Here are ten powerful reasons why financial planning – with the help of an expert financial advisor – will get you where you want to be.

Income: It’s possible to manage income more effectively through planning. Managing income helps you understand how much money you’ll need for tax payments, other monthly expenditures and savings.

Cash Flow: Increase cash flows by carefully monitoring your spending patterns and expenses. Tax planning, prudent spending and careful budgeting will help you keep more of your hard earned cash.

Capital: An increase in cash flow, can lead to an increase in capital. Allowing you to consider investments to improve your overall financial well-being.

Family Security: Providing for your family’s financial security is an important part of the financial planning process. Having the proper insurance coverage and policies in place can provide peace of mind for you and your loved ones.

Investment: A proper financial plan considers your personal circumstances, objectives and risk tolerance. It acts as a guide in helping choose the right types of investments to fit your needs, personality, and goals.

Standard of Living: The savings created from good planning can prove beneficial in difficult times. For example, you can make sure there is enough insurance coverage to replace any lost income should a family bread winner become unable to work.

Financial Understanding: Better financial understanding can be achieved when measurable financial goals are set, the effects of decisions understood, and results reviewed. Giving you a whole new approach to your budget and improving control over your financial lifestyle.

Assets: A nice ‘cushion’ in the form of assets is desirable. But many assets come with liabilities attached. So, it becomes important to determine the real value of an asset. The knowledge of settling or canceling the liabilities, comes with the understanding of your finances. The overall process helps build assets that don’t become a burden in the future.

Savings: It used to be called saving for a rainy day. But sudden financial changes can still throw you off track. It is good to have some investments with high liquidity. These investments can be utilized in times of emergency or for educational purposes.

Ongoing Advice: Establishing a relationship with a financial advisor you can trust is critical to achieving your goals. Your financial advisor will meet with you to assess your current financial circumstances and develop a comprehensive plan customized for you.

The first step in developing your financial plan is to meet with an advisor. This complimentary process begins with a review of your current financial circumstances, anticipated changes, future goals, and results in your customized plan. Call us today to book your assessment.

In order to build your wealth, you will want to invest your money. Investing allows you to put your money in vehicles that have the potential to earn strong rates of return.

If you don’t invest, you are missing out on opportunities to increase your financial worth. Of course, you have the potential to lose your money in investments, but if you invest wisely, the potential to gain money is higher than if you never invest.

Here are the top 10 reasons to invest your money:

1. Grow your money
Investing your money can allow you to grow it. Most investment vehicles, such as stocks, certificates of deposit, or bonds, offer returns on your money over the long term. This return allows your money to build, creating wealth over time.

2. Save for retirement
As you are working, you should be saving money for retirement. Put your retirement savings into a portfolio of investments, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, businesses, or precious metals. Then, at retirement age, you can live off funds earned from these investments.

Based on your personal tolerance of risk, you may want to consider being riskier at a younger age with your investments. Greater risk increases your chances of earning greater wealth. Becoming more conservative with your investments as you grow older can be wise, especially as you near retirement age.

3. Earn higher returns
In order to grow your money, you need to put it in a place where it can earn a high rate of return. The higher the rate of return, the more money you will earn. Investment vehicles tend to offer the opportunity to earn higher rates of return than savings accounts. Therefore, if you want the chance to earn a higher return on your money, you will need to explore investing your money.

4. Reach financial goals
Investing can help you reach big financial goals. If your money is earning a higher rate of return than a savings account, you will be earning more money both over the long term and within a faster period. This return on your investments can be used toward major financial goals, such as buying a home, buying a car, starting your own business, or putting your children through college.

5. Build on pre-tax dollars
Some investment vehicles, like employer-sponsored 401(k)s, allow you to invest your pre-tax dollars. This option allows you to save more money than if you could only invest your post-tax dollars.

6. Qualify for employer-matching programs
Some employers offer to match the money you invest in your 401(k) plan up to a certain amount. Of course, the only way you can qualify and earn these matching funds is if you are actively investing in your 401(k) plan. Thus, many people invest in their 401(k)s to gain the matching employer funds.

