and the constantly changing need for savings as goals, income, expenses and assets change.
Rhythms & Relationships: We’re big believers in establishing healthy rhythms in the home to create peace and rest. We also believe that relational capital (family and friendships) is worth trading money for, and we will be intentional about providing feedback where we see opportunities for you to make that trade.
Retirement: Many of our clients begin their relationship with Outpost seeking guidance on funding retirement. Whether you’re 40 years away from retirement or 20 years into this phase of life, we are constantly updating our forecasts and adjusting your plan to ensure that your long term money goals are well funded.
Benefits Review: For our clients that receive workplace benefits, we help to ensure that you’re taking full advantage of those benefits. For clients who are self-employed, retired, or have no workplace benefits, we review health insurance and other key coverages to ensure optimum efficiency in that (often significant) expense.
Taxes: Each year we’ll present you with an analysis of your previous year’s tax return and provide year-end tips for minimizing your tax bill, balancing out the desire to save on taxes now with a view towards long term savings. We also provide a basic forecast of the tax liability for the current year as a basis for end-of-year generosity and spending decisions.
Generosity: We provide an analysis of each family’s generosity goals and efforts over time. Armed with a fresh forecast of how generosity may impact this year’s tax bill, we look at both near-term opportunities and your unique long-term vision for giving.
What is the schedule?
First Quarter
In this quarter we’ll collect the information we need to update your household operations plans as well as information that will be useful during tax filing season. That includes Vision & Goals, Debt & Savings, Spending & Budget, Education & Parenting, Rhythms & Relationships, Insurance and Income & Family Biz Waypoints data.
Second Quarter
Household Operations Review. The goal of this meeting is to present you with a refreshed outline for optimizing your household’s ongoing operations. That includes everything from discussing how the budget needs to change with evolving goals to adjusting our estimates for when key medium-term goals and purchases are planned.
Third Quarter
During the third quarter we gather and refresh the information needed to provide you with an updated view of your long term financial plan. That includes retirement, generosity, benefits, tax, and multigenerational legacy.
Fourth Quarter
Long Term Financial Plan Refresh and Review. In this meeting we will review progress towards your long term money plan, covering measurements of success like net worth changes and investment performance, and providing guidance around long term tax and estate planning.
F.A.Q.
What if I want to discuss one of these areas outside of the normal Waypoints schedule?
We are ALWAYS available to our clients for consultation on life’s decisions, no matter how large or small those may be. As a client of Outpost you’ll have a link that can be used to book time with an Advisor as needed, and you’re also always welcome to pick up the phone and give us a ring. The Waypoints program is not meant to reduce our conversations during the year, but rather to give some structure to our more in-depth meetings so that we know we’ve covered each key area of your financial life every year.
How much work will this require from me to provide you with all of the data you need each quarter?
While we are happy to get deep into the weeds with you in preparation for each of the two larger meetings we hold during the year, the majority of the prep work for these meetings happens on our end. We will ask you to fill out a quick (~5 minute) questionnaire so that we can have a sense for where you feel the most confident and where you’d like us to pay special attention, but beyond that the required prep work on your end is minimal.
What if I can’t make it to a one of these two meetings?
We do our best to be very flexible on the timing of these meetings, but there are seasons of life in which you just can’t fit everything into the calendar. Our only requirement is that we connect at least annually to review your financial plan, investments and ensure that we are still providing value to your family on an ongoing basis.