The Best Plans Are Flexible

Hi,

Welcome to this week’s Financial Readiness Briefing; ideas, conversations, resources, and practical steps to help you prepare before life happens.

Before a whitewater trip, we checked the river conditions before launching. The goal was to understand what we might encounter and plan accordingly.

Financial planning works much the same way. A great plan should be flexible and anticipate a range of outcomes as life happens.

Question to Consider: Where does your financial plan need more flexibility?

Featured Conversation: How to Age Wisely With Purpose and Intention

Scott Fisher, co-author and co-founder of The Aging Wisely Project joined me on the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast to talk about The Aging Wisely Project which draws on the life journeys of 52 elders between the ages of 70 and 96. 

We explored the five GRASP skills: Gratitude, Resilience, Active Practices, Self-Integrity, and Purpose and how these learnable habits can help people navigate transitions, cope with loss, and approach later life with greater confidence.

Bottom Line: Aging wisely starts with asking how you want to live. Intentional planning can help us maintain purpose and adapt to change while also preparing the people who may one day step in.

🎙️Watch or listen to this episode (here)

Also From The Podcast: 

How Your Money Story Shapes Your Financial Decisions

Kevin Feig, founder of Walk You To Wealth, financial advisor, educator, and author of Walk You To Wealth joined me on the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast to talk about how to evaluate financial advice, why advisor compensation matters, and how childhood experiences influence financial decisions.

Bottom Line: Understanding your own money story can help you recognize the assumptions behind your financial decisions.

🎙️Watch or listen to this episode (here)

How Kids Learn About Money by Making Real Choices

Braden Cobb, founder of Kidz Economy joined me on the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast to talk about why financial education should be an ongoing experience, how children learn from their own decisions, and why everyday money conversations can help prepare them for the future.

Bottom Line: Children learn about money by making real choices. A safe place to practice helps them build confidence and understand consequences.

🎙️Watch or listen to this episode (here)

Featured Resource: 

How to Help Your Parents As They Age: A Financial Planner's Guide to Caregiving by Elliott Appel (Amazon)

What it is: Elliott combines his experience as a financial planner with his personal experience caring for his father.

What stood out: He is open about the personal toll of caregiving and why boundaries are important.

Why I recommend it: The book turns that experience into practical guidance families can use before caregiving becomes a crisis.

Worth Your Attention: 

How to Build Your Personal Board of Directors (And Who Needs a Seat) offers a useful way to think about how you set up your team of advisors. Eric Negron and Libby Greiwe on The Efficient Advisor Podcast (YouTube).

AI + EQ With Financial Life Planning Luminary, George Kinder and Tim Maurer on The Net Worthwhile Weekly (listen). AI works best when it strengthens human advice rather than replacing it.

AI Can Give Kids Answers. They Still Need to Learn Judgment. Finding information isn't the same thing as making a good decision. By Karen Holland (LinkedIn)

The Financial Literacy and Education Commission Releases the 2026 Update to the U.S. National Strategy for Financial Literacy (here)

Focus on your own game. Jack Boudreau offers a reminder that measuring your life against someone else’s can distract you from what matters to you. Why your least productive day is everyday from Jack’s Substack (read).

Research Worth Knowing

Informal Support Networks in the Survey of Consumer Finances. This analysis examines how families provide financial assistance and caregiving support to one another.

85.4% of American families participate in some form of informal financial or caregiving support network.

Financial readiness includes knowing who you can count on and who is counting on you.

From the Federal Reserve Board (here)

Scam Fighter Tip: 

This week’s tip: Talk about financial safeguards before they are needed.

Try this: Agree in advance on one trusted person who should be contacted if unusual financial activity appears.

Check out: Your Retirement Savings Could Be Vulnerable to Scams. Here’s How to Protect Yourself explores how changes in financial behavior can sometimes accompany cognitive decline. Jean Chatzky, Christine Benz and Amy Arnott on the Morningstar Long View Podcast (listen).

One Step Before Life Happens

This week’s action: Identify one thing in your financial plan that could change.

Then: Ask yourself what you would do differently if it did.

Why it matters: The best plans are flexible so you can adapt as life changes.

Closing Thought

On the river, the plan gave us a starting point. We knew that conditions shift and that we needed to stay focused, and adjust as needed.

Financial readiness works the same way. A good plan helps you respond when life changes.

Because when life happens, the way you think about money matters.

Tony

P.S. A good plan starts with knowing what you have. The free Financial Readiness Plan helps you organize the information you may need before life changes (Start Your Free Financial Readiness Plan).