TREVOR“Financial plan” is one of those phrases everyone uses and nobody defines. Too often it means a product someone was sold, or a spreadsheet abandoned in a drawer. A real plan is neither. It’s a living document that connects your money to your life — and once you know what one contains, you can hold anyone’s work to that standard. Including mine.
A plan is not a product
An insurance policy is not a plan. A fund portfolio is not a plan. Products are bricks; the plan is the architecture. If someone leads with a product before understanding your goals, income, family and existing arrangements, they’re selling, not planning. The test is simple: a real plan could be handed to another adviser and they’d know exactly what you’re building and why.
The six parts, in order
A clear picture
Everything you own, owe, earn and spend — one honest page. Most people have never seen theirs.
Goals with numbers and dates
“Retire comfortably” is a wish. “HK$60,000 a month from age 60” is a goal a plan can be built around.
The protection layer
Income, life and health cover sized to your actual obligations — not a round number that sounded right.
An emergency buffer
Three to six months of spending, deliberately boring, deliberately reachable.
An investment strategy
Matched to each goal’s timeline and your real tolerance for bad years — written down before the bad year arrives.
A review rhythm
A plan decays without maintenance. Life changes; the plan must be made to keep up.
How a plan stays alive
The sixth part deserves its own picture, because it’s the one that separates a plan from a document. Markets move, salaries change, children arrive, priorities shift. A real plan has a service schedule:
What good looks like — from anyone
Whether you work with me, another adviser, or build it yourself, hold the plan to this standard: all six parts present, in this order, in plain language you fully understand, with every fee visible. If any of those is missing, keep asking questions until it isn’t. That isn’t being difficult; any adviser worth keeping will welcome it.