Financial Coaching

Financial coaching is a process that helps you think about your current financial situation, your goals for the future and how they weigh up against your responsibilities. 

It also helps you keep on track with your plan. The truth is that we are all flawed investors. We all have behavioural biases: simple errors of judgment like selling at the wrong time or following the crowd into potentially dangerous new trends like cryptocurrency. We all sometimes need help to avoid making bad financial decisions. 

Financial coaching helps you identify blind spots in your behaviour. At First Wealth, our expert financial planners act on experience, not emotion, helping you avoid damaging financial decisions. 

At First Wealth, our coaches are experienced planners who first help you review your finances and then help you reach your financial goals, educating you about the pitfalls along the way. First Wealth’s planners work with you to create healthy financial habits and empower you to take control of your money.

A good financial coach delivers most value during life’s critical financial moments, such as stock market stress, or a significant change in your personal situation, reassuring you and ensuring your make rational, correct decisions. 

At First Wealth, our financial coaching works in tandem good financial planning. Importantly, we don’t offer a single coaching session, but instead make sure it is an ongoing process. 

The first step is for you to tell us about your financial goals and responsibilities. Then we need to learn more about you. We’ll ask you some questions, including but not limited to: 

What is important to you in life, and why? Is there anything stopping you achieving these goals? How would it feel to be able to achieve these goals? 

Once we have an in-depth picture of your financial situation, aims and ambitions, we will provide regular communication and advice. 

This process is important during what we call ‘times of transition’ when you might be experiencing changes in your life. These changes can include economic events, such as the impact of Covid-19, or personal events such as selling or starting a business or buying a new house. 

Our job is to listen and guide you through the process. 

The differences between a financial coach financial adviser are subtle but important. 

A financial adviser will listen to your financial situation and then offer solutions. 

A financial coach will take this further, asking questions to help you analyse your situation and reach your own conclusions. It’s really about empowering you to take control. 

For example, if you’re planning to retire in three years, a financial adviser might suggest you put more money into your pension – a simple solution. 

A good financial coach will dig deeper and explore whether you are making the right decisions for your future. Might there be an alternative to retirement, such as changing career? 

Effective financial coaching is about empowerment, drilling down into what really matters to you. 

To put it simply, a good financial coach will help prevent you making bad financial decisions. Having an expert on hand, at the end of a phone call or email, can be all you need to stay on the right track. This dynamic is based on mutual trust and transparency – at First Wealth, we pride ourselves on our values, reliability and dependability, acting with integrity and keeping your best interests at heart. 

Wealth and financial investment are undoubtedly beneficial to your lifestyle, but they also come with pressure and can cause anxiety, particularly during times of volatility. We are all bombarded every day with information, much of it flawed, which leads to financial bias. A good financial coach will identify the key financial biases which affect us all, simple errors of judgment like selling at the wrong time, being affected by events in the news or trends on social media. They will talk you through difficult financial situations when you might otherwise make a detrimental decision. 

At First Wealth, by far the biggest mistake we say investors make is believing they can beat the market. This simply almost never works – data tells us you cannot outguess the market. 

Other common mistakes include: 

• Not using allowances: Are you using ISAs, pensions and all the breaks available as effectively as you could be? These are government-approved tax-planning vehicles that you should be filling each year. 
• Selling at the wrong time: Volatility scares people, but panic-selling is a mistake. If you invest in the market, understand that it will go down. The answer is: do nothing. It will come back up. 
• Paying too much attention to the media: The media tells you the world will end tomorrow. It won’t. The economy will not flatline. Stock markets continue to go up. Learn to block out the noise. 
• Getting distracted by what we call ‘shiny things’. Tempted by cryptocurrency? Don’t be. Avoid fashionable new trends and don’t get your head turned – it often ends badly. 

Many of our clients are very experienced investors. They’ve seen it all and done it all. But the truth is that even the very best investors will get their heads turned and can benefit from expert coaching. 

Sometimes, even if you know finance inside out, you need a wise friend like First Wealth with whom you can discuss the purpose of your money. 

Financial coaching is also important in helping you navigate complex tax legislation, and making sure you utilise the opportunities this presents. 

Financial coaching is about your life, not just your money.