No matter what stage of life you’re in, certain milestones can indicate meaningful financial changes to consider. Pure’s Principal, Marc Horner, CFP®, shows us how financial planning evolves across those milestones and why adjusting your plan along the way matters.
Transcript
Financial planning isn’t about predicting every detail of your future. It’s about being prepared as life changes. Most people don’t experience their financial lives in just a straight line, and averages can be really misleading. Did you hear the one about the six-foot-tall man who drowned in a river that was two feet deep on average?
Instead, we all tend to move through a series of major milestones that bring new financial questions, like career changes, growing families, and retirement transitions. Today, we’ll look at how financial planning evolves across those milestones and why adjusting your plan along the way matters so much. To make this easier to visualize, let’s zoom out and look at the big picture.
So, while everyone’s timeline is different, many financial decisions tend to fall into three broad categories.
1. The “Getting Off to a Strong Start” Stage
Early in adulthood, financial planning is often focused on building momentum and getting into good habits. That may include understanding the impact of taxes, maybe even for the first time getting started, saving for retirement or for our first home, starting a family, or managing debt.
At this stage, the emphasis is typically on accumulation, but again, establishing strong habits and putting the right structure in place. For example, in 2025, it took the typical American prospective home buyer around seven years to save for a median down payment that’s nearly twice as long as before the pandemic.
And that highlights how many foundational goals require sustained long-term saving and change over time. The key planning questions here often come down to balance how much to save versus spend. How much risk to take, and how to prioritize competing goals without losing sight of the long-term.
2. The “Many Mouths-to-Feed” Stage
This is often when people juggle multiple competing priorities at once, such as college planning, perhaps helping to look after aging parents, and understanding more sophisticated tax considerations that can open up with higher incomes. At this stage, planning priorities can start to include both protecting and continuing to grow assets.
While much of this stage involves commitments to both children and parents, it’s really a little bit of a strange time. It’s also important to keep your own long-term plan on track. As my lacrosse coach used to say, there is no I in TEAM. Some considerations, like future healthcare needs for aging parents.
They might not be a central focus yet, but they’re lurking as part of the broader picture and can influence future cash flow and family dynamics if left unaddressed. In fact, in 2025, more than 60 million American adults reported they were providing ongoing care for aging parents, spouses with chronic conditions, or adult children with disabilities or serious illness.
Personally, we lost my mother to brain cancer at age 72. A little over one year after her diagnosis. I learned firsthand about the demands of navigating serious healthcare decisions. Planning takes time, talking about how you and your family might deal with a healthcare challenge before it shows up. That can help protect your family, not necessarily from losing a loved one, but from the damage, both financial and emotional that can come from just winging it without a plan.
3. The “Our Time” Stage
For this one, I’m gonna paraphrase my wife. An actual quote would never make it past compliance. So after decades spent raising children and caring for parents, it’s now our time here. Financial planning evolves yet again.
And it’s not being selfish, it’s being self-loving. It’s now time to shift from saving to spending, and that can be a huge change. Well, making sure your investments keep up so you can enjoy the retirement you’ve worked so hard for, paycheck replacement, when to take Social Security, tax efficiency, and maybe even legacy have moved up the priority list.
The value of financial planning lies in its ability to evolve as your life evolves, helping you stay focused on what matters most at each stage. So if there’s one key takeaway, it’s this. If financial plans could talk, they might channel their inner Olympic gymnastics. Coach Bella Caroli Rest in peace.
When he urged injured gymnast Carrie Strug to perform her final vault by shouting, we need you one more time for the gold. You can do it, Carrie. She did it. And the USA went on to win their first-ever women’s gold medal. She did it, and so can you.
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• Investment Advisory and Financial Planning Services are offered through Pure Financial Advisors, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor.
• Pure Financial Advisors LLC does not offer tax or legal advice. Consult with your tax advisor or attorney regarding specific situations.
• Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice and are not intended as investment advice or to predict future performance.
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• Intended for educational purposes only and are not intended as individualized advice or a guarantee that you will achieve a desired result. Before implementing any strategies discussed you should consult your tax and financial advisors.
CFP® – The CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® certification is by the CFP Board of Standards, Inc. To attain the right to use the CFP® mark, an individual must satisfactorily fulfill education, experience and ethics requirements as well as pass a comprehensive exam. 30 hours of continuing education is required every 2 years to maintain the certification.
