The stranger you're planning for
Your plan was built for someone you used to be
Your financial plan was built for someone else.
Your priorities have shifted.
Maybe your marriage has.
Maybe your health has changed in ways you didn’t see coming.
The plan you made 3 years ago is for the person you were 3 years ago. Not the person you are today.
Psychologists call this the end-of-history illusion.
Dan Gilbert put it plainly:
“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.”
Watch Gilbert’s 2014 Ted talk about this idea:
We’re good at seeing how much we’ve changed in the past decade.
We’re terrible at imagining we’ll keep changing just as much in the next one.
Your financial plan has the same blind spot you do.
I’ve watched women navigate real disruptions — a diagnosis out of nowhere, a divorce at 67, health changes in their 70s that rewrote everything the next decade was supposed to look like — with a financial plan built for a life that no longer existed.
Not because the plan was wrong when it was made.
Because no one had touched it since.
There's a difference between a one-time financial plan and ongoing financial planning.
A plan built once is a snapshot.
It was accurate the moment it was made.
It gets less accurate with every passing day.
After a year or two — maybe less, if life moved fast — it may be a plan for someone you no longer recognize.
This is why I no longer offer one-time financial plans.
Not because going through the process once has no value, but because the true value isn’t in the plan.
It’s in the ongoing work: the updates, the adjustments, the ability to respond when your life changes.
And it will.
What to do right now:
Assess: Pull your plan out and read it like you're meeting it for the first time. Ask whether any of these have shifted since it was made: your health, or a spouse's; how close retirement feels and what you picture it looking like; your family situation; how you think about spending and what "enough" actually means to you. If you couldn't tell someone what your plan assumes about your spending or your timeline — or if any of those things have changed — that's your answer. It needs to catch up with you.
Act: Put a review date on your calendar — at least once a year, ideally twice. Treat it as a real conversation, not a number check. And don't wait for the scheduled date if something significant happens. A health change, a family shift, a major decision you're wrestling with — those are exactly the moments when an outdated plan is most costly. That's what I'm here for.
The plan you have is only as useful as it is current.
— Russ
P.S. ~ When was the last time you actually reviewed your financial plan? Hit reply and tell me — I’m curious how many of you are working from something more than a year or two out of date.