7. Start and expand a business
Investing is an important part of business creation and expansion. Many investors like to support entrepreneurs and contribute to the creation of new jobs and new products. They enjoy the process of creating and establishing new businesses and building them into successful entities that can provide them with a strong return on their investment.

8. Support others
Many investors like investing in people, whether they are business owners, artists, or manufacturers. These investors feel good helping others achieve their goals.

9. Reduce taxable income
As an investor, you may be able to reduce your taxable income by investing pre-tax dollars into a retirement fund, like a 401(k). If you generate a loss from an investment, you may be able to apply that loss against any gains from other investments, which lowers the amount of your taxable income.

Many older Americans look to their investments to produce income to meet their expenses during retirement. The need for these income-generating strategies is rising along with average life expectancy and the number of Americans in or near retirement.

However, the current, low interest-rate environment has made finding income difficult. Fixed-income investments no longer produce the reliable yields they have in the past.

Closed-end funds (CEFs) may help income-seeking investors to meet this challenge. CEFs issue a set amount of shares upon inception. They trade in the secondary market, such as on the New York Stock Exchange, and can be purchased through a brokerage account. No new shares of CEFs enter the marketplace after the initial public offering, unlike their open-end counterparts. Because CEFs trade on stock exchanges, supply and demand drive their prices. Shares may trade above their net asset value (at a premium) or below (at a discount).

CEFs may offer higher average yields than category peers, such as open-end funds and ETFs. This “closed” structure can serve as an advantage to managers seeking to generate reliable income.

While open-end funds need to keep a supply of cash on hand to meet daily redemptions, CEFs do not, since they trade on the secondary market. This single feature — freedom from daily redemptions — opens up advantages for investors.

Because they hold this cash to meet daily redemptions, open-end funds may be subject to a “cash drag,” meaning the cash is not generating returns. The manager of a closed-end fund only needs to hold cash to meet dividend payments at dates they are aware of in advance.

The fixed pool of capital available to CEF managers may allow them to access a broader opportunity set and take a longer term view. For example, CEFs can offer access to private and real assets that are not readily available to individual investors in open-end funds and ETFs.

Illiquidity can be a source of higher income and returns, but is only suitable for investors who can tolerate the accompanying risk. For an open-end fund, illiquid investments can become an issue in times of market stress. During market downturns, investors may begin to pull their money out of the fund and the manager must sell assets quickly to raise the cash to meet redemptions. With CEFs, investors are still able to sell their holdings, but mangers are able to consider whether or not they believe it is an appropriate time to sell assets.

CEFs are able to use leverage to try to enhance the fund’s return, income or both. Leverage can significantly enhance portfolio income generation. It is a key reason that CEFs have by and large been able to produce more income than similar open-end funds over the long term. However, it is important to remember that leverage is not a free source of extra returns and does come with certain risks. As markets fall, leverage can amplify those losses. However, there are rules about how much leverage a CEF can use. Per the 1940 Act, leverage in CEFs is limited to two times asset cover for preferred shares or three times asset cover for bank borrowing and other forms of financing.

Because shares of CEFs trade on exchanges, they may also provide investors with intraday liquidity if necessary, similar to an ETF. This also means that the share price of a CEF will rise and fall in response to investor demand.

This may allow investors to purchase CEF shares at a discount to their underlying net asset value. If a fund is trading at a 10% discount, $100 worth of assets are available for $90. This not only provides added exposure to the assets, but also enhances the effective income yield for each dollar invested in the CEF. Buying a fund at a discount provides the potential for another source of return if that discount narrows. However, a discount also has the potential to widen further. It’s also possible that CEF shares may trade at a premium, meaning shares cost more than the underlying net asset value.

One way investors can incorporate CEFs into their investment line up is through core-satellite investing. This is a strategy to manage costs, minimize volatility, generate alpha and tailor a portfolio to an individual’s needs. The core of the account comprises a passive or beta-like exposure investments, then adding active strategy positions as satellites.

Investors can implement a core-satellite strategy by combining both passive and active strategies. To do this, they can use investment vehicles like individual securities, separately managed accounts, open-end mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and particularly closed-end funds.

As with all investment decisions, conducting proper due diligence is essential. However, as part of a balanced portfolio, CEFs may provide an attractive solution for those looking for extra income in their retirement.