Individuals & Families : H&H Financial Group | Horseheads and Trumansburg, NY

Individuals & Families

Traveling The Journey of Life With You

Financial planning is a lot like taking a road trip. You have an exciting destination in mind, and you want to get there on your terms. As advisors, our job is to guide you on this journey and help you prepare for the road ahead. Whether you’re just starting out, in the height of a successful career, or preparing for retirement, we help you focus on what matters most at your unique phase of life so you can get where you want to go and have fun in the process.

No matter where you are or where you’re going, we leverage three core services to help you reach your goals:

  • Financial Planning: identifying where you are and where you want to go
  • Financial Analysis: taking stock of what you have, what you need, and how you can best reach your goals
  • Wealth Management: implementing specific strategies to protect, maximize, and focus your resources

The tools we leverage in each phase of the journey will differ, and throughout the process, we’ll spend time educating you so you can make wise decisions that align with your vision of a great life.

Phase I:Packing the Car

Before we can focus on lifelong goals and dreams, we have to “load your car,” so to speak, and establish a strong financial foundation. For young families and others just starting out, creating good habits now is ultimately what gives you the freedom to make fun decisions with your money later.

Most people in this stage of life know they should be saving; they just aren’t sure where to start. They want to do things better than their parents did, but they haven’t been taught how to be strategic with their income. This season of life is incredibly important because when you do things right, you can make things much easier for yourself down the road.

Our focus in this phase is helping you set standards for your financial life and learn how to be intentional with your money. We help you establish foundational principles such as:

  • Living within your means
  • Paying yourself first
  • Building an emergency fund
  • Using credit cards wisely
  • Getting started with protection planning

We’ll educate you about your savings options, discuss potential roadblocks and how to prepare for them, and help you lay a strong foundation for the journey ahead.

Some of the specific tools we’ll discuss include:

  • Budgeting & Cashflow Management
  • Debt Management Strategies
  • Disability Insurance
  • Life Insurance

Phase II:Navigating with Purpose

Once you’ve established a strong financial foundation and made some headway on the highway of life, the question often becomes, “Am I on the right track?”

You’ve become more successful, you have a better idea of what you want out of life, and you want to make sure your efforts are supporting a meaningful, exciting future. You’ve reached a point where you have some disposable income, and you’re ready to take intentional steps toward your long-term goals.

During this phase, our objective is to give you greater clarity and direction so you can maximize your success. We act as your real-life GPS system, helping you identify where you are now, outline exactly where you want to go, and pinpoint specific steps to reach your destination.

We’ll have conversations about:

  • Your retirement timeline and lifestyle
  • What resources you can leverage to support your goals (e.g., pension plans, Social Security, etc.)
  • What investment accounts and tax strategies best suit your goals
  • How present-day decisions impact your long-term plan

There are lots of different elements that compose your financial world, and we help you bring everything together in a way that makes sense for your goals. We take a comprehensive approach, and we coordinate with your other financial professionals to ensure everyone is on the same page and supporting your overarching vision of success.

Some of the specific tools we’ll discuss include:

  • Retirement Planning
  • Investment Planning
  • Tax Diversification Strategies
  • Protection Planning
  • Education Funding
  • Life Insurance

Phase III:Enjoying Your Destination

We spend so much of our lives working to reach a destination—our focus is “earn, save, and invest,” for years—that it can be difficult to reframe your mindset once you finally get ready to retire. For that reason, there’s just as much (if not more) planning to do once you reach retirement as there was to get you to this point.

There are new factors to consider, like inflation and how it can change the value of your savings, sequence of market returns, healthcare costs, long-term care planning, and what happens to your wealth when you’re gone.

But while there are new risks in retirement, it’s still an opportunity for you to reap the fruits of your labor. After all, you worked hard to get here, and you deserve to enjoy it. During this transition and throughout the coming years, our goal is to help you regain control of your time, feel comfortable spending your money, and give you confidence that you have everything you need to thrive in this season of life.

We’ll help you answer questions such as:

  • Do I have enough to retire safely?
  • What do I do with my investment accounts now?
  • How do I take my pension options?
  • When do I take my Social Security?
  • How do I allocate my resources so I don’t run out of money?
  • How do I mitigate my tax burden?

Ultimately, our mission is to guide you through this process, help you navigate financial complexities with purpose and confidence, and give you permission to take it all in without guilt or worry.

Some of the tools we’ll leverage include:

  • Distribution Strategies
  • Wealth Management
  • Tax Strategies
  • Charitable Giving
  • Trust Strategies
  • Legacy Planning