What’s in your junk drawer?
Most households have one. In ours, with four kids, it’s more like several. Things just seem to accumulate over time: paper clips, buttons, crayons, screwdrivers, old phones, coins, sticky notes, pens. At first glance, it looks random, but it’s not really “junk” in the true sense. It is a disorganized collection of potentially useful things that have simply lost their organized structure. And if you are like most people, you can probably picture yours exactly.
Similarly, most people have the financial equivalent of a junk drawer. They have TFSAs, RRSPs, GICs, RESPs, pensions, CPP, houses, mortgages, insurance policies, stocks, and more. Each has a purpose. Each was added for a reason at various points in time. Individually, they can be highly valuable, but without a regular review, what was once a plan becomes a pile.
The starting point of the Access Formula is to open that drawer, lay everything out on the counter, so to speak, and begin the process of organizing and optimizing all the pieces. Then we discuss your goals, ensuring all the financial pieces have a purpose and are optimized. That clarity often leads to a powerful moment for clients. Very early on in the process, they see for the first time their full net worth in one place and projected over a lifetime. This perspective helps identify gaps or inefficiencies that were previously hidden.
A question we often ask at this stage is, “if you were losing money unknowingly and unnecessarily, when would you want to find out”? The obvious answer of course is – right away. And that response gets to the heart of the work we do. The most meaningful improvements rarely come from dramatic changes or taking on more risk, they come from simplification. From identifying small inefficiencies that once addressed can have a significant impact on outcomes and achieving your financial goals.
So, the question is worth asking: what’s in your financial junk drawer, and when was the last time you took everything out to make sue it’s doing what it was designed for?