Setting realistic, appropriately funded goals is paramount to your financial success. Having access to a wide range investment tools and planning resources is equally critical. More important than chasing rates of return is taking ownership of a system designed to achieve your financial objectives. Once in place, this system would coordinate the associated investment tools. Your involvement is to remain informed, diligently work the plan, and alert to any significant changes.

A disciplined approach is a great concept in practice. Unfortunately, emotional events can erode its effectiveness. A down market, an emergency, a death in the family. Any one of these could understandably derail your efforts towards building assets. But it doesn’t have to be that way. When proper planning meets effective tools, you can mitigate some of that financial risk.

This doesn’t have to mean locking all your investments in low yielding, guaranteed vehicles. There is a place for those conservative tools in any good plan. The concern you face may simply be living too long. Taxes and inflation are two of the most effective factors in diminishing a lifetime of personal savings and investments. Taxes will go up in the future. They’ll go down as well. Planning for both will gain you the edge you seek. There is one more factor you must watch out for. Even the best laid plan can fall victim to inflation. Your ability to manage changes with regards to inflation, lies in outpacing it on a regular basis. However, you can’t simply abandon safety in pursuit of the higher returns. It’s easy to make that mistake without proper guidance.