Health and Wealth in Harmony

Have you met with your doctor and your financial planner for your yearly check-up? While the two may seem unrelated, your financial wellness and physical health have more in common than you might think. Just like your doctor helps guide your physical well-being, your Yeske Buie team is here to support your financial journey with thoughtful planning, personalized advice, and ongoing partnership. Let’s explore some of the ways our approaches align.

Just as you share your personal history with your doctor, one of your first experiences with your Yeske Buie team is a Discovery Meeting, a conversation that is designed to help us get to know you. In both cases, you are seeking expert guidance to help make meaningful improvements to your overall well-being, and the first step is to get to know more about you as a person. Our discovery process helps determine who and what are most important to you, which influence our recommendations when we begin crunching numbers to help build the roadmap for healthier habits both physically and financially.

Health:

Your doctor will typically run through a series of basic tests:

• A physical exam that may include bloodwork, general examination of your joints, vision, hearing, and more.
• A review of your current lifestyle – sleep, diet, water intake, and physical activity.

Financial:

Your team at Yeske Buie will ask questions to learn more about:

• The important people in your life
• How you enjoy spending your time
• The organizations that speak to your heart
• Childhood money memories
• And more!

Once your history is clear, the next step is to set goals that reflect both your needs and values.

Health:

Upon gathering the data from your exam, your doctor will then review those results with you, identifying anything that may be cause for concern or potential areas of improvement. These metrics serve as the building blocks for your overall wellness journey. From there, you may set goals together, like:

• Changing your diet
• Increasing physical activity

You might even come prepared with personal goals shaped by your current health data, such as wanting to learn how to better build muscle while training for a marathon. Here, it’s important to note that part of identifying what you want to set out to accomplish is informed by what matters most to you.

Financial:

Similarly, your team at Yeske Buie will request documents and review your current financial status to determine where your financial foundation is solid and where there is room for growth. Actionable goals are then established, such as:

• Building a credit card repayment plan
• Establishing a recurring savings cadence
• Giving recommendations for additional insurance coverage to protect your assets

These goals are always set with your values in mind. At Yeske Buie, we believe that every financial plan must be aligned with what matters most to our Clients for their Live Big^® lives. Goals, backed by evidence and that are aligned with your values, become the framework for your financial wellness journey.

Once you’ve set your goals, you may need to adjust your daily habits to achieve them. Often, going all-in to change multiple aspects of one’s lifestyle at once can lead to burnout. A 2009 study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology determined that habits might take anywhere from 18 to 254 days to build, rather than the previously popular 21-day “rule.” This then suggests that, to build consistency, small manageable changes over time can lead to life-changing results over time.

Health:

Small changes from a well-being standpoint can make all the difference, such as drinking an extra glass of water each day or going to bed just 30 minutes earlier than usual. Focusing on achievable actions allows you to build momentum. Giving yourself touchpoints each month allows you to then reassess how you are feeling, what is working, what isn’t, and to make shifts in your plan moving forward.

Financial:

The small changes principle also applies to your financial journey. For example, a common strategy we recommend to our Clients looking to build their savings is to identify any surplus in their budget and implement policies to automatically set aside a percentage of that surplus in their accounts. This habit is set in place for the Client without requiring much effort on their part, allowing their savings to grow steadily and consistently in the background.

It is wonderful to imagine a world in which we have committed to a goal and executed our plan to perfection to achieve that goal. However, the reality of life and any long-term journey is that setbacks and plateaus happen, both physically and financially. A truly sustainable plan accounts for these “certainties” and provides flexibility to adapt.

Health:

Health setbacks can include illness, injury, or life events that cause us to stray from the routine we’ve spent weeks, months, or even years building — leading us to skip a few workouts or stray from a diet for the convenience that a delivered meal can provide. There are actions to take to help mitigate these risks; one example might be building in downtime for muscle recovery throughout the week to reduce strain on your body.

Financial:

Financial setbacks can look like an unexpected bill or emergency purchase, job loss, or market volatility. At Yeske Buie, your financial plan is built to help you expect the unexpected by stress-testing your plan using 10,000 different scenarios ranging from the best-case scenario to the most challenging financial and economic conditions. While in the midst of turbulent times, you can rest assured that your team is closely monitoring the environment and looking for opportunities to make adjustments and protect your long-term goals.

The most important thing to remember in these moments is to give yourself grace. Progress isn’t linear and that’s okay. Just as your medical team, fitness groups, and coaches are there to provide feedback and guidance to help you on your wellness journey, your Yeske Buie team is here to support you, providing guidance and reassurance through every phase of your financial journey. We are good people to think with^®!