All Things Financial Planning Blog

Most of us are familiar with the term made famous in the 2007 movie with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, Bucket List, which ‘played out’ the lives of two terminally ill patients and their list of to‐dos before they died. The sad part of the film was the reality of life’s finite certainty while the fun part of the comedy was that Jack’s character had the economic wherewithal to bring those ‘to‐do’ activities to life as quickly as time and health permitted the both of them to do them!

Interesting concept, Bucket List, don’t you think? Interesting, I say, because it brings us to reflect not only on what our own list might look like but it might just as well make us think about a ‘Pre’ Bucket List, shouldn’t there have been something like that too? Is the Bucket List just what’s left over? Or, is the Bucket List things that are ‘popping’ into our heads as we are approaching life’s finish line? Maybe we just haven’t thought about either List because we ‘thought’ the finish line was soooo far away or it is just another one of those things that can wait until tomorrow.

In a recent editorial, one of our Past Presidents of the FPA, Roy Diliberto, CFP®, wrote about ‘financial planning’ and the need for our profession to define the engagement of  comprehensive financial planning services as being beyond the management of assets – the process is so much more all‐encompassing if you are providing comprehensive services! Dr. Dave Yeske, CFP®, also a past president of the FPA, visually describes the planning process by using his hand and fingers ‐ no, not sleight of hand, you comics, ha ha. He describes each finger as representing one of the disciplines of financial planning, (1) tax planning, (2) investment planning, (3) retirement planning, (4) estate planning and (5) risk management. He then he describes the planning process as being all that that surrounds the digits of the hand, the ‘ether’ around the fingers that then joins in ‘the hand’ enabling those digits to do so much more than they could possibly do independently. As importantly, his thought is that each of those disciplines can be ‘hired’ out or done over the internet but that it is only through the integrated guidance achieved through the planning process can an individual be certain that their resources are appropriately integrated and are most efficiently employed. A third Past president, Elizabeth Jetton, speaks about the melding of the Art and Science of Financial Planning. The ‘Art’ of defining and understanding the unique and individual nature of each of our clients and applying the ‘Science’ of planning techniques in furtherance and support of that individual’s individuality, dreams and visions of their fulfilling and complete life.

A dear friend and client of mine was recently given the news that his prostate cancer had spread through his entire body and that the best doctors could hope for, barring some new found cure or inhibitor, was to keep him as much out of pain as possible by chemo and pain relievers. So far, other than a cane to aid a little bit in walking and a need to turn the lights out a little earlier than in years past, life is still normal, thank goodness! In sitting with my friend and his family it was uplifting to hear him say that his Bucket List had nothing on it – he had ‘been there, done that’! Traveled, raised a family, had grandchildren, hunted every year with his son, motorcycled, you name it, there was nothing left he felt he was ‘missing out on’! His time, he said, was free to spend nourishing and creating his memories with families and friends. What do we have in the end, anyway, ashes to ashes, earth to earth as they say.

My point here is that comprehensive financial planning is really about the Bucket List or, more appropriately, ‘Life’s’ To Do List. When the time nears, if we are or are not aware of our imminent demise, a good or bad thing, depends on your perspective, I guess ‐ will we be writing out a large Bucket List or will we be reviewing it? Unless you plan, you may not have the time or the health to do things on a Bucket List. Seek out the services of a comprehensive financial planner to help you define and accomplish what’s important on your ‘Life’s To Do List’.

David Bergmann, CFP®, EA, CLU, ChFC
Managing Principal
The David Bergmann Group
Marina Del Ray, CA