FPI January 2026 Economic Update

https://youtu.be/XWCdfSHmKzM?si=izGi_usM2kM75MJw

Blake Smith - January 13, 2026

Hello everyone. Blake Smith at Financial Partners here. Very excited to start off the new year with you and doing one of these videos. We're going to do several of these of course throughout the year. We're going to be digging in on topics as the economy evolves, as markets evolve, as tax and estate law evolves. We'll be there with you every step of the way uh to provide updates.

But I did want to zoom out a little bit to start the year and just kind of talk through the holistic wealth management process that we adhere to, that we believe in, that we incorporate into all of your financial plans. Just kind of a refresh, if you will. So our holistic wealth management process is broken down into five pillars and these are in no particular order, but they all do connect. They all are integrated. And what I've talked to clients about many times is what we see, especially if we're looking at a new case for a new client, is disconnected plans where the asset plan is not in any way connected to the tax plan.

The tax plan is in no way connected to the estate plan and the protection plan is often just left out of the conversation completely. So, we're going to roll through these and and again, our job is kind of the the quarterback of the financial planning picture is to get these plan to integrate and talk to each other as much as possible.

So, first and foremost, most of the time when people think of working with a you know financial professional or a wealth management office like ours, that's exactly what they think is asset management. What's my portfolio look like? What am I investing in? How's our returns looking? A lot of times that's the the knee-jerk thought of of what it's like to you know work with a financial professional and that is a key pillar in all of this. You know we need your assets doing what we want them to do depending on whether you're in the accumulation phase, the distribution phase based on your risk profile. All of these factors do matter.

However, it's not the only factor. The other thing that we talk about of course a lot is taxes and tax management. And I kind of look at taxes in three phases. There is you know tax planning where we're kind of building out the blueprint of of what we want to do. There's tax management, the actual implication of that tax plan. And then of course this is where CPAs and accountants get involved for tax preparation, right? That we're all preparing to do here early in 2026 for the 2025 tax year.

The other thing that we have to discuss is protection planning. You know, Bob always mentored me throughout the years. Folks need two things. They need money and they need paper. They need money to live life and do the things that they want to do for themselves and their families. But they also need the paper to protect the things that they need to protect. And whether it's insurance, whether it's other protection planning strategies, that can be a key piece of financial plans.

Whether it's again protecting family in the way of a death benefit or providing liquidity at a certain time of life. All of those things are important. So it is very necessary to talk over those you know policy coverages whether it be with us whether it be working with an insurance agent to make sure that all those policies are where we want them to be. There's enough coverage and protection there and they're doing all the things that we want them to do.

Then there's legacy planning or a lot of times what we call estate planning. How do we want things to be handled when we're gone? And I'll often say most legacy and estate planning starts you know, God forbid with the the loss of one spouse. A lot of times when we think legacy planning, we start thinking about kids and grandkids and and and the generations to come from us. And oftentimes it starts in a single spouse scenario. So those are key pieces that we want to consider.

The last pillar that I'll talk about is the financial planning process as a whole. And that's where all of these five pillars again start to integrate. They start to talk to each other. And that's again one of the biggest things that we see with folks out there walking around is these disconnected plans. And what we want to do is make sure these plans are all connected. They're all integrated in a holistic view.

Again, that's what we call our holistic wealth management process. And as we go out throughout the year in 2026 and beyond, we're of course going to continue to dig into all of these and we're redesigning our agenda a little bit so that way we're making sure that each one of these pillars are being adhered to year in and year out. So we'll be talking about asset management, tax management, protection planning, legacy planning, and financial planning as a whole as a key focus of 2026.

So, I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday. I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. We are very excited to start off 2026. We'll be reaching out to all of you to set up reviews. If you need anything us anything from us to start the year, by all means, give our office a call. We look forward to seeing you all very soon.