Financial expert talks the importance of financial health for 2019

(WJBK) - Two days in and no sooner than you’re used to saying it's now 2019 do resolutions start to take root. 
 But as you put the wheels in motion on your resolutions for your physical health.

A trainer of a different sort is planning the workout regimen for his clients helping instead with their fiscal health.  

Gary Ran, the CEO of Telemus in Southfield helps craft together people's finances. One of the first questions to ask yourself, what's new outside of the fact that it's a new year?

“A possible change could be something in your employment situation, your family situation, the birth of a new child or grandchild if you're an older person or something that changed with your outlook on life or maybe a health issue that developed,” Ran said.

The next step, come up with a plan.  Where do you want to End up money wise?

What's the state of your financial health? Are you ready for the worst?

“One of the first things I talk to new clients about is a hit by the bus plan. So it is like this. If you walked out of here today and got hit by a bus do you have things where you need them to protect your family and your spouse?” 

Roop: Most people don't right?

“Most people don't have that in place and you'd be surprised even wealthy sophisticated people don't have that in place. They're afraid to talk about it with their spouse, they're afraid to talk about their own financial future and they're avoiding the pain of acknowledging where they are and sometimes they don't know to do it,” he said. 

Markets have taken a dip, analysts are watching and without the guidance of a planner, many are making moves that aren't always the smartest.  

“They make the mistake of hanging onto their losers and selling their winners hoping they're losers turn around. What's a good idea is to sell your losers and hang onto your winners and to harvest the losses that are available especially in environment like we find ourselves in today like our markets come down from its highs and people are suffering losses from when they purchased their investments to begin with, and it's important to take those losses because you can use them to your benefit in the future.”

And finally take a look at short term goals, think this year.  And then long term goals.  Do you know where you're headed?

“If you were to fly a small plane from Detroit to Milwaukee, you wouldn't just hop on the plane and hope you get there. You would have a map. So I financial plan is a map for a person to get from where they are today to where they want to go in the future and I strongly recommend that people consider doing that if they haven't done it already.”

Another thing you have to do is make sure you have an estate plan that is set, and if you already have one review it to make sure everything is exactly where you wish.