Issue link: https://fredparent.uberflip.com/i/1541970
22 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • December 2025 family money WRITTEN BY NIKKI DUCAS My husband recently turned the big 5-0 and at about the same time he seemingly became very concerned about our family's finances. So, we started tracking our expenses again after nearly 10 years of not budgeting to chart our monthly spending. In reality I know this was an exercise in figuring out if we would have enough money to buy a Class B RV to fulfill our dreams of visiting various Harvest Hosts in our retire- ment years. As much as my husband likes his toys and spending money on travel, I am a more practical spender and have always been a good steward of money. For example, I started my Roth IRA at my first full-time job out of college. As a twenty- something, I wasn't really thinking about retirement, but rather as a tax-free savings account with the benefit of being able to withdraw money without penalties. All this talk about money over the past several months brought us to the life decision of having our first ever virtual meeting with a financial advisor. While I felt this was a daut- ing experience since I work better with words, my husband geeked out over the numbers. Choosing a financial advisor is one of the most important financial decisions you will ever make. The right advisor can help you set goals, grow your wealth, manage risk, and plan for retirement or major life events. We chose to meet with a younger Certified Financial Planner (CFP) who works on an hourly basis, and he was very knowledgeable about cur- rent trends in the market and the latest financial planning software. We wanted someone that could give us a comprehensive financial overview of our finances now that we are being thrust into the reality of putting two children through college in the next eight years, and we are real- izing our retirement goals. Before sitting down for our hour meeting with our CFP, my husband diligently gathered income information, tracked our expenses and cal- culated our monthly cash flow. Pulling together everything required to put together our net worth statement really helped our financial plan- ning journey. Net worth is defined as the total value of everything you own (assets) minus the total value of everything you owe (liabilities). He created a spreadsheet to calculate our net worth so we would know our financial position. Net worth is the single number that best informs financial decisions. After our meeting, we have a better understanding of our net worth. Having everything visibly written out on a spreadsheet, we are now able to consciously and perhaps subconsciously make better choices to improve our finances. I must admit that having a clearer picture of our income and expenses on our spreadsheet before meeting with the CFP made our session that more productive. Understanding what to expect and how to prepare for the meeting made the experience a lot less overwhelming. Now that we have gone through the process, we will meet with our CFP annually to ensure our net worth is developing to meet our saving goals.